For a reading of the petition you can watch the video.
Petition Text:
Recently Senator Roland Burris (D-Il) introduced an amendment to the Senate Armed Services Committee that was approved to be introduced as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act. This amendment would repeal the current ban that bars women in uniform and dependent women from seeking abortion services in military facilities world wide, except in the case of rape or incest, even if they use their own money.
Currently, if a woman is stationed in a country, or is assigned with a sponsor who is stationed in a country where abortion is not legal, then that woman must obtain leave and funding to find a location where she may obtain such services. This restricts access to women who are living on military budgets, and possibly forces her to divulge private medical information in order to procure that leave. It also means longer absences for women from zones where manning is already low.
Currently, a woman must prove that her pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, stripping the woman of the right to Restricted Reporting options (if she is uniformed) and/or her privacy even if she is civilian. No woman should be forced to report a rape before she is ready to procure a safe, legal procedure. No one should have to trade one privacy for another. Women must pay for these abortions out of pocket on top of this humiliation.
Currently, a doctor or other medical professional must determine if a woman's life is in danger before determining if she may have an abortion, and this is far too subjective to be left to anyone but the woman, especially if current law is going to force the woman to pay for it with her own money. Even if a fetus is determined to be non-viable it will not be induced unless the woman's life is in imminent danger, irrespective of how that might impact her emotional health, because this might be considered an abortive service. This is inhumane and unacceptable treatment.
Opponents of this measure will tell you that it will require additional equipment and staff or force doctors to do procedures they don't want to do. I can tell you that our facilities already have this equipment and staff, and that our medical professionals are already learning how and performing these procedures. Because these are sometimes life-saving procedures they are already prepared to perform these as a part of routine medical care that they have learned.
It is unconscionable to withhold medical procedures that are safe and legal from a woman, especially when she is paying for them with her own money, and I would argue ever, but current regulation allows that to happen to our women in uniform and military dependents. Repealing the ban on abortions in military facilities puts the decision to obtain safe, legal medical procedures back in the hands of the patient, the woman, the ones who are putting on uniforms and defending our country or who are supporting others who do the same.
I implore you to support this repeal when it comes to the Senate for full vote. Do the right thing and give these rights back to the women who fight for them.
"Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people were once again subject to the whims of homophobia and religious and cultural extremism this week, thanks to a United Nations vote that removed “sexual orientation” from a resolution that protects people from arbitrary executions. In other words, the UN General Assembly this week voted to allow LGBT people to be executed without cause."
Want to know what countries voted in favor of making it legal to exicute LGBT citizens based on nothing more then their sexual orientation? Here you go:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Brunei Dar-Sala, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Two things come to mind when I found this out.
One, FOR FUCK SAKE! You have got to be kidding me! Where was everybody else? Yea, let's just hold a vote on the basic human rights of LGBT people around the world & include MOSTLY African and Middle Eastern countries in the vote!
Two, I would like to see the U.S. make a HUGE stink about this but we can't even repeal Don't ask don't tell! In order to fight bigotry and homophobia around the world we must lead by example!
I feel it people. Do you feel it? With this shit with the TSA, women being sentenced to death under Sharia Law every day and now this. There is a push to attack the human rights of every human being AND WE HAVE TO PUSH BACK!
ARE YOU PISSED YET? YOU'D BETTER GET PISSED! BECAUSE WHAT'S NEXT? AND WILL INVOLVE YOUR KID? I CAN'T SAY IT ANY CLEARER...
GET PISSED!
For a little more background on this YouTuber PhysicalConstervative has some for you.
To close this post I want to include a poem by respected YouTuber and poet Nessrriinn entitled
If you've been paying attention to the sex industry debates going on within the feminist and sex workers’ rights communities, you've probably heard the argument,
“women go into the sex industry due to lack of choices”
made in defense of each side’s position.
Those who oppose prostitution use this talking point to prove that prostitution is rarely a choice and should be abolished. Even those who claim not to seek abolition speak in support of the Swedish model, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Swedish government itself has admitted the model is about a ban on prostitution.
Then there are those who seek decriminalization, because only under
a system where sex work is treated as a legitimate form of work can
harm reduction measures -proven effective- be implemented to their
fullest possible effectiveness.
So what does it mean to me to say,
“women go into the sex industry due to lack of
choices?”
This means many things, really. It means that we live in a highly unbalanced global economy where countries that have, have enough to waste and countries that don't are home to thousands – tens of thousands, and more – who do what they can, because the ideologies and ambitions of those who claim to know what is best for them will not feed them. Many of these people turn to sex work rather than starvation, while abolitionists who believe that sex work contributes to the oppression of women as a collective look down their noses at them and offer them little practical support.
This video is about ONE subgroup of those people. A subgroup
that is one of the most stigmatized, feared, hated, and
misunderstood in just about every society in the world. The
people who walk on both sides of the gender binary that is the
accepted standard in most societies.
If I had to choose which group of people I thought was the most
consistently discriminated against globally, I would have to say it
wouldbe transgendered people. There are some countries where
they are making progress like New Zealand, where the first transgendered member of any Parliament ever was elected in 2005.
But this is unquestionably an exception to the rule and trans
people still have a long way to go to find equality
in the world.
Trans people are called deranged and dangerous. If they appear in movies or in media at all it's usually to mock them or create an extra-disturbing villain in a movie about serial killers. They are portrayed as over the top, extra dramatic, and of lesser intelligence then any “normal” human being who has the good sense to at least know what gender they are.
Is it any wonder that so many transgendered citizens turn to sex work to make a living while still being true to who they really are? How feasible is it that you might walk into a bank one day and find a transgendered teller taking your money or that the nurse checking your blood pressure might tell you that “his” name is Lisa? Often any “normal” job a transgendered sister would find would be low paying, or hire them only under the condition that they come to work dressed in a way that in and of itself feels highly oppressive to them, as if they are going through life half way. Sometimes they turn to sex work just to earn extra money to save up for a gender reassignment surgery that almost no insurance company will pay for, just so they can be who they are, just like you and me.
LGBT rights organizations sometimes acknowledge the “T” at the end only as a footnote, and many of the prominent radical abolitionist feminist leaders do their best to keep them out, sometimes not even attempting to hide their disdain.
In “Transgender Activism: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective”, Sheila Jeffreys argues that, “transgenderism might more reasonably be seen as a violation of human rights and should certainly not be uncritically accepted as a socially transformative force equivalent to gay liberation.” She said that, “Transsexualism opposes feminism by maintaining and reinforcing false and constructed notions of correct femininity and masculinity.” And like many other radical abolitionist feminists she calls sexual reassignment surgery “self-mutilation”, not unlike piercings, tattoos, branding, and many of the other practices of sadomasochism.
“All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, and appropriating this body for themselves. [...] Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive. The transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist feeds off woman’s true energy source, i.e., her woman-identified self. It is he who recognizes that if female spirit, mind, creativity and sexuality exist anywhere in a powerful way it is here, among lesbian-feminists. I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence.”
And Radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian Mary Daly made
this comparison:
“Today the Frankenstein phenomenon is omnipresent not only in religious myth, but in its offspring, phallocratic technology. The insane desire for power, the madness of boundary violation, is the mark of necrophiliacs who sense the lack of soul/spirit/life-loving principle with themselves and therefore try to invade and kill off all spirit, substituting conglomerates of corpses. This necrophiliac invasion/elimination takes a variety of forms. Transsexualism is an example of male surgical siring which invades the female world with substitutes.”
– from: Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism
This transphobic streak still persists today in the radical faction of feminism and shows itself in some women’s festivals, in heated comments, and the absolute REFUSAL to recognize and embrace our transgendered sisters and their issues as part of the women's movement.
So, with few employment choices and even fewer organizations that will speak strongly on behalf of their issues, many transgendered women turn to sex work. There they find company in their fellow outcasts – the whores of the world. And in return they give back just as much as they receive. They not only play leading roles in the advocacy for the rights of sex workers, but help keep them safe while on the job as well. A cisgendered, female, former street sex worker told me once that she would always work the areas where the transgendered women worked. She said that pimps were less likely to try and harass her there because the trans women were less likely to take their ill treatment and had a tendency to protect their cisgendered associates.
This is just one example of how the radical faction of the women's movement has left some women behind. They can easily pass judgment on some for not recognizing the significance of the collective, but when that collective does not recognize you, what are you to do? Herein lies the nature of the conflict between feminists with the power to influence policy and those who fight to be heard. Sex work is a hub of intersectionality that radical feminists would sooner silence then risk the unique issues facing the women within it distracting the focus of that collective. A collective guided by a small group of the most privileged among us.
“This dismissal stands as a real block to communication between us. This block makes it far easier to turn away from you completely then to attempt to understand the thinking behind your choices. Should the next step be war between us, or separation?”
I was born in 1972 and I have seen music in the United States go through many phases. I have always had diverse musical taste and have loved heavy metal, glam rock, new wave, rave & folksy stuff that makes me wanna belly dance just to name a few. Rap seems to be what it's all about now and though I loved it when it first hit I have seen it take what I think is a turn for the worse.
What was once a music of the celebration of youth or a testimony to the truth of class discrimination in our “land of equality” has become; in my opinion, the hymns of modern day consumerism. It seems to me like what was once a vehicle for challenging the “haves” has been transformed into just another tool to sell something to the “have nots.”
“Your life sucks? You need a Bentley! You to can be seen as powerful by your peers by just allowing yourself to become another debt machine, work horse like Mr. & Mrs. Suburbia.” We are all equal when we are equally in debt.
Or how about this:
“What you need or what you need to be is a “HO!” Come one come all! Let the conquest of women lulled to sleep by the same commercialized, ambition numbing, junk food for the ears that you are give your life meaning!”
Hate the system? SLAP A HO!
Can't get a decent job in this joke of an economy we are all subject to? FUCK A HO!
Can't go to school & let your guard down long enough to actually learn something because inner city schools have been left behind by those who see children elsewhere as a wiser investment? That's right...A “HO” can fix all your problems. HOW? By distracting you with other problems like child support because they don't teach comprehensive sex education in the school where you met her!
HOS HOS HOS HOS HOS!
I have one...you have one...and that “playa” over there has a few. How successful he must be.
ENOUGH ALREADY! I HATE RAP!
But wait...What it this?
From the ashes of this once great music that DARED us not to care there emerges a new voice. A voice of reason and logic. A voice that will NOT sing the praises of the all mighty material thing or be distracted by the LIES the mass media perpetuates with its repetition and corporate funding.
That more CRAP = more success.
That conquest of the opposite sex is a healthy substitute for making waves that might effect a real change.
And most of all...
THAT GOD WILL MAKE IT ALL BETTER!
Tombstone Da Deadman
YouTube handle = rationalwarrior
To download some of his art for free with his consent click HERE.
Some of you may be familiar with the Anti-porn organization PornHarms run by former Bush-era Obscenity Task Force Prosecutor & staunch Right Wing, Christian Fundamentalist Patrick Trueman. Printed right under the header of this site are the words,
“This site is dedicated to providing the most accurate peer-reviewed research on the harm from pornography, along with relevant news and opinion.”
Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem with religion itself. I am; however, a staunch secularist and when I see religious organizations trying to use their pseudo-science & fear mongering to influence the government that governs ME I have a big problem with that!
There are two things I noticed about this “peer reviewed” research they claim to have.
1. Most of the peers seem to be in someway linked to each other & to strongly religious organizations.
2. A lot of them also happen to work in practices than not only use that pseudo-science to cure “porn addiction” but another “disorder” plaguing our country today. That's right! If you guessed “same sex attraction” you would be correct.
So,“the most accurate peer-reviewed research,” really? Below is a two part video done by my good friend and sex workers rights mentor FeministWhore that I believe proves other wise. Enjoy...
While searching for info and documentation on Radical Feminism and Trans-misogyny I happened across an audio of Catharine MacKinnon speaking at Washington and Lee University called "Gender: The Future." This audio didn't talk about transgendered people directly but rather addressed Ms. MacKinnon,s ideas on the Social Construction of gender itself which she calls oppressive in of itself.
In this audio she claims that:
-femininity is a side effect of childhood sexual abuse
-just about everyone that goes into the sex industry was abused sexually as children for which she offers NO sources
-pornography and prostitution are not only the result of this but the cause as well
and ends off with a long diatribe promoting the Swedish Model.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Though it's obvious by my commentary in text form over the video that I am not a fan of MacKinnon or of the Swedish Model she seems to be pushing, there is truth to some of what she says. I just happen to find her conclusions based on those truths to be ripe with sweeping generalizations and her idea that femininity is the symptom of some sort of past sexual abuse is frankly misogynistic.
She doesn't seem to have ANYTHING good to say about any gender at all. Her ideal world is one of complete androgyny and while I do find androgyny beautiful it is by no means the only form of beauty there is or should be.
As for the Swedish model my position is clear. According to the Swedish government the Swedish Model does NOT support harm reduction measures so I do not support it. How do I know this? Watch the video below to hear it straight from the horses mouth.
So, as for Ms. MacKinnons Utopian vision of androgyny, who is to say if she is right? I am not a fortune teller and neither is she. I do know that we live in the real world right now where sex workers are subject to unfair treatment & Radical Feminist Abolitionists do nothing to make their working conditions better. They don't even think twice about what sex workers say they want for themselves.
We are continually treated like children with no agency and no right to define the nature of our own experiences. We are told we are brainwashed, uneducated, patriarchy enablers, whores, cunts and NEVER feminists. We wouldn't want to soil the movement now would we?
As a sex workers rights advocate I will continue to do my part to debunk the lies told about us and help fight for our place within feminism because sex work is predominantly a woman's issue. It is a main hub of intersectionality and the continued stifling of the voices within it is nothing short of bigoted.
