Trans Legal Defense and Education Fund is a really organization, and their annual gala & fundraiser is coming up. I’m told it’s a fun, classy affair.
It will take place on Monday, June 3, from 6:30-8:30 PM, at the Art Directors Club Gallery at 106 W. 29th Street.
The FB Event page is here.
Also, if you’re trans & would like to go but can’t afford it, email me & I can put you in touch with someone who might be able to help.
Okay, I’m in love with Seattle. There are bike paths everywhere, dorks everywhere, the weather is gorgeous (sunny inbetween mild and gloomy days) and I’ve met some amazing people, got to see a few people I haven’t seen in a very long time, and otherwise am so totally impressed with the place it’s ridiculous.
I’m teaming up with Gender Justice League to do a small event tonight, Tuesday 5/21, at 7PM. If you can join us, please let them know you’ll be attending. If you click on the calendar entry for tonight’s meeting, you’ll find the name of the venue & directions.
It really doesn’t get much better than that, does it?
Today would have been my dad’s 85th birthday. He used to joke, whenever someone complained about getting older, that the only other option was worse. He never really did complain about getting older himself and didn’t talk much about aches and pains. He was just kind of angry when he didn’t feel well, which is maybe an odd reaction, but it does bring some relief that he didn’t suffer for very long and didn’t have a long, drawn-out illness. He would have been pretty miserable with that kind of thing.
But. Still.
This looks great.
Queens all over the country were the ones who got the crossdressing laws off the books.
I wrote this recently in response to a question, or an assertion, that nobody chooses to be born trans, but that often, the advice is that you can choose what to do about it. My wife says that a lot, and it makes some trans people unhappy. The way she puts it: you got a shit hand, but you still get to decide how to play it.
Whether or not to transition itself is a choice is an idea I will leave for another day. But here, in a nutshell, are some basic tenets I hope are useful.
does it matter why?
i don’t know what trans is – genetic, medical condition, etc.
no one makes any distinction between nature/nurture anymore. nature is what? DNA? as in, something made out of protein that is created within a physical environment which is impacted by all our culture. just forget it. that binary is over, done with.
are people trans?
yes.
do they need to transition?
yes.
should they own their shit & do so as responsibly as possible?
yes.
should cis people start to fucking understand transness is not going anywhere, that it IS, in the same way that, say, queerness IS?
yes.
if you got married & you’re trans & you’re going to transition you’re going to wreck your wife’s life, pretty much. own it. minimize the damage however you can.
your life was already wrecked by transphobia and represssion and who knows what else.
your transition will give you the chance to change in a way that you’re looking forward to. your wife may, in turn, change her life into something she wants, too, but in either case, you will both experience a great deal of loss. none of it is fair, not a damn thing about it, & not for anyone.
but stop, STOP, making it all about you. if there is anything i say to trans people all the time that none of you listen to – & that includes my lovely spouse – that is it.
as she likes to say: trans people make Narcissus weep.
Here she is on the Today show, giving a great interview.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Just watch.
The new book is called Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders.
For the very first time, I’m going to Seattle! Today’s a travel day, so I may not get emails and the like until I’m back on terra firma.
The Feminist Porn Book is out. Here’s one of my favorite excerpts, by none other than the amazing Nina Hartley, which I’ve gone and excerpted:
Actress Cornelia Otis Skinner said, Woman’s virtue is man’s greatest invention. That phrase is both true and telling: everyday men and women both carry the heavy load and pay the cost for this retrograde notion of virtue. Female sexual agency remains a contentious subject that sparks fierce debate and displays of moral outrage, bigotry, and murderous violence. Our culture continues to punish women for their sexuality, from woman-on-woman slut shaming, to continuing attempts by local, state, and federal government agencies to limit access to effective family planning. Our country’s honor killings–ranging from the murder of abortion providers to the killing of a partner in a fit of jealous If-I-cant-have-you-then-nobody-can-have-you! rage–are almost always connected to women’s sexual autonomy and/or health.
I love Nina Hartley.
I know it’s been out for a while, but as many of you may know, I’m not a huge Bowie fan. Totally respect the dude, & know that many of my heroes would have been impossible without him, but he’s never quite pulled me in.
But this new video is pretty damned amazing. Bowie as himself, Tilda Swinton as his wife; Andrej Peyjic, Saskia DeBrauw as the genderfuck stars, and Iselin Stero as Bowie the Younger.
(My first thought on seeing it was: hey, that’s kind of our life in Appleton. Kidding. Mostly.)
Enjoy the genderfuck.
Helen Keller, left; Jamie Moore’s daughter, right
Cool photographer and mom Jaime Moore wasn’t pleased with the “princess makeovers” to be found all over the internets. She wanted to do something that would give her daughter power, pride, and agency, instead of, say, transforming her daughter into a sycophantic dependent. Nutty. So here’s what she came up with instead.
There are other portaits, with her daughter as Jane Goodall, Amelia Earheart, Coco Chanel, and of course, Susan B. Anthony.
(Yes, those are two moms reading their Mother’s Day card together.)
Qween Amor was assaulted in Union Square on May 7th, 2013. The suspect is now in custody. Immediately after this video was taken, her suitcase (pictured, red) was stolen. It contained her amplifier, laptop, and all other possessions.
S/he needs help to purchase a new amplifier/boombox, so that she can continue performing & sending her message of love. Contributions can be made via paypal to: QweenAmor@gmail.com.
ABC News Editor Don ‘Dawn’ Ennis Comes Out As Transgender
In a lot of ways, not an atypical mid-life transition, and I wish her well.
She says:
Ennis has not yet undergone a sex change operation, but says her marriage is “wrecked.”
“Despite the heartbreak, [my wife] has encouraged me to start this new life that we both believe better fits who I now am,” Ennis continued. “Trust me, this is NOT the midlife crisis I was counting on — I’d much prefer to have bought a sports car. Even an affair, I think, would have been something we might have recovered from.”
So, yeah. That’s all true.
How warm was the sun?
But winter wasn’t over, so
Tulips will shiver.
There have been some interesting articles turning up some interesting facts in light of Jason Collins coming out.
For starters, he wasn’t the first. Glenn Burke was:
Burke made no secret of his sexual orientation to the Dodgers front office, his teammates, or friends in either league. He also talked freely with sportswriters, though all of them ended up shaking their heads and telling him they couldn’t write that in their papers. Burke was so open about his sexuality that the Dodgers tried to talk him into participating in a sham marriage. (He wrote in his autobiography that the team offered him $75,000 to go along with the ruse.) He refused. In a bit of irony that would seem farcical if it wasn’t so tragic, one of the Dodgers who tried to talk Burke into getting “married,” was his manager, Tommy Lasorda, whose son Tom Jr. died from AIDS complications in 1991. To this day, Lasorda Sr. refuses to acknowledge his son’s homosexuality.
And then this one, about Vince Lombardi:
“My father was way ahead of his time,” Susan Lombardi said. “He was discriminated against as a dark-skinned Italian American when he was younger, when he felt he was passed up for coaching jobs that he deserved. He felt the pain of discrimination, and so he raised his family to accept everybody, no matter what color they were or whatever their sexual orientation was.
Now *there’s* an argument for why I should be a Packers fan – if there is one. (Which there isn’t. But still, this one’s better than any. No one told me the famous Packers coach was born in Brooklyn, either. He was only about 15 years older than my dad, and got his start in the NFL working for the Giants.)
I love the way one person comes out and the whole thing pretty much implodes. It’s really, really great to see this happening in professional sports.
Of course the ladies – Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova – both came out in 1981.
(Sadly, in the meanwhile, LGBTQ allies Kluwe and Ayanbadejo have been sacked. So much for the NFL.)
California has just made it possible for trans college students to play as the gender they are instead of as the gender they were declared at birth.
It’s a good move, although it’s bound to come with complications.
