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August 23, 2013 | 1 Comment

An Open Letter to National Public Radio

NPR radio national public radioThis is the second day in a row I’ve taken to the keyboard to write about the unnecessary and hurtful treatment from the media toward Chelsea Manning, the Army private who leaked government secrets about our country’s involvement in Iraq and other activities around the world. Chelsea Manning is a declared transsexual woman, which we all know now because of her public announcement to the media and the rest of us. I was bothered by several news outlets yesterday which continued to use masculine pronouns and her former first name, but most of those organizations have a history of transphobic and insensitive reporting (I’m looking at you, Daily Beast).

What I did not expect was that National Public Radio would be one of those media institutions to so ignorantly take up its reporting on Pvt. Manning’s declaration. Your position was very clearly stated by your spokesperson:

“Until Bradley Manning’s desire to have his gender changed actually physically happens, we will be using male-related pronouns to identify him.” —Anna Bross, NPR Spokesperson Read More…

August 22, 2013 | 1 Comment

Chelsea Comes Out, Internet Loses Its Mind

The individual sentenced to 35 years in Federal prison for leaking diplomatic telegrams has officially come out as trans this week. Chelsea Manning, at the very, very least, has had a hell of a week. As if there weren’t enough invective around her role in Wikileaks, a military counselor’s office where she formerly sought therapy released a private photo of her in a wig and makeup. Or rather, they leaked it and said it didn’t come from them. Now with Manning’s statement that she intends to start hormone therapy and requests people to use feminine pronouns for her, she has taken what little agency she has and reframed such images of her. I fear the nuances of this reframing, however, will be lost on the general public, who in the margins of mass media’s online article comment fields have brought out every little bit of transphobia they can muster.

Seriously. Never read the comments. Never.

We’ve also seen a number of stumbles from mainstream news outlets, including from the Today Show (and CNN, and The Guardian, and The New York Times) which I linked to earlier in this post. It may very well be that journalists want to make sure their readership understands that Bradley Manning and Chelsea Manning are the same person, but the AP has come up with half-decent guidelines for reporting on transfolk, so why can’t they just refer to those? It is not actually the case that “Bradley” Manning made an announcement about “his” gender identity, especially if we read the announcement itself.

Her name is Chelsea. HER name. And whatever we think of Pvt. Manning’s role in the Wikileaks scandal-thingy, it would be nice if we could leave her gender identity alone. But now of course popular culture and mainstream America’s weaknesses to understand difference will have a hard time parsing apart Ms. Manning’s new prisoner status, health care needs, traitor label, and so on, not to mention what this means for the average tax payer (I call it the “I have to pay for what?” syndrome). Whenever anyone enters into a direct relationship to state support—be it welfare, disability, the prison system, etc.—culture presumes that everyone not in that support system has a right to judge that individual. So on top of people’s comments related to leaking diplomatic cables and other not-public documents, on top of all of the invective around Manning’s trial and sentencing, and on top of the sensationalized imagery of an American soldier in lipstick, we now have Chelsea Manning making an open statement about her feelings for the rest of her life. It may be too much for our media, who love maintaining the facade of a polarized environment, to be able to let her move on in peace. And I’ll note with some irony that in the midst of our collective shock that Russia hates gay people, we never stop to ask ourselves where our limits are in supporting LGB—and especially T—people.

In any case, for today at least, there is one more famous trans person than Chaz Bono. But I don’t think the country will be watching her on Dancing with the Stars anytime soon, and I don’t expect to hear any news show talking head cheering her on for her quote-unquote bravery. Except maybe Rachel Maddow. But she’s a lesbian, so she doesn’t count.

NOTE: Chelsea has asked for letters to be sent to her in prison. She received a 35-year sentence. Individuals can get her correspondence address and the addresses of other trans and queer prisoners here.

UPDATE:  Pvt. Manning’s current address is—

Attn: PFC Bradley Manning
239 Sheridan Ave, Bldg 417
JBM-HH, VA 22211

You should use “Bradley” on the envelope and Chelsea in the letter itself, to ensure proper delivery and respect of her identity.

August 16, 2013 | Enter your password to view comments.

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August 16, 2013 | 0 Comments

Walla Walla, Come to Jesus

Ever since we moved to Walla Walla, Washington, we’ve heard at least once a week that this is just a great community to live in. At first, I was new to town and curious, so I would ask whoever had made the declaration to elaborate. Why specifically Walla Walla? How was it such a utopia? What made it special? In one of the first conversations I had on this subject, the conversation went something like this:

VISITING PROFESSOR: It’s such a great place to raise kids. [NOTE: I did not have any children at the time.]

ME: Oh? Why?

VP: Well, it’s very safe here.

ME: Is it? By that you mean, what?

VP: I mean there’s low crime here.

ME: [THINKING] Hmm. Well, in many neighborhoods in DC, crime was pretty low too.

VP: Well, in Walla Walla you know your neighbors.

ME: I knew my neighbors in DC.

VP: We have a farmer’s market.

ME: I lived in Eastern Market in DC, one of the oldest, continuously running open-air markets on the East Coast. But okay, farmer’s markets are great.

peaches at the DC marketNow then, the market in DC offered fresh local chicken, a gourmet cheese counter, eggs, all manner of fresh sausages, fresh seafood and fish (which we never bought, given Susanne’s allergies), cakes, pies, cookies, loads of produce, and the requisite crafty junk I’m never interested in buying, like handmade jewelry and such. In Walla Walla there is also a ton of produce during the season, a woman who sells lamb, and two farmers who sell pork. You can also get fresh milled flour out here and that wasn’t available in DC, but for the most part there was a lot more diversity in the city than here. But going back to the conversation, I do tend to like my neighbors in Walla Walla more than my neighbors in DC. Some of my city neighbors were kind of snarky. Not that I know anything about that.

But here’s my point, John Inman’s amazing chicken roasters aside—the mantra that Walla Walla is near-perfect belies its deficiencies and makes it harder to improve the material reality of the people living here. Read More…

August 11, 2013 | 1 Comment

Guesses about Breaking Bad’s Last Season

SPOILER ALERT: This is all speculation, so feel free to read ahead with no spoilers!

roof pizza breaking badTonight’s the night. This Sunday, once the domain of Murder, She Wrote and Touched by an Angel, and now the showcase for Breaking Bad, this Sunday we get to see what comes of a certain DEA’s toilet time revelation. I’m talking about Hank, of course, intrepid brother-in-law to Walter White, whose descent into darkness as response to his sudden sense of mortality has been the main story. We have watched, over the last few years, an emotionally shut down and foreclosed man become the antagonist of the series. Walter has gotten better taste in cars, but other than that, he’s also become a meth mass marketer, a master manipulator, and an unchecked murderer.

The last eight episodes start airing tonight. Thankfully this is AMC, and not an instant boxed set of a season vis a vis Netflix. I will likely scream at the television upon seeing each week’s cliffhanger, but I’ll love Vince Gilligan for it. So just for fun some thoughts on what may flicker across the screen during season 6: Read More…

August 9, 2013 | 2 Comments

The Very Incomplete Life Tips of Everett D. Maroon

At long last, Twitter has a feature for downloading one’s entire tweet history. As I have more than 27,000 tweets out there (think of all the wasted time, people), this took a little while to get on my machine. But I’ve been wanting to grab my tweets for a few years now because I wanted to see what the full list of “life tips” that I’ve written looks like.

Indeed, it borders on pithy, even if a lot of these aren’t useful to people. Here is the full list:

Life tip No. 4: People who like to tell you what’s morally pure usually aren’t.

Life Tip No. 9: No matter how appealing, never try to catch a falling knife.

Life Tip No. 10: Avoid thunking your infant’s head into the overhead compartment for a smoother travel experience.
Life Tip No. 19: Never rub your eyes after eating buffalo wings. Ditto for picking your nose.

Life Tip No. 20: If you have six chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, prepare for a mid-morning snack of heartburn.

Life Tip No.22: When everything and everyone around you suddenly start annoying you, consider that it might just BE you.

Life Tip No. 23: Whenever someone introduces their remarks as “Straight Talk,” know that it’s going to be bullshit. Read More…

August 7, 2013 | 9 Comments

How to Write Trans Characters (Or at Least Some Decent Ideas on the Subject)

Ev holding his memoirFor the most part last week’s Emerging Writer’s Workshop in LA was a love fest of prose writers, faculty, and poets. We sang karaoke together, we gave supportive critiques of each other’s work, we grumbled about dining hall food in an unseasoned bonding moment. If the workshop was in part to help us network, we hit a grand slam of connectedness. There were a couple of struggles, however, and one of them involved talking about how to help cisgender people “write” trans characters. Not surprisingly, several of us got hung up on definitions and the inclusivity of a given category of gender identity (or even gender-related identity). It’s not that we didn’t work through these issues, and everyone did their best to tease out what their questions were exactly and where they were triggered, and so on, but I’d like to suggest some other ways folks can write about trans people without maybe getting too caught up on the differences between changing definitions. And with all due respect to Jacob Hale et al’s list of how to write on transgender issues, that is really a non-fiction list, and as such, not as helpful for the fiction writer (but writers should read it anyway).

Learn about transfolk and the tensions in the trans community—Yes, one should look over definition lists, asking critical questions about the assumptions that inform the definitions. For example, does the definition of “transvestite” include that it is largely viewed as an archaic and derogatory label? Does the definition of “drag king” limit it to cisgender women only, or is it inclusive of trans-identified men? Is there a discussion about the debate between people who see transsexualism as only a medical issue and those who argue all gender is socially constructed? These differences have a real effect on the ways in which trans people walk through the world, how they use language to describe themselves, and how they relate to others. If you are trying to represent them, then your trans characters should have some background (it may not ever be shown directly in the story) on how they understand themselves. Read More…

August 4, 2013 | 4 Comments

Simple Lessons from the LLF Emerging Writer’s Workshop

Everett Maroon and Chip Delany

  1. Skip the processed carbs. They don’t give you real energy and they don’t make your writing better.
  2. Smile and say hello to everyone, especially for the first couple of days, while we’re all still a bundle of nerves.
  3. Ignore your rule about talking next to someone smoking and go do it. Smokers, skip a cig here and there to continue a great conversation that happens to be inside.
  4. There is always time for karaoke.
  5. Linger at the dining hall. The stories more than make up for the quality of the food.
  6. Listen more than talk. This is your chance to learn from other extremely observant people.
  7. Take pictures with the people there, just in case you someday start telling yourself that it didn’t really happen.
  8. Go ahead and drink or stay up too late, but maybe not every night.
  9. Sneaking off campus is a great way to recharge. Staying on campus is a great way to immerse yourself in your work. There’s probably a balance in there somewhere.
  10. Thank people for their generosity in giving you their time, their comments, their experiences, their support. It took a lot for every person to get here and carve out a week of their lives.
  11. Make your criticism of people’s words be entirely about their writing, and zero about yours.
  12. Bringing a French press was a great idea. Not having a convenient place to store milk was less great.
  13. Canvas the campus for good writing spots on the first day, and use them.
  14. When you run into someone from the workshop at the airport on the way home, hug them at least four times.
  15. Find real, sustainable ways to keep in touch.
  16. Make this one week the start of a lifetime of critical support and community.
  17. Know when to stop writing any given sentence, even as you commit to writing for a lifetime.
  18. Even bad coffee works.
  19. Read work by people who write very differently than you, at least as often as you read work that you aspire to.
  20. One week is too long to go without nail clippers.
  21. Yes, you have to get the nail clippers even if you dropped them in the toilet.
  22. Try not to pine away for your loved ones at home, but give them a very warm welcome when you see them again. They helped get you here.
  23. Listen to your elders in the writing world, and let them go when they seem tired of talking.
  24. Always be ready to break into another rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
  25. It’s always okay to squeal in delight when someone you like gets up to read or walks in the room.

August 2, 2013 | 1 Comment

Lambda Literary Emerging Writer’s Workshop, Day 5

G. FlaubertWe’ve read through all of the fiction writers’ pieces and handed back critiques, treating each work and editorial process seriously and concentrating like whoa on giving good specific feedback. After five days I feel raw and exhausted, but good. It’s like whittling deadwood, sloughing off the bits I don’t need (I’m looking at you, insecurity and bad literary habits). Now I can focus my attention on word choice, craft, storytelling, and because Chip has hammered it into me, description. It may very well be that every story I write for the next few years, I will write for his eye and ear and sense of prose.

Samuel Delany refers a lot to Flaubert, and Balzac, and Walter Pater. He considers his words, and speaks in the most delightful cyclical cadence that keeps me fascinated with whatever next word is going to come out of his mouth. I’ve been cobbling a list of his reading recommendations, which may only make sense in context of giving feedback to us, and which is based in part on the kinds of stories we’ve been writing, but which is still a great stand-alone list. Here are some of his reference points: Read More…

July 31, 2013 | 2 Comments

Lambda Literary Emerging Writer’s Workshop, Day 2

purple keyboardWe’re here, we’re queer, and we’re critiquing each other’s work. So came the second full day of the retreat, enshrouded in mist once again and with a chilly breeze that made me glad I’d chosen a sweater vest for the morning. Thank goodness I discovered how to command hot water out of my shower, because a second event of freezing liquid was just not going to work for me. I woke up at 6:30 and went through my new French press coffee routine, then groomed myself.

I’d read two more stories last night and done my best to provide guidance without dissection. I tucked a small notebook into my pocket so that I could jot down the authors and titles of recommended reading (I’d missed two or three references on Monday). I chatted with people in the dining hall over steaming bowls of creamed wheat and not-so-fresh squeezed orange juice. One of my colleagues was dog-tired and held her head in her hands. And before I knew it, she was crying.

I’ve been in this place of sudden compassion before, and it has always involved a decision between sitting quietly so as to let them have their emotions, or filling up the space partway to offer a hinge they can swing from if they want to. So I told a very short story to express empathy in an indirect way, and she thanked me and then got up. Sometimes I wonder if spending so many decades divorced from my feelings hasn’t made me more able to connect to people now, because I refuse to pretend humans are strictly rational. I’m making up for lost processing time. Read More…

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