I really adore the way you write. And I certainly agree with you. In response to the Aravosis column I talked about the need to break free of the politics of scarcity that leads social activists to believe that there is not enough justice to go around.

The one thing that I believe your article did not address was Aravosis's claim about the symbolic victory of passing any sort of ENDA. Specifically about passing any sort of gay rights legislation. In this sense he makes it very clear that he doesn't care about the particular details of even the enforceability of the piece of legislation (this was the part of his article that said it could be a blank sheet of paper).

And I think he is, too a very large degree, correct. Symbolic victories matter. It is the same reason that mayors allowing same-sex people around the country in 2004 to get married mattered, even if most of those marriages have been voided legally. Political movements in this country rise and fall so frequently within a symbolic economy.

However, what Aravosis forgets is that the symbolic sword cuts both ways. If the *only* way we get ENDA to pass is to push transgender people under the bus, it will further justify and support discrimination against transgender people. If we accept with Aravosis that symbols matter, then excluding the transgender from ENDA can not be seen as just making them wait to get their rights, it can only be a defeat. An attack, if you will, that will hurt and further erode transgender rights.

Our victories, symbolic or otherwise, need to be victories that we do not achieve by destroying others. Otherwise when we look at ourselves in the mirror we stop being able to tell the difference between ourselves and those that proceed through hate and personal destruction.

this column was absurd.

The problem with being poor, or relatively poor (like being a grad student in the humanities) is we don't have investment capital. If we need to buy a laptop and we have just enough money to pay rent and eat, then yeah, a few hundred dollars or more will matter a lot with what you can buy. That is the major reality of poverty, is that it often forces you to engage in economic behavior designed to cost more in the long run, but is cheaper in the short run. Being wealthy (or relatively wealthy), allows people to have choices. This is what we call privilege, and when comparing prices and calling something "cheaper" should be taken into account on a socially progressive website, dammit.

Still adore your blog, but this was silly.