#like of course antisemitism is horrible. but that can be dealt with

[smile-files]

as a jew, seeing what all of these israeli leaders have said is sickening. as a jew, anti-palestinian rhetoric is sickening. as a jew, zionism is sickening.

how dare my people -- a people who've been massacred, ethnically cleansed, dehumanized, forcibly removed, and discriminated on religious grounds for their entire existence -- do the same to another people? how dare we turn our backs on them, when they suffer like we have?

i understand that so much of us have been fed zionist propaganda our entire lives; the same happened to me. i understand the desire for a homeland where we don't have to fear antisemitism at every turn; i want that too. but it doesn't take much thought to understand that a homeland for us, which actively oppresses and kills another people, is antithetical to what we want.

if you, as a member of an oppressed group, believe that your freedom and safety can only exist when you oppress another group, you are acting no better than the people who oppressed you. such a belief is horrible, and cynical, and wrong.

as a jew, i want jewish people to be happy and safe and connected to our heritage; as a jew, i also want other peoples to be happy and safe and connected to their heritage.

don't call the palestinians "amalek". you are turning us into amalek.

doesn't the torah tell us to have empathy for those beaten down by the world? doesn't the torah tell us to make the world a better place? doesn't the torah tell us to free people of their shackles and help them escape oppression?

i have so many israeli aunts and uncles and cousins; i fear for their safety. of course, my parents do as well. i'm worried that this fear, in addition to anything they were led to believe earlier in life, is placing my parents even deeper in the zionist camp. but it doesn't have to be this way! my relatives' safety does not rely on the continued oppression of gaza!

it is easy to be uninformed, to be swayed by propaganda, to blindly hope that israel was founded in good faith -- but we can't lie to ourselves. a world steeped in senseless hatred (which we are now promoting!) could never be a home for us. none of us are free, liberated, equal, until all of us are.

as a jew, to other jews, i implore that we stand with our palestinian siblings. i want us all to be happy and safe. i want us all to live in harmony -- in the holy land and around the world. that is what we all deserve. <3

[babybluebanshee]

Bride of Things I’ve Had to Deal with as a City Librarian

So it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done one of these. Let’s have some more stories of people being baffling at the public library.

- One of our least favorite patrons to deal with is a woman I’ll refer to as Lee. If you remember the story from a few posts ago about a lady who hated libraries and thought ours should burn to the ground, that’s this lady. Well, recently, Lee has discovered that the library is good for exactly one thing, and that’s sending faxes. She sends faxes there all the time. On average, she’ll be there to fax something at least once a week. The problem is that Lee has the most stank-ass attitude of anyone I’ve ever dealt with (if you couldn’t guess that from her enlightened opinion of libraries). If things aren’t done exactly the way she wants them, or thinks they should be done, she’s throwing a hissy tantrum in that horrible Karen voice. A business turns off its fax machine at five when they close, and she’s mad that she can’t send her stuff at 8:30 in the evening, because her stuff is due the next day. Don’t bother asking why she waited till the last minute to send it. It’ll still be your fault. She’s also the reason we had to enact a rule that the person sending a fax had to stay until the fax was confirmed to have gone through, because she’d frequently send huge faxes, insist she had to leave, promise she’d be back later to pay, and then just...not. She’s an enormous pain in the ass and we all dread the minute we see her enter the building.

- Donna and I were working an evening shift together and a woman came in with her boyfriend. While the boyfriend was on the computer, the woman came up to the computer, looked Donna square in the eye and said, “I want porn.” Donna immediately burst out laughing because what the hell else reaction was she supposed to have? We tried to suggest a few things to her, and when I mentioned we had a large paperback romance section, she made a disgusted face and was like “I don’t want those Harlequin romances!” Like...lady, you’re asking us for porn, you don’t get to be all high-brow.

- We’ve had a Dungeons and Dragons group meeting in the library since summer of last year, made up primarily of preteens. The DM is a local lady, and she’s not exactly great at being the adult in the room. Once, she left without telling us, and left the kids in the meeting room by themselves, where one of them proceeded to climb into one of the cabinets and break a shelf. She’s ghosted them twice, just...not showing up and not giving them or us any way to contact her. Travis has threatened a few times to not allow them to come back unless they straighten up, and since the cabinet incident, we haven’t had anything too bad. Most of us are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

- A dude who drives around in a car literally covered in religious bumper stickers has been coming in and leaving Chick tracts in the books. If you’re not familiar with Chick tracts, they’re religious comics that are infamous for their homophobic, Islamaphobic, antisemitic, and all-around batshit insane content. Whenever I see this dude come in, I know I’m about to go on a scavenger hunt, because he leaves them in tons of books over the course of a few hours. The most I’ve found in one day is 47.

- If I had a nickel for every time there’s been some kind of brouhaha with a snake at work, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice: + A woman came in with a python draped over her shoulders, used the computer for about twenty minutes, then left. I wasn’t there for this and am forever mad about it. + Sherri was shelving DVDs and almost stepped on a very tiny baby racer snake that had managed to find his way inside. She trapped him under a trash can and told Travis about it, and he went to call animal control (we have to so they can check for infestations, or any other places pests might be getting in). The city maintenance man, Rod, was there that day, and decided to be a big manly man for whatever reason, lifted the trash can, and grabbed the poor snake baby to throw him outside. The snake bit him. I was also not there for this and am forever mad about that too.

- A dude came in with a lit cigarette in his mouth, and didn’t even seem to realize it until the ash had fallen right on the front desk. He thankfully put it out after that, apologizing profusely. The minute he was gone, I absolutely bombarded the desk with air freshener because the smell was making me ill.

- A little boy and his mother were hanging out at the library while the dad was getting a covid shot. The little boy wanted to get a shot too, but his mother told him he was only four. He couldn’t get the shot yet. The little boy asked why his dad needed a shot, and his mom explained they were to prevent sickness. The kid’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates and he exclaimed “I’m a sickness!” at the top of his lungs. His mother looked mortified, and told him he most certainly was not, but he just stamped his tiny foot and said, “Yes, I am!”

- We’ll occasionally have local authors visit and do book signings and readings, usually on Saturday. This is a pain because neither the director nor the assistant director are there on Saturday. One Saturday, we had a children’s book author visit. This woman had already been a huge asshole to us in the time we’d been setting it up, so we were prepared for disaster already. Her books were about her Scottie dog, so, of course, she brought the dog with her. The catch was that it was not to be let off its leash. Guess what she ended up doing. I happened to look down at one point, and there’s a Scottie just chilling at my feet by the front desk. I shooed it away, and fortunately her grandson came and got the dog. Then, less than ten minutes later, the kid came out again. This time with a kleenex. I knew exactly what that meant. I tried to ask him if that was what I thought it was for. He didn’t answer me. The only reason I knew the dog had, indeed, shit on the floor, was because another patron saw the grandson picking it up. When the woman and her grandson left, neither of them said anything about it. They didn’t even look us in the eye. They just said bye and left.

- A mother and daughter came in to renew their library cards after letting them expire for several years. They both openly admitted they weren’t big readers (the daughter for ADHD reasons, the mother just didn’t like it), but both were trying to get into it because it seemed like a good way to spend their time. They described the kinds of things they enjoyed, so I spent a solid half hour taking them around the library, showing them things they might enjoy. It was actually pretty fun, until the daughter, apropos of nothing, asked me if I ever read the prologues of books. I said yes, because, ya know, that’s part of the story. The mother didn’t even know what a prologue was. Then the daughter admitted that, when she was still reading regularly, she’d never read the prologue of any book she read. I just stood there for a split second, absolutely dumbfounded.

- A very nervous teenage girl came up to the desk while I was cleaning, and stammered out, “Hey, I don’t wanna seem weird, but I just wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful and I think you’re really cool and wanted you to know that.” Then she quietly scampered away. It made me feel great for the rest of the evening. Figured I would end on a cute one.

[usamyzonians]

Seven Years Ago

We’re coming up on what would have been  the seventh anniversary of me and Tal’s relationship, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

One thing I’ve figured out from talking about the smoldering wreckage of my former relationship with my therapist is....

I should have seen this coming.

It’s one of those things you don’t really think about in the heat of the moment, or even necessarily when you’re living with a pattern.  But I started talking about how I couldn’t understand how Tal suddenly became so chill about sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, and it kind of smacked me in the facer.

When I met Tal, they were firmly identified as a woman.  They were strongly identified as an atheist.  The kind who complained about religion even when I didn’t think it was particularly relevant.  “I could never be in a relationship with a theist,” Tal would proclaim to me, who had been in several relationships with theists and didn’t care until they started saying things like “God hates....”

Then, they went strong into feminism and turned on atheism.  How dare they claim atheism is just a single position on a single issue? they would proclaim.  And it was and it is, and I was (and still am) an atheist, but I didn’t bother fighting this because it wasn’t really central to my identity.

Then they were a lesbian, but still definitely cis.  Or maybe bisexual, but definitely cis.  And they were outraged at the way feminists treated lesbians (and in a broader aspect, LGBT individuals).  Kind of ironic, because at this point, they were upset that their girlfriend (me) was being excluded.  Also, asexual at some point.  This was fine by me, because we weren’t really having sex anyway. I didn’t care.  And then there was the intersex thing.  At some point, it feels like you’re just co-opting literally every identity around you.

Then they were definitely trans, but maybe a guy, maybe not.  I don’t mind the identity shifts so much.  I get that not everyone has had so easy a time figuring out what they are as I am and so I’m sympathetic.  But with this came belligerence towards lesbians, because so many lesbians were trans-exclusive and OH MY GOD DON’T CALL ME A GIRL.

Then, of course,. Tal did an about-face here.  Not a girl, but girl-aligned.  Nan0girl.  Demi-girl.  So many different identities (most of which I had to read off their blog, because fuck telling your partner shit) that I eventually stopped tracking.

When the thing where Jewish slavery is okay and you’re an antisemite if you disagree, and Jewish sexism is okay and you’re an antisemite if you disagree and Jewish homophobia is okay and you’re an atnisemite if you disagree and Jewish transphobia is okay and you’re an antisemite if you disagree, it really should have been clear to me that Tal was just doing what they usually do: turning on their past beliefs to embrace their current beliefs.  I don’t know why they didn’t just dump me, either.  Not only did they (I say they, I kind of wonder if they’ve gone back to identifying as a woman yet) still not value enough to discuss things like kids with me (oh, they saved those discussions for Charlotte), but they didn’t value me enough as a person to even stop and understand why I might be uncomfortable when they and Charlotte started saying sexist things.

And. of course, the only reason their bisexual, transgender girlfriend would be horrified by any of this?  Antisemitism.  I’d be totally cool with this treatment if it came from Christians,. Muslims or atheists!

Especially since I’ve spent so much of my time railing against the bigoted little shits of the online atheist community.  And I still do.

Tal would start on one side of me on issues and end up on the other.  From the extreme that religion is poison!!!!!! to joining them.  From “fucking cishets” to “maybe transphobia is okay if we people do it.” From “no children ever!” to “when I have kids....” and in terms of gender identity I don’t think there’s a single position they didn’t hold, from totally cis to a transman.

It doesn’t stop with self-identity, either.  Dozens of life plans.  Doesn’t os fiscal plans.  Dozens of ways to make money.  Dozens of names, to the point I’m now paranoid about who’s following me because Tal’s got so many usernames from multiple genders I could never keep track.  I thought it was quirky.  I was okay with the fact that Tal would one day want togo back to school and the next day want to open up a business.  The more I look at it, though, the more it’s another piece of the puzzle.

I’m honestly used to being the more moderate partner.  There are very few lines that are absolutes for me, and Tal managed to cross pretty much all of them in one fell swoop.  My problem wasn’t that Tal had brought religion into our relationship--which they had talked about months before--but started as they and Charlotte became more emboldened and started saying things that made me more and more uncomfortable.  You know, things that hurt me as a transwoman who had thought they were safely in a relationship where those things at least would be respected.

But given my partner was a cis/trans/nonbinary gay/bi/ace/straight man/woman/neither antitheist/theist, maybe I shouldn’t have been.  To be honest, in the nearly seven years we’d been together, the only constant had been...well, me.  I took that for granted, that they would keep loving me. Maybe I shouldn’t have.  If everything else can change, maybe it was always a matter of time.

I didn’t even really speak up at first in part because I expected this, too, to pass.  Surely, Tal respected and loved me enough to follow my discomfort at reading and hearing sexist and homophobic things.  It was only when it looked like this one was going to stick that I freaked out.

And hey, maybe you’re better at this, reader.  Maybe when someone tells you you don’t matter, when an intimate partner is cool with your gender identity and sexuality being treated as inferior or worthy of scorn, you can just brush that off.

I can’t.

And part of the irony there is that Tal helped me get there.  I’d literally never had another partner who would respect me the way they used to.  Other partners would reuse to acknowledge I was trans or to call me by my name, and I dealt with that because that was just the way things were, right?  So when someone comes along and listens to my problems, acknowledges my gender, calls me by my name, and even ostensibly understands some of what I’m going through, that’s a pretty big deal.  It’s also something I can’t undo.  I’m done letting people treat me like a cishet dude, and I’m done putting up with sexism and transphobia because that’s just “the way things are.”  I’ve seen things can be better than that, and I’m not going to give it up.

The problem is, when those close to you knife you in the back, it becomes harder.  And it’s probably my fault for attaching so much value to the person instead of the idea, but when someone you care about deeply no longer views you as an equal human being worthy of respect and basic dignity, it’s easy to want to retreat.  This is how I ended up back in the closet around fifteen years ago: not because of a single person, but because things had become so horrible, so dangerous, that I had no hope.  And that’s how it feels now.

I don’t fall in love often.  Like, it’s been over 20 years since I’ve been in a relationship that hit me this hard.  Maybe another relationship, I would have walked away, but I was still head-over-heels in love with someone who apparently no longer loved or respected me.  And that really hurts, but mostly confuses me.  If I’m not worthy of respect as a human being, why keep me around?  If not wanting my gender identity or sexuality mocked makes me such a dirty antisemite, why bother with me at all?  Did they really think  it was okay to devalue me?  Were they hoping to convince me that being denigrated was okay when they did it?  I don’t understand, and that’s actually what cuts the most.

Because it is all in the timing and the placement of words//I can chase it, I can beat it, I know it’s absurd//but I just can’t face it, can’t face it, because all that we see...

Is a mass-

ive

Blur.