20th May 2013

Photoset reblogged from It has been a beautiful fight. Still is. with 101,130 notes

bitterbettie:

FAMILY FRIENDLY?!!! WHAT DO U MEAN FAMILY FRIENDLY??!?!?!?!!? NO.

Source: fitness-lifestylexx

15th May 2013

Photoset reblogged from Doctor Brew with 143,146 notes

pyladesdrunk:

threestories:

missvanillamilkshake:

norsegays:

astrolope:

People being angry about ~dem gays~ on Target’s Facebook.

I just want to give my two cents on this and tell you a story.

A couple weeks ago, I was hired at Target. I have a job at Target. Not a big deal right?

It is a big deal because i’m a transman. 

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that it’s hard for me, my brothers, and sisters to get a job. There are legal restraints regarding the job and if you don’t pass, it’s hard to be taken seriously at a job interview.

Right on the application, it asks what your preferred name is. It also asks if there is anything that target should know. I put the fact that I am a transman, expecting not to get a call because usually when you put that down, people will throw out the application. I got TWO interviews.

At the interview, they asked me about it. I told them I am on hormones and they told me that they didn’t care. Not in the sense that they don’t emotionally care, but that it didn’t matter. I was male and that’s all that mattered. They also told me that they give sex same couples benefits in states that do not recognize them as a married couple.

At my job orientation, I was not misgendered once. Even my supervisors who weren’t sure of my gender avoided pronoun use, which I found only happens when you’ve had pronoun training. They gave me a name tag with my preferred name and didn’t ask questions. I felt safe and respected, which is huge for a trans* person.

TLDR: Target is amazing not just for the LGB, but also the T. Shop there for the rest of your life.

 #GO TARGET #FUCK YES

I love reading stuff like this and I’m sincerely happy that norsegays has a safe and respectful environment in which he can do his job.

Whenever I hear about people or businesses excluding LGBT+ customers or workers, I’m reminded of an incident from when I was very young, around 12 or so, so we’re talking the late 80s/possibly early 90s, which was 20+ years ago. My mother, a woman who is otherwise by no means without her flaws, worked as a freelance cosmetic and skin care consultant for Estee Lauder, and at the time, she had been contracted to work in a Macy’s in Houston, TX. This meant she was there not to sell anything, but to merely help customers find the right skincare and makeup products for them, and the counter salesgirls would finish the sales and do any upsells.

Sometimes after school, my grandparents would drive me to the mall and let me hang out and watch my mom work, which was… mostly boring, because I wasn’t too interested in watching my mom put makeup on people, but gave me lots of opportunities to people-watch, too. And sometimes she’d put makeup on me! Which was fun, for a 12-year-old.

Anyway, on this particular day, a very tall and very striking and (I thought at the time) attractive trans*lady shyly approached the makeup counter to browse the expansive lipstick section. I couldn’t help but stare, not because she was strange-looking to me, because my mother knew other trans*folk and so I did, too, but because she was very made up and was wearing very elegant clothes, and seemed so very glamorous to me, very unlike the people I saw in my every day life at a small-town Texas Catholic school. My mother, however, was not there to sell lipsticks, just do makeovers and facials on people, so she waited for the salesgirls to approach the lady and help her.

And waited.

And waited. 

Instead, the two of them - a woman in her 50s and a college co-ed - stood at a distance, staring and eye-rolling and whispering and laughing. The customer noticed - well, we ALL noticed because they weren’t being subtle - and she looked very embarrassed (and in my memory, perhaps a little disappointed), but tried to ignore them as she browsed. My mother must have finally realized no one was going to help her, because she just sort of sighed and charged right on in, introduced herself and started chatting the lady up about lipsticks.

She seemed a little taken aback more than anything at first. Not that I could blame her. She had clearly given up all hope of anyone approaching her, and, well… some of you reading this have met my mother and know she is a very flashy, extroverted, opinionated Latina, fond of costume jewelry and fire-engine-red hair and talking about makeup, so undoubtedly she took this particular customer by surprise on several levels. The tension having been broken, however, I got bored watching them ease into a long, animated conversation about skin types and skin tones and matte vs. shimmer and a bunch of other crap I had (still have) very little interest in and got back to reading my book.

My mother ended up selling her $370 worth of products. At the time? That was a lot of fucking money. She also became a repeat client and referred several of her friends. And when my mother left that Macy’s, the lady followed her to her new location 45 minutes away and patronized her business continually until we moved to another state 3 years later.

The moral of this story is: it not only makes you a shitty person to demean and humiliate and bully and exclude customers and employees for no freaking good reason, it also makes you an inexcusably bad business person.

Target continues to make me proud to be a customer of their’s.

Andie, your mom is wonderful.

Never thought I would be saying hooray for target.

  I used to work in a Macy’s department store and I can still vividly remember the company giving everyone a class on “gender sensitivity/ appropriate customer conduct” The lecture/class basically boiled down to being patient and open with costumers that are transgender. The customer normally only talks to a sales associate’s over prices, sizes, and availability so there is no need to discriminate. if they need additional help with style choices or whatnot and you are not able to help just call a shopping assistant or a more experienced associate over to help consult the customer. The only real snag in the lecture was what would be the appropriate way to get the customer into the correct changing area. This was however not a real problem in our store because the men’s and women’s departments are in entirely different building here in Modesto, so there was no real need to ask or debate over which room would be appropriate.

   Even the uppity christian lady I worked with would be patient and tell the potential customer that they will get them ( the customer) a sale associate better suited for their needs whenever it came up. Unfortunately the classes only came about after a series of unfortunate and shameful incidents involving shallow assholes making a big deal over a customer being different. I know not every department store makes these efforts but I am proud to say the one I worked at was at the time, and hopefully is making an effort to make everyone comfortable and appreciated.

  Hopefully the idea that all people should and will be accepted and respected with the utmost courtesy catches on. If a bigot can’t handle their feelings over people it is their loss.

Source: astrolope

11th May 2013

Photoset reblogged from they were spaceships. with 76,314 notes

tentacruels:

olgie13:

“This gorgeous Hälssen & Lyon calendar is made of brewable tea. Each day is made of fine pressed wafer thin tea leaves.” 

Source: olgie13