Always Wear a Belt to The Punk Rock Show, Always Remember to Dance

Emma Goldman said "If there's no dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming"

Revolution is so punk rock, right? And who has ever gone to a punk rock show where no one danced. I haven't.

I love dancing. I've been dancing since I could walk, at one point I thought I wanted to pursue dancing as a career. I place high value on going out on the weekends to dance, because it helps me get out of my head. And that's really important.

The best thing about dancing at a punk rock show is that it's not about being sexy or talented or looking good at all. It's about having a blast and not giving a fuck. Make a fool out of yourself, flail around like an idiot, move, dance, be in the moment. Don't give a fuck.

I feel like in activism, we sometimes get so wrapped up in all of the shit that's making us angry; the things that the other side is doing, the rights we still don't have, the politics and politicians getting in the way of those rights and the general societal bullshit that stops anyone from making any changes because we're stuck. Or we're tired, or too frustrated to think straight.

Sometimes it's all too much. How do you deal?

Dance! Or something. Whatever, just get yourself out of your head and away from the stress of being an activist. Because it's a lot to deal with sometimes. It's overwhelming, and sometimes you just need to reset in order to come back and deal with it.

And don't forget your belt, no one wants to be pulling their pants up all night.

We Can't be Silent Anymore: Bringing attention to Bullying

Tomorrow, on the Auraria Campus, we will be having an event called "The Day of Noise." We will be making a lot of noise against LGBTQ bullying. Why?

Because we can't be silent anymore.

The idea for the event came when we were talking about GLSEN's National Day of Silence (www.dayofsilence.org) and what event could we hold for it. The National Day of Silence is an event that many high school and college GSAs will take part in. The point is to be silent for a whole day in order to bring attention to the fact that many people on our campuses cannot be open about who they are, for whatever reason. At the end of the day, everyone meets and breaks the silence by making as much noise as possible and being in community with each other. Every time I have participated in this event, it has been an incredibly powerful event, and I would encourage everyone to participate on friday by being silent at all times possible.

However, I am tired of being silent. I'm tired of being silenced. Things are happening to my community and I'm angry.

I want to make some noise!

See, bullying isn't just something that happened in elementary school. It happens in middle and high school too. It even happens in college. And, if it goes unchecked, bullying can turn into harassment and violence.

Last semester the news reported that at least 6 LGBT college and high school students committed suicide because they were bullied about their sexual orientation. This number does not include the hundreds of LGBT suicides that have not been reported in the news.

LGBT youth are 6 times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts. This is not because they are LGBT, but because of the social pressures and bullying that they can experience due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. And it's not just other students who do it. Teachers, faculty and staff can add to the pressure and bully students just as much. Last year at least two gay students made the news because they were not allowed to bring a same sex date with them to the Prom. Try and tell me that's not a form of bullying.

This shit is not okay with me. It's time to shout about it, make it loud. It's time to really be proud of who we are as a community. It's time to come together as a community and support each other.

And, we need to stand up and make some noise. Call people out, make them stop and think, make them as angry about this as we are. Make them change.

Pro-Life or Anti-Freedom?

Today on my campus, there was a huge anti-choice display. We're talking a 20ft tall, 30ft long, big disgusting display of what they would like to tell you abortion looks like, and how it is not humane. This thing was right in the middle of campus, in a place where you could not avoid it, at all. There was a sign that said "warning: graphic pictures ahead" which most people saw AFTER seeing the actual display. The thing took up the entire grassy area where people normally relax during their day, especially on such a beautiful sunny day such as today. I am disgusted.

Beyond my opinions about their opinion, I find this display highly inappropriate. I get free speech, but people have the right to not listen to the bullshit you have the right to spout. No one could avoid this display, it was as big as a ride at an amusement park.

And the thing that really pisses me off is that they say that they're doing this for the women. They're saving the women from the emotional trauma of having an abortion, because women can't be trusted to appropriately deal with the consequences of their choices. Especially the emotional consequences. They need to be protected from the consequences of freedom, so let's take their rights away. (I call bullshit)

What about the women who have had an abortion? How is this disgusting display protecting them from further emotional trauma. Or how about the emotional trauma of having to go through a pregnancy you do not want, and having a child you do not want? What about the emotional trauma the child will go through when they grow up knowing they were not wanted, either because the mother makes it clear or they are adopted. What about that?

It's not like abortion is an easy decision or process. I've been there, I know.

When I was fifteen, I found out I was pregnant with the potential child of the man who was abusing me. Of course I had an abortion, it was my only choice. If I were to tell him, he would have beaten me, blamed me for getting pregnant, for not being on birth control, whatever. I would have probably lost the baby anyways.

And then there was the whole issue of telling my parents. "hey mom and dad, you know how I'm not allowed to date and I'm supposed to wait until I'm married to have sex... well, I'm pregnant." This was not going to happen, I would have been kicked out.

Add the fact that I was totally fucked up on drugs to the whole equation and abortion was the right choice for me to make. It was the hardest decision I've ever made. It was also the best decision I've ever made. For me and the potential life that then inhabited my uterus.

Regardless of that, it was not a fun process, and I would do almost anything to never have to go through it again. It was physically painful, really dangerous (because I couldn't go to a decent clinic without telling my parents), really expensive, and emotionally traumatic. And seeing those signs on campus today was a lot more than I could handle.

What I think they should do, if they really care about women, is to put all that money and energy into education. Fund some comprehensive sex-education programs that teach about protection (barrier and hormonal), sexuality, peer pressure, interpersonal violence, and how to say no until you're ready. Keeping in mind that kids will have sex, it's fun, we were built for it, and abstinence is not the only option. To think otherwise is unrealistic.

Of course, these organizations do not really care about women, or fetuses. They care about keeping women from having rights. They always have, always will. That's why we need to continue fighting for reproductive freedom. It's not just about the right to an abortion, it's about the right to do what you will with your body. From sexual activity to sexual reassignment surgery, it all comes down to freedom of choice. If they take one right away, what else will they take?

It Comes with Privilege: on being Cissexual

Yesterday, I wrote about how women are disconnected with their vaginas, and sometimes hate them based on societal cues about what is acceptable and not acceptable. While this is completely valid for many women, there are other women who do not have the privilege of having a vagina to hate. And many men who have vaginas that they hate more than words can express, and not for the same reasons that women hate their vaginas.

Time for a little trans 101:

Transsexual: For the purposes of this post, we're going to say that someone who is transsexual feels as though they were born in the wrong body and they are either in the process of, planning on, or already have taken action to change those body parts in order to match their gender identity. Trans means change, sex means biological.

*note, not everyone agrees with this definition, and that is ok. This is just the one I'm using for the purposes of this post.

Cissexual: Cis meaning same, sex meaning biological. Someone who is cissexual (or cisgender in some uses of the term) feels as though they were born in the correct body and feels no need to change their genitalia due to gender identity.

And while we're at it, let's quickly go over the difference between biological sex and gender identity. Just so we're all on the same page.

Biological Sex is what's in your pants, or skirt, or whatever. You can be Female, Male, or Intersex. And there are a couple different types of intersex, but I don't know too much about that so I'm not going to try to explain it, just in-case I fuck it up.

Gender Identity is who you feel like in your head. I see it as a spectrum from feminine to masculine, but sort of a scatter-plot of a spectrum. Most people identify somewhere in between masculine and feminine, but some people identify outside of that spectrum altogether. That, however, is another blog post.

Sometimes gender identity coincides with biological sex, but sometimes it does not. Society says that it does, and when it does then female bodied people are expected to be feminine, male bodied people are expected to be masculine. There is not supposed to be a grey area, and intersex people don't really exist. Super black and white.

So, cissexual people often fall into the category of genetalia-matches-gender-identity and they have very few problems navigating within society with regards to their bodies. A cissexual woman may have a distant relationship with her vagina, she may hate how it looks, and she may never touch it, but she does not feel as though it is the wrong part.

A transsexual woman, however, is sickened by her "down there" everyday until she gets surgery to change it. Same with a transsexual man. This dysphoria is something that I will never fully understand.

I am cissexual. I do not hate my cunt, at all. And regardless of how I may feel about my chest, stomach, hips or thighs (and how they all need to be smaller), I will never know what it feels like to be born in the wrong body. I will never go through sexual reassignment surgery, because I do not feel as though I need to reassign my sex. This makes me part of the majority, and that comes with privilege.

I have cissexual privilege. I have it, and I need to be aware of it. At some point I will need to use it to help those who don't have the same privilege. See, just because I can't quite identify with the feelings that others have does not mean that I can't help.

Think of it as a spiderweb. These things are so amazingly engineered, it's awesome. The inside of the spiderweb takes all of the impact, and therefore is the strongest part of the web. The outside is where resources like food and water are gathered. People with privilege are on the outside of the web. They have more access to resources, but are so far apart sometimes that they don't see the inside of the web, where all the people without privilege are. The people on the inside of the web are those with less privilege, and less access to resources. These are also the people who have more shit to deal with. They take the beating.

So, me and my privilege have access to resources that can help break down transphobia and cissexism. But I cannot do it alone. If I break down my little piece of the web, that spider will come right back and fix it. No real damage done to the web, or transphobia. But if the people on the inside of the web break down their piece of the web, that's a whole other story. This does some real damage to the web.

So, my privilege and I come in by helping those on the inside break down the web, because they need the resources to do damage. We all need to work together.

Bottom line: use your privilege wisely.

My Vagina, My Vagina, Me

also published in the Feministing.com community blog. see it at
http://community.feministing.com/2011/04/04/my-vagina-my-vagina-me/

This weekend, I performed in The Vagina Monologues. I would love to go on and on about how amazing the entire experience was and how great our cast was, and how it was a great bonding experience that will bring our feminist community on campus together. Or even how we raised a whole lot of money for a really necessary office on campus. But, this post is not about that.

No, this post is for a woman whose name I never learned. A woman who probably does not realize that it is her, and not the performance, that inspired me. I met her after the Friday night performance, and I may never be the same.

This woman was an older woman, maybe in her fifties or sixties. She was short and quiet, and had a limp. She did not seem very sure of herself, but she needed to tell me something. She waited quietly as I socialized with other members of the audience, my conservative parents included, she waited as the crowd died down, she waited as we cleaned up for the night. She waited, and she mustered, and she glowed.

Finally, she came up to me. She told me that she has a mirror at home, and that she would, finally, after all these years, look at her vagina for the first time, and she expected that she would be in awe. She was inspired by our performance. She was inspired by what we did. She was inspired to do something that is not socially acceptable, or even spoken of. She said she was inspired by us.

Wow. I can't begin to explain how amazing this makes me feel. And also, how sad. How sad is it that we live in a culture where a woman can go her entire life without looking at her vagina, or having an orgasm? How did we become so disconnected from our own body part? It's as normal to have as an arm, or a toe, yet far more integral.

Tampons even have applicators so that we don't have to touch it.

Something went drastically wrong here. See, a man would never go that long without looking at his penis, or pleasuring himself. It is expected and even celebrated when a man is proud of his penis, whereas even saying vagina makes a woman uneasy.

It was not always like this. At one time, the vagina, or cunt as i like to call it, was revered as the center of creative power. Women were revered because of the amazing things our bodies can do. We bleed with the moon, we create life, and we have earth shattering orgasms, sometimes many in a night. When did this stop being awe inspiring? When did vaginas become dirty?

I don't know those answers. Maybe I will someday. What I do know is that this lack of respect for women, and their vaginas needs to end. Just think what could happen is we all started loving ourselves. Women and men, and everyone on between. When our bodies stopped being the enemy and we weren't trying to either adhere to, tear down, or enforce these crazy ideals and boxes and roles. If we could all just... be. How great would that feel?

How many stress related disorders would no longer exist?

Just a thought to leave you with for now.

Why is my Body Under Attack?

Has anyone else noticed the amount of CRAZY coming out of the government lately? It's all getting fucked up, there are state and federal bills being proposed and passed that target women and our uteruses.

In Colorado last election, we had to deal with Amendment 62 which would have defined life as starting at conception. This would have made abortion, the morning after pill, and some other forms of hormonal birth control (including IUDs and The Pill) illegal. This was absolutely crazy pants, but we defeated it. *big sigh*

However, in that same election, we wound up with a republican majority in congress, and they have gone off the deep end with federal cuts that target women. There was a bill to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood, another that redefined rape as only forcible, and another that would have cut funding from the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). And that's only the ones that made the news.

At the state level, things are just as crazy. In Georgia, there were a few bills proposed by representative Bobby Franklin. First, he wants women who have miscarriages to be investigated for murder, by uterus police. Really? Then, in that same week, he proposed another bill that would change the language in judicial proceedings to calling a victim of sexual assault who chooses to report the "accuser" and the perpetrator the "accused." So, you get your house broken into and you're a victim, you get your cunt broken into and you're an "accuser" sorry, but shit don't work like that.

Other states have passed bills that would make cases such as Dr.Tiller's murder legal because they were defending their personal beliefs. Again, shit don't work like that. You can't murder someone and have it be OK, under ANY circumstance other than self defense. And even then, the lines are blurry.

So, there are all these bills out there. People have gone crazy in the government, and somehow this bullshit is passing in congress. What are we going to do about it? Aside from slamming our heads on the table in frustration, of course.

There are rallies being held by pro-choice organizations such as NARAL Pro choice and Planned Parenthood. If you're close to a city where one of those is being held, please try to make it. If not, maybe hold your own rally? Especially if you're a student on a college campus it really doesn't take that much work to hold a rally. I empower you to do it, if it's in Colorado, I'll be there. If you don't want to hold your own rally, attend whatever is happening near you. Any support is helpful.

Other things you can do: Support organizations in your community that support women. Attend The Vagina Monologues, I'm sure there's a performance near anyone in the United States. All of the proceeds from any production of The Vagina Monologues go to organizations that serve women, specifically survivors of interpersonal violence.

You can also volunteer at organizations that support women. These organizations are always looking for people to help with phone banks or putting together literature. Maybe go canvassing closer to election time.

Or, call your representative. If they know that we care about these things, they will be more likely to vote against all this crazy bullshit, and more likely to vote for the few good things that come up.

So, small steps can make a difference. Don't worry, you can make a difference even when things seem overwhelming. For more tips, check out Shelby Knox's article on Abortion Gang on how to deal with this bullshit.

http://abortiongang.org/2011/03/a-pro-choice-activist%E2%80%99s-guide-to-surviving-state-legislative-season/

Vote With Your Money, Honey

So, most monday nights I go to a local gay night club for their weekly Ru Paul's Drag Race viewing party. These viewing parties and the show itself are sponsored by Absolut Vodka, we watch the show with all of the commercials cut except for the ones advertising Absolut, and the drag queen who hosts the viewing party is constantly telling us to drink some Absolut. They even give away a bottle of Absolut each night.

One would think that Absolut, or any other company that advertises on LGBT oriented television is gay friendly, right? But are they? Do they love the gays, or our wallets?

This is not a discussion that hasn't been had before, this idea of whether my generation is the gay movement, or the gay market. We talked about it when Absolut (yes, the same vodka) came out with a special edition pride bottle that was decorated with a rainbow. We've discussed it when it comes to Coors supporting ANYTHING gay.

Most people think that Coors is apologizing for being anti-gay back around stonewall. Back then, we really were a movement, and we boycotted Coors for their anti-gay policies. And they listened. That, is voting with your dollar.

However, somewhere between boycotting Coors and now, we went from boycotting anti-gay companies to supporting gay friendly looking companies. This comes from a good place, that is, supporting LGBTQ and ally owned businesses. But, the companies caught on and, though they may have anti-LGBT policies, advertise during shows geared to LGBT individuals or on LGBT channels (like LOGO and Bravo). Because many individuals are too busy or lazy to do any research on the actual policies the company operates under, we just assume that these companies are LGBTQ friendly.

It used to be mostly alcohol companies that used this marketing plan, but now it's everyone from travel companies to electronics stores. This is not to say that all of these companies have anti-LGBTQ policies, although some do *ahem... Best Buy and Target...* but think about this for a second, we as a market have a lot of power. We as a movement have a lot to achieve.

Why the fuck are we not doing our research? We could, with just our choices of where to shop and what to buy, create some serious change. It's not the only thing we as a movement need to be doing, but it helps, because every small step helps.

Be a movement, not a market. Support companies that actually support LGBTQ rights. Don't support those who don't. See what happens, it might just change some things.

Remember, we are powerful.