Below is a speech I gave at the Wellington Slut Walk on June 25th 2011.
I’m Brooklynne Kennedy, a rape survivor and a transwoman.
It’s interesting when talking with friends about this event; we got talking about being called a slut. How we felt about it, and when was the last time. They were all surprised that I had never been called a slut.
I have never been called a slut, not because I am the perfect picture of virtue and purity. No, I have never been called a slut be cause as a transwoman, our bodies have been so sexualized that they no longer belong to humans. Unlike cis-gendered women, many people have only encountered, that they know of, a transwoman via, disgusting and degrading “she-male” porn.
Obviously all transwoman are porn stars; we want nothing but sex all the time. We think of nothing but cock, cock, cock. This attitude gets confirmed at least twice a week, when some guy comes up to me and touches me or exposes himself to me. When some guy doesn’t understand that “I am married” means “I don’t want to fuck you!” I guess the wedding ring is invisible.
Transwomen are no longer human beings, with feelings and emotions, but instead a fancy sex toy. We are little more than a blow up doll to be used then tossed aside. This attitude is far more damaging to the transgendered community than the hatred and transphobia.
This attitude encourages transphobia and violence against transwomen. After all you can’t rape a “sex toy” Beating up a “sex toy” surely isn’t illegal. In many places when a transwoman is raped there is nowhere for her to go. The police will often laugh at her or arrest her for prostitution. That is if they weren’t the rapists themselves.
In my own case I was raped by police, arrested for prostitution, and thrown into a man’s cell where I was raped again. How I wish my case was unique. How I wish my case was rare. It wasn’t tho.
I am here to say this has got to STOP!
I am here to say I am in charge of MY body, I am in charge of MY sexuality!
Trans women are NOT sex toys!
I did not transition for your benefit, and pleasure!
Okay I really meant to post in this blog before now… but anyway here we are a week later.
Things I like:
Slut Walk: The march was awesome, getting up and speaking in front of such a large amount of amazing people was terrifying but worth it. Seeing everyone cry as I read my speech was heart breaking, and heart warming all at once. I feel bad that I had to leave so soon afterward. It’s also great to hear that so many people appreciated my speech… ( I have since this posted my speech up here)
The Reason I had to hop off so soon after slut walk was so I could get ready for the Midea High School Prom LARP being held by The VUW Roleplaying and Games Club which was a blast! I completed all of my character goals and got into my secret society! YUS!!!!!!! It was a lot of fun. and I got to wear one of my Victorian gowns! (it was a Victorian masquerade themed prom).
And THEN the next day I had my Dragonlance table top game! so a very VERY geeky weekend.
This week has from then been filled with Game of Thrones, I’m almost done… I rather like Cersei, but also rather adore Daenerys…
While watching GoT I have been busily sketching costume ideas for my Teonn character… which is useful, I love designing for medievalesque fantasy, you can pick and choose the best from everything really… I love a lot of what Cersei wears, and this am drawing a lot of inspiration from her.
Knitting wise I’m working on the Dino Hat for a friend of mine!
I wasn’t going to post about this, especially because I keep this blog low political. So why am I posting about it? Because of this post by Scar, a Transwoman whose point of view I respect. My dearest friend the amazing Mojo Mathers, first directed me to Scar’s blog, and specifically the post about slut walk. I understand Scar’s point of view, respect it and even possibly would have felt that way years ago.
There is the constant fear of appropriation of “womanliness” but I ignore that because I’m a woman. I don’t think anymore along the lines of “I shouldn’t do xyz thing because people will accuse me of appropriating womanliness”. Because that lets them put me in a third box, in the “other” box, when I am in fact a woman. Don’t like it? I don’t care.
But the main reason I’m going to slut walk and why I think all transwoman should is simple.
I have never been called a slut, not because people think I’m pure and virginal, no I have never been called a slut be cause people assume I am a slut. Society (especailly the men) seem to have placed transwomen into this odd “sex toy” category. This is above and beyond your average objectifying of women. This is outright assumption that as a transwoman I am always looking to have sex, and with anyone. Including random men walking up to me and asking me to suck their cock in the nearest alley way. Including men not understanding that I am married because they “need” me. If I say no more than three times then 25 dollars will change my answer.
You see in a society where your average person’s only encounter with transwomen is pornography, transwoman are nothing more than breathing blow up dolls. there not to have feelings or desires or thoughts, but there for you to fuck and run. Once your done with them you can go back to your mates and exclaim about how “shemales are gross freaks”.
So I’ll be marching in Slut Walk, because I am a woman, I won’t let anyone deny that, and I am in control of my sexuality.
So to most people I talk good politics, I dress stylish and fashionable, and I’m super crafty. I enjoy making things for myself and occasionally others. There is though a not so hidden part of me that most of you probably won’t be shocked to find out about. I’m a Geek, spelled capital gee three three kay. I love sci fi, and fantasy, I complain about inaccuracies and I game.
Actually I game in three different formats. I game on my laptop (currently playing Dragon Age 2 and about to start Portal 2). I play table top Role Playing Games(RGPs) (these are the classic dice rolling geeks around a table games like Dungeons and Dragons). I also play in Live Action Role Playing (LARPs) (yes dressing up in costumes and pretending to be people and fighting with foam swords).
I love my gaming it helps me get out of my head and do other things for a bit. It can be hard for me to actually relax because my brain is thinking so many other things constantly interrupting it’s self. but gaming helps me to actually relax. I do them all for different reasons.
Computer games are fun because your the only player no one else but you get a say about what you are going to do. You go where you want to go, do the missions you want to do, and keep the speed you want to keep.
Table top RPGs are almost the exact opposite you usually have 3 other players that you have to work with, and have to work together to decide what missions to do. That is part of the fun. Not knowing what your other players are going to find more interesting. The other joy of this is your hanging out with others who have similar interests to you.
LARPing on the other hand is even more social you go out and play with other people who are interested in the same thing. I love LARPing because it’s like being in an improvisational play but everyone is the star because the play is from your point of view. You get to be someone else for the game and do things that you would never do.
So May has been an active Gaming month for me. Fist off I finally was able to get a hold of Dragon Age 2, and thus have been playing that (I try to limit it to less then 5 hours a week, not counting the night i installed it :-p) for the last two weeks or so. Last weekend was was Day Of Games which only comes around once a year.
Day Of Games is a nice relaxed game day, for 15 dollars there are three sessions that run through out the day and the games are chosen by what the players want to play out of what’s offered that session. Most of the games are indie games and definitely all the kind with quick character generation. Unfortunately I was feeling ill AND had insomnia the night before so I missed most f it. Although I was able to participate in the last session and play the super fabulous Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon by the super talented Jenni Dowsett(I want to be as awesome as her when I grow up). Our GM was my friend Ellen who is 8 million kinds of cool, and I played with Scott, Thomas and Freya. Thomas and I were Ghost (he a disturbed roman torture victim and I a Victorian lady who was killed in a terrible roast accident), while Scott and Freya were humans; Freya being my love interest.
This game is dice less which is always refreshing and different. I won’t go into detail, but my character was very delicate and fainted often, I scared my love interest with a tale of her parents getting freaky on my grave site, and not understanding sarcasm.
Then this past weekend on Saturday I had a LARP of Snow White.
Of all traditional fairy tales that were adapted and censored for children in modern renditions, Snow White has perhaps undergone the most change. Today’s bedtime story of an innocent princess, seven happy little men and true love forgets the original undertones of desperation, passion, poverty and sexuality. One cannot tell the true story of Snow White without going back to a time in which men were valued only for their size and stamina, and woman only for their beauty and ability to bear children; a time in which glass was so rare that a polished mirror was truly a frightening thing of magic.
Most of the original characters and a few new ones are present in this adaptation of the older, darker, and more vivid story of Snow White. It is set in the hours before the execution of the Queen and subsequent wedding of the Prince and Princess, a time of last chances and new beginnings.
I was cast as the Wicked Queen, which was a blast. My main goal was to get free and seek my revenge on the world. In the end Snow whit was up the duff with the dwarf’s baby and she runs off with him and the prince marries me instead to become King. I get to continue to be beauty obsessed. This was an interesting role to play cause everyone actively hates you except the nursemaid.
That brings me to last night which was my gaming group’s campaign night(we meet every fortnight). We are playing Dragonlance which is an add on to D&D 3.5 edition rules. I play a Elven Druid, who is the learned on of the group AND the most diplomatic of them all. The other two in my group are an Elven ranger who is not charismatic at all AND does not speak common, and a very stupid but farking huge Orc. Probably the funniest bit was when I accidentally set my Orc friend afire instead of a huge spider that was trying to eat the other elf. The Orc then slammed me into a wall for it. Guess who didn’t get healed after the fight :-p
I got to show off my woodland sword and the binding job I did for my Players Handbook. You see all My D&D books and such are digital PDFs which saves me heaps of space, BUTis a bit of a pain when you have to flip back and forth between many pages. Also I needed practice for when I make my spell book for my Teonn Character. I had some faux suede and did a basic japanese binding with a wrap over cover. Everyone was impressed and I’m really happy. I learned more about drilling through paper need something on top and bottom to protect the paper.
* you should totally check out the webseries that Jenni is in Urban Numina!
P.S. I have another post about more crafty things I’ve been up to lately! I’ll keep you posted.
I know that many of you are slowly starting to unpack your warm weather clothes, are enjoying flowers starting to peep out from the dirt, and are thinking wistfully towards the upcoming summer. The blogs I read are all aflutter of spring and summer projects. There are plans for colourific contests competing with natures own colours and simple summer sewing projects being planned. Ah, yes spring.
I on the other hand am sitting in the couch snuggled into a quilt. I’m starting to unpack my warm woolen summers, and favorite knits. Out come the simple summer boots and the useless* umbrellas. I’m staring grumpily at the grey, cold, rain thinking about all the summer things I miss. It’s autumn.
When I lived in Michigan I loved autumn, the smell, colour changes, and the slow transition to crisp snow. In Wellington it just gets cold and wet. Trees have leaves one week and none the next. Instead of slowly introducing you to cold weather Wellington autumn slowly sneaks up on you and suddenly one day you were wearing tank tops and shorts the next your bundled up in 4 or more layers.
At first I hated it, but now I have adjusted to it. It just means more indoor hobbies. Autumn has become less about playing in leaves and more about knitting, spinning and cooking.
And nothing makes autumn more bearable than jarring/canning, especially when it’s your favorite. I remember every autumn I would look forward to two things, both from my grandmother. Her homemade delicious pumpkin pie and apple butter. Being gluten intolerant and living in New Zealand make the pumpkin pie nearly impossible for me to make. The apple butter is a different story completely!
Note: apple butter does not contain any actual butter or dairy. The name apple butter comes from it’s smooth butter like texture.
This past Saturday I got down to work with 2kg of delicious granny smith apples and everything I needed and got down to work. I was using this recipe with a few minor changes; I left out the lemon items and added a touch more clove. The thing about apple butter is it takes hours and HOURS of work, I spent at least 3 hours alone just stirring. It’s all worth it in the end.
Sorry I couldn't help taking a wee bite or two first.
There are very few redeeming features to Wellington autumn, but making jams, jellys and apple butter is right near the top
*the umbrellas are useless due to the constant high force wind that we have here in wellington!
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