Edit: Please read the comment thread before commenting yourself. For some very good reasons, with which I agree completely, this series won't be running here. I posted before thinking things through entirely.
-=-=-
Hey, Shakers - I've been working, on and off, on a post (well, posts) I'm finding really hard to write, for reasons that are part of what I'm writing about, actually. It's no secret here that I struggle with depression on a chronic basis, with it having a notable and serious impact on my life.
I'm wondering if there'd be interest here in my writing an occasional/irregular (sorta like everything else I do, I guess - another of its insidious effects) series on how depression interacts with my life, how I fight it without meds, that kind of thing?
One of the effects of the thing is that it's not always easy to judge one's actions or intents, thus the question. My thinking on the post/series is that in addition to talking about things that come to me, I'll invite questions from you, and answer them to the best of my ability/knowledge. I'm only an expert in that I've been living with it my whole life; it runs in my family, as my sister and mother have, as I have, been hospitalized for it at one time or another, and I'm sure if such things had been done at all in the UK of the mid-20th or earlier, more of my relatives, particularly the women, would have been treated for it. I certainly claim no special ability to cure it - all I know is how I live with it.
Given that this can be an extremely private and shameful-feeling thing for some folk, I would like to specifically invite people who wish to comment personally, or to ask questions they wouldn't like to ask in public, to write me e-mails, whose contents and originators I can protect/obscure while answering.
So? Does this sound like something people would want to read?
I should add one thing: while I deeply appreciate the thoughtful impulse of people suggesting things which have worked for them, I'm not actively seeking advice on how to live with depression. I will probably make a post in the series asking for people to lay out any suggestions they have found effective for them, to offer affected readers as wide a range of options they can look into, but there's not really anything I've not already tried at some point in the 28 years since my first diagnosis. Thanks for understanding. :)
An Irregular Series on Depression?
Support the Female Troops
As has been previously mentioned in this space, it is illegal for military hospitals to provide abortion services to female soldiers, with exceptions for life endangerment and rape/incest (and soldiers must foot the bill for the latter), but that may be changing:
[T]ucked into the same 852-page Pentagon policy bill as the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is a little-noticed amendment that takes on another emotionally charged issue: making abortion easier for military women in war zones.I'll bet he "supports the troops," though, right? Just not the female troops, who are being denied the very equality they're willing to put their lives on the line to defend.
In a vote that advocates of abortion rights sought beforehand to keep quiet, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a provision on May 27 to allow privately financed abortions at military hospitals and bases. Current law bans abortions in most cases at military facilities, even if women pay themselves, meaning they must go outside to private hospitals and clinics — an impossibility for many of the estimated 100,000 American servicewomen in foreign countries, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The result, the advocates say, is that military women serving overseas do not have the same access to basic health care that other American women do, or that is ensured by the laws of the country they are fighting to protect. "It's an issue of basic fairness," said Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, one of eight women's advocacy groups that lobbied heavily last month for the amendment's passage.
Opponents say that because the abortions would be performed in government facilities, taxpayer money would still help subsidize the underlying costs — the reason that Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who is opposed to abortion, voted against the amendment. "He opposes government-provided or funded abortion," said Jake Thompson, a spokesman.
As the article notes, "women have been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly a decade." It's truly absurd that women risking their lives (ostensibly) to defend their country are not guaranteed access to the same rights, to a legal medical procedure, that women at home (ostensibly) can access.
It would be positively stupendous if we could repeal DADT and the military abortion ban in one fell swoop.
Question of the Day
Did you have any childhood hobbies? Is it still part of your life?
Other than reading, my only "hobby" was drawing. I was constantly, constantly drawing stuff. Oh, and collecting Star Wars figures, of course.
Daily Dose o' Cute
"What?"
A bunch of people have asked me for an update on how things are going at Shakes Manor since Dudley arrived, and I can report that everything is going splendidly. The girls are all back to their normal routines, and don't let their new brother stand in the way of getting the inordinate levels of attention and affection to which they are accustomed. All four happily share space under my feet and in my way while I'm making dinner, angling for a treat.
And they all happily accept treats in a frenzy of controlled chaos, with nary a moment of worrisome food aggression.
Dudz continue to be the most lovely dog, whose desperately sweet and luminously silly personality has revealed itself in blossoming waves as his confidence has grown.
Recently, he's started doing the hard greyhound lean against my legs when he wants attention; I reach down and wrap my arms around his sinewy neck and kiss the top of his head, and he swivels his head around to lick my face and nibble my chin. When Iain arrives home from work, he leaps with joy from play-bow to play-bow, and wags his tail with an energy that innovative green engineers might endeavor to harness.
He is an absolute, undiluted pleasure, and his life has woven so seamlessly into ours that it is strange to imagine he hasn't been here all along.
I knew I was going to love him, but I didn't imagine I would love him this hard.
One last but vital note: I have recently discovered that there is nothing more amusing in the entire world than talking to Dudley in a Ringo Starr voice. Importantly, it's not just the Liverpudlian accent, but Ringo's mellow 'tude. "Doodleh, d'yeh think we should go fer a walk, mate?" His ears perk up; his head tilts. And Iain says: "Since when is our dug a fooking Beatle?"
Headline Nooz
by Shaker superior olive
[Trigger warning for violence and misogyny.]
So, I was reading my local paper a few evenings ago, and in the front section came across something that reminded me of Liss' Headline Nooz series.
In the World News part of the A section, they have a round-up of stories culled from news services. (The tag at the end just says "from the news services".) Actually, they are more like article synopses, each being about 200-250 words. On June 8th, there were four short summaries, two of which caught my attention:
• Egypt drops Blockade…(short blurb about Egypt dropping the blockade)
• Lightning kills girlfriend…(story about lightning striking a woman hiking with her boyfriend)
• Shooter targeted women…(story about a gunman in Hialeah, Fla. shooting and killing his wife, then three other women and injuring three more before shooting himself)
• Gas Line explosion deadly… (story about a gasline exploding in Texas.)
In case you haven't guessed already (pfft, yeah right) I'm writing about the middle two headlines: Lightning kills girlfriend; Shooter targeted women.
Starting with the first of the two… Let's see, I know the age of the man, his relationship to the woman, his name, where he is from, his plan to ask her to marry him, his injuries, that he had the ring in his pocket. About the woman, I know her name, her age, and that she died. Oh, and she was a girlfriend. The entire article (articlet?) is framed from his point of view, we don't know who she was, where she was from, anything about her family, what she did for a living, even whether they had discussed marriage before. All things that are easy to include even in short articles. Right from the headline, she is framed only in relation to him, a girlfriend, and her death is framed as how it affects him.
The next article is about a gunman in Florida who went to the restaurant where his wife worked, shot and killed her before bypassing men to shoot more women and then himself. I haven't heard anything other than what is presented here about this story. I'm taking "wife" at face value; she may have been separated from him, or they were about to sign divorce papers, both of which can trigger this kind of violence.
What I'm focusing on here is the juxtaposition of these two articles next to each other. We tell men that women are only important insofar as how they relate to you specifically. These messages come in a myriad of ways, some of them are almost invisible. And yet, we are surprised when those messages are taken to their logical conclusion.
Lightning kills girlfriend; Shooter targeted women.
The patriarchy, in six words.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Background.]
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
I Write Letters
Dear Al Krieger:
Do shut the fuck up.
I know that as mayor of Yuma Arizona you are on occasion afforded a platform on which to run your mouth, but that doesn't mean you should. Sometimes it's better to keep your yap shut. And when you say you "cannot believe a bunch of lacey-drawered, limp-wristed" queers in the military can "do what those men have done in the past" you're just showing your boneheaded ignorance.
Just FYI, queer men and women have fought and died in battle, past and present, in service to this country, to the world's armies, and your douchebagged comments not only insult them, but insult all who serve.
So, please, please, please, shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about.
Yours,
Deeky W. Gashlycrumb
Mayor of Faggottown
I'll Give You This, Gibbs...
But you're no Scott McClellan.
I still miss you, Scottie Boy.
Quote of the Day
"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.]
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.
