QueerUnity, no one wants to see two guys kiss?
Lol:
(Not all pics are SFW)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Since I've been in a coloring mood... I made a new trans* bingo card!
(my old ones had "tranny" on them and I'm not okay with us trans* guys using that word)
And, since I've been in a coloring mood, here are a few of the pictures I've colored (in order of earliest to newest):
(disclaimer: I did not draw any of these, I just like coloring. If the artist is known, their name is in the filename.)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
yeah, moar links
PETA is made of fail and racism (as well as ableism, transphobia, sexism, etc--check the Feministe comments). I recommend tweeting them to tell them how fucked up they are (@officialpeta)
Ren (and others) have been refuting a group of radfem's Thoughts On YaoiBDSM.
(btw, her epic comic post is pretty awesome- and this LJ comm is also fun)
Ginmar has some links for how you can help victims of he brushfires.
Recently, a Black man was posthumously exonerated for a crime he didn't commit--raping a White woman (this comment also has some great links).
I thought this post was very interesting, a genderqueer lesbian's thoughts on hir genitals and cultural messages about them (ugg, beware the cissexism in the comments though).
Georgia legislators are trying to get rid of Georgia Universities queer theory classes.
But here are some legislators doing the right thing: adding sexual orientation and gender identity to their local anti-discrimination laws. ^_^
Also, random tangent thingamajig...
Someone found my blog searching for "sexual magic blue pill "blogspot"" and then left a spam comment advertising viagra. The really, really weird thing is...the comment had good spelling and grammar. wtf world, wtf. o.0
(yes, I deleted it anyway)
Saturday, February 7, 2009
17-year-old Billey Joe Johnson
Just saw this at Renee's:
On December 8th, 17-year-old Billey Joe Johnson died from a gunshot wound to the head. Police say he killed himself with a shotgun after being stopped for a simple traffic violation in Lucedale, Mississippi.[1] Several things seem to cast doubt on the official story, including an independent investigation that concluded it would have been impossible for the shot that killed Johnson to have been self-inflicted.Fuck you coppers, my baby sister (also white), who is only a little bit younger than Billey, was able to say that there is something fishy about this "suicide"; if you won't, you are either stupid or just fucking racist (or both). And last time i wrote about corrupt police officers I asked for slang names that weren't pig; wiki has a list--I'll be using DRC (dirty rotten cops).Many on the ground smell a murder and a cover-up. We don't have all the answers, but it's clear that in the racially divided town of Lucedale, all the ingredients exist for a miscarriage of justice.
I've joined ColorOfChange.org in demanding answers and justice for Billey Joe's family. Together, we can help ensure that the District Attorney feels the presence of a national spotlight, and let him know that anything short of a thorough investigation will result in massive attention and a call for outside intervention.
Please join me. It takes only a moment:
http://www.colorofchange.org/billeyjoe/?id=2044-495171
From the beginning, the District Attorney has treated the investigation of Billey Joe's death as a suicide or the result of an accidental self-inflicted injury. Based on his public statements and interactions with Billey Joe's family, it appears that the District Attorney hasn't looked into whether Billey Joe was killed by an officer or someone else. Again, we don't have all the answers, but here's what we do know:
- Billey Joe was at his former girlfriend's house minutes before the killing.[2] He never entered the house, but police were called to respond to an attempted burglary there.[3] This fact was not a part of the original story given by the police.
- Billey Joe's family say that his ex-girlfriend had been staying at her father's house because her mother threw her out for dating Billey Joe (she is White and Billey Joe was Black). They said Billey Joe knew to only go to the house when the girl's father was not present, that the two of them were on good terms even after he had broken up with her, and that the breakup was largely because of pressure from her father. The family also claims that there is a relationship between the officer present at the scene of Billey Joe's death and the girl's father.
- A witness heard two shots, not one, at the scene where Billey Joe died, according to an independent investigation launched by the Mississippi NAACP. The pathologist in that investigation has indicated that it would be impossible for a bullet from a a self-inflicted shot to enter in the manner that it did. He also said that given the length of Billey Joe's arms and the length of the shotgun, it would have been impossible for him to hold the weapon and fire it at himself.
- Billey Joe was a star athlete with scholarship offers from more than half a dozen schools. No one--including family, friends, and coaches--could think of a reason that Billey Joe would want to end his life.[4,5,6]
A true investigation would sort out fact from rumour. But we can't be sure that Johnson's family will get the investigation it deserves. In the case of the Jena 6 we saw a District Attorney and a judge incapable of carrying out justice in a racially charged environment. In the recent case of the murder of Oscar Grant by police (and many like it), we see how unlikely it is for District Attorneys to do their job when the suspect is an officer of the law. But in both these cases, public pressure has made all the difference by shining a spotlight on local authorities.
In the case of Billey Joe Johnson, we're looking for the truth and for justice. A minute of your time can help ensure his family gets both:
http://www.colorofchange.org/billeyjoe/?id=2044-495171
References:
1. http://tinyurl.com/aul9hd
2. http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1050689.html
3. http://www.wkrg.com/news/flash_paper/12_19_08_billy_joe_johnson/
4. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0812/17/cnr.07.html
5. http://tinyurl.com/cs7cjm
6. http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_11280331
A woman was set on fire outside the club she worked at.
ETA: Here is some info on how you can help her. She is in stable condition, despite the burns on 60% of her body. She's going to need a lot of financial help as she has kids, won't be able to work at all for a while, and her previous job is no longer available.
They are attempting to forcibly divorce the same-sex couples who got married before Prop 8. Gin posts a video from various couples and their kids asking not to divorce them.
The UK will be forcing trans* people to buy two national ID cards; Helen has a post up at her blog with a lot of info and a petition and an abridged version that has more links in the comments at QT.
Zucker is attempting to suppress the truth about him on Lynn Conway's website by saying that she has caused irreparable harm to his career with libelous accusations.
Hopefully, this "irreparable harm" bit means we'll be hearing that him and his buddy Ray have been kicked out of the DSM-V committee...Please, please, please, can I get this for my birthday???
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
My take on a transphobic trope
I've been thinking on this transphobic trope that gets thrown out: being trans* and/or medically transitioning as a type of self-harm and/or removing “healthy” tissue.
Sometimes this is expressed in a more more subtle manner: concern-trolling about poor lesbians and/or masculine girls who might get confused and transition, people who are anti- certain body modifications comparing medical transition to those body mods, or even throwing out a comment about how trans-related surgeries don't look/function well.
Sometimes, they are very, very obvious: talking about chopped up or mutilated bodies, outright saying that ev0l doctors and trans* people are coercing lesbians/butches into transitioning, that we're just delusional freaks, or that trans* people are like anorexic folks and medical transition is like liposuction or gastric bypass surgery.
First of all, compare a transphobe's thoughts on how being trans* is self-harm to a homophobe's view that being queer is self-harm.
There really won't be too many differences.
Usually the transphobe will say something about how patriarchy/Satan/etc causes trans* people to Not Be Good Cis* people or how in a more godly/feminist/etc world there would be less of us. Replace trans* with queer and cis* with straight and you have a homophobe's thoughts.
Compare “transitioning is harmful and it's wrong to remove healthy tissue!” to a homophobe's thoughts on how queer sex is Dangerous and Bad For You.
They sound the same and they are both just as wrong.
If you believe the notion that being trans* is self harm that means you believe there is something wrong with being trans*; that it is right and natural to be cis*.
It follows that you believe it is better to stop trans* people from being trans* (or, openly being trans*) than it is to remove transphobia and cissexism.
Because, in this view, transphobia and cissexism are good, right, normal, and natural; after all, if we didn't mess up your perfect world we wouldn't get hurt.
Sure, you'll say that they don't want people to be hurt, but then...as long as we just shut up you don't ever have to think about it, now do you?
Or, as Cedar says, “Society’s myth of universal cissexuality *is* incredibly fragile, and has to be protected at all times–but what has to be done is not to create a stronger foundation (which they never ever do) but to disrupt any other conversation that’s happening.”
Yes, being trans* can be difficult.Yes, there are a lot of dangers out there for trans* people.
But, removing transphobia and cissexism will remove most of those difficulties and dangers; really, the only ones intrinsic to being trans* are body dissonance, gender disphoria, and things like depression that result from denial and such.
Medical transition usually removes the body dissonance. Living as your actual gender, without discrimination and harassment, will take care of the issues caused by pretending to be the wrong gender; having your loved ones and social circle gender you correctly will as well. Therapy will take care of whatever that doesn't; talking through issues that childhood denial caused (and childhood denial should happen less often in a world without transphobia), therapy or anti-depressants should help with depression, etc.
So, since in a world without transphobia there would be few, if any, major difficulties or dangers to being trans*, being trans* is really not all that intrinsically harmful--it's the cis* world's cissexism and transphobia that are the problems.
I suppose to someone out there in the world there is some knee-jerk validity to the idea that you shouldn't perform surgery on healthy tissue...
But, you have to look at what you are considering healthy tissue and on how you are defining words like harm, needed, unnecessary, etc.
Is tissue that you feel, deeply and instinctively, to not even belong to you really all that healthy?
Is psychological pain not considered harm?
Should a person have to attempt all sorts of therapy and mental gymnastics to accept how their body is currently shaped instead of having surgery or hormones?
Is the former not as harmful as the latter?
Is removing psychological distress unnecessary?
Do you think that people can just ”get over it”, “cheer themselves up”, or ignore anything that isn't purely physical?
Well?
Well, I would say, that is someone needs to medically transition then whatever hormones or surgery they have are needed and necessary.
(personally, I do not have issues with body mods or other “unnecessary” surgeries, so if a trans* person who doesn't need to medically transition wants to, I have no issues with that. But I think that may be a little off-topic, I just wanted to make that clear...)
Sometimes you get people, sometimes well meaning but sometimes mean spirited, bringing up the actual or supposed limitations of medical transition: “Why would you want to have a penis that doesn't function?” “Aren't you afraid of looking like a freak?” “Wouldn't you rather keep your body how it is than worry about what sort of health complications transition could bring?” “But you're such a pretty girl?”
First of all, what is functional, working, pretty, etc is defined by the individual. Like how you hear a lot of static about how ugly and nonfunctional phalloplasty is, yet every guy I've heard from who actually had it loves the results.
Honestly, I don't see anything “freakish” about trans* people's bodies. Our bodies, no matter what medical treatments we have or have not chosen to have, are not freakish or ugly or disgusting. A lot of people have scars. A lot of people have had invasive surgeries to improve their quality of life; there is nothing disgusting or ugly about it.
Everyone has different preferences for facial features and the like; some people find “feminine” looking men (trans* and cis*) attractive, some people find “masculine” looking women (again, trans* and cis*) attractive. We will be attractive to some people out there; moreover, attractiveness is not the be and end all of happiness.
We also weigh the health consequences carefully. Yeah, when we choose to take hormones or have surgeries we gain a greater likelihood of some complications, but there are usually complications to not having those procedures as well.
Remember, how are you defining healthy? I'd say not-suicidal yet at a greater risk of heart problems is a hell of a lot healthier than being so depressed you can't take care of yourself and constantly try to kill yourself.
It's not like we jump into medical transition without thinking.
For instance, I've seen a few trans* guys who've had to come to terms with their beliefs about what constitutes healthy tissue and unneeded medical procedures and their need for surgery. Some suggested that trans* folks wrestling with these feelings think through it like I did above. Others said that they had had a dialogue with their body; telling their chest or uterus how while there may not be anything wrong with them, they simply didn't belong on their body, how much they needed this surgery, etc.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the trans*folks that had/have these feelings; we live in an ableist and transphobic world after all. But I do think we should examine these feelings and decide what are our ethical beliefs and what is just internalized shit.
There's also this idea that “1950's psychologists" invented trans*ism as a way to make queer and gender-nonconforming folks into straight conforming folks. Check out any decent history on trans*ism or trans* people, The History of How Sex Changed, Transgender History, etc, and that trope will be proven wrong.
Trans* people would comb through science/medical journals, write to the few drag/trans* newsletters, write to Christine Jorgenson, etc. begging for information on how to transition and who to go to. Women would take BC pills and other forms of estrogen and then go to doctors and say they were intersex. Even now we still have to work to get any help medically transitioning at all.
And ya know, we really don't seek out questioning people to convert to our Dangerous Lifestyle; our communities constantly have trans* people just coming out of denial coming to us asking for information and help.
Whenever I've seen people ask for help in figuring out their gender and what path is right for them, I always see people tell them that there are a number of possibilities and only they themselves can figure out who they are and what is right for them (though, yes, books and therapists and talking to others can help).
Though this trope is often thrown out too, I really don't want to address “butch flight” because I was never butch or involved in any lesbian/womens communities--but Gauge wrote a great piece.
There is also the ableist idea that being in an unaltered (“natural”) body is more moral/better than being in an altered (“unnatural”) body. --This feeds into the idea that our differences mean we are defective and wrong and need to be cured or eradicated.
There is the idea that being trans* is caused by some defect in us; whether a defective uterus that gave us the wrong dose of hormones, a defective brain that makes us hallucinate, or a society that gives us defective socialization. While some forms of trans*ism may be caused by hormones in the uterus or brains that are shaped differently or whatnot, this is not a defect (seriously, natural variations in populations do occur!).
This is, by the way, true even if you ignore the times we are called crazy, insane, psychopaths, nutjobs, etc.
(I don't really know where I'm going with this point exactly, I just don't think this trend should be ignored. Maybe someone who has a better understanding of ableism would like to look into it, I really don't feel knowledgeable enough to do so.)
ETA: Cedar's poem Diseased is amazing.
Sometimes this is expressed in a more more subtle manner: concern-trolling about poor lesbians and/or masculine girls who might get confused and transition, people who are anti- certain body modifications comparing medical transition to those body mods, or even throwing out a comment about how trans-related surgeries don't look/function well.
Sometimes, they are very, very obvious: talking about chopped up or mutilated bodies, outright saying that ev0l doctors and trans* people are coercing lesbians/butches into transitioning, that we're just delusional freaks, or that trans* people are like anorexic folks and medical transition is like liposuction or gastric bypass surgery.
First of all, compare a transphobe's thoughts on how being trans* is self-harm to a homophobe's view that being queer is self-harm.
There really won't be too many differences.
Usually the transphobe will say something about how patriarchy/Satan/etc causes trans* people to Not Be Good Cis* people or how in a more godly/feminist/etc world there would be less of us. Replace trans* with queer and cis* with straight and you have a homophobe's thoughts.
Compare “transitioning is harmful and it's wrong to remove healthy tissue!” to a homophobe's thoughts on how queer sex is Dangerous and Bad For You.
They sound the same and they are both just as wrong.
If you believe the notion that being trans* is self harm that means you believe there is something wrong with being trans*; that it is right and natural to be cis*.
It follows that you believe it is better to stop trans* people from being trans* (or, openly being trans*) than it is to remove transphobia and cissexism.
Because, in this view, transphobia and cissexism are good, right, normal, and natural; after all, if we didn't mess up your perfect world we wouldn't get hurt.
Sure, you'll say that they don't want people to be hurt, but then...as long as we just shut up you don't ever have to think about it, now do you?
Or, as Cedar says, “Society’s myth of universal cissexuality *is* incredibly fragile, and has to be protected at all times–but what has to be done is not to create a stronger foundation (which they never ever do) but to disrupt any other conversation that’s happening.”
Yes, being trans* can be difficult.Yes, there are a lot of dangers out there for trans* people.
But, removing transphobia and cissexism will remove most of those difficulties and dangers; really, the only ones intrinsic to being trans* are body dissonance, gender disphoria, and things like depression that result from denial and such.
Medical transition usually removes the body dissonance. Living as your actual gender, without discrimination and harassment, will take care of the issues caused by pretending to be the wrong gender; having your loved ones and social circle gender you correctly will as well. Therapy will take care of whatever that doesn't; talking through issues that childhood denial caused (and childhood denial should happen less often in a world without transphobia), therapy or anti-depressants should help with depression, etc.
So, since in a world without transphobia there would be few, if any, major difficulties or dangers to being trans*, being trans* is really not all that intrinsically harmful--it's the cis* world's cissexism and transphobia that are the problems.
I suppose to someone out there in the world there is some knee-jerk validity to the idea that you shouldn't perform surgery on healthy tissue...
But, you have to look at what you are considering healthy tissue and on how you are defining words like harm, needed, unnecessary, etc.
Is tissue that you feel, deeply and instinctively, to not even belong to you really all that healthy?
Is psychological pain not considered harm?
Should a person have to attempt all sorts of therapy and mental gymnastics to accept how their body is currently shaped instead of having surgery or hormones?
Is the former not as harmful as the latter?
Is removing psychological distress unnecessary?
Do you think that people can just ”get over it”, “cheer themselves up”, or ignore anything that isn't purely physical?
Well?
Well, I would say, that is someone needs to medically transition then whatever hormones or surgery they have are needed and necessary.
(personally, I do not have issues with body mods or other “unnecessary” surgeries, so if a trans* person who doesn't need to medically transition wants to, I have no issues with that. But I think that may be a little off-topic, I just wanted to make that clear...)
Sometimes you get people, sometimes well meaning but sometimes mean spirited, bringing up the actual or supposed limitations of medical transition: “Why would you want to have a penis that doesn't function?” “Aren't you afraid of looking like a freak?” “Wouldn't you rather keep your body how it is than worry about what sort of health complications transition could bring?” “But you're such a pretty girl?”
First of all, what is functional, working, pretty, etc is defined by the individual. Like how you hear a lot of static about how ugly and nonfunctional phalloplasty is, yet every guy I've heard from who actually had it loves the results.
Honestly, I don't see anything “freakish” about trans* people's bodies. Our bodies, no matter what medical treatments we have or have not chosen to have, are not freakish or ugly or disgusting. A lot of people have scars. A lot of people have had invasive surgeries to improve their quality of life; there is nothing disgusting or ugly about it.
Everyone has different preferences for facial features and the like; some people find “feminine” looking men (trans* and cis*) attractive, some people find “masculine” looking women (again, trans* and cis*) attractive. We will be attractive to some people out there; moreover, attractiveness is not the be and end all of happiness.
We also weigh the health consequences carefully. Yeah, when we choose to take hormones or have surgeries we gain a greater likelihood of some complications, but there are usually complications to not having those procedures as well.
Remember, how are you defining healthy? I'd say not-suicidal yet at a greater risk of heart problems is a hell of a lot healthier than being so depressed you can't take care of yourself and constantly try to kill yourself.
It's not like we jump into medical transition without thinking.
For instance, I've seen a few trans* guys who've had to come to terms with their beliefs about what constitutes healthy tissue and unneeded medical procedures and their need for surgery. Some suggested that trans* folks wrestling with these feelings think through it like I did above. Others said that they had had a dialogue with their body; telling their chest or uterus how while there may not be anything wrong with them, they simply didn't belong on their body, how much they needed this surgery, etc.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the trans*folks that had/have these feelings; we live in an ableist and transphobic world after all. But I do think we should examine these feelings and decide what are our ethical beliefs and what is just internalized shit.
There's also this idea that “1950's psychologists" invented trans*ism as a way to make queer and gender-nonconforming folks into straight conforming folks. Check out any decent history on trans*ism or trans* people, The History of How Sex Changed, Transgender History, etc, and that trope will be proven wrong.
Trans* people would comb through science/medical journals, write to the few drag/trans* newsletters, write to Christine Jorgenson, etc. begging for information on how to transition and who to go to. Women would take BC pills and other forms of estrogen and then go to doctors and say they were intersex. Even now we still have to work to get any help medically transitioning at all.
And ya know, we really don't seek out questioning people to convert to our Dangerous Lifestyle; our communities constantly have trans* people just coming out of denial coming to us asking for information and help.
Whenever I've seen people ask for help in figuring out their gender and what path is right for them, I always see people tell them that there are a number of possibilities and only they themselves can figure out who they are and what is right for them (though, yes, books and therapists and talking to others can help).
Though this trope is often thrown out too, I really don't want to address “butch flight” because I was never butch or involved in any lesbian/womens communities--but Gauge wrote a great piece.
There is also the ableist idea that being in an unaltered (“natural”) body is more moral/better than being in an altered (“unnatural”) body. --This feeds into the idea that our differences mean we are defective and wrong and need to be cured or eradicated.
There is the idea that being trans* is caused by some defect in us; whether a defective uterus that gave us the wrong dose of hormones, a defective brain that makes us hallucinate, or a society that gives us defective socialization. While some forms of trans*ism may be caused by hormones in the uterus or brains that are shaped differently or whatnot, this is not a defect (seriously, natural variations in populations do occur!).
(Eli Clare has written a few things on the similarities and intersections of trans*ism and disability much better than I ever could)
This is, by the way, true even if you ignore the times we are called crazy, insane, psychopaths, nutjobs, etc.
(I don't really know where I'm going with this point exactly, I just don't think this trend should be ignored. Maybe someone who has a better understanding of ableism would like to look into it, I really don't feel knowledgeable enough to do so.)
ETA: Cedar's poem Diseased is amazing.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Awesome trans book for kids--y/y?
(Click to enlarge)
Full credit for the idea and the words belongs to Ruth.
My little sister and I cracked up and we are not sure if this is epic win...or epic fail.
(For some reason GIMP hates me so I had to do it in paint)
Friday, January 16, 2009
I wish there was something I could do...
Quick update: I've got Al Jazeera English on my google reader, checking out the guardian every so often, reading cutesy fanfic to keep me from getting too down, I'm seriously thinking about taking Feministe off my blogroll due to this David d00d asshat they've got there, and I'm recovering from norovirus (I got it right after my parents and sister and grandpa did).
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