I’ll be on SistersTalk radio this Wednesday, January 6th, at 7PM Central time. & Yes, they’re on Facebook. They recently interviewed Rachel Kramer Bussell, erotica empress.
Other upcoming for me: a reading at Appleton Public Library on March 3rd, and I’m doing a reading for the Fox Cities Book Festival on April 12th. My best calendar is still on the front page of my author site, www.helenboydbooks.com (along with a list of past appearances, etc.)
If you haven’t checked out the Awkward Family Photos site yet, do it the next time your life seems fucked up.
Because if this family photo doesn’t help you feel better by seeing someone else’s misery, nothing will.
At some point in the last month, this blog had its 1 millionth visitor.
Cool.
My RSS feed apparently changed with the last WordPress update.
Just FYI, because of the recent spamming of the RSS feed and other technical errors, we’ll be doing a lot of tech overhaul of the blog in the next couple of days. It it acts funny, that’s why.
One of the things I’ve always liked about Vanessa Edwards Foster is that she doesn’t lose sight of the goal: actual equality. I agree with her that our standards are low when it comes to justice for the trans people, and their families and friends, who are murdered. I agree that “manslaughter” is not murder, and that shooting at someone who is basically a sitting duck in a car can’t possibly have been an accidental killing.
But what I don’t agree with is the vitriol directed at the LGB leadership of the organizations that called the ruling on Teisha Green’s murder a victory.
Our standards are low because we are too used to seeing no justice at all when it comes to people who intentionally hurt and kill trans people for being trans. There are too many cases that break your heart. There are too many families who have had to hear the most hateful bullshit about their trans loved one. There are too many cases that are simply not solved, nor investigated.
But that the jury came back to rule her death a hate crime is a good thing.
What bothers me about the politics between the LGB & T is that there are plenty of other gay bashings and hate crimes experienced by the LGB that the trans community pays little attention to, such as Sean Kennedy’s. If you want an example of an absolute failure when it came to our legal system, that’s it. It’s horrific. Every time I see that young man’s beautiful face, and think about his parents’ loss, I wonder where exactly the trans community has been in raising awareness of that horrible injustice. No, he wasn’t gender variant. He was a young adult who was out and proud about being gay. But he’s dead just the same as Teisha Green is, & for the same reason: someone hated him for what he was.
Do we know Michael Scott Goucher? Richard Hernandez? Satendar Singh? Ryan Keith Skipper? Jeremy Waggoner? Daniel Yakovleff? These are the names of gay men who have been murdered for being gay in the last couple of years. I didn’t know most of their names.
Community goes both ways. We all have more than enough mourning to do.
I saw this clip about Singaporean import Dr. Thio Li-ann on Queerty, and it reminded me that a PM who recently stood up to get the homosexuality laws off the books in Singapore was not reappointed. Some in Singapore feel his not being reappointed had everything to do with his support for LGBT rights, although his support for women’s rights – AWARE is a feminist group – certainly contributed.
Interestingly, he’s also currently involved in a petition to get the residual marriage rape laws taken off the books in Singapore.
Please read this update from NCTE on the status of the Hate Crimes Act that was voted on in the US Senate yesterday.
They certainly don’t get enough credit, in general, but here are MiApogeo.com’s “7 GLBT Bloggers to Watch” - including Charlie Vázquez (who I read with for the Queer + Catholic readings last year).
How can you not read someone who calls herself a Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo?
(via Audacia Ray)
My friend Willow directed me to this narrative written by a woman on Father’s Day. I’ve heard too many similar stories for one lifetime.
It made me think of that line uttered by Dmitri Karamazov: “There are fathers and there are beasts who only sire you.” That’s probably a paraphrase from the novel, but it’s a direct quote from the film version (in which Dmitri is played by Yul Brynner. Really.)
This morning, Rob & Arnie & Dawn of KRXQ radio talked about transgender youth with Autumn Sandeen (of Pam’s House Blend) and Kim Pearson (of TYFA).
Veronica has the links up of the original comments and has this mornings show up in three audio files.
A local (to the radio station) blogged about it too.
Today’s the day! I’m blogging, as I have in years past. for LGBT families – who have, thankfully, seen some gains this year! I know plenty of my queerio friends are tired & frustrated with the whole push for same-sex marriage, and trans activists are frustrated as well, because they want the attention on non-discrimination legislation, but as a married person, who is now same-sex, it makes me kind of ill to realize that the state I’m currently living in is actually struggling only to recognize domestic partnerships (for f***k’s sake). My home state can’t work it out either, which is downright embarrassing as a NYer. It’s a mistake, in my opinion, to divorce marriage from the economic issues that are at stake: even something like health insurance is vitally important, & very expensive if one spouse can’t be covered by the other’s health insurance.
So from my very small family to yours: keep working on same sex marriage. You don’t have to ignore other issues – like the gender identity & expression version of ENDA – but goddamn if I’m going to be a 2nd class citizen, & neither should anyone else.
Here’s some other trans family bloggers:
Join us next year!
Saturday’s edition of the French language newspaper Le Provence headline:
Transsexuality will no longer be classified mental illness in France
and the article explains why France has now become the first country to depathologize transsexualism.
English translation is now online.
Very, very interesting and good news on the eve of the APA conference in California, where protesters will be gathering to protest the GID diagnosis.
Have you all seen this latest iteration of trans + feminist(ing) + bathroom issues? Oy, it makes me tired. Here’s what I had to say about it four years ago.
Some days I just want to apologize to all the trans people who I ardently needed to talk to about bathrooms when I was working this stuff out, so let me: sorry, all of you, and thank you for educating me when it wasn’t your responsibility.
In the meantime, Gunner Scott has started a new blog about trans people + bathroom experiences, and he put up a sample at TGB (& info about how to send him your own stories, too).
& Unlike the million other times when calls went out that TSA might be especially suspicious of anyone who crossdressed, now it’s real: your gender is supposed to match your ID.
Their explanation, according to Polymorphous Perversity, goes as follows:
Many names are gender neutral. Additionally, names not derived from the Latin alphabet, when translated into English, do not generally denote gender. Providing information on gender will reduce the number of false positive watch list matches, because the information will distinguish persons who have the same or similar name. Consequently, TSA is including gender as a required element of the SFPD, which covered aircraft operators must request from individuals and which individuals must provide to the covered aircraft operator.
So theoretically, this is only about them telling the female Jordan Teller who lives in AZ from some male Jordan Teller who is a terrorist.
Theoretically.
Betty is already regularly hassled by the security people at airports, but not disrespectfully. She just knows in advance she’s going to get pulled out of line to explain why she looks like a woman and has an M on her license. Her attempts at butching up are downright pathetic these days, so that doesn’t really work either.
I found this groovy new blog about women painters who’ve painted portraits of women and just loved the idea. I suggested Romaine Brooks, and specifically her portrait of Lady Una Troubridge, but I’ll be honest it’s her self portrait that’s my real favorite, which is the painting to the left of this text.
If I could look like that for about 12 minutes I’d be very happy indeed.
A Peruvian television station was invited to a planned attack on a local prostitute who is a “travesti” – a MTF trans prostitute. It aired on television, and was later aired with a longer segment.
Blabbeando covered it, as did Queers United.
Note: prostitution is not illegal in Peru.
This week Freedom to Marry is featuring a ton of guest bloggers talking about marriage equality, and my post goes up today at 1PM.
It’s both a pleasure and an honor to be given the chance to say something in support of full marriage equality for everyone.Do go read tons of the posts this week, & direct your friends and family and community members to do so, too.
If you don’t feel convinced, or even if you do, watch this:
“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
It may be an advertising hook, but this list of gender-y blogs is pretty thorough, covering feminist issues, LGBT issues, and even folks like me.
Transgender Workplace made it, as did other sites I contribute to, like Trans Group Blog and Invert(e), but I’m especially happy to see Sugarbutch rounding out the list at 100.
There is a diarist at Daily Kos who has written about the high incidence of murder of African American trans women.
Queerty (tongue in cheerk) predicts Memphis will reach out to the trans community as a result. I doubt it. They’re 2nd in homicides in the country, which means everyone – not just trans people – have been victims of violence (via Grand Divisions).
What a way to start a new year.
