South Dakota’s fixation with children’s penises

Yesterday, a bill discriminating against transgender children passed the South Dakota state senate. Of course, the bill didn’t mention trans people specifically. It simply stated that use of school restrooms and locker rooms is limited to people of the same “biological sex… as determined by a person’s chromosomes and anatomy as identified at birth.”

As I’ve pointed out before, chromosomes are not routinely tested at birth, and the appearance of our “anatomy” when we are born has little to do with our appearance later in life. Regardless, what this bill comes down to is what I stated in the title. The people supporting this bill really don’t want anyone with a penis to be in a girls’ restroom. The idea that these adults are even thinking about children’s penises should be seriously disturbing to anyone who cares about safety, privacy, and autonomy.

The bill is awaiting the signature of the governor, who has apparently claimed he’s never met a trans person and doesn’t want to, in order to not influence his decision. Because of course, the people who are actually negatively impacted by this legislation – the girls and women who are bullied, beaten, and killed for attempting to live their authentic lives – don’t count.

Transmasculine people like myself are harmed  by trans-antagonistic legislation too, of course. I still fear using men’s rooms, over two years into my transition, and seek out gender-neutral accommodations whenever possible. But I am not generally seen as a threat.

It’s trans women who conservatives and TERFs are convinced are men posing as women in order to spy on, sexually harass, and rape cis women. They have presented no actual evidence of this harassment happening, but continue to promote these hateful lies, which they are projecting onto children as well as adults.

Cis allies sometimes ask what they can do to help trans people. Here’s something you can do. Speak out against trans-antagonistic restroom bills, loudly. If your school or workplace has gendered single-occupancy restrooms, lobby to make them gender-neutral. Call out anyone making jokes about  a trans person’s appearance or “anatomy”.

We need to stop this fixation on the genitals of strangers. We just need to pee.

Music, food, and love at Omni Commons

[Image: Ayr sings and plays acoustic guitar on stage at Omni Commons. A drummer plays in the background.]

On Saturday I attended a fundraiser for Omni Commons, a community center in Oakland that hosts numerous Bay Area collectives, including Food Not Bombs. My friend Saryta, whose book about animal liberation I wrote about recently, volunteers for FNB, and helped organize this event.

Saryta and Arthur at Omni Commons[Image: Saryta and Arthur, two of the organizers of the Omni Commons Love Party.]

The event featured an open mic and several musical performances. I would have loved to stay and watch all of them, but my partner Ziggy and I had to get up early the next morning for a race, so I only caught the open mic and the first three acts: Ayr (pictured at the top of this post), Beet the System, and The Bogues.

Beet the System at Omni Commons[Image: A guitarist, keyboard player, and drummer from Beet the System perform on an indoor stage.]

Beet the System at Omni Commons[Image: A member of Beet the System sings and plays ukelele on an indoor stage.]

The Bogues featured a particularly eclectic group of instruments, including accordion, violin, and autoharp. They really got the crowd dancing.

The Bogues at Omni Commons[Image: Members of The Bogues play banjo and percussion on an indoor stage.]

Food Not Bombs provided an impressive vegan buffet. When I mentioned that I was running a half marathon the next morning, they loaded up my plate with an embarrassing amount of food.

Vegan food plate[Image: A plate overloaded with beans, grains, vegetables, and fruit.]

Between that meal, Saryta’s home-baked cookies and cupcakes, and the sumptuous Valentine’s Day dinner I had at my friend Phil Gelb’s underground vegan restaurant the following evening, I probably ate two full marathons’ worth of calories. I have no regrets.

I’ve posted my full set of photos from Omni Commons to Flickr. Please credit me as Pax Ahimsa Gethen if you use any of them, thanks!

Sharing concert photography

[Image: George Porter Jr. singing and playing electric bass on an indoor stage.]

As anyone visiting my Funcrunch Photo web site might guess, concert photography is my specialty. I haven’t done much of it lately, but from 2008-2012 I photographed a large number of musicians. Now that I’ve given up trying to make an actual living at photography, I’m making more of my older photos available to Wikimedia under a Creative Commons license, for free sharing with attribution.

Rather than just uploading my files indiscriminately, I’m looking for artists I have good photos of who have Wikipedia pages that need (more) images. I took the top photo of George Porter, Jr. (performing with the Funky Meters) at the Blue Bear School of Music’s annual benefit concert in San Francisco. I was the (semi-)official photographer for Blue Bear for several years, and got to see a number of great acts.

Booker T. Jones[Image: Booker T. Jones playing keyboard on an outdoor stage.]

Joe Louis Walker[Image: Joe Louis Walker playing electric guitar on an outdoor stage.]

I shot the above two images, of Booker T. (performing with the MG’s) and Joe Louis Walker, at the Petaluma Wine, Jazz, and Blues Festival in 2009. I was just an audience member for this concert, not there in any official capacity, and it was literally 100 degrees out, but I still had a good time watching and photographing the musicians.

You might notice that all of the images in this post are of black folks; that’s no accident. I’ve taken plenty of photos of white musicians, several of which I’ve uploaded to Wikipedia as well. But I’d like to increase quality coverage of people of color on that platform, as well as everywhere else.

Speaking of black musicians, I’m aware of the current hubbub surrounding Beyoncé, but for self-care reasons I’m choosing not to contribute to the discussion right now. For one black activist’s perspective on her video and Super Bowl performance, I recommend checking out today’s Maris Jones essay in Black Girl Dangerous.

So back to photography: I’d like to shoot more concerts and other events, but my equipment is aging and needs replacement. I could really use more funds to support my work. If you have the financial means, please consider supporting me on Patreon or leaving me a tip.  Any amount is greatly appreciated!

Chocolate: No labor of love

[Image: A chocolate rhinoceros from Chocolate Decadence, currently a recommended company on the FEP Chocolate List.]

This Valentine’s Day, many vegans will enjoy what they might think is “cruelty-free” chocolate: Made without milk or other animal products. Unfortunately, much of the cocoa used to make chocolate treats is the product of child labor, and, in some cases, slavery. This applies even to some chocolate that is labeled “Fair Trade.”  The Food Empowerment Project has detailed information on this tragic situation.

The FEP has created a chocolate list that recommends companies whose cocoa does not come from slave labor. The list includes only vegan chocolates (containing no animal products). The research on these companies is ongoing, and the list is continually updated. It is available for iOS and Android as well as on the web. I highly encourage everyone to review it before your next shopping trip.

Some vegans might be resistant to adding one more product to the “not allowed” list. Here’s the thing: Chocolate is a treat. Avoiding chocolate does not put an unfair economic or health burden on anyone. Turning down a treat is, at most, a social inconvenience.

The question here shouldn’t be whether slavery-made chocolate should be considered “vegan” or not. Lots of products we use in our daily lives, including cell phones, come from oppressive working conditions. If we were to only grant the title of “vegan” to those who lived a truly cruelty-free lifestyle, likely none of us would earn that designation.

We should strive to cause the least possible harm simply because that’s the right thing to do, not because we’re vegans. What does it say to young African children if we are willing to enjoy momentary taste pleasure from their involuntary servitude, but balk at eating the same treats if they were made from the forced labor of cows? For US-Americans, does our distance from the African continent – or, dare I say it, difference in skin color – influence our choices here?

The Food Empowerment Project has a saying: “Eat Your Ethics.” No amount of taste pleasure can justify child slavery. Please review the chocolate list before your next shopping trip.

Saryta Rodriguez: Until Every Animal Is Free

[Image: Left: Saryta at Souley Vegan restaurant, standing in front of a poster of Louis Armstrong while holding her book, Until Every Animal is Free. Right: Saryta pets Brahma, a bull at PreetiRang Sanctuary.]

Black and white headshot of Saryta, by Sophie Jane Stafford.[Image: Black and white headshot of Saryta, by Sophie Jane Stafford.]

Recently I had the pleasure of reading a wonderful book about animal liberation, Until Every Animal Is Free, written by my friend Saryta Rodriguez. Saryta and I met when we were both active with Direct Action Everywhere (though neither of us is currently) and their affinity group, Animal Liberationists of Color. During that time, she edited the three blog posts I wrote for The Liberationist.

Through both personal stories and well-cited research, Saryta’s book makes a solid case for veganism and animal rights activism. While I needed no convincing on those fronts, I learned new facts and perspectives that will be helpful in my own activist work. Her web site contains additional helpful resources and information that didn’t make it into the book.

I asked Saryta if I could send her some interview questions over e-mail, focusing on topics that were not directly covered in her book. For example, Saryta is agender; like me, she doesn’t associate that identity with a stereotypical “androgynous” gender expression. Saryta answered my questions with great enthusiasm; I’ve included her full responses below, interspersed with photos from our recent visit (along with my partner Ziggy) to PreetiRang Sanctuary. (The full set of photos is available on Flickr.)

As a fellow agender person, does having a non-binary gender identity give you any insights into the human/non-human binary that is often used to justify the exploitation of animals?

Ever since I was a child, long before I understood my gender identity and even longer before I went vegan, I always thought it was strange for us to draw such a divide between humans and nonhumans. I’ve often been accused of being overly literal— of zeroing in on the slightest nuance of a given word or phrase, of insisting on precision in language and communication. (My partner finds this very annoying.) I remember learning when I was maybe eight or nine years old of the classical scientific kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea and Bacteria. Humans, like pigs, cows, and chickens, exist squarely in the Animalia kingdom. We do not have our own kingdom. Period.

So in a very literal sense, leaving aside the spiritual and the emotional for a moment, humans are animals. To me, it really is that simple.

Geeta and Ziggy at PreetiRang Sanctuary[Image: Close-up of Ziggy smiling at Geeta, a goat at PreetiRang Sanctuary.]

With respect to binary systems in general, I feel that they are all alike in that they serve to otherize those who are in some way deviant from the norm, so as to make their exploitation more palatable. One thing I also remember learning around 8 or 9 years of age is that “Women have XX chromosomes” and “Men have XY chromosomes.” This was how sex, with which many conflate gender, was first defined to me. Two options—XX or XY. Nothing in between.

I later learned, of course, that this is far from the case. For starters, many individuals have genetic makeups that are neither XX nor XY. Furthermore, even among those with XX or XY, there are other differences that affect their sex and in some cases, their gender identity. Exposure to hormones such as androgen in the womb is one example, but there are others. Even with respect to genitalia, to summarize that “Men have penises” and “Women have vaginas” is misleading, because it suggests that every human being on the planet was born with either a penis or a vagina, when some are born with parts of both.

I do see a clear parallel between this and the many ways in which humans otherize nonhumans— everything from “We have thumbs and they don’t,” which is immediately disproven by nonhuman primates, to “We have art and culture and all these high-brow elements to our society that nonhumans don’t,” which is challenged by the bowerbird, among others.

(The males in this species erect bowers, not to live in or for any other practical purpose, but strictly to appeal to the aesthetic sense of females. Possession of an aesthetic sense— the ability to discern between what is “beautiful” and what is “ugly”— has long been heralded as a distinctly human characteristic.)

Bertha at PreetiRang Sanctuary[Image: Bertha, a colorful rooster at PreetiRang Sanctuary. White hens are in the background.]

Ultimately, such distinctions serve the purpose of legitimizing violence and exploitation, as if we can convince ourselves that someone is “not like us” in ways that we find meaningful— such as our cognitive abilities and our abilities to experience pain and fear—then we needn’t concern ourselves with their wellbeing in the same manner as we concern ourselves with our own wellbeing. We can tell ourselves that the suffering we cause others is not really suffering, because no one else is capable of truly suffering— because that is unique to us.

While the connection to violence and exploitation may not seem immediately apparent between nonhuman animals and agendered persons (I admit I have been very fortunate to have never faced either due to my gender identity), a more obvious connection perhaps is with respect to invisibility. Just as many contend that the perspective of nonhumans need not be considered because they don’t exist precisely as we do, so too are agendered individuals often told— either directly (by an individual in our lives) or systemically (by the media, our employers, and so forth)— that we “do not exist.” That there’s “no such thing” as the very thing that we are. This I have been told, many times, as well as when I first admitted to a friend that I was pansexual. She insisted that I was either a straight person going through a phase or a lesbian in denial. She was incapable of acknowledging any in-between, and while at the time I felt differently, today I can hardly blame her. I’m probably the first and may still be the only pansexual she’s ever met, and this wasn’t something people talked about back then, like they do now. When I was in high school kids rarely even came out as gay or lesbian, and no one that I’m aware of ever came out as anything else.

By rendering members of our society invisible, be they outside of the gender binary or simply one of the many forms of animal that is not human, we do them and ourselves a disservice. We not only commit injustice upon injustice against them, but we also shortchange ourselves from the benefit of their experiences. We miss out on an opportunity to learn from those with whom we share the planet. We stunt our own evolutionary development— remain mired in archaic modes of thinking and acting.

As a pansexual person, have you experienced or witnessed heterosexist oppression or micro-aggressions from other animal rights activists?

Have I ever! Although I have to say, I have more experience witnessing sexism more generally— cis-male domination— than heterosexism specifically, which I understand to refer to domination by straight people. But one form of microaggression I have witnessed as a pansexual, agender person of color over and over again is tokenization. I have seen, over and over again, animal rights organizations herald this or that activist as a tremendous asset to their work…When it’s convenient to do so. But should the same activist voice concern that racism, sexism, heterosexism or any other nasty –ism is slowly infecting the network, that activist is hung out to dry. If not kicked out directly, they may be given fewer tasks to complete. They may find that initiatives they spearheaded— including ones they conceived of themselves, without which they would not be happening at all— are handed over, without any explanation, to someone who in some way better fits societal norms (i.e. taking something from a POC and giving it to a white person, taking something from an agender person and giving it to a man or a woman). They are featured less and less in videos, blogs or other forms of media after speaking up about these behaviors.

Saryta and Chester at PreetiRang Sanctuary[Image: Saryta feeds carrots to Chester, a bull at PreetiRang Sanctuary.]

A common response in AR circles to problems of this type can be summed up as: “Animals, though.” This is the notion that we vegans must promptly sweep aside any issue that might sow division in our ranks— including various oppressions that affect humans— in order to keep fighting the good fight for our nonhuman brethren. This is not only unjust towards human activists but also ultimately hurts nonhuman animals as people outside of the movement peek in and think, “Wow, AR folk have some serious issues; I wouldn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole!”

Imagine how a person of color who is thinking about going vegan feels when they hear that some of the most outspoken, well-known animal rights groups in the country have developed a reputation for ignoring the concerns of their POC members, and/or have unapologetically run campaigns that are culturally insensitive. How likely are they to make this oh-so-difficult lifelong commitment when they suspect that this will be the company they’re keeping?

Have you felt pressure to hide or downplay your gender identity or sexual orientation when doing activism?

Only as much as I do in any other setting (haha). The truth is I don’t know if it’s fair to say I felt pressured, as this implies that the pressure was coming from outside of myself— like I was afraid something bad would happen to me if I mentioned who I was. It’s really more like, I pressure myself to avoid talking about myself when I do activism (and in most other scenarios, interviews obviously notwithstanding), and keep the focus on the issue I’m trying to address. I don’t want to get roped into conversations about myself when I’m trying to shed light on the oppression of someone else. I only really talk about being agender when involved in some sort of gender-related activism, and I don’t do as much of that as I should.

With respect to my sexuality, I only ever tell people who ask. This might be a result of what happened that first time I told someone about it, and perhaps that is society’s stigma leaking into my consciousness— a latent fear of being told yet again that I “do not exist,” that there’s “no such thing” as me. But moreso than any subconscious wounds I may be hauling around, I think at bottom, the whole notion that anyone should have to “come out” to anyone else as anything sexual is offensive. Straight men, for instance, are never expected to sit down with their parents and say, “Mom, Dad, I think I’m going to have sex with women for the rest of my life.” So why should a gay man have to declare to his parents that he will sleep with men, and why should I have to tell my parents that I sleep with folks independent of their gender? It’s just none of their business. If either of them were to ever ask me, I’d tell them the truth; but, knowing my parents, I sincerely doubt that will ever happen.

As a person who has also dealt with serious depression, how do you balance activism with self-care?

It took me a long time to get the hang of this, and I still struggle with it from time to time. One thing I’ve come to accept and embrace about myself is that the form or style of activism that comes most naturally to me is writing— which, luckily for me, can be done from the comfort of my own home. I do occasionally force myself to step outside of the box, but now I’m more careful than I used to be about over-committing, and I’m always honest with the people I work with about what my availability is. I’ve come to see “self-care” as being “unavailable,” whereas before it seemed selfish to turn down an opportunity to change minds and save lives to read a book or watch TV. I know that I am only human, and my brain and body need time to rest. So I now put “needing time to rest (mentally, physically and/or emotionally)” in the same category as I always have “having another commitment at that time” or “being really, really sick.” I’ve learned to say so, too; I used to be too embarrassed to admit when I had these needs, and would use those other examples— prior commitment, illness— as excuses when they weren’t really true. I’ve always felt guilty about that, being patently and unequivocally anti-lying. I’d lie awake at night, tossing and turning, wracked with guilt over having told someone I had the flu when really I was just exhausted, or had had a big fight with a lover or relative and was too sad to go anywhere.

I also firmly believe that part of being a good social justice advocate, whatever your cause or causes of choice may be, is being well-rounded and having a broad understanding of society. This means keeping up with things like theater, visual art, movies and, yes, even TV. You can’t expect to reach people if you exist in a vacuum, surrounding yourself only with people exactly like you, who behave as you do and think as you do already. You won’t make any significant changes that way. So I’ve come to appreciate that even when I’m doing things that might appear selfish or insignificant, like going to see a musical, it still has the potential to positively inform my activism. Often, much to my surprise, I’ve even found my causes of choice represented directly in the play or musical or movie I’ve gone to see, and it has inspired me directly to write or talk about the issue, rather than just passively informing my understanding of humanity.

Chester at PreetiRang Sanctuary[Image: Chester, a bull at PreetiRang Sanctuary.]

Finally, I’ve learned not to draw a connection between my position within a particular group or organization and my sense of self-worth. As a kid, I was super competitive. I got ridiculously good grades, so much so that once, I’m embarrassed to admit, I actually cried because I got a 98 on a test on which I thought I’d received 100. I was also a concert violinist, and even though I got a later start than the other kids in my orchestra (most of them started around age four; I didn’t start until I was ten), and despite not having my own private instructor (as many of the others did; I had one for a couple of weeks, but couldn’t afford to keep seeing her), I quickly rose to first chair. Throughout middle school and high school, I only lost that position once— when I had the flu on Audition Day. (You really don’t want to know how hard I cried when that happened.) So for a long time I associated my worth with how highly I appeared to be valued by whatever institution I was a part of at that time. If the institution didn’t value me, didn’t praise me, didn’t award me anything, then I must be a failure, a nobody.

I can’t tell you what a tremendous relief it has been to me to no longer live under such strain— to be able to objectively evaluate my own individual actions, achievements, talents, etc., without formal acknowledgement from any institution or individual.

As a Hispanic person, are there any misconceptions about your ethnicity that you’d particularly like to dispel?

Well, I guess there’s one that’s actually so widespread that, even as a Hispanic myself, I believed it until just a couple of years ago— the notion that all Hispanic people eat tons of meat. While my own family is very carnivorous, and I ate an absurd amount of meat growing up, this is not universally true of the Hispanic and/or Latinx communities. My friend Chema Hernandez Gil gave a great talk at the premiere People’s Harvest Forum in San Francisco, which I helped to organize with Millahcayotl, about how his family in Mexico ate a vegetarian diet throughout his youth (the Seventies, I believe). I have also learned more through him and others about the Three Sisters Diet— squash, corn, and beans— and how even gluten, which I thought people avoided mostly for health reasons, is actually a result of imperialism, as Mexico and other countries used primarily corn to make tortillas and other bread-like products until white settlers brought wheat over from Europe. Not to get too sidetracked here, but I was surprised to learn that there were ethical or political reasons not to eat gluten, in addition to health reasons like Celiac Disease.

So to think that Hispanic people just won’t ever go vegan really doesn’t make any sense. If Americans, who consume on average about 270 lbs. of meat per year— more meat per person than almost any other country in the world— can still be persuaded to go vegan, so can Hispanic people. And beyond merely going vegan, there are even organizations run by Hispanic and Latinx people promoting veganism, providing resources for everything from “Why Vegan?” to tips on vegan Mexican cooking, such as Food Empowerment Project. So my people do not merely form a minority of members within the Animal Liberation Movement— some of them are leading it.

On your web site you’ve posted a bonus chapter and other essays since the publication of your book. Are there any other recent developments or upcoming projects you’d like to talk about?

Yes, I’d be happy to! So aside from still trying to conceptualize and book events around my first book, I’ve also started a second, which will be a compilation of essays regarding food sovereignty, through a vegan praxis. I can’t share too much about it now except that I’ve got some really great contributors on board already (and I’m hoping you, Pax, can be counted among them!), and that to the best of my knowledge nothing quite like this has been done yet. I’ve enjoyed working on my contributions so far and am really excited to gather the perspectives and insights of the many talented people who have agreed to work with me on this. I expect to learn a lot!

Saryta, Pax, and Brahma at PreetiRang Sanctuary[Image: Saryta and Pax pet Brahma, a bull at PreetiRang Sanctuary. Photo by Ziggy.]

My birthday wish (with bonus recipe)

[Image: A smiling stuffed toy banana slug wearing a button reading “100% SLUG”, next to a muffin on a plate.]

I turn 46 years old this month. I’ve removed the exact date from social media, not for privacy reasons, but because I’m not interested in getting a bunch of messages from people I only hear from once a year at Facebook’s prompting.* I understand that other people really enjoy those birthday messages, but it’s not for me, though I do appreciate sincere birthday wishes from friends.

I have special plans for the day (which I’ll write about afterward), but I also have a request to make of my readers. My primary audiences appear to be 1) vegans and animal rights activists, and 2) members of the LGBTQIA+ community and our allies. As a queer vegan, I would like to see more overlap between these groups.

If you are vegan, please take some time this month to educate yourself about trans, non-binary, and intersex people, using materials produced by people in those communities. My links page has a number of resources where you can get started.** Even if you yourself are trans, non-binary, and/or intersex, I guarantee you have more to learn from others who don’t share your specific identity or life experience. I know I’m always learning myself.

If you are a member or ally of the LGBTQIA+ community and not vegan, please take some time this month to educate yourself about farmed animals. While my links page has a number of resources, the one I specifically want to point to is Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary. The caretakers there treat animals as the individual persons that they are, and do a great job of debunking “humane” farming myths.

I would be remiss not to mention that this is also Black History Month. I can’t help but be a wee bit cynical about that given all the negative reactions to Black Lives Matter protests, and “colorblind” tone policing on social media lately. If you want to help black folks like me make some history of our own, check out Black Vegans Rock.

So that you’ll have something to munch on while you’re reading, here’s an original muffin recipe, as pictured at the top of this post. In addition to being vegan, it contains no sugar, salt, oil, or gluten.***

PB Banana Slugmuffins
(no slugs were intentionally harmed to make these muffins)

3 large ripe bananas
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
6 tablespoons water
1/2 cup peanut butter (peanuts only; no added salt or other ingredients)
1 3/4 cup oat flour (old-fashioned rolled oats ground in a blender)
6 Medjool dates, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other nondairy milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Put the dates and almond milk in a blender, and set aside to soak for a few minutes.
3. Whisk the flaxseed and the water, and set aside to stand for a few minutes to thicken.
4. In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas, then add peanut butter and flaxseed mixture and mix thoroughly.
5. Puree dates and almond milk in blender, then add date puree and vanilla to bowl and mix thoroughly.
6. In a medium bowl, whisk oat flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
7. Add flour mixture to other ingredients and stir until just combined.
8. Fill nonstick muffin cups (I use silicone) with batter, 3/4 full.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

* I no longer post, comment, or “like” from my personal Facebook profile anyway, for reasons I’ve mentioned previously.

** The only cisgender authors currently in my “Trans/non-binary” and “Sexism / Racism / LGBTQIA / General” links sections are Ursula K. Le Guin, Greta Christina, and some of the contributors to Everyday Feminism.

*** While this recipe uses oat flour, gluten-free has nothing to do with veganism; I eat wheat and other glutenous grains all the time. Make sure to use certified gluten-free oats if you have celiac disease.

Depression, work, and self-worth

Whenever I meet someone new, one of the questions I dread answering is “What do you do for a living?” It’s been over seven years since I could give a confident answer to that question.

In the weeks leading up to leaving full-time employment in October 2008, I was literally breaking down in tears at my desk. I had been paying into supplemental disability for the entire 15 years I’d worked at the University of California, but I was too proud to take it. Surely my depression didn’t count as as an “illness”; I was just weak and lazy. Maybe I just needed a change after doing M-F, 8-5 office work for so long, having taken no more than two consecutive weeks off that whole time. (Though thanks to UC’s generous – by USA standards – benefits, I was earning 14 hours vacation leave per month by the time I left.)

I quit my web development job, and formally launched my event photography business. I never expected to make a good living at it, but I hoped to at least pay my living expenses. It turned out that I was utterly unprepared for dealing with the competitiveness of the industry and the demands of self-employment, while coping with my own mental health issues. Without support from my family I wouldn’t have even been able to pay my rent.

I was frustrated and defeated. I’d been in the role of provider for so long that it was humiliating to be supported by others. Having internalized respectability politics, I’d prided myself on being a black woman (pre-transition) who made more money than either her first or second (current) white husbands. Now my white husband (Ziggy) was paying most of my living expenses. At one point when we had a financial crisis, I came very close to making a suicide attempt. I felt worthless and trapped.

I gave up on the business in 2012; I continued to license and shoot photos occasionally, but stopped taking on new gigs. I asked Ziggy if I could just do volunteer work, as by this time he had a high enough salary to support us both comfortably (as long as we retained our rent-controlled apartment). I’d already been volunteering for some time with Food Not Bombs, an organization that was right in line with my ethics, and started growing and distributing free produce with the Free Farm, Free Farm Stand , and Alemany Farm as well after my local FNB serving went on hiatus. Ziggy was concerned that I’d have a lack of self-esteem if I didn’t have a paying job, but agreed that I could try increasing my volunteer work for awhile.

So I volunteered with these organizations, up to around 15 hours a week on-site plus various web and social media duties. I felt good about doing work that helped the community and was in line with my values, but I also felt incompetent. I’ve never had a “green thumb”, and after months of gardening still required guidance to do even the simplest tasks.

Then in 2013 I began experiencing significant gender dysphoria, resulting in a name and gender change and, soon after, hormone therapy. It became increasingly difficult to work in public when I was constantly being misgendered. I was often working outdoors in the sun and heat, but was constantly self-conscious about my breasts showing, which hampered my ability to wear comfortable clothing. I also had to deal with fear every time I wanted to use a public restroom.

I ultimately stopped doing the volunteer work, and again felt worthless and defeated. Meanwhile my photography business name registration had come up for renewal, and since I needed to update my own name on the license, I had to decide whether or not to just shut the business down completely. I’d been funding a few independent artists on Patreon, and thought that maybe if I could make a little money that way, I could keep the business going. The idea of being supported directly by patrons rather than by ad revenue or affiliate links appealed to me.

So I relaunched Funcrunch Photo with my new funding model in the summer of 2015. I explained that supporters of my Patreon account would be funding me as both a writer and a photographer, though the money would go to covering my photography expenses. I wanted to emphasize that I cannot separate my work from my life and values; I’m not just a photographer, I’m a queer black trans vegan atheist, and unapologetic about it.

So here’s where I am now. I’m spending most of my time at home because the depression and dysphoria have worsened to the point that I really don’t want to be around anyone most of the time. My therapist and I amicably parted ways a few months ago, as he felt he could not help me any further unless I were willing to take medication or try other interventions that were not appealing to me. The last of three anti-depressants I tried face-planted me on the sidewalk with a grand mal seizure, so I’m not willing to get on that merry-go-round again. I am looking at non-pharmaceutical alternatives.

My therapist did convince me that I have a real illness and am not just lazy, but I still have feelings of worthlessness every single day. I know that my words have helped people, but I also know that many people don’t take blogging seriously. I feel that I can make a difference with my words and photos, but in the back of my mind I still can’t help feeling that if I’m not financially self-sufficient, I’m a failure.

I try to remember my own work situation when I meet someone. Instead of asking what they do for a living, I might ask “What do you do when you’re not [doing whatever we’re here doing at the moment]?” I’m not “funemployed” and I’m not on disability (though maybe I should be). I’m just trying to get through each day at this point.

Vegan simplicity

[Image: Red tomatoes growing on a vine.]

Tonight for dinner I made a one pot meal, pasta e fagioli, consisting of three packaged ingredients: Pasta, beans, and sauce. The normal recipe I use for this dish calls for a lot more ingredients, cookware, steps, and time, and ideally I would use beans I’d cooked myself. But this simpler, faster version was perfectly tasty and satisfying.

I think both vegans and non-vegans sometimes overthink what it takes to make a good home-cooked meal. I realize that most people would not be satisfied having a meal consisting entirely of yams or bananas as I was experimenting with for a month, but there’s no need to combine proteins or to count and track calories or grams of anything, unless you have special health needs.

What about greens? Ideally I would have made a salad to go with the pasta, but I didn’t feel like it. Most health professionals agree that eating green vegetables is very good for us, but doing so actually has nothing to do with being vegan. Being vegan doesn’t mean choosing between a steak and a salad, it means choosing between a steak (with optional salad) or a bowl of vegetable chili (with optional salad). Some vegans do choose to just eat the salad, but most people can’t get full enough on green vegetables alone, as they’re very low in calories. And non-vegans who eat nothing but steak are going to suffer from nutritional deficiencies sooner or later.

As I’ve posted before, it’s a serious problem that many people in the USA do not have access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. And even the simple meal I made tonight, consisting entirely of packaged ingredients from Trader Joe’s, would be out of reach for those who have very low incomes, lack access to a kitchen, or work so hard that they simply have no time to cook. But not being able to afford nutritious food is a problem for non-vegans as well as vegans. We must address income disparities, rather than just blithely repeating how easy it is for everyone to be vegan.

Veganism is more than a plant-based diet; it is an ethical stance against violence. But eating is an activity most humans participate in multiple times a day, every day, often in the company of others. So our food choices have a significant impact, not only on ourselves, but on those around us. Those who do have the money and access to shop and cook would do well to investigate simple vegan meals. I like the Happy Herbivore cookbooks (tonight’s pasta recipe came from Happy Herbivore Abroad) and Simply Vegan, but there are also thousands of vegan recipes on the Internet.

Don’t let fear of malnutrition or complicated meal planning stop you from going vegan. Keep it simple, and always remember the lives at stake.

We’re not asking your permission

Among the many ReclaimMLK actions last weekend was an Anti Police-Terror Project protest at the San Francisco International Airport. There’s a great moment caught on video where a white man tells the assembled group that he will allow them to speak if they stand in a certain place. Protest leader Cat Brooks calmly responds, “We’re not asking your permission.”

Since the weekend’s protests, especially with the Bay Bridge shutdown, there have been a lot of whitesplainers on social media saying that these disruptions were not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. Many people seem to think that the accomplishments of the civil rights movement happened via polite protesters standing in designated areas with signs and leaflets.

Leafleting has its place, but so does civil disobedience. White supremacy is too firmly entrenched to be dismantled without inconveniencing people. We cannot let white people dictate the terms of our protests. Black Lives Matter is not about white people.

When Monday’s march from Oakland to Emeryville was about to get underway, the announcer stated that only black and brown folks, children, and those who had lost loved ones to police violence should go to the front. Everyone else should march behind the truck. I appreciated this, though I did see a bunch of white folks walking in front. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that some of them didn’t hear the announcement.

This weekend of direct action made me think about the animal rights actions I participated in when I was active with DxE, which sometimes involved going inside stores and restaurants. Some have challenged these disruptions on the basis that unlike in human rights demonstrations, the oppressed are not able to organize protests themselves. I think this is a fair criticism, not because non-human animals are less worthy of protection than humans, but because activists sometimes forget that we are only their allies and proxies, and shouldn’t be held up as heroes or martyrs.

I’m not now opposed to direct action for animals, but I think such demonstrations need to be planned and framed very carefully to center the animals and make the message of liberation clear. And as I’ve written repeatedly, all animal rights activists also need to pay attention to human oppression, both in their messaging and their choice of venues to disrupt.

Regardless of the cause, I’m currently unwilling to participate in any protest that might get me arrested, owing to my trans status among other reasons. But I support others who disrupt, as long as they allow the oppressed to take the lead.

Trans athletes and challenging biological essentialism

This week, news spread of new guidelines that would allow trans athletes to compete in the Olympics without needing to have surgery. Trans men would have no restrictions on competition, while trans women would need to reduce their serum testosterone levels to below 10 nmol/L for a year before competition.

This development (which, as of this writing, has not yet been confirmed by the Olympic committee) is welcome progress. For trans men, I doubt whether anyone has challenged their inclusion in men’s events based on anything other than bigotry. Genuine concerns about unfair physical advantage have been levied almost exclusively at trans women, due primarily to the higher testosterone levels that male-assigned people generally have. But surgery is unnecessary to address this imbalance; hormone therapy is sufficient.

Some have questioned whether testosterone levels are actually a useful predictor of athletic advantage. This article on that subject was written with intersex and cis female athletes in mind, not trans women. Intersex athletes have endured invasive gender checks for decades; see this article for some history of Olympic sex testing (note: contains cissexist language). Regardless, the question of whether hormone levels should determine eligibility to compete applies to trans athletes as well.

What about other physical differences, like height? While in the general population, male-assigned people are generally taller,  elite athletes do not represent the general population. Many cis female athletes benefit from being taller or more muscular than the average woman.

Where does this all leave non-binary people like myself? Is truly gender-neutral athletic competition possible? If athletic events all became gender-neutral today, there’s no question that cis men would dominate. But how much of this is due to biology, and how much to conditioning? If we had several generations of female-assigned children taught that they are every bit as physically capable as their male-assigned friends and siblings, and male-assigned children were taught to truly respect them as equals, I predict we’d see a huge narrowing of the supposedly hard-wired gender gap.

While I can say with confidence that I will never compete at the elite level, I sure would like to run in my local club races without being misgendered. (My annual checkup this month revealed that my testosterone levels are currently much higher than the average cis male’s*, but no one in my running club has anything to worry about; I’m solidly back-of-the-pack.)  We should continue to challenge biological essentialism that exaggerates or invents differences between sexes.

* Overly high testosterone in trans males doesn’t help speed masculinization, as too much testosterone converts to estrogen. I’ll be seeking the advice of a specialist.

filed by Pax Ahimsa Gethen