Aslaug's Axe Shed

An old friend of mine just popped up on facebook today, happily sharing with me a videoclip from CNN, telling the story of how transgendered students at the University of South Florida were now being given a special dorm, where no one would be able to give them a hard time anymore.

My friend was happy. He thought I would be pleased to see this, and he said “I guess this means we now live in the 21st century”.

I wanted to burst out in tears, and let me make this perfectly clear, they would not be tears of joy.

What my friend didn’t consider, and what many others no doubt won’t consider, is that this is nothing but segregation by another name.

Try exchanging the word “transgender” with “African American” or even “gay”. Now imagine that the story had broken that USF had made a special dorm for African American students, where no one would bother them, because they’d only be amongst their own kind. Or what about gay students.

Imagine the outrage. Imagine the uproar. Imagine the righteous anger that would now be directed at USF from all directions.

But because this is about people with gender dysphoria, it’s seen as a kindness and an act of decency. A way of helping these poor, downtrodden students who are being treated badly by their peers.

How about this for a solution instead:

Instead of making this Apartheid-policy come to pass, USF spends the time and money on an information campaign on campus about what gender identity disorder actually is, and then makes a clear policy stating that anyone caught in the act of harassing someone with gender identity disorder, will face disciplinary actions up to and including permanent expulsion, just as if they were caught harassing anyone in a wheelchair or similar. They could have spent the time, effort and money to set up help-groups and possibly a school hotline for people belonging to all minorities, who felt harassed, and made it clear that there would be staff available to help with such cases.

But no, USF found it better to create a special building, where all the transgendered students can be placed, all nicely bundled together where everyone knows where they are. Very handy. That way, other students … the great majority who don’t want to be subjected to the weird boys in skirts and the ugly chicks without makeup who tie in their breasts, can conveniently avoid them.

And then they have the fucking audacity to present this as a kindness to the transgendered students.

What saddened me most, were the interviews. Non-transgendered students were interviewed, making their transphobia plainly clear, with statements such as “I’d find it weird and I’d probably find it a little disgusting” and similar. And then a transgendered student was asked, practically gushing about how great it was that this special dorm was now made available.

When I went through university, everyone I met came to know my situation one way or another. As my dearest friend Erica has said to me so many times, “you force people to have an opinion”, and I consider that a great badge of honour. What USF is doing is relieving people from the unpleasantness of forming an opinion based on facts, instead allowing them to perpetuate falsehoods and lies. How? By giving them the option to not interact with people outside of class that they find “disgusting”. But life is not about choosing what situations we are put in, and as an institution of learning, it should be USF’s policy to help diminish hatred and falsehoods, and to help spread understanding and tolerance.

Back in the day, when I was going through university, I had my surgery between my first and second years. I had nothing but support from staff and peers. In all of the five years I was there, only one or two students showed disgust or loathing towards me, and those students were literally frozen out of the group by everyone else.

I know for a fact that someone who openly spoke badly about me in front of some of my fellow students was humiliated and torn so badly to shreds verbally by those who heard him that he never opened his mouth about me again, in the three remaining years that he was there. How do I know this? Because the students who DID tear him to shreds came to me afterwards and had the decency to tell me that it had happened. It was one of the happiest days of my years at that learning institution, because that day I felt that I wasn’t alone, and that others would stand up for me if I wasn’t there to do it myself. It made me feel welcome and part of a group. Had this been at USF with the present policy in place, chances are I would not have been a part of that group. Why? Because when you are in transition, and suffering from gender dysphoria, you are insecure enough as it is. You don’t need to be separated and segregated and made to feel ANY more different than you already do. It’s not only counterproductive. It’s downright dangerous. What transgendered people need most of all, in social terms, is to know that there are people who don’t hate them, who actually think they are alright and who will accept them completely for who they are. Yes, there will always be assholes and haters out there, but further pandering to THEIR hatred and loathsome phobia does not help people in a terrible, tragic and exceptionally vulnerable position.

In my honest opinion, the story my old friend shared with me, is a travesty. I know he did it with the best of intentions, and that he meant to share it as a positive story of someone doing something to help transgendered people out, and I can easily understand how he could see this story as such. For someone who hasn’t walked a mile in my shoes or in the shoes of someone else in this situation, how could it not be perceived as such?

But here is something I want you all to consider: Let’s play a little game, and create an example here.

A student at USF … let’s call this student Jake for the sake of argument … suffers from gender dysphoria. While the student in question is called Jake by everyone, who doesn’t know what is going on, Jake is in fact transgendered and in the earliest stages of treatment. Jake’s roommate, John, does not know what Jake is going through, but finds out when Jake decides to come clean about it.

John flips out six ways from Sunday, and reveals himself to be rabidly transphobic. He throws every conceivable slur at Jake, kicks up a shitstorm the likes of which we cannot rightly imagine, and storms out of the room, loudly proclaiming to the whole dorm, that he needs to throw up and that he’s been living with a disgusting tranny queer.

Back in the room, Jake is devastated … no less so when every other person living in the dorm either stares through the door to see the weird monstrosity that John just fled from, or subsequently refuses to have any kind of contact at all.

You think I’m being overly dramatic? Ask eight or nine out of ten teenaged transsexuals and they will tell you of experiences JUST like this one, with friends and family. I have heard them … not from a friend of a friend of a friend. But directly from the people who experienced it. And I myself experienced friends who reacted just like that to me. Old friends who told me to never show my disgusting self around them again. Who told me flat out that they didn’t trust I wouldn’t make a frontal attack on their rears if they turned their backs … however idiotic that may sound.

But back to the example here.

Jake goes to the school administration. Obviously, living with John is no longer an option in any way, shape or form.

What does USF do?

A: Summon John to a meeting, informing him that he is now on probation and that any further bad behaviour on his part will lead to immediate expulsion, and then find Jake a single room somewhere else on Campus (and some counselling for the dreadful experience).

B: Ship Jake off to a special dorm where other, likeminded people are concentrated.

Obviously, option B is now in effect at USF.

Who’s being punished now?

Look, I am not saying that it is easy to live a life with gender dysphoria. I of all people know it is very, very hard at times. And I am not saying that everything would be solved by simply moving Jake to a single room somewhere else. But concentrating people with a specific disability in one place on campus singles them out in a way that is COMPLETELY unacceptable.

What do you think the sign on the dorm wall said in that videoclip?

“Gay St.”

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I humbly submit to thee, the question of HOW FUCKING LONG you think it will be before that dorm-building is called “Trannytown” or “Shemale City” or something worse. Because those who want to hate and who want to single people like me out, are now allowed to.

Good Gods, this would scare the living daylights out of me if I was attending USF, and I hadn’t told anyone I was transgendered.

“Oh my Gods, if I say anything, they’ll tell me to pack my bags and send me over to THAT building. Please, please don’t let that happen …”

And this all begs the question, what will happen when these kids are done with college? What will they do  then? Should they go find a special transgender apartment complex to live in then, with all the other transgender people out there? Go to a special transgender shopping centre for all their daily needs? Special transgender hairdressers, doctors, car-dealers, you name it?

WE ARE A PART OF THIS WORLD. We should not be made to hide away. We should be treated like everyone else, dammit!

I would be looking for a transfer to another university if I attended USF and I was transgendered.

They might as well have painted a bullseye on my face and given all the Fred Phelps’s in America a scoped hunting rifle.

Yes, verily, I say onto thee, my faithful congregati … erhh … let me start that one over.

*slaps self with large, slightly smelly and entirely deceased fish*

OPTIMUS PRIME DIED FOR YOUR SINS … but watching him come back to kick Megatron’s ass, tear the rotten git’s head off WITH spinal cord attached, and cleave aforementioned head with a humongous battleaxe, was, quite frankly, glorious!

So there! Pseudoreligion done for the day. But I swear, the only two men … or at least males … on planet earth that can -really- make me sigh rather wistfully, is Michael Fassbender (and that’s platonic anyway, let’s face it, the man is a walking work of art), and Optimus Prime (who is entirely unrealistic, twenty feet tall and made of metal).

Ah well, I’ve now been strange, now it’s time for me to be serious for a little bit.

I’ve got a bit of work-talk to do. I’ve now been working for Arvato, a subsidiary of Microsoft, here in Ireland for exactly four months. Or rather, tomorrow it will be exactly four months. One third of a year. By all accounts, I am still very new to this job, which I admit is incredibly complex and involves a LOT of skills that one can only really learn through practice and trial and error.

However, a lot of those skills, in order for you to be successful, must be applied with something I am learning that I have in full measure, namely good manners. I am dealing, after all, with people who pay a lot of money for a service. At times … a LOT of money. At times, it’s a job where you have to work very fast, and you need to be able to accomodate demanding people’s wishes, even if it’s incredibly inconvenient for you.

It can be very rewarding. Having a partner (the technical term for the middlemen with whom we do business), tell me “Thanks Joan, you’re a STAR, you’ve made my day!” can make you feel like you’re on top of the world. And yes, that happened today. On the other hand, at times, you end up with a case where you feel utterly helpless.

Please get me right. There’s nothing I want more, than to leave the partners I talk to happy and content after they’re done dealing with me. If they end up with a feeling that the agent who took care of their case did a damned good job and did everything she could to make sure the case was handled swiftly and professionally, then I’ve done my job. But at times … circumstances conspire to make it impossible. Not because anyone does anything wrong, but simply because a problem might be incredibly complicated.

And that’s where I have learned something.

I’m probably too nice.

Combined with the fact that I am still as new in the job as I am, that has led to a bad situation. I am unable to give any details about the cases I work on, as I am sure you all understand, but suffice to say I have had a case for five weeks now. Normally, we have to close our cases within 48 hours of them being opened. This case, however, has just become a nightmare for everyone who has gotten involved with it. And not because people haven’t tried their hardest. Everyone has gone out of their way to try to solve this, but it has just been very difficult.

I’m sure there are situations in EVERY job, in EVERY line of work, where such things might occur. However, as I have had to be the bearer of bad news between the various people working on it on both ends, I eventually ended up getting so frustrated, that I snapped at some very hardworking colleagues. I said some pretty stupid things.

I’ve felt bad about it ever since, and today, I actually contacted their boss to make a formal apology for it. He was called away, but I will try again tomorrow. Fortunately, one guy out there (hi Josh), has been an absolute star and backed me up, saying that in his mind, I’ve been the soul of professionalism (those were his words, not mine), and that he would have reacted the same way if he had been in my position. It feels good to know that I haven’t made anyone too angry with me, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get a hold of Josh’s boss tomorrow anyway, and still make that formal apology. It is the right thing to do, and so I will.

I think it’s good that I have a vacation coming up next week. Not that I’m going anywhere (I’ll be spending that time here in Dublin, looking for a new place to live and visiting some of the many museums I haven’t really had time to go to yet … Guinness brewery here I *hic* come …)

On a last note, for those of you still following my stories, “Working title: Rider” is up to three chapters (almost done with the third one, anyway). I know that sounds like I haven’t gotten much writing done, but remember, I didn’t want to force this.

I realize a lot of you don’t read my stuff anymore. I hope maybe some of you would be interested in giving this one a chance. It’s different at least.

Till next time

Yesterday, New York became the sixth and most populous state in the United States to allow same-sex marriage. It happened with a bipartisan majority, and it happened in exactly the way I have been a proponent of for years … namely by telling religious communities “If you don’t want to marry a couple, you are entitled to say no”. That way, no one is forced into anything they find personally offensive, but people will at least know publicly, whether a religious community supports homophobia or not.

Kudos to New York’s lawmakers for having the guts, and particularly to the Republicans who went against their party’s line of dividing people into first- and second-class citizens. Good on them. Let the books show, in all perpetuity, that they were brave enough to stand on the right side of history.

But this is not about gay rights directly. It is about religious rights. Not my rights, belonging to a tiny religious minority, but actually about the rights of large, well known religions.

It is in part sparked by an angry exchange I had with a colleague a few days ago, and in part sparked by something I see increasingly frequently online.

First things first: The angry argument with my colleague. It started out with her pointing out a case from Denmark, where a young girl from the baltics, nineteen years of age, had been kidnapped and literally forced into sexual slavery in a brothel in Denmark for a week. Not long, you might say, but when the details of the story broke, they were absolutely atrocious. I doubt most people would have survived or at least kept their sanity intact if they had to endure what that poor girl went through for a week. I was as shocked and appalled as the next person, and my first words were “I hope whoever is behind this gets a very severe sentence in court”.

My colleague put, what I thought was a somewhat overbearing expression on her face, and said “It’s Denmark, no way he’ll get punished properly. Look at that recent case of child abuse.”

She was referring to one of the most horrendous cases of systematized child abuse to ever surface in Denmark. A case which ended recently, with two parents of a number of children, being convicted for crimes so awful I can’t even begin to describe my disgust at it. The father was sentenced to indefinite medical incarceration. This is the hardest sentence you can get in Denmark, as it is literally “indefinite”. Life in prison means sixteen years. Medical incarceration usually means either until you’re dead, or until you’re so old and physically and mentally feeble, that you won’t pose any danger to society anymore. It means daily treatment with psychopharamceutical drugs, and constant screenings by psychiatrists. It is what most really hardcore criminals dread the most in Denmark, and the father in this case was quoted for saying he would accept a life sentence without appealing it, but he was terrified at the prospect of medical incarceration.

The mother was convicted on a lesser number of charges, but still got four years in the slammer.

She actually accepted her sentence, and only appealed because of a technicality which meant that since her husband appealed, she -had- to as well. She has made it public that she found her sentence to be both right and fair.

Where am I getting with this? My colleague was saying that she found these sentences to be too mild. But one of the two was the hardest sentence Danish law allows, and the other was still four years in prison, for a much less aggravating list of charges. I asked her in what world that could ever be construed as a “mild” sentencing and she conceded that in the case of the father, it was the right sentence. But not in the case of the mother. I asked what she based that on, and she went on to say she felt the mother should have taken the children and left.

I asked her how. She openly said “I don’t know. But she should have”. So I went on to tell her that I found her ideas to be both dangerous and frightening. In a society ruled by law, a person cannot be convicted on the emotional instability of Vox Populi, but only based on hard evidence in a court of law. She kept arguing that she simply felt the mother got off too lightly, and I kept pointing out to her that while she might feel that was the case, I would like to see her rational argument, her proof and her legal justification for harsher sentences under the law.

In the end, she stormed off in a rage.

Later, she tried to explain to me that she felt I hadn’t respected her opinions and that she had been personally insulted by that. If she was looking for an apology, she didn’t get one. I told her, flat out, that I respected her right to have a different opinion than me, but that I would not respect the opinion itself, because if I did, I would bar myself from disagreeing with her. She’s entitled to her opinion, but I am just as entitled to say I think her opinions are dangerous and that if we were to go with her system of justice, we would suspend Habeas Corpus, and simply hand out sentences willy nilly, based on how angry people got over any given case.

And then I told her I thought it best to end the debate then and there, because I did not see us agreeing on this issue.

What does this have to do with what this whole thing started out with, you ask? I’ll tell you. This argument reminded me of how important the right to disagree is, and how important it is to not always kowtow to politeness. That sometimes, you have to say that while you acknowledge someone’s right to hold different opinions than you, you in return maintain the right to speak up against that opinion.

I know it is politically incorrect, and I don’t give a rats arse, to be honest with you. It is the way I am, take it or leave it.

The second part of this story, comes from the Internet. It deals with angry people, loudly proclaiming that religious intolerance is the bane of all that is good in this world.

I think that is oversimplifying things rather dramatically, but I’ll go along insofar as I too think that religious fundamentalism and intolerance is a great problem and a huge source of societal friction and intolerance. So far I agree.

But the next argument, with increasing frequency, is “all religion is bad”, closely followed by “All religion is superstition”, and then concluded by “all believers in any faith of any kind are mentally inferior to atheists and downright stupid”.

Aaaand the film just broke in Joan’s camera. *sigh*

I hate having to waste time and effort on people who generalize that badly yet again, but if I spend five minutes searching the internet, I can find a list of important, -highly- intelligent and talented people of faith, both contemporary and historical. Let me see …

William Butler Yeats, one of Irelands most important literary figures, was Pagan.
So is the actor Gabriel Byrne, of “The Usual Suspects” fame (I can’t believe I just referenced that movie … *shudder*)
One of the most innovative musicians of the late 20th century, Sting, is Pagan. So is his Irish new wave colleague Enya. Or, if we are to go back in history to find someone who is truly a tower of intellect, then let’s settle on Aristotle, who is still quoted to this day. This list, of course, contains but a tiny fraction of the names available if you go out there and search for yourself, as is the case with the lists below.

Next, let’s take a look at Christians, and let us start with one of the more obscure names on the list, and then take it from there:

Hunayn ibn Ishaq was an Assyrian, Nestorian Christian responsible for the translation of a HUGE amount of ancient greek material into Persian, which saved much of the knowledge that later formed the basis of the renaissance in Europe. Hunayn ibn Ishaq was also a scholar in his own right, and amongst other things is one of the fathers of eye-surgery … and mind you, he lived in the late ninth century A.D.

Or how about Nicolaus Copernicus, the man who changed the way humanity perceived the entire universe, to a heliocentric view? A Catholic believer all his life.

What about my favorite of all, Sir Francis Bacon, the inventor of the Baconian method or “the scientific method” by which all discoveries must be backed by measurable, empirical evidence. Or René Descartes, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, who spent a lot of his time finding ways to reconcile his 17th century catholic beliefs with his prodigous philosophy.

Let’s go on to Islam for a moment and start with one of my favorites:

Abu Raihan al-Biruni, lived a long life from the late tenth to mid eleventh centuries. He was one of the earliest great thinkers in Arabic physics and metaphysics. He was a skilled mathematician, and discovered calculations used to this day. He wrote extensively on geography, including on foreign countries such as India, which he visited himself, and he wrote on my favorite topic of all … history.

Or Ibn al-Baithar, who wrote on medicine, and whose works still influence both eastern adn western medicinal studies today, more than 750 years after his death?

Not to leave out another of my favorites, Ibn Khaldun, one of the first sociologists in this world, who wrote on how economic, social and environmental issues influence the development of human culture. Truisms even today, that no serious sociologist would dream of refuting.

And ending this little rundown with Omar al-Khayyam, whose beautiful poetry includes a favorite of modern day liberal TV-icon Keith Olbermann … and of myself …

“So I be written in the book of love
I do not care about that book above
Erase my name, or write it as you will
so I be written in the book of love.”

And just because I am so THOROUGHLY sick of the whole argument that all religious people are by definition of inferior intellect, let us continue with with some of the great Jewish minds of the ages.

One I have mentioned briefly in this blog before, is Baruch Spinoza who, as part of his philosophy, stated that God and Nature cannot be divided. He was also a mathematician and along with aforementioned Decartes, he was one of the most famous rationalists in history.
Marc Chagall, one of the most important painters of the 20th century was jewish, and his works are cited as hallmarks of postimpressionism and of modernism.

Oh and of course Energy equals Mass times the speed of light in vacuum, squared.
Or more commonly, E=MC2. Albert Einstein was Jewish. ‘Nuff said.
So was one of the forgotten heroes of the 20th century, Jonas Salk, who invented the Polio-vaccine and helped defeat one of the most tragic and horrifying childhood diseases. Oh, and my ultimate boss, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft is Jewish.
And Yehudi Menuhin … the first classical musician I ever learned the name of, one of the most incredible violinists of all time, is jewish. Go listen to some of his work, it’s beyond breathtaking, it really is.

If you wished, you could go out and find similar lists of Buddhists and Hindus and any number of other religions out there.

And so, back to my original point. Religion does not make people stupid. Not more than a few days ago, I pointed out to someone virulently anti-religious online, in a debate, that as long as religion was a personal matter, and as long as it was not used to dehumanize, belittle or harass other people, it could be a source of personal peace and a means for someone to focus and center themselves. His response? “So can drugs, and we made THAT illegal!”

I left the debate by that time, bowing out and saying I thought it best to agree to disagree like civilized people. I see no point in wasting my time on arguing with people who sink to such a level of argumentation.

Religion holds great potential for doing harm. I’ve often enough inveighed about that, and I maintain that it is a bad, bad thing when it happens. But religion does not magically suck intellect out of practitioners, and claiming that it does is … frankly … as superstitious as these people claim religion is in itself.

But here is the thing. Superstition literally means a belief in that which cannot be proved. Those who will use the word “superstition” as an insult do so without knowing the actual meaning of the word. Yes, religion is superstition. That is the whole point of faith. To believe, without empirical certainty. To not have Sir Francis Bacon and his Scientific Method in your corner, but still believing in something.

I don’t need my world to be full of evidence and proof to live in it. I like it when I have it. In most cases, I certainly need it. But in terms of faith, I don’t. Nor will I ever.

People of faith are not stupid. It has been proved more times than I can count, and will be proven in the future as well. It is proven every single day.

The argument that “all religous people are automatically of lesser intellect than nonbeliever” does, in fact, lack any empirical, measurable evidence to back it up.

Which makes it, by definition, “superstition”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.

“I’m not dead yet!”

So said an elderly chap, slung over the shoulder of John Cleese in Monty Python’s “Monty Python and the quest for the holy grail”.

It goes for me too. I’m still around and still writing, although a lot less frantically than I used to. Mostly because fleshing out a whole world and a whole new storyline is a lot of work, but also because I don’t have as much time to write as I used to, and because I don’t want to burn out again.

Life here in Ireland continues to hold surprises and challenges. Ups and downs, too. Mostly ups, but I’d be lying if I said there were no downs at all.

Bottom line, however, is that my stock is hugely on the rise. Lots of new friends and plenty to do with myself, even if June is a dreadful month, workwise. Overtime every day, even weekend-work occasionally, midnight shifts … bleh. At least I have a week off in July. I’m planning on spending it in Dublin, seeing some of the museums I haven’t had time to visit yet.

Oh, and the Guinness brewery, of course.

Mmmm … Guinness …

Even though my friend Thomas says it tastes like cold coffee. I keep reminding him that the only reason why he’s saying that, is because he has no concept of what is delicious.