How Do You Describe Your Gender Identity?
“I am a transexual woman. I am woman. I’m a woman in my mind and in my soul. No one is the guarantor of womanhood. Those people who identify themselves as women are women to me- and I love my womanhood.”
#they have the best kisses in any disney thing ever#EVER #because it’s always rapunzel grabbing him and pulling him close #which is GREAT #because her entire character arc is about her seizing the life she deserves#and reveling in every tiny magical moment #and she’s met this boy that she loves#and she’ll be DAMNED if she ever lets him go #SHE EVEN DIPS HIM #SHE DIPS HIM AND KISSES HIM #my daaaaaaarling girl #and the wedding kiss killed me DEAD because eugene’s face is so priceless #he’s still not used to it #he’s still not used to her at all #and he probably never will be
Outlawing abortion won’t help children with Down syndrome
After North Dakota passed its draconian anti-choice laws, many people hailed it as a victory for people with disabilities. Specifically, one of the laws made it illegal to terminate a pregnancy because of the fetus’ sex or because of ‘genetic defects’ such as Down syndrome.
There was a great piece in the NYT yesterday by a woman who’s the mother of a child with Down syndrome. She’s also a professor and researcher who’s working on a book about prenatal testing and reproductive decision-making. And her research about why women abort fetuses with Down syndrome found that they were all willing to travel out of state to terminate the pregnancy. Every person she interviewed saw the termination as protecting their child, not killing it for being imperfect. As one mother said: “There is no part of caring for an infant or school-aged child with Down syndrome that we didn’t think we could handle. We chose to terminate mostly on the basis of our understanding of the challenges and quality of life he and our family would face if/when he lived to be over age 21: his middle age, and end of life.” Another brought up the high incidence of sexual assault and rape for people with disabilities.
But more importantly, the author notes something that the greater pro-choice movement has been aware of for a long time: making abortion illegal doesn’t lower abortion rates. North Dakota is forcing pregnant people to either travel out of state for a termination or find a way to do it themselves. They’re not saving children with Down syndrome; they’re punishing parents who put a lot of thought into their decision and in many cases grieved the loss of a wanted child.
So she’s validating everything we’ve been saying.
Beautiful.
Here’s what YOU need to understand:
1) Rape is way, WAY more prevalent than you seem to think it is. Are there more than five women in your audience? You do the math, and then you run the little fantasy scenario that I just put together in your head, and you tell me how it feels.
2) I ain’t buying any of that “If I can make jokes about genocide, why can’t I make jokes about rape?” Horseshit, unless you made those genocide jokes during a gig at the Srebrenica Funny Bone. You got away with making a joke about genocide because your odds of having a holocaust survivor’s kid in the audience were pretty fucking low.
And if you did happen to have one in the audience, and he heckled you, walked out, and wrote something nasty on the internet… would you be more likely to be a human being and say “Wow. I can understand why that person’s authentic response to what I was doing was so emotional and negative. Maybe my genocide material just isn’t good enough to justify the pain that it inflicts. Maybe I need more skill in order to pull this off.” Or are you gonna be a lousy piece of shit and say, “Yeah, I apologize, I guess, IF YOU WERE OFFENDED.”
Offended hasn’t got anything to do with it, moron.
People have wounds, and those wounds are painful. That doesn’t have shit to do with the weak concept of “taking offense.” If someone talks about Texas being a shitty state, I might “take offense” at that. Fine, whatever. All of us who like comedy are generally in agreement with the idea that “taking offense” is lame, and a comedian should be willing to “offend” whenever he or she wants to.
But causing pain is quite a different fucking matter. Your job as a comedian is to take us through pain, transcend pain, transform pain. And if you don’t get that, you are a fucking bully, and I’ve got zero time for bullies.
“
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Comedian Curtis Luciani’s response to Daniel Tosh’s jokes about rape [Read in Full] (via jupiter-callisto) I have never heard of Curtis Luciani before, but you can bet I’m going to look him up now. My hat goes off to you, good sir. This is beautifully put. (via pilgrimkitty) |
How to Apply for a Surgery Grant
The Jim Collins Foundation raises money to fund gender-confirming surgeries for those transgender people who need surgery to live a healthy life, but have no ability to pay for it themselves.
The Jim Collins Foundation will be accepting applications from April 1st – August 1st, 2p3.
For more information and selection criteria, visit their website.
“The Cost of Gender” is running a kickstarter campaign to fund their documentary about transgender health care.
