Today NSRC (National Sexuality Resource Center) held a live chat with Jamison Green, Dallas Denny, Masen Davis and Joy O’Donnell on the national state of trans rights. Worth reading.

One of the partners on our MHB boards mentioned recently that she’d never apply for an LGBT scholarship, because she doesn’t identify as LGBT, and it reminded me that I never told the story about me & the LGBT Blogger Initiative Conference I went to.

It seems I am perplexing to people, & I felt a little bit like an odd duck while I was there. It came up because at some point, someone announced that grants might become available for LGBT bloggers, and a few people told me that they hoped I would get one. But someone also mentioned that they could see others have an issue with the fact that I’m not LGB or T. My standard response these days is - “I’m the Q that gets left off a lot.”

But still it’s an issue that has come up, & may come up even moreso that I’m thinking about going back to grad school. Will I choose, like the partner above, not to apply for any LGBT scholarships? As a sort of liminal queer, probably I wouldn’t, except that then there’s the whole issue of what I do & what I’d want to study - which is all about the LGBT, and the T in particular.

The other question I was asked, which I’ve been asked before, is why? Why the trans community? & To be honest, I just don’t know. I was charmed by my very first meetings with trans people, & continue to have a deep love for the trans community & for trans people. Aside from my Debsian sense of social justice, that is.

Tim McFeeley did a wonderful “short history of the LGBT movement” (which I was pleased to note I knew cold!) as a workhop that Sunday morning, and he closed with a quote by Frederick Douglass:

When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.

That’s my answer & I’m sticking to it.

As many of you know, I was at the LGBT Bloggers’ Initiative this past weekend, feeling simultaneously like the new kid on the block and the old whore. Many of my fellow bloggers - I realized during a presentation on media access by Cathy Renna - are bloggers, only. It never occurred to me that being a blogger who was a published book author first was weird, but there I was.

Nevermind that for now. I met a smattering of lovely people who are active in the LGBT blogosphere, some of whom I knew before and some who I didn’t: Dana of Mombian, a whole bunch of the folks at Bilerico, including Bil, Serena, Irene, and Alex; some of the Pam’s House Blend crew, including Pam herself and Autumn Sandeen. Among other I ran into were Allyson Robinson at the HRC cocktail party on Friday night, Mara Keisling of NCTE on Saturday afternoon (at the infamous Mayflower Hotel), as well as Tahlib Disney-Britton of Freedom to Marry, James from gayagenda.com,  and Tobias Packer of Equality Florida.

More…

I’m still at the Blogger Initiative in DC & having a pretty cool time of it; yesterday I had lunch with the Victory Fund at the Mayflower Hotel & heard Barney Frank speak (more on that later) & ran into Mara Keisling, Maggie Stump and Dana Beyer. I’ve noticed I always feel at home amongst the tall ladies, and that moment was a refreshing break from being a kind of confusing non-trans blogger from the trans community (more on that later too). I moderated a panel on diversity yesterday, which went really well thanks to my excellent panelists.A working shop with Cathy Renna about media access & savvy just ended, and it’s time to go eat lunch with my fellow bloggers, none of whom are in pajamas.

Mostly right now I’m missing Betty, who got home from CO last night and who is in our apartment with the kittoi, and whom I can’t wait to be with, too.

It only seems right that I should blog from the LGBT bloggers’ initiative, even though the schedule leaves precious little time.

Last night was the introductory mixer at the HRC offices - which are very fancy & chic, in case you haven’t seen them, I know I wasn’t the only one who thought “so that’s where the money goes” - and I got to meet a few staffers, as well as Allyson Robinson, the new(ish) trans outreach coordinator for HRC. I also met my roommate (more about her lovely self at another time) and the organizer of the initiative, as well as James from www.gayagenda.com, who was very very cold (since he’s from FL), Alex Blaze of Bilerico.

& I met Pam Spaulding briefly when I hung up her jacket for her. (It’s a glamorous life.) So far it’s been fun, but wow do the days start early! It’s downright unnatural to be up this time of day.

I’m off to the LGBT Blogger Initiative Conference in Washington DC for the weekend. Hoping to meet lots of cool folks and learn a whole bunch of new things. I’ll try to post from there but the schedule (& my very iffy laptop) may not allow me to; there will be a ton of workshops and panels and roundtables and suchlike.

I’ll be back late late late on Sunday, and Betty will have beaten me home from where she is in CO.

Well go figure, but I’m writing a new relationships advice column at www.ourchart.com called Ask Big Sister. & No, I’m not actually a big sister - youngest of 6 - but I always wanted to be! This is an introductory piece, of course, so the readers there get to know who I am and what my gig is.

Since readers over there can ask me questions, of course you can too! I’d love to hear any you’ve got, especially the ones you’d like to see addressed in a column.

My old blog template couldn’t make use of all the groovy new widgets and functionality of WordPress, so I dove into a site re-design the other day, and I’m still tweaking.

I’ve kept lots of cool stuff, like my flickr badge and extensive blogroll, but here’s the cool new stuff:

• more & newer photos in the random photo header
• a compact category list
• a tag cloud! this one excites me, even if it means going back & tagging 5 years of blog posts. still, it helps locate more of my posts on specific topics, like crossdressing, or the Gwen Araujo trial.
• & most importantly for you, dear reader, is the new “share this” button on every post, so you can put my stuff up on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, LJ, and Technorati. But you can also email it to a friend! How cool is that? I feel like The New York Times.

So do explore, and if you have any more suggestions, that’s what the comments section is for. In the next months I’m hoping to update both helenboydbooks.com and Trans Group Blog, but for right now, I’ve had my fill of tweaking code.

I’m fiddling with the re-design, so forgive me if for the next several days you can’t quite find everything you’re used to. Eventually I’ll get it all in place, but wow - a website that’s been tweaked for a few years has a ton of tiny stuff in the code.

Hey campers, I just spent a while upgrading the blog and hopefully everything will be groovy and happy.

But… if it isn’t. Let me know via this post.

Update 01: You will have to login again as the whole password/security system has been changed. Fun! Not. Sorry.

Thanks!

Betty

For whatever reason, the blog is holding some comments for approval, so you don’t need to write/submit them twice.

It’s the blog’s five year anniverary; amazing that I’ve been doing it this long, after Betty encouraged me to give it a try.

Thanks all, for reading.

I’ve been invited to participate in a new blog, Invert(e). It’s the blog of Suspect Thoughts press. Apparently those of us who like parentheticals stick together.

Do check it out.

I wanted to point out a new section of my links/blogroll, which is for allies, family & partners. Right now it’s got Abigail Garner’s Damn Straight, Monica CL’s A Seat on the SOFFA, Annie Rushden’s Gardens in Bloom, COLAGE’S Kids of Trans pages, Jonni P’s Trans Married, and PFLAG’s TNET.

If people know of other partners, allies, or family members who regularly blog on glbT issues, do let me know so I can add them. Please, not just LGB allies; they have to regularly address trans issues and need to be currently blogging with some consistency and some history.

This year, to blog for LGBT families, I want to highlight the fantastic new work by COLAGE called the Kids of Trans Resource Guide (pdf). I’m not sure if I can express how desperately this guide was needed nor how happy I am to see it published. It includes not just tips for people who are children of trans people - whether they are still children or have become adults - but it also gives great advice to trans people who are parents, as well, including this gem:

“As a parent, remember that your children come first and your transition comes second. Transition is an inherently self-focused process, as you align your body and appearance with your gender identity. The best way to be a responsible parent during transition is to make your children a major priority throughout the process. Sometimes this means that you have to compromise your ideal time frame for your transition in order to keep relationships with your family healthy.”

Shock and revelation! Trans people are parents, children, spouses; they have families, extended families, and can adjust their transition goals to help the people who love them transition around them. How much does that rock? You can also access COLAGE’s Kids of Trans pages on their website.

(cross-posted to Trans Group Blog)

Ask your senators to support the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Today is the last day you can vote for me as your favorite female blogger over at Women’s Voices / Women Vote. So do.

Now you can go vote for me, since I made the Top 10. Thanks to all who nominated me!

Nominate your favorite female blogger for Women’s History Month.

(cough cough)

This year, the organizers of Blog for Choice have asked us all why we vote pro-Choice.

I grew up Catholic, as many know, & my first opinion on abortion - once I realized I should have one - was to be Pro Life. I was already against the death penalty, & in this instance, the Church’s rulings - against human beings messing with life & death - seemed consistent to me.

It was only later that I became a feminist and realized that pregnancy is often considered only a woman’s problem, that men are barely even expected to use birth control when they have sex, and that not only do we preach - as a culture - that women have to be sexy, but that it’s bad that they are. There’s a certain ‘head in the sand’ quality to the way we deal with these issues, and when, a few years ago, a pro life friend told me women should just keep their knees together - she wasn’t kidding, either - I’d had enough of the double standard.

So that’s why I vote pro-choice.

If people find others who are blogging for choice, do link to them here.