Halberstam

I am so sorry that this post is coming so incredibly late, though I have been working my ass off, and don’t have the time to do much of anything anymore. That being said, I think my busy schedule is a good place to start a discussion on normative conceptions of time as introduced in the Judith Halberstam reading.

My life is ruled by a notion of time that stems from a place unfamiliar to me.  I can honestly say that my time can be divided into three separate categories: work, school, and sleep. I work retail to pay for school (amongst other things), go to school to (hopefully) get a decent job after graduation, and sleep to replenish the former activities. I work and attend school to ensure the survival of myself and my future progeny, so that they will one day do the same for themselves and their own. For generations after I die, my life will have ensured that others will live after me, all repeating and replenishing the cycle of capitalism and consumerism that comes with it. This shall be my legacy.

While Halberstam argues that there are other ways of being, that queer time does exist (a fact I do not deny), it is so hard to separate myself from a world that I am so deeply meshed in, albeit as a minor screw in the grand scheme of things. Though I can choose alternative ways of living by rejecting normative conceptions of time, or capitalist time, or whatever you may call it, I still cannot escape the structures of time that have been laid out around me. I can recognize and analyze the notions of time and space that encompass every aspect of my being, but can I survive without them? Can I eat if I don’t have the money to pay for food? Will I have money if I don’t work? Will I have a good job if I don’t go to school? In some way or another, I am always interacting with normative conceptions of time and apce, with little choice of doing otherwise otherwise.

Queer time is an interesting concept that can help people understand and analyze society and the self, but can it actually exist given that people who possibly live in it have to (in some way) take part and take place in normal time.

Sometimes I feel like I’m really getting somewhere……

intersex children are being put on medical display

I was reading an article by Emi Koyama entitled “From Controversy to Consensus: An Activist Perspective” from  Intersex Initiative. In this article the phrase “Medical display” was used often to describe a act performed on intersex children.

This is a widespread practice  all over the world of health care professionals using intersex children for educational purposes.  Immediately when the intersex children arrives at the hospital to see an endocrinologist or their personal physician for a checkup, the child is stripped nude sometimes only half-nude. Then they are publicly displayed to a large number of doctors, medical students, interns, and other individuals supposedly  “for the advancement of science and medicine.” When these kids become adults they are shaken up when asked to recall this experience. They felt it was extremely humiliating and sexually traumatic, and it made them feel like they are freaks. Some adults even admitted to years of refusing to seek any type of medical care as a result of this traumatic experience because of their fear of being medically displayed again. This act is unjust and morally wrong.

Medical displaying a child is very harmful, imagine a toddler who is taught by their parents to hide their bodies, not to let people touch down there, and to also to keep their inter-sexuality a “secret” being put on medical display. This takes away their innocence. I completely agree that instead of medical displaying kids the doctors should use photos and videos as educational materials.

Intersex surgery children should have a say

I know we read about intersex surgeries here is a video I found about a child who did not have the surgery. Children should have a say! Instead of parents choosing a gender for the child when they are newborns. The parents should wait until the child is older so they can decide what sex organ they want or which gender they choose. Check it out ——–>>>>>http://youtu.be/ya38eFjlY-c