I’m speaking, briefly, at Pride Alive today, around 11am, up in Green Bay. The event goes from 11am until 10PM, so do come. I’ve tabled for Fair Wisconsin at this event in the past, and it’s a cool thing.
Reasons Trans Is Now
During a conversation about what I do yesterday I mentioned how intense a change – for the better – it has been in the decade I’ve been doing work as a trans advocate. The VPUSA, after all, said trans rights was “the civil rights issue of our time”.
Later, I was thinking about why this is the case. Culture, politics, policy, law? Art, media, literature? What are the things that you think have contributed most significantly to why “transgender” is now a household world and why trans issues and politics are now gaining ground and visibility. If 1993 was the beginning of the modern trans movement, then what has happened in those two decades, from 1993 – 2003 and then again from 2003 until now? Is there a difference in the kinds of things that happened in those decades?
I’ve got my own list, not quite fully formed, but would love to hear from others about it.
And hey, if you post yours on Facebook, come back here and let me know what they are! Or email them to helenboyd(at)myhusbandbetty(dot)com. I’ll compile them along with my own and I’ll post that list another day.
Dustin Hoffman: Tootsie Was Never a Comedy For Me
If you haven’t seen this by now, you’re living under a bigger rock than I do. Still, this is astonishing. He cries. You will too. I did.
“Sorry, that’s as good as it gets. That’s as beautiful as we can get you.”
Here is an interesting response by Alexandra Petri:
I am not sure this video of Dustin Hoffman crying about female beauty standards is as good as everyone says it is. Is he crying about the fact that he’s missed out on a lot of interesting people because he had been brainwashed to not talk to them? If so, he can fix this so, so easily. All he has to do is walk over and start talking. Or is he crying because this– this brainwashing idea that the way you look determines your inherent interest, this is real, and it won’t occur to everyone to walk over?That’s quite powerful.
But I’m not sure I understand what her point is, other than that Hoffman is right: women are judged unfairly on their looks first before anyone even wonders if they’re interesting. She doesn’t seem to disagree with Hoffman – just clarifying how we dismiss women until or unless they are attractive – which is sadly the truth.
There are times I wonder if women know that women are people. Most days I don’t even hope men know as much, to be honest.
He gives me hope that maybe, maybe occasionally, there are men who can see women’s humanity.
#ENDA Committee Votes 15-7 in Favor
This is good news: a 15-7 vote, says the Maddow blog, means there may actually be bipartisan support for ENDA, at long last.
RIP: PJ Torokvei
PJ Torokvei was the head writer for WKRP in Cincinnati and also co-wrote Real Genius. Sorry to see you go, PJ, and I’m sorry you didn’t get very much life in after transition. She died on July 3rd from liver failure about a decade after transitioning at 50.
Here’s a lovely photo of her from her FB page, but otherwise, she became reclusive — but not without, the story has it, selling off her new virginity:
We talked many times that year as PJ decided to retreat into the privacy of her home and then eventually move up to a farm in Victoria, a return to her native Canada. Most of the correspondences from that point were via e-mail, her rapier wit still ever-present, even as they became fewer and farther apart. There were rumors that her friend Martin Short had put together a collection to auction off her newfound virginity. That could have been an urban myth — perhaps even fostered by Ms. Torokvei.
It sounds like she had a sense of humor but there was a lot of sad there, too. A few friends stood by her:
While I could never hope to understand the pain and sadness PJ experienced, I learned that friendship can come in any shape, size or color. And that my friend PJ was no different than my friend Peter.
There is a part of me that wishes, very much so, to have heard her describe transition. It’s only the comedians, after all, who tell the whole truth.
RIP, PJ.
Free Music
NPR has 10 cool tracks that are free to download today, including a cool one by Neko Case.
Crossdressed Couples: Switcheroo by Hana Pesut
I love this idea: couples were asked to switch the clothes they were wearing with each other.
The ones I’ve posted here, amongst others, are the ones where the switched clothes make both people look better – in my humble opinion – than their original outfits, or where, despite a very genderered different, like a skirt, the styles are nearly the same anyway.
The Gender Book
So have you seen this cool, fully illustrated gender book? It needs to be funded for it to be published, but you can read it online for now.
I haven’t read it yet, but soonly.
A Trans Woman Plays… a Trans Woman! (gasp!)
No, really: at long last, trans woman Laverne “I’ve literally played a prostitute about seven times” Cox is playing a trans women on the new Orange is the New Black.
Cox, who shares an acting coach with Nicole Kidman, plays Sophia, a trans woman who, pre-transition, was a firefighter. In the third episode, guest-directed by Jodie Foster, we learn about her complicated relationship with her wife and son. “I don’t know of a trans character on television played by a trans person that has as much humanity as this character,” Cox says. It’s true. Generally, trans folks are portrayed as tragic or heroic, but Sophia is multidimensional and complex, part hard-won confidence, part sweet underbelly.
It doesn’t sound anything like my kind of show, to be honest, but I will try to tune in because Laverne Cox is amazingly cool.
New Kids?
My wife just discovered two gray kittens, brother & sister, at a local pet store.
Votes? Should we or shouldn’t we?