Been back at school for two days now, and after my half-week in Ann Arbor, New York seems ages ago. But it wasn't.
- Sunday and Monday after I flew home, I was editing the report. Working on it in Ann Arbor was tough, because there my energy is almost entirely focused on friends and family.
- The day before I went south to Ohio, Michelle sent me the completed copy of "A Fabulous Attitude - Low-Income LGBTGNCE People Surviving and Thriving on Love, Shelter & Knowledge." It is beautiful, because it is truthful and as encompassing a view as possible into the lives of these often-ignored people. AND MY NAME WAS ON IT. I'm not a big advocate of caps lock, but it was so exciting, and printed twice - once under the list of Welfare Warriors, and then on its lonesome under "editing."
- My friend mentioned that I needed some kind of closing post, and I agree with him. On principle, though, I can't write about closure because I have none - my time with QEJ is over, but the critical thinking I've started to do increasingly often is, well, only increasing. Watch out, structures of power. You're going to be examined, and I mean it in the violating, police strip-search of a trans person kind of way (perhaps that's what "fighting back" entails). Wait, that might be awful to say. Oh well.
- Ohio is not New York. But I love a lot of people here, and there's a lot of passion - whether for activism or other aspects of life - that I can't wait to tap into. This new semester has a lot of promise. I may even continue to write here, for those interested, about upcoming adventures in Oberlin. So in conclusion(ish), goodbye (for now)!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
airports are my life today
My flight to Detroit via Washington D.C. was canceled, ironically because of bad weather in my southern transfer. Now I’m in La Guardia waiting for a flight to Charlotte, NC, fairly exhausted from a couple nights of inadequate sleep, late-night adventures and city life.
I left QEJ on Friday. Reina and Jay and Michelle made a big deal about my last day, which was nice of them, considering that QEJ gets a lot of interns and I was only with them for three weeks. I stayed up till two the night before baking brownies and cookies in Chloe’s kitchen, which proved difficult because of the lack of grocery ingredients available at midnight in NYC, namely cocoa powder. Desperate at 12:30 a.m. and at my fifth store, which was closing, I grabbed a microwaveable snack-sized brownie tray and decided that was the closest cocoa substitute I’d find. Thankfully, if you add eggs, flour, sugar, chocolate chips and butter to most anything, it becomes delicious.
The workday wasn’t productive at all – due to late night cooking, I got in around 11:00 a.m., chatted with staffers and made casual revisions to the report. Around noon the cute intern came in, and that was more distracting, and then Reina and I went to get coffee.
At 1:00 some others joined us and we had a meeting for the shelter safety campaign. The campaign targets two shelters and focuses on documenting and diminishing the rampant violence the city claims is non-existent. We laid out charts against a wall, and read from them to update each other on the various steps along the way. In the hallway, lined up, I looked at each person there and found myself in awe. I feel so lucky to know them all, the volunteers and staffers who have devoted themselves to this often-ignored effort, and how despite the often-depressing subject matter, are hilarious together and hopeful about our impact as individuals.
After that, we headed over to the CUNY graduate center to attend the research release presentation of a group called the Young Women’s Empowerment Project from Chicago. Their work has a lot overlap with QEJ’s, because they focus on documenting the resistance and resilience of women in the sex trade to institutional and individual oppression. One of my favorite points they made (because of its truth, not because I like it) is that violence against women in the sex trade is often viewed as individual oppression, when in fact it is individual oppression enhanced and encouraged by institutional oppression. Example: a man beats a woman in the sex trade. That’s individual oppression, if you ignore the fact that the man has probably been conditioned to value that woman less because of her gender and economic position. But then the police she is afraid to report the crime to, and the hospitals that refuse to treat her without insurance, perpetuate that oppression. These things don’t shock me as much as they used to shock me. The pattern is easily recognizable. What confuses me now is how I was able to live in complete ignorance of these situations, and of larger-scale oppression, for so long. After the presentation, Michelle and Reina took us all out to dinner and asked me what I’d gotten from my time with them. It was the easiest question ever to answer. In these three weeks, I’ve learned about different worlds and remembered that every person has a story worth telling and worth paying attention to. I’ve grown up a lot, and because that phrase is vague and possibly irrelevant, I’ll explain that “growing up” in this case is a feeling, and awareness about my surroundings and responsibilities, and a confidence, that I didn’t have before. And from these three weeks I’ve shaped the rest of my life’s work. I might not necessarily be in a community organizing office in NYC, although that’s a possibility. But I will be doing my individual part to end oppression, wherever I am.
When we stepped out of the restaurant, it was freezing out. We said goodbye, and Michelle said she would email me the report in the next couple of days to edit. They walked back to QEJ, and I walked in the opposite way to the subway station, always portable, with pajamas in the second pocket of my backpack.
Two friends, one of whom goes to NYU and the other who goes to Oberlin, were waiting at Union Square. The three of us have notoriously good adventures. It was Abby’s first night in the city and my last. We toasted over Cuban food, went to a friend’s party and ended the night at the same falafel shop on St. Marks that Chloe had taken me to on our first day. It was the perfect way to end my incredible stay, and writing about it makes me less grumpy to be in an airport indefinitely.
Finally, to anyone reading from QEJ, one of my host houses, or from my family, thank you. An education is one of the most valuable things anyone can ask for, and you’ve given me that. I wish you all love and the best of luck.
I left QEJ on Friday. Reina and Jay and Michelle made a big deal about my last day, which was nice of them, considering that QEJ gets a lot of interns and I was only with them for three weeks. I stayed up till two the night before baking brownies and cookies in Chloe’s kitchen, which proved difficult because of the lack of grocery ingredients available at midnight in NYC, namely cocoa powder. Desperate at 12:30 a.m. and at my fifth store, which was closing, I grabbed a microwaveable snack-sized brownie tray and decided that was the closest cocoa substitute I’d find. Thankfully, if you add eggs, flour, sugar, chocolate chips and butter to most anything, it becomes delicious.
The workday wasn’t productive at all – due to late night cooking, I got in around 11:00 a.m., chatted with staffers and made casual revisions to the report. Around noon the cute intern came in, and that was more distracting, and then Reina and I went to get coffee.
At 1:00 some others joined us and we had a meeting for the shelter safety campaign. The campaign targets two shelters and focuses on documenting and diminishing the rampant violence the city claims is non-existent. We laid out charts against a wall, and read from them to update each other on the various steps along the way. In the hallway, lined up, I looked at each person there and found myself in awe. I feel so lucky to know them all, the volunteers and staffers who have devoted themselves to this often-ignored effort, and how despite the often-depressing subject matter, are hilarious together and hopeful about our impact as individuals.
After that, we headed over to the CUNY graduate center to attend the research release presentation of a group called the Young Women’s Empowerment Project from Chicago. Their work has a lot overlap with QEJ’s, because they focus on documenting the resistance and resilience of women in the sex trade to institutional and individual oppression. One of my favorite points they made (because of its truth, not because I like it) is that violence against women in the sex trade is often viewed as individual oppression, when in fact it is individual oppression enhanced and encouraged by institutional oppression. Example: a man beats a woman in the sex trade. That’s individual oppression, if you ignore the fact that the man has probably been conditioned to value that woman less because of her gender and economic position. But then the police she is afraid to report the crime to, and the hospitals that refuse to treat her without insurance, perpetuate that oppression. These things don’t shock me as much as they used to shock me. The pattern is easily recognizable. What confuses me now is how I was able to live in complete ignorance of these situations, and of larger-scale oppression, for so long. After the presentation, Michelle and Reina took us all out to dinner and asked me what I’d gotten from my time with them. It was the easiest question ever to answer. In these three weeks, I’ve learned about different worlds and remembered that every person has a story worth telling and worth paying attention to. I’ve grown up a lot, and because that phrase is vague and possibly irrelevant, I’ll explain that “growing up” in this case is a feeling, and awareness about my surroundings and responsibilities, and a confidence, that I didn’t have before. And from these three weeks I’ve shaped the rest of my life’s work. I might not necessarily be in a community organizing office in NYC, although that’s a possibility. But I will be doing my individual part to end oppression, wherever I am.
When we stepped out of the restaurant, it was freezing out. We said goodbye, and Michelle said she would email me the report in the next couple of days to edit. They walked back to QEJ, and I walked in the opposite way to the subway station, always portable, with pajamas in the second pocket of my backpack.
Two friends, one of whom goes to NYU and the other who goes to Oberlin, were waiting at Union Square. The three of us have notoriously good adventures. It was Abby’s first night in the city and my last. We toasted over Cuban food, went to a friend’s party and ended the night at the same falafel shop on St. Marks that Chloe had taken me to on our first day. It was the perfect way to end my incredible stay, and writing about it makes me less grumpy to be in an airport indefinitely.
Finally, to anyone reading from QEJ, one of my host houses, or from my family, thank you. An education is one of the most valuable things anyone can ask for, and you’ve given me that. I wish you all love and the best of luck.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
real-life application attempts
Last night, Chloe and I left her apartment at 10:00 p.m. because it was our last night together in NYC (of course, we'll be living together in a week anyhow) and it was adventure time. I had meant to explore some of the areas the people in the report talk about, like the areas where police harassment occurs, and it was my last unscheduled night. What followed:
- Joined up and had bubble tea with an NYU friend to prepare us all for the evening
- Said goodnight to said NYU friend and walked the full length of Christopher St. in the West Village. It's often mentioned in the report, and I wanted to see it for myself. It was cold and late on a Wednesday night, and I had a feeling the walk would be anticlimactic. In parts, Christopher street was bustling, and there were gay bars and rainbow flags, and Chloe laughed at me for enthusiastically saying, "my people!" as we passed by. In other parts, the street was desolate except for a couple people at a time, and it did seem kind of sketch but it was hard to tell if that was just a projection of our expectations. Which was when I realized - I could never experience Christopher street like the people on the survey did. Because of my background, and my naiveté, and the time of night, I could walk down the same street and see it completely differently than someone who took the Welfare Warrior's Research Collaborative survey. At the same time, or maybe because of this, our Christopher street walk felt somewhat like a museum tour - the mood felt reverent and we were trying to understand it like you might try to understand what it was like for a sculptor creating her art back in the 19th century.
-Walked all the way from the West Village to the East Village, and decided it was time to get a bathroom. In some 24-hour sketch pizzeria, a man came up to me while Chloe was otherwise occupied. I don't know why these things always happen to me. He started gesturing wildly, and I couldn't understand what he was trying to communicate. He kept pointing at his ear, so I gathered he was deaf, and then he ran to the counter and brought back a napkin. "CAREFUL" he wrote on the top, "NIGHT LATE." He turned it around, and then wrote "WORLD DANGER." It was disconcerting. A couple of people came over to make sure everything was under control, and I assured the man as best I could with hand motions that it was going to be fine, but Chloe and I left as soon as we could and took the subway back to her place.
Unrelated - I came across a quote in a report I read for some background knowledge, which I really liked: “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, then let us walk together.” -Lila Watson. I like it because it's so important to remember that oppression, even though it visibly hurts minority populations, hurts and stifles us all, and that we should all be working toward its end.
Ok, enough theorizing - here are pictures from last night.
- Joined up and had bubble tea with an NYU friend to prepare us all for the evening
- Said goodnight to said NYU friend and walked the full length of Christopher St. in the West Village. It's often mentioned in the report, and I wanted to see it for myself. It was cold and late on a Wednesday night, and I had a feeling the walk would be anticlimactic. In parts, Christopher street was bustling, and there were gay bars and rainbow flags, and Chloe laughed at me for enthusiastically saying, "my people!" as we passed by. In other parts, the street was desolate except for a couple people at a time, and it did seem kind of sketch but it was hard to tell if that was just a projection of our expectations. Which was when I realized - I could never experience Christopher street like the people on the survey did. Because of my background, and my naiveté, and the time of night, I could walk down the same street and see it completely differently than someone who took the Welfare Warrior's Research Collaborative survey. At the same time, or maybe because of this, our Christopher street walk felt somewhat like a museum tour - the mood felt reverent and we were trying to understand it like you might try to understand what it was like for a sculptor creating her art back in the 19th century.
-Walked all the way from the West Village to the East Village, and decided it was time to get a bathroom. In some 24-hour sketch pizzeria, a man came up to me while Chloe was otherwise occupied. I don't know why these things always happen to me. He started gesturing wildly, and I couldn't understand what he was trying to communicate. He kept pointing at his ear, so I gathered he was deaf, and then he ran to the counter and brought back a napkin. "CAREFUL" he wrote on the top, "NIGHT LATE." He turned it around, and then wrote "WORLD DANGER." It was disconcerting. A couple of people came over to make sure everything was under control, and I assured the man as best I could with hand motions that it was going to be fine, but Chloe and I left as soon as we could and took the subway back to her place.
Unrelated - I came across a quote in a report I read for some background knowledge, which I really liked: “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, then let us walk together.” -Lila Watson. I like it because it's so important to remember that oppression, even though it visibly hurts minority populations, hurts and stifles us all, and that we should all be working toward its end.
Ok, enough theorizing - here are pictures from last night.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Denial and productivity can go hand in hand
All of the work from my three weeks is starting to come together. One of my supervisors, Michelle, has me writing sections of the report, which is going to be finished on Tuesday. I started with the section on income, and how the people in the survey and in the Welfare Warriors support themselves. My first reaction to the assignment was panic - how on earth could I write such a crucial piece? But then, I realized that I had done the coding for the income data, and transcribed about twenty hours of people talking about income, and looked up federal poverty guidelines, and read through reports on LGBT income as compared to non-LGBT people. I actually knew a good deal about how low-income LGBTGNC people supported themselves, and definitely enough to write five or so paragraphs. Rejuvenated by that knowledge, and a coffee break with some staffers, I worked until the executive director awkwardly insinuated that I should get out so he could lock up and go to his board meeting.
I'm ignoring the fact that this trip is over in four days, and I still have to do all of those things you're supposed to do when you go to New York City, like buy your family presents, and see a Broadway show (which I get to do tomorrow!), and walk through Times Square. On the upside, though, my body is tired from switching living spaces every week/weekend, and I'm excited to relax in Ann Arbor for a couple of days. And then, Oberlin, which seems so familiar and unfamiliar and promising and scary all at the same time. I talked with a friend for awhile a couple days ago about starting up/continuing existing activism on campus surrounding trans issues, and prison issues. It's comforting to know that even though I won't wake up and work from 10-6 on the front lines of the community organizing world, I can still be involved. I'll be home Saturday, but QEJ is going to let me copyedit and revise the report on Sunday. It's not like I'm really leaving then, right?
Monday, January 25, 2010
The gist is that prisons suck, the long version will follow
Just had another one of those days so long that I forget it had a beginning.
It did, though. For the first time during my stay, it was raining and I spent a long time fumbling in the dark for clothes before I finally got out at a quarter till eleven. New York feels pessimistic when it's rainy, and the wind blew my umbrella out, but the QEJ office was warm as always.
I spent the first hour coding data to the question, "How do you keep yourself and others safe?" and got to have a check-in with my boss Reina. She's an exceptional listener, I'm trying to take pointers. She makes you feel like what you've got to say is of the utmost importance, and takes notes on it in her book even if we're just talking about our weekends. Today, she updated me on a bunch more meetings I'll be going to this week, and gave me a stack full of literature to prep me for them. Besides the education I'm getting from working on the research, I've had an extensive schooling on all of the issues QEJ works with from Reina, Michelle and the people in the office. And today's pile was not the easiest material to get through.
First, there were essays on how reproductive rights are an LGBTQ issue. I'd never thought about this, and just assumed that because those rights concern the liberal ideology, LGBTQ people probably cared about them. I'm going to post an essay here tomorrow, but for now I'll explain what I internalized: it's not so much that LGBTQ people should have the right to terminate pregnancies, as per the reproductive rights headlines in the mainstream media, but that LGBTQ people should have a right to HAVE children. This includes being able to adopt where we want, but adoption and fertilization techniques are expensive. It's simpler than that - LGBTQ people have the right to not be sterilized.
This is where my readings on the Prison Industrial Complex, or the PIC, come in. Prisons in the U.S. also function as population control, because the people inside them are disproportionately people who are low-income, of color, LGBTQ or disabled. Inside prisons, people can't have children. And when they come out, they don't have the same rights, and so they often end up back in prison. But back to sterilization - a trans person who goes into the prison system isn't going to be put in the men or women's space based on what gender he/she/zie identifies OR the marking on the birth certificate - the person is going to be put where their genitalia matches. Pay no mind that a trans woman in a male shelter is much more likely to be sexually assaulted - the prison system's main goal is that nobody gets pregnant. If that's not enough, the social security system also tries to sterilize trans people. In order for people to change the gender on their cards, they need to have a specific kind of sexual reassignment surgery - bottom surgery - that sterilizes them. There are many types of gender reassignment practices that people can take, and much less invasive ones, like hormones, where they can have biological children down the line.
It gets worse. Most of the time, the PIC doesn't let trans people who are on hormone therapy continue it when they're in prison. This completely messes up the body, and causes confusion and humiliation. Prisoners can beg the guards to let them in the correct gender facilities, but guards only let them change with gender reassignment surgery of the genitals, but don't offer them access to those services. It gets brutal, people. There are cases - and by no means isolated cases - of trans people in prison taking matters into their own hands. Yes, they perform their own genital reassignment surgery in prison. Which is, needless to say, dangerous and sometimes fatal.
I also learned about hate crimes legislation. Sounds nice, right? Except that the legislation puts even more people into the criminal justice system, without dealing with their homophobia, transphobia or psychological issues. It's a straightforward idea, but listen to this - the legislation sends them to prison. Who's disproportionately waiting for them in prison? LGBTQ people, and all of the other oppressed minorities. If they're a trans person in the wrong gender section of the shelter, they may even be in the same cell.
And just as a side note, these prison systems - they're not just there to house "criminals." Whole systems of economy are based on them, and they are often built for the sole purpose of providing jobs to the builders who build them, the guards who guard them, the people who feed the prisoners, etc. Out there in this free nation of ours, there are even prisons that the government charters for private businesses to build. Guess how much accountability there is in those prisons?
These are just a couple of examples, and I read about so much more. I want to share all of it. In the end, we have to imagine a world where there is a completely different prison complex, and there are different systems of power, and that almost sounds science-fiction-y in the context of our reality. But it's what the people oppressed by this system do, every day. Reina reminded me that we don't have to be hopeless. We all just have to be conscious, and ready for change.
After my reading, I got to take a trip to Bluestockings, a famous activist, anarchist and queer bookstore/cafe. A group in QEJ called Connecting Communities is looking into making a zine, which is an artsy magazine, with some of the survey data combined with an emotional, personal twist. I poured over the zines, eagerly identifying different design elements that would work for them - interactive features, shorts, poetry - and it made me miss my journalism days so much. I don't want them to be over. So they won't be. Good, glad that's decided.
Again traveling into a different class world, I went to the upper west side to meet cousins I've never seen before for dinner. They were lovely, and musical, and big shots. The father owns a recording company, famous for the Kidz Bop compilations (yeah, they're still happening) and apparently, although I didn't know this, representing some of my favorite singer-songwriters. He asked me if I knew Dar Williams, and I said that of course I did. I was listening to "Iowa" on the subway to his house. "Yeah," he said, "Dar and I were just talking about 'Iowa' on the phone earlier today - she decided she's not going to re-record it for her new album." No big deal.
I had a pleasant cab ride home (I splurged because it's on the opposite end of town) with a man from Guinea. Cab conversations are my favorite. This man talked to me about systems of power in his home country - some things are sadly predictable - and how he wants to go back to school. "Good luck with all you do," he told me as I got out, and I said back, "Go to Guinea and change things!" before grabbing my umbrella. He laughed and said he'd do his best. And that's really all that we can do, all of us individuals making tiny rebellions against systems of oppression that have wound their way around billions of people for as long as we can remember.
It did, though. For the first time during my stay, it was raining and I spent a long time fumbling in the dark for clothes before I finally got out at a quarter till eleven. New York feels pessimistic when it's rainy, and the wind blew my umbrella out, but the QEJ office was warm as always.
I spent the first hour coding data to the question, "How do you keep yourself and others safe?" and got to have a check-in with my boss Reina. She's an exceptional listener, I'm trying to take pointers. She makes you feel like what you've got to say is of the utmost importance, and takes notes on it in her book even if we're just talking about our weekends. Today, she updated me on a bunch more meetings I'll be going to this week, and gave me a stack full of literature to prep me for them. Besides the education I'm getting from working on the research, I've had an extensive schooling on all of the issues QEJ works with from Reina, Michelle and the people in the office. And today's pile was not the easiest material to get through.
First, there were essays on how reproductive rights are an LGBTQ issue. I'd never thought about this, and just assumed that because those rights concern the liberal ideology, LGBTQ people probably cared about them. I'm going to post an essay here tomorrow, but for now I'll explain what I internalized: it's not so much that LGBTQ people should have the right to terminate pregnancies, as per the reproductive rights headlines in the mainstream media, but that LGBTQ people should have a right to HAVE children. This includes being able to adopt where we want, but adoption and fertilization techniques are expensive. It's simpler than that - LGBTQ people have the right to not be sterilized.
This is where my readings on the Prison Industrial Complex, or the PIC, come in. Prisons in the U.S. also function as population control, because the people inside them are disproportionately people who are low-income, of color, LGBTQ or disabled. Inside prisons, people can't have children. And when they come out, they don't have the same rights, and so they often end up back in prison. But back to sterilization - a trans person who goes into the prison system isn't going to be put in the men or women's space based on what gender he/she/zie identifies OR the marking on the birth certificate - the person is going to be put where their genitalia matches. Pay no mind that a trans woman in a male shelter is much more likely to be sexually assaulted - the prison system's main goal is that nobody gets pregnant. If that's not enough, the social security system also tries to sterilize trans people. In order for people to change the gender on their cards, they need to have a specific kind of sexual reassignment surgery - bottom surgery - that sterilizes them. There are many types of gender reassignment practices that people can take, and much less invasive ones, like hormones, where they can have biological children down the line.
It gets worse. Most of the time, the PIC doesn't let trans people who are on hormone therapy continue it when they're in prison. This completely messes up the body, and causes confusion and humiliation. Prisoners can beg the guards to let them in the correct gender facilities, but guards only let them change with gender reassignment surgery of the genitals, but don't offer them access to those services. It gets brutal, people. There are cases - and by no means isolated cases - of trans people in prison taking matters into their own hands. Yes, they perform their own genital reassignment surgery in prison. Which is, needless to say, dangerous and sometimes fatal.
I also learned about hate crimes legislation. Sounds nice, right? Except that the legislation puts even more people into the criminal justice system, without dealing with their homophobia, transphobia or psychological issues. It's a straightforward idea, but listen to this - the legislation sends them to prison. Who's disproportionately waiting for them in prison? LGBTQ people, and all of the other oppressed minorities. If they're a trans person in the wrong gender section of the shelter, they may even be in the same cell.
And just as a side note, these prison systems - they're not just there to house "criminals." Whole systems of economy are based on them, and they are often built for the sole purpose of providing jobs to the builders who build them, the guards who guard them, the people who feed the prisoners, etc. Out there in this free nation of ours, there are even prisons that the government charters for private businesses to build. Guess how much accountability there is in those prisons?
These are just a couple of examples, and I read about so much more. I want to share all of it. In the end, we have to imagine a world where there is a completely different prison complex, and there are different systems of power, and that almost sounds science-fiction-y in the context of our reality. But it's what the people oppressed by this system do, every day. Reina reminded me that we don't have to be hopeless. We all just have to be conscious, and ready for change.
After my reading, I got to take a trip to Bluestockings, a famous activist, anarchist and queer bookstore/cafe. A group in QEJ called Connecting Communities is looking into making a zine, which is an artsy magazine, with some of the survey data combined with an emotional, personal twist. I poured over the zines, eagerly identifying different design elements that would work for them - interactive features, shorts, poetry - and it made me miss my journalism days so much. I don't want them to be over. So they won't be. Good, glad that's decided.
Again traveling into a different class world, I went to the upper west side to meet cousins I've never seen before for dinner. They were lovely, and musical, and big shots. The father owns a recording company, famous for the Kidz Bop compilations (yeah, they're still happening) and apparently, although I didn't know this, representing some of my favorite singer-songwriters. He asked me if I knew Dar Williams, and I said that of course I did. I was listening to "Iowa" on the subway to his house. "Yeah," he said, "Dar and I were just talking about 'Iowa' on the phone earlier today - she decided she's not going to re-record it for her new album." No big deal.
I had a pleasant cab ride home (I splurged because it's on the opposite end of town) with a man from Guinea. Cab conversations are my favorite. This man talked to me about systems of power in his home country - some things are sadly predictable - and how he wants to go back to school. "Good luck with all you do," he told me as I got out, and I said back, "Go to Guinea and change things!" before grabbing my umbrella. He laughed and said he'd do his best. And that's really all that we can do, all of us individuals making tiny rebellions against systems of oppression that have wound their way around billions of people for as long as we can remember.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
There are some things we don't talk about
A quick entry before Chloe gets back with our friend Carter and festivities ensue:
FOMO (fear of missing out) again rules my life. I want to see everyone, and do everything, and it's hit me that I'm only here for five more days.
Luckily, I'm well-rested. This weekend I stayed with my friend Sophia in the Hamptons. It felt weird to be in a place notoriously known for being high-income after having spent the week working with issues surrounding people with low-to-no-income. In this society, we're not supposed to talk about class or racial stratification, but I couldn't help but notice at a restaurant we went to on Saturday that the people cooking appeared to be hispanic, the waitresses appeared to be white, and the owner appeared to be a white male (I say appeared, because of course, I could be wrong about how they identify). The customers - all white, too.
I don't know what to make of this still, except to say that I'm trying to remember that we generally don't choose what class we are or however else we identify, and that people are people. I had a wonderful time hanging out with Sophia and her family - you always get to know a person so much better that way. We got about as much nature as possible crammed into the two days, hiking and running in the woods and walking on the beach. On Sunday, it was rainy, so we had a chill movie and Kraft macaroni-and-cheese afternoon. Somedays, Annie's just doesn't cut it, comfort-food-wise.
Tomorrow begins the home stretch for my stay here, and for the Welfare Warrior's research report. I'm excited because Michelle has told me that I will get to write some of it, which is scary and great. Like everything else, I hope there's enough time to dedicate my all to it.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Creating Change
I have special permission to post about a person named Dwayne. I've heard him while transcribing for about two weeks, and met him a couple times, so I feel like I know him a little. Jay, another QEJ staffer, told me more about him. In short, Dwayne was in the men's shelter and began going to the QEJ support groups about four years ago. Since then, he became a shelter facilitator, joined Q-Crew (a video blog production group) and the Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative (that's how I know him). He's now out of the shelter system and in his own place, on social security. According to Jay, and from what I've seen, he's a great guy, and volunteers for anything going on around QEJ.
QEJ is trying to get enough money to send Dwayne to Creating Change, the nation-wide annual conference held by the Lesbian and Gay Taskforce, this year in Dallas, Texas. I mentioned earlier that QEJ plans to release the Welfare Warrior's research report there, and Dwayne's been a crucial member in the group. He plans to lead the workshop there.
I feel a little uncomfortable asking people to donate something, (most of us are poor college students, anyway) but this cause is totally manageable. So far, QEJ has $265.00 in pledges, and they need $400 for roundtrip airfare and four days of meals. So basically, I'm asking anyway. If you think you can help (I'm donating $15, and it can even be $5 or something like that) send me an email. It's ahalpert @ oberlin.edu (the spaces are to stop spammers).
(Dwayne is on the left, Jay is on the right.)
QEJ is trying to get enough money to send Dwayne to Creating Change, the nation-wide annual conference held by the Lesbian and Gay Taskforce, this year in Dallas, Texas. I mentioned earlier that QEJ plans to release the Welfare Warrior's research report there, and Dwayne's been a crucial member in the group. He plans to lead the workshop there.
I feel a little uncomfortable asking people to donate something, (most of us are poor college students, anyway) but this cause is totally manageable. So far, QEJ has $265.00 in pledges, and they need $400 for roundtrip airfare and four days of meals. So basically, I'm asking anyway. If you think you can help (I'm donating $15, and it can even be $5 or something like that) send me an email. It's ahalpert @ oberlin.edu (the spaces are to stop spammers).
(Dwayne is on the left, Jay is on the right.)
The day that didn't end
I think I fell asleep before I finished that last post. Something about the combination of no rest, life re-evaluation and thought-provoking conversation and a nine-hour long day made something click gears into place. Among the things I talked about yesterday, I also:
- Attended a phone meeting between Reina and a bunch of other welfare organizers, who are setting up a press conference. After five years, they finally passed an LGBTQ welfare sensitivity training law, which is going to hopefully revolutionize the system. It was at the end of the day, so my attention was scattered, but they talked about speakers and politics, and it was cool to listen in on real-world, high-stakes organizing
- Placed a call to the "GLBT Community Liaison" for the police force at the encouragement of the office. I had been transcribing and heard another awful story about police neglect, which made me ask myself -- Are there good cops? Are there queer cops? Both of these things, to me, made sense, but I asked the office. There were about six of us in at that point, and everyone else started laughing. "What," I said, "there aren't people who join the police force to do good, or make systemic change from the inside?" They spoke carefully, and said that there might be some people who start off with good intentions. But they explained that the police system isn't designed to help people, it's designed to enforce systems of power. The people who join the police force are given exorbitant amounts of power, and in the end they are instructed to carry out the tasks they're assigned, which usually don't help anyone. It corrupts people. The prison system, instead, acts as an expensive shelter system, half of whom should be in treatment programs, not jail. But anyway, apparently this liaison guy loves talking to QEJ, and they said I could call and ask for myself. I did, so I might talk to him today.
- Went over to the CUNY and got more data to code, the open-ended answers to the question: what is your income? I'm not supposed to write the figures here, but they are lower than I ever thought they could be. "This is why we're doing this work," Michelle told me as I stared at them in disbelief.
- Finally got to watch the documentary that the Welfare Warriors made about themselves. It's so beautiful, cutting between protestors on the street and feature interviews with the participants. I got to place a lot of voices to faces I'd heard over the tapes.
- Asked Reina and Michelle for book and film recommendations. I think this was a good call. So far Michelle has told me to read Lisa Duggan's "Twilight of Equality" which addresses race, sexuality, and the limits of the idea of equality. I want more.
I'm sitting in a coffee shop near Union Square and I should get to work. This weekend should be peaceful, I'm going to Long Island with Sophia. I like this whole work-till-you-drop thing during the week, and then do-absolutely-nothing thing on the weekend.
If you want to check it out, QEJ was featured in a PBS documentary. This clip is about 10 minutes long.
this one wins the award for most interactive, and longest.
Today is one of the most epic, intellectually and emotionally stimulating days I’ve had. Where to begin? I won’t be able to cover it all.
First, an activity that’s all about you.
Did you ever play the Sims? Well, in the Sims, the user designs computer characters in an incubated world. The user picks different traits – body type, skin color, gender (female or male), hair, clothing, astrological sign, and then even personality – niceness versus grumpiness, cleanliness versus messiness, and on and on. The character spins in cyberspace there. He or she picks up a teddy bear and caresses it when the user adds nice characteristic points, and sports a toupee when designated to do so.
That’s you. And all of those characteristics, they’re (arguably) your genetics. In the Sims world, the user determines what you look and act like, and it doesn’t matter what your virtual parents do. For the sake of this activity, let’s make things a little more real. Let’s say your biological mother’s parents are from Western Europe and your biological father’s parents are from Mexico.
There you are, spinning around and trying on outfits in your world, and all of these different aspects of you are forming. There’s a gender that the user checks on a box – you don’t have any say in it, but you’ll have a completely different experience based on the one that’s chosen. That user selects your skin color. That user selects whether you stand on two feet or sit in a wheelchair, whether you have diabetes or whether you’ll get depression one day, whether you’re skinny or curvy. That user decides whether or not to use a couple of game cheats to get you ahead and into the nicest house in the neighborhood – that user enters a password and you don’t have to get that entry level job anymore. You can spend time improving your essential self, reading and playing music. You can learn how to cook.
The user did a good job. You’re a pretty neat character, and pretty to the eye, too, with shoulder-length brown hair and a blue sweater. A Pisces. Your body isn’t skinny or fat, and while you aren’t the funniest person in the room, you’ve got a lot of points going for your intellectual side. Besides that, let’s see. The user really wanted that long brown hair, so you’re female – you can’t have long hair otherwise, it’s not programmed that way. And I mentioned where your parents came from geographically, but forgot to tell you that your skin tone leads people on the street to think you’re white. You can walk, you are healthy, and you will likely be able to remain that way – your parents have health insurance and money to buy you healthy food. They live in what people on the street call a “good area.”
Luckily for you, you’re okay with most of this. You feel like your body has done you well, and that the way you are treated because of your gender fits well with your personality and the box that user checked. Your parents eat organic. Another thing that you might like to know is that you are incredibly attracted to people whose users also checked “female” boxes, and sometimes (but less so) attracted to those in the “male” boxes. It makes sleepovers in the 7th grade awkward. You deal.
Wow, this is getting long. You’re a complicated person, you see, because there are all these things about you, and they form this code. The code is going to be really important in a minute, so pay attention. You like to think that your body is like everyone else’s body. It has a heartbeat, and you have flesh, and you like it when people like you. You feel connected to the world, even though you haven’t yet left your isolated creation-room.
The thing is, though, this code I mentioned. We’re leaving the Sims now; this is real life. Someone has handed you a card. It looks somewhat like a credit card, or those cards they give you in college to swipe into dorms and dining halls. But it’s not. Attached to this card are most of those things I just told you, in the categories you see on anti-discrimination clauses: race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, you know the drill. The person who makes this card for you has never had a conversation with you. They may not have even met you. But this card they give you becomes very important. Like a college ID, it unlocks doors and gives you permission to enter. Some doors you won’t need your card to open, like a public park. Most things, though, you will. If you wanted to have a place to sleep, for instance, your ID would need to say that you’re in a high enough income class to do that. If you didn’t have that (don’t worry, you do), you still might be able to find shelter – that is, if you have some other markers on your ID, like the one that says you feel the gender your user chose matches the one you express each day. If not, you might be out of luck. Let’s look at it this way – in the olden days, that card of yours would have been a key melted from metal. Race and gender and sexual orientation would have been the mountains and valleys on that key, and to fit, it would have to be the perfect combination. To fit in while drunk at a high school party and not worry about being sexually harassed, you’ll need… to be male and like women. Sorry, doesn’t fit. To enjoy the benefits of gay marriage you have to have the codes for a solid income, and pick a gender. You’re set there; say No to Prop. 8. You see? You have a good attitude, and that’s great. But the places you can go, and opportunities you have, are largely based on your card. You can jump over the barriers, sure, but it takes effort and some places are guarded more than others.
There you have it. It’s an over-worn idea, but a good one to revisit. We have different aspects of ourselves that we can’t control, and they alter our experiences whether we like it or not. I see homelessness, which wasn’t my pet issue before QEJ, in a completely new light now that I’ve listened to all of the people who talk about it. The way everything is structured, you need metro cards to go to job interviews and if you can’t afford metro cards, you can’t get a job. And identities and the way people react to them complicate transcending those boundaries. Both of my bosses took the time to explain today how this works, as applied to a couple of relevant situations:
1. Issue: Welfare
Identities Involved: Gender, Gender Expression, Income
What Happens: Those people who are transgender and low-income (whether they’ve always been that way, or whether they’ve been kicked out of their home/job due to discrimination) need welfare. They go to the welfare office. If this person was just low-income and didn’t have to worry about a gender identity/expression outside the norm, the person would qualify for some aid and have a lesser chance of homelessness and starvation. But identities don’t stand alone, they intersect. Oftentimes when low-income transgender people go in to get welfare, government employees call them by the wrong pronouns, or by their birth name. Reina told me about a case she knew about. Someone assessing welfare needs said to a transwoman, “you don’t need welfare, you need social security, because any man who dresses like a woman is crazy in my book.”
Impact: Transgender people are often humiliated by these exchanges, and then they don’t go back to receive welfare, or other government-run assistance like shelter, Medicaid, Medicare, and HIV benefits. Especially now, with the recession, unemployed transgender people who abandon the welfare system just don’t eat, or end up in the sex trade industry.
2. Issue: Gay Marriage (I haven’t fully understood this until now, so hopefully this explanation helps. And it’s not all there is to marriage politics at all, just a simple version.)
Identities involved: Sexual orientation, gender, income, race
What happens: I’d love for marriage to be legal for everyone. What strikes me as odd is the nation-wide obsession. Yes, it’s an issue many people can relate to, and any time the general public spends talking and gaining awareness about LGBTQ issues is worthwhile. But why marriage? Why not acceptance in schools, or job protection? The simplified answer according to Michelle is this: where there is inclusion, there is exclusion. Besides the title and official recognition of the government, one of the important benefits of marriage is health insurance. In our country, though, not everyone has health insurance – only people of a certain income, generally employed, do. Then, we need to ask ourselves: who gains from gay marriage and who is excluded from it? Low-income LGB people who don’t have health insurance would gain little financially by marrying another low-income LGB person without health insurance. Yes, the title is nice, but is that all marriage should be?
Impact: Low-income LGBT people are left out of the nation’s largest queer rights initiative. Thus, they’re less likely to be engaged politically, and their issues are invisible, only to be written about in blogs by Oberlin students (and, of course, by QEJ and similar orgs).
These issues seem obvious to me now, but weren’t so until today. Asking questions and learning about them was so thrilling that I am almost convinced that I have to be a Gender and Sexuality Studies major (along with CRWR, if I can get my way on that). I realized that since the moment I abandoned my straight identity, I fell in love with queer theory. My GBF (Gay Best Friend) Alex and I went through discourse after discourse without even noticing. We tackled the Kinsey scale junior year of high school, the LGBT studies and activism class we designed and took senior year, among other projects. It makes sense that he’s doing Women’s Studies and I’m resigning myself to the fact that identity is fascinating.
The funny thing about my identity-filled day is that it started out completely free of identity. I woke up at 8:15 am, the third day in a row without adequate sleep, in a terrible mood. I was eating cereal in Sophia’s kitchen when her mom, Karin, came in. I love cereal, and it generally makes me happy, but it didn’t do the trick until Karin and I started talking about the nature of life and death, and the meaning of life. She’s a holistic health counselor, and she brought up the idea of spirituality that I have fought against for most of my life. “Underneath it all,” she told me, “we’re all connected.” If the government is all for artificial identities, then Karin is all about the body attached to them. There was much more intricate conversation involved, and I’m interested in learning about her profession’s policies. I still don't know how I feel about it all. But what I really gleaned from the talk is that we’re all the same deep down, which I really had forgotten, and that compassion is essential to survival. I tried it on the subway, and looked at all of the white men I usually feel subconscious bitterness towards, and tried to look underneath their privilege. I thought about every person I passed, and interacted with. It felt exhilarating. On the way home after nine hours of work, a girl on the subway across from me looked like she was crying. I stopped her on the way out and told her to have a good night, and it wasn’t hard, and it did make me look strange but I didn’t quite care.
A song to listen to if you have a day like today.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
McDonald's and Gender (both are everywhere)
Just watched my new house-mate's mom and dog wrestle over a sock in their mouths, which I think is good pre-bedtime entertainment. This family lives in a different part of Manhattan - near 96th and Madison - that is completely different than midtown, and downtown. It feels weird to be moved, but also living with Sophia is basically like a 7-night sleepover, complete with long-catching-up talks, nightly massages, and tomorrow, my first run in the city around a reservoir (the reservoir? I'm not sure how many there are).
Along with a new house, I also got a new boss today. Now I have two. They're both great, but this one - Reina - works in the QEJ office (my other boss usually works out of the CUNY), which is really fun. Whereas before I would mostly negotiate conversation in between snippets of audio I was transcribing, Reina checked in on me while I worked, and asked me questions, which made it somehow so much easier to engage in idle chatter and feel like a part of the group. However, the interesting thing about idle chatter in a queer rights organization is that it's never really idle chatter. For instance, Jay, the shelter organizing coordinator, frequently gets McDonalds down the street. Most of the time she gets a kiddie meal, and asks for the boy toy - something I vaguely remember doing when I was young, because they were always better than the girl toys and I was convinced it was a conspiracy against women. This time, her "boy" toy was a blue, curvaceous doll, presumably a character of some sort, and when the doll was plugged into a base, a light attached to her large breasts came on. "This is how they teach little boys to be straight," she said, and the rest of us laughed. Another person, a volunteer, took the doll and flashed it in my face. "Does this make you want to be straight?" He/she/zie asked. "Sure," I said. "So straight." I pointed out that the doll also only lights up when it's attached to its base - that's also how these boys would be taught to treat women. Tie her down and then watch her boobs.
In one conversation, we'd examined gender, oppression and sexualization. Other popular models of conversation include the "laugh at how ridiculous this particular injustice/person is" (a great way of coping/brainstorming debate points/disseminating it all) and "why haven't the floors been redone yet" variations. I don't know if the following is true of all queer rights orgs, but at this one, I've noticed that there are few boundaries. There's teasing, and no uniform dress category, and genuine interest in each other's lives. And today, I felt like a part of it. Or, at least that I could become a part of it. Reina let me know of a bunch of meetings she wants me to go to, as well as queer events in the community. Both she and Michelle have mentioned that they'd like to have me here for the summer, which is so flattering and also impossible, because there's no way I could afford to live in New York for three months.
The day got even better when I attended my first Research Collaborative meeting. Like I mentioned before, I've been transcribing meetings like these for the last week. When the tape recorder came on and Michelle said, "Meeting, Tuesday January 19th," it felt like I was among celebrities. We did a check-in, exchanged updates, and revised the outline to the report, and all along the way I was valued as an equal participant. Because of this, I contributed, and felt good about what I said. Another thing that was brought up in the meeting is that not all of the people who were supposed to go to the Creating Change conference will be able to do so financially, which brought about talk of fundraising. I thought about calling up good old Community High and seeing if my forum might be able to fundraise around one of the most progressive issues out there. I think it would be so bad-ass.
I was exhausted by five o'clock. Sophia (my host) and I meant to go out with friends downtown, but we just couldn't do it. Each time this happens I have a brief case of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and then get too tired to succumb to it. Sophia promises she's going to make me do tourist-y things, which I haven't gotten around to yet, like visiting museums and Central Park, this week. Meanwhile, her mom is taking the surrogate role seriously and wants me to go to sleep. I think I'll happily oblige.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Gender (specifically, mine)
So with some idle time (Chloe and co. are with the grandparents) I decided to upload a little art project. An incredibly smart researcher from my freshman seminar class, The Mysteries of Identity, asked that all of us make squares of art that represent our gender, or how we feel about gender. I have a natural aversion to art projects, but I got excited about this one. Gender is often on my mind. Shortly after I came out, I made myself sit down for half an hour and ask myself if I was transgender, in case that was another can of worms I'd have to open up and deal with (not like the two are inextricably connected anyway). I decided that my life wouldn't really be better with a penis, or a male identity, and that I felt very comfortable identifying as woman. However, I think about what being a woman means every day.
I made this at the airport to NYC.
I made this at the airport to NYC.
Notes from New Jersey
- The people there acted and sounded as if they could be on TV shows. Max invited a good number of his friends to his house in the course of my two-day stay. I liked how all of Max's male friends had no problem expressing physical and emotional affection to each other, and it wasn't in a joking, no homo way. I've never seen that with Ann Arbor guys - though of course, that's a mass generalization. But anyway, that, paired with their impeccable style and humor, made them seem almost fictionalized. One of them gave me a one-hour professional massage, and that made me like them all even more.
- It's not appropriate to steal swings from small children. On Saturday, it was a miraculous 50 degrees and sunny. Max and I took a requisite walk through Brookdale Park (there's a picture of it, not by me). Brookdale Park is more than 100 acres big, and was the highlight of my break-from-the-city experience - except for that the few swings were monopolized by the under-five crowd. They stared longingly at our seats and we reluctantly relinquished them. Another thing - dog parks are great. I'm honestly terrified by dogs at worst and grossed out by them at best, so it came as a surprise to me that I loved watching the animals off their leashes and cantering around the enclosed area. There was a small-dog area and a big-dog area, and it was funny to compare the two.
- When you combine pasta pizza with Planet Earth documentaries from the Discovery Channel, you can't go wrong. You just can't.
- It's hard to find time to write blog entries/talk to friends/do work there. So now that I'm back in the city, I'll resume all that. Tomorrow I move out of Chloe's house and into Sophia's, and maybe even go ice skating, a fool-proof start to my second week.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Intersecting identities/places
I feel like I’m living in two worlds. Once consists of clear, sunny New York winter days, Oberlin friends in the city, subway stations and queer coffee/activist bookstores (I’ve been in one right now for the last four hours). It’s not the same as my normal world, not by a stretch – but it’s filled with some familiar people and things, like bagels and Regina Spektor. The other world I’m in bears little resemblance to any life I’ve known. Because I’m in the transcription stage of my internship, I wear headphones at least six hours a day and listen to seven or eight people talk – their thoughts, banter and hopes. It feels like I’m in the room with them. I know the quirks of their speech patterns, I get agitated when they don’t understand a concept another is presenting, I get excited with them. I get tired with them.
One of the reoccurring themes I’ve heard at the office is that I’m not alone in my inability to picture their world in the context of mine. When members of QEJ explain their job – working to achieve economic justice for low-income LGBTQ people -- to friends or possible donors, the recipients usually nod, frown and say, “Yeah – I know all about queer homeless youth. I’d love to help.” People can’t imagine queer homeless adults. I’m guilty of it, too. When I picture the shelter system, I think of the families my mom brought food to in Ann Arbor, and how we had to play with their children while she dropped off the lasagna. I don’t think about what happens when those homeless LGBTQ youth grow up. We think they get help, or are rescued, or go to college. In a lot of situations, they don’t – they just grow up and have to deal with systems ensconced with LGBTQ-phobia and people/authorities in the system with prejudices they pass on and are never trained to ignore in the workplace.
Another trend, one that makes a lot of sense, is that a lot of LGBTQ people who require public assistance feel that they can’t complain to higher-ups, or do anything about the discrimination that comes from police, because they fear that said public assistance could be taken away entirely. Due to this fear, they often (by no means all of the time) do nothing to take action. The stats on the numbers of LGBTQ people who get arrested, physically assaulted, fined, unwanted sexual attention, and told to move by the police are disgustingly high, and within the LGBTQ people there are categories of identities that deal with these injustices even more. I don’t want to name specific stats because they’re not published yet, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do that. But it’s evident that transgender people experience police abuse even more, and people who have been homeless at some point in their lives have much higher numbers, too. I thought a lot about something Kenyon said. He pointed out that New York is the only state in which all individuals have a right to government-provided shelter. He laughed. Obviously, he said, that was a joke in the first place since there are people on the streets. Besides that, though, we have to question what the word "shelter" means. Is it just a roof over a person’s head? Or is the New York government implicitly required to provide everyone with a place free from violence and discrimination?
A couple of nights ago I got back to Chloe’s house from QEJ, grabbed a bite to eat and went almost immediately to hang out with a group of people she knew from high school. The six of us squeezed into a booth at a diner. They were nice enough – tossed around a lot of names I didn’t know but had that made-up quality of another high-school universe – until the girl across from me started talking about someone she knew who got a sex change. “That’s so gross,” she said. “Now he has a beard.”
My initial thought is that she was joking. Firstly, I had just been immersed in queer social justice land. But also, I just couldn’t imagine how a sex change would be thought of as gross. Ew, it’s so nasty that someone decided to take on characteristics of another gender, or identify as another entirely, right? How dare that person grow a beard?
It’s strange to remember that some people still think of it that way, as a perversion. We were all supposed to go bowling after, but I decided to take the Subway home. I felt vaguely like I had escaped something, denied the existence of something.
That’s the closest I’ve gotten to trans discrimination in my world, but I realized that the digital recorded tapes and my life can’t stay separated for much longer. I want to go to the places the people in the group (I wanted to say “my group” – I don’t know if I can) talk about, and see for them first-hand. Since I’m not allowed to write or talk about their stories in the tapes and on the surveys, I feel a duty to do the work and collect my own. I brought it up to Michelle, and was worried she would discourage me from it, but she didn’t. If anything, my trips next week will help inform the work I’m doing with her group, I suppose. So that’s the plan.
This day marks the end of my week with Chloe, although I might end up staying with her again later in the month. We hung out with some of her friends last night who were delightful and made no comments about transitioning from female to male, and I’m sorry to go – but excited to stay with my dear friend Max in Montclair, New Jersey until Monday.
A side note – I’ve never felt more portable than in New York City. Last night, out at two in the morning (with friends, Mom, don’t worry) and only a backpack, I felt like I could go anywhere. I had my laptop and headphones if I needed to transcribe or write, my cell phone, and a subway pass. It’s a carnal feeling, like what any people throughout time have felt when they’re in a brand new place, and don’t know exactly where they belong or how to get there.
One of the reoccurring themes I’ve heard at the office is that I’m not alone in my inability to picture their world in the context of mine. When members of QEJ explain their job – working to achieve economic justice for low-income LGBTQ people -- to friends or possible donors, the recipients usually nod, frown and say, “Yeah – I know all about queer homeless youth. I’d love to help.” People can’t imagine queer homeless adults. I’m guilty of it, too. When I picture the shelter system, I think of the families my mom brought food to in Ann Arbor, and how we had to play with their children while she dropped off the lasagna. I don’t think about what happens when those homeless LGBTQ youth grow up. We think they get help, or are rescued, or go to college. In a lot of situations, they don’t – they just grow up and have to deal with systems ensconced with LGBTQ-phobia and people/authorities in the system with prejudices they pass on and are never trained to ignore in the workplace.
Another trend, one that makes a lot of sense, is that a lot of LGBTQ people who require public assistance feel that they can’t complain to higher-ups, or do anything about the discrimination that comes from police, because they fear that said public assistance could be taken away entirely. Due to this fear, they often (by no means all of the time) do nothing to take action. The stats on the numbers of LGBTQ people who get arrested, physically assaulted, fined, unwanted sexual attention, and told to move by the police are disgustingly high, and within the LGBTQ people there are categories of identities that deal with these injustices even more. I don’t want to name specific stats because they’re not published yet, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do that. But it’s evident that transgender people experience police abuse even more, and people who have been homeless at some point in their lives have much higher numbers, too. I thought a lot about something Kenyon said. He pointed out that New York is the only state in which all individuals have a right to government-provided shelter. He laughed. Obviously, he said, that was a joke in the first place since there are people on the streets. Besides that, though, we have to question what the word "shelter" means. Is it just a roof over a person’s head? Or is the New York government implicitly required to provide everyone with a place free from violence and discrimination?
A couple of nights ago I got back to Chloe’s house from QEJ, grabbed a bite to eat and went almost immediately to hang out with a group of people she knew from high school. The six of us squeezed into a booth at a diner. They were nice enough – tossed around a lot of names I didn’t know but had that made-up quality of another high-school universe – until the girl across from me started talking about someone she knew who got a sex change. “That’s so gross,” she said. “Now he has a beard.”
My initial thought is that she was joking. Firstly, I had just been immersed in queer social justice land. But also, I just couldn’t imagine how a sex change would be thought of as gross. Ew, it’s so nasty that someone decided to take on characteristics of another gender, or identify as another entirely, right? How dare that person grow a beard?
It’s strange to remember that some people still think of it that way, as a perversion. We were all supposed to go bowling after, but I decided to take the Subway home. I felt vaguely like I had escaped something, denied the existence of something.
That’s the closest I’ve gotten to trans discrimination in my world, but I realized that the digital recorded tapes and my life can’t stay separated for much longer. I want to go to the places the people in the group (I wanted to say “my group” – I don’t know if I can) talk about, and see for them first-hand. Since I’m not allowed to write or talk about their stories in the tapes and on the surveys, I feel a duty to do the work and collect my own. I brought it up to Michelle, and was worried she would discourage me from it, but she didn’t. If anything, my trips next week will help inform the work I’m doing with her group, I suppose. So that’s the plan.
This day marks the end of my week with Chloe, although I might end up staying with her again later in the month. We hung out with some of her friends last night who were delightful and made no comments about transitioning from female to male, and I’m sorry to go – but excited to stay with my dear friend Max in Montclair, New Jersey until Monday.
A side note – I’ve never felt more portable than in New York City. Last night, out at two in the morning (with friends, Mom, don’t worry) and only a backpack, I felt like I could go anywhere. I had my laptop and headphones if I needed to transcribe or write, my cell phone, and a subway pass. It’s a carnal feeling, like what any people throughout time have felt when they’re in a brand new place, and don’t know exactly where they belong or how to get there.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
titles are always an issue
I decided to name my blog "your homonormative hiatus" because it was a play on the word "heteronormative" (which is a fun one to pull out in conversation) and alliterated. However, I recently googled the term and found out that it has ironic implications for my purposes.
For anyone reading who isn't obsessed with analyzing power and privilege, "heteronormative" is a word that refers to the assumption that everyone is straight, and that we live in a straight world. No matter how you identify your sexual orientation or gender expression, people generally look at you as if you are straight, because that's what we've been conditioned to do. They will target you in advertising as if you're a woman looking for the man of your dreams, or a man interested in buying the beer that comes with the woman and the car. They will not protect people or give rights to people that aren't straight, simply because those people don't exist, right? And they certainly won't educate you about those people and inequalities/rights movements in your public schools. God forbid.
Anyway, I was reluctant to choose "homonormative" because there is no universal queer experience. Queer people are pervasive. They come from all walks of life (in some walks they can't live openly, but they're there) and they do hundreds of different things. But it alliterated. And alliteration is really great.
The point of this post -- I found out that "homonormative" actually refers to the assumption that all gay people are white, upper class males. Which is EXACTLY the opposite of the truth, and exactly what QEJ is trying to combat. Oops.
I don't know how many of you read this, but I'm opening the forum. What should I retitle my blog? I have always been hopeless at headlines (see? Alliteration - great).
For anyone reading who isn't obsessed with analyzing power and privilege, "heteronormative" is a word that refers to the assumption that everyone is straight, and that we live in a straight world. No matter how you identify your sexual orientation or gender expression, people generally look at you as if you are straight, because that's what we've been conditioned to do. They will target you in advertising as if you're a woman looking for the man of your dreams, or a man interested in buying the beer that comes with the woman and the car. They will not protect people or give rights to people that aren't straight, simply because those people don't exist, right? And they certainly won't educate you about those people and inequalities/rights movements in your public schools. God forbid.
Anyway, I was reluctant to choose "homonormative" because there is no universal queer experience. Queer people are pervasive. They come from all walks of life (in some walks they can't live openly, but they're there) and they do hundreds of different things. But it alliterated. And alliteration is really great.
The point of this post -- I found out that "homonormative" actually refers to the assumption that all gay people are white, upper class males. Which is EXACTLY the opposite of the truth, and exactly what QEJ is trying to combat. Oops.
I don't know how many of you read this, but I'm opening the forum. What should I retitle my blog? I have always been hopeless at headlines (see? Alliteration - great).
high-healed boots on a cold night
This post may make less sense than usual (I know, how, right?) because it's almost two in the morning and after a full day's work and many blustery blocks of walking (the rules I learned in Creative Writing 120 insist that blocks can't be blustery, but here we are anyway).
So. Chloe (friend/roommate) and I just got back from a diner a couple of minutes away from her house. It was around 11:00 pm and I was feeling restless; Chloe's mom had a pair of really classy boots that were too small for her that she generously gave me. I took off my sweatshirt and put on my black scarf, because at this point we had committed to looking like classy New Yorkers, and we set off.
The thing is, New York City does sleep sometimes -- for instance, the Starbucks on the corner was out of commission for the night, as was the first diner we tried. On the way to the second diner, a car stopped on a one-way and yelled at us. The only word I caught was "shoes," and I dismissed it as another catcall Chloe said I'd come to ignore.
In the diner, we sat and recounted our days with decaf coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. I'd always thought that the first time I ordered decaf would be a low point - it would mean that I finally liked coffee enough to drink it without the true purpose of providing me with energy. Tonight it felt grown-up. It felt so grown up that Chloe and I thought we'd ask the waiter for two glasses of Pinot Grigio after - it sounded nice before bed, and we'd heard not all restaurants carded. I adopted what I considered to be a mature, poker face and asked. Chloe did not manage to keep her poker face, and snickered into the coffee. No, we didn't have identification, it was at Chloe's apartment a couple blocks away. I imagined it would be like if Chloe's apartment were hers and not her parents'. The waiter checked with his boss and apologized a couple of times. He would have liked to give us a glass, he said, and we assured him that we were just fine not spending $14 on two glasses of wine we weren't really sophisticated enough to enjoy. Instead, we posed and took pictures of each other. "They are so glad they didn't serve us alcohol," I said, and we laughed.
On the way home our second run-in occurred. A car pulled up next to us, the windows rolled down and a man shouted, "Stop! I have a question!" This time, I didn't look back and Chloe and I kept walking. "Please!" he called after us, "a question!" He kept shouting, "a question!" over and over, and it began a natural echo in our heads.
Chloe thought perhaps we should turn back and see what it was, but I was adamant that we should keep going. "He's a creep," I said with authority, but then we realized that his car looked very similar to the one that had stopped us earlier. Shit, we wondered, what if he just really wanted to ask us a question about my shoes? The ones Chloe's mom had just given me, with a less common-looking pointed toe?
Reality is so malleable. The first car could have been the second car, and the first person could have been making a comment about our butts or asking about our shoes, and the second person could have wanted directions or could have wanted to assault us outside a small deli. And we could have reacted to all of these actions in different ways, made worse choices (or better, more human ones). Maybe, the tiniest bit tipsy and courageous from a glass of Pinot Grigio a lenient manager allowed, we would have said, "Yeah, what?" to that man, and had a completely new end to our night.
Instead, we walked safely back to Chloe's (family's) apartment, and made conversation with the doorman (he has insomnia). Tomorrow has a lot of promise -- I can choose to work from here, or at QEJ, or at the CUNY, and I'm getting lunch on Union Street. Based on lessons learned about small decisions having interesting impacts, I think I'll go to bed now. Must be well rested for all those various possibilities.
So. Chloe (friend/roommate) and I just got back from a diner a couple of minutes away from her house. It was around 11:00 pm and I was feeling restless; Chloe's mom had a pair of really classy boots that were too small for her that she generously gave me. I took off my sweatshirt and put on my black scarf, because at this point we had committed to looking like classy New Yorkers, and we set off.
The thing is, New York City does sleep sometimes -- for instance, the Starbucks on the corner was out of commission for the night, as was the first diner we tried. On the way to the second diner, a car stopped on a one-way and yelled at us. The only word I caught was "shoes," and I dismissed it as another catcall Chloe said I'd come to ignore.
In the diner, we sat and recounted our days with decaf coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. I'd always thought that the first time I ordered decaf would be a low point - it would mean that I finally liked coffee enough to drink it without the true purpose of providing me with energy. Tonight it felt grown-up. It felt so grown up that Chloe and I thought we'd ask the waiter for two glasses of Pinot Grigio after - it sounded nice before bed, and we'd heard not all restaurants carded. I adopted what I considered to be a mature, poker face and asked. Chloe did not manage to keep her poker face, and snickered into the coffee. No, we didn't have identification, it was at Chloe's apartment a couple blocks away. I imagined it would be like if Chloe's apartment were hers and not her parents'. The waiter checked with his boss and apologized a couple of times. He would have liked to give us a glass, he said, and we assured him that we were just fine not spending $14 on two glasses of wine we weren't really sophisticated enough to enjoy. Instead, we posed and took pictures of each other. "They are so glad they didn't serve us alcohol," I said, and we laughed.
On the way home our second run-in occurred. A car pulled up next to us, the windows rolled down and a man shouted, "Stop! I have a question!" This time, I didn't look back and Chloe and I kept walking. "Please!" he called after us, "a question!" He kept shouting, "a question!" over and over, and it began a natural echo in our heads.
Chloe thought perhaps we should turn back and see what it was, but I was adamant that we should keep going. "He's a creep," I said with authority, but then we realized that his car looked very similar to the one that had stopped us earlier. Shit, we wondered, what if he just really wanted to ask us a question about my shoes? The ones Chloe's mom had just given me, with a less common-looking pointed toe?
Reality is so malleable. The first car could have been the second car, and the first person could have been making a comment about our butts or asking about our shoes, and the second person could have wanted directions or could have wanted to assault us outside a small deli. And we could have reacted to all of these actions in different ways, made worse choices (or better, more human ones). Maybe, the tiniest bit tipsy and courageous from a glass of Pinot Grigio a lenient manager allowed, we would have said, "Yeah, what?" to that man, and had a completely new end to our night.
Instead, we walked safely back to Chloe's (family's) apartment, and made conversation with the doorman (he has insomnia). Tomorrow has a lot of promise -- I can choose to work from here, or at QEJ, or at the CUNY, and I'm getting lunch on Union Street. Based on lessons learned about small decisions having interesting impacts, I think I'll go to bed now. Must be well rested for all those various possibilities.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The metro steals my money; I ride it anyway/the big First Day
Going from a 0-hour work day to an 8-hour day is strange. And mentally exhausting. Fortunately, this isn't your average office job. Queers for Economic Justice consists of just one large room on the 10th floor of a building on W. 32nd street (which I successfully traveled to!). It sounds impressive to say I met with Executive Director Kenyon Farrow for half an hour, except that the whole organization doesn't usually staff more than 12 people, and Kenyon is friendly with all of them - including the other two interns.
It's a small organization, but fierce. There isn't a time clock because staffers are expected to get whatever needs to be done, done - and Kenyon said that most people end up working more than their allotted hours to do that. All of the people there fascinate me. I wonder (shout out to Crossing Borders) about all the different ways they identify, and the why they're at QEJ. They exude coolness and New York City-ness, but not in the apathetic, the-world-sucks-and-I'm-cooler-than-you-way - in the passionate, effortless way. The good news is that they are a welcoming bunch. Some of them even hugged me goodbye.
I'm going to backtrack, because this should probably be more linear. The day started with Michelle, one of the directors of the Welfare Warriors Research Project. She brought me up to speed. Apparently, welfare used to be this great social tool - well, an adequate social tool - that everyone could use for as long as they needed to do so. Then, a law passed that Michelle, QEJ and much of the social justice war fought bitterly against. This law put restrictions on welfare, so that it became incredibly difficult to obtain welfare and keep it as long as necessary. QEJ has been working for the last three years to create a multi-dimensional report on the conditions of low-income LGBTQ people dealing with the welfare and shelter systems, so that some systematic change can come to public services. They've recorded group dialogues that met for those three years, completed hundreds of hours of interviews, and done a survey of roughly 200 people.
The project didn't have a deadline until about a month ago, when QEJ decided they wanted it done by the 2010 Creating Change Conference. That's in three weeks, conveniently the same amount of time I spend with them. And apparently I won't just be a research assistant. Michelle took me over to her office at the CUNY and had me complete a requisite course on the ethics of research with people as subjects. When I went to label myself as such, she told me to change it to "Co-Investigator." That's right, I'm an investigator. It sounds pretty badass.
Along with the ethics lesson, I asked Michelle about this blog. She told me that due to the sensitivity of the material, I shouldn't publish any of the individual stories I read or hear. If I have any emotional reactions to them - which is likely - I can talk to her or some of the other people in the office, but they want to release the information strategically and without the risk of breaching anonymity.
I spent the rest of the day coding open-ended questions on the survey, which hurt my eyes but felt satisfying. This opening data is about where low-income LGBTQ people have trouble with the system, if they fight back and where they find support. I identified trends - i.e. for fighting back, "did research", "gave up", "went to a different organization" and then put them into Excel. Soon I'll move on to transcribing group sessions and interviews, which I'm excited to do.
The day passed so quickly I didn't have time to call my bank. The following happened yesterday:
-The Metro offered a booth where I could purchase my month-long pass for $89
- The Metro claimed that my transaction could not be processed
-The Metro did not give me my month-long pass
-The Metro charged me for the month-long pass I did not receive.
EDIT: Chloe and Sophia (sophisticated NY friends) have informed me that the underground NY transportation system is better known as the subway. (In other words, saying "the metro" makes me look like a tool.)
FirstMerit, pull for me here. $89 is a lot of hours at the DeCafe.
I was stressed out, but my excellent hosts gave me brownies and tea in their beautiful home.
I haven't even gone into the intricacies of the work being done, but I don't think I can look at a computer screen much longer. The one thing I wish about the work is that it were less sedentary, but I suppose that's what the nighttime is for. Hopefully, I'll be less jumbled next time.
It's a small organization, but fierce. There isn't a time clock because staffers are expected to get whatever needs to be done, done - and Kenyon said that most people end up working more than their allotted hours to do that. All of the people there fascinate me. I wonder (shout out to Crossing Borders) about all the different ways they identify, and the why they're at QEJ. They exude coolness and New York City-ness, but not in the apathetic, the-world-sucks-and-I'm-cooler-than-you-way - in the passionate, effortless way. The good news is that they are a welcoming bunch. Some of them even hugged me goodbye.
I'm going to backtrack, because this should probably be more linear. The day started with Michelle, one of the directors of the Welfare Warriors Research Project. She brought me up to speed. Apparently, welfare used to be this great social tool - well, an adequate social tool - that everyone could use for as long as they needed to do so. Then, a law passed that Michelle, QEJ and much of the social justice war fought bitterly against. This law put restrictions on welfare, so that it became incredibly difficult to obtain welfare and keep it as long as necessary. QEJ has been working for the last three years to create a multi-dimensional report on the conditions of low-income LGBTQ people dealing with the welfare and shelter systems, so that some systematic change can come to public services. They've recorded group dialogues that met for those three years, completed hundreds of hours of interviews, and done a survey of roughly 200 people.
The project didn't have a deadline until about a month ago, when QEJ decided they wanted it done by the 2010 Creating Change Conference. That's in three weeks, conveniently the same amount of time I spend with them. And apparently I won't just be a research assistant. Michelle took me over to her office at the CUNY and had me complete a requisite course on the ethics of research with people as subjects. When I went to label myself as such, she told me to change it to "Co-Investigator." That's right, I'm an investigator. It sounds pretty badass.
Along with the ethics lesson, I asked Michelle about this blog. She told me that due to the sensitivity of the material, I shouldn't publish any of the individual stories I read or hear. If I have any emotional reactions to them - which is likely - I can talk to her or some of the other people in the office, but they want to release the information strategically and without the risk of breaching anonymity.
I spent the rest of the day coding open-ended questions on the survey, which hurt my eyes but felt satisfying. This opening data is about where low-income LGBTQ people have trouble with the system, if they fight back and where they find support. I identified trends - i.e. for fighting back, "did research", "gave up", "went to a different organization" and then put them into Excel. Soon I'll move on to transcribing group sessions and interviews, which I'm excited to do.
The day passed so quickly I didn't have time to call my bank. The following happened yesterday:
-The Metro offered a booth where I could purchase my month-long pass for $89
- The Metro claimed that my transaction could not be processed
-The Metro did not give me my month-long pass
-The Metro charged me for the month-long pass I did not receive.
EDIT: Chloe and Sophia (sophisticated NY friends) have informed me that the underground NY transportation system is better known as the subway. (In other words, saying "the metro" makes me look like a tool.)
FirstMerit, pull for me here. $89 is a lot of hours at the DeCafe.
I was stressed out, but my excellent hosts gave me brownies and tea in their beautiful home.
I haven't even gone into the intricacies of the work being done, but I don't think I can look at a computer screen much longer. The one thing I wish about the work is that it were less sedentary, but I suppose that's what the nighttime is for. Hopefully, I'll be less jumbled next time.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
from the city that always sleeps to the city that never sleeps
After eight hours of travel, I got to ride around New York City in my Oberlin roommate's mom's car. I tried my best to get a grip on my surroundings, but then we'd be on a different block and in a different world where hundreds of different people live (and as my roommate's mom pointed out, poop indoors, which makes no sense). I hadn't really considered when I had coffee in Sweetwaters on a mellow Saturday Ann Arbor morning that this world existed, but it does, all the time. I'm clearly not the first to puzzle over the huge buildings, or the catcalls that Roommate and I got when we took a nighttime walk around her neighborhood. But there you have it. I've thought a lot about what my community organizing (CO) friend said about safety in the city, which is that acknowledging the people we fear can be one of the most productive things to do - one, because it shows confidence, and two, because it breaks down the inevitable stereotypes we use in order to analyze our surroundings. I tried to do that tonight.
Back in queer organizing land, I've been corresponding with the leader of the project I will be working on, called the Welfare Warriors. It's a participatory action research project (PAR), which means that the people involved are actually researching themselves, and people like them - in this case, low-income LGBTQ people. I've done some PAR work before, with my high school activism group Riot Youth. What I remember as one of the most rewarding things about that research is that it felt that not only were we learning about ourselves and realizing we were not alone in our experiences as LGBTQ youth in our town, we were exposing our experiences to the world in a way that was credible and would create change.
I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to talk about the research being done here, yet - I'll ask the project leader on Monday when I start. But I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that the research involves sharing situations that they've had with the people who are trying to help them, but instead hurt them. There's a technical term for this - it's called "spaces of exception" - basically, situations when people don't have all their rights, like protection from the state. I'm sure I'll write more about this in the coming days.
I worry that all the privilege I have as a college student from a middle-class family in Ann Arbor, and the privilege of never having received direct harassment based on my identity as a queer person, will be difficult to deal with as I work with QEJ. One of my goals is to make sure that I dissect it as much as I can, and understand at least where I come from when differences arise.
Tomorrow is a full day in the city with Roomie and nothing to do but explore. And buy a subway pass. It's late and this entry is long. Love you all.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
One week till liftoff
I've never stayed in The City (as my East Coast friends at Oberlin call it), but all that changes in a week and a day. Plane tickets, tentative couches to sleep on, and a project are all set. Now all I have to do is brainstorm thank-you gifts for my hosts and figure out the mundane details, like subway stops. Subway stops are going to be a problem for me.
Thanks to my friend and queer activist/community organizer extraordinaire, I'm going to be working with Queers for Economic Justice. I'm with QEJ that there are issues not addressed enough by our country's largest and most visible LGBTQ rights organizations now, which focus largely on same-sex marriage. Marriage -- which I agree is a right all Americans should have regardless of sexual orientation -- isn't everyone's issue. For instance, it may not be that important to the transgender person experiencing violence in a prejudiced shelter system. LGBTQ people in safe situations - myself included - campaign for same-sex marriage because it is the one of the last rights we feel we have not obtained. This is not the truth. I'm excited to work with QEJ because they focus on the facets of homophobia and violence that have fallen through the cracks. For instance, QEJ works with shelter systems to let that transgender person decide to reside with men or women's section, based on where he/she/zie feels the safest. These are the kind of stories that the mainstream media can't cover with pictures of white, upper-middle class men or women kissing outside the mayor's office.
My stories/thoughts/theories during January will be here. I'm a naive 18-year-old from Ann Arbor, MI, and I am sure my brief tenure with QEJ - and New York City - will challenge me to think a lot about life, activism and community. Here's to 2010.
Thanks to my friend and queer activist/community organizer extraordinaire, I'm going to be working with Queers for Economic Justice. I'm with QEJ that there are issues not addressed enough by our country's largest and most visible LGBTQ rights organizations now, which focus largely on same-sex marriage. Marriage -- which I agree is a right all Americans should have regardless of sexual orientation -- isn't everyone's issue. For instance, it may not be that important to the transgender person experiencing violence in a prejudiced shelter system. LGBTQ people in safe situations - myself included - campaign for same-sex marriage because it is the one of the last rights we feel we have not obtained. This is not the truth. I'm excited to work with QEJ because they focus on the facets of homophobia and violence that have fallen through the cracks. For instance, QEJ works with shelter systems to let that transgender person decide to reside with men or women's section, based on where he/she/zie feels the safest. These are the kind of stories that the mainstream media can't cover with pictures of white, upper-middle class men or women kissing outside the mayor's office.
My stories/thoughts/theories during January will be here. I'm a naive 18-year-old from Ann Arbor, MI, and I am sure my brief tenure with QEJ - and New York City - will challenge me to think a lot about life, activism and community. Here's to 2010.
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