In light of a city buzzing with a queer film festival, I started thinking about what opened my eyes to my queer, feminist, trans-positive consciousness in art; Where do I lay my roots, so to speak?

The answer: not so simple. I often hear others talk of their first recognition of what it meant to be queer. They range from sexual experiences, a talk with their parents, or simply a realization brought on by something incredibly abstract. My root is more of a root-system; tangled, tight, and complex, it is hard to discern where it starts and where it begins.

I say this primarily because my queer politics came significantly before my queer sexuality. It occurred to me at a very young age that being queer was O.K., even normal, while it occurred to me much later in life that I, in fact, identified my sexuality and gender presentation as queer.

So? I want a root! Everyone else gets one! I don’t want to be the only one at the pride parade with an amorphous queer past! My solution: I’ve decided to pick my own queer genealogy.

Well, I shouldn’t say that; I’m not picking it, per se, but creating a new concept of what the root is. Instead of this instant shock of knowledge, I’m looking at what gave me my sense of openness and acceptance when it comes to gender and sexuality. I’m taking a close look at my history to help trace my little queer evolution, in mind and not just body.

Can you guess what my brain came up with? You guessed it: Art. Art of all forms helped mold my open-minded baby brain into the big queer tree it is today. First and foremost, I can tell you all with confidence my first queer realization came when I was about 11, reading a book my lesbian Aunts gave me (thank god I come from a family of queers!) called “Weetzie Bat” by Francesca Lia Block. Block’s writing is full of characters with all sorts of gender presentations and sexualities: little girls wear skate shoes and boys look for their princes all within short, succinct, bath-tub reads meant for our young ones. The pleasure I got from reading a story about a guy loose in L.A. looking for his special someone was unmatched. The stories were glittery, effervescent, and just bursting at the seams with open minds and hearts. I still read Weetzie’s story at least once a year, along with Block’s series of stories, and they still lead me close to tears every time.

But, it doesn’t end there. I was lucky to grow up in a house full of music. “Name that Tune” was a family favourite, as my dad flipped through the car radio and gave us 10 seconds each to guess who the artist and song were. Tracy Chapman, Ani Difranco, et al. filled my living room and my head. I was listening to messages of queer acceptance long before I realized what they were. And, it was awesome. I remember the first time I realized someone was gay… and it barely registered. It was just another way people were, and it felt awesome to have already learned queer acceptance before I learned exactly what queerness was.

And this isn’t to extol any superior evolution I’ve had that others haven’t-- not in the slightest. This is to extol the power of art in our culture. Imagine if every kid was exposed to the litetature of queer people, people of colour, disabled people, trans people, and so on? Imagine if every kid learned acceptance before they even had a chance to shape their own behaviour; the opportunity to follow ones feelings, impulses, and creativity would only multiply with the multiplicity of influences these children received.

And I think that might be pretty awesome.

Check out The Image.Nation Website if you feel like queering your current mindset (and you’re in Montreal, of course) or do some googling to find out where your nearest Queer Film Fest is!
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The below poster of a baby, with the word “homosexual” written on its armband, is part of a proposed campaign by the left-wing administration of Tuscany (a regional government within Italy) to combat homophobia. It represents an attempt to teach people that, because homosexuality is not a choice, gays and lesbians should not have to face discrimination. This kind of “no-choice” approach is nothing new. Gay conservatives wholeheartedly adopted it (throughout the 1990s) and it effectively became the centerpiece of mainstream GLBT organizing in the United States. The “genetics-inspired” notion that one is homosexual or heterosexual at birth does not play a significant role in the theorizing of major conservatives, such as Bruce Bawer and Andrew Sullivan. However, they both expend considerable amounts of ink claiming that homosexuality is “essentially unchosen,” “innate and intrinsic,” and fixed by “at least the age of three”. Their purpose is the same as that embodied in the Tuscany administration’s poster above.
Is this essentialist vision of sexuality valid? Although sexuality is certainly not a simple choice (if we think of choice as switching a light-bulb on or off), the “no-choice” portrayal of it is definitely lacking. It ignores people whose sexualities change over time, bisexuals, and gender-queer sexualities that defy categorization within the homosexual-heterosexual binary. What, for example, would essentialists make of someone who is in a relationship with a transgender man who has a vagina? Is that “homosexual” or “heterosexual”? Furthermore, although people do not simply get up in the morning and decide to turn homo or heterosexual, what is wrong with choosing to be open-minded and experimental with one’s sexuality? Is this not a value that GLBT and queer organizations have a right, and even perhaps a responsibility, to promote? The “no-choice” version of sexuality essentially delegitimates sexual exploration and open-mindedness and works to reinforce the rigidity of homosexual and heterosexual identities, which – if you accept the Butlerian perspectives portrayed in my previous post – may actually increase tensions between straight people and the GLBT community.

The “no-choice” strategy represents an attempt by various elements within the GLBT community (and “well-meaning” left-liberal politicians) to afford homosexuality the same privileged discursive status as heterosexuality: as an unquestioned, bio-psychological given. As such, it is an easy example of how knowledge-power (as portrayed by Foucault) works. The dissemination of the “knowledge” that homosexuality is not a choice attempts to empower gays and lesbians by placing it on the same semantic level as heterosexuality. Unfortunately, under such a framework, the attainment of rights and fair treatment become dependent on the fixity of one’s sexual aim: all those who do not demonstrate such a “stable” sexuality are then implicitly excluded from the nexus of rights and privileges.

Despite all of the flaws mentioned above, can the “no-choice” strategy” be justified as politically expedient? Could it work as short-term tactic that will make the attainment of marriage rights and non-discrimination laws considerably easier? Indeed, U.S. public opinion agencies have documented a link between public support for gay rights proposals and the notion that homosexuality is not a choice. Belief that homosexuality is innate seems to be pivotal in inspiring most people’s support for anti-discrimination laws, such as ENDA. Although the passing of important legal measures may well be speeded by the promotion of such a discourse on homosexuality, it represents no guarantee that prejudice and discrimination will abate. Take the example of the physically and mentally disabled, who despite not having chosen their non-normativity, and having gained considerable legal battles, still face incredible levels of discrimination. Promoting the idea that sexuality is not a choice may facilitate the passing of certain laws – however, these laws in themselves are not going to end homophobia or sexism.

Basing an entire GLBT rights campaign or movement around the “no choice” strategy is, thus, a mistake. What would some alternative approaches to fighting homophobia look like? What other kinds of frameworks could be used to attack prejudice against non-heterosexual people? Homophobia could be portrayed simply as gender discrimination or sexism – indeed, the notion that a particular sexual aim is intrinsic to men and women is just the same as any other requirement in the sexist “life plan” that is drawn out at birth for each sex/gender. Another way of going about it would be to emphasize the inherent value of sexual autonomy in itself. The notion that human sexuality should be as free as possible (within adult-consensual constraints) may very well have its own appeal and is more inclusive of all sexual and gender identities. By promoting sexual autonomy in general (and not the rights of a particular identity-community), there is more of a chance that non-binary and unfixed sexualities will be adequately represented and subsequently legitimated. It is time to go beyond the “no choice” strategy, and the “gender discrimination” and “sexual autonomy” frameworks provide interesting road-maps for a new direction in GLBT activism.

***For More Information***
To find out more about the poster campaign in Tuscany, look here. I have taken a bit of a break from theory in this post – nevertheless, there are still some interesting works to check out. For further elaborations of the “no-choice” perspective, see Bruce Bawer’s A Place at the Table and Beyond Queer (edited by Bawer). Also, have a look at Andrew Sullivan’s various writings – the book Virtually Normal sums him up quite well. For a deeper look at the knowledge-power nexus and discourse theory, see Foucault’s Knowledge/Power: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. A strong case for sexual autonomy can be found in Michael Warner’s The Trouble With Normal.
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Sincerely,
ts
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Good As You joins us with "Audio: An ear to the House floor":

The ENDA debate is currently playing out on the House floor, with a vote expected to come later today. So, being the mensches that we are, we thought we'd let you listen in to some of how it's played out in the last couple of hours. Get ready to be both inspired and enraged:

(Link to full article [with fun sound bites!])
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In my last post I discussed the links between Halloween, Queer and the Uncanny. I finished with a vox pop of religious speakers which illustrated the link that's drawn between queer people, monstrosity and violence. Obviously, "some people don't like us" isn't a particularly useful or original conclusion so in this, my slightly delayed follow up article, I'd like to suggest a few ways we can use the tropes of Halloween to repurpose our uncanniness.

My idea, simply, is to embrace it. If people call us monsters, let's be monsters. It's not a recipe for year long happiness, but neither is denying the narratives that have been written onto us. In small doses, being a horror can be healing. Let's reclaim the awfulness that's attributed to us and make it our own. We cannot escape the stories of our society, but we can engage with them, fearlessly understand them and, eventually, own them.

It would be crass of me to tell you how to deal with such a personal matter. But I will make two suggestions: Halloween and Witchcraft.

Halloween's relevance I've already explained and Witchcraft, as another bug bear of the religious right, is an obvious ally in our deviance.

The occult thinking that I grew up with (bless the Internet) taught that each of us is not one person, but many. Developing out of a bastardised psychoanalysis, the idea was that each person was actually a community of characters. The part of you that calls itself "me" is more visible, but not more important than the various "hidden" people inside you.

From this point of view, Halloween is about those especially hidden parts of yourself. It's about those creatures in us that, due to fear or loathing, we've pushed out to the basement of the psyche. The Monsters we honour at Halloween are the fragments of ourselves that we normally starve and abuse. If we are brave, we can go further than just a cursory nod in their direction. We can admit that these monsters are part of us. We can, though it seems unpleasant, learn to love the mutants we keep hidden in our sewers.

To this end, I dedicated October to my monsters. I hoped, through ongoing acts of kindness, to begin a dialogue and see what I could learn. My aim, importantly, wasn't to "cure" my monsters. I was trying honour and commune with them as they where.

I started by working out those parts of myself that I hated. I brain-stormed all my neuroses and catalogued all my worst fear about myself.After that, I grouped my various types of self loathing into categories and began to flesh out my/their personalities. I gave each a name and lit did rituals for each of them as a symbolic reconciliation.

To tie into the Halloween vibe, I began to find costumes for each of my characters. I fashioned feathered hot-pants for Leticia the drag queen show girl, a rayon crop top for Mikal my inner nancy boy, and make-up for Pierre my weak beat poet. Searching and making the costume became an homage to my own repulsiveness, and I slowly began to develop a grudging affection for myselves.

Central to the costume was the mask. Masks are not only an adequate metaphor for the process of identity, they also suggest an escape route from it. Mask wearing is a liminal state of I-but-not-I, and as such is a perfect place to have a dialogue with your monsters. Obviously, the resonance between Masks and Halloween is well established and I kept being reminded that often, when people put on masks, they are actually trying to show there true faces.

The climax of my month came on Halloween night. I put on all the pieces of the costume and invited my monsters to make themselves known. Looking in the mirror, I was repulsed. I looked gay, and ugly, and unplanned. I took this as a good sign. Monsters, obviously, should be monstrous.

Then I went out dancing, and I humiliated myself. I basked in my ugliness, my unacceptability. I was foul and degraded and, shockingly, proud. It didn't matter that a room full of people thought I was unimpressive and unattractive, I was amazing anyway. Being the shallow attention seeking puff stopped being a problem and became a joy. I crossed a line in my head and became my monsters.

Next morning I dissasembled my Halloween altar racked with embarresment. I'd been my monsters in public, a powerful but painful act. Though I can't claim complete psychological equilibrium, my Halloween ritual was an important personal step towards wholeness.

My elaborate ritualising isn't going to be for everyone, but Halloween is an important reminder of our own self censorship, and I think it forces us to make a choice. Do we hide in the light? Or do we walk fearlessly with both sides of our nature?
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The last blog I wrote and the response it received got me thinking- where do our opinions come from anyway? Sociological analysis aside, how do we form our opinions and for how long do they last? I'm thinking from a more rudimentary level, here. Why are there some things you are 100% sure of your entire life and others that change with each new person you meet? For someone who not only rivals all the burros in Mexico with her level of stubbornness but who at the same time cherishes her ability to learn from people, I am thankful to have seen, met, and experienced what I have so that my opinions could change and develop such a great deal.

I have said it before and I will say it again: I can't stand people who are a. convinced they're right all the time or b. "too much" of anything (too liberal, too conservative, too preppy, too punk, too much of a partier, too much of a bookworm). It's not the most impartial way to be but I've accepted that it's how I see it. I just feel very strongly that it only limits one's perspective and does not allow a person to experience life to the fullest. Our society is how we've made it and ignoring it will only perpetuate its imperfections. I used to be so afraid of saying that. That I was supposed to desperately want to be one of those ultra-liberal, I-believe-anything-is-ok, being politically incorrect is the worst sin I could commit, I should wear only hemp clothing people. One thing is being in absolute agreement with the idea that a person's life is their own and can be lived in the style he or she chooses. Another is being so set in one way or one idea that you are incapable of seeing another, seeing the logic or the root of that perspective. Enter – my life in Mexico.

Now I write this because I am with the understanding, and with complete acceptance, that plenty of people that read what I write do not feel I reach their level of what they would call a "feminist". I'm over it. But it got me thinking- how much have my ideas and opinions changed since I adapted to my life here? How has my definition of what's ok and what's not, how I see my own life, what I want for myself, the role of women vs. the role of men changed? The answer is- a lot. Those things have changed a lot. I've had to get used to hearing things that would make my blood turn cold and the only thing that softens the blow is the fact that in Spanish my brain doesn't, or won't, capture the full meaning. I have had to become ok with the idea that gender roles just don't matter to as many people as I thought they once did. That I enjoy being feminine a lot more than I used to allow myself to admit. But most importantly- that I can't always let my ideas flow freely if I really want them to make a difference.

I've thought the following things more times than I'd like to count:

"Wow. Wow? He actually thinks that."

"She has no idea she doesn't have to put up with that."

" Mmhmm. In another time and place, I would have had fire coming out of my ears to hear that word. Now I just have to bite my tongue"

"Idiot."

So why do I put up with these things? If in the past it was all arguments, discussions, and learning experiences, why have my opinions changed? I think I've just realized that it's not necessarily the opinion that has changed but the way I choose to approach it based on the environment I'm in- whether that be the country, city, party, or coffee shop. I think a lot of people get used to being in a world, however small or limited it may be, that supports them and the way they think. I was one of them. But now, I'm surrounded by some of the most amazing people I've ever known- and I couldn't disagree more with them on certain issues. These issues used to be deal-breakers for me. Now, I see them as opportunities. As ways to slowly, but oh-so-surely, get a new idea or a different perspective in there. I'm not sure if this is living in Mexico or just leaving my comfort zone in general but I think it's a good thing.

So if now your response is that I am losing sight of the whole pint, or maybe that I never even understood it to being with, go on wit ya bad self. I'm gonna stick with this method. I think, for now, that it's ok and it's how I've learned to approach things. But don't worry, ask me tomorrow and maybe I'll have a completely different response.
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Dear Fannie,
I've got a girlfriend. All the other girls I've dated have been long distance or some variation of not really girls (one closet MTF who didn't want to be seen as a girl just yet, and one FTM). She's understanding, supportive, cuddly, she listens well, etc.

She just got out of a relationship with this guy who was utterly dependent on her. Both of our previous relationships have come up briefly and as far as I can tell, she's still feeling a bit 'used up' from taking care of someone else so much. The thing that bothers me is that sometimes, I'm a complete and total moron. I get stressed out or depressed to the point where I'm worthless. Treatment helps it happen less often, but I've yet to reach the point where it completely stops happening. She's made it clear that if she didn't want to stick around, she would be long gone. I don't want her to ever have to see it, but if we're going to stick it out through the long run, she'll probably have to. I don't want to her freak out. I'd only be a worthless pile for up to a week, but it's still not something I can say she'd put up with.

So here's my question: How do I let her know that despite my best efforts, it still may happen, without making it seem like I'm a waste of her time? I want her to evaluate whether or not being with me is something she wants to do. -don't wanna lose someone who loves the Weird that is me

(Note: the above question has been edited down… believe it or not. For the full unabridged question, it will be post-scripted)

DWLSWLTWTIM,

Here’s a word of advice. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I say that in an honest to god, loving and compassionate way. But you have a tendency to talk way too much. You’re acronym has ten words in it – case in point. So what you’re really asking is how do I tell my girlfriend that there are certain times in my life where I need to be alone, and not so horribly offend her that she’ll leave me? Well… the answer is… to just tell her.

So, you’re girlfriend just got out of a relationship with a parasite of a boyfriend who drained the life out of her. And you’re afraid that any resemblance that you may have to that behavior will send your girlfriend into an uncontrollable relapse and flee from your arms forever. Give your girlfriend a little more credit here. It’s pretty clear that she’s a big girl and can handle herself. Treat her like an adult and don’t sugar-coat or cushion your revelation. I’m reminded of the advice I gave to FIST, the more anxiety you treat a confession, the more reason your partner will have to be anxious. So take a chill pill… or four and just be honest.

There’s no shame in needing alone time. In fact, I would recommend it for any couple. If you need a week to deal with your problems, then take a week. She’ll probably be happy that you did. If you’re girlfriend is half as awesome as you say she is, than I’m sure she can survive an entire week without you. If you don’t think that your relationship can survive a week of downtime… you’ve got more problems than your weeklong anxiety attacks.

I would chastise you for the mini-bashing of the “not really girls” in your opening paragraph. But I’m afraid that calling you a transmisogynist might send you into a fit of “uselessness.”

I hope you and your girlfriend work out, DWLSWLTWTIM. And as my good friend Mika says, “Relax, Take it easy.”

++
fiercely,
fannie

send your questions to askfannie@belowthebelt.org

post-script:

The unabridged question is as follows:I've got a girlfriend. This is amazing and wonderful on so many levels. All the other girls i've dated have been long distance or some variation of not really girls (one closet mtf who didn't want to be seen as a girl just yet, and one ftm). She's got all the important things down. She's understanding, supportive, cuddly, she listens well, and she's capable of having an intellegent conversation for hours, or a completely stupid conversation until we both fall out laughing.

She just got out of a relationship with this guy who was utterly dependent on her. Ok, not just, but it was her last relationship, and the end of it happened within a year. Both of our previous relationships have come up briefly, which isn't a bad thing at all, and as far as i can tell, she's still feeling a bit 'used up' from taking care of someone else so much. The thing that bothers me is that sometimes, i'm a complete and total moron. I get stressed out or depressed to the point where i'm worthless. Treatment helps it happen less often, but i've yet to reach the point where it completely stops happening. She's been around when i've been feeling stressed out or depressed, and she is absolutely amazing about it. She's made it clear that if she didn't want to stick around, she would be long gone, and that she's supporting me and loving me because she wants to, not because she somehow feels she has to.

She hasn't yet seen me be useless. Utterly and totally nonfunctional. I don't want her to ever have to see it, but if we're going to stick it out through the long run, she'll probably have to see it at least once. I don't want it to happen and have her freak out. I'd rather let her know it's a possibility beforehand, and have her decide if it's worth it beforehand. Granted, her ex was completely dependent on her for about the entirety of their relationship, and i'd only be a worthless pile for up to a week, but it's still not something i can say she'd put up with. So here's my question: How do i let her know that while i'm doing everything i can to keep it from happening, it's still something that may happen, without making it seem like i'm telling her i'm a waste of her time? I want her to evaluate whether or not being with me is something she wants to do, not feel like i'm saying it because i feel bad about myself that day?

-don't wanna lose someone who loves the Weird that is me


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The first of four times that I have ever ventured to a club alone was when I was in high school. My family took a cruise from Los Angeles to Baja California, and, one night, my parents and younger sister wanted to sleep in our cabin early. Still awake, I somehow convinced my parents to let me roam the vessel; what kind of trouble could an underage minor get into anyway when confined by the rails and walls of a boat?

I don’t know what I was looking for when I wandered into the ship’s (straight) dance club. I had never touched alcohol, nor had I ever rocked a dance floor without a chaperone hovering a dozen yards away. I believed, at the time, that listening to music in a dark room might have been entertaining enough for me. I sat at a table and bounced my head to beats for a few hours. Although I worried about being carded, no one approached; I wore my most adult-looking clothes and passed as a young, bored college student. Not drinking, dancing, or socializing, I’m sure I looked the part.

Three years later, I was an intern in Sacramento. At nineteen, I found myself as the youngest summer employee at my company. Although I imagined myself to be mature for my age, I still couldn’t assimilate into the social circles of the other drinking-age workers. The only source of night life for me was the local 18-and-up gay club. Just on the verge of coming out, though, it was an experience I kept putting off.

I don’t know what I was looking for when I finally—and nervously—drove to the gayborhood, parked my car, and meandered my way to the club. As I stood at the entrance, I desperately avoided eye contact with anyone who might have identified me as an inexperienced homosexual virgin (exactly what I was). In line, I pretended to talk to someone on my phone to keep myself busy and deter any scary gay strangers from starting a conversation. Inside, again, I kept to myself. I sat alone at a high round table near the dance floor. As on the cruise ship, I bounced my head more than I shook my body on the dance floor.

Halfway through the evening, another young guy came to me and asked me why I wasn’t dancing. I shrugged, and not knowing what to do with a flirtatious man, I lied that I didn’t really want to dance. He smiled, nodded, and left to talk with his own friends. I continued with my night, still alone.

It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been approached by another man at a gay club.

The third outing was on an unlikely night to be by myself: my twenty-first birthday. My family allowed me to celebrate in Las Vegas, which I had always thought would be a fabulous idea. Their permission, however, also came with their presence. Furthermore, the date of my birthday also collided with the start of the several college semesters, leaving my friends unavailable to help me escape from my parents.

I don’t know what I was looking for when I decided to stay out after my family returned to the hotel room for the night. I rambled from hotel to hotel, spent about $20 worth of nickels and quarters at various slot machines, and found the only gay club on the Strip, Krave. I found my way to a counter stool, bought a Corona, and then did something that I thought might make a good twenty-first birthday story: I danced on a pole in Las Vegas. Had I friends surrounding me, it might have been funny; because I was alone, however, I think I gave off a pretentious asshole vibe—what kind of chutzpah did I have, after all, to dance on a pole in Vegas? No sooner had I gotten off the pole did a six-pack-bearing stud rise to my perceived challenge, flipping and sliding the hell out of the pole and making my moves look like a Chuck E. Cheese mascot playing on a stage. I was defeated; I bought another Corona, sat down, and bounced my head to the club’s beats.

Two nights ago, after my tired friends fell asleep early at their respective apartments, I went to a club alone: Houston’s hot spot for gay night life, South Beach. Unlike the other clubs to which I’ve made independent field trips, I had visited this one twice before. It wasn’t a new place, I remembered when cover would be free, and I expected to park in my same curbside spot. I was bored, I had energy to spare—so why not?

I knew exactly what would have been ideal: I would start with a drink, bounce my head to the beat while sitting at a counter, but this time, I would get my ass off the stool, hit the dance floor, and move. I would find a young guy who, like me, was dancing alone. I would step closer to him. I would not hesitate to make eye contact as he approached and we started to dance. And it would not matter to me if that was it—if it was a fleeting moment on the floor, if he left with his friends without me or my number, or if he decided to dance with someone else afterward. Because it would’ve been enough to prove to me that I can make it on my own.

That night, I had two drinks. I bounced my head. And for an hour and a half, I grooved on the dance floor. In the fog, in the flashing reds, yellows, and blues sweeping the floor, I inched toward a few cute guys and good dancers. Nothing. I traveled across the floor. No approaches. No eye contact. There might have been a friend who tried nudging his friend into me; aside from that—nothing.

Last night, a friend messaged me, wanting to make the most of the Fall Back time change and head out to a bar. In the mood to procrastinate, I agreed. We went out, had a few drinks, talked about life, and ended up going back to his place for my first anything in six months. And while it wasn’t the best night ever, it was a little more fruitful than my generally-disappointing nights out alone. Despite that, and as shallow as this sounds, I get the feeling that any sort of success I can earn on my own as an object on the dance floor might mean so much more than a pre-established cuddle and make-out buddy. While I’ve always held it ideal to fall in love with personalities and histories, there is a certain sense of pride and glory that comes from being wanted without spilling a single seed of personal information. It means that no matter how much of a success or failure you are in life, you will always have something to hold onto or to fall back on: your looks. Ironically, this is an ugly truth: that the appeal of his physical attraction is something that a person can prove, in which he can take comfort, all by himself; it is something that I, unfortunately, have yet to prove to myself. How many more outings will it take?
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Sincerely,
ts
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I admit I have the travel bug. Life and hard work have granted me the means to scratch that itch more than once. That said, there are certain countries I hesitate to visit because of gender issues. While my sexuality makes some countries uncomfortable or less desirable to visit, it’s the gender flag that makes me worry about being physically unsafe. I don’t necessarily mean my genderqueer status, either—I can pass as "female" and still worry about the security of my body.

A recent NY Times article reminds us that boys and men can be similarly vulnerable—and can face even more difficulty accusing their rapists in the face of both hegemonic masculinity and homophobia. Alex, a French adolescent studying at the American school in the United Arab Emirates, was threatened and chain-raped by three UAE natives: a 17 year old classmate, an 18 year old, and a 35 year old.

"The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier. … The doctor, an Egyptian, wrote in his legal report that he had found no evidence of forced penetration, which Alex's family says is a false assessment that could hurt the case against the assailants. … United Arab Emirates law does not recognize rape of males, only a crime called 'forced homosexuality.' "

I find the language of this article of some interest, particularly as it references nationalities and "former convicts" and the like. For now, however, we focus on its two central claims: 1) that UAE justice system does not treat its foreign residents as it treats its native residents. 2) that homophobia allows not only direct harassment of gays but influences the way the health system responds to HIV.
"At least 90 percent of the residents of Dubai are not Emirati citizens and many say that Alex's Kafkaesque legal journey brings into sharp relief questions about unequal treatment of foreigners here that have long been quietly raised among the expatriate majority. The case is getting coverage in the local press.

"It also highlights the taboos surrounding H.I.V. and homosexuality that Dubai residents say have allowed rampant harassment of gays and have encouraged the health system to treat H.I.V. virtually in secret. (Under Emirates law, foreigners with H.I.V., or those convicted of homosexual activity, are deported.)"

Reading this, however, I have to wonder whether an Emirate boy would have even tried to press charges. Sometimes the bindings of culture and religion are stronger than legal barriers. I remind you that I'm very ignorant: all I previously heard of Dubai was that it is a popular tourist spot, economically successful, and widely considered a safer, more progressive point in the middle east. According to the CIA World Factbook, UAE is "a destination country for [human trafficking of] men, women and children…for involuntary servitude and for sexual exploitation." It seems also that the cultural and legal environments provide no safe space for males who are victims of rape.

Curiously, UAE is the safe haven for the three child actors whose work in the film Kite Runner may have made them unsafe in Afghanistan. Two of the boys are involved in a rape scene (left mostly off camera in the final version of the film). Part of the problem is political, inflaming already unstable relations between Pashtun and Hazara ethnic groups.
"In January in Afghanistan, DVDs of "Kabul Express" — an Indian film in which a character hurls insults at Hazara — led to protests, government denunciations and calls for the execution of the offending actor, who fled the country."
Part of the problem is cultural, that of masculinity and homophobia:

"the Kite Runner actor who plays Hassan…told reporters at that time that he feared for his life because his fellow Hazara might feel humiliated by his rape scene."

Needless to say, the film will not be making its way into Afghanistan officially; the concern for the actors' safety rises from the inevitability of a pirated film release.

In closing, I want to shift from homophobia in the middle east and southern asia, the difficulty in getting legal and media attention for real concerns like male rape and HIV, and the censorship of film…to transphobia in the US lgb(t?) community, and the censorship of film. Catherine Crouch's 20 minute science fiction film, The Gendercator, expresses her concern that butch lesbians are being socially pressured into transition and gender assignment surgeries.

"The movie caused widespread outrage within the transgender community after it was screened in Chicago earlier this year. Objections were raised to the film's depiction of transgender people and activists successfully petitioned Frameline, producers of San Francisco's LGBT film festival, to remove the movie from its schedule.

"The unprecedented decision enraged lesbians upset at what they considered censorship and they demanded that the film be shown. The LGBT Community Center's women's program then stepped in to organize a screening and panel discussion with both sides of the debate." Please, read more.
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