(A Twitter thread) Effective censorship requires systemic power. This is related to the conversation about *ism and the non-existent “reverse *ism”: I can have prejudices that are negative about cisgender people, for instance, but I don’t have the power of the system behind me. When we transgender folk “cancel” JKR and DC, our power is…
Author: Clio
The Dream of the Canoe
Last night I had a dream. In the relevant part of the dream, I was walking along a river where I was supposed to meet my father. My older brother had arranged for us to ride down the river in a canoe carved from a single tree trunk by an indigenous elder. Every year, they…
pebble
later that night,after the moon had hidden behind the clouds,i found myself on the sidewalkoutside your house i picked up a small rockand thought about throwing itagainst your windowto wake you up but i was afraid i would breakthe glass so instead i held the pebble in my handand thought of you 01.09.22
Two Post on The Alpha Ideal
On Facebook:The term “Cancel Culture” is a part of a larger system of domination and, frankly, is used itself to cancel conversation to avoid uncomfortable conversations and accountability. “It was just a joke” is part of that, too. The image below is framed in terms of men, but it’s part of the greater system of…
“God Knows I’m Good”
I used to call myself a libertarian. I used to say that meant that people could do what they wanted as long as it didn’t hurt other people. I used to be the final arbiter of whether my actions hurt people. It’s easy to declare that one’s own actions don’t hurt other people: “My actions…
Watcher
(Written in 1997) This was not the first time he had been there, by any call. Steve had been there on many occasions, his back pressed against the cold concrete, his breathing short, the last rays of the dying sunlight peering through a small greasy hole in the window. This was not the first time,…
You Can’t Repair What Was Never Broken
you told me i was brokenbecause i didn’t actthe way you wantedand i didn’t thinkthe way you wantedand i believed you i told myself to follow the rulesto color within the linesto keep the voices insideinsidewhere other people couldn’t hear them so people wouldn’t think i was brokenbecause i didn’t actthe way they wantedand i…
Don’t Talk To Me
Don’t talk to me. Talking is too easy.Mouths flowing with empty words:How are you?The weather turned cold.Do you have any plans this weekend?What do you do for a living? You don’t really care what I say.These are just mortar to fill the empty spacesso the silence doesn’t strangle us. How are you?If I answer honestlywhen…
today’s the day
today’s the day i’ll wake upfeeling comfortable in my own skini’ll look in the mirror and see myself for who i amnot a freaknot an insecure messbut a person proud of their own identity today’s the day i’ll put on a skirt and a blouseand i’ll polish my nails and braid my hairand feel freedomand…
Marty’s Viral Pizza Load
This is making its internet rounds again: These days, I see it in math teacher forums clucking about our colleagues. There is often a microaggressive wink-wink against elementary school teachers or misogynistic pronoun use where the brilliant student is “he” and the teacher is “she”. First, as a real thing that a real teacher wrote…