Gina Harris's Blog, page 27

La Raza Heritage Month: The Books

I included the original publication dates for each book read, because without planning a lot of it ended up being from the '90s.

I guess I started to notice when an essay on gendered work referenced the artwork of Carmen Lomas Garza. I recognized her style from remember Tamalada. 

While it would have made sense if I had seen it in a Spanish class, I think I saw it in a cooking article.

It is a painting of a large extended family all working together to make tamales. It made a big impression on me. I know someone whose extended Italian family makes multiple batches of ravioli and freezes them once a year. I have participated in a mass egg roll making session with a Laotian family. Maybe every culture has that one work party food?

As it is, looking through the books I see there was also a mass empanada making session, though that happened at her aunt and uncle's house. Maybe it depends on how many foods your family likes that are labor-intensive.

There was no intention to focus on this time period, and yet it made sense that it happened. This was a time when multicultural studies were growing and getting more attention, but I did not know how new it was. 

Earlier when I read about Cesar Chavez, I had not realized he died in 1993. He seemed much more in the past. The big thing I heard about -- the grape boycott -- was from before I was born, but he was still active and union rights were still important well into my lifetime.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently watched an episode of Qunicy M.E. where a doctor allows babies with Down Syndrome to die. This particular child had digestive issues, where surgery would have been necessary for feeding to even be possible, but the surgery wasn't done and IV feeding wasn't done and the child died.

That episode was from 1982.

I don't remember living in a world where that was possible. I went to school with people who had siblings with Down Syndrome who were totally part of the family, my sisters helped with a Special Olympics event, we saw other families on television, I saw "Welcome to Holland" in Dear Abby so many times...

It is the first time that I have wondered if maybe there should have been more people with Down Syndrome around. Did some maybe die or were they locked away? Because that's one way the doctor who allowed the death justified it; if they don't die, they just grow into terrible burdens we lock away!

The episode is seriously disturbing. It also has some outdated language that can make you cringe, but that is almost minor because there is a dead child.

Television is not perfect, but it can help us look back.

Certainly it is a reminder of privilege that just because you have not had a problem cannot take for granted that no one else has. 

Perhaps more importantly, changes don't inevitably happen. It takes people marching, organizing, writing letters, sharing their stories, and a multitude of other activities, repeated, often under great frustration.

Don't take them for granted.

Back to the reading list, I really liked Martin Espada and will definitely read more by him. 

It made me happy to find the rest of Lomas Garza's work.

Otherwise, the most recommended are probably De Colores and Fifth Sun. 

The other non-fiction books were a bit too pedantic, though they made valid points about groups with goals in common sometimes fighting against each other and needing to grow beyond that.

Picture Books:

Broken Butterfly Wings by Raquel M. Ortiz, illustrated by Carrie Salazar, 2021
Family Pictures/Cuadros De Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, 1990
In My Family/En Mi Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, 1996 

Poetry:

Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Hispanic in the United States, edited by Lori M. Carlson, 1994
Zapata's Disciple by Martin Espada, 1998
Floaters by Martin Espada, 2021

Prose/Non-fiction

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century by Elizabeth Martinez, 1998
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend, 2019
The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture by Neil Foley, 1997
Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies by José David Saldivar, 1997

Winnowing through

Last week I wrote about gaining understanding about the conflicts I had with my mother. 

One of the big ones was the neatness of my room. It was not dirty, but it was cluttered; there were always stacks of books and papers and drawings. Sometimes I wasn't done with them yet, and sometimes, maybe I only thought I was done. What if I needed them later?

When I was born, we were pretty poor, and it was a time of grief. I think I have had this scarcity mindset from before conscious memory. Maybe that's why there was always a worry about needing something and not having it.

It was not always strictly that concern. 

Sometimes it was wanting to cover everything. I started a pretty serious needlepoint phase in high school, possibly related to working at K-Mart and discovering so many needlepoint kits. I wanted to do them all. I did many, but I still have a lot left. Eventually I did not have the time to work on them anymore. 

(I was still doing at least some in college, so that took a while.)

There there was building my imagined future, so I had a hope chest. K-Mart was a big part of this too, because I could find great deals on things there, and put them in the chest that I also bought there. 

Many of those things eventually became gifts, and some ended up being used by me, but setting up this dream home after I got married never happened. Having some drinking glasses and towels and a few appliances wouldn't have made that much difference anyway.

The biggest source of clutter was probably the desire for information, which for me is pretty much insatiable.

I have an old hymnbook because it has "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in it. I like the song and it is not in our current hymnbook. I wanted to remember the words.

I got that book in the early 90s. Now an internet search will quickly resolves the lyric question, though there's this middle verse coming up that I swear whoever posted it just made up.

When I was a teenager, knowing song lyrics required listening over and over again, unless they were on the liner notes, which did not happen enough. 

I have saved a lot of college textbooks. One of them is specifically a book on Roman history that briefly mentions the sister of one Roman emperor proposing to Attila the Hun to get out of an unwanted arranged marriage. Dramatic! There weren't many details, but I at least wanted to be able to remember her name.

Without remembering it on my own, if you type "emperor's sister Attila the Hun" into any decent search engine, you come up with Justa Grata Honoria.

I'm not saying that you always get great results with search engines, especially with lyrics (and especially with monetized search engine optimization), but there are options now that are amazing. 

I still want to keep the same kind of information that I always have, but it does not require an extensive personal library.

Yes, sometimes I return a book to the library, and then want to verify something that was in it. I may be able to find it online, or remember it well enough, or if needed I can check the book out again. 

There is a great calmness in that, and it allows me to downsize. I still care about not wasting, so I will try and find good places for everything, but that is a significant project for this phase of my life.

Of course, I  have to consider if that is secure enough. In some apocalyptic scenario, the internet could be wiped out. A house fire could wipe out the personal library.

In fact, I have lost incredible amounts of data before. 

That must be the next section.

La Raza Heritage Month: Movies

I watched four more movies from the list suggested by Michael Paarlberg:

https://twitter.com/MPaarlberg/status/1560397489156624384

That leaves me with six. It would be nice to think I could finish them next year, but sometimes locating them is difficult.

Also, there was one surprise addition.  

Here are the films I watched, listed from most recent to oldest. This is also almost the order I watched them in, which was mainly a coincidence. The change to that would be to put Lone Star second.

La Dictadura Perfecta (2014) (Mexico)

I was never able to find a subtitled version, but I did find a dubbed one on Netflix. It's not my favorite way of watching anything, but it worked out.

This is a dark comedy focusing on news and government corruption, which are shockingly aligned. Maybe the strongest message of all is how easy it is to end up dead.

Tropa de Elite 2: O Inimiga Agora e Outro (2010) (Brazil)

Terrible corruption and violence again, but with less humor. This time it is set in Brazil, where I know the least history and have the least language comprehension. I suspect that in the setting of Rio de Janeiro, the large population also has an impact. The setup of the favelas certainly does.

Perhaps the most interesting part is Nascimento, a devoted cop, having to learn to work with teacher and politician (and husband of Nascimento's ex) Fraga, coming to respect someone who has seemed to be a natural enemy.

Tropico de Sangre (2010) (Dominican Republic)

For this one, I have read In the Time of the Butterflies, so had some familiarity with the Mirabal sisters and their story. The film differed in that it focused much more on Minerva. Also, where the book focused more on their interior lives and relationships, in the film you saw more of the organizing they did, the torture they experienced, and difficult to forget images of their deaths.

For getting an idea of the background of the country, you see how the need to placate Trujillo keeps encroaching on freedom and life, not just for the Mirabal family but for everyone, even his friends and supporters. That arc with Antonio de la Maza is important for understanding Trujillo's eventual end.

The torture is not shown in great detail, but what you do understand makes a strong impression, making the movie effective. I also appreciated Trujillo's pallor. He just keeps looking more monstrous every time you see him.

There is a film specifically based on In the Time of the Butterflies, and that will be interesting for comparison.

Lone Star (1996) (border)

This is the one where I most understood how it gave you the feel for understanding the area. With the different people featured and their interactions, yes, that makes sense for how being right on the border would be.

The timing of my watching it also worked well with some of my reading, so that was a nice bonus.

Born in East L.A. (1987)

Shockingly, this is the one that was not recommended by the college professor.

When I was picking the daily songs for the month, and focusing on regions, I kept thinking about Los Angeles, and I kept thinking of the song. I knew there was a movie, and decided to just go for it.

Like many movies done by people who have worked in sketch comedy, sometimes it is uneven, and there are probably scenes that are unnecessary, though some of them are very memorable. I did not really appreciate the scenes with Feo, which was a shame to me because I am really fond of Tony Plana (who was also in Lone Star).

I must nonetheless concede that the sequence going over the hill to Neil Diamond's "America" was set up perfectly and really pays off.

Letting go

The e-mail backlog and the procrastination and everything is part of a broader story of gaining peace. I think the reason I was having so much trouble telling it is that I was trying to gloss over the pain on that path.

If I am no longer afraid of various losses, that was mostly achieved by having major losses and then surviving them. Maybe that means they weren't devastating, but there were definite feelings. I think I need to face that part head on. Maybe the easiest way to do that is going over the one that does still hurt, and that is still happening.

It hurts that I am losing my mother, and have been doing so for years. I don't even know when to start counting; there have been so many stages.

The first thing that I need to acknowledge is that she seems really pretty happy and peaceful.

She had been pretty cheerful most of the time, but there were moments where she would get really emotional. Sometimes it felt like she was working things out. Even if the way she presented them had not been how it really happened, emotionally it seemed to be part of a larger truth. Now she seems more peaceful, but is also slowing down a lot. 

I know there are ways in which we have been really blessed; this could have been much harder. 

It's been hard enough.

So, I have that mourning for the past decade or so, and the absence of that relationship with a lot of reminders of it, and this sense of impending finality, and I am depressed.

This is actually my standard version of depression. There have been two periods in my life that were much more acute. Currently, I just feel kind of held down. I am very functional, but the sense of loss is very present. I don't think I can move past it until she goes, and that moving past is probably not going to be immediate.

I am really grateful that I was able to make peace with the flaws in our relationship. I carried a lot of guilt for my dissatisfaction for her, like I wasn't a good enough daughter if her method of parenting was not enough for me. 

Gaining that perspective on what was missing and why was a huge weight lifted. 

It also left me able to be more understanding of ways in which I could have been a better child, and to make peace with that as well. For the most part we liked each other, and we loved each other fiercely, and that's pretty good.

And I wholeheartedly believe this is not a permanent loss. One day the pain will be gone, and the love will still be there, and that will be joyful.

Right now this holiday season does kind of suck. 

It doesn't mean I won't enjoy anything, and it definitely doesn't mean that anyone should try and cheer me up. 

It just is.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-next-mourning.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/what-mr-rogers-said.html

Transgender Awareness Reading: Until next time...

I cannot rule out that I may do a post about how some books read went along with other issues in other books read at around the same times, but specifically for transgender issues I am moving on.

It should come as no surprise that I did not completely meet my goals for this reading section.

Yes, I did read all of the books I meant to, but there had been some other things that I wanted to spend more time on. 

This takes us back in time to the first time I took a comic book MOOC: Gender Through Comic Books

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/gender-through-comic-books-my-first-mooc.html

Transgender issues were only a small part of the reading, because we also talked about stereotypes and perceptions, but there was some relevant material that stuck with me. 

That included the story of the Guevedoces in the Dominican Republic, though I had not remembered or understood at the time that they enzyme deficiency was genetic. I had thought it related to nutrition. Maybe some of that is better understood now, or I just might have missed it.

I also remembered an Indonesian group that recognized five genders, the Bugis. I think it was after the class that I saw something about seven genders in Judaism, except when I try to find that now I come up with six or eight, so maybe someone took an average. 

Anyway, I wanted to delve into those more, and how people relate to gender in general. I know the white supremacist way that infuses Western civilization, but it has definite flaws.

I did not end up really doing that. I am of course behind on other reading, which is sort of standard for me now. It felt like I should be moving on, but was it enough?

There are a few things that are reassuring.

First of all, there is one thing I keep remembering about that first MOOC.

One night on Twitter there was a young person expression frustration with gender, not feeling like they conformed, but maybe not feeling transgender either... like they just didn't match up.

I don't know that I was even familiar with the term "non-binary" then, and I don't know if that ended up being their answer. Sometimes, maybe the reason you don't feel like a "girl" is that there are two many qualifications put on what girls should be.

I was able to direct her to some of the materials I knew from the course, and it really helped.

About two years ago I was able to help someone else who had concluded that they were non-binary, but then started enjoying girly things, and felt a little weird about it. I had the most specific dream imaginable to reach out to her.

I mention them because I do know that you don't have to know everything to be able to help (fortunately), and that this matters, but also that there is guidance.

I feel better moving on now because I already have a plan for June 2024. 

I will commemorate Pride Month with at least five books and researching two other people. That reading list came together really easily and naturally from where I already was.

Maybe I will get into looking at cross-cultural gender comprehension then. 

Finally -- and this goes more to the guidance part -- the past couple of days I could not stop thinking about this actress who had a very limited run on the soap opera Loving back in 1992. I don't think I even saw that many episodes with her, and I could not remember the name of the character or the actress. 

Fortunately, her character had dated Roger Howarth's character, and he became incredibly popular in another role. The internet eventually delivered Staige Prince, played by Eden Atwood. 

She hasn't even done that much acting. She did, however, start the Interface Project, where people with intersex conditions can share their stories.

https://www.interfaceproject.org/

That has been an area where I really feel uninformed. This feels like a good starting point, and it would be so random a way to get that, but I don't think it's random. 

Things like that help me feel all right about my path, and my pace.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/10/terf-month.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/whatever-joanne.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading-memoirs.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/transgender-awareness-reading-for.html

Lost health

I expected the old e-mail messages thing to be simply an interesting time marker; this is what's happened with Twitter over the past year, and moving on!

I keep not moving on. 

In the strata of the e-mail backlog I keep finding other things about myself, some that I have even written about already, but am apparently not done with. In various ways, it tends to focus on loss.

I have also recently undergone a new experience, but I suppose it all relates: yesterday I tested positive for Covid.

I have given some details on Facebook, but let me back up. 

This is the first case in my household of my two younger sisters and I. Two of us mostly telecommute, which helps. It was the one who has to work on site that brought it home.

We have still escaped it for almost four years now, but my sisters were being more careless with masking. The contagion happening right after Thanksgiving is not a coincidence; plan on increased risk through the New Year. People want to do things, I get it.

I also get that the mask is not fun. Wearing it around home, I notice that my nose itches a lot. I wear it anyway, but I was not wearing it at home while Maria was incubating.

Despite my efforts to be responsible in not easily catching or spreading disease, I was probably irresponsible in testing.

Maria got bad chills on Tuesday. She took her temperature and saw that she had a fever, so took an antigen test that came out positive. She left work and called to let us know on the way.

We immediately started masking and distancing. It's not perfect. Some people have basements or attics and can really isolate. We only have a crawlspace and it would have been cruel to put her down there. Julie and I were not testing, but we were taking our temperatures. We planned on testing if we got symptoms, including fevers. Then, after Maria's first negative test I wanted to test, and then two days later. If those were both negative, I would have considered myself in the clear.

Sunday Maria was negative, so Julie and I both took our first tests. Julie was negative, but I wasn't.

People have been great, but I felt a twinge when getting recommendations to take Paxlovid.

Maria had a video appointment the day after she tested positive, and her PA recommended against it. The reasons given were that Maria's health was overall good, and the PA said that with Paxlovid people tend to get really bad diarrhea and then catch Covid again a couple of weeks later. 

Internet research (not a perfect system) seems to bear out that Covid rebound is a thing with Paxlovid, but diarrhea seems to be more of a Covid thing than a Paxlovid thing. I would take that with a grain of salt. My real issue is that I suspect I had it earlier than I thought. 

That made me feel that I was irresponsible in waiting to test. The problem was, we didn't have that many left. I have ordered more free tests, and we bought more too, but we did not feel free to just keep testing. If I had at least tested on Friday, I could have gotten a hold of my doctor.

Of course I didn't have the fever, but did I have symptoms?

Well, I work in a call center for Medicare plans and it's open enrollment. High call volume always makes my throat raw, and this is the busiest time of year. So, some coughing and sore throat did not stand out. When the calls keep coming, with no time to think in between and then the tools slow down because everyone is using them and I really care and often I can really help but then there are old people who are really lonely or cranky... I start getting this rage building up inside me. Then, my brain is fried by the end of the shift where I can't really read or be social, but it is still too worked up to fall asleep easily.

When your baseline is exhausted, hoarse, and constantly suppressing urges to scream and cry and run away, maybe checking for symptoms loses some of its efficacy.

I might have been sneezing more.

That's why I was relying so much on the temperature, but Maria had just gotten her most recent Covid booster Wednesday night, whereas I'd had mine a few weeks before. Individual immune response can vary, but that may have played a factor as well.

The point is, if you are supposed to take the Paxlovid within five days of symptoms, I was probably too late. I felt better Sunday than I had Saturday, but I had also had an extra day off the phone (which Monday ruined).

So, there are problems there, with my job situation, the national health care situation -- in terms of there even being an insurance industry and the cost and availability of tests -- and the plight of the elderly. that may have made it harder for me to handle everything correctly. 

On the plus side, I am fully vaccinated which probably eased my symptoms, I can telecommute, and I have just had Covid without missing a day of work or exposing any coworkers. We still have to hope Julie stays safe, but we work on opposite sides of the house, which I hope will help.

And I have a big box of KN95 masks.

My goal is still to get two negative tests before heading out into public again, or eating with my family and things like that, but the time frame has shifted.

I remember so many times people saying "We are all going to get COVID", and I was mad at that nihilism. I wanted to beat the odds.

Maria is very sorry.

We are still here.

Transgender Awareness Reading: For younger readers

There was one thing I kept noticing as I read the memoirs; it always seemed to be around the age of four that the difference was noticed.

Sometimes the writer had very clear memories, and sometimes it came from parents or grandparents, but the age was very consistent.

Adding to that this refrain from Believe Me, about knowing but not knowing the words.

It is very hard to feel that something about yourself is wrong, and to not understand. I don't want anyone to go through that.

Because of that, I like that there are both children's books and books geared more toward teens:

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis, Suzanne DeSimone
I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, Shelagh McNicholas

Laverne Cox (Little People, Big Dreams, 86) by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and Olivia Daisy Coles

Laverne Cox (Transgender Pioneers) by Erin Staley

The two on Laverne Cox are parts of series that cover many people. With I Am Jazz and My Princess Boy, those are coming out of family experience, but they are different experiences.

Jazz is very much a girl. It appears that the princess boy is not, he simply likes dressing in princess clothes. Maybe that will change as he gets older. One thing that we have frequently seen with the adults is that they reveal themselves in stages, perhaps testing the waters and seeing if they can be accepted.

We can do a lot to remove those concerns by being accepting and making that information available.

The common conservative objection is that you don't want to give them ideas. I know they hate changing their minds based on the lived experiences of others, but that lived experience demonstrates clearly that it does not come from them being given ideas. No amount of ignorance is going to keep someone from knowing. 

I did wonder how much of it is cultural. It seems clear that the gender identity is already present before four years old, but that is where they begin noticing and remembering the mismatch. I looked up the case of Dominican children where male primary sex organs did not develop until puberty, due to an enzyme deficiency:

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981

They did not explore that part a lot, but it appears the real age of conflict there was five, not a big difference.

I can't help but think that if we did not put so much emphasis on conformity to gender norms -- which is very wrapped up in patriarchy and misogyny -- we could make everyone's life easier. It would not change their gender identity; it would just help them navigate things better, and make decisions that would make their life easier.

That's worth a lot.

We need lots and lots of books.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/read-loveless-and-gender-queer.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading-memoirs.html

Procrastination

One week later, my e-mail is down to 205, a net reduction of 25. 

The part about the mail backlog was really just context for why I was looking at those particular passages. As I wrote about it, and about making peace with the levels and means of connection, it felt like there was more there, and more that was relevant.

One source accounts for most of the backlog,the Indian Country Today newsletter. The oldest message is from July 6th, 2021, and there are generally two to three messages a week. 

It was easy to procrastinate reading them. I am usually rushed. That particular oldest message comes from a time when I was applying for jobs, getting hired, training... I mean, it makes sense if that's where I started losing track.

It's not all them; I recently went through all of my old Southern Poverty Law Center updates. The reason I did not finish them at the time I got them was because they usually linked to new reports or studies with more reading, and I wanted to give those adequate time. I now tend to think that just skimming would have been fine, and better than reading so much later.

In the things that I am working with now Marie Kondo has been a great help, but we are not completely aligned on saving things for later. She says that in general if you don't read something when you get it, then you are not going to, or possibly that if it is for a later time, it will reappear. 

I think that is true for a lot of people, but with my stubborn wish to know and understand everything, I will make myself get to things, and often I will enjoy it then.

Being able to let things go is a part of this process, and I will spend more time on that. 

This post is more about my tendency to dread things, and then delay them.

Catching up on these letters has been good. I have learned a lot. I am working backwards, so sometimes it is interesting seeing the earlier context, sometimes I don't need it, and sometimes it is more frustrating.

For example, I just read an article about protests on the refusal to search two landfills. This was from February, and I was still reading about the landfill issue in August. As far as I know, there is still no search. That is only one part of the overall Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue.

As that backlog was growing (it did briefly top 500), I did keep thinking that maybe there wasn't even a point in going back; that I should just commit to moving forward. I couldn't feel right about that.

I did start making a point of reading the new updates on the day they came in. That may have helped take away some of the apprehension about getting to the old ones. It was possible to keep up; it could be possible to catch up.

I had made a few attempts here and there, but they didn't stick.

As Native American Heritage Month was approaching, I started reading one message per day in October, then two per day in November, working backwards one month at a time. If in the process I encounter another old e-mail that I know is part of a trend (like SPLC), I go through those.

It isn't trying to do too much, and it is doing something.

Procrastination can have some ridiculous hangups behind it, that are not easily overcome. Once you start getting past it, though, it can be very gratifying, and make other obstacles appear smaller.

Looking forward to the pockets of permaculture and guitar messages!

Transgender Awareness Reading: The memoirs

I tried thinking of the best path to say the most important things to say. I am not sure this one is perfect, but for this post I am going to go over the memoirs in the order of least-liked to most, always keeping in mind that tastes vary.

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

One thing that I would like to read more about, and I don't really see it discussed much, is how much gender conditioning affects people. For example, does someone assigned female at birth still -- even after transitioning -- feel that compulsion to apologize and play nice that is hounded into women. 

While the influences are strongly cultural, Talusan was born in the Philippines as an oldest (for several years only) son, and was also albino, causing her to look white. There was a lot of doting on and spoiling by the grandmother. While there were definite sources of pain beyond gender identity, there is an extent to which Talusan is often really selfish and inconsiderate, and not a great child or friend. There are things I really sympathize with, and things that are not her fault, but this is ultimately why I didn't really enjoy the time spent in her book. Still interesting.

This was the only one I really didn't like, and the next two were pretty equal, where I am not sure about the rank.

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard (now going by Suzy Izzard)

If you enjoy Izzard's humor, with a lot of tangents and circling back, you should enjoy this book. I didn't mind that part so much, except it seems to require more repetition. 

A bigger factor for me was the certainty of rightness, which kept getting repeated, especially for Izzard's certainty that there is no God. I mean, I disagree, but over and over and over again. I appreciate that she still believes in kindness, and there are some amazing goals achieved, but at the same time it just gets a little tiresome.

She tells a story about a class where they had to impersonate each other, with the imitation of her being something like "blah blah blah theater, blah blah blah design" so perhaps she is at peace with it.

Because this book was written before Izzard clarified her name and pronouns, I also can't help wondering what difference that time has made, and if there might be some more relaxation, and less need to demonstrate authority. Perhaps we'll see.

Pageboy by Elliot Page 

The thing that made this book hard for me -- and this is not a reason not to read it -- is that there was so much exploitation and victimization of a young actor. That includes sexual exploitation, but there is some racism and dangerous stunts on the set of the Flatliners remake that were very frustrating. I read Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down earlier this year, so I shouldn't even be surprised at the Flatliners stuff, but the amount of creepy adults preying on minors and very young adults... it was just hard, and the knowledge that it can be and has been worse does not make it better.

Love That Story: Observations From A Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness

This one is kind of not really a memoir, but a collection of stories after a memoir. Actually, I am not sure the other book is a full memoir, but being on reality shows may also make someone feel like there is more known, and less that needs to be explained. 

Regardless, the things Van Ness does write about are laid out with honestly and emotion, and it does make me want to read the first book. Lots of enthusiasm and tangents, often with gymnastics references, so Van Ness might be kind of tiring too, like Izzard, but differently.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

This is again one where I want to read the other book, but this book does cover the journey; I am just interested in what else she has to say.

I think compared to the others mentioned so far, Mock may have a greater analysis and understanding of her entire process.

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography by Christine Jorgensen

I think I like Christine's personality most, but there are two other things that I believe make her story very valuable. 

One is that with her transition happening so early, there is a lot about the processes various doctors went through to try and make sure that it was reasonable to do the hormone supplements and then the surgery and that all of this could be good for her. It was interesting to see how much more energy she had after starting estrogen. I am not sure whether there was a hormonal imbalance for her as she was born that it corrected, or it as the relief in being able to become herself, but this was good for her. 

The other factor is that often in the other cases there is some tragedy or abuse or disconnect or something where transphobes are likely to point at that as an explanation for their being trans. That's not how it works, but those factors aren't present in Christine's life. She had a very happy childhood and a supportive family, but she was also always a girl.

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

This one is separate from the normal ranking because it is a graphic novel, though in many ways it can function as a memoir. The focus really is on the gender disconnect, and then on being able to connect. This may be one of the better ones for showing the value of the blockers, because puberty is rough.

More next Friday.

Connected

It's been a little over a year.

I have a tendency to hold on to e-mail messages for a long time, even if I have replied. Maybe I need to write more, or act on it, or it would just be something good to remember. Even though I have a perfectly good "saved" folder, I am more likely to see it in my inbox.

That does seem to be less true when the amount of e-mail goes past 500.

It is down to 230 now.

The current layer included some messages that related to the fear of Twitter going away. 

I am set up to get an e-mail notification when I get a direct message. There really weren't that many messages from that, but I remember it was part of a bigger trend where I thanked people for ways they influenced me, promised to read their books, told them how much I appreciated them...

Mostly it was tweets, but there were a few direct messages and some replies.

Twitter is still here. Sure, they pretend it is called "X" and the button for "retweet" now says "repost", but the site is still twitter.com. Maybe that will be the next change.

There have been many changes, and none of them have been for the better. There are definitely more racists, and the ad insertions are a lot more intrusive. I don't send direct messages anymore because to receive them I have to receive direct messages from any blue check; that seemed like a bad idea since blue checks are the kind of people who think giving an egomaniacal emerald heir money makes them friends. I probably could still send messages to people who follow me, but if I can't see their replies, what's the point?

I don't think the algorithm is working in my favor at all, so I don't know that people really see my tweets. A lot of people that I liked are gone anyway.

Also, a lot of people have become a lot worse. That was something that was happening all along, where I would think someone was pretty cool and insightful, and then would slowly become disillusioned. That's happened with more people, but I don't blame that on Twitter so much as just the world (and dominator culture).

I had decided sometime ago that I don't have it in me to start on a new social media site, and I am sticking to that. The way I came to the Twitter I liked was so much a path that could not have been predicted but worked out so well... it couldn't be recreated. That wouldn't matter if I were optimistic about something else being created that would be worth the effort, but I don't feel drawn toward any of that.

I do sometimes think of increasing my participation on one of the other sites that I am on: posting on Tumblr again, doing more on Facebook, or maybe even installing Instagram on my phone so I could actually post. 

For now, that remains a "no". At the same time, as I sort through old e-mails and files and things, who knows where that winnowing will lead?

It is meaningful to me that a year later, I have heard from people I have met through Twitter, but been contacted via e-mail and Facebook. As important as a platform can be for connecting, no platform is the only means of connecting.

There are much more valuable aspects of Twitter for new and organization and activism that have been damaged.

However, I am still stubbornly sticking it out. At this point I am hoping someone will seize the platform from that guy, and maybe it can be good again.