Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
A woman named Sharon Underwood, who is the mother of a gay son, wrote a letter to of Vermont’s Concord Monitor that was published on April 30, 2000.
I found it here, via Bilerico, & I’m reprinting it here in its entirety, below the break. Read it. Remind yourself of it every time one of our presidential candidates waffles over homosexuality during the debates. Continue reading “A Letter That Needs Re-Reading”
The FDNY has cancelled their annual calendar of hunky, half-naked firemen because one guy was in a more risque video shaking his own god-given hose for a bunch of girls with a video camera.
It just doesn’t seem right, especially since he made the video before he became FDNY & before he posed for the calendar. & Since the calendar raises $150k annually, this kind of prudishness – over one guy’s past! – seems ridiculous.
They didn’t disappoint, though that was nearly a low energy performance for them. They’ve been described as gypsy punk but I think of them more as the slavic Pogues – the insane, charismatic lead singer, huge folk influences, a gigantic punk attitude. I love them. The only time I got to see them – at Irving Plaza – I wanted to get drunk and break things, and I couldn’t decide if that was the drunken polka/gypsy thing, or the punk rock thing, or just the sheer energy & chaos of the band. If you get a chance to go see them live, and you can stand a loud, rowdy show, do go. Not for everyone, but if you’ve been feeling like most music is too crap commerical or just completely ballless, they’re the band for you.
& Yes, I’m proud to say that they’re a New York band; at least, they met & got their start here. The lead singer is from the Ukraine, there’s a couple of Russians in the band, the violist is from Israel, & they all met (legend or not) on Avenue B. They’re like the last genuine East Village/Loisaida export before gentrification wimped everything out.
The folks over at Wolfgang’s Vault just put up a ’78 Ramones gig that is so damned great – and very much what their live shows were like: practically no breaks, DeeDee’s “1-2-3-4!” about the only ‘between songs’ chatter, and adrendaline, speed, and power chords. The Palladium, where this show was taped, is now sadly gone; the last band I saw there was Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.
Damn. It makes my old, tired self exhausted just listening, but I can remember pogo-ing for the entire time they played at some shows I was at. My fondest memory – kind of my own ‘coming of age’ ritual, since I didn’t have a Sweet 16 – was going to see a Ramones show at Hofstra University: a bunch of us loaded into someone’s van. The energy was great, positive, aggro: when some Nazi punks showed up, the entire audience (& the Ramones) shamed them out of the room. But my coming of age ‘ritual’ was more specific than that: at some point during the show, I thought I was sweating obscenely because I’d rubbed my hands down my thighs and they were damp. So I went into the bathroom to splash some water on my face and neck and arms, but once I hit the bathroom area – which was better lit – I saw that my hands were actually bloody, not sweaty. I went into a stall and my thighs were streaked with blood, and finally I found a huge gash/hole that’d apparently been made by someone’s spike or safety pin or something. I wasn’t bleeding profusely by any means, but I hadn’t noticed and in all the jumping around had managed to get it all over me.
Ah, good times.
Do check out this show if you did or didn’t get to see the Ramones live. If you can only take a song or two, then I’d recommend the first two, “Rockaway Beach” / “Lobotomy” since that’ll give you the general idea, but they’re really on for the “Surfin’ Bird” / “Cretin Hop” bit of the show.
First, email Sheldon Silver and tell him to advance GENDA. His email is speaker@assembly.state.ny.us.
Then go tell CBS & FOX to take their heads out of their asses & show the condom ad; their shows are packed full of sexual situations and they’re being prudish about condoms? How lame is that?
ENDA has been introduced to Congress, which is a fantastic thing – to protect LGBT people from employment discrimination.
For more info/overview, check HRC’s site.
For a specific explanation of the gender issues & language, check Transgender Workplace Diversity.
Come out in support of ENDA by contacting your senators and representatives, or by donating to an org that’s working for ENDA’s passage: The Task Force, NCTE.
I’ll be speaking at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law this Friday at 11:30. This event IS open to the public, so do come if you’re in the area. A law professor, Robert Rains, who is well-versed in trans legal issues and who wrote a great article about the history of the legal recognition of gender change in the UK, will be speaking with me. Directions, parking info, & all the logistical details can be found on our calendar.
When we arrived at IFGE, we were greeted nearly immediately by Veronica Vera & Mariette Pathy Allen, even while we were checking in! Miss Vera would answer the question “Are crossdressers obsolete?” in her opening remarks the next day, & she looked fantastic. (Her answer, in a nutshell, was “no.”)
Crossdressers made a graceful stand for their place in the trans community this year, as in addition to Miss Vera, Miqqi Gilbert received a Trinity Award & delivered an acceptance speech that both (1) asked crossdressers to step up & (2) asked anyone who would disrespect or exclude CDs to step off. I was damned glad to hear it, since there really are some trans women who come off so smug I often feel tempted to mention that being a woman does not prevent one from liking crossdressers.
Donna Rose (author of Wrapped in Blue) & Alyson Meiselman (one of Christie Lee Littleton‘s lawyers) won Trinity Awards as well, which was an interesting juxtaposition, since Donna Rose is on the Board of HRC, which I imagine Meiselman considers something like the Evil Empire, since she delivered an acceptance speech that detailed exactly how much groups like Equality Georgia (& by extension, groups like HRC) sold out the trans community by not excluding “gender identity & expression” in legislation that got them theirs (discrimination protection for gays & lesbians).
Dallas Denny was given the Virginia Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement, and intended to explain that she’d turned down the award in years past because she was the paid editor of Transgender Tapestry at the time, but as she stepped down last year, she felt free to accept it this year, & did so with a concise list of what concerns her about the current state of the trans community (underfunded orgs) & what encourages her (the increases in visibility).
The biggest, nicest surprise for us was having Jamison Green unexpectedly in attendance. He stayed over from having given the keynote at Trans Health the previous week in Philly. His presence always adds some warmth and intelligence.
Our favorite new personality & friend was Ethan St. Pierre of NTAC & TransFM & FUAH. (NTAC, btw, has merged with IFGE, the news of which was announced at this conference.) Betty finally got to meet the irrepressible Monica Helms, of TAVA, who I met last year when I went by myself, & many games of wise-cracking pool were played.
& There ends the bigwig update from IFGE. More on our personal experiences when I get there.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law on Friday, April 20th, about our experience being a legally married couple who happen to look like a queer couple. On hand will be Professor Bob Rains who will answer the more technical legal questions surrounding marriage licenses and identity documents.
All are welcome, so if you’re in that neck of the woods, feel free to come. I’ll be speaking at 11:30 AM, but I don’t have the name of the exact hall yet; check the calendar for more information as the date approaches.
Last week the largest feminist art installment opened in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn Museum.
Here’s a list of other feminist art exhibitions happening throughout the country.