That Gay Thread

[Silver]

Harry Styles who?

One Direction who?

Didn't really know who he was till recently.

Harry Styles’ gay sex comments spark huge debate about queerbaiting and outing
Pink News

Styles, 28, has long been faced accusations of queerbaiting – adopting a queer image for profit without being part of the LGBTQ+ community – over his androgynous dress sense and comments about his own identity.

He shrugged off the claim in a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, saying: “Sometimes people say: ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone.”

“I’ve never talked about my life away from work publicly and found that it’s benefited me positively.”

Styles also discussed gay sex scenes in film, ahead of his own in My Policeman, saying that so much of it “is two guys going at it, and it kinds of removes the tenderness from it” – remarks that have spawned ridicule and renewed the queerbaiting debate.

Twitter users were divided by Harry Styles’ refusal to label his sexual orientation.

Other users expressed frustration at the debate, calling on people to speak about other issues afflicting the queer community instead, and said that pressuring someone to come out is not OK.

Harry Styles has been asked on numerous occasions about his sexuality.

Such questions, he told Better Homes & Gardens in April, are “outdated”. His sexuality is one of the few things he says he feels he has control over as a celebrity in the public eye.

“I’ve been really open with it with my friends, but that’s my personal experience; it’s mine,” he said.

“The whole point of where we should be heading, which is toward accepting everybody and being more open, is that it doesn’t matter, and it’s about not having to label everything, not having to clarify what boxes you’re checking.”

[HappySkeptic]

I agree with Harry. Not everyone wants to be labelled.

[Pat Mustard]

Hate-fuelled ‘Gays Against Groomers’ invited on Fox News about being suspended from Twitter
Pink News

The group – whose account has now been reinstated – claims to be fighting against “indoctrinating and sexualising children”, which it says includes “drag queen story hours, drag shows involving children, the transitioning and medicalisation of minors, and gender theory being taught in the classroom.”

Its use of the word “groomer” to conflate queer identities with paedophilia is against Twitter’s hate speech policy, after the social media platform banned the word in July.

After the page was briefly suspended by Twitter, the group’s founder, Jaimee Michell, spoke to Tucker Carlson of Fox News to state that she and the group are “trying to protect children”.

She said the group’s Twitter page had been banned “three times in three months”.

She added: “In any moral society it [sexualising children] would be criminalised, what we see happening, and it should be criminalised… but that doesn’t seem to matter.

“The vast majority of our community [the LGBTQ+ community] stands so strongly against this.”

No, no, no, don't be speaking for me and the rest of the community, you ignorant twat.

Bet you good money they're only pretenring to be gay and five years down the line will come out and say they've been "converted" straight.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Hate-fuelled ‘Gays Against Groomers’ invited on Fox News about being suspended from Twitter
Pink News

The group – whose account has now been reinstated – claims to be fighting against “indoctrinating and sexualising children”, which it says includes “drag queen story hours, drag shows involving children, the transitioning and medicalisation of minors, and gender theory being taught in the classroom.”

Its use of the word “groomer” to conflate queer identities with paedophilia is against Twitter’s hate speech policy, after the social media platform banned the word in July.

After the page was briefly suspended by Twitter, the group’s founder, Jaimee Michell, spoke to Tucker Carlson of Fox News to state that she and the group are “trying to protect children”.

She said the group’s Twitter page had been banned “three times in three months”.

She added: “In any moral society it [sexualising children] would be criminalised, what we see happening, and it should be criminalised… but that doesn’t seem to matter.

“The vast majority of our community [the LGBTQ+ community] stands so strongly against this.”

No, no, no, don't be speaking for me and the rest of the community, you ignorant twat.

I’m sure you know more members of the community than I do, but the ones of my acquaintance seem pretty clear in their objection to sexualizing children.

Boru

[The Architect Of Fate]

Truly sickening how members of a minority will turn on their own in exchange for acceptance

[Irreligious Atheist]

Hate-fuelled ‘Gays Against Groomers’ invited on Fox News about being suspended from Twitter
Pink News


No, no, no, don't be speaking for me and the rest of the community, you ignorant twat.

I’m sure you know more members of the community than I do, but the ones of my acquaintance seem pretty clear in their objection to sexualizing children.

Boru

There are some weird articles in the mainstream like this one https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2...k-consent/ where this person says they want their little kids to see kink at pride and gay men in thongs being spanked with paddles. I think that's going a little too far, personally, or when you have kids at parades petting those guys in dog costumes on leashes. That's going a bit far.

The drag queen stuff is cool though. 10 year old boys doing drag dances? I don't see the big deal. The girls on those shows like Dance Moms have dances that are even more sexualized, and they show far more skin with their butt cheeks sticking out of their costumes. Twerking is just the way everyone dances now, adult or child, and people just need to get used to it. Pole dancing is for all ages now and it's just a regular exercise or form of art now. People need to get with the times.

[Silver]

LibsOfTikTok linked to Russian disinformation campaign to stir outrage over LGBTQ rights
LGBTQ Nation

A video posted this month by the far-right anti-LGBTQ Libs of TikTok Twitter account has since spread among anti-LGBTQ Russian and European disinformation networks, effectively furthering the anti-queer agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The account’s founder has pledged to do even more to threaten LGBTQ lives in the future.

..............

Indeed, the Libs of TikTok account itself has regularly accused pro-LGBTQ teachers of being “groomers” and has called the youth anti-suicide organization The Trevor Project a “grooming organization.” Grooming is a term for gaining the trust of a child so you can rape them. The term has since become a common anti-LGBTQ slur. Gay men were frequently accused of being pedophiles by the religious right although that accusation had faded over the years.

.............

There’s proof that Libs of TikTok’s posts result in real-life threats against queer people and their allies. Raichik’s posts on all-ages drag shows have compelled Proud Boys and other forces to angrily confront LGBTQ parents, their children, allies, and drag performers in public, taking their pictures, and sharing their identities on social media.

[Silver]

U.N. expert ‘alarmed’ over curtailment of LGBTQ, intersex rights in U.S.
Washington Blade

The independent U.N. expert on LGBTQ and intersex issues has expressed concern over efforts to curtail the rights of LGBTQ and intersex people in states across the U.S.

“I am deeply alarmed by a widespread, profoundly negative riptide created by deliberate actions to roll back the human rights of LGBT people at (the) state level,” said Victor Madrigal-Borloz on Tuesday during a press conference. “The evidence shows that, without exception, these actions rely on prejudiced and stigmatizing views of LGBT persons, in particular transgender children and youth, and seek to leverage their lives as props for political profit.”

“Despite five decades of progress, equality is not within reach, and often not even within sight, for all persons impacted by violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the United States,” said Madrigal-Borloz.

Because politics has become a game to the conservatives of this country.

[Rev. Rye]

Harry Styles who?

One Direction who?

Didn't really know who he was till recently.

Harry Styles’ gay sex comments spark huge debate about queerbaiting and outing
Pink News

Styles, 28, has long been faced accusations of queerbaiting – adopting a queer image for profit without being part of the LGBTQ+ community – over his androgynous dress sense and comments about his own identity.

He shrugged off the claim in a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, saying: “Sometimes people say: ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone.”

“I’ve never talked about my life away from work publicly and found that it’s benefited me positively.”

Styles also discussed gay sex scenes in film, ahead of his own in My Policeman, saying that so much of it “is two guys going at it, and it kinds of removes the tenderness from it” – remarks that have spawned ridicule and renewed the queerbaiting debate.

Twitter users were divided by Harry Styles’ refusal to label his sexual orientation.

Other users expressed frustration at the debate, calling on people to speak about other issues afflicting the queer community instead, and said that pressuring someone to come out is not OK.

Harry Styles has been asked on numerous occasions about his sexuality.

Such questions, he told Better Homes & Gardens in April, are “outdated”. His sexuality is one of the few things he says he feels he has control over as a celebrity in the public eye.

“I’ve been really open with it with my friends, but that’s my personal experience; it’s mine,” he said.

“The whole point of where we should be heading, which is toward accepting everybody and being more open, is that it doesn’t matter, and it’s about not having to label everything, not having to clarify what boxes you’re checking.”

Frankly, I've been working under the assumption that Harry Styles is pansexual for years, and it'd make sense if that was part of why he doesn't like labeling his sexuality; he's open to so much that the gender of the other person doesn't even really register to him.

And funny thing, as someone who writes for an Anglophile blog, I actually went out of my way to avoid talking about him during his One Direction days, making exactly two exceptions:
1) They released their video for "Best Song Ever," and made the bizarre decision to devote the first 2 1/2 minutes to a sketch where the band plays themselves and staff of their record label.



2) A surprising number of fans taking Zayn leaving the band so badly that they went as far as asking for compassionate leave to cope with the news.
I wish I was kidding

And that changed when he started his solo career and made the decision to debut his second single on SNL and play the sort of guitar that one only sees on Jazzmen or maybe rockabilly guitarists.



That intrigued me enough to look into "Sign of the Times," and he's stayed on my radar ever since.

[Silver]

10 LGBTQ+ Books to Read in 2022
Gayety

This Poison Heart
Obie is Man Enough
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
Icebreaker
Ophelia After All
Infamous
Mademoiselle Revolution
She Who Became the Sun
The Circus Infinite
The Women's House of Detention