sharingshane-blog

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Because the goal shouldn't be to do fiscally well. The goal is to be able to live and have our basic needs met as a collective. Every counter-argument to this is made under the assumption that capitalism is good and natural and necessary in society.

Thought: I do NOT think that 50% of the world’s billionaires should be women. I think there shouldn’t be any billionaires at all.

So you are saying 0% of the world should be billionaires?

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Get to know Kamala Harris

Pushed a law that forces schools to turn undocumented students over to ICE, separating them from their parents and violating human rights

Laughed about putting parents in jail if their kids missed school, disproportionately harming single parent households, the poor, and families of color like this one, including homeless mothers

Her office refused to address what the Supreme Court calls “unconstitutionally overcrowded” prisons specifically to perpetuate the exploitation of the mass incarcerated for slave labor close to $1/hour(she later claimed she didn’t know her own lawyers argued this.

Declined to prosecute Steven Mnuchin after his bank’s predatory lending and foreclosure fraud broke the law “over a thousand” times and ruined the lives of thousands of homeowners, keeping him free to donate to her campaign and become Trump’s Treasury Secretary

Spent years jailing disproportionately black nonviolent cannabis users while opposing taking cannabis off DEA’s list of most dangerous substances and literally laughing at the idea of legalizing it multiple times, even as her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on the issue. She then tried to pander by admitting to smoking herself despite prosecuting others, but got her story all wrong, and even offended her own Jamaican family to the point they’ve disassociated with her

Used a technicality to stop the release of a man serving 27 years-to-life after being wrongfully convicted of possession of a knife under the three-strikes law she supported. When civil rights groups and nearly 100,000 petition signatures got him released after 14 years she took him back to court again for a crime he didn’t commit

Opposed reforming California’s three-strikes law, which is the only one in the country to impose life sentences for minor felonies and incarcerates black people at 12x the rate as white people, three different times, even while her Republican opponent supported reform

Appealed a judge ruling that the death penalty was unconstitutional and won on a technicality, resulting in continued executions

When evidence pointed towards a black defendant being framed by police, Harris avoided DNA testing to keep him on death row

Protected serial child rapists by refusing to prosecute in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal

Lied about her state’s solitary confinement to block a suit by inmates, claiming there was none in California when there were about 6,400 victims of the practice, which is considered torture

Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence, upheld a conviction secured by a prosecutor lying under oath, and oversaw the framing of another man

Opposed legislation that would require independent investigation of fatal police shootings despite criticism from many civil rights advocates including California’s Legislative Black Caucus

Opposed statewide implementation of police body cameras and ignored police brutality, multiple officers raping a teenager, and other officers sharing racist and homophobic messages, despite multiple requests from the public defender

Refused to hand over the names of police whose testimonies led to convictions despite the officers’ arrest records and past misconduct

Tried to deny a transgender inmate healthcare and endangered trans women by forcing them into mens prisons, leading to the rape and torture of at least one trans inmate

Stood by silently as $730 million was spent on moving inmates to for-profit private prisons

Delayed the confiscation of illegal firearms from dangerous people, then posed a “continued risk to public safety” by failing to implement changes state auditors recommended to fix this despite receiving $24 million specifically for this purpose

Voted two different times to block federal funding for abortions

Following the foreclosure fraud scandal she negotiated a deal great for banks but bad for the ruined homeowners, becoming one of Wall Street’s favorite candidates to fundraise for

Voted to give Trump increased military spending two different times.

Supports Trump escalating war in Syria

Co-sponsored the bill that let Trump impose sanctions on Iran which violated the nuclear deal and lead to the currently rising tensions

“Systematically violated defendants’ civil and constitutional rights” in crime lab scandal

Kept her Orange County DA office from being charged for running an unconstitutional jailhouse informant program they tried to cover up.

Oversaw San Francisco’s felony conviction rate rising from 52% to 67% in only 3 years

As part of her tough on crime approach she assigned senior prosecutors to misdemeanors like graffiti and vandalism, tripling the number of cases brought to trial

Mocks the activist call to “build more schools, less jails”

Supports collecting and keeping DNA from people even if they’ve not been charged with a crime

Defended the discriminatory practice of cash bail in court as recently as June 2016

Supports Israel’s right-wing government and cozies up to AIPAC, co-sponsored resolution against Obama in support of illegal settlements, does not support Palestinian rights, and calls BDS “anti-semitic”

Claimed to be unaware of sexual harassment and retaliation by her top aide over a 6 year span

Sponsored a bill allowing for prosecutors to seize profits before charges are even filed and opposed a bill that would reform civil asset forfeiture

Defended a prison’s religious discrimination in hiring policy

Opposed calls to tear down 700 miles of existing border wall/fence

Fought to limit amount of land indigenous tribes could place in trust and tried to take reservation land away from a tribe just to keep them from evicting a non-indigenous man who had lived there without paying rent for 24 years

Is a latecomer in endorsing Medicare for All and already appears to be backtracking on multiple aspects of it

Refused to review a case in which a pharmaceutical CEO killed his wife but made it look like a suicide after their son died under mysterious circumstances as well

Refused to prosecute PG&E for its massive gas pipeline explosion and now its consultants are running her campaign

Did not properly investigate the San Onofre scandal to protect her political allies.

Refused to investigate Herbalife’s exploitation and fraud, receiving donations from people connected to the corporation

Her associate operated a fake police force but somehow all charges were dismissed

Refuses to support AB5 to give gig workers like rideshare drivers basic employee rights (her brother-in-law & niece are high-up in Uber)

Opposed legalization of sex work, endangered sex workers, and oversaw people being charged for prostitution without even agreeing to sex

Endangered the public by supporting legislation that increased the homeless sex offender population 24x in 3 years, then appealed a court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional. Her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on this issue

Accepted thousands of dollars of campaign funds from Donald and Ivanka Trump multiple times

Accepts donations from prominent charter school pusher and billionaire Reed Hastings

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Beams of angel light

Shift slightly left

While people sing

Their lovely hymns.

  Sad tears streaming

Down to their graves

As injustice grows

For those in need.

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Rainbow unicorns at every corner

Dancing with pride and joy

While singing praises of freedom

With bright colors soring high

For bricks thrown through glass windows.

  But their celebration is hypocrisy,

They let their enemy in with no defense

The kind of people who like to threaten,

To kill them, rape them, hate them;

Yet they call it “liberation.”

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The gavel drops

Convicted felon

In these bars

I made alone

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Poetry

I started getting back into writing poetry. I plan on posting some here soon.

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“I’ve lived too long with pain. I won’t know who I am without it.” - Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game (via the-book-diaries)

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My Apologies

I am sorry I have not posted in a while.  I’ve had to deal with a couple of serious emergencies.  I started writing the blog post “BPD in Doctor Who” back I December, but I wasn’t able to finish until now.  I am glad to be back and hope to be able to better keep up with this blog.

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BPD in Doctor Who

Trigger Warnings: Depression, Anxiety, Suicide, Abuse, Self-Harm, Mentions of Physical Assault and Rape

When I was 17, almost a senior in high school, I watched my first episode of Doctor Who.  I started with Christopher Eccleston and worked my way through.  It took me only a couple of episodes before I was hooked. I became obsessed with the series, and many of the characters, particularly the ones from the Russel T. Davies era, because I felt like I could emotionally connect with them.  I understood them.  Rose Tyler really grew on me.  She was supposed to be around my age at the time, and we both lived at our parents’ home feeling overall empty and worthless.  

At that age, my anxiety and depression were particularly bad. Someone who was mentor and major influence in my life had committed suicide.  Not long after, my grandfather whom I would see all the time passed away. I was already wallowing in major levels of grief and loss.  I had also just gotten permission to skip eleventh grade and graduate a year early from high school.  With that, I had to work last minute to get myself together, so I could apply to colleges and universities.  My parents had a history of neglecting my needs frequently and one of the ways they did was helping me prepare for college.  They refused to help me research or check out schools.  They would not take me on visits because it was too much of a “financial burden” on them.  They also refused to teach me how to drive or help me much at all for the next step ahead.  I felt extremely lonely and I felt very abandoned.  My parents have a history of physical and emotional abuse towards me, but I did not come to terms with that until I was in college, eventually developing PTSD.  

Feelings of abandonment and isolation became chronic and debilitating for me.  There were many emotions I would bottle up until I could not take it anymore.  I felt like a geyser.  As the emotions bubbled and heated more, the pressure in the chamber underground increased until there was a burst of boiling hot water—a crisis or outburst of anger.  I had trouble maintaining consistent relationships with people which only added to the loneliness.  People came and went, and I never expected them to stay.  I felt too worthless to think they would care about me.  I had recurrent suicidal ideation.  For a long time, the way I would keep myself alive would to just tell myself every night that I will just kill myself the next day. I refused to go to therapy until well into college.  This had to do in part that I did not know how to express my emotions, and it also had to do in pat because of trauma.  My mom forced me against my will (on my 16th birthday) to see her therapist and basically admit how horrible of a child I have been.  After my grandfather’s death, I did attempt to see a counselor, but it was a religious counselor who told me that I did not need counseling and that I just needed to focus on my faith in God.  It was not until I was 19, well after beginning college, where I decided to actually pursue therapy.  I had many unstable friendships at college.  I was with my abusive ex-boyfriend.  My already unhealthy relationship with my parents became worse.  The tipping point was when I was in the car with my dad one day, and he tried to hit me. I jumped out of the car before he could do anything to me.  He drove off leaving me on the side of the rode in tears.  It was not long after that experience that I filled out the paperwork to start counseling.  I eventually got a therapist outside of the college campus.  After almost attempting suicide, I was hospitalized for a week at a psychiatric facility.  It was there where the psychiatrist inquired me about a condition called borderline personality disorder.

Here are the symptoms or signs of the disorder:

-Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned

-A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)

-Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self

-Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating

-Self-harming behavior, such as cutting or burning

-Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors or threats

-Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days

-Chronic feelings of emptiness

-Intense anger or problems controlling anger

-Difficulty trusting and possessing a fear of other people’s intentions

-Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself or seeing oneself from outside one’s body

Not everyone with the disorder experiences all these symptoms. The symptoms also come in varying degrees.  No two people with the disorder is completely alike, although they tend to understand each other.  After I received the diagnosis, I felt that my life made a little more sense.  I began to understand myself better.  I have been in treatment for a long time and have made many improvements.  During this whole journey though, I learned something else, one of the reasons why I became so obsessed with Doctor Who.  I mean who doesn’t want to fly away from their boring lives to explore all throughout time and space with a mad man (or woman) with a box?  I have not seen the episodes with Jodie Whittaker so no spoilers! You may cause a paradox and destroy all of reality if you tell me anything.  It’s my future.  It was more than a form of escapism or a way of leaving my miserable life.  I realized that the Doctor’s character really resonates with me on a more personal level.  Now I am specifically referring to the New Who episodes.  I haven’t watched enough of Old Who to make adequate judgments of the character during those episodes.  The Doctor in New Who exemplifies many of the characteristics associated with borderline personality disorder.  I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, but for me, I feel like that this was one of the main reasons I fell in love with the Doctor.  He (or she) is the star of the show, the hero, the person everyone loves aside from say the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Slitheen, the Weeping Angels, the Zygons, the Silurians, and well, okay not everyone.  But in other shows, people with the disorder or exhibits multiple aspects of the disorder are usually portrayed as antagonists and creeps.  

The Doctor continuously goes out of his (or her) way to try and avoid losing people.  It causes him a lot of pain when he loses his closest friends.  Sometimes he will push his closest friends away, even for years at a time, because he’s afraid he’d never see them again. Sometimes he’d isolate himself from making new friends for fear of them falling apart.  We see this with the tenth Doctor at the end of his tenure.  He refused to take on new companions.  He was also reluctant to take on Martha as an official companion after losing Rose. But as you know, things did get “escalated.”  The eleventh Doctor set up Amy and Rory with a house on earth so he could come back to them whenever for hundreds of years because he knew that humans could not live near as long as him and he couldn’t bear to see his closest friends die.  He uploaded River Song as a computer program in the biggest library in the universe so he could always come back to her.  After losing Amy and Rory, he isolated himself from most of others except from a select few refusing to make other friends for fear of the inevitable loss.  Like Martha, he was reluctant at first to take on Clara as a companion.   On the whole though, the Doctor is fairly quick in choosing is companions, almost like Jesus choosing his disciples.  The Doctor becomes close pretty quickly and has people by his side while traveling in the TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space).  However, he is also quick to cut communication in order to “save” his friends or most often himself from impending grief.  He tricked Rose and Clara to have the TARDIS take them home while he faced a life or death scenario.  When Clara came back to the Doctor 300 years later in his future, he admitted that the reason he sent her away was because he would have buried her a long time ago.  It seemed to be more for his sake than hers.  She didn’t want to be sent home, and she was willing to face every danger he faced.  For those who struggle with BPD, the fear of loss and abandonment is quite prominent. Similarly, to the Doctor, I would frequently be quick to make very close friends.  I often idealized them and think they are basically perfect. “And she is perfect,” the Doctor says about Clara Oswald.  “You are the most important woman in the whole universe,” he says to Donna.  At the same time, I was also just as quick to push people away.  I’ve sometimes seemed to ghost people, hide things from them, push them away from my problems, refuse help when I desperately needed it.  I was too afraid I’d hurt them or overwhelm them to the point that I’d lose them.  I become a roller coaster ride to be friends with.  I constantly felt the need to protect people from myself and try to save myself from impending grief which hurts so bad that it makes me sick.  

Like the Doctor, I also felt persistent emptiness and loneliness. I felt like no one really understood me.  Even though I usually had close friends nearby, they also seemed temporary. Give another year and it will be a whole new group of friends.  I am very blessed that I’ve been able to maintain a strong relationship with my best friend for almost five years.  I’ve not had a romantic relationship last even a year.  Alongside the loneliness came emptiness.  For the most part, I felt like my life was pretty meaningless and boring.  I felt like I constantly had to be doing something in order to fill the gap.  The Doctor gets like this too.  When he stuck around in Amy and Rory’s home for a couple of days, he got anxious.  He rarely sticks around for tea after saving the day.  He has to constantly be doing something, or he just feels bored or pointless. This causes anxiety or depression. The tenth doctor, after trapping himself in the 18th century with Madame de Pompedour to save her from impending doom, looked sorrowfully into the night sky because of losing access to his TARDIS.  Like him, I usually can’t handle monotony.  I get anxiety and depression really fast.  

Impulsivity is another common trait between me and the Doctor. This can look different for each person who struggles with BPD.  Many do struggle with alcohol or drug addictions but not all.  I do not, but my impulsivity comes out in other ways.  It actually is similar to how the doctor is impulsive.  I am very quick to putting myself in compromising or dangerous situations. Personally, I cannot actually go into much detail on this issue for my safety and the safety of others around me. As a result of impulsive decisions I’ve made, I have gotten assaulted or raped.  Now these crimes are ultimately not my fault, and do not advocate victim blaming.  People should just have the common decency to know that those things are wrong. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in.  I was almost physically assaulted after outing myself as transgender.  I learned quickly the dangers of being trans in society. I’ve stretched myself thin for the sake of others without taking the time to analyze how much I can handle.  The Doctor is very similar in this regard.  Over and over, he’ll walk passed “keep out” signs.  For him, they are like “dry clean only.”  He’s one of those people who usually takes action before thinking.  Although sometimes we find out that he has actually put more thought into something than we, the audience, assumed he had.  Still, a lot of times the plan is to run towards the danger, see what happens, then come up with another plan.  When he hears a scream, he runs towards it.  When a sketchy guy is offering jobs at Hooverville in 1930, he was the first to volunteer.  Despite his intelligence and cleverness to get out of dangerous situations, he usually just as quick into them.  The results have even blown up the entire universe.  

Both the Doctor and I also seem to have struggled with a personal sense of identity.  This also can result in intense mood swings.  Sometimes I have feelings of euphoria, a heightened feeling of myself.  I can be the life of the party or on top of the world. I can become hypomanic (BPD and bipolar disorder often mimic each other).  Other times I am the complete opposite.  I think I’m the most awful, pitiful thing that creation gave birth to. I will self-harm or have suicide ideations.  I’m afraid that I am an abuser just like my parents, that I just hurt people, or that I constantly let other people down.  This sometimes spawns feelings of isolation.  Sometimes my emotions swing between extremes within a day.  The Doctor seems similarly to reflect these traits. For most of New Who, he is haunted about destroying Gallifrey in order to end the Time War.  Was he a genocidal maniac or a hero who ended a war that would have destroyed all of reality?  Is he any better than a Dalek who belongs to a race of ethnic cleansers.  Even after the 50th anniversary episode, the twelfth Doctor feels the need to ask Clara whether he is a good man. People with BPD tend to have a difficult time knowing themselves outside of how others perceive them.  They constantly rely on others to tell them how they are more than trying to take the time to analyze personal actions and intentions. We usually think our intentions are just excuses for the horrible things we’ve done.  The Doctor kept telling himself that he was trying to end the most deadly war in all of history when making the decision to eradicate his own species, but he wondered afterwards whether it was just an excuse to be the monster he truly was.  It wasn’t like he had a super friendly relationship with the Time Lords (although he was also half human first suggested in the 1996 movie and confirmed with the twelfth Doctor).  He constantly wrestled with the prospect that maybe he took on companions in order to use them rather than actually befriend them.  Davros visibly gets under the Doctor’s skin when he suggests that the Doctor takes “ordinary people and fashions them into weapons.”  We have the episode with the Dream Lord, a suggested personification of the negative aspects of his character.  There is a very dark portion of the Doctor which makes him such a complex character to fully understand.  Still, generally, we most often see him as a hero.  We are more gracious towards his decision to destroy Gallifrey to end the Time War than he is to himself.  I struggle to understand myself.  I generally have persistent feelings of shame that if the dark side of me comes out, then people will leave me.  It’s something I try to control.

Building off the last point, the Doctor is prone to anger quickly coming to that emotion.  “The fury of the Time Lord” is explored throughout the series.  It’s related to the question as to whether he is a good person or not.  This is one area I have seen significant improvements in.  It is okay to angry, but sometimes my anger was ineffective in achieving my goals.  I am not as quick to anger as I used to be.  I think a part of it is that I don’t live with my parents anymore.  I still have much room for improvements.

The Doctor’s fears of abandonment and loneliness has given away to trust issues.  Too many people have betrayed him.  We never learn his actual name throughout the series.  He doesn’t trust anyone with it.  He keeps a lot of himself a secret.  He will refrain from being vulnerable around others including his companions.  He’ll always say that he’s fine, that he is always fine.  This is the classic thing that someone battling mental illness says to cover up their emotions from others.  It is something that I have said in times of distress many times because I am afraid that people will judge me or betray me or leave me.  River Song tells him to trust her.  She whispers his real name in his ear to prove to him that she is worthy of trust.  Even then, he has his reservations.  When learning River was a prisoner for killing man and she doesn’t reveal who, he questions her and why future self would trust her.  There is always constant questioning of other people’s motives and intentions.  When Rose saves her dad’s life altering a fixed point in time, the Doctor is quick to accuse her of selfishness, that she only wanted onto the TARDIS to save her dad, that she was only using the Doctor.  Though Rose’s decision was impulsive and unwise to say the least, the audience isn’t as quick to accuse her of that.  We get the sense that she had a genuine care for the Doctor and actually wanted to travel in the TARDIS for the purpose of exploration.   As we millennials like to say, I feels.

Thoughts of suicide and self-harm or disassociation are not attributes that we can necessarily observe or be able to observe in the Doctor.  We do know that he does tend to view his life as less important as others.  He’s hinted that death may be a gift for someone who lives so long.  He is quick to sacrifice himself.  He gets angry at River when she tries to save him and tell him that the universe doesn’t want him to die.  He’s willing to neglect his life for the sake of others.  When he tried to destroy Gallifrey, he didn’t expect or want to live.  The ninth Doctor explained it wasn’t his choice.  The Doctor seems to be depressed that he didn’t die after ending the Time War, that his guilt is unbearable at times.  I don’t think I can delve much further on this particular aspect of his character to be honest.  

I have thought about this for a long time as you probably can tell.  I am still in love with the Doctor and it is one the view shows that I garner pleasure from when I am severely depressed.  It can distract me from my sometimes very intense and unbearable emotions. I believe this in large part due to how much I relate to the Doctor, that maybe I may not be an absolute monster.  Maybe, I’m not that bad of a person.  Maybe I’m someone that can be loved just like the Doctor. Maybe I am just as interesting and unique.  Maybe at times I can be the hero and not the villain that I always view myself to be. I continue to love the series and I can not wait to see Jodie Whittaker’s depiction of the character when I am able to get access to the episodes.  I am sad to say goodbye to Capaldi, but the story always continues. 

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Coming soon! An entry about the Doctor and borderline personality disorder

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The Battle of the Classes

As a leftist, I constantly observe social struggles in the context of class struggles.  In other words, I consistently attempt to differentiate between those who are oppressed and those who oppress as I find these to be the defining characteristics between the two classes that exist: the working class and the ruling class (or to use Marxist terminology: proletariat and bourgeoisie).  I also seek to understand the relations of these two classes and how these have resulted in the great amounts of human suffering and poverty in this capitalist world.  The term, “middle class,” has largely been erased from my vocabulary when discussing socioeconomic topics, because I believe the middle class is largely a concept implemented by the ruling class to keep the working class divided amongst one another in an attempt to suppress any uprising or revolution from occurring and to keep wealth and resources concentrated at the top. By continuously referring to the “middle class” when discussing how to fix socioeconomic issues in the country, one is merely spewing the bourgeois propaganda meant to blame the victims for all of society’s woes rather than the actual perpetuators of such woes (i.e. the ruling class).

For instance, instead of blaming large corporations that lobby government against tax increases for the wealthy, people particularly within the so-called “middle class” will place the blame for their tax increases on those who are on welfare.  It is essentially a divide and conquer strategy which has kept the capitalist economy thriving.  What I mean by “thriving” is that those on the bottom remain exploited without a strong sense of unification against the common enemy, the exploiters.

The exploiters’ strategies for attempting to keep the proletariat divided has existed since the beginning of United States history.  White people were made to believe that black people were savages as to inhibit ally-ship between poor whites and slaves, to allow such a heinous institution to continue with little challenge.  This rhetoric only got stronger during the antebellum period when the ruling class made an effort to preserve the institution of slavery.  Although the confederacy technically lost, the ruling class was largely successful. Crop-sharing, Jim Crow, social Darwinism, and so on largely kept the African American community in the same socioeconomic status as before the Civil War.

As Irish immigrants arrived at the United States and began working in the miserable conditions of the textile factories up north, the fear of an organized uprising grew.  In 1838, the first official police force was established in Boston for the purpose of protecting capitalist interests under the pretense of increased crime in urbanized regions. The poor immigrants repeatedly faced dehumanization to lower morale and prevent unionization.  Xenophobia was regularly implemented to prevent poor American citizens from sympathizing with immigrants to squander any attempt of organization.  This pattern continues to exist to the modern day.  Once it was the Italians.  Then it was Chinese.  Then it was the Mexicans, the African Americans, the Jews, the Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, the women, and the list continues.  Ethnocentrism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, and so forth not only thrives but drives this capitalist cesspool where we reside.

In order to destroy the divisions based on hatred and greed, the working class must come together with the understanding that they have a common enemy, the ruling class.  The so-called “middle class” must recognize that the wealthy elites are not allies. Capitalism as it exists today is pretty much the source of all evil within this society.  It brings its own form of tyranny in which the bottom is at the complete mercy of capitalist interests.  Capitalists control government because they possess more money essentially creating an oligarchical structure disguised as a supposed democracy. Politicians linked to corporate money still attempt to manipulate elections using different methods such as gerrymandering, invalidating voter registration over small details, controlling the time and location in which polling stations exist, etc.  Much of the working class seem to believe that this level of voter manipulation only exists third-world dictatorships.  These people are sorrily misinformed.

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Calling out Stephan Colbert

So, I wanted to write something in response to this quote by Stephan Colbert from one of his Late Night Show monologues:  

“Gender is clearly a spectrum, okay.  For instance, I identify as a man, but it’s a little fluid.  I enjoy getting my hands dirty and repairing boats; then again, my favorite book is about elves and jewelry.”

The context of this quote is a response to the Trump administration and DOJ’s attempt to redefine gender based on an individual’s biological sex (i.e. using sex chromosomes and genitalia) for the purpose of supposed simplicity forcing the terms into a binary construct.  However, this attempt neglects all the scientific and psychological consensus that both gender and sex exist on a spectrum, and one cannot force these concepts into an artificial and rigorous binary system.  This quote was Colbert’s critique of the federal government’s move to “erase” transgender people out of existence.  

I may conjure some disagreement from certain individuals—predominantly not within the trans community—for offering a harsh critique of this quote.  I do appreciate allies of the transgender community, and I am not trying to create enemies.  However, there are some very problematic aspects to the quote that I simply cannot ignore, because these aspects perpetuate specific gender stereotypes and invalidates the experiences of those within the trans community.  The first leads into the latter.

It seems clear that Colbert views gender as the external presentation of certain roles in which society has gendered.  So, if someone is wearing a tuxedo or likes carpentry, they must be more male because those are “masculine” tasks.  If you like fairies and ponies, then you must be more female because those are “feminine” topics.  It ignores the internal psychological identity of the individual.  Only a few people actually fit within specific defined gender boxes when taking into account their presentations, interests, actions. This means that if a man were to like the color pink, for example, it does not make him less of a man.  It does not even mean that his gender is fluid.  He is just as much a man as any other man.  Colbert identifies as a man; therefore, he is a man whether or not he enjoys elves and jewelry.  Now I know I am walking on a thin line here.  I do not want to assume Colbert’s identity, and if he is indeed genderfluid then I want to acknowledge and validate that.  However, from the way he presents this statement, he almost sees his more “feminine” side as a punchline to a joke rather than an actual introspective look into his own personal identity.  Furthermore, in the beginning he fully and clearly acknowledged that he is a man. Colbert has a history of saying problematic things about the LGBTQ+ community in the past; for instance, there is the infamous joke where he calls Trump Putin’s “cuck holster.” I honestly think Colbert is simply naïve.  I do appreciate people speaking up against this move by the Trump administration; however, I rather people do it in such a way in which did not reinforce the gender constructs which the trans community has been desperately trying to break.  

I will also be honest, there is a part of me that wonders what Colbert’s personal beliefs are about the transgender community.  I do not want to make assumptions; however, the comment does call into question how serious he finds the issue of gender minority discrimination.  I have far too often in my own experience met people who will on the surface around the transgender individual attempt to use correct name and pronouns, but as soon as the individual leaves the room, those people go back to deadnaming and misgendering. This happens all the time, and it makes it difficult for gender minorities to trust people outside the community.  Again, I cannot make assumptions, but the question still remains: How much of an ally is Colbert really to the trans community?

This reinforcement of gender stereotypes is not only dangerous but also invalidating of the experiences within the transgender community.  Trans folks already battle erasure and invalidation of their identities on a local level.  The federal government’s move to erase trans people from existence is only reinforcing discrimination which already exists in the society.  People refuse to take the identity of transgender folks seriously as if it is a game or a phase.  Transgender folks constantly struggle with society’s views that their identities are not actually real, that they are just preferences.  The problem is that as this mindset continues, the mental health crisis within the trans community will only get worse, and society will continuously fail to see the prevalence of the abuse.  A transgender man is a man.  You use he/him pronouns when referring to him despite what how he is dressed, what his interests are, or whether he has medically transitioned or not.  You cannot assume gender based on external factors.  Bronies, for example, are male.  Their gender is not fluid because they like the My Little Ponies fandom.  Gender refers to a deep interpersonal understanding of how you see yourself in relation to others and a self-reflection of how you perceive your internal identity.  There is deep psychological and social aspect that is very real and real to the individual who identifies with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.  

Transgender people constantly battle the constructs of gender which society had built.  There are plenty of transgender women who do not like dresses, but they feel almost like they have to in order to be a “true woman.”  It is as if they must prove their identity in some way.  We would not question the identity so much if they simply possessed a vagina, but since transwomen were born with penises, they must in some way prove it.  We hold trans people to higher standards than cisgender people which can be damaging to a person who is struggling to understand their own gender identity.  It is also harmful for those who live outside the gender binary.  There are many assigned female at birth who enjoy traditionally feminine clothing and expression; however, they identify has a gender that is not “woman.”  There are laws in the books already basically requiring trans folks to prove in some way their identity to be recognized legally by their preferred names and proper pronouns.  This puts a lot of stress on trans folks who constantly have to deal with self-deprecating thoughts because society refuses to acknowledge fully their identities.  

Essentially, the underlying message in Colbert’s joke is that to be fully a man, you have to enjoy more masculine tasks or interests which is actually a counterproductive message if you are trying to fight and end discrimination against transgender folks.  Colbert fails to recognize various gender identities as being “real,” that they only exist based on preference or expression.  At least this is how it seems to me.  This actually only perpetuates the discrimination that he is supposedly speaking out against.  I think it is important that someone calls him out on the comment that way we can continue the fight to end transphobia.

[sharingshane-blog]

Cannot Erase

This week has generally been a hard week for my fellow transgender, genderqueer, and non-binary friends plus myself.  It is not surprising that the federal government would attempt to redefine gender based on someone’s assigned biological sex with the attempt to create a correlation which does not hold—that gender aligns with genitalia—and to reconstruct the gender binary.  The government has never been a friend to the trans community, and the current administration is particularly over about it.  Another group which seems not to receive as much attention as the transgender community are intersex folks who will also experience discrimination as a result of this attempted redefinition since the policy also assumes that sex exists on a binary spectrum which is not true.  The Trump administration claims that they are doing this in the name of science and simplicity; however, the simple fact is that it is unscientific, and it is dangerously exclusionary to gender and sexual minorities.

The rate of transgender and intersex people are roughly the same according to statistics.  Also, of course, there are many people in these respective communities who go through their lives in the closet or were never informed of their sex characteristics—if born intersex and have undergone reconstructive surgery before they developed memory or could consent.  They are also one of the most discriminated communities in the United States.  This is not to downplay the struggles of other discriminated communities; however, there seems this intense resistance to relinquish one’s preconceived notions that gender and sex exist on a binary spectrum. Many people seem to find it burdensome to change their ways of understanding the concepts of gender and sex to become more accommodating towards these two communities rather than take steps to understand and adjust to a more comprehensive understanding of these topics. They rather push trans or intersex people aside, pretend that these communities do not exist for their own convenience.  Even people within these communities will internalize this way of thinking in order to “keep the peace” or “blend” into society’s rules.  This puts a lot of distress on individuals who exist outside the binary or whose identity does not align with their assigned identity. These constructs put so much pressure on the communities at hand that they have an increase risk of developing depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation.  Speaking on behalf of the trans community, about 40%-45% of people who identify as transgender attempt suicide at some point in their lifetime.  That is almost half of all transgender people. The reason for this is not due to their identity of being transgender but the society’s response to them being transgender.  Statistics suggest that transgender individuals who grow up in affirming and validating environments experience a significant decrease rate of suicide ideation. This suggests that the identity of being transgender—or intersex for that matter—is not the root cause of emotional dysregulation.

I can speak from personal experience as a non-binary transgender person myself.  I remember when I first came out as transgender, I was working for Panera Bread. There were many logistical obstacles I had to overcome and discrimination that I faced in the workplace.  I was taken into the manager’s office and told to explain my identity which was intimidating.  I have debilitating anxiety and I fear what the response would be.  I was deeply uncomfortable that simply advising of my new name and pronouns were not enough and having the manager constantly use my birthname repeatedly to explain how that I was still “___” even though my nametag said otherwise.  I did receive time cuts at work and there was growing hostility towards me in general particularly from management.  My physical health was not great as well and this was used to my disadvantage.  Most of it was not direct or overt discrimination; it was mostly passive aggressive. For the most part, people attempted to use proper name and pronouns, but people’s tones became different.  I felt less welcome, less like I belonged.  I felt like an outsider.  I was discouraged to correct customers on my pronouns which brought me distress and invalidation.  I received a lot of sexism since I worked in an area that was generally female dominated where people felt free to use terms such as “honey,” “baby,” “sweetie,” and other such familial terms that are uncomfortable for cisgender women to hear let alone someone who is transgender yet does not “pass” in society.  My dysphoria and depression got worse.  I craved being at home with my roommate who was also transgender to receive some sort of validation and affirmation.  

At my next job which was at a call center as a customer service representative, I luckily largely escaped the overly familiar language for the most part, but I kept getting a lot of “ma’ams.” I put a lot of effort to not use such terms because I cannot assume one’s gender identity based on the sound of their voice.  People do it without second guessing, without remorse.  I still have a feminine sounding voice (for now at least) and spending my whole day each day hearing people misgender me took a toll on my mental health.  I started to direct the anger inward by participating in self-deprecating behavior. I kept getting triggered, and I felt so much distress I would always dread the next phone call.  I know that those people did not necessarily mean harm or even realized the internal turmoil their actions caused me.  But that is my point.  There is not much awareness or urgency to learn.  Using terms like “ma’am” or “sir” which are gender coded can cause certain individuals distress while the intention was to be professional or respectful towards the client or representative.  The vocabulary is so ingrained into our system that it will take time to undo, and for those who are cisgender and fall on the binary in terms of biological sex, there is not a lot of urgency or need for them to change their habits.  This is hurtful that people seem unwilling to put effort into understanding.  Instead, they rather accuse me of causing all the trouble.  I sometimes feel as though I am no more than a burden on society, and I feel like I have to constantly conform to how everyone thinks at the expense of my mental health.  

In short, I want to give a shout out to all the transgender, intersex, genderqueer, non-binary, agender, gender fluid, gender flux, bigender, demi-gender, third-gender, trans-femme, trans-masc, androgynes, gender non-conforming, polygender, gender variant, neutrois, and more people in the United States and around the world for your bravery in simply existing.  It unfortunately takes courage to exist it seems, but we are a tough community overall.  Even if you are in the closet, you are still brave.  You are valuable.  You are worth it.  You deserve love.  You deserve support.  You deserve validation.  You deserve all the basic necessities of life and more.  You are an amazing community, and I am proud to be a fellow member.

[sharingshane-blog]

I am going to post a new entry very soon.  Given the weight of the subject, it has been a challenge emotionally to write it.  Patience.

[sharingshane-blog]

Why the Bloody Hell a Christian!?

I am religious, self-identifying Christian.  This part of me has had significant influence in whom I am today.  It is not something that I discuss often; yet, it is also not something I keep secret either.  It does usually take people by surprise to learn this fact about me.  I just finished writing a blog post about one of my idols, Emma Goldman, who was a staunch atheist.  I am transgender and bisexual, and I believe it is okay for me to live fully and authentically as myself.  I have date men, women, and non-binary folks happily and without remorse.  I am a steadfast leftist and a large critic of the church not just in the United States but around the world too.  I am also a critic of organized religion in general. I usually advice against looking for savior figures.  That is in part how dictators come to power.  I have extremely close atheist and agnostic friends.  I also have Muslim, Jewish, and even Satanist friends. I have also suffered abuse and ostracization from my church growing up which contributed to a lot of the psychological issues that I possess today.  I do also agree that the Bible does contain homophobic, ethnocentric, sexist, and genocidal content.  It also contains slave apology, human sacrifices, and rape defenses.  So, the question that may be running through your head at this point may be, “Why would you identify as a Christian?”

Well, let me start with why I do not talk about my Christian faith that often.  It is rooted solely in the way people perceive me when I talk about my faith than what I say about my faith.  Since Christianity is so mainstream in the United States, there is already widespread knowledge about the basics of the religion.  When Christians give out little booklets saying, “Did you know Jesus—?” it comes off like they are insulting the intelligence of anyone who is not perceived to be with the “in-group.”  I think sometimes many Christians lose sight of the fact that anyone outside their small group of other think-alike Christians are just as human and capable of cogitative reasoning as them.  Many people outside the realm of Christianity know the basic tenets of the Christian faith, and many even know and understand the Bible better than most self-identifying Christians.  Evangelism in the sense of educating people about the basics of the faith is essentially unnecessary in the United States, and I want to avoid coming off as an evangelist to other people.  When I speak about my faith, I do not want others to perceive me as that evangelist.  I want to communicate that I believe they are intelligent individuals with their own interpretations of spirituality that are completely based on valid perspectives of the world.  It is demeaning and degrading the way most Christians interact with others outside their little Christian in-group.  

Furthermore, there is a level of stigma growing against Christians on the left.  I am a leftist and potentially communist even.  Most of my friends are self-identified as atheist or agnostic.  Also, many of them have dealt with real abuse from the church in the past.  This is also true of my LGBTQ+ friends.  Unfortunately, in these groups, sometimes I must minimize my references to the Bible because it could potentially trigger traumatizing memories.  I can empathize since have also experienced trauma from the church, and I have a difficult time with Christianized language and contemporary worship music. I rather speak of Christianity in a deep philosophical way or in an extremely pragmatic way.  Enough with the bullshit abstract concepts with no explanation redundantly displayed in every single church!  I get that Jesus loves me, a basic tenet of Christianity.  But what does it mean for him to love me? What is love?  Does his love have limits?  But back to the trauma stuff.  Since the church has hurt these communities quite repeatedly in the past, it is absolutely understandable that individuals in these communities have built a stealthy resentment towards Christianity as a whole.  I have been an agnostic twice and sometimes I really do doubt whether I want to be associated with the label “Christian.”  I do possess strong convictions despite minimizing how much I discuss it.  It does still play an instrumental role in my life.

Back to the original question, “Why the bloody hell am I still a Christian?”  Before I move forward, I will not and cannot give objective evidence for the existence of God and specifically the Christian God.  I am aware that many of my views are dogmatic and originate from anecdotal observations rather than factual content.  Many intellectuals cannot agree on a solid argument for the existence of God, so do not expect such an unrealistic feat from me.  If you were to go down the route of a strictly logical path I would say that agnosticism is probably the most reasonable conclusion based on factual evidence.  The best arguments from the perspective of theism are abductive arguments, arguments that attempt to give the best possible explanation for a phenomenon.  Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation taking into account all the facts is the best explanation, is the method in which to find the best possible explanation for a phenomenon thereby strengthening an abductive argument.  For example, our ability to comprehend and discover science is one such phenomenon in which arguably the best explanation could be the existence of God or at least intelligent designer.  However, there are also many evolutionary explanations for the phenomenon as well.  Next is figuring which is the simplest explanation that also takes into consideration of all known facts.  Abductive arguments never prove that something is objectively true but merely most likely true.  The conclusion is subject to change based on new data that may arise every day.  Only deductive arguments if the premises are true and the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises can give objectively factual conclusions. (Example of a Deductive Argument: If A then B; if B then C, therefore, if A then C).  All of scientific reasoning exists outside of deductive argumentation even scientific discoveries that are blatantly true.

Sorry, I was once a philosophy student, and I hope to return to school again at some point soon (which, by the way. much of my philosophical curiosity stems from my religious background).  My reasons for being a Christian are not objective and not reasons for which you should become a Christian yourself if you are considering the possibility. They are merely justifications for why I consider myself a Christian.  For starters, I deal with intense abandonment issues and chronic feelings of loneliness due to my extensive history of trauma.  The belief in a loving and caring God who will never abandon me has helped fill those gaps.  Of course, that does not mean that I don’t question the reason I have experienced so much evil if such a God exists unless I potentially deny his omnipotence.  That is a valid question.  I remember though, years ago, I was dangerously suicidal and was taken to the hospital. While waiting for a bed to open in the psychiatric hospital, the doctors put me in a secluded room with no intellectual stimulation, just blank white walls, for about 22 hours.  About maybe 16 to 18 hours in and eventually someone gave me a magazine that I would normally not have expressed any sort of interest in except under dire circumstances such as that.  My friend who dropped me off at the hospital is Catholic (one of the good ones) and she gave me a rosary as a source of strength.  I hid it under my scrubs so as the cameras that were watching my 24/7 would not pick it up.  In the room next to me, there was an older man who was belligerent and violent against the nurses.  He made quite a ruckus all night, and it was frankly triggering and disturbing.  I thought I was losing a sense of myself. I clutched tightly to that rosary all night long.  After an ambulance transported me to the psychiatric hospital the next day, two nurses stripped searched me which of course meant that they took the rosary from my hands.  I cried profusely because I felt like that was the only part of myself that I had left. So, there is definitely a sense of identity and strength I get from being a Christian; it is at the very least useful or practical for me to identify as a Christian.  Christianity, particularly the scriptures involving Jesus, is also the reason why I am a leftist today.  It is also surprisingly the reason I became more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community after my extremely conservative upbringing.  Acts describes the early church, pre-Constantine’s conversion in 312 A.D., as being strongly communally based.  People shared food, shelter, and clothing with one another and no one went without.  This strikingly sounds like an anarcho-communist utopia.  The understanding of Jesus as the Son of God was of the upmost importance, and Jesus’ denouncing of the ethnocentric ideology of Jewish religious leaders telling his disciples to go out and tell the world about him brought the gentiles into the community with him.  One of the first recorded converts in the Bible was a eunuch from what is modern Ethiopia.  It was not only a gentile but also a sexual minority.  Jesus had a strong message about community and non-judgmental stance towards others.  He rebuked people who valued power and wealth over other people.  This particularly included the rich, religious leaders, and other people of power.  He told a rich man to give away all his possessions to enter the Kingdom of Heaven which the man left distraught.  He healed the servant of the Roman centurion and it is highly likely according to Biblical scholars that they were in a homosexual relationship given the historical precedent of that time.  Jesus is crucial and central to the Christian faith.  Christianity does not exist without him.  Why else would it be call CHRIST-ianity?  And of course, modern-day Jews and Muslims at the very least recognize Jesus as a great prophet (The Koran also states that Christians and Jews will also be rewarded in heaven alongside Muslims).  What sets Christianity apart is that one of the most basic tenets of Christianity is the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.  When looking at Christianity, what is essential is looking through the lens of Jesus when interpreting the rest of scripture, what is human-informed and what objectively divine.  I believe that much of the Bible is divine to an extent but at times grossly misconstrued by human beings.  Christianity has been interpreted in ways in which have wielded immense good and immense harm today.  In other words, it is easy to imagine that this would be true for the history of the Judeo-Christian faith.  It has been used today to justify genocides, but it has also been used to build free clinics for people who do not have access to healthcare (the church I have been attending).  Religion can be extremely dangerous if interpreted in a grotesque way with self-interest plaguing one’s reasoning.  I do not think; however, it is something necessarily intrinsically wrong with religion.

I will probably do more blog posts on this topic, specifically on queerness and the Bible.  With how I interpret the Bible, I can easily justify living openly queer.  I will give a brief synopsis in how I justify the way I live in light of being a Christian.  Most of the verses which speak against homosexuality are in extremely specific sections with absurd rules such as never defend your husband in a fight by grabbing other man’s penis or washing yourself three times after a nocturnal ejaculation.  Maybe, the most substantive verse would be from Paul in Romans and Corinthians; however, Paul has also said that women should never speak in a place of worship which even by most conservative Evangelical Christian standards is too sexist.  We are talking about an extensive history of patriarchy and ethnocentrism, wanting desperately to separate their culture from other cultures by committing genital mutilation and refraining from homosexual acts plaguing the society for many centuries.  The Bible was exclusively written by men in this context trying to interpret something divine.  I do not believe the Bible is inerrant.  The Bible gives little insight in terms of varying gender identities.  It speaks against transvestitism a “crime” one cannot commit if they identify with the gender that they are attempting to express. Transvestitism does not equal transgenderism and equating the two would be an invalidation of a person’s gender identity since you are insinuation that a transgender man for example is really just a woman presenting as a man instead of a man in his own right.  But furthermore, with the increased greater understanding that sexual orientation and gender identity is rooted in one’s being and not a lifestyle which someone follows by their own volition, one must consider the idea of whether anyone could be excluded from Jesus’ community based on some uncontrollable trait.  The obvious answer to this is no, and most conservative Christians would agree with the premise.  However, they either deny queerness is an innate trait, or that it is a mental illness, or a trait that must be suppressed.  The third is absurd, because you would never tell someone to be a specific race in order to be accepted in the Christian community.  It a trans-woman is a woman, then there is no way to change the fact that she is a woman.  Even if she dresses masculine and never medically transitions, she is still a woman. She would actually be cross-dressing technically!  Since gender has to do with one’s internal identity and not necessarily one’s presentation, no matter how much she tries, even if she comes off as a man is not a man. Telling people to suppress their identity has only led to a mental health crisis in the queer community and high suicidal rates.  Is a God who tells people to suppress a portion of themselves that he presumably created for no other purpose but the prospect of getting to heaven one day truly loving?  I would argue not.  I would go as far to say that if you do believe that queer people should suppress themselves, there is the insinuation that God wants to make certain people suffer unnecessarily (unnecessarily is key here, not that we should never have challenges, but we should never have to suffer unnecessarily) and does not truly love certain people.  That last bit is a heretical statement.  

Phew!  That was a lot and thank you for bearing with me through all of it.  Thank you for your time and your patience when reading all of this.  Sorry if it mostly sounded like a bunch of thoughts loosely stringed together.  That is essentially what my life is at this point. I hope from this you may have been able to get a different perspective of what it might mean for someone to be a Christian or why I am still a self-identified Christian.  I also hope that you have been able gain a better understanding of me.  Maybe you have more respect for me or maybe you have lost all respect for me.  Either one is fine.  You may have whatever opinion you want of me.  I have heard it all: delusional, deceived, misled, crazy, etc. That is okay.  It is sad though in the midst of trying so desperately to fight for a completely egalitarian society.  I am comfortable for the most part with the label.  I have found a church that accepts my gender identity using correct name and pronouns.  I had the fortune of being in the church when I came out, so most of the parishioners knew my birthname but still switched out of respect for me at the very least. The official church directory has my preferred name there.  Not every individual is accepting, but the vast majority are including the priest who defended me when someone made some transphobic comments using scripture.  The church has been a source of slow healing for me from all the abuse and trauma I have experienced, and they have helped me during some dark times such as when I was homeless and hungry.  That is what the church is meant to be, a place of safety and love.  I have broken down in tears before during some of the services out of being so overwhelmed by the kindness and acceptance I got from them as opposed to people in my past. In fact, they were more accepting of me than my job who just cut my hours more and I eventually lost the job soon after coming out publicly.  After my abusive ex-boyfriend from back when I thought I was cisgender and straight became a full-blown fascist, I decided to dedicate my life to loving others. This is where it has brought me so far, a staunch Christian leftist.   

[sharingshane-blog]

My Hero

To build off my last blog entry, I wanted to mention an inspirational figure and bit of an idol in my life.  She was a radical feminist, an anarcho-communist, a defender of the LGBT community, and an all around badass.  She was born in 1869 in what now is modern-day Lithuania and died in Canada in 1940. She had suffered abuse which she overcame and fought hard for the rights of wage laborers.  She was exiled and deported from the United States because of her radicalism.  She was a speaker and a writer.  She never felt like she had to be bound to a man to take care of her.  She was considered progressive by leftist standards at the time, and she faced scrutiny even from fellow comrades.

If you are familiar with famous leftists in history, then you probably know that I am talking about Emma Goldman.  If you are not familiar, now you know who she is.  I am an activist, but I do struggle at times to develop a sense of identity.  I sometimes struggle to be confident in myself and where I stand.  I can easily feel intimidated when facing others’ point of views. I know that how I think is valid, but it is an insecurity of mine.  This is why I idolize people such as Emma Goldman.  I exuberate her charisma and confidence in making decisions for herself. Her ability to face her critics without fear is a characteristic that I deeply admire about her.  I aspire to be able adopt these qualities for myself for the purpose of fighting injustice and promoting egalitarianism today.

She was ahead of her time when it came to social justice issues, particularly LGBT rights.  Most leftist circles at the time still ostracized the queer community, and they would criticize Emma for not focusing on labor or for associating leftists with LGBT folks in general.  This did not deter her from speaking out on behalf of the community.  There has even been some suspicion that she may have been bisexual, although those claims are highly speculative.  In a letter to Magnus Hirschfeld, another early proponent of LGBT rights, Emma wrote, “It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.” I love how in this quote - although I am aware that there did lack understanding that gender does not solely exist in a binary system - seems to hint that there are at least various gender expressions or an understanding that people do not necessarily always fit nicely into the gender boxes of male or female.  This of course resonates with me significantly as a transgender-identifying individual.  

So not only is Emma Goldman someone I admire for her views on labor and politics; but I also idolize her charisma, radicalism, and confidence.  Her progressivism and tenacity pushed her through immense criticism and exile during her lifetime.  I appreciate and respect her early support of the queer community; it is a subject for which I have deep passion.  I empathize with her struggle with abuse.  Her family was abusive to her as were mine.  She was a minority as Jewish woman, a leftist, and an immigrant.  She displayed courage during her lifetime, courage that I hope one day to develop and possess.

[sharingshane-blog]

Why I am a Leftist

I thought I would spend some time discussing some of my socio-economic beliefs and how I came to where I am today.  My battles with poverty, disability, chronic illness, and discrimination (being genderqueer and bisexual) have largely informed my current beliefs about how society should function.  Just like anybody else, my environment and struggles have shaped who I am and what I believe today.

I have been registered in every party with the exception of the libertarian party.  Currently I have no affiliation.  I have become increasingly more frustrated with the socio-economic and political climate of today, and it is not due to how divisive people are after the orange was elected in 2016.  That divisiveness was always there, and it was always meant to be there.  The so-called problems in this current system are not really problems at all.  They are simply injustices, but those injustices were meant to be there.  The United States was never founded as a land of freedom and democracy.  Hell, only about one-third of the population in the American colonies actually wanted to break away from England.  The vast majority were either ambivalent or actively opposed separation.  The Constitution was drafted and ratified by a legislature that consisted solely of white, cisgender, heterosexual, wealthy, privileged men.  Some were rapists such Thomas Jefferson.  Some were frauds such as George Washington.  Some were narcissists such as Benjamin Franklin.  All of them were racists.  They all possessed power and influence in their given states.  The America today is exactly what America was always meant to be, a place where those privileged few controls and uses the rest of the population for their own personal gain.  It is an oligarchy disguised as democracy and exploitation at its finest.  I am completely pessimistic about the future of America unless the entire system is uprooted and we begin again from scratch.  Anyone who believes that the system can be fixed are unfortunately sorely deceived.  

I came to this understanding during my one-year hiatus from college in 2017.  During this time, I was working at Panera Bread as a cashier. As the year progressed, the job became more difficult.  I was unable to work full-time because of my health.  I was in intensive therapy for the first half of 2017 spending about 10 hours doing that and 20 hours working each week.  It was emotionally exhausting and my chronic fatigue was weighing heavily on me.  During the course of the year my anxiety and PTSD became more intense.  Near the end of my intensive treatment, I began to develop these disassociative episodes or stupors when I was triggered or overwhelmed. It happened to me once while I was driving causing me to have car accident and total my car.  They began happening more at work and I would have to be sent home.  During these episodes, I cannot respond to most external stimuli and am largely unresponsive.  I am unable to speak or speak very little.  I lose track of reality.  I cannot feel different parts of my body particularly my arms and legs.  There became an increase fear that they may be seizures.  Sometimes it appears I am having a stroke.  So far there is no evidence of either.  I developed more chronic pain.  It is highly suspected that I have endometriosis although I haven’t had the opportunity to have the surgical procedure to confirm the diagnosis. There is more, but I will not get into that now.

During this time, I realized how little my health seemed to matter to my employers.  They could make some accommodations for me, but in the end, it was their priority to make sure that business ran smoothly.  If my health got in the way too much, then I could face the chopping block.  I watched as two other fellow coworkers got fired for taking too many sick days. Both have debilitating chronic conditions that could become life-threatening if not treated.  Of course, it would be outright discrimination to fire them based solely on their health conditions.  So, they took another route.  I was terrified of losing my job.  I pushed myself as hard as I could and would neglect my health in the process. It became clearer; however, that I could not maintain the work.  My managers began cutting hours.  I was already not making enough to satisfy basic necessities and now I was making even less.  I was forced to have to live with my parents which was an unhealthy situation for me (which I will refrain from explaining why for the time being).  I felt like a burden on everyone which took a toll on my mental health.  I attempted to return to school after my hiatus while still working my job at Panera and living with my parents.  This proved to be too much for me to handle.  I quit college and moved in with a friend.  I came out as transgender and my hours were cut more at work.  I was eventually forced to quit.  I caught my manager complaining about my health issues behind my back to other coworkers.  This is actually a HIPPA violation, and I could potentially press charges.  In the end though, I am poor.  I do not have the financial and emotional resources to fight her.

Be patient.  I promise you this is all relevant.

In all this, I tried to develop a better way to organize the business in order to make the employees feel less like they are part of a massive machine and more like individual human beings.  I felt as though I was part of that machine, and if I became too weak, the machine would break.  Another thing I realized was that I was easily replaceable.  There is not much incentive for employers to work with me when they could easily switch me out for a stronger part.  No matter how nice they seemed, their primary duty is business.  If they are not successful at it, they will lose their position of power.  The system requires them to be exploitive towards the lower-wage workers.  I could not develop a system in my mind that would fix this unless capitalism as a whole was completely abolished.  If we remove CEO’s and had the workers run the industries democratically, that would fix the problem.  However, this would require a complete uproot of the system today.  I became more familiar with the term class-consciousness.

I am a hard worker and a fighter.  However, I am human and limited.  Because of my disabilities, employers consider me to be a malfunctioned part. I cannot lift heavy things or be on my feet for too long without feeling like I’m about to collapse.  I have now been reduced to a cane.  There is nothing that I can do to change this.  The phrase, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps,” did not work for me.  It did not matter how much effort into the system, I was stuck.  It would have to take sheer luck and a willingness to exploit others to rise up in the ranks.  The latter goes against my moral compass.  I realized that I could never bring myself to ever be a manager.  I cannot ethically justify being in such a position where I have to treat money with greater importance than the human beings that would work under me.

However, in order to create a society in which people are treated as human beings, and true equality is obtained; it would mean that those on the top would have to relinquish their power and wealth.  There is this narrative in which people believe that it is perfectly natural and necessary for there to power figures; otherwise, society would turn to chaos. It is true that we make decisions on our self-interest, but that is why an anarcho-communist society could honestly work.  It is in the workers’ best interest to distrust power figures, to have control over industry, to regain their humanity, to maintain industry and do their part in society, and to be a part of a society.  It will not happen without a fight though.  Millionaires and billionaires will not relinquish their power easily.  The system was created to keep those people at the top.  Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia have been perpetuated to pin those on the bottom against one another, to keep them from uniting. The police were established to enforce this narrative and protect capitalist interests.  In the North, they were established to protect the transportation of goods and keep poor workers, largely immigrants, from collectivizing and prevent them from having a voice.  In the South, the police were derived from overseers with the intent to preserve slavery. The police system is not broken. It is running exactly how it was intended to run.  The narrative that there must always be people on the top and those on the bottom was a common defense of African-American slavery.  It is an idea with the sole intent to keep people oppressed.

Helen Keller, the famous activist who fought for the rights of those disabled, understood that equality for those disabled could never be obtained in a capitalist society. Disabled people will always be seen as inferior.  Safety was secondary; so, businesses can maintain their quotas increasing the possibility of accidents causing workers to become disabled.  It is not commonly known that she became a socialist herself and became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization which believed that that the workers must run industry.  It is a workers’ union dedicated to democracy and solidarity. Their core belief is that you have nothing in common with your boss.

Bernie Sanders is not a true socialist.  He is a social democrat, and lately he has had to tame his speech in order to maintain his power and influence.  He believes in a highly regulated capitalist system.  Socialists believe in abolishing capitalism altogether.  

I am an actual socialist.  I do not believe the system is flawed.  I believe the system works exactly how it is supposed to function and it is disgusting. This ended up being a loner post than I had planned it to be, but I do have much to say on the subject.  It is something I am passionate about even though I will probably not see this come to fruition.  I hope this was insightful to how I have come to my beliefs which I hold today.