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Help Emi attend Color of Violence conference and avoid the evil overdraft charge [UPDATE: Goal reached!]

Date: February 11, 2015

[UPDATE February 12th, 2015] Goal reached! In less than 24 hours, I received a total donation exceeding my goal of $400. I will keep some of the surplus for food and printing costs, and contribute some to other women of color I know who are struggling to pay for the trip to attend the conference. Thank you everyone who contributed and/or spread the word! – ek

Original post follows below.

*****

Short version:

I need financial help to get to Color of Violence conference. Please paypal emi@eminism.org or send check to Emi Koyama, PO Box 40570, Portland OR 97240. You can also support me by ordering my buttons and zines.

Long version:

Hello friends – I am doing two presentations at the upcoming Color of Violence conference in March, and about a month ago I posted a comment on Facebook asking for financial help getting there. But I didn’t set up any crowdfunding page or anything, because at the time I thought I could afford a large part of the cost myself.

Well, things have changed and I have less money now than I did, so I need to get more serious about fundraising to get there. The good news is that I got help with the lodging so that’s taken care of. In other words, I just need to raise enough money for airfare, ground transportation, and food.

The flight from Portland was super expensive (around $600), but it was way cheaper from Seattle so that’s how I’m going to travel. The roundtrip airfare is $362.20 (I’ve already purchased the ticket so it won’t go up, and my bank account is now dangerously close to overdrafting). For ground transportation I use ADA paratransit, which is $3 per ride in Chicago. I plan to go to a grocery store on the first day and stock up in my room to save money. So $400 total would probably work. I have received $40 from my previous facebook request, so my target is $360 which I think is possible.

Just so you know, the two presentations I’m doing are “Anti-Trafficking Policies and the Deputization of Social Service” and “Rejecting Victim/Survivor Dichotomy: From Individual Mandate to Collective Action.” In addition, I’m joining other women of color to do a workshop about critiquing media narratives about sex trade and sex trafficking.

I appreciate support from any of my friends, but I especially want white sex worker activists, anti-violence advocates, and scholars who use my work to support me now. I feel I’ve produced and gave away lots of materials for free that inform and benefit your work, and now is the time that you can help me connect and interact with other women and trans people of color so I can continue to do that.

I can accept Paypal (emi@eminism.org), Amazon gift card, or check (Emi Koyama, PO Box 40570, Portland OR 97240 – if you send a check, please email and let me know).

There are other ways to support me: you can also order my buttons and zines, or try to get me invited to your college or university if you are affiliated with any.

If I raise more money than I need for the trip, I will spend it on printing more zines and handouts to share at the conference, and/or give it forward to another woman of color who needs money to attend the conference.

Thank you for your help–and for reading the long version!

Upcoming Workshop on Fighting Japanese Right-Wing Nationalists in Los Angeles

Date: October 29, 2014

Confronting Japanese Right-Wing Organizing in Southern California: A FeND Workshop

WHERE: UCLA Bunche Hall, room 10383
WHEN: Friday, November 14th @ 6-8pm

Emi Koyama, a co-founder of Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization (FeND), presents a workshop/seminar on confronting Japanese right-wing nationalist mobilization in Southern California and beyond. This workshop is especially designed for members of Japanese- and other Asian American communities, but is open to all.

Mostly unnoticed by English language media, right-wing nationalist/historical revisionist organizing among some Japanese expats and “shin issei” (new migrants) in Southern California is growing. They have stormed city council chambers of municipalities that have considered resolutions supporting former “comfort women,” the women forced into sexual servitude for the Japanese military during the WWII, and have filed multiple lawsuits against the City of Glendale, which has enacted a memorial dedicated to them. They are closely connected to right-wing nationalist groups and politicians in Japan, and starting to dominate what Japanese people hear about Japanese Americans and Japanese people in the United States.

Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization (FeND) was formed in response to this emerging Japanese right-wing organizing in the U.S. by scholars and activists who have been monitoring Japanese right-wing activities for years. FeND works with Japanese and other Asian Americans and allies to confront Japanese nationalists in the U.S. and to oppose Japanese and U.S. militarisms and (settler) colonialisms in Asia and the Pacific.

This workshop provides information about who these right-wing nationalists are, what they believe, and how they are connected to Japanese right-wing groups and even government. It also addresses what we can learn from how Japanese progressives have resisted them in Japan and articulates how best we can confront Japanese right-wing nationalist organizing in the U.S.

For more information about FeND, please see:

http://www.fendnow.org/
http://www.facebook.com/fendnow

If you have any questions, please contact info@fendnow.org or message us on facebook.

(RSVP isn’t required, but it would help us know how many people are planning to come if those of you who plan to attend send us a note or “join” on facebook.)

The Uses of Negativity: Survival and Coping Strategies for Those of Us Who Are Exasperated by the Empty Promise of “It” Getting “Better”

Date: October 26, 2013

[Speech given at Gallaudet University for the National Coming Out Day, October 11, 2013.]

Today I want to talk about negativity and its uses in our survival, which may seem like an odd topic for a presentation on the National Coming Out Day: most people perhaps associate National Coming Out Day with celebration, pride, hopefulness, and other positive emotions and activities, and not with negativity. I want to be clear that I am not here to promote negativity: if positivity works for you, that’s wonderful! What I really want to talk about is how positivity and hopefulness do not work for all of us, in fact it can exacerbate difficulties we are experiencing, and how we can cope with them and support each other better if we could build a greater tolerance and appreciation for negativity.

But before getting into my discussion, I want to give a heads up about the content of my talk. As you might imagine, I will be talking about many things that the audience might find triggering. I will not give graphic details of any violence, abuse, or self-harming behaviors in my own life as well as in many others’, but I will talk about them, in hope that some of what I say resonates with you. But if you find any part of my presentation “too much,” please do not feel obligated to stay in your seat; do take care of yourself in whatever ways you know, including leaving the room. I will be available after the presentation to talk privately if any of you wish to.

Okay, so what is negativity? It is our emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to difficulties we face in our lives that are uncomfortable for us and those around us, or those that are inconvenient for the society. It is expressing emotions that the society considers inappropriate, such as anger, depression, desperation, numbness. It is behaviors that the society labels “unhealthy” or “maladaptive,” such as substance use, self-injury, eating “disorders,” promiscuity.

Sometimes, we react negatively to things and it harms us further. But often, the harm is not necessarily the direct result of our reactions, but the result of the society not understanding or supporting our negative reactions. New York-based performance artist Penny Arcade wrote:

Being a bad girl is not about wearing too much makeup, too short skirts, or fishnet stockings. It’s about being cut out, and left out of the society because you can’t handle the pain in your life in a way the society thinks is appropriate.

My struggle to make sense of my propensity for negativity began when I started talking to someone at a rape crisis center in a rural college town. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse as well as the dysfunctional child welfare system and as a queer disabled fat Asian girl in and out of sex trade, my self-esteem was predictably low. Trying to be helpful, someone loaned me self-help cassette tapes (yes, this was in the mid-90s) that were supposed to help me heal myself and build self-esteem. I listened to them on repeat, but it did not work. And not only that, it made me feel like I failed once again.

I didn’t–and still don’t–know what healing was. Our common understanding of trauma–whether it is violence or war or accident or whatever–is that it is exceptional and disruptive rather than the norm. We as the society take for granted that everyone pretty much lives a normal life, and only occasionally experiences traumatic incidents that leave us with physical and emotional injuries that require healing and restoration of the normal. But when life is a constant stream of difficulties, as it often is for children and adults in abusive long-term relationships and for people who face multiple layers of oppressions such as racism, poverty, homophobia/transphobia, and ableism, trauma becomes the norm. I could not imagine a normal norm to which I would return to after healing, or the true self that I would become once trauma ceased to define who I was. Again, it felt like a failure on my part.

The society prescribes a model of healing that is linear and short-term, as exemplified by the for-profit health insurance system that limit counseling to a certain number of sessions, if any. Even within survivor advocacy, we often hear about the linear progression from being a dreadful “victim” to empowered “survivor” as the idealized path toward healing. For example, a website for sexual abuse survivors states:

Yes, you are a victim of sexual abuse, but a victim stays in a victim role and never moves further and changes any behaviors that might change the outcome of the feelings that you are suffering from. You can’t change what happened to you… but you CAN change how you will react to it and how you want your life to be from this day forward! Once you make the decision to recover, you have the power to change your life!! Your abuser does not have to win! You can take back your power and move on and not stay stuck where you are!

D.C. Rape Crisis Center disagrees with this progression model of healing, and yet it continues to uphold the victim/survivor dichotomy:

You have made it past the assault, and you have earned the title of “survivor” rather than the depressing identifier “victim.” It takes courage, bravery, and strength to tell your story […] Being a survivor […] means that you are not letting yourself or your life be defined by your assault. […] Identifying as a survivor is a major step in the healing process.

Many people prefer the word “survivor” to “victim” because “survivor” feels strong and proactive. I understand that, as that is precisely how I felt for a long time also, but I started to think that we need to honor and embrace weakness, vulnerability, and passivity as well, or else we end up blaming and invalidating victims (including myself) who do not feel strong some or most of the times.

The society views victimhood as something that must be overcome. When we are victimized, we are (sometimes) afforded a small allowance of time, space, and resources in order to recover – limited and conditional exemptions from normal societal expectations and responsibilities – and are given a different set of expectations and responsibilities that we must live up to (mainly focused around getting help, taking care of ourselves, and recovering). “Healing” is not optional, but is a mandatory process by which a “victim” is transformed into a “survivor”; the failure to successfully complete this transformation results in victim-blaming and sanctions.

This is the function of “victim role,” an extension of sociologist Talcott Parsons’ theory of “sick role.” The society needs victims to quickly transition out of victimhood into survivorship so that we can return to our assigned positions in the heteronormative and capitalist social and economic arrangements in order to resume our productive and reproductive duties. That, I believe, is the source of this immense pressure to become survivors rather than victims, a cultural attitude that even many feminist anti-violence advocates have internalized.

On Mayo Clinic website, a physician wrote:

Everyone has setbacks, disappointments and frustrations. But the way you respond to these challenges and opportunities is what defines you. Whether you become a victim or a “seasoned survivor” depends on your attitude and the way you view the setback. […] Whatever has happened, you can choose to whine and complain about it, or to profit and learn from the experience. Whining is not only unproductive, it also pushes away your support network. Friends and colleagues will listen for just so long, but then it is time to move on. The choice is yours. Your life depends on it.

Note that this was written by an oncologist, so I assume that he was addressing to people who survived cancer rather than interpersonal violence. But there are striking similarities between societal attitudes toward sufferers and survivors of cancer and those experienced by abuse survivors, as I gather from Barbara Ehrenreich’s work on the former (she wrote an article titled “Smile! You’ve got cancer” criticizing the societal pressure people with cancer live under to be cheerful and positive).

Mayo Clinic physician’s article is a clear example of victim-blaming: victims who “whine and complain” are blamed for causing their own isolation and suffering by pushing away our support networks, as if our mentality is the only barrier for us to thrive. He pretends to offer “choices,” but he is clearly promoting the normative survivorship that whitewashes negativity over “unproductive” whining and complaining, suggesting that those of us who remain “victims” deserve what we get because of our failure to live up to the societal expectations.

Victim-blaming of course is a common occurrence against victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. When activists decry that we live in a rape culture, it doesn’t just mean that rape is ubiquitous. More importantly, it means that we live in a culture that provides excuses and justifications for sexual violence under the premise that the perpetrator could not help the urge, and the victim deserved it because of how she or he conducted themselves. Unfortunately, survivor advocates end up replicating the victim-blaming pattern when they prescribe a particular way for victims to heal and deny survivors a room to whine and complain unproductively without losing support.

Blaming of people experiencing negative feelings is closely connected to the popular ideology of positive psychology. Positive psychology, or at least its popular versions, announces that we all “have the power” to change our lives through transforming our attitudes, neglecting how our power is constantly being weakened, undermined, and stolen by violence and societal injustices in our lives. If we all “have the power” to be happy simply by changing our minds rather than material reality of our everyday struggles, it reasons that those of us who are unhappy are to blame for our own misery.

The society prescribes “healthy” ways for us to cope with difficulties in our lives, and admonishes us for using “unhealthy” ones. “Healthy” coping strategies include exercise, consistent eating and sleeping schedule, accessing support (but not too much, or you will become a “whiner”), hot bath. “Unhealthy” ones involve substance use, eating “disorder,” self-injury, and other “negative” things that push away our support system. When we engage in these “unhealthy” coping strategies, we are blamed for causing more problems to ourselves.

The Icarus Project, which is a network of people living with experiences that are labeled “psychiatric illnesses” but reject the conventional medical model of “mental health” and “mental illness,” published a handbook specifically about people’s uses of self-injurious behaviors to cope with difficulties in our lives. In it, the authors provocatively provide a long list of activities that might be described as “self-injury,” but often not, which includes:

  • working very hard
  • dieting
  • exercising excessively, or not at all
  • piercing
  • walking on high heels
  • getting tattoos
  • playing football
  • mountaineering
  • skateboading
  • ballet
  • working in a job you hate
  • depilating/waxing

Each of these acts may cause pain, injury, and other undesirable consequences, but they are generally considered normal. What are the differences between socially appropriate and inappropriate self-injury? There may be many factors, but one of the tendencies I observe is that self-injurious behaviors that are compatible with capitalism and uphold societal hierarchies (sexism and classism in particular) are generally considered socially appropriate, while those that undermine our ability to be productive workers and happy consumers are considered inappropriate.

I believe that “unhealthy” or negative coping strategies that we use some or most of the time must be validated and supported. It does not necessarily mean that every coping strategy is equally valid all the time, but the validity and desirableness of coping strategies need to be evaluated by the person experiencing it, rather than externally imposed on her or him by the society or by the advocates.

This includes suicidal thoughts. I have long struggled with thoughts thoughts about suicide and self-harm, but I have since come to accept suicidal ideation as a coping strategy rather than merely a symptom or a warning sign. After all, every time I contemplated suicide, it helped me survive. The failure to recognize our resilience in suicidality makes it difficult to have honest conversations about how we truly feel.

That said, the Mayo Clinic physician does have a point about how negativity pushes away our support system. Negative survivorship often presents a challenge for our friends, family members, and other people in our lives. I feel that the blame we receive for engaging in “unhealthy” coping strategies or remaining a “victim” rather than “survivor” has more to do with how they make other people uncomfortable than with our well-being. The feeling of uncomfortableness is understandable and valid, but we need to own up our uncomfortableness and deal with it rather than blaming the victim for it.

I think I have the similar experience related to my physical disability. My body is weak (even though I am big and swim every other day) and I have bad balance, so occasionally I fall to the ground despite using crutches. People who see me fall often rush toward me and begin pulling my arms to get me up without bothering to ask me if I need any help or how they could help. I believe that they are genuinely trying to help, but at the same time I feel that they are also extremely uncomfortable seeing someone clearly in pain and distress, and can’t stop to think if what they are doing is actually helpful before rushing to make my reality of disability disappear from their sight.

Experts working with people who are dealing with major depression advise that friends, family members, and others to avoid attempting to “cheer up” their loved ones who are depressed. It almost always backfire because it leads the person to feel invalidated and misunderstood, and deepens the sense of isolation and alienation that she or he feels. It is often more helpful to simply be there for and with that person without getting too caught up about finding the solution.

I am often socially awkward, but one thing I feel I am good at socially is that I have a high tolerance for negativity of people around me who are having difficult times. I have developed the ability to tolerate negativity through my own negative survivorship, especially from finding peace in having low expectations of life and accepting insignificance of my existence. Having low expectation of life does not prevent me from being hurt, but it shields me from disappointments, at least some of the times; accepting insignificance of my existence helped me stop worrying about meaning or purpose of my life. This place of peace allows me to sit with my friends who are depressed or even suicidal and validate their feelings without judgment.

Seattle-based organization Northwest Network which advocates for LGBTQ survivors of relationship abuse started a program called Friends Are Reaching Out, or F.A.R. Out, about ten years ago. The purpose of F.A.R. Out is to “build capacity within our community to resist isolation and sustain meaningful connections” among friends in the queer/trans communities, especially queer/trans communities of color who are often left out by the mainstream anti-domestic violence programs.

The idea behind F.A.R. Out is that relationship abuse often first manifest in the isolation of the victim from her or his community outside of the intimate relationship with the abuser. This is allowed to occur because we often feel uncertain about what our friends are actually experiencing in their relationship with their intimate partner even when we see potential signs of abuse, and unsure as to how to talk about it or intervene. We feel too uncomfortable witnessing these signs and yet not knowing what to do, so we often withdraw, leaving our friends in potential danger.

F.A.R. Out is based on the idea that we might be able to prevent abusive patterns from developing if our communities and friendships were more resistant to the initial attempt to isolate the victim. To that end, it facilitates intentional dialogues about what healthy relationships would look like in our communities, how to tell when something is going wrong, and what we want each other to do if we notice something unusual, even if we are not 100% sure about what is going on. This program builds on existing friendship networks and makes them more resistant to abuse that can occur to any one of us (or that any of us might engage in without the help of our friends).

Relationships are key to our survival, and it is not just negativity itself that isolates and alienates us when we are in distress. It is the lack of resilient communities and friendship networks that have mechanisms to resist isolation; it is the inability for us to own and take care of uncomfortableness that we feel about the negativity that some of us–or many of us–employ in order to cope.

Since this is the Coming Out Day, I want to make some comments about the popular representations of what is promoted as “giving hope” to young people who are struggling with homophobia and transphobia, whether it is societal, familial, or internalized. Obviously, I welcome the fact that there are far more books, music, films, websites, resources, and organizations that are supportive of young people who are LGBTQ than I had access to when I graduated from high school in the mid-90s in rural southern Missouri, which was zero.

There is a stark contrast and contradiction in the popular discourse surrounding LGBTQ youth: the news media is filled with stories about bullying, harassment, and suicide of young people who are in fact or perceived to be queer or trans; the pop culture presents promotion and celebration of individuality, pride, and positivity, often as exemplified by successful mostly white gay men and lesbians (and straight celebrities) speaking on the behalf of all LGBTQ people.

Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign combines the two, suggesting that the dreadful reality young people are experiencing now is only temporary, and with time things would get better, especially if they move to a big city and become middle-class professionals like themselves. I’m sure it works for some young people (especially if they are white and middle-class and can reasonably expect things to get better once they are on their own), but I find it alienating in the same way that telling a depressed person to “cheer up” backfires.

Things do sometimes get better. But in my experience they mostly shift and move and change shape, constantly, rather than taking the linear upward trajectory. The idea that things would just get better with time is unrealistic, invalidating, and alienating for those of us who have lived through a long stream of multiple trauma and oppressions in our lives. “It Gets Better” could have been an interesting project if it were promoted as a way for middle-class, middle-aged gays and lesbians to reflect on their own lives, for themselves, because that’s what it really is. But as it is, I worry that it is taking too much space, shifting attention away from media and creative projects by young people themselves that tell their own stories to cope with whatever “it” is, and possibly changing “it” at the structural level.

I want to end by reading a poem I wrote about how I hate survivor poems. I’m not saying that I dislike poems written by survivors, but I hate the cliche that are survivor narratives that we are expected to repeat.

i don’t write survivor poems
i don’t write about the journey
from a survivor to a thriver
from a wounded child to a
bad-ass feminist revolutionary
that is not me most of the time

i don’t write about healing
about forgiveness
about grief and letting go

i don’t write about strength
i don’t write about the courage to heal
and i never want to hear again
oh you are so courageous to speak out
about your story
that i haven’t even began to tell

i don’t write to inspire

i don’t write about finding purpose
about finding jesus
about finding self-love

i don’t write about the truth
because truth is too fragile
like a particle whose location and velocity
cannot be simultaneously observed

i write instead
about the lack of counseling
that is actually competent and affordable

i write about the fake sympathy
and the lynch mob that robs me of my rage
and repurposes it to build more prisons

i write about the need for validation
even if our survival involves slashing on the wrist
not eating overeating and purging alcohol drugs
avoiding sex having too much sex

i write, in fact, about survival
through not just the abuse from the past
but survival in the society that doesn’t give a fuck

i don’t write survivor poems
because my story is not for your consumption
i don’t write a coherent and compelling narrative
and i don’t exist to demonstrate the resilience of the human spirit

i write survival poems
i survive

Happy (or not so happy—and it’s okay!) Coming Out Day!

Send Emi to Toledo Human Trafficking, Prostitution and Sex Work Conference!

Date: August 18, 2013

Sex worker activists, allies, and friends,

Brief summary first: this is a request for donations to help me present at an anti-trafficking conference.

I have been accepted to present at the 10th annual Human Trafficking, Prostitution & Sex Work Conference at University of Toledo in September. This is not a conference I have ever attended or had been planning to attend, but I was strongly encouraged to submit a proposal to present at this conference by several people I met at Desiree Alliance conference last month.

People who have attended the conference in the past have told me that there used to be more representation of sex worker activists at this conference, but over time it has attracted more of the anti-trafficking crowd who promote “rescues” and persecution. But they also describe the conference organizer as being supportive of sex worker activists and allies, and encourages all attendees to listen to each other with an open mind.

Because of my extensive research on the harmful impact of misguided anti-trafficking policies as well as on grass-roots alternatives to the mainstream anti-trafficking discourse, and also because of my background in both sex worker’s rights movement and feminist anti-violence movements, I feel that I am best positioned to bridge the gap with well-intentioned but misguided anti-trafficking activists and social workers and get them to think differently.

The problem, of course, that it costs money. The conference waives registration fees for the speakers, but it still costs close to $1000 for airfare and lodging. I can reduce the cost by several hundred dollars by flying in to Detroit instead of Toledo, and I hope to do that if I can figure out the transportation from Detroit to Toledo, but that still costs $600-700.

I hesitated reaching out to my friends for donations, because I don’t want to use up my friends’ resources for this conference, in case I or someone close to me have a more urgent need (such as unexpected medical expenses) that we need to fundraise for. After all, this conference is not all that important to me personally, even though I feel that it is important politically for our community.

So I only ask you to donate if you also believe that it is important for me to be at the conference for the impact I will make, and not because you are my friend and want to help me with whatever I need. I might some day come to you to ask for help with urgent financial need, but this is not that.

That said: if you are still interested in helping me get to the conference, please donate! You can send money via Paypal to emi AT eminism DOT org or donate at the crowdfunding page. If I don’t raise enough money to attend the conference, I will refund your donations (minus the transaction fees). You can use donation links on my online button/zine store too (and while you are there, order my buttons and zines!).

Thanks!

Piracy and distortion of my work at University of Washington

Date: January 14, 2013

Last Thursday, I went to University of Washington in Seattle to give a presentation titled “‘War on Trafficking’? Resisting Criminalization as the Solution to the ‘Modern Day Slavery’.” It was scheduled to preempt a big conference on human trafficking that was being held on Friday and Saturday because some people at UW were afraid that the conference was going to focus on ramping up further criminalization to combat “domestic minor sex trafficking” as many anti-trafficking conferences these days seem to, even though the conference actually turned out to be mostly about labor trafficking, labor rights abuses, and fair trade. I attended the conference and plan to report about it too, but there’s something else I want to write about.

After my presentation at UW’s student union building (which was very well attended–thank you very much!), someone started distributing pirated copies of my old article, The Transfeminist Manifesto, before I noticed it. I found a copy myself, and it looked like this:

The Transfeminist Manifesto pirated zine cover

Even though I’ve never published anything that looked like this, many people thought it was my zine, because it had my name on it and did not identify who printed or distributed it.

I personally do not want this particular article to be distributed further, unless it is made explicit that Manifesto is a dated, historical piece. I wrote the article more than a decade ago, and given that transgender community has expanded and changed rapidly over the last decade, I feel that it is no longer relevant. There are also many other texts exploring the intersection of feminism and trans politics, so there is no reason to keep Manifesto around, except of course as a historical artifact.

One of the ways I’ve tried to explain that Manifesto is a historical piece is to include “postscript” at the end of the article to criticize some aspects of the article itself. I included the postscript in the version published in Catching A Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century as well as in my zine, Whose Feminism Is It Anyway?. So I opened the pirated zine to see if they included my postscript along with the main article. This is what I saw:

The Transfeminist Manifesto pirated zine postface

They did include the postscript, but changed the heading to “postface.” According to a dictionary, “postscript” is “an additional remark at the end of a letter” or “an additional statement or action that provides further information on or a sequel to something,” while “postface” is “a brief explanatory comment or note at the end of a book or other piece of writing.” So technically, “postface” seems to be a more appropriate term than “postscript” in this case, but the reality remains: they changed my language and presented the edited version as my work. This worries me (though I do not have the time or energy to read the entire zine to find out what else they have changed).

Further, I found this statement on the back cover of the zine:

The Transfeminist Manifesto pirated zine quote

I have never written “SCUM! KILL KAPITAL! REVOLT!” anywhere, nor is it something I might ever say. And yet, there is no name printed on the entire zine except for my own name on the cover, so most people would think that I wrote that phrase, and I do not want to be associated with it in any way. I am not so much offended by the piracy of my work itself, but this slogan, along with the fact they have edited my words without permission and without clarifying who was responsible for it, offends me.

I don’t know who was responsible for pirating and distorting my work. I would feel a little bit better if it was done by a trans woman, but I doubt it: most trans women understand that Manifesto belongs in a different historical moment, and probably would not distribute it, other than to discuss the history of transgender activism. I imagine that it is not a trans woman, but non-trans people who are so out of touch with transgender community or politics that they found a 13-year old article curiously new and refreshing. They also must not think very much about trans women speaking for themselves if they are willing to “correct” my language without my permission and to add an inflammatory slogan like “SCUM! KILL KAPITAL! REVOLT!”

I hope that whoever was responsible for the incident would recognize how their action was harmful, and work on building true coalition with and amplifying the voices of trans women in their community.

Youth vs. the Social Service Industrial Complex: How Anti-Trafficking Hysteria is Dismantling Harm Reduction Movement

Date: November 24, 2012

This is the last of the series of presentations I gave at Harm Reduction Conference last week. I would really appreciate reactions to this presentation: the explosive title is not at all an exaggeration.

Resisting the “War on Trafficking”: Two Presentations at Harm Reduction Conference

Date: November 22, 2012

Here are a couple of presentations I gave at Harm Reduction Conference last week as part of the panels critiquing the mainstream anti-trafficking movement. First has to do with debunking commonly stated myths about trafficking–more specifically, domestic minor sex trafficking–and the second addresses problematic public policies that result from these inaccurate claims, and proposes an alternative framework.

Because of weird scheduling I ended up presenting the second part first at the actual conference, but I’m posting them here in correct order.

Negative Survivorship: Reclaiming “Victim” and Embracing Unhealthy Coping

Date: November 21, 2012

Here’s another presentation from last week’s Harm Reduction Conference. It is part of the project I’m calling “negative survivorship,” which is one of the things I’m feeling most passionate about these days. Enjoy!

Portland Bad Date Line: Limitations and Challenges

Date: November 19, 2012

I announced earlier that I was going to speak on two panels at Harm Reduction Conference that took place last week, but I ended up doing five panels instead, different themes each time. Here’s one of the presentations I did about Portland Bad Date Line.

Bad Date Lines are a tool used by people trading sex to protect each other by sharing information about “bad dates”–people who use violence to hurt them. This presentation gives a brief history of Portland Bad Date Line, focusing on how its features changed when Danzine, a grass-roots sex workers’ organization that started it, closed its doors and the PBDL was taken over by social service agencies.

Erasure of Transgender Youth in the Sex Trade — My keynote at Transgender Day of Remembrance

Date: November 20, 2011

For those of you who came to my keynote presentation at Transgender Day of Remembrance at PSU (no, not that one, the one in Portland) this afternoon, thank you for coming! As I’ve promised, I am posting the slides from my presentation publicly so that people who came to the presentation can go back to read the slides again, and those who couldn’t make it can also see what I presented about. Please note that the slides are not intended to be stand-alone; they may not be self-explanatory without my talk. But regardless–enjoy!

(10/28/2012 – Link updated after Apple shut down iWork.com)

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