TransOhio Keynote: The Metamorphosis of Us

This is the text version of the keynote talk I gave at TransOhio this past Saturday. From what they’ve told me, it was recorded so hopefully we’ll get a video link in not too long.I did interrupt myself so that the people listening could participate in the Nationwide Kiss-In.

First, thank you to Shane and Sarah and all the other TransOhio people who made this event happen. It is a very cool event, & I’m honored to be a part of it: thank you again for inviting me.

Recently I received a letter from a woman who had transitioned. She was married and had two young children, and was trying to figure out if there had been any way she could have transitioned where she might have left out some of the pain & confusion her wife and family had experienced. In the email she sent me, she mentioned how it’s expected for couples to try to stay together through transition, and I had to rub my eyes and read it again.

Is it?

Whether it was her perception or indicative of a larger change, it surprised me. When Betty and I first met, it was considered absolutely unlikely that any couple would make it through transition. Shoot, it was a huge toss-up that any wife could tolerate her husband crossdressing. But it was when I started writing back to this woman, to explain how that had never been the case before, that it hit me: I started my first online support group nearly 10 years ago – 10 years this coming February, actually. That’s like 50 in trans years, right? In large part I founded it – and this might make some of you laugh – because I wasn’t angry or sad enough to fit in with the culture of the existing partners’ groups. I was weird for being supportive, and occasionally felt like I was a minority of one. I wasn’t, of course – people who are good with the whole thing don’t seek out support groups – but it was still rare, then, to find anyone who was just looking for community, for other couples in similar situations, to share notes and stories and have someone to be “out” about their partners’ transness with. So to hear, 9 short years later, that now it’s assumed that a couple will stay together, or at least try like hell to do so, shocked me.

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Moving to WI

I don’t think I’ve explained very much about what’s going on with us these days, & in the upcoming weeks, & I’m starting to get a lot of emails and messages asking what’s up.

So, here’s the nutshell version:

  1. Betty is now officially Rachel Elizabeth. She’ll always be Betty – since that’s a short form of Elizabeth. She got a court order to change her name & the kind folks she ran into at the DMV changed her gender marker for her. The combination will really help out in our day to day lives, and yes, I’m more than okay with it, I’m happy for her, and for me, since I won’t have to buy the beer anymore.
  2. I was offered a part-time teaching gig at Lawrence University for the upcoming 2009/10 school year, which I accepted. We will be living in university housing, which means I get to walk to work again, as I did the past two times I worked there, which I love. She is coming with me this year, since the 6 months apart this past year really sucked, and because this will be for 10 months.
  3. We are subletting our Brooklyn apartment with the blessings of our landlord and to people who know our downstairs neighbors and who need our furniture. So it’s win-win, since we’re not actually moving to WI (yet) – just going for the 10 months.
  4. Rachel is currently looking for work in Appleton, and is otherwise (of course) always looking for clients she can build/design websites for. You can contact me at helenboyd (at) myhusbandbetty (dot) com if you’re one of those potential clients.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

TransOhio in 2 Days

I’m leaving today for Columbus, OH, where I’m speaking at the TransOhio Conference, & yes, I am traveling by train. Tons of people from our MHB boards are joining me, including my lovely wife. (“She said ‘wife’!”)

They closed the online registration yesterday, but they WILL be registering walk-ins at the conference, so even if you haven’t registered yet, you can still come. They’ve made it very reasonable – $30, $20 for students, and that comes with lunch. Students can go for $11 but with no lunch & no me. Basically, it’s a tiered system, allowing people as much conference access as possible. There’s a meet & greet on Friday, 8/14, AND a brunch on Sunday. (The day-of registrations are more expensive, and may not come with a guarantee that there will be room for you at lunch.)

So yes, make your plans to come while I’m on a train to Pittsburgh!

‘Merkins for Mediocrity

Can I just ask, how is it these people who are protesting the Cash for Clunkers program AND national health insurance have never cared about anything before? Is it just Fox News all of a sudden having an investment in getting these people out of their chairs? Maybe. I don’t know. I’d just like to say that I find it astounding that Americans can be so absurd as to be totally enraged by isses about health insurance but a fake war is no big deal.

Baffling.

If I see one more woman on TV who knows nothing about her family finances who has swallowed her husband’s dumbass politics hook line & sinker who doesn’t understand the first goddamn thing about how women and children would benefit the most from a national health insurance system I’m going to go find them & smack them.

They embarrass me, besides, going on television knowing nothing but the freaking republican talking points. I mean, shouldn’t they feel some shame in admitting they never gave a shit about politics before? Enough shame to keep them off TV?

NYT: Male Rape Increases in Congo

There is too much rape in the news coming out of Africa, but this story, covering the recent spike in male rape victims, should be required reading. It’s not easy to get through.

Aid workers struggle to explain the sudden spike in male rape cases. The best answer, they say, is that the sexual violence against men is yet another way for armed groups to humiliate and demoralize Congolese communities into submission.

And as with female rape victims, the male rape victims are mocked for their suffering:

But nobody knows the exact number. Men here, like anywhere, are reluctant to come forward. Several who did said they instantly became castaways in their villages, lonely, ridiculed figures, derisively referred to as “bush wives.”

Gender-baiting is a worldwide fucking sport, and it tires me. These poor guys. That said, this phenomenon certainly is another excellent argument for why we should give a shit when women get raped – because obviously, gender stops mattering and a whole country is being traumatized.

(another h/t to Sarah)

“Corrective” Rape in South Africa

Talk about triggery, but this piece on “corrective rape” in South Africa is absofuckinglutely horrifying.

Corrective rape, for those who haven’t heard the term (it’s less than ten years old, since it was just recently coined by human rights activists) is the criminal phenomenon where LGBT people, especially lesbians, are raped by a member of the opposite sex as a means of trying to “correct” their sexual orientation. It’s a particularly vile practice, and while it’s not exclusive to South Africa, the country has become especially notorious for it. So notorious in fact, that the Triangle Project, a South African LGBT organization, is now saying that they deal with up to ten new cases of “corrective rape” each week.