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eyes-of-golden-lies:

Hey guys, this is my little brother, Mikey. He’s 9 years old. The other day my best friend and I were watching “Americas next top model” and he came in the room and got really upset at how all of the girls seemed to be breaking down over the things they couldn’t control. One girl, who was very thin, was complaining that she was a “fat bitch” and how she needed to lose at least 10lbs. Another girl, quite beautiful, was complaining that her nose was too big for her face. Then Mikey started lecturing Chloe and me on how stupid they were. He was questioning how such beautiful girls could do this to themselves. We tried to explain to him how its not just them, everyone does it and it really upset him. So he wrote himself a little script and asked me for my laptop. He sat there for about two hours trying to make everything perfect so he could try to tell all the girls and guys out there who feel bad about themselves that they’re all beautiful and society is stupid. Please reblog this and share it with your friends for Mikey and his urge to make everyone aware of their beauty. 

tionam: Bumming Cigarettes is a short film about a brief and intimate meeting between a young Black lesbian woman who is in the process of taking an HIV test and a middle aged Black Gay HIV Positive man. Coming off of the devastation of a bad breakup with a girlfriend, Vee musters up the courage to go and take an HIV test to put her worst fears to rest. What she experiences during her trip to a local clinic is much more than she expects while sharing a cigarette with a stranger, Jimmy, during the 10 minutes that she awaits her test results. Written & Directed by: tiona.m. Bumming Cigarettes. World Premiere. Philadelphia QFest. Date & Time: Friday, July 20, 2012 at 7:15 pm. Location: Philadelphia, PA- Ritz Bourse 2 Tickets: $10 Tickets and more info can be found HERE
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tionam:

Bumming Cigarettes is a short film about a brief and intimate meeting between a young Black lesbian woman who is in the process of taking an HIV test and a middle aged Black Gay HIV Positive man. Coming off of the devastation of a bad breakup with a girlfriend, Vee musters up the courage to go and take an HIV test to put her worst fears to rest. What she experiences during her trip to a local clinic is much more than she expects while sharing a cigarette with a stranger, Jimmy, during the 10 minutes that she awaits her test results.

Written & Directed by: tiona.m.

Bumming Cigarettes.

World Premiere. Philadelphia QFest.

Date & Time: Friday, July 20, 2012 at 7:15 pm.

Location: Philadelphia, PA- Ritz Bourse 2

Tickets: $10

Tickets and more info can be found HERE

(Source: facebook.com)

janetmock:

It’s rare that trans women are given the mic to speak about our experiences on our own terms, and it’s an even rarer occurrence when we women of color get to share space with one another and truth tell in a public space.

I’m proud of the nearly 10 minutes I shared with Isis King, who came into the media’s focus when she was recruited to compete on Cycle 11 of America’s Next Top Model in 2008. I’m proud to call Isis my dear sister and to be able to speak with her about our public lives.

For In The Life Media’s landmark 20th season, Isis and I discuss living visibly as trans women, our personal experiences in the media and our views on “tranny” and divisive trans terminology.

I’d like to use this space to clarify three things:

1. Isis mentioned Laverne Cox as one of the only examples she’s known of trans women like herself on television. I’d like to highlight the fact that other sisters are and have also represented on television: Carmen Carrera, Candis Cayne, Jamie Clayton, Nina Poon, Harmony Santana and Nong Ariyaphon Southiphong.

2. I made a statement about our responsibility to educate others about our experiences. I said, “You have to use your life as a teaching moment.” It’s a personal choice to do so, and it’s a responsibility that I take on, but it is NOT our job to educate people about us. I was reminded of this when I read Janani Balasubramanian’s essay “Brown Silence,” where she so eloquently writes: “Not everyone’s education needs to be our responsibility all the time…Our words and energy should also be conserved.”

3. I also said the dehumanization of trans women in the media “leads to trans women hurting themselves in a way that they feel they don’t deserve more.” Instead, I’d like to add that the systematic dehumanization of trans women through words, images and the lack thereof of words and images that represent the totality of our experiences actually is what contributes to others seeing us as less than human therefore justifying the violence, battery, criminalization and murders we face. 

Finally, I hope conversations like these continue to happen, and that they happen with a wide array of women, because it’s only in hearing a plethora of our voices do we paint a more realistic portrait of womanhood. 

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