forthwritten

I've been enjoying some of the stuff Autostraddle has been posting recently, so in an attempt to close some tabs...

Here are some of the trans*scribe and first person essays I've read recently, mainly trans stuff, race and queerness:

“It Was Personal”: Why I Don’t Take Part in the Trans Day of Remembrance
“And I Do Mean All My Life”: A Trans* Coming Out Letter
Of A Swamp Witch And A Rural Queer
When Do I Finally Get To Belong? On Being Both Native and Queer Enough
Fear and Loathing (as a 21-Year Old Queer) in Singapore
Homeward Bound: Searching for the Secret Island of Black Queer Mixed Femmes

My girlfriend also pointed me in the direction of their collection of 140 longform articles which I now pass on to you.

A couple of shorter news articles:
India’s Government Demands Review Of Anti-Gay Court Verdict
Queer Catholic News Recap: Five and a Half Things To Know

And finally, You Know You’re A Queer Catholic School Survivor If… The one that got me was

Attending a school where everyone knew your middle name and personal history helped prepare you for entering a community where everyone knows who you slept with and how many times you and your girlfriend have broken up.

ahahahaha so true.

I have a massive collection of tabs that I don't want to lose, so thought I'd dump them here. Sorry?

Protest:
The protesters seem more adult than politicians and plutocrats

Who is truly the more adult: the protesters or an establishment that regards itself as older and wiser? The protesters have largely been very decorously behaved. They have thus far displayed no propensity to riot or to loot. Their tents are erected in rather neat rows. They hold laboriously consensus-seeking meetings at which they keep minutes and take votes. Their spokespeople are polite and articulate. If they do not have all the answers, they are at least posing some of the right questions. I don't see why they should be criticised for the absence of a manifesto when the leaders of Europe spent months quarrelling and flailing over the euro crisis before scrabbling together an expensively botched compromise.

The protesters shun formal leaders and hierarchies – and I also don't see why they should be criticised for this at a time when conventional leaders and hierarchies have been so conspicuously useless.

Occupy London could be protected by Christian ring of prayer

Christian groups that have publicly sided with the protesters include one of the oldest Christian charities, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the oldest national student organisation, the Student Christian Movement, Christianity Uncut, the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and the Christian magazine Third Way. In addition, London Catholic Worker, the Society of Sacramental Socialists and Quaker groups have offered their support.

A statement by the groups said: "As Christians, we stand alongside people of all religions who are resisting economic injustice with active nonviolence. The global economic system perpetuates the wealth of the few at the expense of the many. It is based on idolatrous subservience to markets. We cannot worship both God and money."

I think the links between Christian groups and the protests are potentially interesting. There's a history of left-wing/socialist/radical social critique and social justice work in Christianity and it's a shame? disingenuous? frustrating? that this isn't given more attention. Helping out at a homeless shelter isn't very newsworthy though; however, making horribly conservative and heteronormative statements about homosexuality/abortion/marriage/gender is. I'm sure I wasn't always this cynical...

American Paki - Why I Am Not Protesting at Occupy

I don’t protest at Occupy because I know that my name has long existed on some intelligence database and I do not know what on earth it will be used for and how I will be targeted because of it – especially if I begin to show my face more regularly protesting at my local encampment.

[...]

As tempted as many white Occupy protesters are to proclaim “we are all one and the same!”, you cannot expect minorities, whose communities have been subjected to intimidation and abuse, to suddenly throw away the race card and jump on the bandwagon. These are critical times, and as such, it is important for Occupy to get it right. We are all part of the 99% – and the concerns of some should fast transform into the concern for all.

Paul Mason - Global unrest: how the revolution went viral
Paul Mason wrote Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere a few months ago and has expanded these ideas into a book.

For the first time in decades, people are using methods of protest that do not seem archaic or at odds with the contemporary world; the protesters seem more in tune with modernity than the methods of their rulers. Sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris calls what we're seeing the "movement without a name": a trend, a direction, an idea-virus, a meme, a source of energy that can be traced through a large number of spaces and projects. It is also a way of thinking and acting: an agility, an adaptability, a refusal to accept the world as it is, a refusal to get stuck into fixed patterns of thought. Why is it happening now? Ultimately, the explanation lies in three big social changes: in the demographics of revolt, in technology and in human behaviour itself.

Encountering Tear Gas & Pepper Spray, OWS Defending Against Tear Gas (image) and Survive a Mace Attack
Useful for some protesters - be aware of what the police force you're likely to come across are authorised to use.

Trans:
Binary Subverter - To Parents
I'm still mulling this over, but I found it really interesting.

This isn’t about presentation- although it's infuriating as hell that we still live in a world where it’s exceptional for any child to be free in how it presents, this should seriously be the norm- this is about gender. The most masculine trans woman in the world can feel social dysphoria. The most feminine trans man in the world can still feel like he isn’t free to express himself. Because that’s just it. I wasn’t allowed to express myself - by calling me a girl the message was that I was only free to accept myself if myself was a herself, which it wasn't. That masculine trans woman wasn’t allowed to express herself, only a non-existant "himself", that feminine trans man wasn’t allowed to express himself, only a non-existant "herself".

Janet Mock - Trans Day of Remembrance: A Letter of Blessings to my 16-Year-Old Self

Now, more than a decade later, I look at how lucky I was to get to walk out of that car. I now know the world can sadly be a cruel place. I could have been hit or beat or killed. A victim of a hate crime, one that could have been deemed a mistrial due to the trans panic defense, one where my family would have no closure, one where I’d be buried as a boy because no one but my friends knew my dreams of womanhood.

Fucking tired of arguing with people about using they as a singular pronoun
Always useful to have ammunition for this :D

Other stuff:
Queer and Then?

At its best, queer theory has always also been something else—something that will be left out of any purely intellectual history of the movement. Like "I want a dyke for president," it has created a kind of social space. Queer people of various kinds, both inside and outside academe, continue to find their way to it, and find each other through it. In varying degrees, they share in it as a counterpublic. In this far-too-limited zone, it has been possible to keep alive a political imagination of sexuality that is otherwise closed down by the dominant direction of gay and lesbian politics, which increasingly reduces its agenda to military service and marriage, and tends to remain locked in a national and even nationalist frame, leading gay people to present themselves as worthy of dignity because they are "all-American," and thus to forget or disavow the estrangements that they have in common with diasporic or postcolonial queers.

That effect has been possible not just because of the theories themselves, but because of the space of belonging and talk in which theory interacts with ways of life.

I'm pretty much as much of a baby queer theorist as it's possible to get but I did like this essay and am attracted to queer spaces, both physical and intellectual, for similar reasons.

Mysterious paper sculptures in Edinburgh. Gorgeous and imaginative and with a message about the importance of the arts. Well worth a look.

Couple of Doctor Who links: Doctor Who and its Discontents: Part I - Moffat, Misogyny and the Problem with Pond and Fixing Doctor Who – Season Five Edition. I love that someone's outlined an alternative S5 with themes and character development and narrative arcs. No, I do.

Transactivist: Desirability. There's no one bit I want to quote in isolation; it's about transphobia, gendered expectations of behaviour, beauty, attraction and desire. Also a rather offensive poster campaign from the NHS.

Fashion and accessibility

So how do you enjoy something when, whether intentionally or not, you’re left out of it? Good question – one I’m still trying to untangle in my head, while re-tooling my wardrobe so that it realistically fits my wants and needs, but still has some sort of aesthetic that I like. And here’s another one – what would make for more accessible fashion?

Signal boost: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – Occupied Bodies: Women of Color Speak on Self-Image – Deadline October 15, 2010

I am soliciting essays for an anthology on women of color’s self-image/body image as shaped by family, friends, media, society, history, lived experiences, etc. I’m looking for smart, accessible, and snappy personal narratives that also offer nuanced analysis of the underlying constructs that affect how we perceive ourselves. Exploring intersectionality of identities is extremely important. I particularly want the voices of women of color that are not often heard to be represented, such as trans* WOC, disabled WOC, queer WOC, WOC outside the U.S., WOC with eating disorders, working class/poor WOC and fat WOC. Of course, all the varied perspectives any woman of color can offer are welcome.

Why Twitter's New Earlybird Account Is Pure Genius. Thoughts on monetising twitter using a subscription account for time-sensitive deals. Seems like an interesting idea - it doesn't seem particularly intrusive (as with a lot of advertising) and seems to work with the site's function. Who knows how it will work out, but it seems like a more elegant idea than e.g. limiting number of subscriptions for free users.

Have had a relatively productive couple of days. The other day I went to a careers thing and afterwards networked like a good little postgraduate. This basically meant sitting around in Mooch with a couple of other postgraduates, being cynical and eating chips.

Yesterday I corrected 10,999 words of early twentieth century court cases. I did learn what a "long pull" was though - giving someone more than an Imperial measure of beer. I still don't exactly understand why getting a pint and a gill of beer rather than just a pint is a problem. Have concluded that I am not cut out to be a lawyer.

Anyway, links!

Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America

Bit of a messy article and I'm not quite sure if the links she makes work for me, but I don't disagree with her conclusion:

What the election and the global embrace of Obama's brand proved decisively is that there is a tremendous appetite for progressive change – that many, many people do not want markets opened at gunpoint, are repelled by torture, believe passionately in civil liberties, want corporations out of politics, see global warming as the fight of our time, and very much want to be part of a political project larger than themselves.

Those kinds of transformative goals are only ever achieved when independent social movements build the ­numbers and the organisational power to make muscular demands of their elites. Obama won office by ­capitalising on our profound nostalgia for those kinds of social movements. But it was only an echo, a memory. The task ahead is to build movements that are – to borrow an old Coke slogan – the real thing.

Through that article, I found out about Absolut No Label, in which a brand of vodka

challenge[s] labels and prejudice about sexual identity. There are too many labels associated with the LGBT-community and with this initiative we want to find a way around them. We have launched a naked bottle with no label and no logo, to manifest the idea that no matter what’s on the outside, it’s the inside that really matters

I don't know, I just feel quite weird about a big brand hosting those kind of discussions, and it's hard not to see this as a clever marketing ploy to seem cool and edgy (and, of course, lure in the pink pound). I think I still distrust brands who try these sort of publicity stunts - I'm always wondering why they're doing it, what's in it for them.

If Haiti is to 'build back better' and help not hinder Haiti both discuss how to help Haiti. The Red Cross blog discusses how unwanted donations can be both indirectly and directly life-threatening:

First let me debunk a couple of myths, starting with the principle that “anything is better than nothing”. Trust me, it’s not. Relieving suffering should be guided solely by need and not what people have to donate. Humanitarian aid should also ‘do no harm’. Quite a lot of harm is done when unwanted and unneeded fresh food items rot in piles at the airports and seaports, stopping medicines and blankets getting through.

Why I Think RaceFail Was The Bestest Thing Evar for SFF

The way I see it, RaceFail was the big thaw for the SFF field. Fans of color, and white fans who were tired of the old ways, literally heated things up with an outpouring of long-pent rage. That fury was utterly necessary, because it shocked the whole genre enough to make it pay attention. Without that, SFF would have remained resistant — frozen — against such radical ideas as why are all these futuristic stories full of white people, when they’re already a minority on the planet now? and y’know, maybe erasing the brown people from your fantasy continent, or making them allegorical orcs, is a bad idea.

She Pop: Madonna Is Your Dorm Room Poster, And Further Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

When Madonna takes on Catholicism and Christianity, she's subversive in a way that betrays an understanding you can only get by growing up Catholic and/or in a culture where Christianity is privileged. When she takes on "Eastern spirituality" (huh? There's only one of those now?) it's less about commenting on it than claiming it for herself, whether or not she understands it at all. And she doesn't, apparently, so it winds up an offensive mess.

Kind of wish I'd been able to articulate this when Ray of Light was released; it's not that I think it's wrong to comment on religions, it's just that you tend to have to be intimately familiar with them to say something interesting.

Finally, Airbrushed for change makes me laugh. A lot. My gang of reprobates have designs on Tory posters...

Today luciente came over and we epically failed to do our skills audits. This was partially because of epic server fail, us filling out the wrong bit ("I KNEW this looked too straightforward!") and her forcing me to read Roy Orbison in clingfilm. As ever, we quickly got down to the business of traumatising each other (all of those links go to weepingcock, they have all been carefully selected for maximum wrongness, and I consider it a personal win that luciente actually refused to read one of them).

In linkiness round-up and in no particular order:

spiralsheep explains why opposing the BNP is a feminist issue and more about their members, and gavagai has lots of links.

damned_colonial is asking what you'd say if asked to give a talk on how to make open source more welcoming to women and other minorities. This comment is superb. Related to it, the male privilege checklist and How to encourage women into Linux.

Stuff on Jared Diamond's reporting: link discussing problems and issues and perspective from an anthropology blog. I've been meaning to read Guns, Germs and Steel, gah, people, stop failing.

Found someone's notes on Great War Fiction when looking for suffragist responses to the outbreak of war. I particularly like this analysis of narratives of white feather stories. Check out comment #6 for the author's response to an illiterate sexist.

Bizarre article about Women Not Drinking Real Ale. Apparently they are Scared Of Getting Fat. As a female real ale drinker, I would argue that choosing between six or seven ales on tap with little information on what each actually is or tastes like is kind of intimidating and that you at least know where you are with a vodka and diet coke/WKD. I was lucky enough to be guided by the secretary of a branch of CAMRA, but I think it would be helpful if there were, say, leaflets, describing each ale in terms of brewery, hops and tasting notes and taking the guesswork out of it a bit. Is it wrong that I see parallels between real ale drinking and open source?


A gorgeously written, moving piece on having and losing a language.

I didn't participate in foc_u, and this analysis and this explanation kind of describe why I didn't want to join the community. Because yes, I'm not white - and I'm also female. I'm tired of my safe spaces for me as a woman not being safe for me as a non-white person, and I don't want my safe space for me as a non-white person to be unsafe for me as a woman. Intersectionality, it's a beautiful thing.

And finally, a linguistics essay using LJ Abuse as a case study.

I've been thinking about steampunk recently, prompted by naraht's excellent sets of links (set 1, set 2). We ended up talking about it a couple of nights ago, then again when it came up in #dw last night.

I don't like being forthwritten, Destroyer Of Squee, but there are things I find deeply problematic about steampunk. I'm not a srs Victorianist (and I hope not to embarrass myself in front of naraht and oursin) but my thesis does require some knowledge of late C19th/early C20th issues - politics, ideologies, what were current issues and concerns and anxieties, how the Victorians and Edwardians thought about things. There are some things that seem completely alien to my mind - the way that even those who supported women's suffrage supported it because they thought women were gentler and more spiritually pure, and with the rise of governmental interest in domestic issues they needed women on board to guide them through this unknown territory.

Victorian England was a world where the vast majority of people led difficult, uncomfortable, poor, exhausting lives, where 1 in 3 babies born at the same time as Queen Victoria died before their fifth birthday, where things like pensions or benefits didn't exist and the only relief was to be found in the workhouse (look up the 1834 Poor Law). Most people were not totally awesome explorers and adventurers and countesses.

In celebrating the figure of the adventurer and explorer, steampunk buys into certain assumptions. One: that there are places to explore and discover - the idea that a land can only be discovered by your culture, and has been previously unexplored even if people have been living there for centuries. Two: that, as naraht points out, "deep down, or perhaps not so deep down, there's a sense in steampunk that having an empire must after all have been rather fun".
And I doubt this is deliberate, but it places people like me in a difficult situation. To shamelessly repost the comment I left on one of naraht's entries, am I one of the friendly hilltribes who offers the explorers help? Am I a savage living in harmony with my wild forests? Am I untamed and beautiful and freakish, am I dangerous, am I irresponsible and childlike, am I sturdy and possessed of a certain native cunning? How am I going to be exoticised and made into a tragic character, a simple character, a loyal and passive character? I've read the early C20th anthropology books, I know what role I played in the Victorian psyche, and it disappoints me that steampunk doesn't do much to challenge that.
Even the terms are uncomfortable - how can you be a "orientalist" unproblematically, without knowing or caring about critiques of orientalism offered by post-colonialism? How can you be the thing that Said, in Orientalism, was questioning?

But forthwritten, you cry, I don't care about the ideology! I just like my cool gadgety tech! I think being able to disconnect the two is interesting, yet enabled by the kind of technology steampunk celebrates. Steampunk focuses on engineering rather than the other technologies and sciences the Victorians were exploring - engineering rather than, for example, public health, infectious disease control, evolution and eugenics. Within that, steampunk focuses on engineering of a particular kind - Babbage but not Bazalgette.
And as naraht asks, maybe that's because engineering itself is perceived as a a celebration of cool gadgety tech without having an ideology (comparative to, say, eugenics). As she puts it, it's "all about the uncomplicated triumph of objective, uber-cool science" - as long as you can build Awesome Rockets, who cares who you're building them for or how they could be used? Why does steampunk focus so heavily on weaponry? Who are they shooting with their steam-powered guns and rifles? It looks cool to carry around a big, artistically distressed gun, but why?

And perhaps this is the crux of My Thoughts on Steampunk: it's a superficial understanding of the Victorian age without wanting to understand the anxieties of the age. It doesn't even understand the technology beyond a superficial "ooh, shiny" delight - am I really the only one wondering how that steam must be produced, the miners and kids shovelling coal and smoke-choked cities and pea-soupers, or is there an explanation that ignores Victorian economics in favour of a C21st style fair trade explanation?

Perhaps I'm coming at this from the wrong angle - after all, my punk involves questioning social values and assumptions in a sometimes awkward but often genuine and well-intentioned way. I do understand the appeal of computer mods, and I can understand steampunk as a reaction to the sleek, disempowering kind of technology that says "no, you don't have a chance of understanding me, best get someone else to fix that". But I'm not sure how steampunk subverts and challenges our ideologies and anxieties through the lens of Victorian alternative history, and indeed what it is beyond an uncomplicated celebration of engineering and technology.

Or maybe it does - imperialism is still an issue today. Maybe steampunk is a way of making that safe and uncomplicated, of imagining it as gentlemen inventor-adventurers rather than soldiers, imagining guns and rockets that are beautiful and complicated and are never used to kill people. In which case, I think it achieves this at the expense of really doing something that reimagines the world and creating a genuinely alternative history.

ETA: thank you for all the thoughtful comments; I've greatly enjoyed reading them and seeing discussions unfold. I'm a bit swamped with work so I can't respond to everyone right now but I'd like this discussion to continue and I'll try to contribute if I can.