Today, I have been listening to the winds rattle and shake against the house, punctuating with waves of rain driven hard against the windows.  I am thinking about the service I will attend - the first that I have had the emotional fortitude to face - and the event that I will speak at beforehand. Tomorrow is the Trans Day of Remembrance, where we ( Read more... )

Introduction

The term queer is often seen as a pejorative - something weird, shameful, and woefully off-kilter.  To say something is queer is to say that is alien, dangerous, or not of the norm.  But there is a positive aspect to this non-normativity; in refraining from settling at the status quo, queer as an approach allows us to remain in a state ( Read more... )

I am the designated human servant for a couple of cats. Malcolm in particular has been my companion since 2006 when my heart was struck to the quick by a creamy fuzzball with ice-blue eyes and a miniature mew. He stopped me in my tracks, and I begged my then-sweetie for us to please please please go back and buy him from the kids selling their ( Read more... )

Were I to say to you “tell me what a unicorn is”, you would start with the horn. It would likely be a pristine white color, and generally horse-like, but just a little bigger, just a little better. There might be sparkles, and somewhere in the background, there’s probably a virgin. If I asked you to tell me what unicorns did, you might say that ( Read more... )

There has been a great deal of positive forward movement towards the acceptance of gays and lesbians within Christian faiths during the last thirty years.  Opening and accepting congregations have taken steps to welcome people whose only difference from their heterosexual counterparts is, purportedly, that they engage in romantic and intimate ( Read more... )

In contemporary Western culture, sex and gender are often conflated. Sexual identity is predicated on one’s assigned gender; if a person is assigned male at birth, then they must perforce be heterosexual and attracted to individuals assigned female at birth.  Genitals, of course, are the arbiters of destiny in this case. Regardless of the fact that ( Read more... )

Born in Spokane, Washington in 1931, David Eddings was an author most noted for his work in the fantasy genre.  The work he is perhaps most known for is an epic fantasy twelve books in length.  This epic is comprised of two five-book series, the Belgariad and Malloreon, and two prequels, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress.  The two ( Read more... )

We are taught from our earliest experience that heterosexual and cisgendered identities are “normal,” and that any variation from these norms is deviant and substandard. Consider the popular usage of the term gay, which has come to mean substandard, effeminate, and flawed. The word gay has become a derogatory slur used as unthinkingly as people use ( Read more... )

The Motion Picture Association of America was founded forty-two years ago by its longtime head, Jack Valenti. Since then, the MPAA’s standards for rating sexuality in movies have not changed significantly. American cultural values, on the other hand, have shifted and subjects which were once verboten are now considered blasé. Violence is rampant in ( Read more... )

Christianity, by and large, maintains heterosexuality as the only correct sexual orientation, defining non-heterosexual ideations and acts as sinful transgressions against the will of God. Some progressive Christian communities are changing to reflect a wider acceptance. However, in many fundamentalist and mainstream Christian communities there ( Read more... )