A little late, but not too late as it’s still Friday, here’s Aeneas, looking pissed off because I seem serious about getting them to lose some weight. He hasn’t quite a adjusted to us cutting out the 5PM feeding, so tends to start waiting for the 8PM feeding at about 5:05PM.
Up Close & Personal
Today we’ll be interviewed by host Bonnie Graham on WGBB AM (Long Island), on the show Up Close & Personal, at 6PM, for about a half hour.
You can listen online, too, by clicking the ‘Listen Live’ button in the upper right hand corner of the WGBB website.
Pfc. LaVena Johnson
In light of the recent case brought against Cassandra Hernandez, I wish I didn’t think that the family of LaVena Johnson has a right to be concerned that the Army is sweeping something under the rug, but in this case, it’s not just rape, but murder.
The mother of Pat Tillman once put the matter in stark and honest terms: “This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual,” she said. “How are they treating others?”
Now we know. Sign the petition to get Johnson’s case re-opened.
Partner’s Take
I got this today from Ana in Brazil (the girl from Ipanema, you could say):
One last thing: regarding your mixed feelings about Betty’s transformation, one of the best metaphors for it was depicted in the “Beauty and the Beast” episode of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, directed by Roger Vadin. You know the plot: the beautiful Susan Sarandon is forced to live with the Beast, until the spell is broken, by the power or her sincere love, and — plim! — the beast becomes a Prince Charming (Klaus Kinski) so proud of his just-found looks. But she is unimpressed. “Why?” he aks “don’t you prefer me handsome?”
She replies: “I was in love with the Beast, I don’t know who you are.”
“Stuff I Supposed After Meeting Some People in a Gay Bar”*
* quote by Mara Keisling, when providing an alternative description of what Bailey’s book could be described as instead of as “science.”
This NPR show out of the Bay Area about the whole Bailey controversy is good listening. Joan Roughgarden (author of Evolution’s Rainbow), Mara Keisling (executive director of NCTE), Alice Dreger (author of Hermaphrodites & The Medical Invention of Sex) & Bailey himself.
& A challenging phone call from Ben Barres, who I love & who does not let Bailey not answer a direct question (with textual backup from Roughgarden), specifically, whether or not Bailey feels trans people are suited to prostitution.
The only thing that no-one said that someone should have said is that Bailey now has a history & a record of turning (at best) weak science into “controversy,” such as with the bisexuality studies that came out a couple of years ago.
I’m upset by the idea of how or if Dreger’s status as a woman – not just as an academic or intersex educator – is coming into play here. That is, is a man not sexist because a woman says he isn’t? (I don’t think so, but I think that’s coloring her defense of Bailey.)
Five Questions With… Eli Clare
Eli Clare is the author of Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (South End Press, 1999) and has been widely published. He has walked across the United States for peace, coordinated a rape prevention program and co-organized the first-ever Queerness and Disability Conference. He works for the University of Vermont ‘s LGBTQA Services. We were lucky enough to meet him at a Translating Identity Conference at UVM, and I was happy to get the chance to talk to him about his new book, The Marrow’s Telling, which was recently published by HomoFactus Press.
(1) Why poetry?
As a writer, my first love is poetry. I think of it as a thug who grabbed me by the collar many years ago and whispered in my ear, “You’re coming with me.” I went willingly, not having any idea where poetry would take me or what it would demand. Twenty-five years later I find myself writing a mix of poetry and creative nonfiction; my first book, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, is a collection of essays, and my second book, The Marrow’s Telling: Words in Motion, which ought to be rolling off the press at any moment now, is a mix of poems and short prose pieces, not quite essays but more than prose poems.
Audre Lorde in her essay “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” writes of poetry as a “revelatory distillation of experience.” Poems demand both wildness/revelation–moments where language, sound, and rhythm, rather than thought or idea or analysis, take the lead–and discipline/distillation–the paring down to heart and bone. As a writer, a reader, an activist trying to make sense of the world, I need revelatory distillation.
I also know that in the United States too many of us have been taught to fear or avoid poetry, to feel bored or stupid in its presence. As an activist-poet, I always hope that my poems will be doors held wide open, roller coasters, parachutes opening above you, slow meandering rivers.
Air Force Double Rape
Cassandra Hernandez says she was raped once by three of her fellow Air Force airmen, and now she’s being raped again by the Air Force itself, who have given the three men accused of her rape immunity in exchange for testimony against Hernandez herself. She chose not to testify against the men because of “severe stress” and what she got in return was charges of indecent behavior that may cause her to lose her job.
& What did she do? She went to a party in one of the airmen’s rooms. But if she was there, & they were there, doesn’t that mean they’re guilty too? Apparently not.
From the Feminist Daily News & KHOU.
AI: Trans Action
AIUSA has posted an action alert about alleged abuse of two trans women, Mariah Lopez & Christina Sforza, at the hands of the NYPD.
Dreger & Bailey, Again
& Now The NY Times has published an article about the whole Dreger/Bailey fiasco. It’s reasonably objective, even if the title of the article is ridiculously overblown.
Moreover, based on her own reading of federal regulations, Dr. Dreger. . . argued that the book did not qualify as scientific research. The federal definition describes “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation.â€
Dr. Bailey used the people in his book as anecdotes, not as the subjects of a systematic investigation, she reported.
Which makes it not scientific at all. Either that or someone owes me a Ph.D. for My Husband Betty.
Victoria Arellano
I just happened to be catching up on my Feministing reading when I discovered a post by Jessica Hoffman about the death of trans inmate Victoria Arellano (or Arrelano) who was denied her AIDS medication and then Hoffman followed up her post wondering why this death hasn’t been covered.
It’s interesting time as just recently I’ve been bothered by a recent article in The Boston Globe about a doctor who transitioned with much of her life in tact – ironic since Arellano didn’t wind up with even her life in tact. Big article, no article.
& They say there’s no such thing as privilege.
Mind you, my complaints about the way various media outlets cover trans issues aren’t directed at the trans people who are often featured in these articles: their intentions are for the most part good, & they are trying, in their own way, to raise awareness of trans issues in general, all of which is much needed. It’s not that it was a terrible article in terms of The Big Picture, but I’m tired of journalists/media writing a piece that is pretty much like every other piece about a trans person (choosing someone professional, white, with a traditional narrative including surgery & the like) & presenting it as if it’s a revelation.
It’s not a revelation. I’d like to get the bar set a little higher, & to start pressuring media to cover more types of trans people, in more situations, with more of the kinds of issues that come up. Like what does a person like Betty, or others like her, do about the ID issue? What do people do when their license says one thing but they can’t get their passport changed? What are the issues for young transitioners, who are going to be dealing with discrimination from the outset of their careers? How is the expectation of not getting divorced changing what kinds of legal issues couples face? How does transness come into play with legal issues? What happens if a recent medical student comes out before she has a practice or an income or a family & established community?
I could go on. I won’t. Like I said, this is good for general use, but as someone who is “in the field” & who works with the media on a regular basis, I also feel I have a responsibility to pay attention to the way media coverage ISN’T changing at all, & how the struggle to represent the diversity of trans experience, from within the trans community, is or isn’t being reflected by the media, & maybe keeping an eye toward changing that, somehow.