Tag: Inclusion

JKR is back with yet another trans complaint, but I saw this to post instead-

Positive news, instead of the other. If you click through to read, roam around a little. There are some other interesting bits to read.

KAOS Star Misia Butler Says Elliot Page Is His “Biggest Queer Role Model”

Butler plays the romantic lead in a new Netflix show that retells Greek mythology stories with a modern twist.

By Quispe López August 30, 2024

Misia Butler never thought that, as a tranmasc person, he would be cast as a romantic lead. And yet that’s exactly what happened. In an as-told-to essay for Yahoo U.K. for Queer Voices, Butler opened up about playing Caeneus in Netflix’s new show KAOS, which retells stories from Greek mythology with a modern twist. Among other topics, the young actor touched on the inherent queerness of Greek mythology and his biggest role model: Elliot Page.

Butler wrote in the essay that Page, the original transmasculine heartthrob, has been an important inspiration for breaking down boundaries for trans people in film. From his early roles in Juno and Whip It to his latest work on Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, Butler says Page has in many ways paved the way for trans actors like him to continue shattering onscreen stereotypes.

“Elliot Page is probably my biggest queer role model, him coming out was such a moving thing for me because I’ve always felt this draw to him ever since I was a kid,” Butler recalled. “When The Umbrella Academy came out I was bingeing that, so when he came out as trans that felt like an almost earth shattering moment.”

But when Butler was growing up, before there was fuller representation for transmasculine people in television and film, he said he felt resigned to never being cast as a romantic lead. Because he hadn’t seen any transmasculine people play characters who were romantically sought after, he didn’t think it would be possible for him.

“For a long time I never asked anyone out, I never talked to people I was attracted to, because I thought, ‘Well, they’re never gonna view me that way because why would they? I don’t exist in that sphere,’” the actor wrote. “So I really hope that seeing Caeneus in that light helps other people.”

Through his romance with Riddy (played by Aurora Perrineau), Caeneus will become the primary romantic interest in the show. The actor described how his character Caeneus will explore his transness with subtlety, as his identity is organically embedded in the plot. Butler noted that Greek myths are already so queer, making KAOS the perfect setting for this kind of nuanced storytelling.

“The Greek myths are such a queer group of stories, so KAOS’s approach to inclusivity is amazing and the fact that it’s so understated is a real power,” he wrote. “I think it just naturally brings in the diversity of us as humans and, especially as a Greek myths nerd myself, I love how it brings out the diversity of the original myths in such a natural way.”

Butler’s work on KAOS will only expand the ever-growing canon of transmasculine representation on screen (Queer Percy Jackson and the Olympians fans, rejoice!), this time with some romance and flair that only a Greek mythological backdrop can bring. For those of you who are scrambling to add the series to your watch list, it’s currently available to stream on Netflix.

https://www.them.us/story/misia-butler-elliot-page-netflix-kaos-role-model

Peace & Justice history for 8/10

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august10

August 10, 1883
Adrian “Cap” Anson refused to field his visiting Chicago White Stockings team in an exhibition baseball game if the Toledo Mud Hens included star catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker in their lineup. Chicago’s Captain Anson, who grew up in slaveholding Iowa, said he wouldn’t share the diamond with a non-white player. After more than an hour’s delay, Charlie Morton, the Toledo manager, insisted that if Chicago forfeited the game, it would also lose its share of the gate receipts; Anson relented.
Moses Fleetwood Walker
Morton had not planned to have Walker catch due to injury, but insisted on putting him in at centerfield, despite Cap Anson’s objections.

August 10, 1948

Gay rights activist Harry Hay organized what later became the Mattachine Society (originally ~ Foundation), a groundbreaking 1950s gay rights organization. The group was named after the Mattachines, a medieval troupe of men who went village-to-village advocating social justice.
Mattachine: Radical Roots of Gay Liberation: https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Mattachine:_Radical_Roots_of_the_Gay_Movement

August 10, 1984
Two Plowshares activists, Barb Katt and John LaForge, damaged a guidance system for a Trident submarine with hammers at a Sperry plant in Minnesota. In sentencing them to six months’ probation, U.S. District Judge Miles W. Lord commented, “Why do we condemn and hang individual killers, while extolling the virtues of warmongers?“
“ Barb Katt
More plowshares actions: https://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue42/articles/a_history_of_direct_disarmament.htm

August 10, 1988
President George H.W. Bush signed legislation apologizing and compensating for the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.
President Franklin Roosevelt had authorized the round-up of hundreds of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry, some of whom were American citizens, as security risks. Most lost all their property and were moved to relocation camps for the duration of the war (though not in Hawaii, then not yet a state, where public opposition would not allow it).


August 10, 1993
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second woman and 107th Justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

August 10, 2005
Mehmet Tarhan was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on two charges of “insubordination before command” and “insubordination before command for trying to escape from military service” because he refused to serve in the Turkish Army.
He would not sign any paper, put on a uniform, nor allow his hair and beard to be cut. He went on two extended hunger strikes to protest his arrest and abuse while in Sivas Military Prison. War Resisters International has supported his efforts throughout his ordeal. He was released unexpectedly from prison after one year.
Read more: https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2005/turkey-conscientious-objector-mehmet-tarhan-hunger-strike-more-32-days