Tango Bango

A social values issue? Really?

File this in my “incredibly irritated by this assinine bullshit” category of posts.  According to Questioning Transphobia, Paul Scott (running for Michigan Secretary of State) has one of his TOP FOUR campaign priorities as:

I will make it a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver’s license in any circumstance.

Why?

“It’s a social values issue. If you are born a male, you should be known as a male. Same as with a female, she should be known as a female,” he said.

When asked to explain how such a mandate from the Secretary of State would benefit Michigan, he said it was about “preventing people who are males genetically from dressing as a woman and going into female bathrooms.”

Really? Ugh, I don’t even know what to say.  Well, I know a few things.

1. Who the hell checks I.D.’s at bathroom doors?
2. Why does this ”bathroom defense” always come up during these arguments?  Has there ever been a case of a transgender individual using their trans status to justify doing something obscene that was done in the bathroom?  I don’t think so.
3. Do you really want people who look and identify as male to be FORCED to use FEMALE bathrooms?   How on earth would this fix anything?  I would feel uncomfortable if there was someone who was obviously a male in the female bathroom.  Paul Scott wants these people to use their “assigned at birth sex” bathroom - when they live and are known as a completely different gender?
4. This is seriously one of his MAIN CAMPAIGN GOALS?  Really?

I could go on.  But I won’t, because I’m crabby about this subject.

Gimme back my queer card!

A few things in life really bug me.  One is when people take away my “queer card” because I’m in a straight passing relationship.  Queerness is in the heart and soul.  Queer is a state of being.  Queer is all about how I identify. I am queer, pansexual, and proud of it.

Sometimes I am almost embarrassed by my “straight privilege” that I have in my relationship.  I can’t really go into details, but when people simply see me as *just* an ally and say things like “You don’t understand - you’re not gay” I really just want to stand up and scream. And I can’t.

Just because I’m dating a man doesn’t mean I’m straight.  It doesn’t mean that I’m NOT straight either.  People are so quick to make assumptions, and I know I’m guilty of it too.

I’m fucking queer goddammit.  That it all. <3

Edit: Hey what do you know - there’s an academic study about this very thing.

Comedy, or lack thereof.

Tonight, I went to a bar.  U31 in North Park, an interesting joint.  There was an African-American on stage who in the hour we were there, told “jokes” about the following subjects:

1. Rape
2. Threesomes
3. Racism
4. Homophobia

Literally every joke, one after another, was pretty goddamn horrifying.  This is comedy?  Any time he referred to women, they were “bitches”.  Anytime he talked about white people, it was looking down on them.  He talked about his own homophobia, and about gay people over and over again in a not-positive sort of way.  He mentioned having a threesome with two girls - one he didn’t care about and just wanted to “impregnate” and the other who had “big ol’ titties and a big ass” that he wanted to date because she was actually hot.

It was a feminists nightmare.  Being that I’m recently identifying feminist, I am noticing this stuff everywhere I go over the last few months and have really had my eyes opened to the kind of terrible discrimination, objectification, and bigotry that goes on around us.  And this is comedy?!  Women in the audience were laughing their asses off, while this guy was saying the difference between a normal guy and a ‘rapist’ is that the rapist is PERSISTENT.  People LAUGHED at this.

What. the. fuck.  Luckily, we bailed after our first beer and moved to a new place where we could enjoy each other’s company without talking over homophobic misogynistic bullshit.

Anli & Laura’s Lesbian Gamer Geek Wedding

via offbeatbride.com

Click through and read this whole article. Their wedding looks absolutely gorgeous!

A disgusting homophobic story from my morning Starbucks today.

Today, something happened that absolutely disgusted me.

I was at Starbucks buying my regular everyday Chai Latte.  In line directly before me was a little old man, and in front of him was a young man with a U.S. Army outfit on.  The older man tapped the younger on the shoulder and said, “Hey there, I just wanted to thank you for what you do for our country” and shook his hand.  The Army man was friendly and thanked him and asked the old man if he too had served in the military.  “Yes, I was in the Navy for 30 years.” The friendly conversation continued on and ended when the old man bought the young man’s coffee for him, thanked him again for his service, and made his way out.

Upon obtaining my Chai and walking out of Starbucks behind this young Army man, his phone rang while we were walking down the sidewalk.  Being 5 feet behind him, I heard every word he said to whom I assume was his girlfriend or wife.

“Hey baby.  How are you?….I’m great thanks, guess what just happened?  This fucking old faggot at Starbucks just bought me a coffee, trying to hit on me.  God it sucked.”

I was FUCKING STUNNED.  First of all, just because you’re in Hillcrest doesn’t mean EVERYONE is gay.  This little old man didn’t seem gay at all, and definitely wasn’t flirting with this guy.  He was being APPRECIATIVE of this kid’s service in the Army and bought him his fucking Venti Soy Carmel Macchiato no whip nonfat not-so-hot. He was being NICE.

This guy stopped on the sidewalk and dawdled there on the phone and I walked past him.  I caught his eye and he recognized me as the girl who was in line behind him.  He looked down with an embarrassed look on his blushing face.

“You are fucking disgusting,” I said to him and walked on past.  He never said anything back to me, but I could sense his humiliation.

What if it had been ME who bought him that drink and thanked him for his service and shook his hand?  Would he have told his girlfriend I was flirting with him, or would he have brought it up at all?  Would he have seen it as a good deed and appreciated it?  I am so thankful that this honest and kind old man didn’t see how this kid behaved, and went home proud of his act of generosity today.  Sigh.

Universal Omnisexuality

There is a club in my gayborhood (Hillcrest, San Diego) aptly named Universal that claims to be “omnisexual.”  Their intention is to appeal to everyone and be a haven for anyone regardless of their sexuality.  They have scantily clad men and women dancing up on pedestals, so regardless what you’re attracted to there is something there to drool over.

I’ve been there twice and I’ve found it to be an interesting mix of people.  Straight women seeming to be avoiding being hit on at the straight clubs, a mix of gay and straight couples, many gays and lesbians.  Not too many straight men…but overall a nice mix.

This last time I sat down with a group of gay men and they chatted with me for a couple hours.  Some interesting tidbits:

- They think the reason that Universal is at risk of going under is because they’re omnisexual.  There aren’t enough straight open minded people that would want to spend their Friday and Saturday night at a gay club.  And they gays feel that it’s kind of “invading their turf” and don’t know why they’d go to an omni club when there are so many gay clubs to go to.

- The gay men hate that the straight girls there are always hanging all over them, like they want to keep them in their pocket.

While I think this club is incredibly progressive and such a neat idea, I can’t help but look at the dwindling weekend numbers and wonder if omnisexual clubs are a lucrative business. I think it’s a fun place to go, but it’s unfortunate that stigmas prevent it from being successful.  Well, that, and their drink prices.

I have to say, Luke and I would love to own a club that looks like Universal.  It’s seriously something out of The L Word.

Marriage equality and transgender issues

This is exactly why it is so ridiculously silly that there are laws that prohibit humans from marrying any human they want.

Let’s take California for example. If two men want to get married, they can’t. However - if one goes through the necessary requirements for a legal gender change (which involves one surgery) in CA - they can have a perfectly legal opposite-sex marriage. Call it a loophole, I call it downright silly (but thank the lord it exists). In other states, it requires two surgeries. Some don’t allow you to get a legal gender change at all. Others require you to be 18. Some require you to go to years of therapy. It’s silly to think that it really matters what kind of chromosomes someone has. Gender is more complicated than that.

My favorite quote from the article I linked is:

“Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

Wow.  If we could just marry whomever we want - this wouldn’t even be an issue.  It shouldn’t be an issue.  Any laws based on prohibiting marriage due to biological sex are on their way to becoming antiquated entirely. I’ve known people who were married before as opposite couples, then one of them transitioned to the same gender, then they ended up getting a civil union - thus being doubly married.  How lame is it that they needed to do that, and that their marriage validity was in jeopardy? 

This isn’t as black and white as some people think it is.

Creative Activism

The San Diego LGBT community is freaking rad, have I said that before? Constantly, there are new and interesting ways to promote equality popping up left and right.

My latest favorite is Guerrilla Queer Bar.  The idea behind this is that instead of gathering for solidarity at a local queer bar in Hillcrest, North Park, or University Heights (gay “home turf”) there will be a day scheduled where the gay community takes over a straight bar in another San Diego neighborhood.   The main idea of this is of course is to increase visibility among the communities where a strong presence isn’t located already.  The first target is the Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.  I LOVE this.

The other was an awesome marriage equality idea where everyone took out advertisements in the San Diego newspapers for one day that promoted gay marriage in some subtle way to take over the newspaper.  An example was “Lost - my right to marry the person I love. Last seen on November 4th, 2008. If seen, please return to law abiding, taxpaying citizen. It is dearly missed.” and things like that.  What a neat way to get the message out in a positive and fun way.  

Keep being creative and fighting the fight people!