Tell Gov. Brown: No Repeal of Hayden Law!

Over the past few years, austerity measures have been the go-to "fix" (I put that in scare quotes because austerity fixes fucking nothing and we all know it) for budget deficit crises at all levels of government in this country.  Services for vulnerable populations have been slashed left, right, and center.  Disability services.  Subsidized health insurance services.  Reproductive health care services.  Food banks.  When the going gets tough, fuck over the poor and those in need, seems to be the theory.

This week, I heard about another cut about to go into place here in California, that would harm a population that hadn't occurred to me to worry about yet.

Shelter animals.

Governor Brown has said he wants to repeal a 1998 shelter-reform law, called the Hayden Law, that among other things mandated that county-run shelters hold onto animals for six days after being brought in before they could be euthanized, instead of the previous 72 hours.  The reform also required that shelters structure their open hours to include after-work and weekend times - or, if they were a small staff, make "by appointment" times available outside of normal work hours - so that (when combined with the six day minimum holding time) people who had lost a pet but who also worked a day job would actually be able to come and claim their animals before they were put to sleep.  To quote from the Facebook page of Sutter's Friends, a group dedicated to stopping the repeal:

What is at risk in the proposed repeal? Permanent loss of the requirement to provide prompt and necessary veterinary care. Permanent loss of the requirement to hold animals for an extended period to increase opportunites for redemption and adoption. Permanent loss of the requirement to post lost and found lists. And, among other things, permanent loss of the requirement to provide care for animals other than cats and dogs, such as rabbits, hamsters, and other animals commonly kept as pets.

This is a topic near and dear to me.  Every animal but one that I've bonded to - either belonging to me, my family, or close friends - has been a shelter animal.  Ozz and I just adopted our first in December, and we specifically chose to look for our new family member at the county shelter instead of the no-kill alternatives so that we could help in some small way to increase the survival rate there.  Kalika, our family's first dog, a golden retriever from the county shelter.  Kelly Anne, another golden, from a private rescue organization.  Diablo and Cielle, my mom's two cats, from a different private rescue org.  Amee, my ex's Siamese cat, from the county shelter.  Isis, my ex's and his brother's cat (and sort of mine, too, for awhile), from a shelter in Tennessee.  And now, Mara, Ozz's and my cat, from the county shelter.  And we plan to continue adopting from the shelter when we're ready to expand our family.

Local animal shelters can be an invaluable resource for saving animals' lives, from strays to runaway or lost pets - but they are all too often where animals' lives end, too.  The Hayden Law helped tilt that balance a bit more toward saving.  Jerry Brown's repeal would tilt it back toward death, and while I realize CA's budget situation is fairly desperate, I somehow don't get the feeling that euthanizing more shelter animals is going to be the linchpin on which a balanced budget would turn.

So I'm asking my readers to lift a small teaspoon in support of the Hayden Law.  Petitions against Gov. Brown's proposed repeal may be found and signed here and here; if you're on Facebook, "like" Sutter's Friends to stay on top of updates.

It's the humans' fault that there are so many homeless domestic-breed animals in the world to begin with; the least we can do is try to kill as few of them for the sake of our irresponsibility as possible.

Spinning Straw Into Nickels

Somewhere between putting a quarter into a jar every time you swear to break yourself of the habit, and LGBT groups taking pledges from the community to raise donations per minute they are protested by hate groups like Westboro Baptist Church, is the new, single-campus campaign, Nickels For Change. 

Two college women, fed up with the casual -isms they hear every day at their male-dominated science and engineering college, have decided to turn the prejudice into profit for a charity they will choose by year's end.  The idea is, every time they hear a rape joke, misogyny, racism, or other -ism coming from the people around them, they will donate a nickel to the Jar.  While they do this, they'll be raising awareness with letter-writing campaigns, and at the end of the year, they plan to total it up and donate the sum to an anti-violence organization.  They'll publicize the total to those they contacted, in the hopes that the sheer weight of evidence - "You raised HOW MUCH at a nickel per incident?" - might shame people into better behavior. 

I think this is a great idea.  Particularly taking place on a college campus as it is.  Colleges like to look good to parents of prospective students, and who knows how motivated they might be to make their campus a friendlier atmosphere for the diverse groups whose money they would undoubtedly be happy to take, by the public knowledge of how far they currently fall short of the mark?  It's hard to claim your college as a great place to go, when you've got a couple of activists holding out a total and saying "This is what your atmosphere *actually* is." 

I wish them luck.  Am I old enough to say how I wish more young people were like these two?  ;-)

Tranny-Alert.com, Redux

It is, apparently, the site that will not die. Remember Tranny-Alert.com, the horrifying and offensive site that advised readers, if they saw a suspected "tranny", to "snap your fingers, snap a pic, and email those photos to: mayday@tranny-alert.com!", and then posted the reader-submitted pics of women, be they transwomen, drag queens, or not-feminine-enough ciswomen, to the blog? The one we rallied against, last summer, until it shut down?

It's back.

An anonymous commenter on the original post tipped me off to the zombification of this trans-hating monstrosity, and I went to check it out. It is, for a mercy, reborn without the outing-transwomen aspect that I originally objected to in such strong terms. Now, it seems to be content with posting news and fashion items that relate in any way to transwomen or crossdressing. Which is at least an improvement.

BUT. You knew there had to be a but to this, didn't you? BUT. They are still throwing the word "tranny" around like it's going out of style (had a Freudian slip of the fingers there and wrote "stale"...) and sensationalizing transwomen as some kind of sideshow to chronicle and stare at. This new version is not so much better, as it is just less worse.

While the new T-A.com doesn't directly endanger the lives of individual transwomen with pictures and outing anymore, it still contributes to an atmosphere and a culture in which transwomen are freaks, a joke, blogged about not for any purpose of actually advancing the acceptance and de-Othering of transpeople into society, but for the amusement and shock value. They are no longer saying "Here's a transwoman! Get her!" But they are still saying "Transwomen are something to be looked out for, and laughed at." Which indirectly supports the kind of culture in which shit like the original T-A.com was possible, in which transwomen face a murder rate some six times the average and the constant dangers of trans-bashing, in which transwomen cannot just go about living their lives and not constantly being noticed, pointed out, marginalized, and Othered.

Sadly, since they've left off the most directly threatening part of their mission, it'll be harder to get it closed down again through official complaints, if it's possible at all. But my teaspoon will be in evidence nonetheless, this time taking the form of a direct email to the trans-haters in question. Maybe we can't get it taken down, but we can certainly make them feel the force of our displeasure! Who's with me?

CA Passes Equal ID Act!

So it turns out California can still do SOME things right. (via) Our Legislature passed the Equal ID Act yesterday, providing a means for California-born transpeople (living in state or elsewhere) to use a court order gotten in the county of their birth to have their CA birth certificate reissued to reflect their gender accurately. With a 22-14 vote in the CA Senate, the bill now moves on to the Governator's desk. After his repeated vetoing of bills that would have legalized same-sex marriage that made it to his desk (Congratulations Vermont for being the first to do it the right way, but I'll always be bitter; it should have been us. Thanks for nothing, Governator.) I'm wary of trusting Schwarzefucker to do the right thing for our community. But we shall see.

But while we're at it, why don't we lean hard on the 14 "no" votes? Just because it passed, doesn't mean we should be complacent. Teaspoons ahoy! If you're a California voter, go here and click on "Your Senator" in the sidebar to go to an interactive district-finder.

Sam Aaenestad
Roy Ashburn
John J. Benoit
Dave Cogdill
Dave Cox
Jeff Denham
Robert D. Dutton
Tom Harman
Dennis Hollingsworth
Bob Huff
Abel Maldonado
Tony Strickland
Mimi Walters
Mark Wyland

Caster Semenya's Chromosomes: None Of Our Business

Everyone and their sister in the progressive blogosphere has posted about the fucked-up way the International Association of Athletics Federation is treating Caster Semenya. Short recap, if you haven't heard: Caster Semenya is an 18-yr-old runner from South Africa, who just took the gold in the 800m at this year's World Championships in Athletics. Her time was so impressive, and she herself so lacking in our normative ideas of "appropriate" femininity, that the IAAF decided to force her to undergo gender testing on the suspicion that she isn't "really" a woman. For a more thorough explanation of just why this is fucked-up, try here, here, or here (read the comments, that's where the gold is).

Now, there is a petition going about taking IAAF to task for their shameful treatment of Semenya. Tell the IAAF to stay out of Caster Semenya's pants!

Remember Tranny-Alert, and how fast they scuttled away before the righteous blaze of our progressive fury? Let's do that again, shall we? Add your name. Tell the IAAF it's not ok to demand gender-testing of Caster Semenya.

On Teaspoons and Teaspooning

So it occurs to me that, of late, I've made several references to teaspoons and teaspooning, plus added a tag to that effect. Any readers coming across from Shakesville, or who have hung out there much, will understand what I mean by it. But for those who are from other places on the web, or who have come here after meeting me in realspace, an explanation might be in order.

The beginnings of the term originate from Melissa McEwan, blogmistress of Shakesville, in a post where she said:

Today is the final day of the 16 Days of Action Against Gender Violence, during which I suppose I have blogged exactly as often as always about violence against women, in America and abroad. Sometimes it feels like it's all I ever write about; sometimes it feels like I can't possibly write about it enough to do the issue justice; often, those feelings exist within me simultaneously. All I ever do is try to empty the sea with this teaspoon; all I can do is keep trying to empty the sea with this teaspoon.

But the idea has taken on a life of its own and grown since that inception. Teaspoon Theory is one of the defining codes by which I live my life. I define Teaspoon Theory for myself as thus:

On their own, the little things we do each day to fight the forces of injustice, hate, and bigotry, are as futile as trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, one scoop at a time. But each person has a teaspoon they can wield, for good or for ill, and if we can inspire enough people to use enough teaspoons...eventually, the ocean will be a lake, then a pond, and eventually a slightly damp valley. Teaspoons will be what saves the world.

An email I send to my Congressperson is a teaspoon. A reply to an obnoxiously racist forward that lands in my email box is a teaspoon. A comment on a beauty blog, asking the blogger not to review AHAVA products, is a teaspoon. Being the visible feminist in class, drawing ire away from those whose feminism is still nascent and too delicate to withstand ridicule, is a teaspoon. Asking my brother for the n^th time not to say "That's so lame" is a teaspoon. Each and every post I put up on this blog is a teaspoon.

Some teaspoons are easy to deploy, like a letter to a Congressperson. Some are terrifying, like calling your father out over a racist joke. Teaspooning is exhausting, often, and sometimes I wonder why I do it still. But then I remember. My teaspoon is small, but it is not alone. And in conjunction with the Law of Non-Neutrality (aka All In), choosing not to raise my teaspoon is choosing to uphold the status quo. How can I do anything but rally and teaspoon forth again?

Teaspoons ho!

Neutrality Is A Lie

A few days ago, I got linked to Code Pink's Stolen Beauty Campaign, a boycott against AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories. AHAVA is an Israeli company that makes bath and beauty products with Dead Sea mineral mud and is sold worldwide. However, while they advertise as an Israeli company and product, their production facilities and visitor's center are located in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank. It is illegal for them to label their products as "made in Israel", though they do. Furthermore, they use the mud and resources of the West Bank in production of their products, in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, which forbid occupying powers from profiting from the natural resources of an occupied territory. The fourth Geneva Convention explicitly forbids an occupying power from removing the captured natural resources for its own use.

I read about the boycott and actions against AHAVA, filed it away in my "read more later when there's more time" file mentally...but I left the tab open and just worked around it. (I tend to run anywhere from a half dozen to two dozen open tabs at once, so it's not that unusual for me to leave something up for a few days.)

And then today, in perusing my morning's readings from the 80+ blogs I follow, I encountered a post on Temptalia, a makeup and beauty blog I follow. Christine (owner and blogmistress of Temptalia) had posted a review of AHAVA's body wash line. I read through it, and it was a glowing review of the product. I reread it. Where was the caution about the controversy surrounding the product? Where was it mentioned that AHAVA profits from the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, by stealing their natural resoures? There was not so much as a single footnote detailing even a hint of reservation about endorsing this apparently! great! product!

So I waded in, teaspoon held high, and posted a comment:

Christine, please don't advocate, product-push, advertise, review, whatever you want to call it, for AHAVA products. They advertise as being made in Israel, but the products are actually manufactured in a factory compound located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, using resources stolen from Palestinian land, in direct contravention of international law. According to international public law, including the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, the West Bank cannot be considered to be part of the State of Israel; thus, their labeling as being "made in Israel" is false and illegal. This also means AHAVA profits by stealing, manufacturing and selling resources from Palestine: because it harvests minerals from mud pulled from the Dead Sea, from the Occupied West Bank (Palestinian) land, it is technically stealing resources. The fourth Geneva Convention explicitly forbids an occupying power from removing the captured natural resources for its own use.

You have a big following, and your words can make a difference to many people. Please use this positively, to help bring attention to the illegal actions of this company, rather than approvingly reviewing the product and recommending it to your readers.

I'll give her credit for this: she's fast on the draw. Within ten minutes of posting that comment, which got held up in moderation since I'd included a couple of links to the Stolen Beauty Campaign, I received a response by email. I won't post it here, but the gist of it was that since Temptalia is not a political blog, she didn't wish to get into a political discussion on the issue. She wanted, she said, to remain neutral. If I wanted to reword my comment as a general educational spiel to the readership instead of as a call for her to stand up and do something, I was welcome to re-post it.

She wanted to remain neutral, she said. Neutral?

The problem is, there is no such thing as neutrality. You either support the status quo, or you challenge it. By saying "I'm neutral," by standing back and refusing to speak, you support the status quo. A refusal to act is an act of refusal. To claim neutrality is a cop-out. It's the coward's way. It is saying, "This may be a bad thing, but I am not going to involve myself. I'm going to let it happen unchallenged." If you aren't a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. There is no third option. This is the very foundation of All In, the corollary to Teaspoon Theory, the two most basic laws by which I strive to live my life.

I responded to say I respected her wishes and would re-word and re-post my comment, but I also told her my views on neutrality.

When I returned to the post to retry my comment...I found it missing. She emailed me later to say she'd removed the post, pending further research. The power of teaspoons!

And I think, now, that I, like McCain who didn't believe in women's "health", will start putting air quotes around concepts I don't believe in. And "neutrality" is the first to get that treatment from me.

Because there is no Switzerland. "Neutrality" is a lie.