you brought me your love

So, this past weekend, I took my 11-year-old daughter to SuperCon to meet her favorite actor (and favorite Doctor), Peter Capaldi.

She wore a little blue TARDIS-decorated dress and some Doctor Who pins, and she nearly cried with joy when Capaldi greeted her for the photo op. He was a consummate gentleman and such a sweet and enthusiastic person.

An hour or so after the wonderful photo op experience, she and I were sitting at a table in the food court area.

A burly, older man plopped down nearby.  He looked at my little girl’s outfit, smiled, and said, “Do you even KNOW anything about Doctor Who?”

WTF, dude?

I was too stunned for a second to even respond, so he started right in with the ‘quizzing.’

“Who are the Doctor’s biggest enemies, and what planet does he come from?” this stranger asked.

Now I had moved past shocked and right into indignant/angry/protective mode.

“I don’t want her to be quizzed on something she loves, because I don’t want her thinking she has to prove ANYthing in order to be a fan,“ I told him.

Looking at my daughter, I said “You don’t owe strangers explanations or information, ok?“  She said OK and looked relieved.

Still he pressed on, patronizing grin and all: “Oh, I just want to be sure parents are raising their kids right.” Then he turned to my daughter again and asked “Who was the first Doctor, then?”

I cut him off right there. “No. I don’t want her quizzed. At all.”

Dude blinked in disbelief, sighed, and left about a minute later.

“Thanks,” my daughter said. “He was making me feel awkward.”

I held her hand and looked into her eyes. “Some men think they can have power over you by making you prove yourself. You never have to do it. They’re just insecure and pitiful, so they want to make you feel like it, too.  It’s not only about fan stuff, and it’s not always just men, but be careful not to fall into that trap, ok?”

That crap isn’t harmless fun. It sets up a pattern of approval-seeking, self-justification, self-doubt, and fear of exclusion that is very dangerous for children (particularly girls).

Fuck that.

TL;DR:  Do NOT come at me, my little girl, or anyone in my vicinity with your condescending, gatekeeping bullshit.

The next time, I won’t make the mistake of even TRYING to be polite.

So I was debating posting this but I think it needs to be said.

So I’m a student teacher and this week, we started at a new school district. Now I won’t presume to begin to pretend that I know what everyone’s political ideologies are in this school district but keep in mind that it’s in rural New York State and rural New York State tends to run red. Not as red as some other places but definitely not blue and not even really purple. 

Anyway yesterday was my first ever professional development day. So I’m all dressed up, introducing myself to other teachers, and I shake hands with the superintendent who seems like a really nice guy.

And about halfway through the day, he goes up to the front of the theater and he starts talking about the best ways to talk to and help transgender/nonbinary students. It’s the basic things we all learn in our education classes. And you can tell that he’s a bit uncomfortable and so are some of the teachers. And at last, he stops and says, “Folks, I have to be honest. My father is rolling in his grave right now.”

And I’m in the back like, “Oh no.”

And so he pauses again and then he starts implying that he was raised to have a very negative opinion on the transgender community. And he continues to say that he had to unlearn a lot in the past few decades and then he admitted that he still doesn’t get it. He outright admitted that he personally doesn’t understand how someone comes to the conclusion that they’re not their assigned gender. And he admits that of course he doesn’t because he’s never had to go through that.

Another pause.

And then he says, “But I don’t have to get it.”

The theater fills with whispers and then he says [and I’m paraphrasing here], “I don’t have to get it. I don’t even have to agree with it. Because it doesn’t matter what I think or what I feel or what my beliefs are. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that I respect that student and I respect their choice.”

And then he reminded the teachers of every single policy that the school district follows from letting any student use their bathroom of choice to changing the students’ names per the students’ requests to not telling the parents anything unless the student gives consent to do so.

And at the end, he brought it back by saying, “My father just rolled in his grave again. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what you believe, because it’s not about you. It’s about your kids. And you need to love your kids! Love your kids! Love your kids!”

We are appalled by President Trump’s tweets about banning transgender people from military service. There are an estimated 15,000 transgender people already working in the Department of Defense, putting their lives on the line to protect our nation and its values. Those values do not include the heartlessness exhibited by Mr. Trump this morning. Discrimination has no place in our government, in our workplaces, our schools, or anywhere else in our lives.

While it’s still unclear what the actual policy ramifications of these tweets will be, we recommend keeping up with (and, if you can, donating to) the ACLU and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. 

You can also directly tell the president how unacceptable his attack on American servicepersons is by using this form provided by the @transgenderfreedomproject.

We know there will be plenty of conversation about this on Tumblr in the coming days, and we urge you to take this moment to support and educate each other in whatever ways you can. And if you just need someone to talk to right now, there are people here to listen, 24 hours a day, seven days a week:

Trans Lifeline: A crisis hotline by and for the transgender community. 877-565-8860

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Crisis Text Line: Text START to 741741

The Trevor Lifeline (@thetrevorproject​): Confidential hotline for LGBTQ+ young people. 1-866-488-7386

TOP TEN MCR BLOG POSTS

The My Chemical Romance website goes down periodically every couple of months, and as a result a large number of the blog posts and photos that the band posted in 2008/2009 during their post TBP-hiatus have now been lost to to the digital graveyard. However, I used to read these religiously in 2009 instead of paying attention to my extremely basic computer class, so I decided to make a list of my favorites in no particular order:

Potential Lucky Charms of the Future (Monkey’s Paw, Evil Eye, and Chicken Sacrifice)

Tuesday February 24th, 2009 | Posted by: Gerard

“ Having my morning cereal, I pondered a question, as one often does, while staring blankly at the morning sun– Can you count your age by the marshmallows in a bowl of Lucky Charms? Like the rings of a great oak tree? I remember, as a child, the addition of Purple Horseshoes and eventually Red Balloons. I now notice there are Yellow Hourglasses. How many new magical totems of sugar will be in the bowl when I reach the age of 65?

G”