Daily Archives: August 3, 2014

Transgender Violence Is a #YesAllWomen Issue | The Nation

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Transgender Violence Is a #YesAllWomen Issue | The Nation.

Constance.

Please.

Read this. Sorrowfully, sadly, I confess…before I came home to myself as who I am…a transwoman redeemed, I blindly and unconsciously participated as an oppressor in this issue.  <sob>

I am sooo sorry, Sisters…never again.  Ever.

And now, to find myself near the bottom of the power pyramid, by choice and never happier…the irony is rich, and radicalizing.

Teaser quote:

“All women are subject to the threat of violence when they exert agency over their own bodies, defying the expectations of men. For trans women, this agency also takes the form of choosing to express their true gender in public. They act against society’s expectations, especially those of men who feel they are entitled to define trans women’s gender. When trans women attract men, they anger those same men who cannot accept their attraction to a woman who was assigned male identity at birth. Because of this, trans women become the targets of violence…

“Like women who are held responsible for being raped because of their dress or demeanor, trans women are also blamed for presenting themselves according to their true gender. Like other women, trans women are accused of deceiving men, and their histories are used to justify violence against them…

“Understanding trans violence as a women’s issue benefits both the trans and women’s movements. It allows trans women to connect their struggles with a broader and more extensive history. But more important, it also deepens our understanding of the struggles of all women, highlighting the lengths men are willing to go to in order to preserve their control over our bodies. It is only when women achieve equality, successfully battling against male entitlement, that trans women will no longer pose a threat to this social system. Trans women’s rights therefore serve as an ideal barometer for women’s rights in general.”

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When enforcing gender norms turns violent | PBS NewsHour

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When enforcing gender norms turns violent | PBS NewsHour.

Constance…re-posting this for your consideration.  I also encourage you to peruse the comment section.  This is rarely a good idea to do with online articles…but this time it is illustrative of the very subject of the article.

Be sure you put on your suit of armour though, and spray yourself with hate/ignorance/harassment repellant, as it is there in quantities of mass-pollution.

One of the hugest eye-openers to me was that of how the privilege I had been socialized into by virtue of being born in a biological male body and forced into that role by all powers from my parents to the church…that very privilege blinded me to the ways that I myself oppressed non-privileged human beings, even in my very attempts to help them!

My desires to help people, to show them the wonders of Divine Love, to assist them into higher ways of being…nearly always this was me policing the behaviour of others without actually entering into their world, bearing their burdens and identifying with them in their station…in other words, I was more a Pharisee than I was a Follower…

In prayers for the opening of the eyes of our hearts,

Charissa Grace

PS:  I do think that there is a way for a trans-person to live with grace and mercy, and assist the clumsy, the ignorant, the rude and the invasive…it takes courage first of all, then self-control, benign indifference to wounds that are minor, refusal to take offense over wrongs small or great, and a genuine welcoming heart for those who genuinely want to approach and reach out, but lack even the beginning tools to know how to put this desire into action.

In these last months, I have found that when I notice others who are uncomfortable or bound up around me, but sense that they wish to interact, if I simply tell them that I am newly transitioning, and I share in their awkwardness myself when I look in the mirror, it brings them a relief and freedom, and births genuine dialogue…they will give me permission to educate them, and actually leave glad, empowered to be kind, and an ally.

Hey…this is the very grace that we can, each and every one of us, extend to one another in all things, all ways and all times…it’s simple, really…but not easy.

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Re-Post: Why it’s so hard for men to recognize misogyny.

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#YesAllWomen in the wake of Elliot Rodger: Why it’s so hard for men to recognize misogyny..

Constance…this is a must read to understand the current climate of spiritual being inhabited by the human race.

Each of us is living in this prison!

Women, who suffer as inmates…

…and men, who are born little boys, and socialized into jailers, and thus inmates as well…

…and the rest of us, on that continuum and without territory, the cleaner of latrines and the off-scourings of both or either.

If you read here for the poetry, consider this post to be talking of that entity that strikes at Poetry’s Heart, that malice, spite, hatred, rage, “anti-life black hole” gawping hungry and ravening, raving in rage against the light.  You need to find your way to your compass, and follow it to that way of being that is in the land Beyond and whole…

If you read here for the spiritual orientation, consider this post in light of Paul’s great rejection of privilege and station in Galatians: “For in Christ, there is neither slave nor free, greek nor jew, male nor female…”  Paul was not teaching that there is no gender or nationality or station in life, but rather, he was pointing out that Jesus has united us all in a land of freedom where there are no more jails, no more jailers, no more inmates.  All have equal worth, value, and significance, whose limit is defined by the price paid to purchase all things…and you simply have no other option than to find the courage of your convictions, leave the safety of the “bus-stop of evangelism and the 4 spiritual laws”, and strike out boldly into the territories waiting for your courage, your faith and resolve, and most of all, your love oozing and dripping from your heart instead of the very blood of the monster that enslaves this world and us by proxy to the degree that we do not speak out, live out our words and embody in our beings the very law of liberty!

If you read here for the perspective of a transgender person in a binary world view, for my own outrage and bucking against an entire construct of ancient evil birthed in rebellion and ego, then take stock of your own station and participation in this concentration camp culture and way of being…

…start bucking.  Kicking.  In that way which is right for you to do, for some have hooves, some wings, some words and some deeds…

Above all, find that radical action which transcends revolutionary overthrow and effects true change of being, essence and substance, and does not simply burn out in tiredness and cynicism or become co-opted in its strength and potency by consumerism which simply re-packages genuine action into the latest consumer product and trend.

Blessings of uneasiness and no peace until you confront yourself in this gaol…

Charissa Grace, circumspect and sober of spirit.

(small quote from the entire article to whet your appetite:

“These are forms of male aggression that only women see. But even when men are afforded a front seat to harassment, they don’t always have the correct vantage point for recognizing the subtlety of its operation. Four years before the murders, I was sitting in a bar in Washington, D.C. with a male friend. Another young woman was alone at the bar when an older man scooted next to her. He was aggressive, wasted, and sitting too close, but she smiled curtly at his ramblings and laughed softly at his jokes as she patiently downed her drink. “Why is she humoring him?” my friend asked me. “You would never do that.” I was too embarrassed to say: “Because he looks scary” and ‘I do it all the time.’ “)

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