MHB Goes to College!

Since the fall, I’ve discovered that MHB is being taught in a few college classes:
At the University of Vermont, it’s being taught as part of an Anthropology class, for the section of the class about “Kinship and Identity.”
At Columbia, it will be taught this semester as part of a “Feminist Texts 2” class.
At USC, Dr. Richard Docter is teaching it in his course on Transgender Issues.
If you hear of any others, I’d love to know!

Subordinate

Here’s some depressing news from The New York Times:
“A new study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college undergraduates, suggests that men going for long-term relationships would rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors.”
(The entire article can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/opinion/13dowd.html?oref=login&hp)
I doubt this is going to be big news to any women out there, but it’s kind of frightening that it’s actually supported by a survey.
The implications?
Men choose women who are subordinate to them for marriage.
If you look at it one way, the man with an IQ of 150 who makes $100k a year is most likely to marry a woman who has an IQ of less than 150 and earns less than $100k.
Which also means that a woman with an IQ of 150 who makes $100k a year is either going to end up single or marrying a man who has an IQ that is higher than her own and who makes more money – because the men in this study ARE CHOOSING TO MARRY WOMEN WHO ARE SUBORDINATE.
I’m sure plenty of powerful women are dating younger, less powerful hotties. But that’s not the point. The point is that when those hotties choose to get married, they’re going to marry a woman who is subordinate to them, too.
If this trend continues, every single one of my nieces is going to have two choices: to marry a man more powerful than her or to marry a man more powerful than her (or being single, or a lesbian, I suppose).
The study also indicates that it is also unlikely that the guy even pick someone who is an equal in these regards.
To me, it’s like playing any game or sport you’re good at. The guys in this survey are basically saying that they always want to play with someone they’re superior to. The intimation is that they are stacking the odds in their own favor.
One of the researchers, Dr. Stephanie Brown, is quoted as saying: “Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them.”
Men are choosing subordinate partners because they are insecure around powerful women. They are concerned that strong, smart, salaried women might not be faithful. Imagine if women did that: no one would ever get married, both sides standing off to the sides waiting to be the more “dominant” partner.
This report is sickening & depressing to me. Deeply. Because I do have ten nieces, and I thought the world had changed a lot more since when I was a kid, but this survey – and the report about it – pretty much shows that girls are in the same shitty position they’ve always been in: either be okay with being subordinate and married, or be single. Or marry a tranny, I guess.
Since the study was done on undergraduates, I can only that eventually men do wise up – maybe once they’re dating more in their 20s and 30s, and maybe they come to appreciate having an equal, challenging partner.
Still in all, depressing news.

Meeting Miss Vera

As quite a surprise to both me and Betty, the always lovely (& eternally amused) Mariette Pathy Allen decided to bring a “friend” to the New Year’s Day performance of “The Trial.”
Mariette does not have average friends! She brought Miss Veronica Vera, the one and only.
Finally, after these many years, we got to meet Miss Vera. I wanted to thank her for the sex-positive work she’s done, aside from the tranny work she’d done with the “Finishing School for Boys Who Want To Be Girls,” of course. It was her first book that alerted me to the fact that some CDs do have erotic tastes for boys when en femme. I remember reading that, and comparing it to what various websites had to say on the subject, and realizing that Miss Vera had no reason to lie (while websites put up by CDs, well, might – especially if they knew their wives were reading them!)
So we met her: as curvaceous as she is smart, Miss Vera proved to be a lot of fun, just as you’d expect. We accidentally ran into each other on our way into/out of the Ladies’ Room, and compiled about a lifetime’s worth of sex stories into about 11 minutes’ chat. Then we rejoined everyone else; we did manage to take a few pictures, but only with Betty’s camera, & the quality is pretty sucky (though Betty has promised me photoshop’d versions forthwith.)us with mariette & veronica
It turns out Miss Vera is also going to be delivering the Banquet Speech at this year’s First Event, so if you’re in the Boston area (or otherwise have the time and money) don’t miss it. She’s a powerhouse of an ally, indulgent of most sexual proclivities, and absolutely gorgeous.
< < A very blurry picture of Miss Veronica Vera and Mariette Pathy Allen (with us squeezed inbetween).

Illinois Anti-Discrimination Bill Close to Passing

HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES Passes Illinois Anti-Discrimination Bill
Only Remaining Step is Governor’s Signature
The bill that passed the Illinois Senate yesterday, easily passed through the House of Representatives and is on to the Governor’s desk. Sixty-five members of the House voted for the bill.
Upon the Governor’s signature, Illinois will become the fifth state with anti-discrimination protections for transgender people and the fifteenth protecting people based on sexual orientation.
Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on this bill which has been on the works in various forms for thrity years.
For more information on the bill and its passage in the Senate, see the Illinois Gender Advocates (IGA) website at www.genderadvocates.org/TakeAction/TakeAction.html or the Equality Illinois website at www.equalityillinois.org.
(thanks to the NCTE for the press release!)

Board Betty

As some of you may know, Betty was being considered for membership on the board of a nation trans organization.
Tonight, we met with NCTE Director Mara Keisling who confirmed that Betty will indeed be one of the NCTE’s Board Members. NCTE (National Center for Transgender Equality) “is a social justice organization dedicated to advancing the equality of transgender people through advocacy, collaboration and empowerment.” So says their website. We’ve met with Mara Keisling a few times and have been continually impressed by her dedication, political savvy, and her wit.
Please do go check out their website, read more about them, and if you can – make a donation! (Tell them Helen & Betty sent you, too!)

Last Performance

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of your who came to see Betty in The Trial – especially before that stunning New York Times review came out, which said:
This noir reading is at its most effective in a comically creepy scene when Joseph K. visits the garret of the court portraitist, Titorelli, played by a throaty, androgynous Jason C_____.
Androgynous, indeed. It turned out to be a very successful show, and a perfect start for a new theatre.
Thanks again to all who came, and we’ll let you know the next time Betty is onstage!

The Boards are Back Up

The Boards are back up, for your pleasure.
I have no idea what happened, but the good folks at our hosting company fixed it overnight.
Now, onto 20,000 posts!

Message Boards Down

For unknown reasons, the MHB Message Boards are currently down. Betty is onstage, but our hosting company is aware of the problem.
This has happened before, and usually takes a few hours to straighten out. As far as I know, they went down sometime between 5:30 and 7:30 PM est.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Helen Boyd

Us Vs. Them

About a decade ago, I went to a forum about the cultural differences & rifts between African-Americans and Caribbean Americans. The first part of the forum was presented by a panel, very intellectual & cross-referenced; the second half was a Q&A, where tempers flared but remained polite. The basic issue was that Caribbean Americans hated being mistaken for African-Americans for various reasons, and the African-Americans hated being mistaken for Caribbean Americans.
I remember sitting there thinking, “My brother would call you all n******.”
But what that forum clarified for me was not the actual experience of Caribbean or African-Americans; it was the stereotypes of both that offended both groups. The Caribbean blacks hated people thinking they were African-American exactly because of what people think of African-Americans (that they’re all on welfare, etc) & vice versa. Some of these prejudices were based on truths or half-truths, like that Caribbean Americans all had AIDS. (At the time, Haitians could not donate blood because of heightened concerns about HIV infection). So you’ve got a group of African-Americans hating the fact that they were mistaken for having HIV, because they believed a lot of Caribbean Americans had AIDS, when of course it wasn’t all Caribbean Americans but only Haitians, and in fact Haitians had a higher incidence of HIV due to things that had nothing to do with their behavior, anyway (it turned out, instead, that it was linked with higher previous infections of TB in the Haitian population). Of course, too, no-one wanted to be mistaken for someone with HIV, either, because HIV had already been demonized as happening to people because of sexual conduct and/or needle drug use.
In effect, you had two groups of people who were both oppressed because of the shared color of their skin who spent an entire evening focusing on what they didn’t have in common instead of fighting the prejudices they faced because of their skin color.
I’ve come to about the same conclusion with the arguments between hsts “transkids” and other transsexuals. (I say “other” and not AGP or “late-transitioning” or “secondary” because I don’t think there are only two types of transsexuals). The hsts set doesn’t want to be told they’re paraphilic because that’s what the Blanchard-Bailey junta says about non-hsts transsexuals. The other transsexuals resent being both forced into a box they don’t fit and being told their motivation is sexual in some way or another.
So you’ve got the hsts set not wanting anyone to think they’re “perverts” or nutjobs because transitioning, for them, is about “practical” issues like social and sexual success in life. On the other hand, you’ve got the rest of the transsexuals – the non-hsts type – who don’t want to be told they’re not really transsexuals, or that they are somehow lesser, less real, secondary, or transitioning for some other than “practical” reasons.
And I have to say, my brother would still call you all “n******.”
Really, a lot of people might see hsts transsexuals as self-hating gay men who can’t deal with the homophobia and misogyny within and without the gay community, and who sidestep those issues by becoming women. A lot of people see the non-hsts transsexuals as deviants, perverts, mentally ill and selfish freaks.
Why it seems reasonable for any group to empower themselves by demonizing another group is foreign to me. Why any group would align themselves with a so-called scientist who has been known to abuse the power of his position in order to sleep with his subjects (even while they complain about the power and access other transsexuals have and use in order to educate the public about transsexualism) is also foreign to me. Why any transsexuals go out of their way to “out,” demonize, or work against another group of transsexuals as some kind of “strategy” is also beyond me.
That each of these self-identified groups has differences, to me, is cause only for each group to watch out for and protect their own. That I understand. If one group is neglecting the needs of a subset of their own population, then it stands to reason that that subset has got to be vocal about what they need – and failing help from the larger group – has got to figure out a way to provide their services to the population that needs it.
Instead, transkids are getting kicked out of their homes while other transsexuals are losing their jobs, and people are online fighting about which group is “right.” Essays are written, emails exchanged, posts added to message boards or newsgroups, and my brother is still calling you all “n******.”
So I’m gonna go listen to Leadbelly. I don’t know where he was from, or where he was raised, but he was one damn great musician, and to me, that’s all that ever matters.
Continue reading “Us Vs. Them”