This is not a farm.

afarmjournal:

My body has made its last stand against caffeine. I need warm liquid to get through winter!

You should try dandelion root coffee/tea. My partner and I dug tons of roots back in Vermont, cleaned and roasted them at a low temp til they were totally dry, then pulverized them and brewed them in a melitta or french press. Delicious roasty, chocolatey flavor, just like coffee but not as bitter, and full of dandy-vitamin goodness. Kind of a lot of work if you dig the roots yourself, but you can also buy it at hippie stores. Soooo yummy!

I’m new to the queer community. I’ve always been straight, enough so that I never even needed to “identify” as such. When you’re a part of the dominant paradigm you don’t even see it. It’s why most white people don’t understand racism, and most men don’t understand feminism. What’s your problem [insert minority here]? Everything’s fiiine!

Then I met my fiance, and fell in love. At the time, this creature was a genderqueer girl. I had never liked one of those, and that should have been a clue. I thought, instead, that I had turned gay all of a sudden. I thought this was pretty cool, because I like new experiences. But thinking of myself that way had pretty negative consequences. One of the worst was that I insisted on viewing my partner as a fellow-girl, and attempted to distance myself from my man-loving past.

This didn’t work for either of us, but it ended up pushing both of us to some profound realizations about ourselves. A few years after that watershed, my partner came out to the Facebook community as transgender, with a heartfelt and articulate note, that explained the situation pretty darn clearly.

Now I’m home for Christmas, and it’s been interesting to navigate this reality. Not difficult really, because all it is to me and the folks I talk to is a choice of pronoun. Pronouns are important because using one or the other expresses how we see someone, as either male or female, and it can be hard to switch from one mode to the other…but not anywhere close to as hard as it is to undergo a gender transition! Therefore I refuse to feel pity for either myself or anyone else who expresses that they’re having trouble with the switch. I do have compassion, just not a lot of tolerance, I’m finding.

But on the other hand, I have not made any kind of statement or request that “he” and “him” are to be the new norm of referring to my partner. And I myself have not completely switched over. I don’t really know why, but I’m starting to suspect that I shouldn’t dither. I’m starting to wonder if people won’t just follow my lead if I start gendering my partner appropriately in conversation. And I’m starting to suspect that it might be important for me to start doing so.

It’s been interesting to see that some friends have jumped right in, using “he” without any prompting from me or question marks in their voices. No expression of discomfort or strangeness. Whereas others seem to insist on using what are feeling more and more like the incorrect pronouns, “she” and “her”. Why is this?

I can’t say, but I do know that when my friend referred to my partner as “he” last night without batting an eyelash, I felt intense gratitude and appreciation. The feeling was so acute I had to wonder if I heard her right. Did she really just give me and my boyfriend that gift of believing in us? Wow.

Later another friend seemed to insist on “she”, and I didn’t know how to address it. I decided not to, decided that this conversation would just have to be inaccurate. Today looking back I think I am leaning toward needing to make my own sort of disclosure, apart from sharing my partner’s note on Facebook, which I also did. I think I need to reach out to friends specifically, and remind them of the proper attitude to take toward me and my mate, the right lens to use.

Two years ago I hadn’t given this subject a passing thought. Now it’s almost 2012 and I’m becoming a pronoun nazi! Oh life, how you carry us, how you surprise us…

:)

togetherforjacksoncountykids:

“It’s Okay to be Neither,” By Melissa Bollow Tempel

Alie arrived at our 1st-grade classroom wearing a sweatshirt with a hood. I asked her to take off her hood, and she refused. I thought she was just being difficult and ignored it. After breakfast we got in line for art, and I noticed that she still had not removed her hood. When we arrived at the art room, I said: “Allie, I’m not playing. It’s time for art. The rule is no hoods or hats in school.”

She looked up with tears in her eyes and I realized there was something wrong. Her classmates went into the art room and we moved to the art storage area so her classmates wouldn’t hear our conversation. I softened my tone and asked her if she’d like to tell me what was wrong.

“My ponytail,” she cried.

“Can I see?” I asked.

She nodded and pulled down her hood. Allie’s braids had come undone overnight and there hadn’t been time to redo them in the morning, so they had to be put back in a ponytail. It was high up on the back of her head like those of many girls in our class, but I could see that to Allie it just felt wrong. With Allie’s permission, I took the elastic out and re-braided her hair so it could hang down.

“How’s that?” I asked.

She smiled. “Good,” she said and skipped off to join her friends in art.

‘Why Do You Look Like a Boy?’

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This is a long read, but incredible. A great example of what a teacher can do to open the minds of young children to gender in all its colors, and teach them it’s okay to be different.