She's a Combat Soldier - no more, no less.

It disturbs me to read about these "extraordinary" women for two reasons: #1 it implies that Feminism has succeeded and that we are now free to rest on our laurels and #2 that joining the "boy's club" is a feminist action.
( Faux Feminism )

I find the callous use of a success story that promotes the false idea of gender equality in this country, while at the same time vilifying "draft dodgers" the majority of them women - utterly utterly disgusting and disturbing.

The other thing I find disturbing is this:
Fundamentalists Tied to Uganda's Antigay Law.
Uganda’s Radical Anti-Gay Measure and the American Religious Right.
Anti-Gay Ugandan Bill Set to Pass. Warren Silent.

Honestly? Is there anything I need to say that makes this picture any clearer.
American Pastors are calling for a genocide of gays in Uganda.
No.
I'm not exaggerating.

These are things I find disturbing.
Do you?

Footnotes
* There's a huge moral panic about the fact that huge swathes of the population are not being drafted. The majority of those not drafted are actually simply rejected by the IDF for various reasons - they are then persecuted for not being "decent citizens" for not serving their time for the country - forced labour, I mention.
Back to text.

Okay.
You all know what I think about the whole Caster Semenya debacle, because that is exactly what it is.

It being the day after Transgender Day of Rememberence and the News about her so-called innocence coming out the day before, is all a convergence of an issue of which there is little to no awareness in the mainstream media.

Gender variance.
Beyond that, treating gender, sexuality, physical and mental abilities as though they are some kind of moral compasses for people.

The fact that the Guardian article linked above states:

South Africa's government, Semenya's lawyers and the IAAF had reached total agreement that she will retain her gold medal, title and prize money because she has been found "innocent of any wrong", the ministry said in a statement.

Emphasis mine.

What, exactly, was her crime? Surely, she was publicly tried and put through hell... but there was no criminal trial in which she had to stand on a podium and claim her innocence of anything.
I'll tell you what her "crime" was.
She won the race. Her opponents ate her dust. Her body is strong, big and built to run as Dave Zirin wrote in the article Standing with Caster.
That - Those - were her crimes.
Her public offences.

Because she doesn't look as feminine as women are "supposed to", her entire life, and career, was ruined for running too fast for a woman.
It really should go without saying that African women and women of African descent have always been under the suspicion of not being feminine enough - or on the flip-side, being overtly sexual.
So, not only was Semenya too good as a woman athlete, she was not good enough as an African woman who is supposed to be all curves and pliant flesh on which to be colonised.

There is a reason the first "foul play" cries came from her White European opponents^*.
They could not believe that a woman beat them with such a huge margin.
Obviously, she had to be a man.

The fact that her family feels the need to attest and confirm her sex ("female") is just too terrible for words. Her very identity was put into question, her body was presented as a freak show for having a advantage which makes her the supreme athlete that she is.

She gets to keep her medal, I wonder how much of a consolation that is for the loss of dignity she has had to put up with for the four months.

The findings of her gender sex tests will remain confidential, as the whole speculation whether or not she is Intersex was a leak to the press.
We will never know and you know what... it's none of our business!
Really.
Let's get over this, because when you begin to question another person's gender you are basically saying: "You are a liar", "You are a freak", "Your identity is a failure".
How do I know this? Seeing as I'm cisgender and gender-conforming in my appearance.
#1 There was a time I wasn't gender-conforming in my looks.
#2 I do my best to listen to people.

Friends, #2 isn't that hard.

I know that as I've gotten more politically vocal I've been told (by various people) that I'm intolerant of other people's opinions, that I'm rigid in my views, that I'm un-accepting.
I wonder if the various people who tell me these things realise that huge swaths of the population whose voice is routinely silenced.

People who have a greater chance of being raped and murdered simply by walking out the door.

Because Caster Semenya supposedly didn't look like a woman "should", the mainstream media had no qualms about turning into Yellow Journalism over her bits and instead of reporting about this great breach of privacy, and colossal mistreatment and humiliation of a champion athlete, they went along with the sensationalism of what a person may or may not have between their legs.
Because there are men and women and people who are neither who chose the live their lives with integrity, how they see fit and not through the "M" or "F" that was issued to them at birth... they are silenced, brutalised and killed.

Silence is violence.

Speak Up!

Footnotes:
* Even though the Silver went to Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei - but she only had 0.3 seconds over Bronze medallist Jenny Meadows of the UK, that's a "normal" margin... not a whole 2.45 seconds! That's crazy... Info from wiki.
Back to text.

She gets to keep her medal.

More on this and other crap tomorrow, because folks... this is not just about Semenya.

Via rm I discovered the comm kinkfreezone and friends... for a fanfic comm that allows high ratings on the fics and includes Slash, Het and Gen; I have never in my whole on-line life seen a more sex-negative fic community.

Wanting to have a community and specific requirements on fic is fine, fun and dandy. Honestly, it is. Wanting to exclude certain criteria that you and others would rather not read, very fine, your prerogative.
That's not the issue.

The issue is with language and the so-called binary of Vanilla and Kink.

For a more lighthearted, yet not, commentary on the list of kinks NOT permitted you can read thingswithwings' entry here. The comments are hilarious.

But oh, where to start... hmm, possibly from the most offensive one: ( So as not to eat your f-list )

Voice fetishization (cracking or broken; husky, low, throaty; purring; accents; whispering close to someone's ear).
Fucking hell! Involuntary reaction is not a kink. No, really. This is possibly the most absurd (not offensive, I've listed things I found particularly offensive) criterion on this list.

That whole list needs a serious language editor, a workshop in sex-positivism and just a little shake-up when it comes to Vanilla/Kink binary - here's a secret... it's NOT!).

Enjoy mocking the whole thing.

Edited to Add: Amazing what going to bed will do.
My comment in now deleted, as are all the other critical comments made on the post - I restrained myself a lot and wanted to be respectful, I may have failed a tad.
Here's my comment for keeps:

This list has extremely problematic and prejudicial language.
Perhaps if you edited it, it would read differently, but as it stands, this is offensive to a whole slew of people who you included as a kink.
Some of these aren't even kinks but literary tropes!
Trope=/=Kink, please learn the difference.

Also, including involuntary bodily reactions? Please, get a clue - also the inclusion of "accents", "uncircumcised penises", "homosocial environmental", "nautical themes", "exoticism" and a big portion of "gender themes" just to name a few is downright, and here are heavy words, racist, xenophobic and over-all queerphobic in general.

Fetishising Vanilla is also a kink, you know.
As I said, get a clue.

I understand and respect the want of specific kind of fic, but that toes a line that isn't just about criteria... this is exclusionary in the extreme.

Here is the Mod's reply:

WOW am I getting sick of repeating myself. Had you actually READ the damn post you would see RIGHT AT THE TOP!!! that it is, in fact, a list of KINKS, TROPES AND CLICHES from fandom!

You can go GET A CLUE sweetheart and get the fuck out of my community.

For serious.
The post itself has been updated, because you know, instead of trying to make the comm a little more inclusive - let's just be all the more offensive and delete the things I dun like!
How dare people get offended and say something about it! Sheesh!

Okay, wow.
This is actually a good Writer's Block.

I've been staring at it for a good while now.

Because the answer is: sometimes.

I'm being honest here, sometimes, I'm just too tired to confront people and tell them they're "wrong", "off-base", "being disrespectful" etc. Why? Because it's all the freakin' time.
It's prevalent and invidious.
How do you tell someone that their assumptions are offensive?

Is that over-sensitivity? Perhaps, but I'm often been called over sensitive for calling on people who said something about Arabs being untrustworthy, or about Gays "flaunting" their (our) sexuality.
And I'm like: "Die, fucker, die!" in my mind, while trying to calmly say: "Excuse me, but do you have any idea how offensive what you said was?" and then discuss for half an hour how #1 I took it the wrong way #2 It's just an opinion and they're entitled to it and #3 going around in circles regarding the whole concept of treating other people as human.
It's not that hard, honestly.
A little dignity and respect that goes two ways.

But it's not that, of course.
It's much deeper than that, because dignity and respect are concepts to be put upon those you see as equals, right?
Racial inferiors and sexual deviants aren't worthy of the same dignity and respect, right?

Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human.
And that, plain as day and crystal clear, just doesn't effing fly.

And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

Good night, y'all.

Things I grew tired of hearing a long time ago:

#01 "You're aggressive" - You make me want to rip out your rib cage and wear it like a hat (h/t Spike/Willian the Bloody terrible poet, he was a brilliant word-smith...).

#02 "You're provocative" - I make you uncomfortable, not my problem!

#03 Rape apologia - Even if a woman (or man) is walking around, naked, with a placard stating in neon "Will Fuck Anyone!", no one has the right to violate his/her/hir body. Ever. Rape is a crime, stop punishing and blaming the victims.

#04 The term "self-hating Jew" - the next time I hear this term I'm calling on that person and saying they are an "Antisemitic shit-bag". Jewish self-hatred assumes some kind of essential Jewish trait that us (yeah, I'm one of those people) self-haters reject because we're just that disgusting.
Antisemitic Shit-Baggery!

#05 "You've lost weight, you look great!" - I know I've lost weight. I know I comply with the fashionable female body type. I'd appreciate it if no one comments about my body, it's fucking irritating, I'm not livestock to be commented upon, my my rump, ribs and tits are not in public for your consumption! Unless you've been given permission to do so (you know who you are), do stop!

#06 "You look much better now that your hair in longer. The shaved head didn't look good on you".
DIAF.

#07 "Is this another feminist thing?" - Yeah it is, and you're gonna listen to me annoy the fucking hell out of you!

#08 "You're so sensitive" - Yeah, this is me crying over your dead body.

#09 "You're so loud, why do you have to shout everything. It's all about how you say things you know" - Yeah I do know, I also know a big STFU when I see one. Stop trying to control my fucking tone!

And #10 "Why do you care so much?" - because the world is an ugly, cynical and corrupted blemish in this universe. We have to live on it, it may as well be with a modicum of empathy and dignity.

Those are the Top 10 things this week that made me go *rawr*, *arrgh*, swear under my breath, glare, lose my temper and want to throw things at people's faces.

I cannot wait for the semester to start (which it does this Sunday).

Tell me friends, readers and maybe lurkers, what grinds your gears?

In my previous post regarding the Lammy Awards I was very fuzzy on where I stood regarding the fact that non-queer authors were now disqualified from submitting their work for the award.

The way I roll, I think stories should be honoured first and foremost. Just this evening I was talking to my older sister and she was telling her kids how their dad was seeing the same Moon in India right now (because that's where he is) and it slipped out of my mouth "Because all times are now and all places are here. And that's why even fictional people are real" h/t rm.
My sister agreed with me whole heartedly and it began a whole discussion with my seven year old nephew about the veracity of Vampires and Werewolves.

My concern, first and foremost, is the policing of identity. We live in such fluid times, it causes problems.
I know I prefer to my Lesbian Friends and Sisters when it comes to political identification and queer social gatherings... I'm also wary of the fact that if I ever date a man (cis man specifically, whether he is queer or not), that I will be viewed as though I'm betraying some kind of identity promise.

That's a Queer concern.

So are the Lammy Awards.

When I first read about the Lammy Awards change, the people who were raising alarms and concerns were people who are openly queer.
Later on, as I read more on the issue I encountered the voices of straight authors who write same-sex romance, specifically m/m. Professional Slash authors, as they've been dubbed and like most Slash authors they are Straight.
Straight Cis authors who write LGBTQ characters, I thank you for writing awesome people with which we can fall in love, identify with and celebrate.
That doesn't mean you get to say that by taking Orientation into account you are being oppressed.
You are not, because you have straight and cis privilege.
By bringing up the fact that you're a member of another oppressed community you're derailing and playing the Oppression Olympics.

Stop it, just... no. Your entitlement and privilege blindness is showing by demanding to be recognised in an Award that is about celebrating our lives and stories. You happen to write people who could live our lives, and that's great, I love reading and knowing stories like that, that still doesn't entitle you to come into our space and trample all over what we (or the Lambda Literary Foundation, rather) built so that our status and visibility could be elevated.

I'll not be writing any more about this, but I wanted to get my piece out there. I wanted to say, this is a queer concern, about queer visibility, queer identity and queer story telling. As such, it's not about straight cis people.

The end, ces't tout.

Now I have to decide whether I'm going to write about Rape Culture, or about the fact that my Identity is flaunted as propaganda in order to deflect criticism over the human rights violations my country commits on a daily basis.

Any takers?

Oh wait.

It really, really is not a fucking conundrum.

The man raped a child, plead guilty, then ran away because the sentencing was too harsh for him (U.S. Appellate Court! Hello!), not that I think there's anything to appeal, or condone or even sympathise with a criminal who decided to do a runner rather than serve the time given him for the crime he committed upon a 13 year old girl.

Is this getting into people's thick skulls?! Obviously not, seeing as there is a fucking petition (No! Tilda Swinton! Pedro Almodovar?!?! *weeps*... just a couple of names at first glance that popped out at me) calling for him to be let go and set free signed by a large amount of people, whose work I admire and inspire me. This is all so fucking Twilight Zone I'm having a hard time articulating it in a manner that doesn't include me tearing my hair out and run screaming through the streets like the "hysterical woman" that I am.

The man, drugged and raped a girl, is also an artist.

*crickets*

What? Is that so bloody hard to imagine? That people who create great things are also morally bankrupt and make no mistake, even if he personally feels guilty (but doesn't really want to sit in jail for it) he still raped a child.

It's really not that complicated. Either the rape of a child is punishable no matter who commits it, or those who are famous, wealthy and part of the artistic Elite are utterly exempt from the laws governing us lowly serfs.

An exaggeration? Please, this is once again a moment in history in which those who "Have" are entitled to get away with espousing the ugliest, most anti-social bullshit imaginable.

And for getting away with criminal behaviour, of course.

Obviously, this is no longer just about Polanski.

The Lambda Literary Foundation, for those of you who do not know, is an American LGBT Literary that works to raise the status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender authors, who are marginalised, in the literary world.

Awesome says I.

An organisation that works to elevate the visibility and merit of LGBT(Q!) authors is good.

The Lambda Awards (hereby known as the Lammy's) though, are about the stories. Or at least, that's what I (and probably many others) thought.

However, the new guidlines contain within them a new rule, which is a source of contention:

The Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) seeks to elevate the status of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.

As such, it should be noted that the Lambda Literary Awards are based principally on the LGBT content, the gender orientation/identity of the author, and the literary merit of the work.

Let's get one thing straight (laugh it up); queers having our own space, our own awards and our own rules as to who applies, is not a bad thing.
Really, it's not.
The problem is, who decides.

The Lammy's guideline specifically states:

As to what defines LGBT? That is not up to anyone at Lambda Literary Foundation to decide. The writers and publishers are the ones who will be doing the self-identifying. Sexuality today is fluid and we welcome and cherish this freedom. We take the nomination of any book at face value: if the book is nominated as LGBT, then the author is self-identifying as part of our LGBT family of writers, and that is all that is required. There are many permutations of LGBT and they're all welcome as that LGBT term we've all adopted makes clear.

Okay, so they accept anyone who ID's as part of the LGBT(Q damnit!) family. And if that bisexual cis woman who is married to her straight cis male husband of such-and-such years submits an award. Sure, of course she's eligible.
But wait, no she doesn't, she doesn't live the "lifestyle".
An exaggeration?
Not so much, when that kind of thing happens all the time, you're not queer enough if you have het privilege.
Is it stupid? Of course it is, but whoever said marginalised groups were good with the whole acceptance thing.

Honestly, I don't think it would go that way, I'm also obviously being satirical here. I mean, it could, but I'm trying for optimism here. LGBT(Q) authors having their place and awarding those of us who wrote a story in which our portrayal brings us and the characters in the story alive is a very good thing.
Telling people that who they are may not be enough in order to be eligible for the award is not the way to go.

The main problem that came out of this whole thing is that the change in the guidelines came with such short notice.
The notice of the change came out September 25th, submission begins October 1st and ends December 1st.
Yeah, no matter how you look, that is short notice, especially when it's effective immediately.

I say my opinion is fuzzy, the "litmus" should be for people to be able to say:"I'm queer", accept that statement at face value and move on in order to read a good book or story about people who are like me (potentially). But queer isn't a visible thing, our statements of who we are, are under constant attack because we are marginalised, because we are not "normal", because if we really wanted to and tried hard enough, we wouldn't have to be marginalised, now would we.

I'm getting frustrated from all this thinking about which box we're supposed to fit into. Sexuality is fluid (not for everyone!), but it better remain in that little bowl.

Regardless of how us queers feel about the change in the guidelines, which is not clear cut at all, here is one thing I have to say about those straight authors, who are yelling at the Interwebs, about being marginalised because the Lammy's changed the rules on their gay romance.

Shut up.

No, really. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

I've had it up to fucking here with stupid straight people appropriating my space, in order to promote an agenda that has nothing to do with actually being queer, and has everything to do with "but I want to play in this sandbox too".
Yes, well, at the moment you are peeing in it, because the attitude of entitlement is not the one members of the LGBTQ family who happen to be cis and straight should be throwing around.
You feel strongly about your portrayal of gay characters, that's good, I feel strongly about it to.
Saying that because you feel excluded from a prize, you are oppressed is irksome, irritating and shows that you are so privilege blind that you really have no fucking clue what homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, etc actually causes the psyche of a person who does deal with these prejudices and hates on a bloody daily basis.

God, am I the only one who had a flashback to the trek stupidity a couple months back.
Seriously, peeps, what the fuck?!

On that, I'm not so fuzzy headed.

A thanks to rm, kynn and vashtan; their posts really enabled me write this post in a (hopefully) semi-coherent way.
Their own opinions and fact finding skills were extremely helpful.

Torchwood Fandom,

This is not okay, no matter how you spin it, via torch_wood:

Please Read - TW Fandom Using a photo of my son inappropriately.
[Posted by shamazipan]
I am not usually one to get all up on my high horse about photos I've posted online. It's annoying when something you've posted ends up somewhere else without credit, but at the weekend I heard something that made my stomach churn. A complete stranger told me that she recognised my son from an email attachment that's been floating round. Apparently someone has taken a picture of him and Gareth David-Lloyd and captioned it "Ianto and Lisa's Baby". I can only imagine that someone saw the photo of Gareth and a small mixed race boy and their mind had that random thought. The thing is that most normal people would leave it there and wouldn't then pass that photo around with a silly caption. You have no idea how I felt on hearing that my son was being used as an object of amusement for someone. I share my pictures in very few places - my LJ (photo posts are usually flocked), my private photobucket account and this one photo was shared with friends on a Torchwood forum. What makes this worse is that it is probably someone I know that has done this. While I usually don't worry too much about sharing pictures of my son online this is taking it too far. I want to be able to share pics with my friends but this has seriously made me have to rethink that. Taking a picture of someone's child and knowingly editing it and passing it around is not cool. Not cool at all. I know this is my fault for being trusting but I wanted to post this so that people may think twice about how they use images belonging to others. I feel violated, I feel that my son has been violated and I just can't understand why someone would do that. it was creepy having a stranger approach me and say "I'm sorry to have to tell you this..." and then go on to describe the photo in detail. I just hope that by posting this the person who did this may see it and that they (and anyone reading this really) will have a long think about how they use other people's images without permission in future. There's not much I can do about this now but please, if you get this email, don't pass it on. Seriously fandom, it's creepy stuff like this that gives us a bad name.

Fandom, seriously, invading people's privacy and manipulating the picture of a minor without guardian/parental consent and permission is wrong. Not to mention the skeeviness of objectifying a child in that manner, when it was an innocuous memento.

*sigh* I thought it was too important to not, at the very least, re-post about it.
If I come across that picture there will be Words.

Fandom, the Interwebs carry real life ramifications, I know that it doesn't feel that way, but it really really does.

It may not seem like a big deal, but make no mistake, stuff like this can carry very real and very harsh consequences.

Transformative works should be something creative for our community (because yeah, that's what we are) and not breed distrust.

My two cents.

The links are NSFW!
I repeat, the links (and possibly this entire entry) are Not Safe For Work!

Via the Ha'aretz article: Can gay porn save Israel's image? which was originally featured in The Forward: Pornographic Stimulus Plan about about Michael Lucas' project called Men of Israel, featuring... well you can guess.

I read about this project back when Michael Lucas was here in Israel and both the queer and mainstream media were hounding him a bit (for different reasons).

I have a problem with this project.
Not the pornography; honestly, so long as the people get paid and aren't coerced to do something against their will... there's not much I'm going to complain about in this context.

My problem is with Lucas' attitude regarding his project.
Allow me a quote from the article:

Lucas claims that his motivation behind “Men of Israel” was not just titillation, but also a counterbalance to lopsided portrayals of Israel in mainstream media. “It’s free PR for Israel, and it’s much better than the PR they’re getting on the news,” he said during a tour of the company’s expansive second-floor offices, with views of the New York Times building across the street. “The reality is that Israel has only one face to people on the street, and that’s the West Bank and Gaza. All people see in the media is a country of disaster. They get images of a blown-up bus.”

Is he fucking kidding?
Promoting Israel as a gay tourist spot is not the way to "counter portray" the Occupation, nor is fetishising Israeli bodies, which honestly, are already grossly fetishised.
Also, can he be more shallow regarding Israel's portrayal in the media,which yeah, is pretty shallow regardless. However, Israel does its best to present itself (unsuccessfully) as a monolith of culture and opinion.

Not to mention this gem:

“I’m not sure the vast majority of his audience know or care about his political views,” [Aaron Hicklin, editor in chief of the gay magazine Out] said.
[...]
That may change with a letter that Lucas sent on August 31 to GoGay[link added by eumelia], Israel’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Web site, excoriating gay Israelis for staying closeted. “Excusing these pitiful cowards for not coming out of the closet and accepting their façade is only hurting Israel,” he wrote. “By hiding from your reality, you are empowering intolerant disillusioned fanatics.” The idea for the letter came, he said, after Israeli men “started hitting me up on the Web site, inviting me to hook up, then said they’re not out. They’re delusional. They’re cruising this Web site, benefiting from the fights of other people. They think the gay movement has nothing to do with them, that the shooting of gay youths in Tel Aviv has nothing to do with them. What reason is there to be in the closet in Israel in 2009? It’s embarrassing.”

Emphasis Mine.

Is he fucking kidding?
Really, did he just say that in conjunction with the gay youth centre?
I have a lot of respect for sex workers and people who work towards sex-positivity, but honestly.
I'm sorta speechless here.
Israel is not some kind of Queer Paradise.
It's not.
The Tel-Aviv bubble is very much burst when it comes to that.

Israel is plenty fetishised when it comes to militarism and the use of Jewish Israeli bodies is nothing new when promoting Israeli Hasbarah.

Michael Lucas, I don't care that you're a Zionist, or that you use your ideology to fetishise Israeli Jewish men. Seriously, I do not care.
But how dare you criticise and chastise other Queer folk, not actually knowing what it is they have to do in order to cruise in a place where they feel safe, and even consider the possibility that perhaps, due to an overt act of violence against the youth in our community... they might be a bit iffy about being Loud and Proud.

Michael Lucas, you suck and not in the good way.
Get the fuck off my lawn and stop trying to present it as though the manure smells like Axa Deodorant!

N.B. This post is getting flagged isn't it?

See, I was going to write this whole overview about the Survey that brought about the Epic Fail.
Just fyi*.

But there is a nice concise post about the Fail for Newcomers benefit over at Geek Feminism - Who wants to play Evolutionary Neuro Cognitive Research FAIL?

Really, the train wreck is massive, and as time goes on and as I read more and more of everything, it just seems that the two researchers have no effing clue on a)how to handle the Internet and b)how to actually respect the people they are supposedly researching.

There is info about how much this piece of research is NOT approved, and is basically a book deal.

The main Livejournal that this whole fail actually occurred has been locked, to no ones surprise, but this was the post I wanted to link to.

Note the use of "Shemale" in the title.

Fandom set them on FIRE!

I'm happy.

Now I'm waiting for the fallout and off to try and help salvage some of the info!

*There are many more links to read.
Back to text.

As I was visiting my fic communities yesterday, someone in the jackxianto community shared a quote that made 'em think of Jack and Ianto.

The quote is this:
"I Want Him To Come Up Behind Me And Wrap His Arms Around My Waist To Catch Me Off Guard And Whisper" I Love You".

I couldn't help it.
I gagged.
I back buttoned and had to read a fic in which the Jack and Ianto behaved like... well, like I think they behave on the show - I really recommend Pizza Mouth by cyus as a slice (haha) of "real life" boys hanging out together, but are also sexual with each other. It's all so very dirty.

The fic made me feel better.

That quote is so anathema to the way I perceive Jack and Ianto's relationship that I cannot imagine how anyone would consider this appropriate for their dynamic.

I think the pictures of Jack and Ianto that floated around the Interwebs in the year following the end of the second season and promoting Children of Earth gave fans the wrong idea regarding the relationship.

Is there love there? No doubt. After CoE you'd have to be utterly clueless in order to ignore the depth of feeling between the two men. The gravity between then is possibly the best ever portrayed between two men on screen - yes, more than Queer as Folk, more than Brokeback Mountain and more than the latent homoeroticism found in various war movies in which one kills people instead of making love to your fox-hole buddy.

Which brings me to my point.
( Jack and Ianto are warriors. )

Should I x-post this anywhere? I'm still a bit fandom shy at times.

I demonstrate with you.
You just don't know it.

I'm on the New Profile mailing list. Many of the emails we receive are articles regarding human rights violations, government response and opinion pieces that support the Palestinian right to self-determination, criticism of Israeli policy both in Israel proper and the Occupied Territories.

Sometimes, they're just way off the mark.

In Dafna Golan's recent Op-Ed titled "Come demonstrate with us", she commiserates and pontificates on the fact that the recent rally for solidarity with the LGBT community following the attack brought thousands of people in support of Queer rights, while the are barely any Israelis in the demonstrations against the un-ethical expulsion of Palestinian families from the Shiekh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.

She writes:

It's a shame Gal Uchovsky¹ is not taking part in the demonstrations in East Jerusalem's Shiekh Jarrah neighbourhood. It's always a pleasure to see him, and if he took part, he would see that, compared to the handful of Israelis who come to protest the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes so Jews can live there, his rally in honour of the dead and wounded at the Tel Aviv gay and lesbian center was a great success. If the tens of thousands of people who gathered at Rabin Square were to march through the small neighbourhood in the heart of Jerusalem, maybe the expulsion of the Palestinian families would stop, as would the construction in that neighbourhood of a new Jewish settlement, perhaps the most dangerous of all.

Enter the Oppression Olympics.

Basically, she's criticising one minority for not doing enough for another.

Not helpful and not okay.

Instead of laying the blame on the fact that the Queer Cause got more press, why not focus on the rhetoric that enables this.

Queer people go to the demos and are anti-Occupation activists.
They just don't do it through the LGBT orgs. of which Uchovsky and Co. are a part.

The newly formed Coalition of Pink Communities, which houses under it two of the queer Palestinian orgs. and other radical queer groups, does indeed intersect the various oppressions, homophobia, racism, misogyny and capitalism, just to name a few.

Queers are not visible at the demos for the families of Shiek Jarrah or at the Separations walls in Bil'in and Nialin.

Why?

Because the Big Orgs, like the Aguda, the Jerusalem Open House etc. do not deal with Israeli policy concerning the Occupation.
They just don't.

Many queer people oppose those policies, many queers do not care because they are not knowledgeable about anti-Occupation politics or the policies that enable the continuing Occupation.

Dafna Golan is picking on the fact that one Hate Crime brought thousands into the street while her cause remains small potatoes. This should not make her go all sour grapes on the LGBT's for not doing enough when it comes to the Occupation, because really, it just comes off as petty and alienating.

I've written before on the fact that the mainstream Queer movement isn't particularly political.
The mainstream LGBT movement, true to its character, is assimilationist. While many of its visible members will speak out against racism and other things, it is not a truly liberationists movement because we are still part of the Israeli mind set.
We're the only democracy in the Middle East, we're the best place for queers in the Middle East, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The problem is narrative and Dafna Golan is falling for it; She's saying what I've been saying, the inherent connection between the various oppressive structures in Israeli society and by default the effects on Palestinian society.
No problem there. However, when she's trying to argue that this issue is more important than that she's missing the point that no, it's actually our lives and not so much the "issues".
Saying the privileged in Tel-Aviv have it easy is obnoxious and just plain untrue, as she so callously ignores the intersection of queer identity along with Palestinian identity, just as an example.
Not to mention that trying to blame the fact that there aren't enough activists on the idea that there are other issues out there just reflects the fact that privilege still abounds.

That some rights are considered more important than others is not the LGBT Organisations' fault, nor is it their responsibility. The bubble burst a long time ago. What needs to be dealt with is the hot air blowing in every direction.

This Op-Ed came onto my mailing list as a "good" piece. Too bad it perpetuates the notion that LGBT fold are a monolith of opinion and that they're too selfish to think about the rights of others.

In the meantime, I'll continue to be an Israeli-Jewish queer who is pro-Palestinian.

Uncanny how those two notions go together!

Notes:
(1)Gal Uchovsky is a Big Name Gay. Considered one of the "leaders" of GLBT community by the mainstream, for the mainstream. He's a columnist, screen play writer and over-all celeb. Just fyi.
Back to text

When I began my feminist education I pretty much went chronological and began reading about Suffrage, Harriet Taylor Mill, John Stewart Mill, Seneca Falls, The Declaration of Sentiments etc.
Then came the Second Wave, you know "The Second Sex", "The Feminine Mystique", "The Redstockings Manifesto"... "The Female Eunuch".

I really liked Germaine Greer.
Her deconstruction of gender was cutting edge at the time. She managed to lay out the Materialist aspect of femininity, womanhood, etc.
Though after reading Monique Wittig she seemed a bit dated.

Any way, I really like her and I've kept her in a nostalgic corner of my heart. However, like many radical feminists who seem to be stuck in the Second Wave, which gave us many tools into seeking liberation, but were very marginalising for identities that didn't mesh with the very dichotomy that feminism sought to deconstruct.

Greer has made Transphobic remarks in the past which I had the privilege to ignore, because I wanted to keep liking her.
This though.
I can't ignore, because it's just too hateful, too anathema for me to reconcile that a feminist of her stature would be so intolerant towards women who lived different lives from her.

In her article in the Guardian Caster Semenya sex row: What makes a woman?, she writes:

Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women's names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn't polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man's delusion that he is female.

Screw You, Germaine!

I feel like I should deconstruct this article line by line, but frankly that's boring and I'd have to read it again.

Not only is Ms. Greer reaffirming the disgusting stereotype of "female parody" that are trans women, that is, that trans women cannot look female, as though there is some standard that women must abide to. She also negates the trans identity as a delusion, continuing the idea that trans people are mentally ill because they "believe" that are the opposite gender.

Who the fuck are you Greer, the "Sex" Police?

Because she's writing about Semenya, she also briefly writes about the exams Semenya must undergo in order to establish her femaleness:

And then Caster Semenya appeared. Big, blokish and bloody fast, could she really be a girl? No simple chromosomal test will decide. Establishing her sex will require the services of an endocrinologist, a gynaecologist, an expert on gender and a psychologist. For those of us who have never been allowed to doubt that we were female, the process seems bizarre. We don't know if we think like women or not. We just think. Is there a reputable psychologist out there who would dare to distinguish a female thought process from a male one?

Emphasis mine
Germaine are you kidding? Are you high? Wow, hypocrisy just isn't as subtle as it used to be.
I cannot imagine the humiliation that Semenya is forced to under go in order to prove she is who she says she is.
She's being punished for being too good.
The line between male and female is culturally based.
If a Woman is made, then so is a Man.
That doesn't make these identities any less real, a woman who was male assigned at birth is no less a woman than one female assigned at birth.
Just different.
The feeling of being forced into a gender that doesn't suit you is painful and no, you cannot doubt which gender you are, that can bring about a hell of a lot of trouble and strife into your life.
Surely, Germaine, you can relate to that.
No?
Oh well.

I suppose I'll just have to make fun at the fact that when you write a conclusion that includes a sentence like this one:

People who don't ovulate or menstruate will probably always physically outperform people who do. But then, doesn't all competitive sport canonise and glamorise the exploitation of genetic advantage? Who said life was fair?

I suppose Ms. Greer isn't aware that most women athletes once they reach a certain level of fitness, weight and musculature do not menstruate any longer.
And yes, many athletes both female and male have an "unfair genetic advantage", that's part of what makes an athlete rather good.
Would you ban Michael Phelps from swimming because he has extra big feet?

In short, Germaine Greer you suck! Get over yourself and start living in the now, rather than in the 1970's.

*Claps Enthusiastically*

Look! See here!

There's a New US Plan calling for a Palestinian State.

A demilitarised state.

Oh, bravo! Well done! That's the ticket, because nothing says autonomy like a double standard (no, Israel will not be giving up it's planes, tanks, M-16's, cluster bombs or any other bomb).

I'm feeling the fair play here. The impression of justice and political self-actualisation.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.S. President Barack Obama will discuss on Tuesday a new initiative which would see a demilitarized Palestinian state set within amended 1967 borders and Jerusalem as its shared capital with Israel, according to the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi.

The initiative, which was reportedly raised by past U.S. president Jimmy Carter, former secretary of state James Baker and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, would also have Palestinians concede on their demand for the right of return, in exchange for compensation.

Oh, did I not mention that this was the Egyptian government presuming to speak for the Palestinian Authority.
Ostensibly reiterating Israeli policy.

Yeah.

This is going to end well.

At WorldCon there was massive Race!Fail coming from author L. Jagi Lamplighter which you can read about in a couple of posts by karnythia, such as I'm about to be a jerk on the Internet or RaceFail Goes To WorldCon (open the links... they're just precious) and a thread started by the aforementioned author.

The links from Lamplighter's own journal arhyalon are just willfully ignorant (which contains an apology for some of the ignorance... it has problems, but okay).

It's race fail due to colour blindness and really, people in this day and age should know better than to think that's the way in which racism will be purged.
Ignoring a social facet that is so deeply ingrained you do not even notice it is there will not make it go away.
That is what makes it stick.

But kids, it doesn't end there. No siree it does not.
Another author - John C Wright, who also has an LJ - johncwright, who happens to be married to the one above is also a bigot, only instead of being wilfully ignorant, he posted a screed (ETA: which is now a screen shot because he deleted the entry - because that's integrity for you) titled More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future!

Yeah.

So yesterday there was an influx of legitimately pissed off people which amounted to something like 800+ comments on that post. In a pure act of cowardice he has screened all the comments and disabled that post, meaning even if you wanted to, you cannot comment on that disgusting piece of diatribe.
My comment (and the replies that I got) are saved though, as I have them in my email.
And because I am vain, I will now let you read what I commented to him, because really, I feel it's one of my best nasty comments ever.

I'd suggest you educate yourself and offer links, but why waste both our times when I can just stand aside and watch you be eviscerated by others who also think you're an ass-hole, as your sales take a dip.

In short, fuck you.

You're pretty much the lowest level of humans as you don't even have the decency to keep your prejudice to yourself.
How sad for you.
Though I suppose we're lucky that we now know the truth about you.

And this is much milder than I originally intended.

Bragging now over.

Authors, at least in my mind, should really know better. Words, spoken and written hold a huge amount of power. They have the ability to affect the world no less than a a bullet or a tank. The affects and consequences are different, but no less dramatic or powerful (in the long run).

If you are called out on something you said because it has hurt someone in some way, it is your responsibility to figure out why someone is so worked up about it. The excuse of "thin skin" and "over sensitivity" is derailment and while there are cases of misunderstandings and out-of-context experiences, most of the time... your arse is showing and it would make everyone feel better, including your (my) self if you covered it and said "excuse me".

Just a thought.

Edited to show that an apology from arhyalon was given.

A-la the famous 300 scream by Gerard Butler, ya know.

Education minister: More combat soldiers needed, is the title of the article, the sub-title is:
"Sa'ar visits military recruit center, promises full cooperation between education system and IDF".

Jesus fucking Christ, are they kidding!?

Because we need the IDF to venture even further into the brain washing tactics of the Israeli Education System.
The system, from kindergarten to high school, is built to prepare us for the fact that we, good Israeli citizens (so long as we're not Palestinian identified, that is) that we will serve loyally in the IDF.

Over the past few years there has been a huge moral panic regarding the "shirkers", those who through means and ways get an exemption from IDF service and usually go on to do some kind of civilian oriented national service which should (though it isn't) be considered equal to military service.
Conciousness objectors who are 18 are rare. That's why they're the ones spoken about more often than not.
The largest section of the (Jewish) population that do not serve in the military are the Yeshivah (Haredi - the people in shtreimels and black suits all year round) Boys who due to religious conviction do not serve, this is the reason Orthodox girls (not Haredi)
Backfire, is putting it mildly.
Demographically, they are also the fastest growing Jewish sector.
I feel the urge to mock and laugh, but that doesn't do much good, because the people vilified by the witch hunt committed upon the "shirkers" are the ones who do not serve either for physical health reasons or mental health reasons.

Bluntly, these are the people that the IDF, the system, rejected. Still, they continue to persecute those deemed "lesser" because serving in the IDF is the way you are "made" into a Good Israeli.
A Good Israeli is a Loyal Soldier, willing to Die for Land and Nation.

Whatever.

The State created loopholes through which people can avoid the draft, legally. Then they get their panties into a twist that people use it.

The IDF is supposed to be a defensive army, obviously it acts as a police force over a civilian population and commits as many war crimes as any other army in the world while it continues to chant: "Most Ethical Army in the World".

During my two years of service I'd never received more than a cursory skim over what constitutes an illegal order or command. I know from friends who were in combat units that they first heard of an illegal order during boot camp like everyone else and never heard those words again.
The skim is in a little pamphlet new draftees get when entering the system, reagrding the behaviour of an IDF soldier.

In the article linked above, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar says:

"The Education Ministry regards with great significance the issue of encouraging IDF service, increasing recruits' rate and combat recruits' rate," the minister said.
[...]
"The education system welcomes a full collaboration with the IDF. I feel positively regarding the introduction of officers into schools."

Minister Sa'ar also stressed that "some of the parameters of the success of an educational establishment are matriculation eligibility, social values and dropout prevention. Military service is an important parameter. Schools in which dropout rates are low should allow a special effort for raising recruitment rates."

There you have it. Kids from low socio-economic backgrounds should be encouraged to follow a path in which they put their lives in danger for a state that would rather have cannon fodder than invest in the actual neighbourhoods.

Some of those kids may attain actual life skills that will grant them upwards social and economic mobility, but in the context of the Occupation and the destructive economy in which Capital and Capitol are more intertwined than ever, I find this a very discouraging development in what should be a civic establishment and not a pre-military education camp.

You may find it tedious, or boring, or even just plain irritating that I'm blogging about the same thing over and over again and basically repeating myself.

Obviously this is something that needs processing and information needs to be disseminated.

As I said in my previous post, I did not know the deceased, but I know people who did, because that's how small our world is.

Those kids, one of whom is in critical condition, all of whom are still in hospital as far as I'm aware, will never be the same again.
Nor will any of us, I'm afraid.
Some of those kids do not have a home to go to because they were outed and their parents and family do not want their children to be "that way".
Can they be cured?
As though the way your body, mind and heart reacts to people is some kind of horrible disfigurement of the soul.
If we even have one.

The reason I keep writing about this (and will probably write more about tomorrow) is because I am in the belief that silence is violence.
That the police do not have the beginning of a clue as to the whereabouts of the murderer and that unless he wants to be found, he will not be found.
Call me cynical, but it's been a while since I've trusted the police with anything that actually amounts to securing me and the people I know.

As for "incitement against the religious", I'll let you read the writing on the wall again.

Thoughts? Questions? Opinions?

I still can't stop thinking about Saturday night.

I didn't know the people who were murdered, nor any of the wounded.

It was a youth group meeting, just a bunch of teenagers playing cards while one of the few adults they could trust was there to just... be there for them.

A friend I spoke to today feared this will just be the first of many incidences and I find that so heart breaking and it pisses me off, because I honestly thought that while things were crappy, it wasn't all full of shit.

I wasn't too keen on the anti-religious rhetoric that came out, mainly because I fear it will backfire and I honestly don't believe that all religious people are evil.

Reading this article though, makes me hope that something might actually be done to curb the power of religion in this country.
( Long quote, includes links )
I suggest you read the whole thing, that isn't even the worst.

But the more I read up on the language several Rabbis used, that religious Members of Knesset used over the years to denigrate and demean LBGT people:
Comparing us to bird flu.
That we're sick.
That we aren't legible to adopt and actually went so far as to push for legislation.
Saying that our "lifestyle" causes natural disasters - the famous earthquake comment.
That we undermine the entire Jewish religion.
That we are AIDS ridden.
That we are we are worse than beasts unfit for consumption.
That we have no souls.
That we corrupt children.
That we are the agents of autogenocide in Israeli society.

Bigotry, upon lies, based upon the twisted mindedness of religious people who have too much power and too much air-time.

Now it's our turn and fuck if we're going to be quiet.