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The Big 40

Well then. Honestly, what do you say? My parents and my siblings must feel *really* old today, since I’m the youngest of the family.

But as my dad always said, it’s not like the only other option is any good, so you may as well grow old.

Thanks all for the lovely gifts and well wishes and your support in these recent years. To 50! To Cronedom! (I am glad that we get to do this milestone together, at least. Having the same bday as your partner is sometimes annoying, but this year, it’s a relief.)

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NYC Air Scare

Thank you, Brian Williams. The point he made tonight on Olbermann — that 9/11 was 10 minutes ago to the people who experienced it first-hand — is only too true. I have no doubt that tons of people are upping their anti-anxiety meds and having those awful apocalyptic nightmares again as a result of this stupidity.

I remember flying from Denver a few years ago & hearing a security officer ask a flyer about their anti-anxiety meds, wanting to know if they were because he was a nervous flyer. He answered something more along the lines, “No, I’m just from New York” and a moment later, in an aside to his wife, “We are all on anti-anxiety meds.”

Yeah. We are. I don’t expect ever to have the same feelings about fall that I did before 2001.

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For Milwaukee

We had a great time in Milwaukee this past weekend: a gathering of LGBT people on Saturday night, a sex workshop at The Tool Shed on Sunday, and then a workshop on gender variance Monday afternoon followed by a 7PM lecture about queer heterosexuals.

I did meet a bunch of people who asked me about various resources I mentioned in passing, so here goes:

& I think that’s it. If I’ve failed to mention anything I said I would post to here, feel free to email me about it or remind me in the comments section.

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Trans Equality & the Feds

NCTE asks:

What would federal policy look like if transgender people were fully and fairly included? Over the past months and years, NCTE has compiled a list of 112 separate policies that directly impact the lives of transgender people and our families that need to be added, removed or changed. Our latest publication, “Transgender Equality and the Federal Government” outlines each of these issues. We expect that some of these policies can be changed in the short term, while others will require long term activism. Some of the issues here will be at the forefront of NCTE’s work in the coming year and in other areas, our partners in this work will be the ones to lead, with our support.

You can read that document online, or check out in .pdf format.

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Another Reason to Crossdress

It’s a good reason for lizards, anyway:

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf

Young male lizards in South Africa imitate females to fool aggressive older males into leaving them alone, in an example of transvestism in the natural world, according to South African and Australian reaseachers. They found that young male Augrabies flat lizards (pictured) delayed

displaying the extravagent coloration of sexually-mature males until they were able to defend themselves adequately.

Of course in the natural world that means dressing down, as the males wear the bright colors and the females are something like dun.

Then again, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf seemed happy enough in her plain black house dresses.

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Partners’ Resources

One of the partners who posts regularly on our forums has put together a list of online resources for partners, which she’s posted on the TransOhio website.

How cool is that? When I first went online as the girlfriend of a “CD,” there was exactly one Yahoo group, which was actually an eGroup (anyone remember those?).

The only thing that still bugs me is how much the partners of MTFs and FTMs segregate. It’s another case where I feel we draw too much of our identites from our partners’ trans ones. I’ve learned so much from partners of FTMs, male or female, straight-identified and queer.

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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.