I wanted to highlight Sara’s comment about Prop 8 because it contains a ton of useful suggestions & resources.
Please, do something if you can.
change.org
I was poking around recently, trying to find out about a PSA that we’d been discussing in the mHB forums lately which is about trying to discourage kids to say “that’s so gay” when they mean “that’s not cool” when I found that the PSA is part of a larger campaign by The Ad Council & GLSEN to “think b4 you speak.” I love the idea, and not just because “that’s so gay” is unnecessarily homophobic, but because I so wish people didn’t use language so carelessly.
As a result I found change.org, which is a huge social issues/activist-oriented collection of blogs on various issues. There’s a blog on women’s rights, animal rights, global warming, immigration, and of course gay rights, which – lo & behold! – has me on its recommended reading list. How cool is that?
Great resource for us social justice types, so do go check it out.
New Column
Well go figure, but I’m writing a new relationships advice column at www.ourchart.com called Ask Big Sister. & No, I’m not actually a big sister – youngest of 6 – but I always wanted to be! This is an introductory piece, of course, so the readers there get to know who I am and what my gig is.
Since readers over there can ask me questions, of course you can too! I’d love to hear any you’ve got, especially the ones you’d like to see addressed in a column.
Trans for Obama: / blushing
A week later, the Trans for Obama campaign is still going: we’ve gotten over 300 donors and have raised nearly $14,000 for the campaign. That’s exciting! A blogger at GLAAD, Mik Kinkead, who is their Transgender Advocacy Fellow, wrote a nice piece about the campaign (and about me).
So keep spreading the word, because there are still weeks left until Election Day, & the more visible we are, the more pols care about our issues.
(h/t to Andrea James)
Famous Programmers
A geek website has a long article about Famous Programmers with pie charts which show the programmers’ projects and gender.
- 95.27% Men
- 2.93% Women
- 1.8% Transgender
The graphic is the third one down.
(h/t to Penny)
Drink for NOLA
My friend Sherri started a very cool non-profit organization that provides families restarting their lives after a natural disaster with the basic furnishings that make a house a home. Their goal is to transform 36 houses in New Orleans in November 2008.
So they’re having a fundraiser (like you do)
- THURSDAY OCTOBER 16th, 2008
- The Bar @ THE CUTTING ROOM, 19 West 24th Street
- OPEN BAR from 8-9
- Auction
- Suggested donations $25 / $50 / $100 – You can donate online or at the door
- If you can’t attend please donate to H2H
For more information, check www.HousetoHomeProject.org.
Site Re-Design
My old blog template couldn’t make use of all the groovy new widgets and functionality of WordPress, so I dove into a site re-design the other day, and I’m still tweaking.
I’ve kept lots of cool stuff, like my flickr badge and extensive blogroll, but here’s the cool new stuff:
- more & newer photos in the random photo header
- a compact category list
- a tag cloud! this one excites me, even if it means going back & tagging 5 years of blog posts. still, it helps locate more of my posts on specific topics, like crossdressing, or the Gwen Araujo trial.
- & most importantly for you, dear reader, is the new “share this” button on every post, so you can put my stuff up on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, LJ, and Technorati. But you can also email it to a friend! How cool is that? I feel like The New York Times.
So do explore, and if you have any more suggestions, that’s what the comments section is for. In the next months I’m hoping to update both helenboydbooks.com and Trans Group Blog, but for right now, I’ve had my fill of tweaking code.
Betty White Rocks
& We thought we loved Betty White before!
Details on CT Ruling
Here is the .pdf of the CT Supreme Court decision, which includes this remarkable language:
Although we acknowledge that many legislators and many of their constituents hold strong personal convictions with respect to preserving the traditional concept of marriage as a heterosexual institution, such beliefs, no matter how deeply held, do not constitute the exceedingly persuasive justification required to sustain a statute that discriminates on the basis of a quasi-suspect classification. “That civil marriage has traditionally excluded same-sex couples, i.e., that the ‘historic and cultural understanding of marriage’ has been between a man and a woman’ cannot in itself provide a [sufficient] basis for the challenged exclusion. To say that the discrimination is ‘traditional’ is to say only that the discrimination has existed for a long time. A classification, however, cannot be maintained merely ‘for its own sake’ [Romer v.Evans, supra, 517 U.S. 635].
Instead, the classification ([that is], the exclusion of gay [persons] from civil
marriage) must advance a state interest that is separate from the classification itself [see id., 633, 635]. Because the ‘tradition’ of excluding gay [persons] from civil marriage is no different from the classification itself, the exclusion cannot be justified on the basis of ‘history.’ Indeed, the justification of ‘tradition’ does not explain the classification; it merely repeats it. Simply put, a history or tradition of discrimination – no matter how entrenched – does not make the discrimination constitutional.”
The boldface is mine. Stunning. The ruling also clarified that civil union is not the same.
Nothing to Fear
FDR’s 1st Inaugural Address, better known as the “Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself” speech, seems incredibly relevant right now:
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
Read the whole thing here, or listen to an excerpt.