Something Queer

Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.

Shakesville | Rape Culture 101

So here’s my question about this: how does this affect our masculinity as trans-entities? Lately, I’ve had a fair number of conversations with people about the misogyny that can exist in the queer community, and specifically in butch and trans-masculine spaces. Please note, I am not saying it’s everyone, or pointing fingers, but I am observing that it exists, and in many places. Here is only one site.

I would like to hypothesize that it has something to do with being socialized as female. That even if we have always been male within ourselves, we were taught certain behaviors, attitudes, fears, and expectations. And how can those possibly not affect how I approach my masculinity? What happens when I stop trying to be a “girl,” and instead inhabit the male spaces in my person? Suddenly, I exist in the image of myself as male, and must grapple with the representations of all those things I was told at some point about men and what, if anything, they mean about me.

Now that other people see me as male, and if I have always been, even unto myself, then do those tendencies I have been taught to fear live inside of me? Are they a part of being a man? Even as I push with my fellow sisters/brothers/trannies/beings to change the dominant perception, I must ask how I live in relation to this newfound privilege and expectation that site heavy on my shoulders.

Suddenly, I struggle, finding that a part of “masculinity” as I know it means entitlement, arrogance, a focus on my own pleasure, and on the role of someone being as one to please me. These things worry me. They force me to criticize the male-ness I want so much, the identity I thought so fully struck a chord.

Then I think, “Would a ‘real’ man immediately think about this, if no one had called his privilege to light?” And because I have never been in the place of masculinity without effort, I must wonder how to stand and try to change the way they see their identities. Because without outing myself, I can’t tell them I’ve known the other side. And by outing myself, I admit that I’ve never known what they know, and can only stand outside trying to build a better structure based on what I’ve seen and been told, both by them and by the women who warned me against them.

I remember that no matter what I think about my masculinity, part of the point is that I will most likely always think about it. For me personally, my masculinity will always be queer in some way. It is impossible for me to start a new gender over as a clean slate. There will always be subtleties I miss, things that beings who have always been treated as male will know and experience differently than I will. I can queer masculinity, but only masculinity as I experience it.

Masculinity wasn’t handed to me as a birthright; I didn’t inherit its mantel when I push squalling into the world. Instead, I coveted its lines, emulated its images, and stole its suit from a brother/cousin/father/friend/society. I tailor it to my body, and sometimes, I tailor my body to it. Pinstripes smooth and camouflage my curves, a double-breasted coat disguises the flesh someone called breasts, not pecs, and I believe in every detail from my cufflinks to my pocket square. And in my eagerness to stand next to the other gray flannel suits, I have let go of details I didn’t know I was supposed to know as a man, because it’s an unspoken understanding. While I proudly display the buttons on my suit jacket, I remain unaware that the monogram on my cuff is ever so slightly to the left, not quite perfectly placed, because I picked up the skill just a little late.

SocialChangeCamp takes Manhattan

Saturday,  September 26, 2009 marks the launch of the inaugural SocialChangeCamp NYC,  a partnership between Social Media for Social Change (SM4SC), Grassroots.org and the Grassroots Web Meetup.

The event will bring together the best and brightest of the New York social media scene and create a space where their skills and knowledge are accessible to a wide array of non-profits, charities, public organizations, museums and NGOs.  Through a series of panels and discussions, attendees will address the diverse ways in which organizations are using social tools to reach a new generation of donors and fundraisers, as well as recruiting volunteers, building community,  inspiring grassroots movements, and facilitating effective advocacy. The goal is to make these tools and techniques accessible to organizations that are new to social media, as well as to present new challenges and opportunities to people already immersed in the social media scene.

Tickets are available online at http://socialchangecamp.eventbrite.com and are just $10, which includes admission, a camp shirts and materials, and breakfast.

Student tickets are available for $7 with valid, current ID. A limited number of tickets are available free to the NYU community by emailing scps.marketing.pr@nyu.edu.

The camp is being hosted by New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and is further made possible donations from ActiveCause.com,  Bite PR, Chris Brogan,  DonorsChoose.org, EventBrite, HUGE, Inc., Polyprintdesign, and Storenvy.

Seth Godin (Non)Sense

Seth Godin wrote a piece yesterday that seems to have split people between admiration for his condemnation of non-profit bureaucracy and outrage for his poorly researched blanket statements about non-profits and their presence online.

Me? I’m somewhere in the middle.

I can understand the frustration, and Seth has some fair points. But the post ignores a large part of how non-profits build community, network, and fund raise. There is some bureaucracy, it’s true. There is some resistance to change. But a non-profit not having the resources to be online in a meaningful way does not mean they’re not doing important work.

When you look at reports that have been done in the past few years on the efficacy and uses of social media for non-profits, it’s clear that it has yet to prove itself as a highly effective fund raising tool. In order to motivate donors/volunteers/advocates, the person or organization tweeting has to have a fair amount of social capital and a strong connection to their followers. Plus, it assumes that your donors have a certain level of technological savvy, are interested in the realm of social media, and that you have a mission that can be distilled into 140 characters. That’s a lot different from “too much fear to tell a compelling story in a transparent way.”

And as far as community building and advocacy, organizations and individuals are still figuring out how to build structures to do that. There’s no holy grail. Yes, there is value in reaching out to new contacts and building connection online, but you still have to make them translate into offline relationships to cultivate major donors. A hand signed letter that acknowledges a relationship, the individual’s history with the organization, and thanks them for their ongoing support while encouraging them to get involved in new and exciting ways is extremely different from a 140 thank you tweet.

Twitter and social media shouldn’t be a threat to non-profits, but neither should they be heralded as the quick, easy, cheap and effective savior of all things non-profit. The most effective uses of social networking are still in situations where tried and true marketing tactics are taken online and applied to new media. And that takes know-how and resources.

As many others have pointed out, Grodin’s reference to the top 100 Twitter accounts as his proof of the inefficacy of non-profits is sloppy at best. When I looked at the top 100 twitter accounts, what I immediately noticed was that they were all people or organizations with massive amounts of disposable income and either a staff or the time themselves to really spend promoting themselves. There’s a degree of economic, social, and technological privilege required to effectively use the tools at hand.  And in some cases, a cause that you can make “sexy,” so people relate to it and feel like they should care when you reach out.

On a separate note, and in reference to something I’ve not seen talked about a whole lot, it’s highly problematic to posit that charity: Water is “more passionate” about making change than non-profits simply because they’re on Twitter. Yes, they raised a lot of money, and their model is an important case study, but that’s not the only measure of success for organizations making change. Grodin didn’t even touch on the “What now?” What is their donor retention rate like? Are those people continuing to engage in meaningful ways with the cause of the organization past the one event they attended? Are they now advocating for the cause? Telling their friends? Or did they show up, tweet, and leave?

Overall, if the article kicked some people into gear and enlightened them about the bureaucratic stalling happening in their organization that’s holding them back, the good on Grodin. But making blanket statements about the state on non-profits online, without doing the research and rather than taking the time to craft your statements to the audience you really mean to address? That’s just irresponsible. And then he wonders why organizations don’t want to hand control of their messages over to volunteers and third-parties.