Reflections
Oct. 18th, 2018 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett[Content notes: UK politics, disability, gender]
One of the reasons I am feeling so avoidant and overwhelmed about the consultation on the GRA, despite not being a direct target of the worst of the backlash, is the sheer cognitive dissonance of the government being approximately on my side on this one:
In contrast, since May I've probably written somewhere over 50000 words of applications and appeals for disability benefits, in miserable and exhaustive detail, in an area where the government is very definitely not on my side (Equality and Human Rights Commission; BBC). So: I'm exhausted, I'm primed with a sense of futility, and I know I don't have the cope to write the kind of 3000-words-with-supporting-evidence submission that's been put together by many of my excellent trans friends in academia -- while simultaneously, because of the disability benefits circus, feeling as though there's no point submitting anything less rigorous.
Nevertheless, I'm going to do it, this evening -- and I'm probably going to do it via Stonewall, who provide a handy guide and who will therefore give me the added support of a reminder that people can change and grow and improve.
***
[Content notes: state violence, policing, incarceration, white person discovers racism]
On which topic, I've just finished reading When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. This has finally, finally, got through to me Just How Bad the US police and prison system is; I knew a lot of details, obviously, having been paying any attention at all, but I'd not, actually, even remotely, registered the extent of it (and probably still haven't!), and this was the information I needed to actually start getting my head around properly around prison abolitionism -- the context I needed to start being able to engage, rather than getting so tangled up in my own traumas that I... couldn't, so stepped back to let other folk get on with it. I definitely have a lot more reading to do, and I'm still struggling with what emergent systems for handling people who hurt for fun might look like, but I begin to get enough of a grasp to grapple with it.
***
I've had time to read because I am fairly emphatically Taking This Week Off in the Peaks, after three frustrating days on the mass spec last week (resulting in 0 usable data). I am fairly shortly setting off to spend the afternoon at Biddulph Grange Garden; I found it by looking through National Trust properties within striking distance of the cottage we're staying in, and then realised it was ringing a faint bell. I eventually recalled thatnanila had been singing its praises remarkably recently, and thus the decision was made.
I have also been playing some more board games; less than I expected but more than zero, with the big obvious progress being that when Our Host expressed doubt over whether I'd get on okay with Avalon I checked in with A, and then pushed to play it anyway. (My side lost! But I did well at my role.) The less-obvious progress is that I'm reaching the point where I'm not spending new-to-me games mostly focussed on managing my anxiety, and consequently am beginning to very tentatively build a model of why People In General enjoy board games. In particular, I'm tentatively beginning to see how people might enjoy them in a way that isn't centred on self-aggrandisement and competitiveness; instead, I think I am beginning to understand the use of games as combination social vehicle and, mmm, experiments in collaboration and problem-solving and exploration: collectively enjoying investigating How This Works, and How It's Different, in a similar fashion to talking about what Interesting And New things a given book is doing.
I'm not certain about this yet! But it still feels like progress to be moving from "panic" to "tentative modelling", and I suspect that once I'm secure enough in my modelling I'll be able to start working out whether I enjoy the games.
One of the reasons I am feeling so avoidant and overwhelmed about the consultation on the GRA, despite not being a direct target of the worst of the backlash, is the sheer cognitive dissonance of the government being approximately on my side on this one:
This consultation does not consider the question of whether trans people exist, whether they have the right to legally change their gender, or whether it is right for a person of any age to identify with another gender, or with no gender. Trans and non-binary people are members of our society and should be treated with respect. Trans people already have the right to legally change their gender, and there is no suggestion of this right being removed. This consultation simply asks how best government might make the existing process under the Gender Recognition Act a better service for those trans and non-binary people who wish to use it.
In contrast, since May I've probably written somewhere over 50000 words of applications and appeals for disability benefits, in miserable and exhaustive detail, in an area where the government is very definitely not on my side (Equality and Human Rights Commission; BBC). So: I'm exhausted, I'm primed with a sense of futility, and I know I don't have the cope to write the kind of 3000-words-with-supporting-evidence submission that's been put together by many of my excellent trans friends in academia -- while simultaneously, because of the disability benefits circus, feeling as though there's no point submitting anything less rigorous.
Nevertheless, I'm going to do it, this evening -- and I'm probably going to do it via Stonewall, who provide a handy guide and who will therefore give me the added support of a reminder that people can change and grow and improve.
[Content notes: state violence, policing, incarceration, white person discovers racism]
On which topic, I've just finished reading When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. This has finally, finally, got through to me Just How Bad the US police and prison system is; I knew a lot of details, obviously, having been paying any attention at all, but I'd not, actually, even remotely, registered the extent of it (and probably still haven't!), and this was the information I needed to actually start getting my head around properly around prison abolitionism -- the context I needed to start being able to engage, rather than getting so tangled up in my own traumas that I... couldn't, so stepped back to let other folk get on with it. I definitely have a lot more reading to do, and I'm still struggling with what emergent systems for handling people who hurt for fun might look like, but I begin to get enough of a grasp to grapple with it.
I've had time to read because I am fairly emphatically Taking This Week Off in the Peaks, after three frustrating days on the mass spec last week (resulting in 0 usable data). I am fairly shortly setting off to spend the afternoon at Biddulph Grange Garden; I found it by looking through National Trust properties within striking distance of the cottage we're staying in, and then realised it was ringing a faint bell. I eventually recalled that
nanila had been singing its praises remarkably recently, and thus the decision was made.I have also been playing some more board games; less than I expected but more than zero, with the big obvious progress being that when Our Host expressed doubt over whether I'd get on okay with Avalon I checked in with A, and then pushed to play it anyway. (My side lost! But I did well at my role.) The less-obvious progress is that I'm reaching the point where I'm not spending new-to-me games mostly focussed on managing my anxiety, and consequently am beginning to very tentatively build a model of why People In General enjoy board games. In particular, I'm tentatively beginning to see how people might enjoy them in a way that isn't centred on self-aggrandisement and competitiveness; instead, I think I am beginning to understand the use of games as combination social vehicle and, mmm, experiments in collaboration and problem-solving and exploration: collectively enjoying investigating How This Works, and How It's Different, in a similar fashion to talking about what Interesting And New things a given book is doing.
I'm not certain about this yet! But it still feels like progress to be moving from "panic" to "tentative modelling", and I suspect that once I'm secure enough in my modelling I'll be able to start working out whether I enjoy the games.