Mayhem and Crime Against Nature

I had the opportunity to visit the Crimes section of the State of Maine Revised Statutes today for work.

If you haven't done so, I urge you to check it out.  It's quite entertaining... and I must say that I'm a little disappointed that the crime of "Mayhem" has been repealed (although equally relieved that "Crime Against Nature" has been removed--I suspect I know what that one was).

Marxist Until Graduation

When I was at Sarah Lawrence I'm pretty there were as many MUGs as BUGs and LUGs (Bisexual Until Graduation and Lesbian Until Graduation).  

And all apparently interested in Katy Perry, these days:

via mental floss

Marriage

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone but me, but it turns out that I'm a traditionalist. Yesterday the princess and I went and bought engagement rings, and while she (very sensibly, considering her job) wanted gems that were recessed into the ring, I wanted a diamond solitaire.

I got it.

But trying to rationalize a whole bunch of conflicting feelings-- diamonds-are-blood-stained-meaningless-symbols, diamonds-are-beautiful, everybody-will-know-what-this-ring-means, why-does-it-matter-to-me-what-people-think, it's-money-we-don't-have, i-really-want-it-- is sort of a representation of how the marriage situation is developing in my mind.

I've been ambivalent about the gay marriage campaign, and marriage in general. I still don't think that it should be the Big Queer Cause sucking up all of the funding and attention--I would prefer that queer and lgbt organizers take up things like national healthcare, preventing/prosecuting hate crimes, and equal pay regardless of gender. Honestly, I think that most homophobia can be traced to a root of sexism, and working on THAT issue instead would improve the lives of so many people.

I also think that marriage is a fucked-up institution that is often the cause of much unhappiness.

Still.

I love the princess. I want our families and our community and our neighbors to recognize the nature of our relationship at a glance. I want to share my health insurance with her without having to prove to some city official that we've lived together for 12 months, which is what's required for domestic partnership. If I ever own anything valuable, I want her to have it after I die.

But more important than any of that, and the real reason I'm marrying her, is that I want to. I just plain old selfishly want to. I want to make a promise to her that I will always put our relationship first, and that I will stick around to work out whatever comes up in our lives together. We're not promising to be together until we die; I don't believe in making promises I can't keep, and I don't know what the future will bring either of us. But I do know that no matter what happens, we'll be in it together, and if there are challenges we will always try to fix things instead of walking away.

Nonetheless, I have a hard time with marriage as I've seen it practiced and talked about. I'm going to get married just the same.

More on this later, I'm sure.

A Not-So-Gentle Reminder

When the body needs a break, it just goes right ahead and takes one. As it did today, when I woke up and it was all, "Fuck you, Jen, get back in that bed. No? Ok, how about searing pain? How do you feel about the bed now, huh?"

To which I replied, "Yes, MA'AM. Uh, hello, heating pad. Haven't seen you in DAYS!" (Chronic pain, exhausting, frustrating, no cure, whine whine, blah blah.)

In other news, I'm getting married. More on that later.

Symbology

Speaking of symbols... If you follow me on twitter, you know two important things about the past month.

1. I broke my chest on a pretty girl's shoulder.

2. Then I fell in love with the girl.

Are these things unrelated? If I was writing my own story I would throw out that plot faster than last month's baked beans. However, while I have some input on the plot of my own story I am not the ultimate editor. I did not intentionally break my chest nor fall in love... and yet there it is.

Both of these developments have required some adjustments. Breathing, for example, has insisted on being reconsidered. As has cuddling. Those also seem related.

Speaking of scarce resources...

The gay marriage campaign cost at least $9.6 million.

Those who supported the repeal of the state's gay-marriage law spent $3.8 million, while those who fought to keep gay marriage on the books spent $5.8 million. Voters repealed the law by a 53-47 percent vote. (via)

In case you were wondering, $9.6 million would buy 3,764,706 gallons of heating oil, pay for food stamps for 18,251 three-person families, or pay 1/40 of the state deficit.

I don't mean to imply that I don't value the work of all of the folks who worked so hard on the campaign. But I am and always have been ambivalent on the issue of marriage itself. And this new information just underscores it all.

Hair

I don't identify as femme (why not? it doesn't fit how I feel. my gender can't be defined that easily. that is all) but I relate to a lot of what's being said here.

Ever since I've been growing my hair out (yes, that's all) I've noticed a distinct shift in who notices me and what kind of attention I get. It's all about the hair, folks. True story. Ask any middle schooler.

A couple of Sinclair's points that I enjoy**:

Not being seen as queer and recognized as radical by straight folks is a common complaint I hear from femmes. There is an added burden of constantly having to come out verbally, constantly having to remind the folks around you that you are queer, constantly having to deflect and defend yourselves against unwanted straight male attractions, since in this culture the display of femininity is presumed to be for the attraction of men, men’s gaze, men’s sexual advancement. It is seen as an invitation to being hit on, in fact. A girl out on the town and all dressed up in heels, dresses, lipstick, must be trying to “catch a man.” Of course, this isn’t true. Whoever this girl is, she could be wearing those things for all kinds of reasons, for her boyfriend, for her friends, for herself, for her wife. And this is constant. Walking down the street, catching a cab, on the subway, at work, at a party, at a play, at a concert, in a bar – everywhere a femme goes, her femininity is assumed to be for men and to attract a man.

(This is also, in fact, one of the reasons femme-ness is subversive, and feminist: it re-creates femininity not as a tool to catch men, but as an authentic mode of expression for onesself and for queerness, disrupting this idea that femininity is “natural” for women.)

...You can’t choose who sees you when you walk down the street – you put yourself out there in a semi-public domain and you can’t pick who you interact with on a daily basis. But you can choose what those interactions mean. And here, you just have a more advanced sense of this sex-gender assumption than they do. You are right. They are not.

and also

What a complicated, heartbreaking, turning-ourselves-inside-out that coming to a new identity process is. And when it is not marked by physical proof, when someone looks the same, there is no particular indication that Something Big Has Changed, so how do we know? By speaking of it, by talking about it, by documenting it in some form. Still, so much of the data we take in is visual, so even when our minds take in that something is different, if we don’t see the physical proof, it might not register the same way. I think this is also partly why the process of coming out as a dyke often involves things like cutting one’s hair off – which is the rejection of femininity and the association that femininity is performed for the attraction of men, yes, but also a physical marker that something has changed.

These are just things that are “true,” according to our culture: femininity is a tool for the attraction of men; dykes reject this and therefore don’t have to perform femininity; if you are a dyke, you also come to a more androgynous gender identity as part of your dykeness. Sexual orientation and gender presentation are so tied together – that is the sex-gender assumption in a nutshell.

At a conference not too long ago (just before the vote, actually) I was talking to a small workgroup of LGBT folks. We were asked to describe what we imagined or wanted to focus on as a community after the election was over. I suggested that, as a community, we do some work around sexism, because most homophobia comes down to gender-based discrimination.

For example, how can you tell someone's queer? Unless they're making out with someone, you kind of have to go by gender markers. It's the gender transgression that is the problem, not the sexual orientation.

Why do some straight guys feel incredibly threatened by gay men and fixate on gay sex? Because gay sex is believed to be "feminizing" in a world where feminine=less power.

Why are transwomen subjected to violence more frequently than transmen? See the "feminizing" situation above.

Why, even, is marriage an issue? Because it's seen as making a mockery of the man-woman dichotomy.

Every single one of those folks around the table looked at me like I had two heads. There was a brief silence and then the conversation moved on, closing over my comment without any indication that it had ever existed.

Yes, okay. And there's a big part of the problem, in a nutshell, and why I have a hard time getting behind a lot of the queer activism that's going on right now. More on this later, I think.

**hee hee

...

Because that's how it is for me these days. Just. ...

I didn't expect to feel so strongly about the election. I don't support marriage as The Cause for the queers; I don't think it's a very functional institution and I'm not interested in assimilating. I do support my friends who want to get married, though, and I understand that the conversation is already, happening. Can't stay neutral... moving train. Etcetera.

On Wednesday morning it sure didn't feel like a vote about marriage, though. It felt like 53% of the state voted against ME. And my chosen family.

Also, it's November, my least favorite month of the year. I would make links to previous posts that acknowledge my November-hatred, but I just don't have the energy today.

Middle Schoolers Coming Out

The NY Times has a pretty long article about coming out in middle school, including some interviews with kids in Maine.

I was guilty of my share of [disbelief], too, the first time I met Kera — then a 12-year-old seventh grader — and her 13-year-old best friend, Justin, last spring in a city in New England. Kera had small, delicate features. Justin had freckles and braces. They seemed like kids. Yet there they were at a bookstore coffee shop after school, talking nonchalantly — when they weren’t giggling uncontrollably about one of their many inside jokes, that is — about their sexual identities. Kera said she was bisexual. Justin said he was gay. The effect was initially surreal to me, and before long I heard myself blurt out, “But you’re so young!”

It's a thoughtful article, and the author acknowledges his own prejudices; the basic message is that the world isn't quite ready for these kids, but it can't stop them. I like that.

Toot, toot

Internet heroez:

Click To Play

Shameless Self-Promotion, part 3

After a long absence, I've written another Queerbie column. Some of it might look familiar to you...

Upcoming Events

I'm going to be participating in a panel discussion on June 18 about Intergenerational Queer/Trans Activism and how we'll continue to document and tell our stories. The lineup for the panel is like a short list of everyone I'd want to be trapped on a desert island with.

You should come check it out...

Reason #987 why I am single

An actual conversation I had yesterday...

CO-WORKER: Oh, look! There's a speed-dating event tonight. Want to go?

ME: Oh, no thanks. Tonight I have to finish up a disk of Battlestar Galactica.

Poor & female & queer

Last week (one week ago tomorrow, actually, when I was just starting to have a sense that I might be sick) I participated in a local history project of Sisters, the dyke bar (RIP). The project is being conducted through a series of interviews by Clare Forstie, a graduate student at USM. I was thrilled to help--and, to be honest, a little jealous that I hadn't thought of the idea first.

During the interview I talked a bit about why Sisters closed. I have always thought that a lesbian-oriented venture will have a harder road because women are, in general, poorer than men, and lesbians are poorer than women in general. This is something I've observed, and something I know to be true, but now there's proof.

About 24 percent of lesbians and bisexual women are poor, compared to 19 percent of straight women, the study says. About 15 percent of gay and bisexual men are living in poverty, a rate that’s akin to the 13 percent of straight men who are poor, the report says.
(Washington Blade, via)

I can't wait to go read the whole thing, and you can too, here.

(h/t to Sarah)

The Ones to Watch

The Bangor Daily News is reporting today the formation of a clergy group, Maine Marriage Alliance, to oppose gay marriage.

“It is so important for us to recognize this is not a challenge to a social institution,” [Rev. Bob Emrich of Plymouth] said. “It’s a challenge to the righteousness of God. … This is not one of the things we may have to face, we are facing it.”

They were careful to say that their opposition would be "graceful,"--meaning, I think, maybe less hate than other groups have shown... but I'm not sure that there is a way to be "graceful" when you believe you have the "righteousness of God" behind you, and believe that those who oppose you are going against "biblical truth."

The article also did point out that 120 faith leaders joined the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine.

I have complicated feelings about this marriage thing. I don't actually support gay marriage, because I think there are more pressing issues (queer youth suicide rate, hate crimes, the incredible substance abuse rate in the LGBT community, etc. etc. etc.), but I don't oppose it either. People should be able to marry the people they love--I just don't think this should be the #1 issue in our community right now.

Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye on this Maine Marriage Alliance... you can too (if you have the stomach for it) at www.mainemarriage.net.

Transgender Children

The Atlantic has a new article about transgender children. I'm only partway through it, but I'm struck by this:

This is the strange place in which transsexuals have found themselves. For years, they’ve been at the extreme edges of transgressive sexual politics. But now children like Brandon are being used to paint a more conventional picture: before they have much time to be shaped by experience, before they know their sexual orientation, even in defiance of their bodies, children can know their gender, from the firings of neurons deep within their brains.

I'm going to keep reading. Have you read it? What do you think?

Unified: A Community Response to Hate Crimes

Unified: A Community Response to Hate Crimes
Tuesday, October 7,2008 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm

In light of recent hate crimes in Portland, including a Sept. 6 attack on a man who was perceived to be gay, EqualityMaine and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence are sponsoring a community rally in Monument Square.

Event Location: Monument Square Portland, ME 04101
Rain location: First Parish UU Church, 425 Congress Street, Portland

The rally will feature various speakers from across the community, as well as a speak-out for individuals who want to address the crowd about the need to end hate violence in our communities.

If you have any questions, please contact info@equalitymaine.org

Repeat After Me

This weather forecast does not mean that god hates gays.... this weather forecast does not mean that god hates gays...

Happy Pride Week

I am a little tiny bit in love with this picture.
via slog

It Happened Again

I'm a Queerbie.