Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
This is just because I woke today so full, so peaceful, so – resolved. I have been through a little too much these past few weeks and have been feeling exhausted, and winter seemed like it would never, ever end.
So take some of it, those of you who need it; and thank you to those who have given me some.
Register today for the 2013 National Transgender Health Summit May 17th – 18th in Oakland, California!
The Center of Excellence for Transgender Health and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health invite health care providers, health and human service professionals, mental health professionals, health administrators, researchers, students and advocates to attend the 2013 National Transgender Health Summit. Programming includes plenary sessions by world-renowned experts in the field of transgender health care, training tracks for medical and mental health care providers interested in building their skills for working with transgender patients and clients, a research track for the dissemination of cutting edge developments in the field of transgender health, and a transgender health policy institute.
Early bird registration ends April 25, 2013. Register today!
Full program information is available online at http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/summit
CME and CEU course credit available.
The Center of Excellence for Transgender Health combines the unique strengths and resources of a nationally renowned training and capacity-building institution, the Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center (PAETC), and an internationally recognized leader in HIV prevention research, the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), both of which are housed at the University of California, San Francisco. The Center of Excellence for Transgender Health strives to increase access to comprehensive, effective, and affirming health care services for trans and gender-variant communities.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly known as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity disorders. As an international multidisciplinary professional Association the mission of WPATH is to promote evidence based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy and respect in transgender health.
Here’s a really sound article about men and hormones – specifically testosterone. It’s not perfect, but it’s closer than most of these articles that are written for general consumption are.
Although I have no idea why it’s written for women, since, um, guys should know this stuff too.
“You taught me language, and my profit on ’t
Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!”
-Caliban, The Tempest
Such a great song of grrrl lust. I’d featured it – and the cover by Jack Off Jill – a while back. & So sad that she’s gone so young. She died of the double-barreled assault of MS & breast cancer.
Here she is with “Boys in Town” – a song that is so 1981 it almost hurts.
Mara Keisling of NCTE spoke here at Lawrence a little over a week ago and she talked not just about trans issues and policy and legislation, but also about the importance of white people talking about racism and about what kinds of things are required of an activist.
She presented this list:
1. Have a worldview. Know what is right and wrong for you.
2. Be intentional. Don’t just do things the easy way.
3. Remember that you are in service with your activism.
4. You have to love the people you serve. If you don’t love them, you can’t serve them.
5. Respect other people’s work.
6. Know your superpower.
7. You can’t be amazing unless you are amazed.
And I found the list pretty astonishing. I’m certainly not perfect at it, but it does summarize so much of what I’ve been thinking these past few years about my own work.
I’ve got #s 1 & 4 down, at least. I’m pretty good at #s 3, 5, & 6. #s 2 & 7 are my weakest. I wonder, if you’re an activist, how these measure up for you.
The Fox Cities Book Festival started in earnest yesterday and I saw one author right out of the gate: James Loewen, otherwise famous for Lies My Teacher Told Me, but who spoke yesterday about sundown towns. And he was amazing. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, please do.
Otherwise, there are a ton of other readings and authors and contests and events and all sorts of things. The very last event is with my colleague David McGlynn who will be talking about his memoir A Door in the Ocean – which didn’t start out a memoir – and how it got that way.
It’s pretty cool. Go see stuff.
This is my favorite thing of the year so far.
& I’m sure many of you recall the very first Burmese punk, right? (She was born in Rangoon/Yangon.)
New Zealand has made same sex marriage legal. They’re the 13th country in the world to do so. & Guess what? The US isn’t one of them.
(I can’t quite sort if they are the 13th or 14th. Seeing conflicting #s from good sources, so here’s a list.)
No really, it is. Here is mine inspired by the Wisconsin winter:
Winter should end now
It has been cold much too long
Ass is frozen off.
This person has been writing one daily, about which I have to say:
daily haiku?
why try so hard for brevity:
blog instead.
Still, they’re fun to write. Leave one here.