planet trans

8/16/12

We are ALL Pussy Riot! Trans and Punk Folk RISE UP

Fear must not hold me back. I didn't know anything about 'punk'. All I knew of the word was in early days of transition when my gender expression fell so far out of the binary I was threatened with the word 'punk'. Not figuratively, but in reality in a dark parking lot by a very large black man.

I knew I wasn't punk, I was afraid of the word afraid of conflating it with transsexualism, but most of all I was afraid of what my friends would think if I was to come out of the closet. Contrary to what haters would have you believe many in the trans community are very 'rule' conscious, like me.

Including the cornerstone rule of being transgender. Be true to yourself. Punk Rocker Louise Distras caught my eye just now as I was checking the twitter hashtag #Pussyriot "we are all Pussy Riot" an idea I have been trying to introduce to our trans community for some time.

8/13/12

Transgender and Transsexuals UNITED for Pussy Riot!

A lot can be said about Pussy Riot's motives but one thing is clear. They are sacrificing themselves for our world community of gender variant peoples. And its time we show our appreciation and support before time runs out. Look at the countdown time to the right. We only have hours to do this before the 'court' hands down it's 'verdict' in a 'trial' that:

Did NOT allow the Defense witnesses!

That did not allow the Defense to present Evidence!

That the judge did not once acknowledge by a glance the accused!

A trial by the simple absurdity of the charges nade it clear the he verdict was predetermined

THE LGBT PEOPLE WORLD WIDE MUST STAND WITH

PUSSY RIOT!

Here are a few things we can do:

Sing a SONG,

Share on Facebook,

twitter,

tumblr,

and

blog!

Dallas Transgender Advocates and Allies Support Pussy Riot!

8/11/12

Pussy Riot In a Mosque? What would Allah Do? @Freepussyriot

This post means no disrespect to the Muslim faith which sadly I am ignorant about. I hope to point out Muslims are talking about Pussy Riot and not all are in agreement with Putin's assertions that they been far worst off had they done a punk prayer in a mosque.

Al Jazeera reported: (Putin)...suggested the women would have faced swift punishment without trial if they had put on a similar performance in Israel or in Muslim areas of Russia's Caucasus.

"Or if they went to the Caucasus and desecrated some sacred Muslim place, we would not even have time to protect them," he was quoted as saying."

I knew Putin was validating the extraordinarily unjust inhuman way Pussy riot was being treated by inferring another religion might not have been as understanding, but who was I to argue. I knew nothing about that, until now that is..

Наби Гитинов (GNabi) posted the following note on his facebook wall which was linked to by retweets a hundred ninety times including a Imam from Russia, n_mustafin a man of faith, "SUPERVAZHNY post from a Muslim about the fact that Pussy Riot would have done in the mosque. Read and do the RT!"

Was it just an opinion of a single Muslim, or a consensus? Judgeing by the number of retweets it was a shared opinion. The link leads to this story...

(One time) a Bedouin began to urinate (right) in the mosque, people got up (from their seats), to pounce on him, but the Prophet, may Allah bless him and be welcomed, told them: "Leave him alone and pour a bucket of urine on his (or: ... bucket) of water, because, really, you just sent to facilitate, not to make trouble! " (Al-Bukhari)
In other words, this was done in order to facilitate rapid comprehension of human precepts of Islam, and not to alienate the people from this religion. Make this conclusion themselves, do not let the rumors that the type of "Muslim foundations participating pussi riot would cut off their heads." No they do not cut off the head would be if they came and would have done in the mosque that did in the temple. But this does not mean they are allowed to do this in the mosques. On such cases committed in the mosques have heard a lot. In the past, or even two years ago (can not remember exactly), the mosque in Makhachkala ran completely naked girl. She was wrapped in a carpet and carried. She is nobody did anything. We talked and released ..."

From this narrative I presume that the Muslim leaders and his followers concur. If Pussy Riot had done a punk prayer in that Mosque they would have been educated in a way that would have promoted their understanding and released.

Note to Putin and Krill. The world now knows their choice of prayer locations was not random.

What would Allah do? I hope the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin stop using ignorance as a tool of violence and do as both Jesus and and I think Allah would do as well.

Free Pussy Riot.

8/10/12

Portland Bar Owner Told "Trannys" Not To Come Back.

Why public accommodations provisions Can't Be Bargained Away.

The owner of a North Portland Oregon bar, the P Club, left this message on one former customers phone, a transgender woman. If what the ladies say is true about there conduct, and I have no reason to doubt them, this is blatant discrimination.

"Hello, my name is Chris. I'm the owner of the P-Club Bar and Grill. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm going to have to ask for you, Cass and your group, not to come back on Friday nights."

"People think that A.) we're a tranny bar, or B.) that we're a gay bar. We are neither. People are not coming in because they just don't want to be here on a Friday night now."

(The Video loads slowly, here it comes...)

CBS Atlanta 46

According to Lambda legal Oregon's Equality Act makes it illegal to discriminate against transgender people in public accommodations.

More at CBS Atlanta.com

Заключительные заявления на суде Riot киска | Closing Statement at the Pussy Riot Trial

Yekaterina Samutsevich, defendant in the criminal case against the feminist punk group Pussy Riot:

During the closing statement, the defendant is expected to repent or express regret for her deeds, or to enumerate attenuating circumstances. In my case, as in the case of my colleagues in the group, this is completely unnecessary. Instead, I want to express my views about the causes of what has happened with us.

The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be used openly as a flashy setting for the politics of the security services, which are the main source of power [in Russia].

Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetics? After all, he could have employed his own, far more secular tools of power—for example, national corporations, or his menacing police system, or his own obedient judiciary system. It may be that the tough, failed policies of Putin’s government, the incident with the submarine Kursk, the bombings of civilians in broad daylight, and other unpleasant moments in his political career forced him to ponder the fact that it was high time to resign; otherwise, the citizens of Russia would help him do this. Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more convincing, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the helm. It was here that the need arose to make use of the aesthetics of the Orthodox religion, historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from God Himself.

How did he succeed in doing this? After all, we still have a secular state, and shouldn’t any intersection of the religious and political spheres be dealt with severely by our vigilant and critically minded society? Here, apparently, the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of Orthodox aesthetics in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had the aura of a lost history, of something crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present their new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project which has little to do with a genuine concern for preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture.

It was also fairly logical that the Russian Orthodox Church, which has long had a mystical connection with power, emerged as this project’s principal executor in the media. Moreover, it was also agreed that the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike the Soviet era, when the church opposed, above all, the crudeness of the authorities towards history itself, should also confront all baleful manifestations of contemporary mass culture, with its concept of diversity and tolerance.
Implementing this thoroughly interesting political project has required considerable quantities of professional lighting and video equipment, air time on national TV channels for hours-long live broadcasts, and numerous background shoots for morally and ethically edifying news stories, where in fact the Patriarch’s well-constructed speeches would be pronounced, helping the faithful make the right political choice during the election campaign, a difficult time for Putin. Moreover, all shooting has to take place continuously; the necessary images must sink into the memory and be constantly updated, to create the impression of something natural, constant and compulsory.

Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of this media image, generated and maintained by the authorities for so long, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to combine the visual image of Orthodox culture and protest culture, suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it might also take the side of civic rebellion and protest in Russia.

Perhaps such an unpleasant large-scale effect from our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. First they tried to present our performance as the prank of heartless militant atheists. But they made a huge blunder, since by this time we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out their media raids on the country’s major political symbols.
In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses ca

used by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we now expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. Now the whole world sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, Russia looks different in the eyes of the world from the way Putin tries to present it at daily international meetings. All the steps toward a state governed by the rule of law that he promised have obviously not been made. And his statement that the court in our case will be objective and make a fair decision is another deception of the entire country and the international community. That is all. Thank you.

• • • • • •

Photo courtesy of Alexandra Astakhova. Original text in Russian published here. You can view video of the closing statements by Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova here and here (in Russian).

Source: Chtodelat

Russian Orthodox Church "Standard Bearers" Burn Pictures Of Pussy Riot and Madonna

The Russian Orthodox Church's response to the world's cry for freedom for Pussy Riot? Burn them.

Study these faces well. If they find you in a place where they can do it, they will hurt you. They are the Russian state "christian" church.

But Pussy Rioters are not blameless they also used fire, fireworks that is, over the prison to celebrate a birthday of a pussy riot member! Салют в день рожденья Кати у следственного изолятора.

..and these tasteful pictorial editorials...