There are interviews with two transgender prisoners in the MSNBC documentary about San Quentin. They’re both positive about being there, and one woman in particular is pretty pleased that she can live with her husband in prison.
Indian FTMs
An article predominantly about lesbians and FTMs in India (despite the photo of MTFs dancing) appeared in The Hindu, India’s national paper. The West is blamed for intolerant attitudes:
The hostility to alternate sexualities, LesBIT activists say, is a modern phenomenon. Evidence of lesbian, bisexual and transgender relationships can be found in Vedic literature, tantra, Sufi poetry, and in the ancient sculptures o f Konark and Khajuraho. The criminalisation of gay, lesbian and transgender sexuality is, however, a product of the Victorian morality of British colonialism. What is interesting is that while homosexual marriages are today legally recognised in the United Kingdom, they continue to be criminalised in India.
That is, the Hjira may be evidence of a tolerant past, but their existence doesn’t prove a tolerant present.
Globally Re-Gagged
Well, here’s a bit of good news: the Senate voted to repeal the Global Gag rule. The Global Gag Rule was put in place by Reagan (removed by Clinton & reinstated by Dubya) and prevented the U.S. from funding any organizations that even mentioned abortion as an option when providing services or counseling to women in need. In legislation introduced by Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), this restriction was lifted (and people think having women in positions of power doesn’t matter!)
The good news is that the House already passed similar legislation in June and the two versions will be reconciled so that Dubya can veto it, sadly. But at least our legislators are fighting back some on this issue.
The Sound of Their Wings
The author who came up with three of the most extraordinary characters of children’s literature has died, her publicist confirmed today. Madelaine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, which shaped so many of our lives, died in a nursing home of natural causes at the age of 88.
Those three characters were all children, and children who defied stereotypes: (1) Megaparsec, the pugnacious, practical and strong older sister of (2) Charles Wallace, who is a brilliant, delicate, intuitive boy. And then there is (3) the frequently forgotten but equally lovely Calvin O’Keefe – poor, gangly, and heroic.
For me, all of them – plus the Wallace parents, the angelic Proginoskes, and of course Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit – lived in a universe (well, several) I longed for. A Wind in the Door was my favorite of all her books, one I will take the time to re-read this weekend, in her memory.
It’s an extraordinary thing for me as she was the author whose stories inspired me to pick up a pen: the first story I ever wrote, when I was about 9, was a terrible knockoff of A Wrinkle in Time I called “Rainy Day.” My sister always related to Meg, and not too surprisingly, I always felt a simpatico with Charles Wallace.
Godspeed, Ms. L’Engle. Thank you for everything.
Smoking = Death, & Other Gruesome Things
I saw a recent public service announcement that I can’t call anything but gruesome: it’s someone who has gotten gangrene on their feet as a result of smoking. I don’t know how; when I saw it, I was too blown away even to listen to what they were saying. Aside from the shock factor having defeated educating people, I’m really tired of being the only group being singled out for sucking because of something we do.
I mean, diabetics lose their feet if they don’t manage their diabetes, right? & A lot of people can prevent getting diabetes or can manage it if they live healthy lives. But a lot don’t, & they end up in diabetic comas or lose their feet. So where’s their public service announcement?
What about the kids of women who die of heart disease? Where are those public service announcements? Men who die of heart attacks or prostate cancer (which can often be caught early with prostate exams)? Don’t they all suck as much as smokers in not caring for their health?
I can’t smoke anywhere in public anymore, so it’s not like I’m harming anyone’s health but my own at this point. So why can’t I make a choice to neglect my health like everyone else without watching these gruesome ads about all the things that may happen to me?
Yes, I know I should stop smoking. But people should exercise & go to the doctor regularly & lose some weight, too. I just have a hard time believing that I’m the only one who is negligent about my health.
Aurora the Wounded
As much as I was hoping Aurora would stay healthy forever & never return to the vet again, she got into a kerfuffle with one of the other cats, we think; with Aeneas specifically, we think. She ended up with an abscess in her right paw which got more swollen every day until we brought her in. She was, as ever, hellfire in fur. But the vet got her revenge: to keep Aurora from licking her paw, she put her in one of those cone things.
She was not happy about the situation, and of course it took her about an hour to get it off the first time. I ended up rigging up my own device, a kind of sling made out of nylon knee-hi’s, to keep her from licking her foot, and then after a few days on the antibiotics, & with the swelling having gone down, we freed her from all of it.
Remarkably, she’s an excellent pill-taker, though as the days of antibiotics go on, she’s getting more resistant. A bonita flake or two afterwards seems to help keep her from rejecting them entirely.
It’s good to be home with all my loved ones, pill-taking crankypants cat included.
Gender Traitor
Recently I did a talk that one of my queer femme friends attended, and at some point during the talk I mentioned what a hard time I had with Betty’s femininity because it brought up my own issues with my own “failed” femininity. Afterwards, she asked, “Well don’t I drive you nuts, then?” or something like that.
& The funny thing is: no, she doesn’t. Aside from her being a nice person who takes people as they come (moreso even than most other open-minded folks I know), she’s a queer femme. & The girls who were the bane of my existence – and the women who still are – were almost always straight femmes. Because queer femmes are somehow different than their straight sisters. For starters, they flirt with me, & I can flirt with them, & even though everyone knows nothing is happening, there’s a script of sorts that jives with everyone involved. Queer femmes have met other women with my gender before, & a lot of the time, they’ve dated them too. Our genders are mutually complimentary, you might say. Butches seem occasonally puzzled by me, or they seem to understand me, or they accept me as some kind of liminal butch, but they certainly aren’t threatened. Gay men – femme and masculine – seem to get that I’m not a jerk. (Or, as a gay friend said when he met me, “Oh, so you’re hip?” – after which we didn’t really need to discuss anything about my gender or SO beyond that.)
But it’s straight feminine women I can’t seem to have an un-awkward conversation with; often I feel like they’re worried I’m going to hit on them, and/or that their boyfriend is going to like me better than them (because of that “one of the guys” thing). Sometimes I swear they’re worried about both simultaneously. Straight feminine women seem to have way more invested in a kind of combative, competitive relationship between women – you know, who is the prettiest, the most feminine, the most fashion sense, or who gets the most attention from boys. Mostly I feel like I’m being asked to a duel but I haven’t got a pistol & I don’t the rules and I don’t know who I challenged and certainly didn’t mean to. It’s really like being in a culture that I don’t know & I’m not familiar with, the way that sometimes, as a white person, another white person will say something racist to you as if assuming you agree, or as a straight person, having another straight person make a homophobic joke assuming you’ll think it’s funny, too. Straight women like to complain about “what a guy” their man is, & how they don’t understand them at all, especially how they don’t hear anything when they’re playing a computer game or the like. And when I’ve said something along the lines of, “yeah, well I tend to tune out when I’m playing The Sims,” I get stares all around as if they’ve discovered a traitor in their midst.
And I am, I guess, a gender traitor. I don’t have much in common with the people who are assumedly “my tribe” – other heterosexual women. I don’t know how to talk to them. I don’t know how to make them feel better about themselves, or reassure them that I really dress the way I do on purpose. But it hadn’t occurred to me that it wasn’t all feminine women I felt that way about until my friend asked me that question. Looking back, it’s often been queer femmes who have helped me think about femininity in ways that didn’t just piss me off.
How the World Was
Betty & I recently went to a ‘family-friendly’ kind of amusement park while we were in Pennsylvania with my family. We were going to celebrate my grandaunt’s 85th birthday; since no one’s explained the situation to her & she adores ‘Jason,’ Betty decided to go in guy mode to keep things simple. We had a nice day at the park, especially the walking around hand in hand & being able to kiss in public for the day bits. At some point we were talking to my mom about how it was to be a straight couple again for a day, and my mom, being the loving, naive woman she can be, said something along the lines of how we should feel comfortable anywhere. Of course we aren’t, & I had to explain that in places where I see a lot of people are wearing Jesus t-shirts, WWJD stuff, etc., I often feel especially uncomfortable and not welcome. She was unfortunately not surprised but finds it a sad commentary on American christianity.
(Hey, queer-friendly Christians! Take your religion back from the haters!)
Later the same day I was waiting online for the the merry go ’round with my youngest niece, & a girl who was a little developmentally disabled was waiting on line next to us. She asked us which animal we wanted to ride on, and pointed out that she was set on the big gold carriage. We had a nice chat about the park, & who had brought her, & about my family. After the ride was over, I had this moment that I realized it took a really long time for people like her to be able to go to a family park, too. We used to keep “people like that” out of the public eye, you know?
& In some small way that gave me a moment of hope.
Sept. 5th: Trans Partners Group
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.
Alt Marriage
It seems medieval Europe was a lot hipper than we might assume.