SpokenAgainst Two years ago, our beloved founder, Fink, found herself participating in the National Day of Silence, at fifteen years of age. That day changed her world completely.
She was a freshman in high school, identified as straight and was participating to support her GLBTQ friends and family. Being a quiet girl, she figured she'd be overlooked and nothing would be any different than any other day.
On April 26, 2006, Fink went to school with her GSA Day of Silence button pinned on and her mouth closed tightly.
She had no idea what she was getting herself into, but she was about to find out.
That day was by far the worst of her young life; she had never gotten so much negative attention at once. She had never really gone against the crowd before, and she wasn't used to the backlash she received. The same words she'd heard and ignored the day before had become inescapable for her. She finally understood what it felt like to be harassed for being herself, and she hated that she was powerless to stop it.
But she was determined to try.
Fink was never the same again. She no longer wanted to follow the crowd, or be quiet about what she knew was right. She wanted to speak out, be heard and help everyone else who wanted to be heard as well.
It was then that she adopted the name 'Fink' and began setting up a profile and group on Myspace that would speak up for those who, like herself, had been SpokenAgainst.
She began the painstaking process of making SpokenAgainst grow and flourish on her fifteenth birthday.
As SpokenAgainst began to grow on Myspace, so did the number of people who needed her help, and she was always willing to lend a hand to them all. Sometimes it was finding the right answers to their questions, sometimes it was educating people and helping accept their GLBTQ friends and family, sometimes it was just being a willing shoulder to cry on and an ear that would listen. Sometimes Fink has had to talk to people who are against her GLBTQ friends and sometimes she has to give advice on where to go for more help.
Once, Fink had to talk a kid out of suicide through Myspace.
Fink has talked to hundreds and hundreds of people, who have all told her how much she has touched their lives, and she is proud to say the same about them.
It has been two years since SpokenAgainst's inception, and we have spread to several sites besides Myspace, including Facebook, VampireFreaks and YouTube, and it is finally time for Fink and her team to begin working on SpokenAgainst's own website. SpokenAgainst is ready to hold its own, and Fink couldn't be prouder.
I'm not Fink, I'm a close personal friend of hers, and a part of her dedicated SpokenAgainst team. I run us here on VampireFreaks and am in charge of designing SpokenAgainst's website, once it gets going, and I couldn't be prouder of or feel more honored to be working with Fink on SpokenAgainst.
We have finally reached fifteen hundred members on our Myspace profile, but unfortunately, there have been some hold-ups with the site. We will get there eventually, Fink has been working tirelessly to get us set up as a non-profit organization, and we will have our own site eventually.
SpokenAgainst has touched the lives of countless individuals, and has taught its members that to be heard, all you need to do is keep talking, eventually someone will listen to you, and be true to yourself and those around you, and you'll succeed.
Cult Rules
[1] Post in the Intro Thread first. This must be your first post. There is a cult clean-out to enforce this because severe inactivity has been a problem.
[2] No prejudiced comments or slurs.
[3] You can post whatever you want to, regardless of the existence of similar threads, we just ask that you attempt to keep things PG-13. No excessive nudity, please. I really don't want to see any of you naked. No offense, just virgin eyes, and I'd like to keep it that way for a bit longer. Also, no cult whoring, please. If you'd like to affiliate, there's a thread for that. If a cult you're in comes up in conversation, or you think that cult may help someone out a lot, then give them a link, by all means, but please, don't post threads telling people to join your cults, and don't post in existing threads asking people to join. That's what invites are for.
[4] Slight amendment to that last rule: No sex threads. If it is a health-related thread, that's fine, such as pregnancy, STDs, UTI, involves dealing with rape or molestation, those are of course okay. By 'sex thread' I mean asking about others' sexual experiences, asking for advice on positions, telling of your own sexual experiences, asking about others' first times, so on and so forth. This is not a sex cult, there are hundreds of others on VF for that, go there and post.
[5] We are not a dating site. If you are planning on using SpokenAgainst to hook up with people, go away, we really don't want you here. If you meet someone, that's just peachy, take it to your inboxes, thanks. No one wants to know about your private love/sex life. Really, we don't. And keep in mind how dangerous all on-line relationships have the potential to be, okay?
[6] No ridiculously grievous grammar or spelling errors. I will correct you mercilessly. And you might find yourself removed if the problem persists. That means no text-talk of any sort. LOL is okay as long as it isn't constant, and I love emotes, but I don't know much text-talk, and I can't be the only one. Besides, it's not a language, so it's not allowed.
[7] Only staff can make contests, being as only staff can set up polls for voting on said contests.
[8] An over-abundance of Game Threads has become a problem. From now on, there can only be no more than five (5) Game Threads at a time. Also, to post a new Game Thread or to post in a Game Thread, you must already have at least ten posts. This is not a game cult, you cannot just post in the Game Threads and expect to remain a member. Members need to actually take part in the discussions as well.
Poetry & Anecdotes
That's so gay.
You're such a fag.
You homo.
We've all heard those words, some of us have used them, among others, that lead people to think of homosexuality as a bad thing. Fairy, queer, dyke, faggot, I could list a hundred of them, and they are all things we hear on a daily basis. A while back I began to make tally marks on my hands, left hand when I heard them, right hand when someone corrected them or they corrected themselves, as an experiment for my GSA. The numbers I recorded were outrageous. When you walk down the hallway and lose track of how many times you hear the homophobic slander, that's a problem. One week I had nearly 70 tallies on my left hand, and less than 10 on my right.
Has anyone ever thought about what they were saying when they called someone a fag? Take a look at this:
"In the inquisition of Europe, when witches were being burned, among those sought out for burning were gay people. They were required to gather the very "bundles of sticks" (the real meaning of a faggot) with which they would be burnt. When the faggots (sticks) were running out, gay men were thrown on the fire to keep it going for the witches. Faggot came to mean gay man to force them into the closet for fear of death. Scary, huh? Think about what you are saying -- who you are offending when say this word, even if in jest to a friend." -(http://members.fortunecity.com/gaytimes/faggot.html)
You can look up a million definitions of the word "faggot", but not a single one would translate back to someone who is acting stupid, lame, or weird, which is just a few of the definitions people have given me while trying to correct them. You won't find stupid, harsh, cruel, mean, dumb, lame, weird, confusing etc., as the definition of gay either.
Let's start thinking about what we say and what we mean, for as we can see they are not always the same thing. Let's start thinking about who we're talking around. Even if you are talking in your small group of friends, chances are you will be offending someone. If you hear it from one of your friends or someone in study hall or in the hall way, stand up and say something! Don't let it slide, because all that does is teach more people they can use it too. Personally, when I correct someone I don't jump down their throats, calling them bigoted and homophobic, because all that does is make them defensive, but chances are if you kindly step in and ask them not to say things like that because it's offensive they'll listen.
You won't change every single person, but you can do a lot by simply changing the way you, your friends, and you peers talk and act. Give it a shot, it may blow up in your face every once in a while, but even a bad response is someone thinking about what you said. You can help stop the ignorance, the hate, but not by sitting back and watching it all happen. Action is the best road to take when looking for change, and you'll be able to watch your world become a better place along the way.
Peace, Love and Acceptance,
Fink
Application
Name:
Age:
Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity:
Why do you want to join SpokenAgainst?
Anyone who does not fill this out will be auto-rejected from SpokenAgainst. The reason? Because Staff will not risk allowing in people who will harass our members. Considering the nature of this cult, we expect that there will be people who will fill out this application and lie about themselves, but we are hoping that either they will fill out the application based on stereotypes and we'll spot them right away, or that they won't waste their time just to harass us. If you do not fill out the application, we cannot accept you, for the safety of our members.
Also, the application appears here and when you click 'Subscribe', so there is no reason other than sheer laziness to not fill out the application.
Besides, if you haven't looked through the cult page to find the application, then why are you joining the cult? Please peruse the cult before joining, that way you know what SpokenAgainst is about. Feel free to inbox any of the Staff if you have any questions. 
