Gina

gadaboutgreen:

dancepunksnotdead:

You know, the one that gives housewives/full-time mothers a pension— wages for housework?

It’s ONLY A HUGE VICTORY FOR FEMINISM, SOCIALISM, AND WOMEN OF COLOR. Not a big deal or anything. Tumblr is mysteriously silent about this.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/venezuelas-new-labour-law-best-mothers-day-gift

Ms. DeVries was *JUST* telling me about this shit tonight!! This is *AMAZING!!!!*

Isn’t this the coolest thing?! Damn.

A friend of mine with fibromyalgia made a post on facebook today about struggling with believing what her body is experiencing sometimes, and also struggling with believing others before she became chronically ill. I wrote this back in response, and wanted to post it here so I remember it.

I also have fibro, and I’m with you with regards to a lot of this. I honestly didn’t think most [chronically ill] people were over-reacting/sensitive [before my diagnosis], mostly because I already had A LOT of chronically ill & disabled folks in my life. But I did & still do struggle with believing what my body is experiencing. I was taught a lot of lessons about “sucking it up & dealing” growing up — and of course that is all *deeply* influenced by class stuff and gender stuff and abuse history, right?! But one thing I’ve really had to learn as I’ve navigated being chronically ill is that my hard-won, bone-deep, very working-class (and hustler, and hard femme) tendencies to just ride things out and make something out of nothing and POWER THRU!!! are actually really fucking dangerous if I take them to extreme. They are ways to cope and ways to shine that served me well for a very long time, no doubt. And I’m proud that I am a hard fucking worker. That said, my body actually *deserves better* than running running running all the time. My body deserves better than making something outta nothing & just powering thru on sheer will. My body deserves abundance & care.

And okay, I know this comment is all ME ME ME GINA GINA GINA, but clearly/also, YOUR lovely body deserves abundance & care, too. Everyone’s does!

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So, as many of you reading here know, I’m genderqueer (and also femme), and I’ve become more out & vocal about that in recent years. (If you are a friend who somehow did not know about this and you’ve got questions for me, I’m totally happy to chat with you about it! But let’s please talk one-on-one, as opposed to in a public internet space like tumblr or facebook or whatnot.)

I’ve been publically identifying myself as femme for years, but coming out around my genderqueer stuff has been a complex process for me, in part because the way I do genderqueer & the way I do femme & the fact that I’m female-assigned all in combination tend to mean that I end up reading out in the day-to-day world as a cis lady like 99% the time. I get a ton of cis privilege out in the world; I don’t want to discount or deny that. Plus which I publically identified myself as a cis woman for a long-ass time.

And, all of that said: My internal sense of my gender is actually very slippery & switchy. I’ve been exploring that privately for years, and I’m finally in a place where I’m ready to start exploring in a more public “out in the real world & not just in my head” kind of way, too. I’m not so much feeling like a woman these days, as much as I feel sometimes like a girl & sometimes like a faggot & mostly like a weird genderfucky glamrock androgyne. (See also, our available language for talking about gender is way too limited. I wish we had better & more elegant descriptors, you know?)

Anyway. I’ve been thinking about what pronouns feel good for me recently, and here is where I’m at:

* Pronoun-wise, I like she/her/hers, or ze/hir/hirs. My very favorite thing is when people use a combination of the two. That’s what feels like it most accurately describes how I see myself & move through the world.

* Relatedly: I actually really appreciate “she” because, to me, it is both a girl pronoun & a faggot pronoun. I know that for a lot of people this is NOT the case, so please don’t go universalizing that statement! But it is the case for me. In many ways, I was raised in my queerness by working-class faggots, and “she” was the Pronoun Du Jour in the crowd that brought me up & out. The issue is, most people don’t use “she” in that particular way (and this is a large part of why I want to experiment with using gender-neutral pronouns, too).

Anyway, my point is: If you want to use “she” for me all the time with that particular understanding of how “she” works for me, that is very cool, and very welcome. :)

Thanks, all.

So the amazing Reina has a beautiful blog that I encourage all of you to check out. Recently, she’s been posting a lot of archival & historical interviews & articles about Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries). This history is vitally important to know and to remember.

And I know we live in the internet age of FAST! FAST! FAST!, but I’d encourage you, as much as possible, to read this blog like you’d read a book you were savoring. Sit the hell down in a comfy chair, pour yourself a cup of tea or coffee. Take your time. Let the words sink in.

Above all, don’t skim it! This work matters way too much for skimming.