Holy crap

Did some more reading on the cis-debate-athon.

Good Goddess some people's heads are just lost up their asses.

Updated the "Cisgendered" post from last Sunday to reflect further thoughts.

But I'm different now!

Hat tip to Hugo Schwyzer today, who made me chuckle and silently cheer with this one;

White people who are tired of talking about race often behave like newly sober alcoholics, eager to “focus on the future” and “forget about the past.” Because they aren’t drinking anymore (or lynching anyone this particular afternoon), they are annoyed when those who have been victimized by their recklessness or their privilege insist on “having a conversation” about what’s happened — and what may still be happening. “But I’m different today”, says the former drunk who’s just taken his 30-day chip at an AA meeting to his wife; “you should trust me now.”

And nod along enthusiastically with this one;

All gender roles are, of course, performances. Whether we’re straight or gay or queer, most of us “play act”. For many of us, that playing has become so deeply ingrained that we are unaware of a distinction between our “true” and our “performing” selves. But even someone who has never taken a gender studies course can figure out that certain ways of “performing” enhance and affirm our sense of ourselves as distinctly feminine and masculine. The woman who says “Wearing lipstick and heels makes me feel more feminine” is acknowledging that her sense of herself as a woman is connected to public performance, just as the guy who says, “I like it when a woman waits for me to hold the door open for her; it makes me feel like a gentleman” is admitting that his sense of gender identity is closely connected to what he does rather than to his biology.
[...]
Sugarbutch’s claim that chivalry is “deeply feminist” is a provocative one, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to make good sense. Sugarbutch makes the case that this deliberate performing of chivalry on her part is rooted in a recognition of just how burdensome the performing of femininity (or femme-ness) is. Doing chivalry is, it seems, rooted in a recognition not of feminine weakness but of the colossal effort of performing as a feminine woman (regardless of the sexual identity of whoever is performing femme.) To not be chivalrous is to claim that the burden of performing gender falls equally on both men and women, on both butch and femme. And that’s preposterous: think of the amount of time anyone performing “butch” has to spend getting ready compared to the amount of time that someone performing “femme” does.

Cisgender

For what it's worth and anyone who is interested...

I am happily, proudly, comfortably, cisgender.

When I found out I had a label besides "default" I honestly did a happy dance inside.

Let me reiterate that...

I am not "normal" versus "deviant." I am not "default" versus "other."

THAT nonsense is the stuff of privilege, and I will not leave mine unexamined, unacknowledged, and in the face of The Others.

Whether I match the box I was given at birth on any particular day, at any particular time, is irrelevant. This is dealing with identity folks, that's a different (though, yes, related) ball game from "how well do I fit societies expectations of a woman".

And if we truly are working towards destroying those boxes they want to put us in, we're going to have to start being more open minded when someone who doesn't fit in OUR box is TELLING US how THEY IDENTIFY.

I was in the room...

...when Rafael spoke truth.

Body Hair

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A couple rather cool stories

First up, we have bicycle porn! What? Yes!

People have made pornography with, on, about, and starring bicycles and the one-night film festival of all of these films is coming to New York City this Saturday. Not only will there be a wide range of films involving bicycles and erotica, but they’re having a costume contest also (you or your bike)! We donated some of the prizes so if you want to win some free sex toys, get dressed up and stop by.

If you don’t live in New York, don’t despair, the Bike Porn is touring so they might come to a city near you.

* 3/13 Minneapolis MN
* 3/14 Chicago, IL
* 3/18 Columbus, OH
* 3/19 Pittsburgh, PA
* 3/22 New York, NY
* 3/26 Washington D.C.
* 3/27 Richmond, VA
* 4/1 Nashville, TN
* 4/4 Salt Lake City, UT

Apparently I missed the San Francisco show. :(

The second thing?

Single mothers work together in Wyoming. This cool story from the NY Times about the group "Climb Wyoming, which takes women who have absorbed a few of life’s body blows — bad or absent men, drugs, public assistance and jail are all common stories — and combines free job training with psychological counseling."

But Climb Wyoming’s real core insight is female solidarity — that the group, trained and forged together more like a platoon than a class, will become an anchor of future success. New skills can go only so far in changing a life, the group’s trainers say; sometimes it takes a sisterhood.

“We look for groups that are ready to work together and make a change together,” said Ray Fleming Dinneen, a psychologist and co-founder of Climb Wyoming, which four years ago began training go-it-alone mothers for male-dominated jobs that rule the state’s industrial-energy economy.

And last, so-called "inspiration benevolence". Have no idea what that means? I didn't either, but it's awesome.

Happy Ostara

Happy Spring Equinox everyone!

A full moon, and spring is ON.

Something to be happy about.

Yes We Can

Today's speech from Obama is one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard.

Link

Wow.

Sex Positive Feminism

For the record, I often see from Rad Fem anti-Sex Positive types that we "Sex pozzes" are a man's wet dream. And while I see why they would think such a thing, I can tell y'all from personal, every fucking day experience that us Sex Pozzes piss men off just as much as anti-porn Rad Fems.