transness/capitalism
Some resources:
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (ed), Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (San Francisco: Seal Press, 2006).
Dean Spade, “Compliance is Gendered: Struggling for Gender Self-Determination in a Hostile Economy,” in Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Price Minter (eds), Transgender Rights (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006).
Michelle O’Brien, “Tracing this Body: Transsexuality, pharmaceuticals & capitalism.” (2003)
Jo Hirschman, “TransAction: Organizing against capitalism and state violence in San Francisco”, Socialist Review (2001)
Coburg is hot and dry, the house is an oven. Our neighbours on one side have ripped up their lawn, front and back, as well as the carefully-planted lavender bushes and saplings the previous occupants put in to make it look like there was a garden. In place of grass, the guy is laying down astroturf. Apparently astroturf will save heaps of water; it’s really ‘hardy’, but unfortunately not biodegradable. This is the neighbour who encouraged our landlord to fell the one surviving eucalypt in our front yard, as it was dropping flowers on his car. Today they’re using some astroturf laying machine. On the other side, the neighbours have NOVA FM on the stereo turned up crazy loud.
wow. your neighbourhood is ALL CLASS. (you see what i did there?) also, i hadn’t read ‘transaction…’ so thanks for the link.
Comment by nix — February 4, 2008 @ 7:59 am
Yeah, our ‘hood is chock full of classy… contradiction. Actually the astroturf neighbours are BMW-owning Anglo yuppies. I don’t think it has much to do with class, it’s just that the husband/father has a personal neurosis regarding plants. I feel sorry for his kids. It can’t be healthy to grow up playing in a plastic backyard. (Their backyard is also about a metre square since he built the MAMMOTH TOOLSHED FROM HELL.)
I haven’t read the ‘Trans/action’ piece either, although the fact that it comes from the Socialist Review gives me a little pause. (You know how anti-Trot I am.) It’s on my ‘must read more thoroughly’ list.
Comment by Az — February 4, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
I wonder how long astroturf lasts before it has to be landfilled. There are plenty of weedy type things that are thriving just fine (in my garden lol), i reckon if i had a lawn to grow, i’d just let it be covered by whatever wanted to grow there. plenty of “weeds” actually make nice groundcover and they won’t die because “omg somebody walked on the new lawn!”
Comment by jay — February 8, 2008 @ 3:32 am