Being Valid

  

To be honest, I’m terrible around the LGBTQ community (I’m not going to speak about the I – Intersex part of the community because I’m not intersex).

At first I always put it down as me being awkward around people. Until I realised that I could actually interact with people who were cis or non-heterosexual with ease. I could also interact with people whose gender identity or sexual orientation I was not aware of.

But put me in a room of LGBTQ people and I freeze. I feel awkward. 

Did I look up to them? after all, they were people who came out. I’m out too for the most part, but I would automatically assume that these people came out before me. So maybe I saw them as my heroes, but after spending time with them I would be able to calm down.

That never happened.

I tried joining my local LGBTQI group but I just could never interact. I didn’t contribute with my opinion on issues I could contribute on. So what was going on? 

I didn’t feel *gay* enough. I didn’t feel *queer* enough. And I feared their judgement. 

Was this way of thinking my fault, or theirs? I would say both.

It’s my fault that I feel like I’m not a valid member of the community. I need to learn that the way I feel and express myself are good ways, so long as I’m myself. I need to learn that just because I don’t identify as trans* it doesn’t mean that I’m not non-binary. 

But it’s also the community’s fault for being so aggressive. I can understand the need to fight for one’s rights, to have to justify one’s emotions because the *normal* people can’t get it. But it’s this aggressiveness which makes it so hard for someone to join that community, to say ‘here I am, in all my glory’.

It’s also the community’s fault for not fighting against the stereotypes which they themselves can perpetuate. Am I expected to look and act gay? and is there a point where I become *too* gay or queer to be accepted?

I’ve realised that I could never be part of the queer or pansexual community, and I’ve accepted that. But it’s still a very difficult thing to accept, after all, we’re all looking for our place in this world. 

Mental Health Awareness Week

So it’s Mental Health Awareness Week until Sunday, and since I’ve been quite ‘off the radar’ I thought, what better time to come back than this week?

You see, the reason I’ve been AWOL is because I’ve been battling my anxiety for the past few months.

I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. Probably even before then. I started self medicating from a young age. To spare you the messy details there was alcohol, smoking, drugs, self harm and suicidal ideation involved. But back then I had no idea that it was because of my anxiety, I just enjoyed the feeling of relief, those few moments when I managed to get out of my head.

Those moments were short lived, and so I started medicating more frequently, until I realised that I was going too far. Ok, I didn’t realise it by myself, I met someone who made me realise that self medication wasn’t the way to go.

So instead I immersed myself in meditation, spirituality, philosophy and learning. And that gave me temporary relief, but it was enough to get by. I still had no name for the emotions I was feeling.

It was only last year that I finally realised that what I was feeling wasn’t regular stress, but actual anxiety. I started having fainting spells because of all the stress and anxiety I was under, I stopped being able to sleep, my mind was making me see horrors in the dark. I became paranoid about the slightest thing. However, thankfully those moments would pass, and I would forget all about them. I figured that I was only experiencing the ‘normal’ amount of anxiety, and that once I did what had to be done, then the anxiety would go away. I still had no idea that what I had wasn’t ‘normal’ but an ‘extreme’.

Then from November till January I was under a lot of stress due to University work. I was constantly on the go. If I was on the bus I was working, when I got to work and I had nothing to do, I would be working on University things, or on work related to the student organization I was a member of. I was constantly on the go. And even though that gave me a lot of pleasure, I was constantly running on a high. It was as though I was running away from something. I lost touch with myself in the process.

After many restless nights, when the horror movies in my head became too much to handle, nights when I literally felt as though I was dying, I started to research. I realised that I definitely was not having a normal reaction to anxiety. It turned out I was having a normal reaction to anxiety, but it was my anxiety which was not normal.

I had a mental health issue.

But I didn’t accept it.

Yes, I could tell myself that I’m anxious, but I refused to seek help. I would handle it the way I always did. I started drinking again. I would tell myself that it helped me focus on my assignments, it was just a method to relax.

But the anxiety didn’t go away. Months started passing, and sometimes it would calm down, and I could sleep, and I wouldn’t keep checking over my shoulder to see if someone was following me.

But then it would just flare up again.

And finally, after about three nights in a row where I felt I was going to die, when my chest hurt and I would cry without control, and I finally admitted that yes, I needed help. I sent an email and made an appointment at the counselling unit the very next day.

Best decision of my life.

I’m still in therapy, but I already feel better. I still have anxiety, therapy doesn’t automatically take away the anxiety, take away that fear. But I’m starting to learn more about myself. I thought I was a very self aware person, but now I’m realising that the self medication was stopping me from being in touch with myself. And now I’m learning about myself, the good, the bad and the ugly. And I’m learning how to live with my anxiety, instead of expecting it to magically disappear.

So what’s my point? My point is that mental health is an important thing. One of the most important things we have. And it’s ok to have a mental health problem. It’s actually more common than you think. According to recent statistics, 1 in 4 of us have Anxiety, and 1 in 3 will have depression. So if you think of all the people you’ve met recently, you’ve definitely met someone who had anxiety, and another who had depression.

So during this week, please try find out as much as you can about mental health, particularly how you can help someone with a mental health problem. How to be there for someone. And if you have a mental health issue, then seek help. Find a friend you can confide in, or make an appointment at your nearest counselling unit. It’s actually not as scary as you think it is.

Anti-gay preacher accuses LGBTQI community

Al Haddad, an anti-gay preacher, sits on the board of the Islamic Shariah Council, and in “Standing up against Homosexuality”, he wrote on the “the scourge of homosexuality”, calling it a “criminal act”.

He responded to calls for him to be banned from speaking at the University of Westminster, saying: “This is a completely misplaced campaign. The event has nothing to do with Islam’s position on homosexuality yet this is the focus of their complaint. There is a clear attempt being made to almost criminalise certain aspects of being a Muslim. In the religion of Islam it is clear-cut that homosexual acts are a sin and are unlawful in the Shariah. Trying to censor lawful speech does not change this fact.”

“I do not believe the views I hold are much different to those of orthodox Christian or Jewish religious leaders. I have only ever engaged in lawful speech and have never been prosecuted for hate speech or inciting hatred. I would remind those who initiated this campaign that this country is supposed to be based on freedom of religious belief and expression. I am a strong believer in dialogue, regrettably the LGBTI society wants to shut it down.”

via Anti-gay preacher: The LGBT community is trying to ‘shut down’ my ‘dialogue’ · PinkNews.

 

Now I’m all for freedom of speech. However, i disagree with him calling it a ‘dialogue’. When you speak out AGAINST something with such fervour, that’s not dialogue. That’s spreading hatred.

Second, honestly I don’t care what your religion tells you. It’s your religion, not necessarily mine.  We need to stop making laws based on religion and instead focus on laws which are relevant to the human person. Will criminalising the ‘homosexual act’ help anyone? Let’s face it, no, it wont. I don’t like clowns, but doesn’t mean they should be made illegal just cause they make me uncomfortable.

Are two adults in a consenting relationship wrong? anyone with a braincell will tell you no.

So should it be illegal? no, it shouldn’t.

That’s the dialogue. Not ‘my hold book says this’ or ‘my morals and beliefs say this’. Guys, start talking facts.

 

 

What is ‘Non-binary’ Anyway?

Well, most people (and you were probably also raised to think this way) believe that gender is either male or female. 2 genders. Therefore, binary. However, gender is more complex than that.

First off, gender and sexuality have nothing to do with one another. Sexuality is who you would be attracted to, and gender is who you ARE. Then you also have gender expression, which is how one chooses to express their gender, this may or may not be in the traditional way. For example, I may identify as female, but I express my female-ness through strength. Note how I didn’t say ‘femininity’. Femininity and masculinity are cultural concepts. What is feminine in one culture would not be feminine in another.

Anyway, second: Gender is a spectrum. A simplified explanation of this can be found in the image above. This means that gender isn’t just black or white, male or female. There are varying degrees of ‘male’or ‘female’. And where you fall on this spectrum is your binary gender.

Some people however (including myself) do not fall anywhere on this spectrum. We feel non-binary. There isn’t really a way to explain how this feels, but just as someone may feel and identify with male, or female, I identify as non-binary. It’s what makes sense to me, and makes me feel at ease.

Non-binary is an umbrella term, with various other identities, such as third gender (a gender other than male or female).

Ultimately, your gender is your own, and it’s such a complex thing that labels will not always fit perfectly. It’s like wearing a shirt which is a size or two too big for you. It fits, you can go around with it, but you know its too loose. Still, a shirt which is too big is way better than a shirt which is way too small for you and you just feel constrained.

Children of a Lesser God

Marlee Matlin. Nuff said.

I have never shipped someone so hard…until Karmy OBVZ

Before this exquisite creature was Bette’s sexy girlfriend on the L Word, Ms. Matlin played a deaf woman in ‘Children of a Lesser God‘ for which she won an oscar for best female in a leading role. It was her debut performance! She was on par with Julie Andrews! She was (and STILL is) the youngest woman to win an oscar for a leading role – at the age of 21…and what are you doing?

Isn’t she the cutest? Ps. That’s the sign for ‘I love you’

Anyway, this film deals with James, a speech language teacher with a lot of energy. He starts to teach at a deaf school where Sarah (Marlee Matlin) is the cleaner, despite being the brightest student that school has ever seen. When James isn’t teaching deaf children how to sing ‘Boomarangrang’ he’s following Sarah around, trying to make sense of her.

Sarah’s got moves y’all

Sarah, on the other hand, is a very angry deaf person in a hearing world (sounds familiar my non-binary darlings?). She is tired of reading lips and therefore refuses to do so, causing James to have to sign to her for her to communicate back.

James cannot understand why she won’t speak. And let’s face it, he’s a speech language teacher for a reason. He wants Sarah to start speaking, to aim higher than her cleaning job at the school. She angrily signs to him ‘I will not do anything I can’t do well’. 

After investigating Sarah’s past, he starts to make sense of her situation and her anger.

They fall in love, but their differences in values: hers of being independent without having someone speak for her, and his of pushing her to speak like everyone else, causes a huge rift between them.

‘together, united as one’

This movie is pure gold. There isn’t closed captions however you can always understand what is going on either from movement or from the others. For example James would say what Sarah is saying out loud. He says his signing is rusty so this could be his way of understanding what she is saying. Whatever, either way, don’t worry this movie is very understandable.

Another note, the sound. When James is alone, the music is loud. He plays classical music on his LP player, there’s the sound of footsteps, of doors, of things happening outside. When there’s Sarah, you only hear the bare minimum. A footfall, maybe a door opening or shutting. But most of the time it is silent. I found this very powerful to try understand the differences between them.

Final verdict: WATCH THIS MOVIE NOW

New Header

So it’s a sunday here, which is traditionally referred to as ‘lazy sunday’ or ‘sunday funday’… So since I had some time on my hands (which is a very rare occurrence trust me) I decided to stay playing around with some graphics to create a new header.

VOILAAAAAAAA

If you’re an avid follower of this blog (and let’s face it, why wouldn’t you be) … first off, I love you guys, and second, you’d probably have realised that I’m continuously changing the style and colours. I like changing things up once in a while, but I kinda like how it’s looking right now so I think it will remain this way for a while.

As always, if there’s something that annoys you just let me know. I love constructive criticism…while I drown my sorrows in pizza. I think I hear the doorbell………

Faking It (Season 1)

If you haven’t heard of faking it, then sit your ass in front of your computer screen [oh right you’re already doing that…] and download the entire series!

But first, some backstory: Amy (played by the gorgeous Rita Volk) and Karma (played by the equally gorgeous Katie Stevens) are best friends. Like, utter best friends. Like, the kind of best friends you wish you could have but never will cause you’re not Rita nor Katie.

Anywayyy  

Amy and Karma aren’t that popular [read: at all] – which is strange cause…look at them. But Karma desperately wants to be popular, so she drags Amy to a huge party. At the party, Shane (Michael J. Willet) – who is probably the most fabulous gay man on television right now – mistakes Amy and Karma for lesbian lovers. I mean, they’re always together, they’re quiet, and Amy’s got a real butch style going on…so really, who could blame him. So what does this fabulous gay boy do?  He publicly outs them, in the hope of helping them come to terms with their sexuality.

Instantly people rejoice. Probably important to note here that this school is like, super gay friendly. It’s the ‘cool thing’ to be out and proud here. Homophobia is like, so a millenium ago.

damn you KARMY

Karma embraces her newfound popularity, especially since it helped her catch the eye of Liam Booker (read: booger), played by Gregg Sulkin, who apparently is the high school heartbreaker. So she begs Amy to pretend to be her lesbian lover. At first Amy just doesn’t want to go along with the lie, it’s too much of a drag…until she kisses Karma at the school assembly…fireworks go off, signalling the start of one of the best love triangles ever.

Shane you little cutie

Still not hooked? Watch the trailer here:

Things I learnt after being in a relationship for 3 years (and counting)

This is going to be another personal post, so please bear with me. I hope that I can impart some of the things I learnt as a nonbinary person in a relationship with a cis female.

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1. Be honest, not afraid

Ok yes this is a cliche. But it’s a true one. Don’t hide your true self because you’re afraid your other half won’t understand or accept you, if they really care about you (and love you) then they’ll do their utmost to understand and accept you as you are. After all, they fell in love with you already, the least you can do is be honest about your feelings and about who you are.

2. Solve fights 

Everyone fights. Frankly, I’m pretty sure you fought with your pet once or twice, so why should a relationship be any different? When you love someone fighting will end up coming naturally. You’ll disagree on whose turn it was to wash the dishes or fold the laundry, you’ll fight because you forgot that they had a really important date planned and you were late.. again. 

The trick to a healthy relationship is what happens after the fight … how well do you solve it? Communication is key. Talk it out with each other, have a good cry, kiss and move on (but make an effort to not make the same mistake twice). If you’re just going to mope about and remain angry with your partner then you’re not really going to achieve anything (except maybe a break up).

3. Laugh

Laughter makes the world go round, it unites people in ways nothing else can. Make your partner laugh as much as possible and they’ll be fooled into thinking that you’re the best thing on this planet. So be silly, dance in the rain, sing at the top of your lungs in the middle of an empty street. These are the memories you want them to cherish.

4. Touch each other as much as possible

Not (just) in the sexual way. Hold hands, hug, kiss, touch their face often. Hugging for long periods of time will release hormones which build the feeling of trust and safety in people. So make use of this trick and get hugging!

Besides, sometimes, words will never be enough, and a touch will be what your partner really needs from you to know you’re there.

5. Family is important, but don’t dwell on it

As most people in queer relationships know, acceptance isn’t easy to come by. While our straight and cisgender counterparts rarely have an issue in the parental/familial department, it is an all-too-often issue in ours. But the thing is, family isn’t everything. Normally your family will want what’s best for you. But the thing is, what they think is best for you is just their opinion. They will see your ‘lifestyle’ as too difficult, and wonder why you can’t just be ‘normal’ and have an easier life. Thing is, life is never easy, so at least you can go through this difficult life with the person you love. 

So respect your family, but don’t let it come between you and the person you love. At the end of the day, you know what’s best for you as well.

6. Take some alone time

Ah new relationships… when you just want to spend every moment together. It’s one of the most amazing things of a new relationship. Just don’t forget yourself. You may be in a relationship, but you’re also an individual. And to be an individual you need time to reflect on yourself and grow. In other words, do your own thing.

From a relationship point of view – one of the best ways to keep a relationship from becoming stagnant is to have exciting things to talk about. If you’re both spending every second of every day together, there isn’t much you can talk about is there?

7. Do stuff together

Ok yes I just said to do stuff alone… but do stuff together as well! The best way to get to know someone is to do things with them. Do they get frustrated or bored in queues ? Do they get road rage when driving? Do they laugh at the most inappropriate moments in a play?

Knowing someone’s past is extremely important, but knowing who they are as a person is possibly the most important thing of all.

8. Meet friends and have dates

A balance between a social life and a relationship is essential. Of course it depends on the two people involved in the relationship to determine how much weight to give the social circle and how much weight to give to date time. From experience, meeting friends is a good distraction for those bad phases and it’s also a good way for you guys to laugh together. But dates are important to just be romantic and sweet and are useful to reconnect with your partner.

9. Be Romantic

Sometimes a look in your eyes is enough to tell your special someone how much  you care, but other times, an over the top romantic gesture is what you truly need. Plan a surprise for your loved one, whisk them away to another city/island/whatever for a romantic day just with each other. And when you’re on a tight budget, switch off your phone and just cuddle with each other on a sofa. Quality time without the distractions of modern day technology can really tell someone that you care about them more than checking your facebook or tumblr for the millionth time.

10. Fall in love again, day after day. 

This may come as a shock to those who probably haven’t been in a relationship for long, but you will fall out of love. Sometimes the routine and daily life will grind you down and you stop appreciating the wonderful person you have with you. Pause yourself for a second, and take the time to realise what a great partner you have, make sure to appreciate them and every little thing they do for you. Like give you the last bite of cake, or take you to your favourite restaurant even though they may not have felt like Chinese food that night.

When a relationship lasts long, it means that the people involved manage to keep falling in love with each other, most of the time, they end up falling deeper and deeper in love every single day.

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And this brings a close to this overly-mushy article/advice post! It’s obviously dedicated to the love of my life, who also happens to be my fiancee.

Why heteronormativity and Cisnormativity is a thing

Ok first up, what the hell are these words?

Heteronormativity – The assumption that everyone we meet is heterosexual (straight). This can be done consciously or subconsciously. If you’re a straight female and the first thing you think when you see a handsome man is ‘I wonder if he has a girlfriend’, then you’re thinking in a heteronormative way – you think he is straight. This can be subconscious, cause let’s face it, you kinda are hope he’s striaght.

Cisnormativity – the assumption that everyone you meet is cisgender. This means that those people’s sex and gender match. Ie. Born biologically male and identifies as male as well. If you see a guy in trousers and automatically assume he’s cisgender then you cisnormative.

Ok, now I’m not saying that every time you meet someone new you have to analyse them. No way. But generally that’s what we do, we analyse people: good dressers, clean hair, neat, fashionable, voice intonation – we judge the person based on everything we can see and hear.

What we rarely seem to think is : I wonder if they identify as queer. Usually what happens is: they look like a girl, so girl; they look like a boy, so boy. When really this is all bogus. Yes, everyone would like to assume that people who are not cisgender would look it. We focus on how well they can ‘pass’ or be ‘read’. But what about people who are non-binary? therefore don’t identify as male or female? Maybe they are somewhere in the middle, or completely off the spectrum? The person may look feminine, may wear skirts, but that person is not necessarily cisgender.

So lesson 1: don’t assume people are straight or cisgender – your best friend could be homosexual or trans/queer, so can your teacher, or the person you sat next to on the bus.

Now, why is it a problem if people are heteronormative or cisnormative?

Well, a variety of reasons.

1. Don’t make coming out harder than it already is. By being assumed to be one way, people find it even harder to reveal their true selves because they feel that they are not matching the expectations of the people around them. So make it easier for the people you care about who may be desperately trying to come out to you: don’t assume.

2. It friggen hurts. As someone who isn’t ‘out’ as non-binary, it’s annoying/hurtful for me to be referred to as a female (born biologically female). Even though I dress quite androgynously, no one ever thinks that I could be queer. Instead, they automatically assume I am lesbian.. which I’m not. I’m pansexual.

3. The assumption game is always wrong. Assuming is one of the worst things we can do as people. Othello assumed he could trust Iago, he assumed his wife was cheating on him…well that didn’t end well. Romeo assumed that Juliet was dead when in reality she was passed out from that drug she took. You assumed your friend or partner meant one thing when they really said something else, and a fight ensued.

Assuming is never helpful, to anyone. If in doubt, ask. I’d rather have people ask me what I identify as, rather than take being a girl as a given.

This is the same for intersex people. Intersex means having genitals which are “intermediate between male and female”. What happens is when the baby is born, a gender is chosen for them, to quote Masters of Sex “A hole is easier than a pole”. So these children would grow up to be perceived/assumed as a particular gender, when in reality they would not identify that way. By assuming they are a particular gender you are cancelling out a part of their existence.

Lesson 2: Don’t assume – yes I know this is same as lesson 1, but seriously can’t stress it enough.

Why the LGBTQ community is transphobic

Sometimes I feel that the LGBTQ community just causes problems for itself. We forget sometimes that we’re a ‘community’, so in certain respects we are kinda like family. After all, we have to have each other’s backs when the rest of the world is against us.
So I started to notice transphobia even in the LGBTQ community. Impossible right?

When The Dallas Buyer’s Club was released, one would assume that the topic would revolve around the actual story, where an intolerant man learns to accept others, mainly a trans*woman.

But nope. All people could argue about is how shameful it is that they cast a cisgender male in the role of a trans*woman.

Now I’m all for visibility, I think Laverne Cox is one of the best creations we have on this Earth, she’s up there with Emma Watson and Mila Kunis and Maya Angelou. Visibility is extremely important, especially in our community. It’s essential to see people like us.
But, sorry to break it to you, it’s movie. and in movies the important part is the skill of the thespian in question.
So just like gays and lesbians can act straight in movies, straights can act gay. And just like trans* people can act cis, likewise.
Of course, here comes up the issue of how much these people can be read. Ie. when speaking to trans* people, can you tell that they’re trans*.
Naturally, if the persona is cis, the actor must be read as cis, and if the persona is gay they must be read as gay.

So I guess what shocked me most is when I heard that Jared Leto was too easily read, ie. he made the persona of a trans* woman too ‘obvious’. I was in shock.
1. that is incredibly transphobic to say. to think even. does the person haVe to be impossible to read? does the person have to fit into society’s imposed binary norms? a trans*woman who is muscular is therefore wrong ? a trans*man who has no facial hair and slightly curvy not a man?

2. the movie is set in the 80s, as the movie clearly shows, hormones weren’t readily available. Without the proper hormone replacement therapy it would be very difficult for trans* people to achieve the look they desire.

Honestly, when I heard these things, that a particular person is being ‘read’ it feels as though we’re embarrassed to see trans* people, even In our own community we expect people to look how we expect them to, in this case, look binary. We need to remove this shame, because we’re all human here, people with feelings. instead of evaluating each other on how well we can disguise our past, how about embracing each other as we are?