Blog Note

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Nostalgia for things that don't exist

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:

[visual for the entire video is: a picture of comedian/pianist Tim Minchin standing on top of a black grand piano at one of the side edges. He is looking behind himself over the edge of the right side of the piano. The piano's keycover is up, showing us the keys. Tim is wearing all dark blacks and browns, with his customary teased/"messy" hair. He is white and skinny.]

[piano, quiet, with quiet lyrics sung in Australian accent] I really like Christmas, it's sentimental I know, but I just really like it.
I am hardly religious:
I'd rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest. [audience laughter]
And yes I have all of the usual objections to consumerism,
to the commercialization of an ancient religion, to the westernization of a dead Palestinian press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer.
But I still really like it.

I'm looking forward to Christmas,
though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus.
I'll be seeing my dad, my brother and sisters, my gran and my mum:
they'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
I'll be seeing my dad, my brother and sisters, my gran and my mum:
they'll be drinking white wine in the sun.

[piano swells, violins added and lyrics sung more strongly]

I don't go in for ancient wisdom,
I don't believe just 'cause ideas are tenacious it means that they're worthy.
I get freaked out by Churches:
some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords, but the lyrics are spooky.
And yes I have all of the usual objections to the miseducation of children who in tax-exempt institutions are taught to externalize blame,
and to feel ashamed, and to judge things as plain right or wrong.
But I quite like the songs.
I'm not expecting big presents.
The old combination of socks, jocks, and chocolates is just fine by me.

'Cause I'll be seeing my dad, my brother and sisters, my gran and my mum:
they'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
I'll be seeing my dad, my brother and sisters, my gran and my mum:
they'll be drinking white wine in the sun.

[piano builds again, and violins swell]
And you my baby girl, my jet-lagged infant daughter,
you'll be handed 'round the room, like a puppy at a prim'ry school,
and you won't understand, but you will learn some day,
that wherever you are and whatever your face,
these are the people who make you feel safe in this world, my sweet blue-eyed girl.

And if my baby girl, when you're twenty one or thirty one,
and Christmas comes around,
and you find yourself nine thousand miles from home,
you'll know whatever comes: [violins drop out momentarily]
your brothers and sisters and me and your mum will be waiting for you in the sun, whenever you come [violins building again, it's quite a tear-jerking moment, which I say in full honesty], your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles, your grandparents, cousins, and me and your mum will be waiting for you in the sun, drinking white wine in the sun,
darling when Christmas comes,
we'll be waiting for you in the sun,
drinking white wine in the sun,
waiting for you in the sun, waiting for yoouuu.... [violins swell]
waiting... [violins come to a close with piano]
[quiet, as in beginning] I really like Christmas, it's sentimental I know... [piano slowly plays a few arpeggiated chords] [audience applause]

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

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!")

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

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?