Issues 

When I first took my partner down to meet my parents, we were returning from a weekend getaway in Monterey. We went out to a nice dinner and then headed to their house to relax & socialize for a bit before continuing our journey back home to San Francisco. The conversation (inevitably) turned toward my childhood & whatever embarrassing pictures could be displayed or stories related.We ended up focusing on my early childhood years...

 

I was lucky to go to an awesome preschool. I don't have many concrete memories of it (I'm more of an emotional memory kind of kid--I remember how things *feel* rather than how they actually *were*), but I remember it being one of the happiest times of my life. Getting messy, learning new information about the world, hanging out with all my besties, climbing anything in front of me, having camp-outs, playing with animals, roughhousing...you get the idea.

 

 

 

One of the things the preschool did was have parents create scrapbooks for their kids--one of the coolest things ever, in my humble opinion. I mean, not only capturing pictures of me at that age, but my artwork & words put down verbatim--oh the things I said! And man, that tendency to tell stories? Definitely inborn. Also inborn? We chuckled at the part that described my personality: 'Shy, strong-willed, aggressive' (yep, all three simultaneously--and still true today!), 'Does not take defeat well.'

 

 

We kept flipping through the pages. Picture after picture of me; shaving with my dad (one of my *favorite* things to do), straddling my trike with hips cocked & a tough look on my face (premonition of me on my motorcycle so many years in the future?), and most importantly (and frequently) me playing dress-up. When we reach the picture of me wearing an adult-sized petticoat up around my chest with a baby tucked under one arm steering a shopping cart with the under all topped off by a football helmet, my partner turned to me and said: 'Even when you were a kid, your gender was THIS BIG.'

 

All I could do was shrug & nod with a sheepish grin. Yeah--that and I wanted it all, even back then.

 

I used to joke that I was a fag trapped in a dyke's body. Back when I had time to perform, my bio started: 'The bastard love child of an opera singer and a madman, Charlie was taken in by drag queens and schooled in proper faggish fashion, diction, etiquette, and grandiose metaphor.' I still tell people that 'My mother was an opera singer, so I was raised by queens.' The point of the story is, I was not only raised with gay men as role models, but I identified with so many of the specific emotive and playful aspects they embraced from the culture of theater/music within which they made their lives. So what the hell does that make me?

 

Part of the problem is that I can't decide. I can't commit to being one or the other. I took a boy's name so I could feel comfortable wearing dresses; I have more ties and more dicks than most of my 'butch' partners--and get more use out of them too; last year I lopped most of my chest off, but then kept growing my hair out to ridiculously feminine proportions. I struggled for a long time trying to figure out if I was trans before realizing I was just genderqueer. A queer genderqueer, to be ever so elusively precise. Because that's the thing--it's not that I wanted to be a boy or a girl. I just wanted to be a kid playing dress-up, and let my whims and whimsy take hold every day. Let the imaginative power and magic shape my interactions with the world through choosing the presentation that shapes my role in it. I wanted to be able to (re)invent myself everyday.

 

 

 

A big part of the problem is that I rarely like baggy clothes, and when I do bust out that wardrobe I merely resonate dyke--more sexual identity than gender identity. In addition, my 'boy' is usually either a queeny preener or a dapper prancer.  Give me a tight, trashy shirt & slutty pants (see: Queer as Folk, Emmett) or something beautifully tailored & labeled (see: Glee, Kurt). Those + female secondary sex characteristics (does not equal) dancing queen--at least not in the way I want it to.

So I read as 'girl' most of the time. And because I have the experience, I can play that role well--often so well that individuals don't see the subtler shades of gender that ripple across my skin when I turn my face to the world. They don't see that this 'femme' thing is just a front, that I make my way with a coy but deliberate tribute to all things camp, that there is a subtle subterfuge to each wardrobe decision. They see a fragment, a slice, a sliver of the spectrum. Thankfully, though, I know those who know & love me see the small but fiercely beating heart of agirlboy wonder making its way in the world, one teetering-heeled step at a time.

 

 

 

 

When I first took my partner down to meet my parents, we were returning from a weekend getaway in Monterey. We went out to a nice dinner and then headed to their house to relax & socialize for a bit before continuing our journey back home to San Francisco. The conversation (inevitably) turned toward my childhood & whatever embarrassing pictures could be displayed or stories related.We ended up focusing on my early childhood years...

 

I was lucky to go to an awesome preschool. I don't have many concrete memories of it (I'm more of an emotional memory kind of kid--I remember how things *feel* rather than how they actually *were*), but I remember it being one of the happiest times of my life. Getting messy, learning new information about the world, hanging out with all my besties, climbing anything in front of me, having camp-outs, playing with animals, roughhousing...you get the idea.

 

 

 

One of the things the preschool did was have parents create scrapbooks for their kids--one of the coolest things ever, in my humble opinion. I mean, not only capturing pictures of me at that age, but my artwork & words put down verbatim--oh the things I said! And man, that tendency to tell stories? Definitely inborn. Also inborn? We chuckled at the part that described my personality: 'Shy, strong-willed, aggressive' (yep, all three simultaneously--and still true today!), 'Does not take defeat well.'

 

 

We kept flipping through the pages. Picture after picture of me; shaving with my dad (one of my *favorite* things to do), straddling my trike with hips cocked & a tough look on my face (premonition of me on my motorcycle so many years in the future?), and most importantly (and frequently) me playing dress-up. When we reach the picture of me wearing an adult-sized petticoat up around my chest with a baby tucked under one arm steering a shopping cart with the under all topped off by a football helmet, my partner turned to me and said: 'Even when you were a kid, your gender was THIS BIG.'

 

All I could do was shrug & nod with a sheepish grin. Yeah--that and I wanted it all, even back then.

 

I used to joke that I was a fag trapped in a dyke's body. Back when I had time to perform, my bio started: 'The bastard love child of an opera singer and a madman, Charlie was taken in by drag queens and schooled in proper faggish fashion, diction, etiquette, and grandiose metaphor.' I still tell people that 'My mother was an opera singer, so I was raised by queens.' The point of the story is, I was not only raised with gay men as role models, but I identified with so many of the specific emotive and playful aspects they embraced from the culture of theater/music within which they made their lives. So what the hell does that make me?

 

Part of the problem is that I can't decide. I can't commit to being one or the other. I took a boy's name so I could feel comfortable wearing dresses; I have more ties and more dicks than most of my 'butch' partners--and get more use out of them too; last year I lopped most of my chest off, but then kept growing my hair out to ridiculously feminine proportions. I struggled for a long time trying to figure out if I was trans before realizing I was just genderqueer. A queer genderqueer, to be ever so elusively precise. Because that's the thing--it's not that I wanted to be a boy or a girl. I just wanted to be a kid playing dress-up, and let my whims and whimsy take hold every day. Let the imaginative power and magic shape my interactions with the world through choosing the presentation that shapes my role in it. I wanted to be able to (re)invent myself everyday.

 

 

 

A big part of the problem is that I rarely like baggy clothes, and when I do bust out that wardrobe I merely resonate dyke--more sexual identity than gender identity. In addition, my 'boy' is usually either a queeny preener or a dapper prancer.  Give me a tight, trashy shirt & slutty pants (see: Queer as Folk, Emmett) or something beautifully tailored & labeled (see: Glee, Kurt). Those + female secondary sex characteristics (does not equal) dancing queen--at least not in the way I want it to.

So I read as 'girl' most of the time. And because I have the experience, I can play that role well--often so well that individuals don't see the subtler shades of gender that ripple across my skin when I turn my face to the world. They don't see that this 'femme' thing is just a front, that I make my way with a coy but deliberate tribute to all things camp, that there is a subtle subterfuge to each wardrobe decision. They see a fragment, a slice, a sliver of the spectrum. Thankfully, though, I know those who know & love me see the small but fiercely beating heart of agirlboy wonder making its way in the world, one teetering-heeled step at a time.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I sent out an appeal on behalf of the National Sexuality Resource Center, asking our community to call in to reject Orrin Hatch's sneaky attempts to add $250 million for abstinence-only education into the health reform package. Thanks to all of you who made calls.

Today, I came in to work to find this email in my in box:

"Hi - I just had to comment about your cheesecake photo that went out with a letter urging people to reject abstinence-only sex education.  While I agree with the philosophy and am familiar with the research documenting the failure of that type of sex education, the style of photo you chose to include with the email was overtly sexual and undermined your message. I agree that 'sex sells' but this seems, to me, to set the wrong tone for an important issue.  A more business-like image would have convinced me, but I don't feel comfortable forwarding the letter to other friends to request their support."

I was dumbfounded. And saddened. And disappointed, that a woman anthropology professor--one who probably considers herself progressive on gender and sexuality issues (she is on our mailing list, after all)--would not take me seriously because of the way I looked. And even worse, that she would try to shame me because she perceived my appearance as being sexual. I say perceived, because I have examined and re-examined my pic--no lowcut blouse, no suggestive look, but I do have a fondness for red lipstick.

In my life, I have had blue hair, unshaved legs and pits, four or five facial piercings at a time, worn flannel shirts (they were a mistake) and tiaras, and gone to formal events wearing fake teeth. I took my bottle of tooth black on the plane to my grandmother's funeral because it made me feel safe. I have gone out in full masculine drag, including moustache, plus lipstick. I have performed as a female-born female impersonator. I got a flattop on a military base in the middle of Texas.

When my son, who is four, wanted to wear a dress to preschool, I was scared that someone would try and shame him for busting their very binary concepts of gender. Then I went out, got him a dress with big buttons that he could undo himself, practiced funny retorts with him, and sent him off to school with a shirt and jeans as backup. I am a dyke, a mom, a sexuality activist, and many, many other things--none of which require wearing lipstick, but none that preclude it, either.  Do I have to prove that I am committed to smashing the way we think about gender and sexuality? Evidently, even after twenty years of activism, my lipstick says I do.

I have been able to enjoy gender and femininity as performance--and I also understand that there are many people who don't get to 'enjoy' how their gender is expressed or perceived; that for many people the way they look is not just play, but something that poses a danger to them daily as they move through the world. That kind of courage is something that I haven't lived, but have felt viscerally as I held my butch girlfriend's hand in a public bathroom in Texas. I get that my choice to look more conventionally feminine is a choice that I am able to make, and that privileges accompany it--as does the privilege I get from being white and educated.

This woman--who claims she believes in our work-- was offered the opportunity to make a call to end abstinence-only education, a failed strategy that reinforces heteronormative behavior, waiting until 'marriage' for sex, and traditional gender roles for both men and women. Instead, she used her time and energy to write me a personal email to put me down for the way I looked, and to attempt to embarass me because she thought I was sexy. (To which I say: not embarassed, and thanks.)

When I read about the girl who was gangraped by more than twenty boys in Richmond this week, and heard girls from her school say that she 'asked for it' because she had gone off with the boys in the first place, I cried, because I thought we had gotten past the point where we tell women that because of the way they look, or the choices they make, they somehow deserve to be thought of as less human than someone else. And when the Matthew Shepard Act passed this week, I thought about my son and his dress and his barbie backpack, and all of my hot gender outlaw friends, and knew that someone is recognizing--and protecting--the courage they have to be just who they are, damned if you like it or not.

A boss once commented that he knew what Freud would say about my wearing lipstick [Freud said it was a secret desire to castrate men]. I smiled, and put on another bright red coat. If you want to find my lipstick a threat or a distraction, so be it. But you just might miss me changing the world--and you'll be missing your opportunity to do the same.

I sit next to my attorney silently, facing the immigration judge. I am told my case (aka my life, aspirations and my body) is under his jurisdiction. I am dressed as professionally as possible to aptly represent my "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" status. I nervously look around the room. My dark eyes catch another attorney behind us signaling me to take off my hat. Promptly I take off my favorite accessory (my only sign of faggotry) to show my compliance with the US judicial practices. The judge begins his inquiry, to which my attorney reveals my HIV status, and my inability to adjust my status even though my petition for permanent residency to the US was granted on the basis of my claim as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" in February 2002. The pain of hiding underground, days of unemployment, hunger, fear of accessing treatment leading me to near death flashes across my mind. Where would I turn for the wasted seven years of my life? Will this judge be able to understand the lost wages, aspirations, depression and most of all the psychological violence of being separated from my beloved parents? It is clear my journey to justice is only beginning. This blog post is my first public step in ending isolation, silence, fear and their antecedent dysfunctions that the HIV ban on immigration and travel has wrought upon my life. It has disrupted my educational, work and all major life aspirations. I have silently watched my friends getting married, accessing green card, completing their PhD's and accumulating life assets. I have very vocally over the last six years worked with LGBT immigrants, helped them with their asylum claims, and watch them move on with their lives. Whereas, I have had to hide in fear, live on friends couches, clean apartments, meticulously plan my travels within the US, face Kaposi Sarcoma, PCP (all very avoidable if medications are accessed on time). Publicly my body is mapped as that of an Immigration and Education Policy Expert, whereas privately I have been intimately aware that any inkling of my health status would have me labeled "diseased, public burden". Yet I know that my life and story is not the only one, there are several HIV positive immigrants silently waiting for some form of relief, as they continue to work hard, and pay taxes. The United States has denied the entry of HIV+ people for both short term travel and immigration since 1987. This exclusionary practice follows a long history of excluding immigrants into the United States on public health grounds. Since the 1890’s the US Congress empowered the federal government to turn back those with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. The rational for such exclusions ostensibly being two folds; i) protecting the public health of US citizenry and ii) Reducing the burden on health care expenses of the US government. The intersections of racism, xenophobia and public health becomes evident when these bans are contextualized within the demographic profiles of generations of incoming immigrants and those who are excluded. In the early 1990’s during the Haitian Refugee crisis, all Haitian detainees at Guantanamo were forcibly tested for HIV, and those found positive were detained in Guantanamo under un-hygienic conditions. The Haitian Centers Council successfully fought a case for the release of the terminally ill detainees. The entire situation created a renewed fear of “diseased foreigners”, and prompted Congress to consider legislation that legally deemed HIV+ persons as “inadmissible”. Review of the congressional hearing proceedings reveals deployment of xenophobic, HIV phobic and homophobic remarks by those in support of the ban. A large coalition of medical, legal and LGBT rights organizations opposed the ban, but in wake of virulent AIDS phobia and stigma of the early 1990’s, and fear of a flurry of HIV+ immigrants driving up health care costs in the US, the ban was adopted. The ban has disproportionately impacted immigrants of color, since majority of recent immigrants to the US are from Latin America, Caribbeans, Asia and Africa. It can also be argued that the ban like other bans in the past is deeply rooted in scientific racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Efforts to remove the HIV ban have largely been organized by HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and some immigrant rights organizations. In 1990, several medical, Gay and Lesbian and Immigrant organizations such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the American Medical Association lobbied the Health and Human Services (HHS) to remove HIV from its list of inadmissible diseases. As the HHS was preparing recommendations, the then Republican dominated Congress pushed through a bill that eventually made it a law to ban HIV+ individuals from entering the country. Since then, extensive on the ground organizing has been conducted by grass-roots immigrant organizations, who worked to push policy organizations to bring the removal of the ban back as an agenda item, to their work. In May of 2006 the “Lift the Bar Coalition” was formed, lead by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queers for Economic Justice, The Audre Lorde Project, Immigration Equality, HIV/AIDS organizations such as African AIDS Services and AIDS Action along with immigrant rights organizations such as the National Immigrant Justice Center. As the New Voices fellow I was one of the lead community organizers around the initiatives to "Lift the Ban”. I recall organizing community forums, strategizig with coalition members, while every cell in my body wanted to announce loudly my own health status, and the ways I have had to hide in fear. On July 2008, after years of significant on the ground organizing, and lobbying “Lift the Bar Coalition” was successful in removing the HIV ban language from the “Immigration and Nationality Act”. The coalition met with offices of Senator John Kerry and Representative Barbara Lee to tag the removal of the ban along with the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR).HIV still remains on the list “inadmissible diseases” with the HHS. The HHS has recently released renewed guidelines indicating a possible laxer standard, we are yet to see these being finalized. As I continue to wait to adjust my status, I have begun my own journey to health and justice. Justice for me would be the very undoing of stigma in legal and societal practices for people living with HIV and AIDS, people from disability communities, and many other folks who are labeled diseased and marginalized. On the eve of the National Equality March, I challenge all of us to go beyond notions of equality under the law, and invite us to re imagine the basic foundation of our LGBT movement as "transformative justice". While cost-benefit analysis along with equality as a rhetoric helped us push the lifting of the HIV Ban with lawmakers on H street, the struggle is yet to be over. Justice will be served to me when I can visit my beloved parents after being separated from them for 13years. I will see justice when every immigrant is imagined as a human being with dreams, aspirations and emotions. Justice will shine when all LGBT people will be able to live life free of shame and fear, and for each of these to happen we need to go beyond our focus on public policies, we need to expand our work to incorporate strategies that fundamentally alter power relations in society. As I get ready to hit the "publish" button on my laptop, I fear of what may come from being public through this blog while my case is still pending. At the same time I am letting go of pain, fear and silence that almost drove me to near death. Finally, I have to admit I am planning on "getting on the bus" for National Equality March, however mine is a bus for justice, peace, redistribution of economic resources, labor and human rights, all intrinsically related to the liberation of LGBT people. Find me marching with friends and long time allies at the National Gay Lesbian Taskforce . The Taskforce over the years has shown me they are reflexive about their mistakes, build on victories and have historically fought for policy changes along with building a movement for social justice. Whom ever you march with, party with or end up hooking up with at the after march revels; ensure to spread the passion for liberation and justice. Note: this post is dedicated to my beloved mother, father, my friends and allies; Myna Mukherjee, Raili Roy, Sougato Kerr, Nancy Ordover, Carl Utt, Navid Alam, Amar Puri, Maria Nakae, Ken Williams, Prantik Saha, David Fuentes, Shweta Malhotra, Marian Thambynayagam, Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Mia Mingus, Sonali Sadiquee, Kerry Lobel, Beth Zemsky, Amber Hollibaugh, Abbie Boggs, Suzanne Pharr,Joo Hyan Kang, Trishala Deb, Mimi Jefferson, Debra East, Leslie Van Barselaar, Jo Anne Demark, Monami Maulik, Bo Young, Joey Cain, Lisa Thomas Adeyemo, Sue Hyde, Lisa Weiner Mahfuz, Rodrigo Brandao, Michelle Lopez, Susan Misra, Ruso Panduro, Marta Doanayre, Piali Mukhejee, Paul Knox and all the hot leather daddies who have helped me rediscover my body and ability to experience pleasure.

I sit next to my attorney silently, facing the immigration judge. I am told my case (aka my life, aspirations and my body) is under his jurisdiction. I am dressed as professionally as possible to aptly represent my "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" status. I nervously look around the room. My dark eyes catch another attorney behind us signaling me to take off my hat. Promptly I take off my favorite accessory (my only sign of faggotry) to show my compliance with the US judicial practices. The judge begins his inquiry, to which my attorney reveals my HIV status, and my inability to adjust my status even though my petition for permanent residency to the US was granted on the basis of my claim as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" in February 2002. The pain of hiding underground, days of unemployment, hunger, fear of accessing treatment leading me to near death flashes across my mind. Where would I turn for the wasted seven years of my life? Will this judge be able to understand the lost wages, aspirations, depression and most of all the psychological violence of being separated from my beloved parents? It is clear my journey to justice is only beginning. This blog post is my first public step in ending isolation, silence, fear and their antecedent dysfunctions that the HIV ban on immigration and travel has wrought upon my life. It has disrupted my educational, work and all major life aspirations. I have silently watched my friends getting married, accessing green card, completing their PhD's and accumulating life assets. I have very vocally over the last six years worked with LGBT immigrants, helped them with their asylum claims, and watch them move on with their lives. Whereas, I have had to hide in fear, live on friends couches, clean apartments, meticulously plan my travels within the US, face Kaposi Sarcoma, PCP (all very avoidable if medications are accessed on time). Publicly my body is mapped as that of an Immigration and Education Policy Expert, whereas privately I have been intimately aware that any inkling of my health status would have me labeled "diseased, public burden". Yet I know that my life and story is not the only one, there are several HIV positive immigrants silently waiting for some form of relief, as they continue to work hard, and pay taxes. The United States has denied the entry of HIV+ people for both short term travel and immigration since 1987. This exclusionary practice follows a long history of excluding immigrants into the United States on public health grounds. Since the 1890’s the US Congress empowered the federal government to turn back those with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. The rational for such exclusions ostensibly being two folds; i) protecting the public health of US citizenry and ii) Reducing the burden on health care expenses of the US government. The intersections of racism, xenophobia and public health becomes evident when these bans are contextualized within the demographic profiles of generations of incoming immigrants and those who are excluded. In the early 1990’s during the Haitian Refugee crisis, all Haitian detainees at Guantanamo were forcibly tested for HIV, and those found positive were detained in Guantanamo under un-hygienic conditions. The Haitian Centers Council successfully fought a case for the release of the terminally ill detainees. The entire situation created a renewed fear of “diseased foreigners”, and prompted Congress to consider legislation that legally deemed HIV+ persons as “inadmissible”. Review of the congressional hearing proceedings reveals deployment of xenophobic, HIV phobic and homophobic remarks by those in support of the ban. A large coalition of medical, legal and LGBT rights organizations opposed the ban, but in wake of virulent AIDS phobia and stigma of the early 1990’s, and fear of a flurry of HIV+ immigrants driving up health care costs in the US, the ban was adopted. The ban has disproportionately impacted immigrants of color, since majority of recent immigrants to the US are from Latin America, Caribbeans, Asia and Africa. It can also be argued that the ban like other bans in the past is deeply rooted in scientific racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Efforts to remove the HIV ban have largely been organized by HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and some immigrant rights organizations. In 1990, several medical, Gay and Lesbian and Immigrant organizations such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the American Medical Association lobbied the Health and Human Services (HHS) to remove HIV from its list of inadmissible diseases. As the HHS was preparing recommendations, the then Republican dominated Congress pushed through a bill that eventually made it a law to ban HIV+ individuals from entering the country. Since then, extensive on the ground organizing has been conducted by grass-roots immigrant organizations, who worked to push policy organizations to bring the removal of the ban back as an agenda item, to their work. In May of 2006 the “Lift the Bar Coalition” was formed, lead by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queers for Economic Justice, The Audre Lorde Project, Immigration Equality, HIV/AIDS organizations such as African AIDS Services and AIDS Action along with immigrant rights organizations such as the National Immigrant Justice Center. As the New Voices fellow I was one of the lead community organizers around the initiatives to "Lift the Ban”. I recall organizing community forums, strategizig with coalition members, while every cell in my body wanted to announce loudly my own health status, and the ways I have had to hide in fear. On July 2008, after years of significant on the ground organizing, and lobbying “Lift the Bar Coalition” was successful in removing the HIV ban language from the “Immigration and Nationality Act”. The coalition met with offices of Senator John Kerry and Representative Barbara Lee to tag the removal of the ban along with the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR).HIV still remains on the list “inadmissible diseases” with the HHS. The HHS has recently released renewed guidelines indicating a possible laxer standard, we are yet to see these being finalized. As I continue to wait to adjust my status, I have begun my own journey to health and justice. Justice for me would be the very undoing of stigma in legal and societal practices for people living with HIV and AIDS, people from disability communities, and many other folks who are labeled diseased and marginalized. On the eve of the National Equality March, I challenge all of us to go beyond notions of equality under the law, and invite us to re imagine the basic foundation of our LGBT movement as "transformative justice". While cost-benefit analysis along with equality as a rhetoric helped us push the lifting of the HIV Ban with lawmakers on H street, the struggle is yet to be over. Justice will be served to me when I can visit my beloved parents after being separated from them for 13years. I will see justice when every immigrant is imagined as a human being with dreams, aspirations and emotions. Justice will shine when all LGBT people will be able to live life free of shame and fear, and for each of these to happen we need to go beyond our focus on public policies, we need to expand our work to incorporate strategies that fundamentally alter power relations in society. As I get ready to hit the "publish" button on my laptop, I fear of what may come from being public through this blog while my case is still pending. At the same time I am letting go of pain, fear and silence that almost drove me to near death. Finally, I have to admit I am planning on "getting on the bus" for National Equality March, however mine is a bus for justice, peace, redistribution of economic resources, labor and human rights, all intrinsically related to the liberation of LGBT people. Find me marching with friends and long time allies at the National Gay Lesbian Taskforce . The Taskforce over the years has shown me they are reflexive about their mistakes, build on victories and have historically fought for policy changes along with building a movement for social justice. Whom ever you march with, party with or end up hooking up with at the after march revels; ensure to spread the passion for liberation and justice. Note: this post is dedicated to my beloved mother, father, my friends and allies; Myna Mukherjee, Raili Roy, Sougato Kerr, Nancy Ordover, Carl Utt, Navid Alam, Amar Puri, Maria Nakae, Ken Williams, Prantik Saha, David Fuentes, Shweta Malhotra, Marian Thambynayagam, Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Mia Mingus, Sonali Sadiquee, Kerry Lobel, Beth Zemsky, Amber Hollibaugh, Abbie Boggs, Suzanne Pharr,Joo Hyan Kang, Trishala Deb, Mimi Jefferson, Debra East, Leslie Van Barselaar, Jo Anne Demark, Monami Maulik, Bo Young, Joey Cain, Lisa Thomas Adeyemo, Sue Hyde, Lisa Weiner Mahfuz, Rodrigo Brandao, Michelle Lopez, Susan Misra, Ruso Panduro, Marta Doanayre, Piali Mukhejee, Paul Knox and all the hot leather daddies who have helped me rediscover my body and ability to experience pleasure.

I sit next to my attorney silently, facing the immigration judge. I am told my case (aka my life, aspirations and my body) is under his jurisdiction. I am dressed as professionally as possible to aptly represent my "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" status. I nervously look around the room. My dark eyes catch another attorney behind us signaling me to take off my hat. Promptly I take off my favorite accessory (my only sign of faggotry) to show my compliance with the US judicial practices. The judge begins his inquiry, to which my attorney reveals my HIV status, and my inability to adjust my status even though my petition for permanent residency to the US was granted on the basis of my claim as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" in February 2002. The pain of hiding underground, days of unemployment, hunger, fear of accessing treatment leading me to near death flashes across my mind. Where would I turn for the wasted seven years of my life? Will this judge be able to understand the lost wages, aspirations, depression and most of all the psychological violence of being separated from my beloved parents? It is clear my journey to justice is only beginning. This blog post is my first public step in ending isolation, silence, fear and their antecedent dysfunctions that the HIV ban on immigration and travel has wrought upon my life. It has disrupted my educational, work and all major life aspirations. I have silently watched my friends getting married, accessing green card, completing their PhD's and accumulating life assets. I have very vocally over the last six years worked with LGBT immigrants, helped them with their asylum claims, and watch them move on with their lives. Whereas, I have had to hide in fear, live on friends couches, clean apartments, meticulously plan my travels within the US, face Kaposi Sarcoma, PCP (all very avoidable if medications are accessed on time). Publicly my body is mapped as that of an Immigration and Education Policy Expert, whereas privately I have been intimately aware that any inkling of my health status would have me labeled "diseased, public burden". Yet I know that my life and story is not the only one, there are several HIV positive immigrants silently waiting for some form of relief, as they continue to work hard, and pay taxes. The United States has denied the entry of HIV+ people for both short term travel and immigration since 1987. This exclusionary practice follows a long history of excluding immigrants into the United States on public health grounds. Since the 1890’s the US Congress empowered the federal government to turn back those with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. The rational for such exclusions ostensibly being two folds; i) protecting the public health of US citizenry and ii) Reducing the burden on health care expenses of the US government. The intersections of racism, xenophobia and public health becomes evident when these bans are contextualized within the demographic profiles of generations of incoming immigrants and those who are excluded. In the early 1990’s during the Haitian Refugee crisis, all Haitian detainees at Guantanamo were forcibly tested for HIV, and those found positive were detained in Guantanamo under un-hygienic conditions. The Haitian Centers Council successfully fought a case for the release of the terminally ill detainees. The entire situation created a renewed fear of “diseased foreigners”, and prompted Congress to consider legislation that legally deemed HIV+ persons as “inadmissible”. Review of the congressional hearing proceedings reveals deployment of xenophobic, HIV phobic and homophobic remarks by those in support of the ban. A large coalition of medical, legal and LGBT rights organizations opposed the ban, but in wake of virulent AIDS phobia and stigma of the early 1990’s, and fear of a flurry of HIV+ immigrants driving up health care costs in the US, the ban was adopted. The ban has disproportionately impacted immigrants of color, since majority of recent immigrants to the US are from Latin America, Caribbeans, Asia and Africa. It can also be argued that the ban like other bans in the past is deeply rooted in scientific racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Efforts to remove the HIV ban have largely been organized by HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and some immigrant rights organizations. In 1990, several medical, Gay and Lesbian and Immigrant organizations such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the American Medical Association lobbied the Health and Human Services (HHS) to remove HIV from its list of inadmissible diseases. As the HHS was preparing recommendations, the then Republican dominated Congress pushed through a bill that eventually made it a law to ban HIV+ individuals from entering the country. Since then, extensive on the ground organizing has been conducted by grass-roots immigrant organizations, who worked to push policy organizations to bring the removal of the ban back as an agenda item, to their work. In May of 2006 the “Lift the Bar Coalition” was formed, lead by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queers for Economic Justice, The Audre Lorde Project, Immigration Equality, HIV/AIDS organizations such as African AIDS Services and AIDS Action along with immigrant rights organizations such as the National Immigrant Justice Center. As the New Voices fellow I was one of the lead community organizers around the initiatives to "Lift the Ban”. I recall organizing community forums, strategizig with coalition members, while every cell in my body wanted to announce loudly my own health status, and the ways I have had to hide in fear. On July 2008, after years of significant on the ground organizing, and lobbying “Lift the Bar Coalition” was successful in removing the HIV ban language from the “Immigration and Nationality Act”. The coalition met with offices of Senator John Kerry and Representative Barbara Lee to tag the removal of the ban along with the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR).HIV still remains on the list “inadmissible diseases” with the HHS. The HHS has recently released renewed guidelines indicating a possible laxer standard, we are yet to see these being finalized. As I continue to wait to adjust my status, I have begun my own journey to health and justice. Justice for me would be the very undoing of stigma in legal and societal practices for people living with HIV and AIDS, people from disability communities, and many other folks who are labeled diseased and marginalized. On the eve of the National Equality March, I challenge all of us to go beyond notions of equality under the law, and invite us to re imagine the basic foundation of our LGBT movement as "transformative justice". While cost-benefit analysis along with equality as a rhetoric helped us push the lifting of the HIV Ban with lawmakers on H street, the struggle is yet to be over. Justice will be served to me when I can visit my beloved parents after being separated from them for 13years. I will see justice when every immigrant is imagined as a human being with dreams, aspirations and emotions. Justice will shine when all LGBT people will be able to live life free of shame and fear, and for each of these to happen we need to go beyond our focus on public policies, we need to expand our work to incorporate strategies that fundamentally alter power relations in society. As I get ready to hit the "publish" button on my laptop, I fear of what may come from being public through this blog while my case is still pending. At the same time I am letting go of pain, fear and silence that almost drove me to near death. Finally, I have to admit I am planning on "getting on the bus" for National Equality March, however mine is a bus for justice, peace, redistribution of economic resources, labor and human rights, all intrinsically related to the liberation of LGBT people. Find me marching with friends and long time allies at the National Gay Lesbian Taskforce . The Taskforce over the years has shown me they are reflexive about their mistakes, build on victories and have historically fought for policy changes along with building a movement for social justice. Whom ever you march with, party with or end up hooking up with at the after march revels; ensure to spread the passion for liberation and justice. Note: this post is dedicated to my beloved mother, father, my friends and allies; Myna Mukherjee, Raili Roy, Sougato Kerr, Nancy Ordover, Carl Utt, Navid Alam, Amar Puri, Maria Nakae, Ken Williams, Prantik Saha, David Fuentes, Shweta Malhotra, Marian Thambynayagam, Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Mia Mingus, Sonali Sadiquee, Kerry Lobel, Beth Zemsky, Amber Hollibaugh, Abbie Boggs, Suzanne Pharr,Joo Hyan Kang, Trishala Deb, Mimi Jefferson, Debra East, Leslie Van Barselaar, Jo Anne Demark, Monami Maulik, Bo Young, Joey Cain, Lisa Thomas Adeyemo, Sue Hyde, Lisa Weiner Mahfuz, Rodrigo Brandao, Michelle Lopez, Susan Misra, Ruso Panduro, Marta Doanayre, Piali Mukhejee, Paul Knox and all the hot leather daddies who have helped me rediscover my body and ability to experience pleasure.

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Now 42 years ago, the United States Supreme Court struck down any remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the case Loving vs. Virginia, Mildred and Richard Loving’s challenge to the state of Virginia’s ban on the marriage between people of different races.  But, a recent Justice of the Peace’s denial of a Louisiana couple’s application for a marriage license indicates that the debates over interracial marriage are hardly over.

Anti-Miscegenation In Louisiana in 2009

Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana justice of the peace, denied Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay, an interracial couple, a marriage license citing concerns for their children.  The couple does not currently have children, so the justice is operating under the assumption that, once married, the couple would seek to have children, presumably through conception rather than adoption.  This heteronormative assumption, that is that heterosexual sex is a superior form of sexuality and should be limited to the confines of marriage and for the purpose of reproduction only, is not a new justification for banning interracial marriage.  In fact, it has been the most oft cited reason for doing so, though opposition to such relationships is also driven by racist views that are not as explicitly stated.  Fearing that his decision may be read as one fueled by racism, Bardwell noted that he has Black friends, “piles and piles” of them (what an odd expression to use to refer to Black people, one invoking nostalgia of the days of lynching and mass murder of Blacks) and has even let some use his bathroom.  Under pressure by politicians to resign, he has stood by his position and declared that he refuses to resign.

The Problem With Anti-Miscegenation

As I’ve just hinted at, many note that they oppose the union of people of different races because of concern for the well-being of multiracial children.  They’ll be confused, they’ll be teased, they won’t know who they are in this world.  The most obvious problem with this logic is the assumption that children will ever factor into the equation.  How do we know that Humphrey and McKay will want to have children?  How do we know that, if they do, they won’t seek to adopt children, maybe white kids, or Black kids, or kids of some other race?  What’s further troubling is the assumption that only married (interracial) couples are having kids.  With estimates somewhere around 40% of children being born to unmarried mothers, it seems that it’s about time to loosen the link between marriage and family in our ideology, as that link has long been loosened in practice.  If we remove parenting from the equation, will the uneasiness with interracial love and sex disappear?  What about interracial same-sex couples?  My sense is that the uneasiness would still be there due to the racist ideology that is so deeply entrenched in our society and values.

Anti-Miscegenation and Children

According to this judge, interracial couples tend to break up at a higher rate than intraracial couples.  Unfortunately, some research on sexuality and relationships backs up this claim.  But, with a concern for children, we might need to be alarmed by the skyrocketing divorce rate in general – one that is not unique to interracial couples.  Though I admit that there is some truth to Bardwell’s otherwise misguided logic, I have to point out that we’re placing the solution of a societal problem in the individual.  Just as we surgerically operate on newborn infants that do not fit into the rigid sex categories (i.e., male and female) instead of challenging society’s obsession with the female/male binary, we’d rather prevent interracial unions from existing or at least from reproducing than to address the racism that is endemic in our society.  The reason that interracial (and inter-class and inter-education level) couples dissolve at a higher rate, at least according to the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey, is that one’s partners are not as well integrated in other critical components of one’s life, like friends and family.  I have no doubt that this is due to parents’ and friends’ rejection of one’s partner that is different with respect to social class, race, and/or education level.  (Just think of how many white parents are uncomfortable with their child’s relationship with a Black person, or Latino person, and, unfortunately, the reverse is sometimes true as well.)  I also think about conflicts that arise around race in interracial couples that wouldn’t otherwise arise.  A great example is the fight that the interracial couple in the film Something New have, in which Brian (played by Simon Baker) has trouble understanding everything that Kenya (played by Sanaa Lathan) goes through as a high-ranking Black woman in a mostly white and male accounting firm and even notes that he’s tired of talking about race and racism, something he has the privilege of turning off if he’s not interested in discussing it.

A Personal Story

I should note that this story comes as no surprise.  When returning to New Orleans from a cruise to the Caribbean with my parents, we had to go through US Customs – the usual practice for US travelers who have left the country.  We went through the entry process as a family, rather than as individuals, to speed up the process.  The Customs agent who processed our entry was at first confused – “wait, you’re all together?”  It was immediately evident that her confusion stemmed from her assumptions about families (that they’re all of the same race) and the differences in our skin color.  It left us feeling angry and confused.  What a pleasant welcome home.  This assumption that families are all of the same race is not uncommon.  It comes up almost every time I’m out with my parents at stores and one of us asked if we need help, though we’re already being helped.  (I don’t get it.  Why would a stranger stand so close to someone while they’re at the register checking out unless they’re actually with that person?  Even if we’re not read as relatives, is it really that uncommon for friends to be of different races?  Yes, actually.)

For two personal reasons, this disgusting story in Louisiana is of great interest.  I’m the product of a lasting and loving interracial couple.  I know who I am as a person who is simultaneously Black and white.  I’m no less aware of the realities of race and racism because of my white ancestry (a concern sometimes noted for children who are white and of color, as seen in the film Losing Isaiah) and I’m not disconnected from my white ancestry because of my Black ancestry.  Any dilemmas I have every faced around “who am I?” has been the result of narrow constructions of race (how many forms have I filled out as Black and white that only allowed me to pick one, and I assume Black given the “one drop” rule) and the racist ideology that mandates intraraciality for relationships and family.  Secondly, as a biracial person, any and every relationship I will enter will be interracial, unless, of course, my partner is also Black and white.  Though I have had some frustrating conversations with past partners, mostly white, I note again that this is due to racism of our country.  They’re discomfort talking about race or any gaps in their knowledge about race, racism, and the histories and cultures of people of color is largely due to an education system driven by white supremacy and the invisibility of non-whites.

Are Interracial Couples Better than Intraracial Couples?

Aside from my concerns for relationship quality for interracial couples, those that are largely the result of the system of racism and not individuals’ malicious intentions, I think that interracial couples offer some benefits that intraracial couples cannot.  In my own case, and I’d say for our President, Barack Obama as well, being raised in a way that gives multiple view points and resources allows for viewing the world outside of a singular way.  I find that I am comfortable interacting with Black people and white people by virtue of my upbringing.  This has also translated into being comfortable interacting with most people different than myself, as I have not come from a world where everyone looks and thinks like me.  I should note that I’m aware that it might be easier for me than other multiracial people because I am light-skinned, and thus sometimes read as white or some race or racial combination that is not as devalued as a Black racial identity.  (That is, some may feel safer interacting with me because I’m not assumed to be Black.)

And, my personal bias is toward seeing marginalized forms of love triumph.  I love the movie Something New.  I love Saving Face, which features a Chinese lesbian couple that has to deal with the conflict between traditional Chinese culture and coming out.  I love the Bubble, a film that addresses same-sex love across the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.  It is beautiful to see love triumph over hatred.  But, in these films, the realities of hatred, oppression, and prejudice are present, as they are in such couples in real life.  I stand by the position that these are problems society needs to address, not for the couples themselves to solve.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Now 42 years ago, the United States Supreme Court struck down any remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the case Loving vs. Virginia, Mildred and Richard Loving’s challenge to the state of Virginia’s ban on the marriage between people of different races.  But, a recent Justice of the Peace’s denial of a Louisiana couple’s application for a marriage license indicates that the debates over interracial marriage are hardly over.

Anti-Miscegenation In Louisiana in 2009

Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana justice of the peace, denied Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay, an interracial couple, a marriage license citing concerns for their children.  The couple does not currently have children, so the justice is operating under the assumption that, once married, the couple would seek to have children, presumably through conception rather than adoption.  This heteronormative assumption, that is that heterosexual sex is a superior form of sexuality and should be limited to the confines of marriage and for the purpose of reproduction only, is not a new justification for banning interracial marriage.  In fact, it has been the most oft cited reason for doing so, though opposition to such relationships is also driven by racist views that are not as explicitly stated.  Fearing that his decision may be read as one fueled by racism, Bardwell noted that he has Black friends, “piles and piles” of them (what an odd expression to use to refer to Black people, one invoking nostalgia of the days of lynching and mass murder of Blacks) and has even let some use his bathroom.  Under pressure by politicians to resign, he has stood by his position and declared that he refuses to resign.

The Problem With Anti-Miscegenation

As I’ve just hinted at, many note that they oppose the union of people of different races because of concern for the well-being of multiracial children.  They’ll be confused, they’ll be teased, they won’t know who they are in this world.  The most obvious problem with this logic is the assumption that children will ever factor into the equation.  How do we know that Humphrey and McKay will want to have children?  How do we know that, if they do, they won’t seek to adopt children, maybe white kids, or Black kids, or kids of some other race?  What’s further troubling is the assumption that only married (interracial) couples are having kids.  With estimates somewhere around 40% of children being born to unmarried mothers, it seems that it’s about time to loosen the link between marriage and family in our ideology, as that link has long been loosened in practice.  If we remove parenting from the equation, will the uneasiness with interracial love and sex disappear?  What about interracial same-sex couples?  My sense is that the uneasiness would still be there due to the racist ideology that is so deeply entrenched in our society and values.

Anti-Miscegenation and Children

According to this judge, interracial couples tend to break up at a higher rate than intraracial couples.  Unfortunately, some research on sexuality and relationships backs up this claim.  But, with a concern for children, we might need to be alarmed by the skyrocketing divorce rate in general – one that is not unique to interracial couples.  Though I admit that there is some truth to Bardwell’s otherwise misguided logic, I have to point out that we’re placing the solution of a societal problem in the individual.  Just as we surgerically operate on newborn infants that do not fit into the rigid sex categories (i.e., male and female) instead of challenging society’s obsession with the female/male binary, we’d rather prevent interracial unions from existing or at least from reproducing than to address the racism that is endemic in our society.  The reason that interracial (and inter-class and inter-education level) couples dissolve at a higher rate, at least according to the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey, is that one’s partners are not as well integrated in other critical components of one’s life, like friends and family.  I have no doubt that this is due to parents’ and friends’ rejection of one’s partner that is different with respect to social class, race, and/or education level.  (Just think of how many white parents are uncomfortable with their child’s relationship with a Black person, or Latino person, and, unfortunately, the reverse is sometimes true as well.)  I also think about conflicts that arise around race in interracial couples that wouldn’t otherwise arise.  A great example is the fight that the interracial couple in the film Something New have, in which Brian (played by Simon Baker) has trouble understanding everything that Kenya (played by Sanaa Lathan) goes through as a high-ranking Black woman in a mostly white and male accounting firm and even notes that he’s tired of talking about race and racism, something he has the privilege of turning off if he’s not interested in discussing it.

A Personal Story

I should note that this story comes as no surprise.  When returning to New Orleans from a cruise to the Caribbean with my parents, we had to go through US Customs – the usual practice for US travelers who have left the country.  We went through the entry process as a family, rather than as individuals, to speed up the process.  The Customs agent who processed our entry was at first confused – “wait, you’re all together?”  It was immediately evident that her confusion stemmed from her assumptions about families (that they’re all of the same race) and the differences in our skin color.  It left us feeling angry and confused.  What a pleasant welcome home.  This assumption that families are all of the same race is not uncommon.  It comes up almost every time I’m out with my parents at stores and one of us asked if we need help, though we’re already being helped.  (I don’t get it.  Why would a stranger stand so close to someone while they’re at the register checking out unless they’re actually with that person?  Even if we’re not read as relatives, is it really that uncommon for friends to be of different races?  Yes, actually.)

For two personal reasons, this disgusting story in Louisiana is of great interest.  I’m the product of a lasting and loving interracial couple.  I know who I am as a person who is simultaneously Black and white.  I’m no less aware of the realities of race and racism because of my white ancestry (a concern sometimes noted for children who are white and of color, as seen in the film Losing Isaiah) and I’m not disconnected from my white ancestry because of my Black ancestry.  Any dilemmas I have every faced around “who am I?” has been the result of narrow constructions of race (how many forms have I filled out as Black and white that only allowed me to pick one, and I assume Black given the “one drop” rule) and the racist ideology that mandates intraraciality for relationships and family.  Secondly, as a biracial person, any and every relationship I will enter will be interracial, unless, of course, my partner is also Black and white.  Though I have had some frustrating conversations with past partners, mostly white, I note again that this is due to racism of our country.  They’re discomfort talking about race or any gaps in their knowledge about race, racism, and the histories and cultures of people of color is largely due to an education system driven by white supremacy and the invisibility of non-whites.

Are Interracial Couples Better than Intraracial Couples?

Aside from my concerns for relationship quality for interracial couples, those that are largely the result of the system of racism and not individuals’ malicious intentions, I think that interracial couples offer some benefits that intraracial couples cannot.  In my own case, and I’d say for our President, Barack Obama as well, being raised in a way that gives multiple view points and resources allows for viewing the world outside of a singular way.  I find that I am comfortable interacting with Black people and white people by virtue of my upbringing.  This has also translated into being comfortable interacting with most people different than myself, as I have not come from a world where everyone looks and thinks like me.  I should note that I’m aware that it might be easier for me than other multiracial people because I am light-skinned, and thus sometimes read as white or some race or racial combination that is not as devalued as a Black racial identity.  (That is, some may feel safer interacting with me because I’m not assumed to be Black.)

And, my personal bias is toward seeing marginalized forms of love triumph.  I love the movie Something New.  I love Saving Face, which features a Chinese lesbian couple that has to deal with the conflict between traditional Chinese culture and coming out.  I love the Bubble, a film that addresses same-sex love across the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.  It is beautiful to see love triumph over hatred.  But, in these films, the realities of hatred, oppression, and prejudice are present, as they are in such couples in real life.  I stand by the position that these are problems society needs to address, not for the couples themselves to solve.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: I really enjoy bad television.  Granted bad is a subjective term, there's something to be said about realizing how bad the show you're watching is and still being unable to tear your attention away from it.  The program in question today is the Maury Povich Show and in particular his exposes on teen girls who want to have a baby.  This one is perhaps my favorite:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uneIieUrgI]

 

The general pattern of these shows is that the 'deviant' teen in question is usually booed by the audience and gently berated by Maury into recognizing the irresponsibility of their decisions or possible future choices.  What does it look like if we however maybe take a step into Victoria's shoes?  I proceed by presenting a possibly feminist re-reading of her character.  Here we go...

Clearly, Victoria is a modern girl-on-the go who knows what she wants. She is gonna have her baby.  Clearly Victoria has thought out her decision and planned accordingly.  She's been preparing herself by building up an array of baby care paraphernalia.  That's right, if her baby loses its pacifier, that's okay, she's got three more.  She also has a vivid financial plan for how to take on the monetary burden of a child.  She's prepared to sell her body to care of her child.  This clearly points to her a sexual agent who has cast off the rhetoric of sexual fear so often aimed at teens.  In fact, she's so unabashedly unashamed about her sexuality that she's willing to not only cast off parental guilt by having sex in her mother's bed but able to confront society's stigma of teen sexuality by having sex in public places including parking lots, staircases and playgrounds.  The last of which points her ability to successful claim her own sexual nature and symbolically debunk the myth of the absence of childhood sexuality.  As a sexual agent with plans for the future, why do we insist on demonization Victoria, our teen sexuality warrior?

No, but seriously, putting aside this sarcastic tonality, why is the underlying logic that captivates both myself and the rest of the Maury viewing population?  One aspect of spectactorship that may have a hand in this is that television talk shows simultaneously place the viewer as an audience member and an omniscient viewer by cutting between shot of the stage directly and by pulling back to show audience responses and interactions.  This affect makes us both identify as the audience and have a critical outsiderness to it.  Does the audience's disapproval match our own or does their mass response serve us to question their motives?

These exposes also utilize several sensationalizing functions such as detailing the numbers of sexual partners, the age of sexual partners, the exchange of money or other items for sex and the public locations of sexual interactions.  In surveying several of these types of episodes it becomes clear that maybe the numbers are fictive or skewed.  For example, when touting total numbers of sex partners, the sums are always multiples of five, Victoria of course alleging fifteen, and also thirty seems to be quite a popular number as well.  Another episode makes sure to note that the teens involved have slept with older men, always highlighting 'in their fifties' or 'sixties.' The girls are generally depicted in their introduction montages on the street, up against chainlink fences or posing in front of dumpsters.  What do these images say about the way these issues are being framed visually.  Finally, there seems to be a ludicrousness about the motives: one girl is proud to admit that she had sex with a guy for a cheeseburger....with bacon. Sarcastic voice aside, if Angelique wanted a bacon cheeseburger that bad, why shouldn't be allowed to use sex to get it?

These shows present a hyberbolic representation of female teen sexuality.  These girls are in turn demonized for being sexual beings and in addition are berated for exhibiting a false consciousness for their desires whether that be reproductive or sexual.  I'm not necessarily saying that I may agree with these girls' decisions, but they ways in which they are hyped-up serve to further alienate young viewers from their own sexual feelings and choices by barraging them with an audience that shames and stigmatizes.  An audience in fact in which they are a part when watching these shows.  Furthermore, these teens are overly represented as working class women of color highlighting the ways in which racism interacts with negative representations of young girls' sexuality.

I so want to applaud the girls for yelling back at the audience when verbally attacked and provoked, but the way that the show is produced, their rebuttals are framed as comical.  It's a difficult question that I must pose to both myself and others: what are we really laughing at here?

 

Recently one of my friends suggested that I watch an episode of Glee, a new series about a high school teacher who attempts to bring some meaning into his life and the life of his students by restoring the status of the glee club. Although at times I got scared that Glee was just High School Musical but in series form, this show got my approval due to the discussions it contained surrounding sex, especially teenage sex. And because of the singing and dancing. Obviously.

 

In the second episode, the female lead, Rachel, goes to a celibacy club meeting in an effort to spend more time with her boy crush, even though his abstinent cheerleader girlfriend is head of the club. They start doing an exercise meant to help them practice leaving space for Jesus in between themselves using a balloon to demonstrate the appropriate distance to stand apart. Irritated, Rachel vocalizes her objection to the club in a thoughtful diatribe. She explains how studies show that celibacy does not work in high schools and explains how bottling up emotions and hormonal urges has negative effects and causes teenagers to act out in unhealthy ways. I was stunned, especially since I feel like I’m always reminded of how talking about sexuality, especially teen sexuality, can negatively  affect of your reputation. However, Glee mentions this topic is many different ways, including demonstrating different reasons why teens have sex, talking about sexual urges that teens are feeling, sexual concerns of teens, and sexual orientation. Since I am a sexuality nerd, I got really excited that these topics were being discussed on television. Plus they were accompanied by renditions of Journey and Beyonce songs. Fantastic.

 

During her rant, Rachel also suggests that the way to handle teen sexuality is to be prepared. However, there’s the question of what being prepared means. The Right’s definition would include something like, “preparing children for a life rich in Christ and grounded in morals” whereas the Left’s would be more focused on providing children with information to make informed decisions regarding their sexuality. As long as these definitions are different, the battle of sexual education will continue. And given the history of things, it’s going to be a long battle.

 

Allowing teens to be prepared also means granting teens agency, which is something that would never happen. It’s just funny because it makes me reflect on my teenage years when I would have friends with ridiculous rules regarding sexuality, like no dating boys until graduation and no going over to a boy’s house unless the parents were going to be there. And there was always a phone call to make sure that the parents were indeed there. All of my friends who had dating rules enforced upon them were girls. These rules are just so crazy for me to comprehend but demonstrate the stifling of teenage sexuality and the idea the female sexuality is something to be protected and not discussed.

 

Rachel also covers the topic of the missing discourse of female desire. She states that, “girls want sex just as much as guys do.” I was a little stunned when I heard these words shouted on a primetime show whose target audience extends to teens because of the lack of discourse on female desire in sexual education today. Much of sex education focuses on the anatomical aspects of women. Desire is never mentioned. Women are expected to be silent about sexual desires. The clitoris and all its pleasure holding capabilities are rarely discussed, and masturbation is not covered by most sex education programs. The fact that girls want sex just as much as guys do is a fact that has been kept silent for many years. However, once the secret’s out, maybe we can start moving towards a more comprehensive sexual education system. By having this line written into the script, Glee has gotten my attention.

 

So if you’re not doing anything later and you like singing, dancing, and comical story lines surrounding teen sexuality, check out Glee. It’ll be good for at least one season before they start having to use far fetched story lines to keep it interesting.

Research has repeatedly shown that abstinence only sex education both fails to prevent teen pregnancy and STIs, and leaves young people with inaccurate sexuality information. Public opinion polls have been overwhelmingly in favor of removing abstinence only sex education. President Obama’s budget plan in May reflected both scientific and popular opinions of abstinence-only sex education, as funding for these programs was removed for 2010 with resources set to be directed towards comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention.

But the end to the abstinence-only sex education era was unnecessarily put on hold as Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) proposed a renewal of abstinence-only sex education for the next 5 years at a cost of $250 million. The proposal, an addition to the ongoing health care reform bill, passed through the Senate Finance Committee with a 12-11 vote in its favor. Debates will now begin between Senator Hatch’s proposal and a comprehensive sex education policy proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) that  won a 14-9 vote from the Senate Finance Committee.

The Sexuality Education Month of Action is an opportunity for young people and their allies to speak out and support honest and accurate sexuality education programs. Numerous organizations around the country are giving their support to grass-roots organizers who are trying to educate their communities about the need for better sexuality education. Here are some of the ways you can get involved:

• Learn about the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act. The REAL Act provides funding for comprehensive, age appropriate sexuality education. Unlike abstinence-only sex education, that provides flawed and inaccurate information, the REAL Act is designed to give young people the necessary facts and skills to help them make informed decisions about their sexuality. Fact sheets about the REAL Act are available through SIECUS and Advocates For Youth.

• Contact your elected officials and let them know that comprehensive sexuality education is a necessary part of healthcare reform. Sign the petition in favor of the REAL Act as well as the petition against Senator Hatch’s $250 million abstinence-only program.

• Support events in your community and organize one of your own. Siecus is providing a list of upcoming events in support of comprehensive sex education across the country. You can have your own event listed by providing information about the event along with the exact date, location, and time of the event, a contact organization and phone number or email to pmalone@siecus.org. Get your congregation involved by sending in postcards showing support for comprehensive sexuality education to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Get involved in Sex Ed Action Month and help ring in a new era of open and accurate sexuality information.

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 468 2672 SFSU 22 5 3281 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false

In our graduate seminars, we talk a lot about race and color, including how whiteness is cherished and celebrated in and outside the United States.

 

These class discussions and other conversations with my fellow students and friends made me think about the various fairness products that are marketed and sold back home. (In no way am I trying to be the voice of my nation. These are just MY views on such 'beauty' products.)

Here's a fine example of what I'm talking about:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5WCNR81YM&feature=related]

 

So clearly, once you're beautiful (i.e. fair, white) you can achieve anything! Name, fame, money and power! You can realize your inner dreams and talents 'cos opportunities are endless!

So what happens if you're not fair? Well, basically then you're nobody! You're boring, unwanted and invisible. Your life sucks! (and not in a pleasurable way!)

 

Not only that, if cannot get married because of your dark complexion, all you need to do is use a cream! Look at this for instance:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lN26TMwm6s&feature=related]

 

Use it for a couple of days and see the results! You'll impress your guy and his mother in no time! How gendered and how setreotypical is that!

 

Ummm, but wait, isn't skin color largely genetic? So the fairness creams/soaps/sprays just suck out all the melanin? That doesn't sound right! It probably just washes away dead skin cells, leaving it smoother and cleaner with a momentary glow. It cannot possibly change one’s life! Common!

 

It often worries me how whiteness and fairness has become a virtue among some social groups:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9tcXpW1DE&feature=related]

 

The message in the above video is clear - 'not so far people' are looked down upon by 'fairer' folks. The only way to shut them up is by 'becoming' like them, and if possible, a shade lighter! Intra-race racism? (I'm sure there's a better academic term for this.)

 

Corporates spend a lot of time and energy researching their target consumers. Of course there the question of what came first? The chicken or the egg? Was there always a need for creating fairness? Did the marketers study people's aspiration or did they create this market through such campaigns by feeding consumer's minds with bogus claims?

 

It amuses me that most brands selling such fairness products are not domestic. Nivea, Garnier, J&J and many others have spent millions of $$ conducting R&D on Eastern markets to come up with skin whitening merchandise.

 

Oh, and if you thought their target audience is just women, you're wrong! Men too have been using fairness products. As the following clips suggests, men can finally 'come out' as they now have their own personal line of fairness products. Of course, men's fairness creams are packaged in blue, grey and black as opposed to pink in case of women :)

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgBevCTBTJw&feature=related]

 

It's completely macho to make yourself go a few shades lighter 'cos now, women will run after you!

 

 

 

 

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 468 2672 SFSU 22 5 3281 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false

In our graduate seminars, we talk a lot about race and color, including how whiteness is cherished and celebrated in and outside the United States.

 

These class discussions and other conversations with my fellow students and friends made me think about the various fairness products that are marketed and sold back home. (In no way am I trying to be the voice of my nation. These are just MY views on such 'beauty' products.)

Here's a fine example of what I'm talking about:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5WCNR81YM&feature=related]

 

So clearly, once you're beautiful (i.e. fair, white) you can achieve anything! Name, fame, money and power! You can realize your inner dreams and talents 'cos opportunities are endless!

So what happens if you're not fair? Well, basically then you're nobody! You're boring, unwanted and invisible. Your life sucks! (and not in a pleasurable way!)

 

Not only that, if cannot get married because of your dark complexion, all you need to do is use a cream! Look at this for instance:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lN26TMwm6s&feature=related]

 

Use it for a couple of days and see the results! You'll impress your guy and his mother in no time! How gendered and how setreotypical is that!

 

Ummm, but wait, isn't skin color largely genetic? So the fairness creams/soaps/sprays just suck out all the melanin? That doesn't sound right! It probably just washes away dead skin cells, leaving it smoother and cleaner with a momentary glow. It cannot possibly change one’s life! Common!

 

It often worries me how whiteness and fairness has become a virtue among some social groups:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9tcXpW1DE&feature=related]

 

The message in the above video is clear - 'not so far people' are looked down upon by 'fairer' folks. The only way to shut them up is by 'becoming' like them, and if possible, a shade lighter! Intra-race racism? (I'm sure there's a better academic term for this.)

 

Corporates spend a lot of time and energy researching their target consumers. Of course there the question of what came first? The chicken or the egg? Was there always a need for creating fairness? Did the marketers study people's aspiration or did they create this market through such campaigns by feeding consumer's minds with bogus claims?

 

It amuses me that most brands selling such fairness products are not domestic. Nivea, Garnier, J&J and many others have spent millions of $$ conducting R&D on Eastern markets to come up with skin whitening merchandise.

 

Oh, and if you thought their target audience is just women, you're wrong! Men too have been using fairness products. As the following clips suggests, men can finally 'come out' as they now have their own personal line of fairness products. Of course, men's fairness creams are packaged in blue, grey and black as opposed to pink in case of women :)

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgBevCTBTJw&feature=related]

 

It's completely macho to make yourself go a few shades lighter 'cos now, women will run after you!

 

 

 

 

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 468 2672 SFSU 22 5 3281 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false

In our graduate seminars, we talk a lot about race and color, including how whiteness is cherished and celebrated in and outside the United States.

 

These class discussions and other conversations with my fellow students and friends made me think about the various fairness products that are marketed and sold back home. (In no way am I trying to be the voice of my nation. These are just MY views on such 'beauty' products.)

Here's a fine example of what I'm talking about:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5WCNR81YM&feature=related]

 

So clearly, once you're beautiful (i.e. fair, white) you can achieve anything! Name, fame, money and power! You can realize your inner dreams and talents 'cos opportunities are endless!

So what happens if you're not fair? Well, basically then you're nobody! You're boring, unwanted and invisible. Your life sucks! (and not in a pleasurable way!)

 

Not only that, if cannot get married because of your dark complexion, all you need to do is use a cream! Look at this for instance:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lN26TMwm6s&feature=related]

 

Use it for a couple of days and see the results! You'll impress your guy and his mother in no time! How gendered and how setreotypical is that!

 

Ummm, but wait, isn't skin color largely genetic? So the fairness creams/soaps/sprays just suck out all the melanin? That doesn't sound right! It probably just washes away dead skin cells, leaving it smoother and cleaner with a momentary glow. It cannot possibly change one’s life! Common!

 

It often worries me how whiteness and fairness has become a virtue among some social groups:

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9tcXpW1DE&feature=related]

 

The message in the above video is clear - 'not so far people' are looked down upon by 'fairer' folks. The only way to shut them up is by 'becoming' like them, and if possible, a shade lighter! Intra-race racism? (I'm sure there's a better academic term for this.)

 

Corporates spend a lot of time and energy researching their target consumers. Of course there the question of what came first? The chicken or the egg? Was there always a need for creating fairness? Did the marketers study people's aspiration or did they create this market through such campaigns by feeding consumer's minds with bogus claims?

 

It amuses me that most brands selling such fairness products are not domestic. Nivea, Garnier, J&J and many others have spent millions of $$ conducting R&D on Eastern markets to come up with skin whitening merchandise.

 

Oh, and if you thought their target audience is just women, you're wrong! Men too have been using fairness products. As the following clips suggests, men can finally 'come out' as they now have their own personal line of fairness products. Of course, men's fairness creams are packaged in blue, grey and black as opposed to pink in case of women :)

 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgBevCTBTJw&feature=related]

 

It's completely macho to make yourself go a few shades lighter 'cos now, women will run after you!

 

 

 

 

A pharmacy in London launched a calculator that uses the six degrees of separation concept to determine your number of indirect sex partners. The idea is that every time you sleep with one person you sleep with all of their previous sex partners. I get the idea but the execution is a low-grade scare tactic rooted in false assumptions about sexual risk.

 

Risk of contraction is not about a number pinned to your slutty lapel. Risk of contraction is about specific behaviors. Did you use a condom every time? Was lube involved? Were there visible sores? Were you having oral, vaginal or anal sex? Did your partners use protection? These are questions that can help determine your risk, not the number of sexual partners.

I know, we like nominal figures to figure out where we lay on the sexual totem pole. A number is comforting, easy to understand but ultimately misleading. Think about BMIs or simply weight. The numbers say something but they don’t paint the whole picture.

The heart of the calculator is in the right place but the underlying assumption is that fear will motivate people to use condoms and get tested. The fear of slut shaming is an easily accessible tool. I looked around at comments from people who calculated their indirect sexual partners and one concept popped up repeatedly: EEEWW! DIRTY!!

We make the immediate mental leap from indirect sex partners to direct and feel this sense of shame. 14 million people? I fucked 14 million people! Quelle horror!

Calm down. You did not really sleep with 14 million people just like you don’t really know Brad Pitt through six degrees of separation.

This isn’t to say that having sex with lots of people doesn’t make you more likely to contract an STD/STI. It does. But there is more to the picture than that. Type of sex, partners’ sexual histories, partners’ sexual health, your health, and levels of protection used are several very important mitigating factors.

What I find most intriguing about this calculator is that we use a number to asses sexual risk in part because speaking about STD/STI history is a taboo. The calculator does not ask important questions like "How often do you use protection?", "Have you contracted an STD/STI?" or "How long did you go untreated after contraction?" These are not polite questions to ask, though the amount of people and their ages and gender seem to be. 

Imagine a culture that spoke about STDs/STIs like other illnesses.

"Yeah, I was feeling really run down and it turned out to be syphilis."

"I stayed in last night because my herpes infection was acting up."

We cannot fathom discussing sexual health when sex itself is the elephant in the room. Dampening discussions about sex in turn promotes serious anxieties that we turn into cultural boogiemen. STDs/STIs become faceless scourges lurking in strangers' pants. And how can we root out those monsters? A good solid number that tells us the imagined our imagined exposure rates. we can then modify our behavior to better avoid these specters.

This is not to say that STDs/STIs aren't a problem. They are an issue that we can deal with socially but we prefer to fumble in the dark with sexual health instead of broad daylight. we readily accept flu vaccines but some scream themselves horse over the bogus actrocity of the HPV vaccine.

(Originally posted on wiqaable.com)

One of the few things I can't handle is people's injury stories. People talk about their injuries and scars as if they would make them more brave or honorable or whatever, but frankly, I think it's disrespectful to talk about painful stories in front of a person who just can't handle it. Is it about masculinity? Do you need to talk about your scars to prove how "dangerous" or "strong" you are? Well, I don't care. So next time you see me, please don't talk about breaking your bones.

This is because I've never had any big injury since I was born. I've never broken my bones, I've never gotten into car accidents, and I've never fallen down the stairs. I've been so fortunate that I don't know how painful it would be to get your bones broken, and I would imagine the most extreme pain possible right before I pass out. That's a painful imagination.

I've never been really sick either, except for occasional skin problems I always had growing up. I've never gotten a flu, I've never had food poisoning, and I've never been hospitalized. I'm not saying that I've always been healthy, but if health is determined, simplistically, by the absence of disease or injury, I've always enjoyed my health.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why I don't like going to a hospital. I'm so unfamiliar with that super clean and slightly sorrowful atmosphere inside the building. I also don't really trust Western medicine because my mother is an acupuncturist. In addition, what I've noticed recently is that sexist American culture associates the acts of being sick and weak, going to the hospital, getting taken care of, and even taking care of someone, with feminine quality. I'm part of it; I believe it's not only me who think somehow recovering from a cold without medical care is something to be proud of, therefore, masculine. Simply put, in American culture, healthy is masculine, sick (and weak) is feminine.

I believe that health means differently to different people. It may entail physical, mental, and emotional health, and it may refer to having a perfectly functioning body or being able to feel empowered and enjoy everyday life. And I think to some people, being healthy also means being able to compromise their health without being afraid of bankruptcy.

I was astounded when I learned that there was no universal health care in the United States. I really thought it was a wrong piece of information. I thought it was a joke. Indeed, it's a ridiculous story that makes nobody laugh but makes everyone angry. When I was in Japan, I had access to health care through my father's Employee's Heath Insurance, just like anyone else. When my father was unemployed, I had access to health care through local government-supported health insurance, just like anyone else. In Japan, I enjoyed being healthy, which I believed was a basic human right. But I guess it's considered a privilege in some countries like the United States of America.

I'm still baffled by this fact--the world's arguable superpower cannot even protect its own citizens (let alone immigrants). What do you do when you get sick and if you don't have health insurance? You don't go to a hospital and just wait for the body to win. What do you do when you're house is on fire? I don't think you wait for your house to be burned down; you call the fire department. What do you do when the environment is polluted and destroyed? I don't think you wait for the rain forests to clean the air, for the ocean to dissolve the pollutant, or the Earth to get cold again; you stop driving, you turn off lights, and you stop buying things. It's as natural as that.

You might be wondering why I'm writing about health care on wiqaable. The reason is simple, health care access is about gender, race and sexuality, as much as it is about class, and immigration status, and so on. And, believe it or not, it's about life and death.

A study reports that 45,000 uninsured people die early deaths every year in the United States. This particular article reports that Dr. Wilper says, “Although blacks and Hispanics are more likely to end up uninsured, racial differences in the percentages of deaths was not statistically significant.” This is clearly a confusing, if not misleading, statement. First, it is true that African Americans and Latin@s are less likely to have health insurance. Second, it is true that people of color are more likely to get injured or sick because they are more likely to work and live in dangerous and polluted environment. It's called environmental racism. If we think of why and how people get sick, as well as whether they're insured or not, health care access obviously has everything to do with race.

Similarly, the issue of health care access speaks directly to Queer communities. How many years did Reagan take to admit and publicly announce that AIDS was a serious epidemic? Many of us remember what it means to be denied access to health care, and, health itself. Imagine what percentage of sex workers, female, male, or trans, have health insurance. Imagine what percentage of undocumented immigrants, from Mexico, China, or the Philippines, have health insurance. And those are the people we live together. Those are the people who support our daily lives. Those are, in fact, us.

How many more years are you willing to wait for universal access to health care? Even without looking at other countries, I frankly think that the United States should be deeply ashamed of its failure to take care of its residents. With its twisted idea of glorified masculinity, I really hope the U.S. will not start boasting about enduring its diseases or bragging about its injuries, without realizing that they are actually deep and fatal.

(Originally posted on wiqaable.com)

One of the few things I can't handle is people's injury stories. People talk about their injuries and scars as if they would make them more brave or honorable or whatever, but frankly, I think it's disrespectful to talk about painful stories in front of a person who just can't handle it. Is it about masculinity? Do you need to talk about your scars to prove how "dangerous" or "strong" you are? Well, I don't care. So next time you see me, please don't talk about breaking your bones.

This is because I've never had any big injury since I was born. I've never broken my bones, I've never gotten into car accidents, and I've never fallen down the stairs. I've been so fortunate that I don't know how painful it would be to get your bones broken, and I would imagine the most extreme pain possible right before I pass out. That's a painful imagination.

I've never been really sick either, except for occasional skin problems I always had growing up. I've never gotten a flu, I've never had food poisoning, and I've never been hospitalized. I'm not saying that I've always been healthy, but if health is determined, simplistically, by the absence of disease or injury, I've always enjoyed my health.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why I don't like going to a hospital. I'm so unfamiliar with that super clean and slightly sorrowful atmosphere inside the building. I also don't really trust Western medicine because my mother is an acupuncturist. In addition, what I've noticed recently is that sexist American culture associates the acts of being sick and weak, going to the hospital, getting taken care of, and even taking care of someone, with feminine quality. I'm part of it; I believe it's not only me who think somehow recovering from a cold without medical care is something to be proud of, therefore, masculine. Simply put, in American culture, healthy is masculine, sick (and weak) is feminine.

I believe that health means differently to different people. It may entail physical, mental, and emotional health, and it may refer to having a perfectly functioning body or being able to feel empowered and enjoy everyday life. And I think to some people, being healthy also means being able to compromise their health without being afraid of bankruptcy.

I was astounded when I learned that there was no universal health care in the United States. I really thought it was a wrong piece of information. I thought it was a joke. Indeed, it's a ridiculous story that makes nobody laugh but makes everyone angry. When I was in Japan, I had access to health care through my father's Employee's Heath Insurance, just like anyone else. When my father was unemployed, I had access to health care through local government-supported health insurance, just like anyone else. In Japan, I enjoyed being healthy, which I believed was a basic human right. But I guess it's considered a privilege in some countries like the United States of America.

I'm still baffled by this fact--the world's arguable superpower cannot even protect its own citizens (let alone immigrants). What do you do when you get sick and if you don't have health insurance? You don't go to a hospital and just wait for the body to win. What do you do when you're house is on fire? I don't think you wait for your house to be burned down; you call the fire department. What do you do when the environment is polluted and destroyed? I don't think you wait for the rain forests to clean the air, for the ocean to dissolve the pollutant, or the Earth to get cold again; you stop driving, you turn off lights, and you stop buying things. It's as natural as that.

You might be wondering why I'm writing about health care on wiqaable. The reason is simple, health care access is about gender, race and sexuality, as much as it is about class, and immigration status, and so on. And, believe it or not, it's about life and death.

A study reports that 45,000 uninsured people die early deaths every year in the United States. This particular article reports that Dr. Wilper says, “Although blacks and Hispanics are more likely to end up uninsured, racial differences in the percentages of deaths was not statistically significant.” This is clearly a confusing, if not misleading, statement. First, it is true that African Americans and Latin@s are less likely to have health insurance. Second, it is true that people of color are more likely to get injured or sick because they are more likely to work and live in dangerous and polluted environment. It's called environmental racism. If we think of why and how people get sick, as well as whether they're insured or not, health care access obviously has everything to do with race.

Similarly, the issue of health care access speaks directly to Queer communities. How many years did Reagan take to admit and publicly announce that AIDS was a serious epidemic? Many of us remember what it means to be denied access to health care, and, health itself. Imagine what percentage of sex workers, female, male, or trans, have health insurance. Imagine what percentage of undocumented immigrants, from Mexico, China, or the Philippines, have health insurance. And those are the people we live together. Those are the people who support our daily lives. Those are, in fact, us.

How many more years are you willing to wait for universal access to health care? Even without looking at other countries, I frankly think that the United States should be deeply ashamed of its failure to take care of its residents. With its twisted idea of glorified masculinity, I really hope the U.S. will not start boasting about enduring its diseases or bragging about its injuries, without realizing that they are actually deep and fatal.

(Originally posted on wiqaable.com)

One of the few things I can't handle is people's injury stories. People talk about their injuries and scars as if they would make them more brave or honorable or whatever, but frankly, I think it's disrespectful to talk about painful stories in front of a person who just can't handle it. Is it about masculinity? Do you need to talk about your scars to prove how "dangerous" or "strong" you are? Well, I don't care. So next time you see me, please don't talk about breaking your bones.

This is because I've never had any big injury since I was born. I've never broken my bones, I've never gotten into car accidents, and I've never fallen down the stairs. I've been so fortunate that I don't know how painful it would be to get your bones broken, and I would imagine the most extreme pain possible right before I pass out. That's a painful imagination.

I've never been really sick either, except for occasional skin problems I always had growing up. I've never gotten a flu, I've never had food poisoning, and I've never been hospitalized. I'm not saying that I've always been healthy, but if health is determined, simplistically, by the absence of disease or injury, I've always enjoyed my health.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why I don't like going to a hospital. I'm so unfamiliar with that super clean and slightly sorrowful atmosphere inside the building. I also don't really trust Western medicine because my mother is an acupuncturist. In addition, what I've noticed recently is that sexist American culture associates the acts of being sick and weak, going to the hospital, getting taken care of, and even taking care of someone, with feminine quality. I'm part of it; I believe it's not only me who think somehow recovering from a cold without medical care is something to be proud of, therefore, masculine. Simply put, in American culture, healthy is masculine, sick (and weak) is feminine.

I believe that health means differently to different people. It may entail physical, mental, and emotional health, and it may refer to having a perfectly functioning body or being able to feel empowered and enjoy everyday life. And I think to some people, being healthy also means being able to compromise their health without being afraid of bankruptcy.

I was astounded when I learned that there was no universal health care in the United States. I really thought it was a wrong piece of information. I thought it was a joke. Indeed, it's a ridiculous story that makes nobody laugh but makes everyone angry. When I was in Japan, I had access to health care through my father's Employee's Heath Insurance, just like anyone else. When my father was unemployed, I had access to health care through local government-supported health insurance, just like anyone else. In Japan, I enjoyed being healthy, which I believed was a basic human right. But I guess it's considered a privilege in some countries like the United States of America.

I'm still baffled by this fact--the world's arguable superpower cannot even protect its own citizens (let alone immigrants). What do you do when you get sick and if you don't have health insurance? You don't go to a hospital and just wait for the body to win. What do you do when you're house is on fire? I don't think you wait for your house to be burned down; you call the fire department. What do you do when the environment is polluted and destroyed? I don't think you wait for the rain forests to clean the air, for the ocean to dissolve the pollutant, or the Earth to get cold again; you stop driving, you turn off lights, and you stop buying things. It's as natural as that.

You might be wondering why I'm writing about health care on wiqaable. The reason is simple, health care access is about gender, race and sexuality, as much as it is about class, and immigration status, and so on. And, believe it or not, it's about life and death.

A study reports that 45,000 uninsured people die early deaths every year in the United States. This particular article reports that Dr. Wilper says, “Although blacks and Hispanics are more likely to end up uninsured, racial differences in the percentages of deaths was not statistically significant.” This is clearly a confusing, if not misleading, statement. First, it is true that African Americans and Latin@s are less likely to have health insurance. Second, it is true that people of color are more likely to get injured or sick because they are more likely to work and live in dangerous and polluted environment. It's called environmental racism. If we think of why and how people get sick, as well as whether they're insured or not, health care access obviously has everything to do with race.

Similarly, the issue of health care access speaks directly to Queer communities. How many years did Reagan take to admit and publicly announce that AIDS was a serious epidemic? Many of us remember what it means to be denied access to health care, and, health itself. Imagine what percentage of sex workers, female, male, or trans, have health insurance. Imagine what percentage of undocumented immigrants, from Mexico, China, or the Philippines, have health insurance. And those are the people we live together. Those are the people who support our daily lives. Those are, in fact, us.

How many more years are you willing to wait for universal access to health care? Even without looking at other countries, I frankly think that the United States should be deeply ashamed of its failure to take care of its residents. With its twisted idea of glorified masculinity, I really hope the U.S. will not start boasting about enduring its diseases or bragging about its injuries, without realizing that they are actually deep and fatal.

What does it mean to have a gay Korean American man as today's best-known face of so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" controversy?

In my narrow mind, rainbow flags don't match military camouflage patterns, and Korean blood doesn't mix well with American coca-cola. In front of my face, in a picture, Dan Choi (pronounced like che) wears a smile in a built body in front of a rainbow flag, out and proud and patriotic. I guess.

I have avoided talking, writing, or even thinking about him until now because I knew that if I had been to question him, I would have had to talk intensely to myself as an anti-militaristic Queer Korean man. Am I ready yet? Probably not. But I just couldn't ignore my inner questioning self.

In case you haven't noticed, I believe that everyone should be discouraged to join military, whether Queer or not-yet-Queer-minded. I also believe that everyone should be encouraged to develop critical thinking and anti-oppression ideology. If one is to call "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy oppressive, one shall also point out the oppressive nature of militarism. Therefore, my brain refuses to accept any ideas but "Don't Serve, Don't Kill." And of course, I'm particularly against U.S. (and Japanese) military because of its past and ongoing wrongdoings in various world regions like East Asia, Pacific, and Southwestern Asia (aka Middle East). If people were to understand Corean/Korean history somewhat like I do (and some Zainichi experiences might be a good spice), I believe that they would all be anti-military, be it Japanese, U.S., or whatever.

When people ask Choi why he joined, he says that he wanted to serve something greater than himself. And I think that's quite a twisted way of thinking.

Choi's mother, a Korean war orphan, opposed his joining. I can understand. His father, a hardcore Christian, has told him that in "Korea," a man wouldn't be treated as an adult no matter how old he is if he didn't serve in the military. Here, I take a deep sigh. Oh "Korea." After millions of us killed in decades of war and colonization, "Korea" still haunts the minds of so many Koreans, men in particular, on both sides of the "border" and elsewhere.

"Korea" often refers only to the southern part of the Korean peninsula, or the Republic of Korea; meanwhile, the northern part, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is always called "North" Korea, as if there are two legitimately opposing nations and two different peoples. Many Korean Americans seem to identify with "South Korea" more than "North Korea." I know that many people still believe in one Korea/Corea, too; however, I have observed that so many of them still do not question the common assumptions about "North Korea," thus lazily aligning themselves with "South Korea" just because it's less demonized and more familiar. (This can be said to some Zainichi Koreans as well, to some extent.) After all these years, Koreans all over the world have gotten used to the division, and are having difficulties even imagining one Korea again. And some of us don't even know who divided us and why. The most critical part of our contemporary history is missing, sometimes entirely, from our knowledge. That's what really divides us.

Anyway, the tragedy, from my point of view, is that this Korean guy believed that serving in the U.S. military is about "serving something greater" than himself, and that having an oppressed identity neither stopped him from nor made him question doing that. Instead I ask: why has our country been divided? Why is it that men in "Korea" need to serve in the military in the first place? Why would it be so honorable to be trained by our enemy to kill our own people?

My discomfort also comes from this feeling that whenever he is hailed as the anti-Don't Ask, Don't Tell person, it makes me feel like the Korean War is being legitimatized and justified, even more so by some patriotic White American gays and lesbians who happen to be the main people working behind this "controversy" to make it a controversy, as if this is more important to all parts of diverse Queer communities than creating safe schools, securing equitable and sustainable health care, and so on. In other words, all the issues that are important to me seem to become invisible behind Choi's smile.

In addition, I can't help but think that he is being (or will be) tokenized. In the event that he is allowed to serve again, Choi will likely be seen as the token of "diversity acceptance" of the U.S. military. A gay Korean man, who would have been too "foreign" only a few years ago, serving the U.S. military publicly to signify both the tolerance of the U.S. and the patriotism of Queer and Korean/Asian American communities, without a real recognition of his people in the northern part.

Hyung, not that it's your fault, but I will be ashamed to near death on that day.

What does it mean to have a gay Korean American man as today's best-known face of so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" controversy?

In my narrow mind, rainbow flags don't match military camouflage patterns, and Korean blood doesn't mix well with American coca-cola. In front of my face, in a picture, Dan Choi (pronounced like che) wears a smile in a built body in front of a rainbow flag, out and proud and patriotic. I guess.

I have avoided talking, writing, or even thinking about him until now because I knew that if I had been to question him, I would have had to talk intensely to myself as an anti-militaristic Queer Korean man. Am I ready yet? Probably not. But I just couldn't ignore my inner questioning self.

In case you haven't noticed, I believe that everyone should be discouraged to join military, whether Queer or not-yet-Queer-minded. I also believe that everyone should be encouraged to develop critical thinking and anti-oppression ideology. If one is to call "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy oppressive, one shall also point out the oppressive nature of militarism. Therefore, my brain refuses to accept any ideas but "Don't Serve, Don't Kill." And of course, I'm particularly against U.S. (and Japanese) military because of its past and ongoing wrongdoings in various world regions like East Asia, Pacific, and Southwestern Asia (aka Middle East). If people were to understand Corean/Korean history somewhat like I do (and some Zainichi experiences might be a good spice), I believe that they would all be anti-military, be it Japanese, U.S., or whatever.

When people ask Choi why he joined, he says that he wanted to serve something greater than himself. And I think that's quite a twisted way of thinking.

Choi's mother, a Korean war orphan, opposed his joining. I can understand. His father, a hardcore Christian, has told him that in "Korea," a man wouldn't be treated as an adult no matter how old he is if he didn't serve in the military. Here, I take a deep sigh. Oh "Korea." After millions of us killed in decades of war and colonization, "Korea" still haunts the minds of so many Koreans, men in particular, on both sides of the "border" and elsewhere.

"Korea" often refers only to the southern part of the Korean peninsula, or the Republic of Korea; meanwhile, the northern part, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is always called "North" Korea, as if there are two legitimately opposing nations and two different peoples. Many Korean Americans seem to identify with "South Korea" more than "North Korea." I know that many people still believe in one Korea/Corea, too; however, I have observed that so many of them still do not question the common assumptions about "North Korea," thus lazily aligning themselves with "South Korea" just because it's less demonized and more familiar. (This can be said to some Zainichi Koreans as well, to some extent.) After all these years, Koreans all over the world have gotten used to the division, and are having difficulties even imagining one Korea again. And some of us don't even know who divided us and why. The most critical part of our contemporary history is missing, sometimes entirely, from our knowledge. That's what really divides us.

Anyway, the tragedy, from my point of view, is that this Korean guy believed that serving in the U.S. military is about "serving something greater" than himself, and that having an oppressed identity neither stopped him from nor made him question doing that. Instead I ask: why has our country been divided? Why is it that men in "Korea" need to serve in the military in the first place? Why would it be so honorable to be trained by our enemy to kill our own people?

My discomfort also comes from this feeling that whenever he is hailed as the anti-Don't Ask, Don't Tell person, it makes me feel like the Korean War is being legitimatized and justified, even more so by some patriotic White American gays and lesbians who happen to be the main people working behind this "controversy" to make it a controversy, as if this is more important to all parts of diverse Queer communities than creating safe schools, securing equitable and sustainable health care, and so on. In other words, all the issues that are important to me seem to become invisible behind Choi's smile.

In addition, I can't help but think that he is being (or will be) tokenized. In the event that he is allowed to serve again, Choi will likely be seen as the token of "diversity acceptance" of the U.S. military. A gay Korean man, who would have been too "foreign" only a few years ago, serving the U.S. military publicly to signify both the tolerance of the U.S. and the patriotism of Queer and Korean/Asian American communities, without a real recognition of his people in the northern part.

Hyung, not that it's your fault, but I will be ashamed to near death on that day.