queerphobia – Elizabeth Barone

Age verification laws have been spreading like wildfire, and now that Bluesky is requiring all U.K. users to verify their identity and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law blocking minors from viewing porn, authors need to prepare.

Here in the States where I live, we are under a christofascist administration. Evil people have been passing laws targeting immigrants and transgender people, and if you’ve read Project 2025, you know what’s coming next. I believe this administration and other fascist lawmakers are using age verification and children’s safety to push their agenda. Don’t get me wrong—as an auntie of nine, of course I want kids to be safe online! But let’s leave that up to their parents to monitor, rather than instilling sweeping legislation that strips adults of privacy and access to information, and violates authors’ freedom of speech.

Age verification violates internet users’ privacy. If you use anonymous social media accounts to protect yourself from an abuser or simply because you want to talk about romance without your co-workers discovering your guilty pleasure, age verification will make it impossible to remain so. It can also be used to target authors, especially those writing romance, erotica, or LGBTQ+ characters. Fascists love labeling anything they don’t like as porn.

These laws are already effecting authors. If you live in the U.K. and use a pen name, you’ll have to provide photo ID, scan your face, or upload a pic of your bank card to continue using Bluesky starting July 25th. That’s only two weeks away.

There are a few things you can do.

I know I’ve been beating on this drum forever, but seriously, if you’re an author, you need your own website and email list. When you own your platform, it can’t be damaged by social media algorithms changing or new laws passing. Too many of us got dicknotized by Facebook/Instagram/Meta and the like; it’s time to take back control. Make sure you have a way of contacting your readers no matter what.

It’s only a matter of time before platforms like WordPress.com and SubStack require age verification, so if you post chapters or excerpts of your spicy romance on these platforms, you could be fined millions of dollars. From the Verge article I linked above:

The UK passed the Online Safety Act in 2023, which privacy advocates have warned will “lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users.” Another part of the law is coming into force on July 25th, requiring sites and apps containing porn and harmful content to provide “highly effective age assurance.” Platforms that don’t comply with the new rules will face fines of up to £18 million ($24 million) or 10 percent of their worldwide revenue, whichever is higher.

These laws, as written, are insane. Who decides which content is “harmful”? And why are lawmakers hiding behind the very same children they won’t pass gun control laws to protect? I digress, but what the actual fuck?

I’ve been posting excerpts, chapters, and whole texts from my romance books for years. Right now I have this content on my website freely available to everyone, some locked to my email subscribers, and some locked to paid members. Under these laws, authors won’t be able to post such content on our own websites or social media without some sort of “highly effective age assurance” if someone deems it “harmful.”

I’ve long been against self-censorship on social media to bypass bots flagging and people pettily reporting posts. I believe that in this political climate, with a convicted rapist in the White House, it’s obscene to soften the word rape to “grape.” Rape is real. It happens to 1 in 3 real people, probably more. It happens to children. It happened to me. It should be shocking to hear. And from an artist’s perspective, it’s fucking silly to use symbols or emoji to write words like sex or cock. Yet everyone just rolled over and complied, adopting ridiculous terms like unalived instead of killed (another word that’s supposed to be shocking).

An age verification bill just passed in Ohio, despite criticism from the ACLU that the way it’s written is vague and could be weaponized. The “blue” state I live in, Connecticut, is considering passing a similar law. We all need to be pushing back on these laws. Call and write your senators and representatives, submit comments on bills being written, attend town halls. We cannot rollover.

You can choose to not verify your identity, but unfortunately this results in a restricted account. Bluesky won’t allow unverified users to send or receive DMs, or view content that is “adult appropriate.” Considering Bluesky flags stock photos as porn because a woman is showing her *gasp* stomach, and doesn’t answer DMs or appeal requests, I don’t have much faith.

It’s only a matter of time before the other social media apps follow suit. Instagram has long been working on tools for age verification. I believe our best bet is sticking together and fighting these laws, while amending our own business plans and practices in preparation for a more restricted internet. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and fight like hell to protect privacy and information.

Do you think you will be affected by age verification laws? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or send me an email! I’d love to hear what you make of all this.

Photo by Jansen Yang on Unsplash

My husband left, and I was out of Dawn.

But I had a Benlysta hangover.

It wasn’t a bad one, compared to other weekends. Sometimes my injections completely wipe me out. Sometimes there’s diarrhea and muscle aches. I dragged my ass to the store, proud of myself for making it out of the house—and on my own, to boot. I’m never more grateful for everything Mike does for me than on the weekends he’s at a convention. It’s the little things like grabbing Dawn on his way home during the week that make life easier for me. It’s always empowering when I do something on my own, though, reclaiming pieces of myself that UCTD took.

I walked through the store saying hello to everyone I passed. I smiled at a pair of teen boys because their hairstyles reminded me of my oldest godson. That floppy, curly hair that every boy is currently rocking. I grabbed my $10 jug of Dawn and got in line. A lone cashier was checking out an elderly couple, and the husband of the pair kept apologizing to the rest of us in line for their long order.

“You are just fine,” we all assured him.

I was thinking about my next stop—mentally preparing, kinda just lost in thought. Tuning out those same teen boys talking shit to each other. Some boys/men have this weird love language where they playfully verbally abuse each other. I don’t get it, but when I gained a couple brothers-in-law, I learned it’s usually harmless. So I wasn’t fully paying attention until I heard, “You’re a fucking f*ggot, I’mma beat your ass. My brother’s a f*ggot, and I beat his ass for it.”

A white boy, using a blaccent, trying to sound hood and hard. I still thought maybe he was talking shit to his friend, so while I didn’t love what he was saying, and I’m kinda tired of small town white kids talking like that when they wouldn’t last ten minutes in the actual hood, I was trying to ignore it. Then everything happened fast.

Everyone acted at the same time. It was like all of us in the front end of the store discussed it and coordinated, but we didn’t. It just happened. You can’t tell me groupthink is a bad thing anymore. Not after what I experienced.

(FYI, I’m referring to people as how they presented, but please keep in mind I don’t mean it in any way other than just differentiating each person for clarity. Cool? Cool.)

The female cashier stepped out from behind the counter, calling for the male employee on shift. “John!”

“Yeah!” The way he said it, he already knew what she was going to say, and there was no need for her to finish. He came up front, along with a second female cashier who started ringing out the next customer.

“You can’t talk to him like that,” the first cashier said to the teen boys. “You gotta leave.”

“They started it,” they insisted.

“Nope. Out,” I said, along with the other customers in line. “Not cool.”

The other thirty-something woman in line, who’d already checked out via the second cashier, walked over to me and the first female cashier, also telling the boys they had to go.

As they slunk out of the store, the second cashier reminded them that we live in a small town; if she called the cops, they’d be at the store in two seconds.

Just as I was wondering where the other party to this was, two very scared looking teens inched out of the aisles and into the line.

“We didn’t even do anything,” the blonde teen girl said. “I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, like, am I going to get jumped out there?” The Latino teen boy, wearing a crop top, looked so young, even as he tried to laugh it off.

“No you’re not,” I said. “We’ll walk you out.”

“Did you guys drive here?” the other thirty-something woman asked.

“We walked,” the girl said.

“Then I’ll drive you. Wherever you’re going,” she said. “Just excuse my messy car and the kids in the back seat.”

“I guess we’ll go back to my house, then. We’re not far,” the girl said. “I don’t even know if they’re still out there.”

“I looked. They’re gone,” the mom said. “And I’ll drive you home.”

I walked out first, checking the parking lot again because I didn’t trust that they’d actually left. I don’t think I’ve ever shared this with you, but when I was in seventh grade, I was jumped by another girl. Twice. The second time, she stalked me home.

As suspected, I immediately spotted a car with a bumper sticker that said “I only get pulled over by gay cops.” No mystery who it belonged to. And just as I was watching the mom get into her car with the teen girl and boy, the other teens walked out of the adjacent Auto Zone and got into the car I’d clocked—with a third boy who I hadn’t even noticed in DG.

I waited until I saw the mom’s car pull out, then I left, too. Thankfully the assholes hadn’t noticed them get into that car.

I drove away shaking with adrenaline and anger/sadness that people are still so closed-minded that they’re teaching their children that this behavior is okay. Clearly they learned that shit somewhere. But I was also really proud of everyone in that DG. Especially the employees, who handled it calmly and quickly. What was wild was how everyone immediately stood together to protect that boy, without even conferring, without even seeing who we were protecting. We just jumped in, assisting as a team even though none of us knew each other. It truly was incredible. We were the adults I needed as a teen. The adults so many of us needed.

What got me was, the punks didn’t seem to even know the teens they were harassing. They apparently saw the crop top and were triggered by a piece of clothing. (By the way, who is allowed to wear crop tops? Because teen girls get called slutty, and thirty-something women get told we’re too old, and apparently teen boys can’t wear them, either? I don’t even know if he was gay, or trans, or non-binary, or just wearing something that’s currently wildly popular yet still somehow so very offensive.)

I like to think that it’s now cool to be queer, that the balance has shifted and those of us labeled as weird when I was in high school are now accepted, or even popular. Then something like this happens and reminds me that queerphobia is very much still rampant. But what has gotten better is how people respond to it. Even total strangers at DG.

Your local hermit author Auntie Liz has no problem washing dishes—or washing out potty mouths. That’s the power of Dawn.

Photo by Matthew Tkocz on Unsplash

Tag: queerphobia

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