News Feed for 2012-05-12
- Moving story about being a transgender mom http://t.co/sTcA3Uqa #
Powered by Twitter Tools
News Feed for 2012-05-10
- “Equality, for all Americans(with provisos)” – Barack Obama: http://t.co/m0JiD0pd #
Powered by Twitter Tools
“I Believe in Marriage Equality” – Barack Obama
Today was quite depressing to wake up, to find that yet another state had decided to embed hate in its constitution, but it wasn’t unexpected, North Carolina is hardly a place in which equality is valued.
There’s already a law on the books banning marriage equality, but now they’ve stripped the rights, recognition and protections of all North Carolinian families who are unmarried. Now its not all bad news, all the rumblings from within the Whitehouse about marriage equality, something wonderful happened.
Now you can be cynical all you like, but finally, later than he should Barack Obama has stood up for the equal rights of lesbian and gay americans.
Sadly of course he recently refused to sign an executive order protecting employment rights for millions of LGBT americans working for US government contractors. Its still a good step forward, hopefully the first of many more.
Coming to terms with my Dragphobia
We all have our vulnerabilities, our prejudices, some come from philosophical differences (I can’t stand determinists) and some come from irrational, but rationalised fears (I think spiders are creepy because of their brain structures). Most of mine are harmless, unless of course i met a determinist sentient spider… but I do have a real and unpleasant phobia, and thats of Drag Queens.
Its also a gender bias thing, I have no problem with Drag Kings… but I wouldn’t say my dislike is irrational. As anyone who reads this blog at all knows, I’m a queer transgender woman. If you say transgendered to someone ignorant, the image that inevitably pops into their head is either gonna be Mrs Doubtfire/Tootsie/White Girls, or a Drag Queen.
So what should I care, I’m me, I’m awesome and if someone mistreats me, then I’m strong enough to tell them to go fuck themselves and walk away. The trouble is, its a more subtle association than that, and it still permeates our culture in so many ways. It varies from the idea of the “fake female” from Julie Bindel and her ilk, trying to deny trans-women access to lesbian spaces, to Focus on the Family fighting bathroom access bills talking about sexual predators using women’s rest rooms.
Its no better than the LG/BT divide, and with similar self serving reasons. I have a dislike of Drag Queens, because they challenge the defined space in which I try to exist. Thats not fair, and I should not let myself be scared by the ignorance of small minded people. Its the so called feminist who sees a woman and calls their womanhood “an act” who has the problem. Its the bigot who tries to label a woman as a potential predator, just because she’s being true to herself who has the problem.
Being a Drag Queen, is still about identity, about your right to express who you are. Queer rights itself is about identity and the right to express that identity. I’m wrong to be afraid of Drag Queens, and I’m not going to tolerate my prejudice any more.