from yesterday’s Dr. Phil show. It seems the typical “poor mom” trans kids show until Toni confronts the reparative doctor.
70 Under 30
’50 Under 30′ Youth Hate Crimes Report Re-Issued: Almost 20 New Victims; Re-Titled ’70 Under 30″
WASHINGTON (December 4, 2008) — The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition’s 2006 hate crimes report, “50 Under 30: Masculinity & The War Against America’s Youth” has been updated and re-issued. Because of the nearly 20 new murders, the new title has been changed to “70 Under 30.”
Said GenderPAC Executive Director Riki Wilchins, “It’s sad to see so many new murders so quickly. We had hoped to only need to update this report every few years or so, but the pace of violence has surpassed our expectations.”
The report highlights the continuing vulnerability to assault that individuals face if they are young, of color and gender non-conforming. It also underscores the limited resources for safety and support many of them have.
Dr. Phil Phucks Up, Again
Asswipe. He had someone on from Focus on the Family as an expert on trans & gender variant kids. As if they’re the arbiters of tolerance.
He tires me.
Weiss Woman
More and more we’re starting to see some very serious venues take on some aspect of trans issues, whether it’s 20/20 last year with GID and trans youth or The Atlantic Monthly’s current article on the same topic.
But I didn’t really expect Harvard Business Review to publish an article about workplace issues, or rather, I wouldn’t have if I didn’t know how fantastic Jillian Todd Weiss is.
I had transitioned from male to female in 1998, and my new employer neither knew nor suspected that I was transgender. Now I was receiving the condescending treatment that some of my female colleagues had complained about all along. After several such incidents, I quietly left the practice of law, never to return. As a male attorney, my competence had never been questioned so harshly by my employers, so I assumed that reports of gender discrimination were bogus complaints brought by females who didn’t measure up. As a male, I had been privileged, though I didn’t know it at the time, to avoid much of the harsh treatment reserved for females in a male bastion.
I didn’t know Ms. Weiss before her transition so I can’t say “I told you so” but I’m going to anyway! No, women aren’t blowing smoke up anyone’s ass about this stuff. I appreciate her honesty in admitting she thought they were “bogus complaints” and am pleased to know that transitioners, as I expected, are turning out to be the last tool in the feminist toolbox.
It’s one of the reasons I find the slogan “equal pay for equal work” problematic, because so much of the struggle is getting people to see your work as equal to your male peers’ — even when it’s superior.
(via Bilerico)
Growing Up Stupid
This study, about how Americans discourage the highest level of math genius, is far more interesting than all the ink we waste on the differences between boys’ and girls’ math skills. To me, this is the great American tradition of anti-intellectualism at its worst. My guess, of course, is that the lower you go on the socio-economic scale, the more pervasive these ideas are.
I had friends stomp on my report cards. Me and other smart working class kids weren’t exactly encouraged. I feel very lucky that my emotional needs to be smart outweighed all the discouraging influences; as with other kids from big families, being smart got me attention from my teachers, attention that was a little lacking at home. Because otherwise, being good at math came with major social stigma, and most of the young women I’ve met at colleges seem to have developed a reflexive “fuck you, I can do math” kind of attitude that keeps them safe.
That they should need it is the sore point. We celebrate athletic prowess, the people who make the top 1%, but not in intellectual arenas. Oh, this country. Maybe having an actual smart guy for president will change that & start to filter down, & kids might want to grow up to be something other than an NBA star.
De-gendering this stuff really points up actual real problems that need to be dealt with.
(h/t to Lena for sending me the article)
change.org
I was poking around recently, trying to find out about a PSA that we’d been discussing in the mHB forums lately which is about trying to discourage kids to say “that’s so gay” when they mean “that’s not cool” when I found that the PSA is part of a larger campaign by The Ad Council & GLSEN to “think b4 you speak.” I love the idea, and not just because “that’s so gay” is unnecessarily homophobic, but because I so wish people didn’t use language so carelessly.
As a result I found change.org, which is a huge social issues/activist-oriented collection of blogs on various issues. There’s a blog on women’s rights, animal rights, global warming, immigration, and of course gay rights, which – lo & behold! – has me on its recommended reading list. How cool is that?
Great resource for us social justice types, so do go check it out.
Trans for Obama: NSD + Trans
Kate Bornstein has her wrap-up post up (thanks, Kate!) and so does our Canadian friend Veronique, and I also wanted to get in a few words from Melissa Sklarz, who is currently the vice chair of National Stonewall Democrats, about NSD and its trans representation:
NSD has had trans representation on its board for almost 10 years. I have been on the Board for 6 years and have been a vice chair of the Board for the last 4. We have had trans representation from the East and the West and now our friends in Colorado are starting an NSD trans group for all of us. The three of us comprise 8% of the Board total and all do service at the Exec level.
Most gay poltical groups have either few or no trans folks on board.
Which is one of the reasons it’s so damn cool that they decided to host the donations for Obama for the trans community. Thank you, Stonewall Democrats, especially Jon Hoadley and John Marble, who spearheaded this project, and thank you Babrbara Casbar (NJ), Melissa Sklarz (NY), and Laura Calvo (OR), for your work within NSD’s state organizations.
Another Betty
Betty White just gave out an Emmy along with Mary Tyler Moore, and she looks fantastic. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t had any work done, and honestly, she made Mary Tyler Moore – who’s had too much work done – look even weirder than she did already.
My opinion, only, but I really do feel that when women try to preserve their youth with too much plastic surgery, they kind of end up underlining that they’re old.
My guilty confession is that I’m a late-night Golden Girls addict, which is a genius show. Imagine, a comedy about four women over 50 who all have active sex lives! It seems like such a radical idea, even now. Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and the late Estelle Getty were all exactly right for their parts, and the writing was corny in an 80s kind of way, but still funny.
Vote!
Daily Kos has a state by state guide to voting rules, so you have no “I didn’t know when the deadline was” excuses. Go check now, and make sure you’re registered, or have your absentee ballot.
Women, VOTE! It gives me headaches to see the numbers Women’s Voices, Women’s Vote have listed for Election 2006, as in:
- In New York – 1,428,141 women were unregistered. 738,858 were registered & didn’t vote.
- In Ohio – 712,019 were unregistered. Another 446,994 were registered but didn’t vote.
- In Colorado – 250,769 women were unregistered, and another 116,423 were registered but didn’t vote.
You need a better reminder to make sure you’re registered? Watch Iron Jawed Angels if you need to remind yourself of what it took for women to earn the right to vote.
And Democrats, remember: the more of us turn out, the more likely it is that the Democrat wins. So make sure you babysit for your Democrat friends with kids if they need you to, or give rides to people who need them. Just get them to the polls!
Five Questions With… Monica Canfield-Lenfest
As many of you know, Monica Canfield-Lenfest is the daughter of a trans woman and created a new resource, with COLAGE, for kids with trans parents. I highly recommend it.
1) First, tell me about COLAGE & how the book for Kids of Trans happened, what your goals were.
COLAGE (www.colage.org) is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents. We build community and work toward social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy. I first contacted COLAGE five and a half years ago, when I was working on my undergraduate thesis: “She’s My Father: The Social Experience of People with Transgender Parents”. Looking for references for my project, I discovered a diverse community of queerspawn who gave me the space to better articulate my experience and encouraged me to continue my work, since there are hardly any resources for transgender parented families. I started presenting at transgender conferences and gained a renewed sense of responsibility to build community and develop resources for people with transgender parents.
During a COLAGE conference in Dallas two years ago, I suggested to Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director, that perhaps I could fill a fall internship position at the national office. We came up with a Fellowship model for my position, which has become a new program for the organization. I worked full-time for eight months focused specifically on the Kids of Trans Program. The major goal of the fellowship was to develop resources for people with transgender parents. Since there was no book detailing our experiences and offering advice to people with trans parents, the Kids of Trans Resource Guide became the obvious main project.
My goals in writing the guide were: first, to tell other people with trans parents that they are not alone; second, to recognize that the entire family transitions when a parent transitions; and third, to provide compassionate advice from people who have similar families. In short, I hoped to create the book I wanted my father to give me when she came out to me over ten years ago. Continue reading “Five Questions With… Monica Canfield-Lenfest”