los angeles' homeboys travel to rural alabama

by: los anjalis

Tue Dec 29, 2009 at 09:00:00 AM PST

The video -- "Alabama's Homeboys" -- captures the critical intersection of rural poverty, joblessness, crime, race and youth, and leaves the viewer with more questions than answers, but is quite inspiring. The Times also provided extremely sobering socioeconomic statistics about Prichard, Alabama at the same link.  It's wonderful to see Homeboys Industries continuing their stellar work in the face of a financial crisis.  Folks who would like to support Homeboy Industries can donate money as part of Homeboys' "virtual carwash". And if you're in Los Angeles you can volunteer at Homeboy Industries, dine at Homegirl Cafe, or purchase Homegirl Cafe's salsa, now selling at Ralphs.  

(cross-posted at LAist)

Fuck You and Fuck Your Fucking Thesis: Why I Will Not Participate in Trans Studies

by: revolution.is.medicine

Thu Dec 17, 2009 at 19:50:25 PM PST

Dear Mr. or Ms. Grad Student, I am sorry to report that I will not participate in your study as a data point. I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. I don't trust you. I don't like you. I don't care if you succeed. In fact, I kind of think you suck. Here's why:

What do you think you're going to do for me? For us? For trans women? Do you think it makes a difference if you study the menstruation needs of trans guys? Or you study trans people's partners' self-declared sexual orientation? How about sexual practices and HIV? How about trans culture and SM, would that change my life? Would that change anyone's life, except maybe to get you a few dates with some svelte transguy? Oh and a book contract, you might get a book contract. And your thesis getting approved could very well land you a post-doc or a teaching position somewhere, certainly aim you for a career... fuck you.

I'm sure you have self-serving justifications. Everybody has self-serving justifications, its how us humans get through the day. But I don't care what they are. You aren't the first, hell you're probably not the first this week, and you probably won't be the last to try to convince me that this particular topic, this particular project, this very one that you thought of, will change the world and make things better. Hell, I've probably helped as many non-trans people finish grad school as I've seen trans women friends commit suicide- let me think about that for a minute, both number in the dozens... and how many people have I seen go through grad school openly as trans women? None. Wait, no, one. No, two. Three? No, just two. Am I supposed to ignore that imbalance and keep pushing you wankers along?

Let me tell you something: trans people have already been studied. We've been interviewed, sampled, tested, cross-referenced, experimented upon, medicated, shocked, examined, and dissected post-mortem. You've looked at our chromosomes, our families, our blood levels, our ring fingers, our mothers' medicine cabinets, and our genitalia (over and over again with the genitalia- stop pushing condoms on us, dumbass, we know what they're for.) You've watched us play with dolls, raise children, fall in love, look at pornography, get sick, die, and commemorate ourselves. You've listened to our ears. You've listened to our fucking ears! But you've never listened to our voices and you need to do that now.

There are already studies about what trans people need. You want them? Go read the needs assessment Michelle O'Brien wrote for THAC in Philadelphia. Go look at the final report of the Sex and Gender Minority Subcommittee of the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness. Go read that amazing omnibus study the San Francisco public health department commissioned a few years back, the one that found trans women have an average monthly income of $536. Ever seen rents in San Francisco?

So what do people like me need? Not counseling. Not new labels on condoms. Not more doctoral candidates palpating our business. Trans women need, more or less in order: decriminalization, housing, education and employment. As in, not being swept off the street, not being banned from shelters, yes being allowed in GED classes, and, well, employment. Can you provide these? Not as a goddamn researcher, and probably not as a member in good standing of whatever professional body you aspire to join. You want to actually do something as good you say you want to do, drop out, abrogate your loans, and become a social worker. Decriminalization, housing, education and employment. You'd do better to hire one of us as a receptionist.

Oh sure, I'll bet you can find some young trans woman, probably a year or two out of the closet, who will swear to you that if only she had hormones, if only she could get surgery everything would be okay. Its very sweet that you weren't too intimidated to talk to her, but she's wrong. There is not stealth horde of passing women waiting to claim the young after just one more hoop- we are who we are, and we are talking to you right now. Hormones are nice but they won't make you employable. Surgery is great but it won't get the cops off your back. Facial reconstruction won't get you a lover. Decriminalization, housing, education and employment.

Y'know, a thought occurs to me. Everything on that list I keep repeating comes from somewhere else, didja notice? These aren't problems caused by genitalia, or elongated ring fingers. These are problems caused by social conditions, by society, by the people who run the world around us who, funny, look a lot like you. Have you ever considered studying yourselves? Why do non-trans people have such a big fucking problem with us? Why do they care where we shower or whether their IRB sees us hanging around the computer center after hours? Why is it so damned important who we date, or, frankly, whether someone like you is dating one of us or not? Can you tell me that? Why not, Mr. or Ms. Big-Shot Researcher Who Wants To Do Something Good For The World? Too hard to do the... research? I'd love to see an fMRI series of psychology grad students watching a video in which attractive trans women explain to them that their proposal lacks... a bit of depth, maybe it could do with a more developed sense of social context perhaps? Come up with another draft by, lets say, the 16th, can we all meet again on the 16th? How does this essay make you feel: indifferent, mostly indifferent, somewhat indifferent, somewhat angry, or very angry?

And somewhere, I bet, there's a trans guy wondering why people like you who want "to do work around trans issues" always seem to have so many FTMs as friends.

What trans people need is to get through a day without being inspected, not by the guy making change at the Wa Wa and not by the hipster with an academic stipend. We need data, ideas, plans and strategies, but we need to see them coming from people like us, people who don't, right now, seem to make it into your little position of power. We don't need your study, we don't need your thesis, and we really don't need you to graduate and "do good work." And you? You don't need us either. You are pretty much guaranteed a good life with or without my participation in your little project so please- stuff it up your ass. I say this will all the deference the circumstances warrant.

With love,

Anne

[PS. I first met Anne at a road blockade slash urban squat in the Midwest. Later, we bonded over medicine, deconstructing anarchist movements, and queer/genderqueer politics. One time, Anne and I collaboratively wrote a paper called "Trans Youth Teachings to Medical Students: How to do a good pelvic exam." It's on my to-do list to get around to publishing that paper.

BTW, Anne is one of the hottest EMTs ever and probably has an IQ of a gazzillion.]

what would happen if low income women of color were centered in mental health services?

by: lovinginthewaryears

Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 08:03:49 AM PDT

but they will never center us until its too late. we center ourselves, value our tactics for healing and coping, be each others therapist when we can.

Priorities.

by: los anjalis

Mon Sep 29, 2008 at 00:13:48 AM PDT

Our country has been told that a gargantuan government rescue of the private sector is necessary because the collapse of major financial institutions would lead to unthinkable outcomes for society. Almost as if by magic, our nation's leaders conjure up vast sums to respond to this crisis.

Yet when advocates point out that our nation is facing an altogether different kind of crisis, one of soaring hunger and homelessness, and that a large-scale bailout is needed to prevent social service providers nationwide from buckling under the increasing load, we are told that the money these agencies need just doesn't exist.

In 2006, fully 35.5 million Americans, 4 million more than in 1999, lived in households that couldn't afford enough food, according to the Agriculture Department. Those households included more than 4 million children.

Last December, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that out of 23 major American cities, 80 percent had an increase in people using emergency soup kitchens and food pantries and 43 percent had an increase in the number of homeless children. All that happened between November 2006 and November 2007.

How did the federal government respond? It didn't.

The only federal program that provides cash to both emergency feeding programs and homelessness prevention services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Emergency Food and Shelter Program, wasn't expanded by a penny...

...When we ask members of Congress and lobbyists to help obtain serious funding increases to meet the soaring needs, we are patronizingly praised for our good work but told that times are just too tough to increase budgets. Maybe there will be more money when the economy improves, they tell us, oblivious to the reality that funding for our programs is most needed when the economy is weakest.

You wanna see rational and efficient? I'll show you rational and efficient

by: los anjalis

Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 23:11:43 PM PDT

Some state officials have said that New Jersey needs this period of consolidation -- that there were too many hospitals, and that some needed to close to make the system more rational and efficient.

But many of the closing hospitals have been in urban areas and towns with large concentrations of minority and poor residents. Two hospitals in Newark -- St. James and Columbus Hospital -- closed this year, angering local officials. Mayor Cory Booker (D) said he was "angry and anguished and frustrated" by the closings.

"The hospitals that close are generally in urban areas with minority people living there, and they don't count politically," said the Rev. James Colvin, who has also been active in trying to save Muhlenberg or find a new buyer.

"From a 'survival of the fittest' standpoint, it makes sense. We're saying it smacks of the final solution for urban centers. Someone else called it 'genocide lite.' "

I'd like to have a friendly conversation with some of those state officials who seem to think this is a "rational and efficient" way to consolidate health care resources.  Friendly.  Just sayin'.