Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
My niece tells me that my sister just bought a guy’s bike because all of the women’s bikes came in lavender, light yellow, or pink. Maybe mint green.
So what is it about women that we can’t handle real colors? So many times I see women’s fashion in one window, and even like some stuff, but I want the same clothes in the men’s colors in the window right next door. Why do our colors have to be watered down?
It’s been a year of Catholics, hasn’t it? From the sad news about Ted Kennedy’s health, to the deaths of Tim Russert & George Carlin. So the editors of Queer + Catholic
I’m a contributor to this book – I’ll say that upfront to say that I’m biased – but I honestly didn’t know what to expect from it. I feared I would be one of very few to have anything positive to say. But the more of this book I read – and I’ve read almost all of it already – is that I was very, very wrong. The editors have chosen some of the most tender eulogies to their childhood Catholicism, some complicated appreciations of having been both queer and catholic, and honestly, some straight-up love letters to the mysteries that are the Catholic Church.
It is hard not to especially love hearing the way gay men talk about being Catholic: about the first time they noticed the obscenity and eroticism of the way Christ was portrayed, or the many martyred saints, the homoeroticism of all boys’ schools. The love and shame and pride are served up in such equal measure, but always with that kind of gentle, sad-eyed quality that gay men do so well.
How gender-y this book is struck me as well. My own piece is very much about gender, of course: I wanted to be a priest but found I had a vagina, horror of horrors. The other lovely female perverts and poets in this collection are uncanny in the way they talk about bodies, about blood, about sex.
Because Catholics are, as a lot, obsessed with sex. I had an older, experienced crossdresser once tell me that it’s always the Catholic girls who are wild rides. & I believe him.
What is in this book isn’t just sex though; we all, as Catholics, become a bit Jesuitical in seeing always both sides of the same coin. So that sex becomes suffering, and redemption; sex becomes shame, but also pride; sex becomes beauty, and divinity, and transcendence.
So there is something about declaring myself a Catholic that seems exactly right to me in the way the Church’s mysteries always enfolded a little more than you bargained for, and to me, that’s downright vulvic. Mother Church, indeed.
If you’re Catholic, or interested in religion, or in art, or homoeroticism, or spirituality – or any or all of the above – do get the book. These are some of the best, most personal, marrow-full essays I’ve read in a long, long time.
Kate Bornstein has gone ga-ga over WALL-E, as have tons of people. But only Kate Bornstein can talk about a robot movie and move seamlessly into a discussion of gender fluidity and butch/femme roles:
Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo can make all our hearts flutter. So can Justin Bond in a gown or a tux… or both! Gender ambiguity—when it’s safely positioned onstage or up on a movie screen—is and always has been sexy to damn near all of us, no matter what our gender might be. All of our desires are being tickled. So how’s that happening? What is it that’s signaling sexual attraction to an audience with such a wide range of gender identities and sexual desires? I think the answer is that WALL•E is butch, and EVE is femme, two genders defined by the expression of strong, respectful, sexual desire.
She kills me.
Just to clarify, since a few people have asked: we will indeed be at Dark Odyssey’s Summer Camp this year, which happens from September 10th – 15th. It’s probably our favorite event of the year. I’ll be doing two of my regular workshops at DO: Trans Sex & Identity, and Uneven Libidos.
If I haven’t made clear what we love about this event, let me say: it’s inclusive. Beyond inclusive. The mix of sexualities – queer, straight, BDSM, kinky, leather, swinger, pagan, etc. – is mind-blowing. It’s sex positive in a way that nothing else I’ve experienced is.
It is very trans friendly, but you’ll only want to bring heels that you wear when you’re on your back, not to walk in – most of the camp is grass. There’s a pool, there’s lounge chairs, & there’s plenty of trees to be tied to, if that’s your sort of thing.
(You can check out a bunch of other posts I’ve done about DO over the years we’ve been going to get more of an idea.)
Not only are a ton of queens on Project Runway, but the benefits will be donated to Broadway Cares, in true queen style.
Sweetie looks fucking fantastic. But all of the NY queens we know are fabulous: Hedda Lettuce, Miss Understood, Acid Betty, Sherry Vine. (I hope I didn’t miss anyone!)
Thanks, ladies.
& Here’s Keith Olbermann on Diane Schroer. Genius.
The ACLU has a stunning blog post up about the Diane Schroer / Library of Congress case.
Science doesn’t matter, the Library insists, it’s what Congress was thinking of when it passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Everett Dirksen,†a reporter said to me in the hall outside Court, “wasn’t thinking of Diane Schroer when he helped pass the Civil Rights Act.†“Probably true,†I said as she headed off to meet her cameraman, “but James Madison wasn’t thinking of TV when he penned the First Amendment either.â€
The issue isn’t the way someone who wrote or voted for a law was thinking it would apply; the issue is the concept embodied in the law. What was the idea? The flip answer is that on this point, Congress didn’t have an idea; many of those who voted to put sex into the 1964 Civil Rights Act were hoping it would kill the bill.
But in 1964, as today, it is hard to believe that anyone thought sex was just about chromosomes or even just anatomy. It was about the whole package. The issue in the case is how does that idea apply in a world where the package is different than we thought in 1964, a reflection of more things than we thought, maybe not including a lot of things we thought, maybe more fluid than we thought.
It was written by Matt Coles, the Director of the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & AIDS projects. Read it.
Rachel Maddow will have her own show on MSNBC starting September 8th, 2008. It’ll be at 9PM, after Keith Olbermann. We’re both big fans of hers, and are very very pleased that all her guest hosting for Olbermann panned out.
Betty’s off to CO to get some necessary dental surgery – that’s dental, not genital – and will be gone for a few weeks since it’s such extensive surgery. And once again I’m in Brooklyn without her, and I’m always amazed at how purposeless I feel for the first day or so when she’s gone. I’m so used to her coming home and being her big self on the other side of the living room, playing songs for me or changing the channel or telling me about what’s going on in the lefty blogosphere.
What’s funny to me is how much I’ve always liked and appreciated time to myself, and how unused to having time alone I’ve become.
MSG has a contest going – like American Idol – of musicians who play in the NYC subways. They aired 16 for the first round, which has already been aired, & yesterday they revealed the 8 that got the most “change.” That’s how you vote for them – you drop virtual change in their baskets, at the MSG website. Eventually they’ll eliminate all but one.
Clever idea, & some really good musicians. Do check it out. You can start by catching up with Episode 1, and you can find more information about the voting and how they chose the musicians, also on their website.