Hi, ok look. I still haven't finished Legend of Korra okay? But I want to.  My favorite parts of the show are:   1. the generational changes (to the world since Aang stopped the fire nation). they feel particularly sci fi-y, and I like the 20s aesthetic.   2. the queer parts.  That's what this week's Feednet is about: generations + queer people.   --  Divisions of generations are part of understanding identity.  A generation is "all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively."  Most social justice oriented spaces I’ve been in talk a lot about identity, intersectionality, and power and oppression as it relates to gender, race, class, ability, and more. We talk about ageism and oppression of youth and elders.   But generation -- not your age, but the when of the time you are born and live, isn’t necessarily part of this identity power analysis.   Part of this is because the power and oppression relationship of generational identity is… complicated.  --  Generations and Power  The boundaries of generation are also complicated, as anyone under 40 who has ever had a Zoomer say “OK Boomer” to them can testify.  Most of the Boomers who younger people might want to say ok to are powerful white cis and wealthy.  That said, there are norms, events, and cultural touchstones, that shift by generation and have enormous impacts on our experience of the world. Some of it is good, changes in institutional power structures that make structural oppression less invisible, if not less pervasive like our relationship to emotions.  Some of it is material, like that most Millennials have over 150,000 in student loan debt. Even if the boundaries and power differentials of generation are unwieldy, the impact on generation on who we are and how we connect is un-ignorable.   -- Queer Generations  There aren’t a ton of media depictions of queer generational differences.  The Bisexual, a 2018 Hulu show by Desiree Akhavan (The Miseducation of Cameron Post) comes to mind. In one scene, the main character, bisexual (duh) and in her 30s, tells a queer ~20 year old:   “When you have to fight for it, being gay can become the biggest part of you. And being gay or straight, it comes with an entirely different lifestyle, like different clothes and different friends and you can’t do both. I don’t mean to be condescending to you. I just don’t know what it’s like to grow up with the internet, but I sense that it’s changing your relationship to gender and sexuality in a really good way, but in a way that I can’t relate to.”  Another generational conversation on The Bisexual is with the main character’s ex-girlfriend, who is ten years older than her.  I refuse to transcribe it because every time I think about it I cry, so here’s Autostraddle’s summary: the ex explains growing up as a “dyke in the ’80s,” the shame and humiliation she put herself through to try to be attracted to men.  "She thought Leila had that fundamental experience in common with her, and she was wrong, and it’s devastating.”   10 years, when you think about it, isn't a major difference in generation.  But for queer and trans people, generational change is heightened: rapid changes in cultural norms over the last few decades mean that queer people’s experiences of discovering themselves, their identity, and their relationship with shame, acceptance, and identity can vary dramatically with even differences’ of few years or even a few months.  --  Queer Microgenerations I used to talk about this -- what I call 'queer microgenerations' at work a lot, partially because it maps onto my own experience.   For three years, 2015 to 2018, I had a Google Trends page bookmarked, my home screen even when I switched from one shitty laptop to another slightly larger shitty laptop.   The page was a timeline of how many people searched for the word on Google “Transgender,” collected by year,. Month, day.  In 2013, the chart spikes dramatically, with the appearance of Laverne Cox on The View, promoting her new show Orange is the New Black. Laverne Cox was the first transgender actress to have a recurring role on a national television show. [clip]  Her appearance on the View was less than six months after I had come out as trans to my friends and considered coming out to my family. Those first six months were unpleasant for many of the common reasons transitioning is unpleasant for anyone. And then Laverne Cox went on the View.   Something happened that day I’ve never quite been able to articulate, represented by that giant spike in Google Searches. Whatever it was, it had a seismic impact on my experience of the world, and shaped my entire experience of what it means to be a transgender man.    How does your generation shape your identity? Are there 'microgenerations' you think matter in your life experience?    stay strong, h