Blog for LGBT Families
Today’s the day we blog for LGBT families!
Betty and I have had the good historical luck to be able to be legally married, but most LGBT families don’t have that right yet. Ironically, it was a lesbian friend who got so angry with me that I was taking part in an institution that she couldn’t that made me even more sure I had to have the legal rights that come with marriage: hospital visitation rights and decisions about all sorts of important life & death issues. The default of course would be family/parents, and I had no doubt that Betty’s folks would make unfortunate choices if they had to be made.
Like not recognizing her femininity, or her multiple selves, or her queerness.
The poor family of a transwomen who was murdered in Chicago have had to deal with that from the press, & the courts; but imagine how heart-breaking and disrespectful it would be if a partner didn’t have the right to insist on her partner’s chosen name and gender. It’s more than insult added to injury; it’s salt in a wound.
I’ve come to believe that it’s more important for LGBT people to have the legal rights afforded to heterosexual folks, because heterosexual relationships are already socially and culturally recognized; since LGBT relationships are just becoming visible, they especially need the legal recognition. I know that I am often “disappeared” as Betty’s partner whether she’s read as male (in which case “he” is assumed to be gay) or female (in which case she’s “too femme” to be read as a lesbian). That is, there’s too much misinformation and outright ignorance out there for LGBT couples to count on a kind soul or an educated person to give them the access and power they should have as a partner, but that’s what we have to depend on without legal rights.
Please support whatever local efforts to get LGBT people that right. It’s better for the couples, it’s better for the kids; it’s better for the whole of society.
Here’s a list of participating blogs, too.
Thanks to Deborah
I just wanted to especially thank Deborah for her kindness and help with my ongoing insanity. I’ve developed some major neck/back/shoulder pain (a combination of a bad computer setup, one fallen arch, and – oh, stress, for some reason) and we all know how hard it is to get a doctor on the phone! But Deborah is always ready with advice and help.
She’s done it before, too, and I’m insanely grateful. I literally couldn’t work for a few days there – leaning forward at all was incredibly painful but is oh, just kind of required when one is writing and editing.
Hello Cruel World
Kate Bornstein’s next book, Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws is coming out soon, and here’s the lovely cover:
You can pre-order it at Amazon, or at Powells.
There’s also a website with previews and more info.
(& a Five Questions Interview with the author in a few weeks, promise!)
Betty (Not) On the Rag
Poor Betty. The other day while wearing her trademark summer thongs, she bumped her toe really, really hard. Her doctor predicted the toenail will fall off in not too long, and so she complained to me tonight that “just as it’s about to be summer, my season for wearing flip-flops, I’m going to be missing my toenail, and I like having manicured toenails.”
Oh, sad, sad day.
I said: “Wow, it’s a good thing you’ve never gotten your period at the absolute worst time, eh?”
She stopped complaining pronto. We will buy her pretty band-aids to cover up her lack of big toenail, instead, if it even falls off, which I doubt it will. (Did someone say Drama Queen?)
Happy Memorial Day!
A very happy Memorial Day to you all, with especial good wishes to anyone who has lost a loved one in a war – current, recent, or past. (I was relieved to find out my own cousin quit the Navy, & so is no longer stationed in Iraq.)
I would personally like to thank my great uncle, who stormed the beaches at Normandy – because he kept so mum about it when he was alive that I only found out about his service after his death.
And since we often “remember” the dead of our wars, but not the post-traumatics and the permanently injured, a shout out to all of them too, for sacrificing a limb or their sanity for our sake.
Pope Maledict Rides Again
Apparently our current pope – who I prefer to call Pope Maledict – has called LGBT relationships “weak love.”
Sometimes I wish I could take people and shake them, or – as Jim Johnson of Straight, Not Narrow points out: to tell them to shut up when they don’t know what they’re talking about.
I could have never explained to anyone before Betty started presenting as female what it’s like to live in the world as an LGBT couple, and I thought I knew. I really did. Faghag for years, lesbian hangabout for years – but really, I didn’t know. Weak is not the word for it.
There is some good news, though – the religious left is on the rise. (Where have you guys been?)
Humorless Feminist
Like everyone, people frequently forward me dumb jokes that someone has forwarded to them, & on & on.
And often I’m offended by jokes that other people laugh at.
There’s this one, say:
A woman from North Dakota and another from the East coast were seated side by side on an airplane. The woman from North Dakota, being friendly and all, said: “So, where are you from?” The East coast woman said, “From a place where they know better than to use a preposition at the end of a sentence.” The woman from North Dakota sat quietly for a few moments and then replied: “So, where are you from, bitch?”
I understand that the joke is based on the woman’s rudeness, but I’m also tired of jokes about East Coast women, and educated women, etc. They tire me. I’m an educated East Coast woman, you know?
Don’t get me started on blonde jokes.
But what amazes me is that someone would actually send me these jokes. Not a stranger, either. Someone who knows well enough that I’m blonde, from the East Coast, and educated. Shoot, they even know I’ve taught grammar.
And I can’t figure out if this is weird passive-aggressive stuff, or if people just don’t think.
Either way, I get pissed off – probably more pissed off than necessary – and if I say anything about it (to the person, or to someone we both know) I get accused of being “too touchy” or “humorless” or “sensitive.”
Well, yeah, so I am. When people tell jokes that I’m the punchline of, remarkably, I feel offended. So sue me. But either way, it’s very hard for me to like the person who sent it much.
We Don't Really Know
Since we got the boys when they were already somewhere around 16 weeks old, and we got them in September, we really don’t know when their birthday is – except that we know it’s sometime around now.
Happy 6th Birthday to Aeneas and Endymion, then!
In this picture, they’re about 4 months old. See those big ears and big paws? Ah, the shape of things to come.
Upcoming Blog for LGBT Families Day
Mombian has had the clever idea to start an LGBT Families Day, and I wanted people to know about it before it came and went.
On June 1st, blog about your LGBT family, or blog about why LGBT families rock, or why they should have more legal rights, or whatever pertains to the subject that you need to say.
HRC has it up on their site, too.
I’d also like to point out our own little clearinghouse of information for parents who are trans.
You can get more information at Mombian’s blog post about it, and do make sure they know you’re in on it!