Well, Cygan was wondering why there wasn't one, so I made it. I guess we can talk about queer stuff. :3
(*LGBTQ+ Solidarity huggles*)
Oh, and if you're wondering, non-queer folks are welcome too.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 1st 2023 at 12:49:01 PM
I mean, that's how you find out. Ideally you can use gender neutral language if you aren't sure if someone is enby, or identifies with the gender they're currently presenting.
Of course this crashes into the practical issue of the majority of people being cis, so you run the risk of drawing the attention of jerks. Or outing people.
TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faerHonestly I favour gender-neutral uniforms in general. Just easier to keep things fair and sensible. Though I also prefer less restrictive / more options.
Yeah, you really just have to accept that you can't always tell someone's gender by looking at them. Just be understanding and polite if/when they correct you. And yes, in some situations people might prefer not to talk about it (as then you have to either out yourself or lie). No reason to feel ashamed about that.
More options for uniforms would be great. Yeah the point of uniforms is so that people know you work for the business, but all you need for that is the company T-shirt or similar item, so why should it matter whether you choose to wear a skirt or trousers? As long as it's professional and presentable, it shouldn't be an issue imo, no matter your gender.
Society is weird.
Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
This. I once dated a cis guy who liked to wear skirts, cos he found them comfortable. He was a Perky Goth who didn't care what the world thought.
Still, if only the world would be more accepting.
Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.Prolly worth asking, does anyone here have any advice for how to... like, meet/befriend other queer people? I'm still (mostly) closeted IRL and wouldn't mind having friends that I can be open about that with, but I'm not exactly sure where to start with that.
Not that I mind most of my socialization being on the internet, but... still.
🏳️⚧️she/her | Vio Rhyse Alberia
Funny enough, my recent post here about discovering my city's pride band came from me trying to figure out the same thing. Of course, my location may be better suited for this than yours, but all I really did was search for LGBTQ+ groups in my area then I honed in on one that fit with my already-existing interests.
That said, I haven't actually met them yet, on account of them being in their offseason until October, so I can't actually say if it'll pan out.
My musician page![]()
Another good idea would be to see if any of your queer online friends are willing to meet up irl.
I'm about to go on a bit of a tangent rn, but I'm starting to realize that, as a bi zoomer who's still a slave to the American education system (only for nine more months though, then I'm free!!!) I have an indispensable luxury when it comes to having a safe and respectful space to hang around and build relationships in by simply just going to school every day. Really, all I have to do to talk to some silly little queers is hit up my friends at lunch or our school's D&D club. I'm kinda worried about what it'll be like for my social life once I get out of here.
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat>A lot of gay and bi men do not feel that term or flag are necessary.
That is certainly an opinion people are capable of having, which in no way stops anyone from identifying with that term or flag that wants to do that. Can't un-ring the bell and all that.
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.you could say the same thing about unsavory labels such as "gold star lesbian", which is rooted entirety in biphobia and transphobia
which is to say, i think it is important to recognize when labels and terms are ultimately more harmful than useful, or (more importantly) why labels come about in the first place. keep in mind that part of the reason "lesbian" became a popular term to describe women in queer relationships is because of gay rights movements being so incredibly focused on specifically male gay rights, and women needed a label to emphasize that they're part of the focus too (also hence why the L in LGBT comes first- so that women stop being forgotten). its also why the original labrys flag originated in the first place, before being slowly phased out in popculture by the red and orange flag.
some of the pushback from the term "Achillean" (and the flag) is absolutely rooted in the fact that men don't need a distinct label to be recognized in queer rights movements. some of it is rooted in the fact that the term bisexual should be apt enough to describe a man that feels attraction to both men and women, and its not meaningful (if not outright harmful) as a label.
that all being said, i really don't have an opinion on the matter, nor would i care if someone uses and identifies with it. i just think young queer circles worry too much about labels and too little about queer history.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-MaeMy personal opinion is that the flag is ugly. I don't like the colors, and I don't like the whole gradient flag trend as a whole, and I think it should have stayed at the sunset lesbian flag. Different flags should pick more unique designs instead of being a Palette Swap, especially if people insist on using similar colors. Like no disrespect, but the various A-spec flags look the same to me, and it doesn't help that every week someone on reddit has made a new one for a new greco-roman prefix I can't parse.
Now, my personal opinion is my personal opinion. I'm not lobbying to ban the flag from pride or anything like that. As for "unringing the bell", I will say, symbols come and go. When's the last time you saw a purple rhino or hand print? You might see a Lambda every now and then but rarely.
[ed.] also, speaking of the lesbian flag. There's some lore there. Basically, someone posted a flag they made up for the Lipstick Lesbian identity on deviatnart, and it got adopted in a bunch of places including wikipedia, but then it became controvercial, partially because of some thing the flag's creator had said, and also it was for a narrow subculture in the lesbian community, so for a couple years there were several competing flags, and eventually the consensus fell with the sunset flag, and it was originally seven stripes but a simplified five stripe version also got popular — and I prefer that one, because recreating the seven stripe version in a phsyical medium was really difficult.
And that's also one of those things about lot of the new flags, a lot of them are just made on a computer, and only ever displayed on a screen, with little consideration how well they work as, well, flags. Flags are supposed to be legible from a distance when blowing in the wind. Flags need to be reasonably easy to recreate with a standard set of colored pens or paints. Knowing the right hex code for the exact shade of coral pink isn't helpful if you're trying to paint a parade sign by mixing acrylic paints.
Edited by JethroQWalrustitty on Sep 6th 2024 at 12:18:35 PM
It was Natalie McCray who in 2010 made the lipstick lesbian flag and posted it to her now defunct blog, This Lesbian Life. Recreations of it without the clipart kiss mark circulated as lesbian flags and got popular on Tumblr. Then people dug into the origin and found McCray's biphobia and anti-Asian racism on display in her blog posts. This and the issues of representation of lesbians who aren't super femme led to the search for a new flag. One alternative flag that was created was this butch flag by a mod of butchspace
, which followed the seven-stripe gradient template of the McCray flag but in orange and brown tones. The sunset flag was created by Emily Gwen by taking three stripes from the lipstick lesbian flag and three stripes from this butch flag and it caught on rather quickly.
Honestly, I think the problem started when it got picked up first by wikipedia and then people saw it on there and assumed it was on the same level of adoption and use as the bear flag (which it was clearly inspired by with the corner symbol).
Anyway, I do also want to caution against just valorizing the past. I think it's good to know gay history, celebrate the good parts, and be critical of the bad parts, as opposed to the tendency to try whitewash past divisions and exclusion in the movement and try to retvrn to some idealized version of the gay rights movement in post-Stonewall pre-AIDS New York.
You ever think about how straight people don’t question their sexuality? Like they just get told they’re straight, they’re like, “yep sure” and then they don’t ever think about it or have anything show up that throws a wrench in everything and makes them question what they really are? Lucky sons of bitches. I wish I were one of them.
Feel free to help with the sandbox or edit my troper wallI've seen it said that most people are at least little bit bi. Just most wouldn't identify as such if it's only rarely that they find someone that presents as the same gender attractive. But questioning is still possible for those people.
My musician pageSexuality is kinda like the biological category of fish. There's some animals you can look at and say "yep, that's a fish", but it's very slippery to define the exact features that define things as fish and not-fish. So, I don't really subscribe to the "everyone is bi" theory, but I do think more people are than personally identify as such, and there's a lot of edge cases regarding gender identity and presentation. I don't really feel the need to go tell anyone how they should identify, only that I do think everyone should explore outside their comfort zone sometimes, especially if they have some unspecified feeling of unhappiness. And when I say outside the comfort zone, I'm talking yellow light, not rushing the red light. I know a lot of bi guys can get kinda shocked if they try to start their exploration with same sex relationships by going on the hookup apps, which have a very sexually aggressive culture and that can be kinda scary.

Yeah, I hate having to wear stuff like that. It's one of the reasons I hate the fact my work has a very gendered uniform.
"Yup. That tasted purple."