A Probability of Being

Helen Keller Blogswarm Day came and went, and since I knew about it beforehand, I'd already made a promise to write something for it. This, despite not being Helen Keller's birthday, or even the day of her death.  At the same time, Juneteenth came and went, an actual day of celebration.  And from here on out, this post is going to be All About Me. Even though I know it ain't about me.

I had to be mean the other day. It was not something I wanted to do, because usually I'm pretty generous and charitable, or at least I like to think so (despite many exhortations and declarations that I am a terrible human being, but people are always a work in progress, you know), so having to be really stern with folks on the internet does not come easily to me. Unless like, they're not around, in which case, I let it rip. Wannabe allies always make a big deal about how you attract more flies with honey, so taking an abrasive approach to dealing with continual questions and a lot of FAIL is counter-productive. And in certain cases, it certainly is. What wannabe allies don't get, though, is that when one is at the receiving end of the continual, neverending barrage of FAIL, patience wears thin. Kindness gets overpowered. And then you get the Mean POC who just won't understand that people are trying to help. The thing is, and I said this while I was being mean,...

Part of anti-oppression work is speaking out against it when we see it. It means pointing it out, and calling it out for what it is. It means, as much as possible, stepping in and intervening if we are capable. It means coming up with ways to prevent oppression in the first place (which often entails an attitude-change on the scale of epic).  And of course, part of the problem tends to be saviour tropes. Most of us involved in media analysis are aware of the "white saviour" complex. It's the kind of fantasy that gets played out very often - who doesn't want to be the hero that steps in to save the day? The hero does something remarkably brave, above and beyond what is asked of them, and is deeply respected for it as a result?  I personally don't think this narrative is limited only to white people. In fact, I think many of us have these moments where we think of what we would do, or should have done, in certain situations, which would give us such pwnage point...

 Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance . It is the day to memorialize the people who had died as a result of anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. It's a day to remember people who have been killed quietly, targeted easily due to the transphobic nature of today's society that still refuses to acknowledge the humanity of people who transition from one biological sex to another. There are many explanations for these crimes. "Gay panic" and "trans panic" are still considered reasonable explanations for acts of violence visited on these marginalized people. That transgendered people are marginalized makes them easy targets for crimes that will go unaddressed and unpunished. That transgendered people are victims of high crime rates as opposed to any other gendered group goes unnoticed by most people. Their names disappear into the darkness, forgotten. Why are they killed?  These people were killed for being trans, or suspected of being trans. They wer...

I am not feeling my best today. Part of it is because my depression is kicking me around and laying me down. Part of it is some form of mental exhaustion which I'm not sure whether to attribute to my depression, or reading too much, or just staring at the computer too much. I was inspired today by Feminists with Disabilities (cunningly, cleverly shortened to "FWD", ha!) to write a post about steampunk and how disablism would intersect in the subculture. I could find examples of steampunk wheelchairs (mostly of Dr. Loveless from the movie Wild Wild West) but I guess, no one's really thought about it. Or rather, they have but just as another awesome thing to steampunk up, which sounds awfully unsettling to me, as if the wheelchair is just a prop, rather than an actual tool to aid mobility. I had to pause though, and wonder whether it was worthwhile writing about disability issues within steampunk. There aren't a lot of visibly-disabled people in steampunk, are...

So this is kinda but not quite an entirely new concept for me, stemming from this discussion at Questioning Transphobia on some waah-waah-being-called-cis-is-insulting dipshittery going on at Pam's House Blend. I can't seem to find the comment within which I found this concept, but it struck me as being perfectly relevant, in light of the tone argument: We need a safe space for anger . There will be times when we will find it an inhuman request for me to contain the rage that is borne from daily abuse and we want to let it out. Is it too much to ask for a space where the marginalized can go to vent their anger? To be as rude as possible in order to express their frustrations with the dominant, oppressing groups? Without members of the dominant groups getting pissy and offended ? Taking into consideration that members of dominant groups get to troll around being hostile to members of marginalized groups, abusing them, anywhere, pretty much everywhere , there're so few space...

"Don't paint us all with the same brush." "You're over-generalizing. We're not all like that." "Don't judge the individual for what the group does." "Well, I make sure not to do X so this doesn't apply to me and I resent your implication that it does." You've seen this sentiment before, right? Right? It doesn't matter what it's about - when feminists are talking about men's participation within patriarchal systems. When PoC are talking about white collusion in oppressive institutions. When LGBTQ folks point out that het folks often practise het privilege in ignorance. Certainly, there's a problem with over-generalization. It's not very nuanced. It's not very forgiving of people who belong to the one group that's being criticized. But hell's bells, ya'll - why do you need the disclaimer of "this doesn't apply to all people within the group"? What possible benefit could you g...

It's difficult for me, being an ally. A friend recently told me how good it was to see me blogging about "gay and trans issues" even though they don't affect me. Ze's not the only one, either, since another friend, in a meme, said one of the things that reminded her of me was "transgender issues". The only reason why I can see myself giving them this impression is that I wrote quite a bit on Angie Zapata's case . And even then, I didn't cover it as extensively as I could have. Partly because I didn't know what to say that wasn't already said. Partly because I tend to follow a lot of other things and I sort of rely on the blogs I read to give me the news I want. I've only ever known one transgendered person in person. I don't know where she is now. We were never close, but we spoke when we encountered each other, and would move seats on the bus to sit together if we encountered each other there. One time we even walked together. Sh...