#or because she just got sexually harassed or otherwise misogynistically victimized

[adhdo5]

Really kind of wild to me how much of fandom perception of SQX is as anything but a trans woman. Like ????

[violetsystems]

#personal

When people wonder how long I’ve spent being ignored down here like everybody else it’s nothing compared to how long I’ve held the same job.  Truly one of the things I’ve been most successful with in proving consistency has been my work ethic.  It helps that it returns financial compensation and benefits not that any of that impresses anyone these days.  I say that work is work a lot and leave it at that.  It is important to note I work in an extremely liberal environment.  I don’t mind being inclusive in fact I think it’s more rewarding in the long run.  You expect that respecting people’s right to be will create an atmosphere that encourages you to do the same.  This is the Utopian vision of liberal America that always has it’s heart in the right place but fumbles upon execution.  Mainly because accepting people in America seems to be largely an egocentric experience.  We the people.  Wait who are we all again really?  It’s true I don’t really feel much in line with extreme politics on either side these days.  I spent years soul searching after making dance music on how to do something more important.  I volunteered for a Korean American Festival for three years back in 2011 through 2013.  That imploded in such a Tarantino-esque way like everything else in my life.  People come together and power struggles emerge out of the vacuum.   Around 2013 I worked with a collective of mostly women from my school in a project called Collective Cleaners.  It was a project about cleaning and the value of human labor.  I learned how to weave rags from old bedsheets.  We did a year long show at Jane Addams Hull House at UIC.  I could go on and on right.   But it seems like I’m telling a joke about my life with no actual punchline.  Like I’m mockumentary in the flesh.  Here I am still out here ambiguous proving myself to some phantom army.  And here I am still not good enough for America staring it in the face.  After all this my life is still a fucking joke to people in the worst and most hurtful way.  It becomes exhausting to remind people you have acted on solutions to these modern problems.  Nobody cares about me and what I do about it year after year.  Trust me I get that part by now.  That’s what it seemed like for awhile.  And then I had the painful realization that the work never stops.  And it seems like I’m all alone doing all the work.  To be truthful a lot of the work and expectations follow me around after I leave my day job.  On my lunch break I had to break up a fight between a white christian woman and a fake monk on Michigan before it happened.  The woman came running down the street making a sign of the cross with her fingers.  I stepped in front of her and calmly asked her what the fuck she was doing.  She ran away in opposite direction.  Where’s my comic book Marvel?  

For all the things I’ve done I’m still just as mistrusted and questionable in the eyes of the social elite.  I’m never quite good enough.  Never quite valid enough to prove I’m just as just viable as a closet misogynist with a six figure salary.  I’ve been questionable for years only to realize that nobody has any answers for me on how to be otherwise without being me.  Other than me.  And so in the end only I really know how successful this has all been.  And only I know when it’s appropriate to stay the course or give up entirely.  I haven’t given up.  That’s self confidence talking.  And sometimes you have to lead yourself forward towards some sort of progress through the hazy chaos.  I spent an entire year answering political calls and surveys out of guilt.  Mostly due to what I would hear from my peers about the intrinsic value of being politically aware and woke in the arts.  When it comes to American politics I do participate at bare minimum in voting.  One robocall asked my political leanings.  I said left.  “So I’ll mark you down as progressive.”  I didn’t know how I felt about it at the time.  Progressive in Illinois is a strange beast.  We elected a billionaire for Governor and a lawyer for Mayor.  At surface level that sounds horrible and I guess the more you dig into Chicago and Illinois politics you’d find the same shit.  You need money in America to have a say in politics regardless of how many free speech arguments you win on the Internet.  You can of course vote and it would be remiss to say I haven’t seen progress in that.  As of January we have recreational Marijuana and abortion legal across the state.  I have seen the drug war up close and personal.  It sounds like I’m a vice news reporter.  I’ve probably nudged up against them too in the field but they pretend I don’t exist.  Maybe that’s a parable of the drug war and the media industrial complex.  Maybe shit was lame.  All I know is through a series of miracles in the democratic process smoking weed in Chicago isn’t as dangerous to your personal freedom as it used to be.  Making friends in public still is.  Welcome to snitchville.  Whereas New York is up close but never personal Chicago is your best friend and your arch enemy at the same time.  Progressive politics signifies that things move on, evolve and change.  I’ve read enough news feeds to understand the Governor made whatever possible by crossing the aisles.  Which can be read as compromise.  That’s government.  I’m a private citizen in America.  Or so one would think.  There’s endless commentary about how people like me don’t do enough.  Americans love to talk all day about privacy and talk can be cheap.  Facing the realities of a growing surveillance state that likes to masquerade as the land of the free is troubling.  So can facing the reality your favorite punk rock festival is using public space for profit in under served neighborhoods.  I’m more concerned about white dad rock masquerading as punk.  But insecure men would rather lash out at the me too movement than rock the boat.  You pick your battles right?  Generally when I’ve been the one to stand up to things it’s been about not moving backwards in terms of progressive beliefs.  I believe in a woman’s right to choose.  I got targeted on the street all summer because of it by Christians who thought it was ok to bring it to my face.  I didn’t get a medal and I sure as fuck didn’t really get a pat on the back.  I still have my secret support systems but I don’t have the luxury any more of hiding from who I am and what I believe.  I often stand by myself and what I believe and suffer for it.  Or worse it gets hijacked, misunderstood, and misrepresented by someone’s interpretation of what I’m trying to say.  And I sit here every Saturday morning wondering if I’ve made any progress in being happy at all.  

After failing so much in everything you get a little tired of falling for the same old tricks.  The personal is the most political you can be and I have years of resistance to draw from.  Nobody ever wants me to be me even after all the passionate posts on the internet about what I believe.  It goes nowhere.  There are people who do understand and people I trust.  But the reality in America is that is few and far between in public space.  The propaganda that we’re all free is largely based on some huge stipulations.  Money is one of them.  I work for a non profit.  You can do the math.  It feels like everything that the Left wanted me to be based on critique is largely ignored unless I have my wallet out.  And even then I’ve been happier being less liberal with my money in places where it isn’t respected.  I guess I could run away to Hong Kong and start over.  The irony of that is pretty funny right now.  I haven’t talked to that side of the family in a while since I’ve been off Facebook.  I haven’t left the country since I came back from China, Korea and Japan by myself since the first summit between Moon Jae-in and the other guy.  I don’t know that I feel very safe leaving the country.  I don’t feel very safe leaving my house these days.  So do I shrivel up and waste away hoping somebody will save me.  What have I done to deserve all this I’m not sure.  I’ve spent over three years clocking in hundreds of miles running around desolate and abandoned areas of Chicago.  What am I really afraid of at this point?  Dying alone and forgotten?  I feel dead inside already every day.  I have no hope any of this will change no matter how much we sit and argue about it.  Nobody does anything.  Nobody is out there with me other than the people close to my heart.  Nobody invites me to a special club other than me at my kitchen table on a Saturday morning.  For all the good I’ve done I’m still the first person to scapegoat as ‘problematic’ after all these years.  And I can’t even profit off it on the internet?  That’s a joke.  If listening to all these criticisms and taking them to heart got me where I am why do we still pay so much attention to Dave Chapelle’s career and for profit opinion?  I’m invisible.  Just like all the victims out there who are invalidated when somebody says they’re over reacting to sexual abuse and harassment.  I think America has enough problems that nobody wants to confront without us having an opinion about any other country��s sovereign dirty laundry.  And this is where I think we can all learn a little something about progress.  I got to where I am by believing in myself and resisting people’s judgements of who I am.  I got there by challenging my own perspective and growing into my own by putting my ideas into practice.  It hasn’t been easy.  It has been largely thankless and a complete mind fuck.  But I haven’t been alone as much as it seems.  People use so many words and get nowhere.  And then people learn how to communicate without ever opening their mouth.  People can say they love you all day long.  I’m always going to be out here showing you just how much it means to me regardless of who sees it and how they feel about it.  In that I err on the side of consistency.  If that makes me a loser I’m happy with the results.  <3 Tim