New Pieces Here and There

Posted by: Susan Jane Bigelow on: February 17, 2011

In: Other writing | Politics
3 Comments

Okay, a few updates from me, writing-wise.

Gender Stuff

I write over at 30pov every month, and usually I write about gender stuff (I’m a transgender person. hi!). I don’t write about it much here, mainly because I’ve spent an awful lot of time writing and thinking about it elsewhere. I was starting to be ready to move on to writing about NOT gender stuff, but the topic for this month was, um, gender. So.

I tried to gather all of my thoughts about gender issues, and found that the subject was a lot more elusive than I initially believed it would be. So I threw in a bunch of cartoons! Like so:

The piece I came up with is an exploration of some of the larger issues, and I think it came out pretty well. Here it is: All the stars in the sky.

Politics

I also watched Gov. Malloy’s budget speech to the legislature yesterday, and came up with a quick response. What struck me the most was that this, finally, is a governor’s budget which has a chance in hell of actually being implemented–and what a year for it. The combination of tax hikes, service/program cuts and union concessions strikes a delicate balance; one I think might work:

It’s very easy to say that the budget relies too much on taxes in a state where the tax burden is already high, or, conversely, that it taxes too little and asks state agencies and workers to shoulder an unequal portion of Malloy’s “shared sacrifice.” I’m sure we’ll hear those arguments again and again between now and June, and in many cases there will be concerns that need addressing. By and large, though, I thought the governor struck as good a balance as possible during these difficult times.

Here’s the story: Malloy’s Budget a Good Start

And those are the updates for this week!

3 Responses to "New Pieces Here and There"

1 | Ray
February 17, 2011 at 9:27 pm

I still harbor some involuntary RSWP* reaction to your status. I hate that I do, but I love that you** have helped remedy a major portion of that in me.

* Repressed Suburban White People, a protected class, not under title 42 of the United States Code, but definitely under most of the rest of it.

** “You” being the thinker, the writer, the creator of something beautiful that I have enjoyed immensely. “You” includes, but is not limited to, the ticky box between “birthday” and “social security number” that so much of society thinks is so damned important, neither of which is any more my business than how you ticky that box.

Susan Jane Bigelow
February 17, 2011 at 9:51 pm

Sadly, lots of folks have that reaction, so I can hardly blame you. We’re sort of conditioned that way by media images of people like me (there was a good discussion about that in another 30pov piece earlier in the month: http://www.30pov.com/2011/02/03/the-laugh-of-the-psycho/ ), society’s ideas about gender, and the fact that there just aren’t a lot of visible transgender people around. But I’ve found that once people move beyond that initial reaction, they all just sort of shrug, say “Okay,” and we all move on with our lives.

And thank you for that last piece, it’s very meaningful to me.