Star Ocean

Crowe stole my space elf bishie!  I could forgive the fact that he was cooler than my guy, but this, this is unforgivable!  Go die in a spaceship fire, Crowe.

Phrases I Hate, Example #1

"Giving voice to the voiceless"

Why do I hate this?  Because it is denying that oppressed and marginalized people already have voices and opinions.  It is very, very paternalistic.  Rather than pointing out that these people are not being listened to, are not fairly being given access to platforms, are harassed when they speak, etc. it pretends that the people at issue have nothing to say for themselves and no opinions of themselves and need a privileged person to tell other privileged people what the oppressed people's needs are in order to "rescue" them.

This phrase is almost never appropriate, so I decided to try and think of times when it would not actually be used in a foolish privileged way:

1) Talking about non-human animals 

"Hey, everybody, I'm totally giving a voice to these voiceless bees!"

2) Fictional Characters

"The new writer gave that wizard a voice where before the series had made the character rather voiceless."

3) Autotune

"Autotune gives a good voice even to those who have no voice at all."

4) Hallucinations about inanimate objects

"That acid I was tripping on gave a voice to the voiceless stuffed animals."

Sensa Fatphobic Ads, Part 2

So, here's yet another fatphobic Sensa ad.  This time, I got screengrabs of both the beginning and end result of the animation.

In addition to being organ free at the end, you'll note she must be incredibly short at the beginning too (and grows in height for the end measurements), judging by the text, as she's supposedly the "size 14".  Here's what a size 14 looks like:

The ad both distorts the end body beyond all possibility and misrepresents what a typical size 14 body would look like. 

Just for the record, here's a model who is between size 8 and 10, notice all of the room for organs and such:

Women's bodies come in many shapes and sizes, but none of them come in the shape and size of the end result of these Sensa ads.

Hunger Strike

In honor of the eleventh day of the UVA student hunger strike, here's a little Temple of the Dog:

More on the hunger  strike here http://blog.aflcio.org/2012/02/27/uva-students-football-player-on-hunger-strike-for-workers-living-wage/

And Jill Stein of the Green Party has put up contact information for the UVA President on her candidacy website (she's a Green Party Presidential Candidate): www.jillstein.org/virginia_students_hunger_strike?utm_campaign=va_keystone_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=jillstein

Administrative Inconvenience

A cis hetero woman who gets married can easily and cheaply change her name.  She need not spend hundreds of dollars (or spend large amounts of time applying for fee waivers if she is impoverished).  She does not need to meet publication requirements.  She need not demonstrate her need to change her name.  Nor does she have to face great difficulty if she has debt or a criminal history.  She does not have to worry about being treated as suspicious if she moved recently and she will be presumed not to be a fraud.

Yet, to change my legal name so that I no longer have to have my hated birth name on all of my documents, must do all of these things (except demonstrate need to change the name, because my current state of residence is one of the few that does not require strong reason to change a name, I also have no criminal record, but this is by coincidence the petition does inquire about these things).

This is one of the many cases where the needs of the dominant group, in this case cis heteros engaging in normative cis hetero activities, are deemed perfectly acceptable and convenient, yet everyone else’s needs are deemed troublesome and as warranting suspicion.  If a cis woman getting married changing her name is no trouble, a trans person changing their name shouldn’t be either.

Is Genderqueer a Political Identity?

Yes and no.  No, being genderqueer isn’t like being pro-gun control, it is an identity, not a position.  Does being genderqueer identified say something about me and the way I view gender?  Yes, but by that standard, so does the identities of those who are cis, are binary IDed, etc.  If my gender identity is political, so are binary IDed cis people’s.  Binary cisgendered identities are only seen as apolitical insofar as they are treated as the norm and as the default human.  

We often do this with marginalized or stigmatized identities.  The rights and lives of trans people, queer/lgb people, people of color, people with disabilities, women, poor people, colonized people, etc. are seen as objects of public scrutiny and as “political issues”.  But marginalized identities are not inherently more political than centered ones.  Oppression is not primarily an “issue” of the oppressed, rather it is an issue with the oppressors.  If being against an enforced binary gender system is a political position, than the opposite position, being in support of an enforced binary system, is also a political position. 

You know what?  I would fucking love it if being genderqueer were as easily accepted, acknowledged, and given rights as being cis and binary and we didn't have to engage in political and social struggles.  I would fucking love not having to fight for rights, not having to navigate through unfavorable legal and social minefields, not having to swallow the vomit that rises in my throat when confronted with being forced to put myself in a gendered box.  It would make my life so much easier.  I would love to not have to be “political”, but until that day comes, I won’t accept being told to stop fighting to protect myself or others like me (and others not like me who are given shit too).  The frontlines of this “political” struggle isn’t a game to me, it is my life. 

Loose Weight and Organs!

Since I am somewhat random, welcome to my first substantive post, here it goes:

So, I am listed as female on my yahoo details (public profiles allow not listing a binary gender, but registration did not), so it gives me gendered ads based on that.  So, I see one of those fatphobic weightloss ads where a fat person shrinks into a thin person on the side while I'm checking my email.  As I watch it she shrinks from fat to medium to thin to…organless.  I did not manage to get a screengrab of the beginning stage of the animation, but this was the end result:

Wasp waisted and organless, a literally impossible beauty standard.

Of course, maybe I am wrong, given the history of unsafe diet drugs, I suppose having all of your abdominal organs and some of your bones melt and warp is conceivable…

Hello

Hello, I am darksidecat (yes, my nym is a somewhat obscure anime reference).  I am a queer, atheist, feminist, leftist genderqueer (and assorted other things).  My preferred pronouns are "ze" and "hir" (replace she/he and him/her respectively).  Other gender neutral pronouns, including the singular "they" are also okay by me. 

I'm typically too lazy, unfocused, and short on attention span to keep up a blog, but I figured I'd give it another try.