The new "You're either with us, or with the enemy"

The rhetoric from the right has been getting more and more frenzied these past couple years.  I suppose that's what happens when your absurdly racist party is simultaneously confronted with a Scary Black Man President and increasing evidence of your slide into irrelevance as your single priority of "taking care of rich straight cis white Christian male businessmen" becomes ever-clearer at the same time that that particular demographic is shrinking compared to the size of every other demographic that you've made it quite obvious you hate.  So the bit I came across today isn't *surprising*, but it is, I think, something to note.

There's plenty to unpack in this particular off-the-rails screed from Don Feder of World Congress of [Cishet 2-Parent Unlimited-Children White Christian] Families about how Obama is totez gonna start rounding up conservatives and putting them in concentration camps any day now (and what IS it with these people and their Holocaust-appropriation fetish anyway?), but there was one line in particular that jumped out at me.

Recall Obama’s bitter-clinger remarks from the 2008 campaign – identifying resistance to his message primarily among those who cling to religion, guns and "anti-immigrant" sentiment. Think of his anti-nationalism (including the rejection of American exceptionalism) and attacks on the family, via same-sex "marriage" and taking medical decisions out of the family’s hands.

As an aside, "taking medical decisions out of the family's hands" is something to condemn when it's Democrats making it possible for people to even *consider* making medical decisions at all via expanded access to health insurance and health services, but taking medical decisions out of people's hands is awesome when it comes to Republicans legislating pregnancy and reproductive decisions? Uh huh. We see you, hypocrites.
But the part that got me here was the bit about "rejection of American exceptionalism" as equivalent to anti-nationalism.

If you don't believe the U.S. is inherently superior to all other nations on this planet, you are anti-nationalist.  If you do not believe we're better than everyone else, you hate America.  There is no middle ground.  There is no patriotism that allows for any understanding or critical examination of this nation's flaws.  If you don't uncritically laud everything America does as awesome simply because it was done by "the best country on Earth", it's a sign that you hate America and everything the country stands for.

(Considering that, if you look at our history, we have spent a lot of time and effort on standing for greed, corruption, imperialism, colonialism, warmongering, and genocide, I'm not sure why we *shouldn't* hate at least a solid portion of what this country "stands for", but that's a whole other conversation.)

Twelve years ago, Dubya famously said, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."

They've put it in fancy euphemisms and made a dog-whistle of it, but it's the same sentiment.  If you fail to believe 100% that this is God's Country and we can do no wrong, if you fail to uncritically support everything this nation does, you are the enemy.

And they wonder why I'm far more afraid of conservatives in my own country than I've ever been of nebulous "terrorists" halfway across the world.

My Father's Name

[originally written as a rant on my tumblr]

I swear to dog the next time I hear someone talk about a woman taking her husband's name as a contrast between "her husband's name" and "her father's name" I AM GOING TO BITE YOU. VERY VERY HARD. NOT IN THE SEXY WAY. 

 

Because this name that I have right now, the one that’s been on all my paperwork for twenty fucking seven years, THAT IS MY NAME.  Mine.  MY name.

My father shares it, yes.  As does much of his extended family.  This is true.  And it is also true that I share a last name with his family, rather than with my mother’s family.

But that
does not
make it
any
less
MY NAME.

I have not been going around in the world for twenty-seven years answering to a borrowed name.

Every time I wrote it on a piece of paper for school,
every time I answered to it in roll call,
every time I responded to it at rugby practice,
every time I have entered it on DMV forms
and medical forms
and tax forms,
I have claimed it as MINE.

If (when, gods willing) Ozz and I get married someday, if I choose to change my last name*, it will be me choosing to exchange my name for his.  Not me giving up my father’s name in order to take on my husband’s name.

I guess what I’m saying is, don’t you fucking dare act like my name doesn’t really belong to me, just because it belonged to a man before me.  He doesn’t keep ownership of the name we share because I bear it, any more than he keeps ownership of my body or life because I bear his genetics.  When you act like it’s still *his* name, you’re also acting like I’m still *his* in some way.  And I may be slightly touchier than most about this because my father and I have some truly epic Issues, but you imply that I’m somehow *his* in any way beyond what allegiance I freely choose to give him as an independent adult in my own right, and I will fucking cut you.

We clear?

*Spoiler alert: I won't.  Or at least, it won't be a straight mine-gone-take-his-instead.  I don't even like his last name and it sounds terrible with my first name.   We'd been considering hyphenating, which would probably be my preferred choice.

Today in No Fucking Shit, Captain Obvious

As DIY Abortions Rise, So Does Guesswork and Failure

More women are heading to Mexico to buy abortion-inducing drugs, the New York Times reports, and it's opening them up to failed terminations and other dangers. ... Abortion-rights advocates are concerned that a lack of awareness about clinical options in the United States — as well as a lack of funds — could lead more women to go underground and risk their health in this way.

Gee, it's not like we've been fucking saying this FOR YEARS NOW or anything.  No, this is a totally unforeseen development!  Utterly unexpected!  Shocking!  Provocative!  Unbelievable!  ...whoops, sarcasm reserve ran out.  Been using a lot of it up on Tumblr lately, sorry.

On The Third Attempt to Pass Egg-as-Person Legislation in Colorado, Former Supporters Shy Away

[T]he political ramifications of the personhood amendment should continue to be a key part of the coverage. The amendment, which would ban all abortions and some common forms of birth control, is clearly of interest to women, in particular, and women are a key voters in Colorado elections.

You mean to tell me 51% of the population are a key voting bloc in elections?  My god, will the revelations never end?  Fetch me pearls to clutch and a fainting couch on which to delicately fall!

 My kingdom for a liberal media that's actually liberal and doesn't act like these things called "women" are mysterious creatures whose issues can only be observed from afar.  >.<

Today in Not Actually Helping

Look, I'm as much a fan as anyone of the making-a-point "lol let's propose bills restricting men's reproductive rights to see how y'all like it" legislative shenanigans that have become semi-popular lately.  Attempting to require invasive ultrasounds before prescribing ED pills, declaring the existence of "sperm persons" and making murder of said spermsons illegal, that sort of thing.  It's funny in a dark sort of way, it makes a good point about the ridiculous invasiveness of the legislation the right-wing is pushing across the country.

But it can be taken too far.  Just because we know damn well that the pushback bills won't actually be passed, doesn't mean we can do absolutely anything we want.  (Okay, yes, we *can* - but everyone knows that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.)  Some bills are funny but inappropriate, as a mockery of equally-inappropriate bills that they actually intend seriously.  Today, I ran across one that, to me at least, crosses that line.

In Utah, a doctor wrote and submitted a bill that would institute heavy penalties against any man who impregnated a woman:

• Restrict elective abortion to the first 16 weeks.
• Require DNA testing to determine paternity of all out-of-wedlock children, even aborted.
• Require the father to establish a $50,000 trust fund to care for any out-of-wedlock child, even if adopted. If the child is aborted, the fund is used for sex education.
• If the father can’t pay, he joins the military and uses his enlistment bonus and salary to pay.
• No man can avoid paternity claiming “she seduced me,” or that she claimed she was on the pill, had her tubes tied, whatever.
• Man under 18? His parents are responsible.

It would be funny, in an over-the-top sort of way, except for numbers 1 and 4 there.  The first one, for obvious reasons - I don't think any of us would see a 16-week restriction as a fair trade for penalties against impregnators to try to discourage them.  And the fourth one, because compulsory military service is a really fucked-up idea.

And then there's the fact that, despite what RH Reality Check may think of the bill's aims, I don't actually think the bill's author is intending this as a joke or mockery.  He calls it a way to eradicate abortion, and I think he means it, for all that he knows it would never even get passed, much less pass constitutional muster before the courts if someone challenged it.

Oh, and when you have a doctor claiming it would scare men into using 3 condoms as an entry in the "pros" column for his bill, considering that using multiple condoms is actually less safe than using a single condom...I'm kind of disinclined to think it's a good idea on any level, from the silly nonsense down to no-I-really-mean-it.  And I would like to see a little - or a lot - more discernment from such a big, generally reputable source on reproductive health issues as RHRC before they slap the "not gonna happen but funny anyway" sticker on something like this.

The man who wrote this bill is not on our side.  Let's not gloss over that and lol at it like he's in on the joke, okay?

Putting Words in God's Mouth

By this time, I am fairly well inured to the theatrics of the Fundamentalist Dominionist Christian Right in this country.  As a result of writing for this blog for...gods, what, two years now?  Three?...I read a lot about what the Religious Reich and their puppets the Republican Party are up to.*  I've actually reached a point where as I'm reading through Right Wing Watch, quite often I see the headline, laugh bitterly and say "of course they did" and scroll to the next item without even bothering to read it, because very little they do shocks me these days, and I can't (and don't want to) write about every single case of right-wing bullshit I see.

But even I am thoroughly taken aback by the brazen combination of ego, disrespect for the divine, colonialism, and nationalism in this video.  In it, Lou Engle of the Eagle Forum prays over a group of young people at Awakening 2012.  I honestly can't make out most of what he says right until the very end, when he says the last few lines of the Lord's Prayer, with one very interesting difference:

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
On Earth as it is in America.

*record screech*  Wait.  What?

See, I'm familiar with the traditional form of the Lord's Prayer.  You know, the one that ends with "On Earth as it is in Heaven", not "in America".

I wonder if he meant to say it that way?  I can't imagine that someone with as much experience in public speaking and public prayer as Lou Engle would slip like that without meaning it, at least on some level.

Which says all kinds of ugly things about his intent here.  On a purely theological level, it strikes me as deeply disrespectful at best, to alter a crucial word in such a fundamental prayer of one's faith, especially in such a dogmatic religion as right-wing fundamentalist Christianity.  I would be less bothered by, for example, an eclectic Wiccan making changes to the Charge of the Goddess to have it better suit them, because many pagan traditions are largely syncretic by design, and accept a wide variety of what we call "unverified personal gnosis" as valid, for the person receiving it if nothing else.  It's sort of different when you have a single holy book that is purportedly the outright dictation of the Lord himself to mortal scribes, in essence, and this is a very specific prayer listed therein.  To change that?  Is basically to say "Thanks, God, but I am going to change the words of the prayer You gave us to suit my own political purposes."  I'm not a Christian anymore, but if I were, I would be horrified to see the Lord's Prayer used this way.

On another level, it smacks of neocolonialism and a truly absurd level of American Exceptionalism.  He is basically expressing a desire that the world be remade in our image.  Yeah, in case you hadn't noticed, Lou, we've tried that.  We're still doing it.  And it has resulted in a lot of pain and death and deliberate genocide, and the irretrievable loss of cultures and languages and belief systems, all eradicated in the name of Christianization.  That is a terrible history.  That is not something to aspire to or ask your god's blessing to make it happen (more/again).

It also occurs to me that just replacing one word with the other like that conflates America and Heaven (most likely by design).  Which is more than a little disingenuous, especially that when you judge the U.S's situation by the metrics of Jesus' dictates - love one another, care for the sick and the poor, etc - we are a truly epic failure.  Even if there actually were somewhere on this planet where things are "on Earth as it is in Heaven", it sure as fuck isn't in this country.

And this is why we say things like, "The Christian Right is neither."

*Which is why I laughed myself silly at one of my father's attacks in our last angry altercation over his political proselytizing: he accused me of "not being able to handle hearing what the other side has to say" as an attempt to undermine my response because I had flat-out refused to watch Glenn Beck videos he wanted me to see.  Sorry, Papa, I am on the Outrage Watchers program.  I only get a limited number of Rage Points to spend every day, and I'm not going to blow them all on one Glenn Beck video just to prove a point to you.  But it certainly makes it an absurd assertion that I'm "insulating myself from honest debate" or some such.

Dick, Pussy, Cunt, and "Die Cis Scum": Why Some Insults Are More Equal Than Others

I see this issue make the rounds occasionally, on tumblr, on twitter, on feminist blogs, and it bugs the crap out of me.  Usually because it's someone trying to discredit or deflect requests that people not use misogynist insults like "pussy" and "cunt" by saying "well if that's bad then why aren't you asking people to stop using "dick" as an insult, too?!?"  Which is manifest horseshit on several levels.

Firstly, many of the feminists/progressives I know actually *do* frown on all genitalia-related insults.  I know plenty of feminists who don't use pussy, cunt, or dick as insulting terms.  Quite often, the person at whom the "But what about dick?" (henceforth BWAD) argument is being directed falls into this category already, and the person trying to defend their use of misogynist slurs just hasn't bothered to ask before making arguments based on their assumption.  Moral of the story: ask before you base your whole argument on an assumption.

Secondly, context fucking matters.  When the use of insults based on genitalia is taking place in a culture that systematically values maleness and denigrates femaleness, using slurs based on the penis (which our culture associates exclusively with masculinity) does not have the same damaging impact that slurs based on the vulva (which our culture associates exclusively with femininity) do.  Using "dick" as an insult does not contribute to longstanding, systemic oppression of men, because such oppression simply does not exist.  For the same reason that naked dude pictures are not the same as naked lady pictures, "dick" as an insult doesn't do the same kind of cumulative cultural damage that "pussy" and "cunt" do as insults.

Thirdly, are you (where "you" = someone who has asked or is asking BWAD) seriously trying to say that "dick" as an insult is of the same level of severity and carries the same connotation as "pussy" and "cunt"?  Really?  I'm sorry, are you some kind of pandimensional being speaking to me from an alternate universe?  Because that's really the only explanation I can think of for trying to treat all three insults equally.

"Dick" as an insult ranges from mild to moderate intensity depending on the tone of the speaker, and simply means mean or rude, perhaps overly pushy or aggressive.  "Pussy" is also mild to moderate, but has a more specific connotation of cowardice and weakness, and going simply on personal observation, a man will be far more offended/upset if you call him a pussy than if you call him a dick.  Especially considering that masculinity is actually *supposed* to be aggressive and, to a point, abrasive in this culture, "dick" can be the sort of insult that signals you're doing something to be proud of, in a fucked-up sort of way.  "Dick" is still an insult, but it's the sort of insult that leaves one's all-important Masculinity Cred intact.  "Pussy", on the other hand, is deliberately calculated to cut deeper by undermining said Masculinity Cred.

And then, of course, there's "cunt".  One of the Big Bads of the insult dictionary.  Widely acknowledged as the worst thing you can call a woman - or, really, anyone.  One of the very few cuss words that is still unacceptable among most people, even people who regularly pepper their (our, cause I'm totally one of them, in case you couldn't tell) speech with "fuck".  The one you pull out when you really want to make your point that you have an epic amount of disdain and hate for someone - usually a woman.

One of these things is not like the other ones...

[TW: implied/verbal violence against trans* people]

This is actually an old draft that's been kicking around the Unfinished Thoughts black hole for awhile now, until this post on tumblr revived it the other day.  Because it basically expresses the same context-free viewpoint that makes the BWAD argument specious, and I just could not let it go without comment, especially given it dovetailed rather well with an already-mostly-written post.  Behold:

Two identical Venn diagrams stacked on top of each other, with blue and red circles and overlapping purple section.  Text used to read (it doesn't show up against this background, sorry) "If this is okay" over the first diagram, where the circles are labeled "cis" and "scum" and the overlap "cis scum", then "Then so is this" over the second, where the circles are labeled "trans" and "scum" and the overlap is "trans scum"

For those who don't know the "die cis scum" history, it's a phrase that many in the trans community on tumblr have taken to use as a rallying cry/pushback against ciscentric culture that literally kills a whole fucking lot of trans people.  I'm not going to lie, the phrase makes me mildly uncomfortable, but I absolutely understand where it's coming from and am not going to begrudge anyone their anger against a vastly more powerful group that stands a much-higher-than-is-comfortable chance of killing them, because it's not my place to police people's expressions of anger against oppression.  It was said in a moment of frustration and anger, got picked up by a lot of people, and became A Thing, with the inevitable result of a whole lot of cis people having very hurt fee-fees over it.  A backlash developed, with far too many cis people saying that Die Cis Scum makes the trans* people who use it "just as bad" as the cis people who murder and abuse trans* people.  (O rly?  Just as bad?  You have an...interesting morality scale.)  The response from many trans* people has been "It doesn't say "die cis people".  It says "die cis scum".  Are you cis, but not scum?  Then you're safe, now shut up."  Of course, backlashing cis people couldn't let it rest there.  Hence, this graphic.

Apparently, there are a whole lot of people in this world who have never heard of context before.

Following the same logic, and for the same reason, as the argument against comparing "dick" to "pussy" or "cunt" as insults, "die cis scum" and "die trans scum" are not insults that carry the same social weight.  One is an oppressed group basically shouting "fuck you" up at their oppressors, while both groups know full well they don't have the power to do much harm.  The other is the group in power, shouting "fuck you" back down the ladder as they continue to kick the people below them in the face.  They are not equivalent.  They are not equal.  Just because they use the same syntactic structure does not mean they are expressing the same kind of sentiment, because the power differential changes things.

Or, to quote an acquaintance of mine on tumblr: When we say "die cis scum", you have your feelings hurt.  When you say "die trans scum", we literally end up dead.

Not.
The.
Same.

What About The Doctors' Rights?

In the overwhelming tide of anti-choice legislation (honestly, don't these people have ANYTHING else to do?), we've seen a trend of being focused on legislating what goes on in the exam room, what words are exchanged between doctor and patient, what specific techniques the doctor has to use.  As Melissa over at Shakesville has pointed out a few times, these "state-sanctioned rape" bills (laws mandating transvaginal ultrasound prior to abortion) not only enforce a requirement of coerced penetration on the patient, they require that the doctor administer said non-consensual penetration.  In essence, they victimize the doctor as well as the patient, by coercing them both to engage in an act of penetration to which neither has the option of not consenting to.

We've also recently seen a rise in striking-back bills - ones that declare "sperm persons", ones that would require a person seeking medication for erectile dysfunction have a variety of invasive medical tests before receiving care, etc.

So here's a fun one that combines those two angles:  A doctor in Alabama has crafted a piece of legislation that would declare that the physician's judgment and medical necessity supersede any legislation requiring specific procedures or services.  Here's the text:

No physician or health care provider licensed to practice in the State of Alabama shall be forced by state or local regulatory authority to perform any medical service or component of medical service if the service or component of service is not medically necessary or would be harmful to the patient and the patient does not desire the medical service. The right to practice within the scope of a medical license supersedes any existing or future legislative act.

It's basically the good twin to the "conscience clause" bills that allow people working in healthcare (often including not only the doctors themselves, but everyone from the intake and discharge nurses, to the person who cleans the room or preps instruments or fills prescriptions in any way even tenuously related to abortion or end-of-pregnancy care) to refuse to participate in any level of the abortion process.  If they're allowed to refuse to do certain medical procedures because of their conscience - and even, in many cases, allowed to refuse to refer for those services - why shouldn't doctors of a different ethical bent be allowed to refuse to do other medical procedures that they find offensive?  I think this is a fantastic idea, and every state plus the federal government ought to have one.  And if they vote it down, we should play "zombie bill" with it and keep bringing it back over and over until it passes.  ^_^

I wasn't able to find bill-tracking information for it.  RH Reality Check said that it was offered as an amendment which was voted down after only 10 minutes of debate, but also said to check the legislative calendar for the Judiciary Committee to see when it comes up, so I'm unclear on the status.  (If anyone knows more, please let me know in comments.)

Also, I found this sentence at the end of the RHRC piece to be hilarious in a lolsobby sort of way:

...action is needed to protect the rights of [people] seeking reproductive health care in statehouses across the country.

I know "in statehouses across the country" is meant to modify "action is needed", but I'm cracking up at how the proximity to "seeking reproductive health care" implies that they are seeking reproductive health care in statehouses across the nation.  Well, shit - if this trend keeps up, it may well be the only way to *get* reproductive health care.  You'll have to petition your representative for a permission slip.

On PantheaCon and "Respectful Dialogue"

[Continued TW for transmisogyny, misgendering, genital-essentialism, and for the love of all the gods do not read the comments anywhere without a stiff drink handy.  Possibly also some tranquilizers.]

I wrote a post about the genital-essentialist Dianic Wiccan elder Z. Budapest's "for genetic women only" ritual at PantheaCon 2012 last week, which was apparently one of the first-off-the-mark posts about the incident.  In following the other posts and commentaries that have run like wildfire through the pagan blogosphere in the week following, I have encountered again and again and again calls for "calm/peaceful/respectful dialogue", asking us all to treat this as a teachable moment, a learning experience, asking us to "work from love" and seek healing for our community.

The problem with that is that we are responding to an act of emotional violence - that it is psychic and verbal violence, rather than physical, does not change the violent nature of the act - that was in no way calm, respectful, peaceful, from love, or seeking healing.  (Calling trans women "transies" and describing them as "men who just won't respect women's boundaries" is pretty much the fucking definition of not-respectful.)

So why is it incumbent upon trans women and their allies to "work from love" and "engage in respectful dialogue" to "bring healing to our community"?  Why is it unacceptable to be visibly, openly angry at this bigotry on display from one of our community elders?  To quote from one of my favorite writers: "When someone engages in divisive behavior, any resulting division is that person's responsibility."  Z. Budapest engaged - repeatedly! - in the divisive behavior of excluding and misgendering trans women, an act which causes explicit mental, emotional, and spiritual harm*.  Any resulting division in the community, then, is her responsibility (and to a lesser degree, her supporters').

So why is there so much tone-policing going on in the form of these calls for "respectful dialogue"?

I am not a Wiccan, and so I do not adhere strictly to their notions of dualistic balance in things.  But I do feel that this is a situation that is terribly imbalanced.  Anger is a valid response, too, just as valid as any calm, reasoned, respectful choice to engage in dialogue, and yet it is being rejected as "making things worse", in favor of framing respectful dialogue as the One And Only True Way to make any progress on this issue.  To add one's voice to the repressive drumbeat of CALM RESPECTFUL DIALOGUE ONLY is to visit a second harm on those who have already been harmed - to add insult to injury, as it were - by saying, in essence, "You are not allowed to be angry at this violation of your right to feel safe in this community.  You are not allowed to be angry at the bigotry and hateful rhetoric this person and her supporters have used to exclude you.  If you want to participate in the conversation, you must choke down your anger, swallow the hurt, and gently, quietly, politely reply, educate, and dialogue with someone who has no interest in being educated or entering in mutually-respectful dialogue with you."

Because here's the thing: quietness and respect are not synonymous.  Z. Budapest may not have raised her voice when she read her statement to those who sat in silent witness on behalf of those excluded at this year's ritual, but that does not make her words respectful.  She may not have screamed in the face of a trans woman "YOU'RE A MAN AND I HATE YOU", when she posted her little transphobic screed in response to the uproar last year, but there was no respect in what she said.  So why, why on Earth are we expected to respond with respectful dialogue and education to someone who has shown no interest in reciprocating?

In particular, in going back through links to the various pieces I've read in preparation for hitting publish on this post, The Wild Hunt's continuing declaration of being "a place where all voices can be heard" struck me.    I respect that, as a large pan-pagan news blog, there's a natural desire to both be and appear neutral on contentious issues like this one.  But the problem with being "a place where all voices can be heard" is that, to be quite blunt, not all voices deserve to be heard.  When some voices are spreading misinformation and causing harm, they don't need to be heard.  To use a worn-out old example, if someone stomps on your foot, and you want to say "Ow that fucking hurt," does a counterpoint "No, it didn't!" really need to be heard, honored, and respected?

Productive dialogue is not always possible in every situation.  And indeed, it is a manifestation of privilege to insist that it should be.  As Sonneillion said on last week's post, we have HAD dialogue.  Tons of it.  Oodles of it.  An entire anthology, "Gender and Transgender in Modern Paganism".  A conference.  And this still happened again.  We are still having the same damn conversation, the same "dialogue" all over again.  It hasn't worked.  What's that saying, about doing the same thing over again and expecting different results?

Respectful dialogue is not possible, will not be possible, until those who have caused this divisiveness in our community, and those who have supported and defended them in doing so, are willing to back down and listen, which they have shown no signs of.

Respect is earned.  Dialogue is not an obligation on the part of the oppressed.  If the pagan community wants respectful dialogue, hold the oppressors accountable to that standard first.


*I have spent the past week and a half watching an acquaintance of mine (you know, that awkward grey space where you're mutual followers on Twitter and Tumblr and have spoken briefly about inconsequential things but never really interacted more directly, even though you actually like the person and think you might be able to be friends), a pagan trans woman, hurting over this.  I have watched her speak on her blog about how psychically hurt and emotionally weary she is, and how much harm this exclusionary bullshit has done to her, while my heart has ached in sympathy for her pain.  So anyone who wants to argue that this kind of public misgendering and hateful statements isn't *really* harmful, or isn't *really* violence, can GTFO.

Dear President Obama: You can only trot out the same show pony so many times before we start to wonder if you have ANYTHING else in your stable.

Look, I get that women in this country - at least, ones who like their rights - are pretty much up shit creek when it comes to voting options in major elections.  We either vote for the party that actively hates us, or the one that treats us like a reliable but disposable guaranteed vote, patronized in election years and used as a bargaining chip in between times.  So I understand that you're not going to try very hard to make us feel super welcome, because you just don't have to, and I'm sure you're right when you say it's much more important to focus on the coveted "independent" vote.  (Lol, no, I'm not.)

But if you're going to keep tossing out crumbs from time to time to make it look like you're paying attention, could please at least change out the bread in the crumbs bag every now and again?

Because yes, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was good and important and all that (although I've heard it was already basically in the bag before you took office, for all that you are perpetually taking credit for it).  But for fuck's sake, you have made it the centerpiece of EVERY. SINGLE. "WOMEN-FOCUSED". CAMPAIGN EFFORT. FOR. THE. PAST. THREE. YEARS.

And here it is again:

A screencap of President Obama's Facebook page, showing a status update that links to a video titled "President Obama on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act"; text accompanying it reads ""Policies that help women are policies that help our families - and our economy - grow stronger." President Obama reiterates a message from his State of the Union address: Equal work deserves equal pay."

When you push the same stale "victory" at us over and over again for three years, it sort of lends itself to the impression that you really don't have anything else to offer.  (As indeed you don't.)  You could have mentioned this past year's War on Women and how shameful the unrelenting onslaught of attacks on a Constitutionally-protected right are.  You could have talked about how your administration has been aggressively using the FACE Act to prosecute anti-abortion protesters who interfere in people's access to clinics.  You could have commented on your administration standing firm on the requirement that employers who provide health insurance include contraceptive coverage, even in the face of pressure from religious figures like the USCCB.  And yet you chose, yet a-fucking-gain, to parade the LLFPA as your token commitment to women.

Why???

It's not just that I'm sick of hearing about it, although I am.  I am genuinely wondering why you seem to think that fair pay is the ONLY women's issue worth mentioning, ever?

I am also more than a little annoyed at the defensive framing of the commentary on it - the emphasis on "it helps our families and especially the economy!" - as if simply doing the right thing to treat women fairly under the law isn't its own justification, isn't enough, but must be For The Families and For The Economy.  I also take issue with referring to it as "helping".  "Helping" implies optional, implies choosing to be nice to someone out of the goodness of your heart.  Fair pay laws are not "help", they're fucking justice.  They are an attempt to enforce a minimum standard of fairness and basic equality.  I realize that doesn't make as good a sound bite, but the paternalistic attitude of "We're helping women, because it helps their families, and because The Economy" is really starting to grate on my nerves.

I talked, not too long ago, about how token crumbs actually work to highlight the inadequacy of said crumbs, rather than being a true motivator of loyalty and positive regard.  At this point, trotting out the LLFPA show pony functions the same way.  It simply shows how little you are interested in either taking strong action to support this constituency, or even pointing out the other small ways in which you have actually done so, and by doing so, demonstrates just how little regard your administration/the Democratic establishment has for women.

We may have nowhere else to go, practically speaking.  But the more you distance yourselves from us on the assumption that having nowhere else to go means we'll stay with you, the more you risk losing us anyway.  We may not vote for your opponents - but many of us won't be particularly motivated to get off our collective ass and vote for you, either.

Patronize us at your own risk, Obama Administration.  You may find one of your most stalwart beams crumbling under you just when you need it most, if you keep this up.

No, he did not "ask for an open relationship"

It seems we have yet another Republican Sexual Hypocrite in Newt Gingrich.  The interview with his ex-wife (video autoplays at link) has been all over the place, and while I am all for calling out RSHs on their hypocrisy, loudly and repeatedly (look, if you're going to run on a platform of "family values", you should probably have some yourself, y'know?), I am really not okay with the way it's being reported by most news outlets.

Newt Gingrich did not "ask for an open relationship."  He had an affair - he cheated on his wife, who had thought they were having a monogamous relationship - and then asked his wife to immediately get over it and accept that he was going to continue having said affair while remaining married to her.  That is not the same thing.  Not even a little bit.

See, I have had a partner ask me for an open relationship before.  The difference between a partner asking for an open relationship, and what Newt did, is that when my then-boyfriend approached me to talk about an open relationship, he did it BEFORE HE SLEPT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.  He came to me and said he had an interest in trying non-monogamy in a relationship (which we'd talked about a little bit before, so it came as no huge surprise) and he had met someone he was interested in pursuing this with, and he wanted to know how I would feel about that.  We talked, I agreed to give it a try, and when after a couple weeks I realize I just couldn't handle it with where we were at in our relationship, I told him, and he broke things off with her.  (We later gave it another shot, and the three of us ended up in a triad relationship, anyway.  All's well that ends well, I guess?)

That is how you do an open relationship.  Not "cheat for years, then admit to it and be like "but I don't want to have to choose between you so I'm just gonna keep fucking you both.  That's cool, right?""

I'm just sick of seeing headlines, articles, and comments, all moralizing and disapproving about Newt's "request for an open relationship" as if that's what's wrong with this situation.  Because it isn't.  Open relationships can be done ethically and with full knowing consent of all involved parties (although admittedly, if your relationship is non-normative in structure, you should probably not be spending a great deal of time and energy judging, condemning, and trying to make discrimination against those of different non-normative relationships even more prevalent and enforced in law), and in an ideal world, having requested an open relationship in a prior situation wouldn't be some sordid mark against you in the public eye.  But the media is presenting this in a way that conflates open relationships with cheating, which is disingenuous and flat-out incorrect.

Newt Gingrich cheated, then tried to weasel out of it.  He did not ask for an open relationship, in any meaningful sense of the phrase.  Period.

To The "Pro-Life Feminist" On Tumblr Today

(Prompted by a small back-and-forth between an anti-abortion "feminist" and myself on Tumblr yesterday and today, consisting of these three posts.)

I snarked at you earlier.  I was a mocking asshole, because that's sort of my style in discussions like this.  I make no apology for it, either.  But I want you to understand the seriousness underlying my snark and rudeness:

You use these certain arguments against abortion; you say that "it's a serious decision" and talk about abortion as "killing one's child" and how abortions not in the case of rape or dangerous health risks are "just a choice, like buying a new purse at the mall" and so on - but when called out, you try to escape responsibility by disclaiming it as "just your opinion" because you, unlike those other anti-choicers, are realistic enough to understand what criminalizing abortion would do, and therefore you don't support making abortion illegal (so therefore I, and other pro-choicers and real feminists, should shut up and leave you alone because you're not trying to have it banned so it's okay, as if criminalization were the only real problem with the anti-choice movement).

The problem with that is that your arguments are exactly the kinds of arguments, exactly the kind of language that gets used by those who do support and actively work toward making abortion illegal.  "It's a serious decision" justifies burdensome waiting periods which necessitate multiple appointments, thus raising the costs of abortion (including travel and accommodation, because nearly 90% of counties in the US don't have an abortion provider so most people have to travel to obtain one) well out of reach for many low-income people, and invasive, propaganda-based "[hyper-, mis-]informed consent" laws designed to scare, guilt, shame, or otherwise emotionally manipulate pregnant people into continuing their pregnancy.  Sensationalizing abortion as "the right to kill my baby" is, well, basically the whole justification for the anti-choice movement, which is not only seeking to completely ban abortion, but would like to take on hormonal birth control as well; specifically, though, that kind of phrasing gets used to push extremist "fetal personhood" measures, which are well-documented to be epic fuckery.  Minimizing and dismissing voluntarily-chosen abortions by comparing it to the frivolous purchase of accessories reinforces right-wing talking points to nurture the stereotype of people who seek abortions as airheaded sluts who fuck a dozen people and then pop in to the clinic for a quickie abortion between brunch and a manicure - and lest you claim that stereotypes are no big deal, they help to push public opinion toward favoring criminalization, creating a more hospitable social climate for those anti-choicers who do want to see abortion made illegal.

Shorter version of that paragraph: Even if you don't support criminalizing abortion, when you say things like this, you are aiding and abetting those who do.

I speak to you as a person who has used her constitutional right to reproductive self-determination before, and would again if the situation came up again.  I speak as someone who is so horrified and sickened by the thought of being forced - and being pressured is nearly the same thing, it's just enforced by social sanction instead of legal penalties - to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term that I would literally rather die than have my body commandeered and used against me that way.  And when you say these things to me, I don't care that they're only your personal belief and you would never have them brought into law to rule over me, because I live in a country where every day I see and hear people who WOULD have those beliefs legislated onto my body against my will speaking the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS that you are using.  When you argue their talking points, using their language, you present yourself to me as one of Them: an enemy, not an ally.

You speak in concert with those who would take my rights away, who would render me only a passenger in my own flesh, subordinated to the needs of an invader I didn't want and didn't ask for, forced to risk my life and health to give it birth.  The distinction of whether or not you would support them in their criminalization efforts is functionally irrelevant to me, because when you parrot their arguments and pass it along, you are another voice for their side - especially if you don't explicitly lay out your beliefs on legislative solutions in contrast to theirs when you speak or write about it.  Simply put, you are strengthening their position.  You are giving them social sanction, making it easier for them to do the work of criminalization, whether you agree with them in that or not.

And I will never be willing to acknowledge the label of feminist when it is worn by someone who, even indirectly, supports the anti-choice movement.  You are, at best, a badly misguided fauxminist; at worst, a colluder actively perpetuating our oppression.  You are not, in any sense of the word, a feminist.

I can only conclude that "religion" does not mean what I thought it meant.

Because if saying that a governmental goal "cannot be achieved apart from reliance on Almighty God" is not imposing religion, I cannot even begin to fathom what their test is for defining something as "requiring religion". 

This stems from a piece of Kentucky's Antiterrorism Act of 2002, wherein the legislature held that "the safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance on Almighty God as set forth in public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents...."  In 2006, this was enhanced by regulations (PDF) requiring the state Department of Homeland Security to publicize this "finding" of the legislature by including the reliance-on-Almighty-God language in its training and educational materials.  These were challenged by American Atheists; a district court judge struck down the provision - rightly concluding that "the General Assembly has created an official government position on God" - then the state took it to the appeals court, which inexplicably held that the language about "Almighty God" is not attempting to compel belief or participation in religious exercise.

Which, um.  To borrow a turn of phrase*, I don't so much beg as command to differ.

The appeals court held that

The Kentucky legislature has not attempted to compel belief or participation in any form of religious exercise, nor does it seek to prefer one belief over another. A simple reference to a generic “God” acknowledges religion in a general way.

The notion of a phrase like "Almighty God" being a "general" reference to religion as a whole can only come from one's vast and unexamined reservoir of Christian privilege.  It's the sort of thing a person would say if they've never really thought of the fact that "religion" is an extremely broad term encompassing dozens or even hundreds of distinct belief structures, only a few of which would use a phrase like "Almighty God" in that context.

Allow me to say this bluntly and explicitly for those who would agree with this finding: "God" is not a religiously-neutral term in any way, shape, form, or fashion, especially when "God" is capitalized and used like a name would be.  The only possible way you could believe that would be if you defined "religion" as meaning "Judaism, Christianity, or Islam", all of which have at the center of their beliefs a singular male deity.  Those are not, however, the only faiths to fall under the umbrella term "religion". 

No, what you mean when you say "God" - especially a phrase like "Almighty God", which is straight out of Christian liturgy - is "religiously neutral" or is "acknowledging religion in a general way", is rather that "God" is nonsectarian, not explicitly indicating a specific denomination of Christianity.  It does, however, explicitly exclude numerous pagan beliefs which either hold no gods (only goddesses), or many gods (none of which would be called capital-G God or Almighty God), or the Wiccan god who would be referred to as *the* God, not "Almighty God".  It explicitly excludes Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism.

Really, the idea of "Almighty God" as "acknowledging religion in a general way" is utterly absurd, and attempting to defend it as such only shows how deeply ingrained your prejudice and privilege are, that you don't realize that "religion" does not mean "all the denominations of Christianity".

Furthermore, even if the phrase "Almighty God" were truly religiously neutral, to use it in the context it is in - to affirmatively declare that "reliance on Almighty God" is a requirement in order to secure the safety of one's country - is to attempt to compel belief.  Especially when the phrase is then inserted in the training and educational materials given to state personnel, it is an explicit statement of government speech saying "You must believe in Almighty God in order to do your job."

It preferences belief over nonbelief - and what these Christian-supremacist judges seem to forget is that no matter how general a given acknowledgment of religion in government materials is, it will always exclude atheists entirely.  There exists a "none of the above" response when it comes to religion, and that needs to be respected along with all the various shades of religious belief - which means NOT yanking phrases out of Christian prayers and sticking them in government documents. 

This finding is absurd.  It's expected that the case will be appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court.  I wish them luck, and I wish for the Kentucky Supreme Court all the logic, reason, and perception that prejudice and privilege stole from the appeals court judges.

*From Inga Muscio's book, Cunt

Personhood Amendments Come To California

Personhood amendments: that example of radical anti-choice ideology that goes SO far, even regular anti-choicers are like "Err, no, dude, not that way, okay?"

I mean, we're talking about a movement that gives only the barest of lip service to disavowing actual murderers in their midst, and they will actually come out and oppose these personhood amendments.  Not because they disagree with the premise, more because they think it's too far too fast and the backlash will set them back in terms of PR.

Personhood amendments, for those without their fingers on the pulse of reproductive justice battles *preen preen, smug smug ;-) *, are amendments with Orwellian names like "Human Rights Amendment" and "Respect for All Life Amendment", which declare the legal term "person" to include "all humans at all stages of development from conception to natural death" or some variation on that basic wording.  They're a blatant attempt to end-run around Roe by ensuring that laws against assault, murder, abuse, etc - designed to apply to born people - also apply to fetuses.  They could have a whole host of fucked-up effects, from banning abortion (the core intent) to banning certain forms of contraception, like the IUD and the pill, and banning in vitro fertilization procedures.  They're also intended to provide the vehicle for a case to go to the Supreme Court in the hopes that this court will overturn Roe entirely - which would then allow a number of states with "trigger measures" on the books to immediately go into effect and ban abortion entirely.

They are, in other words, the most extreme anti-choice legislation ever, and Really Fucking Bad News.  (Also ridiculous, medically and scientifically speaking, as we have no way of identifying the moment of conception, only implantation; but then, we all know anti-choicers are not on speaking terms with science.)

Colorado overwhelmingly rejected their personhood amendment - twice.  Ohio has a measure on the ballot for this coming year, although the Attorney General and Personhood Ohio are wrangling over the summary language to be included on the ballot - the AG refused to certify their summary because it was misleading, and Personhood Ohio is appealing.  Mississippi is the "state to watch" for 2012 personhood amendments, with an amendment on the ballot and frighteningly high approval rate in polls.  Personhood USA's stated goal is to get these awful amendments on the ballot in every state across the nation.

And now, it seems, California's time has come.  The absurdly-titled "California Human Rights Amendment" has been submitted to the Attorney General's office for certification.  The AG is to certify the proposed title, language, and summary, after which proponents can start gathering signatures to put it on the ballot.

Frankly, this is fucking California.  We won't even pass a parental notification law (although they keep trying; 3 out of the last 4 elections.  You'd think they'd eventually learn it's not going to happen).  So normally I'd just scoff and write it off as anti-choice fever dreams.  Except for the language they're using.  Take a look:

"The term "person" applies to all living human organisms from the beginning of their biological development, regardless of the means by which they were procreated, method of reproduction, age, race, sex, gender, physical well-being, function, or condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability. "

Compare that with the Mississippi version...

Section 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."

Or the Colorado version...

 Section 32. Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the term "person" shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.

Not that I have no faith in my fellow Californians - okay, maybe I don't; sorry, y'all, but you *did* pass Prop H8 - but I notice they've padded out the California version of this crap with all the sort of anti-discrimination-law-language that will appeal to the "token liberal" type - you know, the person who believes in human rights but isn't inclined to do much research on things before voting?  And I don't think it's accidental that they've sort of tucked this "*cough*beginningofbiologicaldevelopment*cough*" bit in among a whole lot of "age race sex gender disability protections yay" fluff, all of which is *already* covered in California's nondiscrimination laws.

No, this is pretty definitely an attempt to appeal to our collective liberal identity as The Right Sort of Person, you know, the kind of person who supports human rights and will vote in favor of them, by tacking on the name of "Human Rights Amendment" and adding lots of irrelevant reiterations of current nondiscrimination laws in the hopes that we won't look too hard past that. 

I can't decide if I find it infuriating or amusing. 

Actually, I take that back; I know exactly what I find it: frightening.  It's a targeted message that shows an unfortunate level of understanding of the bulk of moderate voters here in California, and I am not at all sure of pro-choice organizations' ability to mount an extensive, expensive, well-publicized education campaign to combat the lazy feel-good vote in favor of something called a "Human Rights Amendment", no matter what that amendment would actually do.

Meditations on a Word: Flattering

Wherein I ruminate and ramble and share a brief moment of "ding!"...

I had this thought the other night.  I've gained weight, you see, from my high school size of a 10/12ish (US) up to around a 16/18 these days.  And I'll be honest, I'm kind of struggling with my self-image and how to feel beautiful in a body my culture emphatically and repeatedly tells me is UGLY and DISGUSTING and THE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL IN THE VERSE. (The irony, of course, is that were it not for such messages that made me feel unacceptably big even at my smallest adult size, I wouldn't have dieted my metabolism into the ground and gained 100lbs over the past 7 years.  Diet culture is what *made* me fat.)

Anyway, I was talking to myself about fashion, and clothes, and fit, and how to look good and more importantly, feel like I look good in my clothes at this size.  And I tried on for size (pun fully intended) the cop-out line of "it doesn't have to make me look skinny, so long as it's flattering."

But then it occurred to me: what else is "flattering" code for, in this context, but "skinny"?  We say clothes flatter us when they smooth our lumps and rolls, when they create visual illusions of height and a curve from waist-to-hip and fuller, higher, rounder breasts.  Hmm.  Smooth lines, height, hourglass figure.  What does that sound like? 

Why, our culture's oppressively narrow standard for female beauty, of course!  What we really mean when we say clothing "flatters" us, is "it helps us to inch closer to The Beautiful Body by camouflaging the body that is actually ours, veiling our real flesh in illusion."

Wow.  That's...not an improvement at all, is it?  "It doesn't have to make me look skinny, so long as it flatters me hides my body and makes me seem closer to the idealized standard."

As they say, it's hard to fight the enemy when the enemy has outposts in your own head.

I still don't know, after years of jeans-and-tshirts, what I want my fashion and style to look like.  But I do know, now, that flattering is not a concept I want anywhere near it.

"Just"...Stop.

"Just have it and give it up for adoption."  Because pregnancy and childbirth are totally safe and easy and free of cost, and don't totally change your body and life forever no matter what happens to the child after you give birth, right?

"Just stop taking everything so personally/expecting perfection from yourself/thinking about things so much."  I wish I could, but see, I have this brain that kinda doesn't let me stop doing those things.  What, you think I *like* being obsessively miserable and hating myself for every tiny failure in my entire lifetime?  Does that sound like fun to you or something?

"Just eat healthier and exercise more."  I've never thought of that before!  How incredibly simple!  Except that I can't afford much produce, don't like or know how to cook more than the couple meals I eat all the time, can't force myself to enjoy vegetables despite trying and trying, and dislike the taste of water.  Oh, also I have chronic back problems and low energy and am cripplingly self-conscious about exercising in front of other people, so any exercise I have to do has to be low-to-no-impact, easy, and something I can do in my house while my partner is at work, without boring the crap out of me.

JUST: (adv.) merely, simply.

I hate this word.  It minimizes.  It trivializes.  "Just" do this, or that.  It tells me the person speaking thinks the action should be easy.  It ignores circumstances and individual capabilities in favor of a normative narrative of what "everyone" should be able to do.  It also implies a moral judgment - the speaker obviously believes the course of action is not only easy, by their own arbitrary standards (usually heavily influenced by society's standards, of course), but the *right* thing to do.  It erases conflicting emotions and tells you the choice should be easy, and therefore being conflicted about it is wrong.  It invalidates peoples' feelings and experiences. 

From a stranger or ideological opponent, it's sneering, condescending.  From a loved one, it's even more damaging, a slap in the face.  It is the worst word, a metric fuckton of condescension, patronization, minimization, trivialization, all wrapped up in four innocent letters.

So please.  If you are ever tempted to 'splain someone's situation and the course of action you think they should take by saying "just do X", DON'T.  No matter how obvious the solution seems to you.  Just don't.  Step back, think about why they might not have done that yet, and find a way to offer advice - IF they asked for it in the first place, which in my experience the object of this unfortunate phrase usually didn't - that doesn't imply that the person is stupid for how they've handled themselves and their situation so far.  Respect their decisionmaking process.  Try giving them the benefit of the doubt - try assuming that they *do* know what they're doing, and that they *do* have reasons for handling things the way they have. 

But for the love of all that was, is, and ever will be..."Just" stop.

Feel free to add and vent about other "just" experiences you've had to deal with in comments.

Phobia != Bigotry

You may have noticed that my posts of late do not use the terms homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, etc. anymore*.  Basically, I was informed that terms using the -phobia suffix, despite being in wide popular use, conflate mental illness with bigotry and violence, give inappropriate credibility to the "gay panic" or "trans panic" defenses when straight/cis people commit violence against queer/trans people, and, much like calling Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann "crazy", smear people with actual phobias by appropriating their disability to describe despicable attitudes and people.

Terms like heterosexism (replacing homophobia), cissexism (replacing transphobia), monosexism (replacing biphobia), and Islamobigotry/anti-Islam bigotry (replacing Islamophobia), aren't all that hard to introduce to one's lexicon and convert to general use.  Certainly no harder than learning not to use "lame", or "crazy", or other ableist slurs.  I like them additionally because they put the focus back on the dominant/oppressive side of the dichotomy by clearly noting who the problem is right there in the word.

But even if all the other reasons were wrong**, it would still be better to change from -phobia language, because it makes it a lot harder for asshats to pull shit like this.

For many people “homophobia” is actually about “having a fear of being accused of being bigoted, prejudiced or discriminating against homosexual people”. This fear, which is increasingly common, causes people to take a defensive posture in order to avoid attracting disapproval or adverse publicity. ... For people who don’t hate, dislike or fear gay people, but simply believe that sex between people who are not married (including all sex between those of the same sex) is morally wrong, we need a new term. I’d like to propose the term “homoskeptic” - a term that is not yet in common use and hence arguably open to (re)definition.

Using -phobia language leaves a nice little loophole for the bigots to exploit.  They can say "I don't fear gay people!" and thus deflect critique off into speculation of their *real* feelings about teh gayz, diverting attention from the oppression and bigotry they're perpetuating. It allows this jackass to turn the fear-connotation of using -phobia around and twist it into the Good Christian's fear of The Gay Mafia and their notorious jackbooted enforcers.  It lets him pose bigots as the victim and their ideology as reasonable, not a phobia, but simply skepticism, which is a healthy quality, right?

But the last lol came from a comment to the post on NOM's blog, by commenter Anonygrl:

I would like to suggest that people who don't hate or fear African Americans but simply think that they are morally inferior should be called afroskeptics. And people who don't hate or fear women but think that they just shouldn't get paid the same as men or have control of their own bodies should be gynoskeptics.
No matter what you call yourselves, if you are doing so to justify denying rights to another group (and that is what you are doing with homosexuals) then the correct term you should be using is bigot.

Word.

*If you have seen me slip up in this, please do let me know, either in comments or via email, and I will change it.
**However, they are not wrong, and this will not be up for debate here.  Additional commentary on the harms of -phobia language may be found here and here if you want or need further reading on the subject.

What Trigger Warnings Are Not

Trigger warnings are not censorship.

Trigger warnings are not "keeping you from speaking your truth."

Trigger warnings are not "stifling your free expression."

Trigger warnings are not about you not saying things.  They are about how you say things.  They are about courtesy, by giving people a chance to prepare themselves for potential consequences if they read what you go on to say.  They are about compassion and concern for your fellow beings.  They are about giving other people the option to look away, instead of shoving painful stuff in their face with no warnings.  They are about giving other people the right to make an informed choice about what they can handle in that moment and trusting them to make their own decisions, instead of making the decision for them. 

I have not always been the best at remembering to add TWs to posts here.  For that, I apologize.  It's a reflection on my privilege that I don't *have* to always remember what to put warnings on.  I am trying to do better with it.  Again, if my forgetfulness has hurt anyone, I'm sorry.

I just wanted to post this because a women's spirituality community that I spend a fair amount of time on had a bit of a dustup last month about diet/weight-loss threads being triggering to people with disordered eating pasts.  And we discussed trigger warnings, and a few people said things like "Well, I'll try to add TWs since you say it would help, but I won't let it stop me from speaking my truth here!  I won't censor myself.  Etc."  And I know the issue has come up before, but I wanted to do my part to clear up the misunderstanding a lot of people seem to have about what trigger warnings are...and what they aren't.

Speak your truth.  Don't censor yourself.  Say what you want and need to say.  But if it's a graphic description of how depression feels, or your experiences of sexual violence, or the eating disorder you struggle with, etc...put a goddamn trigger warning on it out of courtesy to the people around you.

That is all.  Carry on.

The Bible Is Not Cut-and-Paste, kthx.

I was reading a post at Right Wing Watch (bringing me the best of wingnuttery daily since...whenever I RSS'ed them) about some jackhole (Rick Barton of Wallbuilders, if anyone cares) laying out a Biblical case for industry deregulation (for the love of all the gods, the Bible laid out rules for a tribal society in the Bronze Age.  We are not there anymore.  Can we stop trying to pattern our laws on that?)...and this bit caught my eye.  He was quoting the Bible, a few verses in 1 Timothy that describes who the laws should be applied to:

So it says "we know the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, and homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine."

That caught my eye.  I haven't read the whole Bible, but I'm fairly well-versed in the arguments for and against a Biblical treatment of homosexuality, and one of the things I know is that the Bible is really, really nonspecific about homosexuality per se.  There's much talk of "sexual immorality" but it's not really defined as a homosexual thing.  It seemed odd to see it in this context, so I went to one of the many Bible-verse-lookup websites out there and searched.  This is the version of this passage that I found, 1 Timothy 1:9-10:

We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, ¹⁰for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine

Funny.  I don't see "and homosexuals" in there.  Even in a discussion of Biblical economic policy, the gay-hating was SO IMPORTANT that this asshole felt the need to insert homosexuality into the list of Bad People.  


Dude.  It's your holy book, which you believe was inspired by your omnipotent God.  If he'd meant for homosexuals to be on the list of Bad People, don't you think he would have put that there himself?  And since he didn't, who the fuck do you think you are to do it for him?  If you're going to claim the excuse of religion to support your bigotry, you could at least have the courtesy to work with the religious text as-is, not your edited version of it.  I seem to recall that the God of the Bible was not a huge fan of arrogance.  You might want to re-think yours.

It's Personal.

There's a cop-out I see come up fairly often, among homophobes, that I'm feeling the need to address.  Because they don't want to be rightfully seen as the hateful fucks they are, they try to "soften" it - you all know the drill.  "Love the sinner, hate the sin," and all that crap.  I see that one a lot.  But there's another one I see a lot, too.  "It's nothing personal."  It's a variant on LTS,HTS.  "It's nothing personal; I don't have a problem with you as a person, I just can't support your lifestyle."  That's one I heard a couple of times in that one awful class period, the purported separation of hate for a person from hate for their sexual orientation.


And it is, flatly, pure Grade-A bullshit.


To anyone who has ever said this - for example, Oklahoma City Councilman Brian Walters, whose quote of "It's not personal. I don't hate these people. It's just a moral conviction; I cannot support them" inspired this post - let me say it simply so you can never say you misunderstood.


This is never not personal.


It cannot ever be not personal.


For you, sitting high on your good fortune to be born with a sexual orientation widely accepted and promoted by the culture you live in, it's not personal.  For you, who has never been challenged or threatened or had people insist that you "chose" to love who you love, it's not personal.  For you, who never faced being thrown out of your home and family, harassed, taunted, even murdered for loving who you love, it can be not personal.  For you, to whom the laws provide support and encouragement in your establishment of a family, it can be not personal.  For you, who have never been accused of "shoving your preferences in other peoples' faces" for the simple act of holding hands, or kissing your partner on the cheek, or even just talking with coworkers about going to the movies with your partner over the weekend, it can be not personal.


But for those of us who are queer in one flavor or another, it is always, inevitably, unshakably personal.  You are not, with your half-masked hateful words, attacking some nebulous, hypothetical "lifestyle".  You are attacking us.  You are telling me that the love I felt for my ex-girlfriend wasn't real, or was somehow bad, wrong, deviant, immoral, etc.  You are telling the children of LGB parents that their moms or dads are bad people.  You cannot speak out against such a core identity as who one loves and partners with, without speaking out against the people who hold that identity.  These are not separate or separable things.  Yes, we are more than just sexual orientation, but that orientation forms a deep and abiding part of the whole, and you cannot extract it to attack without hitting the person around it, too.


So please.  Stop trying to pretend you'd like us as people if only we wouldn't be so very gay at you.  If you're going to hate us, be honest and hate us.  The compassionate face you try to put on it is not compassionate at all, and it's not fooling anybody. 

Wednesday WTF: Well, At Least You're Being Honest

Wednesday WTF is back!  For my newer readers, it was a thing I used to do, every Wednesday, posting the most ridiculously WTF thing of the week as my Wednesday WTF.  I quit for awhile, but I'm reinstating the practice as of this week.  Yay!

This renewal of the Wednesday WTF comes courtesy of the burqa fight in Europe.  It's already been covered elsewhere just how fucked up this idea is, particularly as it uses an appropriation of feminist principles and language to justify racism and further oppressing the women of the already-oppressed group by targeting their specific accoutrements, thus neatly allowing anti-Muslim governments to oppress Muslim women in the name of women's liberation.  But I want to point out something very simple that apparently did not manage to make it to the notice of Jean-Francois Cope, majority leader in the French National Assembly, when he was writing and titling his op-ed.

Titling it "Tearing Away the Veil" does nothing to advance your claim that it's not about stigmatizing or oppressing Muslim women.  I don't care how cute the phrase is, you're arguing that this is not a targeted move against women who veil in the same breath that you use a title of violent imagery that summons a mental picture of someone forcibly ripping off a woman's burqa/niqab.  Message consistency FAIL.

But hey, at least you're being honest about what you're trying to do here.