Obama administration is working to repeal DHHS regulation that prevents health care organizations that receive federal funds from firing or refusing to hire health care workers who refuse to dispense medical care for "moral" reasons. Still wishy-washy on actual "conscience" clauses which allow health care workers to refuse medical care in the first place. Important distinction: what is being repealed is the idea that a clinic that provides family planning services could fire someone who refuses to dispense birth control for their refusal. What is not being repealed is their supposed right to refuse care. This concept of conscience clauses and right to refuse care can and does apply to much more than reproductive health. Doctors could refuse to see or touch gay or trans patients, pharmacists could refuse to dispense medications to people who are transitioning, EMTs could withhold lifesaving measures from someone they found "repulsive" and claim conscience.
What I want to know is: what kind of conscience can rationalize refusing medical care, which in some cases is life saving and in almost all cases is necessary to some degree, on the basis of personally not wanting to encourage "immoral" behavior? What kind of conscience thinks that another person's health and LIFE is worth less than their ability to say they are "moral"? When did your right to a "clean" conscience trump the right of someone else to live? You have to think that this person in front of you has less of a right to live than you have to sleep at night. Its fucking psychotic. How dare you call yourself moral when you are willing to let people die for your conscience? When does your right to feel good about yourself become more important than someones life!? How the bleeding burny fuck CAN you feel good about yourself knowing that you harmed someone and/or actively contributed to their death?!
The only answer I can come up with to explain it is hate.
You hate anyone who lives a life you don't agree with. You hate them to the point that possibly letting them die is a-okay for you because they aren't really people anyway. Women who want to make their own decisions about their reproduction? Not people. Queer folk who live openly? Not people. Transpeople who just want the chance to be themselves? DEFINITELY not people. Multiply these sentiments by several hundred if the aforementioned women/queers/transpeople are not white, or are poor, or live in a "developing" country, or don't fucking speak English, or don't try REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hard to be as "normal" as possible or any number of things that add to your smug feeling of superiority that masks insecurity, fear and hate.
This is the difference between you and me, you so-called "moralists." I want everyone to have the right to live their lives as they see fit provided they don't prevent others from doing the same. You? You only want people like you to have that chance. In my perfect world, you would be allowed to have your life, and your opinions still. The only difference is that you would not be able to dictate the life of anyone besides yourself.
In your perfect world, I wouldn't even exist.
I refuse to lay down and die so you and yours can live in your perfect world.
Showing posts with label transphobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transphobia. Show all posts
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck
President Bush declares January 18th to be "Sanctity of Human Life Day".
Because women aren't human.
Because POC aren't human.
Because anyone of the LGBTQ, especially T, community isn't human.
Because Iraqis, Palestinians, Arabs in general, and Muslims are not human.
Only a (middle to upper-class white) fetus is human and has a right to live and this deserves a fucking holiday.
Fuck you Mr. Bush. You have overseen some of the most egregious actions and inactions by the US government resulting in the loss of human life that have happened in my lifetime, and you have the fucking nerve to pull your pud over the actions you took to treat women as incubators with legs.
Please let the door hit you on the ass on the way out the door, repeatedly if you don't mind.
Because women aren't human.
Because POC aren't human.
Because anyone of the LGBTQ, especially T, community isn't human.
Because Iraqis, Palestinians, Arabs in general, and Muslims are not human.
Only a (middle to upper-class white) fetus is human and has a right to live and this deserves a fucking holiday.
Fuck you Mr. Bush. You have overseen some of the most egregious actions and inactions by the US government resulting in the loss of human life that have happened in my lifetime, and you have the fucking nerve to pull your pud over the actions you took to treat women as incubators with legs.
Please let the door hit you on the ass on the way out the door, repeatedly if you don't mind.
The Crime of Being
Okay, this has been sitting in my head for way too long. I'm prone to depression and tend to end up in this strange fugue state where all I can do is play mindless free flash games online and try to pretend that the world is not as scary as it actually is.
What scares me?
Many things scare me; spiders, plane crashes, driving too fast (its an anxiety thing due to fear of police), losing my front teeth, water where I can't touch the bottom or see it (pools are okay, oceans and lakes? fuck that noise), getting cancer...
However, none of those things holds a candle to the fear that I feel for the lives of people that I love. I come from a position of relative privilege to them. First, my gender presentation and my body(along with the social assignment of my gender based on secondary sexual characteristics) generally match, and second, I'm white. For these people who are very dear to me, one or both of these things are not true. And what terrifies me more than the idea of driving too fast in a car filled with spiders, while on the phone with my doctor who is telling me I have cancer, just as a plane crashes in front of me, making me swerve into a bottomless lake and knock out my front teeth on the steering wheel, is the idea that for people like my friends who do not share my whiteness or my apparent cis-ness, they can be murdered for simply daring to exist, and their murderers excused because we live in a world that does not value the personhood of their victims. We live in a world that constructs my firends as mutilated freaks, sexual deviants and "faking it". They can't even lobby for laws to protect their ability to go into the bathroom that they are less likely to get assaulted in without being conflated with perverts, pedophiles, and sexual predators.
If you go back and look at the list of the dead for the Trans Day Of Remembrance, you may notice that when discussing violence against transpeople, we are talking about more that transphobia, transmisogyny, or homophobia. Considering that approximately 70% of the names on the list belong to women of color, we are also talking racism.
These cases are often treated with boxing gloves by the media and general public, with the assumption that a black transwoman must be a sex worker, and that she was probably killed when her john discovered her penis, and the persistent use of incorrect pronouns by the media, which is a basic journalistic no-no indicating more the refusal of the "journalist" to overlook their own biases while reporting. With the prevalence of the "trans panic" defense and how it seems to fly pretty well with the media and sometimes the court system, it seems pretty clear that black transwomen's lives are less valuable than the offended manhood of some schmuck that thinks that the appropriate way to react to a situation like this is killing someone. They are killed for not being the "right" kind of woman.
The media and general public opinion seems to want to construct these women as "bringing it on themselves" for "lying" about "what they really are," as if your very existence and the fact that it triggers some homophobia in the person who decided that murdering you is the only way to deal with it is your fault. When police in a city assault a black transwoman and she is later found dead, and in the same city, another transwoman is found shot three times there is clearly no official justice for these women.
In actuality, the lives of transpeople, especially transwomen of color, are in more danger than the average cis-person. Constructing transpeople as some sort of dangerous menace, beyond being insulting as hell, is factually inaccurate.
Even the cis-partners of transpeople are considered legitimate targets for this hate violence.
I have an obligation, to my friends and to my morals, to not be silent. To not let the hate of the world keep me hidden in my home, frozen and unable to act. These women were someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's lover. They could be mine, or yours. regardless of their bodies and the social constructions that others must cling to so tightly that life no longer has value, they deserve to be valued.
I will not be silent about their lives. I will not be silent about the loss of them.
What scares me?
Many things scare me; spiders, plane crashes, driving too fast (its an anxiety thing due to fear of police), losing my front teeth, water where I can't touch the bottom or see it (pools are okay, oceans and lakes? fuck that noise), getting cancer...
However, none of those things holds a candle to the fear that I feel for the lives of people that I love. I come from a position of relative privilege to them. First, my gender presentation and my body(along with the social assignment of my gender based on secondary sexual characteristics) generally match, and second, I'm white. For these people who are very dear to me, one or both of these things are not true. And what terrifies me more than the idea of driving too fast in a car filled with spiders, while on the phone with my doctor who is telling me I have cancer, just as a plane crashes in front of me, making me swerve into a bottomless lake and knock out my front teeth on the steering wheel, is the idea that for people like my friends who do not share my whiteness or my apparent cis-ness, they can be murdered for simply daring to exist, and their murderers excused because we live in a world that does not value the personhood of their victims. We live in a world that constructs my firends as mutilated freaks, sexual deviants and "faking it". They can't even lobby for laws to protect their ability to go into the bathroom that they are less likely to get assaulted in without being conflated with perverts, pedophiles, and sexual predators.
If you go back and look at the list of the dead for the Trans Day Of Remembrance, you may notice that when discussing violence against transpeople, we are talking about more that transphobia, transmisogyny, or homophobia. Considering that approximately 70% of the names on the list belong to women of color, we are also talking racism.
These cases are often treated with boxing gloves by the media and general public, with the assumption that a black transwoman must be a sex worker, and that she was probably killed when her john discovered her penis, and the persistent use of incorrect pronouns by the media, which is a basic journalistic no-no indicating more the refusal of the "journalist" to overlook their own biases while reporting. With the prevalence of the "trans panic" defense and how it seems to fly pretty well with the media and sometimes the court system, it seems pretty clear that black transwomen's lives are less valuable than the offended manhood of some schmuck that thinks that the appropriate way to react to a situation like this is killing someone. They are killed for not being the "right" kind of woman.
The media and general public opinion seems to want to construct these women as "bringing it on themselves" for "lying" about "what they really are," as if your very existence and the fact that it triggers some homophobia in the person who decided that murdering you is the only way to deal with it is your fault. When police in a city assault a black transwoman and she is later found dead, and in the same city, another transwoman is found shot three times there is clearly no official justice for these women.
In actuality, the lives of transpeople, especially transwomen of color, are in more danger than the average cis-person. Constructing transpeople as some sort of dangerous menace, beyond being insulting as hell, is factually inaccurate.
Even the cis-partners of transpeople are considered legitimate targets for this hate violence.
I have an obligation, to my friends and to my morals, to not be silent. To not let the hate of the world keep me hidden in my home, frozen and unable to act. These women were someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's lover. They could be mine, or yours. regardless of their bodies and the social constructions that others must cling to so tightly that life no longer has value, they deserve to be valued.
I will not be silent about their lives. I will not be silent about the loss of them.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Cocky
H/T to Womanist Musings and Feministing
Transcript:
We are often told that we are living in a mans world, and this culture no image represents power more than the phallic symbol and if the penis equal power then I am illegally armed. My body full of freckles and curves is like a stealth bomber, I fly just under everyone's radar, but only because they choose not to see me. Only because no one wants to believe that a sweet petite green eyed girl like me could ever possibly be packing heat. They say it's not the size of the wand but the magic that it does. Well after many months on estrogen my penis is pretty darn small, but she has supernatural powers. She is like some pissed off ancient Greek goddess. My penis changes the meanings of everything, and because of her every single one of my ex heterosexual girlfriends has slept with a lesbian, and every guy who hits on me these days could be accused of being gay. Because my penis bends everyone who is straight and she can make the most entitled catcallers and womanisers scurry away with their balls between their legs. All because of six small words, I used to be a man. And being a transsexual I realize that most people see my femaleness as a façade, as an elaborate hoax, but I am more real than any of them could ever hope to be. I am real because unlike them my gender is not based upon what other people think of me and that may make me an object of ridicule but I am not the butt of anyone's joke, because I know that people make fun of trannies because we are the one thing that they fear the most. I am more badass than any gangster, more dangerous than any marine core , my penis is more powerful than the cocks of a million alpha males all put together. Because when a man is defined as that which is not female and a woman is defined as that which is not male, then I am the loose thread that unravels the gender of everyone around me. They say it's not the size of the boat but the motion of the ocean, well my penis gives most people sea sickness. It makes people dizzy because most people are not secure enough in their own masculinity or femininity to serve a night in the sack with me. My penis turns simple sexual pleasures into political acts. She turns biological impossibilities into cold hard facts. My penis is the curiosity that you have been told will kill your cat. See, my penis can be deadly, especially to me, and I have hear d almost every true story about what frightened macho boys do to trannies; every bludgeoning and mutilation, bodies beaten beyond recognition and I have imagined it all happening to me first person. Everytime I get up in front of a crow to perform one of my outspoken word pieces, I can feel myself morph into a slow moving target. After the show when I walk back to my car I will be holding my breathe half expecting that inevitable blow to the back of the head. Sometimes I wonder why it hasn't happened yet, and sometimes I wonder why they just don't get it over with and sometimes I just wish I was dead, I wish I was dead. You see I never wanted to be dangerous and I spent most of my life wishing that I didn't have a penis. I used to hate my body for not making any sense to me and these days I often hate it for being so in between. Some mornings I can hardly get out of bed because my body is so weighed down with ugly meanings that my culture has dumped all over me. You see I have made to feel shame and self loathing so that everyone else can take comfort in what their bodies mean. And if I seem a bit cocky it is because I refuse to make apologies for my body anymore. I am though being the human sacrifice offered up to appease other people's gender issues. Some women have a penis, some men don't and the rest of the world is just going to have to get the fuck over it. If I am destined to be the loose thread that unravels the gender of everyone around me then I am going to pull and pull and pull and pull and pull until everyone is exposed, till they all finally see that all along that they were merely wearing the emperor's new clothes . I know that people don't like it when I turn the tables on them but what the hell else am I supposed to do, play a hand from a deck of cards that was stacked against me? If I seem a bit cocky, it's because I have spent my entire life being backed into a corner and like a frightened animal packed full of adrenaline and sick of hunger and hiding I am finally desperate enough to come out fighting.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Defining Sexism
A comment on this entry at Shakesville really tweaked my interest. First, the comment:
This poster isn't the first to make this spurious argument and zie won't be the last.
Disagree however you want, but the prejudice+power definition of -isms are sociological in nature and correct. The "vast majority" of people can use a technical term however they want, that doesn't mean they are using it correctly. Perfect example: paradigm shift. This is a technical term, used in scientific disciplines to indicate a sudden and complete change in how the world is viewed by a sub-group of humanity, and in Western culture, can be applied directly to inventions of mass media and mass communication and the effect this had on how the culture as a whole related to the world. In popular lexicon, we use it to indicate a change in how we behave personally, akin to "changing gears" or changing the flow of our lives. It has also been appropriated by motivational speakers for large corporations as a term to get corporate teams to expand their way of working. If one compares the two usages, they seem to have the same basic meaning, but one is technically correct within the context that spawned it, and one is popular misconception and appropriation of the first.
By referencing "every dictionary under the sun", I assume that means zie has read every dictionary under the sun. I doubt this, mainly because if zie had, zie would have noticed that most regular dictionaries are mainly catalogs of common usage in a specific arena, and do not mean the be-all end-all of a word. There is a reason that we have medical and legal dictionaries, as well as dictionaries for different disciplines. These dictionaries may have a word that is spelled the same in each of them, but based on the context, has a differing meaning. Hell, the meaning of a word can differ across languages. Some words don't translate directly from language to language, and some languages have words that others do not. Does this mean that the basic concept does not exist from culture to culture? No, it means that the concepts are viewed differently through different cultural lenses.
Suggesting that your preferred definition of isms is inherently more correct at all times is intellectually dishonest.
In actuality, you can indeed see the binary hierarchies almost world-wide, with adjustments of the standard to the specific group. Example: racial binary, between "white" and "non-white" does exist in most places that I have studied or visited. White in some areas may not look quite like it looks here, but it plays the same role. It can be found echoed through out most institutions and sub-cultures to a greater or lesser degree. The binary hierarchy of sex is also present world wide to differing degrees, even with differences in the definition of masculine v. feminine.
This poster seems to desire the simpler explanation at the expense of dismissing actual intellectual effort on hir part to challenge hir own small view of how the world works.
Sexism is not in the eye of the beholder
Let it be assumed for the purposes of this space, that the definition of -isms are the power+prejudice equation.
"A little off topic, but I just wanted to jump up and down a little waving my arms in frantic protest over [another poster]'s insistence that various "isms" - sexism, racism, what have you - are monodirectional.
For one thing, it's problematic because this isn't the way the vast majority of people use these words. For just about everyone (not to mention every dictionary under the sun) racism (to choose an example) is prejudice or discrimination based on race, full stop. Limiting the word to institutional prejudice or discrimination against specific racial groups in specific cultural contexts creates all kind of confusion - not least because not all the world is made up of the kind of neat binary hierarchies of oppression this kind of definition demands.
For another, society is not a monolith. Even if racism is by definition cultural and institutional, the idea that every institution and sub-culture within a society shares the same biases isn't really tenable.
To return to sexism, far simpler to say (as the OED does, actually) that it is sex-based prejudice and discrimination almost always directed against women."
This poster isn't the first to make this spurious argument and zie won't be the last.
Disagree however you want, but the prejudice+power definition of -isms are sociological in nature and correct. The "vast majority" of people can use a technical term however they want, that doesn't mean they are using it correctly. Perfect example: paradigm shift. This is a technical term, used in scientific disciplines to indicate a sudden and complete change in how the world is viewed by a sub-group of humanity, and in Western culture, can be applied directly to inventions of mass media and mass communication and the effect this had on how the culture as a whole related to the world. In popular lexicon, we use it to indicate a change in how we behave personally, akin to "changing gears" or changing the flow of our lives. It has also been appropriated by motivational speakers for large corporations as a term to get corporate teams to expand their way of working. If one compares the two usages, they seem to have the same basic meaning, but one is technically correct within the context that spawned it, and one is popular misconception and appropriation of the first.
By referencing "every dictionary under the sun", I assume that means zie has read every dictionary under the sun. I doubt this, mainly because if zie had, zie would have noticed that most regular dictionaries are mainly catalogs of common usage in a specific arena, and do not mean the be-all end-all of a word. There is a reason that we have medical and legal dictionaries, as well as dictionaries for different disciplines. These dictionaries may have a word that is spelled the same in each of them, but based on the context, has a differing meaning. Hell, the meaning of a word can differ across languages. Some words don't translate directly from language to language, and some languages have words that others do not. Does this mean that the basic concept does not exist from culture to culture? No, it means that the concepts are viewed differently through different cultural lenses.
Suggesting that your preferred definition of isms is inherently more correct at all times is intellectually dishonest.
In actuality, you can indeed see the binary hierarchies almost world-wide, with adjustments of the standard to the specific group. Example: racial binary, between "white" and "non-white" does exist in most places that I have studied or visited. White in some areas may not look quite like it looks here, but it plays the same role. It can be found echoed through out most institutions and sub-cultures to a greater or lesser degree. The binary hierarchy of sex is also present world wide to differing degrees, even with differences in the definition of masculine v. feminine.
This poster seems to desire the simpler explanation at the expense of dismissing actual intellectual effort on hir part to challenge hir own small view of how the world works.
Sexism is not in the eye of the beholder
Let it be assumed for the purposes of this space, that the definition of -isms are the power+prejudice equation.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
What?!
(h/t to almost every progressive blog I read)
I saw this last week and had to take a second to put my jaw back in place. Christ. How fucking EDGY is The Advocate! Conflating the black civil rights movement with the LGBTQI movement and it's oh-so-important fight for marriage equality.
Look, I'm queer. As queer as a $3 bill. HOWEVER, I am not so arrogant as to believe that my relatively privileged fight for the right to marry someone of the same legal sex as myself is the last great civil rights issue! Not when institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia (to name only a few) are issues that are causing people to live in poverty, face threats of and actual physical and sexual assault from not only other individuals but from law enforcement officers, face court battles to even have their victimizers recognized as such, and...lessee...um...oh yeah! FUCKING DEATH!
Don't get me wrong. I would love it if people like me could just hang up our activist badges and go home, if there really was something that was really the last civil rights struggle ever ever ever. However, as pointed out above, this is patently untrue.
Suggesting that "Gay is the new Black" ignores the existence of queers who are also of color, who have to face racism, homophobia and sexism. It also ignores the fact that a good deal of the queer community is not served by the fight for marriage equality, and effectively disappear their members who are in need of things that are more essential than marriage.
This cover implies that all other civil rights movements are over and unimportant. The only purpose something like this will serve will be to alienate members of the POC community as well as any other groups that are not served by the marriage fight. It doesn't help that the article that this cover is in reference to is actually a decent article. This cover is a disservice to the author, and to the queer movement as a whole.
In short, fuck whoever at The Advocate thought this would be a good idea. Nice breakin' it "hero."
I saw this last week and had to take a second to put my jaw back in place. Christ. How fucking EDGY is The Advocate! Conflating the black civil rights movement with the LGBTQI movement and it's oh-so-important fight for marriage equality.
Look, I'm queer. As queer as a $3 bill. HOWEVER, I am not so arrogant as to believe that my relatively privileged fight for the right to marry someone of the same legal sex as myself is the last great civil rights issue! Not when institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia (to name only a few) are issues that are causing people to live in poverty, face threats of and actual physical and sexual assault from not only other individuals but from law enforcement officers, face court battles to even have their victimizers recognized as such, and...lessee...um...oh yeah! FUCKING DEATH!
Don't get me wrong. I would love it if people like me could just hang up our activist badges and go home, if there really was something that was really the last civil rights struggle ever ever ever. However, as pointed out above, this is patently untrue.
Suggesting that "Gay is the new Black" ignores the existence of queers who are also of color, who have to face racism, homophobia and sexism. It also ignores the fact that a good deal of the queer community is not served by the fight for marriage equality, and effectively disappear their members who are in need of things that are more essential than marriage.
This cover implies that all other civil rights movements are over and unimportant. The only purpose something like this will serve will be to alienate members of the POC community as well as any other groups that are not served by the marriage fight. It doesn't help that the article that this cover is in reference to is actually a decent article. This cover is a disservice to the author, and to the queer movement as a whole.
In short, fuck whoever at The Advocate thought this would be a good idea. Nice breakin' it "hero."
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Who wakes up and says, "I wish I could be oppressed too"?
I have been talking with my cousin lately. He is 15, and I have been trying to explain the mechanics of oppression, privilege and power to him in a way that doesn't make him think he is being accused of something. Frighteningly, I have had to debunk several ideas that he has picked up from Cthulhu-knows-where about how oppressed he is. After doing that, he said something really upsetting to me:
"I wish I had a struggle of my own, something to fight against."
O.o
The mind...she boggles.
Somewhere along the way, the idea that having a struggle, an oppression to fight against, was in somehow. Stylish. It got you "special rights." Either that, or the rapid loss of privileges was seen as a loss of rights.
The idea that white affluent western men are an oppressed minority is laughable. It is also a perspective that one encounters quite frequently in popular culture, and especially from so-called men's rights activists(MRAs).
Let me explain something about MRAs. These people are rarely concerned with actual rights or oppression. They are primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo, because the only way they can see the rights of men being violated is when women have those same rights.
They see rights, freedoms and opportunity as a zero-sum game, namely, if females are doing well, that means that males must be getting worse. This ties in to the problem with essentialist thinking. If one group is "naturally" better at something, but the other group is doing just as well as them in actuality, then the only way to maintain this false dichotomy, is to assume that something must be holding back the "naturally" better group.
These groups do little more than encourage the very gender essentialist notions that create the inequalities they like to scream about. They help create these structures, and then blame them on the groups that are actively trying to fight them.
They blame feminism for all of their problems, with no knowledge of what feminists and feminist groups actually do. They tend to be against any legislation that deals with domestic violence, any legislation that makes divorce easier for women, against taking the victim's side in rape cases, against women having the choice to abort or continue a pregnancy, generally against anything that doesn't include men regardless of whether they actually need it or not and tend to support using children in custody cases to control and/or threaten ex's, support rapists, and rape apologists, and generally blame women for all of their own personal failings.
They tend to spend a great deal of time spouting off inaccurate information to support the idea that a cabal of women, queers, racial minorities and evil radical feminists control everything, and may even be responsible for the fall of Western Civilization! As a result, they paint hapless white men as the unfortunate victims of an "anti-male" society that grinds them into submission under the boot heel of the Fascist PC Thought Police.
Let us examine some of this, shall we? Not too much, lest we scratch out our eyeballs in frustration.
As far as this idea of "politically correct" (scare quotes intended) as code for "uptight" or "restrictive," I don't see why it is so important to some people to be allowed to use words that create an othering effect of specific groups. One thing that must be put out there right now: complaining about being forced to be "PC" is, in essence, complaining that you can't be a racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic douchenozzle without there being consequences. I seriously don't see why treating other people like the people that they are is such a damn burden. In the US, one does have the freedom to say exactly what one wants to, however, the rest of us also have the freedom to tell you that you are being obnoxious and insulting. Attempting to shame people with the sneering at political correctness indicates that you would rather be able to hurt people because you like to. This would make you, at best, a bully, and at worst, someone incredibly dangerous.
The gentleman doth protest too much is something else I want to examine here. There is a huge discussion amongst these supposed rights activists about false allegations that lead "innocent" men to being dragged through the court system and possibly imprisoned. Yet false allegations "experts" tend to turn out to be nothing more than perpetrators who are finding ways for other perps to get away with beating and raping. There has even been evidence that false allegations are more likely to come from men:
These people want to tilt at windmills to preserve their privileges to the detriment of those they consider to be lower than them. They couch their true desires in the language of empowerment, and attempt to cast themselves as some tragic victim.
There are inequalities in this world, some of which specifically effect men, and most are rooted in constructions of masculinity. To resolve those inequalities, deconstruction of gender essentialism must occur. There are people who do this, who truly work to make sure that people are seen as equal regardless of what is in their pants.
They are called feminists, and they are not your expectation.
"I wish I had a struggle of my own, something to fight against."
O.o
The mind...she boggles.
Somewhere along the way, the idea that having a struggle, an oppression to fight against, was in somehow. Stylish. It got you "special rights." Either that, or the rapid loss of privileges was seen as a loss of rights.
The idea that white affluent western men are an oppressed minority is laughable. It is also a perspective that one encounters quite frequently in popular culture, and especially from so-called men's rights activists(MRAs).
Let me explain something about MRAs. These people are rarely concerned with actual rights or oppression. They are primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo, because the only way they can see the rights of men being violated is when women have those same rights.
They see rights, freedoms and opportunity as a zero-sum game, namely, if females are doing well, that means that males must be getting worse. This ties in to the problem with essentialist thinking. If one group is "naturally" better at something, but the other group is doing just as well as them in actuality, then the only way to maintain this false dichotomy, is to assume that something must be holding back the "naturally" better group.
These groups do little more than encourage the very gender essentialist notions that create the inequalities they like to scream about. They help create these structures, and then blame them on the groups that are actively trying to fight them.
They blame feminism for all of their problems, with no knowledge of what feminists and feminist groups actually do. They tend to be against any legislation that deals with domestic violence, any legislation that makes divorce easier for women, against taking the victim's side in rape cases, against women having the choice to abort or continue a pregnancy, generally against anything that doesn't include men regardless of whether they actually need it or not and tend to support using children in custody cases to control and/or threaten ex's, support rapists, and rape apologists, and generally blame women for all of their own personal failings.
They tend to spend a great deal of time spouting off inaccurate information to support the idea that a cabal of women, queers, racial minorities and evil radical feminists control everything, and may even be responsible for the fall of Western Civilization! As a result, they paint hapless white men as the unfortunate victims of an "anti-male" society that grinds them into submission under the boot heel of the Fascist PC Thought Police.
Let us examine some of this, shall we? Not too much, lest we scratch out our eyeballs in frustration.
As far as this idea of "politically correct" (scare quotes intended) as code for "uptight" or "restrictive," I don't see why it is so important to some people to be allowed to use words that create an othering effect of specific groups. One thing that must be put out there right now: complaining about being forced to be "PC" is, in essence, complaining that you can't be a racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic douchenozzle without there being consequences. I seriously don't see why treating other people like the people that they are is such a damn burden. In the US, one does have the freedom to say exactly what one wants to, however, the rest of us also have the freedom to tell you that you are being obnoxious and insulting. Attempting to shame people with the sneering at political correctness indicates that you would rather be able to hurt people because you like to. This would make you, at best, a bully, and at worst, someone incredibly dangerous.
The gentleman doth protest too much is something else I want to examine here. There is a huge discussion amongst these supposed rights activists about false allegations that lead "innocent" men to being dragged through the court system and possibly imprisoned. Yet false allegations "experts" tend to turn out to be nothing more than perpetrators who are finding ways for other perps to get away with beating and raping. There has even been evidence that false allegations are more likely to come from men:
Are Allegations of Sexual Abuse That Arise During Child Custody Disputes More Likely to Be False?
An Annotated Review of the Research
Bala, N. & Schuman, J. (2000). Allegations of sexual abuse when parents have separated.
Canadian Family Law Quarterly, 17, 191-241.
Canadian Family Law Judgments: Nicholas Bala and John Schuman, two Queen's University law professors, reviewed judges' written decisions in 196 cases between 1990 and 1998 where allegations of either physical or sexual abuse were raised in the context of parental separation. Only family law cases were considered; child protection and criminal decisions were excluded.
The study showed that the judges felt that only a third of unproven cases of child abuse stemming from custody battles involve someone deliberately lying in court. In these cases, the judges found that fathers were more likely to fabricate the accusations than mothers.
These people want to tilt at windmills to preserve their privileges to the detriment of those they consider to be lower than them. They couch their true desires in the language of empowerment, and attempt to cast themselves as some tragic victim.
There are inequalities in this world, some of which specifically effect men, and most are rooted in constructions of masculinity. To resolve those inequalities, deconstruction of gender essentialism must occur. There are people who do this, who truly work to make sure that people are seen as equal regardless of what is in their pants.
They are called feminists, and they are not your expectation.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
TDOR
This is for the men and women and those in between and outside of that binary who have died because of ignorance and xenophobia. This is for the victims of transphobia. Remember the fallen, and work for a better world so that those we have lost will not have died in vain. Everybody is someone's child and queers are people too.
Shamelessly lifted from TransGriot.
Courtesy of Ethan St. Pierre, as of November 16, the list of people being memorialized for the 10th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance on Thursday.
Kellie Telesford
Location: Thornton Heath, UK
Cause of Death: Strangled
Date of Death: November 21, 2007
Kellie was strangled to death with a scarf, by 18 year old Shanniel Hyatt, who then covered the body of 39-year-old Kellie Telesford with a white blanket - with the brown furry scarf used to choke her still bound tightly round her neck. Hyatt said he killer her after discovering she had a penis.
Brian McGlothin (Liked to dress in Women's clothes)
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Cause of Death: Shot in the head with an automatic rifle by Antonio Williams who is serving a six year sentence. Brian was 25 years old.
Date of Death: December 23, 2007
Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz
Location: Santiago, Chile
Cause of Death: Attacked and stabbed
Date of Death: December 28, 2007
Patrick Murphy (Found Dressed in Women's clothes)
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Cause of Death: Shot Several times in the head
Date of Death: January 8, 2008
Patrick was 39 years old.
Stacy Brown
Location: Baltimore, MD
Cause of Death: Shot in the head
Date of Death: January 8, 2008
Stacy was 30 years old.
Adolphus Simmons
Location: Charleston, SC
Cause of Death: Shot to Death (Aldophus was 18 yrs. old)
Date of Death: January 21, 2008
Fedra (a known transvestite)
Location: Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Cause of Death: Was found lying face up in a pool of blood,
cause of death was not reported.
Date of Death: January 22, 2008
Ashley Sweeney
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Cause of Death: Shot in the head
Date of Death: February 4, 2008
The age of Ashley Sweeney is unknown, she was only described as a young transgender woman in a press release.
Sanesha (Talib) Stewart
Location: Bronx, NY
Cause of Death: Stabbed to Death
Date of Death: February 10, 2008
Sanesha was 25 years old.
Lawrence King
Location: Oxnard, California
Cause of Death: Shot to death by a classmate because he liked to wear
women's clothes. (Lawrence King was 15 years old).
Date of Death: February 12, 2008
Simmie Williams Jr.
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Cause of Death: Shot to death, Simmie was found wearing women's clothing. (Simmie was 17 years old)
Date of Death: February 22, 2008
Luna (no last name reported)
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Cause of Death: Brutally beaten to death and tossed into a dumpster.
Date of Death: March 15, 2008
Lloyd Nixon
Location: West Palm Beach, Florida
Cause of Death:Repeatedly beat in the head with a brick.
Date of Death: April 16, 2008
Lloyd was 45 years old.
Felicia Melton-Smyth
Location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Cause of Death: brutally stabbed to death by Francisco Javier Hollos, who said he killed her because she would not pay for sex. Felicia was an HIV activist on vacation from Wisconsin.
Date of Death: May 26, 2008
Silvana Berisha
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Cause of Death: Stabbed to Death
Date of Death: June 24, 2008
Ebony (Rodney) Whitaker
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Cause of Death:Shot (Ebony was 20 yrs. old)
Date of Death:July 1, 2008
Rosa Pazos
Location: Sevilla, Spain
Cause of Death: Was found in her apartment, she had been stabbed in the throat.
Date of Death: July 11, 2008
Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel
Location: Lombardi, Italy
Cause of Death severely beaten causing fractures to the head and face before being run over by a car.
Date of Death July 14, 2008
Juan Carlos was 35 years old.
Angie Zapata
Location: Greeley, Colorado
Cause of Death: She was found in her home with two severe fractures in her skull.
Angie was murdered by 31 year old, Alan Ray Andrade. Angie was 18 years old.
Date of Death: July 17, 2008
Jaylynn L. Namauu
Location: Makiki Honolulu, Hawaii
Cause of Death: Stabbed to Death
Date of Death: July 17, 2008
Jaylynn was 35 years old.
Samantha Rangel Brandau
Location: Milan, Italy
Cause of Death: beaten, gang raped and stabbed numerous times before being left for dead.
Date of Death: July 29, 2008
Samantha was 30 years old.
Ruby Molina
Location: Sacramento, California
Cause of Death: Drowned
Date of Death: September 21, 2008
Ruby's naked body was found floating in the American river.
She was 22 years old.
Aimee Wilcoxson
Location: Aurora, Colorado
Cause of Death: undetermined (Police have yet to reveal cause)
Date of Death: November 3, 2008
Aimee was found dead in her bed. She was 34 years old.
Duanna Johnson
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Cause of Death: Shot
Date of Death: November 9, 2008
Duanna was found dead in the middle of the street. She was 42 years old.
Dilek Ince
Location: Ankara, Turkey
Cause of Death:Shot in the back of the head
Date of Death: November 11, 2008
Teish (Moses) Cannon
Location: Syracuse, New York
Cause of Death: Shot
Date of Death: November 14, 2008
Teish was 22 years old.
Ali
Location:Iraq
Cause of Death:executed for being transgender
Date of Death:2008, Month is Unknown
Video of Ali before she was executed: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2tDVtjQNfQ
*IMPORTANT NOTE FROM ETHAN - (In case I don't get the details posted in time) There were 2 other Iraqi transgender women who were executed at the same time as Ali. Please remember them at your TDoR event.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
"Post Racism" my shiny white behind
There has been some buzz lately that the election of an African American to the highest office in the land means the end of racism in America.
...
...
...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
oh yeah, that's a good one. No seriously.
You see, in the REAL world where progressives function, we know this is not the case. One man does not a glass ceiling shatter. We have seen things like this stated before, like when Geraldine Ferraro was on the Mondale ticket, or even more recently, with the Clinton and Palin insanity this last election.
Every time something vaguely progressive happens, it is treated as though this one thing means all oppressions are now officially "out of style," it just isn't cool or with it to be a misogynist, racist fuckneck anymore.
That doesn't stop rising,
racially motivated crimes. (Second and third graders chanting "Assassinate Obama!" for fucks sake?)
To think that it does is to apply a gloss over the realities that people live with, like the likelyhood of being murdered for not fitting gender norms particulary if one is a person of color.
Don't be fooled.
Power systems survive by duping the less powerful into thinking that one small inch forward is equivalent to a major achievement. Its a pat on the head to silence those of us who want to live our lives without oppression informing every move we make.
In the immortal words of Melissa McEwan, promise to keep working my teaspoon, even when my arms are tired.
...
...
...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
oh yeah, that's a good one. No seriously.
You see, in the REAL world where progressives function, we know this is not the case. One man does not a glass ceiling shatter. We have seen things like this stated before, like when Geraldine Ferraro was on the Mondale ticket, or even more recently, with the Clinton and Palin insanity this last election.
Every time something vaguely progressive happens, it is treated as though this one thing means all oppressions are now officially "out of style," it just isn't cool or with it to be a misogynist, racist fuckneck anymore.
That doesn't stop rising,
racially motivated crimes. (Second and third graders chanting "Assassinate Obama!" for fucks sake?)
To think that it does is to apply a gloss over the realities that people live with, like the likelyhood of being murdered for not fitting gender norms particulary if one is a person of color.
Don't be fooled.
Power systems survive by duping the less powerful into thinking that one small inch forward is equivalent to a major achievement. Its a pat on the head to silence those of us who want to live our lives without oppression informing every move we make.
In the immortal words of Melissa McEwan, promise to keep working my teaspoon, even when my arms are tired.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Spirit of the Stairs
So...privilege.
It's an important, and critical idea, and one I have been dancing around trying to parse out how I want to talk about for days now. I have written and re-written this entry, and have given up on it a few times. However, as far as the intent behind this space, an understanding of privilege and how it works is needed.
The need for this was touched off by several things, some in my own life, and some in the rest of the US.
One of the personal: a gentleman who was otherwise quite nice, who felt privileged enough to say some "well-intentioned" (scare quotes intended) but profoundly homophobic things to me while I was working. It was enough to send me running for a large Americano with an extra espresso shot (for those playing the home game, that would come to four shots of espresso, with the rest of the 18oz. cup filled with steamed water) which I am now sipping and feeling the caffeine tingle to the ends of my extremities.
Another is one friend of mine who repeatedly claims that I go too far on the "female" stuff, and that he feels that I am being unbalanced because I never talk about the problems that men face, and conversely never talk about women as "being at fault" for anything. According to him, I blame men for everything, and let women coast by regardless of whether they deserve to or not. When I call him on the fact that inequalities for women outnumber inequalities for men, he hedges with "well, we should all just be good to each other, but it has to be FAIR," or if I point out that the system that hurts women also hurts men, he moves the goalposts "well some people are just LIKE THAT" or "Some women bring it on themselves."
In the rest of my country, there are simultaneous issues that are encased in layers of problematic privilege with regards to how they are addressed and with regards to the fact that they have even occurred.
One is the passing of Proposition 8 in California, which is problematic on its own. It doesn't help that it's passing is being blamed on POC voters in CA, which is exposing the latent racism of the mainstream, assimilationist GLBTQI movement (which tends to exclude all but the white, able-bodied, cis-gendered men anyway)
In combination with the utter outrage at Prop 8 is the lack of outrage from the same exclusionary GLBTQI community at the murder of yet another trans-woman of color, Duanna Johnson, a woman who had previously been harrassed and assaulted by Memphis police officers, purely because of her gender and her color, who has subsequently been found dead.
For my situation, and how it relates to privilege as well as everything I have mentioned thus far, to make sense, some things about me need to be understood.
1- Yes, I am queer.
2- Yes, I am married.
3- No, my marriage, despite current appearances, is not heterosexual.
4- I am also female-identified, white, able-bodied, poor by Western standards, and feminist without apology.
The problem here is privilege.
What is privilege, you ask?
The man who talked to me this morning was privileged. He assumed when he saw my wedding ring, that since I was married, then I must be straight. His privilege is the ability to assume that marriage is for straight people only, to assume that every person he talks to is most likely not queer, and to assume that I am going to agree with him, because only straight people can be married.
My friend is privileged. His privilege is to be able to assume that he will be included in all things, since most things in our culture tend to be geared towards straight white cis-males like himself. He assumes that his experience is universal, that all men think as he does, and that anything that goes against that is prejudiced against him. His experience must be addressed or he is oppressed. He assumes that fair looks like he wants it to without accounting for the perspective of others. He feels entitled to attention, and to care from activists that don't address his needs, despite the fact that the issues that impact them the most have little to nothing to do with him.
The racist element of the GLBTQI movement is privileged. They can assume that another minority group will support them on the basis of some assumed shared oppression without ever explicitly asking that group for support, they can pretend like there is no intersection of identities, and therefore "erase" POC who are also queer. In cases like Duanna Johnson, they are more than willing to throw our trans* brothers and sister under the bus, as well as anyone else who is not easily assimilate-able in order to further their own quest for rights, regardless if those rights are what the rest of the community actually needs.
I am privileged. I live in the West, where my standard of living as a poor person is at least three times as good as women in developing countries. I can eat food that is out of season, I have access to medicine, media, and computers. I have a job and don't have to ask my family for permission to live my life. I am also white, and can be sure, when walking down the street, that no one is assuming I am a "welfare queen" or that I am a drug addict, or a thief, or a sex-worker. My gender identity, for the most part, matches my gender presentation, so I do not get intrusive stares and speculations about what I "really" am.
My point is, despite these groups and myself all being privileged, there is one major resounding difference.
I am aware of the ways in which I am privileged and have made it a personal quest to minimize my privilege as much as possible. It's a technique that I call, "How to not be a total fucking asshole." This is not to say that I don't fuck up, I do. I will act privileged, partially because the nature of privilege is to be invisible to those who benefit most from it.
However, I am open to being called on it, and I am willing to self-examine at any time to make sure that my words and actions match with a progressive attitude towards ending oppression. It's the least I can do to make up for the benefits I get because of my privilege.
I do not call myself an ally, I don't need to be put on a pedestal as a paragon of progressiveness. I am just a person, a privileged person, who has chosen not to be an asshole.
It's an important, and critical idea, and one I have been dancing around trying to parse out how I want to talk about for days now. I have written and re-written this entry, and have given up on it a few times. However, as far as the intent behind this space, an understanding of privilege and how it works is needed.
The need for this was touched off by several things, some in my own life, and some in the rest of the US.
One of the personal: a gentleman who was otherwise quite nice, who felt privileged enough to say some "well-intentioned" (scare quotes intended) but profoundly homophobic things to me while I was working. It was enough to send me running for a large Americano with an extra espresso shot (for those playing the home game, that would come to four shots of espresso, with the rest of the 18oz. cup filled with steamed water) which I am now sipping and feeling the caffeine tingle to the ends of my extremities.
Another is one friend of mine who repeatedly claims that I go too far on the "female" stuff, and that he feels that I am being unbalanced because I never talk about the problems that men face, and conversely never talk about women as "being at fault" for anything. According to him, I blame men for everything, and let women coast by regardless of whether they deserve to or not. When I call him on the fact that inequalities for women outnumber inequalities for men, he hedges with "well, we should all just be good to each other, but it has to be FAIR," or if I point out that the system that hurts women also hurts men, he moves the goalposts "well some people are just LIKE THAT" or "Some women bring it on themselves."
In the rest of my country, there are simultaneous issues that are encased in layers of problematic privilege with regards to how they are addressed and with regards to the fact that they have even occurred.
One is the passing of Proposition 8 in California, which is problematic on its own. It doesn't help that it's passing is being blamed on POC voters in CA, which is exposing the latent racism of the mainstream, assimilationist GLBTQI movement (which tends to exclude all but the white, able-bodied, cis-gendered men anyway)
In combination with the utter outrage at Prop 8 is the lack of outrage from the same exclusionary GLBTQI community at the murder of yet another trans-woman of color, Duanna Johnson, a woman who had previously been harrassed and assaulted by Memphis police officers, purely because of her gender and her color, who has subsequently been found dead.
For my situation, and how it relates to privilege as well as everything I have mentioned thus far, to make sense, some things about me need to be understood.
1- Yes, I am queer.
2- Yes, I am married.
3- No, my marriage, despite current appearances, is not heterosexual.
4- I am also female-identified, white, able-bodied, poor by Western standards, and feminist without apology.
The problem here is privilege.
What is privilege, you ask?
Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf.
-Betty, A primer on privilege.
The man who talked to me this morning was privileged. He assumed when he saw my wedding ring, that since I was married, then I must be straight. His privilege is the ability to assume that marriage is for straight people only, to assume that every person he talks to is most likely not queer, and to assume that I am going to agree with him, because only straight people can be married.
My friend is privileged. His privilege is to be able to assume that he will be included in all things, since most things in our culture tend to be geared towards straight white cis-males like himself. He assumes that his experience is universal, that all men think as he does, and that anything that goes against that is prejudiced against him. His experience must be addressed or he is oppressed. He assumes that fair looks like he wants it to without accounting for the perspective of others. He feels entitled to attention, and to care from activists that don't address his needs, despite the fact that the issues that impact them the most have little to nothing to do with him.
The racist element of the GLBTQI movement is privileged. They can assume that another minority group will support them on the basis of some assumed shared oppression without ever explicitly asking that group for support, they can pretend like there is no intersection of identities, and therefore "erase" POC who are also queer. In cases like Duanna Johnson, they are more than willing to throw our trans* brothers and sister under the bus, as well as anyone else who is not easily assimilate-able in order to further their own quest for rights, regardless if those rights are what the rest of the community actually needs.
I am privileged. I live in the West, where my standard of living as a poor person is at least three times as good as women in developing countries. I can eat food that is out of season, I have access to medicine, media, and computers. I have a job and don't have to ask my family for permission to live my life. I am also white, and can be sure, when walking down the street, that no one is assuming I am a "welfare queen" or that I am a drug addict, or a thief, or a sex-worker. My gender identity, for the most part, matches my gender presentation, so I do not get intrusive stares and speculations about what I "really" am.
My point is, despite these groups and myself all being privileged, there is one major resounding difference.
I am aware of the ways in which I am privileged and have made it a personal quest to minimize my privilege as much as possible. It's a technique that I call, "How to not be a total fucking asshole." This is not to say that I don't fuck up, I do. I will act privileged, partially because the nature of privilege is to be invisible to those who benefit most from it.
Privilege, at its core, is the advantages that people benefit from based solely on their social status. It is a status that is conferred by society to certain groups, not seized by individuals, which is why it can be difficult sometimes to see one’s own privilege.
-Feminism 101 blog What is male privilege
However, I am open to being called on it, and I am willing to self-examine at any time to make sure that my words and actions match with a progressive attitude towards ending oppression. It's the least I can do to make up for the benefits I get because of my privilege.
I do not call myself an ally, I don't need to be put on a pedestal as a paragon of progressiveness. I am just a person, a privileged person, who has chosen not to be an asshole.
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