Queer Fatigue, Part 2: What Now?

It occurs to me that I am most definitely not the only person in the queer movement to become tired due to the reasons I talked about in my last post. I can't be, because if I'm so passionate about these things, like other people, then wouldn't those other people also get tired or angry over the same things? We're frustrated because nobody is listening. Nobody seems to get our point of view. 

And honestly, this isn't unique to the LGBT or feminist movements, or unique to this time period. First wave feminists had a lot more to risk by fighting for their right to vote. In many cases, these women were going against the will of their husbands, in a time when his word was gospel and you followed it. No matter what. The women at the forefront of this fight went as far as to be put in jail because they were protesting in front of the white house. They gave up their children, their husbands, their reputations, and their legal rights, all for something they cared a whole lot about. And guess what? They won. Women now have the legal right to vote. It took them from the convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, up until 1920 to get it done. That is a long time, did they get tired? yes. Frustrated? yes. But did they give up? Absolutely not. 

Back in the 1950's and 1960s, it was illegal to be gay. The common belief was that homosexuals could be "forcefully assimilated" into heterosexuality. Not only were the gays of that time ignored, they were silenced. And jailed, and beaten, and killed. Did they get tired of fighting? Of course they did. But I would bet that it further motivated them to keep working on their cause. 

And I am further motivated to continue that cause. Because I don't want to be tired and frustrated anymore. I want to move on from this, and the only way to do that is to fight harder. Work harder, and make change happen. 

Sure, it's hard sometimes and we need to take a little break to refresh. Self care is super important to avoid queer fatigue, or burnout. But then it's time to get back at it, more aggressively. Otherwise, nothing will get done, and we'll always be tired. 

Queer Fatigue

I am so tired of being queer. I am so tired of being a feminist.

I am so tired of having to fight for rights that I should always have. I'm tired of doing trainings on LGBT bullying and oppression. I'm tired.

And I'm angry. I'm angry that threre is a need for me to be a queer feminist activist. What exactly am I fighting for that isn't a basic human right? The right to not have the shit beat out of me based on my sexual orientation? Or the right to be treated as an equal regardless of my gender identity? The right to date, fall in love with, and marry whoever I happen to date, fall in love with, and want to marry? The right to make decisions about my own body and my own life, without legal interference.

Wh are these things so difficult for everyone else to understand. Why is it that people of color, LGBT folk, women, and people with disabilities STILL do not have the same rights and privileges as a very narrow group of people included under the white-cisgender-male-able bodied group of people.

What am I missing here? Are we all human, or were we born into some other hierarchy? Please fil me in, because I'm confused as to why I have to fight against this...

And I'm tired of fighting it. I'm tired of not having the rights that all people deserve. I'm tired, and I'm fed up.

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.