A Special Occasion

It was 366 rotations of the earth ago today, give or take, when I first stepped foot on Californian soil (okay, airport floor).

Oh my GOD, you guys, it's my one-year Caliversary!

And what a year it has been. I'm not sure I have the brain capacity to process all the literally gazillions of things that have happened in this past orbit of our little blue orb around its slightly less little yellow star. Luckily I have no real interest in the things that have happened to Andorra, Henry Kissinger, paramecia, and many, many other subjects that also survived this great 940-million-kilometer journey through the vast emptiness of space.

Still, even processing all the things that have happened to this particular subject in the past year is a little overwhelming. The discovery of a field of study to which I want to devote the rest of my life, the diagnosis of a mild mental illness, the whole trans* thing... those are all Major Life Things. I kind of feel as though, in the course of the past year, I have leveled up three times over in this great RPG campaign we call Life. (It makes the math behind my saving throws a lot more complicated, but I've unlocked some boss new feats and skills.)

Of course, all the challenges would have been a lot more, well, challenging, if I hadn't had a totally amazeballs crew helping me pilot the USS My Life (to switch to a different, yet no less geeky, image). I <3 everyone. Cheers. Here's to the future: steady as she goes.

"Non-Belonging Is My Very Substance"

"I feel that I exist only outside of any belonging. That non-belonging is my very substance."

--Edmond Jabès, From the Desert to the Book

I was born in Scotland, I went to high school there, and my parents still live there. In the US, I tell people I'm Scottish – it's just easier. However, it's not strictly accurate. Both my parents are English, so I lack the Braveheart ancestry (which is what most people in the US mean when they say “Scottish”); I spent my childhood continent-hopping, so I lack the emotional ties, personal history, and identifiable accent of one specific place (which is how a lot of people seem to relate to a place they call “home”); and, to be perfectly honest, if my parents moved away tomorrow I doubt I'd ever go back to Scotland.

I'm not really Scottish.

At first, I tried telling people I was “British” or “from the UK,” to which if not my accent then at least my passport can attest, but nobody who's really British ever says that. People claim England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales: the place they identify as being from. The UK is a political fiction – not that any nation-state isn't; but the UK seems to be a particularly unconvincing one, at least as far as hearts and minds are concerned. I certainly don't “feel” British. I have no heart-and-mind national allegiance.

I'm not really anything.

These days, I try not to be a douche about this. It is both easy and insufferable to bang on about being “a citizen of the world, you guys” when you possess both the geopolitical privilege of a UK passport and the socioeconomic privilege to take advantage of the myriad doors that passport opens. I also try not to fall into a self-pity-party about my sense of alienation. My errant childhood may have robbed me of any place to call “home,” but it also gifted me broad horizons and an unslakable wanderlust – a tradeoff I'd not reverse for anything.

Sometimes, though, I do feel a secret wish to able to participate in outpourings of jingoistic fervor.

I've been witnessing such an outpouring from certain of my Facebook friends over queen whatsit and her diamond thingamajig. I am, as that last sentence might have tipped you off, firmly in the small-r-republican camp when it comes to the whole monarchy malarkey. Even if I somehow felt myself to be authentically British, my deep cynicism regarding autocratic headship, even of the mostly-symbolic variety, wouldn't permit me to do anything other than sneer at the whole business.

But, gosh, it looks like such fun.

I feel the same sense of alienation and frustration at international sporting events. Look at all these people, who are capable of (a) claiming a national identity without feeling like an impostor and (b) giving a rat's rear-end about the event in question! They all seem to be having SUCH FUN. I wish I could have fun.

Alas, I am a fun-killing overthinker with no ability to switch off my cynicism and no sense of belonging anywhere. But, on the upside, Salman Rushdie says I am a special snowflake.

You Self-Identify Wrong

A friend recently sent me this talk by Daniel Dennett, “How To Tell You're An Atheist.” Dennett is, I think it's fair to say, the least obnoxious of your Four Horsemen of New Atheism, and the talk is pretty interesting, especially at the bookends: the phenomenon of closet-atheist clergy is enormously fascinating, as is the observation that religious creeds must tend to impenetrability if they're to survive.

However, the talk's very title telegraphs something that thoroughly infuriates me about New Atheism, and that is its evangelical fervor. I realize I run the risk of making a false equivalency here, so let me state forthrightly that I absolutely do not think that New Atheists and the Christian right are like totally the same and both sides are as bad as each other and the truth lies in the fuzzy-wuzzy middle. The fact that the United States (where much of this discourse is taking place) is a Christian supremacist society means that the dynamics at play when an atheist speaks are very different than when a Christian speaks, even if they're saying the same thing. They're coming from different places, they got there in different ways, they have diametrically opposed agendas; but the fundagelical and the atheist telling me I'm not really a Christian are both very wrong.

The intense hostility of much of US culture toward atheists is pretty mystifying for us godless-commie-Europeans, but it certainly exists, and it completely explains the forcefulness of some American atheists. When you're a marginalized group trying to assert yourself to a dominant culture that would prefer to pretend you don't exist, you have to be loud and proud, and if you bruise the delicate fee-fees of your oppressors, well, cry me a frickin' river. I get that. But the marginalization of non-believers in the US really isn't exactly the same as other axes of marginalization and oppression, because belief (or lack thereof) is, as Dennett points out in that speech, entirely internal. His suggestion that Christians who help the poor are closet atheists is breathtakingly cynical (and that's coming from a thoroughgoing cynic), but his point stands: no matter what someone says and does, we can't know what they truly do or don't believe. Dennett's theory is that, for an awful lot of people, their behavior and their beliefs do not align. Christianity, on his reading, is teeming with closet atheists for whom the social consequences of admitting their lack of faith are just too high.

Now, I sympathize with the goal of making it socially acceptable to be openly atheist. Frankly, I find it nonsensical that it's not acceptable here. But I have a lot less sympathy for the accusation of widespread bad faith or false consciousness – for the practice of telling self-identified Christians that, if they're thinking people or not fully orthodox or lefties, they're probably not really Christians.

Since Dennett himself uses the analogy of gayness (which is totally not in any way a cheap shot or a false equivalency), let's roll with that. I am a queer person, and if I'm perfectly honest straightness baffles me. On a gut level it weirds me out and repels me, and, though I'm surrounded by self-identified straight people, I just don't get why anyone would be straight.

I could make the argument that they shouldn't be. I could say that, once upon a time, I thought I must be straight too, before I knew it was possible to be anything else; that I understand the fear of social consequences that keeps people closeted; that probably there are tons of straight-identified people who are really secret queers, but they're too uninformed or afraid to admit that they're anything other than straight.

To some extent, I think this is true (though the numbers are probably fewer than I'd like them to be), just as it's true of closet-atheist Christians. But that doesn't mean I think it's right to second-guess all straight people, to tell them their identity as a straight person is a lie (at best to everyone around them, at worst to themselves as well), to redefine the parameters of straightness so as to exclude a lot of straight-identified people (because I understand straightness better than they do? because I know them better than they know themselves? because I've put a lot of thought into this whole issue, and the fact that they still call themselves straight proves that they haven't?). My goal might be the noble one of encouraging self-actualization and greater self-understanding, but this tactic sucks. It's aggressive, it's arrogant, it's domineering, and it's hierarchical.

Saying “if you call yourself straight, but you've ever thought about kissing someone of the same gender as you, then you're actually a big flaming 'mo” isn't helpful. For straight people who are not ready to think deeply about sexuality, that statement sounds like a threat. For straight people who have thought deeply about sexuality, it's insulting and delegitimizes their process. Either way, it's accusing straight people of a false consciousness and co-opting their identity.

Of course, if your ultimate concern is swelling the ranks of people you can call queer, then I suppose this is the optimal tactic. But if your ultimate concern is giving people the tools for greater self-awareness, better critical thinking, and a richer engagement with the world and people around them, then you're better off sticking to education. Despite his title and some of his more condescending moments, Dennett does recognize this in that speech, and that is why I have more respect for him than for Dawkins et al.

By all means, be as loud and proud an atheist as you want. God (or whoever) knows the world needs more thinking people who will stand up boldly for what they (don't) believe in. People need to encounter others who think and live differently than they do. It's the only way to learn and grow as a person.

Tell me how you self-identify, what you think and believe, and why; I need to hear it. Just don't fucking tell me what I am.

Hello, Culture Shock, My Old Friend

I've undergone transcontinental relocation enough times to know better, but I honestly thought this time would be different.

This time, I was in my twenties – old enough to cope; not like when I was a child, trying to grow up at the same time as adjusting to new places.

This time, I was moving to from the UK to the US – a paltry cultural difference. Was I not a connoisseur of American TV/movies/internets? Had I not lived from the ages of one to seven in Alabama? Surely I was entirely prepared for all aspects of life in the States.

This time, the decision was wholly mine – not dictated by my parents (whose choices, admittedly, I don't recall ever objecting to, and sometimes actively encouraged). I'd never wanted anything more than I wanted to move 5000 miles west and take my rightful place as a grad student in ~California~.

And, of course, it really did seem that way at first. I instantly felt as though I fit in. School was everything I hoped it would be. New friends were abundant and wonderful. The weather was gorgeous. For about three months, it was like being ever so slightly drunk all the damn time.

For the past three months, though, it's been more like being ever so slightly hungover all the damn time. This is literally textbook culture shock, and it's really stupid that I wasn't prepared for it. I just... thought it would be different.

I thought it would be easy, because I was comparing it to the last transcontinental upheaval. That was when we moved from Kenya to Scotland, which is a hell of a cultural transition. That was when I was thirteen, which is a hell of an age. In comparison, this move should have been a cakewalk.

I thought it would be easy, because I imagined that I would be used to this by now. I am a third culture kid. Wanderlust runs in my veins. I crave new places. Not for me the desire to be settled. Not for me the need to feel from somewhere. Not for me the constant belittling comparisons of the new place with the vastly superior place where I last lived. Me, I positively revel in the fact that everywhere on Earth I am a stranger in a strange land. You can't feel homesick if nowhere is home.

I thought it would be easy. I was wrong.

The Super Bowl, Glee, And Pop-Culture Obligations

Few things on this earth interest me less than watching sports. It just does not engage me in the slightest. On the one hand, you have a bunch of (often overpaid) (almost invariably dude-type) humans chasing after a ball for 90 minutes or so; on the other hand, you have LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE IN EXISTENCE, and the former cannot possibly compete for my attention.

American football perhaps tops the list of Sports I Do Not Care About. Friends have gamely attempted to explain the rules to me, but such endeavors always put my brain in a jellified stupor quicker than Of Grammatology and a letter from the bank combined. Sports terminology is my personal soporific.

So you can understand why I anticipated my first Super Bowl with some trepidation. In fact, I looked on wistfully as a friend of mine offered a marvelous piece of counter-programming in the form of “Buffy Bowl”; but I just couldn't not participate in arguably the biggest cultural event in the US calendar.

As it turned out, I had a pretty excellent time. Beer, food, beer, friends, beer, yelling at commercials for being offensive kyriarchal clusterfucks, and beer are some of my favorite things, so I barely even noticed that there was a sport going on. It turns out there's enough of a surrounding circus that you can be reasonably entertained without paying the slightest attention to the game. (Also, it's apparently socially acceptable to be mortal as a newt by like 4pm on Super Bowl Sunday.)

I doubt I could summarize the goings-on better than Liss (except to reiterate: OMG NICKI MINAJ, be still my beating heart), nor get my feminist outrage on better than Fannie, so I won't try. What's interesting to me is my own feeling that, as a pop-culture connoisseur, I absolutely had to experience this event.

You see, this same weekend, I made official my breakup with Glee. I unliked it on Facebook and deleted the unwatched episodes that have been accumulating since October. For a couple of years, much as I would criticize it, Glee was essential viewing for me. The pop-culture buzz, the detailed analysis, the sense of witnessing a significant event in early-twenty-first-century television – it was irresistible. And yet, by the time season three started, the feeling of icy dread that accompanied each episode far outweighed the anticipation of conversation around it. The sheer awfulness of the show had, in my judgment, at last surpassed its cultural relevance.

The criteria we use for judging which pop-culture phenomena are worthy of our time and attention are subtle and strange. I absolutely believe that popular culture is worthy of close study and analysis: that this study can reveal all manner of truths about a given society – how it functions, what it values, what narratives it tells about itself and how these narratives perpetuate or challenge existing systems of domination and oppression. However, no one has the time or energy to be a consumer of all the popular culture from which we can learn these things. I know that everyone makes choices and compromises, but I still find myself second-guessing my own judgments about pop culture. Since I jumped ship on Glee, I understand that it's aired an episode dealing with gay teen sex, and has another forthcoming in which Brittana will actually, you know, do something. These are arguably watershed moments in pop-culture representations of homosexuality in the US, and maybe by bailing when I did I am missing out on something culturally important. I guess my question is:

To what extent are you obligated to engage with something you hate in order to study its sociocultural impact?

"Wings on a Pig": The Inevitable Rise Of The Christian Left

I know I link to him all the time (it's because he's awesome), but the very reverend Mr John Shore has a new book out. It's called Wings on a Pig: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn't Work, and you all who are able should definitely buy it, because it is a most excellent collection of Shore's refreshingly direct essays on the topic of homosexuality and Christianity (ending with the clearest, most brilliant, most faithful and biblically-sound refutation of the clobber passages I've ever read), interspersed with letters of testimony from gay Christians, one of which may or may not be – well, they're anonymous...

(BUT YOU GUYS I TOTALLY WROTE ONE OF THEM)

Aside from the excitement of seeing words what I wrote in eInk, I think it is a super-important book. (Did I mention that I contributed to it?) On the ground, the issue of Teh Gays really is causing major upheaval in America's churches (and to a lesser extent, if only because of the vastly lesser role of religion in UK society, in Britain's).

This makes me think there's a very striking disconnect between the theologies of my queer progressive Bay Area seminary and the theologies of Middle America. Here, we don't talk about whether God has a problem with gays, because we're all gay or gay-adjacent. Here, admitting “actually I believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human and that he died for my sins” is tantamount to outing yourself as a paid-up member of the Religious Right. Here, being a far-leftist as well as a Christian does not make you a *~~*special snowflake*~~* (you should see the amount of activism and support on our campus toward the Occupy movement).

And yet, during my two years in a conservative Christian church, being a far-leftist gay Christian did make me a *~~*special snowflake*~~*; and, for tons of people all across this country, the same is true. The testimonies in John's book assure me of that.

Even so, I do have hope for the future of Christianity in this country. While I was living across the Pond, getting all my US news from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Rachel Maddow Show, and AlterNet, I very much got the impression that the Religious Right was the primary – if not only – vocal Christian movement in the States. Progressivism, of course, went hand-in-hand with secularism – a universal extrapolation I, like many others (including prominent theorists who really should know better), made from the example of Western Europe.

But that's not how things are going in America. Religion is still a hugely powerful force in this country, uniquely so among industrial nations, and that's not changing anytime soon. (Did you know how much effort and money the '08 Obama campaign put into religious outreach? Because it was a lot.)

What could – and, I hope, will – change soon is the tide of religious feeling. Contrary to the messages of much of the media, the religious left is a dynamic force in the United States, and I believe it's on the rise. It may still be a smallish force, but it's gaining momentum among the young people and on the internet and in the queer-progressive-heretical seminaries and everywhere that people are having the courage to consider the issues for themselves, seek out resources like John's book, and defy the party line of Christian conservatism.

The religious left is here, it's queer(-friendly), and it's not going away.

A Guide To Not Touching

America generally is a much more touchy-feely place than Britain, and progressive seminary in the East Bay Area might be the touchy-feeliest place of all. This makes me super-uncomfortable, so I've thrown together a brief Guide To Not Touching for my new friends. Bookmark this page, and if you see me and feel inclined to get touchy-feely, consult this guide first.

1. No unsolicited hugs. Whether we're in church, doing something specifically hippy-dippy, or we just happen to bump into each other, don't hug me. You're great and stuff – this doesn't mean I don't like you – but wanton hugging is weird for me. You don't French all the friends you run into; I don't hug all mine.

2. No sneaking up. If you're approaching from outside my field of vision, or if I'm really absorbed in something and haven't noticed you, speak to me. Don't clap a hand on my shoulder. It freaks me out and I have to fight the urge to punch you.

3. No friendly poking or prodding. I get that some people like to poke their friends in the rib, or punch them lightly on the arm, but that's not a friendly thing for me. I find it aggressive and it sets me on edge. Personal bubble, okay?

4. NO TOUCHING MY FACE OR NECK. Ever. Under any circumstances at all. My hitting you is a reflex reaction to your touching my face or neck; you've been forewarned, and I admit no liability.

5. No rubbing my stomach. This means you, Tyler.

6. Ask. If you want to hug me, ask first. Give me space to refuse, and don't be offended if I do. I do like hugs, but they're quite an intimate thing for me and I don't want them every day. On a very special day, I might be up for hugs. Under ordinary circumstances, “Go Team Venture!” is an appropriate level of physical contact for me. If I'm feeling extra twitchy and anxious, I'll want nothing more than a nice distance-keeping Vulcan salute.

I know it seems strange to you physical people, but this is my deal. If it helps, think of me as a brain in a jar – it's what we'll all be in a few years anyway.

In Which All My Dreams Come True, Provided I Never Get Sick

So, here I am in ~California~, in the **~**Bay Area**~**. I am in my second week of orientation at seminary. Well, technically I am at seminary, though as an MA student I guess I am not really a seminarian – just surrounded by them.

My school is very progressive. A hundred years ago it was cheerfully educating women and Asian-Americans, back when ladybits and Asianness were widely considered obvious signs of inferiority as a human being. Today its population is over 50% queer-identified and extremely diverse, racially and religiously. Classes haven't started yet, but I'm already pretty sure that this is the best seminary in the world.

Last night we had an incredible worship service. Christians, pagans, Jews, and unaffiliated seekers gathered together to share a profoundly filling and calming experience of the divine. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before, and it was amazing.

I love the fact that I get to take very intellectual classes on things like Constructive Theology and Political Theology, and I also get to take part in worship and spiritual praxis. I love that I'll be learning heart-things as well as head-things. And I love the sunshine.

The other day someone asked me what I miss from home. I couldn't really think of anything. I miss my friends, obviously, but I'm making plenty of new ones so it's not as though I'm sitting alone crying for them. (Still love you guys, though!) One thing that occurred to me later is the NHS.

Oh, National Health Service. You are big, lumbering, and often inefficient. Sometimes you offend me. You seem to have a very nasty culture of silencing whistleblowers. Nobody would pretend that you are perfect; even so, as far as the blazing sun is above the feeblest anglerfish in the Mariana Trench, that's how far you are above the ridiculous US healthcare system.

I don't know if many USians understand just how absurd your healthcare system seems to an outsider. Let me explain:

You're in Britain, and you need a doctor. You're feeling peaky, or you need birth control, or your acne's flared up, or whatever. What do you do? You go see a doctor. Doctor treats you. If you need a prescription, you get your drugs – free if you're in Scotland or Wales, for a small sum (except for birth control) in England.

I'm not leaving any steps out. This is exactly what happens, from start to finish. It doesn't matter if you're unemployed. It doesn't matter if you're a taxpayer, a foreigner, a child. You see a doctor and you get treated.

This is normal for me. This is what I'm used to. Do you know how outrageous your system is to me? It literally would not seem out of place in a dystopian novel about an oppressive futuristic society that murders its citizens on a daily basis.

I'm in the US now, and I do have health insurance. If I need the doctor, I don't have a frickin' clue what I do. From the sound of things, my best bet is to fly home and get treated on the NHS.

Aside from the healthcare clusterfuck, I love everything about being here. I love the weather (obviously! I've been here ten days and I haven't been rained on once). I love that people are so friendly, and find my accent charming instead of weird. I love that the town is a lot like Camden. I love that I got to stand on the Golden Gate Bridge. I love my school. I love that I can look out of a classroom window and see a palm tree across the Bay. I love that, several times a day, I have to fight down the urge to lie on the ground kicking my heels and squeeing for joy.

I'm a grad student at a progressive seminary in California. What more could I want? (APART FROM UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE, SERIOUSLY, GET IT TOGETHER CONGRESS)