new update with some duotone close-ups & info, some color stages, and some half-tone thinking from the new Recycle-A-Bike poster that I just finished!!!
the only thing I have to say about this that needs to be said in any kind of public forum is that YES, transitioning to live as male is EASIER than living as a lady, FOR A TRANS MAN. if you are a female-identified queer powerful lady, it wouldn’t be easier: transitioning to live as male would be weird & awkward & would make your body fit you less well. OF COURSE your former girlfriends’ lives were easier after transitioning — they were doing what they needed to do to make their bodies & minds fit their senses of themselves.
when I was trying really hard to be a girl (ages 14-30, roughly) I was resentful of trans men because I saw them as taking the “easy way out” of the difficulties of being female… and I thought that every woman I saw who seemed comfortable with her body, wearing feminine clothes with ease, etc, had struggled with the same things I had and had successfully “gotten over them” to achieve “being a woman”.
it took a radical shift in understanding to let me realize that not every person’s or every woman’s experience is the same as mine (hey, whaddya know!) and that my physical experience of my body was just my own, nobody else’s. also I realized that that kind of body experience has been described & understood by others as a transmasculine experience, and that living as male is a legitimate path towards making things better for myself.
transitioning & living as male doesn’t mean “joining ‘team man’” (no fags allowed on that team, I think!) or running away from the difficulties of “being a woman in society” (often those difficulties are compounded!), but it does mean that I can work towards being comfortable in my body & stop avoiding dealing with my physical existence… which is pretty crucial to staying alive, for me, right now. I am doing the right stuff to keep existing, as far as I can see / as far as the path leads… this is me being present as myself & standing up for myself — no apologies.
<3
There is currently a 70-comment thread on a trans friend’s Facebook wall in which a really straight mom defended her inability to remember people’s pronouns by saying she had too many other things to think about, and then when people got offended this was how she began her response. I mean come on now.
perfect temperature for printing transparent color tonight
Joey Quits: Hotel Workers' Stories: In 29 States, You Can Be Fired for Being Gay -
All the recent coverage of gay marriage and “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” fails to mention what’s possibly an even bigger issue for LGBTQ people: there’s no federal law banning employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity.
Some states and cities have…
the fact that these exist “In Real Life” (as it were) is an awesome testament to the power of imagination to make desired worlds real. <3 <3 <3
GLAMARCHY! I NEED TO MAKE THESE IRL
I want them alllll.
operation sappho! glamarchy! WANT.
by amazing MARY “MACK” TREMONTE of justseeds!! http://www.marymacktremonte.org/
u can buy queer scouts patches and the above poster here: http://www.justseeds.org/artists/mary_tremonte/
<3<3
(Source: youaintthatfierce)
VICTORY: Incarcerated Transgender & Gender Non Conforming People & Allies Successfully Campaign For New Polices To End Prison Rape & Abuse
A culmination of 9 years of work, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project marks the release of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Standards to…
pushed to make decisions through desperation & crisis -
a phenomenon in my life right now, paralleling into much needed cleanup & organizing of my main working space. SO DIFFICULT. tackling all the strange hard weird parts. read more at the link.
classic amherst elements
Amherst 2011
wow, I didn’t remember how much Julia’s look has drastically changed since last summer!
whoa cool! thanks leonore!
Mindy & Julia 2011
Mothers News Year 3 PUNCH IT
“failing to succeed: illusions of a utopian dream”
queer performance/video night at Al Dios No Conocido, Providence… 8:30pm, free, awesome!
featuring work by:
Delia Kovac
J.R. Uretsky
Katie Laub
Katrina Silander Clark
Leigh Hendrix
Olivia Horvath
Sarah L. Reiter
(three of the above people are patchthatsweater, notcops, and tuffguy, but to slightly obscure their identities I should probably not link the names to the tumbles…)
from the facebook page of Stonewall Youth, a LGBTQQIA organization in Olympia Washington. <3
hfml:
From Yasmin Nair of Against Equality:
“I know this will seem obvious to what is, after all, the Facebook page for Against Equality. But sometimes, the obvious needs to be stated, especially in the face of an overwhelming tide of forgetfulness and a disregard for the larger context in which gay marriage operates.
Gay marriage is not simply about “love” and “commitment” between sweet and adoring couples who “just” want to get married. It is a multi-million dollar campaign waged and controlled by some of the most powerful non-profits and richest gay neoliberals, and it is about a systemic disregard for those who want no part of an institution that continues to oppress women, children, and anyone who does not fit the norm. Dan Savage and others who celebrate this recent Obama declaration might want to pay heed to how much the Prez has damned and shamed anyone who is NOT in a “normal” marriage: Three-ways, begone! No more rights for you if you dare have an open relationship! But much more importantly: Gay marriage is one more spoke in the wheel of the neoliberal state; it persuades us to forget that, in a world driving relentlessly towards the privatisation of what should be the most basic benefits like health care, water, electricity, the air we breathe, “rights” discourse has become the most effective way to prioritise the wants of the very, very few against the greater good and the often desperate needs of the many.
When gays and straights celebrate Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, they are admittedly celebrating what might look like a common-sense matter: the end of a discriminatory practice that willfully excludes some from an institution. BUT, and here is the very large “but” to which I wish they would pay heed: gay marriage, particularly in the United States, is an argument not for inclusion but for denying benefits to those who choose not to get married, gay or straight. In states like MA and CT, you HAVE to get married to get health care for your spouse, or face the consequences - watch your partner die without insurance. If gay marriage were simply about “leveling the playing field,” its advocates would have first refused to compromise the health of the unmarried and taken the more ethical stance that health care needed to be de-linked from marriage and that marriage ought simply to be a civil/private/religious matter. But they didn’t, so they’re perfectly aware of and support the discrimination that is written into marriage and the state. Just as importantly: Obama’s statement allows gay marriage supporters, gay and straight to forget the harsher truths of his administration: He has deported more people than both Bush II administrations combined, continues to wage war on nations, accepted the fucking Nobel PEACE Prize with a statement about the necessity of war, thinks indefinite detention without trial is just fine and dandy, is in bed with multi-billionaires (including several gay ones, natch) and will compromise your abortion rights if he thinks it will get him more votes. The man plays to win: He made this statement based on advisors telling him how popular it would with be a rich and powerful gay lobby. The only thing this statement proves is that gays now constitute one of the most powerful political lobbies in this country, not the rightness of this cause or the worth of relationships which have never needed state legitimacy to survive. And here’s why gay marriage will never do a damn thing for most of you. Your tits will rot in hell, but they will look so divine in those tuxes and gowns. Evolve Already. See this for what it is.”
((emphasis mine))
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