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Aurora the Tolerant
I love this one, of Aurora, closer up in her cone. Not a happy cat, but way more tolerant than we ever thought she’d be.
It’s been two years since we brought her home from DO, this week. Amazing. She’s such a grown cat now, all filled out, muscular, with a good layer of fat under her fur. She just looks like a grownup, finally, so much so now that I wonder if she wasn’t a full year younger than we thought she was.
Boylan Goes to High School
It turns out that Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There is on the recommended reading list for 10th graders at Dana Hall School of Wellesley, MA. (News courtesy Vickie Davis’ blog.)
Way to go, Jenny Boylan. Her next book, I’m Looking Through You, is out next year. Keep an eye peeled her this fall/winter for a Five Questions With… interview with Boylan about the new book.
Santhi Soundarajan
Santhi Soundarajan, a female runner in India who was stripped of her Olympic medal has, perhaps, tried to commit suicide. She ingested pesticide but it’s not clear that she did so in a suicide attempt, and may have taken it for stomach pain. There are more details in an India Times article.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced she failed a sex test and implied Santhi had deceived the sporting world by competing as a woman when she was a man, effectively ending her career.
But Santhi, who returned home to live in humiliation, insisted along with her parents and coaches she had done nothing wrong. . .
Seven of the eight women who tested positive for Y chromosomes during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics had AIS. They were allowed to compete.
Because the International Olympics no longer do these tests, exactly in order to prevent this kind of outcome, and The Hindu reports that endocrine test results were probably not in when she was disqualified.
DO & My Profile
Betty & I are off at that twice-annual conference we go to, & are looking forward to catching up with old friends & enjoying the green.
But in the meantime, a local arts paper called The Brooklyn Rail did a profile of yours truly.
Some things aren’t quite right, and “frilly feminine” is certainly not right – more like “trendy” or “stylish” – but it’s the first type of piece about me like this. I have decided it’s nearly impossible to talk about our past as a couple – when Betty’s identity was still male – and not have a journalist throw in a “he” when talking about our present tense.
Forbes’ Top 100 Women
Forbes has just published their list of the Top 100 Most Powerful women. Among them, politicans and CEOs, a couple of Queens (of Jordan, & the UK), a judge (Ginsburg), a few anchors (Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric), and Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, activist and Nobel Peace laureate (who is probably my favorite woman on the list).
Interesting, though, to see “Chairman” so frequently after a name. I guess “Chairperson” just doesn’t trip off the tongue the same way.
Don’t Get Married
Had I known this before, I might have told Betty we had to wait until she learned to do more chores:
Within marriages, the study finds that women do about twice as much housework as men, even after adjusting for employment status and other factors. While men living with their partners do more housework than married men, women still shoulder the burden of household chores. (bolded for emphasis by yours truly)
What’s interesting, however, is that in cohabitating couples, the chores are split more evenly.
Every study I’ve read backs this up, and that women do more chores than their husbands seems to be true despite childcare breakdowns and employment status. One woman I know worked fulltime and made most of the family’s money and still came home to do most of the chores.
San Quentin Trans
There are interviews with two transgender prisoners in the MSNBC documentary about San Quentin. They’re both positive about being there, and one woman in particular is pretty pleased that she can live with her husband in prison.
Indian FTMs
An article predominantly about lesbians and FTMs in India (despite the photo of MTFs dancing) appeared in The Hindu, India’s national paper. The West is blamed for intolerant attitudes:
The hostility to alternate sexualities, LesBIT activists say, is a modern phenomenon. Evidence of lesbian, bisexual and transgender relationships can be found in Vedic literature, tantra, Sufi poetry, and in the ancient sculptures o f Konark and Khajuraho. The criminalisation of gay, lesbian and transgender sexuality is, however, a product of the Victorian morality of British colonialism. What is interesting is that while homosexual marriages are today legally recognised in the United Kingdom, they continue to be criminalised in India.
That is, the Hjira may be evidence of a tolerant past, but their existence doesn’t prove a tolerant present.