Mixed State of the Queer World

By Kelly Cogswell

I went for a check-up last week, and when the doc asked, "What's new?" I blurted out, "It's the End of Days. That's what's new." Then I grinned so he wouldn't haul me off to Bellevue. I hadn't seen him since before the election when he told me there was no way Trump would win.

Now, we have straight up Nazis in the very White House, daily earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, islands in the Caribbean destroyed beyond belief. Narrow shaves on Obamacare. And I'm in the middle of my own middle-aged dyke job search, which is going demoralizingly, and terrifyingly, slow.

I am premature in my despair. Here in New York anyway, we've kept our feet dry during this hurricane season. The mayor and the governor speak out for immigrants, and promise to keep providing health care for struggling New Yorkers. The Planned Parenthood nearby does get demonstrators, but abortions are still available and safe. Queers can get married under both federal and state law. And there is a reasonable amount of protections for us.

New York City even has a department that investigates civil rights violations, especially important now that the Trump administration may decide that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (barring job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin) doesn't protect queer workers.

And here we can go to Trump Towers and protest in relative security, while in St. Louis, cops shout, "Who's streets, our streets," arresting protesters as violently as possible. If I walk down the street here, I may occasionally get harassed as a queer by other private citizens, but not by the cops or security enforcing the will of a government that hates my guts. At least not yet.

There's a special kind of terror for queers who don't just experience a violent discrimination, but whose very existence has been declared illegal. The BBC reported a couple of weeks ago, that in Tanzania, where gay male sex is a crime punishable by up to thirty years in prison, twenty people were arrested and charged for alleged homosexuality. Their crime: sitting in a hotel to receive training about HIV/AIDS. Earlier this year, the government made HIV/AIDS services illegal even in private health clinics because, they claimed, even talking about AIDS promotes gay sex.

In Baku, Azerbaijan, where homo sex is theoretically legal, the cops recently used the excuse of an anti-prostitution campaign to beat, humiliate, even arrest at least 100 gay men and trans women, not only grabbing them in public spaces, but in their homes. According to the Advocate, "victims report they have been subject to verbal abuse, beatings, and forced medical examinations. (In addition, trans women's heads have been forcibly shaved.) Many were only allowed to leave after providing names and addresses of other LGBT people."

An anti-gay purge continues in Chechnya as well, targeting gay and bi men using dating aps, in which victims expect to meet a hook up, but find cops and security forces which stick a bag on their head and drag them off to be interrogated and tortured. And when they've given up a bunch of names, are outed to their families, which often respond with violence. This according to Kimahli Powell, head of the Rainbow Railroad, which has been working with the Canadian government to get them to safety. Canada has declared that Chechnyan queers are refugees.

Plenty of Americans sympathize--with the Chechnyan regime. While our federal government doesn't yet have the power to strip us entirely of civil rights, Trump and his henchmen continue to attack basic freedoms. And the hateful language of our bigot-in-chief is echoed everywhere from New York City subways to Olathe, Kansas.

Participating in a football homecoming parade there, members of a gay-straight alliance were taunted by classmates throwing things at them, and chanting, "Make America straight again," along with an assortment of slurs, insults and encouragements to go kill themselves. The school district denounced the behavior, but some students in the group were so shaken they didn't return to school the next day.

There have been a few queer bright spots, too. In Hong Kong, an appeals court just ruled--unanimously-- that a British lesbian whose partner works in the city should be granted a spousal visa, because the government had not proved the necessity of "indirect discrimination on account of sexual orientation."

In the U.S., Lena Waithe became the first black woman to pick up an Emmy for comedy writing for an episode drawing on her own story as an out lesbian.

And lastly, the brand Lululemon, is aiming to move beyond skinny white girl territory by adding a menswear collection. They're launching it with a campaign called "Strength to Be" which features the likes of out gay Puerto Rican boxer, Orlando Cruz, and queer hiphop artist Zebra Katz. Nice.

Baiting Trump

By Kelly Cogswell

I was so happy when I saw the SNL skit for the first time with the brilliant Melissa McCarthy decked out as Sean Spicer, guzzling gum, throwing tantrums, blasting the press for questioning Trump's Muslim ban, destroying language itself and offering an imaginary narrative, while accusing journalists of spreading fake news.

It was a blistering characterization that not only ridiculed the incompetent, know-nothing Spicer, but highlighted the undercurrent of violence in Trump's blustering, authoritarian administration which aims to rule through sheer domination, destabilizing tactics, and fear.

McCarthy seemed the perfect choice after her role as Detective Joyce Nelson in the movie The Heat with her potty-mouthed rage and extreme physical comedy. You want fury? She's a bundle of it. Want fearlessness? I can't think of a male actor in recent times who's thrown their body around as audaciously as McCarthy.

It seemed irrelevant that she was doing it drag. The script didn't mention women, and Alex Baldwin's fake blonde wig seemed more of a stretch than her thinning brown wig, and ill-fitting suit. She dominated the room, not with a dick, but the pure force of her personality. What did gender have to do with anything?

But then the news broke that what had Trump and Spicey going nuts was not so much the portrait of Spicer as an enraged, gum-chewing, shit-gibbon, but that he was played by a woman. Once we heard that, the game was on. Rosie O'Donnell replaced her Twitter profile with a convincing image of herself as Bannon.

Stephen Colbert declared "... If the president thinks a woman playing Sean Spicer makes him look weak, then he’s really not going to like this picture we made of a little girl pretending to be Donald Trump. And he’s especially not going to like it when you retweet at him with the hashtag #largerhands."

This statement, which came with the release of a photo of a little girl in a pink dress with a big Trump wig, was where I started to squirm. Because there's a big difference between a grown woman laying bare the rage of a toxic white masculinity, and a photo of a pretty little girl in a Trump wig designed to impugn his manhood, not critique it.

Apparently, the only thing worse than being a little girl, is throwing like one, crying like one. What could be worse, in fact, than being a man touched by femininity? A fucking fag? A trans woman who abdicated her rights in a man's world? Sorry, but we don't need more misogyny -- ever. So fuck you, Stephen Colbert. And everybody whose Trump-baiting humor doesn't go beyond jokes about Trump's small, feminine hands.

This is especially important with the Renaissance of White Nationalism where the subjugation of women by men is the model for every other domination, Christians over Muslims, White over Blacks, Straights over Queers, good old American English over every other language, every nation in the world. Yeah, let's grab 'em all by the pussy. Who's the bitch, now?

The control of female bodies, forcing us to remain pregnant and have children whether we want to or not, is not a separate issue from the control of black and brown bodies in the street, and workplace, and school. The defense, even encouragement, of domestic violence against women, is the same as the bullying of certain young white males to insure they remain in their place. On top. And know what to do once they get there.

Using a little girl to attack Trump actually reminded me of Lynndie England--the U.S. Army Reserve private serving in Iraq who got her 15 minutes of fame for agreeing to pose for a photo holding the leash of a naked detainee cowering on the ground at Abu Ghraib prison. In another, she gave a thumbs-up behind a pyramid of naked prisoners. In another, she smiled as a guy was forced to whack off.

She was one of the few who went to jail for abuse of prisoners, but women soldiers under Bush were regularly used to humiliate men who were compelled to crawl on the floor, wear women's underwear, pose naked. Men were also forced to engage in homosexual acts. Let's humiliate those Muslim bastards any way we can.

While Colbert didn't torture anybody, the image of the little girl was used in the same way, to pollute, to provoke disgust and ridicule. Like the SNL jokes about Trump's attraction for a bare-chested Putin.

Nothing good will come of it. It never has. The Abu Ghraib photos boosted anti-U.S. sentiment worldwide, became big recruiting tools for Al Qaeda, were cited for the execution of American Nicholas Berg, and set back progress for women and queers.

In the U.S., sneering only at his masculinity might piss off Trump, but it won't help us, won't do anything to undercut his desire to be a “real man”, and dominate America by violence, instability, and hate.

Finding Our Feet--Together

By Kelly Cogswell

Last Tuesday, or maybe a decade ago, I ventured out in the rain to an anti-Trump meeting at an enormous Episcopal church uptown, where water was leaking into the foyer from the small domed entry and pooling on the tile. Inside, the large sanctuary was respectably full. The crowd was about half first-time activists of all ages, the rest middle-aged veterans of groups like ACT-UP, with stunned but determined faces.

The group agreed on a tactic-- direct action, with or without arrests -- then talked about issues for a while, before breaking into the usual sub-groups to introduce themselves and begin organizing. In the media committee we agreed it played a huge role in Trump's election, and would be an essential tool to fight back, shaping the meaning of our actions, creating our own--truthful--narrative of what Trump was up to. We still left without a name or an action. The biggest problem for anti-Trump activists isn't tools, but where on earth to start.

In some ways, the Trump-Pence regime is a crisis even broader and deeper than the early years of the AIDS epidemic when activists still had intersectional issues, but only a handful of targets: drug companies and researchers, homophobic evangelicals and the Catholic Church, CDC definitions that ignored women, government programs controlling health care access and information that betrayed queers, people of color and the poor.

This hydra has too many heads to count. And they're not just out to destroy the usual suspects, but the basic rules Americans have played by. Or aspired to, even when they failed us. I still want what I pledged my life to when I was six, Liberty and justice for all.

One person suggested holding a demo about free speech and assembly that would be as bold as possible, so that six months or a year from now we will have a yardstick to measure what we've lost when attacks on the Constitution and basic civil liberties take hold, and the once unthinkable becomes commonplace.

Pretty soon we'll believe we've always had a president-elect randomly creating policy tweet by unfettered, random, hateful tweet while his minions bring their calculated determination to stripping women and queers of their rights. And the other asylum inmates now in charge are perfectly justified in picking fights with China, or Iran. Stymying trade agreements. All agreements really, like terrifying three-year olds. Sometimes in the name of profit. Sometimes in the name of God.

Lately, I wonder whatever happened to reports of a new wave of evangelicals that were gay-neutral, pro-environment, less obsessed with abortion. Are they busy at home installing solar roofs, or did their fragile white egos catch fire with the politics of resentment? Is it them bashing the nearest queer, or Jew, or Muslim? Oh, poor white man lusting after more than a house and car and food. Oh poor white woman sleeping next to a disappointed spouse who dreams of a bare-chested Putin on a galloping horse.

Equality can't compare. Or the drudgery of democracy in which every vote counts, and must be counted.

I know what resentment is. I'm familiar with hate. I've put up with their bullshit dyke-baiting and woman-bashing for fifty years. And on bad days, I want what they do. To burn the whole thing down. I don't even care if I go with it. But then I see a little light somewhere. Hear a scrap of good news.

Like very early Monday morning when U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ordered a recount to begin immediately in Michigan. "With the perceived integrity of the presidential election as it was conducted in Michigan at stake, concerns with cost pale in comparison." Just before that, the Obama administration halted construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

And for a moment I could see the point of the phone calls and emails, donations and demos. If there's a way forward, we have to draw the line beginning with the case of Standing Rock, where some very determined people were willing to put their bodies on the line over a period of weeks, and months, until the small encampment of Native Americans grew into an enormous movement. Because that's what change takes, time, patience, and activism in the flesh. It's the only way we have to remind politicians and business people that we exist beyond their policy reports and number crunching, and we won't be ignored.

The problem remains, though, that everybody can't be everywhere, can't do everything. And choosing a direction is especially difficult for those of us at the crossroads of identities. I'm beginning to believe it doesn't matter what you choose or how. Perhaps we should just leave it to chance. Like the woman passing a Planned Parenthood who saw protesters outside, and stopped, and went inside to volunteer. That's all any of us have to do. Pick one thing. Get plugged in. Make a stand.

Resisting Trump

By Kelly Cogswell

I take good news where I can find it in Trump's woman-hating, neo-Nazi, gay-bashing, Muslim-registering, anti-Semitic America. Last week, it arrived from a climate change conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, where delegates from 197 countries united to approve a statement urging immediate action in the face of Donald Trump's promise to pull out of the Paris Agreement and defund international efforts.

In one of his last appearances as Secretary of State, John Kerry delivered an emotional speech declaring that despite Trump's election, the U.S. fight against climate change wasn't over. Market forces would ensure a transition to a low carbon world even if policy didn't, because investments in renewable energy were absolutely exploding. And the vast majority of Americans supported action even if a powerful minority didn't.

I hope so. I really do. But the real reason this news cheered me a little was that I also learned that California was exploring how to join the climate talks as a subnational party if, or when, Trump makes good on his threat. In short, California is looking for ways to resist.

There's a good chance they can. The UN Convention on climate change declares "Any body or agency, whether national or international, governmental or non-governmental, which is qualified in matters covered by the Convention, and which has informed the secretariat of its wish to be represented at a session of the Conference of the Parties as an observer, may be so admitted unless at least one third of the Parties present object."

Even if they get thwarted by the Trump admin or Russian ally, nothing stops California, or New York or Oregon, from passing more stringent regulations. Now, at least, American states can still find ways to resist on an international level every time the official representatives of our country act against our interests. They can also guarantee abortion rights and minimum wages. For once, the tradition of respecting state's rights in the U.S. may work in the favor of progressives.

In other good news, individual cities like New York and San Francisco have declared that they won't participate in mass deportations and other unconscionable, bigoted acts, like any efforts to register Muslims. On Sunday, some New York politicians from the local, state, and federal level even jointly marched against hate and condemned Trump's administrative appointments. While press conferences aren't enough for the long run, they show that our daily protests have paid off. For now. Because no politician ever opens their mouths unless they think it will win them votes.

In the long run, we'll have to do both. Lay down in front of bulldozers and, like California, look for back doors not just to resist, but progress. Which means we activists have to commit ourselves to unraveling how our various levels of government actually work, understanding for instance the relationship between the beat cop and the Justice Department. The State Department and a queer film festival in Ankara.

Too many of us have seen our LGBT rights as a simple Christmas list of important issues, not as intertwined civil rights dependent on the health of our democracy and things like free speech and assembly. Clean votes. From now on, queer issues must include not just marriage equality or gender recognition, but the gerrymandering of voter districts, the suppression of voter rights, an independent judiciary actually committed to administering justice equally regardless of sexual orientation, gender, or race.

Not to say we should ignore specifically queer issues, but that we should see them in context. If you thought trans women of color had it tough before, imagine trying to work for their safety under a Justice Department led by a neo-Nazi. Every anti-bullying law everywhere will be under attack as well, along with hate crime ordinances. Those queers who couldn't access marriage in anti-gay regions, will face even worse obstacles. AIDS, in this new anti-gay, anti-Obamacare era, will probably hit us hard along with an epidemic of despair and self-loathing.

The worse things get, the more important it will be to demonstrate and put our queer, our brown, our black flesh out there, reminding politicians that we are not abstractions. And reminding ourselves of the power we have acting with, and for, each other.

It's not easy to take to the streets right now. Even experienced activists are still shell-shocked, and frightened. And we should be. It's easier to throw protesters in jail. And many of us are older, and already concerned about the vulnerabilities of our bodies. Getting hit by a cop or a bystander may not just put us out of commission for a few months, it may kill us.

And yet. And yet... "When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive." Audre Lorde.

Our America

By Kelly Cogswell

I was following my twitter feed and channel surfing during the "debate" last night when I heard a news anchor announce that the police were looking for a serial groper. When I glanced up I really did expect to see Donald Trump's pink butthole of a mouth, and flabby sulking face, but it was a photo of a normal looking white guy with ear buds in, and a greenish grey tee shirt hanging over his skinny chest. Which is what most sexual predators look like. As ordinary as anything.

There is nothing particularly impressive about dictators either. In photos, Pinochet smiles like somebody's affable grandfather. Hitler only looks peculiar to us because of his mustache. Evil doesn't leave a trace. Even Putin looks ordinary with his slightly balding pate, though like with Pinochet, the journalists, activists, or politicians who oppose him have a way of spending years in prison, meeting untimely ends, disappearing.

All day, I'd hoped Clinton would simply refuse to go, quit normalizing Trump's candidacy as all of America has done for the last year, imagining that this rapist, this tyrant, and Putin-loving demagogue would just go away. I'd add racist or bigot to the list, but the words seem too mild to describe how he intentionally enrages the rabble, attacking people of color, immigrants, women, Jews, Muslims. Words like nigger and kike are coming back into fashion as Trump, and his anti-gay running mate Pence, not only reveal America's latent hatreds but fatten them every time they open their mouths.

And yet, when nine o'clock struck, Clinton took the stage with Trump, and both smiled for the cameras, as if it were business as usual. Republicans versus Democrats. Later on, I even saw a few tweets by folks complaining that nobody was talking about the issues. Why wasn't there a mention this time of police brutality? As if we could even hear what Clinton said while Trump furiously grabbed his chair, lurked behind her like a psycho killer. As if Trump would say something rational, not respond to questions with lies and obfuscations, offering a bizarre dismissal of his taped sexual assault brags, as "just words... locker room talk, and it's one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS." Sniff!

Given the circus-like atmosphere of the election, I'm not sure that we have seriously considered the implications of Trump's threat to unleash his Justice Department on Clinton if he is elected president, to send her to jail. It was the most naked assertion to date of his aspirations to rule without the rule of law, binning the basic protections every citizen is assured by our constitution.

The response was enthusiastic applause from the back of the room. Because what so many Americans want is a strongman to take the cunt down. Take all the pussies down. Commenters across the board found this disturbing, chilling even, though this has been commonplace at Trump's rallies for the eternity of this election season.

I can't stand any of it. His red-faced lying, rapey hate. Everybody's perpetual surprise. The GOP's attempt to distance itself from the monster it created. The Democratic silence about its own treatment of Clinton for decades. The dykes who have repeatedly announced their hatred of her voice, her thighs, her hair. All those gay men feeling absolved by their gayness that call all women cunts and bitches every chance they get. Who exclude women from leadership positions. Fuck you. Then there are the lefties who will get behind every mediocre man of any color who promises the populist moon. No wonder Trump was applauding Sanders, Sanders, Sanders.

Through it all, Clinton remained pleasant and composed, even smiling as Trump did his best to intimidate her. And I watched as guys tweeted things like, "I don't know how she does it." "I'd be pulling my hair out." "She should knee him in the nuts." All the women were like, "Every female on earth has had to learn how to deal with this." Because we have. With strangers in the street, or bosses, but more often from classmates, men at church, cousins, brothers and fathers. All of them threatening us with their dicks, and asking, Just who do you think you are?

As @meganamram tweeted, "With this election we're simultaneously breaking through the glass ceiling and the rock bottom. We got a really big room now." And it's not even over yet.