rm | sundries

sundries

In a way, Alicia Parlette has been dying since the moment most of us first heard of her. But now her story is nearing its end.

United finally apologizes to LJ'er with a disability that they treated terribly.

Why equal marriage rights matter whether you want them to or not: the local government put an elderly gay couple into separate care homes, listed each as having no family, and had all their possessions sold, because when you're queer, apparently twenty years don't count.

Nude models who are part of an art exhibition in NYC expected to deal with a bit of inappropriateness, but it seems like they are experiencing nearly constant levels of assault and harassment by museum patrons.

Back when I was in Forget Me Not, my role was as one of the two dressing room dancers. Myself and the male dressing room dancer were partially dressed, like we were midway though getting ready for an evening out. We were in the theater's dressing room and we'd wait for patrons to come in, put albums on the old 1970s-style turntable and dance with them, whispering stories in their ears. It was awkward and intimate, and we each danced with patrons of all genders, and only a very, very few were rude and/or groped us. But it was a very draining show (since, you know, later we had to put audience members in coffins and wheel them out of the theater), and we worried about it a lot. I'm flabberghasted that people are being so boorish about this art show.

Last night, Patty told me that the volcanic ash cloud appeared over airspace here and in Europe on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

UK airspace restrictions are currently in place until at least 1am Tuesday.

Two superheroes walk into a bar....

sparkindarkness recaps some LJ transfail for us.

Meanwhile, last night,

raedbard linked to this fandom secret which, along with the comments, manages to provide a live demonstration of the many points of friction between fandom-at-large and LGBTQ members of fandom.

In brief:

- Writing slash or not has no bearing on whether you are homophobic or not.

- Liking slash or not has no bearing on whether you are homophobic or not.

- Equating slash with Real Queer People or Real Queer Narratives is dodgy at best. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

- Writing and/or liking slash may or may not mean you've strayed into the fetishization of queer people, something that has a negative impact on queer people. These issues are not clear cut. At all. And asking them to be, from any side of the discussion, is problematic.

- While fiction of all sorts can be used to examine social issues and can be a form of activism, it is not an automatic free pass to being a Big Gay Hero or a Big Hero for Gays.

- People don't decide to be trans.

- Equating someone's gender identity with (inappropriate and uncool) pressure you may be feeling in fandom to be a slasher is uncool.

- "I'm not homophobic, but..." is never a way to win whatever argument you think you're about to be having.

How many times are we going to have to have this conversation, oh Internets?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the British government has set up hotlines for stranded passengers
We're good at hotlines, it has to be said. (It was one of the little touches that was just perfect in 'Aliens of London': The newsreader giving out a hotline number. It was *exactly* what would happen if a UFO crashed into Big Ben!)

And, of course, I hope that you get home again soon. *crosses fingers* (My parents are due to arrive here in a week's time, so HOPEFULLY everything will get back to normal, more or less, before then.)

the many points of friction between fandom-at-large and LGBTQ members of fandom.
Thank you for the link. I'm trying my best to educate myself, partly because in my latest fic I have both a bisexual character, and a gender neutral character (that I didn't plan on writing, but who turned up out of the blue and demanded to be written). It's very, very intimidating trying not to fail horribly when writing them, especially since they're both OCs.

(I've been reading - and enjoying - all your posts over the weekend btw, have just been very busy.)

Edited 2010-04-19 08:43 (UTC)

I'm grossed out that people are groping the models, but my first reaction is also "Wow, so not accessible, and doesn't work for folks with mobility issues anyway." I wonder if someone will let me make an "art" exhibit in which the patrons are forcibly strapped into heavy wheelchairs. People don't seem to get that my wheelchair is my personal space and that maybe you shouldn't rub your crotch against it.

It's sad to have to do this, but I still pull out the race card when dealing with these queer/slash fandom issues. "You can be a racist bigoted ignorant jerk and still like blaxploitation porn, right? Same thing, folks." I have yet to hear some stupid slasher say "that's all them thar queers are good for anyway is fuckin'", but I haven't looked, either.

It seems to me that most US folks are most sensitized to either race or gender issues (even while still harboring prejudices there), so I use those as my go-to examples when dealing with queer or cripple or other stuff that most people don't realize they're being prejudiced or ignorant about. (Problems of folks who fall into multiple oppressed categories multiply, natch - this is just using an example to give folks a clue.)

I have yet to hear some stupid slasher say "that's all them thar queers are good for anyway is fuckin'", but I haven't looked, either.

You do get the odd nutjob who like compares slash to being drawn to fictional murderers ("doesn't mean I think it's okay in real life!") but a lot of fetishization in fandom is more insidious from that, and comes from people who don't really realise they're doing it, which is the hardest kind to combat - they'll nod right along with you as you explain the problem, but won't apply it to their own behaviour.

There are more of those odd folks than you'd expect. Harry Potter fandom was RIFE with them, especially during the 2004 election.

Really? Oh Harry Potter. I admit, I live a very sheltered life, nearly all my fandoms have real queer people, which is maybe why I've never stopped being gobsmacked by the fail every time I step outside my bubble.

There were whole communities dedicates to Republican Harry Potter slashers, which became home of the type of stuff mentioned upthread.

I bet they loved The Single Mother's Manifesto then...

Fandom, never failing to break my brain since 1999.

I have yet to hear some stupid slasher say "that's all them thar queers are good for anyway is fuckin'", but I haven't looked, either.

I have, on the other hand, seen someone rec a slew of slash in one post and cheer for passage of anti-LGBTQ legislation in the next.

...eeeeeew and wow, it's the same thing only modernized. "Them's just for my sexual gratification, they aren't real people who deserve rights."

I have seen a female slash reader/author protest that "that's not what two men do together at ALL" to gay/bisexual men, which should have warned me.

I want to go pour bleach on the Internet now, but there's not enough in the world.

...eeeeeew and wow, it's the same thing only modernized. "Them's just for my sexual gratification, they aren't real people who deserve rights."

Basically, yes.

I have seen a female slash reader/author protest that "that's not what two men do together at ALL" to gay/bisexual men, which should have warned me.

*boggles*

There's making assumptions based on other fiction, which works to a point at least insofar as meeting reader expectations, and then there's assuming that has anything to do with reality, which doesn't work hardly at all. Taking it to the place of "I know how you have sex better than you do" is so far beyond stupid I'm not sure words to express it even exist.

*boggles some more*

Some friends of mine went to an anime con, and somehow wandered into a panel about slashfic. Said friends - T, J, and J's wife - composed the only men present and not on the panel. (T is gay, J is bi.) The rest of the audience was almost entirely women who exhibited (in dress and behavior) a certain lack of social skills.

At one point J got in an argument with some woman about "how gay men do that". Eventually J stood up and demanded "Okay, is there anybody here who has actually HAD gay sex? Raise your hands!"

My friends were the only hands raised, plus one panelist.

"And anal sex?"

Same count.

"Right, so I think WE know a little more about it than you do! I'm not sure that most of you have EVER had sex!"

I forget what the original argument was, but it was something about as stupid as self-lubricating anuses or penises.

my first reaction is also "Wow, so not accessible, and doesn't work for folks with mobility issues anyway."

The article doesn't mention this or show it in the picture, but there is room on the outside of the "doorway" to go around the models for people with mobility issues (or just personal space issues, for that matter). The idea is to walk between them, but plenty of people don't.

"'art' exhibit in which the patrons are forcibly strapped into heavy wheelchairs"

You should so do this! And some patrons should be blindfolded then have to fumble their way through the exhibit, while others would have disposable earplugs inserted in their ears...

Really. I mean this!

Hmmm. If that's the kind of discourse that secret maker usually uses I can see why she has trouble with people thinking she's homophobic, and it might have nothing to do with her not liking slash - she really echoes the sort of language I've heard from very problematic sources (rubbing dicks, really? That sums up m/m for you?), and you couldn't pack more fail into "my friend who's decided she's a FTM" if you tried. And actually that's something I've come across in fandom before a lot of times - "I'm not homophobic, I just think slash is gross! What?!" A taste or not for slash might have nothing to do with real homophobia or real queer people, but it's still not a thing which exists in an impactless fictional vaccuum (something people miss in the whole warning for slash hoo-hah too).

It may be faintly possible (this being the slash community) that the "friend" being referred to has "decided" to be trans this week, in much the same way that some people "decide" they're Pagan or lesbian this week, and then forget all about it next week; if said friend has a history of announcing Big Identity Changes that are both spurious and ultimately meaningless, I can see using that phrasing.

"What's Crazy Charlie decided to be this week?"
"Last I checked, she's an Otaku-kin man-trapped-in-lesbian-body reincarnated Babylonian deity who is also Hermione's soul twin. But I don't check that often."
"Oh, so the trisexual dragon Avatar-person thing is over?"
"Dragon fetishist yes, not sure about Avatar."
"Wow. Charlie sure is entertaining from a safe distance, huh."

Odds aren't *that* high that this is what the secret poster meant, but I'm sure we all at least know of That Person.

So many concern trolls brought that up in reply to the FS post itself. This is not some new excuse for transphobia no one has ever heard before.

Here's a tip. Even if your friend does do that sort of thing all the time, that's not an excuse to disrespect their stated gender identity or anyone else's.

I've very little respect for the identity opinions - gender or otherwise - of the pathological change-my-stated-self-for-the-sake-of-attention sort. This doesn't mean I don't respect transfolks, queers, or anybody else under the big rainbow umbrella this week.

Nor did you need to get up in my case about it; it was, dare I say it, a little disrespectful.

Here's the thing. Trans people, all trans people, have their gender constantly questioned. So when you take it upon yourself to judge who is and who isn't "really" trans, you are disrespecting "real" trans people. You are hurting all trans people.

If you're okay with that, then great. But you can't claim to respect trans people at the same time.

If I've already written a person off as a pathological attention-seeker, I'm unlikely to be bothering with them much, regardless of gender (stated or otherwise).

And I can claim to respect transfolk and their difficulties (And love, love how all y'all are jumping in this without knowing my own possible gender difficulties, by the way).

I can be *polite* to someone - that is, use the preferred pronoun and treat them as their stated gender - without actually respecting their opinions or their choices. And "opinions and choices" which is where I would classify faux-trans attention-seekers, rather than "respect the process of coming out as trans and/or transitioning" which I'd reserve for the real deal folks.

It must be really great to have psychic powers that let you see into people's heads and decide who's "the real deal" and who's a "faux-trans attention-seeker." Where can I get some of those?

When I was in my twenties, I enthusiastically embraced a series of fairly radical identity changes (religious conversions, for example) that ultimately I withdrew from, feeling I had failed. Looking back on it, I think that had everything to do with my repressed trans-ness. I was looking for something that would allow me to feel comfortable in my own skin, to feel like I fit. It wasn't until years later that I began to accept that my skin, or in other words my body, was itself the problem. By your standards, I guess I'm a faux-trans attention-seeker, instead of, you know, someone who had difficulty accepting a truth about myself that's hugely frowned out by society-at-large. Someone who had feelings that the general culture insisted couldn't be real, and who therefore doubted those feelings for THIRTY YEARS.

You might want to rethink how you define "respect."

You're not getting it.

The very fact that you feel it is your place to judge whether or not someone is "really" trans or not hurts ALL TRANS PEOPLE. It hurts the "real" trans people you claim to respect.

And I do not care what your "gender difficulties" may be. Even if you are trans yourself, that does not change the fact that your behaviour and attitude is harmful and hurtful to other trans people.

So if you want to be an asshole, that's totally up to you. But own it. Stop concern trolling and pretending that it's anything other than being an asshole.

And yet it is not up to you (or anyone else except that person themselves and their therapist) to decide who is a pathological attention seeker and who is genuinely trans. It costs much less to respect the identity of someone who maybe doesn't need it than to risk contributing to the gender policing trans people have to deal with every day.

Er, yeah, it is my place to decide that person A is a pathological attention-seeker, if person A has exhibited those traits repeatedly in the past. It's part of deciding whether or not I want such people in my life. We all make judgment calls.

See above re: the difference between respect and polite behavior.

We're not talking about whether you want any particular person in your life; no one expects you to be best mates with someone you dislike. But whether you want anything more to do with a person or not, granting them the pronoun they prefer is a very easy and basic piece of respect, not just to them, but to the entire trans community.

Thank you.

Not to mention "I don't like slash, I'm just not that kinky."

Who ever could have predicted that asking the customers to squeeze through a narrow space between two naked people could lead to trouble?

But why should the US do anything for you. You are in Heathen Europe after all, and it is their problem.

Just posted the Kidnapping link to MaddowBlog.

Edited 2010-04-19 11:02 (UTC)

Okay. The US Embassy in London page is the longest-worded version of AMFYOYO I've seen in a very long time.

Now, I'm willing to believe that this is completely outside of their threat model, and they don't have the staff and/or resources to do anything about it (nor the ability to obtain more of either), and that was the nicest way they had of expressing it. OTOH, it's odd that this is outside of their threat model, and extra odd if it's outside of their threat model going forward.

There's a larger philosophical point here about the idea that "it's not the US government's job to 'have your back', that's what families and charities are for.", and how that meshes into the whole US health care debate. I'll have to think about that more.

PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC! BOOTSTRAPS!

It's one of those shitty things people like to say our country was founded on.

Sigh.

*snorfle* "bootstraps" always makes me giggle. I can see it in one of the presidential debates soon

(It'd be more coherent than anything Palin could manage anyway)

Ye Gods. Bootstrappers were the bane of my existence when I was fundraising for social justice causes back in the mid-eighties. Argh.

Don't forget the presumption that an American anywhere in Europe is of the Elitist Self-Loathing Liberal sort that the country is better off not having in the US...

As a former Embassy person:

Honestly? The airlines ARE supposed to be handling the care and feeding of the stranded travellers, under both EUR and US laws. And for the most part, they seem to be doing so. The Consulate will bail you out of jail if they have to, but right now the job is pretty firmly in the airlines' court. If part of it isn't, or if they fail, then call the Embassy. AFAIK nobody's life is in danger here.

That said: last I heard the London consular office had maybe a dozen full-time staff, many of whom are busy handling visa/passport requests. They're used to a handful of stranded/needy Americans, not this influx. And it's a lot easier for the airlines to lay on extra staff.

That said: it'd be nice if State as a whole or USGOV made some kind of statement of reassurance and make-nice.

Gah I've never really understood that US ideal - it's not the government's job to have your back...

But but but - that is what it's for! If it's not there to have my back then why why why do we even have it?!

It's a very simplified way to put it, but there's a big divide here in the States over the view of government-as-service-provider vs. government-as-executive-power. Government is, of course, both, but many people seem to cling to one or the other.

Until they find a giant chuckhole in front of their driveway. Then, of course, they're on the phone to the Mayor.

While there is nothing that can be done for us, my level of annoyance that the British government has set up hotlines for stranded passengers to get help and information and is trying to mobilize the Royal Navy to get people home from the continent while the US government has done NOTHING for people stranded here, is pretty high. I want a hotline too.

Yeah, that is a bit weird. Normally, our gov't and news media are all about how any international event affects Americans abroad, to the point you'd think there was no one else affected, but not this time.

The US seriously hasn't done a single thing?! How many US citizens are there stranded in Europe right now and there's not even a hotline?! *boggle*

And this is why I increasingly flinch away from fanfiction circles and slash circles (which, shocking though it may seem, are much much BETTER than what I've seen in published m/m circles.)

Oh and didums, she's upset because she can't watch TV and NOT see the slash subtext, how terribly terribly tragic. I'm upset because I can't see ME at all unless it's an overdone stereotype or someone destined to inevitably die for the crime of being gay and being happy *grumpy face*

I love both slash and het when well written, but I don't think slash resembles real queer relationships any more than a Harlequin romance resembles my own love life. Often less! But it's nice to read a fantasy where gender and sexuality more fluid, the way I wish it were in my real world. And sometimes the chemistry is just too *there* to ignore, regardless of whether the characters-as-written would want to get into each other's pants.

My interpretation of my gender, sexual attractions, and dom/sub leanings vary with the person I'm with and the mood I'm in. I don't find much understanding of that in the world. In some slashy universes, it's almost taken as a given.

Thanks, as always, for the informative and thought-provoking links.

I hope that a hotline for stranded Americans is established soon.

Thank you for linking to the story on Alicia Parlette. I spent the whole day reading about her.

- in re: fandom secrets, I read about half of the comments on that thing (maybe) and then crashed face-first into my threshold for fail. On the other hand, I was really heartened to see so many people calling shenanigans on the bad pronouns and 'decided' thing.

- did you see that there's not just a hotline, but that the UK is using honking big boats to bring people back from continental Europe?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

sundries

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject