idaho(t) (the t is silent)

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, known in its abbreviated form as 'IDAHO.' You may notice that the 'T' is invisible, which is why I write it as 'IDAHO(T)'. Also often people write 'and transphobia' in very small letters, and on Saturday at the rally for Same-Sex Marriage they said the 'and transphobia' really really quietly, away from the microphone.* Because silence isn't dangerous or invisblising or anything.

Silence isn't awesome, not even a little bit, not even if 'IDAHO' is a cooler acronym than 'IDAHOT' (it's not - IDAHOT is an awesome acronym). There's a bit of me that's kind of like - if you're going to make the 'T' silent, then just make it fucking silent and stop pretending like it's an inclusive event! The 'T' was clearly an ad hoc addition that is ignored more often than not, and the preponderance of #IDAHO on my twitter is making me pretty angry.

This is the IDAHO(T) website, where the 't' is allegedly silent (as you can see from the web link), but I can't get it to load so I cannot confirm that.

In related news, Danni has a link and a discussion of an article about a trans model that's a bit enragening.


Here are some links about transphobia, and how it impacts trans women and men, that I have been meaning to link to for a while and in the blog-switch failed to link:

Transgender women in Singapore launch campaign to end discrimination

Indigenous Trans Woman’s Death in Custody in Australia Last Year

video: Yahoo! SEA: Why did you choose to become a woman? on Yahoo! Video

I sometimes bookmark things! I have a tag! (It is a bit all over the place) You can check it out here.





*by which I mean, not at all

normalising ableism (ahaha, like it's not already)

I like this article (it's from 2005); it's got some really lovely ideas, about creating your own paths, and educating and design through what people choose and it's a nice 'think outside the box' sort of article.

I just wish it didn't start with this:

In the park where we play, there are nicely laid out concrete paths, leading from the swings to the picnic tables, from the castle to the soccer field, from the water fountain to the bridge, from here to there, from A to B.

And then there are the real paths, the dirt ones, the ones that shoot out from the concrete to connect where people really go, to memorialize the real actions of children playing, to acknowledge the real patterns of living, of human purpose, of some honest destination.

Because those are the "real" paths, the ones you can only get to if you're temporarily able-bodied, if you, I don't know, can walk up over an uneven surface okay. And those are the "honest" destinations, the ones you can only get to, again, if you're temporarily able-bodied, and don't need that path to access those places because of, for example, wheels.

I mean, screw you if you need a path, obviously. If you're blind, or use a wheelchair, or a walking aide, or something. I don't know.

I'm not super experienced at talking about disablism/ablism, and I can suck sometimes at spotting it, so I apologise if this seems out of line! But mostly I am just sad that we're so focussed on 'everyone is equal until we use ourselves to BREAK FREE' that it means cool posts about thinking start out with something that so clearly says, 'we use ourselves to BREAK FREE except you nonTABs who don't exist.'