YouTube is evil, evil, evil.
But this time you can blame it on Diana Lynn, who posted a link to a Pink performance, and got me wondering if there was any cool Ants stuff online.
And – through the wonders of modern technology I found the video for the song “Stand & Deliver!” that way back when turned on my hormones. Really, I watched it again, & again, & again.
If only everyone dressed like this all the time. Really, do watch it, even if it’s just for a “how retro” kind of moment.
Dyke TV ED – and other remarkable women
Tonight Betty & I went to a party for a friend of ours who recently became ED for Dyke-TV, which is a non-profit media outlet. As she pointed out, it’s one of a dying breed.
Cynthia is the one who threw the successful fundraiser for SRLP last summer. She’s a smart, funny person who has always welcomed us as the odd queer couple we are.
Tonight, she threw a fundraiser for Dyke TV instead of just having a birthday party for herself. She got local stores to throw in raffle prizes, asked for checks, & a cover charge – and all in all, I bet she made a nice sum for her org.
What struck me – and pardon me after three glasses of wine – was how freaking cool people can be. We met interesting people, said hello to others we already know – like Red & her girlfriend – and while I was talking to a Drag King who was telling me about some women in her beauty school classes, I sat there & wondered: why is it I’m queer? It’s not because I fell in love with Betty; I was queer long before then. I wonder sometimes, if I were growing up now, what I would be like, if I would be any different than I am, but sometimes, just sometimes, I find it unfortunate that I always liked having sex with guys.
And yes, I still do. Makes me feel like a traitor in such lovely lesbian/queer spaces. And yet, more & more, I’m aware that I fit there, despite my sexual orientation; I fit there even without Betty on my arm. (& Any of you have met Betty know she isn’t on my arm for long at a party; sometimes I have a hard time finding her, she’s flirting with so many people at once.)
But: yes. I guess I just wanted to let someone know that Cynthia is one damned cool woman who threw a great party she could have thrown for herself – but didn’t.
From the Catalog
We’ve written a description of She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband for Seal‘s catalog, and since everyone has asked what exactly this next book is about, I thought I’d share it.
Not that it will answer all your questions; only the book will do that, ultimately.
She’s Not the Man I Married was inspired by the crisis in one couple’s marriage: Helen Boyd’s husband, who had long been open about being transgender, was considering living as a woman fulltime. Boyd was confronted with what it would mean if her husband actually were to become a woman socially, legally, and medically, and whether or not her love and desire for her partner would remain the same if he became ‘she’.
Boyd’s first book, My Husband Betty, explored the relationships of crossdressing men and their partners. She’s Not the Man I Married is in some ways both a sequel and a more serious and expansive examination of gender in relationships, for couples who are homosexual or heterosexual, and who fall anywhere along the gender continuum.
Boyd’s marriage serves as a platform for exploring the problems with gender in relationships. She struggles to understand the nature of commitment, love, and desire. Boyd’s strength is in her ability to share her doubts, confusion, and anger, offering anyone who’s in a relationship a lens through which to make sense of their own loves and losses, desires and disappointments. She’s Not the Man I Married is a fascinating consideration of the ways in which relationships are gendered, how gender limits us in the ways we love, and how we cope – or don’t – with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to our marriages and relationships.
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Happy Mother's Day!
Take care of your mom today, thank her for being selfless, to whatever degree she was.
Thanking anyone who’s mothered you might be a good idea in general.
Then go and sign a petition to help working moms at www.momsrising.org. Do check out the new book The Motherhood Manifesto, too.
But most importantly, read this heartwarming piece about motherhood by Natalie Angier.
Happy Birthday to Us!
It’s Betty’s and my 37th birthday today.
For those of you who don’t know: same year, same day. We are relieved to know at least that our mothers were in New York (me) and Wyoming (Betty) delivering, since this way we know we’re not twins separated at birth.
(Come to think of it, if we ever say we live “like sisters,” we’re going to have to be twins. Fraternal, of course. Oh, no: sororal, rather. Ick, ick, and ick: I still don’t understand how anyone can say that about someone they are having / used to have sex with.)
Me and All of Them
Betty is obviously the one taking the picture, or she’d be in the shot, too.
You're a Bigger One
From a book called The Forty-Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role:
“Hawks” on the issue of war are considered more masculine than “doves;” when Senator Goodell changed his position from supporter of Vietnam to critic, Spiro Agnew christened him the “Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party.”
He is explaining how the four ‘commandments’ of masculinity make up ways to be considered masculine if you’re a man, and they include: 1) No Sissy Stuff; 2) The Big Wheel; 3) The Sturdy Oak; and 4) Give ‘Em Hell. He talks about the way masculinity’s requirements gets more flexible into adulthood because having high status can eliminate or less the need for physical power and aggressiveness, which are required for adolescents who don’t have as much access to status and accomplishment yet. Then he goes on to clarify:
But one rule has not changed appreciably: the old first commandment of No Sissy Stuff! remains intact, with almost all the force it possessed in the testing period of adolescence.
Five Questions With… Doug McKeown
Douglas McKeown is the facilitator of the Queer Stories workshop – one of the results of which was the book Queer Stories for Boys. Doug has worked as a teacher, actor, writer, scenic designer, and a director of stage and screen; his low-budget sci-fi/horror movie The Deadly Spawn [1983], has been restored and released on DVD [2004]).
< one of Doug McKeown’s childhood costumes. For more photos, check the Queer Stories for Boys website.
1) With both Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica getting nominations all over the place, it’s like The Year for Mainstreaming LGBT Lives. Why now, do you think? How do you feel about straight actors getting all the good gay roles?
Well, exactly how many out gay actors are there in the upper echelons? I mean, considering that the answer to that has to be “precious few,†doesn’t one just want to cast the actor who best suits the character? Did McMurtry know or care about Heath Ledger’s sex life when he turned to Ossana during a screening of “Monster’s Ball†and whispered, “That’s our Ennis?†(Uh-oh, I’m answering with questions. Let me get my declaratives lined up.) As for why now, I have no idea. I could guess. It may be that people in this country in general (unconsciously?) have simply had it with the national bullshit of the last several years — in entertainment as well as politics — and are craving the strongest possible dose of truth and humanity (unconsciously?), especially if it shocks their systems. Like a bracing shower. Well, that may be wishful thinking. I really don’t know the answer.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Doug McKeown”
Pledging Sexual Purity (to your Dad)
This little bit on Hulabaloo is one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in a while: daughters dressed in prom-type dresses go to a Purity Ball with their dads, and they learn to fox-trot together. All good. But then at some point during the ball, the girl looks up at her father and says:
“I pledge to remain sexually pure…until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. … I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.”
Patriarchy, anyone?