deadryn.

There's two layers to it. One is fairly utilitarian: if you're trying to hook up for gay sex it's kind of useful to know who's going to be doing what.

The other is that i think a lot of queers don't actually unlearn the harm of sexual binarism and basically recreate the old structures they hated but with fancy fun gay colors instead.

It's fully reasonable to realize your queer identity and breath a huge sigh of relief, to go "wow, I'm so glad I've found a space where I'm not forced to be in that role." But the trap is in taking that relief and moving on without interrogating it.

Why did that suck? Because it hurt you. Okay, true. Why did it hurt you?

A common mistake i see many queers make is that they, feeling an intense resentment to their former enforced identity, respond with "because the identity was bad!"

No. The enforcement was bad. Maybe the enforcement was so bad you can never even approach similar identities again! But it was the enforcement that caused harm.

Gay men who leave enforced heterosexuality may very well turn around and say "heterosexuality was the problem!" And then recreate the most comically misogynistic "women are submissive, men are dominant" dynamics imaginable except with "top" and "bottom" replacing "man" and "woman". Ctrl+F. Because the freedom of homosexuality became about escaping heterosexuality to this strawman, not about escaping the rigid enforcement of heterosexuality.

overwhelming to imagine the mental calculus of worrying about fasting during a systematic starvation. keeping tradition alive while still staying healthy; trying to enjoy iftar in the imperial core while knowing your tax dollars abet mass starvation. belated ramadan mubarak and solidarity with palestinians and those fasting everywhere.

Looked around and found this article about exactly this.

Death ends their misery, but forever denies them the relief that they were seeking. Part of Ramadan’s joy is the act of looking forward: to iftar, the meal that breaks the fast every evening; to Laylat al-Qadr, the night when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad; to the feast of Eid, which marks the end of daily sacrifice. How do you celebrate the holy month when you fear the suffering will not end?

God prescribes fasting as a means of self-discipline, a way to show Muslims what they’re capable of and to protect themselves from hellfire. But He is merciful; not everyone is called on to fast, especially if doing so causes harm. The Quran grants exceptions to those who are pregnant, breast-feeding, or menstruating, and to people who are travelling, elderly, or ill. Starvation or P.T.S.D. would count as illnesses; fleeing your home would count as travel. These exemptions seem almost absurd, and maybe they won’t matter. Some will choose to fast regardless. Sometimes the best way to forget one pain is to focus on another.

hey y'all, jae here. it's been a bit since our last financial update (we've had A Lot going on, both personally and within the business) but we're at a point where we aren't going to get meaningfully more information by continuing to wait to publish this. as always, if you have questions about any terms it's worth taking a look at past financial updates.

"We haven't been able to contact the person we rely on for our regular rounds of funding" is one of those nightmare scenarios because, like, why would you ever plan against it? How would you even begin to see it coming? I hope the person, whoever they are, is okay, but like, goddamn dude. What a fuckin unimaginable amount of uncertainty to have to live under if you're @staff!

If you like the site (you should) and want to help out in the short term (you should), the best way is to drop a subscription (or several) to Cohost Plus. It's the best way of getting money into the hands of the developers and extending their runway for either developing more revenue-generating features (people have expressed support for user-purchased ads, which is nice, but there is currently no site infrastructure to support that) and/or hear back from their investor. There's currently less than 3k Cohost Plus subscribers, so, fuck it, maybe we can double that.

Also, while it's understandable that it might have felt inappropriate for them to bring it up in a financial update, it's worth remembering that 1/4 of @staff just had to very literally flee their home state in the last month to escape transphobic legislation that would have put their personal safety in very real danger. This is something that's difficult to deal with under ideal circumstances, and frankly insane to have to deal with while also stressing about finances at their day job. This should perhaps move the needle on whether you sign up or not!

"It is a fact people are discriminated against for being HIV positive. It is a fact the majority of the Nazi industrialists retained their wealth after war. It is a fact the night belongs to Michelob and Coke is real. It is a fact the color of your skin matters. It is a fact Crazy Eddie’s prices are insane. It is a fact that four colors red, black, green and white placed next to each other in any form are strictly forbidden by the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories. This color combination can cause an arrest, a beating, a curfew, a shooting, or a news photograph. Yet it is a fact that these forbidden colors, presented as a solitary act of consciousness here in SoHo, will not precipitate a similar reaction.
From the first moment of encounter, the four colour canvases in this room will “speak” to everyone. Some will define them as an exercise in color theory, or some sort of abstraction. Some as four boring rectangular canvases hanging on the wall. Now that you’ve read this text, I hope for a different message."

Félix González-Torres (1957–1996) is described by his foundation's linked biographer as "one of the most significant artists to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s," as his work "resonates with meaning that is at once specific and mutable, rigorous and generous, poetic and political."

One of his most well-known installation pieces is "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), which is a pile of candy weighing 175 pounds and was first exhibited in his gallery in 1991, the year his partner Ross Laycock died of AIDS-related complications.

A full gallery of the artist's work can be viewed on his foundation's page.

Regarding the specific piece above, it should be repeated that Forbidden Colors was originally produced/exhibited in 1988.

Free Palestine. 🇵🇸