Why I Don't Much Care if Douchebags Abandon Doctor Who

So they announced the new Doctor today, and it's Jodie Whitaker of Broadchurch fame, a woman.

And I'm having SOOOOO much fun mocking all the whiny misogynist men and self-loathing quisling women crying about the 13th Doctor's gender. I mean really, it's delicious seeing all these sad closed-minded men and women whing and crying about how PC Culture has ruined the show and they'll never watch it again and this is the nail in the coffin that will fginally permanently kill the show.
But all this sad sexist "the show is ruined forever WAHHHH!" bullshit is missing something, it's not seeing something that Ghostbusters and Wonder Woman have proven in spades that is all but guaranteed to happen now; the women will come out in droves to take their place.

For every one douchebag asshole sexist prick who abandons Doctor Who in disgust over a woman being cast as a fictional alien who can change his entire body right down to every individual cell, there will be 10 women and/or little girls who will happily fill that viewership void. We've seen it in photos of the audiences at premieres for both films I just mentioned. Little girls, teenage girls and grown adult women coming out in droves because they're not the sidekick or the love interest anymore, who came dressed up in costume, who were happy to see the movie. That's what will happen here.

Because all those little girls and teenage girls and adult women? They'll see themselves as the hero in the single longest running adventure on television. They'll see Jodie Whitaker and they'll feel like they themselves are being seen. They'll know that they can strive and push and grow and achieve and win and do it on their own terms, because they'll see The Doctor, a woman just like them, onscreen telling them they damn well can so do all of that. That they can.

That's not even counting all the trans woman who are going to glomp onto this show if they hadn't already, because with the male main character basically undergoing a sex change, they too will feel represented. In fact if there is any genuinely valid complaint to be had here, it's that we'll still have to wait for the Doctor to be a POC. But for now, this is still change. Good, positive change. Change that could have gone further? Yes. But still positive change. Women everywhere, regardless of anatomy, have a hero to feel a connection to, to show them they CAN, whatever it is they've been told they can't, the Doctor says you can.

So I'm not worried. Let the douchebags abandon the show. Ratings will spike because *GASP!!!* women watch sci-fi too! And, quisling women filled with internalized misogyny aside, WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR DECADES!!! Hell the BBC have been pondering doing this since Tom Baker's replacement casting began. It's NOT a new, PC/SJW Culture idea. It's long overdue but it isn't some cultural feminist zeitgeist conspiracy to ruin your manly fun. The BBC simply FINALLY pulled the trigger on an idea they've kicked around for decades anyway.
So by all means douchebros and haters, abandon Doctor Who. Leave in droves. Swear to NEVAR EVAR watch the show ever again. I have absolutely now doubt we'll not only do just fine without you, we'll do BETTER. Doctor Who will thrive, and the only people you douchebags will hurt are yourselves, because you'll be missing out on all the awesome.

Congratulations Jodie. I'm sure you'll be an amazing Thirteen.

Good Riddance 2016

So 2016 is over. If anyone is interested, let me recap my year of pain and he'll and sadness.

This year an abnormally large number of celebrities died. Most were just "oh that's sad, I feel badly for their lived ones". A few really mattered to me and made me sad, but didn't utterly shatter my wotprld. One in specific broke my heart beyond all measure more than any other.

But there were other deaths this year, not of celebrities, that gutted me more. A self loathing asshole shot up a nightclub and tried to blame it on Muslims and I list a dear friend among the over 50 killed. A warehouse nightclub was set on fire and I lost two more friends to the flames.

This year was my first full year of out living my only grandchild. I have still not quite figured out how to cope with that. I'm not sure I ever will. I know my mom has somehow figured out how to live her life with two of my brothers in urns in her closet. I'm not there yet. I had only just figured out how to get on with my life after losing my fiance and my stepson 11 years ago. I don't know how to move on from my grandson too.

This year I buried three rats and a big fluffy dog. I decided I will not accept anymore rescues unless the alternative is unthinkable, because I'm getting really tired of burying my furbabies.

This year someone I love but who was dating someone else, someone I have kept my feelings to myself about and just supported and been a shoulder for whenever I was needed, had their heart broken by an emotionally abusive gaslighting coward, and in my insecure paranoia as I've given them space and time to heal, I've begun to feel like they subconsciously blame me for the breakup and are beginning to slowly push me away. And I'm terrified to say anything about, both because I don't want to derail their pain by making it about my feelings, and because if I'm wrong and just being paranoid it would hurt their feelings. (Worse, if I'm not being paranoid and I'm right and I say something, they might confirm it and ask me to stop talking to them). I hate my anxiety and insecurity, making me all stupidly paranoid when I just want to be there for them and help them.

This year I suffered the fifth physical assault rooted in transphobia of my life, and the second in which a stranger felt my being trans justified using a fucking boxcutter on me.

This year a tantrum throwing buffoon bought an election in my neighbouring country and I am utterly terrified how much worse 2017 is going to be for my yank friends of colour, of queerness, and of varying genders, and for the rest of us who will be hurt by the aggressively stupid capitalist bigotry of president Babyhands. This year white bigots used that victory to justify open acts of racist violence. The new year will only get worse.

This year I watched the world only care when white people in France were murdered while ignoring thousands more brown people in Syria and Sudan and other places getting bombed and butchered and slaughtered. I watched people who never tave a flying fuck about homeless military veterans and queer youth before suddenly use them as an excuse why we shouldn't shelter brown foreign Muslim refugees. "Oh we can't shelter them, we need to worry about the veterans we suddenly care about!"

This year was absolutely horrible in so many ways.

And this coming year stands to be a whole fucking lot worse.

But at least this coming year my daughter is coming home. So I'm going to focus on that as best as I can and hope the rest sorts itself out through the activism of myself and everyone out there like me who refuses to shut up and ignore everything broken in the world that needs our voices to fix.

So happy new year. Never stop fighting for something better.

Not now. NOT EVER.

About the Florida Shootings

This is very simple. Please clean out your ears and listen. I will NOT repeat myself.

THIS WAS NOT A MUSLIM CRIME. THIS WAS AN ANTI-QUEER CRIME.

The skin colour and religion of the shooter is FUCKING IRRELEVANT. His targets were QUEER PEOPLE. In a country where Christian Republicans have introduced over 600 bills in the past 6 months alone to limit or erase LTBGQI rights. This is NOT about fucking Islam. It's about America's rampant hate for Queer people reaching it's logical conclusion. When you go out of your goddamned way to dehumanize and other us, some asshole with a gun is GOING to eventually try to gun us down like animals. 

Islam did not cause this to happen America. YOU FUCKING DID.

Stop blaming foreign brown people. Take responsibility for YOUR hatemongering.

You yell and scream about trans women in bathrooms but it's somehow the entirety of Islam's fault a guy murdered a bunch of queer folks.

Fuck you, fuck your bullshit fake "outrage" at all the "American lives lost". YOU DIDN'T CARE ABOUT US TIL A BROWN MAN SHOT US.

So don't fucking act like you give a flying fuck about us NOW just so you can pimp your Islamaphobe Agenda. Don't use queer people to justify hating brown people. Don't use an act of hatred to create and spread more of it. YOU got us killed today, NOT Islam.

Grow the fuck up and take responsibility for the climate YOU created America.

Sex Work is WORK and SWERFs and Conservatives Need to Fuck Off

Okay so let me be very blunt.

I was a survival sex worker. I sold my body sexually to men for money to put food in my fridge. I chose to do this. And while yes, some women, men and children are trafficked and sold into sexual slavery against their will, more of us do sex work by choice than not.

SWERFs, (Sex Work Exclusionary Feminists) help asshole conservative politicians craft draconian laws that only hurt sex workers and actually help traffickers. They criminalize the purchase of sex across the board with no regard for the people who do the work. They make it easier for traffickers to isolate their prisoners and harder for the unwilling to escape or be helped. And they isolate those of us doing it by choice and make it easier for us to be raped or killed.

Which is ironic since SWERFs and Conservatives claim protecting us from rape is WHY they enact these laws. Except their rhetoric is that ALL sex for money is rape. And that deeply offends me because it erases my agency.

So let me be clear. As a survival sex worker, and as a lesbian, did I enjoy fucking men for money? Did I WANT to be doing it? No, I did not. As a sex worker by choice of my own volition and free will, did I CONSENT to be fucked by those men? YES I FUCKING WELL DID. Were my clients therefore raping me? Well, except for the one who actually did rape and torture me, no, they did not. I offered a service that all but one of those men paid for. I was, at the end of the day, a self-employed woman offering a service for money to keep my kitchen stocked.

Did I love my job? No. But nor do most people. Most employees of, say, the DMV hate their jobs. But they do those jobs willingly. The people who come to get their IDs renewed are certainly not raping them by partaking of their services.

It offends me that SWERFs claim all my clients raped me by giving me money for sex. It outright irritates me that they use that bullshit claim to fearmonger politicians into passing laws that put me and my “co-workers” at greater risk, isolating us, othering us, in some repressed misguided attempt to “protect us”.

To these people I say fuck you, go fuck yourselves you repressed meddling busybodies. YOU are harming us. YOU are making it easier for pimps and traffickers. YOU ARE ISOLATING US. And YOU need to fucking stop telling us what’s best for us and start listening to US.

Far Beyond The Stars, (And Too Close For Comfort)

One of the greatest pieces of television, of any show, era or genre, EVER, is the Star Trek; Deep Space 9 episode "Far Beyond The Stars". I just rewatched it for probably the 20th time. It transcends Trek. It transcends Science Fiction. It transcends Television. It is a brilliantly acted, written and produced piece of fiction, because of it's stark unflinching reality.

And it is incredibly uncomfortable to watch.

Of course that's as it should be. It very bluntly shows the real effects of racism in America. Moreso than any other tv show has ever succeeded in doing. Moreso even than a lot of movies that tackled it. It doesn't soften the blows, or handle the subject with kid gloves. Maybe because it's an episode of a syndicated genre show, it had more freedom than network or cable dramas. Maybe because it wasn't a topic they tackled regularly, they had the freedom to be as real and ugly and brutally honest as racism really is, where an NBC or an HBO show might feel a need to whitewash it a little to avoid making their white audiences uncomfortable.

But that's just it. A truly good story about the realities of racism and oppression and white privilege SHOULD make it's audience uncomfortable. It SHOULD make them squirm. It's not a flowery light-hearted subject. It's a brutal, ugly reality.

Spoilers ahead.

For those who've never watch Deep Space 9, the story is that Captain Sisko, the black captain of the eponymous space station Deep Space 9, is in the middle of a long and bloody war. He's just learned that a ship captained by a long-time friend of his was destroyed with no survivors in a border skirmish and is feeling hopeless, and actually considering resigning his commission and giving up the fight.

Something knocks him unconscious, and when he wakes up, he's Benny Russell, an underpaid science fiction writer in New York in the early 50's. His editor is a spineless conformist who is afraid of upsetting the status quo who prefers his readers blissfully believe Benny is a white writer, (and that the one woman writer on staff is a man), and constantly tells Benny "that's just the way it is".
Benny has some hallucinations about Sisko and Deep Space 9, and at the urging of a street preacher, begins writing about Sisko's adventures. His editor of course refuses to publish them because "a negro captain just isn't believable". When the other writers finally convince the editor to publish Benny's story because they all agree it's just too damned good to shelve, the publisher orders the entire print of that issue pulped and tells the editor to fire Benny, leading Benny to have a huge mental break-down as he cries out that you can pulp a story but you can't kill an idea, and that future of a black captain in space is real.

If that alone were all this story had to offer it would still be good television. But it goes so far beyond that.

Benny is treated like a criminal by beat cops solely because he's wearing a nice suit, which they deem suspicious because they assume, when he says he works in the office building where his magazine offices are, that he means he's the janitor. Willie Mays is in the story, and when asked why he as a rich successful baseball player hasn't moved downtown, he says the white players tolerate PLAYING with him, but living next to them? No thanks, he'd rather stay uptown where the other black folk idolize him than move downtown and just be a negro with money the white neighbours stare suspiciously at. Benny's young street thief friend scoffs at the very idea of Benny's black space captain, because the only reason he can imagine a black person going to space is if the astronauts "need a nigger to shine they shoes".

And it's all brutal and unflinching. They don't act like it's just white people being annoying like so many shows do when touching this issue. You can FEEL their anger, their pain. When the white cops harass Benny you can feel his dehumanization. And when eventually those same cops beat the ever-loving fuck out of Benny because he dared to question why they felt the need to shoot his young friend for trying to break into a car, you feel every single punch and kick, because they don't hold anything back. They don't pan away and let you just imagine the brutality. They make you watch it, and they make you FEEL it for exactly what it is. They make you feel every single blow even as they white cops visually flip between the cops and the characters the actors are normally playing. And it doesn't for one moment lessen the impact of the violence.

And therein lies the most uncomfortable truth about watching this episode.

It's set in the 1950's. But it could just as easily be set in 2015. Because every single slight that white people impose upon "the coloured folks" in this story? White people are STILL doing those exact same things. Cops STILL profile well-dressed black people as suspicious. Stories with strong black characters STILL get passed on in favour of yet another white protagonist. Most of the characters you see on tv are white. Minority characters are almost always the "token (insert minority here)" character. Go look at most popular tv shows, and I guarantee with extremely few exceptions, the cast is mostly white, with one female and one minority character.

And most infuriating of all, in 2015, young black people are still being routinely murdered by police for the flimsiest of excuses, or beaten to a pulp for daring to talk back. For being "uppity".
For not knowing "their place".

In 20-FUCKING-15.

And white people are STILL denying things are really as bad as they are.

And that's why "Far Beyond The Stars" is so uncomfortable to watch; because it's the motherfucking truth. It's fiction only insofar as that the characters in it are fictional people, but otherwise it's 150% cold hard brutal unflinching reality. It's brutal, raw, hones, and it pulls absolutely no punches. If you can watch it and not feel shame for the human race, or end up in tears, there's something very very wrong with you. It's the closest thing a tv show can be to perfect.

And that discomfort is why it's among, if not THE best of all television. And it should be required viewing. It should be shown in schools. It should be discussed endlessly. It should be a teaching tool. It should be treasured.

Sometimes humans NEED to take the blinders off and be made uncomfortable, because the reality of racism IS uncomfortable. And if those with all the power and privilege are comfortable what "the way things are", they'll never be motivated to help the rest of us get this crapsack racist world to the way things SHOULD be.

If you've never seen this episode, PM me for a link to watch it online. It is the most important piece of tv you will EVER watch in your life.

ENOUGH ALREADY White People! Stop Defending Racist Killer Cops!

Seriously, it NEVER fucking fails. Point out a factually valid proven statistic that proves racial bias and violent patterns by police, and there will ALWAYS be a white person there to insist you’re wrong, lying, or garbage for daring to ever even think of questioning the police.

And that’s what happened on Facebook, on Lizzy the Lezzy’s wall. I pointed out the decline in cops killed by suspects versus the staggering rise in cases of unarmed black people murdered by racist police. Factually accurate and easily provable.

And like clockwork, almost immediately I had one woman calling me trash for smearing cops with such lies, linking to a news story about all of one police officer shot by a suspect a few months ago as her Smoking Gun to prove I was lying, and another asking me to cite sources, practically DARING me to, because she was so absolutely sure my claims were bullshit I pulled out of my ass.

So cite my sources I did, because here are the fucking facts;

FACT; Thus far in 2015, all of 24 police officers were shot and killed by suspects.

FACT; But nearly FOUR-FUCKING-HUNDRED unarmed black folks have been shot and killed under suspicious circumstances by white police officers thus far in 2015. And that’s not ever counting other minorities.

FACT; of all those suspicious police deaths so far in 2015, only TWO officers are actually facing charges; one in Cincinnati, and one in South Carolina. One of those isn’t even a full real officer. He’s a university cop. Campus police. The rest are walking around scot-free, and at worst were suspended with pay, fired but never charged, or given desk duty until an internal police “investigation” magically cleared them of any wrongdoing.

FACT; I have black female friends who are mothers confirm to me that they have to raise their children to be hyper careful and leery around police, the same way some parents are forced to teach their daughters how to avoid rapists. Black children all over the USA aren’t getting to have normal happy childhoods because they live in a permanent state of very justified fear of white cops.

And most cops may not be murderers, but most cops DO turn a blind eye and keep their head in the sand. And the small tiny handful of cops brave enough to speak out against the corruption and racism in their co-workers end up fired and get death threats for their trouble.

So when I point out that there’s something seriously fucking wrong in America’s police departments, that is FACTUALLY PROVABLE, if you come at me with dishonest lying BlueLivesMatter propaganda that the proven facts utterly destroy? Expect a verbal beatdown. And then a block.

Today in "Oh FFS REALLY???!!!"

So people on Tumblr and Twitter are all in a tizzy complaining that Fox is Ablest because Ryan Reynolds' version of Deadpool won't be schizophrenic.

There are 3 problems with this that make me want to smack people for derailing far more important conversations with a misplaced whinefest that actually has NO ablesm to protest.

1) The ACTUAL announcement from Fox was simply that Deadpool would not be having conversations with his colour-coded word balloons as in the comics. Which makes sense, because it's an action movie, and making the audience do that much reading to keep up will just ruin the pacing of the film. They did NOT announce, as the angry folks claim "Oh yeah Deadpool will be crazy in our film but not THAT crazy haw haw haw". They ONLY said they will not use a particular comic book aesthetic that simply would not translate well to film.

2) It has not once, EVER in the comics been said that Deadpool actually suffers legitimately FROM Schizophrenia. He's been CALLED Schizo as an insult, (which frankly is WAY more Ablest than anything people are having fits about), but Marvel has NEVER ONCE claimed that Wade Wilson was Schizophrenic, nor has he in any comic claimed it of himself. His insanity has always been explained as a side effect of the excessively painful process that made him basically immortal.

3) It would be far more offensive if the comics HAD claimed he was Schizophrenic, because I KNOW people with schizophrenia and, once again kids, SCHIZOPHRENIA DOES NOT ACTUALLY WORK THAT WAY! While most, not all but most Schizophrenics do hear voices when unmedicated, but they are not clear, distinct recurring voices with a clear distinct personality like the voices portrayed by the word balloons in Deadpool's comic appearance. THAT would be Dissociative Identity Disorder. Schizophrenic voices are generally described as a cacophonic jumble of indistinct white noise, like a crowd having multiple conversations around you and you're unable to make out any one distinct conversation. It would be far more ablest and insensitive TO call Deadpool a Schizophrenic than to say he isn't.

There is SO much ACTUAL Ablesm in the media you Tumblr/Twitter folks could be calling out, let alone all the racism and transphobia and POC's being murdered by cops. PLEASE stop Grampa Simpsoning like this over an issue YOU MADE UP IN YOUR OWN HEADS.

The Deadpool movie is NOT being Ablest by supposedly not portraying Wade as Schizo. YOU are Ablest for insisting he MUST be.