• Keira Knightley is insisting that her breasts will not be airbrushed in publicity photos for The Duchess.
• Girls are as good at math as boys.
• NCTE released a guide to Selective Service for trans people (pdf).
• The Chinese Olympics Committee will be doing genetic testing on athletes to determine their sex.

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)

Today, in New York, at the Center. For more info.

Tonight, in New York, at the Center. For more info.

Today, in New York, at the Center. For more info.

Today, in New York, at the Center. For more info.

Over the weekend I discovered a fantastic resource - Zagria’s Gender Variant Biographies Blog. What remarkable work! I’ve been scanning the entries for the past year or so, and so far, this one about a photo subject of WeeGee’s is my favorite.

Do go check it out, & from here on in you’ll also find a link to it in my Trans Resources blogroll.

Tomorrow, in New York, at the Center. For more info.

Tonight, in New York, at the Center. For more info.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a survey by TAVA, the transgender veterans association, and they are especially needing to hear from crossdressers. I know you’re out there, so please do respond to the survey!

The Gender Identity Project presents… the Trans Partners & Trans Amorous drop-in group for partners of transgender people. It’s a bi-monthly drop-in group to provide support and community for people of all genders to discuss and explore their attraction to and relationships with trans-identified or gender non-conforming individuals.

Winter/Spring 2008
Two Wednesdays each month
7:30-9:00pm
February 6th and 20th
March 5th and 19th
April 9th and 23rd

At The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, New York, NY 10011
www.gaycenter.org

• You may attend any or all of the above group sessions.
• Open to people currently and formerly in partnerships with trans-people and those exploring their attractions.
• No sign-up or registration is necessary.
• There is a $5 suggested donation for each group.

For more information, contact at 212.620.7310, ext. 254

2007’s Least Done with the Most Potential:

Oprah’s show on trans couples, which provided absolutely no resources for trans couples on the show or on their website.

The Gender Identity Project (GIP) Center here in NYC has created a 20-minute film called Transgender Basics. It’s not necessarily thorough - it’s only 20 minutes! - but it does cover what it needs to for an introduction to the idea. You can view it on the Center’s website.

For this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, FORGE, a group out of Wisconsin, has released two new handouts. One is about keeping yourself safe as a trans person - or really as any person. It includes tips like wearing clothes that aren’t restrictive and making sure you carry a cellphone.

But more impressively, at least to me, is a document on the friends, family, & partners of trans people who have been the victims of violence either against trans people or for defending trans people or for being partnered to trans people - and in one case, only for being assumed to be trans or gender variant.

I’m especially pleased to see a group create this printout as I have been, in the past, told that I can’t use the word “we” when talking about TDOR precisely because I’m not trans. But as the FORGE document more than indicates, those of us who are partners or SOFFAs are also at risk when transphobia walks the streets.

Have a safe Day of Remembrance. Honor the lives of those who we have lost, and tomorrow, celebrate all of your own victories and those of other trans people in your life. We have a lot to celebrate as a community as well, despite the violence and hate that is sometimes directed our way. I’ll post tomorrow to allow anyone to add their own personal victories, as well.

We’re partying with the people of Femme Fever tonight, in Long Island, starting at 7PM.

I have good news, & good news, & bad news.

The good news is that at the last minute, I’ve been invited to teach a Gender Studies class up at Merrimack College this fall.

The other bit of good news is that the Trans Partners Group is meeting at the Center today, September 5th, at 7:30 PM.

The bad news is that I’m teaching on Tuesdays & Thursdays, & so I will be in Boston on Wednesdays when the trans partners group meets.

I have been so enjoying co-facilitating this group & it nearly kills me not to be able to continue. I will be teaching in Wisconsin coming January as well so it seems the August group was the last group I’ll attend until April or May 2008 when I’ll be back to residing in New York fulltime. I will miss the group a lot - both personally & as an advocate for partners.

If any of you who attend the group want to get in touch, you know where I am.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to Amy and all of the people who helped organize tonight’s meeting in Norwalk, and all the people who came. It was a great meeting, with lots of good questions and conversations. I wanted to thank the folks at the TCC, too, for making a point of having an LGBT Center that really recognizes the T.

Again, thanks to you all. We had a wonderful evening.

We meet tomorrow, August 1st, at 7:30PM at the LGBT Center on 13th Street. If you’re a partner of a trans person, straight gay or otherwise, do come.

I just wanted to congratulate genderwarrior & trans activist Joelle Ruby Ryan for having won a scholarship from the Point Foundation. She was one of four trans people to win one this year.

The Point Foundation gives scholarships to LGBT students - 38 this year, all told.

More about all four of the trans students below the break.

More…

Ironic perhaps that Betty & I should be doing what looks like the last of our “in person” gigs via rental car instead of by train - since there have been times in the past few months that I felt like I lived on the latter. Not that I mind: I really do love trains in nearly an irrational way. It’s something about the sound of a train whistle - all at once so melancholy, so romantic, & so hopeful.

It’s fitting that we should wind down in Poughkeepsie, since the group I’ll be visiting, MHVTA, is one that let me interview them when I was researching My Husband Betty. What I remember best was asking, “What would you want the world to know about crossdressing that they don’t?” and I got a variety of answers that informed my intent when I wrote it.

So thanks to everyone who has let me ask them questions, emailed me with input, and told me their stories.