by Shaker Andy Godfrey, a British student who has campaigned for LGB&T rights in several UK university societies.
Like many Shakers, I've supported a number of campaigns to petition reluctant governments to support marriage equality for LGB&T people. But recently, I've found myself in the more unusual and frankly rather bizarre position of campaigning to get a reluctant LGB rights group to support marriage equality.
We've been running a Facebook campaign directed at Stonewall, the UK's, and indeed Europe's, largest LGB lobbying organisation. (The LGB isn't a typo by the way - Stonewall campaigns exclusively for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, which as one friend has said is a bit rich coming from an organisation named after a riot started by a trans activist.) Stonewall have rooted themselves firmly in the establishment as an influential and media-friendly group that has overseen the introduction of legal rights that LGB people in most countries can only dream of.
However, in an all-too-familiar story, gaining mainstream acceptance seems to have made Stonewall reluctant to rock the boat. At the moment, UK same-sex couples can have civil partnerships but not marriages (although they confer the same legal rights). Stonewall don't regard campaigning for full marriage equality as a priority because there is no "practical difference" between the two institutions. Which I'm sure you'll agree makes perfect sense - after all, if civil partnerships and marriages confer the same legal rights, what possible reasons could an LGB equality and rights organization have for objecting to the fact that there are two entirely separate institutions for same-sex and opposite-sex couples?
Quite a few, as it turns out. The segregation of marriage and civil partnerships means trans people have to divorce their partners for gender change to be legally recognised (but oh silly me Stonewall are only an LGB organisation, so of course they're allowed to ignore trans rights). Many same-sex couples do want their partnership to be recognised as a marriage - including couples such as Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger who have been legally married in other countries and rather reasonably want the UK government to recognise that their marriage is, in fact, a marriage. And conversely, there are some opposite-sex couples, such as Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle, who wish to have their relationship recognised as a civil partnership without all the patriarchal baggage that comes with marriage.
Marriage equality is supported by an overwhelming number of LGB&T people (98% in a recent survey) as well as every major LGB&T organisation apart from Stonewall. Most leading politicians either support it or are not vehemently against it (the current Prime Minister is in the latter camp). In the light of this, Stonewall's refusal to openly acknowledge that marriage equality is fairer and better than the current situation is not just reprehensible. It's also plain weird. Some people have suggested that Stonewall's position is a result of political pressure, but I'm pretty sure that even the most extreme UK politicians wouldn't blink an eyelid if an LGB equality and rights organization came out in favour of marriage equality. After all, it's not exactly an extreme or surprising view for, you know, an LGB equality and rights organization to take. What seems to have happened is that Stonewall have become supremely assured that they know best about LGB rights, regardless of what the LGB&T community actually think. They do not deign to explain or justify their position even to the LGB&T press, leaving many people baffled and frustrated.
I founded the Facebook group "Why the silence, Stonewall? Marriage equality now!" so that the community's voice would be heard. Hundreds of people who don't think Stonewall are listening to them have joined, and our open letter to Stonewall has been signed by numerous activists, academics and student representatives. For any Shakers who want to help, this is one situation where simply joining a Facebook group could actually make a difference (after all, how hard can it be to persuade an LGB equality and rights organization to support marriage equality)? Join the group, link to the group, tweet about the group, ask people to sign the open letter (especially if you know people involved in UK LGB&T organisations) - there are plenty of ways to help without even standing up from your computer!
All in all, it's a cautionary tale for activist movements that achieve a degree of political power - groups that purport to represent LGB&T people need to remain answerable to the LGB&T community. LGB&T people in the UK are fortunate to have legal rights denied to most people across the world, but it doesn't mean there's nothing left to fight for - and it rankles to be ignored by the people who are meant to be representing us.
Stonewalling the UK LGB&T Community
That's My Geek Girl!
My 5-year-old niece M.J. started Kindergarten last week.
The night before her first day of school ever, The AC at my big sister's house burned its motor out, so M.J. and her brother spent the night with me and the grandfolk. I got M.J. up at 6:30 for her first day. While her mother and I blurred around her--making breakfast and packing a peanut-butter sandwich, cheese-stick and raisin lunch--M.J. staggered through the kitchen in a saggy Pull-Up and a borrowed orange T-shirt of mine, melted cheese in her loose hair. "Mom, why are we up this early?" Her dad half-lay on the couch, altogether covered with dogs and guzzling coffee. Ten minutes later, M.J. was brushed and polished in her new first-day-of-school outfit and dancing for my camera, ready to go. Mom, Dad, and Big Brother took her off to school.
Around 2:40, her dad and brother went to pick her up. It was 108 degrees. She flew from the minivan, stripped all her clothes off and jumped, yelling and naked, into the pool.
I really like this kid.
Kindergarten has gone well so far, and M.J. even won two of the surprises that you get to draw from the treasure box on Friday if you've gotten As on your work all week.
Well, yesterday, M.J. got busted for taking the operation manual for the overhead projector from Mrs. G.'s desk and reading it aloud to her classmates while everyone was supposed to be playing with blocks. --See, she explained, it has a mirror in it!
The teacher told all of this to M.J.'s dad, and sent home a note: "while we appreciate M.J.'s personality, she should leave Teacher's things on Teacher's desk".
Have I mentioned that I like this kid?
They really should be teaching the kids PowerPoint, though.
Down the Rabbit Hole
The other night, Iain and I were sitting together, but separately engaged in different activities, and had the evening news on in the background. There was another—another, OMG another, there have been so many, and it's like what happened during and after Reagan all over again, fuck you George W. Bush—news story about a young black boy who'd been killed by crossfire in Chicago, and part of the narration included the information that he had gone to a party "with a female friend."
Iain looked up. "Why was it important to note it was a female friend? Why not just a friend? What are we supposed to understand about him that he was with a female friend? What are we supposed to infer about her?" He scowled.
"I was just about to say the same thing," I said. I resisted the urge to give him a cookie for noticing precisely the sort of thing his privilege has insulated him from having to notice. But it means something to me when he notices these things.
Still, I sometimes wonder how much he internalizes it. Does it touch him deep down in that place where it matters, the way it touches me? Does it linger?
Yesterday afternoon, he emailed me about the Worst Thing post, sarcastically expressing his dismay at how prevalent that kind of shit is. "Based on the Cosmo covers I see this crap is super interesting, or whatever."
I replied: "There is an entire industry dedicated to telling women what to think, which is really about telling women how to be good members of an oppressed class. And, I imagine the longer you read the stuff I write about every day, the more you realize that's not remotely hyperbolic."
Came his response (which I share with his permission): "No. It's like the other night when we heard a news story about that kid visiting a female friend, and we were both like 'why specify the gender.' You don't really recognize this stuff until you've gone down the rabbit hole."
Not long ago, Iain had asked me to find him a pill case for his stinkabetes meds. The case I bought him (which he loves) suddenly seems more appropriate than ever.
Last night, I told him, "Thanks for coming down the rabbit hole with me."
To feel known is a precious gift—and not an easy one to give. Knowing another person truly, as much as another person can ever truly be known, requires not just compassion, but empathy.
And in inter-sex relationships—as in any other between two people on either side of a privilege divide: interracial relationships, inter-gender (trans/cis) relationships, partnerships formed between a person with a disability or disabilities and a currently abled person, between a fat person and a thin person—empathy requires conscious effort, an authentic and committed willingness to self-examine, particularly on the part of the privileged person who has not, unlike hir partner, been socialized in a world designed to treat hir partner's perspective as the objective reality.
A privileged-by-society partner cannot begin to understand hir marginalized-by-society partner if the former can't begin to comprehend how the latter sees the world.
Teasing out those differences—and acknowledging it's not just down to "Well, I'm a man and you're a woman and we're different and that's why we see it differently and it's all just a matter of opinion, anyway," but down to the internalized prejudices and cultural narratives we have about women and men, and how those influence our perceptions—is the path to real intimacy, to the sort of knowing that honors the parts of a person hardest to articulate, the parts of the marginalized person the world outside your relationship endeavors to deny.
The most basic, and yet endemically disregarded, expression of esteem by a privileged person in a mixed-power relationship is simply this: Your perspective and experience are as valid and valuable as my own.
Examining one's privilege, going down the rabbit hole, is thus not merely an act of love; it is a radical act of respect.
it is a demonstration of fierce loyalty, not just to one's partner, but to the promise of egalitarianism and whatever work it takes to get there.
[Related Reading: Man Haterz, The Bargain, and Its Alternative, Angry Men, Searching Men.]
Seen
So, last weekend, I'm watching the latest episode of Lifetime's "On the Road with Austin & Santino", which is about two fashion designers, Austin Scarlett and Santino Rice, who were runners-up on different seasons of "Project Runway."
In case you aren't familiar with Messrs. Scarlett and Rice, allow me to make the proper introductions…
He is petite and Caucasian and very pale and clean-shaven and has a personal style that is perhaps best described as fop-glam.
He is tall and biracial and swarthy and bearded and has a personal style that is perhaps best described as hobo chic.
Nope!
Bully For You
It's a new week, so Focus on the Family has a new villain.
As kids head back to school, conservative Christian media ministry Focus on the Family perceives a bully on the playground: national gay-advocacy groups.Gee, I wonder why anyone would ever think that labeling an entire class of people as an "abomination" was bigotry?
School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.
"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman said.
Public schools increasingly convey that homosexuality is normal and should be accepted, Cushman said, while opposing viewpoints by conservative Christians are portrayed as bigotry.
Actually, it's no surprise to see FotF standing up for bullies; that's their stock in trade. And isn't it ironic that they get their tails all puffed up about the Radical Homosexuals recruiting kids when that's basically what they do to lure their unsuspecting prey into their din of inequity?
Number of the Day
72: The percentage of British government budget cuts estimated to be born by women, prompting the women's advocacy group The Fawcett Society, to file "an unprecedented complaint with the nation's high court this month arguing that the government failed to consider the effect on women of its leaner 'emergency budget'."
"The government is under a duty to look at its policies and check whether they are likely to widen inequality," said Anna Bird, head of policy for the Fawcett Society. "We do not think they undertook that task when putting forth the hardest, most austere budget in generations. Women are going to be adversely affected as a result. That should not happen."Additionally, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has completed a report demonstrating, to absolutely no surprise at all, that "the nation's poorest residents are set to be hit the hardest by the cuts," prompting Britain's independent Equality and Human Rights Commission to order "the Treasury to prove it considered the impact of its cuts on vulnerable groups or face 'enforcement action'."
...Even more damning, critics of the budget cuts say, is a letter by Theresa May - one of Cameron's top ministers and in charge of woman's affairs - warning the treasury of the "real risk" that its budget could be considered unlawful given a potentially outsized impact on women and disadvantaged citizens. The letter was leaked to the news media.
...The new government is also taking aim at state funds for charities, which critics say serve as a vital lifeline for millions of women. Yvonne Traynor, chief executive of the Croydon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Center in south London, said a "panic" has set in as cuts are set to eliminate about 40 percent of the center's $460,000 annual budget. "We've struggled for 10 years to build a center that helps women face the trauma in their lives, and now they are trying to claw it back," she said. "Women are often the poorest people in society, with fewer options in their lives. When you cut back like this, they are going to suffer most."
Wow.
The Overton Window: Chapter Two
Noah Gardner stands at the candy machine, his Tootsie Roll falls, and he stares, enchanted, at a young woman pinning a flyer to the breakroom bulletin board. She struggles to reach the top of the board and Noah offers to help.
She ignores him, but he's not put off.
Something about this woman defied a traditional chick-at-a-glance inventory. Without a doubt all the goodies were in all the right places, but no mere scale of one to ten was going to do the job this time. It was an entirely new experience for him. Though he'd been in her presence for less than a minute, her soul had locked itself onto his senses, far more than her substance had.
Oh, Christ. "A traditional chick-at-a-glance inventory"? "All the goodies were in all the right places"? You're kidding me, right? I guess that's what happens when someone's soul locks into your senses. Whatever the fuck that means.
She hardly wore any makeup, it seemed, nothing needed concealment or embellishment. Simple silver jewelry, tight weathered jeans on the threadbare outer limits of the company's casual-Friday dress code, everything obviously chosen and worn for no one's approval but her own. A lush abundance of dark auburn hair pulled back in a loose French twist and held in place by two crisscrossed number-two pencils. The style was probably the work of only a few seconds but it couldn't have been more becoming if she'd spent hours at a salon.
She's a free spirit, with natural beauty. Better than all that arm candy Noah had been musing over in the previous chapter. You got all that, right? I can't wait until she lets her hair down, literally, and her full radiance is revealed. I bet Gardner passes out at that moment.
The woman hangs the flyer, and it's described pretty much just like this. More or less. The eagle was my idea.
We the People
If you love your country but fear for its future,
join us for an evening of truth that will open your eyes!
Guest speakers include:
Earl Matthew Thomas-1976 U.S. Presidential candidate (L) and bestselling author of Divided We Fall
Joyce McDevitt-New York regional community liaison, Liberty Belles
Maj. Gen. Francis N. Klein-former INSCOM commanding general (ret. 1984), cofounder of GuardiansOfLiberty.com
Kurt Bilger-Tri-state coordinator, Sons of the American Revolution
Beverly Emerson-Director emeritus, Founders' Keepers
Danny Bailey-The man behind the YouTube phenomenon Overthrow, with 35,000,000 views and counting!
Bring a friend, come lift a glass, and raise your voice for liberty!
www.FoundersKeepers.com
August 31st, 7:00 PM, Heritage Club
Oh my, the rally (the assembly?) is tonight! Such short notice, Noah asks. (Oh, and yay for the YouTube reference. Relevance!)
"Congratulations, you can read." Oh, she's sassy too! What a woman! She tells him she doesn't much expect anyone here to attend. And why not?
"All you PR people do is lie for a living," she said. "The truth is just another story to you."
I wonder what Beck's PR people think of this sentiment? Anyway, Noah introduces himself and the woman retorts firing off some helpful facts, more for the reader's benefit than anyone's, I imagine:
Noah has a fancy office, he's just been promoted to VP and his father owns the company. No wonder he's so existential and forlorn. Or whatever he is.
Then the sparks really start to fly:
"Hey, I have to confess something."
"I'll bet you do."
"You haven't told me your name yet," Noah said, "and I've been trying to read it off your name tag, but I'm worried that you'll get the wrong idea about where I'm looking."
"Go for it. I'm not shy."
Rowr!
It's like Bogie and Bacall up there on the page. Are you hawt yet? I am so engorged by this. Figuratively, I mean.
Noah checks out the name badge pinned to her chest, notes the edge of a tattoo, "a bird, or maybe it was an angel" (I call dibs on it being a bald eagle!), and learns her name:
"Molly Ross," he said.
She tipped his chin back up with a knuckle.
"This is fascinating and all, Mr. Gardner, but I need to go and service the postage meter."
Okay. Hold on. There is no way that was an accident. She has to service the postage meter, seriously? You know what? I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and suggest that the ghostwriter here knew exactly what he was doing all along and purposefully barfed up the shittiest manuscript he could, as a joke. And somehow, the thing met with Beck's approval ("Don't change a goddamned word!" I imagine Beck yelling at his editor) and got published. Like a prank that's spun out of control. And now library shelves everywhere are stunk up with this travesty.
Noah asks Molly if she's going to the rally (the assembly?) tonight. He says he might go, being how patriotic he is and all. Then Molly tells a joke. But it's not really a joke. Made some weird Dadaist/Libertarian anti-joke. I dunno:
"Noah comes home—Noah from the Bible, you know? So Noah comes home after he finally got all the animals into the ark, and his wife asks him what he’s been doing all week. Do you know what he said to her? He said, 'Honey, now I herd everything.'"
Molly walks away, telling Noah over her shoulder not to forget his candy bar. Noah is left speechless.
I know how you feel, Noah. I really do.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Yesterday morning…
Liss: Our water heater just broke. Water everywhere.
Deeky: OMFG!
Liss: When we got up this morning, Iain got downstairs first, and he yelled up to me, "Get ready to have a shitty day, babe! Our water heater exploded!" LOL!
Deeky: Fuck.
Liss: Total nightmare. Plumber can't come before Tuesday evening unless he comes today for double the rate, and we were already totally fucking broke even before the heater blew, so Tuesday it is! Disaster. But we decided instead of stressing out about it, we're just going to pretend we're playing pirates and swabbing the deck.
Deeky: LOL! Good idea.
Liss: I just figured out how to hook up a garden hose to a drain spigot on the tank, and we hooked it up and ran the other end out to the backyard, so it's draining out, which has significantly minimized the mopping. Yay!
Deeky: Yay! Yeah, that's the back up, ain't it?
Liss: The back up? I have no idea. I know nothing about plumbing. And neither does Iain. Installing new faucets/garbage disposals and fixing toilet tanks is about the extent of our collective plumbing knowledge, lol. So that's what you're supposed to do, then? Drain it via the back up?
Deeky: Yeah, they've spigots built in. For draining them. There should also be a shut off leading into the tank. So you should be able to shut it down completely.
Liss: The first thing we did was shut off the input valve.
Deeky: Good. If it's shut off and draining via a hose, you'll be okay.
Liss: Thank you for your reassurance. I really appreciate it!
Deeky: You may want to shut off the gas to it, too.
Liss: Iain already shut off the gas to it. He says thanks for the suggestion, though.
Deeky: Cool. You'll be fine then. Except if you want a warm shower.
Liss: Fuck warm showers! We're pirates!
Deeky: So, you're not showering at all? Gonna stink like scurvy and mites?
Liss: We can shower at ye olde parental manor, matey. Arr.
Deeky: Is Iain gonna go there every morning before work?
Liss: Probably at night, lol. And it's just 'til Tues.
Deeky: What? He's gonna go to work with bedhead?
Liss: His hair is curly. Looks the same either way. :)
Deeky: LOL!
Liss: Actually, he just got it all sheared off, so it's virtually a buzz cut at the moment. Mad corporate locks, yo!
Deeky: He's straight outta Mad Men.
Liss: He's straight outta Dilbert. [Liss shares this exchange with Iain and he LOLs.]
Deeky: LOL! He's straight outta Wall Street 2: The Wall Streetening.
Liss: LOL 4 realz. Wall Street 2: The Economy Fuckening.
Deeky: LOL! Totes.
Liss: [phone rings once] Did you just butt-call me?
Deeky: Apparently.
Liss: Cute. I like how the only time we actually call each other is by accident. AHHHHHH! No talking! Texting only! LOL.
Deeky: Talking on the phone is soooo last century.
Liss: Really. And you don't see pirates talking on the phone, now, do you?
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
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.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for sexual coercion.]
The Frisky: 22 Things You Should Forgive Your Boyfriend For.
Generally, I just find compilations like this so banal that they hardly merit comment. Which is not to say they're benign: Even the opening salvo, "Forgetting to put the toilet seat down," disappears the many disabled women for whom a partner routinely forgetting to put the seat down is more than a minor inconvenience.
But this list, in addition to the usual curious exhortations to women to overlook some habits that may well indicate a potentially troublesome lack of respect, includes, in its final line, this:
22. Repeatedly trying to talk you into analWow.
Yeah, um, bullying a partner to try to get hir to submit to a sexual act in which zie isn't interested isn't actually forgivable. (Or it shouldn't be.) It's a huge red flag that you're dealing with someone who doesn't have much interest in the concept of enthusiastic consent.
And when that red flag's a-wavin', walk the other way.
Quote of the Day
"We will see if there is any legal action that we might take to restrain you from playing [our recording]. However, it would be more respectful of our wishes if you [would] simply cease to play it."—Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, the two surviving members of the trio who performed as Peter, Paul & Mary, in a letter addressed to the anti-equality group National Organization for Marriage, asking them to stop using their recording of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" during their rallies, since NOM's bigotry is "directly contrary to the advocacy position Peter, Paul & Mary have held for decades. ... We strongly support the rights of all gays and lesbians to enjoy the rights and rituals of marriage that are enjoyed by their straight counterparts, and consider the abridgment of this right contrary to the sense of equal protection and fairness inherent in, and implied by, the law, of the Constitution of the United States."
[H/T to Spudsy. Via.]
Police State Newz
At some point I may have mentioned that while my family was riding the train between Chicago and New York last December, we were rudely awakened by armed government agents on the hunt for foreign looking people that may have boarded at South Bend, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, or any number of totally not Canadian stations. They really didn't pay us much mind. Mostly they were interested in the folks seated in front of us speaking a foreign language (Russian, FWIW). That and yelling at the deaf woman in the next row.
Our general reaction (and AFAICT, the reaction of the folks immediately around us) ranged from extreme anger to OMGWTF?!? It was horrible, and as a US citizen, I have to say, horribly embarrassing.
Why was this happening? The US couldn't possibly have a policy of letting armed border patrol agents board trains and buses within our own national borders in an effort to harass and possibly detain foreign-looking folks.
According to today's New York Times, that was precisely what was (and still is) happening. To quote Lee Greenwood: "I'm American...I forget...that...I'm free."
Neat!
[Trigger warning for violence/sexual assault.]
Insert requisite disclaimer here about how Saturday Night Live sucks, except for the times when it hasn't sucked.
I might not have even mentioned that New York's Vulture has a blurb on SNL's three new cast members, except for the video Portly posted by Jenny Slate, a current cast member of SNL whose evident talent is currently being brutally wasted.
Anyway, of the three new cast members (who, btw, all appear to be white), only one apparently has video of his skit-work available for review, and these are the descriptions of the two videos: "Here's [Taran] Killam as murderer Scott Peterson in a kinda not-funny Knocked Up parody" and "Here's Killam again in a Scrubs webisode, as Jimmy, a molest-y orderly."
Yeesh.
This is a real thing in the world
[Trigger warning for "ironic" "joking" about dehumanization and violence]
Perfect for when you want everyone to know you're an asshole, but your girlfriend hasn't washed your Toby Keith shirt:
[Picture of a t-shirt that reads "SLAVERY GETS SHIT DONE." Don't worry, though, the text is under a picture of pyramids. Oh, and the person wearing it is black.]
I can verify that this is real. I saw some dude wearing one this weekend when I was out buying jalapeño poppers to soothe my post-Restoring Honor hangover.
Also, Deeky points out that these ironic but-totally-not-ironic assholes also have a Facebook group, for those of you into web 2.0. The page proclaims "if u don't like it i on't care", which un-ironically, is pretty much how slavery works.
Daily Dose of Cute
[Warning: The below photo essay is redonkulously adorable, but also contains dog dong, so if your particular sensitivities include an aversion to evidence of male doghood, I recommend against clicking below the fold. His mouth tends to hang open when he naps, too, so there are also some viewable dog teeth in a not-grinning expression.]
Image Descriptions: Dudz the Greyhound sprawled out in various hilarious poses, with long legs all akimbo, except for the final image, in which he is curled up in a tight little ball inside the cat bed. This would be why greyhounds are known as the 45-mile-per-hour couch potatoes. Aside from one big burst of energy each day, Dudley is the laziest being on the planet, who requires about five minutes of yawning and stretching just to wake himself up to go out for a walk.
News from Shakes Manor
Last night, as we were lying in bed about to fall asleep, Iain was, as is his frequent bedtime habit, touching different parts of my body and asking me: "What is this for?" to which I am meant to provide a silly answer, e.g. "The conveyance of cuteness." Sometimes, I provide extremely literal answers, which are amusing in their own way.
Iain, taking my thigh in his hand: What is this for?
Me: Locomoting.
Iain, deliberately misunderstanding me: Vocomoting? Is a vocomotive a train that talks?
Me: No, it's a train that's been put through a vocoder.
Pause.
Both of us, simultaneously, in our best attempts at replicating a vocoded voice: CH-oo-OO CH-oo-OO!
Laughter.
There are moments in any intimate partnership in which the two of you look at one another and realize, "This is why we belong together." That was one of those moments.
We are dorks.
