Fast Fact of tonight,
Georgina Beyer is the world's transgendered Mayor, and now Member of Parliament for Wairarapa, New Zealand. I think she's pretty rad.
She will be speaking at OutGames in Copenhagen this year. It was in Montreal in 2006 for its first year (I remember reading about it in a newpaper in Trois Pistoles en francias bien sur), and at the end released a LGBT Document of Human Rights and Freedoms. It was also rad. I was proud to say that Canada could theoretically check off all but one of the areas of law in which the law should be change-it was in the family law section. It was a reminder of the very long way we have come, here, and of the places we have to go.
Happy Earth hour!
Rach
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tears Happen
Tonight's thought:
Sometime I cry in public. I realise it might make me seem vulnerable or unstabble or something. I reject both of those sentiments. I cry when I am feeling shitty about something, and since I go to law school, it happens. It doesn't make me uncomfortable that it makes other people uncomfortable. I don't generally aim to make people feel comfortable for comforts sake. I feel things deeply, and I think its acutally important to maintain that at law school. The law is about people, and if we loose sight of that, what on earth are we doing?
Sometime I cry in public. I realise it might make me seem vulnerable or unstabble or something. I reject both of those sentiments. I cry when I am feeling shitty about something, and since I go to law school, it happens. It doesn't make me uncomfortable that it makes other people uncomfortable. I don't generally aim to make people feel comfortable for comforts sake. I feel things deeply, and I think its acutally important to maintain that at law school. The law is about people, and if we loose sight of that, what on earth are we doing?
Friday, March 27, 2009
Creating
Tomorrow I get to create. Its my favourtie part. I've done so much reading lately, and I forget how about how much I do enjoy the process of writing. It becomes such a product of investment. When I am spending so much of my time working through these new ideas and articles and putting things together in new mays. Its a beautiful process. I am indeed looking forward to starting tomorrow. Maybe before lunch with a friend/colleaugue, or after yoga in the Fernwood village. I wondered last week if going for a vegan cupcake would negate my yoga practice, but reached the conclusion that they could only complement each other because of how much I enjoy them each. I had a vegan coconut lime cupcake and it was simply incredible. So moist, with such amazing frosting. So. Good.
Fernwood has been treating me well lately. Last Friday after yoga I went to the coffee shop in Fernwood to consume the vegan cupcake with a good friend. The coffee shop is right across the street from the Belfry where we saw Bash'd. We drank our coffee at the wooden benches, while a father and daughter shared an afternoon with books on the couch beside us, and an artist came to draw in her notebook beside me. The cafe had character; people are just living their lives there- talking to each other across the room. There are some pretty rad places in Victoria.
I spent Saturday in the Cook St. Village, at Mocha House, and Serious Coffee. Becuase I have been reading about citizenship discourse lately, I feel like the good citizen is a consumer. We go for coffee and dinners- that is our form of socializing. I do a lot of consuming. On food and property in the form of rent. And alcohol I suppose. Last Saturday night I went for drinks with another friend at the Reef, and then we went next door where another friend was performing spoken word at a fundraiser for a Jamaican orphanage. This week, I went rockclimbing, for a vegetarian dinner with many of the people with whom I planned Ab Camp, created a banner with paint (you know the bricks and a really wet paint brush) circa grade 6, and had a really long nap tonight. So life has been alright in Victoria these days. Very busy, but good. And I really do need to create.
On a side note- Eva Longoria is on some show in television with a scotish guy, and just called the latin music awards as the gay nascar of designers. I can't even begin to say in how many ways that statement is an anomaly in my mind.
So, I am to create this weekend, and shift gears. The Cherry blossoms are blooming, and Victoria is ready to play host to my creative process this weekend. I hope you are well where you are.
Much love,
Rachael
from another cool dark Victorian Night
Fernwood has been treating me well lately. Last Friday after yoga I went to the coffee shop in Fernwood to consume the vegan cupcake with a good friend. The coffee shop is right across the street from the Belfry where we saw Bash'd. We drank our coffee at the wooden benches, while a father and daughter shared an afternoon with books on the couch beside us, and an artist came to draw in her notebook beside me. The cafe had character; people are just living their lives there- talking to each other across the room. There are some pretty rad places in Victoria.
I spent Saturday in the Cook St. Village, at Mocha House, and Serious Coffee. Becuase I have been reading about citizenship discourse lately, I feel like the good citizen is a consumer. We go for coffee and dinners- that is our form of socializing. I do a lot of consuming. On food and property in the form of rent. And alcohol I suppose. Last Saturday night I went for drinks with another friend at the Reef, and then we went next door where another friend was performing spoken word at a fundraiser for a Jamaican orphanage. This week, I went rockclimbing, for a vegetarian dinner with many of the people with whom I planned Ab Camp, created a banner with paint (you know the bricks and a really wet paint brush) circa grade 6, and had a really long nap tonight. So life has been alright in Victoria these days. Very busy, but good. And I really do need to create.
On a side note- Eva Longoria is on some show in television with a scotish guy, and just called the latin music awards as the gay nascar of designers. I can't even begin to say in how many ways that statement is an anomaly in my mind.
So, I am to create this weekend, and shift gears. The Cherry blossoms are blooming, and Victoria is ready to play host to my creative process this weekend. I hope you are well where you are.
Much love,
Rachael
from another cool dark Victorian Night
Friday, March 13, 2009
Bash'd
Tonight my writing comes with weighty words. I went to see Bash'd tonight. It is a gay rap opera telling the story of fictional star-crossed lovers married in Alberta after gays and lesbians gained the right to marry in 2005. Jack is lives in the city, raised by gay dads, and likes to frequent the bar scene. Dillon is from a small town, moves to the big city after coming out to his parents, and meets Jack at his first visit to the gay bar. They fall in love, move in together and marry.
As the two characters state in the play, I wish the story stopped there. But it doesn't. Upon leaving the bar one night, Jack is gay bashed. He survives. After struggling with how to cope, Dillon storms out of their home one night and in his anger, bashes three straight men. Jack finds him as the police arrive, and while in a loving embrace, Dillon raises the gun and they are both shot and killed by the officers.
What's impressive about the show perhaps isn't its story as much as its telling. T-Bag and Feminem rap for an hour, reclaiming words (namely faggot and cock-sucker), identities (on the whole spectrum of gay) and an entire genre of music in the process. Rap began as a social justice movement, requiring only a good beat, clever rhymes and an empassioned artist speaking out about racism. In our era, it has become a site of intense homophobia and violence- against women, gay men and people who identify as trans.
I haven't fully digested it all just yet, but the sadness of it resonated. At the end I was sobbing, which I'm fairly used to doing in public by now. I was not okay. Maybe what resonated most was the unnecesary cycle of violence begun by Jack's gay bashing and continued by Dillon going out to straight bash. Maybe it was recognizing the failure of various institutions at so many points along the way- Dillon's Dad's hatred, the homophobia of the gay bashers, the failure of the couple's supprt group to address and support the couple, the failure of the medical system to adequately provide for Jack in the aftermath of his traumatic beating and, most profoundly for me, of the criminal justice system to fail to find Jack's bashers while responding with such immediacy and bluntness to Dillon's act with their own extreme acts of state-sponsored violence- shooting the two men in what is easily read as self-defense. And maybe it was the realization that the world would hold Dillon out as a criminal, when what is actually criminal is the injustice and inequalities of the lived experience of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-identified people and their allies across the world.
What brought me to tears and kept me there was the recitation of the R.I.P.s at the end of the show. It was a reminder that my queer brothers and sisters (and gender-identities in between and outside of that binary) are being beaten and killed ALL THE TIME. There is NO excuse, justification or explanation. When one person experiences violence, we all do. An attack on one is an attack on us all. When we do not speak out, we are as guilty as those who perpetuate the violence. The failure of anyone in the passing cars driving by to stop the bashing from occuring, and actually doing the bashing, all lead to the same result - a man is left bleeding on the sidewalk.
Inaction is action. Its a choice too. There is no neutral in this world. As we move forward, it is important to not take away the voice of those who are discriminated against, but to stand as allies supporting in the fight. There are limits to my whiteness, your heterosexuality, and our ableness, but if we can all recognize that our liberty is bound up in each other's collective lived experience, maybe we can begin a new page in our collective history.
I will leave you with my new favourite quote:
"If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin." -Lila Watson (Australian Aboriginal Activist)
As the two characters state in the play, I wish the story stopped there. But it doesn't. Upon leaving the bar one night, Jack is gay bashed. He survives. After struggling with how to cope, Dillon storms out of their home one night and in his anger, bashes three straight men. Jack finds him as the police arrive, and while in a loving embrace, Dillon raises the gun and they are both shot and killed by the officers.
What's impressive about the show perhaps isn't its story as much as its telling. T-Bag and Feminem rap for an hour, reclaiming words (namely faggot and cock-sucker), identities (on the whole spectrum of gay) and an entire genre of music in the process. Rap began as a social justice movement, requiring only a good beat, clever rhymes and an empassioned artist speaking out about racism. In our era, it has become a site of intense homophobia and violence- against women, gay men and people who identify as trans.
I haven't fully digested it all just yet, but the sadness of it resonated. At the end I was sobbing, which I'm fairly used to doing in public by now. I was not okay. Maybe what resonated most was the unnecesary cycle of violence begun by Jack's gay bashing and continued by Dillon going out to straight bash. Maybe it was recognizing the failure of various institutions at so many points along the way- Dillon's Dad's hatred, the homophobia of the gay bashers, the failure of the couple's supprt group to address and support the couple, the failure of the medical system to adequately provide for Jack in the aftermath of his traumatic beating and, most profoundly for me, of the criminal justice system to fail to find Jack's bashers while responding with such immediacy and bluntness to Dillon's act with their own extreme acts of state-sponsored violence- shooting the two men in what is easily read as self-defense. And maybe it was the realization that the world would hold Dillon out as a criminal, when what is actually criminal is the injustice and inequalities of the lived experience of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-identified people and their allies across the world.
What brought me to tears and kept me there was the recitation of the R.I.P.s at the end of the show. It was a reminder that my queer brothers and sisters (and gender-identities in between and outside of that binary) are being beaten and killed ALL THE TIME. There is NO excuse, justification or explanation. When one person experiences violence, we all do. An attack on one is an attack on us all. When we do not speak out, we are as guilty as those who perpetuate the violence. The failure of anyone in the passing cars driving by to stop the bashing from occuring, and actually doing the bashing, all lead to the same result - a man is left bleeding on the sidewalk.
Inaction is action. Its a choice too. There is no neutral in this world. As we move forward, it is important to not take away the voice of those who are discriminated against, but to stand as allies supporting in the fight. There are limits to my whiteness, your heterosexuality, and our ableness, but if we can all recognize that our liberty is bound up in each other's collective lived experience, maybe we can begin a new page in our collective history.
I will leave you with my new favourite quote:
"If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin." -Lila Watson (Australian Aboriginal Activist)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Reframing Equality
Another equity conference, another year, how much more equitable are we? Well, I don't want to scare you away just yet, so I share the good news first. Today at our conference, we had a diverse crowd. The UVic Law 2nd Annual Community Conference: Reframing equality included the Women's Court of Canada, six sessions put on by the clubs, all difficult to chose between, and rewriting of our own decisions of the court, and a follow up session reflecting and looking foreward.
The sessions had speakers with topics ranging from the Reach of the Charter in the case of the Afghan Detainees, Environmental Resources on Reserve Land, and Grandparents raising Grandchildren. Our afternoon sesions included Indigenous Perspectives in Law: Law's Stories, Acheiving equitable outcomes in refugee cases, and Transforming Law's Family.
My thoughts today were heavy around academic-izing everything. The Day began with the Women's Court of Canada, a group of feminist lawyers, advocates and activists who rewrite equality decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. The judgments are those that we find most difficult to stomach. Those in which the systemic sexism, racism, homophobia, and able-bodied discrimination are clothed in myths and stereotypes, in which equality is just completely out of the imagination of the law. The Women's Court of Canada rewrites the decision to actually acheive equality. They use the tools of law to speak back to itself.
When asked what the judgements best achieved, the women answered, they provided context. The positioned the women in her lived reality in society, and found discrimination or difference approaches to equality. That's a lot of talk, where are the people?
Fiona Kelly came today and spoke about Lesbian families, in particular planned lesbian families. She examined how the law understands and could best reflect the needs of lesbian parents and their family forms. We heard the voices of women parenting in Vancouver and their very different families. It really expanded my imagination of what a family could look like. From two women and an unknown donor who doesn't participate in the raising of the child, to two moms and a donor and his (usually male) parter, to anything inbetween. It was really fascinating to explore what families look like that are so different than our own an,really, how cool would that be? What if every child had four parents watching her back, supporting her, loving her? Aren't more parents the way to go?
So I really think we kept the lesbian and gay parents in the picure. Tracy and Helen; and Alicia, Cassendra, Kevin and Nick. Tracy and Helen had a son, and stuggled with the fact that they felt constrained from living a radically different life becuase of their son but really didn't want to appear as a nuclear lesbian family, however, the donor lived overseas with his male partner. Alicia and Cassancra worked together and though they were never in a conjugal relationship, committing to raising the child that Alicia wanted to have. Their donor Kevin and his partner Nick were just as involved in raising the child. Even when Kevin and Nick's relationship ended they continued to stay with the child twice a week. These two families really pushed the boundaries of law's family in which the heterosexual nuclear family is the norm.
It was the information that I always thought existed and made most sense for my conception of family. Friends as family, family that you chose, parents who are caregivers, all these make sense for my conception of family. Today, I think we acheived presenting lesbian families in their social context, providing legal realities that reflect the diversity of their lived realities. It pushed the boundaries, and I learned a lot.
The Equity Conference gives us an amazing amount to reflect upon. Our community is diverse and pretty great. We are social justice focused, equality centred, and we do a pretty good job. Sometimes we don't celebrate our successes enough when we deserve them, and today we had a fantastic conference at UVic Law.
The sessions had speakers with topics ranging from the Reach of the Charter in the case of the Afghan Detainees, Environmental Resources on Reserve Land, and Grandparents raising Grandchildren. Our afternoon sesions included Indigenous Perspectives in Law: Law's Stories, Acheiving equitable outcomes in refugee cases, and Transforming Law's Family.
My thoughts today were heavy around academic-izing everything. The Day began with the Women's Court of Canada, a group of feminist lawyers, advocates and activists who rewrite equality decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. The judgments are those that we find most difficult to stomach. Those in which the systemic sexism, racism, homophobia, and able-bodied discrimination are clothed in myths and stereotypes, in which equality is just completely out of the imagination of the law. The Women's Court of Canada rewrites the decision to actually acheive equality. They use the tools of law to speak back to itself.
When asked what the judgements best achieved, the women answered, they provided context. The positioned the women in her lived reality in society, and found discrimination or difference approaches to equality. That's a lot of talk, where are the people?
Fiona Kelly came today and spoke about Lesbian families, in particular planned lesbian families. She examined how the law understands and could best reflect the needs of lesbian parents and their family forms. We heard the voices of women parenting in Vancouver and their very different families. It really expanded my imagination of what a family could look like. From two women and an unknown donor who doesn't participate in the raising of the child, to two moms and a donor and his (usually male) parter, to anything inbetween. It was really fascinating to explore what families look like that are so different than our own an,really, how cool would that be? What if every child had four parents watching her back, supporting her, loving her? Aren't more parents the way to go?
So I really think we kept the lesbian and gay parents in the picure. Tracy and Helen; and Alicia, Cassendra, Kevin and Nick. Tracy and Helen had a son, and stuggled with the fact that they felt constrained from living a radically different life becuase of their son but really didn't want to appear as a nuclear lesbian family, however, the donor lived overseas with his male partner. Alicia and Cassancra worked together and though they were never in a conjugal relationship, committing to raising the child that Alicia wanted to have. Their donor Kevin and his partner Nick were just as involved in raising the child. Even when Kevin and Nick's relationship ended they continued to stay with the child twice a week. These two families really pushed the boundaries of law's family in which the heterosexual nuclear family is the norm.
It was the information that I always thought existed and made most sense for my conception of family. Friends as family, family that you chose, parents who are caregivers, all these make sense for my conception of family. Today, I think we acheived presenting lesbian families in their social context, providing legal realities that reflect the diversity of their lived realities. It pushed the boundaries, and I learned a lot.
The Equity Conference gives us an amazing amount to reflect upon. Our community is diverse and pretty great. We are social justice focused, equality centred, and we do a pretty good job. Sometimes we don't celebrate our successes enough when we deserve them, and today we had a fantastic conference at UVic Law.
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