@apostqlos @kwezzzzzzi did this to when we were in the library.. 💀 #foryou #viral #comedy ♬ original sound – apo
Same blood: Let the Right One In and young queerness
Oskar, the pre-pubescent protagonist of Let the Right One In, is about as pale as the snow that blankets the frigid landscape around him in Stockholm, Sweden. His hair is technically blonde, but looks so drained of its color it might as well be just as frosted as his skin. He’s emaciated, seemingly all skin and bone with no muscle to be found. His lips look like faint, thin grey lines on his face. He is, most importantly, androgynous looking.
All of these elements that make of Oskar’s character, not to mention his slight personality, so timid and naïve, are enough to give the bullies at his school reason enough to violently harass him. Even at the tender age of 12, the roles in this society are set: if one does not demonstrate the perceived standard for masculinity (or, conversely, femininity, such as in Carrie), one is immediately ostracized. It’s nothing new. Oh, and Oskar just might be a young person in search of his queer identity.
Then, it seems almost too perfect a framework to use the vampire story (film or otherwise) as a way to examine adolescence. What’s interesting about vampirism and vampires are they are the monster that can best represent a multitude of ideas: The pain of immortality (and mortality), the cruelty of adolescence, the seductive quality of lust and sexuality, and loneliness. Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 film Let the Right One In (Låt den Rätte Komma In), based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, wraps the many themes into one, but keys into the romanticism of the vampire with an adolescent and queer edge.
The vampire has an extended history as a symbol or representation or image of queerness. There was the countess Elizabeth Bathory, infamous for allegedly bathing in the blood of her young mistresses as a way to preserve her youth. There was the story “Carmilla” by J. Sheridan LeFanu published in 1871 about a lesbian vampire.
And, while the queer content isn’t necessarily explicit, Bram Stoker’s seminal Dracula nonetheless flows with queer subtext, notably Count Dracula’s mistresses. (This subtext was basically made text in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in which the vampire mistresses appear to be lascivious and bisexual.) In film, there was 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter and, certainly, The Hunger in 1983 (starring queer icon David Bowie).
But all of these examples involve adults. Vampires, by nature, are heavy in exploring sexuality, but it appears to be difficult to do that with younger characters. It’s difficult to explore the sexuality of younger characters in general, because there ends up being a fine line between examination of such and exploitation or sexualization. Which brings us to Let the Right One In.
Yuma Kagiyama
16-year-old Yuma Kagiyama won the bronze medal at last weekend’s Japanese Nationals
The fight to stop genital surgeries on intersex infants
Pidgeon Pagonis’ childhood memories include surgeries, hormone therapy, and repeated inspections of their genitals. When they turned 18 and got a copy of their medical records, they finally understood why.
Trans kids do just fine if you let them, major study says
Some things seem to be obvious but in the face of ignorance and hate it can’t hurt to lay out the scientific facts. That’s exactly what a study of trans- and cisgender kids recently did. And they found that that trans kids are indeed the same as any other kids.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers from the University of Washington’found no difference in gender expression between trans and cis kids.
“Trans kids are showing strong identities and preferences that are different from their assigned sex. There is almost no difference between these trans and cisgender kids of the same gender identity — both in how, and the extent to which, they identify with their gender or express that gender,” wrote lead author Selin Gülgöz.
More than 300 trans children aged between three and 12 took part in the study on gender development, the largest of its kind, along with 189 of their cisgender siblings and a further 316 cisgender control subjects.
Murray Hall: The politician who broke 19th Century gender rules
He was a hard-drinking, twice-married businessman and politician in 19th Century New York – but Murray Hall had a secret which was only revealed after his death.
Murray Hall had a reputation for hard living – drinking, smoking, playing poker and even brawling with a policeman. He also had an active political career and a business as a bail bondsman.
So far, so ordinary for a man at the time. But one aspect of his life remained a secret until he died from cancer in 1901. That was when it first emerged that Hall had been assigned female at birth.
It was later reported that he had been born in Govan as Mary Anderson. According to a source quoted by the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, he began dressing as a male in his teens, then fled to America when his first wife disclosed his gender to the police. It was there that he took the name Murray H Hall, before marrying for a second time and beginning his business and political career.
Writer and archivist Mel Reeve said there had been a “huge backlash” in the media after his death. “People were very angry and felt like they’d been betrayed, but obviously he was just living his life how he wanted to – which was as a man,” she said.
Newspapers reported breathlessly on the events in articles which reflected some of the attitudes of the times. The New York Times, for instance, accused him of “masquerading” in male attire. It said Hall had a reputation as “a ‘man about town’, a bon vivant, and all-around ‘good fellow’.”
One senator described how Hall used to “hobnob with the big guns of the County Democracy” and said that he “cut quite some figure as a politician”. He added: “He dressed like a man and talked like a very sensible one.”