Miss T.R. Gendered

Seasons

2015-05-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

When fall and winter set in and the long dark days see my mood matching, I am hesitant to admit to being SADD. I don't want to attribute my feelings and capacity to deal with them as being hinged on the length of days or the weather. I worry that if I let the weather be such a significant indicator, that in some sick twist of depression playing dominant, the spring and summer will return, as they always do, but without emotional reprieve.

But here we are, Beltane, a time of year that my ancestors surely celebrated with big bonfires, orgies in the forests and ritualistic dances around the pole. Spring is horny as fuck and is coming all around us. Baby animals are popping out of every corner. Here in the country all the attention is being drawn to buds, seedlings, bottle lambs, brooder huts, and big changes; in the temperatures, colours that surround us and the length of days.

Since moving out here I have started exploring this practice of travelling in space (an idea which I can credit to Ricardo Hubbs). The Earth travels around our big star Sun and we watch our Moon wax and wane and shift where it shows itself in the sky. I have started to get to know these patterns, knowing when to expect to see the full moon rise over the hill. I start having a rough sense of when springs in the mountainside will bubble and burst before disappearing back into mysterious underground realms. I notice and start to know when the buds will emerge, how they close in the evening preparing for mountain harsh cold nights and where on the land to find the last piece to balance a vase of fresh cuts for the mantle.

I can putter and wander and observe for hours at this time of year. The damp cold has backed off for the day times, and my layers peel off, necessitating an evening harvest of hoodies and scarves as the sun dips into the valhallas. The days are almost long enough that the suns last dip of the day will be a tease. The tip of Mt Dag, sharp like a ramp kids make to jump their bikes, plays hide-and-seek with the solstice high sun for a few minutes before letting them out to dance a last dance on sun hungry gardeners (not likely to stop just because the sun has gone).

I won't say that my darkness has departed, as an almost ever present aspect of my life, it holds a comfort. An attempt to hold me in something I know, I have spent the winter nesting and tending to pain of the heart and body. The doom is present in my heart and mind and evident in the world around me. Hearts break on the daily. Ever growing numbers of young black folks being killed by cops. More indigenous women disappear all the time. People starve while working themselves to death producing food for those that can afford it. Folks die from treatable illnesses due to the corporate greed of drug companies hoarding knowledge and patenting tradition. And more and more of the earths old blood, her deep, dark, energy rich crude forced out of every possible vein and peeled and pumped out to fuel the out of control machine of global trade. When I allow myself to sit with these things and learn more, explore my own misconceptions and prejudices; when I spend evenings sitting on the front steps, watching planets, stars and spaceships travel across the sky, chatting with beloveds of the horrors we live amongst it can all feel like a bit much.

The desire to crawl back into bed, self medicate into a numb state of sedentary self distance and disappear into story is strong. I can't deny the desire to watch something on a screen wherein good wins, a tale as old as time, told in the medium of this one. Something where the dichotomy of good and bad can be simplified just enough, or where someone else has the plan about what to do next. Some one else is instigating the rebellion, or it's already been happening long enough to have a recognizable movement. Familiar enough to serve as a salve to the current and real wounds of trauma and current events, but far enough away to not pull all the scabs off.

And I look back out the window to see poppy fronds bursting and building their chlorophyl catching nests preparing for their big pink and red flowers. I see the lilacs, just about to burst, swollen and getting more purple everyday. I see birds having a hay-day, and watch the bees bustle between the buds. I see the grass attempting to encroach on my garden and more piles of brush begging to be planted as hugelkulture beds. I hear the calls of the fiddle heads and the nettle and the horsetail telling me to come and gather their medicines. I see places that were once buildings and garbage dumps overcome with bursting life.

I know the story I am looking for - the one that comes after the dark painful winter that capitalism and colonialism has cast on the world. I dream of cities that have been re-consumed by the environments they attempted to dominate. I must hold on to the belief that this depression can lift. That there is life and love and a victory of spring waiting in the wings, building to burst. I feel a gratitude to get to hold story in this time. I've always found home in the inbetweens, and here we are.

The rise of the fall: the militarized climax of capitalism’s last stand.

2014-10-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

I take brief breaks from being in bed, nearly broken by the effects of burnout on my body and mind. On occasion when all I can muster is laying around, recovering, I have the pressing need to express my concerns for the current state of the world in something slightly longer than a status update. This is one of those.

Two weeks ago I was in the starting stages of working towards the medical leave that I am a couple steps closer towards. I was feeling the emotional strain of working in the helping profession, within a system so full of cracks that I caught myself saying things like, “I'm sorry you are hungry, we don't have the funding or mandate to offer a food program.” and “It really sucks that you are essentially living in hiding because the authorities want to take you in for the sale of one pill.” and “I can only hook you up with this voucher for thrift store goods once or twice a year, so next time you are going to stash your stuff somewhere, make sure it won't get stolen or soaked, because we might not be able to replace it again.” I interacted daily with folks who are dying at the hands of a failing system. I needed some time away to ground and recuperate. Knowing of course the heartbreaking truth, that the privilege allowed to me, wherein I get to go home to a house, I get weekends and medical benefits is something that is painstakingly far from the lived realities of the folks I am working with.

It took a few days to actually successfully get gone, but once I did I headed towards the beach at the opposite end of the lake. I had taken a serious fall into the river during my couple of days of trying to get out and the growing bruise kept me from venturing too far from my car camping spot. I split my time at the beach between painting a character I had first started to develop last year as a part of a role playing game and reading graphic novels. A graphic adaptation of Howard Zinn's History of American Empire had me thinking about uprisings and what measures may have to happen to end the systems that we both depend on and that are so incredibly toxic that we can't reasonably continue. Like a bad delusion, or a potent addiction, the society we are accustomed to continues to grow in its' parasitic fashion. Across the territory Idle No More, Warrior Societies and grassroots resistance is standing in the way, burning bridges, holding blockades and attempting to find the wrench that when it lands in the gears all will grind to a halt. As I drove back down the lake towards my home, I wondered when and in which ways we may have to rise up – joining in unified resistance.

As I rounded the last corner before the village closest to my home there was an unusual amount of traffic parked along the side of the highway. As I approached the village entrance road I saw an armed RCMP officer standing in front of the road way, car blocking the path, lights flashing. I pulled over and rolled down my window to ask what it was all about. First, the officer scoffed at me, seemingly flabbergasted that I hadn't heard the news. When I told him that I knew nothing, and that I wasn't trying to get past, I just wanted to know what was happening, he told me that a man had “opened fire and shot at some of “our guys””. He told me that the village was on lock down and the news was full of reports that would give me more of the story. I made my way home and logged online to find the new reports he was talking about. At that time they had already been in lock down – manhunt mode for one full night, but they hadn't released any name or details.

Increased momentary police presence isn't entirely unheard of around here, a place where we don't usually have cops around unless they are specifically called, even then- limited and sporadic; but when they have an interest to be here they appear. Last year when a misled tanker trunk dumped 33,000L of Jet fuel into a pristine river system, the cops appeared, supposedly to “help”, but in reality they used the situation as a motivator to set up highway check points where they were ticketing people for expired insurance and confiscating prohibited substances. A growing industry exists here, while it shrinks due to decreased profit margins and increased risks. Changes to medical grow permits in the past year took away the ability for people to grow their own medicine, instead leaving the industry to be dominated by corporate giants. Small scale growers and folks growing for personal use were once again subject to the prohibition of a plant that has been proven to have medicinal benefits, looking at large fines, jail time and other impacts of criminal charges; harvest season around here leaves some people a bit on edge. It's become unfortunately routine that around this time of year police raids, helicopter fly overs and cross-border inter-agency busts see members of our community disappear into the “halls of justice”. This particular brand of “justice” will never be following up on the misdoings of corporations like Executive Flight Center, SNC Lavilin or the RCMP, because their job is specifically to protect their interests at the costs of personal freedoms and well being of individuals.

While the village of Slocan was locked down, and armed officers were granted permission to search all buildings within the village I worried for folks whose livelihoods are outside of the law, or existing in a moral/legal grey. I worried for students in the school who were locked down in the school before being transported out of the village on a bus with armed officers. I worried for village residents who have been on the receiving end of police brutality being re traumatized by this Rambo show. And I especially worried for Peter de Groot. Once the media released his name they started releasing other, now revealed to be falsified, information about him. They called him armed and dangerous, they said he had served tours of duty with the armed forces, they told people to stay in their homes and lock their doors. They brought in helicopters and dog teams, they chased him into the woods and continued to build an environment of fear. As I woke to helicopters overhead on the third day I couldn't help but have some empathy for a scared human out in the woods being hunted by a large (reports said around 40) squad of armed militants. I thought about the ways that this is becoming increasingly common, I laid in bed with a date and we held each other while watching John Oliver's commentary about increased militarization of police. Police in Ferguson, MO gunned down Michael Brown about 2 months before they gunned down Peter de Groot. The people of Ferguson have been demonstrating ever since. In the course of those two months another score of unarmed young men (mostly men of colour) were killed at the hands of police and at least as many young indigenous women have disappeared. After decades and mass call outs for public inquiry to the missing and murdered women – no official response has ever happened. Volunteers in Winnipeg started dredging the Red River, looking for bodies after decades of failure to respond from the authorities. 43 students disappeared from Guerrero, Mexico, believed to have been kidnapped by police on their way to demonstrate against corruption. Large scale public response and demonstration has received limited media attention. While elections were turned over to corporate interests and private business decision makers in Hong Kong, people gathered to occupy a previously public space, only to defend themselves from teargas and attacks from police with umbrellas and plastic wrap. Any direction you look it isn't hard to see that police forces are quick to defend corporate interests and corrupt governments and that the mythology that we have been fed, that police are around to serve and protect, is a falsified and dangerous idea to hold onto. Movements of the people, resisting brutality, corruption, genocide and torture are consistently challenged and brutalized by these publicly funded, overly armed power tripping teams of deluded quasi-soldiers.

Most recently a soldier was gunned down in Ottawa. It is being used as an opportunity to increase security, crack down on terror threats and continue to profile enemies and insurgents against the state as “terrorists”. I have seen very limited response of this incident being willing to state that soldiers are killed in war. The Canadian nation state has been actively at war for a very long time, some might argue that it is a core element of the existence of this occupied and unceded territory. While soldiers representing Canada have been a part of supporting the brutal treatment of military personnel and civilians both overseas and on occupied indigenous territory, when one member of this publicly funded gang is taken out in a public place, the government and media respond as if it is a tragedy. While I wish to hold space for the family of the soldier to grieve, I can't get on board with thinking that this is a tragedy. Tragic are the deaths of Darrien Hunt, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Omar Abrego, Michelle Cusseaux, the Iguala 43, Peter de Groot and far too many more. When unarmed civilians, dissidents, mentally ill, poor, and otherwise marginalized people are taken out as victims in this war game of capitalism, that is tragic. When people are faced with economic drafts, seeing enlisting as the only possible way to meet their needs, feed their families, get an education, that is tragic.

Tragic was also the conversation that I had to have with one of the kids in my life this past week. She's not quite 4, younger than school aged. While we drove up the valley she asked me why cops kill people. She asked if they will kill us if we break the rules. On the spot I responded to her honest enquiries as best I could. I told her that when she does something that is harmful to others, the adults in her life, and the other kids, will probably tell her, maybe she will get in trouble. She is still learning about how to navigate the world in caring and respectful ways and that being called out when she steps out of line is a part of that. Police unfortunately don't get in trouble in the same ways when they hurt people, in fact all too often, it becomes an indoctrinated part of their job to do so. This can really confuse a persons brain and heart in knowing what is right or wrong. Sometimes the rules are wrong, and we are put in a position to try and hide and make sure that we don't get caught breaking these unjust rules. Trying to educate our future generations about the role of government, laws and police is a complicated task as we see these systems failing our communities.

Those tasked with the education of our future leaders have not been without their own set of challenges either. While all of these demonstrations, murders of civilians and growing corruption and destruction was happening we had a school strike that lasted through the summer and into the beginning of the school year. Money that should have been going into ensuring that all students, including students with special needs, have access to an accessible and public education, was instead going into development of an LNG industry which is in violation of treaties (and in many cases- where treaties have NEVER been negotiated), international law and best public interest. We can clearly see the ways that the money that we hand over to the government each year in the form of income tax (which is still illegal- another post for another day), sales tax, and more are not going in the directions that are in our public, our future or our environments best interest. Instead that money is feeding a corporate machine, addicted to growth and destruction; and the militaristic forces required to defend such a downfall.

When and how are we going to stop the escalation of this brutal trend? At what point do the un-funded individuals, just scraping by and trying to keep from falling through the cracks, find ways to come together and resist the militarized corporate occupying forces that attempt to paint themselves as a democratic government? Are we waiting for a leader? A call to action? How much longer can we afford to wait? And how many potential leaders are actively murdered and disappeared in the process?

I write all this hoping that it can serve as a clarification, reminder and potentially a call for action; and of course also, hoping, that in writing and publishing this that I will not be next.

Words and Pictures:

2014-03-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

This afternoon on the drive home from work, and getting my kittens' reproductive system removed, I happened to be in the same time and place as another queer trans person as we re-fueled at the country co-op. We chatted for a brief seconds, about pets, fatigue and surgeries when we were approached by a woman. And of course, I am making broad presumption, given where I may take this next; but I read her to be a woman, presenting woman-ness with the ease and non-thought that people who really haven't thought all that much about the gender they are presenting may actually think (I think- I don't know cis-ness or the ease that comes from it), or not, about the woman-ness (or man-ness) that they may be presenting.

She approached us with her camera and a question. She told us that she was working on a photo project and wondered if she could take our pictures for her project. I asked her what the project was. She responded, “Oh it's not going anywhere, it's not going to be published or anything, it's just this thing that I am working on, where I'm taking pictures of people and then making up stories about them.”

making-up stories?

I hummed for a brief second before saying no. The answer was clear to me in a bristle up the hairs of the back of my neck, although it took most of the rest of the half hour drive home and sitting down to write that I really realize my abrasion to this idea.

Concurrently:

I am scheduled to present on a panel about gender and health at a Rural Health Research Conference. It will be full of academics and public health heads, policy makers and health care gate keepers. I was asked to supply a photo and bio. I wrote my bio easily enough. I use the appropriate “they” pronoun throughout, identify myself as an organizer from trans and queer communities. Luckily this is relevant to my work. I am not exactly sure how I would inject my story, my identity if it wasn't relevant. Although that spins off into a whole other conversation around the transferable resiliency skills we develop as marginalized people. The problem I am having though is with the picture. I know it is hard to communicate my wholeness in a still picture. I am a dynamic being, constantly fluxing through variations and identity spaces.

I search my folders.

Lots of photos of stuff. Stuff in the forest. Stuff in my yard. Stuff my kids made out of Lego. My kids. In costumes. With Ponies. In Costumes. If you look through the pictures quickly it is like some sort of trippy music video. The kids frantically dance between costumes and dance poses, all interspersed with ponies and gushing fungi and fence posts.

There are some photos of me. All of which capture one version. One moment. Of the wide changing wholeness that is me. Whatever gender was shining through brighter in that particular moment from that particular angle- interpreted of course through the viewers' lens. I know that there are lots of people who don't know a version of me yet. They may not know words like genderqueer, androgyne, femme, queer, fagette and so I know in place they may fill in words like man, woman, or freak to fill in and span across the places between what the pictures show, regardless how incongruous it may end up seeming.

I want to find a photo that feels like exactly the right mix of all of the things, the things that I know words for, but other might not, to illustrate exactly the delicate and ever shifting balance that I am constantly working to balance. For matters of integrity and truth, but also for safety and security.

Lately:

I have been accepting requests for interviews. Students at the local college seem to be asking me my words for some paper every few weeks. I give my words, knowing that even if they may be edited down for the submitted paper, the interviewer will have had the opportunity for me to fully articulate myself. I can state and elaborate on confusing points of seeming contradiction and muse at mystery.

I half-joke with the students about finding a way for my being a community resource who is studied and interviewed and quoted to lead to me getting an honorary degree.

At the gas pumps:

The woman with the camera walks away. We look to each other. “Maybe if was something about trans visibility in the country" we say , "then maybe." “Ya, or if it was someone I knew”

Then there would be the assurance that our stories are getting made up, with more than just a minute portion of the data required to make even the most blanket judgements. Our stories are already made up of words that are standing in and leaving gaps. Without the opportunity to sit and tell them ourselves, we know the likelihood that we will be given an ill fitting simplified story, to match with our ever complex and dynamic selves, is too high a risk. A story that has the potential to persist, if only for that one person; a neighbour in this tiny place we live, to think she knows us, or a version of us, or a frame worth of who we are.

I thank all of you who have ever taken my picture in a way that recognizes and tries to capture the dynamic blends of femme, nonbinary, queer, genderqueer, kinky, sex positive, resistant, resilient, creative and all the other things that I am sometimes or all times. And may we use this as a reminder to make space for people to tell a version of their own stories. Hear their own truth. You might hear a story you haven't heard before.

Innappropriate Questions

2013-04-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I attended a party. This on it's own isn't newsworthy. Considering the rural nature of my living situation I get to my fair share of shakedowns. This one was in a barn in the country, but it was also a surgery fundraiser for a new friends' SRS. I feel real lucky to have found the scenic rural valley that is chock full of witches and trans folks and other radicals of all sorts. It seems to fit so well. I know that there is place where the country boned queers and friends can still find community amongst the coyotes and ravens.

One of the features of this party was it's theme. It was advertised as a gender blender and folks were encouraged to bust out the glam and drag for a proper hoe down. This was appealing and terrifying to me as someone who blends gender and lives most everyday in a state of drag. Would I feel at the butt of someones joke? Would I be misunderstood? Would I be one of few trans people amongst a hoard of cisgendered folks thinking that they understand transness because they put on a dress for the night? I was unsure if I would attend until I confirmed that I could arrive in style with another local trans person. She is friends with the benefactee of the party and tried to assure me it would be a good time. I was pretty sure it would be, knowing a couple of the DJs and having attended parties at this place in the past.

We arrived early and found our selves through the space. The barn loft dance floor had been beautifully decorated in a manner that was very reflective of the cause, flowing red and pink fabrics, fastened along the peak of the roof and draping down labially. Eventually the party started to fill up and each of the 5 or so out trans folks at the party along with a couple friends and partners took turns collecting cash at the door. The party turned a decent profit, but that is not really what this whole post is getting to.

Alfred Kinsey said that what he found from his research was that approximately 10 percent of people are 100% straight, fully woman identified women who are attracted solely to 100% man identified men and vice versa. 10% of people fell at the other end of his 6 point scale, being 100% gay. I would like to propose that this scale and perception of the human population could also be applied to displays of rude ignorance. There were a couple people doing a really good job of saying inappropriate things, a couple people calling them out, holding ground or otherwise dealing, and then the other 80% of people were somewhere in the middle. Not offensive, but maybe also not even noticing. For those 80% I write this. For those of you who aren't doing the work of noticing and addressing this sort of thing, or maybe you notice, but you use your passing privilege to let it be someone else's struggle. Because those who are doing the standing up, well we know. And that other 10%, I don't have the time or energy to devote any of my free time to attempting to educate you anymore than I already do. And did last weekend.

longest intro... but here we go....
I was standing out by the fire when a woman complimented my facial hair. I have 2 little tufts that grow long from my chin. I responded, thanking her.
Upon hearing my voice she retracted her complement by saying, "oh, I thought you were a girl dressed up as a boy."
I responded, "no, I'm neither, dressed up as neither"
She continues, "oh!? are you a hermaphrodite?"
I glare at her and tell her that she is being rude and that word is probably not one she should use. I give her the term intersex and briefly explain the relationship between intersex people, identities and medicalization that has led the H word to fall from favour. *already more than she deserved, but I allowed myself to turn on my educator brain, thinking that it would be a part of my contribution to the cause we were raising funds and awareness around. If people were going to attend a SRS surgery fundraiser a little bit of trans education may be in their best interest to prevent hurting or offending someone else. I stepped up to the plate and turned on my teacher hat.
She listens. Scoffs and mutters something along the lines of, "oh well, how ever is anyone supposed to keep up with all of this people changing words and stuff anyway." then turns to me and asks, "so are you intersex then?"
I retort by asking the measurements and dimensions of her clit and labia.
She finds this offensive. HA! And tries to argue that that is totally different.
I inform her that it isn't. I give her a brief run down of the wide spectrum of intersex conditions, some that display visible at birth, some that show up at puberty, and some that never do. I explain the criteria that would lead to an intersex diagnosis at birth, namely the size/shape/appearance of ones genitals. So, not in fact that different than asking a woman the size of her clit, would be asking someone if they are intersex.
She pushed on, demanding that there must be some polite way to ask. I ensured her that there wasn't. That asking about the size, shape, surgical status or reproductive viability of someone's genitals is and always will be inappropriate.
I proceeded to give her definitions to the terms trans*, transsexual (the identity, not the orientation, she wasn't ready for that), and transgender. I gave her a piece of advice around asking about someones' pronoun preference and told her that if she stuck to that as her invasive question that she may find her self being trusted and respected more than with her original attempt.
She said that being at a gender bender party was confusing for her because she didn't know where the men were or who she should be attracted to. I didn't even go there. I hope that maybe later, if she remembers any part of that conversation she might realize that was a moment of acknowledging her privilege. A moment where she was given a lot of patient attention from someone who could've just told her to fuck off and suck my clit, for whom the world contains that type of confusion EVERY DAY. Who may be attracted to a neither, dressing as a neither? Will it be gay men? Dykes? straight people (not to mention the self identity crisis processing that can come with that)? pre-post-non op trans people? Who am I "supposed" to be attracted to? And what does that even mean in a world that may not have words, let alone understanding or compassion for me?
So for the 80% of you in the middle. Maybe you are unaware. Or unsure of what you could do. Maybe you hear these conversations happening and they make you feel uncomfortable too. I ask you this. Next time you see or hear this type of thing going on, try to make eye contact with me, or the person playing the role of me in this scenario. If it seems at all reasonable, chime in, suggest some alternate routes that people can take to learning this stuff that doesn't involve pulling the people who live in the position of the oppressed to educate their oppressors. Maybe after this has happened you wanna try and track me down and check in, give appreciations, or offer a hug or a smoke. Or maybe you want to throw together a little circle of people working in solidarity, people striving to being allies. You could process this shit with each other and it would take a big weight off of folks who would really just need to dance without having to worry about this.

it was the end of times, it was the best of times

2012-12-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

Times are a changing. I know that there was a lot of speculation, misunderstanding and generally racist assumptions being made over the past months leading up to the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. People were talking about end times in on of the most widely spread ways I have seen in my lifetime. The speculations made their way onto network TV shows Raising Hope and the theme of "end of the world as we know it prevailed, with shows like Revolution, Terra Nova, Continuum, movies and books like the Hunger Games. The pop culture world is buzz with schemes and plots and story lines built around what comes next, or how to survive the coming end times. Meanwhile, other interpretations of the end of the Mayan cycle explain that this cycle that has just ended is one of the paternal and the start of the maternal, emotion driven, heart centered time of shift. I connect this with the falling of the great empires of our time, which appears to be happening. This also seems a very logical connection to the large scal organizing that is happening and bringing women indigenous leaders to the forefront of political action and change, like Chief Theresa Spence who is in day 16 of hunger striking in attempts to arrange a meeting between PM Harper and First Nations leaders. The actions associated with Idle No More are challenging the paternalistic, oppressive systems that have dictated this place and the people within it for too long. The movement is spreading world wide and people are calling for an end to colonial structures of oppression. The Zapatistas re-emerged from their already established and highly secret autonomous communities in the largest public action since their armed uprising in 1994. Their demonstration was silent and presented upwards of 40,000 people. Mean while across canada rail lines, border crossings, malls and highways are being blockaded and filled with the sounds of war drums and the songs and dances of people tired of living under opposed colonial rule. So maybe the world didn't all end at once, the polarity of the earth didn't immediately shift, computer systems didn't cease to operate, but I would like to hear how this is NOT the end times. The end of colonial times, the end of paternalistic oppression at the hands of the rich white men who have been in power for far too long. Maybe the needs to stockpile food and prepare weapons aren't the same ways that TV has prepared us for, but being prepared for the boats to stop delivering your tea and oranges all the way from china may be a pretty good idea. Oil is becoming more and more expensive and there are 1000s of people putting their lives in front of oil development. We are at a point to choose to stay the same, or move forward choosing light and love and self sufficiency and community support.

Bullying: Hot Topic

2012-10-19T12:50:00.002-07:00

This week I have noticed, and how could you not, the explosion of press attention given to bullying. Following the death of Amanda Todd after online disclosure of extreme bullying, school boards, radio shows, community organizations are once again stepping in to say that something must be done. This seems like something that I have seen ebb and fall, as another death or high profile case hits the mainstream, people get really worked up for a spurt before having the issues of bullying return to the closets, PM feeds, and notes passed in the backs of class, under the eyes but without the attention of the millions. I want to throw my own thoughts about bullying, and how we need to address it as communities affected into the ring. I wish to self identify myself from the start as a former victim of school yard bullying, and a trans gender adult who continues to see bullying behavior play out on the street side as a witness and target of this attention as well as occasionally the bystander who has spoken up and stepped in. I would like to add some of my thoughts about this idea, about bystanders not standing by and what it takes to step up or step in. A prominent memory that flashes into my head when I think of school bullying, takes place in my aunts kitchen. My mom was working as a house cleaner for her sister, while I would be occasionally hired to watch her daughters. This particular memory may have followed a particular incident, or it may have just been a point where a dam broke, and after years of teasing, exclusion, name calling and physical violence I couldn't hold it together anymore. I remember buckling over in tears, sputtering through my gasps to my mom and aunt the ways that I had been targeted. I cried and asked them in earnest if it would ever stop, why the other girls at school were so cruel, and what I would need to do to protect myself. I was able to tell even at that point, probably 7 or 8 years old, that the specific details that the bullies would pick out and make a scene over never seemed to run out. Coming from a working class family where clothes were either home made or second hand, being tall and lanky at 6' 0" by 6th grade, religious associations, not fitting gender expectations, being asthmatic, being double jointed, music tastes, and intelligence; it didn't seem to matter, there was always something to be picked out. At this point, 7 or 8 years old, I was unsure I could maintain the pressures. I thought about getting out of the school system, but also had known the bullying that extends to the ever awkward and outside of social norms 'homeschoolers'. My aunt tried to assure me that it would get better, that eventually I would come out on top stronger for it. The "it gets better" mentality around bullying and harassment is a long time stand by. Dan Savage kicked off his campaign a little more than two years ago, which now hosts over 30,000 videos of people giving their version of the hold on, get through, it will be better on the other side message. Although from the best intentions, from my aunt in her kitchen, and from thousands of strangers on the internet, it falls short. I would like to point out that once I got through school, bullying didn't go away, and in some ways, it got worse. Primarily because navigating the systems in which to find support and hold bullies accountable in the work place, in the housing market, and while walking down the street, are a lot less easy to identify than the pamphlet filled offices of the high school guidance counselor. When I worked as a bike messenger, my dispatcher was a bully, later working in a bike shop, a older male owner was a bully, trying to access community spaces I've encountered bouncers and bar tenders exemplifying bullying behaviour. I've become well practiced at filing complaints, leading boycotts, and finding ways out before situations get beyond my control. One of the things I have learned, as a life long victim of bullying, is that often outside the school yard, people call it something else. It's sexism, it's homophobia, transphobia, it's predatory sexual advances, it's discrimination, classism, ablism. I think it's time that we start calling bullying what we call it when it happens to adults. I think that calling sexism and predatory sexual advances bullying down plays what it really is and how it affects those on the receiving end. We could serve the victims of school aged bullying by giving them the empowerment involved in acknowledging their struggle as real; I think the cultural perception of "bullying" discounts the experience as people imagine thumbs on noses and lines of taunting. Let's call it what it is- a wedgie is an act of physical assault. Posting photographs of someone without their consent is theft and in many cases of 'school aged' cases, distribution of child porn. Bullying is a softened word that describes the intersectionally oppressive practice of abuse, harassment, violence, destruction of personal property, character defamation and use of hate language. Surviving ongoing onslaughts of this type of behaviour is a challenging and commendable feat. Finding ways to thrive are that much more important. The ways that the 7 year old girls would make fun of my pants being too short with taunts and exclusion, the ways the 10 year old girls convinced my only friend that she could be cool if she stopped acknowledging my existence, the knee of the 10 year old boy bruising my pelvis in response to my attempts to play soccer with the boys, the way that the 11 year old girls excluded me from their spin the bottle and truth or dare games rationalized by my yet to be developed breasts, the way the 13 year old boys named me "manchild" as a way of drawing attention to my failures at performing "girl", the way that the grown men employing me as an adult woman would make explicit suggestions and inappropriate and unwelcome advances, the way that sales people direct me to the side of the store they feel would be more appropriate to my perceived gender and the yells I hear walking down the street when the bars let out. They are all unacceptable, they are all "bullying", but they are also so much more. Understanding the intersectionality of these issues is important. I have heard a lot of media around vigils being held in Amanda Todd's honour today. Today is also the day that queer and trans communities have been drawing attention to these issues within our communities for years already. A few more weeks and we will be approaching Trans Day of Remembrance, another case of communities who have been living with a personal understanding of how these issues affect us for a long time, that have been finding ways to address and honour the victims for years. I am glad that more school districts are recognizing that these are issues to talk about up front, but I challenge them to find ways to look at what has already been happening and integrate the energy into a unified front. School districts and community organizations organizing vigils and discussions this week are calling students to step up and not be silent bystanders. I think that this is an important step in creating safer schools and communities, I think it's vital to look at what taking a stand takes. Many times, the threat of becoming the next target keeps bystanders silent. The threat of retaliation for being a 'narc' from cohorts is real. As well, many people don't speak up, as they don't see the behaviour or don't recognize its problematic nature. As well, knowing what will happen if attention is drawn to an issue is an important factor going into the choice to step up. When threats of personal harm are on the table, and we aren't sure that our actions will have any affect, or an affect we agree with, it can keep witnesses silent for their own calculated interests. I believe having upfront and open conversations about approaches of justice in schools, work places, and communities could prove incredibly valuable. Knowing if a student bully would serve punishment, and what that punishment could be is a make or break element of this challenge. If a bully is given a suspension as a result of bullying, all that means is that they have time off campus to prepare a next assault. It could mean that a bully is laying in wait, right off the school grounds, right outside of the arm of the schools' jurisdictions for the 'narc' to walk into their trap. Whereas, engaging students, employees, community members in ongoing accountability dialogues, wherein issues can be identified, addressed and explored can create a container for the pain and trauma which causes people to enact hateful and violent behaviours on each other. Within this container compassion can be bloomed, understanding can be planted, and cycles of violence and trauma can begin to heal. This type of dialogue and process cannot exist in a bubble. It cannot exist in divided categories where the queer and trans youth are discussing homophobia and transphobia in segregated settings, without the support of het and cis allies. This type of dialogue cannot happen once a year, in a large group setting without ongoing follow up. This type of process requires a large scale commitment to delve into the really hard and painful things that lie under the surface of 'bullying'. Addressing the ways that the legacies of colonization and institutional racism spawn slurs on the playground, addressing the ongoing sexism that exists in the "binders full of women" world we live in, addressing economic inequality, addressing child poverty and sexual exploitation of minors and alcoholism and drug addiction and ablism are not easy one afternoon topics, that can have a candle lit for them and have them go away. They don't get better when you survive the institution, especially if you are living in the intersections of oppression. Addressing oppression is required to end bullying, so when we talk about making schools safer, we must realize that we are really talking about a societal paradigm shift. Perhaps this increased attention will be a key piece in creating that shift. I hope that as the topics enter conversations online and off that you may be a part of, you can challenge the idea that bullying is a school yard problem. I hope you can be a part of this change within your own families, communities, and work places and I look forward to hearing about the ways that this is working where you are.

First times, hopefully gentle.

2012-08-30T17:03:00.002-07:00

The facebook status I most recently posted said: “…. is rallying all the glamour of fairy queens past, present and future where they rest in my closet dancing to Abba to properly honour the momentous occasion that is Castlegar Gay Pride. THIS IS A REALLY BIG DEAL. I am so excited to be able to bring my wholeself to Castlegar, a place that I usually leave a few of my selves at home or in the car when I go there. A place that I have felt a need to butch up to feel safe. And tonight, we will create safety in numbers. An opportunity to celebrate our diversity, fabulosity and create space so we won’t have to check ourselves at the door, and most importantly the next generation of people growing up around here may never have to learn this survival mechanism at all.” _______________ I wanted to share with you internet about how incredibly excited I am for this incredibly important occasion. As my followers know, I have been living and finding space for this genderfucked fancy self in a part of rural Canada that has a pretty decent reputation of being radical, accepting and weird. There are 2 small cities equidistant from my home. Nelson being one, and Castlegar being the second. Castlegar is where I usually go shopping, as the thrift stores are amazing and they have much cheaper groceries. Sometimes occasionally I will go see a movie in Castlegar since Nelson doesn’t currently have a theatre. But almost always going to Castlegar takes some degree of warm up, a specific kind of outfit, appropriate footwear etc. I think preparing to go Castlegar is sort of akin to what some people who are closeted must wrestle with every morning. How much can I be real, and still be safe? What can I pull off and slip under the radar, not raise any eyebrows or red flags? Usually I butch up when I go to Castlegar. I very rarely bind, but I like to wear overalls, baggy sweaters or a distracting amount of layers when I go to Castlegar. This got me into trouble when I first arrived. I over heated and passed out while in Fabricland. I have to say, if there is a good place to pass out, a fabric store is it. My head was bolstered by a bolt of polar fleece and I awoke to a small crowd of grandmothers, retired cardiac nurses and quilt crazed cougars. I wasn’t sure how they would react to my trans-ness. They were shocked at the amount of clothes I was wearing, I passed it of as being attributed to adjusting from a recent move from the coast and not being able to warm up in the ice yet. I was taken to the hospital in Castlegar, which is very small. I remember a room with out 5 or 6 beds in it being the ER, possibly even the whole thing. I told one of the paramedics that I was trans, and tried to explain that I didn’t really want it to be a thing. I don’t really remember how exactly everything went down, but I remember being generally impressed. Which says a lot, I’ve had lots of experience with hospital emergency rooms, and I am rarely satisfied, let alone impressed. The hospital staff grabbed one of their mental health workers to drop by and introduce himself before he left for home. I was introduced into their system, considering that I had all sorts of warning signs; new to the area, depressed, isolated and overwhelmed. I met with one of their workers for a bit, which in some ways felt like I should have been transcribing a book called, “how I feel about being trans in this place.” I don’t really feel like that is the best way to encourage healing and balance in my life so I dropped out. Castlegar is the place where I usually won’t try on dresses or skirts without buying them, and sort of convince myself that I am buying them for a friend. I try to pass, trying to access as much male privilege as anyone will give me. Tonight I will be busting it all out. Two outfits, one to appear in, and one to change into as the night lets loose. But neither one of these outfits is attempting to pass as male, or straight, or normal. Tonight is the Pride party. For the first time in Castlegar, gays (their language not mine, I think the crowd will be a lot more queer+) will organize and appear en mass publicly. Tonight we make history.

Groaning and Toning

2012-02-24T00:19:00.000-08:00

these times can be dark ones. I won't lie and say that the adjustment to living in a new place, a rural place, a place where I know very few people, have very little structure and am facing mental health problems that I have been attempting to hide, be too busy for and run away from head on in some pretty intense ways is easy. It's not. I've been watching a lot of downloaded movies and TV, catching up on entire series that I had otherwise missed out on for what ever reason. Including Harry Potter, Star War, Skins (the british show), Weeds, and United States of Tara. Most recently I have watched 4 x-men movies. I quite enjoyed them, I liked the superhero meets mutants take on civil rights and overcoming oppression, but I found myself particularly fond of the character Beast. The story presented in the movies I have seen is about a mutant boy genius who can make super cool inventions and can run really fast and hang upside down with his 2nd hands on his feet. In "first class" he attempts to make a cure for the visible parts of the mutations that both him and Mystique face attempting to exist and blend in in the human world. It back fires, targeting and enhancing instead of decreasing the effects of mutation. He becomes blue, hairy and super ripped. His attempts to hide, change himself in a way that would make him invisible instead made him so super visible that in some ways he is tasked with being an advocate and leading the cause for mutant rights. This morning I took a call from an organization that is hosting a conference I am interested in attending. I called them after attempting to apply, when I got to the second question that was a drop down menu requiring me to choose M or F to be able to submit the form. I became an advisor to their application process and gender related policies as well as an applicant. I feel, at times, I have little choice declaring my transness, as it is something that I feel is visible all the time. This is what feels honest to me, this is what feels genuine. Beard and pearls, deep voice and long hair, skirts and work boots. This is who I am and I cannot pretend to blend in. I think this will be especially true if I become pregnant, which is a desire of mine. I think in some ways seeing the story line of Beast and his injected attempt to "fix" how visible he was instead made it impossible for him to ever hide again is the closest I have ever seen my relationship to Testosterone represented in film. I feel stronger, and more truly me living with the legacy of having injected t, but I cannot expect to ever be cisgendered, even as a femme with a cunt in a dress, my transness is always going to be a part of that. As beast comes to terms with being a mutant, a visible one, a strong, fast, hairy one, so do I. I feel really lucky to have a beautiful hall to go to a couple times a month to explore voice and sound with. A facilitator leads different activities in our bodies, our voices, our emotions, some interacting with each other, cooperating in creating a resonant truth in the space, and other times just being totally honest with our own. It is the type of thing that to an outsider walking in it would look like a whole bunch of crazies (and I say that as one) writhing on the floor and laughing hysterically, chasing each other around like cartoon villains, and sitting in circles for extended live vocal looping. Its beautiful, and magical and at times challenging, but it is one of those times where my facing my transness, if only for myself, is unavoidable. The effect of 3 years of T on my voice is that of extended range, occasional cracking and a general state of not knowing what might come out or for how long. I haven't done much singing out of the shower since I was a young kid singing in church, so exploring what my voice can do, its range, its growing strength and comfort in itself is empowering. Through the squeeks and cracks, through the growls and snarls, I am coming into myself. Mutant and proud, Trans and proud. Knowing that I have something, that living between genders is a super power, that it is useful and powerful in the world. To be a superhero I must train, know my powers, know their limits and control them so they don't control me.

Mental Migration

2011-10-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

I have made the move. I currently set up in a little farm house on a couple of acres, with a big garden out back that hauled in 100+ lbs of tomatoes this year, and i'm sure at least double that for next year. I am looking after the dogs, cats and chickens of two of my friends (to read more about the land and the lovely family that makes their magic here check out: This Rural Life.
During the day I drive up the hill to our new home, a single wide trailer sitting on the hillside.

Picture this:
When you stand up from lighting the woodstove, the cats brushing by your feet to get a taste of the toasty warmth you've ignited, you look out the window. The view, past the trees filled with squirrels and bluejays, the hillside goes down and down until it reaches the large and dammed kootenay river, and then back up the other side to a tree covered hillside. When the sky is clear out here the stars are so plentiful and bright that they look to a city kid like "movie stars". Stars like in some movie where a romantical scene is playing out on the front of a car, lovers looking into each others eyes while shooting stars blaze across the seemingly painted milky way.

I live in that storybook now.

I am grateful that I escaped the city. And today I honestly answered someone for one of the first times about what brought me here. I was buying a mattress off of some guy from the internet and he asked me what brough me up here. I told him straight up, "mental health." He echoed my words to assure that he had hear me correctly. I assured him that yes, I can't handle the city, and I am hoping that the quieter life helps.

The last few weeks in the city really served as a climax, confirming that I did in fact NEED to leave. In some cruel act of conspiracy against me the city was ensuring me that I needed to leave. I was having panic attacks almost everytime I left my house. Going out for meals, shopping on a busy street, or taking a bus were out of the question. My anxiety had sky rocketed. My sensitivity to everyone and everything around me felt like it was being pumped through an over driven amplifier. A new family moved in upstairs. We lived in one of those houses which had never been designed or even properly remodeled to have 2 separate groups of people. The power box for the whole house was in our bedroom (a corner of the somewhat finished basement.). The upstairs families storage room was mysteriously downstairs in a room that saddled both our rooms, with walls made of a single layer of drywall. And the upstairs family wanted a reasonable living condition for their babies. I get that, but it doesn't happen easily in Vancouver. So many landlords know that they can turn down requests for upgrades and repairs, because they will probably find another tenant who will pay more for a continually degrading living condition. Housing vacancy rates are very small (about 2.2% as of 2009) and affordable units make up even less of that. Anyways, by some type of strong arming or coercive 'the secret" style jedi mind trick manifestation, the new tenants had managed to get the landlady to assess and address the faulty electrical, falling off gutters, leaky roof, broken windows, and unstable back porch. This may have been fine, but it was headed up by the house next door, which had just been sold to new owners, being completely dug up to have water and sewage mains replaced and the foundation re-sealed. Given the density of the houses, this meant there were crews of men slinging gravel and operating mini-excavators about 2.5 feet outside my single pane bedroom window. Then, as construction of the house immediately across the street picked up, the city joined in, digging the street up and cutting pavement every morning starting at 7am. As the combined projects ranged from city crews to 2nd shift temp labourers, the heavy noise would sometimes go for 13hrs a day. Then the landlady started pricing out the electrical work, which would involve rewiring the entire house up to code, laying new cable from the street and addressing the fact that the house had not been properly grounded. So the crews were coming in to my space, and shutting off the power. With so little escape the panic and anxiety continued to skyrocket. When I tried to go out for a walk a ship would be pulling into the shipping port, sirens would be going off and helicopters would fly low overhead. Luckily my lovely partner and some dear friends were able to help with the packing and moving. Dealing with all of this left me feeling like I had been run through the spin cycle on a washing machine with cheese grater sides. Eating, sleeping, forming sentences, all had becoming more complex tasks than I could undertake alone. I watched endless amounts of television in an attempt to mentally escape to Weed's Agrestic, Big Bang Theory's Pasadena, or the quiet village where Angela lansbury and her army of magic dancing nylons and armoursuits defeat a nazi raid in Bedknobs and broomsticks (disney1971). I couldn't find a way to maintain peace, order or sanity in my own home, and it became addictive to escape in these alternative universes.

I got out. I won't say unscathed, but I got out. I have some recovery and healing to do. I am feeling it start as my days start feeling longer. I am not spending so much of the day waiting, running away, or hiding. Going out to a book launch yesterday wasn't too overwhelming, as I knew there would be less than 20 people in the room. When I got there I was relieved to be reminded that there is no cell phone service in the remote location. 20 or so people, without the unpredicatablity of all of those people tapped into a broad network of everyone they know via smart phone, facebook, texty texty tech. I realize that as my anxiety has elevated, my paranoia about people, environmental disasters, surveillance and general apocalypse stuff has gone right along for the ride. I hope to write another post about the book launch once I've given the book a read, but so y'all have the heads up its by a woman named Marcia Braundy. It's a book about men's resistance to women's participation and general integration in tech work spaces. I am looking forward to reading the book and hopefully getting to know this woman and swapping ideas and experience with her. Book is available through Fernwood Press and is called Men, women and tools.

I hope that this is the magical place of healing and growth I need right now. I need to build myself back up. I am tired of feeling broken and vulnerable in a space I can't seem to trust.
and ... mad gratitude to the many of you who've done your part to keep me alive and close enough to well in the city for the last few years. It's a tough place for lots of us; I want to give credit to the teamwork that kept it going as long as we did. Thanks.

2011-09-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

I did it. I quit facebook. I downloaded all my data, deleted it all from my online profile. I have essentially attempted to remove myself from the service. It's not designed to be quit-able. I hope people will still send me emails and call me up. I just don't want all my interactions to be filtered through a sink hole of online marketing propaganda and data mining any more. When you want to hang out, give me a call. Want to make plans? send me an email. Stop by and knock on my door. But don't expect that FB will reach me anymore.

Ins and Outs

2011-09-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

I almost always have trouble writing when I haven't been reading enough. It's a pretty even equation.

> Reading = >writing
Since waking up today, I have read 3 different books. A young adult novel about fairy princesses, a collection of short stories and a thoroughly inspiring non-fiction book around radical organizing across barriers.

Also, I have had at least 3 people ask about my blog lately. So, I am reminded that people will read if I write. These 2 factors, add in my new state of unemployment and exciting upcoming transition I have the pieces.

Content check
Encouragement check
Time check

So. Here Goes.

I'm in the process of throwing it all up in the air, hoping I can get the pieces to fall in order, get it right. I'm finished working in Vancouver, starting off on unemployment as soon as it comes through. Just bought a car, a subaru forester '00, real "family goes 4 x 4ing" as a friend said last night. I've got friends scouting mountain hideaways for me and my partner to run away to in the looming very near future. I am taking the steps I need to go and live that dream. The one that almost everyone of my friends admits to having in some variation.

move to the woods
grow food
make babies

Setting off to be that live-off-the-land-lesbian I am deep down inside. Or more like, find-ways-to-make-rural-living-accessible-and-sustainable-queers... but they are only a slight mutation away from one another.

I've been asked if I will be accounting my experiences, to which I say, "sure, when I feel like it." As I am taking on some pretty big exciting things, I may very well get all stoked and want to share it in longer form than status updates allow. And telling y'all now, getting feedback helps. When I hear from readers that I have said something that resonated with them, it sets me up to write more. If you are however the type of reader who reads this to send inflammatory hate driven spews of discrimination, disgust or disagreement- just keep that to yourself. Maybe you should think a bit, about how the things that you write on the internet go to actual people out there. People like me who have opened their heart and experience to you. I hope that my writing can challenge things for people, discuss the topics I write about with your friends, family members, share it on your facebook, tweet it, maybe take it to counseling if it fills you with things that are gross and mean. *hate mail inspired heart rant over

As I write this I have pots on the stove making hot salsa from green tomatoes from my garden. I added habeneros, sweet peppers, red tomatoes, onions, salt, pepper, apple cider vinegar and Innis and Gun beer. I am excited to have things put away for winter, so far peaches, red chunky salsa, tomato sauce, whole tomatoes and now this hot salsa. I am especially excited about these things as I will be moving up to a snowy mountain side in about a month, where I will have a winter filled with dreaming, scheming, crafting, setting up shop, and playing in the snow. My dreams are filled with snowshoes, ice skates, sweaters and wood stoves. I'm hoping that I will be also doing the school starter course through AERO, and that I can use that to help solidify some of the details of my school/learning center/knowledge exchange hub that I have been dreaming about making happen for years now. I'm pretty sure that if I looked through old files I'd find markered up sheets of the first visioning that I did for this project about 5 years ago.

It doesn't all look exactly the same, but here's the basic. I think that a big issue that looms over us as peak oil passes us by, climate change hits hard, economies plummet and governments do stupid things like the omnibus crime bill (which for those readers south of the border and over and about, is an attempt by canada's current super right wing government to "crack down" on crime and make canada safer by locking everyone up. The legislation creates mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crime like possession, creating more challenges for canadians already taking the shit end of addiction, poverty, pain, and marginalization. I guess I have some opinions. But I feel they are pretty well grounded, like in science and numbers, since research everywhere has proven that prisons don't work as mental health treatment centers, addiction recovery centers, job training centers, health care centers or deterrents to crime. Even the united states is pulling back from mandatory minimum sentences and the war on drugs more than canada, there's a long way to come, as Troy Davis could tell you in his last hours today. Our "criminal justice" are criminal, and busted. The numbers say it straight, prisons cost a shit tonne and they don't "work" for the things that their proponents are proponing them to. Even a coalition of churches is advocating against prison expansion, you can check it out here: The Co$ts of Prisons
*politically inspired heart rant over

As we face a world that is falling apart at the seams and more and more people are catching on to the "we have to do something different if we are going to survive" thought wave, we need to find really good ways to do this. By this I mean share the knowledge, explore the options, make the changes. Can we do that in ways that consider those who have often been left out of such knowledge exchanges? Can we find ways to address the sexism that is often overwhelmingly present in technical learning spaces to ensure that our community members, all of them, have access? Can we find ways to make the ways that we share survival, and THRIV-IVAL skills inclusive of people with disabilities? Can we find ways to involve dialogue around "dirty work" and attitudes around manual labour that involve honesty and growth about the racism and classism interwoven in the ways that we address these issues? I really recommend this book, Bridging the Class Divide: And Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing for more on these questions and how they may apply to other ideas.

I think we can. That's what I want to do. I want to start by creating a place that acknowledges and processes the intersecting oppressions that are default in spaces of learning the hands-on, creating safe and supportive learning spaces, and using that as a hub for intergenerational, interexperiential, knowledge exchange of the tools we need to make this global shift on a level that is practical and useful to the local area of the West Kootenays. I have been reading a really amazing book that has been a huge reminder and re-inspiration, I really recommend Walk Out, Walk On for those that are nodding along to this dream scheming I am dribbling out here.

So long story short, I am running away to make my dreams come true. I look forward to sharing the stories, and the salsa with you along the way.

Tired: An open letter to Gay Bars

2011-05-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. So fucking tired and I don't want to write this. But I will, because I need to. It needs to be written and I wish it didn't. Maybe if I write this this time, I won't have to write it again, won't have to feel this again, and maybe, just maybe, it might get better.

I tried to go out dancing on Saturday night. I was visiting my home town, and I really love going out dancing with my mom, her sisters, my hometown friends. I like being able to get a little loose and shake down. Unfortunately, the choice in my hometown, Victoria, is fairly limited. The one gay bar with a dance floor and DJs is called Paparazzi, or the Pap. And I can tell you that I would rather have my cervix scraped than have to go back and put up with the same nonsense they pulled this past weekend.

My mom and I got to the bar fairly early. It was still dead. I got on my phone and texted most of the queers I still know who live there. I made some calls and an hour later filled a table. We were all being good customers; drinking consistently without becoming messy, belligerent or violent. If I owned a bar I would crave customers like us, looking hot, buying drinks, dropping some fine moves on the dance floor and making it look like a real fun place. As the bar filled up, and the dance floor got more crowded, fairly typical gay bar behavior ensued. Servers were topless and bringing drinks around to the tables, topless twinks on the dance floor grinding up against strangers, and super perky staff performing strip shows in the intervals. As I got more into the dancing I couldn't keep my top on. I pulled my t-shirt and binding undershirt off and left them at my table and made a round of the dance floor. I heard the comments, a murmuring hush of the word "boobies" around me and I danced through it all. I was dancing really hard, harder than I could've done with something restricting my breathing or bumping my body temperatures to unsafe levels.

The DJ announced the last song, thanked the crowd for a good night and I went to go and try and grab my stuff. I have trouble with stairs, and unfortunately this place is at the bottom of a pretty intense flight. It's one thing to hoist myself up, but another entirely when I am fighting crowds of drunk and tweaky gays. I got part of the way to my table and one of the topless bartenders called me over.

"I'm gonna need you to put a shirt on."

I asked why. He went on, saying that he didn't have to wear a shirt because he was a man, but that I had to because I had boobs, and it was indecent exposure. I told him that the law doesn't actually restrict that, (I went home and checked- the law was changed in 1996 in Ontario, and since then it has stood as a precedent- leading to the city of Vancouver changing their regulations in 2008. Check out TERA or Topfree Movement for more on this.) and that if we were really going to get into legality, my legal government issued ID says Male, and regardless of how my body looks or what my ID says, I didn't come to a gay bar to have my body or gender presentation policed. He deferred to security, who came over to our table and attempted to eject me. I told him I would leave, because they were closing, and because I could tell that I wasn't welcome there, but that I would not leave because I was not dressed appropriately. And no, I wouldn't put a shirt on. I could go out into the street and not face any charges or difficulty with my bare chest, and I'd be damned if it would happen in a space set up to be a community gathering place for folks of diverse sexual orientations and gender presentations. I asked to speak to management when it became clear that the security guard didn't want to respect me or my friends. This request was denied.

According to the website of the club they are "Hottest Premiere Gay and LGBTS Community Nightclub in Victoria." and "created for a clientele in demand of unparalleled customer service". I've heard people say that often in the LGBT acronym, the T is silent, and I will say that this venue takes things one step further. Not only are they restrictive and policing of how trans people can present themselves in the space, but the bar staff feel entitled to assign sex/gender to their clients and hold up bogus "laws" to enforce their assumptions. This bar has marked male and female washrooms only, and has been known to forcefully remove clients who they think are using the wrong one. This has led my friends to boycott the place on numerous occasions, write letters, organize alternative parties. All of these things are great, but don't seem to be making the type of impact that is needed. The management and staff of Paparazzi (and too many other bars in too many other cities) think that they can treat trans people in this way, neglecting and disrespecting us, telling us how to conform and how to be "good gays".

I think that it's time that management and staff of gay bars take a look back to their history. Before stonewall and the social justice advancements that followed gay bars were under constant police scrutiny and raids. If it weren't for the brave gender warriors who were fed up with being told that their clothes didn't match their gender fighting back these bars could not now exist. Women like Sylvia Rivera are the ones who threw the first bottles, fought back against police repression of gathering of queers. If you want to include the T, there is some work that needs to happen.

1. For start, acknowledge the important role of transpeople in your history and communities. Do some reading. There is no shortage of writing about us or by us out there. Read my blog, do a google search for transgender history. Read Transgender Warriors. Read wikipedia.

2. Think about the way you set up your space. You run a gay bar. Queers of all stripes have been challenging the gender binary for all of eternity and people of all types have, and will continue to urinate so long as we can. The thing about having a bar that is supposedly for the queer (T inclusive) community, but then only providing binary options for urinating sort of cancels each other out. It's not a tricky thing to take down the signs on your washroom, label them as stalls and urinals or left and right, I don't really care. But your clients don't all fit in the gender binary, so your bathrooms shouldn't either.

3. Drop the double standards. Whatever your wait staff and performers wear sets the standard for what your clients can wear. If some boys are welcome to be topless and others are not, check where you draw that line. Because you are probably using a line that constitutes discrimination. BC is in the process of becoming more explicitly clear around what discrimination of trans people is, and how it is wrong. You may want to look into this and think about how your business would fare with a human rights case on it's hands.

4. Train your staff. If you want to hold your claim as "Hottest Premiere Gay and LGBTS Community Nightclub in Victoria." and "created for a clientele in demand of unparalleled customer service". You need to do some work to show that. One staff member approached me afterwords saying that he was appalled, and that he felt it truly unjust that he was paid to take his shirt off, while I was kicked out. If you want the queer community to frequent your bar, hire more staff like him. And let the other folks go. Especially if you offer them some type of cultural sensitivity training (maybe- given your track record, outsourcing this would be a good idea. How about calling in PFLAG or Transaction or another group that does really good work with the trans community in Victoria.) for working with the trans and queer communities and it doesn't stick. Your staff should understand that policing someones gender expression is a pretty class one No-No and have some skills to have conversations with patrons that show that they respect and honour their identities.

5. Expect a slow down in traffic. I have a pretty wide readership, and I know that a number of very influential community organizers were with me that night. Expect that queers and allies in Victoria will find (or make- like homospun: this party was started in a response to lack of safe and inclusive spaces to party behind the tweed curtain) alternatives. People will tell their friends. People will hold you accountable to your supposed "inclusion". You will need to show some pretty serious changes in the ways you operate to rebuild the trust of the queer community. This isn't just about a small population of trans people either. I trust that you will get letters, and not business, from gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, queers, and allies that want to be able to party in a place where the T is not silent. I'm hoping that you will take the extra time on your hands to make some change.

6. Don't stop working on this. You will always be hiring new staff, having new customers. Standards of acceptable practice will improve and you should do what you can to lead the way on this. Find ways to work with your community. Conduct community needs assessments. Invite feedback from patrons. Once upon a time, in my highest of drag I was asked to have a regular show at Paparazzi, I didn't take them up, because my lack of safety in that space, and their complacency of other performers playing disgustingly racist pieces I didn't feel I was up for the uphill battle. Maybe, once you've done some of those first steps you will be able to find some really rad people with good anti-oppression politics who want to run programming in your space. It's not really ideal considering it's physical inaccessibility, but working WITH your community will be a good way to help make sure that they don't shut you down or leave you empty over pride weekend.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for acting. Thank you to the queer and trans people and my lovely and supportive straight mom for having my back Saturday night. Thank you to friends and community members who will write the bar management and tell them what you need to feel safe in their bar. And thank you to all of you who can manage to find other places to get your dance on until something changes. This may be the summer of kitchen dance parties and late night beach fires. But hopefully, this will be the kick in the pants bar management needs to take these things seriously.

24 article response

2011-04-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

This article was published in todays' 24hrs Newspaper. This paper is widely distributed across transit in the Greater Vancouver area and syndicated across much of the country. I often flip through it to get my trashy celebrity gossip and horoscopes, but this morning I stopped on page 4, where I couldn't go any further without responding. Here is my response:

I wanted to write you to give some feedback on your article published in today’s 24 newspaper here in Vancouver.

I am a transgender person living with mental health challenges and it always excites me to see the mainstream public advancing their knowledge about both mental health and transgender issues. Seeing your article in this morning’s paper gave me hope of this being a very “mainstream” outlet from which to continue to advance these conversations. I was however upset to read your article and see how much it continued to muddle issues around gender identity and presentation with that of sexual orientation and mental health. Many trans people are queer, or read as such, but not all are, and discrimination based on gender presentation may be linked to the perception of someone’s orientation, it is actually something else altogether, most commonly referred to as transphobia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia) . Please allow me to make a few points of critique to your article. I am excited that you have such a broad based audience to engage in education and dialogue around mental health, I’d like to provide this feedback to further this dialogue.

Last week, a ladyboy was my waitress as I dined in the small city of Pattani, also a few days later at a Burger King in the seaside town of Hua Hin. Last month, fledgling Thai airline PC Air hired six transsexuals as flight attendants, all of which will be given special uniforms that identify them as the “third sex.”

Understanding that biological “sex” can be determined by genitals, hormones or chromosomal make-up and that gender is the correct term that refers to someone’s presentation or identity. This can be most simply broken down by understanding that sex is what’s between the legs, gender is what’s between the ears. For some folks that is the same (cis-gendered or non-trans people) and for others it is not (trans as umbrella, or transgender meaning that the gender is different than the sex assigned at birth) while for others that is something that they wish medical intervention with (transsexual- using surgery, hormones, electrolysis etc to change the sex characteristics of a persons body). It is also important to note that within Thai culture, according to my understanding and echoed by your statements here, “lady-boys” are not accepted into society as the gender they feel or present, but are given the option of “other”. This is great for some people, myself included, who do feel other from the options of male or female, but in the larger context of transgender and transsexual acceptance and understanding it’s important to note that some trans people do not want to exist merely as “other”, but would like to be accepted as the gender that they feel and present and respected within that. This would mean transwomen (MTF or male to female transgender or transsexual individuals) would be hired, uniformed and treated as women. Creating a separate category, as exists within Thai “ladyboy” culture or India’s hijra class where trans people are “accepted” but still treated as “less than” is not equality or true acceptance.

In Canada, attitudes are slowly changing, but unfortunately homophobia is still rampant. Last year, a teacher at a Catholic high school for girls in Vancouver was told to work from home after parents complained about having a lesbian teach their kids, and sadly a year hardly goes by with out some rednecks “gay bashing” an unfortunate gentleman in the West End. Yet, we are far away from accepting “ladyboys” in our workforce.

These are examples of violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, not gender identity or presentation. There is no shortage of examples that can actually refer to what you seem to be attempting to communicate here, transphobic violence or discrimination. One place to find such reports is here: http://www.transgenderdor.org/ the online home of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to acknowledge and remember the violence perpetrated against members of trans communities. Also relevant to this would be information about the bill C-389 which recently died on its way through government due to the call of election, this was a private members bill sponsored by Burnaby MP Bill Siksay which would add gender identity and gender expression to list of discriminations protected under the Human Rights Act.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the authoritative source doctors use to classify mental illnesses. Presently, the field of psychiatric medicine is using the fourth version, DSM-IV. But as cultural attitudes continue to change and psychiatric knowledge continues to grow, there will undoubtedly be a fifth edition and then later a sixth.
A person can freely express himself in one culture and be mentally healthy, and yet in another time and place they would be deemed disturbed. In Canada, people who don’t fit into the dominant heterosexual orientation mold, the stress of either hiding or expressing their sexual orientation can be very severe. To be mentally healthy, a person needs to feel like they belong.

It’s important to remember that although homosexuality was removed from the DSM-II in 1973, gender identity disorder remains on the DSM-IV, which means that people whose gender identity doesn’t match their body must access mental health services and be diagnosed with a mental health condition (GID) to access hormones, surgery and other physical remedies to this physical health and societal condition, which for some reason remains a classifiable mental illness. We can hope that GID will be removed from DSM-V, but the debate remains amongst cisgendered health care professionals about how best to treat conditions of gender diversity in the medical system. Being a “mentally well” trans person is greatly dependant on societal attitudes, matters of acceptance and freedom from fear of discrimination and violence; but as the matter stands, any trans person who wishes to access medical assistance or intervention must be diagnosed as mentally ill according to the DSM-IV.

Isn't it interesting to think of the prevalence and variations of mental illness diagnoses within the context of cultural differences? Let us not forget that a cultural shift in attitude can bring about positive changes in mental health.

You do pose a good question in asking the public how a reframing of mental illness according to how cultural understandings of “normalcy” shift. I think that this cultural shift is dependent on a clear understanding of the issues at hand, including the distinction of sex and gender, the differences between transphobia and homophobia and the ways that the mental health systems holds the reins on transition services for people outside the gender binary. Thank you for bringing discussion of mental health into such a mainstream publication, hopefully this dialogue and discourse can continue to develop a better understanding of mental health issues. This development of understanding and public dialogue is needed to end the stigma surrounding mental health; I look forward to where you may take it next.

2011-03-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

Dear you/me,

I know we've had a real up and down relationship over the years, but I wanted to take this opportunity to air the drama, and lay it out clear where we stand today. We've made it through so much, as we've both changed, changed names, changed bodies, changed pronouns, changed politics. We've both grown and I am glad to say, from where I sit today, I feel we may be as close as ever.

I remember when we first met, slow starts, playful glances and pushing boundaries. Poking at flesh, all pinkish and young and warm and fresh, as I pulled and poked I grew to know you. I learned the sounds you could make, the places you could take me, and the ways that working together was to our best advantage. I remember the early years, where neither of us could be entirely sure who we were, trying on different truths to find safety, acceptance, inclusion. Sometimes going back and forth on such extremes neither of us were recognizable from one setting to another. Victim, rebel rouser, hide, stand out, draw attention, disappear. I was so glad to get to know you more and more, enough that we could eventually be public about our love. As oversized hoodies and jeans 3x bigger than either of us or our insecurities found their way off the front lines the truth could begin to be shown.

As you started meeting other guys, and then girls, and then guys and then guys who were once girls and girls who were raised as guys you showed more and more of yourself through them. I am grateful for everyone of them, and that first copy of "body alchemy" that found its way off the shelf and into our hands. As we flipped the pages I remember your side eyed glances, the hmmm, you think? Could it be? How would that be? Maybe that's what this is about? And the arguments we got stuck in for the next couple years. The fight for life, where I tried to throw you off the roof top and you pulled me on a trip through your darkest corners, the parts that terrify you and paralyze you. Thank you for going through that with me. Thanks for pulling through that with me. Your vulnerability and strength showed me that I am filled with more than the world ever told me about, and that as much pain is there, there is also beauty, magic, potential, art, music and so much fucking hotness.

That brings me closer to the now, I can't tell you how I feel about you without acknowledging the ups and downs we've been through, but once thats been said there is so much more too, the survival and everything that's made it worth it. I've watched you change so much since then, wither, bulk, tits turn to pecs and back again, asses melt to little bellies and back to curvy hips. I've watched the boy sprout through the flesh on your face, scratching it's way to the surface. I've watched the femme and your sparking princess find it's way out, rhinestones and bike grease, you shine in the ways that make me excited about the world. I've watched you lose strength, going from tank messenger legs riding mountain ranges like they were your breakfast to struggling with walking, stairs, and I see the way your smile melts when you glance over your bike, knowing that no matter how equipped it is for touring, hitting the road at the perfect pace to see and hear and feel the world around you, that knees and backs that've taken the impact of an s.u.v. aren't as amicable to such plans. I see how you hate yourself, I hate it, I see how sometimes getting fucked up enough to dance your ass off without feeling the pain in the moment is what you need to do. I see how your tumultuous relationship with alcohol and drugs spin you around, and how these relationships are tied to daily pain and aches and the pain of losing a physically fit body at 23 and the years before then, marked with the scars of self hate and the strains put on a body that hasn't fit the world's expectations. I know you well enough, i see how messed this whole thing is, and all the ways it makes sense. I see when you wince and wheeze your way through the day, and i want you to know i know about your inner strength, I know about your secrets, and I know your beauty.

I love the way that you adapt. I love your flexibility. I love the way you build compromise at the closet, balancing physical ability,safety and fancy. I love the way your tattoo stretches and ripples over your ribs. I know you've had mixed feelings about protruding hips and shoulder blades that play angel wings. I know you've heard the bullshit, the harsh accusations of ill health and disordered eating. I know how that makes it hard to love knobby knees and the parts that show the female strength and "childbearing" hips, especially when the knees throb and the hips carry a little dick, not quite one or the other, and skinny, and being both and neither and everything and nothing is hard work. But I'm into it. I'm into the way your tits bounce when you ride a date, and I love the way your sweat pools on your mustache when you pound the shit out back out of them. I'm into the ways you figure out to make the things that hurt work, I love the way you use your cane like a pole to dance up on and keep yourself up with this highly eroticized extension of self. I'm into the way you smell, and the ways you scrub yourself, in the lawn chair in the shower, letting the warm water melt some of that pain and free up your breathing, getting heavier as your soap your cunt and ass. I love the food you make, you blow me away again and again with the ways you can translate the dregs in the bottom of the fridge into a meal that nourishes my soul. I love the way you do your work, I love the way you talk about consent, barriers, self confidence and communication and admit that you continue to learn about all of these. I love the way that you learn from your own lessons. I love the way you figure things out as you go. And I love the ways you've figured me out. I feel safe with you now, I feel like I can show you how broken I am, how shattered i feel. I know you'll get it, and I trust that you'll help me figure it out.

I'm a survivor and in this case, like attracts like. Your survival, your modifications, your adaptations, your rewriting any rules the world may have told you to follow... It gets me going. It makes me want to stick around and see what we can possibly collaborate on next. This is the most exciting relationship I've been in, and you've seen me through all the others, so you know that you and me, we have something big, something that lasts, we've made it through so much, and we've found the ways to compliment each other. You are my other half, you are my outer self, my mirror, corporeal to spirit, and I am so into you.

<3

This was written for a project that can be found in full here http://innerfatgirl.tumblr.com/post/3965073330 soon. Thanks legay

Bill c-389

2011-02-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/transgendered-rights-bill-headed-for-defeat-in-tory-held-senate/article1902266/

With the passing of Bill C-389 the government moved one step closer to legally protecting the rights and self determination of trans people. As some people celebrate the passing of Bill C-389 this week, others wonder where it will go from here. It may be another thing that gets clogged through the appointment seats of the part of government with the least amount of accountability to a votership.

I worry about this, and my worry comes from what I see as a separation of understanding. People who are resisting this change, people and parties who are framing trans people as predators, are doing so from a comfortable distance from trans community resistance, and trans lived realities of mistreatment, unemployment, homelessness and other things that a bill like this may have a impact of change around. Trans people are not a part of their everyday lives, their families, their communities. For large part due to the economic segregation of people facing oppression like transphobia, but also in a culture that extols gender variant people as sex offenders, not including them, even in your own families seems natural. I don't know of any specific trans people who have been excommunicated from their politician families, but I have seen it happen across other socioeconomic and cultural landscapes. So what is it in the values system of people on the "moral right" that thinks that this type of behavior should go unnoticed, unprotected? I attended a service this morning, at the Unitarian church. The sermon was talking about moral and religious involvement with politics. This is a complicated and many faceted topic, but one thing that really came in to my head from the sermon and following conversations was this:
The "moral right" is bringing "religion" into politics, so without the moral logic of social justice minded individuals creating a balance, where democratic thinking and ideas, human rights and equality within diversity can be shared on the same platform, the platform will by default be overwhelmed with the attempts to de-humanize individuals by forcing fucked up power driven decision making "values" down our throats.
Another thing that was re-brought to my attention, both this week and over the last little while in general is that the bible, the supposed moral compass of so much of this fucked up shit we see from the barring of trans rights and protections to the shutting down of women's health centers to the barriers to accessing clean rigs, is FULL of things like this:

Isaiah 10

¹ Woe to those who make unjust laws, ¹ to those who issue oppressive decrees,

² to deprive the poor of their rights ² and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, ² making widows their prey ² and robbing the fatherless.

Guess what "moral right", we can read your scriptures too, we can see what you are supposedly basing decisions off of. And I call BULLSHIT! You want to know who are oppressed of your people?

The people you are posing as villainous creeps out to molest your daughters; our own daughters and sisters who continually get fucked over by the presumptions that people make about their identities because of parts of their bodies or pasts. The people that have been stolen, murdered, fired, evicted, beat up, raped and terrorized; the women, queers, trans people, indigenous people,immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities... need I go on. And guess what, some of us fit into more than one of those categories! And fucked up shit happens all the time, especially to those of use who fit in these up little boxes (which have their own complication as they restrict us down to one element of self) . We are the widows become prey, widowing large segments of a generation ravaged by the effects of HIV and stigma. We are the fatherless, as more and more trans youth end up finding themselves at younger ages, parents still kick people out, cut people off because they are self determined. Are these the people that the "moral right"want to "save the world" from with their unjust laws? Look at your moral compass conservative party, there's a very clear direction. Are choices being made by values? Cause I'd like to call yours to question.

In between

2010-09-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

I received the following email through the networks that I get queer and trans new updates from. Please read for your own info and continue below to my thoughts:

Fwd: Information regarding MSP approved FTM Chest Surgery:

If you know of anyone else who is MSP-approved for FtM chest surgery and has
not had their surgery yet, would you please ask them to contact me? We will
be actively seeking those who have not had their surgery, but if people
approach me directly it helps the process.

Thanks very much!

Carol Anne

Carol Anne McNeill
Policy Analyst
BC Ministry of Health Services
ph: 250.952.1555
email:

CarolAnne.McNeill@gov.bc.ca

Further information:

Those who are transitioning from FtM and are approved for funding for
mastectomy (via MSP) will be contacted at the end of this month, providing
more details regarding where and when surgery will be done.

* Dr. Bowman has been given OR privileges in a public hospital to perform
FtM chest surgery. This will be available to MSP-approved FtM transitioning
men at NO cost to them (including any consults and male chest contouring).*

*This applies to ALL FtM transitioning men who have been MSP-approved and
have not had their surgery*, including those who may have been on Dr.Musto's
waitlist or on a waitlist at a private facility. This surgery will not be
available to anyone who has not gone through the MSP approval process. Feel
free to post this as necessary – hopefully it will control the rumour mill.

Carol Anne McNeill

I have been approved. I was not yet on a wait list as shortly after I got my approval I started having second thoughts. These thoughts were fueled by a number of things but I will try and break them down in a way that makes sense.

Firstly I was primarily responsible for the pre, during and post surgical care of one of my best friends/former lovers. The surgery was incredibly intense, and after a few days of helping empty drains and comfort my friend because the anaesthesia had backed up his digestive system I had to bail. As he dealt with the compound pain of A)just having had all his breast tissue removed, B) having the remaining skin and muscle pulled and sutured into a way that would look more "appropriately male" C) Having drain tubes coming out his sides for a week + D) AND the OMG I haven't shat in a week and I can feel everything i've eaten slowing backing up and threatening an exploded colon feeling. For him, that procedure was self motivated. He was getting the chest he wanted, could see himself with, dreamt of himself having and ultimately what he needed to survive. He bound so heavily everyday before surgery that he was developing back problems, but ultimately if he hadn't bound so tightly or been so stealth about being trans he wouldn't have survived his everyday work environment.

I do not live with that type of pressure. I do not bind. I haven't for a couple years, primarilly because I find that having asthma and pectus excavetum I already operate on limited oxygen. When I bind that puts me at a level where I am running on constant dizziness, increased fatigue and generally, I can't do my life in a way that feels safe or comfortable. Which should, ultimately be the point in binding, to make you more safe and comfortable in the world with the way that your body appears.

I am incredibly lucky, as the jobs that I have held and positions that I have had within institutions have allowed me a freedom wherein I can express my gender queerly, I can have a beard and visible breasts, I can be publicly trans. I don't know that that will be the case for ever. In some situations within my life do I dress in a baggier shirt and keep my lips sealed around issues of gender, this is a matter of self preservation. But I also think critically about my motivation within these circumstances. For example, if I was teaching a shop class of 15 year old boys, I would most likely be on the DL. WHY? Because 15 year old boys bodies are developing in a way that causes many of them to be incredibly self concious. They are receiving media messages and peer pressures that they SHOULDN'T have breasts. Breasts to teenagers become a dividing point. A sexualized feature present on girls (who in turn become sexualized) and a mark of "Freak" on anyone else. For a person, especially a skinny person, who appears to be male and has visible breasts, this stands out as "wrong". No one in our society is more tune to what our society deems as right and wrong body presentations as teenagers. This is compounded by their own self conscience. But being a model of the error in that right/wrong system also opens space for people to expand their perceptions and lesson the pressures that they have on their own bodies. I think that body positive movements will have a great impact on the ways that the media effects body image, creating space for self love in place of eating disorders and self harm. I just don't know how long I want my body to be the front lines of that battle.

I intend to have a child, from my own body, as I have written about here in the past. I want to ensure that my child has the best opportunities to nutrition and wellness and I believe that breast feeding would be a part of that. Luckily I have a partner with fully functional breasts, not discordant from her gender identity or presentation in any way, who is into sharing parenting responsibilities, in the best ways we can. She also feels that ensuring that our children can be breast fed is in every bodies best interest, but understands my feelings around maybe not keeping my breasts that long. Having that support makes the decision a little closer to easy, but it's still so far from anything decisive.

I discussed this with a friend who has a similar relationship to his gender, who had top surgery a few years back. He's said that for him, losing his breasts was a tough decision too, but that since surgery he's felt that much more able to play with his gender. I agree with this sentiment, as I have felt so much safer to fuck around with gender since being able to grow a beard. I am a fairy of a fag more than a butch or typical (if there is such a thing) transMAN.

I don't want to lose the opportunity of a free-ride surgery with one of the most experienced and talented surgeons in the country when it's been offered to me. I also don't know if I that is meant to be a part of my transition. I feel so in between. In between genders, in between transition options, in between defending difference and comfortably cutting my way into safe conformity, in between loving my body and hating the way it's looked at and treated by a world that doesn't have space for it.

In loving memory of Deloris

2010-09-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd be a car person. Then I got hit by one. It's been a little over a year since I was struck in an intersection while riding my bike. The ways that this has impacted me are numerous, but this post is not about that, as much as how it changed my relationship to the automobile.

So as I said, I was struck, smashed from the side by a luxury urban SUV being driven through a traffic circle that crosses a bike lane and thrown to the road. I sustained numerous soft tissue and joint injuries, and my bike was close to totalled. It took me nine months of completely stripping down both my physical condition and also my ride to get them back on the road, and still, I have a limited capacity compared to before. About a month or 2 after the crash my parents told me that they were planning on scrapping their old car, and asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I was preparing to start a term of automotive class in January, where we were recommended to have a beater to work on. It all fit together quite nicely. I worked on the car, and developed a relationship with it. I hit the road in it in February to escape the Olympics, and found that her name was Deloris (or Del when feeling particularly butch). The first trip down the coast resulted in her heater core blowing out in Portland. I was lucky, and very grateful, for the man at the jiffy lube who showed me which pipes I could disconnect and bypass to avoid the 600$+ 2 day + repair. When I got back to Vancouver, my automotive lab partner and I disected the car. We took it apart far enough to get into the heater core (which sits under the dash, behind the instrument panels, past the steering column.) We got it apart, we put it all back together. It seemed like an endless project, and that made it that much better when we completed it. We put a new stereo in, as well as air filters, belts, a battery. We tweaked and tuned the accessories, replaced a couple tires, re-habed the brakes, balanced the wheels, replaced a CV joint on the drivers side axel. We went through the car finding problems, diagnosing them and fixing them.

All this was happening as I was going through physio, relearning ways to cope with stairs, sitting down for low things like toilets. Finding the right combinations of vitamins and pain meds to get through each day. I got to know Deloris as I got to know myself. Since the crash my medical situation has spiralled in complexity. As doctors try and figure out how they can classify my connective tissue problems I have taken at least 5 chest x-rays, 10 EKGs, 2 echocardiograms, a contrast CT, a spinal MRI, an abdominal and thorax aortic MRI w and without contrast, a stress test, numerous flexibility tests, body measurement procedures, opthomalgist's exam, a genetic screening, a chromosomal kereotyping, and have had my blood pressure taken at least 100 times. The doctors still don't know what's up.

After all the tests and repairs on Deloris we still had no idea how deep her problems ran. She was a life line for me, an access to mobility that I needed so much. She was a way for me to stay involved with community activities when the process of getting there was too much. I was able to become the sober driver. The helper who'd pick things up and make sure people could get home safe. I was the accompaniment to the big box stores, the access point to acquiring things that were just too big, too far for a bike cart or a transit trip. She was the easy ticket to the woods, making it easy to go berry picking, take dog adventure hikes, and go midnight swimming. I took her on my first date with my partner. Having a car played a big role in the role I could play in my community. As I had become the one who couldn't help move things, couldn't do the heavy lifting, the physically demanding, I had a tool, that even in a community of people who are "green" and socially conscious and don't like cars, they really appreciate having one around.

This past weekend I drove Deloris to Calgary. I was scheduled to have another series of tests done, still looking for answers to my body and it's challenges. I drove with a couple friends and as we crested the foothills and started the decent into Cow-town, she started to smoke. It was getting too hot, and there didn't seem to be much I could do to help. I added water to the coolant system, gave her a break and coasted in. We made it to 5 minutes away from our destination when she finally kicked it. We pulled over and added coolant, noticing that it was spurting out of the coolant flange. I got the part and replaced it. Probably one of the easiest repairs I'd done on the car, it had to be too easy. I went to start it up again. Dead. The battery had drained over night with an accessory left plugged in while I was in the hospital. Jumped. Still wouldn't go, we called a tow and then I noticed the broken wire between the starter and the battery. Reconnected these wires and then dismissed the tow. It was fine. Drove her down the hill and went in the house for dinner. I felt so relieved, as this was not just a matter of my car, my mobility, my way home, but also the way for my friends and the dog to get home. I had a sense of accomplishment that I had found, diagnosed and solved so many problems, all just on the side of the road, without help, with out a shop at my disposal. As I leaned over and fixed the wiring I was able to name and explain every part under the hood that my travelling companion inquired on. I felt proud and accomplished. After dinner we piled back in the car, and she was dead again. I The next day tried again, big jump from the tow truck got it going and we dismissed the truck, before noticing 10 minutes later as she sputtered and died that there was still coolant leaking from somewhere else. Somewhere less easily accessible. Luckily my friends mom purchased me an CAA membership on the Saturday, and by Monday morning it was activated and we were able to call the final tow on my account. We had it towed to a garage, and after a long day of waiting to hear the verdict, they finally told me, that her head gasket was most likely shot, and there was a possibility that her engine block cracked. Her water pump was gone and to fix everything it would take another day we didn't have and upwards of 1300$. There was no way I could rationalize spending that money. It was money I sure don't have, and more than the car is worth. She's old. She's tired. She's jenky and persnickity. So I took off her plates, pulled out that new stereo and drove away in a rental. I left her to be pieced off, or crushed, or maybe repaired on someone else's bill. But I had to leave her there.

The mechanic said that a lot of her little problems were attached to this big one. It was a number of symptoms that in a big picture were telling of something integral. It took so long, so many tests to find the problem, and even then, even at the giving up point, it could've been something bigger. Tests, tests, tests, small solutions to bigger problems. Big mystery problems that don't have names, don't have bounds, beginnings or ends.

Biological sex - gender

2010-09-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

I am well aware that there are many people who have a gender identity that is in contrast to their hormonal sex, or biological appearance, and I am really exploring how those things feel for me as my body reassigns itself to female secondary sex characteristics.

It's been almost 6 months since I stopped taking testosterone. I was 3 weeks short of 3 years, and it had really worked its way through my body. My breasts had shrunk to almost nothing and my general muscle/fat distribution was doing things in a "male" sort of way. My face was sporting a full moustache and beard. I smelled like a man, talked like a man. Any situation that I wanted to pass in, I could, so long as I could keep at least one layer of clothes on.

I stopped taking T because I want to have a baby. I wrote about this back in April in the post "Paternity Pulsations". My feelings about that have changed, but only in the sense that I don't know that I will be a FATHER, per se. I have really had the opportunity to claim my genderqueerness this past year. Getting past the "neutral pronouns are too complicated and confusing for people" bullshit, to the point where I can admit that pronouns are complicated. Pronouns, and the genders attached to them are so complicated I don't know from day to day where I can fit within them. And I am finding myself really spun by the biological determinant bullshit that, politically and emotionally I refute beyond all doubt.

What I mean is, as my body is undoing the undoable effects of T (my boobs grew back, my beard has softened and I shaved it off, my cycles started again, I am capable of experiencing and expressing emotion with an intensity I hadn't seen for years) I am being sent on the roller coaster of SEX/GENDER. I am feeling that for me, my gender, and the way that I relate to it, and the ways I am challenged by it is shifting with my secondary sex characteristics. I find it hard to feel male as I am changing a tampon, but likewise I find it hard to feel male while I am changing oil in a car. I don't know about "feeling male", as I am not entirely sure what male is, so how would I know where to or how to feel it. I know what it means to be perceived as male, and I know that the less my body is feeling "male" the worse that perception/presumption feels. There are some parts of my body that will never be as they were pre-T. I am post-T, I can never be pre-T again. And I don't say this out of regret for choosing to go on testosterone. But I feel like my gender is BIGGER and more encompassing than one perceived biological sex can contain. This is where genderqueer feels like home, but also has its limits. I will not be losing my tits at any time in the foreseeable future. My face is not going to stop growing hairs either. I fall some where in between the boob-ed man and the bearded lady, while being both and neither all at once.

I know that this whole thing comes across as rather scattered, hard to follow and unput together. But, maybe that's the whole point. I am all over the place. I don't fit neatly in one, the other, or even the "other". I don't even do trans in a way that is expected or understood. The joys of being genderfull in a world that's still just starting to try and understand.

Deaths around me/Death surrounds me

2010-07-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

I walked past a man wearing a t-shirt declaring "good die young" this afternoon. This very statement has seemed true over the past little while as a couple of delightful people who I knew, not well, but shared the stage with, people I shared community with, people I felt inspired by, have passed in high profile deaths. Perhaps more of my peers and former acquaintances have died and it's passed through my awareness, but I doubt that with facebook memorials and the never ending gossip mill that is social networking would allow that. This morning I turned on the CBC when I awoke to hear the host interviewing a local long boarder about the risks associated with the sport, and about Glenna. Her and I share 14 friends on facebook, and have shared space at least that many times. We both lived in Victoria at the same time, and I would party with her, watch her perform with the Velo Vixens, and generally be awe at her ability to spin fire, ride tall bikes, wear incredible outfits and be so genuinely friendly (often all at once). We weren't really in contact, but I knew that she was in now in Vancouver, and our paths didn't cross as often, but I'd still see her at events sometimes. On Friday she died in a death that's made the CBC, Vancouver Sun, Global TV and numerous online new sources. She was beautiful, young, athletic and artistic. I suppose that makes good news. Or at least sellable news, I wouldn't call this news good for anyone.

This is the second time this year that I have seen familiar faces across newspapers this year due to death. Back in November I was shocked to see the face of Pest on the front of the Sun on my way to school. She used to live in her van in the back yard of a house I lived in, often occupying our living room, filling it with song, vivacious energy and sharp laughter. Again, we weren't really in touch anymore, since we had both moved away from Victoria. She had returned to Hornby since leaving my yard and was killed on the dock where her boat home was parked. Being a fairly odd occurance, a murder on Hornby hit front pages all over the place. I was reminded of Pest's unicycling antics, bright green hair and impressive wrenching on her vintage VW bus-home.

Perhaps I am reaching an age, an age where people around you start dying, maybe this is what happens. I know enough of us who barely survived adolescence, and now a couple of us who thrived until our mid twenties, only to go out in big ways. Many of my closest friends have been suicidal at some point or another. That might be a crazies attract crazies situation, or it may be tell tale of the overlap between struggling with discordant bodies and minds and the often associated mental health challenges that come along. Or maybe those of us who've survived that and really want to be alive now have a way of finding each other. If I can think of 2 people who seemed to make the most of life, adventuring with abandon, creating and expressing the darkest and brightest sides of experience, it would be Glenna and Pest. I know that their worlds overlapped and I may be even be as presumptive to think that this drawing of Glenna's (found on her website) was about Pest's funeral/death.

As I know I am not the only one feeling the loss of these inspiring young (27, 25) women. Creators, circus performers, artists, friends and really lovely people. Gone. But from their faces across the papers. It seems to make it even more surreal. If I am to imagine the 2 of them in an afterlife scene though, it's even more surreal. I see them, both on stilts, possibly riding a comically large bike and unicycle respectively, most likely wearing skull masks and completely on fire. Entirely under control, while dancing their way through their own fiery performance of afterlife. Their tracks would paint out an abstract masterpiece and the sounds of their vehicles would combine into a discordantly sweet melody. Good, young, dead. Surreal but true. I hope that the works left by these women continue to impact the world and inspire that sense of shameless expression that they both embodied.

Man on the Street

2010-06-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I put on a very pretty summer dress and went out to a local rad queer dance party. I was with a bunch of friends and I felt gorgeous inside, "fancy fancy" and appreciated. At one point I had to leave the party and return to my car. I then was making my way back from the car, to the event venue, one long block away. I walked onto the sidewalk and found myself almost matched in step with a man I had never seen before. He may have appeared much as I do on most days, mid twenties, white man walking alone along the street at night. I walked faster, not looking back and not losing step. I was very aware of his presence and attempted to walk faster, making my way to the safety of the crowd of smoking queers at the opposite end of the block. The man said, "excuse me...?" and I picked up my pace. I didn't know what he wanted, but as I was bearded and in a dress I could only assume that it wasn't a compliment. I increased pace once again when he said again, "excuse me, do you have the time?" I felt intimidated, potentially in danger and wasn't about to open my purse and get mugged for my phone. This has happened before, while in street "boy clothes". I forged forward and made it to the party without interacting with the man, except a simple "no."

I don't know if this fellow had any idea how intimidating it was for him to approach a lady, or trans person in a dress, on the dark street. Perhaps he hadn't thought about that. Or perhaps he was reading me as a man and didn't see it as intimidating. This is something that I feel very aware of, perhaps it's female socialization, growing up carrying keys between the knuckles and staying on well lit streets, or perhaps it's my existance within survivor communities. Perhaps he's never had to think about how scary he appears, not because of himself, but because of the violence that exists towards femmes, ladies, sex workers, trans women, genderqueers, and others for whom alone in the night can be or has been a scary scary place.

But the dark dark night is not always scary, and living in a gender queer existence is not a consistent feeling of vulnerability. In fact, when all the cards line up right, it can be damn right empowered. About half an hour after my first interaction with a man on the side walk I had a second. This time I was not alone, I was walking out of the party accompanied by a good friend, also gender queer presenting in a cute summer dress. As the two of us walked out, me: bearded and dolled up, friend: fresh faced from laser treatment and broad shouldered. A man who'd walked across from the corner store to small talk the door man- apparently a familiar of some sort, felt entitled to comment.

"Hey, that's no woman", he exclaimed.

Initially we both continued walking, sort of looked at the ground and barely at each other. But I became aware of the support I was surrounded with and so responded to his rude and out of place comment, first just asking him who he was talking to. I had hoped that his being forced to face the fact that he was talking about a person, in front of that person, and that person could hold their own, and could hear what he was saying so he'd better shut it.

"Well both of you I guess." he said.

I politely asked him if he knew where he was. He had no idea. I very clearly told him, and by this point I had 4 super tough friends flanking me from all sides, and a couple allies who appeared out of the crowds of smokers to hold the space, "you are outside of a very queer party, filled with all kinds of very queer people, lots with really queer genders, and if you feel entitled to tell any one of us who we are, how we can dress or what gender we can be... well you'll probably get your ass kicked. So you should go." I didn't really want to implicate a threat of physical violence, it's not my favourite, but sometimes just reminding people who don't live in fear of getting hurt, that it could happen to them this time- well it can feel good. Even as a most of the time pacifist, I get the bash-back philosophy. He became apologetic, and tried to call it a learning experience, stating that he was ignorant and wanted to learn something from us. I reminded/informed (maybe he's never heard it before) him that it's not our job as queers to teach him about how to treat us. It's not our job as trans people to teach him how to respect diverse genders. And if he really gave a shit he could go online or to the library, the internet and books are teaching resources, not people who you are harassing outside of a dance party. A party organizer showed up, and offered assistance while also commending what he'd seen, saying that it seemed that I was handling it all really well. I was so glad to have had the backing of my friends, I was so glad to know that the organizers prioritize and address these things as real live issues. Some of us live in fear, some of us less so, or less so at certain times. If we can create spaces where less people live in less fear, more of the time, where more people have more voice and less bullshit like this happens, we win. That's what community is. That's what safe space is. That's what solidarity is. That's what survival, resilience, and prosperity are.

Shop Safety

2010-05-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

I enrolled in a program to teach future high school shop teachers a little over 2 years ago. I came into it with the perspective of having been a girl in high school shop classes and seeing, feeling and living the dominant shop culture of sexism. Even when teachers are "including" female students in classes, "welcoming" them to participate in an environment that continues to be ripe with misogynist language, sexist behavior and the all around "dude-off" that some how erupts out of the combination of steel, grease and male entitlement can be toxic. I came into this program hoping that I would be able to leave the establishment with the required pieces of paper and bag of tricks to set up a shop space where this is not only acknowledged, but managed, countered, and overturned. I want to be a shop teacher because I feel that there are not enough people taking anti-oppression work, privilege analysis, and empowerment into workshops. I believe that making things is one of the best ways to develop self worth, feel pride in accomplishment and work towards becoming more self sufficient (a necessary process for those utopian anarchists waiting for the revolution, best to get some skills ready for when it all falls apart and DIY becomes not just the best and most affordable option but the only).
I was "welcomed" into the program. I spent the last two years leaving parts of myself at home and putting on a personal shield to enter the ring of the dude-off to try and pull what I could (for myself as well as the betterment of others who don't feel that they do have access to such opportunities). And I would agree- lots of people don't. I may even venture to say that I didn't/don't and have been really stretching things to make it OK enough to get through. By the end I am exhausted. What are the reasons that this program pushed me to my breaking point, what made it so hard for me to push through, why might I JUST be able to slip through on my last bits of strength if the teachers look favorably upon me?

When a person who experiences oppression, violence and abuse talks about a place feeling safe it is not only a matter of physical elements. For a queer to feel safe in a work shop space depends on more than proper guards over blades. For a woman to be safe in a shop, it often requires more work than may be required for other people coming into the setting with a different set of privileges. This is not because queers are unsafe workers, or that women are stupid and require more instruction to "get it".

A shop instructor can "welcome" women, queers, people with disabilities, and others who are often left out of industrial education into their class, but without doing a few things, personal things, the instructor risks "welcoming" those students into a dangerous situation. The reason for this lies in the default power structures existing in male dominated spaces. Women can and do become incredible trades people. Often working longer hours, for less pay, and busting their asses to produce higher quality work. Queers can produce beautiful artifacts using a whole slough of technological processes when given the opportunity to learn their way through them safely.

So when I say "safe", what do I mean here? The instructor is not actively doing anything malicious against their students, the shop set up isn't unsafe to others in the class. Namely those who don't experience oppression in the forms of risking one's physical safety outside the shop. Someone who has never been harassed, assaulted, threatened or otherwise violated because of their identity or presentation may have a default (everyday "normal") feeling of safety. Those of us who ARE subject to such treatment often walk through the world on edge. We have a guard up because we need to. We are careful because the reality of our experience is that of physical violence. Especially so in spaces dominated by people with that innate feeling of safety, the comfort in their world and their bodies that has afforded them the privilege of NOT thinking about it. Spaces facilitated without consideration to that bias automatically create a space with the potential of feeling unsafe to those who may feel unsafe in the greater world.

Many (mostly male) intellectuals at the heads of technology departments wonder why female enrollment continues to pale in comparison to the male counterpart. The female students who do enroll and stick to the programs have incredible success. And incredibly thick skin. What keeps more women and queers from having an open door to technology education?

Unchecked power and default structures of oppression do not create space for women and queers to succeed in technology. It becomes the job of the individual to create that space for success. I would like to see it become the job of instructors, in all fields, to do personal work. Unpack your backpack, take a reality check about how and why you know and feel the things and ways you do. Take a second look at language. Think critically about the ways that you present material- what bias do you come from and what bias must your students have to follow you? And most of all, who do you think deserves to have access to your lessons, and will you do what it takes to make sure that is delivered? Please comment with experiences of sexism, homophobia and transphobia in shop spaces and amazing teachers and facilitators who've created a new "normal" in their shops.

Creating Safe Spaces- proactive vs. reactive

2010-05-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

(Trigger warning: sexual assault)
This weekend I returned to my hometown of Victoria for one of my favorite holidays of the year. A bunch of my friends and other bicycle enthusiasts organize the bike riders ball (bikeprom.ca). It is an event centered around the love of bicycles. People always go all out, decorating themselves and all types of bicycle related machines to ride through the city and dance late into the night. The VeloVixens perform and a good time is had all around.

This year, leading up to the event I heard about a discussion that was happening within the organizing body. I couple of organizers were advocating for safe space policy to be put into action, recognizing that proactive work needs to happen to create the space that is safe enough for all of our friends to feel welcome and safe. This was challenged by others who had never done such work, and I'm assuming, have never felt unsafe or oppressed in "community". I don't know what that conversation or process looked like. I have only heard about through the grapevine, and saw what actually made its way to the party.

I got myself all done up for the event. I rebuilt my bike, after 6 months since I was hit by a car while riding it, it's undergone a full rebuild. I am still not able to ride a whole lot without knee pain, but I wanted to show up on a bike, and show off my sweet new ride. I found a pretty white dress with rhinestone strapless neckline, my friends help me sew in a bike tube corset back into it to make up for my extra large ribcage. I had big hair, a flashing tiara, make up and of course full beard and entirely practical shoes. I felt hot. I was hot. I got ready with a bunch of friends and rode down to the party.

Not 10 minutes after walking in a complete stranger walked up to me, to tell me that she was "glad I was comfortable with my facial hair." I can only assume that she was trying to compliment the beard and dress combo, but no matter which way that wording is analyzed it comes off as backhanded and patronizing. It sort of set me off, but I didn't do to much with it. I was having a great time. Dancing, catching up with old friends, getting my hair crimped by strangers in the coat check. Having a gay old time. Until some man, a complete stranger, came up to me on the dance floor and grabbed my tit. I can't even begin to think of what his motives were, but my immediate reaction was to remove his hand, with the force necessary, and VERY strongly tell him that he was out of line. The more I tried to communicate with him the unacceptability of his actions the less he seemed affected. He stood where he was as I told him that he would need to leave.He apologized for offending me, and I told him that I wasn't asking for his apology, he hadn't offended me he'd assaulted me, and that I needed him to go, not apologize. Too late for words. By this point I was fucking raging, yelling in his face and telling him that he needed to get the fuck out. He quite clearly wasn't listening to me, he didn't respect me from the beginning, but I hoped that my clear needs (you: leave, get your shit and don't come back) would go somewhere. It didn't. I had backers, people stepped in, echoing the need for him to leave. I walked away from the situation and went to the front door of the party. I asked the ticket takers if there was security working the party, there was not, as this party was "friends getting together in 'safe space'" One of the door people stepped up and listened to what was happening and joined me back over to the dude who was still standing there with the first people who had stepped in. He wasn't listening to the first masculine appearing person in a dress, or the tough quebecois farmer queer, but maybe he'd listen to a slightly larger guy in a red dress. Luckily the door volunteer was committed to seeing the guy out. He walked with him to get his bag and escorted him out. Another guy who stepped in came to me after to tell me that, although this was not an excuse, it seemed as if this guy had no idea that what he'd done was assault. No idea that grabbing someone's body in that type of way without consent was unacceptable. I don't know what rock this guy's been living under, but it was time for him to learn. I hope that this experience was lesson learned for him, I hope that he gets a better idea about how to interact with other people in a respectful way. I hope that this doesn't happen again, to someone who didn't feel that they had the backing to stand up the way I did. If the party wasn't organized by friends of mine I may not have done that. If I wasn't able to look around and know that I had a whole load of people backing me, I may have kept quiet. If I had been drinking I may have brushed it off.

The fact that this guy didn't know is a problem. Trying to create safe spaces with people who are ignorant to the basic needs of safety for the people in the space they share is an uphill battle. I believe that creating a safe space requires a proactive stance around accountability. I was glad to see this poster on the door of the venue. I wish that it had been on the posters, on the website promo, on the facebook event. I wish that there was more of an opportunity for education for guys like this who "don't know" how to interact with other people respectfully, to learn what that means, and know that they will be held accountable. This conversation NEEDS to be ongoing. It NEEDS to be at the forefront of event organizing and promotion. Because if it isn't, the default is douchbaggery. Ignorance, discrimination, assault, rape, violence and hate are so prevalent in our society that they are the default. Creating safe spaces involves taking those things apart and PHYSICALLY creating spaces which are based around respect, inclusion, access, safety, fun and community.

I am very grateful for all of the backing that I had at the party. I am incredibly appreciative of every person who stood up to this predator and put him in his place. I am so thankful for my friends, who give me the confidence that when I am violated I won't be standing up or fighting back alone. Now I'd like to see how this translates into the organizing strategies of my community. It's not over.

paternity pulsations

2010-04-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

I went swimming last night. I had attempted to arrange it as an All Bodies Swim, setting a time + place + putting it out to the masses. I hung out and waited for other friends to join me. No one appeared, so I entered the pool. I have stopped wearing a top in the swimming pool over the last couple months. I figure beard trumps boobs, and the rest of my body sort of leans to freak already, so I may as well enjoy the ability to breathe while in the water. Moving my shoulders and arms moving freely in water is incredible. I wish for all people to know the joy that I experience through this. But lot's of my friends don't swim, haven't been in the water in years. They don't have anything to wear, their bodies don't get exposed to the level expected in swimming pools except, for some- with lovers, after building trust, coming to agreements, and in a completely negotiated environment. And some even less, but I need to float. It grounds me, it allows me to stretch, get my blood pumping and my head relaxed.
Last night I went swimming at a pool that I love. It seems as if it were designed by a bunch of gender revolutionaries and family minded individuals and (dis)Ability activists, all teamed up. The UNIVERSAL changing area is the main changing area of the place, it's made up of sections of stall/shower combo units, unplumbed changing stalls, accessible shower stalls, banks of lockers and open showers. It is open to the pool, and the first option when entering the facility. Gender neutral is the default. So I entered, switched from my carharts into my neon orange patterned shorts I just got from Value Village, showered off, stashed my stuff and entered the pool. I know that people look at me. I don't let that take too much of my attention. I think about what I would like to do, hot tub (WITH A RAMP INTO IT!!), big pool for diving and laps, giant pool with warm water and a current channel, waterslide... so many choices!!! I enter the crowded steam knowing how many eyes are on me.
The pools, all of them, were filled with babies. And dads. Every way I looked there were dad's and kids. I have been suffering from a very serious case of baby fever lately. I think about being pregnant all day every day. I count in increments of 9 months, I think about what I could wear, where I could go. I wonder if I would feel comfortable to go swimming in public while visibly pregnant. Would I feel safe? I feel like I have heard enough people say, and write online, about how they'd kill a pregnant man if they saw him, to save the baby from having such a horrid life. To have a parent who wants you THAT bad, horrid indeed. I will be an amazing father. It won't happen by accident, I don't often enough find myself in "oops, oh we may have been too drunk and I don't even know ... ahh, maybe we should have some tests done" types of situations to warrant fear. Now is not a good time. I have no money, I am not in a place to bring a baby into. I don't have room for a baby. My team hasn't committed, we haven't sorted out the details. But when it does happen it will be amazing. I will be a wonderful father. I saw the pools full of cute, obviously sperm producing men, I watched how they interacted with their kids. I watched how they interacted with me, and about me. Kids always smile at me. Maybe they know I am fun. Maybe I am the coolest grown up in the pool cause I'm wearing neon and have a twirly mustache. But regardless, kids look at me, they talk to me, they chuckle with me. And being a grown man, alone in the pool, playing like a child, walking with a limp, wearing neon and with a mustache and tits. Apparently my current look lies between a kid's fun and a grown up's creepy.
These things all combined with my eyes, red with chlorine, making it look like I am higher than I am. I lay in the warm water pool with an inflatable ball on my belly. Holding it and floating face up. I am sure that my facial expression was plastered with impregnation, morning sickness, growth, cramps, stretching, pains, confusion, feeling like I would need to have a buddy to the pool. I asked my doctor what kind of time she's recommend being off of T before trying to get pregnant. She agrees that all ducks are not in a row, half reminding me that I still need to confirm or deny my connective issues before I can know how safe it is. Or if I have some genetic , "weird and wonderful thing" (how the resident repetitively described genetics) that I may or may not want to risk passing on. She says it might take 6 months for cycles to return and my body to become a non-toxic baby zone.
As the ducks line up they say, no, not now, not yet. But ducks build nests before laying eggs. Perhaps that is really what this is all about, I must begin collecting sticks.

husbands and husbands and wives and wives

2010-04-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

Husbands and Husbands

While chatting about the plans for this upcoming summer with my mom, I became aware that this is a summer of weddings. I guess we all come across them, at a certain age, or in certain economic climates, or whatever the variables are that lead people to throw the party and tie the knot. This year is one of those years for me.
The conversation sidetracked to talking about a friend of my mom's whose son is heading the prop 8 campaign out of LA. Him and his team are working to get gay marriage on the ballot in California for 2012. This will hopefully give them enough time to get people on board for returning the right to marry to all in California, since that was revoked with the passing of Prop 8. They had initially intended to have it go to ballot this year, but have it fail would shut it down for too long if not ever. The religious right has put some serious backing into "protecting marriage" and "family values" (see my post Walking home for my thoughts on family values) They have so much behind them that it will take 2 years for even such a celebrity backed campaign to have enough mass to confidently make it through the polls in California. It seems preposterous to me, cause this is a wedding year. And like every other wedding that I have attended in my adult life, and probably will, they are all queer.
The first wedding is 2 friends, who my mom described in this conversation, as probably the gayest couple she's ever met. Transfabulous fags, the wedding will be chock full of slutty femmes, genderfucked princesses of all genders and lots of unicorns. And their families. Their co-workers, their community, gay, straight and otherwise.
The second wedding is my sisters. My sister and her fiancee are another type of gay wedding. It had never crossed my sisters mind that her wedding couldn't just happen anywhere, or that any old preacher wouldn't perform the ceremony. My sister hardly thinks about her gayness. Doesn't have a rooted history or relationship with the queer community. She's just a "normal" guy marrying her young femme lover. At a sailor themed wedding, with my family, so again, very gay.
The third wedding I have on the books is another type all together. They may pass as straight, their wedding may even be "straight" in the sense that perhaps folks there, not knowing that the groom is trans will not see the queerness (except of course in the guest list). Even this wedding, with the couple that appears straight wouldn't be happening in California this summer. At least not for 2 or more years. When trans people are restricted the ability to change all of their legal documents they remain under marriage legislation that doesn't seem that it should have anything to do with them. And seriously, even if a wedding or relationship appears straight, when we get behind closed doors something about getting down with trans folks is always going to be queer.
(that's my take- and know that not all trans people agree, but really- straight men aren't gonna do me [unless wasted or not really straight], straight ladies aren't always too sure about it [although often convinced after]- I can't possibly imagine how (or why) I could ever have straight sex in this trans body.)
I don't know how I feel about having my relationships legitimized by the state. I imagine that it won't be something I will ever feel entirely included in, being poly as well as queer, but I would like to know that my friends and family can do it if they want to. When the groom in the 3rd wedding was hospitalized a couple of years ago, we were all seated in the waiting room all night, and into the morning. Not being able to get reports on the status of his condition, not being able to visit, because we weren't his "family". We were the ones who drove him there, checked him in, and slept in the emergency room waiting area all night until we could take him home, to care for him. We cooked for him, we drove him to his appointments. We looked after each other. That's my understanding of family. And if his getting married allows at least one of his chosen family the access to be there with him when he's ill then I think its a good thing. If my sister's wedding allows my sister in law a chance to have a family she lost when coming out and losing her own, I welcome her with open arms into mine. If my faggy tranny friends in the prairies can buy a home together, get a mortgage and legal ties around sharing their lives, then I think its a good thing. If you want or need state legitimization of your love, your family, then you should have it.

Drowning

2010-04-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

I live in a community that has roots in a bar. I exist in a community that is drowning. In a greater society where alcohol is a generally acceptable substance of choice, the queer community is sure to not be left out. Many important historical and social events of our people have happened in bars, over pitchers and martinis. I would like to attempt to re-write my future.

Being sober is an exception to the norm. Something that is often called into question, challenged and misunderstood. Not unlike my gender, sexual orientation and associated politics, many people that I meet for the first time (and some who I have known for years) cannot understand a conscious decision to not participate in the consumption of alcohol. People ask me daily, why the limp, why the cane, why the dress, why the stache, why the ginger ale? These are questions that depending on the day, the mood, the amount that have already been asked may or may not get answers. But for the sake of clarity, let me answer the last one.

I have "quit drinking" a few times in my life. When I hear other people talk about addiction, talk about the first time they experienced that certain substance and what it did to them, it makes me think of my early experiences drinking. The first time I was drunk was at a cast + crew after show party. A house full of actors, dancers and fellow stage tech nerds. A 4 pack of mike's hard. My pupils dilating with each breath. My parents picking me up too early. Sitting awake, and drunk, in bed weighing out if I could climb out the window, down the roof, and walk across town before the party was dry. 15. My parents made wine, and I found my way into the boxes of it. I created a fictitious club with a friend so we could have bake sales to raise vodka money in the halls at school. I couldn't get enough. About 8 years of my life (save for those points that I recognized the problem at hand and tried cold turkey sobriety for a couple months at a time) can be tracked as a somewhat blurry line from weekend to weekend. Party becomes party until they hardly distinguish themselves. Regular every day things became about drinking- I got so into drinking a cold beer in a hot shower that I would make a trip to the beer store before bathing. I would drink alone. I would encourage , nay pressure, others to keep up.

This wasn't hard. Being a freak in high school provided enough opportunity, although it hardly seemed so at the time. Being an exchange student in Denmark was a 12 month binge. Returning to Canada, coming out as queer, finding my way into the queer community, I found a whole world of people who drank as much as I did. Finding people to share breakfast Caesars with was never hard. Finding people who would play sports as long as there was beer involved: a breeze. All night dancing, late night pizza, stumbling home, with whoever became a lifestyle. Even as I started to pull back from that, party less, I noticed that every element of my life tasted a bit fermented.

In the fall I was started on heart medication. I was told that I couldn't drink much on the meds, or they wouldn't be able to do their job, keep me alive. I tried moderation. I tried having "A drink". I tried to only drink on the weekends. It wasn't working. As soon as I had "A drink", the line disappeared. It became not such a bad idea to have "just one more". So I had my last beer on my birthday. My date took me to the Pumpjack and I drank one last winter ale. I suppose the choice to quit could've been hard. Acting on it and sticking to it could've been tough. It sure hasn't been easy. But knowing that I was on a medication, intended to keep my heart going, which ran my body through the wringer, and couldn't give me any benefits when mixed with booze made it easier. After about 3 months I was taken of the meds. I seem to be doing ok, and don't need them as much as originally thought. Time is said to offer perspective. Sober time in a alcohol obsessed community sure does. I was able to see my patterns, recognize my relationship to booze. See it spill through my friends, my homes, my neighborhood. I could start again. My doctors haven't advised me against it. I have. I can see what that pattern looks like for me. I have broken up with alcohol. I even wrote a harsh break-up letter. And I know that even with time, hooking up with ex's can too easily be a quick trip into old patterns. The patterns that emerged out of my relationship to alcohol are not those which I wish to get back into.

But like the queer community, small and insular as it is, I know I cannot escape my ex's. We live in a small bubble. I must learn to live with alcohol while living without it.