Feminist Unicorn

[ashesandgender]

Reflection

What I enjoyed most about this course was the protocol questions. Everyone encouraged each other to think critically, making everyone come up with unique responses and sometimes even the exact same thoughts. Not only did we encourage everyone to think critically, but it was cool to see what everyone took away from that day’s readings. Everyone’s responses were different and it was cool and unique to see it turn out that way.

I think the most challenging thing about this course was keeping up with the readings. As a GWS major taking a lot of GWS courses, I get a lot of readings that I have to read throughout the week. It was hard to keep up with all of them and keep them straight. Also, some of the readings were a little harder to grasp than others and that caused me to read them multiple times to understand what it was saying.

My favorite unit was unit 2: theorizing sex and gender. This unit was supposed to be redundant to all of the other GWS classes where we talk about sex and gender, but I actually became more insightful with this unit. I learned that sex isn’t 100% nature and gender isn’t 100% nurture, but that in fact sex and gender were both mixed with both nature and nurture. Not only this, but the Anne-Fausto reading was definitely my favorite reading of the entire unit. It was different than the rest of them because of how much I enjoyed reading it. I actually came out of that unit with something new in mind instead of the normal sex and gender spill you get in all of the other GWS courses.

Even though Unit 2 was my favorite, I wish we talked a little more about welfare queens. We talked about intersectionality a lot, but I don’t think we covered the concept of welfare queens enough. It was a completely new term to me and I feel like that term flew by with barely any mention of it. It was kind of frustrating.

If I could add one unit, it would be a unit completely dedicated to sex work. It’s something that isn’t talked about a lot, but is something that I think a lot of people taking this class would be passionate about talking about because not a lot of people talk about sex workers in a good way. This is because of how little they are talked about and all the stereotypes that are against them. Viewing sex work in a different way can help improve working conditions for sex workers. Also, sex work is related to feminist theory for many reasons so it’s a great addition.

Word Count: 449

[ashesandgender]

Unit 6 - Blacktransfeminism

The term that I think stood out the most in this unit was blacktransfeminist, or blacktransfeminist thought (BTFT). We see this term in the article called The Shape of Angels’ Teeth written by Marquis Bey. In this article Marquis Bey identifies blacktransfeminist thought as “black feminism imbricated with trans feminism.” She also says that blacktransfeminist thought maintains that “‘Every breath a [black trans woman] takes is an act of revolution’” (p. 35). What Bey is talking about here is how black trans women are left out of things such as Black Lives Matter, because they are considered “non-conforming” to the purpose of Black Lives Matter. Not only this, but while Bey was writing the article, The Shape of Angels’ Teeth, they talk about how “writing this article and being edified by the black trans voices included here… unhinged [their] privileged assumptions and modes of thinking.” This is an example of blacktransfeminist thought because they are trying to help include black trans women experiences instead of excluding them like a lot of groups do - intentionally or unintentionally.

Bey then goes on to talk about how much black trans women struggle because of this exclusion. She talks about how black trans women are being killed for “simply existing” as well as how queer and trans black people have the skills and opportunities needed to create liberation for all Blacks (p. 40). This is part of blacktransfeminist thought because it’s a perfect way of looking at how black feminism and trans feminism meet. Black feminism is black women trying to rise and become equal to others who are of different race, sex, and class. Trans feminism is nearly the same except it’s transgender women who are trying to reach equality. When you bring the two together, you get blacktransfeminism which is something that is rarely talked about, but needs to gain more attention.

Word Count: 310

Marquis Bey. 2016. “The Shape of Angels’ Teeth: Toward a Blacktransfeminist Thought Through a Mattering of Black(Trans)Lives.” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 5 (3): 33-54.

[ashesandgender]

Western Feminism

“Western feminist” is a new term that I learned for Unit 5. I’ve heard of westernization,but hearing the term related to feminism is simply interesting. You hear this term in the first reading of the unit: “’Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles” by Chandra Talpade Mohanty. Mohanty defines “western feminist” as the opposite of “Third World” feminism with there being no way of them crossing paths in definition (502). Western feminism is western women searching for equality through women’s struggles - excluding non-white, non-western women, reinforcing homophobia, and excluding social classes. Mohanty called western feminism “mainstream” because it’s basically white women looking for equality. Heather Switzer also uses the term in her article called “(Post)Feminist development fables: The Girl Effect and the production of sexual subjects.” Switzer identifies western feminism as white, liberal, and characterized by “the ‘will to improve’ the self and the Other” (351).

An example of western feminism would be a white woman explaining her struggles as simply a woman. She has no other struggles because she is not a woman of color. She is straight. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s the perfect image of what a woman should be, yet she is oppressed because she is a woman and is ranked lower than men. 

Western feminism excludes literally everything except gender. Even though it includes gender, it is still excluding parts of gender. Transgenders, intersex people, aliens, etc. are all being excluded here because they are not in the eyes of westernized people. They basically should not even exist in most cases. Western feminism is dangerous because of how much it excludes. Is it even really feminism? If you look up the definition of feminism on Google, you get the basic definition, “the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” Yet, everyone has different definitions of feminism that includes way more than Google’s definition, who uses the Oxford Dictionary. Including the word westernized just seems a bit redundant in this case.

Word Count: 338

Sources:

Mohanty, C. T. (2003). "Under Western Eyes" Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles. Signs, 28(2), 499–535.

Oxford Dictionary. (n.d.). feminism. Google. Lexico.

Switzer, H. (2013). (Post)Feminist development fables: The Girl Effect and the production of sexual subjects. Feminist Theory, 14(3), 345–360.

[ashesandgender]

Reflection

I have no idea what to feel. Some of me is scared, some of me is irritated, and some of me is relieved. I’m scared that this pandemic is going to last longer than just a few weeks. I’m scared that this pandemic is actually the end of the world and I just now got my life together. I’m scared that my depression is going to arise while in quarantine and I’m going to lose it. I’m irritated that this pandemic is causing so much disruption in my life. I’m irritated that my hours have been severely cut. I’m irritated that everyone is hoarding food and not thinking about others while shopping. I’m irritated I can’t find meat anywhere to make my meals.

But I’m relieved that the rest of the semester is online. I’m relieved that I got my first home before all of this started so I have things to do while in quarantine. I’m relieved that I still even have a job.

I think this is going to go on a lot longer than a few weeks because there is a lot of people refusing to quarantine. It’s scary. It’s not the virus that’s scary, but the way people are reacting to it. They’re the most dangerous, I believe. I believe the nation (at least the state) is going to be on complete lockdown soon.

[ashesandgender]

What is a welfare queen?

When I think about unit three on theorizing at the intersections and everything that we talked about, the word that stands out to me the most is “welfare queen.” This course is the first that I have ever heard about welfare queens, so the new term is something I chose to remember from this unit.

The term “welfare queen” was mentioned in Cathy Cohen’s article, Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics? (2007). Although Cohen does not give a direct definition of what a welfare queen is, she hints at it when she says “lazy, Cadillac-driving, steak-eating welfare queens” (p. 457). A welfare queen is a woman who takes advantage of the system by taking too many welfare payments or misusing welfare money. It’s considered a derogatory term towards women who do this.

An example of a welfare queen would be a woman who takes her food stamps and goes out to buy steaks and higher priced groceries. That same woman (or even a completely different woman) also drives a luxury car because she takes in foster kids for the extra money, but doesn’t use that extra money towards the kids but to buy her luxury car.

The thing that I find most disturbing about this term is that it only targets women. Not only is it women, but it’s usually women of color. The thing is though, it’s not only women who do this. It’s not only women of color who do this. Men do this. White women do this. Anyone who is desperate enough to live a luxurious life by abusing the welfare system do this.

I don’t think we talked enough about this term in class. It’s obvious it deals with intersectionality (women + people of color + people on welfare), but it is also used wrongly most times. A lot of people are called welfare queens mistakenly. They went out and bought that steak and higher priced groceries because they wanted to make a nice meal for the kids. They went out and bought a luxury car, because she got a great deal on it and it can carry all the kids at once. Not everyone knows the whole story of “welfare queens” can call them a “welfare queen” without knowing all the information.

Word Count: 380

Citations:

Cohen, C.J. (1997) Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics? GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3, 437-465.

[ashesandgender]

What is “sex”?

The term that was really eye opening for our second unit was "sex."

Before the reading, as a class, we all believed that sex was the biological part of someone and gender was the way that someone identifies. But in this unit, we learned that sex isn't 100% nature and gender isn't 100% nurture. In the reading by Anne Fausto-Sterling (2005) called "The Bare Bones of Sex," the author states that "sex sometimes strays into arenas that traditional feminists claim for gender" (p. 1497). In other words, the author is saying that in some cases, sex can be seen as gender as well. Focusing specifically on sex, we learned that sex can also be nurture as well as nature. Human intervention plays a huge role in sex. Sex is considered "scientific" but there wouldn't be no science without humans creating the science in the first place.

For example, when a baby is born, the doctor says whether it's a boy or a girl due to the genitals the baby has. But what if it doesn't look like either? Or both? The rush them to surgery (if the parents allow it) and fix their genitals to be a boy or girl (whatever the parents decide). From there, that baby is raised as a boy or girl. The sex of the baby that was rushed to surgery was based on what the adults believed that the baby should be. Human intervention in sex.

I chose this term because after this unit, my views on the term "sex" has completely changed. Like the class, I believed that sex was 100% nature and gender was 100% nurture. Now I believe that sex and gender can both be nature AND nurture. Understanding this term is important no matter what line of work you are going into because it applies to everyone, even though it may matter to some more than others.

Citation: Fausto‐Sterling, A. (2005). The Bare Bones of Sex: Part 1—Sex and Gender. Signs, 30(2), 1491-1527. doi:10.1086/424932

[ashesandgender]

Feminist Killjoy. What is it? Who is it? Why do they matter? What makes them relevant?

A feminist killjoy, according to Sara Ahmed in Living a Feminist Life (2017), is a “sensationalist figure” that basically ruins the happiness of others and “cause trouble” (p. 37). In other words, a feminist killjoy is someone who tries to explain something to someone after that someone has said something that the feminist killjoy thinks is wrong or degrading in some way. For example, Ahmed talks about her experience of being a feminist killjoy when she is sitting at the dinner table with her family. They’re all having “polite conversation” when someone says something that is considered problematic (p. 37). When she speaks up after trying to ignore it, she is “wound up” - here is where she is being a feminist killjoy. Part of being a feminist killjoy is being enraged by something because that person is (purposely or not) trying to frustrate you in getting you to speak up, to “cause trouble.”

Feminist killjoys are important because they make people think about the side some others may not consider. They also provide insight for those who don’t really have an opinion about something. In my opinion, feminist killjoys don’t always “cause trouble.” They are people with information and opinions that can open others’ minds. Feminist killjoys are relevant to today’s world because of this.

I chose this keyword because not only is it something that we discussed heavily in lecture, but because it also describes me. When I’m around my family (who has opposite views of me on basically everything), I try to keep my mouth shut. Yet, they wind me up into saying something to them. Depending on the topic, it usually goes bad where everyone is mad at me for even saying this opposing them (because they’re the “adults”) or they just completely ignore me and go on talking like they were. I’m am constantly the feminist killjoy at family dinners and get togethers, being a feminist killjoy has made me into the person I am today.

Word Count: 342

Citation:

Ahmed, S. (2017, January). Living a Feminist Life. Retrieved February 3, 2020, from https://www.dukeupress.edu/living-a-feminist-life 

[ashesandgender]

What is the ISA?

The International Symbol of Access, or ISA, is what people call the “handicap” symbol. This symbol is supposed to be placed all over the world for parking spots, doors, seating, etc. It’s supposed to let those who are disabled know if a facility is accessible to them. Yet, there are places that the ISA is not and that’s a big concern. One example on University of Kentucky Campus is that the Memorial Hall building has no disability access currently. The only disability entrance is being blocked by construction and there are only stairs at the other three entrances. This isn’t good for those who are disabled and have classes in Memorial Hall because they can’t attend the class which causes attendance and grading issues on their account because the campus has blocked off the only disability entrance to the building.

According to K. Fritsch, the ISA symbol “produces, capacitates, and debilitates disability in particular ways” (135). What this means is that the International Symbol of Access makes disability seem a certain way through ableism and compulsory able-bodiedness. The ISA symbol is a picture of a person in a wheelchair that is white on a blue background. With this image, the ISA is producing disability in a neoliberalist, ableist framework that is simply solved with a symbol placed on areas making the area accessible (135). In other words, the ISA does disability because it produces disability, happy feelings, and exclusionary forms of inclusion. The ISA produces disability “through a neoliberal, ableist logic, capacitating disability as an individualized problem that can be known and solved” (135). The ISA produces happy feelings by “reproducing the capacitation of particular productions of disability and leading to the limited inclusion of capacitated forms of disability within neoliberal economies” (135). In other words, the ISA produces happy ideas through “cruel optimism” (135). Lastly, the ISA produces exclusionary forms of inclusion by “allowing for the production of the ‘able-disabled’... while other debilitated disabled people face ‘slow death’” (135). This means that disability appears to be included through the ISA, but it actually excluded through a slow death.

Although this symbol has done a lot of good for those who are disabled, it isn’t good for the disability image and what they stand for because the symbol is placed with an ableist mind.

[ashesandgender]

Sexuality & Disability

“The idea of a sex life is ableist,” begins Siebers, “containing a discriminatory preference for ability over disability” (138). This is a very important idea that a lot of people do not understand or even think about. “People with disabilities do not always have this kind of sex life. On the one hand, the stigma of disability may interfere with having sex,” Siebers continues (138). In other words, the type of disability one has may prevent them from having sex in the first place. For example, a person that is paralyzed from the waist down most likely cannot perform for sex due to their disability. “On the other hand, the sexual activities of disabled people do not necessarily follow normative assumptions about what a sex life is. Neither fact means that people with disabilities do not exist as sexual beings” (138). What Siebers is talking about here is that those with a disability may not be able to have sex the “normal” way like people always assume, but either way, this does not mean that those who are disabled cannot have sexual feelings. This is also a stereotype: those who are disabled do not have or “experience” sexual feelings or “do not want to have sex” (138). I can tell you right now that this stereotype is complete bullshit. Just because one is disabled does not mean that they do not want to have sex or don’t experience sexual feelings. There are able bodies that do not want to have sex. They’re considered asexual, which is a sexuality. Therefore, even if a disabled person does not want to have sex, they still have a sexuality that is called asexual. Granted, some disabled persons may not identify as that. Either way, the idea that disabled persons do not want to have sex or don’t experience sexual feelings is invalid because there are plenty of disabled persons who have sex and/or experience sexual feelings. Those who have an invisible disability may still be able to perform in sex. I know that for me, for example, even with my invisible disability, that I love to have sex and that I do experience sexual feelings. DISABILITY DOES NOT MAKE ONE’S SEXUAL FEELINGS INVALID.

[ashesandgender]

Able-Mindedness

Able-mindedness is something a lot of people should be discussing. What is able-mindedness though? It is “a socially determined label of mental ability that broadly emcompasses a wide range of concepts such as rationality, intelligence, social awareness, self-control, and more,” according to Schalk (63). In other words, society labels who is able and who isn’t able due to how much they are able to function in society. If you are able to control yourself and be aware as well as rational, you are able-minded. Able-mindedness is different from ableism. Ableism is when you basically discriminate those who are disabled just because you are able to do things they cannot. This is different from able-mindedness because it is not socially constructed based on mental ability.

So why should able-mindedness be discussed? First of all, before reading Schalk, I had no idea that able-mindedness was a thing. This is important because that means basically everyone in “basic” society has no idea what able-mindedness is. I say this because I am a college student in my junior year with a disability studying Gender and Women’s Studies. I should already know about able-mindedness at this point, but I did not. So what does that mean for the rest of society, especially those who are not educated?

Another reason able-mindedness should be discussed more is because it is creating the future for ourselves. Like I said before, able-mindedness is socially constructed. This means that society is creating this picture of who is able and who isn’t. If society isn’t aware of what they are doing by showing that people who act irrational, who aren’t “smart”, or can’t control themselves are “disabled” when they are actually able, then there is no hope for society because at this point everyone would be labeled disabled when that simply is not true. That means those who are truly disabled will not get the help that they need because of this fact. Therefore, those who are disabled would be in the majority.

Able-mindedness needs to be discussed, people. Start thinking about it.

[ashesandgender]

Race & Disability

Race and disability are two completely different things, but sometimes they act one in the same. Sometimes people can also look up to those with disability (as previously mentioned in Unit One in our disability studies course). But let’s focus on what people look down upon. People look down upon those who are of color and people look down upon those with disability. All over the world but mostly in education. For example, the school-to-prison pipeline mostly contains those who are of color or those who are disabled. These people are “removed” from public spaces (such as schools) and sent into “isolation” (such as prison), according to Nirmala Erevelles in Crippin Jim Crow. They identify the school to prison pipeline as a “‘multidimensional process that funnels large numbers of minority students from the classroom into the adult prison system’” (82). When you think about this definition, what is the first thing that comes to your head? I can tell you that I think about how most of the prison system is mostly people of color. Yet, where do those who are disabled fall into this? In Julianne Hink’s Race, Disability and the School to Prison Pipeline, they talk about a boy named Amo who was looked at as disabled because he was having behavioral issues in the classroom. It got to the point where he had to have someone right there next to him in class to teach him how to control his behavior. The thing is, his behavior wasn’t due to some “disability” but because he was having problems at home. Hink claims in their article, “white students are more likely to be labeled ‘autistic’ than are students of color, while African-American students are at the highest risk of all races for being labeled with the broad term ‘specific learning disabilities.’” This is a very important quote in their article because it explains perfectly how race and disability are intertwined into the school-to-prison pipeline.

[ashesandgender]

Crip time is something that everyone in society needs to understand. When you get angry at someone for walking slowly in front of you, think that they might have an issue with their leg or their knee or whatever. I know when someone is driving very slowly in front of me and I pass them, I see that most times it is a disabled person or “crip.” Not everyone who is a crip does not drive slowly (because I consider myself disabled and I drive fast), but it definitely makes me not get angry at those who can’t help but drive slowly because they may not be able to process the signs or have the strength to put their foot down any harder. There are many different crips out there so society has to learn to respect those who need “crip time.” What exactly is crip time though? In Chapter One of Alison Kafer’s Feminist, Queer, Crip, she explains what crip time is: “As one slang dictionary puts it, ‘crip time’ means both ‘a flexible standard for punctuality’ and ‘the extra time needed to arrive or accomplish something.’ This need for ‘extra’ time might result from a slower gait, a dependency on attendants (who might  themselves  be  running  late),  malfunctioning  equipment  (from  wheelchairs  to hearing aids), a bus driver who refuses to stop for a disabled passenger, or an ableist encounter with a stranger that throws one off schedule” (26). Some of the examples that she gives are less subtle ones that one might not realize. One example was a bus driver passing up a disabled person who is waiting to get on. This bus driver might simply not want to deal with lowering the ramp, adjusting the seats to allow a wheelchair and clipping the wheelchair in place. This is crip time due to the driver not wanting to take the time to stop and help the disabled because it takes too much time. Sound inconsiderate? Because it is. Society needs to step up and help those who might need it and/or not get impatient and irritated when one can’t comprehend or do other things as quickly as those who are abled. Those who are abled are simply spoiled.

[ashesandgender]

Comparing Bodies is a Freak Show

What this world does is compare bodies. That's basically what this unit was about. The world looks at two different types of people and labels them "abled", "able-bodied" or even "normal" against "disabled" or "impaired." For example, Rosemarie Garland Thompson said that someone who can't lift a weight as low as 50 pounds is disabled compared to someone who can't lift 300 pounds (Thompson, 1997). Not lifting 300 pounds is normal compared to not being abled to lift 50 pounds. I can tell you right now that I can't carry 50 pounds. Does that make me disabled regardless of being able to walk, talk, and hear? "Invested with meanings that far outstrip their biological bases, figures such as the cripple, the quadroon, the queer, the outsider, the whore are taxonomical, ideological products marked by socially determined stigmata, defined through representation, and excluded from social power and status," says Thompson in Politicizing Bodily Differences (p. 8). In other words, society determines what's normal through how everyone represents themselves and if it's weird, you're disabled, queer, etc. This is what I meant in the beginning. They - meaning society and everyone who has authority to define what "disabled" means - all compare how each person functions and the majority usually always rules. That's why those who can't speak, hear, or walk are considered "disabled" and honestly that's not what this world needs. Everyone needs to quit looking at disability like it's "weird." These "freak shows" that are still around need to stop. When I go to my local county fair, they always have this massive tent up showing "the world's ugliest person" or "the world's freakiest man" and when you pay five dollars to see what the commotion is about, you find that it's a disabled person that usually can't help that they were born that way. I understand through our unit and talking about freak shows that some of these people offer to do it because it is their only way to make money because no one wants to hire them due to the way they look. Yet, a lot of these people are involuntarily doing this because they don't know what they've gotten themselves into until it's too late. Someone mentioned in class that there was this show about hoarders i think that didn't know they were being filmed until they saw it on tv. That's what it's like a lot of the time for those involved in "freak shows." This world needs to turn around and stop labeling those who can't do certain things as "disabled."

[ashesandgender]

Disability Needs To Be Seen In A Different Light.

People have plenty of assumptions when it comes to people who are disabled. A lot of people believe that disability is always visible and that those who are disabled are inspiring to people who are able. This applies to the supercrip narrative that Sami Schalk talked about. "The supercrip is indeed an unquestioned and potentially damaging stereotype of disability that must be challenged," explains Schalk in "Reevaluating the Supercrip." The reason that Schalk says the supercrip needs to be challenged is because a lot of people who are disabled do not want to be seen as heroic or inspiring just because of their disability. They don't want their disability be the only thing that is seen about them. Even though Schalk doesn't talk much about this, she talks about the term supercrip and how scholars use it in disability studies. Scholars do not understand the term supercrip all that well either. It is a "buzzword" as some would call it. (Side Note: A buzzword is a word that a lot of people will use but don't understand exactly what it means.) "Disability" is another term that a lot of people use that they don't understand completely what it means. "The term disability, as it has been used in general parlance, appears to signify something material and concrete, a physical or psychological condition considered to have predominantly medical significance," says Linton in "Reassining Meaning." "Yet it is an arbitrary designation, used erratically both by professionals who lay claim to naming such phenomena and by confused citizens." In other words, we need to "reassign meaning" to what disability is to understand completely what it means and how those who are disabled want to be treated. Instead of creating them as a supercrip because they are overcoming challenges that mostly only abled people can do, we should be granting them better access to other things. Giving them accessibility instead of making them into a person who is inspiring by something they cannot control. Disability needs to be discussed more and those who are disabled need to let their voices be heard.

[ashesandgender]

Prison Justice and Abolition

Something I learned from this weeks readings is that people actually consider getting rid of prisons. This is a very difficult issue to talk about because on one hand it doesn't make any sense at all to let murderers and rapists run free and the other hand it makes sense that prisons don't actually do any corrections or rehabilitation. Most people who are jailed turn around and get put back in jail within three years of being released. Like I mentioned in our facilitation, Taystee from Netflix original series "Orange Is The New Black" got placed back in prison three months after she was released because what she didn't realize is that her parole officer was going to be "up her ass like the KGB" and pretty much watch every move that she makes. First time she fucks up, BAM. Right back into prison. It's like they want them back in prison and not let them have a life. Being in prison, correctional officers don't care about anyone but themselves according to Jeff Smith, a real former inmate. You can also see this in OITNB. All they care about is themselves and not getting in the paper. Prisons offer nothing to help these people actually turn around.

I also learned that prison justice is also a feminist issue because women are not treated the same way as men. In the Women Behind Bars book that we read, the article "Problems With Women In Prison" mentions that women are usually locked up 75-100% of the time in county jails and co-ed prisons because prisons are built for men and when a women is placed in jail, the prison just simply has to "make do" for them (Velimesis, 6). Also what you hear about a lot is women getting raped in these prisons (even just women prisons) by their correctional officers (which is also seen as OITNB). Women are treated just as bad on the inside (if not worse) than the outside making this a feminist issue as well.

Prison abolition and prison justice is something that should be talked about and find some sort of resolution.

[ashesandgender]

WWRD?

The LGBTQIA+ community is always on the back burner when it comes to society. But transgenders are even more "at the back of the bus" as Sylvia Rivera put it (Gan, 2007). Transgenders are very confusing to most people so what they do is just try to shut them out and try to make them not exist. One example of this is Trump taking transgenders out of the military. His administration is also narrowly defining the term "sex", claiming that transgenders aren't protected by the civil rights law, and allowing schools to not be obligated to allow transgender students in their gender identity bathroom (Levenson, 2018).

One person who wouldn't stand for this happening right now is Sylvia Rivera. Rivera was a strong "self-identified" drag queen that many transgenders looked up to. She was there during the Stonewall riots and she was there through the second wave feminist movements. Hell, she's someone -I- look up to as a bisexual. Sylvia Rivera "consciously used her symbolic power as a Stonewall veteran to raise public awareness of anti-transgender oppression" says Jessi Gan, author of "'Still Back of the Bus': Sylvia Rivera's Struggle." Rivera would make her voice heard, make other transgenders stand up for themselves and try to get their voice back! Even though the Stonewall riots were violent and Rivera participated in them, I trust that Rivera would've learned about non-violent civil resistance and have others hear her out even more on transgender views. Rivera was not someone who would back down and that is truly inspiring.

People today still look up to her and try to imitate her behavior. The same year that Rivera died (2002), the Sylvia Rivera Law Project was formed. Their mission is to "work to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination or violence." These people who are supporting this project are trying to continue Rivera's legacy.

So what a lot of people in this project might say, "What Would Rivera Do?"

LINKS (that aren’t class readings):

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/politics/transgender-trump-protection-rollback-trnd/index.html

https://srlp.org/

[ashesandgender]

Homo is Normo

I'm so passionate about many different things in life so choosing a topic to write a manifesto about is very difficult. I think I'm going to go with LGBTQ life in a straight world. I already have a title that I'm tweaking called "Homo is Normo." I was going to completely flip the world and make it to where being gay or lesbian was actually the norm and being heterosexual was considered "abnormal." I was going to start it off like a story (or maybe make the whole thing a story, but in a manifest way). It was going to be about the story of a girl who has gay parents like every other kid in the world. But this girl liked boys instead of girls and she tries so hard to hide that because she doesn't want to get made fun of in school. She finds herself interested in this specific boy that has a boyfriend, but the girl and boy have kissed before and that kiss bothers her because she's not supposed to like it. She sinks into depression and starts to self harm because she doesn't want to come out as straight. She eventually commits suicide because she can't take it anymore after she comes out to her parents and her parents want to send her away to conversion therapy. I'm going to make it as emotional as possible so homophobic people can feel the pain that homosexuals do everyday because they are not accepted. How I'm going to make this manifest, I'm not completely sure yet. But I am actually very excited about writing this manifesto because it is something that I have experienced personally as I was not accepted as bisexual at first either. So this is very personal to me and I hope I can capture my audience with this odd story.