Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Oh, they’ve got to be kidding. Next up: men prefer having muscles. Men show a preference for titties. Women like babies and chocolate.
But wait, there’s more news from these researchers: “Red was the color of a good ripe fruit,†Hurlbert said.
No! Surely not! Wait – does this mean that men prefer unripe fruit?
Enough, already. What I want to know most is how these people get funding.
(Thanks to Eileen for the link.)
I’m going to tell you the story of me, Adrien an FtM transman, and my partner, Elena a free-spirited, open-minded, adventurous, bi-sexual genetic woman. Y’all get ready, because some parts of it are scandalous. OK, here we go.
When Elena and I first met, I think it was late 1998, we just really hit it off, the way you do. The meeting that stood out was at the state fair, for a friend’s birthday. We were there with lots of friends and acquaintances and between us there was that magnetic energy – we were more interested in each other than anyone else and for reasons soon to be disclosed, this wasn’t entirely appropriate. Soon after that night at the fair, we met again at a party, a lesbian party. At this point on the timeline of my transition, I was just getting into the transgender vocabulary and ideas and was definitely starting to recognize myself as trans, but I was pre-everything with only some glimmerings that chest surgery might be something feasible for me. So, I was still living at home in the bosom of the lesbian community, but starting to scratch the itch that would bring my time there to its end. At present, we still have many gay and lesbian friends, but some have dropped out of our lives as well. Since the beginning of our relationship, we always found that we felt more aligned with our straight couple friends and I definitely do not call myself a lesbian any more. Elena’s relationship and sexual history includes men and women but at the time we met, she was identified as lesbian and had a female partner. But back to the story…
It’s now safe for me to announce that I’m confirmed to do events in Denver – at the Metropolitan State College of Denver on October 9th – and in Boulder – at the University of Colorado @ Boulder on October 10th.
I’m very pleased to get the chance to visit with people in that area, and hope to get to meet a bunch of you I’ve never met before.
I’ll keep you posted as we work out the details.
It’s been 87 years today since the 19th Amendment – giving women the right to vote in the US – was ratified.
Betty & I went to see Stardust for its opening last weekend because Neil Gaiman asked us to (not personally, of course, but via his blog) and we both really enjoyed the movie. It’s rare for me to like a movie – I find most comedies too mean-spirited, most romances too gendered, and since I don’t like movies all that much in the first place (which is something like sacrilege or anti-American to admit, even) as either entertainment or as an art form, Betty doesn’t convince me to go to many. I don’t find most of them deliver even $10 worth of entertainment.
But Stardust, I loved. I’ve long been a fan of Gaiman’s writing, for the fantasy, the sheer power & reach of his imagination, & the breadth of his research, but what I usually like about writers above all else is voice. You know, I was weaned on C.S. Lewis. I like a narrative voice that tells me a story in a personal way, and what comes across in Gaiman’s writing is not just a kind of bemused gentleness, but intelligence, a lot of compassion, & a kind of sly earnestness and respect for his characters that all adds up to good stories, well told.
I read the book Stardust a couple of years ago and didn’t re-read it before seeing the movie because sometimes you want to see if the movie will touch the kind of memory you have of the book – and with this movie version, I found it hit all the same notes as the book did, mixing a kind of whimsy with a remarkable wisdom. But mostly there’s that gentle compassion – for the dead brothers (despite their being power-greedy fuckers), for the star, & for the somewhat hapless young man who’s fallen in love with the wrong girl.
The only part I didn’t like was DeNiro’s performance, and that’s mostly because it was one long “poofter” joke. & For that to be in a Gaiman film – who is uncommonly sympathetic to his gay & trans & gender variant characters – it seemed out of character. As “poofter” jokes go, I suppose it was more sympathetic than most.
So go see it. Put aside the arch comments, the snarky sarcasm, the cruel retorts. Go see a story about naivety, stupidity, greed, vanity & ultimately, justice. But mostly go see a story about love, told well.
For those of you who have been following the issue of pharmacists deciding not to fill hormone prescriptions due to them following their conscience, US District Court Judge Jeanne Scott of Illionois just ruled in favor of Ethan Vandersand – one such pharmacist, who refused to fill a prescription for emergency contraception.
Despite a 2005 law issued by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) that requires Illinois pharmacists to either dispense or ensure timely access to Plan B upon request, Judge Jeanne Scott ruled that Vandersand was protected under the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. Wal-Mart and Walgreen Co. — which have both terminated or disciplined employees for refusing to fill Plan B requests — maintain that Illinois’ conscience laws do not apply to pharmacists.
I’m curious if there are any reported instances where a pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for a trans person’s hormones.
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We’re back from a lovely couple of days in PA with my family & will get right back into the groove with Julia Serano’s reading tomorrow night at Bluestockings.
She’ll be reading from her book Whipping Girl at 7pm, & of course we’ll be there. If you’ve never been, you can find directions on their website. If you haven’t read her book yet, do, but in the meantime you can read the interview with me & Julia in a recent issue of Curve (which I’m told is not quite on newsstands, but will be soonly). & If you’ve already read that, & can’t make the reading, then go read some of Julia’s writing on her website – I especially recommend her “Barette Manifesto.”
& Yes, I’ll be doing a Five Questions With… interview with her soonly.
But wow is the weather better in the mountains of PA.
Or Berkeley? The NY City Council apparently has resolved every other problem in New York, as now they’ve gotten around to banning words. First was the N word, & now the B word is on the list.
The B word? What is this, fourth grade? The word is bitch. & This whole idea is idiotic. Please leave our language alone, & maybe instead help women who are suffering with domestic violence, sexual harassment, or who are having a hard time raising children while working full-time.
Surely the NY City Council has some real problems to solve, or I’m going to write them a letter bitching them out.
Amazingly enough, getting larger breasts does not solve other psychological problems a woman may have.
You can read way more commentary about this than you’d ever need to at Feministing.com.