Ave Maria - December 2014 Round Up

Listening to the Stevie Wonder version of Ave Maria in bed and have decided that it is time.

Regular readers will know I always do a december post on here. I usually do it much earlier in the month than this but I was struggling to find a unifying theme. I have it now so here we go.

Been a hell of a year 2014. I started it hopeful that I would get out of my depression, that things would magically get better at work and that  wouldn't feel the soul crushing dragging feeling of anxiety and loss.

In February my beloved Uncle Brian died unexpectedly. Because of the appalling way bio mum was treated I ended up falling out with 2 of my cousins at a time when we should have been leaning on each other.  Amazing how they didn't really want to know him the whole time I was caring for him but as soon as they thought there was some money they were suddenly the doting bereaved children. I will never forgive them for not letting me go to his flat one last time so I could say goodbye to the man who called me the daughter he should have had, nor will I forgive them for treating his sister so callously at her time of deep loss.

I miss you every day Uncle Brian. I miss your laugh and your silly sayings and your support and passion. But you know what? When you died I had no doubt about how you felt about me and I know you knew how much I loved you and that is a gift. Also, I am back speaking to Mum. We're taking it slowly but we are getting there. And I am even closer to Ian and Kelly now. I think you would be proud of me. I love you.

In March I accepted voluntary redundancy. My health was suffering due to bullying by management and by certain members of PCS. I had truly had enough. I had low energy, I was anxious and tired all the time, I couldn't stop crying and could barely leave the flat.

It was a massive decision to make but by then the bullying in PCS had got so bad that I was actively looking forward to leaving. It saps your energy when you are being bullied. So much so that you get paranoid about where the next attack is coming from. You stop trusting people. You feel really isolated. All because I refused to be anyone's puppet and tried to make things better for my members.

In May I attended my last PCS conference. I was on the Group SOC and we were told more than once that it was the best conference for years. We worked hard to give the branches the conference they wanted and we withstood the battering and bullying from certain factions of the GEC and stuck to our guns because dammit, it was IMPORTANT to us to make sure that PCS was actually member led. My health was still quite bad but at NDC I argued and won for a policy supporting sex workers, argued and won a policy supporting abortion rights in Northern Ireland and argued and won reaffirmation of affiliation to Abortion Rights.

Then I went off sick.

And that was when it started to get better. I took my wife and daughter person to Glastonbury. I had a couple of wobbles while I was there but I got to see Dolly Parton mutha truckas! Watching the daughter person start to come out of themselves was amazing and so was seeing Skrillex, Massive Attack and my new faves Dub Pistols. I missed Metallica as I was sobbing in my tent having a panic attack but you can't win them all.

Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival was awesome. I got Owen Jones drunk, had a picture of me, him, MJ and a polar bear nicked by the dick splash Guido Fawkes and got to have a walkie talkie. Also did the martyrs walk for the first time. I love Tolpuddle, it is really hard work but it recharges the old trade union batteries like nothing else does. And I bumped into the main bully from my branch who tried to talk to me.

I told him to fuck off.

Which was nice.

I also left my job of 11 years.

I thought there would be a magical ending of the depression when I finally left. Took me months to recover properly.

Going to Reading where I finally saw the World's Sexiest Ginger (Josh Homme) helped somewhat.

September I started my new job. I love it. I am doing trade union organising full time now and I am doing it with full support of a manager and colleagues. Amazing what I can get done when I am not being bullied!

What else have I been up to?  I went zombie walking, reclaiming the night, to a feminist comedy night and to the Dum Tee Dum Awards where I won caller of the year! People like to take the piss out of me for my love of The Archers but sod them, I love it and when (if) I grow up I want to be Lillian. I am already there with the love of gin and ciggies and a dirty cackle, but I do manage to do my own knitting.

December is now. And how am I coping? Much better. I am still not completely right. I still have my wobbles and I have a hole in my heart where my two sons should be (long story, another time perhaps) but for once I am really really enjoying it. I am far more comfortable in my own skin and far more confident in my abilities. And I got a fuck tonne of really great tattoos.

So what is the unifying theme?

Love and family.

There have been some truly dreadful happenings this year. Reeva Steenkamp not really getting anything that felt like justice. Boko Haram stealing women with seeming impunity. Palestinian children being murdered by Israel. Dude bros going on killing sprees because they didn't get their dicks wet.

We have more people using food banks than ever before. We have disabled people dying and the Tories not giving a shit. Peshawar.

So much darkness in the world. It threatens to drown me and then...

I have The Lovely. I have The Wife Lady. I have the daughter person. I have my cousin and his fiancee. I have me Mam. I have The Bear. I have Ada and the Mahanga.The Clangers, Lovely Tina, Comrade, Torty, Abbi. I have friends and colleagues who care about me. I have love. I have support.

As previously mentioned I have a fuck tonne of really cool tattoos!

This year has been getting better and better. I may not ever be out of the depression woods but I am learning to live with it because I have people who love me not in spite of it but because of it.

Do I miss my old job? No. I am sad that the public have nowhere to get face to face advice on tax but I don't miss being a civil servant. Those people deserve any payrise they get as they are trampled on, undervalued and discarded without a thought by an uncaring government who wants to try to convince you that they are the ones that should pay for the economy being in the shit.

Do I miss PCS? No. It is imploding and is not the union I joined all those years ago. I implore those who are left to fight hard to keep it going and to stop the fucking infighting and hubris that means it is on the brink of destruction.

You are better than this. You can be better than this.

Stop it now.

Do I hate my depression? No.

It's a part of me. I have learned to accept that.

I love you all. I am not even exaggerating when I say I could not do any of this without you. You are my strength, my heart, my passion and my all.

Thank you for my life.

Have a great rest of december and may 2015 be better for all of us.

Deeva xxx

On Being Triggered (cw for ptsd symptoms)

Triggered. Its a word we are hearing a lot more of these days.

There are people who have adopted it to mean upset.

I wish you would stop.

To encourage you in this I thought I would describe what happens when I am triggered.

Be careful, this may well be triggering.

My chest hurts. I don't mean it aches, it physically HURTS. It feels like someone is thumping me in the chest with a medicine ball repeatedly.

I can't breathe. I mean, I know I am breathing but I can't feel it. It feels like I am simultaneously heavy and floating. And that hurts too.

I go deaf. I am detached from my sense of hearing as I detach from myself. All I can hear is the voice in my head that is telling me I'm going to die, I'm going to be killed.

I get flashbacks. Scenes of my trauma replay themselves in glorious technicolour. Sometimes with added smellovision and Entity style injuries.

And I live it again and again and again and again...

I become immobile. I get to a safer place (bed, a corner etc) and then I am physically unable to move. I am convinced that if I try I will die or be killed.

I cry. Rivers of silent tears.

I go numb. I shut down.

I sweat. Stinky, adrenaline ridden, fight or flight sweat.

The inside of my head screams.

I die. Or at least I think I do. Usually I've just passed out.

When I come to, then I lie there praying for sleep just so I can escape the flashbacks even though I don't believe in god and I know I will have nightmares.

I have PTSD. There are many like me and we're only now speaking out and sharing our stories.

If you're upset that is still valid. Just PLEASE don't invalidate us by saying you are triggered just because you were upset.

On Not Hating My Brain

---

Been chatting to my daughter person about ableism this morning and it has made me think about something.

This is purely personal as everyone has a different experience of mental illness.

What if I am not right to sometimes hate my brain?

Even more of a mind blowing thought.

What if my brain doesn't actually hate me?

What if my PTSD isn't my brain trying to fuck me over but it trying to protect me?

Maybe, all this time, I've been looking at it from the wrong perspective. Maybe when I am severely triggered and absolutely convinced that if I leave my bed I will die or be killed this isn't my brain trying to not let me have nice things. Maybe it is telling me to stop and try and process. Trying to keep me safe. To borrow an analogy from @graygender it is like a bodyguard shouting "GET DOWN MR PRESIDENT!" when it senses danger.

Maybe the Black Dog is not stalking me, but guarding me as much as it can to make sure that I remove myself from unhealthy situations and just, you know, stop. Just for a while.

Seems to me that my brain could be doing a better job to be honest. It gets it wrong a LOT. It cripples me just when I am about to do new things or am feeling happy and trusting.

But maybe, just maybe it isn't doing so out of maliciousness.

Maybe, just maybe, it is doing so out of some misguided attempt to keep me safe.

I don't have any answers for this yet but it is probably something I will revisit on here while I try to work it out. For me.

On Not Grieving For My Daughter

This one is for you @graygender. Thank you for giving me permission to write and publish it.

I have a daughter person who is non binary. Their pronoun is they.

I thought I had a daughter. When they were born they presented as female, they continued to present as female and to be honest with you, if you didn't know they were non binary you would continue to think they were female.

But they are not.

And, not that they need my validation for it, that is fine.

I thought I gave birth to a daughter. Turns out I was wrong. It happens, I am not omnipotent and I make mistakes.

The one mistake I didn't make though was to grieve for the daughter I lost.

I see my friends come out as Trans* and hear stories about how their parents are devastated. They mourn and grieve for their loss of a son, loss of a daughter. They weep and wail at the grandchildren they think they will never have, the weddings that they will never be able to plan, the dress they will never buy.

(Completely ignoring that none of that is true. It might just not be in the way you invisaged.)

It makes me really, really sad for them.

If only they would realise that they never lost a son. They never had a son.

If only they would realise that they never lost a daughter. They never had one.

If only they would stop treating their children like possessions just because they raised them.

If only they would spend the energy they use on rending their clothes and covering the mirrors rejoicing that this person they raised was raised with enough confidence to say 'No, actually, this is not my gender.'

If only they could see that by their coming out they are being honoured as parents.

Once upon a time I thought I had a little girl. Gorgeous and beautiful and funny and clever and loving and amazing.

Now I know I have a non binary daughter person. Guess what? They are still gorgeous and beautiful and funny and clever and loving and amazing.

And brave. And stronger than they think. And I am honoured to be their mother.

I do not grieve for my long lost daughter. I can't. She never existed. It is energy wasted. And I would rather spend the energy getting to know the person they always were.

So, I say this to the to parents of Trans* people everywhere.

When you grieve for what you have lost you invalidate your child. You devalue them. You tell them that they are not good enough. You tell them that what they could bring in terms of weddings and grandchildren means more to you than they do.

Society will already tell them that they are freaks and not normal and different. You should be the place that reassures them that they are the wonderful human beings that they always were.

Don't make a half assed attempt at using their pronouns. Getting it right isn't even a fraction as difficult as the dysphoria they will feel when you misgender them.

If they choose a new name, then honour it. Saying you will always think of them as their birth name denies their agency and they will already get enough of that.

Don't out them without asking permission. As interesting as your child is, as proud of them as you are IT IS NOT YOUR STORY TO TELL. They will tell it in their own way and in their own time. Or not. Their choice.

If your child is a trans woman, please don't try to make her conform to your idea of womanhood. She will have her own and she should be allowed to explore that.

If your child is a trans man please don't expect him to suddenly be into football if he wasn't before.

If your child is non binary then welcome to the club. You might not be able to work out exactly what gender if any they see themselves as. You know what, you don't have to. As long as they are happy and comfortable then your job is just to accept and support.

It is as easy as that.

And anyone pretending it is hard, anyone grieving for the child they lost is missing both out on a lot and the fucking point.

On Reclaiming The Night

Last night myself and my daughter person @graygender went to the Reclaim The Night march in Bristol.

I had been on pro choice marches, anti fash marches, the lovely A to B ones that the TUC kindly arrange. I have been to Burston School, Tolpuddle and save the NHS marches. You would think I could call myself a veteran.

I wasn't ready for this.

Having made our placards, we headed into town. Grace wrapped up as if ready for an Arctic winter and me hobbling on my broken toe. We grabbed burritos and were still the first ones there apart from the marshals.

So we sat. Waiting for the others to arrive. Waiting for the chance to get together with other women who are sick of the slut shaming. Sick of the victim blaming. Sick of not feeling like we can walk the streets safely at night.

And arrive they did. Women, men, families. Dad's wanting to let their daughters know that they stood by them and their right to autonomy and safety.

And in the middle of all these people. A sad looking woman with a black eye. Wandering round looking confused and bemused and like she felt slightly out of place.

I didn't take a picture of her because sometimes dignity and privacy trumps an iconic photo.

I watched her for most of the night. This woman with a visible reminder of violence. Most of us have hidden our scars and you wouldn't know we were survivors unless we told you. And here, in the midst of us was a woman with a black eye.

I am not sure I have the words to describe how I felt looking at her. The memories of my own black eyes and broken bones assailed me but I felt supported by my sisters and they wouldn't drown me. More on this woman later.

We started off the event with a minutes silence round some candles to remember the women who have been killed by male violence. Didn't realise it was going to be so emotional.

Grace and I cried all the way through it. Then all the way through the poem that was read by an amazing woman about how she was finding a new pride in being able to live and laugh again.

Then Grace turned to me and whispered 'they're all here.'

And they were. We felt them. All the women that could have been us. The ones who didn't survive. The ones who shouldn't have died.

We felt them.

And we marched for them.

We shouted for them.

We honoured them.

We stopped the traffic. We carried our placards high and proud. We blew whistles. We basked in the glow of sisterhood.

I heard very young women crying because it was the first march they had ever been on and it was the first time they had felt proud to be women.

I saw old women on the pavement applaud us in tears and shout 'THANK YOU' as we went past.

I heard an 11 year old girl scream 'I HAVE A BRAIN AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SEXUALISE ME!' defiantly into the night.

And I was proud. I was proud of every single woman who was there. I was proud of who I was. I was proud to see a transgender flag with us. I was proud to see most of the men who marched with us do so from the back, recognising that this was a moment for women to scream and shout and demand an end to catcalling, to blaming us for our own rapes because we dare to go outside after dark, an end to killing us because they can, because we will be reduced to someone's wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter.

So what of the woman with the black eye.

I caught sight of her again during the march. She was crying and she was smiling. She was walking with her head held high. She was alive.

Who knows what she went home to that night. Who knows how long her very visible euphoria lasted.

I don't. I only know that in that moment she looked free. And that made the marching on a broken toe worth it.

There was a rally and after party, but we didn't stay for that. PTSD being what it is, we can't all always stay for that kind of thing. Too loud, too busy.

It looked like fun though.

So we took our placards and went home. Where we ended up having a conversation about victim blaming on the bus with a woman who said 'I agree with what you just said, but...'

This happens a LOT. People who say they agree then go right on to say something really victim blaming like women shouldn't get drunk if they don't want to get raped.

*sigh*

Also in this category of truly unhelpful are those who try and derail with the what about teh menz argument.

Yes, men sometimes get catcalled too. Does it make it ok? No. Does it give men free reign to do it? No. Are men in danger of their lives if they don't respond or do respond? No.

This is a world where we have Julien Blanc telling men how to choke women into sex. Am I going to die in a ditch over a woman shouting nice arse at a man. No.

So, despite the men who wouldn't go to the back of the march, despite the twitter trolls who tried to start a row on the #reclaimthenight hashtag, despite everything, for that night it was ours. We reclaimed it. We felt safe with our sisters.

Tonight, tomorrow and all the other nights?

Well we still have work to do. Much work.

But we are up to the job, and we will win.

Solidarity sisters

Deeva xxx

Queer Emergency- In Support Of Allison Woolbert

This plea came from a very good friend of mine who is genderqueer.

"queer internet i need your help there is an emergency

cathy brennan and many terfs have google-bombed allison woolbert, friend of mine, who runs the transgender violence tracking portal.https://www.facebook.com/TransMSVTracker

cathy making her out to be a heterosexual male who sexually assaults people, and cathy is a lawyer who is extremely powerful. this is fucking terrifying and i never thought that terfs would try to destroy something incredible here in south jersey.

so this is where allison and i need your help, seriously. if you can, write three paragraphs about this project, and mention allison's full name once, and then her first name twice, and put it somewhere on the internet. i'm putting mine on my main tumblr.

this is terrifying and i want to do everything in my power to stop this. cathy brennan is a dangerous person and needs to be stopped, and she's made the decision to attack trans women in the place where i've lived my entire life."

This is unacceptable and not the first time she has done this.

Allison Woolbert is a woman doing some great work and I totally support her and all trans women in their right to a harassment free existence.

Please share so that the hate is not the first thing seen when her name is googled. Put it on your own blogs. 

All women, regardless of their gender assignment at birth are my sisters.

Come on sisters, let's help this sister out. 

On Cultural Appropriation - An Ongoing Conversation

This is a conversation that has been ongoing with my daughter person for over a year now and I still haven't totally got my head around it.

If this post is a bit rambling then that would be why. Also, these are my views. I don't claim to speak for PoC, Woc, hell, I don't speak for anyone but me. You may not agree with me, hell, I don't agree with myself sometimes but please, if you have to disagree, just don't be a dick about it.

It is all I ask.

So, what is cultural appropriation?

This has become a problematic question in itself really. When is wearing a bindi acceptable? Should I be allowed to wear flip flops/dreadlocks/chinese tattoos/black face/yellow face/sari/chi pao/native American headdress?

Can I twerk without being racist?

I am not going to say yes or no to any of these things. I am just going to give my opinion and hope that it leads to the conversation carrying on.

TWERKING.

Do I find white women twerking inherently racist? No, I don't. No more than I find black women dancing ballet racist. Do I think it is culturally insensitive? Not sure. However, I do find myself thinking the following.

When I dance, when my sisters (both familial and not) dance we do what has become known as twerking. (Thank you so much white folks, what comes naturally to us was crying out for a name *rolls eyes*) I have only ever thought of it as dancing. It is the dancing I do because I cannot do any other kind of dance when I hear the beat and riddim to mek me wine up me waist and grine up me hips.

It is instinctual, it is tribal it is just what I do.

Now compare that to Miley Cyrus wiggling her behind at a bloke singing 'I know you want it.' It becomes not about feeling the music, but about a peacock display of sexuality designed to attract a man.

Am I overly comfortable about what this says about the hyper sexualisation of black women and how they are viewed by white people? No. Am I gonna lose sleep over a bit of twerking. Also no. Despite being told I should by a white woman.

She told me twerking was racist. I told her I didn't think it was and asked her for her reasoning. Her answer was, I shit you not, 'well, I went on Google and there were a bunch of black people saying it was.'

Hate to break it to you but lumping people of colour in all together as one homogeneous lump and expecting us to all think and feel the same about anything... Bit racist. Just saying.

TATTOOS

Gonna admit now that I have two Chinese tattoos. One says 'Lucky' and the other says 'Vow'. I know this to be the case as I properly checked them. I am not someone who has the character for 'Woman' and who sees this reproduced atop the door of all the female toilets when they go to China.

I had them done as my first two tattoos (I now have had ten) and they are personal to me. Why did I get them in Chinese? I hate to admit it but I thought it looked more exotic than if I had them done in English. Yep, I was that dickhead.

Did it make me think that I was now Chinese and as one with the people? No. I wasn't and still am not (hopefully) that much of a dickhead. I am kinda amused at myself now that I have grown up a bit and would not have a different language inked on me again.

Was it appropriative? Yes. I think it was.

Not sure whether to believe me? Picture this photo below as an actual tattoo on a Chinese person.

 Now imagine they are showing it off to all their friends. Oh how wise and trendy they must look. 'But what does it mean?' ask their dewy eyed friends.

'It means to keep breathing as the water rises all around you.'

Get my point now?

CHI PAO

Do not get me wrong, I do not see this as serious as say, having worn a chi pao (which I do wear because they are one of the very few dresses that suit me) and doing yourself up in yellow face *cough* Katy Perry *cough*. And while I am at it actually, why oh why is it that we are rightly up in arms about anyone in black face (there is a bloke who tried to get served on Bar Boulevard at Glasto who will NEVER do it again) but we don't as a society really talk about the fetishising of Asian women?

Black and white minstrel show? Barbaric. The Mikado? Traditional.

Fuck off.

We have appropriated the Chi Pao so much that most of you won't even know what I am talking about until I say Suzy Wong dress.

If you are going to wear one (and I have no intention of giving them up) at least refer to them by their proper name. Don't be a dick about it.

BINDIS

I like them. I think they are beautiful and spiritually they work like a wand when I wear one on my brow chakra. I like how women look when they are wearing them. Actually this is kind of my sticking point on the whole subject. Can I wear one without disrespecting the culture they come from? I bloody hope so as I do love them.

NATIVE AMERICAN HEADDRESSES

Just no. I am deeply offended when I see anyone who isn't Native American wearing one. There is no reason to ever wear something that was symbolic of being a warrior at one with nature. No reason at all. Every time I see someone wearing one I want to punch the fucking shit out of them for trivialising the oppression and near destruction of a people. I am glad that Glasto have banned them for next year. I would expect them to do the same to people who were wearing a yellow star of David or slave manacles and garb as 'fancy dress' too.

CORN ROWS/DREADLOCKS

On the very rare occasions I have cornrows I feel the fingers of all the women down the ages on my dad's side of the family doing my hair. It is a powerful thing for me as I have very little that links me to them other than the family curry recipe handed to me by my Aunt Veronica. I don't have a problem with something this intricate and beautiful being fashionable, but for the love of all that is both holy and unholy, IF YOU ONLY USE WHITE MODELS THEN THIS IS NOT BLOODY OK. OK?

Then I have a problem. Then it is appropriation. It is stealing something and ignoring its nappy haired heritage.

Oh, and white people with dreadlocks...

If you MUST have them then at least do them properly. Do not have that stinking, matted clump of weetabix looking shit on the back of your head and think you are at one with Ja. It irritates me. Do them properly and for fuck's sake keep them clean. Especially if you use public transport.

So much more I could talk about but like I said, this is the start of the conversation, not the end and I am actually really keen to hear your thoughts.

Just, much like cultural appropriation, don't be a dick about it.