The touch of my Tallit

I feel the touch of my Tallit against my skin,

The I say the morning prayers.

There are things I love as a Jew;

When I sing Oseh Shalom.

Holding the Torah,

Looking at the scroll,

Seeing the words.

The tents of Jacob,

Welcoming the Shabbat Bride,

Lighting two candles as the sun sets

Twilight beckons.

Visiting the sick,

Celebrating with those marrying

Doing Tikkun Olam

Doing Tzadek

All I have ever been,

All I ever will be,

All that I am ...

is defined by being a Jew.

Today I heard

Today could have been better.

Today I heard several things that left me speechless.

Today I heard Jews run Hollywood.

Today I heard Jews are cursed people.

Today I heard Jews have a Jewish Nose.

Today I remembered why I keep that I am a Jew secret.

Today the casual antisemitism I heard has me afraid.

Marriage Equality

Last night New Zealand Parliament voted 77-44 in flavour of marriage equality. 

It is a good thing.

Marriage equality opens up a myriad of opportunities for those wishing to marry.  For me, marriage equality means ...

that world will remain very much the same.

We are not your equals

For Smith College, rejecting a transwoman from admission as a student was based on, for them a logical reason:  Calliope Wong didn't meet the criteria.  Quite rightly there have been protest about that refusal.  But I am left wondering if its a blessing in disguise.

Calliope may have found Smith College not the welcoming place, the protest claim it to be.  Because in my experience ciswomen are fine with the idea of trnaswomen being in women only spaces.  But actually interacting with transwomen is another story entirely.  I have been involved in Feminist groups at the University I attend and worked with ciswomen on social issues for the trans community.  For the most part it work out well, until something went wrong.  Then its the fault of the transwoman. As a transwoman I am conscious of the way radical feminist see transwomen and when I am in women only spaces I try not draw attention to myself.  Part of that is as a transwoman I have learnt that within the wider feminist community, transwomen need to know their place.  Our place is to do the heavy lifting, fetch and carrying, be content that we allowed in the door.  We are not equal partners in the feminist project, we are the very junior partner that in some time in the future be given our equality.

When it comes to social issues about the trans community, like most other things a cisgender expert tells us what our issues are and what our opinion is.  Often transwomen are marginalised in the organising of such things as TDOR.

Calliope may find herself in a similar situation where her trans status maybe used to marginalise her and as a weapon to blame her, when she starts to express herself.

Creepy transphobes

Why do creepy transphobes always seem to land on their feet.  I mean they pretend to be allies, but as soon as they can they push trans people under the bus and claim how cruel the world is. 

No one ever challenges them on this.  They love hanging out with the "real" transpeople, the ones the creepy transphobes deem to be real.  Yet they use the rest of us to make themselves look good.

Why is that?

Are we to afraid to challenge the creepy transphobes because they hang out with the cool transpeople.

But that is a whole another post about the hierarchies of legitimacy and all that.

Back to the creepy transphobes, they only want to know you while you are being a good quiet transperson and for as long you know your place.  And you must never forget your place.  If you think you are their friend, they will remind you of your place.

So what shall we do about the creepy transphobes?

Just one of the Guys

Today I got a book.  This book is called "Just one of the Guys" by Kristin Schilt.  While I have not finished it, what I have read of it, resonates with my own life.  Even though I am a transwoman, many of the issues the participants went through were similar to mine.  But the book raises some interesting issues around what constitutes gender and sex and how those two things are not what they are commonly held to be.





But when I read such books I am left with a question "What I am doing here?"
.

My Identity

I have been reading the interview with Yishay Garbasz.  http://www.prettyqueer.com/2013/03/03/interview-with-yishay-garbasz/

We are roughly the same age, both trans and both jewish.  Although I am from New Zealand and student and she is a Berlin-based British-Israeli artist.

But there was something she said that about identity that got me thinking.  I have been told that as someone who has had srs I am considered post transition.  As if surgery is the be all and end all of being trans.

But I do not.  I will forever be a transperson.  When they discover that I am a trans person, that is all they see.  

Being a post grad student at University

I am currently half way through a post graduate diploma in arts in sociology.  I am wondering if that is a mistake.

As a post graduate student I am entitled to go into the post graduate computer labs.  In the one and half semesters being a post grad student.  I have only been in the post gread computer labs twice.  I have a swipe card, everytime I use it access the post grad computer labs it won't work.  Apparrently it has been recorded as lost.  This is strange as it was given to me by the sociology department.

One wonders if the sociology department does not really want to be in the sociology department.

I am wondering if the stess of being a post grad student ids worth it.

The suicide of a trans teacher

Let there be no mistake the death of Lucy Meadows is a tragedy.

At first glance the media may played a roll in this tragedy is apparent.  While transphobic media comments and reports often make the lives of transpeople a living hell.  We in the trans community often make the lives of transpeople miserable. 

I have experienced that disdain from the trans community.  Such treatment is perhaps all to common.

Even allies are not above being transphobic and god forbid if you challenge allies on their behaviour.

The death of Lucy Meadows is tragedy.  But we failed Lucy, by hearing her pain and doing nothing. 

Gender Identity Disorder and University

Sometimes when I am at University I forget that transpeople are often seen as jokes.  Sometimes I am reminded of that.

I was reminded of that yesterday.

During a lecture, we where discussing Gender Identity Disorder.

While the other students laughed at the diagnosis criteria in the DSM.  I couldn't help but get the feeling that they were also laughing at transpeople.  That they somehow didn't recognise what it means to be trans and go to university.  The fact is university is a very exclusionary place, for anyone that is different.

Marriage Equality

Marriage Equality is one of those things that has become important for the LGBT community.  Yet marriage equality is not just limited to a straight/queer binary.  The ability to marry someone you love is not an issue that just effects queer people.  Sometimes a lot of other people have issues with whom they want to marry.

As some may know and others do not, I am Jewish.  Being queer, trans, and jewish person is a lot to deal with.  But before I transitioned I was once engaged to be married.  In the process of planning the wedding we searched for a suitable Rabbi or marriage celebrant that would take our desire for a Jewish wedding into account.

That was easier said than done.  Because I was and still am a progressive jew and a convert to judaism and my then partner would be termed an modern orthodox jew.  Our potential marriage created a number of issues, about who was willing to perform the ceremony, whether we would have it inside or outside a synagogue or whether, more importantly, would our marriage be recognised as legitimate by members of our community and by the wider community.

At the crux of the marriage equality debate is the fact that would same sex marriages be legitimate.  Because what I am getting at is that, even under the current system not all marriages are equal or real.  While current marriages may have a legal recognition, many people do not recognize marriages that they see as  intermarriages.

A lot of the opposition to marriage equality is often framed in christian ideology.  So what happens if  you are not christian and want to get married?  Is christian marriage the only legitimate marriage available?

Marriage equality is not just limited to queer people.  Sometimes it effects people in the strangest ways and not in the way most people think it will.  

Being a transfeminist

Recently there have been a number of articles concerning transwomen (Feminists versus transsexuals, Transsexuals should cut it out,Guardian columnist) and the right of transwomen to be women and whether it is appropriate for transwomen to consider themselves feminists.

From the outset everyone is entitled to their own opinion and should not be punished for that opinion.  Yet transwomen being a transwoman is seen as an unforgivable sin.  Because like a convert to a religion, a transwoman will always be seen as a convert to womanhood.  As such transwomen are seen as fair weather converts who disappear will when things get tough.  Yet transwomen have, to use a military/naval concept, nailed their colours to the wall.  Those colours show that we are in it for the long haul.

For some of us (transwomen), see being feminists as a chance to make the world better.  There is so much about feminism that I love, it offers an opportunity for self improvement, challenging traditions, and seeing the world as it might be, a world that acknowledges and celebrates difference.

Since my transition I have become involved with feminist and women's communities, yet as a transwoman, I am conscious of the fact that I will always be seen as an outsider looking in. Being an transwoman in feminist circles, I have read the blogs, books and articles by some feminists who see transwomen as interlopers or as agents of the patriarchy, into feminist and women spaces. 

Transwomen aren't the enemy of feminists, feminism or women and their bodies.  We are fellow participants in the ongoing struggle for equality.  We are people who want to live our lives, find love and happiness and make the world a little better. We are looking for a place to belong to and to communities that care about us and communities that we love.

Transpeople are still subject to medicalisation and discrimination.  Like ciswomen, our bodies have to meet strict definitions and controls.  I freely acknowledge that as a transwoman I can't menstruate or get pregnant.  But if I was offered the opportunity to have a period I would gladly take that opportunity.