And so, it happens again

I shouldn't be surprised. And really I'm not. I'm just sad.

A college freshman jumped off a bridge, after his roommate posted a video of him making out with another man.

I could say a lot of things here, about stupid people not understanding the potential consequences of their actions, about the complete impropriety of videotaping someone who doesn't know they're being filmed. I could rail about homophobic bastards being cruel, or about people who think homosexuality is just a cheap joke to throw out for an easy laugh. I could get on a high horse and talk about human decency and how it's been lost in the internet age, or I could come up with cheap platitudes about how this should be a lesson to us all to treat each other with kindness.

But none of it would make a bit of difference. Because the kid's already dead.

He's only one of hundreds of gay teens who kill themselves every year. And until our entire society opens its eyes and collectively says "what the fuck are we doing wrong?" it's going to continue.

Books

An incredibly long time since I've posted anything here. Being back in the US makes it difficult to make internationally-themed observations, and I've been too damn busy for the past few months to make posts. But I'm back on, in the name of literature, because I started reading a new book that criticizes one of my favorite books, and this is naturally something that interests me enough to write about.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is quite possibly one of my favorite books ever. An intersexed protagonist, an adventurous journey, the stories of multiple generations in a family woven together, an immigration tale...I thought it was a masterpiece when I first read it, and I gave copies to several people before coming out to them, if I wasn't entirely sure how they would react. Middlesex is in many ways the book I want to write and the book I wish I'd written. Imagine my surprise, reading another gender-related book, to find that my esteem was not universal.

I've just started reading Intersex (for lack of a better word), which I had picked up months ago when Lambda Rising closed (depriving DC of its resident gay bookstore and leaving a hole in the pattern of my wanderings around Dupont Circle). The book is set up as a set of mini-stories and essays, and one of the first ones has to do with Middlesex.

She opens by saying:

"People keep asking me about Jeffrey Eugenides' new novel Middlesex because the main character is considered a hermaphrodite and so am I. But really, neither of us are. Outside of myth, there are no hermaphrodites. It is physiologically impossible to be both fully male and fully female."

I was a bit confused by this opening. Last I checked, "hermaphrodite" meant possessing the external sex characteristics of both genders, to a greater or lesser degree. I checked with the online dictionary, and found these definitions.

hermaphrodite her·maph·ro·dite (hər-māf'rə-dīt')
n.
An individual having the reproductive organs and many of the secondary sex characteristics of both sexes.


her·maph·ro·dite
   /hɜrˈmæfrəˌdaɪt/ Show Spelled[hur-maf-ruh-dahyt]–noun
1.an individual in which reproductive organs of both sexes are present. Compare pseudohermaphrodite.
2.Biology . an organism, as an earthworm or plant, having normally both the male and female organs of generation.
3.a person or thing in which two opposite qualities are combined.


Nothing in those definitions indicates that one would have to be "fully" both genders to fall into the category of "hermaphrodite." But this is a dictionary, and not even a medical one, and WebMD was remarkably silent on the subject. But clearly the word has non-dictionary revealed subtext, or the author wouldn't be so "fuming and hot with shame as [Eugenides] called me and people I love hermaphrodites."

I admit, I hadn't realized that the term was offensive until I read that. To me it had always been a medical term, distinguished from the term intersex as indicating morphology, rather than hormones or genetics. Creating further complication, there are people who actually do identify with the term hermaphrodite in its medical sense, as indicated by this short page on "Being a True Hermaphrodite."

The author of Intersex accuses Eugenides of having "never actually talked to an intersex person before he published that book," and I don't know if that's actually true or not. She further accuses him of "being yet one more person profiting off the selling of intersex people as freaks of nature." I would disagree with that statement. When I read Middlesex, I thought that Eugenides did an excellent job of making Cal the protagonist three-dimensional and human, not a freak at all. But then, I'm not intersexed, so what do I know? Maybe I'm just one more ignorant person projecting my views onto the world. Or maybe the real anger in the essay has less to do with Middlesex as a book, and more to do with the fact that the book that drew attention to the intersex population was written by a normal heterosexual male.

The main thing this essay teaches me is that I need to be careful. In my own writing, I'm working on a story with a transgendered protagonist. I don't want it to be said that I'm "exoticizing" gender variance. Truth be told, I don't find it that exotic. Interesting, yes. Exotic, no. I've had friends and acquaintances all over the gender continuum, enough to know that, aside from their relation to the binary, they're people like any others. But again, because I'm not trans myself, there's always that danger, in the event of my writing becoming successful, that I'll be seen as speaking for or about a population that I don't actually belong to. If and when I ever finish this particular project, I fully plan to run it by my trans friends, to make sure that it passes muster. But I still have to wonder if, someday down the line, someone will write a similarly angry piece about my writing, because I had the audacity to write something that they had not yet dared.

An Amazing Project

A month or so ago, I found out that there's a new version of Our Bodies, Our Selves in the works, through their blog. They wanted to be sure that they included some LGBT perspective, so I filled out their questionnaire. I figured I should do my part to have gay and genderqueer women represented in the puberty/women's health bible.

Then I found this. Awesomeness upon awesomeness. It's a resource guide of the Our Bodies, Our Selves variety, put together by a completely different team of people, and focused completely on trans and genderqueer issues. Identity, body stuff, legal stuff, it will all be in there. And that's amazing. If I had found a book like that at a library when I was fifteen it probably would have clarified a lot of things for me. I'm so happy that someone is finally putting something like this together. I added my two cents to the survey, and I'll probably submit cameos to
a few of the chapters as well.

The fact that a book like this can even be conceived is a sign that genderqueer people are actually beginning to be recognized as people now. The demographic is recognizable and extant and has purchasing power. This makes me incredibly glad.

Standards of Education

In Texas, a conservative constituent has succeed in passing a new set of standards for education, according to the Huffington Post. This isn't the usual evolution vs creationism debate. It actually avoids biology, as near as I can tell. This one focuses on history, economics, and sociology.

Some gems? The religious backgrounds of the Founding Fathers will be addressed, but not the reasons behind the separation of church and state. Kids will be required to learn about John Calvin, but not Thomas Jefferson. And they will also be required to learn that the free market economy works best without government interference.

Now, I have no problem with talking about the faith of the Founding Fathers. Certainly many of them had deeply held religious beliefs. But they also, had strong philosophical beliefs founded in the ideas of the Enlightenment. These philosophies about the rights of men and about individual freedom of conscience had an equal if not greater influence on the formation of the Constitution than did any religious ideas. Likewise, John Calvin is a very important historical figure, and it's certainly good to know about him, but why on earth should a British religious reformer be taught at the expense of an American intellectual? Isn't it American history that we're teaching? And as far as the free market goes, yes, it does seem to be the most profitable economic system that we've come up with so far. But it's also brought us things like Enron, which clearly point to a need for significantly more market regulation than a pure free market philosophy would advise.

It could be worse, though. One of the amendments that fortunately got struck down was one that suggested that the civil rights movement created "unrealistic expectations for equal outcomes." The fact that anyone would even think about making that statement part of a generation's educational standards is seriously bile-inducing. "No, kiddo, all these people marching for their rights...they're not actually oppressed, they just think they are! Someone should just tell them what their place is so they don't get any unrealistic ideas..." Bleh.

Really, my main problem is that education should not be so politically driven. I understand the concept that you have to "get them while they're young" if you want kids to later subscribe to almost any ideology. But what about the idea of an actual education? What about educating kids so that they'll actually learn to think well about different ideas and later do well in college? Isn't that supposed to be the point of education in general? That should be more important than which historical figures you include or exclude, and it should prohibit you from only teaching certain facts about an event or period in history while willfully ignoring others. Intellectual honesty, people. I don't care what you choose to believe based on your analysis of the facts. I just want to know that you actually have the facts, all of them, and that you're actually, amazingly, using your ability to think.

What Sex is Your Brain?

Today, salon.com posted an article about brain sex, including a link to a quiz powered by the BBC. Naturally curious, I took the quiz to determine whether or not my brain is male or female.

The quiz consists of six sections, each of which is supposed to determine a different aspect of your brain's gender. Part one of the test measures your ability to match different angles, generally considered to be a more male ability. Part two asks you to clasp your hands together and then indicate which thumb is on top, which theoretically tells you which side of the brain is dominant. Part three test your ability to "empathise and systemize," and part four tests your ability to recognize emotions based on pictures of peoples' eyes. Part four asks you to measure your fingers, part five asks you to compare different faces for overall attractiveness, and part six asks you to rotate 3D shapes in your mind.

My result? Completely gender neutral. Big surprise. Behold: I'm smack dab in the middle.



While I'm gratified to find that there's semi-scientific evidence that backs up my general feelings of genderfuck, I have to question certain aspects of the test. The segments testing the ability to recognize angles and mentally rotate complex objects are fairly straightforward and standard, and the word association section is badly designed but otherwise not problematic.

Some of the other sections, though, are pretty dubious. Mainly I have to question two: the finger length and the attractiveness scale tests. Finger length definitely says something about prenatal hormones: most straight men and lesbians have a longer ring fingeer than index finger, and most straight women and gay men have longer index fingers than ring fingers. I certainly have classic lesbian fingers, and I can see the value in looking at finger length as part of overall gender development. But I question the place of finger measurements in what is otherwise an almost wholly cognitive test. Likewise I question the right-side/ left-side dominance test as determined by which thumbs you cross. It doesn't seem to take into account right- and left-handedness, which to the best of my knowledge are evenly distributed between the genders.

Beyond the finger tests, I have to question the attractiveness test. In this test, the subject is asked to differentiate between several similar faces and indicate which one they find most attractive. According to the results, I prefer more "feminine" features. Well enough. But through that whole section, I was thinking that none of the people photographed were people I'd be likely to ask on a date. And because the pictures were photoshopped to emphasize or de-emphasize certain features (to be more "masculine" or "feminine," though I don't know how they define those terms), I generally found the photos that had been tinkered with the least to be the most attractive. So the data may be skewed.

I do find gender differences fascinating. And I would love to see a more in-depth and expansive study or self-quiz to determine how peoples' brains are gendered. As salon says, this is your average Cosmo-type quize, only with a dash of science thrown in. When they come up with a quiz that's more science and less Cosmo, I'll be very interested to see the results.

Also on the Mental Health Front...

They've finally admitted that the study linking MMR vaccines and autism was flawed, and have retracted it. It's about damn time.

Fish for Brains

A new study in Austria has shown that adolescents and young adults who are in danger of mental illness develop far fewer psychoses, and are less inclined towards psychotic breaks, when they take fish oil supplements. It makes sense. Omega-3 fatty acids are the building blocks of the brain and neural systems. We need lots of them in our diets for our nervous systems to function properly, and most peoples' modern diets don't include nearly enough of them. Most snack foods in general contain Omega-6 fatty acids, which are also important, but not used nearly as much in the brain. It's ironic, but in our fat-filled diets, we're not getting the fats we need.

Thr irony of the modern US is that we have so much food available, but so much of it is nutritionally unsound. It is entirely possible, in our world, to be both obese and malnourished. Who would have thought? And while we struggle with our waistlines, we're also screwing up our brains. I've discovered, over the past several years of pescatarian traveling, that food has a profound effect on mood and behavior. It's not just that hungry people are grumpy. That goes without saying. In Morocco, where my diet consisted mostly of overcooked-in-oil carrots and potatoes plus bread, I gained weight and felt listless much of the time. I generally got my energy and enthusiasm back in Essaouira, where I could at least, hamdulilah, get fish. While the presenece of variety in my diet was certainly exciting, I think that the effect of protein plus Omega-3's on my system was what really made a difference. In other countries I felt similar diet-based changes. Much as I loved the Czech Republic, the constant diet of fried cheese and potatoes nearly killed me.

Now, back in the US, I'm faced with the dilemma of being broke and needing to husband my resources as much as possible until I've acquired a steady income. Though there have been days when I've subsisted on cereal bars and bananas, I've discovered that it's much better to eat as well as I can afford to, because the health payoff is exponential. It's actually not that hard to do. Canned seafood has improved significantly from what I remember in childhood, and can be added to soups and sauces to provide those important proteins and Omega-3's. Lentils are ridiculously cheap, contain protein, and can be used to make soup. Kale and collard greens both hover around 99 cents a pound, and it takes a hell of a lot of them to make a pound, so you can have fresh vegetables regularly even on a budget (and they taste better than you think). The more I learn about diet and health, particilarly mental health, I realize that I can't afford not to eat well. As long as fresh veggies and some variety of seafood are available in some combination, I will eat them. It's important to feed your brain.

For lack of Original Content...

I've been more than slightly caught up in the fundamentals of existence lately, so haven't had much time or energy to do my usual queer feminist blogging. That will hopefully change soon (not the insane business of life, just the amount of time I spend worrying about it) so regularly scheduled updates should be back...eventually. In the meantime, a friend of mine linked to this, and as I found it interesting I thought I would share. It may actually expalain a bit about why I seldom watch movies, though I would never have articulated it in these terms.

Here you go: The Bechdel Test

Teaching Computer Skills to an Ageing DC Debutante

I had an experience today so bizarre that it has to be shared. At dance class today I was approached by another dancer, a stick-thin, platinum blonde senior citizen who asked me, via a long and rambling monologue, to teach her how to use the internet. I guess she figured that I looked young, intelligent, and broke enough to be up for it, and she was right. After briefly checking my credentials ("how old are you--where did you go to college--What was your major--Ok I guess you must be smart--") she packed me into her sky blue convertible and drove me to her place, all the while telling me that she didn't invite people to her house very often, it was a really nice place, one of the nicest in the city, very impressive, and she hoped I wouldn't be intimidated.

I wasn't intimidated. But still.

Her home is a big brick mansion, looking out over a park. It has a sweeping marble staircase with wrought-iron rails at its center, and the floors are all marble or wood parquet. The coat closet is nearly as big as my current rented room. The dining room walls have hand-painted frescoes. Bits of neoclassical statuary are scattered throughout. It looks like a colonial baronage crossed with an Italian villa, with a few dashes of upscale design magazines thrown in for good measure. It's the kind of house I assumed only diplomats had, a setting where elegant cocktail parties featuring $500 bottles of champagne would not seem out of place. I, in my sweaty dance clothes and jeans, most certainly did not look like I belonged.

After telling the maid imperiously to bring up some refreshments, my hostess led me to the computer room, as meticulously decorated as the rest of the house. For the next hour and a half, I guided her through the basics. This is how you turn the computer on. You want an email account? Let's set one up. Here's how you send an email. Ok, let's try it again. After several iterations, we moved on to google. Her first search? Designer clothes, of course.

I found it all fascinating, not so much the lessons I was giving, but the context. What happens when a 1950s debutante has to confront the modern world? Underneath her makeup and wealthy manners, I detected a very real fear. The knowledge that, were it not for her gilded surroundings and the husband who provides them, she would not be able to survive. She told me that when she was in high school her teachers said that because she was pretty she should take home ec. She hated it, she told me. She said no one ever encouraged her to do anything academic. But what she did not say was also eloquent. She didn't actually try. At seventy, she's still attractive enough that I can see the beauty queen she must have been in her youth. She may have wanted something more than a good marriage, but she didn't have the will to pursue a path outside of her prescribed societal role. Now she's trying to learn a new skill, and she's afraid of it. There's a big, scary world out there, and she knows she's not prepared. I'll do the best I can to teach her. It will be very interesting to see how well she can learn.

Then again, Cambodia is looking good

Apparently the king of Cambodia supports same-sex marriage. I don't have any real desire to go to Cambodia right now. But it's nice to know that the government figurehead likes us there.

Cambodia's king on the BBC

Welcome back to America, Land of the Free

Ah, America. I've been back for almost two months now, writing a lot and looking for a job and housing. I seem to have finally found a place to live, pending paperwork, but so far the only employment I've found has been a one-time gig as a photograpy school model and a one-time gig as a tutor for a thirteen-year-old. Today, the father of the thirteen-year-old called me and asked if I would be interested in teaching English as a second language to latinos. I said sure. At this point I'm interested in almost anything that would result in a semiregular paycheck. So we talked a bit about my teaching experience and things, and then, when the conversation seemed like it was wrapping up, he said, "I don't know why I'm getting this vibration, but I feel I should ask you, do you have a boyfriend?" Before I could answer he continued. "I know its a personal question, but I need to know you're not a child molester...do you like girls or boys?" My first instinct was to tell him that it was illegal to ask me questions about my personal life in a professional context. Instead I laughed and said, " Don't worry, I'm not a child molester. I don't have a boyfriend, but I'm not interested in dating." But he continued, "It's a simple question, just answer, you know I'm asking as a parent, etc. etc." and I just said again that I wasn't interested in anyone, full stop, and that as a teacher or tutor I'm always very professional. He finally accepted that and left it alone.

What I really want to know is, what prompted him to even ask that question? I'm not obviously gay. At least not when I'm by myself. Being in the vicinity of my girlfriend ups my obviousness exponentially, but he's never seen me anywhere near her. And I certainly didn't display any interest whatsoever in his daughter beyond wanting her to rewrite her essay. I didn't like thirteen-year-olds even when I was one. I understand not wanting to hire a pedophile. That would be dangerous. But not wanting to hire a lesbian is just absurd. It's not like it's contagious to be gay. And I have no doubt that if I'd admitted to being sapphic in my orientation the offer of potential employment would have been rescinded faster than you can say "ACLU." It's nice to see that discrimination is alive and well.

Drag (Queen) Racing!

Last night was the annual Halloween Drag Queen Race near Dupont Circle. It was fabulous, as only an event featuring that much gratuitous glitter can be. Drag queens, drag queens everywhere, with ballgowns and lipstick and high heels, oh my. Several were arrayed in getup from musicals, complete with sequined marquees proclaiming which ones they were from. There were Elphaba and Glinda from "Wicked," a heavily made-up feline from "Cats," and a very large middle-aged "Annie," complete with bright orange wig. There was a very elegant Cruella DeVille, a classic devil in a red dress, and an acompanying cupid wearing a loincloth and wings and nothing else. Continuing in the theme of semi-nudity were a toga made from a rainbow flag and a feather boa bikini.

The queens all paraded around, blowing kisses to the audience before the race began. At the word "go" all parties began the three-block race in high heels, some with alacrity, some not. The front runners in the race were moving faster than I can run even without heels. The middle section was a scene of ballgowned mayhem, and the theatre crowd, hampered by their giant marquees, brought up the rear. They were followed only by the queens who had decided that real running wasn't worth it and they would just prance along in exaggerated mincing steps only marginally faster than walking.

The whole race only took about ten minutes, and then the crowd converged for photo opportunities. I was swept along by the human wave until I managed to break free and hit the metro. Sadly, I'd left my camera at home so had no way to preserve the fabulosity for posterity.

National Equality March

Today was the National Equality March in DC, to put pressure on Obama to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. I did already blog about this on my more "official" blog, so all I'll say here is that it was awesome, both in the turnout (official counts are now over 200,000) and in how positive it all was. Almost celebratory. We haven't got our rights yet, but we made a damn good showing, and it's the largest gathering of gay people and supporters I've ever seen. Having just spent the better part of two years in countries where homosexuality Does Not Exist and/or Is Not Discussed, it was great to be in an environment where everyone was pro-gay. There weren't even that many counterprotestors. One truckful that jeered as we were waiting to get started, and a small knot of rather disgruntled churchgoers with a megaphone on one corner. I was marching with the UU church, which was marching behind a Jewish group, which I think was marching behind another religious group. So as we passed the bigots who were telling us that god hates fags, we all started chanting "god doesn't hate." They looked peeved. It might have burst their bubble to see church banners and rainbow banners marching side by side.
The other amazing thing was that at the beginning of the parade, when we were all gathered and waiting to move, we looked up and spotted a rainbow. Faint, but nevertheless there. We took it as a good sign. Apparently even god/deity/skyborne light particles were joining in the gay pride.

Strange Conversations in Mongolia

This morning I arrived in Ulaan Baator. Mongolia is one of my favorite places, and the local guide here is one of my favorite people on the road. Very friendly, very cheerful, very educated. We get on quite well in a travelers' camaraderie sort of way, but we've never had a terribly serious conversation about anything outside of tourism. So I was taken aback this morning when, at 7am, he asked me about homosexuality.
"You know, the last group that came here, there were a lot of people who were..."(vaguely illustrative wrist flaps)"...gays."
"Oh?"
"Yes," he continued, "there were five of them. I think it is a record for one trip."
"I see." I wasn't sure where this was going but I was fairly sure the conversation would become awkward for me very quickly. I was right.
In an outburst he suddenly said, "what makes them become like this, these homosexuals? How can they...why do they...What makes them become gay?"
I didn't quite know what to answer. Delicate subjects are best discussed at times other than 7am-post-overnight-train-pre-breakfast. I started to answer with an "um," but he continued.
"I think they are very ugly. I think maybe they're so ugly that no woman would have them. That's why they look at each other. And lesbians? I think maybe they always fought with their fathers. Maybe their first boyfriends were bad. That's why they don't like men."
I had to answer something, however unpopular the response.
"Actually...I think it's biology."
He looked shocked.
"Biology? No, there is no reason for it to be biology." His expression of shock grew as the idea expanded in his mind. "If it was biology...that would mean there would be gay people here...Mongolian people...no, it can't be."
He was clearly at a loss.
I said something about it being ten percent of the population worldwide, and he answered with a hmph and a change of subject. I thought it was just as well. It was a strange way to start the morning.

In some ways his question surprised me. Not so much the question itself, but the fact that it came from him. He knows a lot about Mongolia, its culture and its history, much more so than the average citizen. He knows that in shamanism here hermaphrodites were once considered sacred. (I know this because the subject came up in somebody's joke once and he didn't understand the English word. When the term had been explained he said yes, people like these used to be special shamans). Given that he knew this, I'm surprised that he considered the possibility of homosexuality in Mongolia shocking. But maybe he thinks that's all in the past. Nothing continues today.

Later in the afternoon, I saw part of the movie "V for Vendetta" dubbed in Mongolian, playing on the tv in the hotel lobby. It was the part of the film where Evey is in prison, receiving messages from the cell next door. The life and loves of Valerie were there onscreen, a lesbian narrative dubbed in Mongolian, and I have to assume the translation was accurate. But none of the hotel staff seemed to be paying attention. I wished that the local guide was there to see the movie. I don't know if it would have helped. But I think that the main thing that makes homosexuality scary for people is its unfamiliarity. The guide asked in his outburst about gay people, why they didn't want "another half, a partner." I didn't get a chance to say that they do want those things, just in a different form. But I think if more people were exposed to homosexuality they would realize it's simply a relationship composed in a different way.

And with that thought, I'm going to finally go to sleep and end my obscenely long day.

And...nyet

A few minutes ago I was talking to my Russian housemate over tea, and she mentioned a male friend of hers whose wife had just given birth. Apparently it was a difficult delivery. She said it made her feel scared.

I asked her if she wanted children, and she matter-of-factly said "of course," as though it weren't even a question that needed to be asked. Then she suddenly looked at me with an expression of dawning horror and asked me, "don't you?"

When I admitted that no, in fact, I don't want kids she looked completely shocked. "Why not," she asked.
"Because I don't. I never have. It's just not something that I want."
She continued to look shocked, so I told her that I do like kids as long as I can give them back to someone else after an hour or two. That didn't really seem to help.
"You surprise me," she said finally. Then she got up to go do work.

Well then. Nyet.

It's ironic. This woman is probably my best friend in Russia. We get along really well, we go to dance classes together, we share meals, we drink tea. I was actually debating coming out to her, because I thought that she might be open minded, might possibly understand. I'm glad we had this conversation first before I thought about it too much more. The level of shock she showed at my not wanting kids probably indicates that the reaction would be seismic if I revealed that I also don't want a man.

I just don't understand why it's a big deal. I wasn't put on earth to fulfill some biological imperative, or to follow anyone's agenda other than my own. I don't see why it's shocking that a woman wouldn't want a husband or kids. Regardless of whether she's gay or straight.

I'm glad that I'm leaving Russia soon. I love this country in many ways. But I need to be in a place where my way of life is unremarkable. Where no one gives a damn if I date a woman and don't want kids.

Chinese and Mongolian Pride

I thought, since I posted about Moscow Pride (or rather, the lack thereof in any official sense), that I should post something about Pride in other places as well. For Russia, Moscow and St. Petersburg are the only places large and cosmopolitan enough to be contenders for pride events in a relatively conservative country. Moscow we've already established had Pride planned and then shut down. Googling St. Petersburg Pride gave me lots of results for St. Petersburg, Florida (biggest Pride event in the Southeast, apparently), but none whatsoever for Russia. It's possible that I just didn't look hard enough. But for all intents and purposes, Russian Pride cannot be officially found.

What about Chinese Pride? As I left Beijing I found an article about the first ever set of gay pride events in China being planned in Shanghai. They were largely being organized by expats, and all advertisements for the events were circulated in English. It was thought that if the events were billed as entertainment for foreigners they would attract less government attention. Which was mostly right. When the time came to hold the festivities, some were indeed shut down. But most took place as scheduled. I find it ironic that between Russia and China, the country that's widely considered to have a much more repressive government was the one that allowed gay pride events to take place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/world/asia/15shanghai.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/15/shanghai-pride-china-gay_n_215785.html

What about Mongolia? Since I've been there recently also I feel I shouldn't leave it out. To the best of my knowledge, Mongolia has no organized pride events, and any gay culture is very, very underground. But there were Mongolian participants at a pride event last January in Thailand. So clearly, some kind of scene exists.

http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/2008/01/30/2000.chiangmais-first-gay-pride-march

Apparently in Moscow I Deserve to Be Killed

At least, this is what Moscow's mayor says. Seventy-two-year-old conservative mayor Yuri Luzhkov made a televised statement just before banning the attempted Moscow Pride Parade that "Our society has healthy morals and rejects all these queers. If you even imagine that they get permission to hold their parade and gather, they will simply be killed."
http://www.gayrussia.ru/en/news/detail.php?ID=13543

Good to know. On the one hand, I find it chilling that a political leader can get away with saying that people from any minority group can and should be killed. World history has shown that bad things usually follow these kinds of statements. On the other hand, I appreciate the honesty. There's something refreshing about knowing exactly where things stand. He thinks we're evil and deserve to die. Clean cut, black and white. None of that "love the sinner, hate the sin" thing that you get from the more tolerant members of the Christian Right back at home, which often comes accompanied by the two-faced, smiling assurance that you're going directly to hell. The overall sentiment in both cases may be similarly hostile, but somehow I have far less fear of being lynched in Moscow than I would in, say, rural Wyoming if I ever went there.

I haven't been in Russia long, but I've noticed a pattern to the way things work here. Rules are both convoluted and rampant. They are also largely ignored. Drinking in public is illegal, but people drink beer on the way to work, and a common evening pastime is to take a bottle of wine to a park with your friends. It's illegal to drink vodka on the trains, but most trains sell vodka in the dining cars. I've yet to be stopped for drinking vodka on trains with any of my groups so far, but I'm told that the appropriate course of action if it happens is to offer the policeman a drink.

Point being, as long as you stay out of general view of the authorities in Russia, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Moscow's mayor thinks gay people should not exist, but the gay scene is alive and well. Lonely Planet lists three or four locations, and there certainly must be more. Traditionally, the gay scene in most places has always been underground, and with good reason, since in almost every society gay and gender-variant people are seen with suspicion at best and outright hatred at worst. So we stick to the shadows, and most mainstream people don't even think about us or know we exist until and unless we try to make ourselves visible. Like with Pride.

I'm thinking about Pride, because my girlfriend reminded me the other night that once again I'm missing DC Pride, which I've heard is a sight to behold. I'm also missing Boston Pride, St. Pete (Florida) Pride, Paris Pride, and pretty much any other Pride you can think of in any of the places I used to live. I wasn't even in Moscow for the abortive attempt at the pride parade that got shut down by the riot police 30 seconds after it began. In general I think that Pride is great, because it's a fun way to get ourselves out of the closet and be completely out in the open, for once in a year. In countries like Russia, though, the idea of Pride itself is controversial. One person interviewed by Time said that he just wants to be treated like everyone else, and running around screaming that he's gay is not going to achieve that.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1899340,00.html

It's a valid point. Everyone might want more acceptance and more rights, but very few people want to be the ones to stick their necks out in the effort to achieve this. I'm no exception; for all that I technically work for a company with an inclusive non-discrimination clause, the fact that I work on the ground in countries like Russia and Morocco effectively means that coming out would be one of the stupidest things I could possibly do. I have no desire to make my life any more complicated than it really needs to be, and I don't want to be the "face of diversity" in my company or anywhere else. I just want to live my life and have that be okay. It's all anyone really wants. It's just difficult to be both visible and acceptable. In general, you have to choose.

The Word of the Day is "Androgyny"

The other day, my Russian housemate showed me a ballet video online.



It's a very interesting piece of modern choreography. I like it from a dance perspective, because they do some unusual things and the fast pointe work is incredible. But it's also interesting from a gender perspective, because it explores relationships. Different people dance together in different ways, and at one point, two female dancers are dressed as men. Before that point, though, during what I thought was a more conventional scene, my housemate asked me a strange question: "Is that dancer a man or a women?"

I told her it was a woman, because the likelihood of a man doing such intricate pointe work is almost nil. (I have seen men on pointe, in the "ballet trocadero," but I have to say that the pointe work was pretty blunt. In my experience, most male dancers don't pursue pointe training at all, so would not be able to perform it with such a high degree of skill). So I told her that the dancer was a woman, but the woman was androgynous.

"How you call this? An-dro-gyn-ous?"

"Yes. Androgynous."

It led me to think about dance in general, how girls from an early age are taught to move in an exceedingly light and delicate mannner, feminine to the extreme. They are also taught to starve their bodies, so that they don't develop a shape with many feminine attributes. Therefore...when a female dancer ceases to move in the typically stylized "feminine" manner traditional to ballet, if she begins to move with force and strength, she automatically becomes androgynous, because neither her movements nor her shape indicate "female." This phenomenon is completely unrelated to her own gender identity. It's simply a matter of gender presentation, which normally goes one way and confuses people when it goes another.

I also find it interesting that of all words I should be teaching people in Russia, "androgynous" is one of the first. I'm not out here and I'm not planning on coming out, but gender is something that seems to follow me. I'm one of the people who notices gender ambiguity in the world, and this means that I end up talking about it to unexpected people, even if I don't talk about its relevance to my personal life.

We didn't talk any more about androgyny, my housemate and I, we just watched the ballet. But I'm happy that one person in Russia now knows the English word for ambiguity in gender.

My inner awesome needs to come back now

Alright. It's been ages since I've posted here, largely because I've been on the road for six weeks and I've had more important things to do than let off personal rants. But starting today I have time off, so I'll rant and then I'll fix things, because that's what I need to do.

This whole year, I feel like I've been screwing up. I lost my job in Morocco. That was the economy, rather than me, but it started everything else. I got job offers with branches of my company in the US and in Russia. I unintentionally caused loads of confusion between the two because neither knew I was being recruited by the other and the US branch changed every piece of contact info I had for them right before I needed to get in touch and say I'd chosen Russia. My first trip through Russia, Mongolia, and China was rocky, and I just got some rather nasty feedbacks and a politely worded letter from my new boss saying that my next set of feedbacks should be significantly better or else. One of my bags was stolen on my latest trans-Siberian train ride. The IRS claims that I owe them money because they don't believe that I was legitimately working in a foreign country for most of last year. This is all in addition to personal shit. I'm wondering where the hell I went off track.

Time was, it was a given that I did everything and did everything well. When and where did that change? When did my competent, good-at-everything self turn into this person who keeps failing?

Part of the problem is that I try to be everything to everyone. I'm a natural introvert, and in many ways it's good for me to force myself to be normal and social, as I need to do in this job. But I seem to have mislaid an essential piece of myself in the process, and I need to get it back. First step is to get myself a new journal and pen. I haven't really written longhand in ages. I think I need to start doing it again. Second step is to meditate. I used to do it every day. Life worked better when I did. Third step is to figure out, well and truly, what it is I want out of life and how it is I need to get there. My current job is a stepping-stone, but it's not the place I really need to be. I'll finish out this tourist season, and I'll do it well even if only to prove a point. But then I need to move on.

I've started looking at grad schools, but only vaguely. I need to look more seriously now. I think I've finally settled on international development as the field I want to work in. I was thinking about fair trade before, but I think that development will give me broader scope. And having a more definite direction will be good for me. Two and a half years of constant travel should be enough to tide me over for a while. And when I travel next, it will be for my own self and my own projects. The service industry is no longer a place I want to be.

So that's the long-term plan. In the meantime, I need to learn everything about Russia that I didn't learn before, grovel to my boss, get a police report, and call the IRS. Because things may be screwed up, but it's in my power to fix them. And so I shall.

Much ado about almost something

Caution: Significant levels of late-night ruminations ahead, which may or may not make any sense at all. Read at your own risk. Feel free to turn back now.

I was tired hours ago, and I wanted to go to bed. But I kept thinking and forming phrases in my mind , and I knew that this evening would be my last night to myself for quite a while. So I'm here and I'm writing instead, about life, the universe, and everything, in a lengthy and possibly pointless reflection on several specific and nonspecific things.

Tomorrow I start my first trans-Siberian. I am, of course, nervous about this, because I'm always nervous about starting new trips. New trips in the sense of my job, of bits of organized travel that I haven't done yet, because obviously I want to do a good job and that comes in large part from knowing the territory beforehand. But also new trips in the sense of new journeys, a different part of the world for me and a new departure from the US and everything that forms part of my life there. I have to wander, this is a given. Exactly why, I'm not sure, but I know it's something fundamental that I have to do. Every time I leave, though, it makes me wonder a little more what my reception will be when I return. Will people still have a place for me in their lives, or will my place be filled with other things? Is it truly out of sight, out of mind? I can go months without seeing people I'm close to, but I still care about them just as much. I don't know if I inspire the same feelings or not. It's hard to maintain even friendships across long distances, to say nothing of romantic relationships. I try. Sometimes I fail miserably at both.

While in the US, I tried hard to see a lot of people. I managed to see almost everyone that I wanted to see, even if only briefly. But I always feel that I could have done more. People in DC I could have seen more often, as I was there for a while. People in Florida I scheduled so tightly that I sometimes missed them, or was horrifically late in seeing them, or saw them only far too briefly, or very occasionally missed them completely. I worry that many of my friends feel slighted, either because I was either constantly running around in Florida or constantly holed up in a computer cave in DC. I worry that my efforts, both here and in other areas, might have been counterproductive and in vain.

Sometimes I'm tempted to cut ties with everything. Start with a completely new slate somewhere, with neither past nor future to think about, no people to worry about. I want to go back to the Camino, when I felt completely free. I could easily do it, just disappear off the face of the earth for a while. The world is a big place, and I've only explored a small part of it. It's full of places that I could hide. But cutting ties with the life I've lived up to this point would hold its own set of problems. People I care about, people I love...I don't want to lose them. It's so hard for me to find people who are worth much of anything to me...most of the human race is entertaining, but very little more. People who are worth caring about are few and far between. People who aren't trying to own me in some way are even fewer.

For most of my life, there's been a constant struggle of trying to figure out where I stand in the world. Being strange made it hard for me to find friends as a child, though I could not for the life of me figure out what made me so different. I remember in elementary school wishing that I was pretty, because then maybe people might like me. Mostly, I wanted to be like everyone else. If being stupid and vapid meant that I might have friends, it seemed like a reasonable tradeoff. Impossible to make, but reasonable nonetheless. Later, I just wanted to leave the world. Possibly by meditating on top of a mountain somewhere. Possibly by doing something else.

I seem to have stopped at that thought there. Unsurprising, as it would have been a full stop in time.

But moving on. I'm still here, and I feel as though I need to justify my continued existence on this planet by doing something with it. I'm not a person who can just exist and be happy with a normal kind of life. Every time I try, I feel trapped. And I'm caught in a double bind, because in order to feel that I'm making any kind of progress I have to be moving around, but to finish and refine anything I need to be in one place. This is true of writing. This is true of photography. This is true of really almost everything. But I have trouble finding the balance. I would like to write something extraordinary. If this takes the form of fiction or creative nonfiction I don't care, but I need to write something that I'm proud of. I'm only inspired when I travel. I can only edit when I'm stationary. I would like to save the world in some manner. There are all sorts of things that need fixing. I'm still figuring out which Herculean task is mine, and how to go about doing it, and where I need to be. I would also like to have good people in my life. But I've always had the feeling that I was meant to walk alone. Now that I know what it's like to have friendships, I'm rather attached to them, but as I've said, relationships can be fragile and hard to maintain. Somehow I need to figure out what I'm doing here. And how to do it. And who to bring. Ideally, I'll have my girlfriend, my friends, a book or several, limitless opportunities to travel, and interesting projects that make a difference in the world. Inshallah that's what I'll be able to get.

So these are my disconnected thoughts for the evening. The questions swirling in the miasma of my mind. If you haven't followed this far I don't blame you; my mind takes circuitous paths and I haven't bothered to clear the underbrush. It's closing in on 3 in the morning now, and I have things to do tomorrow. continued preparations for work and life. Possibly, after writing all this, I'll be able to finally sleep. Or perchance, even to dream.