Our focus is often (and should be) on the women targeted by this hate, the women who suffer under this stream of threat and this actuality of violence. It should be focused on the actors and co-conspirators as well. Aside from those who take direct part in that hate or violence, another important piece of this is the effects of this misogyny upon the male in general. What misogyny does to the male identity and psyche and sense of peace and self-love. After all, the Female is not hated in a vacuum. So, too, is the Feminine, entire. And that cannot be walled off to one gender. This loathing, this hatred points back to what we know to be part of our natural being.

Men (as boys) are “asked” to join the oppression (under great threat of both social humiliation and physical violence and over and over, too) and to do this of course, we must snuff out/suppress the Feminine in ourselves. This is, of course, a great pain and loss to a human. And as this loss cannot be mourned by implied decree, this pain becomes a bitter, perverse mess that is blind to itself. And so men not only join the hate against women, but they then envy women for their freedom (to still be allowed) to be expressive, emotive, beautiful, affectionate, relaxed, vulnerable. And the loathing to self-loathing ties to envy ties to sorrow and loss and is given ground, and men are emotionally insane when modeled as instructed. And they act out this insanity even when they don’t know why. It is because they have too often been prevented from even knowing who they are to begin with.

…

For if a man cannot love the feminine aspect of himself, nor can he love a woman. And if he is hiding from that half of himself, he cannot fully see a woman. And if he would abdicate half his power, he is weak to the point of failing.

…

Because Colonization (and Patriarchy, too) are about control. And thus, Prop H8. And thus stiff collars and the Western Modes of acceptable and authoritative dress. And thus stark unforgivable lines. And thus dichotomized stances and laws that no person lives under comfortably and organically, unless they crave unnatural and aggravating wires strapping them down to the earth, making up for all the strength they have abdicated and would have used to guide and know themselves otherwise….

even after death
they stuff our bodies into boxes …

– mscripchick

(Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Click through for a short summary of those dead whose stories are known.)

I don’t know how you have a conversation with people for whom “because it’s right” is not enough of a reason to do something. I really don’t.

– commenter Isabel

… arguing with a doctor about weight is like arguing with a priest about whether you should be a Christian.

– commenter Eve

They’re waiting for the self-disclosure that explains why someone who seems so “normal” would identify with the disability community. They’re waiting to find out exactly why the friend who spoke up isn’t just like everyone else after all: The excuse that allows them to continue ignoring disability identity and culture. They’re waiting to be able to explain to each other, later, that:

“I don’t know anyone with Down’s. How was I supposed to know her sister had it?” [...]

The reason an able-bodied or able-looking person needs a reason to be a disability advocate is simple: So everybody else has a reason not to be. It’s “not their dog.” [...]

Disability culture (Deaf-Side debate notwithstanding) doesn’t require that you show your crip card, or your sister’s, mother’s, or brother’s, to be in favor of that which is right.

– Veralidaine

I write from San Francisco, where, in the months leading up the election, I saw a massive mobilization within the queer spaces in which I spend time to get people to vote no on 8, but I saw little or no public discourse among LGBT people about very important state propositions: 5, 6, and 9—all of which potentially impacted things like funding for prisons, drug crime sentencing, or the trying of minors as adults in this state….

– Adele Carpenter

Just take the other day. I was exiting a building in a stream of white people who had been able to afford the ticket to the show we had just seen. I was pushed off the path by two couples and a what looked like a father with his arm around his daughter. Wizard righted me. No one else came to help. They were too busy talking about the awesome Obama victory. Then, father ran down, literally, a poor black homeless woman who was trying to walk upstream. She kept saying “excuse me, excuse me.” Father pushed her aside; the white people on either side flooded around her. She was entirely invisible. I looked her in the eye and exchanged words with her. No one else seemed to see her. The Obama victory, you know.

– Wheelchair Dancer