citrus_java

Today at Spanish class, the head of the Language Department taught us how to conjugate the Spanish word for "fucking". While getting a little flustered and giggly.

In other news, I have an opportunity to participate in a drag performance, something I've been wanting and afraid of for a long time now. It's a Russian-themed performance, and thought I'm part-Russian, I haven't really thought of that very much, just started realizing how much it affected my life... I wonder whether it's even my place to participate, not sure what I have to say, and on the other hand I feel strongly enough about it to not want to give it up, this history of mine, my dad, some of the things there and a chance to express that if I can find a way on time. In short, looking for a song I can connect to that has something to do with Russia/Soviet Union, or perhaps with feeling this disconnect.

This enchanted beauty actually moved me to read Wuthering Heights at the time. Also, this was the main way I liked guys before the Winchesters came into my life.




When I finished the book, I was kinda lost - no idea what the appeal was, why I'd just read that, and what was going on with the mood changes and genre changes and why I was expected to be rooting for their love and just a big WHAT . I guess with time and with trying to be supportive of Twilight fans, and with loving fucked up relationship stories myself, and being kinda intrigued with masculinity in the story, perhaps I have a better understanding of that now? Slightly better? If you like it and feel like showing me the awesome, I want to see.

Anyway, at the time, this made me feel vindicated:
( Read more... )

( Back to the beautiful Noel and the guys getting flustered over him! )

-We set out to change the world, but ended up just changing - just changing ourselves.
-What's wrong with that?
-Nothing!
If you don't look at the world.
(Velvet Goldmine)

The first time I told anybody I was genderqueer, there wasn't a word for it yet. I told my closest friend, and he freaked out and told me I had to keep it secret. Never tell another living soul, cause that was just going too far. The bisexuality thing was cute, he said, but that was just - no.

I basically hid in my room for two days, much as I could. Then a vague acquaintance of mine called and bugged me till I agreed to go to a screening of Velvet Goldmine with her. She had no idea what was going on with me, she just needed someone to go with.

And it reminded me there were other sorts of people in the world, there was the possibility to celebrate creative/alternative gender. And not be completely alone. The movie tells the story of (the rise and fall of) about five minutes in which the world was friendly to people whose gender/sexuality was not normative, in which this beautiful sparkly bubble of acceptance held, in London and New York. It made a huge difference for me. Huge.

One of the themes of Velvet Goldmine is social change, dealing with living in a world that was designed for people unlike you. There are a lot of scenes that touch that - getting beat up as a kid and likening the blood to lipstick, getting booed off stage for wearing a dress, the way the media reacted to a kiss between two guys. It's about it's about trying to deal with oppression, resistance, and usually reclaiming or celebrating the difference. And still it's a movie about a safe and understanding world, there for a second.

I was thinking today about the movie actually being about the world. About - no matter if you create a wonderful safe group around you, there's still the world. And some things - most things - can't be changed, you just have to wait for the world to change, to hope it does. And it's one of the hardest things...

And I was thinking, that lately, I'd been meeting more and more people I didn't have to introduce myself to along with a painful discussion of my gender. People who knew what "genderqueer" meant, or who made the effort to read about it cause they cared. Which - has not happened, almost ever, in the past. And in the last few years, year, months - it keeps becoming more of an option. That a random person I'd at uni, in fandom, online, might know something about gender, that there are more than two options - I remember two years ago it'd blow my mind to meet somebody I didn't have to explain this to, in answer to "why are you talking weird?" Less than a year ago, I remember trying to think of anyone, just one person I'd managed to get through to, that I felt actually got my gender, without there being very special circumstances involved, and I couldn't think of one. Less than a year ago, I was talking to this amazing person I met in fandom, and she was mostly straight and cisgender (not transgender) - and she'd asked me what my preferred pronouns were, just - did, on account of being awesome... and I kept asking her how come she was so educated and understanding about it, it just blew my mind!

The world is changing. A little. My world is. And I don't believe it's just cause I hang out at different places. There were no places. I remember these places - really not long ago.

And that's - it's kind of - I'd lost some hope, not completely, and I'm not completely on solid ground about this now either, not by a long shot.
But it still makes me cry.
It's kinda amazing to let go - I'd done everything-eveything I could come up with to make things better, and I was done, for good or bad it was up to the world - and I didn't expect the world to budge, at all -


( some pretty )

"Why we oppose votes for men", delightfully snarky thing from 1915. (From the book Are Women People? by Alice Duer Miller)

Also, this is nice both from the activism angle and cause, well, if Sam ever needed it... I like the idea of BornFemale!Sam. Though I have to say, SPN is pretty much the single fandom in which I don't go for trans stories.
Stanford offers student sex reassignment surgery coverage.