Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Today the opposing sides face off in California State Supreme Court about Prop 8. In their corner, the detestable Ken Starr; in ours, the inimitable Shannon Minter.
My friend Megan has already sussgested the headline: Minter Blows Starr Away.
I have absolute confidence in Shannon Minter.
How cool are these guys?
Maybe it’s because I live in Brooklyn. Maybe it’s Tod A’s fault. Either way, this whole punk gypsy business makes me swoon. Here’s Devotchka & Gogol Bordello.
Act Two — Tom Girls: Lilly and Thomasina have a lot in common. They’re both 8 years old. And they were both born boys, although it became clear pretty early on that they’d prefer to be girls. There aren’t all that many kids in the world like them, but recently, at a conference in Seattle on transgender parenting, they met. And they immediately hit it off. They could talk about things with each other that they’d never been able to share with other friends back home. And that’s comforting, even if they never see each other after the conference ends. Producer Mary Beth Kirchner tells the story, with production help from Rebecca Weiker.
It’s only about 20 minutes, & worth listening to.
(Thanks to Chris & Jess for the tip.)
Just got this cool press release which makes me wish I was anywhere near West Hollywood:
Grrrl, boi, lezbo, butch, femme, lipstick, drag king, trans, dyke, bulldagger, tomboy, genderqueer, one-way, kiki, power femme …
Each generation of lesbians uses new and different terms to describe how we present ourselves and what attracts us. GenderPlay in Lesbian Culture is the first ever Los Angeles exhibit to talk about labels and explore gender and its boundaries.
The OPENING EVENT, at the One Museum on Saturday March 14, will feature singer Phranc, emcee Marie Cartier and performance art from Latina trio, Butchlalis de Panochtitlan. Continue reading “Holly Would (Play with Gender)”
Yes, I’m one of those people. I hadn’t ever heard of Feng Shui back in the day, and I’ve been rearranging rooms for “flow” for as long as I can remember. I had a friend who used to make me come with her to see apartments so I could determine whether her furniture would work right in it. What I do, for the record, isn’t Feng Shui at all. I just have to feel right directionally.
When I moved into my apartment at Lawrence, I was so thrilled with the size of the place that I tried very hard to ignore how unfortunate the bedroom layout was. Until now. What happened is this: the other night I woke up in the morning and I had moved myself to sleep on the bed perpendicularly. In my sleep, that is, I had rotated myself a full 90 degrees.
So despite the fact that the room doesn’t work so well because of a misplaced radiator, I’ve rotated the bed the same 90 degrees I’d moved myself in my sleep, and voila: I just realized my bed is now facing North, as it should be. (It faces NE in Brooklyn, but that’s because Brooklyn’s crooked.)
I am hoping this clears up some of the wrong moves, wrong words, wrongness in general that has been plaguing me lately.
Another shot of Endymion on his radiator shelf: 
(1:15 AM) …I get a night to stay up late enough to catch some old Cold Case episodes & guess what the plot twist is tonight? The girl who gets killed was a boy…
(2:00 AM )… & this was a really good one, despite some language that made me wince … I guarantee it’d make most trans women cry their eyes out, in a good way. Check that: it’d make most people cry, I think.
The NAACP has been one of our strongest allies in the fight against Proposition 8 in California. The national NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund (LDF) and the California branch of the NAACP joined other civil rights groups in filing a major brief before the California Supreme Court in support of equality, and LDF recently urged the California legislature to enact resolutions calling for the invalidation of Prop 8.
The NAACP is getting some push-back for these efforts. Now is the time for us to support them and show that coalition politics goes both ways. Please join me in expressing your support for their statement of equality to your local NAACP branch:
We are not alone in this fight. Let’s show that we know how to step up to the plate when others step up for us.
Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund and PFLAG New York City invite you to Christine Jorgensen Reveals: A very special benefit performance supporting the work of Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund and PFLAG New York City
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street (Between 9th and 10th Avenues)