Tokenized: Colonization, Gender and the Self

We do not form our identities in a vacuum. Instead, they come from the latest in historical progressions (and transgressions).

There are, broadly, two kinds of transition – the “right” kind and the “wrong” kind. Trans folk are obviously not capable making decisions about our lives and our bodies the way that other people are. Therefore we must submit to the decisions of institutions and professionals. That is, if you are privileged enough to be able to afford those services. If not, well, you can only be the “wrong” kind.

At each step some medical or psychological authority must certify that you are the “right” kind of trans person. But what does that certification really entail? In a word, conformity. In another, colonization.

While presentation is a key part of this standard, it is really more about the relationship between past experiences and current identity.

There must be demonstrable evidence of suffering, and more importantly, that you have successfully scrubbed away your gendered past. If you are able to sufficiently demonstrate that you have conformed to the expectations of who you should be, then there is a reward – something that takes you one step closer to feeling ok about your body.

Still, there is an interesting interaction between these institutional and personal desires, between colonizing yourself and being colonized. There is a base assumption of what it means to be masculine or feminine, and how that plays out in everyday life.

When I first started to explore my own sense of gender, I struggled with what it meant to be feminine. I had internalized a lot of the cultural messages pertaining to women. Was I required to wear make up? How about skirts and dresses? Did I have to like men? Before long I began to discipline myself in both my femininity and my masculinity. I was in a constant state of shame, either for failing at the impossible standards of femininity, or thinking that I was betraying the masculinity that I had been born into.

Eventually I was able to gain access to the institutions of approval. Initially, they were concerned about how I wore both of the genders. They were hesitant to give me the certification of conformity. So I worked harder at being the woman they thought I should be. Still, I was not the woman that I wanted to be but rather the woman that society said I should be.

Now the struggle is opposite. I am expected to deny that my first twenty odd years of life even existed. Life begins at transition.

A lot of that denial has to do with safety. Or the fact that some people cannot be counted one to respect my identity once they know my past. Instead they impose their own conceptions who they think I should be, always forcing me into identities I do not claim.

At the other end of the spectrum, it doesn’t matter whether or not I follow the rules laid down by culture, politics, or any other system because I have already broken the cardinal rule – you do not cross the gender line. It is rare to have a day that where I don’t feel as if the strange swirl of my gender identity is being beaten out of me. Every where I look, the general consensus is that I do not fit. Something as simple as proving who I am can become an arduous task, depending on who is looking at the id. I have been fired from jobs (if I could even get them at all) for violating that one rule. Going to see a doctor, even one of the aforementioned professionals, means often being humiliated and maybe even degraded. At the very least, it means not being understood.

Even fellow queers take part, telling me that they know better who, and what, I am. And more importantly, that I do not fit within their world view.

These colonists are always trying to drive those of us who exist in ambiguity out of the space that is rightfully ours, because our very presence can represent a challenge to the very idea that gender difference is so entirely vast and immutable.

There is no such thing as “post-colonial.” We are always left to deal with the destruction and internalized ideology. Instead resistance can only mean identifying the physical, psychological, and emotional scars in order to know the terrain. They cannot, and should not, be forgotten or erased but rather accepted and embraced as the starting point toward self worth.

via The New Gay

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Occupation and Resistance

Its sunny and cold today, I have tons of school work waiting for me, but all i can think about is the ongoing colonization of our minds, lands and our rights. I went a wonderful lecture last night that discussed the importance of indigenous feminism. The wonderful Andrea Smith (Activist/feminist/Cherokee/educator) reminded us how important it is to resist - not because we're good people, but because we're here. The bad news is that 5% of the population has the money and the guns, the good news is there are more of of us ( 95% in fact! ) since we're here, we should be here to resist together! Smith reminded us that many of us are still stuck in the academic-industrial complex, where we're always tired and trying to cover our asses doing all our individual work so that we can never go out and join the revolution. Creating collectives and realizing we're all here together is a priority that can help to mobilize resistance. Its the relationality that counts when we're respecting one another, and making sure we focus on how we create action we'll be able to locate the multiple ways to resist.

The May Day of Action is coming up soon and just to get you in the mood I suggest you watch this fabulous documentary about the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca Mexico. This powerful documentary reveals the symbiotic relationship between the media, the state and the inspirational strength manifested by a collective body of resistance. A Little Bit of So Much Truth ( click to watch ) begins with shots from the May 2006 teachers' strike, which had become an annual ritual. The 60,000-strong Section 22 of the National Teachers' Union would take over Oaxaca's central plaza, or zócalo; then, after a few days, the Oaxaca State governor (the state and its capital city share the name) would agree to some demands, and the teachers would pack up the protest camp known as the plantón and leave. But this time the demonstration quickly snowballed into a full-blown popular revolt.



No One Is Illegal!
May Day of Action
Rally and March | 2 May - 1pm
Meet: Sherbourne and Carlton


On April 2nd and 3rd, over 100 temporary and undocumented workers were attacked by armed border guards, dragged in to detention and are now being forcibly deported. On 2 May, thousands of us will say Enough!

Migrants, poor and working people; undocumented people and people of colour live in constant crisis in Canada, attacked daily. A crisis has always existed in Teesdale, in Regent Park, in farm fields, on factory floors and in hotel service areas.

Corporate and political elites are using the current 'Economic Crisis' as an excuse to attack poor, working-class and racialized communities by increasing immigration enforcement; stealing public funds; wrecking social services; taking away people's jobs rather than cutting profits and targeting those they perceive as the weakest - indigenous people; the homeless; refugee claimants; women in shelters; queer and trans migrants, caregivers; factory workers and temporary workers.

We say there are no illegal human beings, only unjust laws and governments. No one, poor or undocumented, is illegal. The struggle of workers - waged and unwaged, with or without immigration status – is against powerful elites and systems of oppression. Citizenship, jobs and houses - granted to some and denied to others - are tools to divide us.

We will not be divided.

On May 2, join thousands of us as we take to the streets and demand an end to corporate and state attacks on our communities. We demand an end to detentions and deportations. We demand access without fear to essential services. We demand an end to security certificates and secret trials. We demand a full and inclusive regularization program. We demand justice, dignity, and status for all!

We did not create this crisis, and we will not pay for it. On May 2nd, create power. Resist.

The May 2nd rally and march will be preceded by a May Day Festival, on May 1st at 6pm, at 25 Cecil Street.

Before you block the Torch educate yourself about contemporary Canadian racism, oppression, and colonialism

Block the Olympic Torch!

Come one! Come All!

Pull out your brightest (and warmest) threads! Put on your shiniest (and fastest) shoes and wheels!

Expose the Olympic Circus! Block the Olympic Torch!
- a massive street circus you don't want to miss -

17 December 2009
5:15pm
North East Corner of College and University
Time and location may change. Check http://torontotorch.blogspot.com/ frequently

WELCOME the OLYMPIC TORCH in STYLE.

The Olympics Torch is about colonial theft of indigenous land; corporate profit grabbing; ecological destruction, militarization and migrant exploitation.

We say: NO OLYMPICS ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND!
Take up the fight for Indigenous Sovereignty! Migrant Justice! Climate Justice! Income Equality!

Dress up as your favourite rejected Olympics mascot Sassy the Stolen Ceremony, Bitie the BedBug, Dean the Deforester, Gary the Green Washer. Bring music, food and friends.

Are you an organizer? An amazing planner? Have a flair for crafts? COME to the planning meets and prop making days. Details follow

If you are not from Toronto and wondering if you should come, you SHOULD.

Toronto is seeing massive cuts to housing, social services, and increased attacks on poor, migrant, unemployed and underemployed communities. It is also hosting the 2010 G8/20 Leaders Summit and the 2015 Pan-Am Games, all projects to attack people's sovereignty and self-determination. All attacks that we resist. Olympic Resitance is part of that struggle.

Come HEAR from members from the Native Youth Movement (Coast Salish Territories) on December 5, 7:00pm, 95 Charles Street West!

More on the Olympics: http://olympicresistance.net/content/what-wrong-olympics-0

Planning Meetings: 3 & 10 Dec, 6pm, 252 Bloor West
Costume/Prop/Silk Screening/Banner Parties: Dec 7 (4-8pm); Dec 8 (5-9pm); Dec 13 (2-6pm). 100 Devonshire Place. – email torchblock@gmail.com

Organized by the Toronto Extinguish the Torch Committee


Date:
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Time:
5:15pm - 7:00pm
Location:
North East Corner of College and University
Street:
College and University

Conversations

I created a zine recently for my Gender and Violence class. It includes a series of conversations between various figures about violence. I got some really positive feedback from my prof today, so I thought I would post a segment from it. I am going to submit a copy to the Toronto Zine Library if you are interested. Who knows, it may become a series.

Part I

Pocahontas gets a chance to bitch out Walt Disney

P: Fuck you!
D: What?
P: Fuck. You.
D: What did I ever do to you?
P: What didn’t you do to my life?
D: Oh that.
P: Yeah, THAT.
D: I don’t see why you are complaining. I turned your life into a beautiful love story about cultural misunderstanding! I made you a Princess!
P: Fuck that and your Disnified American morality! I’m not one of your perfect cookie-cutter princesses! I am not, and was not the sexual Barbie-esque woman you made me into. I was 12!
D: That’s why we made you into an adult. The true story would have been too scandalous.
P: The true story would have revealed white people as colonialist swine.
D: Yes, well we’re choosy about history. Sometimes bending the truth is best.
P: Sometimes it’s better to throw truth out the window, which is what you did. You put my name on it so that you could claim some kind of historical basis. The whole story was total bullshit from both sides. Just because we’re native doesn’t mean you need to take same hippified interpretation of native spirituality to the point where I actually converse with a tree.
D: But we made you the good guys!
P: I appreciate your understanding that the colonialists were evil bastards.
D: Thanks.
P: But that doesn’t mean I’m happy. You turned my life into a tale of morality that totally ignores the colonialist power implications involved. I was a native girl that was kidnapped and died young and far away from home. What kind of life is that? How is that one of your fairy tales? You should have gone with Sacagawea, you could have pretended that she wasn’t captured and sold to a French fur trapper. You could have made her a feminist icon!
D: There’s no potential love story in that.
P: You could get rid of the French man and give her a polyamorous relationship with Lewis and Clark. It could be hot; you’d get the gay vote too!
D: Ummm
P: Oh, That’s right; you don’t do gay do you?
D: I just don’t think society is ready for polyamory just yet.
P: Of course not, but they are all set to eroticize native women, you’ve only being doing that as a society since the discovery of the new world after all.
D: ...
P: Listen Walt, are you listening? Ok, don’t fuck with history. Do you know what happens when you fuck with history? No, I’m sure you don’t, no one fucks with your history after all. When you change history you deny and erase important truths. Important truths like the fact that I was not a princess, I was not in love and I wasn’t a woman yet. Important truths like that natives did not actually speak to trees, and that our culture had its own set of issues and autonomy. I understand that you did do some research, and that’s great, I totally dig it. Just don’t fuck with history. Because fucking with history ignores the violence that was done to us.
D: So, I guess I have a lot of work to do.
P: Pretty much.
D: I’m sorry
P: Prove it.
D: How?
P: I’m not sure you can.
D: What can I do?
P: I’d like to see your next princess not be a racist stereotype with a waist the size of a toothpick, but that might be asking a lot.
D: I can try.

STAY TUNED for ROLLERDERBY and my review of NEW MOON and the twilight franchise.