by Tiffany | May 8, 2018 | Feminism from the Margins, guest post, Health, Writing
Image description: A black and white close-up of wood, twigs, and metal twine, with dry grass in the background. Photo credit: Mel Vee. Mel Vee is an aspiring photographer and her guest post series will feature her photography.
This is a guest post by Mel Vee.
Mel Vee mesmerizes, captivates and incites with her spoken word. She is a passionate advocate for the power of narrative to heal and liberate. A general disturber of shit, Mel Vee seeks to blur and disrupt all kinds of distinctions. She is a core member of the Uproot YYC, a grassroots collective for artists of colour dedicated to uprooting systemic barriers in the arts community. She was a member of Calgary’s 2017 slam team, who were semi-finalists at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and co-creator of The Unlearning Channel podcast.
This post is the first is a four-part series, one per week for the month of May. Together, this series will comprise the third entry in the Feminism from the Margins series.
Content note for suicidality, illness, and threatened violence.
Wake up early for a change. Stop being such a lazy fuck.
Go to morning meditation – it is important for you to be there.
Make your partner breakfast and lunch.
Try to make breakfast for yourself but you’re distracted. Will get back to it later.
Your friend is suicidal and she needs help – she doesn’t have much support.
Brush teeth.
Put on clothes.
Another friend lost her job – she might be homeless soon. You have to help somehow.
Put on shoes. Walk out door.
Another ambulance is at the house across the way. Last week there was a man covered in blood wielding a knife. Need to look for a new apartment. Another item on the to do list.
Your friend could stay with you if she needs to. You don’t just leave friends like that.
Walk back from meditation. The community is struggling and needs money. You decide you should probably volunteer more.
Do dishes.
Plan for the next meal. You have no energy to cook but cannot afford to eat out.
You remember the days where there wasn’t enough food in the house and you ate peanut butter for dinner; sardines if you were lucky. Curse yourself for being so damn ungrateful – at least you have food to cook! Hear your father’s voice remind you of how ungrateful you are.
Feel shame.
Think of resources for your suicidal friend.
Know mental health resources for LGBTQ folks are often a joke – but you try anyway.
Realize you should exercise – it’s important for your health. Promptly delay exercising by answering emails. They never stop coming; someone is always itching to hit send.
It’s the same old – “We need you to volunteer. This is an important cause. We can’t afford to pay you but we appreciate your time. You can build up your profile. It’s only temporary.”
Your aunt is sick again. Her no-good kids keep hitting her up for money. She needs someone to talk to even though you could use a quiet moment but you love her and it’s the least you can do.
The timer you set to write for 10 minutes has 8 seconds left. Guess you won’t be writing today.
Deadlines are piling up. All the shit you said yes to is finally catching up. You vow not to say yes to anything else EVER AGAIN and yet you say yes to even more.
You still need to exercise.
Go to work. Radiate warmth and kindness to people with a pathological sense of entitlement.
Be expected to have read every book written in the span of human civilization. Get cussed out for daring to manage others expectations and refusing to tolerate abuse. The customer is always right. Fight back tears in the washroom. Remember this job is all you have and your mother told you never to rely on anyone for money, especially a man. Smile even bigger at the next customer.
Yet another friend is about to be out on the street. You want to help but you just cannot. Feel helpless. Useless.
Go to your second job.
Meet one friend for coffee after.
Go to that show tonight. You need to show your face or else people will think you don’t take this seriously and that you’re not paying your dues.
Your partner is tired from their job so they cannot really help with chores. You try not to get upset because they are not trying to make your life difficult on purpose. But still…
More emails and texts.
A friend you rarely see becomes upset and demands to know why you don’t have time for them.
You cannot think of a good reason to say no and they are not that bad. It will only be an hour.
Schedule her on the only day you had free.
Another friend is having a breakdown. They simply want to talk.
Your partner is in the mood even though you barely have the energy to keep your eyes open but you can’t remember the last time you two had sex. Feel ashamed.
The laundry is piling up. The floor needs to be vacuumed. That’s for another day.
Try to go to sleep. Spend at least an hour wondering how your life got like this. Wondering where you went wrong, if you went wrong, if you should be more selfish. What should you cut?
Realize you’ve already cut everything extraneous from your life.
*Sigh*
Realize you don’t even have time to appreciate the irony in this.
Know you will do it all over again the next day. And the day after next. And the day after that.
Know you will keep doing this and know you can’t stop. Know that you want to stop but also know you never will.
This post is the third in the year-long Feminism from the Margins series that Dulcinea Lapis and Tiffany Sostar will be curating, in challenge to and dissatisfaction with International Women’s Day. To quote Dulcinea, “Fuck this grim caterwauling celebration of mediocre white femininity.” Every month, on the 8th, we’ll post something. If you are trans, Black or Indigenous, a person of colour, disabled, fat, poor, a sex worker, or any of the other host of identities excluded from International Women’s Day, and you would like to contribute to this project, get in touch!
Also check out the other posts in the series:
by Tiffany | Apr 8, 2018 | Feminism from the Margins, guest post, Intersectionality
Image description: A person stands in a forest, looking up. Photo provided by Michelle Dang.
This is a guest post by Michelle Dang. Michelle is a cis woman of Vietnamese heritage living on the stolen Aboriginal land of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples (Brisbane, Australia). Michelle is a community worker, narrative therapist and writer. Most of her writing and practice is on feminism, transformative justice and anti-violence work. She will accept any ice cream or basketball challenge. The author can be contacted at michelledang5@gmail.com or follow Michelle on Twitter @dang_power
My beloved friends,
I am writing this because you have shouldered me up. This letter is to all my friends and especially to queer folk, people of colour and those who live on dangerous intersections. If you didn’t already know, I want to tell you now, I love you.
I am not exaggerating when I say that I am alive because of you, that energy and blood runs through my body because of you, that my existence and presence is because of you.
I was deep in the land of hopelessness, succumbed to the hate directed towards my body. We were never meant to survive[i]. You pulled me in, whispered to me that I had more soul in my little toe than the entirety of the white supremacist shit hole I was in. It was your relentless insistence that I matter, that we matter, that we are magical that pulled me out of the pit of despair.
Of course, the pain I am speaking of is one you know intimately. That pain stems from our relationship with whoever our personal Rose is. Rose, aka White Feminism, aka Colonial Patriarchal Feminism[ii], aka Trans Radical Exclusive Feminism, aka Sex Worker Exclusive Radical Feminism.
Looking back, I can see why I fell for Rose. War and western imperialism had displaced my family from Vietnam. When we arrived in Australia, little did we know that we were moving from one occupied country to another. I was yearning for a place to call home. A place that would not replicate the violence I witnessed and experienced in my family, in my homeland or on the stolen land I found myself on.
At the time I had met Rose, I had just left a toxic relationship with Lena, aka Social Work, aka International Development. I was very vulnerable.
I was charmed by Rose’s sweet talk about unity, agency and empowerment. I believed that she would offer refuge to a brown broken-hearted girl like me. I believed that we were bound together through a shared rage at the patriarchy.
And yes, in the beginning, she embraced me, like her own. She showered me with compliments, telling me how valuable I was. She reassured me that she understood my pain, that she would fight for me, for us.
But when the honeymoon was over, I realised that I was escaping patriarchal violence within the home, and within sandstone buildings, only to meet it once again within colonial patriarchal feminist organisations. I could see the tricks and tactics of perpetrators played out on coloured and non-conforming bodies within these structures. Sweet feminist words were used as a smokescreen to cover daily acts of minimisation, silencing, gaslighting, invalidation, intimidation, isolation and bullying.
We were never meant to survive.
But we can leave evidence. Evidence that we did survive. Evidence that we matter. That we resisted and persisted. That we gave up, not on liberation, but on empty promises. So, I give testimony to the ways I have survived, the ways we have survived:
I survived because I stopped giving any more time and energy to a relationship that did not value our hopes, dreams and dignity.
I survived the contradictions and cognitive dissonance, like the time Rose spoke over me to tell me the importance of maintaining a safe space for women.
I survived all the white tears, like every time Rose cried about how horrible racism is, but threw me under the bus when I asked for accountability.
I survived numerous lectures about ‘unity’ and how my feminism is divisive.
I survived, by rolling my eyes every time Rose insisted she was neutral.
I survived by not expressing myself. Because there is a cost to naming racism.
I survived by expressing myself. Because there is a cost to not naming racism.
I survived the nausea that would wake me up every morning, because my gut knew before my head did, that I was entering a war zone. Racism is an attack on the body.
I survived because of Sara Ahmed, Audre Lorde, Mia McKenzie, bell hooks, Vikki Reynolds.
I survived (and my cis privilege allows me to survive) after daring to dream that we could dismantle the gender binary system, as though the act of pointing out cis violence causes the loss of something: harmony, peace, white cis power.
I survived when Rose racially attacked me because it so similar to how POC survive racial attacks on the daily when we snap back at men who sexually harass us.
I survived because you believed me and understood that I was not being over-sensitive or dramatic. Because white feminism has become a master at victim-blaming.
I survived by printing and reading revolutionary black feminist material courtesy of Rose’s printer, and it felt good.
I survived that time Rose and her cronies ambushed and cornered me and aggressively interrogated my feminism because I troubled their feminism.
I survived because of your unapologetic declarations that we are magnificent, legitimate, sufficient and beautiful.
I survived that time we publicly denounced Rose’s hate signs against sex workers at Reclaim the Night, and I was told I was rude and to stay in my lane.
I survived by refusing to enter mediation with Rose so ‘we could resolve our differences’. When harm occurs, what is required is accountability not mediation.
I survived that time Rose misquoted Kimberlè Crenshaw to say that intersectionality was just about racial liberation and not trans liberation.
I survived because as Sara Ahmed would say, I snapped[iii], I left.
I survived because I have my ancestors’ fighting spirit running through me. We were not erased by colonisation, dispossession and genocide and we will not be erased by colonial patriarchal feminism.
Thank you for being fierce, determined and unruly. You created what was not there. You wrote me in to history, you wrote me into existence. Because you dared to deviate, you carved a space for me to deviate. Space for me to breathe. Space for me to survive. Space for me to rest.
To my dear friends, fuck I love you. I love us.
Yours,
Michelle
This piece is inspired by Mia McKenzie’s ‘An Open Love Letter to Folks of Color’ in Black Girl Dangerous on Race, Queerness, Class and Gender and all the love letters I have written and read.
[i] ‘We were never meant to survive’ is the beautiful line that is repeated in Audre Lorde’s poem, ‘A Litany for Survival’.
[ii] Cheree Moreton coined the term Colonial Patriarchal Feminism or Colonial Patri-Fem for short, to describe how white feminists stigmatise and silence the one black voice in the organisation/environment.
[iii] Sara Ahmed uses the term ‘feminist snap’ in Living a Feminist Life as an act of resistance. This is when we have reached a breaking point, “when what you come up against threatens to be too much, threatens a life, or a dream, or a hope” (187).
This post is the second in the year-long Feminism from the Margins series that Dulcinea Lapis and Tiffany Sostar will be curating, in challenge to and dissatisfaction with International Women’s Day. To quote Dulcinea, “Fuck this grim caterwauling celebration of mediocre white femininity.” Every month, on the 8th, we’ll post something. If you are trans, Black or Indigenous, a person of colour, disabled, fat, poor, a sex worker, or any of the other host of identities excluded from International Women’s Day, and you would like to contribute to this project, get in touch!
Also check out the first post in the series, All The Places You’ll Never Go, by Dulcinea Lapis.
by Tiffany | Mar 8, 2018 | Feminism from the Margins, guest post, Identity, Intersectionality
Image description: Cherry blossoms against a blue sky. The frame is vignetted and dark at the edges. Photo credit: cocoparisienne, Pixabay.
This is a guest post by Dulcinea Lapis, a pan, polyam, woman of trans experience, writing from a position of colonizer privilege. This is the first in a year-long series of posts that Dulcinea and I will be curating, in challenge and dissatisfaction with International Women’s Day. To quote Dulcinea, “Fuck this grim caterwauling celebration of mediocre white femininity.” Every month, on the 7th, we’ll post something. If you are trans, Black or Indigenous, a person of colour, disabled, fat, poor, a sex worker, or any of the other host of identities excluded from International Women’s Day, and you would like to contribute to this project, get in touch! Dulcinea named our project: Feminism from the Margins.
The Places You’ll Never Go
When I was young, I heard about the places I’d go. About the person I’d get to be. The great things I’d do. What I never heard about were the places I can never go, because of what people would do to the person I choose to be.
Moving through the world with an Othered identity is a violent experience. Picking and choosing what parts of us to honor and what needs to be cut away. I can only speak to the parts of me that aren’t welcome in the mainstream, as a Trans woman without passing privilege, and a queer person who is out and public. I am shielded from much by being white, not being of a marginalized faith and by not having a visible disability. It’s important to note being othered further would mean there was even less of a much too small world to see.
I would love to go to the Women’s March. To stand in solidarity with others and refuse to be silenced and boxed in. Wear a tank top with an inflammatory slogan and take part in the cathartic rejection of patriarchy. I would love to, but I never will. A quick perusing of the Facebook event disabuses me of that notion. Every post on their Facebook page about how including Trans-voices is silencing women for men, the failure of their moderation showing how comfortable they are with every barbed-wire post, every poison-pill comment made in false good-faith. The moderation comes too late, they belatedly reach out to Trans-women for organization…but at this point how can I trust I’ll be welcome? Why take the risk? It’s fine. I’ll make a slit and out comes the part of me that wants to go to these public events, cut out of myself like my wish to travel. I won’t even notice.
The World Shrinks.
I would love to go to a ladies night at a games cafe. To share my love of games and my favourite hobby with others in a space free of toxic competitiveness and masculine posturing. An evening spent with the simple affirming company of women with the same interest. I never will again. Once was enough and it sticks with me.
I drop by the store to scope it out, it’s entirely white women. I get glares, as I pretend to peruse the products on offer, a hostility that I can feel in my bones, like a storm on the horizon. To them I’m not woman enough to be here, and a cute dress and makeup won’t change anything. As I leave I can hear a mutter: “I was worried he’d stay and we’d have to put up with another one.” I get rid of this need as well. It stings as I slice this out and I can feel something missing, but at least I can move on before something happens.
The World Shrinks.
It’s affirming and pleasurable to wear skirts and dresses, tanks and leggings, clothing and makeup and those things I missed out on for so long. Early forays made with friends, their guidance and presence a reassuring balm against the gnawing anxiety under my skin. Of course going back alone is like wandering through brambles, tearing and cutting away at me. Leaving me bloody. Places that tout body positivity and inclusion still have flamboyant men who glare at me when I ask questions about eye shadow and women who are so stunned at my knowledge of makeup foundation that they won’t make conversation. Glares as I ask for sizes range from skeptical to hostile. I’ll make sure to shop online, or where my friends work, from now on.
The World Shrinks.
There are already so many places that come with such added risks that they’re almost a punchline. What washroom do I use? Use the women’s and risk a confrontation? Use the men’s and risk a beating? How do I go to a Gym where there’s even more exposure? It doesn’t matter that these spaces have been made safer for women; being the wrong sort of woman is just as likely to end in violence as it ever has. I’ll just ignore it, what’s a little bladder infection against a loud, public confrontation, where – at best – so many feminists will just look away, and even (privately) be glad to see me gone. Once more I take parts of myself away. I’m carving deep now and getting rid of things recently hard won, experiences lustrous and new. A loss that’s worth it though. It’s not like I have any option or way to make these spaces mine.
The World Shrinks
I’ve got my home. A place of refuge. I can post on the internet about my politics, even if I’m not welcome to display them alongside allies. Surely that’s good enough right? I can play games online, invite trusted friends with years of history over and get my craving for companionship that way. I’ll order clothes from websites, hope that they fit, and make do when there’s places too tight or too loose. Make do with the makeup I have, wait until it runs out and then book time off for when I know a friendly face is on-shift at my ever-dwindling list of shops. I’ll just use the washroom at home, train my body to need it less. Avoid food and water when possible. I’ll find a space at home and work out there, if someone else from my building comes in I’ll wrap up and leave. Why take the chance? I’m safe here. I’ve cut and snipped and taken out so much of myself, it feels like almost nothing is left. Everything reminds me of what I’ve had to gouge out so as not to transgress spaces not meant for me. Maybe I can ignore the number of Trans-Women that are killed in their homes, doxxed and stripped naked to a hostile world already too small.
Could the world shrink any further? Could I?
Tiffany Sostar is a self-care and narrative coach, offering one-on-one and group coaching, both in person on Treaty 7 land/Calgary and online. Coaching is available in single-session, package, or yearlong formats. Get in touch to book some time! They also offer regular online courses, workshops, and other events. You can find them on Facebook, and you can support their work on Patreon. They have a double BA (hons) in English and Women’s Studies, with a focus on how marginalized communities write new narratives for themselves, and they are currently enrolled in the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program at the Dulwich Centre and the University of Melbourne.
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