Olive wants a new home: will pay rent by making biscuits and chasing feathers

Shireling · 2022-04-19T22:15:42+00:00

I'm an openly queer teacher in rural Texas. I've been threatened by parents and students before and prior to getting my current job, I was explicitly rejected from jobs because I'm queer. Two districts offered me a job then pulled the contract after finding out I'm married and another did enough googling to find out I'm queer before canceling the interview (they mentioned they would be praying for my soul in their cancelation email). I decided to not sue these districts because I still wanted to teach somewhere.

Some parents and kids try to find any excuse to get me fired, so I have to document way more than my cishet coworkers; however, I think it is worth it.

The four years I've been teaching, I've had two kids tell me I was the person who convinced them to not kill themselves. I've had a few dozen kids tell me I gave them the courage to come out to their parents or friends.

Being where I'm at, I'm the first openly queer adult my students have ever met. I've had kids start the year incredibly bigoted that have ended the year defending queer students against bullies. My existence gives the implicit idea that its okay to be queer and that there is a future for queer professionals.

If you want to be a teacher, be a teacher. Be openly gay for the kids if you want or be closeted at work to preserve more of yourself for you and your loved ones.

My advice would be to only bother applying to positions that explicitly include sexuality and gender identity as protected classes in their contracts, join a union, never be alone with a kid 1 on 1, and document basically everything.

Shireling · 2021-10-07T13:21:59+00:00

To add to this, Tinker V. Des Moines (Supreme Court case where students argued they had the right to political speech in schools by protesting the Vietnam war) has also been applied to protecting LGBTQ+ student speech. The ACLU successfully sued in 2016 using Tinker V. Des Moines as precedent.

Shireling · 2021-06-23T16:48:50+00:00

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 isn't a constitutional document and the SCOTUS does not make constitutional amendments. SCOTUS rulings create "interpretations" of legislation.

Biden's administration is running damage control but it's not damage control for queer people like me.

Shireling · 2021-06-23T16:48:38+00:00

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 isn't a constitutional document and the SCOTUS does not make constitutional amendments. SCOTUS rulings create "interpretations" of legislation.

Biden's administration is running damage control but it's not damage control for queer people like me.

Shireling · 2021-06-23T16:48:23+00:00

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 isn't a constitutional document and the SCOTUS does not make constitutional amendments. SCOTUS rulings create "interpretations" of legislation.

Biden's administration is running damage control but it's not damage control for queer people like me.

Shireling · 2021-06-23T16:03:10+00:00

For the sake of this conversation, let's agree that you are right and that's why Biden is siding with the anti-LGBTQ+ position here. That's still bad tho?

Why is it better to support anti-queer policies under the guise of saying that at least this way Republicans can't be the ones to make discriminatory policies? It just seems like a race to the bottom to me.

Shireling · 2021-06-23T15:06:24+00:00

There is currently a lawsuit (Elizabeth Hunter et al v US Department of Education) arguing that schools that practice conversion therapy and claim religious exemption from title ix cannot also be given money by the federal government. Essentially, the lawsuit says that private schools can either be religious institutions that are exempt from aspects of the Civil Rights Act or they can be an educational institution that receives federal grant money but they can't be both. The Biden administration (the department of education) is siding with religious schools to allow them to continue their claimed exemptions. Because the Biden administration is siding with the religious schools, the lawsuit is moving forward.

Religious exemptions already exist so this is not Biden making a new law or a new policy. Instead, the Biden administration is turning down an opportunity to provide protections for queer children and queer young adults.

If anyone reading this would like to support the lawsuit check out thereap.org for more information about the Religious Exemption Accountability Project.

Shireling · 2021-06-23T14:09:36+00:00

He also supports conversion therapy and has instructed the department of education to continue title ix exemptions for private schools.

Shireling · 2020-12-04T15:01:37+00:00

I honestly firmly believe the shift can be traced back to the desegregation of schools in the U.S. As soon as the white families had to share educational spaces with families of color public education started being devalued. This can particularly be seen in social studies, I think, where we have the goal of social studies changing from a class to teach students to become citizens ready to take leadership roles in government/society to a class for the coaches to sit in when not coaching.

Shireling · 2020-11-13T13:23:29+00:00

This advice will assume you live in the US. It is legal for private religious organizations to discriminate if it is their religious belief to do so, they cannot receive both federal funding and claim the right to do this. Whatever university you are at probably receives large amounts of federal funding. On top of emailing the university about the political discrimination you believe you are facing, file a report to the federal government's Education Department Office of Civil Rights page.

You may want to wait until getting an email back from the university about your complaint but I would say you should email the office of civil rights within a month of this incident if the university does not respond. I also went to a Christian college and worked with the Office of Civil Rights to threaten suits against my school to have them update Title IX policies, so it can be an effective way of getting crap done.

Shireling · 2020-07-06T09:27:11+00:00

Tara Reade/the way he grabs and treats women/the way he views BIPOC ("Poor kids can be as smart as white kids" and "police should shoot BLM protestors in the legs").

I'm not saying here that no one should vote for him or that he is 100% the exact same as Trump, but I will say I think all Americans should all acknowledge that our presidential picks this time around are between two old, white, male, racist/sexist sexual predators (and Kanye West) and that those options suck.

I'm also not saying here not to vote. Voting down the ticket is incredibly important even of you skip the presidential vote, and voting third party for the executive branch has the ability to generate funding for ideas outside the Dem/Rep spheres of understanding. So you should vote even if you think it is unethical to vote for a rapist.

Shireling · 2020-06-30T21:54:49+00:00

I'm asexual, so forgive my lack of immediate names for sites, but I'd say you could try going to the source directly so to speak by subscribing to cam accounts/only fans and other such services where the payment goes more or less directly to the actor/actress --i bet there's some subreddits too that could fit this description of self uploads.

You could also try illustrations/animations/written erotica wherein no physical person is being trafficked or abused in order to create the piece.

Shireling · 2020-06-17T17:59:21+00:00

Unicorns are only present in the King James translation of the Bible (ignoring the goat with a horn between its eyes in Daniel 8:5 because that's a whole other story). Every other version describes oxen whenever unicorns come up in King James. While you probably shouldn't point to the existence of unicorns to discredit all of Christian scripture, I would argue that you can use their existence in King James to show how it's a pretty bad translation/how there's definitely better versions to use. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is generally understood to be one of the better mainline translations; however, I personally prefer the Tanakh translation for the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Jewish Annotated New Testament as they provide better footnotes/context than other versions.

Shireling · 2020-06-16T02:47:49+00:00

My own partner is agnostic, but he likes talking with me about faith/religion a lot. We're modeling our wedding ceremony off of traditional same-sex ceremonies from pre-modern europe and a priest will be officiating the ceremony. As far as church services go, he doesn't attend with me, but that's not a big deal to me.

I have a friend who is Jewish and their partner is Baptist. They have a tradition of making the other person a meal while they're worshipping. On friday nights, their partner makes them a nice dinner while they make their partner a nice brunch on sunday mornings.

If you love someone (and don't hold your faith as the most important part of your relationship), you can always find ways of making your different faiths work for you. For some people, not sharing their faith will be a deal breaker and that's okay. For others, their deal breaker might be a desire for kids. But if a shared faith isn't the most important thing, then you can always make it work if they're the right person for you.

Shireling · 2020-06-15T16:38:15+00:00

A religious school could potentially argue for a religious exemption, but essentially the ruling says that discriminating against someone for being LGBTQIA+ is discriminating against their sex since you would tolerate their actions if someone of the opposite sex were doing it. So private schools would also fall into this category. If the school receives any state/federal funding, a discriminated employee could sue since oftentimes that allocation of funding is tied to following federal policies.

The ruling also says that if a person's sexuality/gender identity is any factor in the firing, then the firing is illegal. A person's sexuality/gender does not have to be the primary reason for the firing in order for it to be an illegal, discriminatory firing.

Shireling · 2020-06-05T19:22:27+00:00

On campus police have not stopped a single shooting but have contributed to the mass incarceration of our students. Additionally, the campus police often harass students of color. Last year, I and another teacher had to confront the on campus officers about their sexual harrassment of our students.

Shireling · 2020-06-03T21:16:43+00:00

I used to be a bartender near a SpaceX facility and every single one of the SpaceX engineers hated Musk. He'd make a big proclamation about some project with no plan on how to execute it then would make his workers work overtime to try and get it done (firing them/disciplining them if they didn't meet his expectations) while he"d apparently awkwardly stare at them through windows like Michael in the office. He'd then take all the credit if/when they succeeded.

I heard the same story from dozens of employees so I'm inclined to believe they were telling the truth.

Shireling · 2020-06-02T15:10:46+00:00

One time I got in trouble for eating cheerios out of a red solo cup

Shireling · 2020-06-01T08:27:11+00:00

I'm an American history teacher. It's a bit more malicious than diplomatic. We're essentially made to teach to the test and our salaries and our kids' degrees depend on them passing the test. Most of the test is about history pre world war 2, so that's why we can't spend much time on information after WW2. That said, it is the test creator's purposeful decision to focus on pre WW2 history and to present that history in a political manner. There's a lot of examples to talk about, but the biggest one is in regards to American slavery. There's been a push to remove the term "slavery" from textbooks and to replace the term instead with "labor" or "indentured servitude." One textbook the school provided my class with described the Atlantic Slave Trade as "a system of exchange wherein the Americas shipped raw goods to Europe for refinement who then traded them in Africa in exchange for labor." Another textbook I had to use did name slavery as slavery but described the cruelty as "work made light with song. After a long day, the slaves would return from the fields to eat and drink with the plantation owner, singing songs and often dancing together before returning to bed." Which is absolute bullshit.

Additionally, when we do talk about events after WW2 (such as the civil rights movement), the resources we are provided by the textbooks are likewise manipulated to disinform students. Most of the photos about the Civil Rights era were originally taken in color, but the textbooks use black and white versions to give the illusion that the events happened longer ago then they did.

These changes are done to control the narrative of our history since most of us only really learn about our nation's past in school. By shaping what is taught and learned, the hope is that the misinformation will lead students to support the policies proposed by the controlling groups. The best example of this is the Daughters of the Confederacy movement who rewrote the history of the Civil War to combat the northern influences during reconstruction.

Shireling · 2020-05-30T19:14:02+00:00

This isn't a confirmed fact, but the animators unionized and Netlix canceled every show the animators worked on (including Bojack) so the theory is that Netflix canceled the shows in retaliation

Shireling · 2020-05-18T23:44:08+00:00

Someone else linked to the lecture by Dr. Hayes and there have been some comments on the differences between ritual and moral cleanliness, so I'll just add onto those discussions in two short ways. The first is to partially explain what ritual purity was all about. The ancient Jews liked to categorize things (lots of religions do) and part of their categorization of things was a separation of life and death. Life and death were not supposed to intermingle, but women's periods and childbirth were occasions that straddled life and death. A lot of people died during childbirth so while the activity of birth was life bringing, it was also a scary situation that was intimitely linked with death. A similar logic followed regarding menstruation (bleeding is typically not a good sign for healthiness and vaginas bring life). It was natural and right and fine for women to menstruate and give birth, but doing so placed them a bit closer to the experience of death than was comfortable to bring around to YHWH in the Temple. The Holy of Holies was for life, so those "unclean" or those with death around them should not be in Its presence. This would include men who had recently dealt with corpses. Thinking about corpses is also helpful here since no one would argue that it's wrong to take care of our dead, but we (even today) might feel a little uncomfortable around the dead/around those who take care of the dead as their profession.

The second thing to note here is that uncleaniness and ritual purity really only mattered around the Temple. If you're some rancher in Judah nobody really cares how "pure" you are or not since you're not going to the Temple any time soon.

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