9/09/2013

A Musing About Riddick and Rape Culture

Okay, so I've just finished watching Riddick. I'd been warned by friends and seen in various reviews that in the third act of the film Riddick does something that would likely upset me. I watched the movie anyway. And I feel a need to address what I've read and been told versus what I saw.

Spoilers below the jump.



7/01/2013

A Disturbing Trend

As the professional hate lobby loses battle after battle in their war on gay tights, and they suck less and less money from donors through fearmongering against gay people, I'm seeing a very unsettling but sadly unsurprising trend.

You see, the hate groups won't admit it publicly, (well, most of them, a few have conceded), but they know they've lost this contrived culture war against gays. They still fire volleys but there's no gunpowder left in those shells.

They know that more and more people actually KNOW real gay people. And knowing real actual flesh and blood gay people dispels all the fearmongering bogeyman stories that the Religious Reich likes to spin to scare the fearful and ignorant into giving them money. They know their donor base is either dying off or waking up.

The problem is that these hateful people, who swear they're not bigots while blatantly lying through their teeth about gay people to sow fear, NEED that donor money to survive, because as hateful and dishonest as they are, there's pretty much NO other way for them to have an income that grants them the life they've built on the backs of gay people. They NEED to have a bogeyman, an intangible "other" they can use to terrify the ignorant into paying for their mansions and caviar.

And so, while trans folks have always had to deal with ignorance and hatred, even FROM gay people, the Religious Reich in the United States has heavily ramped up the transphobic bile of late, stirring up more anti-trans fear than ever before, and it's working.

Articles about trans stories like that of Coy Mathis have always attracted ignorant hateful and stupid people to the comments sections. But of late the transphobic bile has multiplied. Where it used to be reasonably balanced in comment sections between the ignorant haters spouting bile and actual trans folks countering them with facts and reality, lately the haters seem to be drowning us out, overwhelming us with sheer numbers and shouting over us to drown us out. The hate is a flood now and it's difficult to not drown in it. 

And it's Religious Reich hatemongrrs like Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, Jennifer Roback Morse, Brian Brown, Peter LaBarbara, and Linda Harvey ramping up the whole "Transsexuals are just men in dresses who want to rape your women and children in bathrooms!!!" Meme that has caused this sudden surge in trans hate.

You'll note they almost never discus trans MEN when they spout their bile. Trans men don't even exist in their eyes.

And that makes it even more important now more than ever for us to stand up to these professional bullies, to counter their every lie with the truth, to dissect their dishonest fearmongering with facts and reality.

To show the world we matter as much as anyone else and have every bit as much right as everyone else to be protected from discrimination and abuse under the law. 

No matter how hard it gets, how much bile we have to wade through, how hopeless it often seems, we MUST keep fighting. The Gay lobby isn't going to stick their necks out for us. WE have to fight for our right to exist. 

Because the haters are getting us killed. And we have to disarm their transphobic bile as the gays did their homophobic bile, and render their bigotry impotent and powerless. 

Because the alternative is just rolling over and dying. And that is no alternative at all.

5/15/2013

A Banner Week

It's turning out to be a banner week for me.

My e-mail stalker trying to encourage my suicide, telling me how gross and disgusting and fat I am, demanding I provide proof of my "bullshit claims" of Queer Porn modelling because HE doesn't believe it.

The misogyinst pig on Pulse Wrestling who now trolls me all around the site to call me a stupid bitch whatever I post, because I intelligently and articulately destroyed him repeatedly and sexist infantile crap is all he can reply with.

Sexist idiots on a mansplaining article telling me how they don't have to listen to anything I say or take me seriously because my pic shows cleavage, therefore nothing I say carries any weight and I'm probably just a rambling airhead who didn't understand the article.

Particularly stupid Pro-Choicers who think being as gross, rude and classless as possible when talking about abortion is the greatest possible way to fight the Anti-Choicers attacking me as being a meek stupid carpet who doesn't understand how activism works.

And a skeptical lazy idiot doubting my bbeing intersexed and asking me to name my particular intersex condition, even though I had already done so in the comment he was replying to.

Apparently wanting to NOT be a blatantly offensive cunt and therefore stoop to the level of the oppressors makes me a weak carpet. Apparently being open and honest about my body's defects automatically makes me suspect. Apparently possessing tits and not keeping them hidden like an 18th century schoolmarm magically renders my intellect non-existent. Apparently not blindly agreeing with a raving moron makes me a stupid bitch. And apparently being fat and NOT hiding under my blankets every day crying about how gross I am means I'm doing something evil and must be encouraged to kill myself so shallow men don't have to see a strong confidant fat bitch get more pussy than them.

Sorry but FUCK that noise.

I will make more people listen to reason with tact and class than rampant aggressive vulgarity, and save the "Fucks" for when they're needed.

I will continue to talk openly about my body and what was done to it when I was a baby.

I will tell sexist pigs what they're doing wrong even if I'm showing cleavage.

I will continue to trounce the moron who calls me stupid by politely and articulately destroying his arguments leaving him with only insults as a rebuttal.

And I will continue to be goddamn beautiful and fabulous even when shallow basement dwelling mouth-breathers who are likely still virgins and can't get a woman without cash up front rage at me because more women want me than will ever even LOOK at them.

I am Penny. I have survived things that would break most people. I have earned every single scar. I am intelligent and wise. And I am fucking BEAUTIFUL.

DEAL WITH IT.

4/30/2013

Militant Atheist Skeptics Are As Bad As Fundies

If anyone wonders why my activism when it comes to dealing with anti-gay religious right bullies very specifically attacks ONLY the bullies themselves and their misrepresentation of their faith, rather than the faith itself or it's followers as a whole, it's because I acknowledge a simple universal truth; I cannot prove my faith is true anymore than I can prove definitively theirs is not, just as a Christian cannot prove definitively THEIR faith is true and MINE is not. No one can prove either one either way. I CAN prove, by simply reading the Bible, when a bigot is intentionally abusing his or her faith to justify hatred falsely, but I cannot prove or disprove that the Christian God exists, nor my own Goddesses. Christians believe in Christ, I believe in Hedon and her daughters.

Why am I bringing this up? Because of the one belief I WILL openly attack; Aggressive Atheism.

Not the average Atheist who simply doesn't believe in Gods or the supernatural and spiritual but respects others' rights to believe otherwise. I mean the truly aggressive douchebag skeptics. The ones who actively campaign to scold, tease, mock, attack and belittle those who believe in ANYTHING that isn't tangible. The ones who are every bit the equal of the worst fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. The ones who think ONLY what THEY believe (or disbelieve) is the absolute truth and everyone else needs to fucking fall in line buster!

As my dear friend Katie can attest, there most certainly ARE Christians who are perfectly content to believe in Christ AND let me believe in Hedon. She's a leader in her church. I believe she's ordained in fact. But she has never ONCE dismissed MY beliefs, or told me I'm wrong or sinful to not share HERS. Nor have I ever felt any need to criticize hers. She does me no harm, I shall do her none in kind. Simply mutual courtesy. I have NO problem with people like HER.

Conversely I also know Atheists who are like her. They believe there are NO Gods, no reincarnation, nothing of the kind, but they are perfectly content to let those who DO believe, well, believe.

I have no issue with THEM either.

I have issue with bullies.

On the side of belief, I hate Christian or Muslim bullies who try to shove their beliefs down everyone else's throat, who demand EVERYONE believe as they do, and ONLY as they do.

On the side of DISbelief, I hate the militant aggressive Atheists, who think NO ONE anywhere should believe in ANYTHING intangible. No God, no Goddess, no spirits, no NOTHING. The aggressive skeptics who feel a need to inject themselves into every conversation and talk down to believers like we're idiot children.

I don't give a flying fuck what anyone else believes, as long as they a) keep it mostly to themselves, and don't try to force it on me, and b) respect MY right to believe different.

I don't shove my faith down anyone's throat. That's actually one of my faith's few rules; Don't force it on others. I only talk about it if asked.

But I WILL not tolerate another human being, whatever THEIR beliefs or lack thereof, talking down to me like I'm an idiot for believing differently, and trying to force me to believe like them. If I believe I have lived past lives and that Earth has a soul and her children were Goddesses co-opted by other ancient religions how does that hurt you? I'm doing no harm, I'm minding my own business, and I'm not telling YOUR children what a flake YOU are because you don't believe in MY faith, so why the hell is it okay for YOU to do it to me?

I am NOT a flake or a kook or an idiot or a sinner or a blasphemer because my faith is not yours, OR for having a faith at all when you may not.

Seriously, fuck militant skeptics. They're as big a pain in the ass as fundies. Science does NOT mean "If we haven't conclusively proven it yet it's bullshit", nor does it mean "Well, we can't 100% conclusively DISPROVE this thing, so we'll round off and chalk it up as bullshit" either. Science means exploring the unknown, NOT dismissing it.

4/16/2013

RadFem Training Hive Goes Down?

The Vancouver Rape Relief website is gone.

Vancouver Rape Relief is a supposed Rape Cris & Counseling service, but they have a LONG and documented history of abusive treatment towards ANY woman who doesn't fit what they define as a proper woman.

When I was going to WAVAW for counseling they had THREE FULL BINDERS of NOTHING but womens' complaints about being treated like shit at VRR.

- Punk rock girls who were slut-shamed
- Fat women accused of attention seeking
- Party girls told to dress like ladies
- Trans women outright told to get the fuck out.
- Ftms and butch lesbians told to come back when they learn how to be women.

I once called VRR for crisis counseling, before I knew their rep. The woman I was talking to openly laughed at me, told me to clear the line for "real" victims, and hung up on me.

I would normally never gloat at the failing of a rape shelter crisis agency, but they have NEVER been that. They were a professional RadFem breeding ground and brainwashing centre.

If this means they've finally been shut down? HAPPY PENNY.

4/12/2013

The "Funny" Thing About RadFems

Funny thing about the RadScum, (funny migraine, not funny ha-ha), that perpetuate this bullshit idea that only "womyn born womyn count as women and trans women are just deluded mutilated frauds trying to violate womens' spaces?

They're NOT feminists, they're TERRORISTS. By the very definition of the word. They cause chaos and spread fear, and openly advocate and enable murder to further their cause. I've seen several RadScum not only openly say all trans women should be murdered, but most cis men, and even culling male children.

REAL feminism is about achieving true equality for ALL the sexes and genders.

RadScum "feminism" is about genocide and exclusion. And they halve the balls to say Trans women make them feel unsafe? The worst I've EVER seen a trans woman do to a radscum was angrily say something like "Please go die in a fire", AFTER being shat on and pushed and goaded beyond belief, whereas RadScum have actively sought and concretely worked to get Trans Women exposed to very real risk of beatings or even being murdered.

Bug Brennan for example, pretty much calls all men and all trans people rapists, but look at her personality. She's MASSIVELY overbearing, tries to dominate everything and everyone she encouters, trans AND cis, pushy, demanding, no empathy or respect for others' feelings.

I would bet CASH MONEY there are women out there who have been raped BY Bug. She shows all the hallmarks of an abuser.

RadScum in general show all the hallmarks of classic bigotry;

- Blind vehement and blatant hatred for an oppressed group, repeated denial of that hatred in spite how how blatantly obvious their own words make it ,
(Examples; referring to trans women as deluded mutilated men, clearly a hateful statement, which they will often, when directly confronted about it, backpedal by insisting they really care about the poor deluded men and just want to help them stop being so deluded and learn to be happy as men).

- Always quick to play the victim while accusing the real victims of being the real aggressors,
(Accusing trans women of forcing their way into women's spaces, wanting to rape cis women, us commandeering every conversation instead of them, and swearing up and down they're afraid we'll hurt them).

- A clearly deluded belief that they speak for everyone, that almost everyone believes exactly as they do, and those who don't are either just lying to themselves or "too afraid to speak up".
(Example; Claiming that all people are secretly disgusted by trans women, and those who support us only do so out of misguided pity, not any genuine acceptance, and one particular RadScum who inexplicably claimed that most women hate penetration and those who say they do are just not being honest with themselves).

- And finally, mistaking the right to free speech such as the right to SAY "I hate trans women and I think they're gross", with the right to force their beliefs into law.
(Example; Bug Brennan ceaselessly and tirelessly working to oppose implentation of ANY law that is supportive and/or protective of trans people, and actively campaigning to make even just BEING trans illegal).

Take those last four signs of bigotry I just detailed, and apply them to any of the anti-gay hate groups, such as NOM or the AFA. I garauntee you will easily find multiple examples of all of those Bigot Hallmarks. And RadScum display each and every one.

But while Anti-GAY hatemongers like Tony Perkins or Brian Brown are very careful to never openly directly say "Kill all the fags", RadScum have NO compunctions whatsoever about openly and frequently condoning and even actively wanting the deaths of trans women.

RadScum, Radical Feminists, are the terrorists in our midst. And they don't even TRY to hide it.

3/23/2013

A Musing On Combatting Rape Culture

I've... been debating posting this.

Since the Stuebenville Rapists were convicted 6 days ago, the internet has utterly exploded with outbursts of rape culture and apologism. Everywhere I bloody look, some idiot is whining how sad it is that those nice young men who RAPED AN UNCONSCIOUS GIRL are going to go to jail and how tragic it is that their football dreams have been dashed because of that drunk bitch, yadda yadda.

I've seen friends reduced to screaming rage fits by this stupidity. I've seen ugly things said in the name of victim-blaming by WOMEN, who should bloody KNOW better. I've seen countless articles trying to explain how this is an example of rape culture, and why it's wrong. And I've largely avoided wading into it myself because honestly, 22 years since MY rapes and rape culture has not only NOT been effectively stopped, it's gotten worse, and I can't cope with THAT much blatant stupidity.

Rape is rape and it should be up to the potential rapists to not rape, not the victims to stop someone FROM raping them. Period.

Yesterday I saw a link shared by a friend about a schoolteacher who accidentally ended up in a discussion about what rape IS with her class of 15 year old students, and realizing how many misconceptions they had about what counts as rape or what counts as consent. And how she taught her students how to not rape.

So I've been debating sharing a personal story. One I never have shared publicly before, only with a few trusted friends.

Let me make something perfectly clear. I do NOT believe I'm a strong or brave person just because I've survived some terrible things. I'm EXTREMELY uncomfortable with the praise and borderline hero worship I get solely because I was too stubborn to die. I speak openly about my juvey rapes and other traumas I've endured ONLY in the hope other survivors might take comfort in knowing they aren't alone. I don't like praise and I ask that anyone reading this please respect that and not make me uncomfortable as such.

When I was 22, and still not the bloated whale I am now, and had been living out as a woman all of 6 months, I was accosted in the laundry room of my then apartment building. A young man who I later learned was 17 at the time, started chatting me up, trying to put the moves on me. I tried to be as polite but firm as I could, telling him very clearly I was NOT interested in any way.

This answer wasn't good enough for him, and he started trying to kiss me and squeeze my breasts. I pushed him away forcefully and repeatedly my distinct lack of consent. It was an instinct move, not particularly thought through, and after doing so it only then occurred to me he might react violently to being rebuffed, and so I braced myself for an attack.

But he just looked at me in confusion, and asked me why I did that. I told him because I had clearly said NO.

Still confused he said "But girls only say no so they won't seem like sluts. My big bro said so."

I irritatedly replied telling him no, women say NO because they MEAN no, and his brother was a sexist prick. Then I told him to leave or I'd scream.

STILL looking terribly confused, he pleaded that we were having a nice conversation and I was so pretty and I'm supposed to want him to sweep me off my feet and ravish me like in the movies. You know, all romantic and shit.

I replied that rape is NOT romantic and movies lie.

When he heard rape he started to cry. "You thought I was trying to rape you?" he said, visibly hurt by the very thought. And that was when I truly fully realized what rape culture really means. That this 17 year old kid had gotten so confused and twisted up by the messages of Rape Culture in society that the thought he might be hurting me or committing rape had never once occurred to him, and he was horrified by the idea that this was how I saw his actions.

I don't know why I did what I did next. I really don't. I've wondered for years what the hell possessed me.

I held him until he stopped crying, and I took him to Starbucks to explain to him how consent works in the real world and why what he almost dd was wrong.

I learned his older sister had been raped when he was little but he never really understood what that meant, only that it screwed her up a lot. That he was kind of afraid of his older brother and was always trying to earn his approval. That he honestly believed the combination of his brother's macho BS and the way love and sex are portrayed in movies and believed that what he did was the way a man is supposed to seduce a woman. He apologized profusely and cried again, rather a lot, when I carefully and calmly explained to him what I'd endured in Juvey (without letting him in on my being trans/IS, I'm not THAT stupid), and how it affected me, and that his sister likely felt the same.

I explained to him that in the real world, a woman only means yes if she clearly SAYS yes, that anything else should be assumed to be NO unless explicitly stated. I explained why his brother's approval wasn't something worth striving for.

We talked there for two hours, and he was grateful for my educating him. The thought of his sister hating him had he gone through with it bothered him a LOT more than failing to meet his brother's standards.

That boy entered the police academy the next year, is currently with an RCMP sex crimes unit, and is married with three children. He named his daughter after me. He still calls me every year on the anniversary of that day to thank me for setting him straight.

So.... rape culture CAN be fought. It CAN be counteracted, even when it feels like nothing will ever change.

Sometimes all it takes is to just educate people while they're still young enough to get it.

So have a little faith. They CAN be taught.

(Note to James my Obsessed Whacko Stalker; Yes, it DID happen, NOTHING I say is bullshit, unlike you, and I will keep deleting everything you post to this blog and laugh at your sad impotent Gradschool crush on me. Toodlepip)

1/11/2013

A Note On The Sidebar III

Maury Povitch is a piece of shit. His show is a piece of shit. This is no secret. Anyone who knows me well knows I think this.

So imagine my surprise when Alvin McEwan, author of the blog Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, cheerfully shared a link on Facebook to a trashy buzzfeed list of "The 45 greatest Maury Show" moments which declares it the best daytime talk show ever.

Maury, which offers free DNA testing to dirt poor black women in order to coax them into enduring public slut-shaming and humiliation to receive answers they otherwise could never afford.

Maury, which collects actual trans women, puts them onstage with a few token cis women and a few drag queens and crossdressers, and humiliates THEM by having the audience guess if they're really a man or a woman, often misgendering and ALWAYS abusive in their chanting.

Maury, a show that NO self-respecting LGBT person should watch or enjoy because it's dehumanizing transphobic trash. And while we're at it has never been super nice to gays or lesbians either.

There's a reason there are so very few gay men I can stand to interact with. Most I've met are self-absorbed misogynist assholes. One guy commented on Alvin's link that he laughs everytime Maury confirms a guy is NOT the father of a woman's baby and she runs offstage crying.

Get that folks?

This guy LAUGHS watching a hurting mother who just wants answers crying. Then thought I was kidding when I told him what a terrible person that makes him.

But then Alvin chimed in. And proved himself no different from the majority. He commented that "Any woman who hasn't found the father after 3 tries should stop embarassing herself".

And he thinks that's NOT slut-shaming.

Let's dissect here kids.

As I already pointed out, the Maury shows pays for DNA paternity tests. Why is this important? Because Maury almost UNIVERSALLY picks young poor black women from impoverished neighborhoods for his show.

The average price for a legal paternity test is $450 to $500, but there is a wide range in pricing. However, a properly conducted and accurate paternity test should not cost more than $550. The more rigorously controlled laboratories are likely to have higher internal costs that may subsequently be passed along to their clients. Naturally, it costs more to run a highly controlled, consistent testing laboratory than it does to perform inferior tests with poor processes and/or obsolete equipment.

How many dirt-poor inner city black single mothers do YOU think can afford that crap while trying to feed their babies?

So I repeat; these poor women, whose only crime is being poor and having *GASP!!!!* a sex life, agree to endure the humiliation so they can get answers they could otherwise NEVER FUCKING AFFORD!

And Alvin, not only a gay man but a black man, acts like any woman having had sex with three or more guys to require paternity tests for should give up their search for answers and "stop embarassing themselves".

And he doesn't think he's slut-shaming.

And that's why he's no longer on my Facebook. Or on this blog's Side Bar.

Rule 1; Slut-shaming? PENNY DON'T PLAY THAT!