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Apology from OUT!Wear

The letter and apology from Maria Nasca of OUT!Wear:

14 July 2011

To our LGBT Community;

Please let me begin by saying it was never my intent to alienate our community or promote hate in any manner. Believe it or not, I had no idea of the gravity of this very political issue and the hurt it would cause. As a businessperson working in this community for the last 17 years, I have received many amazing inquiries, ideas and suggestions via my website to design and produce many products that I now currently sell.

As of late, I have received many inquiries to design and develop the WBW line of products for my customers. However, I was not as informed about this issue as I am today. It was an emotional reaction/business decision and NOT an informed action to develop this line further, and for that I truly apologize. No articles of the product line have been produced, and I have made the decision to discontinue it in the spirit of repairing and healing any damages that may have occurred as a result of this uninformed decision.

Please do not interpret my silence up till now as anything other than needing time to take this in, educate myself and create a thoughtful and respectful response. Continue reading “Apology from OUT!Wear”

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Testing

I’ve undone spam filters for a bit, so I’d love it if people who have had trouble in the past would try commenting here to see if they can post.

Thanks.

I’ll add back one of two eventually to see if it was one over-zealous filter or the other.

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Bastille Day, 10 Years Later

It’s Bastille Day, the day of revenge against the worst excesses of bullies.

It’s also the day which started a long scourge of violence by the bullied; it’s a day that started a bloodletting of revenge, paranoia, & cruelty.

Still, it’s the day that the Marquis de Sade was freed – as one of only 7 prisoners – from the Bastille. (He was in prison for his debts, not his perversity.)

It also happens to be our 10th wedding anniversary. We’ll celebrate properly later this year, instead — for many reasons, none of them bad. This was our wedding cake the way it looked at the end of the night:

& Yes, in fact that is a guillotine on top of it, & yes there is a Barbie head, & a Ken head, both done up in perruques, & yes, there is blood, too. We’re goth like that. We have incredibly amazing memories of that day and that night of dancing and drinking and singing and performing and poetry reciting. There are so many of you whom we wish we had known at the time who would have loved it. We want to thank all of you who were there, especially, for your love & support that day as well over the years for our union, our love, & our marriage.

I am so glad that 10 years later, we would be able to marry in our current genders in our own home state and city of New York. That is about the coolest anniversary present this trans queer couple could have hoped for, to be honest.

Now go have some cake.

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WBW Update

One of my readers wrote to OUT!wear about the “women born women” issue. Ze wrote them a note that included this smart paragraph:

How many times must a trans people be told to “accept what God gave them” or “just be the way you’re supposed to” before we acknowledge that any connection made between birth and gender is a harmful one? It wasn’t long ago that society would have almost unanimously told LGB individuals similar sentiments. “No, you were made to be with a man/woman.” “God made man for woman, and woman for man.” “Why can’t you do what nature intended?” Why would a company, one ran by people who have no doubt been hurt by these sorts of attitudes, endorse such similar rhetoric?

Ze received this email from Maria Nasca of OUT!Wear:

thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. your message was very well written and took some time – thank you for that! YOU definitely made an impact on me. it was never my intent to hurt or alienate our community and believe it or not i had no idea as to what this REALLY meant to everyone. you are the 1 and only message i have responded to so far, because of your kind tone. trust this will get sorted and lets pray for a good outcome. i have taken these items down off both pages and will issue a statement TONIGHT!

So now we await the statement, but the items are down.

Thank you, Maria!

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‘Realness’ as Reality

‘Realness’ may be a ball contest category, but when it turns into a litmus test, it’s a bullying stick.

Tobi Hill Meyer has pulled together a list of what it means to be a “real” transsexual woman. Here are a few:

You’re not a real transsexual woman if you transitioned after 45 (or 35, or 25, or 18 depending on who you ask)
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you ascribe to feminist gender deconstruction theory
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you buy clothes in the men’s department
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you don’t have a GI/GID diagnosis or can’t afford the process to get one
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you are caught without makeup on
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have facial or body hair that you don’t shave
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have facial or body hair that you have to shave
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you don’t wear dresses and skirts all the time
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you never crossdressed before transitioning
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have ever identified as a crossdresser
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you become sexually aroused while wearing women’s clothing
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have sex with men
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have sex with women
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you are not sexually available to men
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have sex using a strap on
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have sex
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you allow yourself to be seen naked before vaginoplasty or with anything others might consider a penis
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have ever done sex work
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you haven’t considered suicide
You’re not a real transsexual woman unless your only alternative to transition is suicide
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you’re still attending Southern Comfort
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you didn’t keep up with your dilation
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you are not stealth
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you are stealth
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you’ve been to camp trans
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you perform as a drag king
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you have ever performed as a drag queen
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you ever pee standing up
You’re not a real transsexual woman if you play sports (no exceptions for being on the women’s rugby team, but maybe for softball)

She points out that most cis women wouldn’t pass these tests, even the ones that aren’t trans specific. One of the things I feel like I say over & over again is that all women, trans and non-trans, can fail the test called “woman”. Plenty of us do on a regular basis.  Obviously her comments come out of this whole transgender/transsexual argument, which tires me.