Also.Also.Also: Most Women Are Totally Broke and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Guten tag, folks! Welcome to this week’s Also.Also.Also, in which I do serious reporting on the stories we missed this week. But first: PUPPIES IN A PUMPKIN PATCH.

And now, without further ado, let’s get down to funkytown business.

Sad Times and Terrible Sh*t

+ Moment of silence for Gloria Johnson:

The San Diego LGBT community is in mourning after the death of one of its pioneers, Gloria Johnson, who died Sunday morning according to the San Diego Democrats for Equality. Johnson was 76 years old, according to Jeri Dilno, who said her friend “shared her birthday on Aug. 26 with Women’s Equality Day, a fact that pleased her immensely.”

Johnson told Gay San Diego in 2012 that Pride was her “favorite ‘holiday'” and that she enjoyed it more than the traditional holidays.

“I have been there from the earliest days when a small group of us LG folks (we didn’t have the B/T yet) strutted down Broadway and waived at a few people along the way,” Johnson said.

+ The SCOTUS ruling that states did not have to expand Medicaid under Obamacare is going to end up hurting (surprise, surprise) folks of color and “and those who work but don’t earn enough to live.” How sweet!

+ LGBT inequality in the military is far from a thing of the past. Here’s five reasons to prove it.

+ Russia’s childrens ombudsman says they don’t need no stinkin’ sex ed because they have TOLSTOY. Duh.

Sixty percent of single women can’t afford to meet their basic needs, and more women are in poverty now than any previous recorded time in the past twenty years. (Cue Clinton-era nostalgia and me eating Ramen for dinner tonight.)

economicsecurityracegender

LGBT Law Firm Heads to Weezy F. Baby’s Hometown

The queers have landed in NOLA. Take that, stubborn Louisiana lawmakers.

Last week, Louisiana Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield said that the state will not recognize a same-sex marriage tax filing because of its 2004 constitutional ban on gay marriage. Barfield, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, a vocal opponent of gay marriage, believes that Louisiana’s constitution trumps all other laws.

It’s because of Barfield and other naysayers that Delaney and Robb felt compelled to open their firm.

“It’s important to me as a gay individual that I’m treated as fair and equal as possible,” Robb said.

On “Killing The Rapist”

9840048414_d6e8d97471_z

What is it about vigilante justice that’s so good yet so bad at the same time? And why is it something we aspire to and praise? BITCH investigated our innermost emotions for us this week.

In a world where women are raped, beaten, and killed with alarming regularity and with little consequence, it’s hard not get on board with vigilante justice. Of course, there are bigger questions to consider—the long term effects of combatting violence with violence, the retaliation women may experience, what this all says about us as a society—but it’s somehow comforting, at least for me, to encounter women and characters who take the law into their own hands because they’re left with little alternative.

I don’t know what it says about me that I have great trouble mustering sympathy for rapists who are killed by their survivors, finding it very easy to discount the fact that they may have been products of their environment who weren’t given the chance at rehabilitation. As a survivor, I could never imagine seeking out revenge in the form of murdering a rapist, though I don’t condemn the woman who apparently did and I would never tell her she must practice forgiveness.

I’m less concerned with arguments about whether vigilante justice is right or wrong, and more intrigued as to why it is that we crave these stories, why we secretly – or not so secretly – rejoice the Diana the Huntresses of the world. It’s about understanding the many shortcomings of our criminal justice systems, but it’s also about something more primal, the kind of satisfaction that can only result when you feel true justice has been served.

You Should Give + You Should Go: Butch Voices Needs 10K in 10 Days

+ BUTCH Voices needs you for their campaign to raise $10K in 10 days.

Since 2008, BUTCH Voices has been dedicated to building a masculine-of-center community. At the core we are about improving the recognition and respect for masculine-of-center people and their families. This year’s conference proved our commitment by enforcing deeper accessibility; providing safer space to address prevailing issues of racism, transphobia and misogyny within butch circles; and fully utilizing social media to promote daily positive representation of butches, studs, machas, and other masculine-of-center folks. We love the cultural work we do but, despite its extraordinary gains- we currently need your financial support.

While the 2013 BUTCH Voices Conference is the third biennial conference, it is produced solely through the efforts of an all-volunteer board and a minimal budget. As our commitment grows to enhance awareness and solidarity, we ask that enthusiastic partners and allies like you take the pledge. Without your donation, BUTCH Voices runs the risk of subsidence. Help us close 2013 and continue to build better community by making a financial contribution today.

+ Knights in Shining Armor, the “first national traveling fashion show movement to showcase dominant lesbians, masculine of center persons, queer, androgynous, and transmen bodied models” is coming to a runway near you. And if you live in or around West Hollywood, you can get tickets to see it THIS SATURDAY! Mary Lambert and some other hella queer artists are performing live too, so it gets the official Autostraddle Stamp of Approval. Your face should be there in all of its glory. And your eyeballs too, because I have a feeling it’s gonna be the best thing they’ve ever seen.

Meet The Inductees of Chicago’s Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame

On November 12, a whole lot of queers (14 individuals and two organizations, to be precise) will be inducted into Chicago’s Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. Here are some selected bios from the ladies in the crowd:

Gaylon B. Alcaraz, 42, for almost 20 years of work on behalf of women’s reproductive freedom, the interests of African American lesbian and bisexual women, adolescent health and other social concerns. She was a founder of Affinity Community Services, a South Side social-justice group, and is the Chicago Abortion Fund’s executive director.

Paté, 55, for her community involvement since 1986 as a bartender in numerous venues, where she has built a loyal customer base, won mixology awards and volunteered and raised funds for numerous organizations, while also devoting countless hours to organizations rescuing and rehoming lost, neglected, and discarded pet animals, both locally and after Hurricane Katrina.

Laura Ricketts, 46, for generous donor support and board service to LGBT and non-LGBT organizations, including Lambda Legal, Housing Opportunities for Women, GayCo Productions, Opportunity Education, and Democratic Party entities. She has backed ecotourism and, as a part owner of the Chicago Cubs, is the first openly LGBT owner of a Major League Baseball team.

POW-WOW (once formally known as Performers or Writers for Women on Women’s Issues, Inc.) for 10 years of offering an open and affirming space for women, especially those of color, to create and present artistic performances and writing, as well as helping women and girls re-entering society to develop artistic careers and providing socially relevant, arts-based literacy programs.

Brenda Webb, 60, executive director of Chicago Filmmakers, for her 32 years of perseverance as organizer of Reeling, the Chicago LGBT international film festival. Reeling is said to be the world’s second-oldest such festival and has become a major cultural event for Chicago’s LGBT communities and the city’s general arts and culture scene.

What Bisexuals Think of All Y’all Haters

Ain’t nobody got time for that shit.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

21 Comments

  1. Poverty? *raises hand*

    I really want to watch that bisexuals video but I have to wait until I’m off work at 9:30. womp.

  2. Had to sneakily watch the bi video at work – no patience! I was kinda disappointed in some of the generalizations that these women seemed to believe about bisexual women – like that it’s so common for bi women to be only interested sexually in other women as opposed to relationships. (Can’t remember exactly how it was stated, and I can’t watch it again right now!) I’d like to see some real stats regarding these kinds of stereotypes about bi people (must google). If so many bi women are only into chicks for the sex instead of relationships, maybe that has more to do with hetero privilege and less to do with preferences of bi women?

  3. To it’s possible I’m a bit grumpy right now so this might come off as a directionless rant. I actually thought that the bi response was pretty much as awful as the “lesbians say biphobic things with prompting from an interviewer trying to make some vague watered down point” video.
    Seriously, it sucks, but it’s totally okay that I have to be “better” to be accepted because shouldn’t we all want to be better? WTF is that?
    Yes, being calm and civil is good. But anger is a legitimate response to bullshit sometimes. And yes, understanding between people is great. But it’s not my job to educate others out of their prejudices. If I or anyone else feels like doing that, it’s laudable. But educating others, justifying yourself, or explaining your sexuality to other people is not a burden anyone should feel obligated to bear.

    • I completely agree. While the answers were seriously frustrating and felt like cop-out answers, like “we understand where they’re coming from, bi girls can be a bit slutty, but not all of us! We’re not like a regular bi girl, we’re cool bi girls!” To be fair, though, the questions being prompted were clearly leading them to respond this way. She wanted these women to back up the first video and credit her own feelings toward bisexuals. The end of the video where she asks us to simply “be better” is unbelievably patronising, seeing as at its base it implies that we’re doing something wrong. She’s telling us we need to work to earn respect from people who don’t want to put the effort in to combat their own prejudice.

      • “We’re not like a regular bi girl, we’re cool bi girls!”
        YES, this is pretty much the message I’m left with from this video. Make sure you are not the ‘wrong kind’ of bi girl, whatever the hell that means. As if there were a ‘wrong’ way to be lesbian, gay or straight.

    • It definitely seemed insincere, more like “you shouldn’t be mad because the last video was totally biphobic and disrepectful because here this makes up for it and you’ll be better if you aren’t upset”. It just feels so wrong to me.

      • The vid creator makes a video with bi stereotypes designed to provoke and get a lot of views.

        The vid creator makes a video with bi stereotypes to make a conversation take place / capitalize on the many views the first video gathered. The second video gets a bunch of views too.

        The vid creator makes $$$ because we all keep watching her dumb videos. It’s really not at all about the subject matter discussed in the videos, it’s all about getting us to just click on the headline/title and watch the damn things. The internet annoys me a lot of the time.

    • Ugh. It so felt like “I’m going to trick these bisexual women into reinforcing the shitty things that the lesbians said about bisexual women.” IT’S A TRAP. DON’T DO IT.

  4. Why do I have to “be better” to prove myself to lesbians? I’m bisexual, but I’m married to a woman, for pete’s sake. Does that make be a better bisexual than if she was male? We’re both bi and our marriage is awesome, but not because of where we fall on the Kinsey scale.

    This feels like a different version of the straight man stereotype of “oh, you’re bisexual? You must want to have a threesome with me and my girlfriend.” Granted, I’ve been out of the dating scene for seven years (see: wife, above), but I don’t understand why we need to pull out tired stereotypes and validate them. People are attracted to people. Some people are jerks, especially when it comes to dating scenes. Can’t we just agree that when someone is a jerk in a relationship that it has nothing to do with their placement on the spectrum?!

  5. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but it makes you wonder what lesbians, bi, or both have to say about genderqueer.

  6. Ugh.

    Lesbian: Bi people like dick, are gross, have sex all the time, are waiting for the right men. Don’t date them.

    Bisexual response: Sure, I understand why you feel that way. I mean, there are plenty of bi people like that! Not meeee, but bisexuals, man, I get you. Not me, though! Date me! (Expect you know, I might be that one girl who only has sex with women, but not relationships)

    Arielle, providing the moral of the story: Isn’t the world just better when good bisexuals try to understand lesbians better? I mean, some of them are pretty ok, when they defend my videos.

    • BTW,

      I mean Lesbians in the video and Bisexuals in the videos. Y’all are great.

      And did you guys see this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/lesbians-bisexual-women-huffpost-live_n_3961913.html

      Spoiler alert, the woman in dreads from the lesbian video says she “has sex with a man once a year, just to check things out, because sexuality is fluid”. Yup, the same one who talks about if you just had dick in your mouth, that’s a big deal.

      • Oh my god… Biggest asshole of the ‘lesbians video’ = REPRESSED BISEXUAL.

        Oh my god.

        Everything makes so much more sense now. Wow.

        (Moral of the story: Listen to uncle Sigmund and don’t repress your stuff, it will make you say crazy offensive shit.)

      • Wow, she just got more interesting in the same way a delusional person is. How many staunch straight person doing a person self test yearly. Sure, I’ve read about them experimenting once, but then to come back once a year after it wasn’t for you that’s a bit confusing.

        • We really need an edit button, but that should have said; How many staunch straight people are actually doing a self test yearly?

  7. I have to echo what everyone else is already saying.

    First of all, where are the stats on women being sexually but not romantically bisexual? I think that is total bull shit and I have never seen anecdotal or quantitative research backing that up.

    Secondly, the questions were incredibly leading and the girls in the video (who by the way were all very white and mostly really femmey) obviously felt like they needed to agree with Arielle/legitimize that other awful video. I think it sucks that both the girls interviewed and Arielle herself used the tactic where you make people who are outraged/hurt/passionate about discrimination against bisexuals seem “crazy.” It is not a bisexual’s responsibility to educate the poor, insecure lesbians. That’s ridiculous. And as Leigh said, anger is a totally legitimate and rational response to being reduced to a stereotype over and over again.

    Last, what is with this stupid ass argument that you have to like the same types of genitals to be in a relationship together? Straight men date women without worrying that those women have had penises in/around their mouths. Why can’t lesbians do the same? If the “common ground” of liking the same genitals is really such a great foundation for a relationship, how come more lesbians aren’t dating straight men? Also who says a lesbian cannot have a penis? All this essentialist genital talk is a little cissexist and weird to me…

    JKLS34224hekhLULIH!!!

    /rant

  8. i don’t really get why the gross “what lesbians think of bisexuals” video warranted a response. the lesbians who think badly of bisexuals don’t seem likely to watch a video to teach themselves how to think better of bisexual people.

    with that said, i think this tactic of shaming lesbians who think that way about bisexuals (the guilt trip of “but we’re such great people! just get to know us!” deal) was pretty slick. i don’t think bisexual people are obligated to “be better” (which i don’t get as being patronizing because even the explanation itself uses air quotes to indicate that she thinks it’s ridiculous) but i DO think that this video shows what happens when you’re accepting of people’s hangups (or phobias about genitals or sheer ignorance or w/e).

    discussion happens and i think discussion is always better than a flat out “okay but if you say x you hate bisexual people and you suck.” some people aren’t willing to learn but some people are just ignorant and even if you don’t want to educate lesbians who are biphobic that doesn’t mean they don’t need educating, so this kind of tool is useful for them or bisexual people who DO want to educate lesbians (or whoever!).

    • eta: now that i’ve looked more into it it does look like the videos are pretty biased from the pov of a lesbian who doesn’t like bisexual women :/ not very cool, but i still think discussion is really important. willing to look into people’s reasons for things and explain otherwise to them is definitely more useful than waiting for them to realize something’s amiss with what they’re thinking all on their own.

Comments are closed.