Punk-Ass Book Jockey

Also, your regular, non-slash, real-life military needs you - to go phone your Senator and tell them that you want them to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The Senate votes tomorrow (to repeal it), and things aren't looking good.

sotto_voice has a post with important details here. Please go read it and take action!

I hold this truth to be self-evident, friends.

(Pic found via Leila at Bookshelves of Doom, who is my favourite. Here's her post.)

iambickilometer has written a really excellent piece of meta: Five+ Ways Being Transgender in Fandom Really Sucks, and Why I Stick With It Anyway, which I urge all of you to go read. Um. At a more sane hour. (Why am I awake at 1:30 in the morning?)

Excerpt from the piece:

I love many cisgendered characters, mind. Just like I love many straight characters and many non-Latino characters. But I want to be able to love transgender characters, too. And I want other people to love them, to follow their stories and root for them and see them as people and interesting, complex characters that they can ship and analyse. I want people to feel like they can write trans characters even though they're not trans themselves. I want to be able to say I'm transgendered and have people know what that means.

He's got a lot to say about genderswap fic and how it fails, too, which is extremely worthwhile for your consideration, especially if, like me, you've read a shit-ton of it in SGA fandom.

Actually, while we're on this topic -- and if it's a topic that interests you -- you might also want to know that there is an excellent personal essay in Oprah mag this month by a woman who fell in love with a trans guy. She talks about how they've handled the various curveballs society's thrown at them, how she worries about his safety, how they handle strangers (waitresses!) assuming they're both women. I found it deeply affecting. Also, I found the author's fiance smokin' hot, and am extremely curious to know if my bookstore is stocking his novels. (His name is never mentioned, so I don't know.)

You know, I love the Internet, because thanks to its info-distributing, organizing prowess, stuff like this can go down, all in 24 hours:

1) The school board of Itawamba County cancels prom after Constance Millen demands to be able to bring her girlfriend, and to wear a tux. [Huff Post]

2) Daily Vos says, fuck that noise, the internet can throw you a better party, one everyone can attend! and starts planning.

3) ACLU immediately gets their act in gear and sues Itawamba County.

4) Facebook group Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend To Prom has, of this minute, 20,000 fans.

5) Someone finds email addresses for a bunch of people on the Itawamba County school board, and publishes them widely. Here they are:

a082315@allstate.com
jnichols@itawamba.k12.ms.us
hmartin@itawamba.k12.ms.us
cbrown@network-one.com
twallace@nexband.com

ETA: everchangingmuse reports that the first three addresses are bouncing. Don't use!

6) Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition starts organizing to be the focal point in-state of Prom For Everyone

This response makes me so incredibly happy. I love that when this shit went down, the immediate response was to prioritize helping the kids at Itawamba Agricultural High School have prom, and to put the lie to the school board's attempt to make Constance the bad guy. I love that the ACLU has lawyers primed and hungry to put idiocy like this down, and that it seems to have taken microseconds for them to start their shit-kicking engines. I love that 599 people over on the Daily Vos have vowed to make monetary contributions to make Prom For Everyone happen.

I especially love it that a moment of discrimination and NO YOU CAN'T by TPTB turns into an uproarious and confident YES WE CAN.

Fuckin' a, Internet.

If you've been online in the last couple days, you may have noticed that LJ almost went ahead with a code push to change gender prefs (in your profile) to a single Male/Female choice.

synecdochic has a good post about it here.

I'm glad that it got headed off at the pass -- and I'm also glad it came up, because a)it means the new LJ management team understands it's a big deal and, much less importantly, b) I (as a cisgendered woman who has the privilege of not paying attention to such things) now know that LJ specifies what advertising I see based on the gender I tell them I am.

I was, indeed, seeing a lot of dieting bullshit ads.

I've now set my prefs there to "unspecified". I'm interested to see what ads for people of unspecified gender are going to look like.

Man, things don't look good for Maine. Am quite sad.

I'm watching the numbers go up re: Maine same-sex marriage vote over at the NYT website. Margin is .6 percent right now (yes winning -- yes to reject legality of same-sex marriage -- obv. not what I want to happen.)

ETA: Up to a 1.8% margin, with Yes in the lead. YERGH.

ETA: Refreshing NYT results page like it's November 4 2008 all over again.

I find it really annoying that Al Franken's "don't support the rapists" amendment is causing such a kerfuffle.

I think this one's pretty straightforward. Companies who condone rape, try to sweep it under the carpet, and refuse treatment to their employees who have been raped are behaving criminally. The government shouldn't be working with criminals or helping them to make a profit.

Franken's amendment should be writ into law, like, a hundred years ago. Since that isn't possible, I'll take "now" instead.

If you're a US citizen, please consider contacting Sen. Dan Inouye (Democratic Senator from Hawai'i) and telling him how you feel. Here's his official website. I've heard that faxes and snail-mail correspondence is more likely (than email) to be paid attention to -- you could always do all three things.

Gakked from irradiatedsoup

Please watch and repost and email and spread widely.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

"Ken Starr, who led the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton, filed a legal brief last month -- on behalf of the "Yes on 8" campaign -- that would forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year before the passage of Prop 8.

Watch "Fidelity" and sign our letter to the state Supreme Court. Tell the Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8, reject Ken Starr's case, and let loving, committed couples marry. DEADLINE: Valentine's Day.

couragecampaign.org/divorce"

Gacked from BuzzFeed: