All Posts in “Political Theory”

Charles_atlas

May We Please Remember Abraham Biggs Today?

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Nineteen year old Abraham Biggs linked himself to a website streaming live video. In front of the camera, he purposefully OD'd on prescription meds. He lived in Broward County, Florida where he wasn't man enough to live. That's what he thought. 

Charles_atlas
"I am in love with a girl and I know that I am not good enough for her," he wrote on a body-building forum. "I have come to believe that my life has all been meaningless. I keep trying and I keep failing. I have thought about and attempted suicide many times in the past." He wrote this on a body-building forum. He was trying to build his body, and this is what he wrote there. Connection?

Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner's office, is ABC News' source. She said, "People were egging him on and saying things like 'go ahead and do it, faggot." Faggot. Connection?

According to ABC News, Wired Magazine chimed in by reporting comments written in response to Abraham's suicidal posts—comments ranging from OMG to LOL. One commenter wrote, "hahaha hahahahha hahahahahah ahhaha." Another comment read, "Instant Darwinism …" which was seconded by, "fucking a nicely put." And guess what… other commenters called Abraham a "coward," a "faggot" and a "dick." Connection?

The connection is the bipolar gender system—the simplistic belief that there are men and there are women, and everyone else deserves to die. The bipolar gender/sexuality matrix kills a lot of people, that's what I want to say. Whether we kill ourselves, or people kill us because we're not real mean or real women… we end up dead, damn it. So are we allowed to mourn Abraham Biggs today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance? I am. Bless your heart, Abraham. I am so sorry you thought you weren't good enough. 

I am so sorry that we as a culture haven't yet figured out how to deal with gender as a hierarchal system of oppression that kills kids like Abraham, as clearly as race kills kids, class kills kids, and sexuality kills kids. Gender as an oppressive system is as deadly as looks, ability, religion, age and citizenship—all hierarchal systems of oppression. Can we please remember that on this Transgender Day of Remembrance? 

Okay, I'm gonna go cry now. 

Kate
Marriage_joys

Okay… Overturn Prop 8, but F*ck Marriage Anyway

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Caveat: this blog is seriously high on my crone/curmudgeon scale of crankiness.

I have problems with these Prop 8 protests. If you don’t already know about the Proposition 8 mess going on in California and nation-wide, here’s a wiki-summary. Yeah, if I’m not working, I plan to join the protest. But no, I won’t be protesting a ban on marriage equality. I’ll be protesting because I care about the legal ramifications and precedents set with passing Prop 8.

Marriage_joysThe brouhaha concerning marriage equality is generated by people who say they’re speaking for all LGBTQ people everywhere in this country. Omigod, yes there are TONS of supporters of marriage equality within the LGBTQ world. But not all of us agree with you. Some of us think we should abolish marriage altogether. I’m speaking as part of that minority. We’re mostly radical queers, dyed-in-the-wool feminists, old lefties, socialists and other bogey people whose only desire is purported to be tearing down both church and state, and making everyone’s life a living hell. Some of us think that triage-wise, marriage falls pretty far down the list of priorities of political focus for the LGBTQ world.

I don’t care about a ban on marriage equality. Fuck it. What I care about is the violence done to queer kids. I care about LGBTQ and any freaky kids who get thrown out of their homes for following their heart’s harmless desires. Prioritizing marriage equality is dangerous to the health of those kids. So I ask myself: what’s so important about marriage to the vocal and visible (and probably even majority) of LGBTQ people?

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Sign of the Transgender Times

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I’m at the University of Vermont, attending the 7th Annual Translating Identities Conference. Highest ever attendance: 700 queers and allies. The school was also hosting a day for prospective students and their families on the same day, in the same building. We were all treated to this signage. What joy!

UVM isn’t the only school to have instituted gender neutral bathrooms. Far from it. But this sign is the most out loud and proud reflection I’ve seen of the progress we’re making. Queer students, staff, faculty and administrators around the USA have been working together to make life easier for the in increasingly large campus population of transfolk.

If you’ve got a picture of gender neutral signage on your campus or in your company, please post a link in the comments section, or let me know you’ve got one and I’ll post it here. Yay UVM queers and allies!!

Kisses from the road,

Kate

Obama_hope_2

The world’s verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for

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The title of this post is the title of an editorial that appeared in the UK Guardian about a month ago. My longtime friend, co-author and political standard bearer Caitlin Sullivan sent me the link. Please forward it on.

Obama_hope_2In his editorial, Jonathan Freedland makes clear the high global stakes in the upcoming election. Most of the world is cheering for Obama, says Freedland. Despite the fact that we allowed a mean-spirited fool take office in this country in two elections, Freedland makes the point that until now, most anti-American sentiment has not been aimed at the average American. Rather, anti-American sentiment has been framed as anti-Bush sentiment.

Generously enough, it seems that the world has given the American people the benefit of the doubt. But according to Freedland if we allow the ridiculous ticket of McCain/Palin to sail into office, our already shaky credibility in the world as Americans will be shot to hell. Sure, Senator Obama has a good lead in the polls, but this isn’t the time to sit back and relax. The Republican campaign is fighting dirty to win. Our response has got to be an active drive for unity on the Left.

Race has been plunked down on the table in the hopes of turning the tide to McCain. The Conservative Right is dragging the old radical socialist bogey man out of their old kit bag, further silencing the genuinely compassionate goals of the radical left. The solution seems clear to me. Even if race isn’t our issue, even if we’re not ourselves radical lefties, we’ve got to do the old Sixties thing and come together. We’ve got to embrace the Obama/Biden ticket as the clear choice of the American people. And we can’t afford to drop the drive for unity once Obama has won the presidency. That would be really stupid of us.

After President Obama is sworn into office as a result of lefty unity, we may very well have found the key to establishing an honest-to-goodness coalition that fights for safety, empowerment, health, and well-being on behalf of all world citizens—regardless of race, age, gender, class, citizenship, sexuality, looks, ability, religion, or ecological stance. Wouldn’t that be something? There’s never been a coalition like that in the history of humanity.

Senator Barack Obama has been talking about hope. Well, that’s what I hope for. I hope you do, too.

with love and respect, and in unity

Kate

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I wanna be a girl just like Sarah Palin! I do, sort of.

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As a male to female trans person, I’ve had the opportunity to more or less pick the kind of girl I wanted to become—or at least navigate my life in that direction. And just look at Sarah Palin! She’s a corn-fed, gosh-and-golly perky, petite, pretty, and feisty girl from heartland America. I grew up as a chubby, egghead, clumsy Jewish boy on the Jersey shore. Of course I’ve navigated my life in the direction of something funner—like Sally Field, or Julia Roberts… and Sarah Palin.

The moose killing, not so much. I kill the occasional mosquito, that’s about it. The woman-hating, not so much. My journey to girl was guided by some swell feminists,and that’s how I see the world now. And the religious fundamentalism? No. I’m a fan of separation of church and state. Besides, people like Sarah Palin think that people like me are sinners in the hands of an angry god. And I don’t want anyone’s angry hands on me, or on any of my tribe.

A friend of mine sent me this video by Eve Ensler. Eve’s someone else I’ve modeled my girlhood on.

So, sure… I wanna be a girl like Sarah Palin, all pert and aw shucks and flirty. But I’d wanna be a woman like Eve Ensler, for her political smarts, artistic talent, and the energy she’s got for her tireless pursuit of equity for women. For the full text of the video, just navigate your life over to Eve Ensler’s post on The Huffington Post.

kiss kiss, you betcha

K

Goal Thermometer

Obama Campaign Acknowledges Transgender Community As Supporters… Now What?!

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Goal ThermometerOne of the terrible things about life inside a closet is you never get to speak out loud as the person you know yourself to be. When you’re living in the closet, no one who loves you ever gets to call you the name you’ve always wanted to hear. For over two decades, Trans activists, artists, educators, and bloggers across the USA and around the world have worked to open closet doors for trannies. That’s over 20 years of hard work on local, regional, national and global levels. And now it looks like our combined work has brought us to a tipping point in the history of Transgender politics.

Yesterday, I read the news on Helen Boyd’s En|Gender website. The presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama has publicly thanked the Trans Community for our support. I’m dizzy with joy that we’ve come so far in my lifetime, and this is a great opportunity to come together as a real community. There’s no monolithic transgender community in the world, and I hope there never will be. There are many Transgender communities, and all I want is for us to work more closely together with one another. We need to heal the divisions in our Trans world in the same way that we want Senator Obama to heal the terrible divisions resulting from eight years of government sanctioned and government sponsored oppression. So, how do we take a step from here on what’s going to be a long road toward Transgender unity? First, I think, we need to understand what it is that’s been keeping us apart for so long.

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Government_good_vs_evil_8

Seeing Beyond Red or Blue: The Value of A Transgender Perspective to a Successful US Presidency

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Government_good_vs_evil_8All this talk about Trans for Obama has got me wondering: what is it that trannies can offer a guy who believes he’s fully qualified to lead the free world? He says he wants to give us change we can believe in. Well, both Senators Obama and McCain are promising they’ll change things for the better. They both say they’re going to change this world into a better place for all of us. Change, change, change. Every other word in this furshlugginer campaign is change.

It’s my opinion that neither Senator should fiddle around with any change until they learn a lot more about the mechanics of change… and precisely what it is about our culture that needs changing—like the either/or bully tactics of junior high that are playing themselves out in the US presidential campaign. It’s time Americans change the way we see ourselves, far beyond Red or Blue. Trannies just may hold the key to accomplishing that. We know the principles of profound, complex change.

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Kb_newly_red_laughing_by_kaylynn_3

Gender Outlaws for Obama: the end… or is it just the beginning?

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Kb_newly_red_laughing_by_kaylynn_3
Yesterday was a such a pisser! We started the day at 105 contributors. At 12:24 this morning (EST), Trans-blogging for Obama Day broke through our target goal of 200 pro-Trans contributors to the Obama/Biden ticket. We raised over $6000 for Obama’s campaign. AND, we accomplished this on a day that was not only the start of a Jewish High Holy Day, it was also the day that will go down in history as “Black Monday ’08.” Despite it all, we flourished. Wait… we’re trannies—we do everything with a flourish!

In the future, when I’m asked how far the transgender community has come since my day, I’ll point to these days as a great leap for trannies, and even a small step forward for the world we live in. At the level of national elections, we are invisibles no more.

Here’s how the day played out…

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Obama_pride

Gender Outlaws for Obama

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Obama_prideToday is Trans-Blogs for Obama Day. The Stonewall Democrats are sponsoring a cyber day on which the transgender community can publicly rally around Senator Obama. We can show him our support and our numbers on a full day of trans and ally fundraising for the good Senator from Illinois. Twenty years ago, I never envisioned a tranny community, much less a tranny community that could make itself heard on a national level.

When I’m out on tour, a question I’m most regularly asked is, “How far has the transgender movement come since your days, when you were transitioning?” I usually duck the question, because the answer isn’t as simple as “great” or “awful.” Over the last two decades, there have been some wonderful political and cultural advancements. Yet I’m pretty sure that I speak for the majority of trannies when I say that from our perspective, we could certainly use more change than what we’ve gotten over the last twenty years.

Here’s what it was like twenty years ago…

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0849

Race AND Gender Equity Advocates for Obama

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Look at Senator McCain! Please, look closely. You can do just that at the website of The Real McCain.

0849Two days before Governor Palin’s nomination. I turned to my girlfriend and said, “Y’know what? McCain is going to nominate a woman.” True story. I bet if Senator Obama had chosen a woman as a running mate, McCain would now be running with an African American man on his ticket.

It’s a mostly successful Right Wing tactic to splinter the Left into small groups of focused advocates, each grabbing for a seat at the master’s table. Unlike the different special interest groups of the Right Wing, race and gender activists haven’t worked together for decades building coalition. Gender versus race is costing the Democrats votes, damnit.

For my part I’m not going to be divided. I voted for Clinton in the Democratic primary, and I’m supporting and voting for Obama in November. Senator Obama is our best hope to push back the tides of racism and sexism that were unleashed and nurtured under the Bush administration.

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