Ani di Franco's Plantation Fandango

So I've been following the arguments that have broken out online about Ani di Franco's 'Righteous Retreat', which has drawn some criticism from people of colour due to its being held ON A PLANTATION. And what I keep thinking is - did no-one CHECK? Did no-one ASK? Did no-one think 'this may not be the best idea'? I know it can be tricky to find venues. I know there can be trade-offs. But I really don't get how, even given all that, Ani or Buddy Wakefield or any of their people could have thought this was a good choice of venue. You don't have to do much research to see why it's a bad idea. Here's the information about the venue, Nottaway Plantation, on the Righteous Retreat website. Can YOU spot the subtle clues to the location's dodgy past? Climb inside my Mystery Machine and I'll take you through it. First off, it's described as 'the South's largest antebellum mansion'. This suggests, to me, that it was built before the Civil War by a Southern Gentleman who was hella rich. Hmmm. HOW DID THOSE DUDES GET SO RICH AGAIN? It's described as having 'survived the Civil War'. It was owned by a rich Southern dude and it went through the Civil War. Remind me, WHAT WERE RICH SOUTHERN DUDES TRYING TO PRESERVE BY FIGHTING THE CIVIL WAR? And the final clue, Watson, the fact whuch convinced me that this place had a dark past in one of the most shameful periods of US history was, and stay with me here because this is where it gets a bit CSI, the place IS CALLED NOTTAWAY FUCKING PLANTATION. The CLUE is in the NAME. Genuinely, no-one thought this might not be the best idea? I mean, the clues are there if they looked. And even if they were trying to find venues, did none of their research involve having somebody visit the place? Because if this report is anything to go by, as dodgy as the place sounds on paper it is a heckuva lot more horrible up-close, racist gift shop,'whistling corridor' and all.

Fallon

Here's trans MMA fighter Fallon Fox responding, with class, to something I've dreaded reading about for a long time : her first professional fight loss. I was dreading that loss because I was worried that bigots in the media would make whoever beat her into some kind of hero. This seems not to have happened yet, possibly because, to judge from her petty post-match comments, the woman in question, Ashlee Evans-Smith, has slightly less class than the fart I'm holding in as I type this. It's difficult to build someone as a hero if they win a fight and STILL whine like a little bitch afterwards, after all. So, this was much in my mind this week. And so, as is usually the case when something preoccupies me, I wrote a poem about it. And here it is. (Note: Cesare Lombroso, who I reference in this poem, created the pseudo-science of physiognomy which, essentially, claimed you could predict whether someone was a criminal or not based on their facial features. It's my contention that the idea that there are huge differences between genders physically, which give trans athletes an innate advantage and also mean that we're easy to spot, are of the same kind of order of BS as Lombroso's nonsense. And, as studies show there seems to be much more physical variation within genders than between them, I contend that in the future most of us will look on this denser-bones-bigger-hands-manly-chi nonsense in the same way)

Why it matters

Some good news today... ...and some news that's less good. Don't ever tell me these two things are not connected. Every ad like this, every transphobic joke on TV, every nudge-nudge comment, every 'look how politically incorrect I am' column from professional opinion-havers in the press, every scaremongering Public Service Announcement designed to inculcate fear of children who happen to be trans - all these things make it easier for people to dehumanise us. To act as if our lives don't matter. To behave as if our lives count less than theirs. To kill us and get away with it. Many of the deaths occurred in countries like Brazil or Honduras: here in Britain we tend not to have open murders of trans people, but we have a press that hounds people like us into taking our own lives. And it shouldn't matter where the murders happen:everything we do to fight transphobia, to counter the structural violence of a cissexist society, makes it harder for people to kill us anywhere. So today, remember the 238 names of those murdered this year. Remember those who took their own lives because of persecution. Remember, and mourn, and then keep fighting.

We, not Elektra

Not for a father, no,

nor the time-transplanted eyes

which watch on Windows Media,

nor for marks or carny rubes

or peep-show anchorites:

this is and is not show,

is/is-not earnest, mat is mirror,

diptych-ground where furies fight

off resolution. Whose arm? Thigh?

Whose cry of trapped frustration?

Whose flesh by fingers reddened?

Who is losing?

Who’s Heel? Who’s Babyface?

Who’s Self? Who’s Other?

Who’s hammering, who taps?

Shall I be Mother?

These are only the murders in 2013

The statistics for this year's Trans Day Of Remembrance are in. As usual, they make grim reading. While the overall figure may be down, this is due to a large ( and welcome ) fall in the number of murders in Brazil. In other countries, sadly, the numbers have gone UP. Most distressingly, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of trans minors being murdered. It's no coincidence that this occurs as we see increasing targeting of trans kids by TERFs and the religious right. Those who stir up hatred against trans people should remember that their words have a bodycount, and an increasing number of those bodies are the bodies of children.

Autogynephilia and cis women

I've written here before about the many problems I, as, among other things, a psychology graduate, have with the deeply unscientific concept of autogynephilia, a 'paraphilia' concocted by some soi-disant psychologists to demonise trans people for, essentially, daring to be queer and/or sexual. I've always wondered if there might be a way to show the scientific dodginess of this concept, and so I'm rather pleased to see that someone has: and a very simple way to do it it is too. How do you question the validity of autogynephilia as a diagnosis? You test cis women to see if the test indicates that they show signs of autogynephilia. Turns out, they do.

Tory MP admits he and his colleagues are 'totally corrupt'. Well, I did warn you about these people.