The Transgendered Ruin It For Everybody, Therefore I Have to Take Over the GLBT Community

Via Salon.com, I have found an article so stupid (or perhaps intellectually dishonest) as to take one’s breath away.  In summary, transgendered people are ruining it for gay people by being transgendered because a.) everyone hates transgendered people, even gay people and b.) so it’s not fair for transgendered people to want justice, because now is the time for gay people to get justice, and gay people don’t even get transgendered poeple, so stop glomming onto our issues and just suffer until America decides not to hate you.

These are old, old divisive wounds in the GLBTetc. communities (as one might have guessed from following certain feminist blog wars).  People who had self-identified as lesbians decided that they were really straight FTM transsexuals not gay women, thus causing some bitterness in the lesbian community (not to mention the faction of feminists who consider MTF transsexuals to be using their male privilege to intrude into female-safe spaces).  And so on.

But what strikes me in this article are three things.  One is the obvious one–that since “everyone” is uncomfortable and confused and grossed out by transsexuals, they obviously need protections.  The fact that “no one” likes them is not an argument against including them in this legislation, but exactly the reason why they should be included.  Two is this dishonest notion that the transgendered community is wholly separate from the gay and lesbian community, which is a complete rewrite of history.  And third is this notion that gay and lesbian folks only ever accepted transgendered because gay and lesbian leaders told them they had to.

Well, what the hell?  Who are these gay and lesbian leaders to start with?  Second, do gay and lesbian people just follow orders from their leaders unthinkingly?

Shoot.

If so, I declare myself a leader of the LGBTTTIQQA community.  I fully expect that such a move makes me impossible to disobey.

My first order of business would be to have some of you bring me cookies and the rest of you wrestle control of the remote away from the Butcher, who is playing channel flip beyond all reason.

A One-Girl Boycott of WKRN

Well, that’s it.  It’s been fun, WKRN, but I’m quitting you.  I’ll still read and link to Kleinheider, because I suspect you hate and fear him, but I am done with the rest of you.  Done with your website, done with your blogs, done with your news, and done with your shitty fall line-up.

I know it will have no effect on your bottom line and I know you could care less.  It’s just a symbolic gesture.

But symbolic gestures mean something.  If I could buy a billboard across the street from your studios and take a picture of myself making a one-fingered symbolic gesture in your direction, I would.

I don’t have that kind of money, though, so I have to make this one instead.

You may wonder what’s brought us to this point.

It’s the dog thing, really.

I mean, please, you’ve muzzled Kleinheider; you’ve neutered Nashville is Talking; and all out of fear of “offending people” or causing controversy.

But that Grantham person wants to write the most hysterical pearl-clutching crap about dogs–crap that directly contradicts your very own story–stuff that is offensive to me and other dog owners and people in general who know anything about dogs, and that’s just fine, apparently.

Well, it’s not fine with me.

You could be using the blogs to expand the story, to give your viewers more information, and actual facts.  You could be helping them to make informed decisions about the effectiveness of breed bans and you could be doing work that would, potentially, save dogs’ lives.

And that’s what really, really pisses me off.  In all of the blogging controversies you’ve weathered, there have been no lives at stake.

But with this one?  There is.  You’ve got a bunch of people who are putting other people in harm’s way because they don’t do right by their dogs.  You’ve got dogs in harm’s way because people don’t do right by their dogs.  And your station is seemingly on a crusade to help breed banners get rid of all ‘pitbull type dogs’ whatever that means.

Well, fine.

Do what you must.

And I’ll do what I must.

But I’ll be doing it without you.

Drying Sage for Smudging

Dear NM (or other gardening folks):

So, is it bad form to flounce about my herb garden and then throw myself in a pile next to my happy basil and sigh a sigh of discontent?

See, here’s the deal. Sitting out time is rapidly approaching and I would like to smudge with my own sage this year, the sage that I’ve been keeping alive all summer, even though there’s a drought. And so, first of all, I’d like advice on how to best harvest and dry it and tie it in a bundle for burning. Well, I can get the “tie it in a bundle part.” I’m more looking for advice on harvesting and drying it.

But second, and the reason for my over-dramatic flouncing about the internet, is that I found this website that says I don’t want to use cooking sage anyway; I want to use “one of the species of the genus Artemisia.”  Well, I spent all summer growing Salvia, and wikipedia says I want Salvia.  I guess I just want some reassurance here.

Plus, should I bundle it first and then dry it or dry it and then bundle it?

b.

Basic Human Dignity

Maybe this is a dumbass question, but, if your daughter has severe cerebral palsy and you’re worried that she would be confused and traumatized by her period, couldn’t you put her on the Pill and just never give her the sugar pill week?  I mean, call me silly, but that seems a whole hell of a lot less traumatic than major, invasive, unnecessary surgery.

A.  Doesn’t it seem fucked up to assume that your daughter, regardless of her situation, is necessarily going to be confused and traumatized by her period?  That seems to me to say more about her parents’ attitudes towards menstruation than the girl’s.  I mean, from the news article, it doesn’t sound like she’s started menstruating yet and I understand that, with severe conditions, it can be difficult to ascertain how a person feels about things, but, damn it, don’t we have an obligation to try?

I don’t know.  I’m not as well-versed on this stuff as I should be.  My whole strategy towards disability rights is to think “What would my Uncle B. have thought of this?  What would I have thought of this had someone tried to pull this shit on my Uncle B.?” but that only carries you so far.

But it seems to me that a fundimental human right is to be treated like a human being.  And part of being treated as a human being means that the people around you have an obligation to not stand in the way of you aging naturally (and I realize “natural” is a loaded term) or experiencing things that other human beings experience–pain, mess, awe, wonder.

Why would we assume that Katie Thorpe would find menstruating undignified?  Does she find peeing undignified?  Pooping?  Having ear wax?  Maybe she’d find it weird.  Maybe she’d find it amazing.  Maybe she’d just assume it was another thing her body does and not give another thought to it.

B.  I don’t like it because I don’t like this idea that a grown woman’s body is inherently in a constant state of disorder, that, because of the processes our bodies go through, we are constantly in a state of there being something wrong with us and that, while most women can handle it, it’s okay to spare a very small few the indignity of that suffering.

First of all, because, in general, menstruating and having hormonal cycles is not suffering.  If you do suffer because of your menstrual cycle, you deserve to have that suffering alleviated, not just ignored because it’s a part of being a  woman.

And secondly, because, again, human beings ought to have an inherent right to be treated as human beings and allowed to have human experiences.  Thorpe is 15.  If she starts to menstruate and her family and doctors notice that she is unduly suffering, it’s at that point that they might want to take steps to alleviate her suffering.

But before then, to take some drastic, preemptive measure against the fact that Thorpe is a human being who is growing older and therefore going through the things that women go through when their bodies mature?

I don’t like it.

I think the spector of the problem of eugenics is obvious, but the secondary problem–of the double-edged sword of treating all women’s bodies as disordered (edge one) in such a way that also allows you to downplay real women’s actual suffering (edge two)–is huge as well and should not be ignored.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with menstruating.