I’d picked up the little card promoting this survey at Womencrafts at some point, and it had been kicking around for months before I finally buckled down and took the survey. I knew Urvashi Vaid was involved in working on this effort, but this was before she died. I urge all readers of this blog to take the survey now, for yourself, for our community, in honor of Urvashi’s brilliant work. What is this survey, you ask? From the website:
We are everywhere — writing, teaching, organizing, creating, building fantastic businesses. And leading major initiatives – whether in the political arena, social justice movements, the arts, tech, academia, medicine or law,
And yet — we are also nowhere.
We are the punchline of endless jokes – our hopeless fashion, our overparenting, and our unfathomable sex lives. But, the hard truths of our lives – how we survive every day at the intersections of sexism, racism, ableism, homo-, bi-, queer- and transphobias – somehow these barely register in the public policy arena. This is often true even in our own LGBTQ+ movement spaces.
The concerns of LGBTQ+ women who partner with women are dismissed with the wave of a hand, and yet, what do gatekeepers and policy makers know about our lives?”
This survey is gathering information for the above and so many other reasons.
And we go forward, in sisterhood and on fire. As the survey website says in their tribute to Urvashi, “We press forward with her commanding spirit at our back.”
Press forward, queer femme sweetnesses!
Take the survey!
https://www.lgbtqwomensurvey.org/
I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter and inspiration to be had elsewhere online. If you have a favorite, let me know and I’ll post it! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com.
At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three or four times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, Femme Friday on Friday, and (new for spring 22!) the occasional Sometimes On A. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.
The Total Femme 