We Call It Pride for a Reason

We are joy. We are freedom.

But most of didn’t start here. Most of started as outsiders. Unrecognizable even to the people in our own families, our own communities. Including me.

I remember playing football with the boys, the shorts and my constantly scraped knees, often covered with gauze. Every weekday we could, we played. Me and one boy on a team, and all the other boys on the other team because no one could tackle me. I’d simply put one sneakered foot in front of the other, boys hanging all over me, and drag them all over the goal line. I remember deciding no one would bring me down, ever. And I remember my father laughing his head off when I said I was going to be a pro football player when I grew up.

 “You’ll have to get brass breast plates,” he said.

I remember looking up into my mother’s perfect conventional peace and cream face and thinking, “I’m beautiful. Why can’t you see me?” As she told me that I shouldn’t use big words, I shouldn’t seem too smart, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t…the rules for acceptance and success in her cis, het, white upper middle class world.

I remember standing up in class in third grade or fourth, talking about a book we were reading, disagreeing with all the other kids about what it was about, and their faces, particularly Brad’s, because he bullied me relentlessly, and suddenly realizing I’d given it away, this difference, this thing, this knowing where the fresh water pond was and exactly what it felt like. And I was terrified.

I remember running away from all of them, climbing up a tree and hang dropping onto the roof of our house, walking the ridgeline, the utter confidence in balance, in my fearlessness, my arms stretched out, surrounded by sky.

I remember being at Theresa’s birthday party at an ice cream shop and staring at all the girls, listening to them chatter and feeling a cloak of otherness coat my small body. I had zero interest in barrettes and dolls, in training bras and boyfriends. I looked like them (only a little more boyish), but I was utterly different and when we were all together that knowledge pierced through me, lonely, a weighted shadow that felt a little like giving up.

I remember walking the top of the fence that ran the length of the neighborhood, the birds chirping, the sun hot on my striped t-shirt, the trees shedding pollen, the green dust of it, and the feeling of liftoff—I was everything, that sun, that light, that bird, that tree.

I remember holding my brother in my arms, feeding him a Playtex bottle of formula, I remember standing in front of one parent or another, a younger child hiding behind me, I remember making up games, I remember my siblings climbing into my bed, sometimes waking up with one curled in my arms, the other in the crook of my knees, and the tenderness that need to protect, but also that loneliness, cutting through me as it did, again and again, because I was the one you came to for comfort, not ever the one who needed it.

I remember the sun setting on the Alhambra in Granada Spain and the chattering of other 20 something voices, the vino tinto and queso, the white bread, the cobblestones we’d walk over in the dark to return to our hostels. The sound of singing. The feeling of almost belonging—young artists, young unicorns, young dreamers, the ones who got away to find this place with each other.

I remember the first time a girl kissed me. I remember her lips, the Tucson sky, the mountains in the distance.

I remember wearing boxer shorts in public in my thirties, and the euphoric rebellious excitement of bending gender.

I remember sliding open the white louvered doors of my closet and looking at the college girl preppie ensemble, the rugby shirts and boy jeans, the black wool suit and gauze shirts and thinking, I’m plural, that’s what’s going on with me.

I remember moving to Canada to escape Trump and teaching an LGBTQ writing workshop and hearing the identity and pronoun fae for the first time and knowing who I was and how that helped me land on this planet with more of me than ever before.

I am fae. Wildly, fluidly, outrageously, fundamentally fae. Plural gender fluid trans fae.

Of course no one knows what that means.

Recently I was trying to explain it and I said that the obstacles of my early life were so steep that I needed to reach out with every ounce of my spirit and link to whatever I could: earth, ocean, rock, tree, bird, people of every gender and age, people I read about, people who had died, archetypal people. And I needed to become all those things in order to sustain being me and alive. And when it was over, when the obstacles had been passed or overcome as best I could, I was still everything. Every gender. Every form of energy. Every form of life. I couldn’t be separate and survive.

Being fae is a gender that is not male, but rarely female. It is also a constant, ongoing mystical experience. I’m fluid and always moving, I’m feeling my connection to all things. And the great irony is that it was the brutal severing of connection that forced me to use what must have been an inborn inclination toward the liminal, toward the mystery of things, to find other ways to connect. And we have to find a way to connect. We need, as Brene Brown says, love and belonging. Out of a terrible separateness, out of that loneliness that cuts through, out of that othering, out of being born into a different way of occupying the world.

I think gender is spirit. To deny it is to deny who you are on a soul level.

I have a queer SOUL. Which means I’m fae and proud. Which means I’m non-binary and proud. Not trans masc, but way off the polarity of male and female. Sometimes I’m so much more the feminine principle than the societal construct of traditional femininity. Sometimes I’m utterly boi…yes, b.o.i. Not male, but a queered sense of boyishness. However I look—and unless you’ve learned to see off the binary, I probably look like a cis passing woman to you—I am queer. I am a gender fluid trans fae. I regularly feel liftoff. Sometimes, I still feel that loneliness.

Of course, as you can tell from my anecdotes, I have always had many of the cliched queer markers. Super athletic. Wanting to prove I could do anything a guy could do. A desire to speak out, lead, assert…emotionally more comfortable with anger than with vulnerability. Discomfort and dysphoria around groups of white cis women who think I’m like them. An ease with men even though I’m a ballistic intersectional feminist. But I also had this lyrical creativity, and a love of beauty and a sense of grace. Never only one thing. I am plural. I am never just one thing.

Being off the binary…you know, I joke, and I’ve joked publicly here, that I feel sorry for straight people. But I really meant I feel sorry for cis people. And considering cis privilege and the attack on those of us who identify as trans—yes, non-binary falls under the trans umbrella, as complicated as that is—considering dysphoria and othering, considering misgendering and the constant need to educate, considering being called ma’am in the freaking grocery store—you’d think I would wish that I could be more normal. That I could fit in. Be cis.

But for me, having a queer identity and gender is a saving grace. I hated feeling so lonely and other, I hated the disconnection, and I certainly hated being bullied and oppressed and gay bashed, but I came, from my teen years on, to love the non-conformity. I was never capable of acting like a girl–which in my family and social milieu meant deferring to men, backing down, not expressing strong opinions, not showing how smart you are, trying for approval, wanting to be sexually admired or told you were pretty, learning to play hard to get, learning to be demure, take a back seat, then host a party, charm, soothe (oh my God this list makes me want to vomit)—and being queer meant I couldn’t do those things. Not chose not to. In many cases, really COULDN’T. I couldn’t even make myself learn most of them. I was really bad at being a traditional girl. And because I couldn’t accept the training, couldn’t learn it, I stopped trying. And that was freedom. I could say, okay, you want me to be all these things? Forget it. I am going to make a celebration of the fact that I can’t. That I’m not. Because being me is awesome.

I love being queer and fluid and fae and trans and plural. I love that I don’t live a conventional life. I love all the experiments, the adventure, the creativity. I love the trans euphoria—when you begin to express who you are, and your body and the way you dress is changing and you fall giddy in love with yourself. That happened to me last summer. And it just feels SO GOOD.

When I try to talk about this to cis people, I know that they don’t really get it. But I think not getting it is because binary and patriarchal conditioning are  so powerful. And privilege is a golden manacle that makes questioning difficult if you don’t have to do it. The only way to understand being non-binary is to find the ways that you yourself are not, and then to let that define you. Being an ally is about connecting from the inside out, and starting to question whether two genders have ever existed, and whether your own gender fits. And whether you want it to. And whether the benefits of privilege are worth what you have to give up to get them.

Whatever you are, whoever you are, we in the queer community are always calling you. To make difference what we celebrate. To make pride what connects us. To make our diversity the central fact of our unity.

They call it pride for a reason.

I am wildly, outrageously, so proudly fae. So proudly a gender fluid trans fae plural social justice artist who sings. Let us remember. Pride is about singing the very one we are out into the universe so our songs can free not only ourselves, but each other.

Living with Your Heart Wide Open

In 2011, with my usual extreme caution, I signed up for 10-day silent meditation retreat in Central Massachusetts. I learned at this meditation retreat that I am completely insane. I knew that, but maybe not as thoroughly.

Anyhow, I learned to sit with all the emotions that came up, continuing to focus on my anchor, and not run out of the room. My meditation teacher drew my attention to the fact that at some point in every 45 minute sit I did want to run out of the room in sheer panic.

If a certain member of my family was alive, I’m sure she would say to me, as she did about every therapy I tried, “And you like that?”

I kind of do. The point of sitting with discomfort is to crack the armor that builds up around our hearts. I learned from the late Donald C Foley that if you live with your heart wide open and you let the people you love know that you love them with a childlike rare openness and vulnerability, when it’s time to go out, intensive care will be filled with the 50 people who all think they are your best friend.

And so I read books like Outrageous Openness and Living with Your Heart Wide Open. The titles should be something about how courage is not about running into fire but about sitting with your own human experience and letting it crack you open to more and more love and more and more light every day of your life no matter how much pain and panic that costs.

I was bullied as a kid, so I long to be badass, and I have cultivated badass, like I have cultivated cool. And while I still enjoy those things, I am more and more aware that strength is about being vulnerable enough to connect, because connection is what saves us from being assholes.

Today I went to the beach and I felt connected to everything: ocean, sand, sky, people, my own body. I felt surrounded by love and not lonely and I realized I’ve always gone to the beach looking for exactly that, but today was the day when I could finally let it in fully.

This is the point in the post where I now make a joke because I have made myself so entirely uncomfortable with all this mushy crap. Apparently, living with your heart wide open means embarrassing yourself over and over again.

I’ll probably get used to it. Or not.

A Non-Binary Cinderella from a Gender Fluid Fae!

I didn’t get to run a 2nd THEY CONVERSATION workshop with the straight allies in the cast of Assigned Female at Birth (web series on YouTube). So I wanted to do an example of an exercise created by the brilliant Amelia Lumpkin so that those of you wishing to improve your use of pronouns can try. Amelia’s idea is to write a fairy tale using only the pronouns they/them/theirs for all characters. I’m extrapolating a little bit, because I used to teach a workshop entitled “Writing Our Myths” in which participants wrote their life stories through the lens of myths/fairy tales in order to understand the deeper meaning of their life journeys. I have a fondness for Cinderella. My stepmother was a very nice closeted nun, so it’s my actual mother that makes this my story.

An ENBY Cinderella Tale by a Gender Fluid Fae: Can it get any better?

Cinderella rolled over and opened their eyes. Which is to say, they opened their eyes a crack to see what damage those damn Disney mice had done this time. They immediately closed their eyes again. The mice had eaten the T-shirt their step-siblings had given them in some complete misunderstanding of that TERF JK Rowling and house elves. It was hanging by one thin green thread from a rung of the old wooden chair in the corner.

“Fucking Dobby got free when you gave him clothes you idiots!” Cinderella screamed as they had every day for the last week.

Their step siblings had given them the T-shirt last Sunday. It was now Friday.

They swung one wiry leg out of bed followed by the other. Apparently, they’d be wearing boxer shorts all day, since they could steal them from an endless supply in their dead parent’s trunk. Other clothes? Their stepparent would start screaming, “We don’t have money for luxuries!”

Cinderella crept down the stairs from the attic, placing one thin bare foot carefully on the least creaky spots. Maybe they’d be able to steal some decent food if it was early enough and no one was awake.

But no. Their step siblings were in the hallway, screaming about some royal asshole or another.

“Fucking entitled stand ups with penises,” Cinderella muttered.

The siblings stopped. Turned their made up faces toward Cinderella–Cinderella swore they slept in the stuff–and demanded that Cinderella design them stand out evening wear so they could marry royalty.

“Oh, my fucking God,” Cinderella swore.

They stomped down to the kitchen, opened the double door refrigerator, and pulled out every gluten free carb, nut butter and fruit they could find. On designer days, the siblings would defend their right to eat.

Outside some town crier was singing about glass slippers. Apparently, they’d come off the most beautiful person in the land the night before, ruining the usual fairy tale’s order (probably because some nonconformist is writing the thing).

“Glass slippers? You could stab your foot to fucking death in those,” Cinderella yelled. “I wouldn’t put one on my foot if you paid me a million dollars!” They thought for a moment. “Two million, though, I would consider.”

“Who sweareth so beautifully in yonder window,” the royal asshole in question said, riding up in a Lamborghini, horses being in short supply.

“Go fuck yourself,” Cinderella said, shutting the door in their face.

“You are my soulmate,” the royal asshole cried in desperation. “Stella……”

Cinderella opened the door again. “Prove it,” they said.

The royal asshole thought and thought. “You can have the car,” they said finally. “And the rip off imitation glass slippers with diamonds in the trunk. And the case of THC gummies which are legal in Massachusetts.”

“Fucking done,” Cinderella said. “Get out of the car.”

Which said royal asshole did.

This is how an ENBY gets a life without making any promises at all.

With much love to anyone who read this far. And to the most beautiful faery godparent of them all–I love you Billy!

PS–Though I am fae, I will not be your faery godparent unless you ask my consent and I say yes.

pps-I’ll probably say no. Parent-child is not a reciprocal relationship in the way that friends are and I don’t want the responsibility, given that I now have a new Lamborghini and a lot of shit to sell.

ppps-Which will not stop me from doing kind things for you. Swearing the entire time.

Happy Pride 2022 from Non-Binary Land

We have developed, in part through social media, this idea that misgendering is so common we just ask people, when corrected, to apologize, self-correct and move on. This is how we learn, this is how we make room, this is how we make things okay.

I AM SO OVER IT!

I had a colleague stay at my house last fall and after 3 days of me correcting her every time she misgendered me or anyone else in conversation, which was a lot, and for which she was entirely grateful, she got better.

Let me tell you how I felt after those 3 days: exhausted. Disheartened. Furious. A little despairing. Hurt. A tired lonely 3000 year old hurt, which is how old I feel way too much of the time.

This is someone I REALLY like. But I felt the way I feel when I’m doing someone’s job for them. Also, being misgendered is painful. Do people really not know that it hurts? That it’s an expression of transphobia and a statement of seeing only the binary and not the person in front of you? That every misgender is an othering?

The minister at my church picked up very quickly that though I use fae and they as pronouns, fae is the one I really like. She uses only fae to refer to me. When we’re in groups and someone misgenders me, she corrects them so I don’t have to. Can we clone her, please? She is cis/het/white and I still want her cloned.

Here is the absolute truth: people need to do their own work. We gender non-conforming people can’t lift you all up…you have to climb up. You have to write using non-binary pronouns, read books with non-binary pronouns, practice, practice, practice. If you want to be allies. If you want to be supporters. If you want to show that you love us.

Because as it is now, too many of us are enablers, and too many cis het peeps are addicts to the binary. And if I lean into the addiction model, which as a member of a highly alcoholic Irish Catholic family I am certainly educated enough to do, I will say that addiction kills love. Slowly or quickly. The whole detach with love thing? I think it’s more like detach with pity and understanding and then go find someone who can actually see you.

Just saying.

Much metta for us all. But especially for my non-binary and trans and gender non-conforming sibs everywhere. May we be free from suffering. May we find peace.

BTW, Happy Friggin Pride! I love being a non-binary pansexual gender fluid fae tomboy and there is no such thing as too different for me! I love you all SO SO SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO MUCH!

The Stick and the Poke

There was a day this past fall when I was misgendered all day and it was a lot like being poked with a stick for 8 hours.

And then I started noticing how much more attention is given to how hard cisgendered people feel it is to change their view of pronouns, and how badly they feel about it, as if their discomfort with the changing understanding of gender is more important than the transphobia we, as gender non-conforming people, experience. But, oh, wait. In heteronormativity they’ve been explicitly taught privilege–that what they feel IS more important. So screwing up language in this world is harder than being poked with a stick, made invisible, and feeling despair about ever being seen. Plus the constant binary forms, the attacks in government, being told non-binary doesn’t exist, violence, discrimination in the workplace. NOT SO MUCH.

I am considering doing pronoun clinics to help well-meaning cis people out of their “I feel so bad” and into “let me show you I see you.” Because I believe misgendering isn’t just about being accustomed to the binary and the difficulty of learning new language. I make mistakes with gender occasionally–but never with people who I see as off the binary and whose names are also off the binary. I have to shift my perception of gender more when someone is closer to what we’ve been taught is binary. And as someone who is fluid and cis passing, I can really tell when people see me as female. It’s in how they relate–like I’m their sister, for example.

I’m not anyone’s sister. I can extrapolate this further…being treated as a sister neuters my gender preferences as well. I spent decades never being attracted to straight women but let’s get real, that was a major actor of suppression to make everyone feel I was safe, and to make me feel safe from rejection. While women aren’t at the top of my preference ladder, they’re not all that far off, and the idea that I don’t feel attractions is just so deadening and false. In other words, I’m tired of all the pretending. I am decent and kind and I work hard to respect other people’s boundaries, but I am also wildly nonconformist and middle aged, not sexually dead. Let’s all just deal with that. In AFAB in Season 4 I started working with the archetype of the wolf and reclaiming it, because, I discovered in the writing, I’m not really all that tame and every time I pretend I am I die a little. Here’s to being a wild, untamed fae wolf with a wild, kind open heart. My goal, anyhow. Yours? Also from Season 4 of AFAB script, “It’s time to wake up.”

Feminism and the Binary

I am a gender-fluid, non-binary feminist. I’m neither trans-masc (which I find incredibly sexy) or masculine-identified (which I find decidedly not sexy). I’m one of those non-binary people that don’t gender conform. I live outside traditional feminine and masculine. I’m not recognizable, though some would call me cis-passing–if they’re not really paying attention or too conditioned to just see the binary. I’m a lifelong passionate feminist who has always believed that women are equal and that all people deserve safety, equal rights, equal pay and inclusion on every level.

That’s my identity; those are my biases.

I know that white feminism lives on the binary and has an inherent philosophy of privilege (which is why I’m not interested in that feminism). Intersectional feminism is tiptoeing toward inclusion, but so far without facing the fundamental shifts in perception and identity non-binary genders force to the surface. I know this because I am paying attention; I see that acceptance is about more than getting pronouns right. I also know because of how uncomfortable I feel in women-only spaces, how uncomfortable I’ve always felt. It’s very hard to feel a part of a group when everyone is looking at you like you’re just like them; and you know you’re not. It’s hard when there are silences when you express your differences, or the other people (feminist women) change the subject or interrupt. Yes, they definitely let me in the door, but the sense of otherness was painful. I didn’t understand it. I don’t think they understood, either. But when I’d try to express anything about different about my experience of gender, women said, “Straight women are like that, too.” “I’ve felt like that.” “That’s not that different.” It’s part of how women are socialized, particularly white women–welcome and create belonging through sameness. Exclude differences or deny their existence. “You’re gay (in my case pan), but otherwise we’re the same.”

NOT.

Women, and women on the left, have good hearts. They want to be inclusive. So feminist women-only spaces began to welcome trans women, because trans women are women. Trans women are part of the binary. Some spaces are even welcoming non-binary people now, but what they really seem to mean is anyone assigned female at birth who identifies as non-binary. AMAB people are still seen as men. Other spaces don’t want to deal with the contradictions and conflicts so they leave non-binary outside.

Welcome is great. But let’s get real, even for the best-intentioned, welcome is only a beginning. Non-binary identities beg the question of who is protected, who is included, and what does feminism mean in a world in which feminine identities are not one of two possibilities but maybe one of twenty, or two-hundred?

Yes, we’re all equal; everyone on the left agrees. But how we practice equality in our society? How do we understand gender and socialization? The fundamental beginning of the women’s rights movement was the lack of rights–to vote, to own property, to make equal pay, to have control over choices affecting one’s own body. Changing the laws toward more equality is the easiest understood part of our battle, though it is still being fought on very basic levels for all minorities.

However, as feminism evolved, some feminist pundits argued that women were intrinsically less warlike, more nurturing, better at building communities. Others that women could do whatever men could do. The beliefs diverged; but to be clear, the binary ruled all sets of beliefs. It still mostly does. Even in the queer community, there are lesbian-only spaces that define themselves as if the new queer understanding of gender isn’t happening. Younger queer people are less likely to do the lesbian (women)/gay (men) dyad, but that binary still very much exists.

To truly include an understanding beyond the binary, all feminism must fundamentally change. Women need to move from fighting for anyone with a female identity to fighting for anyone oppressed in any way. Me and mine needs to include more and more identities. And if this happens, who is left as the oppressor? Men? Cis men? Straight men? Straight white men? Does a non-binary understanding make feminism meaningless? How do women have a voice for the specific oppression they face, particularly around rape, abortion and childcare?

I think we have to turn to systemic understanding.

The understanding of systemic racism has changed how we view racism. Racism is built into every layer of society, government, laws, relationship. We are all part of a racist system.

In other words, we are all part of the patriarchy. We are all racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, sexist, etc. The question is not “Are you?” but “How are you?” and “How much have you grown?”

Non-binary inclusion tears down so many societal constructs in a patriarchy (a hierarchy based on a binary understanding) that chaos and confusion easily ensue. When belonging is dependent on having the same binary identity (woman in feminism) and all the societal understanding of the term, then enter someone with an identity that is “other” but not male, and discomfort and reactivity dramatically increase. This shows up sometimes in a refusal to use correct pronouns, but it permeates all interactions.

The only thing that makes sense is to attack the patriarchy as a system and to simultaneously dismantle our understanding of ourselves and our government, society and systems in general. Belonging can’t be based on sameness; it must be based on full freedom to express any identity. Belonging as we know it begs for a common enemy. If it must, let the system and its internalization be that enemy.

Instead of chaos and confusion, simplicity. Everyone.

I have long believed that men are negatively affected by the patriarchy in their emotional lives and their roles. I don’t equate that with the struggle for survival and safety in a rape culture and racist, homophobic, ableist system with its attacks on minority bodies. White men aren’t murdered for being white. They aren’t raped for being men. They aren’t refused jobs and housing for who they love or denied the right to work because their bodies or minds aren’t typical in ability. They just can’t experience joy and vulnerability and connection as long as they buy into their own privilege.

I have also long believed that the patriarchy will never fall until the financially and powerfully privileged realize the cost of their privilege to their humanity.

My feminism is inclusive. It includes everyone.

Perhaps that’s what non-binary identities and understanding create. Not one oppressed and one oppressor, but a guide to understanding all oppression and all suffering.

If we are to be included, it can’t just be about getting our pronouns right. It has to be about healing the world.

Not changing. Healing.

I wish I could express how hard it is for me to change that one word. I tend toward the revolutionary. But what being non-binary has taught me is that the answer is spiritual. Until we come from compassion, our revolution is just another polemic.

Feminism, I believe, could be this compassion. Feminists could let go of their conditioning long enough to ask the right questions about gender and how the binary holds up the patriarchy they fight.

At least, I hope so. I hope that feminism means equality for everyone.

Otherwise, it’s just another system of privilege.

AARON SORKIN’S PRETEND FEMINISM

Last year when I wrote about the subtle misogyny in Queen’s Gambit, I drew attention to the fact that it was written and directed by a man. I did this not only because it made the project what it was, but because misogyny in Hollywood is alive and well. Female protagonists are a trend, and Hollywood follows trends to make profits, but the same white male screenwriters are often still writing female protagonists and BIPOC. This season, we have West Side Story, with Tony Kushner and Stephen Spielberg at the helm (I haven’t seen it, but hate that two white guys are leading this story) and we have Being the Ricardos with Aaron Sorkin’s always heavy intellectual hand.

I like to be fair, so there’s a can’t miss on how good a writer Aaron Sorkin is. His facility with language is lyrical. He also really knows how to lean into the liberal sweet spot; these two talents have made his career. He’s known for being very demanding about his words being said perfectly; his language and writing are always the star of anything he makes.

This just isn’t enough any more, and probably never should have been.Because you also can’t miss that he understands exactly zero about intimacy and women. And though he almost always includes an alcoholic character in his work, in Being the Ricardos he doesn’t understand the alcoholic marriage, either. He makes a point of showing both sides to the Ricardo marriage. He makes Lucille Ball proud of Desi Arnaz’s control of the business decisions (I had always understood Desi Arnaz to be a control freak undermining his wife’s career). Sorkin leans so hard on how great their partnership was that you almost want to say, hey, infidelity, what’s the big deal, Lucille? Let the guy have his fun. Culturally, he’s been taught he’s entitled, so build his ego, bow to his decisions because he’s great in every other way. He just lies, cheats, never spends time with you and feels emasculated by your genius. (I’m not even sold on monogamy, but I still think the relational perspective of this film is bullshit.)

Lucille Ball was a comic genius. The absolute best scenes are when she fixes the comedy and you get to see it. That’s bio information and it’s great. However, Sorkin’s pretend feminism shows up in the portrait of Lucille as brilliant (but controlling) and willing to do anything to hold onto her marriage (build Desi’s ego, make sure Desi is okay with her leadership) until she gets the truth about his affairs and then abruptly ends it. This is mixed with a superficial idea of how women support each other–Lucy’s treatment of other women is less than loyal, though she expects loyalty. She needs it explained to her how other women experience sexism. Her ambition and her caring about what’s funny are given explicit preference (implying her genius was value-free.) Lucille gets support and advice about Desi from a man, not the women. (And he represents Desi’s point-of-view, so a white guy gives the Latinx perspective.)

However much this may be taken from the biography, the impression it creates it so muddied. Sorkin doesn’t know how women talk to each other or how they betray each other, so he can’t make us care about women’s friendships or ache for their failings. I ended up feeling that Lucille Ball had no real friends.

Sorkin also doesn’t seem to know how married couples with alcoholism and infidelity fight with each other. Lucy and Desi say the same things over and over again with no progression in stakes or understanding for the audience. This is a marriage that is ENDING. Between two people that scream, yell and have passionate sex. Sorkin tells us this–but do we see a screaming fight? More and more devolving into the darker side of intimacy and addiction? No. Lucille Ball just gets more and more needy. (Puke.)

Sorkin’s lack of emotional intelligence and depth gets masked by intellectual dialogue about issues (the McCarthy hearings in particular). While this won our hearts in the very idealized West Wing, I am SO OVER IT.

Perhaps the worst line in the movie is, “A man dies a little inside when someone calls him old.” This line is spoken by William Frawley (J.K. Simmons) comparing his lot in life with that of Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda). Fake feminism in this case is a very kind way to express Sorkin’s world view. Leaning again into intellectual point/counterpoint, Sorkin is speaking through the character to say, hey, men don’t have it so great either. His SOUL dies a little when someone says he’s old. HIS SOUL.

Since male actors get an extra 20 years on their career over most female actors, comparing the ageism men face with sexism is privilege at its finest. Men’s feelings get hurt and that’s equal to women NOT BEING ABLE TO WORK. (The pay gap never gets covered in this movie but I could still add AND GETTING PAID LESS WHEN THEY DO.)

Beyond the superficiality of Sorkin’s world view and easy liberalism is the tone of the movie itself. It’s a drama about a comedy; that’s just super hard to pull off and ends up being weird. I kept expecting Nicole Kidman to be funny–she’s an excellent actor both dramatically and comedically–and mostly she wasn’t. It’s like the movie didn’t know what it wanted to be or even what its subject was. How the McCarthy hearings tore Hollywood apart? The dramatic marriage of the Ricardos that never explored the emotional drama? (Did Desi want Lucille to quit acting? Was he acting out? How did he feel that she’d fought for him to have an opportunity that racism prevented?) The making of the Lucille Ball show? Lucy’s career? All of these are covered superficially, but what I ended up with was a few facts about the Ricardos (mostly that I knew already, but painted with Sorkin’s very idealized brush), a reminder that Desi Arnaz faced racism (why does the movie open with Lucille Ball correcting his English and being racist and then make her the ultimate ally?) and some of info on how the show was made. Also, apparently, that women had it tough, but really not that tough and men had it tough, too, and we should really always see both sides.

Aaron, life is hard. Your comparisons are bullshit. Even your liberal sweet spot ideals are passe now. Grow a little, for Christsakes.

This isn’t a movie I’d recommend. The actors are great, but the material is so flawed it was really kind of blah, even without the sexism. And Sorkin painting the Ricardos as true partners with a slight problem of infidelity is so offensive.

The missed opportunity is in the innovation of interspersing the bio-pic scenes with the realization of the Ball’s comic genius. If it had truly been her movie, exploring her genius, it could have been incredible. I would also have loved to see the movie focus on the friendships between Lucille Ball and the other women–not idealized, but with an understanding of the time and how women supported (oh, the way straight white women support each other and then back-bite) each other and didn’t. Think of the work of Caryl Churchill or Fay Weldon with their biting criticism of women who become like men in their ambition.

I used to like Sorkin’s work because I was so hungry for writing about values and morality. In a country and culture that so often leans toward materialism and privilege, that has taught the world our pop culture and our fast food and fast life, I wanted a reminder of the fight for freedom and justice, so I forgave the terrible portrayals of women and relationships, the superficial inclusion of LGBTQ peeps and BIPOC. I was a white liberal whose radical leanings hadn’t yet exploded…but now the world has moved past Sorkin’s world view as I have, and it’s always good to remember that a superficial liberalism undermines any real change by asking nothing beyond a soft feel good (aren’t we caring because we disagree with injustice). Being the Ricardos is another example of this…and that when the successful white men who dominate in Hollywood write women and POC, they do it badly and superficially.

The Lyralen Kaye Rules of Order Part 2: What is an Ally?

I recently wrote a book about how we come together and how we fracture. In it, I probe the definition of what it means to be an ally. Then I got in an argument with someone on Facebook, as usual, in which the issue came up.

Here’s the thing: I think many of my straight acquaintances would be surprised by my ally criterion, mostly because they don’t fit it. In fact, there came a point in my life at which I had to question whether having friends who had no clue that I might even have these expectations was an example of self-hatred and internalized homophobia. Because really, we need to pick friends who are on our side.

In the center of this stood my friend M, straight, with LGBTQ siblings, who worked for Maine Won’t Discriminate, who donated, who listened, who wanted to know my experience rather than be validated for hers, who was best woman at both my weddings, who supported, showered me with love and kindness, and generally fought like hell for equality. She kind of ruined me for liberals who think just having the right attitude and political beliefs is enough.

So in the Lyralen Kaye Rules of Order, here are the criterion for allyship:

1. Takes political action on the part of the LGBTQ community. In other words, does at least two of the following: marches, donates, makes calls, votes in special elections or on ballot measures, spreads the word, checks the LGBTQ record of candidates and makes decisions based on that record.
2. Understands that when someone LGBTQ starts talking about their experience or views on LGBTQ issues, they should listen, rather than argue or impose their own views as correct. In other words, allies know not to straight-splain.
3. Stands up for LGBTQ people in social or public situations.
4. Has been or is personally close to a member of the LGBTQ community or lives connection to a diverse community.
5. Doesn’t allow homophobic comments to pass in conversation without calling it out.
6. Knows what a homophobic comment is.
7. Has read LGBTQ literature, seen media or read queer theory beyond The Kids Are Alright, which most straight people don’t recognize as a homophobic movie.
8. Knows the difference between queer literature and literature and media that have been created by straight people about queer people.
9. Understands why LGBTQ people should have the opportunity to play LGBTQ characters in theater and film.
10. Understands that queer identity and queer desire are different from the mainstream.
11. Understands and acknowledges that everyone in this culture has internalized homophobic images, ideas and attitudes and that becoming fully accepting is a lifetime process.
12. Doesn’t believe that LGBTQ issues don’t affect them, just because they’re straight.
13. And, ideally, questions ideas and attitudes around gender and genderized behavior. That’s pie in the sky, but so is the whole list, even in liberal Massachusetts.

 

Mindfulness…the Answer to Everything?

Mindfulness really just means paying attention.

Being here, and noticing that you’re here.

Noticing that you have a body, and sensations/emotions that cry for expression and kindness.

Here’s the thing about being an actor–we challenge ourselves to be mindful under difficult circumstances–when we are being judged (auditions), when we are being private in public, when we are relating to other creative artists, when we are being directed. It’s mindfulness heavy lifting.

And there’s no other game in town.

We have to feel our bodies, and lean into what’s uncomfortable, or we suck. The things human beings do to feel safe–the compulsion to control, or to check out, or to numb–we can’t do them or we SUCK.

Thing is, what’s uncomfortable shifts, and there’s something new in the body, something new to express, if you just pay attention, breathe and lean in.

And let this be said–the more we judge our bodies as not good enough, the more we push and shove at ourselves, the harder it is to be mindful. Of course we do these things–the industry is insanely corporate and based on greed and this creeps in. So what to do? Kindness IS mindful. Pay attention that the thoughts are happening, bring a little kindness or softness to the place you hold it in your body, breathe, and then refocus on the present.

Being an actor is about being mindful. How great is that?

The Human Family…Refusing to Other

Dear Human Beings who are like me–screwed up, good, decent, screwed up, fun, sad, angry, encultured, conditioned, screwed up, and so well-intentioned–

I know you don’t really want to other anyone. You want to be safe, to have a voice, to feel at home in your body and on this earth, as I do. You want to feel you’re serving something worthy, that you’re capable of more and more love, that you can find and occupy peace. Maybe you fall down on the job, as I do. Maybe you can’t always figure it out…maybe you think you’re unbelievably smart and why can’t everyone else figure it out (yes, I really do think that, regularly).

I’m writing this to tell you that I am committed to giving you and me, every part of me, and of you, the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. I will not classify you, I will not OTHER you, I will not put you into a category and refuse to acknowledge that you are like me. I have internalized the things I fight against–homophobia, sexism, ageism and racism. I am trying to grow toward enlightenment. Some days it’s effortless, some days it’s a slog fest. Please remind me, gently, if I’m off the path. Please know I assume you fall off it, too, and feel just as badly about it as I do. (Do you also have insomnia? If so, FB chat me at 5am.)

And yes, okay, this post is in reaction to the posts that start “Dear Democrats,” “Dear Republicans,” “Dear White People.” I have, in the past, written, “Dear Straight People,” and straight people have heard me anyhow, because they felt the pain of those words, the exile and the oppression. I can’t 100% be sure I won’t get super pissed off and want to say those words again. (Actually, I can pretty much guarantee I WILL get 100% pissed off and want to say them.) ANYHOW, I hear the pain behind the words, but this is my gentle reminder…those words are othering words. And knowing the pain of being an other so well, I can’t believe we heal ourselves or each other by saying them.

Dear Members of My Human Family. I am trying to see you, I am trying to make “Namaste,” something more than a phrase I say at the end of yoga. I am committed to the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. I am committed to gentle reminders rather than accusations. And because I am screwed up, I will fall off this path (seriously, I probably fell off it while writing this…ask my partner. No, on second thought don’t ask her. Don’t even tell her I said all this. She’ll hold me to it.)

Okay, okay. I will also keep trying to get back on the path. With my whole heart, I’ll try.

Please join me. (Hell, I’m such a hothead, you’ll probably be better at it than I am.)

Much Metta,
Lyralen