Will you join me in a walk down memory lane? It has now been almost a year since we last updated, but some posts live on. Here is a countdown of the posts which continue to get the most views.

5. 4 Reasons Why, Actually, You Cannot Touch My Hair

Published June 12, 2013

Last week an art exhibit opened in NYC called “You Can Touch My Hair.” It featured three black women, all with different hair styles, standing in Union Station with signs featuring those same words. It was not intended to be the start of a hair touching movement, but a social experiment to explore the widespread tactile fascination with black women’s hair. This exhibit has opened up a floodgate of controversy, debate, and counter-exhibits.

But this isn’t about the exhibit. This is about why, although you were perfectly welcome to touch those three women’s hair last week, you cannot touch mine.

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4. Take the Red Pill: The Truth Behind the Biology of Sex

Published April 8, 2014

This is the first part of a series about the complex biological realities of sex. Though the posts build on one another, each can be understood alone.

Content note: this post contains images and language that may not be safe for work.

1. Introduction

I first learned about the social construction of sex from a lovely trans woman named Kiki.

She said, “You may have heard before that gender is socially constructed, while sex is biological. But I’m here to tell you that what you’ve heard isn’t true. Sex is socially constructed too. So are you ready for the truth? Are you going to take the red pill or the blue pill?”

Three years later, I was diagnosed by my gynecologist with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which means that my body produces hormones intermediate between “typical men” and “typical women.” What I learned from Kiki gave me context in which to understand what this meant about my body and who I am. But it’s still very hard for me to talk about. My hormones affect me in ways that are hard to see, so even most of my lovers don’t know. I can count the number of people in my personal life who know this about me on my two hands.

I picked the red pill. If you read on, you can take the red pill too.

The problem with calling sex “biological” is that biology is complicated. Hardly anything in biology fits into two neat categories like “male” and “female.” To give you an idea of how complicated sexual development really is, let’s go to the very beginning. How do sexual characteristics develop in a human embryo?

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3. How to be a good cis lover to your trans partner

Published July 23, 2014

This post contains text below the jump that may not be safe for work.

For the most part, dating a transgender person is no different from dating a cisgender person (someone who identifies with the gender assigned to them at birth). But if you are a cis person dating a trans person, there are some things you should keep in mind that may not have come up in your previous relationships with other cis people.

I am a polyamorous queer cisgender woman, and nearly half of all the lovers I’ve had have been transgender. I take this as a compliment: like everyone I make mistakes, but I figure I’m doing something right if so many trans* people have chosen to welcome me into their hearts. Keeping in mind that I’ve by no means covered every topic, here’s what I’ve learned about being a good cis partner to trans people I date.

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2. Open letter to a loved one in an abusive relationship

Published May 31, 2013

Dear loved one,

This is a letter for you, the person in our lives who is in an abusive relationship. You are our sister and our brother, the girl we went to college with, the friend with whom we went on that epic road trip, our coworker, our parent, our past self, our future child. The abuse you’re living though may be emotional, sexual, or physical. You abuser may be a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, parent, friend, or some other relationship to you. Maybe you’ve spoken with us about your abuse, maybe you’re not yet comfortable sharing it, or maybe you’re not even comfortable labeling the treatment you endure with the “A” word. This letter is to you, the one we love who is enduring abusive behavior.

There are some things we want you to know, and the first, the most important, is this:

You are loved.

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1. Dark Girl Nude: The Spring 2014 Guide

Published April 22, 2014

[I choose to believe this is not an accident of search terms, but that there are simply this many people seeking racially diverse fashion options. I invite you to join me in this belief.]

“They disappear like magic and become a fluid extension of her legs, as in a sketch, elongating the silhouette.”

– Christian Louboutin, shoe god

The nude shoe. It’s a shoe in  a color that comes as close as possible to blending in with your skin tone, and it’s been a hot trend for so many years that the fashion world is saying it’s a classic here to stay. From the castles of Great Britain to the streets of America , you can walk or click into virtually any shoe store and find a pair that works for you- unless you are a darker person of color.

For at least four seasons now, lighter skinned people have had easy access to an overwhelming selection of shoes in colors specifically designed to neutrally complement their skin, and they can often find such shoes in the section named “nude.” The same can’t be said for people who look like me, which has consistently frustrated my shoe shopping endeavors. The trend of labeling one color group “nude”, as if nude is not a relative color, also frustrates my brain- “nude” literally means “naked” or “skin colored” so applying it only to light beige-ish colors implies that the color of my skin isn’t actually a normal skin color. This just one of example the normalization of white skin across the fashion and personal care industries (and even the coloring crayon industry- the Crayola color we now know as “peach” used to be named “flesh.”) It also exemplifies the erasure of people of color (and black women in particular) even though we make up over one third of America’s consumer base.

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Donald Trump has been a source of vile political messages since he began his campaign for president of the U.S. Among countless other offenses, he has called migrants from Mexico rapists, refugees from Syria terrorists, and called for a national registry for all followers of Islam. He has done all this under the campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” which is exactly the sort of nationalistic bullshit those of us who grew up in the Bush years have come to expect our oppressive politics to come wrapped in (USA Patriot Act, anyone?).

The problem is that Trump and his supporters are using a definition of “great” that is exactly the opposite if you’re not a native-born, white, straight, cis, English-speaking man. Their definition of “great” includes a nostalgia for a monopoly of power many people have worked very hard to dismantle. Their idea of the American Dream is our nightmare.

As many have observed, “Make America Great Again” is a racist dog whistle for “Make America White Again”- it is, literally, a patriotic hat on a selfish, oppressive hack.

But not only does such a slogan lack subtlety; it also lacks originality. In fact, Langston Hughes wrote the perfect response to it in his 1935 poem, “Let America Be America Again.”

It begins much like Trump’s slogan, with an exhortation for our country to return to some mythical past, full of lip service to “freedom” and “dreams,” images of pioneers and criticism of tyranny.

But beginning as a whisper, a parenthetical aside, the people left out of that myth speak up, and slowly insert themselves into the narrative. “America never was America to me,” they insist. Given a chance to speak, they weave a story of the greatness they envision for America, a truly inclusive greatness.

I’ve copied the poem in full below, because every American deserves to read it, and read it repeatedly. The next time you hear someone say, “Make America Great Again,” tell them “America never was America to me.”

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

After the Paris terrorist attacks, a plethora of US state governors came out against welcoming refugees to their state. This sort of xenophobic isolationism is nothing new, but it is incredibly dangerous. The ability of people displaced by conflict to find safe passage to a safe destination is a moral imperative, and, what’s more, it’s a feminist issue.

Continue reading →

Content note for police violence against children of color.

Last week in South Carolina, a white school officer, Deputy Ben Fields — or officer slam, as he has been known among the school’s students prior to this incident — attacked a non-resisting, silent teenage girl by violently throwing her from her seat, causing her multiple physical injuries and emotional trauma.  Her crime?  Earlier in the class period, she did not immediately comply with a teacher’s request to put away her cell phone.  Additionally, she was black.

Fortunately, one of her classmates took out his phone and videotaped the encounter.  In the video, as many have pointed out, it is clear that the officer made no attempt at intervention, other than to move the girl’s laptop off her desk, indicating that he had decided to attack her (which is the proper verb for when an adult man throws a teenage girl onto the ground) from the very beginning of the encounter. Continue reading →

A few months ago, Zella Ziona began living openly as a woman. Friends say that she was an inspiration, she helped people. “When Zella’s around, there’s not a single frown in the room.”

Zella Ziona, 21

Last Thursday, Zella Ziona was killed. Continue reading →

Content note for discussion of intimate partner violence, and for a semi-detailed account in the linked petition.

Greetings disruptors!

Today’s Promote a Petition is on a subject that is close to my heart: intimate partner violence.  There are a set of laws in place that have at least the potential to protect children from environments of abuse, though sadly these are often terribly or not at all enforced.  Yet for adult survivors of relationship violence, especially in South Carolina apparently, there is little if any legal protection even in principle.  As Melissa Walker, the petition’s author, painfully notes (please recall the content note for this article before clicking “Continue reading” — we are about to jump right to the heavy stuff): Continue reading →

I went to my first fetish convention not long ago. A fetish convention is where vendors, teachers, and kinksters come together to share skills, buy and sell fetish gear, and discuss issues in our community. They are, generally speaking, not spaces where people come to actually do kink or have sex.

I would say that I had a positive experience at the convention overall, but it could have had greater inclusiveness and diversity of opinion. Here are some concrete steps that I think kink conventions could take to become safer and more welcoming.

1. Train instructors on how to include everyone in their workshops.

The instructors at the workshops I attended varied a lot in their awareness of gender and sexuality issues. There were some instructors who always referred to genders as “male, female, or other,” and others who assumed the gender and pronouns of their students without asking first. There were some instructors who used examples of all kinds of gender combinations when they talked about kink scenes, and others who used only examples of heterosexual couples, and yet others who only referred to scenes with male tops.

This kind of awareness isn’t just about language, but also about who the instructors chose as their demo bottoms – the people on whom they performed the skills they were trying to teach. All of the workshops I attended that were led by male tops had demo bottoms who were cisgender, conventionally attractive white women.

To have a more inclusive kink convention, organizers should have a training for all instructors about how to talk about gender and sexuality, how to respect the genders and sexualities of workshop participants, and considerations for choosing a demo bottom.

2. Reach out to marginalized communities for organizers, vendors, and instructors.

You’ll never get diversity in any institution if you just sit back and wait for marginalized people to appear. The whole point is that there are barriers to inclusion that make it hard for them to join. It’s the responsibility of people in power to break down those barriers by reaching out.

There were definitely workshops geared specifically toward discussing issues like queer and trans* participation in kink communities, and those were headed up by people with those identities. But when I went to workshops about flogging or caning or anything not specifically about these issues, all of the instructors were heterosexual and cisgender – not to mention white. (And make no mistake; racism is a serious problem in the kink community.)

It’s not enough to recruit marginalized people to educate the powerful about their own issues. You have to recruit them to be a part of everything. That’s the only way to truly integrate a variety of perspectives.

3. Hold instructors accountable.

My most negative experience from the convention was when I was at a rope class practicing a tie, and one of the instructors stepped in and started redoing my knots without asking me or my demo bottom for permission. I was appalled, and I wanted to report his behavior, but he didn’t have a prominently featured name badge, so I had no idea how to identify him in my complaint.

Any instructor at a kink workshop should have a prominently placed name badge and state their name when they come and interact with you. There should be suggestions & complaints boxes everywhere with slips for general suggestions and for complaints about bad behavior, where you can write down the name of the offender. There should be clearly designated people whose job it is to help you in general and to handle complaints of bad behavior in specific. These people should be trained in how to handle cases of assault.

The more potentially dangerous an activity becomes, the more important it is to put safeguards in place, especially in the context of rape culture. I am a woman, my demo bottom was genderqueer, and the person who violated our boundaries was a man. Considerations of how to handle misconduct at kink events must take these dynamics into account.

4. Host critical dialogue.

I went to a couple of panels specifically aimed at female dominants, who are substantially more rare, or at the least less visible, than male dominants. But these panels turned out to be more like “how-to” guides for how women can navigate the kink scene and play as dominants. What I really wanted was a panel that discussed
issues like why most kinky photography features male dominants and female submissives, how women new to the kink scene get steered toward and groomed for a submissive role. In short, I wanted to discuss structural inequality in the kink community.

I think there’s a lot of resistance to this kind of critical dialogue in the scene because we get such bad press in the mainstream. Most people think of us as twisted, sick, emotionally damaged, and predatory. We want to have a space where we can celebrate everything that is good and beautiful about us. But celebration without
self-examination is nothing but empty chest-beating. Kink conventions should be a space where we can have critical conversations about our community.