Category: Gender studies

Unofficial Pride in Bar Harbor, Maine

by philg

Happy Juneteenth to those who celebrate. In honor of the federal and state (in 28 states) government workers who don’t have to work today (see Juneteenth: a day off for white members of the laptop class and government workers).

On this sacred day of White Idleness let’s look some more at what folks in the whitest part of the whitest state have been up to…

Yesterday, we covered some of the official Pride celebrations in Bar Harbor, Maine for 2025, including Queers for Palestine. Today, let’s have a look at what some of the merchants did unofficially.

Before you get into Bar Harbor proper, a roadside restaurant says “everyone is family” and, also, Canine-Americans are not welcome:

The locals worship the (non-trans-enhanced) Rainbow Flag at the “United Church of Christ”:

The Rainbow Flag can still be worshipped even when in tatters:

Black Lives Matter for people who’ve chosen to move to the whitest part of the whitest state:

(There are a lot of foreigners working in Bar Harbor, but they’re generally on temporary work visas and return to (Eastern) Europe when the season is over. Americans who aren’t in the workforce prefer to chillax on means-tested everything (not “welfare”) rather than make a ton of money in three months. See The Eastern European workforce of Mount Desert Island.)

Typical Bar Harbor Rainbow-first retail:

Miscellaneous stores (what does it mean when two Biden-style trans-enhanced Rainbow Flags are nestled against each other?):

Here’s a store that combines the following: (1) mask advocacy, (2) mask retail, (3) support for Ukraine, (4) a Rainbow “coexist”, (5) transgender flag, (6) trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag, (7) Science education (“gender is not binary”):

Sherman’s Books has been operating since 1886. Consistent with Why does every “independent” bookstore have the same political point of view? they devote a significant fraction of their front window space to matters 2SLGBTQQIA+.

Remember that it is a right-wing conspiracy theory that children are targeted by the 2SLGBTQQIA+ and also that they should keep a copy of The Young Readers’ LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases handy.

Some #Science:

If you’re old enough to pay with cash (or know what cash is) you’re old enough to donate the change to Bar Harbor Pride:

The news today wasn’t all good…

Mr. Trump, who has often used holidays as an occasion to advance his political causes and insult critics and opponents on social media, chose the occasion of Juneteenth instead to float the idea of reducing the number of federal holidays, claiming that they are costing businesses billions of dollars. While most federal employees get those holidays off, private businesses have the choice to close or remain open.

The lack of revelry at the White House for a holiday that has been cherished by generations of Black Americans was perhaps not a surprise. Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has moved to purge the federal government of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and sanitize — or even erase — references to Black history.

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Pride Parade and Children’s Drag Show in Bar Harbor, Maine

by philg

With a 9-year-old in tow, I traveled to Bar Harbor, Maine for this year’s Pride Festival:

We missed the Friday “All Ages Drag Show” due to a wedding rehearsal dinner, but managed to make it to the parade itself and the subsequent Pride festival.

The parade began with speeches on the Village Green.

Shortly before receiving an official government escort from two police cars, several speakers talked to the crowd about cruel official government oppression of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.

Child’s sign: “I get my cardio running away from heteronormal”.

Due to rain, the Pride Festival was moved to the YWCA, which explains that the “Christian faith” motivates it to “empower women” and “believe in science” (i.e., that some of the best “women” didn’t start out with a female gender assignment on their birth certificates).

Once inside, Queers for Palestine merchandise was available to purchase.

It’s a right-wing conspiracy theory that the 2SLGBTQQIA+ are targeting children. It’s just that there was a drag show for kids with free cupcakes and other sweets provided by Hannaford, the local supermarket that started in Maine and is now owned by Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch-Belgian conglomerate. Here’s the Hannaford table:

Happy kids watching the first drag queen:

We left as the second drag queen started her performance:

Don’t forget to #MaskUpToSaveLives

It’s too bad that we didn’t bring Mindy the Crippler (our golden retriever), though perhaps they’re using “dog” in the strict AKC sense and bitches are excluded:

We swung by the Hannaford supermarket on the way back to the hotel and had the chance to save our beloved planet via a reusable Pride-themed shopping bag:

We sadly missed the evening drag show due to the need to spend 6 hours huddled in a tent while rain poured down outside in 60 degree temps (an average summer wedding in Maine):

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Who is the most famous gay person not famous for being gay?

by philg

A friend used to enjoy quizzing people with “Who is the most famous tall person not famous for being tall?” (Answer: Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, 6’7″, who stopped the inflation of the 1960s and 1970s caused by JFK’s/Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society (Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, etc.) and Vietnam War; Alternative Answer: Michael Crichton, 6’9″, author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, which might be worth rereading in light of coronapanic)

The question for today: “Who is the most famous gay person not famous for being gay?” Let’s limit this to people born within the last 100 years (i.e., 1925 or later) so as to avoid being forced on conjecture/rumor (e.g., Nikola Tesla is out).

My choice: Andy Warhol. He was what we today call “openly gay”, but nobody calls him a “gay artist”.

Happy Middle of Pride Month to everyone who celebrates! (below: at the Milwaukee art museum, July 2024, with a little help from Uniqlo)

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Almost time for Queer Faith Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area

by philg

Happy No Kings Day to those who celebrate. Also Happy 79th birthday to King Donald I and Happy 250th birthday to the U.S. Army, founded on June 14, 1775 as part of the treasonous rebellion against legitimate British rule.

A Deplorable Californian sent me this event calendar from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco:

Pack up the kids because the online calendar shows that it is almost time for the “Drag Queen Story Hour for families and children” in the East Bay:

If you’re going to stay in the City, the cathedral itself is hosting “Queer Religion: The Exhibition”:

As a queer atheist Marshall wants to spotlight and celebrate prominent openly queer leaders in religion. These subjects risk so much personally in order to live in their truth and create positive change within the monotheistic religions. The subjects captured provide a safe space within institutions that historically have promoted queerphobia.

“Without a bit of queerness, religion can grow rigid and sour. Queer people and perspectives offer renewal, an opening out to those who would otherwise turn away. The ultimate queerness we can approach is the divine, the totally other which is also the elusive meaning within ourselves.” — Rabbi Mark Solomon

Maybe this wise rabbi has the explanation for why a lot of things don’t work out, i.e., due to “without a bit of queerness”.

In Boston, the assumption is that everyone who hates Kings also loves 2SLGBTQQIA+ (Boston.com) because the suggested way to demonstrate against Kings is to show up on the route of the Pride parade:

The groups are calling the demonstration alongside the Pride parade, “No Kings, but Yaaas Queen!” Spectators at the Pride parade are being encouraged to bring “Pride flags and signs showing steadfast support for LGBTQIA+ rights and protesting the tyranny of a fascist administration that seeks to erase our communities from public life, American history, and our nation’s future.”

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Pride Month in aviation

by philg

Air Canada demonstrates “inclusivity” by excluding any cisgender heterosexuals from working on a particular flight:

Probability question: We are informed that being 2SLGBTQQIA+ is common/normal and also that in a company with more than 35,000 employees there had never previously been an assembly of 3-6 workers (pilots plus flight attendants) who all identified as 2SLGBTQQIA+ (the flight in the video was the “first all-2SLGBTQIA+ flight”.

In London, Ontario, home to a big Diamond factory:

The Irish equivalent of the FAA:

Atlas Air, best known for a crash with a DEI hire at the controls:

The folks who’ve taken over the Climate Change Awareness mantle from all-Hamas-all-the-time Greta Thunberg:

Airbus UK:

How is are observant Muslims supposed to “be their authentic selves” if they must walk by this flag on their way into work?

In case the Trump Tyranny (TM) reaches D.C.’s airports and the tweet below is memory-holed, screen shots:

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Does every NFL team support Pride Month?

by philg

Miami:

Tampa Bay:

Houston:

Green Bay:

The NFL overall:

Is there any team in the NFL that rejects the U.S. official state religion? What would happen to a team that said they were going to celebrate African American Music Appreciation Month, created by Jimmy Carter, instead of Pride? (And maybe played “Gold Digger” by Kanye West during halftime while a huge fabric disk was paraded around the stadium with the image below, the way that European soccer fans will support an Walmart-sized pro-Palestinian flag or banner.)

For reference, 50x20m according to Al Jazeera:

Speaking of the noble entirely peaceful Palestinians, has anyone claimed the $1 million in funding for a Pride parade in Gaza or the West Bank?

Finally, here’s the archetypical Black rapper according to the Smithsonian’s PhD curators:

(Educated-in-Florida Ray Charles is not sufficiently notable to have made the museum experts’ cut.)

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Jews of Boston gather for a Pride parade

by philg

Recent email from the Jewish Community Center of Greater Boston…

If you don’t get up early enough for today’s Pride parade or the June 14 all-of-Boston Pride parade, you’ll have a third chance in Newton in two weeks (it’s billed as “fun for all ages” but in fact is only for kids, based on the photo?):

The email also advertises a way for your child to spend some quality alone time with an adult stranger:

Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters
This program matches LGBTQ+ youth with adult mentors who share similar lived experiences, offering empathy, guidance, and support while helping build identity, resilience, and confidence.

Let’s check in with that organization. They say that they’re “actively recruiting” children “between the ages of 6-18”:

Confirming the primacy of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ cause, the organization’s web site header has a one-click link to only a single program, anchored by the sacred official Biden-style trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag:

(every other program requires more complex navigation)

Related:

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Pride Prosecco at Target

by philg

Way back in March of this year (i.e., not during Pride) we were driving from Coral Gables to Jupiter in a Biblical Florida rainstorm. It began to feel unsafe and we’d seen a few accidents so I pulled off the highway in Deerfield Beach to check radar, maybe switch drivers, and possibly simply wait out the rain. I spotted a Target and we decided to make that our rest stop. As we stretched our legs by strolling around the store, our 11-year-old old grabbed a Stella Rosa “Love Series” rainbow-flagged Prosecco bottle and said, “Hey, Dad, for you!”

(One offer rejected by the kids: watching the Disney live-action Snow White movie. In other words, they preferred to die on I-95 than to watch Rachel Zegler.)

I managed to find it on the Target web site later that evening:

Happy Pride, then, to all who celebrate!

Question for Tesla owners: How well does full self-driving work in rain that is heavy enough to force Interstate drivers to slow down to about 40 mph?

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Gender Studies class goes to the eye doctor

by philg

Registering at the eye doctor, whose patient portal credits CPT©2025 American Medical Association with all of the questions and choices below:

Hatefully, there is no “ze” nor a write-in box:

The default sexual orientation is “don’t know”:

But some other choices are available:

Should there be an “irrelevant” choice for people who’ve been in heterosexual marriages for longer than 4 years? Psychology Today:

What’s more, we found that marital satisfaction for both husband and wife deteriorated in step with the wife’s loss of sexual desire. (The husband’s sexual desire was irrelevant to anybody’s marital happiness.) Might wives lose sexual desire because the marriage is turning bad? No: Time-lag analyses indicated that her loss of desire came first, leading to lower satisfaction later. Early levels of (dis)satisfaction did not predict how rapidly the wives lost interest in sex. … Crucially, it was not due to childbirth. Becoming parents made the mismatch worse, as in steeper declines in wives’ sexual desire. … A possible explanation that fits our data is that female sexual desire increases during the brief phase of passionate love. Nature may have arranged that as a way of encouraging the man to make a long-term commitment.

We can also see how the American Medical Association thinks about race, the default for which is “any” (the racial equivalent of “pangender”? Why isn’t it “panracial”?):

1.4 billion people in China, a country with 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, are lumped together as “Chinese”. For cousins of Elizabeth Warren, i.e., the 3,000ish enrolled Chinooks, there are five categories:

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