Performance Piece: Unnatural

The transsexual body is an unnatural body. It is the product of medical science. It is a technological construction. It is flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which it was born.

Susan Stryker

My body is not in the shape it was born in. It is several feet taller and weighs over ten times as much as it did when it came out of my mother’s womb. Its workings are the product of medical science–I suffered a life threatening illness at age eight and would almost certainly be dead were it not for antibiotics. My appearance, also, is a product of medicine–artificially altering my sex hormones. My parents, not wanting me to go bald before graduating from high school, paid for a mild anti-androgen to stop my hair loss when I was sixteen. I’m very thankful for that, though in retrospect I wish it had been a higher dose. At seventeen, my “flesh [was] torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which it was born” by doctors when I had my wisdom teeth removed. Furthermore, I have altered my body to meet oppressive societal demands which I internalized through mental illness. In fact, I still struggle with my eating habits.

“Oh! Thank god! I’m not like you crazy!”

Zuzu, thanks for putting them all in a line like that. It helps to remind me that I’m not crazy; there really is a huge amount of mainstream, virulent sexism that is accepted by our country. But while seeing it laid out like that helps to remind me I’m not crazy, it also makes me feel like I’m swimming against a riptide. It’s very discouraging. I tell myself it’s a backlash that is in response to some real feminist successes, but I only believe myself some of the time. (link)

would result in a rollicking brawl; either she’s got wirey-girl Abe Lincoln strength and it would be stand-up or I’m not crazy and she is really anorexic and would go down in a round. Won’t you Join Me? Together, we can all get our beat-the-living-shit-out-of-Ann-Coulter on.(link)

I saw an ad for nailpolish called “pussy galore.” I don’t remember if that was the brand or the color, but I was totally shocked and wondered if I was somehow misreading or misinterpreting what I read. But I guess I’m not crazy after all.(link)

“My perceptions of reality are valid because I’m not like you.”
“Thank god I’m not like you!”
“If I was like you, nothing I thought or perceived would be valid.”
“I’m worth taking seriously because I’m not like you”

I’m backing down from *never* using crazy. But it’s not just a PC overreach and yes, it does matter, and yes, we care.

Saying that something is intense or over the top with “crazy” is one thing. But when the fact that you’re “not crazy” is such a relief? When you base your worth in being “not crazy,” you state, unequivocally, that those of us with stigmatizing mental health diagnoses are worth less or worthless. You state, unequivocally, that your views are more valid than ours–or that yours are valid and ours are invalid by definition.

So, please put away your tired arguments that “crazy” is totally divorced from people with stigmatizing mental health diagnoses, ok? (coz if it was we wouldn’t say shit like this, would we?

It matters. Cut it out. And Jill? If you’re trying to not use “crazy” (etc) in a stigmatizing way anymore, rename your ‘crazy conservatives’ filter, too, ok?

NOTE: This post was inspired by a series of ‘oh thank god for feminism–I know I’m not crazy!’ comments in class, NOT the aforementioned blog posts, which were found as references.

RNC, Targeted Police Brutality, and Ableism

I’m feeling too upset to really cover the RNC in any detail, but there’s some stuff I need to say. So:

1a)the medics have been fucked with and specifically targeted as such. As with journalists, except it’s even more inhuman and frightening. This is brutality for the sole purpose of making other brutality have a greater impact.

b)These people are my friends. I talk with them, I organize with them, I perform with them, I medic with them, I have sex with them. No one deserves this, not even the one who does seriously not ok things, but I can’t help feeling especially upset for my friends. This, more than anything, makes me upset about my own paralysis* inability to act, failing the people I love.

c)Several of them are trans. ’nuff said. I don’t think this can be separated from their being targeted as medics.

d)You can donate to their legal fund here.

2a)I am not there. I made the right decision, but that hurts, too. And I am scared for and amazed by all the trans people who went anyway.

b)I am not there not only because I’m trans but because I’m disabled. Because if I was in jail and denied medical care, if my medications were taken from me, I would be fucked way more hardcore than just not taking hormones. To say nothing of the usual trans people in jail woes, I could develop a permanent seizure disorder, which would, in turn, make me unable to take a related med in the future. Not only that but it would give me debilitating headaches and suicidal depression. In a totally unrelated disability, I would be in constant and increasing pain without my meds, and after five days I basically can’t function. My medications are fucking expensive and two out of these three are not covered by my current insurance. And, of course, since I’m not only trans but “crazy,” they’d be pretty fucking unlikely to believe me, and since I’m not only trans but “crazy” there’s yet one more way they could fuck with me (psych wards), especially if I were too uppity, and yet one more way my experience of police brutality would be erased, I’d be making it all up and they’d have free fucking reign. (stop forgetting intersectionality, ok? And when you’re advocating for trans folks’ treatment in prisons, isolating that struggle from struggles against ableism, racism, etc in the prison system not only weakens the movement but rips my body in half.)

I presume you can see why targeting medics might be especially frightening for me.

If you ever need an argument about how white trans and/or disabled folks benefit from ending racism–this state control through violence is facilitated, erased, naturalized, and justified by racism.

3)The targeting of support personnel (journalists, medics), bystanders, protesters doing completely legal actions, etc means that people who can’t afford to get fucked with by the cops (trans folks, immigrants, PWD, POC, people who are two or three or four of those, to name a few) can’t participate (or will be less likely to). Which then furthers our erasure and exclusion within “radical” politics.

*EDIT: go me using ableist language in a post about ableism.