makalove

This is my body.

5'6. 125lb. Long. Strong. Bass-bumped and full of feeling.

This body has seen so much.

Suicide plans.

Sexual violence.

Self-starvation.

This body has seen so much.

Ballet recitals.

Road trips.

Love.

This body is mine and it is young and full of experience and potential.

This body is queer.

This body is strong.

This body rejects the gender binary.

This body craves knowledge.

This body is so, so full of love.

This body has also struggled and fought like hell to stay here.

This body is mine and it doesn’t need your destructive beauty standard bullshit.

There aren’t easy words to describe people whose identities are tied together by our external experiences. We’ve got acronyms– FAAB or AFAB– to describe our physiology, but that feels blank and statistical, and assuming external experience is associated only with physiology is flawed and gender-essentialist in its own way. “Woman” and “female” both belong to people who share an internal identity I don’t share. Female-presenting centers the absence of identity, makes me feel as if the only way to describe myself is as an empty facade. Femme is inaccurate; femme is a word that belongs to a different type of identity that I don’t inhabit.

Self-describing “as a woman” not only erases my own nonbinary identity, but also does a great discredit to transgender women by suggesting that “woman” is a descriptor tied to physiology or external experience rather than identity or expression. 

What we don’t have is a word that ties together all of us who share an external experience based on how we are perceived because of our gender assignment and/or perceived presentation. That’s not womanhood, not for all of us, and it’s not the only kind of womanhood. Womanhood, our understanding of womanhood, needs to belong both to women who were never seen for who they were because they were assigned female and women who were never seen for who they were because they were assigned male. 

I share a kinship based on experience with both cis women and trans women, and some things I share more with cis women, and other things I share more with trans women, and some things I share with both and other things I share with neither. But we have no language that lets me relate simply and accurately, because my internal identity isn’t theirs, and we have words to describe internal identity, but none to describe experiencing the same things as a group without truly being part of that group– none that feel right, none that feel inclusive rather than sidelining ourselves by definition.  And it makes it hard to claim and relate experiences, even in places where I feel welcome, without feeling in some way deceitful or erased. 

I want a word to describe internal identity, another to describe physiology, another to describe external experience, because all of those are valid things to identify with and to talk about in regard to their commonalities, but it needs to be very clear in our language that they’re all different things, and that they’re not mutually inclusive in the way our society still generally implies they must be. 

Have you popped into the Black artists on Tumblr tag yet? It’s an endless scroll of GIFs, photography, paintings, illustrations, and more, more, more. Here’s a small collection of Tumblrs you can follow to get you started:

The Artist Akuji (@theartistakuji​)

Beautiful digital art that just feels clean, fresh, and pleasing to look at. The artist’s Jamaican-American background shines through in a lot of her work, like this West Indie piece.

Maya Ajani (@mayaajani​)

Gritty, detailed, cool as hell marker art. Everything is a little bit gnarled up and raw and, just to repeat with deserved emphasis, cool as hell.

Liam Gavyn Salt (@liamgavynsalt​)

Liam Salt dabbles in seemingly all things visual art: painting, digital, photography, illustration. He does it all well, but It’s his GIFed up self-portraits that we wanted to showcase. Those are some finely tuned, well-thought-out scribbles up there.

Into this stuff? Want more of it? Right over here. 

Don’t miss our upcoming BHM Answer Times. Next week we’ll have:

2/6—The activists behind the TheBlackout movement (@theblackoutofficial) are already taking your questions. Ask them about the second anniversary of #blackout, the current goals and future of their mission, or anything else you find relevant. 

2/7—Fashion designer Jerome Lamaar (@531jerome).

February 1st Fact #1

JOSEPHINE SILONE-YATES WAS BORN on Nov. 15, 1859, in New York. Her early education was attained in New York schools and the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia. She graduated valedictorian of the Rogers High School class of 1877 in Newport, R.I. Yates attended the Rhode Island State Normal School in Providence and graduated in 1879. She later received a master’s degree from the National University of Illinois.

From 1879-1889, Yates was head of the department of natural science at Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University). She was the first woman to be named a full professor at the institution.

She left Lincoln Institute to marry William Ward Yates in 1889. She served as president and treasurer of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Yates also served as president of the Missouri Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and was instrumental in establishing women’s clubs for African American women.

http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/2009/10/12/ten-tips-to-great-poly-relationships/

This is my top ten things you can do for great multiple relationships.

1. Don’t try to be a “good” poly person.

If you’ve been reading online material a lot, you may have developed an idea of what a good polyamorous person should be doing, and you may be trying to tie yourself into knots trying to do that.

Stoppit.  You’re allowed to work out between yourself and your loves what you all want your unique relationships to look like.  They don’t even have to be Polyamorous Misanthrope Approved1 as long as all of you are happy in it.

2. Get over yourself.

Sure you want the world to be about you.  It ain’t.  Being ego-centric is a lousy way to have good relationships.   A little humility goes a long way.

3.  Believe your partners.

One of the biggest relationship monkey wrenches I ever encounter is the terrible habit of trying to interpret what a partner is thinking instead of paying attention to the actual words used.   If you act on what your partner actually says, you’re doing two things.  You’re not trying to mind-read (always a bad move, because you can get it badly wrong), and you’re training your partner to speak up and say what they genuinely mean.

4. Say what you mean as best you can.

Of course the flip side to #3 is that you need to say what you mean, too.  Yes, that means sometimes you’ll have to think before you speak and act.

5. Have fun.

Many people have this idea that relationships are deadly serious.  They’re not.  Important?  Sure.  But enjoy your partners.  Laugh.  Play.  Be silly.

6. Be willing to be vulnerable.

This can be really hard, ‘specially if you’ve been hurt a lot.  Just be careful not to use that vulnerability as a club to beat someone with.   That’s not being genuinely vulnerable, anyway.  There’s another name for it and it’s Not Nice.

7. Be willing to be flexible.

Sure, there are some rigid dealbreakers in anyone’s life.  If you have more than three or four, I invite you to examine the joys of serendipity.  Relationships grow, change and evolve all the time – even monogamous ones.  Don’t be too tied into the One Right Way to Be in Love.

8. Roll with it, baby.

There are times when emotions or events can blindside you.  It happens and that’s okay.   Accepting that you will get zinged by things sometimes is a good way to be prepared not to react in an unloving way when you are.  If something smacks you in the expectation, getting indignant isn’t as helpful as calming down and thinking.

9. Remember your loves are separate from you.

Your loves are separate people with different thoughts, feelings and expectations than you have.  Get to know them.  Get to understand them down into their bones.

10. Is it about love?

It’s a good idea to ask yourself from time to time, “Am I behaving in a loving manner?”  Love’s important.  I know I’m a cranky old bat and all, but when you get down to it, love is probably the most important force in the world.  Love your partners, for pity’s sake.  It’s what makes the whole thing worthwhile.

“Girlhood and womanhood aren’t defined by genitalia”

It took a lot of courage to be a woman and trans yesterday at the women’s march. Feminism can do better.

We absolutely live in a hierarchial abuse culture where people can and do impose their will on each other in a million tiny ways. A lot of people just expect it - they’ll make choices according to the assumption that you, too, are invested in controlling them to whatever degree - because unless you consciously make a point not to be, it’s possible that you are.

In a healthy relationship people ask for consent often - “Do you want to do this? Are you comfortable with this? Is there anything you think we should change about this plan?” And then, they clarify that negative answers are totally normal and okay.

Checking in can sound like, “Hey, you know I love doing X but if you ever don’t want to you know that’s okay, right?” It’s paying attention to nonverbal cues that someone is uncomfortable and giving them an out - “You don’t seem excited about this party, I want you to know it totally won’t be a big deal if you’d rather not.”

In a healthy relationship there’s a huge difference between “I said no” and “you shouldn’t have asked”. “No” is normal and expected and it’s assumed that sometimes it will be the response. There’s an intentional effort not to punish each other for not always giving each other what you want.

Normalize “no” in all your relationships. Seek it out! Give people extra opportunities to say no! And accept it. Recognise that it’s a good sign when your loved ones feel safe enough to not agree to things they don’t want out of fear of your reaction.

Since you mention it, I think I will start that race war. I could’ve swung either way? But now I’m definitely spending the next 4 years converting your daughters to lesbianism; I’m gonna eat all your guns. Swallow them lock stock and barrel and spit bullet casings onto the dinner table; I’ll give birth to an army of mixed-race babies. With fathers from every continent and genders to outnumber the stars, my legion of hapa babies will be intersectional as fuck and your swastikas will not be enough to save you, because real talk, you didn’t stop the future from coming. You just delayed our coronation. We have the same deviant haircuts we had yesterday; we are still getting gay-married like nobody’s business because it’s still nobody’s business; there’s a Muslim kid in Kansas who has already written the schematic for the robot that will steal your job in manufacturing, and that robot? Will also be gay, so get used to it: we didn’t manifest the mountain by speaking its name, the buildings here are not on your side just because you make them spray-painted accomplices. These walls do not have genders and they all think you suck. Even the earth found common ground with us in the way you bootstrap across us both, oh yeah: there will be signs, and rainbow-colored drum circles, and folks arguing ideology until even I want to punch them but I won’t, because they’re my family, in that blood-of-the-covenant sense. If you’ve never loved someone like that you cannot outwaltz us, we have all the good dancers anyway. I’ll confess I don’t know if I’m alive right now; I haven’t heard my heart beat in days, I keep holding my breath for the moment the plane goes down and I have to save enough oxygen to get my friends through. But I finally found the argument against suicide and it’s us. We’re the effigies that haunt America’s nights harder the longer they spend burning us, we are scaring the shit out of people by spreading, by refusing to die: what are we but a fire? We know everything we do is so the kids after us will be able to follow something towards safety; what can I call us but lighthouse, of course I’m terrified. Of course I’m a shroud. And of course it’s not fair but rest assured, anxious America, you brought your fists to a glitter fight. This is a taco truck rally and all you have is cole slaw. You cannot deport our minds; we won’t hold funerals for our potential. We have always been what makes America great.

Ivan Coyote has an excerpt of their latest book, Tomboy Survival Guide, up on The Walrus.  (via shapeshiftersinc)

Binder Giveaway the 13th: Over The Gender Wall

Why, hello, friends. Did you know that when Shapeshifters sells fifty binders, we hold a binder giveaway? It’s a rock fact! 

So in fond memory of seven hundred and fifty wonderful sales, we present Binder Giveaway 13! 

Once again, all brave entrants may also enter on Twitter. Retweet this tweet and follow the @ShapeshiftersCB twitter for one extra chance to win.

The lucky winner will receive one single-layer custom-sized binder in their choice of size, cut, and print. This means anything we offer that’s priced at $55 or under. Check out the store for your options.

The fine print:

Only reblogs or retweets count. One per blog/twitter. No giveaway blogs.

Entries from all countries are welcome.

You may reblog without entering, just tag it accordingly so we know. Signal boosts are always appreciated!

The winner will be randomly selected on **October 30th, 2016**. We will send an ask and a message notifying Tumblr winners, and a DM notifying winners on Twitter.

When a cis man tries to imagine what it would be like to be trans, invariably that man imagines what it would be like if he “wanted to be woman,” because that’s what many people think trans women are.

Instead, he should be trying to empathize with trans men. He should be thinking about his own childhood and relationship to manhood, and then asking himself how it would have felt if he’d grown up being told he was a girl, forced to wear dresses, never recognized by other boys as a boy, and then experienced the horror of going through the wrong puberty and becoming a giant estrogen factory.

Many cis women, particularly in LGBT spaces, will fall all over themselves trying to empathize and identify with trans men, because the same transmisogyny that tells them that trans women and cis men are connected tells them that cis women and trans men are connected.

Instead, cis women should be asking themselves what it would have been like if they had never been allowed to have their womanhood acknowledged. How would it have felt to grow up being told you were a boy, not allowed to deviate from male stereotypes (often with violent repercussions if you did), always viewed by other women as an icky boy or predatory male, exposed to the utter horror that is being a woman in male spaces where they think no women are around, and had testosterone distort your body irreparably only to have everyone around you use your anatomy and appearance to forever deny your womanhood and where your best possible outcome is to transition and live your life in abject poverty fighting loneliness and dysphoria and surrounded by people who think you’re a disgusting, subhuman monster who should be locked away or put down?

If you want to worry about men pretending to be women, pay more attention to trans men. They are men who are forced to pretend to be women, and while that is immensely fucked up for them to go through, it doesn’t change the fact that they are MEN in WOMEN’S spaces, and many of them take advantage of transmisogynist ideas about gender to stay in those spaces even after coming out and transitioning. Just look at all the trans men at women’s colleges – schools that in most cases will not allow trans women.

Trans women have always been women. Trans women have always been female.

Trans men have always been men. Trans men have always been male.