George Michael’s life was constantly trailed by homophobic media that painted him as a sexual deviant and a drug addicted train wreck “corrupted” by the gay lifestyle. In reality, George Michael was an artist who, for a large portion of his life, was forced to hide his sexuality and live a lie in a pre-millennium society that emotionally punished anybody whose orientation challenged heteronormative expectations. Let us not forget the paths paved by people like George Michael: those who bravely came out during a time when closet doors were locked from the outside.
Tag: lgbtqia history
Code Words For “Gay” In Classic Films
Has a silk bathrobe
Avowed bachelor
Wears a hat of someone else’s choosing
@dayglopirate relevant to your interests
Here’s the list:
- Curious
- Extraordinary
- Eccentric
- Wears a hat of someone else’s choosing
- Inconsistent
- A sunset lover
- Smooth elbows
- A man with specific mannerisms
- Sleeps diagonally
- A perplexment
- Rides the carousel
- An evening botanist
- Classically athletic
- Fraternally-minded
- Wears a light wristwatch
- Gives a careful handshake
- Gives too much change for a dollar
- A fluent swimmer
- A keen-eyed birdwatcher
- Fond of his mother
- Elegant
- Built on an uncertain foundation
- Fluttersome
- A real jackdaw
- Avowed bachelor
- A gentleman of the piers
- Born with the caul
- Limber
- An aesthete
- In the way of uncles
- He throws a party with an open guest list
- Son of the moon
- A boy from Eton
- Always rings twice
- Has a silk bathrobe
- Not quite up-to-code
- He hitchhikes instead of taking the bus
- Stays ahead of the game
- A skillful mountain climber
- Salutes another flag
- An upside-down chimney-sweep
tag yourself I’m “a perplexment”
Years ago I once mentioned to a coworker at a theatre where I was interning that my boss was bi (he was out, I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t) and she said “Oh! He sometimes shops at the other market!”
I almost fell over laughing at the expression, and I reported the conversation to my mum later. She picked it up and would joke about it for like, YEARS after. It became a running joke in our family, the expression “He shops at the other market.”
This ended up being REALLY funny about five years later when we were trying to find a grocery store on a family road trip and ended up buying what we needed from a grocery store with a big sign out front reading BI-MART. We pulled into the parking lot and I leaned over to my mother and said, “This is the other market he shops at.”
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.
Steel Phoenix Studios 