Your Mission

Hello.
I am sitting in my favorite coffeeshop in LiberalCity, RedState. TP is reading "Genderqueer" sitting next to me, and reading me tidbits occasionally, and I also have a HUGE cafe au lait next to me. This femme hasn't been happier for some time.

If you haven't been following the anti-transwoman stuff happening *all over the place* (but start with brownfemipower). Check it out. Bonus points to reading Winter's post, which deserves a hearty AMEN at the end of it. On Tuesday, there is a discussion on TransFeminism at the local feminist center for thought, and this has all given me plenty to think (and vent) about.

In April I am going to be the "feature" at the QueerOpenMic. This is really exciting, and a little bit terrifying. First I have to have enough stuff to read to fill 15 minutes. Really this won't be that hard, I have pages and pages of things. Honestly, I haven't even really processed what featuring will feel like. But before I even get around to writing more things or editing things I've written I'm faced with THE HARDEST WRITING ASSIGNMENT EVER. So I'm passing the buck.

Here is your mission:
Write my bio. Post it to the comments or email it to me: corinneblogger at gmail dot com

I hate writing this kind of thing, and I know that everyone hates writing this kind of thing. Generally though I wouldn't mind writing other people's bios. So write mine. My mother thinks it should be written with some magical realism. Since few of you actually know me. I'm very curious to see what you come up with.

Greetings from the Outpost

Hello All,

I'm holed up in IdyllicAncestralHome, with my extended family. Today is our "Christmas Eve" because Sister, MD has to work in the hospital on Monday, and Sister Esq. and her partner are leaving to celebrate with her partner's family. Our time together is a little shorter this year as a result, but we are making up for it by making those traditional Christmas cocktails.... Ginger Margaritas and Dark n' Stormies.

Later we will read children's books and go to bed and try hard to fall asleep so that Santa can come. In truth, after the food and booze, we may have no trouble at all falling asleep, and I'm so full of anxiety about the quality and quantity of the presents I'm giving that part of me just wants the whole thing to be over.

I love my family and Christmas, but it does seem like every year it gets just a little bit more stressful. As we all grow up and pull away in our own ways it gets harder to pull it all back together without tension over the holidays. I think that by the time Wednesday rolls around I will be more than happy to leave on a jetplane for the RedState and a much anticipated visit with TP.

Things I will blog about before vacation is over:
1. Exciting QueerOpenMic news.
2. The potential of outing my true identity here
3. Work, maybe.
4. Most likely some more holiday angst.
5. The hardest writing assignment ever... that y'all are going to do for me.

Also, I owe some of you personal emails that I *swear* will be forthcoming. Until then, I hope that each of you are doing whatever makes you happy this weekend. But, really, I hope that you are doing that everyday.

I'm being called into cocktail hour. Wish me luck.

Oh, also. I will be attending at least one Catholic mass between now and Wednesday, and maybe connecting with an old friend from high school.

Queer OpenMic Night Priorities

I've chosen my outfit, put on my makeup, poured myself a drink, and now I'm sitting down to edit the piece I'm reading...

Yes, I have my priorities in the right place.

Butch/Femme -- Continuing Thoughts

A bit I read at QueerOpenMic last month:

You leave shit here all the time, and I never know what is important to you, or what to throw away. I know that you want me to keep your zippo lighter, you don't smoke, but you like the feel of it in your hands, you like the weight in your pocket. Sometimes when you are drunk you smoke, but more because you like to wave a cigarette around as you talk, loose-jointed in your tipsiness and talking a bluestreak of queer theory and flirtation that has had me hooked for two years, solid. What you want is a cigarette holder. The kind used by femmes and faggots in the 30s to make your cigarette longer, your gestures wider, and everything more elegant. I want to find one for you and give it to you with a pack of candy cigarettes, since you berate me for my one cigarette a month habit I feel like yours should be made out of sugar - to cut down on hypocrisy in the world. I know that it would be ok with you if I threw away the gum wrappers and the gum that you leave on the shelf I clear for you in the closet, but I can't bring myself to do it, quite. I do, but first I bunch them in my fingers and think about how they smell like kissing you, especially since they have sat there on the shelf that will always smell like you because of the cologne you spilled there.

You keep the subway tokens in your wallet; I found one when I was down there and almost wanted to tell you to get rid of it since by the time you live here they might be totally useless, and I'm not sure when you'll make it up to HarborCity again. But I know how you like things that are small cool and hard, like your lucky bullet, how you hold them in your slender fingers. Your hands always reminds me of a bird, fast and fluttering, they are awkward as hands, not terrestrial in that way, graceful when given flight in conversation or fucking. and maybe you are like a crow hording shiny things in some nest. But then what am I? a shiny thing? No, I'm matte, on special days maybe eggshell or semi-gloss, but I can wear the clothes you leave behind. the men's jeans and button downs. they fit me better, my shoulders are still a little broader than yours so the seam sits just outside that point of bone. this is when you call me your butch. You are masculine and I am butch, it works, even when I'm femme. I am your butch when my fingers are inside; and I am your femme when my mouth is on your clit. And sometimes I do them both at the same time. I am your femme in public, even when I am being your butch, because they see my long hair and hear the cracking in your voice and think they know something about our lives, and they do. I am your femme when your fist is inside me, when your mouth is on me, when you make me coffee in the morning, and when you call me "baby". I am your butch when I have the answer for your questions. I am your femme when I straighten your tie and adjust my bra. I am your femme when I take care of you when you are sick. I am your butch, holding you as you cry. I am your butch when you say that the curtains have fallen down and you don't know what to do, and I look at them and ask for pliers and a screwdriver and for you not to hover so close when I'm balancing one foot on the chair and one foot on the windowsill. Afterwards you ask me how I knew how to pull the right tools from the box. But there is no theory to explain this skill and you kiss me and call me handy, and pull at the belt that I'm wearing, my belt on your jeans. Then we go and buy you eyeliner and I buy a bright red lipstick. My lips are red and liquid smooth, I smile at you, your eyes are smudgy and dark, but smile back. When you smile at me I am your femme, your butch. Your smile, more than anything else, unzips me from these words and either way I'm blushing. Either way when I look back at you there is no theory for this.

Also: I went out tonight; I wore tight jeans, cowboy boots, and the red lipstick, as I was heading home a new friend of mine, a man, offered to walk me home. I felt guilty, but safer saying yes, and the company was pleasant. Safer because he is bigger than me and passes pretty well and the walk is a little long for late at night. Guilty because there was part of me that felt like I should assert that I *would* be fine walking home alone. This is what I usually do, to show my independence, etc. But what is the point of asserting that to a man who grew up as a girl afraid to walk herself home?

Really? Are You Sure?

Hibernation Mode

Thank you, all, for your comments on the Self-Titled Album.

So, it's getting chilly here in HarborCity and so Sister, MD and I were in hibernation mode today:
-beef stew
-red wine
-ice cream
-television
Yes, I know that the ice cream makes no sense. But it was organic and only cost $1.29 at WholeFoods... do reasonable people say no to that kind of thing?

It was a wonderful and yummy thing. I love having my sister in this city, our conversations are not always easy, and sometimes, like tonight, we barely talked at all, but it is a joy to curl on a couch with someone you know that well, and drink wine and laugh about pop culture and share a common-ness that is *so* hard to find in other places and people.

Midnight Bridges (The Self-Titled Album)

I have never tried to articulate what a midnight bridge is, except once, the day I started this blog, in a poem to TP. I'll give you the first three lines, the next 11 (yes, I write strange sonnets) belong to TP.

"there are midnight bridges i want to build
with you, working in hard rain toward morning,
waking from nightmares for fresh cut flowers"

What is a MidnightBridge? It is the kind of connection made in the middle of the night, the kind of work that takes all night, the connection that people haven't thought about before. The combination that makes people reconsider their assumptions. It the work that we need to do personally to be who we need to be professionally, publicly, personally. It is, and has become, everything that this blog has been for me in the last nine (!) months.

And I have no idea what it, or this, will become. It would be incredibly pretentious and true to say that someday I want to reveal my real name and promote a newly minted novel from this page. It would be a little sad and true that I expect this page to dwindle as I devote myself more to both work and writing, and try to reconfigure my head so that writing can be considered both work and leisure. It is also true that this space has given me new ways to think about myself. Has made those combinations that have made me reconsider my assumptions, and that has to be a good thing, right?

Options I see before me:
A: Navel-gaze when tired and tipsy to the amusement of others
B: Write dense theory posts.
C: Try to talk about economics in ways that at least inspires me.
D: Share more workshop/journal/open mic writing-stuff.
E: Blend above with panache

Thoughts? Votes?

So what proclamation do I have tonight? What prediction for my future? What exhortation to my (~3) readers?

Go build yourselves a midnight bridge tonight. Let me know if it's a good route to somewhere awesome.

Grief, Souls, Questions

When do children become beings which we can mourn?
Why am I so sure that yesterday's lost one has a soul?
What is a soul and how do we get one again?
How does all of this match up with my politics?
What would it mean to be a person of faith? Am I capable of that series of acts?

I'm grateful to the world this morning, for my friend B. , who lets these questions be unanswered in my heart, while feeding me chocolate and manzanilla te and rubbing my feet. I hope she will do that kind of thing for always, even when she is my minister.

Crazy Week Wrap-Up

1. TP is flying into town tonight... I'm bursting at the seams with excitement, nearly waltzed out of the office tonight, and am now hunkered down with a "Jumping Cow Amber Ale", a pile of dirty laundry, and pop music. Tomorrow we are driving to my father's house in NewEnglandState, and spending a few days with him before heading to my mother's. Hopefully at my father's the sleeping spaces will be first come first serve because then TP and I will get the one with, you know, the *door that closes*. I might be making some coffee soon to be able to stay up.
   
2. GM, this will be of particular interest. Last Saturday my housemates and I hosted 20 people for a Thanksgiving feast. It was *amazing*. I really don't think that any one event that I've hosted has ever made me this happy. It was a fun blend of people, who didn't know each other beforehand. The food was also amazing. Cornbread hazelnut stuffing, and the pumpkin chiffon pie were my personal highlights, though the turkey was also amazing.
   
3. Check out this Apple ad, click on the Better Results TV ad. As we all know, usually I love Apple, and I admit that I find their computers sexy. But this is a little bit too much like "First we will objectify the woman, then we will objectify the fake woman who is a work in progress, and of whom its creator is ashamed." Am I crazy that this is a little screwy?

Things to Know about My Life:

1.I left my computer charger in ELACTown last weekend, my amazing friend is mailing it to me, but for now, I'm living off of carefully rationed battery life. Go MacBook battery, go!

2. I'm writing a story about a coroner in a city that is experiencing a spell of (as yet) unexplained violence. What does this mean in the life of Corinne? I've running a google image search on the word "atrocities" and downloading JPGs for ideas. I've also created a powerpoint slideshow out of them so that I can watch them at my leisure. Is this is a sign of any diagnosable disorder than anyone is aware of? Nevermind, don't answer that.

3. 7 word music review: "Hello Love" - The Be Good Tanyas = **fantastic**

Dear Co-Worker,

It is not that I want to fuck you. It is that when I see you walking down the hall in your janitor's outfit, talking hard with the boys in Spanish, I want to strip you down to your bra and boxers, run my hands through your hair, tilt your head, draw a fine line across the back of your neck, and give you a haircut. You are almost butch, almost sexy, but your hair touches your ears, and spikes in unexpected lengths from the top of your head, and I could fix that. Give me a Sunday night in summer on a backporch, I'll wear a short skirt and brandish a beer, scissors and clippers. I will keep everything symmetrical as I dance around the chair I have sat you in, asking you to hold still while I straddle you to get to the awkward spots. I will not give you a mirror until the end. Just let me strip you down, give me access to the soft curve of your cranium, to the space between ear and hairline, to your girlish neck and I will make other girls' head turn in your direction. Guaranteed.
Love,
A Fascist Femme

Election Version 1.0

F*ck you Rick Santorum. Watching CNN, there is a BlogParty -- teehee. I can't imagine sitting in a room full of bloggers, while blogging.
Official languages suck. Boo Arizona. Go Bernie! All eyes on VA.

Holy Sh*tMonster

Blogging from my new bloggerwidget. This is hotness, as defined by MacBook and Google. I'm such a tech slut.

Blogging at Dinner: An Economics of Race/Culture Post

So, I'm sitting in my favorite burrito place gnoshing on my chicken burrito with mango and hot sauce and sipping on a nutella smoothie, and thinking about my hot brainstorm yesterday. I mean, really people, does it get much better? No.

So, I'm actually going to blog about my work. Radical, I know.
Hmm. How to write about this without writing about it. So, several of the projects that I'm dealing with right now are about race. Actually, they all are. But, that aside, they talk about how people of different races react differently under different situations, and they all talk about it as though the effect were cultural (people with bad eyesight place a high cultural value on carrots) or an in group effect (so, for example, people who have bad eyesight will give more carrots away to people, not because they themselves have ever needed a carrot, but because they can imagine themselves or people like them needing a carrot (thanks, Weezy). But none of them talk about the contexts or different social experiences that different groups have. Maybe Blacks react differently not because they *are* different, but because of, you know, that whole set of experiences with racism in white America that they and their ancestors have had to deal with -- something that's hard to quantify.

The trick: Find two groups of people are the same now, but for one group their ancestors were white when the immigrated to the US and for the other group they were not white. Like cohorts of whiteness. Then you could show that they react differently based on the different "minority experiences" they had instead of some other dimension. Think about the history of immigration and whiteness.

That was my hot brainstorm yesterday.

Writing the Impossible: Three Letters

So, in the last few days I've had to write three fairly impossible letters (two down, one to go).

1. CreativeWritingMentor from HighSchool, who is also a dear friend, the next door neighbor to my mother's house and the woman whose wedding I trespassed to get to in time is just entering second trimester of a difficult pregnancy (and her first): difficult decisions have had to be made, she is physically and emotionally totally exhausted, and the end isn't really anywhere in sight, the likelihood that she will lose the whole pregnancy is still fairly high. I love this woman and she has shown unfailing support for me in all of my endeavors: personal, political, intellectual, and creative. I wish that I had the write words to lift her up and support her from hundreds of miles away, but I'm at a loss. She is also a fairly private person and that makes things trickier especially because I got this update through my mother, who bless her heart, is a pregnancy gossip. On the other hand, I can't NOT write a note.

2. WomenStudiesMentor and mother of children who I babysat and adore was diagnosed with epilepsy this summer and continues to struggle with meds, seizures, and managing life and family with this evolving and changing disorder. I love this woman and she has shown unfailing support for me in all of my endeavors: personal, political, intellectual, and creative. When I go back to ELACtown in a couple of weeks, I'll probably stay with her and her family. It's a funny thing to try to be the friend of a former mentor. I definitely get the vibe that she wants me to be her friend -- but I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants in that friendship more than I do in most. Probably because I hang on to boundaries that aren't there anymore. I just wrote her an email pinning down details of my stay (and checking *one more time* that I'm not imposing).

3. HistoryActivismMentor is applying to a tenure track position at the school where her partner teaches and has asked me to write her a recommendation letter. I love this woman and she has shown unfailing support for me in all of my endeavors: personal, political, intellectual, and creative (are you sensing a theme?). The department that she is applying is has asked me to evaluate her skills as a teacher. HOLY SHIT! I told my sister, who was also HAM's student that I was doing this, she agreed that it was an impossible task and we decided the letter could go something like this:

"When I was a freshman HAM taught me what gender was. Then she taught me what history was. Then she treated me like a fellow scholar. Then she taught me about campus politics, myself, housesitting for her adorable cats, being a bitch to get out of being overcommitted, and gender. I still don't think I'm done thinking about everything that HAM taught me. If you don't give her this position you are damn fools, but I'll be happy because she will still be on the East Coast."

In closing:
GAH. Does anyone know how to write this kind of letter?

A List of Five

1. Right now, I'm doing that classic Friday night thing -- drinking beer, watching television, and blogging. Okay, well, at least the beer and television are classic.
2. I've been writing and thinking a lot about butch/femme. I know that that line alone has made some of your ears perk up. I'll get back to you. Yes, this is in part been prompted by my illusions of grandeur and Maria Angeline's call for submissions. Truth of the matter is that I've been writing more, which is part of why I've been seeming a bit scarce around these parts. But the files are piling up, in my Documents\writing folder and someday the better ones may see the light of day.
3. I went for a run on Wednesday morning, and I've only weighed myself once this week. Both of these are good things.
4. I agreed to take on five more hours a week of research time. In some ways it's great. Doing more research, more, always more is the key to the game. It means that some of time that I spend working on PotentialCoAuthorship Project will be paid. I need to broach the "taking work home" subject. Because while I think that I'm happy to take on five more hours a week in front of a computer thinking about economics, I'm not sure that I want to spend more time in front of *that* particular computer. The work I do is pretty portable, and I don't really think that my boss will mind but I'm still nervous about bringing it up. (By the way, it's really funny to refer to a professor as a boss, because he doesn't have any of that boss vibe to him).
5. My dear, dear friend B. played her guitar and sang songs that she had written and we were all there sitting in a coffeeshop while she *featured* at our local OpenMic and clapped like mad. It was a good night.
   

Sunday Afternoon Meme; Narratives about Unpleasant/Naked/Trespassing Pasts

1. Dated outside your race? Yes.
2. Singing in the shower? Almost always.
3. Spit in someone’s drink? No.
4. Played with Barbies? Like once, maybe.
5. Made someone cry? Far too often.
6. Opened your Christmas presents early? Never, some things are sacred.
7. Lied to a friend? Yes, not proud of it.
8. Watched and cried while watching a soap opera? Nooo.
9. Played a computer game for more than 5 hours? Yes. Myst. I was 11.
10. Ran through the sprinklers naked? Yes.
11. Ate food that fell on the floor? Almost daily.
12. Went outside naked? Yes. (Has anyone ever heard of an indoor sprinkler?)
13. Been on stage? Yes.
14. Been on stage naked or close to it? No. My apparent love of nudity has its limits.
15. Been in a parade? No, I don't think I have.
16. Been in a school play? Yes, sadly.
17. Drank beer? Yes, indeedy.
18. Gotten detention? Yes, twice. Once for being loud in study hall, flirting with the girl next to you has its price. And once for attempting to strangle a boy who told that girls couldn't play with boys, he also called me a "blonde bimbo"; I called him a "brunette bastard", chased him down, and tried to strangle him.
19. Been on a cruise? No.
20. Broken into a house? Yes. I forgot the directions to my friend's wedding and so I broke into a house in the middle of nowhere, said hello to the dog, and looked up the phone number for her parent's house and got directions. Got there just in time.
21. Gotten a tattoo? No.
22. Gotten piercings? Ears, and a nose stud.
23. Gotten into a fist fight? Unless you count the wrestling matches with my older sister or the "brunette bastard" incident, no.
24. Gotten into a shouting match? Yes, with my older sister, and AbusiveCollegeGirlfriend. Both periods of my life I want to move beyond.
25. Swallowed sea/pool water? Yes.
26. Spun yourself in circles to get dizzy on purpose? Yes.
27. Laughed so hard it hurt? Yes, including last night.
28. Tripped on your own feet? Sure.
29. Cried yourself to sleep? Yes.
30. Cried in public? Yes.
31. Thrown up in public? No.
32. Lied to your parents? Yes, being in the closet for a while will do that to you.
33. Skipped class? Yes.
34. Cried so hard you threw up? Yes, see shouting matches, crying to sleep, and AbusiveCollege Girlfriend.
35. Had a one night stand? Yes.
36. Left restaurant without paying tab? No.
37. Been fired from a job? No.
38. Wanted to make out with your massage therapist, therapist OR hairdresser? I have an active imagination, so that is a yes.
39. Had a drink "sent" to a stranger at a bar? No, wish I had the balls for that. Or that someone would do that to me someday.
40. Been winked at and loved it? YES.

Evidence of La Femme (Identity)

So, I bought myself these two colors of lipstick this weekend along with some other markers of femininity that are highlighted later in the post. It was wonderful. I was shopping with TP and hir roommate B. -- so, essentially, for the purposes of makeup consumption -- two gay men. They bought eyeliner, I bought the above shades of red. (Mouths look so weird without faces, btw). Then we went home and played. I don't think I have ever *played* with makeup before in my entire life -- it has always been a tooth and nail struggle to the bitter end with haphazard results. Last night, it was so much FUN. Why don't most women give themselves permission to do that kind of thing?

Also, I got these at a thrift store -- there combined price was $55, but I was freaking out about being a capitalist, so I only bought the cowboy boots, and then after much conversation and
consternation. I went back and got the heels. Two things to know about these pairs of shoes:
1. They are both comfortable. I have big and wide feet, comfortable shoes are basically the holy grail.
2. The heels are a much more amazing deep plum color in person, and yes those heels are HUGE by my standards.

In Defense of Data: Long, Meaty, and Raw

Background: I have a major in Economics, a research job, and an interest in Sociology, Demography. I spent about twenty hours this week doing data programming. Also, if this were a working paper in my field it would read in big block letters:

PRELIMINARY AND INCOMPLETE: COMMENTS WELCOME.

A while ago EL of My Amusement Park posted about the New York City's board of health allowing transfolk to get new sex-corrected birth certificates, and asked an important question about why we feel to need to ask that question there. I posted a response. And so did Jenn. You can take a look at the whole exchange here. Though I will also quote below.

Jenn wrote:

I know demographics are supposed to be terribly helpful. Like, they're supposed to help the medical establishment deliver better health care... to those tragic white men who can't get their peckers up. I know demographics help the government figure out what "minority" groups really need, so they can withhold it until they get enough vote service. It helps teachers know which kids to attend to and which are destined to fall through the cracks anyway and aren't worth wasting time on. And don't forget how it helps businesses determine that yes, Virginia, only the needs of white male consumers matter.
Without demographics, we'd have to go back to plain old KKK style bigotry. It's so much nicer to be able to couch it all in lots of scientific-sounding numbers (that we've manipulated to support our pre-existing POV).
Bigotry is dead! Long live Bigotry!
What does knowing someone's gender really tell the govt that it needs to know? I can't think of anything except whether the person deserves first-class treatment or second.

And I understand her point. Demographics can be **terribly** helpful. They are a lynchpin in the bio-political power that the modern nation state has had in the last one hundred and fifty years. Now, some theory:

Bio-power is one of the many technologies of power that was elucidated by Michel Foucault. In History of Sexuality, Vol. I. he describes “the emergence in the field of political practices and economic observation, of the problems of birthrate, longevity, public health, housing and migration. Hence there was an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations” (Foucault, 140). It is closely linked to bio-politics, which David Hoy defines as “the strategies that are to be pursued in implementing bio-power”; these two are so linked that at points one of them will be used to signify both (Hoy, 74). This “management of life” permeates into people’s private lives through the techniques of bio-politics that govern people’s sexuality and other aspects of their biological existence (147). Sexuality is more intensely regularized in this framework because it is at “the juncture of the ‘body’ and the ‘population’” which are the main targets of disciplinary and regulatory power respectively (HOS 147). He describes the place of sexuality in a bio-political framework thus, “Through the themes of health, progeny, race, the future of the species, the vitality of the social body, power spoke of sexuality and to sexuality; the latter was not a mark or a symbol it was an object and a target. Moreover, its importance was due less to its rarity or its precariousness than to its insistence, its insidious presence” (147-8).

The fact that bio-politics creates a poor population that is inherently “lazy, indigent, and undeserving” blinds those with who have privilege from interrogating the structures of poverty in their society. As Foucault notes the divisions in society take on a biological rather than political level. This allows those with privilege to be politically complacent and ignorant. They are permitted to think about poverty as the problem of a population rendered as other through appeal to unchangeable characteristics. Because this is the dominant view, mobilization does not occur in resistance to the techniques of bio-power. This complacency breeds more privilege and the perpetuity of those ‘unchangeable’ characteristics. This social blindness and abdication of responsibility is one of the most pernicious effects of the bio-politics that surround welfare policy and poverty in the United States.

And I get all of that, heck I wrote that above "block-quote-bigger-than-something-big-in-your-vicinity". But I also think that data has some advantages that I break into two main sections (for now).

1. The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House
And yet, they are what we have. They are like props for some grand improv theater game, and while I think that other tools will be created, imagined and will become powerful, I also am not quite ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I also think that the "Master" probably doesn't exist anymore: what we have is whole cadres of people who are trained to think like him who may or may not agree with him really -- but only know how to talk about things that the way that they were taught. I want to talk to them. A lot of scholarship in Sociology and Feminist Economics is using these tools, and using them to ask the questions in different ways. [examples will be included in full version~]

2. Narrative is Also a Trap: Pixillating the Narrative Trope
The only opposition in the world is not: Data v. Narrative. But let's pretend for a moment that it is:

The discourse of confession and truth-telling has made the creation of a personal, individual narrative an imperative. Often this personal narrative follows a pattern that is edging on trope whether it is a story of birth, death, or coming of age. Because of this patterning, the narrative may not be liberating or reflective of much, as was noted by Eve Sedgewick in The Epistemology of the Closet. In this way the individual, in a true sense, is lost in what the current age rabidly declares is an expression of that very individualism. Part of this mythic belief in the personal narrative is the idea that any method of truth gathering that denies the individual the opportunity to tell their own story is inherently oppressive, veiling, and authoritarian. These methods, typified by data collection, reduce the ‘individual’ to a mere number, masking the nuances of their experiences.

In this scenario the individual was lost to the collective, and individual lives were created and ended on the basis of the desires of a racist state with police powers. This power dynamic can have significant pernicious effects on populations, as evidenced by institutions like public assistance programs and AIDS funding policies in the United States.

Generally the very methods of data collection feed into the power of the state, limiting the ways in which people can identify and describe themselves and their families. I faced this in a very tangible way when I realized that the data set that I was using for my thesis did not allow respondents to label themselves as either more than one race or as Latino/Hispanic (decidedly, and happily, NOT the case with census data). Another example is the way in which sex and gender identification are constantly regulated through data collection that only allows people to identify as “male” or “female”. These racist and hetero-normative assumptions about the ways in which respondents will identify and respond clearly truncate the potential for liberating truth gathering. However there is no requirement that questionnaires be constructed in this manner, they could allow for a much broader range of responses with only minimal inconvenience to the statisticians who analyze the data. While there is major institutional foot-dragging to prevent this from happening, it is possible. Ultimately more accurate and precise measurements are always in the interest of the researcher because it means that they can state with more confidence that their findings actually mean something.

If we return to the problem of the narrative as oppressive because of the way in which it compels subjects to follow a preset trajectory, what are the possibilities associated with looking toward data collection? Data collection has many problems, yet it is very effective at breaking up the stories that people tell about their lives. Instead of asking people if they are healthy, there is a series of questions that ask about specific behaviors that a healthy person can do in a day, such as climbing a flight of stairs, and then codes them along a preset scale. While these scales, particularly of health and fitness, may be very subjective and problematic there is a value to the way in which people’s experiences are pixilated – broken, disintegrated, and potentially distilled. The conscientious researcher could rearrange these pixels, creating them into an aggregate picture that was used not to oppress or regulate, but describe the lives that people are living in ways that they may not be able to articulate. Once these new articulations are provided, the possibilities for uses for the new information abound. This is particularly true where the stories that people tell about themselves serve as barriers to the building of coalitions and communities. If there were data explaining the common problems between various populations with the state policing their family structures it is possible that a coalition would be more forthcoming. Whereas without that data, strong narratives of gender, sexuality, race, and class might prevent those coalitions from being built.

Further, often the narratives are not personal, but rather are cultural. I think probably the best example that I can give of this (without revealing where and for whom I work, and what I'm working on) is the narrative about the middle class. The middle class in America is constantly thriving - everything is constantly getting better. This is the story that is told and that we tell ourselves and often believe. However, in the last few years this has broken down -- crumbled even - why? Data. Data that says that homeownership is a trap that is just as likely to put you in debtor's prison as deliver you to a white picket fence. Data that says that the rich are, in fact, getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and everyone else is just scrapping by. And folks are starting to not believe quite as much anymore Do you need to know people's gender to know that this is happening? No, you don't, but you do need it to talk about the ways that elderly women are more likely to be poor than elderly men because pension benefits screw them over (if you have access to JSTOR or other academic loveliness - do yourself a tiny lil' lit search, if not take my privileged word for it).

Ok. I'm done. I'm sitting in a coffeeshop in LiberalCity, RedState, with TP. And I have some work that I brought "home" with me over the weekend, not to mention a novel to read, and a person to kiss. Congratulations for making it this far.
___________________________________
Dork-out further here:

*Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. Random House, Inc., New York, 1978.
*Foucault, Michel. Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College de France 1975- 1976.Translated by David Macey. Ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana. Picador, New York, 2003.
*Hoy, David. Critical Resistance: From Poststructuralism to Post- Critique. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

~Said version may never be written.

26.6 Miles Later: Another Random Ten List

1. I have a big meaty post in the editing stage about how data can fight racism, sexism, classism, etc. I talk about Foucault, and my work and it makes me smile. But it does not cohere, so it is not posted.
2. Backpacking was fabulous -- the most technically challenging stuff I've ever done, and one 11.8 mile day, so today is the first day that I'm not sore, but good God, was it gorgeous!
3. Today work was insane, maybe because it started out with me learning about improper integrals (you know the type, who show too much leg as they take the limit to infinity), and then I gave a pint of blood, and then, then, I actually started to deal with two data projects, a finance SNAFU, a new job assignment, and a new data project (with co-authorship potential!). Whew!
4. I'm performing at the QueerOpenMic tomorrow - an updated version of the piece about landscape/sex/home/transitioning that I posted here about a month ago. Someday, maybe I'll gain legitimacy in that space without being the partner of a transthing, maybe someday I'll stop worrying about my own legitimacy enough to live my life. Maybe, someday, my concerns about legitimacy will focus themselves on something other than what I should wear.
5. Friday I fly to RedState to visit TP. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I have wings.
6. Planning trip to ELAC-Town for Veteran's Day weekend, but HistoryMentor has a house guest that weekend so I can't stay with her. She just asked me for a letter of reference ::BLUSH:: and is one of my favorite people in the whole world, and sent me back an email with the houseguest news and the words "are your dates firm?" Well, I thought they were until I got that email.
7. It's National Coming Out Day. I'm living in a gray space with this at work right now. I know that some people assume that I'm with a man, and I know that some people must see my little sticker saying "Transsexual Women are Our Sisters", and I know that I hate not knowing who knows about my queerness.
8. I love working my body hard, depending on it to get me through the day -- why wasn't I called to be a construction worker or a farmer instead of a sedentary, data-crunching, academic. I would be just as useful to the world if my brain were hardwired to a keyboard.
9. I'm totally open to advice on any of the above 8 bits of life drivel.
10. Did you see the part in #3 about potential co-authorship? OMG.