Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
A woman named Sharon Underwood, who is the mother of a gay son, wrote a letter to of Vermont’s Concord Monitor that was published on April 30, 2000.
I found it here, via Bilerico, & I’m reprinting it here in its entirety, below the break. Read it. Remind yourself of it every time one of our presidential candidates waffles over homosexuality during the debates. Continue reading “A Letter That Needs Re-Reading”
Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Crossdressing: Erotic Stories
It turns out young black men have a better chance of getting made fun of for reading books than for playing sports. Not news, I know, but the commentary on how that fact intersects with gender is:
John Thomas, superintendent of the Aliquippa School District, said the notion that black men who read books are less masculine is one that should be dispelled in the African-American community. “It’s just as powerful to carry a book as it is to carry a football or a basketball, because the power of knowledge is in the books,” he said. “If we prepare our bodies for the gridiron or the basketball court, to me it’s just as important to prepare your mind to survive in society. The body will soon wear out for athletic competition, but knowledge you have will carry you through life.”
What’s interesting to me is that the cultural forces that would discourage black men from learning – because being brainy isn’t considered “masculine” or “strong” – are exactly the opposite of the ones at play that have historically kept women from learning, who are/were told that being too brainy makes a woman “unfeminine.”
& When cultural forces say being smart isn’t masculine to one group, & too masculine to another, you know there’s something rotten in Denmark.
Today The New York Times published this piece, “The Author Will Take Q.’s Now,” about what it’s like to be an author these days. The funny thing is that I probably do more in-person touring because of the various trans conferences, and because – let’s be honest- the trans community isn’t the same as a bunch of people who are enthusiastic about baking or reading novels, because there are real needs involved, whether for trans people or partners themselves or for the community as a whole.
Still, if any of you are regular readers of other blogs, especially ones that review books and authors, do let them know about my book so that I might guest blog elsewhere.
From the This is Oddly Familiar Department:
Author & New Orleans Times-Picayune journalist Chris Rose has an anthology of essays out called 1 Dead in Attic, all of them written in the aftermath of Katrina. I read a lot of them online, including the one he wrote about battling depression as a result of the devastating hurricane. It turns out his editor got a call from the producers at Oprah, who in turn told his editor that they didn’t want him to talk about his book at all – they just wanted him to talk about his depression. So much for years of journalism, and for writing some of the best essays to come out of Katrina – stripped as an author, he just gets to be a sad guy talking about his experience going on anti-depressants as a result of the storm.
Silly show, Oprah. It really is. You’d think a woman who made her way to stardom via a movie based on a well-received novel would show a little more respect for writers.
& This is Oddly Familiar to me, of course, because it’s exactly what happened to me on The Dr. Keith Show, & Dr. Keith is also the author of books & knows from publicity. They did at least put up something about Chris Rose’s book on Oprah’s website.
Pity they wasted all that time on James Frey, instead of giving airtime to a guy who wrote about what actually happened to him.
In this essay posted on Monica Roberts’ TransGriot blog, Monica Helms of the Transgender Americans Veterans Association (TAVA) talks about her experiences working with the DNC which she concludes by writing:
What I personally would like to see is an increase in registered Democrats in the transgender community and to see an increase in transgender people volunteering with the DNC at a local level. I would also hope to live long enough to see an openly transgender person speak from the podium at the democratic National Convention and to see an openly transgender person elected to Congress. This is truly the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION in our lifetimes. It is time for the Democratic Party to fully recognize us a part of their party, on all levels. They appear to be doing that. Now, it’s time for us to help Democrats on all levels of government to win in 2008.
Here’s a friendly, though odd and occasionally tense, interview on a local Bahamas TV show with a resident transsexual woman. She does seem to give as good as she gets, & stands up for herself in cool ways, but the interviewers – despite their joking, confusion & homophobia – do pretty okay with it. They seem genuinely astonished that a Bahamanian could be trans.