“Our categories are important. We cannot organize a social life, a political movement, or our individual identities and desires without them. The fact that categories invariably leak and can never contain all the relevant ‘existing things’ does not render them useless, only limited. Categories like ‘woman,’ ‘butch,’ ‘lesbian,’ or ‘transsexual’ are all imperfect, historical, temporary, and arbitrary. We use them and they use us. We use them to construct meaningful lives, and they mold us into historically specific forms of personhood. Instead of fighting for immaculate classifications and impenetrable boundaries, let us strive to maintain a community that understands diversity as a gift, sees anomalies as precious, and treats all basic principles with a hefty dose of skepticism.” —Gayle Rubin, “Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries,” The Persistent Desire: a Femme-Butch Reader, Boston: Alyson Publications, 1992, pg. 477-478

Rubin was talking about lesbian political fights about trans people and the overlap and boundaries between butch and transsexuality (and there’s LOTS of expressions of what we’d nowadays call trans and gender dysphoria in A Persistent Desire), but I think the same ideas apply to multi/plural/many-selved stuff too. Goodness knows I spent enough time chewing on my arm because I couldn’t figure out how to express a concept without it turning into a hopeless argument over the terms in use. This whole essay has a lot of great quotes (“sexual preference, gender roles, and political stance cannot be equated, and do not directly determine or reflect one another”) and is worth reading.

Also it’s just really nice to see an essay over thirty years old saying “cool your jets about trans people, it’s fine. Your politics will survive.”

Mori wants this book like burning. Too bad used paperbacks start at $100.

We have gotten way behind in digital communications and want to apologize. Since last Tuesday, we’ve been getting rolling migraines that we keep staving off, only to have them come back the next day, and screens make it worse. So much of our work involves computers that we’ve really had to strangle our digital activity if it’s not the most important. This is unusual for us and we don’t know why it’s happening; hopefully it’ll pass soon. If not, we may have to make more lifestyle adjustments.

Our brain and eyes just really don’t like bright or LED lights, guys.

Rogan: Someone who bought the Ebook mmmMEGAPACK confessed being overwhelmed by the gazillion titles, where to start, and how to read it. Which... fair. There's dozens of works in there.

(Some of these works may not be in the Megapack yet. Don't worry if you can't find a title.)

STANDALONES (READ WHENEVER)

RECOMMENDED READING ORDER FOR THE STUFF WHERE THAT MATTERS


Hope that helps!

Rogan: I am making the terrible mistake of staying up late, reading the False Memory Syndrome Foundation's "Summary of Legal Survey Data from the False Memory Syndrome Foundation: presented FMSF Conference Memory and Reality: Emerging Crisis" from April 17, 1993, so Y'ALL ARE COMING WITH ME.

( I hope y'all packed your shit-wading boots! Lawsuits, sexual abuse, and gaslighting behind the cut! )