There's Beauty in the Bellow

We visited family recently and one member had a borrowed copy of "Tranny" by Laura Jane Grace. Grace was formerly a male and frontman of a band I had never heard of (in an angsty genre I never listen to). So I had no preconceptions when I picked up the memoir, other than the title was intriguing. Plus, the title and front matter gave no indication as to whether the epithet was owned or disowned. (There was no dust jacket.) It opens with the writer as a very young child, idolizing and aping Madonna. It's not immediately clear whether it's not a girl pretending to be said Madonna. I mention this only because I have a problem with anyone wanting to be like Madonna at all. She's not worthy of emulating, although she is talented at least as a performer. (I've only heard a few of her songs and she's mostly posturing, so I have no idea of her vocal talents.) I read the first section about her childhood and the last bit where she transitions. Apparently most o...

We recently watched a TEDx presentation on the stigma attributed to stay-at-home moms. The presenter pointed out the absurdity of defining someone almost exclusively by their place of work. (We don't refer to the stay-at-desk accountant, for example.) I have had a myriad of doctors appointments, what with all the usual yearly or half-yearly visits to the dentist, eye doctor, neurologist, and hormone specialist, finding a new neurologist with the retirement of my previous one, accompanying my husband to his appointments as an extra pair of ears, and with expecting another baby. (YAY!) To all of these (except the dentist --just doesn't work), I've brought my busy and curious toddler son. What better way to let the world know that you are a SAHM (as the acronym goes) and judge how you use that time, than to bring your child to a doctor's appointment. A "good" child would sit quietly in a corner with the toys selected for or by him. I'm pretty sure our boy...

Let's talk about virginity. #eyeroll I don't like our language of "losing" one's virginity. Rarely does one unintentionally misplace one's virginity. Just saying. If one truly cannot remember the circumstances of "losing" their virginity, then very probably those circumstances were lamentable, if not horrific. Usually, virginity is given . Maybe unwillingly, maybe carelessly in haste, perhaps without regard to deservingness of the recipient. In hookup culture, virginity is a liability to be dropped off in the nearest gutter. In this case, it's thrown away, but it wasn't misplaced. Optimally, one's virginity is given to someone who values it -- but cherishes the giver far more than the virginity itself. It is supposed to be given away , not kept in the original packaging with the tags still attached. This is what chastity is. Appropriate celibacy and appropriate hedonism. The gift of virginity isn't an heirloom vase to be kept ...

The media outlets featured an early foray into activism by the Duchess of Sussex, then a ten-ish year old Meghan Markle. She called out a company for advertising dish soap to women. The company in question acquiesced and changed its campaign language to "millions of people ." Fair point: women aren't the only ones who wash dishes. In fact, humans aren't the only ones who use dish soap either. One brand advertises that its users include needy marine life. I have an uneasy relationship with "Activism". It seems too close to "lobbyist." Moreover, it seems synonymous with "busybody." I do fervently believe in being active  and actively useful . Maybe some might deem "useful" as demeaning but I would retort: not nearly as demeaning as use- less . But I should hope that one's activity would result in the noise of industry and not the noise of scolding. At any rate, that's an aside and I know that the Duchess intends, wit...

Aimee Byrd noted (somewhere on her blog in the archives) that the Complementarian movement needs to address men using its tenets to hide domestic abuse. I came of age when the Biblical Patriarchy movement was in vogue. We did not hold with many of its dictums (especially the one about girls staying home all the freakin' time and avoiding college) but it still affected us. My dad was just fine with me and my mom wearing pants, but I often felt self-conscious about it. (Really, a stupid thing to obsess over.) I often felt that my hair was not long enough nor our family big enough. (The patriarchy movement seemed to believe that fertility was next to godliness.) When I learned about Complementarianism, it felt like fresh air. Patriarchy stressed hierarchy to the point of totally overlooking "in the image of God He created them, male and female." Reading Genesis it appears that my womanhood has something to tell us about what God is like. I felt strangely relieved when the...

In a rather odd episode of Falling Down the Rabbit Hole, I discovered this quote of quote quoted by Rod Dreher : In a recent piece for  n+1 , the feminist and trans theorist Andrea Long Chu argued that the trans experience, contrary to how we have become accustomed to think of it, ‘expresses not the truth of an identity but the force of a desire’. Being trans, she says, is ‘a matter not of who one  is , but of what one  wants ’. She goes on: I transitioned for gossip and compliments, lipstick and mascara, for crying at the movies, for being someone’s girlfriend, for letting her pay the check or carry my bags, for the benevolent chauvinism of bank tellers and cable guys, for the telephonic intimacy of long-distance female friendship, for fixing my make-up in the bathroom flanked like Christ by a sinner on each side, for sex toys, for feeling hot, for getting hit on by butches, for that secret knowledge of which dykes to watch out for, for Daisy Dukes, bikini tops, an...