Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Roz Kaveney's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, May 27th, 2012
10:10 am	I've not posted for almost a month and that's partly because I've been ill - some viral ick and then bacterial seediness that has taken two courses of antibiotics to knock out. Also writing for the Guardian - the radfem piece most of you have seen by now and the first two John Donne pieces. Also FLUTE DANCE, a short story for the second TALES FROM THE HOUSE BAND - it's another Mara story and possibly the best thing I've writted in the Rhapsodyverse. Publication looms, and a September US trip, and I still have about 15 k to write of Vol 2 REFLECTIONS. I know everything left to happen, sort of, and am getting up to speed and writing my thousand a day. So I will finish in June, and start the next critical book in July, and start volume 3 in January. If fate allows. Poetry has gone into a fallow time, but more soon. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 28th, 2012
9:41 pm	First poem in ages... For you beautiful ones my thoughts are unchanging Diamonds are hard, unchanging. Brilliant light dances from face to face. In memory her thumb still strokes a line above my eye hand cradling my left ear. On our first night. Her nail sharp down my back, her finger wet placed silent on my lips. His powdered chin slightly abrasive. Games we thought we'd win our cards upon the table. I'll forget whole conversations. Never lose the sound of breath against my ear. These moments true eternal. This is what my lovers do. They leave, or die. But what I lose, stays found. Beauties, my thoughts don't change. Still down the years We lie in rows, sad glitzy crystal tears. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
8:12 pm	More Cotton Ceiling Someone commented anonymously on my previous post as follows: Why shouldn't a lesbian, of which I am one, decide that she only wants to sleep with women - and by women I mean people with female bodies. In my book, that is the definition of a lesbian. I am not being prejudiced by declaring i will never sleep with men or never sleep with Trans people with male bodies, I am simply stating my preference as a lesbian. I think actually it is quite arrogant for Trans people to tell lesbians what their definition of a lesbian should be. I don't know who this is. though psrticular coincidences of phrasing make me think that it may be Cath Brennan =@bugbrennan on Twitter- who seems to regard herself as totally my nemesis. But, I don't actually know it is her and I choose to prefer to believe that someone who has tweeted me links to hate sites with my photo on them would have the good taste not to post here. Later Not Brennan apparently, just someone who shares her views and uses some of the same phrasing. So, to address the point raised... In the first case, what do you mean by 'female bodies'? Do you mean 'the bodies of people assigned female at birth' or do you mean 'those bodies I regard as female by some criteria I will tell you about but have not'? And when you say 'female', is there, as oddly there sometimes seems to be in people who take the position you are taking here. a subtle distinction between the word 'female' and the word 'woman'? Are you saying that you would never want to sleep with someone who had a penis, however else they presented, or are you saying that you would never want to sleep with someone who had ever had a penis, no matter how much surgery they had had? Do you insist on a full physical examination of your potential lovers? An up-to-date report from their gynaecologist? Or do you, like some of the people who comment on GenderTrender, believe that you just always know when a trans woman is in the room? That your womb twitches, or the hairs on your neck dance widdershins, or that you can smell them out? That their vaginal juices just taste different? (For people late to this particular conversation, or too sane to go near Gendertrender,I am not making this shit up. Honest. Not even exaggerating much.) In which case. presumably, you also think it arrogant of trans people to want to have sex with anyone without full disclosure of their past. present and future genital configuration? Or do you think that lesbians. of whom you are one, should have some rights in this matter greater than those allocated to straight women, straight men and gay men? You did say 'trans people', but did you actually mean 'trans women'? Or are you choosing to regard as 'female' the bodies of trans men? Wouldn't that too be rather arrogant? And I notice, when you talk of arrogance, that you regard your own ideas about what constitutes a female body as trumping the ideas of the person who is that body? Am I being arrogant in asking to have a conversation when your particular brand of lesbianism gives you a full and total answer and anything I might say is redundant? No one here is telling anyone what they ought to think or to whom they ought to be attracted. I wrote my original post as the start of a conversation. The question is, rather, to ask them to justify that preference. Some lesbians like to talk as if they could never sleep with women who had ever slept with a man; is that a justifiable preference? One of my lovers was told that, if she slept with me, no decent woman would ever want to touch her again' - would that be a justifiable preference? Some straight men say that, if they ever found out that someone they'd slept with was trans, they would kill them. Is that justified? Or at least, do you understand that level of anger, rather than regarding it with abhorrence? I certainly would not want to sleep with any woman who had strong views about my past. I don't know any lesbian trans woman who would want to. For me, this has not always been an abstract question. I'm out and have always been out, and don't try to pass past a level that ensures basic social safety - I have nonetheless had occasional unequivocal passes made at me by women I had reason to believe shared your views and have regarded myself as obliged to make specific and explicit disclosure, just as I had to, back in the days when I was still sleeping with men. I certainly would not want the consequent awkwardness to happen after sex rather than before it. On occasion, though, I've thought it a shame, because I am weak and human, and my preference not to sleep with transphobic bigots is sometimes something I've had to weigh against sexual attraction. It must be nice to be encased in certainty as to who everyone you meet is, and have perpetual hard guidelines about which of them are off-limits - or maybe not. How would you feel about a woman who said she would only sleep with women of her own race or religion? Or who had preferences about body weight, class, level of able-bodiedness? Just saying. (405 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 16th, 2012
11:24 pm	My old Jeffreys piece My website is currently down and I am being attacked by the usual "radical feminists" who are neither for being trans, and uppity about it. I don't think there is any connection between these two things, but in case there is, I am reposting my famous Sheila Jeffreys piece to prove that it takes more than the idiotic Dave the Squirrel using the wrong pronoun, or Gallus Mag claiming I don't care about violence to other women, or someone posting my photo on a hate site, to scare me. I stood up to the Security services, the New Labour leadership and all sorts of other really scary people. A few idiot bloggers, not so much. Anyway ( I can be really mean sometimes ) (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 14th, 2012
11:57 pm	Stop the Arizona birth control Bill Originally posted by cluegirl at Stop the Arizona birth control Bill Originally posted by aubergineautumn at Stop the Arizona birth control Bill Originally posted by enchanted_jae at Stop the Arizona birth control Bill Originally posted by mandatorily at Stop the Arizona birth control Bill I just signed the following petition addressed to: Arizona Sentate, Arizona State Legislature, Debbie Lesko. ---------------- Stop the Arizona birth control Bill If this bill passes the senate then women of Arizona would be forced to provide documentation that birth control is for medical purposes only. The "company" would not be required to cover birth control if it was for prevention of conception. Additionally this bill would give companies the right to fire women if they discovered that she was using a contraceptive to prevent pregnancy ---------------- http://www.change.org/petitions/arizona-sentate-arizona-state-legislature-debbie-lesko-stop-the-arizona-birth-control-bill# Cluegirl note: Please don't roll your eyes and click past because you're tired of this nonsense. We're all tired of this nonsense. We're exhausted with the Tiny White Men That Other White Men Seem To Insist Need To Live In Our Ladyparts, and we're tired of being treated like cattle and chattel just because we're capable of conceiving life, but WE CANNOT IGNORE SHIT LIKE THIS! We must speak up, in our thousands, and we must speak up EVERY DAMN TIME! We must roar and shake the bars because every time even one of these appalling little incremental atrocities passes without uproar, then the Tiny White Men use it as a platform from which to to launch another, only slightly more atrocious attack. Don't get tired, get mad. Talk about it. Yell about it. SCREAM about it. Deny nay-sayers sex over it. Do. Not. Be. Worn. Down. Because once the chains go on, it takes a lot of blood to get them off again. This signal needs to be louder than all the 'stop internet limitations' signals. This Conservative Agenda includes the enslavement of better than half the human race. It really, really is more important. Act like it. Common Sense Disclaimer: If you are not me, then these opinions, relative to the experience of being me, are not yours. Also, if your gender makes it impossible for you to become pregnant and carry a foetus inside your body without resorting to science and surgery, then you must expect that your opinions on a woman's right to choose when and whether to reproduce will NEVER carry as much weight with me as an actual breeder's opinions. For you, it's abstract. For us, it's real. Ergo, I expect any debate on this subject to be handled with maturity, courtesy, and restraint. No poo throwing, no tubthumping, no trolling, and no shaming. I will ban commenters who are deliberately provocative, rude, and cruel over this. Don't be douches. You have been warned. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
10:32 am	I'm on Resonance 104.4 fm at 5-5.30 doing the first half of a show in which I ramble about film music etc. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 26th, 2012
11:43 am	SOME THOUGHTS ON THE COTTON CEILING The What? you may be asking... Essentially, the Cotton Ceiling - with reference to knickers - is the term parts of the trans community have inventively adopted for the way that, however theoretically accepting of trans people a lot of progressives may be, when it comes to actually having sex with us, they vote with their ...um...feet. This is not - to jump straight in and answer a crude debating point that has been made by the usual 'radfem' suspects - a matter of the trans community demanding access to cis people's vulnerable and reluctant bodies. It's a matter of asking the question 'how can you say you accept us and still have - as many people do - a blanket assumption that you would never ever sleep with someone trans?' I say 'people' in that sentence because the assumptions that create the cotton ceiling are not peculiar to cis, or if you prefer 'non-trans', people. It's an issue to do with internalised transphobia as well, and something that a lot of trans people have to face up to in themselves. I've not always been as good on this as I might have been. What I will say is that it is a huge mistake for lesbian trans women to assume that it is only their issue. For one thing, it is closely linked with the issue of 'chasing' of straight men who fetishize pre-operative and non-operative trans women, or lesbians who fetishize trans men (often in a way that entirely disrespects their identity and treats them as a different flavour of butch women). For another, one of the major manifestations of the ceiling in our culture is the assumption that to be attracted to someone trans throws your own sexual identity into question - that a lesbian who fancies a trans woman has somehow gone straight, that a straight man who lusts for a trans woman might as well buy the Glee collected soundtracks immediately, that a gay man who falls for a trans man is on the slide to suburbia. What is always going on is an assumption that the person is the current status of their bits, and the history of their bits. Which is about as reductive a model of sexual attraction as I can imagine. All of this affects all trans people. Straight trans women face the possibility that male lovers will feel obliged to defend their 'honour' violently just as much as lesbian trans women face the possibility that their lovers will face ostracism by all their friends - at least one of my major past relationships broke up over that, and other lovers have had to face tireseome interventions by (now former) friends. So, in the end, my substantive point is this - the cotton ceiling exists and it's an issue for all trans people, women, men and non-binary. It's a matter of transpobia, including internalized transphobia. Given the fact that access to surgery or even HRT is already in the US, and may become in the UK, an economic issue and quite often a racial one too. To pretend the cotton ceiling does not exist is to deny an important component in transphobia. To pretend that it is only a problem for lesbian trans women is to breach solidarity, to give hostages stupidly to the likes of the horrid GallusMag who is already ranting about it. Mostly, though, we need to talk. (30 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
11:43 pm	A new ballad for me to read at the Dyke March Benefit on Friday THE BALLAD OF THE ROARING GIRL AND THE PIRATE QUEEN She swaggered down the street – her bright red boots had hobnails and steel toes. Her fingers wore rings sharpened to take eyes. She often swore great oaths, guffawed aloud in shrieks and hoots. Would work for hire, keep peace inside an inn after her fashion. Which was often loud. Men took advantage sometimes in a crowd would tug a petticoat, stick fingers in She'd be behind them. Had a hawk's sharp eye for such. Would break the fingers, and the arm. Would smile so sweetly at them. She had charm. The men she maimed would look at her and sigh That she was not for them. Oh, she would drink alongside men, and slap them on the back in friendship, though their ribs would often crack. Then she'd grow sad, for she would often think of her best friend, another Irish lass stolen by corsairs from high Barbary. Her tears were salt as the dividing sea. She swore no matter all the years that pass like sand that blows, she never would forget her friend. Would find her somehow on a shore so far away. If they'd made her a whore It would not matter. And her cheeks grew wet She thought of wrongs men had done to her friend. She could not find and punish. Would not mope would punish men who'd beat, or rape, or grope, the women of the town. Some poet penned her story as a chapbook, which she sold out on streetcorners, signed it with her mark as she'd been taught. One day she would embark for Barbary, buy passage with her gold pay for each twisted arm, each broken head and sale of books beside. She only drank the beer that people bought her. And she stank rather than pay the bathhouse. She ate bread and rarely meat. She lived a life of thrift wore what would wear well, slept on stable straw. Had secret wealth saved, lived among the poor. Could buy silk nightgowns, wore a half-torn shift. And all for love. And one day she set sail with a sea captain who had earned her trust yet coveted her gold. He sprinkled dust ground down from poppy in the glass of ale He planned to sell her. Down in Timbuctoo they'd make her fence blind wrestlers, or an ape that strangled. Wrapped in chains, make her escape from swift fierce cheetahs in the emir's zoo. Shackled and bound she lay among the stench of undrained bilge. Rats splashed amid the mess. Twas the betrayal irked her. Her distress Heightened by feeling she'd let down the wench she yearned for. Then she heard a cannonade and then the noise of swordplay on the deck. She feared the fight would leave the ship a wreck and she would drown who had first been betrayed. But then an open hatch. A shaft of light. Corsairs came down and freed her from her chains and led her to the deck. She saw the brains of her betrayer, skull smashed in the fight, and spat in his dead face. Though now a slave she'd act as a free woman, rather die than crawl to any master, would not lie or feign submission. Then dame Fortune gave her wheel a turn. She'd thought the corsair's lord would be some bearded captain, tall and scarred, harsh in his punishments, vindictive, hard. But that was not at all who came aboard. Led by her men, bedecked with rings and lace. Her silver swordbelt bright with filagree, emerald garters tied around each knee the thinnest veil of silk around her face. She met their queen. Who said 'who is this rogue, this roaring girl, this harridan, so bold and fierce and shameless, yet betrayed and sold.' Her heart leaped, for she recognized the brogue of her home village. 'Bold I am, yet true. To her I love, whom corsairs stole from me I fought for years, bought passage cross the sea and tis all even, now I'm brought to you.' She laughed for glee and kissed the pirate queen smack on the lips, pushing aside her veil. And soon the pair of them were under sail happy as girls in love have ever been (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
12:31 am	Lindsay Kemp 1973 White face, baggy white clothes, white gloves, a ruff. We're not his audience. Some sort of fop. Some lordling, yells for every single drop of blood and talent. Never quite enough For his harsh masters. To a minuet meticulous he takes care not to soil white gloves - he pulls his guts out, coil by coil, then with a slightly staggering pirouette, tears out the last few inches. Wraps guts round his neck like garlands. Bows, waits for applause grins anxiously. Pain sweat drips from his pores. Mouth rictus-wide, a scream without a sound. He fears his lord will ask for something more. Has no guts left to spare for an encore. (Comment on this)
12:11 am	History My memory is made of stills and clips torn out of context. Who's that boy, my date? When did I have that grey silk dress? I hate to think how thin I was then. And my hips, so skinny though I spill out of the top best buy I ever made. The dress as well. Years later, in black leather, at the Bell quite drunk and thirty-something, riding crop slung from my belt. We all thought that so cool. Red marks on my white skin. She strokes my back. She loved my shoulders. Yet what they lack these memories, is how I thought her cruel how my feet hurt in heels, all that lost pain. Thank Christ I'll never be that girl again. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 20th, 2012
12:44 am	In trouble again The Last Temptation 'You die upon the cross, and then you rise. That's when they all fall out. The Magdalen is first to see you, and John starts again moaning you loved her more. So Simon lies brings up your silly joke about the Rock. You think that's funny. Men will die for that, rule Rome and wear a very silly hat. They'll talk as if you never had a cock lock women up, make men swear to be chaste. Forget to feed the poor, make themselves rich. Your painful death their favourite piece of kitsch Burn people and rape children. Barren waste the church your heirs will make now.' Off he crept Satan in quiet triumph. Jesus wept. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
1:22 am	The Poet on her young comrades You will not all live through this. Death will take you unexpectedly. Shot in a crowd rushing police lines. And if I am allowed by circumstance and age – my heart will break - I'll write a poem for each death. My friend was special and is gone. That's what we say in every elegy. And then I may incite some sort of violence at the end. I'll still write sonnets, and that little turn in the last couplet will break people's hearts read at your funeral. And so it starts the peoples' angry rage. I'll see them burn your killers. Yet know, with a guilty sigh, It was my verses sent you out to die. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
1:05 am	On her art I need a lullaby. Night turns past one Drowsiness burns to wakeful. And I write with eyes that tingle, wrists that ache. The night silent outside. Another poem's done and my brain teems. So many years asleep I make up for lost time. Perhaps a villanelle Or just another sonnet.Might as well. One to make people laugh? Or make them weep? Wares for all seasons. Morbid yet facile soppy yet academic. Words I'll speak on stages, written out of witty pique to tease some friend. There's a sardonic smile I see in mirrors flash behind each eye I sell my soul and as Mephisto buy. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:43 am	Nightmare I wake and there's no pain. The surgeon's smile actinic bright. He says I'm young again a side effect. There's something in my brain that kick-starts cells. Or maybe it's my bile washes them clean. I'm thin and twenty-five and just as wise and somehow have to write novels and poems. And make love all night to cute young women. Know that I'm alive awake in every cell. World's out of shape. I'll have to help to heal it. Reread Marx and then improve him. My slightest remarks are noted and critiqued. There's no escape from pleasure, and responsibility in which I'm trapped for decades til I die. (Comment on this)
12:13 am	For a friend in pain There is a woman in Turkmenistan who's learning English. Her lush eyes are dark her skin is brown and soft. There is a mark on one cheek from hot oil. She has a plan to study Dickens. She has no idea she'll meet and love you. She's a fiance though hasn't let him name a wedding day. If you die now, she will not shed a tear Tomorrow will be warmer, or if cold it might be brighter or have driving rain that glitters on the air. I know that pain makes these not matter. I know you've been told there's comfort. But I'll say this, do not die, be found with flies licking at one dead eye (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
1:57 am	Twentynine years ago Sestina Inanna They hold me at the border of my soul The guards strip me of bracelets, dress, skin, charm I stand there naked yet my name is truth No harm can touch me when I speak it loud I am the only goddess that I know Descend to Hell and find my self in pain There's grace in knowing all the guards of pain that cut me in my face, my limbs, my soul There is a grace we only naked know stripped down past ugliness we find the charm naked in a white gown I scream aloud dead, drugged, bled out in ulcers I find truth The guards of Hell have branded me with truth they cut my tongue and whipped me into pain My gurgling screams are truth spoken aloud Read on my skin the words that form my soul they strapped me into hell, I learned the charm that freed me. Words are all the truth we know The border is the torment that we know And crossing it our only word of truth Stripped down past skin past bone we find our charm and scream aloud the only spells we know carved from our body we remake our soul from severed broken throat we sing aloud Broken and mended words we sing aloud sweet painsongs that from torment we now know guards hell and torment formed out of our soul bones broken mended source of our new truth the glory goddess made out of our pain skinned ghastly lovely shining smile of charm In age we learn truth is the only charm true naked words we learn to speak aloud we learned stripped out of language into pain in Hell we learn the language we now know imprisoned bittersweetness is our truth the regrown language of the chastened soul Speak goddess, pain the border into charm Inanna is my soul who sings aloud the Hell I know that carved me into truth (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
5:49 pm	Suddenly spammers are massively active on LJ - this usually preceds a DOS attack. Is this to do with the St Petersburg anti-gay law perhaps? (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2012
1:51 am	Flicker-for Molly Crabapple I carve a joint of lamb. The shoulderbone emerges as the lean meat disappears on to our plates. My face is carved by years and now I see Mother Potatocrone emerge. I know she's my grandmothers' face the pair of them. I hope that in my eyes there's humour like theirs. Nice to be as wise. And as I watch the mirror, shadows chase from mood to mood. Keen, fresh-faced and fourteen still shows up; sick and pained, drained close to death is there; gleaming with sweat, heaving her breath fresh-fucked and fucking. All these I have been and still I am. They flicker and then go like things half-seen through blinding falling snow (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
1:29 am	HOUSE OF LIES Our face the house that line by line we built, our skin the record of fierce days, of wine whose red is in our cheeks. This scar the fine we paid for passion; shadows of our guilt under our eyes. Eyes that are startled bright that we can still feel lust after such years, valleys around them that were carved by tears but sometimes joy. We look a perfect sight when mirrors see us. When our suitors claim we're beautiful. We see their peach-smooth cheek their uncarved eyes and all resolve grows weak. We'll let them tell us lies. We know this game These are the half-meant lies that we once told when young come back to haunt us now we're old (Comment on this)
1:08 am	A poem I owe to Laurie Penny A tangle of meat and poetry The human heart is but a maze of meat where muscle tangles in a gorgeous knot Red blood flows through it, lush and burning hot. We wander through its paths on halting feet whenever love begins. We feel its throb quicken beneath us, troubling us again. It is the one time that we welcome pain we've felt before, we know that it will rob our mind of of dull staid prace, quicken each nerve quiver us into art. We feel the reins that love pulls hard, our arteries and veins harsh in our mouth. We're forced to make a swerve where we would not have gone. Heart's such a bitch we know there's some new girl. We don't choose which. (Comment on this)