Apparently I am more or less unable to synthesize information right now -- I just hoard it in a useless place in my brain.

This post was worth a read.

Perhaps more insight will come later.

things I did not know about

Multiple systems. A glossary of multiple systems.

I do not feel up to a description of something I did not know existed 15 minutes ago.

However, I discovered that something I did know about has a name, at least in some groups. Apparently being violated by your doctor, nurse, midwife, or other individual during birth (in the sense of having of actions performed on you without your consent) can be referred to as "birth rape." (After reading hideous descriptions of obstetric care on "My OB/GYN said what?" -- sorry can't remember the html address -- I am just glad that I am not the only one who is outraged by this.) Discovery source: The Curvature.

DADT

I have never been quite sure why Don't Ask Don't Tell bothers me far more than perhaps equivalent pieces of legislature in the civilian world.

But, I think this photo (found on Feministing, and apparently it has been making the rounds) gets pretty well at the heart of it.

The caption: Can you spot the gay soldier?

There.

That is it.

I do not have unambiguous feelings about many other issues affecting the LGBT community, but this one -- this one I am sure about.

thoughts

I really should have started this blog about two months earlier, because this point I'm pretty much fatigued by social cause blogs. They grate.

Reasons:

1. Located a few extremely incendiary blogs. Read a bit. Quite a bit. They had good points to make -- I wouldn't have kept reading otherwise. But they also irritated the shit out of me.

2. During some recent travels I was the selected target for some beggars, panhandlers, and other scam artists. Somehow the knowledge of these persons' likely economic status (dire) and social pressures (high) has not helped me alleviate the intense anger I feel toward these persons for violating my personal space and (it seemed fairly evident at the time) intending to take advantage of my person further. (Likely this has to do with being attacked earlier this summer by a more aggressive person-intent-on-redistributing-my-possessions.) The reconciliation of knowledge and emotion in my brain is an ugly mess and I am letting it calm for a while.

a question. well, several.

If anyone knows the answer to this (who might read this blog, ha), please comment.

I read a (very, very angry) entry from a trans issues blog recently that was a call-out (flinch, will examine that later) of another blog entry. So far as I could tell, the anger was due to the fact that the terms "cisgender" and "cissexual" were conflated into the term "cis" in such a way that ignored cisgender, transsexual men and transgender, cissexual men.* (I think. I'm still a little confused.)

So: Can "cis" be used inoffensively as a shorthand for "cissexual and cisgender," for persons such as myself for whom both of those things are true? It seems like "trans" sometimes is (i.e. used as shorthand for "transsexual and transgender") but then, it also seems the usage of those two words is not standardized.


* According to another website that I found, a cisgender, transsexual man would be one whose gender presentation was feminine but physical attributes were changed to be masculine and a transgender, cissexual man would one whose gender presentation was masculine, but physical attributes remained feminine. Wow, I'm really not sure if I managed worded that in a non-ignorant (/unoffensive) way or not. . . how does one refer to changing physical attributes that are typically classed with one gender without implying that the person that possesses said attributes is that gender? But it also seems like (based on the descriptions I found) that there are some trans persons who do identify with their assigned gender, but do not feel comfortable with their bodies as-is. Errrgh. I suspect this is why people screw up on trans issues so often; there are so many axes to slide up and down and trip on.

Reblog!

Fascinating article that explains a lot of what I see in activist blogs/blog commenting: Activist modus operandi.

this makes me queasy

Outpatient abortion services.