from yesterday’s Dr. Phil show. It seems the typical “poor mom” trans kids show until Toni confronts the reparative doctor.
1st Trans Officer of State Dems
From National Stonewall Democrats:
Washington, DC – Today, the Stonewall Democrats congratulated Laura Calvo upon her election as Treasurer of the Democratic Party of Oregon. Calvo, a seasoned Democratic operative, becomes the first openly-transgender officer of a state Democratic party. A member of the Board of Directors for National Stonewall Democrats, Calvo also serves as Chair of the Oregon Stonewall Democrats and as Treasurer of the Multnomah County Democrats. Multnomah County, which includes the city of Portland, is the largest county in the state of Oregon.
Betty Update
Betty is home from the hospital and curling up to sleep with our Aurora, who missed her very much.
Gendery Blogs
It may be an advertising hook, but this list of gender-y blogs is pretty thorough, covering feminist issues, LGBT issues, and even folks like me.
Transgender Workplace made it, as did other sites I contribute to, like Trans Group Blog and Invert(e), but I’m especially happy to see Sugarbutch rounding out the list at 100.
Don’t Let Him Get Away With It
On May 16, 2007, Sean Kennedy, a 20-year old gay man, was attacked on the streets of Greenville, South Carolina. He died of his injuries later that night. Yet, because of the lack of hate crimes legislation, his attacker may be eligible for parole in February!
Sean was a brave young man with a bright, infectious smile. But his life was cut short and justice left unserved.  Now, PFLAG is joining with Sean’s mother, Elke Kennedy, and asking all of our members to write to the parole board and urge them to rule that Moller must serve his complete sentence for this heinous, anti-gay crime.
Because South Carolina – and many other states- lack protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, Moller was able to plea-bargain to involuntary manslaughter charges (considered a “non-violent crimeâ€) and received a suspended five to three years sentence for his crime. Because of the credit he received for time served before sentencing, his full sentence means that he will be free in September 2009. And he is also eligible for parole in February, which means that he will have served only 8 months of his full sentence for Sean’s death.
The parole board is currently conducting a review on whether to grant Moller parole. It is critically important that they hear from our community, and that we each send a strong message that it is unacceptable to grant such early parole following a brutal anti-gay murder!
Please join us in writing a letter to the parole board, and ask them to deny Stephen Moller’s parole. If you have the time, please write a personal letter by hand or by computer, as those will be the most effective, and if you knew Sean or his family personally, please include that information.
Sick Betty
Despite her having promised to quit with the medical shenanigans starting in 2009, my sweetie is now in our local hospital with atypical pneumonia.
She went to the emergency room last night because she couldn’t breathe. (I called her a cab, from WI, to take her there). They’ve done umpteen tests, to rule out things like embolism, and they put her on oxygen right away.
She’ll probably be there a few days, is my guess.
Otherwise she seems to be getting better, & is in okay spirits. She does have her own room because she’s female but still legally male – a benefit of being out as trans, I suppose. & According to her, the medical staff have all been respectful of her gender.
So do send your best vibes in betty’s direction, so she gets better soon. I have a funny feeling all the stuff that happened last year lead to a shot immune system and so, now this. Feh to illness.
What You Don’t Need
It’s not good news, but it ends pretty optimistically. Worth watching.
10 Days In
After a nearly balmy 10 days in Appleton – it’s been aboug 20 degrees everyday – on Tuesday it’s meant to plunge to 2 degrees, and by Thursday, to 0.
I am amazed by how much I don’t mind the cold. I’m a little amazed by the consistency of both the cold and the snow, but since I don’t have to shovel my own walk or dig out a car, I just have to bundle up to walk to class or to get groceries and the like, which isn’t too bad.
I’m teaching three courses this term – Freshman Studies, Gender Studies 100, and Trans Lives – so I’m happily busy and feeling optimistic about 2009. Obama may have a first 100 days to make changes (and only 10 days until he takes office!!), but so far we’ve all had 10 – how have yours been?
Gainesville’s Fight
Allyson Robinson posted this message about Equality Florida’s fight for a gender-inclusive non-discrimination law in Gainesville, Florida on our message boards, & I thought it deserved a larger audience:
Many of you are aware of the fight brewing in Gainesville, Florida over their trans-inclusive non-discrimination law, passed by the city council last year. Gainesville’s non-discrimination ordinance had covered sexual orientation for years, but when gender identity was added last year, opposition was activated. The opposition group collected a huge number of signatures–over 10% of the projected voting population–to get the anti-discrimination ordinance placed on the ballot in a special election. That’s tremendous for this kind of municipal issue; more people signed the petition against these protections than voted for the mayor or any sitting city council member in recent elections.
Though the charter amendment the opposition group is pushing would eliminate protections for the whole LGBT community, their messaging is focusing on transgender people–the “bathroom diversion.” Their flyers state, in letters a inch tall, “KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S RESTROOMS.” As we’ve seen all over the country, and writ large in California last fall, this kind of fear-based messaging is very, very difficult to dislodge from voters’ minds. The special election is scheduled for March 24.
This fight has national significance. The “bathroom diversion” is quickly becoming our opposition’s weapon of choice. They used it successfully in Hamtramck, Michigan, it might have succeeded in Montgomery County, Maryland had the courts not intervened, it’s getting drug out in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it’s already being raised at the state level in places like Connecticut that are considering inclusive non-discrimination bills this year. We must show both our opponents and our supporters that we can consistently defeat this tactic. If we don’t, municipalities or states considering trans-inclusive non-discrimination laws may become gun-shy, preferring not to deal with costly ballot initiatives in response to pro-equality laws.
Naming All the Parts
Today I’ll be covering Kate Bornstein’s “Naming All the Parts” chapter of Gender Outlaw with my Gender Studies 100 class. It’s always an interesting thing to bring up hankie codes with undergraduates.
It’s the chapter in which she passes on this limerick:
A gay man who lived in Khartoum
Took a lesbian up to his room
They argued all night
Over who had the right
To do what, and with what, to whom.
What is maybe more surprising is that it’s very rare to see them even blink; these are students who were about 5 years old when we were having a national conversation about whether a blowjob was sex or not.