Let’s get that out of the way first of all. I am not a pirate, I am, in fact, a potential victim of piracy. However, SOPA and PIPA are not the way to go about protecting those copyrights.

Because see, here’s the thing… that First Amendment? Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press? Those things are important to me, more important than making sure some doofus doesn’t go about copying my work. For one thing, these bills won’t work. Like DRM, they will do more to punish the legitimate consumer than to stop piracy, and in the process they will break fundamental aspects of the internet, endanger internet security, destroy the entire DNS structure, and do all sorts of things that will make it impossible to do business on the internet.

The sponsors of this bill are big entertainment corporations. They don’t care about the little guy, they don’t care that this bill will make the very tools I use to publish and advertise the content I create impossible to use, and could very well put those networks out of business. Twitter, tumblr, Facebook, Youtube, etc. – anywhere that depends on user generated content – could be completely destroyed by this bill. That means nowhere to notify my fans of a new story, nowhere to advertise my current projects, nowhere to announce that I’ve gotten something else published.

My income from writing would go from a steady stream to a barely existent trickle.

The worst part of it is, the thing that should make all freedom-loving Americans sit up and pay attention, is that this bill would make censorship even easier. Already, people have learned that they can have content they don’t like taken down by submitting a false report of copyright infringement. They don’t need proof. They just need to submit the report. With this bill, it wouldn’t just take down one small piece of content –  they could destroy entire websites, freeze funds, stop someone’s only source of income, even put them in prison for up to five years  –  just from one report of infringement.

Censorship. Someone being silenced just because of an unpopular opinion. Sounds like the Great Firewall of China, doesn’t it?

Yeah, that’s exactly what it is, and it’s here in the USA, unless we stop it.

– Jennifer L. Davis
Please see below for more information:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

A Girl Scout is calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies in a youtube video. Why? Because Girl Scouts allows transgirls to join and participate. (Update: Looks like the Hate-Mongering Girl Scout has now set her video to private. Maybe she learned a bit of a lesson here?)

Here’s the thing. The Girl Scout Mission? This is it:

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.

And the girl in this video? She’s not making the world a better place, she’s spreading hate and bigotry and has become one of those people ensuring that the world is a more dangerous place for transwomen.  And all you have to do is read the news to know how dangerous a place it already is.  And here she is, wanting to stop one of the sources of income for an organization that has become one of the few safe places out there for a transgirl. For that, honestly, I think she should be the one banned from participating in the Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts is all about empowering girls and turning them into strong, independent women. It’s just the sort of confidence-boosting organization and help that a girl in a particularly difficult situation might need.  Allowing transgirls to join and participate could very well save lives, by giving that child a community where she is welcomed and included.

So here’s what I propose: Let that boycott proposal have the opposite result, and let the GLBT community and our friends come out to support this organization that has been so supportive of us. So here’s the plan:

Buy All The Cookies.

I’m trying to eat healthier, but I’ll buy boxes as gifts and give them away all over the place if I have to. (While reserving one box of my favorite, Thin Mints, to stick in the freezer at home, of course.) I’ll buy what I can afford and do whatever I can to help.

To find a place where you can buy cookies, just go here: http://www.girlscoutcookies.org/ and they’ll give you the nearest cookie station, or alternatively you can contact your local Girl Scout Council to find out how to contact and help your local troop or how to donate, if you don’t want to buy cookies.

Help them out. They deserve it.

Under the guise of fighting online piracy, SOPA will place tools for censorship into the hands of corporations and internet providers, while doing very little at all (and none of that to any real effect) to stop content theft.

As an independent content provider, you are very possibly looking at what could happen to my blog should I, perhaps, express some unpopular opinion. Or perhaps because I wasn’t big enough to be affiliated with a major corporation, I wouldn’t get preferential treatment by the ISPs and my blog wouldn’t load for you at all.

The Great Firewall of China – in the grand ol’ USA.

That’s the future we’re looking at, if SOPA passes. It lays down a foundation that could potentially lead to the blocking of websites for any reason at all, not necessarily copyright infringement. It would disable services that independent creators depend on for marketing and promotion of their work.  People have already used false accusations of content theft to silence their detractors, with web hosting services and ISPs taking down websites just based on the accusation without any proof. This bill would make such a thing easier to do.

Just as the majority of the newspapers in this country are controlled by a handful of corporations, so too would be the websites you’d visit.  Right now, the internet is the most democratic, absolutely free forum for speaking out available. That free speech could be silenced. The potential for innovation and for small independent creators of content to succeed would be effectively stifled, whether they are creators of written word, video games, webseries and movies, or music.

As a creator of content, I want to protect my intellectual property. However, I am not willing to trade my freedom of speech for what would be completely ineffective means to do so.

If you have a few minutes, send a letter to your representatives in Congress. Speak out against censorship.

But as far as being a feminist? There were little things that all lead up to an eventual realization of, basically, “This is bullshit, and I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.”  Little things that led up to my social activism, both as a GLBT activist and as a feminist (two things that I find are inseparable and intertwined).

There was being taught by my mother, at a very young age, that a woman cannot depend on the men in her life to take care of her.  She has to do that for herself.

There was the first pubescent realization, and subsequent shame, that I had a romantic crush on another girl.  And then getting over that shame and realizing there’s nothing wrong with it at all.

There was the moment as a young teenager that I allowed a boy to terrify me, and the certain and absolute knowledge that I would never allow any person to have that sort of control over me, or allow any person to frighten me that way again.

There was being treated as the “ignorant girlfriend” when I visited arcades, gaming stores, and comic book shops with my (mostly male) crowd of friends – at least, until I demonstrated that my knowledge of gaming and comics not only equaled, but surpassed, the knowledge of my male peers.

And coming on the heels of that was the moment when I realized that because of that knowledge of  these “masculine” things, I would be seen as less of a girl, no matter how I saw myself.

There was being asked by my grandfather, the first time I went to vote, if he needed to “tell me who to vote for” as if it was a perfectly normal thing for the male head of family to dictate such things to the women.

Then college, and women’s and gender studies classes, and learning of the feminists before me. By that point I already identified as “feminist” – but I hadn’t yet been pushed into activism.

For that, it took a failure – and being told explicitly that I would not have failed, had I been a man. If I had been a man, I would have been a better teacher. I could have kept discipline in a high school classroom made up almost entirely of juvenile criminals (literally). If I had been a man.

And then there was the gradually increasing horror of the political actions being taken and proposed that would push this country back into an era where women’s bodies were owned and controlled by their fathers, their husbands, their government – anyone but themselves.

There was no one “click” moment for me. For me, you could say that the road to feminist activism was paved with a handful of thrown stones – many of them tiny pebbles, and one or two huge boulders.  It was the bruises from those that created my determination to stand like a wall between those who would attack our rights and those who cannot yet stand for themselves. It was that which created my determination to be an activist – but not just for women’s rights.

Because if I am to stand up for women and for feminist equality, I must also stand up for equality for everyone else.

Written for the Feminist Portrait Project’s “Click Moment” blog-a-thon.

© 2011 – Jennifer L. Davis

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A new anti-choice bill introduced into legislation right now by John Boehner would redefine rape as only those cases that involve physical force.

In other words, just saying No isn’t enough to qualify it as rape anymore. No, you have to get beaten too.  This new definition would disqualify most date rape, any rape involving drugs, statutory rape, marital rape, incest for anyone over the age of eighteen. In other words, 90% of rape cases would no longer qualify as being rape.

You hear that, rape survivors? Under this legislation, your rape probably won’t qualify as rape anymore.

This new definition is intended to limit federal funding of abortions, but could have far-reaching impact for rape survivors in general, regardless of if they get pregnant. After all, if they change the definition of rape in one place, what’s to stop it from being changed everywhere?

I just can’t.  There are no words.  For things you can do to fight this, see the #DearJohn post at TigerBeatdown.  I need to go find a quiet place to calm down.

Fuck you, John Boehner.

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Many of the current ubiquitous features of the internet – websites that millions of people visit multiple times every day – could not exist in that fenced in world.  Facebook was created by a college student. Twitter by a few folks with a simple idea. The end of net neutrality would destroy that sort of invention. It would take innovation out of the hands of the individual and ensure that only mega-corporations could afford a place on the internet. Only they would be able to avoid the fees necessary to ensure that their content was accessible by the end-user, because the end-user would only be able to visit websites inside the fence that their ISP puts around the internet.

Now, this wouldn’t just affect internet startups and entrepreneurs.  There are real implications for creative professionals.  Independent musicians, artists, and writers would lose their ability to get their creative work out to the masses, without the benefit of having a major publisher backing them to pay those fees.  Likewise, the ISPs could potentially block websites they simply didn’t agree with – effectively applying censors to anyone with differing opinions or working with controversial subjects. They would be kicked outside the fence, their work left in the black hole of an internet unreachable by anyone.

This, along with certain legislation directed toward the Wikileaks scandal but with wide-ranging implications for freedom of speech for everyone, means that our first amendment rights are being beset on all sides. On one side, we have the greed of the internet providers looking for another way to make money, on the other we have politicians looking to destroy safe political dissent by removing the anonymity of the internet.

More and more, the internet is a place where even those from countries where freedom of speech is not guaranteed can have a voice.  The two things that make this possible are anonymity and the ability for almost anyone, regardless of the money in their pocket, to make a website. Take those two things away, and not only is the internet destroyed, but it will take one of our most fundamental rights with it. And let’s face it, that right is already tattered enough.

Let’s not go building those fences again.

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Finally, and against all odds, Congress has stepped up to the plate and given the GLBT community a first step toward equality and repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

I don’t pretend to think that this changes everything, but it is a step in the right direction, the first of many.

For those of you following the Trevor Project’s It Gets Better videos, particularly those among the GLBT gaming community, EA Games has put out a wonderful  It Gets Better video from its GLBT employees.

Perhaps the most important theme these people repeat is that sometimes you learn that the things that make you different are the things that are most important – something that could apply to everything that makes you different. It’s something I’ve found to be very true, especially when it comes to my geekiness.  Non-geeks may not be able to understand what fascinates me so about computers or video games or the internet, but it is often nice to know that the very things they don’t understand are what make me essential.  Because these things make me look at the world from a different angle, through a different facet of the prism.

As much as I may disagree with EA Games general corporate practice of putting excessive and restrictive DRM on their games, these are the creators and artists involved in those games, not the distributor who publishes them. People who have had a hand in the creation of games that I have loved and enjoyed, and they could not have done what they did without being a little bit “different.”

Being normal will do nothing to set you apart from others – being different can often mean being something a bit extraordinary.

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How many more have to die?

How many more teens will be driven to the brink, surrounded on all sides by nothing but bigotry and hate, often coming even from their own parents, before something is done to protect them?

How many more, before schools and parents and youth organizations realize that something must be done?

And that something can’t be “We’re sending you to conversion therapy so you can hate who you are even more.”

That something can’t be telling them that the way they were born was a choice, and that choice means that God hates them, that the World hates them, that they are wrong.

This is not suicide. This is murder by proxy, and the blood is on the hands of the bullies who have convinced these children that the only option is death. Of every parent to make their gay child hate themselves, of every teacher that ignored the signs. It’s on the hands of every homophobe who has made an offhand comment or joke in the hearing of a random stranger who was struggling, on the inside, with coming to terms with who they are.

It is time to reach out to these teens, to tell them they are not alone, that others have been through the same things and survived, and thrived. Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project is a good start.  I am, in fact, working on a video of my own for the project. The Trevor Project is a good start. But in order for these things to work, the teens out there who are struggling with their identity need to know about them.

The GLBT community needs to reach out, but more than that, the straight caregivers, teachers, counselors, school administrators – they all need to know how to deal with these issues. They all need to know what resources are out there.  And they need to start allowing representatives of the GLBT community into their schools to talk to students about these issues.

But more than that, it’s time to get angry. It’s time to fight the hate.  Too many have died.

Will you stand by and wait for more to die before you do something? Before you come out and stand proud and say “This is NOT OKAY, and I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

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Warning: The following post contains some adult language.

I’ve been in a bit of an ill-tempered mood this week, so I decided to put this post on the back burner overnight and come back to it to make sure it wasn’t too ranty. But no, after reading it this morning, I think it entails the proper amount of rant for the situation. I’m pissed off. Thoroughly, and with full justification.

Here’s the situation. I have health insurance. I only went without for a couple of years while I was unemployed.  I started out with really good health insurance, actually, but the company (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia) raised my monthly premiums by an average of $50 on an annual basis. I tolerated it for the first few years, but over the last few the increases have been beyond what my budget can handle, and I’ve had to downgrade to a higher deductible, lower benefit plan. Even so, I stayed under the same carrier and even the same member group.

This year they increased my premiums by $60 in March. Today I got a notice that they will be increasing my monthly premium again by $60 in July.

That’s a healthcare premium increase of $120.00/month over the course of less than six months, bringing my premium up to what amounts to a week and a half’s pay.

Now . . . keep in mind that I am in what is probably the best health of my life, where I am neither starving myself as I did in high school or eating mounds and mounds of junk food as I did in college.  I eat healthy. I do an hour of high intensity exercise every day.  I haven’t been to the doctor in years except for my annual physical, which I get at a sliding fee clinic and pay for out of pocket, because over the last couple of years I’ve been forced to raise my deductible to the point where that is the only way I can afford to go.

The only thing that I have ever used my health insurance to pay for since I have had it was an eye exam and a pair of glasses.

I just did the calculations , and this means that I have paid approximately (and this is on the low end) $12,000.00 in premiums for . . . a pair of glasses.

But BCBS feels justified in raising my premium by almost $120/month over the course of less than six months.

Yeeeeah. I’m tempted to drop my insurance entirely and wait out the five years until the new healthcare regulations go into effect, but at the same time I’m terrified that in the backlash will result in a Republican Congress that will repeal and destroy the one hope I’ve had in years for decent healthcare. The free market system for healthcare doesn’t work.  I have health insurance, yes . . . but I still can’t afford to go to the doctor. True, I need it little now, but if I did need it, or goddess forbid, I had an accident of some sort and had to go to the hospital, I would be bankrupt.

Right now I’m looking into the healthcare savings plans offered through my bank, as that may be the best option for me right now.  I’ve tried free market health insurance, and all it ever did was screw me up the ass.  It’s little more than protection money.  I pay through the nose for no benefit whatsoever. It’s time to look into other options.  And I think I’ll be writing to the state insurance commissioner. A $120 increase in monthly premiums in such a short time has to raise some red flags somewhere.

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But if that girl is a lesbian, and the girl she’s going with is her girlfriend, and the school would rather cancel the prom entirely than allow lesbians to take part in a time-honored right of passage like the prom.

In the case of young Constance McMillan, it is perhaps fortunate that she is fairly well-versed as an activist, and knew just what to do and which channels to pursue to get the ACLU involved. Now, she’s fighting not just for the opportunity to go to the prom with her date of choice, but for the entire student body to have a prom at all.

Meanwhile, the school officials are trying to put together a “private” prom where they can exclude whomever they might wish without getting sued.  This reminds me all too much of a tradition that is, unfortunately, still common where I live where there’s a school prom that everyone gets to go to, and a private prom that only the white kids get to go to.  It’s not right. It’s sanctioned segregation, regardless of the minority being left out.

I’m proud of Constance McMillen for standing up for her rights like she’s done. She’s bound to be getting a lot of abuse from the student body for being the reason their prom was canceled, but she’s become a hero to so many more in the last few weeks.  We need more activists like her.

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