I just discovered that Spotify curated a whole bunch of #PressPlayforPride playlists, some in collaboration with LGBT artists, and it’s been a great boost to my productivity at work this week. If you’ve ever wondered what Alan Cumming or Tegan and Sara or MNEK or Brandi Carlile would jam to at Pride, now’s your chance to find out.
Pride in my city isn’t until July, so I’m living vicariously through everyone celebrating Pride right now (during the appropriate commemorative month). I’m actually not walking in or judging the local parade for once, so I can just enjoy it like a normal person. It’s going to be a super intense year, I’m sure, and I can’t wait to see my people being beautiful and fearless.
I hope you have a Happy Pride if you’re celebrating this weekend! I’ve got some lovely links for you, either way!
Queer as in F*ck You
+ We Gave 16 Trans People Makeovers To Honor Their Idols.
+ Gender-Neutral Bathroom Bill Approved in New York City. All single-gender stalls in NYC will soon become gender-neutral!
+ Broadway’s Stars Unite to Honor Pulse Shooting Victims. Bring tissues.
+ Janet Mock on Stonewall Riots Spark of Resistance for Logo’s Trailblazer Honors series.
+ Well, this is awkward as all fuck. Remember Stonewall? Anyone? NYPD shows support for gay pride with new-look patrol SUV.
+ Internet Star Gaby Dunn on Her Web Series, Cis White Men, & the Vulnerability of Queer Creators. Note the shout-out to A-Camp!
+ Roland Emmerich: “Stonewall Was A White Event, Let’s Be Honest”. Alternate headline: Roland Emmerich: Still an Awful Person.
+ Gay Travelers on Where to Go After Orlando.
+ Here’s What Relationships Are Really Like Inside A Women’s Prison
+ My First Gay Bar: coming out stories from Larry Kramer, Rachel Maddow, Jane Lynch, Honey Dijon, Lea DeLaria, Carrie Brownstein, and others.
Doll Parts
+ “They’re as Necessary as Toilet Paper”: New York City Council Approves Free Tampon Program. New York City is officially the first municipality in the US to provide all menstruating people in public schools, prisons and homeless shelters access to pads and tampons for the low, low cost of free.
+ 4 Ways Fat People Need to Be Included in Reproductive Justice.
+ How I Made Space For Feminism In My Relationship With My Desi Parents.
+ When Panties Are a Stand-In for Feminism, Because Capitalism Says So by Andi Zeisler.
Underpants are a safe consumer item to brand as feminist: everyone needs them, they’re mostly kept under wraps, and they supply reassuringly normative associations. The rise of feminist underpants is a weird twist on Karl Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, wherein consumer products once divorced from inherent use value are imbued with all sorts of meaning. To brand something as feminist doesn’t involve ideology, or labor, or policy, or specific actions or processes. It’s just a matter of saying, “This is feminist because we say it is.”
+ How a Feminist Porn List Is Helping Sexual Assault Survivors.
+ White Women Benefit Most from Affirmative Action—and Are Among Its Fiercest Opponents.
+ This Documentary About Female Graffiti Artists Will Ignite Your Creativity.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ America faces an epidemic of mass shootings. It’s up to you to stop them… with the power of your thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and Prayers: The Game.
+ Six people have been killed and over 100 injured in southern Mexico in clashes between protesting teachers and police.
+ How the Supreme Court’s Immigration Decision Hurts All of Us.
+ A Novel Strategy to Address Market Bias Against Black Homeowners.
+ Eight of Hollywood’s “Fierce Asians” Share Tales of Industry Racism.
+ Spend & Save: The Narrative of Fair Trade and White Saviorism.
And Finally
+ Brown Bears Use “Human Shield” to Protect Their Cubs. Mama bears get shit done.
Hey KaeLyn, just to let you know that the “My First Gay Bar” link doesn’t work :/
Thanks!
Didn’t even the fictional NY inmates of Litchfield have access to free sanitary products, up to partway through this season?
Some prisons and jails provide pads and tampons, but like on that episode of OITNB, the supplies are often limited in quantity and scope. For example, an inmate might get an allotment of 5 pads for their whole cycle. The NYC statute will add the backing of a legal requirement to provide adequate supplies for free.
Ms. wrote about the issue of lack of adequate menstrual supplies a few years ago.
Thanks for clarifying!
My “I Saw This And Thought of You”
Margaret Cho’s episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/06/23/mazda-cosmo-sport-comedians-cars-coffee-seinfeld-margaret-cho-video/
That “My First Gay Bar” article was so wonderful and so powerful.
I originally read the article “Spend & Save: The Narrative of Fair Trade and White Saviorism” in the print edition of Bitch magazine. It was the most condescending thing I’ve ever read in my otherwise favorite magazine, and I nearly threw it across the room.
The author accuses white women of patronizing and taking advantage of women in third world countries, but she commits the same mistake in her own writing. The article contains NO interviews or quotes from the women in those countries. This privileged American author inferred what they must have been thinking and applied her own biased conclusions, instead of reaching out and asking the women for their perspective. To me, she appeared to be describing these women in developing countries as passive victims of the white Western world, as if the women in developed countries have no agency of their own, as if they are not capable of entering into these business deals of their own volition. This is just another example of the infantilization of marginalized women – and it’s doubly irritating when it’s coming from smug progressives calling out others for doing that same thing.