Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
If you know anyone who is buying the bullshit about involuntary euthanasia for older people or *whatever* bullshit is out there, just have them watch this:
You can read about it, too, at HuffPo.
As an American, it makes me ashamed, very, very ashamed. Please give Obama your support, and your representatives an earful (especially those of you in those goddamn blue dog Democrat districts).
There’s a great piece today in the NYT by Barbara Ehrenreich about the criminalization of the poor.
But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.
As more Americans become this kind of poor, maybe we’ll finally pay attention.
(h/t to Kate Bornstein for tweeting it)
On a trans blog, during a conversation about Lady GaGa & her being supposedly intersex (information that I didn’t blog, because I don’t think it’s anyone’s goddamn business), I’ve been described as
boyd ain’t no ally, that’s for sure. she’s worse, in a way, than even radfems and the Raymond crowd – the latter are up front with their hatred of trans women. boyd, on the other hand, stabs trans women in the back
and
And yeah, Ms Boyd is a giant problem. Making money off trans women, setting herself up as an expert, and getting stuff so wrong so often.
and
Helen Boyd has some serious boundary and entitlement issues.
all of which is utterly fascinating to me. If anyone has all the money I’ve been making, please do give it back. In all seriousness, though, Betty’s and my finances are joint, & have been for more than a decade, so any money I’m making is helping Betty transition. Which is, you know, the worst thing any transphobic asshole could do – financially support someone who is transitioning. It’s evil, I tell you.
I am occasionally wrong; I’d be suspicious of anyone who claims they aren’t. That I disagree with some people within the trans community nearly goes without saying: if I found one person who agreed with every opinion or “fact” shared within the trans community, I’d stay well away from their confusion. The diversity of the trans communities is one of the things I like the best.
Anyway. All in a day’s work. That I was initially quoted as criticizing the hyperbolic style of argumentation employed by some trans people makes it exactly perfect that I should be called worse than the radfems and Raymond crowd, since it’s – um, hyperbolic.
I am, as others of my dissenters have discovered, very much open to criticism. That said, I will only do so if the person making the charges has a name, and a face, and a track record. I will not argue with sock or meat puppets, and I don’t abide name-calling.
The creators of the 80s seem to be dying in packs. The most recent news is that John Hughes, the director, died at 59 – which for anyone is far too young. But this is the guy who directed The Breakfast Club and Some Kind of Wonderful and Weird Science and – everyone bow their head respectfully – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is, to my mind, still one of the best movies ever made.
The other ones pissed me off at the time, bringing all the cool music I loved – Echo, Oingo Boingo, etc. – to my more mainstream friends. In retrospect, it’s probably at least partly because of these movies that that music has also survived. His teenagers were unlikely, spoiled and rich, and not much like anyone I knew, but still they were there, flashing a kind of iconic power at people who knew me – so much so that my sister always said I reminded her of the girl in Some Kind of Wonderful, while honestly, I always felt a lot more like Ally Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club.
Watch it all flash before your eyes:
(video via Andrew Sullivan)
& People wonder why I’m feeling old these days, but you know, Sting’s turning 57 this year.
My On The Issues piece, How a Feminst Found Her Sexism, is now up on Bilerico.
The NYT is reporting that the APA has officially decided that therapists
should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.
More interestingly:
Instead of seeking such change, the association urged therapists to consider multiple options, which could include celibacy and switching churches, for helping clients live spiritually rewarding lives in instances where their sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.
which is something that sometimes is glossed over otherwise.
Still, let’s all welcome the APA to the 21st Century, shall we? Hopefully it won’t be another 100 years before they realize that gender variant people are just gender variant, too.
The gender-inclusive version of ENDA is going to be introduced in the Senate today, & we REALLY REALLY need this, & so REALLY REALLY need you to contact your senators.
PFLAG has a tidy little letter to send to your senators.
PLEASE DO THIS.
Matt Barber, the former policy director of Concerned Women for America, is raising the bogeyman of funding for trans genital surgeries being covered by the health care proposed by the Obama administration.
As a commenter at Pam’s House Blend has pointed out, however, there is no such plan.
An article at Oregon magazine quotes some of the language Barber is interpreting as being about transgender people/diagnoses:
“Page 972 of the House version of the bill (H.R. 3200) provides for “standards, as appropriate, for the collection of accurate data on health and health care” based on “sex, sexual orientation [and] gender identity.” The Senate draft indicates that the government will “detect and monitor trends in health disparities,” requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to “develop standards for the measurement of gender.” (i.e., officially recognize subjectively self-determined “transgender” or “transsexual” gender identities). It further mandates ‘‘participation in the institutions’ programs of individuals and groups from…different genders and sexual orientations.”
which comes straight from Barber’s article/press release which also appeared in Canada’s Free Press (which bills itself as a “conservative free press”). The bolded bits are Barber’s interpretation of what the House & Senate versions actually say.
You can email Matt Barber directly at jmattbarber@comcast.net.
An MTF spectrum person murdered hir wife, & the Nebraska affiliate of ABC that reported it made this comment:
Experts on transgender and cross dressing say it’s unusual for such cases to end in violence, and when they do, it’s usually the cross dresser who is the victim.
& Granted, the phrase “such cases” is incredibly vague, but still, I want to know which experts they interviewed, because in all of the 9 years I have been working in the trans community, I have yet to hear of a case of a non-trans spouse murdering his/her trans spouse. I’m not saying it’s impossible – I’m just saying I’ve never heard of it. If anyone knows of a case, I would like to know about it.
However, there’s the trans woman who killed her husband in Cleveland, and the upstate NY crossdressing doctor who killed his wife, & now this case.
I am not saying that transgender people aren’t victims of violence way too often. They are murdered in hateful ways way too often. However, I have never heard of a trans person who was murdered by their own spouse. Instead they are often murdered by: strangers, johns, dates.
I am also not saying that trans people are homicidal, because they aren’t.
I am also not saying that partners of trans people are saints, by any stretch.
I would just like to know on what evidence this assertion by “experts” was based.
So this pisses me off, since the experts implied that spouses are often the murderers, when/if there is a trans person married to a non-trans person, and as far as I know, there is no evidence whatsoever to back up that assertion.
