feminist blogs

PD at Shakes has this up: a long post about LGBT PDA and self-censorship, including a bit about a couple of het friends who took her up on a challenge to be closeted, to conceal that they were a couple, for a week.

They lasted exactly three days.

My friend returned to me in tears on day four and said: “I’m sorry. I had no idea what it is like for you.”
***
That is how I lived for the first 32 years of my life, whether I was single or coupled.

And while my current self-editing is not nearly as extreme as it was before I made the choice to live as an out lesbian, it’s still self-editing.

I should note that I spotted it at Alas, where Amp discusses it.

My apologies that I didn’t get to this sooner, but I’ve been alternately busy and dealing with various personal shit. I can’t say that it has been the best week. But even though my memory is slightly less clear than it was when I should have written the post, I did still want to write about Equality and Justice Day.

(more…)

Happy May Day. As people around the world celebrate the struggles of laborers, and as many immigrants and supporters of immigrant rights set off on protest marches around this country, I wanted to link you to one of my favorite blog posts of the last week: Sudy’s explanation of kyriarchy, a concept coined by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza.

It’s a useful neologism for an idea that comes up a lot: multiple, overlapping, shifting pyramids of power. Try to focus too hard on just one, try to figure out with some kind of precision exactly which individuals are at the top, and you lose sight of the entire awful kyriarchy, that has any number of ways to crush people. It’s another trick that power structures play to distract you. I’ve heard this kind of concept discussed before — some people I know just use the word “hierarchies” to talk about this, and in some feminist writing this is what “patriarchy” means. But I like the word kyriarchy, not least because it doesn’t just focus on “fathers” as the top of the pyramid.

For me the word summons up a bizzare image of holographic, floating, disappearing and reappearing ancient step pyramids. Because that’s how complex the overlapping of power can be, and how surreal. Sometimes we talk about this stuff like patriarchy, white supremacy, or homophobia is a bunch of craggy old white guys having a meeting down the street where we can kick the doors in and turn over the table piled high with money and blood. Too bad that the history of oppressive cultural attitudes, social enforcement, the accumulation of religion and greed and control and security is never that simple. But don’t think I mean it’s all ideology either. Kyriarchy kills. Don’t let it get behind you — or under you.

There are several things that bug me a lot about this NY Times article on a married couple that stayed together through one partner’s transition as a transwoman. There’s referring to the transwoman, Denise, by masculine pronouns and her birth name to reference past events where she did identify as female but had not yet had sexual reassignment surgery. There’s the very equation of surgery with transition — one is accepted as a woman only through virtue of a vaginoplasty, not only with regards to the law, but also in terms of how her gender is treated by the newspaper (and vice versa for a transman). Since not all transgender people choose to have surgery, and since not all people determine their very identity based off of their genitals, it’s insulting and obnoxious, and a big part of the problem that the paper is trying to examine. (Not to mention how the story is run, of course, in the Fashion and Style section.)

But with all of that being said, there’s some interesting material in there about the legal status of transgender individuals who are married.

The Brunners were already married when Donald became Denise. Transsexuals who marry after surgery pose a different set of questions, and there have been a number of custody, probate and other cases with decisions all over the legal map.

Urging the United States Supreme Court to tackle the issue in 2000, lawyers for Christie Lee Littleton, a Texas male-to-female transsexual suing her husband’s doctors for wrongful death, noted the confused landscape: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

The Supreme Court declined to take the case.

The New Jersey reference stems from a 1976 case in which an appellate court ruled that a man needed to pay support to his ex-wife, who was born male, essentially saying that sex is determined by current status, not DNA. But a 2004 Florida case took the opposite tack: a female-to-male transsexual who married a woman and then divorced lost custody of the children, as the marriage was declared invalid since both were born the same sex.

In other words, these couples face huge legal hurdles from spousal rights over property and medical decisions to parental rights over the children they help raise. Overnight, they can go from being a legally married couple with full spousal rights to legal limbo. And overnight, two people can go from unable to become legally married to entirely free to fill out a marriage certificate.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue if there was marriage equality. While marriage equality certainly wouldn’t solve all transgender issues (or LGB ones for that matter), and wouldn’t solve the problem of ensuring that the government recognizes the correct gender identity of all people, it would help protect already-married couples like The Brunners just as much as it would help same-sex couples who want to become legally married and same-sex couples with civil unions that occupy a legal gray area.

I just so happen to be lobbying at in Albany tomorrow for Equality and Justice Day, and marriage equality is on the table, along with an expansion of anti-discrimination legislation to include gender identity. I’m excited to be going and optimistic that we have an LGBT-friendly new governor in NY. There will be some cool stuff going on, so hopefully I’ll have something interesting to report when I get back.

A pregnant trans man tells his story of discrimination, mockery, hope and family. It’s a short piece, but well worth a read.

Lisa–as usual–has already devoted many paragraphs to responding to this post, but I’m adding my contribution here, because I read this comment and sorta went, “Hm.”

Here is my position in a nutshell:
1. Transwomen are people (yep! “people”) that have made some sort of *change* to be considered (trans) “women”
2. To have transitioned is to have supported the message that links what our bodies are to how we express them. That, to me, is gender. (That those expressions, however, oftentimes have binary influence-influence not carbon copy- is no accident.)
3. I don’t want body parts “expressible” (maybe you do? or don’t care either way)
To “express” womanhood/being a “woman” is to further define/perpetuate how those with the status of “woman” under Status Quo Norms should act or behave and, thusly, what people expect from them (for obvious reasons, you didn’t become trans to be considered translisa). Any positive re-enforcement of this, afaic, is problematic and oppressive.4. I recognize that my latter points are not appreciated by transpersons so I’m not going to go out of my way (across seas, lots of expense) to say those things to transpersons who already have a hard enough time with conservative values. Contrary to typical conflation radfems are not conservatives–our positions are wholly different and you are smart enough to discern.
5. All I would like, wrt to trans exclusive spaces, are enough places I may go, in one lifetime, on one hand, that allow me to speak comfortably about the points presented above.
6. I will always question the motives of trans who can in one breath call me transphobic (or bigot, or fundamentalist) and then ask “So can I come?”

(more…)

Like most Project Runway enthusiasts, I love and loathe Christian Siriano. A quick taste of Mr. Fierce himself, for those who are unfamiliar with the show:

Best part? “She’s really fierce. She’s like, one of the fiercest people I’ve ever met. And that’s a big deal, because I’ve met some fierce bitches up in my life.”

He’s entertaining, funny, obnoxious, and narcissistic as all hell. But, you know, entertaining. Except, as Margaret Price points out, what’s up with his use of the word “tranny”?

The first time he said it, it gave me pause. Then he started using it on repeat, and it rubbed me the wrong way too. So if Margaret is humorless, then I guess so am I — because Christian is indeed making a hot mess of the word “tranny.”

And gays are a cancer that will destroy our young people and destroy this nation.

Some random crazy? Nah. An Oklahoma State Representative:

The video is right: This is what they say when they think we aren’t listening. When they’re talking to larger audiences, they moderate the language and talk about “family values” and “protecting marriage.” But that isn’t their actual belief. Make no mistake: This is about hate and bigotry. And I’m damn tired of having to pretend that their arguments against marriage equality and basic civil rights for LGBT people have any merit. I’m damn tired of having to say that “good people can disagree about this issue.” At the end of the day, this is bigotry. It is hate. And we’re hearing it, even through the code words.

I’m going to make “Feministe Feedback” a regular feature here, given that the last two reader-response threads went really well (see: Raising Feminist Daughters and Talking to Your Partner About Sexism). I’ll try to do it weekly, although I think it’ll depend more on when questions for the peanut gallery are posed.

This week, the question comes from a regular reader a close friend of mine in “real life.” The background is this: She and her husband (both 24) have taken in her husband’s 13-year-old cousin, who we’ll call A. They don’t have any other kids, and they only have A temporarily. Today, she emailed me with this (identifying information redacted or changed):

So. Today when I was home at lunch, A was saying how if his friend was gay, he’d punch him. I asked him why. Being gay is wrong, and being straight is right. I asked why again. No answer. So, I pulled up your video of Ellen, found the boy’s name, and googled the article. Then, I read it to A. I also told him about the 17 year that was killed (I sent you the article, I”m bad with names). Then I asked him if he thought it was okay that these guys got killed. He replied no. I asked why. He said they only needed to be beat up. To make a long story shorter, I continued asking questions, and discussing this with him. I was starting to get pretty upset. [My husband] jumped in a few times. A said it was okay for girls to be gay, but not boys. No answer for why that is. So I told him he had to think about why, and we were going to finish this discussion when I got home.

Jeez.

A is a smart kid. He’s pretty well versed in women’s rights. His mom was definitely a feminist. Wouldn’t even carry or use the word ‘purse’- only bags, lol.

I’m sure his parents have had gay friends, so this was pretty surprising to me. So we are going to keep talking and talking and talking about it.

Good thing is, is that I think having [my husband] hear this conversation made my point to him about how it all starts with a joke. And then snowballs into a 14 year old thinking its okay to kill someone.
I’ve never been stern with A cause I haven’t had to, so I think I kind of freaked him out because I was being really stern. If he was older, I would’ve been pissed, but I was trying to remain calm. He’s young, and really its not his fault. Hopefully I can get most of my point through to him. He’s a sensitive kid, so [my husband] asked him how he would feel if someone decided that being Mexican was wrong, and beat him up. (A is Mexican and Italian).

Having a 13 year old is hard.

Sure sounds like it.

So, Feministers: How do you talk to kids (your own or others’) about homophobia? How do you explain that homophobia is wrong to a 13-year-old who is steeped in it every single day, and who probably constantly hears “gay” as an insult from his peers? Any strategies for my friend and for other parents, guardians and folks who interact with kids?

Good Lord I love Ellen.

This segment made me bawl like a baby, but it also made me hopeful. I remember the Ellen coming-out controversy in 1997, and how her show sunk soon thereafter. Ten years later, she’s back on an extremely popular daytime talk show, catering to a moderate “average American” audience, and she’s able to talk about issues like violence against the LGBT community, encourage her audience to vote for candidates who support LGBT rights, and get a standing ovation.

Obviously there’s still a long way to go, but things are changing — and quickly. I can’t speak for all progressive and feminist-minded people, but I know I often get depressed and frustrated by how regressive so much of American society can be. I want it to be fixed now. Stuff like this is a good reminder that while there’s still a ton of work to be done — after all, a child is dead because of his identity — things do improve. Talking about it on daytime TV is a small thing, but it’s certainly significant.