I know a lot of lesbians that used to identify as bi who worried that coming out as a lesbian would contribute to invalidating bisexuality in some way, by making it seem like a “stepping stone” to coming out as gay. I’ve also known bi women who identified as lesbians and changed their labels later, and worried that they were contributing to some kind of idea about how men can ~turn lesbians. I just wanted to say that it’s no individual lesbian or bi women’s responsibility to fix straight people’s perception of us. Like, it’s not your duty to serve as a political symbol! It’s your duty to find happiness even if that means changing ur label at some points.
Thank you! I was really worried about coming out as bi, even after I was married to my husband. I had run gay groups, put on pride events, etc for years. Sexuality can be fluid or one’s understanding of it can deepen.
This pride month here is a reminder of my story: I identified as a lesbian for probably a decade. Even after getting together with my husband I thought he was just a unique individual and somehow genitalia didn’t matter. Turns out I now have the words and deeper understanding of sexuality and gender to articulate that I’m demisexual and at the time I identified as a lesbian I only had deep enough relationships with women to experience sexual attraction to them. Once I formed deeper relationships with men when I was in college, I determined that I was occasionally attracted men, but that pansexual was a better word for my attraction, since a person’s body is something I grow to be attracted to, enjoy, and find pleasure with only after only after the deep spiritual/friendship connection is forged. I had adopted the language of attraction, saying people were hot when I found them aesthetically pleasing, etc, because I thought everyone was exaggerating their “attraction” to celebrities and even people they knew. Now I am poly and actively in relationships with men and women, but I should not serve as a represenation of pansexuality. Many, many pan and bi individuals are successfully monogamous and the “greedy” or “slut” archetype dismisses/hurts a lot of people
why are people such assholes to those who identify as asexuals? so the + that you have been putting in lgbtq is just for show? so if they happen to be cis and het they are no longer part of a minority even though they identify as asexual? so you only accept people who are interested in having sex? so the inclusive community is just fit for those that YOU judge that don’t fit the norm? show some fucking compassion and stop excluding people. ace people are valid and part of the lgbtq+ community.
They have no idea how hard it is to be ace.
How hard it was to grow up ace back when “asexual” only applied to single-celled organisms.
How hard it still is to grow up surrounded by sex everywhere. You have to have sex. You have to want sex. You shouldn’t have sex with anyone but ~the one~ but you’re going to want it anyway.
Sex factors into everything. What you wear. How you look. How you walk. Where you go. Who you hang out with.
Everyone wants it. Of course everyone wants it. Anyone who doesn’t is broken.
Get on The Pill or get T to fix it, because it’s hormones. Get therapy to fix it, because it’s your brain. Get laid with new people to fix it because you just haven’t fucked the right person.
WRONG.
Because aces aren’t broken. Aces are erased. Persecuted. Forgotten. Abused. Coerced. Raped. Forced to take meds and go through therapy and told again and again that this is ~fixable~.
But we’re not broken. We’re just fucking fine as we are, and nobody has any right to say otherwise. Yet we still go through this shit every time Pride rolls around, and I’m sick of it.
Every goddamn thing any queer person with any other letter in the LGBTQ+ alphabet could go through, we go through, too.
You’re goddamn right we’re part of the community, no matter what other shit you think “disqualifies” us.
In fact, protip: If you’re gatekeeping any fellow self-declared queers, saying they don’t deserve to be part of the community, you’re being an asshole.
Pedophiles are not LGBT, no adult engaging in a sexual relationship with a minor gets to call themselves LGBT and if you think they do fucking block me and throw yourself into the sun
TERF rhetoric is toxic and stupid and no one needs your transphobic ass any time of the year, much less the time of year when trans people should be taking pride in their identities (which is also year round)
It is not, under any circumstances, okay to “out” someone. I don’t care if you think your intentions are good. this can destroy someone’s life. A young person could end up homeless. Or dead.
POC belong at PRIDE just as much as everyone else (we would not have this without black trans women, show some respect)
You don’t know if the “apparently straight” couple who you see at PRIDE is composed of two straight people – one could be bisexual, one could be asexual, both could be, I mean, like, don’t be that person
Or they could be there to support someone who might’ve otherwise been alone, like, just, don’t be that person who polices sexualities and shit okay
Bisexuality, pansexuality, and polysexuality all exist and deserve to be respected
seriously it’s completely possible to be attracted to two or more genders or be attracted regardless of gender and our identities don’t hurt anyone
Just because you are LGBTQIA+ doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of being an asshole, and if you use “I’m gay!” as an excuse you need to grow up (this applies year round)
Asexuals and aromantics belong at PRIDE just as much as any other LGBTQIA+ individual, I really don’t care how many letters are in the “alphabet soup”, you have a valid identity
polyamory is when three or more people engage in a consensual relationship, not when one person is with someone else behind their partner’s back
polyamory is not superior to monogamy or vice versa
buying PRIDE gear for your sexuality/gender doesn’t mean you’re selling out or giving into capitalism, if it makes you happy do it and don’t let people shame you for it
and honestly like isn’t it good for it to be normalized? I am all for Target having a PRIDE section, that’s amazing
Not everyone is okay with using the word or calling themselves “queer”, if they’re not okay with it don’t call them that
bisexuality is not transphobic and pansexuality is not biphobic
stay safe at PRIDE – don’t accept open drinks from strangers, ever, no matter what, people can be awful anywhere you go, just stay safe
you don’t have to come out just because it’s PRIDE month, if it isn’t safe for you (i.e. you’ll be on the streets, homeless, etc) don’t pressure yourself
that’s all I have, I’m sure there’s probably more
I just want to add to the “You don’t know if the “apparently straight” couple who you see at PRIDE is composed of two straight people – one could be bisexual, one could be asexual, both could be” or… one or both of them could be heterosexual trans people.
Trans people belong to pride even if they are heterosexual and while being there is sign of wanting to participate this doesn’t mean that they are fine with being outed. Plus, it could be a straight trans person is there with their bi/pan partner of opposite gender and only the bi/pan partner is out of the closet while they didn’t disclose their trans status.
I know tumblr thinks all trans people is bi or SGA but a good percentage is heterosexual and may be completely cis-passing and in a relationship that looks “cishet” to external eyes.
Tattooed and Chained on Etsy has dozens of pieces of chain mail and scale mail jewelry for pride, and I need you to go support the hell out of them.
Ace, Pan, Bi, Genderfluid, Trans, Non-Binary, Genderqueer, and plenty of rainbows if you want the broader umbrella. And multiple options across all of them. And a few solo pieces in other sexualities! AND they can do custom pieces! I am delighted and am probably going to need so many of them.
We had a show last weekend that went really, really badly.
Like, really badly. It ended up costing us several hundred dollars instead of making us money. And even with @dadhoc driving Uber this week and me busting my butt on as many commissions as I can humanly take on for graphic design, we’re still gonna have literally like $20 in our bank account come Tuesday.
The money that’s supposed to come in from Etsy is going to be enough to pay our monthly Etsy bill and keep the shop online, and until stuff comes in from Patreon or other sources, we will have, like, nothing.
We’re going away this weekend, to a LARP, but only because it costs us absolutely nothing – the LARP runner is paying for our gas and food, and I wrote him some modules in return – and because we planned that over a month ago for my birthday. But I’d really like to be able to buy more groceries next week and pay the overdue gas bill and stuff like that.
Y’all know I hate talking about stuff like this, but this is the roughest spot we’ve been in since we started doing NerdyKeppie full time. Things will get better but right now we could use a small helping hand.
Thank you so much! I’m about to add Pride swimsuits. 🙂
Spider is one of the best humans I’ve had the pleasure to interact with.
They’re art/ designs/ products are absolutely dope, top quality work.
If you’re looking for something epic or unique to wear to pride, if you want something to express yourself, if you have a custom design you want made for you, Spider is the person to get it from.
Please, if you have the means, get yourself something wonderful from the shop.
You always say the nicest things and I appreciate you very much. ❤
I just wish I had the actual fundage to support you directly. I’ve had an idea for a custom patch commission for months, but I’ve had two weeks of work in the last seven months and I can’t really make fun/ comfort purchases living off savings.
Hopefully soon things will kick back up and I’ll be able to get some of your excellent work for myself.
Take care of yourself first. I say it a lot but I hope you know I mean it. ❤
The current set of Pride Flag candles are now up at geekstudio.ca. You can pick up one of these delicious vanilla scented beauties in rainbow, pansexual, bisexual, transgender, or asexual.
If you have requests for more flags let me know! If there is enough interest I will expand the line with more flags and more scents.
And here are some obligatory bright and colourful photos!
I know this is such a little thing but its something i see on a regular ass basis. Theres no lesbian pride flag? You guys always will bend over backwards to include ace people but not lesbians who are actually lgbt.
Then get off your entitled ass and source all the necessary lipstick shades in wax from a single vendor for them to use for the 2-year-old rebranded lipstick lesbian pride flag.
I’m sure it’s a piece of cake, so they must have just felt like excluding you. 🙂
I understand that it’s hard to source those colours but please do not call lesbians entitled, especially not just for asking why there’s no lesbian flag. Lesbians are the first letter in the acronym and historically (and modernly) some of the most important people in our community, they have every right to be upset and many people don’t know about the difficulty creators have producing things with the lesbian flag
Tl;dr stop calling lesbians entitled.
You understand this is not the same as saying, “Lesbians are entitled.” Correct?
It is not a default response for lesbians to condescendingly shit on the inclusion of the ace flag as if it’s a direct insult to their identity.
I 100% do not have a problem with the question, “Why is *any pride flag* not included?”
Regardless of if they were complaining about aces, you shouldn’t do this. And you know what if anything they are literally entitled to want be included because they are a Lesbian and yknow what even some inclusionist Lesbians are upset that they are almost never included in this stuff.
Lesbians aren’t being “entitled”, they’re upset and you, a non-lesbian, shouldn’t be arguing with them about this
Did you really just turn around with, “But is it really so bad to be entitled to other people’s labor?”
I am not the one who chose, two years ago, to try and turn the lipstick lesbian pride flag into the defacto lesbian pride flag. Like, I’m sorry that this is a consequence that has already been seen with the pride hoodies, and will continue to be seen with other physical merchandise. It’s much easier to find items like markers and paints in multiple shades.
And, again, I 100% do not have a problem with the question, “Why is *any pride flag* not included?”
Do not fucking say “regardless of if my identity is being shat upon.” That’s not a thing. People do not get to randomly throw out that they hate that aspecs are included as a justification for feeling entitled to someone else’s labor.
I’m ace and an inclusionist and even I could see you were out of line, and that doesn’t mean I think what they said was justified, of course I don’t like what they said but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re being a dick
Oh, cool, so then you also responded to all the REGs on this post to say a-specs absolutely 100% belong in this community and that they’re all out-of-line and being dicks?
Dude exclusionists very rarely listen to what we say, telling every single reg on this post that aces are lgbt+ would be a waste of my time and energy. I was however hoping you would listen, it’s seems I was wrong.
If you already know that, why would you start shit over a sarcastic and petty response to a REG acting like if I wasn’t being sarcastic they would have taken me seriously?
Your first response didn’t even acknowledge that it was blatantly acephobic.
This is so ridiculous. It is absolutely entitled for anyone to be offended that someone would include one lgbtqia+ identity in a post but not theirs and demand that they be included INSTEAD OF that other identity, which happens almost any time a creator of some sort makes a product using the ace pride flag.
The issue isn’t that they want a lesbian flag. The issue is that they think they can just demand someone make the lesbian flag and blame their inclusion of aces for the fact the lesbian flag isn’t there.
A lot of creators have trouble with the lesbian flag because there are so many shades of pink on it. That doesn’t mean they intentionally leave it out, but it means it might take a while to get the materials for it.
Others don’t know it exists, because the flag is so new.
Like, of course you should want to see yourself represented. But there are lots of other flags missing from this too; you don’t hear me screaming at the person for not including the enby flag or genderqueer flag or saying how dare he include someone else before including me, do you? Because that isn’t the way to approach it.
Plus, Tumblr has a 10 photo limit on posts. The person might very well have all of those flags, but just couldn’t show us in this one post.
Long story short, it was the first commenter who was out of line. @christopherokamoto shouldn’t be punished for pointing that out.
For the record, THIS is how you ask for the lesbian flag:
Not with some rude ass bullshit attacking aces.
Not to mention someone in the comments pointed out that the original post is old and @geekstudio is already promising to put out a lesbian flag version, so there is no need to be having this conversation anyway.
I’m… pretty sure people were just protesting to someone saying that the lesbian flag should be included instead of the ace flag, not that someone wanted to see the lesbian flag?
The repurposing of the lipstick lesbian flag to be the general lesbian flag is pretty recent, probably just within the past couple of years. There are a lot of content creators that don’t even realize it’s happened yet. Those content creators often include the rainbow flag as a way of including gay men and lesbian women.
Also, you have no way of knowing that these are the only flags the content creator has done or is going to do. Just because these are the ones they’re showing within a post doesn’t mean they’re the only ones.
Politely requesting a flag you don’t see represented is fine. Attacking the content creator on the assumption that they don’t intend to or haven’t done that flag and that that’s out of intentional exclusion and not ignorance is not okay. And suggesting that that flag should replace another flag already represented is doubly not okay.
Also…
Lesbians are the first letter in the acronym and historically (and modernly) some of the most important people in our community
I can’t be the only one who is really uncomfortable with the idea that some people in the community are more important than others…?
Right??? All people in the community are important.
Plus, the L being first has not always been the case, so using that as a reason why it’s okay to be angry that the ace flag was included and to feel that lesbians should be included before aces makes no sense.
And again, as said before, many lesbians use the rainbow flag for themselves. Many creators use the rainbow flag for both gays and lesbians. Many people use the rainbow flag for literally all of us! Let’s not assume that the OP is doing this to spite lesbians.
@im-glad-i-crashed-the-wedding is absolutely way off in their assessment, and I’m surprised to see that coming from an ace inclusionist.
No one here has a problem with lesbians. It’s @angryautisticaesthetic’s rudeness, aggressiveness, and ace exclusionary bullshit that is the issue.
❄💙 Bella 💙❄
Here’s the thing though:
When I first started putting up my Pride Animal shirts, I made SURE to post every single one in the lesbian Pride flag (as well as the queer chevron flag which @officialqueer & I dreamed up like … what, 2y avo? 18mo?). I made a big deal about them being available. I sourced the thread to make patches, too.
They didn’t sell. None of them sold. Not in the lesbian flag. I’ve sold exactly 3 of the pink lesbian Pride items, patches and shirts, in the 9mo. I’ve sold more women’s tank tops (just tank tops, not including anything else) with the word NO on it in the ace flag in the past 2 weeks than I have ever sold anything with the lesbian flag on it. I’ve sold more Bi Pride “the moon is my girlfriend” shirts than lesbian Pride shirts, and the bi Pride version was a custom request!
So clearly the items aren’t the problem. It’s that no one is buying the lesbian Pride versions.
Now.
I had something like 600 Pride shirts. It is impossible to set up Etsy listings with more than 2 variations. What that means is you can pick SIZE and SHIRT COLOR but not flag. I have to have a separate listing for each Pride flag.
Every time a listing renews every 3 months without selling? It costs me money. Not a lot of money, but enough that it adds up when you have six hundred fucking listings.
So, see, I did go all in on representation, and I bought the thread and I put up the listings and I’m still in the negative on those items, not even counting the labor and time to make those designs, upload them, tag the entries on Etsy properly, update all the attributes… just designing fewer than 20 items and updating all that tonight took something like 8, 9 hours.
My market rate for design is $25/h for community stuff. So on top of being in the hole on thread and listing fees, I’m way, way in the hole on time, and every hour I spend uploading things that don’t sell is an hour I’m not doing work I get paid to do from clients, or writing for clients or my Patreon, or designing stuff that sells.
Now, I have a line at the top of every shirt listing that says “send a request if you would like a different shirt cut or flag and i’ll list it.” And I do, and fast. Ask anyone who has gotten a custom from me. And a lot of people do ask for customs and get them.
But, frankly, I’m not going to default to posting that particular Pride flag, the same way I don’t default to posting the Queer chevron flag or NB flag either, and the latter 2 are MY identity. It just doesn’t sell enough. If you see either one of them in my shop currently, either it was a custom that someone bought and the purchase paid for the renewal of the listing or it just hasn’t timed out from the last auto renewal since I decided to stop bleeding money on listing fees for stuff that never sold.
All of that is just economics. Ace, Bi, Rainbow and Trans stuff sells, and sells well, so I list those 4 as my main flags. I have a mortgage to pay, a teenager to feed, 3 dogs to pay vet bills on… asking me to pay money to list things that don’t sell so that I don’t get harassed by people who feel entitled to my time and energy but don’t want to apparently purchase those listings is pretty much bullshit.
And boy am I starting to get real fucking weary of seeing artists get harassed like this, over the same exact subgroup, and protesting that the exact same other subgroup is getting included by default. Over and over again it’s “how DARE you make an ace one and not a lesbian one? I can’t BELIEVE it you are THE WOOOORST.” Over and over.
Well, idk about anyone else but in my case it’s simply proven that a given design in the ace flag is likely to get viewed hundreds of times and sell ten times while the lesbian version of the same shirt will get looked at half a dozen times and never sell. And I’m not getting harassed over not posting the NB or demisexual or Queer flag by default.
Demanding that small business owners/artists spend money and put up versions of their art that you don’t intend to buy is shitty behavior. Harassing creators and telling them they’re terrible, that they’re lesbophobes, etc, bc they’re not posting a difficult to make color combo that doesn’t sell is also shitty behavior. Unfortunately it’s become such a trend of late that if I didn’t know at least a good chunk of these blogs were legit I would think it was some sort of elaborate Russian “split the community” thing, or artists getting trolled.
tl;dr – if you intend to buy it, ask for it nicely and you’ll probably get it. Small business owners like selling things! It’s kind of what we do! If you don’t intend to buy it you’re literally asking someone do labor and spend money to make you feel good while giving them nothing in return, and that’s not okay. And harassment of creators is NEVER ok.
I cannot stress enough that the same pride animals and pride designs that sell in bi, ace, trans, queer, nonbinary etc DO NOT SELL in the lipstick-lesbian-made-lesbian flag. I have sold ONE lesbian pride patch ever, and sourcing the threads was expensive and not easy.
So, yeah.
Honestly this bit of knowledge makes the anger of the random exclusionists on this post even more ridiculous to me.
I 100% support everyone being represented, but not at the cost of content creators’ mental health, safety, emotion health, and income. No one deserves this.
This is just unbelievable.
❄💙 Bella 💙❄
I want to make it totally clear that I will, and do, set up any freaking flag someone wants. I got thread to make a leather pride patch, made an agender leaf patch… all you gotta do is ask nicely. Every small business owner wants to sell shit.
But this repetitive BUT WHERE IS THE LIPSTICK LESBIAN FLAG THAT BEGAN IN 2015 YOU HATE LESBIANS (that shit is NOT an exaggeration, I just went through the notes and there were multiple notes talking about how the OP hates and is excluding lesbians and how ppl trying to explain stuff and saying ‘stop being rude, y’all, you’re not entitled to someone’s labor’ is lesbophobic) is just NOT ok. Especially when it’s accompanied by not… buying the thing??
also i resent the implication that being in a certain spot in the acronym makes you more or less important than other members of our community…
since pride month is coming up, that also means we’re getting closer to the month when there’ll be 10000 posts reminding us that all the gay pride merch is just a corporate cash-in, that these corporations don’t care about us, that the world isn’t really any better, that none of the pride merch and ads actually mean anything, that it isn’t really progressive, blah blah blah
let me just say
i know. most people on here know. you are not the sole thinking person in a world of sheep. i promise you that the person you’re making all these points to has heard it 100 times 100 ways from 100 other people. we know, tumblr. we know.
but dammit, one month a year i get rainbow everything, and that’s a breath of fresh air after eleven months of straight nonsense. i LOVE seeing pride everywhere, even if it is just a corporate cash-grab. and it’s not like i can just opt out of this capitalist society, so fuck it, imma buy all the rainbow, pride-themed, gay merch i can get my hands on.
the world is a capitalist hellhole and there is no escape, so we may as well have what fun we can with it while we try and make things better.
happy pride, folks.
And hey, you know what you can do if you want merch that doesn’t just feed the corporate wallet? Go on Etsy, Storenvy, Society6, or just about a bazillion other websites where independent artists sell their products,and support your queer/LGBT+ artists! Directly! Hand them cold hard cash, there’s no better direct action than that, my dudes!
Do both! I really, truly believe that people protesting corporate pride merch, (unless they are protesting art stealing which of course they are right about. Stealing art is 100% not ok), are missing the point by a mile. It used to be that you could only find pride merch in small specialty stores that were owned and or frequented by the queer* community. The fact that enough people are safe enough to be coming out as who they are AND as allies, that multiple large corporations know they can make money off it is HUGE. People used to hold protests and try to get companies shut down for even hinting at being ok with the community. So honestly? Take my money. It has become overall unpopular to voice antigay opinions and I really think some of the bigots are going stealth and infiltrating online communities to try to turn us against one another (ace/aro exclusion; bi/pan exclusion; trans exclusion). Buy pride stuff. When possibly buy it from local artists who need to make a living, but mostly, please display pride merch so that the world can see that despite this evil administration, we are still here, queer, (or your preferred term), and fabulous.
(*queer is my identity. If it isn’t yours insert your own term/alphabet soup here. It isn’t a slur any more than all the other words for us. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, but don’t freakin’ flame me over it.)
We’ve been kicking around (hah) the idea of kickstarting enamel pins, specifically of our Pride Raised Fist & Pride Animals. It’s the most requested item that we don’t currently carry, but it definitely requires a Kickstarter to put that together.
But! Before I start putting together the Kickstarter, I’d like to get an idea from y’all: would an enamel pin of the raised Pride fist (with stretch goals to add flags) be something you’d be interested in? If you really super wanted a Pride Animal, which one would it be?
For reference, the Pride fist is this graphic:
Hi friends! An update on the hopefully-upcoming Kickstarter, with a FAQ!
1) Why start with the raised fist? We’re Socialists, and pro-labor, and the raised fist started as a symbol of pro-union movement in 1917, carried through to 1948 when the stylized version used by Socialist parties around the world came to be, and has been used consistently through to the present day. When we designed this symbol (which has been available on our patches and shirts for a while), we took a few things in mind – a) we were very conscious to style ours after the Socialist fist and b) we used a left fist both because we are leftists and to avoid cross-confusion with the BP salute (right fist) and 1960s/70s feminist icon and c) left-handedness was long associated as a ‘sign of secret gayness’ and so it packed even more symbolism in with us.
2) Are you going to offer the More Color More Pride version? We are actively working with a pin maker now in an attempt to not just do that but do it right. Going from 6 colors to 8 on a 1.25" pin is a not-insignificant challenge and price increase, and we want to be sure that whatever we do looks GOOD. If we do a MCMP pin and it looks like ass, that just sucks.
3) What about other flags like trans, bi, pan, nb, etc.? Our intention is for those to be stretch goals, since each one is a separate pin with separate costs.
4) Who the heck are you, anyway? Why you? We are a family of queer disabled artists (2 adults, one teenager) who run NerdyKeppie and make nerdy, punk, and Pride Judaica, shirts and accessories. This is our full-time gig and keeps a roof over our head and a charge in Mandy’s power wheelchair. And if not now, when, if not me, who?
5) How much? Still waiting on final pricing. It looks like early-bird with shipping will be $13. We intend to do ‘sponsor a pin for someone who can’t afford one’ as an option as well as ‘pick it up from us at a local show so you don’t have to pay postage’ if we can. I don’t know what those will be yet, we’re still trying to make sure we have enough people interested that we CAN do it.
6) Are you using a fair trade pin maker? Our pin manufacturer is a small business dude in the US. We are not importing our pins from overseas and no sweatshops will be involved in their creation. That’s super important to us. See also: we’re fucking socialists. This also means the pins will be a bit more expensive, but, like, we try to live our values.
Uh. I think that’s everything I’ve been asked to this point. Please feel free to share this version of the post – the more folks we have saying ‘yes we’re totally down to do this,’ the better our chances of success.
For Marsha Johnson and all those who were part of the Stonewall Riot and took a stand against the jackbooted thugs who tried to oppress and persecute them
This woman, right here, is what a hero looks like ❤
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 