Gina

cesarconacento said: Ill watch it while i work tonight, and then the dorking out begins.

Reason #514 why I <3 our friendship.

Okay. The latest episode of Community/Faux-munity (I miss Dan Harmon!), in which The Darkest Timeline Returns? I have felt really lukewarm about Faux-munity thus far, but this episode* is actually kinda blowing my damn mind. Like, I feel the need to TALK about this with people.

* also I loved the Muppet episode, not gonna lie

Love & respect to Reina Gossett. I got your back, Bella. <3

thespiritwas:

This week was my first time having an entire blog dedicated to shit talking me because I wrote both to a press website and on my blog asking for the labor I put into making this new STAR zine materialize not be erased, especially because I had to deal with transphobic, ableist and racist violence while doing that work. The response to that has just been toxic and included this person saying:

I WENT TO A LIBRARY. WAAH.

Social Justice politics are sickening.

ON UNTORELLI’S “NEW” BOOK (BLAH BLAH BLAH, I CUT OUT ALL THE BORING SJ TALK -FA)

CITATION PRACTICES ARE NOTHING, ANARCHY ISN’T ABOUT WHO GETS “CRED” AND MAKING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT IDENTITY. FUCK. Plagiarism; if you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.

“Like seriously, Eric, Reina, y’all were presumably on the clock while you engaged in this spectacle, which would be a pretty admirable feat in unworking if I didn’t already think really poorly of you. Us “privileged” trolls usually can’t post on tumblr from our “jobs” if we even have them.”

AND THIS:

“If someone does something you don’t like, it’s much easier to write an entire diatribe calling them out publicly and get pats on the back from all your buddies than it ever would be to open a discourse. It’s also VERY hard to talk about oppression politics when you are literally an academic or an non-profit employee, so make sure to do it at every chance you get.”

——-

The assumption I made about these people were that we probably share community, and by community I mean people who believe in trans liberation, who believe that they are working for revolution and know that labor expectations are damaging, inhumane, capitalist, and extremely political.

I also assumed they read my blog because the material in their zine came from it.

I made those assumptions and then witnessed how outside these shared beliefs it is for them to do the responding they’ve done, play that anti-identity bullshit, and assume that having any job at a nonprofit means that all work you do on my blog & in my own research and everything is somehow a function of that job—- its just such harmful up absolutism.

I wrote, both directly to the press website as well as a thoughtful open letter to the press, about the kinds of politics that underpin the idea that its that’s okay to repost a blog without citing the source. After all, these folks that copied my blog posts, word for word -typos and all-, and didn’t think to even acknowledge me, but did think to acknowledge the other quotes in the essay with a citation.

Since then I’ve received anonymous hate mail and been non stop blog posts, I’d link but its really oppressive over there.

What I learned from this is apparently when a black trans woman names the process of erasure then that’s playing into “identity politics” and “call out culture” rather than actually naming how oppression can function even within movement space. This person has no idea what it means for me to have a job, what kind of work I do, and what I get paid for.

Asking for words to be attributed to the process and people who helped put mold them is not about cred. I’m not mad because someone reprinted the words of STAR and now they are cooler or realer than me. Libraries and other public institutions are huge sites of violence, sometimes you need degrees to get inside, other times you get clocked by security. I want more people to have access to all these materials. That’s why I put them on my blog!

It’s not about credit. It’s about acknowledging the labor that went into unearthing, collecting and archiving something. And in this case labor means exertion, production, time, pain, sacrifice, and creation.

So when these folks claim naming who I am, trans, black, policed, disabled, employed, hustler, as identity politics, and that we should not be doing identity politics; it’s just a way to acquit themselves of having to actually deal with oppression that it itself perpetuates.

It’s not anarchist to ignore race and gender, it’s anarchist to dissemble them. And you can’t do that by just going off on someone who names their experiences as identity politics and telling them to get to work.

Its wild to me that acknowledging the work of fellow thinkers/writers/researchers is anti-anarchist rather than solid loving movement building practice.

There is too much at stake not to name ourselves in the stories we pass down. because this is our time, this is our life.

datingdisastersofaqueergirl:

There are people that exist in your life and they are just it for you. From the moment you meet them, you know, “Yes. Yes. This is it.” I remember the first time I came across the phrase “kindred spirit” when I was 8 years old, reading Anne of Green Gables. They are rare and beautiful people in your life and they are everything.

Andy (boy on the left) is one of those people for me (girl on the right). Ever since we met at Camp Trans 2009, he has been my platonic soul mate. We call each other “brother” and we mean it. 

In the last three months, both of our lives have fallen apart. Some of those things happened in tandem (one of our best friends killed themselves in December) and some of those things have been completely separate (he got in a 4 car pileup just days after the funeral; I watched my neighbor bleed to death in her driveway last Saturday). But he needs me. And I need money.

I live in Oakland. He lives in Michigan. A couple of weeks ago, his partner, with whom he has been for many years, was poisoned. He has an incredibly rare neurological condition called dystonia, and he is now suffering from brain damage. Andy is doing his best to take care of him, but all the stress of the last three months got to him and he had a massive seizure, breaking his arm in two places. His partner now uses a wheelchair and is also having seizures. His partner was also the sole financial provider for the family and obviously can no longer work. My best friend is struggling to keep afloat.

I have been an aid for folks with both physical and neurological disabilities for 6 years. I can help them. I just need to get there. 

I’ve asked for money from tumblr before, to get to my friend’s funeral. Y’all saved me then, and I’m hoping beyond hope that lightening might strike twice. I need a good thing like you would not believe. And flying to Michigan to take care of my friends is that good thing.

I need help buying a plane ticket and making up for the week of work I’ll be missing. My partner and I are way below the poverty line and we could not pay rent if I missed a day of work. So. If you’re able and willing, please consider tossing me like 5 bucks to go take care of the platonic love of my life. If it makes you feel any better, we’re both queer and mad activists, he’s trans, and we’re poor. I’m not above exploiting identity politics to get to him. 

here’s the link to my paypal.  I don’t have the words to properly thank anyone who even considers donating, but thank you. Thank you. 

Gus is just a thoroughly lovely person whose work in the world consistently impresses me & brings me joy. Consider throwing her some love & cash, folks.