There is a new website that I just found out about this afternoon, yet to be fully launched, but available and growing as a networking tool, resource and potential online home for our archive project.
Please check out
queervictoria.com
If you like what you see and want more, consider volunteering. The site needs people to volunteer as editors, approving postings and the like, and also is needing a group to help write up a policy/statement on terms of use and acceptable material etc. If you are interested please contact the site admin: editor(at)queervictoria.com
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Organizing Meetings and Safe Spaces
As I have written before, safe queer space in Victoria is something I feel passionate about. "Queer" spaces that are not safe for myself, my friends or anyone from my community are missing something big. It's a something about human rights, about human decency and about humanity. Brutal attacks on anyones safety especially anything in an apparently queer space is absolutely unacceptable.
This conversation has resurfaced after last Sunday, when the local drag king/performance troupe took to the stage at the one local gay bar and attempted to make a musical joke out of every racist stereotype out there. I hope they got the point that racism is not a joke when more than half the audience left, even after a public apology, prompted by audience complaints. I believe that the crowd didn't leave because they wanted to make a statement however. I believe the audience members left because they had been brutalized, shocked, and made to feel that they were not safe in that space, and at that they were at the potential mercy of performers who'd attempted to make hate funny. I may add that these performers were visibly white. Performing a number attempting to downplay racism. It may have been a response to complaints about racist material they had in their previous show , or not. But it reminded me of something I experienced in Albany last year.
I was in the Free School community while the organizing structure of this neighborhood with its own alternative school, community banking alternative, housing organization, parks, natural building projects, gardens, community art space etc, was being called out on its racism. Things were not being said, and nothing as greatly offensive was happening in the open. It was a conversation being had in a community about the bigger picture. Why an organized community wasn't organized to ensure equality, and committed to working towards toppling the dominant power paradigms of the oppressive world around us. It was complex at times, and heavy, but it was a community, not unlike the queer community in Victoria, which had come to the time in which it must realize that it becomes a safe, inclusive group dedicated to unity and combating the isms that pit us against one another and leave us on different rungs of the power ladder or we divide. And to be honest, we all lose out when we divide.
The time has come that all major organizing bodies within the queer world of Victoria (and across the board) need to adopt policies of anti-oppression. Ensuring that the spaces which they hold promote inclusivity, safety and awareness. Currently there are too many situations in which a marginalized section of the already marginalized queer community, whether it be queer people of colour, trans people, people with disabilities, queers of different body sizes etc are made to feel unwelcome, unsafe or not included in events, activities, spaces etc.
The time to move is now, and as some times happens in spring time, local activists and advocates, policy makers and enraged public are coming out of the wood work to undertake a large and very important project.
It has three basic parts:
1) Archiving the history of trans and queer activism and advocacy in Victoria.
2)Networking queers and allies with each other and the resources we have available to us.
3)Finding people who can work on drafting a safe space/anti-oppression policy for our organizations and the spaces we use; lobbying for that policy to be adopted and adhered to.
The meeting where all this will go down will be at Swans Hotel, in the Collard Room, on Sunday May 11th from 2-6. This space has a wheelchair accessible entrance on Store St, and a single stall accessible non-gendered washroom. Child care is available with prior arrangement by calling 381-0994. Beer is brewed and available on site and food can be ordered. Please bring any documents you may like to share with the group, stories, contacts, and remember that this space will work to be as safe and accessible as possible, and no hate will be tolerated.
This conversation has resurfaced after last Sunday, when the local drag king/performance troupe took to the stage at the one local gay bar and attempted to make a musical joke out of every racist stereotype out there. I hope they got the point that racism is not a joke when more than half the audience left, even after a public apology, prompted by audience complaints. I believe that the crowd didn't leave because they wanted to make a statement however. I believe the audience members left because they had been brutalized, shocked, and made to feel that they were not safe in that space, and at that they were at the potential mercy of performers who'd attempted to make hate funny. I may add that these performers were visibly white. Performing a number attempting to downplay racism. It may have been a response to complaints about racist material they had in their previous show , or not. But it reminded me of something I experienced in Albany last year.
I was in the Free School community while the organizing structure of this neighborhood with its own alternative school, community banking alternative, housing organization, parks, natural building projects, gardens, community art space etc, was being called out on its racism. Things were not being said, and nothing as greatly offensive was happening in the open. It was a conversation being had in a community about the bigger picture. Why an organized community wasn't organized to ensure equality, and committed to working towards toppling the dominant power paradigms of the oppressive world around us. It was complex at times, and heavy, but it was a community, not unlike the queer community in Victoria, which had come to the time in which it must realize that it becomes a safe, inclusive group dedicated to unity and combating the isms that pit us against one another and leave us on different rungs of the power ladder or we divide. And to be honest, we all lose out when we divide.
The time has come that all major organizing bodies within the queer world of Victoria (and across the board) need to adopt policies of anti-oppression. Ensuring that the spaces which they hold promote inclusivity, safety and awareness. Currently there are too many situations in which a marginalized section of the already marginalized queer community, whether it be queer people of colour, trans people, people with disabilities, queers of different body sizes etc are made to feel unwelcome, unsafe or not included in events, activities, spaces etc.
The time to move is now, and as some times happens in spring time, local activists and advocates, policy makers and enraged public are coming out of the wood work to undertake a large and very important project.
It has three basic parts:
1) Archiving the history of trans and queer activism and advocacy in Victoria.
2)Networking queers and allies with each other and the resources we have available to us.
3)Finding people who can work on drafting a safe space/anti-oppression policy for our organizations and the spaces we use; lobbying for that policy to be adopted and adhered to.
The meeting where all this will go down will be at Swans Hotel, in the Collard Room, on Sunday May 11th from 2-6. This space has a wheelchair accessible entrance on Store St, and a single stall accessible non-gendered washroom. Child care is available with prior arrangement by calling 381-0994. Beer is brewed and available on site and food can be ordered. Please bring any documents you may like to share with the group, stories, contacts, and remember that this space will work to be as safe and accessible as possible, and no hate will be tolerated.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Cisgendered- A Definition from the Urban Dictionary
| 1. | cisgendered |
| |||
| adj form of cisgender Some of my friends are trans, but I'm cisgendered. | |||||
| 2. | cisgendered |
| |||
| Not transgender, that is, having a gender identity or gender role that society considers appropriate for the sex one was assigned at birth. The prefix cis- is pronounced like "sis". John is cisgendered, he just holds to his role as a stereotypical male. | |||||
Safe Queer Spaces
Victoria is a town with a few too few queer spaces. In fact, it is a town with one gay bar, that gets away with too much because it is the only one. Without competition management doesn't need to hold agreements with performers as sacred, because they don't really have an option to go somewhere else. The lack of variety also has a double edged knife effect on the crowd, especially on weekends. It is THE leather bar, THE dyke bar, THE twink bar, THE bear den, THE queer space with a liquor license and a dance floor. Sometimes the mixing of everyone all together feels like a big happy rainbow splattered gay family, and other times it makes me want to throw up on people for being so disrespectful and ignorant.
Friday night was the UVIC Women's Studies pub crawl, so the crowd in the bar by the end of the night was pretty feminist heavy, usually a good thing to have a bar full of people who have some sort of understanding of privilege of safety, but one can't judge the whole bar by a core sample. Somehow, for whatever reason I am not entirely sure, but every week there seem to be a few straight couples that find their way into the bar. I appreciate and acknowledge that sexual orientation is not always as it seems, and sometimes the most het looking couples are really as queer as fuck, but then you get the ignorant ones. The man and woman couple who have never had to question or notice their straight cisgendered privilege. The straight couple that somehow end up in the mens bathroom at the gay bar at closing time.
I stand over the toilet, emptying my whisky filled bladder, I hear a woman enter, with her boyfriend.
"Cock lovers, I need to piss, oh fuckin cock lovers I need the can... "
I can only guess she is in here as to not be more than 5 ft from her boytoy therefore preventing her becoming potential lesbian bait.
My stream becomes a dribble and I pull my pants up and walk out of the stall, the urinals to my left.
"Yeah, I can piss in the urinal just look at my huge cock, don't you just love it?"
I avoid eye contact with the girl. Make my way over to the sink to wash my hands. She turns and follows me, approaches me, "You have to excuse me, I'm not judgemental, I don't want to judge you, but I saw you out there dancing, I think you are beautiful, I just want to know something."
"Oh ya?"
"Are you a man or a woman? Cause I saw your big hoop earrings and your breasts and I assumed, but then you come out of the stall in the men's room where you were obviously just standing and pissing into the toilet and your voice, and your moustache and well. I am not judgemental, I just want to know."
"Oh ya, so you want to know which pronoun you should be using when you want to gossip about me later? A much more respectful way to ask that would be privately, asking if I had a perferred pronoun, but thats not something I would usually give up in a first conversation with someone, especially if that was the entire context of conversation."
"I am not trying to be disrespectful, I just want to know."
"Well maybe my gender isn't public knowledge. Also- So you know, it would probs be better to just avoid the use of pronouns or gendering if you are wanting to shit talk someone that you couldn't peg their gender. It's not appropriate to ask, it's none of your business, so when you are wanting to gossip about me later you could just refer to me as the person at the bar with a completely confusing and indeterminate gender. That'd be just fine for me."
"But honey, I think you are beautiful, I just well... want to know if you are a man or woman."
"Ok honey, maybe you didn't get that I am not going to tell you, and as a very important lesson- NEVER EVER question someones gender in a mens bathroom."
"But, i'm out of place too, I am a woman in the mens room."
"True, and you will walk out of here and still be a woman who was in the mens room."
"I walk out and I am that freak, the one that is going to get their ass kicked, or just not given the same opportunity to get fucked cause some bitch in the bathroom felt that it was her job to attract attention to my confusing gender in the mens room. Maybe you don't understand the safety concern here, people die over this shit."
Boyfriend comes out of the stall, "If it's MtF just call it a trans."
"It is not an appropriate neutral pronoun, and you are wrong about me."
I turn and exit. Leaving the hets in the mens room left to puzzle over my gender I grab my coats. On the way out I follow them up the stairs and hear her say,
"God, why do some people get soooo defensive?"
On that note I'd like to get some business cards printed with my web address for such situations, so I can just say,
"This space has certain guidelines of respect, you crossed the line, and if you don't understand what I am saying, or what it means to be respectful i'd ask you to please stop asking me what my gender is, and instead read up about why I might not want to tell you."
Anyone have printing hookups?
Friday night was the UVIC Women's Studies pub crawl, so the crowd in the bar by the end of the night was pretty feminist heavy, usually a good thing to have a bar full of people who have some sort of understanding of privilege of safety, but one can't judge the whole bar by a core sample. Somehow, for whatever reason I am not entirely sure, but every week there seem to be a few straight couples that find their way into the bar. I appreciate and acknowledge that sexual orientation is not always as it seems, and sometimes the most het looking couples are really as queer as fuck, but then you get the ignorant ones. The man and woman couple who have never had to question or notice their straight cisgendered privilege. The straight couple that somehow end up in the mens bathroom at the gay bar at closing time.
I stand over the toilet, emptying my whisky filled bladder, I hear a woman enter, with her boyfriend.
"Cock lovers, I need to piss, oh fuckin cock lovers I need the can... "
I can only guess she is in here as to not be more than 5 ft from her boytoy therefore preventing her becoming potential lesbian bait.
My stream becomes a dribble and I pull my pants up and walk out of the stall, the urinals to my left.
"Yeah, I can piss in the urinal just look at my huge cock, don't you just love it?"
I avoid eye contact with the girl. Make my way over to the sink to wash my hands. She turns and follows me, approaches me, "You have to excuse me, I'm not judgemental, I don't want to judge you, but I saw you out there dancing, I think you are beautiful, I just want to know something."
"Oh ya?"
"Are you a man or a woman? Cause I saw your big hoop earrings and your breasts and I assumed, but then you come out of the stall in the men's room where you were obviously just standing and pissing into the toilet and your voice, and your moustache and well. I am not judgemental, I just want to know."
"Oh ya, so you want to know which pronoun you should be using when you want to gossip about me later? A much more respectful way to ask that would be privately, asking if I had a perferred pronoun, but thats not something I would usually give up in a first conversation with someone, especially if that was the entire context of conversation."
"I am not trying to be disrespectful, I just want to know."
"Well maybe my gender isn't public knowledge. Also- So you know, it would probs be better to just avoid the use of pronouns or gendering if you are wanting to shit talk someone that you couldn't peg their gender. It's not appropriate to ask, it's none of your business, so when you are wanting to gossip about me later you could just refer to me as the person at the bar with a completely confusing and indeterminate gender. That'd be just fine for me."
"But honey, I think you are beautiful, I just well... want to know if you are a man or woman."
"Ok honey, maybe you didn't get that I am not going to tell you, and as a very important lesson- NEVER EVER question someones gender in a mens bathroom."
"But, i'm out of place too, I am a woman in the mens room."
"True, and you will walk out of here and still be a woman who was in the mens room."
"I walk out and I am that freak, the one that is going to get their ass kicked, or just not given the same opportunity to get fucked cause some bitch in the bathroom felt that it was her job to attract attention to my confusing gender in the mens room. Maybe you don't understand the safety concern here, people die over this shit."
Boyfriend comes out of the stall, "If it's MtF just call it a trans."
"It is not an appropriate neutral pronoun, and you are wrong about me."
I turn and exit. Leaving the hets in the mens room left to puzzle over my gender I grab my coats. On the way out I follow them up the stairs and hear her say,
"God, why do some people get soooo defensive?"
On that note I'd like to get some business cards printed with my web address for such situations, so I can just say,
"This space has certain guidelines of respect, you crossed the line, and if you don't understand what I am saying, or what it means to be respectful i'd ask you to please stop asking me what my gender is, and instead read up about why I might not want to tell you."
Anyone have printing hookups?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Trans Day of Resistance Speeches: HK Doty
We don't fit into the assigned. We feel cramped in the restriction and out of place in the norms. It takes some of us years, or a lifetime to find the why or how. Repositioning where we fit on the one or another of binary gender.
We inject, ingest, digest, dissect and reconstruct our bodies and identities to find some place we can fit better.
OVERWHELMING, FRIGHTENING, MIND BOGGLING
I find myself naked, leaning on the bathroom counter. Shower steam thick, smell of alcohol swabs increasing the nausea caused from the inch and a half needle loaded with testosterone in my hand. Destination: Glute.
Marked
Aimed
And my arm freezes. A slight prick of blood starts to drip out of my cheek and a flush fills my face. I become dizzy, fall to my knees and hold the syringe in hand.
"Maybe you have such trouble doing your own shots because you shouldn't be taking them."
A stronger, sharper pain strikes deeper at the thought.
SELF DOUBT, INSECURITY, A TEST.
I mean after all gender is just a construct right?
Could I move past the "need" to transition.
Theoretically, But theory is always written by someone else. We all have unique personal experience of gender. For some of us it's something consistent, others can't track a common gender from day to day. And we all have our own way of understanding and feeling that out.
Unfortunately there is a common misconception that transitioning is a common journey, with a beginning, middle and end. The very terminology we use to describe trans genders implies this. Male to Female, Female to Male. Transition complete.
When applying for social assistance a couple of years ago I listed my transitional gender as a barrier to my employability because I found that my confusing gender didn't lure peopel into hiring me, but instead not knowing how to read me, dismissal was an easier option. The woman asked for clarification, "So you were born female, becoming male?"
Simplest Answer: Yes.
"So when will you be done?"
Simplest Answer: We won't.
This isn't something that is at any point done. We aren't going anywhere. We aren't going to dissappear into binary genders, as much as some of us want to, and do, we all start somewhere and there will always be someone finding their way, and many of us who find that our way is NOT to one or another binary gender. Although this is not a lesson easily unlearned. We gender from birth, before even. In utero the question, "Is it a boy of a girl?", is the first asked after fertilization. We learn as children that a misgendering is embarrassing and as young adults that it is a fearful disgusting insult. The medical system that holds the keys to prescribed assistance requires a certain understanding of one's gender and associated dysphoria to even become accessible.
Luckily there exists an alternative. A small but growing number of us who don't fit into the boxes on M or F questionnaires. We resist using our transitions to reinforce binaries and our allies who are teaming up for events like today's. Just this past year we have seen the forming of a trans alliance here at UVIC. We have see the first Trans Day of Remembrance in Victoria this past November memorializing the trans people who've been victimized in violent crimes since the previous November. We have seen a collective resistance to transphobic policies at a catholic hospital in Vancouver which refused to perform a scheduled non- SRS surgery on our friend when they discovered he was trans. We have seen growing numbers at drag and gender bending shows throughout Victoria. We have seen the formation of a collective to plan a surgery fund raiser to help pay for his eight thousand dollar chest reconstruction. We have seen close to 200 people come out and support that fund raiser and friends and allies banding together to provide post-surgical care for members of our community.
And now here we are, collecting together to stand up against fear driven violence, transphobic decisions at the hands of government, like for example the recent decision to cancel all in province SRS surgeries despite trained and talented doctors in Vancouver waiting to help us, and the everyday challenges thrown at us by living in a world obsessed with binary gender.
By being here with us today you are making a difference, I invite you to join us this afternoon to learn more- learn ways to be a better ally and make this campus, this city and our world a safer and more diverse place for us to all live.
We inject, ingest, digest, dissect and reconstruct our bodies and identities to find some place we can fit better.
OVERWHELMING, FRIGHTENING, MIND BOGGLING
I find myself naked, leaning on the bathroom counter. Shower steam thick, smell of alcohol swabs increasing the nausea caused from the inch and a half needle loaded with testosterone in my hand. Destination: Glute.
Marked
Aimed
And my arm freezes. A slight prick of blood starts to drip out of my cheek and a flush fills my face. I become dizzy, fall to my knees and hold the syringe in hand.
"Maybe you have such trouble doing your own shots because you shouldn't be taking them."
A stronger, sharper pain strikes deeper at the thought.
SELF DOUBT, INSECURITY, A TEST.
I mean after all gender is just a construct right?
Could I move past the "need" to transition.
Theoretically, But theory is always written by someone else. We all have unique personal experience of gender. For some of us it's something consistent, others can't track a common gender from day to day. And we all have our own way of understanding and feeling that out.
Unfortunately there is a common misconception that transitioning is a common journey, with a beginning, middle and end. The very terminology we use to describe trans genders implies this. Male to Female, Female to Male. Transition complete.
When applying for social assistance a couple of years ago I listed my transitional gender as a barrier to my employability because I found that my confusing gender didn't lure peopel into hiring me, but instead not knowing how to read me, dismissal was an easier option. The woman asked for clarification, "So you were born female, becoming male?"
Simplest Answer: Yes.
"So when will you be done?"
Simplest Answer: We won't.
This isn't something that is at any point done. We aren't going anywhere. We aren't going to dissappear into binary genders, as much as some of us want to, and do, we all start somewhere and there will always be someone finding their way, and many of us who find that our way is NOT to one or another binary gender. Although this is not a lesson easily unlearned. We gender from birth, before even. In utero the question, "Is it a boy of a girl?", is the first asked after fertilization. We learn as children that a misgendering is embarrassing and as young adults that it is a fearful disgusting insult. The medical system that holds the keys to prescribed assistance requires a certain understanding of one's gender and associated dysphoria to even become accessible.
Luckily there exists an alternative. A small but growing number of us who don't fit into the boxes on M or F questionnaires. We resist using our transitions to reinforce binaries and our allies who are teaming up for events like today's. Just this past year we have seen the forming of a trans alliance here at UVIC. We have see the first Trans Day of Remembrance in Victoria this past November memorializing the trans people who've been victimized in violent crimes since the previous November. We have seen a collective resistance to transphobic policies at a catholic hospital in Vancouver which refused to perform a scheduled non- SRS surgery on our friend when they discovered he was trans. We have seen growing numbers at drag and gender bending shows throughout Victoria. We have seen the formation of a collective to plan a surgery fund raiser to help pay for his eight thousand dollar chest reconstruction. We have seen close to 200 people come out and support that fund raiser and friends and allies banding together to provide post-surgical care for members of our community.
And now here we are, collecting together to stand up against fear driven violence, transphobic decisions at the hands of government, like for example the recent decision to cancel all in province SRS surgeries despite trained and talented doctors in Vancouver waiting to help us, and the everyday challenges thrown at us by living in a world obsessed with binary gender.
By being here with us today you are making a difference, I invite you to join us this afternoon to learn more- learn ways to be a better ally and make this campus, this city and our world a safer and more diverse place for us to all live.
Trans Day of Resistance Speeches: List of Names
Sally Camatoy: Dubai, November 19 2007. Found Dead on the pavement near Sharjah Mall, after going to a nearby computer shop around noon.
Kellie Telesford, London, November 21 2008. Found at her home on Leander Rd, Thorton Heath, on 22nd November 2007, strangled to death.
Elly Susanna, Jakarta, November 7th 2007. Killed during a police raid, her body was found partially undresses and signs show she was raped, likely by the police.
Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz, Santiago Chile, died on December 28th 2007 after being stabbed in the throat. She and a pair of colleagues were reportedly working a street corner when they were approached and attacked by a group.
Patrick Murphy, Albuquerque, NM, January 8th 2008, Shot three times in the head by a long time lover, after apparently calling him "an ass."
Stacy Brown, Baltimore, January 8 2008. Found dead inside a house in the 300 block of W. North Avenue near Gwynns Falls Park. Shot in the head, in the house shared with Brown's mother and sister. People were home when police arrivede, but have yet to explain the circumstances of Brown's death.
Fedra, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, January 22 2008. Found lying face up in a pool of blood in an alley.
Three unnamed trans people (plus 7 gay men) reported missing in Iraq, on January 24 2008. Taken by a Shiite cleansing campaign. Missing, presumed dead.
Ashley Sweeny, Detroit, February 4th 2008. Shot in the head. Her body was later found dumped in the east side.
Saesha Stewart, New York, February 9th 2008. Stabbed by an ex-con who discovered that she was transgendered.
Lawrence King, Oxnard CA, February 12 2008. Shot in the head by a classmate in their middle school computer lab.
Simmie Williams, Fort Lauderdale, FL, February 22 2008. Gunned down by two young men for wearing a dress.
Adolphus Simmons, Charleston, SC, February 22 2008. Found bleeding from gunshot wounds on the front steps, died while waiting for the paramedics.
Lars Watson, Jan 06 2008. The human heart does not pause for pronouns. It just keeps beating until it stops. Lars was genderqueer and the daily grinding down got to them.
Cameron McWilliams February 15th 2008, committed suicide after telling their mother they wanted to wear make up and being told they weren't allowed. The mother had previously teased Cameron for wearing thier sisters underwear. Cameron was 10.
Kellie Telesford, London, November 21 2008. Found at her home on Leander Rd, Thorton Heath, on 22nd November 2007, strangled to death.
Elly Susanna, Jakarta, November 7th 2007. Killed during a police raid, her body was found partially undresses and signs show she was raped, likely by the police.
Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz, Santiago Chile, died on December 28th 2007 after being stabbed in the throat. She and a pair of colleagues were reportedly working a street corner when they were approached and attacked by a group.
Patrick Murphy, Albuquerque, NM, January 8th 2008, Shot three times in the head by a long time lover, after apparently calling him "an ass."
Stacy Brown, Baltimore, January 8 2008. Found dead inside a house in the 300 block of W. North Avenue near Gwynns Falls Park. Shot in the head, in the house shared with Brown's mother and sister. People were home when police arrivede, but have yet to explain the circumstances of Brown's death.
Fedra, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, January 22 2008. Found lying face up in a pool of blood in an alley.
Three unnamed trans people (plus 7 gay men) reported missing in Iraq, on January 24 2008. Taken by a Shiite cleansing campaign. Missing, presumed dead.
Ashley Sweeny, Detroit, February 4th 2008. Shot in the head. Her body was later found dumped in the east side.
Saesha Stewart, New York, February 9th 2008. Stabbed by an ex-con who discovered that she was transgendered.
Lawrence King, Oxnard CA, February 12 2008. Shot in the head by a classmate in their middle school computer lab.
Simmie Williams, Fort Lauderdale, FL, February 22 2008. Gunned down by two young men for wearing a dress.
Adolphus Simmons, Charleston, SC, February 22 2008. Found bleeding from gunshot wounds on the front steps, died while waiting for the paramedics.
Lars Watson, Jan 06 2008. The human heart does not pause for pronouns. It just keeps beating until it stops. Lars was genderqueer and the daily grinding down got to them.
Cameron McWilliams February 15th 2008, committed suicide after telling their mother they wanted to wear make up and being told they weren't allowed. The mother had previously teased Cameron for wearing thier sisters underwear. Cameron was 10.
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