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the_fantastic_ms_foxI paraphrase their last poster:
'a party for women (gay/straight/trans); genderqueers and FtMs with ties to women's kink are welcome'
I put up the posters around mainstreet and SFU. I was unable to attend. I still have their tape gun.
They're putting on another event. I wanted to ask some questions before I volunteered again. The volunteer coordinator obliged and asked if I wanted any specific "deets" (short for details I assume, not misspelled "beets"). I sent them this:
---------------
I have some deets ["details" - ed] based on stories from other events and some personal experience that I'd like to know before I start inviting my friends:
1. Someone shows up at the door wearing what could be construed as either dykey or hipster male clothes, and they look/sound male, and have male ID. If asked, they say "I'm changing my sex." Can they come in without supplying any special documentation?
(in contrast to other events that require female ID or a doctor's note or something)
2. Can everyone take their pants off?
(in contrast to "only ciswomen, post-op MtFs and pre/non-bottom-op FtMs and female-bodided genderqueers can take their pants off")
3. Is there anything that someone can do if other participants are (subtly) harrassing them?
(in contrast to "everyone can come in, but the participants will police them")
4. Can all genderqueers come in?
(in contrast to "genderqueers welcome - but only with female ID.")
- I understand that this might sound nitpicky, but I know some genderqueers who're irked when they're divided into male/female - plus I know one or two dyke-identified m-t-genderqueers and the policy as it stands sort of includes them but might not, so I wanted to check.
I'm sorry this is so thorough, and thank you for bearing with me. As long as the answers to these are "yes," or closely related thereto, I am totally up for helping out. And if you don't mind, I'd really like to distribute some kind of clarification along with the announcment of this event though the SFU queer-centre mail-lists. This way, T* students know not just that Really Good Friday is on, but that they're welcome - some have found other events to be welcoming in theory, but not in practice, and won't come if they think it might be like their past experiences (same goes for their friends and lovers).
--------------
They said they'd check with the committee. I replied with this.
---------
Thank you.
I should explain that I'm sorta responsible for maintaining relations with the Queer Center and doing trans(mtf/butch/gq/etc...) inclusion with the SFU's Women's Center [SFU's women's centre is reasonably good on the MtF front, poor on the butch front and genderqueers generally don't register on their Dredus- ed] ] , so if I could really catch hell if people from SFU went and things went wrong. Hence my exhaustive caution.
----------------
I think that I did the right thing, but I also feel like I just acted like a lunatic radical.
I'm surprised by how much trans shit I'm doing. I mean, I seem to be good at it, and it was my favourite part of gender studies (which was my favourite subject) before I got into this business with the changing of the sex.
Trans shit:
1. I think I got SFU to make it easier to change your officially-recorded gender - this follows on work done in 2004 by Louis Julig that got SFU to recognize "male," "female," and "other." I'll get a firm response in a couple weeks
2. I think I can do something about the unisex washroom situation. There's not much money for renovations, but I can at least get a list, and publicize it with a map - the disabilities center is intersted as there's at least one student who came in asking where she could pee when her assistant is of another gender. The rest will have to wait until I'm done with the CFS (i.e. the Spring Solstice).
Of note here is that I was pushing for this long before the changing sex business came about - ::pride::
3. As noted above, trans-inclusion (trying to get the leaders there engaged enough to educate or, failing that, smack the space-users until they stop bothering/ejecting butches) at the women's center - and maybe granting the genderqueers and lads occasional access to the library, if they'll accept?
4. I've got the gender-and-coffee discussion group up and going again.
5. Education display in convo mall for Trans Day of Remembrance (set up to move away from the traditional "transsexuals are prostitutes who get murdered" and towards "Here's trans 101. Here are different kinds of trans identities. Here's what transphobia is. Here's how it affects trans people (incl violence). Here's how it affect non-trans people. Here's how people deal with it, overcome it, and have rewarding lives. Here's how you can find out more).
6. I'm taking the local transgender ("transgender" includes gender-variance, past conceptions of homosexuality, and some surprising ties to anti-Chinese sentiments and colonization of Native nations, among other things) history class with Susan Stryker. In this class of twenty-five to thirty, I'd guess that there are between two and four trans-ID'd people - that's including myself and the prof. There is also at least one non-trans ally with a history of pushing for trans issues in her work.
(6 continued.) We're supposed to be doing historical research, often involving approaching people in queer communities. This could be an incredible project: thirty students writing one historical wiki! But how are we supposed to find people and get them to take the time to talk to a bunch of academics? I'm being asked to help facilitate. In the class, it seems that I am the best-connected person to trans shit in Vancouver. Me. What the hell is this? Where did this come from? People talk about "the trans community" and I try not to cringe, because they're either referring to it sarcastically (because there isn't much of one - the coffee discussion group is an attempt tofix this) or because they are referring to the transender-in-theory-but-transsexual-in-practice support group at the health Center (which was an awful experience - I came out of there convinced that my life was about to be torn apart).
The problem with the above six items is that I am a lynchpin, or the lynchpin. 1-4 were going nowhere until I took some initiative. There's been a lot of help from other people, but it feels that it wouldn't have happened otherwise.
I'm trying to get them to run without me. #4 should run on its own. It will have to as I'll have to miss a lot of meetings due to work and... electrolysis (it never ends... until it's actually over. Damn I'm looking forward to that).
At least the CFS thing is at a stage that I could vanish and it would keep turning. Did you know that, after years of silence in regards to defed, suddenly Douglas College, U of T Scarborough and the Victoria undergrads have started the independance process? We proved it's possible. That's 4 schools likely leaving this Spring and at least another 3 next year. And they're bigger than most CFS schools.
I feel like I have the power to chage things... barely... with a lot of work.
Even so, I wonder what hope there is for trans issues when it seems to apply to so sparse a group of people, with such diverse backgrounds as to move in almost totally distinct social circles. I think that anything that happens with trans social progress has to rely on support from extremely diverse groups (including trans, non-trans, not-exactly trans or non-trans, not sure, don't care and none-of-your business) otherwise it won't happen. The washrooms thing has the Disablities Centre phoning the Women's Center, who phone Out-on-Campus, who phone me - who says "Well, not much has changed." I tried to get it moving before en masse, but it seems to work better when I gather up a handful of people and go bother the SFU administrators, talk for a bit, then retire, discuss and try again.
I feel intensely protective towards most transgender people. This seems to be my nature. But is it my nature because I'm just protective? Or is it that I don't know how to take care of myself, or that I don't feel justified in doing it? Probably a bit of all of these.
A friend of mine at SFU told me that I was a very responsible person. He was right.
And I'm using doing it in such a new way - deliberately eroding boundaries and making allies.
Jesus Christ* that is a lot of responsibility. Why didn't I notice it before?
And I was feeling guilty about not wanting to think about others' trans issues (i.e. Hi, I'm a 6'8" 52 year-old pre-transition MtF with no financial resources, a homophobic boss, a wife and three kids - advice please). Ha! Guilty? I'm at and setting my limits is all. That's like a firefighter "Hi, my soccer team is swimming in burning napalm. Advice please." I can't do any more - at least not without burning out - and if I burn out (again) than I really won't be able to help.
I think I might have been using this to deflect how I feel about my own life in regards to trans issues, and decidedly non-trans gender issues. I don't know how to fix them without changing the world, or the laws of biology, but at least I can make sure that they're not as hard on others.
I met a guy who'd been involved in trans issues for years. Other people said he's a workaholic. He says that of course he's a workaholic - being aware of these things is like standing in the middle of a giant traffic accident with bodies everywhere - you get to work, and you keep working.
Through this, I can see how a lot of people feel about a lot of social justice issues. War. Environment. Racism. Intellectual property. Rape. Migration. Schizophrenia. Orphans. Animal rights. Secularism. Abortion. There is no shortage of pressing concerns in this world; no shortage of honourable work. I wonder what (or if) the world would be without this.
Lunatic radicals, all of us.
Maybe the trades course will be a nice change of pace - or maybe I'll be advocating for CARPENTRY FOR ALL.
*Again, he'd approve**
**Having not asked Jesus for "his" pronoun preference. Hmm.... Can you pull an inverse bell hooks (that's her name - no caps) and ask that people always refer to you with capitalized pronouns?
"Thank you for asking: I self-identify as a Judeo-Christian deity"
'a party for women (gay/straight/trans); genderqueers and FtMs with ties to women's kink are welcome'
I put up the posters around mainstreet and SFU. I was unable to attend. I still have their tape gun.
They're putting on another event. I wanted to ask some questions before I volunteered again. The volunteer coordinator obliged and asked if I wanted any specific "deets" (short for details I assume, not misspelled "beets"). I sent them this:
---------------
I have some deets ["details" - ed] based on stories from other events and some personal experience that I'd like to know before I start inviting my friends:
1. Someone shows up at the door wearing what could be construed as either dykey or hipster male clothes, and they look/sound male, and have male ID. If asked, they say "I'm changing my sex." Can they come in without supplying any special documentation?
(in contrast to other events that require female ID or a doctor's note or something)
2. Can everyone take their pants off?
(in contrast to "only ciswomen, post-op MtFs and pre/non-bottom-op FtMs and female-bodided genderqueers can take their pants off")
3. Is there anything that someone can do if other participants are (subtly) harrassing them?
(in contrast to "everyone can come in, but the participants will police them")
4. Can all genderqueers come in?
(in contrast to "genderqueers welcome - but only with female ID.")
- I understand that this might sound nitpicky, but I know some genderqueers who're irked when they're divided into male/female - plus I know one or two dyke-identified m-t-genderqueers and the policy as it stands sort of includes them but might not, so I wanted to check.
I'm sorry this is so thorough, and thank you for bearing with me. As long as the answers to these are "yes," or closely related thereto, I am totally up for helping out. And if you don't mind, I'd really like to distribute some kind of clarification along with the announcment of this event though the SFU queer-centre mail-lists. This way, T* students know not just that Really Good Friday is on, but that they're welcome - some have found other events to be welcoming in theory, but not in practice, and won't come if they think it might be like their past experiences (same goes for their friends and lovers).
--------------
They said they'd check with the committee. I replied with this.
---------
Thank you.
I should explain that I'm sorta responsible for maintaining relations with the Queer Center and doing trans(mtf/butch/gq/etc...) inclusion with the SFU's Women's Center [SFU's women's centre is reasonably good on the MtF front, poor on the butch front and genderqueers generally don't register on their Dredus- ed] ] , so if I could really catch hell if people from SFU went and things went wrong. Hence my exhaustive caution.
----------------
I think that I did the right thing, but I also feel like I just acted like a lunatic radical.
I'm surprised by how much trans shit I'm doing. I mean, I seem to be good at it, and it was my favourite part of gender studies (which was my favourite subject) before I got into this business with the changing of the sex.
Trans shit:
1. I think I got SFU to make it easier to change your officially-recorded gender - this follows on work done in 2004 by Louis Julig that got SFU to recognize "male," "female," and "other." I'll get a firm response in a couple weeks
2. I think I can do something about the unisex washroom situation. There's not much money for renovations, but I can at least get a list, and publicize it with a map - the disabilities center is intersted as there's at least one student who came in asking where she could pee when her assistant is of another gender. The rest will have to wait until I'm done with the CFS (i.e. the Spring Solstice).
Of note here is that I was pushing for this long before the changing sex business came about - ::pride::
3. As noted above, trans-inclusion (trying to get the leaders there engaged enough to educate or, failing that, smack the space-users until they stop bothering/ejecting butches) at the women's center - and maybe granting the genderqueers and lads occasional access to the library, if they'll accept?
4. I've got the gender-and-coffee discussion group up and going again.
5. Education display in convo mall for Trans Day of Remembrance (set up to move away from the traditional "transsexuals are prostitutes who get murdered" and towards "Here's trans 101. Here are different kinds of trans identities. Here's what transphobia is. Here's how it affects trans people (incl violence). Here's how it affect non-trans people. Here's how people deal with it, overcome it, and have rewarding lives. Here's how you can find out more).
6. I'm taking the local transgender ("transgender" includes gender-variance, past conceptions of homosexuality, and some surprising ties to anti-Chinese sentiments and colonization of Native nations, among other things) history class with Susan Stryker. In this class of twenty-five to thirty, I'd guess that there are between two and four trans-ID'd people - that's including myself and the prof. There is also at least one non-trans ally with a history of pushing for trans issues in her work.
(6 continued.) We're supposed to be doing historical research, often involving approaching people in queer communities. This could be an incredible project: thirty students writing one historical wiki! But how are we supposed to find people and get them to take the time to talk to a bunch of academics? I'm being asked to help facilitate. In the class, it seems that I am the best-connected person to trans shit in Vancouver. Me. What the hell is this? Where did this come from? People talk about "the trans community" and I try not to cringe, because they're either referring to it sarcastically (because there isn't much of one - the coffee discussion group is an attempt tofix this) or because they are referring to the transender-in-theory-but-transsexual-in-practice support group at the health Center (which was an awful experience - I came out of there convinced that my life was about to be torn apart).
The problem with the above six items is that I am a lynchpin, or the lynchpin. 1-4 were going nowhere until I took some initiative. There's been a lot of help from other people, but it feels that it wouldn't have happened otherwise.
I'm trying to get them to run without me. #4 should run on its own. It will have to as I'll have to miss a lot of meetings due to work and... electrolysis (it never ends... until it's actually over. Damn I'm looking forward to that).
At least the CFS thing is at a stage that I could vanish and it would keep turning. Did you know that, after years of silence in regards to defed, suddenly Douglas College, U of T Scarborough and the Victoria undergrads have started the independance process? We proved it's possible. That's 4 schools likely leaving this Spring and at least another 3 next year. And they're bigger than most CFS schools.
I feel like I have the power to chage things... barely... with a lot of work.
Even so, I wonder what hope there is for trans issues when it seems to apply to so sparse a group of people, with such diverse backgrounds as to move in almost totally distinct social circles. I think that anything that happens with trans social progress has to rely on support from extremely diverse groups (including trans, non-trans, not-exactly trans or non-trans, not sure, don't care and none-of-your business) otherwise it won't happen. The washrooms thing has the Disablities Centre phoning the Women's Center, who phone Out-on-Campus, who phone me - who says "Well, not much has changed." I tried to get it moving before en masse, but it seems to work better when I gather up a handful of people and go bother the SFU administrators, talk for a bit, then retire, discuss and try again.
I feel intensely protective towards most transgender people. This seems to be my nature. But is it my nature because I'm just protective? Or is it that I don't know how to take care of myself, or that I don't feel justified in doing it? Probably a bit of all of these.
A friend of mine at SFU told me that I was a very responsible person. He was right.
And I'm using doing it in such a new way - deliberately eroding boundaries and making allies.
Jesus Christ* that is a lot of responsibility. Why didn't I notice it before?
And I was feeling guilty about not wanting to think about others' trans issues (i.e. Hi, I'm a 6'8" 52 year-old pre-transition MtF with no financial resources, a homophobic boss, a wife and three kids - advice please). Ha! Guilty? I'm at and setting my limits is all. That's like a firefighter "Hi, my soccer team is swimming in burning napalm. Advice please." I can't do any more - at least not without burning out - and if I burn out (again) than I really won't be able to help.
I think I might have been using this to deflect how I feel about my own life in regards to trans issues, and decidedly non-trans gender issues. I don't know how to fix them without changing the world, or the laws of biology, but at least I can make sure that they're not as hard on others.
I met a guy who'd been involved in trans issues for years. Other people said he's a workaholic. He says that of course he's a workaholic - being aware of these things is like standing in the middle of a giant traffic accident with bodies everywhere - you get to work, and you keep working.
Through this, I can see how a lot of people feel about a lot of social justice issues. War. Environment. Racism. Intellectual property. Rape. Migration. Schizophrenia. Orphans. Animal rights. Secularism. Abortion. There is no shortage of pressing concerns in this world; no shortage of honourable work. I wonder what (or if) the world would be without this.
Lunatic radicals, all of us.
Maybe the trades course will be a nice change of pace - or maybe I'll be advocating for CARPENTRY FOR ALL.
*Again, he'd approve**
**Having not asked Jesus for "his" pronoun preference. Hmm.... Can you pull an inverse bell hooks (that's her name - no caps) and ask that people always refer to you with capitalized pronouns?
"Thank you for asking: I self-identify as a Judeo-Christian deity"
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-13 12:16 am (UTC)genderqueers generally don't register on their Dredus- ed
MUCHOS POINTS, I just finished season three and I'm a little shattered.