Here’s a woman who got a heck of a lot less press than Mother Theresa, but who, in my opinion, took the best stands on things like contraception. I’m entirely flummoxed at her descriptions of her own desire & flirtation, all of which she gave up at 21 or 23 years old = young to give up a sex life.

I am fascinated by nuns like this, who practice what they preach in terms of living with the poor and having compassion for all. Truly remarkable, as was Dorothy Day before her (though Day was never a nun).

I’m looking forward to reading her autobiography but can’t find it - not even on www.amazon.fr. If anyone else does, or find the English translation, let me know. (Though I’m thinking it would probably be a good book for me to brush up my French!)

In a week’s time, straight Americans will be standing up for LGBT Rights - here in New York, including Brooklyn, but also in California, Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, etc. The basic idea is that straight people will attend vigils - and other media-making events - in order to bring attention to the political issues facing LGBT Americans.

This is a damned good idea (and it’s brought to you by Atticus Circle, and Soulforce).

You can get involved by signing up here, and you can email your friends about it, too.

As reported by Alex Blaze on the Bilerico Project, William Bolthouse, founder and 43% owner of Bolthouse Farms, a farm in California that provides organic juices, lemonades, and smoothies to places like Whole Foods and other organic market places, has just recently given a  donation of $100,000 to proponents of a campaign to strip California couples of the right to marry.

Please take a moment and let Bolthouse Farms and their distributors know that you will no longer be purchasing their organic products, because even though they are organic, they come with some nasty side effects. Sign the petition.

NCTE has reported today that since they sent out their alert for calls to your senators to support The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act more senators have signed on to support it!

So keep calling! Tell your friends to call!

You can find your senators’ contact information through NCTE.

Today Senators Kennedy (D-MA) and Smith (R-OR) introduced the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1585), which is being debated in the Senate this week and next. This amendment could be voted on as early as today. In short, today transgender people are one giant step closer to gaining federal hate crimes protections!

The language of today’s amendment is identical language to that of S. 1105, which the Senators introduced in April.

But to ensure that the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act becomes law, you must contact your Senators now and urge them to support this life-saving legislation.

As you read this, the Radical Right is mobilizing their base to oppose the federal hate crimes bill. They’re using scare tactics and flat-out lies in hopes of killing Kennedy’s amendment. Make sure that your Senators hear your voice and the true importance of this bill.

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act would:

1. Extend existing federal protections to include “gender identity, sexual orientation, gender and disability”
2. Allow the Justice Department to assist in hate crime investigations at the local level when local law enforcement is unable or unwilling to fully address these crimes
3. Mandate that the FBI begin tracking hate crimes based on actual or perceived gender identity
4. Remove limitations that narrowly define hate crimes to violence committed while a person is accessing a federally protected activity, such as voting.

Find your Senators’ contact information.

The time to act is now! Call your Senators today and urge your friends and family to do the same!

(A sample letter you can copy & paste is below the break.)

More…

First, email Sheldon Silver and tell him to advance GENDA. His email is speaker@assembly.state.ny.us.

Then go tell CBS & FOX to take their heads out of their asses & show the condom ad; their shows are packed full of sexual situations and they’re being prudish about condoms? How lame is that?

Sign a petition to get New York State to add the ERA to the state constitution.

Eli Green is a self-described ‘genderwarrior’ and ’social-justice & gender-junkie.’ Also an academic, activist, educator, author and researcher who focuses largely on addressing gender based systems of oppressio, Eli Green resides in New York City, working with trans and queer youth, and traveling around the country speaking at conferences and leading educational trainings. Current projects include working towards a doctorate in Human Sexuality, running Trans-Academics.org and working on the publication of the Community Needs Assessment Survey results.

1) www.Trans-Academics.org was one of the first sites I found that gathered resources for academics on trans issues. Do you find most academics interested in trans issues are trans themselves? If they are, is that necessarily a positive or negative thing?

I think that the majority of people who are doing positive trans research and academia right now are personally involved in the trans community - be it because they are personally trans identified, or that their partners, friends or family are trans-identified. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing - but it does have its pros and cons. For instance, if only transpeople are the ones doing trans research, it may be considered by some to be of lesser quality, (however inaccurate), or the research may be particularly slanted towards validating one type of trans experience. On the pro-side, gender diverse people are hopefully more invested in doing research that is respectful of all trans experiences, have access to a greater diversity of respondents, and have greater buy-in from research participants.

There does also seem to be a growing interest in trans related themes by cisgendered people. Gender diversity appears to be the next up and coming thing in academic and media circles. It seems like overnight there are about 15 new documentaries in the works, lots more books being published, and just more general recognition of gender diversity. I am not sure if it is because people are looking for the next best thing to make money off of, or if it is because educational efforts are paying off and people are truly interested in gender diversity. Either way, I think that as long as the end results are sensitive and trans-positive, it can be an important human rights stepping stone.

More…

More than a year ago now, SAMHSA asked a few therapists - including Reid Vanderbergh - to change the terminology of a workshop title - to a title that left off the LGBT altogether.

This year - as if to celebrate the anniversary of that fiasco - they’ve magically removed information geared toward LGBT people.

You can write Rep. Tammy Baldwin(D-Wis.), who has called for an investigation into the matter, to give her more reasons the LGBT information should be returned to the website. (Please don’t do so by coming off like a crazed loon, however.)

Received via Reid, via Smart Brief:

The federal government has removed information geared toward the LGBT population from its Substance Abuse & Mental Services Administration Web site. The move follows a letter to the government protesting the presence of that information, but the government says the information was scheduled to be removed anyway; Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is calling for an investigation into the matter.

Amnesty International has picked up Kelly McAllister’s case.

From their site:

Kelly McAllister, a transgender woman, was reportedly beaten, pepper sprayed, hog-tied, and dragged across the hot pavement face down by arresting deputies from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department after refusing orders to get out of her parked truck. She was later put in a cell with a male inmate who reportedly raped her. Urge the police to conduct a thorough investigation into Kelly McAllister’s allegations of abuse and the actions of its deputies leading to her rape.

Take Action Now!

She was always one of my favorite models for activism - not someone out to change the world, not someone out for the power & the glory, just a woman who’d had enough.

Thank you, Rosa.

A female-to-male transgendered activist and shaman, Raven Kaldera is a pagan priest, intersex transgender activist, parent, astrologer, musician and homesteader. Kaldera, who hails from Hubbardston, Mass., is the founder and leader of the Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel and the Asphodel Pagan Choir. Kaldera has been a neo-pagan since the age of 14, when he was converted by a “fam-trad” teen on a date. His website, Cauldron Farm, contains extensive information about Pagan practice as well as his activist writings on transgender and sexuality topics.

Having met Raven and attended workshops he’s given, I’m always surprised that every time I see him I’m newly amazed by how much his presence is both strong and gentle. His answers, too, are of the ‘pulls no punches’ variety, without obfuscation, and he manages to explain complex ideas - about spirituality, sexuality, and identity - in plain language. Okay, I’m a fan! - I admit it!

1) I think the most vital thing I’d love for you to talk about is how most IS people view T issues, and whether or not they identify as T, and why.

Most intersexuals do not consider themselves transgendered, and are very uncomfortable being associated with the trans movement in general. I think a lot of this comes out of lifetimes of being shamed for being physically different; if it was a terrible thing that had to be medically corrected and then desperately hidden from the world, what’s up with these people with “normal” bodies who are seeking out changes? Not to mention that many IS folks view transpeople as freaks, and are desperate to be seen as “normal”.

The problem is with the cross-section. I don’t know how big that cross-section is, but there are more and more of us popping out all the time - IS folks who decide that they’d rather be a gender other than what they were assigned, and get sex reassignment, transsexuals who discover that they have IS conditions in the middle of their changes, and so forth. We make it difficult for either side to separate from each other. Our bodies are spread across that gap between the two movements. It’s important for me as one of those bridgers to be sensitive to the needs of both sides, getting in the way of the IS folks assumption that we’re freaks; getting in the way of the transfolks’ attempts to colonize the IS struggles.

More…

Dallas Denny, M.A., is founder and was for ten years Executive Director of the American Educational Gender Information Service, Inc. (AEGIS), a national clearinghouse on transsexual and transgender issues. She is currently on the board of Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc., AEGIS’ successor organization, which lives at www.gender.org. She is Director of Fantasia Fair and editor of Transgender Tapestry magazine and was editor and publisher of the late Chrysalis: The Journal of Transgressive Gender Identities. Dallas is a prolific writer with hundreds of articles and three books to her credit. She recently decided to retire her license to practice psychology in Tennessee, since she seems to have found a permanent home in Pine Lake, Georgia, pop. 650, the world’s smallest municipality with a transgender nondiscrimination ordinance.

1) You’ve been a trans educator/activist for a long time now: what do you see as the biggest development in terms of trans politics since you’ve been doing this?

When I began my activism in 1989, the community was almost entirely about education– outreach to the general public and information to other transpeople. There wasn’t much information available, and much of that wasn’t very good or was outdated– and even the bad information could be almost impossible to find. The rapid growth of the community in the 1990s and especially the explosion of the internet made information much easier to find.

Somewhere around 1993, the community had reached a point at which political activism had become possible. Of course, some of us had always been doing that, but it hadn’t been a prime focus of the community, and what had been done had been sporadic and short-lived, often was done by a single individual or a small group, and tended to happen in places like San Francisco and New York City. This activism did give us some political gains– most notably in Minnesota, which adopted state-wide protections as early as, I believe, the early 1970s, but around 1993 there was a growing political consciousness in the community, and things just began to take off.

I can identify some important events of the 1990s– when Nancy Burkholder, a post-op transsexual woman, was kicked out of the Michigan Womyn’s conference, when people began to come together in Texas at Phyllis Randolph Frye’s ICTLEP law conference, when the March on Washington turned out to be non-transinclusive, when a bunch of us got together to form GenderPac (an organization which was promptly hijacked by the Executive Director)– but there were two biggies, in my opinion. The first was the first transgender lobbying, which was done by Phyllis Frye and Jane Fee. They couldn’t believe they had actually done it, then wondered why they hadn’t done it before. When HRCF (as it was then called) promptly went behind their backs and removed the transgender inclusions Phyllis and Jane had convinced lawmakers to put into the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, there was a sense of outrage. The news broke when Sarah DePalma got an e-mail.at the law conference. It happened to be the only ICTLEP I attended. We had a coule of strategy sessions and went back home and the next week did actions at at least six Pride events, including Atlanta, which I coordinated. You should have seen the jaws drop when I handed leaflets to the folks at the HRCF booth. The organization has, of course, done a complete turnaround since then, or so we hope.

The other big event was the muder of Brandon Teena; in the aftermath, we began to get media coverage that concentrated on our political issues and not just our individual psychologies or transition histories.

After that, things just exploded. Today many of us– as many as one in three– have some sort of legal protections– anti-discrimination, hate crimes, or both. My little town of Pine Lake, Georgia, population 650, even has trans protections– and I didn’t even have to ask for them. They were already in place when I moved here in the late 1990s.
More…

Especially in a political era of attacks on gays, we need the corporate leadership to stand up.

Microsoft has done so in the past, with its own policies as well as politically, but it has just pulled its support for a gay rights bill in Washington state in response to the pressure exerted by exactly ONE anti-gay pastor.

Please, read more at www.americablog.blogspot.com, and contact anyone you know personally at Microsoft, as well as any/all of the contacts listed at that site.

Lobby Days: NTAC & GPAC

This week, two groups representing transgendered people are lobbying DC about our issues.

NTAC (National Transgender Advocacy Coalition) describes its mission as follows:

NTAC’s 2004 lobbying event will take place from April 28th through April 30th in Washington, DC. Wednesday the 28th will be used for training and final preparations. The day’s events will include a press conference at which families of hate crimes victims and surviors of hate crimes can tell their stories. Thursday and Friday, the 29th and 30th, will include visits to YOUR members of Congress to educate them and their staffs on the need for transgender-inclusive Employee Nondiscrimination and Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (Hate Crimes) legislation.

This year’s effort will also press Congress to drop the sudden fixation on denial of equal marriage rights in order to take action on the serious, longtime employment and hate violence issues that have yet face the transgender community.

GPAC (Gender Public Advocacy Coalition) explain their efforts:

Parents, activists, and youth from all over the country come to the nation’s capital for a 3-day conference to work together to end discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes.

The conference beings with the 9th annual Gender Lobby Day, when activists from across the country descend on Capitol Hill to educate their Congress Members. Last year 1500 activists convened over 3 days! Following lobby day, attendees will return to the hotel for two intense and exciting days of workshops, plenaries, and Kimberle Crenshaw’s keynote address.

PLEASE donate to one or both of these groups to support their efforts!
Donate to NTAC
Donate to GPAC

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on Tuesday photographs of candidate Sam Walls dressed in women’s clothes have circulated among political leaders in Johnson County, south of Fort Worth. Local Republican leaders confirmed separately that they had seen the photographs of Walls in a wig, dress and high heels.

The story is on the Reuters newswire, and so is being picked up by other papers - Newsday, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, etc. Find one of these papers - or write to Reuters directly - explaining that a man’s crossdressing by no means affects his ability to do his job! If you are a CD, explain who you are (engineer, teacher, tech, etc).

This is your opportunity, closeted CDs! Stand up for one of your fellow CDs. Mr. Walls is, some stories mention, a member of a chapter of Tri-Ess.

Of course, his being a CD is not a good reason to vote for him, either - unless of course his crossdressing encourages him to vote for trans-friendly legislation.

I just posted a bunch of articles about trans issues, covered for the most part by GLBT media.

Pick one, and send them a letter thanking them for covering TG issues.

The TG Community has got to increase visibility. Crossdressers, t-girls, transgendered people, transsexuals, = all of us = have got to keep the media aware that we want to see positive portrayals, and have got to insist that the law does not discriminate against us.

In that spirit, I am going to post a weekly “action.”

This week’s action:

Email CBS (48Hours@cbsnews.com) to thank them for covering TG/TS issues on last week’s “48 Hours.” Here’s my letter, which you can use as a template to send them, or write your own.

**
To the producers of “48 Hours”:

I am the wife of a TG person, and I wanted to thank you for the recent “48 Hours” show, “Trapped.” Your coverage was sensitive and accurate.

That said, it would be fantastic if you would cover more of the TG community, and not just transsexual lives. Crossdressers, drag kings, transbois - all of us who are TG - live lives that are invisible and little understood. More public awareness would be a great relief to many lives.

Again, thank you. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
Helen Boyd
Brooklyn, NY
**