where his civilizations, including our own

So I decided to watch Adam Savage's TED talk about prop making. But I didn't get very far into it before my attention was derailed.

There is a point where he is showing a photo of a person holding a dodo skull in their hand. The person's fingernails are painted red.

Adam: "I found this lovely piece of reference, this is someone selling this on eBay. It was a woman's -- clearly a woman's hand -- hopefully a woman's hand --" [laughter from the audience]

And he goes on to talk about how the size reference of a hand helped him sculpt an accurate dodo skull.

Do you see it? He hopes it's a woman's hand. He hopes it's not a man's hand. He hopes we're not unknowingly looking at a photo of a male wearing nail polish. If we were, it would be alarming and laughable.

This is a transphobic joke. You could argue that he probably wasn't thinking about trans people and was just... just... what? Why is violating gender expectations funny? Why did the audience laugh? Whose identity are they laughing at?

It just makes me sad, because he probably doesn't have any particular conscious hatred of trans people. He's just regurgitating the assumptions that are pervasive around him. You'd think such a smart guy could do better than that. But a lot of the time the reality (and it's a reality I hear around me every day) is that usually people who could, don't.

Today I walked past two homeless women who were sitting together, and one said to me "Spare change ma'am?" to which the other retorted sharply, "That's a BOY!"

Which reminded me of something else I was going to post about:

I went to Jo-ann Fabrics (a craft store) to buy some thread to sew a patch. I hadn't been in the store before so I spent a while looking around and poking at the vast arrays of sewing thingies. It reminded me pleasantly of my Rocky Horror costuming days.

Eventually I went up to the counter with my major purchase of one spool of black thread. The one cashier lady asked if I wanted to sign up for their mailing list, and I said no thanks, to which the other cashier lady laughed and said, "He doesn't even want anyone to know he was ever here!" And they both laughed and made various teasing comments that clearly indicated that since I was obviously a Man, I would not want anyone to ever know I had ventured into a fabric store, the realm of Women!

I wasn't offended, I thought it was funny, so I just laughed. Passing can be very context-based... people see what they expect to see. Not that time, though.

There was a little wank on Twitter the other day, when someone made an inflammatory remark about Chaz Bono @BrentSpiner, who RT'd it to his 500,000 followers, with predictable results. (FWIW, I hardly think Brent was in the wrong -- she tweeted to him first, he often RT's, she should not have been surprised.)

Anyway, the original remark was that she thought Bono's gender transition was a "tragedy [...] for the God that made her" (sic). It is extremely troubling to me when people invoke God in such ways, but it is pretty difficult to successfully debate religious beliefs. However, there was something else she said later that can be refuted: "a closet issue is that many are disappointed by it [transitioning]".

This comment sounds relatively mild on the face of it, albeit extremely weasely (how many is "many", and what does "disappointed" mean, and in what way is the issue in the "closet" -- what a heftily ironic choice of word!). But at the heart of it I see a very alarming and insidious thought process.

( Read more... )

Chaz Bono's come out as FTM

Sincere good luck. Transitioning as an anonymous drudge is hard enough; what's it like in the public eye? Eep.

I only saw anyone mention this on Twitter... Don't you care, Eljay?!

Obama declares June '09 LGBT Pride Month

Maybe no one cares because to "us" he's not saying anything revolutionary, and after all it's just lip service. But I'm sure it made a lot of people very angry. The fact that it made people angry meant it still needed to be said.

As previously reported, I finally applied to have the gender changed on my ID. Thus:

( omghai2u2 )

At the moment this picture was taken, a small child ducked under the velvet rope and ran in front of me, thus eluding its parent who was chasing it. Also, was there like a fan blowing from my right or does my hair really look like that? Damn.

Um otherwise yeah, the important part. They got that right. The great state of California knows I'm a boy now.

Relatedly, when I went with my friend to see Star Trek, I insisted that I would pay for both of us, because he was paying for gas and I wanted to be nice, but then I realized I had no cash and the cashier wanted to see ID for a card... and I had no valid ID. All I had was a receipt from the DMV, and he was like lolno. So then my friend had to pay for both of us, and I felt like a tool. >_<

In an ironic development, today I went to the DMV to have the gender marker on my ID changed to M. (I don't get all butthurt over having only two options and expect them to provide a free text field, because they are a faceless dystopian government entity. You see the difference.)

( I put off doing this for a long time for several reasons )

I think this calls for French toast for lunch.

I'm pauraque on DW, though I'm not doing anything with it right now. So far no one whose entries I want to read has actually moved there exclusively and claimed they won't crosspost, so I don't have much motivation to move either.

I wish DW all the best, but there is no way they can maintain the current level of touchy-feely hands-on management -- which seems to be what everyone likes about it -- if it becomes very popular.

Actually, my experience of the touchy-feely was not that satisfactory.

( Summary: We wrote and bugged them to get rid of the gender field, they said no. The whole thing made me eye-rolly enough not to want to go there. )

eta: On second thought, here's what I'll do. If DW adds a free text box or gets rid of the gender field, I'll move there. I'll even buy a paid account. Until then, I reserve the right to be annoyed about the whole thing.

+



RT @jonathancoulton First of May, first of May, jonathancoulton.com server not responding starts today.

Whoa! Um... I wrote a lot. About being transgendered, and specifically being happy about it. I don't know if anyone wants to read this! But here it is if you do.


( I became consciously aware that I didn't want to be a girl when I was about 13 )

I turned off the alarm last night hoping to get massive amounts of sleep, and was instead awakened at about 7:30 by my phone ringing. I ignored it, got up to take another vicodin, and went back to sleep until 11:30. Yay.

When I checked the phone it was a missed call from Other Store Manager, so I called him back. He said he hadn't called me... but oh, his son was playing with the phone this morning, sorry sorry sorry! Aw, kids.


So here's something that didn't turn out to be nearly as interesting as it might have been. (That is a great title for an anecdote.)

( in which I get outed at work... sort of... )


In closing, one of my minions brought his school friend to work, and introduced me as "This is [pauraque] the assistant manager, he's a cool guy."


addendum: I found my social security card. :P

addendum2: and now I can't find my W2!