en|Gender » Appleton

Local Politics

helenboyd — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:35:37 +0000

I will honestly say I’m flabbergasted. There is a local election coming up for the city’s Aldermen, and one of the men running, Tom Van Susteren, posted this on his Facebook page, which is public:

How on earth this could be considered appropriate for any politician’s Facebook page is beyond me. Really, I’m staggered by the bad judgment, the treatment of violence against women as funny, and the violence against a public figure as funny, plus torture as funny.

I understand that someone out there finds this entertaining, which horrifies me even more.

Appleton Domestic Partner Benefits

helenboyd — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:44:14 +0000

I just got this note from Katie Belander of FAIR WI. As you all know, I was one of the “local LGBT leaders” who spoke at this Appleton Common Council meeting in favor of the city granting domestic partner benefits.

Earlier this month, I was proud to stand with local LGBT and allied leaders when the Appleton Common Council granted health care and related benefits to the registered domestic partners of city employees by a vote of 10 to 6. This is a major step forward for Appleton, the Fox Valley and Wisconsin.

But anti-fairness forces are already gearing up to try to undo the progress we have made together.

Saturday morning, the Appleton Post Crescent ran a citizen’s letter calling domestic partner benefits a “cancer [that] must be killed before it spreads” by overturning “this immoral and fiscally imprudent policy through direct legislation by referendum.”

As we learned with the state domestic partnership registry, no victory will go unchallenged. And at Fair Wisconsin, no victory will go undefended.

If you can, please make a donation to FAIR WI so we’ve got the resources to fight this one.

Appleton City Employees Get Domestic Partner Benefits

helenboyd — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:32:54 +0000

It looks like such a humdrum shot, doesn’t it? City Council votes are notoriously unexciting, even if and when the debate gets a little heated. That is, the votes go up on the screen, and no one hoots or hollers or storms out: they just move on to the next subject, like the width of roads or the proposal to add a bike lane.

Still, this shot is of the board that gave Appleton city employees domestic partner benefits for the very first time. A few elected officials spoke eloquently and bravely, and a few community members did too.

A huge congratulations to Appleton for leveling the playing field for employees who are in same sex relationships and registered as domestic partners with the state of Wisconsin.

Moved In & Getting to Work

helenboyd — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:08:34 +0000

We’re basically moved into our groovy new apartment in Appleton; it’s in the house next door to the house I lived in last year, & I’ve already nearly walked up those steps instead of the new ones a few times.

We have a lovely big porch to the front & side of the place, a big picture window, high ceilings, a big bathroom. It’s a lovely apartment, and because we both came this time, it already feels like home. When I’ve lived by myself here, for three months or six months, I tended toward monasterial. Or bachelor. Or both.

Tomorrow I attend a small symposium about pedagogy; Saturday I meet with a student about her senior project.

It’s nice to be back at work, & to feel the cold floorboards of the porch under my feet in just socks; better still to look up at a nearly full moon and a sky full of stars.