Got some wild looks for this.
my poetry / my face / college life / photog / youtube / my band / my blog / my 1%
ask me anything
i'm tianna, a 19 year old queer feminist atheist vegan sophomore at goucher college.
i'm in love with harry potter, mumford and sons, wizard rock, drarry, wolfstar, kristen stewart, lord of the rings, tegan and sara, the l word, les miserables, cats, goodwill, and my girlfriend katie.
• Ask me anythinghere, at the end of all things.
Can anyone recommend any queer movies that are happy? Preferably women focused.
Not much of a choice.
I want to be what society considers feminine. So much so that people would never wonder whether I’m a boy or not. They’d see my “I’m not really a waitress” nail polish and my Pretty in Pink lipstick and my bronzer and they wouldn’t think twice. That one time I walked into FedEx and the cashier asked me, “are you a girl?” Yeah, that would never have happened.
If I was more feminine, I would walk down the street with my hips swaying, my ass nicely outlined by a salmon colored satin dress with a nice little impractically sized pocket right over my right boob. I would have a brown shoulder bag that would bounce off my hip every time I stepped daintily on the sidewalk in my high straw wedges.
If I was more feminine, I would attract men with my award winning smile. Women would have no idea that I’m a lesbian, but it’d be okay because I have a girlfriend, which they also wouldn’t know about. I’d play hard to get and strut at the movie theater past boys who were immature in our high school geometry class. Their X-ray stares would seep through my clothes and I’d feel dirty just being in their presence, but I’d disguise my disgust by smiling through my Funky Fuchsia lip gloss.
If I was more feminine, I would purse my lips and glue on falsies for bedroom photoshoots. I would post makeup tutorials on YouTube and people would be taken aback and horrified when I spoke my mind. People would take one look at my long brown hair that would curl down to my elbows and Katie beside me and they’d know I’m the femme to her butch.
I would roll my eyes and want to vomit at cat calls near the ATM next to Mad Mex and I would laugh them off with my straight friends later. I would wear cute underwear with bows and push up bras and I’d fill in my eyebrows and draw on cat eye eyeliner, whatever that means. I would do bikini waxes and shave every other day and never participate in No Shave November. And I would never wander into GameStop, never do yard work, never walk down the street without a man. After all, that’s what I’ve been told is feminine.
But I want to be masculine. I want to make people believe I live on the edge even when I don’t. I want to make people question my gender identity. I want to march down the street in Doc Martens that reach my calves. And from there up would be black Levi’s and a blue button up with practical pockets. I might even have a matching hat.
If I was more masculine, my crew cut wouldn’t confuse anyone. My showers would be even shorter than they are now and I wouldn’t even have to towel dry my hair. People would take one look at it and automatically assume my sexuality, and they wouldn’t be too surprised when I set my eyes on that curvy girl in Forever 21. But they’d question why I walked in in the first place.
If I was more masculine, I would be the butch to my girlfriend’s butch and it would confuse the living hell out of people. They would strain their eyes trying to find something feminine that she does so that she could become the girly one. My dad would hardly notice, since he wants to buy me manly pants for the sole purpose of fitting my iPhone in them, but my mom would be crushed when I would reject her spontaneous, cheap makeup gifts.
I would get teased even more often for being vegan, because “that’s a girly thing,” but when people would see my feminist patches on my jean jacket, they’d roll their eyes and go, “stereotype.” I would never paint my nails and I would always file them down, making sure they can’t make that annoying clicking sound my ex hated so much when I rap them on the table.
Whether I present more masculine or feminine or a mixture of both, people will always try to peel off my skin and try see what I really am. It’ll always bother me when I’m holding hands with my girlfriend in public and people stare judgingly, but it’d also hurt if I didn’t have a girlfriend to hold hands with and no obvious signal for them to know I’m not straight. All I really want is for people to pass me by on the street without a word.
“In Defense of Fan Fiction”
It’s exactly what the title sounds like. I thought you’d enjoy, Tumblr. ;)
okay so my girlfriend sent me the one on the left and said “come at me, Revolution, this Grantaire is ready >:(“
and i replied with the second photo and said “Grantaire put that bottle down and stop taking selfies, weve got a revolution to fight!”
e/r live in the age of iphones now
i know i know this is normal couples activity for a wednesday night
you just jelly
My girlfriend keeps pausing her video game to text me back. According to the Internet this is a sign we should, like, marry or something.
Right?
On Westboro Baptist, Religion, & Heterosexism
Where to begin? I was going to make a video out of this material, but I figured I would be more eloquent if I wrote it down. And hopefully more people view this than my YouTube videos (lolz).
You’ve heard of how horrific Westboro Baptist is. You probably saw that interview with Russell Brand. They’re messed up, right?
We have to remind ourselves that Westboro Baptist is, yes, horrific, but an extreme example of horrificness. They are not alone in their views. You can be heterosexist and be much more subtle about it, and when Westboro speaks [some] people toss their shit in the air and scream because they can’t handle such extremist views, when actually, that same extremist view is filtered down and dissipated onto, like, all of us. From the time we’re born we’re taught being straight is right. It’s normal, that’s why it’s lawful.
Here’s your friendly reminder that heterosexism and its effects come in a ridiculous array of forms. I am emphasizing the effects because most people would not agree that it is necessarily heterosexist for a countless amount of people to glare at my girlfriend and I holding hands or kissing in public. A glance is not necessarily heterosexist. But it can not be separated from heterosexism. Heterosexism is a belief. It can be acted upon in any number of ways, from subtle (mean looks) to extreme (Westboro. I’m not saying they’re THE MOST heterosexist thing ever, but hopefully you get the point).
As far as subtle goes, I’ve heard my whole life that “homosexuals” need “praying for.” Okay. Let’s take a step back for a second. Is it the 1950s? Do we really have to use “a homosexual” to define people? How often do people come out and say “I’m a homosexual”? “A homosexual.” As if it is the dirtiest, most condemning disease you could contract. Can we just drop “homosexual” as a noun? Shit.
I digress. So why do we need praying for? We don’t. I first kissed a girl when I was about 6 years old (that’s a different story) and I didn’t start realizing I had feelings for girls until I was about 12 and I was falling in love with my best friend. This is because society screamed silently at me, endlessly, to make me believe that IT’S ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE! Straight is the way, damn it!
Recently my parents have taken to buying my brother’s girlfriend nice things and treating her like a daughter. My cousin just got married to his girlfriend and more family attended their wedding than we even have. My other cousin who’s a year younger than me just got engaged today and is moving into a house with his girlfriend. My other cousin is keeping his and his girlfriend’s new baby from his family until they get “their shots updated.” Imagine those situations with a gay couple and how outsiders would view them. Meanwhile, my girlfriend has always been “Tianna’s friend” and nothing more. And it shouldn’t be that way.
I have had the amazing opportunity to attend a college with a lesbian chaplain, and as a co-president of our Queer Student Union I hosted a Religious & Queer Identities Panel at our school. That chaplain said, “Your sexual orientation is not a sin.” At the same panel, a religion professor said, “Anyone who says ‘love the sinner hate the sin’ is just trying to excuse their bigotry.” The same professor also said that you should not be ashamed for cutting ties with people who preach “love the sinner, hate the sin.” These women’s words will stay nestled in my heart forever, because I know what they said is true, and for once I had someone voice that truth back to me. If theists knew their religious texts so well, they would know that your sexual orientation is not a sin. I have distanced myself without shame from people who ridiculously believe that I need prayed for by a god I don’t even believe in.
Which leads me to my next point. As an atheist, I am torn between anger and laughter when someone says I am going to hell or that they are praying for me. In case you haven’t noticed, atheists do not believe in the concept of hell. So, yeah, empty threat there. Also, why are you praying for me? Why? Look at your life, look at your choices. I don’t need you to pray for me. I would not ask for that. I do not need it. It makes me sick to think about. Stop it. Stop it right now. I am a queer atheist. I am a queer atheist. I am a queer atheist and I don’t need your shit.
Lastly, stop being creepy. Stop prying into my life and worrying about what I do in bed. Would you even know if I “act on my homosexuality” without me telling you? Are you imagining me in various lesbian sex positions at all hours of the day? What is your fascination with queer people? Stop praying for me. Just stop. And start realizing the effect heterosexism has on not just society, but on you as an individual.
XOXOxoxoxoxo0024601-
Tianna
the future
i am writing this on 3:35 am november 23rd, 2012. it is thanksgiving break, and we are home from college. you are sleeping hundreds of miles away and i am laying on my back with my laptop propped up on my legs. safari tells me that my tumblr and facebook and vegan recipe and goodreads and musiciansfriends tabs are waiting for my attention. just now i was trying to get some sleep, but then i thought of your warm body behind my back and i had to write this down.
i doubt these will be complete thoughts, but they will be thoughts nonetheless.
we are sophomores in college. i only chose to go to our school thanks to a desperate last minute search on collegeboard.com. ours turned out to be not too far from my house, in an area familiar to me, and they had a good english program. they accepted me past their application deadline, and i almost peed myself with excitement.
and then we started talking on facebook and i thought “this is one cute lesbian and i am scared i may have feelings for her some day.” but you know that. you know all of that. you know how i knew before you came out to me and you knew how i fell for you because we’ve talked about it a dozen times already.
we’ve been dating for over a year, and our future is not too far away. and when i say the future, i mean the “real world.” that scary faceless entity that i’ve feared for as long as i can remember. and that “real world” is barely 3 years away. whether we choose to go to grad school or not, wherever we choose to live, whatever we choose to spend our lives doing, it’s all so close. decisions are zooming toward us like it’s no biggie. and though i doubt i’ll get over my fear of death any time soon, i think i’m starting to get over my fear of the future.
in college, we take turns buying groceries and cooking and washing dishes and doing laundry and making the bed (ok, that’s mainly you) and taking the trash out (pfft mainly me) and other chores. we both get lazy sometimes but we push each other to get the hell out of bed and do our work. and it seems meaningless, all of our school work, because when you’re there i don’t know why i’m writing about jane austen when i could be telling you some little story about my childhood. and yes, women’s studies is relevant, but if i’m not sharing it with you, what’s the point? but there’s not time to share everything about our homework, and it makes me sad that so much of our time being together at college is spent doing… well, college things. but when we’re not at college, we’re 7 hours apart and it hurts.
but you know what? fuck that pain. because i have you, and that forces me to realize that we have a chance in our crazy futures. i have you, and we’ve already made decisions that could take years for other people. i have you, and i have made decisions that i could not have come to without you.
we will get an apartment in some city that has a lot of gay people. and we will try out a lesbian bar and laugh if there’s any shanes or alices or helenas. we will look for tumblr meetups in the city and meet all the weird foodie bloggers and doctor who nerds and liam hemsworth lovers and i’ll laugh and go “yshisha marryyyyy” and you’ll crack up and we’ll get weird looks. and then we’ll leave and try to find vegan cupcakes but there won’t be any so we’ll go back to our apartment and plan our own vegan bakery. and then we’ll open it and get rich from all the vegans who desperately wanted more cupcakes in their lives.
and every day we’ll wake up and i’ll be sprawled out with my left leg on top of your stomach and your arm pressed up against the wall - oh, wait, no, it won’t be that way, because we’ll have a real bed and not a mini college twin mattress with egg crate foam that slips off every so often. it will be a king sized bed, set up in the middle of a room that could be a closet or a master bedroom and i probably wouldn’t notice because you’d be there. we’d have 3 cats. one of them would be calico and two would be black cats from the shelter, because black cats are cheaper on black friday and we’d be jumping on that as soon as possible. and we’ll have a framed map of middle earth on the wall and an endless supply of candles.
and i will dye and cut your hair and you will rub my feet and read me to sleep and i’ll clean our room and it won’t be perfect, but i won’t care. i will love you until i lose my ability to love, and then some.
and when you get home from work, i’ll smile and say “baaaaby” until you come over and lay on top of me and we smile and roll around and hug until we’re smiled and rolled out and we will just kiss because words will be too overwhelming. i will rub your belly and be glad to see you and we will be making our own living and our relatives will visit us with advice and we might take it or we might laugh it off. and we will have published books and go on book tours and play concerts in the local bookstore sometimes and we will have comfortable furniture
and an exorbitant amount of gay books.
and the rest is up to you.
i can’t wait to live the future with you.
Day 14 - Is the sexuality of your characters a large part of your novel’s story? If so, are there characters who deviate from the heterosexual “norm”? In what way?
yes! my story is full of queerness. my main character alex is a lesbian, her best friend is bisexual, and she meets many queer people throughout the story. alex is about to find her player side right now actually ;D
Day 15 - Do any of your characters have a disability or mental illness? If so, how does that affect their development throughout your story?
no, not yet.
now off to writing!
