#and god knows the bus system is deeply flawed

[hyperspacial]

And speeding tickets are only one head of the hydra- parking tickets, license revokations, and repeat offender penalties are all things that drive mass incarceration of poor people.

Because if you're rich or middle class and you get a ticket, you stomp your feet and pay the ticket. It impacts you more depending how tight your budget is, but it's not worldending.

But if you're working class? Tickets often cut into spending for essentials, and a lot of people make the decision that it's not worth paying instead of utilities or groceries. Or maybe because you're in survival mode you forget to pay the ticket on time, and now the additional fees make it so you can't afford it at all.

Then you're out driving and get pulled over for an unrelated offense and suddenly, you have a warrant, because your license was revoked for unpaid fines. The officer takes you to county jail, your car is impounded or taken as evidence (more money to get back), you likely no-call no-show to work and face repercussions and firing there. You go before a judge who if you're lucky offers you a payment plan, if you're unlucky issues bond that you can't pay.

I used to work at a law office that regularly went into the jail, and I would guess 30% of the people there were in for driving on a suspended license (and the rest were there because they couldn't make bond which is a whole other can of worms). The problem is that for impoverished people, speeding tickets provide a slippery slope to getting involved with the courts, which demands they interrupt their work and life schedule to come in for hearings, and racking up more fees. If you fail to attend or don't pay, it snowballs into worse charges and more life disruption.

Speeding tickets only hurt poor people

[theestervashti]

"The Strand." From Esther 6: 4-5.

The conflict between Haman, a populist, and Marduk, the god of humanity over the fate of the Jewish people in the Court of Persia continues. The King, Xerxes, wants the nonsense out of the his life, and chose to hear the Jewish goddess Esther , who represents sentience regarding a proposal to spare them.

The court represents the intersection of all of these, the ways communities make their choices. Obviously it takes a significant number of people to perform a genocide, far more than those whom the government is planning shall no longer be with us. The prophet argues now there must also be many more than even these if they are to be spared.

There is something wrong with mankind that the subject even comes up. We are told, all of us, killing is wrong, spite is wrong, everyone knows the Prime Commandment of Jesus Christ and every kindergartner is told "do no harm." But as adults we do whatever happens next. The permissiveness of the Biden White House and Department of Justice towards the Republican Party and the Trump Campaign for example resulted in an attempt at a final genocide of the Jewish people. And for a time the idea actually had momentum, it was safeguarded and relished.

The gathering of the fukchucks with houndstooth towels on their heads with drums at college campuses all around the world are symptoms of a human race that follows populism rather than the Words of God. It is the secular government's duty to ensure, much like a kindergarten teacher around little ones that no harm is done.

4 The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about impaling Mordecai on the pole he had set up for him.

5 His attendants answered, “Haman is standing in the court.”

“Bring him in,” the king ordered.

To be impaled on a pole means to be persecuted if not prosecuted by populists. Populism is a kind of gaslighting, means it teaches victims to reframe their suffering at the hands of their abusers. Gaslighters teach their prey how to endure the suffering they cause as if it is a flaw for them to question what is happening.

Populists do this en masse. Like the Republicans they frame the issues, like immigration and abortion as if they are dire threats to human life and the future of America and it is deeply flawed, morally, spiritually, and ethically if not inherently dangerous to disagree.

Populism manipulates miscreants into thinking they are a unique and special group that has a destiny but are temporarily being persecuted for the sake of the greater good, which they are not. It is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. Civil rights laws are always thrown under the bus because of populism in spite of the fact they are fully enforceable at all times.

The persecution of Jews, Muslims, Africans, LGBTQ persons and immigrants is very popular as a result even though it is absolutely illegal. So the challenge of secular governors who employ spiritual principals is to disengage from the popularity contest surrounding certain issues and pound the hammer on the debate as firmly as possible.

In our times this means President Biden needs to tell America there is no such thing as Pro-Life, we have signed treaties with other nations stating we will not interfere in pregnancy it is a federal law and care practice guideline for the medical community as well. In spite of the fact Pro-Life is very popular, it is utterly illegal to challenge the government or the public on this issue and closing the argument down will be healthy for the rest of the social system for all time as it will kill the persecution and prosecution of persons the government has permanently pledged to protect.

The Values in Gematria are

v. 4: The King said. The Number is 7845, זחדה‎, zahda, which means to teach a child how to catch and hold a poisonous snake.

v. 5: His attendants answered. The Number is 3419, ג‎דאט‎ ‎, gdat, "the shore, the banks of the river, the strand." AKA "the proper political positions."

"Our noun γη (ge) denotes land as the opposite of sea (Mark 4:1), and heaven (Matthew 5:18). It denotes land as that which yields vegetation and produce (Matthew 13:5), or land as supporting a political entity: a country or region (Matthew 2:20), or the whole human realm (Luke 11:31, Romans 9:17).

Our word also denotes the foundation of man's stance, poise and stride (Matthew 15:35, John 8:8, Acts 9:4), and is as such a metaphor for knowledge and certainty (see our article on πιστις, pistis, meaning faith, or "the dry land of the mind").

The feminine noun דת (dat) is a loanword from Persian (the original word is data), and it means decree or law. Because it's Persian, it occurs only in the Book of Esther (Esther 1:19, 2:8, 4:3 and seventeen more places) and once in Ezra (Ezra 8:36). And because it refers to Persian law (which could be decreed by the king on whatever of his whims) it should not be confused with the Hebrew sense of Law, which only came from God.

Still, perhaps the Persian word for law could be so readily incorporated into Hebrew — truncated to דת (dt) instead of a more accurate דתה (dth) or even דתא (dt') — because it is identical to the Chaldean word דת (doth), meaning well or fountain.

In Deuteronomy 33:2 occurs the curious statement אשדת למו ('sdt lmw), which some translations explain to come from אשדה ('sdh), meaning mountain slope (NIV) but others interpret as אש דת למו ('s dt lmw), meaning a fiery law for them (KJV, JSP, ASV, Darby)."

The White House, has of late not taken positions that one might say equate to "fiery law" in order to protect women, children, or religious and ethnic diversity in this country. The Republicans are a sick and disgusting group of people with terorrism in their hearts and on their minds. Thousands of people are dead because of them. They cannot be allowed to participate in the government or community life alongside the rest of us.

Something has to be done. They are not trendsetters or rule breakers they are killers. After what happened on January 6, and then on October 7 and due to the casualties associated with the abortion ban, I insist all of them get the death penalty. The world needs to see us take our honor back.

[thebookbin]

The Sunbearer Trials

Aiden Thomas

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends, Macmillan Genre: young adult, fantasy Year: 2022

Me, every time I read a YA book:

I don’t know why I keep convincing myself to give them a try when I have clearly outgrown the genre. It’s probably the pretty covers and interesting blurbs, but yanno. I apparently can't trust myself. I'm an untrustworthy bitch.

Now, being the extremely gay fantasy-lover I am, when I saw the premise of the book I was immediately like yes. This is exactly what I want from a fantasy, a nonwhite setting with fantastical mythology and everybody's just so gay. But it just... disappointed me on all aspects.

I didn't used to be a prose snob, but now apparently I guess I am. I have just read some works that are so well-written that the more juvenile style of YA becomes grating. There were so many "he explained" and "she retorted"s. In my humble opinion, dialogue tags should only be used when there needs to be clarity over who is speaking. Also, what's wrong with plain ol' "said?" IDK it just takes me out of the story. Instead of focusing on what the characters are saying, I am so focused on these weird descriptors that are all over the place.

There are so many expressions that just come from an undeveloped writing style. "Terror gripped his spine" and "The curve of his muscles" were two phrases that I caught multiple times each, and they were so weird. There is an absurd amount of detail paid to clothes and appearance. It very much gives "secret-novel-I-wrote-in-high-school-that-was-lowkey-anime-fanfic."

First is the introduction to Teo. He is described as a troublemaker, but he rarely causes mischief and when he does, it's caricaturistic. His first introduction, he plays a "prank" on the described "bully." But because we don't get to see Ocelo actually be a bully, Teo becomes the bully in my eyes, humiliating them in front of a room full of gods. But literally as soon as anybody says anything to Teo, he gets so offended and cries. Characters constantly feel like caricatures: Niya is the literal stereotypical Nickelodeon Best Friend, like I'm pretty sure her character is just Sam Puckett. Loud, stupid, strong, and loves food. Aurelio, the strong and stoic type. His sister, the stereotypical high school bully, who is even described with a high pony tail!

There's also this weird hierarchy between types of gods. There are Gold gods and Jade gods. Gold gods are supposed to be "superior." But literally the only person who ever talks about this is Teo himself. It gets to the point where we as the audience start to wonder if it's all in Teo's head. Like yeah, Jades have never been in the Trials before, which means he's never had to worry about joining a life-or-death competition. And then Teo complains about not being allowed to go to the "Academy" (cue eye-roll), which is described as a place of abuse, anyway. Nobody literally says anything about Jades being less than Golds except Teo.

The comparison to Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games is so laughable. Both of those series have a main theme of systems of power being corrupt and harmful to society. But in The Sunbearer Trials the system itself is part of a religious order that is deeply rooted in latine cultures. I mean personally, any religion that requires child sacrifice isn't one worth following, but hey that's just me. But this culture isn't acknowledged as bad or flawed, even by the main character, the so called trouble-maker, the one who can see the flaws in the world, doesn't even have a doubt about the way this world is. It's like if Katniss was from the Capitol or Percy if he was more like Luke.

Just the idea of the entire world relying on teenagers à la Hunger Games but not for entertainment or a grotesque commentary on society but to literally keep the apocalypse from happening is probably the stupidest system for keeping the world from ending ever thought of.

There's just so much to say about this, because I wanted to like it. But the clumsy attempts at prose end up seeming like more of a rough draft for a novel than a complete novel in and of itself. I think I would consider reading another Aiden Thomas novel if it wasn't YA, and had gone through the higher publishing standards of the fantasy genre.

storygraph | bookshop.org | local houston

★★½ great idea but terrible execution stars

[onisiondrama]

"let's talk" April 29, 2021, Speaks

Summary part 3 (final)

Says his father went on the documentary. The child who accused his father was very clear to himself, his mom, his family, and their therapist that they knew things they weren't supposed to know because of his father. They had phycological damage and refused to talk to his father to this day. He asked this person about their dad and they refused to talk about it. He kicked his pedophile father out of his life when he was 19. He says his father actually targeted a prepubescent child. He says it's so fucked up people celebrated his father as a hero when he went on the documentary. He says putting the accusations aside, what kind of fucked up dad goes on a documentary against their own son. Any parent would say that's fucked.

He announces he's going to explain parenthood. When you have a kid, your life no longer matters. You have no idea what love is until you have a child. No clue. Once someone or you push your baby from their lower religion, you're whole life changes. You would give up everything and kill yourself for them. If someone handed you a gun and said it's you or your kid, without hesitation you'd blow your brains out. If your child had a disease and god asked if you wanted to take the disease, like equivalent exchange like Full Metal Alchemist, you'd say yes without hesitation to let your child live. What kind of parent goes onto a documentary to ruin someone's life? That's his dad. If his own kid was Hitler or Satan, he'd still fall on a sword for them. He doesn't care, it's his kid.

He asks how it's possible a parent can love their kid then disown them when they come out as gay or tans? Some people don't know how to be parents or love the human they're responsible for. He doesn't get how you could lie to your kids.

Kurt Cobain and Eminem had the same problem with their moms. They hated their moms.

If his kid said they wish he was dead, he wouldn't care. As long as they're alive and safe.

He said he was told by someone on Discord that people don't actually believe the things they say about him. They just like to troll him and see him squirm. He says that's not true, people believe the shit they say. He says that's evil.

He says he's so rude, people want to hurt him. That's what caused all this. He's sorry he was rude.

After a certain amount of time, if someone is in his life and it's not working out, he kicks them out. Tobuscus did the same thing to him. He was hanging and at some point he told him to get the fuck out. It was so weird.

He says they were hanging with Tomato Bisquette, who is apparently disconnected from the internet, he doesn't know why. James says they were hanging out, making music for fun and Tobuscus was ranting about a woman who accused him of rape. He said he didn't even go near that woman and she was screaming passed out on his front lawn. James told him to tell people, so Tobuscus made a video and it was successful. He said it was great to see him cleared by the public. He says not everyone gets that luxury. If you're hated, people don't want to see you innocent.

He says they were hanging and at some point Tobuscus decided the night was over and told them, "alright, get the fuck out." He said it was not angrily, it was causally. He offered pie first and James ate it. James says he only tells people to get the fuck out when he's serious. Like when people do illegal drugs. He says he never had anyone do illegal drugs around him.

The law and legal system resonate with him because he's a former USAF cop. It deeply stuck to him. He appreciates the law because it keeps the order in society. Illegal people can influence the law and make it unfair so it's complicated. That's what happens when the world is run by humans, flawed people.

He says we don't have real freedom. Real freedom is The Purge, but he doesn't want that because it's awful.

He says according to the internet he can't be raped, even though they (Sarah) apologized twice. He can't be blackmailed and extorted, even though they admitted to it in a livestream.

He doesn't understand if the legal system can charge a child as an adult, that means you can selectively decide when someone is considered an adult. Yet James Franco texted a 17 year old. Can he charge them as an adult? He says James Franco apparently tried to sleep with a 17 year in in a state where it's not legal. Apparently the legal system can deiced to treat someone like an adult. He says god knows what happened with the 14 year old Elvis Presley went road tripping with and eventually married. He says apparently Elvis could do that back in the day when the legal age was 18 in his area, yet James Franco can't text the 17 year old? He says it's probably better that way. He says he'd rather be fucked by James Franco then thrown in a cell with a bunch of people who are going to rape him in the butt. He says that's what happens in jail. The law charges someone as "an adult" (finger quotes) and dooms them to a life of being raped in prison. Yet people can't have "consensual sex" (finger quotes again) with James Franco because reasons. He clarifies he's not saying James Franco should be allowed to have sex with people like that, but what the fuck is charged as an adult? If they're not an adult, they're not an adult. You can't just make up age. Nobody should be charges as an adult. He doesn't care is a 10 year old hacks up an entire school bus. It's fucked up, but they're not an adult. He says it's like being allergic to a peanut, but saying you'll eat it as a grape. It's still a peanut and you'll still explode.

If the legal age of consent in your state is 18, you probably shouldn't send 17 and 16 year olds to die in war. He says he served with a 17 year old in the air force when he was 19. You can sign up to go to war and be killed, but you can't sign up to take a dick. He says he's not saying we should change the age of consent laws. He's saying we shouldn't treat people who consents to sex the same as someone who was shot in the head. He says to him, war and prison are worse than sex with James Franco. He says we can all agree James Franco is a good alternative to Bubba raping us in prison.

Says we should let people like Jake Paul and Michael Jackson be proven guilty in court before we pass judgement. Or if they're stupid, we can pass judgement right away, like James Charles admitting to talking to people romantically who were not the age of consent. He says that's jail shit.

[phroyd]

We lost a Great Journalist today, and there are very few, if any, working today, who could fill her shoes!  We will miss you Cokie, and we wish there were more who could live up to your bar! - Phroyd.

Cokie Roberts, who drew on her upbringing in a powerful political family to fashion a career as a leading Washington journalist for NPR and ABC News, bringing a tough, knowledgeable voice to the rough-and-tumble political arena at a time when few women had national profiles in the news business, died on Tuesday in Washington. She was 75.

ABC News, in a posting on its website Tuesday morning, said the cause was breast cancer.

Ms. Roberts was known to millions for both her reporting and her commentaries, moving easily among radio, television and print to explain the impact of world events and the intricacies of policy debates. And in books like “Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation” (2008) and “Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868” (2015) she highlighted the often overlooked role of women in history, especially political history.

“Cokie Roberts was a trailblazer,” Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said on Twitter, “who transformed the role of women in the newsroom & our history books as she told the stories of the unsung women who built our nation.”

Ms. Roberts, who joined NPR in the late 1970s and ABC News in 1988, carved out a career that served as an example to later generations of women in journalism.

“I’m proud as hell — proud as hell — to work at a news organization that has ‘Founding Mothers’ whom we all look up to,” Danielle Kurtzleben, an NPR reporter, said on Twitter. “God bless Cokie Roberts.”

In a statement, former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama called Ms. Roberts “a role model to young women at a time when the profession was still dominated by men; a constant over 40 years of a shifting media landscape and changing world, informing voters about the issues of our time and mentoring young journalists every step of the way.”

And President Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to California from New Mexico, said of Ms. Roberts: “I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional and I respect professionals. I respect you guys a lot, you people a lot. She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional.”

If Ms. Roberts brought keen insight to her work, that was in part because she was a child of politicians, one who first walked the halls of Congress as a girl. Her father was Hale Boggs, a longtime Democratic representative from Louisiana who in the early 1970s was House majority leader. After he died in a plane crash in 1972, his wife and Ms. Roberts’s mother, Lindy Boggs, was elected to fill his seat. She served until 1991 and later became United States ambassador to the Vatican.

Ms. Roberts’s background gave her a deep respect for the government institutions she covered, and she didn’t hold herself or her journalism colleagues blameless for the problems of government. “We are quick to criticize and slow to praise,” she said in a commencement address at Boston College in 1994.

“But,” she told the crowd, “it’s also your fault.” Constituents, she said, needed to allow members of Congress to make the tough votes and “let that person live to fight another day.”

In an oral history recorded for the House of Representatives in 2007 and 2008, she expanded on the impact her childhood experiences had in shaping her views about America.

“Because I spent time in the Capitol and particularly in the House of Representatives, I became deeply committed to the American system,” she said. “And as close up and as personally as I saw it and saw all of the flaws, I understood all of the glories of it.”

“Here we are, so different from each other,” she added, “with no common history or religion or ethnicity or even language these days, and what brings us together is the Constitution and the institutions that it created. And the first among those is Congress. The very word means coming together. And the fact that messily and humorously and all of that, it happens — it doesn’t happen all the time, and it doesn’t always happen well, but it happens — is a miracle.”

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs was born on Dec. 27, 1943, in New Orleans. She said that her brother, Tommy, invented her nickname because he couldn’t say “Corinne.”

She, her brother and her sister, Barbara, were immersed in political life, accompanying their father on campaign trips, attending ceremonial functions and listening to the dinner-table discussions that ensued when other political leaders visited the home.

“Our parents did not have the children go away when the grown-ups came,” Ms. Roberts said. “In retrospect, I’ve sometimes wondered, ‘What did those people think to have all these children around all the time?’ But we were around, and it was great for us.”

Although her father had considerable influence on her, so did her mother, who was active in furthering her father’s career, along with other women she came to know, like Lady Bird Johnson.

“I was very well aware of the influence of these women,” she said, adding, “I very much grew up with a sense, from them, that women could do anything, and that they could sort of do a whole lot of things at the same time.”

It was a theme she teased out in her 1998 book, “We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters.”

“For years my mother kept telling me that it’s nothing new to have women as soldiers, as diplomats, as politicians, as revolutionaries, as explorers, as founders of large institutions, as leaders in business; that the women of my generation did not invent the wheel,” she wrote. “In the past women might not have had the titles, she painstakingly and patiently explained, but they did the jobs that fit those descriptions.”

Ms. Roberts attended Catholic schools in New Orleans and Bethesda, Md., and graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1964 with a degree in political science. In 1966 she married Steven V. Roberts, who was a correspondent then for The New York Times. Journalism was a largely male world at the time, something driven home to her when she went job hunting.

“In 1966 I left an on-air anchor television job in Washington, D.C., to get married,” she told The Times in 1994. “My husband was at The New York Times. For eight months I job-hunted at various New York magazines and television stations, and wherever I went I was asked how many words I could type.”

She eventually became a radio correspondent for CBS before joining NPR in 1978. (Sources give both 1977 and 1978 as her start year at NPR.) With her fellow newswomen Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer, she began to change the journalistic landscape.

“As a troika they have succeeded in revolutionizing political reporting,” The Times wrote in that 1994 article. “Twenty years ago Washington journalism was pretty much a male game, like football and foreign policy. But along came demure Linda, delicately crashing onto the presidential campaign press bus; then entered bulldozer Nina, with major scoops on Douglas Ginsburg and Anita Hill; and in came tart-tongued Cokie with her savvy Congressional reporting. A new kind of female punditry was born.”

Ms. Roberts wrote a syndicated political column with her husband for many years. They lived in Europe for a time in the 1970s, and over the years she covered international stories, but Washington was her main turf. She covered Congress at a time when her mother was an increasingly important member of it, though that proved to be not as big a benefit to her professionally as it might have seemed, Ms Roberts said.

“She would never tell me anything,” she said in the oral history. “She was disgustingly discreet.”

Ms. Boggs died in 2013.

Ms. Roberts continued to provide segments for NPR even after joining ABC. The difference between the two, she said, was partly a matter of airtime.

“My average piece from the Hill for NPR would be four and a half minutes,” she said, “and my average piece for ABC would be a minute 15.”

At NPR, one of her regular segments was “Ask Cokie,” in which she used her vast knowledge of Washington, politics and history to answer listeners’ question on matters major, minor and obscure. One asked whether nuclear weapons could be launched by executive order only, absent Congressional authorization. One wanted to know where the phrase “lame duck session” came from.

In a recent installment pegged to the 100th anniversary of the House vote to approve the 19th Amendment, Steve Inskeep, the host, found himself interrupted by Ms. Roberts when he used the phrase “granting women the right to vote” to introduce the segment.

“No, no, no, no, no granting — no granting,” Ms. Roberts said in her characteristically emphatic style. “We had the right to vote as American citizens. We didn’t have to be granted it by some bunch of guys.”

She is survived by her husband; her two children, Lee and Rebecca Roberts; and six grandchildren.

Ms. Roberts received numerous honors, including sharing in several Emmy Awards. In 2008, the Library of Congress named her as a recipient of one of its “Living Legends” awards.

Ms. Roberts long had a front-row seat to history. In a 2017 interview with Kentucky Educational Television, she recalled a moment when she had to remind herself not to become jaded by that proximity. It was March 2013, and she was waiting in a cold rain for the Vatican smoke signal that would soon announce the selection of Pope Francis.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into St. Peter’s Square with the rain deluging them,” she said. “And my first reaction was: ‘Who are these people? What are they doing? That is crazy.’ And then I thought, ‘You jerk,’ to myself. ‘You are really not getting it. This is a moment in history that will be maybe the only time in all of these people’s lives that they have this front seat to history, and you’re so privileged you get it all the time.’”

But, she also reflected, big-stage moments give journalists only one part of the larger picture of their times.

“The individual interview with someone who is a mom in a shopping mall,” she said, “can tell you more about what’s going on in the world and how people feel about it than any of those grand things.”

Peter Baker contributed reporting from aboard Air Force One.

Correction: Sept. 17, 2019

An earlier version of a digital summary with this obituary misstated the sequence of Ms. Roberts's career. As the obituary correctly states, she was at NPR before she was at ABC, not after.

Phroyd

[transastronautistic]

queer history: a chat with Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg

you know what i’d love to witness? a conversation between Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg. can you even imagine it??

Lister wrote, “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say I am like no one in the whole world.” but i think she’d quickly realize that Feinberg is “made like” her -- that Feinberg has a very similar sexuality and gender expression to her own, and truly gets what it’s like to be persecuted for those things. Lister’d be so thrilled and relieved to find she’s not alone!

and Feinberg? when ze was younger, ze was desperate to find hirself in history -- just like Lister, ze was convinced that “No one like me seemed to have ever existed” (Transgender Warriors, p. 11). Feinberg would absolutely recognize Lister as a part of the big beautiful queer history that ze eventually discovered.

there are many parts of Feinberg’s story that come to mind as i watch Gentleman Jack -- such as when Lister is talking to the little boy Henry, who asks if she’s a man, and she replies:

“Well, that's a question. And you are not the first person to ask it. I was in Paris once, dressed extremely well, I thought, in silk and ribbons, ringlets in my hair. Very gay, very ladylike. And even then, someone mistook me for a...Mm. So, no, I am not a man. I'm a lady. A woman. I'm a lady woman. I'm a woman.”

when i watched that scene, i immediately thought of this passage from Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors:

“...I was considered far too masculine a woman to get a job in a store, or a restaurant, or an office. I couldn’t survive without working. So one day I put on a femme friend’s wig and earrings and tried to apply for a job as a salesperson at a downtown retail store. On the bus ride to the interview, people stood rather than sit next to me. They whispered and pointed and stared. ‘Is that a man?’ one woman asked her friend, loud enough for us all to hear. The experience taught me an important lesson. The more I tried to wear clothing or styles considered appropriate for women, the more people believed I was a man trying to pass as a woman. I began to understand that I couldn’t conceal my gender expression” (p. 12).

over a century separated these two, but people who could or would not conform to their assigned gender suffered in both eras. both of these people longed for a connection to a wider community of people like them, longed to know why people like them were persecuted and hated and told that God reviled them. but while Lister did manage to cultivate a tiny haven for herself of loved ones who accepted her, she never found the wider community that Feinberg found -- the world of “drag queens, butches, and femmes,” a world in which “I fit; I was no longer alone” -- a world that extended beyond gay bars, deep into past millennia as well as across the entire globe!

Feinberg worked hard to dig up the answers to all hir questions of why -- “Why was I subject to legal harassment and arrest at all? Why was I being punished for the way I walked or dressed, or who I loved? Who wrote the laws used to harass us, and why? Who gave the green light to the cops to enforce them? Who decided what was normal in the first place?” (p. 8). what ze concluded was that the rise of class so many ages ago is what sowed the seeds of transphobia.

in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg argues that in ancient societies that followed a matrilineal system and shared all resources communally, whenever agriculture enabled some men to begin accumulating and hoarding resources, an intolerance for gender diversity would also arise (see pp. 42-44, 50-52). once these men had capital, they had power. the Few could use their capital to bribe, to threaten, and to control the Many. eventually these men would twist their communities into a patriarchy in order to ensure that they could keep the power in their own hands. for patriarchs rely upon a rigid gender binary to keep their power, wherein those assigned male are placed above everyone else. after all, if men behave "like women," how can we place them above women? if women behave "like men," will they try to force their way into the dominant group? if some people are too ambiguous to be categorized into either group, what does that say about our argument that this binary is the natural way of doing things or divinely ordained?

i think that there are some aspects of this history that Lister would be excited to learn. she’d recognize herself as one of those women trying to force their way into the dominant group, and agree that the patriarchs of her day were not happy about it. she’d appreciate Feinberg’s scholarship around those religious texts that she as a Christian and Feinberg as a Jewish person shared, how Feinberg shows that it was not God but men who decided that the gender binary must be enforced. Lister would heartily agree that her nature is God-given, not God-hated.

but the conversation between Lister and Feinberg would very quickly break down, for the same reason that transphobia sprung up: because of class.

not long into their discussion, Feinberg would be like “and that’s why Capitalism is the root of all evil and people like us will thrive only once we’ve overthrown the landed gentry and disseminated all the wealth” and Lister would be like. “excuse me. i am the Landed Gentry. the lower classes will get their callused hands on my wealth over my dead body"

and the relationship would promptly dissolve from there -- and i’d take Feinberg’s side 1000% and hope ze could knock some humility into Lister’s classist ass!

but anyway to me the similarities between these two historical figures combined with the stark differences in their worldviews only goes to show what an enormous factor class is! Feinberg notes this fact, that “trans expression” has existed among all classes -- and that social privilege makes a big difference in a trans or gnc person’s life:

“For the ruling elite, transgender expression could still be out in the open with far less threat of punishment than a peasant could expect. For example, when Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated in 1654, she donned men’s clothes and renamed herself ‘Count Dohna.’ Henry III of France was reported to have dressed as an Amazon and encouraged his courtiers to do likewise” (80).

(to be fair to Henry III, his gender non-conforming ways were used against him to justify his overthrow. but for a time, he had the means to express himself and to gather others who were like him into his court.)

if Feinberg had been born in the uppermost class of hir society, would that have protected hir from much of the cruelty and violence they experienced? after all, ze would never have had to scramble for a job, to try desperately to conform to gender expectations just to survive. Lister was able to spend much of her life refusing to listen to the hateful words circulating behind her back because to her face people tended to be much more polite. would Feinberg have had that experience too, had ze not been of the lower working class? would ze have never gone through the pain and struggle that caused hir to dig so ferociously into the history of transphobia and queerphobia?

it’s much less likely for someone at the top of the food chain to question the food chain -- even if they notice how the Way Things Are does work against them in some ways. Lister was unlikely to notice how a social hierarchy that pits the wealthy above the poor is intrinsically linked to the structures that pit men over women and confine each person into a rigid binary box -- because to notice that truth would have been to her own detriment. she may not have wanted to keep the cissexism, but she did want to keep her wealth.

As Feinberg puts it in Transgender Warriors when discussing afab people who fought for the Confederacy in the US Civil War, “just being [trans] doesn’t automatically make each person progressive.”

Lister was not prepared to fight a battle against her own privileges, even if it would also have been a battle against her own oppression. that doesn’t mean that those of us looking back at her story today can’t treasure what we have in common with her! we can. after all, in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg recounts the stories of the more “problematic,” complicated figures in queer history right alongside the ones that better fit hir own views. ze finds value in their stories despite the flaws, and we can too.

but at the same time, we have to acknowledge where Lister fell short, and do the hard work of examining our own privileges and considering how we can be better than Lister. we can instead be like Feinberg, whose marginalization -- as a butch lesbian, as a Jewish person, as a transgender person, and as a lower class person -- inspired hir not to cling to the privileges ze did have as hir only foothold in the power structure, but rather to be the best ally ze could be to people of color, to trans women, and others:

“We as trans people can’t liberate ourselves alone. No oppressed peoples can. So how and why will others come to our defense? And whom shall we, as trans people, fight to defend? A few years before he died [Frederick] Douglass told the International Council of Women, ‘When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.’ I believe this is the only nobility to which we should aspire -- that is, to be the best fighters against each other’s oppression, and in doing so, to build links of solidarity and trust that will forge an invincible movement against all forms of injustice and inequality” (p. 92).

so, yeah. i’d love to hear these two people chat. i relate deeply to both of their experiences and think they’d find a lot of commonalities between themselves. ...and then with Feinberg i’d love to give Lister a piece of my mind when it comes to her classism.

[eyesaremosaics]

What are your experiences with Geminis? I love the astrological posts you've been doing. You write so vividly, so viscerally, that I can actually feel the experiences you convey - have you ever considered writing as a pursuit in itself?

Thank you so much sweetling, I have considered it, once as a young girl. However…I don’t know if my writing is good enough to get published. Bit insecure about my abilities, one of my flaws is lack of confidence. I have difficulty completing extraordinary tasks (such as writing a novel). It’s a huge undertaking and responsibility in my eyes.

However, I have always felt that I needed to write a book. That I need to leave something behind for others. I still feel that way, and I will. There is a novel I have been slowly working on for years, but I am very secretive about it. There is a superstition amongst writers, about sharing their work before it is fully formed. Rather like a jinx.

Oh Gemini…. As aforementioned in a previous ask, I have slightly dreaded answering the question about Gemini, because many of my personal experiences with them have been less than positive. Yet so many artists that I love and respect are Gemini, so I have very mixed feelings about them.

I will say this: they are sharp, witty, childlike and hilarious. Often they would do well as a stand up comedian/comedienne. They generally are very gifted in the artistic sense, musically (Morrissey is a prime example, even though I want to punch him in the face), in terms of painting, sculpture, mixed media, dance, and most especially–acting.

Because Gemini have a dual aspect to their nature, they are rather like dr. Jekyl and mr. Hyde. When they are good–they are great. Bubbly, effervescent like champagne, with quick witticisms and random tidbits of information you may not have been privy to before. They are the life of the party, confetti, streamers, excited explosions onto the scene. They will make you come alive with their unique and creative sense of humor. However, when they are bad, they can be wishy washy, non-committal, pathological liars who are out to save their own hide.

It truly depends on what else is in their chart. For example, my aunt Joan was born in the 1930’s, and she is the toughest old broad you will ever meet. However. She is born on the first day of Gemini, so she carries with her a lot of Taurus, which grounds her significantly, and makes her very reliable and dependable with a sassy flair and biting wit.

Another Gemini friend of mine has a lot of Scorpio in her chart, which makes her very deep and penetrating–an excellent writer with a lot of depth and dimension and an ability to truly empathize with whatever you are going through. She usually has a unique perspective on a problem as well, gives great advice and insight. She is very observant, with a heavy aspect to her personality tempered with humor.

Another Gemini friend of mine had a lot of cancer, which makes him rather sensitive, touchy and moody at times. Though he is an excellent dancer, we called him “twinkle toes”. He has great taste in art and music–as most gemini’s tend to have.

In fact they rival libra in terms of being “art snobs” or “hipsters” at times. They can be a little judgmental about others who have what they consider to be “poorer” taste. They are the best party friends you could ever have, always on the incline with their tonality, they have a refreshing and eternally youthful quality about them. Even with heavy earth in their chart (Like Johnny Depp for example who has a Capricorn moon), they will have a playful, silly side to them which they compartmentalize.

Johnny Depp is someone I like to use to explore what I love about Gemini. He is truly a character actor, and very underrated in my opinion. He completely transforms into whatever character he plays to the point where you hardly recognize him. Look at him in blow, compared to fear and loathing, compared to Edward Scissorhands, compared to Charlie in the chocolate factory, compared to Pirates–all completely different. His voice, his walk, his mannerisms are so unique to the character. He’s a natural. As is Angelina Jolie, Helena Bonham Carter etc.

Another Gemini I love to death is Judy Garland. I feel for this woman so much. She was forced into the vaudeville circuit by her domineering stage mother at 2 years old, with little regard to her wishes or personal safety/mental sanity. Judy had this gift from the gods, this powerful voice that stands out even to this day. She was unique in her talent, and in my opinion–one of the greatest performers of all time.

Her life was a great tragedy, because so many people told her she was too short, too fat, too ugly. This took a toll on her self esteem as a growing girl. Her self concept became wrapped in other people’s opinions about her, and she NEEDED their validation to have self worth. Judy fell in love with Vincent Minnelli (Liza’s father) and she was told not to be with him, because he was an adulterer and a rumored homosexual. She said very seriously: “all I know is he is kind, and intelligent… And he adores me. And I NEED to be adored.”

Gemini is very dependent on the opinions of others because their own self concept is always changing. As a mutable sign they are very adaptable, but they constantly lose their sense of personal identity. This can cause a serious crisis for them. However, they won’t let this on usually. They like to appear sprightly, cheerful and driven.

This is why they make great actors, because they can so easily become someone else. Meryl Streep is the most famous and successful example of this. She has won more awards than any man (or woman) in history.

In Judy’s case, it was heartbreaking. The studio system starved her, and got her addicted to amphetamines to keep her figure thin and appealing for the camera. If you watch her in later films, you can see the hollows in her cheeks. This matched with gemini’s propensity to over analyze, led to drug induced psychosis in Judy. She had to be hospitalized many times for panic attacks, drug overdoses, and suicide attempts.

Judy never stopped fighting though, she was up and down on a daily basis, damn near impossible to work with, but she clawed her way out of her own grave many a time to prove everyone wrong. That is what I find so inspiring about her. She never could quite get over the rainbow, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

In the darker aspect: Gemini are (in my experience) self deceptive. The reason the exaggerate or stretch the truth as often as they do, comes out of their innate insecurity about their abilities/accomplishments, but also because they convince themselves of their own lies. They truly believe them. So, in that way, they are innocent not malicious about it. They have a way with words and cal talk themselves out of almost anything.

If they have have water influence in their chart (as many of the Gemini friends I have do) there will be an added depth and complexity to their character. They will have a greater capacity for empathy. Gemini is known as the pre school age child, if you were to look at each sign as an age bracket. They are eager to be a part of things, curious about the world around them, always questioning reality, always absorbing information. Although… In my experience they know a little about a lot of things, so they can carry on conversation in a broad spectrum, very few things interest them enough for them to specialize in, the way say a Virgo does.

They are curious about everyone and everything, but they are often restless. They become easily bored or overwhelmed–sometimes simultaneously. Depending on what they have in their chart to support them, they CAN be there for you. However, a typical “true” Gemini is gone when the party is over. They are on to find the next adventure.

My bitterness toward them comes from a Gemini friend that was very important to me. He left me in a situation where I was at risk, and as a result I was molested by an older man. We went to a party together, where I was drugged by this predator, and the Gemini just left me like that at a strangers house. When I confronted him about what had happened in his absence, he got very impatient and evasive and said: “well it’s in the past now. Let’s just forget it.”

Dismissing my trauma because he couldn’t shoulder the responsibility, made me lose respect for him, and our friendship dissolved very quickly following this incident. I realized I could not count on him, and if it came down to the wire, he would throw me under the bus. Now granted, I know not all Gemini are this way, but this situation deeply affected me.

I dated a Frenchman when I was 18–also a Gemini–absolutely gorgeous man. He looked like Stuart Townsend as Lestat in queen of the damned. He was very romantic, very suave with his words, big romantic gestures… Roses, chocolates, picking me up in a sports car. Yet he only saw me as a conquest. After he “had” me he discarded me abruptly, and with little regard for my feelings at all.

Many exes of men I have loved were Gemini. These women were often conniving, vengeful, many of them trying to break up my relationships. Crusading to put me in the ground because they were jealous and insecure. Spreading lies about me, trying to taint other people’s perception of my character. One of them even put a curse on me–no joke.

There was a Gemini girl who I became friends with, I admired her so much. She was a clothing designer, had her own antique shop, was a ballet dancer, a painter, and she went to an environmentalist high school where they planted trees and learned about conservation. I looked up to her–even though we were the same age. We got along famously, and became very close. One day she abruptly stopped talking to me. I asked her tearfully why and she very coldly said: “because. You treat me like you are older than me, or better than me. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

I was totally crushed, I had adored her. My maternal instincts come out when someone is hurting, and her insecurities prompted her to perceive this quality of mine as “looking down on her”, which was not true.

I had a manager at Starbucks who was Taurus/Gemini, she hated me for some reason. Once I was sick with a fever, throwing up. She told me if I didn’t come in she would fire me. I came in to prove to her how sick I was, and she told me I was just hungover (which I wasn’t, I didn’t drink back then. I was a stoner). She forced me to scrub the grout lines in the tile while I was simultaneously vomiting in the toilet, and sadistically watched me do it while she sat at her desk doing nothing.

So you can see my aversion to them. In my experience they were unreliable, wishy washy, and self absorbed. Yet I have also been very close with many Gemini’s who I love dearly so it’s confusing. My godson is a Gemini–true blue Gemini. He’s hilarious! He has such sweet, vibrant energy, always coming up with hilarious phrases and opinions about things. Super active and excited.

Every morning he comes into Jeanne’s room smiling, wearing an apron with a serving tray on his hand saying: “hey guys! It’s me! River Thompson!” He tells everyone that I am a dancing vampire. Introduced me to the guy at chuckie cheese by saying: “this is my friend Megan, she’s a vampire from San Francisco.”

One time, he ate all the candy his grandma left out and I said: “oooooo Riverrr. Your mom is gonna be maaaaaad… You ate all that candy tsk, tsk.” When Jeanne came in half asleep, River said: “ mom, you can’t come in here because Megan says you’re mad because–I ate all the candy.”

She just walked away un phased, to which his response was: “phew, that was a close one.”

He loves me so much, his whole being lights up when he sees me. It’s nice to be greeted with such enthusiasm. He always gives me a big hug and starts dancing around when I come over, and always asks about me when I’m not there. He tells Jeanne: “I need to be with Megan because she loves me.”

Gemini’s have a very lively imagination, which is why they are so creative. They are natural writers, and sweepingly romantic. They foil Sagittarius in this way. They are natural orators, commentators, creative genius’, musicians, actors, and designers. They have a natural eye for an image, and it’s a very effortless process for them.

Gemini’s avoid conflict and like to walk away before things become too heated. Gemini tries to be a pacifist however, if you back them into a corner they will not hesitate to retaliate and put you in your place.They’re not afraid to stand up for themselves and can be quite severe with their words when they are angry.

They are extremely independent and can’t be controlled. I sense this is why Gemini and Scorpio have an attraction to one another, Scorpio sees it as a challenge and Gemini enjoys the intense focus that Scorpio brings.

The Gemini mind is constantly racing with thoughts and ideas, as an air sign they can become constantly trapped in their own mind, which is why they appear to always be fleeing from something. Always arriving. They are more mercurial than Virgo, and are a pure incarnation of Hermes (the messenger God).

Gemini are curious creatures, and they are always soaking up their surroundings and retaining knowledge. They are natural investigators, they rival Scorpio in this aspect. Do not underestimate their ability to get to the bottom of things.

They are fickle and indecisive at times, but they are generally good friends. In my experience they are supportive and encouraging of whatever your dreams and ambitions are.

They are also majorly flirtatious, this is maddening to the more possessive signs. Gemini have a way with words, they are charming and genuinely like people most of the time. They can’t help themselves really, and just think they are being friendly. They are always on the go, have eclectic tastes, and prefer to keep things offbeat and interesting. Gemini love to travel, city life, large parties, art galleries, camping trips anything gregarious that will get them out in the world.

If they have more earth or water in their chart, they will tend to be a bit more shy. Though once they warm up their weirdness will come out. I have known a few shy gemini’s, but not many. Mostly they are VERY vocal about what they think and how they feel. They are usually great fun to play with. They are playmates.

More famous gemini’s include: Natalie Portman, Clint Eastwood, Donald Trump 😑, Prince, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Nicole Kidman, Kanye West… You get the picture. They run the gamut from amazing to horrible. I think an important thing to note is that they are a dual sign. They have two sides to them, and as JK Rowling said in the HP series: it is not our abilities that decide who we are in is our choices.

Gemini’s like Johnny Depp, JFK, Prince and Nicole Kidman are excellent examples of all the beauty and artistry that Gemini can bring into the world. I find that highly evolved gemini’s who are artistically oriented and (most importantly) self aware are wonderful. Gemini’s who are unevolved, who refuse to look inside or be there for others because they can’t even be there for themselves are unbearable.

Gemini is the little girl asking you to play with her, they are murals spanning the walls of an otherwise filthy urban environment. They reinvigorate and add sparkle to any environment they enter. They are the wandering poet, the distressed painter mad with drink and excess. They are the inconsistency of the sky. The impurity of the air. Chalk drawings, geology, a massive library, microscopes, satellite signals, glitter polish. Air brush, pin wheels, sour candies. Music festivals, disco lights, The sound of music. The flowers of spring, blooming youthful, ostentatious. Forever young, and always inspiring.