Unicorn Nuggets: Chapter 8🌈🌈🌈

Guess what day it is? It's Tuesgay.🌈

I know it's November, but as it turns out I'm queer all year- not just in June.

It's Giving Tuesday, and you know what I love more than reading racists and homophobes for filth? Giving to the organizations that support their victims. One thing I have learned about being a content creator is that if a stranger is willfully harmful to me, they are harmful to the people they interact with in real life.

So this year's giving Tuesday is dedicated to all of the homophobic trolls and to a hateful bill rolled out by Ron Desantis. Earlier this year, a law in Florida was passed coined the "Don't Say Gay" bill and this law has found itself on the desks of lawmakers in other states since.

So today, and every day, remember we will continue to say gay, we will continue to exist, we will continue to love, lead and change the world.

I will always say gay, and you should too.

In 2020, Emily O. Weltman, M. Ed. and I launched Rage2Rainbows with the idea that rather than interacting with trolls, we would give to non-profits in their name- and it has been a very fun journey. It often seems like there are an endless stream of racists and homophobes- so there is always a worthy cause to donate to. We are committed to ending online harm because we recognize that online arm is real life harm.

Want to know more about how we're turning rage into rainbows and how you can too? Learn more here

Over the last few months, we have seen endless attacks on the queer community, a community that I am proud to call home and a community that deserves so much more than we are given.

The latest being a horrific shooting at a Queer nightclub in Colorado Springs.

5 people died.

5 people died because bigots have been taught that they are entitled to our lives.

We deserve better. We deserve safety.

We deserve to live.

We deserve to survive.

Last week, I posted this video to my tiktok in response to the Colorado Springs shootings.

The summary of the video is that the queer community deserves public joy, community and safety. A video that I assumed would be hard to argue with, and yet, it was.

A woman slid in my DMs and decided to harass me for days.

Even in our grief, we are not safe to just grieve.

I spoke about this on my tiktok and received a permanent ban in response to acknowledging the racism/homophobia in my DMs. So often Black and queer creators are suppressed/silenced for speaking out about their experiences and the racism, homophobia or transphobia that they face. Rather than support from these large tech platforms, we are caused further harm by having our voices and platforms stripped from us. My account has since been reinstated, but it was a lesson in how hard white supremacy works to silence us.

And I won't be silent, I won't stop fighting.

We all deserve to live and love out loud and I will continue to fight until we live in a world where it is no longer safer to be the abuser than the person who speaks up.

For giving tuesday, we're turning our feeds (and yours) queer AF.

We don't only exist in June and we don't only deserve to celebrate our love and our lives one month of the year. We deserve to experience love, joy, sadness, heartbreak out loud. So today for Giving Tuesday, Rage2Rainbows is giving to LGBTQIIA+ Organizations- to support and protect voices like mine and voices like yours.

Being queer has never been the barrier, patriarchy and YT supremacy are. Join us in saying gay and giving to the organizations that help keep us safe.

Being queer is a gift.

Being queer is beautiful.

Donate Today

Black Speakers Collection presents The Clap Back

Don't forget to RSVP to tomorrow's episode of the Clap Back featuring Lisa Hurley and Sharon Hurley Hall (she/her)!

RSVP HERE

the Clap Back, a linkedin audio series hosted by Black Speakers Collection. The Clap Back exists to clap back on the idea that Black speakers are hard to find by featuring them here every Wednesday afternoon.

We are excited to feature Black speakers every Wednesday at 12pm EST.

Lisa Hurley is an Anthem Award-winning activist, speaker, and writer whose work focuses on racism, texturism, and destigmatizing introversion. She is also a passionate advocate for equality, belonging, and neurodiversity.

Ms. Hurley is the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Introvert Sisters Podcast, Host of Real Talk on Racism, and a member of the Black Speakers Collection. She has been selected as one of Taplio's 100 Best LinkedIn Influencers, and is a Favikon Top 10 LinkedIn Creator in Inclusion and Diversity worldwide.

Lisa has been featured and quoted in Forbes, Adweek, Essence, and Fast Company, as well as on the Nasdaq screen in Times Square New York. As a result of her activism, Lisa has been honored as one of Business Africa Online’s 30 Inspiring Women Breaking The Bias, and named as one of pocstock’s Future of Black America Top 50 Leaders.

Sharon Hurley Hall is an anti-racism writer, educator, speaker, and activist, and is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Diverse Leaders Group. She is also the Founder and Curator-in-Chief of Sharon’s Anti-Racism Newsletter, a twice-weekly online publication sharing global experiences of racism, and guidance on better allyship.

Ms. Hurley Hall is the author of Exploring Shadeism, and of her latest release: I’m Tired of Racism, an anti-racism essay collection. She holds MAs in Media and Culture, and in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and is a certified Diversity to Belonging facilitator.

An in-demand speaker and panelist, Sharon is the co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast, and a member of the Black Speakers Collection. She has been featured in Digiday, BlackOwned.com, and Forbes.

RSVP here!