homophobia – Writers Resist

Make a Splash

By Ell Cee

Artist statement

As a queer person and artist, I’ve been struggling with the constant legislative attacks against the queer community echoing across America. So what’s at the heart of my piece, Make A Splash? Honestly? This is me looking into the eyes of homophobic politicians, homophobic people, and those who just sit neutrally on the fence and let it happen, and licking my sapphic lips at them. This is me bending over and spanking my ass in their general direction, while winking mischievously. With Make a Splash I wanted to celebrate and relish queer joy. I wanted vibrant colors, rainbow vibes, womxn intentionally and joyously existing as sexual beings. I wanted to celebrate the bodies of womxn. I wanted to be very open about what this piece was. I loved the image of a blue jeans model from the 80s bending over and looking at the camera. I put the kicking legs of cabaret dancers around the edges. I put a cut open, ripe, luscious strawberry surrounded by lips. I put winking-eye photos that almost look like Polaroids everywhere, echoing through the piece. I included lush greenery at her feet and last but not least, tickets to ride placed between her legs. And of course, the cherry on top of it all: the caption I created in the top right corner that reads, “Great Lady WITH HER OWN AGENDA.”

Ell Cee (They/She) is a lifelong artist as well as a member of the LGBTQIA2S, genderqueer, and disabled communities. They create one-of-a-kind pieces whose vibrancy and glow inspire joy. Ell uses recycled materials in much of their art, such as cardboard boxes, packaging materials, repurposed labels, and even discarded library books. Her art ranges across mediums: from watercolor markers, highlighting elements, paints, pencil, photography, mixed-media, hand lettering, to pen & ink, and high resolution image conversion processes. Find Ell’s art online at https://linktr.ee/EllCeeTheArtist and @EllCeeTheArtist on Instagram.

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Wrong Rainbow

By L. Acadia

Describing our droomhuis for Dutch class, my
worksheet filled with my dream house’s garden:
Hollyhocks, hydrangea higher than I,
wrought iron table for morning coffee,
serenading birds, frogs ringing a pond.
My love wrote an interior my mind
couldn’t fit: puppy-claw impervious
tile floors, dormer bedroom, dinner-party
primed kitchen, postprandial dancing space.

Years later, we recall the exercise,
tossing balkon, keuken, venster, fit now
to a dream house: open-plan high-ceilinged
flat—wood beams leading the gaze towards mountains,
snug loft for out-of-town or drunken friends,
green balcony, community garden,
busses to work: a millennial dream.

Rooftop looking out to summer salons
poetry, perhaps acoustic guitar.
Headlights flooding the street below create
a waterfall of light, mist spraying to stars.

We call our droomhuis “Jesus house” for the
forest of crosses, scandalous portraits
of unfashionably long-haired white men with
palm-wounds. The seller greets us cordially,
his wife places hands over their kids’ chests,
as though guarding their hearts from our inter-
racial lesbianism’s tick’ling daggers.

When they ghosted our offer, we enquired
through a new realtor. The Jesus house dad
asked, “are your clients a normal couple?”
Nee.

L. Acadia is a lit professor at National Taiwan University and member of the Taipei Poetry Collective, with poetry in Autostraddle, New Orleans Review, Strange Horizons, trampset, and elsewhere. Twitter and Instagram: @acadialogue

Image credit: Jim Choate via a Creative Commons license.

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Two Poems by Nancy Squires

As the Waters Rise

O God, look down
On all our drowned.
Hear us, we beg—
We’re on our knees.
Sorry, so sorry
About the trees,

The polar bears, the birds,
The bees; the icebergs
Gone, the thirsty lawns,
Plastic gyres, redwood
Pyres and all the many,
many cars. The eclipsed stars

We never see. Our Father
In Heaven, we pray
To Thee: Give us
This day.
We promise, oh we swear
On a stack of extinctions

We will repair
Our awful ways
And lead us not into oblivion
Although we can’t pretend
We had no clue. Save us
Now—before
Amen.

It’s No Use, Ron DeSantis

Before Marie Kondo-ing
I had a pile of beads
in a drawer, cheap baubles
from Gay Prides past:
Chicago, where the crowd spilled
into Halsted, slowing the procession
to a crawl; New York,
where drag queens rode the floats
in headdresses three feet tall
just like Carnival; and Boston,
many years—the one
where Kevin was The Little Mermaid
on the Disney float—his costume
(which he stitched himself),
perfection and his makeup,
animated glam. That woman on the Harley
who dyed her mohawk rainbow
every year, and the time
Sally spotted her coworker
coming down the route—
she was surprised to see him
in a wine-colored corset.
No beads
from Lansing, Michigan,
my first Pride—not
a parade but a march
and what got thrown
at us were insults, curses, glares
from people holding signs
that said God hated us.
So let’s say gay
and everything else
there is to say.
I should’ve kept that pile
of shiny plastic beads—
not sure if it was joy
they sparked but something—
Kevin reclining up there
amongst the other Disney folk
his shimmery mermaid tail
sparkling in the morning sun.
Say it: gay.
All the livelong day.
She and he and them
and they: we
aren’t going back
inside the boxes.

Nancy Squires is a writer, lawyer, and freelance copy editor. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Dunes Review, Split Rock Review, and Blueline Magazine. She grew up, and currently resides, in Michigan.

Photo credit: Linda De Volder via a Creative Commons license.

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Birthday Wishes

By Phoenix Ning

Sixteen-year-old person of color desires escape from this inferno
where dark-skinned individuals burn, and alabaster spectators
cheer from the sidelines, popping confetti guns and feeding
oil to ancient flames while claiming to be long-awaited saviors.

Eighteen-year-old student desires world history classes with curriculums
that celebrate African kingdoms, Indigenous empires, and South Asian cultures;
textbooks that condemn armor-clad imperialists stripping gowns of freedom;
articles that honor revolutionaries whose empty pockets did not silence their shouting.

Twenty-three-year-old woman desires to shatter the chains created
by men who think all girls are moons trapped by their gravity,
males who believe themselves to be suns instilling life into
fragile females who must offer their bodies as tokens of gratitude.

Twenty-year-old lesbian desires to taste the sweet wine of love
and cavort in inebriated glory with the woman whose gentle touch
sparks wildfires in her heart frozen by acerbic remarks fired by toxic relatives
when she turns her head away from men and smiles at her rough-hewn ladylove.

Phoenix Ning is a twenty-year-old Chinese writer of sapphic antiheroines and queer found families. She is currently a senior studying human-computer interaction. When not writing, she can be found watching C-Dramas and penning raps. A fierce advocate of diversity in media, she hopes that her audience will feel empowered after reading her words or listening to her songs. Learn more at ladyphoenixning.com.

Image credit: Jennifer Rakoczy via a Creative Common license.

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Vile Affections

By Soon Jones

I grow up in a Florida church being warned about
god-hating bull dykes and sissy fairy fags
leaving the natural use of the woman,
which is sex, because
all a woman is good for
is sex and tempting men.

Yet when a woman tempts another woman
somehow that is not about sex,
though I’m pretty sure it is:
I want Crystal instead of Stephen,
the hottest boy in youth group,
apparently.

At a sleepover with church girls
I panic when they throw
down a copy of J-14 magazine
with *NSync on the cover,
and interrogate me on who
I want to marry.
This is a trap:
there have been rumors about me
and they’re all true.

I pick Lance Bass for his friendly face.
This is not the wrong answer,
but it is still not the right answer.
I should have said Justin Timberlake or JC Chasez,
apparently, but I’ve made my bed

so now I have to buy Lance Bass stickers
and say how hot Lance Bass is at youth group
and now everything I own is covered
in Lance Bass. I even write about him
in my diary, in case someone reads it.

I doodle in my Lance Bass notebook
while my pastor rants about an “it”
with “hips of a woman, but a face like a man”
who served him coffee in some roadside diner.
He shares his fantasy of renting a room
in a Miami hotel close to the gay bars
on Memorial Day weekend, and how,

God willing,

he would hide in the air ducts
and descend on the bull dykes and sissy fags
with an AK-47 and a Bowie knife, for
they which commit such things
are worthy of death.
He throws his head back in ecstasy,
licks his lips at the thought
of all those queers he would sacrifice
on the altar before the Lord.

I hold Lance Bass to my chest
as the men shout “Amen!”
tossing hymnals at the pulpit
like panties.

Soon Jones is a Korean lesbian poet from the rural countryside of the American South. Their work has been published in Juke Joint, Westerly, beestung, and Moon City Review, among others. They can be found at soonjones.com, on Twitter, and on Instagram.

Poet’s note: Passages in italics are taken from Romans 1:27 and 1:32.

Photo Credit: “Ungodly Hate” by K-B Gressitt.

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Sip-In: 1966

By Jesse Mavro Diamond

For LGBT Rights Activist Dick Leitsch

Carpenters, bankers, bricklayers, undertakers.
Why gay bars?
Because we could only be gay
In gay bars.

The N.Y. State Liquor Authority CEO:
no discrimination in bars. Why?
because bars had the right to refuse customers
not acting suitably. Therefore, disorderly.

Bankers, bricklayers, undertakers, carpenters.
And Dick, a former Tiffany salesman
all risking entrapment because
wasn’t flirtation with a cute, undercover cop
worth the risk?

At the West Village bar,
John, Dick, Craig and Randy
dropped the “H” word bomb.
We are homosexuals and we want a drink.
Dick, Craig, John and Randy
I can’t serve you!
You’re not suitable! Therefore disorderly!

It’s true:
when a carpenter has sex with a banker
or a bricklayer has sex with an undertaker
or a John has sex with a Craig
or a Randy has sex with a Rick

being orderly is simply not suitable.

Jesse Mavro Diamond’s latest book of poetry, American Queers, will be published in 2022 by Cervena Barva Press. Her poetry has been published in many journals in The U.S. and Ireland. Her awards include first place in Eidos magazine’s international poetry competition for “A Very Sober Story,” the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival’s One of Ten Best Poems in the U.S. for “Swimming The Hellespont,” and “Chetwynd Morning,” chosen by Lascaux Review for its prize anthology. “An Elegy for Devron,” was musically scored by composer Mu Xuan Lu and premiered at Jordan Hall, Boston, in 2008. For many years, Mavro Diamond taught writing courses in Boston area colleges and high schools. She initiated and taught the first creative writing course Boston Latin School ever offered in its 386-year history.

Photo credit: USC Doheny Memorial Library.

Reparative Therapy

By Dein Sofley

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you. It’s just that, well, you know … it’s normal to have sexual feelings. Our bodies were made to procreate.

Reproduce.

Have babies.

When you’re married.

It’s just that a man and a woman, they fit together, by design.

See?

A woman provides the egg and a man provides the seed. It’s how God intended it to be.

Yes, Jesus, too.

Well, Mary was a virgin birth.

A virgin is somebody who hasn’t had sex yet.

Sex happens when a man and a woman love each other and they want to make a baby.

Yes, Jesus is God’s son.

No, God doesn’t have sex. Didn’t they teach you anything in Sunday school?

God made Adam out of dust and Eve out of Adam’s rib. “Be fruitful and multiply,” that’s what God said to them.

Do you understand?

You can’t make a baby with two women or two men. You need an egg and a seed.

That’s why I’m here to help you. Me, and your parents, just want what’s best for you. We want you to have a great life.

What you have is a condition.

Yes, it’s kind of like being sick.

No, I don’t have to administer a shot.

We might do some body work and EDMR.

No, it’s not going to hurt.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing.

Don’t worry. I’ll explain it to you later. I assure you, it doesn’t hurt.

What?

Oh. The condition’s called SSA. Same Sex Attractions.

But, don’t worry. I can cure you.

Look, there’s a lot of changes happening in your body. You’re just confused about your feelings.

There. There. It’s okay. You’re not alone. We all struggle with sin. What you’re going through is just a moment.

Here. Take a tissue.

You see, this is how you know God loves you. He listened to your prayers.

We’re all here to help you and there’s other people, kids your age, who struggle with the same condition. They can help you, too, through support groups and prayer.

It’s called “SSA.”

No, you’re not born with it.

No, an SSN is a different thing.

You see, sometimes we’re attracted to people for different reasons. Say you like Ashley’s hair or the way Danny laughs.

Okay, well, whose hair do you like?

Fine. Sadie’s hair.

Danny snorts when he laughs?

Okay, so maybe my examples weren’t the best, but you get the idea, right? You don’t have to be gay. It’s probably just adolescent infatuation or maybe you felt alienated at some point in your life.

No, not like Lilandra in X-Men.

I’ve never read Sandman.

Loki’s a shapeshifter, that’s different.

Look, we all seek approval. We all need love and acceptance.

Yes, even Blake. Pray for his salvation.

It’s just that sometimes we don’t get enough from our parents, or we get too much, and our imaginations run riots trying to invent what we lack. What you’re experiencing is a call to come back home to God. It’s a test of faith.

Here, why don’t we start with this worksheet?

No, it’s not a potato.

It’s an iceberg. See, those are waves. That’s the ocean. Down there’s a whole lot of stuff we can’t see. Feelings.

Yeah, sort of like your mom’s five-layered bean dip, I guess. More like … hmmm … has a friend ever wanted to play a different game than you at recess and it made you angry? Well, maybe you felt sad, too, down here, underneath.

That’s the stuff we’re here to find out about, so we can sort out your feelings.

It’ll be okay. I promise. You’ll feel better. Happy. You won’t be gay anymore. Godliness just takes a little work. You’ll be a better Christian, you’ll see. You’ll say, “Thank you Jesus for saving me.”

Dein Sofley teaches refugees English in the sanctuary city of Chicago. She earned her BA from Columbia College and her MFA in fiction from UC Riverside’s low-residency program. Her work has appeared in The Coachella Review, Writers Resist and the upcoming Five on the Fifth.

Westboro Baptist Church photo credit: Travis Wise via a Creative Commons license.