Selections from Femmes Unite!, a zine I found in the QZAP.
Our femme foreparents identified proudly as queers and dykes and fags. They were inclusive of femmes of all genders and sexualities. They used neopronouns, they were genderqueer, they were polyamorous, they fought for social justice, they were fat, they were trans women and cis women and trans men and cis men.
Images are screenshots of a scanned zine. Some parts are blurry and oriented at different angles, all are in black and white.
Image 1 reads: “F. A. G. PDX (Femme Affinity Group Portland) is a radical ACTIVIST AND SOCIAL group that seeks to create solidarity among femmes, promote femme visibility and combat femme phobia in the community at large. The group is open to self-identified femmes of all genders.
Image 2 reads: “I am that dyke detective / sensitive and tough / I am queer first and that’s enough”
Image 3 reads: “(femmes love boys too) / By Katrina Enyeart”. The byline is in italics.
Image 4 reads: “We are malcontent / we are deviant / we fuck gender as much as / gender fucks us / we are polyamorous / and running from messed up pasts / we have all lived our lies” with cut off text at the top and bottom.
Image 5 reads: “My new friend was a fabulously femme fag who had amazingly over the top fashion sense, wore a lot of glitter all the time, was a sassy bitch and on top of all that he was a sweetheart. I learned so much about the kind of person I wanted to be from him and even today hold my high school image of him as one of my gender role models.
He was male assigned and skinny while I was female assigned”. At the end the text cuts off.
Image 6 reads: “guarantee you it will always end with “Fat Bitch” So I reclaimed it, I embrace it and I get Power from it. It gives me courage to continue fighting, But most importantly it has nurtured me and helped me to love myself and my fat body, it has taught me that I am worth it and I am Fucking beautiful.” The text is on a background of hearts.
Image 7 reads: “jack radish is a fat femme, queer, trans and fabulous. he is interested in actively learning to be the kind of ally he wants folks to be to him. he grew up in modeato, california and bloomfield hills, michigan and is currently”. The text cuts off at the end.
Image 8 reads: “Mr. Mason is a femme identified trans-fag who loves to play dress up, bake pies and have photo-shoots. This pink wearing dirty old man is often seen roaming the streets with his fatty femme posse, eatin’ snacks and fuckin’ the binary. drop a line at”. The email address after “drop a line at” is redacted with a black stripe.
Image 9 reads: “She is a femme identified dyke, musician, and occasionally an artist. Her interests are Queermosexuals, Revolution, and Evangelical Feminism. She also happens to be transgender.” The last part of the image, an email address, is redacted with a black stripe.
Image 10 reads: “dana rae parker: aka: dr. love - is a recent totally! “displaced” mississippian now livin it up in pdx. Ze enjoys short walks on the beach that end with making-out and sand in the ass crack. Passions include! creating a family of supportive radical folks, workin [sic] on internalized shit and fightin [sic] against those institutions ya know: racism, sexism, abelism [sic], sizeism [sic], the mental health industry, prison industry, capitalism and other violent things. Ze enjoys revolution and you!”
Edit because apparently boundaries aren’t a thing: STOP TAGGING THIS AS “Q SLUR” OR ITS EUPHEMISMS (Q WORD, Q POWER, ETC). You will be blocked.
there is so much overlap between ADHD and autism (and so many people who fit the criteria for both) that it’s likely they will eventually end up being reclassified as related orders, or as members of the same spectrum. this is a good thing that will make it easier for people to get an accurate and helpful diagnosis! in the meantime, I’m so proud of how much solidarity I see between ADHD and autistic folks online. I see ya’ll pooling resources and sharing tools & coping strategies, and just generally offering support and acceptance, and I am so proud.
If we can say Denali instead of Mt. McKinley then we can say Lawetlat'la instead of Mt. St Helens. The mountain is named Tahoma, not Rainier. Naming a mountain after Jefferson doesn’t erase its true name of Seekseekqua.
One name tells of the thousand years indigenous history and culture of the tribes who live there. The other name tells me nothing but colonialism.
Mt. Baker: Kulshan
Glacier Peak: Dahkobed
Mt. Rainier: Tahoma
Mt. St. Helens: Lawetlat'la
Mt. Adams: Klickitat
Mt. Hood: Wy'east
Mt. Jefferson: Seekseekqua
Three Sisters: Klah Klahne
BRB, adding “look up the indigenous names of Colorado mountains” to my to do list, because you’re 100% right.
Great Idea! Does anyone have a rec for a pronunciation guide? I’ve got reading disorders and I would like to say these right.
Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals in life today, has drawn up the list of the 10 strategies of manipulation through mass media.
Give 5 minutes and you won’t regret it.
If only to expand your knowledge.
1-The strategy of distraction
The primordial element of social control is the distraction strategy that consists of diverting the public’s attention from major problems and the changes decided by political and economic elites, through flooding of continuous distractions and insignificant information.
Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public from becoming interested in essential knowledge in the area of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics. Keeping the audience’s attention deviated from real social problems, imprisoned by themes without real importance.
Keeping the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think, back to the farm like other animals (quoted in the text ′′ Silent weapons for quiet wars ′′).
2-Creating problems and then offering the solutions.
This method is also called the ′′ problem-reaction-solution “. It creates a problem, a ′′ situation ′′ planned to cause a certain reaction from the public, with the aim that this is the mandate of the measures they want to accept. For example: letting urban violence intensify or intensify, or organize bloody attacks, with the aim of the public being those requiring security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom. Also: create an economic crisis to make social rights demotion and dismantle public services accept as a necessary evil.
3-The Strategy of Graduation.
To make an unacceptable measure accepted, you only need to apply it gradually, to dropper, for consecutive years. This is how radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberism) were imposed during the decades of the 80 s and 90 s: minimum state, privatisation, precariousness, flexibility, mass unemployment, wages that no longer guarantee dignified incomes , so many changes that would have brought about a revolution if they were implemented at once.
4-The Strategy of Deferring.
Another way to get an unpopular decision to accept is to present it as ′′ painful and necessary ”, gaining public acceptance, in the moment, for future application. It is easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate sacrifice. First, because effort isn’t that taken immediately. Second, because the public, the mass, always tends to naively hope that ′′ everything will be better tomorrow ′′ and that the required sacrifice could be avoided. This gives the audience more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it resigned when the time comes.
5-Reach to the public like children.
Most publicity advertising uses speeches, topics, characters and a particularly childish intonation, many times close to weakness, as if the viewer was a few years old creature or a mental moron. When you try to deceive the viewer the more you tend to use a childish tone. Why? Why? ′′ If someone addresses a person as if they are 12 or under, then based on suggestionability, they will probably tend to a response or reaction even without a critical sense like that of a 12 person. years or less ′′ (see ′′ Silent Weapons for quiet wars ′′).
6-Using emotional aspect much more than reflection.
Take advantage of emotion it’s a classic technique to provoke a short circuit on a rational analysis and, finally, the critical sense of the individual. Additionally, the use of emotional register allows the unconscious access door to implant or inject ideas, desires, fears and fears, compulsions, or induce behaviors.
7-Keeping the public in ignorance and mediocrity.
Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used for their control and slavery.
′′ The quality of education given to lower social classes must be as poor and mediocre as possible, so that the distance of ignorance that plans between lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to fill from the lower classes “.
8-Stimulating the public to be complacent with mediocrity.
Pushing the audience to think it’s fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and ignorant…
9-Strengthening self-guilt.
Making the individual believe that he is only the culprit of his disgrace, because of his insufficient intelligence, skills or efforts. So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual devalues himself and blames himself, which in turn creates a depressive state, one of whose effects is the inhibition of his action. And without action there is no revolution!
10-Knowing individuals better than they know themselves.
Over the past 50 years, science’s rapid progress has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those possessed and used by dominant elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology, and applied psychology, the ′′ system ′′ has enjoyed advanced knowledge of the human being, both in its physical and psychological form. The system has managed to learn better about the common individual than he knows himself. This means that, in most cases, the system exercises greater control and greater power over individuals, greater than that which the same individual exercises over himself.
