Real Life Ain't a Game

Ever play the "Game of Life" when you were growing up? It's a bit
of a favorite past-time for my aunt and I. We'd play if we had the chance when my mother brought the family to her home state of Florida on vacation over the summer. While not exactly my favorite game of all time [though it still greatly amuses me that the only time I remember winning was when I played my little peg as a lesbian], it never occurred to me to question why the pegs were only colored in pink and blue. Oh sure, I remember wanting to play with the blue peg because I didn't like pink-I would have really preferred red-but I never thought about how much the game plays into the binary of heteronormativity.
Let's think about how the "Game of Life" can parallel Feinberg's Transliberation: Beyond Pink or Blue. Sie tells us,

"...if you do not identify as transgender or transsexual or intersexual, your life is diminished by our oppression as well. Your own choices as a man or a woman are sharply curtailed. Your individual journey to express yourself is shunted into one of two deeply carved ruts, and the social baggage you are handed is already packed." (pg. 6)

If you look at the game board, you'll notice that there is no deviation in the life course you are expected to follow. You go to school, get married, have a few ankle-biters, eventually retire, so forth so on. There are no single parents in the game, no alternative sexualities, no allowance for class or race even. Sure, just like in real life, you can encounter hardships such as tax fines or losing your job, etc, but pretty much everyone is on a level-heterosexualized, mind you-playing field. As most of us know, real life just isn't this way. For individuals like Feinberg, those whose gender cannot be easily defined by a simple glance, who prefer to be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns, being different means more than just liking a different color. It means that you can be punished for a simple choice of dress, turned away from a perspective job, and even denied basic health care all because you don't fit into that neat heteronormative binary that the general masses are very set and comfortable in. But it isn't just the "queer" that face the bigotry in this world for not fitting into the stereotypes. It's anyone who does not fit into the norm.
And in this mess of trying to "pass", of trying to just be normal, why is the debate between choice vs. nature matter so much for homosexuality? The simplicity of this concept is exactly what gives the mess its complexity: if it can be proven that being gay or being "other" is a simple factor of genetics, then there is possibility that it can be changed. "History indicates that current genetic research is likely to have negative effects on lesbians and gay men, particularly those living in homophobic societies." (Schuklenk, Stein, Kerinm, and Byne, pg 50) If geneticists are eventually able to alter a person's DNA for the parent who wants their child to have blue eyes instead of brown, to be tall and thin instead of petite and rubinesque, what's to stop them for also wanting that bit of genetic soup eradicated that determines one's sexual orientation so that their child doesn't deviate from what is considered to be "normal".
Consider this: if we were all alike, the world could (possibly) be a peaceful one-there would be no reason to persecute others because of their differences-, but it'd be pretty damned dull. We can add so much to the richness of each other's lives if we could only learn to celebrate one another's uniqueness.

A Mental Mind Fuck Can('t) Be Nice

"It's something you'll get use to/A mental mind fuck can be nice" - Dr. Frank 'n' Furter (Tim Curry), in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

Like the hilarious doctor says, a mental mind fuck can be a great thing. Think about it. You can allow your mind the freedom of an imaginary encounter with anyone you choose without any of the realistic consequences. Imagination can be exhilarating, a lucid dream in the daytime. But a mind fuck can be more than one thing. While it is a great way of escapism for some, for others it's just another way of suffering the real life torment and anguish that plagues them beyond their daily existence and into the chaos of their mind space.

"Tell me, though," I added, and shifted my shoulders like Aunt Dot leaning into a joke, "if people really believed that rape made lesbians, and brutal fathers made dykes, wouldn't they be more eager to do something about it?" -Dorothy Allison (46)

As Allison begins to pose in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure , if it were any one thing that lead to the victimization of women and children, don't you think more people would be raring to get down and dirty and do something to really make a change for those affected? While I don't agree that it's violence or choice that makes someone gay, I think it's clearly evident that the brutalities that those who endure rape and abuse will affect them physically and emotionally for the rest of their lives. For those like Allison, who were able to stand up to their abusers and eventually come to terms, after a fashion, with what happened to them, it is truly amazing to see how bravely and boldly they can speak out against the atrocities they suffered. Allison's blunt honesty is quite frankly refreshing and truly inspiring.

But what about the victims who don't have a voice? Crenshaw, quoting Diana Campos states in "Mapping the Margins" that "It is unfair to impose more stress on victims by placing them in the position of having to demonstrate their proficiency in English in order to receive services that are readily available to other battered women". Women of color, women who are poor, and children are quite often at a disadvantage when seeking help out of situations of abuse because they are simply not recognized as being worthy of assistance. They don't fit into a certain group that some are trying to help. It's almost as if these people are outside of the organizations comfort boundaries, just because English isn't their primary language, and they wind up losing what little courage they may have found for reaching out for help in the first place. And children...while I think so many kids now days need much more discipline than they are receiving, I also believe that they shouldn't be dismissed out of some archaic "Children should be seen and not heard" non-sense, either. I've heard far too many stories of kids being dismissed even by their own parents who don't want to see or hear that their spouse or family member is terrifying their offspring because it's just too much for them to cope with. Too many times I think we ignore such children, for a multitude of reasons, which can lead to more abuse and possibly even death, be it by their abuser or by suicide-an action that some feel is their only way out.

While by no means do I consider such measures an easy task, I believe that a difference in so many lives could be made if only we opened our minds and realized that with each individual comes a unique set of needs and we must make every effort to provide for them. If you don't speak the language needed for someone seeking help, find someone who does and work together to help that person who's come to you. Don't be judgmental or flippant when listening to a person's ordeal-don't be just another player in the terror of their mental mind fuck. Be they child or adult, no matter their race or class, if you just try to help, chances are you might be making a major difference in their lives for the better. And you just might make a difference in your own at the same time.

Video: The Dark I Know Well from the musical Spring Awakening

Intersectionality - The Complicated Entanglement of Uniqueness

Intersectionality is a wonderfully complex, yet sometimes frustrating thing for many individuals. We are, of course, greater than the sum of our "parts", yet those same multi-layered parts that make us unique are often the very things that are picked apart by the outside world. There will always be someone looking at you, trying to find something about you-be it sexuality, gender, class, race, religion,etc.-that they find familiar. That sameness that can be found is what draws people together. Only when those similarities, that sense of comfortable recognition, is not found, do we begin to have problems.

Let's take a look at Alsultany, Clare, and Martin. Their intersectionalities have given them their unique sense of identity while at the same time putting them into situations of persecution, as well as quests for understanding of how their identity fits-and sometimes doesn't-in with those around them. In "Los Intersticios", Alsultany reveals that she is of Iraqi and Cuban descent then procedes to give us examples of how her bi-racial heritage has put her into scenarios where her identity is fractured. The drastic perception of her heritage spans from her Cubanness being utterly forgotten, though with apparently good intentions, by the Muslim in the NYC subway after she tells her identity and is offered the chance of an arranged marriage to having the illusion of blending in obliterated by the slur of the woman in the coffee shop in Costa Rica because she is only part Cuban. Clare and Martin both approach the-sometimes violent-opposition they've met with in ways unique as themselves. Martin, fully cognizant of her multi-faceted self, states "All the Lauren's get harassed, in every way that people read me: as girl (cute), as boy (probably gay), as dyke (all I need is a good...), as Asian (here comes the feishists), as genderqueer [what the fuck is that?), as racially ambiguous (certainly not white, or at least not WASP)" [pg. 6]. And while Clare responds to those who stare at hir "crip style", it's resistance to normativity done, admirably, with sheer mirth. "These days, I practice overt resistance and unabashed pride, gawking at the gawkers and flirting as hard as I know how. The two go together." (Clare, pg. 226)

With all of the challenges we all face in the daily grind of life, wouldn't it be fabulous if we could look at each other's intersectionalities as something not to be offsetting, but instead, as Clare seeks, to learn from and begin trying for a better understanding?

My stepson...tumbling...

Music Spiffiness

First Bytes

Three Bits of Randomness...

I. Yes, my last name is really Beavers.

II. I was born and raised in Louisiana.

III. Singing is the only MUSIC I practice anymore.