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Tomorrow Our President

I don’t think I can watch footage of Obama talking to young volunteeers without getting weepy. The teenaged girls especially crack me up, though, and I have to say I suspect I’d be just as goofy if I got to meet the man in person, too. The awe you can see in people’s eyes is so exciting.

Tomorrow I’m just going to cry through the inaugural, I just know it. We all expect it to kick ass, & I have no doubt it will. He’s walking around today like a man who’s got a good piece written.

It really is true that us Gen Xers finally understand the Kennedy thing the Boomers have been going on about our entire lives. We never had this kind of president before, someone who is really an inspiration, and young and strong and sexy, with a beautiful wife to boot.

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1st Trans Officer of State Dems

From National Stonewall Democrats:

Washington, DC – Today, the Stonewall Democrats congratulated Laura Calvo upon her election as Treasurer of the Democratic Party of Oregon. Calvo, a seasoned Democratic operative, becomes the first openly-transgender officer of a state Democratic party. A member of the Board of Directors for National Stonewall Democrats, Calvo also serves as Chair of the Oregon Stonewall Democrats and as Treasurer of the Multnomah County Democrats. Multnomah County, which includes the city of Portland, is the largest county in the state of Oregon.

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10 Days In

After a nearly balmy 10 days in Appleton – it’s been aboug 20 degrees everyday – on Tuesday it’s meant to plunge to 2 degrees, and by Thursday, to 0.

I am amazed by how much I don’t mind the cold. I’m a little amazed by the consistency of both the cold and the snow, but since I don’t have to shovel my own walk or dig out a car, I just have to bundle up to walk to class or to get groceries and the like, which isn’t too bad.

I’m teaching three courses this term – Freshman Studies, Gender Studies 100, and Trans Lives – so I’m happily busy and feeling optimistic about 2009. Obama may have a first 100 days to make changes (and only 10 days until he takes office!!), but so far we’ve all had 10 – how have yours been?

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Blogger Initiative

As many of you know, I was at the LGBT Bloggers’ Initiative this past weekend, feeling simultaneously like the new kid on the block and the old whore. Many of my fellow bloggers – I realized during a presentation on media access by Cathy Renna – are bloggers, only. It never occurred to me that being a blogger who was a published book author first was weird, but there I was.

Nevermind that for now. I met a smattering of lovely people who are active in the LGBT blogosphere, some of whom I knew before and some who I didn’t: Dana of Mombian, a whole bunch of the folks at Bilerico, including Bil, Serena, Irene, and Alex; some of the Pam’s House Blend crew, including Pam herself and Autumn Sandeen. Among other I ran into were Allyson Robinson at the HRC cocktail party on Friday night, Mara Keisling of NCTE on Saturday afternoon (at the infamous Mayflower Hotel), as well as Tahlib Disney-Britton of Freedom to Marry, James from gayagenda.com,  and Tobias Packer of Equality Florida.

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Sit-in Stand-up Guy

Is this beautiful or what?

At a news conference Sunday, President-elect Barack Obama said the company should follow through on its commitments to its workers, The Associated Press reported.

The NYT article is here, about a sit-in by factory workers at an auto industry-related factory in Chicago, but do you really need to know more? WE HAVE A PRO LABOR PRESIDENT!

(h/t to Betty)

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Day 3

I’m still at the Blogger Initiative in DC & having a pretty cool time of it; yesterday I had lunch with the Victory Fund at the Mayflower Hotel & heard Barney Frank speak (more on that later) & ran into Mara Keisling, Maggie Stump and Dana Beyer. I’ve noticed I always feel at home amongst the tall ladies, and that moment was a refreshing break from being a kind of confusing non-trans blogger from the trans community (more on that later too). I moderated a panel on diversity yesterday, which went really well thanks to my excellent panelists.A working shop with Cathy Renna about media access & savvy just ended, and it’s time to go eat lunch with my fellow bloggers, none of whom are in pajamas.

Mostly right now I’m missing Betty, who got home from CO last night and who is in our apartment with the kittoi, and whom I can’t wait to be with, too.

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Giving Thanks

A guy who couldn’t read & write, and whose teachers made him “feel small,” carves tiny sculptures that can fit in the eye of a needle.

There is something so lovely about that.

I’m giving thanks this year for people like him, whose creativity and persistent humanity remind me that there are so many interesting ways to respond to bad shit, & they can be life-affirming acts of beauty.

& I’m giving thanks for Barack Obama, like so many others, because I am continually reminded of his decency, his pragmatism, & his big big brain every time he speaks or grants an interview.

Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow Americans.

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Some Cool Stuff

Here are some cool things I’ve unearthed in recent weeks that I’ve been meaning to blog about at length but find myself to busy to do!

I am writing and reading a lot this fall, and most of the writing is not for publication, sadly – like my personal statement for my Ph.D. application, amongst other things. So keep sending me cool stuff, or I may start posting descriptions of classes I want to teach, and other odd things.

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Employment Non-Discrimination

On Twitter, Gunner Scott of GenderCrash directed me to the new Obama-Biden administration’s employment policy, which says:

The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law.

Note the bold print.

Feministing points out that the CT Employment Law Blog has stated that this “signals a dramatic shift in the hiring practices of the executive branch because current law does not prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity.”

So not only is this a proposed change or ideological shift, but an actual policy change has already happened with the Obama-Biden administration.

I told y’all they were hip to gender!