Five Questions With… Eli Clare

Eli Clare is the author of Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (South End Press, 1999) and has been widely published. He has walked across the United States for peace, coordinated a rape prevention program and co-organized the first-ever Queerness and Disability Conference. He works for the University of Vermont ‘s LGBTQA Services. We were lucky enough to meet him at a Translating Identity Conference at UVM, and I was happy to get the chance to talk to him about his new book, The Marrow’s Telling, which was recently published by HomoFactus Press.

(1) Why poetry?

As a writer, my first love is poetry. I think of it as a thug who grabbed me by the collar many years ago and whispered in my ear, “You’re coming with me.” I went willingly, not having any idea where poetry would take me or what it would demand. Twenty-five years later I find myself writing a mix of poetry and creative nonfiction; my first book, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, is a collection of essays, and my second book, The Marrow’s Telling: Words in Motion, which ought to be rolling off the press at any moment now, is a mix of poems and short prose pieces, not quite essays but more than prose poems.

Audre Lorde in her essay “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” writes of poetry as a “revelatory distillation of experience.” Poems demand both wildness/revelation–moments where language, sound, and rhythm, rather than thought or idea or analysis, take the lead–and discipline/distillation–the paring down to heart and bone. As a writer, a reader, an activist trying to make sense of the world, I need revelatory distillation.

I also know that in the United States too many of us have been taught to fear or avoid poetry, to feel bored or stupid in its presence. As an activist-poet, I always hope that my poems will be doors held wide open, roller coasters, parachutes opening above you, slow meandering rivers.

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Air Force Double Rape

Cassandra Hernandez says she was raped once by three of her fellow Air Force airmen, and now she’s being raped again by the Air Force itself, who have given the three men accused of her rape immunity in exchange for testimony against Hernandez herself. She chose not to testify against the men because of “severe stress” and what she got in return was charges of indecent behavior that may cause her to lose her job.

& What did she do? She went to a party in one of the airmen’s rooms. But if she was there, & they were there, doesn’t that mean they’re guilty too? Apparently not.

From the Feminist Daily News & KHOU.

Dreger & Bailey, Again

& Now The NY Times has published an article about the whole Dreger/Bailey fiasco. It’s reasonably objective, even if the title of the article is ridiculously overblown.

Moreover, based on her own reading of federal regulations, Dr. Dreger. . . argued that the book did not qualify as scientific research. The federal definition describes “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation.”

Dr. Bailey used the people in his book as anecdotes, not as the subjects of a systematic investigation, she reported.

Which makes it not scientific at all. Either that or someone owes me a Ph.D. for My Husband Betty.

Victoria Arellano

I just happened to be catching up on my Feministing reading when I discovered a post by Jessica Hoffman about the death of trans inmate Victoria Arellano (or Arrelano) who was denied her AIDS medication and then Hoffman followed up her post wondering why this death hasn’t been covered.

It’s interesting time as just recently I’ve been bothered by a recent article in The Boston Globe about a doctor who transitioned with much of her life in tact – ironic since Arellano didn’t wind up with even her life in tact. Big article, no article.

& They say there’s no such thing as privilege.

Mind you, my complaints about the way various media outlets cover trans issues aren’t directed at the trans people who are often featured in these articles: their intentions are for the most part good, & they are trying, in their own way, to raise awareness of trans issues in general, all of which is much needed. It’s not that it was a terrible article in terms of The Big Picture, but I’m tired of journalists/media writing a piece that is pretty much like every other piece about a trans person (choosing someone professional, white, with a traditional narrative including surgery & the like) & presenting it as if it’s a revelation.

It’s not a revelation. I’d like to get the bar set a little higher, & to start pressuring media to cover more types of trans people, in more situations, with more of the kinds of issues that come up. Like what does a person like Betty, or others like her, do about the ID issue? What do people do when their license says one thing but they can’t get their passport changed? What are the issues for young transitioners, who are going to be dealing with discrimination from the outset of their careers? How is the expectation of not getting divorced changing what kinds of legal issues couples face? How does transness come into play with legal issues? What happens if a recent medical student comes out before she has a practice or an income or a family & established community?

I could go on. I won’t. Like I said, this is good for general use, but as someone who is “in the field” & who works with the media on a regular basis, I also feel I have a responsibility to pay attention to the way media coverage ISN’T changing at all, & how the struggle to represent the diversity of trans experience, from within the trans community, is or isn’t being reflected by the media, & maybe keeping an eye toward changing that, somehow.

News: Pink is for Girls!

Oh, they’ve got to be kidding. Next up: men prefer having muscles. Men show a preference for titties. Women like babies and chocolate.

But wait, there’s more news from these researchers: “Red was the color of a good ripe fruit,” Hurlbert said.

No! Surely not! Wait – does this mean that men prefer unripe fruit?

Enough, already. What I want to know most is how these people get funding.

(Thanks to Eileen for the link.)

Trans Couples: Adrien & Elena

I’m going to tell you the story of me, Adrien an FtM transman, and my partner, Elena a free-spirited, open-minded, adventurous, bi-sexual genetic woman. Y’all get ready, because some parts of it are scandalous. OK, here we go.

When Elena and I first met, I think it was late 1998, we just really hit it off, the way you do. The meeting that stood out was at the state fair, for a friend’s birthday. We were there with lots of friends and acquaintances and between us there was that magnetic energy – we were more interested in each other than anyone else and for reasons soon to be disclosed, this wasn’t entirely appropriate. Soon after that night at the fair, we met again at a party, a lesbian party. At this point on the timeline of my transition, I was just getting into the transgender vocabulary and ideas and was definitely starting to recognize myself as trans, but I was pre-everything with only some glimmerings that chest surgery might be something feasible for me. So, I was still living at home in the bosom of the lesbian community, but starting to scratch the itch that would bring my time there to its end. At present, we still have many gay and lesbian friends, but some have dropped out of our lives as well. Since the beginning of our relationship, we always found that we felt more aligned with our straight couple friends and I definitely do not call myself a lesbian any more. Elena’s relationship and sexual history includes men and women but at the time we met, she was identified as lesbian and had a female partner. But back to the story…

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Stardusted

Betty & I went to see Stardust for its opening last weekend because Neil Gaiman asked us to (not personally, of course, but via his blog) and we both really enjoyed the movie. It’s rare for me to like a movie – I find most comedies too mean-spirited, most romances too gendered, and since I don’t like movies all that much in the first place (which is something like sacrilege or anti-American to admit, even) as either entertainment or as an art form, Betty doesn’t convince me to go to many. I don’t find most of them deliver even $10 worth of entertainment.

But Stardust, I loved. I’ve long been a fan of Gaiman’s writing, for the fantasy, the sheer power & reach of his imagination, & the breadth of his research, but what I usually like about writers above all else is voice. You know, I was weaned on C.S. Lewis. I like a narrative voice that tells me a story in a personal way, and what comes across in Gaiman’s writing is not just a kind of bemused gentleness, but intelligence, a lot of compassion, & a kind of sly earnestness and respect for his characters that all adds up to good stories, well told.

I read the book Stardust a couple of years ago and didn’t re-read it before seeing the movie because sometimes you want to see if the movie will touch the kind of memory you have of the book – and with this movie version, I found it hit all the same notes as the book did, mixing a kind of whimsy with a remarkable wisdom. But mostly there’s that gentle compassion – for the dead brothers (despite their being power-greedy fuckers), for the star, & for the somewhat hapless young man who’s fallen in love with the wrong girl.

The only part I didn’t like was DeNiro’s performance, and that’s mostly because it was one long “poofter” joke. & For that to be in a Gaiman film – who is uncommonly sympathetic to his gay & trans & gender variant characters – it seemed out of character. As “poofter” jokes go, I suppose it was more sympathetic than most.

So go see it. Put aside the arch comments, the snarky sarcasm, the cruel retorts. Go see a story about naivety, stupidity, greed, vanity & ultimately, justice. But mostly go see a story about love, told well.