Category: news

Leslie Feinberg in Hospice

Posted by helenboyd – June 11, 2013

Oh, this sad news. Please do make sure you read the requests Leslie Feinberg has made about how to send well wishes and respect them.

I want to be the one to tell you that I am failing to thrive very rapidly, and a local hospice expert is working to set up care in our home.

In the meantime, messages of personal support are welcome, but I can’t respond. I can’t do interviews or videos.
Please no commercial inquiries of any kind.

Minnie Bruce and I welcome your messages of support at: minniebrucepratt@yahoo.com

Please do not send these messages to our other e-mail accounts!
And—please do not ask for details or send medical advice.

. . .

While it might not be realistic or possible, I have a fierce determination to get out in the streets with you all at the Central New York Pride March this Saturday, June 15.

We love you, Leslie, for all you have done and for who you are.

ABC News Anchor Transitions: Dawn Ennis

Posted by helenboyd – May 11, 2013

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.

Love to Boston

Posted by helenboyd – April 15, 2013

Two Explosions Rock Boston Marathon Finish Line; At Least 2 Dead, 23 Injured: how terrifically sad and confusing and horrible.

You can find people or report information about people at this Google People Finder.

Worrisome Precedent: Chris Wilson Sentenced

Posted by helenboyd – April 10, 2013

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.

French Senate Says Yes

Posted by helenboyd – April 9, 2013

179 – 157!

RIP Margaret Thatcher

Posted by helenboyd – April 8, 2013

… and here are a bunch of songs expressing similar sentiments.

Habemus Papam

Posted by helenboyd – March 13, 2013

It’s really too bad I didn’t put money on it, because I was right,: homophobic from the Global South, as predicted.

He sounds like poverty might actually rate, however, which would be a nice change of pace for the Church, to rediscover poor people again, and maybe focus on that instead of on so-called morality. (So called as morality only seems to matter if people are female or queer; sexual abuse & all that rot they never say a damn thing about.) He is flexible on condoms as contraception – if they’re being used to prevent infection, and hey, he’s a Jesuit, but on the conservative end of Jesuit, which means: expect anything once he’s learned more.

New Pope

Posted by helenboyd – March 13, 2013

So they’ve chosen a pope. We don’t know who he is yet, though, so in the meantime, let’s have a singalong, shall we?

Hitler Worse Than Hitler (Really)

Posted by helenboyd – March 4, 2013

So this is horrifying:


As early as 1933, at the start of Hitler’s reign, the Third Reich established about 110 camps specifically designed to imprison some 10,000 political opponents and others, the researchers found. As Germany invaded and began occupying European neighbors, the use of camps and ghettos was expanded to confine and sometimes kill not only Jews but also homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and many other ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. The camps and ghettos varied enormously in their mission, organization and size, depending on the Nazis’ needs, the researchers have found . . .

When the research began in 2000, Dr. Megargee said he expected to find perhaps 7,000 Nazi camps and ghettos, based on postwar estimates. But the numbers kept climbing — first to 11,500, then 20,000, then 30,000, and now 42,500.

and this:

Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.

“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”

which doesn’t surprise me one bit. It’s still atrocious and terrifying, that so many people have either lied about them or somehow blocked them to such a degree they don’t even know they were lying. (I think it’s the former, for the record.)

Band Together: Trayvon Martin

Posted by helenboyd – February 26, 2013

It’s been a year since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed for wearing a hoodie and carrying an iced tea and a pack of Skittles. He would have turned 18 this month.

This artwork is by Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski. Go check out more of her stuff.

The Pope Can Quit?

Posted by helenboyd – February 11, 2013

A friend texted me that question this morning and all I could think was, “Does the Pope wear white?” Of course he can quit. He’s the Pope.

I’m pretty sure this is terrifying news, to be honest. This Pope Maledict wouldn’t leave unless he knew someone more conservative even than he will be the next to be elected. Of course that never, ever means it’s a done deal: the Cardinals are not unpowerful men themselves, and depending on how many enemies he’s made while Pope, there are all kinds of conversations going on about who might be next.

My guess? A homophobic cardinal from the Global South.

But it’s time for all of us recovered, recovering, and practicing Catholics who are on the side of the good to maybe say whatever kind of prayer you can muster for a Pope who will lead the real Catholic Church: the one that will start speaking truth to power about poverty and violence and discrimination. It’s what we do best. Let Vatican Council II’s dying embers spark.

Disability’s Top 10 of 2012

Posted by helenboyd – January 1, 2013

  1. Closed Captioning required on the Internet.
  2. Repeal of the CLASS Act.
  3. Senate FAIL
  4. Mainstream Media Representations
  5. Olympics!
  6. Violence Against Those with Disabilities
  7. Custodial Parents with Disabilities
  8. Cuts in Services Globally
  9. Passage of the Affordable Care Act
  10. Shootings in Aurora and Newtown

Some of these maybe obvious, but not all, so please go and read how all of these events effected those with disabilities and remember that the disability communities are as diverse as the LGBTQ communities.

No Liberty, Just Death

Posted by helenboyd – December 14, 2012

Not this year, but every year forever, these families’ holidays will be full of horrible memory. What a shitty, shitty thing. All that trauma, of the kids & the families & the teachers. Enough already.

I would like to see a month-long moratorium on gun sales every time a shooting like this occurs. Or maybe a month for every person killed.

Really I’d like to see us kick the NRA out of the goddamn country. I can’t imagine how all this death & trauma is worth anything to anyone. Even an idea. There is no liberty here. Just death.

If a civilized country can’t keep our school-aged children safe, we have no business being a country at all. Sorry, but we don’t.

Lawrence’s New President

Posted by helenboyd – December 13, 2012

Lawrence University just named Mark Burstein as the next President.

Way down at the bottom of the press release, this little detail: “Burstein will be joined in Appleton by his spouse David Calle, who is the Global Chief Financial Officer of Unilever’s Food Solutions business.”

I am so, so proud to work here, and pleased as punch, to boot.

Congratulations, Senator(-elect) Baldwin!

Posted by helenboyd – November 12, 2012

& Wow did we need to keep Glass-Steagall. & We need it back.

But it was also a striking affirmation of Ms. Baldwin, 50, a soft-spoken but unflinching seven-term congresswoman who won over voters in her native state without moderating the starkly progressive views — including lonely votes against the invasion of Iraq and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that curbed commercial banks — that routinely rank her among the most liberal lawmakers in the country.

She has played down the historic nature of her win, befitting a race where Ms. Baldwin’s sexual orientation played little role. At her victory speech here on Tuesday, Ms. Baldwin did not get around to talking about it until halfway through, saying she was “well aware” that her victory was a milestone for gay rights.

After the enormous applause — the loudest of the night — died down, she added: “But I didn’t run to make history. I ran to make a difference.”

^ From the NYT article about her and her win.

Milwaukee

Posted by helenboyd – August 6, 2012

I’m heart-broken to hear this news. Milwaukee, for the record, is a very cool little city, & the county is progressive. My heart is with the county’s residents, many of whom are no doubt horrified by this expression of hate in their community, but especially with the loved ones of those murdered, including the police officer’s family, and all of the people who will live in more fear because of this shooting.

And honestly? White people need fucking mental help in this country. Don’t tell me it’s not all white people. Of course it isn’t. But the consistency of race of the people who commit these horrible acts of slaughter – of innocents – is becoming pretty apparent. (My favorite website for good anti-racist ideas is Abagond. Go check it out.)

Oak Creek is a city near Milwaukee, by the way, & part of the same county (Milwaukee County), but is considered part of the the larger metropolitan Milwaukee area.

Scout’s Dishonor

Posted by helenboyd – July 19, 2012

I was interviewed for a local newspaper article about the Boy Scouts of America decision to keep the ban on gays in place.


Lawrence University professor Helen Boyd, author of two books about her relationship with a transgender partner, said the situation with the Boy Scouts is an example of “people trying to hold on to traditions that are unequal and unfair.”

She thinks the group eventually will overturn its policy, but said it would take some time.

“Policies like this are exactly the kind of things that young kids pay attention to,” said Boyd, who worries the Boy Scouts policy may lead gay youth to believe there’s something wrong with who they are.

In how many years are we going to look back & think, “what exactly was the problem?”

Orlando Arrests People Feeding the Hungry

Posted by helenboyd – June 9, 2011

It’s not an Onion headline; it’s the despicable results of a city ordinance in Orlando that makes it illegal to deliver or serve food in such a way that will attract 25 people or more within an area of Orlando within 2 miles of City Hall – without a permit.

But the organization Food Not Bombs has been feeding people in these areas years before this ordinance was passed in 2006, and has applied for, and been rejected for, a permit.

The arrests of people attempting to serve food as they have in the past have been primarily members of the group Food Not Bombs, who have been sharing food in these areas since 2005.

 

What the hell is this country coming to when volunteers, on their own dime, want to feed hungry people and are arrested for it?

Here’s a list of Orlando officials to contact about these heartless arrests. Whatever happened to the right to free assembly? Does it say anything about the Constitution about people not being allowed to assemble if there is food involved?

Honestly, my mind is blown by this news. We have got our heads up our asses in this country in ways that make me ashamed.

Japanese Dog Rescue

Posted by helenboyd – April 4, 2011

I don’t know about you, but I needed a story like this one right about now.

Institute of Medicine Recommends Studying LGBT Health Needs

Posted by helenboyd – April 1, 2011

& That’s not an April Fool’s joke! Honestly, you’d expect it would be, but it’s not: the IOM released a report that in order to address LGBT health disparities, LGBT health issues need to be studied further.

Seems nutty, right, to find out what people need in order to provide it.

Tammy Baldwin will be introducing an Act (the Ending LGBT Health Disparities Act) based on the IOM’s findings.

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