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On Relationship Anarchy, Accessibility & Sitting Shiva Reflections of a liminally Jewish, atheistic, non-binary aroace... ...on...on RelationshipRelationship Anarchy,Anarchy, AccessibilityAccessibility && SittingSitting ShivaShiva Reflections of a liminally Jewish, atheistic, May, 2016 non-binary aroace... ... on Relationship Anarchy, Accessibility & Sitting Shiva processing stuff re: death, messed-up family & complicated Jewishness... through lenses of ( anarchist-based ) Relationship Anarchy Please copy and distribute freely. ( Printable pdf & e-reader versions available. ) [email protected] More of my zines and inane ramblings: rotten-zucchinis.tumblr.com inside front cover inside back cover Content Warnings: Obviously, this zine deals with death. It also has a lot about amatonormativity & coercion— some broad theory and some specific discussion, in terms of interpersonal coercion. This includes general discussion re: issues of intimate relationship violence, including sexual violence. There's also general discussion of issues like ciscentrism, heterosexism. All, throughout the zine. One section does specifically discuss violence within a family context and particular coercion-tactics, like using threats of serious self-harm coercively ( and that section has a cw ). Formatting for “Readability”: Content warnings ( cw ) are a “heads up” about topics that some people find upsetting. If they seem like “overkill” to When formatting this zine, I tried to make it as easy as possible you, please respect they’re for someone else. to read— especially for people with different reading difficulties ( e.g., dyslexia & hyperlexia ): Footnotes & Endnotes: ● the paragraphs are as short as possible— unusually short— with obvious paragraph breaks I list a lot of sources in endnotes ( end of the zine )— shown in [ brackets ]— so that people can read more about ● there is no text is in italics, and there are spaces what I'm writing about, or see examples of things. I also use before and after punctuation marks like footnotes ( bottom of page )— shown in superscript — to elaborate ( parentheses ) and / slashes / on what I'm explaining. Sources for content in footnotes are in ● the font used ( Century Gothic ) is one that people the endnotes with the rest of the sources. with dyslexia apparently find easier to read ( according to the British Dyslexia Association: Definitions: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia /further-information/dyslexia-style-guide.html ) Ace folks / people who identify on the asexual spectrum generally experience little or no sexual attraction and / ● Also, pdf are available with pages in order to read or sexual desire for sexual contact. Aceness is complex. on a computer screen or with a text reader Arospec folks / people on the aromantic spectrum ( e-mail: [email protected] ) generally experience little or no romantic attraction and / or desire for romantic relationships. Also complex. Amatonormativity is the normative prioritising / valuing of romantic relationships above other kinds of relationships. It's the social force treating romance as intrinsically superior to, or more intimate, important, worthwhile than other kinds of relationships. Amatonormativity includes the idea that all people want ( or should want ) to form romantic ( often but not necessarily monogamous and / or sexual ) partner relationships and that these should be central to their lives... and that without them, people are destined to be lonely or have empty, unfulfilling lives. page 68 page 1 [36] Gabe's “Women Who Wear Kippot; Seeking Gender Equality” Table of Contents: ( Dec 3, 2013 ): http://www.abitoffthetop.com/blog-articles/women-who-wear- kippot-seeking-gender-equality/ ● Content Warnings.............................................inside front cover ● Footnotes & Endnotes.......................................inside front cover [37] Max K. Strassfeld's “Becoming a Good Boy: A Transmasculine ● Definitions...........................................................inside front cover Meditation On Gendered Ritual Objects and The Challenges of ● Introduction....................................................................................2 Transfeminism” ( July, 2010 ): ● Context— Me & This Zine..............................................................3 http://www.transtorah.org/PDFs/Good-Boy.pdf ● A Note About Partner Terminology.............................................3 ● Introduction to Relationship Anarchy.........................................4 [38] Tucker Lieberman's “Hat” (pp. 243-353) in the book ● The Anarchism of Relationship Anarchy.....................................5 “Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity” ( Edited by Matilda / Matt Bernstein ● Some Red Flags re: “Relationship Anarchy”..............................9 Sicamore ), Emeryville, CA : Seal Press ) “Freedom”............................................................................10 Authentic “love” unlimited by categories.......................12 Images From the Cover: ● Re: “Relationship Anarchy” & “Equality of Love”....................17 The pursuit of non-hierarchy via hierarchy.......................17 1. “Radical Relations” Relationship Anarchy Heart symbol: The paradoxical pursuit relationship equality..................18 ◦ Created by radical art collective “Interactive Arts” & designed by Leo Nordwall ( 2006 ) ● “Declarations of Relationship Significance” & Accessibility...22 Relationship significance as meaningful participation...23 ◦ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RadicalRel ationsHeart.png My family participation… as voluntary and coercive....24 Social norms guiding interpretations of participation.....27 2. Transgender Symbol: Accessibility of space-participation-as-declaration-of- ◦ black-and-white file designed by wikipedia user significance..........................................................................30 Xavax and derived from the coloured transgender ● Of Authenticity & Sitting Shiva...................................................34 symbol designed by wikipedia user ParaDox ( 2012 ) Shiva as about grieving authentically..............................35 ◦ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_TransGe Of my liminal atheistic Jewishness.....................................37 nder-Symbol_black-and-white.svg My experience navigating shiva & authenticity..............39 ● Of Yarmulkes & Authenticity / Accessibility..............................40 3. “Ace of Spade” playing card: Why do men ( or people ) wear yarmulkes?...................42 ◦ adapted from the ace of spades playing card Negotiating whether I should wear a yarmulke as an created by wikipedia user Silsor ( 2005 ) atheistic, liminally Jewish, non-binary trans person.........45 ◦ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spades#/media/File:A Relating to yarmulkes... as relating to my family.............49 ceofspades.svg ● Conclusion...................................................................................50 ● Endnotes— Sources for Further Reading..................................52 ● Accessible Formatting Note............................inside back cover page 2 page 67 Introduction: Someone in my life died about two month ago. It was a [27] Avi Hein's “Women In Judaism: A History Of Women's long time coming. It was also the first time I’d actually been Ordination”: through the process of sitting shiva. I believe in shiva— it makes https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/femalerab bi.html sense to me for a lot of reasons. But there was a disconnect between why I believe in it and what it was like because of the disconnect between me and my family-of-origin. [28] George Jochnowitz's “Who Made Me A Woman”: The funeral and shiva also brought up issues for me http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/WhoMadeMeAWoman.html about my complicated relationship with Judaism— as a liminally Jewish atheist... And how I navigate the landscape of [29] Humanist-rites.com's “Frequently Asked Questions About Jewish stuff is further complicated by me being a non-binary Humanistic Judaism” trans person... because so many Jewish practices and http://www.humanist-rites.com/FAQHumanisticJudaism.html expectations are strongly tied to being women or men. Around the same time, I was also butting heads with [30] Jordan Namerow's “Kippah-Wearing Jewesses” ( July 10, ideas of relationship anarchy— with people who had no idea 2007 ): that relationship anarchy had ( or was supposed to have ) a http://jwa.org/blog/kippah-wearing-jewesses connection to anarchism, or for that matter that its practice often reinforced many of the hierarchies it claims to resist. [31] Shira's “Wearing a Kippah: Gender Deviance or Gender I wasn't really sure how these things were connected, Performance?” ( Feb 2, 2010 ): but I felt strongly that they were. Laying out my issues with https://fromtherib.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/wearing-a- Relationship Anarchy helped me frame my relationships with my kippah-gender-deviance-or-gender-performance/ family in terms of a voluntary-yet-coercive model of interactions and commitments. [32] Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu's “Should Girls Wear Kippot? The Answer A lot of my interactions with family members are Will Surprise You” ( April 22, 2013 ): profoundly messed-up. I'm not really comfortable trying to http://www.myjewishlearning.com/rabbis-without- relate my family stuff to the idea of “abusive” for a lot of borders/should-girls-wear-kippot-the-answer-will-surprise-you/# reasons, no least of which is that my relationships with my family-of-origin are some of the “healthiest”
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