gratitudes, gendertrash from hell, throwing ukraine under the bus, carole king tapestry
yesterday i was grateful for a quiet day of reading...
today i am looking forward to my friend donna's protest art event...
i received my copy of Gendertrash From Hell yesterday...
i have been flipping through, skimming, its contents... this morning i read the forward... this paragraph speaks to the present moment...
In Canada, Liberal politicians, at least, are still trying to pinkwash and soft-pedal their own transphobia, as well as their hatred of the poor and of whores, their racial capitalist colonial practices, and their support for occupation and genocide in Palestine. Elsewhere, south of the border, for instance, in the form of the blowhard and smirking fascism of the new American emperor, or across the pond, under the reign of the goblin queen of children's fiction, a gleeful push towards the moral mandating of trans people out of existence is well underway.
-- Trish Salah, foreward to Gender Trash From Hell
i think about the title... like a bat out of hell?... like a child from hell?... are we trashing gender or trashing prevailing cultural notions of gender?... are we the trash and we're roaring out of hell to say i am gender queer, hear me roar?... all of that?...
my exploration of trans-feminine being is a privileged exploration... i am privileged because of all the gender queer people that have come before me... i am privileged because i am upper middle class, have resources and live in a liberal community that embraces me or takes me in stride... nothing to fret about...
gendertrash began publication in 1993... there were four issues... the regan presidency ran from 1981 to 1989... the first decade of a rightward lurch in politics... toronto canada was the geographical locus of its emergence... i have been to toronto a number of times... mostly in the winter... a perpetual conservative gray is what i experienced...
gtfh makes me aware there are communities of people out there like me... it makes me wonder how i find community for my gender queerness... i will need to ask my friend d who is plugged into things gay, lesbian and gender queer... she can help...
this morning... in my daily download of "feminine mystique" images, i searched for and found images of transgender people... women... cross dressers, fabs with a masculine structure to their face... a departure from the feminine mystique women i look for as inspiration to my own feminine... i found images of men with long hair and dresses that looked like men fooling around with drag... i know i look like this when i dress in a more girly fashion... a wannabe woman... i don't like it when i see other men doing it... it tends to burst the womanly image i have of myself because it looks a little silly... i am aware that for many people, that is how i must look in girly mode... i wonder if people laugh at me... i haven't been compelled to do the things i might do to more fully be woman... no hormone therapy... no surgery... no electrolysis... i shave most of my body every day... i have the hair on my back waxed off periodically... the woman who does it for me says the hair is thinning out... i am happy about that... i don't want hair except on my head and around my genitals... just silky smooth skin... i write in my journal that i am more comfortable with girly michael than i am with macho mike... that would be very discordant... is very discordant when i try it...
This plan, complete with its suggestion that the U.S. is no longer truly a part of NATO but can broker between NATO and Russia, would replace the post–World War II rules-based international order with a new version of an older order. In the world before NATO and the other international institutions that were created after World War II, powerful countries dominated smaller countries, which had to do as their powerful neighbors demanded in order to survive.
not a fun read... the world order i grew up with is on life support... maybe already dead... i am sad for ukranians... i am sad for the world... everywhere i look i see the dinosaurs of the patriarchy mucking about in determined combat to become emperor of the planet... mings the merciless on the rampage...
even as trump throws ukraine under the putin bus, rumors of plans for military ground action in venezuela... i am certain trump and his minions are planning for an eventual empire of the americas... just as russia longs to absorb europe and china longs to absorb asia and southeast asia... will these patriarchal dinosaurs manage to take us all down?...
i am sitting in my favorite cafe with my headphones on and the carole king tapestry album playing... it is a perfect november rainy day album to be listening to... at least for my generation...