These glorious people of all ages and colors from all over the US have only one thing in common: They do not identify as straight.
Thes photos are among more than 9 000 documenting the variety, beauty and truth of queer people: Photographer iO Tillett Wright has travelled to every one of the 50 states as part of the project Self Evident Truths.
Munroe Bergdorf, British transgender and pansexual thinker and activist, has talked to Cosmo about dating and dating apps.
Dating as an LGBTQ+ person has the potential to be a living nightmare. Even if you use dating apps that claim to be created for/inclusive of queer women and non-binary folk, you can still be at risk of receiving hateful transphobic, biphobic, homophobic and sexist abuse. At the same time, dating apps can also be lifelines for people who don’t have an IRL community.
As a Trans Woman, dating is something that hasn’t always been easy, especially being pansexual, however dating apps have really helped me on this journey. Tinder has been a place of acceptance and the new development that allows me to add my sexual orientation - and choose to see others who identify in the same way before anyone else - is a huge step in the right direction for the LGBTQ+ community. When using dating apps, it’s so important to be able to pick who you want to be matched with based on your preferences and identity, so I’m excited to get swiping when the feature rolls out in a few weeks!
If we as am LGBTQ community want to continue to grow, we must form a united front against those who want to oppress us. There are no gatekeepers here. We must all work together for the future of this world. Don’t like someone? Who cares, we need all we can get.
Trans woman Florence Ashley writes about gender and sexuality over at Flare. Although she calls herself pansexual, she finds that she now, after gender realignment surgery, are more likely to be with men. Why is that, she wonders.
But does my increased comfort and sexual intimacy with men translate into a change in sexual orientation? I think the answer is both yes and no, depending on how we understand sexual orientation.
On one hand, it’s hard to say that sleeping with more men because more men are sexually interested in me constitutes a shift. Many cisgender bisexual women date men, not because they are more attracted to them, but because men are a significantly larger dating pool. And those women are no less bisexual for it.
On the other hand, growing comfort with men means that I take more pleasure sleeping with men. Although I may feel the same about men as I did in my teenage years on an erotic-aesthetic level, it is undeniable that I sexually desire them more.
But I also don’t think the question is all that relevant. During Pride month, parts of queer communities that don’t usually cohabitate are suddenly sharing event spaces, which reignites the policing and denigration of women’s bisexuality/pansexuality. People who feel like these women don’t belong in queer spaces make sure they know it.
In such times of increased policing, it bears reflecting on how complex queerness is. Sexual comfort, sexual behaviour and sexual identity often don’t fall in line with one another—sexual identity is built upon a deeper sense of self, sexual comfort for those who experience misogyny and/or transmisogyny often relates to past traumatic experience with men and sexual behaviour is dictated in part by who’s interested in having sex with us.
I just love Jannelle Monáe. She is a brilliant artist, bringing together the best of R&, soul, pop and rock. She has always been a role model for queer people.
If you haven’t seen it already you might want to watch the “emotion picture” accompanying her latest album, Dirty Computer. This is a science fiction story exploring how oppressive societies try to control those who are different.
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard has over 320,000 subscribers on YouTube where she has made countless videos about her life, and where she touches on the issues she faces as a deaf lesbian.
This video refers to a British version of sign language. Local variations may apply.
A few days ago I got the following message from Alrighty.
“ Hi! I’m putting together a project with different coming out stories from LGBTQ+ people to normalize that sometimes it doesn’t always go as planned and that there are others who can relate.
Alrighty is a pansexual teen who often struggles with hiding their identity from their semi-homophobic family:
“I started to think of the other people in the queer community who might be feeling the same.
The end result of collecting stories is to share them on a blog and/or an Instagram account for others to be able to see and connect with.”
Mattie Schrader writes about being transgender and a lesbian:
Perceiving myself as straight kept me from wanting to transition for a long time. After all, it would be easier to continue the charade of being a man, and being interested in women, and skipping the entire stigma of being both transgender and a lesbian. I wish it could have been that simple, but as it turns out burying who you truly are deep in a closet for 30 years is far harder than finally coming out and being yourself.
Even now, as a transgender person, I still struggle with my sexuality. After all, if I was straight before, shouldn’t that answer the question? If I was closeted about my gender for so long, is it possible that I am still closeted about my sexuality? What does it make me now? Gay? A lesbian? Bisexual? Pansexual?
The Pride is a comic book series created and written by Joe Glass, and featuring art by host of amazing creative talent from all around the world, including Gavin Mitchell, Kris Carter, Mike Stock, Dan Harris, Kris Anka, Cory Smith and many, many more.
Have you ever been sick of being misrepresented? Of having no one like you to look up to? Have you ever wanted to change everything?
Well, FabMan has. In a world populated by superpowers, the superhero is common. Sadly for FabMan (Tomorrow’s Fabulous Man, Today), he feels a deep schism in the representation of his community, his own heroic exploits being presented as just big jokes in the news. Wanting to fight for change, he forms PRIDE, the world’s premier LGBTQ supergroup.
