A Gender Queer View

Thoughts For A Dying Empire

2009-11-11T00:01:00.001-08:00

A occasional series which I hope will illuminate the twilight of the American Empire

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman. - Emma Goldman' 1911

Yes I am an Anarchist.

More Of (my) Queer Theory

2009-11-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

An important point to Queer theory is the right of a person to self define. To choose the terms that you feel best represent your sexuality, gender identity and philosophy. It menas being free to find your authentic self even if that is a utterly mainstream heterosexual gender binary conformist.

But I’m wandering into existentialism at this point, the horror the horror.

Thoughts For A Dying Empire

2009-11-10T00:47:00.000-08:00

A occasional series which I hope will illuminate the twilight of the American Empire

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose — especially their lives. - Eugene Debs 1913

True then, true now

I Am Tired

2009-11-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Tired of posting about politics. I want to turn to queer theory, well my queer theories any way. The way I see queer is the concept that we are all unique in our own way and to a greater or lesser degree variable in our nature. Our senses of gender, sexuality and personality aren’t fixed but exist in a cloud like an electron. Most of us seem to have a rather small cloud that fits into the area of ‘normal’ sexual orientation and gender identity. The there are those of us whose diffuse clouds wander far from the main sequence.

We are the way we are because of a mixture of nature, nurture and environment.

And now I’m too tired to keep making sense but I will come back to this. I would rely love some discussion on this here or on Twitter.

I Hate Everything About You

2009-11-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

A bunch of theocratic bigots calling themselves the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission are planning to ‘protest’ the Matthew Shepard Act’s ‘thought’ penalties by yelling out hate and incitements to violence in Washington D.C on the 16th of November in hope of being arested. One minor problem is there are no ‘thought’ penalties in the Matthew Shepard Act. It applies only when there has been a crime of violence against one of the protected groups motivated by hate and bigotry. So unless these asshats plan to physically attack some queer passersby they ain’t going to be arrested. Oh and another little point, one of the protected groups are the religious. So if one of these clowns ever gets bashed because he’s Christian he will be covered. This stupid stunt is being pulled because these egomaniacs desperately want to be martyrs. This best way to react to them this time is to ignore them and let them sink into a well-deserved obscurity.

Another Quick One

2009-11-07T23:53:00.000-08:00

All the teabagging idiots are complaining about government functionary standing between them and their doctor but seem to have no problem with a corporate functionary doing the same thing. Basically they are saying that so long as some one is profiting off of their health problems rationing health care is just peachy keen. Sixty years of anti-communist propaganda has indoctrinated them well.

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

2009-11-06T13:12:00.001-08:00

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing. - H.L. Mencken

Reinforcing Failure

2009-11-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

The Republican party of North Carolina has invited Doug Hoffman to speak at a fund raiser. This is the Doug Hoffman who handed New York’s 23rd congressional district to the Democrats for the first tiem in a century. Yep, that’s exactly the guy you want to help you ’reclaim our government’ as local party chairman Tom Fetzer said. You always want to take advice from the losing candidate on how to win elections.

Hat tip to Pam’s House Blend

Aftermath

2009-11-04T23:13:00.000-08:00

Well that was a mixed bag to say the least. Main proved to be just like California in the percentage of people willing to vote for hate and bigotry. Nice to see the left and right coast agreeing on some thing for once. Meanwhile by the same 53% to 47% Referendum 71 was approved in Washington upholding the Domestic Partnership laws. There may be a lesson in there somewhere for us, do away with marriage and replace it with domestic partnerships.

There is also a lesson in Kalamazoo upholding by a 60%+ margin a fully gender inclusive local anti-discrimination ordinance. That lesson is pass a fully inclusive Federal ENDA now, the time is right.

Live Blogging The Election Results Of Interest To Queers

2009-11-03T15:02:00.001-08:00

For what it’s worth I will be live blogging the election results that are of interest to queers. Snarky comments added at no extra charge. No results yet but soon(ish)

UPDATE: Well the Republican McDonnell is winning in Virginia 63.47% to 36..42%, what a fucking surprise

UPDATE Damn, good and very bad news. In Washington measure 71 has been approved 51.13% to 48.87% so the domestic partnership law stays in affect. The bad news is that with 69% of the vote counted Question 1 striping us of marriage rights is passing 52% to 48%. That’s pretty much the same margin that proposition 8 passed by here in California. So it looks like the religious bigots are going to win again,

UPDATE Some sort of good news, New York’s 23rd congressional looks like it is going Democratic. Owens is beating Hoffman 49% to 45% so the conservatives purge has handed the Democrats another seat in the house.

Why Voting On Civil Rights Is A Bad Idea

2009-11-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well here we go again in three states, Maine, Michigan and Washington, queer rights are up to a vote tomorrow. Putting minority rights up to a vote is a really fucking terrible idea. Don’t believe me? Well maybe a little history will help persuade you.

Up until 1963 California, specially my hometown of Los Angeles, was one of the most rigidly segregated states in the union. This was not enforced by Jim Crow laws as in the South but by covenants and conditions on deeds. In the really racist wasp enclaves this not only precluded sales to Asians, Blacks and Latinos but Jews and sometimes Catholics. In 1963 the Rumford Fair Housing Act was passed that made it illegal for anyone selling, renting, or leasing a residence to discriminate based on race, creed, color or national origin. This was in fact very unpopular and in 1964 proposition 14 was placed on the ballot to repeal housing protections. It passed 65.39% to 34.61%. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down. If not for the ‘judicial activism’ so loathed by conservatives California would still be one of the most segregated places in the world.

So while I hope we win tomorrow I still now that these issues should never be up for a vote. Until we get a fully inclusive ENDA and court cases upholding our rights we still live at the sufferance of a bigoted majority.

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

2009-11-01T22:01:00.001-08:00

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions - Blaise Pascal

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger 4 b.c.- 65 CE

A towfer for tonight

Random Yet Again

2009-10-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

Tired, weary and feeling my age. So lets free-associate and see what comes. I have a lot of new readers of this blog many from Vietnam. I am very curious as to why so if any of my Vietnamese readers would like to speak up I would appreciate it.

Here in the U.S. Vietnam is our own ‘November criminals stabbed in the back' myth. As usual those who thought the war was a bad idea in the first place are blamed rather then the bloodthirsty idiots who started the war.

Meanwhile as usual here queers and feminists are being blamed for everything that’s gone wrong in the last 40 years. The thing is we haven’t been running things, the conservatives have. Or they have except when they fuck things up so bad that a centrist Democrat gets in for a few years.

Defaming Christians

2009-10-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

There is something called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission who are whining about the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Act. They some how think this will infringe on their vile hate speech. It won’t and they know it but their lying little sods. They need a good sold example of defaming their sort of christians and being a generous little queer I’ll give it to them.

Christ was a queer, probably bisexual maybe trans gender, rabbi preaching a radical message of peaceful resistance to the power structure. He was executed by the Romans because he threatened the status quo. After he was dead his movement was hijacked by a bitter, deeply closeted misogynist by the name of Saul who went by the alias of Paul. After Paul got through turning it into a intolerant little cult it was hijacked again, this time by the Roman Emperor Constantine. He turned Paul’s cult in to an instrument of Imperial power, a nice authoritarian ideology. Most organized christian churches are still run by power hungry men looking to ally with would be empires. The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is merely one among many such power grubbing organizations calling themselves Christian.

Friday Random Thirteen

2009-10-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

The Murder Mystery by The Velvet Undreground.
Kashmir by Led Zeppelin
La La La Lies by The Who
Operation: Mindcrime by Quensrÿche
Operation: Mindcrime by Quensrÿche
I Don’t Want Your Love (Big Mix) by Duran Duran
Hellrider by Judas Priest
Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden
Heading Out To The Highway by Judas Priest
Heart Of The Devil by Danzig
Hungry by Lita Ford
Return Of The Phantom Stranger by Rob Zombie
Armed And Dangerous by Anthrax

Yes Operation: Mindcrime is so good iTunes decided to play it twice

Socialism!

2009-10-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

Big scare word in the U.S. is socialism. From the uses it has been put to it’s obvious most people don’t have a clue about what it really means. They just know it’s a bad thing, or so they’ve been told. So let’s start off with a dictionary definition shall we? From dictionary.reference.com;

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles

There not so scary now is it? Notice it does not necessarily government control of production and distribution though it practice that is usually true. Notice also that social welfare programs like national health insurance are not socialist by nature. In fact Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, introduced the modern social welfare state programs in the German Empire during the Nineteenth Century. He did this both to forestall the rise of the Social Democrats and because he knew that the social welfare programs would benefit the state as a whole.

Now the U.S. Government having majority control of two of the three major Detroit auto companies that is incipient socialism. Not that it looks like the take over will be permanent. If Obama really were a socialist he would have nationalized Wall Street.

Do Not Fear Dying, Fear Never Having Lived

2009-10-28T19:05:00.000-07:00

What Is The Real Me? Part 2

2009-10-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

I often ask myself that question. I mean how queer am I really? I do, after all, present as male and am married to a cis-gendered straight woman. What could be more normal? Than again I’m sexually attracted to men, trans-men, trans-women and several other gender queer people I know. I am also a pain slut and for the right person deeply submissive. So I think it’s fair to say I’m sexually queer.

On the gender front things are a bit more ambiguous. As I said I present as very male. Then again I have a number of feminine mannerisms and a fairly high voice. My internal sense of gender runs from a sissy male to a butch dyke, does that make any sense at all? Maybe it doesn’t and that may be the queerest thing of all

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

2009-10-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry - Edgar Allan Poe

What Is The Real Me?

2009-10-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

Kate Bornstien started a discussion on Twitter today on what areas of our lives do people consider us real and in what areas do they consider us fake. A very important question for trans-gender and gender queer people as our lives often depend on how other people see us. If we are perceived as fake or deceivers many people fell justified in attacking us. Just as important is how we see ourselves; I struggle with feelings of being some sort of fake all the time. That is the sort of thing that can lead to deep depression and even thoughts of suicide.

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

2009-10-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. - Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri

Late Night Run Back To The Center Of My Mind

2009-10-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

A little late night self-therapy while Dr. Cooper is out of town.

The center of my mind s a dark place filed with pain, my pain. You see I would willing solve the Lament Configuration and summon the Cenobite’s to take me to that extreme of experience where pain and pleasure are one. Sensations of the flesh are really all we have. Our intellectual achievements come from the electro chemical workings of our brains. There is no mind/body duality it is all one.

But that is not to say we are simple for even a ‘simple’ cell is incredibly complex. We are made up of trillions of cells. We are very complex beings crafted by nature and nurture the sum of our experiences.

My but this little journey has made an interesting little discursion hasn’t it?

My addiction to the flesh is one reason the Trans-Humanists leave me so cold. Too many of them seem positively eager to give up the flesh for the sterile world of electronic existence. Seems more like thantos than eros to me. Nothing lives forever and I would prefer the death of the flesh to the living death of machine life.

I believe that is enough to think about for the moment, Now to sleep the sleep of the dammed

The Sunday Edition Of A Friday Random Thirteen

2009-10-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

Until It Sleeps by Metallica
Voodoo by Black Sabbath
Judas’ Death by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Rebel Yell by Billy Idol
Let Me Down Slow by The Rolling Stones
Show No Mercy by Slayer
I Can Never Be Your Woman by Whitetown
The Wizard by Black Sabbath
The Had That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails
The Fairy Queen by Clannad
Trust Me by Janis Joplin
Tracks Of My Tears by Linda Ronstadt
Trinidad by Puya

Time To Stop Ironing My Hands

2009-10-16T13:45:00.001-07:00

I Harry Potter Dobby the house elf punishes himself for any disobedience to his master, one time he irons his hands. It is a literal embodiment of the way we all punish ourselves for perceived failures and transgressions. Dobby final escapes the compulsion to punish him self when he gets a piece of clothing, a old sock, from his master and is free.

Well I want to free myself from the self-punishment game to. Rather it is for some error I made at work or for transgressing society’s gender norms I want to move beyond a destructive round of self-flagellation. So I have decided to hold my own clothing gift ceremony. I’m going to find some piece of clothing, probably high femme, and gift to myself. I want to create a little ceremony for this, something to mark a change in my life.

I would be happy to take any suggestions on the ceremony and will report on how things are shaping up. Stay tuned….

A Roll Of The Queer Dice

2009-10-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Yes this is another of those random stream of consciousness screeds.

I live on many edges, the financial edge, the mental edge and the gender edge. The financial edge because I’ve taken two pay cuts since the beginning of the year to keep my job. My debt load was just manageable at my old salary, now it’s a scramble just to survive. All that pressure does not help my stress levels. The stress is pushing me to the edge of a major depressive episode. Having been over that edge I don’t want to go back. Pulling me along that edge is the gender edge as I try to live with a fluid sense of my own gender. I do my best to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity in regards to gender and sexual orientation. Maybe that’s why I like Aeon Flux so much after all she is the edge. Meanwhile I dance on the edge and sometimes long for the abyss.