Category: women

Posted on

We The People

I have strong feelings about politics and vote regularly, but generally relegate my political conversations to close friends.  I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion.  I believe voting is a responsibility and a privilege.  I was a registered Republican for 38 years.  I changed to Independent during the 2016 presidential campaign.  While I was never one to vote solely along party lines, I have voted Republican more often than not.  Often, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I found myself casting a vote for a candidate that would not benefit me personally, but if I felt the candidate was the best for the city, State or Nation I voted for them in spite of personal concerns.   I give this back story and disclaimer because undoubtedly some folks will try to categorize me as a liberal, bleeding heart, Democrat.

I am not a bleeding heart.  I am not a Democrat.  I believe God created every human in His image.  Subsequently, no human should experience tyranny, inequality, inequity and oppression.  If that makes me a liberal, then I will gladly wear the label.

Which brings me to what is on my heart.  The problems we are seeing in our country today … The division.  The bitterness.  The cruelty.  The partisanship.  The hatefulness. The loss of civility.  All of it … is not a Republican problem, it is not a Democrat problem. It is a WE THE PEOPLE problem.

WE THE PEOPLE, myself included, have been comfortable in our homes and lives and have allowed it to come to this.  We have allowed the power of our representatives to go unchecked for decades.  We have consistently turned a deaf ear as things became more uncivil and more outlandish and are now surprised at the venom being spewed by our so-called leaders.

WE THE PEOPLE let the Tea Party say outrageous things and did NOTHING.  We did not call them on their behavior when they tried to replace the constitution with the Bible.  As a Christian, I have a high opinion of and respect for the Bible.  As a Christian, my political beliefs are formed by my faith.  However, the Bible is not the law of the land.  Let me give an example … Murder is against the law, and rightly so.  However, it is not against the law because it is a SIN or is one of the 10 commandments; it is against the law because it is against the civil rights of another’s pursuit of life.  Just because something is legal, does not make it right or moral.  Conversely, because something is right or moral does not make it legal.   Further, the Bible is not the basis for the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights.  In fact, contrary to popular belief, most signees of the Declaration of Independence were not Christian.

WE THE PEOPLE allowed a Republican Congress and Senate to be obstructionist for the 8 years President Obama (whom I did not vote for either time) was in office.  We allowed our representatives to vote NO time and time again, simply because a Democratic President thought something was a good idea.  EIGHT YEARS we let this go on.  During that time, anything that was accomplished in this country was done so in spite of us, not because of us.  Once again WE THE PEOPLE let power go unchecked and we let representatives give themselves pay raises, without raising the minimum wage.  We allowed our representative to vote down equal pay for women holding the same job as their male counterparts.   All the while consistently raising the debt ceiling because there was not a balanced budget.  Our representatives were not doing their jobs and we continued to vote them in office, when we should have fired them.

WE THE PEOPLE have not pressed our representatives to have a balanced budget in 17 years.  SEVENTEEN YEARS!  The last time this country had a balance budget was 2001; when Bill Clinton was President, and Republicans controlled Congress.

WE THE PEOPLE allowed our representatives to refuse to consider a perfectly qualified, moderate nominee for the SCOTUS for 10-months, simply because he was nominated by a Democratic President.  We allowed our representative to refuse to do their job for 10-months and continued to not only pay them, but vote them back into office.

WE THE PEOPLE allowed the murder of 20 first graders at Sandy Hook without a single change in gun laws.  We did not force our representatives to do anything, other than send thoughts and prayers, in response to twenty 6 and 7 year olds being terrified and slaughtered while at school.

WE THE PEOPLE did not press our representatives into action when 9 people were violently murdered inside a church in Charleston while attending a Bible study.

WE THE PEOPLE have continued to vote for representatives who have allowed our nation to sink into a staggering new all-time high debt topping $21 trillion in 2018.

WE THE PEOPLE have allowed our representatives to constantly kowtow to a president who has mocked disabled people, veterans, gold star families, sexual assault survivors, war heroes, and countless others.

WE THE PEOPLE have allowed apathy to become the rule of the day.  Sadly, it is not unusual for 40% to 50% of registered voters to stay home on election-day.  Bad officials are elected by good people who do not vote.

WE THE PEOPLE need to get our heads out of the sand and collectively consolidate our feces before our democracy becomes an oligarchy.

As my friend Amy Courts (@AmyCourts) said … “It’s worth remembering that America has always been sick, we’ve never been well; we’ve always been genocidal, we’ve never been equitable or just.

The progress the Right fears was made via the 13th and 19th amendments, the CRA and VRA  … well, what little was accomplished was summarily and meticulously squashed by Nixon and Reagan, by the Tea Party and Trumpublicans.

There is nothing new under the sun, and yet we’re nevertheless better off.

WE ARE STILL HERE.

WE ARE STILL FIGHTING.

Look to women who fought for my right to vote and have never wasted their voice, regardless of the men who silenced them. Look to Queer leaders who gave their lives for the right to simply exist.

Look to Indigenous Nations who’ve survived genocide by violence, displacement, and cultural erasure and endure still to claim their space and protect our Mother; and to Black Americans who’ve survived slavery and Jim Crow and mass incarceration to be the most educated, creative, and revolutionary thought leaders among us.

The glory is not in the winning but in choosing to build and rebuild every time they bulldoze.

We do the work not because it will ever be done but because the WORK IS INHERENTLY WORTH DOING.

Take heart.

Keep lamps lit.

Burn it all down #ToAshes, be warmed by the flames.

And keep building.”

May it be so …

Posted on

Pink

Today is October 1st; the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness month.  The day when pink becomes the color of the day.  I remember each October I would walk in honor of a loved one battling breast cancer or in memory of a loved one who had died from breast cancer.  It seemed like breast cancer surrounded me, but was always one degree or more away from me.  Until it wasn’t.

In September 2013 I had a routine OBGYN women’s wellness visit.  I completed the visit with the annual mammogram, we all hate to experience.  Two weeks later I received a call about abnormalities in my mammogram.  This had happened to me multiple times before and without giving it any thought, I went in for the standard “second look”.  Afterwards I was scheduled for a more detailed 3-D mammogram as a precautionary measure.  I remember sitting in the waiting room and telling my wife everything would be fine as long as the radiologist does not want to see me.  About that time, I was called back to see the radiologist.  Damn it.

The radiologist showed me the images and pointed out several suspicious abnormalities and she recommended I see a breast specialist.  I agreed and the referral was made.  Later that same week I was in the breast specialist office and he agreed it looked suspicious and scheduled me for a biopsy, which was scheduled for the following week.

The biopsy table was like nothing I had ever seen.  It was elevated and had a hole for the breast to hang down through and the doctor sat in a chair underneath and with the help of x-ray technology began to take pieces of tissue from the suspicious areas.  At a later appointment I went back to have small metal markers inserted near the places the biopsies were taken.  Marked in the event this particular area was questioned in the future.

At 8:02am on Monday, October 21, 2013 my phone rang as I was getting ready for work.  It was the doctor.  I will never forget him saying “its breast cancer and I need you in my office at 3:30pm this afternoon.  Can you arrange that?”  I stumbled around and said “sure”.

My wife came into the bedroom and looked at me anxiously waiting for me to fill her in on what the doctor had said, which I did.  She stood in front of me with tears in her eyes and said “we are going to be sad about this today and then we are going to get up and fight.”  I agreed.  Not knowing what else to do, we finished dressing and went into the office.

At 3:30pm we arrived at the doctor’s office and he explained the “process” saying the first step would be a surgery to remove the sentinel lymph node for testing, to decide if there was any lymph node involvement.  Explaining that if lymph nodes were involved it had to pass through the sentinel lymph node first.  As it stood, I had two malignancies, both of which were relatively small, with other suspicious areas which had not been tested.  This was complicated by the fact one malignancy was on the chest wall.  With the malignancies being located so far apart a lumpectomy was not possible, so we decided then and there it would be a double mastectomy.  One as treatment and the second as a prophylactic measure.

The slew of doctor appointments began; the hematologist, the radiologist and the plastic surgeon.  I was very fortunate, my team of doctors are rock stars.  I was further fortunate to have personal health insurance that covered everything, since my deductible had been met earlier in the year.

December 10, 2013 was the first surgery, which was the sentinel lymph node removal.  Fortunately, the lymph node came back clear of any malignancies, which confirmed no spread of the cancer outside of the breast area.

December 17, 2013 was the date set for the double mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction, a surgery which lasted 15 hours. In a DIEP flap reconstruction my tissue was used to reconstruct the breasts area after amputation.   I can remember arriving at the hospital and being in a mental fog of sorts. I was simply putting one foot in front of the other, smiling and saying everything is going to be just fine.  But deep inside I secretly wondered how different life would be post-surgery.  I stayed in the hospital 4 days and came home to begin the recovery process, as well as the very different post-surgery life.

The tumors removed during the mastectomy showed my diagnosis to be multiple invasive ductal carcinoma, stage 1 grade 2.  The type of tumor was estrogen positive.

In an effort to help myself be comfortable with my wife seeing my new body, which by this time had four and half feet of scars on it, I asked her to aid with bandage changes, emptying the drains from surgery, etc.  She readily agreed, for which I was thankful.  In my mind if she could love me when I was covered with wounds, stitches, blood and drains, certainly she could love my healed, scarred and very different body.

As the New Year arrived, I was still under the care of home health, with surgical drains and wound dressing changes twice a day.  There were binders for DIEP flap protection and surgical bras for drain and swelling fortification.  I was reporting to the plastic surgeon weekly for progress checks.

In one breast a stitch popped and the center of the breast began to have a concave look, much like an extremely older person without teeth.  This breast we named “Grumpy Cat”.  Part of the reconstruction in the other breast had necrosis and we named it “Massive Head Wound Harry”.  The plastic surgeons office referred to me as Grumpy Cat’s mom.

The dead and dying skin on Massive Head Wound Harry had to be debrided, which was the first of nine surgeries in 2014.

By mid-January 2014 I was more independent and was discharged from home health.  It was at this time that I also began a daily regimen of Tamoxifen.  By mid-February 2014 I was finally rid of all drains.  I would stay in binders until the summer of 2014.  My last surgery was in December 2014, when my ovaries were removed.

A total of 11 surgeries in 13 months takes a toll on a body.  I can remember looking at my body, after each surgery and wondering what the people who told me I was so lucky to be able to get new “boobs” would think of the reality of breast cancer.

The reality is nerves are severed when the breasts are amputated.  For the most part leaving the breast area numb.  More often than not the areola and nipple are removed and discarded leaving a scar.  New nipples can be  constructed, but they have no sensation and they are perpetually erect, which women spend enormous effort to hide with padded bras, etc.

In my case, a large area of skin and muscle was removed from my abdomen to reconstruct the breast area, leaving a scar from hip bone to hip bone.  In addition, I have a newly constructed belly button and the lower half of my abdomen is numb.  There are scars from the four drains and from the removal of the ovaries.  The truth is a battle with breast cancer, more often than not, leaves a person with a body that is no longer familiar to them.   It is a scarred body that no longer functions as it once did.  A body that does not have the energy it once had.  A body that aches from the treatment it endured.  A body that will never be the same because the treatment not only kills the cancer, it takes a toll on the rest of the body.

As the body is recovering, the mental and emotional recovery begins.  With every new ache or pain the nagging question deep within wondering if “it” is back.  With every scan and test there is the breath holding until the result is received.

So when you see pink ribbons this month, please remember the upside to breast cancer is not getting new “boobs”.  The upside of breast cancer is the same as the upside of any cancer.   Nothing can help a person prioritize their life like a cancer diagnosis.  Suddenly, what made you angry last week, seems unimportant.  The thoughts that used to consume, now seem petty.  The action by someone that seemed unforgivable last month, seems infinitely small in comparison.  A cancer diagnosis can bring your life back into focus like a new pair of glasses, which beats new boobs every time.

Posted on

Sexual Safety

Anyone who owns a television, radio or internet knows there has been a great deal of discussion about sexual assault and the #METOO movement lately.  It is sad in the society in which we live this remains an issue up for debate.  Truthfully, there are thousands upon thousands of males who have never been inappropriate with a female in any way.  By the same token, I strongly suspect it is nigh unto impossible to find a female who has never been harassed, assaulted or raped.  Minimally most females have been harassed on more than one occasion.  Further, the majority of those women have never told their stories to anyone and most probably never will.

The reasons behind the silence about these violations are varied.  To someone who has NEVER been violated, they often sound like excuses, irresponsibility, exaggerations, lies, or all the above.  What is often overlooked is there is something that happens inside an individual when they are forced to live in a culture of frequent harassment, or if they have experienced assault or rape.  It is something that cannot be verbalized easily and  is hard to explain.  In a very rudimentary way, a person who has experienced assault or rape or who has been exposed to repeated harassment, views the world through a different lens than people who have not had those experiences.

A profound illustration of this is an exercise my friend Ellin Jimmerson shared from the book The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz.  In his 2006 book, Katz describes the exercise …

“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other.

Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they’ve been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, ‘I stay out of prison.’ This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, ‘Nothing. I don’t think about it.’

Then I ask the women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine.

Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don’t go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don’t put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man’s voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don’t use parking garages. Don’t get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don’t use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don’t wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don’t take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don’t make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”

As a female, I daily find myself doing some of these things, as well as other precautions not listed.  I have been harassed more times than I can remember.  I have been assaulted by 5 different males.    Two were rank strangers, one was a brother of a childhood friend, one was a boss and last but not least a family member.  Two of the five violations, I have never mentioned to anyone.  And I have not mentioned all 5 violations to any one person.  The fact that one dates back 42 years, and has remained a secret, in no way diminishes the violation or the mental and emotional consequences it forced upon me.

It is not unusual for an adult male to report sexual abuse by a priest several decades after it happens and people are rightly enraged.  Yet a woman can report sexual abuse by a male decades after it happens and people are suspicious.  Why?  Have females fraudulently accused males of assaulting them?  Unfortunately, yes.  While those cases are numerically low, they have caused great damage to the accused and in many cases have been widely publicized by the media.  These instances are important and should not be minimized. But at the same time they should not be given undue weight as to undermine the true victims.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center estimates somewhere between 2% and 10% of reported assaults are either false or baseless reports.  A false report is a report of a crime which is investigated and found to have never occurred.  A baseless report is a report in which after investigation is determined the incident does not rise to the level of a crime, but is truthful.  Yet with these reports counted against the total, a staggering 90% to 98% of assaults are reported by true victims.

All reports of harassment, assault or rape should not only be heard, but taken seriously.  Once heard, they should be investigated by a non-biased, independent third-party.  If the violation is founded, then the perpetrator should face the consequences.  If unfounded the reporting person should face the consequences.  However, in all circumstances the alleged victim should be given the dignity of being heard and the perpetrator should be given the dignity of presumed innocence pending investigation; but an investigation is absolutely necessary.

Sexual safety is not a priority in our culture.  It is doubtful it will become the priority it needs to be until men see sexual safety as a basic human right.  It is time for boys to be held accountable for “just being boys” by their male peers.  It is time for males to call out other males for making inappropriate jokes and comments.  It is time for men, real men, to step up and see the generational patriarchy for what it is … a way of life that systematically decreases the value of women.  But for any of this to become a reality, men are going to have to share the power they were born with by essence of their biological sex, with the women in their lives.