TERF

A friend and I were discussing the fact that some acts have pulled out of MichFest this year because of the Womyn-Born-Womyn, or Trans* exclusionary policies. This made me recall my first encounter with MichFest YEARS ago and I thought it might make an OK blog post.

Well this was years and years ago so it was before either of my assaults and therefore before my PTSD and anxiety issues. I was also all doe eyed and all fired up about feminism and woman power because I had gone full time and the veil of privileged had been lifted from my eyes and I was all, "Whoa! Why didn't I notice this before!?" 

Anyway I had NO CLUE that this sort of anti-trans sentiment even existed in the community at the time. I just figured lesbians, and feminists, and trans women were one big happy family. Largely I suppose because I did and do identify myself as all three. And I hear about this big music festival up in Michigan in passing from a friend on line. Well I was all about music and road trips at the time, so I go to the website to see about getting some tickets.

While I am there I see their WBW thing and I am just perplexed. So I make the mistake of signing up to their forums so I can ask about it.

BIG MISTAKE

I make a post stating that I am a trans woman and I am confused about the WBW thing and whether or not I can buy tickets. I get a few replies that were basically, "Oh just come anyway, as long as you don't make a big deal about being trans you wont get kicked out." This left me even MORE confused. The next reply I got was someone who tried very calmly to explain that trans women weren't allowed be cause WBW spaces are for women who have known they were women their whole lives.

This is where I made my next mistake. Still unwilling or maybe unable to believe that such a rift could exist between two communities that I felt a part of, I came to the conclusion that they meant that drag queens, cross-dressers, gender fluid, and other NB people were not welcome, but that Transsexual women, who fully identify as female, were since gender is, at least in the LBGT community, accepted to be something you are born with. I said as much in a reply and asked for conformation.

THEY CAME, from the four corners of those forums they came to my little thread to tell me JUST how wrong they thought I was. It was my crash course introduction to the level of vitriol that TERFs can spew out. I was caught COMPLETELY off guard. For weeks and weeks this went on and they much have gotten my email off of the info I used to sign up to their forums or something because it spilled over to there. (had to ditch that email account)

Just hateful, angry, message after message. Death threats, people wishing for me to be raped, people "explaining" how my very existence equates assault, you name it. I was so indignant about this coming out of, for me, nowhere that when I discovered there was a protest associated with this I almost went and joined. In the end Michfest was too far away for me to drive to and not even get to see and bands.

And that is how MichFest taught me about TERFs

As for what I should have said... I sort of wish I had gone to that protest. It wouldn't have been as FUN as a music festival, but it would have been more important maybe. It is important to speak up when you see something wrong. Who knows maybe without Camp Trans the issue wouldn't be as visible today and those acts wouldn't have backed out. You can't live your life focusing on people who do things to tear you down, but you also can't just sit around and do nothing at all about it.

I'm ok, how are you?

I have been posting links to my blog in places that I go because, well it's always nice to be read. One of the effects this has had is a lot of people asking me, "Are you ok?" In my last post I included a few lines about how I try to keep things light and humorous and try to end on a bright note. I even apologized for sounding too sappy and viewing things with rose colored glasses.

This is apparently this is not how this blog reads to other people. After talking it over with some of my closest friends I think I know what is happening. Some of the things that happen to me, just don't happen to most people. This is especially true of some of what I write about here since this is largely about things I wish I could have handled differently.  I think maybe people like to believe that they don't happen at all, or at least they like to not think too hard about. When they read some of my posts, even if I write them with the best spin I can muster, they feel uncomfortable and even dismayed.

Having said that, now please allow me to depress you with the amusing anecdote I had intended to write about today.

Discrimination is a very funny thing. Years ago after my transition I lost a lot of things. Some friends, a lot of the closeness I had with my family, the stuff you would expect. What I was not fully prepared for was how odd discrimination feels. 

I was pushed out of one pretty good job after my approved medical leave was retroactively de- approved when they learned what the surgery was for. Of course believing my time off was approved I didn't call in "sick" and there went that job. I tried going to various temp agencies, most never called. One however went so far as to 'politely' tell me that they "don't place people like me." Even fast food was a bust with one place "losing" my paperwork four times after one manager agreed to hire me on without checking with the other one. 

It isn't all just job stuff. I like to think I look pretty good, but I am tall and not really very into being really femme unless I am in that sort of a mood, so I get read sometimes. When that happens I get looks, mis-gendered etc. You know the drill. All of this used to really affect me. Recently though that may have changed.

I was getting gas and tic tacs and a soda at my local gas station. It was early and I didn't really have anywhere in particular to go later so i was dressed comfortably with minimal makeup. Anyway so I slide into line to pay behind this maybe 50+ guy and a very short crew cut and he sort of glares at me. Reflexively, I try to smile disarmingly as I have taught myself to do. Well his reaction was to scowl and exclaim, "Don't you smile at me, freak." 

It all just seemed so absurd to me  that I couldn't help but laugh in his face right out loud. I told him to buy his gas and leave me the hell alone and he did just that. All those years that sort of thing has made be feel small or uncomfortable, I should have been laughing instead. 

Now I see that post as uplifting and a personal triumph. When I look again though, through the eyes of someone who maybe hasn't gone through anything similar, I can see how it might be shocking, even disheartening just to hear that some of those things had happened.

I am ok. In fact, I'm doing great!

For the longest time I couldn't talk about the things that happen to me. Transition and the depression and uncertainty of it all was "too much" for many of my "friends" at the time so they just sort of peeled away and vanished. Since then I just taught myself not to talk about what was bothering me. I was so sacred to share the difficult stuff. "What if they don't want to deal with it... or me?" I've held my tongue for a long time and now I have things to say. It is nice to be finding my own voice.

Even without talking about it, all of these things still really happen to me, and other people. Worse things happen to others. Maybe people close by or even people you know. Ignoring that, not talking about it, well that doesn't help anything. It might be nice to just pretend they don't happen to us or to those near us, but they do.

I'm sorry if some of the things I write about aren't exactly pleasant to read about. They happened, but I'm ok.

I'm ok. Are you? I'll listen if there is something you need to say.

Hello Again for the First Time :: A Reintroduction

Hi and welcome to my oft neglected blog. I'm Ellie, your blogger for this evening.

I started this blog in 2009 when I was 28 years old with delusions that I am terribly interesting. Well it is 2014 now and I am still 28, but now I think I actually know what I want this blog to be. For me it has been a safe-ish place to vent when I am my most frustrated. Often times I hold things in and regret doing so. Enough that I need a place to let it all out, this is that.

For those reading this who don't know me, ( I assume you arrived here by mistake and for that I am truly, truly sorry) I suffer from depression, PTSD, GAD and and assortment of other goodies that really make my head a FUN place to be. This is relevant because it affects the tone of what I post here. My anxiety and depression tend to make me view things in the worst of all possible ways.  This is not a healthy thing to do and I try to be very conscious of when I am doing it, to rein it in and keep my headspace as healthy as I can. When I wright things here normally it is something that has been bothering me so I make an extra effort to see a silver lining and not a catastrophe, and learn from it if I can.

If my posts seem preachy, or rose colored, or read like a fortune cookie, I swear I am not drinking the cool-aid, I am just trying to keep myself sane.

Thank you so much for reading. I'll try not to bee too dull.

Ellie Wilson

Dreams

Over the course of my life I have had several dreams. One of the earliest I can remember was to join the air force and be a pilot. That dream was cut short by a middle aged man waiting in an optometrist's office who kindly told me that they want pilots to have perfect vision and that eyes tend to get worse as you get older and not better I was a sad child for a while after that but I found new dreams to chase.

The next big one was that i was going to be a physicist and discover exactly how everything worked. I had a note book where I would write outlandish ideas and thoughts expound on them almost endlessly. Still just a kid I am afraid I didn't do much experimentation but I did better in science classes and read everything about the stars and space and anything else "sciencey" that I could in the hopes that one day I'd be able to prove some of my ideas. At some point there was an adult in my life who was probably trying to encourage my interest, but her way of doing so was to over inflate the value of my scribblings and to put the idea in my head that they could be published. She "knew someone at NASA" and they were very interested! I was a fairly clever kid so I did eventually figure out she was blowing smoke up my ass.

When I did I felt  ashamed in myself for believing her. More than that I looked at my notes, and my enthusiasm for science and my dream as silly and a waste of time. Over the years I instead became interested in computers and finally Psychology and I had other dreams, some of which I also gave up on and others I worked towards and realized.

Today I was watching episode 5 of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson and he was talking about light. He used a pipe organ analogy to explain wave length. All at once every article I'd read and half understood about dark matter and how this unobservable stuff is literally everywhere. There was a flash in my brain and I was asking "What if light is more like sound than we thought?" "What if those electron jumps create a compression wave just like sound, but instead of through normal matter, through dark matter or even some other stuff that is as yet unobservable?" "Could that help explain why other particles seem to have resistance when we accelerate them?"

I was excited, exhilarated even! I felt that that kid carting around that stupid note book again... For all of about ten second. Then I realized that it was VERY unlikely that I was the first to ask these questions. That somewhere there is probably some grad student a decade younger than me handily disproving it all and moving on to more interesting topics that I don't have the background of study to even properly conceive of. Even if by some fluke I was the first person to think of these things that I have chosen to do with my life haven't given me the skills and knowledge to even begin to prove or disprove any of it.

Regret is something everyone has in some measure. Over all I am very happy with the things I've done. Could use a bit more money, but I feel good about most things. This blog is supposed to be about things I should have said so here it is, "Screw you lady! I could have been a great physicist." Giving up on a dream always hurts, but as long as you have a new one to chase it will probably all turn out ok.

Shezow

Thanks to One Million Moms being crazy and stupid, I am now aware of and have watched the first episode of Shezow. It is not a genre transcending masterpiece or anything, but I am over all quite pleased. It is about a boy and his sister (and other family members) who inherit a house from their deceased aunt. While cleaning the basement they stumble upon a secret panel hiding a ring. The sister immediately recognizes it as the Shezow power ring. Doubting his sister the brother, named Guy, takes the ring and puts it on to prove how silly she is being and of course immediately is transformed into Shezow, a super heroine that wears a pink skirt and heels.

Guy's personality is very stereotypical male, brash, impulsive, sporty. His sister is portrayed and more mature and knowledgeable. Shezow's power set and costume is VERY stereotypical "girly". A boomerang brush, high heels, light saber lipstick, and pink EVERYTHING.

I have already seen some comments deriding the show. Some saying that these stereotypes are harmful. I disagree though in the case of this show. While I agree that pegging fashion, and pink, and beauty products as definitively girly can be a very bad thing, here I feel it mostly shows that it is ok if you like those things and like being active and strong and heroic. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The main character, Guy, is not what most people think of when they think of a trans character. He has no initial desire to be or dress as a girl and initially he is put off by the unexpected transformation. Having only seen the pilot episode so far, it seems to me that Guy will be more of a gender fluid character. After the initial shock wears off Guy shows no strong aversion to being Shezow, even when teased by his male friend. At one point Guy says the line "Come to papa!" to which his friend teases, " Don't you mean 'come to mama'?" and Guy simply says, "Meh, depends on what I am wearing". Guys seems perfectly comfortable being being a rather overly typical boy and then excusing himself to go put on a bright pink skirt so SHE can go fight crime. The transformation is generally not used for cheap gags and over all it is very positive.

The writing probably wont pull in much of an older audience like can happen with some cartoons, but it is exceptionally well done for the target demographic. This show isn't going to revolutionize how gender roles are used in cartoons, but it sure is a step in that direction. I hope it does well when it comes to the HUB.

Ten Years

I am only ten years old!

That is how it feels at any rate. Ten years ago I formed my resolve to transition knowing full well how much of a mixed bag it could be. A few years prior I had tried to transition but it ended with a nasty purge and I even lost contact with some great people I wish I could still talk to. My best friends of course already knew but I was far from "out" yet. The hormones I was on had me starting to develop and I had switched to girl jeans and tighter T shirts. No one really noticed, I supposed I just looked very 'indi' or whatever. My clearest memory of this a girl I knew pawing at my chest and ask if I had been "working out" having mistaken my breasts for muscles. Amy, my best friend, had to come to my rescue I was so paralyzed.

New Years, was my big debut. There was a party at Big Pat's place and my new years resolution was to start living my life. It was a casual affair with booze, Anime, and Halo LAN death match (remember daisy chaining Xboxes?), but it was a big deal for me. So I went out and bought myself a pretty dress, just for me. Not second hand or borrowed, worn in secret or shame. A dress for Ellie. And I wore the shit out of that dress. I can't say I looked great, the hormone course hadn't had overly long to do its work and I still hadn't quite gotten the hang of making my hair look at all flattering. All the same I held my head as high as I could and went to go ring in the new year with my friends.

The ten years that followed went much like that party in a lot of ways. I was terrified the whole night. There were awkward questions and hurtful male posturing. Once I even retreated into another room to cry. Like that party, bad things have happened to me in this 'first' decade of my life. The words, "We don't hire you people," are now something that has been said to me. I've lost good jobs and bad ones due to discrimination. I've had people that I considered friends tell me that by taking care of my sanity and health by transitioning that I was being "selfish" and cut ties with me for years. I have been assaulted and I have been raped. These things and others have made me into a timid and fearful person, terrified of people and anything unfamiliar. It all sounds so horrible, and parts of it are certainly not good but in turn for all of that I gained peace.

Moments of peace. It seems like a simple thing to ask for, but its only in these past ten years that I have been able to have that. The words to describe what life was like for me before, will never come to me. I am neither eloquent enough nor am I any longer dark enough to convey it. However; I can tell you what it was like to have all that end.

My first moment of peace was at that party. My friends had calmed me down and coaxed me back into the festivities and one guy even apologized for being a bit of a jerk, it was nice. Some of us were playing halo and I stuck a grenade RIGHT to this guy's face. you could see it on the split screen just covering his vision before it exploded. Now I had done that sort of thing before of course, but this time I was sitting in a room, at a party in a dress I had bought just for me. Finally I was just me, doing 'me' things and it was ok.

That maybe doesn't get the point across to everyone reading this... and I tried here several times to try and explain it better but I think that will have to be a whole post in and of itself.

I remember these moments and treasure them...

Girl's night, when we got that hotel room and took pictures and that AMAZING whirlpool tub.

An epic shopping trip with Puppy and Monkey to get new glasses and a whole new wardrobe at the outlet mall.

Finding the courage to start fresh in a new city.

Being kissed in the mall, and feeling like the prettiest girl in the world because of it.

Meeting the girls at The Inner Life, and over the years watching them become impressive women that I am proud to know, more so than I can say.

Finishing school, with a diploma with MY name on it.

All of the moments when I have been able to smile and laugh with people I can truly call friends.

The bad things that happen affect me so much, I think, because they are discordant notes that mar this peace inside me that I never had before, and cling to. Having this is worth all the bad and more, much more.

Around this time of year I try to think back on where I have been and remind myself this it really is all worth it, because it is. It really is. Being ten whole years old now I am totally a big girl now, so I wanted to open up and share that thought if I could. So to anyone reading this, I wish you Peace. As much as you can hold on to.

♥♥♥♥♥♥
Ellinore Wilson

Father's Day

Last time I made a post it caused a bit kerfuffle so I sort of stopped posting. I am not going to be one of those bloggers who starts every post by apologizing for not posting for whatever period of time. Sometimes I have things to say and sometimes I don't.

Today was Father's Day. A lot happened actually. I managed to have a fairly long cheerfully toned conversation with my father. It was great. We talked about golf and me applying to be a fellow with the Obama campaign and Mom's trip. It was a normal conversation. Part of me gets depressed that something as simple as a conversation can be a cause for celebration but mostly I'll just take what I can get.

A friend of mine who is like family to me wished me a happy Fathers Day. WTF was that about. I should have said it was weird and made me uncomfortable, but of course I didn't. I Have NO idea what her thought process was or even if she had one behind it, but it really wasn't a good feeling when it happened.

Normally I try to use this space to say what I should have said after an experience I have learned from. This keeps this blog from being just a glorified livejournal post. Here though, I'm not sure what I should have said. I just feel like I should dread calling my Dad and shouldn't rejoice what it doesn't blow up in my face. When someone makes me uncomfortable in a gendered situation I feel like I should be strong enough and self assure enough to say SOMETHING even if it is just, "Dude, not cool."


Anyways, Happy Father's Day