marjaerwin

It's really hard to find good healing resources. Mostly we end up with people encouraging us to seek 'therapy,' and/or blaming us for not 'getting over it,' if not blaming us for 'deserving it.'

American Centrists, Fascists, and other authoritarians are calling for the murder of Breanna Manning, preferably without trial, and of many of her supporters.

One commented that:

"Well, as far as I am concerned you can disagree all you want to. However, it sounds like you agree with his [sic] treasonous [sic] conduct. Therefore I can only conclude that both of you should be shot out of hand."

EDIT: another just told me that:

"you are so right ,americans do have hatred for traitors like you. it only makes sense. to think that the government should have no secrets and everyone have access to all infomation is absurd.your arguments about government is also absurd. dont you ever think about the ramifications of what you write about?"

Many others have expressed similar attitudes.

But where other authoritarian nationalist movements are wrong because they start from bad premises, the American Centrists are wrong because they start from good premises and then ignore them.

The American government claims legitimacy based on the supposed 'consent of the governed.' But consent requires equality. As long as the government keeps secrets from the governed and has power over the governed, it does not have consent, and does not have legitimacy.

The American Centrists grant the government legitimacy based on the supposed 'consent of the governed.' Then they grant the American government unlimited secrecy and unlimited power because of its 'legitimacy,' though they may criticize other governments because of their lack of 'legitimacy.' The American Centrists insist, in particular, that the American government has an inherent right to keep secrets and the people, not the American people, and not the whole world's people, could possibly have a right to know what the American government is up to. The American Centrists have detached 'legitimacy' from its supposed grounding in consent and now use 'legitimacy' to support secrecy which makes consent impossible. They have liquified the ground they were standing on and are now sinking into.

So they attack Breanna Manning for sharing the secrets of the war machine. If she did what she is accused of, she is one of the outstanding heroes of our time.

But let's get to the accusations of treason:

First off, there's the legal definition, which requires the claim that the public is an enemy.

Second, there's the political definition, that of acting against a legitimate government. [I don't believe there are any]. But if the government keeps secrets from the public, it cannot have consent, and therefore cannot have legitimacy, and it is incoherent to claim 'treason' when someone reveals its secrets to the public.

Third, there is the religious definition, which refers to oath-breaking. Warrior bands dedicated to war gods such as Woþins/Woden/Odin or Mars/Mamers required oaths as part of their initiation. Each warrior would declare absolute loyalty to the other warriors. This helped separate the warriors from the civilian society and helped make the warrior bands into effective mercenaries, plunderers, and slave-raiders. The practice of oath-keeping has, I think, done little good and monstrous harm throughout history.

And when I see all these knee-jerk accusations of treason and calls for murder, I remember how, because of my opposition to war, I've been called anti-American, attacked, severely beaten, and I've gotten death threats. There is a very deep pit of hatred in this land.

NOTE: I ought to have made some things clear when I first posted this. I have posted elsewhere about people calling for violence, and threatening violence, and I have suffered violence from neo-Nazis and others I'd rather not name. Never from feminists. So I don't think Kitty Barber is calling for violence. I picked her comment because, to me, the buzz-saw imagery seemed as violent as the imagery which Catherine Brennan has been complaining about. /NOTE

It seems hypocritical for people to selectively denounce 'violent' rhetoric from trans folks and pro-trans folks while ignoring violent rhetoric from anti-trans folks, especially on sites they follow. I'd rather not see this rhetoric from either side. We face the same systems of oppression, and we can't smash them while we're fighting each other.

(from http://gendertrender .wordpress.com/2012/04/09/2792/ [broken link])

I’m waving the red flag, color of my blood; females first. Womyn for womyn. Tranz–and ‘allies’–you are up against a freaking buzz saw. You are hardly the first to fall, and you will hardly be the last. Just good practice for us in the fight to come.

One thing about surviving trauma is that you can get a little wiser about the world. Another thing about surviving trauma is that you can get broken.

That feeling of constant vulnerability? That sense that you need to get away from the danger and find safety, and that knowledge that you can't get away from the danger and there is no safety and there is no truly safe space? It's true. It's true and most people flinch away because they know they can't function if they know this truth. But some of us don't get to flinch away. And we can't function any more. Not unless we change the world and change its truths. Not unless we change the world so there is safe space.

"cis, prep., with acc. on this side of, within." - Cassells

I don't usually use the word. While it's the common Latin antonym of trans, it's also been associated with the idea that all people are either cis or trans, which is reasonable, and to the idea that cis people don't experience sex and gender-related struggles, which only trans people do, which isn't true. Actually, if we listen to what they say, and read what they write, many people who aren't trans face very real struggles. Not all the same struggles, and not to the same degree as our struggles, but maybe enough to back off the word and back off those definitions which package-in misleading assumptions about people's experiences.

But it's not an insult.

It's not trans people naming other people - it's simply using the other half of the name other people put on us.

It's not some conspiracy to "cut and kill women/females/lesbians."

Some of us are "women/females/lesbians."

*headdesk*

Trigger Warning.

I think an individual mandate is a recipe for corruption.

It requires people to pay off the insurance cartels, giving them more money and more power. I don't think the planned profit caps will change that. And these profits do not come from the owners' labor, nor insight, nor lucky windfalls; they come, in the larger part, from privilege, and from other people's labor.

It puts control of access to health care in the hands of institutions which are now protected from boycott, and are still shielded from the nondiscrimination and transparency requirements any public institution should face. [not that the state actually follows these requirements either] I don't think the planned limits to their discrimination will change enough.

I can't understand why anyone, except the most extreme right-wingers, could support this plan. The insurance cartels are part of the problem. Even if they are required to cover people with disabilities, their nature is to jack up rates for people with disabilities, and for people with other medical issues, and their nature is to refuse to pay for anything, and to drop people with any medical issues as soon as they can get away with it. The insurance cartels have enough 'market' power already to negotiate lower costs for themselves, leading to much higher costs for the rest of us. The insurance cartels will only gain even more 'market' power from the individual mandate. I'm not sure the rest of the bill will weaken them half as much as the mandate strengthens them.

(As a follow-up to my comments on the 'cotton ceiling' controversy: http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/47034.html )

One can be attracted to certain other womyn, to the exclusion of men, because of common interests, compatible personalities, and any number of mental/emotional attributes, physical attributes, or relationship patterns.

If someone is attracted to butchness, she's not likely to find it among men. If someone is attracted to the right phermones, those depend on her partner's hormone levels. If someone needs to mix friendship with romance, she needs to step outside hetero/othering norms, regardless of whether she's looking for a womon or a man.

No two lesbians need find the exact same things attractive or unattractive. One can be attracted to femmes, another to butches, another to the right sort of androgyny. One can be attracted to people who enjoy sports, another can be attracted to people who enjoy tabletop roleplaying, and another can be attracted to people who do both. One can be attracted to soft skin or a delicate touch or a certain figure. And another doesn't have to be interested in the exact same things. One can be attracted to typical Müllerian womonbits. And another doesn't have to be interested in the exact kind of bits.

A womon who loves womyn and could be attracted to either typical Müllerian womonbits or Wolffian womonbits has more than enough reason to consider herself lesbian.

****

Now here's the problem: patriarchy turns outiebits into a symbol of manhood. And outiebits come to symbolize everything wrong with patriarchy, and everything wrong with the man-code, not to mention penetration and everything else unattractive about men.

As trans womyn, we have to defy that association, and unlearn that association.

It wouldn't be right to put anyone else through that though.

It seems like trans lesbians are more likely than non-trans lesbians to accept another womon's outiebits and to be capable of attraction to either Wolffian womonbits or Müllerian ones. Maybe it's because we have to unlearn all those associations. Now some womyn unlearn those associations and accept other womyn's outiebits and are still quite unnattracted to Wolffian womonbits.

****

Some lesbians are vagitarians. Some are not.

One can be a lesbian without being a vagitarian. One can be a trans ally and be a vagitarian. Okay?

I'm not seeing anyone shaming womyn for being trans allies and vagitarians. I have seen a lot of womyn shaming other womyn for being lesbians without being vagitarians, and claiming lesbians aren't really lesbians if they are involved with trans womyn.

Some would define justice as procedure.

"Piso mounted the tribunal in a rage, and ordered the three soldiers to be executed. He ordered the death of the man who was to have been executed, because the sentence had already been passed; he also ordered the death of the centurion who was in charge of the original execution, for failing to perform his duty; and finally, he ordered the death of the man who had been supposed to have been murdered, because he had been the cause of death of two innocent men." [Of course, it was the judge and the executioner who were the cause of the deaths of three innocent men.]

(from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_justitia_ruat_caelum )

Some would define justice as punishment.

"The whole basis of Justice is that the person gets punishments. It isn't the rehabilitation system, or the prevent crime systems. It's a system to hand out a punishment to somebody for their action.

People who don't believe in punishment, don't believe in justice."

(from the Guardian, in a flamewar thread, http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/15191574 )

If that is justice, then let us oppose justice! But it is not justice. It is injustice condemning its critics.

Some believe that justice is inherent in the world. At best this idea leads to quietism. Sometimes this idea reinforces the just-world fallacy and leads to victim-blaming. At worst people combine victim-blaming and vindictiveness: being a victim means being guilty, being guilty means deserving punishment, therefore a victim must be further punished, and further, and further...

****

What is justice? I would define it as righting wrongs.

Helping the victims. Helping people heal. Helping people avoid having to face the same wrongs again. And one of the wrongs is that our institutions are based on domination, our culture is based on silencing, and many people's instinct for justice and compassion has been turned into another tool for domination, and with it, for injustice and brutality.

As a lesbian womon, I am tired of the pressure to make myself romantically and bodily available to men. In straight circles, other womyn have insisted that every womon is really heterosexual and I'm in denial. In queer circles, some womyn and some men have insisted that everyone is really pansexual and I'm in denial. I think it's important to have people and communities which respect our lesbian identities.

As a trans womon, I am tired of the messages that tell us that our bodies are wrong, no matter where we are on the healing process, or that our identities are wrong. I am tired of the messages that tell our sisters that if they are attracted to trans womyn, they aren't really lesbian, and I am tired of the messages that tell us that if we're attracted to non-trans womyn we're intruders and if we're attracted to other trans womyn we're fetishists. Or 'pretendbians.'

You know what? I don't think anyone should feel pressure to sleep with trans womyn, or to never sleep with trans womyn. I do think it's important to recognize the body-policing and body-devaluing and work against them. And I really think it's past time to stop devaluing each other's identities and stop saying someone isn't lesbian because she is, or isn't, attracted to certain womyn's bodies.

Anyway, there's a brief anti-inclusion mention of the controversy here: http://bugbrennan.com/2012/03/13/178/

And this is also relevant, although I think sexualization and desexualization are both major problems: http://gudbuytjane.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/dating-from-the-margins-1/

I have yet to see any coherent explanation of why someone should support the accursed institutions. I don't expect to. All borders are tools of the ruling class.

The most common reason people support anti-immigrant policies seems to be because they are racial/national supremacists. It's no secret that many anti-immigrant groups, such as AmRen, are neo-Nazi front groups, and the Arizona law was written by neo-Nazis and their allies. And that's where the deliberately-dehumanizing rhetoric ['Untermenchsen,' 'anchor babies,' etc.] comes from.

The next most common reason seems to be authoritarianism. Many people think other people should need permission from the ruling class to exercise basic human rights such as speech or travel. Maybe that's where this obsession with whether someone followed the right procedures and fits within the quotas.

The next most common reason seems to be, as I'd mentioned above, the belief that there is some morally-justifiable reason to treat people born on the other side of some border differently from people born on the same side of that border. But how could there be?

And that leaves aside the problem that I would be collateral damage from most documentation-based 'solutions' to the nonproblem.