snugglebitch

I'm really struggling to understand why the Transgender Day of Remembrance seems to be such a difficult concept for cis people.

Last year, the agency I worked for had planned on putting together something of an "action piece" because Day of Remembrance is, in their eyes, "such a downer." I was away on leave when the initial planning started, and it fell to me to take on the project when I got back because the direction they were headed was completely inappropriate. I handled the organizing alone, I was given no budget, and the board of directors at the agency decided to schedule a competing program, an open bar fundraiser in one of the suburbs. "There's no overlap in the audience," I was told, "so I don't think it will be a problem."

This year, I was asked again to help organize the event, but with all my frustrations last year, and all my personal issues with Day of Remembrance in general, I told them I couldn't do it. At least I was getting paid to take on that much work last year; this year I wouldn't even have that.

Here's the programming they've designed in my absence:

When SHE Was King

milDRED, the artist formerly known as DRED, will perform in Rochester to observe Transgender Day of Remembrance, Nov. 20.

Performance artist Mildred Gerestant has been developing her gender-bending, misogyny-attacking characters since 1995. She will perform at 8 p.m. at Stages Theater, 875 E. Main St., Auditorium Center, third floor (in the same building as the GAGV). A reception with the performer will follow.

Tickets are $15, online at gayalliance.org, or by calling 585-244-8640.

I don't understand the thinking here. I don't understand the disconnect from reality. More than a hundred and sixty people were killed this year, and there are likely countless more that remain unreported. There is an epidemic of murder against trans women, particularly trans women of color and trans women living in the global south. How do you decide that the best way to respond to that is through a night of entertainment?

I have my issues with Day of Remembrance. I have issues with the fact that time after time, it's seen as a way for people who likely won't face this violence to take the spotlight once again and let everyone know how sad they are and how they're gonna do something about it, they're gonna make it better. But this doesn't even aspire to that level of problematic.

We have an event that perpetuates the idea that FAAB gender-bending is radical and fun, while at least two trans women are being murdered every week. We have an event that perpetuates the conflation of gendered performance with lived gendered experience. We have an event that most of the people being "honored" would not be able to attend due to cost. We have an event that once again centers the viewpoints and experiences of a cis audience, despite the fact that they and their society are the perpetrators of this epidemic of violence and murder.

Maybe that's where the disconnect comes in. When over a hundred and sixty women are being killed in the span of just a year, you can't blame their deaths on just a few bad eggs. There is a fundamental failure in their worldview that they can't address, don't want to address, because if they did they'd know they're just as responsible for spreading the attitudes that cause this violence to continue.

~*-*~

I won't be publicly observing the Day of Remembrance this year. It's too painful. There are too many "almosts" in my life, in the lives of the people I love. Too many "almosts" in the lives of the kids I spent two years watching out for. This morning I woke up early and I prayed. I haven't done it in a while, but I didn't know what else to do. I prayed and I cried. Tonight, I'm going to go out and celebrate my partner's birthday. This weekend, I'm heading out of town to be with friends.

And I'm going to do my best not to think about those "almosts".

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OMG, friends, it is one week until Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving, cuz I love to cook and that is the only thing to do on Thanksgiving cuz they switch up all the tv shows and nothing's on when you expect it to be because of football. And because I love all of you, I thought I would share what might be my Thanksgiving menu this year, and recipes for a whole bunch of it!

This is an all vegetarian (and some vegan) Thanksgiving dinner. The main dish is going to be a Quorn Turk'y Roast, which I got on sale at my co-op today (super exciting!). I like the Quorn roast because, like real turkey, it's good both roasted and cold on sandwiches the next day. I also like it better than the Tofurky Vegetarian Feast, because that one comes pre-stuffed and I like to make my own stuffing.

For my omnivorous girlfriends, I might be making real turkey too, but we haven't decided that yet. I will probably end up eating my obligatory tiny piece of dark meat if we do, cuz that stuff is gooooood.

Question: Is it still called "stuffing" if you're not stuffing anything with it? Anyway, on to the recipes!

( Cornbread Stuffing )

( Vegan Mashed Potatoes )

( Vegetarian Gravy )

Any of these recipes can be made vegan by replacing the butter with margarine. I haven't had a great deal of luck making gravy with margarine, but I'm told Smart Balance acts very similar to butter when you cook with it.

Also on the menu, Vegan Butternut Squash Soup (which I don't make, I got a quart of it on sale today!), Green Bean Casserole (cuz it's AMAZING, but you can get the recipe for that on the back of every single can of French Fried Onions ever), Cranberry Sauce (the jelly kind, cuz that's how I roll).

Watch this space for more delicious details. :D

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OMG, friends!

scans_daily is back in business, now on Dreamwidth with a spiffy new layout!

This has me ridiculously excited. Where is my "ridiculously excited" icon?

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I love how easy it is to make Boris happy sometimes. It makes for these wonderfully uncomplicated moments in my life.

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It seems I caused a little bit of a kerfluffle yesterday.

To all the folks who've subscribed to this journal in the past twenty-four hours: Welcome! If you've come looking for a source of more drama, I'm afraid you're going to be a little disappointed. I'm pretty oblivious to it, and my posts tend to get about fifty readers tops. Still, I hope you like what you see here, and that you'll stick around!

So, what happened yesterday? What happened is that I got maybe two hours of sleep the night before, sat in bed with my laptop to get my head in a place where I could go in to work, started browsing my LJ Friends Page and... Well, you probably know the rest by now. Hell, you probably know more than I do. I only really followed what happened in my space; apparently it spread all over LiveJournal and Dreamwidth and InsaneJournal and JournalFen and...

Okay, first of all, wow. I put thought into a post and three people read it. I crankily type out a few sentences, and everybody and their mom is commenting on it.

Second of all, I've seen some of the conspiracy theories out there, and please. It was a mistake. Does that absolve them of responsibility? Not in the least. But seriously, as far as I've heard yet, I'm the only person who actually saw the ad in question (though Google has always put some pretty disgusting text ads up). Not the best way of drawing in a new crowd of readers and users.

Third, I'm not leading any kind of mass exodus to Dreamwidth. I, personally, will be doing the bulk of my posting at Dreamwidth from here on out. And honestly, yeah, I would really like it if the people who want to read my stuff follow me over (but OpenID means you don't even have to set up an account). LiveJournal has, over the past few years, become less and less what I want out of a webjournal community, and I'm hoping Dreamwidth will be able to fill that gap. But a mass exodus? A boycott of LiveJournal? That's just gross consumer activism. It's slacktivism, and given the work I do, I don't really want to be associated with it.

I want to thank marta from the LJ Staff for how she handled the situation. I stand by the point I made yesterday in that this didn't have to happen and that LiveJournal holds some responsibility for it, but given that it did, her response to it was really good. At this point, the National Organization for Marriage ads should be gone (we'll see about the Google AdSense ones in the coming days), so again, thank you.

To my friends at LiveJournal, snugglebitch isn't going strikethrough any time soon, at least not by my hand. After all, there are a lot of people at LiveJournal who aren't switching any time soon, and I still want to keep in touch with them. It'll just be a lot quieter at my site. Again, snugglebitch is where I'll be doing most of my posting from now on, and I hope you'll keep reading.

Thanks everybody! :D

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