Tag: resources

Trans Equality & the Feds

Posted by helenboyd – April 3, 2009

NCTE asks:

What would federal policy look like if transgender people were fully and fairly included? Over the past months and years, NCTE has compiled a list of 112 separate policies that directly impact the lives of transgender people and our families that need to be added, removed or changed. Our latest publication, “Transgender Equality and the Federal Government” outlines each of these issues. We expect that some of these policies can be changed in the short term, while others will require long term activism. Some of the issues here will be at the forefront of NCTE’s work in the coming year and in other areas, our partners in this work will be the ones to lead, with our support.

You can read that document online, or check out in .pdf format.

NSRC Trans LiveBlog

Posted by helenboyd – March 30, 2009

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.

Partners’ Resources

Posted by helenboyd – February 1, 2009

One of the partners who posts regularly on our forums has put together a list of online resources for partners, which she’s posted on the TransOhio website.

How cool is that? When I first went online as the girlfriend of a “CD,” there was exactly one Yahoo group, which was actually an eGroup (anyone remember those?).

The only thing that still bugs me is how much the partners of MTFs and FTMs segregate. It’s another case where I feel we draw too much of our identites from our partners’ trans ones. I’ve learned so much from partners of FTMs, male or female, straight-identified and queer.

Congress Is Back

Posted by helenboyd – January 6, 2009

From the NCTE:

Today, January 6, Members of Congress raise their right hand and swear to uphold the Constitution as they begin the new legislative session.

Let’s make sure the first thing they hear about is the importance of an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224 3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them: “I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I strongly support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would ban discrimination against all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

Then, call back and leave messages with your two Senators too!

Request an in-person meeting for you and other community members with your two Senators and your Representative (or their staffs) in their home district offices. You can call the district offices to request these meetings but they often want you to fax a meeting request. To find contact info for district offices, go to to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

Sample meeting request letters, and other talking points and resources for your meetings, are available in the following toolkits:

NYC HHC Report

Posted by helenboyd – December 11, 2008

Betsy Gotsbaum, NY’s Public Advocate, has released a report (pdf) that recommends way to improve the LGBT population’s access to healthcare.

Among the recommendations:
• Require in-house LGBT sensitivity training for all HHC employees.
• Designate an LGBT liaison in each HHC facility.
• Establish, display, and enforce a zero-tolerance discrimination policy.
• Establish a review process to monitor progress.

Among the people quoted in the press release are Ray Carannante of CenterCARE and Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF).

70 Under 30

Posted by helenboyd – December 9, 2008

’50 Under 30′ Youth Hate Crimes Report Re-Issued: Almost 20 New Victims; Re-Titled ’70 Under 30″

WASHINGTON (December 4, 2008) — The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition’s 2006 hate crimes report, “50 Under 30: Masculinity & The War Against America’s Youth” has been updated and re-issued. Because of the nearly 20 new murders, the new title has been changed to “70 Under 30.”

Said GenderPAC Executive Director Riki Wilchins, “It’s sad to see so many new murders so quickly. We had hoped to only need to update this report every few years or so, but the pace of violence has surpassed our expectations.”

The report highlights the continuing vulnerability to assault that individuals face if they are young, of color and gender non-conforming. It also underscores the limited resources for safety and support many of them have.

More→

World AIDS Day

Posted by helenboyd – December 1, 2008

Today is World AIDS Day.

Here’s a cool resource from the AIDS Memorial Quilt organization, showing various places in the US & events for World AIDS Day in your area, courtesy of Google Maps.

& Here’s Safe Sex info from Just Say Yes. (I love the little erection/condom .gif.)

I would love to hear from people as to why, say, the Quilt seems so different than the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Both are largely about the death of those we love. Yet they feel different, & I can’t quite put my finger on how.

Letter To a Wife

Posted by helenboyd – November 21, 2008

My friend Shirene, who I met while I was researching My Husband Betty, and at a SPICE conference to boot, has contined to work with wives who have just found out their husbands are crossdressers. She wrote this letter recently to one such wife, and I thought it was worth sharing here, for any husband who might want to use it to help come out to his wife, or for any wife who has just found out.

I don’t necessarily agree with how she simplifies certain issues – like the “crossdressers are heterosexual” meme – but a lot of the rest of it is a good “talking down” for a new wife who might be completely panicking.

Dear Jill,

Hi.  I hope you don’t mind receiving a letter like this from a stranger, but my husband is  transgender also and I know that if I could have received a letter such as this when I found out, it would have made it easier on both me and my husband. My name is Shirene, I’m 43, we live in S******, IL and I’ve known about Shayla since ‘98.  We’re at 555 555 5555.

I will admit it’s somewhat of an adapted form letter so please ignore the things that don’t apply to your situation and please excuse the things I’m telling you that you already know. More→

Say NO to Prop 8

Posted by helenboyd – October 13, 2008

I wanted to highlight Sara’s comment about Prop 8 because it contains a ton of useful suggestions & resources.

Please, do something if you can.

Fidelities

Posted by helenboyd – October 4, 2008

The NYT publishes a column about Polyamory and specifically about Poly Pride, a celebration being held in NYC this weekend.

Alex Williams, the journalist who wrote it, seems to have come away with the main impression I’ve come away with: too much talking. I can barely manage one person in my life, but I can’t imagine more. I just don’t have the patience.

Toothbrush disputes are the least of it. In the era of safe sex and cellphones, a life that seems to promise boundless sex in fact involves lots of talking. And talking. And talking.

For one thing, they constantly have to explain the way they live.

That last line ring out to any trans people & their partners out there? One of the reasons Betty & I love the various alt.sex communities we’ve run into is that there is a shared experience: you may not be explaining the same thing, but you’re still explaining. Or, as I like to explain in my Uneven Libidos class, the further you are from the socially-condoned relationship – heterosexual marriage with something like traditional gender roles – the harder it is to find validation and support for the way you live.

If you want to know more about poly, I highly recommend Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up, and her website, which lists tons of resources for poly people.

Five Questions With… Monica Canfield-Lenfest

Posted by helenboyd – August 13, 2008

As many of you know, Monica Canfield-Lenfest is the daughter of a trans woman and created a new resource, with COLAGE, for kids with trans parents. I highly recommend it.

1) First, tell me about COLAGE & how the book for Kids of Trans happened, what your goals were.

COLAGE (www.colage.org) is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents. We build community and work toward social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy. I first contacted COLAGE five and a half years ago, when I was working on my undergraduate thesis: “She’s My Father: The Social Experience of People with Transgender Parents”. Looking for references for my project, I discovered a diverse community of queerspawn who gave me the space to better articulate my experience and encouraged me to continue my work, since there are hardly any resources for transgender parented families. I started presenting at transgender conferences and gained a renewed sense of responsibility to build community and develop resources for people with transgender parents.

During a COLAGE conference in Dallas two years ago, I suggested to Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director, that perhaps I could fill a fall internship position at the national office. We came up with a Fellowship model for my position, which has become a new program for the organization. I worked full-time for eight months focused specifically on the Kids of Trans Program. The major goal of the fellowship was to develop resources for people with transgender parents. Since there was no book detailing our experiences and offering advice to people with trans parents, the Kids of Trans Resource Guide became the obvious main project.

My goals in writing the guide were: first, to tell other people with trans parents that they are not alone; second, to recognize that the entire family transitions when a parent transitions; and third, to provide compassionate advice from people who have similar families. In short, I hoped to create the book I wanted my father to give me when she came out to me over ten years ago. More→

Book Review: Live Through This

Posted by helenboyd – August 11, 2008

Not long ago, I picked up a copy of Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction. As many of you know, I used to write fiction all of the time – all of it as yet unpublished – and thought I might get in touch again with my creative self, and the relationship that creative self has to my own personal demons.

Because I remember avoiding therapy when I was 19 for fear that it would hurt my art.

It didn’t. But as a result, my favorite of this collection of essays by various female artists about the intersection of their angst & their art was Diane DiMassa‘s, who, in pictures of course, traces the way her conversations with her therapist became Hothead Paisan.

Of interest to a lot of people who read here is Kate Bornstein’s essay on her experiences with art, demons, & Scientology. So now we know she’s not only a remarkable author, playwright, and performer, but she’s also a pretty fantastic visual artist. (Not that that’s surprising.)

In some ways, this book may be more useful as a way to read about the women’s lives than it is to read about artistic process, though: so many of the essays are more about the strife that caused the art (which ranges from sexual abuse to drugs to cutting to anorexia) than about how the person managed to channel that into their art, exactly. What I’m always interested in is how artists – especially female artists – find the resources to keep going.

So it’s not a how-to guide, but it doesn’t purport to be one, either; it IS a remarkable bunch of women writing about what made their art. It’s published by the very cool Seven Stories, and of course available at amazon.com and independent booksellers.

News

Posted by helenboyd – July 29, 2008

T Family Resource

Posted by helenboyd – June 9, 2008

There’s a new publication available for families & parents of trans youth:

Families in TRANSition: A Resource Guide for Parents of Trans Youth is the first comprehensive Canadian publication to address the needs of parents and families supporting their trans children. Families in TRANSition summarizes the experiences, strategies, and successes of a working group of community consultants – researchers, counsellors, advocates, parents, as well as trans youth themselves.

The guide aims be inviting and inclusive of families who may be at any one of a number of stages, and especially so for parents who may have had their adolescent or young adult child come out recently as trans. Families in TRANSition provides practical and sensitive parent-to-parent and professional therapeutic advice, and tries to anticipate and address common questions and concerns, as well as normalize the varied reactions families may have. The guide offers accurate, up-to-date information on terminology, health, and issues related to transition, and suggests to families important ways they can take care of themselves and one another through this challenging and critical time. Families in TRANSition provides a provincial context and relevant Toronto resources for continued youth and family support towards strengthening families.

The guide will be available as a free pdf download from our website (www.ctys.org) after June 8th. You will also be able to purchase a hard copy through our website for a nominal fee.

It is so great to see more and more information like this out there.

NC Robo-Calls

Posted by helenboyd – April 30, 2008

I was recently in the running in a “Top Ten Female Bloggers” contest sponsored by WVWV.org, which, as it turns out, is the organization that seems to be behind some baffling robo-calls to voters in NC (amongst other places).

Now Women’s Voices is plunging North Carolina into the same confusion. State officials tell Facing South they are still receiving calls from frustrated and confused voters, wondering why “Lamont Williams” is offering to send them a “voter registration packet” after the deadline for mail-in registration for the primaries has passed.

In correspondence with North Carolina election officials, Women’s Voices founder and President Page Gardner merely said that the disruptive timing was an “unfortunate coincidence” — a strange alibi for a group with their level of resources and sophistication.

There are other questions about Women’s Voices’ outreach efforts. Although the group purports to be targeting “unmarried women,” their calls and mailings don’t fit the profile. Kevin Farmer in Durham, who first recorded the call, is a white male. Many of the recipients are African-American; Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is a married, male and African-American, reported that his house was called four times by the mysterious “Lamont Williams.”

Please let anyone you know in North Carolina that these robo-calls are probably illegal & contain misleading information. How much WVWV’s intent is to buck up Clinton’s chances in the primary remain to be seen, but in a state where something like 45% of the voters are African-American, sending voters confusing and wrong information is anti-democratic. If it’s intentional, then I’d call it racist, too.

White feminists, you’re really fucking up here.

(via Daily Kos).

Wish List

Posted by helenboyd – April 8, 2008

I’ve found myself back in Brooklyn after teaching a term at Lawrence and a semester at Merrimack, needing work.

I’d prefer teaching work in the NYC area, or lectures at colleges or the like, but really I’ll consider anything that pays okay. Lecture gigs are always good fun.

I am, of course, for hire as a coach, to help find transition resources, and for other trans-related stuff. I’m happy to provide an ear or a shoulder to cry on for trans people & partners alike.

I’m also a decent editor, writer, and admin. I’m a good lecturer and teacher. I can bookkeep if necessary. If you want to see more about what I do and what I’ve done, my author website is the place to check: www.helenboydbooks.com.

But if any of you know academics, especially in English or Gender Studies, please mention me to them.

& While I’m at it, I need a new literary agent who represents fiction, too. & A grant to finish writing my novel.

Okay, I think that’s it for now.

Rhymes with Sangria?

Posted by helenboyd – February 24, 2008

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.

New Resources

Posted by helenboyd – February 4, 2008

So I’ve discovered a few interesting new resources in team teaching Gender Studies 100 this semester, and never posted some I discovered last term. Here are a few:

  • The Trouble with Testosterone by Robert Sapolsky – a very accessible read about the popular misunderstandings about testosterone (for instance, that it causes aggression)
  • Iron Jawed Angels – about the last push for the vote for women in the US
  • The Fire, Earth, Water trilogy by Deepa Mehta – stunning, beautiful film series by a woman director about various aspects of Indian culture. Mehta has a gentle but powerful hand as a story-teller.

Voting Guide for T Voters

Posted by helenboyd – January 5, 2008

NCTE has put out a guide for trans people & voting that’s sure to be useful no matter what obstacles you, as a trans person, might face at the polls: http://nctequality.org/Resources/votingobstacles.pdf

A New Day

Posted by helenboyd – January 1, 2008

It’s the day Betty and I have been waiting for: the first day that isn’t 2007, at long last. We’re hoping 2008 will be a little kinder, maybe a little more amenable, which looks a little ironic from where I’m standing: amidst all the bags I have packed for Wisconsin. I am looking forward to teaching, to meeting various professors and students and even MHB readers, but there is also a part of me that doesn’t want to travel at all anymore; I just want a job, teaching most likely, somewhere I could live, and live with Betty, and have a home big enough for three cats and way too many books. As a result of the commute to North Andover this past fall, this trip to Wisconsin seems like the final test of my resources, or rather, if I ever had any slight bit of agoraphobia after 9/11, this trip is my proof that it’s all gone.

So, off we go. Tomorrow, Betty and I drive to Wisconsin, and we’re planning on arriving on Friday. If we can post from the road we will, but we might not be able to. Or we might not want to. Who knows? In either case, I’m on my way, and so is the new year.