Year: 2007

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Five Questions With… Virginia Erhardt

Virginia Erhardt, Ph.D. is a licensed therapist, a founding member of the American Gender Institute, and the author of Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay with Crossdressers and Transsexuals. She published her first article concerning the partners of trans people back in 1999 after publishing a workbook for lesbian couples called Journey Toward Intimacy. She is a regular at trans conferences like the upcoming IFGE Conference.

(1) How long did it take you to compile the stories in Head Over Heels? Where did you find partners who were willing to talk about their experiences?

It was about two and a half years from the point at which I began soliciting participation in 2002 and then sent out questionnaires, until the time when I had created “stories” from the SOs’ responses to my questions. During that time I also worked on my substantive, didactic chapters. It took another two years and a few months from the time when I completed the project and signed a contract with The Haworth Press until Head Over Heels was in print.

I put out a Call for Participants to every online listserve and transgender print publication I could think of. I also requested participation from people at trans conferences at which I presented. Continue reading “Five Questions With… Virginia Erhardt”

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Female Bonding

Wow.

Donna sent me a link to an episode of “Real Housewives of Orange County” which is one of those shows that’s supposed to convince us that rich people have real problems, too. I’m really kind of astounded by it; as much as I wrote Chapter 2 of She’s Not the Man I Married with more of a theoretical shoe-buying bonding moment between women in mind, I didn’t expect to actually see something like this on TV, much less that the store these women go to happens to be a Jimmy Choos, since that’s one of the types of shoes I mentioned. (The other was Kenneth Cole.)

But, yeah. This kind of scene is enough to give me hives all over again, from all those years just trying to buy a pair of summer sandals that I didn’t hate. If this is “women” then I’m not of them.

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The Riches

The new Eddie Izzard show, “The Riches,” is about to start on F/X.

“A wild new playground for a TV drama,” says Newsweek.

& Apparently the son likes to wear dresses.

“Could be worse,” says the wife.
“He could be on crack,” says Izzard’s character.

But Eddie Izzard as a con man – somehow, it’s perfect. It gives him a chance to be the eight million people he can be – the kind of broodiness I’ve seen him do on Broadway, but then that big used-car salesman schmaltzy guy he does, too – which has nothing to do with him being a transvestite, & everything to do with him being a really good actor.

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Women’s Health Budget Cut

The Office of Women’s Health – which researches funding on women’s medical issues such as menopause, birth control, pregnancy & the like – was allocated $4 million. $2.8 million of that is already spent or appropriated, and the final $1.2 million won’t be coming at all.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to withhold 30 percent of the funding allocated for the Office of Women’s Health in 2007, an unnamed, high level official told the Washington Post.

The source isn’t allowed to speak publicly about it and remained unnamed.

Um, isn’t that our money?! As taxpayers? Shouldn’t we at least know who made this decision and why? This type of mumblefuck is exactly why we need more women in government. Sure we’re 51%, but with nothing close to that in terms of representation. I guess this is the way the Feds decided to celebrate Women’s History Month: thanks, guys.

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Hard to Believe We’re All One Species, Sometimes

This, in a report about a 72 year old man who was beaten for being a homosexual:

Anthos, who was helping a wheel-chair-bound friend who was stuck in the snow, was struck with a metal pipe by a man he had been riding the bus with that evening.

Okay, now read that sentence again.

Isn’t it hard to believe those two men are the same species, sometimes? It reminds me of those lyrics from Family Affair by Sly & the Family Stone:

One child grows up to be
Somebody that just loves to learn
And another child grows up to be
Somebody you’d just love to burn

At the very least, they are going to prosecute the murderer for a hate crime, but you know, what about the friend in the wheelchair? Shouldn’t the murderer have to pay for the person to hire an attendant now that he’s taken his friend’s help from him? I think so.