Archive for April, 2006
Sunday, April 30th, 2006
Those pesky, luddite feminists [update 05/04/06: luddite used here to distinguish these feminists from socialist feminists, liberal feminists, marxist feminists, black feminists, working-class feminists, anti-racist feminists, anti-abortion feminists......oh, and lesbian feminists......] hurl the words "trans politics" like certain so-called christians scream about the "gay agenda."Rather than cower, I say, Yes, I have an agenda.Below please find a list of what I believe constitutes my transsexual agenda, my "trans politics."Understanding medical personnel who don't treat us like freaks. Those that do should be excommunicated from their profession. Criminal charges should be vigorously pursued at all times where appropriate.Cheap, barrier free access to healthcare insurance. Retiring the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care.The removal of transsexuality and all trans-related diagnosis from the DSM.A federal requirement that all states must recognize requests for gender changes on birth certificates - no amendments.A permanent ban on the "trans panic defense." Permanent, federally supported anti-discrimination legislation for employment, credit, public accomodations and anything else the feds can do to protect us from all the asshats and assclowns in the u.s.The creation of legal gender categories other than m or f. Make it legal to carry multiple forms of identification that have "contradictory" gender information.A federal requirement that trans prisoners be sequestered for safety.A criminal category for prisons and mental health institutions that stop hormones of inmates.Others?
Posted in Transphobia | 13 Comments »
Friday, April 28th, 2006
From Lady Bracknell [1] via Diary of a Goldfish [2]. (Goldfish is spearheading Blog Against Disablism Day.) Being a few words written by Lady Bracknell's editor with the intention of crystallising in her readers' minds the real significance of Blogging Against Disablism Day.We exist in every culture; every race; every class; every creed; every nationality; every political party. We have arrived here as a result of accident, injury, illness or simple genetic glitch. We are adults and we are children; we are men and we are women; we are straight, we are gay, and we are bisexual. We are too frail to leave the house and we are strong enough to yomp across continents. We are desperately ill and we are at the peak of physical fitness. We die young and we live to a ripe old age. We are accepted in our communities and we are locked away in institutions. We have been this way since birth, and we have been this way since yesterday. We are the premature baby and the great-grandparent. We are the criminal underclass and the pillar of society. We are the warmonger and the pacifist. We are the teacher and the student.We are, without a shadow of a doubt, the most diverse minority group on the planet. We are everywhere you look, and yet you do not see us. We are one in seven*.We have two things - and only two things - in common with one another:1. we have some degree of physical or mental functional loss or difference (we have impairments); and2. we are excluded from full participation in society because we have impairments (we are disabled).We are not brave. We are not special. We are not tragic. We are not heroic. We are not “an inspiration”. We are not the Bogey Man. We are not objects of pity. And we are not the living embodiment of our impairments. You can’t predict what any one of us is going to be like just because you know someone else with the same impairment. We are people. Like you. We have the same rights that you have. We do the same things you do, but we do some of them differently.You could join us at any time. Just by taking your eyes off the road for a split second. That’s all it takes. If that happens, will you be special? Will you be brave? Will you just sit there quietly and accept it if no-one will employ you? If you’re prevented from going where you want to go and seeing who you want to see? If no-one takes what you say seriously any more?No? Then why should we?We are one in seven and we will remain silent no longer. Our impairments can’t be changed, but our exclusion can. On May 1st our voices will ring out in cyberspace as never before. We’ve got a lot to say, and we want you to read it. Visit Diary of a Goldfish [3] on May 1st for a list of links to everyone who has made a commitment to speak out on Blogging Against Disablism day. * One in seven [4] of the UK population is disabled.
[1] http://labracknell.blogspot.com/2006/04/one-in-seven.html
[2] http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2006/04/blogging-against-disablism-day-1st-may.html
[3] http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/
[4] http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/facts/index42.aspx?ComponentId=12640&SourcePageId=12719
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 28th, 2006
From EL over at My Amusement Park [1]:I support your right to be an atheist, atheists. But please stop it with this crap. Have a bumper sticker on your car, The Theory of Evolution on your bookshelf, and feel free to discuss your views, just stop trying to force your ideas on everybody else. Or even just calling everyone else stupid. Because it makes you all look like assholes on the level of Christians who want public schoolchildren to join hands in The Lord's Prayer after the Pledge of Allegiance and want to leave abortion only to those religious virgins who are brutally raped and sodomized.I too cringed when us Lefties get our arrogance on.Awhile back, Bitch [2] posted something on The Ninth Wave [3] about her sister-in-law's reluctance to engage with feminists because she was afraid they would judge her stupid. I have seen this time and again with women of color, women of faith, queer women (especially transfolks), and especially low-income and non-urban women. I don't want this for feminism; I don't want this for the Left, in general.Go here [4] for more excellence.
[1] http://myamusementpark.blogspot.com/
[2] http://www.blog.pulpculture.org/
[3] http://the-ninth-wave.blogspot.com/
[4] http://myamusementpark.blogspot.com/2006/04/more-lefty-asshat-bravado.html
Posted in Anti Assclownery | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 26th, 2006
Thanks to Nubian for inspiration [1].[Update 04/28/06]: More serious asshattery going on over at Alas [2] with regard to Nubian's post. A Chief Asshat Tool of Privilege: Deny the Reality of the Speaker. And be really, really rude about it, too. Fortunately, stronger minds prevailed. They seemed to have quelled - however briefly - the horrible pandemic of white privilegitis.
[1] http://blackademic.blogspot.com/2006/04/gender-does-not-trump-race.html
[2] http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/04/25/gender-does-not-trump-race/
Posted in Anti Assclownery | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 26th, 2006
Some people tell me that by having surgeries and taking hormones I've lost my ambiguity. Usually they make these statements as expressions of their own ambivalence around transsexuality.Wonder what they'd think if they saw me in my birthday suit? Publically, of course, I look very certainly a man. But why stop at the surface? Revolutions aren't commercials.Revolutionary revolutions must go below the surface of the skin, to embrace whole people. Beneath every person's public face and public skin, lie private surfaces and little revealed faces, touched and untouched, seen and unseen, ambiguous, ambivalent, obscure. Transsexuals are perhaps simply more public about our ambiguities and subversions.
Posted in Transphobia | 12 Comments »
Saturday, April 22nd, 2006
Embedded with heteronormavity lies assumptions about the physical nature of heteronormative bodies.
They are, usually:
Thin
White
Temporarily Able Bodied
I think anytime LGBTQ folks uphold queer images that contain some, or all, of the above physicalities, we recapitulate heteronormativity.
If we want to dismantle heteronormativity we must recognize queers living with physical, aural, visual, cognitive, and learning impairments. The so-called disability arises when we refuse to acknowledge their existance; or, acknowledging they exist, refuse to remove the barriers that keep them from fully participating in Queer TV shows, Pride Parades, Academic Conferences, Anthologies, Film Festivals, Etc.
Attitudes are the real disability and our unexamined assumptions are almost always heteronormative.
Posted in Cartoons, Self-Organizing Men | 2 Comments »
Friday, April 21st, 2006
Back bends make me realize my edge, the point at which I say "I won't." Not, I can't. But, I won't. I won't push myself up, vulnerable, belly exposed, heart open for crushing. I recently moved into upward facing bow, which looks like a half circle, with my heart facing the sky. My teacher assisted me, and I still did all the work. When I started yoga three years ago, I probably could not have done a back bend. My back muscles were simply too weak to do the necessary work to open up my front body. The back muscles, hamstrings, shoulders, calf muscles push open the front body to relax my chest, stomach and thigh muscles into a place of openness.Now that my back body is much stronger I can do the work to open my chest, stomach and heart. I've been pondering this fact as I reflect on bending over backwards for people. With its implications of victimhood and bad boundaries, back bends, especially for other people, get a bad reputation.But I've learned that with a strong back body and deliberate preparations, I can back bend. It's all about knowing where to place my hands, feet and head, then pushing, pushing, pushing up through those pockets of safety [1] to freedom.Now I know I can bend over backwards for people, too. We all can. We just need to know our limits and have a very strong foundation supporting us as we open our hearts to others. Yes, they might push us over, but in a back bend, with both hands and feet on the ground, we don't have very far to fall. Namaste.
[1] http://www.jaysennett.com/blog/2006/04/pockets_of_safety.htm
Posted in Anti Assclownery | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 20th, 2006
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Thursday, April 20th, 2006
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Thursday, April 20th, 2006
Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm today ordered that United States flags throughout the state of Michigan and on Michigan waters be lowered for one day on Friday (April 21) in honor of Army Spc. Andrew K. Waits of Waterford, who died April 13 while on active duty in Iraq. Flags should return to full-staff Saturday (April 22). Army Spc. Waits, 23, was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations in Baghdad, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
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Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
Do you think Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky got potty-trained too earlier?Concerns about "special rights" prompted Fletcher to withdraw [1] legislative anti-discrimination protections for state gay and lesbian employees.
That, and the overwhelming difficulty deciding which bathrooms should be used by a person undergoing sex reassignment.
Thank God! Toilet Tragedies Averted! Urinary Segregation Upheld!
[1] http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060413/OPINION01/604130376
Posted in Etc. | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
Az Aizura [1] needs your help! Please consider answering his questionnaire [2]. I've done it. It's easy. It's painless. It's important.The questionnaire is for anyone, living anywhere in the world, aged over 18 who considers themselves transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, gender variant or gender transgressive.The project studies how patterns of geographical travel relate to gender variant identities and practices. It forms part of a doctoral research project in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. [Read more here [3].]
[1] http://goingsomewhere.blogsome.com/
[2] http://www.gendertravel.info/survey.htm
[3] http://www.gendertravel.info/index.htm
Posted in Transphobia | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
My yoga instructor hipped me to a new concept/phrase: pockets of safety.Translated, pockets of safety represent all the big and small ways we hedge, hide, fake, or try to maintain (the facade of) control. These big and small pockets keep us from living life right at our edge.The edge ~ where we experience not pain but sensation. I wonder how our worlds would blossom if we all turned a few pockets inside out? What would really support us or give us joy?
Posted in Anti Assclownery | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006
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Tuesday, April 18th, 2006
My friend M.'s sister was born about one week after M's second birthday. When I asked M the name of her new sister, she replied, "Pizza Numnum."Another friend, Maria, told me that "my mom put lotion on my face so the sun won't find me." She'll be four at the end of May.
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