By now, I’m sure all y’all have seen the video of a Colorado Girl Scout complaining that your Thin Mint dollars are being spent on including transgender girls in the organization.  Sprinkled throughout last week’s Facebook timeline were sighs of relief, for our cookie addictions can now be reclassified as Important Political Statements.  I love when things come together like that!

What a cutie. I wonder what chromosomes ze has?  Normally I wouldn’t ask, but it seems everyone’s talking about what’s under those green skirts.  Used to be we just cared about the cookies, not the genitalia.

On a related note, my post on the conundrum of feminist mental health garnered this comment, with some unexpected advice:

the only thing helpful i have to offer is this: the more i move into separatism, the more i do whatever it takes to have less and less to do with men and male-identified women, the happier i become. and the easier it is to be happy and at peace. just personal experience, but it makes a lot of political sense too. 

As an aghast Mr. Beinstock said to Daphne and Josephine in Some Like it Hot (watch the clip here): “I BEG your pardon, miss!”

Occasional bouts of misandrist rage, I understand.  Patriarchy can turn any woman, whether cis- or trans-, into a lunatic.  But separatism?  Isn’t that what we’re fighting with our cookie purchases?

Admittedly, I always feel prickly whenever it is suggested that heterosexual feminists like me are Doing It Wrong.  Personal rebuff aside, it implies that Rick Santorum is correct in his belief that sexuality is a choice, which leads us all into a bullshit-filled rabbit hole.  And I defy any radical separatist to come to my house to have a crack at the difficult daily work of raising a feminist son.  I might even go out on a limb and suggest that it’s the most important work of our movement–that is, if I were the sort of person prone to the kind of “nyah nyah, my feminism is better than yours” that I try to avoid.

Really, I do.

You know who’s an unequivocally GREAT feminist, though? That boy of mine.  He could out-feminist a wannabe like Sarah Palin in a heartbeat.  And with his gorgeous hazel eyes, he’d look amazing in a green and white uniform.  Say, why does it have to be Girl Scouts, anyway?  Isn’t it time we had Kid Scouts, open to anyone interested in hustling Thin Mints for merit badges? (please don’t talk about Boy Scouts, that haven for god-fearing pedos who lack the patience to join the priesthood.)  Is there some way we could convince Kate Bornstein and Chaz Bono to spearhead a movement that untethers Scouting from gender entirely?

And for once, can we let cookies be cookies and kids be kids, regardless of flavor?

An excerpt from The Radical Housewife, chapter four, shared in honor of the 12th anniversary today of my civil marriage with a fella who is not, fortunately, named Mattias Schwarz:

….neither youth nor hormones last forever. Somewhere around our ten year college reunion, everyone’s attention shifted from desire to domesticity, so it seemed natural that marriage would dominate our discussion of gay rights in the 21^st century.

Unlike the college come-outs and come-ons, Kelly and Gretchen came out by moving in next door. No one could misunderstand two women, a toddler boy, and a hyperactive mixed-breed terrier moving a truck full of furniture into a tidy Minneapolis bungalow—they were a family. For once, identifying as gay had nothing at all to do with sex. Hell, they were new parents, so we knew from experience that they weren’t doin’ it! Instead, the story of their lives together was a lesson for Matt and me on a topic far less arousing: good old-fashioned civil rights.

The battle for same-sex marriage first made Minnesota headlines in July 2002, when our friendly, toque-wearing northern neighbors on the Ontario Superior Court ruled that Canada’s current marriage laws were discriminatory. Gay marriage was legal right in our backyard. “We could get to Thunder Bay in eight hours!” I exulted.

Kelly and Gretchen glanced at each other warily. “I don’t think so,” Gretchen said.

“But I want to buy you a melon baller,” I said. “Or a Jell-O mold in the shape of a giant strawberry.”

Kelly crinkled her nose with distaste. “Is that the kind of stuff you two got?” I told her that Matt and I opposed the idea of a wedding registry on principle. I went further and explained that so much of the modern American wedding constituted re-enacting traditions put in place when women were considered property to be handed from man to man in a ritual financial exchange. When Kelly regained consciousness, I returned to the subject of her Canadian marriage.

“Go ahead and buy us a melon baller if you want to,” Gretchen said. “Just don’t make us drive to Thunder Bay for it.” Her stern face told us that the discussion was over.

I cursed myself for weeks for being such a fucking idiot. The Happy Hetero just told two sensible adults that all of their problems would be fixed after ten minutes in an Ontario courtroom! I thought they’d be freed from discrimination once they signed a provincial paper, produced in a country not their own, that would mean less than nothing to the border guards they would encounter on their return trip, guards who would still log them as two single persons: one an American citizen, one a Permanent Resident. Nothing would change.

Gretchen, unlike Kelly, was not born in the United States. When we first got to know one another, she was studying madly for her citizenship exams, a series of quizzes on Constitutional trivia that I might have passed if I were still a 17-year-old student in AP American Government, but would definitely flunk today. “A test she wouldn’t have to take if I’d been a man,” Kelly grumbled.

Kelly and Gretchen didn’t intend to offer me more than friendship, but they inadvertently gave me something nearly as valuable: an education in discrimination that this naïve straight woman sorely needed. For years, I thought that being an ally was about getting vogueing invites, ending the use of “gay” as a catch-all slur, and dropping my heterosexual assumptions. Through Gretchen and Kelly, I learned of the pervasive inequality that exists in state and federal law, the very legal system that Gretchen understood better than the average straight guy who was too busy scratching his balls to vote.

Kelly and I were both good American girls, born in the land of the free, rewarded with Social Security Cards and easily obtained passports. Had I fallen for a lederhosen-wearing Bavarian named Matthias Schwarz, instead of a professor’s brat born within a mile of UC-Berkeley, his road to citizenship would be assured. Kelly, on the other hand, had no such opportunity. She could not legally sponsor the citizenship of the foreign-born person she loved. “If we’re not legally married, as Kelly put it, “our relationship doesn’t exist.”

FFI:

Equal Marriage NOW

Minnesotans United for all Families

As my blog title says, I’m a housewife. I’ve been married since June 6, 1999, and I’ve loved every minute. Hell, I would have wed Matt the moment we met, in November 1997. I just love, LOVE, love marriage! I’m also a stay-at-home mom to two kids. Despite my litany of complaints about them, I am madly in love with them, too. I really, really love kids!

News that would have given me great delight nine and half years ago is leaving me queasy and unsettled today: Bin Laden is dead, but so are 1500 US soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, and 4500 US soldiers in Iraq. I’ve been trying to uncover estimates on the numbers of civilians in those countries who have died from the War on Terror, but the process is giving me a headache that feels like I’ve had a spike drilled in the back of my skull. Each site I find has a different methodology, a different time frame, and a different number–though all are high. Let’s just round the civilian deaths up to “tens of thousands.” Do you feel queasy, too?

Today, instead of contemplating the death of the jerk who triggered this whole war in the first place, Jeff Wilfarht is hoping to testify in the Minnesota House Civil Affairs Committee to talk some sense into the legislators who think discrimination ought be be part of the constitution. Wilfarht shared with MinnPost’s Doug Grow the message he wants all legislators to hear, including the following:

The tireless activists of Join the Impact–Twin Cities are organizing a march and rally on Sunday May 22 in solidarity with groups across the country to observe Harvey Milk Day. Your truly, the Radical Housewife herself, will speak at the 2 pm rally on behalf of Minnesota NOW (officially) and parents like Jeff Wilfarht and me who love their children and want a better world for them (unofficially). PLEASE join us, either in Minneapolis or elsewhere, to speak up vocally and loudly for justice, and hopefully, peace.

SPIKE! Can you dig it? If you can come up with a better acronym, let me know. Tom Emmer must go down in flames come November.

There are so many reasons to detest Emmer that it’s hard to pick just one. Regressive tax policy? Slashing our state’s already pathetic social safety net? Support for racial profiling laws like Arizona’s? Ugh. All of these positions are typical of a person who refuses, as the Native American aphorism goes, to walk a mile in another person’s moccasins. If Emmer wants to experience the freedom from government that he claims to want, he ought to visit Mogadishu. While he’s there, he can ask how many of the remaining citizens have relatives who emigrated to Minnesota. I suspect he’ll find quite a few, as the Twin Cities area has the largest concentration of Somali expats in North America, and I don’t think they came because they preferred the weather.

Last week I wrote up a press release on behalf of Minnesota NOW on what was just the latest evidence of Emmer’s indifference to people who neither look, think, nor love like him:

October 13, 2010

All Minnesotans, regardless of party affiliation, are shocked by the recent spike in gay teen suicides across the nation. Here at home, 15-year-old Anoka resident Justin Aaberg took his own life in July, a desperate act his mother believes was motivated by unchecked bullying at her son’s school. Minnesota NOW, as a partner in the Safe Schools for All Coalition, hopes that renewed attention to this public health emergency will finally increase momentum for anti-bullying legislation that could do so much to protect vulnerable adolescents.

But that won’t happen if Tom Emmer is elected Governor, warns Shannon Drury, State President of Minnesota NOW.

When Rep. Emmer was asked by a Fox 9 debate moderator on October 9 how he’d respond to this crisis, Emmer said he does not support this kind of legislation. Rep. Emmer said, “we should all be able to have [our] point of view and respect each other but we don’t need more laws trying to get in between people.”

With this statement, Emmer implied that bullies are entitled to their so-called “point of view,” even as they harass and intimidate their peers quite literally to death. “Sexism and racism are also points of view,” says Drury. “Would Governor Emmer fail to enforce other Minnesota civil rights statutes as well?”

Minnesota NOW, the Safe Schools for All Coalition, and a bipartisan majority in the State Legislature supported the Safe Schools for All Bill that was vetoed by Governor Tim Pawlenty in May 2009. Today, State Senator Scott Dibble and Representative Jim Davnie (both DFL-Minneapolis) announced plans to re-introduce this bill in the upcoming special session. Minnesota NOW’s statewide membership applauds the Senators for moving this important bill forward.

Rep. Emmer claims “we don’t need more laws,” yet he supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage (Source: http://www.emmerforgovernor.com/issues/socialvalues/). “Apparently, Emmer does support more laws, after all—laws that reinforce his social agenda at others’ expense,” Drury says.

“Minnesotans are compassionate people. They want to do whatever they can to prevent another death like Justin Aaberg’s. They don’t want other parents to have to do what Tammy Aaberg did—bury her child.”

Acid attacks on women–abroad and at home.

http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1748469.shtml

Lame arguments for banning same-sex marriage.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/245649/case-marriage-editors

Juliana Hatfield writes better songs now than she did back in the day, but nobody knows it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BRZ556/ref=cm_rdp_product

I seem to have been caught up in a Twitter virus.

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-security-flaw-is-slamming-twitter-right-now-2010-9

Forever 21, a store for teens, sells maternity clothes.

http://www.forever21.com/category.asp?catalog_name=FOREVER21&category_name=maternity_main&Page=all&promotype=2&cookie_test=1

It’s a gonna be a busy day!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

What follows is a heated letter submitted to the StarTribune on the occasion of my idiot governor’s veto of a bill that would offer some legal protections to the surviving partner in a same-sex couple. As much as Sarah Palin was mocked for quitting her job, the alternative that we’re living here in MN is a hell of a lot worse. Pawlenty is campaigning for national office at my home state’s expense.

Dear Editor:

As a lifelong Minnesotan, I am outraged by the governor’s veto of a bill that would extend “death rights” to the surviving partner of a same-sex couple. It’s obvious that this governor cares more about making a statement to voters in New Hampshire and Florida than he does about the needs of grieving families here at home.

In defending the veto, Pawlenty claims that “marriage—as defined by a man and a woman—should remain elevated in our society at a special level,” yet I fail to see how allowing a gay man the power to execute his life partner’s final wishes threatens my own civil marriage. A lesbian partner’s wrongful death lawsuit wouldn’t rock my Minnesota marriage contract one bit, Pawlenty’s claims to the contrary. If he fears this law’s effect on his own marriage, he ought to spend less time on the road campaigning and more time at the governor’s mansion.

Whether or not heterosexual marriage is “special” has no bearing on the facts behind this bill. Minnesotans, as Pawlenty should know, have compassion for all families that are under stress. If Pawlenty spent more time in St. Paul, he might understand that. By vetoing this common sense legislation, he’s proved that he is either out of touch with Minnesotans, willfully ignorant of their wishes, or both.

Sincerely yours,

The Radical Housewife.