All posts by Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Speciesism, Veganism

Assimilation and commodification

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[Image: A baked spaghetti squash, cut open to show the flesh, seeds, and pulp.]

Last night I baked that spaghetti squash (pictured above) that I mentioned buying for the first time this weekend. I tried it plain first, and found it crunchy and a bit bland, so I added a chopped tomato. Ziggy enjoyed his with jarred tomato sauce.

I admit I was hesitant to try this particular squash because I didn’t want to see it as a pasta substitute. I’ve long steered clear of the low-carb and gluten-free trends, always preferring a high-carbohydrate diet and never having a problem digesting gluten myself. My preferred pasta consists entirely of organic durum wheat, which I consider a perfectly healthy choice. But I see squash as even better, both nutritionally and environmentally as there’s no packaging and I can compost the rind, pulp, and seeds (which could also be eaten).

I’m realizing that a lot of what we consider “normal” meals are habits adopted from our parents and friends, dictated by a 40 hour work week, and backed by the constant, insidious push of commercial interests and their government lobbyists. There’s no reason that the morning has to start out with cereal and milk, pancakes and orange juice, or toast and coffee. After a short run this morning I indulged in a delicious mango, and would have had a second if we’d had one (I don’t want to get in the habit of buying expensive tropical fruits). Normally I would have started the day with black tea with sugar and soy milk, then had a second cup with oatmeal, but for now I’m quite satisfied with fruit.

Fruits and vegetables are not much of a priority for advertisers, unless they can package them in a way to maximize profit. Want the nutritional power of kale, but don’t want to take the time to prepare it? Here, eat our dehydrated kale chips! Know you should eat your veggies, but don’t want to? Here, drink our vegetable juice blend! Love fruit, but on the go? Here, eat our convenient fruit and nut bars! Etc.

Every dietary trend that comes along is similarly packaged and commodified. Low-glycemic? Gluten-free? Here, buy these special breads and pastas! Subscribe to this diet plan! Raw? Buy this dehydrator! Buy this cookbook!

Aside from the pressures from advertisers and the challenges of getting through the work or school week, eating differently from everyone else can be a serious social challenge. Peer pressure is very strong. I never would have started drinking if it weren’t for that, as I never liked alcohol; I stopped drinking completely six years ago and haven’t missed it. Children can be teased relentlessly if they eat different foods, and parents are often scolded for supposedly harming their children by withholding animal products from them.

Many ethical vegans counsel activists not to make vegans “look weird” by eating food that’s “too healthy”; they emphasize that vegans can eat pizza, hot dogs, burgers, and junk food just like anyone else. While this is true, and I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with eating plant-based versions of flesh and dairy products, I don’t like the idea that we have to assimilate in order to spread our message effectively. Animal liberation should sell itself if presented strongly and consistently as a position against violence and speciesism. What the vegan activist presenting the message chooses to eat shouldn’t even be a part of the conversation, unless the listener brings it up.

Another concern is that vegan messaging that emphasizes healthy foods can lead to fat-shaming. This is a valid concern, as I’ve seen a lot of fat-shaming by health-oriented vegans. My position is that besides myself and my partner, no one’s weight is any of my business. While I do value fitness and prefer to stay slim myself, I no longer give anyone advice on weight loss (or gain) unless someone asks me about it directly. Once again, my strategy is to avoid talking about diet when advocating for animal liberation, unless I’m asked specific questions about nutrition.

Ultimately, we all have to craft a diet that works for us within our financial and practical means. I currently have the freedom to eat without worrying about structured meal times, eating on the go, or social pressures. If eating a meal of just bananas or just baked sweet potatoes makes me weird or eccentric, while eating a burger, fries, and milkshake (whether vegan or not) is considered “normal,” so be it.

Veganism

Healthy hermit

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[Image: A Russet potato, a red potato, and a sweet potato.]

For the last week I’ve been eating a diet consisting solely of fruits, vegetables, tubers (potatoes and sweet potatoes), and a small amount of herbs and spices. And loving it. I think sweet potatoes – in particular, the orange-fleshed variety marketed in the USA as “yams” – might just have replaced oatmeal as my favorite food.

I came up with this meal plan myself, for a number of reasons. As I mentioned previously, I wanted to revisit the sugar/salt/oil-free diet that I tried last year, as I’d been slipping into eating more processed, nutrient-deprived foods. I was feeling increasingly sluggish and congested, and gaining weight. I wanted to simplify cooking and shopping. I also wanted to use as little packaging as possible.

My working title for this way of eating is the “Healthy Hermit diet,” because I’ve been quite a hermit lately. Having the freedom to stay home for meals makes it a lot easier to stick to this diet. Though I now feel I should commit to going to farmers markets twice a week to get seasonal organic produce.

Yesterday I went to the Fort Mason Center Farmers Market for the first time in over a year. I’d stopped going there when my volunteer work at the Free Farm Stand conflicted, but I stopped that work some months ago. The stands had a large variety of organic produce. It’s a privilege to live in an area with year-round farmers markets, and to be able to afford organic groceries. I might as well take advantage of it.

I picked up some squashes I’d not tried before: Delicata and spaghetti. I’m looking forward to baking them this week. I wanted a greater variety of starches than just potatoes and sweet potatoes, as much as I love the latter.

It’s sad that a lot of people probably think this diet is extreme. As I posted before, eating large amounts of fresh produce shouldn’t be a luxury. A fast food meal shouldn’t be cheaper than a couple of pounds of organic fruit. And people shouldn’t have to work so hard that they have no time or energy to cook. (Though a lot of my cooking is now done in the oven, with little prep time on my part.)

Whatever anyone’s opinion, my own well-being will be the best test of this diet. Increasing exercise as my energy levels improve will also be crucial to my health. I look forward to a healthier body.

Uncategorized

Unplugging from Facebook

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I’ve been avoiding Facebook for about ten days now, and am in no hurry to go back. In that week and a half, I’ve been continually prodded by Facebook to return. When the system first realized I’d been inactive for more than a day, it e-mailed me status updates from people on my friendslist. Then it sent me a list of “people I may know.” There was at least one other similar, unsolicited notification.

I opted out of those lists, but chose to keep having event invitations and messages sent to my e-mail in case anything really important came up. Though I posted publicly on September 23 that I was going to be away from Facebook for a bit and that people could e-mail me with anything urgent, I realized that most people would assume I’m still checking my Facebook messages.

I really don’t like how ubiquitous Facebook has become, replacing e-mail and text messaging for so many people. E-mail has been my preferred form of communication since I first started using it back in 1989 or thereabouts. I’ve never felt good about trusting something so important to me to a “free” service, especially one like Facebook.  I do use Google’s services for my calendar and contact list, I’ll admit, as I enjoy the seamless syncing to my Android phone. But my e-mail and web sites have been hosted by pair Networks, a company I’ve found very trustworthy and reliable, since 2003.

As for text messaging, I use that primarily for very short communications with my spouse, along the lines of “on my way home” or “do you need anything from the store.” I definitely prefer texting and e-mails over phone calls, but neither need nor want any Facebook apps installed on my phone for these purposes. I have a great plan with Ting where I only pay for the texts, data, and minutes that I actually use. If I became unable to afford the ~$20-$30/month I’ve been paying for Ting, I’d be more likely to turn to Google Voice than Facebook for my texts and voice calling needs.

This isn’t to say that I think Google is the harmless company they’ve advertised themselves to be either. I’ve been avoiding Google Plus for much longer than Facebook; I really don’t like Google’s forced integration of that site into their other products. I’ve also been using DuckDuckGo rather than Google for most of my web searching. But at least Google doesn’t enforce a “real names” policy like Facebook continues to do.

In any case, I’d been spending entirely too much time on Facebook, getting into long discussions  that were sometimes productive and enlightening, but too often contentious and stressful. I started this blog specifically because I prefer longer-form writing rather than the quick blurbs that Facebook encourages. I’ve found Medium to be a better fit in that regard, but I still prefer my own blog, as I am solely responsible for the content here.

Unfortunately, since I haven’t been posting new blog entries to my Facebook profile, my visitors here have dropped off. I expected this, and while disappointing, it’s OK, because I am not depending on this blog for my livelihood (though I do accept tips). I’ve resisted making a dedicated Facebook page for this blog specifically because I am a person, not a product or brand. I’m co-manager of several Facebook pages that are in various stages of dereliction, and I’m constantly getting prompted to update them and to buy ads. I realize that’s just part of the deal for getting unlimited use of a “free” service, but I don’t have to buy it.

I’m not deleting my Facebook account, and I fully expect to resume posting there eventually. But not yet. This unplugging is a good thing. Facebook does not own me or my content; I work only for myself.

Classism, Veganism

Eating our roots

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[Image: A basket of purslane, with a sign reading “Hecka local produce picked from nearby gardens or trees & the Free Farm.”]

I’ve been thinking lately about how terrible our food system is in this country. I’m not just talking about fast food and I’m not just talking about animal agriculture. I’m talking about the price of fresh fruits and vegetables being so expensive that they are seen by many as luxuries, while we simultaneously throw away enormous amounts of unsold produce.

When I did volunteer work in food justice, I saw firsthand how much abundance comes from the Earth. At Alemany Farm in San Francisco, one of my jobs was to harvest purslane (pictured at the top of this post). This hardy, nutritious plant grows everywhere, even in the cracks of sidewalks. It’s considered a “beneficial weed.”

We gave away purslane at the Free Farm Stand, along with lots of unsold produce from farmers markets that would have otherwise gone to waste. Boxes and boxes of perfectly good food.

Eggplants at the Free Farm Stand[Image: A box of purple eggplants.]

While more year-round variety of produce is available here in San Francisco than in many places, the fact is that there is enough abundance to feed everyone directly from the Earth. We can create a society that provides affordable whole foods to everyone if we’re willing to make radical changes.

The word “radical,” by the way, means “going to the root.” I’ve been eating  lots of literal roots myself lately, in the form of sweet potatoes. I’m rediscovering the taste of whole foods, unaltered by sugar, oil, or salt (SOS). I tried going SOS-free for about a month last year for VeganMoFo, and it worked well, so I’m giving it another go, but focusing primarily on fresh fruit and tubers rather than beans and grains.

In order for everyone to have the opportunity to eat healthy foods, we need to create economic and social changes that will replace food deserts with community gardens. This morning, Sistah Vegan Project posted this great video by vegan hip-hop artist DJ CaveM:

This is wonderful. Community gardens are for everyone. Farmers markets shouldn’t be seen as destinations for privileged people. Healthy eating is in our roots.

Atheism, Speciesism

Unpopular opinions

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As an activist, I am used to my opinions being unpopular. The amount that I talk about these opinions varies partly based on how directly I am affected by the issue at hand. But part of it also depends on how much I am confronted with the issue on a daily basis, whether or not I am a direct target of oppression.

Take atheism. I’ve been an unwavering atheist for nearly 30 years now. But I’ve never felt the need to become an activist for atheism. Part of the reason is that I’ve never felt coerced into participating in any religious practices, or pressured into lying about my (lack of) beliefs. Since middle school I’ve lived in and near major cities where atheists, agnostics, and skeptics were not only tolerated, but welcomed. I’ve had no trouble finding atheist and agnostic friends; few of my friends worship any deities.

That doesn’t mean I’ve been unaffected by theism, however. Churches are still supported by my taxes, “In God We Trust” is printed on my money, and theistic religion is omnipresent in countless other ways. I just haven’t felt angry enough to speak out about it much, yet.

Part of the reason I haven’t participated in atheist activism is that I’m not actually opposed to someone believing in one or more deities. I might think that the Christian conception of a supreme being is as realistic as a Flying Spaghetti Monster or Invisible Pink Unicorn, but just believing in any of these things is not, in and of itself, oppressive. What’s oppressive is making laws and justifying violence based on someone’s interpretations of a supreme being’s wishes. I support activism against religious institutions, but I don’t necessarily believe that theism itself must be dismantled.

In contrast, take speciesism: the belief that human animals are superior to non-human ones. As a human, I am not directly oppressed by this widespread belief. While many people do indeed think I am inferior based on my skin color, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation (hence my activism on those fronts), it is not currently legal in this country to keep me as property, forcibly impregnate me and take my babies away so that I can be milked, kill me for my flesh, or harvest my organs without my consent. All of these practices are legal and commonplace for non-human animals, because of speciesism.

While I have no fear of being killed by another human specifically for my flesh, I know that every sentient being – which includes every animal we raise for food – fears death. I can no longer look upon animals being eaten without having feelings of revulsion, sadness, or anger. I live surrounded by advertisements of smiling people eating dead bodies. I see animals’ bodies, eggs, and milk being shared at social justice events, and even at animal welfare events. The sentiment that humans are entitled to use our fellow animals is everywhere. It’s virtually inescapable in this culture of killing.

This is why I cannot be silent about speciesism, as unpopular as my opinion that animals are people, not property may be. The world will not change if people like me are afraid to speak out, or if we make anti-oppression more palatable, offering “Meatless Mondays” as if killing six days a week is acceptable. I recognize that some people face genuine obstacles to going vegan, but those obstacles will never be overcome if we continue to support the mindset that human needs and desires are superior to those of all other animals.

We share the Earth with our fellow animals; we do not own it. It’s time to stop acting like we do.

Cissexism, Trans

Gendering and subconscious sex

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[Image: Pax runs in a road race, wearing a long-sleeved brown T-shirt, black shorts, white cap, orange shoes, and a purple jacket tied around their waist. Photo by myEPevents.]

This week, I finally got around to reading Whipping Girl by Julia Serano. This book is considered a classic in gender theory; I’d known about it for years. I put off reading it for a couple of reasons. First, given the topic in the subtitle – “A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity” – I wasn’t sure how well I could relate as a transmasculine person. I was also concerned that there would be too much academic jargon.

Fortunately, I was delightfully wrong on both accounts. I devoured this book voraciously, highlighting many passages (using that Kindle feature for the first time), and will be discussing the topics of particular interest to me over several blog posts.

As anyone who’s been following my blog knows, I’ve had a lot of difficulty explaining my gender identity to people. I identify as both agender and a transsexual male, but to most people those terms seem contradictory. Serano’s book used the term “subconscious sex” to describe how she feels about being female: It’s a an intuitive feeling that is centered in the physical body, and not directly connected to gender expression. She wrote that it was very difficult to communicate in words, but she could best explain it as “on some level, my brain expects my body to be female.”

This is how I feel about my physical body. If I could wake up tomorrow with a cis-typical male body, without any of the expense and trauma of surgery, I would be delighted. I knew from the first injection of testosterone that I had made the right choice to begin hormone therapy. I still don’t mind having visible breasts, however, but that’s another topic.

Having a male subconscious sex describes my feelings about my physical body only, not my clothing, mannerisms, hobbies, or beliefs. Serano noted that “my female subconscious sex had nothing to do with gender roles, femininity, or sexual expression – it was about the personal relationship I had with my own body.” Serano did not dress or act in a particularly feminine way when she transitioned; she wore the same clothes and acted the same way as she always had. Aided by her relatively small stature, once she began hormone therapy she began to be read as female rather quickly and consistently, despite not having any conscious change in gender expression.

Serano identified as genderqueer and bigender before finally adopting the identifier of “woman.” She didn’t like the baggage associated with the word “woman,” which “seemed to be too weighed down with other people’s expectations.” She wrote, “At the time, I preferred the word ‘girl,’ which seemed more playful and open to interpretation.”

I feel very similar about the word “man.” I can easily and comfortably refer to myself as a “trans guy” in casual conversation when I don’t want to get into a lecture on gender theory.  But I still can’t bring myself to say that I’m a man, because there are too many assumptions built into that word that really don’t suit me.

Ultimately, Serano did come to identify as a woman, largely because of the dramatically different – and sexist – way she was treated by society after her hormonal transition. Here’s one place where our experiences differ. While I’m not out in public much nowadays, I’m probably getting “Sir’d” more than 75% of the time at this point. But the part of male privilege I’ve been most looking forward to gaining is invisibility when I’m out and about. People not remarking on my appearance or harassing me (not that I ever got cat-called much before) doesn’t make me feel more like a “man,” it just makes me feel more respected, which is something that people of all genders should be able to enjoy.

I’m still relatively early in my transition, and have already changed labels and preferred pronouns (currently they/their/them) once, so I can’t say for sure that I won’t change again. But for now, I still feel that “agender transsexual male” is the most accurate label for my identity, even if other people don’t understand or agree with it.

It’s really remarkable, if you think about it, that most of us assume we know a person’s gender just based on the barest of glances. Serano wrote, “I call this process of distinguishing between females and males gendering, to highlight the fact that we actively and compulsively assign genders to all people based on usually just a few visual and audio cues.”

Case in point: Today I went out for a rare pre-dawn run. While I enjoyed the solitude, I generally don’t like running in the dark, especially along paths away from the road. So I tensed up when I heard someone coming up behind me on a hill out of visual and shouting distance from the street. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a long, swinging ponytail, and in that instant gendered the person as female, and felt less threatened. I then questioned how I could make that assumption given such a small visual cue.

The runner passed me and said “Good morning,” thus giving me additional audio and visual cues to reinforce my initial guess that this was likely a woman. But without asking them, there was no way to be sure. They might have been non-binary or a trans man. The few seconds of contact told me virtually nothing about this person, other than the fact that they’re likely in better aerobic shape than I am as they easily passed me on that hill.

As I’ve posted before, I’m super-conscious of my appearance and how people will gender me whenever I’m out running. On today’s run, I wore the same clothes as pictured at the top of this post, minus the jacket and running bib. This photo was taken at the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon this February, after I’d been on testosterone for approximately 13 months. (I was legally male by then, and registered as such.)

What can you tell about me from this photo? Is my gender (or lack thereof) obvious? Do me a favor: Show the photo to someone who doesn’t know anything about me and ask them “What gender is this person?” (Please don’t phrase the question as “Is this a man or a woman?”) Post a comment on what they say and how long it took them to respond. I’m genuinely curious.

Whatever the response is, unless they’re an experienced profiler, they’re not going to know much about me just from looking at this photo. And that’s my point: Transitioning to male did not change the most fundamental things about me, which are my values. While violence and aggression are usually associated with men, I don’t think of pacifism as a feminine trait. Nor do I associate atheism with masculinity, even though men dominate the atheist movement.  These aspects of my personality have been with me since my teenage years, when I was clueless about trans issues and only knew that I hated having a menstrual cycle and didn’t like wearing feminine clothing.

As Serano pointed out, “the sex we are assigned at birth plays almost no role whatsoever in day-to-day human interactions.” The fact that the letter next to “Sex” on my state ID now says “M” rather than “F” is entirely irrelevant when someone glances at me and makes an instant judgment about my gender. Getting a court-ordered change of gender put my legal sex in line with my subconscious sex, but it did not change or define who I am.

Photography, Speciesism

Monkey business

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[Image: A howler monkey swings from a tree branch.]

Today’s Wikpedia Signpost newsletter featured an article that focused on my particular areas of interest enough that I wanted to blog about it immediately. The animal rights organization PETA has filed a lawsuit to grant the copyright for a selfie taken by a monkey, Naruto, to the monkey himself. This lawsuit follows an attempt by the human photographer, David Slater, to have the series of photos removed from Wikimedia, on the grounds that he owned the rights to them. The Wikimedia Foundation countered that the works were not covered by copyright law as they were not created by a human being; the U.S. Copyright Office agreed.

While most would be tempted to just laugh this all off as “ridiculous story of the week,” I’m both a photographer and animal rights activist, so I see several separate issues of interest here. I should begin by disclosing that I’m no fan of PETA; as I’ve blogged previously, I’ve found much of their messaging sexist, racist, and problematic in many other ways.

But what intrigues me about PETA’s lawsuit is the position that I’ve taken myself, that animals are people, not property. As I discussed in the linked post, however, being a person is not equivalent to being a citizen, with all the rights and privileges granted to a human resident of a particular political jurisdiction. Recognizing the personhood of non-human animals does not entail granting them equivalent legal status to humans in all areas, only in those which are meaningful in the context of living out their lives freely.

One would be hard-pressed to say that a wild animal taking a photograph, under highly-contrived circumstances arranged by a human, would have any legitimate interest in claiming legal ownership of their work. The original purpose of copyright, before greedy corporations like Disney and Warner/Chappell corrupted it, was to encourage artists to create new works by granting them exclusive rights for a limited period of time. Monkeys do not take photographs of their own accord, nor do they make income by selling prints or licenses.

While it doesn’t make much sense to grant Naruto this copyright, it’s questionable whether the human photographer should be profiting from what might amount to an act of exploitation, from a moral perspective. From a legal perspective, Slater claims he put a great amount of work into setting up the shots, so they should be considered his property.

A related issue came up a few years ago, when a friend posed a hypothetical question: If someone hands their camera to you and asks you to take a photo of them, and you do so, do you now own the rights to that photo? (This situation occurs quite frequently in tourism.) I posted this question to a photography forum, and quite a lively discussion ensued.

My position, as professional photographer (more actively so then than now), was that under United States copyright law, the photographer would own the photo, but it would be petty to try to actually enforce that claim. Others said that you would in essence be acting as a “meat tripod,” and thus had no claim to the work. I countered that as a professional, I would put some effort into framing, adjusting exposure, and the like, so I would actually be putting some work into the photo. (This was before smartphone snapshots became ubiquitous.) But I emphasized that I would never actually try to track down the photo and claim that I owned it.

As an aside, my frustration with the public’s ignorance of copyright law, coupled with my belief that capitalism should ultimately be dismantled, both led to the change in my photography business model. My Creative Commons-licensed photos are still under copyright — another subject the general public doesn’t quite understand — but that’s a topic for another post.

Regardless, we’re not talking about two humans here; we’re talking about a free-living animal who was cajoled by a human into helping create a product that no member of his species is capable of producing on their own, or even comprehending in full. I believe that trying to derive monetary profit from this endeavor is wrong on both PETA’s part and the photographer’s, even though PETA claims they would use 100% of the profits to benefit Naruto and other crested macaques. Animal rights efforts focus far too much on “personable” animals like monkeys and elephants, when the ones who most urgently need attention are the chickens, cows, pigs, and fishes that we slaughter by the tens of billions every year. Granting personhood means recognizing that no animal, regardless of species, should be the property of another.

Speciesism

Where I stand on DxE

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[Image: Activists dressed in black stand in a grocery store behind a small coffin, holding flowers and signs reading “We Will Not Forget” and “It’s Not Food It’s Violence.”]

The recent controversy surrounding the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, with allegations of harassment and misconduct on both sides (none of which I’m going to link to here), has caused me enough stress to seriously question whether I want to continue with organized animal rights activism. I’m avoiding Facebook for the time being, but I do not want my absence or silence to be misinterpreted. I do not consent to being used as a token to be thrown into a pro- or anti-DxE bucket by anyone.

My thoughts on the situation are too nuanced to be condensed to a hashtag or blanket statement of either support or condemnation, so I’d really appreciate people reading this essay in full before making any judgments on where I stand. I’m not going to approve any comments on this post and I’m not sharing this post on Facebook, though it’s public so others are free to do so. I’d appreciate not being tagged on any shares or comments on Facebook or otherwise dragged into discussions on social media; people can e-mail me directly if they have any questions or concerns.

As I’ve posted before, I came to DxE last fall after Bob Linden kicked DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung out of the World Vegan Summit. The first action I attended, a funeral for a chicken at Berkeley Bowl, is pictured at the top of this post. I was moved by the action, and happy to be part of a community of people that took speciesism seriously, even while being widely mocked by the general public and other vegans. I began spending more time at the DxE house, as I made friends in the group and felt it was a safe space where I could be free of speciesism and also respected as a queer black trans person.

As time went on, my depression worsened and I started spending less time in public and around other people in general, which meant less time at DxE events. I also no longer felt safe participating in disruptions, as I felt my skin color and trans status put me at greater risk of harassment by the police.

I continued to keep up with DxE on social media, and so was aware of the escalating conflict amidst allegations of sexual harassment by people formerly or currently affiliated with the group. As I was neither target of nor witness to any incidents, I only had the word of others to go by on what happened. Regardless, as a survivor of sexual abuse myself, if someone says they were abused or harassed, I am inclined to believe them.

Some screenshots and snippets of conversations from private messages and closed groups have since been published, which makes me very uncomfortable even if I understand why they were revealed. This is part of why I’m staying off of Facebook right now. I’ve found that regardless of visibility settings, nothing posted on social media is truly private, unfortunately.

Having been involved in online activism for over a year now, I am aware that there are some individuals who have wanted DxE dismantled for some time now, for a number of reasons. However, I am not going to assign all blame for the current situation to those people. Nor am I going to assume that any specific grievances they have are illegitimate based on prior animus toward DxE.

Nor do I suspect infiltrators from animal agriculture of trying to divide the movement. The “movement” is fractured because there is no common end goal. Some activists say that “all true vegans are abolitionists,” but there isn’t even any agreement on what the term “abolitionist” means, much less the term “vegan.” I could write another whole essay on that topic, but for now I’ll just say that I do not believe the current DxE situation came about due to industry infiltration (though I have no proof, admittedly, that it did not).

I also really don’t like any dismissal of this situation as a distraction from “saving animals.” As I’ve written before, I will not rank the oppression of non-human animals as more important than the oppression of humans. Claims of sexism and racism by anyone, in any movement, are very serious and need to be addressed. No one should feel that they must be silent about abuse or micro-aggressions in the interest of furthering the cause of a group.

Ultimately, I do not believe that individuals or organizations as a whole are “good” or “evil.” I especially don’t like the term “evil” as it has religious connotations. Rather, I believe that individual actions have the potential to cause more or less harm. And there’s no doubt that harm has been caused, whether intentional or not, by people on both sides of the current debate. And it’s clear that any efforts to remediate that harm have thus far not been entirely successful.

So where do I stand? For now, I’m going to continue as an independent activist, blogging but not participating in actions. As I’ve never held any official position with DxE, this really isn’t much of a change. I’m aware that some will not be satisfied that I’m serious about anti-oppression unless I sever all ties with friends in DxE, and I’m not going to do that. I’m also aware that some in DxE will be disappointed if I don’t come out with an unequivocal statement of solidarity, but I’m not going to do that either.

Some days I wish I could just rewind the clock to when I was blissfully ignorant of the vast amount of injustice in the world. But I can’t. So I don’t feel that I can give up on activism entirely. I just wish there were a lot more honesty and a lot less hostility in activist communities.

Trans

We the T

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[Image: Banner reading “We the T! A Matter + Gender 2.0 Collaboration”]

I’m happy to announce that I am now an official contributor to the Gender 2.0 collaborative project on Medium. I wrote this week’s newsletter for the project, “Our lives, our stories,” highlighting some of the stories trans people have shared about our lives. Follow me on Medium and join in the conversation.

LGBTQIA, Racism, Speciesism

Exploring my roots

[Image: Blackberri, a man with long gray locs, white knit cap, and multiple pieces of jewelry, sings while playing the guitar.]

Yesterday I went on a field trip with Animal Liberationists of Color to the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. A docent and intern guided us through the exhibits, which were very educational to me. The docent began the tour by showing us a video graphic of the migration of humans from Africa to other parts of the Earth. She showed that as a result of the migration to South America, the most common language of black people is Portuguese, followed by Spanish, and then English.

We then went on to view the featured collection, Portraits and Other Likenesses. As a photographer, I had always thought of a portrait as a posed picture of one or more people, so it was interesting to see different interpretations of this idea. One was an artist’s depiction of her grandmother’s 1970s-era living room, with Soul Train playing on the TV, brightly colored furnishings, and a lipstick-stained cigarette sitting in an ashtray. Another was a series of pages printed in the style of antebellum newsletters about the life of the artist, Glenn Ligon, a gay black man born in 1960.

One of the most popular pieces in this exhibit, especially with children, is the Soundsuit, a creation by Nick Cave, a dancer and performance artist:

One of the reasons I wanted to visit this museum was that I’ve been concerned about a certain subset of black people who are promoting the mindset that homosexuality is destroying the black family, and that being gay or trans is a “white thing.” I felt that this cisheterosexism had no basis in pre-colonial African culture. I spoke with the docent and intern about this, and they agreed.

Our museum guides were also very interested in the purpose of our group. We explained that we are activists who seek to dismantle racism in the animal rights movement. The idea that veganism and animal rights are “white things” is not true, as Aph Ko discussed in a recent article for Everyday Feminism. I gave the intern links to Sistah Vegan Project, Aphro-ism, and my own blog, which she wrote down eagerly. She told me that her mother never allowed her to visit zoos when she was growing up, as she said that no one should be in a cage.

I look forward to learning more about African and African-American culture. As I’ve written previously, exploring my roots has been both difficult and rewarding. I’m fortunate to live in a place where I can be respected as a queer black trans person, and to have friends who support me and my desire to liberate all beings.