Why being pro-ship/anti-censorship is important to me as a Brazilian queer person, and also should be to you, a thread;

TW // torture, homophobia, censorship

Not even 60 years ago (from april 1st, 1964) my country had to go through a military dictatorship that lasted for 21 years (to march 18th, 1985). The excuse for that? They feared a communist totalitarian government, so decided to go the fascist way instead. +

During those years censorship became common, all national means of communication were overseen by the "Special Counsel of Public Relations (Assessoria Especial de Relações Públicas)" and institutionalized by the "Higher Counsel of Censorship (Conselho Superior de Censura)" +

Every mean of expression of the people was affected, newspapers, televison, music, theater and anything related could be taken down if the government saw it as dangerous to the ideal of "moral and good behavior" of the people.

Behind the scenes, people were being silenced, journalists, students, queer people and anyone seen as "deviant" were being hunt down and tortured beside their families, until to this day there's hundreds of families who were never able to say goodbye to their beloveds cause they+

Were killed and their bodies never seen again.

The LGBT+ movement that was only giving it's first steps at the time was extremely affected, blatant lies were spread about queer people being pedophiles and monsters and any ways of expressing yourself was short lived

No music, book, movie or any other type of media was allowed if it made "apology to homosexualism", with all that, LGBT+ people started to be hunt down, put in jail and the ones still free started hiding in fear of what might happen to them

"I vote for the non liberation of the lyrics of 'De Leve' version of Gilberto Gil and Rita Lee [...]"

"The refered lyrics make analogy in malicious and uneducated ways of the theme 'homossexualism' not being compatible with the means of communication of which's destinated for"

This is only one example of non-harmful ways of expression being shut down because of homophobia at the time, this is what we are doomed to go back to if exploring fiction and sexuality starts to be censored again

One day is the age gap kink in a fanfic or fanart that's not hurting any living person cause it isn't real, the other is the way we "sexualize" any type of pairing that isn't straight +

Maybe the next is going to be how even writing, drawing or filming a queer couple kissing or holding hands is "too much". +

So if I didn't make it clear I will never side with the offsprings of the people who killed and silenced mine less than 60 years ago, I will always support and praise people for their freedom to explore their own minds through fiction cause I know how hard our community has +

Fought for this moment. So please write about that kink you were thinking about, draw some questionable ships, if you aren't hurting any human being in the process, just do whatever as much as you want to cause a lot of the people before us weren't able to!!

I hope this makes things more clear about my stance on this topic, and at the same time that I'm glad some of the kids today are so disconnected from reality that they can go through their lives without never knowing about this, I don't have that privilege, and won't be silenced!