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A Day in the Life of HB: Part One

I thought this might amuse some of you, for whatever reason it would.
Wake up, slightly bemused at having dreamt I grew up with Sting living two houses away from me.
Put on tea water, weigh self (don’t ask!), turn on computer, light cigarette, say hello to Aeneas (who always greets me when I wake up), apologize to Endymion (who continues to sleep at my feet no matter how many times I kick him when I’m sleeping).
Go online, curse dial-up, delete pounds of spam. Do I really need to see ads for “young girls jerking you off” when I first wake up? No, I don’t. Do I even have a penis for these young sluts TO jerk off? No, I don’t.
Open the Animal Rescue site, tab to MHB, check stats, amazon sales rank, message boards. Tell someone to get bent and someone else to quit picking the same fights, already. Split threads, move threads, delete bitchy posts. Proceed to the Breast Cancer site, the Child Health site, the Hunger site, the Literacy site, the Rainforest site, which I let load in a background tab while I check out the boards.
IM Betty, who tells me about my email before most of it downloads. (We get cc:’d a lot of the same info.)
When the tea water whistles, if I hear it, pour tea; while tea is steeping, prepare a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Yes, I’m addicted. In a still-sleepy daze, wonder if I should let the Cheerios go soggy while I finish smoking the cigarette I lit, or put out the cigarette to eat the Cheerios. (It’s about 50/50, as far as I can tell.)
Bug Betty via IM about the eight things we’re supposed be doing, who she’s supposed to be calling, what events we’ve been invited to that she hasn’t gotten back to me about, which reminds me to open my calendar, and see that I’m supposed to work, so I speed up my tea drinking and emailing.
Answer ten emails in succession: one to a friend from my pre-tranny life, five to trannies currently emailing me regularly, two queries from people about info/resources, and one to someone I promised some bit of writing to. The tenth I forward to Betty about tech stuff on the site/boards.
Ignore the phone until I stop saying fuck under my breath when it rings.
Stop doing everything to give Aeneas his morning love-down.
Wonder if I have time to work out before I dress and bathe.
Answer five more emails: two responses that have already come back from the previous set, a third from a partner who’s freaking out, forward two other invites to Betty so she can not get back to me about whether or not she wants to go.
Read the new posts on the boards again, making sure whatever fights started have been dropped, then pick one myself about something feminist.
Remember to take my Zyrtec when I realize I’m itchy all over from the Aeneas love-down.
IM Betty about how she slept, say hello, only to notice a “brb” about five lines up.
Wait for Betty to get back so I don’t forget whatever it is. Drink tea, play with Endymion. Take out yoga mat. Check answering machine for previous night’s messages because I didn’t want to answer the phone. Get back to find 10 lines of IM from Betty that end with another ‘brb.’ Completely forget what I was supposed to IM Betty about.
Check my to-do list, cross one thing off and add another.
Make a few phonecalls.
Finally, Betty gets back from lunch and tells me she has no idea if she wants to go to anything I’ve mentioned to her. I resolve just to tell her what we’re going to and quit asking her, then forward her a few more emails about events in the next half-hour after I’ve made the resolution.
IM Betty to tell her I’m working out. Work out. (Okay, so this doesn’t happen everyday.)
Take a quick bath, dress, check the boards one last time, IM Betty that I’m going to work. Smoke another cigarette. Wonder how long it will take someone to write their own version of this blog post on the boards.

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The Amancio Project Vigil

I received this message in the comments section, but I thought it deserved greater notice. This is a follow-up to my original blog entry from June 12th, 2005.

June 27,2005
The Amancio Project Vigil surpassed expectations. The tone and mood was one of joy, sadness and resolve.
Because of the dreadful murders Yuma yesterday of six people (four children), the news media came early and left before many vigil attendees arrived and left before the speakers delivered their messages. A head count went over 100.
Amancio’s family was there in force, all wearing t-shirts with Amancio’s picture on them. That was a beautiful sight by itself. Many people drew and wrote their thoughts onto “The Memory Wall.” A video was shown depicting Amancio’s life from early child hood to a few days before his death. It was obvious he was a happy child, spunky adolescent, spirited teenager and talented and giving adult. A poem by Don Gilbert, “One of Liberty’s Children” dealing with hate crime was read by Don and a framed copy handed to Amancio’s mom.
Speakers included myself as the Organizer of The Yuma County Gay Meetup and The Amancio Project, Representative Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona House of Representatives (first speaking for herself then delivering a message from Arizona Representative Amanda Aguirre), Luis Heredia representing Congressman Grijalva, Brenda Galvan Aguirre from the Arizona Leadership Institute, Donna Rose with the Human Rights Campaign, Lori Girshick the Anti-Violence Project Coordinator for Wingspan in Tucson, a hate crime victim’s mother whose son was murdered three years ago and the culprits have not been caught, a member of the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, Vigil coordinator Hanna, with the Yuma County Gay Rights Meetup.
No Yuma city or county representative was in the audience, an observation which did not go unnoticed by Rep. Sinema and Mr. Heredia.
A wreath was presented to the family. The mother and the grandmother then handed out “Angel” pins and small crosses to everyone while the candles were being prepared (unfortunately, it became too breezy to light them).
It is now incumbent upon all of us to keep this spirit alive and the momentum going.
Michael H. Baughman
The Amancio Project
www.gayrights.meetup.com/177
www.TheAmancioProject.org (still under construction)

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Ladies' Room?

There are many meaningful things said about the gender divide vis a vis bathrooms, but I didn’t expect to be blogging about it. Still, a couple of recent articles – one in The New York Times, and the other in The NY Post – have brought up all the usual issues and complaints.
If we allow crossdressed men to go into a ladies room, the end of civilization is upon us. Pedophilia will occur at mind-boggling rates. Women will no longer feel safe.

    A few things have occurred to me.
    1) The reason women already go to the bathroom in pairs (other than a chance to gossip) is safety. So it’s apparent they already don’t feel safe going alone to the ladies’ room, trannies or not.
    2) One of our loyal bloggers actually did some research on the incidence of men crossdressing in order to assault children in bathrooms, and after an evening of making himself heartsick with horrible stories, found only one incidence – which turned out, after all, to be a mistake.
    3) It strikes me that the easy answer to this problem is to legislate that new buildings need to include one single-occupancy bathroom. Period. So that the transperson, or woman-raised-female, or child-and-parent (fathers take their kids to the bathroom, too) can use a room that is lockable and private. Other buildings could be required over a period of time to retrofit their own bathrooms for similar use.
    4) I wonder often at the people who spew such fear and hatred of strangers, or the unknown. I wonder how they ever feel safe in their worlds.
    5) The first time I shared a ladies’ room with a drag queen the only thing that upset me was that she’d remembered to stop at a mirror to freshen her lipstick and I hadn’t.

Not to make light of the situation: women are vulnerable to unprotected spaces, and getting stuck behind a locked door. But I don’t think crossdressers are the men who are going to be assaulting them, and I don’t think the average sex assailant would be willing to emasculate himself to that degree in order to assault women. Transpeople are usually just as scared as women are of assault from men.
Since stalls create the privacy, why aren’t ladies’ room doors transparent? I don’t have a problem with someone watching me put on lipstick or make sure there’s no toilet paper stuck on my shoe (and maybe the clear doors would shame more people into washing their hands – like they’re supposed to). Extra eyes help cut down on violence.
So the real issue is: why don’t women feel safe in restrooms?
My guess is that it’s because we don’t take crimes against women seriously enough – no matter who perpetrates them. They say you can judge a society by how well it treats its women and children, and by those standards, we’re not getting a passing grade. ABC reports an increase in child abuse that’s ‘epidemic’ and the stats on violence against women stay the same year after year. If women don’t feel safe in their own homes, why on earth would they feel safe in a public bathroom? And while you might say these are two different issues, the late Andrea Dworkin said:

By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air; it is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Instead of “I am afraid,” we say, “I don’t want to,” or “I don’t know how,” or “I can’t.”

So why are women afraid of transfolks in restrooms? Because women are afraid. While they may not understand that transpeople are not the ones who will assault them, they don’t expect their boyfriends and husbands to assault them, either. And they do. They do. And as usual, what can be feared (because it is unknown, sometimes unknowable, and new) will be feared instead. Their fear is legitimate. Transpeople’s need for accomodation is legitimate. But once again, we’ve got this tiny sliver of pie, and no one’s getting enough to eat. The issue again is male violence – male violence against gay men, transpeople, and women. When we all realize that we’re in this together, maybe, maybe, we’ll take back the night.
Resources: The NY Post and NY Times articles can be found on the MHB Boards, and there’s some sensible legal consideration given to the issue by Michael C. Dore of FindLaw.com.

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Transvestites

In the middle of a recent thread about the term transvestite, Betty and I were both challenged as to our use of it. A lot of people are offended by the word and its connotations of mental illness and perversity. As I mention in the glossary entry in my book, however, Betty and I never saw it that way, for several reasons: 1) because without transvestite you couldn’t have transsexuals or transgenders – because it was the first of the three coined, and the others were coined from it; 2) because the rest of the world uses the term; 3) because the man who coined it had no such judgments of perversity or mental illness in mind when he coined it – all that came later, and 4) for Betty there was always a sexual aspect to crossdressing, and taking that out was the equivalent of white-washing the sexual aspect.
Someone even mentioned that they think first of Glen or Glenda when they hear the word “transvestite” – and I wondered, are we ashamed of Ed Wood?
Transvestites scratch the itch of gender dysphoria through crossdressing, and that’s all. Transvestites are not in the DSM (only fetishistic transvestites are, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who fits that description). As Donna, one of our MHB board faithful clarified, “…the word “transvestite” was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld circa 1910, was used as a broad, entirely non-judgmental term that would encompass what today would really be considered the entire tg spectrum, and was *not* invented by the psychiatric profession to pathologize or perversify people.” It just wasn’t Hirschfield’s style.
So in a sense, the word transvestite is a link to the whole of the T community’s history. That it’s become a word with negative connotations is due to the lack of education, the silence surrounding the word, our own willingness to disown people like Ed Wood and maybe even Eddie Izzard for not being exactly as we’d like them to be. But if there’s anything the queer community has taught me, it’s that discovering your history as a community is vital and important work. Do gays disown Rock Hudson because he was closeted or because he died of AIDS? Joe Orton because his lover killed him, or because he was famous for having anonymous sex in bathrooms? Of course they don’t. Because when you’re out there, trying to show people you exist – and that you always have existed – you need to find the figures from history that provide proof.
The Chevalier D’Eon, Ed Wood, Virginia Prince, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf: none of them are perfect examples. I’ve been asked a few times how it is I can like Virginia Prince for some things and excoriate her for others, and the answer is easy: she’s human. But what she did for herself, for all trans people everywhere, is more than mind-blowing. Did Charlotte von Mahlsdorf inform for the Communist Party? Only she knows, and she’s taken that secret to the grave. Ed Wood looked on the 60s, as an old man, with envy in his heart, for a decade where sexuality might be freer, gender a little more blurred. He made some of the best bad movies ever. But all of them, in their own way, made transvestites a little more visible; they gave people the idea of it, at least.
I understand that older crossdressers cringe when they hear it; they found that word in adult bookstores, in pulp erotica, and on the covers of sensationalist magazines. Betty found the word in the dictionary at a library growing up, and thought, ‘I guess that makes me a freak, but I know I’m not the only one now.’ Tri-Ess introduced “crossdresser” instead, to get rid of the negative connotations. The only problem is, I don’t see how the use of ‘crossdresser’ over transvestite really changes people’s minds; I can’t imagine any word that would describe a man dressing as a woman that wouldn’t be offensive to someone – especially to people who don’t like any kind of boundary-crossing, much less crossing the boundaries of sex or gender.
I’ve been in crowds shouting we’re here / we’re queer/ get used to it and I know what it does. It takes a word that was used to hurt – a word more full of negative connotations even than transvestite – and turns it around.
Now it’s in the title of a popular TV show. Believe me, no one would have imagined that even ten years ago, much less 20 or 50 years ago. But it happened. And it didn’t happen because queer people made themselves less queer. It happened because queer people made themselves visible, and got angry, and got organized, and demanded that even perverts are people, too.
Because today, in America, a show for kids gets taken off the air because a rabbit went to visit a little girl in Vermont whose parents happen to be lesbians. The show was funded in order to provide diversity education, if you can believe that, but as we well know, lesbians are still a little too diverse for some people. They’ve got their civil unions; they’ve changed the language to make themselves more palatable, and you know what? They still can’t be shown on a children’s television show about diversity.
Either people are going to respect you for who and what you are or they won’t. Cleansing ourselves of negative connotations is not as simple as word choice. If only it were that easy! But Tri-Ess started using “crossdresser” instead of transvestite a few decades ago, and I don’t see that it’s opened the doors of mainstream acceptance. Instead I saw Sam Walls go down in flames when he ran for office in Texas once it was shown he was a crossdresser. No one even called him a transvestite, mind you: all they needed were pictures of him en femme. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.
And once they have that picture, it doesn’t matter what thousand words you use to try to explain it. Not saying the “L” word didn’t save Buster from getting bumped. Calling Sam Walls a “crossdresser” didn’t make him more palatable to voters (neither did explaining that he wasn’t a homosexual). Had he stood up and said “Yes, I’m a transvestite” could that have harmed him any more?

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The Phoenix Boycott Redux

Apparently I’ve stirred things up a bit by mentioning that I was boycotted in Phoenix by members of the local Tri-Ess group, Alpha Zeta. Word from Tri-Ess is that there was no “official” boycott whatsoever – not amongst the local group, nor from the National.
I was going by what I was told by one of the organizers of the event – which was reiterated by other people in the T community there. In fact, I was told this several times, over & over again actually. I nearly felt the need to address it in my speech (which was already written) but didn’t. That is, I felt bad to hear that my appearance there might have dissuaded people from coming.
The difficulty is, I get reports and I get reports. Just yesterday I heard from a spouse who was asked to write something for The Sweetheart Connection (Tri-Ess’ newsletter for spouses). She intended to write a review of my book, and then was told it wasn’t wanted, that “books about transsexuals have nothing to do with us.”
I didn’t ever think there was a boycott in the official capacity. What I thought was that a group of AZ members agreed amongst themselves not to come. Tri-Ess’ National leadership has been very clear: they have not made any public statement against the book, nor do they support it. Kind of “live and let live.” Some local chapters have read and reviewed the book, and as far as I know, were not reprimanded for doing so.
It turns out, of course, that there were other underlying politics involved, including the recent inclusion of a local BDSM group in the Glitz. Apparently, several Alpha Zeta members were not attending because they are uncomfortable with the presentations of some of the BDSM-oriented CDs.
Let me make it clear: I don’t feel defensive about Tri-Ess, and I don’t have any kind of “agenda” with them. For instance, I’ve had people forward me emails from other Tri-Ess groups where CDs are bashing the book without having read it! Stupid stuff like that. People like stirring it up – apparently too many have too much time on their hands.
On the other hand, there are many Tri-Ess members who have been positive about the book and without agreeing with everything I’ve said in the book, understand I’m on your side – even Tri-Ess’ side, in fact. I’d just like to see the group expand their horizons a bit – to catch up with the times, and the types of couples that are coming up now. I have never failed to acknowledge what a life-saver Tri-Ess has been for many, and I can cite the instances in the book where I talk about that. My only issues have ever been the half-truths (CDs never transition) and the exclusivity of membership – especially of gay CDs.
I hate this crap.
I still don’t doubt that a few people didn’t come because I was speaking, but I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion.
Shoot. We all have so many other better things to be doing with our time.

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Victoria's Dirty Secret

It seems the folks at ForestEthics have discovered that Victoria’s Secret uses old-growth forest for the umpteen million catalogs.
C’mon, trannies, this isn’t cool. Write to them and tell them to cut it out.
Here’s a sample letter:
Right now, Victoria’s Secret is no angel when it comes to forest destruction. It is shocking that Victoria’s Secret sends out over a million catalogs a day – 395 million per year! And it is not very sexy to know that Victoria’s Secret catalogs contain paper made from the endangered forests of the Canadian Boreal, one of the largest wilderness areas in the world, or that its paper use threatens the forests in the Southern US, one of our country’s biological treasures.
In order to be a responsible corporation, Victoria’s Secret must stop sending endangered forests to our mailboxes and:
* End purchases from any company that is not identifying and halting logging in endangered forests in the Canadian Boreal
* Maximize post-consumer recycled content in catalogs (achieve 50% post-consumer recycled in five years);
* Ensure that all suppliers are shifting to Forest Stewardship Council certification;
* End the use of any forest products sourced from other endangered forests, such as key areas of the Southern U.S.
Victoria’s Secret must change now. We hope you will see that when it comes to our last remaining endangered forests, less is not more.

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Lambda Letters Challenges HRC

Subject: Please Support The Rights Of Transgender And Intersex People
Date: 7/6/2004
From: Lambdalp@aol.com
Lambda Letters Alert
Please Support The Rights Of Transgender And Intersex People
Dear Friends,
Today we ask that you write to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) urging
them to assure that transgender and intersex people are added to the
federal Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) now pending in
Congress. We ask you to take the additional step of telling the HRC
that you will not support ENDA until transgender and intersex people
are added to the bill.
The HRC may make a decision on this at their August meeting. So
please write to the HRC as soon as possible and please forward this
message to all your friends so as to maximize the flow of mail to the
HRC.
BACKGROUND
I know that what we are asking of you seems controversial. However, I
hope you will read the following information and that it will
persuade you of the importance of what we ask.
The Human Rights Campaign is the most powerful lobby group for the
LGBTI community in Washington DC. For years it has been the sponsor
of ENDA. If anyone can persuade the authors of ENDA to include
transgender and intersex people it is the HRC. We believe they can do
it if they are motivated enough.
The Board of Directors of the Lambda Letters Project feels strongly
enough on the subject that it voted without dissent to tell the HRC
that Lambda Letters will not support ENDA until transgender and
intersex people are added to it.
ENDA is a bill currently before Congress that would ban sexual
orientation based employment discrimination. The bill has been
introduced as HR 3285 in the House of Representatives and as S 1705
in the US Senate.
The original version of the bill was introduced by Bella Abzug, D-New
York in the 1970s. Some version of the bill has been introduced in
almost every session of Congress since then. At first the bills
prohibited discrimination in employment and housing. In the early
1990s it was decided to limit the bill to employment discrimination
in hopes that would improve its chance of passage. However, right
from the start, the only form of discrimination prohibited by the
bill was sexual orientation based discrimination. That would protect
lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. It might even protect straight men who
are perceived as too effeminate and straight women who are perceived
as too masculine. However, it would provide no protection to
transgender or intersex people who are discriminated against because
of their status as transgender or intersex people. The rationale for
excluding these groups from the bill has apparently been that it
would be more likely to pass without them. Clearly, that strategy has
failed.
The time has come when our community must push for the inclusion of
these two groups. Things have improved a lot for lesbians, gays, and
bisexuals over the last few years. But progress has been much slower
for transgender and intersex people.
Currently 14 states, and the District of Columbia, have laws that ban
sexual orientation based employment discrimination. Only four states,
and the District of Columbia, have laws prohibiting discrimination
against transgender people. We are not aware of any states with laws
banning employment discrimination against intersex people.
Eleven additional states have executive orders or personnel
regulations that protect their lesbian and gay state government
employees from employment discrimination. Only two states have such
executive orders or regulations to protect transgender state
employees and we are unaware of any that protect intersex state
employees.
However, in seven states the courts or government commissions or
agencies have interpreted laws as protecting transgender people from
employment discrimination.
By the way, all these statistics come from the HRC web site. So they
know full well that much more progress has been made in protecting
the rights of lesbians and gays than has occurred for transgender and
intersex people.
The public’s attitude towards lesbians and gays varies, but in
general, people are much more accepting of them than they are of
transgender or intersex people.
We at Lambda Letters feel it is now time to go to bat for the least
protected part of our community. So we ask you to write to the Human
Rights Campaign. Please tell them that you will not support ENDA
until transgender and intersex people are added to the bill.
You may use the following sample message or compose your own. The
addresses of the legislators who need to hear from you follow the
sample message.
SAMPLE MESSAGE
Ms. Cheryl Jacques, E.D.
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20036-3278
Dear Ms. Jacques:
It is with regret that I inform you that I will be unable to support
the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) in its present form. I
will not support the bill until it is amended to provide protection
against discrimination for transgender and intersex people.
It has often been said that adding transgender people to the bill
would kill its chances of being approved by Congress. However, ENDA,
in its current form, has been pending in Congress for at least 10
years without being approved. In fact the original version of ENDA
was introduced by Bella Abzug, D-New York, during the 1970s. Clearly,
the tactic of leaving transgender people out of the bill, to ensure
its passage, has failed.
According to your own web page four states,. And the District of
Columbia, have enacted laws banning discrimination against
transgender people. Your site also lists seven other states in which
discrimination against transgender people is banned as the result of
a decision by a court or commission. As I understand it, roughly 25%
of the population of the United States is covered by these laws and
decisions. And yet there has been no great outcry against them. I
believe you will find that not one single legislator, judge, or
commissioner has been ousted from his or her position as the result
of supporting a ban on discrimination against transgender people.
I believe that, if HRC pushed hard enough, it could get a bill
introduced in Congress that bans discrimination against all segments
of the LGBTI community. Passing such a bill would still be hard, but
its comprehensive nature would widen support for it to all portions
of our community. Clearly, for such a bill to pass, it needs as wide
a base of support as possible.
Therefore, I respectfully request that you see that such a
comprehensive bill is introduced. I would gladly support such a bill.
However, I will be unable to support any version of ENDA that does
not prohibit discrimination against transgender and intersex people
along with lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons.
Sincerely,
(YOUR NAME)
(YOUR ADDRESS)
ADDRESS
To send your message to THE HRC, use the address link found below.
Cut and paste the sample message, found above, into the body of the
message. Or you can compose your own message. Finally, click on go
and your message will be sent to the HRC. I will also get a copy of
yourmessage.
Here is the address to use:
Please Add Transgender and Intersex People To ENDA
human.rights.campaign@lambdaletters.org
Love,
Boyce Hinman
Chief Lobbyist
LambdaLP@aol.com
Do you like our services? Would you like to make an on-line
contribution to support the work that we do? If so, please visit our
contribution site at: Lambda Letters Project – Donations and
Membership
http://lambdaletters.org/donate.html
Lambda Letters Project, a statewide organization, uniquely offers
Californians direct access to the legislative process in order to
affect public policy in four areas of concern: LGBTI issues; HIV/AIDS
issues; people of color issues, and women’s issues. We provide you
sample letters and e-mails each month. You can sign and return these
letters as is, or use them to create your own message. Lambda Letters
Project has a Legislative Advocate who works full-time on behalf of
the community. Last year Lambda Letters Project delivered over a
quarter-million letters and e-mails on your behalf. For more
information, please visit http://www.lambdaletters.org/

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NY TG Congressional Candidate Press Release

Christina Rosetti is now a candidate for Congress against incumbent James Walsh (-R-) in the 25th Congressional District, (which includes Onondaga, Cayuga, Wayne and Monroe Counties). James Walsh is opposed to Gay Marriage and will support the Bush agenda in instituting a new military draft.
Christina Rosetti strongly supports Gay Marriage and is adamantly opposed to any military draft and is opposed to the war in Iraq. James Walsh is anti-choice, while Christina Rosetti is pro-choice. Christina Rosetti supports Gender-Variant rights, whereas Jim Walsh opposes such rights. Christina Rosetti is a person of faith who firmly believes that church and state must be kept separate.
Anyone wishing to volunteer for the Rosetti Campaign (even if you don’t live in the 25th District) please use the contact information below.
Christina Rosetti
Congressional Candidate for the 25th District of New York
Author of: The New Spiritual Bible
Email: Rosetti2005@y…
Campaign Website: http://www.ChrisRosetti.com
Home Page: http://www.NewSpiritualBible.com (Under Construction)
National Political Website Listing: http://politics1.com/ny.htm and scroll down to the 25th District
Phone: (315) 251-9028