tranarchy in middleton hills

"many blame queers for the decline of this society— we take pride in this. some believe that we intend to shred-to-bits this civilization and its moral fabric—they couldn't be more accurate. we're often described as depraved, decadent, and revolting—but oh, they ain't seen nothing yet." - be gay do crime

about ten minutes from middleton—a suburb of the vaguely neoliberal madison, wi-- there is an even more heterosexual suburb of middleton called middleton hills. and two suburbs deep, surrounded by old white people and their dogs, these small-town queers, tranarchists, butches, femmes, riot grrls, edgy middle-schoolers, gender dreamers, theory nerds, outside agitators, and even a few accomplices have had enough. in middleton hills, there are absolutely no queer spaces, and indeed no spaces at all besides suburban homes, largely unused public parks, and a few hierarchically managed local businesses. instead of building queered networks of care, we read emma goldman in the darkness of our suburban homes, wondering if we're the only soul in this suburb who's ever dreamed of anything more than hoa violations and manicured lawns. but for all its isolating, perfect, orderly normalcy, middleton hills didn't feel actively hostile until the terf propaganda showed up. a bigot had been putting up stickers for the hateful and transphobic women's liberation radio network outside local businesses outside apartment buildings—and that was when we all decided to fight back.

it started with a distro targeting the terf; one otherwise unremarkable night, moonlight blanketing the endless sidewalks and alleyways of the suburbs, five or six of us anarchist queers covered the wlrn propaganda and put up messages of insurgent transness. spaces that had once looked unused, abandoned, and utterly sterile were, at least in our queer souls, no longer property but canvasses for trans and (actually) feminist art—because what is a suburb until you beautify it together, rendering it less idyllic and more riotously queer? and two weeks later, we distroed trans zines in a public park, blasting Against Me! and reveling in each other's anarchy. the cis men who crossed the street to avoid us must have been at least a little envious, wishing they too could give themselves to beautiful, anarchic queerness.

after these moments of queer joy admidst the pain of suburban life, as annoying as the terf may be, this is not about the terf. this is not simply negation of a bigot but creation of a tranarchist subculture in middleton hills and the broader middleton/westside area. to that end, the newly formed middleton hills trans anarchist collective (https://linktr.ee/tranarchymiddletonhills) is hosting a trans skillshare at middleton library from 2:30 to 5 pm on saturday, october 28th! any tranarchist or accomplice is welcome to come teach about your skills and learn something new. some ideals: calling legislators about trans rights, how to get into community organizing, trans history 101, mutual aid + peer support, security culture, queer art, how to get involved with mhtac—and, you know, anything else your queer heart desires. feel free to bring resources, zines/stickers, and any trans-related or anarchist-organizing-related skill you’d like to teach others about. and above all, remember that suburbs are only heteronormative if we let them be. and that, even if you live in middleton hills, you're not alone.

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So what makes this gang "anarchist" is by being gay and/or Trans, then Instagram. Ok Democrat Party of USA, good job SMASHING the system, rah rah rah!

I think what makes them anarchist is their set of anti-hierarchical ethics. And it doesn’t seem like have an Instagram

sure i laughed at the calling representatives bit, but some of my favorite(and least favorite) anarchist created spaces have been stuff like this thats more socially focused and included anarcho-curious and random liberals who show up. Stuff like letter writing nights.

Liberals are they serving you or are you serving them, in the end? When you're so desperate for LGBTQ orgies then you might deserve what you get... so to say, being quite literally into bed with ID pols liberals.

As if that's not the case already. :-(

So what becomes of actual anarchy, then?

Queer people who are desperate for love and connection don't turn to liberalism and alienation; we turn to anarchy, and MhTAC gives people that option <3

What makes them anarchist is they are organized in a social way at the moment against the forces of reaction which are oppressing trans people. The systems of repression that you experience locally are more relevant to an individual's experience and might not require making total destroy to eliminate especially if some of it is internalized in which case this is a liberatory or emancipatory praxis.

What, u mean the Mental Health Technology Advisory Committee?

...

Aaaaaaaah!

Fail (x2)

Tell us more on your interests with Scientology, plz

I read Battlefield Earth and was really impressed by it as a youngster. I started reading Dianetics a few times but never finished it. There are some interesting ideas in there about the effects of general anesthesia and achieving a clear state.

I just was interested in the ' engram ' theory, about deconditioning the mind from socially imposed thought processes, very interesting, but the rest was just cult BS.

that's putting it a bit lightly, isn't it?

i studied under alistair crowley himself! i've built an empire with land, sea and air military capabilities, billions in the bank and my very own private gulag at gold base. i'm not currently using a physical body but i've got multiple cushy mansions on standby for when i reincarnate in the few remaining years before WW3, as the prophecy has foretold.

you chumps ain't even on the bridge, i know because i'd have your credit card numbers! real crumb bums, you are!

"above all, remember that suburbs are only heteronormative if we let them be."

you can have the fuckin' suburbs.

how dismal this is all getting.

the bar has just about hit bottom.

Not everyone chooses to live in the suburbs—people facing anti-child ageism are often forced to. We don't want the fuckin' suburbs. But we're here

The suburbs are also really "cis", from what I understand...But only if you allow them to be!

The root of the suburbs is in white flight from the cities. The uniformity and homogeneity of suburban life breeds teenage radicalism. Haven't you seen the movie Suburbia? Also it's just boring, there's very few cultural opportunities in suburban neighborhoods so kids tend to create their own. Unless you want to play soccer, Little League baseball and Pop Warner football you may end up building skateboard ramps making garage bands and printing zines instead.

THIS. JUST, THIS. Suburbs are terrible, and everyone knows it. That's why people start groups like this one.

DIY punk is an antidote to and a line of flight from the banality of suburban life to the cultural potpourri of the city.

...where DIY punk is now a somewhat-lucrative hipster capitalist business venture within the cultural potpourri of the city.

:-(

This ain't the '90s anymore. Sorryyyy.

I was thinking about the less commercial activities like graffiti, vandalism, bikes and skating, garage bands, house parties, making zines and flyers, info shops, community centers, squats, fighting with a$$holes. I understand that in punk some bands make money off their music, some venues make money off of bands, some skaters get paid etc.

Naaa-nanananah. The roots of the surburbs are into the car industry, and the related intercity network of highways. Nazis came up with the *autobahn* model, that was picked up by the US right after the war.

Suburbs have flourished around highways, bringing forth an entirely new approach to urban development with the drive-ins, shopping malls, car park film theaters... The fact it mobilized so much Whiteness is due to the classic '50s White conservative American Dream spectacle, which merely came from advertisements for suburban developments. As a matter of fact Hollywood producers were often real estate crooks. Baudrillard it up!

White yuppies always had their safe resorts away from rowdy, poor, not-White-enough city centers. Bougie neighborhoods were always a thing.

Car culture and the system of highways made it possible for people to live farther away from city centers. The boom in public housing at the peak of Fordism and the American welfare state was what made it affordable to live in cities. Now city centers are gentrified while suburban areas are diversified concentrating the wealth in cities and pushing poverty out to the periphery.

I dunno if your reply is a refutation... Car culture and highways are essentially anti-human and anti-nature systems of domination, but now enforced by everyprole. They take humans out of spaces and make communication unlikely, when not conflictual and predatory.

Proof: you can do bash back shit on homophobes in cities but against cars literally being used as deadly weapons that's much harder, as cars are the second biggest tool for mass killings too.

I wasn't refuting I was surfing along with your narrative and injecting a little bit of my own. It's true cars are deadly weapons and their impact on the environment has been devastating. There has been a trend in European cities to keep cars out of city centers but America is basically one big parking lot. This is the ecstasy of communication.

Chicago School sociologists demonstrated several decades back how the pattern used to be like (1) migrant or poor people from rural areas staying in city centers due to cheap rents and proximity to factories (that's how cities developed in Modern times); (2) some people getting wealthier with professions then moving to wealthy comfy suburbs.

But then starting in the '90s the pattern has reversed. With the heavy policing of urban centers and development of tertiary sectors, as well as the whole cultural production industry, wealthy people moved back to the big cities, gentrifying and "sanitizing" these places, so Black and poor people forced out of the city due to yuppie socio-economics and racist, classist copping, in the many rotting. cheap suburbs with empty shopping malls that used to be the Muhrikan Dream. I think the future's now in the rural areas that used to be discarded by the trendies. The onslaught of telecom networks and Starlich satellites is supporthing this.

This is pretty insightful. The cheap rent is on the periphery in the neighborhoods that were built 50-75 years ago. Those houses are getting old and falling apart now. The neighborhood I live in is like that it's an older working class neighborhood. Of course it's under gentrification too as people gradually buy these properties and redevelop them. I would love to find an abandoned mall but we don't have much fallow infrastructure here. I do like urban exploration and I think it would be fun to play in. There was a public housing project, or a section 8 qualified apartment project nearby. It got condemned for an asbestos violation and was vacant for years until they finally demolished it. There was people living in the ruins at times. I even saw the cops using it as a training facility kicking in doors and stuff.

there are plenty of hot topics at the mall for all of our costumes and things, and we can always protest at chick-fil-A for their homophobic business plans....yes!

to the suburbs!!!!

we are not free until every store at the mall hires proportionally, every olive garden serves food to the homeless, every development has a skate park, and every starbucks hosts a drag show!

NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF SUBURBIA!!!

This is really funny, but honestly, agreed. If anarchy is only prefigured in cities, then, like, most of the human population still has to deal with homophobic bigotry.

anarchy is certainly not prefigured to cities either. rural living seems to have a little more openings, but even that has many problems and traps. anarchy and civilization are not compatible.

<3 this is really cute and inspiring, i appreciate this announcement !

i honestly can't imagine how any anarchist could be mad that anyone is trying to spread anarchy where they are. the more anarchy the better. promiscuous anarchy! anarchy everywhere, all the time!

"anarchist could be mad that anyone is trying to spread anarchy where they are"

I don't think any anarchist is. Tho this all about ID pols, which are pretty objectionable from an anarchist perspective. Why should we care about what kind of people you wanna sleep with, and make it a political issue? Only Maoists and conservative reactionary cunts do this...

Also "tranarchy" literally implies being tranny authoritarians, not "trans + anarchy". Anarchists getting mad at authoritarians? Whoa how can this be possible.

its pretty weird to say that trans or queer people are the ones who politicized their identity. so its not pig raids on bars, the aids crisis and society's response, street harassers, terfs in a town putting up stickers targeting them. its people who hold social events as a reaction to stuff like that.

Tranarchy = a portmanteau of "transness" and "anarchy." I am sure that the organizers of MHTAC thought this was obvious. Because it is.

Panarchy... Hierarchy... Synarchy... Plutarchy... Monarchy... All these archies come with a prefix root word, associated with "archy". So is tran-archy.

Why not call it transanarchy?

So I dunno these liberals. Have them do or even say something that's radically against the dominant social order, then they might possibly be anarchy. But here what we have are zoomer kids just being pissed off their social identity is being trampled upon by conservatives.

Yes, they are pissed and getting ready to impose tranarchy. We will live under the iron rule of hot trans girls. Its gonna be great.

Oh! You probablt mean a facelifting of the same-old *phallocracy*, rite?

*bonk* To cis jail I go!

If the phallus is an imaginary object does that mean you can make your own or is it a zero-sum game where only one person can have it? Can we all have a piece of the action and learn to make more when we want to or do we just have to take it from someone else?

This is the internet... where you can be whatever you feel like! TM

Invent, create, revolutionize!

You can be everything!

n such n such...

"In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler explores Freud's and Lacan's discussions of the symbolic phallus by pointing out the connection between the phallus and the penis. They write, "The law requires conformity to its own notion of 'nature'. It gains its legitimacy through the binary and asymmetrical naturalization of bodies in which the phallus, though clearly not identical to the penis, deploys the penis as its naturalized instrument and sign". In Bodies that Matter, they further explore the possibilities for the phallus in their discussion of The Lesbian Phallus. If, as they note, Freud enumerates a set of analogies and substitutions that rhetorically affirm the fundamental transferability of the phallus from the penis elsewhere, then any number of other things might come to stand in for the phallus."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus#Psychoanalysis

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