Etymology is not destiny. A short rant.

Sometimes when I try to engage in discussions with people who disagree with me on the internet. And sometimes when I do this the person I'm speaking with will drag up dictionary definitions and the etymological lineage of a particular term I am either using or that we are discussing.

Now, as a writer and poet, I have a deep love and vested interest in etymology. It can provide wonderful context and a rich sense of history to a word or discussion about that word. But as a word nerd who holds etymology very dear to their heart I resent it being used as evidence in a disagreement.  It's a cheap and inappropriate ploy. Here's why.

Calls to etymology are a distrustful derailment technique. They deny the way the other party uses words and assert the authority of past uses of those/that word/s. It's basically a pedantic version of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and singing "la la la. I'm not listening."

But let's take it further. The implication here is deeply unfortunate. Someone who makes this call to the authority of etymology is not only refusing to listen to the way the other person's using words, but they are making a stand for meanings and concepts to never change. That's right folks, this use of etymology implies that the speaker/writer supports continuing the use of out of date meanings for in modern contexts. This is one of the mechanisms by which oppressive the verbal tics of history get carried over.

Beyond that, it's just unrealistic and comically Sisyphean to cling to origins and historical meanings and ways of doing things. Yes, there's much value in using them as starting points for how to communicate and live our lives. But we will always need to find new ways to communicate. The context of the worlds we live in shift and along with it so should they ways we use our words and tools.

Lessons from the impossible

I have absolutely no idea what to write about today. The ever apparent ragged I've run myself into keeps raking through the possibility of any cogent string of thoughts.

Yesterday in my burst of activity, when I said "do something impossible". I did not mean do something unhealthy. But I guess that is what my body heard.  This morning I woke ill, reluctant, and subsequently decongested into something that stung like wisdom:

My art it not worth my sacrificing my health for.

Fatigue/exhaustion aches and tenses me in a way that stops me from trusting myself. My mind learning from the bodily punishment that there is danger in going deep and committing to anything (and yes there is, but mostly worthwhile).

For instance I've spent more than an hour today generating new content. Most of it extremely surface level and brimming with frustration. Regardless of the state of my body and soul I try and make space in my life for the not-so-conscious creative magic of my brain to do its thing. Every day. Often it doesn't come.

Like today, everything I wrote just felt like empty cycles of word shuffling. My ability to string thoughts into a sensible sequence of ideas for was massively depleted.  It was like going to yoga full of fear and stiffness. No wonder my thoughts couldn't hold a pose for more than 15 minutes.

Still I'm glad I did the work. Proud I showed up. And to me, that seedling pride can be so radical. Today I am recoving from my poor self-care choices. I need that recovery. And also I need to show up here for what I've committed to.

Unfortunately there is a very loud part of me that insists being present/visible while in recovery is impossible. That part of me is, I think, mostly shame. And that shame tells me that this process must be private. So that's the impossible I'm doing today, revealing my nasty, unproductive recovery.

But hang on. Where did I learn to feel this shame? Why must recovery be a private/invisible thing. Why must we only ever present ourselves to others at our very very best?

Nothing against our very very best, but seriously, WTF?

Maybe it has to do with how it's apparently some sort of American value to look like you don't need anyone or anything to just live you life the way you normally do (see here "I woke up like this").
In the past I've written about how narratives of "inspired"/"genius" works can erase the truth about how messy the process of writing/creating can be. And I get the feeling the way we view taking care of ourselves (as private/only for loved ones to know about) relies on a very similar sort of erasure. As if knowing about the craft of our lives or our work and our presentations ruins the magic.

Any skilled craftsperson will tell you. It doesn't. I just makes you feel like a wizard.

Reclaiming the F word: one (trans*) fag's ethics of language reclamation

So I'm a genderqueer poet and a blogger who covers activist issues. It should go with out saying that I think about language at lot. But I said it anyway. That's the kind of person I am.

Full disclosure here: my being genderqueer means that I experience a range of genders from day to day (sometimes hour to hour) and sometimes I feel I have no gender at all. I feel the need for a decent variety of terms to describe my identity.

As a trans* masculine person who is attracted to other masculine individuals I occasionally identify myself with the word fag (along with words like "sissy"). I recognize that “fag” has a history of being used violently and oppressively, and is very much so still being used that way by many. But I hope that fag can be reclaimed and used as an accurate identifier of people's gender/sexual identities.

The problem of hateful epithets is never with the words themselves (just like the physics that make them work are not responsible for the damage caused by nuclear bombs). The problem is the stigma, violence, and hate aimed at the behaviors and identities those words represent. In this case it's hate for the effeminate identities and behaviors of (purportedly)  men.

I take on fag as an effeminate guy who's attracted to men, but also because, as someone who has the privilege of not being oppressively coerced into (hetero) masculinity (like most cis men are) I can self identify with the word fag without personal consequence. If I'm mindful can use my this privilege to to change the conversation around “fag”, and hopefully to ameliorate some of its negative associations. That is exactly what I am trying to do.

I do this because I am proud of being an effeminate guy who likes other guys and I want to be recognized as such. I also think that the negative view of other effeminate masculinities needs to end. Bottom shaming needs to end. The negative use of the word fag needs to end. For me that starts with behaving as if there is nothing wrong with a word that means "effeminate gay man" and that instead there is something wrong with the people who would use "fag" with distaste, fear, and hate.

In my case, as with all language reclamation, privilege is the primary fuel. I receive support from my community when I name my identity and when I defend it. People will have my back if I decided to shout back at the haters: "You know what? I AM a queer/fag/slut/bitch and there's nothing wrong with that."

I recognize and love me. I know that my friends and family recognize and love me. Changing the meaning of words relies on the privilege of recognition, on the fact that at least some people will listen to the speaker, legitimize their words, and offer them leeway on their intentions. Community support and recognition is an essential ingredient to the reclamation of slurs.

This is exactly how words like “pervert”, “slut”, and “crip” have been reclaimed. And this community fueled privilege is exactly why language reclamation is so prone to becoming problematic when it goes viral.

Though these words have gone through a significant and largely effective reclamation, they aren't all accurate representations of everyone's identity. Unfortunately, some overzealous reclaimers attempt to ascribe their reclaimed slur to everyone wholesale. As if the oppression they faced though a particular word is the same and carries the same significance for everyone. This happened most flagrantly with the reclamation of word “slut” and was met with well worded and very warranted resistance:

What becomes an issue is those white women and liberal feminist women of color who argue that “slut” is a universal category of female experience, irrespective of race. -Crunk Feminist Collective

The messy reclamation of “slut” assumed that everyone would be able to find the same power and recognition with the new definition. There's a lesson to be learned here for those of us making efforts  to reclaim slurs.

In order to avoid erasing or minimizing other marginalized individuals we the need to keep our expectations localized to our own lexicons. We need to realize that we can't magically change people's hearts, minds, and histories with our shiny new intentions. We can't expect even some of our political allies to use or accept language in the way we envision. Because, whether we acknowledge it or not, trying to get others that others think of words in the way that we do it is an enforcement of cultural supremacy.

Some reclamation efforts have been too impatient, demanding that people immediately see a particular word differently than they have their whole lives. We need to respect the problematic nature of the words we choose to reclaim. Impatient language reclamation not only ignores both the lived cultural contexts others may have for a word, it also completely ignores the subtle nature of language itself.

Language and culture affect each other. Both are fluid and change, seemingly imperceptibly from year to year. Language and the cultural consciousness are generally slow to shift. I believe that a conscious, minimal, but consistent resistance to the problematic way in which some words are currently used can have some harm-reducing effect. But I try not to get too specific with my vision of "what this word should mean".

Language reclamation isn't about changing people's minds suddenly with a logical argument. It's not an activist effort you can "win" at. There are no significant victory points to be claimed. Your goal should never be for people to think exactly like you, only that they begin to think differently about the way a particular piece of language is used.

What we can do is ask to be recognized with the words we deem the most appropriate. Doing anything more than this runs the risk of erasing or minimizing other communities' history and current culture surrounding those words.

I don't want people who have painful histories and associations with "fag" to give those up. Those histories and associations belong to them. What I do want is to build a future where the word "fag" and the effeminate/nontraditional masculinities it represents are talked about without shame and hatred.