Sex: M  F

Odds are you know the answer–and it’s there. You joke “yes, please!” or “as often as possible!” but you also circle the letter that applies.

Imagine it wasn’t that simple.

From here:

Imagine you’re me, six months before this, and you’re young and naïve and full of stupid, figuring that putting M will help them you treat you better (ha!), checking yourself in to see a doctor because you’re struggling to breathe. And the dude takes one look at your forms and your barely passing self, and refuses to enter the room. He just stands there at the edge, asking you to holler symptoms at him, and you sit there knowing that if you collapse, this man will pause and debate whether to save you or not. This is what happens when forms, bodies and cis prejudice collide.

She’s a transsexual. Obviously a doctor needs to know the gender of the body he’s examining–different sexes have different parts. But there’s no way he needed to treat her like that!

It gets worse:

Imagine how vulnerable you feel. Driving (what if a cop pulls me over). At the bank (what if they think I’m trying to scam my own money). At the doctors. At school. At work. At anywhere they want a piece of ID, anywhere they want you to tick a box that divides humanity into two. Anywhere they want you to fill out a form. Confess, little tranny girl, confess. Tell them what in their minds what you “really” are. Or else. And they’ll get you anyway.

Why does a driver’s license need “sex” on there? It has a picture.

I don’t know how to make it all work. But we need a better way. We need to think about this. Something so simple as removing the “sex” from official ID could make life so much easier for many people. Wouldn’t it be a step in the right direction, at least?

So I haven’t blogged in weeks because I wasn’t ready to write that. That’s okay. You can read about it here, where it’s explained why the “glitch” isn’t just a glitch.

The issue with #AmazonFail isn’t that a French Employee pressed the wrong button or could affect the system by changing “false” to “true” in filtering certain “adult” classified items, it’s that Amazon’s system has assumptions such as: sexual orientation is part of “adult”. And “gay” is part of “adult.” In other words, #AmazonFail is about the subconscious assumptions of people built into algorithms and classification that contain discriminatory ideas.

Also, this is interesting: AmazonFail–10 Unanswered Questions. I’d like the answers too. This follow-up also makes some excellent points.

Also on the Amazon Fail Whale: Why Kindle may not be your best option. Srsly. They can make it (pretty nearly) a doorstop with the press of a button.

All of these things, every last one, can be debated, I’m sure. And so can this one, but it’s the one I’m standing by–Amazon is so big it’s driving others out of business, and I don’t trust them to be my sole provider of anything. Who knows what they’ll try to protect me from next?

Powell’s Books has tons of stuff, excellent customer service, a free shipping offer after a certain amount, and their free-shipping is faster than Amazon’s. Not to mention they’re just lovely people. I’m still looking for a safe place to buy DRM-free music, though.

So. There it is. My big Amazon Still Sucks post. Next time, back to the writing! Yay!

But if you go on Amazon and search “homosexuality,” it seems the ANTI-gay stuff is still there. Search “gay” and the first result you’ll get (at least, that I got when I did it a minute ago) is a DVD of a movie called The Pool (nearly explicit image here).

WTF?

This entry is really just so I can GoogleBomb again–I really can’t add anything to the eloquent anger already being expressed. One has to wonder, though, exactly where Amazon’s PR people are today. One would think at least one of the employees of a Seattle-based internet firm would know to keep an eye on Twitter. Or the email. Or the Customer Service phonelines. Yet there’s been no response to the issue. My email to cancel my order received a polite “Sorry for the inconvenience” answer with no mention of my clearly-stated reasons for the cancellation.

Amazon Rank

(If you want to know what it is to GoogleBomb, go to Google and search “Amazon Rank.”)

What could be bigger than the appointment of the first female minister in Saudi Arabia?

Possibly the appointment of a new minister of justice who may actually help her get equal rights with her male counterpart.

Right now, Norah al-Faiz, the new deputy minister for women’s education, is bound by the same laws as every other woman in the land. She can do only what her closest male relative permits. For many women of her status and education, that law is interpreted liberally, but for the vast majority, it is not.

Over the weekend, at a single stroke, King Abdullah set Saudi Arabia on what appears to be an irreversible new course, one of modernization.

He replaced the conservative ministers of justice and the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice with people closer to his way of thinking. The king also appointed a new head of the central bank, SAMA — widely seen by financial experts as a wise move — and brought in young blood and fresh ideas to the Majlis al Shura, the closest thing the country has to a parliament.

Seriously, ladies–this is an event to celebrate. It has been and will be a long hard road for female followers of Islam, but this is a huge step forward.

Here’s to freedom, equality, and tolerance for and from all the world’s religions (and those who choose none.)