Where I've Been

I've been quiet for quite some time here. I really apologize for that! I really don't like leaving this place neglected it's just that I've been so busy this last month that I haven't been able to find the time or the mental calm to really sit down and write something thoughtful. So, I thought, it's better to write nothing than to write something that's not well thought out.

The good news is now I have lots of time on my hands and plenty of ideas on things I want to write about. So I will!

So you guys know what's been going on and why I've been so quiet:

I was one of the chief people behind planning and executing my department's convocation ceremony. This, I have to say, was easily as much work as my actual classes, especially in the final month or so. It was enormous, lots of people, faculty, tickets to be sold and tracked, money to be accounted for, facilities and services to be negotiated and contracted, dissatisfied people to attend to, ticket shortages... It was a lot of things to handle and a lot of work. It was also very rewarding and something I can put on my resume, which is good.

I've also been spending a lot of time helping people study biological psychology. This was also a lot of work but it helped me really cement my own knowledge of the subject as well as boost a lot of people's grades... significantly, which is good. It also opened doors to me with regards to a position as a teacher's assistant, which is very good. I need to finalize some details with that.

Of course, with all of that going on something had to give. That meant that all those essays and papers which I ought to have been working on for the last month got pushed off until after convocation which meant a huge scramble and around-the-clock work for over a week, which was hell. Even then I didn't get everything done on time, partly because I just had to prioritize one paper over another and partly because especially under stress my memory gets faulty and I forget things, like entire essays. Everything turned out okay in the end, though, which is also good.

Then I fell asleep and slept for days. I'm still on the verge of constant fatigue and I probably will be for some time.

I suppose one can only do so much. There's only so much one can "work just a little bit harder" before they can't work anymore. At some point, one is going to fail. I suppose what with having executive functioning impairments I find myself goading that threshold far too often--taking on work which I can barely accommodate so that I can tell myself that I'm not "just lazy."

So these last few weeks that's what I've been doing. I've accomplished a lot; I made it through my finals; and, in parts, I came up short. I suppose I should learn a lesson or something from this.

Lather, rinse, repeat...

A Moment In Memory

How do you reconcile murder wrought of bigotry knowing that a person, someone's loved one, has been killed simply because someone else felt that they did not deserve to live simply because of who they were? How do you reconcile the murder of over 179 people, just in the last year. How can you come to terms with the fact that many more never came to our attention? How do you come to terms with the loss of the many more who's lives were so filled with hatred and violence towards them that they chose to end their own life rather than bear the burden of bigotry? How can you comprehend the loss they have left in their wake?

How can one begin to wrap their mind around the hatred that is so intense and poignant that it could result in such violence and tragedy? How can one have faith in humanity knowing that these crimes were done deliberately?

How is this acceptable? How is this understandable?

How can we reconcile the fact that we live in a society where our very identities are stripped from us after death by the police, by the media, and sometimes by our own families? How can we reconcile the fact that this is seen as acceptable and proper? How can we come to terms with a culture where not only are our bodies fit to slaughter but our memories fit to burn?

Nothing we can do can erase the violence and bring those who have been lost to us back to life. Yet, we can fight to make sure they are remembered, as best we can, for the people they were. We owe them this.

Please, take a moment to read the names of those who have died and to pay tribute, as best you can, to their memory.

May their memory cast the seeds of love in their absence.

Hypochondriasis

I saw my general practitioner a couple weeks ago for help with my chronic pain and I was dismissed. In a couple days I'm seeing my psychiatrist and hopefully he'll be able to help me understand what is going on with my neurology and why everything is so esoteric. I want to know what is going on with regards to my body -- I want explanations.

To be honest, I'd be happy with some clinical and institutional recognition that there's something wrong in the first place and it's so frustrating not having this.

I feel that when I sit down on an examination table that I'm sitting down to take a test. I know that there is something wrong with my body: I know that I should not be experiencing serious pain in everyday activities and I know the pain I experience is real. Likewise, I know that my memory problems are as real as my motor problems and I know my motor problems are changing in ways that are inexplicable. I know this to be real yet I feel the need to prove myself when I enter a doctor's office. I feel they will not believe me and that in the line of questioning they are waiting for me to trip up and make a "mistake" -- to tell them something that they feel is clinically suspect or impossible.

I am very afraid of being labeled a hypochondriac. I am afraid because of how many things are truly haywire with my body. I am afraid because of how unsure I sometimes feel. I worry that my communication style and how I perceive my body will be misconstrued as dishonesty or delusion. I am afraid they will not believe me.

I know what I experience is real. I know my pain is not in my head. I know my body jerks, tenses, and tremors against my will. I know that I have memory difficulties and that I have cognitive difficulty with self-care and executive function. I know this is not fake.

Yet at the same time I feel I have so much difficulty communicating what is going on with regards to my body that doctors don't really know what to do with me. I feel that I can't say "I don't know" in response to a question. I feel that if I seem unsure or if I seem too eager to point out something that maybe possibly could be something that is important but likely isn't that I'll seem like a hypochondriac. I feel that doctors expect one thing from me and it's not something I can truly deliver and I feel that because of this I am treated with suspicion.

If I appear fickle -- if I divulge a slew of possible symptoms or things that might be wrong with me it is because I am desperate. I know I am experiencing pathology and that my pain and my mind are not normal. If I seem attention-seeking and spurious it is because I am trying to give my doctors the tools they need to explain what is happening to me.

I am trying to provide the tools they need to provide the tools and the language I need to be able to make sense of my experience. This is important to me.

I am afraid, though, and I wish there were some way I could communicate in a way they understand.

House, Trans 101, and Exposition

I came home tonight and my mother, who is a huge House fan, asked me to tune the television so she could watch her show. It was a marathon so there were a lot of reruns and they were airing the episode where House is treating an intersex boy and there's the whole debacle where the parents are hiding it from him but then it comes out somehow and we have a big expose and generally have a Very Special Lesson to take home from the experience.

I've never actually seen the episode, to tell you the truth. I have no desire to watch this episode. The fact of the matter is I only know about this episode because I read about it through commentary by other people who did watch the episode. The truth is that I feel deeply uncomfortable when shows like House feature people who are like myself in terms of minority status.

Actually, I should be more accurate: I feel deeply uncomfortable when shows like House feature the minority status of people like myself. Fundamentally, when a character comes on one of these shows who is a minority the character itself is never truly the focus nor the point. The character is simply a vessel to showcase whatever makes them "exotic."

This is a form of tokenization and it is inherently dehumanizing not only for the character but for all the people who share the character's master status.

I don't much like that. I don't like something that is part of who I am exposed and put on display for the entertainment and benefit of people who are not like myself. It's just wrong. Even when the shows generally get things right and treat the issue with appropriate deference it feels violating. Fundamentally, placing difference on a pedestal for the benefit of the normative is nothing more than a glorified, modern day freak show.

... and it makes me feel like a freak.

... and the surreptitious glances in my direction to see how I'm responding don't help.

This is not, of course, to suggest that popular media should refrain from portrayals of minority characters. Certainly there are portrayals of minorities where the character is developed and a person in and of themselves. The difference is that they are characters who are minorities rather than just vehicles for 'exotic' characteristics.

~~

I actually feel that this is a large part of why I feel uncomfortable with regards to trans panels and other educational events where people of minority status get together to educate the majority. Too often I feel that these events are ultimately serving the privileged with regards to satiating their curiosity. I honestly do not feel that people are as ignorant as we assume they are and certainly if they had a mind to they could easily do the research to come away with at least the level of education they could ever hope to receive from a half-hour panel. Instead, I feel that the people on display are too often treated as objects of curiosity and, as such, not as individuals.

I've been thinking maybe how we could do better with regards to educational panels and I've been thinking that the best way to do it would be to focus the education not on the people's minority status and their life experience, which seems to be what invariably happens, but on the way that the people of the majority interact with minority persons. I feel that doing this takes away the voyeuristic factor which is so problematic while at the same time centering the discussion on the audience and what they need to do to address our problems.

~~

Anyway, this whole thing is still something that I'm working over in my head so, of course, thoughts if you have them!

To Remember Our Fallen

November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance. For those who don't know, Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day for mourning the death of those who have fallen by violence within our community because of who they are -- simply because they were like us. It is a moment for us to remember and to memorialize those who have died. It is a moment where we can come together to read their names as best we can. It is a moment for us to remember the real victims to the faceless violence that takes countless lives every year. It is a solemn and powerful moment.

It is for us.

If you need to understand how sacred this day is you need only think of the countless trans people who have lost their families. Who will mourn the death of the faceless transsexual killed in a hotel room? Her family has left her long ago. Who will mourn the death of the young woman who's parents wished was a son? Will her life story be edited and revised to erase who she was? Will hatred and bigotry slaughter her memory, too?

Many of my dearest friends: If they were to die would their epitaph be their own?

This day is not for you. It is for ours.

With that in mind, please read this announcement from the Diversity Center in Santa Cruz:

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Please join us for this poignant, meaningful and FUN event. We will feature trans-related artwork, trans-health information with Planned Parenthood's Dr. Jen Hastings, speakers, music, spoken word pieces by Lex - all in addition to a candle-light ceremony honoring the names and lives of those we've lost to the violence of transphobia.

Additional information with more specific, exciting event details will be posted here soon.

I am beyond words. To describe this sacred day as "fun" or "exciting" is repulsive to the extreme. I have no words to express how violent, how cruel, it is to so trivialize the deaths of our slain.

This is disgusting and it is not alone in the attempt by many to gentrify our Day of Remembrance. I am tired. Our slain deserve to be remembered with dignity and reverence. Their requiem should not be a sideshow in a pride event.

This is for them. This is for us. This is for their loved ones.

HOW DARE YOU try to take this away!

Reclaiming Love

I want to take a moment when others might be quiet to tell you something. I want to tell you about love. I want you to understand. I want you to be able to feel what it means to me to fall in love. I wish you could experience with me how deep and powerful loving another is for me. I wish I could share the happiness and joy love brings to my life. I wish I could share these things so you might understand.

I want you to understand that I fall in love.

I want you to be able to see my love for what it is. I want to challenge the stereotype that people like me are incapable of feelings like mine, that when we talk about love we merely mean horny. I want to share with you so you will understand.

They say it is different for us. More often, I feel they simply believe it so. They see our feelings as alien and because they can not understand nor identify with it they fail to recognize it for what it is: love.

I want to share my heart with you because I want you to understand so you will be able to comprehend as I do. I want you to be able to know my love like I know it.

When you look at me, when you think of me I want you to know me as a woman who falls in love.

~~

I felt I had to write this. It's a terrible thing that I should have to feel that I need to reclaim and defend something so basic and fundamental to my humanity as the ability to love another. Nonetheless, I do feel the need.

Sometimes when I think about the way we are thought of as tragedy I think of what they say about how we cannot love like they can love. So much their perception of our worth is tied with our ability to love. When I think of this and imagine how we are tragic because we do not love like they love I feel -- I remember falling in love and I remember sharing my heart and becoming one. If this is what they mean when they talk about tragedy -- if this is what they mean to destroy when they talk about wiping out autism it scares me. It scares me because what I see is the desire to destroy something beautiful: our love.

I want to love, I want all of my brothers and sisters to love. I want generations of my people to be able to experience and to feel as I do.

That is why I fight.

This entry is part of Autistics Speaking Day.

Memories

When I think abut my experiences in middle school I am filled with a great deal of pain. I remember my experiences in special education being taught that, as a human being, I was defective and wrong. I remember the beatings, the dirt and the rocks, the destruction of my things. I remember the humiliation, the isolation, the loneliness. I remember the pain of beginning a male puberty. I remember a lot of things I would sooner like to forget.

I had the opportunity to look through my old sixth-grade yearbook tonight. I had wanted to look somebody up who I had been thinking about recently. I took the opportunity to thumb through my class pictures.

I cried a little.

I expected to remember the bullies. I expected to remember the pain that had been caused. I had thought that the faces of my memory, the pain, would come and surface again as I looked at the rows of portraits.

But it didn't, and I was surprised.

I was surprised that, as I looked at the faces of my former classmates, memories of what brought happiness came back to me. I looked at a face and I remembered how we used to talk for hours secretly hidden away from the other children. Another face and memories of my first crush came back to me -- memories of a young heart racing, too scared to open up. Looking across the page I remembered my first kiss.

I thumbed through my old yearbook. It brought back memories and I am reminded. I am reminded that even in the midst of pain there is joy and life. In the end, when we remember what is truly important, that is what we remember.

Sometimes that is so easy to forget.

Painfully Fat

I just came from a doctor's appointment. I went to talk about my chronic pain. I went to see her because I wanted help, I wanted relief, and most of all I wanted an explanation for what is happening to me, some vocabulary I can use when talking about my pain. Most of all, I wanted to know why so that I could stop feeling like a fraud every time I tell someone about my body's needs and have to answer "I don't know" when people ask me about my pain. Some way for me to feel like people could take me seriously -- some way for me to be able to take what is happening to my body seriously.

To put this in perspective, I have been living with chronic pain since I was 16, at least. I have been trying for a very long time to get an explanation for the pain I have experienced -- to get a medical professional to listen to me carefully and to show my body respect. It has been progressive. Yet every time I bring this up with a medical professional I'm simply told "loose weight and sit up straight."

I told my doctor this when I came in today. I told her my history. I told her about my body. I told her about how I've struggled to have doctors take me seriously and to look past my weight. She told me it was a travesty that doctors in my past couldn't see past my weight.

She told me this right up to the point that she sent me out of her office with a lecture and referral to a nutritionist to loose weight and a referral to a physical therapist to check my posture. Exactly the same thing that I've had before. Every single time.

I don't know what I'm going to do or how to really feel about this. I need to take care of my body. I need to address my pain. More than anything I need the language to talk about what my body needs. I need to be able to communicate my pain and my needs and I left no closer to this goal than I came.

I feel defeated.

What do I do? Do I play this game -- do I see the nutritionist and loose 50lbs, do I play a song and dance to learn to sit up straight? Do I follow along hoping that someday somebody will take me seriously, will consider that I have done enough to prove that I'm just not a fat lazy blob, that I deserve a diagnosis or at least deserve to have the reason behind my pain taken seriously? Do I do this in hopes that things might be better in the future?

Or do I retreat back into my hole and never mention my pain to a doctor again? Do I wait another three, another five years before seeking help again? Do I wait until my pain is yet worse -- until my body is even more broken before I try to treat it or at least ebb the tide?

I don't know.

~~

I want to talk a bit about posture and what it means to me -- what it means to me when a doctor tells me that I need to fix my posture. How do I fix my posture? As an autistic woman I have difficulty with proprioceptive awareness -- with awareness of the position of my body.

It has been a long time since I have had my diagnosis reconfirmed. I haven't needed to do this. It's been a while since I have been honest, since I have been able to be honest, with my healthcare providers about my autism.

How do I get the help that I need regarding those difficulties in relation to my posture? Do I be honest with the physical therapist about my autism? Do I come out to her? Do I come out to my doctor?

It has taken a long time for me to reclaim my diagnosis, my autism, and it has not been an easy thing to do. But it has been an important thing for me. It gives me strength, it gives me words which I can talk about what I experience as someone who is different. It gives me community.

It gives me language to speak to my experience, like what I now seek for my pain.

Do I risk coming out to my doctor? Do I risk allowing all of this to come under scrutiny again? Can I risk having my diagnosis denied -- having my identity and my language to talk about what I experience stripped from me again?

I know these doctors, these professionals who casually, from a position of ignorance, deny my reality and I know they are wrong. I know they come from a position of ignorance, a position of false stereotypes and misinformation. I know that I was given my diagnosis because growing up I was developmentally delayed. I know that I deserved this diagnosis, that I was autistic. I know my reality and how this still affects me. I know this.

Yet at the same time can I afford to again make myself vulnerable? Can I put myself in a position where someone I trust can tell me I am fake? Can I stand going through reaccepting my mind yet another time?

If my doctor denies me can I feel safe in her office? If I can not, where can I turn?

It's not easy.

Sparing Invertibrate Life in Daily Living

I was reading this post over at Ballastexistenz when the discussion in the comments drifted over to not killing except whenever possible, including invertebrates. Being an insect and arachnid freak myself I pitched in a bit and, after a while, I decided to share here a few tips on how not to needlessly kill our six- and eight-legged friends. What your cat does, however, may be completely out of your control.

Living Peacefully with Spiders:

Spiders are almost certainly harmless with the exception of a select few species which are capable of causing us serious or even fatal harm. Of those species which are capable of harming us, very few are territorial enough to pose much of a problem unless we intentionally molest them or do something very careless like reaching into a dark area like a crevasse or under an upturned flower pot without first looking. So, without further ado:

* Make a habit of looking before you place your hand in dark, secluded areas like behind bookshelves, inside empty flower pots, behind the water heater ect... If you find a dangerous spider there and still need to stick your hand in try coaxing it out gently with a stick. If you are able, leave the spider be secure in your knowledge that she is perfectly happy remaining where she is and will not come hunting for you.

* If a child is likely to stick their hand in said location, consider relocating the spider to a place where this is less likely to occur. If the child is old enough, consider teaching them the wisdom of looking before feeling.

* If you see a spider traveling along your walls or otherwise hunting in the open it is almost certainly NOT DANGEROUS! It is also unlikely to build a web, although it may. I almost never interact with spiders I see doing this. The exception is Loxosceles reclusa, also known as the 'brown recluse spider,' which is a roaming spider and does have a necrotic bite but is, like almost all spiders, docile towards humans. (see notes below)

* If you are concerned with spiders in your bed at night, when spiders are most likely to roam, consider moving your bed a couple inches away from the wall. This will dramatically lower the chance of a spider wandering into your bed.

* When handling debris such as wood in wood piles wear work gloves. These will protect your hands from being bitten.

Specific Spiders in North America

Disclaimer: The following information on specific spiders is provided to the best of my knowledge and for informational purposes only. Be aware that if you are extremely small of stature, very young, very old, or otherwise very weak spider venom may interact with your system more seriously.

* A special note regarding the brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa): Please be aware that many people misidentify completely harmless spiders as brown recluse spiders so be sure to make a positive identification before acting. Firstly, be aware that L. reclusa is ONLY found in the southeastern United States and NOT along the Eastern Seaboard or Florida so if you are not in this region you do not have to worry about this spider. If you are in this region you may make a positive identification by taking a close look at the eyes which, unusually, are six (rather than eight) and are broken into pairings with one pair forward and one pair to each side.

Please reference this photo which highlights the eye pattern of L. reclusa. If a spider does not have this eye pattern it is not a brown recluse!

Furthermore, the recluse spider is largely harmless in that it does not hunt humans and will only bite us in the most dire of circumstances. Check clothing that has not been handled recently before wearing to ensure that the spider is not pressed against your skin.

For more information on L. reclusa, including range and detailed identification instructions, visit this Ohio State website regarding the brown recluse.

* The other medically important spiders in North America are the black widows (Latrodectus sp.). They make cobwebs in dark, sheltered areas that are rarely disturbed and, because of this, are thus extremely easy to avoid. They are also very reluctant to bite, even when disturbed. I would recommend leaving these spiders alone unless you must disturb their web or a small child is likely to stumble upon them.

Be able to recognize the difference between your local widow species and your local false widow (Steatoda sp. especially Steatoda grossa) who's bite is considerably less dangerous for a healthy, normally sized adult yet is still incredibly painful and should not be handled with bare hands.

For more information and pictures check this Duke University page on widows and compare with these pictures at BugGuide.net of Steatoda spp.. Please note that, contrary to the Duke page's information, widow spiders may fail to exhibit red markings of any kind and are much more reliably identified by their lack of color variation on their abdomen which is a solid black. Note that some false widows have very subtle patterning that may look black upon first glance, for example my local species which is black with very dark purple patterning.

Handling Spiders:

If you must handle a spider there are a few important things to keep in mind. The first is to always remain calm and composed and to avoid, whenever possible, the startle reflex. The second is to move slowly and deliberately while following solid technique.

The most important technique which you need to master is cup-and-lid technique. This is where you have a cup, which you hold horizontally next to the spider, and an implement, usually a lid but it can also be a card and hobbyists often use a small paintbrush, which you use to very gently brush the legs of the animal to steer it into the cup. Once the animal is in the cup, of course, you apply the lid, being careful not to crush any protruding legs, and transport the animal to wherever the spider needs to be transported to.

An alternate method, which is much less advisable, is to place a cup over the spider with a piece of card next to it and to scoot the cup gently over the card until the animal is trapped inside the cup on the card. This risks injuring the spider's legs, however, as they have very tiny claws which may not release easily from the spider's substrate.

A spider is extremely unlikely to bite skin which it is standing on provided that it is not trapped underneath clothing. I often heard a spider onto my hand (place your hand flat against the ground and allow the spider to walk onto it) when a cup is not readily available (usually because one of my fellow humans is threatening to kill it). Once on my hand they tend to like to wander so proper technique is to place your alternate hand flat in front of its path so that it will climb onto your other hand on its own volition: If the spider is going to walk off the edge of your hand place your other hand edge-to-edge with your current hand and if the spider is walking up your arm just place your hand over your wrist. "Walk" your hands this way until you reach a place where you wish to unload the spider and then allow it to peacefully walk off your hand.

Recognize a spider's threat posture which consists of raising both front legs (and sometimes all four front legs) in the air while baring fangs and rearing up. I found a wonderful picture of a threat posture here. The spider will adopt this posture very quickly and will shift its posture rearwards (although will not step). Be able to distinguish this from a spider stepping or feeling with both front legs which they sometimes do: This will typically be a much slower motion and will be more deliberate. Interestingly, although you will never encounter this in human/spider interaction, a female mating posture is extremely similar.

A spider that is threatened in its web will often vibrate rapidly as a threat display.

New World tarantulas will typically face directly away from an attacker and kick their abdomen to release a cloud of irritating hairs which can be quite nasty. While you will almost certainly never find a tarantula in your home, if you are lucky enough to encounter such a creature avoid allowing your face to get too close to them and do not rub your eyes after being 'flicked' by or after touching them (don't touch wild animals).

Relocating Spiders

When choosing a location to relocate a spider to try to find a location similar to that which you found them. In other words, if you found a widow spider underneath a flower pot, consider moving it to underneath another which you are not in need of.

Do not, under any circumstances, move a spider directly from a heated house to outside especially during the winter or when nighttime temperatures are cold! The spider likely relies on the controlled temperature inside the house to survive and moving them outside will likely kill them. Consider moving a spider found, for example, in the bedroom into the living room or kitchen or, if they can not be allowed to remain in the house at all, into the garage which is at least not as cold as the outside. At the very least place them in a sheltered location such as under a flower pot.

Loving Thine Neighbor the Cockroach:

The best way to handle cockroaches is to not present them with a habitat that they thrive in. In other words, keep things tidy, especially under the sink and around food stores. Do not store food (except possibly in cans) in locations which are damp or particularly humid. Ensure that uncanned food, especially flour or other grains are kept in sealed containers (or properly resealed bags) or in the refrigerator. Don't store grains for long periods of time and keep cereal high up, preferably in an exposed location such as on top of the fridge.

Use garbage cans with lids on them whenever possible. If you must use a can without a lid choose a garbage can with as smooth an exterior as possible to impair climbing by all but the most agile of species.

Do your best to keep under the sink, especially under the kitchen sink, as dry as possibly by ensuring that the drain is in proper working order. If you have the option, under the sink is likely not the best location for the trash. If roaches have been a problem in the past, consider applying a lid to your under-the-sink garbage can during the night and when food is not being prepared.

Keep food, especially carbohydrates such as cereals, grains, and sugars, higher off the ground and reserve lower cupboards for non-food items or canned items.

Never place food other than canned or jarred food in a pantry without first placing them in sealed containers or tupperware containers. Try not to ever store grains or cereals in the pantry or basement but, if you must, locate these options as high up as possible and never on the floor.

Finally, if you find a cockroach in your house or in your garage don't panic! Especially if the animal was found in the garage, basement, or pantry (with canned foods) it is likely that this animal is not of a species that thrives in a domestic environment. Try to identify the animal as best you can to see if they are a German cockroach (Blattella germanica) or a Periplantia species which includes the American cockroach (Periplantia americana) in which case they are almost certainly a problem. Other species, however, either do not or are reluctant home invaders and are usually not a problem even if they are present in low numbers in the basement or garage. Remember, you should not be storing food in these locations outside of cans or sealed containers and more vulnerable food (like unopened cake mix) should be stored as high up as possible!

Blatta orientalis, also known as the oriental cockroach, is also a known home-invader but my experience with them is that they rarely invade the home-proper and usually just hang out in garages or basements.

Check out this picture showing the difference between four different roach species. The image also includes Supella longipalpa aka. 'banded cockroach' of which I have no experience but apparently is a common home invader. Compare with this image of Blaptica dubia, a noninvasive species which is routinely domesticated (including by me).

~~

Anyway, that's pretty much all I can think of right now. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or corrections please leave a comment and I'll try to answer them or update my info as appropriate.

Communication Shutdown

On November 1st there is an international event which is meant to raise awareness about autism where people will voluntarily abstain from Twitter and Facebook for 24 hours. They will also donate to purchase an applet that signifies they are participating in this event. This is supposed to simulate what it is like to have communication difficulties as an autistic person.

The campaign is called Communication Shutdown and their campaign's homepage is here.

Please do NOT support this event!

Firstly, let me say that, as an autistic woman, I feel this event does a disservice to my experiences and my needs. Abstaining from social networking, even abstaining from social contact in general, does not simulate my lived experience with social difficulties. Full-Stop. All this does is teach stereotypes beget of misinformation and nothing good can come of that.

More importantly as to why you should boycott this event is because who is behind it. The founder and coordinator of this event is the AEIOU Foundaition who's board of directors and staff are completely neurotypical. The campaign's partners are more of the same: Neurotypical organizations which work on our behalf yet without our consent.

There is a major problem when those in the majority attempt to speak for, and dominate the discourse around, a minority.

Furthermore, the AEIOU Foundation and its partners are in the business of providing interventions aimed at making the consequences of our autism less severe. Whether rightly or wrongly they provide a service to help 'cure' the symptoms of our disability. In other words, they have a vested interest in a public which believes we are defective and thus in need of treatment.

This is a conflict of interest and is why the ABA industry, however well intentioned, must never be allowed to advocate on our behalf unopposed.

We need services. We certainly need awareness around and public discourse about our needs. Yet we have a right to speak for ourselves, to center the dialog on our own voices not just on our needs, to consent to our own treatment, and to lead our own struggle for equality. This has been denied to us and it is time that we, as a people, took it back.

h/t: FWD/Forward and No Stereotypes Here for bringing this to my attention.

Brief Thoughts on Refusing Medication

The following is a comment I wrote over at I'm Somewhere Else. It rather stands on its own and it talks about something I've been meaning to talk about here so I decided to repost it. Of course, check out the article in question; I'm Somewhere Else is a wonderful blog.

I think one of the things that is most hurtful part of being told you have to be on medication you do not want, even if you're able to refuse it, is that it leads to yet another way your disability becomes minimized. I refuse to take drugs for my tourette syndrome which, by all accounts is severe. Yet, because I don't take medication people compare me, and I compare myself, to people who are like me and who's symptoms are as bad as mine who are on medications. I feel that because I'm not on medications that my disability isn't really as severe as it actually is because if I were to just accept the treatment, I tell myself, it would be so much easier.

Sometimes I tell myself that I'm a drama queen or an attention seeking snowflake because I refuse to take medications. Sometimes I feel like I actually want my symptoms to be worse because I need to feel validated as a disabled person.

Sometimes I feel guilty because the outward symptoms of my disability might be reduced if I were to accept medication and those symptoms are sometimes very disruptive and negatively impact people around me. I feel like a nuisance who, because I will not accept treatment, wants to be so.

I tell myself that the reason I don't take the drugs for it is because they did nothing to ameliorate the stigma and that the side effects of the drugs made life truly miserable. This is true yet the real reason I don't take drugs is because drugs are not right for me because I do not want them. The truth is that's all there is to it.

And that's okay.

Mortality and Meaning

I consider myself a deeply spiritual person. Yet, at the same time I believe in the biological nature of the mind and, if you will, the soul. It is from this position that I find it so difficult to communicate my spirituality to others. I do not feel that it lends itself to words very easily. The following was a comment I made on a friend's blog which I feel speaks a great deal to who I am as a spiritual human being:

I do believe that the juxtaposition of biology, the idea that we are but our mortal body, and spirituality, the idea that we are more than that, is a false dichotomy. I feel the two are a dichotomy only if you believe that the higher meaning is a distinct entity from the being; that in order to embrace higher meaning we must abandon the carnal.

I do not believe we do. I believe we can seek and attain true meaning in our lives without having to abandon our mortality. I believe we can be truly meaningful without having to be more than just biology. I do not believe that we need to persevere after our deaths to be meaningful. Our actions, what we stand for, and who we are matter and truly mean something in the here-and-now.

We are of this world and when we make our world a better place, even for a moment, that moment matters.

For me, it is these moments which give my life real meaning. I will die. Someday, I will be forgotten. Yet, for the here-and-now what I do matters even for a little while. And that matters, that gives who I am meaning.

Respect

I have asked people in my life to be much more careful about the language that they use and to be more cogent of the implications that their words carry. I have asked people in my life to avoid using disability words in an ableist way. I have asked people in my life to stop casually equating who I am as a disabled person with undesirability or unworthiness in their speech. I have asked people to avoid using certain words altogether, like invalid or retarded, because of how insidiously ableist and harmful the words have become.

Almost every time I try and bring this up I'm met with resistance. I'm told that I should stop trying to police what people say. I'm told that I'm oversensitive. I'm even told that I'm self-righteous. I'm told that they shouldn't have to be "politically correct." But most of all I'm met with anger because whoever I'm calling out "didn't mean it that way."

Yes, yes I know you didn't mean it in a way that was discriminatory. I know that you didn't mean to equate disability with worthlessness. I know you didn't mean to hurt people with disabilities (very rarely do people consider they might be hurting me, personally). I know that wasn't your intention. If it were, we would have been having a very, very different conversation.

But it's not about intent. It's not even about the very real impact that such language has on people like me. It's not even about the fact that what you said is hurtful.

It's about respect.

I have asked you to be more careful with the way you use language and to avoid hateful words. Many, many people are asking you to speak carefully. An entire community of people, human beings with dignity and self-respect, have asked that hate filled words be abolished and that who we are not be co-opted as a pejorative or a dirty euphemism. We are asking you to respect us enough to not defame us.

We are asking you to respect us enough to let us define, for ourselves, what is and is not defamatory to our community. We ask you then to listen and take heed.

When you choose to ignore us and to use defamatory language you are not respecting us.

Respect us.

~~

I could just as easily have written this about transphobic language or racist language. I could have written this about language directed at any number of groups. Ableism is just forefront in my mind right now. Nonetheless, the message stays the same.

The Trevor Project

As you may know, The Trevor Project is a national (US) crisis line specifically for queer and questioning youth. I truly believe that culturally competent crisis counseling for the queer, including transgender, communities is hugely important. Knowing that when you call the person on the other end will respect your sexual orientation and gender identity, especially when you're not yet comfortable being out, could mean the difference between someone getting lifesaving support and a suicide attempt. This is a good thing.

There's only one problem: their website is not accessible.

Below is a letter I will be dropping in the mailbox later today:

September 25, 2010

To whom it may concern:

I learned about The Trevor Project a couple years ago in my late teens when I was struggling with coming out about my own gender identity and sexuality. I was lucky, I had someone who I could talk to and who knew how to listen. I never had to call. However, I feel that, had things been different, having access to a queer crisis line such as The Trevor Project could have very easily saved my life. Access to what you provide can be of lifesaving importance and it is for this reason that I write to voice my concern.

Because of the inaccessible nature of your website to blind and visually impaired users as many as one in two hundred individuals who are in need of your potentially lifesaving services may be unable to access them.(1) Some of these people may attempt suicide because of it. This is preventable through the careful adherence to accessible web development standards. If doing so is capable of reaching even one youth in crisis or averting even one preventable suicide I am sure you will agree that it is worth it.

Please, research accessible web design and incorporate it into your website wherever possible. If you are unable to do so yourself, please find someone who can. A good place to start your research is with the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.(2) I feel that we can both agree that not excluding people and making your potentially lifesaving services available to everyone who needs them is both a worthy and important goal.

Finally, I would like to commend The Trevor Project for already making considerable headway in making queer friendly crisis support accessible for people with disabilities, such as deafness or autism, with Trevor Chat. Nonetheless, The Trevor Project still has a long way to go before it is able to claim that it is accessible to all.

I look forward to supporting a fully accessible Trevor Project in the future.

Sincerely,

[name and contact information redacted]

(1) Statistic calculated using data provided by the National Federation of the Blind correlated with United States population statistics of the same time period. The National Federation of the Blind's statistics can be found on-line here: http://www.nfb.org/nfb/blindness_statistics.asp
(2) The W3C guidelines are available on-line at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

Hopefully their web inaccessibility is an oversight rather than a willful omission and my letter will bring it to their attention. I'm also planning on sending similar letters to their corporate sponsors petitioning them to request full accessibility as well if my letter is not enough to persuade them to action.

If you would like to contact their office their phone is 1-310-271-8845 and their address is:

The Trevor Project
Administrative Offices
9056 Santa Monica Blvd., Ste. 208
West Hollywood, CA 90069

To email, contact info@thetrevorproject.org.

If you are a gay or transgender youth who is in crisis or questioning, please contact their crisis line at 1-866-488-7386. They also have a text-based service at http://www.thetrevorproject.org/chat

People First Language

For those who don't know what person-first language is, it is where you place the individual before the condition. In other words, instead of having a "disabled person" you have a "person with a disability." I can't stand it!

It's not that I feel that there's anything necessarily wrong with saying "people with disabilities," in fact I do it all the time. My problem is that person-first language goes beyond that: Person-first language holds that placing the condition before the individual is dehumanizing in language and that by placing the person before the condition you reinforce the fact that the condition does not alter the fact that the individual is still a human being.

Great! Swell! We could all use more dignity and humanity in our lives, right?

Well, I call a big, loud bullshit. I say that the only time that sticking an adjective before my noun is dehumanizing is when that adjective is seen to be dehumanizing in the first place! Saying that I am a disabled woman is only demeaning if you believe that disability is dehumanizing! Would you consider it dehumanizing if I described someone as an intelligent person?

No, you wouldn't. That's the point.

I fight so that who, and just as importantly what I am is seen with respect, dignity, and equality. I don't fight so that people will be seen as human despite their differences and that, fundamentally, is what I feel person-first language does.

So, for what it's worth thats what I think of people first language.

Dismayed... Again

I finally got enough money to buy a couple of my text books. At least, enough money to buy some of the textbooks I feel I really need. One of those textbooks that I bought is the main book for my history class.

It's called "Created Equal."

I cried when I got home and skimmed over it. Why? Because I thought the book was going to talk about how the different people in America have had to fight and secure our civil rights. I thought the book was going to talk about how we are, in fact, all created equal, just like the book's title would suggest. I looked in it. I wanted to see what the book had to say about Disabled Americans. Do you know what I found?

This is the extent of my textbook's discussion of disabled civil rights:

Other groups also organized and entered the political arena. Indians, disabled Americans, California farm workers, and gay men and lesbians all formed organizations to counter discrimination and advance their civil rights. [Goes on to talk about womens' rights.]

That is the extent of it. The fact that the men and women who came before me fought, struggled, and died to secure my legal right to be an equal in society is reduced to not even a sentence. My history, and my rights as a human being are reduced to nothing more than a mention in a list in an afterthought. Who I am, my rights, and my history aren't even afforded a paragraph thrown in as filler.

The Americans with Disabilities Act isn't even in the bloody index!

So here I am, having shelled out seventy dollars for a textbook which I had to buy as part of a class which I am permitted to attend because I have civil rights which were secured for me by my forebears during our civil rights movement. It's almost ironic and if it weren't for the fact that society sees people like myself as being so, so far from having been created equal it might even be funny.

It's not funny.

Jokes don't bring tears to your eyes.

Letting Off Steam

Trigger Warning! (depictions of child abuse, sexual assault, transbashing)

So, I'm back in California after spending a month in Ontario. I'm too damn poor to afford an airplane so I took the bus, again, after swearing probably a hundred times every time I take the Greyhound never to take one again. Nonetheless, I'm still poor and even poor people need to be able to visit their loved ones.

So why do I have to let off steam?

All the way from New York to St Louis I sat behind a man and his son whom he treated worse than shit on a boot. I really mean that, I honestly didn't think that people like him existed. I thought that the way he treated his son was a kind of myth perpetuated by an apologist society to make real child abuse victims and survivors feel like they weren't "truly" abused. It was that bad.

That made me sick but what really drove it home was at one point the father became physically abusive and shoved his son, knocking his head hard against the window followed by him choking his son around the neck while his son tried to breathe. I was in shock. When he had finished beating his son he turned to a couple men sitting across the isle and made a comment about how disgusted he was that other parents don't "spank" their children like he does.

Do you know how they responded?

They made jokes glorifying child abuse. One of the men even told a joke about a boy who told his abusive father he was going to call child protection and how the father told him that he was going to work him over in the time that it would take the police to arrive. They didn't even stay neutral; they reinforced and glorified the actions of a man who had just slammed his maybe-five-year-old son's head into a windowpane and who wrapped his hands around his child's neck and choked his child! Like that behavior is okay! People sitting around on the bus who overheard the conversation laughed.

I'm still trying to justify my own role in what happened. I feel that I could have done something. I could have stopped the man, confronted him when I first saw him throw his son against the window. I was in so much shock at the time I couldn't believe what was happening around me. What is more, afterwards I stayed silent. I told myself that all I could do would be to make sure the man didn't hurt the boy like that again. I told myself that if I brought it to the attention of the driver chances were that they would have been kicked off the bus and the poor child would have to take the brunt of the fallout.

To say that I doubt what I did was the right thing is, at this point, an understatement. Being a part of that caused me to loose faith in humanity and in myself.

The rest of my trip seems almost trivial in comparison to what happened:

~~~~

In Denver we had to stay the night in the bus terminal. At one point a homeless man wandered into the terminal asking for help. He didn't hurt a single person. When the security guard noticed him he chased him, running, with a nightstick out of the station. He chased him down the street.

People laughed.

When the guard returned he laughed and made comments about how he caught up with the homeless man and beat him.

People applauded.

He never hurt a single person but people thought it was worth applauding when a security guard with a nightstick and a handgun runs down and beats up an unarmed and fleeing man. Why, because he was homeless?

~~~~

From Denver to Los Angeles was particularly terrifying for me:

I was sitting near the back of the bus minding my own business when a ghetto thug and his buddies board. The bus was fully booked and one of them had to sit next to me. He didn't look before sitting down and when he saw who he was sitting next to, when he saw that I had breasts and, at this point, a beard, he began to berate me for being a man.

I even shoved my driver's license in his face which very clearly says I am female.

Thug 1: "Oh fuck! It really is a chick!"
Thug 2: "Bull-shit, look at its chin hair"
Thug 3: "It's a fucking dude, man"

Somewhere in there I got called a "hormone with tits." I got called a "retard." I had my disabilities mocked and mimicked to a snickering crowd.

I was cornered in a window seat next to an extremely homophobic thug and his posse who, had we not been on a bus, I'm sure would have ended very badly for me.

I was dead tired. I had been up all night and the next leg of the journey was a long one. I wanted to sleep so badly but I was afraid to. I was afraid that if I closed my eyes the man sitting next to me would reach between my legs to "check" if I was a "real woman." I was afraid of being raped, of being groped and molested in my sleep. I was afraid what would have happened to me if their suspicions regarding my genitalia were confirmed.

I did the only thing I felt I could do: I pressed myself against the side of the bus trying my hardest not to touch him while I clutched my brush next to my side for protection.

When we reached the first stretch of the Rocky Mountains the driver had to slow the bus to a crawl because of mechanical trouble with the radiator. The bus simply couldn't handle the grade. Many people, having been held over for so long in Denver, became furious. A mob mentality began to form among many of the passengers with angry threats being hurled at the driver. A few of the thugs, outside of earshot from the driver, talked about how they were going to beat up, maim, or even kill the bus driver for being too slow.

I was honestly scared for my life at this point. I felt that if the mob broke out I would be trapped on the bus with nowhere to go caught in a riot.

When we reached the first stop in the Rocky Mountains a very kind, if rather inebriated, man kicked the man sitting next to him out of his seat and told me to sit next to him. I did. He never did anything to threaten me and did everything he could to make me feel safe and comfortable. I was still near the thugs and I could still hear the things they were saying about me but at least I felt safer with someone protective between me and them. At least I knew I could fall asleep without being raped, which I eventually did out of pure exhaustion.

Later that night I overheard them discussing loudly and laughing about the best ways to rape a woman: how to get a woman to submit to, or how to trick a woman into non-consensual sex acts.

~~~~

To top off the trip, when I reached LA I sat within earshot of a pair of men while I waited for my next bus (which was four hours late, by the way). They were talking about the best ways to cheat on their girlfriends.

~~~~

Fuck this world, fuck the bus, fuck people. I'm sick to my stomach. If it weren't for the fact that I was able to see a dear friend in Montreal and the random kindness of a couple people I would have simply broken.

Rereading this it seems so far-fetched, like I made it up. I did not.

Marry Me!!!

Quick, Marry me! Proposition 8, the hateful ballot measure that made it illegal for same-sex people to get married in California, was overturned today!

It can still be appealed but the first huge hurdle has been won so it's time to celebrate!

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

Jerry Springer on a [Long] Bus

I'm less than four hours from wheels-up on an 80 hour bus trip to Canada. Just yesterday my partner and I got harassed by a city bus operator who yelled back "Do I have to listen to that shit all the way to Palo Alto?" Well, this is a lot longer and you bet we're worried about harassment and discrimination both from other passengers and from the bus line. I'm going into another country.

You bet I'm nervous.

Tell all y'all how it went when I get off in Canada land!

Instant Karma

A few hours ago my partner and I were out at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz waiting in line and a couple of potheads came up to us and started making fun of my tics and the way I spoke. I'd say they were being pretty cruel about it, too. At least that was before the pair of cops came up behind them and busted them both for drug possession.

Isn't it nice when people get what they deserve?

Oh, also: We're still waiting on the results on another run in with a jerk when a shopkeep was extremely rude to me and informed my partner and I, after we had paid for our stuff, that we were not welcome in the store and to get out. He said that I was very annoying and that my tics were "a bad joke." When my partner informed him that I had a disability and that was why I was ticcing he told her that he didn't care and that he shouldn't have to deal with "all the crazy people in the world." Yup, they'll be hearing from us again and from the reaction of the manager that guy's not going to be keeping his job, which is good.

Updates on their way!

I Voted

I vote and last election I stuck my “I voted” sticker on my purse. It’s still there. I placed it there so that people would know that even though I am the way I am I still vote, my voice still matters, and that I’m a person with every bit of rights that anyone else has.

Earlier today I was thinking about my sticker on my purse and I had a sobering thought: Most people who meet me on the street, especially when my tics are bad, don’t see a sentient human being. Most people, I feel, when they do consider the possibility that I’m a human being consider me some kind of grown-up child. I’m sure that many people when they see my “I voted” sticker on my purse don’t look at me and think “that woman voted,” I feel they look at me and think “someone very nice in her life must have given her that sticker to make her feel good!”

It's a very frustrating feeling.

It's not just about the sticker. The sticker is just a part of the larger problem. It's part of how even though when I demonstrate my humanity, when who I truly am is expressed, my expressions of my personhood are so easily misconstrued.

I wear a sticker to proclaim my right to vote and people see a child with mommy's sticker. I wear my university's clothing, I don't know, maybe Goodwill. I hold my partner's hand in public and I have to worry about what people will think of her to be with someone "like me."

When it's not that, it's having my life defined as "an inspiration." The worst is when people learn a bit about me and learn about why I am the way I am they decide I'm okay after all: It's alright, I'm okay, I'm different, I'm not like Those People.

And that hurts.

Part of this post came from a comment I made at I'm Disabled and I Vote over at FWD/Forward.

Jerry Springer on a Bus: Operator Failure

The year is 2010 and our untoward explorer once again ventures deep into the dank underbelly of human society. Deep down into the veritable microcosm of human existence she ventures. Here, the multivariate amalgamation of human endeavor breeds unparalleled adventure, conflict, danger (and boredom). Yes, my friends, once again it is time to visit the good old public transportation system.

It's not every day, though, that you get to see the operator make a spectacular ass out of himself.

The trip started with my usual bus ride into the city where I transferred to the 82 bus. The start of the ride was pretty uneventful, I flashed my pass at the driver, thanked him, and sat down. The bus driver seemed amicable enough to me. However, a few miles down the line a man with a walker gets on the bus and informs the driver regarding his destination to which the bus driver was rather terse and rude. Nothing too exciting.

The driver then, very impatiently and in an irritated way, folds up the seat at the wheelchair bay to give the man a place for his walker. The man places his walker in the bay, locks its breaks, and stumbles over to the facing seat to sits down. The bus driver then heads back to the controls without strapping the walker down, which, by the way, is a direct violation of VTA regulations which require mobility devices to be safely secured with the straps.

As the bus begins to leave the bus stop the walker, not being properly secured, slides a short distance along the floor. At this point the bus driver stops the bus, turns around, and demands that the man apply the breaks to his walker which, of course, he had already done. The man informs the driver of this fact and the driver proceeds to completely ignore him, demanding again that the breaks be applied. The man again informs the driver that the breaks were already engaged and suggests that the walker be strapped down, to which the driver kindly suggests the man do himself. This, of course, ignoring the fact that the man can barely walk upright, let alone bend down to apply the straps.

The passenger suggests to the driver that he "do [his] fucking job" and a short verbal altercation occurs.

The bus driver, at this point, demands that the man get the walker and hold on to it for a moment, which was completely reasonable considering the bus was partially in traffic. The man gets up, standing, and takes a hold of his walker at which point the bus driver resumes driving without waiting for the man to sit which almost resulted in the man falling down.

The bus driver then pulls over along the side of the road, opens the doors, and demands that the man get off the bus or else he was going to call the police. The man then informed the bus driver that he had every right to be on the bus just like everyone else and that it was the bus driver's responsibility to ensure that he and his mobility equipment were safely accommodated. Justly feeling that his rights were being violated, he refused to get off of the bus.

The bus operator phoned control and dispatched a sheriff's unit which arrived fifteen minutes later. The police officer came on board the bus and the bus operator, neglecting to mention that he had failed to strap in the man's walker, proceeded to tell the police officer how the passenger was being uncooperative and confrontational, citing the brief use of profanity. The operator then told the police officer that the man, someone who could barely stand up, was threatening and that he didn't feel safe with him on the bus.

The sheriff asked the man to follow him off the bus, which he did. At this point I was up there with the guy trying to see if I could help any way I could so I followed him off, not wanting it to come down to his word versus the bus operator's. The bus departed and the man explained everything that had happened to the police officer. Fortunately, the police officer was very sympathetic and felt that the man was right in asserting his rights and that the operator was out of line in abusing his power to call the police.

Great, I wasn't really needed after all.

The sheriff's deputy then called dispatch and had them deploy a VTA supervisor. The supervisor came and listened to the man and how he had been mistreated by operators for some time. The supervisor took some notes, gave the man some advice, and informed him that the bus operator was way out of line and that he would be getting a citation. The supervisor seemed genuinely upset by the whole incident. He gave both of us a ride in the supervisor's vehicle to our destinations, which was good.

I suppose all is well that ends well. Yes, we, and most of the people on the bus, ended up being late to where we were going and, yes, both the man and I ended up exhausted by the end of the ordeal. Nonetheless, it's good to know that not every time that a bigot decides to trample on our rights they will get away with it. It's good to know that there are people in the world who are brave enough to say "enough is enough" in the face of injustice.

It was also refreshing to see the police and the agency take the complaint seriously.

Honestly, I have little faith that any real punishment is going to be levied against the driver who's actions were inexcusable. The powers that be will most likely protect him and he'll get a slap on the wrist, at most. Possibly more, but that's unlikely. Such is the way of the kyriarchy. The true victory, then, was not the justice that was served but that for once the tyrant met with resistance, no matter how ultimately ineffectual that resistance may have been. For once, the tyrant was not able to oppress with impunity.

A Ladle Full of Condescension

I just got home from the Chinese restaurant. We ordered soup and when the soup arrived the waitress ladled out my mother's and father's portion without question or comment. When she got to me, however, she turned to my mother and asked her if it was alright if I had soup. Yes, it's alright if I have soup, and when my mother informed her of this very basic fact she gave me only a half portion before asking if it was okay if I had another ladlefull.

Everything was handled so routinely as if nothing was out of the ordinary and that the encounter was nothing more than routine.

I'm upset that I would be treated like I was a child. I'm upset that this kind of behavior is so ingrained and expected that the people around me, the people who should know better, are so complicit when things like this happen. I'm upset that I was so complicit, that I didn't speak up or say anything, that even though fighting for my humanity is important to me I am so ingrained with the idea that I shouldn't cause a stir, that other people's comfort is more important than my dignity, that I said nothing.

I wanted to tell them I'm an adult. I wanted to say that I can make my own decisions, that I can do things. I wanted to say that I'm not just a passive piece of furniture, that I have thoughts and feelings of my own. I wanted them to know I was a person.

By the way, do you want to know what goes through my head when people treat me this way?

"Some kind of retard."

"Some kind of retard."

"Some kind of retard."

I wish it would stop.

Fuck this world, that's my rant for tonight.

Saying "No" to Drugs

Yesterday I saw my neurologist. It was a routine follow-up, nothing special. I came in, doctor reviewed my file, asked me if I still wished to forgo medication, I told him I did and he said alright and left it at that. Why do I have a neurologist, you ask? To help me navigate the accessibility bureaucracies and to keep my family happy. Nonetheless, it does give me the opportunity to talk about why I don't accept treatment for my tics:

A year and a half ago my tics flared from almost nothing to a point where I was having four hour long uncontrollable fits. I was unprepared emotionally. I ended up going to psych services to avoid hurting myself and I was referred to their psychiatrist who put me on medication.

While my new drugs did help me control my tics and everyone around me was really happy with them, I couldn't stand them. Part of Tourette's is what is called "premonary urges" that is you can often feel the tic moments before you have a tic; they're kind of like itches or tickles and the tic makes them go away. The drugs, while they helped me with the tic itself, did nothing to the premonary urges so while I might not have, say, barked I still had that "oh god I really need to bark right now" feeling.

Kinda like a sneeze that never comes.

It ended up leaving me with few honest-to-god tics that just came and a whole lot of agonizingly uncomfortable urges which to get rid of necessitated me going through the motions anyway. This left me feeling like a real jerk or at least a faker because I was so often coaxing myself to tic in order to make the feelings go away.

I'm so, so glad that those medications never did any permanent damage. I will never again accept drugs or similar treatment. At this point, though, even though my tics are as bad as they ever were they are so much part of who I am and how my world is that parting with them, even if I could be assured that I would get rid of all their symptoms, seems unthinkable to me.

Parts of this post come from a comment I wrote in response to Disability and the Curing Thereof over at Kaz's Scribblings.

US DoS to Recognize Pre-/Non-Op Gender

The United States Department of State, as of today, will be recognizing the gender of pre- and non-operative transgender people when we apply for United States passports. According to the Department of State news bulletin:

Beginning June 10, when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender. The guidelines include detailed information about what information the certification must include. It is also possible to obtain a limited-validity passport if the physician’s statement shows the applicant is in the process of gender transition. No additional medical records are required. Sexual reassignment surgery is no longer a prerequisite for passport issuance. A Consular Report of Birth Abroad can also be amended with the new gender.

So, if you can find a doctor who will sign off that you're 'transsexual enough' you can get the Department of State to reflect your actual gender on your United States passport documents.

This replaces the old policy which required a note from a surgeon that the individual has received genital surgery before a new permanent passport could be issued and only allowed for a gender-affirming temporary passport when it was being issued for the purposes of traveling abroad for genital surgery.

This is really good news. Not just for people like myself who live in states, like California, where our right to have our gender identity recognized is already respected; we get to have travel documentation when we go abroad which reflects who we are. For people who are less fortunate and live in areas where their rights are not as well respected and who are not able to get driver's licenses and state identification reflecting their gender identity this provides a second option. A passport is worth its weight in gold when it comes to identification and nowadays, with the WHTI passport card, carrying federal documentation which reflects an individual's true identity is as easy as carrying a driver's license.

Now, no transgender citizen of the United States has to rely on their local politic in order to obtain gender affirming identification.

This is, of course, all prerequisite on the ability to obtain a sympathetic doctor and the ability to perform to the whims of the medical community. This means that people who have limited access to transgender friendly doctors, who do not conform to the medical model of binary transsexualism, or who are otherwise often deemed unfit to assert their own identity such as those with history of mental illness may still be unable to secure documentation. Of course, that is to say nothing about the problematic nature of having one's identity, ideally the most sacrosanct of one's individuality, in the control of a third party.

I suppose, though, that this is a step in the right direction and, in a world where being outed in the wrong area can lead to the loss of livelihood or risk to personal safety, a very necessary one.

On a personal note, of course, it comes right after my own passport had been issued. On the bright side, unless the application is expedited, having it reissued with the correct information is free.

To read more, please refer to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Motherhood

Mother's day has come and gone and I dropped the ball. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to take a few moments to talk about mothering and parenting. Consider these questions. While they might be hypothetical to your or my life, there are people out there where they are very real. Think of this next time you take your mom, or your children, out to lunch:

* When I had children, did I have to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that I would be a good parent before they let me take my children home from the hospital? If I am infertile, would they allow me to adopt? Could I demonstrate my fitness to a social worker?

* If I have a physical or mental disability, will this be used as evidence to doubt that I am, or would be, a fit parent? Would this be used against me to deny my right to adopt a child or in a case to take my children away? If I ever divorced my spouse, could my disability be used against me in a custody dispute?

* If I had a psychiatric disability, would I ever have to worry that seeking treatment could put my children at risk of being taken away from me?

* If I am transsexual or genderqueer, will that be seen as a moral failing or otherwise creating an unfit environment for my children? What if I am gay or lesbian? How about if my partner and I are into kink or I have a history of sex work? Could these things be used to deny me adoption or have my children taken away? Could these things be used against me in a custody hearing?

* If I am transsexual, will I ever have to make the choice between being open about my history with my younger children and keeping that information from them out of fear that they would naturally disclose it to others? Would I be willing to live with the consequences of this decision: likely being outed and loosing social standing and possibly my family's livelihood or having to live with hiding such a huge thing from someone so close to me and the possible ramifications to my children's well being should they ever find out?

* If I am a sex worker and a single mother can I ensure that my children are cared for and safe at the odd hours which I might have to work? If I am already marginalized though disability, reproductive ability, gender identity ect... and I am in a position where I might need to engage in sex work to support my family, would I be in a position where I would be able to make that choice without loosing my children? If I am not in a position to do so and my children go hungry, could I loose my children anyway? Am I allowed to do what I need to do to support my family?

* If I am fertile and pregnant, will I ever have to deal with doctors telling me that because of my, or my child's father's, disability I should abort and that to bring the baby to term would be irresponsible? If I did bring the baby to term and the child was disabled, would I be prepared to handle society's condemnation? If I live under a guardianship or conservatorship, would I find myself in the position of having my own reproductive choices taken away from me? Could I be forced to have the child or forced to abort my baby because of the decisions of my guardian or conservator?

* If I am disabled will I be able to make enough money to support my children? Will the system of institutionalized poverty set up by the welfare disability system allow me to parent? Will my extended family help me raise my children or contribute financially to their well being? Would have they done so otherwise if I were otherwise able bodied or normative? Will finances be used as a means to try and force me to surrender custody of my children?

* Will my partner ever be accused of sexual predation simply because society deems me as so undesirable, because I am disabled or transsexual, that it can not comprehend anyone wanting to be with me for other than nefarious purposes? Because of this, will I ever doubt my partner's intentions? How will this impact the stability of my family?

* Will the person I am in love with ever be considered or charged with rape simply because I might have a guardianship or conservatorship?

* If my body is marginalized such as through disability will I have to worry about my parenthood being recognized and respected even when I have legal custody of my children?

* When people consider parenthood, will they ever consider parents such as myself? Will I ever see parents like myself, outside of token representations, in media and popular culture? When groups of parents come together, will my needs be considered important when they are different from the mainstream? Will my needs as a parent be considered at all? Will I simply be invisible?

* If I am disabled and require a caregiver to take care of myself, will I be seen as a fit parent? Will my children me taken away from me? If I need a caregiver or another person to help me raise my children in my own home, will this call into question whether or not I am the "real" parent?

* Will the lack of attention to my needs as a parent be justified by the fact that society considers the fact that I could be a parent so undesirable and abhorrent that I shouldn't be a parent anyways?

* Will my motherhood be seen as beautiful and celebrated or will it be seen as at best undesirable or tragic? Will my love for my children be reduced to simply better than the alternative?

So, I ask you, dear readers, in the comments: What other questions regarding parenting as a person with a marginalized body don't get asked enough in our society?

Jerry Springer on a Bus: Redux

It never ceases to amaze me how prejudice intersects. Take, for example, ableism and racism: I was on the bus coming home from a party tonight and a young Latino man was stimming (or what could easily have been stimming) by lightly drumming his fingers on the back of the chair. So, this old white guy decides that he can't tolerate people who are different than him or acting strangely in any way on *his* city bus so he turns around and glares right at this young man, right in the eyes.

I mean he curled his lips down, furrowed his brow, leaned forward, and stared this poor young man right in the eyes. Here's what went down:

Latino Man: "Hey man, why are you looking at me like that?"

White Guy: "You know goddamn well why!"

Latino Man: *what?*

White Guy: "Oh?!?!"

Latino Man: *acts out drumming fingers* "But I just..."

White Guy: "Oh! So you're one of *those* brown people!"

I couldn't really overhear much else of what was going on, the bus was pretty loud and I was in the middle of a Tourettic fit, which makes it very hard to listen to much of anything and pushes lipreading out of the question...

~~~~~~~~~~

On the positive side of everything related to disability, when I was having the fit and thrashing about people tried to help me thinking I was having a seizure. It's kind of nice seeing a couple people on a crowded bus actually care enough about the people around them to actually offer assistance to someone who actually DOES look like she's having a seizure. Rather interesting how it happened, however:

*I bark and start uncontrollably trashing about*

People are surprised and start making comments "is that a dog?" "no, it's that woman!" "is she okay?" ect... and a fair amount of speculation about what might be "wrong" with me ensues. A couple of women are talking to themselves wondering if I'm okay for a minute or so.

Woman 1: "oh! Excuse me, miss, are you having a seizure? are you okay?"

Me: *looks back at them, smile, and shake my head*

Woman 1: "Oh, okay..."

Woman 2: "And here we were talking about her whether she was okay... I wonder what's wrong."

Kudos on the women for being good citizens and actually offering me a hand. I remember a psychology study on attractiveness where they made up a woman to look less attractive and pretend to have a seizure on a crowded bus; many, many times nobody lifted a finger to help her and sometimes people even stepped over her body to get off the bus.

But beyond that, I want to say kudos to the women on the bus for not pressing the issue once I said that I was okay and didn't need help. A lot of people, when they see a visibly disabled person having any kind of trouble, want to force their help on that person whether the person wants it or not.

Also, not peppering me with questions about my medical history was nice, too.

~~~~~~~~~~

Finally on the disability note: I was riding the bus home from a Deaf get-together. It was my first opportunity to really use sign in a real-world setting, outside of the classroom (my video phone is designed for hearing people and doesn't transmit clearly enough to sign to my signing out-of-state friends). I rather surprised myself in that my fluency, while not anywhere near perfect, was actually quite at a functioning level. I got by just fine, made a bunch of new friends, exchanged some numbers, and had a blast.

Cool Beans!

Bita Ghaedi

Please take just a moment to read about the plight of Bita Ghaedi, an Iranian refugee who fled to the United Kingdom for her life because her own family wanted her dead after she fled an abusive marriage. She was beaten and battered. She escaped. If she were returned, she would most likely never survive. She would be killed.

The United Kingdom has decided that saving her life is not worth the trouble, not worth the monumental outlay that accepting one, lone individual into the country would entail. But no, this is not true, this is not a question of saving her life: She has already saved her own life, she escaped from her abusers and her would-be and now likely murderers. This is a question of whether or not she is to be condemned to death, to be murdered. And apparently it's okay.

Today, May 5th, she is to be forced onto an airplane and returned to Iran and her abusers.

This is happening right now.

Way to go, Western civilization...

h/t Questioning Transphobia

Update (5/10/2010): Bita Ghaedi's airplane was delayed by weather and the British court has granted her a second application attempt for asylum. Also, the EU has placed a ban on her deportation. I suppose this restores a bit of my hope for society, but many more people who are not as fortunate to have their stories recognized like hers still have to contend with these horrors.

RIP: Here Be Dragons

It's done. Kowalski, the owner of Here Be Dragons has closed her doors. She's stopped blogging. She's no longer going to be taking a stand against neurobigotry on the Internet. She's gone.

Why?

Because some people, who were ostensibly part of the autistic community, saw fit to bully threaten and sexually harass her to a point where she was no longer able to tolerate the abuse. When this behavior was brought to the attention of people who could have done something about it, namely Autism Hub and ASAN, her complaints were ignored and the abuser was protected.

I'm deeply saddened. I'm saddened by the fact that we, as a community, have lost a great and important voice in our struggle for equality. Yet moreover, I am saddened that we, as a community, could allow such evil to cause such hurt to a fellow human being, especially someone in such a vulnerable situation as her.

Finally, I am saddened that we, as a community, could allow something like this to happen at all. That the fabric of who we are is so weak that we don't seem to care about the well being of, not just others, but of our own, that could allow this kind of abuse to happen.

Families who hurt each other are not families. Friends who bully are not friends. Communities who's members seek out and destroy each other are nothing more than groups of people with similar goals.

I will continue to blog and advocate for the rights of autistic people if for no other reason than I am looking out for my own best interest. There are many autistic people out there who are good, decent, caring people and these people I feel proud to call my allies and my friends. But as a whole, our movement and our community have ceased to be; maybe not today, or yesterday, or even last year. Yet, it was sick and dying and until we can learn to stand together and, as a community, learn to not tolerate this kind of behavior, we will remain sick and dying.

If nothing else, we can not truly be strong so long as we are such divided.

... and that makes me very, very sad.

A Moment of Truth

I have been struggling with writing this for a while now. The fact of the matter is, I have been silenced. I have been intimidated, scared by a culture where my gender identity is judged as valid or not by those around me. I am a human being and I am female, yet I am afraid to admit perfectly normal things about myself. I am afraid that should other people find out that I do not conform to their ideal stereotypes about what a woman, or a transgender woman, ought to be I will not only be labelled a bad woman but not a woman at all. This absolutely horrifies me.

Yet at the same time, our complacency in these stereotypes, our public obedience to acting the part, our failure to speak out acts as a kind of social pornography for our young and the cisgender public. By failing to speak, we allow these stereotypes and misinformation to perpetuate and continue to control and oppress our lives. Yet to speak out against them, to tell our truth, we risk everything we transition for.

Today, in honour of the Day of Silence, I will take advantage of my pseudoanonymity and come out, as it were, about many of the ways which I am not a "good transsexual." I know that much of what I am going to write here could jeopardise the security by which I am able to present myself as female. I know that in the eyes of many, and in the eyes of most "professionals," what I am going to write could call into question the very legitimacy of my gender identity. Nonetheless, I can not stay silent.

I hope that the following might make a young transgender woman who is struggling with shame and doubt feel a little less alone:

[Too Much Information Warning]

* My gender identity was not always clear to me and my feelings expressed themselves differently at different times in my life. Sometimes my gender dysphoria expressed itself only as insecurity with my maleness. Other times I experienced a deep sense of longing. Sometimes a feeling of what "ought to have been" consumed me. During parts of my puberty my feelings were even erotic.

* My gender identity and the wrongness of the body I was born into has not always been a central part of my life or even something I thought about much, even before I transitioned.

* I delayed seeking hormones for almost a year, not because I was unsure of whether I wanted them or about my gender, but because I was unsure of whether or not the doctors would turn me away for "not being transgender enough" or "being the wrong type of transgender person." I was deathly afraid of being labelled a crossdresser. Part of me was afraid that being labelled a crossdresser by a doctor would force me to reexamine my gender identity and that I might not like what I saw.

* For several years into my transition I felt as if I had a part of my soul that I dared not examine closely. I was afraid that I was wrong about my gender and about my transition. I was afraid that if I examined my soul closely I would learn that I was really a man and that my coming out had been a mistake. It took a very serious psychological meltdown to really explore that part of my mind.

* Transition can be sensual!

* I do not hate my penis. In fact, I enjoy my penis. It is part of my body and it gives me pleasure. My penis does not cause me discomfort. The idea of surgery has always been problematic in my eyes and I do not feel that I will ever choose to have SRS. Nonetheless, I am woman.

* I enjoy sex very much. I enjoy pornography and erotic art. I enjoy and have fantasies of both being penetrated and penetrating others. I masturbate regularly.

* Sometimes the thought of myself as woman is erotic.

* Clothing is sexy, even for transgender women.

* When I came out I doubted myself very seriously. Much of this doubt had to do with my shame and confusion regarding sex and how I felt erotically in regards to my gender.

* Internally, I feel very masculine. In many ways I feel more masculine than feminine. Nonetheless, I know I am female and not male. I am butch, boi, gederqueer. I am woman.

Edit: * My choice to come out was a decision to improve my life and increase happiness. It was a decision to escape something I found to be unpleasant, a way of life I did not enjoy. I did not feel that I had to do so or that it was, at least at the time, a life-or-death decision. It was a choice and it was the right one.

A Couple of Petitions:

I'm going to get a little bit more [formally] political than I normally do at this blog and as you to sign a couple of petitions which I feel are rather important to my rights as a transgender individual.

The first petition is from IFGE and is to the American Psychiatric Association asking them to drop "transvestic fetishism" from the next revision of the DSM. My thoughts of the clinical model of psychiatric disability in general aside, it's very clear how pathologising any man who wishes to put on women's clothes while at the same time trying to introduce "autogynephilia," which is used to deny trans women our womanhood should we *dare* to express any eroticism at all, is harmful to me as a transgender woman. Please sign this petition asking them to abolish the "transvestic fetishism" diagnosis from the DSM V. It shouldn't be a psychiatric "crime" to crossdress.

Sign the IFGE petition here!

The second petition is in response to the film "Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives" being included in the Tribeca Film Festival. This film, which is a self-proclaimed "transploitation" film, dredges up about every horrid stereotype about trans people imaginable for the purposes of a cheap laugh and a cheap thrill while at the same time invoking *real* victims of *real* violence, specifically Gwen Araujo and Jorge Mercado, to sell tickets in their trailer. It is beyond despicable. Please watch the trailer and sign the petition.

Watch the trailer here
Read GLAAD's response and sign the petition here

EDITED TO ADD NEW PETITION:

This petition is to try and stop some of the abuses going on regarding sex work in New Orleans where police and prosecution are using far-outmoded, felony laws to prosecute and brand sex workers with sex predator status. People who know me personally know I support commercial sex and, in particular, the rights of sex workers; yet however your personal stance may be regarding prostitution I hope that it is obvious why people who are interacting with other consenting adults, for whatever reason, do not deserve to be treated like rapists, child molesters, and other dangerous criminals.

In addition, the fact that this law is predominantly leveraged against people of colour and transgender people further underscore why action must be taken in order to realise equality.

Please sign the petition to help the sex workers of New Orleans here.