blessed to have touched the sun

87daysbefore:

norsegays:

astrolope:

People being angry about ~dem gays~ on Target’s Facebook.

I just want to give my two cents on this and tell you a story.

A couple weeks ago, I was hired at Target. I have a job at Target. Not a big deal right?

It is a big deal because i’m a transman.

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that it’s hard for me, my brothers, and sisters to get a job. There are legal restraints regarding the job and if you don’t pass, it’s hard to be taken seriously at a job interview.

Right on the application, it asks what your preferred name is. It also asks if there is anything that target should know. I put the fact that I am a transman, expecting not to get a call because usually when you put that down, people will throw out the application. I got TWO interviews.

At the interview, they asked me about it. I told them I am on hormones and they told me that they didn’t care. Not in the sense that they don’t emotionally care, but that it didn’t matter. I was male and that’s all that mattered. They also told me that they give sex same couples benefits in states that do not recognize them as a married couple.

At my job orientation, I was not misgendered once. Even my supervisors who weren’t sure of my gender avoided pronoun use, which I found only happens when you’ve had pronoun training. They gave me a name tag with my preferred name and didn’t ask questions. I felt safe and respected, which is huge for a trans* person.

TLDR: Target is amazing not just for the LGB, but also the T. Shop there for the rest of your life.

as much as it’s a stressful job, target is the best place i’ve ever worked and they care about their employees so much. you can literally go back to target and start working again whenever. they don’t just drop you. god i love target.

spaceycrazylady:

donaldglover:

20 Young People Who Believe Marriage Should Be Between a Man and a Woman

So. No gay marriage:

Because God.

Because you’re not a lesbian.

Because God.

Because you want to be a princess…

Because God.

Well, it’s good to see such all-inclusive, well-rounded arguments that pertain to people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs.

fotojournalismus:

In Uganda, gay people are being forced into exile. If a new bill becomes law, homosexuality will be punishable by death – which means many people are choosing to leave and seek asylum elsewhere. With the vote on the country’s anti-homosexuality bill set to become public in the coming days, photographer Mathias Christensen met gay people in Uganda who fear the changing of the law.

Gay people in Uganda: love on the run

by Rasmus Thirup Beck

(via Guardian)

“Five police officers force three young men out of their one-room slum dwelling in Kampala, with no explanation. As they are dragged down the slum’s main shopping street, their neighbours’ hateful shouts make their “crime” all too clear: “Beat those gays up!” “Kill those monsters!” “Give them what they deserve!”

Threats were also issued – threats they had heard before:

“We’ll burn down your house!”

After two days in a small, dirty prison cell they are released. Now they’ve gone underground, and hope to gain asylum in another country.

“We don’t dare to live here any more. We have felt unsafe for a long time and it only gets worse. It’s all the talk about that law that agitates people. If it is passed I am sure they will burn down the house,” says one, a 23-year-old transsexual who prefers to be called “Bad Black” for safety reasons.

The law he refers to is the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill, which is set to become reality in Uganda within days. It is already illegal to commit a homosexual act in the country, but a unified parliament now supports a tightening of the law, which, among other things, will make it punishable by death to be a “serial offender”.

The parliamentarian behind the bill is David Bahati. He describes homosexuality as an evil that has to be fought. He also says that he and his peers “do not hate the homosexuals but the sin in them”.

Bahati’s reference to sin reveals the direct connection between Uganda’s politicians and a group of very influential pastors. One of these pastors is Moses Solomon Male, who travels the country presenting his talk, Understanding the Challenges of Homosexuality (Sodomy).

“Those homosexuals … They call it anal sex. It ruins the anus. And they say they enjoy it,” said Male in a recent speech to Sunday-school pupils in a Kampala suburb. He also described the cornerstone of both the pastors’ and the politicians’ argument against homosexuals: That they are “recruiting” innocents to their side – especially children.

LGBT rights advocates are doing their best to challenge these views – and the bill. One of these, transsexual activist Pepe Julian Onziema, has courageously come out with his message as well as his sexuality. Homosexuality is not something you become, it is something you are, he stresses.

“The only thing we can do is to try to inform as many people as possible about how we’re human beings just like them – just with different sexual preferences,” he explains.”

All photographs taken by Mathias Christensen.

BREAKING: Obama signs LGBT-inclusive domestic violence bill