wow, the rest of the world really is as dumb as it seems...

Originally posted on LJ 10-27-09

ok, so i have not been posting much. nor have i been writing much more generally. i've had four major life changes/upturnings (some good, some not so good, some a little of both) that have dominated my thoughts and time over the last two months. i will probably write about some of them later, but in the meantime i've been mostly being kinda hermit-ish, taking care of myself, and so on...

one of my big escapes in the midst of all this has been watching the MLB (aka, baseball) playoffs. so i am not a big sports-geek at all, but i have a weak spot for baseball. when i was a young kid (aka, elementary school) i dreamed of being a major league baseball player. it was also my favorite sport to play, although i was not especially good at it. (although, being the smallest boy in my league, i also had the smallest strike zone. since i wasn't a great hitter, my little league coaches used to encourage me to get walks. i got to be pretty good at working the count. back when i played (late 70s, early 80s) nobody paid any attention to On Base Percentage - if they did, i might have been an all-star..., but i digress...).

anyway, i hadn't followed baseball regularly for years until last year, when the Phillies (aka, of Philadelphia, where I grew up), made the playoffs and went onto win the World Series. the team has also been great this year too. i only got to see them play (on TV) about 5 times during the regular season, being that i am on the West Coast now. But since they've made the playoffs again, I've been following them regualrly. they have provided excellent escapism for me. escapism from my work, which has been more hectic than usual. and escapism from all of the trans/gender/activism/writing i do. while i enjoy the trans/gender/activism/writing i do, the "source material" i work with is often really troubling (e.g., people writing fucked up things about trans folks, media depictions mocking gender-nonconformity, and so on). so it's good to take breaks from it from time and time...

But the New York Post has ruined that for me today. The day before the World Series, they ran this cover. It is Shane Victorino's (a Phillies player) upper half photoshop'd onto a short-skirted cheer-leader's lower half. the caption says "the Frillies are coming to town!"

am i surprised? no, not really.

is it trans-misogynistic? duh.

is my annoyance compounded by the fact that pro-Philly folks relentlessly point out that it's a photoshop job (aka, that Shane does not sport ladies wear)? you better believe it!

i just want to escape. where does a baseball-lovin' trans lady turn these days in order to achieve transmisogyny-free escapism?

sigh...

-julia