Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I was phone banking on two ballot questions—yes on 3 here, to keep trans rights, and Yes on 4 in Florida to restore 1.4 million people's voting rights, and we won on both. I pushed myself physically to make some of those calls; today I will be resting, and hope it's enough.

I am pleased with my new Congresswoman, but she was unopposed in the general election; the Associated Press called that race at 8:01 p.m., or one minute after Massachusetts polls closed.

And now I can stop answering calls from lots of unknown numbers that might be people calling me about volunteer shifts.

[political] I am signed up for canvassing for Yes on 3 tomorrow from 10-2. Today I have sent some "please vote" texts through an app to friends and acquaintances I think might not vote (including a current freelance contact and an old coworker) and a long email to a mailing list, and made a few more GOTV calls for Yes on 4 in Florida.

Depending on how drained I am after canvassing tomorrow, I hope to sign up for a shift on Tuesday as well. I'm willing to collapse Tuesday evening and am planning to do nothing Wednesday, but if I collapse Monday evening I will listen to my body. (I voted last week specifically so I could volunteer Tuesday.) I'm holding off on the sign-up to save the annoyance of having to explain why I'm not making it, and to save the volunteer who would be calling the trouble.

Meanwhile, a mostly friendly discussion on an editorial list of when singular they is accepted/acceptable led to me mentioning the word "nibling" for niece or nephew, and including nonbinary relatives for whom neither gendered term is appropriate. And that got me some friendly messages, and one obnoxious one about "PC." *sigh* But my on-list answer to the obnoxious message (in which I dug out from ages ago the idea that, based on what it's applied to, PC stands for "plain courtesy") got a "thanks for saying that, I was too angry to phrase it well."

Too much of the work that is in front of me to do is work that shouldn't be necessary, but we live in an imperfect world. So, tomorrow I will fight for freedom and justice, and cattitude will feed me a nice dinner afterward.

(I am wondering if I should make the rainbow-background clenched fist my default userpic.)

I went to a "Yes on 3" rally for transgender rights this morning. That's to keep the protections that are currently in Massachusetts law. If you're in Massachusetts, it's on the ballot in November. "Yes" on question 3 because it's phrased as "do you want to keep the law that provides these protections?"

The rally was partly to show support for keeping trans rights in state law, and partly to ecourage the attendees to volunteer, talk to our friends and neighbors and so on. The speakers were an odd mix. We heard a few personal stories—a woman talked about her kid having come out to her as trans and how she has tried to support him, and then her 14-year-old son talked about having felt safe enough to come out, at 12, because the law protects his rights, and what his day-to-day life is like. There were also speakers who have been involved with/supporting this cause for years, well before they got the law passed. That included Rep. Joe Kennedy, but also the CEO of Eastern Bank: the organizer told us that ten years ago, they'd approached a lot of businesses for support, and this was one of three that said yes.

This is the first rally in a long time that I managed to stay until the end of, which felt like an accomplishment. I got a ride home from Lechmere, because Liam (who I don't think is on DW) recognized me from a fannish party, and they and their mother had driven to the T station. I enjoyed talking to them, because they're nice people and because I'd gone to this rally by myself, and not seen anyone I recognized during the rally.

I got a call early this evening from one of the campaign organizers, Ben, who is following up with everyone she talked to about the pledge cards. We chatted a bit, including a bit about why I volunteered to work on this issue; a bit of it is that it feels more personal than (for example) ranked-choice voting, and partly because it feels like I'm more likely to be able to accomplish things at the state level. It's also somewhat arbitrary: there are more things worth doing than I could work on if I had the energy to do politics 40 hours a week. I don't need a complete list of things I could be doing, to pick the best: I need to find one, or a few, that are worthwhile and fit with my abilities.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have signed up to ask people to fill out pledge cards for Yes on 3, to keep the state law that protects transgender people from discrimination. The organizers provided the postcards, a couple of stickers, and a script.

The problem with the script is that there's a space we're supposed to fill with "your own personal story" of why we want people to vote "yes," and I'm not sure what to say. "It's a basic civil rights issue" is a reason, but I think they're looking for something more personal. So I'm probably going to be saying something like "I care about this because I have trans friends, and I want them to be safe" (which is also true, and relevant—though most of those friends don't live in Massachusetts) or "to be able to rent an apartment" or "to have access to medical care."

(I know that some of my trans friends subscribe to my journal: suggestions on something better/else to say would be welcome.)

Here's another batch of comments I made on other journals etc.: ( 'five years ago,' some natter about how Cattitude and I cook, expectations about behavior and the ambiguity of 'should,' 'ultralight' packing, tea, artificial intelligence', feeding ducks and other birds )

[continued]
adrian_turtle and I had lunch Saturday morning and then went into Boston, again taking the train to Park Street. We found a not-too-crowded spot a few blocks from the end of the parade route, and watched for a bit, though I couldn't see much (I’m short, and there were four or five rows of people there). Then there was a pause between floats/organized groups in the parade, so I stepped into the street and walked the last bit, while Adrian went to do volunteer work for Freedom for All Massachusetts.

The Pride Parade is a lot more establishment and capitalist than when I was marching in New York in the 1980s and ‘90s, but the cheering onlookers as we marched still had me grinning. I hadn’t planned to march and had no sign, but I was wearing my (new) t-shirt with lines of text including "Science is Real," "Black Lives Matter," "Love Is Love," and "Women’s Rights Are Human Rights."

There were what felt like too many politicians at the end of the parade route/entrance to City Hall Plaza, and Bob Massie and his people were enough in my face that I am less likely to vote for him than I was last week. (He’s one of the two Democratic candidates for governor; if he wins the primary, I will vote for him rather than Charlie Baker.)

I spent some time walking around the assorted booths at City Hall Plaza. I bought a rainbow-colored hat and skipped a lot of very commercial booths (no, I do not want my photo in a Nissan tweet, and I didn’t need fried dough). Wandering brought me back to the end of the parade route, so I sat on a wall and watched more of the parade. I'd thought the parade was close to the end when I joined it, but even after getting arriving a bit late and what I missed looking around the street fair, I saw a variety of marchers: politicians and gay sports leagues, a bank and Dunkin' Donuts and Taiwan Pride and a whole bunch of Unitarian churches each with its own sign, and more people just walking in ones and twos, like me. One person was carrying a sign with a picture of the rainbow flag and "Our flag is not your ad"; I hope he heard me saying I liked it. Then I went back into the plaza, and found more of the community/movement organizations, and eventually the official Boston Pride merchandise tent.

I now have a t-shirt with a picture of the Stonewall Inn sign and the text "Bring Back the Riot 1969 2019." Boston Pride was selling those, and "rainbow resistance" shirts--I like the sentiment there, but the graphic is ugly enough that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't wear it--along with things like tie-dyed "We the People Means Everybody" shirts. I also have a lot of new pins, in sizes from tiny to quite large—the "Rise Up, Resist, Repeat" I got at the Dyke March; a clenched fist on a rainbow-colored background; and little pins saying "Dyke March 2018," "Trans Rights Now!" "Fight the Patriarchy," "The Future is Female," and "Stop Profiling Muslims," all bought from the Dyke March people. (I gave them a couple of extra dollars, because we’d had to leave Friday night before I got a chance to donate for their expenses.) I may still order a retro/reprinted "Bisexual Pride" button to replace the one I lost a couple of months ago, but I am feeling much better equipped than I was last week.

I just got an email recruiting subjects for paid "medical conditions research." (I get a bunch of these, and every few years I match what they're looking for and get paid to answer questions.) The survey dropped me after three questions, when I said I haven't been diagnosed with osteoporosis.

What interests me is that the second question, after age, was "What is the gender on your birth certificate?" with options male, female, and prefer not to say. Usually this company asks simply "what is your gender?" Given that they're interested in osteoporosis, I would guess they're asking for gender "on your birth certificate" because exposure to sex hormones is relevant, and they think that maps onto gender assigned at birth.

Aside from the possible cissexism here, that question may not get the researchers the information I think they're looking for, because some trans* people have corrected birth certificates that show their actual gender rather than what was assigned at birth. (I am guessing the author of the survey was trying not to offend people, since they didn't ask about "biological" gender.)

I just got back from a rally and march for trans* and queer liberation and in support of immigrants, starting at Boston City Hall. This definitely felt more left-wing than the other protests I've been to since the election, as well as being smaller. (The speakers were all community organizers, not elected officials, and there were people carrying both black and red flags as well as the rainbow flag and lots of signs.)

We (cattitude, adrian_turtle, and I) left before the end of the march, rather than going to the community meeting/further organizing part, because we were worn out and my feet were cold, but we were there for most of it, including a lot of the march.

On the one hand, I can't believe we still have to protest this shit. (That's a sign I've seen a couple of times this year; I don't know whether it was literally the same sign both times.) On the other hand, I know how to do this, even though most of my experience protesting has been in warmer weather. One of our chants today was "we're here, we're queer, we're fabulous, don't mess with us" which is an update I like (it's a long time since I heard the original "we're here, we're queer, get used to it"). Cattitude commented that he's always wanted to be a fabulous beast.)

I had thought I would be doing this alone (the event wasn't finalized until yesterday afternoon), but when I told Cattitude last night that I was doing this, he said "I'm coming with you," and when I mentioned it to Adrian this morning, she asked for details and then told me "I can't be there until 12:35" because she was teaching this morning.