Did you know that about 1 in 12 sheep is gay? And we are not just talking about rams. According to scientists, same-sex behaviour has been documented in over 1500 species. You see,
queerness is quite prevalent on planet Earth. But sadly, there are still many people that have a problem with it. The shocking truth is: 62 countries still criminalize same-sex
relationships – that’s right, it’s illegal to be gay in one third of the world! And even where it is not illegal, cases of queer hostility are increasing – including in Germany.
This is why we are getting the help from a gay flock of rams in a small town in Germany: We are using their wool to create fashion products that support projects for the queer
community.
Meet the world’s first gay flock of sheep
Sadly, gay rams are often sent to slaughter because they can’t fulfill a farm’s “breeding role.” We rescue them before that happens, giving them a safe home where they can live and
love freely. Each year, their wool is crafted into fashion, with profits donated to the queer charity LSVD+. You can also adopt a gay ram – helping cover food and
medicine to keep them happy and healthy for life. Every adoption comes with a digital certificate you can print at home.
…
Well this is just adorable.
About 1 in 12 rams (and a similar proportion of ewes) show a strong preference for other sheep of their same sex. Which is useless for breeders, who expect their rams to be able to
impregnate 40 ewes per fortnight, so such rams tend to be destroyed.
But this farm in Germany has started rescuing them and allowing people to “adopt a gay sheep” to help sponsor their care and upkeep. They also collect a small amount of wool from their
queer flock and make products (which almost-immediately sell out).
So yeah: there’s a flock of homosexual sheep living happily together on a farm in Germany, and that’s just awesome.
Clive Barker’s Imajica has long been one of my favourite fantasy novels. The heft
of the single-volume edition renders it both unwieldy and intimidating, which is probably why my most recent reading of it was only the fourth time I’ve enjoyed it from
cover-to-cover. But enjoyed it I did, and I’m sure I’ll pick it up again in a further decade or so for another adventure.
I’m aware that it draws comparison to his perhaps more-widely-read Weaveworld, but somehow that never did it for me in the same way. Perhaps my mistake was
reading Imajicafirst, way back when I was a teenager, and so satiating my appetite for “curious flawed everyman explores adjacent reality alongside magical
woman, faces horrors”; just an unfortunate coincidence that I picked up Weaveworld right after!
I also fully accept the critics who observe that it’s exceptionally drawn-out, at times. But where it does seem to drag, it does so with a certain gravity;
an inertia: the slower parts of the story are full of intention, and meaning, and – frequently – foreshadowing. I still find new expressions of its themes in
it, each time I read it. This time around, for example, I found myself finding a plethora of reflections of protagonist Gentle’s role as a forger: unable to create anything novel as an
artist (for reasons that become apparent in the long run) but only able to copy beautiful things belonging to others. This self-inflicted curse shows up again and again in innumerable
subtle ways before the truth of it is (finally, eventually – did I mention how weighty this fat book is?) exposed… and with such an epic tale it’s little wonder that it’s impossible to
remember all of the indications that preceded it!
I’ve long appreciated how Imajica plays with gender and, to a lesser-extent, relationships and sexuality, in a way that was revelatory for me on a first reading and which with
the benefit of hindsight I can see is incredibly progressive for its age. Gentle and Judith exist each to further the plot in their own ways, not as romantic “goals” for one another…
despite not only tropes in the genre but also the ways in which their characters are presented within their world – by which I mean: this isn’t a story about how they “get together at
the end”, and that subverts both the expectation of how they’re introduced in the writing and also the destinies with which their characters seem to be imbued. Pie’o’pah
presents, depending on the circumstance, as either male or female but also as some other gender entirely. Gender is a huge overarching theme, with a oppressive patriarchal
power that’s threatened by a mysterious feminine energy playing a key role that, like everything else, is quietly echoed throughout the novel.
But perhaps my favourite part of this wonderful book is its world-building, which – through the eyes of an outsider – paints a rich picture of each of several fantastical dominions.
Over the course of the adventure a character draws a map to chart the wonders of the story’s universe, but it’s ultimately incomplete (and perhaps impossible to complete). That’s what
it feels like to me as a reader, too: like being given a glimpse of a wider and even-more-wonderful world just beyond the horizon: a fantastical creation too large to ever fully
comprehend. While retaining a focus on the story of three-or-so core characters, Barker teases us with the idea that there’s “something more” just beyond our peripheral vision. And
that’s flipping amazing.
I can’t begin to fathom the courage it takes to get on-stage in front of an ultra-conservative crowd (well, barely a crowd…) in a right-leaning US state to protest their
event by singing a song about a trans boy. But that’s exactly what Hamrick did. After
catching spectators off-guard, perhaps, by taking the perhaps-“masculine-telegraphing” step of drawing attention to part of his army uniform, the singer swiftly switched outfit to show
off a “Keep Canyon County Queer” t-shirt, slip on a jacket with various Pride-related patches, and then immediately launched into Boy, a song lamenting the persecution of
a trans child by their family and community.
Needless to say, this was the first, last, and only song Daniel Hamrick got to play at Hetero Awesome Fest. But man, what a beautiful protest!
(There are other videos online that aren’t nabbed from the official event feed and so don’t cut-out abruptly.)
What can I possibly say about Bored Gay Werewolf, which caught my attention
with the garish colours of its front cover when I saw it in Waterstones and whose blurb suggested that it might, perhaps, be a queer fantasy romp with a Buffy-esque sense of
humour.
Werewolf? Sure, it’s got a few of those. There’s even a bit of fun, offbeat humour each time the protagonist reflects on their curious monthly cycle and tries to work
out whether they attacked or even killed anybody this time around. But mostly it’s not a story about werewolf: it’s a story about a slacker who gets suckered into a pyramid scheme, with
just a hint of lycanthropy around the fringes.
Gay? I mean: the protagonist’s gay, and many of their friends are queer… and while the representation is good, sexuality doesn’t feel like it’s a particularly
significant issue to the storyline. I enjoyed the parallels that were drawn between Brian’s coming-out as gay versus his (for most of the story) closeted werewolf nature – which even
though I saw them coming from the first chapter onwards were still well-presented – but apart from that it almost felt like gayness wasn’t a central theme to the story. A smidge of
homophobia, some queer culture references, and a throwaway Grindr hookup with a closeted MSM dude do not contribute enough homosexuality to justify “gay” being the largest, pinkest word
on a novel’s cover, if you ask me.
Bored? I was, at some points in the book, but I’m not convinced that’s what was intended. The pacing’s a little inconsistent: a long and
drawn-out description of an exercise routines overshadows an exploration of the impact of werewolf super-senses, for example. And a long-foreshadowed fight scene finale feels like it’s
over in an instant (with a Van Helsing ex Machina twist that felt simultaneously like the brakes being slammed on and a set-up for an inevitable sequel).
I sound pretty negative about it, I’m sure. But it’s not actually bad. It’s just not actually good, either. It’s a passable, middle-of-the-road time-filler
with an interesting hook, a few funny set pieces (I laughed out loud a couple of times, for sure), and a set of misfit characters who spend most of the book feeling a little…
incomplete? Though it’s possible that latter point’s at-least partially deliberate, as this is without a doubt a “Gen-Z Grows Up” story. Maybe if I were younger and didn’t yet have my
shit together the story would appeal better.
Paraphrased from a conversation in a Manchester pub last night –
Them: Your [dyed blue] hair is queer-coded, right? Like… you’re telegraphing you’re queer?
Me: I mean… I’m also wearing a pride rainbow t-shirt and my watch strap is a ‘bi pride’ flag. I don’t feel like I’m being
subtle.
Them: Nah. The hair’s the giveaway.
A straight white guy friend was complaining about not being able to find any gaming groups for WoW that weren’t full of MAGA assholes. He said he keeps joining guilds with older
(60+) casual gamers like himself because he can’t keep up with the kids, and he’ll start to make friends, but then they will reveal themselves to be Trump-lovers. He asked, “What am
I doing wrong?”
…
This was about 3 months ago. Now, he tells me he joined a guild labeled as LGBTQ-friendly and has made several new cool friends.
…
He mentioned that there are many women and PoC in the group too, and “Everyone’s so nice on dungeon runs, telling people they did a good job and being supportive, sharing loot.”
I didn’t tell him that this is what the whole world would be like without patriarchal toxic masculinity, because I think he figured it out himself.
I’ve plucked out the highlights, but the deeper moral is in the full anecdote. I especially loved “…furries are
like lichen…”. 😆
The other weekend, I joined in with the parade at Witney Pride, accompanied by our 10-year-old who’d expressed an interest in coming too.
It was her first Pride but she clearly got the idea, turning up with a wonderful hand-coloured poster she’d made which, in rainbow colours, encouraged the reader to “be kind”.
You’ve seen pictures of Pride parades before, possibly even ones with me in them.
You know what: our eldest is so woke it makes me embarrassed on behalf of my past self at her age. Or even at twice her age, when I still didn’t have the level of
social and societal awareness and care about queer issues that she does already.
I’d equipped her with a whistle (on a rainbow lanyard) and instructions that in the event of protests from religious nuts she shouldn’t engage with them (because that’s what they
want) but instead just to help ensure that our parade was louder than them! I needn’t have worried though: Witney ain’t Oxford or London and our march seemed to see nothing
but joy and support from the folks we passed.
When we got to the parade’s destination, the kid found a stall selling a variety of badges, and selected for herself a “she/her/hers” pronoun pin.
“It’s not like anybody’s likely to look at me and assume that my pronouns are anything other than that,” she explained, “But I want it to be normal to talk about, and I want to show
solidarity for genderqueer people.”
That’s a level of allyship that it took me until I was much, much older to attain. So proud!
The UK’s Conservative government, having realised that their mandate is
worthless, seems to be in a panicked rush to try to get the voters to ignore any of the real issues. Instead, they say, we should be focussed on things like ludicrously-expensive
and ineffective ways to handle asylum seekers and making life as hard as possible for their second-favourite scapegoat: trans and queer people.
By the time John Oliver’s doing a segment about you, perhaps it’s time to realise you’ve fucked up? But our main story tonight is about sex education…
The BBC has not seen the new guidelines but a government source said they included plans to ban any children being taught about gender identity.
If asked, teachers will have to be clear gender ideology is contested.
Needless to say, such guidance is not likely to be well-received by teachers:
Pepe Di’Iasio, headteacher at a school in Rotherham, told Today that he believes pupils are being used “as a political football”.
Teachers “want well informed and evidence-based decisions”, he said, and not “politicised” guidance.
I can only assume that the Tories still have a stack of this genuine 1987 billboard poster (ugh) in stock, and are hoping to save money by reusing them.
People and pupils
This shit isn’t harmless. Regardless of how strongly these kinds of regulations are enforced, they can have a devastating chilling effect in schools.
I speak from experience.
I don’t know if this is the “most-90s” photo I own of myself, but it’s gotta be close. Taken at the afterparty from a school production of South Pacific, so probably at least
a little disproportionately-queer gathering.
Most of my school years were under the shadow of Section 28. Like I predict for the new Conservative proposals, Section 28 superficially didn’t appear to have a major
impact: nobody was ever successfully prosecuted under it, for example. But examining its effects in that way completely overlooks the effect it had on how teachers felt they had to
work.
For example…
In around 1994, I witnessed a teacher turn a blind eye to homophobic bullying of a pupil by their peer, during a sex education class. Simultaneously, the teacher coolly
dismissed the slurs of the bully, saying that we weren’t “talking about that in this class” and that the boy should “save his chatter for the playground”. I didn’t know about
the regulations at the time: only in hindsight could I see that this might have been a result of Section 28. All I got to see at the time was a child who felt that his homophobic
harassment of his classmate had the tacit endorsement of the teachers, so long as it didn’t take place in the classroom.
A gay friend, who will have been present but not involved in the above event, struggled with self-identity and relationships throughout his teenage years, only “coming out” as an adult.
I’m confident that he could have found a happier, healthier life had he felt supported – or at the very least not-unwelcome – at school. I firmly believe that the long-running
third-degree side-effects of Section 28 effectively robbed him of a decade of self-actualisation about his identity.
The long tail of those 1980s rules were felt long-after they were repealed. And for a while, it felt like things were getting better. But increasingly it feels like we’re moving
backwards.
As a country and as a society, we can do better than this.
With general elections coming up later this year, it’ll soon be time to start quizzing your candidates on the issues that matter to you. Even (perhaps especially) if your favourite
isn’t the one who wins, it can be easiest to get a politicians’ ear when they and their teams are canvassing for your vote; so be sure to ask pointed questions about the things you care
about.
I hope that you’ll agree that not telling teachers to conceal from teenagers the diversity of human identity and experience is something worth caring about.
I dislike recipe posts that, before you get anywhere near the list of ingredients, tell you what feels like the entire life story of the author and their family.
“Every morning my mother would warm up the stove, and this was a wood-fired stove back in the day, and make these. We lived in Minnosota…” I don’t care. I can’t begin to tell you how
much I don’t care. Just tell me how to make the damn muffins ‘cos the picture’s got me drooling.
This is different. This is the latest and
so-far only exception. This, I care about:
When we moved into a house of our own, I bought us a tea kettle that whistled in harmony when it boiled. Rent was cheap, and we were happy. Those were the days of sweet potato hash,
wilted kale, and increasingly exotic baked goods. There was the Me-Making-You-Tea-in-the-Morning-Because-You-Hated-Mornings Phase, but also the
You-Making-Me-Tea-in-the-Morning-Because-You-Went-to-Work-at-5am Phase.
…
Lucy tells a story so rich and personal about her and her wife’s experience of life, cohabitation, food, and the beauty of everyday life. I haven’t even read the recipe for The
Eggs, even though it sounds pretty delicious.
…
Over the years I’ve found words for people who have done what we’re doing now, but I’ve also found a deeper truth: our queer community doesn’t demand a definition. They know that
chili oil can change a life just as much as a marriage. That love is in the making and unmaking of beds. The candlelit baths. The laughter. The proffered feast that nourishes.
Queerness makes room within it for these relationships, or rather: queerness spirals outward. It blooms and embraces. That is the process by which we broaden our palates, welcoming
what might seem new to us, but which is actually older than we know.
…
It’s a great reminder about focussing on what’s important. About the value of an ally whether the world’s working with you or against you. And, of course, about how every relationship,
no matter what shape, size, or form, can enjoy a little more queering once in a while. Go read it.
Ahead of schedule on work project. Invited to 2nd COVID jab next week. Spent half of day working on laptop in sunny garden. Parcel arrived from @LEGO_group with Everyone Is Awesome
model (pictured).
Dr. Doe’s latest Sexplanations vlog is on polyamorous language, and despite being – or, perhaps, because I’m – a bit of a long-toothed polyamorist these days, fully a quarter
or more of the terms she introduced were new to me! Fascinating!
