Em-URGE-ing Voices

Micaela Elizabeth

Major: Nursing
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Favorite writer: Impossible to choose! Some of my all-time favorites include Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Carly Thomsen, Stephanie Elízondo Griest, Pablo Neruda, and Julia Alvarez
Favorite sex scene from a movie/TV/book: When Jack and Rose sneak into the backseat of the car on the Titanic and then Jack lays in Rose’s arms while trembling –it gets me EVERY TIME! It has everything my perfect sex scene requires: urgency, trespassing, and forbidden love.
Hidden Talent: Consuming 4+ liters of Diet Dr. Pepper in a 12-hour period

Posts By: Micaela Elizabeth Canales

Easter in Texas: Resurrected Bathroom Bill Now A Sickening Zombie

Part-time Texas Governor and full time conniving Slytherin, Greg Abbott, announced his encouragement of Texas House Bill 2899, which bars transgender individuals from using the bathroom consistent with their gender and overturns any anti-discrimination ordinances passed by Texas localities. HB 2899 is the evil spawn of Texas Senate Bill 6, which had similar aims but is being held up by Speaker of the House Joe Strauss, who is taking his sweet time (probably intentionally) to assign the bill to a committee. Without a committee assignment, the bill has lost traction. This stall apparently concerned hateful lawmakers, who seem hell bent on passing any type of trans-discriminatory legislation before the Texas session is over in May. So how bad is this resurrected bathroom bill? IT’S TERRIBLE! UGLY! NO GOOD! Brainless, decayed and… Read more »

Proposed Texas Viagra Bill Necessary for Men’s Safety

Texas Representative Jessica Farrar has introduced new legislation that will greatly protect the health and safety of Texas men seeking Viagra prescriptions. But her revolutionary bill does not go far enough to protect this vulnerable population. Texas House Bill 4260 would ensure that men seeking Viagra prescriptions undergo a rectal exam and sonogram at their first Viagra consultation and then wait at least 24 hours from the exam to their actual Viagra prescription. The law would further hold physicians accountable for telling their patients the truth about Viagra and non-procreative sex with “A Man’s Right to Know”. This informational booklet would be required with every Viagra consultation. While these governmental protections are great strides towards preserving men’s health, they do not do enough to protect Texas men from the perilous… Read more »

Surprise! Anti-choice group fails to provide healthcare to Texans

As you may remember, this past August Texas shunted over $1 million away from women’s health funding and gave it to anti-choice extremist organization The Heidi Group. The Group was tasked with expanding availability and accessibility of women’s health care services through out the state, with the intention of focusing on strengthening the presence of Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Last week, The Associated Press reported that the Heidi Group has failed in these and its own measures of success. According to the Associated Press, the Heidi Group has failed in three simple but significant areas since accepting the award money. The group was supposed to create a 1-800 number to answer Texans’ questions, massively increase public outreach and availability of the centers through social media, and update all of the participating… Read more »

Ginger Snaps, Get Out, and my search for feminist horror films

In October, inspired by the Canadian horror film “Ginger Snaps,” I tried to write a piece about feminist horror films. This brief foray ended in disgust after a 6-hour search through feminist horror movie recommendations and reviews left me feeling like there might not be such a thing as a feminist horror film. I thought perhaps Ginger Snaps was a rare, shining exception in the trash bag of horror films I researched and watched. I knew, of course, that this couldn’t be the case; that there were undoubtedly other insightful horror movies circulating somewhere that I might enjoy. But at the time, I had fear fatigue, and the piece never happened. The recent release of Jordan Peele’s new horror film “Get Out” redirected me to this question of horror’s social… Read more »

Fea: Chicana Riot-Girl Revival Will Lead The Revolution

Last summer, I was absolutely dejected when no one wanted to go see some feminist punk rock in downtown Houston with me. Enter my ultra-kind lover, who, despite fear of crowds and noise, offered to drive us to the show. Fea, self-described riot grrrl Chicana punk out of San Antonio, Texas was playing and changed my entire life. They combine the thrashing, overwhelming, pure combustible energy of punk with sounds unfamiliar to many mainstream US punk listeners: Spanish lyrics and queer feminist perspective. As an edgy suburban kid, I identified with the punk and alt-rock of the 1990s and 2000s, and Blink-182 remains a personal favorite (my lover surprised me with tickets for my birthday just this year). The overwhelming whiteness, masculinity and misogyny of the genre is very problematic, but… Read more »

Do Texas lawmakers actually care about Texans?

  Pro-choice activists gathered at the Texas state capital this Wednesday to testify against three preposterous anti-choice Texas senate bills. This included ardent outcry against proposed senate bill 415 which would make it a crime for doctors to perform surgical abortions in Texas. Proponents of the bill, such as its anti-choice author Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), claim that it protects children, but the vengeful, persecutory nature of the bill demonstrates otherwise. Like nearly all anti-choice legislation proposed in Texas this session, this bill aims to shame individuals who have or provide abortion care. Discussion during the hearing was explosive. Jezebel reports that the Health and Human Services Committee Chairman attempted to silence pro-choice activist Maggie Hennessy by pounding the committee gavel. In his urgency to cut Ms. Hennessy’s testimony, he smashed… Read more »

Reproduction of Race Science: How My Health Care Education is Teaching Racial Bias

“You have to push harder when you give black women epidurals, you know, because black people have tougher muscles.” This is how an acquaintance of mine in nurse-anesthetist school described his recent clinical experience administering epidurals. Where did this person learn this? Was his assumption racial bias he brought to nursing, or was the racial bias taught as a part of his health care education? How are such flagrantly racist biases circulated as “scientific truths” in the medical community so that practitioners are emboldened to state them as fact? Easily, if my first semester in nursing school has taught me anything. Racism and race science is a part of our curriculum. For example, one instructor taught my class that “black women have a higher breast cancer mortality rate. We’re not… Read more »

Activists! Immediate action needed to #BeBoldEndHyde

  On Saturday my grandmother, my mother, my sister, my brother and I marched with more than 1 million people around the world.  This, the largest feminist mobilization in decades, took place on all 7 continents. Our message was clear: the feminist future is now, and we’re here to fuck shit up. The next day, I celebrated the 44th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case with fellow marchers. We fortified our determination to protect this constitutional guarantee of bodily autonomy for all. Today, feminists are united in stopping this week’s first anti-feminist, anti-choice push by the Trump administration: making the Hyde Amendment codified law. This amendment was first instituted in 1976 and banned the use of federal funds for abortion except in cases where the life of the pregnant person was in… Read more »

Ring the Anti-choice Alarm: The 2017 Texas Legislative Preview

Texas lawmakers have proposed a slew of anti-choice, anti-queer, anti-reproductive justice legislation for the 2017 Texas session, which will begin in January. Three laws in particular caught my eye when I reviewed the pre-filed legislation; the first would outlaw existing and future anti-discrimination ordinances, the second would mandate the burial or cremation of pregnancy-related biological tissue criminalize abortions post 20 weeks in cases of severe fetal abnormalities, and the third would criminalize abortions post 20 weeks in cases of severe fetal abnormalities. These proposed bills pose real and tangible threats to the wellbeing of Texans and our future and demand our attention and opposition. Bogus Bill #1: Senate Bill 92 overturning and preventing local anti-discrimination ordinances State Senator Bob Hall (R- Englewood) authored and filed senate bill 92, which will… Read more »