Saturday, November 07, 2009
IS THIS A SIGN THAT I SHOULD BEGIN MY DRAG CAREER?
i've been selling some of my old dresses and things through a vintage clothing shop (i give them a bunch clothes, they choose which ones they want, when they sell them i get half the selling price). today when i went to collect the bag and see which things they wanted, the woman lowered her voice a little, eyed me curiously and asked, "did you used to wear these things?" i replied, "indeed i did," with a big grin. she perked up and gave me a conspiratorial smile, "oh, good for you!" she said. clearly she believes i am a man with a history of wearing women's clothes (which is true! but not necessarily true in the way she thinks!). some of my old dresses are too fabulous for me to sell on just yet, although eventually i'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that they don't fit me any more. perhaps it's time to go dress shopping, find me a drag name, and start performing.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
"I'LL PROBABLY NEVER POST AGAIN" AND OTHER LIES
people. YOU DISGUST ME. the comments on this post are some of the most vile, revolting reading i have done for a while. although actually, a lot of is almost on a par with reading i'm doing for my current chapter about the trial of allen andrade for his murder of angie zapata. yeah. you know the one where his legal team tried to spin it that her trans status and the fact she smiled at him were provocative enough for him to beat her to death? you are fucking repulsive.
but then, what do i expect from feministing?
ETA: ok, while i'm outraged, i just wrote to the eoc to ask them wtf was up with melbourne walking club: "Membership is open to males aged over 16 years. Women are free to attend many club events as visitors". my guess is that as a 'private club' they don't have to follow anyone's damn rules, and certainly don't need to let GIRL GERMS in their midst.
but then, what do i expect from feministing?
ETA: ok, while i'm outraged, i just wrote to the eoc to ask them wtf was up with melbourne walking club: "Membership is open to males aged over 16 years. Women are free to attend many club events as visitors". my guess is that as a 'private club' they don't have to follow anyone's damn rules, and certainly don't need to let GIRL GERMS in their midst.
OH
yeah, of course i'm feeling mopy and like nobody wants to be my friend - my shot is overdue. this because (a) i'm lowwww on cash, but mainly because (b) carlton clinic is NOT open from 2-6 in the afternoons as they say on the answering machine, but apparently from 2-5. so i just booked to see someone at northside instead. how hard can it be to give me a nice big injection in my bum? :D
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
I'VE GROWN UNACCUSTOMED TO BLOGGING
sorry peeps! i won't say i'll try to update here more often, because i probably won't. i'm on my 6 month extension for my phd, so i'm going to put my head down and my bum up (ugh, you're all so RUDE!) and write the bloody thing! however, as i am already typing text into this box, i shall tell you about the film evening "best of the london transgender film festival".
it was an enjoyable evening, i saw a few familiar faces, met m (who i'd seen around before but not talked to) and hung out with db and d. oh look, here we are!!! the films were . . . a mixed bag, considering it was meant to be a 'best of'. i was expecting more experimental films, and definitely more uk films. as it was, all bar one were american, which was disappointing.
the one that wasn't was a documentary about lesbian men in south africa called are you a girl or what? this was one of the highlights for me - it definitely demonstrated the way in which transness is conceptualised and enacted is very culturally variable, and it also demonstrated the inadequacy of the term 'transgender', particularly in the way it fails to account for culturally specific forms of gender variance. a similar theme also emerged in the documentary two spirited people, in which one person specifically addressed the problem of language by saying (this may be slightly misquoted) "being forced to speak in english we're herded into using certain terminology". in fact, the language we use to describe ourselves was a recurring theme in the films, and perhaps unintentionally the 'fun'/prescriptive/boring film playing with gender served to highlight how white and middleclass some attitudes towards defining and labelling are. "this is what transgender means" it tells us. ugh, shut up.
the feature film of the evening was the believers, a sprawling documentary about the trans gospel choir transcendence. although the pacing and structure left something to be desired, i did enjoy watching a film that made an effort to present various incarnations of trans identity, and to be a film about something other than just transness. in this case, the tensions between christian religion and trans identity were forefront, as were the pressures and groupwork involved in maintaining a choir.
other films were the bond which is one to put in your 'parent resource pack', the fagette filmclip which is awesome (i've posted it here before), thorn in your side which i can barely remember except for one gorgeous shot of a person hula hooping (i think), and i am not a boy, a short doco featuring an hilarious femme queen who i think everyone fell a little bit in love with.
aha! and then today i went to see some things at the postgrad work in progress day. j was talking about her thesis, and that was fantaaaaaastic! yay! i also went to a rather disappointing presentation about phenomonology and the art of the urban walker - it sucks when technology doesn't work, hey?
oh, i'm going to make dinner. enough of this blogging business! I NEED FOOD!
it was an enjoyable evening, i saw a few familiar faces, met m (who i'd seen around before but not talked to) and hung out with db and d. oh look, here we are!!! the films were . . . a mixed bag, considering it was meant to be a 'best of'. i was expecting more experimental films, and definitely more uk films. as it was, all bar one were american, which was disappointing.
the one that wasn't was a documentary about lesbian men in south africa called are you a girl or what? this was one of the highlights for me - it definitely demonstrated the way in which transness is conceptualised and enacted is very culturally variable, and it also demonstrated the inadequacy of the term 'transgender', particularly in the way it fails to account for culturally specific forms of gender variance. a similar theme also emerged in the documentary two spirited people, in which one person specifically addressed the problem of language by saying (this may be slightly misquoted) "being forced to speak in english we're herded into using certain terminology". in fact, the language we use to describe ourselves was a recurring theme in the films, and perhaps unintentionally the 'fun'/prescriptive/boring film playing with gender served to highlight how white and middleclass some attitudes towards defining and labelling are. "this is what transgender means" it tells us. ugh, shut up.
the feature film of the evening was the believers, a sprawling documentary about the trans gospel choir transcendence. although the pacing and structure left something to be desired, i did enjoy watching a film that made an effort to present various incarnations of trans identity, and to be a film about something other than just transness. in this case, the tensions between christian religion and trans identity were forefront, as were the pressures and groupwork involved in maintaining a choir.
other films were the bond which is one to put in your 'parent resource pack', the fagette filmclip which is awesome (i've posted it here before), thorn in your side which i can barely remember except for one gorgeous shot of a person hula hooping (i think), and i am not a boy, a short doco featuring an hilarious femme queen who i think everyone fell a little bit in love with.
aha! and then today i went to see some things at the postgrad work in progress day. j was talking about her thesis, and that was fantaaaaaastic! yay! i also went to a rather disappointing presentation about phenomonology and the art of the urban walker - it sucks when technology doesn't work, hey?
oh, i'm going to make dinner. enough of this blogging business! I NEED FOOD!
Friday, October 30, 2009
LONDON TRANSGENDER FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION IN MELBOURNE
The Best of the London Transgender Film Festival!
See ButchFemmeTrans Melbourne for more details and a program.
When: Sunday, 1 November
Where: Glitch Bar & Cinema, 318 St Georges Street, North Fitzroy
Price: $10 full $7 concession
Time: 5-6.30pm and 7.30-9pm
See ButchFemmeTrans Melbourne for more details and a program.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
ON STORYTELLING
"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue; it is that they are incomplete." Chimamanda Adichie.
Click here if the video doesn't load.
Click here if the video doesn't load.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
HOW DARE YOU SAY I'M A RACIST AND OTHER ADVENTURES IN CENSORSHIP
Copy/cut from an email I received. I have little to add but some additional encouragement to read "Gay Imperialism".
*
Racism and the censorship of "Gay Imperialism"
Dear friends,
Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation. One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008. An edited collection examining intersections between race and sexuality in the United Kingdom, Out of Place joins Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages as a key contribution to this debate. Alongside other contributions in Out of Place, the chapter "Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror", by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem pointed to the continuing deployment of queerness as a symbol of "freedom" to rationalise the continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and future wars in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to rationalise restrictive and racist immigration policies in "Western" or "liberal" nations. "Gay Imperialism" uses the work of activist Peter Tatchell, founder of Outrage!, as an example of how white gay activists can become complicit with this agenda by painting Islam as inherently homophobic and misogynist, and appointing themselves as the saviours of non-white queers.
On September 7th, Raw Nerve Books declared Out of Place to be out of print, removed it from circulation and sale, and issued an online apology to Peter Tatchell. Presumably this is the result of threats of legal action by Tatchell and Outrage!. The apology quotes its own publication to apologise for what it accepts as defamatory statements and misrepresentation of Tatchell and Outrage! by Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem. These include:
a) that Tatchell is "Islamaphobic" and "part of the Islamaphobia industry"
b) that Tatchell is "racist"
c) that Tatchell "sling[s] mud onto Muslim communities"
As one sees if one reads "Gay Imperialism", these so-called accusations are all taken grossly out of context and reduce the complexity of Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem's argument. The apology continues by obsequiously praising Tatchell and Outrage!'s "anti-racist" work, and making further accusations against a number of African LGBT activists, who had refused to work with Tatchell precisely because of his paternalistic attitude, and who are cited in "Gay Imperialism".
It seems likely that Tatchell's lawyers presented Raw Nerve with an already-written apology and asked them to sign and publish it. Tatchell is notoriously litigious. He is equally notorious for staging highly publicised, "one man" actions that appear to have just as much to do with his public image as a gay celebrity activist as any political work. However, Tatchell himself is not important here. What is important is that this critique is evidently so threatening to Tatchell and to the book's publishers that it must be removed from circulation, and the authors must be condemned as liars.
This incident proves something about how difficult it is to do anti-racist work. Pointing out racism, no matter how carefully we might phrase it and no matter which arguments we have about the use of the word racism, is often perceived as a personal and individual affront. Those so accused often appear to find it wounding or traumatic -- psychically wounding, but more importantly, wounding to their public image. "How dare you accuse me of racism? I am not racist; I have lots of friends who are people of color!" goes the cliched defensive response we are all familiar with. This way, the person or organisation critiqued can escape engaging with the content of the critique and put the burden of proof back on the person who raised the issue. It is not coincidental that the person making a critique of racism is often non-white, deploying old colonial stereotypes that people of colour are untrustworthy ingrates who don't know what's good for them. This problem of white, "well-intentioned" activists ignoring or actively silencing the desires of the people they profess to help in order to maintain the myth of their own generous self-sacrifice is endemic to many struggles: feminist anti-"trafficking" activism; indigenous land and rights struggles; migration activism; the backlash against the wearing of hijab by Muslim women in France and elsewhere, and on and on. The only way it might ever stop is for its perpetrators to acknowledge their role.
Meanwhile a really amazing book is being censored. The authors of the chapter and the editors of Out of Place are unable to comment, as it is now in the hands of the courts. It's unlikely that Raw Nerve will reissue the book, even if the editors wanted this. Meanwhile the authors' reputations are themselves besmirched. There are several things you can do about this situation:
1. Circulate this and your own commentary among your friends, companeros, colleagues.
2. Read "Gay Imperialism" -- a PDF is online here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=edf3d795b172f5376b21be4093fab7ace04e75f6e8ebb871
3. Write letters in support of Jin Haritaworn to:
The Gender Institute,
The London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street, London
WC2A 2AE, UK
Please pass this around, respond, send it to list servs and read the other statements written about the censorship of Out of Place:
"Out of Place, Out of Print: On the Censorship of the First Queerness/Raciality Collection in Britain" by Johanna Rothe, Monthly Review, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/rothe151009.html
"On the Censorship of 'Gay Imperialism' and Out of Place", X:Talk website, http://www.xtalkproject.net/?p=415
In solidarity,
Aren Aizura
*
Racism and the censorship of "Gay Imperialism"
Dear friends,
Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation. One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008. An edited collection examining intersections between race and sexuality in the United Kingdom, Out of Place joins Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages as a key contribution to this debate. Alongside other contributions in Out of Place, the chapter "Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror", by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem pointed to the continuing deployment of queerness as a symbol of "freedom" to rationalise the continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and future wars in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to rationalise restrictive and racist immigration policies in "Western" or "liberal" nations. "Gay Imperialism" uses the work of activist Peter Tatchell, founder of Outrage!, as an example of how white gay activists can become complicit with this agenda by painting Islam as inherently homophobic and misogynist, and appointing themselves as the saviours of non-white queers.
On September 7th, Raw Nerve Books declared Out of Place to be out of print, removed it from circulation and sale, and issued an online apology to Peter Tatchell. Presumably this is the result of threats of legal action by Tatchell and Outrage!. The apology quotes its own publication to apologise for what it accepts as defamatory statements and misrepresentation of Tatchell and Outrage! by Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem. These include:
a) that Tatchell is "Islamaphobic" and "part of the Islamaphobia industry"
b) that Tatchell is "racist"
c) that Tatchell "sling[s] mud onto Muslim communities"
As one sees if one reads "Gay Imperialism", these so-called accusations are all taken grossly out of context and reduce the complexity of Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem's argument. The apology continues by obsequiously praising Tatchell and Outrage!'s "anti-racist" work, and making further accusations against a number of African LGBT activists, who had refused to work with Tatchell precisely because of his paternalistic attitude, and who are cited in "Gay Imperialism".
It seems likely that Tatchell's lawyers presented Raw Nerve with an already-written apology and asked them to sign and publish it. Tatchell is notoriously litigious. He is equally notorious for staging highly publicised, "one man" actions that appear to have just as much to do with his public image as a gay celebrity activist as any political work. However, Tatchell himself is not important here. What is important is that this critique is evidently so threatening to Tatchell and to the book's publishers that it must be removed from circulation, and the authors must be condemned as liars.
This incident proves something about how difficult it is to do anti-racist work. Pointing out racism, no matter how carefully we might phrase it and no matter which arguments we have about the use of the word racism, is often perceived as a personal and individual affront. Those so accused often appear to find it wounding or traumatic -- psychically wounding, but more importantly, wounding to their public image. "How dare you accuse me of racism? I am not racist; I have lots of friends who are people of color!" goes the cliched defensive response we are all familiar with. This way, the person or organisation critiqued can escape engaging with the content of the critique and put the burden of proof back on the person who raised the issue. It is not coincidental that the person making a critique of racism is often non-white, deploying old colonial stereotypes that people of colour are untrustworthy ingrates who don't know what's good for them. This problem of white, "well-intentioned" activists ignoring or actively silencing the desires of the people they profess to help in order to maintain the myth of their own generous self-sacrifice is endemic to many struggles: feminist anti-"trafficking" activism; indigenous land and rights struggles; migration activism; the backlash against the wearing of hijab by Muslim women in France and elsewhere, and on and on. The only way it might ever stop is for its perpetrators to acknowledge their role.
Meanwhile a really amazing book is being censored. The authors of the chapter and the editors of Out of Place are unable to comment, as it is now in the hands of the courts. It's unlikely that Raw Nerve will reissue the book, even if the editors wanted this. Meanwhile the authors' reputations are themselves besmirched. There are several things you can do about this situation:
1. Circulate this and your own commentary among your friends, companeros, colleagues.
2. Read "Gay Imperialism" -- a PDF is online here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=edf3d795b172f5376b21be4093fab7ace04e75f6e8ebb871
3. Write letters in support of Jin Haritaworn to:
The Gender Institute,
The London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street, London
WC2A 2AE, UK
Please pass this around, respond, send it to list servs and read the other statements written about the censorship of Out of Place:
"Out of Place, Out of Print: On the Censorship of the First Queerness/Raciality Collection in Britain" by Johanna Rothe, Monthly Review, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/rothe151009.html
"On the Censorship of 'Gay Imperialism' and Out of Place", X:Talk website, http://www.xtalkproject.net/?p=415
In solidarity,
Aren Aizura
Friday, October 23, 2009
THEN THEY WOKE UP AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM
i wake up and it is all a dream i don't remember until i roll over and smell the pillow and my arm meets flesh and there it is i was going to see the doctor for a check up the doctor says i see you're waiting for surgery and it's never said but i know he means to say i see you're trans and waiting for a chest reconstruction so i say yes and he says why don't i do it now and in my dream i ask if it's a local or a general anaesthetic and then later i wake up with hard hospital sheets and a scar down my neck scars criss-crossing my chest and my nipples lower than i thought they would be and he says sorry i couldn't get them higher and i grin and grin and grin and then i vomit and go home and wear a singlet in the sun lie on my back in the grass and watch the sky roll over and smell the pillow and then i forget about it all until i wake up and it's all a dream.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
PUSH THE BUTTON, PULL THE CHOKE, OFF WE GO IN A CLOUD OF SMOKE
I am busy staving off a cold: orange juice, horseradish and garlic tablets, lots of sleep, lots of water . . . and my good old friend pseudoephedrine! Possibly the best thing any doctor ever suggested to me was to take this when I felt a blocked-ear cold coming on. I haven't had an ear infection since.
I probably won't be updating here much (if at all) for the next month or so. If you'd like to keep up with what we're doing, please visit our travel blog.
Whee! Holidays!
I probably won't be updating here much (if at all) for the next month or so. If you'd like to keep up with what we're doing, please visit our travel blog.
Whee! Holidays!
Monday, September 07, 2009
SOON A BEAR WILL BE ABLE TO MARRY A SANDWICH!
basically just signal-boosting, as i have nothing to add:
emily has a crossposted entry up about the kerfuffle following the recent ruling in western australia allowing two trans men to amend their gender on all legal documents *gasp* without being sterilised *gasp*. you can read em's post "be afraid, be very very afraid" at questioning transphobia and hoyden about town. the comments on hoyden are good to read (that's where i lifted the title of this post from, apols to em!)
emily has a crossposted entry up about the kerfuffle following the recent ruling in western australia allowing two trans men to amend their gender on all legal documents *gasp* without being sterilised *gasp*. you can read em's post "be afraid, be very very afraid" at questioning transphobia and hoyden about town. the comments on hoyden are good to read (that's where i lifted the title of this post from, apols to em!)
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