Category: politics & causes

politics, both trans & otherwise

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“We Didn’t Vote for Bush”

Bridge players guilty of treason? Surely not, but…

… a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest. At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

So I’m thinking we all need to get our own signs, pin them to our coats, make bumperstickers, put the logo on our blogs, in solidarity, & to let the world know that most of us didn’t vote for Bush. It’s what the world needs to hear.

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More Education, Less Sex

Yet another report has been published that proves that comprehensive sex ed keeps kids from having as much sex, as many partners, and from getting STDs. Despite that, of course, our government is still throwing money at abstinence-only sex ed:

“Congress is currently considering a funding bill which includes $141 to fund these programs, an increase of $4 million over President Bush’s request.”

So we’re paying more to educate kids less. Isn’t it counter-intuitive to spend so much money to keep kids ignorant? That’s never cost anything in the past.

Is everyone else tired of reporting this?

Source: Feminist Daily News 11/9

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Ugh.

ENDA will be voted on tomorrow, without the Baldwin Amendment.

& Apparently the decision to go ahead was based on HRC surveying 500 LGBT people across the country as to whether or not they should go ahead even though transgender people were included.

As if the 500 organizations that already said NOT to go ahead don’t count at all.

What really pisses me off is that this is how the question was worded:

“This proposal would make it illegal to fire gay, lesbian and bisexual workers because of their sexual orientation. This proposal does not include people who are transgender. Would you favor or oppose this proposal moving forward?”

No mention that the Tammy Baldwin variation isn’t just inclusive of transgender identities, but of GENDER IDENTITY. No mention that the inclusive ENDA would also protect gays and lesbians whose genders aren’t normative. That is, no mention of the butches and queens, sissies and bulldaggers. Apparently there to be hung out to dry along with the trans population. So now we can hear that a woman wasn’t fired for being a lesbian, oh no. She was fired because she’s just too masculine, of course.

Feh. Or, as a friend of mine comments when HRC comes up, “You expect anything from an organization that can’t even put GAY in its name?”

(Sources: PageOneQ, Gay.com, The Advocate, The Associated Press)

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Today’s the Day

From NCTE:

ACTION ALERT on ENDA from the National Center for Transgender Equality

House committee meets Tuesday to decide whether or not a version of ENDA that cuts out protections for transgender people will advance in Congress.

Your Representative needs to hear from you TODAY.

The House Education and Labor Committee is holding a special meeting on Tuesday to discuss the strategy proposed by some House leaders to pass an ENDA that cuts out protections for transgender people. A committee vote on the bill is tentatively scheduled for Thursday.

A list of Committee members is available at http://edlabor.house.gov/about/members.shtml

Your Representative needs to hear from you TODAY about your opposition to the flawed strategy of advancing a bill that leaves transgender people behind.

Call your Representative right now at 202-224-3121, even if you have already called him/her already about this issue. Tell him/her to oppose advancing H.R. 3685, the bill that leaves transgender people behind. Tell him/her to push for a vote on H.R. 2015, the transgender-inclusive ENDA, instead.

Please call today. You have been asked to do a lot in the last few weeks to support transgender nondiscrimination protections. The action you take today might make the difference.

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On ENDA, on National Coming Out Day

This is the text of the talk I gave in Denver on Tuesday. It probably won’t surprise anyone that I’ve been busting at the seams wanting to have a say in all of the dialogue going on about ENDA. At least I don’t think it should surprise anyone, not by now.

**

First, let me thank Ed and Jordan and all the students who asked them to bring me here. It’s a pleasure to be here in celebration of National Coming Out Day, a pleasure to see all of you gathered, celebrating who you are. Thanks to all the crossdressers, the gays, the lesbians, the genderqueers, the trans men & women, MTF and FTM, & to their partners. Thanks to all of you who are family, or friends, or allies, for being here.

Betty and I have been on tour a lot this year because I had a book published in March, and we’ve gotten a chance, once again, to meet a lot of people and to talk to a lot of trans people and partners, and this year, we’ve met more gay and lesbian people who aren’t trans than we did before. And it’s been a pleasure all around in hearing people’s stories of their own gender variance, or the stories of how they came out to loved ones, or of their first big crush or the moment when they realized they were trans or gay or lesbian or how they came to understand the first identity they understood themselves to be was not quite accurate in the long run. What I love to hear the most is about how queer people find one identity fits for a while and then not at all; like Oliver Wendell Holmes’ chambered nautilus, queer people build themselves bigger chambers, bigger categories, labels that are not so confining, over time.

That’s how it’s been for us, certainly. By the time people get used to what we’re calling ourselves our identities have shifted a little, changed usually by experiences we never expected and wouldn’t trade for anything. Continue reading “On ENDA, on National Coming Out Day”