kaigou: Kido says, shun the unbeliever! shunnnn! (2 shun the unbeliever)
[personal profile] kaigou
I won't go into any irons I may have in the fire (but I will say it's long since died past embers), but it still surprises me -- and disappoints me greatly -- to discover that this conversation in the pagan world is only now occurring with any significant intensity. It's 2011 already, people. This debate is long overdue.

Date: 6 Mar 2011 09:39 pm (UTC)
branchandroot: oak against sky (Default)
From: [personal profile] branchandroot
*sighs* There are, as they say, reasons but no excuses. One major starting point of it (the really early "aren't we so daring, lookit our mystical clubhouse, we have sex" stage) was desperately sexist. In reaction to that, the first big wave that really established itself as a social movement focused hard on women's issues and empowerment. But it was still pretty desperately het and unthinkingly cis. So then there were the Dianic branch, trying to ameliorate the "it's all about heterosexual sex". And both those reactions, because they were trying to counter something so deeply entrenched and normalized, did not just say "well, there's this other perspective", they said "no, this is the way it works instead". Which meant there wasn't a lot of opening to consider any more perspectives than those.

So I can understand why it started out that way. What I find really inexcusable is how long that "struggling to find space" rhetoric has gone unchallenged and unexamined. Twenty years ago I was looking at this and saying "wow, yeah, that really resonates, but... isn't there more to the world, too?" I'm glad that question is finally getting some traction, but it comes way too late for me to be re-involved.

Date: 7 Mar 2011 03:32 am (UTC)
dharma_slut: They call me Mister CottonTail (Default)
From: [personal profile] dharma_slut
what you said, and that too.

^_^

Date: 7 Mar 2011 05:23 am (UTC)
dharma_slut: They call me Mister CottonTail (Default)
From: [personal profile] dharma_slut
I've told this story in a couple of places about how an old Skool Gardnerian priest and priestess came to do a guest ritual. There were two MTFs and me, and our circle hadn't even blinked-- just let us perform as our preferred gender. These old people however, completely ignored the circle's policies and shifted us so that we stood in accordance with our body's sex. The ladies were too ladylike to say anything, but I protested-- and the priest told me our gender didn't matter, only our sex.

So Garderians can be fundy too.

I had to make the decision to... well, not to ruin the day for everyone else. And it was the day that Bush announced "we" were at war with afghanistan, and we all needed some comfort in community, so I stood between two gay men who gave me conspiratorial winks.

Thing is, I completely understand the Dianics wanting that particular ritual to be about the ovaries and the blood. I'm cool with that. I don't see any reason to be inclusive at all times. BUT!

What the community needs to learn is that inclusivity will become the norm more and more, and that intent for an exclusive ritual needs to be spelled out. That assumption of exclusivity is a privilege that must be given up.



Date: 7 Mar 2011 06:23 am (UTC)
dharma_slut: They call me Mister CottonTail (Default)
From: [personal profile] dharma_slut
Well, it can be, honestly, a bit rough on the people you are expecting to do the socialising-- when what they want to do is the freaking ritual and get some comfort.

whois

kaigou: this is what I do, darling (Default)
锴 angry fishtrap 狗

to remember

"When you make the finding yourself— even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light— you'll never forget it." —Carl Sagan

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