New fave blog.

http://thedealwithdisability.blogspot.com

This is the blog of a highly intelligent and very physically disabled queer woman with cerebral palsy.
She mainly blogs the strange (and sometimes nice) ways in which people talk to and treat her - including a homeless man who tried to give her money, Jehovah's Witnesses trying to cure her and customer service assistants patting her on the head. ('My aide and I were looking at each other like, WTF.)

She writes in a fabulously sarcastic tone, but is also really non-judgmental about people who do treat her in a strange way. My new hero. Check it out.

good on you, joel burns.

For standing up and telling your story in a city council meeting full of people, in real time, where you knew you could not cut or edit it before it hit the internet. This just made me cry so much. In a good way.

Time of the Month Tiger

This is my new favourite website.

I feel like it adequately sums up how shit periods can be. Also - frankness is good.
Luckily I barely get periods anymore, but there was a time when I felt the world was falling out of my vagina.

"Women need abortions and I'm going to do them" - George Tiller, MD

Killed May 2009 in a hate incited murder.



Via Jezebel

Fat Talk Free Week

So apparently, it's Fat Talk Free Week. The aim is to shift towards a more constructive dialogue on body image, in order to challenge eating disorders and other harmful consequences of people being socialised to be dissatisfied with their bodies. So for Fat Talk Free Week, the idea is that you pledge not to engage in "fat talk" -- that is, in talk that reinforces the ultimately damaging idea that there is a "right" size and look. The webpage describes "fat talk" as:

Examples of fat talk may include: “I’m so fat,” “Do I look fat in this?” “I need to lose 10 pounds” and “She’s too fat to be wearing that swimsuit.” Statements that are considered fat talk don’t necessarily have to be negative; they can seem positive yet also reinforce the need to be thin – “You look great! Have you lost weight?”

This sounds just amazing, y'all. I'm totally signing up.

--IP

"The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be / and no child of mine will be contained in five letters"

This is old-school awesome. The idea that we shouldn't have to be constrained by "pretty" always rings true, in feminism and queer politics. And, well, life in general. Sometimes poets just say things best.

(I am forever grateful to my parents, who told me that I was gorgeous but never, ever told me what that meant.)

The Apprentice: Sexism, Objectification, and Bully Boys

So here's some trad feminism, apologies for the lack of queer...

On the second week of the current series of the Apprentice (UK version) I was absolutely appalled. The contestants were asked to design a product to be used on the beach and then to sell that product to retailers. So far, so standard. But I was shocked and appalled when the person who was project managing the task on the "boys' team" (Sralan's - or should that be Lord Sugar's - words not mine) was asked to 'model' the product wearing what my mother would call 'skimpy' clothing.

And, surprise, surprise, she was the only woman on the team. It was disgusting to see them slobbering over the idea of getting her to be photographed in the clothes and describing it as 'taking one for the team' (sexual much?).

I'm surprised and shocked there hasn't been more comment on this so thought I'd fill the gap slightly by adding my views.

It is supposedly a programme promoting entrepreneurship and business - but instead it became a group of men making a highly intelligent successful businesswoman model beach clothes - and here's the wrong part - against her will. She was so clearly embarassed, telling Nick to 'look away, I don't want you to see me like this.' Also, she was project-managing the task, and she said, 'I might have other things to do... I'm supposed to be managing you all." Yet they essentially bullied her into it: 'Come on mate, take one for the team!'

I was absolutely disgusted by the men on the team's behaviour and surprised the production team or Nick didn't point out what pigs they were being. To be fair, the narration was scathing of their behaviour, but someone should have stepped in.

Here is a clip.

Allies

All the debates around the the 'It Gets Better' project have been really illuminating. The problems with telling people to wait it out are really important ones, and the 'Make It Better' project is, I think, a good response. It points towards collective action to change heterosexist society, instead of just sitting it out until you can assimilate into grown-up life; to not putting up with an oppressive situation or just fitting in as much as you can, but taking action for our own liberation.

'It Gets Better' is trying to create a sense of community, and that's really important, but taking action as a community to improve things is more important still. Sometimes, though, I think we get too focussed on our community in quite a narrow sense – other queers, who 'get it' and live in a similar way. We sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that straight people don't have a place in our fight, like feminists sometimes forget that men have a place in feminism too. But in those high schools, it's not just the job of the LGBTQ kids to band together to make things better, it's also the job of the straight kids to listen to them, to help them, to stick up for them, to not be the bully. That shouldn't even need to be said, but it seems that it does. Those kids weren't to blame for giving up, and the queer community, while it could have done better, isn't to blame either. The people to blame are the bullies and the homophobes.

I like the Gay-Straight Alliance idea that seems to be the basis for LGBTQ groups in high schools in the US. It's community building without being homogenising (although, obviously, I'd probably change the name...), and it speaks to something that, the way I see it, queer politics strives towards – unity in difference. Solidarity across imposed lines.

So, on Coming Out Day, I want to say thanks to my straight allies. These things should be rights, not privileges, and thanks should not be needed - I almost didn't write this, because it feels like acquiescing to some idea that we should be grateful for acceptance, which is obviously bullshit. But allies are exceptional in doing something that should be ordinary, and, in a similar sentiment to IP's last post, I don't take that for granted because many people can't expect it.

It was a straight-identified friend who was the first person, ever, to ask me if I had a preferred pronoun: thanks for being considerate and aware. Another straight friend spent his bank holiday Saturday in August helping out with a protest against homophobic Christians harassing Manchester Pride parade: thanks for taking action. My straight friends in college were really supportive of me being queer: thanks for making coming out so easy.

National Coming Out Day

...Is today.

For me, it's mostly a day when I remember how lucky I am. There are so many days I feel a bit tired and burned out, but not today. Today is a day when I'm proud of my family and my friends, because they're people among whom I feel safe and strong, and I don't take that for granted. I know other people don't have that.

Have a good one, whoever you are and however you identify.

--IP

More thoughts prompted by It Gets Better

The message of the It Gets Better project is largely, "hang on until you're all grown up, and then things will be better because you won't have to be around the people who are shitty to you."

Great. Except. It's not always true.

Not everyone can leave abusive environments. Some people can't, because they don't have the resources, the support from a community, the money to pick up and move (which generally requires up-front-cash, not the ability to earn cash), or because of fear of extreme violence if they attempt these things.

When someone is in this kind of situation, they are being failed by their community. We, as a community, ought to provide the resources or reduce the need for them. We ought to provide safe places for people from all kinds of backgrounds, for free. We ought to provide money and resources for people who don't have access to enough themselves. We ought to provide psychoemotional support for those who need it. And we ought not to tolerate abuse in the first place -- in schools or universities or families or anywhere else.

Renee Martin has an excellent piece up at Womanist Musings on bullying not being specific to LGBT kids. It's not just queer kids who desperately need to be told something more than "wait it out", it's also disabled kids, girls, poor kids, children of colour, and any child or teenage who is Othered or abused by their community or family.

Which brings me to another trend I'm noting. Desperation, depression, and suicidality are being framed as a very specific problem which will go away as soon as you get away from the bullies. That's lots of people's experience. But for some people, desperation and related mental health issues are longer-term. That does not mean that things don't get better and become manageable. It does mean that the message of hope needs to be more than "you can get away from the bullies" (even in cases where that message is true). It needs to be something about accessible support that will continue, for as long as you need it. Living with a long term mental-health condition does not have to mean that your life is unmanageable, that your life is tragic, etc. It does mean that you deserve support from the people around you.

But it's also true that my response to the It Gets Better project is not everyone's response, nor should it be. AnnaJCook has a great post up on the importance of context and the diversity of narratives, in which she also discusses a number of the critiques that have been made of the It Gets Better project.

There are a great many times that what I want to see is people marching and shouting "WE WILL NOT LIVE IN FEAR, AND WE WILL NOT TOLERATE ABUSE OR A LACK OF SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITH ABUSE!" and not hear "just wait it out, and maybe the abuse will stop". But that's my reaction, because of my context, it's not everyone's. And of course, a message of hope, any message of hope, can be helpful too, sometimes. And as J Wallace notes, one advantage of the It Gets Better Project is that an awful lot of people are talking openly about feeling or having felt desperate and suicidal and how to address that, and the importance of that alone can't be underestimated. We do need, urgently, to talk about the prevalence of mental ill health and suicidal feelings among queer people, and how to best offer support, and how to promote social change. These are not orthogonal projects.


I admire what the It Gets Better project is trying to do, I really do, and a great many people have said a great many loving things from the bottom of their hearts, and more power to them. And I think we need to focus on making sure that everyone, whether queer or not, whether a child or not, has good support, and that the world keeps changing for the better.

We have our work cut out for us.


--IP

Last night

Following Katherine's lead, here's a short thing I scribbled today.

Last Night

After the suicided kids,
my heart breaks for the clarity
of the Big Bear, guiltily,
thinking how their despair
gives me the fury to
fight back.

Teen suicides

What with being USian and all, I've been hearing a lot about four very recent cases in which teenagers have committed suicide following homophobic bullying in the USA.

The columnist Dan Savage launched a project called It Gets Better. The way it works is this: you make a video for LGBT teens talking about why it gets better, and upload it to YouTube, and it's supposed to give hope to teens feel without any.

The activist S. Bear Bergman posted a response to the project:

"It Gets Better"? Swell. No disrespect to the people who have contributed video to that project in with great and loving hearts, but it's simply not enough. What about the "It Sucks Now" project?

Give your videocamera to a student; let them film what life is like for someone tagged as queer or trans or gender-nonconforming at their school. Then fill YouTube with those videos. Send them to principals, PTAs, school boards, legislators, religious leaders and let them see the physical and emotional brutality some of their students are suffering, and others are meting out. Demand to know why this behavior is tolerated, why nothing is being done for these students.

As was pointed out by someone in the comments of Bergman's thread, these are intersecting, not contradictory projects. It's absolutely true that students who experience bullying on a routine basis need hope, and need to know that they can survive this. It's also true that "wait it out" or "try to ignore it" is not enough.

I would also like to note while this project makes very clever use of widespread technology, and I note that there are major issues with intersectionality here. Transcripts and close-captions seem not to be available for the majority of videos, the majority of videos seem to be by White people, and the people who may be most isolated are those who cannot access the technology or deal with multiple prejudices. We know that people who experience multiple prejudices are more likely to experience violence and harassment.

That doesn't mean that I think the project is useless -- far from it. Anything you can do to stop the here-and-now pain is good. I also think that the longer-lasting, deeper, hope is created when we create stronger protections for students, when we stop excusing bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Things don't get better all on their own. This is a change we have to make in the world.

So here's what you can do: write to your elected representatives, wherever you live, and ask about anti-bullying legislation, and demand support for anti-bullying education for teachers and students.

Also, I like Ellen DeGeneres's take:




Transcript:

I am devasted over the death of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi. If you don't know Tyler was a bright student at Rutgers University whose life was senselessly cut short. He was outed as being gay on the internet and he killed himself. Something must be done. This month alone there have been a shocking number of news stories about teens who have been teased and bullied and then committed suicide, like 13-year-old Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California, 13-year-old Asher Brown in Cypress, Texas, and 15-year-old Billy Lucas in Greensburg, Indiana. This needs to be a wake-up call to everyone that teenage bullying and teasing is an epidemic in this country and the death rate is climbing. One life lost in this senseless way is tragic. Four lives lost is a crisis. And these are just the stories we hear about. How many other teens have we lost, how many others are suffering in silence? Being a teenager and figuring out who you are is hard enough without someone attacking you. My heart is breaking for their families, for their friends, and for our society that continues to let this happen. These kids needed us and we have an obligation to change this. There are messages everywhere that validate this kind of bullying and taunting and we have to make it stop. We can't let intolerance and ignorance take another kid's life. And I want anyone out there who feels different and alone to know that I know how you feel. And there is help out there, and you can find support in your community. If you need someone to talk to or you want to get involved, there are some really great organisations listed on our website. Things will get easier, people's minds will change, and you should-- you should be alive to see it.

Her website, that she mentions is here, and they do indeed list contact details for US-based organisations. If you live in the UK, try the Samaritans, and if you live elsewhere, you can find a helpline from Befrienders International.

--IP