Gina Harris's Blog, page 28

Transgender Awareness reading

It is Transgender Awareness Week. 

Apparently someone asked for suggested books in their comments and posted the responses, then was criticized for transmisogyny due to what was missing from the list. Apparently the small account didn't get diverse enough replies.

On one level, you probably have someone being ridiculous, but possibly that hypersensitivity is based on historical exclusion; that's why I am not linking to any of it. I could not find the initial list, so that poster may have meant well and then been hounded into deleting. I feel bad about that.

However, I was going to post about the books I read today, and how I got there, and now it is posting my own list and in a timely manner! 

It started with a school board candidate telling lies:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/05/do-they-know-or-care-that-they-are-lying.html

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis, Suzanne DeSimone

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

I posted about those books that I had been meaning to read, but the transphobic attitudes of the authors was putting me off.

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

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

Well, here were two books that could act as counterweights, but only two, and one was a children's book and the author of the other was non-binary, not technically transgender... what else?

I first thought of Laverne Cox and Janet Mock. That led me to a few books.

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

Laverne Cox (Transgender Pioneers) by Erin Staley

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

I saw that Elliot Page's book was out, and then wondered about Suzy Izzard, and there was a book! 

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard

Pageboy by Elliot Page

There was another book, Brazen, that I didn't love, but it reminded me of Christine Jorgensen, and that she had written an autobiography. Score!

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography by Christine Jorgensen

The other books that I read were kind of found by accident, but those are accidents that happen because you are looking up the books that you know exist, and other books related in some way or another appear. 

(With Fairest I was literally looking up something cooking related, but they had the same last name. Less probable, but it still worked.)

I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, Shelagh McNicholas

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

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

So there are eleven books I have read, at a variety of reading levels and I think with a decent amount of representation. I'm sure there is room for criticism, but it is a start; everyone has to start somewhere.

Also, a book I am reading now, Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures, is on topic, but technically I am reading it for Native American Heritage Month.  

It is also very much an anthropology book, with the first few chapters about terminology and research methods, so it's not going to be to everyone's taste. I enjoy the memoirs more, but other types of books round things out.

Allow me also to mention some other books.

Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television, 1930s to the Present by Steven Capsuto

I made sure to finish reading this one before I wrote about Barney Miller, because I learned about it through a video on one of the episodes, but it does not look like I really wrote about it then. 

It was an interesting read, though mainly about cisgender gay issues. It did mention though, as we got to television stories about AIDS, about how the dramas portrayed the choice as between family acceptance or dying alone, ignoring the community support that existed. That made me want to read another book:

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

Again, that is primarily cisgender-related, though there are some transgender people who pop up.

Non-fiction books tend to open up new doors anyway. In addition, I saw that both Jonathan Van Ness and Janet Mock had other books. In the case of Van Ness, I think the other book would have fit in better, but hey, my reading started with a lying school board candidate, and that was the book that he mentioned. I don't regret reading Love That Story, but I think I need to read more.

So, at some point next year, I know I will be reading... 

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness
Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock

as well as...

When We Rise by Cleve Jones
In the Form of a Questions: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

I also know I will want to read more about Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. I don't know what those books will be yet, but I am confident I will find something, because sometimes it doesn't even take that much effort to have more books come.

I will write more about these books, but for now, if you want to do more reading, I hope these options help.

Related posts:

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

Grace notes

I've had two nice things happen recently.

For starters, I got to order Chipotle.

One of the things that I am not proud of -- back when I was caring for our mother full-time -- is that sometimes the thought of having to come up with what to make for dinner and then do it one more time would bring me to tears.

A big part of that is an executive function overload, which is why planning meals out several days in advance can help. Sometimes, though, you just need a break.

Working again and starting to catch up, I had started periodically ordering in, about once a month. I would order multiple things to make the delivery fee less outrageous and so I would have leftovers, but it allowed me to try different things and get that break.

Once the garnishment started, I couldn't justify it. Even if the money were there so it were technically possible, there were always more important things. 

I just really wanted Chipotle. Especially the chips and salsa. I haven't ordered in since August, before this all started.

It was embarrassing how much I wanted it. It's not like I am not ever eating or getting things that I like or going out. It was one specific thing that I was not getting, but also it was representing that I can't just do whatever I want, and I used to have more freedom in that way.

When Julie paid her rent, she gave me an extra $40 so I could do that. 

I still wasn't going to order, because there are so many places to put that money. I did anyway, because she wanted that for me, and it was good.  

I think I can go another three months now.

In addition, I have recently had two people reach out to me.

I have been reaching out more myself, but these were both from when I was kind of adopting depressed teenage girls. That is such a bad way of describing it, but there's not an efficient explanation that is not overly complicated.

Back in 2013 somehow I was finding hurting young women through Twitter, and just trying to be encouraging and supportive, and help. That's been enough time for most of them to be adults and have jobs, maybe have finished school, and most of them are long past those crises. The two who reached out aren't even on Twitter anymore.

They still remembered me and thought of me. 

Sometimes you are just in someone's life for a while, and that can be perfectly fine. 

Sometimes it is good to hear back.

Whatever, Joanne

The other "TERF" part of TERF month is that I needed to finish the Harry Potter series.

Well, "needed" is a strong word. 

I don't really remember the dates, but I think I read the first five between 2002 and 2008, based on which movies I saw and that I had already read them by the time I got onto Goodreads. I periodically picked up a $1 used copy at Powell's, at least for the first three. The last two were more expensive, but still definitely used.

I planned on getting to the last two, but they weren't a priority. Then Rowling started approaching her current form, and I had less interest.

Still, I like completion. I figured I would probably do it. She kept shooting off her mouth, and there are so many other things to read!

I read Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century at the end of 2017. It mentioned potentially reading the last book of the series for inspiration. Okay, maybe I would get to it, but I would just check them out from the library. Still not enough motivation.

Then my sister gave me the last two books. She was trying to be nice, but they have been annoying me in my room for at least a couple of years now.

Okay, I was just going to put all of the TERF work together and get it over with. It was still hard to bring myself to do it, because they are so long, and I was just not looking forward to it.

Having it done is a relief.

I get why Snyder recommended it. With the underground radio and papers and the things that people need to do to resist, including choices about when safety is more important, or less... it is relevant and I believe that was especially a recommendation for younger people.

Some of my irritation with the moodiness, impatience, and lack of rationality about these teenagers is certainly related to me being an older person. Grow up and quit sulking!

I remember once in a movie review for the 1996 Emma, a bit about how it can be hard to have a character be annoying where you get that they are annoying, but that it does not take you out of the movie with your own annoyance.

I think Rowling is not a great writer with that, being overly repetitive to convey how hard it is for everyone. There are ways to change it each time to show growth and development, and there is also sometimes trusting the readers that they will get that it is hard. Theoretically there is also still listening to editors even though you are super successful and famous, because you can also get too full of yourself.

I think both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows could be 200 pages shorter and be better for it.

It's not that they are terrible, either. Some of the passages are thrilling and there is some great imagination. 

However, knowing how Rowling has not only being ardently transphobic but pretty ableist and not being able to unsee the fatphobia once becoming aware of it...  I don't like her.

For this particular literary opinion, there will be people who agree and people who are aghast, and that's fine. Similarly, I had really expected to like A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I kind of hated it. The reason that I kind of hated it was that I felt this contempt for humanity in it. 

Sure, there are legitimate reasons for that contempt, but I can't give into it. I tend not to admire works filled with it.

It was not a surprise to find that here. The scene early on where Dudley is saying goodbye to Harry and starting to feel things and Harry is such a jerk about it is a good example. You are supposed to agree with Harry, because this is Dudley, but it's like there is this latent cruelty. Of course the author is someone who is going to target the marginalized and feel righteous.

Next week I will get into the transphile books. One of the authors mentioned waiting at the bookstore at midnight when a new book was going to be launched. What a letdown! I'm sorry for those who have been let down. I'm just kind of "Meh."

(I can't be passionate about everything. Probably.)

However, I must make clear that the reason this is a separate post from the other TERF works is because there is a vast difference between the quality of the work and the quality of the feminism. Rowling is not a radical feminist and I don't think much of a feminist in general and certainly not one to have much to teach about equality. (Which is perhaps not surprising for someone who wrote a whole "chosen one" narrative.)

I have my disappointments with Alice Walker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Caroline Criado Pérez, but they are in a whole different league.

Of course Joanne has more money. That is no guarantee of quality, as has been demonstrated again and again.

Buffy

This may be more of a rant than I prefer.

Friday I briefly mentioned gatekeeping in reference to choosing what songs to feature for a heritage month. 

In fact, there have been issues with groups that could easily have common interests being divided for feelings of superiority or fear or resentment or something that doesn't help.

Going back further, I wrote back in January about attacks on the authenticity of various Native Americans, and that I'd heard they were coming for Buffy Sainte-Marie next:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/01/native-american-identity-for-white.html 

They did it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/02/buffy-sainte-marie-documentary-controversy-indigenous-canada 

There are a few things that make this more of a rant than a cogent explanation of the problems.

The first is probably my disgust with how many people are just automatically accepting it.

Recently I wrote about how the internet -- including many Canadians -- rode to the defense of Martin Short when someone called him annoying. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/10/all-coming-back.html

I thought this would be the same, because so many people love Buffy. 

So many people turned against her so quickly.

Sometimes personal jealousy appears to have been a factor, like people who lost awards to her, because obviously it should have been theirs. 

Other times I don't know the motive, though I hope they notice that they are being joined by terrible people also crowing about "hoaxes" relating to boarding schools and missing women.

Here is one of the other things that make me angrier. One poster pointed out that they started the attacks on Sacheen Littlefeather close to the start of Native American Heritage month too. I had not thought of that at the time. 

Yeah, that doesn't seem like an accident.

Of course, as far as Jacqueline Keeler is concerned (she was not acting alone this time), you don't have to wait for any specific month; her attacks on Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone were back in April.

https://twitter.com/mariahgladstone/status/1658887551212716034 

I can't help but think it might be more beneficial to look into someone like Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, who holds current political power and is not necessarily using it well.

https://apnews.com/oklahoma-governors-tribal-fight-raises-ancestry-questions-61f53c6a2094c89f90b1a4190f08a7db

People definitely have questions about Lakota Man, who seems like he might be trying to be the Native Shaun King.

But no, these attacks have been on a dead woman, a retired woman, and a young actress at an exciting time in her career.

Certainly, there may be times when there are questions. Buffy Sainte-Marie may have been lied to about her heritage, but I do not believe she lied. 

https://twitter.com/BuffySteMarie/status/1717609253199127019 

The irritating things is that so many times they have said that it is not whom you claim, but who claims you, and that DNA is not the point, but now there are all the calls for DNA tests. In fact Buffy has been claimed by the Piapot and has deep ties to them, so shouldn't that settle it?

Why be consistent when you can be spiteful instead?

Reading about this, I discovered a new term: paper genocide. It refers to the destruction of documents and records to erase history and culture. 

There are issues with tracking down who was stolen and who was adopted and why those words may both belong to the same person. 

There is a lot of good that could be done in trying to restore family connections that were lost over time, in both Canada and the United States.

There could be a lot of healing to be done, but I can't see that Keeler has any interest than that. 

Instead she attacks women of color -- even though she is one -- and she goes to estranged relatives and lies to them. Even that she questions the abuse of survivor, taking the perpetrator's word for it, without doing anything to mitigate or help or care...

I don't expect anything good from her.

I was surprised and disgusted that so many people accepted it, but working with the CBC --even with a sleazier side of it -- seemed to help. 

At least they got their highest ratings ever.

La Raza Heritage Month Daily Songs

I interrupt my writing on TERF month and the counter-programming because I finished something musically and I want to write about it now.

You may recall that I have struggled with what to call the time period running from September 15th through October 15th. As I was reading the books for that month, they focused on the issues with the names too. I can't promise it will stick, but this month I am using La Raza.

What does that mean? Well, really, they are Indigenous people living in areas of the Americas originally colonized by Spain (and Portugal?). The distinction is language, but of course racially there is a lot of mixing, and there are many different cultures there, not all of which relates to United States history.

I was thinking about those different cultures within the US specifically, and got this idea to do different regions.

Even then it's messy. I don't think "Chicano" has ever been specified as located in California, but primarily US residents of Mexican heritage. I focused on Californians because if you keep heading East from the Pacific, you find Tejanos.

Without it necessarily being fair, I left out Linda Ronstadt because she was born in Arizona. 

I started late, but gave eight days each (for a month of 32 days) to those two, plus Cuban-Americans (focusing on Miami) and Nuyoricans. 

I debated whether that should be Nuyoricans or just Puerto Ricans, from wherever, but I liked the fairly strict definition and it was my favorite music. (Due to the country influence, the Tejano was my least favorite.)

The confusion about whom to include -- and the potential exclusion -- spreads. Oscar Isaac is a Latino musician from Miami. I reviewed Blinking Underdogs in 2016, but he's Guatemalan, right? Maternally yes, but his father is Cuban, perhaps making his presence in Miami make more sense, but people from all over end up all over.

Other musicians that I did not use included B'Real, Irene Cara, and Rudy Sarzo. You could argue against using Rage Against the Machine, because really that was only for Zach de la Rocha. 

This is not the ultimate list, but the list I used this time.

As I get into the books in a few weeks, we may return to the problems of gatekeeping. For now, I think my answer is rotation. Zoom in on specifics and differences, then zoom back out on commonalities, and remember there is always more.

There were a few breaks due to travel, and then a few days filled in with songs relating to a concert I saw (Billy Idol), a book I read (Up, Up and Away by Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo), and a show I was watching (Daria). Then, since we were close to Halloween, two songs about relationships with a dangerous edge.

Chicanx
9/23 “Born in East LA” by Cheech Marin
9/24 “Testify” by Rage Against the Machine
9/25 “Donna” by Ritchie Valens
9/26 “Risk It” by Alice Bag
9/27 “Don't Push Me Around” by The Zeros
9/28 “Tu Historia” by Julieta Venegas
9/29 “En Realidad” by Angela Aguilar
9/30 “Blue Sofa” by The Plugz

Tejanx
10/1 “Lemon Tree” by Trini Lopez
10/2 “Volver, Volver” by Piñata Protest
10/3 “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” by Selena
10/4 “I Can't Stop Loving You” by Freddy Fender
10/5 “Estas Tocando Fuego” by La Mafia
10/6 “Wolves” by Selena Gomez
10/7 “Dance With Me” by Los Lonely Boys
10/8 “Quedate” by Emilio Navaira

Cuban-American
10/9 “Get On Your Feet” by Gloria Estefan
10/10 “Feel This Moment” by Pitbull feat Christina Aguilera
10/11 “Voices In My Head” by Al Jourgensen
10/12 “Cuban Pete” by Desi Arnaz
10/13 “Just Another Day” by Jon Secada
10/14 “My Old Friend” by Beato Band
10/15 “Un Nuevo Amanecer” by Angela Alvarez
10/16 “Yo Viviré” by Celia Cruz

Nuyorican
10/17 “Oye Como Va” by Tito Puente
10/18 “El Watusi” by Ray Barretto
10/19 “Mr. Trumpet Man” by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz
10/20 “Pa La Ocho Tambo” by Charlie and Eddie Palmieri
10/21 “Bang Bang” by Joe Cuba
10/22 “Idilio” by Willie Colón
10/23 “Pa Que Se Lo Gozen” by Tego Calderon
10/24 “Believe In Me” by Circa '95

10/26 “Save Me Now” by Billy Idol
10/27 “Up, Up and Away” by The 5th Dimension

10/29 “You're Standing On My Neck” by Splendora
10/30 “Maneater” by Hall & Oates
10/31 “Shoorah! Shoorah!” by Betty Wright

Next year's party

Happy Halloween!

I am not really doing a lot for it this year. 

There is some themed reading, but I am not visiting a lot of attractions, or dressing up, or carving pumpkins. I am not even doing that many Halloween songs, though there will be more about that Friday.

That's not all just being tired and poor; some of it was the sabbatical travel, which meant having less time.

However, we did still do our traditional family viewing: The 'burbs; It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown; Garfield's Halloween Adventure, and (of course) The Halloween that Almost Wasn't:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316318/

This was a television movie from 1979 with Judd Hirsch as Dracula and Mariette Hartley as the Witch.

I am pretty sure that it aired on the Disney channel in the early '80s, and that's where we saw it. The point is that with possibly only one viewing at the time, this eminently quotable movie entered the minds and hearts of my sisters and I, and we love it!

It was not easy to find, but we eventually got a DVD copy. It is under the alternative title that is much less representative: The Night Dracula Saved the World. (The world is never in danger -- just Halloween -- and that is plenty compelling.)

Yes, the movie is silly and cheesy and for kids and all of those things, but we find it incredibly fun. Is it just because we saw it at the right age and time? Because I know a lot of people are into Halloweentown and Hocus Pocus and we are not them. 

There isn't any easy way of knowing if it's just us, because no one we have mentioned it to has seen the movie. 

Next year there is going to be a viewing.

If no one else gets it, the movie is half an hour and they will survive (though my respect for their taste my take a hit).

If others are into it, hurrah! We will have spread the love.

Obviously that is almost a year away, so this is not even at the save-the-date stage, but if you are interested, it's not too early to let me know.

And if you have seen it, leave a comment!

TERF Month

I had been thinking of this section of the reading as TERF month and counter-programming, except that seems to focus on the worst part of it. Splitting it up into the most logical division, there are two consecutive weeks of it that are frustrating. 

Even the terminology is frustrating: I am not sure that and of the authors involved are radical feminists by the most strict definition. For one definition I read, it seems like a Radical Feminist should not even be able to be Trans-Exclusive. Perhaps it was that conflict that led to the TERF acronym.

Probably a better overall term is transphobe.

Regardless, as transphobes became more aggressive over the past few years, I would find out that the authors of various books that I intended to read were transphobic. That made me more reluctant to read the books, but I did not feel quite right letting them go either. 

There were a total of five books that were in this category. I ended up (with some inspiration that I will go into later) deciding to put them together with some other books that were more pro-transgender in an attempt to maintain balance.

That was the counter-programming, and it ended up exceeding expectations. I started out with two books in mind and found some really strong additions. That number is at more like 11 now, though there are some books that it could be questionable to count... we'll go over all of that.

For this post, here are three books by authors that appear to be transphobic:

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker

They are really good, each in their own individual way.

Invisible Women aggregates important patterns in bias that relate to health and safety and the overall well-being of not just women but society in general.

We Should All Be Feminists is brief but covers some important ground in terms of how so many times people try to define feminism into something different, probably because it is too hard and ugly to fight what feminism actually is.

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens has a quote I saved that seems to relate to my life now. That probably makes it the one that touched me the most, though as a collection of essays the impact of each individual one varied. However, just the reminder that there was a time, even in my lifetime (though early) that Zora Neale Hurston was practically unknown, and Their Eyes Were Watching God was not even in print... there has been progress. Alice Walker is a part of that progress and it matters.

I just also wish they would get over their prejudices. 

I understand them to some extent; in many ways they are reflecting society. 

I can also imagine that for Criado Pérez -- where so much of her focus relates to general differences between male and female bodies -- that I suppose it could lead to being more gender-essentialist. Looking a bit deeper, though, those standards surely do not fit all male bodies. We can open up more in general, considering other differences without losing sight of gender bias. 

I believe we can do multiple things. 

That leaves this remaining frustration; why can't you be better? 

Which is a fair question for anyone. However, when you have managed to see the problems with gender bias, and often also racial and class bias, anti-immigrant bias... you've come so far!

Please let's work on this next step.

Focus

I wrote For now, last Tuesday's post, the night before. 

I usually try to write ahead anyway; I believe it increases the quality and I know it decreases the stress. My extra motivation was that I had an early morning doctor's appointment Tuesday, which was going to make the morning hectic.

I have been doing appointments early when possible because it is too stressful worrying about being able to get the time off after making the appointment, or scheduling the time off first and then not getting the appointment. I start at 9:30, so if I can drag myself in somewhere between 7:15 to 7:45, I can be done in time for work. 

I never love going to the doctor, but I was kind of dreading it more because my most recent A1c was not as good as I had been hoping. I had been doing pretty well, but when things went spiraling out of control in June/July, it threw my sleep off pretty badly. 

The most important variables for my blood sugar (assuming the medication is where it should be) are my water consumption and the amount of sleep I am getting; that's where changes make the most difference.

I may have written this already, but I had been doing pretty well getting to bed around 11:30. My sense was that if I could start getting to bed at 10:30, I would really have something. Unfortunately, my natural inclination is to be a night owl. It had taken effort to get to where 11:30 was regular, and I was going to put in more effort to get to 10:30.

Then came the stressful phone calls and the hospital trips and waiting for updates. 

I lost a lot of ground.

Even when that situation had stabilized (an overly optimistic term), I had not.

Oddly, no matter how much I berate myself for staying up late -- kind of worrying/kind of vegetating, and really quite pointless -- it does not get me into bed any faster.

I had started getting back on track, averaging 11:38 PM. My blood sugar scores were getting back into range, but I was still not happy.

As we were discussing it, I found myself telling the doctor that if I get my sleep under control over these next few months, I'll be set for life.

I had not thought of it that way before, but yes, if I can make it through open enrollment and garnished wages and holidays and my mother's decline and so much that I want to do in so little time... if over the course of that I can get on track where I am actually making myself/allowing myself to/managing my life so I can get enough sleep...

I can probably do it under any circumstance that comes along.

I feel like I need to do this. Maybe that's why.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/07/please-excuse-gina-for-not-writing.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-new-stress.html

Classic Children's Books of Queer Representation

Next Friday I will post about the most recently completed reading "month". 

As I was starting it, it occurred to me that I should check out some kind of related books that had been quite notorious in their time.

Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite (1990)

Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by Diane Souza (1989)

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole (2005)

I would say they are all very sweet and simple books with no reason to object, except that decades later people are still trying to ban books and preventing even the utterance of the word "gay".

(One note: the first edition of Heather Has Two Mommies references artificial insemination -- which did draw some objections -- but it was later removed and not in the edition I read.)

For my personal opinions, I like the artwork in Daddy's Roommate more that in Heather Has Two Mommies, but Heather Has Two Mommies is more broadly representative. When her classmates talk about their families, there are multiple different configurations, not only of gender and race but there is even some disability representation.

(And oddly, but it also seems appropriate, both of these books seem to be set in Boston.)

Newman wrote her book after being asked by some lesbian parents who did not see themselves anywhere. That may have caused her to approach it differently.  

Personally my favorite was And Tango Makes Three. I worry that is just so typical of a straight person, but I found the backstory really interesting and I love penguins.

I did try and find a little about the controversies at the time, though Wikipedia has some conflicting reports. 

On one page it talks about the library in Wasilla, Alaska refusing to shelve the books, but then in another it was that they did shelve the books, but councilwoman Sarah Palin objected and fired the librarian, who was rehired after an outcry. 

I am more interested in two other criticisms, both from the page on Heather Has Two Mommies. 

One was a concern that schools should not celebrate one type of family structure over another. The book is very clear that all families are valid, and includes some with straight, married, parents. I feel that is very much a case of reinterpreting equal rights as special rights. Mentioning is not automatically promotion, and certainly not automatically a competition either.

The other was a little more thoughtful, but still had some really wrong points.

One complains that the book is more about the kids at the preschool and Heather's relationship with her class, and that by showing Heather's family as equivalent to heterosexual families, it "dequeers" them. That includes a complaint about Heather being sad about not having a daddy, when some of the other kids do, because that makes it a bad thing. 

While this day of class is clearly the first time Heather realizes her family is not identical to all others, that would be an actual milestone. Then each child draws a picture of their own family, in all their diversity, and the teacher confirms that all of these structures are valid. 

Let me reference Sarah Palin again. When she was banning books and firing librarians, a fellow councilwoman asked her if she had read the book:

"I don't need to read that stuff."

I bet she says that a lot. Regardless, some of these criticisms do make you wonder if the critics really read the book, or just reacted to it. They seem to be missing the point.

There is another point, though.

A child learning that other family structures exist, wondering about it -- perhaps with strong emotions since they are a child -- and then reconciling with that, as well as a book that allows other children to understand that they will meet people with different kinds of families, and that's okay... that book fills a definite, necessary role.

It is not the only possible role. 

It was a reasonable one for Newman to write after being asked, but no one book can fill all needs, and it's great that there are lots of different books.

It is true that back then there was not a lot to choose from, but they filled a role. 

There was an episode of Modern Family where Mitchell has a story for Lily about her adoption. He and Cam briefly think about trying to get it published, for representation, but at the bookstore they find many books about gay parents, gay adoption, gay international adoption... That was 2011.

Things have gotten better. 

There are still people who find it a threat if someone different from them is called valid.

We need to stay on top of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy%27s_Roommate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Has_Two_Mommies

For now

When I posted "A Cheerful Receiver" there was a bigger question behind it. I was hinting at it, but I hadn't resolved it over the following week. "Text-cards" is something I'd been thinking about, and it relates, but it was also a punt because I didn't know what I wanted to say.

It appears that it is not time for the answer. 

Going back to those issues with receiving gifts and even asking for fair compensation... I had not been able to identify whether that is pride or unworthiness or other factors. 

The question came up -- and a conversation with a friend was again critical -- if I might not be blocking some financial success. 

To the extent that sounds like power-of-postive-thinking/the-secret/law-of-attraction, I have a certain amount of skepticism. Yes, I have observed self-sabotage and that can be a real thing, but I am also aware that especially in the realm of economics, there are factors that a positive mindset would not fix. There are so many people one missed paycheck away from disaster, not to mention all those who have actually been hit by the disaster, and saying they just aren't trying hard enough or being confident enough gets me kind of punchy.

My firmly believing that does not rule out that I might not be serving my own interests either. 

One thought that was really clear was that it is not good enough for only my problems to be solved. Okay. If I am saying that I can't have some financial security until everyone else does, though, that is almost certainly not practical.

The unanswered question is what can it be right for me to hope for?

It was bugging me that I couldn't figure it out.

Here's the other thing that I knew, though: I need to go through this open enrollment.

Open enrollment is roughly October through December when people on Medicare plans can change for the upcoming year. Calls get really busy. Not only is it hard to stay caught up with work, but I also can't just snap out of it at the end of a shift, so it affects my time off work as well.

I really didn't want to go through it again.

I was considering other possibilities, and none of them were right. I feel I need to do this.

I don't think I will know my next step until after. 

I do have lots of things that I need to read and think about, and my brain will be worked harder so I will need to show myself some grace over the next three months.

I do feel that need to reach out to friends more, and also to be more aware of how I am taking care of my body (see if I can get through it without my shoulder seizing up again). 

I need to find ways to feel like I am contributing and doing some good, without a lot of time and money..

It is quite possible that somewhere in here, my mother will die. 

It's a lot, but it feels necessary.

Good thing I'm stubborn when I'm committed.