"Lots of [the clothes I wear are] meant to be kind of a rejection of what people think about women. I guess I'm a feminist. I am a feminist. And I want to change the way people view women."—Lady Gaga, in a recent interview (@ 2:45) with Larry King. (Full transcript here.)
Whether any or all of Lady Gaga's work is feminist is debatable (and feel free to debate away in comments), but, irrespective of that discussion, it is, in my estimation, both notable and valuable that a provocateur and pop culture icon with the platform and audience that Lady Gaga has self-identifies as a feminist.
[H/T to Shaker Matt.]
Quote of the Day
Part II
A tangential idea to the post below, which didn't quite fit into that piece…
The gap between what our culture promises privileged men and what it delivers to and expects of them also underlies the mystification shared by many people (men and women, privileged and marginalized alike) that a sexist joke (for example) could still be a "big deal" in a culture where many women are out-performing their male peers.
A person born into a world in which his humanity, agency, dignity, autonomy are not in question views achievement as a personal and individual pursuit—"I want to get an education, I want to get a good job, I want to succeed in my career, I want to attain certain material possessions and comforts."
A person born into a world in which hir humanity, agency, dignity, and autonomy are in question, philosophically and often legally, on the other hand, often views achievement not merely in personal and individual terms but also as a collective pursuit—"I want [all members of the marginalized group(s) to which I belong] to have access, opportunity, respect, equality" because attainment of those things on a personal and individual basis, with rare exceptions, is elusive.
(Which is not to discount the compelling motives of solidarity and empathy born of mutual struggle.)
Thus, a sexist joke (for example) can deny a different kind of achievement, even as women may have lots of forward momentum in educational or professional achievements.
It should also be noted that the little stuff of sexism is one way in which the kyriarchal narratives that inhibit privileged men's progress are promulgated. So it's not exactly doing privileged men any good to treat them as an insignificance, either. They're just conveying the bars of their own cages.
The End of...Something
Hanna Rosin's piece in The Atlantic is titled "The End of Men," but a more accurate title might be "The End of Male Privilege."
Well, it would be a more accurate title if she'd ever managed to tease out the idea that struck me as a glaring omission from the piece: Privileged men's achievement gap, and the associated atrophy born of the observable resistance, or inflexibility, to make quick course corrections, is the inevitable result of a culture that continues to sell privileged men a patriarchal narrative of birthright entitlement, despite the fact that it is nothing but an empty promise of an illusory bounty in which most men will never share.
Simply: American culture continues to promise straight, white, cis, able-bodied men success and supremacy, in exchange for nothing but their being straight, white, cis, and able-bodied. But that shit just ain't enough anymore.
(Which is not to suggest that privileges of all flavors do not frustratingly remain compelling and material benefits.)
Our culture has progressed enough that most people cannot trade exclusively on their privilege, but not so much that the desperate, obdurate, and still-plentiful enforcers of the kyriarchy have stopped selling that possibility nonetheless.
The result is a lot of men who have been sold a bill of goods, and don't understand why everything's gone pear-shaped, and don't have the tools to set a new course, because the kyriarchy assured them their whole lives they didn't need those tools. They only needed to be men.
Privilege has robbed them of the means to succeed in a changing world.
And that is not all of which they've been robbed. Privilege has robbed them of the self-assurance hard-won by struggling to be proud despite one's marginalization.
It has robbed them of the unquenchable hunger for self-improvement that doesn't reside in the bellies of the privileged who are assured they are the Norm, the ideal to which marginalized people aspire, who spend their lives being heard and respected and presumed to be acting in good faith.
It has robbed them of the self-esteem conferred only by earned pride.
It has robbed them of the determination and flexibility and capacity to create one's own rules, honed during a lifetime of being told "You can't" and having one's ambitions deterred by the seemingly unnavigable barriers put in one's way by people who don't want to see one succeed.
It has robbed them of the ability to see when the game is rigged so that they will fail, too, and how to achieve, in defiance of the expectation that we will settle for less than we want, by carving out routes that are nontraditional and using strategies neither obvious nor logical by traditional standards.
Privilege tells them that those traditional standards are the best and the only standards—the standards that make men men—and coerces them into complacency by the damnable illusion that they have everything already that they will ever need, and need never expect more of themselves.
So if they are failing, it is someone else's fault and someone else's responsibility to fix.
Women never had that luxury, that burden.
[Related Reading: With All Due Respect, In Which Another Dunderheaded Dodobrain Fails Utterly to Realize Feminism is His Friend, Not His Enemy, Angry Men, Searching Men—and What They Can Learn From Girls and Queers.]
Since We're Such Good Friends
I decided now would be a good time to share my passport with the internet:
So today there's this:
Washington Post: State [Department] eases rules for changing gender on passports
CNN: Surgery no longer a requirement for changing gender on passport
This is a very good thing.
I lose enough sleep imagining how I'm going to explain to strangers with power why I feel it necessary to cross international borders to, say, hang out with queer people on roller skates. Or go mountain biking. In Manitoba. (True story). Or why my car appears to be held together with duct tape and bumper stickers.
You can imagine how much sleep I lose about having to explain what I am, why I have what appear to be tits, or answer any number of impertinent questions. These are scary and dangerous propositions.
This new policy isn't a panacea. It still requires folks to get a letter from a doctor, something that can be (a) difficult, (b) expensive, and (c) undesirable. Most trans people have a hard enough time accessing health care, and some of us don't want to be on hormones or otherwise be involved with an "attending physician."
Passports are pretty expensive, too. And frankly, I'm not so hot on the idea of having to show anything to cross arbitrary borders.
Still, I am very happy at the moment.
Random Youtubery
John Lydon (A.K.A. Johnny Rotten) on Judge Judy. What the fuck?
(Transcript after the jump.)
{Audience is standing in the courtroom. Robert Williams stands at the plaintiff’s table and John Lydon stands at the defendant’s table. Camera zooms in on Judge Judy Scheindlin, seated at the bench.}Huge thanks to Shaker Afurtiveone for the transcription!
Byrd the Bailiff: [Handing file to Judge Judy] Your Honor, this is case number 260 on the calendar in the matter of Williams vs. Lydon. The parties have been sworn in, Judge. {To courtroom} You may be seated. Have a seat, have a seat.
Judge Judy: Mr. Williams, according to your complaint, sir, you were hired by the defendant as a drummer in his band.
Robert Williams: That’s correct.
JJ: And the band was going on tour.
Williams: That’s right.
JJ: Your complaint states that he breached your contract by firing you prior to the tour, that he owes you a substantial amount of money for that, and then in addition, he assaulted you and as a result of that you had substantial medical bills
Williams: Uh, that’s right your honor. In March, uh, ‘ 97 I was hired by Mr. Lydon, I went to his house. He had, uh, invited me over to hear his CD, to listen to it, and after we had talked, he had hired me, and, uh, I began, uh, working on his music at my house. About a month later-
John Lydon: Actually it was in May, May, it was in May {crosstalk}
JJ: Shh, shh , Mr. Lydon, Mr. Lydon. [Bangs gavel] Listen to me sir; I’m going to give you an opportunity to tell me your side of the story, all right-
Lydon: Fine
JJ: Right now, the plaintiff is trying to present his case, and I’d like you to let him do that in an orderly fashion. {To Williams} Go ahead.
Williams: I was hired in March, I started working on the music in April after he’d given me a copy of his CD, and, uh, and brought it to my house and started working on it.
JJ: There’s no question, sir, that you worked, and I believe that Mr. Lydon acknowledges that you worked.
Lydon: Certainly
JJ: You were working rehearsals, participated fully with the project. It’s his defense to this action that a) you were impossible to work with because you were a prima donna, that you, uh, violated several verbal agreements that you had with him, and that in fact, he didn’t really fire you, but you quit.
Williams: That I wanted to have our contract in writing, because a guitar player who worked for him 10 years ago had done a US tour for him and hadn’t gotten paid for it when he had gotten back from the tour.
Lydon [making WTF face, gestures with right arm at Williams]: Proof, please? I’d like proof of that!
JJ: Just a second, please. Shh, shh, Mr Lydon. Shhhhh. [Makes finger-to-lip shushing gesture at Lydon]
Williams: Well, actually, when I had brought that up to a-
JJ: Listen to me.
Williams: Yes ma’am.
JJ: You cannot bring in through the back door of a trial, hearsay. If you have-
Williams: Oh, I, I’m not using this as evidence your honor I’m only using this as a reason-
JJ: Good, then if you’re not –
Lydon: Uh, duhhh. {Cupping hand to ear} Excuse me?
JJ: If you’re not using this as evidence- Mr. Lydon! If you can’t behave, sir, [Lydon bows head] I’m gonna show you the door, so you have to be quiet-
Lydon: I’ll be very quiet, I promise, until it is my turn.
JJ: Good. {To Williams} Let me see a copy of your fax, sir, that you sent.
{cut}
JJ: How many musicians were there in the band?
Williams: There were just two other musicians. Now he had said to me-
JJ: Just a second-
Lydon: Three {hold up three fingers}, excluding me.{ points thumb at self}
JJ: {To Lydon} Well, let’s exclude you for a moment, because you weren’t complaining about your accommodations, right?
Lydon: {Arms crossed, shakes head}I’m not.
Williams: Now he said, “If I give you your own hotel room, Robert, I’ll have to give it to them” and I said it would be the only humane thing to do, because after each of these shows we were to get on the bus and travel for seven or eight hours, and the band was gonna be in such tight quarters for six weeks to eight weeks, you could go mad just not having your own-
[Lydon leans forward and props his elbows on the table in front of him, rests chin in his hands]
{cut}
[Lydon is loudly blowing his nose into what looks like a dish towel]
Williams: -and I said, come on now, you know, I’m willing to forgive and forget, you know, I don’t want to be working for four months for this guy-
[Camera cuts to Lydon, snickering into dishtowel/handkerchief and looking over his shoulder. Camera cuts behind him to tour managers who are grinning back at him.]
Williams: And then go, you know, and then three days before my salary triples and I go out on the road to be able to showcase my drumming abilities, I get fired. I said, it’s not fair.
[Cut to ‘Judge Judy’ logo]
JJ:{to Lydon} You evidently were taken with his abilities as a drummer, correct?
Lydon: Yes.
JJ: And you hired him?
Lydon: Yes, a deal he agreed to financially, right from the start, the second he accepted the first check. In fact, in his fax {picks up paper}, the last line of it says “Hopefully this meets with your approval as it will be necessary for me to do this tour if…” If! If!
Williams: That’s right-
[Judge Judy holds up her hand, gesturing for Williams to be silent]
Lydon: If! If! {points emphatically at paper} Well, it wouldn’t. I don’t change deals once I’ve struck them. He changed-
Williams: Neither d-
JJ: {To Williams} Listen to me! You have to be quiet now.
Williams: Yes ma’am.
JJ: He was quiet.
Williams: Okay.
Lydon: He changed his mind, and he walked out on me that night. That left me lumbered with a lack of a drummer and a tour about to start. And this whole hotel stuff he’s coming up with {waves hands at Williams}, you must understand, these are small nightclubs gigs, and we’re traveling vast journeys on a tour bus. We’re not staying overnight in most of the towns.
JJ: Now, Mr. Lydon, I don’t have a-
Lydon: There’s no point in me wasting money on separate individual hotel rooms-
JJ: I don’t have a problem-
Lydon: When I perfectly am able to share-
JJ: Mr. Lydon!
Lydon: And I’m apparently the pop star, yet he {points at Williams}-
[Audience chuckles]
JJ: Mr. Lydon, shh. Do me a favor: don’t talk over me. I’m not arguing with you with regard to the hotel room.
Lydon: Right, fine.
JJ: I don’t believe tha-
Lydon: Where’s the assault?
JJ: Shh! I don’t believe that you have any responsibility to provide him with an independent hotel room. And Mr. Willaims, quite frankly, sir-
Williams: Yes ma’am.
JJ: I think it’s poor form to say to your boss “You’ve got a nice room”- which is really what you said to him- “You got a nice room, you’re sitting in a nice perch, and you’re watching all of us, uh, plebeians, right, living like sardines in a can.” Which is pretty much what you said to him, right?
Williams: Right.
{cut}
JJ: To the assault. Mr. Lydon, I would like you to tell me your version of the assault, sir.
Lydon: No assault. Absolute nonsense. The only bodily contact that there was of any kind at all was when I came back from the toilet. Our table was against the wall, my seat was in the furthest corner, he was sitting opposite, to get by him, had that much room {holds hands about a foot apart}. He got up, his head hit my chin. If anyone should do anyone for assault, it should be me to him.
Williams [Bursting into laughter]:Oh, that’s-
Lydon: That’s it! But I’m not petty and stupid and I would never-
JJ: So what happened? Mr. Lydon. All right, you came-
Williams: Mr. Liar.
JJ: Shh! Hey. {slams hand on desk, gives Williams warning glare}
Lydon{to Williams}: Prove that.
JJ: Ju- listen, hey! Am I in-?
Williams: [holds up folder]I’ve got-
JJ: Just a second! I’m in charge of this asylum. Let’s not forget that.
Williams: That’s right, your honor.
[Audience chuckles]
JJ: Good! You had his meeting, I gather, to try to iron things out.
Lydon: That’s right.
JJ: Had you said anything to him such as “I think it’s best that we split up”, “I think it’s best that you don’t come on the tour”?
Lydon: No, no.
JJ: So, then you came back.
Lydon: That would be “You’re not going to be, what part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” “Then I won’t do it.” Up he gets, off he goes.
JJ: So you said to him-
Williams: That’s not true.
JJ: So you said to him, “What part of-
Lydon{To Williams}: Well, actually, if it’s not true, how come everybody else there says it is?
JJ: [Bangs gavel] Mr. Lydon.
Williams{To Lydon}: Because they’re your employees.
Lydon{To Williams}: So were you at the time.
Byrd: Gentlemen, talk to the judge, please.
Williams: Yes.
JJ: Thank you, Byrd.
Byrd: You’re welcome, ma’am.
[Audience chuckles]
Lydon: Sorry, Byrd.
Williams: Your Honor, may I-
JJ: Juh-!
Williams: I, I would like to submit some evidence, police, police report and medical reports.
JJ: I, I will look at it sir.
Williams: Okay.
JJ: Just a second. Byrd, would you get me that, would you get me those reports? If you talk to each other again I’m gonna throw you out of here. Do you understand? And it inures to your benefit, sir-
Williams: Yes ma’am.
JJ: -not to do that-
Williams: That’s right.
JJ: - because if I throw you out, you don’t have a chance.
Williams: That’s right, your Honor.
JJ: Good.
{cut}
{Lydon is joined at the defendant’s table by a bald man (name unknown) and a man in a leather jacket (Mitchell Jacobs, Tour Manager)}
JJ: -sir?
Bald man: His manager.
JJ: Tour manager, and a manager, all these people that you pay, Mr. Lydon. Expensive.
Lydon[sarcastically]: And none of them get their own day rooms.
JJ: What? None of them get their own- [laughs]
[Audience laughs]
JJ: All right. Serious me now.
{cut}
Lydon: How would he know? He wasn’t even there.
JJ{To Lydon}: Eh! Shh.
[Lydon, arms crossed, gazes up at the ceiling, pouting. He mimes tossing or adjusting his hair. Audience chuckles.]
JJ{to Jacobs}: So is it possible that you used one or two of his things for one day? Or two days?
Jacobs: 99%, no.
JJ: But maybe you did.
{cut}
JJ{to Williams}: I’m not satisfied, sir, that you were fired without cause. I’m not satisfied that you were in fact assaulted, because anyone that was assaulted in a way that you say were assaulted would have reported first thing in the morning or an hour later to an emergency room, which you did not. I am therefore dismissing your lawsuit. That’s all.
[Lydon claps quietly]
Byrd: Parties are excused, you may step out.
Lydon{to Bald Man}: Fairly obvious conclusion.
{cut to Outside Courtoom}
Lydon{to camera}: This is an insane business, and people tend to be a bit whack. I understand ‘no’. Judge Judy understands ‘no’. Mr. Williams doesn’t.
Williams{to camera}: No one will ever speak up against him, or, or stand up for themselves, and that was what essentially I was doing.
Lydon{to camera}: I think he would be better as a painter and decorator.
Fin.
[Cross-posted.]
On the Use of Labels
Some of you may have noticed I've started using "cis" and "TAB" and so on a lot more when I write here about things that don't necessarily concern the person's status with regard to those labels, and a couple have asked why. I'll use the "cis" label as my example, but this applies to hetero/bi/homo, and white/POC, and TAB/differently abled, equally, as well as many other possible pairings of identity labels, which I'm not going into only for not wanting to wear out my fingers typing great bloody lists. You're smart folk; you can apply the rule more generally yourselves.
For me, it's because I came to be annoyed by the constant practice, in the media, that whenever a trans person is involved in the news, the label "trans" is always, always applied, even when there's no relevance whatsoever to the article's actual subject.
And it came to me that if I only ever use "cis" when I'm talking about trans-oriented stories, then I may as well not use it, as it doesn't serve any purpose better than just leaving it out does. It's just as othering as leaving it out, if that's the only time it's used.
So in order to draw attention to the pointless and irrelevant way the label "trans" is often used, I am striving to use "cis" in equally pointless and irrelevant ways.
While, yes, some folk bear the label of "trans" with great pride, and publicly proclaim their identity as such, it should be recognized that whether or not someone wants that label publicly used should be something which a reporter with good ethics asks the interviewee/subject, not which is applied every single time whether relevant or not.
Now, you can go back and do a search and replace on "cis" and "trans" with any other grouping of labels as I mentioned at the beginning of the post. If we only use the mainstream label to specifically contrast it with the non-mainstream one, then we may as well not bother.
Obviously, This is the Greatest Thing Ever
[Jedi Betty White, with Spirit Jedi Golden Girls. Click to embiggen.]
Sent to me by my friend Phil Barron, who ran across it at Accordion Guy. If everyone's day started with the receipt of A Fabulous Simple Thing as perfectly suited to hir personal aesthetic as this is to mine, by way of a dear friend, the world would be a much better place.
If it's Thursday, it's bathrooms. Also on Mondays.
[Okay, one more quick post before I introduce myself. I happen to have one of the bladders in question, so I wanted to tackle this now.]
On Monday, the New York State Senate voted down the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) in committee. Bathrooms. Showers. Yawn.
I'm honestly surprised that I'm as upset about the bill failing as I am. It's soooooooo every other day of my life.
Since I'm the first person to address GENDA in the history of the internet, a few points: (Actually, these points have been made on the internet once. Or twice.)
Again with the bathrooms and showers?
Okay, I'm personally really skittish about female-only locker rooms (and I'm only in them within a derby setting). The only thing that makes me feel okay about it is that I literally know (and have had the crap beaten out of me by) everyone present. Also, there's no nudity. Or showers. Or paid positions.
Still, the thing about showers? I really don't know that there are very many folks out there that don't find being around naked co-workers awkward. I have no idea how genital shape changes the math there.
And bathrooms?
[Fun fact that some of you might not know: A very common anti-androgen that a lot of trans women (myself included) take is a powerful diuretic. I pretty much live in the ladies' room. Basically, I'm like Eudora Welty's Sister, assuming that story was about something else entirely].
Are trans people supposed to hold it until we get home? To the bathroom in our home? That we can't afford? Because we don't have a job? Because there's nobody who will hire us? Because there's no GENDA? And we can't work for more than 45 minutes at a time? Because we have to go to the bathroom? At home?
That might be funny, but it's seriously mean-spirited, ridiculous, and I want to smash something. There's no tinkering or compromising or otherwise getting around the bathroom and shower “issues.” Either there's a GENDA or there isn't. Seriously, this bathroom business is an excuse, plain and simple.
This bathroom business? It tacitly encourages violence. Violence that actually happens.
Honestly, I'm torn about how much of our energy and hopes the trans community should invest in non-discrimination statutes. Things like GENDA don't directly end discrimination. I, for one, have been fired from a job (for what I assume.... yeah) in a jurisdiction that had a non-discrimination ordinance on the books. But as hard as non-discrimination statutes are to enforce (where the willpower to do so even exists), a world without them is even worse.
The State of New York (by way of 13 State Senators) basically said that trans and gender non-conforming people don't have the right to be in bathrooms that match their identities. That's not good. Do police officers (or anyone else) have the right to remove people from bathrooms that they don't have a right to be in? That gets violent. And it does happen. The folks who are opposing this statute are responsible for this violence.
It's not good to leave folks behind
Empire State Pride Agenda, (the folks who originally alerted me to this mess) fought hard for SONDA (the Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act) in Albany. Note that their SONDA timeline starts with Stonewall (me: Sylvia Rivera, blah, blah, blah, wha?!!!?!!) and ends, appropriately enough, with SONDA becoming law. I'm not going to talk about the present leadership of the Pride Agenda, because I'm new here (to New York, that is). I will, however, point out that I still don't have the right to work at a job where I can go to the bathroom.
On a related note, GENDA at the Federal level, bathrooms, Barney Frank, leaving folks behind, etc., You know.
Here's the New York State Senate's website. If you're a New Yorker, you might contact your Senator to let them know how you feel about their stance in favor (or against) GENDA. Or anything, really. They've had a fun run of late.
On the Dutch Elections
by Shaker Glauke
I'm gonna assume most of the readers of Shakesville haven't heard too much about the Dutch general elections that were held yesterday. I'm gonna assume you don't know too much about Dutch politics in general (and that's okay—we're a medium power and a medium sized economy; we know our place). So first, the...
Basics
We elected our parliament yesterday. There were 150 seats to divide. We have a system of proportional representation, meaning that roughly every vote counts. The turnout is usually quite high, up to some 80% of the electorate. You don't have to register in order to be able to vote. After the elections, at least two parties have to agree on some kind of coalition agreement in order to be able to govern.
2010
This was going to be an important election, that much was clear. Part of our pension system is not exactly demographics-proof; our tax system favours you stupendously if you own a big mansion, but renting a house is prohibitively expensive. We're still recovering from the shocking notion that The Netherlands are in fact an immigration country. Yet, there's a lingering resentment that Muslims are 'taking over' 'our' country.
The turnout was the lowest in years, 70%. I've spent quite some time on the street campaigning, and from what I heard, many people were unsure what to vote, so they didn't come at all.
Outcome
And the people that did turn up... well... Geert Wilders and his misnamed Freedom Party grew from 9 tot 24 seats. That's right, the conservative, xenophobic, Eurosceptic party almost tripled. Which is more than was predicted. The freemarket party Popular Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) grew from 22 to 31 seats, making them the largest party. Christian Democrats, rather right-wing, fell from 41 to 20 seats. Labour lost a little, ending with 30 votes. Socialist Party fell from 25 to 15 votes. My own party, GreenLeft, led by the briliant Femke Halsema grew a little, from 7 to 10 seats. Our social-liberal brethren D-66 grew from 3 to 10 seats.
Which brings us to the hard part: Who will form the coalition? Mind you, you need at least 76 votes in order to win the vote of confidence in parliament. Coalition forming is usually initiated by the largest party. The VVD. They could ally with Labour, D66, and GreenLeft. But that would leave them wide open for criticism from the right. Or they could attempt to form a coalition with Geert Wilders, Christian Democrats, and the tiny theocratic SGP. But that hinges on the willingness of Wilders and the Christian Democrats to work together, and that's not exactly a given. Plus: What would the theocrats want in return for their support? I shudder at the thought.
So, the people have spoken. We're just not exactly sure what we've tried to say.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite musical instrument to listen to? What is your favorite to play, if you play any?
I like to listen to the violin—you know I can't play it, though! What I can play is da bass. Not the stand-up rockabilly bass, but the kind you find in the hands of forest wizards like Geddy Lee.
Liss: Who's Geddy Lee?
Me: The lead singer of Rush.
Liss: He's the lead singer and the bassist?
Me: Yeah.
Liss: That's unusual.
Me: That's why Rush is so amazing.
Liss: I didn't even know you liked Rush.
Me: I don't. They're the worst.
Man, Oh, Man
As you know, I am not only the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington, but also the Most Pedantic Feminist in all of Literal Land, so it will come as no surprise to you that I had a caustic little chuckle about this headline on CNN:
"Female athlete dominates Ironman."
It links to an article about Chrissie Wellington "add[ing] another impressive half Ironman win to her resume."
Another.
I'm going to go ahead and start thinking of it as the Ironperson competition, if it's all right by the Patriarchy.
Number of the Day
$5,539. The amount of money the Church of Latter Day Saints has been fined for failing to promptly report $36,928 in contributions to the 'Yes on 8' committee, which organized against same-sex marriage in California.
As you may recall, the Mormon church was one of the key funders of the Prop 8 repeal, which stole marriage rights away from same-sex couples in CA after a court had granted them.
America 2.0
Arizona pol wants immigrant 'tent city': "Arizona state Treasurer Dean Martin, a Republican candidate for governor, called on Tuesday for the creation of statewide tent cities to house the expected increase in the number of illegal immigrants expected to be arrested under the state’s controversial new immigration law."
Of course he does.
*fumes*
[H/T to Shaker SamanthaB, who hat tips Matt Yglesias.]
Wednesday Blogaround
Sociological Images: The Growing Wealth Gap Between Blacks and Whites
- Lisa blogs about a study of this expanding gap in the U.S., whose authors point to public policies which help to create and sustain it. Bonus: A white guy immediately shows up in comments to whitemansplain where the real problem lies. Because he is concerned.
Sociological Images: Vintage Men's Magazines and a Pre-Consumerist Time
- Lad's mag covers from when Men were Men and Women were, well, pretty much the same, in this particular context.
Womanist Musings: Spark of Wisdom: Gay Love for Straight Titillation
- Regular Wednesday Muser Sparky on the I'm-not-A-Gay-I-just-play-one-for-the-straights phenomenon.
Womanist Musings: 'Tis the season
- What is America's Greatness composed of? Renee's guest RavenScholar can tell you, because she has been so fortunate as to receive a brochure from those who know.
Womanist Musings: Dear White Feminists Stop Erasing my Womanism
- Renee speaks for herself.
Womanist Musings: Too Disabled To See Your Children
- TW for really shameful and distressing treatment of a disabled mother.
NOLA.com: Oil Spill Gulf of Mexico 2010
- filling all your news-of-the-omnivorous-petrolosaurian-nightmare-which-will-be-with-us-for-a-long-long-time information needs.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Anatomy of a Slur
- Ta-Nehisi makes several excellent points while illustrating something much valued at Shakesville - how to be wrong, rightly.
Tiger Beatdown: THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE: Advice for Deleted Commenters, From a Puppy
- Lest he know not the delights of internet friendships, I would like to introduce to Dudley Q. McEwan one Hektor, An Adorable Puppy. Hektor enjoys eating, and going Up, but not Down. He also does a smokin' takedown of Chivalrous Gentlemen who feel obliged to explain to Ladies, on their own blogs, what The Deal Is.
Pam's House Blend: The White House and Pride Month . . Who's on the list for its reception
- Pam notes that the White House's celebration of Pride Month will entertain a select list of guests, and a select list of issues.
Pam's House Blend: California Transgender Advocacy Day: No Slackactivists There
- Autumn posts audio* and video* interviews with (mostly) trans people who talked with their state representatives on California's first Transgender Advocacy Day in May, and writes about why she thinks these records are important.
* The video is about 24 minutes long, and the audio quality is variable as the interviews were done in public spaces. There is no transcript and I'm sorry but I can't manage one. The approximately-12-minute audio-only interview is with the mother of a trans child and the audio quality on that is much better. I will try to transcribe that now I have the Blogaround up. I will add it to this post, below a fold, when done.
ETA: And, dang! I keep forgetting to invite y'uns to drop links in comments. I'm so glad you know that already. But, for anyone who's new here, links to your own posts or posts you'd like to share are welcome in comments to the Blogaround.
UPDATE:Transcript of Autumn Sandeen's interview with Alicia, who participated in California's first Transgender Day of Advocacy by joining in lobbying CA state legislators for trans rights, in support of her child and other trans people, is below the fold.
This transcript is of a trans woman interviewing the parent of a young trans girl. The video linked to above, on the other hand, consists of interviews with trans people who participated in the lobbying action. I apologize for transcribing the voice of a parent while not transcribing the interviews with the trans people themselves. As I said, I couldn't do the video, but I thought this interview would nevertheless be of interest as Alicia is the mother of a trans girl who has, I believe, just finished the 1st grade, and how trans children are being parented is a matter of significance to trans people.
(I don't know the correct spelling of Alicia's name; I'm just using the spelling of this name which I have seen most often. I apologize to Alicia if I've gotten it wrong. I looked up the names of the CA state legislators mentioned in this interview and am pretty sure I named the right ones and spelled them correctly, but if anyone sees a likely error in that or anything else, please point it out.)
Autumn: Hi! This is Autumn Sandeen, with Pam's House Blend, and I'm here with . . .
Alicia: Alicia.
Autumn: And Alicia, you're the parent of a trans youth, right?
Alicia: Yes.
Autumn: And we're here today at the Transgender, um, Advocacy Day, right after the Transgender Leadership Summit that we've just had for the last three days. And we've been advocating for, well , today, at the Advoc - at this Advocacy Day, we've been lobbying, uh, our state legislators about legislation that we're concerned about. So, first of all, talk about, you know, did you - how many legislators did you meet with today?
Alicia: We met with three of them today. Fortunately for me, 'cause this was my first time, we met . . .
Autumn: So you're a first time lobbyist?
Alicia: . . . friendly ones. Oh, yes. I have never darkened the door of this capitol.
(both chuckle)
Alicia: Uh, yeah, uh, we, uh, we went and we saw Fiona Ma's assistant, and we saw Mark Leno, and Tom Ammiano at the end. So . . .
Autumn: Wow, you did meet a gr - friendly group, there. I mean . . .
Alicia: Very friendly.
Autumn: I hear Mark Leno's name and I'm like, that's a pretty friendly, um, yeah - he's written, like, AB 96, so, that - you can't get more friendly - which is the one that gave the first housing and, um, employment protections in our state, back in 2003, 2004. So. Yeah, you can't have met a friendlier group, there. Um, talk about why it's important to you. Why, why, why are you here - you're not trans, so . . . (laughs)?
Alicia: No, but I have skin in this game, too.
Autumn: So what's your skin in the game?
Alicia: Well, I have a young child in elementary school who, uh, has been noticeably gender-variant to us, uh, since about age 3 ½ to 4 and, um, a lot has happened in the past year. We, uh - the child has been very gender-fluid up until, um, the last year or so, there was a shift, where she basically says, "Mama, I'm - I'm mostly, mostly, mostly girl." Last year, it was, "I'm both boy and girl" and I heard all these stories about her earnestly trying to explain to her friends on the playground the concept of two-spirit. We used to tell stories about, um, we had heard the fable of Bat, in Aesop's fable, it was turned into an Indian legend? And we, uh, when we were listening to it told, it was all about how Bat, you know, was in two worlds - neither a bird, nor a beast, and, uh, we hadn't heard the story before and we thought, oh, this is good, this is gonna be about middle people, and their value, and then the end of the story becomes: (mock-preachy voice) and they threw him out, and that's why Bat to this day lives in a cave and has no friends!
Autumn: (laughs) That's kind of a hard story, too.
Alicia: It, it was. So I spent weeks wracking my brain, usually at four o'clock in the morning, trying to figure a way to reframe that story. And, uh, we did come up with one, um, where Bat becomes a mediator, thank you very much, between the birds and the beasts, and she was happy and drew pictures of it. But she was framing herself for a long time as having one foot in both worlds, and then the reality of first grade hit. Kids were not getting it, were not going along with it. It was, kid, ya gotta be one side or the other. Ya go with the girls or the boys. And, so, the decision gelled over the summer that, you know, it was time to really socially transition. Um, it's the best thing for her. So, we have progressed now to where, fortunately we didn't have to change the name because it was one of those names that goes both ways - except for the legal name. We had to, uh . . .
Autumn: Right, you changed the legal name, but not . . .
Alicia: We changed the legal name . . .
Autumn: But the spelling is . . .
Alicia: Yeah.
Autumn: . . . you know, different, but the, the name is the same, you know . . .
Alicia: Yeah.
Autumn: You didn't have to change the name, how you refer to your child. It's just . . .
Alicia: Yeah, yeah. The decision to do that came up real clearly when the school photos came out. And, uh, yes . . . (sigh) other parents: watch out for those outsourced photo vendors . . .
Autumn: Yeah.
Alicia: . . . 'cause they just get a dump of file from the school district which gives the legal names.
Autumn: Ah . . .
Alicia: It, it can hit you so many ways, um, where the child gets outed constantly and you never kind of know where it's going to come from. So we thought, look, the most expedient thing is, do the legal name change now, and it gives her - she doesn't have to have that history, that paper trail as she moves into adolescence and adulthood.
Autumn: Right, and as we all kind of move around, it's not going to be like, it's not going to follow her as much as it u - you know, as much as, in the old days, it would have followed. So . . .
Alicia: Yeah.
Autumn: Um . . . so, when you m - how did you feel going in to different legislators and advocating on behalf of your child? What kind of difference did that kind of make for you, and did you see any kind of legislator response?
Alicia: It got easier with each visit, for sure. It's funny, I, I knew ahead of time who we were going to see - at least two of them, uh, they added the third one today. Um, but . . . I knew, I knew already that, I mean, heck, the bill I was, uh, mostly speaking about, the Mental Health At-Risk Youth bill, was written by one of the guys I saw today, and yet, I tell you, last night I could not sleep. It's, I think, partly, it's just not being used to this kind of role. Um, temperment-wise, I'm a back-of-the-room sort of person, and this is one - I think, one of the things I've learned, just - I think it is about being the mother of a gender-variant child, is - first they, first they scramble your gender-schema all around, and you have to tear your g - , tear it down and rebuild it, several times. And I'm a data- analyst, so, um, I'm familiar . .
Autumn: Oh, there you go, you're used . . .
Alicia: . . . with what happens when you have to tear apart your schema . . .
Autumn: And you've got wonderful black-and-white thinking going, with the data stuff you know . . .
Alicia: Well . . .
Autumn: . . . to a certain extent.
Alicia: Well, fortunately, I don't. Uh, I work in fuzzy data.
Autumn: Oh, ok.
Alicia: But it's still - I know that, um, at the data, at the database level the, the schema is rigid.
Autumn: Right.
Alicia: I actually did find myself - one time, talking to, I'll just say a large bank that we were doing some data merges with and, uh, they wanted me to give them a dump of, not just the names and the SSNs of all of our employees, but also their gender. And I said, "What? What the hell do you need that for?" 'Cause we were just merging systems that were about access. And I said, "We don't have that. We don't keep that. What are you, crazy?" And, and I said, "Oh, don't tell me. Don't tell me it's also a binary syntax?" Oh, yeah. And I said, I'm sorry but we don't have that. You're going to have to . . .
Autumn: Adapt.
Alicia: Yeah, you're going to have to figure out some other way to merge.
Autumn: You're going to have to adapt to us, rather than the other way around.
Alicia: Uh, but yeah, I - but it's still - the rearranging is the first thing you have to do. So, um, and it's, it becomes, actually - it's a growth thing - you're like, whoa . . .
Autumn: But it's your own child, so you're like fighting for your own . . .
Alicia: Yeah, it's a combination of oh, you know, " O brave new world, that has such people in it", and at the same time, you are at the gut level terrified, because we're all aware of how trans people are treated, and if you haven't even been living, you know, close to the trans community . . .
Autumn: You still know (chuckles).
Alicia: . . . you have an even more - yeah, and you also have, I think, um, you know, the stuff that comes, that stuff that comes to your mind when you, you know, if you flashed a bunch of pictures in front of us, we're remembering the real, real hard, hard stuff, 'cause that's what gets into the news.
Autumn: Right.
Alicia: You don't get nice . . .
Autumn: You're hearing, right, you're hearing about Angie Zapata, and Gwen Araujo, and, um, oh my gosh . . .
Alicia: Yeah.
Autumn: . . . I can think of some other names . . . uh, you know, but it's just one of those kind of, that's what you hear about, and of course, as we're relating statistics, uh . . .
Alicia: Umm.
Autumn: . . . at this event, I mean, one of the horrifying statistics is 67% of trans people, uh, have talked about, um, facing employment discrimination at their jobs; only one in five of them are actually fighting back, um, and then, 19% of our population has at some point been homeless. So, it's kind of like when you're dealing with statistics like that and then applying them to your own child, that's kind of a . . .
Alicia: Yeah.
Autumn: . . . it does kind of put you in a position where you've got to elbow for some room for your child, don't you?
Alicia: Yeah. So you kind of split yourself into - one part of you is just, well, by God, it's not going to happen to my child. Things are going to be different. It's a different generation; we have more support now. We can make stuff happen, we - because we have to. Then the other, dark side, that usually comes and visits in the wee hours of the morning, is that, that fear come back. You have to hold it at bay, all the time. I mean, when somebody said, somebody, today, in the press conference, mentioned Gwen's name, and it's like a Pavlovian response for me, I just start to tremble.
Autumn: Yeah, I know. In my case, it's like, I covered the Angie Zapata trial, so this is like . . . 18-year-old young woman, you know, killed. And it's, same thing as Gwen Araujo.
Alicia: (softly) Yes.
Autumn: You know, just became very personal and very . . . and of course, when I look at my peers and just think, how many names are on the Transgender Day of Remembrance list each year, you know, who could be next?
And you never know, you know, how people are going to react. And so it is kind of like - you know, it's your own child. I can only imagine, I mean, I imagine, I know how much - you know, it just, I can only imagine how much this would be very, very hard to be the watch - the watchful person over somebody else knowing that they're in a position where something bad could happen, but you having to fight to make sure nothing bad happens to them.
Alicia: (softly) Yeah.
Autumn: Am I pretty much summing it up right? (laughs)
Alicia: Yeah. No, until I became a parent I had no idea the depth of my parents' love for me.
Autumn: (quietly) Yeah.
Alicia: (quietly) I mean, you don't . . . you just can't concieve it. It's, um . . . there's not a word for it.
Autumn: Yeah. It's very hard. Well, anyway, well, thank you for meeting with me, Alicia, and talking about your experience. Um, it's really important to know that when we're talking about legislation that protects, um, gender identity and expression, this is not just adults we're talking about. We're also talking about elementary school-age children, like your child. And, she needs the same protections and, if she is going to come into a better world than the one that's there now, um, we're going to have to fight for it to make sure it happens.
Alicia: (quietly) Yes.
Autumn: Well, thank you again, Alicia.
Alicia: Thank you.
Autumn: And this is Autumn Sandeen with Pam's House Blend, signing out. Bye.
On The Radio
Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, was on The Brian Lehrer Show today on WNYC. Shirky mentioned Liss and Shakesville (as well as Sady Doyle and Tiger Beatdown). It was a pretty nice shout-out, not only to Liss, but the community as a whole.
Anyway, the show is available here, if you want to download and/or give it a listen.
(Transcript after the jump.)SHIRKY: Nick's...what -- what Nick [Carr in "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"] is saying about the individual human mind is I think the piece of that book we need to deal with. What he -- where he and I, I think, might disagree, is that I have great faith in humankind's ability to create social structures that take the possibilities of new media, and make them civically valuable, not just endlessly distracting.
[snip]
LEHRER: But you -- historically, to go back to the Gutenberg, you know, the dawn of the printing press, analogy, you said widespread literary education was the necessary response to the huge in-- huge increase in essentially bad information that, you know, the mass medium of books, uh, was starting to spread around the culture, centuries ago. What's the equivalent cultural response today?
SHIRKY: Well, there are a couple-- there are a couple of cultural responses. Uh...one of them, you know, one of th-- one of the things that people don't realize about the rise of the print revolution, is it wasn't until after print became abundant that we started separating fiction from nonfiction. That wasn't a division that existed until there were so many stories that people could start sorting that-- out that idea. So one of the things we need to teach kids to do is to understand something about the context in which work is produced. So, here is a blog by an individual on a particular topic, uh, and...are there any signs that that person is knowledgeable about that topic? If so, you can take that at--you know, as, as some kind of evidence. If not, you, you just, you-- you, you pay less attention to that person's opinion, until you see it corroborated. And so, in a way, we have switched, right, the, the-- there's always been this great tension between, you know, Socratic and Platonic ideas of authority, right? And Socrates is, "get the smart people together and get them to keep talking." Plato had a more, sort of, "we can identify the authorities and put them in charge," right, no poets in the land of the Republic. We're all moving to Socratic norms, now. Which is to say, we're all moving to a position where we're like the editors of peer-reviewed journals, we have to assess things probabilistcally. Instead of saying, "this person is an authority, that person is not, I am only listening to A," now we're really having to say, on the balance, "you know, this is a strange story I just read, but I've seen it-- I've seen it written about three, from uncoordinated sources, so I'm gonna start to take it seriously. And what, what [previous caller] Jim said is, you know, the, the first thing we have to do is to educate children that not -- and in fact educate everyone, educate ourselves, that not all pieces of information are created equal. And after that the social problem becomes: how do we teach people to get that kind of probability signature for the value of information, rather than "this is an authority, that is not an authority."
LEHRER: I see this show in that context, that, since we started before the internet, it used to be much more experts, with certifiable knowledge, coming on to impart that knowledge to a receptive audience. Over time, it has become much more of a hybrid of the wisdom of the crowd, if you will, interacting with the wisdom of experts, not competing with it, necessarily, but interacting with it--
SHIRKY: Sure.
LEHRER: --And the, kind of, fact-checking process, and larger peer-review process, goes in all directions now.
SHIRKY: Right. No no, that's, tha-- and I think the ability of surprising voices to be surfaced is one of the great and profound advantages of this medium. My-- my friend Naomi Wolf, many years ago, wrote a book called The Beauty Myth, uh, and, and--
LEHRER: And she was here to talk about it, at the time!
SHIRKY: Oh, (unintelligible) well, yes! So, in, in that book, she looked at the role of women's magazines, as a potential place where women could have a conversation with one another, unshaped by larger social forces. And the way that women's magainzes almost completely failed to live up to that possibility, because of the demands of cosmetics companies for "beauty-friendly copy." And so the possibility of discussing real and deep issues of sexism was driven from the one place that, that provided this public conversation. Now, when you look at Melissa McEwan on Shakespeare's Sis-- on Shakesville, or Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown, who's my favorite-- favorite blogger, uh, they are doing what Naomi imagined. They have a public space to not just say what they think, but to convene a conversation among their commenters, without having to go, hat in hand, to the cosmetics company, and have beauty-friendly copy. They can finally have the discussion out in the open.
[Thanks to Scott Madin for the transcript and DW for letting us know.]
Thindeath/Fatdeath and Deathcorn
[Hiya! For some reason Liss graciously offered me the opportunity to become a contributor. Sometime soon I hope to post an introduction that explains who I am and why I won't get off the internet (It feels so 80's to be political). In the meantime, here's something I wrote about my lungs, in case society's been wondering about them.]
I thought I'd spend some time talking about my body, given that this is the internet, something primarily designed to enable discussions about bodies and celebrities. Or both! More on Amy Winehouse later.
So. After examining chest x-rays for an unrelated roller derby non-injury, my doctor told me she suspected emphysema (or COPD, basically a non-threatening acronym for emphysema and/or bronchitis). An initial round of tests appear to support my doctor's inference.
There are more tests to come, and plenty of conditions to rule out (including pulmonary excellence, something I suspect is a strong possibility). Frankly, society isn't particularly invested in my body, either. At least not my lungs. *ahem* However, after scouring the internet for fun facts, I have a couple of observations.
First, just as deathfat! isn't necessarily as deadly as some would have you believe, thinhealthwhoooooo!!!! isn't axiomatic, either.
Some people are just thin. In the absence of eating disorders. Not only are there plenty of health conditions (I dare say most of them) that can afflict otherwise healthy-seeming and thin individuals, but thinness in-and-of itself can sometimes also present problems. Those of us who are really tall and really thin may have weak spots in the tops of our lungs, which may rupture as a result of air pressure changes, violent yawning, whichever. Collapsed lungs aren't the worst thing in the world, but they're hardly pleasant.
Y'all knew that, though.
A second observation (or proposition) is that the cultural dialogue about lung impairment shares a lot of space with fat hatred.
Emphysema is almost entirely preventable.
Emphysema is a result of your bad life choices. Ms. Winehouse?
Your lungs are ugly and unglamorous, and you've brought this upon yourself. Ms. Turlington?
Yes, smoking is bad for you (more on this later). However, regardless of my situation, it's entirely possible for otherwise fit, athletic, young people to develop chronic pulmonary issues. There are conditions (e.g., Alpha-1) that often lead to emphysema or other pulmonary unpleasantness in previously healthy, non-smoking, young people.
And of course, smoking matters. So does exposure to toxic chemicals at work, at home, and in the air in one's neighborhood. Sadly, breathing clean air is a privilege correlated to having other privilege. Patterns of asthma incidence, for example, bear this out.
And about smoking. It's bad for you. And most smokers know this. I suspect all of the horrifying information out there about emphysema (thank you, BTW) is a crude attempt to encourage smokers to quit (or never start). While smoking cessation is a laudable goal (and my lungs thank you), it would behoove the medical community to acknowledge that smoking exists within a cultural context. The American Heart Association contends (with evidence!) that the tobacco industry disproportionately targets minorities and women. In the US, LGBTQ people are substantially more likely to smoke than their straight counterparts. Showing people pictures of smokers' lungs and portraying people with emphysema as pitiful is not a comprehensive, (nor in my opinion desirable) anti-smoking strategy.
Smokers are not infants in need of teaching, they're people targeted by corporations that wish to sell an addictive and deadly product. Fat people aren't infants either (although ZOMG!!!!11!). And they don't necessarily make bad choices, either. They may eat well. They may exercise regularly. They may have quit smoking. Yet you wouldn't know it from OMFGDEATHFAT!!!!!11!! 1!!!1!
But what about those folks who do eat horrifying processed food? There's a huge industry that manufactures HFCS-laden food, which is eaten by plenty of smart people. Kraft Foods, for example, at one point had an interest in keeping folks' stomachs filled with Velveeta, KD, Jell-O, and Kool-Aid, with perhaps a Marlboro cigarette for after dinner. The consumers of these empty calories, are disproportionately poor, and otherwise disproportionately unlikely to have access to healthier alternatives. In other words, the manufactured food industry and the tobacco industry target the same populations.
Meanwhile, HFCS is taking its tool toll on our lungs, the oil required for industrial corn farming migrating across the gulf, trucks and trains filled with well-traveled food rumbling past our homes.
Because Kids Pay Attention to Military Policy
Rep. Ike Skelton [D(ouche), MO] has a completely new, never thought of it before, of course this makes sense reason concerning the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Didn't see that coming, didja?
According to the Associated Press, Skelton told reporters that repeal of the policy could put families in a difficult position because it could prompt children to ask about homosexuality.Yes, Jebus forbid kids ask questions about homosexuality. You know, when they come back from battle or boot camp or whatever, because apparently 7-year-olds are in the military right know, so they'll totally see tons of queerz in the barracks.
“What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?” he asked.
Skelton, one of the 26 Democrats who opposed repeal in the House, added that his “biggest concern are the families.”
Having openly LGBTQ folks in the military is what puts the issue right in front of kid's faces, folks. Not, you know, fighting the repeal tooth and nail, making it an "election issue," and forcing the topic into every news broadcast, every newspaper, every news website, etc. etc. etc. Apparently, that would be how you hide the subject. We can't have kids asking questions. Dangerous questions. Those lead to thoughts.
Tell you what, Skelton. When you can discuss parents without referring to them as "mommies and daddies" as if you were addressing a room full of preschoolers, rather than a room full of reporters; when you recognize that queer folks have families too (and that some "traditional" families aren't populated with homophobes), maybe I'll give you the time of day.
Of course, you'll still be wrong...
(Transcript: Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons cries, "Won't someone please think of the children?!?)
