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sundries

Oh there are new Torchwood promo pictures in Gay Times, and they are happy-making. If you care, you've probably already seen them.

I've had a couple of conversations that have almost been awful but have turned out well in the end about how to be a good LGBTQ ally over the last couple of days. I've never had to do that before in the "no, you don't get a cookie" and "please don't police our emotional responses to discrimination" sense. Interesting stuff which leads me to say if I've ever been the person who needed the wack with the clue-by-four when it comes to stuff about being anti-racist and trying to be an ally to PoC: thank you for your patience (and sorry that you needed it). I have a whole new perspective now. This shit wore me down in about ten minutes. Oh my god. (But seriously, props to the people I had those LGBTQ conversations with.)

I'm working about a thing about prop 8, that's also very much about female identity/autonomy/signifiers of adulthood/ownership. I'm not sure if it's going to come together or not. I want it to, I'm really happy with the idea of it, but it's probably the most convoluted interlacing of topics I've tried I a while.

My gorgeous white gown will be here probably Friday. But I probably won't be wearing it out this weekend, as I should wear suit to Duchess thing.

Patty is awesome. She will also be home Monday.

I've had 4 hours of sleep thanks to work gone wrong. I don't even want to discuss the condition I'm in right now.

No specific garden updates, but everything is continuing to do well. Actually, I'm realizing it's wednesday and 3pm, I should actually go buy the other planned plants.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention,

laurab1 made fanart for my TW fic "Because Men Once Went West." Snazzy.

Did you all know there is a sequel to The Vintner's Luck coming out? I've pre-ordered my copy.

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I've had a couple of conversations that have almost been awful but have turned out well in the end about how to be a good LGBTQ ally over the last couple of days.

So I gathered from your tweets. And I'm glad to've mainly kept my mouth shut over the whole post-Prop8 thing, lest I fall into some of these same traps you mention.

Looking forward to your interstitialesque views on 8 - if they come together.

/eta: oh *eee*. That is one nicely-made cover. If that fic is ever podbooked, that should be the artwork.

Edited 2009-05-27 19:36 (UTC)

The promo pics for TW this year are better overall than last years.

I still really like the Jack/Gwen/Ianto one, and I like the two new ones that just came out today. That other Jack/Ianto one floating around though is just awful (and sort of inexplicable).

The one where Jack is sort of hugging Ianto, but not really seeming to mean it?

And Ianto looks queasy? Yeah. Like I get it from the standpoint of this is what happens at publicity shoots because everyone is tired and cranky and there's no context. But really? That was the best they could get off that roll? Gah. It's so awful.

I really like the new one of Ianto with the gun slung over his shoulder....

Yeah. It's awesome. And not just because it's awesome for the character and he looks hot. It's also seriously nicely lit. It's a good photo.

admiratio has a larger version of it here.

Too much hotness for the office!

I am now inspired to do a wallpaper with the new promo pics, but it will have to wait til I get off work tonight.

Ooh, all broody and firearmed!

Holy hotness Batman.

(though I'd dearly love to know whereabouts the background that's been dropped into the background was photographed...)

WOW. That's the first time I've seen that one. That is SO NOT A WOOBIE. :-)

Your tweet about being an ally and emotional response comes at a wonderful time, when I have been informed that if people would just calm down, the logical solution would present itself and everyone will just see it clearly.

That and being told we should dialog with those who regard us with contempt.
Plant food!

I'm having a conversation on Twitter right now with a very nice person who doesn't get it. This person is physically handicapped, but I'm loath to make the relevant analogies. No idea waht to do.

A much stickier situation than the one I'm in. I was just essentially told that people would be more willing to talk to me (and anyone else) about this if I'd calm down from my outrage, and being passionate without proving I've thought hard about my position does no one any good. I've written that one off as someone I'm not interested in speaking with on this issue, if they refuse to see my emotional response and investment as anything other than a hurdle I've imposed on myself.

It comes down to being told that everything will be just peachy if we act nice.
I am old enough to remember the civil rights movement. Our side didn't win until people stopped being so damn civil.

Allies are different though. They care. They don't get it. But they caare.

I love how often you mention this. It is most charming. She is one lucky scientist.

Did you all know there is a sequel to The Vintner's Luck coming out?

WHAT??? No I did not! Eeeeeeeee!

::runs to Amazon tout de suite holy crap::

The movie has also finally started shooting. There are stills floating around.

I've seen a few pics from the movie, yes--it looks not entirely unpromising, although I am prepared to have my heart broken.

Where did you pre-order? I can't find in on Amazon.us yet, although Amazon.uk has it.

BookDepository.co.uk which I love -- great prices, free shipping, multiple currencies.

Wow! It's about half the price there that it is at Amazon.uk. Sold!

Now I will fret and fret and fret until it comes. I loved The Vintner's Luck so much that the first time I read it, I couldn't bear to have it end. I put it down about three quarters of the way through and only picked it up again about a month later, when I was feeling strong enough to finish. I've never done that before or since with a book. I am very excited about a sequel.

For me it's the cadence of the first one that I love so desperately. It's just such a spare, spare book. I also read it at exactly the right moment in my life. Actually, if I knew where my copy was, I'd reread it, it's been a while.

All of her books are like that, I find. She always leaves out the perfect amount, and suggests the most delicate implications--so much is going on around and under and above her paragraphs. I have no clue how she does it, but that particular aspect of her writing is one that I admire hugely.

I just went on a huge Elizabeth Knox re-reading spree, actually, so the timing on this new book is just about perfect for me.

I keep wondering why more people aren't using this story more in their arguments. If the "will of the voters" has to be upheld, then why was it wrong for the court to rule as it did in 1965?

The right has a problem because it does not want to defend or re-examine its own bad track record on this issue - be sure to check out the now humiliating comments by Ronald Reagan in the article. Do you think the GOP wants people reading those now? They certainly do not. It's called, I believe, "being on the wrong side of history." In time, people on the right will be as embarrassed about their stance on gay marriage as they are now on their stance in 1965.

In my opinion, there needs to be more linking between the two issues. This shit is too good not to use.

Edited 2009-05-27 21:09 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been struggling with well-meaning would-be allies recently too -- so many just don't GET that "marriage by another name" is not good enough, and it's complicated by the fact that I know that there are blind spots in my own ally work, that my het privilege means that there are probably times I act like an arsehole even though I don't mean to. But in the end, I'm just like, "Well, there are an awful lot of people in same sex relationships out there who DO say that the language is important, whose experiences show that seperate but equal is NOT equality, and it's not up to straight people to question that experience in any way." I'm not sure how well it gets through though. *sigh*

And yes, much squee on the Torchwood front.

If Civil Unions are just as good as legal marriage,then why don't straight people take that option and leave legal marriage to the LGBTQ people?
The straight people think civil unions are a good thing. LGBTQ think legal marriage is a good thing. Everybody would be happy!

Ha, yes, very good point!

Political debate is Canada's year round national sport!

I just wish that this wasn't a matter for debate at all. :(

In Canada, it isn't. Anymore. Coming soon to a Republic near you.

In Australia, the debate keeps getting swept under the table -- people are barely even talking about it. I keep hoping that events in the US will wake my country up, but no luck yet... :(

Oh, I'm sorry! I somehow thought you were in the U.S.(Because you know

rm,I guess. Stupid Dragon is stupid.")
Coming soon to a Constitutional Monarchy near you!

Lol, no worries! I try to keep abreast of US politics, so it can create the impression that I actually live there. :P

A friend of mine is discussing having a kid, and last week he said to me "boys and girls are different. That doesn't mean you treat them unequally, but you treat them differently."

I wanted to snap back "Any difference is necessarily an inequality" but someone else was talk so all I managed to fit was a quiet and hasty "Perhaps they only become different because people think they should be."
I feel hesitant about confronting the issue again, because I know I will be disbelieved by people who hold fast that gender is innate and essential not entirely a social construct. You seem both eloquent and informed, so I was wondering if I could bug you for some advice on how to argue the matter and what to refer to?
Hope this is okay.
Thanks,
Leigh

I sort of want to say gender is not entirely a social construct. What I mean, of course, from a science perspective, is that sex is not entirely a social construct -- otherwise we wouldn't have trans people.

Studies also seem to make it pretty clear that most women are more verbally-oriented than men, regardless of how they are educated or raised. Women can and do catch up to men in math and the sciences, but it seems to happen less frequently that men catch up to women in verbal arts.

I also have to say the the physical size/strength difference between men and women is a real, serious thing. As much as a good fencer of any size, gender and weight can take down a larger, stronger opponent, that is the exception to the rule. A small woman with a black belt in karate is still at a serious and dangerous disadvantage to most men in a fight. I'm a pretty small person, and there are men I am taller, bigger and stronger than. But at the end of the day, no matter how well trained I am, I don't want to be in a fight with a man; the odds are seriously bad.

Now, all of that said, most gender differences are bullshit, and none of them are truly universal.

You treat people they way they want to be treated. The problem, of course, is that it's hard for most people, and especially parents, to treat a child based on who it is, versus what it is.

I don't think there's anyway way to say succinctly what you want to say here, because it is a complex issue. Perhaps, argue on the basis of "don't make assumptions" and the idea that every parent wants their child to be exceptional. Maybe their kid will be the exception to the "rules".

It's really painful to be a queer kid (and a lot of kids know really young, even if they don't have words for how they are different) and be told that you're not allowed to like certain things or want certain careers or excel at certain classes. Maybe just tell your friend that kids can surprise you, so it's best to give them a chance to.

Yes, I get that there are born physiological and anatomical differences between people. And that you can pretty evenly divide the human population by the reproductive organs. And that along with their reproductive organs there may be complexes of, really pretty minor, differences in aptitudes in difference skills (which may or may not be socially imposed and encouraged, according to Baron-Cohen).

But the level of meaning and symbolic relations given to those differences are entirely socially constructed. This should be obvious- there is no other means of production for levels of meaning and symbolic relationships, after all.

so...
What if everybody under a certain height had to use a different bathroom(toilet here in the UK)?
What if everybody with an optimum average muscle strength of a certain amount of newtons was expected to choose clothes from a selections of certain cuts, colours and tones?
What if everybody with green eyes was expected to show more skin in their dress choices than everybody else?

It sound ridiculous, and yet those are the kinds of expectations that parents will put on their kids, without even realising that it might be quite unnecessary and unjust.

So really, aside from (perhaps) contact sports, how is it okay to treat a child differently rather based on their cisgender?

Sorry I had to be one of those people. I swear I meant it in a I am not willing to just say "I don't have problem with same gender marriage" but rather in a "It is absolutely a grave wrong that same gender couples are being denied civil rights way" I want to be more than just the person standing with you, I want to storm the castle too because this is how grievous it seems to be.

I certainly am not willing to expect people to go quietly into the night until this is won and I am sorry I intimated that. Sometimes I neither think before I respond nor speak clearly enough to make myself understood.

Allies get to storm the castle with us too. And there are ways in which you have more knowledge and emotion about this issue than a gay person who is unable to marry -- after all, you are married. So the issue is very relevant to you in a way I can't address or claim to address. Similarly but dissimilarly, the issue is very relevant to me in ways straight people can't address or claim to address.

One of the things that i think get missed is the right to marriage also confers the protection in the right to divorce. Right now a splitting same gendered couple has little to no protection legally.

As much as I want everyone to have the same civil rights that marriage confers, I want them to be protected in the same way my husband and I are from each other as well.

Now that i have read the comments I am a little aghast! People are honestly telling people to calm down and not be angry? Or that civil unions are the same? I have to say I am impressed with the self control everyone has practiced in response to those.

You do know about this, don't you? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8059536.stm

I <3 those pictures so much!

Sad Ianto with a gun?

Merooow.

They definitely make up for that one (you know the one).

WTF was up with that anyway and DEAR GOD why are there so many icons??????

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sundries

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Patty is awesome.

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Barrowman

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