Monthly Archives: March 2016

Speciesism, Veganism

Two-party politics will not liberate animals

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[Image: Gandalf, a goat at Preetirang Sanctuary.]

Disclaimer/reminder: I am registered with no political party and do not support or endorse any presidential candidates.

I’ve tried to stay out of political discussions, but recent social media posts about Democratic presidential candidates and their support for animals, or lack thereof, has irritated me enough to say something.

Let’s face it. No Democratic or Republican presidential candidate is ever going to campaign for animal liberation. The best you can expect is maybe some promises of welfare reform or promotion of plant-based diets. But recognizing legal personhood and abolishing the property status of animals? Forget it.

The two major U.S. parties are not identical, but they are similar in one fundamental respect: Money. In our capitalist system, there is simply too much profit to be made by exploiting people to achieve true justice and equity for humans, much less our fellow animals. I am convinced that the only way to make radical changes is to dismantle the system and rebuild it from the ground up.

Note that I’ve been voting since 1988, when I was first eligible to do so, so I’ve heard every argument against “third parties” in the book. Don’t bother telling me that “A vote for x is a vote from Trump” or “Not voting is a vote for Trump” or anything else that implies I am personally responsible for rescuing this country from the fucked up state it is in. (See yesterday’s post by A. Breeze Harper for some insight on how that might have happened.) Besides, I’m not convinced that any political party is able to accomplish the kind of radical change that would make me feel safe, welcome, and happy to call myself a US-American.

For the record, though, there is a political party that is campaigning on a platform of animal rights (among other reforms): The Humane Party. They actually require all of their candidates and officers to sign an oath abstaining from all animal products and services. Their presidential candidate (who again, I am not endorsing) is Clifton Roberts.

Of course, I’m sure none of the animal rights groups are bothering to mention this party’s existence because it’s such a long shot that they would win. But you know what else is a long shot? Animal liberation. Only a tiny proportion of people in this country actually recognize farmed animals as individual sentient beings who deserve to live for their own sake. Citing polls that say things like “32% of people believe animals should be given the same rights as people” is frankly disingenuous, because if that were really true we’d see far more widespread acceptance – and even enforcement – of veganism than we currently do. Such respondents might have actually believed what they were saying, but I guarantee the majority of them poured cow’s milk on their cereal before putting on their leather shoes and going to work.

So if animal rights activists truly want animal liberation, why aren’t more of them campaigning for candidates who actually support it? Or, better yet, organizing for (peaceful) revolution? I know why I’m not doing it: Serious depression and dysphoria that have made it difficult for me to even take care of myself, much less get involved in radical political reform. But there are a lot of energetic vegan activists out there.

Regardless, US-American politics is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point. I’m not saying any other particular country is better on animal rights specifically; animals are exploited – just by nature of them being considered property – pretty much everywhere. And as a queer black trans person with mental health issues, even if I had the independence and ability to just pick up and move, I honestly don’t know where I would go.

To reiterate: This is not an endorsement of Clifton Roberts or any other candidate. I am just fed up with two-party politics, and the expectation that as a progressive I have a duty to play along.

Atheism, Cissexism, Classism, Heterosexism, LGBTQIA, Racism, Sexism, Speciesism, Trans, Veganism

Happy International Women’s Day

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[Image: lauren Ornelas gives a presentation on the Food Empowerment Project.]

Happy International Women’s Day! In honor of the occasion, I’d like to say a few words about each of the women currently featured on my links list.* I present them here in alphabetical order, along with one recommended work for each.

Kat Blaque

Kat Blaque is a vlogger, illustrator, and activist, speaking out against sexism, racism, and trans-antagonism. She has created educational videos on these topics for Everyday Feminism, and has built a thriving, active community on Facebook and other social networks. I recommend her video explaining the difference between gender expression and identity.

Greta Christina

Greta Christina is a writer on topics including atheism, feminism, sexism, cis/heterosexism, and sexuality. She has published several books on atheism, and speaks out against oppression in the atheist movement. I recommend her article on what not to say in response to misogyny.

Amie Breeze Harper

Dr. A. Breeze Harper is a speaker, educator, and author on feminism, veganism, and critical race studies. She founded Sistah Vegan Project and Critical Diversity Solutions, and is on the advisory board of Black Vegans Rock. I recommend her article on raising children in a world of oppression and hostility.

Aph Ko

Aph Ko is a blogger, performer, digital media producer, and founder of Aphro-ism and Black Vegans Rock. She advocates veganism from black feminist perspective. I recommend her video on animal oppression and anti-racism.

Syl Ko

Syl Ko is a writer, activist, and doctoral student, researching the human/animal binary from a black vegan feminist perspective. She co-founded Aphro-ism with her sister Aph, and is on the advisory board of Black Vegans Rock. I recommend her article on anti-racism and the human/animal divide.

Sophie Labelle

Sophie Labelle is a trans activist, illustrator, and author of the web comic Assigned Male. Her comic challenges cissexism (including non-binary and intersex erasure) from the humorous perspective of a young trans girl. She has so many great strips that I can’t single out one to recommend; if you have time, just read them all from the beginning.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin is an author, primarily of fantasy and science fiction, whose books explore gender and sexuality, among other topics. Le Guin is my favorite author; I took my last name from her book The Left Hand of Darkness, which is my recommended read.

lauren Ornelas

lauren Ornelas is the founder and executive director of the Food Empowerment Project, a vegan food justice organization that actively works to counter oppression of marginalized humans as well as our fellow animals. I recommend her post on experiencing oppression in the fast food industry.

Ali Seiter

Ali Seiter blogs about feminism, anti-speciesism, and anti-racism on Chickpeas and Change. The site has been on hiatus for awhile, but has many articles well worth reading. I recommend reading her thoughts on the origins of the term “intersectionality.”

Julia Serano

Julia Serano is a writer, performer, speaker, and trans activist. She has authored numerous essays and books, including Whipping Girl, a classic on trans feminism and gender theory. I recommend her article on the “T” word and the language of trans activism.

Sarah K. Woodcock

Sarah K. Woodcock is the founder and executive director of The Advocacy of Veganism Society. She speaks out against all oppression of humans as well as our fellow animals. I recommend her article explaining why her organization stopped using the word “abolitionist.”

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Corey Lee Wrenn is a lecturer, author, and founder of The Academic Activist Vegan and Vegan Feminist Network. She advocates veganism from a feminist perspective, and calls out oppression in the animal rights movement. I recommend her article on sexism faced by vegan women.

Several of the women on this list  – A. Breeze Harper, Aph Ko, lauren Ornelas, and Sarah K. Woodcock – will be speaking at the Intersectional Justice Conference later this month, where I’ll also be presenting. I trust you will find much of value in their wise words.

* Remember that not everyone who has a feminine-sounding name or appearance is a woman; several people on my links list are non-binary.

Cissexism, Trans

Non-binary erasure at the Oscars

[Image: Side view from the seats of an empty Paramount Theatre, Oakland.]

I’ll admit it: I love having on-demand access to hundreds of movies and TV shows through Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks to these services and my increasingly introverted nature, I haven’t set foot in a movie theater in over a year. But as much as I enjoy watching and re-watching old favorites, I haven’t been particularly interested in new productions, so I haven’t watched any award shows in quite some time.

I have been keeping up with social media, however, so I’m well aware of the controversy surrounding the inadequate representation of black and trans people like myself at the Academy Awards. The predominance of white Oscar nominees, and the awarding of transgender roles to cisgender actors, are important issues. But another concern of mine as a non-binary person is the continued insistence that acting categories be divided into “male” and “female.” This division erases non-binary people who do not identify as either of those categories.

A recent article by Claire Fallon in the Hufffington Post addresses this issue, though more from a standpoint of male/female gender equality than non-binary advocacy. Non-binary people are mentioned, with one example being Ruby Rose, a cast member of Orange is the New Black (one of the few current shows I watch and enjoy). While Rose (who uses she/her pronouns) is genderfluid, I would hazard a guess that she would not currently object to being categorized as female for the purposes of an acting award. Other actors may not be so accommodating.

In Fallon’s article, gender writer Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart makes a case for eliminating gendered award categories, but also notes that there aren’t many non-binary roles to play. The fact that most characters are written as men or women should also be addressed, but isn’t really the primary concern here. Non-binary people can play the parts of men and women even if they don’t identify as men or women themselves. In fact, most of us do this all the time, just to get by in a world that doesn’t acknowledge our existence.

As a Wikipedia editor, I encountered an example of this enforced gendering of acting categories shortly after my own gender transition in the summer of 2013. I noticed another editor was assigning “Male actor” and “Actress” categories to numerous pages, including one that I had edited. I asked why this was necessary, and he pointed me to a discussion on the issue. The argument here was that as many women now prefer referring to themselves as actors rather than actresses, there was a need to create a specifically “male actor” category. Commenters noted that acting is an inherently gendered profession, as men play male characters, and women play female characters (though of course, we’ve seen this repeatedly thrown out the window when cis male actors are cast as trans women). Again, the thought that an actor might be neither male nor female was not seriously considered.

Whenever this subject has come up, some people have argued that if gendered categories were eliminated, men would dominate the awards. While sexism is very real and this is a legitimate concern, it doesn’t change the fact that non-binary people are still being erased. As awareness of our existence grows, it’s only a matter of time before a non-binary actor is cast in a role that receives enough attention to merit a major award nomination. If that person is someone like Tyler Ford, who is agender and quite adamantly neither a man nor a woman, Hollywood is going to have to confront this issue. It isn’t fair to make us either bury our authentic selves or face exclusion.

Coping with constant erasure in a relentlessly gendered world really wears me down. While legal recognition of non-binary people may be a long way off, de-gendering acting awards would be a small step toward recognizing that not all of us fit into our assigned categories.

Edited to add: Shortly after publishing this essay, I realized that some might object that my statement that non-binary actors can play binary characters is hypocritical, considering my criticism of cis actors being cast in trans roles. However, I believe there is a significant difference between these scenarios for several reasons. First: Casting cis male actors as trans women – the most typical example – plays up on the transmisogynist “man in a dress”  stereotype. Second: While writers have created countless binary male and female characters, few specifically non-binary roles exist at this time, so it would be unfair to limit non-binary people to playing only those parts. Third: Non-binary people, like all trans people, are underemployed. Casting more openly non-binary actors in roles, even portraying binary characters, brings needed work and visibility to the community.

Cissexism, Trans

South Dakota veto: Victory, but not progress

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Yesterday, the governor of South Dakota vetoed a trans-antagonistic bill that passed in the state senate last month. While I am grateful to trans activists and allies for helping defeat this bill, I have no gratitude toward Governor Daugaard, who seems to be more concerned with saving money than respecting basic human dignity.

Preventing this discriminatory legislation  – which would have  limited school restrooms and locker rooms to students of the same “biological sex” – from becoming law is maintaining the status quo, not progress. Real progress is making laws to help protect trans people, like the Berkeley initiative to designate all single-stall restrooms as all-gender. If we’re to stem the tide of bullying and trans-antagonistic violence, we need to create a world where trans people are fully respected and accommodated, not merely tolerated.

I fear that these “bathroom bills” will only continue to surface. In a country where a substantial portion of the electorate believes that Donald Trump would be a good president,* we must be ever-vigilant of the assault on anyone outside of the boundaries of cisheteronormativity and whiteness. We cannot allow conservatives and TERFs to continue reducing us to our body parts and birth-assigned genders.

* As mentioned before, I am registered with no party and support no presidential candidates. Do not suggest or even hint that I am obligated to support a Democrat in order to keep a Republican out of the White House. There are plenty of places to stump for your favorite candidate; my blog isn’t one of them.

Ableism, Cissexism, Trans

Weight, fitness, and body acceptance

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Content note: Discussion of fitness and health issues. (Which, for the record, have nothing to do with veganism.)

Due to depression and dysphoria, I’ve spent increasingly less time in public over the last few months, canceling all of my regular commitments (volunteer work, voice lessons, etc.), and even putting off needed medical appointments like dental and vision exams. Sitting in front of the computer and TV most of the day, and often eating whatever junk food Ziggy brings home because I’m too tired to cook, have gradually expanded my waistline without me noticing, since I’ve been spending most of my time in my underwear or sweat pants.

This is not the first time I’ve gained a noticeable amount of weight. In my adult life my weight has varied over a 60 pound range. Because of this variation, I would always keep pants in several different sizes around. But when I transitioned I was near the lowest end of that range, so I have no larger pants to return into. (I gave away nearly all of my “women’s” pants and won’t return to them, as I much prefer men’s styles.)

Shopping for clothes is something I hated even before transitioning, and I hate it even more now. I could order new pants online and hope they fit, but I’d rather reduce my waist size. I did buy one larger pair of jeans at Out of the Closet recently, but for the umpteenth time was misgendered when they were rung up as “WMNS BTMS” (see previous link), so I really don’t want to go there again.

Reducing to a slimmer size for me isn’t about meeting standard recommendations for how much someone of my height, age, and sex (which is not a simple question due to my trans status) should weigh. In fact, I’ve decided the number on the scale is basically irrelevant; what I’m most interested in is the amount of fat around my waist, chest, and hips. Some say that body fat is irrelevant also, and I do agree that there are many other factors that contribute to health and disease. I had blood tests done recently, so I have a good general idea of my overall health and risk factors.

When it comes down to it, I just feel better when I have less fat on my body. I feel more energetic, more positive, and happier that I have one less thing to stress out about. Eating a healthy diet – which, for me, means high in starch and low in fat – and getting regular exercise are important parts of my self-care that I’ve been neglecting, and minimizing the amount of fat on my body is – for me – a reliable consequence of those actions.

But even independent of any health concerns, I cannot see fat on my body as irrelevant. Not as long as curves are associated with being female. I would love to live in a world where body shape and parts were not correlated with gender, but we are nowhere near that utopia right now. And while I can lobby for more diverse representation of trans men and non-binary transmasculine people – who are often depicted as overwhelmingly thin, white, and able-bodied – displaying a curvy body can put me in unsafe situations, especially in gendered spaces.

As I’m not willing to bind or get top surgery, having heavier, more obvious breasts is a liability. Even if I were rail-thin my breasts would not disappear entirely, and due to my large, dark areolae and nipples I likely still couldn’t go out topless in public safely. But I can keep their size down to minimize the amount of layering I need to do to hide them. I know from talking with and reading about other transmasculine people that even having top surgery is not enough to get gendered properly, but having a flatter chest appearance can’t hurt, especially as I’m frustrated with the pace of my hormonal changes.

I’m talking about all this because before writing this post I read a couple of articles by Melissa A. Fabello for Everyday Feminism: “5 Ways to Share Your Fitness Life on Social Media More Thoughtfully” and “What If Body Acceptance Doesn’t Work? How About Body Neutrality?” The former made some good points, in particular challenging the need to share specific fitness-related numbers in public posts, which I’d not considered an issue before. I also think it’s reasonable to give content warnings about fitness-related issues for my audience, and have done so accordingly.

But the second article bothered me because it seemed to assume a cisgender audience. Everyday Feminism is a very trans-positive magazine, so it surprised me that there was no mention or acknowledgment of the challenges faced by people who do need to modify their bodies because of dysphoria. I cannot and will not accept that the female-assigned body I grew up with is the one that I was meant to have. I don’t actually hate my curves (it’s my genitals and reproductive system that I have a serious problem with), but they are the manifestation of body dominated by estrogen, which is the result of a miswired brain. This is part of why I continue to refer to myself specifically as transsexual, though per this recent article on sex and gender I am realizing more and more how much the sex binary is also socially constructed.

Even in a genderless, completely body-positive world, I would prefer being slimmer, because, as mentioned, I feel better with less fat on my frame. But the realities of living as a trans person in a cissexist society give me additional incentives to minimize my curves.

Regardless, while eating junk food and watching TV give me pleasure in the moment, eating unrefined starches and vegetables and going for a run give me longer-lasting satisfaction. I don’t have to completely eliminate the former, I just need to put more emphasis on the latter. Getting outside at sunrise today and being under the blue sky, rather than glimpsing it through my window, reminded me what a privilege it is to live in this beautiful city, and to have the ability to walk and run on its many hills. I hope to keep up the momentum, for the sake of my well-being.