Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
In Stockholm, government-funded feminist porn will be screened for the first time. The porn is actually 12 short films, shot on mobile phones; all twelve of the individual directors are female, and one is an MTF transgender person.
What’s impressive is how little the article makes of that last fact.
(h/t to Guerrilla Girls on Tour, via Twitter)
September 2, 2009, New York, NY – The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy and anti-defamation organization, received the following apology this morning from rapper and judge on MTV’s “Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew” Lil Mama.
Lil Mama: “I would like to clarify anything that was misunderstood from Sunday’s show. My remarks were never meant to be disrespectful regarding Leiomy’s gender nor offensive to the LGBT community, which has been a community that has supported me in all my endeavors. However, in hindsight, I recognize that my words may have come across as hurtful. I spoke with her privately after the taping to express that it was not my intent to offend her or any member of the transgender community and that I still live for Vogue Evolution.”
GLAAD reached out to Lil Mama and MTV after receiving numerous calls and e-mails from community members and allies regarding comments made to transgender contestant Leiomy Maldonado during a critique on the August 30, 2009 episode of “Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew.” GLAAD asked Lil Mama and MTV to publicly address the concerns raised after Lil Mama stated:
“Leiomy, come on. Your behavior…it’s unacceptable. I just feel that you always have to remember your truth. You were born a man and you are becoming a woman. If you’re going to become a woman, act like a lady. Don’t be a bird, like ‘Oh my god, I’m not doing this!’ You know what I’m saying? It gets too crazy and it gets confusing. You’re doing this for America. Even though you’re the face for transgenders, you’re the face of America right now with this group and it’s not about anybody else. It’s about y’all. You know what I’m saying? So do it for the team. Do it for the team.”
Transgender Health Empowerment is calling for a candlelight vigil at the corner where two trans women were stabbed last night. One of the people who was stabbed died last night.
Please gather on Friday, August 28th, at 209 Q ST NW, 6:30PM.
Please forward, re-post, and Tweet this info.
Yesterday I did an interview with a few other contributors of the On the Issues summer issue – Our Genders, Our Rights – do check it out.
At the TransOhio “Fabulously Fluid” performance night, I got to see Adam Apple do a fantastic performance based on Dylan’s signs that was intense & personal, & made a whole bunch of us in the audience cry.
This series of gorgeous photos asking questions about gender by L. Weingarten reminded me of Adam Apple’s performance, which I found on YouTube (even if the video/audio quality is crap, it gives you an idea).
Washington, DC, August 17, 2009-The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rolled out a new phase of their Secure Flight program over the weekend. Passengers will now be required to provide their birth date and gender when they book an airline ticket as part of a move to help distinguish passengers from those on the government’s “watch list” (often called the “no-fly” list).
NCTE has issued a new (.pdf) FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about the Secure Flight program and its impact on transgender people. The resource includes information about how to navigate the new process, particularly if you have identification that does not match your gender presentation. NCTE firmly supports the right of transgender people to maintain our privacy and to travel freely.
Breaking News: Dwight DeLee, convicted of manslaughter and not murder for killing Teisha Green, did get the maximum allowable 25 years in jail today, + 5 years of supervision after his sentence.
Here’s the AP version of the story, & here’s the Essence magazine article about Teisha Green, by her mother.
(h/t to Andy Marra of GLAAD & TLDEF)
This is the text version of the keynote talk I gave at TransOhio this past Saturday. From what they’ve told me, it was recorded so hopefully we’ll get a video link in not too long.I did interrupt myself so that the people listening could participate in the Nationwide Kiss-In.
First, thank you to Shane and Sarah and all the other TransOhio people who made this event happen. It is a very cool event, & I’m honored to be a part of it: thank you again for inviting me.
Recently I received a letter from a woman who had transitioned. She was married and had two young children, and was trying to figure out if there had been any way she could have transitioned where she might have left out some of the pain & confusion her wife and family had experienced. In the email she sent me, she mentioned how it’s expected for couples to try to stay together through transition, and I had to rub my eyes and read it again.
Is it?
Whether it was her perception or indicative of a larger change, it surprised me. When Betty and I first met, it was considered absolutely unlikely that any couple would make it through transition. Shoot, it was a huge toss-up that any wife could tolerate her husband crossdressing. But it was when I started writing back to this woman, to explain how that had never been the case before, that it hit me: I started my first online support group nearly 10 years ago – 10 years this coming February, actually. That’s like 50 in trans years, right? In large part I founded it – and this might make some of you laugh – because I wasn’t angry or sad enough to fit in with the culture of the existing partners’ groups. I was weird for being supportive, and occasionally felt like I was a minority of one. I wasn’t, of course – people who are good with the whole thing don’t seek out support groups – but it was still rare, then, to find anyone who was just looking for community, for other couples in similar situations, to share notes and stories and have someone to be “out” about their partners’ transness with. So to hear, 9 short years later, that now it’s assumed that a couple will stay together, or at least try like hell to do so, shocked me.
Continue reading “TransOhio Keynote: The Metamorphosis of Us”
I’m leaving today for Columbus, OH, where I’m speaking at the TransOhio Conference, & yes, I am traveling by train. Tons of people from our MHB boards are joining me, including my lovely wife. (“She said ‘wife’!”)
They closed the online registration yesterday, but they WILL be registering walk-ins at the conference, so even if you haven’t registered yet, you can still come. They’ve made it very reasonable – $30, $20 for students, and that comes with lunch. Students can go for $11 but with no lunch & no me. Basically, it’s a tiered system, allowing people as much conference access as possible. There’s a meet & greet on Friday, 8/14, AND a brunch on Sunday. (The day-of registrations are more expensive, and may not come with a guarantee that there will be room for you at lunch.)
So yes, make your plans to come while I’m on a train to Pittsburgh!
On a trans blog, during a conversation about Lady GaGa & her being supposedly intersex (information that I didn’t blog, because I don’t think it’s anyone’s goddamn business), I’ve been described as
boyd ain’t no ally, that’s for sure. she’s worse, in a way, than even radfems and the Raymond crowd – the latter are up front with their hatred of trans women. boyd, on the other hand, stabs trans women in the back
and
And yeah, Ms Boyd is a giant problem. Making money off trans women, setting herself up as an expert, and getting stuff so wrong so often.
and
Helen Boyd has some serious boundary and entitlement issues.
all of which is utterly fascinating to me. If anyone has all the money I’ve been making, please do give it back. In all seriousness, though, Betty’s and my finances are joint, & have been for more than a decade, so any money I’m making is helping Betty transition. Which is, you know, the worst thing any transphobic asshole could do – financially support someone who is transitioning. It’s evil, I tell you.
I am occasionally wrong; I’d be suspicious of anyone who claims they aren’t. That I disagree with some people within the trans community nearly goes without saying: if I found one person who agreed with every opinion or “fact” shared within the trans community, I’d stay well away from their confusion. The diversity of the trans communities is one of the things I like the best.
Anyway. All in a day’s work. That I was initially quoted as criticizing the hyperbolic style of argumentation employed by some trans people makes it exactly perfect that I should be called worse than the radfems and Raymond crowd, since it’s – um, hyperbolic.
I am, as others of my dissenters have discovered, very much open to criticism. That said, I will only do so if the person making the charges has a name, and a face, and a track record. I will not argue with sock or meat puppets, and I don’t abide name-calling.