Hi there! You writings are wonderful. Please could you do an EssekXreader where the reader is from another high ranking den and is betrothed to Essek for political reasons. Both Essek and Reader aren't keen on the idea but eventually after spending time together realise they actually have feelings for each other, I'm thinking a bit like The Swan Princess. Please and thank you.

This is gonna be a two parter as the current draft already exceeds my usual word count limit 🙈 so stay tuned for part two in the next few days! Hope you enjoy 😘

Denial. It must be a cruel joke. Your family, your den they would never use you as a pawn in a bigger plot. This was all just a cruel joke or a move to assure their political advancement without the need to go through with this.

Anger. No. This is real. How dare they? How could they? They would use you like that? Without having the decency to let you know before the deal was made no less! Were it anyone else you’d crush them beneath your boot like the vermin they are for condemning you to a fate not of your own choosing. Perhaps you still might…

Bargain. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe you could just play your part and go your separate ways. A betrothal doesn’t have to end in a marriage. Even if it does, all that counts is appearances. Beyond that you could still have your own life right? You’d always be able to make the ‘me’ decision and wouldn’t have to take in account the ‘we’. Yes that should be right.

Depression. Your life is ruined! You’ll forever be tied to someone else without your consent. Your decisions will reflect on the many now. You’ll have to watch your every move and every choice or it may reflect terribly on your legacy. There’ll be expectations and can you ever live up to them while still being content with your own life or will you be sacrificing your happiness for something so stupid?

Acceptance. Acceptance…. Hell no!

Time for the first official meeting with Essek Thelyss in the context of your arrangement. You’d met many times before given both of your stations and reputations but now, you couldn’t help but feel a coldness towards the man regardless of what cordial or friendly dynamic you might have had in your limited social interactions.

Your respective families meet. You on your side, Essek on his. Both of you portray the facial expressions excepted of you; indifferent content. Nothing over excited nor anything remotely negative either but you’ve been raised a reader of the people and you could see through the cracks in Essek’s appearance. He’s just as happy with this arrangement as you are; not at all.

“It is a pleasure to meet you here today.” Essek speaks. The rules of engagement have not forgone any of you despite your discontent with this whole situation but for the sake of your watching families you’d play your parts. You’d put on a damn good show.

“You as well Shadowhand. Light be blessed we get to spend it in such magnificent company.” You can feel the approving look burn into the back of your head from your Denmother. They’d be none the wiser.

And so the negotiations began. All be damned if you did not at the very least were able to set some of your own terms in this arrangement. Fundings to sustain your lifestyle or a dowry were the least of your worries. You were more concerned with a place you could call your own, time to spend for yourself, security and stability and the ability to continue your life as is regardless of possible marriage. You would never give up your seat at the Bright Queen’s council and you’re very sure Essek wouldn’t give up his either.

Essek had to admit you played the game well. You’re a killer negotiator. Your persuasive side had shone at the Bastion more than once but those circumstances are wholly different than these. Your ability to make it sound like these ideas came from your den and not yourself, and have them think these suggestions were their ideas in the first place is simply remarkable. Remarkable and dangerous. Respect. But no matter how good of a talker you are, or he is for that matter, neither of you could get out of this.

Afternoon tea, a few lunches and dinners here and there and even a few events you were forced to attend with Essek as your escort under the careful watch of your dens. Whenever you were sure they were out of earshot you did not make it unknown neither of you wanted to be here and would prefer to be as far away from each other as possible.

Then there were the times you swore you might actually be able to like the Shadowhand. Councils held lead to many arguments, the Bright Queen watching the court fight among themselves for a next course of action, fundings to be divided and efforts to be pursued. You always kept a level head not allowing yourself to get worked up, or at least appear you weren’t but sometimes you could strangle the life out of some of these fools.

To your surprise in some of these occasions Essek would take your side and support your arguments, concerns and points brought up in debates. So he does know what’s good for him after all? Those moments were quickly ruined by the next point on the schedule where you’d be at opposing sides again. Usually you’d be able to work up an opponent in debate until their credibility would be questioned but Essek had caught onto your games and was no fool. If you could keep your cool, so could he. You had learned how to push his buttons as he had yours.

After a particularly heated debate the Bright Queen dismissed the dens, done with the bickering and infighting for the day. You couldn’t blame her even though there were still many things unspoken. You and Essek were at odds once more and you couldn’t be happier to be done for the day and head somewhere you wouldn’t be forced to interact with the asshole.

Conferring with your allies, trying to gain support of others, you grabbed your things ready to leave the Bastion. There he floated in the anti-chamber eyes cold focussed on you, waiting. You pretend you don’t notice and keep walking for the exit. Essek calls your name as you’re about to pass him. You don’t respond and keep going. He calls again. No response. He grabs your arm stopping you in your tracks. How you’d hoped to escape this confrontation.

“A moment of your time please.” The words leave his lips with an artificial, well-practiced warmth. Oh you’re fighting so hard to contain yourself but you too had a facade to keep up.

“Another time perhaps. I’ve grown quite exhausted after the day’s events. If you will excuse me.” You smile innocently placing your hand over his secured around your wrist. You pry your fingers beneath forcing him to release his grasp on you.

“Then allow me to escort you back home. Should you be able to muster up the strength to converse on our path I’d love nothing more than to just hear your voice.” Essek encases your hands between his. Eyes of the dens fall upon the two of you in the middle of the anti-chamber. Essek is known to be a reserved individual and these advances definitely stand out.

Oh so that’s the game we’re playing. Asshole move, Shadowhand. Two can play this game. If it’s the company you’re currently in he’s using against you you can do the same. You take a step closer to him standing on your tiptoes and lean in to press your lips to his cheek. You linger just a little and whisper into his ear.

“I have nothing to say to you.” You allow the distaste to bleed through your barely audible words before you pull away and take a step back. You couldn’t refuse his ‘generous offer’. It might make you look bad so you smile bright and nod even managing to call on a fake blush like some lovesick fool. From the corners of your eyes you notice the court members whisper among each other. Good. Let them talk. You link your arm through Essek’s still carrying your things.

“I believe I might have forgotten my transcripts of the day. Would you mind joining me in retrieving them?” So whatever the wizard needed to discuss with you he couldn’t say in public… Oh Essek what a mistake you made… That certainly offers you some opportunities to use to your advantage.

“Nonsense! I have my transcripts. You’re free to borrow them, or perhaps you’d like to study them with me? It might give us the opportunity to come to a compromise without wasting the Council’s time. After all, there’s much more pressing matters.” His expression might be a thankful one but if looks could kill… you’d be introduced into your next life this very second.

You begin leading Essek out of the building not allowing him any response or comeback for your previous statement. You walk head held high catching onto the praises of others. ‘A great match’? If only they knew…

Your walk continued in seething silence from Essek. Until you reached your home. Opening the door and leaning against the doorframe making sure no one else is in sight, you smirk at him.

“I’m curious. If I refused to part with these,” You hold up the transcripts. “What would you do? Would you go back and receive your own copies or would you go without them?” You leaf through the pages. It’s not like you needed them. You already had all you needed memorised so if anything they’d go into your archives for future reference and case study if necessary. Essek doesn’t dignify you with an answer yet so you continue to press his buttons.

“Would you be able to discredit my every word or counter them without the direct word for word reference? Would your arguments hold any weight against my own? Or would you be forced to depend on the vote or Light’s mercy, the Bright Queen’s verdict because if the latter, you’ve already lost, my dear.” You can’t hold back the smugness in your achievements. The look of defeat brought you satisfaction.

Essek bites his tongue. Even he knows that in theoretics you have the upper hand now. Recalling your words from memory alone wouldn’t be enough. He’d needed to cite them exactly providing the transcript in your possession. He couldn’t go back or it might arise questions, questions he couldn’t afford at this moment. What caught him off guard was you offering him the transcript still. He takes it before you can change your mind, the pages disappearing beneath his cloak.

“Luckily for you I’m not your enemy. Yes we might disagree on matters of state but at the end of the day we’re going to be stuck together and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

“What are you suggesting?” Essek doesn’t know wether he should be wary, outright suspicious, or glad you’ve come up with a plan amidst the chaos.

“A truce. If we keep these antics going it will lead to a war between the two of us. Are you really prepared to be expected to spend the rest of your life with someone you’ve grown to hate? Because I’m not. I’d rather sleep in my bed withe the comfort of knowing my partner will not stab me in the back or sabotage me at every opportunity he gets.” Partner. He. Not they. He. So not even you had a way out of this betrothal.

“Resentment grows much faster than affection.” Essek deadpans. Yes he sees your reasonings and you make some solid arguments but that doesn’t mean he has to trust your motives. He’s aware you in your position are much more dangerous than any spy, assassin or foreign force.

“Light be with me.” You’re exasperated. You’re offering an olive branch and this is his response? You pull him inside and close the door dropping the act entirely within the confines of your own home knowing no one will be watching you here.

“I am not offering you an epic enemies to lovers tale! I’m offering to make the best out of a situation neither of us actually want to be in! Marriage is just another contract. We do what is expected of us by following it to the letter and nothing more, nothing less. Love or affection is not part of that contract but respect is.” Essek takes in your words and considers them making sure you’re not twisting things in such a way you could later use against him or to your advantage.

“Your logic is sound and your arguments persuasive.” You raise your hand in an exasperated ‘thank you’ as he straightens your back and looks down at you.

“Very well. We have an agreement.” You’re on the verge of letting out a breath of relief at Essek agreeing to your terms and suggestions. You’d rather be sure this man isn’t going to drop you on a different plane in your sleep once you’ll be forced to share a home. You’d rather know you can trust him to have your back despite your grievances. At the end of the day, you both want to survive.

“Match made in Elysium.” Sarcasm is clear in your voice and the both of you cannot help but smile. More like match made in hell with the ‘letter of the law’ approach to navigating your predicament.

—————

Pacing back and forth fingers pressed to your lips in thought of Essek’s sitting room you ponder the terms of your agreement. Essek himself is seated on the couch leaning over a two sheets of paper, a long list of demands from both sides written on each.

“Next up housing.” You announce. Essek fiddles with the pen looking over the lists.

“I’m not willing to part with my towers unless something of equal or greater value is returned. I need space for my practices, experiments and studies.”

“I’ll agree to part with my own home under the terms you will share your personal resources with me and I will have amicable space for my own pursuits be this here or at another place of our mutual choosing.” Essek considers your terms on this matter. They are agreeable but this is a negotiation and neither of you are refraining from pushing for an outcome to suit yourself best.

“We will share my home then but we will both share our resources unless they pertain to exclusively personal matters or those of state when we inevitably find ourselves on opposing sides in the Bastion.” You stop pacing and turn to face Essek. He watches for your responses.

“I get my own tower.” You counter.

“That’s preposterous. I have need for certain rooms and areas for my studies and cannot relocate them.”

“Fine. Then I’ll get all unoccupied or unnecessary rooms.”

“You’ll get your own private bedchambers, study and sitting room just as I’ll have mine. These chambers will be exclusive and privacy to be respected. Other spaces save for my laboratory, for your own safety, are communal.” By the expression on your face Essek knows you’ve caught him in a loophole.

“Agreed. We’re entitled to our private spaces and will share the unspecified ones. Kitchen, dining room, living area… library…” You caught hime there… Essek’s expression turns sour. He’d have preferred to keep that one to himself but the agreement is fair.

“I wish to make an amendment.”

“Name your terms.”

“Some shelves will belong to my private collection. You will refrain from touching these tomes and scrolls without my explicit permission.” You ponder not entirely convinced. There’s nothing in there for you and Essek knows it. You raise an eyebrow for him to continue and concede on a previously negotiated term for this amendment to go through.

“And in return, you get to redecorate our communal spaces how you see fit, within the realms of reason.” Essek empathises the latter part of his statement.

“Agreeable.” You nod. “Next up; social engagements.”

The two of you go back and forth agreeing, adjusting, and conceding to come to an equal understanding and finalise your arrangement. Over all, it went surprisingly well. It certainly was a nice change of scene to have somewhat friendly negotiations without the added pressure of the dens and the Bright Queen herself watching you.

Essek makes for a good conversationalist and you might even dare say you enjoyed your afternoon setting the terms and conditions. Maybe you could be friends after all. That would be nice.

I saw you're old post on JayKyle and like I had a quick question: Ignoring that Jason's love life is embarrassingly bad, do you ever think that he'd might swallow his pride and go to Dick for advice? Because Jason focused on revenge for so long, his social skills (especially when romance is involved) are a little rusty when he's trying to be honest, and he would remember Dick being in a relationship before he died and stuff (also what advice do you think Dick would give to him?)

Absolutely.

See, this is one of those things where I think its key to remember that these characters - no matter how well established or fleshed out they might be - are ultimately still just fictional characters. The choices they make will never be anything other than the choices they’re assigned to make by the writer.

Which means that ultimately, execution always matters more in individual character choices than premise.

Because people are complicated, and good characters are too. People do contradictory things, they do inexplicable things, there’s very rarely anything where there’s just NO situation that could result in characters doing a certain thing. And so yeah, in premise, as I’ve talked about “oh Dick goes around killing people without a care in the world”.....not really plausible. Doesn’t really fit his character. But in execution, “the murderer of Dick’s brother taunts him with his brother’s death and Dick kills him”....not only plausible, it happened and was completely in character.

There’s very very little that can’t be done with just about any character....but you gotta do the math. Put the work in to explain WHY its not out of character, what about THIS specific scenario and execution of character choices and actions adds up to something that’s believable....even if nine out of ten times, it wouldn’t be, just on the surface. 

To bring all this back to your question....I think its not really an issue of WOULD Jason ever go to Dick for romantic advice, but rather....could a case be made for Jason plausibly ever going to Dick for romantic advice.

And before getting into that, I wanna raise a question of my own:

If not Dick....who WOULD Jason ever go to for romantic advice? Bruce? Not likely, just as like, even if they are on good terms at the time, how often do people usually go to their parents for romantic advice as their first choice...especially if that parent doesn’t exactly have much in the way of longterm relationships themselves? Alfred? Ditto - Alfred’s like Jason’s grandfather, and do you usually think “oh, I’ll go ask Grandpa” when thinking hey who is the best person to ask for dating advice? Especially when you’ve never seen them in a relationship either? 

Or how about Tim.....is it really at all MORE likely for someone like Jason to go to a YOUNGER sibling for romantic advice than an older one, even IF we were to ignore (as fandom usually does) that its actually Tim that Jason’s canon issues most commonly crop up with, rather than Dick the way fanon likes to invert that just to enable The Jason and Tim Show? (Sorry, letting my bitterness leak in there, lol, I’m just never not gonna be annoyed that so many fics handwave away the literal bad blood between Jason and Tim - which hey, everyone’s more than welcome to do, especially in the name of family unity - but WHILE at the exact same time inventing bad blood between Dick and Jason where it literally didn’t exist, just to have DISHARMONY in the family, but that’s specifically the fault of one person and one person only, that Dick. But where was I...)

I mean, that basically leaves Babs, which again, you certainly can go with, but the reality is they were never all that close in canon, and if Dick and Jason didn’t have a ton of in-canon bonding moments, he and Babs had even less, so again....

The question is: Given that Jason is mostly associated with just the Batfam, particularly pre-Reboot (and with his Reboot associations usually as often BEING his romantic counterparts as being someone he might feasibly go to for advice with romantic counterparts)....

Who else, other than Dick, really even EXISTS as a MORE plausible option for Jason to go to for dating tips?

(With again, the reality being that just as you can make a case for Dick being someone Jason goes to, you CAN make a case for him going to others.....with the point here being just that there’s really no one else out there that’s somehow MORE plausible for him to turn to here, and thus no reason Dick should be seen as a particularly IMplausible option here).

Whereas, if you strip away the fanon interference between Dick and Jason having any kind of decent sibling relationship, certain actual canon truths start to become more evident....

Like the fact that Jason was excited, in canon, to be Robin SPECIFICALLY. Not Robin as in Batman’s partner, but Robin as in ROBIN. Jason, contrary to popular opinion, looked up to Dick. He respected the older man. He was HONORED to walk in his shoes. Its why despite the machismo he’s usually written with, he never once in canon (okay at least pre-Reboot) talked shit about the Robin costume or wanted to change it. Its why in all of his ACTUAL canon interactions with Dick, he clearly wanted to impress him. He valued Dick’s opinion and insights. He always has.

Or the fact that compared to the relative lack of longterm relationships among the other significant figures in Jason’s life, pre his death, Dick was in a happy, committed relationship with Kory for the literal entire time Jason was Robin and knew him. Like, despite the fanon that Dick is a disaster in relationships, or that he’s had a billion of them, or that they always end because he doesn’t know how to actually be in one....none of this could be further from the truth, all his relationships end as much due to external plot wtf-ery as having ANYTHING to do with his inability to handle intimacy or romantic entanglements, and he’s literally the one and only major figure in Jason’s life that Jason can look at and cite memories of seeing him actually SUCCESSFULLY in a happy romantic relationship....which is again, something you tend to look for in a person you ask for romantic advice.

And so on along similar lines, with the point being....this, like so much else to do with Dick and Jason’s dynamic and even just Jason’s character individually.....is actually FAR more plausible than kneejerk fanon or fanfic impressions I think would make it out to be....and in fact, this is a far more plausible dynamic to exist between Jason and Dick in specific, than Jason and anyone else. Like, I really don’t know who else you would have him turn to for this specific issue, without having to invent the reasoning for that wholesale, having to put even MORE work into making credible than just building upon the idea that Jason goes to his older brother for advice in this department (even if he only does so with a lot of reluctance and awkwardness and “you better not laugh about this” threats, like......again, its all about the execution, and I’m not saying Jason would be GRACEFUL about going to Dick for help here, just that there’s waaaaaaaaaay more groundwork to build off of here than there is anywhere else).

And in conclusion, this also brings me back to my popular refrain of how - due to the fact that Dick is linked and pivotal to SO much of the Batfam’s interpersonal history and dynamics - the more you reduce even just him to one note, the more you constrain his dynamics with his family members to being just one thing and one thing only, and so often that one thing being a negative - the more you actually hurt and limit all the characters around him too, inadvertently. 

Such as Jason. Who innately becomes limited in how well and how believably he can engage in romantic storylines in general, due to not just to his own relative lack of history and experience there....but because the ONE character who is actually MOST ideally situated to be the best person for Jason to turn to for help there, for advice, to fill in the gaps where his lack of history and experience makes him reticent to even TRY dating.....that one person is automatically discounted as not a possibility simply because so many people don’t WANT him to be a possibility. Because they’d rather Dick be the villain of Jason’s stories than an actual positive, supportive older brother helping him to have nice things.

But when you take away those kneejerk assumptions as to why Jason would NEVER go to Dick for help here, with almost all of them stemming from fanon assumptions that Jason neither respects Dick or trusts or values his opinion, nor is he willing to allow himself to ever be vulnerable around Dick......or else stemming from fanon assumptions that Dick doesn’t like, trust or value Jason enough to be helpful or encouraging, or to not take advantage of his vulnerability or fail to respect the effort being vulnerable asks of Jason......

Suddenly, without those largely fan-formed obstacles in the way.....there’s little to no ACTUAL reasons why Jason wouldn’t or couldn’t ever go to Dick for help or advice with dating or romantic relationships.

‘“Asexual” Isn’t Who I Am’: The Politics of Asexuality

by Matt Dawson, Susie Scott, and Liz McDonnell

Comedic commentary that might verge on insightful by me.

Join me as I try and fucking deal with this particular hangup I have

Arright, so basically these folks are reacting to other folks who say that asexuality is the fucking cats pajamas and is going to do everything from redefining relationships to destroying neoliberalism.

Basically, they’re saying that this is telling asexual people how they ought to be, and not actually looking at what it is and how asexual people actually are. In fact, they think asexual people are a very diverse bunch and you can’t make general claims about their politicalness. Which is fair.

Anyway, they’re going to look at the politics of asexual people, and they’re doing this in an interesting way where they are committed to studying the world from the participant’s perspective. This is interesting because, generally speaking, it is impossible for a researcher to entirely remove themselves from an interpretation, because they’re human, and that’s not how humans work. It’s particularly interesting if this means they’re just going to take their participant’s word as gospel, because folks have this nasty habit of lying to researchers.

So, working through past literature now.

They got a good handle on the different parts of the spectrum though, nice, nice.

And critique essentialism, all to the good. 

Then they’re saying that the establishment of asexuality as legitimate relied vision of an asexual person is the ‘gold star’ asexual (yikes yikes yikes) cause that sectioned off some people who you could still intervene with, so the social dominance of sex in society is unchallenged. This negates the ‘radical potential’ of sexuality which is to suggest the FUCKING WILD NOTION that maybe it’s okay for anyone to not want sex. Like, maybe sex could just be a thing, and not a prerequisite of being normal or intimate???

Anyway, the idea that it could suggest this buck wild idea basically spawned a bunch of articles expecting asexuality to pretty much fix everything wrong with society. We’re questioning mainstream culture, we’re rethinking intimacy, we’re desexualising identity, we’re radical (in the political sense of the word) just by existing. Also just “fundamentally anarchist” because we reclaim agency over our body by not wanting to have sex? Dunno about that one, but I might be down for an A tattoo in ace colours.

But our three musketeers say these are a bunch of claims just pulled out of a collective ass, there’s not data whatsoever. Also, all that stuff talks about ‘asexuality’ like it’s some distinct entity (like how folks talk about capitalism but good) and not a thing that people have. So there’s no discussion of how other aspects of people have (race, gender, class, disability etc) interact with asexuality. And of course they do, people are people.

And they want to see some real resistance, alright? Some proper political action and mobalisation, not just thinking radically. Or, I guess, living in a way that resists norms? Or maybe that counts as taking a political position. I guess we’ll have to wait because now it’s time for METHODOLOGY.

So right off the bat we’re talking qualitative. Interviews and a diary. Data from a study originally looking at asexual identity formation and the construction of intimate relationships, but they figure they had enough to do a little article on the politics of it too. And like they said before, they’re looking at what it is that their participants think they’re doing. They call themselves out a bit, saying that maybe their participants might not know if they’re being political, but I’m gonna add in here that this interview was probably advertised as being about the asexual identity. Folks were asked if they had ‘been an activist in the asexual community or in relation to asexual issues’ sure, but it wasn’t advertised as political so they might not be getting the political peeps!

AND ANOTHER THING (cause we’re into recruitment now), you’re not going to get the people like me. The people who care Very Much about their identity, but are also Very Scared to talk about it with pretty much everyone who hasn’t unlocked like sixth tier trust. And they don’t mention this, even while they’re patting themselves on the back for how many diverse identities they got (never mind that the sample is nearly 74% white, 76% younger than 29, and 54% had a university qualification). People who have the most issues are unlikely to be fitting into those categories, either.

But fuck it, let’s get to the analysis.

How central did the participants consider asexuality to be in their lives? You’ll be fucking astounded to know that it varied!!! Amazing, right? But mainly what they’re looking at is whether folks saw asexuality as a key factor marginalising them. (This is about where I started crying last time, but I’m channeling that into anger to try and keep it together so buckle the fuck up).

Our brave trio admits that they did “””””of course””””” find evidence of discrimination against asexual people, and say that they really don’t want to downplay it, but hey, most of the people they talked to didn’t experience it! They just talked about hearing about it! Like, NO SHIT MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU TALKED TO 50 FUCKING PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO TALK TO YOU! YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO FIND A TREND WITH THAT?? And also let’s not downplay what it can do to a person to hear about how others like them are threatened with rape, huh? Let’s maybe think about the effect of that, huh?

Like, yes, the participants who said that it’s not as bad as the history of oppression that homosexuality has are entirely valid. But the researchers who say multiple times that they don’t want to downplay the effect of discrimination and oppression and then ignore the instances they found in favour of talking about ways it could be worse are NOT.

And then they’re saying that it’s not significant to come out, because it’s ‘a lack’ and they cite a couple of participants who say they don’t come out on a regular basis and here is where we get to crux of my problem with their methodology. Because what they’re doing is they’re taking what these participants said and they’re going, ‘oh, yup, that must be why.’ And that’s all well and good, but if some rando I barely knew asked me why I didn’t come out to all an sundry I might also say something along the lines of ‘oh, well, you know, it’s not a huge deal, it’s not something the public needs to know.’ But Reader, it is a huge deal, at least for me. I’m fucking terrified of coming out to people. People LIE. We lie all the time, we tell people what we think they want to hear, and that means that there could very well be a reason I’m reading what these people said and hearing echoes of the tired old aphobic discourse. 

Not saying that is what’s going on, just raising the possibility which they have yet to do.

Yeah, yeah, see here, heteroromantic asexual talking about how they realise their privilege and can pass as straight. Sound familiar? Maybe that is their experience. Maybe it’s what they think the interview wants to be their experience. WHO’S TO SAY?

Yeah, so they conclude that maybe asexuality isn’t very central in their participant’s lives, and we get the title quote of “asexual isn’t who I am. This is just what I am, not who I am as a person.” Which is interesting, because I was just reading another article where gay men said the same thing.

But they say this quotation shows that asexual can be a description of actions one doesn’t take rather than an aspect of a person which creates marginalisation and UM WHAT? You could just as easily say that ‘this is just what I am’ shows a deeper claiming of identity, making it a physical aspect of you which could actually lead to marginalisation. Hey, maybe the context of the quote makes it clear. Don’t know, though, BECAUSE THEY DON’T GIVE ANY.

And now we’re moving on to activism, which I don’t expect to make me as angry, but we’ll see. (Editor’s note: It did.)

Yeah, so there’s more of the drawing the line between how people would like recognition of asexuality and the activism necessary for the wider LGBT community, which, again, valid. But they say that this means that the people who say this feel less need to confront forms of discrimination, when the selfsame participant they are discussing explicitly outlined a need for better education. 

APPARENTLY there was no suggestion that the educatory action people engaged in linked to a wider question of social change which, I mean, sure, had you not already called yourself out on participants maybe not being politically  conscious I might allow. But you did, and what’s more, I bet you didn’t even fucking ask them if they saw it as social change. And since when was education not social change? How are folks supposed to know that it’s okay not to want sex if you don’t TELL THEM THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM???

And then they have the nerve the fucking audacity to say that while it is “of course” admirable, it doesn’t show a desire to challenge a social system. EDUCATION IS A SOCIAL SYSTEM, YOU ABSOLUTE WALNUTS.

Now, online activity

This is mainly about people’s attitudes to AVEN which I don’t really know anything about, but it’s people talking about how it feels to find a label and answers, which is some much needed wholesomeness. And I feel like people’s opinions on a particular organisation or website to use for community are much more valid to take at face value. Much less interpretation going on.

LGBT groups/politics. Oh dear.

“The relations between our participants and LGBT groups were complex and multifaceted” oh, I bet they were.

Again, they found more people talking about hearing others excluded rather than seeing them excluded themselves. Kinda idea that the political standpoints might be different, but they don’t really dwell on that, they just head on through to really ram home the idea that asexual people are all different and might not hold inherently queer political perspectives.

And finally, finally, the conclusion. People are different, political literature is wrong, asexuality is not a fucking cure all. Now, they outline a couple of responses to their argument that folks might take. 

One: the idea that by being asexual, people have the potential to question society. They say this takes people out of their context, and that their way of looking at human action is better.

Two: a radical politics that hopes to transcend sexual society is the best/only way for asexuality to get social acceptance, never mind what the experiences of the participants say. They don’t want to say whether this is true or not, but say that sociologists should distinguish between arguing for the things they like and arguing that those things are what a certain group should do.

And now for my own conclusion. I know I have issues. I am very ‘sensitive’ around this topic. And, just to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically radical in being asexual, either. I think it might inspire a person to take a radical bent on life, but that’s up to an individual. 

But these folks, these silly sausages, in their eagerness to disagree with everyone fell over themselves to gleefully stab each other in the foot. They took an extremely shallow look at their data, not interrogating why people might be telling them these things at all. Additionally, they clearly didn’t want to find much evidence of social activism, and one can’t help but wonder if that is why their definition was so crushingly tight that it didn’t. 

They got to an answer I agree with, but boy howdy did they make a mess doing it.

One Day: Repeating One of Our Nation's Biggest Atrocities

by J. L. Thurston

No one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

Saying-

Leave,

Run away from me now

I don’t know what I’ve become

But I know that anywhere is safer than here.

- Warsan Shire (source: genius.com)

In a place where the land is hot, and dry, and spends all the daylight hours baking in a sun that feels two inches away, there’s a large building full of young boys. The place was once a shopping center, a big gray building made of stone. Surrounding it is a tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire. Like a prison, but it’s not.

The boys inside wear clean clothes and sometimes there’s movies on the tv. They don’t have blankets to sleep under, instead they sleep in weird foil sheets like spacemen or Martians. The sheets make loud noises when they move. It’s hard to sleep under those Martian blankets. The bathrooms are porta potties. One wall is lined with them. The boys that have to sleep nearest the porta potties have to smell it all night long. They mouth-breathe and listen to the crinkling blankets and the shhhh! of the Big Men who want them to sleep soundly like good boys.

The boys sit on long benches, shoulder to shoulder, inside wire cages that are so tall they nearly touch the exposed pipes along the ceiling. There’s Big Men that patrol the boys. Men that wear official shirts tucked into dark pants. They have their big, meaty hands on their belts and strut. Heel-toe, heel-toe, like taking a leisurely stroll. But the Big Men don’t smile, they don’t hardly look at the boys except to make sure they aren’t up to something.

The boys get to go outside sometimes. For a few hours almost every day. When they go outside and when they come back in they have to stand in a long line. At the end of the line there’s a Big Man with a scanner that flashes a red light. He scans their wristbands. The boys must always, always wear their wristbands. It holds a precious barcode that allows them to get food. The older kids know that the barcodes are to keep track of them, in case someone tries to run away. But the Big Men tell the boys that the barcodes are so they can relocate them with their families one day.

One day. That could be tomorrow, a year from now, or never. One day. The older boys know that one day is just something the Big Men say to shut them up. Like when they ask if they can get some basketballs, or if they can see their moms. “Maybe. One day,” the Big Men answer. It means, “Shut up, kid. Sit down. Don’t cause trouble.”

The little kids cry a lot. The babies are the worst. The big kids have to take care of the babies, even if they don’t know them. They change their diapers, and make sure they eat. They’re all kept together in that gray building, their wired walls keeping them pinned in, keeping them together. The Big Men say they aren’t allowed to touch the boys, even the babies. They can’t hold them when they cry, they can’t show affection. So, the big kids do it. They copy what they’ve seen their mothers do, or what they’ve seen other adults do for little ones. They repeat the lies of the Big Men. “One day, you’ll see Mommy again. One day.”

The big kids aren’t allowed to hug each other. When they first arrive to the gray building and are told the Rules, they usually scoff at that Rule. But after enough time spent sitting on a long bench, thinking of home, missing Mom and Dad, wondering where their sisters went, they break down. They think, A hug would be nice. But their new friends can’t hug them. The Big Men don’t like it. It could be a way to make trouble, somehow.

Some of the older kids who have been there long enough talk about killing themselves. They whisper about it when the Big Men aren’t close enough to hear. They wonder if they can sneak a plastic knife, let it melt outside in the sun, and then reshape it into something sharper. Something lethal. But the Big Men are always watching. It would probably never work. Some of the big kids stop eating. But the Big Men tell them that if they don’t behave and follow the Rules something terrible might happen to their parents.

Some of the older kids know a little bit of the history of this country that they were brought to. This land of opportunity that their parents were kidnapped in. They learned in school words like dehumanization and internment camps. They know the President very well because inside the big building is a mural of him on the wall. They sit under it to eat and they can see it from everywhere except inside the porta potties. He looks down on them with a smile so fake he doesn’t even show teeth. A smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He almost looks confused in the mural, as though he doesn’t even know why he’s there. One of the big kids whisper that he looks like a poop got stuck. It makes some of the other big kids laugh, but then they get scolded when it is overheard by a Big Man.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.  For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.  Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

-Romans 13, quoted by both Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018 and Adolf Hitler’s supporting pastor, Joachim Hossenfelder in 1933 (source: harpersbazaar.com and haaretz.com).

“I would cite you the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government, because God has ordained them for the purpose of the order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and the lawful.” -Attorney General Jeff Sessions, June 2018 on the subject of separated children from their immigrant parents. (source: USA Today)

Dear reader, I know with the lies in the media, and the blindfolding, misconceptions, and word-of-mouth alterations of truth it can be difficult to trust anything that you see or hear. But if there really are families being torn apart by our country’s authorities because they are illegal immigrants, then our authorities are MONSTERS. The more I read, the more I see, the more my heart breaks for the evil that people in power are capable of. I have never been more ashamed to be born into this country.

Brynn Tannerhill writes in The Advocate:

1. Who wrote it?

Would anyone take an article on how to deal with racial issues written by David Duke seriously?  Or an article on American Jewish history written by Richard Spencer? Of course not, unless they were a raging bigot to begin with. Therefore, you look at who the authors of anti-transgender articles are. [...]

2. Who does the author hang out with?

Let’s apply the white-nationalist analogy again. Suppose someone claimed not to be a white nationalist. They just write books and articles that white nationalists love and quote all the time. They hang out on white nationalist internet forums, and generally support the statements made by white nationalists in the comments section. They also give away links to free electronic copies of their works on white nationalist websites. Almost all of their followers on Twitter are white nationalists and people who really hate black people. Would you really take their claims of not being a white nationalist seriously? [...]

3. Where is it published?

Would you ever take an article published on Der Sturmer or Stormfront about Jewish conspiracies seriously (besides someone who’s obviously comfortable with their own anti-Semitism)? Obviously not — neither publication has ever had anything nice to say about Jews, and their bias isn’t hidden.

So why on Earth would you give any credence to an article about transgender people on The Federalist, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, or any other far-right-wing site seriously either?  None of them has ever had a nice thing to say about transgender people, and have consistently treated us as a public health hazard that needs to be removed from the public consciousness.

4. Does it blatantly misuse (or cherry pick) real research?

One of the quickest ways to spot biased and unreliable articles about transgender people is when they misuse actual research. Most commonly this occurs when they cite a 2011 study by Dr. Cecillia Dhejne to argue that medical care for transgender people is ineffective, or that it makes them suicidal. The problem is, the research actually says no such thing, and Dhejne has gone on the record saying that attempts to use it to make these points are both wrong and unethical.

5. Does it blatantly misrepresent the actual positions of people?

Dr. Kenneth Zucker is a problematic figure. He has been the biggest proponent of the 80 Percent Desistance Myth, and been completely opposed to supporting kids in any gender variant behavior whatsoever, even if the kids are otherwise emotionally healthy and happy. This is why he is frequently cited by people and organizations opposed to letting transgender and gender variant kids be themselves.

However, what they never acknowledge is that even Zucker supports the use of puberty blockers for adolescents (i.e. those who have started puberty) who are gender dysphoric, because in an interview with a conservative outlet he conceded that, “By age 11 or 12, trans kids are typically 'locked in' to their gender identity” and for them, “I very much support that pathway, because I think that is going to help them have a better quality of life.” (i.e. even Dr. Zucker thinks that kids older than 11 or 12 are unlikely to to desist.)

As a result, any person or article that tries to apply the 80 percent desistance figure to transgender teens are transgender teens is either ignorant, or lying. In either case, this makes it unreliable and unworthy of further consideration.

6. Does it misrepresent the positions of mainstream organizations?

One of the most common examples of this is the breathless assertion that, “They’re giving hormones and sex change surgery to 6 year olds!” “They” in this case meaning medical practitioners who fall under the World Professional Association of Transgender Health Standards of Care. WPATH sets the standards followed by the vast majority of health care providers who specialize in transgender medicine. These standards do not recommend blockers (a reversible intervention) until the age of 12 and hormones until the patient is 16. [...]

7. What organizations does the author represent?

Ask what organizations the writer belongs to, or is representing. Do they belong to a hate group, as defined by the Southern Poverty Law Center? Or speak for fake medical organizations that are routinely produce recommendations driven by religious beliefs rather than peer-reviewed science and medical consensus? If they do, they cannot credibly claim to be unbiased, or acting in the best interests of transgender people. [...]

8. Who does the article cite?

Does the article rely on sources that are biased and/or discredited? Dr. Paul McHugh would be an example of someone who is both biased and discredited as a source. Be able to describe why this source is biased or discredited. For example, Johns Hopkins has implicitly repudiated McHugh’s work by reopening the gender clinic. If the article relies on biased and disreputable sources to make its point, it's no good.

9. Does the article go against the scientific consensus?

There is currently an overwhelming consensus by professional organizations for mental and medical care providers on the necessity and efficacy of health care for transgender individuals. These organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. These organizations studied the matter in detail before taking these positions.

Thus, if the author contradicts all of these organizations, they must adequately explain why they are more qualified or smarter than the vast majority of experts who have studied the issue based on peer-reviewed evidence. Alternately, they must explain why all the peer-reviewed evidence is wrong (in a way that would survive peer review.) Otherwise, it’s merely an opinion piece with little in the way of (cherry-picked) research to support it, by someone with very few qualifications, and probably an axe to grind based on personal beliefs as well.

10. Does it substitute anecdotes for research?

Many of the articles that have come out recently about detransitioning and regrets are based on anecdotes, not actual research. This is because the actual research shows that when the Standards of Care for mental health care professionals is followed, regret rates are very low, and even then often caused by factors external to the patient (e.g. surgical complications, mistreatment, and abandonment after transition). Often, anecdotes leave out or ignore key details as well, which brings us to the next question you should be asking…

11. Are crucial details left out or ignored?

Here’s some facts about Senator John McCain. He joined the Navy, and tried to commit suicide as an indirect result of joining the Navy. From this statement, one could be led to draw the conclusion that the Navy makes people suicidal, or that McCain was mentally unstable, and should never have been allowed in the Navy in the first place.

However, it leaves out the key detail that he attempted suicide after being shot down, becoming a POW, held in solitary confinement for two years, and having his arms torn out of their sockets (leaving him permanently crippled) by his Vietnamese captors.

Similarly, most of the anecdotes about detransitioners leaves out crucial details. Chief among these omissions is that there seems to be a common thread that most of them did not have access to competent mental health care before transitioning, or did not avail themselves of it. Others detransition, but do not regret having done transitioned. Another frequent omission is that people often detransition due to being abused for transitioning in the first place. Systemic abuse can lead to very unhealthy mental states and poor decisions, whether by John McCain or a random transgender person.

12. Does it make unsupportable assumptions?

A prime example of an unsupportable is that transgender people can (and should) just stop being transgender because of higher health risks, as if it was like quitting smoking or eating carb-loaded snacks before bedtime. This assumption first ignores that the medical and mental health care communities regard efforts to change sexual orientation and gender identity as ineffectual and unethical. It also ignores the fact that the only people promising to “fix” someone’s gender identity are the same people who failed so miserably at “curing” gay people while using the same “embrace your God-given masculinity” snake oil. Or, conversely, it’s a lot easier to reasonably assume based on the peer reviewed evidence that if transgender people weren’t ostracized, abused, and legally marginalized they’d have better mental health outcomes.

13. Does it make unsupportable conclusions? And ignore the supported ones?

Examples of unsupportable conclusions in anti-transgender articles are myriad. Many of the anecdotes about detransitioners essentially conclude that no one should ever be allowed to transition (which ignores the peer reviewed evidence showing the vast majority of transgender people report improvement in quality of life after transition). A far more logical conclusion would be that people should have better access to competent mental health care providers, which is something the APA is recommending anyway.

14. Does the article make wild accusations and predict ludicrous outcomes?

Wild accusations (that have actually happened) include that accepting transgender people will destroy humanity, cause people to forget how to procreate, cause hurricanes and terrorist attacks, destroy legal rights for LGB people, and destroy the LGB community by stealing all queer kids and forcing them to transition.

15. Does the article imply religion is a cure for gender dysphoria?

This is a theological argument, and not a scientific one. If there was peer-reviewed evidence that prayer was more powerful than medicine, we wouldn’t need hospitals. Indeed, they’ve actually extensively studied whether prayer is any good at curing people (hint: it’s not). On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that religious counseling and conversion therapy is harmful to queer people. The Bible has very little to say about transgender people directly, and what exists is contradictory. The Bible is much more clear on things like divorce and adultery. Indeed, the Bible pretty explicitly endorses things we accept as social evils now, such as slavery and polygamy. In other words, the Bible is a poor manual for setting public policy, and especially policy for health care.

Read the whole story!

Unit 5

Mental Health and Basic Needs, What is Stress?, Stress Management Techniques

Browse the Overview and Lecture pages.  How much/what do you already know about this topic?  What are you interested in learning about/initial questions.

This topic hits close to home with me. I struggle with my stress and how to manage it on a daily basis. I have anxiety and have a history of practicing different techniques to manage both my stress and anxiety. A lot of what is being discussed in this unit is going to be more like a review for me. Any new information that I may use to improve my mental health will be extremely beneficial!

Go through the lecture.  For each item, take general notes.  What facts seem important to know?

Maslow’s Hierarchy: The bottom two tiers--Physiological and Safety--are considered maintenance needs.  These are the basic things everyone needs to live in this world.  The top three tiers--Love & belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization--are considered growth needs, which help us have a better life experience, but are not necessary to keep our bodies alive.  

Types of Stress:

Acute stress. Those quick triggers that raise our blood pressure, get our heart to race, and instantly affect our mood.  These generally resolve quickly, even if you continue thinking about them for a few days.

Episodic Acute stress. Frequent mini-crises cause us to live in a state of tension.  These usually can't be solved quickly, and often make us worry a lot.  People talk about this as "going through a rough patch".

Chronic stress. Grinding stress that wears us down over the years and never really goes away.  Often caused by big picture problems with no resolution possible.  Trauma and adverse childhood experiences, as well as chronic illness can also be at the root, as well as world issues like poverty, war or racism.

Some links to pages with examples of stress management techniques:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/six-relaxation-techniques-to-reduce-stress

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000874.htm

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/always-learning/2010/01/three-kinds-of-knowledge/

What was the point of the videos? What are a few things I learned on the websites, and might the site be useful in the future? What questions do these resources bring up?  If you were telling someone else about this class, what would you share from this unit.

These videos were helpful in highlighting some important issues many of us struggle with. Many of us are struggling in silence even. I personally am always looking for different outlets to battle my own personal stress. If there could be only one unit I was able to share with a peer regarding this class it would be this unit. I believe everyone benefits from learning about ways to keep their stress at bay.

As/after you engage in the Discussion: Can you summarize the question and the conclusions you and your classmates found? How do you feel about the issue now?

Discussion:

The United States fall behind most other countries when it comes to paid leave from work.  Many countries have standardized paid vacation, or paid national holidays.  Some have guaranteed paid maternal (and paternal!) leave when a new child comes into a home.  Americans can benefit from the Family and Medical Leave act of 1993 (FMLA), but it is unpaid, and only guarantees someone cannot be fired due to taking qualified leave.   Further, think of breaks throughout the day.  Some companies are good at allowing breaks, but others are not.  Some people only get breaks if they smoke.  How can employers (or companies!) use leave or breaks to improve the mental health of their employees? Can you find information on specific countries' leave policies to share with your classmates? Can you find any interesting things  companies are doing to improve the health of their employees? What would be an ideal work environment for your mental health?  Cite any information you get from any source outside your own head.  In your classmate's responses, you might want to look at some countries' health outcomes/happiness indicators to see if there might be a connection.  You may want to (kindly) play devil's advocate for someone's idea. What obstacles would make it hard for a company to implement that?

My response:

Companies that ensure employees are taking advantage of the leave/ breaks policies ensures that they care about their employees. It fosters a culture of caring. I believe that the ideal work environment can respect personal time and empathize with employees regarding life outside the workplace. Doing so, ensures a positive retention rate amongst employee hires and a positive reputation for that company! I personally have experience working in management positions and understand the importance respecting this employee-benefit. Allowing employees their entitled time to themselves to mentally relieve themselves momentarily from their day’s work can have benefits for everyone and not just the employee. According to the Center for Workplace Mental Health, “With consideration [of the] employee's needs, breaks can boost attention span and increase mental ability” (Reasonable Job Accommodations). This means the company receives a happy and productive employee! I’m positive the majority of the working population feel happiest when they can take breaks and schedule leave when they need them.

         Thanks to technology, new ways have been created to increase productivity through technology. Companies have been searching for new innovative ways to adjust an employee’s work-life balance. There is an idea being researched and tested in numerous countries like New Zealand, Norway, and Germany known as The Four-Day Work Week. A company in New Zealand ran an experiment that reduced their work week from 40 hours to 32 hours for all employees while paying the same salary. Researchers were brought in to observe and record their findings and were able to discover, “24% more employees felt they could successfully balance their work and personal lives, stress decreased by 7% among everyone involved, and overall work satisfaction increased by 5%” (Ellis, 2020). Jarrod Harr, human resources professor from Auckland University of Technology who jointly oversaw the experiment, said the biggest takeaway from the experiment was that the employee job performance did not improve nor worsen. Meaning job performance did not change when working four days instead of five. The studies completed in these foreign countries have resulted in promising ideas. “Supervisors [from these studies] said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn't leave early or take long breaks” (Ellis, 2020). Do you think that if companies followed concepts like The Four Day Work Week along with respecting entitled breaks and time-off like sick leave, would they produce the same amount of work?

Citations:

Ellis, M. (2020, March 25). The Four-Day Work Week: Why It Works.  Retrieved April 15, 2020, from https://zapier.com/blog/four-day-work-week/

Reasonable Job Accommodations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2020, from http://workplacementalhealth.org/Mental-Health-Topics/Reasonable-Job-Accommodations

I thought this discussion was interesting because I was able to read everyones perspective about the rights of the employee to breaks and leave in the workplace. New employees spend so much time in HR periods of their employment, it’s commonly highlighted as a topic for discussion. 

After you complete the Homework: What did you learn? What do you want to know more about?

Assignment Directions:

Time Management Activity : One way many people deal with stress is by gaining a better understanding of how they spend their time. Write a couple of paragraphs:

Nature Activity: Much research has validated the connection between spending time in nature and an improved stress response in the body.  Read the article 10 Ways to Relax in Nature and Stress Less (Links to an external site.).

Assess your current time management.  How well do you think you spend your time? How much of it is in your control?  Does this lead to any stresses in your life?

Choose one of the Strategies listed in this brochure.  How could you use one strategy to improve your time management.  Write a SMART goal that you could implement.

Spend 20-30 minutes (minimum) engaging with nature, however you choose.  Write a reflection paragraph about what you expected the experience to be like, what you did, and how it made you feel.  Would you want to try it again?  [If you have severely inclement weather during this assignment, you may choose to watch a nature video or do some guided imagery.  But understand, there is no substitute for actually being in nature!]

This homework was an excellent practice for myself to implement healthy strategies towards time management. As a mother I feel that it’s very important that I am familiar with as many ways to manage my time. I would like to learn more techniques and possibly look into different literature regarding different methods. I believe giving myself options and ideas to manage my time against uncertain circumstance is an important ability as a mother. Especially a mother trying to manage her household during this quarantine.

After you complete the Project: How was the experience? Any take-aways?

Project directions:

List the name of stress management technique you wish to practice.  Why did you choose this one?  What do you expect the experience to be like?  Have you tried this before?  What do you usually do to manage stress?

Find three (3) resources like websites or media that instruct you on how to use this technique.  Cite the URLs or book/authors.

Optional: Take the technique for a test run to see if there's anything you'll need to change before your "practice" next week.

Similarly to my takeaway from the homework, I found the experience working on this stress management project helpful. I would like to learn more techniques and possibly look into different literature regarding different methods. I believe giving myself options and ideas to manage my time against uncertain circumstance is an important ability as a mother. The resources I found were very insightful and had actually led me down various other rabbit-holes of sources of information.

General reflection on the unit--is there anything that feels important that you didn't mention above?  If you had free time, what topics might you want to look into further?

If i had free time I would continue my research on beneficial strategies towards managing both my time and my stress. This will be a battle with no end unfortunately. But I believe going into this unit, I was prepared to finish the assignments with better confidence going into channeling through my day-to-day.

One Day: Repeating One of Our Nation's Biggest Atrocities

by J. L. Thurston

No one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

Saying-

Leave,

Run away from me now

I don’t know what I’ve become

But I know that anywhere is safer than here.

- Warsan Shire (source: genius.com)

In a place where the land is hot, and dry, and spends all the daylight hours baking in a sun that feels two inches away, there’s a large building full of young boys. The place was once a shopping center, a big gray building made of stone. Surrounding it is a tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire. Like a prison, but it’s not.

The boys inside wear clean clothes and sometimes there’s movies on the tv. They don’t have blankets to sleep under, instead they sleep in weird foil sheets like spacemen or Martians. The sheets make loud noises when they move. It’s hard to sleep under those Martian blankets. The bathrooms are porta potties. One wall is lined with them. The boys that have to sleep nearest the porta potties have to smell it all night long. They mouth-breathe and listen to the crinkling blankets and the shhhh! of the Big Men who want them to sleep soundly like good boys.

The boys sit on long benches, shoulder to shoulder, inside wire cages that are so tall they nearly touch the exposed pipes along the ceiling. There’s Big Men that patrol the boys. Men that wear official shirts tucked into dark pants. They have their big, meaty hands on their belts and strut. Heel-toe, heel-toe, like taking a leisurely stroll. But the Big Men don’t smile, they don’t hardly look at the boys except to make sure they aren’t up to something.

The boys get to go outside sometimes. For a few hours almost every day. When they go outside and when they come back in they have to stand in a long line. At the end of the line there’s a Big Man with a scanner that flashes a red light. He scans their wristbands. The boys must always, always wear their wristbands. It holds a precious barcode that allows them to get food. The older kids know that the barcodes are to keep track of them, in case someone tries to run away. But the Big Men tell the boys that the barcodes are so they can relocate them with their families one day.

One day. That could be tomorrow, a year from now, or never. One day. The older boys know that one day is just something the Big Men say to shut them up. Like when they ask if they can get some basketballs, or if they can see their moms. “Maybe. One day,” the Big Men answer. It means, “Shut up, kid. Sit down. Don’t cause trouble.”

The little kids cry a lot. The babies are the worst. The big kids have to take care of the babies, even if they don’t know them. They change their diapers, and make sure they eat. They’re all kept together in that gray building, their wired walls keeping them pinned in, keeping them together. The Big Men say they aren’t allowed to touch the boys, even the babies. They can’t hold them when they cry, they can’t show affection. So, the big kids do it. They copy what they’ve seen their mothers do, or what they’ve seen other adults do for little ones. They repeat the lies of the Big Men. “One day, you’ll see Mommy again. One day.”

The big kids aren’t allowed to hug each other. When they first arrive to the gray building and are told the Rules, they usually scoff at that Rule. But after enough time spent sitting on a long bench, thinking of home, missing Mom and Dad, wondering where their sisters went, they break down. They think, A hug would be nice. But their new friends can’t hug them. The Big Men don’t like it. It could be a way to make trouble, somehow.

Some of the older kids who have been there long enough talk about killing themselves. They whisper about it when the Big Men aren’t close enough to hear. They wonder if they can sneak a plastic knife, let it melt outside in the sun, and then reshape it into something sharper. Something lethal. But the Big Men are always watching. It would probably never work. Some of the big kids stop eating. But the Big Men tell them that if they don’t behave and follow the Rules something terrible might happen to their parents.

Some of the older kids know a little bit of the history of this country that they were brought to. This land of opportunity that their parents were kidnapped in. They learned in school words like dehumanization and internment camps. They know the President very well because inside the big building is a mural of him on the wall. They sit under it to eat and they can see it from everywhere except inside the porta potties. He looks down on them with a smile so fake he doesn’t even show teeth. A smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He almost looks confused in the mural, as though he doesn’t even know why he’s there. One of the big kids whisper that he looks like a poop got stuck. It makes some of the other big kids laugh, but then they get scolded when it is overheard by a Big Man.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.  For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.  Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

-Romans 13, quoted by both Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018 and Adolf Hitler’s supporting pastor, Joachim Hossenfelder in 1933 (source: harpersbazaar.com and haaretz.com).

“I would cite you the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government, because God has ordained them for the purpose of the order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and the lawful.” -Attorney General Jeff Sessions, June 2018 on the subject of separated children from their immigrant parents. (source: USA Today)

Dear reader, I know with the lies in the media, and the blindfolding, misconceptions, and word-of-mouth alterations of truth it can be difficult to trust anything that you see or hear. But if there really are families being torn apart by our country’s authorities because they are illegal immigrants, then our authorities are MONSTERS. The more I read, the more I see, the more my heart breaks for the evil that people in power are capable of. I have never been more ashamed to be born into this country.

Coming Out

FORWARD: Finally here it is, my Pride Month article (only one day away from July; sorry but I don’t think I can provide many other articles this one took forever to write) only a day before the end of June. So, I am pasting the post here with the links I used for sources, but I also plan to upload it as a Word Document so you can save it and read (since it is kinda long) it later or see it properly the way it was meant. :) Happy last day of pride month and I hope you enjoy reading it. I worked hard.

An Exploration of “Coming out” in the LGBTQ+, Wiccan/Pagan, Otherkin Communities

Currently, most people are familiar with the term “coming out” being used in the LGBTQ+ community, but what most people are not aware of is that other lesser known subcultures use “coming out” or some variant of the term within their own lexicons. In this post, I explore the term “coming out” with relation to the LGBTQ+ community, earth-based spirituality community, and otherkin community for Pride month. My goal is to describe the history behind the term coming out through history to its use in the LGBTQ+ community, to coming out of the broom closet in the pagan community, to coming out in otherkin community. I have witnessed all three subcultures intersect and mix while also maintaining individual characteristics. It can be theorized that much of this mixing and intersecting of all three subcultures is due to globalization through technology, social media, and common values/themes. A secondary goal of mine is to analyze all the intersecting uses of “coming out” in each community looking for a possibility of appropriating the term from the LGBTQ+ community. Coming out’s history is complex because in reality the term is that it is just two words that have existed for as long as human language has. Coming out is defined as an action in which a person introduces themselves to society. The term in accordance to this definition is first observed being used in High Society, as young women would introduce themselves to high society via debutante balls. Throughout the LGBTQ+ community’s visible history, members have had to use coming out as a term that means to express the act of reintroducing themselves to society as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, etc. individuals. The act of coming out historically was an act of political defiance symbolizing how the community was no longer going to submit to the scrutiny of society has they had done in their invisible past. In the past it was very much a dangerous proposition to live a life where you would have a lover of the same-sex or lived the life as the opposite “gender.” Gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals have been endlessly harassed, killed, outlawed, declared mentally ill, and outcasted from society to the point that there is still a need to hide. This kind of discrimination and oppression still allows the idea of the term coming out to exist within the LGBTQ+ community and society as a whole despite the community gaining wide acceptance in recent years. Over the years that I’ve researched, participated, and observed the Wiccan/ Pagan community I have witnessed the term “coming out of the broom closet” being used occasionally. To come out of the broom closet means that an individual would be identifying themselves in association with the Wiccan or Pagan communities, thus marking themselves as apart of a non-mainstream and non-christian religion. This of course, not being a mainstream religion, has lead to Wiccans/Pagans to careful about coming out due to past massacres in the name of witchcraft or murders or even the general attitudes that some areas of society have towards the community leading to job loss and loss of other benefits. According to a survey of 822 witches conducted by “The Witches Voice… A Quest for Unity,” shows that only 23% of Wiccans/Pagans are completely out of the broom closet, leaving a staggering 78% to some degree or entirely in the broom closet. This is a large disparity but now it leads me to ask the question is the use of a term similar to “coming out” appropriation? Merriam Webster states that the definition of appropriation is to take or make use of without authority or right. In this article, my goal is to look for cases where the term “coming out” may not be used correctly or rightfully. After analyzing and researching, the Wiccan/Pagan community I found that it seemed that the term “coming out of the broom closet” was being used rightfully, in my opinion. Upon analysis, I asked the question that if you did not “come out” how much safer would you be than if you were visibly a Wiccan/Pagan? It came to my attention that it all depended on the area of where you lived (how conservative vs. liberal it is) and how many people you were going to tell. If you told everyone like those 23% of Wiccans and Pagans you would be putting yourself at a greater risk of harassment, risk of losing your job or other benefits in society, and may be thought to practice taboo rituals as state in a NBC News report from Pensacola Florida on August 4, 2015. The report states that a “wiccan ritual killing” left three dead in a murder investigation but they only stated that the positions of bodies and that the primary suspect was the only evidence for classifying the case as a Wiccan ritual. Two days later a Huffington Post article entitled “Stop Accusing Us Wiccans of Ritual Murder” by Courtney Weber chastised the Sheriff named Morgan who claimed that the murder was of a “Wiccan Ritual.” She cited that there was not enough evidence to concretely say it was of a Wiccan Ritual gone “wrong.” But that the claim was made out of ignorance and prejudice because if Sheriff Morgan had studied or looked up anything about Wicca he would know that practitioners do not kill because of the “do ye no harm,” law. Therefore, it could be assumed that the statement about this murder case could not have anything to do with a “wiccan ritual” but more so to do with prejudice misconceptions. So, you have to think if incidents and situations like this exist and happen commonly in society then no wonder people are afraid to come out of the broom closet? Finally, when we arrive to the otherkin community, it can recently be seen in part by the popularization of the community through social media, forums, news articles, and videos/mockumentaries that people are coming out and becoming public with their kintype or fictionkin identities. I have to admit in the almost six years I’ve been in the otherkin and spiritual communities surrounding it- I’ve never seen so much of a public movement to go public in the otherkin community. Most people I have known and seen like to remain private about it and will occasionally only tell friends and family, not the whole internet. When it comes to sources to show about coming out as otherkin, I do not have many aside from one Tumblr link from a blog called otherkin-help giving advice about how to come out to other people as otherkin. But I don’t have many more sources because many came from Tumblr and I refuse to use those as valid sources for the Otherkin community. Here’s the idea most of those coming out posts or “how to ‘come out’” come from Tumblr. Tumblr is notorious for being known to contain a lot of trolls and roleplayers which many people knows breeds misinformation. But Tumblr is not for me personally the first place I noticed the idea of coming out as otherkin to come from. There was a Youtube video published by XSuperpersonX on July 26, 2014 who is a Youtuber that identifies as dragon otherkin discussing how to tell your family that you are otherkin. She described the idea as being similar to coming out but she coined it “coming out of the woods.” And this is where I can first remember coming out being used in the context of letting your family and friends know that you’re otherkin, in fact, the blog post I cite in this article was posted July 15, 2015 almost a year after this video was posted. In terms of appropriation, I do think that there has been to some extent an appropriation of the term “coming out.” It needs to be understood that “coming out” although an introduction to society’s connotation, has changed to be indicating of more serious circumstances such as the silencing or erasure of a community in its entirety. The otherkin community and the LGBTQ+ community are fundamentally different in their histories. The LGBTQ+ community has had a long history of being silenced, outlawed, murdered, harassed, and erased from history. Has the otherkin community been silenced? No. Has the otherkin community been outlawed? No. Has the otherkin community been erased from history? No, we have the internet as a record of our community. Have any otherkin been killed? No. Is there any danger to being otherkin fully out in public? As far as we’ve seen, there haven’t been any reports of harassment or injuries because someone was walking around with their “otherkin gear on.” Most of the fear of wanting to come out stems from the fear of being bullied or not understood because of one’s beliefs in otherkinity. Though valid fears, we have to address a part issue, some part of this has to with the fact that some have a hard time growing thick skins. Being public about one’s beliefs can be hard at first because you are sure to get some backlash from non-supporters or those who don’t believe you. But overtime people usually either learn more about the subculture or you learn to deal with people who won’t support you. With that small little piece aside, we need to address though that compared to the LGBTQ+ and the Wiccan/Pagan communities the otherkin community has comparatively less to lose if one does not come out. It does not make one less safe because they are out as otherkin than if they were a closeted otherkin. In all, that is appropriation at the core the otherkin community is not oppressed, policed, silenced or erased so we do not need to use the term “coming out.” But then we come to the bigger picture question: what do we call it when someone wants to come out to society as otherkin? I originally liked the idea that XSuperpersonX had in her Youtube video “coming out of the woods,” is a variant of the term coming out but like the Wicca/pagan community it has a bit of a variant of “coming out” but the use of “in the woods” lessens the effect and appropriation from the LGBTQ+ community almost making it our own. But I still think that using “coming out of the woods” as a variant to “coming out” is only a short term solution to the problem. We need to change the term entirely: what about changing it to “The Kin Talk” or “Kining out”?

Sources: http://sites.psu.edu/anacivic/2016/02/02/the-history-of-the-closet/ (Feb. 26, 2016) http://www.hrc.org/resources/the-history-of-coming-out (2015) http://theweek.com/articles/464753/where-did-phrase-come-closet-come-from (May 5, 2013) http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2010/08/mnar1-1008.html (August 2010) https://www.thoughtco.com/should-you-come-out-as-pagan-2561739 (October 26, 2015) http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-studies-blogs/magical-transformations/the-broom-closet-in-the-21st-century.html (June 20, 2014) http://www.witchvox.com/unity/r_us3_broomcloset.html (1997-2017) http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usfl&c=gay&id=2306 (August 5, 1999) https://otherkinfaq.tumblr.com/post/123836150699/coming-out-as-otherkin (July 15, 2015) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/appropriate#h2 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-wiccan-ritual-killing-leaves-three-dead-pensacola-n404256 (August 4, 2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-weber/about-those-wiccan-ritual_b_7950156.html (August 6, 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYAcTegqoU0 (July 26, 2014)

OG POST: https://www.facebook.com/theotherkincommunity/posts/473262129686724

Viola Davis: Im pretty fabulous

Her extraordinary performance in the upcoming Fences has seen Viola Davis tipped for an Oscar. But her success has taken a huge amount of self-belief. She tells Alex Clark why it is only through demanding respect that you get the parts you are due

Its the run-up to Christmas and everybody in Los Angeles, which to a Brit feels unseasonably sun-drenched, is bemoaning the chilly weather; as we settle down in the Beverly Hills hotel, Viola Davis draws a warm jacket around her shoulders. Not that shes complaining: throughout our conversation, she is determinedly upbeat, celebratory, optimistic. She radiates a sense of excitement and satisfaction that, at 51, all the hard work is really beginning to pay off.

Five years ago, when Davis was playing the role of the maid Aibileen in The Help, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, she told me that, as a dark-skinned actress in Hollywood, she had done what it was at my hand to do, even if that didnt give her as much scope for her talents and energies as she would have liked. Ive had to sink my teeth into a role that was probably a fried-chicken dinner and make it into a filet mignon.

Now, with film roles coming out of her ears, the lead in the TV drama How To Get Away with Murder and her own production company, she is opposite Denzel Washington in the film adaptation of August Wilsons Pulitzer prize-winning play Fences. (After our meeting, she begins 2017 by winning a Golden Globe for her performance, saying in her acceptance speech that the film Doesnt scream moneymaker, but it does scream art and it does scream heart.) Surely the role of Rose Maxson is a filet mignon.

She bursts out laughing. This is absolutely a filet mignon a medium-well filet mignon. And Davis clearly relishes every bite: her performance as a wife and mother in 1950s Pittsburgh, struggling at every turn to hold her family together, to absorb the rage and disappointment of her husband Troy and to protect her sons innocence and ambition, is electrifying so involving that it invokes an almost physical response. We watch as Rose is beguiled and charmed by the charismatic, storytelling Troy, unable to chide him for his excesses without dissolving into mirth, and as she seeks to intercede on others behalves to limit the damage his temper and pride cause. It takes almost the whole film, however, for Rose to voice her own feelings and desires.

That was the role of womanhood in the 50s, says Davis. You were an instrument for everyone elses joy except for your own. The 50s in America had the highest rate of alcoholism and depression. There were whole manuals out there that were being passed out about how to make your husband happy put on make-up when he walks through the door, after a long day of work, dont weigh him down with any of your problems, ask him about his problems, greet him with a smile, make sure the children are fed and theyre clean, his favourite meal is on the table, and nowhere in that manual is anything about her joy, and the centre of her happiness.

She has been here before, and with Washington; they are reprising the roles they played in the 2010 Broadway revival of the play, for which they both won Tony awards; and they are rejoined by Russell Hornsby and Mykelti Williamson as Troys son and brother respectively. Part of Wilsons 10-play Century Cycle, in which the playwright chronicled the experiences of African Americans decade by decade, Fences transition on to the big screen has taken so long because its author, who died in 2005, insisted that its director be black a simple demand revealingly hard to accomplish in Hollywood.

Now, Washington himself directs, and his key artistic choice is apparent the moment the film begins: he has preserved the works theatrical origins, with nearly all the action taking place in a confined domestic space, and dialogue ranging from quick-fire ensemble scenes to extended soliloquies. The effect is disconcerting we rarely see such unfiltered staginess on film but always riveting; there is not an inch of slack, a word wasted.

Davis herself has two show-stopping speeches, in which she first rails at life and at last attempts to make her peace with it. What was different about playing Rose this time around? She replies that she had been sitting with this narrative for so long and never quite got the ending until I did the movie. And I keep saying to myself that the reason I didnt get the end is because she is at a place that probably most of us as human beings never get to, and that is a place of forgiveness and grace. I think that most of us spend a lifetime holding on to the past, even when we feel like were letting go a bit.

Maid in Hollywood: a scene from The Help with Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark, and Bryce Dallas Howard and Ahna O Reilly. Photograph: Dale Robinette/DreamWorks

She holds close to the advice of psychiatrist Irvin D Yalom that one must give up all hope of a better past. Davis herself grew up in extreme poverty; she has spoken powerfully about the series of makeshift dwellings she, her parents and five siblings occupied in Rhode Island, about hunger and lack of sanitation, about her fathers violent abuse of her mother. The letting go seems to take two distinct but related forms: allowing herself to feel good about what she has achieved, and building platforms that will help broaden the possibilities for a new generation of actors, writers and directors of colour.

She cites her delight at seeing Shonda Rhimes, the producer behind Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away with Murder, accepting a Norman Lear achievement award in Television last year. She said: I happily accept this award because I deserve it. I LOVE IT. Absolutely love it. Its the waking up and understanding that OK, you may not be the best person out there, but youve put in enough work to understand that you deserve what youve got, that that is what is at the end of hard work. The happily ever after comes after youve done the work. And to literally understand, especially as a woman, that a closed mouth doesnt get fed, youve got to ask for what you want and expect to get it.

I remark that its noticeable how often women play down their successes; how they will even deflect minor compliments on appearance. Why does she think that happens? I think tapping into ones power and ones potential is a very frightening thing, she replies. And for women its a very new thing. It is. I always used to feel that self-deprecation was an answer to humility that people would see me as a humble person the more I put myself down. And people do say that: Oh! I ran into so-and-so and they kept saying, Oh, my work in this really sucked, and they were great! I just thought it was so refreshing that they said that! And I often think to myself, what if someone says, You know what, Im confident, Im really happy about the work I did. I really felt like I gave it my best and it came out great, the same way men do. Why is that not seen as humble?

Motherhood has given me a different telescope to look at life: with husband Julius Tennon. Photograph: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images

Her increasing ability to feel comfortable with her achievements is linked to an awareness of her emerging position as a figure of influence. The more Im pushed in a position of leadership and I know I have to be the mouthpiece for so many other people who cant speak for themselves, the more confidence Im gaining. And that extends to the way she views her own past and the more she shares her story. She explains: I can hear myself say, Oh yeah, I took the bus five hours just to get to the theatre, then took it five hours back, and Im listening to that, Im being an objective observer, and thinking to myself I did that? Its like looking at an old picture of yourself when you felt like you looked bad, and you go, Wow, I was fabulous! Thats how I feel about my life now that Im looking back at it, and Im like, Im pretty fabulous. I really am. Im pretty fabulous.

Back in 2011, when we talked about Daviss commitment largely via JuVee, the production company she founded with her husband, Julius Tennon to addressing the limited opportunities afforded people of colour by the entertainment industry, she expressed her hope we wouldnt be having the same conversation in five years time. Naturally, because challenging entrenched privilege takes time, we are, but it has shifted ground. Davis herself is scheduled to play the part of Harriet Tubman, who liberated slaves in the Civil War era, and to star in Steve McQueens Widows, a revisiting of Lynda LaPlantes TV series co-scripted by Gone Girls Gillian Flynn. Its not even a role that would be necessarily written for an African American, but not according to him. Hes like: Why not?

Davis brings up The Help, and says that although she loved making the film, she understands the criticisms levelled at it that women of colour were once again placed in the role of maids, and not portrayed as tapping into their anger as much as they could have. Tapping into all the things they could have been other than the maid. Partly, she thinks, that relates to the image of the black maid as a nurturer, a second mother, so that even within the movie, there are certain things that are not going to be explored, if it somehow messes up the memory of what the audience had, that perfect mother. She couldnt be angry. She couldnt be sexualised. Shes gotta stay that image that brings us comfort and joy knowing that we were loved and nothing more than that.

Davis loves the riposte to that one-dimensional figure provided by the character of Annalise Keating, the firecracker law professor, ambitious, potent and flawed, that she plays in How To Get Away with Murder. Its blowing the lid off everything that people say we should be, especially as a dark-skinned woman, that you cant be sexual, you cant be unlikable, you can be angry but with no vulnerability, you cant be damaged, you cant be smart. It blows the lid off all of it. And even if its not executed all the time in ways that people like, it doesnt matter. What matters is that shes out there. Thats it. Shes out there, shes on screen, shes making an impact.

In the 1950s women were an instrument for everyone elses joy except their own: Viola Davis with Denzel Washington in a scene from Fences. Photograph: David Lee/AP

Another fundamental has changed in the past five years; in 2011, she and Tennon adopted a baby, Genesis, who is even as we speak frolicking in a nearby hotel room. When Davis and I are done, her babysitters release the six-year-old to bound along the corridor and leap into her mothers arms, asking whether she can go and buy a swimming costume in the hotel boutique and head for the pool. Her mother observes that in such a luxurious joint, its a purchase that could easily come to a couple of hundred dollars, but concedes that theyll work something out (you imagine somebody might be despatched to Gap).

Davis combines motherhood which she says has changed her utterly, and given her a different telescope through which to see life with work by clever stratagems and good planning; often taking Genesis with her, only making one film a year, having a TV shooting schedule that allows her days off and free weekends. She claims to live by two mantras Im tired, and Im doing the best I can but she doesnt look remotely weary. And things might be about to get a whole lot busier. She was the first African American to win the outstanding lead actress in a drama series Emmy award for her role as Annalise Keating; alongside numerous other awards, she has hitherto been nominated for two Oscars for The Help and Doubt. But now her role as Rose Maxson is being spoken about as a cert for nomination and a very strong contender to win her an Academy Award come February. Has she allowed herself to think about it? She pauses, laughs, parries.

You know what I know about that? Because I dont know if thats going to happen or not. But what I will say about this is, and this is how I keep my perspective, whatever happens, Ive gotta go back to work. The carpets are going to be rolled up, the people are going to stop calling like that, and Ive gotta go back to work. And you cant bring that Oscar on a set, and that Oscar cant do the work for you. You gotta do it. Thats what Ill say.

Fences is released on 10 February

Read more: http://bit.ly/2iq9KWq

from Viola Davis: Im pretty fabulous

The Trump Administration and Religion: In the End, the Same Republican “Small” Government Crusade

My post election conversations with friends, none of whom voted for Trump or would have thought of voting for Trump, were testy. I found myself irritated at talk about finding “common ground” with the other side and, especially, with getting in a contest for who could say the worst things about Hillary Clinton and the way the Democrats ran their campaign. Clinton was accused of being too cautious and not making a strong case for the Democratic Party’s vision and platform. True or not, Trump was so much the worst candidate that I wanted a relentless focus on resisting the values and ideas he was bringing to Washington. Then I changed my mind. I now strongly believe that Hillary didn’t hit back hard enough, but not on conflicting agendas and policy proposals. She didn’t hit back on Trump’s totally immoral personal attacks on her. As well as unethical, Trump was unpatriotic every time he encouraged supporters in his rallies to chant, “lock her up”, and called her “crooked Hillary”. On at least one occasion he appeared to endorse assassinating her.  The viciousness worked.  The relentless shouting “She’s a crook” worked. The voters thought Hillary was a crook. Every day he said something unacceptable she should have blasted back. The press would have had to carry her response and maybe Trump’s lies and bullying would’ve sunken in with the voters. Never forget that Trump’s lies and incitements had real consequences. Remember Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria” in Washington DC?  That was the restaurant to which a young father, Edgar Welsh, from South Carolina, drove with a gun to act on the story he got from “fake news” that Hillary Clinton ran a child trafficking operation in the back rooms of the pizza parlor. He believed it.  He didn’t kill anyone but he did shoot his gun off in the pizzeria. Alexandra Zapruder  (NYT 12 /11/16) pointed out that the action Welsh took was immoral not only because trying to kill someone is immoral but because propagating fake news is immoral. She said, there is “no justification for accusing Clinton of child trafficking.” She added that whether Republicans will accept that “depends on whether they accept that there is such a thing as truth and that we are morally obligated to defend it. This may be a political problem for our Republican friends but it shouldn’t be a moral one. They should stand up for the truth” Even if a strategy of “working with the Republicans” doesn’t look likely, it is worth emphasizing that an aura of accepting Trump’s election victory, and “getting past it”, in effect accepts the unethical campaign he just waged. It also “gets past” his qualifications for Presidency. These are, in theory, his success as a businessman in making a lot of money, or, more accurately, his success as a reality show star and brand name hawker. Also in theory, running for the high office of the Presidency with a professional background in business the candidate’s qualifications should include a record of straight dealing and honesty. Trump stiffed his investors and cheated students of promised education at his so-called university. The word “unethical” is rarely used, as of significance. He is only doing what a good businessman does. In all the many long articles that have appeared in leading journals on “why Trump won” the words “unethical” or “amoral” are almost never used. Now it is too late. We have gotten past any discussion of Trump’s ethics as he criticizes the Republican House for making its first action of the new Congress watering down the independent oversight committee, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). Ironies abound. The House members that voted to water down ethical oversight contain a large cadre of the incoming Congress who believe they are called by God to do good. “Good” evidently has little to do with the OCE’s main subject, corruption, but rather with banning abortion and gay marriage. Trump’s proposed Cabinet and senior advisors have a confusing range of moral and religious concerns, but certainly Vice President elect Mike Pence is not alone in putting his religion as the top priority in his life, and in favoring a constitutional amendment banning abortion, contraception and defining marriage. Trump, on his record, probably doesn’t care much, but will go along with all of these initiatives.  He has said of harsh anti-abortion laws in Texas that, if someone can’t get an abortion they should “leave Texas”. Pence calls himself a “religious restorationist” and will be on Trump’s Religious Advisory Board. His priority is for Congress to roll back governmental intervention in education, health care, and business and environment regulations. As governor of Indiana he had legislation passed that allowed Indiana businessmen to deny services to LTGB community. Mike Pompeo, the new CIA director, would defund Planned Parenthood. Jeff Sessions, who is up for Attorney General, favors a constitutional ban on gay marriage.  Betsy de Vos, the proposed new Secretary of the Department of Education wants to put education funding into vouchers to encourage parents to put their children into parochial schools. Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior advisor, has cited his adherence to “Church Militant” theology, a Catholic doctrine that has been politicized. The executive producer of ChurchMilitant,com has said, according to a NYT report, that the website  was a defense of patriotism and morality against attacks from liberals, secularists and global elites. Defense against these elites includes anti-abortion, anti-social welfare programs and anti-immigration policies. Bannon has been said to believe that poverty is a “choice” of the individual. On the far outside, the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, believes in creationism, that the world was created in 6 days, and has linked Hillary Clinton to Lucifer. To return to Alexandra Zapruder: the words “moral “and “ethical” aren’t going to have much to do with truth. In addition, and in another irony, these “small” government crusaders want government coercing compliance with religious dictates  (“sorry, if you want an abortion, you will have to leave Texas”).  This view is of “big” government, in terms of power. These Republicans have a morality of big government. They should be asked to discuss and defend it.   As Trump’s new government pours through the pearly gates of Washington, it won’t be that easy to sort out the variety of religious convictions they will bring with them, despite the prominence of abortion and homosexuality.   To say that Republicans define moral and ethical in relation to human sexuality is too simple an analysis in any event and that is because there is a second religiously dictated creed that most of the new cadre of politicians bringing salvation to Washington share and that is the creed that government must be not so much “small” as limited to certain functions. These functions exclude social welfare functions like education and health and work place conditions. This is not a new creed, and it is instructive to analyze how important a “born again” President George W. Bush was in legitimizing it. What did George W. Bush mean when he said government can only “write checks” in the social welfare arena? It is clear that he meant that those checks should facilitate face-to-face initiatives but not that the government resources should be used to hire people who are professionally trained to deal with drug addiction or poverty, for example. In Bush’s view, only faith can bring an individual to “responsibility.” Bush was looking for individuals to be saved one at a time. This small government position is not a pragmatic choice but a moral choice for the Republicans who are now going to be staffing the Trump administration. The government does not belong in the arena of moral action. Problems are excluded from government action because the only moral way to solve them is in the private sphere. A secular community – government – through its taxpayers – cannot express the moral values of their members in their desire to create institutions that make it possible for example that all children should have health insurance. Governments are not bad so much because they are facilitating abortion but because they’re doing anything in this area of social welfare. The Bush value system limited the sphere in which the individual can take non-economic action The rich make a choice to help the poor with their charitable gifts. The rich it turns out, on the small government ideology, get to be richer and feel morally better about themselves at the same time. Fast forward to the inauguration of Donald Trump. What does the word “good” mean to Christian evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for Trump? If Trump is “moral,” “ethical” and “good” doesn’t that mean that the evangelicals are actually saying money is “good”.  Indeed one of the most prominent evangelicals, David Holt, pastor of the Evangelical Word of Life Church in Texas, has said that “capitalism is the most compassionate system; capitalism is the best way to reduce poverty.” Governments are formed in democracies to express the will of the people in their elected communities dedicated to working for goals that benefit members of the community.  Since that will include citizens who are not members of a religious body it is by definition a secular institution. As long as you are a voter you have no reason to reject membership in that secular community, or to take on bettering people’s lives through actions that members of some religious order believe belong only to the individual - whether the individual must be left to “choose” on not choose poverty, or choose or not choose to help individual’s education, health and welfare. We cannot allow people to define social welfare initiatives as inappropriate for government on the ground of their religious objections. Action for the good of a community like education, health and decent working conditions is not to be dictated or forbidden by religious entities. The moral and ethical framework behind the small government ideology is almost by definition against any idea that we are on the equal basis with our fellow humans. We must hold fast to our communities and reject this creed. And we must fight to articulate in our communities, laws and norms that reject the violent bullying and incitements of a Donald Trump.                                                      --Elizabeth Spiro Clark