Tag Archives: Special Snowflakes

TRIGGERED: Madison, WI Police Banned From Marching in PRIDE Parade

Professor Declares Millennial Snowflakes and Their Victim-hood Is Destroying Gay Culture

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Cynthia Belmont, a professor at Northland College, in a new op-ed published by Salon, states that in the last few years, she’s seen an uptick in students who seem to take offense at things that have defined LGBTQ culture for decades.

We deserve all the rights, obviously. We deserve to be who we are and who we want to be and not to be harassed or killed for it, and we deserve to have and keep our children and set up shop in the suburbs if we want. We deserve to pee in peace in the bathroom that suits our identity and serve in the military. Obviously. I myself have lived in fear as a parent with no legal rights. But. Apparently, in the pursuit of rights and respectability, we have somehow shifted as a culture from the celebration of eros to the celebration of victimhood — to comfortably inhabiting a state of being prickly and appalled — and apparently we now have to be and feel like victims in order even to deserve rights. This worries me.

Are we going to become so focused on our legal standing and our feelings, so invested in queer culture as a culture of rights, respectability and sensitivity, that we lose our playfulness and the toughness that used to define survival? Do we just not want to be tough anymore? Are we too emotionally exhausted, or just too bourgeois, to appreciate a classic bitchy drag emcee? Her sensibility was always at the cultural fringe — is there no room for it now? Or are we the truly bitchy ones, ever ready with the political upper hand raised to slap down those among us who still want to play around the edges, where things are a little less comfortable and correct?

Who cares? I do. Because my queer students are so fragile, so easily hurt, and I am worried about them — and not in the way that they want me to be. Because when I say to one of them, “Being a victim is not hot, and in my day a political platform based on being a victim would never have gained traction,” she seems startled but retorts that on the contrary, victimhood is hot, adding, “What about BDSM?” And so I explain that BDSM is not about being a victim, it’s about moving beyond and transforming  victimization — for those who come to it that way — and it’s about destabilizing the grounds of victimization, through playing with power. Which is also what drag is about in its way. And I am shocked to find myself in the position of defending, to a queer, the value of hotness — as shocked as she seems to be at the idea that hotness could be the point of queer culture.

I don’t believe her. I don’t believe that she really finds victimhood hot, unless . . . is this a new fetish that is hopelessly lost on me since I’m almost 50? I won’t — I can’t — believe in the victim as the new face of queer culture. What were all those drag queens at Stonewall fighting for, anyway? If victimhood is hot, then we have lost.

 So in a nutshell.  We fought for our rights so millennials can be offended.

So are millennial snowflakes are ruining LGBT culture? Share your thoughts in the comments…

Professor Resigns from School of the Art Institute of Chicago After Social Justice Warriors Go Wild

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A Chicago art professor resigned from his post earlier this month after a group of Social Justice Warrior students continually accused him of “racism”, “transphobia” and “homophobia.”

Michael Bonesteel has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as an adjunct for 14 years and is an internationally recognized expert on the 20th-century Chicago artist Henry Darger.

On Dec. 12, when Bonesteel was leading a discussion about Chicago artist Henry Darger, whose artwork often depicted young girls with male genitalia. He mentioned the popular theory that Darger’s work might be the result of childhood sexual abuse — an idea that apparently frustrated one transgender student.

“The student said there was no proof that Darger was sexually abused, and therefore, I was wrong in proposing the theory,” Bonesteel said, noting that he agreed there is no definitive proof, but pointing out that it is a common theory among art scholars.

On the advice of a diversity counselor, Mr. Bonesteel wrote an apology for his “insensitivity” and posted it to a school website, attaching a research article with background on the theory he proposed.

Two days later, the second problem cropped up in a class called “Comic Book: Golden Age to Comics Code when a student went off on a “long diatribe about perceived anti-Semitic attitudes” of Gerard Jones, the author of a book assigned to the class. The student proceeded to complain about the institute’s treatment of transgender and minority students and then accused Bonesteel specifically of “racism and homophobia.”

The student also complained about the lack of a trigger warning during a discussion about an implied rape in “Batman: The Killing Joke,” a comic book by Alan Moore.

“When I said the word ‘rape,’ the complaining student yelled, ‘Hey, where’s the trigger warning?’ 

In response to a complaint over that incident, the dean of faculty determined “it is more likely than not that your conduct in relation to this student constituted harassment based on gender-identity in violation of the School’s Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation.”

Months later, a second student from the comic book class filed a complaint against Mr. Bonesteel on the basis of having been “troubled by the incident.”

The administration later told Bonesteel that he would no longer be allowed to teach courses on comics or set the curricula for his classes on outsider art. The school also reduced his teaching hours for the next academic year to the point where he would be ineligible for benefits.

In his resignation letter, the longtime art scholar, who called the institute a “toxic environment,” wrote that he believed the entire situation to be “an abuse of Title IX protections.”

Institute spokesperson Bree Witt said that she unable to discuss personnel matters but asserted that it is “simply not the case” that the institute “infringed on academic freedom” with regard to Bonesteel, adding that such behavior would be “anathema to our pedagogy”.

WTF? – Canadian Student Association Apologizes For Playing “Transphobic” Lou Reed Song “Walk on the Wild Side”

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The student association at Ontario’s University : University of Guelph has apologized to members of the transgender community who may have felt “hurt” or devalued by overhearing Lou Reed’s famous song “Take a Walk on the Wild Side.” at a campus event.

In an apology published to Facebook and subsequently removed, the group said: “We now know the lyrics to this song are hurtful to our friends in the trans community and we’d like to unreservedly apologize for this error in judgement.”

The lyrics in question focus on Reed’s friends from Andy Warhol’s Factory, among them transgender “superstars” Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling.:

It’s come to our attention that the playlist we had on during bus pass distribution on Thursday contained a song with transphobic lyrics (Lou Reed, Take a Walk on the Wild Side). The playlist was compiled by one of the Executives with the intent of feeling like a road trip from the 70s and 80s. The song was included solely on those terms and made in ignorance as the person making the list did not know or understand the lyrics.

We now know the lyrics to this song are hurtful to our friends in the trans community and we’d like to unreservedly apologize for this error in judgement.

The student association page continued by saying the mere concept of the song, taking a walk on the wild side, is “problematic” and “dangerous” because it describes transgender people (reportedly 0.5 percent of the Canadian population) as being “unusual,” which they claim is “dehumanizing” and makes people somehow less supportive of transgender rights:

Additionally, stating that conversing, spending time with, or having sex with a trans person is “taking a walk on the wild side” is also problematic. It labels trans folks as “wild” or “unusual” or “unnatural” which is a dangerous rhetoric.

Friends of the late Lou Reed responded on Saturday with disbelief to a claim by a Canadian student body that the singer’s 1972 hit Walk on the Wild Side contains transphobic lyrics.

“I don’t know if Lou would be cracking up about this or crying because it’s just too stupid”

“I don’t know if Lou would be cracking up about this or crying because it’s just too stupid,” the singer’s longtime producer, Hal Willner, said . “The song was a love song to all the people he knew and to New York City by a man who supported the community and the city his whole life.”

Jenni Muldaur, a friend of Reed who was also an occasional backup singer for him, said the group’s objection was “completely ridiculous”.

“Lou was open about his complete acceptance of all creatures of the night,” she said. “That’s what that song’s about. Everyone doing their thing, taking a walk on the wild side. I can’t imagine how anyone could conceive of that. The album was called Transformer. What do they think it’s about?”

 

San Diego Trans Cop Banned From Trans Awareness Day Event Because Her Uniform Could “Trigger”

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trans-cop

The Transgender Day of Awareness, an annual event to honor those who lost their lives to anti-transgender violence, was held Nov. 17 in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego

Officer Christine Garcia, who transitioned last year, and helped plan the event and was part of the Police Department security detail that watched over a commemorative march down University Avenue.  After the march, when Garcia tried to enter the event as a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, she was asked to leave because her uniform could upset “trigger” others in attendance. 

Since news of Garcia’s rejection has come to light, San Diego LGBT Community Center CEO Dr. Delores Jacobs has released an apology for what she called a “misunderstanding”:

“When [police officers] are attending events, they are not here to ‘police’ The Center — though they may be in uniform or on-duty…

We do not wish to ever make any community member feel unwelcome at The Center — these officers are valued members of our community.”

Nonetheless, Jacobs did note “that The Center has a responsibility to respect members who may not trust uniformed officers.”

“While we need to support those that are uncomfortable and honor their reactions to valid and understandable difficult previous experiences, we also need to explain that… our LGBTQ San Diego police liaisons are a valued part of our community,” Jacobs wrote.

Longtime LGBTQ activist, City Commissioner Nicole Murray-Ramirez, said the incident was an outrage. 

“Any officer, be they gay or straight, should be welcomed into our community center in uniform,” he said. “They protect our community and neighborhoods and make San Diego a better place.”

Murray-Ramirez said relations between the LGBTQ community and the Police Department have vastly improved over the last several decades, in part because of the work done by liaisons such as Garcia. 

“They’ve really reached out to the community,” he said of the department. “They’ve gotten to know the community. There are always rotten apples, but on a whole we have progressed greatly. And we’re very appreciative of them and that progress.”

Shame, shame, shame.

Social Justice Warriors Attack J.K. Rowling On Twitter Over Saying Sirius Black Is Not Gay – Stupificus!

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Social Justice Warriors Attack J.K. Rowling On Twitter Over Saying Sirius Black Is Not Gay - Stupificus!

J.K. Rowling has upset a blizzardful of Special Snowflake, SJW, (Social Justice Warriors) Potterheads over the weekend when she confirmed that Sirius Black, one of the main characters in her Harry Potter series, is not gay.

It appears that many of them had decided that the prisoner of Azkaban and driving force in the fight against Voldemort was also a pioneering LGBT wizard. But when a Twitter user got the chance to ask Rowling about Black’s sexual orientation, she confirmed that he’s definitely a cis-wizard heterosexual.

The announcement left the Snowflakess crushed, they started a hashtag, “#JKRowlingIsOverParty, where they commiserated about their favorite author’s lack of interest in gay characters and went so far into histrionics (once again) to call her a traitor to the LGBT cause and, occasionally a “homophobe”—all because, as the author of the Harry Potter works, she had a different vision from her fans about the sexuality of a fictional character that she created.

I will never understand JK Rowling claiming she supports the LGBT community and then have just one canon LGBT character in her books.— Lindsey || 66 days (@HobbitLindsey) August 31, 2016

remember that time when JK Rowling represented & supported our community and made LGBT+ youth everywhere feel empowered? me neither— Rob (@robnoon7) September 1, 2016

full oh fence why does jk rowling hate lgbt ppl so much
— dann(ia)y devito (@jamesmadiSIN) September 6, 2016

“jk rowling is a homophobe because sirius isn’t gay” #JKRowlingIsOverPartypic.twitter.com/Tq7SfNIXvN
— ♞ (@ARASHlNARUKAMI) September 6, 2016

Despite the fact Rowling herself is also a vocal advocate for LGBT rights, most recently standing up to anti-gay bullies intent on harassing British Olympic diver Tom Daley after he failed to qualify for medal contention SJW’s continue to bash Rowlings and do what they do best. Pick on our allies because fighting the real enemies is just too hard and actually takes effort.

The sorting hat says send them to Kindergarten.

University Of Chicago Shuts Down Millennials: Does Not Support ‘Trigger Warnings’ At School

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University Of Chicago Shuts Down Millennials: Does Not Support ‘Trigger Warnings’ At School

A welcome letter sent by the University of Chicago this week to incoming freshmen warned them that they might hear things that might make them uncomfortable and that the university does not support “trigger warnings” as part of its commitment to freedom of expression.

“Dear Class of 2020 student,” the welcome letter from the school’s Dean of Students John Ellison begins. It goes on to explain the university’s commitment to freedom of expression and inquiry. Students “are encouraged to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn without fear of censorship.” 

The letter goes on:

“Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

Opening up the campus environment to mirror the real world is commendable. Once students graduate, they will be expected to handle and work with a spectrum of voices and beliefs as adults.  And speaking as someone who has attended many conferences where “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” were set as policy important discussions became worthless because there can never be a counter-point opinion.

The letter also states that the environment the university is seeking is one of civility and mutual respect, not harassment. Given our millennial generation’s tendency to be “too PC,” it is commendable that the University of Chicago is taking a stand to challenge that.

Todays students need to be reminded that a university does not exist to coddle their notions but to challenge and expand them.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle

Black Lives Matter Shuts Down Toronto Pride Parade, Demands Police Get Kicked Out Of Parade

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Black Lives Matters Toronto PridePNG

 

Black Lives Matter Toronto shut down Canada’s largest gay pride parade on Sunday for about 30 minutes, when they stopped marching until the parade organizers agreed to their list of “demands”.

BLM, which was invited to march in the gay-rights celebration as an honorary group, stopped two-thirds of the way down the parade route, began chanting “Shut it down!” and lit several flares.

The parade was then stopped until Toronto Pride Director Mathieu Chantelois, whose group puts on the parade, met with the protesters and signed off on the groups list of “demands”.

The list included an end to police floats at the parade a significant request considering the police’s popularity and presence in Canada’s largest pride parade. and more spots dedicated to groups representing queer people of color. The BLM demand sheet said Pride Toronto had engaged in “anti-Black racism” by reducing the visibility of gay people of color in the march.

Alexandria Williams, co-founder of BLM–Toronto, said the group had a “clear intention” to use its honorary status in the parade as a platform for a protest.

“When we accepted this year’s Honored Group status from Pride Toronto, it was with the clear intention of using this platform to address what is a historical and current culture of anti-Blackness deeply embedded in the Festival,” Ms. Williams said in a statement. “If they truly want to honor us, they can accept these demands.”

Mike McCormack, who heads the Toronto police union, said Pride organizers should be ashamed of themselves for agreeing to the ban on police representation in the march.

The Demands

  1. Commit to BQY’s (Black Queer Youth) continued space (including stage/tents), funding, and logistical support.
  2. Self-determination for all community spaces, allowing community full control over hiring, content, and structure of their stages.
  3. Full and adequate funding for community stages, including logistical, technical, and personnel support.
  4. Double funding for Blockorama (to $13,000 + ASL interpretation & headliner funding).
  5. Reinstate and make a commitment to increase community stages/spaces (including the reinstatement of the South Asian stage).
  6. A commitment to increase representation amongst Pride Toronto staffing/hiring, prioritizing black trans women, indigenous people, and others from vulnerable communities.
  7. A commitment to more black deaf and hearing ASL interpreters for the festival.
  8. Removal of police floats in the pride marches/parades.
  9. A public townhall, organized in conjunction with groups from marginalized communities, including, but not limited to, Black Lives Matter- Toronto, Blackness Yes, and BQY to be held six months from today. Pride Toronto will present an update and action plan on the aforementioned demands.

This year Toronto Pride officials added extra Police at the parade in wake of the Orlando shootings. — while celebrating and honoring a group that has repeatedly called all cops murderers who then in turns shuts down the Pride Parade and in the end Toronto Pride is forced to sign a document excluding the Toronto Police Department from  all further parades.

Black Lives Matters proves once again that their way of being inclusive and open-minded, is to exclude and close minds.

Social Justice Warriors gone wild.

The Me-me-me-lenial Generation.

 

Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Police Officers Org (GOAL) Hounded Out Of Philly Gay Pride Parade

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Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Police Officers Org (GOAL) Hounded Out Of Philly Pride Parade by Social Justice Warriors

Philly Pride, who runs the annual Philadelphia Gay Pride Parade asked the Greater Philadelphia Gay Officer Action League (GOAL) to serve as one of this year’s two grand marshals. But after pushback from certain factions of the LGBT community, Social Justice Warriors and a Change.org petition was started opposing them the gay officers group declined the honor to avoid any further controversy.

The petition started on Change.org by Andrew Spiers of Philadelphia who self identifies as a middle class, queer, transmasculine person and is co-coordinator of the Trans-Health Information Project (TIP), a resource and advocacy program run by GALAEI, a queer Latin@ social justice organization states:

In 1969, the night of the Stonewall riot, was a very hot, muggy night. We were in the Stonewall [bar] and the lights came on. We all stopped dancing. The police came in.” – Sylvia Rivera

As members of Philadelphia’s queer and trans communities, we are writing in response to the decision by Philly Pride Presents to host GOAL (the Gay Officer Action League) as one of the Grand Marshals for this year’s Pride Parade. We are deeply concerned about the message that this decision sends about which LGBTQ lives matter and the impact this will have on accessibility and safety at the Pride event for the members of our community most harmed by police violence. We urge the staff and volunteers of Philly Pride Presents to rescind their decision to make GOAL one of the Grand Marshals this year.

We believe that the honoring of GOAL is antithetical to the spirit and history of Pride, which grew out of the commemoration of the Stonewall riot – a riot against police violence -– started by Black and Brown trans women and drag queens, who were then and continue to be the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community. This choice is not only grossly ironic, but participates in a revision of history that erases queer and trans resistance to state violence as well as the ways in which the majority of queer and trans people have had to literally fight for survival in a system that has used every mechanism, including and particularly policing, to marginalize and harm us.

It is our understanding that GOAL grew out of a desire to recruit LGBTQ individuals to the police force. We are aware that institutionalized and interpersonal workplace transphobia, homophobia and racism harms LGBTQ police officers. We support all queer and trans people in their struggle for freedom from violence and oppression. However, we refute the notion that LGBTQ cops’ ability to be out on the job is a measure of our movement’s progress when the police, as an institution, continue to carry out racist and transphobic violence. Just last month, the Boston pride parade revoked the invitation for an openly gay police officer to serve as a grand marshal after it was discovered that the officer had written racist messages online shaming poor residents of Boston. As civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer said, “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

In the midst of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which affirms the value of Black life and fights anti-Black racism and police violence, choosing GOAL as the Grand Marshals for 2016 is a move that is at best privileged and isolated, and at worst directly undermines this critical work. It indicates a disturbing lack of awareness for the existence of marginalized queer and trans people of color and ignores both the symbolic and practical consequences of such a decision. The Pride festival at Penn’s Landing is already financially inaccessible to many due to its entrance fee, but to literally place the police (gay or not) at the front of the parade through the gayborhood into the Pride celebration creates an environment that is unwelcoming and even unsafe for many members of our community. Additionally, it creates yet another barrier to accessing the critical resources available at Pride, such as free condoms, HIV testing, case managers, and information on community organizations for those who need them the most -– including LGBTQ youth.

So, as the theme of this year’s pride celebration is, “Are You Connected?,” we ask the organizers of Philly Pride Presents: What connections do you value? For at least the second year in a row, the marshals and friends of the parade have been chosen from the same pool of people, primarily centered in Center City and City Hall. Yet Philadelphia does not lack for inspiring leaders who are creating a new vision for the future. We are fortunate to have LGBTQ communities full of people and organizations doing transformative work to improve the lives of LGBTQ people, to create more space for marginalized voices, and to work towards a world with greater freedom from violence for us all.

It is for these reasons that we cannot condone Philly Pride Presents’ celebration of an institution that continually targets queer and trans people of color with deadly state violence. Instead, as stated above, we urge the staff and volunteers of Philly Pride Presents to rescind this decision, as well as listen to and engage with members of our communities who are working to dismantle the root causes of violence and create a new future for queer and trans liberation.

Signed,

Caitlin Barry, Dot Goldberger, Laura Sorensen, Andrew Spiers, Elisabeth Long, Kristina Mitchell, Qui Alexander, Elicia Gonzales, Matty Stardust, Mal Durham, Kai Yohman, Em Gormley, Asa khalif, Melissa Hamilton, Teresa Sullivan, La’Donna Boyens, Lane DiFlavis, Caitlin Shanley, Kel Kroehle, Lucy Gleysteen, Jose DeMarco, Mindy Isser, Seth Lamming, Erin Bree, Olivia C. Webster, Suzy Subways (survivor of police assault, former member of Grassroots Queers Philly), Sadie Flesher, Lauren Forst, Rowan Avery McWade, Naiymah Sanchez, TJ Burk, Timothy Colman, Phantazia Washington, Ovid, CA Conrad, Nova McGiffert, Lynne Demmer, Layne Mullett, Alexander Lopez, Ezra Berkley Nepon, Robert Winant, Basha Smolen, April L. Murdock, Sarah Morris, KMC, M Anemone Schlotterbeck…

ACT UP Philly, Juntos, Migrant Power Movement, Hearts On a Wire Collective, Workers World Party Philadelphia, International Action Center Philadelphia, Positive Women’s Network USA Philadelphia Regional Chapter, North Philly Food Not Bombs, Gran Varones.

 A representative with Philly Pride told the Associated Press that members “applaud the actions of Philly GOAL because this certainly avoided the tumult that would have resulted by the threatened actions to ‘shut down’ the 2016 parade.”

The petition has only garnered 366 signatures at the time of this posting.

 

 

UK LGBT Student Activist Group Says Gay Men Not Oppressed Enough to Deserve Representation.

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special snowflake

The National Union of Students’ LGBT Campaign—a coalition of British student-activists—passed a motion to end committee representation for gay men, because they aren’t as oppressed as other LGBT individuals: like students of color and transgender students. 

“Misogyny, transphobia, racism and biphobia are often present in LGBT+ societies. This is unfortunately more likely to occur when the society is dominated by white cis gay men.”

 The conference also resolved, “To encourage LGBT+ Societies and organizations that have a gay men represented on its board to drop them.” Because “Gay men do not face oppression as gay men within the LGBT+ community and do not need a reserved place on society committees.”

So in a nutshell.  Special snowflakes who have never done a real days worth of LGBT activism in their life want to prove that they are so oppressed that they in turn will not only oppress the people responsible for getting them the rights and freedoms that they enjoy today, but are also willing to alienate a group which suffers from the highest percentage of hate-crime violence and has the highest percentage of HIV – AIDS infections.

Oppression Power Rangers a go!

Davey Wavey: Show Your Gay Elders Some Fucking Respect! – Video

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In his latest YouTube video, Davey says he has had enough of hearing younger gay guys make rude and nasty comments about older gay men.

“I am so sick and so tired of seeing young gay guys walk into a club, for example, I get so fired up about this, and they’ll be like, ‘Ew! That old creepy gay guy is so disgusting. He’s so gross. He looks like Santa Claus. Ew, he checked me out! Ew!’ Let’s think about this for a second. That creepy old gay man that looks like Santa Claus and the people of his generation are literally – literally! – the only reason that you can walk down the street in your pink fucking tank top, holding your boyfriend’s hand and not get your ass beat.”

I never thought I’d be saying this to Davey Wavey.  But THANK YOU.

You know Davey is serious when he puts his shirt on.