On getting down to the nitty gritty...

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang!

I am sorry but I am getting a bit fed up now. Slightly sick and tired of how incapable people are of seeing what this is really about. The fact that what I do still evoke so many strange feelings. Why is it that there are so many things we handle better than this…
Why is it so hard to respect personal choice, why is it so hard to respect that the consensual choices of others might not be what you like. But, the opportunity for others to make those choices and turn away from lives prescribed to them by gender, class, race, age, size…whatever you would like, is what makes this world worth living in.

I am sorry but we must get personal now. This here world of assumptions of femininity is not big enough for the both of us. I am telling you, dear creators of “open” and “accepting” spaces, do not fuck with me… and beware, cute is a scare!

……

I am in the tackiest of clubs. I have told her to sit up straight to make it is easier to endure the strange feeling of being a zoo animal, little girls don’t come here. Little girls with frames don’t come here. They don’t wear silk blouse. They don’t wear silver crosses. Amongst leather pants and whips hanging from a belt, amongst eyes that measure me as a falsely conscious little girl not yet having found her place at the feet of the patriarchy.

I survive that evening because I cling on to her physically. When they look at us I look at her. There is a fatigue in her eyes the same as mine. A tire of those eyes that invade us, that measure our bodies and what we do.
When she is preoccupied with other things and I roam the vast club on my own I seek the eyes of other Ladies.
A woman with her boi on sofa…the knife slowly caressing hir fingers… She looks at me with that same fatigue, we sigh and I nod at her. I know what it’s like.

That’s when he approaches me. I must confess I didn’t like him that much prior to this either. He is the invasive kind, the exploiting kind, everyone in a space like this are vehicles for lust and that is his lust, he thinks.
I have been waiting for her which I clung to, who I told to sit up straight so that something would be endurable in this place, he looks at me with that icky middle aged man smile.
“Aaaw, little miss…” he says. “How are you?”

I am shocked. I am shocked at how easy he does it. How easy he belittles and ignores me. I am sure he knows what I do. I am sure his partner, who has seen me work stripes into shivering strong backs many a time before, have told him what I do. I am sure he knows that even if I am a girl I am no one’s girl.
I hope my eyes burn with that famous black soot I have been told they have when I tell him that I feel fine although I haven’t been able to play here since I didn’t feel safe.
Yet when I leave I am turned off, furious, hurt and sad. My invisibility was so hard to face. His, the middle aged man’s, part in that so obvious it stung my eyes.

…..

Let’s talk a bit about what he couldn’t cope with. Power. Girls with power. Let’s talk a bit about why the idea of the dominant woman is still scary. What have I done? What are we doing?

I grew up in an environment that respected my femininity, and the power I ascribed to it. I call my upbringing a matriarchy – my mother and her sister, my cousins and me, formed a bond of femininity and power. It stemmed from my grandmother and her sister, from a strong sense of survival and belonging.
I never knew of no patriarchy, I never knew that women were not allowed to have power. I never knew I wasn’t allowed to decide for others if they wanted me to do that.

And I was always just as puzzled when I saw the mindfuck in their eyes. In the eyes of men and women alike, when it didn’t match. When my body didn’t match my mind.

Or that’s not right, I match perfectly find with all my expectations of myself. It’s their expectations that I don’t match.

You see it’s not about exploitation, not about abuse and not about oppression. The way she cooks for me and the man, always a man, peeks in at us and asks me if I shouldn’t do that – as the girlie girl.

I don’t tell him to fuck off. I tell my glorious butch girl to tell the “nice” man that that is not how we do things. And she does because she loves me. She loves me when she squirms under my touch, when she bends her neck for me. And I love her when I do it, I love her the most when she gives all of her to me – I love her the most when we rip that patriarchy up by the roots, when I insert the matriarchy that fed and clothed me into the void that the loss of man-made worlds made in her.

I never understood why this was challenging. I never understood why women, girls, I, couldn’t do this? What prevents me? What would force me to do otherwise?

I am sorry but my mother, the Pentecostal, married, heterosexual mother of two, never taught me any of this. She taught me to hold my head high and give myself with love to others, and they will love me too.

So please, put your assumptions, your false notions of female sexuality and femme identities elsewhere. Please don’t put them in my lap – and mind you, don’t force them down my throat. I don’t really do that shit you see.
Ask the girls who have been mine, butches, femmes, bois and grrls alike what they felt when they were with me. What we did when we shared that love my mother told me to share. How we catered to one another.
Ask the patriarchy if it hurt when we ripped its roots.

…..

I leave that club numb. We agree it was bad night, a really bad night. I give her a quick hug before I get in the cab. I tell her she will pay for dragging me all the way there…. She knows I am more serious about then I look. I giggle as she blushes.
On my way home I write a letter of memories and paths travelled for all the women and men that ever giggled sweetly at me assumed I was nice and humble only because I was cute.

To patriarchy with love, best wishes - little girls of the matriarchy!

On hijabies and me, crip-femme meets Islamic Fashion....

I am doing a lot of research today, so inspired by the first real good lecture at University on Islamic Fashion. Got hooked on the hijablog, a Norwegian ‘hijabie’ (veil wearing Muslim woman) who lives in London and blog on Islamic Fashion trends all night.
The slightly paradoxical practice of covering up something that is assumed to be alluring and tempting but replacing it with something that stands out even more in a crowd fascinates me a great deal. For the hijablog blogger it is obviously not only a religious statement but also a very clear fashion statement, that involves and industry that cater to Islamic Fashion and magazines, blogs and fashion shows that project what’s new and trendy.

For me this lecture was especially good since it is the first one on this course that clearly deals with identity not only as being part of a certain, religious, context but also as an identity important to the self and expressed through clothing in as many ways as there are hijabies.
The personal relationship between faith and practice is very real to me as I have grown up in a very religious (by religious referring to Christian spirituality, and not necessarily conservatism) context, and ascribe a lot of my identity and my actions to my faith.

The modern hijabies of today speak about the hijab as something very feminine and something that emphasises strength and personality in its bearer. One of the women that took part in the ‘Islamic Fashion’ show in Stockholm in 2008 said this about her vivid use of fabrics and patterns in her hijab.

“When you go out you know people look at you anyway, so why don’t really give them something to look at, in a way I think that is disempowering to many of the prejudices that comes with “Islam”…”

I really felt I could relate to that, very much as a crip-femme. I know people study me, I know people turn too look at me one extra time when I pass by. And I understand that, I would look too. First off I am tiny, my walker is purple, and I am loud. Secondly, I dress smartly. There is again that contrast that I spoke about in the stone femme post.
What did you see, a little girl or a woman? Can you look at the disabled woman’s cleavage; is that a politically correct action?
If you know they’ll look at you, make them look again…

Yesterday I went to interview two girls who I hope will be my new PA’s when I settled in in this city. I choose my meeting attire with the greatest care. Often I am a bit too much then, I wear very short skirts and my favourite flowery tops for example. I choose jewellery with greater care than I would otherwise, and if my complexion is in a stable place (sadly it hasn’t been recently, more on a make-up free femme appearance later in this blog) I wear make up. The only thing that did fail me yesterday was my nail polish, I still haven’t got to buying a remover and now I just re-polish and re-polish and that gives as somewhat tacky look.

So yesterday, I wore:
-A black, short sleeved top with a small flowery pattern, my absolute favourite although it is giving out a little nowadays…
-The shortest skirt I own, a black jeans skirt that reaches mid-tigh, the most.
- Black cotton stockings, perhaps it’s something rural, I don’t wear nylon all that often.
-Black plastic pearl necklace.

Usually I joke about the reason for me wearing that skirt being that I can do that Basic Instinct thing, but I have never pulled it, and with the cotton stockings I doubt there would be much excitement. I do think though, that that skirt is a very sensual if not sexual statement, to show that I am safe about being sensual in the way I dress, and even a bit more than that. That I have control over my sexuality is shown by my choice of that skirt I hope. And since sex and disability is very rarely connected I think it’s important not only to speak about sexuality as a crip but to be confident about it.

Also, I think my choice of attire is again playing with that contrast of my physical appearance and what I project with the way I dress. Being a short tiny woman often makes for me passing as a girl. So I have learnt to dress in a way girls wouldn’t dress, I wear tight fitting blouses, pencil skirts, and again tops that shows a lot of cleavages.
I distance myself in that way from a physically girlie appearance that I haven’t been able to choose myself.
However, there are also times when I choose to enhance that, and in a way the outfit described above is a kind of combined girlie/sensual outfit. In that it mixes ‘girlie things’ such as cotton stockings and flowery patterns with the colour black and the very short skirt.

Dressing in that way for a meeting gives me confidence, it gives me confidence to know that I accept my body and am willing to show it off in a sense. It also gives me confidence to know that I embrace the fact that my body is frail and tiny, but my mind is not.
In a way I think my way of dressing in these meetings is a kind of reverse to what the modern hijabies do, covering up what is assumed to be alluring but in way becoming much more alluring by doing that in a certain way.

In a way I do cover up, by wearing an all black outfit I do project a certain sense of propriety, as does the cotton stockings. The clear cut top is also a very ‘smart’ garment even though it does show a bit cleavage. I choose to cover mostly, but the short skirt draw attentions to my legs, the part of my body that is most obviously disabled.
What I thrive on in wearing these outfits is just that, to dis-empower my disability by clearly drawing attention to it in a way that I choose myself. But also to raise multiple questions in my observer’s mind apart from my disability. Why is she wearing all black? How does she carry herself in that skirt? (The truth is, I don’t ;) )

To express the disabled body as sexual and the disabled person as self assertive and confident in that way is my biggest asset in coming across as what I ultimately am, so much more than the connotations ascribed to the disabled female body, and mind.
These are just very cursory thoughts that came up just after the lecture. I am planning to return to the Islamic Fashion and my on Pentecostal background and its fashion in a later piece. I just need to look through the archives and pick out nice photos for you all before I write.

Below is a picture taken from the hijablog, the models wear fashionable turkish 'high'-hijabs. I love it, I think it's a bit "If Victorian England had been a Muslim culture..."

On this morning....

Good morning Capital, good morning blog. It’s a rather pretty sunshiny day. I am chirpy even though I slept four hours or so. I woke up by the door slamming and Landlady returning from the shops, in a white moment of fear I worried it was eleven o’clock or so. She said it was about twenty minutes past eight. And since then I have been up.

Even though we do disagree about my identity, even more so after discussions on femme and crip that took place yesterday, I really like living with her.
Even more I enjoy that she is (it seems) the only one unable to see my femme identity as a valid identity. I am glad so many glorious brainy femmes cover my back.

The time difference between Stockholm and London made things rather late last night, but so much fun had. And I am delighted to see that the much overdue episode of Fishy Femme Fiction is still coveted. And I’ll take images of close proximity muses with me all over today. I am sure I will be a smiling girl indeed.

In fact I am thinking my martial arts muses need to fight each other at some point. Oh, come on girls! It could be my birthday treat, please? Or for Christmas or New Year’s or whenever, any day is a partying day, right?

I am going back up north on Wednesday. I look forward to seeing my parents and my brother and his family. I long to see those mountains again, to breathe air free from smog. And travel through a country that is my heart, were the roads are my veins and arteries. Those roads are inside my skin now, dirt roads and crackling paving. The house. The strong tall trees that grow around these people for protection that protected me as I grew up.

I long for my father’s language, his storytelling. My mother’s fiery comments and loud laughter. My aunts’ care. Jesus. My grandmothers just steps behind me wherever I go.

I’ll rest when I am home, I might crash for real. I need to read a lot though. I figured I’d do most of it on the bus on Wednesday; four hours should get me far I think. I need to write a lot too. I wonder if I shall bring this laptop or if my parents stationary will do? Am I greedy if I want a tiny computer for my writing? Perhaps not. But I am not rich these days. For Christmas?

I have realised I need to write more cohesively in Swedish as well. As I have said earlier in this blog I have existed mostly in English these days. It’s nice, but of course a bit distancing at times. Even though it’s a language that’s close to heart it is not mine, as such.

I’ll need to work on that “Jesus-piece” for the stage too. That’ll be in Swedish so that will be good. I am thinking it’s well needed. The Pentecostal woman is all you never thought she would be. Indeed. Or more so I am perhaps.

I should get dressed now. I need to ‘femme up’ especially since I am having a meeting with a PA agency this afternoon. Two potential girls for me to interview, I really hope they want to work with me. My personal ass.’s as Kicko would say.

After the meeting I’ll have to sit around at Uni for ever to wait for my lecture. The taxi cards are a bit confining when they run low. I need to get hold of that man today too. Wish me luck.

Watch out for me while I am in you today Capital. I think I might like you now.

On stone-ness...

This post is inspired by Sassafras Lowrey’s post on stone-ness on The Femmes Guide.
The post, in case you’re too lazy to read it, in which case shame on you, is about stone-ness and the identifications of stone butches and femmes. Lowrey discusses the idea that the sexuality of a stone-femme is determined and decided by the link to a stone-butch, and ultimately the sexuality of said butch. That femme's who identify as stone-femmes and/or confess to being attracted mostly by stone-butches in doing so, are portrayed in relation to their butch partners rather than on their own. And reaches the conclusion, that (of course) that is not all there is to it...

In the end of the post there is a question.

How about all of you, do you identify as a stone femme? If yes, how do you define it?

So I thought I’d be a good blogger and answer that, plus it will give some extra time away from my University reading which I really cherish at this point. Lazy schoolgirl as I am.

So, my femme identity. It’s very much built upon force, and the force ascribed to the feminine appearance. This comes from growing up in an environment that very much credited power to femininity and strength to womanhood. In my rural matriarchy the woman was never inferior but seen on her own and valued separately from whomever she chose to part with.
My mother brought me up with a strong sense of dress, she knew that she was no less a woman wearing pants, and I was no less an emancipated young woman wearing skirts. She taught me to bring consciousness into the way I dressed.
To think about how I looked and how others saw me, and she delighted in me playing with that. Having the ruffled skirts collide with a strong sense of power and a sharp mind.

I would say that my femme identity is about contrast in many ways. It’s about a very girlie appearance paired with a demanding power; it’s about enhancing my crippled body and my crooked legs and tiny hands with alluring cleavages and tight fitted skirts. It’s about enhancing what is hot about my own body and what is hot about my mind. It’s about combining my giggling and my fondness for ruffles and flowery tops with those rugged pairs of jeans and that chequered short-sleeved blouse, the three top buttons unbuttoned.

It’s about embracing sexuality, sensuality and strength. But it's also about allowing me to find piece within the fact that my body is frail and weak, that it is petite and in need of shelter from others at times. My femme identity has helped me combined all these things into something that feels good for me, that there is no juxtaposition as such in being strong, girlie, and alluring.

I would call myself a stone femme.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with stone butches, or any butches at all.
I am a stone femme since femme is my major identity, it’s that umbrella under which all my other identities, my rural-hard-working-blue-collar-Pentecostal sense of self, my crip ideas of self, my power and ideas of dominances, my longings to be weak, to crash and be lifted sheltered and comforted, can exist without any problems.

On the latter part of that sentence, I think that that longing to be sheltered and picked up draws me to people with a butch aurora around them. That I know that they are stable and strong enough pick me up not only physically but also mentally.

However, as I have spoken so much about contrast. That sense of power and physical strength within another person also gives me the greatest urge to break that, to know that I am in control of that power and the strength, that it is used to shelter and protect me as I chose.
Furthermore, I thrive on sheltering my partners especially if they are butch-ey, I thrive on that person ‘giving in’ and showing me their own weakness. I long to be that strong sense of ‘home’ and ‘safety’ for another person, I love running my fingers gently over my lovers strong back and tell them that all will be fine.
As much as I long to feeling that persons arms around my own shivering body.

To argue that

‘stone femme’/... / [is a] /..../ sexuality tied exclusively to that of /.../ butch partners /..../,

is not fair.

Not to the femmes who describe their stone femme identity as an attraction to stone butches since it insinuates that the femme is only valid through the butch, and hence marginalizes the femmes and femme as an identity of its own.

Also, it’s not fair to stone femmes as myself. To which the concept stone is not valid in relation to any other person femme, or butch, or whatever, but solely as that centre of me. That place deep inside were I am at rest, where I don’t question myself but accept all that I am. Where all that I am co-exist in every breath that draw.
My ‘stone’ is a cave, a room, within my soul.

A room with a magnificent closet, where linen blouse and massive silver jewellery hangs alongside tulle skirts and tailored power suites, leather gloves and knitted mittens, tops with their sleeves cut off, all my push-up bra’s and my knee-high socks.
Where my heavy perfume and make-up sits next to the Bible and the icons my aunt brought me from Krakow, where there is a place for me to kneel and give praise, where there is a place for me to shout and embrace the fierceness and overthrowing power that my religious conviction is.

It’s a room where I can laugh ‘til I am a wet puddle on the floor. It is a room where I can rest, a room where I can lay down why a sweet soul brings me tea and salty snacks. It’s a place were I kept the secrets people tell me, and the ones I have told them.
It’s a room with a bed where the sheets are never neat, only wet and tangled. It’s a bed where backs are arched and shivering before the hit the mattress. It’s a room where my glitzy nails can make maps on backs, where they pluck gently at the soft hair of slumbering guests.

It’s a room where sun shines in from the window making golden squares on the floor. A room that smells of lavender and sits amongst mountains and fair green shadows. A room that throbs when my heart beats. A shelter, a refuge and the origin of all my dreams.

On friendships, ending

I did not think that I would devote time to this on my blog but recently it has been, yeah, pissing me off.

I have this friend, or more so I used to have this friend. Our parents knew each others from the Pentacostal Congreations they where part of but my parents had left. My friends aunt and my mother are best friends, right now hiking in the hills, I hope they're having a good time.
Anyhow, we became friends in middle school. I am not sure how it happened, I guess I broke away from click from kindergarden and then I was seated with this person and one of the funniest boys I have ever know, Robin, they made the otherwise horrendous time in middle school okay.

Then we where BFF's until I moved away for the IBO programme and kept up our realtionship through out that time and up to this year.

You see, now this person is totally ignoring me. She won't replie to my congratulations on her engament on Facebook or answer any of my messages for her, even though I see she replies to others. I have send her multiple texts and emails and have gotten nothing back.

I think this is really odd since I see such a clear cut between being friends and then not being that all. Or more so acting like we have never been. There hasn't been a conflict or an issue between us, she hasn't been angry with me, neither I with her.

Having traced this down with my mother I have comed to the conclusion that this person clearly has a promblem with what I have 'becomed', she has not said, it that's, true but I feel it.
I have felt it over the last couple of years, I know I have kept silent and I haven't spoken up about the real me. I couldn't spread my wings inside that heterosexual monogamus cage. And I am sure they knew. In fact they were the first people the assume that I were, or would be a lesbian.
Please people, I am not a lesbian unless I say I am, okay!!

Recently I have been ticked off by people deciding for me, telling me what I am or not listening to me when I say I dislike certain kinds of identies that they ascribe to me. It's been trickling down on me, nibbling on my stamina and making me warry. Please when I tell you about something I don't like, don't say it's "nothing" only nothing is nothing.

To return to the initial subject. I understand that this person and the kind of click that she, and I used to, belongs to are having a hard time to wrap their minds around me these days. It's not that I don't get that. And I would rather not have them in my life if they are not accepting of they way I will lead it.
However I would like for her to speak up about that, to say that she cannot realte to what I am doing right now, and then we can have a discussion about that. I want her to say "Hi!" at least or "thank you for your kind words concerning mine engament..."

For now I mourn something that we once had. But it is also somewhat of a double nature, I mourn having her in my life, yet I know I was not all I could have been then.
I am sad it had to come to this. But I do know that if she won't accept me they way I am , that is no friendship.

For my very real and caring friends.
Here is a verse from the ever so lovely Tim Eriksen's song "Friendship" from his newest album "Every sound below" (I am obessed with that man)


Friendship to every willing mind opens a heavinly treasure
There may the sons of sorrow of find sources of real pleasure

Thank you!

On cripness, gender and sex.

Haven't written anything here in ages, other writing has been consuming a lot of time, as has plain living.
Weeks ago I had a plan to follow up on cripchick and wheelchairdancer's blog posts on disability and gender, I wrote something but didn't think I did well. Today, as I was reading through old things lying around on my harddrive I realised it might have been okay anyway so here it is.

Following in the footsteps of cripchick and wheelchairdancer I will try my best to write about my take on ’crip’ as an identity, its relation to power and sex.

Firstly, I would like to say that it has taken me a while to find myself as a crip-girl. Honestly, my disability even though it is at times very crippling has not been a major issue for me and not until the last year’s part of my identity as such.

I credit this to my childhood and my ideas of myself growing up. Even if I knew there was something different with me, I was never told that different equalled bad.

Growing up in a very including Christian environment I was often told my disability was a blessing. Later I came to know that was not always the take on disabilities amongst other Christians and certainly not amongst other Pentecostals, as my family was.

Growing up in a Christian environment also meant that the ideas of sex and sexuality were different than others. I often found it puzzling that Pentecostals would devote themselves so physically to God and the Spirit while at church but be afraid to touch subjects that I thought alike, lust and pleasure. It was not rare when I grew up to see women hiss the name ‘Jesus’ between gritted teeth as their bodies shock. And when finding out about the Spirit myself I likened it to an orgasm.

Because I had always been told my disability was a blessing, meaning that God had greater plans for me and brother and had let us live even if it wasn’t possible, I grew up believing strongly, and still do - that all that is good within me comes from God. Hence, the love I felt for both boys and girls wasn’t a trouble.
Finding out I was both a crippled and a bisexual I started to asses myself at a very early age, thinking about what I like and disliked. Linking fantasises desires and wishes together I also discovered I was Dominant. (Will this odd-ness never end?)Again, seeing that it was in me and was a good thing since it sprung from love and also couldn’t exist without a submissive counterpart and a consensus from that person, I accepted it.

As a Dominant-crip-pseudo-lesbian I struggled to find an identity that fit me. Combining the weakness and frailness of my psychical condition with the force of my mind and my ‘sinful’ love for other women.

For a substantial period of time I was on growth-hormones since I was way too short for my age. I am still pretty short but without the hormones would have been even shorter. The hormones, a jolly mixture of steroids and testosterone, sent my body off on a post-adolescences joyride. I bulked up like I had never done before; I was longer frail in appearance even though my body was.
In an attempt to mend the gap between my physical appearance and my mind I went into a period of being a very butch girl. Shaving my head and trying desperately to find out where this rollercoaster was to take me I went from crazy unisex tops and shirts to dresses and back again. All the time feeling uncomfortable in an appearance that I didn’t know.

Getting of the hormones I dropped 8 kg to 38kg for my final 145 cm and finally recognised what I saw in the mirror. I went back to the clothes that I had worn as a girl, I indulged in skirts and flowery tops, flaunted my tits and tried my very best to make my body sexual and owned by me, rather than an asexual object owned by doctors and syringes filled with steroids.

As a crip-girl I believe that is my biggest struggle. To believe that my body can be desired through the eyes of others. That it isn’t something freaky but something hot, mostly because I myself through active choice in my appearance and manners make it so.
I thrive on being raunchy and outspoken about my body and my sexuality, since it breaks a long lived idea of crippled people as asexual, making use of it as I would like. Learning to make it work its best to give me and my lovers the most pleasure and so and so.

Through this process of ‘returning to the roots’ I discovered my last add-on identity so far. I was not only a Dominat-crip-pseudo-lesbian; I was also a ‘femme’.
Putting my ‘invalid’ body on display because I chose to, doing it with the tools of a feminine appearance altered to fit my needs (see crip-chick’s post on altering the tools of femininity, such as clothes, to fit the needs of our bodies) allowing myself, with very little physical force, to Dominate through the mind, and enjoying that, gave me the cornerstones of the subversion that now constitute my femme-identity.

However even though I am a ‘fiercely femme Lady’ according to beloved Sister Hillevi, I find I am rarely viewed as that by people who don’t know me. Again it’s that asexual image of disabled people and certainly disabled women that gets me. Also, my ‘classically feminine attire’ combined with a well expressed Christian faith often boxes me in as a sweet-Christian-girl. Not to say that I am not but there is certainly more to me than meets the eye in that sense.

In order for a discussion to take place around disability, gender and identity society needs to acknowledge disabled persons identities not only as homogenous disabled group but see that all kinds of identities fit within the disabled ‘community’ as well as in the able bodied.
That even though I am a disabled person it is not equal to my disability being the cornerstone of my identity.

My crip-identity as it is today took me years and years to build and it was through my other identities that a sense of subversion of my crippled body arose.
When I call myself a crip today, it gives me a space to joke about the quirks of my body, my spasm, my freakishly tensed muscles, a space where I can promote photos as the one here on the blog where I kiss the chrome on my walker.
Also, it gives me a space where I find strength in a world that is made to fit the able bodied, it gives me a sense of community and support, a renewed sense of what my body needs and strength to acknowledge that these needs are different than my able bodied friend’s.

(Might be brainy, might just be ramblings)

On Christiano-phobia

Due to a piece on this on Swedish Tv’s (SVT) program ”Existens” (http://www.svtplay.se/) I thought I would blog about the phenomena, if there is one.

In the piece they interview Swedish Pentecostal Christian politician Lennart Sacredéus who says he has experienced this kind of phobia. That he knows people who have been ridiculed and persecuted for their Christian faith.
Sacredéus says:

“It is when they have displayed a traditionally Christian point of view in
certain questions that they have experienced this kind of “critique” from
others, in their work environment, in their schools, amongst ‘friends’.”

As an example the program brings up the standard traditionally Christian “points of view” as pro-life and homophobic statements. Of course nothing about people being persecuted for what I believe is the most traditional Christian point of view: Love thy neighbour.

This made me wonder, is it so that when challenged for certain statements of their faith right wing Christians will now go around calling it a phobia? And have I experienced that phobia anywhere?

Firstly, I do well believe that when challenged in the more conservative areas of their faith Christians like Sacredéus (part of the Swedish Christian party which opposes gay marriage, gay adoption and abortion for a start) might well be crying wolf about a phobia spreading through the land. There is no phobia! There is critique on what kind of view on other people and their autonomy these kinds of groups present.
In the same program the former Arch Bishop of Sweden KG Hammar says:

“It is only ridiculous to assume there is a Christo-phobia, what is happening is
that conservative Christian values are given critique, like all other things are
critiqued. As Christians we must all be ready to take critique our self if we
critique others.”I agree, I think KG Hammar is actually one of the most
reasonable Christians Sweden has ever seen. If the conservative Christian
movement needs to go on about homophobic and oppressing ideas they can well face
up to being critiqued on that, as they critique the lack of “morality” in the
secular world.

I agree, I think KG Hammar is actually one of the most reasonable Christians Sweden has ever seen. If the conservative Christian movement needs to go on about homophobic and oppressing ideas they can well face up to being critiqued on that, as they critique the lack of “morality” in the secular world.
However, I find there actually exists an other kind of Christiano-phobia. One that has nothing to do with the ideas that specific Christian’s present but with the concept of being Christian.
A phobia that makes me, a highly progressive bisexual Christian, as bad as any conservative bigot ever was.
It has nothing to do with what I believe, only the fact that I do believe!
A phobia that tells me that it doesn’t matter how many autonomous choices I make in life. How much I try to break away from bigots and other foul “religious” people. The pure fact that I accept Christ as my Saviour (oh my- really?) is enough to make me a stupid and un-emancipated girl. One who is fooled by doctrine and patriarchy into submission and silence.
If the people telling me these things knew the least bit about me they would see how ludicrous there statements about me are.
(I use my vast knowledge of the Bible in ways they could never imagine- Hah!)

I often experience a stiff silence when I come out as a Christian (yes I really feel I need to come out about it.) When I tell people I was brought up in the Pentecostal movement it’s often even worse. I find I start every conversation on my faith with an excuse.
You see I am not….
Even if they say...
My point of view on this is not…

Now I wonder who gave the conservatives the right to patent my faith!?
Also, who makes it perfectly okay for non-believers to tell believers believing is a sign of weakness!?
(I will not speak about my “favourite” non-believer Richard Dawkins here; I think that man has had enough publicity already!)
In my life as a Christian I seek opportunities to actively do good for others, I seek opportunities to be friendly and help, to be supportive and to speak up in anyway suitable when things are not as they should be. I try to love my neighbour. Sometimes I fail, of course I do.

But I try my hardest to love the homophobes, the patriarchal oppressors, and the pro-life madness people.
I try; I really, really try to love the mad and mean Richard Dawkins. In my love for the people behind the arguments I find it natural to speak up about the wrong that they do.

All of you – YOU GIVE CHRISTIANITY A BAD NAME!

On faith, queer-ness and prayers

A text orginally written in Swedish for http://www.queerteologi.com.

To come to terms with our faith, we must examine our faith through ourselves. We must, in some way measure ourselves and find out what we consist of. I have done it many times. First as a child in a family of religious parents and relatives, then as a teenager in a group of other teenagers who believed, but not as I did, and finally as an adult all alone with only myself as a reference to how I wanted to live.

My birth is based on faith. It is a miracle or a mistake, a sin or a blessing, for both believers and non-believers. For my religious parents, there is meaning in mine and my brother's disability and that is how I am raised. Believing that God wished me well on that summer morning when I was picked out by a Caesarean-section three months premature. That he held his hand over us when we were fighting our way in to life. That he wanted us to live.

I was brought up to believe, without doubt, that:
"Jesus loves all children, all children on earth, red and white and yellow and black - doesn't matter, he said."
Therefore, my disability was an asset, a blessing and a gift to the world so it would remain diverse.

But in the Christian tradition which I am partly raised in, and which my father and mother belonged to, but left, physical shortcomings are often seen as an evidence of sin. Either I have sinned or my disability is a penalty for my parents' sins, whatever they might be.

As an adult, during a Sunday service in a Pentecostal church in a city where I lived, the members of the congregation asked if they could pray for me, I said yes. Then I thought we would pray for my studies at the time, and for a continued blessed life in the arts. Perhaps the members, which kneeled and put their hands on me thought that my career-choice was a pity. That the acting and the performing could lead me on paths away from the straight and narrow leading to the Pearly Gates.
However, they said nothing about that and when they prayed for me, in that charismatic way I have seen and heard so many times before I felt at home and secure. In these "excesses", in this sweaty jubilation and prayer, was a style of worship that I loved.

After the intercession one of the people who prayed for me asked me if I did not want intercession for "my legs".
I was very puzzled, never had I received this question before. It stood in contrast to all I had been taught in the past. That my legs were a sign of God's diversity, yes, a blessing from him, even. The man who asked me did it based on something he thought was right. He wanted me to be healed, and he thought it would be so. He justified his question by saying he "believed that Jesus wanted us to be healthy."
I replied that I believed that Jesus wanted diversity, and then we left the subject and he continued to play Christian tapes in his car while he drove me home through the sunny spring day.

But there in the car just that spring day, something happened. Something that I came to wrestle with a long time. The faith which I wanted to be a part of would not accept me as I was. My childhood-faith full of confidence in a good and accepting God who loved everyone
"and therefore gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" did not match anymore.
I feel most at home in what is called the Pentecostal Curch, that's where my my mum grew up and where my grandparents had their Christian faith. I have played there and glued Jesus pictures on cardboard, amongst lots of other children, sang songs and eaten cinnamon-rolls .

I have also seen a prayer and worship so strong that the people wept and spoke foreign languages. Shooked, laughed and rejoiced. All in the name of Jesus.
I wanted to dwell in that church.
But I also knew that I had to hide myself. I could not tell them everything about myself. I would be forced to sweep a big piece of my personailty under the carpet. Such as the fact that I sometimes fall in love with women. That I could imagine sharing a life with a woman I loved as much as if I loved a man. That it is perfectly possible for me to have children with this woman or this man and that I want our love to be blessed. Then there's a no-trespassing sign.

You can not live like that for the Old Testament says "you shall not lie with a man as a man lies with a woman because this is a sin."
Still I believe that all love must come from God since God is love. Still I believe that we must respect each other and not judge sinceJesus says,
"with the measure you weigh up for others it will be measured for you"
and as long as we act in love for ourselves and our fellow humanbeings, we do the work of God.
So, how to behave then if you are initially excluded, if the way that you love is not only unacceptable but a sin so great it is a as a cancer in the body of society, according to some.

I remained silent, it's stupid I know and to some extent un-Christian because Jesus says that "the truth shall set you free".
I did not lie, I just did not tell the truth.
Kept quiet and spoke only under my breath if someone asked something about boyfriends or so. In my bisexuality, I could of course choose to show the relationships I had with men, just mention them and everything was "normal". I remained silent in youth meetings and evenings, during the exultant praise meetings and Sunday services.
I had a great time with Jesus and loved to be so vibrantly and personally saved.

However, during all of this something ate away at me. I knew I could not continue to live in this congregation, not if I lied and certainly not if I told them how it was.
Fortunately, summer came and I finished my education and moved from the congregation without the need to come out.

Back home I made the decision to never lie about something in my life that I felt was right. If it was not possible to live in that type of congregation I had done in the past if I was open about everything about me, then I was not meant to. From now on "the truth shall set you free" became my favourite Bible verse and my beacon.

Under that guiding principle I was also "forced" to be true to my faith. Everywhere and everytime my queer orientation and my faith in Jesus came hand in hand. And it confused, not least other LGBTQ-people.
That somewhere along the way, had learned that the Christians were narrow minded and quick to judge. My Christian faith was something very exotic, and my yearning for the Pentecostal sweaty and charismatic worship left people very puzzled. I explained that it was the faith I had grown up in and that this was they way I wanted to celbrate
Yet I find that I often have to defend myself and sometimes even excuse myself for my Christian faith. Emphasizing that even if other Christians feel this or that, it is not my faith. That the Christian group is not at all streamlined but made up of individuals, as much as the LGBTQ movement (which I also belong to).

The Christian Church has a history marked by persecution and terror, the early Christian congregations were forced to hide themselves and to communicate with symbols to avoid the risk of being found out about and murdered. They were forced to hide and ridiculed for what they believed.
That also happended in the earliest days of the Pentecostal Church during the 1920's. The members were called heretics and gabblers and there were psychiatric examinations to assess their health.

Thus, both the early Christian movement, the Pentecostal Church and the LGBTQ-movement share a history (and a present experience)of being persecuted and hated because they chose to follow the only thing that seems important in life, to live being true to themselves and to show love!
For me the common ground is easy to see, even if I did not stand with one foot in the LGBTQ -movement and the other in Christianity, it would probably not take me long to see these similarities

How did I do then?
Why, good, thank you. I stopped being silent. Now I come out about as often as a Christian among LGBTQ-people as I do a bisexual among Christians. Usually the reaction is positive.
But still I havent told my former congregation. I presume they would like to pray for me and I would have to say: thanks, but no thanks, I think Jesus likes diversity because he loves all the children on earth.
I can imagine how they would respond but I do not want to speak about that now.