Okay, This One Is Lower In Quality-but It Was Too Much Fun!

The atheists who hate the terms "culturally Christian" or "Christianized" atheist/atheism, need to come to a reckoning with the fact that most of the people talking about the phenomenon of Christian cultural practices and default assumptions remaining present in atheist communities in historically Christian and Christianized parts of the world, are in fact also atheists.

Jewish atheists, and other atheists from non-Christian cultural backgrounds latched on to "culturally Christian" as a term to describe the ways in which atheist communities dominated by people from majority Christian, or majority Christianized, countries, are hostile to us and don't recognize our forms of atheism and secularism as legitimate, in spite of the fact that we also don't believe in any deity. it also became a convenient term to talk about the ways in which atheists from culturally Christian backgrounds frequently insist that to be properly secular, properly an atheist, you have to assimilate into a specific set of cultural practices viewed by these particular atheists as culturally and religiously neutral, AKA secular. "Culturally Christian" is a convenient term used to point out that these are not in fact culturally neutral practices, and that there are forms of atheism that do not include them, and include other cultural practices, and that atheists from other cultural backgrounds should not have to assimilate into another culture, for our atheism to be considered valid.

So like, the fact that the response to the term culturally Christian is to paint the non culturally Christian people using it, as religious people going after atheists as atheists, is both an example of a culturally Christian phenomenon, and also really obnoxious and ironic, given that the people who are making this argument are usually making it from within the atheist community. We are also atheists, which is why this phenomenon actually matters to us. This is an intra-community discussion, and trying to frame it as the mean religious people going after the atheists, erases our atheism, and is really annoying, and the only thing it serves to do, is to protect the people using this framing, from having to confront what those of us talking about the phenomenon are actually saying.

calling what is happening to trans people in the south an attempt at genocide: correct and ok. it's going to get worse if we don't fight back now

comparing it to the holocaust: not ok and also i'm fucking blocking you.

no genocide is the same. not every genocide mirrors the holocaust. using the deaths of jews, lgbt people, disabled people, and poc during the holocaust as your "gotcha" card every time our rights are in danger today proves you know nothing about the history you're talking about.

disabled people have talked already about how inappropriate it is to touch or grab their mobility aids. but less often i think do people know how to act if they were asked to hold, retrieve, or touch someone's aid (such as crutches or canes as these are the aids i have used and am familiar with)

being friends, family, or partners with a disabled person doesn't grant permission to touch their aids at any time. furthermore having permission to touch an aid - to hold it, pick it up, or retrieve it etc - doesn't give permission to touch or play with them as you please. while keeping in mind that different people's boundaries will vary, here are some things not to do with someone mobility aid:

don't fiddle, stim, or play with it

don't wave it or swing them around

don't hold it by the handle the owner uses to utilize it

do not use the device

do not "test it out"

do not lean your weight on it

[in the case of crutches] do not use them to hop or otherwise take your feet off the ground for fun

try not to drop them or make them unclean

do not adjust any settings

do not use them as a weapon or play-weapon

do not walk immediately behind the air user/out of sight

try not to flip them upside down

what you should do instead:

return the aid immediately when asked. no delays because you were not done with them

hold the aid(s) upright, out of the way from other people by the main body

ask before touching or negotiate times when it is okay to grab without asking (such as if they have been dropped or are falling)

give the aid user increased space and distance to use them safely

try to make sure you aren't forcing an aid user to walk on a sloped path (such as on the pavement/sidewalk)

most importantly, don't take someone's boundaries around their mobility device personally, regardless of how close you two are. disabled people deserve autonomy over the things that support and supplement their body functions just as much as their own body.

i feel like i’m seeing a lot of “grass is greener” syndrome in many marginalized communities rn and i do not love it.

especially when it comes to women having facial hair there are a surprising amount of "feminists" who are just offended by the proposition that some women don't see their facial hair as tragic. Their feelings do not matter because every woman with facial hair should just wish it didn't exist and "automatically" separate themselves from whatever insults they use. You literally do not have a feminist argument to stand on with this. It is still body shaming and it is still bad.

I’m a faggot. I’m a dyke. I’m a tranny. I’m a crossdresser. I’m a transvestite. I’m a pervert. I’m a queer. I am everything and anything and nothing if I want to be. I am every gay, lesbian, trans, ace, bi, nonbinary, queer person that walked this earth before me and will walk this earth after me. No one and I mean no one will ever strip my identity away from me. I am alive. I am here. I am you, your friend, your relative, your coworker, your neighbour, the stranger you opened the door for. No dirty fucking bootlicker will ever get to extinguish my existence. No fucking law or legislation will ever erase me. I will scream, I will bleed, I will fight, I will riot like the elders before me did. My history is written in blood and in sex and in community and in love. I am the passion and filth and desire and hope and anger and hurt and love of all of us. You can change laws, you can silence us, you can try and fucking kill us but we will never die. We will never be erased. We will never stop fighting. You can not kill us. We are everywhere and we are filled with more rage than you can possibly fucking imagine and our love is stronger than your hatred. My brothers, sisters, siblings, fags, dykes, trannys, and all of my queers will outlive you because you can’t kill us. You’ve tried so many times and we’re still here. We will always fucking be here. You want a fight? We’ll give you a fucking riot and we will burn it all down. Fuck you.

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

Wow! Here’s something incredibly personal.

This is Good Bi Gender. A comic I made to express some feelings I have about my gender. I don’t really have that much else to say about it. Here it is.

I saw a video that said lgbtq people in public are constantly trying to navigate being true to themself and pleasing cishet people for safety and often in lgbtq only spaces were constantly worried about what a cishet person would think and thats how we get queer discorse. and I think about that a lot.