my baby's in the white fluffy clouds

maybe i'm a lion

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 17:07:10 GMT

so i think i (at least, the part of me talking to other people most of the time right now [0]) might be a lion. i love foxes, and i'm not _not_ a fox, really, i don't think that's a thing i could simply stop doing or being! just. i think of foxes as tricksters or trickster-adjacent, finding clever ways around work and problems or avoiding getting ensnared in problems to begin with, or talking their way out of jams. i have done that many times in the past! it's really cool! but at the moment i feel called to things in my local life and in the world around me that can't be outclevered, that are really about just doing the work. and with my fox mask on i kind of chafe a little at that, tbh, i keep looking for a solution that isn't there to a puzzle that isn't really a puzzle. the work is scary! the work is too big to do alone as a slinky forest creature who dodges traps and answers riddles!

( image cut in case it fucks up your reading page because dw is kinda like that sometimes )
and maybe it's weird that i see being a lion as being about _doing the work_, given the sleepy/lazy/&c. image of "lion around," but i think especially for a lion whose maleness is deeply contingent, who is not the leader of a pride, who's not the patriarch and has kind of intentionally set any chance i might have to be the patriarch on fire and watched it burn itself out floating away down the river of bring aggressively and openly trans... wow this sentence also went down that river, bobbing up and down, losing whatever clause was supposed to go here as it went. that's fine. the estrogen in the water supply will wash away prescriptive grammar and/or give it hips. it's fine.

because here's the thing: lionesses do the work, individually and collectively, managing raising children and hunting and social organization at the same time. inasmuch as those are things that lions do, at least, as opposed to human concepts being mapped imperfectly onto lions, which is kind of what furry identity is at the best of times: taking the ways we've anthropomorphized animal behavior and turning it back on ourselves in a way that lets us learn more about both ourselves and the animals who are not us. and i'm not a lioness. i'm a _boy_ lion. but in a way i can only be after having chosen irreversibly not to be a man and to forcelose the possibility that i will ever be seen as a man, so that i can and must do my share of the work. that could be its own entire thing i write about some other time i guess.

and let's be frank: a regal lion from the savannah, coded with some sort of implied Naturalness is maybe not a thing in my right of way, anyway. [1] But a white lion --- not even a pure white lion, a beautiful pastel disaster with funny-colored rosettes, a copy of a copy with weird body issues who was raised in an environment divorced from the originary [2] as an entertainment [3] rather than a hunter or a warrior or whatever? yeah that's kinda me. like i feel like my upbringing kept me in isolation from my _own_ culture let alone any culture i might try to appropriate based on a furry identity. that is also probably a different post than "hey i got a new fursona look at it i'm pretty" but. hey i got a new fursona. look at it. i'm pretty.

i also wanted to like... really reflect my actual material body in the way this fursona looks. this isn't _exactly_ me in a couple of ways, but i recognize myself in it in a way that is sometimes hard when more of the detail of my body shape is abstracted away, while still thinking i look _damn cute._ the artist did an amazing job and was very helpful in making that happen and if you like to look at or commission furry art i really recommend kresendoe for both of those things!

( footnotes )

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book recommendation: _ally_ by Madison Scott-Clary

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 17:30:44 GMT

( a note on recommending this text at this time )

That said: This past weekend I read ally by Madison Scott-Clary [1], and I found it a deeply rewarding experience. ally is a fictionalized memoir in which Scott-Clary grapples with issues of mental health, sexual and asexual identity (there's some excellent writing about aceness in here!), what it means to have a self, how abuse and trauma affect those things, and, excitingly for at least me, how being a hopelessly nerdy furry specifically inflects all of that in really interesting directions. It's a typographical adventure (the whole thing is produced in LaTeX), with the inclusion of sheet music, threaded stories, interlocking footnotes, and subtle but crucial uses of color. (Think House of Leaves, although it's less frenetic, or one of the really good Catgirl Goth Rave invites.) That alone is probably enough enticement for some of y'all, but I am really excited to recommend it for another specific reason: I think it's my favorite plural memoir.

( and this is why )

"That matters to me more than I expected," said about someone else's life, is my summary of this whole book.

( in conclusion maybe read it )

( footnotes )

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Trans Slurs, Rax Liking Post-Structuralism A Lot, And Some Articles From Twitter

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 03:18:07 GMT

Okay, so. This isn't super honed but I have to pack to be on a plane at 6 AM so I'm posting it as is.

( yes this is about that halberstam article )
( footnotes as always )

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gender frustration

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 01:45:40 GMT

So, gender!

For a while now I've been mumbling about maybe using gender-neutral pronouns or something because I have this discomfort with gender. My name is Rachel, and I present myself as female, and you might think I'd be reasonably happy about both of those because I picked them. And in some ways I am! Because damn, are they better than the alternative.

Except that "the alternative" is a false choice; I don't have to choose either or. I could pick preferred pronouns of "they" or "ey" or "hir" or "xyzzy" and most of you would respect it and a lot of you would even use it most or all of the time. That's pretty awesome! I could say that my gender was "neuter" or "other" or "awesome" and that would be great. It's something I appreciate about my friends and even some of my family that this is true. I appreciate it a lot, and I work to extend the same courtesy to everyone, though particularly those folks who ask me for it.

Problem is: I can't get that from strangers, and that's who I actually want it from. I don't care that much if my friends treat me as female, because I think it has way less impact on how they treat me overall; sure, there's some amount of ingrained gender bias and I did notice people treating me differently before and after transition, but people who know me well think of me as more than a gender, even though they do think of me as having a gender. And I am OK with that. I did pick it, after all, even though I picked it from fewer options than I realize now that I might have had.

What really bothers me is when strangers and acquaintances and use gendered language for me. I don't want to be Mrs. Dillon (which I've been called like ten times today) and I don't want to be Ms. Dillon either. Mx. Dillon is tolerable, at least; I'd rather not have a title at all, but if I have to I would like it to not be dependent on my vagina. [0] I feel similarly about pronouns and social expectations and all manner of things. But at the moment I don't really have any desire to declare my gender other or change my pronouns or change much about my presentation, because I don't think it would change the situations I really care about. I want people on the phone who I will never talk to again to not use sir or ma'am, because it shouldn't matter, and they make it matter and I don't like it. I don't care if people I know well use that kind of language, though. Usually. [1]

I don't really have a point here, other than this is more formed than my usual pointing at gender and going "Urgh! Meh!" and so I figured I would write it down. I realize that I could ask random people on the phone to not use gendered language, and I could enforce that in all social situations, but it isn't worth it for me right now; the effort threshhold of saying "I prefer you not refer to me as ma'am or sir" to the clerk at the store is higher, to me, than just dealing with it. I recognize that not to be the case for some people and I totally support that! It's just not me, right now.

This comes up in part because I've had people in my new department ask me pronoun preference and I said "she or they, whichever" and they were like "...whichever?" and I was like "Yeah, basically." Because that's where I'm at, right now? It's a moving target, who knows where if anywhere it is going. If you wanna call me "they" and "Mx." I am neutral to vaguely positive on that. "male pronouns are still wrong, thanks"

[0] Or more correctly the social expectation that I have a vagina, and thus a particular set of social obligations, based on the way I am presented and present myself.

[1] There's one coworker who calls me darling, who does not accept correction on this (when I asked him not to, he started calling me sir, which is worse). In basically all other ways I really like working with him. I'm mostly used to it, but it's kinda frustrating.

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cursory weekend post!

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 16:45:11 GMT

Further Confusion is super rad, although oh my god my sleep schedule. But it has been wonderful to see many of my West Coast friends, especially the Seattle folks I missed last trip. And there is Race for the Galaxy! And there are tons of furries! It's pretty boss.
One disappointment: They canceled the pokemon panel, and I am missing the IU pokemon event to be here (SO SAD ABOUT THIS), so I have not gotten to dork out about Pokemon much at all. Luckily, I ran into a smashingly androgynous Silver cosplayer --- no one else recognized the costume, and we dorked out at each other for a while, and they fed Rik when Rik was hungry, and it was great. I'm a teeny bit tempted to do a Dawn cosplay now (since I could basically make my hair work if I just parted it to hide the pink) but I don't know if people at furry conventions would get it, and I don't know if I care enough to actually go to an anime convention just to have an excuse to dress as a Pokemon character. ~~besides if I wanted to mack on people dressed as Silver I'd really need to do Kotone~~
I am actually getting reading done here! Not as much as I would at home but, hopefully, enough. This week's reading in one class is about non-academic feminism! It is reminding me why I prefer academic feminism. :( Although there are some really great things being said, this whole "second wave and third wave taking jabs at each other every chance they get" thing is just draining to read.
Also, Jessica Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism, published in 2007, which claims to make a significant effort toward intersectionality, and even has a chapter all about men? Does not contain the word trans a single time [0], lukewarm at best towards queerness, and handles race with gloves. I need to read it a second time in a different mood to see if there are things I like about it; in the mood I approached it in, I was just like ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. But maybe I was looking for too much? Or at least letting my ugh get in the way of the things that are presumably good about the book such that we were assigned to buy and read it.
Restaurants are for other people, but between a normal grocery store and a Vietnamese grocery store I am getting to eat more than trail mix, and that is good. Orange juice. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[0] And yes, it's a pet issue, I know, but come on. I'd keep a running count of the number of times "genderqueer" showed up, but it would be too depressing. Trans is in the national consciousness, the way so many authors pretend it doesn't exist is just maddening. There really is no excuse. 2007.

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Bullets!

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 03:45:24 GMT

Catgirl Goth Rave was amazing. It wasn't super mad crazy packed, but that was good, because it felt like the right size for the venue. Go team Catgirl Goth Rave. So many people helped put it together and we had five different DJs and everything was wonderful and I did bring enough ears. I had sooooooooooooooooo much fun. I miss dancing while in a catgirl costume. Maybe I should do it more! Also I got to see a ton of friends I haven't seen in a long time, some for like six years, and I got to spend lots and lots of time with Rik and Krinn and that was super mega awesome good. It is nice to know that my friends are still my friends even when I am not around them all the time. I mean, I know, but it's nice to be reminded.
I am actually relaxing! Mostly! Although I do keep talking about and reading about gender theory as you will see from the majority of this post. ^^;;
For example, I started reading a blog called Vegan Ideal at befitting 's recommendation and ran into this post about the use of the word "tranny" on Glee. That led me to this great post by Quinnae Moongazer on the topic [0] as well as this other post by Tobi Hill-Meyer following up on Kate Bornstein's apology and then apology-revocation. She keeps doing this. It's really rather frustrating. It makes me want to say this:
Dear Kate Bornstein, you are not my aunt. I have aunts, both in my chosen family and in my family of origin; you are in neither. Your attempt to put yourself into my family structure and the family structures of other trans and genderqueer persons is creepy and weird, and saying things like this: "And yes, you may call me Auntie Kate. I will positively burst into tears if you don’t." makes me feel queasy as to the possibility of real discourse with you. In order for us to be chosen family, we must both consent to that choice; I do not. In order for us to be family of origin, you're going to have to marry into my family somehow. This solution does not scale. Also, "I pulled down my blog post saying I’m not gonna use the word tranny any more. I tried, and it didn’t work." ?? Try harder. [1] Oh and there was that whole anthology call for proposals. Yeah, I just. (On the other hand, all of the comments over on questioning transphobia accusing her of being a Scientologist and thus not worth listening to what the hell?)
Yeah so maybe I'm only sort of relaxing. But I keep playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon! It is SUPREMELY ADORABLE. ( Spoilers )
Actually I am going to claim that I have been relaxing on the grounds that I have watched multiple movies in less than a week. Multiple movies!! That never happens. The last one I didn't even have a laptop out while I was watching it. It was How To Train Your Dragon, if you're curious, which is ripe for somatechnical theoretical intervention surrounding authenticity and prosthesis and animality and and and and and. If I were cool like chagrined I could do an academic fanvid but I am not. The folks I am staying with are allowing me to work on an outline but have forbidden me from actually writing a non-required academic paper while on vacation. This is probably OK. ... I may start working on it when I leave here though ^^;;;;;;;;;
My dear friend Bea has written a great review of the new My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic show. You should read it, but summary: It's probably awesome. I need to watch it, but it is on normal television and not on DVD yet. Either I will figure it out online (it pops up on YouTube periodically) or I will be patient or I dunno. But oh my god it sounds so good.
Yes, I spend most of my time thinking about gender theory inside baseball and the rest of it with Pokemon and My Little Pony. I believe the appropriate Internet invocation is this:
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 to everyone!

[0] She also has an interesting post about transphobia in academic theory that I have only read briefly because I only have so much care but it looks good and I intend to revisit it.
[1] While I'm nitpicking: "I'm old school, pal. I was taught butch and femme in the late 90s." ??? The late 90s are not old school for butch and femme identities. Just no.

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Reading Notes: Roscoe, _The Zuni Man-Woman_

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:43:56 GMT

( Really brief notes mostly for my own benefit five years from now, but enjoy if you care to )

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