Slash, het, gen, heterosexuality as an unmarked state: posts you should read

Pursuant to yesterday's Vid-o-Rama discussions:

thingswithwings:

This is how heterosexual power is maintained, how homophobia is institutionalized. You can be gay, but keep it over there. You can be queer, but I don't want to have to see it, to look at it, to acknowledge its existence. I, as a queer lady, can never ever be "general," for general consumption, appropriate for children; a story about queer dudes or ladies can never be defined by its plot or by a single-character story. Slash stories can never be gen.

rm:

You might also want to take a step back from calling every random celebrity queer couple heroes for being out in places where it's largely safe to be out. I'm not saying it's not brave -- it's hard to be famous and gay and people still get bashed even in places like New York City. But, people have given up their lives in this struggle, and for those of us in the struggle, even if we're pretty privileged and haven't had to do the scary stuff (and for the record, I have been a target of anti-gay violence, harassment and rape threats; I've sat in the ER with friends who have been bashed) -- it's creepy when you call us heroes because you like watching us kiss/hold hands/fuck (yep, seen this one in fandom recently, and yeah, I'm looking at you Torchwood fandom). I am not a hero for turning you on, and neither is John Barrowman. Got it? Good.

Laid off

Much as I expected, I was laid off today. My last day at UCSF is August 2nd.

They cut my entire unit, again, much as I expected.

I'm mostly relieved, to be honest. I haven't liked this job for about a year, and I've been jobhunting in a desultory fashion for almost that long.

Time to step it up, though. Anyone who knows of any SF jobs in design (print or web), and/or any progressive organizations that are hiring, please let me know.