Post the Twenty-Ninth or On Why You Need to Mind Your Business

I have a profile on OkCupid, which is a free dating website. For not having to pay for it, its pretty good. Their matching system is decent and there are a lot of hot queers who use it. I’ve been on a number of dates from that site and, while none of those dates developed into something more, neither were they horrible. All in all, I’ve had a good experience with the site.

However.

Once or twice a month or so, I will get a message from someone asking me something like, “So, were you born a man or a woman?” or “You should probably change your gender to male so that there isn’t any confusion.” or “For a woman with a penis, you are really pretty!” Despite the fact that I clearly state in my profile to NOT message me with foolishness like that. I don’t know if its because they don’t read past the part where I say I’m a big ole’ tranny or if its because as cisgender people, they feel entitled to ask/tell me whatever they want in regards to my gender because I am so freakish and unnatural.

Over and over again I get random strangers asking me, after I come out to them, if I am going to get “the surgery” or “how far along I am” or “are those breasts real”. But that isn’t the only instance where people ask me about “myself”. I can’t tell you how many times someone who, having found out that my family is from South America, has asked me to say something in Spanish. As if I were some parrot who learned a new trick. As if because I’m brown or because I can speak another language, I need to perform that “trick” on command for some white English speaking asshat. Or my favorite, “Oh, you speak Spanish? I’ve never heard you speak it.” Yeah, because you don’t speak Spanish and what reason would I have to speak it with you? Just because I’m brown or speak another language doesn’t mean that I go around speaking Spanish at people who don’t understand it. Just like white English speaking folk don’t go around speaking gibberish at people, there is no point because there is no communication. Moreover, its this feeling of entitlement that white English speaking folks have to demand that folks like me “perform” for them.

Notice a trend here?

Good, because it’s a trend we all need to be aware of. Don’t get me wrong; if we are friends and we’ve gotten to know each other and you are curious about my experience, then by all means ask. However, we need to be constantly checking ourselves to make sure that we aren’t putting folks with oppressed identities and backgrounds on the spot and forcing them to “educate” us. We need to make sure that oppressed folks aren’t doing it horizontally either. If we are going to foster safe spaces and supportive communities, we need to make sure that we are responsible for educating ourselves about other folks. Because by asking strangers to “educate” us about their oppressed experience, we are focusing on that experience alone and we are reducing their personhood to that experience. We don’t see their hopes and their fears and their dreams. We don’t see what makes them fundamentally human. All we see is the baggage that our oppressive society has heaped on them. Not only that, but we are forcing them to relive that whole experience again for us. And when we force folks with oppressed identities to “educate” us, we are claiming their experience as ours. We are recolonizing and objectifying them, on top of the colonization and objectification that they have already experienced. This is the most infinitesimal and yet most profound way that we oppress each other.

So before you ask that question, Google it.

Post the Twenty-Eighth or Winter

He said my eyes looked like

Winter

Eyes so cold they scalded

Eyes that could hack away

Limbs

With FrostBite

Eyes that could create that

Tingly

Sleepy

Warm feelings

That sets in before HypoThermic death

A death, he said,

That I will happily submit too

For only in dying

Are we reborn

Post the Twenty-Seventh or Chocolate Mousse

The candles were lit. The table was set. And the music was playing. John Coltrane, hir favorite. Everything was ready and everything was perfect. All that was left was for hir to arrive. I paced back and forth about the living room, checking my watch every two seconds. I was nervous. And ze was late.

I walked back to the mirror and gave myself one last check. I adjusted my tie and shifted my skirt. I looked fierce. Where was ze?

I entered the kitchen, gave the curried lentil soup a quick stir, checked on the stir-fried tofu with noodles and made sure that the vegan, gluten-free, chocolate mousse was properly set. All hir favorite things. All made by yours truly. All smelling and looking absolutely delectable. So where was my partner in crime?

I moved back into the dining room and sat down with a restless sigh.

A knock at the door and I leapt up in excitement. With my heart pounding, I quickly moved from the dining room to the foyer to the door. Taking a deep breath to steady my shaking body, I opened the door gracefully, a dazzling smile across my face.

And my heart almost stopped for the beauty before me. Six feet in height, wearing skinny jeans that covered legs for days and in a tight red top, it was all I could do to stop myself from jumping on hir there and then. As it was, it took me a minute to recover the power of speech and invite hir in. I could tell that ze was already enjoy hirself, watching me trip over myself.

How was it that ze could do that to me so easily? I still don’t know.

I did all the things that a gentlequeer is supposed to do. I asked for hir coat and pulled out hir chair. I asked how hir day went and what exciting projects ze was working on. I inquired after hir mother’s health and what ze thought about the latest Beyoncé video. My thoughts were absolutely not on how I wanted to lick hir thick thighs. Nor were they focused on the shape of hir lips and how I wanted to bite into them. The notion of plunging my tongue deep into hir ass did not enter my mind once. Not at all.

As I was clearing the soup, ze said, “You want to fuck me.”

I nearly dropped the bowls.

“That wasn’t a question, was it?” I replied.

“No, it was not.” Ze said, rising from hir seat. And in one fluid motion managed to take the bowls from me and, placing them down, pinned me against the hard wood of the table. Hir lips brushed against mine, teasing a moan out of me. How did ze disarm me so easily?

“Perhaps,” ze crooned into my ear, “we should skip the main course and go straight to dessert?”

I could only manage a shaky nod.

Ze wrapped my tie around hir hand and pulled me toward the bedroom, stopping on the way to collect the mousse. In the bedroom, ze pushed me gently unto the bed and climbed on top of me, straddling me, pressing down on my already raging boner. I groaned, bucking against hir.

Ze dipped hir fingers into the mousse, covering hir fingers in dark chocolate. I parted my lips slightly, eager for hir fingers to enter me. Ze was only to happy to oblige, running hir mousse coated fingers around my lips. I tried to take them into my mouth but ze pulled up saying, “Tut tut, my love. Patience.”

Ze continued to tease and taunt me by running hir fingers across my lips while hir other hand searched under my shirt to find my nipple. Ze gave it a good twist, causing me to gasp. I wanted so badly to suck on hir fingers and taste not only the mousse but also the softness of hir skin but I knew that if I got ahead of myself ze would punish me. So, I endured the sweet torture that ze was inflicting me.

I nearly came when ze finally allowed me to suck on hir fingers. I sucked on them earnestly, throughly enjoying the feel of hir fingers inside my mouth and savoring the sweetness of the mousse.

I made damn good mousse.

After I had consumed all the mousse from hir fingers, ze pulled hir fingers out of my mouth. Ze then took hir fingers and placed some mousse on hir lips. Ze leaned in close, inches away from my own lips. I was breathing heavily, smelling the combination of the chocolate and hir breath. It made for a heady combination.

“Lick my lips.” Ze commanded. I did so readily, exploring the contours of hir mouth and enjoying the softness of hir lips. I ran my tongue across and back again. Hir lips parted slightly, so I began to explore the inside of hir mouth but ze quickly clamped down on my tongue.

“I did not give you permission.” Ze said when ze finally released my tongue.

“Forgive me.” I muttered.

“Forgiven.” And ze kissed me. And what a kiss. Hard it was, and yet gentle. Intense, and yet, subtle in its intensity. With hir tongue down my throat, I was in heaven.

After a time, our lips separated with a sigh and I stared into hir eyes. Dark, they were, stormy. Irises that seemed to be one uniform color and yet when you looked, really looked, you saw the riot of color that was. You saw the bands of gold and pools of green. Tiny spots of amber and a subtle, pervasive brown. But more than all, hir eyes held a deep tenderness, a love that would engulf me, consume me. I was willing to be eaten.

“You have been such a good servent, my love,” ze said, “I think that deserves a reward, don’t you think?”

“If it would please you, mxtress.”

Without a word ze got up and slowly took off hir clothing, revealing the dark skin underneath. Skin that has remained soft despite the harshness of the world. Skin that was engraved with scars and stretch marks, symbols of the struggles that ze had fought through and won. Beautiful trophies of living.

“Hike up your skirt.” Ze commanded.

I did so, revealing my lack of underwear and rock hard cock. Ze admired the sight for a moment and then reached into the desk drawer, pulling out a condom and a bottle of lube. Ze easily placed the condom around my cock and applied lube, rubbing my cock for a few moments that made me arch my back in desire.

Ze straddled me again. Ze rocked back and forth, rubbing my cock against hir pubis and stomach. I groaned and thrust against hir, I wanted to be inside hir so bad.

“Please,” I pleaded, “The teasing is too much… Please…”

Ze smiled wickedly and said tauntingly, “Whose cock is this?”

“Yours, mxtress.” I said meekly

“Correct. So, since it is mine, does that mean that I can tease it all I want? That I could, in fact, do whatever I wish with it?” Ze asked, while still rubbing hirself against my cock.

“Yes, mxtress.”

“Then, I will have no more complaints from you.” And with that, ze grabbed hir shirt off of the bed and gagged me with it. Ze started to move down, rubbing my cock against hir pubis and hir lips. The gag muffled my groan of frustration but ze heard it and moved back up, rubbing hir belly against my cock.

“I said, no more complaints.”

I nodded as ze began to move down again. Ze moved at an agonizing pace, moving only a few inches at a time. I didn’t make a sound. Slowly, slowly, my cock reached hir lips. Ze ran the head of my cock around hir lips and slowly eased the length of my cock inside hir.  Ze closed hir eyes in pleasure as ze sat on top of me, my whole length inside hir.

I was lost in the same bliss. Lost in the same love.

We started to rock back and forth together. Moving at the same rhythm, the same pace. I thrusted into hir as ze pushed down against me. Our fucking progressively got faster, more frenetic, more intense. And as we started to move more quickly, I began to lose my sense of self. It was almost as if I were falling into hir and ze was falling into me. The boarders that separate where I begin and ze ended became blurred and then erased. I could feel what ze was feeling, the passion, the exhilaration. It was almost as if I could feel what ze was feeling, the feel of my cock inside her, the sliding in and out. And I sensed that ze too felt what I was feeling.

I ceased perceiving time and space. It seemed that this moment of fucking spanned eons and yet only lasted a second. It seemed that I traversed the length and breadth of my history in that moment. I saw the past clearly and at the same time saw the future. I knew that I could stretch myself and land at any point in that convuluted line but I knew where my place was.

Here. With hir.

Post the Twenty-Sixth or A Call to Action for OccupyAustin

I have gone down to Occupy Austin several times and what I have seen is truly dismaying. I saw a whole lot of white folks holding drumming circles (problematic), doing yoga, talking about meditation, worrying about hurt feelings and cooperating with the police. I saw a lot of white, cisgender, men leading and facilitating. I saw a whole lot of standing around, a whole lot of disorganization and a whole lot of complacency.

You know what I didn’t see? I didn’t see a whole lot of people of color. I did not see a whole lot of visibly trans and queer folk. I didn’t see a lot of people who are disabled. I did not see a whole of critical analysis and discourse and I did not see a whole lot of action. What I saw was a bunch of white folks, hanging around and socializing.

This is unacceptable.

Don’t get me wrong; I like meditation and yoga and other forms of self-care, but if we are going to build up a movement that creates lasting social change then we need to be checking our own shit. We need to be examining our privilege and make sure that we have equitable representation of folks that hold different identities. And this means more than just inviting them. This means that we are building a culture of inclusion and radical celebration. It means that we are making room for people of color. We are making room for queer and trans people. We are making room for women and mothers and poor people. It means that we are making room for oppressed people. Equitable representation means that we are examining the effects of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. It means the we examine the actions that we take and makes sure that we are not unconsciously perpetuating those systems of power and oppression. This examination must also include our language.

For example, the language around the very name of the movement. Occupy. We need to examine how this word and the language that surrounds it is oppressive language. This is because this land is already being occupied. This land has been occupied since the first colonizers landed 500 years ago. We need to be examining colonialism and our participation in the continued colonization of this land and the Third World. Moreover, we need to realize that indigenous folk and other folks of color have been trying to decolonize their land and their bodies from white supremacy since the beginning of European Imperialism. We need to realize that they are still fighting this. We need to realize that economic growth in the US usually means the suffering and exploitation of the Third World. We need to realize that the US is still pursuing global empire by getting the Third World to be economically dependent on the US. And its going to take more than issuing a solidarity statement to understand and change these things.

We also need to examine our relationship with the police. The police are NOT allies to oppressed people. They work to defend the status quo and defend those in power. The police has a long and bloody history of brutalizing people of color, queer and trans people, people in poverty etc. They do not exist to defend your “first amendement rights” because once you start getting out of line, they beat you down and arrest you. Any movement that seeks to upset the status quo by bringing true equitable power back into the hands of the oppressed will find no friend in the police.

And not only must we be doing direct action, like protests and bank bombs, but we also need to be establishing sustainable communities. We need to be banding together to support one another, whether that be through skill shares or through popular education or even better permaculture. We need to supporting our activism by having active, vibrant, sustainable communities so that we not only have sustainable leadership but so that we also continue to have momentum and not burn out.

We have an opportunity here to help usher in a new era of social change and social justice. We have a chance to make this world a better place for everyone. Now is the moment in which the 99% can be truly and equitably represented. In this moment we can change the course of history.

Don’t fuck it up.

Post the Twenty-Fifth or On the Merits of Community Organizing

com·mu·ni·ty

[kuh-myoo-ni-tee]  Show IPA

noun, plural -ties.

1.a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

2.a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived orperceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the).

or·gan·ize

[awr-guh-nahyz] , -ized, -iz·ing.

verb (used with object)

1. To form as or into a whole consisting of interdependent or coordinated parts, especially for united action.

2. To enlist or attempt to enlist into a labor union.

Community organizing is about recognizing the power that we have as a people. It is about recognizing the immense spiritual and emotional power that we have. It is also about taking different forms of power back into the hands of the people. Whether that be institutional power or the power that comes from being visible, from being recognized as a people. Community organizing is the act of getting people mobilized to make systemic change in their communities and in communities beyond.

I am a community organizer. Nothing gives me greater joy than to see a group of oppressed folks get together and talk about how we can make our space not only safe but also transformative. Nothing is so healing for me than seeing my people gather together for a common cause. To see relationships and coalitions build around me to create change. This kind of work heals me because it demonstrates to me that I am not alone. It shows me that there are people like me, who think in was similar to mine and who are invested in making the world a better place.

This world constantly oppresses us in many subtle and corrosive ways, and one of the most damaging messages that we receive is that we are alone. That we are are abnormal, freakish and strange and that we are the only ones in the world that have this sort of existence, this sort of body. And for many oppressed folks, myself included, this message is so ingrained in our personal and collective psyches that we often think that we are, in fact, the only ones.

The reason why community organizing is so healing for me is because it dispels that myth. It rewrites the programing of my psyche so that I can fully reject that message of isolation and know it to be false. It shows me, quite viscerally, that I am not alone and that these people share my story in ways that may not be specific, but are similar in tenor and tone. The other reason why it is healing is because it allows me to take off the armor that I have to wear in my everyday life. It allows me to take off an armor that I have been wearing for so long, I have forgotten that I am even wearing it. Because of our shared experience, I am able to be vulnerable in ways that I cannot allow myself to be when interacting with people that have privileged bodies. And that vulnerability allows me to grow and expand in ways that would not be possible because of all the armor that I must wear to survive.

Community organizing is more than just healing work, it is transformative work. When oppressed communities organize by themselves for themselves, movements are created. Change is enacted when oppressed people work together in concert. Spaces are reclaimed and power is taken back.

When communities organize, change occurs.

Those in power are terrified of this change, of the power that we hold if only we claim it. And with good reason. For once power is reclaimed and shared, they lose their ill-gained and oppressive power. I was fired last week for this work. I was one of the louder and more visible member of a community of people who wanted to revolutionize the way my organization was run, which was from a top-down management system to a bottom-up member vested management system, where the power resided with the constituents and they were in charge of the direction of the organization.

I was fired because I threatened the status quo and challenged those in power.

But they cannot fire all of us. And least of all the young people. I might have been fired but the movement continues and I would encourage all those involved to double their efforts to keep those in power accountable and to create the change that they want to see. They fired me because we were getting to them, we were being effective. They wanted to derail our movement. Do not let them do that.

The biggest merit of community organizing is that if one falls, many take hir place. Community organizing is about communities and what communities wants. All it takes is momentum. All it takes is for people to step up and recognize that we are never alone.

Post the Twenty-Forth or Carved

I carved my name in the the Earth

And they kicked me out

Robbed me of my dignity

And expelled me from the place that I call home

They assaulted me

With their words

And their actions

They broke my legs

And twisted my arms

They gouged my eyes out

And ripped my heart out

They left me out in the heat

But they did not kill me

They could not kill me

And slowly

Slowly

I re-grew those limbs that I lost

And I found beautiful creatures

As lost and hurt as I was

And we banded together

United in our shared vision

In our shared hope

Of a better world

And together

We will return to our homes

And make them ours again

I will carve my name

On to their chests

So that they never forget