How I've been (honestly)

Ok, I haven't updated this thing in a while but it's time to be real.

I hate my life in this fucking city. It's a desert for a post-op on T Transguy who loves Femme Women. All the femmes that I've met in LA or online at okcupid, or craigslist (yes, I've posted plenty of ads) either want to date each other or don't want to be with a tranny and they say so. There's very little trans-awareness in general in queer female spaces and being born female and queer means liking either hipstery genderqueers or femmes (there are very few butches around this city :( )

All the passion I had for Women's and Gender studies has pretty much died out, which is bad because I'm starting to TA come Monday morning. I don't feel like there's a space for me here and that they admitted me only because I was born female. There's been little to no institutional support for sexuality studies or transgender studies. I feel like a robot here going to work out of habit because it pays the bills which is horrible because of the privilege I have to be in this institution being paid to study. The work isn't exciting because most of it is stuff that doesn't address queerness in a complicated way and mixed race theory is pretty much nonexistant.

I've felt erased in queer spaces, and spaces of color and am really tired of people telling me I should date guys if I ever want to get laid. I'm tired of feeling like half a person admitted into a circle of people of color just because I'm half asian which becomes a space where it's ok to verbally beat up on white people not on whiteness. I am a person of color, but I am also half white. This is not a contradiction. I'm tired of people who wave the radical politics flag but don't see the people they're supposedly fighting for or their privilege in being able to get arrested without fear of being sexually harassed or abused.

Case in point: after SB 1070 was passed last year a bunch of people got arrested for peaceful protest and I was asked to be a part of that group. I would have volunteered but unfortunately I was just trying to survive getting my period back and the worst cramps of my life. If I had gotten arrested and placed with the guys in jail with a period who knows what would have happened. There is a large degree of national and cissexual priviledge in being able to go to the slammer knowing you won't have to worry about a cellmate potentially raping and impregnating you, or being deported because you have a green card. All the people who were released put celebratory pictures on facebook. Instead of focusing on the point of the protest (standing against SB 1070), everyone's status updates were about freeing the protesters. What happens to the power of peaceful protest when it just becomes a self congratulatory excersize? I've become so disillusioned here.

I'm also sick of everyone in queer of color spaces telling me to decolonize my mind and that my past relationships failed because they were with white women. Maybe I'm breaking a confidence here but I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for interracial relationships. Is this the fucking 1950's? And hello dating a 100% woman of color would still be being in an interracial relationship for me...the same degree that being with a white woman would. My past relationships broke up for reasons other then that we both weren't people of color.

I miss the east coast and the East Bay because a) there were femmes who would date transguys and butches b) there wasn't this crazy policing around interracial dating c) there was just a lot more trans-awarness in the academy and in general...I wasn't the only transguy on T with top surgery. Ok rant over. But I seriously am thinking of quitting my program and getting the hell out of here.