Tag: queer gentrification

Pride, People, and Perseverance

Posted on by JAC

Pride’s over for another year, making this the week of recuperation for many local folks. I always need some downtime after Pride, but this year especially. Maybe it’s a result of long-term exposure to this oppressive city, maybe it’s a growing lack of patience, or maybe I’m just losing my touch a little; for whatever reason I find myself needing significant self care after this year’s Pride side effects of overwhelming planning, hours of work, heat exhaustion, and the annual broken heart.

I rushed out from the tarp-lined picnic shelter “dressing room” and stood beside the Northern Kentucky Pride stage. From the small park I could see the signs of the river, and my city on the other side. I thought of the Cincinnati Pride festival that would be held there the following day, and the involvement my fellow performers and I were denied. I looked at my troupe, exhausted, overworked, over-stressed, and emotionally injured. I was pissed off. We all worked hard, we all loved our city, and we didn’t deserve such mistreatment. Desperate for an attitude adjustment, I turned to one of my troupe members and gave myself a pep-talk: “We’re here for the community, and sometimes you have to put up with bullshit to make a difference. We’re here because we love our community.” I walked onto the stage and for the next thirty minutes I tried to forget my hurt and outrage and focused on creating something good. When you work for justice and inclusion there is only one road to take: the high road. Instead of creating a number that promoted the oppressive truth about community we have I painted a picture of the inclusive community I wished we had. (the stage was too small for us to do all of our planned movements, so some of it is a little spur of the moment). I told everyone to bring something real into it. Maybe it was the heat exhaustion or the pent up frustration or both, but by the end I unexpectedly broke down on stage. Thankfully T kept me from crying much, tears and glitter eye shadow don’t mix.

The next day I walked through the Cincinnati “Equinox” Pride festival in my home made “The First Pride was a Riot” t-shirt. I’ll admit it, despite my resentment I was glad to see that so many people had come out. It was a beautiful sight to see the city square bustling with “gay” – regardless of how white and normative that “gay” was. I lingered in the small collection of activist oriented booths – mostly national orgs; the rest were all corporate shopping. There was not a single trans focused or people of color focused organization there. I looked over the huge, wonderfully positioned stage, it only made me angry. I read over the 11 act line-up. It was clear that the issues of no having enough space were legit; I can see why there was such a stress about accommodating performers in the well over seven hours of stage time that day (surely you can sense the sarcasm, but just in case you can’t: please note the sarcasm). All the performers where queens or gay men except for the rainbow marching band and one performance group representing drag kings; a relatively new troupe that advertises itself as “the best in gender bending performance in the city” (even though few people have heard of them, so I’m curious as to where this title came from). Oh and did I mention that this troupe is run by the same person who did all the Pride performance bookings? I’m sure there is no connection between that and that there were no other kings allowed… I watched the small parade of churches, bars, companies, and non-profits; I tried to take it in, feel the pride of my community, enjoy the love I saw in front of me but it didn’t heal the hurt I was feeling. I once again found myself searching for someone like me and like years before, I never found them. I didn’t feel proud. I didn’t feel loved. I felt alone.

There are not enough trans or queer folks on this planet to ever justify non-inclusive behavior, especially in a place this conservative and oppressed. There are just not enough of us to allow prejudice, exclusion, selfishness, egoism, greed, or, most of all, failure. Notice that failure is not the same as making mistakes. This whole Pride ordeal (as it continues) is not a mistake, it is a failure; a failure to support the community, to take responsibility for mistakes; a failure at being inclusive and creating a space that everyone can take part in; a failure to listen to one’s own people, to accept hands reaching out, crying out for help, for comradeship; a failure to be proud of Cincinnati’s trans and queer community, the entire community. I am angry, I am heart broken, and while being able to conceptualize fucked up motivations of these organizers I can not rationalize them and I am finding it increasingly hard to forgive them.

I may not agree with everything Equinox Pride organizers do and I definitely abhor the way that they do it, but I recognize that they are a part of my community and therefore deserve respect and human decency. On the surface it may seem like Equinox Pride organizers feel that way too, but under the surgace there is dishonesty and egoism, privilege and separatism; these can never be constructive tools for healthy community building, no matter how good the intentions are. And despite my own good intentions this weekend I also struggled. Through my smiles I knew my composure was not as civil as I wanted it to be, I just couldn’t hold it together. I shook hands and smiled, I was polite and respectful, but I was not warm. I really tired, but like a dog on a leash I was caught, unable to pull myself from civility over into friendliness. But I also I wonder if it was better that way as a part of holding people accountable. Would I be enabling their behavior, excusing it even, if I smile warmly, embracing them like there wasn’t a problem? Or is it better to be civil and professional, yet reserved to show respect yet also recognize that the issue is there and unresolved. I wonder if I let my community down because I could not grow past my own internal hurt and anger. It is hard to keep running at a wall; pushing for inclusion and recognition, giving respect without any return, trying to love those who continue to prove that they don’t love you. And through the exhaustion, I am left with only one thought, “Why?” But this is my city. This is my home. These are my people. I am not giving up.

Cincinnati Pride; Progress or Privilege?

Posted on by JAC

Today is my birthday, but I can’t say I’ve been looking forward to it – not because I’m upset about getting freakishly close to 30, but because of another event that is also falling on my birthday weekend; Cincinnati Pride.  It might seem like having Pride on your birthday is a stroke of luck – I’m alive and I’m queer, what a perfect combo of days, right? Everyone is out and ready to party, everyone except me, that is. For me, my hometown Pride is never about partying, it’s about work, frustration, anger, and disappointment. Every year it’s the same… well, every year except for one.

My first Pride was a celebration. When I came out, I didn’t know anyone gay. I didn’t know anyone queer. I didn’t know anyone trans. I wanted to find community. I took to the streets in that tiny parade of a few hundred, walking past people peppered sidewalks wearing beads and blowing bubbles. I had no money for colorful boas or identity themed t-shirts, but I treasured the little rainbow flag I got for free.

Playing dress up at my 1st pride – not pictured: my 1990s jean jacket that I wore all day

[Image: Young JAC with brown hair wearing a white sailor hat and black sailor shirt, looking at the camera and saluting with two fingers – on of which has a batman band aid on it.]

All day I searched the crowds for someone like me, someone trans, someone radical, someone queer; I never found them. Years passed. I found that the city’s prejudice and conservatism that I had been fighting before I came out was not limited to the “straight” world after all; it was in the “gay” community too. Pride came and went, but my little rainbow flag had long since been put away. Trans and queer activism had become my whole life, day in day out – what was one day of partying going to solve? Still, every June I walked past the 10am drunks, down the trash covered street to the festival; performing show after show, volunteering along street after street, all for the sake of being “visible.” Always looking for that radical queer trans kid who was seeing Pride for the first time, searching for someone like them. I wanted to make sure they found me. I stood on that street; I got up on that stage to prove that there is a place for our people in this town. And though I continually said how I hated Pride, without fail at some point during the day it would hit me; “Yes, I love this community. I’m proud of my people, our history, our success thus far…” and then in a wave of corporate floats and wrong pronouns I’d come back to reality and resentment. But you know, it’s true what they say: you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Last year, Cincinnati Pride, now called Cincinnati Equinox Pride to include the business organization that runs this community event in partnership with the Cincinnati Gay Chamber of Commerce, was a hot rocket mess of issues surrounding organizational transparency and equal representation, involvement, and inclusion of trans folks, people of color, radicals, queers, allies, and lower income communities. After many people joining in the fight for inclusion, Pride organizers continued on without any actions towards reconciliation or solutions of any kind – with the kind addition of repeated personal attacks, forgery of my name, impersonation of me over email, and literal conspiracy by what I considered to be my own people. I guess sometimes the price you pay for rocking the boat is that your comrades throw you overboard. After that, I kept my distance for a while, secretly hoping without hope that someone would email me, or anyone, about how to do things better this time around. It never happened. From my almost exiled position, I occasionally kept tabs on Pride; a queer woman patronizingly told she could be the chair’s “assistant,” a pride organizer stating that trans folks “didn’t really belong in pride anyway,” and tales about disorganization, complaints about a lack of volunteers (despite doing nothing to obtain or include folks), and the kicker, tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt.

This year Cincinnati Equinox Pride was joining some of its organizers with Northern Kentucky (NKY) Pride, a new festival celebrating its 2nd year. I figured it was a good thing to merge the Prides, since we are such an over-lapping community. NKY Pride is very welcoming of all folks and my drag troupe, The Black Mondays, had great experiences performing there last year. I hoped that NKY Pride would be a positive influence on Cincinnati Equinox Pride. I decided not to give up and take the high road. If this was going to be my city’s Pride, then I needed to try my best to do right by it. The Black Mondays contacted Cincinnati Equinox Pride organizers about getting involved and after several weeks of unanswered emails, we received notice that we would be contacted about when we were to perform. The troupe was excited. After not being welcomed (or allowed) to perform at Cincinnati Equinox Pride last year (part of the issue of inclusion), we could put it all that behind us and start fresh – though I privately said I’d believe it when I actually stepped foot on the Cincinnati Equinox Pride’s stage. As the dates flew by, we waited and waited to hear from Pride organizers, our emails again going unanswered. Finally, it turned out that we weren’t allowed to perform at Cincinnati Equinox Pride after all. Pride organizers stated that were trying to bring “national attention” to Cincinnati Equinox Pride and therefore wanted to reserve the stage for big names, putting smaller names at NKY Pride –I guess because NKY doesn’t need national attention… I explained that if Cincinnati Equinox Pride wanted big names (a totally problematic and inaccessible concept) then we were what they wanted. The Black Mondays are a nationally recognized troupe who performed all over the USA, that we had headlined at Columbus Pride for several years, had been solicited by America’s Got Talent, and that we were being featured in an HBO documentary. When they learned this (cause I guess when they said they knew all about us, they didn’t know all of that) they said that actually it was because we were so big that they wanted us at NKY, to try and build it up. When I explained that we were already invited by the NKY board to perform, but thanks for trying to hook us up. The issue at hand was Cincinnati. We were in this to help the community, and though we love NKY, our actual home is Cincinnati and we want to be in our hometown Pride. Finally, after a week of excruciatingly long, borderline begging emails, Cincinnati Equinox Pride stated that we could not perform because there was no room due to a high number of performers. Now, I don’t know how much you know about Midwestern drag and “LGB” performance/music, but this isn’t exactly a bustling scene out here. If you have multiple stages, and over 10 hours of performance time per stage, how is it possible to run out of room? Even if you gave 10 minutes per performer on both stages, that still would leave time for my mom to step up and sing off key.

As all this was going on, I reached out to my network of activists searching for help, support, a solution, anything. I found out from several trusted sources that the chair of Cincinnati Equinox Pride had made a statement about me in reference to my activist work about Pride last year. He said that he specially wanted to “avoid upsetting me.” I still don’t’ know how to feel about that, but if that isn’t having an impact I don’t know what is. But all JAC ego boosts aside, who gives a shit about upsetting me? Do well for the community because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’re afraid of getting busted by furious radical activists with great hair. Afraid of a repeat of last year, I stressed to Pride organizers that our whole motivation for wanting to perform was to promote visibility of Cincinnati drag kings, queer, femme, and trans communities; that all we wanted was to make a space for our people. They assured me that it was “taken care of.” Call me an untrusting person, but I asked around to make sure. Turned out that not a single performer I knew, king or queen, was scheduled to be on the Cincinnati Equinox Pride stage. As of today the list of performers is still unavailable to the public. In the continuing conversation about performance, the Pride organizer mentioned a show that The Black Mondays are doing tonight which is being put on by another local artist to celebrate the Pride weekend, claiming it as a Pride event because it happened to take place during the Pride bar crawl. I called them on it saying that it was not a Pride event, and it wasn’t even listed on the Pride events calendar. The next day it was posted on the website, despite there being no true affiliation. Maybe it was another move to try to “avoid upsetting me.” It didn’t work.

Through further sleuthing it came out that despite Pride being in debt and their claims of awareness of the previous years issues of unequal (or non-existent) representations, once again Cincinnati Equinox Pride organizers decided to pay expensive “big name” performers  (that no one actually knows because really, are there any real gay celebrities other than RuPaul? JK!) allowing no room for local performers – local performers who spend all year forging space in this city… We’re not a big enough deal to perform and be proud at our own Pride – though I’m positive that some local queens will get on stage since they know all the Pride organizers and… no further comment… And all these “big name” performers are brought in because Cincinnati Equinox Pride wants to get “national attention.” Now, can someone explain to me why a small city Pride needs national attention? The community doesn’t get anything out of it, unless we trying to prove to Chicago that we’re cool so we can eat lunch at the cool kid’s table. Direct from the mouths of Cincinnati Equinox Pride organizers (who are primarily businessmen from the Gay Chamber of Commerce) what they would get out of it is more traffic for their gay businesses; AKA money. But they can’t be that clever with money, considering they ran a non-profit event under a for-profit model and ended up in debt, not to mention losing a ton of sponsorship (including huge funders like Macys and Delta) due to this mismanagement. (yes, Cincinnati Equinox Pride, we do know about that.)

I bring all these issues about performance, not just because it sucks for us, but because of what it represents and proves: that Cincinnati Equinox Pride is a problematic, unqualified organization with goals not in line with what Pride is really about; community. What’s the point of a local community pride if the pride of the local community – its activists and its performers who work all year round for space, visibility, and rights are not recognized, included, or valued? If I wanted to celebrate someone else’s community, I would go to some other city’s Pride. At my hometown Pride I want to see my community, my people. And after another year of waiting, I’m still looking. Pride has no point if it is not centered on community. Pride is not about big names, fancy products, or money driven reputations. The first Pride was a riot. The first Pride was about human rights, about standing up and saying “This is who I am. I am not afraid. I am not ashamed.” To use a common community joke, size doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do and how you do it. What if Cincinnati Equinox Pride doesn’t impress other cities, is it a competition? Our people are homeless, jobless, without family support, without resources, without health care, without rights, but our “leaders” main concern is getting into pissing contests via normie, corporate crapfests. Sounds real productive.

It’s not that I don’t recognize that Cincinnati Equinox Pride organizers’ hard work – I do and I support them in trying to run Pride – a huge undertaking without a doubt, but good intentions only go so far. Our community continues to suffer and split because we do not support each other and we do not or hold each other accountable when we behave in unjust, problematic, or oppressive ways. Looking the other way or making excuses like “They mean well” or “You don’t know them like I do” is just being a part of the problem. The solution is not to kick people out of the community, not to scream at them, or to hate them, it is to say “You need to change, and I’m going to stand here and wait until you do.” It worked when my parents wanted me to eat my vegetables; Social justice to a community is like vegetables to your body – it gives you good stuff to grow strong and healthy and helps you get rid (aka poop out) all the stuff you don’t need or are better off without. (Sorry to get scatological, but it’s a good reference.) My parents made me eat vegetables because they love me. I want my community to be socially just and inclusive because I love my community, all of my community. Family is family, even when it’s a chosen one. And like any family, you won’t always get along, you won’t like everyone, but you’re still a family. We’re all different but in the end, we’re all in this together. And all of that warm fuzzy crap would work a lot better if the people in my communities who have more power than me, more privilege, would look back once in a while and remember where they came from. It wasn’t too long ago that they didn’t have it any better than I do now. I’m glad that the Cincinnati Equinox Pride folks are working hard to try and create something big and beautiful, but when you build something without the correct supports, it is bound for crumble and crushing everything beneath it.

Trans Role Models Chosen by Non-Trans People?

Posted on by JAC

This is one of my rare less-professional rant posts that I could not not write, even though I’m supposed to be headed out the door for a gig in Columbus. So please excuse any typos or less than well rounded points. Today, I had only been awake for an hour and already 2 things had offended me.

1) a queer blog posted Lady Gaga’s new racist, queer-disempowering song as if it was something to cheer about. Come on, community! Get it together! If you ACTUALLY listen to it the lyrics, or have decent politics, you will hear how racist and pitying-queer it is. Do I need to go into how tired I am of people idolizing icons who don’t know queer from quack? No? Ok, I’ll move on.

2) a trans blog posted THIS article about trans role models.

First it opens up with some snarky comment about how the “role models” presented are not “going to be telling you to stay off of drugs in the near future.” WTF? How do you know these people use drugs (like it matters). Plus, it completely delegitimizes the people its supposed to be praising before the article even starts, essentially calling them wild, crazy drug users. Stigma and stereotype says what? Second, what’s with the “traditional” vs. “non-traditional” word play? The only thing “non-traditional” about the people listed is that they are trans. All are activists, artists, and writers, doing what all other activists, artists, and writers do, they are just trans while doing it – which is apparently SO non-traditional. Us trans folks have only been around since the beginning of humanity, but yeah we’re breaking those boundaries! But its an article about trans people so why is it using language that puts us in the ‘other’ box? Well, it is written by a non-trans person who, from what I can find has a stellar career in sex positive work but has NO background in trans activism or writing. Exoticize much?

You start to read and see the expected folks- Sylvia Rivera, Kate Bornstein, then WHAT? Thomas Beatie?? Ok, he stood up to adversity; gave birth and publicized it in an attempt to quash the idea that it isn’t ok for transguys, or men, to do so. (I still think he’s a little press hungry…) But he also lives a cushy life in the Pacific Northwest, is rolling in money from his books… I don’t see him making any statements about ENDA or founding educational movements, creating groundbreaking art, or marching on Washington. (CORRECTION: So I fucked up and in my rapid rant post I didn’t look into Beatie enough, and he has done lots of activist work. Apologies.) I donno, when I think trans-activist, Oprah appearances is not what comes to mind. Maybe someday, but not today.  I think comparing someone like Sylvia Rivera, who lived their whole life on the streets working in the shit of the system for trans rights and created a legacy for trans and queer youth, CAN NOT be fairly compared to someone who birthed his own kids in a media circus. (too harsh?) And I recognize this article is in the “GLBT Teens” (anyone else get irked when its GLBT and not LGBT? I think it should be TBLG) and because its for teens they may be trying to show variety of professions. It does not however, show a wide variety of trans folks. For the main transguy to be Thomas Beatie? I totally respect Murry Hill, I just have never heard or found any info that he identifies as a transguy per se so that is why I don’t include him here. AND that Beatie would be listed before Murry Hill, who has worked in this movement for decades, is another insult. Another transmasculine spectrum person is showcased,  a 17 year old vblogger who I am sure is totally awesome – their stuff looks awesome. I am in no way saying they should not be listed. Its good for young people to see other young people being awesome. But hopefully even they would admit that there are other transmasculine folks also worth highlighting to inspire youth like S. Bear Bergman or Dean Spade. And speaking of me naming two white people…

There is only ONE person of color on this list. One out of seven. There are countless, amazing POC trans activists – to name a couple favorites: Miss Major, Ignacio Rivera, and Pauline Park – who I want to marry someday. And this list has no genderqueer or gender non-conforming representation on it. Again, I don’t know exactly how Murry Hill identifies himself but in all my community connections I have never heard that he is GQ. But where are all the non-binary kids gonna look when they want a role model? I just had a conversation with a young person last night about how hard it was for them to grapple with their identity because they had no genderqueer role model. Maybe they stumbled upon this article.

I’m not saying this is what happened, but what it looks like is that the author just did a google search for trans folks and threw up what they got. I think if people want a list of trans role models maybe they should let trans people write it? Or at least someone who is an active member of the trans-ally community (cause I know tons of non-trans folks who would write a better article than me!) If I was a young trans/GQ I would not have been empowered by this article at all. No nice try about.com, but better luck next time. Maybe you should check out my blog roll for some trans blogger role models to aspire towards.

Queers Not Too Proud for Pop-Culture Hand-Outs

Posted on by JAC

I am a proud person, but I have never really considered myself to be “proud” of being trans or genderqueer or queer or femme or disabled. However, I have always been proud of being an activist. I live in a conservative city where even the most “liberal” people are barely recognizable on any “coastal activist” scale. The general concept of community involvement is an HRC sticker on your car and getting drunk at Pride and terms like “privilege,” “ablism,” and “appropriation,” are barely in stock, and we just got them in last year. After 12 years on the activist block, I’m used to my comments about some problematic show or song being accompanied by friends’ groans and eye roles. What I’m not used to is being fed up with it.

Possibly regrettable statement: I am fucking tired of bad politics. Yes, I know I am using a subjective qualifier and using my own ideals to measure “good” and “bad.” And I feel the need to clarify that I know “bad” politics does not equal bad people. I have always striven NOT to be the type of activist who shoves PC crap down people’s throats without taking experience or perspective into account. That method isn’t productive or inclusive. But it may be that my being too curbed has been part of the problem… maybe in my attempts not to be a total social outcast I have let my city down. Or maybe I’m just sick of my friends making fun of me for giving a damn about language and community politics. But in Cincinnati-speak, ‘giving a damn’ is more commonly called ‘over reacting’ or ‘reading too much into things.’ Under this mentality, when I see something fucked up I’m supposed to let it go, banking on someone’s good intentions. Well, good intentions don’t drive revolution and revolution is what our people need.

But not according to folks around here. According to them things are fine, inclusiveness is stupid and weak, and pop-culture is god. If you don’t agree with this you deserve ridicule and rejection. Being ‘gay’ and being a fan of a singing diva or show is nothing new, and perhaps it is this history that has fused the concept of ‘gay pride’ and pop-culture. Recently I told some friends that I personally preferred not to choreograph or perform songs from Glee because I felt hypocritical (I hate Glee) and that I felt the particular requested song, “Baby Its Cold Outside,” to be sexually coercive and problematic. In response, these folks insensitively made fun of me, both for my “PC” comments and for not liking Glee, and then told me that I needed to get over myself. Now, 1) last time I checked rape was always bad and 2) I didn’t say anything negative about the friends themselves, just the show Glee. But these two factors didn’t matter because it wasn’t the political issues that were the problem, it was me “over reacting” about Glee and being “lame” (and yeah, I commented on that word too and got shit for that as well). Apparently an insult to Glee is an attack on “gay” life as we know it, making defense of it needed by whatever means necessary, even if it means emotionally hurting another “gay” person, even if they are your friend. We get so distracted fighting for survival and jumping at scraps of privilege and recognition we don’t even notice when we put down our own to get it.

And at this point I would like to redundantly point out the difference between a personal attack and a political dialogue. Just because I don’t like something you like or agree with something you say / language you use, doesn’t mean I don’t like or respect you as a human being. And I would expect that if someone didn’t like my politics they would recognize the difference between me politically analyzing language and me being an overall terrible person who is out to destroy them and all they love, burning all their hopes of happiness away with a flaming torch of indiscriminate activist fury… but this expectation has not worked out for me as of late.

I guess the obvious reason for all this is that people don’t like to be challenged nor do they like being told that something they like could possibly be bad. Yeah, fucking up sucks. Its embarrassing, I get it. I’m make mistakes all the time! I’ve not checked my privilege, slipped on a word, laughed at a bad joke… and when I see (or am shown) my error I pull myself up, admit it, and apologize – all this without my face catching on fire or some other catastrophic result. (gasp!) Who could guess others could do the same thing, even in the Midwest? But I could be wrong. Maybe the right thing to do is to be a pop-culture drone and lazily let mainstream society spoon feed me my identity in whatever flavor it sees fit. Do people really think that defending Glee or someone like Katy Perry or Ke$ha is helping them? Should we be thankful for celebrities throwing us a bone, even if they hit us in the face with it? (Get your mind out of the sex-club. Politics now, sex later.) Aren’t queers supposed to have something called “pride?” Queer pride is supposed to be an unabashed fight  for our right to be ourselves, not latching onto cultural fads at the whims of sanitized music and TV.

I refuse to take what I am given, not because I am greedy or impatient, but because I am realistic. I know that in the real world words hurt. How did our society come to (sort of) learn that other semi-culturally recognized oppressions weren’t ok? We stopped allowing them in our media (sort of). The more we let slide the farther back we slide in the progress we are trying so hard to make. Is this what our proud people have been reduced to? Taking hand outs from celebrities who claim to care about the “gay cause” but don’t care enough to actually live their politics through their language and/or their performance? Yet when real people in our community speak out they are cast out as some sort of heretic. Am I reading too much into things? I think the problem is that too many people don’t read enough into things. If oppression were always out in front where everyone could see it there would be no question of right and wrong, but it isn’t. It hides in words, in TV shows, in songs… There is a big difference between obsessing over every tiny thing without thinking of the source’s experience(s) and recognizing the intricate layers of oppression within comments/products that promote problematic language and politics for the sake of entertainment and false belonging. I think if we were really proud of our community we would want to work hard to make it as inclusive as possible and be active in its growth, not leave it up to pop stars and TV to shape our image. Oppression comes from a lack of challenging the status quo. Yes, it is more work to think, and sometimes you don’t like what you find, but responsibility isn’t always easy or fun. And though I don’t necessarily think of myself as being “proud” to be any of my identities, I think that being able to say “I try my best with every option available to me to help my communities” enables me to be proud of who I am. Sure, I like seeing my identity recognized in media so I take the effort to find work created by queer and trans people for the sake of helping our community instead of those who use it for monetary gain or cool points. No, I can’t laze back and watch it on Fox or hear it on Clear Channel, but I’d rather have the real thing in its rarity than some money-making imitation that makes me feel good about myself at the cost of my own community’s dignity and pride.

xposted AmplifyYourVoice.com

Tools of Our Own Demise

Posted on by JAC

My community continues to throw me curve balls. Recently I was given an account of a rather discouraging discourse that took place on stage at a local show. The emcee, who is a transguy, told a story about another man flirting with him and concluded his story by asserting his straight identity and saying “I’m not gay trans, I’m just trans.” The audience laughed.

A pleasant reminder that just as gays have less rights than straights, gay trans folks have less rights than straight trans folks. The amount of internalized homophobia and transphobia here is staggering. “I’m not gay trans, I’m just trans.” Translation: “I’m not one of those gay transguys. I’m just you’re good o’l normal transguy.” Or maybe “gay trans” was meant to be a combination of gender and sexuality in one identity making ‘gay trans’ a different identity than ‘trans’ aka ‘straight trans.’ Not only would this create a problematic concept of normalcy based off of straightness, it also mirrors the all too familiar “I’ll prove I’m not gay cause god forbid you think otherwise.” Can anyone say hierarchy? As usual the straight people go on top. Trans or not, lets keep reaching for that privilege! Never mind who you crush on your way up.

My criticism does not come solely from an outsider’s perspective. I was straight once. When I first came out as trans I identified as queer in the general sense, but since I was a guy dating women I felt that to actualize my maleness and to pass I needed to be straight. And ‘straight’ was about more than sexuality, it was gender expression too. It meant portraying a specific masculinity that used misogynistic and homophobic language to underline how straight I was. I found myself impulsively attempting an uncomfortable role that went against my feminist principles. But “straight” continually failed to speak to my reality leaving me feeling like a fake, and eventually, like a failure at being a man. All and all, my straight period was very short because my exhaustion lead me to recognize my folly- that and I’m just too self-righteous to be anything other than what I am. Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t transguys who are straight, or that its bad to be straight. There are tons of awesome straight guys, I’m just not one of them. (To clarify: I am not stating that the label(s) you choose have to define your actions based on the dictionary. I say own the labels that speak to you – i.e. someone can identify as lesbian but not solely date women, someone can be queer and heterosexual, in my own case I call myself gay frequently but I do not only date men.) I say all this to state how I can understand the motivation, the habitualness of using language that is oppressive in order to show off one’s masculinity. It is not wickedly meant, but it is no less harmful to all involved. This “no [trans] homo” mentality harms us not only in a grander sense of societal oppression, but also more directly in our own mentalities. It forces ourselves into gendered stereotypes that art problematic and hurtful. Think of how people replace the word stupid with gay, loser with cocksucker, and wimp with fag. Is it no wonder people struggle to come out as queer. Similarly, when trans folks make homophobic comments it has the exact same effect. In reference to this case: There are tons of straight transguys and there are also tons of transguys who are playing it straight just like I did because they are afraid that without being ‘straight’ they won’t pass, can’t be a real man, or people will not accept them.

We all seem to understand that our community continues to suffer in our society, and yet the oppressions of the non-queer community isn’t enough. We continue to put each other down. Intention is important, but intention is not everything, especially when in positions of high visibility. In this case I am certain the emcee only meant to crack a joke, but I don’t appreciate my life being made into a joke. Many assume we are incapable of oppressing those within our own communities but that is not true. Our culture values gender normalcy and heteronormative behavior and this influences our own trans and queer communities. Those who do not conform to heteronormative roles are considered less than, either consciously or unconsciously, which results in a lack of recognition, respect, and inclusion. When an identity, like a transguy, is decidedly defined based off of stereotyped masculinity and straight identity, what does that make someone like me who doesn’t fit that standard? We are left fighting to prove we are trans enough, if we are allowed to be considered trans at all.

As gender normative, ‘normal’ looking, white, middle-class “gay” becomes more socially acceptable we must actively guard against oppressing those in our communities who are different. Statements like “That’s so gay,” “She’s not trans, she’s a real woman,” and “I’m not gay trans, I’m just trans” create unconscious hierarchies that result in significant oppression. The person saying it may not feel the oppression in their words, but it makes them the tool of a system that prefers us to be ashamed, hidden, or dead.

Cincinnati Pride or Privilege?

Posted on by JAC

Cincinnati Pride is approaching, and this year issues have gone beyond the usual problems with Pride. Pride is a cluster of issues, visibility, consumerism and corporatization, access, politics… but this I guess it was bored of the old problems and wanted something new. One issue vexing Cincinnati Pride this year is location. Pride has moved from its ‘gayborhood’ home to Cincinnati’s downtown center, a change which has sparked some controversy. But there is another issue that is less obvious, and far more serious.

The project of Pride has been picked up by the Gay Chamber of Commerce, an organization focused on gay business success and representation in Cincinnati. “Doing pride fits right in our mission to promote the city and support our businesses.” stated George Crawford, 45 year old local gay business owner, member of the Gay Chamber Commerce and the Chairman of Pride. Support our businesses? But what about our community? The queer community is not made up of businesses and their owners, its made up of everyday people. He confirmed that the Gay Chamber of Commerce was using a project called Equinox Cincinnati to run Pride. Equinox formed last year to host a party for the purpose of, in Crawford’s words “to show the changing climate” of Cincinnati as a gay friendly city. (From where the rest of the community stood, it was a gay VIP rich folk only event.) I was surprised to learn Cincinnati had changed into an equality focused queer friendly city because as a visibly queer trans person working in the activist community, I figure I would have noticed if Cincinnati magically transformed into a mini-San Fran. When I asked about those who still did not feel safe, Crawford’s thoughts were that it was the queer community’s fault that they didn’t feel safe in Cincinnati. “We have the chip on our shoulder and scars… we need our community to get on board…” Get on board for what? He made a decent point in saying “We can’t continue to hide in a safe neighborhood like Northside [gayborhood]… we need to get out on the main streets.” I can’t help but agree with the on the streets part, but I’d like to know what I’m “getting on board” for, with who, and why. Crawford repeated words like “image,” “profit,” “income” and “reputation” – something very relevant to a business making money, but not very relevant to a community in need of resources.

Continue reading “Cincinnati Pride or Privilege?” →

If You Still Aren’t Sure About G.I.D….

Posted on by JAC

I sat in the house-made office on the east side of the city, waiting. I looked at the doctor, “I need a letter so I can renew my T, and I want it without therapy or a GID (Gender Identity Disorder) diagnosis. Can you do that?” She didn’t understand why I was against GID. “It is oppressive.” I said. She disagreed and told me that I was not oppressed. “You aren’t trans,” I said, “and you aren’t me. How can you possibly tell me I am not oppressed when YOU are the one who has control over MY life?”

ENDA is continually being talked about, pushing forward after years of work. Trans people have been left out, brought in, cut out, and re-attached because of our ‘tentative’ inclusion as legitimate members of any given community. And why are we consistently left out? It isn’t just because we are the weirdos and freaks of a heteronormative world. It is because no matter how human we make ourselves, how hard we work, how sorry they feel for us, we are still considered crazy. The thing is, from a logical perspective you can’t even blame others for wanting to cut us out because it IS easier without us. Last week The Washington Times published an editorial stating that ENDA was a mistake, that discrimination was necessary not because of the gays or the queers but because of the mentally ill “she-males” threatening to take over schools, churches, and bathrooms.

“Our children and our co-workers should not be forced by law to be held hostage to such [gender identity] disorders, nor should employers be forced to have psychologically troubled persons as the public face of their businesses.”

You may hate that statement, but if you are in support of GID you might as well be in support it. I must clarify: I will never judge any person for doing whatever they had to do to live their life. Most people don’t have a choice, either GID or nothing. But there is a difference between doing what you have to do and actively supporting a system that oppresses us. Non-trans people who support GID, no fucking tolerance, they are all oppressive, uneducated pretentious bastards. Trans people who support GID, advocate for GID providers, turn their backs to change… is it because of happiness in transition or fear of losing their transition? Or both? But what is the price? Along with tons of money, your legitimacy, and social standing of a sane, competent person is removed from you in the eyes of society. Even those of us who have been able to avoid the system through luck of a liberal city – or in my case driving 5 hours to a liberal city… we are still stuck in it because it is a community label. GID is about as liberating as indentured servitude. Trans people are given the “freedom” to live life, but in exchange we must give doctors and the government our life, and our sanity.

“[Trans inclusive legislation is] …promoting and subjecting decent society–let alone our children–to psychological and sexual PERVERSIONS”

GID enables the statement above to MAKE SENSE in the systems of logic, like 1 + 1 = 2. According to the DSM, no matter how they tweak the language, we are mentally disordered, we are perverted, as are our friends in kink, polyamorous,and BDSM communities. GID is not about health, it is about control, money, and normalizing those who are deemed impossible to be normal. It is about erasing us. GID is a tool for them, not us. GID defends them, not us.  GID was not made for us, it was made to explain us, to rationalize us, to categorize us, to FIX us, but it was not made to help us.

So while you are out fighting the good fight for ENDA, keep an eye on the movement for our upcoming storm about GID reform, GIDout.org!

Bad Parenting: Effects of an Noninclusive Movement on Queer Kids

Posted on by JAC

This past weekend I had a fantastic romp to the University of Toledo.  I met some stellar students working their asses off to support their community, and ecstatically networked and made friends with who I consider to be one of the most significant drag performance groups in history, The Kinsey Sicks.

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With the Kinsey Sicks and UT student organizers Elizabeth and David.

This visit was my first official “keynote” slot, which like most titles, makes me sound cool and significantly more important than I actually am. I presented a new talk that I’m still experimenting with “How to wake up society in 500 calories or more – a sweet tooth’s guide to sex, gender, and the illusion of normalcy.” The topic turned out to be more relevant to my own thought processes throughout the weekend than I had anticipated. UT’s queer community reminded me very much of the community I was in, or more so on the edge of, during my undergrad at the University of Cincinnati. Now, both UC and UT are large state schools smack in the middle of very racially and economically segregated, (initially) industry based Midwestern cities so maybe one would expect similarities. But even without location, population, or environment, I think there is a bigger influence in play here.  Queer communities -campuses included-  don’t live in a vacuum. We are all exposed to the same oppressive systems, whether it is anti-queer discrimination and hate or “GLBT” propaganda.

Sometimes I can’t decided which is worse. Having one million monsters outside the door, or one hundred inside the house. Everyday queers are not only dealing with the oppressions of heteronormativity, but homonormativity as well. There is a division in the house of non-hetero politic, but I feel the familiar saying of “a house divided cannot stand” doesn’t apply. I think a house divided can stand, but that’s about all it can do. If G.L. Homeowner can only afford to give minimal upkeep to the house, naturally they will take care of the rooms they use most. If given enough attention, the chosen rooms can get to be pretty swank, maybe accent it with some nice furniture… but the over-all value of the house will be the same. It will never improve, it will be just good enough. And you sure as hell can’t let your family get any bigger than what the nice rooms can accommodate- to break the metaphor, better not let any of those gender non-conformers or people of color in. Surely they’re better off where they are out back. They’re probably happy there, and they’re used to it.

Normative conceptualization of queer communities is not accidentally spread.  National marginalization of under-represented, often non-normative groups feeds our marginalization in smaller communities, like college campuses. Smaller communities will naturally have less resources and need to reach out to larger ones, creating a cycle of stagnation with no new exchanges of information. Perfect example: Most people have HRC stickers not because they even actually know what the hell HRC is, its because that was all they could find.All they know is the equal sign means good and means gay. What more is there? Race? Class? Identity? Not relevant. We’re all one homogeneous community, aren’t we? We are starving our youth of information, and they are paying the price for the community’s oversight. If young people are struggling for resources and isolating each other out of fear or ignorance it is because the greater community has not given them access to the information they need to develop their own autonomous understanding of the complex diversity of the queer community. The lucky ones figure it out for themselves, only to be stuck swimming against the current, isolated and alone.

How much can we really accomplish if our resources are close to inclusive, but not actually inclusive? Is this neglect any different from heteronomative society not teaching us  about queerness? We are promoting the same practice of oppression, we’re just excusing it because its in house.  “We’ll come back for you when we have more to go around” too easily turns into “We forgot about you” which might as well be “We never gave a shit about you in the first place, cause if we did, we would have brought you along in the first place.”

Dear Census; Nunuh’yuh Beeswax

Posted on by JAC

Before I got the census I wasn’t really sure how I felt about the “count the queers” argument that is being pumped up by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) and HRC among others. If you aren’t familiar, though I’m sure you’ve at least heard of it, the general “Queer the Census” campaign is intended to alert the government that they need to count queers on the census. To do this the NGLTF and to do this you put a sticker (seen below) on your census envelope.

QC

Oddly enough, the “Queer the Census” sticker does not list Queer as an identity option… the reason being the good o’l “one step at a time” statement. Its a fuckin’ bright pink sticker with the word GAY all over it.  You really think that the word “queer” is gonna make it any more or less shocking to the bureaucracy? Some of your folks don’t like the word queer? Well, fuck some people don’t like the phrase “straight ally” and that is on there. And it’s not just queer. There are several identities missing in the sticker’s list, conveniently the more radical ones. One of my pet peeves is the overarching “TRANSGENDER” category, which dose serve a ton of purpose in many spaces, but not when you are trying to “accurately represent” communities. If one could argue that all lesbians share some commonality of being attracted to women in some way, you could not apply that argument to transfolk, either in identity, gender spectrum, or sexuality.  In response to the un-inclusiveness of the the NGLTF sticker, more radical communities created the “REALLY Queer the Census” campaign that is, in addition to being political, quite amusing.

RQC

The pro-gay (it doesn’t seem queer to me) census count arguments include that we need to be  “accurately counted” in order to correctly “reflect diversity” of the USA. Newsweek.com reported mixed stories of queers who have mixed feelings about being counted, mainly fearing the repercussions of what could happen if someone found out their census data. My initial reaction was “hell yeah, count me!” but then I started to think about it. If I was counted, who would know I was trans? Would it possibly come back to haunt me in my scheming for non-GID med records or keeping under the government radar? Would it somehow group me somewhere? Misrepresent me? The HRC assures us that census data is confidential, and punishable by jail time if you divulge information. But I’m not afraid of some renegade census worker, I’m afraid of the government that is housing the data. In 1942 the US government used census data to identify Japanese Americans, and we all know how that turned out. Who is to say that at some point it won’t be us put into camps?

Another statement of the NGLTF is that knowing a count of queers will help in allocating funding and resource to queer initiatives because people will know there are more of us… But what about the mass of people who don’t use the words in the white-western gay vernacular to describe themselves? There are loads of queers who don’t self identify as queers, either because of politics, practice, community, or language. Would they become even more invisible because they don’t use the language the census does? One good point that has been made is that adding queers to the census will squash the stereotype that all queers are white and wealthy. I donno how useful the info will be to the movement since the government probably won’t notice. That said, still the majority of the argument surrounds “head of household” identification issues for queer couples and marriage… surprise, surprise.  I can’t help but think this just might be another arm of the queer gentrification movement in the interest of the money-Mos? Is this about “reflecting diversity” or gaining another pointless symbol of ‘equality’ by doing something cause everyone else does it? Are we really that more empowered if we get to check off a little box of our very own? Are we any more or less human by being labeled as one thing or another? On one hand, I guess it is nice to know who is who for historical purposes, but in the big picture why does race matter on the census? Why does sexuality or gender identity? Maybe what we need to be looking at isn’t whether or not queers are listed, but why groups are listed as they are in the first place and what system is being used to allocate resources. If it is based off of numbers is that the right way to do it?  If there is a mix of races in a class room with more white kids than anything else, we still understand (or should understand) that all kids need and deserve the same level and quality of education regardless. We all need the same resources whether there is 40 of us or 40,000.

The spin being put out is that without the census, we queers “don’t exist.” Now I can’t speak for everyone, but I have been around for a while with or without the census. I need resources whether I am queer or not, and exist whether people know it or not. So, shouldn’t shit just be available to everyone? And I am ok with the government not knowing – or at least pretending not to know- that I’m a big o’l queer. I feel like it serves my purposes better for them not to know what I’m up to. They may need to know I am in Ohio to count population, they sure as hell need to know I’m poor so they will fund some resources for myself and my community, but they don’t need to know my race, they don’t need to know my identity. I get asked “What are you?” enough in my every day life, I don’t need a governmental classification. So fuck you, census. What I am is nunuh’yuh Beeswax! FACE!