this blog is so over

I’ve been a horrible blogger and neglected it for months. This makes me sad but also has given me time to recharge some batteries that’d burnt down. It also gave me time to actually look at this blog and realize how ill-informed it sometimes was. At first I thought I could just keep blogging under this same url but I realized that would require an entire over-haul that would be more time-consuming than I have. Now I realize I need to scratch this is begin again.

I started this blog when I was first out. This did not give me time to solidify my trans politic. Or, rather, it allowed me to find one community and stick to it avidly without thinking about the implications. The language is old and busted. I did not have the language I do now, which I feel is far less cissexist and fucked. I didn’t have the concepts I have now. It’s time to evolve. Our language around trans issues is constantly in flux. This is because we’re trying to combat the cissexist and binarist language that we are given.

I am hoping to create a new blog to take off where this one left. I love(d) this blog but it’s time for something new. Updates to come.

Rape is not gender-specific

*** Trauma Warning ***

I’ve been thinking too much about rape culture lately. It’s a terrifying, triggering and frustrating. So many of my friends have been raped. I myself am a survivor.* I am glad to see that a lot of people are getting away from the Stranger Danger myth. However, there is still a myth I see far too often – women are raped and men do the raping. This idea is harmful to everyone in society, especially the people who experience sexual assault who do not fit into this idea.

Rules to being a person with visible disabilities in public

Disclaimer: As usual, this is written on my partner’s behalf and he is sitting here doing it with me. We quite often use “we” but please note the focus is on him. The “we” is because I shape my life around being there for him and so if he is affected, I am as well. Also, we are a singular unit of people. I am not the one experiencing this struggle for survival but rather play a supportive role. This does not make me immune to the privilege that comes with my status as an able-bodied person so please call me on my shit if I pull some busted shit.

The past 6 months, I have been helping my partner with daily life. If you need an intro to the situation, refer to this post. Consequently, I have learned some valuable lessons about being in public with a person with visible disabilities. In no way is this a comprehensive list. This is what the 2 of us can remember this instant. Also, we do not have the same issues that someone else may have.

Bye Bye Oppression Olympics

I originally started this blog to be very 101-based* and dropped that after about 6 months. While I do not want to return to that original goal, I feel it is important to do a post examining how we think about sexism and misogyny in general but especially in the cafab** trans community.

A basic definition of sexism is as follows: oppression and discrimination based on one’s gender. This translates for most people to “oppression and discrimination faced by cis women.” However, it is so much more than that! It is the strict enforcement of gender roles on all people. You have cissexism and transphobia forcing people into the genders assigned to them at birth. There is genderphobia, which forces people to act the way they are supposed to – male-assigned folks should be straight masculine men, and female-assigned folks have to be feminine straight women. Then there is misogyny, which is the distrust and utter hatred of all things coded female, feminine and woman. So we have all these forces out there trying to keep us in our own hierarchical boxes known better as the gender binary. Cis, straight, able-bodied, white males at the top and every one else is suspect for one reason or another.

The worst day yet

This is another post chronicling the life of my partner-friend who is experiencing a lot of medical fuckery.

2 days ago was the worst “situation day” we’ve ever had. He had been having a lot of intense pains from his rectum. He could barely sit and using the bathroom was just not an option. Finally, when bleeding, nausea and fever occurred, we realized that another trip to the ER was necessary. There was probably some massive infection tearing through his body. Why the ER? Because urgent care was not open at 4am and we did not have time to wait. Also, we realized that he would be needing some testing that only the hospital had access to. So we begin our 11 hour torture session at 6 am.

My Side of the Z Story

I’m exhausted right now. I decided that was the best state of mind to blog in about this subject. That’s because my life is very exhausting right now in all ways, mentally and emotionally. I blogged earlier about living with my partnerfriend, who is experiencing a lot of medical trauma. I kept that post as entirely on him and his experiences because I did not want to privilege my able-bodied experiences-by-proxy over his very real immediate and constant pain. However, I do also want to talk about how I affected in this mess because that is also important. We frequently talk about it as though it is our own because I am so in it 24/7. He says the only thing that separates me from it is the actual pain, which is a large barrier, but still, I see the situation for what it really is and take on the task of making it as good as I can.

Dear prolapsed uterus: please go away now

***trauma warning*** this post is about the transphobia and misogyny my partnerfriend has experienced over the past few months.

Most of my posts are about my own lived experiences. I don’t want to lay down gender theory all the time. I want to show how gender affects my life, and how I see societal patterns. But I am now going to be talking about someone else’s experiences. We have had many discussions about this, and he has consented to me writing about him. What I want to talk about is the ableism of the medical establishment and society at-large. One of my partnerfriends, Z, has been smacked full-force with this deadly oppression since early June. There is so much to say and I hope to get as much out as possible. But this may have to be a series. There are so many aspects. He is a trans guy who has been on T for the past 3 years. It started with the most random and intensely painful menstrual bleeding. Now, he should never be bleeding at all at this point in his hormone treatment, let alone this much. And so our fight with doctors began.

We don’t need Disney

A lot of people are up-in-arms about the fact that Disney is no longer doing princess movies. Their rationale is that boys are not interested in movies with girl leads. This just shows you how quickly sexism is instilled in our youth. It’s never an issue for girls to watch movies starring boys, but the reverse brings about a slew of homophobia, genderphobia, and transphobia. This is being seen as a negative thing. However, I kind of want to question that. To me, it’s not good that Disney has decided that focusing on girls is bad marketing by any means. But we also have to criticize what they are tellings to girls when girls were the focus.

Trans Youth Study

So I just took part in a study being done through the University of Georgia. I was highly apprehensive about it. Pretty much anything trans-related puts me on edge these days, unless it is being done by people I know personally. The focus is on the “resiliency of transgender youth.” This to me read as an “omg, they’re soooo braaave!” thing but it really wasn’t. Their idea is to talk about how trans folks navigate society and then present it at WPATH advocating for better trans health.

The interview started with the question “What are your identities?” They were interested in more than just trans-ness. They wanted to talk about how various experiences and identities intersect and interact within a person’s life. This is really important. I mean, the experiences of a straight trans man from a middle-class background who is now homeless is going to be different than that of a lesbian genderqueer black trans woman who is in grad school.

Most academic studies are completely horrible. So many of them ask your gender and list male or female as the options. I don’t even know where to begin tearing that apart so I walk away frustrated. It’s just cis folks wanting to examine this strange population for their own interests and curiosities. What set this apart for me is the fact that one of the primary researchers is genderqueer. This completely changes the dynamic ze has with the project. Rather than (at best) advocating on behalf of an “underprivileged” group, ze is standing up for hir community. Huge difference. I also like that ze told me about giving trans 101 lessons to other people involved with the projects but handling most of the interviews to make sure it’s a positive experience for the participants.

I initially did this survey as a way to make a quick 20 bucks and talk about trans stuff for an hour. But I feel so much more accomplished than that. I feel as though I’ve taken part in something that will hopefully benefit the trans community. Plus the interviewer was quite a joy to talk with.

If you are interested in taking part in the study, you can visit this site for further information: https://sites.google.com/site/transyouthstudy/

Chivalry is alive and well

Trans week has just concluded. It is such an important time of year for the trans community, both nation-wide and in my town. I hear many complaints about TDORs becoming cis-centric, being taken over by cis “allies” who make it more about them than the people they are supposed to be allying with. I am glad that this is not the case here. While there are cis people very involved in the planning of our week-long participation with TDOR, their involvement is much-loved and appreciated. This is because they listen to the needs of trans folks and in no way take up space that should be alloted to trans people. An example of this is one cis guy who is deeply involved in the queer community here read a piece by Julia Serano about suicide. So, yes, he took up space by speaking at the vigil, but he read something done by a trans woman. The focus of the vigil was on the deaths of those in the trans community.

But the vigil is only one thing we do. It is tragic to me that the only time we can claim is to mourn our dead. To counter that, our school also brings in a trans speaker. This year, S Bear Bergman graced our doorstep. Ze gave both a workshop on chivalry and a lecture on gender.  I found the workshop to be highly interesting, so this post is a reportback mixed with my own takes on chivalry, though largely inspired by both this workshop and many wonderful conversations I’ve had with butches. I did not have a pen and paper with me, but tried to memorize the concepts if not direct quotes. The blog, Dear Diaspora, first introduced me to modern chivalry and I have been interested ever since.

Modern chivalry is something that has come to be given a bad rep these days. People accuse chivalrous fellows of being sexist and heteronormative. Furthermore, many UNchivalrous guys use the term to justify their objectifying and generally busted actions. This has left chivalry looking quite gross and this workshop (along with my reportback) wish to change that.