Category: NYC

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Trans Partners' Drop-In

I will be co-moderating the GIP’s Trans Partner’s Drop-In group this fall, and I’m really pleased to be getting to do this kind of work, since I’ve been talking about doing a partners’ group anyway.

Here are the details:

When: Wednesdays – Beginning October 4

Time: 7:30-9:00 pm

Where: The Center, 208 West 13th Street, New York, New York 10011
(212) 620-7310, www.gaycenter.org

What: Trans-Partners/Trans-Amorous Drop-in is a 10-week group for people of all genders to discuss and explore their attractions to and relationships with trans-identified or gender non-conforming individuals. The group is open to people currently in partnerships with trans-people, people formerly in partnerships with trans-people, and people who are exploring their attraction to trans-people.

How: Registration is not required. There is a $5 suggested donation, but no one will be turned away for lack of ability to pay.

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Quentin Crisp & Sting?

Okay, maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know this, because I never saw Sting’s “Englishman in New York” video, but I didn’t know QC was the friend Sting wrote it about.
Which makes me want to say obscene things to all the people who don’t like Sting or make fun of me for liking him. I think he’s a decent person, & trans-friendly as all hell: remember the skirt he wore at the Victoria’s Secret show? The fact that he cross-dresses in Brimstone & Treacle? Oh, right, and then there’s these lyrics he wrote an album or so ago:
My skirt’s too short
My tights are run
These new heels are killing me
A second pack of cigarettes
It’s a slow night, but there’s time yet
Here comes the john from his other life
He may be driving to his wife
But he slowed down, take a look
I’ve learned to read them just like books
It’s already half past ten
But they’ll be back again
Don’t judge me
You could be me in another life
In another set of circumstances
A friend of mine, he wound up dead
His dress is stained with color red
The next of kin, no fixed abode
Another victim on this road
The police just carted him away
But someone took his place next day
He’s home by Thanksgiving
But not with the living
I mean, I can’t name anyone else who’s written a song from the POV of a trans streetworker, can you?
But I promise, no more 80s music references, at least for a while. Tomorrow, though, the first preview of She’s Not the Man I Married.

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NYC MTA Transit Strike is On?

At the very least, an awful lot of New Yorkers will be taking tomorrow off; a lot will also be stuck in traffic or walking long distances or waiting too long for cabs.
But I expect the Governor and Mayor will step in somehow and demand the striking workers get back on the job. Just my prediction, but Pataki especially is not labor-friendly (which he amply demonstrated with his recent veto of the minimum raise increase).
The official word hasn’t come in yet at 1:58am, but NY1 News is predicting it’ll come through shortly.

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Walk This Way

On 11/11/05, social justice activist and transgender woman Sylvia Rivera was honored by the City of New York with the re-naming of the intersection of Hudson St and Christopher Street as “Sylvia Rivera Way.”
^ her corner
^ Syliva Rivera’s corner of the world

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Why I Left Long Island

An article in Sunday’s New York Times is about what teenaged Long Islanders do for fun.

Most were from white neighborhoods with safe schools and nice homes in bedroom communities. But this was not their fault. Manhattan was only a 45-minute car or train ride away, but it might as well have been a foreign country. No one spoke of heading in there for an evening.

For the record, the kids they talk about in this article were the ones who liked to throw stuff at me and call me ‘freak’ and alternately decide I was the coolest person in the world and buddy up to me.
This was like a bad flashback with no acid involved.

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Overheard in NY

I added a website to the “Very Various” section of links today – it’s a website that blogs conversations “overheard in NY.” From what I’ve read, they’re very authentic, funny reading, and a nice little insight into my favorite town.
Overheard in New York
One of my favorite recent entries – and quite relevant – is this one:
Chick: I think the difference between a blog and a website is that a blog is something you can set up without doing any of that website shit.
(Thanks to Lynne W-U for this one!)

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Voices of New York

Last night I had the pleasure of reading with 7 other Lammy nominees at the Center, and it was a very cool event. (Aaron Krach, author of Half-Life, commented that he wished all readings had been like last night’s: five minutes, no Q&A, with a bunch of queer, friendly people in the audience.) I’m really thankful for Lambda Lit, because as I sat there listening to the readers, it occurred to me how stupid it is that there is so little room in mainstream publishing for GLBT writers. The stories were remarkable: one about an older man who’d fallen in love with a man with Downs Syndrome (Perry Brass, from Serendipity); another about a married man whose male lovers were being killed by a murderer (Gary Zebrun’s Someone You Know); another about a young Irish lad’s meeting with his priest at his mother’s behest (Damian McNicholl’s A Son Called Gabriel, and whose blog I just checked out); another a confrontation between a lesbian of color and her father (Laurinda D. Brown’s Fire & Brimstone).
me readingThey were all powerful stories, they were all stories that went beyond some definition of GLBT. They were about what stories are supposed to be about, the quiet little ways we suffer and rejoice in being our lovely, pathetic selves. But at the same time, without the Lammies, who would recognize a wife’s story of her trans husband’s beauty? Where else would I meet people who’d tell me about the tranny they knew, growing up?
It was a lovely night. I’m not 100% better, not yet, but I was damned glad I wasn’t still contagious, and could be there. I regret having missed the reading in DC even moreso now, but I am very much looking forward to the Awards Night at on June 2nd.