And the other things that I am doing, in no small part because the Republicans would HATE IT:
Read a lot of slash
Write a lot of slash
Partly because, yes, it’s a relaxing thing where I can read about love and feel better. And partly because I like doing things that would make James Dobson clutch his pearls.
But also because slash was a huge part of what made me question my conservative Evangelical upbringing, become a liberal, vote for and support progressive causes, and eventually realize that I was bi myself.
How so, Laura? You ask. That’s just silly. They’re only stories.
I am the daughter of an Evangelical minister, raised in the deep South. I went to religious school. All of my activities were either church or school-focused. Everyone in my social circle was from either church or school. I knew a tiny handful of people who weren’t white and nobody at all who was openly LGBTQ. I was told very little about sex and what I was told was steeped in sexist, racist, homophobic rhetoric. (The curriculum my school used for sex “education” was called “Sex Respect.” Look it up; it’shorrifying.) I was literally taught that Christians could only vote for Republicans. (”What about Christians who vote for Democrats?” I asked, and was told, dubiously, that they MIGHT not go to hell, but that they were certainly not following the Lord’s will. I was also raised to view other, more liberal Christians with skepticism.) One of my proudest achievements in 10th grade or so was when I wrote an anti-abortion poem (called, I shudder to recall, something like “the cries of the murdered children”) and it was published in the school newsletter and put up on the main bulletin board, right outside the office.
So I went away to college, a wee Christian Republican, and landed in a dorm with free broadband internet. I met people who weren’t like me, and made friends with them, for the first time in my life! I was still in the South, and still keeping pretty squarely to religious college circles, but I was at least meeting people of other races and religions, and liberal Christians who showed me a different side of my faith. I still didn’t know any out LGBTQ people, but I was scandalized by my RA, who I thought was super cool, being in both Campus Crusade for Christ and Straight But Not Narrow. Eventually, I had a gay computer science TA, and I remember looking at his rainbow jewelry with wide eyes, like I was seeing an alien. (Hopefully, he just thought I was confused by the homework.)
(Note: I was VERY confused by the homework, and he was a FANTASTIC TA, and I would never have passed that class without him. Bless you, gay CS TA.)
Anyway, at the same time, I started devouring fanfic for the shows I loved, X-Files and Star Trek and Star Wars.
And I discovered… so much.
I had been so sheltered that I was rabidly curious for ANY information about sex. Before college, my best sources had been Harlequins and medical dictionaries and old sex manuals from the 70s I snuck peeks at when browsing the used bookstores. I learned at church camp that “fellatio” meant “oral sex”, but I didn’t know what that WAS. I was eighteen years old, and I thought that how sex worked was that the man stuck it in, came immediately, and then pulled back out again. (Somehow I guess the Harlequins had been too purple-prose in their sex scenes to convey the idea of thrusting?) And here was the information superhighway, ready to give me not only information, but lovingly crafted stories of Mulder and Scully (my obsession at the time) falling in love. And falling into bed.
I was scandalized the first time I discovered slash. It was a Mulder/Skinner, and it was super tame – nobody even did anything physical, it was just an acknowledgement of an attraction. But it seemed like the most transgressive thing EVER to me. And we all know about the erotic charge of the taboo, right?
I started reading slash. Lots of slash. X-Files and Star Wars and Star Trek and Highlander and Sentinel and Due South and Pros and Buffy and Starsky and Hutch and anything else that was well written or had characters I even halfway cared about. At first it was because, honestly, it was hot, and I felt guilty every time even though I wasn’t going to stop. I reasoned that it wasn’t real, right? Just stories. No real people were doing anything wrong, and masturbation was only a sin if you fantasized about real people while you did it.
And then, over time, I got more and more uncomfortable with the sorts of things my church said about “homosexuals.” Because even though I still didn’t have any close friends who were gay, I’d spent several years reading gay love stories, and you know what happened? I loved those characters. I identified with them, I felt for them, I wanted them to live happily ever after and get married if they wanted to and have families if they wanted to and they weren’t doing anything wrong by loving each other.
And if Ray and Fraser, or Jim and Blair, or Kirk and Spock, weren’t doing anything wrong and should be protected, then the real live actual LGBTQ people in the real world weren’t doing anything wrong, and they should be protected, and my family and my school and my church had been lying to me all along.
That wasn’t an easy conclusion to reach. It was hard. It hurt. I sat in my room desperately Googling “can Christians support gay rights” and “what does the Bible say about being gay” and sobbing. I was afraid. What if this was what my mother, my teachers, had warned me about, that I would go away to school and lose my way, lose the truth, backslide, lose my salvation? Would my family love me anymore if they knew? I had started drifting a little leftward politically and testing the waters with relatively minor things like opposing the death penalty and my mother had harangued me about it until I cried; I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for something like this.
But once my eyes had been opened, there was no going back. I was afraid, but I had to be honest with myself.
I left my church. I went to a more liberal church that some gay people went to, and that used gender-inclusive language and didn’t preach about “homosexuality”. It was still Baptist, though not Southern Baptist, and they had a brick church and a steeple and choir robes, so it passed well enough to get my mom off my back.
I stopped hanging out with only church people and made fandom friends, and many of them were LGBTQ.
Today, I’ve moved churches again, and now I’m happily to go to a social justice-promoting Episcopalian church with a sweet, grandmotherly priest. I have many dearly loved friends who are LGBTQ, and I’ve realized that I myself am bisexual, though I don’t think I’ll ever come out to my family or to anyone who might tell my family. I am solidly progressive in my values and my charitable spending and my letters to Congress and the things I speak up for.
Eighteen-year-old me would have probably voted for Trump, even after all the ugliness, because Trump was the Republican and good Christians vote Republican and I was a good Christian.
Slash was the thin end of the wedge that cracked open my perspective so I could entertain the thought that maybe the things I’d been taught weren’t true. I’m not saying that’s the only way it could have happened, but that’s the way it did happen.
So I’m going to keep voting and speaking up and donating to progressive causes. I’m going to give all the support I can to the marginalized and oppressed in the real world. Of course I am. But also? For all the kids growing up in conservative and Christian families, who have an uneasy sense that some things don’t quite ring true? For the ones who are struggling with questions and doubts, as well as the ones who are smugly sure of themselves? For the ones who know they don’t believe but aren’t safe to say so? For the ones who know they’re different but they’ve never met anyone like them and feel so alone? For all of the kids who are like I was…
The electoral college does not vote until December 19th. We have 40 days.
What does this mean?
Right now, the presidential election results are only a PROJECTION of the election outcome. They are PRELIMINARY RESULTS. A candidate still needs to earn 270 electoral votes to win. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which means that more than 50% of the voters wanted her for president. The electoral college shouldn’t guarantee an override of the public’s opinion– and it doesn’t have to.
There are 21 states that do NOT restrict which candidate the electors vote for. Out of these 21, Hillary lost the following:
As you can see, these states are worth 166 electoral votes. As it currently stands, Hillary Clinton is projected to receive 232 votes. Trump is projected to win 306. This means that 37 votes need to be taken away from Trump to bring him down to 269. Hillary Clinton needs 38 votes ADDED to win 270. These electoral voters can also abstain, which means that they can refuse to vote for either candidate. If 37 of the voters within these states abstain then no candidate will have reached the required 270. In this case, the vote would be taken to the House.
Trump won Pennsylvania, a state that typically votes blue, by less than 100,000 votes. While it is highly unlikely to get all 20 electoral voters to cross party lines and vote democrat, it also isn’t impossible to convince a few of them to be “faithless electors.” We only need to convince 38 out of the 166. That is 23%. There are SIXTEEN states we need to focus our attention on.
A move like this would be unprecedented. However, as we all saw on November 8th, odds don’t guarantee reality. Trump had a less than 20% chance of winning, yet given the circumstances, enough people came together and made it happen. We can make this happen.
Ask yourself this: What do we have left to lose? We can stay complacent and accept that this country will be run by a racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, ablest bigot, or we can at least try.
How?
SPREAD THE WORD. Trend #NotMyPresident to let people know that we do not accept being led by a man who does not care about our wellbeing. Email your professors, email the dean of your colleges. The last thing a university wants is negative press. Millenials can take a stand, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the only ones. Church-led events helped bring a lot of disillusioned voters to the polls. Spread the word in any way possible, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or even in person. Stage a peaceful protest. Hand out flyers. Let the people around you know that you don’t accept this man as your leader when he won’t even accept you as a citizen with your designated rights.
These 166 people need to face the consequences of electing this man.
Do this for the people who couldn’t vote. Do this for the people who live in the very real fear of being deported. Do this for the people who will have to face the rise in hate crimes. Do this for the people who have a very real possibility of losing their rights. Do this for the people who will no longer be able to afford necessities.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Is this possible?
Yes, I wouldn’t have made the post without doing my research. Read the following paragraphs, taken from archives.gov:
Are there restrictions on who the Electors can vote for?
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. (The 16 states listed above do NOT restrict their electors to this rule.) These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called “faithless Electors” may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Can Hillary still receive votes from the electoral college even though she’s conceded?
Think about it, Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. All of the electoral voters didn’t immediately vote for President Obama the second he conceded. The election still ended up being 332 votes to 206. Not 538 unanimous votes for Barack Obama.
“For starters, it doesn’t matter if a losing candidate concedes, as far as the Electoral College process goes, according to Amy Bunk, director of legal affairs and policy at the Office of the Federal Register, among other experts.”
Conceding does not take a candidate’s name off of the ballot that the electoral voters see. In the past, “faithless electors” have voted for the projected losing candidate, or even voted third party.
Concession really only means acceptance of the PROJECTED outcome. This does not mean that the actual outcome cannot be different from the projected outcome. Please keep this in mind.
HERE ARE THE ELECTORS YOU CAN BE CONTACTING
ARIZONA (9 Electors): J. Foster Morgan of Glendale, Walter Begay Jr. of Kayenta, Bruce Ash of Tucson, Sharon Giese of Mesa, James O’Connor of Scottsdale, Jerry Hayden of Scottsdale, Robert Graham of Phoenix, Edward Robson of Phoenix, Carole Joyce of Phoenix, Alberto Gutier of Phoenix, Jane Pierpoint Lynch of Phoenix
ARKANSAS (6 Electors): Jonathan Barnett, Jonelle Fulmer, Keith Gibson, Tommy Land, John Nabholz, Sharon R. Wright
GEORGIA (16 Electors): Not Listed, previous reports of a likely faithless elector
INDIANA (11 Electors): Stephanie Beckley, Jamestown; Daniel Bortner, Bedford; Laura Campbell, Carmel; Jeff Cardwell, Indianapolis; Donald L. Hayes, Jasper; Randall Kirkpatrick, Ligonier; Ethan E. Manning, Indianapolis; Macy Kelly Mitchell, Indianapolis; Edwin J. Simcox, Muncie; Fishers Kevin Steen, Muncie; Chuck Williams, Valparaiso
IOWA (6 Electors): Not Listed
KANSAS (6 Electors): Not Listed
KENTUCKY (8 Electors): Not Listed
LOUISIANA (8 Electors, includes alternates): Chris Trahan, Candy Maness, Lloyd Harsh, Jennifer Madsen, Charles Buckels, Christian Gil, Louis Avalone, Constance Diane Long, Kay Kellogg Katz, Verne Breland, Lennie Rhys, Glenda Pollard, Garret Monti, Scott Wilfong, John Batt, Raymond Griffin
MISSOURI (10 Electors, missing 2): Tim Dreste, Jan DeWeese, Hector Maldonado, Sherry Kuttenkuler, Casey Crawford, Tom Brown, Cherry Warren, Scott Clark
TEXAS (38 Electors): Marty Rhymes, Thomas Moon, Carol Sewell, John Harper, Sherrill Lenz, Nicholas Ciggelakis, Will Hickman, Landon Estay, Rex Lamb, Rosemary Edwards, Matt Stringer, Shellie Surles, Melissa Kalka, Sandra Cararas, David Thackston, Robert Bruce, Margie Forster, Scott Mann, Marian K. Stanko, Tina Gibson, Ken Muenzter, Alexander Kim, Virginia Abel, John Dillard, Tom Knight, Marian Knowlton, Rex Teter, Stephen Suprun Jr., Jon Jewett, Susan Fischer, Lauren Byers, William Greene, Mary Lou Erben, Arthur Sisneros
WEST VIRGINIA (5 Electors, missing 1): Ron Foster, Patrick Morrissey, Ann Urling, Mac Warner
SOURCE. If anyone can find information on those not listed, please let me know.
ALSO a friendly reminder that a concession is not set in stone, and can be reversed:
“…a spoken concession does not necessarily deny a candidate office if there is a drastic reversal in the vote count…
It is exceedingly rare for a concession, once issued, to be retracted; BUT such an event occurred in the United States 2000 presidential election, when Democratic candidate Al Gore, Jr. telephoned RepublicanGeorge W. Bush to concede the contest. Gore was apparently unaware of the close vote count in the state of Florida, and when he realized it, he proceeded to cancel his concession address.”
#NotMyPresident T-Shirts If interested, order closes on November 23rd. Prices are $20, and orders will be shipped directly to your address. All proceeds go directly to Planned Parenthood, an organization likely to be defunded under a Trump presidency. Link HERE.
I’ve already tweeted about this but here’s a longer post for all naturalized citizens especially those who have been visibly marked a “other” and aren’t part of the “again” when Trump says that he’s making America great “again.”
(All of you sad white liberals can suck it up, buttercups, because some of us have some real work to do to prove that we belong here before President-elect Trump is sworn in. The stuff that applies to you is at the end.)
Trump took the support of white suburban women, those are also the types of women who want to adopt foreign children like they’re some kind of charitable, exotic vase. This does not mean they will necessarily ensure citizenship for their adopted children. For foreign adoptees who were 18 by 2000, you are not covered under the current Child Citizenship Act (2000). If you do not have proof of naturalization and even though you were raised here your entire life, you can be deported:
“Korean American Adoptee Faces Unjust Deportation” (Angry Asian Man, 10/27/2016)
“A South Korean Man Adopted By Americans Prepares for Deportation” (NYT 11/1/2016)
This brings me to the point of my post: naturalized citizens, get proof of citizenship while Obama is still president. Naturalized citizens can use two documents to prove their citizenship: a U.S. passport and a Certificate of Naturalization (N-550, N-750).
U.S. Passport info:
Routine processing for a new passport typically takes 4-5 weeks and there is an expedited processing option (2-3).
Here is a PDF of fees to apply for a new passport or renew your old one: U.S. Passport Fees
Now, onto the Certificate of Naturalization:
The Certificate of U.S. Naturalization (form N-550 or N-570) is a document issued by United States government as proof of a person having obtained U.S. citizenship through naturalization (a legal process of obtaining a new nationality). The Certificate of U.S. Naturalization has been issued since October 1, 1991 by the USCIS, and on or before September 30, 1991 by Federal Courts and particular State Courts. The United States Certificate of Naturalization is proof of an individual’s U.S. citizenship through naturalization. Only naturalized United States citizens can apply for a Certificate of U.S. Naturalization. If you are not a United States citizen, you must first apply for US citizenship.
These were apparently issued in 1991 so the yellowed certificate of my citizenship from the 1980s on yellowing, delicate paper might not cut it. I am applying for a new certificate of naturalization but not before I scan both sides of it and find a notary to sign something that says they saw it.
The fee for another copy of Certificate of Naturalization: $345
Trans* naturalized citizens, you can request a new Certificate of Naturalization due to a legal change in gender. Will this change under a Trump presidency? Who knows? Who wants to risk it?
I saw a lot of white people who were SO SHOCKED and SO SURPRISED their fellow white people voted for Trump. I saw tweets about “hurting” for their friends who were women, immigrant, minority, trans, queer – and god help us if you fall into more than one of those categories. That’s not even to mention the undocumented and those on work or school visas – immigration has a lot of fucking narratives and its time you start realizing that.
So, do you want to help? Here are two ways to start helping your immigrant friends.
First, you can help your naturalized friends by getting their paperwork and money in order: planning, finding a translator, helping with gathering paperwork and looking over their paperwork before its submitted; lending emotional support, accompanying them to immigration services and/or other appointments. Take some of that #ImWithHer sentiments that led you to donate to Hillary’s campaign and buy “nasty women” t-shirts and give your friends cold hard cash so they have proof of citizenship either in the form of a U.S. passport or Certificate of Naturalization.
Second, you can start writing your senator and pressuring them to support of bill S.2275 – Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2015 introduced by Sen. Am Klobuchar (D-MN) designed to prevent the kind of tragedy facing Adam Crapsner in the stories linked above:
This bill amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to grant automatic citizenship to all qualifying children adopted by a U.S. citizen parent, regardless of the date on which the adoption was finalized.
An individual born outside of the United States who was adopted by a U.S. citizen parent shall automatically become a U.S. citizen when the following conditions have been fulfilled:
the individual was adopted by a U.S. citizen before the individual reached age 18,
the individual was physically present in the United States in the citizen parent’s legal custody pursuant to a lawful admission before the individual reached age 18,
the individual never acquired U.S. citizenship before the enactment of this Act, and
the individual was lawfully residing in the United States on the date of enactment of this Act.
An individual who meets such criteria, except for lawfully residing in the United States on the date of enactment of this Act, shall automatically become a U.S. citizen on the date on which the individual is physically present in the United States pursuant to a lawful admission.
I’d also like to add that it’s a good idea to at least consider having certified copies of any citizenship documents made if you can, and at least photocopies too. Try to have someone you trust hold on to a copy, someone who lives in a different household.
We know someone who has had their paper copy of their documents destroyed and were deported. Thankfully because they had American born family members who were in a position to fight for them, they were eventually able to return…with no real follow up for what they had suffered.
I know there are a lot of people terrified of a Trump presidency for a lot of reasons, but some of the most vibrant horror I’m seeing is coming from young queer people. These people were in middle school or grade school when Obama was first elected, when Glee came on with its revolutionary act of portraying a blatantly Disney-saccharine gay love story. RuPaul and Ellen are huge tv stars, Sulu owns Facebook. RENT is a musical theatre standby performed in high schools. Marriage equality and bathrooms have been their biggest fights. So this? Looks like the apocalypse.
It’s not. Within my lifetime, a president laughed at hundreds of thousands of people dying of AIDS. Within my lifetime, that was a death sentence, not a footnote on a Grindr profile. Within my lifetime, “transsexuals” only existed as cruel punchlines. The only trans guy I had even heard of at 19 was from a movie about him being murdered. Ellen was a pariah who had lost her show for coming out. Being gay was career suicide if you were anything but a hairdresser. It was automatic dishonorable discharge from the military.
This is not saying Trump couldn’t undo a lot of that. But not all of it. And even if, EVEN IF he did? Queer people survived. Flourished. Got to where it is now. And where it is now includes a younger generation who will not go back, and in another 20 years, will be the CEOs, the senators, the governors, the president.
If you don’t give up.
Don’t you fucking dare give up.
i’m scared and angry and tired because yeah, i marched in the 80′s, when people threw rocks and bottles at the pride parade, and i thought we were fucking DONE with that.
but don’t for one second think i won’t fight again if they make me. don’t for one second think i won’t fight to my last breath.
trump voters are an extinction burst. the last diaper baby tantrum of straight whites who are terrified that the loss of their privilege means they’ll be treated the way they’ve always treated others. if we hang on through this, if we keep fighting, we will prevail.
so quit planning your fucking suicide, kidlets. let uncle jesse show you how we do it when we’re fighting against The Man under threat of death, not sending anon hate to shippers. you think you can’t do it, but i did it when i was your age, thinking all the while that russia was gonna nuke us any second, and i’m still here.
don’t get me wrong, babies, i wish you didn’t have to see this. i’d protect you from it if i could. i tried to protect you from it. but assholes persist. so i’m taking the old sword down from over the mantel, and i’m gonna show you how to take a swing.
i’m seeing a lot of people reblogging suicide hotlines and this is just a reminder that this is a suicide help line that works like a text-based instant messenger for people who may need to talk to someone but have trouble/are uncomfortable making phone calls
Never don’t reblog this. There are so many people who have such bad anxiety about phone calls. This can save so many lives
Also helpful if someone is in a situation they may not feel like talking out loud about their problems is a viable option (for instance if they live with a douchecanoe who would mock them for seeking help)
I’m a historian. Don’t know how many of you know that. I’m getting a PhD in history, with a specialty in dictatorship, trauma, and childhood. It’s a field I’ve never wanted to actually be this useful in real life…
I’ve been dreading a Trump presidency from the outset of his candidacy because I’ve studied dictatorial regimes and the fragile lines between democratic and authoritarian rule for the entirety of my adult life. I know what the collapse of democratic rule looks like.
This is it people. We’re at that point. It’s not a joke, it’s not hyperbole, it’s not conjecture. We’re about to live in a xenophobic police state. That’s about to become our reality.
Now, more than ever before, it is essential for us to stick together. Love one another, support one another, stand with one another. All forms of oppression are linked. People like Trump will want to divide us. They’ll want to break us down from the inside and outside. They’ll want to fracture our spirit and our sense of worth. Don’t let them. Know that you matter, know that you are not alone, know that small acts of kindness and solidarity can mean the difference between life and death.
I can use history to make predictions based on past knowledge, but the present and the future are constantly being rewritten. We are the agents of change in this world. We can make a difference.
Go out tomorrow, find a cause. NARAL, ASPCA, Planned Parenthood, A New Way Forward, The Innocence Project, Oxfam, Greenpeace… find out about programs and groups that deal with human trafficking, with racism, with sexism, with women’s health, LGBTQA rights, with what you want to fucking change! Sign up, and fucking fight.
Intern at your local congressional office! Stuff envelops! Listen to citizen complaints! Help dig us out of this shitstorm!
Donate money! Donate time! Be a Big Brother or a Big Sister. Reach out and find what your community needs! Join a litter collecting squad or write cards for people at an elderly community or buy a family in need groceries.
There is. So. Much. You. Can. Still. Do.
Online activism is all well and good, but these groups need feet on the fucking pavement. Don’t confuse shouting at people online as activism! So put up, and let’s shut this racist, classist, misogynistic, rape apologist down.
here is an extremely easy thing to do! the next time you buy pads or razors and you have enough money to buy an extra pack or a travel set of toothpaste / toothbrush, buy an extra one and donate it to a women’s shelter! or buy good socks or good underwear if you can afford it!
Ok y’all out here talking about harming Trump have fun because the feds legit watch this site and Tumblr has zero problems with submitting your data to them if they ask for it so you can be mad all day but I strongly recommend you don’t sit here and catch a case by threatening the presumptive president elect.
https://www.tumblr.com/transparency y’all think I’m playing but it’s literally right here. Tumblr does get requests for user data from the federal government due to active investigations like don’t be this dumb
A quick note based on my post-Brexit experience in the UK – in the time period after the election, your biggest threat will not be Trump and his government. It will be your newly validated bigot neighbours. After Brexit, hate crime shot up by 60% in the UK nearly overnight and it still hasn’t returned to its pre-Brexit level. I imagine the same will happen in America. Be careful. No matter who they are, Trump voters are not your friends. Be safe. Your biggest enemy right now is the neighbour you went to church with and the people you pass on the street every day. Lock down. Go to ground if you have to. Look out for one another. Please, be careful.
Steel Phoenix Studios 