Transgender Day of Rememberance 2009
Yesterday was the 2009 Transgender day of Rememberance in our hemisphere, and it is today in the West.
I am really not good at writing these kinds of posts sometimes, but I want to point to this one by kaninchenzero at FWD/Forward:
I personally am angry. All over the world, in every society, we are there and we are dying. Because we are still seen as less than, as mistakes, as inherently deceptive, as the butt of every cruel man-in-a-dress joke, as freaks. Our genitals are viewed as substandard facsimiles at best, our sexualities are commodified and sold when they are considered at all. We are discriminated against in employment and housing, in immigration and criminal justice, in airplane travel, in language. Our medical needs are routinely denied coverage by insurance providers in the United States — even those needs which would be covered, if the insured were a cis person — and can be difficult to obtain even in countries which provide health care to their citizens. Worst of all we are dying because people feel entitled to kill us. Because we are who we are, there are people who feel we deserve to die.
The whole post is very good, and better than anything I could come up with. Please read it.
Housekeeping Note
About a month or so ago I made my Twitter feed private. It is just something that I felt I needed to do for me. My Twitter life has been much more enjoyable since then.
What I didn’t realize was that the widget that I used on WordPress would replace my live tweets with generic tweets…
I don’t routinely scroll down that far on the blog (as is apparent by my blogroll, which has been neglected for quite some time), so I didn’t see the tweets that were put in as place holders.
They were awful.
The widget has been removed from my sidebar.
I apologize to anyone who was offended or triggered by those tweets.
Also, if you are requesting to follow me on Twitter, and I don’t know who you are and you have protected tweets yourself you may want to send me a tweet ahead of time letting me know. I routinely delete requests from people who don’t have a webpage with info listed in their bio.
Thanks.
Here and There…
If you have read the rest of the Internets, might I recommend:
Bitch Magazine: Transcontinental Disability Choir: Disability: The Human Condition
Let’s not kid ourselves. Humanity is a disability, clumsiness is a placeholder for that disability and all that is bad with being human, and vampirism as that magical cure, the sure fire fix for all things disabling.
Change.org’s Women’s Right’s Blog
I have another idea for Ms. Donnelly and her ilk to help them focus their concerns: Fight like hell to get Plan B included in the TRICARE Formulary (the standard list of drugs that must be stocked) and make it available in all Military Treatment Facilities (MTF).
Yeah…it’s been a bit busy around here lately.
Annaham has a post up at Bitch right now too: Disability Chic? (Temporary) Disability in Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi”
The overall message: Disability can be “cool,” but only if it is temporary, not shown to the public, and that your eventual recovery from it can be portrayed through the timeless medium of dance!
Show her some love too.
Chally of Zero at the Bone and our own FWD/Forward has been nominated for Best Individual Blogger at the Weblog Awards, so please vote for her to get her to the finals.
Also, FWD/Forward has been nominated for Best New Blog, something which we are all excited about, so if you are so inclined…
Obama Came to Korea Today, You Might’ve Heard…
...and there he goes!
and some of us were told ahead of time that his motorcade would be driving past the Elementary School on his way out of Seoul. The Community Information Forum I attended a few nights ago included the Main Post’s head of Security, and he told us it would be nothing but a drive by, that Security and the Secret Service together were not prepared to deal with anything more than that, and that having the President get out of the car and wave or anything extra would be out of the question.
I never imagined that the school would take it to the level that they did.
Sure, having the President come to our base is a huge deal, and I am so glad that they wanted to make sure that the kids got to see the motorcade, and that they made banners and waved flags, and all the other stuff to do to show that they love and support their President. These kids were really excited. As we got them lined up they were filled with that glee that you only find in kids that young, as they jumped and cheered “O-BAM-A, O-BAM-A!” for about the first twenty minutes they were outside.
What didn’t happen, though, was the adults in charge, like the Principal and others who organized it, explaining thoroughly enough to these kids what “seeing the President” really entailed. Pretty early on into lining them up the teacher I was assisting and I realized that some of these kids had high expectations. The school was very organized about who got to stand where, and who got to hold the flags and banners, and making sure that everyone was outside in plenty of time for the scheduled passing.
And 45 minutes later we had a couple thousand bored elementary school kids who wanted to know just where the heck the President was.
Have you ever tried to corral 7 years-olds who are simultaneously bored and excited about seeing the President? I must have answered “Where is he?” and “Why can’t I see anything?” a nonillion times, and I resorted to playing “telephone” with them to distract them from poking each other up the nose with their flags while the teacher gave each kid one Smartee for staying in line. Worked OK for a while, and as an aside, the result of starting it off with “rubber baby buggy bumpers” was really funny. But they were not prepared to be bored for an hour. You just can’t do that with kids that young.
Finally the motorcade came … and went.
It was over in a flash.
Faster than most camera holding folk could realize who was in what limo.
That picture at the top? Mine turned out better than most of the other people who showed up. When I cropped the hell out of it I discovered that I accidentally got a decent shot, and that I can actually identify President Obama by his face. Pretty cool.
What broke my heart was seeing Kindergarten and First or Second grade kids crying because they “d-d-d *hiccup* didn’t get to s-s-s-see Obama!”. I was fairly disappointed that this was hyped up as much as it was for these kids who were so. excited.
He might disappoint me at times, but I love the way kids are excited about him.
Of course, I have already seen people all up in arms b/c “the President couldn’t be bothered to stop and get out of the car and wave to 3,000 people”. Yeah, you can tell the people who don’t know WTP is going on. It isn’t like President Obama is sitting down writing these schedules out himself. It was a three ring circus of Base Security, Korean Police, and Secret Service, causing delays and closures all over Seoul. It’s not that simple. He doesn’t just get to get out of the car whenever he damn well pleases.
It wasn’t a total loss. It was exciting. Most of the kids were still excited when the day was over, and most of the people who went were glad to have gone. Next time I hope someone schedules some time for him to stop and say hit to us, the people here because we have to deal with all of that stuff they talked about on CNN today. *shrugs*
Important Announcement
Anna is teh coolest.
She is so awesome that all of Canada actually does know her, they are just too intimidated to admit it.
She is so great that this cat actually is dedicating a song to her. True story.
(from Average Cats)
Some blogwhoring…
see more Lol Celebs
I haven’t done one of these in a while … there has been a lot going on. Apologies if I have missed something awesome that you did, and please share it in comments.
Cara at the Curvature: Not the Man I Know:
It’s not a musing about how violent people are generally capable of hiding their violence in certain contexts. Nor is it even usually an attempt to justify one’s relationship with a violent person. It’s just a flat-out denial. Perhaps even worse, it’s a dismissal.
He’s not aggressive. He respects women. He’s very sensitive. He loves children. He gives back to the community. Once, I saw him do this thing that I consider to be the opposite of the accusation.
Chally: Limits:
You need to approach me as limited because you need someone to be less than you. It is a relief to have someone to compare yourself with and think that you’re doing better than me, at least.
The next two I found via the Sixth Carnival of Feminist Parenting, which is really great and worth checking out.
Ruth Moss: Dear Kate Harding:
You don’t mind those children who are controlled by their parents, or at least, the ones where the parents try to control them. You realise it’s difficult to control them (in the same way it’s difficult to control weight: clue; in both cases, control is the wrong approach). But at least try, come on! And as for those parents who take some kind of pride in not controlling their kids at all (and is it just me, or do I detect the tiniest hint of classism there too?) they’re the lowest of the low.
Umm, did you know Carrie Fisher has a blog? And that she is still awesome (like I had any doubt)?
You see, I was hot when most people are hot—- in my fucking 20’s & part of my 30’s……THEN, in an effort to imitate humans, I had a child &, to further maintain my life like disguise, I took medications for about 9 thousand years, &, despite all my efforts, I continued to get older & older——inadvertently, I assure you———-I tried to arrest my development physically as WELL as emotionally, but unfortunately without as much success. I also must confess that I ate food. I’m sorry….. I realize that I promised never to eat anything but lettuce & sun flower seeds, but tragically, I was unable to keep my promise.
s.e. smith: The chemical coshing of sexuality:
Make no mistake: disabled persons who want an independent sex life are routinely denied lives as sexual beings. Whether they are sterilised in institutions, forced to take medications in exchange for being allowed to live independently, or not informed about the sexual side-effects of medication, their voices are left out of the treatment decision-making, even when treatment has very real – and sometimes deadly – side-effects.
Liss: On Carrie PreJean:
To make an issue out of these tapes, to endorse or encourage their release for any reason, is to perpetuate the rape culture. Despite our collective refusal to regard them thus, celebrity sex tapes released without the participants’ consent is sexual assault. Consenting to the sex act, even consenting to its being filmed, is not implicit consent that images of the act be publicly distributed.
From Change.org:
(That by-ling is not a mistake, that’s me!)
Unfortunately, the intersection of feminism and the military receives limited coverage in womanist/feminist circles unless the discussion centers around rape. Don’t misunderstand me: Rape is a serious issue in the Armed Forces. In weekly posts to come, I fully intend to discuss military rape and sexual assault, the ways it is being addressed (or not) by Upper Brass, how awareness is being raised, and the effectiveness of training geared toward preventing assault. Yet if we, as feminists/womanists, feminist allies, and other women’s rights advocates, focus only on rape and sexual assault, then we are dismissing the positive experiences and achievements made by women every day.
There is a ton more that I haven’t remembered to bookmark, shamefully. Some of the FWD/Forward team is also doing a stint at Bitch as the Transcontinental Disability Choir, so please stop by and show us your love! Drop your links in comments, and show some love to the peeps who worked on these pieces (and me!)
ETA: I am ashamed to say I forgot to bookmark and link to Quixotess’ Boycott of Feministing. Read her post for why, because I appreciate her boosting the signal. Can’t stop the signal, Mal. Also, see Meloukhia’s Open Letter if you need a brush up.
Deflection
In hockey there is a term called deflection. According to Wikipedia *tosses poppy petals* it is a shot which redirects a shot or a pass towards the goal from another player, by allowing the puck to strike the stick and carom towards the goal.
Got it?
It is when you attempt to achieve something by bouncing it off of something else in order to get it to the same place.
I wrote to my Senators this past week about some shit you may have heard of. Yeah, Stupak. He’s mine. Representative of my district in Michigan and I feel personally responsible, Readerland, as I didn’t see that one coming. Guess I was not as up on my Rep as I thought.
So I have been writing to my Senators about the clusterfucktastrophe that is this Stupak/Pitts Amendment and urging them to rally the defenses to make sure that it isn’t part of what comes out of the Senate. It seems that in the fight to get decent health care reform people are forgetting that women actually need health care from the waist down. Sorry everybody, we just do. I know y’all get hung up on our boobs and all, but we got some other parts that some of us are real fond of, and we’d like to keep them working, and have a say in what happens with them and when. But see, Mr. Stupak doesn’t think that should be part of health care. And I reminded my Senators, Carl Levin, and Debbie “Your Mom” Stabenow, of just that fact.
Well, Levin got back to me, in a great play:
Dear OYD: (He really calls me that, yo)
Thank you for contacting me regarding health insurance reform. I appreciate hearing from you. I have long supported the goal of ensuring that all Americans have access to stable, reliable, and affordable health care.
An untold number of Americans live with intermittent or insufficient health insurance, and nearly forty-seven million Americans live without any health insurance at all. Rising health insurance premiums and unemployment have contributed to the continuous rise of these numbers, and it is now more important than ever to create a stronger, more efficient, and more secure health care system.
The Senate Leadership is working to merge the two bills recently reported by the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee into a single bill for the Senate to consider. The goal is a bill that will strengthen America’s health care system by preserving personal choice, ensuring people can keep their health insurance, and reducing cost through competition. The bill hopefully will eliminate existing insurance company practices that discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions and will impose annual and lifetime limits on benefits. These limits on benefits have allowed insurance companies to simply stop paying for an individual’s medical treatment if that treatment is costly. I am hopeful the legislation will eliminate fraud and reduce waste in the health care system, as well as increase administrative efficiencies like providing the support and incentives necessary to ensure that health information systems are interoperable.
I will keep your views in mind when the bill comes before the Senate. I am hopeful that on a bipartisan basis Congress and the President will come together to enact health care reform this year.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
Do you see what happened here?
There are an awful lot of Democrats who just want to put this ugliness behind us and pass this thing. Health Care Reform is important, you see, and we don’t really care how exactly we get from point A to point B, but we are going to get there, no matter how many stick we have to carom from to get there. He cares about Health Care Reform. It’s important. It’s our goal.
I am not sure that I want to scrap the whole thing altogether, but I sure as fuck do not want to see any kind of bill passed that forgets that women have health care needs and that some people need to take their morals and move on.
I am counting on Stabenow to be my Enforcer.
Because, personally, I don’t care if we have to pull a Gordie Howe hat trick* to get real Health Care Reform. I am tired of “in the name of bipartisanship” and all of that crap. I want someone who remembers that we are here to get this done, and that sometimes you have to play ugly to do it. This is hockey politics, not High Tea, and sometimes there is a little bloodshed and sometimes someone is going to do a little slashing and boarding. Because you do shit the way you have to do it when it matters enough. Sometimes you get emotional because you fucking care about the game.
And my body, all of it, and The Kid’s, matters. All of it.
*Anna, I am still waiting for that autograph, eh.
Cast in Bronze
Yeah, I know that this guy’s uniform is jacked up. I know you can’t wear your collar standing up like that no matter how cold it is, and that your pockets are decorative only. Were I doing an inspection, The Lone Sailor here would probably not pass. He would be called to re-inspect later.
But I marched past a replica of this statue every day for some of the longest weeks of my life. He was a proud symbol of everything we hoped to achieve, and everything that everyone before us had achieved. It was an image we had hoped to live up to. A symbol of what it meant to be a Sailor. To wear even the lowest uniform and to even be graced the swab the decks was to be a proud member of the United States Navy, and that alone was worth singing “Anchors Aweigh” with a hoarse throat.
The Lone Sailor statue is cast from the hulls of ships long past, giving it the truth behind that sentiment. Lives lost and watery graves. Also, strength of the future. A symbol of strength that will endure the weather, a hint that from here on we would be perpetual, like the water that carries our ships.
Being a Sailor meant more to me than I ever expected, and no matter what happened since, it is something I will always carry with me. It was a part of me, and it continues to be, like that damned statue w/ his jacked up collar and his damned hands in his damned pockets. I have pride in that part of my life, no matter how it ended, no matter how it was cut short. No matter how the career I wanted was yanked out from under me and no matter how I feel betrayed by the very body that carried me through those days of training and “snow watch” at Great Lakes, I was a Sailor, it is a part of me that I treasure. It is a strength that can not be taken from me.
I hope that you get a chance to pay a thankful word to a Veteran today (or tomorrow depending on where you are). Whether a thank-you for what they have done, are doing, or will do (because, Active Duty are Veterans too), remember that their service meant something to them in some manner also. It wasn’t just a pay check or a call to duty. In some way it became a part of that person. It wasn’t just a uniform we put on or stamped dog tags. It was a part of our person. Something we will always carry, but not like a weapon or a line. It changed us. In our very inner most being, it changed us, hardened us and gave us the strength of dozens of ships to endure, even if it isn’t obvious to one who hasn’t served.
You don’t take that off.
It is cast on us, like bronze.
My Congressman Does Not, in fact Rock the Casbah
Dear Congressman Stupak,
I am pissed as Hell at you.
After all we’ve been through…
Call when you can be arsed to care about ALL your constituents more.
XOXO
OYD.
President Obama meets with Heads of Tribal Nations
05 November 2009
To mark the beginning of Native American Heritage Month, President Obama met with the Heads of First Nation and Tribal leaders in DC. The full transcript of his opening remarks can be found here, but something that was of particular interest to me was this passage:
But the future of Indian Country rests on something more: the education we provide our children. (Applause.) We know that Native Americans face some of the lowest matriculation rates and highest high school and college dropout rates. That’s why the Recovery Act also included $170 million for Indian education — (applause) — and $277 million for Indian school construction. And that’s why my budget provided $50 million in advanced funding for tribal colleges that are often economic lifelines for a community. (Applause.) Students who study at a tribal college are eight times less likely to drop out of higher education, they continue on to a four-year institution at a higher rate than students in community colleges, and nearly 80 percent end up in careers that help their tribal nation.
And none of our efforts will take root if we can’t even guarantee that our communities are safe — safe places to learn, safe places to grow, safe places to thrive. And on some reservations, violent crime is more than 20 times the national average. The shocking and contemptible fact that one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes is an assault on our national conscience that we can no longer ignore. (Applause.)
So tribes need support in strengthening their law enforcement capability. They need better resources and more training. And my administration fully appreciates the complexity and challenges you face when it comes to the criminal justice system on tribal lands. But we need to have a serious conversation with regard to all aspects of your public safety, and that’s a conversation my administration is committed to doing. (Applause.)
So this is a challenge we take very seriously. The Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Health and Human Services are all working on ways to empower tribal governments to ensure greater safety in their own communities, and I want to particularly commend Attorney General Eric Holder for his efforts on this so far. I also strongly support the Tribal Law and Order Act, and I thank Chairman Dorgan and Representative Herseth-Sandlin for their leadership on this issue. And I look forward to Congress passing it so I can sign it into law. (Applause.)
He acknowledges the lack of fulfillment of any promises of any sort from anyone in Washington during the past regime. Good on him. I would also like to see the Tribal Law and Order Act passed into law. It will do a lot to help the disparity in protecting victims of violent crimes on Tribal land. It is good to see him acknowledge the 1 in 3 statistic of sexual violence against Native women.
Low high school graduation and higher education rates is also a major concern for Tribal families. Money is always tight, and despite what a lot of people think, tribal kids don’t just get to go to school for free. Education is the key to getting a foot out of poverty for a lot of people. It is a key to helping your community build itself up. Getting that education costs money.
President Obama signing this isn’t just a gesture (I hope). It means something. It’s important. He is making a commitment to Tribal Nations that Certain Past Presidents have forgotten (not that I am naming any names, but the last time anyone gave a damn his name rhymed w/ Clinton, Clinton, Oh, hells, it was Clinton).
I am hoping that this is the road that finally leads to a better life for Tribal Nations. Please, oh please let it be the right way to making life better for Tribal Nations.
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