So they’ve chosen a pope. We don’t know who he is yet, though, so in the meantime, let’s have a singalong, shall we?
NYC & the GLAAD Awards
Well, we’re off: for a week in NYC, the GLAAD Media Awards, visit with family, friends, and the teeming masses.
I’ve missed every goddamn one of them, doncha know.
(I will probably Tweet more than Facebook while I’m away. Honestly, the longer I’m off Facebook, the happier I am.)
Two Tune Tuesday: Stravinsky + Siouxsie
So I’ve been teaching Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to first year students this year, and while I had a vivid memory of being introduced to his music via Siouxsie and the Banshees, I could never find any evidence of that fact.
But now I have: in the video of Nocturne, a live concert, the first few minutes you can hear the Stravinksy; it was the music Siouxsie and the Banshees used to play to cue the audience that they were up next.
I saw this show at Radio City Music Hall, and honestly, seeing that gorgeous hall full of High Goth was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I also still remember, because it was one of those Perfect Days, the day we bought the tickets: first going to Radio City to stand online to buy the tickets and then handing around Washington Square Park all day with my friends Marc and Lara.
(& For Cure fans: that is a very young Robert Smith standing stage left and playing guitar.)
I wonder how many hours of my life have been spent watching live music – a lot, no doubt, and still? Never enough. Now I’m more likely to actually go see a performance of Rite of Spring, which seems pretty full circle, no?
Patrick Stewart: 1 Million Men Against Violence Against Women
“Every nine seconds in the United States a woman is assaulted or beaten,” Patrick Stewart said. “Every nine seconds.”
As if he weren’t cool enough already, it turns out he served as the host for the launch of “Ring The Bell,” a global campaign calling on one million men to make one million “concrete, actionable promises” to end violence against women.
“Violence against women is the single greatest human rights violation of our generation,” Stewart said.
“I became an expert,” Stewart said. “I knew exactly when to open a door and insert myself between my father’s fist and my mother’s body.”
He said his father was “an angry and unhappy man who was not able to control his emotions—or his hands.”
“The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured,” Stewart added. “She did not provoke my father—and even if she had, responding with violence is not an acceptable way with dealing with conflict.”
To his world where men promise to end violence against women: Make it so.
Honestly.
Interviewer: What would you consider to be your greatest weakness?
Applicant: Honesty.
Interviewer: Honesty? I don’t think honesty is a weakness.
Applicant: I don’t give a fuck what you think.
It Was Rape
I was lucky enough to catch a screening of Jennifer Baumgardner’s new documentary It Was Rape. Eight women tell their stories about their experiences with sexual violence.
These experiences are so complicated, and even for these interviews you can hear all the women trying to make it less of a deal than it is and than it was. Why?
It’s entirely worth watching, but make sure you’re in an okay head space if you’re someone who has had this kind of experience – or even if you haven’t.
One of the women is told by one of her friends that “any time anyone has sex out of someone out of fear, it’s rape,” and that’s a good reminder, for everyone. And oh – this isn’t just for women. Men should watch this, too.
Pen for Hire
Hey, editor dudes, if you actually want to improve these statistics, I’m available to write with a byline.
Lemme know.
Trans Inclusive Medicaid for NYS
Sylvia Rivera Law Project is trying to make sure that trans inclusive care is part of NYS Medicaid, and are asking people to send a letter to the Health Department explaining your story and why this need is so great.
You can get the form from SRLP, or all the info is below.
6 Year Old Transgender Menace?
I love this graphic. Love it. (For those of you who don’t know, Transexual Menace is/was one of the first direct action trans rights groups, & it was formed in response to the transphobic screed written by Janice Raymond called The Transsexual Empire. Moving on…)
As I like to point out in my workshops, I am firmly convinced that we have a national, if not international, obsession with penises. OR, some people are just walking around with penis on the brain all the time.
(& You know, not in the good way.)
If you haven’t heard the story, TLDEF has filed a complaint on behalf of a six year old whose parents and teachers and fellow students recognize as female. She’s been using the girls’ bathroom for a long while, and first told her parents she was female at about 18 months old. But for some reason, she was recently banned from using the girls’ bathroom and told to use the boys’ bathroom.
Which is, yes, ridiculous. So let’s all get over this problem with genitals, can we? Genitals do not determine gender. Rinse and Repeat.
“Trolling for Good” & Trans Inclusive Healthcare
Dana Contreras was named in this cool article by The Advocate about “the 10 most innovative companies and the LGBTs who got them to the top” – basically, she’s a smart one. So smart that she gets a lot of recruiting emails from potential employers, so she’s decided to take this otherwise awkward outreach from them to ask an important question, namely, if they offer trans inclusive health insurance.
Why? Because “this is some heinous bullshit and you need to know about it.”
Most places don’t. Even liberal institutions that should know better don’t realize, or don’t care, that their health insurance suppliers actively exclude coverage of even the basics of healthcare. I’m not talking about genital surgeries, but just hormones prescriptions and labs, and therapy. That is, a trans person can go to a therapist for depression, if that’s covered, but they can’t go to a therapist to talk about being trans, a pending transition, or even to process the enormous changes that come with transition.
Contreras calls it bullshit and I’ll second her. That is, a woman of a certain age who might be on HRT because it’s recommended by her doctor will have these blood tests covered, but a trans woman – who is usually on much higher doses of estrogen – won’t. And that, friends, is discrimination: when the exact same perks are offered to one kind of person and not to another kind of person for no apparent reason, no difference in cost, no anything but ignorance and prejudice.