Combat Queer Online

Go Specter

So Arlen Specter turned coat on the Republicans. 

And so long as justice is serve, Al Franken is also going to be seated.

SIXTY SEATS BABY! Back when I was working on the campaign, people told me it would never be done. 

But we did it! And even though I'm far from family and friends, in a place of danger and unpleasantness, friends, I could not be more thrilled.

The world is not so evil. Not all the time. Now, the Dems aren't perfect. Not by a very long way. They can be just as stupid, hateful, and short sighted as the 'Pubs. 

But you know what?

They're a little better. They're more likely to pass pro-trans legislation. They're a little bit more likely to make it so that my veterans benefits cover the cost of my transition.

GO SPECTER!

Shattering America

So, the governor of Texas reached out to the Right Wing extremists last week, talking about how what Texas really, really needed was to maybe secede.  And oh, oh, dear reader, just let me let you know how much I appreciate hearing good fine patriots back home talk about how they want to destroy the country that I'm on my way to the sand box to fight for.  I can't tell you how awesome it is to hear a bunch of damned civilians acting like they know what's best because their doddering, cancer ridden old man didn't win the race for the white house.

Goodness, this stuff pisses me off a whole good bunch.  Chuck Norris, yeah you know all the jokes, he also came out this week talking about how he couldn't wait to run for President of Texas.

He seems to think that because the government is working to end the economic cluster-fuck that Bush & Friends got us into, that means the government has become “oppressive.”  “Oppressive?”  These secessionists don't really know what the word means, but they have a vague idea that it has something to do with their not getting their way 100% of the time.

Watching those idiotic “tea-bagging(their word, not mine) rallies,” I noticed a lot of chanting of the old standard “taxation without representation.”  That threw me for a loop for a second.  What did these people mean, “without representation?”  Didn't we just have an election?  Didn't the vast majority of non-felons have the right to vote?  Isn't the idea of a Democracy that when you have a vote, the fellow who gets the larger number of votes win, and then does the best he can to act for the interest of all of his constituents (And yes, I'm just male pronouns, but this is America.  Sadly, the majority of politicians still tend to be male)?

And then it hit me.  The Gov'ner of Texas, Chuck Norris, the tea-baggers, it's not Democracy they're interested in.  It's not the old mob rule that so often got Athens in trouble that they want.  The only time they can even pretend to stand Democracy is when they happen to win.  What they want is a dictatorship where someone who looks and acts and thinks like of them is in absolute control forever and ever.

They aren't rallying against “taxation without representation,” they are rallying for “taxation without representation.”  They just want to make sure that it's queers and liberals like me who are forced to go unrepresented.

So see Dear Reader, that's why these folks are trying to break away from America. For all their jingoist bullshit about patriotism, that hate America.  They want to see lady liberty pull down out of New York Harbor, beaten, raped, put in her place.  They want to replace Lady Liberty with the cruel, smirking face of some self-righteous Patriarch, some bastard who thinks that freedom is his freedom to be privileged, to be honored above all the women, darkies, and weirdos.

That's what's going on in the Right right now.  That's what we've all got to look out for.

Oh, and my very own special comment:

So yeah, fuck you Chuck Norris.  If you're so big and bad, why don't you come down and enlist in Army like I did.  Are you afraid that without a stunt double it might be a little hard to take on the bad guys over in Kandahar?  Are you scare of those big bad fire crackers that keep falling on Anaconda?  Are you scared of taking a little ol' convoy around?

'Cause it sounds like it.  It sounds me, a simple queer, is willing to do more for this country than you ever could, you big bad movie actor.

Ceti Eels: Leaving the Army with my Sanity

So, I think I'm getting infected by the Army Hive Mind. There are a lot of ideas that kind of float around Army barracks in about the same way that a cold or the flu would. People go into the Army never having considered this stuff before in their lives, but before too long... well, they've got a whole host of odd ideas.

One, for reservists at least, is that idea that going Active Duty would just be the most awesome thing ever. It never crosses their mind that all the bullshit that they spend their days and nights complaining about would be the regular nature of their lives for years and years on end if they were to go active. For some reason, the “Active Duty, Active Duty” drum beat you hear among the young soldiers never connects to their ideas about their current situation in this deployment. It's really kind of odd.

I think a lot of soldiers' enthusiasm from the idea of going Active comes from the joy of getting a steady pay check every two weeks. Thanks to the sorry state of the economy and their general lack of higher education, a lot of these kids have never been able to make the sort of money they are making on this deployment back in their civilian lives. No matter how unpleasant their lives in the Army might be, that pay check, that pay check is a beacon of hope to them.

Fortunately, the Active Duty Madness isn't the bit of the Army Mind that's infected me, thank God.

Another mind worm that's eats into just about everybody is marriage. It is amazing how many young soldiers are married. Back when I was a 17-year-old in basic training, half of my 60-some person platoon was either married or was about to be. Before every deployment there is this ridiculous wave of marriages that hits. Young 19, 20-year-old soldiers marrying women that have known for a couple of weeks or maybe a month. It is as amazing as it frightening.

Well, for full discloser, a whole bunch of these marriages are results of unplanned pregnancies. If there's one thing that young soldiers love, it's unprotected pre-deployment sex. The numbers of young soldiers with pregnant wives and girl friends.... What can you say?

So even with all the macho nonsense you find in the military, there's this odd demand for the honoring of families and children. Everybody has an opinion of child rearing. I 'm constantly walking in on badass, ultra-masculine sergeants discussing everything from potty training to the most efficient ways of changing diapers, to ways of improving of their kids study habits.

Once again, I am happily free of the responsibility of children at the moment. I like kids fine(well, babies terrify me), but Dear Reader, I sure am thankful that I don't have to worry about the responsibility of caring for any babies.

Even without the kids, Army folks are often flabbergasted at the idea that I am waiting until I'm a little older and more financially secure before I want to start building a family (And yeah, the trans thing absolutely plays in big here for me, but for obvious reasons I don't mention it). People just can't fathom the idea of being a happy, healthy adult and not wanting to be a parent. Weirds me right out sometimes.

So, if it's neither Active Duty nor the specter of wife and kids that's working it's way into the deepest corner of my mind, what is it that's infecting my mentality?

Motorcycles. I hate to admit it, but I'm thinking of buying one. For some reason, just about everybody in uniform has owned a bike at one time or another. Now, I know that motorcycles are death traps. I know that almost as many soldiers have been killed on their shiny new bikes just as soon as they got home from the sandbox. I know that they're a waste of money, time, and energy. But friends, I kinda want one. There's just something about that black and chrome.... I can just feel the money being extracted from my pockets.

I'm thinking about going with a little 600 cc used Honda to start out with. You know, nothing too powerful, nothing that I'll feel too bad about scratching up while I'm learning to ride. Nothing that'll be powerful enough for me to, you know, get out on the interstate and ruin myself.

But oh, oh, a motorcycle would be cool to have.

Anyway, yeah. I better be careful. Next thing you know, Dear Reader, I'll be posting a rant about how cool it would be to go Active Duty, how after I put my twenty years in I'd have all the money I needed to transition real easy. How I'd...

Oh God, it turns my stomach just thinking about it. No, I might buy a bike, but I'm getting out of the Army. That's just the way it is.

Object of His Evangelism

Anyway, last night I had drove one of the other sergeants and these two privates out to dinner. The privates, one was 19 and the other 20, have had some trouble, so the idea was that their sergeant, who we'll call SGT Guthery, would show them some attention and that that might help. Well, we ended up going to a Chinese Buffet off post.

Now, out in the civilian world this sergeant is an evangelist, and has traveled all around the world under the guidance of his pastor. I know because he talks about his traveling and all the great ministry he's done pretty much constantly. He's good with languages and has picked a few up. When he meets someone who speaks a foreign language, he tends to try to address them in it no matter how hard that they try to talk to him in English.

At first I thought he did this to everybody he met who he took to be foreign, but it turns out he does it exclusively to women.

Well, back at the Chinese restaurant, SGT Guthery was working hard. He's not very good, it turns out, at identifying which country a specific Asian person in from, so he regularly addresses Philippine women in Thai, Japanese women in Vietnamese, and Laotian women in Korean. It's an amazingly awkward situation for the objects of his conversational skills.

But last night, the sergeant had some some luck with the waitress. He was hard core flirting with her. Not just the making a joke when she came to the table or winking when he left the tip, no, dude was over at the kitchen door leaned up over her as she put his hand on his elbow. They were talking, in English, loudly enough from me and the two privates to hear. There were definitely invitations to spend some more time together later.

Finally, Guthery puts his arm around her shoulder, leans in and quietly says, "Can I ask you something?"

I hear the two privates kind of take a startled breath. Both later told me that they had expected his next words to be some variation on "wanna go bang in the back?"

But no, sergeant bust out the "Do You Know Jesus As Your Personal Lord And Savior."

He seemed a little disappointed when she said she did.

But yeah, it was ridiculously creepy. The two privates were a little freaked. I've already had several folks who weren't even there come up and ask me about it.

My job's pretty awesome.

GI Joe Resolute: WTF?

So, there's a new GI Joe cartoon out there. As a cartoon loving child of the 80's, I'm pretty excited about this.

Now, I know I should really be using this as opportunity to talk about how American culture glorifies war and violence, cleans it up and sells it to children with colorful, safe-seeming toys, but you know what? I really enjoyed the old GI Joe cartoon. The GI Joe movie was pretty fantastic, what with the giant mutants and all. Also, the bit where Cobra Commander gets turned into a snake? Beautifully weird and creepy.

But the new GI Joe cartoon... I'm about halfway through the first episode, and I felt like I need to take a break and write something about this.

Seriously, what the fuck is this? <Get read for some spoilers>

 The cartoon starts out by killing to main characters from the 80's cartoon. Major Bludd and Bazooka, they're just dead. What is that? GI Joe's supposed to be kind of ridiculous, kind of comic. There's suppose to be some possibly unintentionally hilarious sexual tension between Bazooka and Alpine.

No one is suppose to be killed right off the bat. If someone does get killed, you damn well better have a big lead in to it, you better make it mean something. I don't like the idea of main characters getting used like cannon fodder. 

Oh, also, what the hell, Cobra kills ten million people? In the first episode? Really? Cobra? The guys who thought Cold Slither was a good idea? 

I don't know how much I like this... I mean, I get it. Their trying to present a realistic version, a version that communicates some of the hard, ugly truths about war that America has learned in Afghanistan and Iraq. They're trying to undo thy myth of the safe, fun, adventurous war.

And that's probably a good thing.

But fuck man, they better not kill Shipwreck, Tunnel Rat, or Roadblock. They just better not. This show's already a little to hard to watch.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC

So I had my first day off in the last fourteen yesterday.  Well, my first morning, at any rate.  We're working fairly crazy hours, so you take what you can get.  Being able to sleep in a little, not having to be anywhere until 1300(that's 1pm for you civs out there), it's a real joy.

I spent my free time calling folks back home, drinking soda, and playing the new Mortal Kombat game.

For those you who haven't played that game, it is pretty awesome.  It integrates the worlds of MK and of DC Comics, you know Batman, Superman and that crew.  The story of the game is a pretty standard super-crossover plot, but it's a whole lot of fun. It plays a lot like the earlier MK games, but you have to figure out how to do the DC characters signature moves.  It is amazingly cool to get the Flash to zoom around the screen or to get Batman to hit an opponent with an exploding bat-a-rang.

The thing about it is, I've normally been pretty disappointed with the quality of comic book based games.  Remember Marvel: Ultimate Alliance?  That is one of the single most boring dungeon runners I've ever seen. Even the cooperative nature of the game play can't redeem such an absolutely mediocre playing experience. Every character, no matter what powers or abilities that claim to have, every character functions exactly the same in the game. It comes across as being extremely lazy.

Mortal Kombat Vs DC, at least, recognizes that each character is special in someway, that each character is a unique and irreplaceable element. For such a simple format, it goes a long way.

My only real problem with the game is that it has relatively few characters. The characters it does have, it does an amazing amount with, but come on. Where's Reptil? Martian Manhunter? Smoke? Booster Gold? Both worlds seem to suffer a little without the B-Listers (Of course, the economy of characters does save us from an uncomfortable cameo by Dr. Manhattan, Roschach and the rest of the Watchmen gang).

Trans Rape Fears

So, let's talk about rape for a minute. I know it's not a pleasant topic, but it's one that is often ignored around trans issues. Trans folks are far more likely than straights to be victims of sexual assault. And that's really awful. 

As I've said to a few people, I can't say that I really understand what goes on in straight guys heads a lot of the time. The reasoning just seems alien. For some reason, though, when Mr. Alpha Straight Dude realizes that he has been “tricked” into being attacked to an individual with similar chromosomes to his, he often responds with violence. And not just violence, but sexual violence.

Now, I could toss up some theories like, dude is trying to prove that he's still sexually dominate even though he became aroused by another individual with a wang, something along those lines, but seriously, I don't get it. 

But it happens. Big, strong girl that I am, I get scared of rape sometimes. Yeah, laugh it up, but you trying showering with a bunch of tired, angry, bored young men after you've been on hormones for me than year. Yeah, I have little trouble passing as male, but I have little trouble passing as female either. I have breasts. I have hips. My curves certainly aren't anything like some women's out there, but hey, they exist. It's not something that I can hide, especially in the shower. My main defense is the taboo against male on male arousal. is simply to never put myself in a position where my comrades could see me a female. 

But yeah, it can be scary.

But see, it's not just about me. Focus On The Family, that pseudo-scientific, pseudo-christian bullshit factory, the one constantly pumping out it's offal from Colorado, last week they sent out a letter warning of Obama's plans to push laws through that would allow men to use women's bathroom. 

“OMG,” says stupid Evangelicals, “Men are going to try to rape women in those bathroom!” they said in terrified voices, “When did Obama become so pro-bath room rape? Why doesn't he have women's best interests in mind? Is it the Muslim thing? Oh God!”

You see, the legislation that Focus On The Family's letter is talking about? It isn't talking about men. It's talking about letting trans people use the bathroom correct for their gender. 

Now, dear reader, you might be saying, “But Combat Queer, what does it matter what bathroom trans folks use?”

Going back to the beginning, trans folks are at risk of being raped. It isn't fair for them to be forced into situations where they are a) forced to out themselves by going into the gender-incorrect bathroom, b) forced to trespass in a “man's area,” thereby increasing the chances of pissing off some Alpha Straight Dude, and c) forcing them into a small, enclosed area with potential pissed-off Alpha Straight Dudes. It isn't healthy, it isn't safe, it isn't fair.

Now, I first heard of Focus On The Family's letter threw one of my officers. He was making a big joke of the idea of trans people. According to this officer, the only reason trans people exist is so that they can disguise themselves as women, sneak into women's bathrooms, and rape the young women within.

So yeah, this is bullshit. It's all based on the idea that trans women aren't really women, that trans women are rapists, and that trans women have rights to safety or protection. 

Disappointment

So I had a real disappointment today.

See, I happened to meet one of the Chaplains here on post. I have mixed feelings as far as Chaplains go. On one hand, some of them do it because they deeply care about the men and women who, for whatever reason, decide to put on the uniform and give themselves over to a radically odd life of service for their country. This kind of Chaplain is ready to step in an take care of a person when she or he reaches a crisis point. This kind of Chaplain, he or she is there to help folks in genuinely horrible conditions carry some of a load that's too heavy for any sane person. This sort of Chaplain is valuable, and should be, in my opinion, rewarded and supported.

A lot of Chaplains are there for exactly the right reasons, but on the other hand, well, you might have read my post a few back about the Chaplain who decided to go to church himself instead of providing a service for his soldiers. Some Chaplains exist is this weird place, strangely divorced for the every day goings ons of the operating unit.

That sort of Chaplain, they're like the Phantom Of The Opera. They leave little hints and clues that they might exist, they like to get their names on as many lips as they can, but well, they sure aren't going to come out into the open very easily.

One of the these Chaplains might show up at a change or command ceremony, something where she or he gets to be seen by everybody in the world, gets to pray into front of a big group, but that sort of Chaplain also tends to disappear pretty quickly afterwards. It is an unheard of event for that sort of Chaplain to be found at a final formation or on a late night shift. They're off taking care of their own spiritual needs, or whatever it is that vain old people do by themselves at night.

Because the good kind of Chaplain can be so good, I usually make a point of getting all of them. When they disappoint me, when they fall into that second category, well, meeting one really good Chaplain can make up for meeting a great number of bad ones.

So today when I discovered that one of the local chaplains was going to be visiting my unit, I decided that I was going to meet her. That's right, it was a woman chaplain. You still don't see too many females in that line of work, so I was looking forward to it.

When she came into my office, I shook her had and politely asked what her denominational back ground was.

“Episcopalian,” she says.

Oh, that's awesome, thinks me. In some ways the Episcopal Church is more my home than any house or apartment where I've ever crashed. Living in the rhythms of the church provides me with a structure, sort of like those thin wooden sticks that tomatoes plants grow up around, and I grow up and around, well, there's more freedom than I could ever ask for. In the military, I miss the church. I miss the liturgy. I miss the smell of incense, cooked into the bones of chapels by years of use. I miss Compline. I miss the sounds of the bells. I miss the confession of sin. I miss being in a church that knows I queer, a church that loves me for who I am, not despite it.

For a brief, stupid moment I was able to entertain the fantasy that I might have found a good, ultra-liberal female Episcopal priest, a person with whom I could confide all the nonsense about the transsexuality, about the hormones, about my fear for the future, able the wonder of truth, and the goodness of Christ, and Christ's mercy.

But then that moment ended.

With very, very little provocation the chaplain launched into a ten minute long explanation of how the Army was being taken over by Wiccans, how all the Wiccans did in the covens was swap wives and child pornography, how you couldn't trust Mormons, and how the Army needed to do more to throw roadblocks in front of the “weird, exotic religions.” After that she talked about how she didn't even know what it meant to be an Episcopalian anymore, and how the church had been taken over by the gays and lesbians. She talked about how her superiors had sabotaged her career because “they know that all Army people are against the gay stuff, and they just don't want that in the church any more.”

She finished her lecture by making jokes about how, some time in the past, a female private first class had come to her and told her that she, the PFC, was planning to use the money she made from her deployment to pay for a mastectomy and male hormones so that she could live as a man. The chaplain thought this was hilarious, but warned everyone in my section to be on the lookout for that sort of thing, as it meant that the soldier was dangerously mentally unbalanced.

And then she moved on to the next office.

Now, I'm not going to say that my section didn't spend much of the rest of the afternoon making jokes about the possibility of evil Wiccans hiding out in the motor pool. The level of oddity of a chaplain like that, well, it's going to get made fun of in the Army. That's probably healthy.

But dear reader, friend, that shit was hard. I wonder about people who act like that. Do they go around tossing off insults like litter in hopes of saying something in front of a Wiccan or queer? Are they trying to be an ass? Or are they just so consumed by fear that they can not think of a single other thing to talk about?

I just don't know.

Blessing of Queer

So, here's something that I've been thinking about for a while. If it doesn't make sense, I apologize. While reading this, please keep in mind that thought I am now an Episcopalian, a member of the finest, most enlightened church on the face of the Earth, I was raised as a poor, doomed Southern Baptist, and to this day carry with me must of that denomination's teaching whether I want to or not. Much of his is probably mean and stupid, but here goes:

It is a great blessing being queer. It is wonderful to be the big O Other. Because I am queer, I feel that I am freed of the Righteousness Game.

You know that game. If you play by the rules, the rules of the world, you get to be a Good Person. If you're a white collared, happily married, finacially secure father of two who attends church regularly, you doing pretty well. You're a good citizen, a good consumer of the world's goods. But you got to keep it up, you've got to do the Right things, you've got to keep the tune, follow the styles, be a part of it.

By being queer, well, I've already lost the game. You can talk about “homo-normativity” or “trans-normativity” 'til you're blue in the face, but the fact is that in this day and age for most of the world, most of the population of America, it's still a socially negative thing to be queer. For most Americans, being queer is being gross, perverse, and dangerous.

Existing in that role while also chasing after that fellow Christ, well, it's amazing. All that business in the New Testament about the world hating you? About Christ being your only hope, your only refuge? Well, I get it.

And it isn't that I thik that being queer is wrong or evil or any of that bullshit.

It's just that nobody's perfect, and I get the blessing of knowing it.

But more than that, I find myself deeply thankful of being able to see the world, even if it is just through the tiniest crack in the wall, the briefest shimmer of light, I'm thankful that I get to see the world outside of the all the nonsense about needing to be manly, about needing to hurt others so that it will be somewhat more difficult for someone else to hurt me. It's good to know that there's a real world out there, one beyond the man-made bullshit built up around ideals of class and patriarcy.

So yeah, this isn't my best written thing, but it's true. I'm thankful for what freedom I have.

Pious Neglect

I'm getting pretty tired of piety. Far, far too often folks uses their damn beliefs and faith to shine up their very special own person while leaving the rest of the world to go to shit.

This morning for instance, well, it's a Sunday. The Chaplain, good Lutheran that he is, has gone off to church to shake hands with the big officers and the big officers' wives. The Chaplain's Assistant, God fearing Catholic, he rounded up a van and took seven or eight Papists over to early Mass. Niether one of them's back yet, and it's not clear whether or not either one of those Christ-carriers are coming back today.

So good for them, living their beliefs even under the stress and hussel and bussell of a military deployment. But oh wait, dear reader, dear friend, what's this? I've got several hundred other soldiers who would like to go to church, get some worship, all that fun stuff, but no arrangements have been made. No vans have been scheduled, no Chaplain's come down here with his ridiculous little communion kit, no fucking Moody Bible College educated E-3 is setting up his little Bible study. Oh no.

For the sake of their piety, the Chaplain and the Assistant are off ignoring the needs of the great mass of nobodies in this unit, all the lower enlisted kids whose dreams are rarely greater than the purchase of a new Xbox game or the consumption of a cheap beer. Now, these kids are not glamorous or beautiful, or always terribly interesting, I guess, to a great Chaplain out there chasing the big W Wisdom and doing the big W Work of God, but dear reader, these kids do their jobs. They take care of their responsibilities, even here on Sunday morning. The whole damnable unit rides on their job-doing backs, and how do they get repaid on a fine Sunday morning?

They get repaid with the Chaplain's pious evasion of his job. They repaid by being informed if not by word, at least by action, that no matter how hard they work, they are still not worthy of the attention of the Chaplain, that no matter how hard they work, the Chaplain's individual need to go to church somehow outweighs their collective never for contact with the divine.

And they remember.