I wish I had time for this!

Listen to a great interview with Patti Smith on NPR:
"We lived in a time that had magic"

Oh and you should also watch this this video of her talking about gender. Aww i love Patti Smith!

Butch Lesbians and Masculine Privilege- A fable with a lesson at the end →

“ In fact, looking like a boy was like the Hot New Thing, and I had walked right into the middle of it. Everyone thought I was hot. All I had to do was put on a badly-fitting button-down and strangers creamed themselves at the sight of me. It was like a magic spell or a fun new game, and I laughed, ecstatic, at what I had wrought. ” keep reading…

(essay by the wonderful carrot quinn, check out the rest of her blog and zine)

Pakistan Recognizes Third Gender

Late on Wednesday, the Supreme Court in Pakistan ordered that the government officially recognize a separate gender for Pakistan's hijra community, which includes transgendered people, transvestites, and eunuchs. The court told the federal government to begin allowing people to identify as hijras when registering for a national identity card.
read more...

Agency, Resistance and Space

My darling pal Maylee invited me to the tents at Toronto Fashion week! Three of us dressed up as crazy space Alien woman to help promote the installation we were doing for Evan Biddell's Fashion Show After party. We roamed around the posh tents and sat front row hob knobing with the pomposity that is TO's Fashion elite.

Although we were working for a problematic industry, I couldn't help but note how a trio of us space alien gals are capable of disrupting a homogeneous space filled with white skinny bodies. As we were roaming around 'networking,' I introduced myself as a raging feminist and got some pretty uncomfortable looks. Our alien Otherness was read by way of our race, and size - which two thirds of us were not 'skinny' and one third was not white. The exagerration of this Otherness was inherently an act of resistance that helped to facilitate agency over spaces where white skinny supremacy unfortunately dominates.

We got reactions like "good for you" or "oh wow you're so brave" or "what are you doing?" or just simply scornful and critical stares. It was clear, we looked pretty different in a space where race, class and gender afford you privilege, style and sex-appeal. Our Otherness was only made possible within a space that caters to the superior bodies that are propagated as the norm.
Our space Alien outfits and make-up allowed me to think about my body politics. specifically, i began to ponder how my privileges award me space and attention, while my performative Otherness restricts my space and mobility.

Inciting our own agency to create space for our mis-represented or hardly-ever represented bodies is so important in exclusive spaces where privileges create space and mobility. At Toronto Fashion Week my Otherness ( in elaborated costumes) was being performed as a subversive spectacle. Simply performing this Otherness allowed me to experience (albeit superficially ) advantages and disadvantages of my own privilege and how it affects my mobility and perception of space.

For shits and giggles I dare you to carve out your own space through disruption and resistance - go somewhere with a group of friends, dress up, perform, and interrupt the normative nature of supremacy whether it be the skinny elite, or heteronormative bars - you choose, but find that space, make a spectacle and embrace your Otherness while resisting those nasty ideologies and structures that compromise your agency and render you inferior!

ps maylees playing tomorrow at supermarket
MAYLEE & PEGWEE POWER at Supermarket (268 Augusta), Friday (November 13), $10, 416-840-0501; and at Wrongbar (1279 Queen West), Wednesday (November 18), $13.50, 416-516-8677.

Third Stitch Blog

I came across this blog called Third Stitch. The blogger is a genderqueer person of color and they offer fantastic links and articles about gender, race, sexuality, and subsequent identities. It's definitely worth checking out; you'll probably be occupied for hours so it's good for procrastinating with purpose! It's so so good so check it out. I'll probably post directly from it from time to time because there's so much great stuff and I want to make sure everyone reads it.