— चार हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —

Well, it only took me a week and a half, but I finally found the online sourcing I wanted to include before I contacted comedian Jackie Kashian about her misguided bit about gender identity when she opened for Maria Bamford in their online standup show Saturday, February 27.

For context, refer to my March 1 post in which I wrote about it, and the discussion Gabriel and I had about its problematic nature.

I wanted to find a source from an actual trans person to share with Jackie Kashian, so I could provide her with a reference to a trans person speaking for themselves rather than me speaking for them. I have no idea whether this was the exact source Gabriel had seen recently—I want to say he had seen it in a Twitter thread, which I could not find—but I found this post at the School Library Journal website, which seemed to speak quite directly to what Gabriel's specific points were. In fact, I could not find any other online source that was so directly relevant. The title of the post is When Animals Are Used as Stand-ins for Transgender Humans, People are Diminished, and it is largely focused on children's books, but still spoke very directly to the issue at hand. Consider this paragraph in particular:

As Dana Simpson, author of the "Phoebe and her Unicorn," series, says, “Comparing being trans to wanting to be an animal is often the first thing transphobes online throw at us.” This trope plays into dismissive attitudes about transgender people being out of touch or even mentally ill. It is a cliché I have experienced myself, when my coming out is met with the response, “Oh, and if I say I’m a dog, I guess we are all going to accept that now?” This implies that two such assertions are the same.

I want to reiterate that I still feel Jackie Kashian's heart was in the right place, and directing fury at her is misguided at best and counterproductive at worst. So, once I found the "contact me" form page of her professional website, I went ahead and sent this to her yesterday afternoon:

Hi Jackie,

I enjoy listening to you, and saw your online set before the Maria Bamford show on Saturday, February 27. And fully acknowledging that you have every right to say whatever you want in your standup bits, I have no idea how you may receive this (and either way, I don't feel especially entitled to a direct response), but I just wanted to let you know, respectfully, that some of the stuff in your bit about gender identity was problematic.

I very much believe that your heart was in the right place. I don't think you are in any way anti-trans. But, even as a signal of support, using animals as a stand-in for being trans ("I wanted to be a puppy") is something trans people find enduringly frustrating, as it sends the wrong message about what being transgender or nonbinary really means.

I am not transgender myself, so in the spirit of letting a trans person speak for themselves, I submit this link for just a little bit of further reading and I hope you will give it a look: https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=animals-substitutes-for-transgender-humans-is-diminishing

thank you,
Matthew

There's really no telling whether this will make any difference to her, but after the conversation with Gabriel, I really wasn't going to rest easy until I contacted her about it. She can do with the information what she will, and I guess I'll just move on.

— चार हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —

— चार हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —

So okay now I have to talk about this belligerent asshole who was on the Annual General Meeting Zoom call for the Braeburn Condos Homeowners Association last night. We had one of these last year too, when the delayed annual meeting finally happened virtually over the summer, but this time it was a different person, for a different reason.

This time, it had to do with the Board's decision to reopen the gym and the yoga studio in our building, but with pretty strict rules: they will be booked by reservation of 45-minute increments this time, and only for one household at a time, with that household's electronic fobs programmed to open the door only once a signed waiver has been turned in to the building manager.

The belligerent resident on the call, an older guy who got so heated at one point I began to wonder if he was legitimately off his rocker, was pissed that we were not also opening the community kitchen and movie theater. Why he didn't understand the clear logic in this, I'll never know: both of those rooms are designed for multiple-household gatherings, which we still very much want to avoid. What the hell point is there in opening them for reservation for only a single household at a time? Those people can have the exact same experience inside their own homes.

I wish I had thought to bring that up during the call, although a couple of Board members did touch on it a little more generally. But the guy refused to listen to reason, and after several minutes of not shutting up about it, even resorted to threats, both of legal action (good luck with that you fucking moron), and finally saying—this is verbatim—"I'm just going to use the kitchen anyway, what do you say about that?"

Robin, another Board member, calmly informed the man that it would be impossible for him to do that, as the door is locked (something I noticed myself long ago). It won't be unlocked again until it is deemed safe for common use again. And by the way, I kept marveling at how calmly Board members responded to this guy. I have no idea whether I could remain so calm in the face of such unbridled antagonism. Another resident on the call chimed in just to thank the Board for the work they've done to keep our community safe, which kind of cracked me up. (And also agree with; it was the timing that was funny, a compliment to the Board that doubled as a passive-aggressive dig at this guy who was being an asshole.)

But there's one other thing the guy brought up that I want to address, and realize only in retrospect that he kind of harped on a bit too much: the "news" that King County is the second-best county in the nation when it comes to COVID spread currently—something to be proud of absolutely, but also a claim that's a little misleading. Not to mention the guy must have paid attention only to a headline without taking in any nuance, because not only is it not strictly true, it also prompted him to make the wild claim on the call that "it's practically nonexistent in our county." Um, that's not what that means. In fact we are still categorized as "high risk," only recently downgraded from "very high risk."

Also: I looked it up this morning, and it bears clarification: the Seattle Times reported ten days ago that we had the second-lowest per capita COVID rate among large U.S. counties. That's not all counties. Granted, the concern is always greater in large counties, but still: the man's insistence that we were second-best "in the entire country" still wasn't really right.

The man was invited to come to the next Board meeting and raise these concerns, and although I doubt he will, perhaps Shobhit could go in armed with these clarifications. Side note: Shobhit did most of the meeting presentation via a shared-screen powerpoint, and he has been the Board treasurer for a while. It occurred to me last night, given his endless preoccupation with budgeting and finances, there is probably no one more suited to that task.

And honestly, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to keep the kitchen and theater closed to the Braeburn community until at the very least King County is downgraded to "low risk." It would be best even to keep the exercise rooms closed too, but the Board has been fielding requests to open them for months, whereas, as the belligerent guy last night was told, there had been no demand for reopening the kitchen until that very meeting: he was the first to request it. He was stuck on the idea that we all paid for these amenities that we were being refused access to, but refusing to acknowledge extenuating circumstances. He actually did apologize at the end of the meeting, saying, "If I caused any bad feelings, I regret that," so I'll give him credit for acknowledging that he went a little too far.

Still, holy shit that guy was annoying. Alexia even texted me, This guy is a jerk. I didn't have my phone on me during the meeting so I didn't see it until I was headed out to the office to exchange paperwork. So, when she followed up with, Do you need a couple of chocolate walnut brownies to aid in recovery? I noted that I was headed out and Shobhit was still in the post-General Meeting with just the rest of the Board, so I thanked her and suggested she leave them at the door. And, that she did. They were delicious.

— चार हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —

[posted 12:30 pm]