Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
For those who have been feeling frustrated and sad about Prop 8, Charles Kaiser at OpenSalon says:
Therefore, this week’s victories for the religious right in California, Arizona and Florida are really the last gasp of a fringe movement trying to forestall the inevitable, rather than proof of a new “cultural brick wall.â€
& He provides some very compelling evidence, so go read it, & be heartened.
Good News:
Barack Obama is going to be the next president of these United States.
Bad News:
Vote for Obama because: despite LGBT people objecting to both Presidential & VP candidates with the old complaint, “but neither of them are for gay marriage” please keep in mind that in fact, Senators Obama & Biden are both against all of the state and federal amendments that would rewrite constitutions to limit marriage to one man & one woman. Senator Biden, specifically, appeared on Ellen to talk about his dislike of Proposition 8 in California & all other propositions like it.
& For anyone who still hasn’t seen this, the guys from the original Bud “Wassup” ad, 8 years later, are ready for change.
While you’re at it, Californians, Vote No on Prop 4, too.
The Trans for Obama campaign continues! It’s your time to stand up & be counted, trans democrats, independents, and republicans! If you’re voting for Obama, why not make your vote count twice?
First, here’s a reminder of an event way early in the campaign that has been forgotten by the “they’re both against gay marriage” set: Obama made a point of shutting down homophobic sentiments when he could have just let the moment pass. For those who think that them both being against gay marriage means there’s no difference between them when it comes to LGBT issues, please remember that McCain chose a running mate who is for “ex gay” therapy.
Then go look at these photos. I love that this photographer just kind of knew – as did Richard Avedon (watch till the end) – that Obama would become President Obama. Look at the one of his shoes. Of him cleaning up the drips from his ice cream. At the faces of the young people listening to and looking at him.
My firm belief is that Obama is an extraordinary president for extraordinary circumstances. That we are in the latter is in no doubt, considering this week’s economic news; there are lay-offs happening in all sectors of the economy. That the former is true – that Obama is the right president for this time – is only something I can be sure of in my head and heart. His decision to run when he did, his unbelievable good planning with making it to the nomination = all of these things, the odds he’s beat, tell me that his time is now.
And now it is yours. Go out and vote – early, if you can, to avoid the lines, or on November 4th.
Here is the .pdf of the CT Supreme Court decision, which includes this remarkable language:
Although we acknowledge that many legislators and many of their constituents hold strong personal convictions with respect to preserving the traditional concept of marriage as a heterosexual institution, such beliefs, no matter how deeply held, do not constitute the exceedingly persuasive justification required to sustain a statute that discriminates on the basis of a quasi-suspect classification. “That civil marriage has traditionally excluded same-sex couples, i.e., that the ‘historic and cultural understanding of marriage’ has been between a man and a woman’ cannot in itself provide a [sufficient] basis for the challenged exclusion. To say that the discrimination is ‘traditional’ is to say only that the discrimination has existed for a long time. A classification, however, cannot be maintained merely ‘for its own sake’ [Romer v.Evans, supra, 517 U.S. 635].
Instead, the classification ([that is], the exclusion of gay [persons] from civil
marriage) must advance a state interest that is separate from the classification itself [see id., 633, 635]. Because the ‘tradition’ of excluding gay [persons] from civil marriage is no different from the classification itself, the exclusion cannot be justified on the basis of ‘history.’ Indeed, the justification of ‘tradition’ does not explain the classification; it merely repeats it. Simply put, a history or tradition of discrimination – no matter how entrenched – does not make the discrimination constitutional.”
The boldface is mine. Stunning. The ruling also clarified that civil union is not the same.
The state of Connecticut has now made same-sex marriage legal! It’s the third state to do so, after Massachusetts & California, although of course Vermont has civil unions and New York is now recognizing same sex marriages that were performed elsewhere.
It’s exciting. It’s human. It’s patriotic.
That said, the forces for Prop 8 in California – which would repeal same-sex marriage rights – have a lot more money & are spending it on ads & whatnot trying to undo last year’s ruling. To get more information, doante, or find out what you can do, try noonprop8.com.
Those books Palin was asking about having removed? Books about gays for children. Why am I not surprised?
Interviews with LGBT Alaskans in Wasilla, who talk about how Palin was very much involved with churches who made anti-gay sentiment a political stand, and who condone ex-gay therapies. Very, very important viewing, especially after Palin let it slide in the debate that she is for same-sex marriage rights (even if she doesn’t call it marriage).
The NYT publishes a column about Polyamory and specifically about Poly Pride, a celebration being held in NYC this weekend.
Alex Williams, the journalist who wrote it, seems to have come away with the main impression I’ve come away with: too much talking. I can barely manage one person in my life, but I can’t imagine more. I just don’t have the patience.
Toothbrush disputes are the least of it. In the era of safe sex and cellphones, a life that seems to promise boundless sex in fact involves lots of talking. And talking. And talking.
For one thing, they constantly have to explain the way they live.
That last line ring out to any trans people & their partners out there? One of the reasons Betty & I love the various alt.sex communities we’ve run into is that there is a shared experience: you may not be explaining the same thing, but you’re still explaining. Or, as I like to explain in my Uneven Libidos class, the further you are from the socially-condoned relationship – heterosexual marriage with something like traditional gender roles – the harder it is to find validation and support for the way you live.
If you want to know more about poly, I highly recommend Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up
Nina Smith over at Queercents is doing a series on ‘Transgender Finances’ – covering issues like Social Security, marriage, etc. She has already interviewed me, James Green, Jenny Boylan, Jay Sennett and a few other trans people & allies. This series is a great, cool idea, & I’m glad to see someone’s doing it. Thanks, Nina!
Our friend and book reviewer Jude Russell wrote a short, simple piece about the binary that really resonated with me. I hope it does for many of you, too.
There have been a couple of threads recently wherein gender outlaws (and I use that term with utmost affection and respect) have run afoul of cisgendered folks who have gotten the gender wrong – typically persons in “boy mode” who were androgynous or feminine enough to be gendered female – although I am sure it runs both ways.
Now, I spent many years in that gender neutral zone – where I’d be gendered female in one interaction, male in another, and trigger some confusion (and possibly, anger) in a third. It was all very interesting (from a sociological perspective), and fun (from a Loki / coyote / mischief maker perspective) but also somewhat stressful (especially when things like waste elimination came into play, or I’d run into someone who had a problem with it).
I guess my reaction to these experiences has been somewhat different than others. Because I think we need to take some responsibility for choosing to color outside the lines, choosing to bend gender, choosing to break the rules. So when I was in boy mode and got gendered female, I was less pissed off, and more amused – it was my decision to adopt a more feminine affect, and it was, in some ways, rewarding to have that recognized even as it was uncomfortable to be called on it. I began to pay attention to how others were gendering me – and acted accordingly. If I was vibing female that particular day, well, I stayed out of male gendered spaces; opting for unisex or female gendered spaces, or being cautious and quick in male gendered ones. Many a time, I sought out a unisex bathroom, or watched the gendered bathrooms until I was pretty sure they were empty, or wandered towards a pair of gendered bathrooms and decided at the last minute which one to use, based solely on if anyone was going in or coming out of either.
And when I was called on my gender blur – well, I had a collection of responses ready. “Yeah, I guess I am pretty androgynous” or “I’m still deciding” or “Sometimes I’m not really sure myself”. And yeah, when it got to be too stressful, I’d move in one direction or the other, to reduce the friction. In some ways, my decision to transition was of this nature – that living in between genders required too much energy, produced too much friction in the world.
I guess my point is, we live in this binary gendered world. And slowly, things are loosening up – there are unisex or gender free bathrooms, gender markers are removed from forms and identity documents, salutations are made optional, gay marriage (the prevention of which is, IMHO, the primary reason for rigid binary gender boundaries) is made legal.
But in the meantime, we need to live in this world. And we need to own the fact that we are the gender outlaws, that we need to live on this binary coded planet. Even if the long term goal is a lot less gendered society, we’ll grind ourselves into dust with stress and anger if we do not figure out how to bend and move in the margins at times.
Often starting our journey from a position of cisgenderer privilege – where we could use the right bathroom unconsciously, where we could simply move through the world on automatic pilot, feeling a sense of affiliation and belonging with our gender, its difficult to find ourselves stripped of that gender privilege. But the quicker we realize “I’m privileged differently now, I need to adjust my attitude accordingly”, the more gently we move through society. We can still fight for rights or visibility or a less gendered world. But we can do so without the constant erosion of our energies and self esteem…….
It’s sort of a reframing – becoming less of a victim of a repressive culture, and more of an anthropologist or explorer, carefully moving among this binary culture that we are studying and experimenting with.