#checking privilege

After the last 25 minutes? I no longer understand the point I was trying to make.

For what I have done, for what I may be doing, for what I still may do: I am sorry. No excuses. I will strive to be better.

Normally I end up running a lot of different errands and doing a lot on my two days off (Sunday and Monday) but this time I just mostly stayed at home (like a total hermit) dosing up on Youtube and writing for Tumblr. Despite the fact that I don't have TV channels or internet access on my laptop I'm still able to keep abreast of most issues on my phone and by listening to the radio. I'm realizing now how very important it is to allow yourself to be exposed to different historical accounts (I just learned about the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921), testimonies from people who are not like yourself, and different political views (I listened to almost the whole RNC on the radio). Unfortunately, though, we live in a world where Ted Cruz saying "vote your conscience" is considered worthy of boos because it didn't explicitly spell out support for Trump, and the media constantly throws around the sentence "Sanders can't control his followers" as though he were a possessor of some kind of hypnotic mind control and could "make" his followers to heed his request to rally around Hilary Clinton (as a former Sanders supporter I found this very offensive). In my journey to become more educated and open-minded I've been forced to confront some of my own ideas. I've been learning a lot about how asking transgender men/women about their bodies/surgeries could be invasive- and I know, I wouldn't have probably done that in person, but I can see where it can be just as offensive if someone makes that question a part of their journalistic "interview". (I'm trying not to name any names because I don't want to be a part of the controversy). I think I've also mentioned on here before how I didn't think racism affected me- but there are just so many different ways to be racist. It can come in the form of being sexually objectified by men of other races, and not just in hateful spewing of the n-word. There's a such thing as "societal/structural racism" in which minority groups are placed in a system where it's difficult for them to advance in society (think blacks/POC being less likely to receive a job offer or a promotion, being placed by the government in "ghettos" from the very start, or the mass incarceration of black males). In the past, I wouldn't have called myself a "feminist", because in my early life I thought that feminism was all about hating men while simultaneously trying to be as much like them as possible. Now I see there are so many different ways to be a feminist, and that some of the different "feminisms" are actually at odds with eachother (who would've thought?) In other words, there is no cookie-cutter description of being "woke". So far being woke for me has been about recognizing privilege in various forms, being aware of the struggles of marginalized groups, recognizing wealth inequality as part of the overall problem, realizing that "religious freedom" can be a cloak for religious persecution and prejudice, and also being aware that no matter how much that you "know" there's still a lot more to discover.    This is the first time that I've been mentally healthy enough to participate in the political process, and I am so proud to be able to be a part of making history. I often said that if Trump was elected President I would probably leave the country, but as someone pointed out to me it's very difficult to start over somewhere else- I mean look at how the immigrants who come here have to struggle- and now I see that "bailing" on my country might not be the best route to take. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens in November. In the mean time I'm just going to keep doing my thing.   

So I'm writing a story in which the narrator character is trans. He's trans, but the story isn't about him being trans, if you get my meaning. But I'm cis, and so I messaged one of my trans friends today, to school me on what I thought would be a fairly basic nuts and bolts question about legally changing one's name and gender on government ID documents. And, in the manner of things, it turned into a whole nother conversation. Background on where I'm coming from: though I'm cis, I have multiple genderqueer/trans/gender nonconforming friends. I don't say this to imply that that means I'm totes the most awesome ally, but just too convey that I'm not a total novice (and my friends, particularly the one I was talking to today, have historically been willing to call me on my shit or answer my trans101 questions on the occasions when I slip into privileged straightness). My basic philosophy about genderqueerness of all sorts is that I basically don't care. I mean, I want to get your pronouns right. I want to honor the person you are. I want to give credence to your experience, and I know a lot of that experience involves various shades of being unsafe or unhonored. And one of the ways I try to counter transphobia that is that I rarely talk to my trans friends about their gender unless they bring it up. Their whole life isn't about being trans; not all our conversations have to be about that. I figure they have their gender questioned in any number of myriad ways every single day, the least I can do is not be another voice in the choir. Lets talk about Buffy or X-Men or something. But as I was talking to my friend about name changes, and about going through airport security when you have a binder on, I realized that the very thing that makes me an okay trans ally is what's going to work against me if I'm going to get my character right. If I'm going to honor his experiences as a transperson, it's going to touch every moment in the story, whether the story it's about his gender or not (it's not). And I find myself thinking of the institutions that he's going to be interacting with as people--big, blank, implacable people--that he's going to bounce off of. They're characters I have to think about. And this is where my mindset, and my privilege, work against me. Because to me it doesn't matter if my friend is trans. But it matters to him. It effects every minute of his life. And it matters to a lot of the people he interacts with (even though it shouldn't). So that all had to play a role in how this character walks through the world. I still want to write a story with a trans character that is not about that character's coming out process. And I think that I can (particularly if one of my trans friends ends up being willing to give the story a check to make sure I don't end up being a total asshole). But, as my friend reminded me today, "You can't just be casually trans."

Jamie Utt, 10 ways men can combat sexist entitlement in public

Someone very dear to me reports having had an excellent conversation on the topic of privilege-checking earlier today.  This is one of my favourite I-statement structured illustrations of the practice.

So yes, this feminist, activist, organizing thing is hard; but I am grateful to the people who help shape the radical, inclusive, feminist communities that I find home in.