The Deviated Norm

Scooters, Women's Bodies, and Male Anger

2010-09-21T10:40:00.001-04:00

[Trigger warning for Male Anger manifesting in misogynistic language, threats of violence, and verbal harrassment]

Bluejay and I got a scooter back in the spring which we have been using daily as our main mode of transportation. Scooters are excellent, especially in the city. In the city no one can go much faster than 30 mph (the speed that a scooter tops out at) for long stretches anyway. In the city there are often long lines at lights where scooters can mosey up the right side and then scoot off into the sunset when the light turns. In most municipalities, scooters have rights to the bike lanes, thus making us potentially safer than otherwise. Scooters look cool (ours is creamsicle-like, white and orange), and they awesome gas mileage (on a tank of gas from a crappy gas station we only get 50 mpg but on a tank of gas from a high end station we get like 90 or 100 mpg).

One thing that isn't so great about scooters though is Male Anger. Scooters (and bikes) tend to make men in SUVs cranky. A few months back when Bluejay and I were going somewhere (yep, it fits two people), we stopped at the red light. Seems pretty normal, right? Other than the asshole in the SUV (actual bumper sticker: Got Oil?) behind us apparently wanted us to continue out into traffic. He honked, (Bluejay gave him the finger, he doesn't like the tendency of Boston drivers to honk at you for following traffic laws). I took the right on red I was planning on taking moments ago anyway (after having actually deliberated on whether another car would hit us if I did... you know, following those pesky traffic laws). He of courseb sped up, pulled around us into another lane, yelled curse words out the window at us, (I gave him the finger, not realizing that this was the second finger of the encounter), and proceeded to pull into the lane in front of us and weave back and forth from lane to lane when I tried to get out from behind him. Male Anger. Sort of terrifying. You know, what with us being on an open to the elements motorized bicycle, and him in a fucking Hummer (no joke). The best that could be said about him was that he had absolutely no respect for the fact that his actions could have killed us, the worst that could be said is that he was actively attempting to get us to crash.

Last night, on my way home from class I got another taste of the way that scooters elicit male anger. You should know that Boston has a notoriously large community of bicyclists that a) almost never follow traffic laws (as in passing lines of cars stopped at a red for the past minute, and then proceeding to somehow make a left on the red through oncoming traffic), b) rarely wear safety gear (brakes?!? who gives a shit about brakes! helmets? pah! they'll mess up my carefully mussed hair). Perhaps you've noticed from my rhetoric a slight disdain for that type of "loose"ness with one's safety? As in, that even if I meander towards the front of a stopped line I don't actually breeze through reds, and that I wear a helmet, and not a "brain bucket" helmet, but a full helmet with a clear eye guard that I put down in inclement weather.

So I'm stopped at the light waiting for an opening to take my left when a guy pulls up to me (I don't notice him, focusing on oncoming cars) and hisses out the window "put your face mask down, Bitch," just as there is an opening/I'm leaving. Usually in encounters like this I'm too flabbergasted, but in this case I knew exactly what I wanted to say but the coward/asswipe had already sped off.

Does this guy give such helpful safety tips to all the guys around town who think that little half-melon helmets are sufficient? Does he hiss "buy a better helmet, MAN (said with derision)" when he passes them? Does he perhaps verbally assault the male bicyclists he sees around town as they go from place to place without any protective headgear? I mean, really, what exactly is he trying to accomplish here. Did my facemask offend his delicate sensibilities?

I'm not a woman, but he clearly thought I was. I feel (just maybe) that he found the idea of a woman scooting as intimidating. Why? The experience got me to thinking about a town I used to live in where the entire biking community knew about this person who would drive around and while passing them (while they were being entirely safe and legal) would shout obscenities at them (calling them "bike faggots," among other things), and the police refused to do anything because they never "caught her in the act" and she would explain that she was just doing it for bicyclists' "safety" (uh huh? pull the other, it's got bells on it). What is it about bikes and scooters that scares people? What is it about them that is coded as "feminine" (the use of "faggot" I feel like is pretty indicative of a desire/belief that bicyclists are somehow effeminate or less manly if they aren't already women)? And why this need to police the bodies of those who are assumed to be women (or are just assumed to be feminine men)?

Stress

2010-08-18T02:26:00.000-04:00

I've been really stressed recently. It's been vague amorphous stress, I can't pinpoint where it comes from well enough to excise it and it has been starting fights. Some of the things that are probably contributing are that my summer part-time job is drawing to a close and I need to start gearing up for my second/last year of MSW program, Bluejay and I are talking about where/when/how I'll get into a PhD program. Houses, children, animals, free time, money are also part of this future-talk. It's all sort of been swirling a bit.

Last week my father was taken to the ER because he was having trouble breathing. For the first couple rounds of chemo it seemed he'd been doing really well, his counts were up in all the right places. The last 2 rounds though he'd been having a worse reaction (it seemed to me, not actually living with him), and more lag time to feeling base level ok. Last week my mother wasn't home when he woke up and he realized he couldn't move around the house without worrying about falling over/passing out. He's said that he thinks that if she'd been home he wouldn't have bothered to call the doctor/911, he'd have tried to tough it out. Turns out there was clotting in the leg that traveled to his lungs. He's on blood thinners now.

I'm jealous of my sister who's living at home with our parents because she found out before I did and was able to see him in the hospital the day it happened. When the diagnosis for the cancer happened I was ready to be part of a caretaking team. On some level I was happy too, because I'd been feeling like a subpar son/male relative with my other folks who are sick. I wanted to redeem myself (on some level... it's also true that I just genuinely wanted to be there for my dad). Instead I've only taken him to one round of the chemo and since he does better with less people around I haven't been around more than once every few weeks. My sister and mother know what times of the week are "good times" after the chemo, but I wasn't close enough during that time to learn his personal cycle.
A neighbor came around the other day when I was there (after going to the hospital to see him) asking after him. It just felt mostly like gossip to me. There'd been an ambulance and a fire truck and as my dad put it "almost all of the emergency folks in the whole town," and she'd seen him getting wheeled away. My sister took it as her being involved and caring about him, (and probably knows better than I do), but I just found it so frustrating and icky to have just gotten in from seeing him and having her pounce on us in the driveway to get all the details.

When he first started chemo, he wanted to not have his hair look patchy. He shaved his head. He started losing his beard and I kept expecting him to shave that too... it's so thin right now I feel like I could count the individual hairs. I didn't know whether to be worried or not that he wasn't putting energy into keeping his head from getting peach fuzzy (since it was going to keep falling out and looking thin), did it mean something? Did it mean he was focusing on the important stuff or did it mean that he didn't have the energy to do something that was important to him?

I don't really need to worry about that anymore though, 'cause they've taken him off the chemo. It was killing him. Technically that's the point of chemo, to have it kill you, but hope that it kills the cancer quicker. We think? (hope?) the cancer's gone, but this wasn't the plan. This is the new plan. The one that involves rat poison (blood thinner).

Anyway, so I'm stressed. Not sleeping well and throwing up. I've got an itch in the back of my throat starting, so I'll get to begin the school year sick as well. And my grandmother's still alive, which should make me happy, other than it just means that the funeral hasn't happened yet. It's selfish but I want her to die in such a way/time that the funeral isn't during my school year, so I can attend without worrying about classwork. I'd be fine with winter break but I honestly doubt she'll make it that long, she's already beat the 6 month pronouncement by multiple months and when I visited her in early July everyone seemed to think it'd be mere hours.

About a third of me thinks that this isn't the reason I haven't been blogging (or doing anything "productive" for the upcoming school year), a third thinks it is, and another third wants it to be the reason 'cause it's a damn fine excuse.

Kokopelli, Mohawks, Appropriation, and White Racism/Privilege

2010-07-28T15:04:00.001-04:00

This is a sort of scattered post today.

I've been thinking about Kokopelli recently because of two events. The first event (though chronologically second) is that my partner and I visited the house of one of his good friends, who has a woven rug/runner thing tacked to the wall with like 20 Kokopellis woven along it basically in a conga line. The second event (chronologically first) is that a couple weeks ago, while over at my parents house, my sister mentioned that her friend had a tattoo (I believe, I can't think of the context, but I can't think of what else it would have been BUT a tattoo) of Kokopelli. Apparently I made a face, because my sister found it necessary to explain that Kokopelli is a "Native American god*" (again, I'm not certain that was exactly what she said, but I AM certain she didn't specify either: what tribes worship(ped) him or what his powers are believed to be). I stated that I knew exactly who Kokopelli is and that my face was for the fact that I think it's really screwed up for white people (her friend is a white person, just like my whole family) to appropriate meaningful symbols/gods from other cultures.

My sister countered that I didn't know how meaningful Kokopelli is to her friend. I don't care how meaningful Kokopelli is to white folks... pick a fertility god from a culture you have a background in... oh wait, what's that?, you didn't know that Kokopelli is a fertility god?, wow he must be SUPER meaningful to you I suppose! (Sorry, angry rant done). We dropped it soon after because regardless of whatever we'd say, it wouldn't change the fact that her friend had that tattoo** (they're permanent you know).

I thought back to that argument (which my partner was there for) when we entered his friend's house. I looked at the wall hanging, and was made intensely uncomfortable by it, but we were there to ask for a favor (or something), so I didn't say anything. Which makes me feel cruddy. I think the difference was that my sister brought it up in conversation the first time, whereas just seeing a wall-hanging isn't exactly an invitation to talk about it. But I still wish I'd said something (perhaps next time we're over I'll ask what her interest in fertility gods is?).

So obviously appropriation of Native cultures has been on my mind a lot recently.

Which brings me to Native Appropriations, and Adrienne's most recent post about white people wearing "Indian"/"Indian-style" headdresses. Now there are some things I don't love about her posts on the topic, well, really just one thing. It's that she calls them "Hipster Headdresses." Yes, most hipsters are white/come from upper-middle class backgrounds, but not all. Appropriation that those (privileged) individuals do they do as privileged white/rich people, not as "hipsters." Hipsters are not defacto privileged, there isn't "hipster privilege," so it seems stupid to say it's a "hipster" thing instead of (say) a "white thing" or a "rich thing." This is a common naming that happens in liberal/radical groups where I'll hear people talk about "hipster racism" as though it isn't the same damn racism that other white people do. It's white racism, and rich classism, it isn't special to hipsters, and they aren't a specially protected/privileged group (in my analogies on this subject I've pointed out that tea drinkers are probably predominantly white/privileged just like hipsters, but we don't call racism perpetrated by them "tea drinker racism"). Anyway.

One of the things that happened the other day while I was reading her post (wherein she describes having a clothing designer come to an old post to harrass her about being opposed to white people using headdresses as a cool new "accessory") was that I was struck with revulsion at the privileged asshole-ishness of E. Starbuck. Fuck that noise.

Which brings me to mohawks (the hairstyle, not the tribe).

I'm a white person, so I have white privilege. In high school I had dreads (not something I'm proud of these days, but at the time it didn't seem like a big deal). In college I had a mohawk. For a long time I've mourned that I "can't" have a mohawk anymore. For a while I felt I couldn't because I was out in the world where people would judge me negatively for having hair that didn't conform to "appropriate" standards (but I was going to find a job and then settle in and then shave it again). More recently (the past year and a bit) I've been feeling like I "can't" wear one because of the appropriation aspect of it. But I've been fighting that. I didn't feel like it was a choice I was making for myself, but one that was made for me, and it made me upset and sad (boo hoo, I know). I'd see a person (usually white, sometimes black) walking down the street with a mohawk and sigh longingly, and then Bluejay (my partner) had to remind me that it's appropriative and such. And I keep/kept saying "but hair! it's... anyone could think up shaving a stripe onto your head! plus! all the white hairstyles are boring" and then he'd (very smart, my partner is) point out that the reason that mohawks and dreads and such seem "cool" and "not boring" is because of uh, white privilege, appropriation, and racism. So then I spent weeks/months whining (not often) about how I guess I'd just have to come up with a "not boring" hairstyle that wasn't appropriative.

Bluejay pointed out to me that maybe I could use this as a learning experience to acknowledge how difficult it can be for other white folk to give up something that they think of as dear to their hearts (Kokopelli, sweat lodges, "moccasins," whatever) "just" because of white privilege. He pointed out that the things that I've "given up" because they were racist (not going to see Avatar, being opposed to conflict diamonds, etc.) are things that I either don't care about (like clothes/jewelry) or was anti-racist before I heard about them, and thus didn't find appealing (like Avatar), so it wasn't a very big sacrifice. I'm not sure Bluejay's idea worked in making me more sympathetic to people who cling to privilege, but it is helping me acknowledge that I am not Super Anti-Racist, but instead flawed (gasp! shock! horror!).

But hey! luckily for me (and my fragile white psyche), E. Starbuck has made it oh-so-easy for me to give up my fantasy for oppression-free mohawks. How? Because the second I read zir screed, I said to myself "oh fuck, I NEVER want to act like that privileged a wanker, that's probably what I sound like about mohawks." And I was (very close to) cured of my desire for one. I mean damn but that's a jerkish thing to do: seek out a Native person to harrass because they are opposed to you stealing their culture. Ugh.

So, I don't have a really good wrap up to this, other than I guess to acknowledge to myself and the world that I am not Super Anti-Racist, but with a little help from friends (and racist assholes) I can work to be less oppressive to others. Who knows, if I talk with Bluejay's friend about Kokopelli perhaps we can move together towards a less oppressive future.

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*Using a non-capitalized "god" is not meant as a disrespect to Native cultures, but is instead due to my desire to not give a false reverence which I do not feel for any religions' god(dess)(es).

**For full disclosure I should mention that for 3 or so years in undergrad I seriously believed I'd get a full back tattoo of Quan Yin and Kali, two archetypes/goddesses/symbols that I really appreciated. At some point during that time I was talking with a Hindu friend of mine who apparently told me he thought it was fucked up that I was going to get a tattoo of a Hindu goddess even though I wasn't Hindu. I don't remember that conversation, but I do remember the one following it when he brought it up later as I mentioned some hugely disrespectful toilet paper with Hindu gods on it (I believe). He implied that what I was planning (still at the time interested in the tattoo) was only slightly less disrespectful than the toilet paper. I'm pretty sure I behaved in a privileged white way as a response (blabbing on about how she was meaningful to me, etc.). I don't know if I ever apologized to him for that (we no longer chat much). So, just to say that I'm not immune from having felt like appropriation is a-ok, but luckily I did take long enough figuring out who to design it and tattoo it and everything that I stopped wanting it.

Trigger Warning for Transphobia

2010-07-22T23:10:00.005-04:00

This article made me gasp in horror, fear, and revulsion. (Synopsis, a Texas firefighter died on the job, his parents are suing to stop his widow from getting any benefits because she is trans).

Some things that made me rather sick:
The article/picture captions seem to LOVE qualifying "wife" with "born a man" and "transgendered."
The bigotry of the lawyer for the mother saying that his wife is "attempting to make a huge money grab" when to any person with any sense of fairness in this world would acknowledge that the parents are the ones making a money grab, since you know, they SUED to stop their daughter-in-law from receiving any benefits.
Texas law.
and of course the comments. Don't read the comments.

I really don't know what to say about this, it's just so heartbreaking that at this most vulnerable time for her his parents are trying to cut her off from the help she could get. She's having to spend her time in court being told that she wasn't his wife for the past years (and obviously being told she isn't a woman), all to make his parents richer. Shame. Shame on them. It's days like this that make me despair for myself and the world.

Today in Meet a Poly Person: All Relationships are "Real" Relationships

2010-07-21T15:09:00.008-04:00

Often in online conversations about poly people's relationships, real lived experiences of poly people, (or people in open relationships, or swingers, or anyone else who isn't monogamous) are ignored. There will be a strawperson (or strawrelationship) set up for the blogger or commenter to knock down in their quest to show how very bad and no good we non-monogamous people are. This series was set up in order to combat that. People in non-monogamous relationships aren't all the same, so our experiences aren't.

Hi, I'm Melusin, blogger at And What Was Ze ... I'm a pansexal trans man, a newbie activist, poet, playwright and director for a small theatre company. I live with my fiance, Roland, in the English Midlands, and we're polyamorous.

There is an old friend of mine for whom I had feelings for a long time. She is the first person I ever fell in love with, causing all sorts of angst and drama in my late teens. She's still a very good friend and every now and then I realise I'm still attracted to her, still sometimes have romantic feelings towards her. (She's made it very clear she isn't interested, and as such I wouldn't act on them).

When Roland and I were monogamous this caused me no end of grief. In fact, my entire sexual identity caused me no end of grief- I was lesbian identified at the time, and my partner is a man. I would be attracted to someone (quite often the aforementioned friend) and constantly feel like I had betrayed Roland, if in thought only. I'd be furious at myself for dreaming about women, or noticing someone I found attractive. It was exhausting.

Roland was bewildered by this. He was accepting of me being attracted to women, and sometimes we'd semi-seriously talk about having sex with another person together, sometimes discussing it more seriously than others. We were concerned with liking the person in question, and there being interest on all sides, and other things that might suggest we'd be amenable to polyamory. But when we discussed polyamory outright we were sure that it "just wouldn't work for us."

We were trying to stick to the structure, to the identification of monogamy, even though it didn't really fit us.

One day I realised that I had a very strong attraction to another person, and commenced the standard "feeling awful about this and that I was a terrible person." I blurted this out in confused fashion to Roland, with much focus on how guilty I felt and how terrible it was. A couple of days later I was in the pub with him when he said that he was okay with me telling the person this, and making advances towards and sleeping with zim. A while later that did happen, and we had a very nice, loving, one night stand. This was followed by a second occasion, and then Roland and I had the "are we poly now?" conversation and decided we were.

My relationship with my secondary partner was the first obviously queer relationship either of us had had, and then ze left the country and we're now not sure whether it will resume when ze returns, but we have enjoyed flirting and similar for most of the year. And if it doesn't resume, that doesn't mean that it doesn't count. Like Jadelyn said in a previous post in this series "Our culture would have us believe that jealousy is the natural state of a relationship, that affection is a zero-sum game and our partner enjoying the company of another somehow diminishes their love for us. But I learned otherwise."

Poly has given my partner and I a chance to appreciate the many different forms of sexual attraction and love, and realise that they are all valuable. My feelings for the old friend I mentioned at the beginning are not a threat to my feelings for Roland, and certainly don't invalidate them. Mine and Roland's other relationships, which sometimes intersect, are valuable in their own right. Poly has meant that we've both come to appreciate many things a great deal more: our past relationships, temporary relationships, single incidents of kissing with an old friend after several years of sexual tension, and our own relationship with all the details and pleasures unique to it.

And the acknowledgement of that, the discussion of current crushes and loves and anxieties and whatever else, has meant that my constant fear of slipping up, of breaking some "unseen rule," has faded. It has meant that when I'm worried about something I tell Roland about it, and that then we are able to work out "seen" rules together. There has been drama over the past year, and tensions, but it is such a bloody relief to be able to talk about it.

Poly means that we're able to create our own mould for relationships, rather than forcing ourselves into tropes and moulds that don't fit us.

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If you think you or someone you know would be interested in submitting something for the Today in Meet a Poly Person series, please check out this here post with guidelines for submission. Thanks!

Recent Searches and What they Mean to Me

2010-07-19T21:27:00.006-04:00

I've been looking at the search terms that get people here to this fine blog (still a WHOLE LOT of hits on my post about why I don't like gender bender fiction. Frankly, I'm pretty sure that years from now I'll be known as "that guy that wrote about gender bender fiction").

While I think that the person searching for gender bending rock fucking pornos is by far my most confusing of searchs, I want to talk a little about 2 general types of searches that I've been getting recently that really strike home for me.

The first is a couple with searches about like so:
"what is it called when u dont like any gender"
So, since I think this is important information to get out into the world: the word you are looking for is asexual. It's a growing movement, of which I am not really a part ('cause I sure do like sex and I haven't really put in the hours/energy to count myself an ally), which isn't exactly a situation where you don't like any gender (I know that some people who identify as asexual nevertheless have romantic relationships and inclinations towards certain genders of non-sexual partner, etc.). I don't know a whole lot more, because, as I said, I am not asexual or really an ally*. I suggest looking for some of their blogs. Here, I'll get you started (I do not vouch for these, I just googled and found them): Love from the Asexual Underground, and AVEN: the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network.
If you are typing words to the effect of "someone who doesn't like people of any gender" into a search engine because you feel like they describe yourself: awesome! Naming what you feel is a great first step to recognizing and loving yourself.
If you are typing those words because a loved one has told you they aren't attracted to people of any gender, also great (that you're taking the time to learn about this), though again, I would suggest not looking to me for answers.

The next major search result that I want to talk about is less happy fun times and more crankyness. That is "ffm." I get a lot of these (ffm marriage, ffm poly, ffm triad, etc). I guess they all go to Jadelyn's guest post Drama Does Not Define Us. The thing is, FFM relationships are the stereotypical poly triad that people (read: straight cis men) talk about.
All the jokes about "oooh, threesomes" are based on the idea of male pleasure/sexuality and about how "hot" it would be to have TWO WOMEN who were having sex with you at once (if you were a straight cis man). There's an assumption that women in these relationships are "able" to have queer relationships at the whim of a man but that men should never be expected to put up with another GUY in their relationship, OH NOES (and certainly not that a guy could be attracted to a man)! It's a frustrating meme, that is frustratingly common.
I really enjoyed the book Opening Up except at those times where Taormino seems to very uncritically take at face value those relationships that fall into the "one penis policy" ("OPP"). I hate that fucking policy. It's a terrible, sexist thing that apparently happens with some frequency.

The "OPP," as I've heard it described is basically as such: a straight (cis) couple is going to open up their relationship. The woman is bi/bi-curious and the man is not. Therefore, he states that it is fair that they both get to have sex outside of the relationship with women. But no men. Afterall, he can't enjoy having sex with men, so how is it fair for her to have sex with men? Not to mention that it'll make him jealous (of course SHE won't be jealous of him having sex with other women because... ummmm.... because women are magical non-jealous people! and because, like, duh, she'll be getting to have sex with women too, so it's totally fair!), and that she might leave him for another penis. It's often offered as a "stepping stone" to a more fair situation where she isn't artificially limited by her partner's genitalia, but that "just for the moment" he isn't comfortable with it. Only, very rarely does it seem that the "moment" ever ends. I mean, why would it? He gets to sleep around with whoever he'd want to sleep with, while he controls his partner/girlfriend/wife! What's not to ~~love~~ hate?

I don't know why people are searching for "FFM poly" and "FFM marriage" on my pretty lil' blog. It might be that they are all happily in such an arrangement. It might be that they are a woman and are actively seeking out such an arrangement. It could be a multitude of things. But you should know, if you don't fall into those aforementioned categories, if you are, say, a straight single (or currently coupled) cis guy fantasizing about how poly chicks are all about the FFMs, or how awesome a threesome would be? Stuff it. I'm sick of poly being envisioned as this field of pussy for the penises to frolick amongst. Poly relationships take work. Queer relationships are as meaningful/"real" as straight relationships (frankly, I feel like sometimes they are more meaningful/real, but I suppose I'm just biased what with being queer). FFM triads and threesomes and V relationships should not be about making the man happy, but about making EVERYONE happy.

Also, in case you're wondering? Any triad I'll be in will probably be QQQ (or possibly QQF, or QQM). Where are the searches for those types of relationships?

*Besides acknowledging that it is a: real, b: not bad, and c: not inherently a "phase." I do consider myself to have gone through a year long phase of asexuality where I didn't have crushes on people, I didn't fantasize about sex, and I was just plain asexual. However me saying that it was a phase for me is no more implying that asexuality is "just a phase" for others, than me saying that since I happened to go through a 10 year phase of assumed heterosexuality, that heterosexuality is "just a phase" for the rest of the world (that is heterosexual). Just because something was/is a "phase" for some people doesn't mean that the identity was/is any less valid. Though I do note that the phrase is almost entirely used by our society when referring to identities that we want to discredit or mark as "bad," so see point "b" for how I feel about that.

Words Matter, So Use Them Correctly

2010-07-17T13:33:00.007-04:00

I've got a pet peeve folks.

Well, to be honest I've probably got a lot of them, but this one in particular is making me cranky today. I'm sure other people have written extensively about it (though cursory googling does not produce any results).

It's this: Don't use "GLBT" or "LGBT" (which are the two most common iterations of that particular acronym) if you don't actually mean Gay. Lesbian. Bisexual. and Transgender. Each. Specifically.

I'm frankly pretty sick of the label being used when really it should be "white cis gay men, and maybe a few lesbians."

Things that are not *actually* GLBT friendly: the Human Rights Campaign (when the only trans person on your board quits in protest of how thoroughly you fuck over the trans community, you are NOT an organization focusing on the GLBT community, you are, at best focusing on the GLB community), the Advocate (when only 1 of the past 21 covers you put out have a picture of a lesbian on them, and none have pictures of anyone identified as trans, or even bisexual... this is not a magazine for anyone other than the G in GLBT, let's not delude ourselves here), "LGBT panels" (that are invariously described as being about writing "gay" characters, that focus on slutty evil bisexual male characters, and that have no mention of lesbians or, wait!, this seems to be a theme!, trans people... OK, sure sounds REALLY LGBT friendly, uh huh, do you happen to have any bridges?, I'm especially interested in purchasing the Brooklyn one I've heard it's pretty), you get the idea.

Apparently some time a while ago, after Gay orgs got called out for being exclusionary, they decided that calling themselves GLBT (or LGBT) would do to fix that particular problem. And it probably helped for about 5 minutes. Trans and Bisexual folks would walk in the door and be struck by the fact that it had an acronym that included them. Yay!

These days, I think it does a whole hell of a lot more harm than good, because like Gender Bending fiction that doesn't actually depict our lives, it gives the veneer of respect and inclusion. It tells allies (or potential allies) who don't yet know about the issues going on, that "this" (whatever "this" it is, which is almost invariably a more powerful organization, and thus less likely to actually be engaged with the more marginalized of our populations) is what is trans-friendly, or bisexual inclusive looks like. So that people working on a project about the trans community use statistics from an organization that had their only trans board member quit in protest of their transphobia.

So please. If you are a safe space for gay men, fine, call yourself that. If you are a safe space for gays and lesbians, say that. But if you tack on an extra letter, MEAN IT. Don't insult us by using our letters to pad your inclusive cred.

Compare and Contrast: A Study in Two Blogs

2010-06-09T11:30:00.007-04:00

Oh blog reading folkz, I'm rather pissed right now. The other night I noticed that a queer/gay blog I usually like had posted yet another post about Tiwonge Chimbalanga that said she was a man.
So, being pissed at the time, I wrote a comment on slap upside the head saying as much (and explaining that it was angering to have her misgendered and having the struggle of trans* people coopted and erased by queer/gay people).
The comment was in moderation (it was technically in a "guestbook" area since the blog doesn't have commenting enabled), so I went to bed.
I check my email last night and get:

Hi there!

Aw, give me the benefit of the doubt before you chew into me, alright? :)

I do trans* stories whenever I see them, and certainly would have
mentioned that Tiwonge isn't a man if I had known. As it stands, I've read
multiple mainstream news stories about the couple, but your angry letter is
the first I've heard of this, so I think it's unfair to say that I'm
"misgendering" or "falling into the erasure" of anyone. I haven't met the
two, after all. :)

I'll look a lot more into this tonight; having the mainstream media
misidentify Steven and Tiwonge's relationship is a story in itself!

So I wrote back in INCREDIBLY even tones. I didn't call him on the tone argument, or the "but be nice to the 'allies' or else we can't possibly be allies,"-ing or the fact that the story isn't that the "mainstream" media is reporting badly, but that ALL MEDIA (other than explicitly trans* friendly media, and frankly including lots of "GLB, supposedly T" media) has been doing this, OR the fact that maybe he needs to learn to read trans* friendly blogs to learn true information about trans* people (dude, if you want to be an ally, GO TO WHERE THE OPPRESSED ARE).
Nope, I recommended a blog post that would clear up his misconceptions and then wrote:

It's great that you're interested in doing perhaps a post about misgendering by the mainstream media (and just about all the activist orgs that publicized this in the first place).

However, you did misgender Tiwonge (since you said she was a man, and she isn't), and you did contribute to the erasure of trans* identities/people (since she's a trans woman and you implied she was a cis man), even if you didn't intend to. It sucks (I'm sure you're not someone who likes to think you're contributing to oppression), but it happened, and saying it was unfair of me to point it out doesn't make it better, and ignores that truth.

I will say that my tone last night was angry. It was angry because yours is one of the few explicitly queer/gay blogs I read with any regularity, (since I generally enjoy it, and generally don't enjoy many others for their explicit and implicit transphobia), and it was a big frustration for me to realize after seeing this "gay marriage" narrative played up in Every Single media report on the topic of Tiwonge that you were doing it too, and that all the gay media seemed to also be doing it. So I suppose you could see it as unfair that *your* particular blog became the "straw that broke the camel's back" but I see it as far more unfair that even on a blog that I normally feel comfortable on, I (and presumably any other trans* person who knew about the truth of the story) was made to feel unwelcome.

In other words: you stepped on my metaphorical foot (and quite a few others), it's great that you didn't mean to, but that doesn't make it stop hurting.

Thanks for listening,
The Deviant E

This morning I awake to this piece of flaming pile of nonpology crap:

Hey there,

Factual errors happen now and then on the site; particularly ones like this which are present in multiple, reputable news sources.

Blogging is not terrifically rewarding for the amount of work involved, especially when it involves original full-colour illustrations, paid hosting, etc. I admit there was an error, but the accusitory language is unfair.

I do welcome all factual corrections, and unfortunately there will be opportunities for more, but please be friendly about them and give me the benefit of the doubt. (At least until I prove otherwise. ;)

AND I go to check the website and find that
A) my initial comment was not approved from moderation, so no one knows that he was called out on this
B) he has posted another post about Tiwonge, this time burying her gender till the end to make a dramatic reveal about "mainstream media"
C) he has not posted an apology or acknowledged that this was information he could have had weeks ago, had he *looked*
D) he has said that "word has gotten out" that Tiwonge identifies as a woman, without mentioning where possibly such word could have come from (it's like magic "word" that appears on it's own)!

Contrast that my friends with something from Shakesville:
On a blog post about a study finding that children raised by lesbian couples are more well adjusted then their peers raised by straight couples, someone wrote something talking about how fundies would hate it because there needs to be "penis owning person" in the house.

I wrote a comment reminding people that penises and xy chromosomes do not a man make (and lack of penises and xx chromosomes do not a woman make). It was published.
The response?

TheDeviantE:Thanks,for the privilege check,comment fixed now.-;-@ a rose to say sorry.

And what do you know, but the comment has been changed (to indicate cis-male manly man man-ness as opposed to "penis having"ness) but the person very explicitly put in there a tag saying "Edited for gender-essentialist language"

There was no foot stamping, no "but we're on the same side, [smiley that feels really insincere because I'm rejecting your points]". The comment *went through*, it was fixed! and in a way that acknowledged the fuck up in the first place.

It's almost like... on this *other* blog, people are actually allies and respond accordingly when called out.

So, what to do folks?
I've already posted in public some of the private correspondence (not that the email address of his is secret or anything), which some might deem a breach of ettiqutte. I do so because slap upside the head won't acknowledge his own culpability in his blog either by posting my original comment or by acknowleding it in a post of his (oh, in my comment I asked him to please post a *retraction*, you know, something that acknowledges information was wrong by saying "we done screwed up"?). So I really feel like any ettiquette breach is a tiny little piss beside his ocean of othering.
So question time: Do I continue trying to dialogue being OH SO FUCKING REASONABLE? Do I remain silent and stop reading his blog, since I doubt he'll acknowledge my reasons if I give them? Do I tell him off in an email, getting angry again and telling him I'll not be reading his blog (and a whole other set of things), in the hopes of giving him a parting shot of information and a reminder that it isn't all just peachy? Do I juggle elephants?

You tell me.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga Is A Woman

2010-06-07T23:14:00.004-04:00

Ok folks, I'm a little tired, a little behind on schoolwork (ok, a lot behind on school work), needing to have laid my head down on the pillow hours ago, and more than a lot pissed.

Because: Tiwonge Chimbalanga is a woman and she has been for years.
Say it with me folks! Tiwonge Chimbalanga, the (sole) female partner in a couple who were recently convicted of "homosexuality" in Malawi is a woman. Her nickname is "Aunt Tiwo." Notice the "aunt" in "Aunt Tiwo?" Tiwonge Chimbalanga is a woman.

FUCK. I mean, how many times do I need to repeat this until it sinks in in the mainstream, (and more importantly damnit, gay) media? I'm so sick of this cooptation of the struggles of trans* people (and let's be honest with ourselves, it's actually mostly the struggles of trans* women that are being coopted, and it's mostly trans* women of color who are at greatest risk of physical violence).

10 times? 100 times? I'll do it! You won't like it but I will. Because Tiwonge Chimbalanga deserves to not have one more slight thrust upon her. It was wrong of the Malawi government to attempt to jail her and her partner Steven, and it would *also* be wrong for the government to have done that if she was man. But she isn't. She's a woman. Tiwonge Chimbalanga is a woman.

Should I write a fucking song about it? I'm afraid it's pretty boring, I haven't really worked out the chord structure, melody line, or the verses, so far it's just aproximately 20 choruses of "Tiwonge is a woman" (3 times each chorus) and then at the end when performing you're required to get really angry and throw a vase full of flowers against the wall on the last line. The flowers represent humanity's attempts to pretty up bigotry. Ok, so it's mostly a performance piece. It'll be opening in NY in a month, along with my other piece "ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH: A Musing on Things that Piss Me Off"

A partial rundown of what I'm talking about: Questioning Transphobia quotes numerous articles that totally misgender Tiwonge Slap upside the head continues to repeatedly post about "gay" couple in Malawi that Tiwonge is part of (which is what set off this particular tirade), and now a random list of blogs that are queer/gay identified that just popped up when I ran a quick search that all either report on the "gay" couple without explaining the truth, or actively call Tiwonge a man.

Why yes. I am angry I just searched and found not a single LGBT (a lot of them say they are fucking LGBT on them!) blog that even mentioned preferred pronouns or the fact that "gay" is the wrong way to describe a straight relationship between Tiwonge Chimbalanga (who is a woman) and Steven Monjeza.

Today in Racist Sexism

2010-05-23T22:13:00.004-04:00

As Renee of Womanist Musings often points out, Black women in our society are in the double, (triple, I can't even figure out how many) bind of being constantly sexualized while also having the standard of beauty be explicitly based in Whiteness. They are accused of looking ugly and "masculine," but are assumed to be available at all times for sex (which feeds into rape culture). They are stereotyped as angry, but also expected to be "Mammy" figures who care for all around them.

This comes out in particularly horrifying ways when Black women athletes are reported on in the media. Caster Semenya comes to mind for me, and so does Venus Williams, and it is the treatment of Venus Williams in the linked article that I want to look at.

The title of this banal (but still incredibly offensive) "article" is "Venus Williams wears a racy dress..." and the actual website address calls her dress "see-through." Which is to say, that she designed (I've read elsewhere that she designs all her tenis outfits, correct me if I'm wrong) a dress where she has black lace overlaying brown cloth where the brown of the cloth shows through. The brown of the cloth is matched exceedingly well to her skin tone (given how off "skin tone" things usually are, regardless of the pigmentation of the wearer, I feel this is no small feat, just think of those ice skating outfits where the "skin tone" bits are just an entirely different color, even with White skaters). So of course, the first major error of this short (5 sentence) article is in the website address, and it is that the dress is "see-through". It is no more "see through" than my pants I am wearing right now.
(I also remember that a while ago, a similarly ridiculous article was written about another outfit that she wore where she again matched her skin tone and the cloth color in order to not show her underwear (I believe). Again they described this as "shocking" or "scandalous.")

Another error of the article is referring to the outfit as a "can-can" outfit, given that it does not share the key requirement of can-can outfits in that it doesn't have a long flouncy skirt (with frills underneath) for the high kicking necessary to rate her activity as the can-can.

The next bit of offensiveness is in the first sentence, where they state that Venus Williams could "find work" at the Moulin Rouge. They then clarify that they mean the historical Moulin Rouge in the third sentence when they reference her "auditioning for a spot at a 19th century cabaret."
For context, the wikipedia article on the Moulin Rouge euphemistically refers to the original dancers at the Moulin Rouge as "courtesans." Of course, it also describes them as the originators of the striptease, and states that the can-can as developed by the courtesans was "an attempt to seduce potential clients" (ummm, what type of clients could they possibly be referencing?) and that in the course of the dance, the revealing of genitals sometimes happened (because that happens all the time at the ballet!). To really hit home what the Moulin Rouge was (and what the dancers were considered to be), even though the article doesn't *explicitly* state that it was a whore-house, it nevertheless refers to when the Moulin Rouge suddenly became a "legitimate nightclub" and that it had a "reputation as a 'high-class brothel'" (which would hardly be necessary to state if it was truly a nightclub in the beginning). So let's just acknowledge it for what it was at the time: a strip club where the workers probably often had sex with the clients.

So, back to the article (sorry for the digression), they are explicitly referring to the historical Moulin Rouge and saying that she could "find some work" there. So they are saying that a strong Black woman athlete is equivalent to a prostitute (or at "best" a stripper).

I want to state for the record that I do not view sex work as an immoral thing/profession. I do not believe that individuals who engage in non-coercive sex work (so, leaving out pimps for instance) are immoral for doing so. However, in our society it is extremely stigmatized to be a sex worker of any stripe, and the most stigmatized group are prostitutes.

And this article compared Venus Williams to a sex worker/prostitute in an effort to shame her.

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH.

That is all in: Today in Racist Sexism.

Search Engines Say the Darndest Things

2010-05-15T15:04:00.003-04:00

Ok friends, I generally try to not post more than once a day, because so often I post less than once a day, so I figure: "why not spread out the joy* a little?"
But, today, I just couldn't help myself, because there is something that is absolutely necessary for you to know.

I have a little widget that lets me know how many people stop by the blog/read what posts/etc. It also tells me what searches brought my visitors to The Deviated Norm. One of most recent searches that landed someone here was...

"transgender AND gender bender AND rock fucking AND porno web sites"

I like to think that I'm a pretty open minded guy, but I seriously have to ask something. What the hell is rock fucking?
I identify as kinky, even though there are certainly kinky things that people do that I'm not interested in, I usually know about them. I know about the more regular BDSM fetishes, I know about leather and latex fetishes, I know about Furry communities and people who really enjoy dressing up as babies and get sexual satifaction from that. I know about golden showers and coprophilia. I know about people who are into surface piercing as foreplay, and flogging, and foot fetishes. I know people who are necrophiles. I know even that all of these things I've mentioned are *somewhat* common, if not super common. But rock fucking? I have no idea what the hell that is.

I mean, I honestly feel a little bad for whoever it was that searched for that and got this, because it seems highly unlikely that they found what they were looking for: I'm a pissed off trans* guy (hardly titilating, I mean, unless you really like pissed of trans* guys in a sexual way), one of my most linked to/read/commented on posts is about my deep dislike for gender bending fiction, and there isn't any pornos to be seen here. I also don't think I have any pictures of rocks up on the site.

So, I'm sorry anonymous reader interested "rock fucking" pornos, perhaps you could explain what you were looking for?

*or whatever

Advertising that Makes Deviant E Get All Cranky

2010-05-15T11:34:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the long absence.

So let's jump right in with two examples of advertising that creeped me out and pissed me off (for very similar reasons) without them showing or saying a single negative thing.

We'll start off with a Brawny Towel ad with an animated lumberjack singing "Lean On Me"

Opening shot in the most creepy supermarket ever, where they have only two brands of paper towels all in single packs: colorful Brawny (red, yellow, black and white) and a brand apparently called “Paper Towels” in monotone blue and lighter shades of blue. Not only do they have merely two brands of paper towels, but the White woman in business casual, with a full shopping cart of food loaded willy-nilly (vegetables and fruits on the bottom getting *crushed*) is apparently standing in an aisle whose sole purpose is to show off these two brands of paper towels on every single shelf for as far as the eye can see. The red and blue dichotomy of the paper towels cuts down the middle of the screen, where she is standing making a decision between brands.
White woman goes to get Paper Towel brand paper towels.
[Cue modified “Lean on Me” with lone male voice: “Lean on me, when you need something strong”]
She looks delightedly up and over towards the Brawny towels, apparently she has heard the cued music as well.
Cut to close up shot of Brawny cartoon/icon (White man in red plaid, looking somewhat “lumberjack-ish”) on the front of a paper towel package singing. Yes, creepy little icon man is the one singing “Lean on Me”
Cut to wider shot, showing 6 or so identical animations singing: “and I’ll be your friend” as they gesture in unison.
Cut to still wider shot, now showing 3 shelves full of identical gesturing/singing animations on the fronts of paper towel packages all singing and gesturing in unison. White woman watches them, somehow not in abject terror. As she scans all of the animations we see the back of her head. [Chorus continues with: “I’ll help you carry on”]
Cut to woman of indeterminate race/ethnicity (dark curly hair, skin that isn’t pasty white) in kitchen. She has just started walking away from blender full of pink liquid. Blender is on and liquid gushes up, forcing top of blender off and spilling pink everywhere. Woman looks back and belatedly attempts to get to blender before it spills.
[“so call on me brother when you need a hand”]
Cut to hand of woman with paper towel wiping up pink liquid.
Cut to Black woman (mom?) and Black boy (son?) in kitchen. They are at sink and son has paper towel in hand as he cleans caked-on egg off of nonstick pan. Mother is standing behind him holding onto pan as well, smiling down at pan/him as he cleans.
[“we all need somebody”]
Cut to hand holding paper towel going in circles continuing to get remaining egg off.
Cut to White man (father?) and White girl (daughter?) near some stairs. He has a paintbrush in hand and the wall is taped with painter’s tape. Daughter is wiping his face with a paper towel for no discernible reason.
[“to lean on”]
Cut back to front of single paper towel where lumberjack-ish White animation now speaks (music without words continues in background): “Brawny now comes with a money back guarantee.”
Cut to White woman (mother?) and White girl (daughter?) at kitchen sink. Voice over continues: “When you want a paper towel that can do it all,”
Girl is holding paper towel outstretched over sink. Mother has colander of grapes which tips onto paper towel, without towel tearing. Text at bottom says: “Approximately 10 oz seedless grapes, moistened.” Mother and daughter smile as grapes are caught.
Cut back to lumberjack-ish icon pointing at himself, he continues: “Lean on me”
Cut back to shelves full of animations as they finish singing/song: “something strong”.
Cut back to White woman in store picking out a roll of Brawny and placing it in grocery cart in a satisfied manner, she then walks off screen.
Cut to picture of single Brawny roll on tile with information about the money back guarantee in text on screen. Creepy animation says: “Brawny never lets you down”

as always, click on the cut link for as complete a transcript as I can make.

Next we have a Macy's ad for jewelry, with the song "Seasons of Love" being sung in the background.

as always, click on the cut link for as complete a transcript as I can make.

So, what creeps me out and pisses me off about these two ads? It has something to do with the idea of taking songs from oppressed groups and putting them into your advertising, and in the process making invisible their origins.
"Lean on Me" was written in 1972. It is a song written by a Black man, in the Soul genre, at a time just following the organized Civil Rights movement. It's a song about community and the strength and power that can be found when people rally together.
The voice in the advertisement sounds stereotypically "Black" and is singing in the genre that the song comes from. Yet they have a White lumberjack as the animated icon portrayed as singing it. They took a song that could reasonably be seen as a song about the strength of social movements, and erased the Black origin of it, and put it into a fucking Paper Towel ad. I suppose I'm meant to be grateful that they included a Black family in the footage? That pisses me off and creeps me out. And of course, they screwed around with the lyrics in the process so that they could do this.
"Seasons of Love" was written for the musical Rent. It's a musical about AIDS. It has numerous gay characters. Seriously, out of a main cast of 7-8 people, 4 of them are in same-gender relationships.
In the advertisement, is there a single gay couple depicted? Nope. There are numerous romantic couples depicted, and not a single gay one amongst them. The ad writers took a song that is couched in the AIDS epidemic (at the time it was written, primarily associated with gay men), and somehow manage to take away all reference to gayness in the advertisement.

Neither of the ads was explicitly racist or homophobic. But by their decision to make things more "universally appealing," they took songs from particular oppressed groups and put them in the mouths of their oppressors. They took something away from the Black community and the Gay community and gave it to Whites and Straights. If we(gays)/they(Black people) aren't good enough to be the icons of your feel good advertising, then you get no fucking right to our creative endeavors.

Today In Meet a Poly Person: Drama Does Not Define Us

2010-03-26T23:53:00.006-04:00

When I try to describe the last year and a half of my relationships to friends I haven't spoken with in awhile, I always get the same reaction. In text, it's something like this: "...wow. That's really complicated, isn't it?" And in person, it's the same plus the addition of raised eyebrows and a very careful neutral tone. It's hard, in our culture, to adequately describe the shifting dynamics of a somewhat fluid polyamorous arrangement.

Some quick terminology notes to begin with, for those unfamiliar with the vocabulary of polyamory. Primary refers either to one's primary partner or relationship. This is the relationship which all involved parties have agreed takes precedence over the others, if a conflict arises. Generally, one is assumed to spend more time and energy on one's primary relationship and partner than on one's secondary and tertiary relationships. Triad refers to a three-person relationship; it may be an equilateral triad - all three persons are considered primary partners - or non-equilateral - one relationship between two participants is primary, and both of those primary partners have a secondary relationship with the third person.

Back to my story. In the past year and a half, my 6-year primary relationship opened to include a third in a nearly-equilateral triad arrangement. It was my first experience with polyamory, and it began as a one-night stand, but we then fell in love and entered what was to be a nearly year-long triad relationship. About ten months later, I reconnected with an old ex and met his fiancee; they, too, are poly, and I became their third. Shortly thereafter, the woman who'd joined my primary and I as our third left the relationship, and things between my primary and I got rocky for awhile. Another six months later, and the other triad I was involved in ended rather explosively (long story), right as I struck up a casual relationship outside these varied triads with a long-time friend of my then-primary and I. Finally, the new relationship with my primary's and my friend proved to be the final push that helped me realize it was time to end the primary relationship I'd had. So in the space of 18 months, I went from a single one-man-one-woman relationship, to a FFM triad, then I became the second F in someone else's FFM triad, then it was my old primary and I, plus still my new triad, then the primary and I and my other relationship, and finally it's boiled down to me, engaged to the friend, and us currently living monogamously.

Through all of this, I've seen (and, sadly, participated in, though I like to think I've learned from the experience) the kind of behavior that makes non-poly people tsk and shake their heads and say "That's what I told you would happen." 2009 was a drama-full year for me, relationships-wise, I admit that. But I've also seen and participated in poly arrangements that were as stress-free as any relationship, monogamous or otherwise, and even more so than some of the monogamous relationships I've had. In fact, I would say that opening our relationship to the woman we came to love greatly enhanced my original primary's and my relationship. We fought less. We had more fun, both with and without her. We both suddenly had avenues to explore in our own relationship needs and sexual desires, that weren't there before. And I will always treasure the great gift that relationship gave me: the knowledge that jealousy is not inevitable. Our culture would have us believe that jealousy is the natural state of a relationship, that affection is a zero-sum game and our partner enjoying the company of another somehow diminishes their love for us. But I learned otherwise. I learned that jealousy follows from insecurity, and that when one's partners are gentle of one's feelings and careful to offer all the reassurance and love one asks for and needs...the jealousy goes away. I learned how to sort through my feelings; how to have open, frank discussions of wants and needs and boundaries in a relationship, and how to respect the conclusions of such discussions. I learned how to tell when I was really hurt by something, and when I just needed to ask for some reassurance to feel okay again; and most importantly, I learned that there is no shame in asking for what I need, because it allows the relationship to continue functioning happily instead of creating resentment.

I am an imperfect poster child for polyamory. As any social justice activist could tell you, it's always easiest to "justify" one's cause to the other side when you have the "right kind" of example, the easy case. For pro-choicers, for example, it's easier to use as an example a mother of two whose pregnancy with a third and wanted child suddenly threatens certain death if she carries to term, because nobody could possibly dispute the necessity of that abortion. Those advocating for health-care reform garnered better results from the angry masses when talking about a single parent with cancer who was laid off and now is dying without the ability to access insurance or treatment. It's easier to push for same-sex marriage when you can show couples who have been together for 50 years, than to acknowledge the serial monogamists or LGBs who only casually date. And when it comes to polyamory, it's easiest to legitimize it in the eyes of skeptical monogamists if one can point to long-term, stable, drama-free, "perfect" poly arrangements, because the fewer visible flaws the relationship(s) have, the harder it will be to pick it apart and blame everything bad on the polyamory. I, on the other hand, with my drama and shifting from one arrangement to another, in quick succession and not always cleanly, am easy pickings for critics, who would claim that all the drama in my love-life stems from the polyamory itself, not the relationships or the people involved.

But it is for that reason that relationships like mine need to be visible, too. Otherwise we allow the disapproving masses to set the bar on what kind of poly is acceptable and what isn't, and nobody wants their relationship to be judged by someone else's standards. If we allow that, then where is the threshold set? Are only stable triads acceptable? How long must a relationship last before it's considered "stable"? Can people sneer at you and question the legitimacy of your relationships and say your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/partner doesn't "really" love you, because you're poly, so long as it's an open relationship of under, say, 5 years duration? Polyamory is about respecting the legitimacy of all kinds of love relationships, because we understand that what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. And that includes those poly arrangements which aren't perfectly stable, those which are semi-dysfunctional, because perfection should not be a requirement of our existence any more than it is for monogamous relationships.

As for my poly future? I'm deeply interested in working toward the legalization of polymarriage here in the U.S., because in an equilateral poly group, how do you decide who marries who? Like it or not, marriage confers a certain stamp of legitimacy on relationships in our culture, and it would be terribly hurtful to have to say, "This pair out of the relationship is the "real" one, the legitimate one, and everyone else is legally an afterthought." And while I'm living monogamously with my fiance for the moment, we have talked it over, and we've decided that if or when we meet the right woman, and she's amenable, we would be willing to open our relationship into a triad. I found I was much happier and more comfortable in a mostly- or nearly-equilateral triad than in a situation with multiple independent relationships, or a deeply imbalanced triad; that's just what works best for me. So I very much hope that the Universe allows me another chance to experience that happiness in my life.

Are you Non-Monogamous? Poly? Become a Guest Blogger!

2010-03-25T11:52:00.005-04:00

I have recently started the series "Today In: Meet a Poly Person" which I'm hoping will attract people to write narratives combating the idea that there is a single way to be poly, and that people in non-monogamous relationships are bad or deluded or whatever word is the newest way to slam us. So, if you think this might be a thing you'd be qualified/interested in writing about (hint, if you identify as poly/non-monogamous, regardless of your current relationship, or if you are currently in a non-monogamous relationship, then you qualify), please feel free to email me at the address connected with this blog: thedeviatednorm (at gmail)

What I'm looking for is a plethora of voices about the different ways that non-monogamous people relate to commitment, love, relationship styles, children, sex, dating, and just about anything else falling into the "relationship" category that you can think of. And especially people's reasons for being non-monogamous, (aka what drew them to non-monogamy).

I'd also be interested in having people include how polyphobia/their identity as non-monogamous interacts with other oppressions that they have faced (if one wanted to talk about how ze as a poly person of color felt accepted or not into the poly community, or the way that being a woman in a non-monogamous relationship adds to the judgement placed on you, etc.), since it's important in order to create a more full picture of the poly/non-monogamous communities that we not neglect the to acknowledge -isms within our own communities or how our identites shape one another.

Also, if you are in the non-monogamous/poly community and you aren't interested in writing, but you think you might know someone who would be, please feel free to pass this invitation along to hir as well.

Today In Meet A Poly Person

2010-03-18T15:34:00.006-04:00

Often in online conversations about poly people's relationships, real lived experiences of poly people, (or people in open relationships, or swingers, or anyone else who isn't monogamous) are ignored. There will be a strawperson (or strawrelationship) set up for the blogger or commenter to knock down in their quest to show how very bad and no good we non-monogamous people are. So, in order to combat that, I would like to start a series about the real lived experiences and desires people who are non-monogamous. We aren't all the same, so hopefully I'll be able to find people willing to write about their different experiences regarding their relationships and lives.

Hi, my name is TheDeviantE. I am a poly person.

What do I want in my life?

I want to have a loving and committed relationship to my current partner Bluejay until one or the other of us dies. I want to find one or more other partners with which to also share a loving and committed relationship until one or the other of us dies. What I'd love most of all would be to find one or two other partners who also wanted to have a loving and committed relationship with both me and Bluejay (and each other, if more than one). A relationship like this is often called a Triad (or Quad). Besides my loving and committed relationships to Bluejay and some as yet unfound other partner(s), I am interested in sometimes going on dates and making out with and maybe having sex with other people, people who perhaps I like but don't think I want to live with forever.
I also want to adopt children. I mean, unless our as yet unfound other partner(s) wanted to and were able to gestate and birth a child, in which case that'd be cool too. I want to raise children in a loving and caring home, with multiple adults able to look out for them and teach them. If Bluejay and I wanted to go on a date alone, our other partner(s) could watch the kids for the night, or vice versa. If little Bluejay Jr's play was on the same night as little DeviantE's basketball game, we'd all split up and give our children as much attention as they needed and wanted. We'd have 3 incomes instead of 2, or 2 incomes instead of 1 (if one of us were to stay home with the kids). We'd have different skills and abilities, so I could teach them math, and Bluejay could do awesome art with them, and our as yet unfound other partner could show them how to fix a car or do plumbing.

I want to have more partners because it means more people to support me and more people to support our children, and more people for me to love. I want to go on dates because... dates are fun! and new love (or lust) is too! I want to have children and raise them because I'll be a good parent, and I want to especially foster and adopt children who are rejected by others because they are queer or trans like I am, because I'll be extra good at not rejecting them. I just sort of want to settle down with some people and make an awesome life with them.

Basically, I'm just interested in nesting. I'm a nesting poly person, I suppose.

Oh, and I want to marry all of my partners because I want to be able to see them in the hospital if they get sick and have them automatically be entitled to my estate when I die, and so that our children will be recognized as being all of ours, and so that if they (or I) are/am immigrants then we will have the ability to stay together as a family. I want to have the right to be married to all of my partners because only marrying one will make our other relationships seem that much less valid to the eyes of the government, and how am I supposed to decide which partner I will love more and cherish more? I want to be able to get married to my partners because I want to nest and in our society nesting is often related to marriage.

So that's me.

"How Many Different Fathers?": On the Intersection of Classism, Racism, Polyphobia, and Sexism

2010-03-17T12:06:00.008-04:00

At my agency, families are supposed to be our clients. However, since children are not expected to change their behavior (so long as they are under 16, I believe), the onus of responsibility in ensuring that a case closes generally falls on the mother. Almost always the mother. Regardless of whether the case opened because the father's neglect of the children, and even sometimes regardless of whether it opened because of his abuse of them. Which is a whole other enraging post.

I have yet to have a case where a single father is raising children with the mother out of the picture, whereas the majority of my cases are ones where a woman is raising her children on her own, sometimes due to death of the father, more often due to the relationship ending and the woman "naturally" being given responsibility to raise the children. I often have cases where the father, who is still with the mother, doesn't live with the children, and as such his participation is seemingly only "encouraged" rather than "required" by the Department.

But, I wasn't intending to talk about my feelings about the Department's sexism. Or at least not about that particular iteration of its sexism. Instead I wanted to talk about the judgement that my clients receive about how many different fathers of how many different children they have.

It is, frankly, infuriating that social workers give a rat's ass about some other social worker's client's number of current or former partners. It's bad enough when I have to hear about some other worker's client who *OH NOES!* has 3 children from three different relationships, but to have people begging to know the details of my clients' sexual relationships? IN. FUR. IATE. ING. As it is when I'm complaining about a case to someone other than a coworker, and totally unrelated to what I'm saying, they need to know how many kids/fathers there are in the picture.

The thing is, I seriously don't give a shit how many partners someone has had, other than to get important information about familial relations between siblings and their parents. It is very relevant to me when I find out that one child's father is in jail, but the other child's father lives nearby and comes over once a month. It is relevant to me when I hear that a father of one of the children says that he "wouldn't mind" taking the other children if custody is taken away from the mother. These things matter to me because they say something potentially about how each child feels cared for in their family. They don't matter to me so that I can judge the mother better.

You know what literally never crosses my mind when talking to a mother who has had multiple sexual partners, and children with more than one?

That she doesn't respect herself.
That she is promiscuous and therefore less moral.
That she is out of control.
That she is stupid.

I had trouble writing that list because a) since I don't think those things automatically, it's hard to dredge them up when I try to, b) I fucking hate that these are considered appropriate things to think about someone else's choices to have children or not (or more likely, sex or not, because lots of people would just as harshly judge a woman who has had 3 abortions due to multiple sexual relationships as they would a woman with three children from multiple partners).

But I can see these thoughts scurrying across the faces and hear them embedded in the tones of those who ask me salaciously for my clients' relational details. And you know what? My clients all know that people judge them for these things. I know they know because on the few occasions where I've been able to convince (through my tone, body language, and probably some verbal cues) a client that I am not judging them for their sexual choices (or their father's or mother's sexual choices), they have invariably opened up to me emotionally and physically (less guarded posture, giving me details of their family lives, etc.) more than they had before, and more than they have with other workers.

So, this happens. Where does it come from? Perhaps you've noticed that I titled this post "On the Intersection of Classism, Racism, Polyphobia, and Sexism".

Most of my clients are poor (ok, all of my clients are poor).
Most of my clients are people of color (I was going to get my first white family this week, but another case came back so I still have a history of only families of color).

In our culture, poverty and non-whiteness are treated as though they are synonymous. This isn't the case, but you'll notice that my clients are all poor and they have all been people of color, so they *are* linked.
In some ways, I think the judgement is mostly a facet of classism, because there is an assumption that more wealthy people's relationships have been deliberated on (regardless of how long they lasted prior to marriage or children), whereas there is an assumption (and I can't say whether it's based in fact at all) that poor people are less likely to be married when they have children (I could see this being based in fact because it costs money to marry, and costs even more to divorce), which codes as "less likely to have thought about the relationship, prior to having children" (regardless of whether they've been together for 10 years) according to our society.
However, at the same time, since whiteness = money in our culture, a white family is not assumed to be poor as readily as family of color is. So, when we talk about "poor people" having lots of children "recklessly," as a society we are to be more honest as to our underlying thought processes, talking about "people of color" having lots of children "recklessly." As such, a random family of color* will be more likely to be assumed to have been the product of multiple relationships, as compared to a random white family. Related to this is the fact that since the majority of clients at my office are families of color, a "default" family that is being talked about, unless specified as white, will be assumed to be black (or maybe latino, depending on the social worker's experiences), and as such questions about sexual histories will be mapped onto a "default" family of color.

So that takes care of the classism and racism aspects of what I see going on when people ask "how many fathers?" (incredulously or certain of the answer, take your pick).

What about the sexism and polyphobia?

Well, as mentioned above, the vast majority of childraising parents are women. So, while fathers do get judged for having multiple children, just as often, I hear the mothers being judged for being in a relationship with a man with other children. Additionally, fathers often visit their children at their children's mothers' houses. As such, they have an ability to deny certain children if they wish, and social workers have an ability to neglect to wonder about other children, since there aren't any children in front of them requiring explanations. It's like a magic trick: "No children to see here!" And of course, in those instances where a woman has had multiple children with multiple partners, I NEVER hear judgement of the father for getting involved with a woman with other children. Usually, so long as he doesn't treat the other children like crap, he's just about lauded as a hero for having the courage and kindness to be able to love a woman with other children. Or something.

I trust I don't need to say that women's sexuality is highly stigmatized and denigrated in our society, and that children are the ultimate proof of sexuality. Do I? Because it is. So of course, that's another layer on the judgment cake.

And lastly, the thing that all ties it together with a big fucking bow is the fact that as a society, monogamy is viewed as moral whereas anything else is not. There is a book called The Ethical Slut, which for some in the poly community was their first introduction into polyamory. There is no book that I have heard of (and certainly none which are known in the monogamous community with the same type of recognition) called The Ethical Prude. Because, *obviously* prudishness is ethical. It's like when I heard the criticism of the phrase "white trash" where someone pointed out that specifying someone is "WHITE trash" implicitly assumes that people of color are trash, so you don't even need to put an identifying marker when talking about them. Same goes for The Ethical Slut, but in reverse: in our culture there is no need to write a book about how to ethically be monogamous, because it is assumed to be the case by default(even though lots of mongamous people treat their partner's terribly, or hurt their partner in petty little ways without noticing).

A couple months ago, in a paper to talk about one of my cases, I chose one where I had fucked up. I had assumed that someone had been raised by hir mother, because I have had the privilege of having been raised by an intact family, and my parents never were in a situation where they were too poor to feed themselves and their children, my parents never *needed* to give me to someone else to raise in order for me to eat. My privilege got in the way of my discussion with that client.
With hir partner, however, I was immensely prepared, because as zie was telling me (somewhat shamefully) about hir father and his multiple children, and how zie had 12 half-siblings (or whatever the number was), I was able to to bypass the step my supervisor would have needed, of judging and then working around that judgment. Because that's the topping on the cake for me, while my colleagues might (and many don't) acknowledge that classism or racism play a role in how they treat their clients, NONE of them seem to acknowledge how monogamism** plays a role in how they treat their clients.

I have classism that I have to conciously combat when working with my clients. I have racist ideas that I have to conciously combat when working with my clients. I have ableist ideas that I have to conciously combat when working with my clients.

What I don't have? Polyphobia. And unlike my coworkers and peers, I know that it exists and that it hurts people.

*in this case I believe Asian families would be partially immune
** like it? I just made it up. Do people know of a better word?

Cheerful Philosophical Musings On Death

2010-03-11T22:30:00.007-05:00

I want to talk a little bit about death. This is apparently a touchy subject for people, so if it is for you, you may want to not keep reading.

Everybody is going to die. I'm going to die, you're going to die, my best friends are going to die, your relatives are going to die (if they aren't dead yet), everyone is going to die. Everyone. This isn't meant to be a mean statement, and to my thinking it really, truly isn't mean. It also isn't meant as some sort of threat or menace. It's just truth. Everyone dies.
In my dealings with (most) other people in the past decade I've noticed that they tend to get a little... antsy? jittery? anxious? upset? when this fact of life is mentioned. People apparently are scared of death, and because of that they will do lots of things to make that fear go away. One of the things they do is try to forget that death happens.

Early in my undergrad. years, I read a set of stories in Spanish class.

The first was the story of a youngish (we'll say 30s?) man who was a servant. One day he went into the market to get his master food or something, when he ran into Death. When he saw Death he was shaken up, because in most cultures (and I assume the one the story is told in), usually people only see Death when they are going to die soon. And then, something that terrified him even more was that Death seemed to grimace extra when he saw the man. Clearly, the man was on Death's shitlist. So the man ran back to his master's place and begged for the week off and the fastest horse or donkey around, 'cause he really really needed to visit his sister in far off Gargleblat (can you tell I'm not good at details?). The master agreed to the time off and the donkey on the condition that the man told him why he needed it so bad. The man said that he'd just seen Death in town and he was hoping to outrun/confuse Death by going to Gargleblat.
Of course the master then decides to go to the marketplace to see Death and find out what the whole deal is about. When he gets there, he asks Death why he grimaced upon seeing the servant. Death explains that he was just surprised was all, as far as he knew, he thought that tonight they had an appointment in Gargleblat, and it was weird to see the guy in Plonkville.

The second story in the set was written as a response to the first, and honestly I don't remember it nearly as well because it didn't really resonate the same way for me. In the story the man has reached Gargleblat and realizes that Death is still after him. He goes around town looking for someone to help him outwit Death, but as soon as anyone hears that tonight's his night they shutter the windows and kick him out, until he finds a guy who tells him that he'll help him. The man tells him that so long as he can survive till the morning, then Death won't be able to ever take him. Then they somehow beat Death with mirrors.

The first story treated fear of death as silly and misplaced. It framed death as an appointment, and Death not as a bad chap, just a guy with a job. The second story treated death as something to be avoided at all costs. Never dying was a reward for successfully besting Death. Death became an adversary. Lastly, it was unrealistic, since everyone dies (we'll put aside the manifestation of a fact of life) and at the end of it, the man is made immortal.

Everyone in my class liked the second story better than the first. Everyone, but me and the teacher. I thought the first story was funny. I liked that it looked at life head on. I liked that it admitted that death is going to happen.
Everyone in the class said I was morbid.

This past week I learned that my grandmother's situation is deteriorating. When she got her prognosis 6ish months ago, they basically told her that 6 months was on the outside of how long she'd have to live. So, it's not really a shock that this is happening now. However, one thing she's been firm on for a while is that she and my grandfather are not to talk about the possibility of her dying. She won't talk about it with anyone. Which means that she didn't get around to setting up the necessary steps for her to get hospice care in the home, should she fall into a coma (nor has anyone else in a position to do so). No one knows what to do, because if we all go see her right now on the likelihood that she won't be around in a month, or if we start putting pressure on her to get all the hospice/end of life care stuff worked out, then she'll feel pissed about us forcing her mortality on her

For context, you should also know that my grandfather's first wife (my mother's mother, who died when I was 2) steadfastly continued to insist that she was getting better and that the Goddess (or the Universe, or whatever) would heal her, right up until her death. Some of her daughters' last conversations with her were fights. So...

I'm conflicted, because on the one hand I definitely feel like everyone has a right to self-determination. If you want to shut your eyes and bury your head in the sand about your impending death, fine, do it. But it does harm people around you when you do it, and frankly I just don't understand it. I told my cousin this recently and he said he really sympathized with our grandmother. Which, again, I just don't get.

Then he said "not everyone is like you, most of us are afraid of death."

And I realized! Being depressed and wanting to be dead for all of my adolescent and adult life has given me the gift of less fear! I feel like a superhero: "Depresso Guy"!
Well honestly, if I was dying of cancer, maybe I wouldn't feel as nonchalant as I do about it right now. Admittedly, many things that seems cool in the abstract are fucking terrifying in the real. Like snowboarding. Tried it once, loved going fast, probably looked really awesome and such, until I realized I had no idea how to stop and started worrying about killing a child (ETA: *by going too fast and hitting hir*) when I got to the bottom. So I purposefully took a dive in the trees, pulled some muscles, decided that snowboarding wasn't for me, and anyway it was classist and exclusionary. (Sorry, off topic).
The point is, maybe I'm just deluding myself into thinking that I don't find death terrifying. Maybe I do, and in the long tradition of people who are scared of something and therefore convince themselves that they aren't scared, I say I'm not.

But I've got to say, the idea that maybe for once my Depression has given me something useful, namely the ability to not find my own death so terrifying that I shut down in the face of it, that's sort of cool.

Anyway, I hope your life, however long it is, is one which you generally enjoy.

Today In Things Any Disability Rights Activist Could Tell You

2010-03-11T13:17:00.007-05:00

So, people are nosy assholes. Well, let me amend that. Many people think that your body (or your loved one's body) is totally their business, the second that you (or your loved one) have something that sets you apart from "normal."

Things that set you apart from "normal" include: being pregnant, having a visible disability, having an invisible disability (and telling people about it), being mentally ill (and telling people about it), being fat, oh, and getting one of the "big" sicks (including our good friend cancer).

Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, there was a social work student (we'll call him GleeviantD) whose father had just been diagnosed with cancer, and who was understandably a little "not so happy" about this situation.
GleeviantD kept having the seemingly innocuous question: "hey, how're you?" asked by people that were somewhere between friend and acquaintance, though a little bit closer to "fellow students." GleeviantD was starting to loathe this question because answering honestly: "not too hot, actually" was sure to elicit the "oh, not too hot!? what's going on?" which, when answered honestly, brought the conversation to a screeching halt because cancer sort of does that to a conversation.

GleeviantD though also didn't like lying or pretending that nothing was going on because a) he wasn't that sort of fellow and b) he had a sneaking suspicion that at *some* point he'd slip up when talking to these not quite friends, not quite acquaintances, more like fellow students, and mention the cancer and then the conversation would still come to a screeching halt, only now it'd be months later and he wouldn't be in control of when it occurred.

So GleeviantD did what seemed right. He decided to tell a whole class at once about the cancer, right after a lunch break, so that he could not have the same damn conversation 12 times. In fact, it was Gleeviant's fondest desire that he wouldn't actually have to have a *conversation* about it at all, that if the information was given in announcement form, and he phrased it just right, he could preclude a discussion of the matter entirely and just get on with the damn lecture.

I'm sure, gentle readers, that at this moment you are ruefully chuckling to yourselves that GleeviantD was so naive as to assume that making an announcement whereby he said "I figured I'd tell everyone like this because it's tiring have to have the same conversation over and over again" would actually forestall anything. If you aren't, you may commence now.

So GleeviantD attempted to figure out just how to phrase the announcement in a way that indicated a) he did not want sympathy, and was in fact starting to get a bit sick of it, b) he didn't want to talk to people about it, and was in fact starting to get a bit sick of having heartfelt discussions with people about it and c) he was handling it just fine, he wasn't about to break down crying right then and there and was planning on continuing to attend classes and such. Something along the lines of "so, just wanted to let you all know that last week my family found out my father has cancer. I'm going to be the one driving him to chemo, I don't think this will affect me coming to class or anything, but I wanted to let you know so that you aren't surprised if I'm not all "whee! awesome" when you ask how I am. I figured I'd tell everyone like this because it's tiring talking about it again and again." Not perfect, but pretty close to achieving his communication goals. Or so Gleeviant thought.

Immediately, someone across the room decided to offer this helpful bit of advice: "I know a naturopath who cured herself of cancer naturally. I'll give you her phone number for your dad if you want," while someone next to Gleeviant offered this: "Do you have support structures for yourself? If you're going to be supporting your father you really need to get yourself a support structure." Gleeviant realized he may have created a monster that he couldn't control and tried as best as possible to (politely) discourage this line of discussion by telling everyone "right now I'm doing fine, if I need anything, I will be sure to ask."

After class, both people who had earlier felt the need to speak up, again came to GleeviantD this time to profer their advice and sympathy personally.
This time, when one of them just about tried to force the number of the woman who cured herself of cancer using herbs into the hands of GleeviantD, he had to bite back his tongue in order to not tell her "thanks, but we believe in science as opposed to miracle cures, what with replicable results" instead saying: "my dad seems pretty cool with the idea of chemo so I'm just going to follow his lead."

The moral of the story: people think that other people's bodies are their fucking business. They don't care if you've just said "I don't want to talk about it" they don't care to find out *what* you are doing as a caretaking method before telling you what you should do (or should want to do), and they certainly don't seem to care that it's none of their fucking business to offer help, unless you ask for help.

Let's all try to be less like those people in the future, ok? Or else we'll make GleeviantD quite pissy.

This has been a "Today In: Things Any Disability Rights Activist Could Tell You"

An Open Letter to Masculinity

2010-03-10T11:56:00.004-05:00

Hey the Dudely Brotherhood,

We need to have a little chat.

When I signed up to be part of this here little club, one of the bits of the recruitment materials that I didn't adore (in fact, I'd say it goes a wee bit beyond dislike) was that whole "patriarchy" pitch.

The thing is, I'm sort of really not down with treating other people as inherently lesser just because of them being women (or people of color, or sex workers, or people with disabilities, or poor, or Deaf, or immigrants). I'm really not a fan of the phenomenon of "mansplaining", or the related phenomenon of when women talk about sexism and violence against women and some of the more DOODLY members of the brotherhood take it upon themselves to say that the women are wrong about their own lived experiences. I've also got to say I'm pretty fucking peeved by this "rape" thing that is almost entirely being perpetrated by clubhouse members, mostly against women. (Do you guys think we could try to kick them out or something? I mean, really, they're making all of us look bad.)

You guys do have things I want though! I promise! Like people using the right pronouns when they talk about you. That's cool. And having an often deeper voice than I have. Neato! Balding?, not so much, but hey, you can't have everything. Ohhhh and suits that fit. That's going to be rad. Oh and you know, just being a guy if you want to be a guy. Of that, I am a total fan.

Also, some not too bad people have been in the club. My dad, for instance, I like him fairly well. Also lots of social justicey folks. At least, the ones that were guys (who just so happen to have been the ones that everyone writes about? I think this might be related to that patriarchy thing). Also a lot of scientists (again, what is WITH you and needing to get all the glory?). I'm just saying, ya'll could have some real selling points if you stopped with that patriarchy bullshit and just focused on being nice peeps.

Anyway, do you think ya'll could work on that before you let me have training for the SUPER SEEKRIT handshake?

Thanks,
TheDeviantE

New and Improved Insights Upcoming: Bad News Edition

2010-03-04T23:05:00.004-05:00

On Wednesday my father found out what type of cancer he has. As of Friday I didn't even know that he had *any* type of cancer (though he did, apparently he didn't realize that it might be a big deal to everyone else in the family). I tell you this not to gain sympathy points (and in fact, I request that people not comment to that effect).

I'm not even writing this to let you know that posts will be less frequent, because honestly, at this moment I don't believe this to be the case. While yes, I'll probably be the one to mostly be ferrying him to and from chemo and appointments (since I am nearby and my mother is already dealing with her step-mother and sister's cancers), I hope that this will not affect the amount of blogging I do.

However, it may be changing some of my focuses. My grandmother died of cancer when I was 2, so I never really knew her, nor did I really have a conception of what a struggle with cancer might look like. Likewise, due to my aunt and grandmother being neither nearby nor people who I want to spend copious amounts of time with, especially when they are needing a lot (and rightfully so! what with the whole "cancer" thing), I haven't really had to deal too strongly with what it is like to be a close family member of someone dealing with hospitals all the time, or that pesky "survival" business. I have some assumptions that this time will make me more aware of classism and how it affects access to treatment, and also how the medical profession can fail or succeed to treat patients with respect, though I can't be certain (I might be too distracted by the situation at hand to look at the larger systemic issues).

So, if it is the case that by being a caretaker of my father I encounter new situations which make me think new (and improved?) thoughts about marginalization and oppression, it is quite possible this will be something I will start writing about with more frequency.

Also, since cancer (and my father's ability to survive it) will be something that I will be dealing with on a regular basis, it is likely that even on posts that are not explicitly about oppression or marginalization, or cancer, that mentions of it will slip in. So... don't be surprised?

Already I have new insights. For instance: there is no fucking easy way to tell someone that your dad has cancer. It's frustrating when you don't want to sidetrack an entire conversation but you also don't want to tell a big ole lie of omission by being all "oh life's good" when the usually innocuous question of "how are you?" comes up. Do you send out massive emails? Do you put up a blog post and tell everyone to read it? Do you tell people individually? Do you casually slip "chemo" into conversation? I will find out the answers to this, and more! in the coming months.

Hopefully my further insights will be a little more... insightful.

Casual Transphobia: NCIS Los Angeles

2010-03-02T21:21:00.005-05:00

Episode "Chinatown"

Upon finding a size 15 magenta (shiny, quite impressive looking) multi-inch high high-heel, one character says "that's a lot of woman" and another says "maybe".

Thanks NCIS for shaming trans women, gender non-normative people with male coded bodies*, or cross-dressing male-identified individuals.

(Oh wow, and then I got to the part where the dead guy is SURPRISE! gay and when they search his boyfriend's apartment they find *him* dead too and automatically assume it's just "a gay guys killing themselves/each other free for all"...whee!!! homophobia!)

Casually tossed in transphobia, and Othering of people who are non-normative is dangerous because it is just so casual. Few people watching the show who weren't trans* identified, a cross dresser, or otherwise gender non-normative (or their allies) would have noticed the little dig. But it's there. It's like when there was that ad with "DemocRATS" in it. Only it actually works.

Likewise, yet another "tragic queers/gay men are killers" meme is the same. It's fucking EVERYWHERE. Maybe if I moved to an island without internet, and with no access to television (including news) and movies, I might be able to escape it. And the idea that queer people are "killers" puts us all at risk, because it makes it that much easier to demonize us and attack us.

*I am a guy (mostly), so my body is a male body by default. I don't like how "male bodied" or "female bodied" imply that my body isn't mine to gender. As such, I use "coded as male bodied" or "coded as female bodied" to refer to the fact that the presence or absence of breats, an adams apple, a penis, testicles, and a whole slew of things, are the ways that the wider society assigns sex to people, without saying that that assignment is correct.

Double Standards: Racism and Classism

2010-02-25T15:34:00.005-05:00

My experience of whiteness is intimately tied in with a sort of "woo" or hippie type of community. My mom's family were hippies when it was both popular and a little dangerous to be hippies (we know for instance that my grandparents were on government watch lists for their anti-social tendencies towards pacifism).

So I grew up certainly ensconced in a community that was hugely "pro-natural [insert thing here]". Which totally applied to children. Natural childbirth, breast feeding, and co-sleeping. I mean I can't say whether they were all practiced by everyone in my family, but they were certainly not derided, and there was a sort of feeling that (if you didn't do things "naturally") at the least you should look up to those who did. My whole family is also white.

With my clients who I visit, we are told to always (always) give the families packets on child safety: one about the dangers of shaking babies, one about the dangers of not putting bars in your windows (called "Kids Can't Fly", really? you don't say!) and one, (which I'm sure you were expecting) about the dangers of co-sleeping. All of my clients are people of color.

Shocking.

Now, some of this is classism obviously, some of it is racism, some of it is maybe that white subcultures that co-sleep are also putting their children in just as huge amounts of danger as DCF involved parents who co-sleep. Whatever the case, it's just one more instance where what's good enough for me (as a DCF worker), for instance: leaving disgusting amounts of dishes lying around or not getting around to the laundry for weeks at a time for instance, is no good, bad, bad, bad, when a DCF involved parent does it. Because if I came to a house like mine in terms of dirtiness, I would DEFINITELY be expected to write all about the mess of the place, 'cause after all it shows that the parents aren't caring for the kid!... or something.

I guess certain behaviors become magically OK when presumably well-off white people do them?

Apologies

2010-02-24T14:39:00.004-05:00

I've been feeling sort of guilty because my resurgence of blog activity is so me, me, me focused. Which is silly, because who else would write this blog if not me? (If I were cool, right now I'd introduce a new guest blogger/co-blogger, but I'm not, so.... life sucks and then everyone dies, eh?)

I guess I mean that recently most of my blogged about thoughts have been about straightness and queerness, transness and cisness, and well, that's about it. But actually I've been spending a whole lot of time thinking about able-ist crap (Amanda Palmer's new project comes to mind, as do the awesome writings of FWD/Forward), and some racism stuff (I have thoughts about why Tiger Wood's whatever has become such a big fucking deal, and guess what, they relate to him being a person of color), and then of course there are other thoughts, like my incessant nagging depression, and the fact that the house needs to get cleaned, and what's going on with the dog, and how the hell do I expect myself to be a good social worker/foster parent/force for social justice/insert positive thing here, when I'm plagued with a constant hatred of myself and the idea that I'm basically a pretty worthless person who might be better off if I were, say, non-existent (oh hey, I just repeated myself, this is my depression in a nutshell!), and what to make for dinner.

I'm also spending a good chunk of my time thinking about all the things I want to do once I get my (apparently magical?) Masters in Social Work, like: set up a kitchen where people who are homeless/temporarily homeless can cook their own food free of charge and eat a meal without it being this big deal (because generally food that is easy to eat standing up/while moving/without a stove or even a microwave isn't all that healthy/nutritious, and while some people who can prove they are homeless can get "special" food stamps benefits letting them buy premade warm mac & cheese or mashed potatoes, lots of people can't and therefore can only buy needing-to-be-boiled pasta, even though they don't have a stove/running water), or set up a "pro-bono" type of thing where licensed therapy type people go into jails where mentally ill criminals are basically just stored, and give them real honest to goodness therapy to help them, and having a really good home-based therapy program especially for people suffering from PTSD and those who are dealing with sexual assualt/rape, (because hey, I know I won't be a victim blamey jackass, unlike apparently the vast majority of other therapists in the world), and how about a really actually non-judgmental drop in place for pregnant people who may not have intended to be pregnant where we'll give totally even-handed information about adoption and abortion and keeping a child, (and regardless of what you choose we'll help you do it, including months of therapy after whatever decision you make comes to fruition, and if you want to give a child up for adoption we'd also help you find prospective parents and be non-classist and not transphobic and ok with polyamory and such, and if you want to keep the child and funds are a problem we'll work our asses off to find you clothing and services and food and housing and, and if you want an abortion we'll drive you to the place), and yeah, I have a lot of ideas.

I just sort of want to fix the world and be perfect. Which, I've been told is not possible, and hoping/expecting that from myself may in fact be a problem.

So, I guess this is a "sorry" for not writing enough about racism and able-ism.

And even though I know you think is silly: sorry for not being perfect and fixing the world.

Comics that Get Stuff Right

2010-02-21T12:28:00.005-05:00

So in the comments for "Why I Don't Like 'Gender Bending' in Fiction" people seem interested in reading comics with a transgender slant/storyline.

I thought I'd let ya'll know about another one that I do like quite a bit. It's called Khaos Komic.
It's the intertwined stories of a bunch of high school students. Told from the point of view of each of the characters one at a time.

Some problems up front: it is very "couple" focused, which is to say that all of the storylines are about people finding that the person they like likes them as well, and the subsequent twists and turns of their budding relationships. It's also a litle tokeny, as in there is one cis gay boy couple storyline, one cis lesbian couple storyline, right one trans/cis gay boy storyline, and (as far as I can tell) one upcoming cis/trans straight couple. However, that is already a cast of at least eight main characters, so it can be hard to not have character overload in this set up if one were to try to make them less tokeny.

In the positive categories: it deals with many of the difficulties and frustrations of being gay or trans in a sympathetic and I'd say non-cliched/accurate way, and it has a a cast of main characters that is multi-ethnic (however the cast is all very currently abled, skinny, and I don't see class being dealt with either). Also, I have a character crush on Tom, the trans guy (mmm, piercings and tattoos!).

So, a comic that I really like that has gay and trans themes! Drop more comic or story links in the comments!

Are Babies Straight?

2010-02-20T21:26:00.005-05:00

One of my coworkers* brought her baby boy** in right before Valentine's Day with a themed t-shirt: "All the Ladies <3 Me" it said.

When I saw it, I laughed. The surprise of it made it funny, and then once I'd started the laugh, I realized it was the appropriate thing to do. Afterall, this is a baby; a pre-verbal, pre-walking, pre-anything baby. So clearly anything he's wearing is something his parents want him to wear (and in this case, his mother said: "I'm having him wear this shirt on Valentine's Day"). So it was only socially polite to laugh at a t-shirt she thought was cute.

But I sort of wish I wouldn't have laughed.

Just think of what "All the Lads <3 Me" would have evoked in viewers. Or "All the Men <3 Me," even worse! I mean, crud, if you put your kid in a shirt like that, you'd have people flipping a shit about pedophilia.

But a baby boy in a shirt implying heterosexuality and "ladies' man" status. Totally Ok. 'Cause babies totally have a sexual orientation, yo! (And that orientation is "straight").

It just really speaks to how heterosexist and sexist our society is that my first reaction to a t-shirt implying an under 1-year old's straightness was laughter at how "cute" it was.

*I'm going to start just writing "job" and "coworker" in all my posts about this, because my placement-internship feels like that.
**Whenever I hear about little children's genders I always sort of wonder, but you know, whatever I'll trust that the kid will grow up cis*.

Why I Don't Like "Gender Bending" in Fiction

2010-02-18T13:21:00.016-05:00

It's always nice to see portrayals of ourselves in the media we consume. Some groups of people get to see those (accurate, positive) portrayals more often than others (for instance, white, straight, currently abled, cis men...). So for those of use who don't, our few opportunities are often seized upon with relish. Which is what makes it so disheartening when they turn out to be crap. Or, in the case with "gender bending fiction," when it turns out that the experience they are peddling has little to nothing to do with the population that it seemingly deals with, and because of that makes our lives invisible, and transphobia/cisgenderism all the more prevalent.

But, since "gender bending" story lines in comics and fiction can be so common (depending on the medium), and are so often thought of as being "our" type of story ("hey, you're a guy who has a girl's body, it's totally the same!"), I thought I'd offer some of my objections with the genre/trope.

I'm going to use examples from the comic Misfile, because it's pretty typical insofar as this particular trope goes.

We'll start off with some similarities between a "gender bender" character and a real live trans person:

In Misfile, Ash (the main character) awakens one day to find that he is now female bodied. Which sucks, because he still thinks of himself as a guy. He seems really pissed about having this body that's just so wrong. Which, I get. I think many a trans person SUPER gets that. It's sort of the main thing that everyone talks about when they talk about the trans experience. It's sort of the only thing.
So, similarity #1: he doesn't like how his body is now, and everyone assumes him to be a gender that he is not

Likewise, in the comic, Ash is interested in Emily, who seems to also be interested in him. However, she struggles with thinking of him as a guy despite his body, she struggles with herself and her assumption of her own heterosexuality, she struggles with what it would mean to be attracted to him despite homophobia (she gets called a lesbian because of the time they spend together), etc. Which is sort of related to how things work in the real world. Many couples struggle a lot if one of them comes out as a different gender than previously assumed.
This happens in the lesbian community where one half of a couple may feel a lot of sadness and confusion about whether she stills belongs to the community now that she is dating a guy, frustration at having her internal identity tweaked with, a sinking feeling knowing that random people on the street see a straight couple as they walk past, and sometimes, a lot of anxiety around whether or not she really respects the masculine identity of her partner (or potential partner -- this happens with prospective couples sometimes).
So, similarity #2: Emily has to deal with a lot of confusion based on her attraction to someone who looks like a girl but doesn't identify as one.

Lastly, and related to the first similarity, is the fact that Ash is often forced into uncomfortable situations because of others' perceptions of his gender. His mom makes him model a dress for her clothing line! He's constantly dealing with heterosexual guys hitting on him! Sexism sucks! (ok, that's not exactly related, but it does suck).
So, similarity #3: other people are constantly forcing Ash to conform to their ideas of his gender, regardless of his obvious discomfort with that.

Now that we've established some of the similarities between the "gender bender comic" Misfile's characters and experiences of trans people, it's important to get to the overwhelming differences.

Being trans is not something that gradually goes away with time. Dr. Zucker's (my loathing for this man knows few bounds) opinions withstanding, trans people don't (generally) wake up one day in full on panic and anxiety about our gender and then gradually over the course of the years of our lives learn to live with it and just sort of mosey along. Which is basically what happens with these types of narratives. In them the main character is suddenly confronted with the wrongness of zir body, and then over the course of zir quest/adventure/what have you, to fix it, ze gradually just sort of la-dee-da falls into acting like a girl, and feeling sort of girlish and whatever. These narratives give this type of lip service to the fact that the characters want to get back to their normal body, but in general they seem to acclimate like WOAH.
In contrast, my initial realizations of my gender were slow coming and mild. However over the years of having people constantly misgendering me, I have become more and more despondent, more strident in my conviction of my gender, more upset at each messed pronoun, experienced more pain and frustration at the body I have grown into. My partner and I estimate that maybe 5 people in this world really and truly believe that I am a boy. None of the people on this list are family members (I consider my partner and I a family, but you get what I mean?). I walk through the world knowing that the people who are supposed to be closest to me, at their core, just don't believe I am who I am. That strangers and acquaintances, that no one besides my partner, my ex-partner, and maybe 3 of my best friends, really understand and agree with me that I am a guy. I am aware of other's perception of my gender every hour of every day. I can't really say this strongly or often enough: my life every day is an exercise in pain because of this. Every Day. Every day that a well-meaning classmate messes up my pronouns and I say "it's ok, it happens," I die a little inside. Every day that a waitperson, check-out clerk, business owner, pamphleteer calls out "miss" or "ladies," my life feels a little more like a hell. I Hate living in a world that can't conceive of me as a boy. That doesn't go away. It grows and grows and grows. This isn't a footnote to my story, I don't forget about this because I'm busy racing cars or fighting ghosts or something. This is the ever present "fuck you" of my day.

Am I being clear? Can you (a presumably cis* person) even conceptualize the pain and frustration and anger and agony I experience over this?
So, difference #1: in "gender bender" fiction, characters seem to acclimate more and more to their bodies and the misrepresentation of their gender by others.

Next, there's the fact that characters in "gender bender" narratives seem to mostly reify gendered expectations of the world around them. Suddenly, after "becoming a girl," these characters start liking chocolate, they become more emotional, and less logical. Or, alternately, the way we know they are "really" boys is because they are sexually attracted to their new bodies (as we see in the comic at the side), because they cling to their sexist versions of chivalry, and because they are disgusted by the idea of men being attracted to them. Which totally ignores the fact that lots of boys are um... gay?
And I don't think I know a single trans guy that is as homophobic as Ash is.
I can't think of a *single* trans guy that finds his body sexaaaay like characters in these stories do. In fact, many trans guys I know hate seeing their bodies naked. At least some guys get sores because of constant wear of binders in an attempt to hide, disguise, emotionally and mentally get rid of our breasts. I like girls, I like female bodies, and looking at my body in the mirror makes me feel like crap.
And, while some (trans) guys are misogynistic creeps, I'd like to think I'm not, and my friends aren't. I don't need to set myself up in opposition to women by living by "chivalrous" rules. I don't have to hate women to not be one (which these narratives imply).
So, differences #2, #3, and #4: characters in "gender bending" story lines are often homophobic to prove their manliness, they are often sexually attracted to the bodies they are forced into, and they often use misogyny and sexism to set themselves apart from the women they are assumed to be.

Lastly, for this analysis, is the fact that not only do characters of "gender bender" stories acclimate to their bodies, they learn to take advantage of the "privileges" conferred on women in our society. Let's get this out of the way: "feminine wiles" are the most bullshit idea of "power" I've ever heard of. We live in a culture rife with rape, misogyny, and example after example of the oppressed status of those who are perceived to be women. If you don't understand this, we just don't have anything further to talk about until you get your head out of your ass. Ok.

So this is the thing, the part up a bit where I talked about how demoralizing and depressing and upsetting it is to have people assume that my gender is "girl"? It doesn't go away when I want to get a good deal on something. But apparently in these stories, as the characters start to acclimate to the unfortunate, (but ultimately not all that upsetting) fact that they are female bodied, they decide it's awesome to play up all the female stereotypes they want so long as it'll help them. Which is blatantly unrealistic if you think about the pain and suffering that trans people go through because of having to constantly deal with the world's bullshit about our genders.

So, difference #5: characters in "gender bending" narratives often decide to go entirely counter to their gender and to "use" their perceived gender to their advantage regardless of the emotional ramifications it would entail if they that strongly identified with their internal gender.

So, why do all these differences matter? They are damaging. When narratives out there that tell stories that are supposed to be sort of like trans people's lives, in fact do so in a way that erases trans people's struggle with a transphobic world? When they do so in a way that implies that trans people buy into normative ideas of gender and use misogyny and homophobia to set ourselves apart from our perceived genders? When they imply that trans people are deceptive and will use whatever we can to get ahead? When they imply that trans women are either "perverts" who find their bodies overly titillating, or that trans men don't really mind having bodies that code us as female (because hey, at least we get to grope boobies whenever we want!)? All of that is totally fucked up. It's fucking lies and they aren't nice ones. You know what a nice lie would be: "all trans people are awesome, there isn't a jerk among us," but we don't get that type of narrative in these "gender bender" stories. Nope, we get: "perverts, deceptive, not that big a deal, they'll get over it."

You know what else is upsetting and damaging in these stories? This isn't about differences, it's just about dangerous and mean and jerkishness. It's this: when the idea of gender reassignment surgery makes the main character yell in defiance. Right there Ash implictly says: "being trans, needing surgery or hormones, that is a BAD THING... people who need surgery or hormones are bad people." And it's this: as the comic progresses, we get more and more ass-shots of Ash, more and more bras and panties. As the comic continues we see Ash becoming a pin-up girl. It just shows how little the artist respects even the idea of Ash as a boy.

The icing on the cake? That this and many other "gender bending" comics and stories are written by people who then commemorate The Transgender Day of Remembrance, the day in November that we are meant to honor trans men and women who have died due to transphobia. When they post their commemorative comics, it serves as a banner proclaiming "we are trans friendly," which means that those who aren't paying attention, due to cis* privilege, who don't know better but are open to becoming allies, they learn that this is what allyship means.

And that? That depresses the hell out of me.

Some more privilege from the social work front lines

2010-02-17T16:29:00.004-05:00

Something that gets discussed a lot in the "helping professions" (and specifically I'm going to talk about those who work as or plan to work as, therapists) is "disclosure."

"Disclosure" (as I'm going to talk about it, and as mostly discussed in social work) is the act of telling a client/patient something about oneself which is personal/not physically obvious (sort of, we'll get to it a little more in a sec). Freud believed that therapists (well psychoanalysts) should be a totally blank slate for their clients/patients and therefore it was necessary to not tell them anything humanizing/personal.

Now, Freud's an asshole, and most social workers (thank goodness) that I've met also agree that he's an asshole (though apparently there are far too many who think that "yes, but, for the time he wasn't"... no no, really, he rather was), but the field still tries to keep things a little more professional, a little more aloof than a friendly relationship would make, in keeping with some of his ideas about disclosure.
Which makes sense, it's harder emotionally to try to bill a friend than it is to bill a client/patient. Plus, some of our clients have a tendency to take the things they learn about us and sometimes use them in inappropriate ways (not that this isn't often the case for friends and family). Lastly, there's the fact that telling a client all about our father's recent death (or whatever) takes the focus off of them and places it onto us, which makes it harder for both client and social worker to you know, figure out what's going on for the client. So, lots of potentially good reasons to not disclose too often, or without some solid thought behind the reasons for doing it.

However, let's think for a second here about what constitutes "disclosing." Being straight? Not something usually disclosed. Being cisgender? Also rarely if ever disclosed. Being socially normative in a desire to have children? Not generally disclosed.

And it isn't that they aren't disclosed because straight people and cis* people, and people who fall into socially normative desires to have children are really good about keeping those things hidden/secret. HAH! (I laugh at the thought).
No no, they aren't disclosed because there is literally NO NEED to disclose in our society. It'd be like me disclosing to my clients that I'm human.

REALLY??? My social worker is HUMAN!?! I had NO IDEA (They would say).

They aren't disclosed because, except for in very specific situations (working at a center for trans/queer youth, for instance), everyone assumes those things to be true. Some identities are already known, and you have to prove them otherwise, by disclosing.

I'll give another example. I was chilling with a client the other day (like ya do) when she asked me whether I have children. My only decision at that point in time was "do I tell her or not?" It didn't include "do I tell her I don't want to raise children?" I didn't even think of the second idea, because it's a) "normal" to want to raise children, and b) I do want to raise some, maybe, someday. I have that privilege, of being able to let people assume I want to have kids, without even thinking about the fact that they are assuming it.

So in class we're talking about Freud, and someone in the class thinks he's just a peach, and had really ground breaking ideas, blah blah. And I mention that I think he's rather an asshole. And then later as we're about to move on from a discussion of disclosure, I bring up the fact that though I agree that it's important to not overshare with clients, that it seems really unfair to me that only certain groups are asked to be constantly on guard like that.

Which is when "Freud is awesome" classmate pipes in that it isn't the case that only certain groups are meant to not disclose, but that everyone is meant to not do it. She then goes on to tell me that as a former teacher, she also had to keep certain things about her life hidden from her students and that "you just have to get used to the idea of putting certain things about yourself up on the shelf".

As if I didn't just say that disclosure is a touchy subject. As if I was a wayward child who just is greedy, wanting to not feel like I have to keep my trans status, my sexual orientation, my atheism, the fact that I'm poly, hidden.

Yeah. Social workers sometimes don't talk about their kids with their clients, but a lot mention that they have them. (And, as a kid of a teacher I call TOTAL bullshit on just about ANY teacher not talking about their kids, my mom has a picture of me and my sister up on her door ya'll). And when you say you have kids, the client assumes you're straight. So if you're straight and have kids you just disclosed that you're straight, without even realizing it. Because you have that privilege.

My classmate is certain that she'll be a better social worker than me because she doesn't have all this "baggage." She understands that when you're a social worker you have to hide parts of yourself and keep identities hidden and not put lots of stuff on your clients by telling them all about yourself.

But the fact is, she's already told EVERYONE that meets her that she is straight/cis/what have you. She just doesn't realize that she did it.

So who's the overly disclosing one now, asshole?

Unintended Musings on Bad Cinema

2010-01-20T16:46:00.002-05:00

So, 2 summers ago I went to see Hancock in the theater. I think I was on a summer movie kick or something. For those who don't know, Hancock is an action movie starring Will Smith, Jason Bateman (he was on Arrested Development), and Charlize Theron. RottenTomatoes (the film critic site) gives the movie a 40%.

A brief (spoilery) overview of the plot is that there's this guy who has super powers (Will Smith, heretofore referred to as Will Smith) who the whole town thinks is a giant asshole, cause he sort of is. He's been around for as long as anyone can remember and he never ages and he just sort of uses his super powers (flight, super strength, speed, imperviousness to weapons) to engage in chaotic amoral things, and to drink until he passes out. One day, he saves the life of a down on his luck PR guy (Jason Bateman), who decides to remake Will Smith's image. Jason Bateman's wife (Charlize Theron) hates this idea, and basically implies that she thinks that Will Smith is an evil idiot, even though she's never met him. But, Jason Bateman decides to start this campaign anyway, and gets Will Smith to stop drinking, teaches him about not pissing off local police, gets him a superhero costume, etc.

::SPOILER BIT::
Then we find out that actually Charlize Theron knows Will Smith because they're both of a race of ancient angel people who all (but them two) died out. They are all super strong, fast, invulnerable, etc... except that all of them are one half of a pair (Charlize is Will's other half), who are all opposites (as far as I could tell all this refers to is race and gender), and inextricably drawn to each other. When the pairs spend much time together they start to become human, which is neat, other than then other people generally don't like interracial couples and they've all been murdered. Will Smith doesn't remember any of this because the last time that he and Charlize spent time together, a mob attacked them and gave him a concussion and by the time he magic healed, his memory was gone.

Then there's lots of drama with an escaped criminal and Will Smith almost dying blah blah.

Anyway, so I was driving home the other day and thinking about this movie, and thinking about that "opposites" bit (there are a few other weird/interesting things, like how at the end the three of them are sort of in an V relationship where Will and Charlize never actually see each other), and well... obviously Black people aren't actually opposites of White people. What about Asians? And Latino/as? And Native/Indigenous Peoples? Whose opposites are they?

I just see a lot of erasure, especially in the US, when talking about "racial differences" or "race relations" of all the groups that aren't White/Black. And I think even the naming of the groups as "white" and "black" feeds into that a lot. Because with colors, white and black *ARE* opposite, but in some movie where "opposites attract" what the fuck does that mean for people?

And really, even if in the world of this movie somehow the ethnic/racial groupings of white people and black people were opposite, obviously the characters aren't "opposite" in a whole ton of other ways (I reject the idea that men and women are opposite, but for the sake of argument): they both have superpowers, they are both tall for their respective sexes, they are both skinny, they are both temporarily able-bodied, they are both cisgender/cissexual, and they are both straight.

But really, how do we work past this conception of duality, or binary as it were, when it comes to race?

In Things that are Not Even Remotely Acceptable:

2010-01-17T22:22:00.003-05:00

Shaming someone for their consensual sexual activity.

Even if you totally disagree with their politics and they are giant conservative jerks.

Yeah, I'm looking at you, those people who have decided that because Scott Brown was once a centerfold for some magazine that that means it's ok to make jokes about him and how good a senator he'd be.

Scott Brown shouldn't win the Senate race, not because he once posed nude for something, but because he's funded by extremist conservatives who want to take away rights of US citizens. He'd make a horrible senator because through his seriously misguided political ads he's made it clear that he feels that the constitution should be chucked out the window whenever the US is in a dangerous situation, which is when we most need to have lawfully abided by protections for citizens and all people. He shouldn't be voted for because he wants to cut taxes without apparently thinking through where the money then wouldn't be going: schools, firestations, police departments, social services (like the Department of Children and Families, where budget cuts are already making life difficult and frustrating for the workers), DTA (who already make it as difficult as possible for someone in need of assistance to receive it), etc. I would also say that the in large part lockstep way the Republicans manage to behave is another great reason not to vote for him. It's hard enough getting decent legislation passed with all the pseudo-liberals around who think certain things are negotiable. Having one more Republican to tow the party-line when it means suffering for actual people is a thought that makes me cringe.

But none of the many reasons that Scott Brown shouldn't be elected have a damn thing to do with how many people have seen him naked. They never have, they never will, and if someone else, someone liberal, were being similarly attacked by the right wing (which I'd bet my non-existent house, that they would), their politics would also not have a damn thing to do with whether they'd had nude pictures of them taken in their lives.

And I'm pissed having to defend him. And I'm pissed knowing that probably if Martha Coakley had a similar history, she wouldn't even have tried to run because she'd know how bad the backlash would be, as a woman. But neither of these things make it ok to post his old centerfold picture in a post about him as a potential Senator.

It is not even remotely acceptable. And it doesn't matter who it happens to.

Blog Note

2010-01-15T20:21:00.005-05:00

Comments that do not directly relate to points made in either the post itself or the comments of that post will be subject to moderation.

If you have a problem with having your comment moderated, you may email me at thedeviatednorm@gmail.com I make no promises on whether you will receive a response.

My house, my rules. Suck it up.

Nostalgia for things that don't exist

2010-01-10T23:58:00.007-05:00

So looking at my recent youtube videos, someone might think that I tend to like Tim Minchin's work. Which is... true? I enjoy those songs of his which seem more heartfelt and less just to be jokes on piano.
I also have listened to some of his stuff that frankly I find troubling, such as a song of his where he starts out the song stating that it's about prejudice and including the letters of a specific slur that he finds troubling. For people (unlike myself) who quickly catch onto this particular opening, he seems to be referencing the N-word. However as soon as the song starts instead he says "only a ginger can call another ginger 'ginger'." Which, ya know, seems to be making light of racism directed against Black people and the history of how Black Americans have been treated by white society, and the very complex struggles that go on within and around Black communities in regards to the ability or desire to reclaim a word used throughout its life in an oppressive way, by comparing it to being a redhead. So that's, um, not so cool?

Anyway, which is all to say that I find him very hit or miss (for my tastes), and that this following song of his, which has been making the atheist blog rounds (and other people's? I don't know) for the past couple months is another hit.

Sort of.

It's certainly very moving, being about the importance of connection and love and well, I'll just let you hear/read it yourself and then get to my personal difficulties with it:

as always, as complete a transcript as I can make

When I listened to it the very first time, I found myself feeling nostalgic and heartwarmed, until it got to the bit about his infant daughter. Which I think is also supposed to be very heartwarming and inspiring and what-not, and probably for a lot of people does manage that. But I was suddenly struck by "these are the people who make you feel safe in this world," since for so many children in the foster care system, or who are neglected or abused or who are witnesses to family violence (which technically in MA is considered neglect), family isn't this thing that makes you feel safe. For them it can be terrifying.
It's so beautiful and moving that he thinks of this tiny human life as something worth protecting and nurturing, but all I could think of was my clients, and the clients of all the many other workers in my office, and all the clients of all the workers in all the many other offices even just in the Boston area, and all the clients of all the workers in all the offices in MA, and across the country, and you get the idea. And how (some/many) of their parents just don't, or can't, protect and nurture a child so they feel safe and loved by their parents.

Which is heartbreaking.
Really, I'm tearing up because I work in an office with tens of cubicles, each filled with 4 or more social workers, each worker with approximately 20 cases, so at a very conservative estimate there are 800 families at this moment involved with just the DCF office of Dorchester. And most of these families have more than 2 kids. So we'll say 1600 kids at any time involved with us for anything from the fact that they have literally no family, to them being sexually assaulted by family members.
Which is terrifying.

And then to a lesser extent (and after writing the other stuff, this feels so petty, but it's also true) I was also struck by wondering how he knows that this infant child of his will grow up to be a girl/woman, and the fact that I even though I love my family and appreciate them and know that they care for me, they aren't the people in this world that I feel safest with. Because I'm always on edge and anxious about how right they'll get stuff. And I thought of lots of other gay/trans kids around the world who have loving families that they love as well, who might also just not feel safest with their family. Because they're always on edge and anxious. And all the other groups of people, who for whatever reason are the odd-ones out of their families, who may still love their family, but still have to worry about whether THIS family gathering they're going to have to deal with something huge that'll emotionally knock them on their asses. I don't know.

I guess this song just makes me nostalgic for a family that I don't even know if it exists. Does it? Are there families where all the children grow up and feel unconditionally loved and cared for and *safe*? It scares me that I have to ask.

But the song sure is pretty.

Blog Update

2010-01-10T00:41:00.005-05:00

So, since I last was seriously blogging, some major changes have happened in my life. For instance, I no longer have interesting stories to tell about how I had to totally bite my tongue, for fear of losing my job at the computer lab, due to some horribly bigoted thing that someone said.

Instead I have stories about how some social workers/social work students say really privileged shit without thinking about it. Some fine paraphrased examples in the past few months:

In relation to my question about how the Department of Children and Families handles trans and queer youth in the foster system, as in, if they find out which kids are and have policies about how to place them, I was told "Oh, well, I don't know? But I'm sure since this is a liberal field office that everything's just fine"

and by a classmate who overheard me talking about how some *other* classmate's comments in a different class had made me feel super exoticized/like I was in a human zoo "oh, but I DO think you're exotic. Don't you think everyone's exotic?!"

Luckily for my ability to maintain emotional equilibrium, I am able to call out my classmates, and in fact responded to the prior individual by angrily telling her that there was "not a single thing that you as a straight person do which I find exotic. I find straight people Boring. You BORE ME" (which, while harsh, and not entirely true, was quite cathartic to say to someone who thought it was hunky dory to fetishize me as some exciting totally foreign and unique and thrilling experience)

Anyway, which is just a long winded way for me to let ya'll know that these days I'm in a masters program in social work.

It's Alive! (also known as "Transphobia!")

2010-01-09T02:12:00.009-05:00

Oy! So, recently I have been having all these thoughts. Thoughts are good, yes, yes. But then, I think I should put them up on the blog and then I think "no, no, it's been far too long since you posted anything, best to just let the blog die, a natural, slow, and painful death where you think about it once every couple days but don't post." but like Frankenstein, I will play god and create life from nothing (only I won't go spurning it, eventually leading to this blog killing a small child.... what? oh the point seems to have gotten away from me!) and thus I bring you this post.

Which in turn brings me to transphobia. No really.
Well, you see, because Mary Daly died, and I didn't know jack-all about her works (I'd heard the name but only enough to say "that sounds vaguely familiar") until her death, when a few feminist blogs I frequent (and many I don't) a-sploded . What with Daly apparently having written some virulently transphobic works during her life (none of which she publicly recanted), and one of which had a chapter about trans women with a title referring to Frankenstein*. So that's how this blog coming back to life and Transphobia are linked.

But instead of the transphobia of Mary Daly, I want to talk about the most pointlessly (and thus astoundingly) transphobic book I read over my winter break.

It's the third book in Mercedes Lackey's Bardic Voices series (The Eagle and the Nightingales). The book's plot is long and winding, but to sum it up, a Gypsy (Lackey's characterization) Bard is sent by lots of her friends off to a far away city/nation to find out why the High King (king o' all the kings) is letting governance slide and all of the countries under his purview are slowly going to shit. When she gets to this city she quickly becomes a performer at the local hot spot for non-humans, and then begins a romantic relationship with a non-human.
Meanwhile the Church is basically evil and saying that non-humans don't deserve rights, oh, and it's totally trying to destroy all creativity and spirit and fun (in the form of the Free Bards, which are the focus of this series, ps Mercedes, I'm a cranky atheist who gets yelled at for being too "atheist pride" or whatever, and I thought the Church-hatin' was a little ham-handed, just saying). (Keep this theme of "intolerance is bad!" in mind, it makes the transphobia even more of a doozy). So the main character quickly goes about trying to figure out how to fix whatever's ailing the King so that he can govern well and all can be peachy keen again.

But, this is 400+ page book, there is a rather lengthy set up and all where she's traveling and then getting set up in town and little side-plots etc., which is why the transphobia that jumped at me on page 155 was a little surprising. That's almost halfway into the book. And it was done so absolutely pointlessly, making a joke about a character we haven't even met yet, who I believe only actually shows up once in person to be reacted to, and who is only mentioned (tops) 5 times during the story.

Here's the first instance (emphasis mine):

"Well, Lyrebird, you're eating like a bird indeed today - twice your weight in food! You're eating like dear little Violetta!"
He winked at that; most of the staff found Violetta amusing. The name was female, and surely the little misfit dressed like a woman, but there wasn't a person on the staff who was fooled.
No matter. Freehold was full of misfits, and if "Violetta" wanted to dress in fantastic gowns and gossip like one of the serving-wenches, no one here would eve let "her" know they had seen past the disguise.

And then, just as quickly as it came in to ruin my day while reading, all mention of Violetta disappears again. Why, if I didn't know better I'd think this exchange was merely shoe-horned in in order to set us up for later random transphobia!

Oh wait, it was! 4 pages later we get this gem

nothing happened - other than Violetta showing up, as if Derfan's earlier mention of "her" had conjured "her"

'Cause if there's one thing I love it's having trans people's gender identities questioned every time a writer puts scare quotes around their fucking pronouns. Not.

Then we find out on 178 that a generally non-communicative snake-man thinks that Violetta is "exquisite" Why? We don't know since we haven't actually had any character have a single line of dialogue with her. I guess we're supposed to think that if some weirdo snake-man (who unlike other characters can't tell that she isn't "really" a woman) likes Violetta, she must really be a freak, or something.

And then, so far as I noticed, we don't get a single other mention of this Violetta until page 407 where SPOILER, it turns out that she's secretly the ~~killer~~ traitor!

She had seen this "Lord Atrovel" before - but not here.
In Freehold. And "he" had been--
Violetta...

Ok, so wait, what? Now we've decided that Violetta really is a girl? I mean, that's what the scare quotes on "he" mean, right??? I'm confused.
But wait, there's more! Not only is the trans/cross dressing/Merceds-Lackey-just-decided-to-cobble-together-"evil male bodied person in a dress"-stereotypes person the ~~killer~~ traitor, ze's also a PERVERT! (How the main characters gleaned this just by realizing the dual identities is beyond me) See!:

Hunt through his private papers, his suite, and question his servants, and you will probably find a trail of sabotage and evil as vile as the man himself. And you will likely find lace hankerchiefs that match those left by the mysterious gaol-raider. As well as a--" he coughed "--remarkable selection of female garments made in his size"

Oh Main Character! How did you ever restrain yourself from making a joke about how ze probably has lace panties by the gajillion and masturbates every night into them while cackling evilly? I mean, that's what I'd do in your situation. It must be that you are far too genteel to talk about such a thing, even though we've been reading about how as a bird you don't understand human prudery.

So to review: totally pointless introduction of a trans character for the sole purpose of mocking her. Which we learn is in fact vitally important because Mercedes Lackey really wanted to try something new and risky, which is having the trans person actually be a bad guy in disguise. I've never heard of that. Have you?

*(little recognized fact, the monster in Frankenstein is not called Frankenstein, he sadly doesn't have a name... poor widdle monster)

Last Week

2009-07-20T17:47:00.003-04:00

Last week, the two bills up for public hearing in Massachusetts (for the two relevant legislative bodies) addressing the discrimination of trans people in housing, jobs, and (as the right wing bigots love to flail about:) bathrooms, came up. In Massachusetts there are a handful of cities that protect trans people from discrimination. They include: Boston, Cambridge, Northampton, and I believe Amherst (maybe another).

The courthouse in which the bill was being heard? Boston of course, after all it is the capital.

A funny (hah. hah. fucking hah.) thing happened though at the courthouse. With scores of trans rights activists (and just regular old Janes and Joes) running around and testifying on the discrimination they've faced because of being trans, a woman at the courthouse was thrown out of the women's bathroom.

Apparently after entering the bathroom, another woman at the courthouse ran out of the facility to get a state trooper. And that state trooper told her that if he ever saw in that bathroom again he'd arrest her.

What was this devious woman doing in there? Peeing while trans.

I know, it's not much of a punchline, what with the fact that people like to flip the fuck out because of this all the time. What with the fact that trans women are routinely harrassed when they go in the bathroom. What with the fact that women have been followed to the bathroom and threatened with bodily harm and murder, and when police show up, they SIDE WITH THE PERPETRATORS of violence.

I wasn't there (Bluejay was). I wonder if that woman had already given her testimony, I wonder if anyone spoke about what happened that day in the court. I mean: that was illegal wasn't it? She WAS in Boston wasn't she? Isn't that the whole point of the law that already exists in Boston?

Not Perfect: More Tim Minchin

2009-06-25T13:22:00.010-04:00

I've been listening to/searching out Tim's stuff now since Tuesday, and so far I've found multiple things I really like, and nothing that I dislike. And here's the problem: all the good stuff, it's really really good. So good that I would like to learn to play it/sing it. (I guess that isn't a problem). But (here comes the problem), I can't. I mean, I'm not a 31 year old married Australian. Other awesome artists with moving love songs and the like have the decency to make it either really specfiic, but clearly as "story", or super universal. Not Tim, oh no, Tim wants to make it all about him, him, him. Selfish bastard, I want to make it all about ME, ME, ME. But now I can't. So you'll just have to listen to "Not Perfect" by Tim Minchin as played by him instead of as played by me because he's a selfish jerk.

[Tim Minchin, sitting at piano speaking into mic]: This feeling, you know that feeling you get when you feel like you’re the smallest [gestures to self] doll in a babushka doll?
[Audience Laughs, Tim Minchin gives meaningful look]
This is a song about that.
[Starts playing piano chording slowly]
[Singing]: This is my Earth and I live in it.
It’s one third dirt and two thirds water.
And it rotates and revolves through space, at rather an impressive pace, and never even messes up my hair. [Some audience giggles]
[Tim look as though he just thought of something] And here’s the really weird thing: the force created by its spin is the force that stops the chaos flooding in.

This is my Earth, and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect.

This is my country, and I live in it.
It’s pretty big and nice to walk on.
And the bloke who runs my country has built a demagoguery and taught us to be fearful and [sung with derision] boring. [Applause]
And the weirdest thing is that he is conservative of politics, but really rather radical of eyebrow. [Laughter and applause]

This is my country and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect.

This is my house and I live in it.
It’s made of cracks and photographs.
We rent it off a guy who bought it from a guy, who bought it from a guy, [audience laughter] whose granddad left it to him.
[Tim looks like he’s mentally searching for lyrics] And the weirdest thing is that this house has locks to keep the baddies out but they’re mostly used to lock ourselves in.

This is my house and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect but it's mine.

This is my body and I live in it.
It’s 31 and 6 months old.
It’s changed a lot since it was new, it’s done stuff it wasn’t built to do [audience laughter]: I often try to fill it up with wine. [audience laughter]
And the weirdest thing about it is: I spend so much time hating it but it never says a bad word about me.

This is my body and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect.

This is my brain [audience laughter][Tim sings high pitched] and I live in it.
It’s made of love and bad song lyrics [ashamedly sung]. [audience laughter]
It’s tucked away behind my eyes where all my fucked up thoughts can hide, ‘cos God forbid I hurt somebody.
And the weirdest thing about a mind: is that every answer that you find is the basis of a brand new cliché. [audience chuckles]

This is my brain and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect, I’m not quite sure I’ve worked out how to work it.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
[close up on Tim playing outro]
[Applause]
[Spoken]: Thank you.
[Bows]

as always, as complete a transcript as I can make

There are just so many things to love about this song:
Every time I hear him sing about the "force created by the spin" of earth, it makes me wonder yet again at how crazily lucky it is that life even exists, let alone you and me*.
When he sings about Australia, you can tell that he really cares about his country and wants to see it get better, and seeing that reflected in his lyrics about the "locks to keep the baddies out" that are "mostly used to lock ourselves in" is just wonderful as well.
I think anyone who's grown up in our body-shaming culture can relate to the body verse, and at least for this person with depression: I really felt connected with the pressing need to try to protect people from myself.

Hmmm, maybe with a good U.S. related re-write of the country bit I could perform this myself. It might just be worth it.

*which has been helped along considerably by the fact that I am currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins wherein he talks briefly about all the exact little things that went into creating this planet that is suitable for carbon based life, of which there are a considerable number, (and that doesn't mean I think this was "designed" for us. As, uh, (thanks yingyang)~~someone whose name I can't remember~~ Douglas Adams said, that'd be like a puddle looking at it's place in the world and saying "wow, I sure fit in this here puddle quite nicely, it must mean that it was MADE for me", which I think we can all get the humor of quite well without an explanation of).

You say "Funny" I Say "Beautiful"

2009-06-23T14:08:00.012-04:00

I have found one of the best, most beautiful and moving love songs to ever grace the internet ("If I Didn't Have You" by Tim Minchin. I'm totally serious when I say that listening to it repeatedly for the transcription was hard because I kept almost tearing up.

Now, this is technically a "comedy" song. Or by "technically", I guess I mean that the singer is among other things a comedian and that the audience has reason to laugh periodically during it.

However, this is indeed an absolutely beautiful love song.

*Background vocals are in parentheses

[Spoken, low voiced and breathy]: So, uh, I'm married. And, uh, the woman I'm married to I met in High School, and this is a song I wrote for her. It's called: "If I Didn't Have You"

[Sung, Romantically, "Spanish" Guitar in Background? with R&B beats]:
Yeah, yeah,
If I didn't have you.

If I didn't have you to hold me tight,
(If I didn't have you)
If I didn't have you to lie with at night,
(When I'm feeling blue)
If I didn't have you to share my sighs,
(Share my sighs)
And to kiss me and dry my tears when I cry,
Well I, really think that I would...

Have somebody else.

[Laughter]

(If I didn't have you)
If I didn't have you, someone else would do.
Your love is one in a million,
(One in a million),
You couldnt buy it at any price,
(Can't buy love).

But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other possible loves
Statistically some of them would be equally nice
(Equally nice).
Or maybe not as nice but say:
[gester/half shrug]smarter than you,
or dumber but better at sport or...
tracing.

I'm just saying,
(I really think that I would),
Probably,
(Have somebody else).

Yeah. [Shimmies down and up]

(If I didn't have you),
If I didn't have you someone else would do, [shrugs]
(Someone else would surely do).

["Spoken Word"ish]: And look, I'm not undervaluing what we've got when I say that given the role chaos inevitably plays in the inherently flawed notion of "fate" [air quotes], it's obstruse to deduce I found my soulmate at the age of 17. It's just mathematically unlikely that at a university in Perth I happened to stumble on the one girl on earth specifically designed for me.

And if I may conjecture a further objection--love is nothing to do with destined "perfection" [air quotes]--the [gestering] connection is strengthened, the affection simply grows over time:
Like a flower
Or a mushroom
Or a guinea pig
Or a vine
Or a sponge
Or bigotry
[Laughter]
... or a [wide eyed] banana (banana).

And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience and the synergy of a kind of symbiotic empathy or something.

[Sung]: So I trust it goes without saying,
That I would feel really very sad
if tomorrow you were to fall off something high [raises arms],
Or catch something bad.

But I'm just saying:
I don't think you're special.
I mean, I mean... I think your special
But you fall within a bell curve [shows a bell curve with hands].

[Laughter]

I mean, I'm just saying I
(Think that I would)
Probably
(Have somebody else).

["Spoken Word"ish]: I mean I reckon it's pretty likely that if for example my first girlfriend Jackie hadn't dumped me after I kissed Winston's ex-girlfriend Nia back at Steph's party in 1993, and our variables would probably have been altered by the absence of that event to have meant the advent of a tangential [gestering indicating other timeline] narrative in which we don't meet.

[Sung]: Which is to say there exists a theoretical hypothetical parallel life
Where what is is not as it is and I am not your husband and you are not my wife.

And I am a stuntman living in LA [arms up, as though weighing things/dancing]
Married to a small blonde portugese skier [downhill skiing motion]
Who when she's not training
Does abstract painting
Practises yoga
And brews her own beer
And really like making home movies
And suffers neck [gesters to below neck] down alopecia.

[Laughter]
[Predatory, or perhaps mischevious smile]

But with all my heart and all my mind I know one thing is true
I have just [holds right hand at waist level with index finger sticking up] one life and just [holds left hand at waist level with index finger sticking up] one love and my love [open handed toward audience/"you"] that love is you.
And if it wasn't for you
Baby
(really think that I would)
Probably
(Have somebody else).

Yeah. [Shimmies up and down]

(If I didn't have you)
If I didn't have you someone else would surely
(Someone else would surely do)
Dooooooooooooo.

[Applause]

as always, click for as complete a transcript as I can make:

Some notes:

Tim Minchin apparently always performs barefoot, this indeed makes me happy.
Additionally, there are lyrics online for this that seem to indicate that there is a longer version. However, I am going to say that I feel the other version is decidedly less good. In the excised portions, he goes for, shall we say, "easier" laughs. Eh.
Greta Christina's Blog is the sole reason I saw this. Thanks Greta!

Everyone I've shown this to so far, has found this silly or funny. And I get it, I really do, the humorous aspects of it. But mostly when I watch it I think of living my life with someone I love. Knowing that the fact that we met and got together was a random chance, that any of a number of things could have gone entirely differently, and that our relationship, as all relationships, is a gamble.

My and Bluejay's getting together story isn't simple (though no one's really is): we met because his ex-girlfriend went to the same college as I did, and she in turn started dating someone who lived in my dorm, and that significant other of hers became friends with Bluejay, and she was invited to visit our college. I was in a (new) monogamous relationship with (the here-after named:) the estraNged*, and it would be a stretch to imply that I was immediately attracted to Bluejay, I was so wrapped up in being with the estraNged. Months later, after the estraNged and I decided to move to Boston (itself a haphazard choice) for the summer, ze had to just about drag me to the Dyke March here, which is where Bluejay and I re-met, and when Bluejay asked for my number, (and there were still further twists).

I tell this not just because I like to hear myself speak/see myself write (though that's true too), but also to illustrate how really truly much I appreciate the ability to find beauty in random chance love. Because I think that's honestly the case: that all love is a happy accident, making this song profoundly true, and sublimely beautiful to me for speaking that truth.

*This name was decided on jointly by us, thus making "estranged" actually, patently untrue

[Edited to fix bad coding]

Quitting Work

2009-06-22T13:10:00.002-04:00

Ever since I got my acceptance into the MSW program I've known that I had to quit work. At first I thought I'd tell them right away so they could have a while to find someone, but then it just never felt like the right time.

However, these past couple days have been truly stressfull, and last night I had a horrible anxiety dream where my boss was evil (she isn't), and I hated her (I don't) and she did something horrible (can't remember what) and I quit. This morning when I woke up I knew that I Needed to stop fucking around and actually do tell her that I'm leaving.

It went surprisingly well, especially with the anxiety that I'd been heaping upon it. Then I realized, leaving, what about this that made it so hard: I've never had to do this before. I mean sure, I've been working since I was legally old enough, but it's always had a clear ending in advance. The summers ended, I left town for college, the stipend was for X months, I left college for the rest of the world, rinse and repeat. So this is the first time that I've had to have a talk about it. It should have been obvious to me what the problem was, but being in it, I was unable to have the necessary distance.

I'm just glad my anxiety was misplaced.

An Open Letter to Sascha Baron Cohen

2009-06-19T15:39:00.002-04:00

Mr. Cohen,

We need to have words. Namely we need to talk about this "humor" of yours. Mr. Cohen, I've heard somewhere that the humor in your movies is in showing the bigotry in seemingly otherwise nice individuals. That the point of Borat is to show hidden racism and the point of Bruno is to show hidden homophobia.

Mr. Cohen, give me 10 minutes and the internet and I promise I can show you all the bigotry you want. Here, an example: by Womanist Musings, an article about two separate cases of latino men who were attacked by otherwise "nice" people. One of them is dead. In both cases the perpetrators got off with a laughable sentence.
Perhaps if you're in the mood, you can scroll down to the comments where I talk about the recent case in Massachusetts where 4 queer friends were attacked by a group of men who screamed "die faggot" at them and beat and kicked one of them unconcious, and left another also with brain damage. In case you're wondering, the only man charged with the crime will never serve time because the judge decided to give him probation. Mr. Cohen, is that hilarious enough for you?

Or, in case those are too far removed, too distant for you, I can tell you about some things I know personally. I know personally that as a queer youth, I was subject to the most hilarious situation when I was basically told by a lady in a restaurant that my affectionate kiss of my partner was X-rated. We were told to not kiss in front of her kid. Perhaps you could put that in your next movie meant to show exactly how funny bigots are.
Or maybe, you'd like to talk to an acquaintance of mine who had the hilarious experience of having someone she thought of as a friend cross the street to get away from her. See, it was halloween, and she's black and she was dressed as a man. HILARIOUS huh? I mean, you can't MAKE SHIT LIKE THIS UP, it's just SOOO GOOD when you realize that people you know and thought of as friends apparently find your race terrifying.

So basically Mr. Cohen, if you want to show homophobia and racism, you actually don't need to get dressed up in characters. All you need to do to find hilarious bigotry is follow around someone who is actually a target of it. And if you want to show how bigoted other people are, you DEFINITELY don't need to do it in supposedly "funny" characters.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure I think bigotry is all that funny.

Maybe that's your problem.

Sincerely,
The Deviant E

Hate Crimes

2009-06-16T14:29:00.003-04:00

On Saturday I went to Pride with Bluejay. We marched with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. Pride was fun, but at the same time somewhat unfullfilling. We walked past, people cheered: "Yay trannies!" or "Trans Rights!" etc. etc. But it's sort of hollow isn't it? The gay community in general isn't all that good about trans issues.
For an example, yesterday Bluejay called me up really pissed: a gay news feed that he reads had an article about a "gay couple" that "snookered" New York into marrying them, because they had a food stamp card that indicated one of them was female. Never minding that this woman was trans, that they used the wrong name to refer to her (and then put her preferred name in those fucking quotation marks of disrespect), or that her husband explicitly does not consider himself gay.

Anway, at Pride we're marching we're marching. We've got signs that say: "Support HB 1728 and S 1687" But how the hell do you make that into a chant? Are people at Pride even there to be educated? I sort of doubt that. I think Pride's supposed to be really feel good. But it's hard to feel good about marching when you realize that most people who see your signs aren't going to bother to remember to actually DO anything, they'll feel like they supported us just by cheering, as though cheering will make our community's homelessness and joblessness go away.

So, on the topic of protests/rallies that have actual purpose, I bring you: "On Thursday at 4 PM at the Boston Municipal Court (corner of Merrimac and New Chardon Streets), protestors will gather to denounce the lenient sentence imposed on convicted gay-basher Fabio Brandao. Join us in demanding that the legal system punish anti-gay violence." Facebook event with more information

I'll be going. See you there?

Grad School Essay

2009-06-12T17:19:00.002-04:00

This is a cheaty McCheaterson post, since I spent 2 weeks crafting this for grad school, and not for this lovely blog. But I am very, very proud of it, and I do love the accolades, so I thought I'd post it here so that people outside of my editors (family and friends) and admittance office could see it.

“Why social work?” my father asked me.

I tried to address his skepticism by talking about all the career opportunities that exist for social workers, all the jobs I’ve wanted for which an M.S.W. is required. I told him that the idea has been in my mind since long before college, and that social justice is important to me.

I also tried to explain to him about my job now, how it doesn’t fulfill me or excite me. I want to show up to work and engage with the problems I see in the world around me; problems like sexism and classism, racism and homophobia. The job I want to be at is one working with those directly affected by these social ills, working with oppressed communities to fight their oppression. Instead I run a computer lab in an apartment complex.

The kids who use my lab are generally the ones whose families can’t afford to get computers for them. They aren’t bad kids, but like everyone else they’ve picked up homophobia and sexism and (internalized) racism from the people around them. I want to help them overcome these biases, but in order to do so, I have to hide social justice in pizza making and movie watching. I want to run cooperative workshops with them about domestic violence, safer sex, and fighting racism. Instead, I had to ask a kid to leave until we could talk about why he would call someone a “fag.”

I learned recently from my supervisor that one of the kids using the lab (“Peter”) isn’t a resident; he’s from the Section 8 housing nearby. Peter and the other kids like to skateboard on the property, even though it’s against the rules, and sometimes they cause damage with their skateboarding. When they were doing this a few weeks ago, someone in the office went out to tell them to stop, and Peter called her a “cunt,” a word much like “fag,” a word meant to hurt someone by using a fundamental part of their identity as the curse itself. In telling me the story later, my supervisor finished, saying, “If he comes back, let me know so that we can call the police and have him trespassed from the property.”

Peter is 14, Black, and lives in government-subsidized housing. My supervisor’s first reaction to him is to call the police. Never mind that he is a kid. Never mind that those who are labeled as criminals are more likely to start identifying themselves as such and behaving to match. Never mind that involvement with the police now is only more likely to start him down a path to more crimes and a life in and out of the legal system.

Last week my supervisor told me that every time Peter comes on the property and the police get called, he slips away before they get there: “It’s like he has a secret sense when they’re about to show up,” she says. She seems pleased when she tells me that one time the police caught him in the nearby grocery store’s parking lot.

I told my dad that I wonder where her priorities are. I wonder if she would respond this way if he was white. I wonder if she has always viewed the labeling of 14-year-olds as “criminal” as an unqualified good; if she truly doesn’t see the problematic aspects of our criminal justice system. I told my father that I’m worried that if I keep working there I’ll start seeing her reaction as reasonable, that I’ll stop seeing the humanity in others. I see becoming a social worker as an important step in finding a better response to Peter than “Let’s call the police.”

I know that obtaining an M.S.W. will make me better equipped intellectually and systemically to deal with these issues. There is power in knowledge, and there is power in power. As a computer lab coordinator, my voice is just one among many. Being a social worker gives an added gravitas, it confers a level of respect that is absent elsewhere. Becoming a social worker will give me more knowledge and lend me the authority to use it.

But that is an incomplete answer to “Why social work?” The complete answer includes the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.

“Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs.”

This statement speaks to me as a transgendered person.

There aren’t a lot of us. Or maybe they are. The research is spotty. Because for a very long time, trans populations were studied solely by male doctors, and they were only interested in trans women. Research into trans history shows that these doctors decided whether to let a trans woman into the program based on whether they thought she was attractive enough. When the people who held the keys to medical access decided whether someone deserved treatment by how attractive a woman she was, or by how well ze was able to function in a transphobic society pre-hormones or surgery, when some trans men were denied the right to transition unless they pretended to be straight, it kind of makes it hard to get a good read on our numbers.

Writing about my trans identity for people with a stake in my future is scary. What if I come across as too angry? Too strident? What if I sound scary? In Massachusetts, my employer and my landlord are legally allowed to fire me or refuse me tenancy based solely on my gender identity. Is it any surprise that I’m not out to my landlord or at work? Closeting myself takes a great emotional toll, but the thought of getting fired or not having a place to live is terrifying. Those are my choices: deny who I am or risk my job and my housing. My trans identity is invisible in the male clothes I wear—it isn’t abnormal in our society for female-bodied people to wear pants. But for so many in the trans community, this isn’t possible. If they wear the clothes that make them happy and healthy, they are immediately recognizable as the Other.

Like many other oppressed communities, the trans community experiences a disproportionate level of poverty and poor health. Finding employers who are willing to hire us and doctors who are willing and able to treat us is difficult. Recently I read (in an article by a well-meaning writer) that gender dysphoria is in the DSM IV as a protection to trans people. The writer apparently did not know that many in the trans community are opposed to the pathologizing of our lives and find that it doesn’t help us. If he had researched the situation, he would have learned that health insurance companies often use trans status as a reason to deny approval for medical treatments, and that trans people in the U.S. have to pay out of pocket for the exact same hormones and surgeries that are covered for others.

“Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs.”

We don’t need the type of “protection” the DSM offers. We need people who understand the Social Work Code of Ethics and listen first. We need allies in power, and we need trans social workers.

A couple of months ago, my partner (who is also trans) had a very frustrating and downright scary situation with his roommates, who were trying to extort money from him. We called Legal Aid multiple times to find out what our rights were and what options we had. We were anxious; we didn’t know if my partner’s trans identity would be mentioned in a legal setting, and we didn’t know what would happen if it was. After all, trans people are still unequal under the law here. I didn’t even feel comfortable bringing this up with Legal Aid, because I worried that the person on the other end of the line wouldn’t understand.

But one time we called, it was very different. The person answering the phone asked for our names, and then asked whether our preferred names were the same as our legal ones. He asked me about our pronouns (male for me; male, female, or both for my partner). He asked whether my partner’s status was being used against him. The guy who answered the phone was trans too, and he was working on getting everyone in the office to be aware and ask these questions. His being trans, and out, informed his work.

I can’t even begin to describe how much easier I slept that night, knowing that Legal Aid was trans-friendly. Knowing that they hired trans people. Not just trans people, but out trans people. Knowing that people there were responsive to our community – that not only would they not refuse to help us, but that someone there was excited to make the system accessible for us. Talking to him was the first time I truly felt we had an ally.

Why social work?

Because trans people need help, but also we need to be able to help ourselves. Because for trans people to have the ability to help ourselves, we need to be able to not just be the ones calling for help, we need to be the ones who get called. Because I want to be that person on the other end of the phone, to make someone else’s life a little less scary.

I don’t know the future, no one does, but I do know that being trans has shaped me. I hope that being trans makes me more aware of the needs of other communities, or at the very least, the need of others to have self-determination. While I will never experience being a person of color, Deaf, or having grown up in poverty, being trans has helped me realize even more keenly what I already believed. It is vital that I listen long and hard to others, that I not assume that my experience of the world is the most valid just because it is mine. As a feminist, as an anti-racist, as a trans person, the future that I look for is one where the intersections of oppression are understood and dismantled, so that everyone – regardless of socio-economic standing, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or able-bodied status – is treated with respect and understanding. So that no one is left behind in the struggle for justice.

This is a very good time for me to point out, these are the words written by Me, the proprietor of this here blog, and as such, are not available for redistribution without citation. As in, don't try to steal any of this, mkay?

Back!

2009-06-11T14:13:00.004-04:00

Or at least I'm going to try.

So good news: last week I found out (a week after applying) that I was accepted into the fall semester for the Social Work program I was excited about. I may be posting the absolutely brilliant essay which helped get me in very shortly. Ego? What ego?

Bad news: in the time I was away from blogging, bigotry has continued in the world. Damn. You'd think people would have the consideration to not do this shit while I can't write about/engage with it! (Or at all, *sigh* that'd be nice)

I saw the new Star Trek movie with my family a couple weeks back. It was very frustrating listening afterward to my mother talking about Uhura. (Spoilers ahead!!!)

My mom's totally a feminist (or, she definitely identifies as one, and she's generally pretty aware of sexism happening around her), but she totally bought into stupid sexist bullshit during the movie.

A brief explanation: Uhura is the SOLE female character of substance in the original television show and the current movie. In the movie, there are 4 females that even have lines (or it feels like it). They are, respectively: the mothers of Spock and Kirk, and Uhura and her roommate. Who, coincidentally, are also portrayed as the love/lust interests of Spock and Kirk (respectively).

Uhura being Spock's love interest actually had me happy, but at the same time, it's sort of frustrating the the only actually realized female character also needs to be reimagined as the +1 to Spock.

But whatever. The problem was, after the movie, my mother tried to argue that we were supposed to think/she thought that Uhura was therefore only allowed on the Starship Enterprise because she was sleeping with her professor/superior officer (Spock), and that the REASON in the movie that Spock told her that she was "the best," was because he said it in some sort of post-coital, pre-coital attempt to woo her or something.

REALLY Mom? Even though throughout the movie we are hit over the head about the extreme competence of Uhura? Even though there is a scene where the ACTUAL communications officer (who presumably has years of experience, and more training than Uhura) is by far less competent than she is? (Uhura, we learn, knows all the dialects of Romulan and Vulcan) Even though we see a scene where she intercepts Klingon (I believe) transmissions that are supposed to be far above her level and then translates them. And then uses that translation with Kirk to recognize a larger pattern?

We're supposed to think that she's just a "dumb bimbo" (not an actual quote), buying her way into Star Fleet by her wiles? I came away from it thinking none of that, thinking that the relationship was one primarily of equals (yes, he is her professor, but he is a very recent graduate himself, and she is about to become one). I didn't even CONSIDER a "dumb bimbo" situation. The only conceivable explanation to me was that Spock, being very intelligent (and logical, naturally) himself, would only ever be attracted to someone equally as intelligent and hard working.

Don't worry. Mom's all set now about how she ignored all the evidence to fall into sexist tropes. Love ya.

Not Giving In

2009-06-02T14:15:00.004-04:00

The U.S. tortures.

And our President clearly doesn't care.

The Telegraph (a British paper) has reported on this recently, and Obama's press secretary laughed it off, basically saying that British papers are all tabloids, and you shouldn't trust what you read from them.

I need to do something, but everything I think of seems small and inconsequential, or it seems too big, too massive, impossible to do.

Last night, Bluejay reminded me about the Darfur refugees. Many of the women have been raped by the Darfur forces, and then fled across the border into Chad and were raped again by the Chadian ones. Once they have been raped, their families just discard them, as so much trash.

As Bluejay pointed out, it's not like we can boycott products from Chad. I need to do something, but everything I think of seems too small or too massive.

Recently a judge in the UK told a man that his attempted murder of his wife was "understandable." He stabbed her in the neck with a pair of scissors and pushed her down a flight of stairs.

People are dying and nothing is done. We all need to do something, but everything is either too big or too small.

Dr. Tiller was recently murdered, it was the direct result of the anti-choice movement's use of dehumanizing rhetoric, of pictures with him in a cross-hair graphic, of a "Tiller Watch," of the posting of the home addresses of doctors (who perform abortions) and lists which show the cross off names of other murdered doctors. Of them calling doctors "murderers" for helping to save a woman's life. President Obama has said that he was "shocked." How can one be shocked? Dr. Tiller was killed after years of death threats. How is this surprising?

Something must be done. I refuse to give in to the crushing weight of it all. I refuse to be helpless. I am making a committment here and now to spend an hour a week (frankly it's a pittance), every week making phone calls and writing letters to stop this type of madness. To petition my government to stand up and take notice.

Something must be done.

Ignorance is No Excuse

2009-05-27T20:08:00.005-04:00

Someone at the Prop 8 protest/rally had a sign that at first glance I found really funny and touching. It said up top (paraphrase):

"Why are we still having to fight for this?"

And on the bottom was: "Women's Rights, Black Rights, Gay Rights"

But then I noticed the check marks next to "Women's Rights" and "Black Rights."

I know this will shock you, but the kid holding up the sign implying that sexism and racism don't exist anymore, was a white male.

SHOCKER.

After the protest I went up to talk to him about how his sign is really alienating, and more over false, and how the top was good, but implying that gays are way more oppressed is totally bullshit and does nothing to further gay rights.

I tried to not get angry, and I think I did a good job at that, though I wish I had been more on top of pointing out to him the LEGAL effects of racism and sexism (he said that he hadn't meant it to say that sexism and racism don't exist, just that they aren't legislated, which also isn't particularly true).

I was still fuming about it this morning when I got up.

As Teh Portly Dyke at Shakesville* said: Even if you could win the Oppression Olympics, all the prizes SUCK.

*as to the actual post, I haven't read it thoroughly, so in this particular instance this is not an endorsement

Cult of Perfection

2009-05-26T17:10:00.002-04:00

The Washington Post has a congratulatory article written about a student who has never missed a day of school (from kindergarten through to high school).

The creepiest parts of it come at the end, where they laud her accomplishment of basically being "perfect" while anyone who has any experience in gender/psych studies knows that girls who have this strong a desire to be perfect also often suffer from severe eating disorders.

Yep, let's just feed this cult of perfection that tells women they if they can't be perfect they shouldn't even try. (Or, in this example: "Stef would say, 'If I don't get the A, my life is coming to an end.' ")

I honestly fear for this girl.

Prop 8 (and religiously related child abuse)

2009-05-26T13:43:00.006-04:00

So, as many of you may have already heard (if you're U.S. based), Proposition 8 was upheld by the supreme court. Yay for voting on other people's rights. I'm excited to start legislating against olive eaters any day now.

However, since apparently they (the Supreme Court) didn't want a shit storm, they are not invalidating the marriages of the 18,000 couples who were married prior to the homophobic referendum passing.

Yay?

Whatever. I'll be at the local rally/"angry queers get angry"-fest in Boston tonight. If you're in the area, think about stopping by. It'll be at Copley Square at 7.

I've been trying to write this past week, but everything is just too enormous, for instance: have you heard about the Minnesotan 13 year-old with cancer whose parents (and he) cited their religious beliefs to say he doesn't have cancer, as a reason for why he shouldn't go to a doctor? A judge ruled that not taking the kid in for chemo and radiation (which would give him a 90% chance of living) was tantamount to child abuse (because if they don't he has a 5% chance). The mother fled with the son after the court mandated appointment (which showed the tumor had grown since when he was first diagnosed, gee I wonder why), but turned herself in a couple days ago. It just makes me angry to see 13 year old kids dying because their parents are brainwashed idiots.

You want to kill yourself through refusing medical treatment? FINE! Just don't drag your kids down with you, assholes.

On the topic of religious inspired/related child abuse, the report on child abuse in Catholic run schools during the 1930s-1970s in Ireland just came out. I haven't read it, but have been lucky enough to get the gist from Bill Donohue (that's pure snark, some actual writing about it is at Shakesville), who frankly I couldn't hate any more right now. According to him, the "miscreants" and "delinquents" there shouldn't be complaining about "only" being groped and made to shiver themselves to sleep. See that isn't real child abuse, not like breaking people's limbs and rape. And if it isn't the most horrible thing we could imagine, clearly it isn't horrible. *eyeroll*

Indeed, Donohue does in fact call the abused children miscreants and delinquents. Way to stand up for the poor, beleaguered Catholic Church, Donohue. I mean it isn't like they knowingly shuffled around child abusers and had people in positions of power who would SPY ON THEM AS THEY SHOWERED. Not at all. Clearly, all this bad press for the Catholic Church is totally baseless.

Not to mention, I've heard that this isn't even the whole shebang, and that they will soon be putting out another VOLUME (in July, if memory serves)

So yeah, it's been a crappy little while.

Cooking

2009-05-20T22:21:00.004-04:00

So a couple weeks ago I was cooking at work with the kids. It's something I do sometimes. A disturbing trend I see is that the girls are always helping me while the boys sit back and then whine and moan when they have to help clean up.

As we're frying something, a much older man walks by and says to the girls (since the boys were sitting elsewhere, while the girls watched how to actually do it) "Pay attention, you're going to need to know how to do this for your husband when you get married!"

(Keep in mind I'm at work, with kids, and this is a resident)

"Well I think it's good for everyone to know how to cook for themselves" I try to reasonably say while wanting to leap at the man's throat.

[Clearly affronted that I insulted his masculine prowess at being the best at everything] "Well of course I know how to cook for myself, I did too before my wife came along. We all know that men are great cooks, afterall we all know the best cooks are men."

"Hehe (ugh)... I bet your wife would disagree with that." (What the fuck! damned if you do cook and damned if you don't.... fuck this jackass)

After he got out of earshot I told the kids "that's not true" but I'm sure that message has already started its evil little passage into their hearts. These girls aren't even 10 and they're getting told by adult men all about their duties...

In the paper yesterday there was an opinion piece about a "horrible" mother. Apparently some girl didn't wear her underwear for her yearbook picture because she'd already learned that pantylines = unattractive and unattractive = utter disaster. He was talking all about how horrible the mother was for bringing her on television to talk about her shame of having the whole school see the photo, when what do you know, apparently the kid didn't sit "properly" enough for the writer's tastes. But what he said (I'm paraphrasing) was that "she didn't learn the lesson well enough the first time"...

And it hit me, in our society girls are supposed to be learning how to behave properly all the time. Someone could break into a girl's bedroom and do a fucking spotcheck on whether she was being appropriately feminine (is she drooling? is she snoring?) and I'd hardly be surprised.

Does he really think that she isn't constantly being reinforced with this bullshit? Why does he think that she thought pantylines were bad, she sprung fully formed from her mother's loins believing them to be evil????

So I say this: sexist old white men (and really sexists everywhere) I'm done with it all. I refuse to let you poison one more little kid's mind with your crap. Pick on someone your own size.

Soon

2009-05-20T15:33:00.003-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted recently, once I finish working on my APPLICATION TO A SOCIAL WORK MASTERS PROGRAM!!! (YAY) I'll get right on back to being cranky and informative.

In the meantime, know this: I am writing the best damn essay about why I would be a kickass candidate for an MSW, and trans communities, and oppression EVER, and it WILL get me in to this program, if I have to bake cupcakes for everyone in Massachusetts to do it.

We return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Oh god, I hope so

Poly People: One of these things Does Not Belong (One of these things is Different, so obviously Wrong)

2009-05-12T17:23:00.005-04:00

Argh argh argh.

I know I shouldn't read these types of threads, but I always do.

I am, of course, referring to Jezebel's recent thread about triads.

So, let's do a take down of some of this frustrating, saddening, and bigoted stuff. Shall we?

"Next thing you know, people will be marrying their dogs!"

No. No they won't. You know why? Consent. Say it with me "consent pitches my tent". That's right folks, dogs can't consent (novel concept, no?), adult people can. So: any number of adult people should be able to get married.

I think a lot of feminists in particular are iffy about polygamous marriage because of its generally misogynistic underpinnings.

So how do you feel about the misogynistic underpinnings of heterosexuality? I mean, the vast majority of straight relationships are pretty much steeped in the misogynistic culture which surrounds us. If you want to argue this, then you'd better be willing to outlaw all straight marriages too.

I'm perfectly content being narrow-minded with regard to polygamy (which is the form most of this would take if legalized).

There's really nothing to respond to here other than to say that I suppose it's refreshing that you're so open about your bigotry? Good for you?

Same here! I don't support it at all. I support gay marriage because I basically believe people are born gay. I don't believe people are born to be romantically committed to two or more individuals.

And it goes against my romantic tendencies of there being this one person in the world whom you are committed to above all others.

And it's hard enough for two people to stay married...I can't imagine how hard it must be for 3 people to do it.

So, if gay people weren't born gay, they shouldn't be able to marry their partners? This is a perfect example of why the meme "but we were born that way" makes no sense. You know what, I don't know if I was born queer and trans or not (or, more accurately, born with a definite predisposition towards these identities), but I think I should have equal legitimacy in my identity even if I wasn't. You know why? 'Cause there's nothing wrong with being queer and there's nothing wrong with being trans. When you say shit like that, it makes it seem like you're saying that "gay is bad, but it's not their fault". I've said it before, I'll say it again, religion is a choice, but nevertheless people of faith should be allowed to get married. Also choices: love for NASCAR and olives (uck!). Olive lovers still deserve that right. They even deserve the right to eat olives. If they really really want.

And this: "it goes against my tendencies" bullshit? I hate olives, you know what I do? I don't. eat. them. Pretty simple actually. Same trick works with abortion and gay marriage and polygamy. Don't want to do it? Then DON'T.

Ok. So multi-person marriage would be difficult. I guess everything that's difficult should be verboten. We should definitely get out there and stop letting people become Bio-Chem majors, I've heard it's tough shit. Hey, here's an idea, instead of telling other people "that sounds hard, you shouldn't be allowed to do it", maybe we could tell people "that sounds hard, I guess we'd better help you figure it out". Just a thought.

If this is their thing, fine, do your thing, but it just seems kind of...greedy to me.

Greedy? Yeah. I guess it is greedy to want visitation rights to your loved ones. I guess it is greedy to want to have legal recognition on owning a home with the people you love. Really, think of the single people! (no really, do! read: "Singled Out" for a super interesting look at the way that single people are stigmatized in our society, and put at a social and economic disadvantage) If you go through life wanting to pool your resources with a second person, you're just being greedy compared with all the people who are single and therefore can only use their own resources. Outlaw Marriage! Or, maybe we could extend various benefits to people using something other than marriage. Just saying.

My question back to you is, if you can establish all of these legal items and marriage is so controlling, why do individuals in polyamorous relationships need a piece of paper to tell them that they are "married"?

Why indeed! Why do straight people need pieces of paper telling them they are married? Why do white people need pieces of paper telling them they are married? Here's a thought, I'll take away your right to get married (or tell you it never existed in the first place) and then tell you that if you want the protections of marriage you have to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees and hundreds of hours crafting legal work arounds (and even then, perhaps your spouse will be deported because ze isn't a legal citizen), and then you can skip along "tra la la" through the fields and that'll make perfect sense.

So, based on your argument, if I wanted to marry a dog, I should be able to?

This again? Yawn.

There is nothing preventing someone who is in a polyamorous relationship from marrying ONE PERSON that they love and receiving tax breaks, etc.

Yeah. I guess if there were three people in a totally equal relationship, it'd feel really awesome if two of them got married and the third was left out to dry. That'd totally feel wonderful. Oh, and so would being the sole person who didn't have health insurance, or who was about to be kicked out of the country because you aren't considered a legal citizen, or who was barred from seeing your ailing partner in the hospital. I mean, I guess the other two could legally adopt the third, but that might be a little creepy. Maybe the triad could decide which two should marry based on who needs it the most! YAY! And then they'll have awesome practice for when they later have to choose between which of their kids they can afford to send to college (sorry Ephraim, but you're just not cost effective enough, Oswald's gonna go instead).

People can enter polyamorous relationships all they want - they just are not given the financial breaks given to married couples.

This is from someone who repeatedly states ze is for gay marriage. The irony, it burns!

The whole point of marriage is to dedicate yourself to one person.

If you wanna have more mates, then don't get married...

Also, one must consider the effects of legalizing a 2+ marriage. How would spousal benefits work? Insurance benefactors? Child custody?

Indeed. The whole point of marriage is to dedicate yourself to one person. If you want to have children, don't get married. 'Cause then you'd need to divide your love!!!!

And seriously, a "Think of the CHILDREN." Anita Bryant, is that you?

I'm just confused as to why polyamorous folks want to marry anyway, why they're interested.

Maybe you could actually ask one? Instead of saying they shouldn't be able to get married because you say so?

I always took marriage to be "this is the one person I'm happy with, the one person I'm willing to dedicate myself to" and those that cannot limit themselves to one person, well, marriage isn't their fit then.

Oh, perhaps you can tell that to people who remarry, clearly if they didn't get it right the first time, they shouldn't be allowed to try again.

I would argue that polygamous (no idea about polyamorous so I can't speak to that) marriages are damaging/harmful to society.

And *I* would argue that asshats who talk out of their ass/hat are harmful to society. Here, you can be my sample size of 1. What's your statistically representative sample?

If a person has made the choice to be polyamorous, they've made the choice to exclude themselves from a group marriage, as it is illegal.

And everything that is illegal should be illegal for evermore. And maybe everything that at one time was illegal should continue being illegal. Ooh, I know! Restrictive gender norms and party hats for everyone!

Women
Gay people
Black people
People w/ disabilities
People in romantic relationships with > 1 people at a time

One of these things is not like the others.

Religious people
Tea drinkers
Bloggers
Old People
People in romantic relationships with > 1 person at a time

One of these things is not like the others. Guess how? One of them means you aren't allowed to marry a person you love. They are all a choice though. Funny that.

Ok. I'm getting to be a broken record. But they are driving me to it!

Tomorrow: "Meet a Poly Person"

Nevermind what my life is actually like: In which I admit frustration with life

2009-05-10T00:14:00.006-04:00

Last week one of the resident/patrons at my work decided to tell me that my life is easy.

Nevermind what my life is actually like.

Nevermind that he doesn't know a thing about my life outside of the fact that I run the computer lab.

He had decided (apparently) that I am young and therefore live at my parents' house. He had decided (apparently) that living at my parents would definitely be the easiest and most fun thing I could possibly do as (apparently) a twentyone year old (news to me that I'm 21!). He had decided (apparently) that my entire income isn't put towards rent and food and replacing wallets that are so old they are literally disintegrating and not much else. (PS, I got a new wallet today! Yay! I hope that my foodstamps will cover the caviar I'm planning for the occasion! /snark) He had decided (apparently) that since I am a young person I have perfect mobility (regardless of whether that's true or not). He had decided (apparently) that my biggest problem in life must be what to spends all the loads of cash I make from working in the computer lab.

Nevermind that I have depression which two weeks ago led to me honestly consider stabbing myself through the arm with a kitchen knife and did lead to me trying to strangle myself with an electrical cord. Nevermind that HUGE numbers of people my age face similar depression, and that we are told to ignore it and hope it'll go away, or that by talking about it we are thought to be attention grabbing.

The only thing I can imagine is that his life as a 20something white straight male in the '80s was apparently peachy keen. Good for him.

He apparently thinks that his experience as a twentysomething is universal. I guess being a white straight male in the '80s is pretty universal. Other than the part where he was a white straight male in the '80s as a twenty year old.
You know what? If you were a white straight male in the '80s, maybe it was. I don't know. Oh, other than that it totally wasn't. That there are hundreds of little aspects of who we are that intersect to make up our life experiences. Telling someone who you don't know that their life is so easy is the height of condescension.

There's a clear strain of ageism that runs through all this (and with many of my interactions with the older patrons). As though I couldn't see myself how life could be stressfull with a mortgage (not that he has one, he lives in a managed apartment building with rent, not mortgages, so far as I can figure). But apparently as a 40something guy, he magically does indeed know about mortgages. Oh and relationships. And everything there is to know about roommates. And definitely about being on government assistance.

I wonder does he know anything about heterosexism and homophobia? Does he know anything about struggling to keep existing in a world that tells him that almost his entire identity as a person is an abomination?

Maybe. I wouldn't presume to tell him what his life was like. Hah.

PS. While I wasn't intending to whine, I refuse to apologize that I did. If you don't like it, you can just bump it on down the road.

More Joy

2009-05-07T14:43:00.004-04:00

I know I know, there's been far too much posting of videos that are wonderful and bring a smile to people's faces?

No? LOVELY!

(PS, this video is NSFW, the chorus is comprised primarily of "Fuck You"s, so go forth with headphones!)

(As usual click for)

Lyrics! (that I promise won't take you away from the page!)

Some notes:
The woman in the rainbow scarf, is apparently the mother of the person who put it all together!
A whole hell of a lot of people on that video were not just cute, but very hot.
I wish I knew just about everyone that was part of the video, 'cause it was so lovely and adorable. It almost makes me want to become some type of video-making person! (Almost)

Casual Racism

2009-05-04T23:01:00.004-04:00

Being a white person, I am not on the receiving end of racism all that much (oh sure, if I'm in a masochistic enough mood to go to stormfront's website they're all about hatin' on the Jews, but I only did that for a class one semester, years ago... and believe me, I experience enough toxicity in my daily life, not to need an excuse to have nightmares). So that means that to be a good ally I have to try to be aware of what happens even when it doesn't affect me. I don't know how I'd grade myself. Probably a B or B- (some good ideas, but the effort needs work). This is of course, using grade inflation of the standard type at the various schools I've attended.

Some of the ways I try to be aware are by visiting blogs of people of color (PoC) and especially women of color (WoC), by paying attention when I hear racist shit around me (and calling it out whenever possible), by understanding that all people of color are NOT interchangeable, and just trying to listen when PoC talk about racism.

So, over the past week I noticed:

On the subway on a friday or thursday evening, two drunk white girls (with barely concealed alcohol) get on the train and sit on either side of a latino man. You know, rather than find two adjacent seats. They then harrassed him under the guise of being "friendly" and called him "Cheech". Up until then I wasn't sure about the racism (maybe they were just obnoxious drunks), but right when the "Cheech" reference happened I decided to ASAP offer him the seat next to mine/tell them to quit the racist shit. But I didn't get time to say/do anything, he got up and (oh-so-graciously, because clearly the wasn't the point of the harrassment all along /sarcasm) offered them the seat he was sitting in, and then they all got off at the next stop.
I'm upset that I didn't stand up earlier/at all, it's hard because public transit is such a weird space in general, but it certainly doesn't excuse it, I was thinking about what asses they were almost as soon as they got on the train, and their bullying was something I think all of us on the train should have dealt with.

On Saturday, at a team-related party, the one african american on the team was presented with an "award" that apparently for the first time in the 3 years she'd been there, didn't have to do with her afro. You'd think in a team environment, everyone would have more to say to her than "you have exotic hair," but apparently not until this year has that been true.

On Sunday, overheard at an IHOP a (latina) woman told her coworker about sneezing and having someone tell her to go back to Mexico. You know, 'cause that flu thing is totally being brought to the U.S. by Mexican immigrants. Oh wait, sorry? It's not? The disease vectors are privileged U.S. citizens on vacation? Do Tell.

Just (over)hearing these things happen was enough for me to feel stressed and on edge, I can't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to have them directed at me. And even more, to have similar casual racisms directed at me on a never-ending basis. That I don't have to pay attention to shit like this every day is one of the basic symptoms/side effects of my privilege.

If I did, I'd probably spend my days screaming.

Fix her Flux Capacitor!

2009-04-30T22:09:00.006-04:00

Now for something that made me smile.

And for those who can't watch it right now (though I really suggest doing so),

Ill Doctrine: I'm making a video every day for the rest of this month. Some of them will be regular videos like yesterday, some of them will be a little more... random. So for those of you that might be uncomfortable with randomness, I will now institute a labeling system. From now on, when you see the words "mini-doctrine" in the title, you'll know that this video is something kind of random that might not be for you. And speaking of random things you might want to skip [awkward segue, no really it says that on the screen], the Miss USA pageant!
Perez Hilton caused a scandal at the Miss USA pageant asking Miss California how she felt about gay marriage.
[Video clip]Miss California: Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that, you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage, and you know what? In MY country, and in my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think that it should be: between a man and a woman. Thank you.
Ill Doctrine: Watching that clip raises a lotta questions for me. Questions such as: Why do beauty pageants still exist? This whole ritual just seems so out of place to me in 2009, it feels like watching a Renaissance fair. My twitter friends pointed out that beauty pageants are a leading source of scholarship money for young women, which is something? But I mean if that scholarship's coming along with such crazy messages about how women are supposed to be valued... that's kinda like: "we're pulling you up as a reward for letting us push you down" Do you really come out ahead at the end of that? It's like a patriarchal, metaphysical conumdrum.
But in the meantime, right-wingers across the land are already heralding Miss California as their new champion: the Joan of Arc, and/or Joe the Plumber [fist shake] of the anti-gay marriage movement. And on the surface I guess that does make sense. But I don't know, when I take a closer look at her answer I start to wonder what side she's really on. Like, for example: most people in her position, when they talk about heterosexual marriage, they just call it "normal" marriage or "regular" marriage. But she didn't do that, she called it opposite marriage. Do you see what she did there? She struck a blow against heteronormative nomenclature. And she started out her answer by telling us how proud she is to live in a land where everyone can choose what kind of marriage they want.
Now of course, that's not true about this land that we live in. But she never said she from this [pointing] land! Do you see where I'm going with this? My theory is that Miss California comes from another land that exists in the Future! A land where she's free to have her personal religious beliefs without them being legislated on anyone else! Perez Hilton! Listen to me, all you need to do is go to Miss California and tell her that she's been teleported back to present day America without her knowledge, and she will Join Your Side! She will lead you to victory! And then you can fix her flux capacitor and send her back home to the future! The truth is out there.

click for a Transcript!:

And look! he didn't need to resort to fucked up sexist insults or slurs(*cough cough Perez Hilton, and all you others, I'm looking at you cough cough*). Which as we all know aren't extra bad because they're extra mean, they're extra bad because they use a person's status in an oppressed group as the sole reason that the insult works.

Job Discrimination

2009-04-30T17:20:00.004-04:00

This post is inspired by a Shakesville guest post "We Matter".

Have you heard of Diane Schroer? That's ok, the name doesn't immediately ring a bell for me either, but she is a trans woman who was hired by the Library of Congress to do analysis for them. The Library of Congress is now being ordered to pay her close to $500,000. Why? Because as soon as they found out that she was trans/transitioning, the person in charge of hiring rescinded the offer.

As wonderful as it is for her, it isn't really cause for celebration. In Massachusetts RIGHT NOW there is a bill being discussed that will legally protect all trans people in Massachusetts from job and housing discrimination*.
Meaning that it still doesn't exist, meaning that at this exact moment I could be fired at will for my gender identity.
Meaning that every day I go to work, I have to remind myself to carefully excise any trans specific language from my vocabulary.
Meaning that I have to willfully repress any desire to have people use the correct pronouns about me while at work.
Meaning that I worry if my clothes today, yesterday, tomorrow, will be considered gender inappropriate, and what the hell should I do if they try to require me to wear women's clothes?
Meaning that when I go to work, I struggle constantly in how to talk about my partner Bluejay, do I gender him? If so how?
Meaning that any passing remark at work about my living situation is fraught with potential blunders.
Meaning that when talking about roommate drama (which as some of you might remember is/was often tied up in trans issues), I feel worried about mentionting that much of it stems from transphobia.
Meaning that people who don't understand the constant stress of hiding my gender feel free nonetheless to tell me that "it's important to be honest in an interview. More than anything else, not being honest (about anything) puts up a red flag, makes the employer think: If this person isn't telling me the truth about this (and clearly there's something fishy here), what else is she hiding, and is she going to try to cover up her mistakes on the job instead of talking honestly about them?" thus implying that my gender is just one more lie/that my deliberate choice to hide my trans identity is taken haphazardly.
Meaning that I didn't get a job in my actual field, with full benefits, because I'm trans (oh sure, I don't know that for certain, but when the person literally in charge of hiring you says: "I really like you, I want you working here yesterday, I've already told the HR people to send you a formal offer, maybe you can start in 2 weeks" and you don't hear for months, and then find out that someone there just happened to know you were trans, and that she also just happened to be the person who told everyone she couldn't work with you, it's a pretty damn safe bet), thus leaving me in a part time job with no benefits, on public assistance, because actual professional jobs clearly aren't within my utterly bad, no good, reach.

Even though Diane Schroer was awarded this decsision, it isn't cause for celebration because in New Hampshire just recently, a bill for housing and job and hate crimes protections was voted down unanimously (even the bill's sponsors voted against it).
It isn't cause for celebration because even though Angie Zapata's killer is going to spend the rest of his life in jail, Duanna Johnson's murderer is on trial, and I still won't be surprised if he walks.
It isn't cause for celebration because of all the other trans victims (and survivors) of violence, who will not only never see justice, but have their memories distorted with false pronouns and misleadings names.

I'm happy for Diane Schroer. But I'm waiting for the day when trans people don't have to shop around for an accepting work environment (which are few and far between), closet themselves, or sue/fight for their rights. And let's face it, Ms. Schroer is an exception to the rule.

*If you're from Massachusetts, and you have time/care (which really, I hope you all DO care), please please click on the link and think about submitting written testimony (I will be, just as soon as I figure out what to write).

Breaking News...

2009-04-29T15:26:00.002-04:00

Agreeing with me is like agreeing with HITLER!!!

Everyone may commence pointing and laughing now.

But seriously, it's nice to know that our resident troll thinks I'm as charismatic and persuasive as Hitler. A little creepy yes, but I promise that I will be a benevolent dictator when I use my army of atheist sympathizers to take over Europe through violence. Anyone want to buy me a plane ticket so I can get started?

My Atheism

2009-04-27T14:52:00.003-04:00

A small quibble when it comes to the definition of atheist: "a theory or belief that God does not exist" (OED). When I say I am an atheist I do not mean that I believe there are no gods.
I mean that I do not believe that there are gods.

See the slight difference?
I am an atheist in the same way I am an a-unicorn-ist. Both of them are purported to exist, but I view all claims about this with skepticism. I don't need to actively believe in their non-existence, because there is no evidence that I have to dismiss.

This is in contrast to people who believe that global warming/climate change doesn't exist. See, there is quite a bit of evidence that says that it does. As such, refusal to acknowledge this probability requires a degree of faith.

And therein lies the rub. In our society, it is considered completely normal to believe in all sorts of wacky things, provided a plurality of people also do, and the wacky things you believe were in fact codified X years ago as a religion (X varies, according to some people Mormonism is a dangerous cult, as is Scientology. Some others view Mormonism as a valid religion, while Scientology doesn't get the pass, since it's too young, etc.). But say you believe in unicorns and people tend to assume you are either: very young, being sarcastic, or rather unintelligent/naive. Yet, of the two, unicorns are clearly more benign. In most cultures that used to believe in them, they were considered signs of good fortune, and were generally considered non-violent. Compare this to the history of gods, who almost to an individual are considered jealous and violent. Run into a god in most mythologies, and your life will be quite possibly turned upside down in an unpleasant way.

As a person, I see no reason to believe that there are external, supernatural things that exist and control any aspect of the world around me. I do not believe in gods, in spirits, in ghosts, or in souls. I also don't believe that there is an afterlife or a unifying (supernatural) force in the world. As a person, I see no reason to believe in all of that (since there is no evidence to do so), and so I call myself an atheist.

The beauty of life (to me) is that I was born and have this short time to experience it. Hopefully I enjoy the majority of the time, and it is also my hope that I will be able to make those around me enjoy a majority of their time as well. At the end, whatever I did matters to those who remember. This life isn't a test, and it isn't a gift, it just is. And that makes me happy.

Miltary Fairy

2009-04-27T13:59:00.006-04:00

My partner Bluejay and I were discussing the normalizing of heterosexuality in our culture, in response to some readings that he'd been doing. It got me to thinking about humor, and how subversive humor can be, if done right, and how utterly not funny it can be when done totally wrong.

For instance: Miltary Fairy from Monty Python

Transcript

Monty Python was active in the early 1970s. That's more than 3 decades ago. Yet watching this today it still packs a similar punch.
Why? Because it takes the assumed heterosexuality of men, and specifically, explicitly military men, and turns it on its head. The company is doing "precision drilling," of the campiest sort. This joke wouldn't be funny if the assumption of heterosexuality weren't part of our culture, and if machismo wasn't tied so tightly to that expectation.

For an example of totally unsubversive gay "humor", feel free to see "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry". I certainly didn't, but surprisingly, feel no need to worry. After all, it has Adam Sandler, and the guy who plays the husband/father in King of Queens.

Square Butts

2009-04-22T16:26:00.003-04:00

I hate this ad. I hate it so much, I'm not even going to link to it, but if you've been watching tv at all recently, you've seen it. It's for Burger King.

They have a spoof on Sir Mixalot's "Baby Got Back" song for a kid's meal ad.

Baby Got Back.

Kid's Meal Ad.

Song sexualizing women as objects?

Kid's Meal Ad.

Good job Burger King.

NOM Parody. They Just Keep Getting Better

2009-04-21T14:59:00.007-04:00

Loki, each time I think that I have a favorite parody, someone makes an even better one.

Check it out

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

[Sarah Chalke, from Scrubs]: There’s a storm gathering.
[Jason Lewis, Sex and the City]: That’s why there are these clouds behind me. They represent a storm that’s gathering.
[Lynne Stewart]: And it’s gathering fast.
[Alicia Silverstone, from Clueless]: (tearing) And I, am afraid… ‘Cause I have a fear of storms.
[Lance Bass, from *NSYNC]: I’m also afraid
[Liz Feldman, director and producer of this video]: And I am afra….wait did someone say that? Oh he did? My Bad.
[Sarah Chalke, from Scrubs]: Some who advocate for same sex marriage, take the issue far beyond, same sex marriage.
[Sophia Bush, from One Tree Hill]: Like, really far.
[Drew Droege]: They’re trying to force the issue into my life. And it’s just stupid
[Mike Hitchcock, from MADtv]: The storm is getting worser, and worser.
[Daniele Gathier, from MADtv]: Stop it storm.
[Alicia Silverstone, from Clueless]: Stop it storm!
[Mike Hitchcock, from MADtv]: STOP IT STORM
[Jason Lewis, Sex and the City]: I’m a California doctor, who must choose between my faith and my job. Because doctors hate gay marriage.
[Alicia Silverstone, from Clueless]: I’m a Massachusetts mother, helplessly standing by as the schools teach my children that Gay Marriage is OK. I also have an issue with their hot lunch program.
[Jay Lay]: I’m a Connecticut weatherman, and there’s a cold front coming in! And it’s gay people! ‘K they’re here, and we’re here, the Not Gay People. Ok. They ARE trying to get us, be careful, and wind chill will definitely be a factor, so bundle up.
[Erin Foley, from Almost Famous]: The storm is getting bigger.
[Daniele Gathier, from MADtv]: This storm is being caused by Gay marriage.
[George Takei, from Startrek]: That’s what’s up there, married gay people. And they’re doing all this!
[Sarah Chalke, from Scrubs]: Soon, gay people will start falling out of the sky.
[Lance Bass, from *NSYNC]: Onto our homes.
[Sophia Bush, from One Tree Hill]: Onto our churches.
[Lynne Stewart]: And onto our families.
[Jay Lay]: A downpour of gay people, threatening the way we live (falling gays)
[Sarah Chalke, from Scrubs]: And this gay rain army, won’t stop.
[Lynne Stewart]: They’ll come at us, marching
[Liz Feldman, director and producer of this video]: Not marching, more like a dance. They’ll dance at us
[Sarah Chalke, from Scrubs]: And it’ll be choreographed, it’ll be good
[Daniele Gathier, from MADtv]: But they won’t stop until all of us, AND our children, are gay married
[Mike Hitchcock, from MADtv]: I’m so angry!!!!
[Actually, no idea who, was it one of the earlier guys?]: The storm, is, coming (fake accent)
[Jane Lynch, from fucking everything]: But we have hope. People of every creed, race and color are coming together to build a giant umbrella of faith, morality, and righteousness. That will protect us from this gay, rain, army. And that’s not just a metaphor, we’re actually building um, an umbrella. So if you want to protect marriage, and if you have any experience building a giant umbrella, join us at www.giantgayrepellentumbrella.com

I'd love ya'll's opinion on which are the funniest bits, right now I'm leaning towards the weather-man.

Oh, anyone else love how the gay actors are just sprinkled around in there. As in, lots of straight allies. WOOOO go you straight allies, go!

Rectifying the Atheist Problem

2009-04-21T13:59:00.002-04:00

So... I've been realizing that we have a small little problem on this here blog.

In order to fix the overly atheistic slant of this blog, I give you my side project: http://www.thedeviatednorm.blogpsot.com/

HaHA. Just kidding. Even though it says up at the top that I identify as an atheist (and then again in the little red atheist A on the right, and in the textbox at the bottom), I'm clearly not doing enough to shout it to the world.

I mean look:

In 22 posts: only TWO have been about my atheism. Damn, I'm losing grip on reality here, posting so much about gender and feminism, racism, and transphobia, and my life, and music, why straight culture makes no sense, and television. It's less than 10% of what I crankycrankypants about! What was I thinking? This should be angry atheist 24-7!

In order to TRULY rectify that, I give you "Dear God" by XTC.

Lyrics are on the actual video.

Now, now, some may say this means I wholly support their message. But I gotta say, every time I watch it, the end always irks me. The anger directed at god seems silly even. I hardly get pissed when the tooth fairy doesn't visit, do I? Why should they be so frustrated at a social construct not fixing the world. However, I do rather love that opening line:

Dear God, Hope you got the letter and I pray you can make it better down here. (I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer.)

It certainly would be nice to be able to ask to have the world get fixed and have it happen. Oh well, since there doesn't seem to be anyone who can do that, guess I'd better wade in myself and do it.

The Cure for the Blues

2009-04-20T22:13:00.007-04:00

This song [Edit: Grace Kelly, by Mika /Edit] is the PERFECT pick me up. There are songs that I like, there are songs that I love, and then there are songs that I fervently wish I had been the one to write. Because they are just so damn good.

And because I love you, Lyrics!

[Mika Speaking/Voice Over]: I wanna talk to you

[Little Girl Voice Over]: The last time we talked Mr. Smith you reduced me to tears, I promise you it wont happen again

[Singing]: Do I attract you? Do I repulse you with my queasy smile? Am I too dirty?
Am I too flirty? Do I like what you like?
I could be wholesome, I could be loathsome, guess I'm a little bit shy. Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me without making me try?
I try to be like Grace Kelly. But all her looks were too sad. So I try a little Freddie, mmm. I've gone identity mad!
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like. Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more. Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me? Why don't you walk out the door!

[Little Girl Voice Over]: Getting angry doesn't solve anything

[Singing]: How can I help it? How can I help it? How can I help what you think? Hello my baby. Hello my baby. Putting my life on the brink. Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me? Why don't you like yourself? Should I bend over? Should I look older just to be put on your shelf?
I try to be like Grace Kelly. But all her looks were too sad. So I try a little Freddie. I've gone identity mad!
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like. Gotta be green,gotta be mean, gotta be everything more. Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me? Walk out the door!
Say what you want to satisfy yourself. But you only want what everybody else says you should want, you want!
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like. Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more. Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me? Walk out the door!
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like! Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more. Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me? walk out the door!

[Little Girl Voice Over]: Humphry were leaving

[Mika Speaking]: KaCHING!

So yeah. This song is the cheerfullest, sunniest, "Fuck You" the world has ever seen. He wrote it because he was denied an opera role. Now it's his number 1 hit.

Angie Zapata was "deceptive", in other news, her killer's defense team can kiss my ass

2009-04-20T16:00:00.005-04:00

Please Please Please. [Bit of a trigger warning] This is both one of the most upsetting and most important things you could do today. Go to the link here:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10511/are-trans-people-like-angie-and-me-deceptive

If you need me to repeat the link, I will. The defense is (of course) using the tired ol' "gay panic" routine, but now it's "trans panic" and the murderer was "duped". They have been refusing to use the correct name and pronouns when talking about her. Her family, being questioned on the stand, had to correct the lawyer every. single. time. That they should stand up to such bullying shouldn't be considered amazing and brave, but I nonetheless feel it is.

Because I spent part of the weekend with my relatives. Every single one of whom knows my gender identity. Not once could they manage to get my pronouns right (nor did they try, or correct themselves). The best they seemed to manage was to not use pronouns at all (when actively called on it). Today I told someone I that I didn't care anymore. But it was a lie. I care every fucking time, but since my entire life is one giant fuck-you to my identity, I feel defeated and beat down and unable to do anything.

But help is on the way. Because every time I read posts like this, every time I hear and read people say something, I get that much better at being able to stand up for myself and everyone else. Every time I read a hilarious troll stomping post (I swear this time it's not the same link), I'm that much more able to tell off creepy sexist patrons at my work.

Oh, so story from work: I'm sitting at my computer, as I do, when a patron/resident tells me the printer is out of paper. Which is frustrating 'cause we're damn near out. So I saunter on over to replace the paper. As I pass his chair he tells me "good girl," as though I'm a fucking puppy doing a trick or something. I tell him "I don't appreciate that and that's inappropriate. I'm changing this paper because it's my job, I get PAID to do it, I don't need you to tell me that I'm a 'good' anything." As he leaves he apologizes and tells me that he didn't mean to be rude. I tell him thanks, but it was rather patronizing.

As I was saying: every time I read feminists standing up for themselves, every time I read trans people standing up for themselves, I am that much more able to stand up for myself as well. Because telling someone off is a practiced skill, and the -isms of this world thrive on the fact that no one bothers to tell them off, so we never get practice, and by the time it's a Big. Fucking. Deal. we just don't know what to do.

So, stand up for yourself (and others, damnit!) today. It does the body good.

An Ally Analogy

2009-04-18T22:52:00.004-04:00

So. (This is all true)

Bluejay plays rugby. I have lots of rugby playing friends. I love all my rugby playing friends and Bluejay very much. But, I've never gone to a game, I don't actually know the rules, I've heard of a couple of the terms (apparently there are hookers and props involved, oh and scrums) but generally I just sort of don't really involve myself all that much with it. I don't have anything against rugby players, (geez folks, I'm dating one!), and I certainly think they're all great people (or at least, if they aren't, it has nothing to do with their rugby playing ways). I don't try to stop people from playing rugby, but I am aware that twisted ankles, and concussions can happen, so I'm sometimes nervous for Bluejay's health and safety on the field (oh, it's called a "pitch"? cool, I'm down with that), and when she comes home injured I try to help her out.

As a person who never goes to games, and doesn't actually know anything about the sport, am I a fan? Am I supporter of rugby?

Nope.

Do I nevertheless treat rugby players with respect, and would be shocked if other people thought they were less than human? Do I support my partner's decision to be a rugby player?

You Betcha!

Now, imagine that rugby players were a highly stigmatized group. That lots of people actively thought they were less than human.

I (in this imaginary world) still support their right to play rugby (and consider my lover and friends real people). Does this continued belief in their humanity and their rights magically turn me into a fan or a supporter? (I'm confident in "No")

Now, let's replace "fan" and "supporter" with "ally".

How does this change anything?

If I don't go to the games, if I don't know the rules, I'm not a fan of rugby! Pretty dern simple. I'm still a good person, a nice person, a good friend, but I'm simply not a rugby supporter.

If I say you aren't an "ally" that doesn't mean I think you're evil. Just like I'm not evil for not being an active supporter/fan of Bluejay's rugby.

The difference is though, that rugby isn't hugely stigmatized, that coming home from games my friends don't get beat up or called names. If they did, I'd like to think that I'd go to games and walk back with them, to help protect them from a world and society that did this to them. And I'd like to think that by being at the games, by putting myself as a presence there, I'd learn the rules, and the terms. I would, in fact, become a supporter and a fan.

So. You aren't evil if you aren't an ally. But, with a little work, why not become one?

Losing Rights

2009-04-17T17:33:00.003-04:00

Via Slap Upside the Head I found out today that in Alberta, Canada, trans people are losing rights that I can barely dream of. Apparently, not only do they have public health care, but they in fact (until recently) had sex reassignment surgery as public health care.

That's right. The surgeries/hormones that U.S. (trans) citizens can only get after jumping through hoops to "prove" to medical gatekeepers that our identities are really truly real, and which are then explicitly NOT covered by various insurance (with the excuses that it's "experimental" or "cosmetic") are not only provided there, but seemingly free of cost.

Or were.

It's hard to be appropriately angry because this is clearly a blow to trans people in Alberta, but at the same time I'm exceedingly jealous. The fact is, the surgeries and hormones used by trans people to have our bodies match what we think of as appropriate are a medical necessity. Don't believe me?

Ask me (or probably just about any other trans person you know) about the crippling depression that can come with not being able to have one's body look appropriate to yourself.

Should I tell you about a friend of mine who basically lived entirely in a binder, and because of it developed sores? Should I tell you about the days I could barely leave my room to go make myself breakfast (among other things), because I was too exhausted to try and pass while in my own house walking around in front of roommates? Or how about the time that I read an account of a breast cancer survivor (who got a double mastectomy because of it) and had a more-than-fleeting thought of "if I could just manage to get cancer!" Maybe I'll tell you about the number of times I've looked down and just wondered if it'd be possible to knock myself out and use a kitchen knife, and then had to remind myself that it wouldn't work and I'd quite possibly bleed to death.

Oh. I guess I just did.

So, those and many others are the reasons that we need our surgeries, our hormones, etc. And that's why knowing that I won't be able to afford mine anytime soon (the cost is in the thousands, of course, and as mentioned, not covered by health insurance) makes me even more depressed than I would be normally. And that's why it matters that Alberta, Canada is going to take this away from its trans citizens.

Anti-Atheist Bigotry and Being an "Ally"

2009-04-16T20:39:00.016-04:00

You are not an ally of trans people if you tell us that we need to be careful, be more aware of anti-trans bigotry, that we need to be less out, but have no idea who Angie Zapata is.

You are not an ally of queer people if you tell us that we need to be careful, be more aware of anti-queer bigotry, that we need to be less out, but haven't heard of the 11 year old Massachusetts boy who committed suicide less than a week ago, after months of homophobic bullying.

You are not an ally of atheists if you tell us that we need to be careful, be more aware of anti-atheist bigotry, that we need to be less out, but don't know about the various laws that say we can't even give testimony in court (in some U.S. states), don't know about what happens to out atheists in the military, and haven't even heard of the recent (2007) Gallup Poll which says that of all of these groups: Catholics, African-Americans, Jews, women, Latinos, Mormons, people married more than twice, people over the age of 72, homosexuals, and Atheists, that Atheists alone are the group that a majority of people in the U.S. would refuse to vote for, regardless of our qualifications (by the way, that list, it's in order of decreasing "electability").

You just aren't. Even if you're a family member of us. Even if you think of yourself as an "ally." Until you not only know about the various prejudices and dangers out there, but are plugged into our communities, until you can literally run circles around the knowledge that I have just bouncing around in my head (because yes, I DO pay attention to the way that my communities are stigmatized, and victimized, and implying otherwise if fucking patronizing as hell), then you can tell me fuck-all about how dangerous it can be out there.

Because this is the shortest fucking post I could write about the hatred out there for queers and trans people and atheists. That's right. At this moment, I could call up 10s, maybe hundreds more stories and factoids and statistics about MY communities. So don't tell me that I don't understand. Because I do.

This next bit is a nice little display of more anti-atheist bigotry put out by our friends the AiG.

The entire ad is a kid in an *ahem* A-Frame shirt coming up on a dusty road to shoot you, the viewer. The voice over helpfully explains: If you don't matter to god, you don't matter to anyone.
So the ad is implicitly condoning violence against atheists, while explicitly implying we are all murderers.

Here are some peachy fucking comments:
cadborasaurus (3 months ago): "crisis123456789", what's horrible is that because of evolution this is true. If we are just a product of chance and are accidents, then what is the standard of good? We are. We make our own standards of good and are no different then animals. If evolution is true, then there is nothing wrong with something like murder because it is just an accident eliminating another accident. tumordoctor (7 months ago): Kids are bombarded with the ideology that they're nothing but animals. So they see nothing inherently wrong with behaving like animals. This is a product of 20th/21st century secular humanism.
zogshill (2 days ago): If the soul has no place in the kingdom of chirst, what rights can the body have on earth?

And for some old school, straight up hatred:
ChrisWestaway(2 days ago): this is fucking awesome, kill all atheists
cassetteaddict (2 days ago): athiesm is evil and the truth path of monotheism is far from finished... even in western europe we will come back and make you all pay for creating sin and lechery
all the evil in the world was done by athiests - stalin hitler kissinger - two hundred years ago christians would hang you for not believing and our time will come again just you wait and see
X0XPWNER123 (2 days ago):fuck you athiest peices of crap.
God will make sure you all burn in hell
muldurag (2 hours ago): Nice stance and good handling of a beautiful weapon...what's the problem here?

The upside? The vast majority of people who commented on it weren't bat-shit insane. The downside, these people spent quite a bit of money to make this, it all came from someone/where, and those someones believe this crazy.

Trigger Warning

Rape Culture and the Misogyny Olympics

2009-04-13T23:53:00.005-04:00

The definition of rape culture: One in which someone can actually type this* on the internet:

You posit that the fact that she is very drunk signals that the guy should not make a sexual advance. this is contrary to the prevailing social norm, however.

"Now folks at home should know this is a very advanced form of victim blaming, not everyone can accomplish it. Mitch has been in training for weeks, and while we saw him pull it off at the qualifying event in Salt Lake, we don't know how it'll go here in Atlanta. Here it comes, there's the set up, and..... ..... AND HE STICKS IT!!! Mitch for the gold medal in misogyny!!!!!! For the thousandth year running the men's team will take home all three medals! The crowd is wild with excitement, back to you Bob."

*[Edit] "this" is meant to refer to the various victim blaming rape apologists on the thread, not the actual body of the review, which is in general quite interesting

Catchy Songs, Misogyny and Racism, Oh MY!

2009-04-07T19:31:00.005-04:00

It's almost as offensive with the sound off, so feel free to watch it that way!

Transcript:

[White girl]: Sometimes a girl can’t help feeling a little blue. [Petting a fluffy cat] When everything’s a mess, my favorite thing to do: is mow the lawn, mow the lawn.
[Chorus]: Mow it! Do it! Cut it! trim it!
[Black girl]: Some bushes are really big,
[Asian girl]: some gardens are mighty small,
[White girl] whatever shape your topiary, it’s easy to trim them all. Whenever I see a weed, I mow that rascal down [cut to footage of black woman] so all that’s left for me to see are [two lips] on the mound [two tulips]
[Asian girl]: So mow the lawn,
[White girl]: mow the lawn! Toolshed’s equipped, my flora’s clipped. Never feel untidy, just spruce your Aphrodite,
[Chorus]: and mow the lawn!
[White girl]: Feeling rough around the edges?
[Chorus]: And mow the lawn!
[White girl]: It feels great to trim the hedges! [Hairless cat being pet]
[Chorus]: and mow the lawn!

I just want you to know that watching that long enough to transcribe the whole thing was... a zen challenge, too bad I don't get any useful karma from it.
So let's examine this one, shall we?

First off let's start with a partial list of the creepy sexism?

There's a fluffy cat, oh haha, I get it. It's a "pussy"!!! Just like women! Good one advertiser Dave! Hey Dave, after they've all "mowed the lawn" perhaps we could have a hairless cat. Oh we can?! Saawweeettt. (Doesn't anyone think this is a bad analogy? When I pet a cat, I like it to have fur, am I the only one?)
Anyone else find it creepy that they are singing into the clipping shears as though they are mics, but it just looks like they are about to cut their own heads off?
I'm not sure when heart-shaped pubic hair became a standard. Anyone want to clue me in?
Tulips! haHA. Two Lips. Two Tulips. The Wit, it burns.

Ok next for the creepy racism?

I don't think I need to mention that the "gardens are mighty small" oh so conveniently references the fact that asians are considered "petite" and that includes assumptions about their cunts*, or that the comment about "really big bushes" could be seen to be referencing the fact that black people are assumed to be bigger, also including their cunts, do I?
Similarly, does anyone need a primer course in why having the sole black woman in the video using a POWER TOOL to cut her "bush" perhaps push buttons surrounding how white people have "nice, easy" hair and black people don't? Even though, come to think of it, I don't know many people whose pubic hair is long and flowing and straight... just sayin'
Perhaps an astute watcher might also notice that the black woman is the only woman in the video who shows anything but unabashed cheerfulness. This surely has nothing to do with the fact that black people are portrayed as "angry" Surely not!
And DEFINITELY they forgot to put the asian girl in with any power tools, not because of weird assumptions about the "daintiness" of asians and assumed ideas about power tools, but because, maybe she just didn't want to stick around for the whole day of shooting! *shrug* who knows???

Just a reminder, that's Schick with an S-C-H-I-C-K for all your gardening needs.

*I use the word cunt because of the book: Cunt by the talented Inga Muscio

The Magic Penis

2009-04-07T15:21:00.010-04:00

This alternately should be titled: If You Don't Want to Hear About My Sex Life in College, You May Want to Stop Reading (But Don't Really Stop Reading, Because There is an Important Philosophical Point to be Made).... oh fine, do whatever you want

I don't want to step on anyone's precious, precious toes but.....
Newsflash: Penises are not magic.

As some of you who are familiar with this blog may indeed know, I briefly sort of dated a bioboy while in college (and identifying as not-het). I had with him, probably what I'd consider my first positive sexual experience(s) with a guy. I can't remember ever feeling unduly pressured, and while thinking of our relationship as straight totally fucked with my head, it had nothing to do with the fooling around, which was on the whole very enjoyable (as sex/relationships should be). Which is why it was so damn ironic he told me in all honestness that Penises Are Magic.

Ok. Those weren't his exact words. It was something a lot closer to: "see, I don't want to have [penetrative penile/vaginal]* sex with you because I've heard that the first time a girl has [penile/vaginal] sex, she becomes really attached to the guy. It's a chemical thing."

Uh. Yeah. So orgasms, shared affection, respect, intelligence, whether or not you are cute.... None of that is as important to whether a "girl" (nevermind that not everyone with a vagina is a girl and that not everyone who is a girl has a vagina) becomes irrationally "attached". "Attached" for those keeping score at home, is code word for Clingy, (when reading this aloud, please be sure to say this in a sing-song voice).

What does it say when an all-around cool (I'd say feminist, but I don't know if he identifies as such), somewhat gender non-conforming, politically engaged guy, honest-to-Loki believed that his Magic Penis would turn me "clingy"?

To me it says that something is wrong with society. Whoever originally told him this (he passed it on not as opinion, but as semi-scientific fact imparted by others) believed that lesbians, gay men, and apparently straight men, all can't become attached to their partners. Because they don't have the magic formula of 1 penis + 1 receiving vagina.

To me, it says that we as a culture view Penises as the be-all and end-all, so much so, that any sexual pleasure one derives from non-penile pursuits (including of course, orgasms derived from oral sex, manual sex, anal sex, self-love, or just thinking really hard) couldn't begin to emotionally affect an individual the way that sticking a penis in a vagina can.

Which brings me to another point. This idea is inherently anti-women's pleasure. While there are definitely women who orgasm through solely penetrative vaginal/penile sex, many if not most (I'll have to look it up in I <3 Female Orgasm when I get home) women CANNOT orgasm without clitoral stimulation. Some can't even orgasm while being penetrated (or do so much less easily). So in effect, this idea implies that the act of penetration is more central to sex than the actual orgasm of the woman engaging in the damn relationship. Does this mean that women who are raped are then going to go through this "chemical process"????? I mean, if it's the first time a penis is inside of them!!!! Who knows?

Plus, it seems the height of disrespect to men, implying that they are so callous, that they won't get overly attached to the first partner they have sex with. Especially since boys are taught that they should shuck their virginity at the first possible moment. You'd think then that it'd be some amazing gift someone else could give them: helping them lose their virginity. Instead, someone is out there floating the idea that chemical reactions take place only in female bodies only in the context of having a penis attached to a male bodied person stuck into only the vagina for only the first time, and that these chemical processes will override just about all rationality.

Let's hear it for thinking women are irrational!

For real.

*As an attempt to make the world safer for queer and trans folk, I am constantly using "penetrative penile/vaginal sex" as the way that I refer to what everyone else thinks of as "real" sex/"sex". You'd be fucking surprised at how many MEDICAL DOCTORS have been like "oh, that's a handy way to describe it!/I've never thought of it that way" when I try to answer their questions about whether or not I have "sex". And yes, I DO believe it is a safety thing, because for every doctor/person who believes that only some types of sex are "sex" that's one less person who acknowledges the presence of us queerbos, and who thinks to include our experiences as a normal medical issue.

Craptastic Past 3 Days

2009-04-06T17:18:00.007-04:00

So, this post has nothing to do with anything other than how absolutely crappy my weekend/Monday turned out to be.

Saturday was without note (other than I had a B-day party I wanted to go to, but couldn't get it together enough to leave the house).
Sunday was the day I was going to do my taxes, so I spent close to 30 minutes looking for my W-2 only to finally call my father who apparently got it sent to him instead..... (frustrating).
Then, Bluejay and I were going to go grocery shopping. I've been perilously close to overdrawing my bank account so I checked before leaving.
What greeted my eyes when I checked was somehow simultaneously having -300 dollars as a "balance" but in my transaction area having a surplus of enough to cover rent and bills.
So, I called up my bank thinking that it was some minor website glitch. Only when I had to enter my card number, I couldn't find the card.
Now this is suspect, since I am fanatical about putting my cards in the same place every time in my wallet, and then putting my wallet in the same place every time in my pants, and then always putting my pants on before leaving the house (what can I say, I'm a creature of habit), and immediately upon exiting any building, I check all pockets for their respective contents (wallet in back right, keys in front left, cell phone in front right, handkerchief in back left).
I frantically figured out my number and got to talk to a living person at my bank, who calmly explained to me how it's totally possible for me to have both a negative and positive account balance. He starts saying: "yeah, see when you went to [insert crappy department store here] and spent 100+ dollars, and then [insert 15 more stores here] and spent multiple hundreds more, you had a deficit of 300 dollars".

Around about when he started listing all the stores I've never even heard of, I started panicking. Suddenly I had to wonder if I was having breaks from reality and was going on a spending spree. They asked me when I might have "lost" my card, and my first thought was when I was in the bank (where I live), but then Bluejay (genius, intelligent, lovely Bluejay) thought to have me ask them where all these purchases were being made.

Turns out, one of the patrons/residents at my job swiped my debit cards from my wallet from my backpack, from behind my desk,..... while I was briefly out of the room. I know this, because almost all of the purchases were made in the town where my job is.

I immediately went into damage control: I asked them to cancel my card, asked whether I'd be charged for the overdraft fees (of which there will be many) found out that I WILL be charged, but, oh hey, if they investigate and decide that I DIDN'T spend the money, then I'll get it all back, additionally found out that they won't start any damn investigation for at least a couple days because "the amount has been deducted from your account but it hasn't yet been POSTED", realized that since whoever did this also saw my credit card (even though it wasn't taken) that I needed to call my CREDIT people, had to stop my old card, realized that my bill was due in literally days and there was no way I was going to be able to pay it, had to call my landlord (since they hadn't deposited my rent yet) and hope that someone heard my message on monday before they cashed my check, called the police (in the town where I work), got told that they'd take my statement monday, finally went to my parents house, called the police again (mistakenly thinking that maybe since they'd interupted me last time, they hadn't heard enough) got interupted again and told that "if it really mattered to you, you'd have come in the second it happened" told off the police (I know, stupid) saying: "EXCUSE ME, I found out 20 minutes ago" followed by some inarticulate griping about how a thousand dollars is important and does matter to me, and how could you think that it doesn't matter to me, and that is my RENT, and argh (and hung up).
Today I: got a new bank account, called my landlord again, deposited a loaner check from my parents (into said new account), found out that the person who used my card used it less than an hour after I got in to work, went to one of the stores and asked them to save the video from that day, called the police, called them BACK when they didn't actually send an officer, realized that it had to have been only one of the patrons, went to the store (with the police officer) and found out that the tape doesn't have anyone I recognize at all!!!!

ARGH.

Now I'm just about certain that I know who stole my cards, but I can't do ANYTHING to them, since we don't have them on tape making any purchases. I'm sure I could go to multiple other stores they shopped in to get a picture with better quality (and hope somehow I do recognize the person), other than those stores won't show me the footage probably unless the police are accompanying me, and they aren't going to want to do that.

Half the time I wish I could have caught them and they could go to jail and I could feel safe again, half the time I realize that it's a fucked up world and that I'm never safe and so it's silly to think that would help, and the third half of the time I think about how screwed up the legal system is, and how I generally view it as racist and classist, and wish that I didn't want it to protect me, why didn't it protect me, fucking hell, just protect me! Since I'm of the opinion that it directly hurts those most oppressed in our society anyway, and most protects those who already have privilege.

I'm tired and scared, I feel violated and confused (how could they do this to me? I didn't realize that someone here could hate me that much) and I'm at work for another hour.

"A Boy's Life" or "My Seething Hatred of Bigots"

2009-04-04T20:19:00.011-04:00

So I was reading my mission statement post. Apparently I'm happy on this here blog a lot less than I previously indicated I would be.

I was gonna try to change that too, you know? I thought I'd post some awesome recipe or something that made me gleeful and happy.

And then I had the misfortune of hearing about this odious little piece of shit "news" article.

It's called "A Boy's Life" and is (surprise) about a young trans girl. She had apparently told people that she was a girl SINCE BEING ABLE TO TALK. Yet the author of this horror uses the wrong pronouns and names for the entire story. That is, up until the young girl's mother decides that she's going to quit fighting the inevitable. So, just more proof that children aren't actual people, but tiny mobile extensions of their parents.

Here's a gem from the end:

It’s not impossible to imagine Brandon’s

Her name is Bridget, which we find out in the last damn page, and which the author obviously knew well before printing the damn article

life going in another direction. His

"Her" you fucking idiot

early life fits neatly into a Zucker[rhymes with Fucker] case study about family noise. Tina describes [Bridget] as “never leaving my side” during [her] early years. The diagnosis writes itself: father, distant and threatening; mother, protector; child overidentifies with strong maternal figure.

Oh yeah,that's totally what happened, since the kid was identifying as a girl since age TWO. I personally base all of my gender identity on my memories of being two, don't you? Hello, paging Dr. Fucker, Freud's a crackpot, and you are too.

If Tina had lived in Toronto, if she’d had the patience for six years of Dr. [F]ucker’s therapy, if the therapy had been free, then who knows?

"Who knows" indeed!, perhaps 'poor' Bridget could be 'cured'. Especially if her mom had just had the patience. What a tragic fate to be subjected to, just because her mother didn't live in range of a psychopath with a degree. Come to think of it, how did you Ms. Hanna Rosin, manage to get a journalism degree? Did you??????

Yet [F]ucker’s approach has its own disturbing elements.

Other than refusing to acknowledge a child's gender identity? Do tell!

It’s easy to imagine that his methods—steering parents toward removing pink crayons from the box, extolling a patriarchy no one believes in

tell that to the hundreds of survivors of sexual violence that posted in the past 49 hours on Shakesville's survivor thread, or how about the women of fucking Afghanistan, who currently have legislation making it possible for their husbands to refuse to them medical treatment, oh and gives them no legal recourse against rape. Yeah NO ONE believes in the patriarchy.

—could instill in some children a sense of shame and a double life. A 2008 study of 25 girls [trans boys] who had been seen in [F]ucker’s clinic showed positive results;

What do you think of as "positive"?

22 were no longer gender-dysphoric, meaning they were comfortable living as girls. But that doesn’t mean they were happy

oh, silly, I thought that "positive" and "happy" were related!

I spoke to the mother of one [F]ucker patient in her late 20s, who said her [son] was repulsed by the thought of a sex change but was still suffering—[he’d] become an alcoholic, and was cutting [him]self. “I’d be surprised if she outlived me,” [his] mother said.

You heard it folks, apparently none of these young transmen are trans anymore! They just want to/are trying to kill themselves. Sounds like a peachy fucking cure.

I literally couldn't read through this entire article. Maybe one day I'll have the stomach to give it the editing (for intelligence) it so clearly deserves.

The Devaluing of Women

2009-04-03T20:07:00.012-04:00

The Male Privilege Checklist: 31. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)

"Sir, do you see in the courtroom, the man who mugged you?"
"Yes. Over there, the defendant."
"And tell us in your own words what happened"
"Yeah um, I was at Mulligan's at Fifth and 24th and he, I mean the defendant, came over to me and asked about the game. Um, the Peacocks were winning. Since I'm a Penguins fan, I was sort of bummed. And he and I talked for maybe 10 minutes about the lousy season they've been having. Maybe an hour later, after the game was over, I started walking home, I had work in the morning, you know? Anyway, maybe 10 blocks from home is where he mugged me"
"He mugged you? can you be specific?"
"Yeah, his hand was in his pocket and it looked like he had a gun and he told me to give him all my money. I sort of froze, so I just got out my wallet and gave it all to him."
"And how much did he take?"
"Objection your Honor, relevance?"
"Sustained."
"What happened next?"
"I ran to my apartment and when I got there I called the police, told them I'd been mugged. They, they, didn't believe me. I still had my wallet and my watch. They told me to call back the next morning if I still wanted to make a formal complaint, but told me that since it was a 'he said, he said' situation, it'd be hard to pin it on him."
"Thank you. That'll be all. Defense, your witness."
"So, you were at the BAR Mulligan's when you met the man you accuse of mugging you?"
"Uh, Yes."
"But you DID know him right? You know that he works at the same company you do, right?"
"Yeah, but it's a big company..."
"Your Honor, I have evidence showing that the witness and the defendant had a prior relationship. Exhibit G is videotape footage of them both at the company picnic. See right there? During the Frisbee game they were on the same team, and again here: you see they are shown chatting at the buffet. Mr. Smith, did you, or did you not say after the game: 'Good job Steve, nice catch'?"
"Objection! Whether or not the victim had a prior relationship with the the defendant doesn't have any relevance to whether or not Mr. Kibner stole money from Mr. Smith"
"Your Honor, the witness tried to hide their prior relationship, it goes towards credibility."
"Overruled. Answer the question Mr. Smith."
"Yes. But...."
"In fact, isn't it true that on June 24th, 2009 you in fact lent Mr. Smith some money?"
"It was a dollar for the snack mach..."
"Please answer yes or no."
"Objection! Relevance?"
"Your Honor! Mr. Smith and the defendant had a prior monetary relationship!"
"Overruled."
"Fine. It seems Mr. Smith that you in fact have a HISTORY of monetary relationships. Isn't that right? In fact, did you, or did you not, in the last year give several donations to Bluepeace, Planned Childhood, Habitat for Ocelots, Heifer Intranational, The Red Crucifix, Psychologists without Borders, and Okaywill? And that's just what we found talking to your family. According to your neighbors and friends, it seems you gave to MANY people, isn't that right?"
"Objection!"
"Withdrawn. Mr. Kibner claimes that you told him you wanted to give him some money."
"I didn't!!! I never told him I wanted to give him any of my money!"
"So you just HAPPENED to meet Mr. Kibner in the bar. Mr. Kibner who you had a PRIOR monetary relationship with. And when walking home late at night, you just HAPPENED to run into Mr. Kibner. Mr. Smith, where was your wallet that night?"
"What?"
"I'll repeat it, Mr. Smith: where do you keep your wallet?"
"In my front pants' pocket, why?"
"Mr. Smith, did you, or did you not, take OUT your wallet, MULTIPLE times during the night and flash your money in Mr. Kibner's face?"
"I was paying for my drinks!"
"You were drinking? Mr. Smith, did you get drunk that night?"
"I don't understand..."
"So you admit that you were drunk, and had given Mr. Kibner money in the past. Tell me, If Mr. Kibner was mugging you, why didn't you fight back?"
"I thought he had a gun, his hands were in his pockets and he told me to give him money."
"But he didn't have a gun. And you never said 'No', you never yelled or did anything to indicate that you didn't WANT to give him that money."
"I didn't!!!"
"For all WE know, you really DID want to give Mr. Kibner your money, and only after you got home, you realized that it'd been a mistake. And that's when you called the police. AFTER you realized you wanted your money back. Your Honor. I'd like to suggest that Mr. Smith had an 'unfulfilling giving experience' and is using this farce to cover up his shame."

Does this make sense to anyone? I didn't think so. Yet everyday people suggest these exact same things to rape survivors. On a recent blog post/comment thread at Shakesville one commenter actually described having a a therapist call her rape an "Unfulfilling sexual experience."

UNFULFILLING SEXUAL EXPERIENCE?!!!!!!!

Discuss.

"On the Verge of An Affair" (Why Redbook can kiss my furry ass)

2009-03-27T12:14:00.009-04:00

What the fuck? (All emphasis mine)

So... despite any obvious signs of cheating in your so-called friendship, ask yourself: Are you having an emotional affair?
You've Probably Crossed the Line if You...
1. Touch your male friend in "legal" ways, like picking lint off his blazer.
2. Pay extra attention to how you look before you see him.
3. Think crush-like thoughts like "He'd love this song!"
4. Tell him more details about your day than you do your partner.
5. No longer feel comfortable telling your mate about this person and begin to cover up your relationship.
6. Experience increasing sensual tension; you admit your attraction to him but also insist to yourself that you would never act on it.
It's About to Get Physical When You...
[7]. Find yourself feeling vulnerable and turn to the other man for support rather than to your mate or a trusted relative or girlfriend.
[8]. Accelerate the level of intimacy through sensual or suggestive talk over email or the phone.
[9]. Put yourself in a situation where the two of you could be alone.
You Can Avoid the Potential Affair if You...
[10]. Stay honest with your partner. Share with him all your hopes, triumphs, and failures -- as well as your attractions and temptations, which will help keep you from acting on them.
[11]. Make time for just the two of you on a regular basis -- away from the kids, your friends, and family.
[12]. Surround yourself with happy couples who don't believe in fooling around. Having positive, emotionally connected role models will help you stay on track.

I believe we have found the mother lode folks! But let's start at the top and work our way down.

1. So if you touch a guy in a "legal" way that means it's crossing a line. I suppose touching him in an "illegal way" means that you're not? No? Oh. So you mean that the "legal" in that sentence was to indicate that this is ostensibly allowable while in a relationship?
So basically this one should read: if you ever have physical contact with a man other than the one you are officially connected to, you're crossing the line. Thanks for the heads up!
2. I love this. See, this is directed at (straight, because all people are straight) women. Never mind that women are constantly told in our culture that they should pay attention to how they look. See, they said "extra" attention. You can tell it's "extra" because it's "crossing the line"! and you can tell it's "crossing the line" because you're paying "extra" attention! LOVE IT.
3. For realz???? Thinking that someone would like a song is a "crush-like" thought? Damn. I always thought "wouldn't it be cool if he liked me" was a crush-like thought. Righto.
Now off to formally retract every time I suggested a book, movie, song, television show, author, comedian, or performer to someone else (not to mention food! oh god, the formerly happy couples I may have ruined!!!!). Guess I'd better get going since that's a WHOLE LOT of people that I've apparently had crushes on who need to be informed of my cheating, cheating ways.
4. I don't even know what to say to this. Half of what you see on television implies that men are supposed to not give a fuck about the daily lives of their (female) partners.
5. When did "mate" become synonymous with "partner"? I see "mate" and I think: animals. Animals mate. Humans don't really "mate".
Plus, now we're just being confusing to non U.S. readers, since "mate" in the UK (I don't know about elsewhere) means friend.
6. Now the reader isn't allowed to have a libido. Great. I wonder, wouldn't the writer consider it appropriate/"normal" to have a crush on Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Jude Law, some other famous heartthrob? But I guess only if you don't know them, eh?

7. Ok. Fuck you. Officially. Basically we have just erased every lesbian in the world. A) I hate this "girlfriends" crap when talking about straight women. They're called friends. Apparently oftentimes they are girls, because if they aren't (and are instead sometimes boys) you're going to get hit over the head with how you're a BAD girlfriend (because being friends with a boy is impossible.... don't you know all men want is to have sex with every woman around them????). B) When did it become acceptable to have RADICALLY different meanings for words when said by women versus men. If I say 'fish sticks", I mean a breaded fish product made into a "stick" shape, if a cisgendered person says "fish stick" I assume they mean the same thing, not, oh "broccoli quiche". So when I say "girlfriend", I mean a person who I'm dating who identifies as a woman who I like to kiss, and maybe even have sex with. Not, oh, "someone who is absolutely no threat to my boyfriend because they don't even register as a sexual person to me". Those definitions are mutually exclusive. GAH.
This is always extra frustrating because when I hear a straight woman say that, I am suddenly overcome with confusion. Oh my, I assumed she was straight (I'm such a jerk to assume she was straight, I should know that assuming only butch looking women are queer erases femininity and femmes and is totally not ok), oh wow! she's out and poly, that's awesome. Oh wait. She was just talking about "quiche," silly me, thinking she meant the word she actually said.
9. Clearly it is always the woman's responsibility to make sure that she never strays, or is in a compromising position. Didn't you know? Hey.... you know, if you stay late at work you could be alone with someone else at work. Holy SHIT. I guess I better get my ass out of here at 5 everyday. I love this. Not even "avoid being alone" but "avoid the POSSIBILITY of being alone". Ok, I lied. I hate this.

10. This is the same as 4. Teach women that they should never have any secrets from their partners, that they should constantly talk to their partners about everything they feel and think and do, and then on the other hand, teach men that they should be as uninterested as possible in what women feel and think and do. Great. I'll put it on my to do list: irreparably damage my relationship(s) by having unrealistic expectations for myself and partner(s). CHECK!
12. Surround yourself with happy couples who don't believe in fooling around. Having positive, emotionally connected role models will help you stay on track.
Do I have to say more? don't be friends with single people, don't be friends with poly people, you clearly are so incompetent that you can't figure out if your relationship is working so try to just stay out of trouble by being friends with the "right crowd". (Oh and don't be friends with lesbians because then your "girlfriends" will be a threat to your virile virile boyfriends)

Anyone else notice that this is for women? And SURPRISE! so are articles about how to spot a cheating partner. So women should be constantly vigilant that THEY never cheat, and should be constantly vigilant that their (male) PARTNERS never cheat. yeparoo. Women are the sole bastions of responsibility in relationships.

So: disrespect of women, disrespect of men, erasure of lesbians, disrespect of single people, outright disgust with poly people, am I missing something?

And people wonder why I hate pop. culture.

PS. For a super interesting read about the ways that single people are Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After I suggest you check out the forementioned book by Bella DePaulo.

I Just Came OUT

2009-03-26T16:33:00.008-04:00

At work. As an atheist. To one of the patrons/residents here at my lovely work.

It wasn't something I was planning on doing. In fact, just about every identity I claim here on this blog/in my everyday life* is something that I generally have made an effort to not talk about. I work really hard to educate the people who come in (generally try to call them on their -isms, throw them out for using slurs, discuss with them why various things might be hurtful, etc.) but I don't believe that I'll get any more mileage from my educating by outing myself constantly.

But. It had to happen.

A) I hate sneezing. I find it uncomfortable and confusing. I don't like the build up, and I don't like the release. After sneezing, I want to pretend that it never happened. Fine, I'm a freak. Sue me. B) this means any type of post sneeze traditional phrase is not particularly exciting for me C) I'm an atheist so "god bless you" is a useless/frustrating phrase to me, even when it's a reflex. D) There is a guy who comes in every day, and EVERY time I sneeze, he feels compelled to say "god bless you" [EDIT:] as though he's a Catholic priest, I mean a real "God Bless You" /[EDIT:] E) he also feels compelled to act as though he is sprinkling/throwing holy water on me whenever he does this. [EDIT:] multiple times, like a little ritual /[EDIT:] F) MAYBE this was funny the first time he ever did it, but it isn't any more. G) (you like the little list thing? yeah, I don't know why I'm doing it either)

Anyway. Today I sneezed. This is probably the 20th time I've sneezed at work since I started working here (I just pulled that number out of my ass). I've been getting the creepy holy water treatment for weeks. Today he did it again. Apparently the 20th time is one too many. Read below to see how I utterly offended him. Not for the faint of heart!!!!!

"Hey, though I appreciate the sentiment, it actually sort of makes me uncomfortable when you say 'god bless you' like that. I'm an atheist" (I know! I'm surprised he didn't have heart palpitations from how rude and shocking it was!)

"I guess we'll never be friends."

"Huh? We'll never be friends?" (originally I thought he said "we'll never be MORE than friends"...)

"Yeah. I was born Catholic, but now I'm a born again Christian, I'm looking for a seventh day church these days"

HOLY SHIT. (haha...yes atheists do indeed say things like this)
You can't be friends with me because I don't want you fake sprinkling holy water on me? What the poop! I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn't the "don't sprinkle" part, but the atheist part. Or perhaps just the "not the right type of believer" part.

This is the privilege of being a Christian (in the U.S.). So infrequently being confronted with someone not believing like you that you can pretend we don't exist. So infrequently being confronted with someone not believing that you assume everyone you meet is like you. So infrequently being confronted by non-believers that you can become offended when someone doesn't want you doing little fake holy rites over them. So infrequently being surrounded by non-believers that you can pick and choose whether you want to continue any type of pleasant association with someone based on whether they agree with your beliefs.

As my sister would say: whatevs....

*interacting with people who DON'T have anything to do with whether I can afford to eat or not

Spy vs. Spy (Or What I Don't Get About Straight Culture)

2009-03-18T16:34:00.012-04:00

According to my local Metro (emphasis mine):

"That '70s Show" star Danny Masterson has asked his girlfriend of four years, Bijou Phillips, to marry him-- and she said yes, Hollyscoop reports. The couple met at a celebrity poker tournament in Las Vegas, where Phillips was initially attracted to his disinterest in her. "Every guy at the table was flirting with me but Danny. He wasn't laughing at my jokes," Phillips told Paper magazine.

Ok. So.

Could someone explain this to me? No wait, scratch that.

What is up with (you) straight people?

What's with this weird little culture of antagonism that straight people seem to have set up? What's with the spy vs. spy crap?

So this is how it went? Boy meets girl, girl notices boy doesn't seem interested in girl, girl... pursues boy? boy becomes interested in girl? boy now pursues girl? boy and girl spend 4 years together, boy proposes to girl?

Seriously? Ok, somewhere in there, there HAD to have been lying. Either he wasn’t interested or he PRETENDED to be not interested. Lady, you’re attracted to someone that you know either finds your jokes tedious, or has a history of pretending things that aren’t true/misleading you? This seems like a recipe for fucking disaster.

More probably it was: boy meets girl, boy pretends to not be interested because he knows that in straight culture showing interest is a sure way to fail, girl therefore pursues boy (thus falling for his devious plan), boy (when the time is right) deviously hooks girl, boy and girl spend 4 years together, boy proposes to girl.

When I started dating Bluejay, I got a bad case of NRE (New Relationship Energy). I wanted to call Bluejay all the time, I wanted to see Bluejay (all the time), I just basically was a little Bluejay obsessed. So I did. My straight roommate thought I was out of my mind. Apparently, if a guy called HER every day, she'd think he was desperate. She admitted it was a game, but said that if a guy didn’t want to play, it meant he wasn’t really interested….
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? So, if a guy shows interest in you, then that means he’s not really interested, because if he WAS, then he’d pretend to be not interested in you? Where does that leave guys who just genuinely don’t like you? Does that mean that to make sure you never start liking them, they have to constantly pursue you? Seems a little counter intuitive.

Ok. So girls know it's a game, boys seem to either know or just have learned how to play instinctively... So revision of the story.

Boy meets girl, boy pretends to not be interested because he knows that if he does girl will reject him, girl therefore knows that he is actually interested since he went to the trouble of pretending to be NOT interested and thus pursues him, boy (now knowing that the game has been successfully started) starts pursuing girl, boy and girl then spend four years actually learning about the other since their initial courtship merely indicates their understanding of the rules of the game/their interest, boy asks girl to marry him.

This is becoming a full blown paragraph!

If it was my story (on their timeline) it'd be this: boy meets genderqueer, boy and genderqueer pursue each other, boy and genderqueer spend 4 years together, boy and genderqueer get married.
(I'd like to point out that "genderqueer" has WAY more letters than "girl" and yet my story is still shorter than the original).

Personally, I like less stress. I like knowing what the fuck is going on, and not having to figure it out by finding all the pieces of paper, glueing them together, holding them over a candle, hoping the lemon juice trick still works (and that I didn't glue any pieces on wrong side out), holding the paper up to a mirror to see the backwards writing, and then translating from Aramaic! I like knowing that when someone seems interested, they ARE interested, and the way to know if they aren't interested is obvious (they don't call, they don't seem excited to see you, they don't laugh at your jokes).
Hell! I like having people laugh at my jokes. Even if they aren't flirting with me. Even if they in general find me as unattractive as I find dumpsters and fire hydrants. Maybe it's an ego thing, but I think I'm pretty gosh dern funny, and I don't want to be around a whole lot of people who don't agree. I think it'd hurt my feelings.

It makes me feel ill...

2009-03-17T08:42:00.003-04:00

When I started this blog, I assumed that I would primarily write about the communities that I'm a part of. It felt presumptive to try to write about racism, able-bodiedism, and classism (if I'm forgetting any, I'm of course sorry, but more importantly would like to hear about it). Though I try to be an ally to these communities, I never want to put myself out there as being able to speak for them.

But I'm sick of this. I'm sick of reading about an unarmed, black, 73-year-old-cancer-surivor shot dead by police (in Louisiana). And I'm sick of this: Police in Tenaha, Texas pulling over black drivers in order to extort money, jewelry, cars, cellphones, and anything that looks valuable, from them. I'm sick of black men being shot in the back while handcuffed and on the ground (in California). *

But more than I'm sick about reading about these things, I'm sick of only reading about them on one blog, only hearing about them for a day in the news (if at all). I'm sick of knowing that 1 in 3 missing/kidnapped children are black, but the media reports on them only a fifth of the time (Missing Children in the News).

It was a mistake to not make a commitment to blog about the discrimination that other communities face. It was a mistake that I am going to try to rectify from here on out.** I cannot and will not speak for others, but I can try to draw attention to oppression as it happens around me. Please, if you have a blog, friends, family, a zine, or really any way to communicate with others, Let Them Know what is happening.

*Please go to Pam's House Blend for the complete Louisiana article and story. No seriously, go. And go here for the Texas article. And here for the California article.

**In that vein, please, please, send me suggestions for blogs. At the moment, my regular blog list is primarily composed of blogs devoted to atheism, queer communities, feminism, and one or two about racial privilege.

Sexuality and Gender: Or How I Knew I Was a Guy

2009-03-16T00:56:00.011-04:00

I had my first crush (on a boy) in 2nd grade, my first crush (on a girl) in 9th grade. I identified (in chronological order) as: (straight, only not really, it's just most people's default unless they realize otherwise), straight, straight-and-I-didn't-say-that-girl-was-hot-I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about, bi, wishing-I-was-a-lesbian-but-too-bad-guys'-wrists-are-so-damn-hot, asexual, lesbian, lesbian-and-fuck-you-if-I-have-a-boyfriend, a dyke, piesexual (no, it's not what you think), and finally (today) queer.

For as long as I can remember, (after realizing I liked girls), I felt supremely uncomfortable about my attraction to guys.* It didn't make sense. I'd read Dykes to Watch Out For and feel kinship with the characters, but then wonder what to do about the fact that men's torsos held so much sway over me. Sometimes I'd rationalize it away thinking: oh, I just wish I looked more like them, it'd be nice to not have these breasts.

But not once (until college) did this thought translate into: hey! I wish I didn't have this (female) body! Maybe I'm not a girl!
Not quite sure how the connection was missed, but indeed it was.

Early at college I struggled a bit with seeing trans and genderqueer folks on campus and finding them hot and wishing I looked like them, but assumed it was simply my own lookism/wish to be skinny (and thus able to look so effortlessly androgynous) and not an actual desire to be perceived as anything other than female. And so I continued as I was.

Later, I started (very casually) seeing a man. It totally fucked with my head. We weren't even dating, but still I hated thinking that everywhere we went, people who looked at us thought we were in a straight relationship. I knew that my non-hetero identity was instantly erased because we were: boy + girl. It wasn't just how other people saw us, it was how I saw us as well. Seemingly overnight, I stopped feeling aggressive and powerful and sexy, and started worrying if I was calling too much, not enough, did I sound desperate, why hadn't he called me back, and lastly, How the fuck did you work that thing? As a girl, in relation to a guy, I had NO CLUE what to do. I spent a whole lot of time trying to justify to myself (and my friends, unneeded though it was) how I could be dating, I mean "officially not dating", a guy.

We broke up, I mean "officially stopped officially not dating". A year later I came out to myself. (These are not nearly so related as it may sound).

When my mom asked me why I couldn't just be a butch lesbian, my answer was twofold: I'm not butch, and I like guys.

'Cause you know what, I DO like guys, I like guys in the queerest fucking way I know how. I like guys in such a gay, gay, way, that .... that I'm surprised rainbows don't pop out my ass. I like guys, not like a girl likes guys (which, for the record, is any way that a girl who likes a guy, likes guys) but like a guy likes guys. 'Cause I'm a guy. Got it?

For years I hated myself for liking men. I couldn't do a damned thing about it, but it was constantly there. Taunting me. It made no sense, to everyone else my desire for guys was perfectly normal. But to me, it felt like some fundamental betrayal of myself. Nothing I did or felt, was right. The second I came out as a guy: *POOF* Queer as a three-sided square, and felt like it was the truth for the first time.

So yeah, my gender isn't my sexuality. But when I finally figured out the one, the other just slipped right into place. These days, as a queer genderqueer trans guy (who likes who I like, without regard to their gender), I feel aggressive and powerful and (mostly) sexy, and I never worry about whether I call too much, sound too desperate, or whether I know how to work that thing.

*When I had a boyfriend (in High School) who had a beard, I tried to think of it as training for pubic hair on girls.

Too Angry to Blog

2009-03-13T01:37:00.004-04:00

I can barely think right now, I'm so angry. My partner's EX (huge emphasis on ex) roommates are threatening to take him to court. Because they want him to have to pay for their current (in no way something that he used) gas bills. (long story short). Dumbest part is that THEY CAN'T (perhaps I should say: Shouldn't be able to) EVEN GET HER DAMN MONEY. Since she doesn't make enough for the court to allow them to seize it. Additionally (connected to the trans theme of the blog), now that they are threatening him, they are putting his name in quotation marks!!! See.... his legal name is "Sarah Smith" and the actual name he uses to all friends and acquaintences is "Bluejay Smith"*. As soon as they started this bullshit, out come the: Dear Sarah "Bluejay" Smith emails.....

Fuck you. Someone's identity (gender or otherwise) is not a weapon you get to use against them just because you're pissed. This just shows you have been an asshole, and hiding your prejudice the entire time. It gives you NO points in an argument, and in any decent society, should actually lose you some.

The same damn thing happened just a couple weeks ago also. One of my roommates was pissed at the other (who is trans). In the middle of her tirade about the other, she used the wrong pronoun. I had to stop her and say: it's not ok to refuse to acknowledge someone's gender identity just 'cause you're pissed at them. She stopped, but answered: "whatever". I still don't think she got it. I will never again think that she respects my gender, since apparently it's something she thinks she can SHUCK at will, if the person she's angry at is trans.

What. The. Fuck!?

What memo did I miss saying it was "asshole (ex)roommate month"? Seriously. If I'd known, I would have at least been forewarned. And you know what they say: Forewarned is forearmed....

Because I sure need extra ulnas and radii!!!

Seriously. If you know of any way to get some legal advice (my partner, even though he's low income, isn't covered by legal aid because of being partially supported by parents), I'd appreciate it a whole hell of a lot.

*names changed to protect the horribly wronged. Also, No I have not messed up my partner's pronouns by changing them up in the middle of the post. Get used to it.

The Privilege of Recognition

2009-03-06T22:23:00.006-05:00

"Passing" is a pretty big concept in the trans (and gay, and many others) community. Seriously, it's like, kind of a big deal. Some people really want to, others don't, some think that the word has a lot of fucked up meaning (for instance: implying there is a deception going on) and other don't.

There is the privilege of passing, and there is the privilege that allows passing. Both of these are frustrating to be on the other side of.

I use the word because a) it IS a common word, and b) it's less unwieldy than some longer phrases*. Also I use "passing" to indicate being perceived as the appropriate gender, and thus use it to talk also about the way that cisgendered** people operate in the world.

If you've never been inappropriately gendered by someone (assumed to be the wrong gender) then you've had the privilege of passing your whole life. Part of the "privilege" of that situation is the fact that you can not even notice when you invoke it. One generally only notices when other people don't pass. We hardly notice when people do (that's the whole point, it's invisible!)

Equally frustrating, from a class stand point is the fact that passing itself is a function of privilege. A lot of what facilitates passing is money. Money and time. Money for new clothes, new haircuts, surgeries, hormones, voice lessons, name change forms, etc.

But all of this is tangential to what I wanted to get to. The fact is, in the trans community I interact with most, these are already understood on some level and discussed. I want to talk about something else, what I think of as the privilege of recognition.

I really enjoyed Julia Serano's book, it gave me a lot of really exciting and challenging things to think through. A whole shit-ton having to do with the way that masculinity is privileged in our society, and how masculine/male identified trans individuals are given a whole hell of a lot of privilege within the queer/trans community that is TOTALLY UNFAIR (ok, I know that's the whole "privilege" schtick!) just because we in line with our misogynistic society's standards for what is supposed to be admired. And especially how, as a feminist and a trans guy, I need to start being way more aware of the ways that my actions/community/lack of action may be exclusionary for trans women.

But Whipping Girl also gave me a couple: "you're overlooking things" moments. As I've mentioned before, I don't pass. When people look at me or talk to me, they invariably gender me as female. Part of the privilege of passing is that I, as a non-passing trans guy feel like I need to justify other people's inability to accurately assess my gender. As if it's my fault. I don't pass for a variety of reasons: a) I'm a very femme-y guy (this will be a whole post unto itself someday soon), b) I have a large chest, c) I am not taking hormones, probably a whole bunch I don't even think to think of ('cause it ain't my job to folks!). But one thing that I DO is wear entirely men's clothing.

In case you're wondering, clothing does JACK SHIT for a trans man (at least in the experience of this trans man). As Ms. Serano points out, feminism has made it possible for women to wear items that traditionally were reserved exclusively for men. So when I, as a trans guy, walk down the street, I'm just one more female bodied person wearing pants. Which is where the privilege of recognition comes in. There is not a day that goes by that I didn't wish that people who looked at me could/would ascertain what gender I was attemping to be seen as. Which is different from passing. Right now, I could give a rat's ass if people who looked at me thought I was a boy. What I long for is for them to at least recognize that I don't see myself as a girl. In fact, as a genderqueer who never wants to be unequivocably gendered male, by (one day, maybe) being gendered male, I won't be "passing". Either I, or society will have overshot the damn mark.

So I'm extraordinarily aware of a privilege that I believe often doesn't affect trans men, and often does affect trans women. It's a symptom of the fucked up misogyny in our society, and it's that trans women wearing women's clothing have a much higher percentage chance of being recognized as gendering themselves female/not gendering themselves male. Regardless of if they pass.

If they don't pass, this puts them in danger. It makes them highly visible. It's perhaps weird and fucked up that I think of this as a privilege. But this is the thing: I would RATHER be stared at and worried about my safety than constantly aware that not one person on the street even realizes that my self-identity is not female. This constant awareness has been wearing away at me as long as I can remember**. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it'd be much worse to be stared at and worried about whether I was in danger.
But... just like when trans activists ask cisgendered crowds whether they'd give up their gender for some amount of money, my roommate (a trans woman) has said she'd rather die than have everyone passing her on the street assume that she sees herself as a man.

Maybe I'm just mistaken about what "passing" means. But I don't think so. I think there is a distinct privilege in knowing that you are indicating to society what you mean to, even if society is an ass and refuses to agree with your assessment of yourself.

Since nothing I will do will be "male enough" until I actually am perceived as exclusively male, "recognition" is going to be a process that I can only approach from one side (supposed maleness). I can't sneak up on having my gender identity perceived from where I am now. That frustrates me. Maybe I'll start wearing a giant pin that just says: "I'm not a girl" or "Trans GUY".

Anyone got a giant pin making machine?

*That said, I'm hardly uniform in my use of it. So if I start using other phrases, tough ganoogies.
**Everyone is born, but someone who is cisgendered is someone who is: born, gendered at birth, raised in that gender, and throughout their life feels comfortable in that same gender. Born, raised, happy (or if not happy, at home).
Whereas someone who is transgendered is: born, gendered at birth, partially (or fully) raised in that gender, and starting at some point (or throughout) their life feels EXTREME discomfort with that erroneously assigned gender.
***There are whole months of my life (post coming-out) that I've lost; too upset at knowing that if I went out I would be not only gendered incorrectly, but not even recognized as trying to gender myself differently, and therefore stayed in my apartment, and on bad days, not even leaving my bedroom.

Women's Clothes

2009-03-05T20:52:00.025-05:00

One of the major reasons I finally got off my butt to start this blog was wanting to explore some of the ideas in a book I've been reading, Whipping Girl: A Transexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano.

Towards the end Ms. Serano makes a point about how we view masculinity as "normal" and femininity as "unnatural", saying: "[t]hose feminists who single out women's dress shoes, clothing, and hairstyles to artificialize necessarily leave unchallenged the notion that their masculine counterparts are 'natural' and 'practical'" (339).

Which got me to thinking. About how in the current (U.S. based) society, humans are one of the few species in which the plumage of the male is so much less impressive than the female. Take this

He is one of the "best dressed" according to the Yahoo or something. Impressively stylish, yes? What a powerful figure he makes (or some such gobbledy gook). Gosh, he's so... so.... well dressed.

Ok. Now to look at a "best dressed" woman (same source). Wow, she sure pops off the page, yes? If the two of them were in the same picture, I sure know who MY eye would tend towards.

"But" you say, "she's in bright colors! How could he possibly hope to compete with such a stunning example of neon color!!!"

Ok, you probably don't say that. You probably realize that I am setting you up. Perhaps your eye has even strayed to my next image (oh, to be able to keep this second image hidden until the appropriate time! what fun it would be!) .

Look here! A woman, dressed all in black and white! And she too is so much more vivid a figure.

Ok, seriously, snark aside: women clearly get more exciting clothes. Frankly, even though I'm very very VERY happy in my dull grey pin-stripes and my dark/somber button up shirts, sometimes I look at my female roommate, in her vivid turquoise and her exciting shapes and sigh in envy. I mean LOOK at them. Women's clothes say something. They say: "I have a dead swan draped over my neck" (it they are Bjork) or "I am VERY shiny and pink" (if they are our first female example). Not just famous people either. My roommate seriously has fashion options far surpassing mine (and not just because I don't shop).

My glib summary of fashion is this: men get pockets, women get pizzazz!! (with two Z's and two exclamation marks). Isn't it strange that the male of the species doesn't look as POWERFUL as they supposedly are?

I want to do a little thought experiment. Think of every type of clothing, shoe, accessory and make up that we have (you started only thinking of women's clothing, didn't you?). Now try to think of them, as what they can be: ways to draw attention to yourself. Can you think of a way to make lipstick be not a "feminine" thing but just a decoration? How about eyeshadow? Metal bits with sparkly stones?

When I squint my mental eyes, I can see these things as what they truly are, not just what meanings we've given to all of them.

To go back to Ms. Serano's point: If clothing is meant to be a way to distinguish one's self (which I believe it is) how "practical" can it be to have men's clothing so incredibly BORING? And it seems pretty "artificial" that we look at the bright colors in women's clothing and don't immediately connect that to the natural world (butterflies, dart poison frogs, flowers, birds, take your pick). Basically I'd like to see a day where (more) men could feel comfortable wearing bright colors. And also a world where women's clothes had pockets. (I never got why they seemingly couldn't put pockets in a skirt).

I'm going to end with Julia Serano's "Barrette Manifesto" which is wickedly funny. But more importantly, it's also wickedly true. Which is why even though this post is long enough, it needs to be here*.

Barrette Manifesto

Hey girls, did you hear the news? It's just been scientifically proven that barrettes are dangerous! So are bracelets and bric-a-brac. It's a fact. And don't be fooled by thick-necked macho men who pretend that "girl stuff" is boring or frivolous, because that's just an act. Because as soon as you ask that guy to hold your purse for a minute, he will start to squirm, as if your handbag were full of worms, as he holds it as far away from his rugged body as possible. Because "girl stuff" is made with the gender equivalent of Kryptonite!

That's right, just watch fathers in Sanrio stores standing like petrified trees, like deer caught in Hello Kitty headlights. Or teenage boys buying their girlfriends flowers, acting as disinterested as possible as they ask the florist for a dozen "whatever"s. That's why they always buy roses, that's why engagement rings are always diamonds. These things are not romantic, they are just cliches-the only types of flowers and jewelry that most men will admit to knowing the names of. And god forbid you were to ask your husband to pick you up a box of tampons. (And men, it's true, the cashier really does think you're buying them for yourselves.)

"Girl stuff" is dangerous, and I should know because I'm a secret double agent. See, I lived as a boy for most of my life and I have insider information straight out of men's locker rooms and college dorms. Hell, I even went to a bachelor party once, so I know this stuff firsthand. And I have a battle plan for absolute sexual equality, but you have to trust me on this. See, feminists have made it okay for girls to explore what used to be an exclusively boy world. But true equality won't come until boys learn to embrace girl stuff as well.

So here's the deal: If you want your boyfriend to treat you with respect, then tell him that you won't sleep with him until he starts putting barrettes in his hair. And I'm not talking about secret bedroom kinky shit. Make him wear them to work! The next time he buys a pair of shoes, make sure they're Mary Janes (and don't forget the white lacy anklets to go with them). Because as soon as he realizes the pure bliss of wearing a frilly, pink, poofy, party dress, maybe he'll finally relax a bit and loosen up that uptight male swagger. And maybe one he lets his guard down, he'll look around and realize that the world doesn't revolve around him.

You may think this is funny, but it's no joke. "Girl stuff" is dangerous, so let's use it to our advantage. We truly can change the world! Because if construction workers were man enough to wear skirts and heels, they wouldn't whistle at women who walk by. And if misogynistic rockers and rappers were man enough toe cry while watching tearjerkers, they wouldn't need to masturbate all over the mic. And if presidents and generals were man enough to wear lip gloss and mascara, they wouldn't have to prove their penis size by going to war all the time. Because male pride is not really about pride. It's about fear--the fear of being seen as feminine. And that's why "girl stuff" is so dangerous. And as long as most men remain deathly afraid of it, they'll continue to take it out on the rest of us.

*all typos are entirely mine

Passing Online, Passing in Person

2009-03-04T22:32:00.007-05:00

I have to get a shameful secret out of the way. I know this might come as a shock. Perhaps even a surprise, but....

I am a feminist.

Have you had a chance to pick your jaw up off the floor? Ok good. Now that my non-revelation is done with, I can commence with the actual post.

One of the frustrating facts of my life is that I don't pass. Not only do I not pass, I don't cause confusion for people, even for a second. Seriously. The name I go by is a male name (obscure though it apparently is), and I can't even count the number of times I've had someone say: "Oh, that's so pretty". Once a guy looked it up online, found out that it was biblical in origin, presumably saw the little tag next to it saying that it was a male name, and still later came up to me and said: "it's Hebrew, I mean biblical right? It's really pretty, maybe if I ever have another daughter I'll name her that".
It's gotten to the point that I think that if I told people my name was Bob they'd say: "oh, that's really beautiful, is it short for Roberta? (perhaps I'll name MY daughter that)"

So that means that it should be a relief to me to be able to go on the internet, where people aren't looking at my non-masculine body, or listening to my too-affable-to-be-a-guy vocal patterns, or watching my femme-y mannerisms, and have people just judge me based on my name and my (genius) commentary on (fill in the blank).

Except for when it sort of sucks. When I want to post a comment about something that a (female identified) feminist has said, that I disagree with. Because then I run into all sorts of self-imposed confusion. This happened to me twice in the past week.

One of those times, it really didn't matter. I read a lot of (internet) comics, and one that I have recently added to my daily rollcall is Planet Karen (a diary of a UK goth gal). One of the commenters on the forum complained that the artist wasn't feminist enough in her comic*. I disagreed, but didn't say anything because some of Karen's fans already did a fairly good job responding to the comment.

However, I still haven't written the comment that I so desperately want to write regarding the blog post The Porn Industry is Ready to Exploit Nadaya Suleman in part because I am concerned that my legitimacy ("cred" if you will) as a feminist will be questioned because of my name.

See, I take being an ally fairly seriously (or I like to think I do). If a person of color points out something racist to me, I file it away as useful ally information. And if my privilege of being able-bodied is something I overlook (which I'm sure I often do), and someone calls me on it, I try to keep it in mind in the future. Same with my class privilege. But the thought of being an "ally" to women seems weird (not just because I've never heard it used that way). At least right now anyway. Online I may be able to pass as a guy, but in person, I never do.** Why should I be an ally to a group that I am assumed to be of? I have shared, and will continue to share the experiences of women for quite some time. But will this be seen as a co-optation?

I hate outing myself in every comment I make on another person's wall. It feels too much like trying to post my qualifications. But the truth is, I identify as genderqueer for a reason. I don't want to have people look at me and unequivocably think I'm male any more than I like having them assume I'm female. I don't currently, nor do I ever WANT to have male privilege.

So what's a guy like me to do in situations like these? Do I make a post with my name and hope that I don't have to get into some sort of feminist pissing contest? Do I "pre-empt" any pissing contest by being all: "me trans man, hear me roar"? Do I use a fake name that accurately identifies how others see me in the world (and therefore how I'm treated in terms of gender), if not how I see myself?*** Apparently I've opted to not make any comments 'cause it's all too frustrating to even deal with. At least in this instance.

I don't know. Looking at my last blog post, apparently I don't know the answer a lot. But at least I ask interesting questions. Right?

*(oversimplification of the comment)
**My lived experiences have twice, twice! (that I know of) included male privilege. Once in a store a clerk said: "for guys like us..." when trying to sell me a knife, and once a man yelled epithets out the window of a car and neglected to yell any female derogatory slurs. Both of these moments are some of the weirdest little treasures of my life.
***for the record, my reaction to that is an overwhelming: "Ugh!"