Category Archives: Quoted for Truth

A screenshot of a tweet I posted to Twitter reading On the anniversary of Roe, today we must dedicate ourselves like never before to inclusive, progressive reproductive justice.

I talk about reproductive justice, and I’ll keep talking about it, and not just about “choice” or simply abortion, because abortion is just the tip of the iceberg. I talk about reproductive justice and not merely access to reproductive healthcare or access, because this isn’t just about what happens in medical offices. I talk about reproductive justice as something that doesn’t just affect women, as much as I appreciate Dr. Tiller’s motto of “trust women,” because some people who need reproductive healthcare do not identify as such, and failure to recognize that leads us further from what should be our true goals.

The best definition of reproductive justice I’ve ever found comes from Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice:

Reproductive Justice exists when all people have the social, political and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about our gender, bodies, sexuality and families for our selves and our communities.

This is my goal. Is it yours?

If Your Movement Isn’t Inclusive, It’s Bullshit

girl-non-grata said: $10 says it’s all the same anon, grasping at whatever straws to disparage you. $15 says the resentment comes from an impotent desire to totally bone you.

unknowablewoman (Raven Geary) replied: Nah, I know who it is. It’s one of the many bb SJ bots who flipped their shit over my refusal to call the “Let Women Die” bill the “Let People Die” bill. I’m not going to get into it again but suffice it to say that I have spoken with (and am close to) many, many trans* folk who agree that erasing the violent misogyny of anti-choice rhetoric is a dangerous thing to do.

Trans people are not a monolith of opinion, so when it comes to this issue, there IS a grey area and there IS going to come a point when, whoever you decide to agree with, you are going to be pissing SOMEONE off. So. Whatever. How that’s “violently” cissexist is beyond me, but this is Tumblr, so you know how it goes! 

(And at the end of the day, none of my critics are actually doing anything for abortion access, so the whole thing is laughable in that regard. Imagining them stepping into a real-world pro-choice setting and demanding that we don’t center women is the funniest thing to think about. They would be shut down and spit out so fucking fast.)

handingoutstars replied to that: I don’t know where the original ask originated this time (though I do know your history of cissexism), but this is some bullllshit.

How dare you? 

How dare you assume that those of us who criticized your cissexism aren’t doing anything for abortion access. I remember when you started escorting. It was quite a while after I started defending. I wouldn’t compare, except that you seem to think we do nothing for prochoice rights. You have no idea what we do. I have a tribe of fabulous trans* folk who give lots of fucks about abortion and choice and bodily autonomy. We understand more than a lot of people, how dangerous it is to start separating people from control over their own bodies. And you know what else? I have 0 male privilege. 0. Because of the way that I look, the way that I identify, and the way that I was socialized, and the way that I am perceived. I have been on the phones and participating in public debates since I was 14 about sex education, abortion rights, and preventive healthcare. Today, I work 3 “jobs” (I dare you to say if I cared I’d make time), but when I can get to the clinic again, I will be out there, facing our violent protesters. (Our clinic was featured on Rachel Maddow because of the dangerous relationship we have with components of Operation Save America/Operation Rescue). You don’t know anything about me or about anything. To say that trans* people who disagree with you aren’t doing anything for trans* rights is cissexist erasure.

And you have cisgender privilege. You don’t get to talk about the “gray” area. You need to pass that conversation over to trans* people, because, guess what, it has nothing to do with you. 

I don’t deny the violent misogyny, but I also won’t deny the dangers that happent to trans* people when we are left out of these conversations, dangers your cisprivileged mind won’t and/or can’t understand.

Also your “I’m close with” aka “my best friend is…” is bullshit. Bye.

I will unfollow anyone who reblogs unknowablewoman. Period. I did it when I had my old blog, and I will not stop now.

My addition: Raven, this is such a fail, I don’t even know what to say.

If our interest is reproductive justice then we must separate the misogyny motivating attacks on reproductive rights from how we talk about the people whose rights are being attacked. We do no favors meeting erasure with erasure.

Now, I do think that it’s fair to label the legislative attacks on choice and the actions of organizations that push for them (like the “Personhood” movement, Troy Newman and his merry band of pigs, Randall Terry and so on) as misogynist in motivation, at least in part. There’s absolutely a core belief about the roles of women that’s common through all of it, and the people involved aren’t thinking about non-female identified people who may need reproductive healthcare access.

Most in the anti-choice movement probably don’t even intellectually recognize that non-female identified people with uteri even exist, and if they do, probably refuse to accept their right to identify their genders in their own ways.

But we know that gender variant and trans* people exist and face specific challenges in accessing reproductive healthcare because of their gender identifications or presentations, and if we are interested in reproductive justice then we are honor bound to ensure that we are being inclusive and advocating for their needs just as well as everyone else’s.

A movement that didn’t just exclude but intentionally alienated people of color, while well aware of our particular challenges in accessing reproductive care would be nonsense. Useless.

A movement that didn’t advocate for poor people, or those in rural areas, or survivors of sexual violence, all of whom have particular challenges in accessing reproductive care that are worsened with the creeping incrementalism of recent laws (like Texas’s invasive ultrasound requirement and South Dakota’s new lengthy waiting period) would be less than nothing.

We cannot be a movement that does not include, does not advocate for, does not recognize and stand firm against the challenges faced by trans*, GQ/GV people and say that we’re about justice.

It’s one thing to generalize. I do it, and have been criticized for referring to people who breastfeed as mothers and with female pronouns, and that criticism was fair, though heavy on heat and short on light. It happens, and when you’re talking to a pre-101 level audience, it makes sense to do what you must when you’re trying to address a specific point in a timely fashion, and not trying to do broader education. There is a place for both.

But it’s another thing to say that you’re going to be intentionally exclusive just because you can, because you don’t care about the actual lived experiences of people who need the advocacy you’re allegedly committed to.

And it’s an altogether different, and ugly, and exceptionally inappropriate thing to make a statement that’s false on its face to reify a hierarchy of reproductive justice advocacy (which doesn’t exist to begin with) that makes you and your opinion more valid because you’re a clinic escort. It doesn’t work that way.

And it sure as hell does nothing to further the cause of reproductive justice.

“One day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s market place. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the oil?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the iron ore?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?’ These are questions that must be asked.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Queer

The term “queer” as I am using it, let me be clear, is not simply a code-word for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other ways of being at odds with dominant gender culture. “Queer” is not simply a reversal of a negative epithet so often hurled against GLBT folks in homophobic culture. “Queer” is not simply a synonym for being “odd,” “unusual,” or “out-there.”

 

Queerness is public solidarity in the struggle for sexual and gender justice and of irrepressibly making connections to other struggles for justice, compassion, and reconciliation. [Episcopal Divinity School] is, by the grace of God, a Queer seminary.

 

-Carter Heyward, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

(Courtesy @tragic_pizza)

Kasey Kahne and the Breastfeeding Yellow Flag

rockmelikeahurrikahne:

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

Kasey Kahne (NASCAR driver) thinks breastfeeding is “nasty”

[Kasey Kahne’s Twitter comments from yesterday are at the link.]

I was a breastfeeding mom. I fed my son until he was 13 months old. I worked from the point when he turned 3 months old. I added…

I’m sorry, but I agree with Kasey. No one wants to see a bare breast in the middle of the grocery store or any public place. I understand that your kid is hungry, but that doesn’t give you the right to whip your boob out in public and breast feed. If you know you’;re going to be going somewhere for a while, come prepared. bring a bottle.

Yeah, no. See, first of all, no one whips their boob out. Ever. It hasn’t ever happened. (A milk-filled breast isn’t very whippable anyway.) Secondly, yes, it is a right. Breastfeeding in public is protected in some form or other throughout the United States and most other countries, for that matter, for the simple reason that anyone’s feelings about the matter are not in way trumped by a child’s need to eat.

Third, not everyone who breastfeeds is capable of pumping milk to prepare a bottle. Pumps are expensive, proper bottles and nipples for breastfeeding infants aren’t cheap either, and pumping is a physically uncomfortable process that takes time and can have a negative impact on the breastfeeding relationship. Further, bottles of breastmilk actually aren’t especially portable. They have to be stored and transported cold, then reheated. It’s not like formula powder that can be dumped into room temp water and shaken up wherever you may be. When the breast is right there, with milk from the preferred vessel and at the perfect temperature, why on earth should a bottle have been prepared ahead of time for the preferences of other people?

Now, I can understand discomfort. I don’t like to see people doing a whole lot of things that they do in public. Chewing gum like a cow chewing its cud. Chewing tobacco. Spitting on the ground. (Those last two are often linked.) Yakking on a cell phone and ignoring companions or, especially, ignoring children. Blowing noses or drawing phlegm from the throat at a dining table, especially when others are actively eating nearby. Scratching and/or readjusting crotches. Sitting splay-legged or sitting on the outer seat of a pairing so as to appropriate two seats on public transit. When I encounter people doing those things? I look elsewhere. I do that because they aren’t doing anything to me.

Moral of the story: You don’t get to control everything that happens around you. That’s life. What you can control is your response to what you experience. You can choose to be a respectful adult and carry on with your own business, or you can choose to be a disrespectful brat, like Kasey Kahne, and spew insults and slurs, or like you’ve been, proclaiming your clear ignorance of the topic and suggesting that you (or Kasey) get to be the arbiters of other people’s behavior.

One choice is correct, one choice is not. Choose wisely.