Year: 2007

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Beyond the Law

A trans woman is leaving her job as a librarian despite discrimination protections. Jillian Todd-Weiss comments on her blog:

“Philadelphia has an ordinance prohibiting gender identity discrimination, as do a number of cities in Pennsylvania, some major corporations have gender identity EEO policies, and the state is considering legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There is obviously a lot of good-will in Pennsylvania for employment non-discrimination. But it doesn’t necessarily penetrate to the ordinary transgender person. “

Which leads me to conclude that the legislation or even inclusion in EEO policies will not fix it all: education is still absolutely necessary and required. The laws are no good if no one bothers to enforce them, after all, & authorities will not enforce them if they are prejudiced against trans people themselves.

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Nikki G.

Did you see the stunning & empowering Nikki Giovanni delivering a poem at the Virginia Tech service today? Was she remarkable or what? & A snappy dresser, to boot.

When I grow up I wanna be just like her.

It was as if her presence was to prove the point of why we need poets, as a culture. The spontaneous school cheer that went up was heartbreaking and healing, at once.

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Philly IFGE

When we arrived at IFGE, we were greeted nearly immediately by Veronica Vera & Mariette Pathy Allen, even while we were checking in! Miss Vera would answer the question “Are crossdressers obsolete?” in her opening remarks the next day, & she looked fantastic. (Her answer, in a nutshell, was “no.”)

Crossdressers made a graceful stand for their place in the trans community this year, as in addition to Miss Vera, Miqqi Gilbert received a Trinity Award & delivered an acceptance speech that both (1) asked crossdressers to step up & (2) asked anyone who would disrespect or exclude CDs to step off. I was damned glad to hear it, since there really are some trans women who come off so smug I often feel tempted to mention that being a woman does not prevent one from liking crossdressers.

Donna Rose (author of Wrapped in Blue) & Alyson Meiselman (one of Christie Lee Littleton‘s lawyers) won Trinity Awards as well, which was an interesting juxtaposition, since Donna Rose is on the Board of HRC, which I imagine Meiselman considers something like the Evil Empire, since she delivered an acceptance speech that detailed exactly how much groups like Equality Georgia (& by extension, groups like HRC) sold out the trans community by not excluding “gender identity & expression” in legislation that got them theirs (discrimination protection for gays & lesbians).

Dallas Denny was given the Virginia Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement, and intended to explain that she’d turned down the award in years past because she was the paid editor of Transgender Tapestry at the time, but as she stepped down last year, she felt free to accept it this year, & did so with a concise list of what concerns her about the current state of the trans community (underfunded orgs) & what encourages her (the increases in visibility).

The biggest, nicest surprise for us was having Jamison Green unexpectedly in attendance. He stayed over from having given the keynote at Trans Health the previous week in Philly. His presence always adds some warmth and intelligence.

Our favorite new personality & friend was Ethan St. Pierre of NTAC & TransFM & FUAH. (NTAC, btw, has merged with IFGE, the news of which was announced at this conference.) Betty finally got to meet the irrepressible Monica Helms, of TAVA, who I met last year when I went by myself, & many games of wise-cracking pool were played.

& There ends the bigwig update from IFGE. More on our personal experiences when I get there.

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Back from IFGE

‘Twas a lot of week while we were away: we left for IFGE Wednesday, and the very next day I accepted a job to teach Gender Studies & heard news of Kurt Vonnegut’s death; later I found out my uncle had died, too. On Saturday we got a call from our cat/fish-sitter who had to tell us our Omega – the last of our first generation of fish – had died as well.

Our 9th anniversary of having met was on Saturday, and New York State managed to get us our tax refund on Friday. I sold all the books I brought with me to IFGE – 27 in all – & I decided we should probably invest in a laptop for the rest of this tour.

Much more when I’ve gone through the mail, emails, & the like.

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Anniversary

Betty & I met nine years ago today. Who knew? One silly reading group meeting, me being impressive about Hemingway’s portrayal about women in his stories, and then him, very much him then, leaving coyly just as I was about to ask him out.

Our 1st date was two days later. The 2nd two days after that, and two days’ long. The third two days after that. & So on & so forth, till we got to here. (& What a long, strange trip it’s been. But a beautiful one, too.)

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Not Tonight, Dear

One woman has a low libido, & comes to raging conclusions about how most women do, too. (sigh)

For the record, for most of the couples who have attended my “Uneven Libidos” workshop (which I do exclusively at Dark Odyssey), just the opposite is true: more of the guys complain about having the lower libido. & I just wonder – since the one thing I would say is different about DO than about any other grouping of people talking about sex – if the difference depends very much on exactly how much experimentation the woman has done viz her own sexuality, that is, if she’s gone to any great lengths – & I mean great lengths – to find out what exactly turns her on.

Because I think there are still taboos in place, sometimes not even the ones from outside of us, the culture & our religions & our laws, even, but rather the ones that are inside. From where I’m standing, a lot of those internal taboos are about being correctly gendered in terms of our desires.

But one thing I’m clear about: what the world needs now is not another book about how women’s low libidos are natural, or that they’re low because women are women.

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Luckily Not Unlucky

Happy Friday the 13th, folks. (For most people, this is an “unlucky” day, but for those of us born on the 13th, just the opposite is true.) Here’s a black cat to go with your superstitions.