sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 6:29 pm
Is this the first place you're using Shannon in a group of people? I assume your family and close friends are aware of the change, but are you using it publicly any place else? I'm being nosy, but I'm also very interested in your journey. I may have other stupid questions down the line, too. This is all pretty foreign to me, but I'm trying to learn.
My spouse, partners, and many friends know and are incredibly supportive. I'm not really socially out anywhere else (though I keep a separate FB account for the real me) My biological family doesn't know yet. I'm on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), so I know that I'll have to socially present soon during my graduate school. I don't foresee a problem there.
My wife has concerns about people being stupid towards me, which makes sense, since the GOP is currently trying to make people like me illegal. I'm in a very transfriendly state, but we have to now look at travel plans with an eye towards "where will we be safe".
There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers.
Thanks for the response. I didn't want to come across as offensive with my curiosity. And if a question or comment ever is offensive, that's never my intent. Just tell me and I'll learn from it. We're all waking this path with you in support, but may need a little hand-holding along the way.
sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 6:59 am
Thanks for the response. I didn't want to come across as offensive with my curiosity. And if a question or comment ever is offensive, that's never my intent. Just tell me and I'll learn from it. We're all waking this path with you in support, but may need a little hand-holding along the way.
Not a problem. Especially right now, when the GOP is demonizing people like me and spreading an awful lot of lies.
Last month, I came out publicly as being a transgender woman. Which involved telling my family. Including my mom, who turns 89 in January. (My brother Chris has been wonderfully supportive)
I fully expected, honestly, to be disowned, or at the very least my mom trying to talk me out of it.
As I said, my mom is about to turn 89. Even if she matches her mother and grandmother, she has about a decade left. I did not expect things to go well.
What I failed to account for, was how desperately my mom wanted a daughter. And now she finally HAS that daughter. Only a few years late.
She's made it clear to my siblings (including my right wing fundamentalist ex-hippy oldest brother), that she supports me, and that they damn well better support me in my transition or else.
She has called me every week, offering advice and suggestions, seeing how I'm doing, and being far more open with me than she was pre-transition.
"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears… To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies." -Octavia E. Butler
LOVE it! BTW, my conservative Republican mother actually became more liberal as she aged. Towards the end she was very live and let live/consenting adults, blah, blah, blah. It was delightful to hear her talk of how happy she was her beloved hairdresser of over a decade could finally marry his love.
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
I'm (almost) jumping up and down happy for you Shannon. I'll show a little restraint. That is a wonderful story. I think your mother is great, and I'm glad you will have a chance to add a depth to your relationship with her that never existed for either of you before. Wishing you all the best.
Shannon, thanks so much for sharing your story! Sometimes our family members surprise us!
I'm an ally who has worked in LGBTQ+ advocacy for decades. In our support group over the years (I started a PFLAG chapter here in lower alabama), I have heard the most absolutely heart breaking and tragic stories. I've heard amazing and happy stories, too. If I live to be a million years old, I'll never understand how parents can reject their kids. I even had a kid live with me when their parents kicked him out of their home. I have kids and I don't understand everything they do but that's not my job. My job is to love them and be their safe place from an often difficult world (my kids are grown but still). I just don't get parents who reject their kid for being LGBTQ+.
But I never get tired of my work in this area and I REALLY never get tired of hearing an encouraging story!
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain
I was driving my mother to the polls when one of the questions on the ballot was support for same sex marriage here in Colorado. Since she was a Catholic convert, and her opinions were all over the political map, I was surprised when she muttered "people ought to be able to marry who they want." I presume she voted in support for same sex marriage, which passed handily.
Avatar was a photo I took by Killary Fjord in 2005. Killary Fjord is in Northern Connemara, Ireland.
Rolodex wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:34 pm
Shannon, thanks so much for sharing your story! Sometimes our family members surprise us!
I'm an ally who has worked in LGBTQ+ advocacy for decades. In our support group over the years (I started a PFLAG chapter here in lower alabama), I have heard the most absolutely heart breaking and tragic stories. I've heard amazing and happy stories, too. If I live to be a million years old, I'll never understand how parents can reject their kids. I even had a kid live with me when their parents kicked him out of their home. I have kids and I don't understand everything they do but that's not my job. My job is to love them and be their safe place from an often difficult world (my kids are grown but still). I just don't get parents who reject their kid for being LGBTQ+.
But I never get tired of my work in this area and I REALLY never get tired of hearing an encouraging story!
My (22) adult child is a trans man. I remember how outraged they were in high school when they found out some parents would rather disown their child - or would want the child to be dead. - than any flavor of LGBTQ+.
And, as a parent, I completely fail to understand it.
If you're in the right goofy mood for this, it's hilarious. It's British vampires. And they're gay. It's not sexually explicit. Some of the supporting characters are laugh out loud funny (there's a star turn by an "Egyptian" who doesn't have a great command of English, but his wolf growls, eye makeup and lines are classic).
Brother to Sister: "You set me up on a blind date with a fuc*ing vampire!"
Vamp 3.jpg (160.9 KiB) Viewed 4085 times
Vampires: Brighter In Darkness
2012 · 2 hr 7 min Horror · LGBT
After a disastrous relationship, Toby Brighter is set up on a blind date by his sister, Charlotte. Toby's date, Lucas Delmore, is charming, charismatic, and physically flawless. He is everything Toby could have wished for--except that Lucas is a 1500 year old vampire. Before long, Toby is plunged into the dark world of demons, black magic, and the supernatural, where nobody is safe and nothing is what it seems...
It's on YouTube (it's in English, but some of the accents are a bit thick, this has subtitles):
Also on Tubi. Bonus: Discovered that if you have the Ghostery extension for desktop, it skips all the commercial breaks all throughout Tubi. It's a huge catalog, like Pluto or FreeVee. No ads is great. Other streaming services also get ads bypassed by Ghostery, which is free: https://www.ghostery.com/
@scarpien 2 years ago
Even though its cheesy, I LOVE IT! So sweet the vampires in love. Toby is so damn adorable; I understand why Lucas and Paul are so smitten with him.
@rsmith7912 2 years ago
Well that was a lot of fun. I've never heard of the film before even though it was made 10 years ago. It's a thoroughly entertaining ride & it's one of those films that's so bad it's good. There's some really good acting & there's also a lot of very bad acting too, but it doesn't matter. For a small budget film it has some really good special effects. It's a shame they spent less on the interior design of Toby's place but I guess the actors need paying too. It seemed difficult for some of the cast to keep their vampire teeth in & I think I caught a few ready to burst out loud laughing. It must have been hard to keep a straight face sometimes for them but I'm sure they had much fun while filming this. The ending was a bit of a let down but the very handsome & sexy vampires in the film made up for that. I haven't laughed so much since I saw Grace Jones in 'Vamp'. It deserves to be a gay cult classic.
@manolytovivi3090 6 months ago
This is gold. I laugh so much . OMG.
@Creatorandchaostrio 2 years ago
I've been wanting to watch for years. Oh I loved it!!!! So cheesy and bad but so good
@ifluvinguiswrong 2 months ago
Exceptional movie. Rhys Howell was great as Lucas, Dan Briggs as Toby and Rebecca Eastwood was so funny as Charlotte. My only fault with the movie was that they had a white male play the Egyptian vampire when an Arab should have been cast. Otherwise, great movie. Thanks from NYC! ❤❤
@aaroncarson1770
2 years ago
This is actually the only movie, apart from The Mists of Avalon, that I've seen, that draws a connection between witches and Goddess worship. Well done.
Vamp 2.JPG (118.37 KiB) Viewed 4085 times
Lt Root Beer of the Mighty 699th. Fogbow s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
Hi Shannon! 
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!"