Clarification

Recently I had someone question me about my blog entires. She asked why I continually out myself and question a system which sometimes allows me to  "pass" as female and sometimes allows me to "pass as male".

For clarification (because although I know what my posting intents are but others might not get it)- I out myself in my blog on a regular basis and write about my experiences where my gender [expression] is challenged, not in an attempt to reinforce gender or gender roles, but rather to challenge gender itself. If the gender dichotomy truly did exist in as rigid a format as many would have you believe then how is it that I (along with countless others) can so easily create confusion in other people based on our gender expressions, mannerisms, etc?

Julia Serano puts it quite well in her book "Whipping Girl" when she states "I have found that women and men are not separated by an insurmountable chasm, as many people seem to believe. Actually, most of us are only a hormone prescription away from being perceived as the 'opposite' sex."

So, while I might take the time in my postings to point out the presence of gender markers in my experiences, it's not to accuse those I have interacted with as having made a "wrong" assumption, but rather to point out that even with such blatant gender markers (secondary sex characteristics), such as visible facial hair, people still struggle with their decision to classify others into male or female. Thus the inherent flaw in the gender dichotomy theory. Thus also proving that there is an amazing ease with which gender fluidity occurs and can be achieved.

LGBTQ Health Summit

Discussing for more the actual LGBTQ Health conference I attended, I noticed many things. One, the arguments and issues brought up are the same ones that have been brought up at the last 3 or 4 conferences. Nothing has changed. I noticed at the end of this conference all the charts with the issues were posted up front and the speaker said that they would go back to the CDC and to DHHS and to the conference planning committee to be addressed. Sadly, I think that many people left the conference thinking that they did their part and now that the agencies know of the community’s needs that it will get corrected. There is a general “things are getting done” attitude that is very misleading. It means that there isn’t any need to go further, that there isn’t any need for all of us to actually do the work individually and as groups. Things couldn’t be so wrong! There were about 180 people at this last conference. If those 180 people all went out and acted there will be a much greater and faster change than leaving it to the government agencies. So, lets make an action plan for all of us:

1. Question what is going on.

2. Challenge the status quo.

3. Educate yourself about the issues. All of them, not just the ones affecting you.

4. Voice opinions.

5. Talk to other people.

6. Vote.

7. Talk to your health care providers and educate them.

8. Volunteer your time.

9. Donate money to groups doing this work.

10. Organize.

11. Hold events.

12.  Hold the CDC and DHHS to their commitment to address these issues.

13. Become familiar with the legal system and know how to use our Civil Rights Laws. They might be under attack right now but as long as we have them, lets use them!

14. Learn about what our opposition is doing.

15. Refrain from resorting to the attacks and negative tactics used by our opposition.

16. Teach ways of inclusion... in all aspects. Religion isn’t the problem. Use the affirming ones to help spread the message instead of lumping them all together as bad.

17. Don’t be satisfied with small progresses. Refer back to Action #2. It’s the radical edge that pushes us all to find new ways of interacting and challenges us all to grow.

18. Work together. There is no such thing as an army of 1. That causes burn-out and bitterness. Instead strive for an army of all acting as 1.

19. Support each other.

20. Don't stop acting!

Christian Civics?

Yesterday I attended a conference on LGBTQ Health. While there I was informed that an “undercover agent” was also there from the Christian Civic League. Let me explain 2 things. 1. for all my out-of-state readers, the Christian Civic League is Maine’s equivalent of the Fred Phelps group. They are an extremely right-wing conservative group of meddling hate-mongers. They have worked constantly to confront all LGBTQ progress in Maine with some success. Most recently, they started a referendum to repeal our Civil Right’s Act, to abolish our High School Civil Right’s Teams, to ban gay marriage and civil unions, and to ban gay adoption. It’s a far reaching petition. One that the executive director “justifies” because he feels that groups should not be rewarded for their “sexual misbehaviors”. The ironic part of all this is that there is much speculation that the executive director of the CCL himself is a closeted gay man. 2. I need to qualify the part about the “undercover agent”. Not to perpetuate stereotypes, but he was a large man wearing a Red Sox windbreaker with jeans. He stuck out like a sore thumb. If that wasn’t telling enough his bright red blushing cheeks were.

The CCL agent went into several of the workshop sessions and took notes and pictures of people attending as well as the flip charts that were created. After the sessions he sought out some people to ask questions about comments that were made during the session. For example: in one session a gentleman talked about the work he does in his church. The CCL agent asked for the church’s denomination.

At one of the sessions I had the pleasure of sitting at the same table with the CCL agent. After the session was over I quickly took the chance to say hi. “I noticed you’re from the Christian Civic League. I think it’s great that they are supportive of you coming here.” He didn’t like that statement or the connotation it inferred. He gave me the cold shoulder, abruptly walking away but then spun around to bluntly ask “Are you a man or a women?” I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled. He continued, “I’m going to guess you’re a man trying to be a woman?” I replied, “No.” He still wasn’t satisfied, “Biologically?” Again, I replied, “No.” Frustrated he walked away and shortly after the session he left the entire conference. Apparently after 2 sessions and our interactions his gayness-meter was showing that he was in danger of having something rub off on him and had to leave. Pity. 

The attached link will take you to the CCL's website where they did a write-up on the Health Summit. Notice how they skillfully use derogatory terms to make the HEALTH summit read as a disease meeting of "homos and trannies". Their negative spin and slander against these groups is very sad. Christian? I don't think so. Not Christ like at all!

Medical Education

Recently I went to a doctor’s office for a pre-surgical consultation/orientation for a foot problem. When I got there I did as everyone does and checked in at the front desk and then sat in the waiting area for my turn to go. Eventually a nurse came in and called my full name. I stood up but a guy who was in the waiting room said “hi” to the nurse. She immediately thought that he was the patient she was after. I walked up to her and told her we could go now, that I was the name she had called. She stammered “It says M on the chart, I was expecting a fellah, not you.” On the walk through the hallway to her office she clumsily tried to apologize for the mix-up, “It’s funny how you respond when you are expecting something and then see something different.” At this point she still could have salvaged the interaction. Yes, she had messed up but she had tried to apologize- even if in doing so she referred to me as a something. It only got better from here though.

Once in her office she handed me her paperwork and asked me to confirm all the info on it, specifically asking about the M. She then asked a few of the standard questions, which apparently in my case included asking if there was “no chance you’re pregnant?” I responded no. She still wasn’t getting it. “Can I ask why you haven’t gotten pregnant? Are you practicing abstinence or are you on birth control?” So, here I was in a position where I had to explain basic biology to the medical professional who was going to be working on me. While nothing further was specifically said, I still don’t think she had caught on to what I had just disclosed to her. Ignorance is bliss, perhaps? Thankfully I received excellent services from them without much more worth blogging about. It was interesting though, that even after having changed into the little johnny gown and laying on the stretcher while the nurses fixed my IV they continued to refer to me using female pronouns, although they didn’t seem to sure of themselves while doing so. Did they not know what they were doing? Or were they doing it purposely because they were amazingly perceptive?

Getting carded

It’s always interesting when going out to see how people are going to react and interact. More specifically, it’s always interesting to see how people are going to react and interact with me. Case in point, recently I was out shopping at some little boutique shops. At one of them I was the only person in the shop. The owner greeted me and we exchanged a little small talk about a blown lightbulb she had. Mundane, I know. As I looked around at the stuff for sale the owner was standing there at the counter watching. After about 5 minutes I found something I wanted and went to make the purchase. I asked to put it on plastic and handed her my card. Before she even swiped the card she asked to see my ID. Not because she wanted to make sure the signatures matched. No. She was very quick to give the reason. Without my even asking she explained that it was because the name on the card was “Joseph.” Yeah, my birth name. She had pegged me as female and thought I was trying to use someone else’s card. Of course, after I gave her my ID and she saw it was really my card she apologized profusely and gave some lame excuse about her boss requiring to verify blah blah blah. The most comical part of it all is that I wasn’t presenting as female at the time... including not having shaved that day- stubble and all.

Preamble of the American Corporate

We the dictators of the Disunited States, in order to form a more perfect disunion, establish injustice, insure domestic unrest, provide for the general offense, promote common warfare, and deny the blessings of liberty to our subjects and their posterity, do ordain and establish this Unconstitution for the Disunited States of America.

Revolution resolution

The following is a slightly altered telling of an age old document. Do you recognize the document? Can you tell which parts were originally written about the King of England and which were altered to speak of our current administration? The resemblance is uncanny.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which has connected them with another... they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government.

All experience hath shown, that humankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them unto absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these United States, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Administration is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

It has refused It’s Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

It has made Judges to be appointed for tenure under constraint of allegiance to Its Will alone.

It has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our people.

It has effected to create a Military independent of and superior to the civil power.

It has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws, giving It’s Assent of their Acts of pretended Legislation.

For protecting It’s agents, by executive orders, from punishment for any crimes which they should commit against the inhabitants of these states.

For cutting off our Trade with parts of the world.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of a constitutional trial.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.

For usurping positions of power to which It was not duly elected.

For consenting to acts of unlawful warfare and tactics of torture.

For consenting to acts of domestic civilian espionage and betraying the trust of the people.

For purposely misguiding our nation through the use of fear and deception, and prevaricating when queried as the the purposes.

It is at this time transporting large Armies of Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

It has excited foreign insurrections towards us, and has caused to bring on the inhabitants of our peers whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

Phony election after phony election, laws destroyed despite public cry for approval, laws created to curtail our freedoms (which the government never gave us in the first place- the government was created merely to protect those freedoms), laws created to throw off-balance the carefully created system of checks and balances, lies, deceit, outright war, and general disregard for the people of all nations. It is for all these reasons, and to uphold a just belief voiced by the Fathers of the Constitution that we need to raise up and reclaim our government. It’s current form is no longer serving the purposes and needs of it’s people, of us. Will an election help? Maybe, maybe not. Will the election actually be honest and actually carry through? Maybe, maybe not. A corrupt system cannot be used rightly. It will always remain corrupt. It doesn’t matter who is put in the controls, until the system is righted through systemic changes it cannot function again as it was intended to. Revolution anyone?

I Say, "Can you really see?"

Old glory still flies on high.

But really, what does it mean anymore?

Despised abroad.

Mourned at home.

Old fools use it as a power tool.

Young fools are mesmerized into silence.

Its meaning has been cheapened.

An icon drained and ashen.

The reds and the blues have bled so much shit.

Its hard to tell the color of that flag.

Is it purple or almost brown?

If in resemblance of Mr. Grey,

Surely it would be threadbare in tatters.

The country it is views itself as whole,

Yet the rampant rotting and putridness belie its vile being.

A raised torch no longer casts a beacon,

Inbound cargo tossed overboard and wished away.

Walls are going up.

People are exported.

The suits control the money.

Money controls the suits.

The dream?

Or just a prosaic pipedream?

A yellowed paper that no longer yields its strength,

Corruption took that away.

Old men as authors suitable for an old set of documents.

Oh for a merciful death while some dignity still remains.

New life maybe can be breathed.

But not from the mouth of status quo.

Not from the throat of corporate sponsorship.

Certainly not out the lungs of the good-old-boys network.

Lies lies lies.

Oy that sun spotted rag still flutters,

Over the land of the [semi] free [thanks to the Patriot Act],

And the home of its grave.

We need a new icon.

A new dream.

By ballot and by action.

A grand jeté of sorts.

A good kick in the pants to board a better aircraft.

Common goals.

Real Glory flies on indefinitely.

Naomi Wolfe Quote

The raw awareness that you have the power to change the world is more important than any other resource- it is the hardest one to develop and share, and the most essential. Giving your endorsement to political representatives, social programs, or radical ideologies will be of little avail if the fundamental problem is that you don't know your own strength.
Self-determination begins and ends with your initiatives and actions, whether you live under a totalitarian regime or the canopy of the rainforest. It must be established on a daily basis, by acting back on the world that acts upon you- whether that means calling in sick on a sunny day, starting a neighborhood garden with your friends, or toppling a government. You cannot make a revolution that distributes power equally except by learning firsthand how to exercise and share power- and that exercising and sharing, on any scale, is itself the ongoing, never-concluded project of revolution.

Trans-Stratification

I was recently at a meeting to discuss how the needs of the transgender community in the state of Maine should be addressed over the upcoming years. While a nice big list of needs was created which covered everything from medical to safety to family needs, there was also a "dirty laundry" list. Well, it wasn't actually written out- just aired out, if you will.
Here's the issue: basically, one woman quite passionately expressed that she feels that someone identifying as a crossdresser should not have as much right to identify that way as someone who identified as transsexual and had been in transition for 13 years, such as the woman who was voicing this opinion. She felt that the transgender umbrella should only extend its welcoming protection to those who were "serious" about changing genders and not to those who "only do it in weekends in hotel rooms for sexual pleasure". (A view which misses the purpose of crossdressing.) 
So here's the question: is one persons right to express their gender however and whenever they please less than someone else's right to express their gender? 
It's funny, all this time I thought that any action that challenged the constrictions of gender was good for us all- transsexual and crossdresser alike.