The Tiny Voice of Reason

When Did I Realise I Was......What?

I get this question so often I thought it would be wiser to write down my answer instead of decking the next person to blithely voice it again.  I will endeavour to keep the sarcasm to a bare minimum since I usually reply with the question "When did you realise you were an arsehole?  How about brainless imbecile?"  Here in the realm of written English language I do believe I can straighten my shirt, dust off my sleeves and hold onto my temper.

I was told I was black when another child in primary school pointed it out as why I could not henna my hands.  I was told I was female when a boy tried to prevent me from playing soccer and pointed it out.  I was told I was a darker shade of brown and did not have the "nice" skin and/or hair when another family member received better clothing, toys and respect from other members of the family.  I was told I was a bastard by other children who pointed out my parent's marital situation.

I was told I was an immigrant with lesser rights when an African American at college requested I repay my EOP grant and speak to him when I got citizenship.  I was told I was a whore and slapped on the Number 4 train in NYC after picking up my baby from day care since I had no husband present.  I was told I was frigid and should see about a cure when I told a partner I preferred intimacy to sex.

I was told many things only after someone else used one part of me to categorise me and pointed out those parts.  I have been told many things by many people.  That I am unworthy, unloved, unwanted, abominable, a bastard, frigid, a whore, trash and many other things.  Will you ask me now when I realised I was all of these things simply because these words are what others use to describe me?  To realise in this definition of the word, is to accept the definition provided by another.  I realise nothing.  I know who I am.  There is nothing to realise.

You may see many separate things and others may see many more separate things as though I have been overly pixelated to distorted proportions.  To you I am a piece of something; to me,I am whole.  There was no realisation.  I did no realising.  I live and I am.  There was no "Eureka!" moment.  No "Hey, they are right and I am wrong" moment.  It implies a lack of self-awareness, knowledge and acceptance.  I already know there is no other me.  Even if I had a twin, there would be no other me.  Of course I am different.  Of course I am not like you.  I have no wish to be you, as I love being me.

Why not ask me; "When did you first fall in love?", or "When was your first crush?" or "When did you find your best friend?"  That would be more accurate in this concept of realisation you speak about.  I realised I had a crush on a boy at primary school when I was in 2nd form and he actually listened to what I had to say.  Or better yet, ask me when did I know who I was.  I was asked the silly questions "Who are you?" and "What's your name?" at the age of 2 and every few years before I attended school as if I would suddenly forget.  My name is Jo.  It is the only label I accept since I customised it to fit and I had to keep repeating it until others realised that is the only thing that's important.

I hope you know you can be a total #($#&!

Observations on Prejudice, Bigotry, Hatred, Violence & Equality

I'm familiar with prejudice.  Prejudice is a result of lack of information and/or experience.  People with prejudices usually do not realise they are prejudiced since it is all that they and the community around them know or have experienced the world around them. 

Like a housed person, someone who is not nor has ever been homeless, living under the assumption that all homeless people dropped out of high school, started drinking, using drugs and living on the streets.  That's prejudice.  More life experience, whether it is volunteering at a shelter and talking directly to the homeless or by becoming homeless at some point in life, is the only way to dispel prejudice against the homeless. 

Bigotry on the other hand is more of a sort of classism.  Being on a higher level or upper echelon of society than others who are not like oneself.  Whether by race, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation, income, geographics and many other diversionary tactics.  Every prejudiced individual is not a bigot, yet every bigot is prejudiced.  One must believe oneself to be above the other religion, race or other labels and base this on the very few facts and/or experience one has in regards of the other religion, race or other labels. 

For example, a sexual bigot believes they are on a higher level than those who are not of their sexual orientation and bases this on the few facts and/or experiences they have with other sexual orientations and/or sexual minorities.  A straight individual believing they are better than gay, bi or asexuals due to assumptions of promiscuity of gays and bisexuals or sexual dysfunction of asexuals.  A gay individual believing they are better than straights, bisexuals or asexuals due to belief of rampant reproduction of straights and bisexuals or sexual dysfunction of asexuals. 

One can be a gender bigot where one gender is placed above another or where both genders are raised above those who are physically transitioning and affirming their gender.  There are gender bigots, racial bigots, religious bigots, nationality bigots, reproductive bigots, as the lists go on and on.  The use of a stereotype or one bare individualistic fact to raise oneself above others.

Hatred, in some cases, is the seeming change of certain personally held facts about another and the sudden realisation of similarities between individuals causing intense fear.  For example, two uber macho individuals who have the similar likes and dislikes yet different sexual orientations.  One holding personally held facts about gay individuals only to realise there are very few differences.  If there are so few differences, then how do you prove you are different?  How do you set yourself apart?  Some choose distance, some believe everyone is different, some become victims of random violence, others situational violence, while others choose intimate terrorism.

Situational violence is a mutual occurrence.  Cause and effect.  One person says something, another responds, and it escalates to where both become violent.  Random violence though, is just that, random.  One vulnerable stranger randomly selected for violence to prove something to oneself or society.  Intimate terrorism on the other hand is about control.  Control over every aspect of a person's life.  Reparation therapy is a form of intimate terrorism of a child from a parent, an individual from a family, or an individual from a community and/or church.

Intimate terrorism is about isolation and control.  There is no one to talk to.  No one to trust.  No one to share with.  No one to entrust all of yourself with.  No feeling of emotional safety.  No love.  No hope.  Only isolation, pain, distrust and fear.   No psychological escape until you begin to sink into the very depths of utter desolation and despair.  Where it feels as though you have even deserted yourself.  Even thoughts are bullying, derogatory and spiteful.  Where death feels as if it would be better than the non-life one is already living.  Yet, the cage is based on a prejudice.  Self-prejudice.  The constant distraction of benevolent jailers is meant to keep one from finding the cracks in the foundation and digging out from under the despair, fear and self-loathing.

One day, you begin to use the facts you have been given about yourself as questions.  When we begin to answer them in our own words instead of those we have been given do the locks on our prison finally begin to open.  A friend once asked me about prejudice, bigotry and slavery.  I responded with a story regarding my family.  My family won freedom from slavery generations ago, yet we still were the caretakers for generations of our former masters after slavery ended. 

When, as children, we were found in straight-forward equal conversation with one of our former master's generations our elders chastised us and reminded us of our place.  That we should not approach this person with disrespect.  Let me explain something.  In order to be anything, slave, social minority or equal, one must believe that is what you are.  It is all psychological.  As a child, I saw myself as an equal thus I conducted myself as an equal and no matter who told me I was not, that was their belief not mine. 

Physical chains are made of materials that disintegrate with time.  They erode in the wind, rain, sleet and snow with the seasons.  Mental chains can only be placed and removed by the individual who wears them.  As Pinocchio said "There ain't no strings on me."

A Survivour's Point of View: It's Not About Sex; It's About Trust & Intimacy!

If it's one thing I cannot stand, it is total unabused strangers trying to psychoanalyse me.  Trying to explain to me how I feel and what I know about myself.  That due to the past abuse I am now sexually stunted and must be spoken to about sex in small words and slower speech.  As if I have lost all my intelligence.  Well I have news for you, you condescending son of a bitch.

It's not about sex.  It was never about the sex.  It will never be about the sex.  It's about trust and intimacy.  My trust was betrayed by someone I let close.  Someone I had an emotionally intimate relationship with.  The closest you can get to a person without having sex or thinking about sex.  A friendship.  A best friend.  A best friend who then betrayed my trust.

My thoughts were not about.  "Will I ever have sex again?"  they are  "I don't want anyone to get that close to me ever again."  Lots of people have sex with just a cursory amount of intimacy.  They don't need much just a "Yes. Your place or mine." and never see each other again.  So sex is easy; intimacy on the other hand is hard.  You have to trust in order to be intimate and I trusted no one.

I did not trust my family.  I did not trust former friends.  I did not trust the strangers on the street.  No one could be trusted.  No one could get that close again to hurt, humiliate and torture me.  No one.  It was never happening again.  I have kept distances between myself and others.  Making many acquaintances, fewer friends and no intimate friends.  I began to equate trusting with giving up control. 

I had experienced being under someone's control for most of my early life and I wanted complete freedom.  Friendship on my terms.  I was so utterly lonely.  I ached to have that kind of friendship again.  Someone to share with, talk to, hang out with, laugh with and be free with.  Safe.  I would come close and then could not do it.  I was too afraid to do it. 

I created relationships where I exchanged sex for the intimacy I craved.  My two ex-boyfriends before my abusive ex-partner.   It wasn't true intimacy because we never shared personal information, just how the day went, or a movie we'd seen.  One of them, ironically, was a psychiatrist who cryptically said I have no psychosis I simply need to be married.  Which I got quite upset about because marriage is the ultimate intimacy and I am never ever going there.

That was a big step for me.  Attempting to date.  It took a long time for me to trust enough to accept I would not be hurt through physical intimacy.  I missed hugs.  I did not despise being touched.  I craved it.  I missed it.  I needed it.  I could not trust enough to accept it.  The only thing that changed for me was my trust of people.  I was so conditioned to expect a certain response from my expectation of being loved, such as ridicule, taunts, and physical abuse that even though I knew.  I knew, this new person was not my abuser, my reaction was automatic.

If they reached out to hug me I would back away to protect my vulnerability.  I would run all the possible taunts they could say to me in my head even though all they did was stand there with that hurt expression.  I wanted to reach out.  I could not.  I would not.  I would run what I wanted to say, the apologies in my head and my speech would be paralysed.  They would see the pained look on my face and misinterpret it. 

I would be yelling in my head "Say something.  Say something.  Say something you idiot!" and all I could do was moan incoherently as if unable to speak.  Total loss of my vocal chords.  I am not afraid of intimacy.  I am afraid that it is not real.  That it's just another diversion in a nightmare I tote around with me everywhere I go.  It took a lot of time alone thinking, disassembling my life and looking at the individual parts so I could understand what I had evolved into.

How limited the thinking of everyone is to think that survivours have a mere distaste for sex where a little sex therapy and some sexual positions should cure it all up.  If only it were that simple.  Physical instead of psychological.  There's not much physical distaste in believing that touching someone leaves you vulnerable and with them having some kind of control over you.  Emotional vulnerability.

What does sex have to do with that?  Sex is sex until intimacy is involved and then it's is open ended where you share the experience.  There would be none of the fantastic sex everyone keeps talking about without full intimacy.  Sexual trauma does not change who you fundamentally are.  Trauma of any kind only changes your trust.  Trust of horses, cars, planes, snakes, dogs, motorcycles etc. 

It never changes anyone's sexual orientation just our trust in people.  Our ability to form platonic and physically intimate emotional relationships.  That's all that happens.  Sex has little to do with it unless there was physical trauma, scarring and/or lingering physical debilitation.  That is the only time where, after most of the emotional healing has occurred, you still have the physical trauma and it's emotional impact to deal with.  Pain or fear of physical rejection. 

I never had any physical trauma to deal with so it was not hard to be sex positive.  It was hard to be people positive.  To trust people again.

A Survivour's Viewpoint: Similarities of Pedophilia to Intimate Terrorism (Domestic Abuse)

Many in society associate pedophilia with sex when sex is simply a small percentage and only another aspect of the total emotional, psychological and physical control the pedophile has over the victim.  A true pedophile in every aspect of the word goes after children who have yet to enter puberty, not really for "sexual purity" reasons but mainly for innocence and the explicit trust children give to all adults.  Mainly familial adults.

When I met my abuser, I was all of nine years old.  He was older and trusted to look after the younger children while our parents went out and did whatever.  I was so accustomed to being either invisible or wanting to be invisible in certain circumstances, that it was a shock to have all this person's attention suddenly on me.  I suddenly had a champion and protector.  Someone who actually stood up for me and had the family ask questions instead of instantly condemning me for whatever they believed I did this time.  No one had ever done that for me before.  Seen me before.  It felt good to have a friend.

Only another person who's gone through life silent without a soul to talk to can understand what it was like to finally feel friendship.  I talked about everything and all they would do is sit there and listen.  I never realised I was handing over everything they needed to manipulate me.  Every insecurity, vulnerability and doubt I had they now knew.  There is nothing wrong with sharing your hopes, dreams and doubts with a friend.  There is something wrong with a person asking with every intent of using them against you.

It becomes almost a big case of hero worship.  I left to return two years later and I remembered the friend I believed I had.  I followed him around, copied his wrestling moves, batter's stance and really looked up to this person.  If he asked me to run barefoot in snow for an hour I probably might have done it.  He also took me everywhere.  Laundry, babysitting, and visits with his side of the family.  I was included in everything.  He had my complete and undivided attention.

It was when one of the kids in my grade asked me out on a chaperoned date, his mum would drive us to the theater and sit with us, that things changed.  I had never been on a date before, there would be another adult present and I did not see any reason not to.  Suddenly my friend was arguing with my uncle all the reasons why I should not go.  The boy could be a rapist, even though we both were only 11.  It was just a movie.  A chaperoned movie at that.  We kids could not get into the theater without an adult.  Under all the pressure from my friend, my uncle said no.

I stopped speaking to my friend and refused to continue the routine of going with him anywhere.  Suddenly he began taking the middle school bus with me instead of the one for the high school.  Another boy asked me out and suddenly started avoiding me the next day.  I heard rumours that the boy was warned off by my friend.  Now no one in middle school wanted to get too close to me since the word came down that the high school's star jock made certain to let everyone know that anyone with an interest was going to get seriously hurt. I was invisible all over again and the only person I now seemed to have, was him.

I was being protected he said.  I could not trust those boys because they were after only one thing.  I was still not speaking to him and avoiding him.   My uncle drove a truck and his mother worked as an overnight clerk at a gas station.  My older cousin was about to get married and head into the US Army and my younger cousin was only 7.  I did not think anything was off the night the older folks left as usual and he suddenly set up a sleep over for my younger cousin, his little brother.

It was the way I caught him looking at me when I was washing the dishes that made me wary.  I accepted the offer to play Super Mario Bros and learn a keypad combo that let you skip a few levels.  When he casually offered to teach me how to kiss, so I would know how to do it right, set off alarms.  When he would not let me go I hit him and ran.  It was like a scene out of a horror movie, I remember thinking as I conveniently tripped on the steps when he grabbed my foot and yanked.  I wondered, a bit hysterically, if I should expect zombies to pop up as I kicked him in the face and half crawled up the last of the steps to run for my room.

I decided that I had watched one too many horror movies when he rammed his shoulder into my bedroom door and thought I had won after he walked away.  I found myself frantically looking for an alternate route out of the house when I heard him return with my uncles house keys.  As I struggled with the window I remember thinking how appropriate the thing was being so obstinate.   I was halfway out the window by the time he realised he wasn't going to catch me in time and headed outside. 

I popped back inside when I realised I was still on the high side of the split level.  I wouldn't recover my breath in time to outdistance him.  I was right because he appeared outside under the window a minute later only to make a run back for the house.  I was struggling to pull my heavy bed frame to barricade the door when he hit it with a tackle sending me flying. 

I'm barely four foot eleven at this point and he's close to six foot and over 200lbs.  By the time the night was over so was the friendship.  What control he had by being friendly he regained by dropping the pretense and mask of friend in favour of simply telling me how it was going to be. Sex was used to drive home how much control he now had over me.  It was not for sexual pleasure as he more reveled in the fact that he could make me do anything he wanted now.

Everything that happened when I was 11 repeated itself when I turned 21.  I met a guy I believed to be my best friend.  I trusted him and he betrayed that trust.  My ex-partner used what I had told him about my life to gain control over me.   Friendship, use of my insecurities, reproductive control, isolation and sex as a control tool.  When it happens to a child we call these people pedophiles and sexual predators.  When it happens to an adult, we call them batterers.

There are two types of domestic violence.  Situational violence where an argument arises and during high emotion one partner strikes the other and the other strikes back.  That is situational violence where both are equally involved and responsible.  With intimate terrorism, one partner sets out with the intent to have total control over the other partner. 

When I met my ex-partner, my bank account was my own, my credit was my own, I had no debt, I had one child with no intention of having another so I was on birth control, I still had separate friends and my family spoke to me.  After a year, he had control of my accounts, my credit cards, my birth control was tampered with, caller intercept that he controlled was installed on the phone where friends and family had to be approved to call me and I had no contact with anyone who was not his friend or family.

My ex-partner became my constant companion.  Shopping, banking, and even the bathroom.  I locked the door to the bathroom once and he broke it down.  When we went shopping he called over a sales person, told them my size and what he wanted.  If a stranger talked to me he would pick a fight and then blame me for the beating inflicted on the other person.  Trying to get away would only get that person hurt and I did not want that on my conscience he said.

Sex was a tool used only to maintain control.  It was a bargaining tool.  He knew what I wanted and he would bargain with sex and that offer as incentive.  It was to humiliate me, you understand?  If someone physically forces you to do something you can take yourself to another place and you don't feel that responsibility and shame.  When it is seemingly made your decision, or so you assume, to take those humiliating steps and offer yourself the self-disgust and shame is what burns at you.

This is what my first abuser did.  Not once did he take any clothing off of me after that first time.  I was made to do it.  Shamed and humiliated into doing it myself.  Offering myself to someone I despised.  Psychologically manipulated into believing that since I removed my clothing and I offered myself that they had no culpability.  I was the one in the wrong. The bad one, the manipulator, and the one asking for it.  Which I was forced to do.  Ask for it.

My now ex-partner reveled in the same mind games.  These are the same psychological games and mental warfare a pedophile uses on minors.  Humiliation, guilt, shame, and anger all internalised and directed at yourself for not thinking of a way to escape.  Emotional and psychological manipulation.  It's all an entertaining game to them. A high.  While you literally begin to hate yourself.

I thought this could never happen to me again, yet, here there I was with another abuser.  He would only get excessively irrational and controlling whenever he felt his control was slipping.  Like when I went shopping without him.  He would call and let me know he had someone tailing me.  Tell me the stores I had visited just to maintain control over my actions. 

After I decided to leave I was asked to do him a favour and drive over to an address to pick up a friend of his since someone could not make it.  While on the highway, the car suddenly started smoking, over heated and I almost got hit by a semi-truck.  I had personally taken the car to the garage not two days before and it was fine.  When I finally got to a safe spot to park and pop the hood one of the hoses had been cut. 

Then my tires were slashed and one day I changed my mind about driving, gave my car to my step-father and the serpentine belt falls off the engine on the highway.  Suddenly my then partner was telling me that my own mum was trying to kill me and something bad would happen to me if I left.  He was sure of it.  I could just live on the second floor of the house.  He wouldn't bother me.  No need to leave and go anywhere.  We could still live together and not be a couple.  It was for my safety that I stay with him.

It was all eerily similar to my first abuser when I was eleven and then twelve to thirteen.  Complete control and the maintenance of that control was what they had in common.  It's why I get upset when I hear people who have never been abused focus on sex.  Who want to know in explicit detail "what did they do to you exactly?" as if you'll start detailing sexual acts with gusto. 

Those who describe survivours as "that one who was sexually abused" or 'that kid who got fu*ked" like sex was all there was to it, all their abuser wanted and they somehow enticed the abuser.  People have to be sexually appealing for someone to show an interest, correct?  Well, let me clarify for those who don't understand.  They don't want sex.  They want you.  They want to consume you, control you and own you.  That is the center of their world.  Their peace.  To have some control over something, anything in their life.

If you want to understand some of what it was like, talk to someone who has survived being kidnapped and tortured or survived intimate terrorism.  Then you'll have a small inkling as to why we call ourselves survivours and not victims.  We didn't just simply lie back and take it.  That's not what they enjoy.  To sink a hook into your most vulnerable places and watch you writhe in agony at the end of it while torturing you psychologically and physically brings the most pleasure.  They do not get what they want if you are willing.  Sex is not where it begins; sex is where it ends.

Sex is the last ditch effort at control.  They've already had several years of your utter adoration and willingness to do anything for a smile, praise and/or affection.  Eventually, you reach an age, a level of mental maturity and financial independence where even sex cannot be used to overpower you. 

It was finally talking about it and listening in amazement to the questions I was being asked that I realised most people don't have a clue. They think the abuser is an outwardly visible raving lunatic, who physically attacks you. They think of it as more of an outward physical ordeal where you've got a boo boo that healed and you should just forget about it. Or as one person said to me "You don't have no scars so why you keep talking 'bout it?"

They only see it as physical. Then when you start describing what happens they have the same faulty logic as your abuser and believe you did "entice" this person by forcible "consent". The first thing I correct is the status of "victim". I am not a victim; I am a survivour. A victim would have killed themselves by now. I see it as surviving various forms of torture meant to mentally break you and destroy you so they can "consume" some part of you, until you cease to exist mentally and/or physically, then move on.

There are lots of times I felt close to breaking and I don't know if what I went through previously with my family gave me the strength to keep mentally saying "Fu*k you. Fu*k you. I will never give myself to you. You can have my body but you will never get my mind." Even though they did capture parts of my mind they never got to the core of me. If that makes any sense. So, yes, I decided it was time to talk.

It's almost as if they are the weak people and they think that by sucking away at your inner strength they can claim it for their own. That you're like some kind of coconut to be cracked open and your inner strength scooped out like so much pulp while your broken mindless body gets discarded.  Emotional vampires I call them.

Coming Out: There Are Other Types Of Closets

When I first met my ex-partner I thought he was a very nice guy.  I did not realised how far in the closet he was until after a month of dating he made excuse after excuse as to why I could not meet his family.  I would hear from his co-workers that his parents heard that he was dating someone but did not know who and wanted to meet the girl.

So I confronted my ex-partner with this information and he broke down.  I could never, ever meet his parents he said.  They would disown him if we were to meet.  They would never accept our relationship.  I remember thinking that this was the nineties.  Who the heck gets disowned anymore?  His parents eventually took matters into their own hands and used their keys one day to enter the house.

It does not leave a very good impression on the man who might possibly be your future pseudo father-in-law, since I was sure I was never getting married, to be wielding a Louisville Slugger and yelling "Who the fuck are you!?" when you first meet.  I smile instead of cringe at that memory because it amuses me even now.  He identified himself and carefully watched me lower the bat before calmly stating "You're black."  To which I replied quite confused "Yes...and?"  He simply shook his head and left.

I never hid from anyone that I dated outside of my race.  I am very open about it.  The opinion of my neighbours hardly mattered to me since they were complete strangers.  I have had my apartment in Brooklyn shot at for it.  I've been threatened with rape because of my daughter, who's father is actually black even though she looks Hispanic.  I've been called names, had bottles thrown at me and my apartment broken into.  Yet, I am who I am and I date whomever I please.   I live by no other dictate but my own and everyone else can get over it.

When my partner came home later that day, I said while toting laundry "I met your parents today."  He actually screamed like a six year old, dropped his pile of laundry on the floor and ran praying up the stairs.  After hiding me from them for a month his worse fears had come true.  They had found out.  Did I mention my partner was 30 to my 20 years?  He was so sure he would be disowned and from the yelling, pleading and begging I heard from his end of the conversation, it was almost a sure thing until his father put his foot down.  Yes, my partners mother wanted to disown her own son.

It's not a good thing to stand there and listen to your partner beg, plead and vow to leave you.  I started packing my bags.  If he wanted to please his parents that much then maybe he should stay single and closeted.  I was not the first person of colour he had dated and I knew I would not be the last.  I got partway to the door when his tearful conversation ended and he noticed me and my bags.  I was shocked that he actually had the nerve to ask me "Where are you going?"  I replied "Somewhere between "It was just a thing" and "It doesn't mean anything." I decided I'd rather be in my empty apartment than here with you."

What shocked me more was his next reply where he told me "But I told them you're pregnant"  Now that was news to me.  When did this happen and how was it medically possible?  I was on birth control as well as using condoms.  Well, I was pregnant I found out a few weeks later.  Life got pretty strange after that.  His sister had a christening party and he was all excited to go until she said he was welcome to come by as long as I stayed home.  That was the same for birthdays and other holidays. I thought this only happened in LGBT movies.

His mother tolerated our relationship you see.  It was his choice to stay with me so he could see his family on her terms.  I was to stay away so our relationship did not corrupt the children into thinking it was okay.  It got a little better when our son was born.  His mother quickly brought a priest over to bless the house and our son. 

I later found out what was really going on.  Our son was the first son of the first son so our son inherited his grandfather's name and the family fortunes.  My presence as his mother was tolerated until I decided I'd had enough.  I never found out how I got pregnant until the day, the mother who so quickly wanted to disowned him, dutifully paid $50k to try to end my parental rights.  My ex-partner purposefully got me pregnant in hopes of having a son so he could inherit.  His very words.

I endured negro comments, racist questions and astonishment over our son's skin colour where his sister asked "What happened? I thought black genes were dominant.  Why is the baby white?"   His immediate family were so concerned with his "dirty little secret" coming out that they didn't even invite me to my own son's christening party.  My partner kept saying to go with it, his family will eventually come around. It didn't matter most of the time since we never saw them.

The day I met the extended family was when my ex-partner's aunt showed up at their place of business unannounced.  She took one look at me, turned to her younger sister and said "The way you were carrying on you would think she was the shade of the black crayon."  Then she turned, grabbed my arm and held it up for her sister to see "She's brown."  Suddenly I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner but I was never, ever, comfortable around them.  They seemed to instantly forget what was said and done.  I never could. 

I eventually realised, after living with my ex-partner for a three more years where I mysteriously got pregnant every time I decided to leave.  Just like there is such a thing as dating a same-sex partner and being a homophobe, some can date an partner of another race and still be racist.  As far as their family is concerned, our children are not black.  To them, I do not exist.

Sometimes A Lawyer Is More Effective than Cops

We say to lots of people who suffer routine abuse at the hands of another to "Call 911."  This only works if a crime is in progress.  Sometimes after the cops have shown up, and it is your word against your abuser, the cops will tell you "There is nothing we can do.  Call a lawyer.  This is Civil not Criminal."   I know this first hand as a survivour of domestic violence.

So what is the difference?  A criminal matter is when the government files a lawsuit against a private citizen and/or corporation.  In a civil matter an individual files.  The government, will only file charges if they can prove a crime has been committed.  Visible wounds to the victim, the victim's statement, witnesses to the assault.  There will then be a trial where the government prosecutes the defense and the defense is either made to pay a fine directly to the government or be incarcerated by the government.

If it is a verbal dispute between two people, hearsay, they will take a statement from both parties as substantive evidence in any future pending litigation.  The party wishing to file civil charges will retain a lawyer and present evidence in support of their civil case.  The case will be heard by a judge who will decide if damages should be ordered.  This is a simplified explanation of the differences between criminal and civil law, yet, it should bring understanding as to why in many cases the police can do nothing to help you.

In civil cases there are steps you should take in order to build a strong case against the defendant.

1.  Keep a Journal:  Write down the date, time, name of the assailants, clothing they were wearing, where it took place, names of any witnesses, what was said and what physically took place.

2.  Take pictures:  If you sustained any injury at the time of the incident.  Wait until you are safe and take pictures of your injuries.  Make copies and keep the originals in a safe place.

3.  Make a complaint:  If you are a grade school student, talk to your Guidance Counselour, Principal or Asst. Principal.  Bring copies, never the originals, of your evidence.  Like any other person of authority they like to know all "i"s are dotted and "t"'s are crossed.  Make sure you take notes during your meeting of whom you spoke to and the correct spelling of their names along with the date of your meeting, the time it began and the time it ended.

4.  Follow Up:  After you have filed your complaint with the school authorities, follow up with a written letter thanking them by name for their time, mention the meeting, what you spoke about, the evidence you presented, any promises that they made to you and the time frame they gave you for these promises.  Mail it certified mail and keep the Certified Mail tracking stub originals with your other originals.

5.  Go to a higher authority:  If nothing happens within the time frame, send another follow up letter AND a letter to their supervisors.  Mention in the 2nd follow up letter that their supervisors, Mr/Ms X, has been notified of the situation.   Mention in the letter to their supervisors your previous meeting with x, y and z.  Give a brief out line of the incidences, the meeting, what was said, and what was promised.  Send this letter Certified Mail.

6.  Call your lawyer:  Give them copies of your evidence, the letters, any telephone/cell phone records proving contact with the school and the Certified Mail stubs.  They will know how to press charges and the detailed evidence you have collected will help in litigation.  In Civil law you have to be your own investigator unless your lawyer suggests different.  Your lawyer will also let you know what is and is not submissible in court.

The Non-Equality Equality Movements

There have been several civil rights movements in the United States starting with the simultaneous Black and Women's Suffrage movements for the rights of blacks and women to enter the voting sphere currently occupied only by white men.  The Black Suffrage movement included some men of colour.   From Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and African descent, with the exclusion of Native American men, fell under the Black label due to the varied dark colours of skin pigmentation. 

In the end, the black men in the Black Suffrage movement while agreeing that every man should be equal believed it did not apply to women of any race.  Women of colour suddenly were left in limbo, not accepted within the Black Suffrage movement due to their gender and excluded from the Women's Suffrage movement due to their skin pigmentation. 

Men of all colours believed in the current gender roles of the societal binary system which held that the man was the head of the woman and above her in all financial, familial and religious decisions leaving little need, they concurred, for Women's Suffrage as women already had freedom from decision making.  The equality idea suddenly had restrictions of privilege.  What were considered rights at the beginning of the equality battle were now viewed as special privileges that women wanted.  What drew the men together, their eventual common ground, was the belief in the traditional man.

This theme carried out within the Women's Suffrage movement with traditional women who supported the traditional gender roles began campaigning against the Suffragists.  They were called The Antis or the Anti-Suffragists.  The term feminist was used to describe the militant woman who was aggressive in the fight to free women from the restrictions of the gender roles, never gave up regardless of arrest or persecution like one would believe the "fairer sex" the "weaker sex" were incapable of.  A militant woman in the fight for Women's Equality.  A Feminist.  A woman with a "man's" attitude stepping into the masculine gender role.  What many considered an "abomination".

There was no equality all around within the Women's Suffrage movement just as there is no equality all around within the LGBT movement as there will always be overly militant factions who prefer equality only for those who resemble them whether by race, class, religion, education, marital status, gender identity, gender expression and/or sexual orientation.   Just as some gay people of colour are today excluded by, or in turn exclude, gays of another race, or trans sexual/gender and gender queer are excluded by, or exclude, those of matching sex and gender, so did the women from the late 1800s to 1900s. 

It took women 72 years to get the right to vote but not full equality and while men of colour had won their right to vote 72 years earlier by breaking with the Women's Suffragists, they found that was all they won.  The second civil rights movement began the fight to end the separate but equal stipulation to both Suffrage movements. Both people of colour and women faced bias through racism, classism and sexism with separate grade schools, colleges, and employment opportunities. 

Elementary education was now compulsory since the abolishment of child labour in the 1930s where the children of the poorer classes were finally seen as more than products of their class and undeserving of the right to rise above their station.  Colleges on the other hand were still reserved for the upper and middle classes.  There were separate colleges for women and men and again for men and women of colour.  Such as Howard University, Elmira Female College of NY, Barber-Scotia College, Morehouse College and Wesleyan College, to name a few.  There was no true equality only levels of privilege.

At the same time women won the right to vote in 1920, a Eugenics policy of sterilizing certain mental patients, the poor classes of society and criminals was enacted under the guise of 'improving the human gene pool" but was initially focused on social class and intelligence.  Racial segregation, marriage restrictions, segregation of the mentally ill, and compulsory sterilisation were all part of the Eugenics movement. 

Nearly every state had eugenics laws on their books with California leading the way in compulsory sterilisations, which finally ended everywhere during the second Civil Rights era.  Psychiatrists used the captive gay patients, the mentally ill, and the criminals, from prisons and mental institutions as guinea pigs for shock therapy, compulsory sterilisation, and libido-suppressing medication among others.   As I said, there was no true equality for anyone just levels of privileges.  The highest privileges going to those who were traditional men and women. 

During second civil rights movement there were two groups fighting for equality.  The Black civil rights movement fighting for equality of people of colour and the Gay Liberation movement.  The first commercials against the "homosexual disease" were aired during the 1950s (Boys Beware 1950s PSA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqIIeGmhL2Q&feature=player_embedded) and the first steps to employment discrimination for gays were created when Republican President Eisenhower signed an executive order barring gays and lesbians from federal employment.  Marriage restrictions were already present due to the sodomy laws which not only made anal but also oral sex illegal.   Many today still assume that all gay men exclusively perform anal sex and the sodomy laws should be reintroduced to prevent same-sex marriage.

Many of the LGBT community were also present in the Black civil rights movement and I dismiss any clamour to say different.  You can be any race and gay, you can be any gender and gay, you can be any class and gay, and you can be any sex; gender normative or trans and gay.  Baynard Rusting, the black gay man behind the organization of the march on Wasington DC with Dr. King Jr. was right there fighting for equality for all. 

Again, there were tossed only privileges given to those who are traditional instead of full equality for all.  Men of any race are paid higher than women of any sexual orientation.  Men and women cannot be fired due to race, religion, gender granting job security.   Gay, lesbian, asexual, bisexual, trans men and trans women have no employment security due to sexual orientation yet those who are considered traditional as in heterosexual and gender normative are protected.

We might say that all this should have been covered under the civil rights, gay liberation and women's rights movements but what really happened instead was not a granting for full rights but a protection of the privilege of those who are physically, psychologically and sexually traditional.  First by the inclusion of traditional black men, then by the inclusion of traditional women and I am now watching the inclusion of traditional gays, lesbians and gender normative post-operative transsexuals only. 

When the Republicans are the only ones starting to be inclusive to this new civil rights movement, it usually means another compromise on equality is on the way.  After all, "radical" congressional Republicans backed Black Suffrage and they were also the first major political party to back Women's rights, even when they didn't fully agree on a personal level.  The new civil rights movement is already splintering again with the decisions to wait until later for some groups of non-traditional men and women to achieve equality with the delay of passage of ENDA and repeal of DADT.  The last few civil rights movements were more of a "let's toss them a few things that seem like full equality so they will vote for us" deal.

Why else would we be here again, still fighting the traditionalist men and women for the dignity to be ourselves?  Fighting to retain reproductive control, sexual freedom, marriage equality, employment security which were battles that began in the US almost 200 years ago in the 1800s.  Every attempt that is made is met with the fretful squeal of "traditionalists" against full inclusion of, what is now their privileges, so everyone can gain full equality; "Another attempt to destroy the traditional family!"

Let's not be deflected again.  Support the American Equality Bill for full inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act (I hope gender expression is included):  http://www.change.org/petitions/view/petition_for_full_equality_for_all_americans

Why Marriage Equality Matters

The opposition to same sex marriage states that marriage is between one man and one women in compliance of society's gender binary rules. This law was based on the idea that gender is determined by society instead of by the individual and this concept was the idea behind Proposition 8. So how exactly does society determine gender? By physical attributes, such as facial features, width of shoulders, Adam's apple, timbre of voice, jaw line and clothing. This determination, of course, is only visual. After all how else would you determine gender? Everyone knows what a man looks like and that is remarkably different from a woman, correct? Not exactly.

We know that in order to obtain a marriage license, one must provide documentation to prove we are whom we say we are. This was to prevent bigamy and incest yet now it's causing quite a stir when it comes to gender and the birth certificate. There is an individual who wants to be married to their partner; visually they are the opposite gender yet the birth certificate says they are a same gender couple. What to do? What to do? Which gender does the government official go by and why? The visual determination of the adult in front of them or the visual determination of the doctor at birth?

The gay marriage ban sought to take care of visually same sex couples from being included in civil federal marriage and make issuing a marriage certificate easier. If a clerk sees two of the same gender at the counter asking for a marriage certificate it is an automatic "NO!" Viola! Danger to the binary eliminated! Now this birth certificate is telling the clerk that they have no idea what gender is? How is this possible?

Laws written using gender determination are based on visual input, yet gender is much more complex than that. There is no way to visually or genetically determine gender. There are so many individual interpretations of gender only the individual knows how they identify. Male, female, intersex, androgynous etc. So how can they write a law based on a concept that is shown to be medically incorrect?

Society's way of determining sexual orientation is by looking at the visual gender of the couple. If the visual gender says one thing and the birth certificate says another then how does one determine sexual orientation of couples applying for marriage? Is the couple's sexual orientation gay due to visual gender or straight due to birth gender or vice versa? How can you legally discriminate?

The only way to be fair and just is to let all consenting adults who aren't committing a crime be allowed to marry. At this time the only crimes that can be committed by marriage are bigamy, incest and statutory rape.

Dying for Dignity: Transgender Fight for Recognition

We are among those whom we consider most like us for the majority of our private and social lives. Our family. Our group. Our people, we consider them to be. We know we belong to, and associate with, bigger groups of people we may not understand completely. Personally, culturally or linguistically. We never attempt to speak a foreign language without understanding what those words mean, the correct pronunciations and grammar; we learn first. We never attempt to participate in a culture without understanding the social rules and the correct way of addressing members of this new cultural society; we learn first. When first meeting a new associate we do not hop right into intimate questions regarding their sexual habits; we get to know them and their boundaries first. So why do we do this with complete strangers in our own society, our own culture?

It is almost as if we have cannot forget the taunts at school or the streets where our bullies once believed that in order to be gay, a person wanted to transition to the other side of the gender binary. Where we were asked, if we are boys, "Where's your barbie?" or "Where's your Easy Bake Oven?" Or, if we are girls "Where's your dick? We fought back because for a moment there we did ask ourselves that question. Do I unconsciously wish to be the opposite gender because I am attracted to what the opposite gender is attracted to? We would say, no.

We fought back by being the best physical example of the gender binary as we could get. You could look up male or female and find our picture as the definition. We would beat the crap out of anyone who dared say we were pretending to be anything we are not. We held onto that like a shield. To us that is what our sexual orientation meant. It is what society said sexual orientation meant. We adopted this belief because it kinda made sense. We are one gender that falls in love with that same gender. We love everything about that gender. If that gender "changed" then our sexual orientation "changes" and that is not possible since we have been fighting against the idea that our sexual orientation can "change" for years.

Why are we so afraid of embracing the transgender community? Is our certainty of our personal truth so shaky that the truth of another makes us question ourselves? Have we really recovered from being bullied with some false idea that in order to be gay one must want to be the opposite gender? Before anyone knew we were gay or straight we were just our name or familial relationship. Our visual gender, and no one questioned it. We were so and so's son or daughter. The boy or girl down the street. It is the reason why so many of us question our sexual orientation. Are we really that insecure? The transgender community is not "proving them right", they are helping to prove that our detractors are wrong.

Take the case in Texas where an intersex woman transitioned from the male body she was assigned and has now married a woman, yet gay marriage is not legal in Texas. The gay marriage bans are all based on gender. Only those of opposite GENDER can marry; not sexual orientation. The law was based on the idea that "legal" gender does not change no matter what surgical procedures are done to alter the physical body. When, ironically, it is true gender that does not change, not visual gender. This is what the opponents of gay marriage believe they have done in banning gay marriage. Banning the same gender from marrying each other yet basing the law solely on visual sex/genitalia. Now they are realising the error with this case.

They based the law on visual gender alone, thinking that is what governed sexual orientation. Yet, here is a couple that is by all means gay to societal eyes but the government must allow the marriage because in the governmental perception of gender, it cannot change therefore sexual orientation does not. Society says, if you are male and attracted to men you are gay. If you are male and attracted to females, you are straight. Born one visual gender; always that gender. The perception of gender through visual attributes or genitalia.

If the government now tries to change the law to say that gender cannot be distinguished visually in order to disallow these transgender couples, on what level can they prove whom is male and whom is female? We all know the different types of intersex conditions, (http://www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex), and many intersex conditions are not visual. Will everyone have to prove their hormonal, chromosomal, internal reproductive organ, genital etc. gender in order to marry? Or will the government simply do what is right and not interfere as long as it is two consenting adults? Hetero-sexism and homophobia, internal and external, is based on perception of gender. The perception of a gender binary in particular. If those who made these arguments against gay rights finally realise that no one can determine gender except the individual, their arguments are baseless.

We are afraid of the transgender community because we see gender as the reason behind our sexual orientation. We believe that men are men and women are women and never the two should be "changed" or "altered". We are gay, or straight, and we believe it is those visual attributes of gender that drives our orientation. If we loved someone who we then came to believe "altered" or "changed" from that physical representation of gender we begin to question our sexual orientation. We start doubting our sexual orientation because we base it on love of visual gender than person.

We distrust those who are bi-sexual since, from society's perspective, their sexual orientation changes. When they are with the same visual gender they are gay yet when they are with the opposite visual gender they are straight. We do not trust our relationships with our bi-sexual partners because in the back of our mind we are saying "How do we know they will STAY straight or gay?" Refusing to acknowledge that they are not fixated on visual gender but us. We refuse to see that they love us, the person, the one who listens, who likes whatever genre of music we love, who's always there for support; us.

We believe that is not possible because to us visual gender is the focus of sexual orientation. We simply cannot let go of our grip on visual gender. One or the other. It is the reason for bi and trans-phobia. The trans-panic defense can also be tied to the gay community not just the straight. Trans-panic means "I'm not straight!" as much as it means "I'm not gay!" and "I'm not Bi!"

I'll go as far as to say this. If an effeminate gay man stood still and did not talk the gay men who say they do not like effeminate men would want to date him. It's not the physical man they are not attracted to, it is the "feminine" personality. The blurring of that gender perception line. The perception that a breathy tone, self-conscious giggles, emotional displays and a sensual walk is inherent to the visually feminine gender only. It makes them question "Am I really gay if I like this guy?" To many, that "feminine" personality should not exist in a "masculine" body. When will they realise it is the person they are attracted to? We can lust after a body all we want but we know that no matter how hot the body if the personality, the person, isn't what we are looking for the body loses it's attraction.

Visual gender and sexual orientation are simply societal perceptions of human relationships. We are always the gender society sees unless we tell society who we truly are. Our sexual orientation is always what society sees, by way of our perceived relationships, unless we tell society who we truly are. Only we know who we are, who we are attracted to, and whom we love. Only we can define our relationships.

That is why we have such a hard time understanding the transgender community since we base everything on our perceptions instead of letting people introduce themselves. If the couple that is involved in the ongoing legal determination of marriage in Texas were still visually man and woman, we would say they were heterosexual, now that they are trans-woman and woman we perceive them to be lesbian. I'm sure they only see themselves as partners and lovers. The rest can go hang.

The Gay Christian Fundamentalist Movement: Recruiting New Fundamentalists One Gay/Bi Person At A Time

There is an intrinsic flaw in the Gay Christian Fundamentalist movement, otherwise known as the ex-gay movement, and that flaw is the belief that an individual cannot live an open gay life and be christian. There are a lot of things things we can go to "hell" for in Christianity, yet none so laborious as those about ourselves that we cannot change. Like the Victorian struggle with male sexual arousal and masturbation, that spawned the male chastity belt. A lovely device that held a male's penis inside with steel teeth and caused considerable pain when becoming even slightly aroused.

Masturbation was considered a sin, along with oral sex, anal sex, female sexual participation in the bedroom and a variety of other healthy human sexual behaviors. One of reason why laws against, what we now realise as healthy human sexual behaviour were placed, and still are, on the law books of conservative religious states. The Gay Christian Fundamentalist movement promotes the myth of a "gay lifestyle" of promiscuity, drug addiction, gender queer behaviour, body obsession, anti-aging and non-traditional families as an banner for increased membership. How is any of the previously mentioned any different from heterosexuals in society? It is not. That is what the regular Christian Fundamentalist church is for; bringing heterosexuals into God's grace.

Religion is known for its adaptability by way of it's many denominations. If we do not fit somewhere or do not agree with the doctrine, there is always another denomination where we might fit. This is true of Exodus International, it is a church for gay extreme social conservatives. For those gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals who do not agree with a liberal life and any life that does not follow the scripture. Like the anti-masturbation devices of the Victorian age; a spiritual heterosexual marriage is prescribed as one of the steps that brings one closer to God.