Scribbles and Bits

Mori: Okay, so, when we came of age, queerwise, there was this idea that trans people and gay people were two very different groups of people. Sure, maybe in those ignorant old days, the two were conflated, but that was wrong and now we are enlightened and know these are two totally different things (and also maybe we should not trust each other or affiliate with each other because trannies will make the gays look bad and cisgays are all privileged dipshits or whatever). This blog shows that history; "queerness" and "trans" are totally different tags because when we started using them, they were TREATED as completely different things.

But as we've been reading our older queer books, we're realizing that this plain isn't true! Gay people were gendering ALL OVER THE PLACE, and homogenizing them into "cis gay" ranges from misleading to outright insulting.

We are still fucking sick, so we're sticking with posting notes from the stuff we've read. Even we can't mess that up too bad!

“Our categories are important. We cannot organize a social life, a political movement, or our individual identities and desires without them. The fact that categories invariably leak and can never contain all the relevant ‘existing things’ does not render them useless, only limited. Categories like ‘woman,’ ‘butch,’ ‘lesbian,’ or ‘transsexual’ are all imperfect, historical, temporary, and arbitrary. We use them and they use us. We use them to construct meaningful lives, and they mold us into historically specific forms of personhood. Instead of fighting for immaculate classifications and impenetrable boundaries, let us strive to maintain a community that understands diversity as a gift, sees anomalies as precious, and treats all basic principles with a hefty dose of skepticism.” —Gayle Rubin, “Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries,” The Persistent Desire: a Femme-Butch Reader, Boston: Alyson Publications, 1992, pg. 477-478

Rubin was talking about lesbian political fights about trans people and the overlap and boundaries between butch and transsexuality (and there’s LOTS of expressions of what we’d nowadays call trans and gender dysphoria in A Persistent Desire), but I think the same ideas apply to multi/plural/many-selved stuff too. Goodness knows I spent enough time chewing on my arm because I couldn’t figure out how to express a concept without it turning into a hopeless argument over the terms in use. This whole essay has a lot of great quotes (“sexual preference, gender roles, and political stance cannot be equated, and do not directly determine or reflect one another”) and is worth reading.

Also it’s just really nice to see an essay over thirty years old saying “cool your jets about trans people, it’s fine. Your politics will survive.”

Mori wants this book like burning. Too bad used paperbacks start at $100.

Hello, friends! Has the current political climate got you down? Then come celebrate Pride with LB with a FREE showing of the Japanese musical theater show, Baddy: The Bad Lot Come From The Moon!

When: 6 PM Saturday, July 5th
Where: NESFA clubhouse, 504 Medford Street, Somerville, MA 02145

Plot summary (from TakaWiki): The story is set in the capital of Earth, Takarazuka-City. The peaceful planet Earth — a united world where war, crime, and all evils have been overcome — receives a visit from Baddy, a vagabond rogue from the moon. Baddy is a super-cool, elegant, and a heavy smoker. But he soon finds that smoking is outlawed across the face of the Earth. Baddy, accepting no limits, leads his gang and engages in all sorts of wrongdoing to make the dull world more interesting. His final goal is to steal the planetary budget guarded in Takarazuka Big Theater Bank. But all-mighty female investigator Goody is gaining on him!

The Takarazuka Revue is an all-female cast, performing male and female roles both, and Baddy is a confection of silliness, lobster costumes, public queerness, and passport forgery. Be here, be queer!

(This event is open to the public. But ain't nothing saying we can't have a multi contingent here to enjoy it...)

Mori: Blessings on whoever scanned a 1947 copy of the lesbian magazine Vice Versa #7 online; it meant I was able to read this fun little short story about a woman who oh noes, is torn between Pat, the butchest of butches, and Flora the femmest of femmes! Whatever is a poor Kiki to do?

Thought other folks might enjoy this. So here ya go! (Sorry, don't think it's screenreadable; I can textually transcribe it if folks want? EDIT from Sneak: pantha did it! Thanks! :D)

(I of course only found out about this thing courtesy of a bibliography of queer speculative fiction at the sci-fi library. WE'RE BACK, BABY!)

I WARD MY CITY: a madgic perzine



( I scribbled this on the back of a failed print-out on the subway. Image ref credits in comments. )

Ho ho ho and a messy queermas to all y’all! In honor of upcoming Fuck It’s Dark day, we are liberating some queer books! Claim ‘em and they’re yours, just pay for shipping and we’re square.

Up for grabs:

Two Spirits Dancing: A Spiritual Journeybook for Gay Men, by Andrew Ramer. Mythologizing, poetry, and sketches. It’s good, just not what we’re into right now. (Might post one of the poems though, some of ‘em are bangers.)

Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, July 2023. there’s one 30 page article called “Trans Climates of the European Middle Ages, 500-1300” by Charmaille, about 800 years of scholarly arguments about Tiresias and the gender flux of the seasons. I feel like only .01% of the population would care about this and one of them probably reads my blog.

In The Warm Room, by C.R. A trans first-time porno floppy comic between a trans man named Wallace and his loving partner, Jenny. Very sweet and romantic and far as I know, completely unobtainable online. (I know the creator. This is how I get a lot of my porno. Perk of the profession.)

Folks asked for it, so I got the following list from marzicastella about things to do in prepapration for the new administration. We have added a few things, but it was marzicastella who did the real work! Thank marzicastella!

( Preparation! )

Rogan: In Skin, Dorothy Allison has a number of essays about her belief in the power of fiction, story, and writing. She taught writing, and in "Believing in Literature," some of this really got us thinking! For instance, she talks about how, in her classes, she would encourage her students to pick out stories they considered unequivocally "good" or "bad," and towards the end of the class to bring in the BEST and the WORST story they'd ever read:
( But what is good? What is bad or harmful? Who decides? )

Had an excellent first day of sales and will be there again Sunday! Come check us out!

We also blew shameless money there, because there was so much irresistably cool stuff. The haul:

( booooooks )

Man, I have missed doing anarchist events. Watered my heartflowers good!

During the pandemic, we discovered the Chuangqi Trilogy by Lydia Kwa: Oracle Bone, the Walking Boy (which we read first), and (just now we discovered) the third book is in preorder, A Dream Wants Waking. (We have just now ordered it. QUEER ROBOT GHOST FUTURE YESPLZ.)

Oracle Bone and the Walking Boy both take place in Tang Dynasty, China--specifically, the capital city of Chang'an. Kwa (who's both a poet and a psychologist by trade) has a gift for delineating the complexity of human relationships, both good and bad, in this beautiful quiet way. She makes this ancient time in a faraway land feel so real and alive; we totally recommend these books if you're interested in queer, character-relationship-focused magical realism of the Chinese variety.

This post is NOT about any of that though. Instead, it's about the OTHER book we found THANKS to her books.

( Learning about a transgender group in India who marry and are possessed by a goddess. )

EDIT: more quotes:

( Read more... )