Nationalized Hate, Face of the New GOP

The crap that has been spewing from the pie holes of the republicans this last year has reached a crescendo of ridiculousness that is nearly unbelievable.  If the inane ideas the republicans hold were written down in a novel, every book reviewer would bash the book as being over the top, unbelievable, unless it was supposed to be a sci-fi novel about an alternate time line where our country became a theocracy under religious law.

Paul Ryan standing in public, on national tv, claiming that our rights aren't from the government but from God?  WTF?  God isn't mentioned once in any of our documents, a creator is, but s/he isn't named as God.  Our country was founded on the very idea that we were free to worship as we like, all creeds are all deemed equal under the eyes of law. 

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. Aristotle

Who does that sound like? Yup, you got it in one, the republicans.  They have been killing the rights of women left and right the last few years.  Constricting access to abortion to the pin point of our brave women soldiers must now use their own funds to obtain an abortion due to the law that no federal funds may be spent on "supplying" abortions.  Claiming that individuals personal views were more important than the law, allowing pharmacists the right not to dispense birth control of any form.  Now in Arizona a woman is going to be pregnant 2 entire weeks before conception...yeah, i don't know how that works either.

Brian Brown spewing that crap about the two halves of society coming together to form a greater good in marriage is utter and complete shit.  Anyone who stayed awake in history class in high school knows just how much of a lie that is.  For most of recorded history marriage for women was about being an owned heir making machine, not love.  Women had no civil rights, could own nothing, could claim nothing, their children weren't even considered theirs, but their husbands.  As late as the 1970's a woman had to bring a male relative with her to open a bank account in France.  Women in America couldn't open a trading account on their own until the 1970's.

Woman's rights has been colored just as negatively by the Bible as for LGBT folk are.  The haters of women take to heart this verse,

 First Corinthians 7: "It is good, he says, for a man not to touch a woman. If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil."

Throughout the ages women have been locked away from society to ensure the offspring were indeed their husbands.  Ancient Greek and Chinese women left their homes twice, once to travel from their childhood homes to their husbands homes, and the second time to be buried.  And while these women were entombed in their homes, men were out and about sticking their dick into any orifice they wished, this behavior was condoned by society, the penalty for a woman's infidelity was death.  Women are still paying with their lives in Muslim countries for infidelity, even a hint of impropriety can lead to death by stoning, death by fire, disfigured by acid. etc.  

  
Within the last few years, the tea party republicans have attempted to restrict, reduce or eliminate programs that help the poor, Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Pell Grants, and of course the beleaguered Planned Parenthood.  To my way of thinking, reducing the amount of aid to our poorest, our neediest, our most deserving of help is nothing but thinly coated racism.  I know you all remember NOM's attempt to cause a rift between LBGT and Blacks and Latinos last summer.  While NOM tries so very hard to claim not to be a hate group, they dont hate LGBT at all! they only want to keep us from marriage, seeing as how marriage is only a religious institution, oh and adoption, and equal treatment in the workplace, and in the military, basically we should all go crawl into a hole and disappear.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.  Aristotle

By depriving some Americans their civil right to marry, to work, to worship freely, to have children, they are depriving all of us, by taking us down to the lowest common denominator.  Every civil right sliced from certain segments of our society, sets a legal precedence for the allowance of civil rights removal.  As fast as the LGBT legal groups file law suits in courts across our land, the right is busy dismantling laws protecting all of us from multiple forms of discrimination.  These dismantled laws could have dire consequences for those outside the target zone, oh wait, no they know they are allowing wide scale discrimination.

 The GOP has codified their racism and misogyny into the state planks, and now are adopting it for the national party.  At this junction the only way I can see this party swinging into a semblance of rationality is for them to lose in overwhelming large numbers at the voting booth.  And at this time, I'm not really sure that will occur.  I hope it will, I want it to, but hold out little hope that it will.


 

Book Monday

Missing
by
Drake Braxton

This book grabbed me from the first page.  Blain and Manny are headed to Blain's 20th High School Reunion, along for the ride was the baggage of Blain's infidelity, which happened 2 years prior, but Manny just wouldn't let go of the hurt and anger.  Once they arrived at the hotel however, Manny calmed down, took a nap and woke up happy and ready to party.  Like many couples do at parties, after circulating together they wandered apart but still keeping an eye on each other.  Many times Blain would look up to see Manny looking at him, often with anger if Blain was talking to a handsome man.  At one point Blain looked up and realized it had been quite a while since he had seen Manny.  A quick scan of the reunion, no Manny.  Thinking Manny might have become tired of talking to people he didnt know, Blain headed up to their hotel room, no Manny.  At this point, Blain became frantic running around the room, asking the few people left if they had seen Manny, no.  Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he called Manny, only to hear his ring tone.....following the sound to a potted plant by the door. 

And so begins this twisting, turning tale of infidelity, love, best friends and discovering one's true self.  This is Mr. Braxton's first novel but this is no freshman effort, it is a well polished book.  The characters all ring true, the conversation is spot on, and you experience Blain's despair at Manny's disappearance.  There are no easy answers in this book, everything that is learned is a hard won truth, earned through sweat, tears and way to much alcohol to numb the pain of reality.

Available only digitally from both Barns and Noble, and Amazon. $6.99

beneath my skin, the cut that never heals

I belong to several different trans sites, but my favorite one is the genderqeer user group from Yahoo.  Why?  Well, I dont really fit well within the transsexual world, even tho that IS what I am.  If I could, if I had no ties, if I knew I could keep the boy's love, and if TH could accept me as a man,  I would transition in a heart beat.  But that won't happen, I think TH has "evolved" as far as he's going to, and while it's not the best fitting way of life for me, and living this way has always caused me problems with depression, it is the life I chose to live.  But due to my dogged determination not to transition, I am not understood well within the transsexual world.

Within transsexual world, there is one and only one Holy Grail, to transition and "pass" 100% of the time, without any doubt in the other person's eye as they name you ma'am or sir.  I get that, and totally understand the desire, and need to "pass" perfectly, especially since the religious right, and Faux News has whipped up the believers into a frenzy of hate of all things LGBT.   Passing well could mean the difference of walking safely down the street at night, and being beaten or even killed.  As dangerous as it is to be gay, transwomen are murdered at a far far higher rate than gays are, when you figure in the vast difference in the percentage of transwomen to gays.  For the most part, transmen have it much easier, if people notice something "off" about them, the first thing that pops into their minds, is gay, not the fact that once upon a time they used to live in a woman's body.

The genderqueer group is one of people that dont really fit in anywhere.  We are a group of people on the way from one sex to another, gender firmly attached to the coming body.  Also counted are people whose gender is fluid, and so they dress their meat suit to fit the gender of the day.  Some of the younger people want to be androgynous, they dont want to reflect one sex more than another.  I know a few gay teens who are growing breasts, they feel that being some of both is the best fit for them.  This is a very, very loose community, so dilute that it really doesnt constitute as a community, only a small bolt hole, a touchstone really to make sure your not the only one who fits no mold, that you are not alone.

I've always felt like an outsider, a foreigner in a strange land, unsure of the rules of behavior.  My life has been full of facets that would cause me to feel untethered to my world.  Abuse and abandonment by my female parent.  Partial deafness as a child, which thankfully cleared up, an extreme allergy to calcium was the culprit.  Being the only kid without a dad, whose female parent was divorced, and who lived with a succession of men, and she beat them all, like she beat me. 

Add on the boy in a girl suit, and it's no wonder why I had/have problems fitting in.  Recently, I've been looking back on some of the more chaotic times from my childhood, and only now are some of them making more sense.  I only ever asked for trucks, race tracks, cars and erector sets for gift giving times.  What I got was an endless line of dolls, barbies, and any thing pink, frilly and uber girlish. 

Junior high arrived with an extremely unwelcome body modification, breasts.  Summer came around, and with it swim season, my normal pick for an acceptable suit was always a one piece, blue or anything in a darker color.  But this summer for a reason then I didnt understand, my female parent forced me, beat me into wearing a bikini.  I was mortified on many levels, that these horrid lumps could be seen by anyone, and that so much of me was visible making me feel naked in a way I hadn't ever felt before.  As if I could been seen, but not.  My flesh was on display, but somehow that flesh wasnt actually me.  Thinking back on that time period, she forced me into much more feminine clothing, allowed me to pierce my ears, something she had sworn I would never be allowed to do.  And then made me wear dangling earrings, not the wee studs I preferred. I think she was trying to make a "girl" out of me, because I did not act the least bit girly.  My favorite things to do was climb trees, play in the mud, play smear football, play dodge "ball" with cow pies, catch bugs, and ride my bike like a maniac.

This was the time when I really began to disconnect "me" from my body, and that I began a cycle of depression, and engaging in increasingly extremely risky behaviors, drugs, drinking, and sex with complete strangers, not teens, but adult men, 30 and 40 year old men. The year I spent drunk, not enough for others to really notice, but enough to take the edge off, to allow me to breathe, to allow me to find silence in a whirlwind of despair and confusion.  Because some time after puberty arrived, I sunk my "boyness" and just lived in a vague world of being me.  I never used gender as a descriptive word for myself.  Never thought of myself as a girl, lady, woman, and cringed inside when forced to do so.  Hating checking the box for female, hated having to line up with the girls, I had buried the why of my discomfort with being labeled female, even though the pain of having to do so, never went away.

I still dont look at all of me in a mirror, only bits and pieces of me get the once over.  My hair, my pants, is this shirt to wrinkly to leave the house....  Rarely ever do I look at me fully, totally and completely, and when I do so, it is always with a small momentary shock at what I'm seeing, what my body is - female.  I have become so adept at divorcing myself my my meat suit that looking in a mirror to try on new clothing is a challenge, I see a female looking back from the mirror, and seeing me as a female, seeing me in female clothing is a shock.  I quickly rip off the offending clothing, as if its that poor shirt/pants fault that the mirror is reflecting my actual flesh, not my imagined me. 

What the world sees, a female, and who I actually am, a guy, leaves me at some points oddly disconnected and at the same time, at war with myself.  I want to be whole.  I want to be a complete person, to match the inner and the outer.  How can I become whole, when it would mean losing most of whats important to me?  Why can so many other trans people just damn the torpedoes and straight on until morning, leaving their past life in ruins, in many ways not caring about the breaking of ties, but yet I cant?  Am I that weak?  I'm at war with my body and my gender, with societies view of who I am, and who I actually am, and seemly unable to shift myself into action.  I fear losing TH, that heart episode really showed me just how much I adore him, the thought of losing him is greater than my fear of roller coasters.  I fear losing our sons love and affection, of being cast out of their lives forever.  So, in light of not seeing any clear path to a way to transition and keep my loved ones close, I stay dogged in my determination not to, living a life of being at constant war within, with no peace in my life.

Close Enough by War Poets

An Odd Voyeuristic Crush

A few years ago, I was headed home, when a hot convertible zoomed up behind me, and smooth as silk, slipped into the next lane and like a ghost, was gone in moments.  The encounter only lasted sexonds....err seconds, but my lust was awakened for this car.  At the last moment, I noticed his personalized license plates, for the rest of the way home, I wrestled with what those letters meant.  And then it came to me,  fe man = iron man.  But why I wondered iron man?

A few days later, I got my question answered, he was BUILT.  And hot as hellz.  He oozed sex appeal, and thus began my fascination with this car/man combo.  Needless to say, this car doesnt see the light of day during the winter, so the season for iron man spotting is short lived.  When ever I see the car, see the guy within it really does lift my spirits, and my libido stands to attention and begs.

Today, I had an encounter with Mr. Iron Man.  And while the car is the same, the license plates are the same, the guy within wasnt!  This was a much younger man, he drove the car as well as "my" guy.  So now my fascination is at a fever pitch.  Who was driving his car?  Dance music was pumping from the speakers, mystery man was at least 15 years younger, and cute.  Is Mr. Iron Man gay and is this his boyfriend?  I've never seen Mr. FE with a woman, only various guys......

See what I mean? I'm completely obsessed by this car and the guy who owns it.

the invisible man

so yeah, i've most deff been an invisible man of late.  no reading or commenting on posts, i havent really been online in a long while now.  why?  well.....i think TH and i were both suffering from stress backlash.  both of us has been worn out, and ive been flirting with severe depression, but i think that ive beaten it back.

  so this is what we have been up to of late.

we got all the damned paperwork signed and received the keys on the 11th.  off we go to youngest's garage to get everything that i could help move.  everything that gets into the truck and my car smoothly slides into the house........except for the sofa.  yeah.  we get it off the truck, thru the garage, into the laundry room, only to get it stuck in the doorway into the house.  think.......think.......think....
ok back it up, take legs off........fuck that didnt help at all! think...think....think........we ended up carrying that damnable sofa all the way around the back, thru the garden and into the house.  my arms are ever so much longer now.

while we are moving in, every single time TH stops for a moment, or looks kinda funny, i get worried.  we put our bed together, i hooked up the tv and dvd player, and when i went out to get something to eat, picked up a few videos.  i was determined that TH was not going to exhaust himself if i could help it.

we finally got our direct tv hooked up 4 days ago, our internet about 6.  and while i can check my emails on my phone, reading blogs is a royal pain, so thats why ive fallen so far behind.

i told TH the other day, i'm fully moved in except for the art work.  he looked around at all the stuff that isnt here, and gave me the "explain please" eyebrow.  after explaining to him why i feel fully moved in, he laughed, gave me a hug and agreed that yeah for me, i am moved in.

my knitting and tech are all here

dishes are all snug in their cabinet thinking, "ready for work captain!"

spices back in a comfy drawer awaiting their orders.  note to self, purchase more 5 spice powder

and the books are out of their boxes ready for eager eyes to caress their pages again


while i was gone from blogworld, these things were going on in our world,

third son's first year anniversary

our anniversary

youngest's gf had a b'day
                          AND
                                  he asked her to marry him, she said yes

my b'day

hopefully dear bloggers, i wont be the invisible man from now on