sundries

[rm]

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.

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. As a whole, we really need some help.

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?

Comments

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

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).

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

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.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

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.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

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.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

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.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

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.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

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."

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

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.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

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.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

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.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

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.

[threewalls]

Thank you.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

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