Musician: Ryan Lee

This musician, Ryan Lee, just sent me an email out of the blue: he’s a queer musician who’s doing some gigs in the area in the next week so I thought I’d give him a plug. I’m not so much of a singer/songwriter type, but I know a bunch of you out there are, so check him out. I found his story about upending and remaking his life pretty cool. He’s got upcoming gigs here in Appleton, in Green Bay, Madison, Waukesha, Minneapolis, and lots of spots in-between.

15 Years

So many anniversaries: today, 15 years ago, I met the person I married.

Some days it is hard to imagine how much we have been through in that time, and other days it is as if nothing has changed.

Still other days I am astonished by the luck I had in finding someone who loves me so much, who has taken such good care of me through some difficult stuff, and who has, in turn, asked much of me.

(for life’s not a paragraph)

Happy Beckett’s Birthday!

April 13th was his birthday, and somehow, I am not surprised he was born on the 13th too. samuel beckett

from his novel Molloy – by Samuel Beckett. This is one of my very favorite sections.

“I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on. But this solution did not satisfy me fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, the four stones circulating thus might always be the same four. In which case, far from sucking the sixteen stones turn and turn about, I was really only sucking four, always the same, turn and turn about. But I shuffled them well in my pockets, before I began to suck, and again, while I sucked, before transferring them, in the hope of obtaining a more general circulation of the stones from pocket to pocket. But this was only a makeshift that could not long content a man like me. So I began to look for something else …”  (found here)

Worrisome Precedent: Chris Wilson Sentenced

So this is worrying: a man in the UK has just been convicted of fraud for not telling a woman he was having sex with that he was trans: Three years probation and 240 days of community service for non-disclosure with an intimate partner. Unbelievable.

And while he did also say he was 16 in order to have sex with a 15 year old – when in fact he is 22 but looks younger, as trans men often do – that is not the offense he was charged with. I don’t think anyone in the trans community would be upset if that were the case. But no, his charge was “obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud”:

Setting the sentence, judge Lord Bannatyne said he recognized Wilson did not ‘dress’ as a man in order to commit offences, but always dressed that way.

Lord Bannatyne also said Wilson never set out to deliberately harm his ‘victims’ and he would review whether Wilson had broken the terms of his probation order in April 2014.

He added: ‘These are very unusual offences. I have accepted that you genuinely feel that you are male rather than female.

‘I believe this obviously significantly reduces your culpability. I believe that this can be dealt with by the imposition of a probation order.’

That is, he didn’t get put on a list of sex offenders for life, but only for 3 years due to these “unusual offences”.

Imagine if we convicted people who didn’t admit that they were married before sex. Or if they said they had more money than they did, or a different job. Imagine.

But with trans people, the culture of discrimination allows for this prejudiced and bullshit treatment.

In the meantime: what is the punishment for an adult who lies to a minor in order to have sex? To me that’s both fraud and statutory rape, right? But I don’t know what the laws are in the UK, so someone, please fill me in.

Equal Pay Still Isn’t

Today, women have finally earned what it earned men to earn by the end of 2012. That is, it takes 15+ months for a woman to earn what a man makes in 12.

Employers can check themselves by doing a self audit.

Women can learn how to negotiate better salaries.

And you can post this on Facebook, as Senator Tammy Baldwin has, to remind people that this is a ridiculous situation.

& Here are a few amazing graphs proving that this income disparity is NOT about women having children.