Ally Workshop

ALLY WORKSHOP

Join the LGBTQ Coop for one of the first events of Yale's annual Pride Month: a workshop led by the Queer Peers on how to be an ally to LGBT people. Expect fun activities and thought-provoking dialogue in this highly interactive workshop.

This is a great way to get involved with Pride Month and support Yale's LGBT community!

The workshop will be held twice:

April 1st at 4pm

WLH 309

April 23 at 4pm

Women's Center

For more information on this event, email queer.peers@yale.edu.

For more information about Pride Month 2010 at Yale, email lgbt@yale.edu or visit http://www.facebook.com/prideatyale

Invite all your friends straight and queer! 

Sapphic love,

[Sappho.Blog] Administration

can we have interactive posts?

1) what is your most awkward/funniest hook up story?

2) and if that is too embarrassing, then what is the best date you've ever had?

answer one, both, neither....whatever. This is out of curiosity and boredom as I sit in lab waiting for a subject to finish. In need of some giggles.

with sapphic love,

sweetea

In Retrospect

Every time I start a post i seem to postpone actually posting it, and it has ended in approx. four drafts about four different things on the blog server...i fail.

So I decided today was the day to post.. After having efficiently procrastinated work, watching harry potter 6 and fast forwarding the parts that freak me out, I find myself sitting in front of the computer, still pondering what a good blog post would be...who knows.

Here goes anyway.

Earlier today I met with a friend that is at the moment coming into her "gay identity",beginning to come to terms with the fact that she is actually interested in women as opposed to men. It all got me thinking of what a really interesting processes that is.... I´ve had many conversations with people about their coming out experiences, at least coming out to themselves and there is one phrase that always comes up in the story..

"Now that I know....looking back things make much more sense..."

And things actually do seem to make much more sense.

Like my insane crush on my second grade teacher, the fact that all of my "early childhood sexual explorations" of playing games of doctor and the predecessor of "are you nervous" were only with girls. How I got jealous when my best friend in the 5th grade talked to me about a boy she liked.. How I was deathly afraid that I would accidentally kiss a girl I thought was really pretty in the 6th grade, so much that I actually stopped hanging out with her.

In retrospect things do seem to make sense. but I wonder, how come I wasn't necessarily aware of my "gay identity" back then? Was it simply that I did not have a language for it? did I not want to see it? was it never an option in my head? I am simply giving more meaning to these things now, because now I do in fact sleep with women, date them, and so on...?

Who knows....

I wonder what things make sense to you...in retrospect.

Picture: In Retrospect by Bojana Randall

And some jokes (all taken from a website for Australian lesbians, "lemonkind.com")

Q: What do you call a lesbian dinosaur?
A: The lickalotopuss

Q: How can you tell if a lesbian is butch?
A: She kick starts her vibrator and rolls her own tampons.

Q: What do you call a lesbian with 1,000 semiautomatic rifles?
A: Militia Etheridge.

Q: What you do call a room full of 50 politicians and 50 lesbians?
A: 100 people who don't do dick

Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Five. One to change it, two to organise the potluck, one to write a folk song about the empowering experience and one to set up the support group.

Q: Why do lesbians like whales so much?
A: Because they have 50 foot tongues and breathe out of the top of their heads!

Q: What kind of humour do lesbians like?
A: Tongue in cheek.

Q: What do you call a lesbian with long fingernails?
A: Single.

Q. What's the new politically correct name for a lesbian?
A. A vagitarian.




A woman walks into her doctor’s office and says “Doctor, I have this terrible rash.” She lifts up her sweater to reveal a large ‘M’ shaped rash.

The doctor replies, “Now that is the strangest rash I’ve ever seen.” The woman explains, “Well my boyfriend goes to Michigan and refuses to take off his letter sweater when we make love.” The doctor shrugs her shoulders, prescribes some lotion and sends the woman on her way.

The next day another woman comes in with a very similar rash. “How did you get that?” the doctor asks. “My boyfriend goes to MIT and he refuses to take his letter sweater off when we make love,” she says. The doctor prescribes some lotion and sends the young lady on her way.

The third day another young woman comes into the doctor’s office and she too has a big rash in the shape of an ‘M’ on her chest.

“Let me guess,” the doctor says. “Your boyfriend goes to Maryland?” “No,” the patient replies, “My girlfriend goes to Wellesley.”

Some slang for you to throw around during Gaypril

I actually haven't heard of a lot of these, so this was wildly entertaining for me in class today. The only (funny) lesbian slang I really know of is "u-hauling"...and I thought there had to be more than that, right? Well thanks to UrbanDictionary.com, I have some wonderful slang terms for you.

lesbeaux: (n) a gay guy that loves hanging out with lesbians and/or identifies with lesbians. (i.e, Stevieee)

lesbro: (n); 1) a straight guy that loves hanging out with lesbians; the male equivalent of "fag hag." 2) a masculine lesbian that likes to "bro out" with her male friends or other masculine lesbians.

spaghetti girl: (n) a girl that is straight... until you get her wet ;)

Silver Star Lesbian: (n) a woman who has only had sexual intercourse with one man in her life (in this experience she either discovered or confirmed that she was indeed a lesbian)

lesbosaurus: (n) a very, very old lesbian

barsexual: (n) a girl that makes out with girls only at bars, usually for the attention of men

safaux/safauxsexual: (n) a girl that that says that she is bisexual or gay for the attention or because she thinks that it's "trendy"

Gay-OK: (adj) when a straight person is queer-friendly

Jobs, Life Purpose, Etc.

So today at lunch a group of my friends were talking about what they want to do when they leave college (more of a thoughtful, what's-possible kind of conversation since we're freshmen). Such a big question, right? I definitely would love to work with the LGBT community in some way -- I think about gay issues all the time, that's where my passion is. The hard part is in what capacity, though? There seem to be two paths - advocacy and working to create equal rights and better situations for people, and more of the counseling and directly working with people in those tough situations. I feel like for me personally, the most enjoyable thing in the world is listening to people's problems and helping them sort things out. I love the incredible calm that comes with pausing from my own chaotic life and just taking a journey with someone, connecting to what they're feeling at that specific moment. While I am interested in lending my voice to the equal rights movement and volunteering my time, I am not drawn to organize, to delegate tasks, to lead. I am much more interested in working with people one on one. I feel like at Yale and in a world that's competitive in general there can sometimes be pressure to be the leader, the one in charge.. but I think there is significance in other kinds of work, too. Really helping someone accept themselves as queer and become a healthier, more confident person is so important, and a worthwhile way to spend one's life I think. I like what one of my friends said at lunch today about each approach being important - one can affect an immense amount of people to a smaller extent, the other affects fewer people on a deeper level. It's just whatever you are more attracted to specifically.

Hell Week with a Happy Ending

This week was crazy; easily the worst week of my semester. Right after Spring Break I had two papers due and a midterm. I pulled an all-nigher from Tuesday to Wednesday, and then another one from Wednesday to Thursday. But I survived. Surprisingly, I did not ask for an extension, and I did not hand in anything late. Granted, my papers weren't perfect, but they were good, or decent at least.

This week taught me a lesson of breathing myself through things. On Monday at around 4pm, after running errands all day and not having started my many assignments, I was freaking out. I don't want to be overly dramatic, but I really felt almost a sense of despair, and was worried about not finishing all that I had to do. But I realized that the assignments would still be there, regardless if I was freaking out or calm. And so I breathed deeply. At first I thought I only had two papers due this week. Then, as I went to my discussion section on Monday, I realized that I also had a midterm on Thursday--panic attack. And again, BREATHE DEEPLY, BREATHE, BREATHE, BREATHE. There were a series of events all throughout this week for which my first instinct was to panic, but I had to practice taking two steps back, and breathing. It's like that phrase "Lord, grant me patience...but hurry!" and then what happens is that you get really nerve-racking situations, and become patient by practicing patience. It's quite Aristotelian in its habit-forming character.

Anyway, I survived. And I just wanted to share that with you. I've surprised myself. And now, after three weeks, I will finally get to see my girlfriend again today. It's the best thing I could have asked for, my light at the end of the tunnel. She's my light.

And finally, for your hearing pleasure, a song that helped me stay calm this week. It just reminds, when I need to be reminded the most, how great life is.