Child of Elros

• Here, have a list of my disabilities:
  • Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome — and be aware that managing this disorder requires me to do a constant balancing act between how much pain I can tolerate vs. how much medication-induced sedation I can tolerate
  • Gout
  • All sorts of joint problems, including frozen shoulder (technically, adhesive capsulitis) in both shoulders, which requires me to do very painful exercises to keep my shoulders from freezing completely; chronic back pain due to kyphoscoliosis, which in the last year has become relentless and appears to be radiating into my left foot; carpal-tunnel syndrome; numerous other joint problems, including joints (knees, fingers especially) that just go out at the drop of a hat
  • Fibromyalgia
  • Asperger's syndrome
  • Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • Life-long, severe depression intractable to medications and therapy
  • Anxiety disorder
  • Dissociation, including derealization, depersonalization, and at least borderline / atypical DID (dissociative identity disorder)
  • Just sheer exhaustion from having to deal with transphobia, transphobic-misogyny, and binarism, as someone who is transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, and female (yes, it is possible to be all of those at once)
     
  So, when you go on about how "there wasn't air conditioning until after WWII, so quit bitching about the heat", how do you think that makes me feel? Keep in mind that before A/C, a lot of people frakkin' died from the heat, especially elderly people and people with disabilities. When I so-called "bitch" about the heat, it's because I don't have A/C and dealing with the heat is hard and exhausting. That "there wasn't A/C 100 years ago" is just victim-blaming. It's like, three hundred years ago, (colonial / European) medicine consisted of bleeding, so all those people without health insurance, quit yer bitchin'? Just because you can handle the heat (or what have you), doesn't give you the right to expect everybody else to handle the heat as well as you.
   
• Loudly referring to the two women immediately in front of us on the sidewalk as "men" because they're wearing loose-fitting (and damned comfortable-looking, maybe I'll get some for myself) shorts is all kinds of fucked up. It's misogynistic, it's transphobic (even if the women in question are cis — which neither of us knew one way or the other), it's gender-essentialist, it's frakkin' wrong. The fact that you yourself are trans makes it worse. You ought to know better than to join cissupremacist society in policing gender and its expression. Stop it.
   
• We are both trans women. (The fact that I am also genderqueer doesn't invalidate me as being a trans woman.) We have both suffered from cissupremacist society's often violent policing of our genders and how we express it. Therefore: Do not publicly — on the subway or anywhere else — tell me that I should paint my toenails. Do not take me to a sidewalk stall and hold up a frilly dress against me and tell me how good it'd look on me. Do not police my gender or its expression, and do not frakkin' ever, EVER, out me to anybody, stranger or no, without my permission!.
  
  For your edification, just like cis women, trans women can be femme, butch, androgynous, etc. I happen to be androgynous; I present more femme on some days and more butch on others. But one thing's for sure: I hate using makeup or painting my nails; I don't like dresses or most other feminine clothing; and I have a right to modify my manner of dress to keep myself safe on the streets, and don't you DARE imply otherwise.
   
• Your suggestion that I counter a cis gay man telling me that his conversation with a trans woman is "bizarre" by telling him that my conversations with gay men are "bizarre" is busted and wrong. Countering transphobia with homophobia is an oppressive act. If someone is being transphobic to me, I need to address their transphobia, not further an oppression that they experience (and don't tell me that cis gay men aren't oppressed).
   
• Stop calling gay men "she", unless you know they are ok with it. See the above point: Misgendering a gay man because he misgenders you, ain't cool.
   
• Finally, although it hasn't really come up yet, I am warning you: If you question or invalidate my gender because I haven't had and probably won't have surgery, or because of any other aspect of my transition-related history, or because you don't "believe in" genderqueer identities, our friendship will be over.

Rick Perry thinks that calling for a third round of qualitative easing by the Feds is treason.

"Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion," said Perry, on his first full day of campaigning for the Republican nomination.

...

"If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas," said Perry.

Hey, Rick? First, threatening violence against a government official is illegal. Second, making implied death threats against a government official – which you are doing by calling Bernanke's policies "treason" and letting the audience connect the dots to "treat him pretty ugly" is even more illegal. Third, you're hardly behaving like a Christian, Mr. "Preach To 30,000 One Day And Make Death Threats The Next" Perry. As a matter of fact, you're behaving more like the antichrist in my book. Third, Bernanke is Jewish, and I find it hard to believe that didn't factor in the level of violence of your statement. This is especially scary considering that Jews (Leo Frank, for example) were lynched in the South.