Sunday Funday is Striking Down Bigotry in Kansas!

Hey, hi, hello! How are you? What’s up? Last night I watched Titanic for what feels like the first time since you could only watch it using two VHS tapes. It’s still… exactly what I expected it to be! Also, the government is still shut down, as far as I know, which frankly, is a bummer. I hope you aren’t too affected by it/have a community to help you survive it if you are. Here’s some good news from the past week to help cheer you up.

+ Sara Ramirez and Indya Moore talked bisexuality on Twitter this week and it was very good.

+ London punk band Big Joanie laud black sisterhood in their newest album.

On its debut full-length album Sistahs, punk band Big Joanie present sisterhood as a microcosm of black feminist liberation. Pairing DIY aesthetics — worn-in cassette-tape hiss and other audio imperfections — with playful instrumental flourishes, the album is as much a declaration of the band’s political vision as it is a refusal to be defined.

+ Jesus H, The L Word is fifteen years old. Time is the cruelest mistress.

+ Miss Major has a message for you hoes:

+ Three churches in the Dallas Diocese of the Episcopal Church will finally begin marrying same-sex couples.

+ 17-year-old Sanjana Ramesh is the second Indian-born woman to sign to an NCAA Division I basketball team.

Last Wednesday, Ramesh put pen to paper. On the first day of the NCAA’s early signing period, the 17-year-old signed a national letter of intent to play at Northern Arizona University (NAU). Standing at 6-feet, Ramesh is just the second woman born in India to receive a Division I women’s basketball scholarship. The first was Kavita Akula, who is a senior at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix via Garden City Community College in Kansas. Ramesh has never been to the United States, but the connection she forged with the NAU coaching staff has given her the confidence that this choice is the right one.

+ The New York state Senate passed GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, which adds gender identity as a protected class in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

+ 20 years ago Amherst teacher Sara Barber-Just pioneered an LGBTQ Literature class for high-schoolers, and today it still benefits students. 

For two years, she piloted the class with students in the high school’s gender and sexuality alliance. Then she submitted the course to the school committee for approval, and was shocked when she quickly got the OK.

“I really wanted it to happen, but I knew that it was controversial,” she said. “Gay marriage was still not legal in any state in the country. It was a different time, 17 years ago.”

Barber-Just says she thinks it’s one of the earliest classes of its kind in an American public high school. “I think it was the first,” she said. “Everywhere that I’ve read, it was the first gay and lesbian literature class in a public high school in the United States.”

+ Bigotry? In Governor Laura Kelly’s state? It’s less likely than you think after she reinstated protections for LGBTQ state employees.

+ German MP Tessa Ganserer has come out as a trans woman!

+ This is my friend!!!!! Briyana Clarel is using The Starfruit Project as an opportunity to build performance space for queer people of color in Philadelphia.

+ If the Women’s March is your thing, here are the best/funniest signs from this year’s!

Have a beautiful week you weird beautiful nerds.

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Ari

Ari is a 20-something artist and educator. They are a mom to two cats, they love domesticity, ritual, and porch time. They have studied, loved, and learned in CT, Greensboro, NC, and ATX.

Ari has written 330 articles for us.

17 Comments

  2. My computer crashed, I broke a tooth and swallowed it in the middle of dinner and just realized once I was paying the check. I had a fight with my mom, the apartment I was going to rent feel through and I feel like I’m spiralling. A couple weeks ago I was on top of the world and now I feel awful. This month’s been a rollercoster, and I can faintly hear “Lemon, it’s only the 20th”

    I’m glad to have links to read and articles to catch up on because I definitely need them.

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