Hasta La Gadget!

In recent weeks, Twitter has become home to two viral hashtag campaigns: #GiveElsaAGirlFriend and #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend, which both propose that beloved pop culture characters, Elsa from “Frozen” and Captain America respectively, be given same-sex partners in the upcoming sequels to their wildly successful films.

Because queer people are rarely allowed to openly express their desires without non-queer people losing their minds, it wasn’t long before another hashtag predictably reared its exasperated head on Twitter: #StopGayingAllTheThings.

The hashtag, started by conservative radio host Steven Crowder, served as a call to arms against the “LGBTQAAIP gaystapo”:

I’m always amused when anyone thinks that queer people currently have the power to run and/or ruin America. We’ve seen some encouraging progress in terms of visibility in mainstream culture and in the media, sure. And, yes, we’ve finally started to receive some of the same rights as non-queer people (I know, I know, we’re so obnoxious — how dare we want to be treated just like everyone else, right?), but they idea that there’s any kind of imminent threat to the heteronormative, patriarchal status quo in this country (and most others) is, tragically, a joke.

And still, Crowder is right: queer people are trying to gay everything and everyone and the truth is, we’ve been doing it for years.

Can you really blame us? When we look at our TV screens or buy a ticket to a blockbuster movie, too often we don’t see ourselves. GLAAD’s 2016 Studio Responsibility Index found that only 17.5 percent of 126 major movies released in 2015 contained characters who identified as LGBT. What’s worse, those characters are often villains, walking stereotypes or they’re killed off before we can even really get to know them. GLAAD’s report found that only eight of the 22 major studio films to include a queer character lived up to GLAAD’s Vito Russo Test, which measures how those characters are presented in the context of the film in a similar way to the Bechdel Test. This was the lowest percentage since GLAAD began examining films with this criteria in 2012.

So, we’ve been forced to dream. So, we’ve been compelled to scheme. Over the last century, queer people have become remarkably adept at looking for clues, deciphering codes and claiming the bodies that have been overlooked, forgotten or unfazed by the grabby hand of heterosexuality. We’ve projected our lives and our loves and our desires into whatever corners and onto whatever creatures we can, whenever we can. And we’ve found a bit of hope, if not happiness, in something as simple as imagining ourselves existing — and dare I even suggest thriving! — in a world that was and is not designed for us.

It’s our way of taking up space and signaling to each other that we are not alone and that is nothing short of revolutionary. Within a culture that wants us silenced, legislatively erased and/or dead, this kind of fantasizing is fundamentally necessary for our survival and functions as a radical, political act of resistance and we won’t stop because we can’t stop — our futures depend on it.

These hashtag campaigns are our way of putting our longing into action or, at the very least, they can act as opportunities to dissipate some of our disappointment with the way the world operates while possibly vanquishing a bit of our collective loneliness.

Social media, for all of its headaches and all of its dramas, has provided us a way to publicly dream our dreams of queer superheroes and Disney princesses. It may not be the real thing. Elsa and Captain America might not get queer lovers next month or next year, but the remarkable thing is that thanks to the stunning ingenuity, relentless hard work and fearless leadership of so many in our community, some of our wildest wishes have actually come true. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re getting there and it’s because we dared to decide that we deserved everything we wanted, we worked for it and we refused to take “no” for an answer.

So we say: yes. Yes! We want to gay everything. Yes, just like everyone else, we want to feel like this world belongs to us and we want to feel like we belong in this world. And no, silly hashtag campaigns won’t stop states from passing really awful laws or stop bigots from murdering our sisters, and, yes, we may have more terrifying things to contend with than suffering through more straight superhero movies. But every smidgeon of resistance we can muster matters and every vision we can realize counts. Just look at where we’ve already been and what we’ve already survived!

So, yes, keep pushing for gay princesses. And yes, keep thinking up boyfriends for Avengers. After making the magic we’ve made and seeing the miracles we’ve seen since the dawning of the modern queer movement fifty years ago, there’s no reason to stop dreaming now.

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Amid a barrage of depressingly frequent state level attacks on abortion access, California Governor Jerry Brown and state labor unions struck an historic deal in April of 2016 that should be celebrated as a win for reproductive justice activists everywhere. Brown agreed to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2022 and ensure that after 2024, the state minimum wage will be indexed to the cost of living. While the deal has been widely celebrated as a win for the grassroots Fight for $15 movement, many have failed to recognize how important increasing the minimum wage is for the reproductive justice movement.
This is unabashedly good news for the more than 5 million minimum wage workers across the state who will receive an average annual earnings increase of $3700. Increasing the economic security of minimum wage workers, important for all women, is welcome news for anyone who is invested in balancing the scale of power in favor of marginalized communities. For those of us who have witnessed the swift degradation of abortion rights over the last five years, however, the $15 minimum wage victory is particularly important.

Expanding workers’ rights is a necessary tenet of the reproductive justice movement , as economic security is critical for all women – especially in light of the wage and other systemic disparities that women of color experience. Removing all barriers that stand in the way of a person’s ability to access reproductive health care has always been and continues to be central to the reproductive justice movement . Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, which recognized the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, reproductive justice activists have worked to make that right a reality. Reproductive justice activists recognize that ensuring everyone, regardless of income, has meaningful access to healthcare is integral to guaranteeing that right.

Increasing the minimum wage puts more money into workers’ pockets, which is an important part of expanding economic security for workers and their families. While California does not require people to endure mandatory waiting periods or travel across state to access reproductive health care services, an abortion can cost upwards of $1000. Particularly for under-insured and uninsured low wage workers, this cost can be prohibitive. Working folks should not be forced to choose between accessing the reproductive health care services they need and fulfilling other basic needs.

Putting more money in workers’ pockets will affect more than just someone’s ability to pay for an abortion. Increasing the minimum wage has also been shown to reduce child poverty among female-headed households. Thirty-one percent of minimum wage workers in California are women who have children, so Jerry Brown’s decision will substantially affect their ability to achieve economic security and provide the kind of life they want for their families.

Raising a person’s purchasing power means that they have more control over the direction and quality of their lives and their children’s lives.While raising the minimum wage is not a catchall solution to barriers Californians face when trying to exercise their right to choose, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. The reproductive justice movement should celebrate and rally behind any law that not only expands meaningful access to abortion services, but places economic control back into the hands of all people.

Written by Carley Towne

Carley Towne is an undergraduate student at UCSD who also works as a Student Journalist for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equality (URGE).

Image by Paul Sableman via Flickr

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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