Sans-Papier. v 2.5

A Lesbian Soul Trapped in the Body of an Undocumented Gay Man.

“…To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusion…” – Karl Marx (1844)

***

Sans-Papier.
by Rose of Tokio

Manuel wakes every day at five in the morning. He tells himself that it is a matter of discipline, a good habit he picked up from the hermit monks back in Jordan. A million years ago, when he was a person. Ahead of him is the long walk to Karlstad from the place his squat is located in a wooded area in the outskirts of town. An abandoned and dilapidated former summer house with a leaky roof, no water, no electricity, no heating. He tells himself that Jesus lived with no electricity either. In winter is hell to get out of the sleeping bag, for his hands and feet go numb after a few minutes of exposure. He has become an expert at dressing in less than three minutes. He picked up the technique from a military survival manual he downloaded from the internet: his REAL Bible.

The only way in and out of his squat is through a window left open by some indifferent former owner. The door is locked shut. He must exit and enter the premises only under cover of darkness and avoid silhouetting – just like the manual says. He tells himself he is a guerrilla. He has lived there on and off for almost three years. Except from some short periods when he is able to afford renting a student room for a month or two. He finds them on blocket.se. He is a good actor. Fortunately he has an ‘’American accent’’, since he was actually raised in South Florida. When he hires a room, he pays the rent in advance in order to avoid answering questions ; while he pretends to be the language student he actually was once upon a time in Amsterdam, until the state revoked his visa and invalidated his sofi-number. He tells himself that at least he graduated, although he forgot Dutch. 

Manuel is unverified identity stateless and consequently ended up among the undocumented. He hates to call himself by the Swedish ‘’papperslössa’’ and prefers the French ‘’Sans-Papier’’. He tells himself that in French it sounds more ‘’Chic’’ as a lugubrious appendix to the very dry and definitive ‘’Stateless’’. He thinks about this as he walks towards the Stadsmissionen (where he can eat breakfast every weekday and use a shower once or twice a week), a long hour and a half walk. He must get there by eight in order to be able to get food, because beyond nine or ten nothing much is left. At first he felt sad about going in there, because he thought that he was taking food from the mouth of the homeless; until he realized that at least the Swedish homeless have a name of their own, an identity which he does not have. He is below the Swedish homeless in the scheme of things, so he does not feel guilty anymore.

Manuel works black when he can. In 2009 he was hired as an apprentice by an underground business focusing on furniture, car and boat upholstery repair. It is officially a hobby; no taxes, no regulations, no union fees, no bullshit – just work for cash. He gets a 40% cut per set; when there is a lot of work life is good, when it is slow he starves. Boom and Bust. Sink or Swim. The guy he works for lived ten years in Idaho, so Manuel agreed to run the operation like an “American Business”; no two hour lunch breaks every 15 minutes and no three month vacations every two weeks, like Swedes expect;  sometimes no lunch. Just work non-stop from ten in the morning till seven at night, sometimes four, sometimes six days a week. Manuel tells himself that he is lucky, that at least he is not washing dishes for 100 SEK a week in some god-forsaken megalopolis like Stockholm or Göteborg; surrounded by criminality, pollution, overcrowding, desperate people and drugs. He’s been through that nightmare in Montreal, Amsterdam and Dublin, and vows not to repeat the mistake. Manuel hates big cities. Medium and small towns are more his size, there is less competition, he can walk and cycle everywhere (which kills the transportation cost); plus it is always best to go where everyone else does not want to go. That is the secret of his survival. To take what no one wants and go where no one goes and make it work for him. The summers are the good times. Manuel works landscaping ‘’on the side’’ for a guy from Peru who’s been in Sweden for twenty years and hires him to help. The work outside in the hot sun is heavy, but it is a cool dose of cash; straight cash. Manuel likes to call it “the tax free state”.  He tells himself he is ‘’getting even’’ with THE BORDER POLICE. He takes pride in the fact that he knows more about the market in black work than they do. 

A year ago, while walking back to his squat from his place of work, Manuel was intercepted by two teen age boys in a moped. They skid-blocked his path, and spat on a startled Manuel. The two boys yelled at him “we do not want you here”. Then they sped off. Apparently, they where young sympathizers of the NATIONAL SOCIALIST FRONT. Before this incident, Manuel often wondered why not just end it with a rope around his neck; he was haunted by the thought that his struggle was meaningless. But after being subjected to a race-hate attack, he now considers that every day he survives, every step he takes, every job he completes; is a victory of the will to live over race hatred. In anti-racist and anti-fascist activism he hopes to transform his struggle for day to day survival into a political act, and thus give it an enduring meaning.

Or so he tells himself.

II.

FREEDOM FROM GENDER.

by neosyndic

the way the mainstream gay movement imposes the assimilationist agenda is through a process of racist and classist gentrification; and the construction of a branded commercial narrative of ''gay'' which is centred on the aesthetic perceptions of homosexual males to the marginalisation of Lesbian, Gender Bender, Transexuals and the Gender Blind. ''gay'' sells. gender blindness would destroy the demand market for ''gay'' brands. ultimately - and viewed from the context of late imperialist decline -; the effort to assimilate ''gay'' into the narrative of the Bourgeois Family is an attempt to give this conceptual constuct a socially progressive image and re-legitimise the narrative of ''middle class family values''. the financial oligarchy is willing to enact a partial abolition of compulsory heterosexuality, but only under controlled conditions that aim at reinforcing capital preservation. following the de facto post-revolutionary abolition of compulsory heterosexuality and reproductive fascism; men and women who choose to remain exclusive heterosexuals should be respected. the same applies to men and women who choose to remain exclusive homosexuals. i understand that the objective political-economic condition for the de facto abolition of compulsory heterosexuality and reproductive fascism must be the replacement of the capitalist with the socialist mode of production.

transphobia in the commercial ''gay scene'' is not publicly evident - because the branded narrative of ''gay'' utilises the trans aesthetic for marketing purposes (''the cool factor''); but de facto; the branded narrative of ''the gay lifestyle'' is manufactured with homosexual men as archetypes. in the end; trans implies a subtextual rejection of homosexuality: the ''man trapped in the body of a woman'' seeks to surgically conform his biological body to his true self. the premise of the homosexual male elite behind the ''gay'' branding operation is that ''branding defines culture'', not that homosexuality is ''biologically determined'' (sic.)  i am not sure that ''equal marriage rights'' equals ''progress''. not to impune those who fall in love and decide to live as a couple (or triple); but the marriage movement looks to me like the spearhead for classist and racist gentrification, an attempt to impose ''middle class values" on the GLBT community. imposition of the need to obtain capitalist state recognition for relationships in the form of a marriage certificate only works to legitimate the capitalist state. it is a form of colonialism. in fact; from a socialist perspective, ''marriage'' would be abolished in context of a getting rid of what in ''Marxist'' lexicon is called the Bourgeois Family. As i understand it the abolition of the family is premised upon the achievement of full equality and liberation for women; which implies the end of reproductive fascism and compulsory heterosexuality for everyone in context of replacing the capitalist mode of production with a socialist mode of production.

i do not subscribe to the theory that ''gender identity'' is essential (biologically programmed). i rather view ''gender identity'' as socially constructed. i am attracted to human beings who happen to be either male or female. in the past two years; i have dated both kinds of human, have experienced ''falling in love'' with both kinds of human, have "slept with" both kinds of human, have also conducted casual sexual engagement with both heterosexual and homosexual human couples. in this context i see ''potential partners'' primarily as persons - not as representatives of this or that ''gender identity''.  the marriage movement is ultimately based on exploiting fear. the fear of not being ''socially accepted'' into the Bourgeois Family.  i do not deny the existence of oppression directed against people who break from compulsory heterosexuality and reproductive fascism. quite the contrary; to me ''gender blind'' aims to empower persons to take autonomic control of their sexuality. unlike ''bisexuality''; gender blindness does not propose a fixed, comparmentalised cathegory in context of a spectrum (gay-bisexual-hetero) but rather a state of being free from the compartments. but i grant you that it is difficult to come up with the right semantics for what i want to express: FREEDOM FROM GENDER. in the sense that the term ''gender'' that applies to sexuality. as oppossed to transexuality.

i am happy being a male. by "a Lesbian Soul Trapped in the Body of a Gay Man"; i mean to convey that i am attracted to both females and males. perhaps it is the influence of Christian Anarchism that has led me to conceptualise the construct in the ''theological'' terms of "Soul-Inside-Body".  i have trouble with the term ''pansexual'' because it sounds like another compartment; so i prefer gender blind.  i am primarily looking for a critique of the branded ''gay scene''. the commodification of non-heterosexual and transexual sexualities in context of constructing a commercial narrative aimed at selling a packaged ''gay lifestyle'' to targeted market segments. something like the critique by Naomi Klein in No Logo about how Nike and ADIDAS manufactured their brands by copying styles developed by African-American youth involved in the underground hip-pop subculture.

men have the right to be exclusive homosexuals if they want to, just like they have the right to choose to be exclusive heterosexuals. the destruction of compulsory heterosexuality and reproductive fascism must be premised on personal freedom to choose who to sleep with or not, to reproduce or not to. i am, however; critical of how the contemporary commercial and branded narrative of ''gay'' (in the western world) focuses mostly on the Homosexual Male, and ignores Lesbians, Transexuals and Gender Blind people. this is evident in the European ''pride'' festivals, and one reason why the Far Left in so-called ''sweden'' developed the concept of Alternative Pride; which de-emphasises the hypersexual Homosexual Man-centric narrative of "gay'' and highlights the imputs, struggles and views of Lesbians, Transexuals, Gender Benders and the Gender Blind. 

the problem with the pragmatism inherent to liberal identity politics: nothing is wrong so everything is right; inclusive racism. i am against the racist reggae boycott, and i say this in full understanding that Jamaica and Ethiopia are a living hell for Gay men and Lesbians. I would say that the global Left should opposse the reggae boycott as racist while denouncing oppression of Lesbians and Gays in Jamaica. 

yes ! ANTI-TRANSPHOBIC ! 

I am looking for a critique of the commercial/gentrified ''gay scene''. hopefully one that touches upon the following issues: branding of essentialist narratives of ''identity''; the emergence of branded pseudo-communities dominated exclusively by homosexual ''gay men''; marginalisation of Lesbian voices and Lesbian imputs into the construction of the ''gay scene'' narrative, disdain for bisexual and gender blind people, invisibility of transgender imputs. Endemic Ethno-Racism and So-called ''Classism'': lower class elements are not wanted and their perspectives are ignored - the Gay Working Class and the Gay Underclass simply do not exist in the universe of the Branded Gay pseudo-community.

Lesbians are actually the majority among homosexual people, but because of endemic sexism they are relegated to secondary status in the ''gay scene''. the bourgeois gay scene is racist, sexist and classist. last year, during the pride parade in the town near the place i squat/colonise, i marched with the black bloc. their banner read "The Working Class Will Fuck Whomever It Wants". (the far left in so-called "sweden" is quite good on slogans. ) i remember we where relegated to the back of the march; while the media focused on the branded section of the march - up front. this experience illustrated for me the classist nature of branded ''gay pride''. its all about the sponsors, no social or political content to the chants or the offical banners. eons away from anything the Gay Liberation Front of the 70's stood for.  i feel ''oppressed'' by the Homosexual-male component of the LGBT community, which is not the same as the commercial/branded and hypersexual ''gay scene''. the homosexual male elite that runs the branding operation (which tends to be upper class) aims to impose their packaged aesthetic of ''gay'' on the LGBT community. but Lesbians, Transexuals, Gender Blind and Gender Benders respond with passive resistance. it is a form of class struggle.

----

(CC) Material on this Weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for links to articles that are posted with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as credit is attributed to the author(s).