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SCC Failure

A recent blog post written by someone who attended SCC reminds me, again, that whoever is in charge of partners’ events at SCC isn’t doing their job.

The only thing that I attended that did not live up to my expectations was the Comfort Zone, a group for SOFFA (significant others, friends, family and allies) of MTF trangender women. I qualified for the group as a wife of a MTF. The group was predominately made up of wives of cross dressers with about 4 of us being partners or wives of transgender people. It appears we all left before the meeting was over. The next morning Sarah and met two young women who had not been eligible for the group since their partners were FTM. They were in happy relationships. We exchanged email address and may try to put something on the internet for happy partners and wives of trans people.

This really thrills me. Two years ago a partner of an FTM was told she wasn’t welcome because she identified as lesbian, & this year they just don’t allow partners of FTMs into the partner support group.

It’s not hard to run an inclusive partner group. I’ve done it tons of times. I offer every year. I don’t need to get paid, just to have my costs covered. I would be willing to go down there to train some locals as to how to be inclusive of all partners.

Whoever is doing this workshop needs to be asked not to do it. The isolation most partners experience is quite enough, but isolating them further – at a trans conference! – is entirely unacceptable.

Please, SCC organizers, please. You have no idea what a knife in the heart it is, as a partner, to get to a conference and feel like no one bothered to care that you have a sense of community, too.

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Albanian Sworn Virgins in Decline

The tradition of Albanian Sworn Virgins is dying out, & the implication is that it’s dying out because women can now do things that women weren’t allowed to do before:

This is the last generation of sworn virgins, according to Aferdita Onuzi, a professor at Tirana’s Cultural, Anthropology and Arts Research Institute. In Albania these days, women enter parliament, government ministries, and the police force.

But I wonder if it’s as simple as that, since homosexuality became legal in Albania in the 1990s, too, and surely this was one path for a woman who didn’t want to marry the man chosen for her – either because she didn’t like him or didn’t like men.

(Much thanks to Caprice; we have a few other posts about the tradition on the MHB boards.)

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Ruby Molina

The body of the transgender woman who was found in the American River in Sacramento last week has been identified by police as Ruby (nee Fernando) Molina. The police are citing it as a “suspicious” death and need more information:

Anyone who knew the victim, the victim’s recent whereabouts, or who has other information about this case is asked to contact the Sacramento Police Department at (916) 443-HELP. A $1,000 reward is currently being offered.

Please, if you know something, let the police know. She deserves to have her murderers caught, as does her family.

(thanks to Angus/Andrea Grieve-Smith for the info.)

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No Maverick

It turns out the word maverick came from an actual person named Maverick who didn’t brand his cattle. His family is still around and has included civil rights lawyers, accused communists, & a member emeritus of the San Antonio ACLU. That is, not people who are voting for John McCain, but they also object to him calling himself one.

Ms. Terrelitta Maverick, now 82, says, about John McCain: “He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

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Fidelities

The NYT publishes a column about Polyamory and specifically about Poly Pride, a celebration being held in NYC this weekend.

Alex Williams, the journalist who wrote it, seems to have come away with the main impression I’ve come away with: too much talking. I can barely manage one person in my life, but I can’t imagine more. I just don’t have the patience.

Toothbrush disputes are the least of it. In the era of safe sex and cellphones, a life that seems to promise boundless sex in fact involves lots of talking. And talking. And talking.

For one thing, they constantly have to explain the way they live.

That last line ring out to any trans people & their partners out there? One of the reasons Betty & I love the various alt.sex communities we’ve run into is that there is a shared experience: you may not be explaining the same thing, but you’re still explaining. Or, as I like to explain in my Uneven Libidos class, the further you are from the socially-condoned relationship – heterosexual marriage with something like traditional gender roles – the harder it is to find validation and support for the way you live.

If you want to know more about poly, I highly recommend Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up, and her website, which lists tons of resources for poly people.

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Felinity

I can honestly say I’m baffled by this New York Times article, because I’ve grown up with men who like cats, from my brother to my friend Peter to many other guys I’ve known over the years, most of whom aren’t gay, if you need to know. I had a friend when I was 20 or so who always said, “Never date a man who doesn’t like cats” (which I found to be pretty good advice, actually, even if I didn’t always heed it).

So have I just been in some alternative universe? (Yes, I know I have. But still. Do people really know guys who won’t admit to liking cats?)