the sound of an orchestra tuning up makes me go crazyinsane it makes me start thinking about the eventual heat death of the universe and how someday somewhere an orchestra is going to tune up for the very last time. ever. and then the sun will swallow the earth & turn into a white dwarf & all the stars will go out & meanwhile a gazillion light years away sentient life will be evolving from silicon. and maybe they will have orchestras also
“When I first saw the original painting, I began to do some research on
that little boy. I could find everything I wanted about every other
detail in the painting, but there was nothing about him. No history. And
so I wanted to find a way to imagine a life for this young man that the
historical painting had never made space for in the composition: his
desires, dreams, family, thoughts, hopes. Those things were never
subjects that the original artist wanted the viewer to contemplate. In
order to reframe the discussion, I decided to physically take action to
quiet [and crumple] the side of the painting that we’ve been talking
about for a very long time and turn up the volume on this kid’s story.
And that’s the reason why I started that painting.” Via Artnet News 2019/03/27
Happy birthday, Marsha P. Johnson! (August 24, 1945)
An influential figure in the early LGBT rights movement, Marsha P. Johnson was born in New Jersey to a working class family. Johnson first began dressing as a girl as a young age, but chose to suppress her desires and identity for many years due to bigoted harassment. After graduating high school, Johnson left home for New York City, where she finally allowed herself to come out. She began performing as a drag queen and frequenting the Stonewall Inn. She was involved in the Stonewall Uprising, though denied accounts of being one of the leaders of the rising, and continued to play a major role in the gay rights movement afterward. Johnson organized with the Gay Liberation Front and co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, an organization which sought to provide food and shelter to homeless LGBT youth. Unhoused herself for much of her time in New York, Johnson often relied on sex work in order to get by. In 1992, Johnson’s body was recovered from the Hudson River; she had evidently been murdered in a hate crime. The police ruled her death a suicide despite the evidence against this, and Johnson’s friends and allies fought for years to have the case reopened and investigated as a homicide.
As a rape survivor, I understand the need for safe space together – free from sexist harassment and potential violence. But fear of gender variance also can’t be allowed to deceptively cloak itself as a women’s safety issue. I can’t think of a better example than my own, and my butch friends’, first-hand experiences in public women’s toilets. Of course women need to feel safe in a public restroom; that’s a serious issue. So when a man walks in, women immediately examine the situation to see if the man looks flustered and embarrassed, or if he seems threatening; they draw on the skills they learned as young girls in this society to read body language for safety or danger.
Now, what happens when butches walk into the women’s bathroom? Women nudge each other with elbows, or roll their eyes, and say mockingly, “Do you know which bathroom you’re in?” Thats not how women behave when they really believe there’s a man in the bathroom. This scenario is not about women’s safety – its an example of gender-phobia.
And ask yourself, if you were in the women’s bathroom, and there were two teenage drag queens putting on lipstick in front of the mirror, would you be in danger? If you called security or the cops, or forced those drag queens to use the men’s room, would they be safe?
If the segregation of bathrooms is really about more than just genitals, then maybe the signs ought to read “Men” and “Sexually and Gender Oppressed,” because we all need a safe place to go to the bathroom. Or even better, let’s fight for clean individual bathrooms with signs on the doors that read “Restroom.”
And defending the inclusion of transsexual sisters in women’s space does not threaten the safety of any woman. The AIDS movement, for example, battled against the right-wing characterization of gay men as a “high-risk group.” We won an understanding that there is no high-risk group – there are high-risk behaviors. Therefore, creating safety in women’s space means we have to define unsafe behavior – like racist behavior by white women towards women of color, or dangerous insensitivity to disabilities.
Transsexual sisters are not a Trojan horse trying to infiltrate women’s space. There have always been transsexual women helping to build the women’s movement – they are part of virtually every large gathering of women. They want to be welcomed into women’s space for the same reason every woman does – to feel safe.
Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Marsha P. Johnson and Beyond
A hungry Spider made a web Of thread so very fine, Your tiny fingers scarce could feel The little slender line. -Aunt Effie’s Rhymes for Little Children
Recently, I’ve been working on a shawl inspired by Annabelle Cane. Yesterday, I finally finished and blocked it.
This shawl would not be here without @saintbleeding, whose writing and encouragement made me go crazier about Ms. Cane than ever before.
(ID: Four images of a circular white shawl. In the first image, a white lace shawl is draped on a hydrangea bush. The shawl is circular and has a simple lace pattern of spokes spiraling outwards intersecting with concentric circles, reminiscent of a spiderweb.
In the second image, the same shawl is being worn by the creator, a white freckled person wearing black clothing who is facing the camera. The photo shows them from the chin to the knees, hands clasped at their front. The shawl has been folded at the top edge and draped around their shoulders. The bottom of the shawl is drifting in the breeze and illuminated by afternoon light.
In the third image, the same person is wearing the shawl, with their back to the camera and arms spread. Again, the shawl is drifting in the breeze and catching the light.
In the fourth image, the same person is walking away from the camera, arms spread to showcase the shawl. The camera angle shows more of the background, a fenced in backyard with a cherry tree and blue sky. There is a spider emoji obscuring the person’s face. End ID.)
