Why is there a 17 year old in adult prison in Connecticut when no crime has been committed?

I cannot believe that I am writing about this, and I genuinely mean that. I know that I should not be shocked by how systems will treat young people who are in foster care, who are transgender and who are part of a racial minority. I know that I should not bat an eyelash. I have been in the social work world for over six years now, and I have seen a lot of bullshit in my days. But this is fucking ridiculous.  

In Connecticut, there is a young woman who has been in adult prison in solitary confinement for the past 72 days, because her conservator, the state, supposedly could not find another place to put her. Please read that sentence aloud to yourself until it all sinks in. According to the Connecticut Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, Joette Katz, the minor has emotional and behavioral problems. Due to her transgender status, all of the residential treatment centers in the entire state of Connecticut were allegedly hesitant to work with her, so the state placed her in adult prison. ADULT PRISON. In order to maintain her safety, they have placed her in solitary confinement. SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN ADULT PRISON.

Are you fucking serious right now? Look, I 100% believe that people who work in the foster care system are over worked and under paid. I know that a lot of those individuals are vicariously traumatized and burnt out. I also believe that the foster care system was created for safety above all else, including the minor’s mental well being. However, you cannot tell me that an individual whose case has gotten the attention of the commissioner could not have gone elsewhere or at the very least have been moved into an alternative placement quicker.  

The cynical, and perhaps jaded, side of me believes that this young woman would continue to quietly live in solitary confinement until her eighteenth birthday had it not been for protestors, a Twitter backlash against the department, the involvement of the ACLU, and a letter writing campaign. The even more cynical side of me believes that she would not be living in prison right now if the mainstream media had presented her story more often. And of course, I would probably not be typing this if the young woman fit the social norms of who deserves to live a supported life. 

I wish that I had a witty closing for this post, and I don’t. The young woman will soon be moved to a treatment center in Massachusetts, one that can attend to all of her needs and will respect her identity. Some people will wipe their brows and say, “Phew, I am glad that is over. She ended up somewhere good.” But they would be missing the point.

- Lauren, incredibly disappointed and super pissed        

'Tis the Season for Caprese Salads and Labia Sweat

It’s officially summer. At least it finally feels like it is summer in Texas. This is the season where I fight to eat something other than Caprese salads and hot dogs and to drink something other than ginger beer and mojitos. Summer is also the time when we all get to face the truth that is labia sweat. Yes, I said it: labia sweat. Natalie Angier in Woman: An Intimate Geography puts it best when she states, “Whatever the size of the labia, inner and outer, they sweat. The entire vulval area sweats, with the same insistence as the armpits.” She goes on to state that we should be thankful for our labia sweat, because it regulates our body temperatures. Without it, we would get heat stroke and other heat related health problems more often, because our armpits alone cannot regulate our body temperatures.

Here’s the thing. I am really glad that labia sweat is keeping me from heat exhaustion, stroke, and possible death. However, it also makes me look like I peed in my pants. For a grown woman with fairly strong bladder control, this can be kind of embarrassing, especially when said person buys light gray exercise pants without really thinking it through. Honestly, I should not have to think anything through! Everyone should just know about labia sweat and then get over it. But we aren’t talking about it! I know that I have only had one or two whispered conversations about it, which frankly is less often than I have spoken about mucus plugs during pregnancy and the kinds of objects that people have gotten stuck in their rectums. This leads me to think that labia sweat might actually freak people out more than either of those things, and that needs to change. 

So let’s all talk about it. Share this information with your friends. Write a Facebook post about it. Text your friends a lovely, labia sweat-related message. Hold a press conference about it. It is time to let everyone in on the labia sweat secret and to wear whatever the fuck we want! Sweat stains be damned!

- Lauren, labia sweat-er not pants pee-er        

Sonya Renee Taylor Kicks Some Major Ass

Everyone, meet Sonya Renee Taylor! She is fucking awesome. Ms. Taylor is a slam poet, activist, and transformation leader. She has dedicated her life and her work to body acceptance, which she believes can start to undo the pain, shame, and fear that many of us carry. Her website tag line is unapologetic artistry, unapologetic healing. HOLY SHIT. How empowering is that? 

My favorite project of hers is the Body is Not an Apology movement, an intersectional, global coalition of over 32,000 people focused on radical self love and body empowerment.  She founded the movement so that all of us would claim our right to love our bodies. Ms. Taylor asserts that we must stop apologizing for how we look and how we move through this world, even as society makes that difficult. All of our bodies deserve to be accepted, embraced, and worshipped. On the community website, Ms. Taylor states,

The Body Is Not An Apology was created to remind us that we do not need to wait to feel beautiful tomorrow.  We can choose to act in honor of our bodies today, no matter the form they currently take.

So good! It dove-tails so nicely with sexual empowerment! How we view our bodies, how we connect to our bodies, and our ownership of our bodies can really affect how we express our sexual selves. If we don’t feel worthy, it is harder for us to speak up about what we do and do not want. If we are disconnected from our bodies, we have a difficult time knowing what we find pleasurable. If we don’t even feel a little bit sassy about ourselves, we struggle with celebrating our sexuality. If we continue to accept the oppression that our bodies are not good enough, then our sexuality is that much harder to embrace. 

In the spirit of the Body is Not an Apology, let’s call a truce with our selves and work on some acceptance. I, for one, will commit to wearing shorts more often, because it is time for me to embrace my inner thighs. What will you do?

- Lauren, inspired by and in awe of Sonya Renee Taylor

Okay, but what does the bride do at the bridal shower?

Have we talked about how I am really bad at being a bride? Because we are about to talk about it again. I am really great at a lot of things, like listening to people, chatting about ovaries, keeping my face protected while I throw a jab. However, I keep finding that I am really bad at being a bride, at least in the traditional sense. Although, I have talked about this with other women who are in my circle, and it seems to be an epidemic. Maybe it’s a generational thing? OR I am friends with a bunch of independent, career-focused women who never really thought about the intricacies of their wedding until they had already said, “Yes.” I am pretty sure it is the latter, since I have seen twenty year olds on, “Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta,” who seem to have this bridal thing down, which I find inspiring/horrifying. 

Every time I think that I have this wedding thing licked, another situation pops up that I have no idea what to do with. Having a vision for my wedding? Sure, I totally have one of those now. Finding a dress that says, “Elegant, quirky, foxy”? Yep, I found one of those too. At this point, I even know how to have a polite yet firm conversation with an overzealous vendor, and I could rattle off five places to have a creative and refined dinner party for a bunch of people. But how to act my first bridal shower? No freaking idea. 

My mom’s friends are throwing my first bridal shower this weekend, and they have worked hard to make it Lauren-friendly. It is going to be at a fun restaurant, which I always appreciate. I think it is going to have a cupcake theme, and who doesn’t love those. It will have brunch food, which is my favorite. I have high hopes that any sort of games will be kept to a minimum. These are all great things. And yet, I am not totally sure what I am supposed to do at this event. I have seen a bunch of internet articles about how to throw a bridal shower and none on how to be the bride at the shower. I know how to mingle and create a fun atmosphere; I am relatively socially adept. But is that all that I do? Am I expected to give a speech? Am I supposed to cry? Do I wax poetic about my fiancé and marriage? Should I not talk about ovaries? (Ha! Joke. We always talk about those.) I guess that I will find out in a few days! 

- Lauren, doing this bride thing one event at a time

Let's talk about physical space, as in GTFO of mine.

I had a really awkward encounter with a spatial not-so-micro-aggression at a monthly training for therapists a few weeks ago. Before the training began, a bunch of chairs were placed in a circle around the room, and it was packed. I would guess that there were sixty people at the training, and five of them presented as men. In the therapist world, this is pretty typical; lots of women, very few men, and a few gender non-conformist individuals. During the beginning of the meeting, most of us were moving our chairs around to make room for others, taking up less physical space so that everyone could feel included. EXCEPT for one man. In fact, he had “inadvertently” taken up two chairs by spreading his legs really widely; people would not take the chair next to him. He literally had twice the space of everyone else in the room, including the presenter, who was a woman. 

This seems like a minor thing: taking up physical space, but it is really important in our society. It shows who has power, who has the right to take up space. It shows who is valued and who has the right to be seen. Space is also about access, who has the right to be counted when decisions are made. Essentially, space is about privilege and dominance. How much space you feel you deserve to be given and how much space you are afforded directly correlates with how worthy you are deemed by our rich, white, Christian, hetero-normative, male-dominant context. In the case of my monthly training experience, even in a group dominated by women, a man was given twice the space of everyone else, because we carry these norms with us.

I had forgotten how ridiculous this shit could be; how normal this stuff becomes. That is until one more blatant incident comes along to wake me up and remind me that these stupid things happen all of the time! Awhile ago, I decided that I would become more comfortable taking up space as part of my social justice work. It is clearly time to recommit!

What do you do when someone gets spatially aggressive with you?

- Lauren, space taker with a renewed sense of purpose