I am so freaking happy I don’t have to watch the Oscars.
Law & Order: “Transitions”
Law & Order‘s show tonight is about a trans teenager who is accused of attacking her father who insists she’s a boy and is trying to get custody of her from her mother.
9:59 PM definitely sympathetic. hopefully indicative of a sea change. still problematic in some ways, but pretty damn good for within the context of a police procedural.
9:57 PM crying.
9:54 PM history, violence, genitals.
9:52 PM oy.
9:51 PM hooboy. non trans advocate of trans youth loses her mind.
9:48 PM the kid can ACT. (& he’s from Poplar, WI.)
9:46 PM wow. sympathy for the loved ones of the trans person who don’t get it! & also the anger & frustration & sadness of the trans person, too.
9:39 PM getting worse. & worse than that. fast.
9:34 PM hooboy. weird turn. righteous trans youth activists who knock off pharmaceutical companies.
9:27 PM hrm. so far so good. inaccurate information, sure, but so far sympathetic. nearly an after-school special.
Oppressed Christians
Has anyone else seen this video? It’s unbelievably paranoid, no?
I’m not sure what part of “your religion stops where my government starts” they don’t understand. They can say anything they want, and usually do. What they can’t do is fire someone for being homosexual, or censor television whose morality they don’t approve of. That’s it. They just don’t get to control shit for the rest of us. But they are perfectly free to avoid watching shows with gay characters, they don’t need to go to same sex weddings, etc. etc.
I’m never going to get this kind of “I don’t get to control you therefore I’m oppressed” type of thinking.
Wunderdog
If you really need a good cry, just watch an episode of Animal Planet’s Underdog to Wonderdog. Jeez louise. Children & families & poor abandoned critters who bring each other new life. Totally goober show, but charming as all hell.
(I’d love a cat version, of course, but cats take a lot longer to adjust to new situations. Maybe they could use a time-lapse camera.)
Friend of “Fags” Bubba
My friend James Hipps of www.gayagenda.com called a radio morning show after the DJs used “fag” on the air today, and he ended up on the air.
Forget the gay-baiting. The gender-baiting is astounding. Is this how it is now? That a guy can be “pro gay marriage” and still a hateful schmuck?
Local Issue
Within a few weeks of me arriving in Appleton, a transgender person named Sierra Broussard filed a lawsuit against a local club for not allowing her in. They checked her ID which still has an M & didn’t let her in. The Post Crescent, the local paper, covered the story.
There were so many comments left on that story that they wrote another story about the lawsuit for Sunday’s paper. The reporter asked for people who were willing to be interviewed, and me and Lynne volunteered.
I wanted to thank Cheryl Anderson, the journalist on the story, for getting across what I had to say. Sadly, however, she called Betty “he.” Unfortunately for Betty, there is enough evidence for me using “he” – from when she had a multi-gendered identity – that I can understand how that happens, even if I said “she” and “partner” throughout the interview. Of course if she met Betty that “he” would never seem appropriate.
I don’t know Ms. Broussard personally, but I do know that the whole “it” thing is unacceptable (as Lynne says in the interview) and that a person who lives as female 24/7 should use the ladies’ room. The legal hocus pocus is what people don’t necessarily understand: that a penis is not really a penis once it’s been on estrogen for even a few months; that genital surgery is not covered by health insurance *and* that it’s very expensive, and to plenty of people it’s just unnecessary surgery – and who wants to have surgery that they don’t have to have? That’s what I meant by education & tolerance; that maybe the average Joe doesn’t know all that’s involved, and that if they knew more, they might not be so quick to criticize the decision not to have genital surgery.
The problem is the legal requirement for genital surgery to change a gender marker on an ID. We have to come up with another way for trans people to change that, because surgery is a ridiculous requirement.
Coraline
Coraline – Neil Gaiman’s horrifying children’s story – is coming out on February 6th. It better be coming to a theatre near me.
Brazil
I’ve had the remarkable good fortune to teach Freshman Studies at Lawrence this term, which is a class Freshmen take, a kind of critical thinking course. We’ve already talked about Milgram and his obedience studies, and next up is Gilliam’s Brazil.
In watching it for the umpteenth time, that I’m still amazed at how remarkable this movie is.
I’m also really shocked at how much more like the movie the world has become since the last time I saw it – just the metal detector scene in the beginning, where Sam runs into Jack (Palin) while they’re both waiting for security clearance, & then again when Sam dines with his mother – right before the bomb goes off in the restaurant.
It’s wholly depressing, but that seemed entirely unlikely at the time it came out – and just as dystopian as so many other of the film’s details – and yet, here we are, going through security in so many places these days, and with the same bland obedience as they do in this film.
Toni Rocks
from yesterday’s Dr. Phil show. It seems the typical “poor mom” trans kids show until Toni confronts the reparative doctor.
Trans Year in Review
Here’s Jacob Anderson-Minshall’s now annual “Trans Year in Review” article, which covers a lot of interesting people and events and media in the trans commmunity for 2008.