There are many reasons I work in and for the trans community. This is one of them.
If you don’t know who CeCe McDonald is, and/or you don’t know who Leslie Feinberg is, find out.
Oscar Wilde Tribute
I recommended this video to a student tonight, and was glad to find it online. I caught it late one night a few years back, and it struck me as something like a perfect tribute to the man then as it does now.
I was reminded of it by the recent story on Alan Turing.
1 WTC
It’s now the tallest building in NYC. & About fucking time.
0 to 12
Cool.
(Notice what age you know the child’s gender.)
Ripped & Religious
Decades ago my church decided that the ordination of women was a just and morally responsible thing. Some people left over the decision. Some people still tell me they struggle with the idea. Now many women serve as priests, and many parishioners applaud this fact.
But somehow, despite our belief that both sexes can serve the church, it seems there’s still something unnerving about a priest who is a woman. It has to do with having a woman’s body.
A parishioner told me that he thought I was a great priest, but that if I became pregnant, it would be too weird for him to see me at the altar. Merely holding hands with my husband, even when I am not in clerical clothes, has elicited the comment “Can you do that? I mean, in public?” Another parishioner told me I was too petite to be a priest. I’m 5-10. I have never been called “petite.” I think he meant “female.”
Of course for me, raised Catholic, it’s still odd that ministers/priests should be married, male female or otherwise.
First Watch
One of the great pleasures of working at Lawrence is getting to see someone like Michael Mizrahi play on a regular basis: different music, different groups, different stages, but all of it thoughtful, moving, and beautiful.
& He makes me miss my town with this clip, too.
New Philly FTM Group
I don’t know anymore about it than what you can read here, but get the words out to your friends in the Philly neck of the woods.
FTM coming-out support group: weekly support group for ftms and transmen in the process of transition
Tuesdays 6-7:30 starting 6/19/12
12 weeks, $30 – 50 per session
Meetings in Center City, PhiladelphiaThis 12 week support-group will include psycho-education and facilitated discussions around topics of:
• Relationships
• Family
• Sexuality
• Coming Out At Work
• Defining Identity
• Questioning Identity
• Religion/Spirituality
• Masculinity and Male Privilege
• DatingThis group will be facilitated by Damon Constantinides, LCSW, PhD. Damon is a trans and queer affirming psychotherapist and sexuality educator in Philadelphia. He has experience working with trans individuals and groups in his private psychotherapy practice and at several agencies in Philadelphia. Damon approaches his work from a trans-feminist and social justice perspective.
Contact Damon at damon@dmconsult.net or 607-592-2173 for more information.
Unfunny Bedfellows
Exports
Two years ago, Obama unveiled a new goal: to double U.S. exports over the next five years. It’s working.
“American exports are up 34 percent since the president gave that speech, and the number continues to rise.”
Horrible, Horrible Racism
On Sunday, April 15th, at the Moderna Museet the Swedish Artists Organisation celebrated World Art Day, as well as celebrating its own 75th birthday. Lena Adelsohn-Liljeroth, the culture Minister, was Invited to speak and a number of artists were invited to create birthday cakes for the celebration. The Minister was informed that the cake would be about the limits of provocative art, and about female genital mutilation. The event was launched with Lena Adelsohn-Liljeroth cutting the first piece of cake from a dark, ruby red velvet filling with black icing, which we understand was created by the Afro-Swedish artist Makode Aj Linde, whose head forms that of the black woman, and is seen with a blackened face screaming with pain each time a guest cuts a slice from the cake. Rather disturbingly for many African women, the minister is pictured laughing as she cuts off the genital area (clitoris)from the metaphorical cake, as the artist Makode screams distastefully. The gaze of the predominantly white Swedish crowd is on Lijeroth who is positioned at the crotch end, as they look on at their visibly ebullient culture minister with seemingly nervous laughter as she becomes a part of the performance – a re-enactment of FGM on a cake made in the image of a disembodied African woman.
Here’s the petition. Sign it.