Be Yr Own Queero: fighting the good fight

Be Yr Own Queero is promoting queerness, so jump on the bandwagon!

Reblog if you identify as 'Queer'

Well, this took a while! I posted this back in February but the image failed... but never fear! I've managed it now; you can all exhale! - - I know you've been holding your breath for this!

Televisual treats: Amish gap years, homocidal University staff and parental gender desires.

• Rizzoli and Isles had a storyline about a murderous pimp who happened to be a residence advisor - beware all those heading to University this fall - your local, friendly helping-hand could be your worst nightmare!
• Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers was another fly-on-the-wall documentary where the participants were clearly prepped about what controversial things to say or do, yet it was still eye-opening and warming, unexpectedly so. I learned about bundling, the different types of Amish clothing options (and how Becky wore shorts on the beach!) and how dancing for joy (and to glorify God) can be life changing.
• 8 Boys and Wanting a Girl talked about PGD and the controversy. But no-one mentioned whether it was selection of a foetus based on gender, for which I can understand people's concerns. Or whether it was sperm selection (using centrifuge to spin off the light from the heavier sperm, since one type is mostly male) and then swamping a syphoned ovum in that selected sperm, or whether they actually selected a specific spermatozoa to implant in an ovum. This latter technique seems less controversial, but presumably it is more expensive. Also the feature was about women wanting girls in a family of men. I have two questions:
• Do those with gender disappointment tend to wish they had girls? Are there more mothers wanting mini-me's than there are fathers wanting little girls? Are there a similar number of dads in feminine families wanting some male company?
• Do these parents realise that even if they do conceive the longed for daughter or son, that they may turn out just the same as the other children - tree-climbing, gun-loving, football-playing, or doll-dressing, tea-making, pink-wearing? There is no assumption that the preferred gender will meet the cultural desires the parents want fulfilled. Mummy may not be able to go shopping for girly dresses with the daughter - she might want combats. Daddy may not get to go camping with his son, if he would rather stay home and play house. Do they prepare for this mentally? What if the kid is gender dysmorphic or sexually queer? Are they prepared for this? Does fulfilling the desire for a certain gender simply mean that the child must have the right genitalia? Would these mothers be happy with a gay son who wants to go to the gymkhana, discuss hair styles, or whatever else these women assume their imagined daughter would do? Would a father be okay with a butch daughter who can throw a ball, rugby tackle and make armpit burps with the best of them? I guess not. I think these parents are longing for a cultural stereotype that is unrealistic. They are hoping for a certain stereotype of personality rather than the genetic gender. Would any of their children feel pressure to be other than their current gender - do any of them consider transvestism or a transgendered identity more readily due to familial pressure? 

Okay, I have four questions actually: 

• Why don't any of these families consider adoption or fostering? Do they want a little version of themselves so badly?

•  What happens if the child is sick or disabled? They would be the right gender but the parents wouldn't be able to do all the 'gender-appropriate' activities - is that child still valid in their eyes as fulfilling the category they so badly desire? Would another healthy child of the right gender be needed to adequately satisfy this hunger?

Iranian women's rugby team take to the field wearing modesty-preserving headscarves and tracksuits: do their bodies really need this much protection?

Iranian women's rugby team take to the field wearing modesty-preserving headscarves and tracksuits | Mail Online

I wonder about these burhkinis and other modest sports clothing. I know little about Arabic or Muslim culture, but what I have read suggests that body covering is to protect the women from:
lascivious thoughts from the men they encounter;
having their reputation tarnished by being seen as a floozy if they are not covered;
being judged on appearance rather than what they say or do...

and to protect the beauty and glory of a woman's body and hair for her husband (to be).

Now are these women really all so gorgeous that non-covering will reduce men to baying wolves? What value is their reputation other than in finding a husband - does it stop you getting a job? Doesn't judgement based on clothes not character happen anyway? They may not be seen as sexy and dim, but rather as prudish and uptight - which is worse?

As for retaining one's true beauty for their husbands, I find this offensive. A beautiful woman might save her beauty for herself, her best friends, her family, her God. Why is there this assumption that a woman must marry a man? Lesbianism is illegal, I assume. But is celibacy and spinsterhood frowned upon, too?

Maybe these women cover up so that they can revel in their own bodies alone behind closed doors and know that the secret of their bodily truth has been preserved.

As for the sporting clothes - I understand that getting Muslim women involved in such activities is hard, as they are seen as immodest in of themselves. What would these women (and their families) rather they be healthy and stepping outside cultural norms, or locked away and perhaps have a lower quality of life? What is more important to them? How they meet these doctrines or how their fit their life is? Is the worldly experience important, or is it the after-life (which will be good if they follow doctrine) that matters?

So where were we...?

Ages ago I read some interesting things and meant to upload some links. I failed. So to fix matters, I have created the list. Here it is:


Bromosexuals: gay men gravitating towards masculine drag, getting mistaken for straight (NY Observer):

The clinical name for the bromosexual shift is enantiodromia, a Jungian kind of law of physics: Too much of anything makes its opposite grow in popularity. Hippies become yuppies, private-school alpha brats become slacker trustafarians, housewives become cougars.

Thank goodness for the the Norwegians! A real seed vault is being planned in case of Day After Tomorrow-type apocalypse happens. Species will not be wiped out - the plants will survive. Hooray!


From porn to fashion magazine: the Dutch-duo show how it's done. Butt's owners have branched in Fashion Man and most recently, The Gentlewoman - a ladies' version. This new addition to the stableblock is edited by Penny Martin, who was with ShowStudio for seven years and is the Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Fashion Imagery at the London College of Fashion.

This web page at the NY Times has a beautiful slideshow of Alexander McQueen's final collection. You really need to see these garments - they are works of art.


No, it wasn't April Fools Day - I checked. This article describes how kind words and a more positive attitude might help one appear younger and more radiant. The research was based on work by Dr Emoto, which of course, sounds like a fake name that someone looking into the power of emotions would choose when logging into a healthy and beauty chatroom. However, being nicer to oneself is a recommendation I can wholeheartedly get behind.


Ugly Betty's nephew played by Mark Indelicato celebrated his 16th birthday with castmates. Two things to note here: a) His outfit is rocking! b) His co-stars look like lots of fun and as if they really care that he has a nice time. Now it could all be a PR stunt and the whole thing was only 20mins long, but still - it looks great.


How much does Juanita W. Goggins (pictured here in an Associated Press shot in 1974, when she became the first black woman elected to the South Carolina legislature) (who sadly died in low temperatures) look like Dr Bailey (Chandra Wilson) from Grey's Anatomy? The answer = LOADS!

Finally, two music items. Lady Gaga and Beyonce's official music video premiere and Florence and the Machine "DOG DAYS ARE OVER" Music Video from LEGS MEDIA.

Pixar! Where are your black characters or actors?

Why were there no Black actors or characters in Toy Story 3, or Horton Hears a Who?, or in fact any Pixar movie to date. Maybe I am missing some... research time!


So I looked at Disney and Pixar. I found that the purple octopus, Stretch, was voiced by Whoopi Goldberg in TS3, but what about actual humans represented as Black? There was Joshua Sweet in Atlantis, Cobra Bubbles from Lilo and Stitch, and Frozone was in The Incredibles, but I cannot find any others - why is that?


Is there some difficulty in accurately portraying black skin in animated movies? (See Making'white'people white by Richard Dyer, The Social Shaping of Technology, 1999 - where he notes that black skin was difficult to photograph and thusly moulded cultural relations between communities.)


Even the black sounding (can I say that?) character with darker skin than the other Whos, Mrs Quilligan,  was voiced by Jaime Pressly a white actress. What is going on?

I like it - - Rizolli and Isles: the review.

Rizzoli and Isles - an Irish/Italian-American show based in...Boston (who woulda guessed?!) with two females leads, after whom the show is named. One homicide detective - brusque, messy, limited people skills (think cynical NY cop, not Monk), the other is a medical examiner - stylish and socially-obtuse (think Brennan from Bones). Plus there is a neighbour and a mother - more ladies, the latter of whom is the indomitable Lorraine Bracco . There are male characters, too: brother, old partner, current partner, FBI romantic interest.

I get that their personalities are stereotypical - it helps the audience connect (ooh, I know or have seen someone like that before), it is obviously difficult to get your source material/inspiration out of your head, and stereotypes are often based on real experiences - e.g. cops drink coffee.

However, I can get past this because I like female protagonists getting a chance to tell the story. Plus they aren't secret lesbian lovers, best friends since kindergarten, sisters, etc. which places their friendship/acquaintance in the realm of emotive connection, feelings, feminine attributes of nurturing and protecting. These women happen to work together, have become close, perhaps friends, but aren't afraid to be combative if necessary to get one's job done. There have been ploys of 'please, do this for me' when going against policy, or skipping out for Bloody Marys and talking about clothes, and I hope there will continue to be lessof this.

My only beef is the same in every cop show and variant thereof, when a woman is in a crime scene, please cover/tie up your hair (you are contaminating evidence!) and wear appropriate clothes (and for that matter who wears heels around their home, or to come help tidy a ransacked house?). Apart from that, the show is good.

I like it; I really do.

Out with pink and blue: Don't foster the gender divide - opinion - 19 July 2010 - New Scientist

Out with pink and blue: Don't foster the gender divide - opinion - 19 July 2010 - New Scientist

Here is an article about the pointlessness of gender stereotyping.

@OldSpice #OldSpice: why I began to lose the love...

For those that follow me on Twitter you'll know that I spent a tonne of time the last two days watching and commenting on the genius advertising campaign that Old Spice produced using their frontman, Isaiah Mustafa. It was a comprehensive web-based project, using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, whilst also trolling reddit, diggit, YahooAnswers, yedda.com and by keeping a weather eye on posts/articles on various websites. There must have been a band of industrious search engine machinists keeping track of the references and picking the best for comedic writing opportunities. The popularity of the whole enterprise even made other organisations join in: Starbucks, Gillette, Twitter, EW, biz, Huffington Post, G4TV, NHLBlackhawks, GQ, etc. Lots of celebrities joined in: Alyssa Milano, Christina Applegate, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Ellen DeGeneres, etc. Then there were the thousands of ordinary folks who commented on the three main sites. Plus Isaiah himself got a video response and his daughter, Hayley, too! Reddit helped build an answer machine message maker using Isaiah's contributions.


I was going to write a quick post about how these were all brilliant. That they were helping to produce a new masculinity, a new male identity. One that recognises the cultural power of the patriarchy and the stereotypes of strong, slightly dim, bragging men being the preferred partner for legions of women. They were playing it so tongue-in-cheek. Deliberately using nonsensical/incorrect language constructions to show that OSMan wasn't too nerdy/knowledgeable. Recounting all the heroic tales of extreme endurance activities. Reminding everyone that the main purpose of the product, the Old Spice body wash range, was to attract ladies, obviously.


I thought it clever that whilst superficially supporting these stereotypes (who doesn't want to have a ripped, charming man offer to bake you cakes and ride horses with you? Even the most stalwart of lesbians can appreciate toned abs and the promise of apple or peach pies), it was also subverting them by deliberately making a mockery of them. Just as the other television adverts had done. If it had been too serious, it would have come off badly. Just as P.Diddy has managed to keep just this side of obnoxious in his Ciroc advertisements based on his smoothness, there was a fresh take on a hackneyed trope.


However, there were a few too many references to things that I was starting to think were a bit sexist and homophobic. Either the writers were getting tired, or they weren't being as careful with their language as they should have been. Eye on the ball, people. Engage your audience; don't alienate a market segment that just may spend a tonne of money on your products (clean-cut gay men, holla! Ladies who buy soap for their men because if they didn't they'd just use water and never be clean!). Singing happy birthday isn't within the range of a studmuffin, it would not work for the theme, and who knows, maybe Isaiah can't sing. But don't say that other men would laugh at male singers and say it is a lady thing to do. Plus the producers took their own sweet time to acknowledge that women might want to use the products, too. Did they embrace a butch army and welcome them? Saying that the more mighty warriors available for protection of Mount Olympus, the better? Or that Old Spice Man would be running recruitment sessions for all those that believed they had the tenacity to withstand a lion pride? No, they warned that ladies would get man-hair...and if they ever did smell like Old Spice it would be from rolling around with said-fragranced men.


Maybe I've had a sense of humour bypass. I watched all the videos - there were 96 according to the Twitter log - maybe all that overt masculinity was getting a bit much and I forgot it was meant to be wry irony. It was a drip-drip feed of over-the-top testosterone and it had me floored.


Now, I'd love CollegeHumour.com to copycat the style and have a bunch of dykes talking about the benefits of using Old Spice. No, there is no need to have them topless in just a towel... Maybe they can recruit the ladies who were in the Lez Chat clip: "recycling and cuddling are important to me"!

The difficulties of taxomomy: categories are not so easy to proscribe.

When moving my emails to my Gmail account from Hotmail, I wanted to replicate the folders in the new labelling system. It proved tricky as the system allows multi-labelling and it lead to me wanting to describe things more fully than the previous folder system had allowed. This made me want to then limit myself as too much explanation was becoming worse than too little. So, I voted for Gmail to move to a folder system in their suggestions box, along with asking for a better sorting system for labels/folders (sent date, read date, sender, subject, etc.) - a more advanced search function would also be helpful - I want to search for certain words within labels but that isn't currently possible.

Foucault's Order of Things has a preface that describes his reading of "a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought - our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography - breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopaedia' in which it is written that 'animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off 'look like flies'."

Well, it would seem from item (h) that this is really just an appendix to the 'real' list and travels from ownership (a, g), physical attributes (b, e-f, j, n), others (h, l), to how one renders their physical attributes (k) and their habits (c, d, i, m). There isn't even a system within the design and order of the system.

Two things I don't understand

1. Why do I find it surprising to hear about famous black people living in Nashville? I associate that area with white country and western singers and plaid-wearing red necks - which is a terrible stereotype, but it remains.
2. What is with the fascination with extra long false nails? Does it make larger women feel dainty and delicate, needing (male) help with ordinary tasks?

Gay cure?

Plenty of church groups and some psychiatrists claim that any form non-heterosexuality can be cured with enough prayer or therapy. But really, what are they trying to do? Someone can choose to never act on their non-het feelings/inclinations, does that make them straight enough? Or is having the thoughts and feelings too much and they are trying to correct those, too? If you define a sexual orientation by behaviour then stopping someone's actions is enough, but if you want to change how someone responds inside to a person to whom they are emotionally/intellectually/romantically/sexually attracted then I don't think there is a quantity of prayer or therapy big enough to help that - the heart wants what the heart wants - it just does. You can't know who you are going to fancy today, tomorrow or in ten years' time. You just have to be open to hearing your heart and hope that those that love you will be supportive, the rest is just chaff blowing in the wind. It's only when displayed behaviour is censored and sanctioned that harassment and discrimination become a problem.

This article might stimulate more thoughts in the dialogue of choice/cure.

Sticks and stones

Ever wanted to name your child after the first light? Then here are some options.

I have to be honest; others have it much worse...

Imagine the scene with Tom Hanks in The Green Mile when he is in so much pain that he falls on his face and has to beg John Coffey to stop calling him (but he doesn't and ends up taking the pain away).

It was like that today; I had to leave the dining hall as I was in so much pain when I swallowed even water I didn't want to freak the students out, nor faint/cry in front of them, so slowly made it back to my office where I have been ever since.

I love eating and to be denied that pleasure because I took bad doctor's advice, damaged my oesophagus, and now am reduced to a liquid diet for goodness knows how long, is just a damn shame. But, I could have it much worse and I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and do some bloody work.

However, even the smallest mouthful is causing me grief.

Too much liquid and I might burst the tiny tear or burgeoning aperture that my mind's eye can see in my gullet.

Too little and the chance increases of swallowing air with the bolus and thus causing indigestion and gas which throws up stomach acid onto the abraded tissue and again causes pain.

No win situation.

However, on the bright side I finished Norah Vincent's excellent 'Self-made Man' - I recommend it to everyone with an interest in gender diversity.

Cooped up on the sofa, I have also managed to find, repair and hand wash my only piece of truly queer clothing - a black t.shirt with DYKE written on the front in purple sequins! Huzzah!

Finally, I was pondering in the shower whether I could write a piece about the development of queer stereotypes and queer-empathy in North American popular media (as a commentary on the same within popular culture) by mapping the LGBTQ storyies, jokes and lines in the entire Friends television series. Having grown up watching it, I can think of no other show that is as long running and influential as that show - wide audience, constant repeats.

When I have time from the rest of my responsibilities that will be the next task: 'I'm right on top of that, Rose'

Lurgy alert!

Whilst suffering from something approximating a bad cold (and suffering twice over with hilarious swine flu jokes...) I thought a genuine aid to tackling the disease might be useful. Hence the link to a nifty map (updated many times a day) of swine flu cases.

Moving onto motherhood, a useful article from Bilerico about genderqueer mommies

Matrix director has transitioned to become a woman, according to Perez Hilton and gaywired.com. Larry Wachowski became Lana. NB Bound and Matrix rocked!

Helpfully, another label for those who love people, not specific gender expressions: Anthrosexual - thanks to Queers United.

I must, I must improve my...

Darlinks! Here are the tippity-tip-toppiest tips EVER!

Lexicon improvement from Queers United: "Gynaeotrope" is an unpopular and outdated term for a lesbian that was used in the 1940's to counter the negative connotations of the word homosexual. You learn something new every day!

More autostraddle.com goodness in the form of Ms. Beals who incidentally presented a half hour show on Pablo Neruda after the Il Postino surprise hit movie.

Gay happiness in China with supportive parents but name trouble thwarts those with individual identifying monnikers as the Chinese government was bureaucracy to deal with only a limited set of Chinese characters.

Fashionable boundaries broken in First Amendment challenge over boy wanting to wear a rainbow wrist band

Facebook feed is actually occasionally useful as it lead me to discover Spotify the shiny rival to lastfm.com

Visual display of stereotypes and assumptions

Queer is as queer does... Why the term 'bisexual' isn't for everyone

Back to life, back to reality...

Today's queeriosities include:

1. Jezebel's guide to lesbo stereotypes and cliches
2. Twelve-year old daughter of two gay mom's presented her life facts to politicians, some of whom expressed a change of heart over their voting direction after her speech. The wee one was interviewed: check it out.
3. Jezebel's helpful recruitment guide for turning non-Sapphists into lady-lovers.
4. Frightening news from Saudi Arabia - an 8yr old girl married off to a 47yr old man to settle her father's debt has been told that her marriage cannot be annulled until she reaches puberty. This is about as far from the fairytale of a Princess being married off as a child to her future Prince Charming as you could get.
5. Three exciting women using their energy and faith to become engaged in fighting for justice and equality in a range of arenas.
6. Firoza Bibi, a brave woman from rural India, has won a local governmental election and is fighting for justice for her local community, including women who were sexually brutalised as a weapon of war.
7. Bilerico's guest blogger, Monica Helms, talks about how boring life is in binary. I like spectrum ideas, that we are a sliding scale of all types of humanity, but I worry that this somehow interferes with yin/yang, dualism philosophy of ancient cultures. Can I support a continuum whilst advocating a two-sides of the coin, together-we-make-a-whole argument?
8. Li'l Wayne has been on the Jimmy Kimmel show and revealed that he lost his viginity at 11yr old to a woman, and it sounds like rape to pretty much everyone who has seen the clip and commented on it. From feministing.com there is a link to a smart essay on it, which raises the issue of rape apologism and its meaning for women-on-men assault, and how black men are hypersexualised and therefore the host and other guest (white) felt able to laugh about it.
9. Sadly, the other news story about sexual assault that caught my attention was the disturbing story of a female Sunday School teacher who kidnapped, raped with a foreign object, murdered then put the body in a suitcase in a lake. The victim was a little girl. Paedophilic attacks are not just carried out by men.
   
10. Thanks to queerty.com, I found 2M4M.org and their fab picture
11. Clever video about wrongness of NOM claims through Towleroad.
12. A hilarious video that mocks the original NOM film (@Bilerico)
    
13. New book and online publicity drive for the femme-themed literature: Femmethology
14. The fabulous, genderfucking superstar, Peaches, has a new album I feel Cream and a single from this Talk to Me has a fantastic music video, which feels a little Goldfrapp, Ride a White Horse, which incidentally looks a little Lady Gaga: check it out via queerty.com
15. Cutest thing today - wee robot that has been helped around NY by kind citizens: an art project with humanitarian overtones - click here for the video. (@gizmodo)
16. Sadly the elderly are getting a raw deal again: a fifth are not taking meals to save money according the Daily Mail (UK).
17. But a British supermarket, ASDA, is helping the aging process by selling walking sticks and wheelchairs - no more NHS scrappy, institutional, utilitarian, stuff for you, Grandpa - a loaf of bread, a bottle of ale and a mobility aid - marvellous! (@DailyMailUK)
    

Cartographic Crush

How have I lived so long on this wonderful planet having never heard of lovemaps before?

Also from WIKIPEDIA:

Genderfuck is a politics of identity stemming from the identity politics movements of the 1950s and 1960s, a guiding principle of which is the idea that the personal is political.^[3]

The term dates at least to 1979, when an article by Christopher Lonc, entitled "Genderfuck and Its Delights", appeared in the magazine Gay Sunshine. Lonc wrote "I want to criticize and poke fun at the roles of women and of men too. I want to try and show how not-normal I can be. I want to ridicule and destroy the whole cosmology of restrictive sex roles and sexual identification."^[4]

and...^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Faeries}

Genderbending films!

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Victoria}

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_and_Carla}

Ooh, and one for the calendar: Gay Shame ...goes girly!

Sometimes I feel like Corky, sometimes I feel like Violet.

I guess the question is, do I ever have to really choose? If I don't like labels (and there are plenty of others who agree with me on that sentiment) then maybe I can (not) assume different labels on different days, hours, whenever...

I think I would like to copy Daniela Sea and travel in another country in the guise of a boy (as she did in India) - I would feel safer and would probably get more access to certain areas...

Hip-hop homophobia?

Amongst others there is a relevant blog, but the commentators seem a bit wide of the mark to me. With regard to music with supposedly homophobic lyrics, there was a suggestion that they are 'just word' and thus not influential. I said:
I worry that by ignoring 'just words' that they might drip feed into people's minds and actually become an accepted and acceptable 'ideology'. References to violence that glamorise and encourage deadly conflict, torture, harassment and victimisation cannot be supported. I don't buy music or movies that depict violence as normal, but as the ultimate and damaging response to extreme situations. I think it is normalised references to violence and aggression that engender fear and hatred in our society. We should be preventing any reference to violence (physical or verbal) and directed disrespect for an individual or a group of persons in popular media - music, tv, films, magazines, online communities, graffiti. Anything with a message of unprovoked violence being good, beneficial, the only answer, necessary should be countered with images of the aftermath - the suffering of the beaten child, the raped teenager, the abused geriatric, the victimised family, the slandered community. I think we ignore subtle, unimportant references to violence and discrimination as 'just words' at our peril.

As the brave Sandhurst Comprehensive from Berkshire promotes in their annual trip to Auschwitz, 'Don't be a bystander - stand up to bigotry and bullying'. The Anne Frank Declaration should be promoted in every school, in every home.

MRKH: A story

A terrifically important video has been produced highlighting the very real issues with persons affected by MRKH. Everyone ought to see this in a sex ed class at high school and doctors should have it in their training. A valuable insight to a little researched condition.