Third stitch.

thedisgen: THEDISGEN MANIFESTO IS HERE. DOWNLOAD THE PDF NOW...

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:22:05 +0100

thedisgen:

THEDISGEN MANIFESTO IS HERE.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF NOW FOR ULTIMATE JOY AND GOOD LIFE TIMES.

The DISGEN is? GET INVOLVED. email thedisgen@gmail.com

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:16:44 +0100

The DISGEN is?

GET INVOLVED. email thedisgen@gmail.com

Y O U//D O N T//N E E D//A//M A N NEW ART CONCEPT Add the...

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:41:00 +0000

Y O U//D O N T//N E E D//A//M A N

NEW ART CONCEPT

Add the twitter here http://twitter.com/#!/SaltyProduction

"It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see."

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:59:54 +0000

“It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see.”

- Anais Nin (via libraryland)

switchteams: Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Linda...

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 11:24:06 +0000

switchteams:

Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista

genderconfusion: ryotical: jardineria: (via ancientbruises, se...

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:48:05 +0100

genderconfusion:

ryotical:

jardineria:

(via ancientbruises, sexismandthecity, divasonyce, fuckyeahpride)

Gender is Not Just a Performance

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:41:53 +0100

Gender is Not Just a Performance:

genderqueer:

Most compelling thing I’ve read all day; it gave me goosebumps. I’d love to send this to everyone who doesn’t “get” why gender is so important to trans / genderqueer / gender variant people.

Julia Serano is such a talented writer.

yellowbeesteward:

“If one more person tells me that “all gender is performance,” I think I am going to strangle them.

Perhaps most annoying about that soundbite is the somewhat snooty “I-took-a-gender-studies-class-and-you-didn’t” sort of way in which it is most often recited, a magnificent irony given the way that phrase dumbs down gender. It is a crass oversimplification, as ridiculous as saying all gender is genitals, all gender is chromosomes, or all gender is socialization.

In reality, gender is all of these things and more. In fact, if there’s one thing that all of us should be able to agree on, it’s that gender is a confusing and complicated mess. It’s like a junior high school mixer, where our bodies and our internal desires awkwardly dance with one another, and with all the external expectations that other people place on us.

Sure, I can perform gender: I can curtsy, or throw like a girl, or bat my eyelashes. But performance doesn’t explain why certain behaviors and ways of being come to me more naturally than others. It offers no insight into the countless restless nights I spent as a pre-teen wrestling with the inexplicable feeling that I should be female. It doesn’t capture the very real physical and emotional changes that I experienced when I hormonally transitioned from testosterone to estrogen. Performance doesn’t even begin to address the fact that, during my transition, I acted the same, wore the same T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers that I always had, yet once other people started reading me as female, they began treating me very differently. When we talk about my gender as though it were a performance, we let the audience — with all their expectations, prejudices, and presumptions — completely off the hook.

Look, I know that many contemporary queer folks and feminists embrace mantras like “all gender is performance,” “all gender is drag,” and “gender is just a construct.” They seem empowered by the way these sayings give the impression that gender is merely a fiction. A facade. A figment of our imaginations, endlessly mutable and malleable. And of course, this is a convenient strategy, provided that you’re not a trans woman who lacks the means to change her legal sex to female, and who thus runs the very real risk of being locked up in an all-male jail cell. Provided that you’re not a trans man who has to navigate the discrepancy between his male identity and female history during job interviews and first dates. Whenever I hear someone who has not had a transsexual experience say that gender is just a construct or merely a performance, it always reminds me of that Stephen Colbert gag where he insists that he doesn’t see race. It’s easy to fictionalize an issue when you’re not aware of the many ways in which you are privileged by it.

Almost every day of my life I deal with people who insist on seeing my femaleness as fake. People who make a point of calling me effeminate rather than feminine. People who slip up my pronouns, but only after they find out that I’m trans, never beforehand. People who insist on third-sexing me with labels like MTF, boy-girl, he-she, she-male, ze & hir — anything but simply female. Because I’m transsexual, I am sometimes accused of impersonation or deception when I am simply being myself. So it seems to me that this strategy of fictionalizing gender will only ever serve to marginalize me further.

So I ask you: Can’t we find new ways of speaking? Shouldn’t we be championing new slogans that empower all of us, whether trans or nontrans, queer or straight, female and/or male and/or none of the above?

Instead of trying to fictionalize gender, let’s talk about the moments in life when gender feels all too real. Because gender doesn’t feel like drag when you’re a young trans child begging your parents not to cut your hair or not to force you to wear that dress. And gender doesn’t feel like a performance when, for the first time in your life, you feel safe and empowered enough to express yourself in ways that resonate with you, rather than remaining closeted for the benefit of others. And gender doesn’t feel like a construct when you finally find that special person whose body, personality, identity, and energy feels like a perfect fit with yours. Let’s stop trying to deconstruct gender into nonexistence, and instead start celebrating it as inexplicable, varied, profound, and intricate.

So don’t you dare dismiss my gender as construct, drag, or performance. My gender is a work of non-fiction.”

The above is an excerpt from “Performance Piece” by Julia Serano, from the book Gender Outlaws edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. Excerpted by arrangement with Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright (c) 2010.

thanks dee!

I just tried to post a gif on here, but it wouldn’t work....

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:59:33 +0100

I just tried to post a gif on here, but it wouldn’t work. I tried uploading the file and using a URL, anyone else had the same problem?

Instead here’s an image, which if you click will take you to my gif blog.

loveandzombies: vegetablesforbreakfast:(via vincentvincent)

Mon, 03 May 2010 21:14:16 +0100

loveandzombies:

vegetablesforbreakfast:(via vincentvincent)

"Art has to change things, and if it was immediately acceptable it would not be doing the job. The..."

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 16:04:24 +0100

“Art has to change things, and if it was immediately acceptable it would not be doing the job. The press are the most cynical and re-enforce an outdated attitude that is not actually the way people think. People enjoy challenges, find visual art exciting and do not think all artists are trying to pull a fast one.”

- Antony Gormley (via artnotartnot) (via materialworld)

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and..."

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:54:05 +0100

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

- Neil Gaiman (via loveandzombies)

TRANSPRIDE: gender-neutral parenting?

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:42:31 +0100

TRANSPRIDE: gender-neutral parenting?:

As a user of MSN, when I sign on, a little box comes up with current news features that are supposedly “hot topics.” Recently, I found one that spoke about a “failed attempt at gender-neutral parenting.” Now, I couldn’t find the article when I tried to go back and search for it, but I did find…

The Queer Heterosexual

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:02:13 +0000

genderqueer:

theythesphere:

The Queer Heterosexual by Tristan Taormino

Once staunch separatists, queer people are flaunting our fluidity when it comes to gender and identity. Whereas in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the dominant LGBT narrative was a coming-out story, today it’s more like “I’m a lesbian in a relationship with a gay-identified bi guy, so what does that make me?” Plus, the evolution of an out, proud, vocal, and visible transgender community has turned everything on its head, making the term “opposite sex” practically meaningless, or at best confusing. What’s the opposite sex of a male-to-female transsexual? Is the lesbian lover of a male-to-female transgender person bisexual or something else entirely?

All these advances have led to greater dialogue and diversity within LGBT communities. But they have also ushered in a new identity: the Queer Heterosexual. How does one spot a QH? In some cases, it’s based on either one or both partners having non-traditional gender expressions…or they actively work against their assigned gender roles. Some queer heterosexuals are strongly aligned with queer community, culture, politics, and activism but happen to love and lust after people of a different gender. I also consider folks who embrace alternative models of sexuality and relationships (polyamory, non-monogamy, BDSM, cross-dressing) to be queer, since labeling them “straight,” considering their lifestyle choices, seems inappropriate. Then there are those folks who may be straight-looking and straight-acting, but you can’t in good conscience call them straight.

Emphasis mine. I have my issues with Tristan Taormino, but I also think a lot of what she has to say is pretty darn awesome.

Responses?

"There are many fascinating aspects to this . First, the activist-students didn’t necessarily care..."

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:35:15 +0000

“There are many fascinating aspects to this . First, the activist-students didn’t necessarily care about food ethics, but just taking action made them feel better. Second, sending a memo is hardly the most engaging political action – and yet it had a big impact on those taking it. Third, the study flies in the face of the popular wisdom that happiness resides in creature comforts and relative affluence. Perhaps activism gives people a sense of purpose, or of agency or just a chance to hang out with other people. Most likely it does all of the above.”

- Brain food: does activism make you happy? | Science | The Guardian (via curate)

matildastone: deannatron: When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:43:32 +0000

matildastone:

deannatron:

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you

—african proverb

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:36:10 +0000

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

- Joseph Chilton Pearce (via laeticia)

"Inpenetrable Masculinity"

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:18:11 +0000

"Inpenetrable Masculinity":

genderqueer:

guesswhatsvegan:

Great article exploring the relationship between gender identity and preferred sexual role. Otr talks about being a top until he started identifying as trans, when he started reconsidering what it meant for him to be in the dominant “masculine” role. He talks about the desire for sex to be about “gender rebellion,” wondering how to reconcile that with instances when he has sex with cis men and doesn’t top. I can definitely relate to that fear of having masculinity delegitimized in relationships with cis men when your different bodies have already introduced a potential tension and gendered sexual roles may feel like the necessary way to reassert masculinity. I like how Otr explores the different ways he experiences sex AS A TRANS MAN, importantly challenging the idea that man is equatable with specific sexual practices, embodiments, or roles.

“Dominant culture values and assigns power to topping and penetration, as associated with masculinity, but systematically devalues (and denies the active existence of) bottoming and envelopment, as associated with femininity. If I am a man who only tops and penetrates but does not bottom or envelop, I feel like I am perpetuating dominant cultural power dynamics. I don’t want to be that guy.

…

When I’m having sex with people who experience gender oppression, envelopment still feels like a gender rebellion, because I’m refusing to play the privileged exclusively penetrating role.

Because patriarchal culture denies my existence as a man, when I get sexy with cismen, I feel this anxiety knot in my stomach that if I do anything but top them, they will forget that I’m a man, and they won’t remember that I’m male-bodied. So, the meanings of my desires change depending on who I’m getting sexy with, because it seems as if it’s easier for people to assign me to the woman category if I’m getting sexy with a cisman.

…

I don’t know how to separate my desires from internalized transphobia, that is, defining myself by dominant cultural ideas about my body, and accepting woman-assigned sexual roles. I don’t want to perpetuate some boring hetero sexual trajectory, but there are some things, like wrapping my legs around my partners, and taking them inside me, that I don’t want to give up. I don’t know how to get what I want outside of patriarchal socialization that makes me want what I was going to get any way.”

fuckyeahrandomstupidity: Monks on a roller coaster

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:02:57 +0000

fuckyeahrandomstupidity:

Monks on a roller coaster

"I love going to genderqueer-bars. Where men are short, women are tall, and you’ll find a..."

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:01:38 +0000

“I love going to genderqueer-bars. Where men are short, women are tall, and you’ll find a tampon-machine in the mens room.”

- Genderfork on Twitter

"THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THE MOMENT YOU DECIDE THAT WHAT YOU KNOW IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU HAVE..."

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:41:01 +0000

“THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THE MOMENT YOU DECIDE THAT WHAT YOU KNOW IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT TO BELIEVE, YOU WILL HAVE SHIFTED GEARS IN YOUR QUEST FOR ABUNDANCE. SUCCESS COMES FROM WITHIN, NOT FROM WITHOUT.”

- ralph waldo emerson (via nakimuli)