87% of the counties in the United Fucking States of America lack an abortion provider.

87%

I just...

I give up.

Obviously, the religious extremists in this country have won and I should just accept my fate as a broodmare.

Neigh.

Oh, and I happen to live in one of the 13% of counties that actually has an abortion provider.  That doesn't make me feel anything but numb.

87%

Fuck me sideways.

Inspired by more than one comment on the post that this post links to, I'm finally going to weigh in on the whole anti-PC, thought-police, this-word-has-another-meaning-and-no-one-can-own-a-word, I-don't have-to-change-simply-because-you're-offended school of thought.

I'm going to begin by saying that I'm guilty of using pretty much every word that is at issue at one point or another, some as recently as last year, so I'm not saying that I'm not in a glass house here. 

However.

For those who are against changing their language to remove certain words from their vocabularies because another person is offended by it, I ask the following question:

Who does it hurt? 

Seriously, who does it hurt to make the effort not to use words that others have found offensive?  I know that it's an effort to do so, so I guess someone could argue that it's hurting them by virtue of the fact that changing one's vocabulary and deleting certain words is hella difficult...  Well, I have to say that it's more difficult in the offline world, but online?  It's as easy as being careful of what one types.  I realize that for some, who type as quickly as they think, that could be a challenge, but seriously?  Who does it hurt?  Why is it such a big deal to just not be an asshat when someone asks you to do so?

( Cut for possible triggers and an incomplete list of incredibly offensive slurs that everyone should know not to use. Ever.  )And because I've been educating myself a bunch lately, here are a bunch of links that all say all of this a lot better than I just did.

101 Primer

sparkindarkness' entire journal.

Read all of that and then come back to discuss, if you wish, :).

ETA: Proof that not being an asshat is an ongoing battle: Weak is ableist.  Thank you to 51stcenturyfox  for letting me know, :).

ETA 2: My comment thread on the post that started all of this is here. 

ETA 3: Drama communities are probably not the best place to start, lol, but if it were not for them I never would have found most of this stuff out, which is why I mentioned them.  The best place to start is with the 101 Primer and go from there, :).

This post has now been edited because my essential message was being lost and I was doing more harm than good by defending my position on one phrase.  Most of the comments regarding that phrase have now been screened.  I'm not a PoC, so my feelings on that phrase don't matter whatsoever and continuing to argue about it only detracts from the essential point of what I was trying to say. 

I apologize for the drama.

For the record I am US-born, white, queer though I easily pass for both female and straight, and able-bodied.  I have no personal experience with physical, racial or ethnic discrimination and I apologize for speaking for those groups as if I were personally invested in those particular slurs not being used.

The areas in which I have personal experience and/or a personal investment include: feminism/sexim, sex work, body image/food, sexual freedom, BGLTQP rights/homophobia, bullying, child abuse, the US foster care system, the US health care system, PTSD, anxiety, depression and mental health.  

Take the oath to stand up to Boehner and his anti-choice rhetoric.  If you are a woman living in the US, your freedom to choose is constantly under attack.  Fewer than 1,000 doctors country-wide provide abortion services and every day they are threatened, stalked and fear for their lives.  If you think that Roe Vs Wade is a dead issue, think again.  It saddens me to think that women younger than I am might actually have less access to abortion than I did.  No one wants to have an abortion, but in some cases it's the only option.  If you support the freedom of women to be human beings and not broodmares, please show your support.  Thank you, :)

As everyone who reads this should know, I'm pansexual.  I am attracted to personalities, not physical appearance.  I can appreciate someone whom society tells me is beautiful, but their gender enters into it only as an afterthought.  In addition to this, I don't believe in monogamy.  While I'm very committed to those whom I love, I don't allow jealousy or possessiveness.  Period.  I'm not an object - I'm a human being.  And so are those whom I love and/or have sex with.

There are those who feel that my identity as a human being is immoral, that a person should only love one person of the opposite gender (or only one person, as I am discriminated against by some gay, lesbian and bisexual persons as well for not being monogamous).  People look down on me for being free with my sexuality. 

They tell me that I'm immoral, but they never adequately explain how or why.  Why is it immoral for me to love more than one person?  Hell, so long as everyone practices safe sex (in the interests of public health), why is it immoral for me to fuck every person I feel sexually attracted to?  

Who am I hurting?  So long as I am not an unsafe sex-practicing carrier of disease and make no promises that I can't or won't keep, how does my identity as a human being hurt anyone else?  I'm honest, up-front and completely open with who I am.  

Who am I hurting?  No one.  But there are those who feel that my sex life is their business and that they have a right to control me in the name of a morality to which I don't subscribe.

To me, something is moral if it causes no direct harm to anyone else.  It is moral if everyone is adult and it is consensual.  It is moral if it is honest. 

My identity is moral.  Period. 
(  Under the cut is an incredibly long exploration of possible reasons why our society sees certain identities as immoral, as well as the possible causes of GLBTQP identities. (WARNING: This will likely be offensive to some of you, but I do have a method to my madness. I hope. If I fail, please let me know how, because I tried really hard not to fail with this post.) There is also an examination of the differences between civilized and uncivilized human beings.  )
So when you tell me that I'm less than human because your 'morality' tells you so, I reject your morality.  I reject your primitive version of civilization.  I reject your identity as an asshat, because again, unless you are a born asshat (i.e., a psychopath), you can choose to be a decent, civilized human being instead.  

I didn't choose my sexual identity, but I did choose my identity as a decent, civilized and ultimately (despite my many, many failings) moral human being.  


ETA: I'm rather glad that I thought of something cool to post about for my 600th entry, :).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but men are human beings, right?  Which means that the following sentence:

plus he is not attracted to the male species.

is incorrect or at the very least, incomplete.  One could say, "He is not attracted to the male OF the species," or, "He is not attracted to the male of the Vulcan species." (Note: I did not see this line in a Star Trek story - Vulcan was just the most ubiquitous alien I could think of.)

However, saying, "plus he is not attracted to the male species."  breaks my brain for one very simple reason:

MEN ARE NOT A DIFFERENT SPECIES!  IT'S MALE GENDER, NOT SPECIES.  

( Okay, this started off as a mini-fanficrant and turned into a continuation of my "Am I Third Gendered" post, so, um. Yeah. That happened. I'm still confused, still questioning and still unable to figure out which box to check. The LONG exploration of that confusion is under the cut. Also, I have a strong feeling that some may find parts of this triggery or offensive and for that, I sincerely apologize. This is what my brain spat out. Read at your own risk.  )

I'm feeling frustrated and even more confused than when I started this, so here's where I am for now:

I think that I'm a human being who honestly doesn't care about genitals or gender identity as anything other than an aside to who someone is as a person.  I feel that biology dictates only what we allow it to and that, we as a species need to move past worrying so much about biology if we want to continue truly evolving beyond our animal roots.  

So on facebook I just had to explain to someone why the using the phrase 'man up' to tell someone to do what they need to be doing is sexist.

Seriously.

*headdesk*

I'm going to preface this by saying that I usually LOVE Batman: Brave And The Bold.  It's a cartoon obviously made for both adults and comic book fans and it generally handles adult concepts well.  (A recent episode in which a side character died handled the subject matter extremely well, for example.)

However.

Having just watched the episode where Batwoman (not Batgirl, try to keep up*) persuades Faust to help her switch bodies with Batman, I have to say - it made me a little uncomfortable.  

( Cut for spoilers and fail related to gender stereotypes. ) ( Cut for spoilers and fail related to gender stereotypes. )

In a show that's usually made of win, this all added up to fail, :(.  I have to say that I'm really sad that I'm seeing these same stupid stereotypes being passed on to another generation of kids.  Yes, I know I said that this was aimed at adults, but that episode I mentioned at the beginning where the side character died?  Someone was passing around a blog post where a man was watching it with his 5-year-old son, so kids are watching this.

And learning from it, :(.

*When I first saw the episode synopsis in my DVR, I almost thought it was another 'Invisible Woman' growing up of a character-I'm-not-a-girl-anymore-female-positive-type thing, but no.  In the Marvel Universe, Batwoman and Batgirl are two different people, :(. 

***I want to apologize in advance for messing up the male/female pronouns right here.  I did my best to keep the characters' actual genders straight when a male was inhabiting a female body and vice versa, but I couldn't think of the proper way to word it in this instance and so there's gender pronoun fail at this point.  My bad, :(.

( Cut for discussion of Carl Paladino, a bigoted asshat, for links expounding on his asshattery and GLBTQP horror. And RAGE. And a line in the sand that should make it very clear to all precisely where I stand once and for all. I've said it on facebook many times, but it's time to say it here: If you are against GLBTQP rights in any way, shape, or form, you can go fuck yourself. )

ETA: My links somehow vanished, so here's a link roundup of the fail.

NY GOP Hopeful Says He'd Hire Gays - How magnanimous of him.

Carl Paladino's E-mails featured racism, bestiality and porn  But Gay Marriage is detrimental to society.

And finally, the horror that has pervaded his state of NY recently, as ten men torture and object rape three others for being gay, even forcing one of them to choose what they beat him with. Carl Paladino would hire gays, but not stop things like this from happening to them.

I'm a woman.  I was born that way and have never had anything but the most fleeting desire (hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to have a penis; shit, my period really sucks) to be anything other than a woman. 

I have my own thoughts on feminism.  I feel that being a sex worker is the ultimate in feminism, so long as the women involved are given the ultimate power, as they have in every club in which I've worked and as it is when prostitution is legal.

I'm pro-choice (NOT pro-abortion), pro-reproductive rights in every sense (I have a much longer post on this issue that I will eventually share) and against any religion and/or culture that treats women as second-class citizens.

I believe in equal pay for equal work, no glass ceilings and providing reproductive education and HPV vaccines to young women.  

Personally, I'd like to be barefoot and pregnant and a housewife, but this doesn't mean that I think less of women who want to be doctors or have other high-powered careers, especially not since technology is making it easier for those women to have reproductive choices (assuming that they want children at all).  

I'm into freedom of choice for all women everywhere.

But.

I don't speak for all women everywhere.  If I say something stupid or ignorant or hurtful, if I do something stupid or ignorant or hurtful, it shouldn't reflect negatively on my entire gender. 

I am a woman, an individual, a person, a human being.  I am not an entire gender. 

So please remember that when you're speaking to me or about me and say things like, "Women like you..."

There are no other women like me.  While I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake, I am still the only one of me in this world.  

And I should be judged only based on me, not on the genitals that I happened to be born with.

This sort of judgment is also passed on other marginalized persons, from women to GLBT to PoC to the Irish.  It's impossible for an entire group of people to ALL be one thing... other than human, of course.  But the human bit is often lost in the shuffle when people are saying, "Well, if you want 'special rights' you have to expect to all be lumped together."

No one in any of these groups wants any 'special rights'.  Period.  End of argument.

We all simply want equal rights.  Truly equal, not just whatever bones happen to be thrown our way.  

Human beings all wish to have the same freedoms to choose their own destinies that a privileged MINORITY have always had.  It's funny to think of it that way - that the one group that has always had the power is actually the least in numbers and always has been.  

It's up to you to decide who really holds the power in this world - captains of industry, the Church, or simply those who have the most money.  I'm going with the third option myself, but I could be wrong.

And if I am, it's only me that's wrong, not my entire gender.  Or race.  Or creed (or lack of creed).  It's just me.   

I'm a woman, not all women everywhere.

This rant inspired by several conversations, both in rl and online, as well as by the world at large.  And by the letter s.