When a Pin Makes You Think #Trans #Feminism

I came across this Pin and had mixed feelings of agreement and anger, simultaneously. So I'm adding my own viewpoint here.

If you're trans F to M because you feel you're a dude, cool, rock on, I support you. #Allies

If you're trans F to M because you need to be afforded the same life rights as a dude, then we've got a society problem and I'm sorry you had to tackle it that way, but I'll still support you, but also be super mad at the world that made you feel this way. #Feminism #Allies

No one should have to feel that they have to hide who they are or change themselves just to be treated as an equal or human (unless you've made terrible life choices, like being a child molester or other non-consensual acts, in which case you deserve to be hunted down).

Guest Post on the Smell of Patriotism #KeepFamiliesTogether

Please welcome my guest, friend, occasional boss, and cousin-in-law:

J Lenni Dorner

Thanks, Jamie!

I didn't know where best to share my feelings on this subject. But, since Jamie is my NaNoWriMo ML and her blog gets political sometimes, this seemed to be the best place.

On Tuesday night, the local writing group got together in a public place. They do that weekly. Picture, if you will, a handful of writers sitting around a table with their laptops, pens, books, snacks, and whatnot. I wasn't there, but Jamie was, and she's told me about it.

A man came up to the group and asked about the gathering. He was told it was a group of writers. The man said he would soon turn 91. The writers congratulated him on staying alive so long.

Then the man spouts off about the greatness of the current President, says something about social security, and states his joy that immigrants are being tossed out.

Again, I wasn't there.

Either he wouldn't have addressed the group if I was, or he'd have implied that I (a Native American) should be deported back to "my native country." I assume this because of how often that's happened to me since the last presidential election. #ThanksForTheHate

As a mute, I wouldn't have been able to respond fast enough anyway. (Though I'm told there's a hero in this story, another writer who gave a verbal smackdown and ended with, "Bye! Don't come again!" in an ironic customer service voice.) But here's what I'd have liked to have thrown out there:

There's a relative of my spouse, let's call him John Doe. He was visiting his parents who live down south. Or LIVED. They retired there. John Doe's father served in the military. The Doe family owned a small shop in Minnesota, where John Doe was born. The raiders came to call on the town in the south, taking John Doe and his parents and deporting all of them. Never mind that his parents had both been legal citizens since the sixties. Never mind that John Doe was born here, served this country in the Army and was decorated for doing so, and has a wife and child here. The three of them are gone.

I'm using an alias because his Army buddies are using back channels to try to get him back. They're trying to smuggle a United States citizen back into his own country, assuming they can figure out where he and his parents were shipped off to, and assuming they're alive.

Meanwhile, his six-year-old daughter, Pennsylvania born and raised, has cancer. The worry is that they'll come for this child. Throw her in a detention center where she will most certainly die because the treatments are the only reason she's alive right now.

So someone, and I'm not saying who, has to sneak the poor girl in under a costume to get her treatments. You know what her vomit smells like?

PATRIOTISM.

That's what it smells like inside the costume. And the wetness of her tears feels like morality. Mind you, it sounds like the opposite of patriotism, considering the current political field. But I don't believe the current rule will last. Not as long as people are willing to fight for love.

Congratulations to the man who lived for so many years and yet would deny this child her father, and her own life. I regret not having the authority to throw you off the land of my people. #KeepFamiliesTogether

IntenseDebate Comment Problems

For whatever reason, IntenseDebate no longer works on this blog.

Perhaps there was an update I missed. Maybe there was a problem with the HTML I couldn't find. The only instructions on the site were how to reinstall it (and none of those are relevant or understandable without a working knowledge of the last dozen updates) or how to remove it (and even that took an hour to figure out because they're for an old version). The Twitter feed hasn't been updated for years, so I'm guessing this is something that was abandoned and no one told me.

The comments are still available for me to see if I log into the Intense Debate website. However, after removing it from my blog, they are no longer visible here.

I doubt my comment counter will continue to work now that I've uninstalled Intense Debate. It was the only way to get comments to turn back on, unfortunately.

Sorry if something you once said has now vanished. Please know that I'm grateful for the words and read all of them. I even managed an occasional reply! They still exist, but I have no idea how to move them to this blog from the IntenseDebate site that has them held hostage.

WTF last 48 hours Hate to Say It

Why so angry?

The last 24 hours have been nuts. But this is MY BLOG. So I'm gonna go ahead and rant and you can't stop me.

I had to do laundry. But one of the two dryers has been out of service for two months now. I put my wash and the last of my detergent into one of the washers, added my quarters... IT DID NOT TURN ON. It'll be three weeks until I get a refund. Which will be a check. That I need to take to the bank and then need to get turned back into quarters. And it's summer, so I can't go out during the hot hours, which is when banks are open, so I have to go to the seedy carwash (because the nice one is gone) to buy quarters in the middle of the night like a freakin thief, while one of the local drug dealers offers to sell me things. That's... thanks. 

Someone I know, and I'm not saying who, but the person had to call out of work today because they do security and right now that post is in a freaking parking lot outside. The person took one look at the magenta spot heading toward work and was all aboard the NOPE train! *cough cough* Called out sick. The person is currently hoping not to experience the near-opening of Wizard of Oz... 

I had a typo in my Facebook post. The app crashed 10 times rather than let me fix it. Look, the fundraiser, they donated $5 just for my making it. I don't give one good damn if anyone else gives through me. I raised $5 by making a damn post. It took less than 5 minutes of my time. Feel me?

This is gonna be all "first world problem" sounding, but whatever. I hate that I put my mug in the dishwasher and it came out DIRTIER than when it went in! What the damn hell? Also, I hate that my dishwasher doesn't drain properly. Yeah, just run the last cycle again. But that uses enough electric to momentarily dim the lights. And I sometimes have to do it twice. It's annoying. And it's because the drains have to be snaked again. Why?

Sigh...

There's a water thing outside my window. And this kid was playing with again today. Just a young kid. But an adult was with him and HANDING HIM ROCKS to put into the water drain thing.

Why didn't I say anything?

This is gonna sound horrible. There's no way it won't. 

I don't want to seem racist. Which has maybe made me racist, or reverse racist, I don't know. Because if the two humans outside throwing rocks into the water drain system, causing it to back up the drains for my apartment and others, if those people had a similar skin coloring to my own, I'd have said something. No, I don't think skin color has anything to do with why they were doing this. 

But there have been lots of reports lately about dumb white people calling the cops on not-white people for doing innocuous things. And I REFUSE to be one of them. Even though it's not the cops I'd have called. But I won't be that person. So I'm now letting vandalism, that directly impacts my day, slide. And that's probably not the solution either. But I don't have one. And I'm not going to have one. And I'm angry about a lot of things right now, and yes, I'm freaking hormonal, and it's not helping!

Anyway, those are my rants right now. And it's all horrible.