This Land is My Land, Too

I’m going to say something that might be unpopular with some circles.

I’m proud to be an American.

For all its faults, it’s still my home. And it’s the home of MLK and Stonewall and a long legacy of people fighting for a better future. It’s the home of countless influential scientists and inventors. It’s the home of many of my favorite musicians, and the home of some of the greatest entertainers to ever walk the Earth. And most importantly, it’s the home of my closest friends and family. We’re all tied together by this shared land and a shared culture, the same way people have been tied together since the dawn of civilization.

Still, I don’t think America deserves a birthday party this year.

That party hat is starting to look like a dunce cap.

The Supreme Court just ruled that discrimination against certain groups of people is a-okay because free speech or whatever. This would be fine if the group in question were, let’s say, Nazis, but everyone knows this ruling is meant to be a slap toward us gays. As one law professor and analyst put it, “What you’re going to start to see eventually is people saying, ‘I run my little inn in this little town somewhere, and I don’t want to have same-sex couples sleeping in one of my bedrooms.’” It feels like the tippy top of a slippery slope toward something nasty. Not wanting to leave us with just one gut punch, the Court also ruled against student loan forgiveness. This is going to screw over so many hardworking students, current and former, who will be in debt to their eyeballs until death. Like, I’m pretty much banking on just freaking dying before I have to pay back everything at this point.

The debt collectors will never find me in here!

All this on top of the crimes the U.S. has been found guilty of — ridiculous amounts of gun crime, a rising fascist movement, the ever-present racism, stealing the land from the folks who were here first, need I go on?

All that said, I’m still optimistic. I still love this country, warts and all, because of the people here who are trying to make it a better place.

There’s a sentiment among the more jingoistic types that if you’re truly dedicated to your country, you’ll accept it no matter what. This is America — if you don’t like it, get out. You know the type.

But let’s say your family’s home is on fire. It’s a beautiful, beloved home that’s been passed down through generations, and now it’s up in flames. Do you leave it, or do you stay and put it out? There have been times I’ve considered leaving the country, building a raft to Canada or something (as if emigration were ever that easy). But what good does that do for the loved ones who are still trapped in the burning house? What good does that do for the house itself? Maybe the brave thing to do is to stay and fight.

Certain groups of people want to gatekeep the American dream. Hell, I saw this image from a “friend” on my newsfeed just the other day—

—as if you can’t be gay and American. As if you can’t be trans and American, or black and American, or Hispanic and American. There’s going to be people who try to convince you this isn’t your home. That you’re not welcome here. It’s in the face of these literal anuses that we need to stand up and claim our identities, resting our feet firmly within this blazing house we were born into. This is our home too, and the fight’s not over until all Americans are safe and thriving on her land.

Why I Kind of Hate Pride Month

Hi! Did you know I’m a big ol’ gay? If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know I’ve got a wife and a girlfriend who I love very much (yay for polyamory!). I also identify as nonbinary, as in I like they/them, but I’m still cool with she/her. Basically, I’m queer as all heck.

That being said, Pride Month is kind of a bittersweet time for me.

It’s not that I hate being pandered to by huge corporations. Like, please pander to me; I like the attention. In fact, it’s actually kind of dope that we live in a society where it’s more profitable to be progressive than regressive, even if it’s ultimately all for show. Like, I love Target and I love what they’re doing for Pride, but if they pulled their Pride collection from stores in more conservative areas, it’s clear they’re a fairweather ally. If violence broke out at a Pride parade, Target’s not going to take a bullet for me or my friends, which does suck, but it’s probably too much to ask of even the most queer-friendly corporations. Business is business, after all, and corporations aren’t your friends.

You see, Pride Month is the time of year when I get constant reminders of how much the world still hates me.

Sure, people are loud and proud about their identities and who they love during the month of June, but it’s also the time of year when the assholes feel the need to shout even louder about how much they “don’t approve of our lifestyles” (at best) or want us to die (at worst). Here are some examples from some of my so-called “friends” on Facebook:

These are some of the more tame ones. I’d post some of the darker ones I’ve seen, but I don’t feel like dwelling on this shit even more than I already have to. I’m talking straight-up genocidal statements and “41 percent” quips. These people want my friends to die. These people want my family to die. These people want me to die. And it’s fucking exhausting. There’s a reason I bought a gun and started working out. It’s dangerous to be queer in this climate.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the homophobes and transphobes to die, because I’m not like them. I believe in taking the higher ground. Rather, I wish they’d get to know actual queer folks, not just the caricatures and straw men presented by right-wing media. Because to be honest, we’re mostly pretty cool! Like, all we want is to be ourselves with the people we love. We’re not “coming for your kids.” We just want to make sure that, should your kids end up gay or trans, you don’t throw them out on the street like a wad of garbage.

We don’t need special treatment. Honestly, I’d trade Pride Month and all of its trappings to just be treated like a human being. In the end, we don’t give a shit about your rainbow cakes and witty t-shirts. We just want to live.

Grace Culture: Why Cancel Culture Needs to Go

Everyone sucks. It’s a pretty well-established fact of life. I suck. You suck. Your mom sucks. Hilary Clinton sucks. Donald Trump sucks. The Queen of England sucked. Name your favourite or least favourite person alive, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they definitely suck. The very first thing we learn to do upon exiting the womb is suck (in a literal sense, but also in a figurative sense). It’s in our human nature.

There’s an entire tirade in the Bible about this, actually. It’s particularly referring to the Jewish and Greek folks who would have engaged with this writing at the time, but you could swap in any ol’ demographic and get the same idea. Black or white, cis or trans, Christian or atheist, and anyone and everyone else. We. All. Suck.

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Romans 3:11-12

Recently, I’ve learned a lot of my favourite creators suck, too. And I’m not talking incredibly famous people, but people who are just like me, people who create and share things. These people are musicians and bloggers and writers who just so happened to reach the right amount of people to “make it,” whatever that even looks like. But the point is, I could be any one of them.

It’s exciting. It’s humbling. It’s scary.

One of my favourite YouTubers is apparently a nightmare to work with. Another took a picture with all her friends — who just so happened to be skinny, white-passing, and attractive by our narrow Euro-centric beauty conventions — and spun the post as body positivity. One of my favourite podcasts of all time got derailed because…I’m still not entirely sure. Stevie Nicks’ landmark song has a title that’s quite literally a racial slur. And I could list every infraction ever committed by my favourite guitarists, from John Mayer’s general fuckery to how Richie Sambora drove drunk with his daughter in the car. Even my beloved Chili Peppers aren’t innocent, sexually assaulting a fan in the early 90s and citing a porn star who was literally underage at the time she was active in the industry as a muse.

I’ve always wanted to be famous, ever since I was little and ran onstage at some show because I was mad the actresses were getting attention instead of me. I used to daydream at great length about becoming a rock star, crafting entire scenarios in my head about what my life and career would be like. I imagined the inevitable biopic that would be made about me, my internal dialogue becoming a narration of the story of my life from the perspective of someone who thought I was cool enough to make a movie about.

But at the same time, I don’t know if I can handle being famous. And that’s simply because I suck. Certainly not as much as some of the creators I mentioned above, but I still suck. I’ve said and done things I regret a lot, and I’m just lucky that I wasn’t in the spotlight at the time. Because I honestly don’t know if I could handle the criticism, even if it was justified. Especially if it was justified. I hate the feeling of being wrong, almost as much as I hate the idea of ever hurting anyone.

As a creator of any type, there’s so much pressure to be perfect, not just looks-wise but as a person as well. We need to be a role model. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think creators should strive to be positive influences for their fans, and I think creators should be held accountable when they inevitably fuck up. Some of those things might be unforgivable. Should the allegations against Michael Jackson be true, for example, we definitely need to stop holding him up as an idol. Should we stop listening to his music? I think that’s an even more complicated issue that I’ll probably address in a future post. But for relatively benign “maybe I didn’t realise this was racist at the time but now I know better” kinds of problematic behaviour, I think we need more space for grace. Because God knows I’ll need it.

I want so badly to make waves as a musician or writer, but sometimes I find myself paralysed by the pressure to be above reproach in all things. What if something I posted ten years ago on Facebook resurfaces and shows me as a total asshole now? You have to put yourself out there to get any ounce of fame, but in the process, you open yourself up to so much scrutiny. And sometimes I wonder if I could handle that. I cry if someone looks at me funny (I describe myself as “the stereotypical Pisces” for good reason). I think I could handle the press or some anonymous Twitter denizen calling me ugly or untalented. But if someone attacked my character, something I take more seriously than my looks or even my art, I’d probably lose it.

I hate the term “cancel culture” because of its association with the anti-“woke” (read: anti-any media that’s not cishet white male) rhetoric, but I think it’s time we cancel cancel culture to an extent. Rather, we need a grace culture, one where people are free to fuck up and be able to redeem themselves. We need to have open conversations with each other about why we suck and how we can suck less in a way that’s not defensive or vilifying. We need to be open to learning from one another.

Think of the Children! (An Easter Manifesto)

I originally posted this on my Facebook and Instagram pages (@thejessajoyce, if you’re curious), but I wanted to share this brief little write-up here as well. It’s so important to get this message out there since more often than not, the theoretical future of society and the fight to better it is co-opted by straight, cis, white, non-disabled people in an effort to tear down people who are not like them. I want to present a counter-argument. If all lives truly matter, as many on the political right say, and we must “think of the children,” my future children should be considered as well. There is room for everyone at the table of life, and we need to remember that this Easter.

Reading this book (Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer) at the suggestion of one of my favorite professors for my capstone project on autism, and it feels especially poignant in the days of #blacklivesmatter and #SaveTheChildren and #autismawarenessmonth and the recent fight against drag and transgender rights. The first chapter talks a lot about the Child — the personification of the future of society — who is often politicized and weaponized. Think of the children, people say. The image of the Child is more often than not a white cishet non-disabled child born to white cishet non-disabled parents. This Child absolutely matters. But I’m not interested in fighting for him, not because I don’t care about him, but because he already has enough people fighting for his right to exist in peace. Instead, I want to fight for my children.

In a few short years, I’ll likely have a child of my own. That child will likely have a disability of some sort, or rather, a difference that makes it harder to exist in a world that isn’t built for her. Considering my family history, she’ll likely be autistic or ADHD. Depending on our donor, she will likely be at least part black, and she’ll have queer parents who will support her should she eventually come to terms with her own queerness. And guess what? Her life will matter too. She should have a right to exist in peace alongside the theoretical Child described above. I want her to have a future too.

That’s why it’s so important to keep fighting for equality. I feel like it’s important to note that it’s Easter Sunday as I post this. I am a Christian through and through, despite the fact that I don’t “fit” the American Evangelical mold, and I firmly believe that Christ died for EVERYONE. Not just white Americans or straight people or cisgender people or able-bodied and able-minded people. We are all wonderfully made and we all should have a right to inhabit this beautiful planet. This post is a call to prayer and more importantly, a call to action. We need to be a light to this sometimes dark and scary world. We need to keep fighting the good fight.

This Shit is Not Okay

I don’t even have a witty title for this. I’m so fucking beyond done with the alt-right, conservative Christendom, and their stranglehold on American politics. I don’t like getting political on here — I’d rather write about music and life hacks and inspiring things — but I can’t be silent about this shit.

There are calls to eradicate trans people. I wish I was exaggerating, but let’s hear the actual words of Michael Knowles, who spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.

“For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”

Oh, he can’t literally mean that, right? He just wants to ban drag shows. Never mind that the child beauty pageant world is a helluva lot more exploitative (and full of…dare I say…groomers). Or that more priests have molested children than drag queens. Masculine bodies in dresses are so scary, though.

That’s not what this fuckwad is talking about, though. Let him clarify.

“I called to ban transgenderism entirely … They said that I was calling for the extermination of transgender people. They said I was calling for a genocide … One, I don’t know how you could have a genocide of transgender people because genocide refers to genes, it refers to genetics, it refers to biology.”

So it’s not a genocide…because you’re not trying to eliminate a particular gene? But you’re cool with literally erasing an entire group of people? That’s not the part you want to backtrack on? Let’s hear more from this wadded up Subway napkin of a human being.

“Nobody is calling to exterminate anybody, because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological category — it’s not a legitimate category of being. There are people who think that they are the wrong sex, but they are mistaken. They’re laboring under a delusion. And so we need to correct that delusion.”

And so we need to correct that delusion. Do tell, how do you plan on correcting that delusion? Surely it’s not through conversion therapy, which is proven to be ineffective and harmful. What’s the other option, die? Because it’s starting to seem like that’s what you want. I’m not even going to link to the nasty transphobic shit I’ve seen on the internet. I’d rather not dignify the shitstains who comment “41 percent” on pictures of trans folks just living their lives. But it’s obvious. If they can’t shut the fuck up and live their lives as their assigned gender, you want them dead.

You might say I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not trans. I’m a cisgender woman. And yet somehow, the majority of the people I associate with are trans. My girlfriend is a trans woman. My three closest friends are trans women. My spiritual mentor is a trans woman. And when you talk shit about hurting them, you hurt me. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you. I’m just some chick with a blog, whatever. But you don’t know which of your loved ones could still be in the closet. You don’t know if your kid or parent or sibling or best friend has been struggling with their gender identity, and why would they let you in on that information if they were? You’re an asshole.

I wish I could humanize trans people in a way that would make their lives matter to you. I wish you could hear Tegan’s obnoxious laugh, or experience Pippa’s warm hugs. I wish you could feel the way Livvy makes me feel when her hand is in mine. I wish you would realize that these people are just like you. They have dreams and unique talents and personalities. They’re not some boogeyman trying to sneak into your daughter’s locker room or beat her swimming record. (And God knows no one would intentionally be in women’s sports, which are notoriously underpublicized and underfunded.)

I don’t even know how to end this. I’m just tired. I’m tired of folks not caring that literal genocidal rhetoric is being spewed by the people in power. I’m tired of worrying about my loved ones becoming victims of hate crimes. I’m tired of this shit being normalized. I’m so, so fucking tired.

Cyrus vs. Shapiro (and Why I Actually Find Myself Siding With Benny This Time)

Ah, Ben Shapiro. Enemy of wet pussies everywhere. Surely you’ve heard of him. When he’s not busy clearly not getting his wife off, he’s writing some astute observation on popular culture and denouncing how “woke” we’ve become as a society. And by woke, he means committing the heinous crime of, uh, acknowledging queer people exist. As if we have some kind of big gay agenda.

The real gay agenda is just a planner with every day labelled “nap cutely with girlfriend” in purple sparkly gel pen.

While I typically do not ascribe to his politics, they say a stopped clock is right twice a day. Here’s one such example:

Although “calling out literal Nazism” is such a low bar, it might as well be a honky tonk in hell.

And here’s the other:

If you didn’t catch the reference, he’s critiquing “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus, which is a veritable bop. Now typically, in a Cyrus vs. Shapiro battle, I’d be firmly on the side of Miley. I love Miley. And why wouldn’t I? She’s a raspy-voiced pansexual icon who can write a decent song. She’s basically me if I were way cooler.

And I would 100 percent wear this outfit.

But I think there’s some truth to what Shapiro is saying, as much as typing that makes me want to rip off my head with my bare hands and hurl it from the nearest window. I think there’s a serious toxic independence problem among young left-wing folks like me. Let me explain.

For a long time, people like me who were assigned female at birth had a single expectation in life — get married and start a family. We were essentially forced into being wives and mothers throughout most of history. Thankfully, the tide has turned and women are allowed to follow their passions outside of the home. We’re no longer limited by societal expectations.

But in freeing ourselves from the historical pressure to marry and reproduce, we’ve lost sight of the importance of love and family. Now I’m not talking about the traditional nuclear family of one man, one woman, two and a half kids, and maybe a dog. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and maybe blood isn’t what ties you to your loved ones. But in our effort to eschew these norms, I feel like we’ve swung too far to the other side, where we feel like we don’t need anyone anymore. And that’s such a lonely life to live.

Personally, I love being married. I love the idea of having children someday. I love the idea of raising them alongside the people I care about most, my chosen family (cue Rina Sawayama — again). And yet, a lot of folks my age will never get to experience that kind of unconditional love. They’ll mindlessly bounce from one shallow friendship or fling to another. I don’t think it’s healthy to live like that.

Maybe “family” is a dirty word to a lot of young queer and progressive-minded people. Our blood families may have disowned us for our beliefs or identities. But we’re adults now, and this is our chance to take back what should have been our birthright — a family who loves us relentlessly and unconditionally. The concept of family isn’t a liberal vs. conservative thing. It’s a human right.

I’m not saying I don’t get Miley’s side of the story either. Breakups suck, and one of the most cathartic things you can do is write a song about it (something I obviously know nothing about). But after your tears have dried, dust yourself off, get back out there, and love again. Go meet your future spouse(s), best friends, chosen family. Don’t let getting hurt keep you from the beauty that is having meaningful relationships. Let me say that again, in fancy letters:

Don’t let getting hurt keep you from the beauty that is having meaningful relationships.

As human beings, we were made to love. We’re not lone hunters. We are like lions, and we need the support of our pride to live the most fulfilling lives. Sure, Shapiro went on a bit of a tangent that’s not entirely related to Miley’s song (which is mostly just a fluffy heartbreak song, to be honest), but I think he has a valid point, as much as it pains me to admit it.

(The bass in “Flowers” still slaps, though.)