WHAT IS
PRIDE?
Gender & Sexuality Zine 2015 OUTreach Page
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Zine Club
MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR A sincere thank you to every single person who contributed to the third annual MHC Gender & Sexuality Zine! Zines and Mount Holyoke have been instrumental in helping me understand and accept my queerness. It feels like I have come full circle from being afraid to include my name in my submission to the 2013 edition of this zine to compiling and editing this year’s zine. However, one thing has not changed – I’m not quite sure how I feel about the concept of PRIDE. After the United States’ Supreme Court ruled that the ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional, many of my peers rejoiced, happily proclaiming ”LOVE HAS WON” and how proud they were that the “fight was finally over”. I beg to differ.
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Regardless, it was interesting to note the diversity of responses to the Supreme Court ruling among my fellow students. This, in part, was the inspiration for the “WHAT IS PRIDE?” theme of this year’s zine – what is a Mount Holyoke student’s idea of Pride? What is it that they are Proud of? Does the feeling of Pride necessitate the experience of Shame?
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Stay angry. Stay brave. Stay loud. Stay. M O A ‘17
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During the process of collecting submissions, I received a rather interesting anonymous entry, entitled “PROUD WHITE LESBIAN”(pg 38). As a queer “person of colour” who has not experienced or witnessed the ‘prioritization’ that they seem so incensed about in the LGBTQ+ community on this campus (or outside), this submission intrigued me. Though my initial reaction was to choose not to include the piece in the zine, I realized that I could harness it as a powerful tool to open up discussions about whiteness in the queer community at Mount Holyoke; a cursory glance at the archival records of MHC’s LGBTQ+ orgs will reveal that these conversations are not new to the campus. Given the intense focus on race in the current political climate in the United States, it is imperative to challenge race and the role it plays in our daily lives. This submission enabled me and queer organizations on campus to navigate the topic of race in an intersectional manner which resulted in some incredibly insightful responses, which have been included in the second half of this zine. For this, thank you, anonymous contributor – you were the spark that helped reignite the flame.
Table of Contents Message From the Editor .............................................................................1 Dedication to Astronomer ...........................................................................5 Pride is for Us, Not Companies ....................................................................6 We Have to Show The World Who We Are ................................................7 HOMO by MBD ‘16 .......................................................................................8 A Letter to All Beautiful Militant Queers ....................................................9 Pride by Rachel Urbano ‘19 .......................................................................10 Pride is ........................................................................................................11 Love I$ Love ................................................................................................12 Assimilating Into Pride™ ...........................................................................13 Pride is Not a Trend....................................................................................14 Everything Changes by Liz Knoll ‘16 ..........................................................15 Pride and Shame by Annie Kaplan ‘19 ......................................................16 The Woman I Love the Most Hates that I Love Women ...........................17 Shame by MBD’16 ......................................................................................18 It’s So Miami ...............................................................................................19 Internalized Homophobia by Stephanie Corrales ‘16 ...............................20 I’m Still Learning by Stephanie Corrales ‘16..............................................21 Three Tiny Beads ........................................................................................22 Body by Stephanie Corrales ‘16 .................................................................23 Growing Out of Pain by Stephanie Corrales ‘16 .......................................24 Mother’s Smile, Father’s Nod//So I Just Crawled Into Bed ......................25 Being Out ≠ Unashamed ............................................................................26 Las Mujeres NO Se Besan by Stephanie Corrales ‘16 ...............................27 All Women Are Beautiful By Iyanna James Stephenson ‘15 ....................28
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MoHo Homo?: The Fight Continues…by MBD ‘16 ....................................31
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“Straight Bae” by Stephanie Corrales ‘16..................................................30
Not Enough? .............................................................................................. 32 No LGBTQ without QPOC by Alondra R ‘18 .............................................. 33 Saptarangi by MOA ‘17 ............................................................................. 34 My Queerness is Not White ...................................................................... 35 Rainbows are Refracted White Light by MOA ‘17.................................... 37 PROUD WHITE LESBIAN............................................................................. 38 No Pride For Some of Us Without Liberation for All of Us ...................... 39 Tired of Your White Tears by Stephanie Corrales ‘16 .............................. 40 TAKE ME TO YOUR LAND by DMB ‘18 ...................................................... 41 Start Recognizing Queer People of Color ................................................. 44 HOLY SHIT PLEASE STOP ............................................................................ 45 Check Your White Privilege ....................................................................... 47 STFU by Helga Edstrom ‘18 ....................................................................... 48 A Response to the Proud White Lesbian .................................................. 49 White People Be Like................................................................................. 50 People of Color//You Made the Cat Sad .................................................. 51 Plz Stop Being Racist.................................................................................. 52 Do You Notice Race or Are You Blinded by Your Own White Tears? ...... 53 Response from a White Bisexual .............................................................. 54 Stop Taking Up So Much Space, Your Entitlement is Violent .................. 55 If Queer People of Color are Prioritized, Then Why? ............................... 56 MHC Queer Bingo: FUCK THIS SHIT .......................................................... 57 You Are Undeserving of This Love: Last Words to an Ex-Lover ............... 58 Whose Pride Is It Anyway?........................................................................ 59 Hogar by Michele Cubillo ‘17 .................................................................... 60 Anniversary in Loneliness.......................................................................... 62
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(Page numbers are located on the inside margin of the left page)
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In recognition of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of LGBTQ+ organizations at Mount Holyoke, this zine is dedicated to the Astronomer, whose letter to the MHC newspaper was a catalyst for the creation of the college’s first dedicated space for non-heterosexual students, the Gay Support Group, in 1975.
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We have to Show the World Who We Are
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HOMO by MBD ‘16
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A Letter to All Beautiful Militant Queers
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A letter to my beautiful militant queers:
"Pride" You are not the predator. I am not the prey. We admit to our privilege but do not promote it. We acknowledge each other. We have groups but do not isolate from others. we are loud. we are proud. we stomp the ground. we talk, we walk in peace. we live, we breathe equally. we're here, we're queer (or other term preferred) we're trans, we're bi we're every color in sight we're tired we're strong we're never alone we respect even when we disagree because in the end we are all human beings
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By Rachel Urbano ‘19
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Pride is‌
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LOVE I$ LOVE
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Pride is Not a Trend
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Everything Changes by Liz Knoll ‘16
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Pride and Shame by Annie Kaplan ‘19
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The Woman I Love the Most Hates that I Love Women.
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SHAME by MBD’16
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It’s So Miami
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Internalized Homophobia by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
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I’m Still Learning by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
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gvfffff
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Three Tiny Beads
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Body by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
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Growing Out of Pain by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
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Mother’s Smile, Father’s Nod
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Las Mujeres NO Se Besan by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
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Pride is having confidence in your sexuality and identity. Like the truth of confidence in this poem.
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All Women Are Beautiful By Iyanna James Stephenson ‘15
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“Straight Bae” by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
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MoHo Homo?: The Fight Continues… by MBD’16
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Not Enough?
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NO LGBTQ WITHOUT QPOC by Alondra R. ‘18
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Saptarangi by MOA ‘17
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MY QUEERNESS IS
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NOT WHITE
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RAINBOWS ARE REFRACTED WHITE LIGHT by MOA ‘17
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WHITE PROUD LESBIAN
NO PRIDE FOR SOME OF US
WITHOUT
LIBERATION FOR
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ALL OF US!
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TIRED OF YOUR WHITE TEARS by Stephanie Corrales ‘16
TAKE ME TO YOUR LAND this qtpoc utopia where we’re loved and revered! i want to- no, i have to visit it. in fact, i may end up staying behind because, my god, it is truly unreal. a welcoming land of hope where the black people are loved just as much as their slang is. here, fifty cents are donated to black gay men and fifty cents to black drag queens every time a white lesbian from maine says “yaaaaaas” or “hunty.” there, we are free to roam without being wrestled to the ground. we are so cared for by the government that there are LAWS against any hint of brutality. our lives are valued here. and our white peers stand up for us. here, the trees grow rapidly and high. but not because they’re being fertilized by the bodies of latinx queers who slaughter themselves willingly to escape the taunts of their communities. no, we join hands once a month to
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found themselves to be in the minority. they do not have
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water them with the tears of white cis men who have
a say-so here. they cannot hurt us because they no longer rule. in this perfect land, east asian womxn are free to be proud of from whence they came, without being fetishized by those who think eating kimchi, dumplings or miso soup or watching anime and listening to k-pop makes them ~more~ asian. they can walk down the street without being harassed by people who only like the idea of them but never their ideas. southeast asians can be who they will without their clothing being co-opted for NYFW. and, thank god, but you can be fined $750 for every hamsa tattoo you decide to tattoo on your ankle or lower back. indigenous people are no longer brought up only when white kids want to remind us of their 1/118th percentage of apache heritage but instead lead the celebration every Samhain at the “sexy [insert your culture here] costume burning ceremony.”
i’ve only returned to the real world to tell my mother i love her and to pack my pillow pet away. after visiting this sanctuary where queer people of color are prioritized over white queers, where qtpoc are actually listened to,
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groups of white people who feel left out, where we
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where we can throw parties without having them overtaken by large
aren’t expected to all have a pixie cut, a lean stomach, ll bean boots and the “alternative” demeanor to be see- n as even remotely attractive, where i can talk about sex without having it assumed that i never get laid, where my fat bisexual black ass is no longer the sidekick friend but the protagonist to my own goddamn story, where i can bring my trans boyfriend around without having every white lesbian within a quartermile assume that we are heteronormative and therefore, for some reason, scared of them because they think that they are as queer as queer can get, like lmao --- and for fucks sake, where qtpoc can fucking breathe!
can you blame me for never wanting to come back?
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TAKE ME TO YOUR LAND by DMB ‘18
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- DMB
I am a white queer but I will not be proud of our efforts towards queer liberation until we ALL START recognizing and celebrating queer people of color Page
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By Constance Fontanet ‘16
HOLY SHIT PLEASE STOP Dear PROUD WHITE LESBIAN, Please tell me you are joking. If so, it’s not a very good joke, but it’s better than meaning what you wrote. If you are not joking, trolling, being an asshole, or some combination thereof: The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “prioritize” as “to organize (things) so that the most important thing is done or dealt with first.” First of all, who are you directing this statement at? There are groups, such as Familia, whose entire purpose is, according to their Facebook page, to be “a closed network of support and activism for LGBTQ+ people of color.” Are you asking them to cease existing? To become an entirely different group than that which they were founded as, in order to support a specific subset of people?
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Are you, instead, directing your statement at groups such as OUTreach, whose current mission is to “promote unity in the queer community”? In this case, there are at least two problems with your statement. One is that OUTreach does not “prioritize” queer people of color. As of the time of writing, of the first 10 posts on OUTreach’s Facebook page, two are specifically about the intersection of queer and racial issues; eight are not. Does 20% somehow seem to be an overwhelming majority? That’s less than one out of four. For reference, people of color make up about twice that in the United States, according to the 2014 census.
The second problem with your statement: one in eight trans women of color will, statistically, risk being murdered. As of August 2015, at least 15 have been murdered this year. Do you believe that it should be #AllLivesMatter, instead of #BlackLivesMatter? In the United States, at the very least, black people (and, more generally, people of color) face disproportionate levels of discrimination on both the personal and institutional levels. Wage gaps, life expectancies, and arrest rates are only the tip of the iceberg. Compound this with “oh, you speak such good English!” or “so you speak Asian, right?” Not to mention the ones many queer people get, like “so when are you going to settle down with a nice man” and “those gays.” White queer people deal with this latter problem, while perpetuating the former. Queer people of color deal with these and more. Seriously, though. Why shouldn’t we prioritize the dire problems queer people of color face? As we celebrate marriage equality, 232 black people have been killed this year by police. By helping them, we help ourselves, since many issues are intertwined; activism should be, at its core, intersectional. Besides that, however, it means being a good person, and supporting people who have been fighting against an oppressive system for so long, whose effects we barely comprehend.
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I am white, I am queer, and I am ashamed to be associated with you.
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From a white person fighting her own internalized racism to the "proud white lesbian" who isn't: Why be proud to be in a category that is constructed solely to oppress and divide? That gives me privileges based on my skin by creating myths and hierarchies which hurt and destroy people I love?
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It IS an accomplishment to live and love and exist as a Person of Color in the United States today. Groups which are supposed to be nameless masses of disposable workers are not supposed to be individuals, to think and love. To exist and be human and claim agency and also LOVE your own culture instead of hate it in this system you were forced intoThat, just existing as a POC IN THE US, is something that one can be proud of. No matter one's family history or privilege.
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You can only be proud of accomplishments. It is not an accomplishment to be a white person in the US-- to have abandoned distinct history and community to disappear in white America and acquire status over others. It is not an accomplishment to be born into this tradition and live comfortably in it.
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WHITE PEOPLE BE LIKE
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To you, dear reader, I send you my love.
My love is queer, nonbinary and unapologetically not white.
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If this love threatens you, then you do not deserve it.
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Hogar It’s finals weeks and all I can find myself thinking about are the coconuts being sold from the back of an old truck, flocks of tourists on Calle Ocho. Celia Cruz’s “La Vida es un Carnaval” blasting from my neighbor’s apartment as she smokes an Habano with one hand and plays a game of dominó with the other. The towering malinche tree planted on the corner of 22nd Ave and 25th Street. Mi querido barrio, the place that adopted me as its own. Where I learned to be proud of my raices, my broken English, my broken Spanish, my immigrant self; the smell of fried plantains and Gallopinto embedded in my pelo incontrolable. Mi orgullo.
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I shame my mother because I no longer go to church. I shame my father because I don't want to have children. I am their pride because I'm the first and only one to go to college. For them, this dichotomy of pride and shame lies in tangible things; for me, it lies in my very essence. I am proud of my queerness. However, I am ashamed that this pride would bring them the most shame and I would be the one to break my mother’s heart.
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And then, the thoughts begin puncturing my mind like the spears of fishermen from my pueblo. The salty bay breeze turns into hurricane winds. Mierda. It's almost time to return to mi hogar. Hogar, place where I cannot fully be myself for you see, I have not told them about this other part of my identity. Hija del Diablo, mundana, desgraciada, they would say. I choke, for I know I am already both my family's pride and shame.
I am ashamed that every time I try to tell mamá about the woman I love, she knits knots along my throat with her prayers and I dismiss it with “my really good friend” because I don’t find the strength in me to say it once and for all. So I ask my ancestors for guidance. "No", they say, because they too would have disowned me if they knew I was a "maricona." I am tired of all the lies, all the maldiciones, the pending threat of being shunned by my very own family; the threat that is most hurtful of all. So mi hogar is no longer the equivalent of home because home is where I am loved and accepted unconditionally. Porque I am queer and there is no space for me here, I pack my pride and shame as I vacate la casa in order to build an hogar of my own. One where I plant a malinche tree to remind me that like La Malinche, I will be considered a traidora by many but I must do this for my survival. One where I swing on a blue hammock, as I listen to rancheras and Ana Tijoux. One where lovers will join me too in the celebration of this newfound hogar, dulce y aceptable, hogar.
Hogar: Home Hija del Diablo: Daughter of the Devil Mundana: Mundane one Desgraciada: Vile Maricona: Derogatory term used for lesbians Maldiciones: Curses Traidora: traitor Dulce y aceptable: Sweet and acceptable
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Calle Ocho: 8th Street in Miami, FL Dominó: Game of Dominoes Malinche tree: Flamboyant tree Querido barrio: Dear neighborhood Gallopinto: Nicaraguan dish consisting of rice and beans Pelo incontrolable: uncontrollable hair Mi orgullo: my pride Pueblo: town (Nandaime, Nicaragua) Mierda: Shit
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-Michele Cubillo
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“Anniversary in Loneliness”, the original Astronomer letter From the October 2, 1975 edition of Choragos, the MHC Newspaper. Archives and Special Collections.
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ANNIVERSARY IN LONELINESS
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I LOOK FOR YOU IN THE NIGHT; WE ARE LIKE STARS. THEY CAN’T BEEN SEEN DURING THE DAY, BUT I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.