A friend of a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska got to see the documentary She’s a Boy I Knew which I’d heard good things about, so I asked her to write a review.

by Dr. Pat. Tetreault

She’s A Boy I Knew is a remarkably well-made film. It is honest, funny, poignant and real. Canadian Gwen Haworth narrates and directs the documentary about her life, her coming out process regarding her gender and sexuality, and how her transition to become the woman she is meant to be impacts her life as well as the lives of those she loves and who love her. Through the use of home videos and interviews with family members and friends, including her ex-wife, Gwen reveals the depth and range of emotion and the process involved in coming out and in transitioning. Brief animated segments are also included to lighten the film while providing background information.

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My friend Shirene, who I met while I was researching My Husband Betty, and at a SPICE conference to boot, has contined to work with wives who have just found out their husbands are crossdressers. She wrote this letter recently to one such wife, and I thought it was worth sharing here, for any husband who might want to use it to help come out to his wife, or for any wife who has just found out.

I don’t necessarily agree with how she simplifies certain issues - like the “crossdressers are heterosexual” meme - but a lot of the rest of it is a good “talking down” for a new wife who might be completely panicking.

Dear Jill,

Hi.  I hope you don’t mind receiving a letter like this from a stranger, but my husband is  transgender also and I know that if I could have received a letter such as this when I found out, it would have made it easier on both me and my husband. My name is Shirene, I’m 43, we live in S******, IL and I’ve known about Shayla since ‘98.  We’re at 555 555 5555.

I will admit it’s somewhat of an adapted form letter so please ignore the things that don’t apply to your situation and please excuse the things I’m telling you that you already know.

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The webstie the GenderAnalyzer proposes to know the gender of your blog. Or its author, I assume.

(en)gender is apparently 67% male, and apparently it’s wrong about 47% of the time, which is probably not a whole lot better than just guessing.

I wonder if it would get Hélène Cixous‘ blog right.

Okay, maybe it’s me, or my goth past, or I’m just odd that way, but I happened to find this blog, The Blog of Death, while I was looking for - believe it or not - info about David Reimer, and considering this is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I thought it was appropriate to bring up.

I once went to a cremation in Indonesia, which is a loud, lovely affair; people wear white and they make a lot of noise and walk in circles and doubleback on the path to where the cremation will occur. They do all this in order to confuse the evil spirits, who are apparently only capable of traveling a straight path, and so keep them from bothering the soul of the recently dead.

The fire itself is so hot, and hot in Indonesia is not nothing, because it’s already so hot, and all the running back and forth and making noise gets everyone even hotter, and sweatier, and then there is hunger and thirst, and people eat and drink.

When I saw Susan Stryker speak recently, she talked about Ghost Dance, and like her, I don’t want to bother anyone else’s culture to make my point, except to say: transing, as she posits, is about moving, about assembly, self-assembly and assemblies of people, which is why, in some ways, it makes perfect sense that the Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day about death. Death is transing a boundary we don’t understand, a barrier we approach, each of us, alone. But as a community we gather, we lament, we tell stories of each other and we make loud noises; sometimes we double-back and we certainly don’t walk in straight lines, do we?

Keep our recently deceased free of evil spirits. Wear white and make noise. Celebrate their lives, and your own.

The New York Times reported on Duanna Johnson’s murder. I’m actually surprised - pleased, but surprised.

Here’s another update - and more chilling news - about the astronomical levels of rape and sexual harassment inflicted on female soldiers serving in the US military. To really add insult to injury, the military’s health insurance plan doesn’t pay for rape kits in many circumstances.

This is embarassing and pathetic for us as a country.

In the meantime, Ann Dunwoody has become the first female four-star general. Maybe she can do something about it.

My next Our Chart post is up, this one about same sex marriage, and trans loopholes, and why.

Here are some cool things I’ve unearthed in recent weeks that I’ve been meaning to blog about at length but find myself to busy to do!

• An article about an Afghan man who got 20 years in prison for asking questions about women’s rights under Islam.
• A blog post by a friend about Obama’s election and what it made him think about.

I am writing and reading a lot this fall, and most of the writing is not for publication, sadly - like my personal statement for my Ph.D. application, amongst other things. So keep sending me cool stuff, or I may start posting descriptions of classes I want to teach, and other odd things.

If you like what we’re doing here & can help us keep doing it, please donate. Thank you so much.

Did anyone else notice that Rachel Maddow seemed “poofier” tonight? Maybe it was just her hair. Maybe it was an accident. It’s not so different than how she usually looks, but different enough that I noticed. And was distracted by it.

Please, MSNBC, don’t make her over into a fembot, not when she can look like this. Which jeez louise, even I find hot hot hot. Personally, I love that she makes all the women on TV look kind of overdone with the big hair and big jewelry and pounds of makeup. It’s like she’s introduced a new gender to television, and it’s about time someone did!

& Here’s an article from New York magazine about her, if you can’t get enough!

Tomorrow there are rallies against Prop 8 happening all over the country! Go to www.jointheimpact.com for more information about the rally near you.

There’s a Wiki so you can easily find your local contacts and events.

In NYC, the rally will happen at 1:30 at City Hall.

Get out there, people! Bring your friends, family, ministers, allies, teachers - whoever is willing.

(Although I have to say I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering why all this wasn’t happening before Election Day.)

Ann at Feministing posted about this really good article from The American Prospect about trans activism in the heartland and a companion article about gay activism’s slow adoption of trans issues.

Many would view the politically red heart of the country as a harsh, unwelcoming, and vaguely dangerous place for the transgender community. When we think of states like Nebraska and Wyoming, we don’t think of M.J. — we think of people like Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard, both killed in vicious, nationally publicized hate crimes. But the truth of the matter is far more interesting, inspiring, and instructive. Away from the coasts and the urban havens, a vibrant transgender-rights movement is slowly emerging across the mountain and plains states. Through increased visibility, community building, legislative outreach, and face-to-face public education in churches, schools, and neighborhoods, trans people are building a foundation for equality in some of the nation’s most conservative regions.

(A big thank you to the women at Feministing for their coverage of transgender issues. They do a great job of it, and it’s such a relief to see my fellow feminists speak up about trans stuff.)

People who here we’re from New York often assume things are better here, but if you take a look at the Transgender Day of Remembrance lists, you’ll see how many trans people were murdered in big cities, including San Francisco (Ruby Rodriquez, 2007) and New York (Sanesha Stewart, 2008). The assumption that big liberal cities are “safer” is fine until you run into that one asshole.

Stay safe, people.

Dan Savage in the NYT on the Arkansas ruling prohibiting unmarried couples - not just gay and lesbian ones - from adopting or fostering children:

That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.

I really do wonder how even people who hate gay folks think this is justified.

(thanks to Tina for the link!)

It turns out that Nicole Kidman will be playing Lili Elbe in the upcoming movie The Danish Girl. Her wife will be played by Charlize Theron.

Thoughts:

• The movie is based on the book The Danish Girl.
• With Theron & Kidman playing them, this just seems like another excuse for “hot lesbian innuendo.”
• I’m also a little perturbed by the “play a transsexual / get an oscar” trend.
• Still, i’ve always expected the wife of a trans woman to be played by someone like Kathy Bates, & at her worst, too, so Charlize Theron isn’t so bad. Except that the book seems to imply her husband’s transsexuality was her own fault, and in the reviews of the book, it seems she comes off as a cheerleadery sort.

First, thank you to all the Veterans out there who have served this country with honor and courage.

Second, the results of the survey TAVA (Transgender American Veterans’ Association) conducted are available on their website. From their press release:

The Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara has released the findings of a survey, conducted by Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA), that shows that transgender veterans are being turned away and being mistreated in high numbers by Veterans Administration medical facilities.  The survey of 827 U.S. military veterans and active-duty personnel mark the first major empirical findings on transgender people in the military. This represents a strong sampling from what is estimated to be approximately 300,000 veterans in the US who identify as being transgender.

Or, to paraphrase the way Monica Helms put it on a recent call, ‘Trans veterans want at least the same bad benefits other veterans get.’ Do check it out.

Duanna Johnson was murdered Sunday night.

You may remember her as the woman who pressed charges after dealing with harassment by Memphis police.

She was shot execution style while on her “usual corner.”

I’m tired of this.

I want there to be no reason for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I want there to be no new names on that goddamn list.

I hope her mother, and her family, and her friends, find peace, and that she has too.

Wow.

I’ve already lost track of how many columns I’ve written for Our Chart, but the third of my triptych about monogamy is up at Our Chart. Do check it out.

Miriam Makeba died on Sunday right after she finished a concert in Italy. She was a South African singer who I first discovered on a collection of music from the tv show Northern Exposure (of which I was, & am, a huge fan).

The Best of Miriam Makeba and the Skylarks - recorded in the 1950s - is one of my all-time spirit lifters; I have no idea what I’m singing but I sing along whenever these tracks come on. (I’d highly recommend this one, especially, to anyone who loves rocksteady.)

She had such a sparkling, clear voice - the kind that makes you think of beautiful sunny days.