“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Elie Wiesel  (via thenewwomensmovement)

(Source: beautifulitisnot)

CA Senate Passes Anti-LGBT Bullying Bill for Colleges and Universities

fuckyescalifornia:

bullyingjjie:

AUG 30 2011 the California State Senate passed the Equality and Equal Access in Higher Education bill (AB 620). Introduced by Assemblymember Marty Block (D-San Diego) and sponsored by Equality California, the bill would help reduce bullying and harassment against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and staff at public colleges and universities throughout California. The legislation would require public colleges and universities to include a policy on harassment and intimidation as part of its student code of conduct and require implementation of a number of the 2009 California Postsecondary Education Commission recommendations, including requiring that there be staff designated to address the unique needs of LGBT students, staff, and faculty.

The bill also codifies in state law the practice, already put into place by many universities, of collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity in the same manner as gender, race, ethnicity and disability, on voluntary demographics sections of university forms. Additionally, the bill updates the state’s higher education code to include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as classes protected against discrimination in portions of the code where this is not currently specified.

That’s wonderful! :)

(Source: eqca.org)

“We kissed, we held each other, we lay on top of each other in bed… and there were lots of complaints about that. Nobody complained that I was shot in the head four times, there were burning people in ovens, that I was stabbed by a mob of 50 people hundreds of times, and I was hanging dripping my blood in a pit. So that’s what confuses me, because you’re not complaining about gay sex, you’re complaining about two men kissing. And it’s 2011. And people say, ‘Well why should we have that on television?’ Because the BBC have to represent the greater public - and there are gay people out there who pay their television license. For people to complain, that’s your prerogative — but you know what, none of them turned it off! They were just embarrassed because it put them in a position where they had to explain things to their kids or their family which probably should have been explained a long time ago.”
John Barrowman on ‘Torchwood’ (via roseandthebeast: cocknbull)
fuckyeahfeminists: His real name is Miguel Jose Barragan.   He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar.  He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested.   To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment.   He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life. - Scott Lobdell DC Comics’ relaunched Teen Titans series will include a Hispanic queer teenager. Woot woot.

fuckyeahfeminists:

His real name is Miguel Jose Barragan.   He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar.  He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested.   To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment.   He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life. - Scott Lobdell

DC Comics’ relaunched Teen Titans series will include a Hispanic queer teenager.

Woot woot.

femonster:

What do you mean when you say you want strong female characters?

downlo:

Great piece. Totally recommended:

…[C]alls for strong female characters start to run into trouble with trans women, nonwhite women, and women of colour in pop culture. Because women in all three of these categories are automatically expected to be strong. It is, in fact, part of their characterisation. Trans women are frequently framed as secret men (ah!) and thus can be expected to display physical strength and emotional toughness, because it’s part of the game the creator wants to play with you. These women aren’t ‘real women,’ because they’re strong. Those masculine traits aren’t empowering, in this case, aren’t an affirmation that girls can do anything. Just the opposite. They are dehumanising and violent. They are a reminder to viewers that trans women are not real because they are really, at heart, masculine. Yet, to depict them as emotionally vulnerable, even fragile, is to play into other stereotypes about women, leaving them in a double bind; they cannot be strong, they cannot be weak. They cannot exist.

Women of colour and nonwhite women have also been subjected to the physically strong, solemn or stoic archetype since time immemorial. When pop culture bothers to include them at all, they are often heavily masculinised. Loud. Oversexed. Spicy. Overwhelming in their physicality. Or, on the flip side of things, especially for Asian women, meek and submissive; objects of sexual fetish. Bodies inherently charged with sexuality that are treated as objects in pop culture narratives. Do we need more ‘strong female characters’ when it comes to women of colour, in a media that repeatedly reiterates stereotypes about stoic, unemotional, physically strong Black women, for example?

[…]

…[W]hat people are usually talking about when they talk about the need for ‘strong female characters’ is white cis women, specifically. [….] “…you have to be assumed weak in the first place for it to be groundbreaking.”

Please read. It’s so important for us book/movie nerds to think about this.