Not Anonymous

Wow, I haven't updated in almost a week!

Well, here are a few fun things to know. On Sunday and Monday (in which [Southern!Girl] was around and much fun was had) was the annual LGBT Studies/Queer Theory conference An Other Sex.
It was great fun, like all conferences, some panels and lectures were better than others, but nothing tops seeing all the various types of dyks, fags, fag-hags, butch, femme, genderqueers, transmen, transbois, tranwomen, transgrrls, bykes, omnis and everything under the sun and rocks.

That and I got to actually be a part of the proceedings by being a simultaneous translator, along with a fellow dyke, for the Keynote Speaker (Prof. Lee Edelman) who wanted to hear the panel conducted in memory of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (z"l) who passed away this past April from breast cancer.

I think next year I'll feel confidant enough to maybe read a paper of my own.
Here's to hoping.

Funnily enough, one of the speakers was Prof. Nancy Pollikoff who spoke about Marriage and basically why we should be rid of it. Now, I had planned to write my own spiel about why I think Marriage should be abolished, but thanks to _yggdrasil, I don't need to, because she linked to shemale's brilliant post on the matter:

I've said this elsewhere, but never really made a post about it:

I don't support marriage.

For anyone.

Or, to be more clear, i think that it shouldn't be an institution with any legal merit. To give even more slack here, i don't think that it should hold exclusive privileges over any other kind of relationship... Although its discriminatory history and present make me inclined to think that it should be considered, legally speaking, completely irrelevant.

The exclusive bundling of certain rights and protections leaves those who can't get married, or don't have that type of relationship or family structure that they would feel comfortable with that kind of ceremony but who do need some or all of those rights and protections, in really shitty situations. And it always will.

Go read the rest.

Something else that comes to mind and that I'd been meaning to link and write about is rm's post about how women are really constructed in our culture(s) - because despite the various geographical and historical differences in Patriarchy this principle holds true everywhere.
Women are not themselves, they are for others.
I'd quote the whole thing but it's better to go with the link and read the comments as well:

The first time I worked clinic defense was the month after I turned eighteen. Now, most people stood in a particular phalanx by the clinic door, especially during the worst of the protests. The phalanx was designed to make sure protesters couldn't crawl through our legs, that there would still be a barrier if they stuck us with pins, which, yes, they did. Then, there were the people stationed inside the clinic, if it had interior doors. Sometimes women would pose as patients and lock themselves to the interior doors, blocking them. Finally, there were the people who escorted the women in and out of the clinic.

I did all three of those jobs at various times, but mostly I either guarded the inside doors of the clinics or escorted patients.

Mostly, the women didn't talk. But sometimes they did, either about nothing in particular or dark humour. It was strange, responding to them, and always being so careful not to reveal any particular sentiment to them.

"I hate this," one woman said. I couldn't but nod, because "this" could have been anything.

She kept talking. "Always being escorted, like I can't go to the doctor by myself."

"I'm sorry, sometimes the protesters pose as patients; it's for everyone's safety."

"But I feel like a child."

And it's true.
I know for myself that I'm asked often in an exasperated tone, "What happened to you?", to me.
Why am I no longer the happy go lucky angel I used to be.
Why am I obsessed with the fact that my hair is a cause of uproar in the family - if it's long it's beautiful, if it's short it should be grown, when it's shaved I'm being deliberately provocative and upsetting my parents and going against all the values I should uphold.

And while I don't use my hair or any part of my body to be deliberately provocative, it happens anyway, because my body being feminine is public and my heart and mind are queer*.
And so long as these facts remain true (most likely for the rest of my life) I will do my best to very deliberatly fuck with the status quo.

It makes me happy.

Happy International Pride Month My Pretties!

*Thank you rm for that turn of phrase.