Entangled with You is a romantic drama-comedy series about couples who complicate each other’s lives post separation. Faced with loneliness, change, and one unexpected bout of VD, new roommates Alisha and Jaliyah get an up close and unwanted look into each other’s personal business and somehow manage to see past their differences and overcome the awkwardness. Now if only their significant others were comfortable with that…

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Oh dear (non-crippled) reader, I can see your sweet little head shaking from side to side with concern because you cannot possibly imagine who would say such a thing about someone with a physical disability. I mean, all your friends would be able to look past someone’s body, and date the person. And you wouldn’t even notice the cane after a while, or the limp. Or at least you would get used to it and forget. Because you are a good person, and your friends are good people, not like Joe Jackson at all.

Zoom in on my empty heartspace. I have been diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erethematosus for years now, and I almost don’t always hate my body. Sure, it does lots of kooky stuff like fall over without warning and threaten me with fainting. Sure, I have to sleep for eleven hours in order to be remotely productive. Sometimes all of my daily allotment of energy goes to washing the back of my neck in the shower or cooking for myself, but at least after four years of forced medication I can do those things again. My friends no longer have to pull double duty as cooking and care assistants (buttoning my buttons, combing my hair, filling my pots with water, etc.) which means that neither will my beautiful, delightful, intelligent partner who does not exist.

I have not had a serious or long-term relationship since I was diagnosed with SLE and stigma about the dateability of sick cripples is a huge reason why. Before I was diagnosed, I was just sick. I have always been very sick and very seriously allergic to the sun. I didn’t know this fact until I got a definitive diagnosis, and it caused lots of problems with partners who felt like I should do able bodied things that I just couldn’t do, and then proceeded to abuse and humiliate me.

My inability to perform certain sexual positions, constant sleepiness, and the fact that I live in constant pain became the subject of jokes and taunts which I couldn’t take seriously because I didn’t have a medical diagnosis. So, to able bodied folks, I was not sick (even though I was sick). When I told my last pre-diagnosis partner that I thought I had SLE, she said that I was too pretty for that to be true. That I was probably overreacting. Several years later, I informed her that I did have SLE and she was silent. I knew something irreconcilable had gone on in her mind. Something about me had changed for her.

Dating someone with a sickness onto death (which for Black people SLE frequently is) (don’t come for me on this one) (fine: J Dilla for example) is something that people just don’t want to do. For a femme to have a life-changing sickness onto death is even worse the paradigm goes, because there are so many things associated with femininity that I cannot and won’t ever do. Bearing a child would likely kill me or the baby. I cannot walk in heels without excruciating pain.  I fall asleep at inopportune times. I’ve been on low dose chemo for years and have lost all of my curves. I am the wrong type of femininity for dating and love, as my life has shown me time and again.

Last month, I saw Tyler Perry’s movie Temptation. [Spoiler alert.] The film, which stars Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Brandi Norwood, and Robbie Jones is on the surface a cautionary tale about stepping out on your partner and champions “good Christian” morals. Unfortunately, its effect is to show one more example of how Hollywood capitalizes on the unlovability of permanently sick people. Both Judith (Smollett-Bell) and Melinda (Norwood) contract HIV from Harley (Jones), a millionaire playboy who loves to beat on women and have rapey, condom-free, sex.

Although both women are alive at the end of the movie, they never go on with their lives. They are aged prematurely with make-up and bad wigs, which is supposed to signify the fact that they are no longer viable partners, and should not be looked upon with hot lusty desire. When asked if they want to date or start families of their own, they humbly say no and look sad. We all know what is implied by these scenes: sick people are essentially dead; they want to be left alone to die.

SLE and HIV are both diseases that disproportionately kill Black women. Disabled people are the largest and poorest minority group. Popular media examples of crippled Black femininities sanction chronic lovelessness by showing no other option.  They help spread the misinformation that keeps disabled people oppressed and isolated. Thus, it is imperative that we as a community reevaluate our biases towards the disabled and question the perpetuation of stereotypes that hinge upon the idea that crippled femininities don’t want or need romantic love. Love is an essential part of building community and Black cripples are worth loving. Today, I love myself by refusing The Katherine Jackson Paradigm and finding the beauty in my sleepy, painful, crippled body.

- Cyrée Jarelle Johnson

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson is a Black Femme dyke writer, scholar, zinester, and poet. Cyrée Jarelle is committed to relocating Femme culture from margin to center using writing, non-formal education and communal publication. Ze remains a crippled Jersey Grrl abroad; in hir swollen feet ze is a wanderer, but hir heart is in the foodcourt at the Woodbridge Mall.

In episode six, tensions build between Taylor and Tyler when a less-than-wanted relative drops in.  Tracy shows her true colors and Bryn gets hip to the extent of her brand of crazy.  With Skye out of town, Taylor finds the stress release she needs with Cassie.

The DC-based series continues to provide a refreshing take on the lesbian-driven webisode. The cast represents an array of shades, shapes, gender presentations and identities, portraying storylines that are just relatable.

Need to play catch up on previous episodes? Subscribe to bctv’s Youtube channel.

A new Cheerios commercial featuring a biracial family has prompted a debate over race in America after drawing a host of ugly remarks online.The commercial features a biracial daughter asking her white mother if Cheerios are good for your heart, and then dumping a batch on her black father’s chest to playfully help his heart while he is sleeping on the couch. Check out this hilarious Cheerios parody “Just Checking” response to haters, featuring a queer couple.

New York Lawmakers Urged to Pass Measure Protecting Transgender People’s Rights

The New York Times urged New York lawmakers on Thursday to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), a measure to protect transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit and public accommodations. Unfortunate title aside (more on that in a minute), the editorial is the latest among recent calls to put the measure — which has bipartisan support in the state Senate and Assembly — to an up-or-down vote before the legislative session ends on June 20.

Read more at Salon.

Danielle Powell, Grace University Student Kicked Out For Being Lesbian, Must Repay Thousands 

Danielle Powell was close to getting her bachelor’s degree when she was kicked out of her university for being gay in 2012, and now says the only way the school will transfer her credits to another school is if she agrees to pay $6,300. In response, Powell has launched an online petition to pressure the school to forgive the debt.

Continue reading on the Huffington Post.

LGBT Rights and Communities of Color in the South [VIDEO]

Colorlines held a live chat with readers and southern LGBT organizers as part of their ongoing LGBT Pride 2013 coverage. In this video, Colorlines.com’s Jamilah King interviews the Freedom Center for Social Justice’s Bishop Tonyia Rawls.

Crush Of The Week: Meshell Ndegeocello 

It’s Pride Month, and I want to kick it off by feting a queer Black woman who’s a truly underappreciated musical genius: Meshell Ndegeocello. Where can I even start? I’ve loved Ndegeocello, who self-identifies as bisexual, since her Grammy-nominated debut album Plantation Lullabyes back in 1993, when Madonna signed the multi-instrumentalist and singer to her Maverick record label. Between her bass playing (she tried out for the band Living Colour back in 1992 but didn’t get the gig, though she was a part of the Black Rock Coalition co-founded by the band’s guitarist, Vernon Reid), her come-to-me smoky voice, her gender-bending outfits, and (at the time) bald head, I swoonily followed her through her musical universe as she had some shooting-star hits, like her cut “Wild Night” with John Cougar Mellencamp and “If That Was Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night).”

More at Autostraddle.

Powell was a student at Grace University in early 2011 when she began her first same-sex relationship. Up until that point, neither she nor her then-girlfriend identified as lesbian. When Grace, a religious university in Omaha, Neb., found out about the relationship through a spiritual adviser at the school, they brought Powell before a judiciary board to decide whether she should be allowed to stay enrolled.

“At that time, my family had no idea, so I had to come out to my family sooner than I would’ve wanted,” Powell told The Huffington Post.

Michael James, executive vice president at Grace, told The Huffington Post that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevents them from discussing any student’s particular case. But he did confirm the student handbook states that “Any student involved in sexually immoral behavior, including premarital sex, adultery, and homosexual acts, is at minimum placed on University probation and may be subject to a Judiciary Hearing.”

Continue reading on the Huffington Post.

ELIXHER: Tell us about yourself.
RACHEL: I was born and raised in Chicago. My twin sister and I started drawing in the first grade. Before we went to high school, our mom put us in art classes in middle school. We use to paint little dumb things here and there for people and then entered competitions. Our artwork was hung in museums in Chicago when we were in high school.  We both went to Howard University and majored in math. We both became math teachers and started painting again. Now we do both. My sister is a principal and I’m an assistant principal.

ELIXHER: So your lives are very parallel.
RACHEL: Yeah, we’re literally identical.

ELIXHER: Your work is similar, but very different. I’ve noticed from the both of you themes of celebration in the Black experience and some empowering pieces. I actually knew your art before I knew either of your name. I am most familiar with your piece Miss Pursuit of Happiness II. What would you say influences your work?
RACHEL: For Miss Pursuit of Happiness, it was everyday life. I used to be a shopaholic and those were all my tags. I did three of those and Miss Pursuit was a play on words. Instead of the pursuit of happiness, it’s the miss-pursuit of happiness. You buy all this dumb shit and you don’t need it. You buy it for all the wrong reasons. For everything else, it’ll be a song, a conversation I’ve had with my friends, in the car listening to Talib Kweli and something will come to me. Actually, we named the show we’re doing in two weeks after a Talib Kweli song. I have to feel it. If I don’t feel it, I don’t paint. Which is a problem, because I will go three months without painting. Then paint again and go another three months without painting.

ELIXHER: I was going to ask if you ever suffer from artist’s block and how do you work through it.
RACHEL: Oh my god, yes. To get out of it I’ll listen to music. Or I’ll get out of it if my sister is constantly working, it’ll motivate me. Another thing is constantly having shows and being busy. I have to paint.

ELIXHER: What medium do you enjoy most to create in?
RACHEL: I would say charcoal and acrylic. I least enjoy oil because it takes forever to dry. I like charcoal because I like black and white drawings. I’m good with faces. I like to spend my time drawing faces with charcoal. I like acrylic because it dries fast. You’re able to get a lot done in a short amount of time.

ELIXHER: I imagine art played a major part in your upbringing. With the disappearance of music and arts in schools, how would you say this affects today’s youth? How do you think we can integrate art back into the curriculum?
RACHEL: I think youth are losing creativity. I know in schools you’ll find that one kid in the corner doing graffiti in middle school, and in high school if you don’t have an art or music class for kids you start stifling them. There are kids with abilities we will never know of because there was no one there to bring it out or they weren’t exposed to what they needed to be exposed to tap into that talent. I think just as how people are integrating reading and writing into everything, you could do that with art and music.

ELIXHER: Being art owners, could you talk about the importance of art collecting as an investment?
RACHEL: My sister and I do collect art, her more so than me. We collect art from African American artists. Every time I see a young, hot artist I make sure I get a painting or two paintings. We have a lot of Charly Palmer prints, but I like to buy the originals from young artists.

ELIXHER: I see the two of you have an event coming up on Saturday, June 15 called Identity Crisis with a few other artists. The descriptions says it’s a collection of artists using art to tell untold stories and open unfinished conversations. Could you tell us more about what will happen there?
RACHEL: It’s six artists. My sister and I are hosting it, but we’re also in it. We invited our friends. It’s going to be in DC. In this huge, 3,000-foot unfinished storefront. We have about 500 RSVPs so far. The goal is to do it big so that it becomes a yearly event. It becomes something people are waiting for and making sure they get tickets for.

ELIXHER: What makes you proud to be a part of the Black queer community?
RACHEL: I think my experience at Howard is what makes me proud to be a part of the Black queer community. I know my freshmen year and my sophomore year I was in the closet. I used to dress “like a girl” because I wanted to pledge and once I pledged I kinda just came out. Coming out was very difficult for me because my prophytes weren’t having it. They didn’t agree with it. They thought I should’ve kept my ass in the closet. That went on for about a year. When my sister crossed, there were more gay people on her line. More and more gay people started to come into our chapter. We were also coming out on campus as well. I think my experience was unique because I was Greek. I was able to get the best of both worlds. I hung out with straight people. I hung with gay people. So I never felt singled out. They eventually got over it. Other than that, I’ve never felt singled out because of my sexuality.

ELIXHER: What kind of healthy critique do you have about our community? What are some areas for growth?
RACHEL: I think we need to raise our expectations. Like I said, I hang with straight people. I hang out with gay people. I hang out with my line sisters. I hang out with everybody. The straight and gay communities are completely different.  Our expectations are low in the lesbian community. For example, the way [straight women] carry themselves is a little more kempt. And that is a sweeping generalization, I know! As lesbians, I feel like we need to raise our expectations and demand more. If that makes sense.

ELIXHER: So what’s next for the Crouch sisters?
RACHEL: We would love to, in the very near future, open our own gallery/event space. Both of us still want to stay in education, even though I hate working from 9-5. I hate that 9-5 life, but I love kids. We’re going to grow in that area, too. Possibly move out of the schools soon to do central office work. You know, work at a higher level. It’s the best of both worlds. We both love education. We both love art. We’re trying to grow both of those at the same time.

For more information about Rachel and Rebecca Crouch, visit their websites: racheldcrouch.com and rebeccadcrouch.com.

- Interview by Tia N. Williams

Tia N. Williams is the woman behind The Buddha In Me, an agency of artists, speakers, poets, and activists based in Atlanta. The Buddha In Me specializes in providing quality programs to educate, enlighten, and entertain. Tia recently received her M.Ed. from the University of Georgia in College Student Affairs Administration.

ELIHXER: Congrats on the premiere of the show! What has the response been like so far?
SHERRI: Thank you! It’s been really overwhelming and genuine. Everybody has just been so sincere about how much they enjoyed the show and how much they were surprised they enjoyed [it]. ABC Family maybe wouldn’t be their first choice for television but they were pleasantly surprised.

On Twitter I had a couple of lesbian followers who earlier on, before the show debuted, they were like, “Ok Sherri Saum, I see that you’ve got this show. I’m going to withhold judgment until I see it.” They were kind of skeptical. One woman in particular, I got a tweet from her after the premiere and she was really satisfied and happy and entertained with what she saw. So that meant a lot because I knew she wasn’t going to give me a free pass.  [Laughs.]

ELIXHER: When you were first approached to play a lesbian mom, as a straight woman, did you have any reservations?
SHERRI: When I got into playing her, the thing about being in love with a woman, it was just this groundbreaking feeling. Love is love and I just really got that point. Everyone was like, “Well, how did you prepare to be a lesbian?” [Laughs.] And you know, I had that moment of oh my gosh, I have to prepare to be this lesbian. And then I just threw that all out the window and decided I’m just going to love her, love Stef [my wife on the show], and surround everything in love.

ELIXHER: Was there an initial chemistry there between you and Teri Polo? Did you two have certain exercises to get that spark on screen?
SHERRI: Teri is extremely accessible. She speaks her mind. You never have to wonder what she’s thinking. She’s a very easy person to get along with. Second, the director, Timothy Busfield, definitely spent quality time with the cast throwing us into improv situations, getting us really comfortable with each other so that by the time we shot the pilot it would already feel like we were on episode ten because we’re so comfortable with each other as a cast. Those two things helped a lot.

ELIXHER: The show delves into a lot of issues around parenting. Can you speak to the universality behind some of these?
SHERRI: If you do watch the show, you’re going to recognize your life somehow, some way. The things we deal with are things everyone deals with, especially if you have kids, especially in 2013. The reality is that there are drugs in school. Discrimination is relevant in people’s lives, [so is] trying to pay the bills and keep food on the table. I don’t know many people that can’t relate to what we bring to their screens.

ELIXHER: Will the show delve into some of the challenges you face as a multiethnic family, issues around race and the LGBT political landscape?

SHERRI: Yes, we definitely address race in several episodes. It’s kind of hard to avoid. On the show we live in California. We live in a rather liberal city but we still have family issues. They’re going to bring Stef’s father in the mix and he’s going to add an interesting flavor to the show.

I’ve heard a couple of criticisms about the show that we have too many issues that we’re bringing out episode after episode. The truth is, you’ve got nine different storylines in your own life. Everybody does. There are so many things going on. And we have incredibly gifted producers and writers that are going to make all of those things play well together in an episode. It’s not going to be overwhelming. It’s going to be representative of what everybody goes through in their life.  Life is messy and we’re going to be true to that.

One of the exciting things about the show is that there will be a sidenote that says, “Pending Supreme Court decision, we will say this…” A lot of the things on the show, we have to wait to hear what happens legally to know how we’re going to go with that.

ELIXHER: Who do you think should watch this show?
SHERRI: Everyone can get something out of this. A family with heterosexual parents, a single dad, a teenager. Everybody is going to be entertained by this show and educated but not in an in-your-face way—in a thought-provoking way.

TV is a powerful medium and I definitely acknowledge that. I’m really proud of the show. I think it just gets better week after week, so I hope people keep watching and give it a chance and tell their friends so that we can continue to tell these stories.

Have you seen The Fosters?! What do you think? Catch up on the first couple of episodes online and tune in Mondays at 9pm to ABC Family. 

-       Interview by Kimberley McLeod

Kimberley McLeod is a DC-based media strategist. She is the founder and editor of ELIXHER, an online destination for Black lesbian, bisexual and transgender women.

I would tell you to come back but that’s my glum tapeworm talking. You have followers now. You keep running out of bandages. // I read your latest dispatch in a flier buried inside a lusty haunted house book / your fury pouring out & out. I’m ashamed at not choosing the way you did. / The novel has several stained pages but what I can decipher is quality clitoral. // I read about the ‘aqueduct’ op in the paper. How strange to hear customers / talk about you like you were the gory spectre stealing from the fridge at night.   I say your alias is just protection. Like a sunscreen. Then they dish / on me when I leave the room. But I’m proud to know you: my spirit in an army / of invisible troublemakers. My girl who dances with her hand before her breast like a shield like an embrace a demand resuscitating motion // This card will be late. I guess you’ll have a new address.

technicolor

talking down. both of us can’t be so serious. I want you to like me long enough for a vanishing act. to be your sweet and clueless wagging shadow. I’ve decided. I’m telling you this now since you’ve already seen my naked lesioned back. why do you talk back so much when you never get what you want? // if I don’t tell anyone then it didn’t happen. // a chicken braised slowly in a clay pot has died a good death. but your delicious choking would be most worthy. // I’m your best friend who led the killer straight to your apartment. and marinated it. your friend like an aquamarine bow pinning your bangs. without need for thinking. I followed you into the pool. I jumped after you and fell and fell. your dad fished me out. I did not want to touch him: hairy slick forearms

Postcard to Doveglion

                  for Mare

Attention commands what is holy. In a time of mirrors & soft speech
I bound myself to the book and all its refractions: child-body, dalaga-body,
cinephile, runaway, android, ghost. Every lifetime equilateral, my guts
providing the best documentation. Changing my clothes on camera
so my friends know I’m hungry. Eating on camera so they know
I’m alive. // What if I identify with the fish-kid, I said, and she
laughed. How can that be. // Will we just keep making each other
cry like this. Whatever world is yours / is the one I want. I demand
natural light, a hybrid dog, & worthwhile lovemaking.
The dog must be trained to dial for an ambulance.
When I land, you must teach me to write a rose as weapon.

- Yael Villafranca

Yael Villafranca is a poet based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She tweets obliquely about her crushes @yaelv.

In a personal correspondence with ELIXHER, co-founder of Mangos with Chili, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha had this to say about the epic event:

The idea of F R E E is exciting and important for me to share to the queer and trans people of color community because, well, our lives are all about freedom and searching for it, but sometimes, we don’t have enough access to the dreams of those who have come before us of what liberation and freedom could look like for queers of color. We need to not lose our elders words- which is why bringing in the work of Stonewall veteran and TGJIP founder Miss Major, who struggles for the freedom of trans people in prison, Qwo Li Driskill’s video of the interviews he did with Cherokee Two Spirit Elders and Adrienne Maree Brown’s video about Octavia Butler are gonna be so important and amazing. And we also need room in the middle of struggling to survive to dream something bigger, lusher, deeper- which is where everyone else also comes in. Come check it out!

The evening will feature breathtaking work by Qwo-Li Driskill and Natro, Cherry Galette, Juba Kalamka and Joshua Merchant, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Fabian Romero and Micha Cardenas, Manish Vaidya, and Anna Martine Whitehead,  with video art by Adrienne Maree Brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Julia Roxanne Wallace, and Vanessa Huang.

Tickets are available at brownpapertickets.com and the Facebook event page is available here. The official press release for the multi-medium evening of time travel and invoked fore-sight can be viewed below.