July 2011
65 posts
ISOLATION MODE
“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”
—Josephine Hart (via blaqmagic)
I was fired from my job today for being transgender.
Apparently my supervisor and coworkers were fine with it, but the HR representative, who I never even got to meet, was not.
They first had the person from my staffing agency contact me (instead of speaking to me personally) requesting that I not use the correct bathroom, because I might make people uncomfortable. When I asked him to please find out if there was a unisex bathroom in the building I could use (as I did not want to go to HR/my supervisor myself and make it a big deal) they informed him (and thus he informed me) that there is no unisex bathroom available and that I was no longer a good fit for the company.
When I contested that there was no issue, I would suck it up and use the wrong bathroom, they changed their tune to say that they didn’t interview “Aaron”, they interviewed “(legal name)”, and that I was “obviously” not the person I claimed to be.
What really disgusts me is that at 5:00pm, before I left, my supervisor was telling me how great I was doing, that I seemed like a really great fit and did so well with training, set me up my own desk and computer and told me when I came in tomorrow, I’d be on my own. At 5:40pm it was confirmed that they were not willing to work anything out, my “situation” made me an ill fit for the company, and they had already lined up someone else for my job.
It makes no difference that my skills, experience, and qualifications were the same, regardless of preferred name/pronouns. If I had requested to be called by a preferred traditionally feminine name, like say, a shortened version of my legal name or my middle name, I would still have my job.
For more information, please read the wikipedia article on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and get involved in helping to fight for its passing.
Oh gosh Aaron! I’m so sorry!
I hope it passes.
:( :( :(
I fucking hate that the world is so fucking unfair. People are just trying to live their lives. :( :( :( :(
Play
DC Women Kicking Ass: DC Comics SDCC panels: uncomfortable questions about female creators/characters →
dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com
The DC Comics panels at SDCC have been filled with what I being told are uncomfortable and awkward moments around the issues of female creators and characters.
THE REBUTTAL
Okay, let me open by saying that this particular topic has already been to over editorialized by Sue & her echo chamber. Sue & others have utilised an “appeal to motive” a lot with this one. So lets get that out of the way & go straight back to basics.
Now just for expediency I’ll quote Sue directly
On female characters in the Justice League line: A female fan in a Batgirl costume, with daughter dressed as Spoiler, was very upset by what she said was a lack of female characters being featured centrally on the covers in the Justice League line of books. The panelists said they are trying very hard to take diversity seriously in terms of both gender and race. The fan said no such characters were featured prominently on the covers, leading to a somewhat heated and awkward back-and-forth ending with her promising to go count them. The mood of the room was definitely against her, with Lee joking and asking if she wanted the female characters to be “dead center or off-center” on covers.
Technically this is a bit of a misstatement of what she asked. What she actually said was that after seeing cover after cover coming out, where are the women? Someones been quite clever here & reworded it rather insidiously, to make it about just the JLA lines. By doing so, its kind of like insinuating that the NBA is sexist as it contains no female players. (you can listen to the discussion your self at http://www.dccomics.com/media/podcasts/DCComics_2011-07-22_DC_Justice_League_at_SDCC_2011.mp3 )
The following issue 1 cover pages contain a female character in a central position, or in a position equal to there other counterparts in a team book. Where the female character is secondary to the main character, the characters are usually drawn by topping billing. The Red Hood cover is the perfect example of this (it goes from top billing character, to lowest billing character).
1. Batgirl
2. Blackhawk
3. Catwoman
4. JLA
5. JLI
6. Justice League Dark (which has three)
7. Red Hood
8. Supergirl
9. Suicide Squad
10. Teen Titans (plus the alternate cover)
11. Voodoo
12. Wonder Woman
13. Birds of Prey
14. Green Lantern: New Gurdians
15. Red Lantern
So straight off the bat we have 15 of the issue 1’s with female characters front and central to the cover art. Many of the books that don’t have female characters central to the cover art are solo books such as Jonah Hexx, Animal Man & Swamp-Thing
The mood of the room was against her & frankly why shouldn’t be. The audience is spot on to Boo, it was a silly question, that can be summed up by a simple maxim that we’ve all heard a thousand times: “don’t judge a book by its cover.”
So to answer her question “Were are the strong women?” They’re in the books which haven’t be released yet… Which so far, is all of them.
How is this a rebuttal? So you’re saying that most of the books that have women in the cover are not out yet? Wouldn’t that make the woman correct for asking why there aren’t women on covers?
Also, are you ignoring the fact cover pages actually matter? It means visibility for characters. It implies the value of the character to the book. If most of the covers are dominated by men, then that is a problem. It says something about how women characters are treated and valued in that company.
“We are entitled to our anger in response to this oppression: our anger is a message to ourselves that we need to get active and change something in order to survive. So we resist oppression, the violence- we resist the tendency of the culture to see us as a joke.”
—Gender Outlaw, Kate Bornstein (via cloveflowers)
