College Woes

So, before my laptop broke (the part did come in and it should be fixed by tomorrow, hopefully), I was playing another visual novel game called Roommates. The basic premise is that you play as one of two characters who is beginning college and has chosen to live in a communal house on campus. It’s sort of like a fraternity or sorority house, except it’s not a frat or sorority, it’s just a co-ed house with a communal bathroom and kitchen. The thing that struck me about this game is the sheer level of attention to detail given regarding diversity in this game. Yes, like many games with a small cast, it is primarily white folks with token racial minorities (one Indian roommate, one Hispanic roommate, and one black guy as the friend and bandmate of one of the two playable characters). However, they go more into detail with this game to the point that they actually have one character (the Hispanic girl, who is actually a Mexican citizen and attending college to get a degree in teaching so she can go home and improve the education of kids in her small hometown) explain the difference between pansexual (her) and bisexual (the Indian guy) to you, as she’s pan and another character is bi.

The Government Sucks

It’s been a bit thanks to finals and broken laptop, but there is a bright side. First, all of my finals save one are done, which I will be taking on Monday. Second, the part to fix my laptop should be arriving today or tomorrow, so I should be able to fix it (I hope). That said, I plan on getting in three posts this week: one today, one tomorrow, and one Friday. We’ll see if I manage to pull it off.

Anyways, today after my final, I stopped at the local tax commissioner’s office to change my vehicle title and registration over from Georgia to Texas. While there, the woman helping me started out by calling me Ma’am, recognizing my presentation as female. However, during the course of asking how my being a vet affected the fees (it dropped the plate fee and let me get a custom veteran plate), I had to show her my DD-214, otherwise known as my separation paperwork. After she saw this and my name change paperwork, she changed to calling me Sir, though she did apologize for it when I corrected her. I bring this story up for a reason.

Been a While

So, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been gone for a while. That’s due to a number of factors. First was Spring Break, where I considered doing a post that wasn’t tied to trans legal issues or my class, but ended up being busy and not dealing with it. Since then, other issues have come up, such as pain in my arm and shoulder, depression so deep that I was suicidal, and culminating last week in my laptop going kuput. Right around the time that finals papers are due. Needless to say, there’s been a big rush for me to get other stuff taken care of. However, I need to have four blog posts done for my activism class by the end of next week, so you’re going to get two posts each week! And I’ll try to have them for you on Wednesday and Friday, but due to the fact that my computer access right now is dependent on my roommate letting me use his, or having time free to snag one at school, means I can’t guarantee the days for sure.

Trolling Trans People

As I mentioned Tuesday, I’ve been playing a lot of visual novel/sim games in my spare time lately, and I’m going to tie a couple more of them today to legal issues facing the trans community. Spoiler warning up front, again, regarding these games. Today, I’ll be looking at two games by Christine Love, Analogue: A Hate Story and Hate Plus. In a short summary, these games are science-fiction games taking place about 2900 years in the future, where you serve as a lone investigator, trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Mugunghwa, a generational ship that was sent out from Korea in the 25th century to form a new colony, but never arrived. With the help of the ships AI(s), you dig through the log files trying to uncover what happened to the ship to leave it stranded in space with no crew. This just reveals another mystery, what happened to the ship that caused a radical change in culture as well as reset all the clocks (when you arrive, the computer thinks it’s year 944, despite it being the year 4989), and the second game is unraveling this mystery with the help of the AI(s) that you saved at the end of the first game.

Special Tuesday Edition!

Ok, so I missed last week, and I didn’t go into too much depth the week before because of the issues I was facing, so this week, I’ll be doing two posts, one today, the other on my normal Friday slot. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m also using this blog as my journal for my activism class this semester, so I’ve been trying to stick more to my topic of legal issues trans people face than going off on some of my other, more colorful (and fun) discussions about gaming and the like. However, I think I can tie in some examples of gaming to my topic for today. Buckle yourselves in, because it is NOT going to be a happy one today. Lots of difficult stuff to discuss. Also, spoilers for any games I bring up today. You have been warned.

Taking a Breather

Just in the last week, we’ve had two more trans women murdered here in the States. Last Friday night, Bri Golec was stabbed to death by her father, who left her body out on the porch and made a false 911 call saying that they were attacked by members of a cult that his “son” supposedly belonged to. And just a couple days ago, Christina Grant Infiniti in Miami was murdered by her boyfriend. This one has barely been acknowledged, even by media sources that would normally cover these murders, such as the Advocate. Couple this with the fact that on Wednesday, I had a hostile (but thankfully not violent) encounter in the ladies room on campus, and I need a few days for myself. I’ve even skipped my LGBT studies and activism classes for this week because of this, and my professors were told why before either class. As such, I’m not going to really write much today. Instead, I leave you with a couple of essays I wrote about a year or so ago for a human sexuality class, discussing the media influences that existed while I was growing up, and what I would like to see changed. Think of these in light of the recent murders that sometimes, more knowledge of a topic, or more visibility, is not always a good thing. I risk my life every day just by being open and honest. As Laverne Cox said during her speech, there isn’t a moment when I leave my home that I don’t wonder if I’ll be coming home at the end of the day alive.

I’ll be back next week. Stay safe out there.

A Sad Day

Dear readers, today I am quite sad. Normally, this would be a good thing, as I struggle with emotions in general thanks to the abuse I dealt with growing up. However, today it’s not a good thing, because of the cause of this sadness. We’ve had far too many murders of trans women of color already this year. Now, I say this every year at TDoR that one murder is too many, but we’ve already had five (some would say six) in the first five weeks of the year. And that’s just trans women of color, it doesn’t include trans men or white trans women. That’s also just here in the States, not including all murders internationally. Even worse, as we’re in the height of movements such as Black Lives Matter, these murders have largely gone unreported, glossed over by major media in favor of more sensational news. Sadly, this shows that even those who support the Black Lives Matter movement don’t always care about ALL black lives. So who are/were these five/six people that the major media outlets have largely ignored?

Shame, Pain, and Power

So, Laverne Cox came and spoke at my school earlier this week, and I went and saw her speak. I won’t go into too much detail about that today, as I want to save it for next week when I have the pictures and have gone over everything a bit more. I do, however, want to address some of what she said, as it also applies to me and many trans people, and is something that my therapist and I discussed earlier today.

Laverne mentioned that she has been dealing with a great deal of PTSD and shame over the years, working through them with her own therapist, but that even now, she still deals with them. She also mentioned how there isn’t a day goes by when she leaves her apartment or hotel room without thinking that today might be the day she doesn’t come back alive. These fears, feelings of shame, and anxiety over prior traumas are common amongst the trans community, leading to the 41% suicide attempt rate within the community. When Laverne brought this up during her talk, I mentioned to the person sitting next to me, another student in my activism course, that the 41% number is only the attempts, and doesn’t include those who succeed at taking their lives. Laverne discussed how she was in that 41%, but I never brought up that I’m also in that 41%. Laverne made her attempt in high school, I made mine at age 7.

My Tranifesto

It’s been a couple weeks since I last wrote here, in large part because I’ve been too sick/in pain to do much. I’ve also started going back to school, and one of my classes this semester is a history and theory of activism class. This coming week, we’re doing readings over a number of famous and infamous manifestos of other groups. These include The Woman-Identified Woman (an early lesbian-feminist manifesto), the SCUM Manifesto (an extreme pro-female anti-male manifesto), and the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto. One of our ongoing assignments through the class is to have an “activism journal” where we discuss our learning from the class as well as our experiences with activism/volunteering over the course of the semester. So this week, I’m going to do my first post of such, a manifesto of my own (a tranifesto if you will, in honor of the late Matt Kailey).

My Little Feminist

Ok, sorry this is later than planned. This weekend was INSANELY busy here. Daddy got invited to a housewarming for a coworker (or former coworker), and it was something like an hour drive out of the way. Then yesterday, we were out a lot doing the shopping, plus painting the front deck, and yeah, busy. In addition to that, I hadn’t yet decided which thing to start with, so I decided to go with one that’s a little less controversial to start this thread going. Today, I’ll be talking about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I know I said that these would be my guilty pleasures, but there is no guilt in my pleasure over this show. Yeah, a lot of people think it’s weird that a 30 year old likes it, but screw them. This show is awesome. And yes, there has been controversy over it from the feminist sector, such as this post on the Ms. Magazine blog. However, a great thing happened. Lauren Faust, creator of the new MLP series, came across that post, read it over, and then responded with her own post on the Ms. Magazine site, discussing her intentions behind the series.