Dr. George Tiller was assassinated today.

I wish I had words.

All kinds of people are writing eloquently and profoundly about Dr Tiller's death.
My thoughts refuse to form those kinds of statements.
All I can come up with is a string of profanities, a line of "why" questions, and utter disbelief and shock.
I'm still stunned.



((For more eloquent statements and reflections, see: Cristina Page, Ann at Feministing, pretty much anything at Kansas Jackass, and former PPFA president, Gloria Feldt, at Salon.))



I received a text message from my friend Christene this morning, during my barista shift at my second job. It said, simply, "Dr george tiller - abortion doc in wichita - was killed this morning."
I stared at it, shocked. I assumed it was a sick joke. Or maybe she'd just read an old story about him being shot. He's been shot before. And he lived. He's Dr Tiller. He doesn't get killed. They've already tried.
The words tumbled out of my mouth as I read the text to my coworker. As I spoke, I called Christene. She said she'd just read it in the Wichita Eagle. That he'd been shot on his way into a church service.

I gathered tidbits from other friends via text for the rest of the day. That he'd been shot not outside, but INSIDE his church.
That the suspect had been apprehended in Gardner, KS. Just a short distance outside of Kansas City.
That the car was registered to someone who lived in Merriam, KS. A suburb of KC. About 10-15 minutes from me. A man who most likely has protested outside of the Planned Parenthood clinics here. Who is most likely pretty involved in the anti-choice movement HERE.




Dr Tiller was killed.
In Wichita, Kansas.
This is my turf.
I live a block from the Kansas state line.
I work in the reproductive health field in this region.
This is where I am.
Wichita's not exactly close, but it feels like it's my backyard.
This is where I am.
This is what I do.

And someone's been killed, in my backyard, for doing work in the same field I do work in.
Not just any someone.
Dr. George Tiller.
Golden boy of the pro-choice movement.
Woke up to death threats and pickets and protests almost every day.
Had been shot before. And lived.
Kept working, despite all of this, perhaps in spite of all of this, because he knew what it meant.


Without Dr Tiller, there will be no abortion providers between Denver and Overland Park, KS.
That's only part of what this means, on the broader level, for women. For Kansans. For all of us.

well, this complicates things.

last year, in july, i wrote this post, telling what was then my messy, mean, politically incorrect truth. in that post, i rejected the clear-cut version of survivorhood and queer identities - i.e. the insistence by both the CSA survivor community and the queer community that abuse could not, does not, will not ever cause a victim to "go gay." in that post, i stated my (then) truth that i am gay because i was abused.

i didn't say as much, but a big part of what i saw as that causal connection was the fact that i was abused by men and now have relationships with women. implying, of course, that i can't be with men because i was abused and raped by men.

but what if i discover memories of being abused by a woman, too?
what of my queer identity, then?
if so, i couldn't say, "i sleep with women because they're safer, because i have had violent and abusive experiences with men."
i couldn't say, "i trust women more because i have only been betrayed by men."
does it then go to the opposite extent, where i'm a lesbian because i was abused by a woman? that argument is usually used against gay men who were abused by other men. but i suppose it could apply here, too.


except, the thing is....i know that's not true. it doesn't feel true, or real. saying, "i'm a lesbian because i can't trust men, or picture myself being with someone of the same gender that so abused me," seems real, and a little bit true, still. but saying either, "i'm a lesbian because i was abused by a woman" or even "i'm heterosexual because i was abused by a woman" feels wrong. not because the latter is just 100% untrue, but because i don't think that experience really affected the development of my sexuality. it affects my sexuality, absolutely -- only one person has ever so commanded my attention that i don't fall into painful memories halfway through sex. i haven't been fully present for the majority of sexual acts with every other person i've ever been with. but it doesn't affect how i view my sexuality regarding the people i'm attracted to.
for this piece of the abusive puzzle, it doesn't connect. the two are completely unrelated.
but each of the other assaults? yes. they absolutely factor in to who i am attracted to.


does it make sense? no.
but is it true? yes.
it's true, and complicated, and even messier than i thought it was a year ago.
it's not a generalization, and this may very well not apply to the rest of the survivor community, but what's a community without individual truths? these are not the truths that the mainstream community wants to tell. hell, they aren't truths that i want to tell.
but it's a truth, and it's real, and in the inclusive survivor community i want to be a part of, individuals tell their full, messy, complicated, ugly truths.

filling voids and finding love (and so on)

a new blog i've been reading on a relatively regular basis: Blooming Lotus. faith is using this blog to document her process of healing from child abuse, and while it's sometimes a little painful to read, it's comforting in the familiarity of the content. and the places that i still can't talk about (despite the hypocrisy of my dedication to speaking the unspeakable), faith goes there. she talks about it. and for that, i am thankful and in awe.


recently, faith posted about searching for something to fill that void of being motherless. not "motherless" in the straightforward sense; faith had a woman to call 'mother,' as did the commenter who inspired this post. "motherless" in the sense that neither of these women's mothers acted motherly. neither of these women's mothers fulfilled that role. and so, both of these women have huge, gaping holes in their hearts where a mother's love should be.
it's incredibly sad to see someone with such a void.
it's incredibly painful to feel that camaraderie.


faith's post is specifically about trying to fill that void, and is something of a follow-up to this post, about wishing for another mother.
a mother do-over, if you will.

familiar? that's an understatement.



i've searched for a mother figure in my life for almost as long as i can remember. i wrote a story when i was in 2nd grade about my teacher, Mrs. Osmon, adopting me and taking me away from my family to live a better, happier life. i was 7 years old. (i'd also recently read Matilda, which may have had an impact on the mother figures i sought out. thanks, Roald Dahl.)
i went from Mrs Osmon to Miss Clark, my 4th grade teacher. from there, i clung to other teachers, always female, always with a maternal, loving air about them. it went on through high school and into college. i gave up on searching for that maternal figure for a year in college, when i'd given up on pretty much everything else. ...and then i went back to yearning for it.

for all my efforts and all the different maternal figures i'd tried to latch onto, none of them stuck. not one of the 26 or so women - teachers, coaches, professors, deans - i'd hoped to make into my 2nd mother stuck around. most of them, i pushed away, consciously or unconsciously. most of them, too, i pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled until they had to step away. what i thought i needed was someone to take care of me, to hold all of the wounded little parts for me. what i was really hoping for was someone to do the work for me, to mother me without the expectation that i'd do it for myself.
and maybe, if i'd been able to voice it or really ask for it, i could've gotten that when i first started looking for it at age 7 or 8. but by the time i was in high school and college, i needed to be adult enough to take care of myself...i didn't want to. and so i hoped and expected that these caring females that i clung to would take care of me for me.


long story short, in the middle of a huge storm of intense healing (and pain), i realized, in my heart, that i needed to take care of myself. that i needed to be my own mother. that i needed to take responsibility for myself and stop trying to make other maternal figures take responsibility for me.

i attribute this to an incredible twist of fate, or the timely return of karma, or something of some power well beyond my own: almost immediately after realizing and accepting that fact, i found that mother figure i'd always wanted and needed.
...in my boss, of all people.

she didn't take care of me in an unhealthy caretaking way, but she did (and does) nurture me and love me in exactly the way that i'd always craved. she sat with me through some of the worst memories, she made me laugh exactly when i needed to, she forced me to take responsibility for myself when i didn't want to, she let me nap on her couch in her house when i needed to be away from my roommates, she even drove with me halfway across the country when i moved away from new england. her amazing family, too, let me in and i came to love them as well, and i got to see what a real, loving family is like.

it feels like i've known her forever, but really, i've only known her for a little over a year and a half. in that year and a half, our relationship has evolved from employer to sorta-friend to mother to what it is now. i can't really explain it, but it's somewhere between and within maternal and one of the best friends i've ever had.


so, yeah. i have managed, somehow, to fill that void. at least, to fill it as much as it's going to be filled. there'll always be an empty spot where the woman who raised me should've been, and i grieve for that loss. but the rest of that emptiness, the vast expanse that needed to be filled with love? it's full. overflowing, sometimes, even.


i don't pretend this was anything i could've willed to happen. it happened because i got lucky, because the fates aligned, because whatever good karma i'd stocked up all came back in a rush, because some higher power allowed it to happen. and every time i talk to H or her wife or her kids, i feel that luck/karma/fate/higher power, and every time, i'm in awe of how incredible it feels to be a lot more loved and a little more complete.

sad, and true, and real

Melissa just posted "The Survivor Thread."


i maintain my linguistic issue with the term "survivor," because of the capital-S Survivor Story it implies, but in this case, i'm ok with using it.

because this thread over at Shakesville isn't about that mainstream idea about what survivors should look like and act like and be. this thread is about reality.

specifically, this reality:

And many of us who are survivors of repeat assaults will not speak of it; many of us will pick the "worst" one and talk about that in threads on assault, as if it's the only one. We do this for many reasons: We might feel embarrassed by being repeatedly victimized, as if it's indicative of a character flaw within ourselves; we might have trouble discussing multiple assaults without undermining what tenuous feeling of safety we have; we might have faced reactions of incredulity from people with whom we shared this information and thought we could trust; we might have been called liars or hysterics—accusations born of the silence about sexual assault.

Disbelief is the inevitable result of swimming in a culture which renders invisible the reality that enormous numbers of women—and men—have been sexually assaulted, many of them more than once.

as of the writing of this, her thread has been up for about 12 hours.
there are currently about 225 comments.
so many stories, so many stories within stories in conjunction with other stories.

it's powerful, and sad, and i don't know if i'll ever be able to read all of the stories in those 225 comments.
it's also true, and real, and for that reason, you really should go read it. if not all of it, at least part of it.
really.
go read it.

poems for survival

A Litany for Survival
Audre Lorde (in The Black Unicorn)

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak
we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

(via.)
also: listen here. (will play automatically)





and, of course:
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Even better, see her recite it herself:

and, 'cause i can't resist a link to this piece of beauty if i get a chance....Ben Harper's version:

if the L word were facebook...

because this is just too brilliant not to post....


Some genius (with the username stuntdouble) over on AfterEllen.com has translated The L Word episodes of Season 6 thus far into facebook news feeds.
One of the funniest things I've ever seen. (Only if you've seen the episodes will it make sense, though. Warning: spoilers in the following facebook news feeds.)


(see the original post here.)


And for the other brilliant installments:
Episode

Episode 6.4

Episode 6.3

Episode 6.2

Episode 6.1







Oh, and if I may, on a more serious note about season 6 of the L Word, a letter:

Dear Max Sweeney (and the clearly poor researchers of the L Word writing crew),

I'm not sure if they're pulling you through all of this bullshit for the sake of some really awful trans storyline (for now, I won't even delve into how poorly they've conveyed your transition on the show), but you, my dear, were lied to.
You claimed, in your rightful burst of anger in the clinic hallway, that "It was too late" and that you were 4 months along.
4 months, dear Max, means 16 weeks.
Past the first trimester, yes, and so you were beyond the limit for the common form of abortion - a vacuum aspiration. Those are generally only done up until 12 weeks. However, California's got pretty liberal abortion laws, and abortion clinics in the state will do the more difficult kind of abortion - dilation and evacuation - up at least through 20 weeks. The Planned Parenthood in San Diego, last I knew (which was about 5 or so years ago) was doing D&Es through at least the 22nd week. I presume, then, that a Planned Parenthood clinic in LA would have a similar policy, and would not have turned you away at 16 weeks.
No abortion clinic in California would turn a 16 week pregnancy away without at least a referral.

Now, a D&E is more involved procedure, and it does cost more. I'm not sure what kind of insurance you have as a -- what is it you do again? website designer? -- but if you had the funds to pay for top surgery, you've got the funds for a D&E.
If it was that you decided you wanted to keep the baby, or if it was that you decided it wasn't worth it to go through the D&E procedure, sure, I'd understand that plot line.
But NO, Max, it was NOT too late for you to get an abortion.

I'm disappointed in you, L Word writers. You did so well with the crisis pregnancy storyline a few seasons ago! What the fuck happened?


Oh, and for the record, I'm not sure if you were at a Planned Parenthood, Max, but most Planned Parenthood clinic staff around the country go through queer & trans sensitivity trainings. So, a receptionist or clinic assistant who was doing her job right would not have treated you so poorly.

this is the midwest?

In yet another hit to my east coast stereotypes of the midwest, I heard about this amazing protest that happened right here, about 15 minutes away from my apartment in Kansas City.


I've never really thought of Kansas as being gay-friendly. I knew the KC metro area was generally pretty liberal, at least as far as MO & KS go, but I would never have expected this to happen here.


A Shawnee Mission, KS high school was the target last week of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church (of GodHatesFags fame). Shawnee Mission East not only has a GSA, but, according to the KC Star article, they elected a gay homecoming king in 2007. (Horrors!)

Fred Phelps' group turned out 14. Including two small children.
They were met by counterprotesters, organized mostly by the incredible students of Shawnee Mission East High School.

450 of them.

Yes. That's in Kansas. There were 450 of them. That's 32x the number of people that WBC had.


To make things even better, they used the counterprotest as an opportunity to raise money for AIDS and cancer research. They had a goal of raising $250 for each minute that Phelps' group was out there. When the reporter talked to the student with the donation bucket, he said they'd so far been meeting that goal. I don't remember what the final number was, but it was a very substantial amount.


These students totally made my day.

welcome to kansas city, the midwestern leg of your trip.

i've been neglecting this little blog lately. oops.
things have been a little crazy, what with moving halfway across the country and all.

in fact, we almost didn't make it here at all. we came thisclose to death on I-90, just beyond the NY-PA border. we spun out, and ended up facing oncoming traffic. well past sundown. in what should've been travel-ban-worthy snowy weather. H, my invaluable travel buddy, claims we only spun around one and a half times (that's 540 degrees, if you're counting). i maintain that it had to have been way more than that. as the driver, i think that my version of the story trumps hers. in any case, it was absolutely terrifying.
makes me regret never doing donuts in safely abandoned parking lots when i was younger...
we miraculously didn't hit anything and got out of it alive...then crawled with the rest of the traffic over 2 miles of black ice to the next exit, where we slid into the first hotel and downed a shot of tequila each at the pub next door. (i should probably clarify: H downed a shot of tequila. i downed maybe a half shot, after dribbling the other half on the bar. i blame my lack of coordination on nervous energy from the spinout.)

if we'd taken our intended route - through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois - we probably would have died. luckily, the inordinate amount of money i paid for a moving company also afforded me an absolutely wonderful moving truck driver who told us terrifying tales of the awful conditions of I-70 (his route and our intended interstate). John, our driver, strongly advised us to take a different route.

never one to doubt a trucker, reroute we did. and so two massachusetts homos in a little blue car with a rainbow sticker on the back window drove, instead, through west virginia, rural kentucky, rural indiana, and rural illinois.
luckily, we both pass. H as a midwestern suburban mom, me as just plain het. we only got a few dirty looks from drivers with Jesus-fish on their back bumpers. not bad, given our route. and we only went about 300 miles out of our way. small price to pay for not spinning out off of a cliff en route, i suppose.



once we got to KC, we quickly found a really great local coffee shop (The Roasterie - not entirely fair trade/organic, but they've got some, and they're very invested in the local community, and they air roast their own beans). i still love dean's beans the best, and H sends me care packages consisting solely of their coffee. but it's good to have a local alternative.



before she left on a jet plane, H also introduced me to a friend of hers here in KC, who just added two super cute 8(?)month old babies to his family. twins - one boy & one girl. i've babysat for them once so far. i miss my babysittees in northampton, but these adorable babies are helping to ease the pain quite nicely.




i've been here for four weeks so far. i'm more homesick than i ever thought possible, but i love my job just as much as i thought i would. not quite a balance that i've struck yet, but it's on its way.
in the four weeks i've been here, i've learned more than my brain has the capacity to hold. the organization i work for bases their (successful) organizing strategy & tactics on the Midwest Academy's style of organizing. my new Bible is their activist manual. it lives on my bedside table. yes, i read it before going to sleep.

i've also learned an awful lot about Missouri politics.
like, for example:

goin' to kansas city...

in 7 days and less than 12 hours, I'll be hitting the road and on my way to my new home in Kansas City, MO.
not the first place i ever thought i'd move to.
and this is not what i envisioned happening when i finally found a place to call home, and a family i could call my own, but here it is. and as sad as it makes me to leave, it feels right.

i hired a moving company for this move, which feels really good. it's gonna cost me a TON of money (though only slightly more than it would've cost to rent a moving truck), so my opinion may change once i have to start paying off that bill, but for now, knowing that i won't actually have to lift these boxes that i'm packing (or, more accurately: thinking about packing) is an amazing feeling. highly recommended, if you can afford it.




this post, though, isn't going to be about the merits of hiring a moving company vs. self-service moves. this post is about home.
i wrote this in april of 2008, but it's still relevant today.

home is a lot of things. home is something you’re born into. home is something you find. home is something you stumble upon. home is always inside you. home is something you create and cultivate. home is the soil you till, and the act of tilling the soil. it’s a noun, and adjective, and a verb.
my sense of home is fragmented.
the wounded part of me fears it, knows, quite well, the danger of it. can feel only the lack of safety. it hates the idea of home and wants only to escape it. … home, for that piece of my self, is a simple, large black circle. a trap. a seemingly embracing, friendly shape, with ominous darkness filling the inside, entirely.
but there are other parts, too.
…
there’s the part that has found a home. one that’s everything a home should be – a safe physical location, relative financial security, a town and region that i love, and a huge community of women who truly care for and love me. a family, chosen/found/cultivated, that’s actually centered around real love and compassion. a family of mothers, sisters, friends. none related by blood. all related by heart.
family means love.
home is where your family is. home is where your heart finds its fullness. where your heart is at its fullest, overflowing with love. home is a (physical, emotional) dwelling, bursting at the seams with real love.

it's terrifying to me to leave that home, now that i've finally found it. this nest i've built is quite comfortable, and it's going to be quite uncomfortable to leave it behind.
but a very wise friend told me this:
"you didn't build this nest to stay curled up in it your whole life. you built it so you'll have something to come home to."

and, as always, she's right.
i look forward to coming back home. now that i've got somewhere to come home to.

victims, survivors, and everything in between

I don't know that I could articulate any of this better than Cara already has, so you should probably go read her post first.
I also don't think that my thoughts on any of this have settled into much of a cohesive post, so this will mostly be a stream-of-consciousness response / expansion on the coherent, articulate thoughts over at Cara's post.


I've talked about the troubling rhetoric around the terms "victim" and "survivor" before. That post, though, focuses more specifically on the trouble with the word "survivor," and the implications of that term and the universal "healing process" that it implies.
Cara's post, though, focuses a little more on the word "victim," and that side of the rhetoric. It's all part of a similar discussion, I think.

A little excerpt from Cara's post, to start it off:

I understand the desire by those who have been raped or abused to use the word “survivor” instead of “victim,” to take the focus away from what someone else did to them and gave them no choice about, to something positive that they themselves have accomplished. But let us be honest for a minute: is there more to it than that? Is there really something there that has to do with shame, with constant admonishments either directed specifically towards them or towards women everywhere, saying “don’t be a victim”? Is there a desire to get away from that embarrassing, horrible word? I tend to use the word “survivor” myself. And I have to wonder.

And if it’s about shame, about stepping away from “victim,” is there any way for there to not be a touch of self-blame in the reasoning?
.....
“Don’t be a victim.” “I won’t be a victim.” “Women always want to play the victim.”

The insult in “victim” is that victims are weak and helpless. Victims are whiners, attention-seekers, cry-babies. They want to dwell on the negative.

My first response to her post was a loud (out loud), "THANK YOU."
It's always unexpected, and so incredibly relieving, to hear other people making arguments along the same lines that I've been making...the arguments that I assume are n the margins, are unpopular. Of course, just the fact that the two of us (and some of her commenters) are saying the same kind of thing doesn't mean that it's not a marginal argument, but it does mean that I've got a little company here on the margins. And that's always a pleasant surprise.


Cara, and a couple of the people in her comments, put into words the other side of my problem with the rhetoric; they open the conversation up even further, beyond my old discussion of why "survivor" doesn't fit everyone and into why it is that "victim" is such a derisive term.
Lea, in the comments of cara's post:

There seems to be a time limit on how long people are comfortable with someone being a victim. It might just only be for a day, or a week, maybe even a few months, but it is never on the victimized woman’s terms. But I think that because so many women are not believed about their experiences with violence, that ‘victim’ becomes a powerful word of acknowledgment. It grants permission to be vulnerable, fragile, to feel ‘degraded’ if she needs to, to take time, to break under pressure if that is all she is able to do. Disparaging the identity of ‘victim’ silences us, it says “get over it and shut up”. People don’t want to hear the rawness, the complexity of violence, they want it in tidy packages that don’t challenge them, or demand any recognition or support.

This, I think, is another big part of why I have been, and still am, so resistant to the limited rhetoric of "surviving" sexual abuse and assault.


I risk getting too personal, too "lying on the couch talking about my mother," but I think the only way to start this off is to acknowledge where my investment in this whole discussion comes from.

heh.

This did actually happen to me (with the shorter, more everyday version of the word) in the Scrabble game played at my moms' house this Thanksgiving.
Come to think of it, this has happened in a lot of Scrabble games I've played...is it because I'm gay?

(click image to go to original comic at xkcd.com)

Related: did you know that the airport code for Charlotte Douglass International Airport is CLT?
This makes me giggle every time I look at my ticket from last weekend, which had me stop in Charlotte on my way to Kansas City.


Yes, I have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old boy. And?

Ann Coulter's Jaw Wired Shut

isn't it ironic? don't you think?

Despite how inhumanly hateful she is, I will not say that I'm happy that Ann Coulter was injured so badly in a fall that her jaw is now wired shut. (As an aside, WTF is it with the NYPost's blurb about this calling her a "leggy reactionary"? She's a hateful asshole, and the "reactionary" label is accurate, but what does the length of her legs have to do with that?)

For the most part, I'm in agreement with Rachel that a woman being hurt so badly that she is silenced is not funny. Especially before the cause of the injury was revealed. A reaction of "haha, bitch deserved it" to this news is absolutely inappropriate here.


However, that said, I'll admit that I did have the slightest tinge of schadenfreude.
And if anyone is ever unsure about or having a hard time understanding the definition of "irony" (Alanis Morissette, I'm lookin' at you), this should be cited as the epitome of all things ironic.

the ignorance, it hurts

I really should stop reading crazyface Steve Hickey's blog. The election's over, we beat him & VYFL decisively, and I have no real reason to keep tabs on the opposition. (I'm pretty sure that most of the hits to his blog come from SDCHF folks, anyway.)

For the most part, his ranting doesn't get under my skin. Mostly, it's harmless, far-far-far-right complaints about the "abortion industry" or how Obama isn't his president. Ridiculous. That stuff is easy to just roll my eyes at and move on to more interesting news and such online. When he makes personal attacks though, it gets to me. (like attacking me, or our campaign manager, or one of our field organizers, or our very brave spokesperson.) It also gets under my skin when his rants go past that line of "ridiculous" and far into the realm of "offensive."
The crap that he posted today is one of those offensive things.
I hesitate to link to him, because I don't particularly want him re-finding my blog and talking about how "hurt" and "angry" I am, and I'd rather avoid him repeating his offer of financial assistance for a therapy session. But here goes, anyway.

the title of his post:
SD abortion law would've stopped British father from raping his daughters for 30 years.
You can probably guess where this one is going.
A horrific story came out of Britain today. A man raped his daughters for years and years and years. The failure here is in the system; nobody asked the questions that needed to be asked, nobody reported things that they were mandated to report, and nobody looked into allegations of incestuous rape.
Crazypants Steve Hickey, though, is somehow...blaming Planned Parenthood? Or the potential Planned Parenthood? The imaginary one that supposedly "wouldn't do anything" if this scenario happened in South Dakota.


It's exhausting, really, continuing to argue for common sense and a realistic picture of the world, in this question.
But here I go again, briefly.


Banning abortion will not increase reports of rape, nor will it fix the broken system that mishandles almost every rape case that comes before it.
Here's why:
You can't scare victims into reporting their attacks.
And also because: Denial of reproductive health care in order to force rape reports is simply cruel.



So please, please, please. STOP already.

south dakota 2008, the conclusion (a little overdue...)

It happened three weeks ago, so this is old news, but just for the record: yes, we did win South Dakota.
Easily.
Nobody thought we would -- hell, at the beginning of this fall, I was pretty sure there was a good chance we'd lose. But I, and everyone else, underestimated both the Campaign for Healthy Families and the state of South Dakota.
We identified and turned out a TON of voters for our side, winning by almost 40,000 votes. In South Dakota, that comes out to a ten point lead. Yeah. We pretty much kicked ass.

We ran an incredible field campaign, and our field organizers and volunteers and the rest of the campaign staff worked their hands to the bone to get this win.
Victory night couldn't have been sweeter. We watched the numbers roll in on SD's secretary of state website, refreshing the page about every 45 seconds, and as they came in, I kept waiting for them to turn against us. I knew we were probably going to win, but I kept expecting the other side to pull something, just like I expected the Republicans to pull something in the presidential election. But they didn't. The numbers held. The margin stayed at 55-45 the entire night.
First, my friends and I celebrated Obama's win. But then we remained tense, watching the numbers and waiting for the official results to be called.
Then, when the AP finally called our race, the campaign celebrated our sweet, righteous, well-deserved and necessary - and decisive win.



We won because South Dakotans made it clear to the country that government has no place in their family's medical decisions.
We won because it turns out that, surprise surprise, South Dakotans do in fact trust women and their families to make their own decisions.
We won because it's what had to happen.
And, of course, we won because our field campaign was tight, well-run, well-targeted, and actually focused on real voter contact, unlike VYFL.

((VYFL, of course, is not listening to the state's voters and giving up. We didn't really expect them to. I, for one, was hopeful, but I knew it wasn't a realistic hope. I don't expect them back in 2010 -- what would be the point with an Obama presidency and Obama nominees replacing the impending retirees on the Supreme Court? My guess is they'll wait until 2012, when Obama's up for reelection, and bank on the hopes of an anti-choice Republican presidential candidate.))

If you want to know why VYFL lost, here it is:

s.d. campaign part two...

So I'm back in Sioux Falls. I'm so, so beyond happy to be back. As much as I love my little cafe in Florence, and as much as I miss my noho family, this place feels like exactly where I need to be right now. I flew back into Sioux Falls late Saturday night..and United promptly lost my luggage. It came the next day, thankfully. But not until after a late night wal mart run (I know, I know, there was nowhere else to go!) for underwear. Yep.

It's been wonderful to be back. I won't lie; part of me really does regret not taking this full time job back in July.


We spent all of today in Huron, SD, about 2 hours northwest of Sioux Falls. We canvassed for about 8 hours today. I'm exhausted.
It was a pretty successful canvass, though!
A few highlights, categorized appropriately...


what the eff?
This was by far the most disturbing part of my day. It had nothing to do with the campaign, really. Which makes it slightly better, I suppose?
I was harassed and assaulted by an 8 year old boy.
I know - already, "what the eff?," right?
As I was walking to my last house (under the "heart sinking" category), I walked past a playground in a small park, where four 8 to 10 year old boys were playing. One called out to me, "Hey girl! Hey! Girl!" When I looked over, he pointed to his friend and said, "this boy has a crush on you!" I shook my head and walked on to the house. The boy with a crush kept sticking up his middle finger at me. I ignored him.
As I was leaving and heading toward the park to wait for my ride to my next canvass location, Crush Boy called out to me, "Hey! Hey Girl! I want to have sex with you!"
Again, I ignored him, and headed toward one of the benches. I called the field director, just to have someone on the phone while I waited, so I wasn't alone. She'd just picked up the phone and said hello when Crush Boy runs over to me, says, "Hey! I want to fuck you!" .... and threw a handful of the wood chips from the playground in my face.
I didn't really know what to do. I've never had experience dealing with that situation. So I brushed off the wood chips, sat down by the water, and told my friend what was going on.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them getting closer to me, and so I kept an eye on them.
But Crush Boy moved quickly. Next thing I knew, he was behind me, pulling back the neck of my shirt, and stuffing wood chips down my shirt. Then he ran away with his friends, back to the playground.
I screamed after him: "What the hell is wrong with you?!" I mean, really. Who does that?

As I was walking away, back toward where I came from in hopes of meeting my ride a little further down the street, Crush Boy grabbed his crotch in my direction. And humped the air.

Keep in mind that Crush Boy is probably 8 years old.

Good lord.


the Heart Sinking and Heartwarming after the jump.

i <3 south dakota.

that is not something i ever expected to use as a title to a post.

but there it is.

i'm currently at the airport, waiting for my flight to board so I can be on my way back to Sioux Falls to work for SDCHF for the final push before and through the election. (13 days to go!)


while i wait, i'm going to post this video. you should probably watch it. and then send some money the way of SDCHF. if you're not in south dakota, it's one of the best ways to support the campaign.

because even though this fight is on the ground in South Dakota, and even though the rest of the nation is just now starting to slowly take notice, this isn't just about South Dakota.
if this passes, it will be a direct threat to Roe. the VYFL people are (inconsistently) trying to convince folks that Measure 11, the abortion ban, can coexist with Roe, but that's just absurd. Measure 11 is absolutely unconstitutional.
the majority on the Supreme Court right now is absolutely not undeniably in favour of Roe. our swing vote, Kennedy, wrote the majority opinion in the awful Federal Abortion Ban decision. we could very well lose it.


this is about the women in South Dakota. and this is about the women in every other state in the country. and this is about you. and your rights.


watch this video. and donate now.

reporting rape and abuse

pastor steve hickey, an avid member of the opposition here in sioux falls, wrote about me on his blog last week. he named me as the "gal" coming in to south dakota from massachusetts, and called me an "angry, hurt, anti-life young person." i have no idea how he got to my blog, but i do give him credit, at least, for reading all the way through my post. (even if it does creep me out a little to have someone like him know that part of my life.)

at the end of my post about coming out to south dakota, i explained why my situation made me particularly empathetic to the victims of sexual violence that may need real access to the full gamut of reproductive health care -- which, yes, includes abortion.
Steve Hickey doesn't think that women, like me, who've been victims of rape or incest should have access to this service (he calls it babykilling, of course).
he also seems to believe that every single woman who's been a victim should be forced to report their attack. which means, bringing it back home to me, that he thinks i should have been forced to report my rape(s).
he links to a woman, Dianne Heynen, who, after accusing Planned Parenthood of wanting rapists to go free (a logical accusation for an organization that promotes women's rights...), claims that reporting rape is important, if not essential, to healing.

Dianne Heynen, my dear, you are wrong.

reporting rape is not essential to healing.
reporting rape is not important to every person's individual, unique healing process.
reporting rape can, in fact, be downright detrimental to healing.

if a woman chooses, with her own agency, to report her rape, then yes, it is a powerful tool of healing.
if a woman is forced into reporting her rape, into rehashing every ugly detail of every aspect of her violation? if it's not her choice, if she has no agency? that is not healing. that will only make things worse. that is repeating the violation -- forcing her to do something that she would not have willingly done. force at worst, coercion at best. this is not empowerment, nor is it helpful for any kind of healing, no matter how you look at it.

if i would've reported my rape, i would've been laughed out of the police station.
if i would've reported my abuse, i would have lost my family a full 7 years before i chose to cut my family out of my life. i would've lost my family long before i was ready or able to survive without them.
not reporting my rape or my abuse to the state saved my life. not reporting my violations is what enabled me to get to the point i'm at right now, to the point of calling myself a survivor.

i know myself and my healing process well enough to know that a report of the rape would make things a million times worse.
i know that by looking at myself, and i know that by looking at what was said to me, and i know that by knowing the laws that govern nonconsensual sexual relationships.


introspection:

s.d. campaign, day 1

there may or may not be an update every day. probably not. but today was kinda a big day, being the first (and only) full day of PP's Live Action Camp, so i'll do a little overview of the highlights.


-first was sign-making for the visibility that we did at a fairly busy intersection in downtown Sioux Falls. but wait. more importantly, what came before that:
coffee, from Black Sheep Coffee, the coffee shop that's pretty much right next door to the campaign HQ. they roast their own, and not all of their beans are fair trade, but at least some are. independent coffee house, so it's not shitty coffee like starbucks. i also had a soy latte later, which is my drink of choice, and what i'm most picky about. it wasn't the best i've ever had (the best is a tie between the ones i make and the one i got at The Buttery in boston), but it was pretty good. whoever picked that spot for campaign hq is a genius, and i would like to give them a huge hug.

-the visibility went well. more supporters than not, and only a few rude comments or hand gestures. far less than the supportive honks and thumbs-ups that we got. very encouraging way to start the day...even if we did leave the corner with numb hands and sorta hoarse voices.

-lunch, then phonebanking. phone banking was good, and it actually might be my favourite campaign activity.
it was great, until Mr. Jared.
Jared was a 33 year old male, registered Independent.
at first, he seemed unsure about the measure, so i launched into an explanation. he had intelligent questions that seemed based in simple uncertainty and a lack of information. i answered all of his questions the best i could, and i made a ton of really stellar points.
turns out, though, he was on the other side the whole time. or, at least, that's my best guess. he said or implied something about babies being more important than the woman's health. he talked about the "greater good" -- basically, telling these women whose circumstances aren't covered by this ban to suck it up and deal, 'cause overall, it's "saving more babies." he claimed, at the end, that our conversation had not only cemented his decision to vote for this abortion ban, but that he saw now that he needed to spend his time working against our campaign.
Mr. Jared is a douchebag.
I wasted 15 effing minutes on him.

-speaking of antis, i'm famous. an anti-choice pastor here in Sioux Falls who's pretty well-known actually mentioned me, by name, linking here, on his blog.
he called me an "angry, hurt, anti-life young person."
cute.
he has compassion for me, supposedly, which...is nice, i guess?
i'm not gonna link to him, he doesn't deserve that. but...there'll be something later about his claim that all victims should be required to report rape because it's "good for the healing process." or something.
because it's not true, but i've not got the time or energy for that post yet.

-after phone banking was canvassing. sorta successful. the supporter houses i found were full of more than one supporter, so that boosted my numbers. but it was long, and i was tired, and the houses were far apart. however, everyone was very nice. i even met a republican man who's leaning toward voting no, and is also definitely voting for Obama on the 4th. he's sick of Bush. and he thanked us for getting out there and doing what we could to make change we saw was needed. very sweet. i liked him.


and now, it's about 10:30pm on my birthday, and i'm going to bed. for some well-deserved sleep.

the south dakota post.

edited to add, 9/27/08:
Below is the post I wrote before I headed out here, in which I question CHF's strategies in not focusing or really talking about (from what I could tell) the so-called rape/incest "exception."
Now that I've spent a day and a half with the campaign (more about that soon), I want to add this: I get now why the campaign's not focusing on the bureaucratic b.s. of the rape/incest "exception." I should've known they had good reason, and they do. I've never really been great at "strategy," because I'm not really stoked about using messages that I see as missing anything. I understand why they're used, and I'll use them without complaint, but in my ideal world (which is, clearly, not reality), I'd be able to use the "abortion as basic repro health care as a human right" message. but i can't use that here, and I get that.
That said, this is the campaign's actual stance on the rape/incest so-called "exception," which I didn't understand when i first wrote this post:
The way the measure is worded creates an awful lot of bureaucratic red tape. Red tape that victims shouldn't be forced to find their way through. Reporting rape is not always in the best interests of the victim. It also, as with most rape laws, is really restrictive, and it'd require victims to fit a very specific set of circumstances to really "count" as victims. which is, obvi, bullshit.

The reason it's not the main message is this: SD voters are more compassionate to women with certain health problems not covered by these so-called "exceptions" than they are to rape victims, mostly because they believe that required reporting of rape will automatically mean more rapists in jail. It's an understandable belief, and one that a whole lot of americans share. It'd be great if it were true, and it'd be great if prison was really the best deterrent for sexual violence. But it's not. However, this isn't really the fight that the campaign is fighting right now, so it makes sense that combating that faulty view of rape law and the state's role in rape prosecution isn't a focus of the campaign.


That said, on to the original post.....

for the record...

• Sarah Palin as potential VP (i.e. president when mccain dies two days into office) terrifies me. Tina Fey, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the clueless Alaskan governor, however, is a genius.


• Like Cara, I'm staying optimistic that Obama will win. Mostly because it's unfathomable to me that he won't. And I don't wanna have take part in that mass exodus to Canada on November 5th. (Although I won't lie; I'll have my passport handy while watching election results come in.)


• Thinking about the economy makes my head hurt. And it makes me sad for what it might mean for my little baby cafe. So I'm not going to think about it. For tonight, at least.


• I may be watching election results come in somewhere in South Dakota, if things go as planned. I turned down a full-time campaign (read: obsession-inducing, inevitably unhealthy) job with the SD Campaign for Healthy Families, but I'm still invested in the outcome of election day out there. I'm still looking for funding for a second volunteer trip out there for the couple weeks leading up to the election (contact me if you want to fund me yourself), but I've got one trip planned and booked. I'll be heading out September 26th (the day before my birthday!), spending a week and a half with the campaign, canvassing like my life depends on it ('cause really, it kinda does), developing a charming midwestern accent (don'chaknow?), and heading back to western mass on October 6th. Wish me luck! In the meantime, watch this new ad from SDCHF:

And my biggest wish, as of 8:30pm tonight, is to explain to this Vote Yes for Life woman, Janet Folger, what it's really like to be a victim/survivor of rape and incest. Because she so, so, so clearly does not understand. And in my optimistic state, I need to believe that if she understood, she wouldn't be making this absurd speech: