Link: Transphobic Words and Deeds August 25, 2008

As some of you may have realized, I am all about talking back to privilege. Check out this post at Questioning Transphobia on cissexual privilege. I wasn’t sure what to quote, since all of it is important.

Cissexual privilege is the privilege of having a body that matches the sex your brain expects. Cissexual privilege is the privilege of having a body that matches what society expects. Cissexual privilege is the assumption that your sex, your gender are superior and more valid than trans people’s sex and gender, that you have the right to tell trans people who and what they really are, what their motives are for transitioning, to deny that their most basic realities are false because you cannot imagine how they can be true.

[...]

Transphobia is the exercise of that privilege.

It is a thought (and hopefully action)-provoking post, and I think those of us who are cissexual need to absorb what has been said and try to recognize the transphobia in our lives (and do something about it!). Not enough of us listen. We only harp on about what we think we know about trans people, because we feel it is our right, or don’t pay attention at all, and our complacency allows all forms of violence against trans people to occur over and over again.

More like Thursday evening linking August 22, 2008

There’s no rage night this Friday, simply because I’ve only been at the computer sporadically this week, and likely won’t be around much next week, if at all.

I do want to link to a few posts that have rage-y things, are ragingly stupid, or are ragingly terrific. You’ll know which is which. Hint: the last one is the stupid one.

Feministe – Woman with muscular dystrophy had to crawl off plane

Tanglad, at Womanist Musings – Disposable Targets: Domestic Workers Exported Exploitation

Womanist Musings: Radical Feminism and CIS Privilege

Peter Hitchens is an ass: How the Left blindingly censored the truth about rape

I didn’t realize this was going to be a trilogy of ’slanty eyes’ August 20, 2008

First there was the Spanish Olympics basketball team(s).

Then, there was the Spanish Olympics tennis team.

Now, there’s the Argentine women’s football team:

Wow! I can’t wait to see what they’ll do for London in 2012!

… Oh wait …

Following this blog on LiveJournal August 19, 2008

There is a feed for this blog on Livejournal.com at uppitybrownlady if you’d like to follow that way. I had made it when I started the blog, but promptly forgot about it until a little while ago when I realized people were commenting on entries there.

I can’t reorganize my house without noticing this crap August 17, 2008

My house is in the middle of a makeover mess right now, and I’m surprised I blogged so much last week.

Things I’ve noticed:

- My mother does not trust me with a screwdriver, least of all my own.

- I’m apparently too weak to move a filing cabinet. (Interesting that it’s my mother who insinuated this, when my brother said I’d be able to move a bed on my own.)

- Also, when my brother did say I could move it, I immediately said ‘uh, no’ as a jerk reaction even though I know I’m quite capable.

- It requires a man to put together a cupboard. (We were in a store, and my mom actually told the clerk that needed a man to put it together.)

- I have been socialized to let my father and brothers do all the moving and construction of things, even though I am fully capable of doing them or learning how to do them. I found myself cleaning the kitchen while they were putting a cabinet together and suddenly said, “Hey, what!”

I better start taking a more proactive role in changing things around within my life. I don’t like feeling incapable.

Friday Night Is Rage Night: The Violence is Alright edition August 15, 2008

Will contain triggers. I must be better with noting that. Also, this is going to be short, as this week has been killing my brain, and my linking is inconsistent.

Guess what, everyone? Violence is a-okay. Let’s see how.

PETITION: Kenneth Zucker getting to spew “therapeutic” crap again August 15, 2008

This time at a conference in the UK about gender identity disorder in youth. Saw this at Questioning Transphobia:

PLEASE POST WIDELY.

Protest Zucker’s Invite to Speak at Royal Society of Medicine Conference

Please sign the petition below to protest the horrific decision to invite trans-reparatist quack Kenneth Zucker to address attendees at a conference on gender-variant youth in the UK. First he was invited to sit on the committee to oversee revisions to the GID diagnosis in the DSM, now this? When will this universally reviled doctor in the trans community stop being rewarded by the mainstream for his dangerous and egregious actions? Enough is enough!

Here is the text of the petition and a link to it:

We the undersigned wish to protest in the strongest possible terms against the inclusion of Dr Kenneth Zucker in the Royal Society of Medicine’s conference on “Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescents”. We believe that his methods are harmful to young people and that his theories on transgenderism are both outdated and rejected by most of the psychological community as they are based on personal bias and flawed methodology.

We respectfully ask that you replace him with a contributor to the conference who does not give such offence to the transgendered community.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/zucker/index.html

Squigglefish adds: The London Transfeminism discussion group is planning a protest at this event.

I don’t know how many of you know about Zucker. A few months ago, he was appointed by the APA to help revise the DSM entry for Gender Identity Disorder, which BOGGLES the mind. He’s a psychologist, who likes to conflate gender identity with sexual orientation, trying to “cure” GID by “helping” trans youth feel more “comfortable” in the bodies they have, without respecting what they actually want. You know, another scientist trying to decide what’s best for everyone, but it’s okay! They’re young and confused and have no rights!

Best parody of I Kissed A Girl ever? August 15, 2008

When I first head the Katy Perry song, “I Kissed A Girl”, I immediately hated it. I had it stuck in my head for two days. It’s an earworm, that’s for sure, but I was pissed that the latest popular representation of bisexuality and bi-curious women was yet AGAIN “experimentation” and on the sly.

I told my lady friend, who would like to be referred to as “That Bitch”, just how much I hated it and the only good thing that could come out of the song was a parody featuring a gay man who kissed a girl and liked it. I wished for it so hard because I knew it would be awesome.

I AM PROUD TO SAY, INTERNET, I GOT MY WISH! I’m also not-so-secretly happy this video features Asians.

[link]

I don’t like your tone, missy! August 14, 2008

Haters, move to the left, ’cause I’m getting uppity. How many times am I going to hear a variation of “I don’t like your tone” or “calm down – we’re just talking”? No, asshole, we’re not just talking. We were talking, but then you decided to ask, “what about my rights?” Your big neon sign of privilege is showing. Not every conversation has to be about you.

A dramatic metaphor:

Imagine you’re riding your motorcycle down the street. The car in front of you slams on their breaks brakes to meet a stop light, and you swerve to avoid smashing into them, only to end up hitting a telephone pole. It’s your bike that’s a goner, but thankfully the other vehicles have no significant damage. You’re also the one bleeding internally from faceplanting. Only one ambulance has arrived so far. The paramedics are trying to help you in whatever way they can. The other person involved in the accident walks over and demands medical attention because they could be bleeding internally as well. They stopped really suddenly! Their airbag went off!

First words out of my mouth: “OH MY F—ING GOD” August 12, 2008

Wow. Wow. I don’t know if the rest of the Internet has exploded about this yet as I have been neglecting the feed reader for a few days. Apparently Spain’s Olympic basketball team thought it was okay to pose for a shoot with their eyelids pulled back. You know, ’cause the Olympics are in China.

What. The. Fuck?

Yes, that is exactly what the Olympics is about!

Some thoughts on the representation of characters of colour on television August 11, 2008

Will have spoilers for Torchwood, Stargate: Atlantis (I guess?), to some extent Lost, and Flashpoint.

Recently, a friend of mine (let’s just say L) made an excellent post about how people of colour, particularly East Asians, are represented in Western television. I’m not linking to her personal journal without her permission (it’s her birthday – I need to give her a break). It’s here.

The general idea is when Asians are on a show, they are playing either a negative or a positive stereotype or cliché that is commonly attributed to their race, or are playing the white-presumed archetype of their race (can we get a ‘oh, you did not‘ for Heroes?). Forgetting for a moment that Western television and film tends to treat all East Asians as ‘the same’, her main point is that when there are representations of POC on TV, POC are supposed to be thankful. We’re supposed to be thankful and shut up, because at least there’s a black lady on the show!

I read 1500 feed items a week so you don’t have to. August 8, 2008

Actually, I’m just unemployed.

Anyone following the Angie Zapata murder, which I briefly talked about last week, should head over to this post at Questioning Transphobia for updates on what her murderer is up to now.

Over at The Rogue Wave, Julie Gray posted a review of Superbad that I found interesting. These types of movies that use misogyny as a punch line end up falling flat and being unfunny for many people:

Did I take offense x1000 because I have a teenaged daughter, who is, in theory, the generalized object of this kind of tripe? Of course. Because it’s the same shit, generations later. Women are for screwing. And it’s funny, right? Adolescent boys are funny. Right?

Dan Savage has some issues with bisexuality, which is why I haven’t read his column in ages. More at Jezebel. The article linked, in which he doesn’t consider bisexuality as an option, is what had originally turned me off.

I can’t wait to see I Can’t Think Straight, an LGBTQ movie by Shamin Sarif that actually. features. South. Asians! And probably won’t suck! Also, I love Lisa Ray. Just throwing that out there. Hat tip and curtsy to queer i s t a n:

Also, Winnipeg police shot and killed a young Aboriginal man last weekend. I have not yet read all of the details. All I know is that people are generally not paying attention to the outrage from the First Nations community in Manitoba. Big surprise.

Friday Night is Rage Night: You Are Not The Droid We Want edition August 8, 2008

Wow, I finally opened up my feed reader and was welcomed with a lot of items. I heard some very distressing news today about the women & trans centre at my university, the details of which I can’t share with anyone right now, so I’m full of unfocused anger.

Muslims can’t sell clothes to white people! [Jezebel]

A Muslim teenager was turned away from a job at Abercrombie & Fitch in Oklahoma because of her headscarf. What was she thinking when she applied for that job? I mean, it’s not like it takes skill or work ethic to sell merchandise or to provide customer support. Didn’t she know that all the white people would be distracted by her hijab and might walk into a mannequin or something?! She could be bald under that scarf! Women can’t be bald!

I have no idea how the person(s) hiring could justify this. Not fitting an image is now grounds for not hiring? So what if she’s wearing a hijab? So what if she’s Muslim? Oh, but that matters all in the world. She isn’t white, and she isn’t blonde. Well, they could relax the blonde part, but people don’t want to see a Muslim girl all covered up in Abercrombie & Fitch. She’s probably super conservative and prudish and backwards because she happens to cover her head.

Apparently I can’t rage about this without using sarcasm. I think I would rather that no one worked at Abercrombie & Fitch.

Them Africans sure have pretty things we can morph and engrave on our blood diamonds! [Racialicious]

DeBeers has released a line of “African-inspired” diamond amulets. Mmm, smell that sweet appropriation. Let’s forget for a moment that DeBeers was founded by a white colonialist who would have fallen in love with Hitler (maybe even literally, although Hitler would’ve had him killed) for his dedication to the Aryan race. Oh, and it’s not like those diamonds were mined using the labour of indigenous people of Africa for maybe some pay and high possibility of being maimed or killed.

I can see one of those amulets gleaming on a Western person’s neck already, thinking they’re oh-so-worldly because look, it’s from Ah-frih-kah.

That is ALL I have to say about THAT. Read the post at Racialicious. It’s way more informative than I am.

Make sure those dirty “trans” people are sterilized otherwise they’ll create a bunch of Swedish freaks! [Questioning Transphobia]

So, Sweden wants to make sterilization mandatory for anyone requesting sexual reassignment. Hey, hey, hey. Let’s not freak out about this too much, blogosphere. I mean, trans people are the greatest national threat to Sweden right now. The Swedish government have learned from other well-to-do countries and now understands what it takes to raise a child! No, it’s not parenting, or even plain ol’ love, you silly goose. It’s having the ‘right’ genitals. Everyone else is a fucking weirdo freakazoid.

I’ll tell you what’s freakish. Mandatory sterilization. Admittedly, any time I hear the word ’sterilization’, I think of eugenics before thinking about people who request to be sterilized. In this case, we know it’s a lot of the former and none of the latter. The choice is quite clear: either you get your SRS and never ever be a parent (because we won’t let you adopt anytime soon), or you stay with what the big guy in the sky gave you and birth beautiful, “normal” children in your beautiful, “normal” body.

That’s not really a choice, is it? Certainly, you can choose to get sexual reassignment surgery, as not all trans people do, only with all the hang ups of cutting off your testes or ovaries and the removal of any freedom you had over your body. That is the main rage-inducer – apparently no one gets a say in what happens to their body anymore. Great job, Sweden! Too bad your football team’s böghögs can’t make up for this transphobic shit!

Quit being so black, Beyoncé Knowles! [Sociological Images]

How dare you, Beyoncé! People might get ideas that maybe the lighter you are doesn’t mean you’re more beautiful or better!

I am so sick of this shit. When is the world going to catch on that lighter skin isn’t better? To be quite honest, I do not blame anyone who has ever wanted or wished for lighter skin. I don’t blame anyone who bought lightening cream or bleaching cream because they were so desperate. Lighter skin comes with many privileges. I blame racism. I blame apathy to racism. I blame people not giving a shit that it hurts to walk down a street and see the only representation of a person of colour on a billboard, ad, poster, magazine, and so on, being the lightest brown one could imagine.

Chances are, these POC don’t look like that in real life. I know, photo manipulation and adjusting is out of control in our commercialized world today. It’s heavily geared towards women. Breast enhancements, skinnier waists, flawless skin — they all hit white representations too. As with the girl turned away from Abercrombie & Fitch, a judgement call on race is being made. Being dark is bad. Being dark does not sell.

See this video. Or this one. And this one. Much material has been written on this.

Side-rage: it is not the same, opposite behaviour when a white person makes a habit out of tanning. They aren’t usually trying to become another race and inherit racism. They want to stay white, but look a little darker, like they’ve visited South America for a few weeks. People of colour who look to bleach their skin are trying to escape racism. Plus, the obsession with white skin tends to manifest in sexism. Women of colour are disproportionately told that they need to be ‘fairer’ or more light-skinned than men of colour are pressured.

Oh, now I’m tired.

Please keep ranting about anything you want in the comments!

Brief thoughts: Fred Phelps and Toronto’s queer communities August 8, 2008

I have been very stressed out this week, which meant mostly avoiding my feed reader and writing. I suppose you could say I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s rage night.

Fred Phelps, of “God Hates Fags” (but not shellfish!) fame, was supposed to be in Toronto today to protest a stage production that I’m sure would be mocking him. Apparently he was also going to protest outside the funeral of the man murdered on the Greyhound bus.

He didn’t show. I heard he was stopped at the border. I don’t want to talk about him any more than needed.

There was a counter protest today at the theatre. I hadn’t kept up on the news or Facebook to know about it beforehand and attend. I did walk into it without knowing what was going on. I spotted Enza Supermodel, who I fangirl shamelessly. I tend to run away from people I’m starstruck by, so, uh, I ran.

There is no other point to this post except to say that I need to constantly think about where I stand as a queer woman of colour in this city. While Toronto has its fair share of homophobia on all levels, I am very proud (and very privileged) to be living in a city with strong queer communities that go across race, class, gender, ability, etc. Often Toronto propaganda touts “a queer community” when the truth is we have many, some more accessible to certain people than others. I know that living in a major city as an able-bodied, cis-gendered bi person who can speak English and is university educated grants me privileges (which should be rights, if you ask me) that many LGBTQ people do not and cannot enjoy. On the other hand, I know that being a working class woman of colour means I have less opportunity to access services that exist and that some organizations do not want to see my race or class.

I often forget to reflect on this except when I am being forced to choose between my identities. They all inform one another. Oh, well. I suppose that means there will be more to come tomorrow.

Harper apologizes for the Komagata Maru incident in 1914. Whoo. August 5, 2008

According to CBCnews.ca, PM Harper decided to apologize for the Komagata Maru incident that happened in 1914. Excuse me if I don’t bowl over with happiness. I’ve been shocking people with the fact the incident happened for ages.

From the article:

The apology marks the third such reconciliation Harper has made with embarrassing parts of Canada’s past.

On June 11, Harper apologized to aboriginals who suffered abuse decades ago at Canadian residential schools, calling it “an important evolution in Canada’s relationship with our first peoples.”

In 2006, Harper issued a full apology to the Chinese-Canadian community for the head tax. He offered compensation to surviving Chinese-Canadians who paid the tax, as well as to widows and their children.

And, it is not without symbolism that Sunday’s apology should be delivered in Surrey’s Bear Creek Park.

Two teenage boys were found guilty of manslaughter in November 2006 for attacks — one fatal — on two elderly Indo-Canadian men in the park a year earlier.

The boys, who cannot be identified because they were 13 and 15 at the time of the attacks, had been charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of 76-year-old Shingara Singh Thandi of Surrey.

Thandi was beaten with baseball bats and robbed in a washroom in July 2005. He died in hospital three weeks later.

The youths were also found guilty of aggravated assault and robbery of Mewa Singh Bains, 83.

I understand that these apologies are meant to be symbolic and are ’steps’ towards ‘reconciliation’, or whatever they’re calling it these days, but that’s all they are. They’re symbolic. They’re not enough. Am I supposed to believe that the government is handing out these apologies because they truly believe that the state did something wrong, or are they trying to wipe their hands clean so people of colour will stop complaining? A lot of people in Canada feel a bond with the Canadian government when it comes to these things. Usually they are people in a position of privilege who don’t have to see what these apologies are not doing. I’m afraid of hearing, yet again, from white people who can’t get a clue that “well, they apologized for that… that was in the past. What does that have to do with me? I didn’t do that. That was my ancestors.”

I’m a cynic. Can you tell?

I highlighted that sentence in the article to illustrate one thing and one thing only: Harper’s apology ain’t doing jack for those two men. It’s not meant to do anything for them. I will bet you anything that sometime in the near future, I will have a conversation with someone saying Canada is a lot better than it used to be because “at least the government apologized.”

So, please, excuse me while I don’t fall to the floor in happiness that the government updated to 1914.

Friday Night is Rage Night: the sex edition August 1, 2008

My friend Lorelei and I have rage sessions together. We unconsciously developed a pattern to rage at each other about infuriating things every Friday night, recent or not. Of course, every night is rage night, and I just can’t help myself. Everything I rage about with her could be in separate posts, but often they are too rage-y that I can’t do anything but cuss and link to more coherent posts and articles.

So, with that preface, this week’s theme is PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAVE SEXUAL/ROMANTIC FREEDOM BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT HUMAN AND CAN BE KILLED OR HELD AGAINST THEIR WILL, and is also painfully US-centric. If anyone wants to continue raging in the comments, please do!