This is so excellent! Thank you! I wish I could afford to pay for subscription, but I don't make enough to live on. I'll spread the word though. A friend in Sweden sent me your link.
Thank you for your support 💜 I'm considering creating a referral program where folks can earn the equivalent of $1 towards a monthly paid subscription for each person they refer. Let me know if it's something you'd be interested in-I want to make my writing accessible for those who can't pay, and offer other ways to support my publication. ☺️
I love this (finally figured out how to comment without the app).
My sibling went to an international leadership conference in US. Looked like a diverse bunch, people from all over the world. A lot of the conversation was about “queering” the revolution, queering leadership, queering academia. I was like, wtf does that even MEAN?!
Apparently it was about being comfortable in the in-between spaces. About rejecting dualism and dualistic hierarchies (man/woman, human/animal, mind/body, reason/emotion, culture/nature, public/private, technology/nature, white/black) where the upper side is the oppressor and underside is powerless victim. And the idea was that by doing this, we could move beyond division that results in oppression…
I find this tricky because dissolution of all boundaries seems like a “we are all one” type of cop out. So I shouldn’t take sides on Israel/Palestine? Shouldn’t even call out racism or sexism because we are all one?
I read an amazing book by eco feminist Val Plumwood once, called “Feminism and the Mastery of Nature.” She cautioned against the reification of boundaries on the one hand (hyperseparation/radical exclusion) and the dissolution of all boundaries on the other (assimilation/incorporation / merger / homogenisation). She talked about a more sane way, to see the other as unique and related - not “othering” in a dehumanising way, but not “incorporating / assimilating” the other in a you-are-me merging kind of way either. Separation but not hyperseparation . Relatedness but not sameness.
Western culture in my view is very much responsible for the polarity swing from sex role hyperseparation (and accompanying dehumanisation, backgrounding, denial of dependency, oppression) on the one hand to the “uncritical feminism of reversal” on the other where gender is fluid, we are all one, you are whatever you feel like, and distinctions do not matter (or are downright oppressive).
I also fully agree with your emphasis that just because Black and brown people are prominent in the trans space, doesn’t mean it’s radical, revolutionary, anti-colonial or anti-establishment. I just finished “New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World” by Kehinde Andrews and he talks at length about how just because we have a few more Black heads of World Trade Organisation, World Health Organisation, corporations, former President of US etc, doesn’t mean they aren’t advancing colonial logic and oppression. White culture has always used Black and brown people to do its dirty work. Obama did nothing about Guantanamo Bay nor Afghanistan/Iraq. WTO head Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is still advancing the neo-colonial neoliberal extractive genocidal racist capitalist global trade enterprise.
You could argue colonial capitalist white culture almost requires the heads of its dirtiest organisations to be brown - to convey an aura of virtue and goodness. “We must surely be doing good things, if even the brown people are leading the way!!” US must surely have been good because Kamala was Vice President even though US was actively funding a genocide in Gaza…And if you disagree with Kamala you must be racist!
This is so excellent! Thank you! I wish I could afford to pay for subscription, but I don't make enough to live on. I'll spread the word though. A friend in Sweden sent me your link.
Thank you for your support 💜 I'm considering creating a referral program where folks can earn the equivalent of $1 towards a monthly paid subscription for each person they refer. Let me know if it's something you'd be interested in-I want to make my writing accessible for those who can't pay, and offer other ways to support my publication. ☺️
That sounds like a good idea. I so want to support you. I'm not sure how to do it though?
Don't worry about how to do it-I will figure it out and get back to you, and it will be simple 💜 Thank you again. 🙏🏾
Wow! So excellent! Thank you!
Thank you!
I love this (finally figured out how to comment without the app).
My sibling went to an international leadership conference in US. Looked like a diverse bunch, people from all over the world. A lot of the conversation was about “queering” the revolution, queering leadership, queering academia. I was like, wtf does that even MEAN?!
Apparently it was about being comfortable in the in-between spaces. About rejecting dualism and dualistic hierarchies (man/woman, human/animal, mind/body, reason/emotion, culture/nature, public/private, technology/nature, white/black) where the upper side is the oppressor and underside is powerless victim. And the idea was that by doing this, we could move beyond division that results in oppression…
I find this tricky because dissolution of all boundaries seems like a “we are all one” type of cop out. So I shouldn’t take sides on Israel/Palestine? Shouldn’t even call out racism or sexism because we are all one?
I read an amazing book by eco feminist Val Plumwood once, called “Feminism and the Mastery of Nature.” She cautioned against the reification of boundaries on the one hand (hyperseparation/radical exclusion) and the dissolution of all boundaries on the other (assimilation/incorporation / merger / homogenisation). She talked about a more sane way, to see the other as unique and related - not “othering” in a dehumanising way, but not “incorporating / assimilating” the other in a you-are-me merging kind of way either. Separation but not hyperseparation . Relatedness but not sameness.
https://takku.net/mediagallery/mediaobjects/orig/f/f_val-plumwood-feminism-and-the-mastery-of-nature-pdf.pdf
Western culture in my view is very much responsible for the polarity swing from sex role hyperseparation (and accompanying dehumanisation, backgrounding, denial of dependency, oppression) on the one hand to the “uncritical feminism of reversal” on the other where gender is fluid, we are all one, you are whatever you feel like, and distinctions do not matter (or are downright oppressive).
I also fully agree with your emphasis that just because Black and brown people are prominent in the trans space, doesn’t mean it’s radical, revolutionary, anti-colonial or anti-establishment. I just finished “New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World” by Kehinde Andrews and he talks at length about how just because we have a few more Black heads of World Trade Organisation, World Health Organisation, corporations, former President of US etc, doesn’t mean they aren’t advancing colonial logic and oppression. White culture has always used Black and brown people to do its dirty work. Obama did nothing about Guantanamo Bay nor Afghanistan/Iraq. WTO head Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is still advancing the neo-colonial neoliberal extractive genocidal racist capitalist global trade enterprise.
You could argue colonial capitalist white culture almost requires the heads of its dirtiest organisations to be brown - to convey an aura of virtue and goodness. “We must surely be doing good things, if even the brown people are leading the way!!” US must surely have been good because Kamala was Vice President even though US was actively funding a genocide in Gaza…And if you disagree with Kamala you must be racist!