Self-Organizing Man

The Fifth Carnival of Bent Attractions

April 10, 2006 – 8:25 am

Great submissions this month.  Each submission reminds me of the importance of our bodies, that we live in them; that people hurt us because of what we do with our bag of bones.

Living authentic lives requires many things.  First and foremost a successful life asks us to get to know ourselves.  Coaching 4 Lesbians, adds, “Spend some quality time alone, like you might with a best friend,  and really get to know what makes you tick.” The fastest path, she continues, to understanding one self is to “get in touch with your feelings and your body.”

Ignoring the body Vegan Kid points out, warps us to half creatures.  Unable to answer that periennial question, are you a man or woman?, or find sources to answering those questions growing up in a small town, Vegan Kid, retreated.  “[I] tried to ignore the topic all together and pretend that I was a mind without a body.”  I relate to this place as I have lived a short distance from my body for years.  Like Vegan Kid,

I became more comfortable with my body as I became more comfortable in my gender identity.  And being comfortable in my gender identity allowed me to begin to recognize my body as a part of me.

Coming to live in our bodies we can find joy in discovering those ordinary physical places that make us hot, erotic, dreamy, both divine and human.  Aman Yala writes of just such a place on the King of Kings; or more accurately, Verrocchio’s rendering in The Baptism of Christ of Jesus’ pubes. 

…I do know that this pubic hair is imbued with theological significance.  By lending the painting a note of realism, the pubes were probably intended to highlight the doctrine of incarnation (the Word made Flesh) and emphasize Christ’s humanity.  The pubes were meant to remind viewers that Jesus was a real man with a real body and real pubic hair.

Real bodies break under the cudgel of the State.  So Black Looks remind us in an excellent piece on Ugandan LGBT human rights activist Julie Mukasa.  Real bodies fight back. Ms. Mukasa has been in hiding under the protection of Amnesty International as she wages a campaign to end the beatings, harassment, intimidations of gays, lesbians and transgenders in Uganda.  Mukasa’s work makes me remember that my transsexual body links with other people fighting to overthrow oppression through and with their bodies all over the world.  Bodies united in claiming human rights for all people. 

The LGBT struggle naturally encompasses poverty, homelessness, violence, unemployment, sexism, HIV/AIDS, issues that humanity stands against.  That is the human rights culture, whih is non-discriminatory and treats all human beings as equal.

Denise at Life, Law and Gender writes about the risks still present in this country for LGBT folks.  She writes, “I mentioned that the girl and I weren’t overly affectionate in public and I noted that this was her choice and not mine.”  She continues that hand-holding

[C]arries some risk.  Sadly we don’t live in a loving country, one that is accepting of affection between gay men or lesbians.  There is a risk of being subjected to stares, ridicule, and name-calling, or worse.  But, again, how else will society ever change if we aren’t willing to put ourselves out there, even in this little area?”

When our opponents hate us, we understand.  But when our so-called allies, or friends, or folks claiming to be something over than what they are, hurt us, that strains the heart muscle and clenches teeth and fists.  Jon Swift states his isn’t homophobic.  But when he uses his fingers to write “[f]irst gay people took the word “gay,” which used to mean happy and now can’t be used by anyone to mean that and now they want to do the same thing with the word “marriage,” then also writes that he isn’t homophobic, I think who is he kidding!

Jon Swift can join together with all the transphobic feminists and throw their bodies against progress and reality.  Earlbecke at Definition crystallized for me why anti-trans feminists cannot claim the title feminists (and thus should join the ranks of homophobes): 

[A]t the root of transphobia are all the beliefs that feminism is supposed to be fighting. 

The insistene that transwomen are not “real” women, is, at its heart, fueled by the idea that biology equals destiny: the idea that one’s body parts define that person completely, that there is no individual room for change or variation, that a woman is only as good as her ability to give birth (therefore, as good as her uterus), or to serve as a sex object (therefore as good as her vagina, as good as her breasts), or as a caretaker, a mother, an housewife, a passive decoration (therefore, as good as her ability to conform to “acceptable” gender roles).

And that, no matter how you disguise it or dress it up, no matter what excuses you might give about male privilege or socialization or experience in a transwoman’s history, is not feminism.”

Thank you to all the great bloggers for their excellent words.  Koan Bremner at Multidimensional.Me will host the Carnival next month.