Thread by @VABVOX

I wasn't expecting to start the day with this kind of encoded language as a cover story, but here we are. @TIME clearly had ⬜male editors read this and say, "This is great! We prefer the sound of OUR voices over those perky women, BIPOC, LGBTQ and disabled folks anyway!"
1/🧵

https://twitter.com/TIME/status/1616043574906200064

And therein a cover story was born in which those historically marginalized and suppressed voices are silenced for being "attention seekers." No. Activist voices in any given room are NOT attention-seekers or narcissists--we are the voices of the actual majority.
2/🧵

In the US women are the majority yet treated like a minority in every aspect of society. BIPOC represent 40% of the country and some states like California and Texas, more than half. There are 62M disabled Americans and nearly 10% of Americans identify as LGBTQ.
3/🧵

All those millions have to fight daily in every space they are in to be heard and for ascendancy in the workplace and the classroom and even often among friends and family. Talking less is not and has never been the route to accessing more for marginalized communities.
4/🧵

This week began with #MLKDay. In "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," King writes about just such suppression. He says that well-meaning liberal white people want the Negro to wait to speak. And that there may never be an appropriate time from the white vantage point.
5/🧵

Men have been telling me my entire working life to be quiet. Straight folks have told me to stop "flaunting" my lesbianism in a world awash in heterosexual imagery. There are literal laws now in 7 states with more coming prohibiting teachers from saying gay in the classroom.
6/🧵

The iconic Black lesbian theorist Audre Lorde said, "Your silence will not protect you." Dr. King said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Queer activists like me said, "Silence = Death." So no, @TIME, WE won't stop talking.
7/🧵

And the iconography of the @TIME cover speaks volumes. Whose mouth is being zipped? A woman's. It couldn't be more blatant.
8/🧵