Not Anonymous

Trigger Warning: Homophobia, biphobia and general rage contained therein.

My anger had been building since Saturday to be perfectly honest, when I read a fic which decided to chuck caution to the wind, make up shit about gay culture and gay sex and made me realise how alienated I feel from my fandom in general. But that, really, is beside the point.

I've been pissed off the whole day. I honest to god felt as though my identity was being attacked.

Two columns I read this morning made me feel gutted and ripped.

I'm bisexual. I'm gay. I'm lesbian. I'm queer. I'm all the letters except the T in LGBT. These are things I have been for as long as I could articulate. I use each identity in different circumstances. This is a common thing, I suspect, presenting different things in different situations.

But this morning reading an account of a lesbian explaining herself to straight people in a Vagendamag column called Lesbian, a Lifestyle in which the writers gives a grocery list of the various "types" of queers for the comfort and benefit of straight readers, something which jarred me.

I'm not easily jarred.

The casual way in which she talks about the stereotypes, as though they are taxonomy of exotic animals and birds to be found in the scene, from flamboyant femmes to greedy bisexuals, all to tack make sure we're ticked off the list.

Oh, it's tongue in cheek and in vogue with talking about the commodification of identities, after all, we're not a community, we're merely consumers.

And still, in a feminist mag and column about gay women I expect to be spoken to, not spoken about and yeah, it was jarring.

I'm not an exhibit at the zoo to be spoken about to the curious spectators.

The second article that honest to god made me feel like shit for a better part of the day was this column from the HuffPo UK, titled: Bisexuality: Is It Fun, Non Committal or Just Plain Greedy?.
As you can probably imagine, it was like a bingo card of biphobic shit.

Greedy, check. Indecisive, check. Trendy, check. Half gay, check. Half straight check.

When I was 15 I was confused about a lot of things. One of the things I was quite sure of was that I was attracted to boys and to girl and to to people in drag.

When I was 20 and I'd gone through five years of telling the various members of my family, at different times and for various reasons, that I'm bisexual, I thought I was done. I thought, that's it, who else do I have to tell?

Everyone.

All the time.

I do not like assumptions made about me. I do not like it when my identity, when the word I do not like as a rule, but is the only one I have, is used against me. To be called lazy for not picking a "side"? To be called greedy because of the stupid stereotype that those attracted to more than one sex and gender are somehow incapable of fidelity?

There is no "side", I am not straight! I was never straight! There is no place for me in straight culture and society, not since I was 15, so anyone who wants to talk to me about "picking a side" regarding who I chose to have a relationship with can fuck off.

Two articles that made me feel like shit, written by members of a community I generally consider myself a part of. The former wrote to appease the curiosity and needs of straight readers and the latter decided to write a polemic in which he accused bisexual men and women of being lesser human being on the sexual level.

My god, this is what assimilation brings us, total invalidation and invisibility from those who now have the privilege to be "normal".

It's not easy, because there is a constant demand that I apologise for not being exactly what I'm expected to be.

I sick of being apologetic about existing in the manner that I do.

I'm not an exhibit at the fucking zoo.

Tumblr crosspost

So hey,

Did you guys hear about the Jewish-Israeli guy who created a seditious movie against Muslims, that was the groundwork for a murderous attack in Lybia.

Neither Jewish, nor Israeli, but a Copt Christian.

Jews are excellent scapegoats when it comes to spreading racist Islamophobic bullshit.

When you think about it, it's pretty clever, a Christian pretends to be Jewish in order to incite violence among Muslims, so that Jews get the blame.

Tell me again how religion brings people together?

I just worked though my feelings regarding President Obama's statement of marriage equality in the United States by creating fanfic with another non-American fan.

I'm gay and she's straight and we were both... unimpressed. Probably for different reasons. Her country has had marriage equality for over a decade. I live in a country that has no civil marriage for anyone.

Look at that quote.

This is what President Obama said (Via The Atlantic Wire):

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,”

Now look at me.

President Obama has laid out in those few sentences what his opinion about marriage equality is about.

An opinion, that should have no bearing on the law.

No one's opinion should have any bearing on the nature of people's relationship.

Beyond that, he's making it a personal issue, as opposed to a social issue, reiterating the false dichotomy that what matters, is what matters to the people he knows and that the rest will have to find different solution.

When he says - "when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together," - he is giving us the baseline of decent gay people, of worthy gay people. Long term and monogamous who are productive members of society by being reproductive members of society.

And if they're not reproducing, they're out there killing people in far away lands - "when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone," - because now gay people can go out into the world, openly, and kill anyone in the name of Freedom, Liberty and Democracy.

That was sarcasm.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a cruel decree, and its repeal is a good thing (This is not sarcasm).

That doesn't make the draft a tool of progress for gay people. Being able to be visible is a necessary thing, and I don't begrudge that. However, the fact that the fight was focused on this repeal as though it would change the culture of homophobia inherent to an institution based on hierarchy and conservative notions of masculinity, kind of boggles me.

Taking the above into account and once again, marriage equality is placed out there as a prize the second class citizens of America need to aspire to.

I find that notion absolutely abhorrent.

People sexuality, their relationship style, their loyalty to the government and reproductive choices should not be a standard for their humanity.

And their humanity should not be equated with a state contract.

"I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married"

The President's personal opinion has no bearing, whatsoever, on the inherent humanity of gay people, who may or may not be in a relationship.

The fact that his personal opinion is favourable, but he states at the same time that it should be remain a state issue is extremely telling.

Ironically, Obama has been the best President with regards to Trans issues, which is saying something, considering the majority of marriage equality advocates shuffle trans people under the bus when it comes to pushing an agenda. I see it in the States and I see it in my own locale.

And that's why I've been saying gay people throughout.

There is no discussion of the humanity and dignity of bisexual people, or men and women and other genders I couldn't name who are in a relationship that may or may not be romantic. Or who aren't in a relationship at all. There is no discussion of kinship without marriage. There is no discussion of healthcare plans without a spouse. Why is there a moral imperative when it comes to children?

Bottom line.

Obama expressed his personal opinion that marriage is something gay people have to earn. By fighting, tooth and nail.

This is progress?

Just because Israel doesn't automatically persecute gay men, lesbian women, bisexual people and trans people, mean that Israel is so bloody progressive when it comes to LGBT rights.

As regular readers know, I've been pretty vigilant about the way the LGBT community is being used as a way to cover up the disastrous human rights violations Israel commits on a daily basis, not only to the various ethnic minorities, but to LGBT people - a minority that crosses ethnic and religious "divides".

"Pinkwashing" isn't new, but it's getting a lot of news due to the fact that Israel's "re-branding" is, hah, failing.

Back in November, Sarah Schulman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about this strategy that Israel uses, through its foreign ministry, its tourist industry - don't you know that Americans voted Tel Aviv as the best Gay city in the world! - and just plain flinging all those wonderful "rights" us queers have in the Holy land. Excuse me, I must go vomit.

Taking all that into account - the fact that there is this constant push and pull regarding Israel's image as a liberal oasis in a desert of religious conservatism - people seem to forget that all those "rights" lovingly bestowed onto the gay community (and yes, there is a big difference between the gay men and every other group put together in the alphabet soup of LGBT) are not presented accurately to the world, or more to the point to the United States.

A recent pinkwashing op-ed by a fellow by the name of Scott Piro wrote that:

Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where people are not persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

He then lays out the "facts" about Israeli LGBT life:
Israel has passed anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTs.

Formal laws, do not rights make. Not to mention that women still receive 75% of the average salary as opposed to men. Consider a two women house-hold, when both women work in what is considered a "second-salary slot".
I can't even begin to tell you how fucked transgender people are when it comes to labour, because no one will fucking hire them - trans people are not protected under anti-discrimination laws with regards to the work place - putting that T in LGBT, launders the reality of trans people in Israel, who I can safely say are the most fucked over group under the queer umbrella.
Unless they also happen to be Palestinian. More on that, in a bit.
And sure, businesses are not allowed to discriminate against same-sex couples or people who have a gender non-conforming appearance, but hey, if you're a religious institution you most certainly can!
That's just the tip, of course.

Israel Recognizes same-sex marriages performed abroad.
No, Israel does not. It writes on the ID card "married" for couples who got married in a country where same-sex marriage is legal, because international law requires that there be equal status in all documents. The fact is, if you are same-sex couple and you got married in, say, Canada (like many of the wealthier gays and lesbians do), your status will be written, but not recognised and you have the same rights as a registered co-habitated or common-law married couple.

So, uh, you can scratch that off the list.

Israel has legalized LGBT adoption rights.
The supreme court allowed one lesbian couple to cross-adopt each other's biological children. It is a legal precedent, like most LGBT "rights" in Israel, as opposed to actual pro-active legislation.

Can this horse get any higher?

LGBT soldiers serve openly in all military branches, including special units; discrimination is prohibited.
Only Americans find this special. Seriously. Just because you had DADT for too fucking long (read, at all) doesn't mean that the fact that LGB (if you are a T and are out you will most likely be exempt from military service for reasons relating to mental health. Snack on that.) serve "openly" make the IDF in any way progressive. Considering the fact that the IDF is growing more religiously conservative as we speak and has rabbis telling soldiers to not hear a woman sing on pain of death, I can't see the fact that some boys and girls in certain units are out (you are not likely to be out in a cambat unit, as opposed to an intel unit, for instance) make the army liberal.

And in any event, why would we want to emulate a militaristic, hierarchical, masculine-supremacist, racist and patriarchal institution?

Same-sex couples have the same inheritance rights as heterosexual, married couples.
Wrong again. Inheritance rights for unmarried, common-law married or co-habitating couples relies on drawing up official papers and making your spouse your beneficiary, unlike heterosexual married couples, where it is automatic.

So you see folks. We may not be the worst, but really, when you compare us to actual Western countries (because we pretend to be one), we are not in the best shape. In other words, it's really easy to compare us to countries where things are really bad and come out looking quite good.

Also, of course, all this is related to Jewish LGB(T) people in Israel. The fact is, Israel uses the hard won fights the LGBT community has wrought throughout the years in order to cover up the fact that it violates international law and human rights in the West Bank, Gaza and in Israel proper - where is the help for Palestinian LGBT's in the West Bank and Gaza? There is a reason Israel based Palestinian queer groups like Aswat and Al-Qaws are critical of the mainstream and Jewish LGBT community for lapping up the fact that we are being used as a fig leaf for Israel's human rights violations.

Don't tell me Israel is a "queer oasis".

It's worse, because it is far more insidious than ever. You know the old saying about the frog in the boiling pot?

That's us.

It's been forever since I've had a good "bad news" round up. This platform has become something of an escape for me, you see, since the Summer in which thousands of people took to the streets protesting the current political, financial and social disparity in Israel - we forgot to take into account the underlying reason the current government has managed to shut us up and shut us out.

We are occupying another people and the Summer of so-called social change decided that that was too "political", not to do with "us" and not to do with the fact that the cost of living is practically unbearable within Israel. Because that's one thing and Israeli society is another.

Apartheid never seemed so clear.

Over the past few months, while we were resting on the laurels of actually being in the street and protesting the Men, the superficiality of (Jewish) women's equality has been steadily eroding.

Who is to blame? I mean, other than patriarchy. Of course.

Deepening religious extremism is one reason, I mean, when you have a Settler Rabbi telling soldiers should chose death rather than suffer a woman singing. You may go O_o at this little piece of News, but when you have more conservative interpretations to the Jewish adage "A woman's voice is Ervah" i.e. the sound of a woman's voice is pubic or sexual by it's very nature.

A woman is nothing but her sex, of course.

Speaking of voices, our freedom of speech has been basically been taken away, I can't tell you who you should boycott for fear of being sued for damages and now I can't call the Prime Minister, for example, a smug lying asshole, due to this abso-fucking-loutly spiffing amendment bill.

In which, and I quote the article linked above:

The bill represents an amendment to Israel's existing libel law, which would make it possible to sue a newspaper for libel, not only for commensurate compensation for any tangible damage caused by the publication, but for an additional sum of NIS 300,000 − without having to prove damages.

Emphasis mine.

Was there an emergency meeting of journalists? You bet there was.

Unsurprisingly, this bill coincides with the firing of one of Israel's few true watch dogs from public broadcasting Keren Neubach. As you can read in the link, the "reason" given? She "looks" bad on screen.
They're not even bothering any more.

Ditto on shutting down the Ramallah based radio station Palestinian-Israeli cooperative "Kol Ha'Shalom" (a play on words, as "Kol" is a Hebrew homophone for "voice" and "all").

Last night 2000 people rallied in protest of this bill.

2000. Yep, that many.

That really is the equivalent of crickets chirping.

The other bills that have been passing through the Knesset floor have been eroding civil society for years.

But wait. There's more.

The totalitarian nature of the Occupation is finally catching up with Israel proper. The non-violent demonstrations in the West Bank, exemplified by the recent Freedom Rider arrests (amazing pictures) shows the stark contrast of what is actually happening on the ground and the mindset of the average Israeli.

I mean, when the Prime Minister "shelves" the bill set out to persecute NGO's by limiting their funds, but his Foreign Minister goes ahead and does it anyway is, well, telling.

Add to that the fact that there is an all out political attack on the political science department of Negev's Ben-Gurion University, the alarm bells should be ringing off the walls.

Because when the Germans are telling the Israeli government: Um, excuse me, this is not very good and we're really sorry that we have to criticise you like this.

History repeats and really, the Germans would know.

In the meantime, my parents are watching commentary about a documentary about Steve Jobs and Apple.

I fucking hate the world.

As you know I am currently jobless. The prospect of getting a job at the moment is daunting as the economy is particularly tanked and it has actually been convenient for me to have all this time on my hands in order to deal with the disaster of moving into an apartment that wasn't as good as [Sexy!Roommate] and I first thought.

Not all that glitters is gold as the saying goes.

The country is very likely to be going on general strike tomorrow, which I am totally for, as the only way to get the workers who are outsourced any rights is for the public and semi-public sectors to shut down the systems.

The amount of anti-strike sentiment is unsettling, considering the summer of "Social Justice" we supposedly had. It stops it touches you personally, huh. It also goes to show how out of touch so many people in this country are.

Yeah, I need the bus and the train, but the people who clean the buses and bus stations deserve a living wage.

The universities are also striking, so tomorrow [Sexy!Roommate] and I will clean the place up and hopefully get other shit done that doesn't require me to be attached to the phone.

I have had it up to here with the effing phone.

With luck, things will settle by mid-November and I'll be able to get a move on job finding wise and the apartment won't give me any more headaches.

Next up: I fucking hate religion.

I'm watching the prisoner exchange happening now.

I didn't feel comfortable commenting on the story until I knew what would happen on the day itself.

I'm still waiting for something to go wrong.

But I'm just happy this saga is over, even though a new saga will begin.

My cynicism and abhorrence of my current administration disables me from feeling the euphoria I am supposed to in this moment.

More on that later, most likely.

Now, I am getting pissed off at pundits and idiotic narrow minded interpretations of the situation.

I hope the prisoners get some rest after everything.

It being the holiday season in my locale, it is a time of family and obligation.

Yesterday I was helping my mother arrange the place names for the seats, the name cards were a mess, so I quickly put all the couples and their children into smaller piles.

I was the only solo card.

Now, after an entire semester of studying the sociological aspect of singlehood and writing a 6000 word essay about the position of the single aunt in the extended-nuclear family for said course, you probably don't understand the feeling of sheer poignancy that came from seeing my name, alone, among the clumps of little families that make up my huge tribe.

I have no doubt that I'm not the only single person who has a family made up of couples and families and has felt this way. But I have been theorising about it, this position of mine in my family, the role I play of Dutiful Daughter, Doting Aunt (despite raising my voice a few times and having my cousin, a mother, come to make sure I haven't murdered her children) and Single Gay Relative.

I may be the only one who perceives myself this way. Who knows, maybe others do see me this way. Glass closet and all.

What has come to mind in my navel gazing about this, because I have been thinking about it the whole week, were the issues of "passing" and "flaunting" my sexuality in the context of my family.

My nuclear family are a paragon of harmony, support and TLC. Really, I couldn't have asked for a better family, really. My bitterness considering my coming out process and the crappy way I and [Southern!Girl] were treated when were together notwithstanding.

Being single and queer is easier than being queer in a relationship - man or woman. The invisibility I experience when I'm with a guy is painful because of the erasure of my identity and the culture I identify with. The all out double standard of being with a girl requires constant negotiation of what is appropriate or inappropriate behaviour in so many contexts.

It is sheer kismet that Spark In Darkness wrote about this very issue on his blog, where he writes about living your life through a filter:

Every question has to be passed through it, evasions and lies considered, examined and discarded or adapted. And damn if that isn't tiring, even now when I largely shut the filter down and try to answer without it – it still fires up and activates the closet instincts. Before when I nearly always used the filter it was even more draining – because everything someone said to me or I said back had to be run through the filter to ensure that the BIG DARK SECRET was hidden.

[...]that's before we get to simple things like the awful crime of kissing/touching and the dreadful decisions of whether it's ok to sit next to him or not – can we go out to dinner together or do we need to bring more people so it's not a date? Am I stood too close? Whose watching, who can see is anyone upset/angry/sitting on a cactus expression?

So, yeah, here's little ol' me “flaunting” my sexuality because not “flaunting” is a lot of work. I just don't have the energy not to flaunt.

I emphasised the last bit, because that pretty much hits the nail of the head. Sometimes, most of the time, we're asked to "tone it down", or stop making everything "about being QuILTBAG".

There are worse things that happen to gay people than being told by heteronormative society that we're disruptive and should shut up and suck it up, because you know, being beat up and murdered because you weren't quiet enough is worse than being escorted off a plane for kissing your partner.

But the incident with Leisha Hailey and the Southwest flight, brings to a head how careful we have to be in order to walk around unscathed.

I mean, if you read the statement from Southwest Airline following the incident, you can't help but cringe:

Initial reports indicate that we received several passenger complaints characterizing the behavior as excessive. Our crew, responsible for the comfort of all Customers on board, approached the passengers based solely on behavior and not gender. The conversation escalated to a level that was better resolved on the ground, as opposed to in flight. We regret any circumstance where a passenger does not have a positive experience on Southwest and we are ready to work directly with the passengers involved to offer our heartfelt apologies for falling short of their expectations.

All emphasis is mine. It would be mind boggling if it wasn't such a typical framing of "gay behaviour" in public.

First of all, the passenger complaints? Really? You know how many times I've complained about a child running up and down the isles of a plane? Are you going to remove that child and its parents?! Boy that would be grand!
Never happen of course, after all, a child running up and down the isles is "natural". As is, you know, kissing and holding hands between a man and woman.

Two women, well, that's "excessive". Because it disrupts the "family oriented" flight, of heterosexual and nuclear clumps of couples and their children.

And of course one must not make the customers uncomfortable, I mean, it's not like gay people pay for services, or use the same methods of transport as straight people. *snort* of course not, we have our own airlines, our own cities, our own laws and regulations, you know... in those "clubs". We'd never imagine doing that in public.

Existing, that is.

Of course, despite Southwest's hypocrisy, they are a well known airline that discriminates against its customers.

Dorothy Snarker who wrote about this earlier this week mentioned that Southwest is the airline that kicked Kevin Smith (Director of "Dogma" and "Chasing Amy") off a flight for being fat and Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day front man) for dressing in baggy pants.

Obviously, Southwest feels very strongly about its well dressed, straight and thin customers. Everyone else just isn't up to par for this airline.

These are incidents that have happened to celebrities. Just ponder that one for a moment.

Reading about the above and planning out this post, well, it makes my own single status a thing of visibility and invisibility. I break the pattern of pairings in my family, but I am rendered silent because talking about wanting to date or going on dates is "flaunting" and "disruptive" and sometimes I just don't have the energy to deal with that.

It's giving into homophobia.

And the homophobia exhibited by Southwest, by accepting the underlying assumption that a kiss between two women is disturbing to customers, but being called disgusting by other people is just something we should suck up, is so entrenched in the culture, practically every culture on earth, that I sometimes despair at thinking I'll get to see or feel, fundamental change in my lifetime.

I'm so much more upset about this than I thought I would be.

Two years after fatal shooting, Tel Aviv gay youth club faces closure.

It's pretty much a slap in the face from the municipality towards the LGBT community in Tel-Aviv.

They'll spend obscene amounts of money of a Pride Parade, in which more people from abroad participated than locals from outside of Tel-Aviv if reports are to be believed.

It was supposed to be a safe place for queer youth, it stopped being that and has since become a memorial and I'm so sad to see it go.

Goes to show what the most liberal city in Israel thinks of its gay youth.

Excuse me while I go cry a bit.

You know something, coming from a country in which the vast majority of men are circumcised, the whole debate seems a bit incongruous, but I understand and am personally in the opinion that male circumcision is an unnecessary procedure and would encourage parents to really think about whether this something they want to inflict on their male child.

I still don't think that people who do end up circumcising their male child are morally reprehensible, or that the baby is in real danger from such a procedure - any more than any other complication that can happen from a modern medical procedure.

It is a tradition I think is passée, but I understand why Jewish people feel it is a necessary one.

However, when intactivists chose to vilify a religious tradition be resorting to Antisemitic rhetoric and imagery I can't say I feel too compelled to root for your cause.

Because seriously, what is this shit?

An evilly grinning Jewish man in "traditional" Jewish markers of a Talit and a Shtreimel? A mohel (the guy who does the cutting) covered in blood? And an Aryan looking man defending the poor defenceless mother and baby from the Evil Jews out to main the baby?

California activists, this is a summary fuck you from a Jewish grrl who finds your tactics more than nauseating. I don't usually side with the Anti-Defamation League, but in this case they are not wrong.

And if anyone tries to compare male circumcision to female genital mutilation, know that you are only showing your ass and that comment will be frozen and you yourself may be banned from commenting on this journal.