kamorth:

nerdygirlnoodles:

Okay, but seriously on the topic of straight people being so overly concerned about their children being exposed to homosexuality…

As some of you know, I am a makeup artist in a holistic beauty boutique in a very wealthy area of eastern New York. The week before Halloween I was offering simple costume makeup designs for both adults and children. So my last client of the evening was a 15 year old girl who came in to get her makeup done for the Halloween dance at her school. I was enjoying a conversation with both the girl and her mother when suddenly the topic of transgender came up. I got a little nervous because I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut when I hear people speaking negatively about these sorts of topics and as I mentioned, my store is in a very upscale, white, conservative area…

Anyway, the girl starts telling us that her friend prefers to be a boy now. She says it very simply and comfortably and it made me happy to see her talk about it as if it was really no big deal.

Her mother says

“How does she even know what transgender is though? She’s a little young to be making a decision like that. I really think the media is taking things too far with all this gay stuff. I’m not against it or anything, but didn’t you just tell me two boys in your class are dating too?”

The girl said that yes, two boys she knew were dating and another boy she knew was gay also. (And she also corrected the pronouns her mother used for her friend)

“I don’t mind that she knows that homosexuality is,” the mother said. “But I don’t think it should be taught at such a young age. Did you know it’s on Disney channel now?”

It took me a moment to respond, I just kept painting the girl’s face until I could figure out what I wanted to say.

“Well,” I said. “We tend to teach heterosexuality literally from the time a child is born. Most children’s books and movies are even centered around a romance of some kind like a Prince and a Princess for example. There’s rarely a children’s movie that comes out where the main male and female character don’t end up marrying each other in the end. If we don’t have a problem flooding our children’s minds with heterosexuality from the time they are able to sit up and watch a movie on their own, what is so wrong with showing them two boys or two girls being in love? We aren’t showing them sex. We aren’t showing them anything inappropriate. Since when is love inappropriate? If we show them love in all it’s forms (be it gay or straight) from an early age, they will see that it’s all perfectly normal and natural and maybe we can finally put homophobic the past…”

The woman considered this for a second and then said “I just feel like they see it and then they start to think that they might be too.”

“And maybe they are. But isn’t it better for them to know that it’s okay? They aren’t hurting anyone.”

Then the girl said. “No ones going around just thinking they are gay because they know what gay is, mom. I know what a chicken is, that doesn’t mean I’m going to wake up tomorrow and start clucking.”

I loved this kid. I hope she does well in all of her endeavors

I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and start clucking

(via perks-of-being-chinese)

just-shower-thoughts:

People in Hollywood are losing their careers left and right, yet Chris Brown almost beat a woman to death and still has his. WTF music industry.

somehowunbroken:

in case you were wondering if anyone will remember your random acts of kindness:

when i was in kindergarten, i met a boy named jordan. i don’t remember meeting him. i remember knowing him when, one day before dismissal, he came up and asked if he could be my friend. i was a painfully shy kid, and he was friendly and fun and talked a lot, so i said yes. we were the kind of friends that kindergarteners are: buddies during snack time, sharing the best crayons when we colored, and never even thinking that it could go outside of the walls of our school. it was fine. it was great. i had a friend. he’s the first friend i ever made on my own. he’s the first person who made me realise that i could.

my next clear memory of jordan comes when i was in fourth grade. in the morning, i was talking to kristen, who was one of my only friends at that point. she was looking forward to gym, because it was dodgeball day. i was not; i was always picked last in gym class, no matter who the team captains were. you don’t pick the slow-moving kid with glasses if you want to win, and grade-schoolers can be cruel. jordan heard, though; i remember that, because i remember him looking at me as i pointed out how much i wasn’t looking forward to gym, and i remember my cheeks burning because this popular kid heard about my problems.

we had lunch, and math, and finally gym to round out the day. gym, and dodgeball, and riley being one captain, and jordan being the other. and jordan, who won the coin toss, who got his pick of any kid in our class, picking me first. he didn’t even hesitate. he called my name, he pointed to me, and he smiled at me when i walked up to stand next to him. when riley laughed and picked derek for his team and taunted jordan about how he was going to lose, jordan laughed right back and told him that with me on his team, he was definitely going to win. (i don’t remember if we won or not. we probably didn’t. all i remember is not hating dodgeball for one day, and that was enough.)

fast-forward another few years, to another gym class in another school. we were doing baseball, which was my own personal hell in seventh grade. my eyesight hadn’t gotten any better, and i was too tall, too skinny, too out of touch with how to move my limbs to possibly make the bat and the ball connect. rules were rules, though, and no matter how far back in the batting line i stood, nobody was allowed to go back in the building until everyone had a chance. i made myself last every chance i could, because by that point anyone who was interested in the sport had gotten their fill and wandered away, and it didn’t matter that i stuck my elbows out and hunched over the plate and swung and swung and swung at balls that kept whizzing by me and smacking into the fence.

this day, though, this day was the worst day, because i had to be in the middle of the lineup. i don’t remember why; i only remember the sick feeling in my stomach, the feeling that the class would laugh at me as i stood there praying i didn’t move the wrong way and get hit with the ball. when i got up to home plate, i grabbed the bat and stood there and stared at the pitching mound, and jordan smiled back at me. i was clearly nervous; it was no secret that i hated gym, wasn’t any good at it. there were two kids on bases in the field, and someone in the back made a comment about striking me out; one of the kids on base groaned about how he was just going to steal home. jordan kept smiling as he walked off the mound, came up next to me, and quietly asked if he could show me how to hold the bat, how to stand. he demonstrated how to swing, and told me to just try to hit it gently. “just like this,” he said, and held the bat out in front of himself. bunting. i knew the name, even if i’d never been able to pull it off before. “hold it there. you’ll hit the ball.”

i nodded. i didn’t care. i wanted it to be over with.

he walked back to the mound, looked back and me, and then took a few steps forward. “just like i said,” he told me, and i nodded again. he tossed the ball very gently, and i held the bat out, and miracle of miracles, i bunted the ball. “run, run,” he yelled, making a ridiculous dive for the ball, kicking it out of the way of any of the outfielders who were catching on and heading for it. “first base!”

i ran. i made it to first base. i laughed, because i had never been able to do that before, and jordan turned and smiled at me before returning to the mound and striking out the next three people at bat, one right after the other.

now consider this: i met jordan almost twenty-five years ago. i remember these things, these small kindnesses, the things he didn’t have to do but did anyway. he probably doesn’t remember doing any of them. he probably doesn’t even remember me, at this point, and that’s fine. i remember his kindness when there wasn’t a ton to be had, and i remember him smiling when everyone else was laughing at me.

kindness matters. thanks for being kind, jordan. and to everyone else who has been kind, to me or to someone else: thank you, too. your kindness is noted, is appreciated, is remembered.

(via perks-of-being-chinese)

muchymozzarella:

forsakentevinter:

So my dad used to teach human evolution at the University of Minnesota, right? And his favorite thing was discussing Native American cultures and bashing misogyny. 

So he’d start off class by going “Raise your hand if you think you know why men hunted and women stayed back in the settlements” and most kids would raise their hands. He’d list off a few various reasons and kids would slowly start participating. Then he’d go “How many of you think it’s because men are stronger” and of course most of the males would raise their hands with a few girls. He’d then proceed to rip apart the patriarchal views they had all been taught. “No,” he’d say, “It’s because if five men went out and three or two came back no one would bat an eye. They’d grieve sure, but society would go on. Now if five women went out and three or two came back you know what would happen? Society would collapse.”

And it was true. For many Native American cultures the only reason women did what they did was because the men couldn’t do it. We are (usually) taught a twisted, self-aggrandizing form of history despite evidence suggesting the complete opposite of it. 

This was present in a lot of cultures in the past before white colonization (see: imperialism and genocide)

In Australia the Aborigines believed that women were more powerful than men and closer to gods because of their ability to give birth, and men would make themselves bleed just to be like women when they came of age

In the Philippines many people held practices which celebrated a woman’s first menstruation, encouraged free sexual exploration before marriage for young men and women, and believed women to be spiritual leaders, so that the only way a “man” could be one was to become a woman (transwomen were able and even encouraged to marry, and were identified as women within the community)

Also in the Philippines economic structures defined power, so a man who was poorer than his wife would take her name, and daughters would inherit and become heads of the family if they were the eldest

Westerners love to flout how great they are at women empowerment when it comes to other cultures that treat women badly, but actively try to hide the fact that there are thousands of other cultures who treated women better centuries ago than they do even today 

And that’s a fact. 

(via perks-of-being-chinese)