Category: Activism & Politics

Activist issues and projects, political topics

Midwest Reality

Posted on by JAC

The open house was packed. I fought my anxious impulse to disappear, reminding myself that now it wasn’t just my responsibility to be a visible, social-activist butterfly… it was my job. I wandered my way to the middle of the mass and into a conversation with two first-years: One from D.C. and one from Northern Kentucky, near my hometown of Cincinnati. The Kentucky student and I chatted briefly about the conservative environment and the contrast Oberlin had to offer.

“Really?” the D.C. student asked. “Cincinnati is conservative?”
I stopped, amazed at the concept of someone reading the ‘Nati as a liberal space.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t think it is…” said Kentucky, “Its a city, but its a more conservative city.”
I was even surprised at this implication that all cities were automatically full of the enlightened. “Its a red city.” I said, hoping to impart the severity I was feeling. “Blood red.”
D.C.’s eyes widened brightly. “Whoa, so you’ve actually met a real republican?”

I was tempted to ask what planet these people were from. I had no idea there were people who didn’t know any conservative people personally, let alone never officially met one. I think its best put in the words of my dad. “In this city, every person you see is likely to be one of them. Every face I see I can’t help thinking “You support everything I’m against… “”

I smiled at the optimistic first year. “Met a republican?” I laughed, “Honey, down there you can’t escape ’em.”
She laughed and I smiled. On the inside, part of me brightened at the idea that there are places out there that are, theoretically, so “liberal” conservatives won’t even show face. The rest of me sunk, once again reminded that the rest of the country has forgotten about us.

x-posted on Amplify

Oct. 11th in DC: Equality or Egoism?

Posted on by JAC

[First off, sorry for the lag in posts. I am now officially settled in my new job at Oberlin College which means the blog is coming back to life!]

There has been a lot of exciting talk about the equality march in Washington D.C. this October. I’m always up for starting a required ruckus. My question is, is this required or redundant?

In anticipation of this magic march I started to ask what this “equality” event is about. Cleve Jones says he wants “full and equal protection” in “all matters” which is awesome, but from what I can find marriage is the only issue specifically mentioned anywhere. Last time I checked, marriage rights and equality are not the same thing. Well, not unless you’re the HRC.

How much of this event is for “equality” and how much is about egos? Everyone knows there is a certain amount of hip-ness to being the underdog. And while I’m glad people are getting involved, people aren’t much help when they’re all glory and no guts.

Cleve Jones is hoping the march will launch a “new chapter” in the queer rights movement. I agree with him in saying a grassroots method is better for stirring change than a fancy dinner could ever be, but I can’t help but be question this particular effort. I would love to see a population, stirred by a mass rally, returning home to work hard on local issues, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Queers, particularly younger ones, are drawn to the concept of gaining some sort of status by saying “I was there.” More than likely, people will attend the march, feel special (which is worth something, I’ll admit), yell a lot, and then return home to business as usual leaving us worker bees in the same spot we’ve been in for years.

The reality is while Cleve Jones and David Mixner are calling coast to coast for “equality” in regards to the finer things, us queers in the Midwest are scraping by on their scraps of corporate gay media and rainbow stickers. We’re struggling to survive coming out, scavenging resources from the “liberal” spaces we only get to visit, and formulate something like a community out of a suffocating bar scene. It’s all well and good for people to funnel time and money into going to Washington to talk about marriage because they don’t have to worry about the bread and water of queer identity: safety and space. They steal the closest thing we have to a motivatable workforce and use up what little juice they have on a rally that won’t end up doing shit for us. To quote Bil Browning: “the coastal queers are willing to sacrifice us…” for the sake of a happy, government sanctioned, home-life.

One could argue that the march is about the bigger picture, for recognition of queers as citizens of this country, which I guess is how I would think about it if I wasn’t so jaded. For this march, I am hoping for visibility, I am hoping for media coverage, I am hoping for change in my own community. I am expecting nothing.

x-posted on Amplify

Ohio “Gay” Pride

Posted on by JAC

Pride season has come, and gone. All queers going busily berserk for 30 days altogether: Always interesting.

I gave a speech for Cincinnati’s pride, skillfully skipping the middle chunk of it by losing my place on my homemade flashcards. Awesome. I am not real big on pride as an event, I’m actually bitter about it. I wish people would come out more than just one weekend a year. A handful of us are in the streets working our asses off to create space, always overworked and alone. Then, one day a year, the queers and allies come out to do what? Party and pretend nothing needs to change.  I said as much in my speech, but in a much nicer way. I tried to highlight Pride’s beginning as a activist movement. The twelve sober people listening seemed really into it.

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Blurrily speaking at Cincinnati Pride rally

Cincy pride always looks so tiny in comparison to Columbus. Our dinky little get together isn’t anything to wow about, but people try. Columbus pride is massive and intense with thousands of people. Makes me wonder why, if there are so many of us, we have so little going for us .

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Performing at Wall Street for Columbus Pride Royal Renegades show

Healthy is for the Wealthy

Posted on by JAC

“…What do the young know or care about health insurance?”

According to conservative columnist Michael Barone young people have “the fewest medical problems of the whole population.” Clearly this guy hasn’t talked to me. I’m one of the millions of young people carrying the permanent label “sick-for-life.”

I’ve been in and out of doctors offices and hospitals for as long as I can remember. As a kid I was lucky enough to have health care through my parents plan, but I still understood my treatment had a cost. My parents voices still echo in my head: “Without insurance we’ll go bankrupt. We’re not going to just let you die.”

As I got older, the expectation of losing insurance became a serious pre-occupation with getting insurance. I calculated the costs of the bare-minimum medication I need to get by… It’s over $3,000 a month.

No one should have to be rich to be healthy.

For the rest of my life I have to be sure to have a job with benefits, not just any benefits, good benefits. Some plans don’t cover prescriptions, others don’t cover certain types of doctors or testing. “PRE-EXISTING CONDITION” is a haunting phrase. If you got it when you get there, then its not covered. My condition is pre-existing…

“NOT MEDICALLY NECESSARY” is another scary slogan, especially for us genderqueers. If a company doesn’t think your condition is important enough, you don’t get covered. Almost every U.S. insurance company considers any gender-related transitional care not medically necessary. We are diagnosed mentally ill and then are incapable of getting “treatment.” Precious few are close enough to a non-profit informed-consent based clinic, the rest pay hundreds to thousands of dollars out of pocket. I drive to Chicago: five hours there, five hours back.

The power that the medical institution has over us is sickening. I am dependent on other people’s decisions in order to live a close-to-healthy life. Doctors decide if I get treatment, insurance companies decide if I deserve it. Last time I checked this was MY life and MY body. I think I deserve more control than run-around phone calls and piles of paper appeals. Who is sitting on these faceless boards that decide my fate? I doubt if it is anyone who is really on my side because my side costs money. If health care becomes “universal” will the government be on my side? From where I’m standing the record doesn’t look good, but at least it would not be a wealth based system so I would have a better chance.

With all the so-called great minds in the world I can’t believe that no one can think up an accessible health care system that is high-quality, cost effective, and promotes patient autonomy. Anyone who argues against universal health care must have never had face the fear of living in uncontrollable pain or realize the chance of losing their physical ability to function. Someone who is healthy or someone who is wealthy can not possibly fully conceive what it feels like, which makes it an easy concept to ignore. We need comprehensive, universal health care now. I’m sick of waiting for health care and I’m tired of being afraid to lose it.

x-posted amplifyyourvoice.org
x-posted queercincinnati.com

Gender-Variant Shot – We’re All Clueless

Posted on by JAC

Last week, two female presenting people, possibly transwomen or crossdressers, where attacked and robbed in Cincinnati. One was shot when the thief tried to take her purse. How did no one hear about this? (Myself included and I’m on the look out). Needless to say, it wasn’t headline news. But then again, maybe its better it wasn’t because the media did such a terrible job of covering the story. Wrong pronouns everywhere. “…Attacker shot one of the victims, who was dressed as a woman, while trying to steal HIS purse.”

If it is clear someone is presenting in one gender, why are people determined to get the pronoun wrong? People are determined to stick to their brain’s sex binary. To add insult to injury, the civic response to this is thing short of a sick-minded comedy hour.

“…if the shooter gets caught, he’ll probably only be charged with a “missed da weiner.””
“…don’t they know it’s a man under that skirt! Probably a big one too!”
“You don’t think that Shanequa and Shantay were out trying to make some extra money.” –Transphobic, racist and classist. Charming.
“What a drag!” – Ok this one is shitty, I know, but I have to appreciate the accurate queer-vocabulary.

There was another attack that same week in a Cincinnati suburb where a gay man was beaten on account of his sexual orientation. In response to this a huge protest has been organized by big name queer organizations. I’m not trying to hate on anyone, or show a lack of support for the survivor or those working to fight hate. All I’m saying is where’s the rally to protect the genderqueers? I realize people can’t rally around something they don’t know happened. Maybe we just need to open our scope a little wider, be on the look out a little more. Mainstream media isn’t going to do it for us. Its up to us to make sure everyone is protected and supported.

cross-posted at amplifyyourvoice.org

Ageism Fucks Over Activism

Posted on by JAC

This week I went to lobby in Columbus, Ohio’s capital, for the LGBT Equal Housing and Employment Protections Act. Equality Ohio collected almost 500 people for the event, most of whom were age 35 and up. Going in, I expected a degree of trans identity ignorance from some fellow lobbyists. What I didn’t expect was what I got…

I was one of the only experienced lobbyists in our group, but before I even reached the capital building I had been called both a kid and a child. I received a seemingly well intentioned yet authoritative lecture from an older activist on my generation’s apathetic nature, which was followed directly by being asked what grade I was in. I was never spoken to directly by the group leader or informed on the day’s agenda, nor where the other two younger people in the group. I was ushered from office to office like a kid on a grade school field trip. I had no opportunity to represent my district or my community. I might as well have not even been there.

Response: First of all, I am not a child. I’m 25 years old and the director a non-profit that I founded (without the help of anyone over 35, thank you very much). Second, if I had been the team leader I would not dominate the group so that my voice was the only one heard. I would not have missed appointments with representatives for no good reason. I would not have ignored members of my team because they looked young. And I would not have let lobbyers hand representatives blank “Thank You” cards (Wtf?). Lastly, my generation’s “apathetic nature?” Yes, I’ll admit my generation needs work, but what about the generations before mine? Maybe youth wouldn’t be so apathetic if YOUR generation hadn’t f**ked everything up. Maybe youth would be more involved if you treated us like people, not prospects. I keep hearing how youth are the future, but no one lets us make the future happen.

cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org

Death Fetish

Posted on by JAC

How much does fear and sadness motivate? Does it motivate at all?

I mentor my old high-school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, and the last big project was Day of Silence. I listened as the students listed the hardships of being queer, what we aren’t allowed to do, how many of us have died… I didn’t feel inspired, I felt depressed. Is this what our youth have to look forward to?

“It’s good to educate about oppression.” I said to the students, “Maybe we can take it a step further and not only promote the voices of those who have been oppressed, but also the voices of those who have overcome. Show people what they are missing by not hearing us.”

The idea seemed to pump them up, but in the end it didn’t sell. I guess it’s more dramatic and “moving” to talk about dead people. And that is a big face of queer activism: death. Transgender Day of Remembrance (the only “trans day” there is) is about remembering dead people. Day of Silence is about loss of power and lack of recognition. Every queer storyline in mainstream media ends with us losing our loved ones or being raped and murdered. Organizations fund vigils and memorials but not drag shows and parties. There is no showing the joy of queer life, or offering information and knowledge, only the sadness and penalty is given.

The message being sent is: “Come out and join the movement! Your life is going to suck and then someone’s going to kill you.” Sounds like a great plan, and look how well its worked so far.

cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org

Pink Hair Trumps Human Rights?

Posted on by JAC

An Update on the University of Cincinnati: For over three years we’ve been jumping through administrative hoops trying to get a campus queer center with a staff person. This week we had a rally in hopes of getting some recognition. It was a good turn out, considering it was snowing, and we did get some recognition from the university community. Well, we got our picture in the paper anyway…

Photo by Jamie Royce.

And even though I look fantastically good in the photo, I still have found something to complain about. It’s not the fact that the world “staff” is written twice. Its not even how there was NO article to offer information or explanation for what we are doing.

Its all about the photo caption. The caption above the photo says “Ooh, that’s some pink hair!” Really? Of all the things to write, why comment on my hair of all things? Does it bring any information about the rally? Any legitimacy to the movement? No. It borderline pokes fun at us. Apparently there is nothing more important or interesting about the event than my hair. It should be flattering, instead its just shitty.

We are nothing to the UC community except fringe and furnishings. We are not even a section of “diversity” as has been stated by the University “Diversity” Council. We don’t need resources or attention or even recognition. Its not like we’re getting kicked out of our homes, losing friends, living in hostile dorms, dealing with uneducated professors, or being beaten up on campus. Sure, just leave the queer students to their own devices and make not-even-clever commentary on their appearance. The appearance of equality is all that matters here.

cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org

Gift-wrapped Activism

Posted on by JAC

A couple of my fellow sex education teamsters and I went to an activist conference this weekend. It was for getting activists together from around the state and doing a skills share. Sounds pretty cool, right?

Getting there, us four radicals couldn’t help feeling a bit out of place. There was no gender neutral bathroom, which was a real pain in the ass for me. There was un-inclusive language and out of date, un-PC vocabulary all over the place. AND the place was crawling with paid government officials and wannabes promoting themselves. WTF?

My pal and I did a Queer Inclusive Organizing workshop to try to queer it up a bit and two people showed up. And they were fucking queer organizers! There was a score of talk about the November election, which is apparently still interesting to some people. The “discussion” consisted of people patting themselves on the back because they are “sustainable,” “progressive,” and work “on the ground.” Who the hell talks like that? And I love how everyone has attached themselves to the word “progressive” now days. Its less controversial than saying liberal, coating it with pink pepto so it’s easy to swallow. We wouldn’t want to upset anyone now would we?

The plenary speaker talked about getting more with less, and giving more to those who have less, but it didn’t seem to translate to the audience. I spent a collective 25 minutes trying to answer this dude’s questions about inclusive organizing. He avoided every answer that didn’t sound like a quick solution. When referring to people of color and the trans/genderqueer population he asked “But, how do we get those people to support us?” He continued on to say, “You think we can just get one of each?”

I’m still amazed I didn’t have an aneurism.

Now, I realize I’m being a little harsh. I’m not against all establishmentary activism. I’m down with collaboration to reach a goal. I’m not down with tooling around like a sell-out showman, claiming to make a change in the world when I won’t even make change in myself.

cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org

GIE Policy came through!

Posted on by JAC

It happened!

The University of Cincinnati has officially included Gender Identity and Expression in it’s Non-Discrimination Policy. Now anyone who’s transgender, genderqueer, gender-variant, or queer is now protected from discrimination and hate crimes!

I started working on this project two years ago. Two years of working and finally we are all safe on campus. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the first printed draft. There in the middle of the paragraph read: Gender Identity and Expression.

I think I’m still in shock. After two years of working, I can’t believe this has actually happened. With this new policy we will be able to enact a residence hall policy, a gender neutral bathroom policy, locker rooms, IDs and registration and so much more. The preferred name format for university registration is going to come through in the next year and the residence hall work is already underway.

I’m so glad that I was able to be here when this happened and see the project to it’s completion.


Myself with fellow activists Jane and Kim after we got the news.

cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org