Smiley Riley

Queer Episcopalian ✰ Genderqueer Husband ✰ Democratic Leftist ✰ IT Worker ✰ Irish American ✰ he/they

[achilleanfemme]

What is an Achillean Femme?

I am a queer person, I have been for as long as I can remember. As a young boychild, I was very feminine. I loved pretending to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (very on-the-nose) and lip-syncing to Britney Spears songs with my sister. As an adolescent, I came to describe myself as gay, and through YouTube and Tumblr, came to better understand my gayness. Around 18, I began identifying as non-binary. Now at age 26, I have coined (as far as I can tell) a new term for my queerness that descibes both my sexuality and my gender identity: achillean femme.

The LGBTQIA+ wiki page for achillean says that “achillean refers to a man or man-aligned individual who is attracted to other men and man-aligned people''. The same wiki’s page on the term femme says that “femme.. often refers to a person of queer gender expression [or identity] that embraces, reclaims, or subverts their culture's understanding of what it means to be feminine.” I think that the term is pretty self-explanatory once you understand the terms that comprise it. An achillean femme is an achillean person, meaning a man or someone who identifies within the realm of manhood, who is a femme or describes themselves as feminine. 

I love the term achillean because it makes sense to folks who have been apart of the gay male or man-loving-man community and spaces for any amount of time. Achilleans who are 60, 70, 80 years old know “gay men” who are feminine and flamboyant who barely align with any societal definition of manhood yet are lumped in as gay men. They also known bisexual men in the community who have called themselves gay for decades, eventhough they’ve always been attracted to, and been with, folks of other genders. Millenial and Gen Z achilleans are more and more describing themselves as non-binary and not aligning themselves with the terms “gay man” or “gay male” because they do not see themselves as cisgender men, even as they still identify within the realm of gay manhood. I believe that many of these folks would feel much more comfortable using a term like achillean that allows them linguistic space within the MLM community without confining them to strict identification as monosexual and/or cisgender men.

The term femme has taken me longer to come around to using. I love the term femme, but trans-exclusionary discourse in online feminist spaces for a long time gatekept me out of using the term to describe myself. I feared that cis lesbians and cis sapphic women would dogpile on me online and try and dox me for being a person assigned male at birth who describes themselves as a femme. It has lesbians and sapphics on twitter and tumblr, many of whom are non-binary and trans themselves, who helped me overcome this fear and embrace my femmeness. No two femmes are the same, there are as many experiences of femininity as there are feminine people, but what unites us is a common understanding of our devaluation under patriarchy and the experience of empowerment that we feel when we live authentically into our feminine inner-light. My femmeness is energetic, funny, and contagious. When I am being my femme, fairy self, people enjoy being around me. Living out my authentic feminine soul, allows others to do the same. That makes me happy.

So who are achillean femmes? Achillean femmes are fat non-binary bearded ladies like myself. Achillean femmes are magical fairy gays who strut into a gay club in a jock strap, butterfly wings, platform heals, and a tiara. Achillean femmes are drag queens of many stripes. Achillean femmes are the queeny old gays at brunch in a kaftan, sharing gossip, drinking mimosas. Achillean femmes are the trans fags who are often excluded from predominantly cis gay male settings and continue to fuck with gender anyways. Achillean femmes are anyone and everyone who feels at home in a gay club and a tea party. Achillean femmes are cis men, trans men, non-binary AMAB and AFAB people, intersex folks, and genderqueers. If you love your femininity, however you define it, and you love guys, dudes, bros, lumberjacks, bears, muscle daddies, hunks, and twinks then you are probably an achillean femme. If you are none of these things but the term feels right to you then join me, let’s be fags together! Let’s be achillean femmes!

----------------------

Flag Design: Flag uses the achillean flag design (created by Trumblr user pridenpositivity in 2016) as a base and then pulls colors from the femme flag design (created in 2017 and posted by the noodle tumblr blog). The final design is mine and was created and posted by tumblr user achilleanfemme on December 12, 2022.

[achilleanfemme]

Resisting DSA's Culture of Disposability to Win the World we Deserve.

It’s National Convention season in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the time when every caucus with 20 members and a twitter account pulls out the knives and the slander to win over the majority of delegates at the National Convention to their positions... only to have them promptly ignored. Accusations of bullying, harassment, targeted destruction of caucus literature are par-for-the-course if you want to be given the blessing of joining DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) and have half the organization immediately hate you.

Obviously, I am being hyperbolic, but a nugget of truth resides here: DSA has an organizational culture problem. Many of our members enter into a democratically-run, working-class political organization for the first time when they join DSA, and when they do, they bring the trappings of our oppressive, exploitative, and hyper-individualistic capitalist society with them. We come to DSA with our axes-of-oppression and axes-of-privilege along with us: those of gender, race, class, disability, neurotype, sexuality, nationality, language, etc. We come to DSA with our past wounds and the harms that we ourselves have carried out, knowingly or unknowingly. Democracy is always hard because building and exercising collective power requires trusting others. The vast majority of people who come to the Left come to our side battered, belittled, and betrayed by our imperialist-white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy and how it manifests in our day-to-day lives and interactions. Therefore, when we are wounded by someone, or someone’s, inside of our organization, we respond to that harm in the same ways that we are taught to respond to that harm in our dominant culture—in ways that dehumanize, violate, punish, belittle, shame, harm, and cage. This organizational culture of disposability cannot stand if we want our organization to persist, grow, and win.

I have been involved in my fair share of conflicts since I joined DSA in January 2017. Freshly 20 years old and full of revolutionary fervor, I was a queer kid who’d spent the better part of the previous 5 years being abused by adults in my community and my family-of-origin for being honest about who I was. I had no idea how the legacy of those very fresh inflictions of pain and isolation would manifest in my body-mind and in my relationships. Zero. I did not grow up in a home environment that encouraged emotional maturity and productive conflict. So, I did the best I could to cope and hurt a few people along the way, in my personal and organizational life. I have over-reacted and called people out on Twitter. I have gossiped about minor disagreements instead of approaching my comrade directly. I have guarded my heart from the pain of losing a difficult political fight by pointing fingers at the people organizing closest to me. I am sure that many of you have done similar things. These antisocial behaviors have never gotten me any closer to what I have ultimately wanted, which is personal healing, genuine connection, and the joy that comes from solidarity and collective action. They have lost me more than a few close relationships. They have soured promising organizing efforts. They have made me feel helpless and alone.

I have also experienced harm at the hands of people in DSA, sometimes immense harm that has lost me jobs, caused me mental anguish, and encouraged the darkest whispers in the back of my mind to grow louder. I am sure a lot of people in the organization have experienced these things too, and it sucks. I am sorry. There is no excuse. You deserved better and more. I deserved better and more, too. Ultimately, as I have moved between moments of movement activity and moments of personal rest, healing, and growth over my years in DSA, I have come to the conclusion that I am in this fight for the rest of my life. I am not, however, comfortable resigning myself to an organizational reality that our commitment to abolitionist principles of solidarity, anti-carcerality, universal dignity, and reciprocal care simply stops inside our general meetings, slack channels, signal groups, and comrade-to-comrade relationships. 

Practically this means that mandatory censure, suspensions, and organizational expulsions (including de facto expulsions), cannot be entered into without democratic oversight and under the most extreme circumstances of harm. It means that when you sign-up to join DSA that you are committing yourself to practicing transformative justice and swear to respect the rights and dignity of every person in the organization, including those you do not personally like or politically disagree with, as long as they are willing to do the same. It means committing to the work of processing your own pain and refusing to project your past onto others. It means swallowing your ego and admitting when you are wrong or you have made a mistake. It means that when you inevitably fall short of these principles, that you agree to doing the hard thing, having the tough conversations, attending the restorative circle, learning about the importance of believing that none of your comrades are disposable, and committing yourself to furthering the work of solidarity and liberation. If all of us do not do this, if we give in to the forces (state-sanctioned, societal, and personal) that seek to pit us against one another and tear our organization down (as has happened many times before on the Left in the USA and abroad) then we lose. 

Today, I invite you to lay down old grievances, dust out your mental cupboards of resentment, and recommit yourself to the work of reciprocal care, of loving your comrades more than you love being right, of embracing the blessing that is leaving that message or email in your drafts until you’ve had more time to reflect, of solidarity and liberation. We have a world to win after all. ------------------------------

Much of this essay was inspired by the work and words of the amazing folks who created or participated in the following pieces of media, please support them! 

https://truthout.org/audio/to-transform-conflict-in-movements-we-must-learn-how-to-stay-in-it-together/ 

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1922-let-this-radicalize-you 

https://www.amazon.com/Break-Every-Yoke-Religion-Abolition/dp/0190949155 

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1108-how-we-get-free 

https://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Feminism-Now-Abolitionist-Papers/dp/1642592587/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1686951405&sr=1-1 

[achilleanfemme]

30 Day Poetry Writing Challenge, Day 2

2. Where is home to you? Tell about a location or people you feel the most comfortable around. Paint a picture with words, capture what you see and feel. 

Coming Back by Achillean Femme

Burning pine needles have a very distinct smell.

Their smoke is a light gray and

As you watch it twist and twirl in the autumn air

It is easy to get lost in its dance and minty aroma.

I still remember the time that I hit my cousin Allyson

In the neck with a very large pine cone.

It was quite literally a softball-sized pine cone.

I was about 15 

And had borrowed my grandmommy’s clamping arm

That she used to grab cans out of the upper cabinets 

In her kitchen when she couldn’t lift her arms very well above her head

Because she was going through radiation treatment

For her cancer that had come back for the third time.

She had passed about a year prior.

Anyways, 

So I had borrowed the clamping arm 

And was running around the yard outside her house 

With my cousins Zeke, Savannah, and Allyson.

I picked up one of the large pine cones that was lying on the ground

With the clampers

And began to spin around whimsically with it

(Because I have always been a fairy princess).

Suddenly, the pine cone ripped out of the grasp of the clamper

And hit my cousin Allyson squarely in the neck

With a loud thwack!

I was mortified 

And apologized profusely.

She didn’t talk to me for like 2 hours.

Then 6 of my cousins, including Allyson, my sister, and I 

Decided to play a board game on my grandmommy’s 

Golden-colored wooden kitchen table

As we had done countless evenings prior.

We cackled over silly stories from years past.

Like the time that we almost set grandmommy’s house on fire

Burning a mountain of pine needles that we had raked up in the yard

And set ablaze in the burn pit

On a particularly windy afternoon.

She was rightfully really mad when that happened.

I can still see us frantically rushing buckets of water 

Back and forth

From the water hose faucet outside 

To the site of the growing fire

Desperately trying to put it out as it 

Kept fighting to come back.

But if she were with us on that night that I hit Allyson 

In the neck

With the giant pinecone,

I think that she would have cleaned Allyson’s wounds,

Applied some neosporin or iodine to the injured area,

Given her a kiss,

Given me a smile and a wink as she passed me 

Waiting nervously in the hallway on the red carpeted floor,

And beamed with joy for the rest of the night as we played games

Around her golden-colored wooden kitchen table.

[achilleanfemme]

I am doing a 30 Day Poetry writing challenge. Don’t be surprised if I miss several days, I still want to get to all 30 prompts.

Prompt 1: Write a haiku about early mornings.

~ ~ ~

Forenoon Fears by Achillean Femme -

Cockcrow. Day’s advent.

Ticker-tape dread, anxious brew.

Sunnyside unease.

[achilleanfemme]

A Prayer for St. Brigid's Day

St. Brigid, Naomh Bríd, carer for the poor and mother of Éireannaigh, the Irish people, have mercy on us as we seek to live by your example of generosity and peace. Help us to create a world where 'Enough is Plenty' and all bellies are filled and all have a home.

[achilleanfemme]

Poem 1 - Gay domesticity

I find myself romanticizing my daily life more and more lately.

Sometimes the dull hum and whirr of the dishwasher sounds quite beautiful.

The analog clock that’s always a bit slow ticks past 9:07,

Even though it’s actually 9:12.

Chills rush down my legs and up my spine,

As I hear the quiet snore of my beloved sleeping in the other room.

Our cats are little baby lurkers.

Honestly they’re a bit voyeuristic,

And well... same.

I mean, who could blame them? 

Open gay domesticity, 

A queer life lived in simplicity,

From a historical perspective it is an act of sheer, homosexual audacity.  

And who's to say that we don’t deserve happiness?

Who’s to say that we can’t have stability and security

And joy and love and belonging

And peace?

Brownshirt motherfuckers be damned,

I am fighting for my right to live a quiet life.

It’s 9:20 now.

Like, actually 9:20,

Though our slow clock says it’s 9:09.

My beloved’s TikTok murmurs in the other room,

Meaning that he must’ve woken up.

I look up from my writing

And my favorite photo of us beams back at me

In the warm glow of the silly little smart lights that I got for Christmas 

From my sister.

I think that the dishwasher has begun a new part of its cleaning cycle

Because it’s low, whooshing sounds a bit different.

What a romantic evening, indeed. 

[achilleanfemme]

In 2023, Let's Remember that Jesus Was a Poor Man

I’ve been thinking alot about this picture lately that I first came across online probably 4 or 5 years ago, you can view it at the start of this blog post. It’s a black and white photo of a mule drawn covered wagon. Painted on the wagon cover is the phrase, “Don’t laugh folks, Jesus was a poor man.” This picture was taken in 1968 as part of The Mule Train. The Mule Train was a train of mule drawn wagons that rode together from Marks, Mississippi, one of the poorest areas in all of the USA at the time, to Washington DC as an act of protest to highlight the need for poor people, especially poor children, to have their basic needs met. The Mule Train was part of the original Poor People’s Campaign which Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader in before he died. Marks was populated predominantly by poor Black sharecroppers who were descendents of enslaved people, which was no accident either. Disproportionate Black poverty was and is a feature of US racial capitalist society, which was built by enslaved Black people, and became prosperous by the total theft of value generated by their labor while living in bondage. Much like Southern Black people in the USA in 1968, Jesus too lived under constant state repression and under oppressive social regimes as a Palestinian Jew living under Roman Imperial occupation.

I love the implication of the claim that this wagon makes. The idea that the God of the universe became human and lived, walked, worked, loved, ate, cried, laughed, and died amongst us is earth-shatteringly profound. Yet, when this Creator of everything that was, is, or will be became a human-being, God chose not to be born into a wealthy, aristocratic family. God chose to become a poor man living under occupation. Therefore, how our societies and economies treat poor people is reflective of how our societies and economies would treat God if God became human in our day. 

At my lovely Episcopal church in Dallas last night, sitting in the pew, participating in our lovely Lessons and Carols liturgy that we always do the first Sunday after Christmas, I heard this passage, John 1:1-14, like I’d heard it for the first time. In this passage, the author of the text refers to God as “the Word” and “The Light” which are common Biblical titles for God. I, however, couldn’t escape this idea of “what if these titles, the Word and the Light, were replaced with the phrase “the Poor Man”? After all, our Mule Train drivers named Jesus as a poor man. How might we hear this passage differently in our time? In this place?” 

Therefore, I invite you to read this New Revised Poor Man edition of John 1:1-14 below, adapted from the Common English Bible. I took the liberty of abandoning this motif a few times for clarity.

John 1:1-14 - Common English Bible

In the beginning was the Poor Man

    and the Poor Man was with God

    and the Poor Man was God.

The Poor Man was with God in the beginning.

Everything came into being through the Poor Man,

    and without the Poor Man

    nothing came into being.

What came into being

    through the Poor Man was life,

    and the life was the light for all people.

The Poor Man shines in the darkness,

    and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the Poor Man.

A man named John was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify concerning the Poor Man, so that through him everyone would believe in the Poor Man. He himself wasn’t the Poor Man, but his mission was to testify concerning the Poor Man.

The true Poor Man that shines on all people

    was coming into the world.

The Poor Man was in the world,

    and the world came into being through the Poor Man,

        but the world didn’t recognize the Poor Man.

The Poor Man came to his own people,

    and his own people didn’t welcome him.

But those who did welcome him,

        those who believed in his name,

    he authorized to become God’s children,

        born not from blood

        nor from human desire or passion,

        but born from God.

The Poor Man became flesh

    and made his home among us.

We have seen his glory,

    glory like that of a father’s only son,

        full of grace and truth.

When I read this adapted passage, the first thing that it reminds me of are two verses from John 12:7-8 CEB:

““Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

This passage comes from an absolute favorite Gospel story of mine, the raising of Lazarus followed by the story of Mary and Martha and the perfume. In the story, following Jesus’ miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Judas Iscariot, and Jesus share a meal together in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ home. In the story, while Martha is serving the table, Mary gets up and pours a very expensive bottle of perfume (worth a year’s wages) over Jesus’ head, anointing him, and then wipes his feet with her hair. The others are outraged by this act, but Jesus understands it as a holy sign of devotion from his dedicated follower, Mary, who seems to know that Jesus is quickly approaching his death. 

When Jesus says “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” it sounds kind of dismissive of the plight of the poor. However, if you are familiar with the full text of the Gospels and Jesus’ work and ministry then you understand that Jesus cares more for the poor and the outcast than any other group in ancient Palestinian society. 

If we interpret John 12:7-8 through the lens of Jesus being the Poor Man then the verses take on an entirely different meaning. If Jesus is leaving his humanly and earthly life, but the poor are staying, that means that Jesus is staying, embodied in the lives of the poor. It follows that, if we want to know how to best worship God on this side of the eschaton then we need look no further than the homeless person on the side of the street asking for money. We need look no further than the single mother working 70 hours a week to keep her children fed and housed. We need look no further than the Central American refugees at our southern border fleeing persecution and immiseration, seeking a better life in the USA. 

The Poor Man, the Peasant King, is with us everyday. Jesus lives in our hearts but he also lives in the places furthest out of the eyes of mainstream society, where poor and working people struggle to meet their basic needs under the oppressive thumb of a patriarchal, nativist, racial capitalist world system. As we enter into 2023, let us boldly worship God by working towards making a world where all unjust systems and institutions are torn down and the world is remade for the perpetual worship of our Creator, meaning a world where all poor people are fed, cared for, loved, and free.

[achilleanfemme]

Chat GPT essay on democratic socialism and Anglican theology... it's pretty good!

I asked Chat GPT to "write a short article about the merits of democratic socialism using Anglican theology." The below text is exact text that the AI gave me on the first try. It honestly sounds a lot like something that I would write for this blog, so I am publishing it in full.

The essay:

Democratic socialism is a political ideology that combines elements of socialism and democracy. At its core, it advocates for the equal distribution of wealth, resources, and power within a society, and it seeks to achieve this through the implementation of social and economic policies that prioritize the needs and well-being of the general population over the profits and interests of a small elite group.

From an Anglican theological perspective, democratic socialism aligns with the principles of social justice and the common good, which are central to the teachings of Jesus and the Christian tradition. It recognizes that all people are created in the image of God and are deserving of dignity, respect, and a fair share in the abundance of the earth.

Democratic socialism also affirms the inherent value of community and the importance of working together for the benefit of all. It promotes the idea that we are all interconnected and that our well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of others. This is in line with the Christian belief in the unity of the body of Christ and the call to love one's neighbor as oneself.

Additionally, democratic socialism recognizes that wealth and power are not static and that they can be used to either oppress or empower. It therefore advocates for the redistribution of these resources in order to create a more equitable and just society. This aligns with the biblical teachings on justice and righteousness, as well as the call to care for the poor and marginalized.

Overall, democratic socialism offers a vision of a society that is more just, compassionate, and inclusive, and it aligns with the values of Anglican theology. It is a hopeful and forward-thinking approach that seeks to create a world in which all people can thrive and live meaningful and fulfilling lives.

[achilleanfemme]

Want to Save American Democracy? Build Civil Society and Popular Institutions.

Many do not know this, but in Fall 2020, I started a Masters in Political Science program and swiftly dropped out. There’s lots of reasons that this attempt at doing graduate-level political science failed, but a primary reason is that I am not interested in simply knowing about politics, a huge passion of mine is doing politics. Those who have attained (or tried to attain) any graduate degree in a social science field know that there’s not much time to do anything outside of your coursework, research, and teaching/TAing requirements. Once I experienced the sheer volume of time that completing such a degree would take, and better understood how abysmal the academic job market is in this country, I decided that I would rather do something else with my time and quit.

During my brief stint in an American Political Institutions class, I did learn that I am an institutionalist. I really love democracy and believe that robust popular democratic institutions, within and outside of the state, are vital to democratic flourishing. What is concerning about this is that, since the start of the neoliberal turn in American politics in the 1970s and 80s, there’s been a dramatic decline in popular participation in civil society (i.e. the part of society comprised of non-state institutions and organizations that bring residents of a particular polity together around common causes across lines of difference). From Labor unions to small-to-medium size parishes and houses of worship, from volunteer organizations and mutual aid societies to bowling clubs and knitting circles, US-Americans are far less likely to participate in civil organizations and institutions, like those I listed, in 2022 than they were in 1972. Even though the USA has always been a weak and limited liberal democracy, US civil society and civil institutions have historically been some of the most robust in the whole world, which has often made up for the lack of social provision and means of popular participation in formal liberal democratic governance. As neoliberal policies emerged, they undermined civil institutions like labor unions, which undermined social democratic policies, which further eroded civil institutions. What we are currently left with is a threadbear social order, mass oppression, immiseration, alienation, and inequality, and a liberal democracy on the brink of total collapse. 

I believe firmly that as socialists, we must build our own institutions of the Left (like the Democratic Socialists of America, Labor Notes, and Haymarket Books) but we must also support, build, and work to transform already existing civil institutions towards more liberatory and egalitarian ends. I am a proud Episcopalian. Not only does the Episcopal liturgy and social Witness really speak to my soul, but I am proud to be a part of a Mainline Protestant Christian denomination that has worked, and continues to work towards racial, gender, economic, and climate justice. We do all these things, with God’s help, through democratic participation at all levels of Church life. In this work, in this way, we are democratically transforming an old institution, that has historically been a safe-place for white US capitalists and aristocrats, into a justice-centered, democratic, popular institution for ordinary people. 

I am also a member of the Texas State Teachers Association, which is affiliated with the National Education Association, a large labor union representing teachers and education workers across the USA. I am genuinely proud to see my union dues come out of my account every month because I know, in my own small way, that I am contributing to the collective efforts of education workers across this country. Together we are organizing to protect our public schools, expand our public education system, and bring about education justice. When I attend a union organizing meeting, or share a meal with my co-workers and chat about what we could do if we had a more democratic, militant, robust union local, I am building on the work of union educators of the past who fought to build and protect our schools for kids like I was, a child who went to well-funded public school from Kindergarten through my Master’s degree (I have a Master’s of Education). 

Both of the examples of civil institutions that I gave, churches and labor unions, also control large amounts of money. Many of these institutions still have mechanisms for democratic oversight and management of these resources, even as the actual exercise of these democratic rights has fallen away. In my view, this creates a window for socialists to engage in these institutions so that we can democratically take control of their monies, buildings, durable assets, and clout and use them towards our project of building a new democratic socialist republic in North America. Moreover, If we are going to break out of our democratic malaise and transform our economy and society into one that democratically works for the popular majority, and not just a tiny, largely white-male affluent elite, then we need to build on the legacy of our movement foreparents who struggled daily in union halls and parish halls, who communed daily around kitchen tables and backyard fires, to build a social fabric that could endure sways in the whims of the ruling elite. 

As I have lived through wave after wave of social crises, political crises, ecological crises during my 26 years on this planet, it has become clear to me that the ruling class is not going to save us. They do not care if we live or die. Therefore we need to do what we can to build civil institutions that can support ordinary people like ourselves and those we love, that can endure for generations to come. Let our legacy be that we built a world where workers are cared for. Let future young radicals know what we know now, that socialists and freedom fighters of the past loved them so much that we fought for a society and a planet where they can live a delightful, free life.

[achilleanfemme]

A Prayer at the Start of Advent

Heavenly Sovereign, 

Mother of Peace,

My heart aches and my heart yearns on this first day of Advent 2022.

Aching and yearning are two tremendously Adventen emotions. At the time of Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph, Palestinian Jews living under brutal Roman occupation, yearned for safety as they prepared to bring the Son of God into the world. Mary and Joseph ached because they knew that the time and place that they were bringing their new child into was not one of harmony, but one of violence and suffering. Yet they fled and fought, and with God’s help, baby Jesus was born. A new star in the midnight sky, a new dawn coming forth from an evil age setting on the horizon. The story of Christ’s coming is a story of hope in the face of immense grief.

Just one week after the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, it feels like we have entered into a new battlefield with the MAGA Right in the USA, and trans and queer lives are on the frontlines. 

I am afraid, Dear God. 

How is one expected to carry the weight of the fear of never feeling safe in public? How does one march onward when it feels like the future is narrowing and your existence is not a part of that future? How does one put on the armor of light in the midst of such immense darkness? I want to know, Beloved Creator. 

Please give me a sign. 

Jesus, King of Glory everlasting, please give me the gift of wisdom in the days ahead. I sense the vipers slithering just out of sight, gathering strength. I hear the past talking through me in my day-to-day interactions with people and I don’t like what it is saying:

“Give up. Retreat. Hide. Run. Lash out. Don’t trust. Don’t love.” 

If these words can cut like knives then please help me beat these blades into plowshares. Free me from the ghouls that haunt my innermost thoughts. Aid me in moving towards your pearly gates of love and liberation.

God of Mercy, I know that salvation is nearer now than it was when I became a believer. Grant me the courage to truly see the manger, to see the palm branches, to see the cross, and to see the empty tomb as symbols of what they are: a promise of ultimate mercy and unending love. I want to see Christ’s example of forgiveness and make it my own. Help me to let go of old wounds. Help me to want the best for the people that I despise the most for if they are living a prosperous, joyful life then that means that I am probably much better off too. I cannot see the path to this destination God, ask your Holy Spirit to light it for me. I do not want to hold on to hate, for if I did, I know the weight would break me. 

Lead me on, Father, lead me on.

It’s easy to see the growing darkness of the days in Advent as a sign of Death and Darkness. Help me to instead hear dusk as a call to rest, to renew. Just as you made the Sabbath, Lord, let this Advent be for me, a season of slowness, gentleness, and love. 

Help me also to keep awake, for Christmas is coming, and I can hear murmurings of the Chorus of Heavenly Hosts in the distance, singing, “Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Wager of Love, has come and He will never leave again. Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Amen

[achilleanfemme]

SCOTUS v. Democracy

Capitalism and democracy are fundamentally opposed to one another. This is a tenant of socialist politics that I learned early on in my political development on the Marxist left in 2017. A social-political-economic system that supports claims to capitalist, minority control of private property over majoritarian, democratic claims to control of wealth and resources cannot support genuine popular, democratic sovereignty. The interests of the vast swaths of the world’s ordinary peoples who are workers, peasants, small farmers, small business owners, enslaved and incarcerated people are completely at odds with the rule of a small, owning-class elite. This has always been the core flaw of liberal democracy.

Liberalism, while a vast school of political thought, most typically seeks to balance private property rights with social, economic, and civil rights. Liberals support capitalism to some degree but also support democracy to some degree. The contradiction here has played out bloodily over-and-over across history. Large capitalists and their conservative and far-right allies will always support private property rights over democracy in times of crises. Ordinary people will nearly always support democracy over private property rights in a crisis (race, gender, religion, sexuality, caste, national origin, colonial status, and disability status are complicating factors here for sure). In our time of profound social, political, economic, and ecological crisis it is no wonder that the wheels are falling off liberal democratic institutions all over the world, as forces, especially those from the far-right, seek to permanently enshrine minority, capitalist rule to protect private property at the expense of the continued existence of humanity. 

In the United States of America, there is no shortage of examples of liberal and social democratic institutions collapsing under the weight of decades long rightwing rule and neoliberalism. The Supreme Court and the judiciary have played an outsized role in this forced democratic decay. One case before SCOTUS, Moore v. Harper, demonstrates just how far the MAGA right in the USA is willing to go to undermine democracy in the name of racial capitalist and hetero-patriarchal rule.

The Harper case, which is set to be argued before the High Court on December 7, revolves around a North Carolina Republican gerrymandered electoral map that was struck down by the state’s supreme court. The plaintiffs in the case, the conservatives, who support the gerrymandered map, are arguing in favor of a fringe, far-right legal theory known as the independent state legislature theory (ISLT). ISLT supporters argue that the US Constitution only allows state legislatures and federal courts to regulate elections in the USA (meaning not state or federal executive branches, state ballot measures, and federal legislatures). State legislatures and federal courts are notably two of the political institutions that are most captured by far-right forces in the USA. A recent New York Times piece notes, if ISLT is implemented by the Court, this would threaten state and municipal laws around ranked-choice voting, rights to a secret ballot, regulation of maintenance of voter rolls, and more. It would effectively mean the end of free-and-fair elections in states dominated by the Republican Party.

So, what is to be done? I have long argued that it has historically been the role of the Left to support liberal democracy in times of fascist insurgence. The liberal center has demonstrated throughout history an inability to stop and reverse slides towards far-right authoritarian capitalist rule. A further move away from any semblance of democracy in the USA would mean that leftwing movements would have to move completely underground. Many comrades would be disappeared, imprisoned, exiled, or killed and our movements would have to resort to guerilla style tactics to protect vulnerable communities that are already under assault under our current governmental regime. This would undoubtedly result in much more suffering and loss of life than if we are able to continue organizing for social and economic justice under our current liberal democratic arrangement. On a personal note, I rather like not dying in a White Power uprising.

Socialist and progressive support for liberal democracy does not mean support for the status quo. I believe massive social, economic, and democratic reforms are necessary to hold on to the US’s liberal democracy. Abolition of the Supreme Court (or at least ending of judicial review), abolition of the Senate, creating multi-member congressional districts using Ranked-Choice Voting to allow for a multi-party democracy, and the dramatic limiting of Presidential powers are just a few of the democratic reforms needed. Moreover, mass expansion of labor organizing rights and voting rights, a new Equal Rights Amendment that would enshrine the right to an abortion and non-discrimination protections for all historically oppressed communities into the Constitution, and the adoption of something along the lines of FDR’s Second Bill of Rights are needed. We know that none of these things will come to fruition without a militant, well-organized Left in the USA that is fighting for them because they challenge the power of the ruling racial capitalist order. Without these things, I fear that I soon will not even be able to publish pieces like the one you are reading now. The stakes are high, the challenges are immense, but the rewards for our action could be great.

[organizeworkers]

Section 7 rights are a specific part of the National Labor Relations Act, but which workers can benefit from them? Do workers anywhere have the right to organize? We dig into these questions in this section of our report on pre-majority unionism:

What Are Section 7 Rights? - Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee

Section 7 rights refer to the rights that workers in the private sector have to organize collectively.

[achilleanfemme]

To Win Trans/Queer Freedom, There Are No Shortcuts

The clout chasing has already begun. After any mass tragedy, like yesterday’s shooting at Club Q, a queer nightclub in Colorado Spring, there’s a move to politicize the events from the liberal center of US-American politics. I would argue that amongst no marginalized community is this push towards liberal assimilation, and movement co-optation, worse than amongst LGBTQ people. I have already seen the tweets of liberal politicians asking for liberal LGBTQ “organizers” (campaign workers) to “drop their venmos/cash-apps/zelles/etc” so that “they can get paid in the wake of such a tragedy”. The level of unapologetic clout chasing is honestly galling. Bodies are not even in the ground and they’re already asking for people to give money to LGBTQ Democratic candidates. It’s disgusting. 

Liberal assimilationist forces in the LGBTQ movement have been around for a very long time. Timothy Stewart-Winter’s Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics well documents the neoliberal turn of white gay men in Chicago towards Democratic Party politics and away from street action and mass organizing, as a means of assimilating into the liberal status quo, instead of challenging it. This turn continues to contemporarely benefit a small minority of LGBTQ people, especially (but not exclusively) gays and lesbians, while the rest of us trans and queer people are hung out to dry. Civil rights victories like same-sex marriage, which itself represented an assimilationist turn in trans and queer politics, have not ushered in a wave of continued mass organizing for expanded civil and social rights for LGBTQ people. As many trans organizers and scholars have pointed out, the “marriage equality” victory in 2015 represented the collapse of organizing infrastructure and the end of lesbian and gay politics being done on a national scale.

Liberal politicians, social media influencers, and journalists, both queer and non-queer, love to point out that trans and queer people of color were the ones who “threw the first brick at Stonewall”. Every June there are endless articles about “10 Ways to Support Trans Women of Color” and “50 LGBTQ People that Lead the Way for Equality” yet the radical politics of folks like Sylvia Rivera and Lorraine Hansberry are rarely acknowledged, and the contemporary movement implications of their work are never acknowledged. This is because the forces of assimilation in LGBTQ liberalism would be called into question if these implications were put to the forefront of public discussions of politics amongst trans and queer people.

The contemporary radical implications of our queer ancestors and foreparents are clear. It is time for that we build a radical trans and queer movement in the United States of America rooted in Black feminism, PIC abolition, trans liberation, and economic justice. Events like yesterday’s mass killing at Club Q and the Trans Day of Rememberance are not going to become less frequent while trans and queer people hold no political power in society outside of the Democratic Party establishment. We need to organize to pass the Equality Act and fight beyond it. We need to fight to free all trans and queer immigrants and asylum seekers locked in cages for seeking safety outside of their countries of origin. We need to fight to free all trans and queer people from prison. We need to fight to end the prosecution of trans women of color for acting in self-defense against violent men. We need to fight for housing for all, trans-inclusive medicare for all, free abortion on demand without apology, jobs for all, food for all, and disability benefits that are easily accessible and paid at a thriveable level. We need to fight for a globally just, decolonial, anti-militarist Green New Deal that divests from death-making institutions and invests in live-giving institutions so that trans and queer peoples of the Global Majority have the ability to stay and thrive in their places of origin without fear of US-backed coups, imperial wars, or climate catastrophe destabilizing their countries of origin, leading to violence that harms them the most. 

The legacy of our trans and queer foreparents is a legacy of radical resistance to the World as it is and a radical reimagining of the World as it could be. If we continue to let liberal LGBTQ clout chasers who want to run for office, be social media influencers, or head non-profit organizations lead us down the path of assimilation, many more of us will die. If we let ultra-left anonymous twitter accounts lead us away from mass politics and towards focusing exclusively on armed self-defense and mutual aid, many more of us will die. To paraphrase Jane McAlevey, to win Trans/Queer freedom in our lifetimes, there are no shortcuts.

[achilleanfemme]

A Prayer for Club Q and for Trans Day of Remembrance this Christ the King Sunday

O Christ our King,

You are the one who brought all your creation into being and proclaimed it Good, Be with the LGBTQ community of Colorado Springs, the victims, and their loved-ones in this horrible moment following the mass shooting at Club Q. Draw our friends into your embrace as they set out on this long road of grief that many LGBTQ people in the United States of America know all too well. 

O Blessed Trinity, we know you by many names, this Christ the King Sunday, as we are reminded of your ultimate sovereignty over all the Universe, we ask that all wicked governments, laws, institutions, and people in power be brought down from their thrones of anti-LGBTQ hate. We know that your Justice and Mercy will ultimately prevail dear God, but we ask you this morning that you help us usher in this Just World, where all LGBTQ people are safe and loved, a bit quicker. For as we head towards the day of your Son’s birth, and the days get shorter and the nights get longer, so too does the dark seem to cast a shadow further and further over our joy. Please, Heavenly Fountain of Unending Love, grant us your peace and never-ending joy.

Emmanuel, God with Us, we ask that you also be with our trans and geneder non-conforming siblings on this Trans Day of Rememberance, a High Holy Day by any standard, as we mourn the 391 counted trans people who prematurely lost their lives this year in this country in all too many tragic ways. We are tired, Dear God. As Advent draws near, and we enter into a season of celebration and reflection, on what it means for us to worship a God who came, walked among us, loved everyone that he saw and touched, broke bread with the outcasts, and then was cast out on the cross by an evil empire. Help us to remember the promise of the Resurrection-- that even as our world feels lost, you are always resurrecting us and bringing us into new Life, not governed by the powers and principalities that be, but by the God that Was, Is, and always Will Be. You are the author of all Love, meaning that you are the author of all Justice too. Dear Jesus, we need more than a small portion of both of those things this day.

I close this prayer in the words of famed Black Freedom Fighter, Assata Shakur:

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.

It is our duty to win.

We must love each other and support each other.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

In your Son’s Beloved name we pray,

Amen

[achilleanfemme]

My Gender is Faggot

I have spent the vast majority of the past 10 years pondering my relationship to gender. At age 26 now, having first considered myself anything other than cisgender at age 18, I feel like I have a much firmer grasp on my own gender and how I fit into our patriarchal society.

At age 16, I came out as gay and it sucked. My parents were shitty. My school was shitty. My church was shitty. Things were not great for several years that followed and I carry the scars of that hurt with me everyday. The thing is, I have never felt comfortable calling myself a gay man. Even at age 16, I am sure that others frequently called me a gay boy or a gay male but those words have never felt correct coming out of my mouth. When I discovered the concept of being non-binary online in 2013/2014, I was immediately drawn to the idea. Trans people often joke about being “extreme allies” before coming out as trans and I definitely went through that stage for myself around this time.

Being openly non-binary has never really been an option for me outside of activist and progressive social circles. The Dallas-Ft. Worth area, where I have lived for the past 20 years, is a hotbed for anti-trans violence and transphobic far-right politics. I work in public education. I have tried coming out as non-binary at work at 3 different schools in North Texas and have faced such massive opposition each time that I have had to leave those jobs due to no-longer being safe or welcomed in those workplaces, often under threat of formal reprimand for being openly myself. Each time this has happened, it has hurt me deeply. 

Truthfully, I have always been non-binary because I have always been a faggot. Gender is about identity but it is also about social position. I believe that faggots reside in a “third gender” like space in patriarchal society because we are not seen as fully men but not seen as fully women either. I genuinely cannot point to any meaningful interactions or relationships in my life where I have been treated like “one of the guys”. I have always been “too sensitive” or “too girly”. My middle school bullies were onto something. I am a fag. I love men. I love pretty clothes. I love pop music and Gilmore Girls. I love musicals and dancing. I love leather daddies and fruity drinks. Being a fag is fun. I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. 

The hardest part of being a faggot is the effemimania. Effemimania is a concept developed by trans writer and activist Julia Serano. It is essentially misogyny directed towards feminine men or those who are perceived as men. In a society that values maleness and masculinity over femaleness and femininity, men who take on a feminine role are seen a traitors to our sex, to the patriarchy. Most of the “homophobia” and “transphobia” that I have personally experienced is rooted in effemimania. Whether or not I identify as a cis man or a nonbinary person or an agender person or a genderqueer person has always been inconsequential to the street harasser, the rapists, the horrible bosses, the abusive relatives. These bigots see the hip-swish, the girly clothes, the feminine mannerisms and see an easy target. 

Fags have long been the butt of the joke in our society. The “Jack” character on Will and Grace exemplifies all of the ire directed towards people like me perfectly. Jack is meant to be a walking punchline and foil to the straight-laced and professionally successful “Will” character. Will is also gay but is not a faggot. Will is much more palatable to a cisgender, heterosexual viewing public. Straight people understand Will, he’s just like them, only he sucks cock sometimes. Who doesn’t like sucking a good dick sometimes? I know that I do! I find Jack incredibly endearing as a character. I think that humor, whimsy, and joy are fabulous qualities for one to possess. My hope is that young queer people watching Will and Grace for the first time on Hulu these days see that too.

If I had to positively articulate my gender in prose that are less abrasive, I would describe myself as a non-binary achillean femme (thus my username). Achillean meaning that I see myself a part of the MLM community, even though I do not see myself as a cis man. Femme meaning that I revel in the joy and power of my feminine energy. People like me, feminine yet boyish, have always been apart of the gay male community. We are always the loudest in the room, the last on the dance floor, the quickest to tell a joke, and the first to call you when we hear that your mom is sick or you lost your job. I think that we achillean femmes exemplify a divine love and presence that everyone should aspire to. If the strongest relationships are those built on shared vulnerability between people, then that explains why we have so many friends. I see our desire to live authentically in spite of patriarchal domination all the time, we are so courageous. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and give others permission to do the same. If that makes me a faggot, then I’d like to be an ever bigger faggot.

Cheers queers! Cheers to the faggots!

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

“Fire your boss”

[achilleanfemme]

Did someone say workplace democracy???

[achilleanfemme]

First post on tumblr since probably 2015 and I feel alive! New blog, new me.

A bit about me. My name is Riley. I’m in my mid-twenties. I live in Texas. I am a queer, non-binary, achillean femme. I’m a socialist community organizer, union member, and public education support worker. My primary political commitments are to prison-industrial complex abolition, international socialism, left populism, and trans feminism.

I am an Episcopalian. Theologically I live somewhere between Vatican II Catholicism and Methodism. I enjoy high liturgy but am not a trad. I love the ‘79 Book of Common Prayer and am a episcopal diaconal aspirant.

I have a fiancé, @texanjohnbosco, and we have been together for about 5.5 years and are getting married next summer. We have 2 cats and a lovely apartment together.

Follow me for queer memes, leftist earnest posting, political theory musings, thoughts on Christian social witness, and pleasant gay content.