sundries

I'm home. After Patty first went to the wrong terminal tp pick me up, we had a happy reunion, and then we went home so I could shower and change before going out to see her family, stopping at Rock center, Dylan's Candy Bar and ultimately eating at Lilli & Loo's. We're on our way to brunch with them now.

After that it's groceries, laundry and writing while she does school work. I couldn't be more excited.

On the plane yesterday I had the middle seat in the middle row between a father and son who thought if they didn't buy the middle seat someone wouldn't sit there. Well, it was a full flight and I had to listen to them argue across me and pass gluten-filled food across me for over nine hours. FUN.

While I was gone, it was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Trans people have a 1 in 18 chance of being murdered. Like all issues of hate and violence, in many ways trans issues are everyone's issues -- they address things like the right to self-identify, self-express, obtain appropriate healthcare and be safe from violence. You don't have to be a trans person to be the target of anti-trans bullying or violence: just ask the last girl in her class to go through puberty or the boy who likes to play with dolls. Transphobia is a tyranny we all have to live with.

Girls in suits, via Patty.

ModCloth currently has a line of stuff inspired by menswear. Much of it, I think "not so much," some of it I like even in spite of the not-so-much, but there are a couple of pieces I really dig, including teh Study Hall Satchell and the Hot Shots Jacket.

My tux will be ready soon, which means I really need to find some appropriate mens dress shoes in my size. Everytime I find something I'm in love with my size is sold out. I suspect because everyone in my position with footwear snaps them up, because most boys shoes are clunky and don't look like shoes for adult men. The exceptions go fast.

Patty and I had a long, ridiculous conversation about the evolution of names and nicknames last night and how they get used in stories. Like that guy named Max, always the same guy!

Haven't read this yet, but it's about how DNA is changing fatherhood. No idea what the article tone is, but must read it later, because it seems like a subject rife for lots of backlash against women in ostensibly monogamous relationships for having as much agency (and lack of honoring relationship agreements) as men.

A sapphic pyrrhic victory. I've been pondering this article since I saw it while I was in Zurich. It talks about the well-known fact that lesbians couples are more accepted in media and culture than gay male couples while at the same time being marginalized.

Back at Dragon*Con 2009 a panel I was on was addressing LGBGQ characters in YA lit, and someone asked a question about whether the topic was just viewed as too sexualized by some audiences. I went on at some length about how being queer isn't just about sex. Another panelist (who is a gay man) objected, and went on at some length about how sex is a part of being queer and YA books should reflect that (but not more or less so than other YA books, was what I was trying to say!), and the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth -- less about what anything anyone said, and more about the pre-constructed argument we were both flailing around in.

As a gay woman, I hate having to convince people I actually have sex: messy, dirty, filthy, sticky sex (when I am presenting in any sort of genderqueer way, it is less hard or "necessary" to convince people of this -- sex becomes "more real" again to some audiences when a butch/femme dynamic seems to be present).

As a gay person, I hate having to convince people that how I fuck doesn't define me any more than it defines a non-gay person. And ultimately, I loathe being trapped between these two arguments, which, when you add traditional gender expectations and what happened at this panel on top of it, implies to the eyes of most viewers that women are squeamish about sex and aren't that into it, and men are just about pounding whatever they can (Dan Savage rightly notes in the piece that many arguments against gay marriage ultimately revert to discussions of anal sex. Do the lesbians of the world need to stand up and note that some of us like to have anal sex too?).

I hate this stuff. And I hate that even if we're not bought into it, we're still engaged in it.