Therefore, it is imperative that our campus elects student government officers who will take action to address these (and many more) issues. We need leaders who will not simply plan fun events, but who are determined to lobby legislators, work with administrators, and engage the campus population to ensure that change occurs. To ensure that the UC system does not continue to face annual budget cuts. To ensure that students whose communities are underrepresented at UCLA feel included. To ensure that those of us who have to walk alone at night can do so safely.

The difference in ideology between the slates is most blatant in the race for President. Carly Yoshida (Bruins United) wants to use the office to strengthen alumni relations (doesn’t the Student Alumni Association do this all year?), solicit more donations from alumni (which the Call Center already does infamously well), and support UniCamp (one of the most successful organizations on campus). Taylor Bazley (Bruin Alliance) is very concerned about increasing USAC’s visibility and garnering student input, but does not offer any tangible sense of what his office would accomplish. On the other hand, John Joanino (Let’s Act!) promises that his office will fight for long-term solutions to secure funding for the UC, work to expand Night Powell toYRL, and initiate a statewide investigation of campus safety—all large-scale and forward-thinking initiatives. If you take a few minutes to look through the slates’ websites, the sharp distinction between the vague and superficial platforms of the former slates and the progressive, change-oriented Let’s Act! candidates will become even more clear.

As queer people, we may be used to feeling left out. We may have experienced the feeling that the world is against us and that there’s nothing we can do to move forward. But in the case, the Let’s Act! slate provides hope that a more perfect campus is on the horizon. While Bruins United-initiated events like Homecoming and free soda night at 800 Degrees may provide one evening of entertainment, a purposeful movement toward a better UCLA will only come from activist leaders who have a proven track record of successful organizing: the ten candidates of the Let’s Act! slate.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author and represent neither the policy nor support of OutWrite Newsmagazine.  

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The movie is about a young boy named Ludovic. Ludovic cross-dresses and generally acts like a girl; he talks of marrying the neighbor’s son and cannot understand why everyone is so surprised about it. At first, his parents think he’s just a phase and that he simply likes to joke around like that. When his family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their new neighbors. They decide to send him to a psychiatrist in hopes to fix whatever is wrong with him. This movie is basically about Ludovic finding himself and establishing an identity; it addresses trans-gender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a child.

Ma vie en Rose does a really good job at showing what the parents are feeling and going through but it also shows the audience how difficult it is for the child as well. For example, Ludovic asks his sister and mother whether he is a girl or a boy. They tell him he’s a boy but that simply confuses him more because he feels like a girl and doesn’t understand why he feels the way he feels. It’s probably more of a difficult experience for the child because they don’t know what to do with all their feelings and can’t understand their parents’ views. This movie could be helpful to parents who might want to see things the way their child sees them and maybe help them understand and accept their child.

Parents must let their children express themselves the way they want because that’s the only way they’ll know who it is they really want to be. If parents don’t give them that opportunity then they may be unhappy or unsure with whom they are throughout their childhood.

Perhaps my favorite depiction of the cracking forth of yolky spring from hard-shelled winter are Chaucer’s opening lines to The Canterbury Tales (bear with me through the Middle English, the ethical English major side of me disallows me from quoting a modern translation):

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour...

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

Spring, when pale emaciated bodies sense the stirrings of life, nature’s sensual awakening, and imbibes the first slants of filtered light breaking through.  Spring, that mixing of regeneration, continuity, bloom — the Dionysian enmeshed with the Apollonian — always seeming to terminate in travel, in rupture and movement.

The following is to accompany the wanderlust-drenched days of Spring Quarter.  All of it off-kilter, queer in some way, and 1.2 hours — perfect for you Walkman users.

“Smalltown Boy” — Bronski Beat

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuz94ZIPfJk]

A rare instance in which a song referring specifically to the more traumatic elements of the queer experience — familial and social rejection, hiding oneself away (in the closet), nonconforming masculinity (“cry, boy, cry”), gay bashing (to name a few) — gained popular success, this song details the departure of a young queer person breaking from their family, home, and traditions in the hopes of a more fulfilled, authentic “out” experience (“But the answers you seek / Will never be found at home. / The love that you need / Will never be found at home”).  Jimmy Somerville’s voice performs the task of expressing the valences of such a transition, tentative, mournful,  but also — in its direct address, repetition, and steady rhythm — affirming, comforting.

“Demon Road” — Yeasayer

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99-OLn6SgOs]

Textured like the bubbles and warps of melted plastic, this song off of Yeasayer’s most recent album captures that moment of hiding one’s own queerness, socially or interpersonally unacceptable tendencies/desires/beliefs, from one’s significant other — a concealment that dam(n)s the relationship, seems such a dire impediment that all there is remaining is for “all hell” to “break loose,” opening up a “demon road” to “take [you] home.” The narrator cannot conform to conventional/popular scripts of romanticism, astrology, sentimentalism — is instead “into” some unspeakable kink. 

“Diplomat’s Son” — Vampire Weekend

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd_dNHh3PSo]

A reminiscence on a confused, spontaneous, drug-fueled first-time gay hookup, written by Rostam Batmanglij and sung by the beautiful, twink Endymion Ezra Koenig with an MIA sample, a perfectly constructed narrative replete with time signature changes to reflect tonal changes? Yes please.

“Tryst With Mephistopheles”—Owen Pallett

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHiIXqbwPlE]

Speaking of twinky Endymions, no queer indie playlist is complete without mention of Owen Pallett, gay Canadian composer and multi-instrumentalist whose orchestral Baroque-pop delights in ornament, exuberance, and textural depth. I love this song in particular for its queering (if it needs much a queering) of the Faustus story. Moreover, something about Pallett taking Mephistopheles’ perspective and enacting his love for and murder of Owen, “the author,” makes me giddy with Freudian notions of homosexual narcissism and self-destruction.  Yes, Marlowe and Freud would be pleased. 

“Michael”—Franz Ferdinand

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7rsrO3kEe4]

This is a song for that one cool, attractive (and usually self-aware of it) hetero guy who goes to gay clubs and is completely down be immersed in the rhythmic sea of queers.  But even more than that, it’s an attraction that comes in a highly aesthetic, temporally localized, visceral moment — a refreshing depiction of sexuality which is (for good reason, but perhaps too homogeneously) almost always depicted as biologically fixed, ingrained, and non-dynamic.

“Cliquot”—Beirut & Owen Pallett

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsHvwvgp3w4]

Seemingly a song about a homosexual couple sung by one lover about his partner’s slow slip towards death at the hands of the plague (and antiquated Medieval setting of the bubonic plague beautifully fitting with the wild, crass instrumentation), this story could easily be read as an AIDS narrative, one lover wishing his visceral, artistic creation could stay his lover’s fleshly consumption by the “gay plague.” 

“Bed of Nails”—Wild Beasts

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbE8IWbDZmc]

Shakespeare-laden kink — the quickly ascending, then quickly sinking, darting pitch of the vocals jagged like nails over the smooth, repetition of the instrumentation, an instrumentation which undulates such that one cannot help but recall a Beardsley illustration (at once sensually fluid and horrifyingly barbed!).

“White Night”—The Postelles

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhQ4Hwwjf08]

Although  The Postelles’ frontman Daniel Balk is straight, he’s certainly comfortable discussing

and participating in queer culture. In song, the male-male call-and-response creates the the feeling of two gay partners (in crime, in addiction, in illness?) confiding in each other.  Despite the problem-ridden lyrics, the song is upbeat and Balk’s vocals gleam (you won’t find a bigger than me of songs that stage a contradiction between semantic content and formal tone/style).

“Suzanne and I”—Anna Calvi

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIDj0SVWeBU]

The power that inheres in every lyric Anna Calvi belts astounds me still today after discovering/becoming obsessed with her my freshman year of college. Sparse in lyrical variety, this song presents an intense bond (at least as perceived from the narrator’s position) between two women.  Because of the very noir tone, I can ever only imagine Suzanne and the narrator as two criminals on the lamb.  Or, depending on my mood, related in a Notes on a Scandal way, replete with delicious voyeurism and rigid relativism.

“Annmarie”—Anais Mitchell

[http://youtu.be/km1QD9yMWcI?t=2m2s]

If “Suzanne and I” is noir, “Annmarie” is the intimate closeness and unspeakable queer desire encoded in devotion and “mercy” of the Victorian-era.  It is the blurred lines between platonism and romance in a rustic time or place where the exacting, concretizing term ‘homosexual’ does not exist.

“A Case of You” — James Blake

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJDSueNSMJE]

James Blake’s voice is like a pristine river on which I want to build a house in which I live out the rest of my days serenaded by the emotional swellings and decrescendos of Mr. Blake’s wrenching tunes — like a really, really emotion Snow White.  In this song, Blake covers Joni Mitchell, which turns a song of heterosexual coupling into one of gay love. What I love about this transformation is the way in which the song’s gendering of the couple remains latent.  “I met a woman,” he croons, “she had a mouth like yours.”  Here, we expect him to use this woman as a substitute for his (assumedly female) lover.  However, this woman commands the singer to “Go to him,” to return to his male partner.  Something about the way in which the unnamed, nondescript (male) partner can be embodied by a woman, who then reveals the partner’s gender intrigues me.  If not just because it points out how immediately and implicitly we view such songs through a gendered lens. 

“o0O0o0O0o” — Oberhofer

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P0V_1TlIH8]

 There are certain songs that accumulate the tonality of a period of one’s life, and this one immediately evokes the unsettled (in not-a-bad-way) of moving to LA from a fairly rural town, growing accustomed to the college experience, and coming out first to myself and then to my friends.  “And the cities feeling queer and crass / With beer cans growing blazing grass / To look like something new” struck me at my core.  It’s the same feeling evoked when walking through the apartments in Westwood (or any college town) early on a Friday or Saturday morning, when the sordidness, vivacity, and waste from the previous night are fading fast but still evident in the crushed red cups covered in dew.  Waste and renewal don’t seem so far apart.

And as resonant as the lyrics in the song are to at least my queer experience, the formal quality of the vocals are marked with a queer theatricality that bolster the verses’ poignancy.

“Normal Song” — Perfume Genius

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJKd00Mte7g]

Perfume Genius, stage name of Mike Hadreas, crafts delicate, cobwebbed and misty songs about such social taboos as sexual abuse and gay pornography.  I puzzle over why this of all songs is the “Normal” song, other than that perhaps it doesn’t represent a narrative voice from a super situated position, but rather one preparing for his absence (death?) — something we must all face.  In any case, this is just one of an entire album of gorgeous little (dare I say Emily Dickinsonian) gems.

“Cosmic Dancer” — T. Rex

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iL2EbrL5Co]

 Can’t explain my obsession with this song, but perhaps its due to its associations with the films Velvet Goldmine and Billy Elliot. Dancing, devotion, and queering codes of masculinity through ones composure and unabashed performativity (a prescient insight into one of glam rock’s effects).

“The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!” — Sufjan Stevens

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRW2g2l49fk]

This song seems to encapsulate one’s first same-sex love — perhaps in a uniformly gendered space like summer camp — when one is too young to be aware of the labels or stigmas or identitarian politics of being queer.  One only feels an intimacy for another so intensely (“he was my best friend”) that one can’t help to “tease him,” to “[touch] his back” and kiss him.  The ebullient symphonic bursts reconjure the pre-linguistic excitement, the uncomplicated joy of exploration — an emotion that even in Sufjan’s masterful hands can’t quite be replicated whole (I can tell you, the telling gets old”).  In this, the song is perfectly nuanced — happily cherishing this moment never to be replicated, with only the slightest shadow of regret in its permanent remoteness.

“Bermondsey Street” — Patrick Wolf

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXF-4ZsINec]

Celebratory, explicitly gay happiness by Patrick Wolf.

 “Hey Jane” — Spiritualized

[http://vimeo.com/39295354]

Worth it simply for the music video — one of the most radically, grittily queer I’ve seen in a long while (NSFW).

I interviewed one of my coworkers after learning that she identifies as an urban shaman. Her perspective clued me into the urban shaman community and the ways its associated challenges parallel those facing the queer community.

So, what exactly is a shaman? “To me, an Urban Shaman fulfills the same roles and duties of a Shaman in the Jungles of Peru or the Mountains of the Himalayas, except we shamanize in the concrete jungles of metropolitan communities and sprawling suburbs. Shamans are healers of relationships”. In short, shamans are leaders and healers in their community that work to use their natural strengths to make the world a more loving and unified place.

“Their specialties range from herbalism to exorcism but always they are the healers within their communities. Shamans are the storytellers, the historians, the gatekeepers, the guides, the therapists, the sage ones, the pranksters, the allegorists, the riddlers, the dream weavers…weaving the web of the waking and sleeping dreams, seeking to reveal the connections beyond the obvious to bring unity, love, and healing…usually among a small tribe of about 25 people or so,” Sheri says.

Although identifying with shamanism involves identifying as a healer, and identifying with the queer community involves identifying with an orientation or gender/sexuality label, shamans share some aspects of the queer experience in a literal way. According to Sheri, “shamans are often the queer ones in a tribe. Cross-dressing during ritual, cross-identifying, same-sex relationships….Shamans occupy the in-between spaces of society in every way.”

Also similar to the queer community is the belief that shamanism is relatively fixed. “I could choose to not be an urban shaman but i would still be doing the same things. The title provides order for explaining and describing my craft. Whether it be under the title of cashier, barista, student, or teacher i’m always shamanizing. Always have been, always will be. I feel very lucky to have found a way to focus and engage my energies and gifts.” Despite shamanism being an invisible identifier (in the same way that queerness is relatively invisible), it does not change and is definitely not a phase.

However, unlike queerness, according to Sheri, shamanism can be modified and developed over time. “For me the shamanism is my craft. it is an extension of who i am and thoroughly defines the course of my days and years, but it is only a label for the culmination of many gifts, talents, and passions colliding with the destiny of participating in the arc of infinite history…”

And these gifts and talents do take work to cultivate over time. When asked if she puts work into maintaining her shaman skills, Sheri responded with a resounding “Yes and yes! Always studying, always updating, upgrading, downloading, seeking, learning, sharpening my skills….and at the same time being still and going with the flow, listening to my heart, trusting my instincts and being the most of myself I can be each day. Both must occur to remain active and receptive.” In the same way that one must continually reevaluate and redefine one’s queerness to remain true to one’s identity in a genuine way, shamans must be careful to maintain and refine their skills.

Given the unique nature of the urban shaman identity, it is not surprising that many urban shamans feel misunderstood by their families. As Sheri bluntly puts it, “My Christian family members think I’m doing the work of the devil.” However, having a shaman in one’s life may be more tolerable when one can reap the benefits of their healing powers. “My friends are extremely supportive probably because they’ve benefitted most from my work over the years.”

Despite difficulties coming out and being accepted as a shaman, many shamans find solace in the shaman community. Surprising as it may be, shamans are everywhere! “In fact, there are more urban shamans out there than one might think! They simply use titles like massage therapist, acupuncturist, yoga instructor, psychic…the healing community is huge in Los Angeles.”

However, even with a strong and supportive community of shamans, there are still moments when identifying as a shaman can be isolating. What is the best way to feel validated in one’s identity? According to Sheri, it is a strong and independent sense of self. “First and foremost, I am my own and only authority, i am the source of all things and all the answers are inside of me. Also, I stand on the shoulders of giants, and seek guidance and training from the giants in my life. And I allow the hundreds of encounters that I have each day to teach me, I observe the world around me and allow animals and clouds and trees to speak into my life.”

 

His name was Terry, but since David had told me his name was Tyler, I wasn’t sure it was him. In a gruff voice, he murmured, “Nice to meet you” as I shook his firm, calloused hand. So this was the Terry (or Tyler?) that David had constantly talked about. I could now fully picture the stories that David had told me about their fights, vacations, and trips to the bathhouse. Until then, I had imagined billows of steam shrouding Terry’s face whenever David recounted his hedonistic adventures over lunch.

I finally understood why he lied to me about his name; Terry was old and David didn’t want me to judge him. He was definitely older than 35, which is what David had told me he was. He had a square face, short white hair, and big round glasses, similar to the ones that my father wears. The two of them together were an unlikely couple. David was short, 22, Vietnamese-American, and wore bright clothes from Hollister. Terry was a tall, burly white man in his late 60s who looked like he had a few grandchildren, or, at least, he dressed like he did.

I like to think of myself as an open-minded college liberal, but until I actually had a conversation with David and Terry I was quick to judge their relationship. The fact that Terry’s own children were 10 years older than David bothered me. It seemed incredibly creepy and inappropriate, almost bordering on incest. Terry even had a grandson. Surely David was having sex with him just for the paid dinners and free rent. And Terry was just a typical Caucasian sugar daddy (or more accurately, grandpa) with a fetish for Asian twinks. The relationship needed to end.

I texted David for lunch to convince him to dump Terry.  In the hour beforehand, I had tried to think of a nicer way of phrasing “You should date someone that doesn’t need to be on Life Alert.” But when I saw David sitting at a table, I also saw Terry sitting next to him. He was talking to a business client, and hearing him negotiate a real estate deal only further emphasized how old he was. From an outsider’s point of view, it looked like David and I were students and Terry was our economics professor.

The conversation started out awkward. I couldn’t concentrate on asking him questions because all I could think about was that these two people were having sex with each other. Terry carried the conversation by asking general questions about where I was from, how many brothers and sisters I had, and what I planned to do after graduating UCLA. What ultimately put me at ease was his complete openness and honesty. He started telling me fascinating details of his life narrative: his childhood in conservative Indiana, his marriage and divorce when he tried to live a heteronormative life, his children’s reactions to him coming out. I wanted to be judgmental but I ended up being engrossed in the dynamics of their relationship.

“I see Terry as a form of stability,” David noted. “He’s much more emotionally and sexually mature than the guys that I’ve dated. Young guys my age just want to have sex, but with Terry I feel like I can have more.”

“Younger guys have a great energy,” Terry had told me. “Yes, I’m attracted to them because of their beauty, but what’s more important is that they have this excitement for life that men within my age group don’t have. I like being able to guide David in his life and see him go through this process of maturation, physically, emotionally, and sexually”

As unconventional as their relationship was, I got the impression that David and Terry genuinely cared about each other. Neither one was taking advantage of the other, as I had previously suspected. So what was my problem with their relationship? Yes, I would never date anyone that old, but did that matter? At the end of the day, David and Terry were the ones that came home to each other. David was in a committed relationship with a man who really loved him. I was in a relationship with masturbation and Haagen-Daasz. (I still am). From that conversation, I gained a profound insight about myself. I was just as prejudiced and judgmental as the homophobes and misogynists that I deplore. The Victorian attitudes toward sexuality brought on by my Catholic upbringing still remained deep within my psyche. As I continue to discover what it means to be queer, I need to remind myself that I am subject to bias just as much as the next person and that for some people, age is just a number.

Here is some great information about a cool new iPhone app on campus to help you out with your safe sexual adventures:

What does the SafeSex101 app provide for students?

SafeSex101 is a directory and advice app for students to explore their safe sex methods, birth control options, and STD testing services. The app is specifically for UCLA students with its list of clinics, doctors’ offices, and other resource centers being in and around Westwood.

Why did you want to make this app? 

I conceptualized this app last year, because I wanted to make apps for Bruins, as a Bruin. In the production stage, my team and I focused on what was helpful and applicable to students like us.Why is an app a better way to provide this information than say, a pamphlet or a web site?The app condenses all the information you might have to spend ages looking up on various websites. It’s localized to Westwood to only include places students can have easy access to. For example, for condoms, the app first lists locations on campus where students can go to get free condoms. For STD testing, the app recommends Ashe but also provides a directory of the locations closest to Westwood in the surrounding areas of LA.How does this app benefit LGBT students?

The SafeSex101 app is inclusive of all students at UCLA. That’s the great thing – the information can be used by anyone! And one of the app’s most recommended resources is the LGBT center.

What is the goal for this app?

Our goal for SafeSex101 is that it can educate and inform students. Along with Ashe, ORL events, and many other resources, we want to be another go-to for students. Our hope is that we can promote safe sex awareness by encouraging students to utilize the app!

What has become particularly interesting to me of late is the encounter between sexuality and the internet—in particular, Tumblr. Anonymity has always come as a double-edged sword, but for those of us who located ourselves within the queer community, it has certainly provided a freedom that the face to face world never could. Suddenly, meeting and talking to other queer-identified individuals didn’t require outing one’s self to the outside world; Google and a thorough purging of internet history meant there was room to explore what could not yet be spoken aloud, a vast array of resources to help mend the uncertainty. It offered the sort of validation and promise that had for some of us been largely overshadowed by terror.

In many ways, these possibilities have remained the same; for those who are young and unsure—or old unsure—there are still queer communities, and queer resources, likely more than ever before, to be found online. But more and more, in mainstream internet culture, the slippage between sexualities has become apparent. No one really blinks at finding attractive male and female celebrities fangirled about thoroughly on the same blog; no one really blinks when this fangirling blurs a multitude of exclamation points with sexually charged comments. The Tumblr line between wanting someone and wanting to be someone, particularly in the case of female celebrities, is very rarely kept a binary question.

That isn’t to say that no one lists their sexuality, and that certainly isn’t to say that no one claims it, or has very strong stakes in it—and it also isn’t to say that no attempts are ever made at definitive policing—but even those who identify as, for example, gay or straight, often do not let that wholly confine their focus on a variety of attractive individuals. Some are able to express a kind of fluidity that the outside world is less likely to allow; normally stratified categories have the opportunity to exist in a less pointedly divided world. The concept of sexual “exceptions” made for celebrities has, to some degree, become both more and less relevant, perhaps best exemplified by a Tumblr text post that has earned over a hundred thousand notes, which first began “there’s always that one celebrity that makes you question your celebrity” and ended up circulating with a response that went something like “one? more like 28037434.” Which, despite the hyperbole, would of course make them less exceptions and more a kind of recognition of a dynamic sexuality.

Of course, this recognizable fluidity has also inspired a trend that has emerged before: the idea that labels are irrelevant, and we “shouldn’t” put in identifiable marker upon sexuality, echoes label-free mantras that have come before and will no doubt continue to persist. And though many parts of Tumblr, as many parts of the rest of the internet, are abound with problematic things, it seems to lead to the question of an ideal world. What does it mean, to have such a large part of a social networking that has such express interest in (frequently male, but not solely) same-sex couples? Where does the line blur between support and love and fetishization? What does it mean to inhabit a space defined as straight to the non-online world? What does it mean that girls who may not have a vested interest in queer rights may still post pictures of hot female celebrities and tag them “take me”?

This collision of minority and mainstream culture is fascinating in ways that seem in part to destabilize the boundaries that existed elsewhere—though whether this destabilization foretells a similar kind in the outside world, and whether this destabilization is healthy are both questions without easy answers. The potential for a much more nuanced version of sexuality exists—but does that only exist in a world that dismisses the necessity of a queer community, of queer institutions? It is not as if there will be direct evidence in any immediate future, but it seems important to imagine a world that might exist after some of the dust clears. After all, as Game of Thrones’ Talisa says, “You’re fighting to overthrow a king, and yet you have no plan of what comes afterward?” While prejudice may not be a king, we are certainly striving for a world where the prejudiced are not the ones wearing the crowns—and the integral nature of social media in its outcome will only increase from here. Perhaps it sounds like a better kind of world, perhaps a worse one, but when the next battle reaches an end it will at least be different.

Photo by YVRBCbro

Although overdosing on turkey (or tofurkey!) was so last season, being thankful is perennial. For this blog post, I polled members of the queer community on the rights, privileges, and aspects of daily life they are most grateful to have as an LGBT-identified person in 2013. Even though the queer community is by no means free from discrimination, many strides have been made, so reflecting on progress is as important as identifying further obstacles to full equality.

Here are a few of the diverse responses I collected:

“I have the right to get a job without being discriminated against for my sexual preference. I am grateful for the protection the government has provided for LGBT individuals.”

“Being gay has given me an empathy and understanding that most people could only dream of.”

“I feel like I have the same rights as any other caucasian woman, with the exception of being able to marry the love of my life and have all the benefits associated with marriage. I am not quite at the marriage stage of my life yet, but it’s quickly approaching and I don’t want to have to be limited in my life decisions because some old, fat white republican man thinks that being gay is a crime.”

“Well I feel like I have the right to live a relatively normal life. I’m able to go to school, get a job.. etc. There’s no clear segregation. Also we have the privilege to speak up about the rights that we feel we still don’t have.”

“I feel privileged to see how far we’ve come in the last 4-5 years. I feel like the conversation has completely changed, and I no longer feel that LGBTQ individuals are alone in their fight for basic equality — powerful voices have recognized that we deserve better….I mean it’s hard to say because I could say a LOT of things about privileges that I have, but a lot of other people wouldn’t relate…..I think as far as a day-to-day privilege, I feel privileged to live in a world that is full of people who may not be LGBT but who are ready to speak up and stand up for what’s right.”

“I’d say I’m most grateful that I’m not vilified by my friends or family for being bisexual.”

“Just being out is an important privilege people can take for granted; past generations, and even queer folks in certain areas of the country today, didn’t, or don’t, live in a safe enough social environment to publicly represent themselves as queer.”

“I have always believed that one should try and love everyone equally, and being bisexual, I feel I can truly live that out to the fullest.”

“I mean I don’t feel like I have any special “privileges” because that’s defined as “a right or granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor” and I don’t think I get any sort of special benefits or advantages for being queer. Like, on the social side, I’m allowed to be much more affectionate with friends of all genders because a lot of my behavior is excused because “Oh well she’s a lesbian” and people see me as less of a threat in a way.”

“I think, especially as a Californian, I’m most grateful for LGBT employment discrimination laws covering both sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“To be able to bring my girlfriend home and have my parents treat her like my significant other.”

“I am most grateful for the cultural shift that has allowed the young folks of the community the safety to come out and thrive–it just wasn’t like that when/where I was young.”

“I feel very privileged to be able to be out to everyone in my life without worrying about judgment or ignorance.”

“Well, first of all, I don’t feel that I can answer the question in regards to LGBT, because, unfortunately, most of the privileges I have as a bisexual (although really, I think of myself as queer or pansexual), the trans community is still excluded from. I mean, even at a recent same-sex marriage rally, the HRC had the nerve to ask people to take down the trans flag, claiming that marriage is not a trans issue. It’s really horrifying when one of the leading voices for gay rights is treating the trans community like they’re ashamed. I think the privilege that I’m most grateful for as a queer person in Southern California in 2013 is protection against employment discrimination, which unfortunately, many queer people in other states do not have (Currently, only 21 states have laws against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and only 16 states ban employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity). Even though I’m not out in my workplace where I teach at a scholastic chess club, I felt really proud when an openly lesbian couple enrolled their daughter. Recently, I heard another parent playfully telling the girl, “Listen to your moms” and smiled. We’ve come a long way for a statement like that to become commonplace.”

Photographed by Erwyn van der Meer

“May God have mercy on this falling land!” proclaimed Chinese actress Lu Li Ping in 2011, “We have to prevent this from happening in China.”

Ping was reacting to New York state’s passing of legislation that legalized same-sex marriage in the state, a policy that is hardly on the horizon in the Asian country that is largely homophobic and unwelcoming to queer citizens. But, as Visiting Assistant Professor Alvin Wong discussed in his talk “Queer Theory and Chinese Modernity” on February 19^th, there are some forms of culture which push against the largely heterosexist society and offer signs of hope for the future.

Wong pointed out that, while there are not many explicit representations of LGBTQ Chinese people in the nation’s literature and media, some have created works which “queer” love in various ways.

In the novel “Private Life,” a female protagonist in the 1960s chooses to live a solitary life and is treated by psychologists who declare her to be insane. While this woman may not identify as a lesbian, she is making a non-normative choice to not settle down with anyone—which implies that she may be a part of the asexual community. Importantly, she is portrayed in a positive light and the forces working against her are seen as vices; this is a rare show of support for someone who does not fit into the “traditional” Chinese lifestyle.

In one story in the work “She’s a Woman, I’m Also a Woman,” a woman who has a rocky relationship with her mother dreams of meeting a lesbian lover in a bar who she later realizes is her own mother. This Freudian scenario presents an incestal same-sex relationship, which both contributes to the idea that queer relationships are shameful and acknowledges that two women can meet and fall in love.

Professor Wong highlighted the power that new forms of online media may have for queer Chinese people to express themselves and challenge the homophobia they experience. While popular media may treat same-sex loving people as strange abberations, these people themselves will hopefully find ways to change the conversation into a more positive direction. Maybe someday legislation that benefits queer people will not be seen as a problem China needs to avoid, but an improvement that will contribute to the world’s largest country.

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