Coffee and Gender

Tell the IAAF to stay out of Caster's pants!

2009-08-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

From the great world of Twitter and the amazing minds and hearts of the National Sexuality Resource Center comes this wonderful and timely petition asking the International Association of Athletic Federations to stop their invasive and ultimately meaningless testing of Caster Semenya's identity.

Dear Friend,

Have you heard the news about Caster Semenya, the champion South African runner?

She’s got the world’s attention, but it’s not about her athletic ability – it’s about who she is, and who gets to decide her gender.

XX – why?! Why does Caster have to endure invasive tests just because she looks different? Why does the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) get to decide who she is?

I’m outraged. Are you? Then tell the IAAF to stay out of Caster Semenya’s pants:

Sign the National Sexuality Resource Center's XX-Why? petition now.

Now, if you want some uplifting news about Caster - South Africa's President Zuma has reminded her to "walk tall" in this Sports Illustrated news story (of all the places...).

Briefly - and this should be given the space it deserves - as much as this uproar over her identity is clearly misogynistic and transphoic, I have yet to see someone point out the inherent racism in the charge. Black women are at a particularly difficult spectrum of femininity where racialized gender policing informs that too feminine gives in to the stereotype of the Jezebel/Welfare Queen/Tragic Mullatta and too little femininity brings us to the point of not recognizing multiple identities and beginning to believe Moynihan Report fantasies about masculine Black women taking over the world.

There is an inherent fear in not being able to correctly gender a stranger, and there is an even larger fear in being a white person who can not correctly gender a Black woman.

Latex Ball TONIGHT in NYC

2009-08-15T17:17:00.000-07:00

Just came back from an amazing time at the Audre Lorde Project's annual picnic! I didn't remember to post about the picnic but if you check this in time you can still attend the Latex Ball tonight!

ROSELAND BALLROOM | NEW YORK CITY
239 WEST 52nd STREET
DOORS OPEN AT 7:00PM

The Latex Ball is held by GMHC and co-sponsored by many many organizations - most of whom focus on issues prevalent in communities of color and LGBTQ youth such as the Ali Forney Center, Audre Lorde Project, APICHA, and many other New York City queer organizations. The Latex Ball is also presented by Ballroom CARES!, a partnership between the House and Ball Communities and service providers. It's a wonderful partnership that has as little judgement as is possible and promotes health and well-being. Ballroom CARES! program provides leadership trainings, empowerment workshops, and community events and activities, to support community networking, community mobilization, and to promote a healthy community.

I can say from my interactions trying to provide healthier and safer spaces to LGBTQ youth that having a sense of community drastically affects your sense of self and your ability to participate in a community. If you know that a core group of people who represent your values and experiences are caring about your health then you're going to be less likely to see incredibly risky behavior as worthwhile. Which is why Ballroom and House Communities have lasted so long - since at least the 1920s if not before! They give folks who have been kicked out of their homes, been kicked out of emplyment spaces, welfare offices, public parks, families, etc a space where they can be in all their fabulosity, tears, and strength. If you want to get involved you should email Luna Legacy at lunao at gmhc.org or Dominique Prodigy at dominiquec at gmhc.org

Submit! Gender Outlaw 2

2009-08-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

Gender Outlaw 2: Call for Submissions

Call For Submissions

GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Kate Bornstein & S Bear Bergman, eds

Deadline: 1 September 2009

In the fifteen years since the release of Gender Outlaw, transgender narratives have made their way into cultural locations from the margins to the mainstream and back again. Today’s trannies and other sex/gender radicals are writing a radically new world into being. GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION (Seal Press) will collect and contextualize the work of this generation’s most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices—new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world’s most respected mainstream news sources. Edited by that ol’ original Gender Outlaw herself, Kate Bornstein and writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION will include essays, commentary, comic art and conversation from a diverse a group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

*What we’re looking for*

GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION wants to collect work that represents a quantum leap forward in thinking and talking about gender and the gender binary, in the same way Gender Outlaw did almost twenty years ago. So blow us away. Bring the smart, bring the sexy, blind us with science, break the gender barrier, shine a bright light (or a disco ball) on the whole gender situation. Tell us about your future, what you imagine, how you want things to go and what you (and your friends) intend to do about it. Think big.

We’ll look at whatever you have for us – essays, graphic art, interviews/conversations, haiku, rants – as long as you’re thinking smart and fresh about sex and gender (and being an outlaw, of course). We will feel especially keen about your work if it adds to or advances the conversation about gender (as distinct from simply reflecting it, or lamenting it).

People of any identity are encouraged to submit work. This means you – yes, you!

We intend to privilege non-normatively gendered/sexed voices in the book but will include all the good stuff we can, regardless of current identifiers of the author.

*The Details*

Deadline: Sept 1 (early submissions are encouraged). Submissions should be unpublished; query if you have a reprint that you think we’ll swoon for. While we hesitate to list a maximum, please query first for pieces over 4,000 words. If you have an idea and need help writing it out, contact us to discuss an interview-style piece or other accommodations.

Submit as a Word document or black/white JPEG (no files over 2MB). Please include a cover letter with a brief bio and full contact information (mailing address, phone number, pseudonym if appropriate) when you submit. Submissions without complete contact information will be deleted unread. Payment will be $50 and 2 copies of the book upon publication in Fall 2010. Contributors retain the rights to their pieces. Send your submission as an attachment to genderoutlawsnextgeneration@gmail.com.

Helen Boyd: gender and love

2009-07-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago Helen Boyd, author of She's Not the Man I Married, and My Husband Betty as well as author of the blog (en)gender, spoke at the 5th installment of "Transgender Voices & Visibility" at the Long Island GLBT Community Center. Back when i was working there as the Transgender Services Coordinator I created this symposium as a way to spotlight the voices and experiences of transgender people...and those who fall under our ever-expanding umbrella! [photo: Helen Boyd and myself at the LI GLBT Center. We are standing against a yellow wall, Helen is on the left in a black tank leaning against a green chair. I am on her right smiling goofily and wearing a green V-neck.]

Helen Boyd has long held a wonderful fascination for me as she embodies a somewhat elusive combination of literary accessibility and academic rigor. Her talk embodied several intense concepts focusing on love and gender which are generally glossed-over in the more published realm of trans studies. Yes we discuss family acceptance, how gender is separate from sexuality, and how gender fluidity can change our experiences of sex...but professional trans scholars/writers/organizers rarely talk about intimate relationships with any sense of seriousness. Perhaps this comes from an internalized idea that we are naturally unlovable, or perhaps this comes from US culture teaching us that relationships are of no real value compared to our ability to produce results as workers (I want to write more about this soon...). [photo: Helen speaking before an audience at the LI GLBT Center. It is a small room with yellow walls and the beginning of rainbow panels across the back wall. About 8 backs of various listeners are visible and Helen can be seen in the background, sitting in a green armchair and speaking.]

However, I hear relationships discussed as the second most common topic in transgender discussion groups. After hormones and surgeries we tend to bemoan the often abusive relationships we are in and ask if we can be truly loved by people outside the queer communities - and often by people inside the LGBTQ communities too! Helen and Betty's story answers these questions beautifully, and Helen has proven herself more than willing to share her own path and her further evaluation of this path with others.

At several points in her recent talk she asked for audience participation in order to discuss our own interactions with gender and love. A particularly interesting conversation was had about couples who experience a shift in gender roles. Helen discussed how early on her wife Betty desired to fully live her femininity by participating only in traditionally "female" household chores, to which Helen responded "just because you're now a woman doesn't make me a man!". Which I think is a wonderful summation of the pressure spouses feel when one part of the couple shifts in their gender identity and gendered expression. My partner and I have often discussed this as well, particularly my fascination with carrying out masculine tasks despite my smaller size and lack of muscles in comparison to her.

Because I am worried about my genderqueer presentation I often seek masculine tasks that affirm my male sex. I often carry too many groceries causing my fast-walking girlfriend to stop and wait for me as I shift bags on our walk home, I often feel very upset at my lack of handle on money issues and household affairs, and I pride myself on remembering "gentlemanly" actions. All of this, to a certain extent, irritates my partner who thinks it would be perfectly fine for us to carry groceries equal to our abilities and for us to carry out household chores equal to our abilities. And she's right. That would be just, sensible, and economical. But I can't let go of these sexed activities as seemingly easily as she does, and neither could Helen or Betty. There has to be a whole discussion: "just because I'm mowing the lawn does not negate my identity as female" or "I enjoy cooking your favorite meals and am happy to do so, none of which negates my masculine gender identity."

These troublesome discussions about coupledom and domesticity bring us full-circle back to feminism and the negation of our multiple backgrounds. After all, not all of us come from a two-parent heterosexual white middle-class family in suburbia...but our schooling, advertisers, and national news media sure want us to think that we do! So that anything that falls away from that created "normativity" brings about intense feelings of shame and self doubt. So, as always, we need to return to our roots and our communities who have been struggling with these issues for generations and learn from our Elders and next-door neighbors. We need to realize that gender non-conformity within couples is all around us and we need to open the discussion and shed light in on how fabulous it is!

Using our Anger

2009-06-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

My partner is now in a similar position to the one I as formally in. For part of her job she has to stay up-to-date on all the queer, gay, and msm/wsw outputs on our issues. This makes me extraordinarily jealous because even though my ob should require me to stay in constant contact with queer news I often find myself failing behind. However, I recently had some extra time to catch up on blog reading and I found a (very very old) post over at Questioning Transphobia.

Now, I'm not part of the bilerico community although I have certainly used their news items and comments to find more and fascinating news and people. And I have great admiration for bil's activism around Taysia Elzy's awful murder. I have also seen his site used as a way to showcase an amazing group of queer activists, writers, and community members talking about their identities. So in writing this blog I'm not debating the situation, I just want to focus on one exchange of comments.

"Nick" a bilerico commenter wrote about the "expression of complete frustration, exhausted rage" that was expressed and how that rage "can be an inspiring" tool for social change. "Energizing and comforting". To which many commenters hauled out the old non-violence line about how "true social change" is non-violent. And it can be. The movements of classic non-violent resistance are a wonderful teaching tool on the multiple ways that change can be made. However, for every non-violent movement that was successful (or even unsuccessful) there were other movements happening simultaneously. Movements that worked within stems of oppression, movements that resisted with violence, movements that focused more on artistic expression as resistance...US schools end to teach our history as being succinct, boxed, and compact. But none of these movements for change existed one-dimensionally. The struggle for gender equality (which I see transgender rights as an integral part of) can not be boxed into "this will happen non-violently" as we are coming from too many different places for one rule to unite us.

Nick went on to quote from David Wojnarowicz's Close to the Knives, and I feel that this quote perfectly respects the occasional feelings of so many people I love and respect.

"And I am carrying this rage like a blood filled egg and there's a thin line between the inside and the outside a thin line between thought and action an that line is simply made up of blood and muscle and bone and I'm waking up more and more from daydreams...and all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release".

When I was a junior in college I attended a summer anti-oppression program directly related to environmentalism. We played a game called "the wind is blowing" where everyone stood in a circle and ram to take someone else's spot should the saying be true for them. One man said "The wind is blowing anyone who believes violence can be a form of resistance". And I stood for a second while everyone else ran. I don't think violence is good. And I don't think it creates justice or equality. But I have been in a bathroom and been hit and pushed for my identity, and I have heard too many stories from my friends about their abuse at the hands of authority members to truly rule out violence as an option. So that day, back in the summer of my junior year, I decided that I do support violent actions for change. Because I can not tell anyone else how to survive, and that is ultimately what so many of us are still fighting for - survival.

Sonia Sotomayor and Identity as Experience

2009-05-28T15:36:00.001-07:00

A few weekends ago my mother forwarded me a list of 10 reasons why Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was a good choice for the Supreme Court. My lawyer brother responded to each point with a reason why the point was irrelevant, missing the facts, or simply defensive in nature. He clarified at the end of the email that he wasn't saying Judge Sotomayor wasn't qualified - just that the current "messaging" around her focused on saying she was not liberal and she loved white people. One of which is disgusting, and the other of which is a point of alarm (or, actually they are both those things). In short, he ended the email with "where's the change I voted for?". As these things tend to happen, that evening I watched a clip of Rachel Maddow where she echoed this same sentiment. I actually felt incredibly well-informed after watching her coverage!

So it may be true that Sonia is actually not a "liberal activist judge" that the Republicans claim her to be. But I found myself leaping to defend her because of the nature of the attacks against her. Her identity as a Latina from a working-class background, and her clear refusal to negate that identity, has become the sole focus of most attacks. Moreover, the not-so-subtle Othering of her identity - calling her "Maria", tripping over her name, asking "Is she Puerto Rican?" - reinforces the notion that she would not be in this position as Supreme Court nominee if she was not Other. In the clip below, Rachel sums up some of the more egregious "errors".

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

One of the many things being called into question is her quote about how women, people from low-income backgrounds, and people of color are in a particular position to make judgements. Rachel discusses this more in the clip below:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Again, as it always seems to happen, the next day I read an article in the NYT Magazine that perfectly matched the feelings invoked from such racist and sexist lack of understanding about how the world works and the hierarchy of race and sex in the US. The NYT article was called "The Case for working with your hands" by Matthew B. Crawford. Since reading this, I have heard others comment that it should be titled "the case for workers autonomy" as the freedom the author experiences in his repair shop have a lot to do with education, whiteness, and access to resources. However, this quote still captivates me:

"In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Penn. Ave, I don't think you'll see a yellow sign that says 'Think Safety!' as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit at the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?"

You can see the elitism of our education system still present in that thought process however the quote contextualizes Judge Sotomayor's removed-from-any-context quote. She has had her fingers crushed and she realizes that people on the margins of the normative middle (those not elected to the Supreme Court) live the effects of her rulings. If the white male judges* that predominate the legal world were to experience the outcomes of their rulings in the intense and real way it may result in some very different decision making.

*Clearly being white and male doesn't hand you privilege on a plate. No essentialism of Identity here.

INCITE!

2009-05-26T11:23:00.001-07:00

INCITE! has saved my sense of self and my confidence in social justice more times than any other organization. In 2007 I read Color of Violence: the INCITE anthology on my meal breaks at the restaurant I was managing at the time and after-hours in my never-heated apartment in St. Paul. These essays exposed a system I had suspected and been taught to recognize in my classes. However unlike the texts and discussions of the classroom, these essays exposed the system through intense personal stories that told not only the truth of these systems but the lived affect of these truths.

Moreover, these stories gave me strategies and examples, testimonials and history lessons that taught me all about the methods of anti-violence that addressed all of our multiple needs. I learned about Sista II Sista/Hermana a Hermana, Transjustice of the Audre Lorde Project, CARA, and other amazing people and movements that have managed to address issues of race, class, immigration, identity, sexuality, and state violence without going under or being forced out of organizing. Color of Violence was my introduction to INCITE!, and after that I was sent a gorgeous poster that read "Stop Police Violence Against Women of Color & Trans People of Color" featuring wonderful art by Christy C. Road - this of course has traveled with me from job to job. (To the left: Copy of poster "Stop Police Violence Against Women of Color & Trans People of Color". It is bright orange with lots of text, a group of younger people stand in assertive poses facing the viewer. One individual has her hand out in the universal "stop" pose.)

Finally though, I read the book The Revolution Will Not be Funded: beyond the non-profit industrial complex which I put off reading for nine months as I could not bear to learn the truth of the organizations I was/am working for nor the truth of the career path I have placed myself on. I, like so many Liberal Arts students, am geared and trained professionally towards non-profit work...and it is precisely that work that is tearing apart our communities and keeping us oppressed.

And I knew this. I felt this in my gut and in the ever-rising anger and irritation at the constants placed around me and my community "for our benefit" - but I didn't want to face it. Because facing the truth about the irrationality, capitalism, and bureaucracy of the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC) would mean I'd be obligated to address it and change my interactions with the NPIC. This is akin to a recent incident I had with a co-worker who ranked above me hierarchically. After I told him that his inaction towards trans-inclusion was unacceptable he began to yell at me about an unrelated event. Not ready to face his own gender normativity and transphobia he attacked me for bringing it to his attention - forcing him to become aware before he was ready.

At any rate, I was finally ready to learn more and become accountable in March. And I'm glad that I did because the book is astounding. Each essay tells another story about how to survive in a world that is supposed to nurture and empower your community, but ultimately fails at some fundamental level to truly empower the actual community. For instance, a community-based non-profit might be doing amazing work revitalizing he community but if all the money comes from a foundation of people who have never been anywhere near your community then how dependent have we become relying on the very system we're fighting against to fund our fight against them? Or, alternatively, an organization is set up to create comprehensive systems of care for Indigenous populations living with HIV/AIDS, but despite the desire from within the community to see this work done the entire organization is staffed by people with degrees in non-profit work non of whom are either Indigenous or living with HIV/AIDS. So where is the community empowerment? how do we learn from each other in a communal sense and grow stronger together if the people making change come from the same privileged backgrounds they always do? This is something of incredible interest to me as I blogged about previously. I want to create change and it's difficult for me to find a venue for that change.

The most important thing I took away from the book was creating systems of accountability. Constantly checking in with the direct community to see how they feel about you and your work. Are you addressing their/your needs? Are you active in other community organizations and/or events? Is there transparency in every thing you do - can community members voice their opinions and make suggestions or give alternatives? For more and better suggestions you can also go to the INCITE! web page dedicated to Resources Beyond the NPIC and you can learn strategies your own non-profit can follow, or strategies you as an individual looking to make change can follow.

TransMentors Program

2009-05-21T17:56:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I heard about the new TransMentors Program from Kate Bornstein (yes, I'm name dropping! I follow hir on Twitter so it's almost like we're friends). To my mind, this sounds like an awesome idea...although likewise the background checks and formality of it also make me nervous. I'm not one for too much interference into my life.

TransMentors mission is:

to provides aid, support and assistance to Trans-identified individuals...We dedicate ourselves to providing an array of information services, educational materials, advocacy training, as well as assistance with housing, health, faith, and employment needs. We pledge compassionate support and passionate advocacy on behalf of Trans-identified persons in their journeys toward health of body and mind and in their pursuit of personal freedom, including the freedom to alter their bodies and change their gender roles.

All of which sounds awesome to me - specifically because they focus on mentoring! Mentoring is a huge issue for me as my experience in doing Transgender Support/Discussion Groups is that participants come for three reasons. One reason is that often the groups are the only place that an individual feels safe to discuss their real concerns - hardships, joys, moments of desperation and depression...feelings in general. And the group provides a safe space to say things like "I don't know if I can do this" without anyone standing in judgement that the phrase might take away their right to be transgender. If you were to tell a therapist the same thing they might decide you aren't "serious" as opposed to the idea that you might have had a rough couple of days. The second reason that I usually see is that transgender people often feel extraordinarily alone. The groups offer a sense of community. Even in smaller five-people groups there is still such intense diversity that you can easily see the many ways to be transgender.

Finally, the third reason people tell me they attend is to find examples of the kind of person you want to be. In other words, finding mentors. Usually I see that within a group meeting a newer individual latches on to what one person says and they quickly form a strong bond. Sometimes this happens because the two are on their way to a strong friendship based on equal interests, at other times this connection is based on one person's ability to guide the other in finding resources and ways of being. Once again...a mentor. I once had a very brief discussion with a transgender leader about why she continues to attend Transgender Discussion/Support Groups. Namely, that her happy and successful transition can assist others to see that being transgender isn't necessarily synonymous with depression, violence, or loneliness. That it is possible to be happy and be transgender identified.

For all these reasons, I think the TransMentors program is excellent! Too many transpeople rely on the advice of cisgender specialists to guide them - therapists, doctors, psychiatrists all operating from various different interpretations of a transphobic text. Assisting each other to transition keeps our communities more united - and ensures at least the majority of advice is correct.

Surveys for FTM folks and their partners!

2009-05-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't yet heard the news from Twitter...here are two surveys that are going to offer some awesome vital resources for FTM folks and those who love them.

The surveys are being done by Jamison Green, author of “Becoming a Visible Man” and former President of FTMInternational. According to the survey "He is interested in the sexual health and satisfaction of all transmen, whether or not they have had hormones or surgery, and in the experiences of their partners. He will use the data as raw material for a book, tentatively entitled "The FTM Guide to SEX," plus academic presentations and journal articles to educate medical and therapeutic service providers about trans lives. Collaborating is urologist and surgeon Dr. Miroslav Djordjevic of Serbia. Dr. Djordjevic is interested in post-operative quality of life for all transmen who have had genital reconstruction. Dr. Djordjevic and Mr. Green plan to make professional conference presentations together and to co-author a journal article using the data collected here." If folks have questions about who Jamison is: http://www.jamisongreen.com/

The surveys are designed for FTM or trans men and their partners. Partners do not have to be in a current relationship, and if a FTM person or trans man has been partnered to another FTM person or trans man they may of course take both surveys. In order to take the surveys you must be 18 or older. For these surveys the proctors are using the following definition for FTM or trans man: “a person who was born with a female body--and assigned female or intersex at birth--and who plans to initiate, has initiated, or has completed medical treatment to masculinize his body”, some examples of identities may include FTM, trans man, genderqueer, or intersex man.

Here is the survey for partners of FTM folks and trans men. It takes between 20-40 minutes based upon your life experience. Partners

And here is the survey for FTM folks and trans men. Again, takes between 20-40 minutes based upon your own life experiences: FTM folks

If folks have any questions about the surveys you can direct the questions to Jamison! (jamisong at earthlink.net.)

********

As a linguistic note from me personally, I always hated the term "FTM" but hearing it described by Jamison, and by folks such as the Vancouver Coastal Health Transgender Health Project, I'm beginning to develop a new appreciation for it!

From VCH THP's Hormones: a guide for FTMs:

We use “FTM” as shorthand for a spectrum that includes not just transsexuals, but anyone who was assigned “female” at birth and who identifies as male, masculine, or a man some or all of the time. Some non-transsexuals in the FTM spectrum (androgynous people, butches, drag kings, bi-gender and multi-gender people, etc.) may also want hormone therapy, and may not identify or live as men. For this reason we use the term FTM instead of “trans men”.

I disliked "FTM" because I felt it focused overtly on my birth sex as female, what with the "F" coming first and all. Not that I'm ashamed of being born female or that I don't embrace those female years (quite the opposite in fact), but it does get confusing when I'm filling in a form and I have to remember that I'm FTM and not MTF as the letter I immediately look for is "M" for male and not "F" for female. Which is why I've preferred the terms "trans masculine" or "trans man". Except, of course, that excludes anyone who is male identified but isn't masculine or identifies with masculine characteristics but doesn't identify as male.

Clearly, what Jamison and Vancouver Coastal Health are trying to achieve is a space where FTM does not stand for "Female To Male' but instead stands only as "FTM" - meaning someone who was identified at birth as female but who doesn't necessarily identify completely with the identity of "female". So I begin to understand that FTM might become more inclusive especially if we stop associating it as being an acronym for "Female To Male" and begin to see it as an identity of itself that does not need to be explained. It's an interesting possibility!

Complications around "PC"

2009-05-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I did a community education training where I was asked if “the PC thing to do” was to use gender neutral pronouns for anyone whose gender or sex identity the individual didn’t know.* My answer was complex and long-winded mainly because the student and I were placing different value judgments on the term “politically correct”. The student was using it as synonymous with “respectful” while I associate it with the often dismissive ideas of “tolerance” – actions or language changes due to a cultural trend to do so, not because of actual knowledge or understanding of the pain surrounding certain terms or actions.

For many people, being politically correct means respecting the self-identifying terms and differences that various people use and have. To that end, I agree with the idea that being PC is being respectful. The difficulty I have with the term occurs when we (educators, co-workers, bosses, diversity trainers, etc.) enforce different terms without giving them background or meaning. Perhaps the most poignant example of this would be the term “nigger”. As I wrote about this time last year, the majority of white people in the US know that the term is offensive but the complete history of it – labeling a group of people with out their input and using that label as a means to write difference onto their bodies and humanity, the pervasive history of lynching, Jim Crow laws, institutional racism and segregation – isn’t understood. Nor is it understood how the effects of all those events still affect our lives (all peoples) today. So while most white folks know not to use it, we don’t know why other terms are more correct. For instance, we don’t understand that “Black” and “African American” are two different terms.

Politically Correct should never have meant a sanction on language usage or a bourgeois imposition of what is ""good". This makes political incorrectness look fun, exciting, and American - as in "it is American to speak the truth even if no one wants to hear it"...but here most anti-PC folks are confusing personal opinion or personal truth with fact, or general truth. I just re-read Nick Hornby's Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt, a compilation of his literary essays for the very hipster magazine The Believer, and surprisingly to me found that Hornby included some insights into this. On page 101 he decries an unnamed author's book. A different reviewer said the book was "deliciously politically incorrect" and Hornby writes that perhaps that reviewer is referring to some (and I paraphrase) Golden Age of commentary when we were all more free, a Golden Age he goes on to say that never existed as there’s an extreme difference between “freedom of speech” and prejudiced language. Hornby goes on to describe that this "delightfully politically-incorrect" book includes the narrator saying that women should (trigger alert) learn to lie still and enjoy rape. That’s not something we should be celebrating. We shouldn’t censor such language, but neither should we embrace it as a return to the way things ought to be. My first understanding of "Politically correct" was that we were trying to state "be aware that language carries power and that your speech has real world consequences".

Last year I was asked “Do white people know about Black History Month?” and my response was “I think we know that it exists, I don’t think we know why it exists”. Therefore, BHM gets dismissed as symbolic as opposed to important (and there are arguments for that!) and white folk using phrases like “nigger” is seen as “edgy” as opposed to really fucking racist and ignorant. Which is much like the tension I feel around PC terminology – it seems to make little difference what language we use if we don’t know why we’re using it. Except of course, it does. To be free of hearing words that burn your skin when you walk down your school hallways or sit at the office lunch table or take public transit…to not constantly feel afraid that words that cause a physical reaction in you might advance to physical attacks – to be free of that even if the person no longer using those terms doesn’t understand. Well, that actually is nice.

Take the phrase "fire men". Now, saying "fire fighters" doesn't magically make more non-male fire fighters appear, nor does it make the entrance exams or the general workspace an affirming place for women and gender non-conforming folk. But, it does plant the idea into the mind of a young girl or gender non-conforming child that they too can be fire fighters. It also means that when we do see a female fire fighter we don't overwhelm her with her difference (she probably is already aware). It also shows that you as an individual are aware that men are not the only sex able to put out fires, if nothing else, it shows your awareness. So, when despite the facts before you choose to continue to say "fire men" it doesn’t necessarily say "I don't care about women and gender non-conforming folks"...it just sounds like that's what you're saying.

Being labeled politically-correct is often a defense mechanism that pushes aside the real conversations about the power of language and blames an individual for changing language not because they care about the issues but because they don’t want to offend someone who might hurt their political or occupational standing. It has changed to imply that the individual who makes a language request doesn’t actually have knowledge behind the request. It has become a word game as opposed to a combination of survival technique and the power of self-identifying.

*My answer about the gender neutral pronouns was two-fold. Using gender neutral pronouns is a choice like any other pronoun choice. Therefore, labeling me for instance as “zhe” is incorrect as I use “he” as my pronoun. It doesn’t offend me as I do identify as genderqueer, and in many ways I might be complimented by that acknowledgment of my gender identity. But to label, for instance, Laverne Cox, as “zhe” would be insulting as she is clearly going for female pronouns. In the video Trans Basics for the Gender Identity Project Laverne talks about being incorrectly labeled, and as she holds up her manicured nails by her long hair and feminine clothing she says “I think it’s pretty clear what I’m going for here”. True, someone who looks exactly like Laverne might indeed use gender neutral pronouns – and we can never tell off of our perceived gender expression what a person’s pronouns are. But using gender neutral for someone you know to be transgender or gender non-conforming can be read as insulting. However, gender neutral pronouns shows a base knowledge of the mutability of gender which might que the person to realize that you were being polite, not intentionally rude. Therefore, it is always best to ask first

New York City Inspires Me

2009-04-22T21:04:00.001-07:00

This is a photograph taken of a NYC light pole. Surrounded by other stickers and posters, a bright yellow sticker reads: "OBAMA McCAIN FREE LEONARD PELTIER".

I saw this in early March and had been meaning to post it for a while. This was taken on a week when I had a friend in town from Chicago Showing him the city made me fall in love with it all over again. I promised I'd never become a New York-Essentialist (someone who believes NYC is better than any other place) and I haven't. But I do love New York.

Transgender Voices & Visibility: Naked on the Inside

2009-04-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

This Saturday an incredible event will be occurring at my new work site! Transgender Voices & Visibility, a series I began in March with performance artist Sassafras Lowrey will repeat with a screening of the movie Naked on the Inside.

I saw the Manhattan premier of the film at disTHIS! and was amazed at how (surprisingly) non-cheesy it was! A documentary that asks six people to talk about their bodies could easily become overly self-reflective and pedantic. But not this documentary. Naked on the Inside manages to remain elusive of any over-arching theme on unity. We see six people struggling/past struggling to align their bodies with their spirits. An honest conversation begins about why this disconnection exists in the first place and subjects touch on religion, family, geography, race, and media representations. It's nothing new, but it is a different and dignified approach.

So come out to Bay Shore this Saturday!! 7-10pm at the Community Center. We'll have some refreshments and a wonderful Q & A hosted by Lawrence Carter-Long, Director of Advocacy for the Disabilities Network of NYC. I've been trying to upload the pdf but no luck just yet...

Transracial Abduction

2009-04-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

In my perpetual search for organizations or individuals who embody the practices I wish to embody I stumbled upon this website, Confluere. Listed are some of the most amazing activists and educators I have ever heard of!

Of note, is Kim So Yung, the founder of Transracial Abductees a group that organizes around identities as abducted children from families that are not white. Now, most people would refer to this as adoption but So Yung seeks to call out the unequal power structures and the inherent colonialism & racism present in the adoption process by re-labeling it "abduction".

Reading her website I immediately remembered Jane Jeung Trenka's award-winning The Language of Blood that I read last year. In it I experienced the first adoption story that felt authentic and real - her story is complicated, and she expresses her story with amazing fairness and honesty. Jeung Trenka's writing illuminated for me the horrifying paradox of transracial adoption, that it is clearly a direct result of Western imperialism and to an extent the aide that the West gives to "allies" such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Jeung Trenka's book - like So Yung's website - addresses issues of multiple oppression. An incredibly documented account of stalking can be seen within the constructed identities of being an adopted Korean woman in the Midwest, as well as the more "traditional" SingleWhiteFemale narrative that is often given to stalking narratives. So Yung dissects the religious persecution, ableism, and sexual discrimination of the adoption/abduction process as well.

This book and website are especially illuminating for me as far too many couples who are unable to conceive biologically or unwilling to wait longer/pay more for a racially appropriate child turn to Latin America, Asia, and now Africa for their nuclear families. Within white LGB couples this is a specific and pervasive problem. Even at my Community Center there is a sickening group called "You Gotta Believe" teaching parents how to manipulate the foster care system to gain access to children from drastically differ net racial and/or national backgrounds and the checks that come with them. On our website smiling Black and Brown toddlers smile between their white mommies or daddies...but we never see these families as the children age. True, many things may result in these families not returning to the Center, but I believe the Whiteness of this Center and our affiliation with their inappropriate abduction/adoption could be a strong reason why the children show no interest in returning.

While I'm criticizing the squadrons of white LGB couples who adopt outside their ethnicity and race I should acknowledge that adoption is a persistent issue in my life as well. Should my partner and I ever decide that we're mature enough and stable enough to have children (which I don't foresee happening) my partner and I would have to look outside the automatically assumed means of having children. I have no statement about what we might pursue, but adoption has been on the table of options in the past. Which is probably what separates us in general: we have options.

Writing all of this, I must add that I know of friends who were adopted into families that were aware of the power inequality and made their child aware of their differences and identities by including adults of similar backgrounds in their lives, reading complex accounts of adoption/abduction and not trying to patronize a child's real experiences with difference. I have close friends who have spoken of the deep love between themselves and their families and I have come to recognize this as the direct result of dialogue around power structures and identity. But when a child is taught that they are no different from their parents then instances of racism and colonialism are inexplicable and surprising to a child who is never taught that their perceived differences are indeed real.

Turning again to So Yung's website she addresses this disparity in a section on adoption/abduction books. At the very end of the section she explores "Animal Stories" the tales of the chipmunk family that raises a baby bear only to have the bear search for her bear family. Of course when baby bear tries to live with the bears she finds out she doesn't fit in so she happily returns to her chipmunk family. However, as So Yung notes, in real life these books do not make a child happy to be different from his/her/hir guardians:

"I read books like this when I was little. I guess they were supposed to make me feel like the "chipmunks" were my real family who loved and accepted me even though I was a freakish "bear," instead they made me feel like I didn't belong anyplace at all."

Macalester Transfolk are doing it for themselves!!

2009-03-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

My senior year there were four out transgender people on campus. Myself - a transsexual woman, and two gender non-conforming folks. Yesterday I read that another transgender person (someone I never met while at college!) has won a an award from the awesome group PFund for their activism at Macalester.

You know the drill - write to this reporter and say "Hey! This is damn ood reporting on a crucial issue. Keep giving us more of the same!" I will be doing that AND writing a letter to my school saying "hey - I remember when you refused to make these changes and you made my life hell because of it...I'm glad you saw the light."

Transgender student activist at Macalester College honored for work to advance equality

Junior and 18 others will be honored for efforts to expand opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students
Doug Belden
dbelden@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 03/30/2009 12:01:00 AM

From organizing campus discussions to identifying resources to making new signs for bathroom doors, Chloe Mirzayi has been in the middle of efforts at Macalester College to expand opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
The junior, a Colorado native, is being honored next week along with 18 other Minnesota students with a "Moxie Award" from the Pfund Foundation, which recognizes outstanding efforts to advance LGBT issues.
Born male, Mirzayi realized she was meant to live as a woman, and she made the transition last year.
The change involved growing her hair, hormone therapy, laser hair removal and work to modify her deep voice.
She got taunts and laughter at first.
"I think that comes from ignorance more than anything," she said, adding it made her more determined. "It's an educational thing. I have tried to speak out."
Mirzayi led a campuswide meeting last year about gender neutrality at Macalester. She's the resident assistant for the college's gender-neutral living space and has advocated for gender-neutral restrooms on campus (including making the signs for them).
She has pushed to get gender identity added to the nondiscrimination language in the student government constitution, and she's working to get LGBT programming included in Macalester's orientation program for first-year students.
"I think she's definitely a role model on campus," said Shelby Rubbelke, a graduate hall director who works with Mirzayi.
Mirzayi said the college has been a safe environment for her personal transition and to push for broader change. "Macalester has been really supportive."

Accessing NYC

2009-03-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

For some reason this weekend seems to be my weekend to notice and be affected by accessibility differences. This started out by encountering a wheelchair-using man calling 311 to complain about an inaccessible building on 14th street. As I walked by I heard him say "I can't even reach the buzzer to let them know they're jack asses". The idea that a place is so inaccessible that one can't even complain that it's inaccessible was a fairly ridiculous concept to me. It makes it impossible for those who are disenfranchised to make their disenfranchisement visible through traditional (ie the system) means.

Yesterday my partner and I went to a gallery showing Philip Lorca-Dicorcia's work. 1,000 Polaroids were organized on shelves hitting about 5 feet off the ground. As we finished touring the photos I turned to look at the gallery to take in all 1,000 at once and notices a person using crutches who had to constantly stop and reposition herself in front of each Polaroid in order to see it. I'm not sure what else the gallery could have done - perhaps arrange them on some kind of swiveling shelf? The five-foot marker wasn't accessible to most viewers - my partner and I both left the gallery rubbing our necks from hunching over the photos for such a long period. I'm not decrying the gallery as inaccessible, nor am I trying to speak for the woman I saw - after all I didn't even bother to ask if she was comfortable or not viewing the photos on her crutches. But I imagine stopping 1,000 times in order to see a gallery exhibit and I wonder if there was a way that could be avoided - a way to become more aware.

Leaving the gallery I noticed an ad for a TV show on the History Channel called Ax Men. The ad prominently featured the prosthetic arm of a logger working alongside the arms of other unseen men, all with their biological arms. Immediately images of danger, hardship, masculinity came into play in my mind. The ad was culturally coded disability, subtly giving blue-collar workers with disabilities an exceptional identity (to borrow from Ruth Garland-Thomas).

The entire weekend experience was capped off by a final event. As I transferred this morning at Suthphin Boulevard to the LIRR I noticed two people with disabilities crossing a busy and inaccessible street in Queens. The two people, a female little person and a wheelchair using man, gave each other a brief little head-bob and wave as they crossed paths. My morning commute was filled with thoughts on this. They may have known each other from any various disability movement or social group (should they be a part of one, not all folks with disabilities are!), or they might be friends or co-workers...maybe even ex-lovers. But what I thought was the most exciting possibility was that they could be two people who have never met before but they saw each other and acknowledged each others existence. They took time out of whatever else was on their mind or in their schedules to simply say "I see you". I see you in a way that the majority of people refuse to see you - as a vital, important, and meaningful contributor to the city. Given the three other examples of disability awareness I saw this weekend I am prone to supporting this conclusion. It gives me hope.

Another thing that gives me hope is the disTHIS! film series. And tonight they will be screening Naked on the Inside an amazing movie about people's relationships to their bodies. The film will start at 7pm but doors open at 6:30 suggested donation of $5.

Gather: lesbian community under one roof

2009-03-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

This Sunday I had a surprise treat when I was asked to sit in on a panel about The L Word. The panel is part of an event called "Gather" which happens every few months. I specifically talked about gender identity - and the event was awesome! Below is the amazing poster for the event - look for more posts about Gather in the future and check out the founder's blog, also named Gather.

All in all, I think a major conclusion about The L Word was that it brought queer folks together physically (in bars, one person's home, viewing parties) in a new way, and it meant we never had awkward pauses when meeting new people. Asking about The L Word was an easy way to begin any conversation!

LSATs and Class

2009-03-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

I recently took a free Kaplan LSAT test where I was promised that my score could improve tremendously if I took their course that costs between $1299 and $1499. Now I was already indulging in a free service and I am thankful for the opportunity to test my skills, but the means to acheive a "competitive score" infuriates me. A 166-180 is considered competitive and the LSAT is not a test one can study for in the traditional sense. If a student has the time to spend taking classes and to pay $1299 or more they are guaranteed to improve. If a student is working full time, low income, supporting family, etc they have to find other ways to improve - like studying an outdated library book between jobs or when the baby is asleep. To summarize: having expendable money and time guarantees success. This means that law school applicants at top colleges will continue to be privileged at least in terms of class. All of us know that class is directly tied to multiple other gender identities so that a very particular type of lawyer is consistently produced.

Moreover, the cost of law school is such that students invested in working for public interest, governmental, or non-profit ventures won't be able to do so and live a comfortable life-style (more abut my idea of comfort here).* After ranking up debt in the 100s of thousands it's hard to remind yourself that a job that pays $40,000 defending immigrant rights is the moral choice over the $160,000 a year job defending folks like Bernie Madoff.

Therefore, it is very difficult to produce lawyers who are going to relate any kind of class background difference or any kind of specific interest in legal work as it pertains to social justice and not money-profiteering. As I write this, though, I have to acknowledge that both of my brothers are lawyers - and while we were not always low income, we did emerge from a low income family. So of course working class people become lawyers everyday. It happens - but it's not an equal process, and for every lawyer interested in defending those on Death Row there are 100 interested in increasing the profits of the Prison Industrial Complex.

This isn't an issue specific to lawyers. Doctors, environmental advocates, non-profit executives...many jobs are held by those who had the time and monetary means to achieve their positions and due to debt and the process of normalized ethics that occurs in any academic institution, they often lose any radical vision. That said, the lawyer-specific point is particularly irksome to me not only because I have decided to go into the law but because I decided to go into the law for the ability to assist those historically under served (screwed over) in the justice process. I want to focus on gender identity law and work for an organization such as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project which puts people of color and low-income people first. It irritates me that the law - something I find potentially radical and exciting - could be used as the means to become greedy and rich. We all know this - the majority of us grew up with lawyer jokes - but for me this becomes a very personal message.

Through my work in various non-profits I've decided that the lack of understanding of the law and a fear of such legal processes is what directly influences many people to not act out for their liberation. Which is why I find the law exciting. We can use it to create radical social change when we become lawyers and educators, and our own advocates. But tests and expenses like those above deliberately reduce the possibility that advocates for radical social change access these services. Which is why I study every day on my subway and train ride - I want to make sure that there will be at least one law student who wants to see justice for all people. So despite my inability to pay $1499 and to spend my weekends in a classroom near the NYU campus, I am still determined to do well and attend in order to create radical social change.

*In addition to what I previously wrote about "comfort" being considered bourgeois...I volunteered with a woman recently who is self-employed in NYC doing odd jobs and she was talking about how so many people "say no to money" but she wants "to say yes to money" - which the majority of people who have lived in working class conditions not by choice would agree with. The majority of us who have experienced hardships are aware of how difficult it can be to climb out of a non-chosen poverty.

Angie Zapata: ensuring forms of justice!

2009-03-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

This email comes from the amazing staff of the Colorado Anti-Violence Project. I'm reproducing parts of it here so that folks can help ensure that an accurate and loving memory of Angie Zapata is preserved. Justice is clearly a tricky issue (how often do prison sentences actually correspond to a recreation of a less-violent more understanding self?) but Angie's memory and her family's right to respectful media coverage and supportive community can not be overlooked. Moreover, while I do have concerns for whether Andrade will ever understand his crime - I am more concerned about whether communities in Colorado and around the world will understand that our lives are beautiful and have value, and that our communities are powerful.

I worked with the staff of CAVP directly after Angie's horrific murder, and I'd like to talk more about that experience when I'm able. For now, however, here are tips on how to let the Zapata family know that Angie is in all of our hearts. What I love about these is that they work at every level. No matter where you are in the world, what your financial situation is, you can find an action that will help preserve her memory and is do-able in your current situation. Really, there are no excuses:

Respond to Media Coverage of the Trial

Join the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD)
Rapid Response Team. A Media Essentials training will be scheduled soon for the last full week of March. GLAAD's regional representative will send out more information soon. Contact CAVP if you'd like to be notified. E-mail CAVP
Write letters to editor of local and national papers during trial coverage.

Offer carpool rides from Denver to Greeley Courthouse during the trial

The eight day trial of Andrade will begin on April 14, 2009 and takes place in Courtroom 11 of the Weld County Courts at 901 9th Ave in Greeley. We would like to provide as much community support to Angie Zapata's family and friends as possible by packing the courthouse during those days.
If you are need a ride or would like to offer a ride to Greeley from the Denver-Metro area, please contact Kate Bowman at 303-202-6466 (work), 303-798-0790 (cell) or by e-mail.

Donate and/or prepare healthy snacks, food and drinks for community members attending the trial

Contact Andy Stoll at the Lambda Community Center 970-221-3247 or by e-mail if you would like to make a donation.

Join the Colorado Anti-Violence Program for evenings of discussion, meditation and dinner

In an effort to support our community members in maintaining a positive and healthy emotional and mental space around the trial, CAVP will be hosting two evenings of discussion, meditation and dinner. Discussion will be facilitated by CAVP staff and meditation by Marti Engelmann.
March 18th from 6-8:30 pm
April 7th from 6-8:30 pm

Dinner provided March 18th.
April 7th, please bring a potluck dish if you plan to attend

For more info or to RSVP contact Crystal Middlestadt at 303-839-5204 or by e-mail.

We encourage you to participate if you are even slightly considering attending any trial dates, you would like to find other ways to support people going to the trial or you have an interest in participating in creating this type of space regardless of your involvement with this case.
Make a Financial Contribution

Mail a check to:
Colorado Anti-Violence Program
P.O. Box 181085
Denver, CO 80218

Give online through the Colorado Non-Profit Development Center
Donate now!
Please be sure to designate the donation to "CAVP".
- $25 provides one hour of court accompaniment for a survivor of domestic violence.
- $100 provides one night of safe shelter and food for a victim of partner abuse.
- $250 provides for a daylong training on hate crimes against the LGBT community for service providers.
- $500 provides training for 150 students and faculty to makes schools safer for youth of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
- $1000 keeps the statewide crisis hotline available to victims of hate violence, sexual assault, random violence and partner abuse for 3 months.
2009 Volunteer Training Schedule

Currently, CAVP is looking for new volunteers to become a valuable part of the organization. There are many ways you can get involved, including completing administrative tasks, community outreach, building referral databases, and staffing the 24-hour crisis hotline.

General Orientation
The general orientation will provide you with all of the tools you'll need to be an amazing volunteer with CAVP. This is also a great way to see if the CAVP crisis hotline is right for you.

The next general orientations will take place in July & October.
July training:
Two weeknights, July 13 and 15 from 6-9pm. You must attend both of these dates.
October training:
One full-day training, October 3 from 8:30am-5pm.

Crisis Hotline Training
Because the crisis hotline training is about 30 hours long, you will be making a considerable time-commitment to both the training and to the hotline itself. Hotline shifts are a half week long, and you will carry a pager for 24-hours a day. When people call the hotline, they will leave a message and the pager will then go off. You must have access to returning that phone call within 20 minutes of the call. If you have any questions about how the hotline can fit into your schedule, please let us know.

The next crisis hotline training will take place in October. For additional information about the Colorado Anti-Violence Program or to sign up for the volunteer training, please contact Kelly Costello bye-mail or 303-839-5204. Feel free to pass on this message on to anyone you think might be interested in volunteering.

Refried Musings on safer spaces

2009-03-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

In between recent bouts of studying for the LSATs I have been reading Trans/Forming Feminisms edited by Kristen Scott-Dixon. The essays within are exactly the kind of stimulating debates that I feel are left out of my new preocuppying battles against assimilation and normalization in LGBT progressive movements. The essays don't agree with each other, in fact they are often contradictory - but they disagree in a respectful way. The section that affected my advocacy ideas the most was a selection of essays from scholars, lawyers, and advocates around transgender issues at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) and the case of Kimberly Nixon vs. Rape Relief.

The debates over MWMF are debates I am interested in and concerned about - however I have heard so many different arguments from so many different people that I have yet to form a consistent and definitive opinion on any specific course of action. I'm not entirely worried however, as I am confidant that my opinion as a man - albeit a genderqueer transsexual man - is not the voice missing from these debates. The essays, however, have re-sparked my interest, mostly because one essay in particular reminded me of the tribulations that faced the Queer Union at Macalester.

My senior year a proposal was made to allow the Info Shop - a project of the student group Macalester Peace & Justice Coalition (MPJC) - to reside inside the on-campus room assigned to the student group Queer Union. Three student groups on campus had been given access to private rooms: Feminists In Action (FIA) and Students Together Against Rape And Sexual Assault (STARSA) got together to create the Womens' and Gender Resource Center across the hall from the Queer Union Lounge, which was managed by Queer Union. Notably, no other groups had private or safe spaces to meet although semi-public spaces such as the Multicultural Resource Center and the Cultural House were available for the majority of groups.

The debate centered around the issue that queer students at Macalester had petitioned for usage of the space and received it based on the merit of their need for safer and confidential access to information that was not widely available in other Macalester locations. While it may seem that an organization dedicated to peace and justice would be dedicated to queer liberation enough of us had faced transphobia, homophobia, and heteronormativity in peace-based organizations to know that the two tracks didn't necessarily correlate. Moreover Queen Union was dedicated to consciousness-raising and members were concerned that MPJC might not be truly dedicated to eradicating heteronormativity and gender binaries. After all, no MPJC members regularly attended QU meetings except self-identified queer members - there was no MPJC ally visibility.

While QU members were not opposed to the idea, there were some reservations that MPJC's presence might make the Queer Union Lounge no longer safe. To counter this, however, it was raised that safe is a relevant term and that no member of QU felt safe at every moment of every meeting. After all, the QU/MPJC members were on a more revolutionary model of progressive liberation and their views were often held as contemptible by the LGBT Democrats present, and the few Republican members. Students of color often encountered racial profiling about their sexuality, open minded attitude, or even the legitimacy of maintaining multiple identities. The voices of women and gender variant people were often silenced or unheard from. These same members pointed out that we needed to differentiate between what is a challenging feeling, and what is an unsafe feeling (I feel this is analogous to a person who exercises distinguishing between the discomfort of stretching new muscles and the pain of hurting a muscle).

QU members supportive of the proposal also brought up that MPJC members were often of more diverse socio-economic backgrounds than QU members and the group was often strongly persecuted. The President of the college and multiple Professors wrote statements against their actions, and during the year in question their budget was sliced in half. In particular funding for the alternative zine The Hegemon was lost completely as was any additional funding for the Info Shop after student government decried the buying of a book about dildos.

In the end, Queer Union gave the Info Shop permission to share the space and gave MPJC permission to hold meetings. However, Queer Union also decided that no MPJC activities could take place during QU time periods – i.e. MPJC members couldn’t access the Info Shop during a QU meeting of any type, unless they were present for the QU meeting. The secondary decision came from a clear desire to mark the space as predominantly queer, although that ultimately failed as MPJC members used, decorated, and partied in the space much more than any QU members.

This walk down memory lane isn’t just for fun, as I read from so many authors about the idea of “safe space” in the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival I became very aware that the greatest debate about safe space that I publicly participated in was one where the more obvious issue of safety (that of queer students) wasn’t necessarily the population that needed to be in a safer space. With a college administration that was terrified of the radical acts of MPJC the MPJC students, of all sexualities, were more persecuted than queer students even though queer students were not respected either. This flip-flopping of ideas about oppression took a long time to make sense for the majority of QU members, as did the idea that just being queer didn’t mean we had each other’s backs. The amount of fighting, flippantly thought of as “drama” was assumed to be normative and it wasn’t until the MPJC/QU student pointed out how un-safe the space was that many of us were aware that the “drama” wasn’t a precondition – that we had the power to address it and treat the issues as serious.

I have never been to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival – nor do I want to ever go. I have no interest in an event that practices such blatant discrimination. But my partner tells me that when she went many years ago she noticed it was a highly divided space and she spent the majority of her time in the Womyn of Color tent. Likewise, there is an S&M area and other identity-divided spaces. Which makes one ask how much of a community is really present? Like Queer Union, if MWMF is already divided by identity than how safe is the space? And how much is it about “women” anyway? Or is it more about hanging out with a very specific group of people within a narrowly defined definition of women? How do you build community in that way?

Gender and the NYT

2009-02-26T19:42:00.001-08:00

So, this is clearly very late in being written, but I think the topic is still relevant - especially after the most current issue of Bitch has more than a few pages on this subject...

This article from way back when in the New York Times was forwarded to me by my friend Sass a few weeks ago. Sass, our friend Sarah, and myself engaged in a long email-conversation about the visibility of gender non-conforming women versus the agonizing disgust that such poor coverage brings.

Upon reading the very first pages I thought that the author had some incredibly valid points around the majority of assimilatory gay men and their lack of concern for non-cute male issues, i.e. women's rights, queer woman's liberation etc. It's so rare to see any real insight into queer culture in mainstream press, that I was genuinely surprised to see an actual truth as opposed to a truth that journalists come to after watching back to back episodes of The L Word.

Specifically, this thought came after a weekend of volunteering for The Vagina Monologues where I argued at length with cisgender male youth volunteers who refused to watch the show. I tried talking to them about solidarity - so many of them have straight female friends who care about gay rights, isn't it only a matter of respect to care about issues pertaining to women too? No avail. I argued with them on an ego level: what if they have a male partner who transitions to female, or if they fall for a trans man? What if, even though they identify as gay now, they fall for a woman later in life? No avail. On a basic knowledge is power level...aren't you at least interested in learning how more than half the world experiences sexism and misogyny?

What most appalled me was trying to justify a play that I truly dislike. I have seen so many versions of The Vagina Monologues and while I see an respect the empowerment so many women with vaginas might feel from the play...I have to agree with articles like this one and this one and this one that the play reifies many identity markers that so many women of various identities are fighting against. Yet for these young men, I knew seeing the play could still have the impact I felt when i first heard them so many years ago.

Anyway, to return to Rachel Maddow...I initially thought a conversation about lesbian invisibility was long overdue, and to focus on one of the smartest, savviest and apparently kindest lesbians known internationally was an awesome way to broach the subject! She's not sugarcoated, but Maddow is indeed accessible to many.

But then I read on and saw that apparently lesbians come in two gender identities: butch and femme.

Well. thank goodness, and here I thought that femmes were suffering from invisibility and butches from heterosexism. After all, butch ladies seem to be receiving the same internalized-patriarchal push back these days that they endured in the 80s, and femmes are organizing across the US into amazing collectives around visibility - despite the popular (mis)conception that a certain Showtime show has pushed femme identity into an approved normality. Ask any actual femme, and she'll let you know how femme the cast of that show is. Moreover, its good to know that The New York Times has sanctioned butch-femme and thereby made invisible all other gender identities and possible partnerships (heaven forbid we have a butch butch couple!). I know that queer female identities will never be given a fair day in the pages of the Grey Lady - and I'm not even sure they should have an equal exposure as an exposed culture loses a lot of its meaning and nuance.

So I am lost thinking how amazing to have an honest discussion of gender, and then the repulsion that the article was not well executed. I feel like this constantly with the NYT... they tackle these complicated, relevant subjects: marriage legality in post-transition, the relationships between transmen and lesbians, and gender identity and invisibility in lesbian circles. But...good god! Do it well please! Don't just interview Sally Herschberg and don't draw your lesbian "facts" from pop TV. Where was Joan Nestle in this article? Or the Lesbian Herstory Archives? or Sarah Schulman? Or all the famous lesbians living in NYC who could talk about invisibility and media representation of gender identities!

Well. At least this helps broaden the discussion a bit...I hate feeling "thankful" for bad stories though, as in "i should feel thankful that you cared enough about my community to report on us..." The fact that there wasn't enough concern to do a good job overrules so many feelings of "thankfulness". Like so many ally issues, the NYT can drop lesbians and gender non-conformity in a hot second if they feel like it - there's no survival understood in the coverage. Unlike so many if us, this story can represent an interesting fad, and not a real and consuming aspect of how we understand ourselves.

Realizing Medical Bodily Difference

2009-02-26T18:26:00.000-08:00

It took me a long time to realize that the constant headaches and migraines i feel are not a constant part of everyone else's lives. About three years ago i became aware that on a monthly if not weekly basis I would begin to get extraordinarily painful headache that would leave me curled up in a nauseous ball for hours. Left un-medicated they would last for the entire day - after 4 Excedrin they would generally clear up in a few hours. It took me longer than most to understand that the experiences were unusual and even longer to realize that they were probably related to eating, visual, and exercise habits.

Like most able bodied youth (and perhaps like most youth with disabilities, I don't know) I didn't pay attention to in health classes. As an adult I now see my behavior reproduced in the youth I work with - youth who are unable to make connections between lethargy, constant physical pain, and their daily habits. Perhaps it is because for many of the youth - living in neighborhoods/communities where disability is at an increase due to poorly managed work environments and increased environmental risk - disability is normative and associated with age.

I don't wish to suggest that disability is to be avoided or that a disability is a negative identity, but I do believe that all of our identities should be understood fully. I mean to say, for example a wonderful life can be lived if you are HIV positive - indeed being HIV positive can open up a whole new cultural identity and knowledge about sexuality, touch can become even more erotic as can sexual stimulus of non-genital areas. However, despite the joys that can come HIV positive status increased economic cost, physical illness, and discrimination also accompany the identity.

What I'm trying to come to here is that for whatever reason bodies are often not treated as visceral and important, some able bodied people often don't realize the impact of what we need to do to our bodies. All of which is to say that I only recently realized that my migraines were not normative and that I might be able to control my body in a more affirming way. Prior to my identity as a queer feminist anti-ableist activist I dismissed the body as an unimportant shell to the soul (yeah, I was raised Catholic). Now I see my body as a bearer of extensive importance: race, sexuality, size, gender, ability...all are marked on the body and give me access in a world where access equals privilege. Yes. This is old hat. But sometimes it is important to return to old hat.

I recently spoke to a small group of Gay Straight Alliance Students about allying with and becoming inclusive of transgender students and identities. In our discussion of allying techniques every student in the room discussed their abhorrence of gym classes and how humiliated they felt during gym. I understand and remember these same feelings - specifically the year-long teasing I received about my small chest and hairy legs. The daily teasing took away any joy I had at exercising my body - a task I do enjoy these days when I am practicing yoga (I need to write about that), running, or swimming.

It pained me immensely to see mini versions of myself with the same stories of pain and humiliation. As someone who believes in the importance of the body and that care for the body is how we are able to honor ourselves and continue our revolutionary legacies I'd like to see these students be given more affirming spaces to explore their identities. I find that our bodies are crucial for our identities and I'd like to see our LGBT and gender non-conforming youth know that their bodies have value. However this isn't going to occur in public high school gym classes, and I so I understand their desire to skip.

For many of us, living outside of our bodies is the way we find ourselves. But that comes at the expense of our bodies, something my friends in the disability rights community have taught me to value in many ways. I don't wish to value any identity or bodily ability over any other. What I want to emphasise is education. If I choose to have headaches, or if these youth were consensually choosing not to exercise this would be an entirely different conversation. Instead we came to these (lack of) activities because we were told our bodies - and thereby our identities - were not important.

Who plays us in the movies?

2009-02-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

GayNZ.com, has put together a list of all the LGBT roles that were ever nominated for an Oscar. Now, we all know the Oscar's are...well, what they are. They are political (art is political) and not necessarily reflective of actual achievement. Anyway. It's interesting.

There are only two people on the list who I know to be out, both of whom are out gay men. Jaye Davidson (for his role as Dil in The Crying Game) and Ian McKellan (for his role in Gods and Monsters), and Jay was portraying a transwoman and not a gay man. So there seems to be a growing trend of non-LGBT identified actors playing LGBT roles (hmm, not so much B or T actually) and being nominated for their acting.

This is compounded with The L Word from two weeks ago (oh, don't even get me started!) where the character of Nikki Stevens said that playing "an ugly lesbian...or a retard" gets you an Oscar. The character proceeded to name Charlize Theron in Monster Sean Penn in I am Sam and Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry (where, in case the title didn't give it away...she plays a transman...not a lesbian).

But, despite the nastiness of her comment, it does ring true. Is it that to see a conventionally attractive actor whom we know to be straight go against grounds of cultural beauty and play a LGBT character we become convinced that the actor is really doing a good job as the transformation must be difficult? That they degraded themselves so deeply that we have to recognize it? Playing a character we know to be culturally different: being gay, being transgender, having a mental or cognitive disability seems to impress people - perhaps because non-LGBT/ally folks and able-bodied/minded people don't often see the intricacies of our lives and how normative they seem to us, contrasted with the imagined difficulty of outsiders.

This weekend, I read in the New York Times magazine a quote from Rupert Everett where he says (specifically in regards to MILK): "The paranoid moneymakers know that when the star goes to the first night with his wife, the public sees that. They’ll accept someone playing gay because they know he’s really straight."

On the flipside it seems that transgender actors have to play transgender roles (if they get a role at all). I haven't yet seen or known of a transgender person who played a man or a woman who didn't have a transgender history. I don't have a particular thought on this...I was just noticing the bombardment of discussion of LGBT representation recently.

Ten years of Dykes Do Drag!

2009-02-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

The amazing Minnesota group Dykes Do Drag is celebrating 10 years of fabulous gender-bending performance art. As a former troupe member (Mik Danger of the TransFormers) who really got his feet wet at the Dykes Do Drag arena, this ten year show is hugely important to me. I wish I could fly out just to see this triumph! I've written before about the importance of drag in my development, and I can't emphasize that enough. Dykes Do Drag practiced an amazing form of drag that I refer to as post-drag drag. It has gone beyond the hyperbole of feminization or masculinization to address real issues of class, race, accessibility, and queerness in all of our communities. In short, being a transmale drag performer was seen as the same kind of ever day experience as the cissexual drag performers or the folks who came in without pronouns or gender identities. It was a really safe space for exploring our genders in US society.

But more than that, it was also a fabulously creative space for putting our explorations into amazing performances. Which weren't all serious. In fact, they rarely ever were. Everything from marionettes to powerpoints were used to play with our perceptions of art and identity in a freeing way that inevitably left us laughing.

I can safely say that my consistent character of a punk gay man allowed me to play with the hyper-masculine qualities I was told over and over again i should possess. By playing with them on stage, and using them to manipulate audience laughs and reactions, I was able to safely put my hyper-masculine longings to rest and settle into my own genderqueer transboi identity.

So I really urge folks to make the trip. It's amazing and fabulous. And they've been around for ten years. That's ten years of consistently progressive commentary and consistently hilarious performances!

The show will be

Thursday Feb 19th @ 10pm
Friday Feb 20th @ 10pm
Saturday Feb 21st @ 7pm and 10pm

Tickets always sell out early so please order in advance by calling the Bryant Lake Bowl Box Office 612-825-8949 or going online at www.bryantlakebowl.com

Due to the amazing historical impact of the show (and yes I DO mean that in all seriousness) tickets are a bit steep. But oh-so-worth it!
$14 in advance/$18 at the door
241 tickets with student id on Thursday
$20 VIP tickets will be available through BLB box office (will include the best seats in the house, snacks upon arrival, a free BLB or DDD t-shirt, and possible seat decoration)

Audre Lorde Project Action Alert!

2009-02-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

Free the RTTC 8!

Hey Community!

FIERCE will hold a press conference at 10am to highlight the unjust context in which they were arrested and held.
Today FIERCE participated in a non-violent action at the Future of New York conference organized by the city's business sector. They were meeting today to create policy recommendations geared towards "strengthening the city's economy." We came, along with other grassroots organizations across the city, to say that the people of New York (queer and trans youth, homeless, workers, immigrants...) were being left out of this very important conversation. No, we weren't invited but we went anyways to deliver a letter to our mayor so that we set up a meeting with him and share with him some policy recommendations that actually reflect community priorities for the city's economic future.

Unfortunately, eight organizers (one from FIERCE) were arrested at the Grand Hyatt hotel where the conference was held. They are currently being charged with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct. They are being held at the Midtown South precinct and are being moved to Manhattan Central Booking in the morning to be arraigned.

We are calling for all community members to mobilize out the arraignment to show community solidarity across New York City and also to stress that DEMOCRACY is NOT DISORDERLY CONDUCT.
Here are the details as FIERCE knows them now:

MEET AT 100 CENTRE STREET as early as 8am. (we don't know for sure when they will be processed...but we'll be there hot chocolate and all...)

You can take the 4/5 to Brooklyn Bridge, City Hall. Or J/M/Z/Q/R/W/N/6 to Canal (take the Centre street exit).

The court opens at 8am and there is no set schedule to when they will all be arraigned. Right to the City and FIERCE will be there at 8am and stay there until all of the eight organizers are processed.

If you have questions call: Glo 718.207.3980
Thanks for all of the support you have shown

When: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 8:00am
Where: @ AT 100 CENTRE STREET 4/5 to Brooklyn Bridge, City Hall. Or J/M/Z/Q/R/W/N/6 to Canal (take the Centre street exit)

Transgender Stories in the Media: Take Action & Educate

2009-01-28T13:39:00.001-08:00

I have been so overwhelmed at work these last few weeks that I haven't had time to properly respond to all of these articles. However, transfolks are in the news a LOT these past few days, and I'm going to do a run-down here:

First, the reporter in Indianapolis who mis-identified Taysia Elzy's pronouns is refusing to change them. Monica Roberts has a great post with contact information: Please please please write to him and let him know that the "agenda" of changing pronouns is the "agenda" of showing respect. He doesn't need to be defensive that he messed up, he needs to make changes.

In Jakarta, Indonesia a legislator is calling for 14% of all jobs to go to transgender people. His incredibly logical reasoning is that since transgender people make up 14% of the population, they should occupy an equal amount of the workforce. Since they don't, he concludes that transphobia keeps transpeople from occupying legal jobs so they turn to illegal occupations such as sex work and drug dealing. Wow. That seems so sensible...

The ACLU has taken up the case of two transwomen who are suing to change their birth certificates to reflect their post-operative identity. Apparently Illinois has changed birth certificates for over 40 years but recently decided to stop the practice. I'm glad the ACLU has taken her case as they have a history of winning such cases, but I wonder if any progressive changes, such as not needing to undergo surgery, will result.

A Sacramento transwoman was attacked two weeks ago, and this story from the Sacramento Bee does an excellent non-sensational job of covering it. My only concern is that the perpetrators are described as African American, which is they are is accurate and fair. However, since racial identity can only be known if someone tells you their racial identity it seems unfair to decide for them. I know my college tried to do consciousness-raising on this issue by asking college security to avoid asking for race and simply asking about skin tone or clothing descriptors so that the term African American or Latino wasn't equated with criminal. I'm still tossing this around in my head, so i welcome comments!

New America Media reported on new changes in Cuba which includes the growing acceptance of transgender people. The author uses "transvestite" and doesn't seem to see a problem with transpeople being relegated to sex work, yet I found the article interesting all the same as I know surprisingly little about Cuba. From the article "A toleration and discussion of sexuality diversity became more wide spread in 2006 when Raul’s daughter, Mariela Castro Espin, published a special issue of the magazine she edits, “Sexology and Society.” On the inside of the cover page the very first words are: “To be homosexual, bisexual, transsexual or transvestite is not an illness nor a perversity, nor does it constitute any type of offense.”"

Finally, as most people have heard, a biracial transwoman in Appleton WI is suing a bar for discrimination. Articles from the Chicago Tribune, and NBC26 have done a fairly good job of reporting the facts, although they haven't gotten into the real grit of why this might happen. Sierra Broussard was told that she might want to go to a club that caters to "her kind" according to the lawsuit. Being a transgender woman of color in Wisconsin one can only guess where "her kind" are supposed to go. I really applaud her courage to fight this out in courts, as more and more lawsuits about gender identity discrimination are filed we are beginning to see why it is vital for gender expression and identity to be included in ENDA and similar bills.

So after reading these stories write to the reporter and say "hey, awesome! Thanks for remembering we're part of your community." then tell them how to improve, what local resources they could use next time, and other things to remind them that transgender people are deserving of accurate and inclusive coverage!

Disappearing into Privilege

2009-01-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

From the HoustonPress comes this story, “Attagirl: Transsexual Police Officer Nominated Grand Marshall of Pride Parade”. Which is an amazing story celebrating Police Officer Julia Christina Oliver who had (apparently) tremendous support from her commanding officers as she transitioned.Officer Oliver also lives in Houston, one of the many cities that Jennifer Gale lived and campaigned in before her death.

I wrote about Jennifer Gale before I left GLAAD, and you can read more about that here, “Jennifer Gale, Austenite Transgender Leader found Dead”. I wonder if people will remember Jennifer come November’s Transgender Day of Remembrance when we commemorate and memorialize the lives of transgender people who were murdered. In many ways, I feel that Jennifer was indeed murdered. Being a transwoman kept her out of shelters and thereby increased her risk not only to the harsh elements that may have directly caused her death, but also the risk of physical and sexual assault. I’m not sure I want to compare what happened to her to what happened to Duanna Johnson or Sanesha Stewart, but I do want to acknowledge that had her transgender identity been understood and respected by city shelters, potential employers, etc she might not have been allowed to die.

So here we have a state where in one of the most well-known liberal cities a transwoman dies in the cold because there is no space to go, and a few cities over a transwoman has the support of her commanding officer in one of the most conservative, racist, and sexist occupations. Without wishing to trivialize Jennifer’s death or take away from Julia’s achievement I do wonder how these two white transwomen who are both clearly well-educated achieved such different support systems. I don’t wish to paint this as a binary issue, and I’m not speaking specifically about what happens in the Houston community. Instead I am interested in how I can learn from these two lives how to better serve transgender people in my new job, and simply in general as I write, volunteer, and fight for transgender rights.

What I immediately see here is that the focus for services in traditional LGBT (or GLB with the T added on) organizations is a focus on “upwardly mobile” services. We (and I include myself here as I do work in the same organizations I’m criticizing) tend to be nervous to talk about the activities deemed negative or destructive that occur in our communities. We are also so used to hearing the “I’m the same as you” argument that sometimes we’re less willing to acknowledge the ways queer people differ from straight people. Homelessness (as an example) is overwhelmingly ignored in outreach of LGBT organizations and foundations. Another example, when we encounter a person who has a learning, cognitive, mental or emotional disability we are more likely to encourage institutionalization than to discuss disability understanding in our communities or to rearrange our modes of education, service provision etc to better fit their needs. When we encounter a person who doesn’t fit our idea of what a man or a woman should be (especially if we think they are “early on” in a transition) we tend to encourage them to “pick a gender” or we subtly hint ways of “feminizing” or “masculinizing” an appearance.

I want to make sure that we are addressing all the members of our community and encouraging people to question why they want to disappear into cisgender heterosexual society by pretending to be, or actually embodying “the same as you” identity. For an example of integration: that we acknowledge that while having an LGBT police liaison may be incredibly useful and helpful it doesn’t always benefit all of our community members. So we encourage people to turn to examples given by the Audre Lorde Project’s Safe Outside the System or Sista II Sista’s model of community intervention that encourage community members to address issues of violence or criminal behavior in a model that isn’t rooted in racism and sexism. A second example: that while we work and organize for the right to marry (if that is what makes you happy) we acknowledge that marriage alone isn’t what should give people the right to access health care, second parent adoption, hospital visitation etc. That we simultaneously work with communities of immigrants, multiple or single parent homes or homes headed by multiple generations to secure legal rights that actually reflect the many and varied ways families are formed in the U.S.

It is through acknowledging that being recognized in capitalist white supremacist heteronormative ableist America as equal isn’t necessarily a positive thing that we will be able to actually affect each others lives in ways that promote positive social change and hopefully encourage each other to be more cognizant of the positive possibilities of difference.

Respond to Anti-Transgender Reporting

2009-01-12T09:24:00.000-08:00

Stories like this one (from an Associated Press reporter!) are exactly why transgender anti-discrimination laws are getting overturned across the nation. Reporters have a duty to report accurately and fairly. This reporter, Mr. Ron Word, has written an article headlined "Fla. conservatives fight transgender restroom rule". While Word does interview two transwomen the majority of his article is incredibly biased. He incorrectly defined "transgender" and did not provide any statistics, quotes, or research refuting the ridiculous claim that a non-discrimination law will magically grant pedophiles more access to children. Please (especially if you live in Florida) read this article and email him a response. Stories like this spread fear and lies, and do no service for our community. Email Ron Word at rword@ap.org

Below is my email to Mr. Word.

Hello Mr. Word,

I am writing to you in response to your recent article “Fla. conservatives fight transgender restroom rule”. I greatly appreciate you highlighting this political and social battle, as it is an issue all Floridians – and folks across the US facing similar legal battles should be aware of.

Opening your article with the “dark” and grossly misinformed ad against gender identity non-discrimination at first struck me as an excellent way to showcase the fear-mongering of those who oppose the protection. Yet, you site the ad as being “sort of” true, and never document the reasons why it is not true. The protection extends to issues of gender identity, and in terms of bathrooms it protects transwomen and transmen who wish to use the bathrooms associated with their sex – not pedophiles or sexual offenders. In fact there are no documented court cases in any of the existing counties, cities or states with gender identity protection where a pedophile or a sexual offender claimed the gender-identity protection as their right to commit crimes. Pedophilia and sexual assault will still be illegal. By not reporting this and by not clarifying that the protection does not apply to those engaged in illegal activity you allow this misinformed fear to go unabated.

Moreover, you seem perhaps a bit confused on the subject of transgender people. They do not “change their sexual orientation” as you report. Transgender is an umbrella term that refers to anyone whose gender presentation differs from the sex they were assigned at birth or from cultural norms on how men and women act. Thus, gender identity protection extends to feminine men and masculine women who may not even identify as transgender as well as transsexual men and women who live full-time in a sex different from the one assigned at birth. Transgender people can be straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual as gender identity is different from sexual orientation.

I strongly urge you to contact the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). GLAAD works with media professionals to ensure fair and accurate coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and subjects. They have extensive resources and can assist in connecting you to transgender leaders in Florida who might be able to more accurately represent this extraordinarily important issue. I have cc’d Sarah Kennedy, GLAAD’s Media Field Strategist to this email and I urge you to call or email her with any questions or concerns (646-871-8012). In addition, GLAAD’s Transgender Glossary of Terms can be very useful: http://www.glaad.org/media/guide/transfocus.php

Mik Kinkead

Now, cut and paste this one or go write your own!! Thank you!

Black Transwomen Celebrated

2009-01-12T07:03:00.000-08:00

Monica Roberts, that fabulous blogger and webmistress of TransGriot, mentioned my partner, Amanda Morgan, in her entry on transwomen of color working for progressive change. I was totally shocked when I saw her name and photo! Not that she was mentioned but that my partner, who is genderqueer, who be cataloged along side all the transgender women who were assigned male at birth and had to pursue some kind of social shift in order to live as their true female selves.

Now, in my world I think the more transgender, transsexual, and gender non-conforming people get together and share their stories the stronger our presences will be. When we understand our true gender diversity we can create a more united front in the struggle for recognition and rights. But a lot of folks don't think that way, and a lot of folks quite rightly point out that there are different histories and needs in our various gender identities. But for every person who is focused on a singular self-struggle, there is a person who sees the larger picture of how transgender identity affects us all.

Take for instance, someone like Khadijah Farmer. Khadijah is a cisgender lesbian who was forcibly removed from a restroom (and subsequently the restaurant) because the bouncer thought she wasn't female. When Khadijah chose to be represented by Michael Silverstein of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund she became (although she already was) a gender warrior. She acknowledged that her experience was replicated across the U.S. towards transwomen and transmen, gender non-conforming people, and masculine women and feminine men who might not even consider themselves at risk for gender discrimination. Now, Khadijah never identified publicly as gender non-conforming, while my partner does. But the principal is fairly similar - one doesn't have to be in the more traditional purview of "transgender" to experience gender-identity based discrimination. Be it from the state refusing to protect your right to equal employment, a private restaurant deciding who can and can't use the bathrooms, or be it from friends who ask "how can someone feminine be so aggressive" or "how can you wear skirts and not shave your legs?"

I am also incredibly pleased to see such a positive celebratory piece on Black transwomen. A few months ago Monica posted an entry Notable African-American Transgender People where she listed 23 active African American transgender people and 5 transgender folks who had passed on. I added Imani Henry, June Brown, Tona Brown, Monica Roberts, and Isis King to the list and have printed it out and hung it all over my new office. There aren't enough people aware of the great number of transfolk of color who are battling transphobia and racism. But Monica is raising our levels of awareness and supplying educators like myself with invaluable resources.

I have always looked at Monica as a pinnacle of transgender blogging. I don't always agree 100%, but I am constantly learning form her. And now I have a very personal reason to think she is just absolutely amazing!

P.S. Sorry for all of the very short updates. If my blog has come to be known for something (big if there!) it is for my rather long responses to issues of language, politics, and identity. However with my new job I am still trying to figure out a writing schedule. Which means I have many short posts now for January, and lots of notes that I hope to soon transform into actual entries.

New York City: Take Direct Action Against Ableism!

2009-01-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

As we discuss accessibility and the new versions of the DSM-V (see here and here for discussions of transgender identity) I wanted to bring some awesome direct action items that folks concerned about access should be aware of:

The following is from the Disabilities Network of New York:

“New Yorkers with disabilities are being severely affected by this economic downturn. Already among the lowest-income New Yorkers, they are now being hit with budget cuts.

For example, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) wants to MORE THAN DOUBLE the fare for the Access-A-Ride paratransit service. For many New Yorkers with disabilities, this is the only way to get to a doctor’s appointment, school or work.

Now they are being asked to pay MORE than nondisabled transit riders. And for a service they use only because public transportation is largely inaccessible to them!

To me, this does not seem fair or even practical. That is why the Disabilities Network is working with our allies to suggest EQUITABLE AND REALISTIC alternatives to this increase (more here). We're even talking with the for-hire car industry about new transit options that would serve people with disabilities better for the same cost or less.

Our work doesn't stop during this economic crisis; in fact, there is more need than ever. That is why I am asking you to contribute to the Network today.

Your support should be at the level that is right for you. Your contribution of any amount means so much.

Many Americans report that they will increase their charitable giving this year. They know that, with government funding down, it is the individual who must make sure that our society does not abandon its core values of civil rights and equal opportunity."

Coming directly after I heard about the inaccessible Obama Inauguration this news is incredibly distressing. Except distressing isn’t the right word. The idea of more than doubling the Access-a-Ride fare is a sentence of solitude to most New Yorkers with disabilities. There are only a handful of accessible subway stations, and even those deemed “accessible” often aren’t. Elevators are consistently out of order, there are never clean benches for resting, turnstiles are at an inaccessible height and can be way to small for many people. In addition there is no security at most subway stops and folks with disabilities are at a severe risk for encountering violence, although added security could also be a detriment to many folks with emotional/mental/cognitive disabilities.

On my ride to work today I was handed a flier that said the subway/bus discount for senior citizens, children and folks with disabilities would be unchanged. Which is great. Except of course for the fact that the subways aren’t equipped for folks with any kind of disability.

What's also bitterly ironic is that I was handed this flier on the Long Island Rail Road. I want to recognize that there are people who travel on the LIRR who are coming from positions of low income or poverty, or are struggling with our economic times. However the overwhelming ridership is people with significant incomes. So it's incredibly upsetting that a person on their way to the Hamptons might know about these meetings but that the average New Yorker on the subway has seen no posters, announcements, or LCD screens about the public hearings. And I can gurantee no one has handed a NYC subway rider a flier. There has been a very clear demonstration of who the MTA is trying to market the hearing towards.

So please consider donating! Or better yet donate and contact the MTA to let them know it’s not acceptable. For New Yorkers attend a hearing at any of the following locations (all are accessible) and voice your anger. For folks outside of New York contact Douglas Sussman Director of MTA Community Affairs:

347 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10017
212-878-7483

Access at Inauguration

2009-01-05T11:09:00.000-08:00

I just read on Frida and on Feminsite that President-Elect Obama’s inauguration will be largely inaccessible to folks with limited mobility. Feministe’s Cara has analyzed the situation really well, so I’ll just encourage folks to go read her entry.

I still believe that Obama is indeed the change we need to see in Washington, but I stand by my October comments towards his policies even more. I think he wants to do the right thing and on the general areas of policy that most politicians are familiar with, I believe he will do the right thing. But disability advocacy - for instance – is a subject too many politicians are unaware of, and a subject we all need to educate his cabinet, advisors, etc about. Of course I’m also aware that Obama isn’t the specific person who decided “hey let’s shut down access” but he sets the tone for access.

I went onto the inauguration page to read about accessibility issues and found the phone numbers for Congressional Special Services Staff (isn’t that name condescending!). Perhaps one of the ways to voice disapproval is to call these numbers and let folks know that the “special services” they’ve provided simply aren’t enough:

202-224-4048 (voice)*

202-224-4049 (TTY)

I realize that educating is tiring and shouldn’t have to be done, but that’s all the more reason why folks who identify as anti-ableist allies (I try to be one) should make sure to call these numbers, too. In my professional capacity as “trans-for-pay” I have often heard/seen folks assume that only a transgender person can respond to anti-transgender actions. While clearly a transgender position carries a lot of weight in such a circumstance, assuming a trans-only policy undermines the work of all our allies and family members. Often I find that my friends are just as enraged as I am, and in some circumstances even more enraged. So while we may not know what it would be like to face limited mobility at the inauguration we can still ally ourselves to the fact that no one’s ability to attend the inauguration should be made any more difficult.

*The website referred to the non-TTY phone as “voice”…should I change that to “hearing”? What are non-TTY phones referred to as? I’ve never differentiated before. I did a few Google searches and didn’t find anything. I appreciate anyone who can let me know!

Resolutions for 2009: Remembering Those Before Us

2008-12-31T12:20:00.000-08:00

I don't really do New Years Resolutions in the material sense. I don't resolve to go to the gym 3 times a week or anything that could be viewed definitvley. I try to have my goals be more all-encompassing, focusing on changes I want to make in my general outlook and approach to life.

During my last week at GLAAD I helped to draft some opinion pieces on the life of Brandon Teena, all which focused on the the fact that this New Year's Eve is the 15th commmoration of his murder. With that, New Years becomes a day filled with multiple meanings - it is the symbolic end to old things, and the chance to make new beginnings – but it is also the anniversary of one of the most infamous hate crimes in US History.

When I was working with the authors to draft their letters and articles we focused on the idea of resolving to end hate, vioelnce, and discrimiantion against transgender people in 2009. This is a good thought. It's a noble and worthy thought. But since then at least three people have died due to anti-transgender violence.

Just before Christmas, on Dec 23 I learned that Leeneshia Edwards , a transwoman from Memphis, was shot in the face and now lies in critical condition in a Memphis hospital. This is the same city Duanna Johnson and Ebony Whitaker were murdered in, the same state that the amazing Dr. Marisha Richmond works in with the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition. My heart and thoughts go out to the transgender people and allies of Memphis who must be terrified of the city they love.

And only a few days ago we learned that Taysia Elzy and Michael Hunt were murdered in Indianapolis. Avery was a transgender woman, and Micheal was her boyfriend. Michael's death is like the death of so many SOFFA's, often undocumented as anti-transgender violence so often focuses on transgender people, and not those who love and ally with us. A good resource from the Transgender Aging Network can be found here.

These deaths, these brutal and purposeful acts of violence, are overwhelming. But we can not let them overwhelm us. On New Years Eve my resolution will be to work even harder to stop hate violence and transphobia through education, outreach, and surviving day-to-day as a transgender person. I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years, and I hope that we are all surrounded by our friends and the family we choose to be with. Let us find strength and joy in each other and our survival in 2009.

Framing Discussions of Mental Health

2008-12-30T14:31:00.001-08:00

This post is really only half thought-out as it is a recurring issue for me that I still haven’t properly settled in my mind. As many of you know, transgender people are considered to be suffering from “Gender Identity Disorder (GID)”. This diagnosis is crucial to pursuing things as basic as competent medical care, name changes, and at times proving discrimination lawsuits. Yet the majority of transgender people abhor this diagnosis as it suggests that transgender people, unlike cisgender men or women need someone else to tell them who they are, and that this identity must be done in the purview of the institutions of medicine.

I agree with this position – there is nothing disordered about me, or about being transgender. However, when trans folk talk about getting GID out of the official manual of the DSM-V there tends to be an undertone of ableism that I simply can’t shake. The premise for many of these actions is that transgender identities aren't disorders. However other folks with mental health disabilities could just as easily argue that their identites aren't disordered either, so I worry that these reforms reinforce the divide between folks with cognitive, developmental, or emotional disabilities and those who are considered to be able-bodied.

I am stuck in my theorizing on this issue. Transgender identity is not a mental health issue, but the effect of living in a transphobic world force many transgender people and allies into needing assistance mentally surviving. However, as long as GID remains in the DSM-V it will be used against those who are the least able to defend themselves – predominantly youth and people without the means to communicate with other transfolk. I recently heard Pauline Park speak on this subject and her remarks on the ways in which transyouth are suffering (corporal punishment, electric shock therapy, isolation etc.) made me question the narrowness of the movement to remove GID from the DSM-V.

Clearly transyouth can’t be the only group manipulated by medical industrial complex. As if to prove this point to me, the book I’m reading Andrea Smith’s Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide has provided me with ample clues as to how racial constructions of mental health have been used as justifications for medical mistreatment and experimentation on indigenous people across the globe, and folk of color in the US. She writes “[Colonialists believed that] Indians lacked the language that would allow them to comprehend God…” Smith goes on to link this colonial belief to the ways in which choices have always been made for American Indians with the belief that they are “’in an arrested state of social development’” unable to care for their land or children. Thus, they are experimented on medically and for several generations children are forcibly removed from Indigenous homes, all due to the racist and colonialist concept that American Indians aren’t mentally healthy.

Therefore, it would be wrong to suggest that GID should be removed as it is the only incorrect diagnosis in all of the DSM-V. Clearly many other diagnoses are based on issues of racism, sexism, and capitalism. What I’m still trying to frame is this: how do we remove the disability categories based in racism, homophobia, and sexism without reifying that mental disability is stigmatizing or somehow wrong?

I do not believe – cannot believe – that transgender people are misinformed or not able to know who they really are. But neither do I believe that people with cognitive, learning, or mental disabilities are misinformed or unable to know who they are.

It is becoming certain in my mind that the only choice is to overhaul the entirety of the health care system as it can not possible assist us in our needs when we are not considered right enough to know our own needs. The diagnosis of not being able to care for oneself is rooted in capitalism – that bodies only have value when they “meet capitalist expectations of self-sufficiency and productivity”. Folks who might finish a task in a different way due to different cultural norms, or who might take longer to finish a task aren’t considered valuable under the structures of the DSM-V. In order to best serve the needs of folks who may require mental health assistance perhaps the only logical – and obvious - conclusion is to have the folks with needs to be met write out these standards of care.

I am still thinking on this subject, and clearly I’m not the person who should be making these demands, but I have become so annoyed by the ableism in the organizing against GID in the DSM that I needed to at least put down some semblance of my thoughts.

* Smith, Andrea. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. South End Press: Mass, 2005. p. 52 & 57 (quote from Pat Robertson) & 87.

Thoughts on the Privilege of Employment

2008-12-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

There was a long gap on this blog where I wasn’t posting (I’m sure you noticed) for almost the entirety of December. There were many reasons for this – most pertinently my job search. My previous job at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation was a contract position that ended in December. As the economy got worse and worse I decided to kick my job search into overdrive at the end of November and felt too guilty to write until my job search was over.

I’m incredibly happy to report that after four months – which in this economy I know is nothing – I have found a position as the Transgender Services Coordinator for the Long Island GLBT Services Network. As I live in Brooklyn the commute is definitely a big change for me, but I’m excited to be working one-on-one with transgender folks again. Generally I would go for months at GLAAD without physically encountering a transgender person beyond the few at work, which sometimes made me feel incredibly lonely. Sure, I saw all my transgender and genderqueer friends, but I was never really allowed to just go out and meet with someone whose story needed to be told. So I’m excited to be back in a grassroots small change position.

Job hunting opened for me multiple issues surrounding ideas of race, class, and safety. I realized I had a lot of desires generally classified as “bourgeois”, although I think they are standard desires that have been reclassified as bourgeois due to the persistent desire of class-privileged people to embrace the “romance” of poverty. I didn’t want to work multiple jobs, I wanted at least the possibility of a normative week, and I needed to make enough money to pay off my student loan and credit card debts and I’d like to move into a neighborhood that has a sense of identity to it…The expense of living a comfortable existence is absurd and directly related to our capitalist values system.

While I was job-searching though I, I’m sure like many people in similar positions, began to have an employment crisis. The more time went on the less sure I was of what my skills were, what kind of job I was looking for, and what I really wanted to do with my life. To exemplify the entirety of this crisis, days before I heard back about my new job I began to work on an application for the TransJustice Coordinator for the Audre Lorde Project . The Audre Lorde Project is an amazing initiative that is staffed by folks of color to serve folks of color in the NYC area. Everything from political rallies to anti police violence is housed out of the ALP offices, and their performances, gatherings, marches, are an amazing vision of solidarity. ALP is exactly the kind of place wherein I knew I would flourish. Committed not only to populations of indigenous, immigrant, and of color communities, but also to low income folks, they value the voices that are “too complicated” for most other LGBT organization. Moreover, they are organized in non-hierarchical formations where individuals of all backgrounds and educational levels are welcomed.

I know that ALP serves the people I want to work with in ways that I find affirming and encouraging. However, in order to do their work – in order to reach out to communities of color they need to be staffed by folks of color. White folks, even those whose commitments to anti-racism are as clear as Tim Wise’s (although I have some issues with his understanding of sexism), disrupt a lot of the balance in the office. I'm not saying that folks of color and white folks can't work together in communities of color, but paid full-time staff jobs shouldn't go to those whose ties in the communities aren't as pervasive as others. Here I think of Malcolm X’s statement that white folks can raise consciousness in their own communities, but they cannot come into communities of color and patronize the people with their knowledge of oppression. I desire to work with organizations like ALP deeply, but I know that I have too much to learn and too much baggage to truly be of assistance in any of their efforts. So instead I volunteer, donate, and attend events in order to be as active and a s informed as I can possibly be.

When I realized this – that while I was qualified I simply could not apply to the organizations I most admired – I was at first incredibly embittered by my position of despising the agonizing whiteness of non-poc specific organizations while being unable to leave them. Finally, though, it dawned on me that my work was not only to advocate for transgender people, but also to encourage more complicated understandings of whiteness among my white colleagues, and to reposition the way we view work specific to communities of color.

My time at GLAAD taught me that while an individual department’s work may be fulfilling and positive (I believe I, and many of my colleagues, did do important work at GLAAD) the overall organization needs to be invested in the same – or at least similar – ideals as you. GLAAD did not integrate what was deemed “cultural” programs well, meaning that programs specific to communities of color were treated as untouchable by people not entirely identifying with that community. Moreover they were perpetually understaffed and not integrated into general work, all of which solidified the assumption that lgbt folks are defacto white. There were amazing exceptions among GLAAD’s staff, folks who continually bucked the system in order to do the best possible work. Those co-workers are going to be my examples as I try and take the lessons about whiteness into my work.

Reach out to Queer Imprisoned Populations.

2008-12-18T17:56:00.000-08:00

In early December we heard some extraordinary news! The NY Appeals Court reversed Venice Brown's conviction. You can read the entire decision here. Unfortunately for Venice and her family this means she’ll have to go through a new trial, just like Renata Hill, but the new trials for both women could mean positive things. To find out more about what’s going on go to the Free NJ4 blog.

For Patreese Johnson the NY Appeals Court ruled that her trial had tried her fairly and affirmed her conviction, although they did reduce her sentence from 13 to 8 years. If you want to keep her spirits up, feel free to send her cards and care packages. I know how this is not an economically stable time for anyone, but sending a letter or a note can be a lifeline:

Patreese Johnson
#07-G-0635
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1000
Bedford Hills, NY 10507

I’ve been writing a lot about the women known as the New Jersey 4 on my blog, and I don’t mean to imply that these women are the only queer folks of color worth fighting for – I realize that for every public case like NJ4 (which really isn't even all that public) there are women, men and gender non-conforming folks who suffer alone. I hope to use this blog to shine more light on the experiences of folks incarcerated in the criminal justice system, and I will try to do so whenever possible. To find out more about queer folks in prison visit the Sylvia Rivera Law Project or Black & Pink.

Also, check out SRLP’s amazing publication It’s War in Here.

Helping Duanna Johnson's memory

2008-11-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

First off, via Questioning Transphobia, Duanna's family needs money for funeral expenses:

"The balance for Duanna Johnson’s funeral is $1195 and the funeral home is requiring Mrs. Skinner (Duanna’s mother) to pay it by tomorrow (11/14). The cost is a hardship, so we are asking anyone who can to donate. Please send any donations to:

N.J. Ford and Sons Funeral Home
12 S Parkway W
Memphis, TN 38109
(901) 948-7755.

Please forward this to as many people as you can!! Thanks!"

Also, I found this press release from the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center beautiful:

"Duanna bravely confronted the Memphis Police Department officers who brutalized her while she was in police custody. At great personal cost, Duanna was the public face of our community's campaign against racism, homophobia, and transphobia. There was no justice for Duanna Johnson in life. The Mid-South Peace & Justice Center calls for justice in the investigation and prosecution of Duanna's murder."

Also, several organizations are carrying on Duanna's memory such as the Memphis charter of Stop Police Brutality.

In Memory: Duanna Johnson

2008-11-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

[Image Description: a color photo of Duanna. We see her from the shoulders up, she is resting her head on her hand, making direct eye contact with the viewer. She is wearing a bright red shirt with matching red nail polish. She has shoulder-length black hair.]

As many of you already know, Duanna Johnson was found murdered earlier this week. Duanna was a beautiful Black transwoman living in Memphis, Tenn. She had the courage to speak about a brutal beating by local police that occurred earlier this year. She was beaten by two cops who assailed her anti-transgender and anti-gay slurs, clearly linking her beating with her transgender identity. Duanna made national headlines for her refusal to believe that she deserved to be treated in that manner because of her transgender identity.

Monica, over at Transgriot, has more on her murder. Apparently, her lawyer will continue with the lawsuit against the Memphis police Department. I hope that the lawsuit overhauls the way the MPD treats transgender people, and commemorates Duanna's bravery in speaking out.

This has been an incredibly brutal year for transgender people, and Duanna's death is overwhelming.

Refuting Medical Claims on Transgender Identity

2008-11-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

Pop science sources have been slowly buzzing with the news that scientists may have found a link between transgender women who seek sex reassignment surgeries and their genes. This follows on the heels of a highly popular theory that the brains of transgender people are washed in either extra testosterone or extra estrogen while en utero.

Many people are excited about this, and I can understand why. In many ways, to have a biological basis for your identity makes it theoretically more difficult to discriminate. It suggests a fundamental physical proof of identity. Being transgender can no longer be seen as a choice, and medical access should no longer be denied due to the “cosmetic” nature of hormones, surgeries, or therapy. We can prove that we are who we say we are, and that our lives are pre-determined.

However, before we get too excited I’d urge transgender people who might not be as directly involved in these groups to recall the struggles of folks in disability communities and in LGB communities. We might belong to both these groups, but for trans folks who don’t know these histories as well, it could be prudent to review them.

Certain folks with disabilities have the physical proof of their disability readily available, yet that doesn’t mean that folks with disabilities have an easier time when dealing with medical procedures, in fact from what I’ve come to understand most folks have a more difficult time as doctors are resistant to doing any more than the bare minimum to ensure health and comfort. Moreover, medical professionals are inundated with the idea of “normal”. Many try to “fix” things that might not actually need to be touched, resulting in multiple surgeries for an issue that isn’t an issue for the patient. Folks in the disability rights community can show trans folks (who can of course belong to the disability community too) that relying on science to justify your existence is a dangerous and stigmatizing route.

LGB rights advocates suffered from the search for “the gay gene” back in the early 2000s as studies began to suggest that pre-natal searching for this supposed gene might result in targeted abortions. In the end, any possible gain of proving we exist by finding a gay gene was dismissed by the potential of seeing the gene as either an unfortunate detriment or a reason to target pregnancies.

Moreover, for me at least, I dislike this emphasis on scientific “proof” of transgender identity as it implies that out mere existence isn’t enough, the world needs proof that we are who we are. It takes our stories and puts them in the hands of other people. I understand the immense privilege that comes from working for an LGBT organization. I don’t need to justify my existence quite as often. I don’t need to hide who I am for fear of violence. I still need to constantly educate and correct. I still fear for my job, as many people don’t seem to understand why my position is important. I worry about what is said behind my back, and I grimace at the complete lack of understanding most of my colleagues have on transgender issues.

Understanding the privilege of being employed, and being employed in a mostly affirming environment, I still feel strongly that there is no true need for an explanation of transgender existence. Maybe our brains are washed in hormones. Maybe we are born with a gene predetermining our identity. Maybe it’s part of a supreme creator’s plan. Whatever. For me, the important thing is that we do exist. Folks who doubt our existence will not be swayed by science or theory as their doubts are based in prejudice and ignorance, not in any need for logic. From the 2008 book Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power:

“If geneticists find a variety of genes that they have been hunting for some time now – the genius gene, the criminal gene, the gay gene, the mothering gene, the super-athelete gene, the warrior gene – will this really put a smooth end to a variety of ideological and sociological debates..?”**

Until we are free from discrimination on the job, violence in the streets and at home, bigotry on all levels, ignorance and malice in medical establishments, and a lack of understanding or care in the criminal justice system, until all these things are carried away I really don’t care why I am the way I am. Moreover, I don’t need to justify it to anyone else. I don’t need to prove to you that I do exist, because I am right here in front of you. And hundreds of thousands of my people have stood here before me and will continue to stand here after me.

It’s tempting to desire a certificate of identity, a “proof” that our struggles are real, but we shouldn’t be looking for this acknowledgment outside of ourselves.

** Unger, Donald N.S. “Judging Fathers: The Case for Gender-Neutral Standards.” Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power. Ed Shira Tarrant. New York: Routledge, 2008. p. 210

Video Submissions and updates on the NJ4

2008-11-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

As I say in my last post – electing Barack Obama isn’t the end of our work for social justice. Indeed, it is only the beginning. As you could tell in his speech it was less victory than an acknowledgement of the long roads we have ahead. In the spirit of struggle then, I wanted to give an update on Renata Hill. Renata is better known as one of the New Jersey 4 – four Black lesbians who refused the advances of men, and responded to their sexual and physical harassment by defending themselves, and subsequently ended up in jail. I posted about her trial about a month back urging readers to write to the District Attorney to let him know how we felt about the lawsuit.

I received an update recently informing me that over 500 people wrote to the DA. The retrial has been pushed back to November 20th, which gives her advocates more time to put pressure on the legal system to do the right thing. *

In wonderful news Venice Brown was released on bail on October 7th! Venice’s 21st birthday was a few weeks ago, and it’s wonderful to think of her being able to see the faces and feel the support of her family on her birthday. Her appeals will be sometime in November.

Patreese Johnson is still locked and facing around 9 years of sentencing. According to the blog freenj4, she is feeling very alienated. Please write to her and send her some much needed love and encouragement.

Patreese Johnson #07-G-0635
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1000
Bedford Hills, NY 10507

Terrain Dandridge was released back in June – I heard she spent her first day out of prison visiting with Angela Davis…I don’t know if that’s true but I love the image!

In the spirit of continued activism, I also want to highlight this call for youth media producers from the Human Rights Watch and Adobe Youth Voices.

“The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in partnership with Adobe Youth Voices seeks youth-produced media works on human rights issues for its second annual YOUTH PRODUCING CHANGE program to screen in our New York, London, Boston and San Francisco film festivals in 2009-10.

We are currently seeking film, video and animated works on human rights issues created by youth ages 19 and younger. For information on how to submit your film, please click here.

Feel free to be in touch with Jennifer Nedbalsky at 212/216-1247 or nedbalj(at)hrw.org if you have any questions or would like further information.”

*November 20th is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I find this ironic as there is no doubt in my mind that the violence that causes transphobia is linked to the violence against Renata and the many other lesbians who refuse the advances of men. Violence against women often comes, I feel, from not confining to rigid gender roles regarding what a woman should and should not do. When these women defended themselves they defied our gender stereotypes, which many transwomen, transmen, and gender non-conforming people also do on a daily basis.

After the Election

2008-11-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

I keep finding myself in tears.

Which is ridiculous because I know that Obama is not the answer to all of our struggles. I know that government is not the answer to almost any of our struggles. But I can’t help but look at the news and find myself awestruck by what we achieved on Tuesday.

I took the day off and called voters in Florida and Pennsylvania reminding them of where their polling place was and how to vote. Which, as one person I called put it, seems “pretty damn obvious”…except it wasn’t. On Tuesday, and this weekend when my partner and I went to Philadelphia to door-knock, we encountered a staggering number of voters who didn’t know how to vote. They wanted to, though. They wanted to stand in line for hours so that they could tell future generations what they did during one of the most crucial elections in our country’s history. I was so glad that Amanda and I were able to help them find their polling place, tell them how to use the machines, remind them of what IDs they needed, provide them rides, and even provide numbers to call should they encounter any discrimination. Volunteering for the Obama Campaign felt like community building… I haven’t really felt that since leaving Minnesota. (Image description: The Obama “Hope” poster. In deep red, pale blue, and a yellow cream color an artist has rendered a profile image of Barack Obama gazing towards the horizon. Underneath we see “HOPE” in large letters.)

Clearly a lot of other people felt that way as well. Amanda and I colored in maps of the US as we watched election coverage come in, and the streaks of blue we saw across the states filled me with a sense of community that shook a lot of my presumptions and prejudices. I was raised in Indiana, and I never thought I’d see it go blue, but as my brother put it in an email to me “we were always blue…it just took someone special to bring it out!”

I didn’t vote for Obama because he’s a man, or because he’s Black, or because he grew up in poverty. I’m male and grew up in a lower economic bracket than many of my friends, but that doesn’t mean I only want leaders who reflect my background. I voted for him because he took his experiences with racism, poverty, and male privilege and decided to do something with what he had learned. His policies reflect his understanding of how the majority of people live their lives, and how governmental policies can often oppress more than they uplift. I voted for Obama because he had substance behind his rhetoric, and because he surrounded himself with people who fit his vision for the US, not people who would give him political uplift.

Moreover, my vote wasn’t for or against any single issue. I looked at his overall plan and knew that issues I disagreed with could be dealt with individually. In a depressing series of discussions with gay co-workers and friends, many pointed to Obama’s lack of support for marriage equality as a reason not to vote. As if marriage was the only thing that mattered, or if a person’s lack of support necessarily translated into being against something.

Despite that, voters across the US connected with what Obama had to say…with the belief in the strength of grassroots organizing, of the value of individuals, of the need to respect and listen to all people. Overwhelmingly, despite the media’s insistence that Black voters voted for him because of his race, Black voters responded that they voted with him because he had the policies that would untie our country and help the majority of the people. Even in his acceptance speech Obama emphasized this, saying he would listen to the concerns of voters who had gone with McCain.

I believe he will. I certainly hope he will. After all, Obama’s presence in the White House is only one of many steps we need to take to bring across real change. At the end of the day, Obama is still a politician, and he is still just one individual. We have to work in our neighborhoods, in our local communities talking one-on-one with each other. We have to challenge Obama administration policies, push for appropriate visibility, and continue to work to overcome discrimination and prejudices. Obama’s presence may make some things easier as we see a House, Senate, and White House more open to acceptance and justice…but governmental justice can look very different than real justice.

But for now, for these next few days, I’m riding this flood of emotion. Feeling overwhelmed, awed, and impressed with my country I will be savoring these moments when I encounter, as I’m sure we will, opposition and prejudice in the future. I am bundling up this feeling of community so that I can unfurl it in darker days and wrap myself in its warmth.

Vote Tomorrow!

2008-11-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

My partner sent me the first video of this, and it was terrifying enough for me to feel that I have to pass it on. You can send these videos to folks who might need to see them here.

In case you want to review the policies, Barack Obama has his entire Blueprint for America online as well. Which is something Obama has always been for, since his first days in politics - he has always advocated for transparency in government. That's just one more reason why I feel that my vote on November 4 is the first step in the increasingly active role I'll be playing in politics for the next 4 (or 8!) years with Obama as President. He's going to encourage us to care about what happens to our communities and our neighbors - both next door and around the world - in a more active way.

This is a thrilling time. But it's also crucial - please vote for Obama on November 4. If you are worried vote with a friend, or contact someone from the Obama campaign they'll drive you to the poll and insure that your vote will count.

Info for Voters Facing Discrimination!

2008-10-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

A lot of folks are worried about voters being disenfranchised this Election Day. There’s a good precedent for being worried – if you’re a historically marginalized person chances are your vote will be extra-difficult to cast. So here are some options come November 4:

If you’re transgender contact the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund between 6AM and 7PM EST. They will have lawyers staffing their hotline to respond to callers who experience discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression at the polls.

The number to call is: (646) 862-9396.

If you were convicted of a felony, and are trying to register the ACLU has a great form to fill out here. There’s also a very informative read about why folks convicted of felonies should have the right to vote re-instated. Otherwise, the ACLU recommends calling Election Protection which is below.

If you’re a voter with a disability, there are several options. Almost every state has a Disability Law Center that is providing some form of Service to voters on Election Day. However, one of the best national groups is the National Disability Rights Network. Their main page has loads of info in Spanish and English. If you experience discrimination due to your disability they urge voters to contact the people below, Election Protection.

Election Protection is a national non-partisan campaign to ensure that people can vote successfully. If you’re discriminated against in any way contact Election Protection at any time between voting hours in your state. People can call the hotline if the polls are closed when they should be open, if they are turned away for "wrong" ID, or for whatever reason they are not allowed to vote.

The number to call is 1-866-Our-Vote (which is also 1-866-687-8683).
Or you can e-mail: help@866ourvote.org

Election Protection is accepting volunteers, too. You can sign up for training and a volunteer shift at their website.

I’m gonna urge you to store these numbers in your cell phone or have them written down in advance of voting. These processes seem to work best if you call from the polling place.

Voting is not the most important thing we’ll ever do, and it’s most def not the only way to participate in politics. But if you choose to vote no one should take away that right because of discrimination and prejudice. I’m already worried about my vote (first election I’m registered as male) and my partner’s vote (she’s inexplicably “inactive”) so I know there must be countless others nervous about being disenfranchised on election day. I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to pass these resources around widely.

Social Justice: Learning from Love

2008-10-26T18:05:00.000-07:00

A lot of hate is spread on the Internet - which in many ways is therapeutic and democratizing – but often the hate can grow unchecked and come from places of pure ignorance. I’m excited that the Internet can bring marginalized people together so that safer spaces can be created for discussions, however I get wary when too much space is spent on hating other people and not a lot of space is spent celebrating and thriving. At times, particularly on LGBT blogs, I notice a certain desire to ignore the struggles of others and focus solely on how oppressed a specific identity group is, rather than realizing that all struggles are interconnected. I see a pattern of ignoring the validity of a person or group's struggle.

When I began Coffee and Gender, I never wanted my blog to be a space where unchecked hatred would be allowed. I try with incredible difficulty to never completely dismiss the works of other people, and I attempt to always see the viewpoint a person I disagree with is coming from. Especially when the individual is an outspoken advocate for many issues and simply hasn’t yet understood certain prejudices. There’s a balancing act of not forgetting an individual or organization’s prejudices and acknowledging that no one person has an easy life in our capitalistic white supremacist hetero-patriarchal ablest world.

It takes a lot of courage for people to speak out about oppression. So even when they get the message wrong, we should support them and try to gently guide them towards a more nuanced understanding (Also, entertain the notion that we could be wrong too. Perhaps our statements are too sweeping, etc.). A good example of this is the murder of Matthew Shepard. A lot of folks are angry at Matthew’s memory for getting the attention he received after his death. Advocates point towards the ridiculous lack of coverage for folks of color, women, transfolks, sex workers, and working class people and ask why they don’t get a national outcry as well. However, sometimes we ask the wrong question. We ask “why did Matthew get that coverage?” which suggests that he didn’t suffer enough or give enough or feel enough oppression to be cared about.

There’s no doubt that Matthew’s whiteness, his class privilege, his cisprivilege and maleness got him more coverage and respect. No doubt. But that doesn’t mean we should spend our time hating his memory, or as too often happens, saying awful things about him. Instead we should turn our anger to media corporations, LGBT organizations, community officials and religious organizations etc and ask why didn’t you cover the murders of Sanesha Stewart, Simmie Williams, Sakia Gunn and so many others? But hating Matthew doesn’t make us stronger or happier or more whole. Hating Matthew has us turn our hate against our own community. And that’s troublesome and destructive.

Now, bringing up his brutal death to make a point may be a little disrespectful, and I want to acknowledge that. His suffering shouldn’t be used for my gains – but I wanted to illustrate how a tragic event can become twisted because the organizations we work with and the organizations we rely on (the media, our elected representatives, doctors, etc) have become so de-compartmentalized. Gay groups don’t focus on women or folks of color, trans groups forget about sex workers, etc. And then those of us who exist within multiple identities (which is most of us) have unfiltered anger that we are never seen or fully acknowledged in our chosen social movement spaces. Often times we use that anger against our allies, or we make sweeping statements that suggest anyone of a specific identity group can’t possible understand our struggles.

These attacks make logical sense. They even feel good, too. I couldn’t tell you how many disparaging comments I’ve made about straight people, people born into class privilege, and folks without transgender or gender non-conforming experiences. Too many times when I am frustrated by the systems I work in I regress to name-calling and sweeping statements that make me temporarily feel good. But I know that’s wrong. I know as a transman and as a white person that my experiences of privilege are nuanced and that I struggle against them everyday. I shouldn’t be given sympathy or pity, or an easier time because of that – but neither should I be completely dismissed because of my privilege. Being a person with privilege doesn't make a person a jerk, the excercise of that privilege in the face of udnerstanding how it is oppressive makes them a jerk. Consciously not understanding other histories, languages, or traditions should make someone disliked, not a reaction to a perceived identity.

Consider how many other organizations dedicated to social justice specifically ask that members of majority populations or historically oppressive populations participate in consciousness-raising efforts. What this does is encourage these individuals (such as myself) to engage our privileges while still telling us “we need you in this fight too”. Including men – or white folks, able-bodied folks, folks with class privilege – in a movement towards social justice allows for total community growth. Alice Walker’s definition of womanism* is specific to black communities** but I feel that all of us can learn and grow from this strong term that places the oppression of women at the center of a larger discussion that is fundamentally inclusive.

Walker specifies that men – young and old alike – need to be included in any discussion of gender equality, specifically when you consider the racialized oppression of men of color. If you consider the definition of womanism as the basis for understanding interconnected oppressions and identities then it makes pinpointing individuals or specific groups as “the enemy” incredibly difficult. When you consider that all social justice movement is inherently interconnected – that we have to talk about all of our needs in order to address any of our needs – it makes no sense to bash any group or specific sub-groups.

I’ve written about this in previous posts, but I believe it is worth discussing again as all of us will inevitably encounter people still dealing with inherent privilege – such as myself – and it’s good to have a strategy. From reading the Combahee River Collective Statement, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Gloria Anzaldua, Zachary Nataf, Cherrie Moraga, and countless others I have concluded that the best forms of social change happen because of a personal connection to the experiences of oppression. The love that we feel for another person can become radicalized – to use Sandoval’s term*** – when we use it to make our world better.

When we use our love to explore our privileges, our oppressions, our intersecting identities and to join and listen to leaders across social justice movements. In order to create this love, however, we need to treat those who disagree with us with respect and courtesy. We need to understand that no single person comes from a place of absolute privilege. I made that mistake several times early on in my activism, and I probably continue to make this mistake from time to time. But we can try not too, without becoming Polyanna's, all of us cans till approach each other as potential allies and friends - placing our movements on equal terms and realizing that all of us in specific justice movements need the other movements in order to thrive.

* Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose. Santa Rosa, CA: Harvest Books, 1984.

** Alice Walker doesn’t capitalize Black, so in talking about her definition I won’t either, although I normally would.

***Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

Racism Encouraged, Racism Ignored

2008-10-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

This is a very brief post, brought about because I’m simply upset at the way some of the current political discussions have gone surrounding the presidential campaigns. I am not someone who focuses a lot of time on federal politics – I prefer to act locally and look towards alternatives - but I cannot deny that the current presidential campaigns have revealed a deeply disturbing part of America.

Surprisingly, it is not that so many people in the US are racist and sexist or that people allow their racist and sexist feelings to move them towards violence. Anyone who has experienced racism or sexism – whether on a daily basis or to a life-threatening degree – is aware that these prejudices are alive and well in our country. What shocks me is that we have candidates running for the public face of America who would allow racially motivated attacks and violent attacks against another person to go un-checked in their campaigns.

Whether or not McCain and Palin are themselves racist (and seeing that McCain has an interracially adopted child and Palin is married to a man with Indigenous Alaskan background, I hope for the families they are not) you would think that the covert smarmy political choice would be to renounce acts of bold-faced racism. After all, we know that our political system is encouched in a racist structure and that racist politicians are routinely elected on a local level, and that our previous presidents have behaved in racist (and sexist, classist, homophobic, and ableist) behaviors. There’s really no other word for the welfare reform, treatments of Katrina, current immigration policies, etc etc than prejudiced. But those are veiled (however thinly), and it seemed to me that no national political figure would actually encourage overt racism from their fan base. My surprise is directly connected to my privilege yet I have found many friends to be equally shocked by the overt nature of this campaign. McCain and Palin not only encourage this behavior, they refuse to apologize for it.

Keith Olbermann sums up many of my issues in this beautiful video (kudos to my partner for finding it)

If you want to know more about John Lewis check out Monica Roberts’s blog post about him and his comments.

Also, in this New York Times op-ed by Frank Rich

In this New Yorker column by Hendrik Hertzberg

Finally, in this piece from The Press Registrar by Michelle DeArmond

The friend who forwarded me this last piece, and my partner whom I showed it too both had the same reaction: “people make me sick”. It’s telling that these horrific images can only be discussed in the realm of the physical – the literal desire to purge oneself of the evil just witnessed.

To try and end this on a more hopeful note – I have been volunteering with the Obama campaign to register voters and I am overwhelmed by the number of new registrants who have not voted since the 1980s, 1950s, and even a few from the 1920s. People are clearly responding to the issues brought up by these campaigns in a way that they have never responded to any individuals before. Whether or not Obama delivers on his end, I hope people continue to see their own involvement and importance in these discussions: and moreover that complacent white folk wake up to the every da realities of racism. I believe that we will rise to the challenge and work more to educate each other and ourselves on racism and ways of anti-racism.

Fabulous Opportunities In Disability Studies

2008-10-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

I want to re-post two items, first, and TONIGHT:

Images of Epilepsy in Literature

Thursday, October 16, 2008
6-8PM
VISIONS @ Selis Manor
135 West 23rd Street (between 6th & 7th Avenues)
RSVP to ernesto@dnnyc.net or at 212/284-4160

Also, this call was recently sent out again - the deadline is tomorrow - and I wanted to encourage more people to apply for this scholarship, I think it’s fantastic and potentially incredibly helpful. It’s quite specific in the demographic you have to fit, but just imagine what could be done!

Through the generosity of Loreen Arbus, New York Women in Film & Television is offering a $2,500 scholarship for a woman with a physical disability who is studying film, television or communications in the Tri-State area. Students enrolled in an established technical program, community college, college or university are eligible. Students enrolled in graduate programs are also eligible.

The funds may be used for tuition and fees or for production costs for a student film or video project. The deadline for application is Friday, October 17, 2008.

To apply for the scholarship, send a resume and a written 2-4-page description of your current work and goals as a filmmaker. If funds will be used for a film or video project, and a work-in-progress is available, a DVD should be included.

Applications should be sent to:

New York Women in Film & Television
Loreen Arbus Scholarship
6 East 39th Street, Suite 1200
New York, NY 10016

The deadline for application is Friday, October 17, 2008. If you have any questions, please call Sue Marcoux at 212-679-0870, ext. 25.

Images of Epilepsy in Literature: Oct 16 in NYC!!

2008-10-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

Just yesterday I saw that I had received an amazing e-mail from the Disabilities Network of New York City regarding an upcoming event. This event looks brilliant - and I am very personally honored that I would get this e-mail. This looks like a really unique chance to discuss the intersections of disability especially disability representations, which I know are the chagrin of so many people. Race, gender, religion, and sexuality will be discussed in connection at this lecture, and if you check out the link below you'll see that Dr. Ozer has written some pretty amazing stuff and she's been a big contributor to the Disabilities Network's work. I think it is a brilliant example of the kind of events we should be supporting with our presence! I hope to see lots of people there - don't worry I'll be reminding people throughout the week!

Also, for ASL Interpretation or other accommodations see the bottom of the event description.

Images of Epilepsy in Literature

Thursday, October 16, 2008
6-8PM
VISIONS @ Selis Manor
135 West 23rd Street (between 6th & 7th Avenues)
RSVP to ernesto@dnnyc.net or at 212/284-4160

People with epilepsy appear in literature as far back as the Bible and other early works. These writings reveal the most deeply ingrained negative stereotypes and idealized myths about people with epilepsy, from the violent, frothing epileptic possessed by the devil to the ethereal visionary.

Join the Disabilities Network and Dr. Irma Jacqueline Ozer in a discussion about what these images say about societal perceptions of epilepsy and other disabilities, and how they are changing.

Dr. Ozer has published nationally and internationally on disability in law and literature, specializing in epilepsy. As a Ph.D. in German literature, she wrote her thesis on mental illness in the work of female fiction writers.

*****Space limited! RSVP to ernesto@dnnyc.net or at 212/284-4160. Don't miss out!

*****ASL and other accommodations available upon request. Requests must be made by October 9 to ernesto@dnnyc.org or at 212/284-4160.

Help the New Jersey 4's Renata Hill!

2008-10-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

The below is from an e-mail I received today from Bay Solidarity concerning the upcoming re-trial of Renata Hill. To help, you must get this letter out before October 14th when her re-trial is scheduled. I'll be sending mine out tomorrow morning!On June 14, four African-American women—Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20) and Renata Hill (24)—received sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years in prison. None of them had previous criminal records. Two of them are parents of small children.

Their crime? Defending themselves from a physical attack by a man who held them down and choked them, ripped hair from their scalps, spat on them, and threatened to sexually assault them—all because they are lesbians.

The mere fact that any victim of a bigoted attack would be arrested, jailed and then convicted for self-defense is an outrage. But the length of prison time given further demonstrates the highly political nature of this case and just how racist, misogynistic, anti-gay, anti-youth and anti-worker the so-called U.S. justice system truly is.

You are needed to help stop the re-prosecution of Renata Hill, of the NJ4. Below is a sample letter addressed to Robert M. Morgenthau, the District Attorney of New York County, in which we state our goals of ending the prosecution of Renata Hill. Please send your letter immediately.

On Ocober 14th, Renata Hill, one of the New Jersey 7, is scheduled to face her retrial. We are in support of her desire to not have to go back to trial, and demand that the charges against her cease.

Please send this letter, or one similar in your own words, to the address listed. After sending in the letter, please let us know so that we can tally how many letters have been sent. (freenj4@yahoo.com)

Forward widely. We will be in touch to follow up with where we are in pressuring the DA or the possible need to escalate pressure.

For Our Defense,
Bay Solidarity

Below is my letter, and you should feel free to use it, or to write your own that reflects more of what you feel about this case.

Robert M. Morgenthau
District Attorney
New York County
1 Hogan Place
New York, NY 10013

October 7, 2008

Re: People vs. Renata Hill

Dear Mr. Morgenthau:

I am writing concerning the case of Renata Hill, who is currently awaiting a retrial on charges stemming from an incident that occurred in August 2006. Her original conviction for Gang Assault was recently overturned on appeal, and I want to encourage you to stop any further prosecution and to release Ms. Hill.

Ms. Hill has already served two years on charges resulting from a street altercation that she did not initiate. While she was incarcerated, she was separated from her young son. She also suffered the death of her mother, whose memorial she was unable to attend. Since their convictions on Gang Assault charges, the felony convictions against both Ms. Hill and one of her co-defendants were overturned by the appellate courts. The two other defendants are currently awaiting their appeal hearings.

Notably, the complainant in this matter has commenced a multi million dollar lawsuit and runs a website, Dwayne Buckle Foundation for Justice, seeking donations to his cause based on virulent anti-gay and lesbian attacks. Prosecuting Ms. Hill further sends the message that attacking gay and transgender people is acceptable, and that the act of self-defense is reprehensible. It also furthers the stigma against women who defend themselves against their attackers, as Ms. Hill clearly did in this case.

I believe that further prosecution and incarceration of Ms. Hill would be unjust. She has been punished enough for her role in the event – both by actual imprisonment, and in the impact that imprisonment has had upon her life. We do not need any more young people brought up separated from their parents. I appreciate any assistance you can provide in preventing any further injustice.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Mik

Realabilities: Every Time You Look at Me

2008-10-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my partner and I indulged in the new Cohen brother’s Burn After Reading, which was above and beyond what the reviews had led me to suspect. However, it opened with a PSA for Down Syndrome Awareness Month featuring multiple people with Down syndrome and their friends and family. At first, I was excited to see in this packed multiplex a celebration of disability. However, I quickly realized that this was no celebration. The folks with Down syndrome did not speak once the entire PSA. Their friends and family members spoke for them. Now, I have to say that I don’t have any friends with Down syndrome now, but I did growing up. And in elementary school – before I succumbed to the ableist segregation that kept me apart from visible disabilities for years – my friends were able to clearly state basic desires such as “don’t make fun of me”. I don’t see a reason why the participants in the ad couldn’t advocate for themselves, or at least in conjunction with their families and friends. Which brings me to the movie Every Time You Look At Me. I saw this amazing (and sadly under-produced) gem at the Realabilities Film Festival two Tuesdays ago.

If I had to only watch five movies for the rest of my life, Every Time You Look At Me would be an easy add to the list. I’m unsure what the other four would be, but I know that the heterosexual paradigm of love-conquers-all would get old after a while, so I wanted to bring some realism to this review. That aside, I could watch this movie on repeat for quite a while. The film stars Mat Fraser and Lisa Hammond as lovers with extraordinarily oppositional views and upbringings. Lisa’s character, Nicky, is a little person who is vocally proud of her disability and extravagant about her identity to often crass ends - a necklace she wears in one scene reads “great tits”. Mat’s character, Chris, who describes himself in the movie as a “thalidomide-affected individual” has grown up in a family that refuses to see his disability (perhaps because of some guilt associated with it) and has blended himself into upper class aspirational culture as much as is possible.

One of the largest critiques disability advocates have of the movie industry is that able-bodied actors often portray actors with disabilities. This complaint is often answered with self-produced short films or low-budget movies that don’t sufficiently illuminate the fact that a disability doesn’t impede an ability to act. What was absolutely brilliant about Every Time is that Lisa Hammond and Mat Fraser can act the pants off most Hollywood stars. Which is crucial for delivering this film. In one of the rare instances where an analogy across identities works, what is said about women and folks of color is equally true for people with disabilities. You have to be twice as good in order to get as far as an able bodied person.

This film is also, despite its clear adherence to the romantic comedy plot-lines that always leave me in tears, very difficult in terms of its subject matter. Nicky and Chris don’t have an easy time of it, and despite several instances where the filmmakers could have concluded on a happy up-beat note that love smoothes every difficulty, they choose instead to make visible the difficulties that people with disabilities face. At several points the idea of Nicky and Chris being together seems impossible, especially in one poignant scene where Nicky is seen in a hotel bathroom surveying the shelves and appliances that are beyond her reach. The writers are clever, however, in their refusal to make Nicky and Chris poster children for disability awareness. While Nicky has a strong support group around her, and we often see her at what looks like a mother-daughter social events for little people, she does not legislate for access or rally in the streets to end stigmatization. This breaks the code that someone who belongs or claims a particular identity is either going to be an expert in it or have that identity consume their life. I generally despise the line of "we are just like you" and this movie manages to mostly avoid it, showing the ways Nicky and Chris are not like an able-bodied viewer, while making their lives as normal and boring as anyone's - disabled or able bodied.

Nicky also has a fabulous Black best friend who is given a good amount of screen time, and who even has a present family and Black friend base that we see in later scenes. This impressed me as well as most Black-best-friends come devoid of families or other friends of color in Hollywood films.

My favorite part of the movie was watching Lisa Hammond dance. Never before had I seen a person so excited to be in her own body, so comfortable with the fact that people might be staring, pointing, and laughing and not giving too much thought to it. Although we learn later on that Nicky has some extreme self-esteem and body issues that are only brought out when her tough exterior is cracked (have you seen that before?) I genuinely believe that her dancing is an act of liberation.

While the character of Nicky and I have little in common, we do both share a love of dancing that I’m sure we both had to develop. I remember trying to make moves that were more masculine, studying the butch women on the dance floor for cues on how to “move like a man”. I imagine the character of Nicky watching other women dancing thinking of moves that would defy stereotypes of little people. The discovery of quality clubs that allow for serious dancing was perhaps the best discovery of my twenties. I knew people were staring, pointing, and talking, but I also knew they did that to anyone brave enough to dance. As soon as I realized copying other's moves didn't make me happy, my dancing changed and helped me to feel more free. I imagine the character of Nicky stepping up to the challenge of dancing in public at an early age. She basically asks club-goers to notice and acknowledge her existence with her dancing, which she clearly also does because it makes her feel invisible to the stares that more than likely permeate her daily life.

Which is similar to what the movie is asking of its viewers, to acknowledge a presence...and then to let it be. Not to make folks with disabilities invisible, but neither to bring disability into the realm of metaphor and myth.

Support the Memoirs of Homeless Queer Youth

2008-09-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

My good friend, and soon-to-be published author Sassafras Lowrey is on a mission to bring the lives of homeless queer youth into the spotlight! As a former homeless youth hirself, Sass is very personally tied to this mission and committed to presenting the lives of queer youth in as an authentic voice as ze can. To that end Sass has compiled an anthology called Kicked Out that features stories written by youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer.

As much as I would like to think that people are lining up to buy his book I know that in many ways it will be a hard sell. Despite the fact that homeless queer youth make up 40% of the homeless population, members of the LGBTQ communities show hardly any concern about them. So it will be difficult to convince non-LBTQ folks, and folks who don't have a history in homelessness to become interested. Therefore, Sass is embarking on a huge publicity campaign beginning with Public Services Announcements made by either former or current LGBTQ homeless youth or allies to these youth. I'm scheduled to make one myself, where I'll talk about being an ally and how I stayed in the closet until I could more-or-less support myself on my own for fear of my family and school's actions.

All PSAs will be subtitled into English and Spanish, and ze welcomes videos in any language. You can find out how to make your own PSA by going to hir website Kicked Out Anthology. Please consider doing this, Sass's book is going to shed a lot of light on an overlooked subject that affects many of my peers - it'll only take a few moments and it could do so much good! Below is a video of Sass explaining the project and one of the PSAs.

[In this video we see the author from the waist up. Sass is a white genderqueer
fat high femme who talks directly to the camera. Ze is surrounded by bookshelves
and dressed in a black tank top.]

[In this video Tauret Manu, a rider with Soulforce sits in a white T-shirt next
to a white wall talking directly to the camera about why she is an ally. Tauret
identifies as a Black queer fat femme. ]

Scholarship for women with Disabilities & Call for LGBT Workshops

2008-09-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

From Loreen Arbus and the New York Women in Film & Television comes this scholarship focused on women filmakers with disabilities:

Through the generosity of Loreen Arbus, New York Women in Film & Television is offering a $2,500 scholarship for a woman with a physical disability who is studying film, television or communications in the Tri-State area. Students enrolled in an established technical program, community college, college or university are eligible. Students enrolled in graduate programs are also eligible.

The funds may be used for tuition and fees or for production costs for a student film or video project. The deadline for application is Friday, October 17, 2008.

To apply for the scholarship, send a resume and a written 2-4-page description of your current work and goals as a filmmaker. If funds will be used for a film or video project, and a work-in-progress is available, a DVD should be included.

Applications should be sent to:

New York Women in Film & Television
Loreen Arbus Scholarship
6 East 39th Street, Suite 1200
New York, NY 10016

The deadline for application is Friday, October 17, 2008. If you have any questions, please call Sue Marcoux at 212-679-0870, ext. 25.

...and from the National Gay & Lesbian TaskForce comes this call for workshops for the 2009 Creating Change conference. The proposal is very long, so I'm only going to link to it - but he deadline is September 30th and the benefits of presenting are amazing. Creating Change is the short-hand for "The 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change". The conference is a political, leadership and skills-building site for the LGBT movement. It's been going on for over 20 years and has been the place where "thousands of committed and passionate people have developed and honed their skills, celebrated victories, built community, and been inspired by visionaries of our and other movements for justice and equality." Sounds pretty hot, huh?

Restoring Value, Meaning, and Accessibility to Language

2008-09-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have been extremely mindful in this blog about the power of language, and a lot of my posts are focused on how language has the power to inform and shape opinion and understanding, and likewise has the ability to keep people out and aggravate situations. I recall, very vividly, one of the first times the power of language was shown to me. In college I was an intern and volunteer with NARAL – the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. During that time rumblings began about the possibility that President Bush would sign the “partial birth abortion act”, which was publicly described as being an act banning at-birth abortions. However, those of us who were immersed in the issue knew that the title of the bill and the public description of it were akin to Orwellian New Speak – labeling something the exact opposite of what it is. At-birth abortions were already illegal, and the bill had multiple add-ons that would severely limit access to reproductive rights medical care, and abortion access specifically. When I realized the amazing lack of actual truth in the language and descriptions given the public concerning this bill I was shocked – how many other bills did I know so little about, and how many other policies or legal issues were I taking at name value without thoroughly investigating them?

After overcoming that initial shock I became incredibly invested in being precise and purposeful in language use. As numerous incredible women of color feminists have written, people who experience precise oppressions can often not explain their experience until certain terms are discovered. Most recently for me, I read Cherrie Moraga’s Loving in the War Years where she describes the relief she feels when she is able to name the specifics of her experiences: “All along I had felt the difference, but not until I had put the words “class” and “race” to the experience did my feelings make any sense.” I imagine this is akin to me learning the term “genderqueer”. Hearing the term for the first time was like feeling a warm heat fill my body – I knew I had tapped into something distinctive that would illuminate my on feelings of difference.

Around the same time, I also became annoyed at the lack of accessibility most writings are to the public. When I came home and had to debate my feminisms or my anti-white supremacy feelings with friend who were not reading the same texts I found the words and terms I was quoting clumsy and uninformative. I wanted to be able to break down my thoughts while still keeping the new ideas I was having – and few of the books I was reading were preparing me to disseminate information in that way. While my blog is certainly not an easy read, I think writers go down the wrong path when they confuse ease of reading with accessibility. The idea of “dumbing down” writing goes about the act of translating language accessibly in the wrong way. Language can be made more accessible without diluting the thoughts or ideas that are being expressed, or treating the reader in a patronizing way. In such a way complex thoughts are still kept in their entirety. When I use a term that might be confusing, I explain it and I flush out my conclusions so that my train of thought can be easily traced. It’s very difficult, and I certainly haven’t mastered it but I have wonderful teachers before me, most specifically bell hooks who first came up with the idea of “translating” language.

“I was conscious of the desire not to ‘talk down’ to the audience in any way. I wanted to keep the same intellectual level I would have in the college-classroom lecture. With this in mind, I began to think in terms of translating – giving the same message, using a different style, simpler sentence structures, etc…A feminist essay with revolutionary ideas written in a complicated, abstract manner using the jargon of a specific discipline will not have the impact it should have on the consciousness of women and men because it will probably be read by only a small group of people.” **

If we follow hooks completely, some theorists who have had a tremendous impact on the way Western Culture views race or gender would be considered un-feminist in their approach. The race theorists Michael Omi and Howard Winant and the gender theorist Judith Butler use incredibly convoluted language and write in a very abstract manner, yet their writings are considered cornerstones for 20th century understandings of race and gender. Yet their work is incredibly important. The answer of how to fit the specific abstract ideas they discuss into a feminist framework was explained to me by Scott Morgensen, my outstanding Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies professor. He explained that even in Butler’s difficult prose explanations and examples were given to all of her writing. The difficulty was that professors assigned too much text so that students couldn’t bask in the writing, reading slowly and purposefully is often considered being lazy, and then, like me explaining my new consciousness to my friends back home, students find they don’t have the explanatory language – ust the catchphrases.

I’m writing this as a prelude to some thoughts I’m having concerning phrases or euphemisms that I find incredibly offensive: terms like “small town” that are used euphemistically to refer to certain classist white supremacist values systems without specifically naming them, despite the fact that small towns are often paragons of diversity and democratic values. Other terms I am concerned about include “Holocaust” and “rape” that are used to describe almost anything. This dilutes the power of actually discussing the Holocaust or an actual rape (trigger alert). Which, when you consider that one on every four women (and that statistic doesn’t include transgender people or men) will experience rape in her lifetime is incredibly terrifying. How does a survivor describe her, his, or hir experience when the word “rape” has no meaning? When, in many instances, it is used as the punchline to a joke? Finally, the term "retard' has been on my line. I don't think I could write anything more in-depth than this, so I am linking here to an excellent Salon.com essay that addresses how we use the term.

*Moraga, Cherrie. “La Güera”. Loving in the War Years. South End Press: Massachusetts, 2000. p.46

** hooks, bell. “Educating Women: a feminist agenda”. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. South End Press: Massachusetts, 2000. p.112-113

Transender Survey from NCTE & NGLTF

2008-09-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

The National Gay & Lesbian Taskforce (where my boo now works as a Vaid Fellow!!) just released their survey for transgender and gender non-conforming folks. Now the Taskforce does amazing work, and whenever I have a question such as “can I be denied equal access to housing in Tennessee because I’m transgender?” I go straight to the Taskforce, where the answer is always easily accessed. (Answer: depends where you live, and if you want to argue the "sex stereotypes" issue or the transgender issue.) The Taskforce has a wonderful history of using their research for inclusive and diverse purposes, since the early 1990s they have never been inclusive of transgender and gender non-conforming folk and for as long as I’ve been aware of the TaskForce issues of age, race, immigrant status, and gender identity have been included in all of their efforts.

The end result of this survey will be a report that offers up definitive statistics concerning the discrimination and abuse transgender people may face in terms of housing, employment, medical care, public accommodations, and education. This survey also marks the first time violence against transgender people will be looked at through a lens that it solely interested in the ways that we, as a very diverse group, experience violence.

So I encourage all of you who live in the U.S. to fill out the form if you are a transgender or gender non-conforming person, or to forward it on to any friends who consider themselves to be transgender or gender non-conforming. The Taskforce is particularly concerned with documenting the experiences of transgender folks who often are invisible in daily politics such as rural transgender people and transfolk of color. Through bringing issues of invisibility to the forefront the TaskForce will be able to fully address the many ways in which transgender and gender non conforming people experience harassment and discrimination, as well as support and encouragement.

Here's the Survey!!!!

Sexism in Politics

2008-09-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Morgan, Amanda. Untitled, from the series “I AM A MAN!” 2008.

[Image Description: This is a photograph with the artist centered on a white canvas wearing a black suit jacket, white shirt, and blue stried tie. The artist's hand is in the foreground of the photo pointing towards a horizion, the artists' face follows the line of the hand and the artist has a visionary look. To the right the words "Yes We Can!" are printed in large blue font following the shape of the artist.]

Barack Obama has been my candidate of choice for quite some time, although I often refrain from discussing politics in public. Inevitably political discussions of national issues are doomed to enter an area that causes emotional disagreement. Most recently, of course, has been the re-emergence of sexism. Issues of sexism and misogyny played a huge role early on in the campaign, and there were multiple times when Senator Obama upset me by choosing words or policies that failed to be as complex as sexism is. Nevertheless, the misogyny of governments and politicians was brought forth only because one of the candidates was female. Should Hilary Clinton not have ran for President issues directly and most primarily affecting women would still have been discussed, but they would have been handled without the delicacy needed when there is a woman debating the issues on the same stage. In other words, no one would have said “feminist” “sexism” or “misogyny” without a female candidate. Which is ridiculous, as sexism still exists when women are not present. Indeed, Clinton’s presence helped to begin these discussions in many ways as women are often made invisible in politics and the ways that policies might affect women differently are rarely discussed.

This latest discussion of sexism, however, has completely baffled me and not because Obama is my candidate. As I said above, Obama has made sexist remarks, but this claim in particular is so depraved and convoluted that it completely baffles me. Obama’s comment is taken completely out of context, and it has been so successfully hidden from that context that it took me around eight hours to find the basic content of his speech (the video is put up by a McCain supporter, I'd avoid the comments section) so that I might judge for myself what the tone of the statement was.

Raised in Indiana, I heard the phrase “lipstick on a pig” used for everything from the difference between democrats and republicans to the very excuses we school-kids had for not finishing our homework. Here in New York, no one seems to know the phrase and I feel that, in part, the colloquialism may be part of the problem. Regardless of the fact that I firmly believe Obama meant the statement as a comparison between Senator McCain’s policies and President Bush’s policies, and that no misogyny was intended, I do believe it illustrates a general lack of awareness when it comes to sexism.

Any claim of sexism from the Republican Party isn’t worth addressing, as it’s clearly spurious and not being made from any space of real concern for women. After all, Senator McCain used this exact phrase to describe Senator Clinton’s health care policies back in October 2007 and May of 2008. Indeed, these very claims of sexism were mocked in a recent Saturday Night Live sketch where Amy Poehler's Hilary Clinton said she was "frankly surprised to hear people suddenly care about," sexism. For Republican pundits, or the Clinton supports who threw "sexism" at everything that moved, the actual acknowledgment of sexsim as a still-relevant concern has never mattered. However, these claims are still important. After all, had there been someone forefront in the campaign with a more feminist consciousness such a gaffe would have never happened. This is especially true if there had been someone who had understood the history of feminist movement in the U.S. and knew about the forms of assault that women aligned with the movement in the 1960-80s faced which were incredibly vicious and verbal, where comparisons such as this were not uncommon. From such a history springs the automatic reaction we’ve seen, a reaction that is very sensitive to deprecatory remarks such as what this comment is supposed to be. I’m not labeling this reaction as un-thoughtful, either. Given the amount of sexist or anti-female comments made since Clinton announced her candidacy it’s clearly possible that a candidate could have made this comparison fully understanding the sexist nature of the phrase.

After listening to the speech in full I began to wonder if any of Obama’s female staffers had reviewed the script, or if any of his male staffers who have a background studying feminism had gotten to see it. Any political speechwriter should have seen the glaring mistake of using the phrase “lipstick on a pig” so close to the Republican female VP candidate’s use of the phrase “pit-bull in lipstick” as a self-descriptor. But of course…are there any female staffers who are interested in feminism? Are there any male or gender non-conforming staffers interested in the dismantling of misogyny and patriarchy? Or, like Obama, would they be ideologically aligned with the big issues but liable to miss the smaller instances of discrimination?

Here I don’t mean to point out a lack of intricate understanding as a definitive short falling. Obama has shown his dedication to many different issues that effect women and many issues that effect men and women. No one person is supposed to specialize in every single issue, it defeats the purpose of specialization, and presidents aren’t supposed to be solely informed on every issue, hence the importance of a cabinet. Moreover, strong women surround Obama at home, and I wouldn’t take his remarks or previous comments as coming from a place of misogyny. Rather, I think they come from a lack of complete focus on feminism due to a focus on other areas.

What the incident illustrates to me is that sexism still isn’t a central concern for Democratic or liberal candidates. This doesn’t make Obama’s campaign anti-female nor does it make him a sexist person. It does, however, bring Obama-supporting democrats down to a certain level where we realize that yes, even with Obama we will need to be vigilant. He has shown a lack of understanding on the intricate levels of feminism, and I hope he proves his commitment to women and feminism by appointing cabinet members who have focused more specifically on women’s issues. By doing this he will be acknowledging his lack and acknowledging the importance of centering issues of sexism in political discussions.

All Around the Blogosphere

2008-09-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

It’s the shame of every blogger, but the reality for so many of us, is that staying on top of blog rolls is incredibly difficult. I have about 40 blogs linked on the side here, and there are about 10 more that I know should be linked but keep forgetting to update – not to mention my attempts at reading multiple papers, magazines, and books. It becomes incredibly difficult for me to stay up to date on blogs. As much as I dislike these posts on other people’s blogs I’m going to point readers to a few posts by friends of mine that really spoke to me recently. Most of you, being far better people that I, will have already read these. But here they are:

I haven’t written about Tropic Thunder specifically because I haven’t seen the movie. I often choose not to see movies, buy books, etc because I’ve already decided I won’t enjoy them, and that’s as it should be! I read reviews or see trailers and am able to discern for myself if it’s worth my money. However, I won’t make everyone else listen to my uneducated opinions of media I haven’t seen/read/listened to. Which is why I’m linking to an essay by Lawrence Carter-Long posted to Disaboom on the treatment of the Tropic Thunder protests, and what media professionals and bloggers are missing in the discussion.

MissCripChick also wrote about the Tropic Thunder protests. Here she discusses why parallels to Civil Rights activism are not right and actually a divisive move. I have a friend who recently started compiling a list of articles that compare or include a quote comparing gay liberation to Civil Rights movement – he’s calling it “Gay is not Black”. What MissCripChick wrote hit a lot of things for me – both because I agree with what she’s saying and because I also agree that the realm of developmental or mental disability is still incredibly unknown to many people who consider themselves “progressive”. It’s very thoughtful.

Also from Ms. Crip Chick I found a link to a Blog Carnival around women of color and beauty. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but it sounds amazing. There are about 13 blog posts connected here, which range from discussions of hair beauty to issues of hair touching. Bloggers comment on colorism and dating inside, outside, and around the color line. I can’t wait until I have a moment to really read these.

On Black Looks this stunning post by Mia Nikasimo discusses being a transgender lesbian of Nigerian descent. She touches on the exclusion of transfolks within LGB communities, the exclusion of folks from the African diaspora in LGBT communities, and her pride in who she is. She challenges people to educae themselves and start dialogues on challenging subects.

In two related posts, bfp and Jess H. of Feministe and make/shift touch on organizing feminist movement. Jess H., who is posting her final guest blogger post, discusses her encounter with “unfolding feminism” online, and hones in on surface discusses of intersectionality. This is a very intense post with lots of outside links…I’m still working my way through it but already I’m getting excited by what she’s laying out here. bfp discusses how organizing intersects with capitalism, and the need to be accountable as feminists to a feminist movement: we need to believe in it. There’s a really fascinating analysis of Oprah’s investment in her girls school in South Africa here. She ends her blog with a list or organizations that are accountable (thank you!). Of note, one of these groups is INCITE! Which has also put out this press release on collecting funds for survivors of Hurricane Gustav. INCITE! is an amazing organization, all of their books have inspired me and provided me with insight I previously didn’t have. They do work that I believe in, and I would give to them now if I could.

As I read the INCITE! press release I thought back to Hurricane Katrina, and remembered how I failed at being aware of and understanding what was happening in Louisiana and surrounding areas. During that fall I was incredibly depressed – I dropped out of two courses at my college and I was fired from two jobs because I couldn’t get out of my bed. So I agreed with commentators who examined the racism and classism of the way Hurricane Katrina was handled and covered – but I didn’t know why I was agreeing. I simply went along with these analyses out of a sense that everything was already racist, so why not Hurricane Katrina, too. I failed to understand that simply saying “that’s racist” doesn’t address the actual issues of racism nor does it pinpoint the institutional ways in which racist systems function to create the situation we’re in. I didn’t have any facts or analysis of Katrina, just a general notion that it must be classist and racist, too. I didn’t even begin to have an understanding of the ways in which Hurricane Katrina affected people with disabilities or criminalized immigrant families, either. I’m just beginning to catch up on my understanding of everything that happened, and is now happening in the exact same area. I want to ensure that I don’t repeat my mistake of repeating without comprehending.

Genderbending with Strangers

2008-09-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

I always thought that the most important part of my transition, now that I live full-time as male, would be keeping my male identity fully recognized at all times. Gradually, though, I’ve found that enforcing a male pronoun comes second to being treated with respect. That might sound maudlin, but I had equated respect with recognition of my male identity. Over time however I’ve learned to appreciate the way that people pay special attention to my partner and I when they read us as a female couple.* In the back of my head I equate this behavior with an attempt to show off how non-sexist or gay-friendly a person or establishment is, but I wouldn’t want to get snarky about the treatment. After all, if folks are going out of their way to be polite to female couples, that illustrates a knowledge that acceptance of female couples is rare – and the individual wants to be seen as accepting. The person my partner and I order burritos from goes out of his way to remember our names and order, and the lady I collect my laundry from clearly thinks my partner and I are the only lesbian couple in our neighborhood. If I wanted to create a close, long-lasting bond with either of these folks I would correct their perception, or perhaps they would correct mine. Being that we exist in a service-provider relationship, I really don’t care what they think and am simply pleased that despite the fact that both have seen us holding hands and kissing, and both refer to me as being female, they treat us incredibly well.

Now, to be clear, I never agree that I’m female. If someone calls me “ma’am” in person I give the individual an amused but baffled look, and my partner will use male pronouns despite the female pronouns of the server. However, neither of us takes the time to explain the situation, as we really don’t need to advocate for male pronouns when being male shouldn’t figure into how I am treated. The decision to stay in a genderqueer area when it comes to people who I don’t run into on a daily basis, correcting their perceptions only when it becomes an issue (i.e. bathroom use) was challenged recently when I went on one of my first trips to the beach as male. On my first trip in July my greatest fear was being read as female – and I went to great lengths to ensure that I was looking as masculine as possible despite the need to be covering my chest. I asked several friends – transgender and cisgender – about their feelings towards men who wore shirts on the beach, and all told me it was a fairly routine occurrence.

Except, of course, on gay beaches. I realized quickly that keeping a binder and a tank top on only made me look like a butch woman, as all the men on the beach had their shirts off. Moreover, almost all the women were topless due to an amazing 1992 New York City law that lets women go topless wherever men can go topless. As I walked along the beach on my first visit I scanned for other folks wearing shirts, coming upon masculine women again and again. Now, some of those women could have been transmen like myself, or even transwomen early on in their transitions. Regardless of how my partner or my friends saw me on this gay beach, I would be read as female by every stranger.

As we waited by the bus stop on the way to the beach recently two young women of color whom we had observed kissing and cuddling on the train earlier came up to my partner and I to ask for directions to the beach. Of all the people standing at the stop they approached us – and I think it’s both because my partner and the young women clearly shared a similar racial background, but also because they also saw us as a female couple. I’m male identified - there’s no question in my mind that if I genderbend I bend away from my primary identity as male. I realize as well that I choose to leave female spaces because of the way I felt, and that I have immense responsibilities in continuing feminist practices. I’m glad, though, that I was read as female by those young women because it did remind me of the possibilities of queer identity that used to excite me in college. Regardless of how these young ladies read me, or what they thought my relationship to my partner was, I’m glad that in certain circles my appearance can bend itself to fit many circumstances

After thinking about this for about a week I decided that if everyone on the beach was going to see me as female anyway, then why was I causing myself to be unhappy by covering up my body? I went through a long and hard fight to accept that I’m male. I also went through a long and hard fight to accept that I’m a man who doesn’t need extensive surgery or 100% assimilation in order to be male. If the people I come to the beach with – my partner, my friends, and myself – accept that I’m male then no anatomy is going to change that. If a stranger thinks I’m female, well so what. Strangers think many things about me and I can’t control or respond to every inaccuracy.

So these days I lay on the beach wearing my blue men’s board shorts but without a shirt. The many masculine women at the beach give me mini head-nods as they pass, and I always nod back. For strangers I’m temporarily back at that awkward space that’s neither male nor female, and I enjoy it. After all, I lived in that space for many years as a masculine woman, and am now living in it in a different way as an effeminate man.

* In contrast, when I am treated as female on my own, it only serves to remind me of why I am a feminist, and why there is still so much work to be done to address sexism.

The Architecture of Femme: femme identity, drag, and the bois

2008-08-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

[Image Description: on the left is Mik Danger with the Dazzling Diamond. This image is a close-up of only our faces. Both have black bangs hanging over heavily made-up eyes, the Dazzling Diamond has a dyed blond streak in her hair. The Dazzling Diamond is Korean American, Mik is white. Both are pouting at the camera with sparkly lips. On the right there is a snapshot of the TransFormers performing. A handful of audience heads can be seen in the foreground. The three of us are in various poses. On the far left is Dickie Van Dyke in a blue skirt and neon blue tights making cat-like motions at the audience. In the center is Mik Danger in black with neon pink tights throwing her hands up, and on the far right is the Dazzling Diamond also throwing her hands up at the audience wearing red neon tights and a red and black ensemble. It is a simple community-theatre like stage, very bare. There are red lights. ]

I returned two Sundays ago from the Femme Collective’s “The Architecture of Femme” where my troupe and I performed on Saturday night. For a non-femme identified person the conference was an amazing opportunity to discuss femininity and the way I ally to it all while in the presence of learning and listening from members of various femme communities. I submitted my drag troupe, the TransFormers, (drag is primarily how I publicly discuss identity issues) in the hopes that one of our pieces could meet the mark required for the Saturday Night Cabaret performance. Luckily, we were accepted and despite some concern over the expense of travel and the inability of one of our members to come, my fellow dragsters (minus one) and I made it to Chicago in time to see some of the conference and perform.

Our piece was “I Don’t Need a Man” is a PussyCat Dolls song which can be interpreted many ways with lyrics as amorphous as “Let me break it down/I can get off when you ain’t around” and “I don’t need a ring around my finger/to make me feel complete”. We could be talking about sex, or we could be talking about seeing women as complete human beings. Our pieces tend to have some level of minor choreography to them, but this one is unique in being completely choreographed. Like a good collective, we switch off on who lip synchs which parts and where we stand on the stage. We perform “I Don’t Need a Man” in miniskirts and sexy tops with knee-high neon stockings, and we make liberal use of folding chairs. I add a wig and a tucked away penis to my outfit and pad my bra. By doing this I both conform to fit the typical image of a drag queen (as many people still assume all drag queens are cisgender men), but I also diversify the women we represent by being read as a potential no-surgeries transwoman. What is critical for me on a personal level is that I know no one will mistake me for someone with a stable female gender identity once they take in all the various gender clues I am presenting.

Despite my belief that our piece is a strong affirmation of sexy femininity, I felt incredibly nervous as the time for our performance rolled closer. Here I was, a decidedly not femme-identified man about to take the stage in front of a group of femme women wearing a wig, a slightly bulging mini skirt, and a sports bra that had been noticeably padded. The questions that Drag Queens pose about femininity and female identity were overflowing and I became sincerely concerned that my fellow Queens and I would be seen as mocking femininity, instead of celebrating it. To my great and immense relief, we temporarily stole the show (we were followed by Glenn Marla, who simply can not be beat).

Having only one member of the TransFormers being femme-identified I was also nervous that my presence as an ally might be misread. I can’t give someone my entire gender identity history in one night - in any night - and while I know that participants at the Femme Conference would be less likely to judge a person’s gender identity, the possibility of such judgment can be confusing and paralyzing. In the workshops and keynotes we attended the discussions were so closely focused on femmes that allies often were relegated to sitting and listening: which is exactly what allies should be doing 80% of the time. However, there are always times when workshops or lectures are really meant for the self-identifying members of the audience and not for allies or family members/significant others. I don’t believe in “safe space” but I strongly believe in “safer space”, and it can be hard to tell when a lecture or workshop might be more easily received and understood if the attendees all belonged to that one identity group.

All of this is a good segue into a definition of “femme” – a definition one of my readers asked me for almost a year ago but which I have yet to give. I'm afraid I have to bow out a little and say that I don't fully know. However, the femmes I have met tend to be women - cigender, genderqueer, and transgender - who have struggled for a long time to embrace femininity. Their femininity may look like the prototypical 1950s housewife that some second wave feminists worked to diversify (baking, house-dresses, DIY projects, a love of caring for people, high heels, taking primary housekeeping responsibilities) but the difference is in an ability to choose these actions. Some femmes don't wear makeup, don't wear dresses, and don't cook. Some femmes focus more on a feminine spirituality or a butch-feminine identity. Some femmes are men - an identity I look at with some skepticism but with a widening acceptance. I think what ties femme communities together is a common struggle to have what is feminine be accepted and loved and valued. There is also a common tie of trying to find community when outside pressures (be they patriarchal, heteronormative, transphobic or white supremacist) continue to teach a devaluation of femme identity and encourage in-fighting. Femmes, like disability groups and transgender groups, stand at the cusp of redefining community in a way that is incredibly revolutionary and inclusive as many fringe identities can find a home within "femme". From Kate Bornstein's blog:

“Butches can be dominant or submissive, strong or weak, honorable, or complete rats. So can Femmes. Butch and Femme have nothing to do with who makes more money. And no one in real life is a hundred percent butch. No one is a hundred percent femme. Like everything else about our identities, butch and femme are all a matter of degree based on preference, comfort and choice. There’s no perfection in the dance, there’s only the totality of self-expression and how that self-expression dovetails with someone else’s self-expression. When people play with that consciously, it’s wonderful fun. At its best, Butch/Femme becomes an erotic expression of ‘This is how I’m femme, and it makes me really happy that I delight the butch in you.’ And, ‘This is how I’m butch, and it makes me really happy that I delight the femme in you.’”*

I wrote, early on, that my partner would “never be my femme” and a reader was confused about what I meant by the phrase. My comment was in response to a story on a transman where a photo was captioned as “so-n-so and his femme” – a caption that denied his partner her name, and with it any ability to self identify outside of her relationship to him. In “not being my femme” I meant that my partner would never be relegated to an identity that hinged upon mine. First and foremost she will always be the sum of her identities and talents, her accomplishments and aspirations. Moreover, though, my partner doesn’t currently identify as femme. Within queer communities, and outside of us as well, many people love to think and exist within a butch/femme paradigm where a masculine person partnered to a feminine person must be replicating a male and female relationship. My partner, while very feminine in dress and presentation, doesn’t draw her identity from these accoutrement. In fact, most femmes I know don’t draw their identity from how they dress and present themselves. This is confusing to lots of people as gender identities (such as femme and butch, fish, fairy etc) are often linked to the ways in which we present ourselves, and that includes clothing and accessories. Due to her presentation and body type my partner is often read as femme, and this is always very difficult for both of us. Despite being incredibly effeminate my transmale identity often precludes a decision that I must therefore be masculine-identified, and that my partner (ipso facto) is femme. Beyond the fact that y partner doesn’t identify as femme though is the connotation in the caption that femmes are identified by their presence to men or masculine people. Hopefully, our piece reaffirmed that no one needs "a man" to self-define, being that "man" could be anyone who expresses an unwanted and non-consensual dominance.

*Bornstein, Kate. “WALL•E: A Butch/Femme Love Story... or Silly Rabbit! Robots Have No Gender”. Kate Bornstein's Blog for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws. July 9

Call for Papers: IFGE Conference

2008-08-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

I saw this call for papers over at Monica's TransGriot blog and thought maybe some readers here would be interested in contributing. The IFGE also publishes "Transgender Tapestry" which is an interesting magazine on many levels. I know these last posts haven't been as interesting as usual, but don't give up on me yet! I have plans for a post concerning interracial relationships (the one I promised y'all way back in June), a post about genderbending on the beach, a post concerning femme identity and the 2008 Femme Confernece, and another about the uses of anger all in the works. Hopefully they'll be up soon although I haven't had as much time as usual to sit and write.

2009 IFGE Conference Call for Presenters

The International Foundation for Gender Education is requesting presentation and workshop proposals for its upcoming 2009 IFGE Conference. The event will be held February 4-7, 2009 at the Alexandria Hilton at Mark Center, in Alexandria VA, and is being hosted by the Transgender Education Association (TGEA) of Washington DC, in coalition with other groups in the mid Atlantic region. The theme for this year's gathering is: "Working Together for Change."

This year are giving priority to presentations on the following themes:

* Issues impacting Transgender Youth, and Children of Trans Parents
* Issues impacting Transgender Elders
* Issues and concerns of FTMs (We are reserving a full track for FTMs)
* Issues and concerns of Crossdressers
* Transgender Health, Medicine and Legal Concerns
* TGs in Relationships - for Significant Others, Couples & Individuals with or without partners
* Changing the perception of Transgender People through Education.
* Creating unity in the Transgender Community

New ideas, new topics and new faces are also of strong interest. We will be holding special panel discussions for the benefit of students, researchers and educators to learn more about the trans community. Presenters and panel moderators will receive a $100 discount on any conference registration package. Registration information is available online at http://www.ifge.org/register/ (Student registrations rates will be available.)

If you are interested in presenting, please submit your proposal as soon as possible to insure space and schedule availability, but no later than September 30, 2008. Use the online Program Proposal Form on our web site http://www.ifge.org/conference or fill out the attached form and mail it to us.

Your proposal must include a short biography and any A/V needs. If it is for a panel, the moderator should submit the proposal and list the names and pertinent information (as to addresses, etc.), and provide bios for the other panel members. If this panel information is omitted from this initial proposal it may not be included in the program book.

If you have additional questions regarding your proposal, please contact Alison Laing by email at programs@ifge.org, or by writing:

IFGE Programs
P.O. Box 540229
Waltham MA 02454-0229

NYC Events: Black & LGBT, protests of "Tropic Thunder"

2008-08-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Update: the link to listen to the WBAI interview is right here. It's about an hour long, but if you want to jump right to the Tropic Thunder protests, they're about 2/3 of the way through. This is worth the listen-to. I was agreeing with the protests for very surface-level reasons (I agree that "retard" is a very hurtful and insulting word) and this interview made me see some much deeper sides to the argument against the use of the term, and the treatment of characters with developmental diabilities within the film. One of my favorite parts is the discussion that a basic tenant of civil rights is the ability to name oneself. When people decide for you what you are to be called, it strips a person of their civil liberties. Amazing.

Last night I saw Aurin Squire’s new play “Submerged from All Sides…” for FREE at South Oxford Space. His play, which will be on tonight at 7pm as well, is part of the Freedom Train Productions’ 3-week festival “Fire!” which focused on new political plays featuring Black LGBT protagonists and playwrights.

[Image Description: The playbill for “fire!”. It is a long sheet of white paper with black and red lettering. “Fire” is in bright red with the exclamation mark in black, the word is centered on the top of the page. Underneath it, in red “Plays in development that matter” and in black below that “3 plays 3 black LGBT s/heroes All Free!” beneath that information on the space and times are in black and red. At the bottom of the flyer is a jumbled pile of the letters that spell “fire” in various fonts.]

I urge readers in the NYC area to see “Submerged” tonight! It was wonderful and free, with a 6-person case who really energized the room with their talent. What we saw were excerpts of a 3-hour(!) play which focuses on the character Me, a young Black gay man who is an aspiring writer. Surprisingly, the play was complex enough that throughout the reading I found myself both annoyed and pissed at the protagonist and chuckling with him as he bitterly joked through his encounters. Especially his encounters with drunk white frat boys and his double-faced agent. That said, I could have really used a bathroom break and I think perhaps another excerpt between the first and second halves of the play which seemed to somehow jar against each other a bit. Regardless, the play was very impressive and the energy of the audience was invigorating. Tonight there will be a talkback with Kai Wright, author of Drifting Toward Love and interim editor at Colorlines. I’m a little jealous that I’m not seeing this talkback myself.

“Submerged from All Sides...”
by Aurin Squire
7PM – FREE
138 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn
The space and bathrooms are accessible
I don’t believe the subway stop is
(off of the C or the N,Q,R)

The night before, I randomly found about a reading at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture featuring Dr. LaMonda Horton-Stallings, Kimberly Q, and Dr. Herukhuti. Dr. Horton-Stallings was particularly amazing, and her book “Mutha is half a word” promises to be every bit as articulate and insightful as she is, while still being accessible. The reading was posted at the New York public library’s not-often-updated blog LGBT@NYPL which has great events…when they happen. The reading is part of an effort from the Black Gay and Lesbian Archives to showcase Black LGBT, Same Gender Loving, queer, questioning, and in the life writers’ voices, every three months there will be two back-to-back readings…so check out the blog in October for readings coming up! I hate to use the phrase again, but the energy in a room filled with Black Queers and allies is a force to be reckoned with, it’s overwhelming while incredibly comforting. I’m looking forward to the next in this series.

Finally, in a list of New York-centric things, the New York Disabilities Network’s own Lawrence Carter-Long appeared on WBAI Pacifica Radio (99.5FM) this morning to address the protests against “Tropic Thunder”. Also with Lawrence were Tim Shriver of the Special Olympics and Peter Bern from the ARC as well as representatives of the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State. I haven’t listened yet but I understand you can tune in on their website to listen to the show. People are protesting internationally, and I’ve heard conversations about the protests everywhere from my office to the subway so this is really becoming something big! I'm looking forward to what Lawrence has to say on the subject.

Gender, Sexuality, and the Fluidity of Identity

2008-08-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has an opinion about anything has an opinion about labels. Most people vehemently hate them, and will tell anyone who listens all about it. While I share a distrust of labels, I also understand why labels are important. Everyone needs labels, even when we claim that we dislike them. We cling to our own with a ridiculous obsession. I have fought very hard for my label as a transman, and I have struggled a long time to understand my whiteness. These labels mean a lot to me – they let me know where I have come from and where I hope to go. They remind me of privilege and oppression.

Despite my own belief that labels can and do serve a purpose, I do also believe in advocating for the eradication of the ridiculous amount of meaning we apply to them, and the lack of fluidity that exists between them. Considering how many people I have known who have changed from Hispanic to Latina to Chicana or from Catholic to atheist to Quaker, I find the inability of institutions and individuals to keep up with identity changes amusing at best. Most folks don’t easily allow for these changes, especially when it comes to sexuality – which might be why intentionally fluid labels such as queer, genderqueer, and bisexual can be perceived as frightening. Many of my friends have demonstrated to me the importance of a lack of labels, and recently one of my closest friends has illustrated her struggle with labels incredibly clearly. My friend is a cigender woman who has a history of being attracted to and dating cigender men. However, she refuses to allow that history to define her sexuality. Despite the fact that most would label her as straight she has always remained open to the possibility that a man she loves could transition to being a woman, or that she could fall in love with a woman or a transgender or gender variant man. The more we talk on these issues the more she has admitted that these possibilities seem slim to her, yet despite that she doesn’t want to slip into a straight label and suffer from the lack of breathing space.

Her refusal to conform her identity into a straight label shouldn't be taken as an example of a non-queer person attempting to appropriate a culture they don't identify with or refusing to acknowledge the heterosexual privilege she receives. There is always the possibility that anyone who wants to embrace an identity they don’t fully participate in could enjoy all the wonderful aspects of that culture without the difficulties of low self-esteem, discrimination and violence that many folks who are always read as being part of that culture may feel. But my friend manages her identity with a true consciousness, keeping an incredibly diverse circle of friends around her that are constantly reminding her of how her identity is perceived.

This is not to say, then, that she doesn’t face discrimination because of her identity. Her lack of identification frightens and confuses most people, especially potential partners. We have had numerous conversations about whether her continual lack of attraction to women or gender variant folks is a form of internalized homo/transphobia. I don’t think so, as I have faced a similar lack of fluidity in myself. When I first began to acknowledge a lack of female-identity in myself I tried to cultivate a completely fluid gender identity, where I could play up my femininity as much as my masculinity. Whenever I engaged in what is perceived in mainstream US culture as female practice (wearing makeup, skirts, halter or tube tops, dancing according to female codes, using the women’s restroom) I felt nervous and unattractive, I would constantly fidget and avoid eye contact. Playing up my femininity in a female-identified way made me miserable. To this day I still feel some deep shame about the fact that while I can and desire to participate as a feminine man I absolutely can not comfortably go out as a feminine woman. *

I have come to the conclusion that being open to sexual and gender fluidity is amazing, but we shouldn’t be upset when we can’t be completely and 100% fluid in our identity and desires. Neither should we prioritize fluidity above stability (this is particular to a current trend in transgender communities especially). This last sentence is particularly hard for me, as so much of my life has focused around bending and blurring identification lines. I am open to the idea that in my life my gender might change, flow, and become different from what it is today. However, like my friend, I don’t truly see that happening. I do, though, see myself advocating for all types of genders and sexualities and perhaps in that way I am participating in fluidity: by creating so many identities that there can no longer be a prioritization or hierarchy.

While bell hooks wrote this sentence on the prioritization of lesbian sexuality over heterosexual women’s sexuality in certain branches of feminist movement, I believe it is relevant to this discussion too. According to hooks, feminist movement “…should also create a climate in which heterosexual practice is freed from the constraints of heterosexism and can also be affirmed”**. It is possible to have a total identification as male or female, or to have a complete history of straight identity without engaging in heterosexism or transphobia which is, I feel, what my friend is accomplishing through her identity.

*Ironically, as this post was in my editing stage I attended the Femme Conference where Dorothy Allison spoke about her deep shame of never being able to “play boy” in the dyke scene of California, and how her inability to bend her gender was seen as a lack of queerness. In very different spaces and identities we have both struggled with the same lack of fluidity that is currently prized above so many things. It was cathartic to hear her speak.

**hooks, bell. "Ending Female Sexual Oppression". Feminist Theory: from margin to center. South End Press: Cambridge, 2000. p.155

Exciting Updates!

2008-08-12T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have three super-exciting updates that are mostly centered around me, but I thought perhaps other people would find them interesting. The least self-centered is that the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a collective legal agency in NYC that focuses on transgender, intersex, and gender non conforming people of color and low income people, is updating their website!! The reason this relates to me is because as a weekly volunteer with SRLP I've been editing and uploading a lot of their content and I've gotten a good preview of the site to come. WOW. It's going to be amazing. All of their resources will be available to download, a huuuuge list of updated community contacts both in the New York area and nationally, and simply a more accessible site are all aspects to look forward to. This new site should be uploaded in the next couple of weeks!!

Going in increasing order of me-centeredness, I was mentioned on the August edition of the BBC Ouch! podcast. I always listen to Ouch! and thoroughly enjoy their sharp and witty attack on disability political-correctedness while being absolutely brilliant. In past podcasts they've discussed the racism and colonialism implicit in discussing national disability news stories, and the hierarchy of oppression present in rating a person's "able-ness". Now, all they really did was read out my name because I filled out a form on how much I loved the show. However they also read part of the form where I mentioned that I am transgender and diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, which technically means that I have a mental disability. As the hosts read out other folks's forms and made their usual biting remarks around them, my form provoked an interesting debate on mental disability which I greatly enjoyed. Later in the show there was a much-needed discussion about whether or not it's OK to ask your Personal Assistant to aid with masturbation, which folks can weigh in on at their message boards. That discussion was unrelated to me, it case you were wondering.

Finally, and most excitingly, I am now on MySpace!!! This is entirley due to my loving and wonderful partner who created my site, uploaded my photos, and generally pushed me towards networking more effectivley. Anyway, the site is gorgeous and I hope you all enoy it!

OK, that's enough about me, I promise that my next update will focus on something much le narcisistic.

Learning from Audre Lorde: ways to address white supremacy

2008-08-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

My last post concerning ways of discussing racist or white supremacist actions came full-circle for me recently. I have been reading Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, a collection of her essays I should have read in college but never finished, and came upon her open letter to Mary Daly. I actually read this about four years ago in This Bridge Called My Back, but I hadn’t understood it through the lenses that I now posses.

An Open Letter to Mary Daly is the perfect model for addressing racism among ones peers. Reading it in line at the grocery store I had a revelation that I should copy the pages and post them all over my workspace so that I am constantly reminded of how to approach colleagues on these issues. Mary Daly is a very prominent feminist of the second-wave set who identified as a Radical Feminist, and brought a significant amount of light to the oppression of women in the US, especially through her writings on pornography, religion, and medicine. However, she also excluded a lot of women from her writings and tended to generalize on the collective experiences of women. Audre Lorde’s essay is in response to the lack of women of color represented in Mary Daly’s prominent book Gyn/Ecology. Lorde also addressed the restrictive view through which the few women of color are seen, in a chapter on genital cutting.

Lorde’s essay (in my mind I call her Audre, but part of me feels unequal to that) is written friend-to-friend, indeed she calls upon Daly’s language, using “hag” ‘Radical/Feminist” and other words more in Daly’s vocabulary to establish a connection. She writes that her open letter is due to the amount of work Daly has done to advance women and she closes her letter saying, “This letter is in repayment”. The entire nature of the correspondence is one of a true sisterhood, where identities are being pushed and questioned out of a profound sense of love and friendship. This letter is a template for the way that one must approach individuals on their racist behavior: drawing upon similarities such as a respect and reverence for women and feminism, while laying out exactly how hurtful and unforgivable such language can be:

"...in order to come together we must recognize each other. Yet I feel that since you have so completely un-recognized me, perhaps I have been in error concerning you and no longer recognize you"

Although many people engaged in work against racism and white supremacy maintain that Lorde’s approach (and by no means is this letter her only approach) is only one piece of the puzzle, I do feel that it is the most successful when you are discussing issues of oppression with a person who you will be continuing contact with over a long period of time. Her method of confrontation, which is strong and fierce while still maintaining a bond of love, strikes me as the most effective method.

Her ending line “this letter is in repayment” touched me deeply. There are so many people who have taught me extensively about specific subjects, and I owe it to them and their legacy of speaking truth to power to speak up when I see them engaged in racist, or any other oppressive, behavior. I shouldn’t underestimate my friends’ individual commitment to eradicating white supremacy and other oppressive modes of thought. When I address them it is only proper to mention how much they have and are contributing to causes concerning feminism, queer rights etc. as it is possible to speak out well on a specific issue without fully understanding all issues (I strongly include myself here). To clarify, it is better for Mary Daly to have written Gyn/Ecology, received Audre Lorde’s letter, and fixed the writing to reflect a new understanding of race then for Mary Daly to have never written Gyn/Ecology. Now, I know that Daly never did publicly respond to Lorde's letter or incorporate Lorde's critique into any of her other work. All the same her book is still important, and this exchange between them is even more important. Whenever I speak out against a person or organization for a lack of inclusion or understanding of oppressions, I want to always make sure I thank them for the work they have done. It’s not OK, and it’s not right for a person discussing transgender folks, for instance, to speak about us as if we’re all white and middle class. But the act of a transgender person speaking about transgender folks still takes a tremendous amount of courage, and that should never go ignored. Borrowing from Lorde, I don’t want to force people (including myself, here) into silence because we don’t know how to address every individual identity and complex relationship. I want, instead, to encourage growth and a more varied understanding by holding people accountable for their actions while remembering all that they have previously contributed.

Addresing Racism

2008-07-31T16:29:00.000-07:00

I want to share a very well-crafted video that I found (surprisingly) in my lazy Facebook forays a couple of nights ago. Usually Facebook is just an excuse for me to compare myself to my peers and wonder how they're doing, so I was shocked that it wielded this great video. My friend who manages the blog Atoms Arranged Meaningwise was the one who originally found it, and all kudos should go to her.

[Image description: In a grey-toned video a young light-skinned man speaks directly to the camera. He is wearing a T-shirt and has short close-cropped hair. At times, key phrases appear on the screen next to him in yellow. The video has a slightly jerky feel, but it is intentional.]

I really enjoyed this video, and the subsequent blog "Ill Doctrine". I didn't know if I would enjoy it as the premise, of how to speak to someone about race, is a premise that could easily go poorly and conclude around some basic sweeping statement. The statement is a little broad, but based on my experiences of working in multiple situations where I've had to encounter racist comments, I do agree on his conclusion. The man in the video is clearly well-versed at what he does, and I think his messaging reflects a very scary reality. The reality that being called "racist" is one of the most often-used criticisms that people can easily deny by claiming "black friends" or "having international family". Confronting racism is something no one but a handful of people want to address, so you have to, as he put is, "have a strategy". No one want to admit to racism, but an individual act can be much more manageable to address.

There are very few people who are consciously racist or white supremacist, people who do believe that white folks are biologically and intellectually better than folks of color. However, there are many many people who believe this but are not aware that they do, and this includes a lot of folks who are consciously attempting to live anti-racist lives. I wrote about one of these confrontations earlier, and I used a similar approach of addressing the issue and not the personality of the person. I think the approach the person in this video advocates allows for more of these conversations to continue, so that an individual can eventually address their internalized white supremacy and racism. It's an approach that I hope to embody, and that I know has worked successfully on me. As you address an individual act (being surprised to find a Latino man in the applicant pool for a CEO job), the individual might begin to consider why they (who don't believe themselves to be racist) would have a white supremacist thought, and they begin to examine what they think about Latino men and their education.

Edit: One of my colleagues brought to my attention that the RaceWire blog has also picked up on this video and has added some fantastic commentary on where the Ill Doctrine falls short. It's an incredible read, as always.

On “The Transgender Child” and new transgender narratives

2008-07-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I finished reading Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper’s new book “The Transgender Child: a handbook for families and professionals”. The book is incredibly well done, and while some of its suggestions are vague, the vagueness is a direct result of the great gender diversity transyouth (and adults) can have. Brill and Pepper do a good job of not pining and specific template of transgender identity on these youth. However, I was disappointed by the incredibly short sections on intersecting identity. For youth with (other) disabilities the section basically translated as "good luck!" and for the section on religious and ethnic intersections, it could be translated as "some communities are difficult, but your child is worth it". The book was written with a heterosexual married white adult in mind who has a well-paying job and is able-bodied. There were attempts to steer away from that metaidentity, but they weren't too successful. I feel compelled to forgive, as the book is still invaluable, yet still be upset because by now we should know better. [Image Description: The cover for Transgender Child. The upper 1/3 is a lime green color and carries a large quote which is illegible. The lower 2/3 are white, and carry the authors names and the title of the book, all in grey.]

I had requested The Transgender Child as an early birthday present for several reasons, the most prominent being that I feel a need to understand the great diversity of my community, including youth. Although I do not plan to have children or be in a position where transgender children will view me as a role model, I am often asked to speak towards their needs. Normally such questions would mildly irritate me, but seeing that my job involves me having a position of some authority on transgender issues I feel an obligation to stay informed.

Also, the story of my transition doesn’t involve me having any definitive feelings of male or genderqueer identity early in my life. So it interests me to read more about youth who already know, at such a young age, that they are male, female, gender variant, or gender fluid. As I read the book I realized that the increasing amount of transgender youth will be drastically changing the narrative that transgender adults have formed to discuss and provide resources for our identities. While there have certainly been a few stories of note about transgender children who were supported in their gender identities before the 2000s, there can be no doubt that more and more youth are coming out and being acknowledged these days.

For the lucky youth whose gender identities are affirmed and supported by their guardians this means that they will live a significant part of their life in the identity they desire. In any community this will still present issues and families will have to struggle with sports teams, legal identification, doctors visits, bullying, and public bathroom use among numerous other complications. However, it also means that youth will be affirmed as who they are before creating a second life – marrying, having children, serving in the military, obtaining degrees given in birth names etc that often make transitioning when older much more difficult. The models that those of us who have had to merge our young adult/adult life into our new life created won’t be relevant for this coming generation, as they may very well interact with their identity in a new way. The book even mentions how many of these youth don’t want to be called transgender - that they want only to be recognized as male or female. This is of course, absolutely OK. There are many adults who identify only as male or female and I absolutely support individuals claiming the correct language for their experiences. However it will change the landscape of gender narratives. Like all change it's initially exciting, but I wonder what the repercussions will be, and whether us older transfolk will ultimately accept these younger narratives.

Of course, there will always be transfolk coming out when they're 40 and 60 and 20. Our exploration of gender and sex will always be a continuing process, so the emergence of transyouth doesn't signify an end to older transgender identities. The main thought I had, though, as I read the handbook, was that these youth could come up in a world where they want to blend into cigender and heterosexual privilege, or they could be brought up to be proud of their transgender history, and I hope that they do feel pride even as they encounter great difficulty.

Finally, the most surprising part of the book, for me, was finding a passage that reflected a part of my identity completely. I had very little connection to the stories that wove the handbook together, but a quote from a mother of a transmale youth stood out. The young man, who at that time hadn't stated his transmale identity to his mother, had gotten his first period, and responded by hiding in his room and becoming depressed. The mother chalked that up to the depression many cigender women feel as their bodies change. However, she then discovered that her son wasn't using any tampons, pads, or other menstrual devices. It was as if he was going to will his period into disappearing. Which was when the mother realized something bigger was going on and found out (later) that her child was transgender. This is such a complete illustration of how I handle my period. When I go to work I behave like I should and take care of it, but as soon as I come home I remove all sanitary devices in the hopes that if I pretend it isn't happening it eventually will stop happening. Which is ridiculous, but clearly to at least two transmen this makes perfect sense.

An Assault and its Aftereffects

2008-07-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

This post concerns a detailed description of an assault, so I want to warn readers that it could spark some triggers.

I know that many of the folks who read my blog also read my partner’s blog, and so there are several of you who have e-mailed me in the past weeks with concern over her latest post. Thank you so much for contacting me, I can’t even begin to tell you how comforting it has been to receive your e-mails and phone calls.

I wasn’t sure I was going to write about this but I feel compelled to discuss the situation and our various decisions around it in its entirety. So I find myself writing about violence once again, only this time it is violence against me and not fictional film violence or the idea of violence against women.

On Friday night I was assaulted and mugged at around 4:20 AM less than a block from my apartment. I was walking home from the subway after seeing a very good friend in Manhattan. I had been careful until that point, scanning around to look for other people and walking on the most well lit path that leads to our apartment. Two young men came out from behind a car and the moment I saw them I thought, “they are going to hurt me” which was immediately followed by one of them punching me twice in the chin. The same young man then told me to give him all my money. At the same time he was saying that, though, I screamed “Jesus Fucking Christ” because, you know, I was just punched twice in the chin.

My voice is fairly high-pitched. Most cigender women think its low, most cigender men think it’s high, I think it usually outs me as trans. So, of course, the two men look at me in that way and the same one asks, “fuck, are you a girl?” And, as I fish out my wallet and hand them the whopping $10 I have on me I say, “I’m male, I have a high pitched voice.” I’m handing out the money to the man who has so far said nothing, but he indicates with his head that I should give it to the other guy. I do, and he says, “now move along”. After waiting to make sure they’re moving too, I begin my walk of less than 100 feet to my apartment where I crawl into bed with my partner and start sobbing uncontrollably.

The more my partner and I have thought over the assault the more I realize that there was very little I could do in the situation, and that if there was any logic behind the attack it has to do with systems that I represent.

In 2006 employment of Black men in NYC was at 50%, meaning half of all Black men were either working under-the-table kind of jobs or were unemployed.* Given our current economy the young men (and I don’t know how they would identify racially) who assaulted me probably didn’t see any direct means of employment in their future. Moreover, as I doubt they make much money mugging in our neighborhood, it’s a good way to get out anger at a system that will always keep them down. NYC schools (and these men were high school age) are some of the worst and most highly segregated in the US, and our neighborhood is situated in area that is both devoid of any form of cultural pride and slowly being encroached by young white folk like myself. Certain areas of Bushwick retain a sense of Latino and Black Pride, with amazing organizations such as Sista II Sista that work for and within communities of color, but not our neighborhood.

Most middle class folks would probably describe my neighborhood as “bad”, which has as much to do with white middle class aspirations as it does with actual safety. My neighborhood is an odd assortment of broken down buildings, barely concealed sweatshops, and apartments, yet I have never felt unsafe there. True, at night I do remain extra-vigilant but no more so than in any other neighborhood. During the day there are elderly folks and children everywhere, generally sitting out on stoops until 10PM. The neighborhood is overwhelmingly Puerto Rican, and I know I’m one of only a handful of white folks in the area. The area is also fairly poor and working class, though definitely not impoverished. Now that Brooklyn is “hip” and white folks like me are moving in everywhere, it must be read as infuriating that one of the few affordable neighborhoods is now populated with white men who can afford to go out drinking in Manhattan until 4:20AM.

I don’t know if my attack was random, or if I was targeted for being scrawny and little, or if my whiteness or my effeminate mannerisms had to do with anything. I don’t know if I would have been more assaulted if I were a butch woman, or if being a woman would have left me unscathed. I don’t know if my high-voice freaked them out enough that they left, or if my gender identity had any effect on the assault whatsoever. None of the thought-out reasons for assaulting me - my whiteness, my perceived class privilege, my gender identity - make my assault right. But it does make any response on my part more complicated.

I didn’t call the police. In fact, it never really crossed my mind and my partner never even suggested it. After all, what are the police going to do besides bother more of my fellow residents? The two men were so nondescript that they’d be harassing every male youth in the neighborhood, if they even took my complaint seriously. Police harassment of young men of color is just going to encourage seeing the police, the criminal justice system, and the young white men like myself as systems that reinforce racial stereotyping and will do nothing to actually deter crime.The criminal justice system doesn’t rehabilitate youth either, so should these men land in jail the chances of them gaining a better education, becoming employed post-incarceration, and reevaluating their relationship with violence is more than minimal. Moreover, I’m certain the police wouldn’t take my complaint seriously – what the hell was I doing out at 4AM? Why didn’t I protect myself? What kind of man am I?...etc. I’ve previously had run ins with the police and even in Minnesota, where the St. Paul police are supposed to be some of the most community-minded, non racist and non-sexist, they never really gave a fuck.

I am however considering calling the Anti-Violence Project, which records instances of violence against LGBT or perceived LGBT folk. I don’t think I was targeted as a transman, but my gender identity and my size certainly entered the conversation. If AVP can use my assault as part of their initiative to protect LGBT folks equally under the law, then I’ll contact them, because that seems like a useful thing that won’t reproduce patterns of violence and racism. As I think about my assault I realize that any changes in my behavior should be about addressing the reasons why assaults like this happen, and not targeting the two young men. My partner and I are considering attending self defense classes at the Center for Anti-Violence Education, although I have my doubts about their use.

In the meantime, my partner and I are both OK. I have a nasty bruise, and I’ve had trouble sleeping recently, but the incident was so random and unrelated to me as an individual that I’m trying to not take it too seriously. My heart starts beating faster on the walk from subway to apartment, but I’m sure we will both continue to be OK. Again, thanks to everyone who checked-in with me. I was feeling a little weird as I went to several functions over the weekend and nobody commented on the huge purple bruise covering my chin until Tuesday. It was nice to know you all cared and to have a space to process it.

* TransJustice/Audre Lorde Project. “Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice.” Color of Violence: the INCITE! anthology. Ed. INCITE!. Massachusets: South End Press, 2006. 227-230

Transitoning and Feminism

2008-07-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

I never decided to transition, although I do think of my transition as a choice. I believe that I could be living my life as a woman, but I have no doubt that the severe depression I found myself in during college and the scary mood swings would be a major part of my life. So I didn’t decide to become a man all of a sudden, rather I decided to do what I needed to do to feel good about myself. It turned out, that was living as a man. But I didn’t decide that, it came upon me slowly and in small out-of-order steps. By the time I realized I was male it was too late to turn back, and I choose then to continue after a strong and serious debate with myself.

A strong part of that debate was trying to decide how to continue my commitment to feminism, and to all women. While my definition of feminism probably deserves its own post, I’ll just say for now that my feminism is based on the writings of the Combahee River Collective and the contributors to This Bridge Called My Back. The feminism I want to support and be a part of is flexible, accepting and rooted in an understanding of interlinking oppressions. I knew when I accepted myself as male that I needed to remember what being a girl had been like, and I needed to make a commitment towards the women in my life.

So, when my partner asked me if I would march with her in the Dyke Marc h at the end of June my first instinct was a “hell yeah”. I had always been in the Dyke March in the Twin Cities, and I supported the thinking behind it – that any celebration of queer life needs to acknowledge and support the different way that women interact with their sexuality and gender identities. Further, the Dyke March is a protest against misogyny and patriarchy, corporate takeover of Pride, and other aspects close to various dyke communities. But then I got nervous – would it be OK for me to march? I would be marching in support of queer women, but what if the female-identified marchers thought I was staking a claim in a women’s community? While I think it’s essential to realize that masculine and genderqueer women make up a large portion of the Dyke/Queer Women’s population I would never force myself, as someone male-identified, into that community. At the same time, I was worried that not marching would be read as a dismissal of the importance of this march. I would be seen as someone who gave lip-service to feminism, but wouldn’t be seen in the presence of strong queer women, marking myself as a supporter. [Image Description: three older white men lining the path of the dyke march. They are standing in front of several bright geen trees. Two are holding a sign in the upper right corner reading "Dykes Make Me Proud" in rainbow letters. In the lower left a sign reading "I heart" is cut off from view.]

There are many different ways to read a man’s presence at a queer women’s event. Judging from conversations with gay male co-workers attending a lesbian-specific event isn’t wrong in their eyes, but it sure is unusual. I feel that there’s a general understanding across all LGBT lines that queer women experience their identities in a different way than queer men, but there’s very little effort to bridge that gap through self-education. Further conversations with co-workers confirmed that we all had a similar concern: would our presence be welcome? Should men attend events as an act of education and solidarity, or should we give these events space allowing for a safer space where explanations don’t need to be given quite as frequently? For me, my attendance of the Dyke March was a bit easier as I was explicitly invited by my partner to march alongside her as her ally.

So I did end up attending, and despite the downpours it was amazing. I also noticed a lot of transmen in attendance, folks I recognized from my circle of friends and from the LGBT Center’s transmasculine group. While being improperly gendered (referred to as female) is for many of us an action that can cut to the quick, I was thrilled to see that we were all sustaining this connection to the women in our lives, and for many of us, the queer women’s spaces we used to frequent. I know that before I was able to commit to the Dyke March I had to seriously consider how I would respond to people who assumed I was female during the march. The only thing I came up with was the fact that I know who I am, and if anyone engages me in conversation I will quickly be seen as male. But in passing, if someone was doing a count of the march and decided I was in the women's category...well it didn't matter too much. I don't want to become invisible, and I don't want to claim identity that's not my own, but for this one day being seen as female is OK. I thought about the allies who attended the gay-straight alliance at my college, the ones who always outed themselves as straight within the first ten seconds. For the rest of us, the flaunting of straight privilege was so irritating we quickly grew to despise the very people claiming to ally with us. I don't want to replicate that. I just want to be proud of all the women who have supported me along my route, all the women who face multiple oppressions everyday, and if that means I'm temporarily read as female, then that's just another reminder to me of what sexism can look like. And that's good. Challenging as it is, that's good.

Review: Lesbian Herstory Archives

2008-07-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my last post on managing my gender and sex identity within women's spaces, I wanted to add a review of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. The Lesbian Herstory Archives, in Brooklyn, houses the largest collection of works on lesbians and queer women in the world. The LHA is also dedicated to making the space accessible by housing it in the community, a conscious effort to not bar access by race or class, and to not demand identification. They also have a point about an individual always living in the space of the archives so that the space is a home, and not an institution. I really enjoy that idea, as it allows the archives to seem emotionally accessible as well.

One of the most exciting things for me was seeing an exhibit in homage to Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson. I have read essays about the case and campaign, and even tried to buy the book, Why Can’t Sharon Kowalski Come Home?, but it’s sadly out of print. However at the archives you can not only read the book but also leaf through pamphlets, speeches, and even T-Shirt collections relating to the campaign to bring Sharon home, and more broadly to instill a system where the wishes of folks with disabilities are respected and not patronized or ignored. Luckily, in keeping with the campaign, the Lesbian Herstory Archives has a wheelchair access ramp, and a fully accessible bathroom. However, the second story where the magazines and personal archives are stored does not appear to be wheelchair accessible.

The second most exciting thing, beyond standing in a room where the lives of queer women were being preserved, honored, and saved for generations to come, came when Alison Bechdel entered with her girlfriend Holly. Alison is the creator of “Dykes to Watch Out For” and the author of “Fun Home”. Her cartoon, which is rumored to be based in the Twin Cities and involves a highly diverse queer cast, was the first place where I found a reflection of myself as transgender within a largely LGB community. Alison's character Jasmine transitions early on with the help of another character, Lois, who also provides Jasmine with a genderqueer role model. Seeing Jasmine's identity being affirmed and supported – despite the differences in race, socio-economic status, and age – helped me immensely. Beyond that, though, Alison's writing and art is clear, witty, beautiful, and extraordinarily reflective of many lives. Below is a photo of us trying to look tough but just looking nervous and eerily similar.

[Image Description: a snapshot photo of Alison Bechdel and me. We are standing inside in front of a white-curtained window and a red "Dyke Avenger" flag. Alison is on the left in a short-sleeved green button-up, and I am on the right in a black muscle-T. We are both white, petite, wearing glasses and have dark black/brown short-cropped hair. We are smiling goofily at the camera.]

I’m glad I swallowed my dual fears of being read as female and of “invading” a women’s space. The Lesbian Herstory Archives were amazing – full archives on various women’s lives dating back for decades, material on all sorts of queer women including some extensive transgender files, and collections that spanned genres and political/social identities. The Archives, though, did not necessarily make me feel accepted or part of a greater community. And I think that's OK. After all, I'm not a member of the queer women's community - I'm certainly tangential, and I care deeply about it. As a man entering a space designed to honor women it's only appropriate that I feel a little nervous. After all, reflecting on that nervous energy helps me to reflect on my male identity, and tat's something I always welcome, challenging as it is.

On Language: keeping "gender" specific

2008-07-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

I have written a lot on this blog about the need for clear and concise language when discussing issues relating to the legal, medical, and sociological effects of our identities. This post is specifically about transgender identity and language issues, but I think this need to use accurate language applies across many identities.

A recent article originally published in the Matangi Times and a Huffington Post blog from June outline these issues for me. The Matangi Times article focused on a group of men and transwomen from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands and New Zealand with HIV or AIDS who also have sex with men. The participants, like so many groups in the US, are struggling with the issue of self-identification. Terms such as gay, transgender, and bisexual don't quite speak to their experiences, and years of war and colonization have led to the erasure of any non-Western influenced words. Using words influenced by Western culture ignores the specificity of their experience, but likewise reaching into the past for language doesn't correctly identify current experiences. The article summarizes this very well:

“Participants…stressed the need to identify an appropriate and culturally sensitive terminology for 'MSM' and 'Transgender' in the Pacific Island Region. But the participants acknowledged that coming up with such a term was no easy task and would require further dialogue.”

In the Huffington Post blog the same importance of language is highlighted but without the respect for difference. In this article Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign blogs about the importance of the Transgender Workplace Discrimination hearings but refers to them as the Gender Identity Discrimination hearings. Now the meaning here is extraordinarily different, and I think that very few people understand the huge level of difference between transgender and gender identity. Everybody has a gender identity. Not everybody is transgender. Therefore bills such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would protect all people from gender identity discrimination - not just transgender people. After all, transgender people can be discriminated against because of sex, race, ability etc. In fact, a recent court case out of Texas summarized this exactly when the Southern District Court of Texas ruled that a transwoman was discriminated against because of sex, as she didn’t look like a “traditional man”. In a reverse version of this, Khadijah Farmer, the butch cigender lesbian booted from a woman’s bathroom, suffered gender identity discrimination when she didn’t look like a “traditional woman”.

One of the things that irked me throughout the entire ENDA campaign is the consistent replacement in both LGBT and non-LGBT press of “gender identity” with “transgender”. No matter how many times transgender advocates patiently explained the differences to reporters the terms remained conflated. Gender identity non-discrimination has been equated to only discriminating against transgender people, and this has created a jargon where a universal discrimination became specific to a much smaller population. Now, when that population wants to have a day in court specific to discussions of their personal discrimination, the language is reversed. All of a sudden someone attempts to universalize the day through labeling it the “Gender Identity Discrimination” hearings, yet it doesn’t even achieve that universality. As the participants telling personal stories were all transgender – or transsexual – identified, gender identity discrimination once again looked like transgender-specific discrimination. The majority of these participants revealed stories specific to gender identity discrimination, but it’s possibly that the trans women suffered from sex discrimination as well (after all, working at NASA or in construction isn’t “traditional” for a woman) and Diego Sanchez has already discussed his encounters with racial discrimination.

I’m happy that the HRC is trying to get back on board with transgender and gender variant folks, but I think they should leave these discussions to the people with the right ability to discuss them – folks from the National Center for Transgender Equality, the various state-wide Transgender Political Coalitions, and the Center for Lesbian Rights – just to name a few. By letting the people who understand these issues the most lead, we will ensure that the discussions reflect the reality of all constituents, and that the best possible language is used.

Brief updates: Call for Papers and a Thank You!

2008-07-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

I want to open this post by apologizing for not being very present on my blog for June or July. In June there were so many events related to Pride Month that I was more busy than I thought I would be, and I’ve been feeling very sick recently so my writing has been pretty cloudy and I haven’t wanted to post anything that was not clear in its purpose. So I apologize, but I hope to be posting more as soon as I get over these persistent allergies and colds.

I also want to thank and welcome any readers who came to my blog via the Disabilities Network of New York’s July newsletter. I got a beautiful shout-out on page 7 of their most recent newsletter. I hope you all find this blog interesting and amusing, and please feel free to post comments and e-mail me! I always want to know more about any of the issues I’m blogging about, and I want to hear conflicting opinions. Also I’m always willing to learn how to make my writing and blog more accessible. Thank you again to the Disabilities Network of New York for the spotlight!

Finally, in lieu of an actual update I just saw this call for submissions and thought folks might be interested! The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies will be publishing two special issues, one on Blindness and Literature and another on Disabling Postcolonialism. The link to their call for submissions is here, and proposals for Blindness and Literature are due by October 1st to guest editor Georgina Kleege, gkleege at Berkeley.edu. Proposals for Disabling Postcolonialism are due before December 1st to guest editors Clare Barker and Stuart Murray at c.f.barker at leeds.ac.uk and S.F.Murray at leeds.ac.uk. Both special issues are also accepting book reviews that can be e-mailed to the Book Review Editor, Clare Barker, whose e-mail is above.

Good luck to all those who submit, it looks wonderful!

Trying to Avoid Transgender

2008-07-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Over this last weekend I received my economic stimulus check. Which is great, considering this month was looking a little tight, but unfortunately raised a few questions for me. This check was made out to my former name…misspelled. I have lived with my new legal name for almost two years but the Federal Government continually issues me my tax refund to my previous name…misspelled. Short to say this mistake on Uncle Sam’s part is pretty drastic as my birth name automatically outs me as transsexual -it is ridiculously feminine- and the only part of my name that remains unchanged (my last name) is very badly misspelled.

So last night I dug through boxes of my legal documents - carefully filed doctors notes, letters registering me to vote as male, my temporary ID card listing me as male - trying to find my name change documents from Minnesota. I finally found a version that was not notarized but did include the Judge’s signature and date. I have mailed out so many copies of my name-change to credit card companies, former employers (for reference checks), my student loan companies, and my various educational institutes that I apparently have none left. Hoping for the best, and banking on the fact that I had successfully deposited my tax refund (with the same name issue) in April, I decided to bring this not-quite-that-official document with me today as I attempted to deposit it over my lunch break.

Armed with my documents and the check that would out me as transsexual to my bank…I almost chose to act in a way that would out me as ashamed of my identity. I almost walked an extra couple of blocks in order to go to a different bank branch that I’d be unlikely to visit again. In fact, I had already turned down that street when I stopped and thought about what I was doing. I am so ridiculously out in all aspects of my life – my bank in Minnesota, my credit card companies, my college, my friends and family all know that I am a transsexual man. True, the more institutional of these choose to ignore that fact most days, but I have never actively hid my status before except in cases where I feared some form of violent or emotional recrimination. My very job, this blog, and all of my social networking profiles out me every single day…and yet I wanted to hide this fact from a bank teller?

I quickly turned around and went to my usual bank branch where I had to wait about 10 minutes for my teller to consult with her manager before accepting my check. Luckily my name-change form went unquestioned despite the lack of a proper notarization. It was still embarrassing to have to explain my entire history to a relative stranger, but I did feel better that at least I hadn’t tried to hide my history. Even better, the teller told me to “have a good day, sir” as I was leaving. You should have seen my smile.

Unionizing in Restaurants

2008-07-02T15:03:00.001-07:00

I have finally gotten around to reading the new Colorlines and I am excited to say that my love for the magazine continues to be justified. This issue, unofficially dubbed the “Women and Children” issue also relied heavily on issues of immigration, specifically employment. The article that caught my eye immediately focused on employment discrimination between white and Latino staff in restaurants.

Before moving to the Big Apple I worked in a restaurant in St. Paul, where the counter staff was overwhelmingly white and the kitchen staff was almost entirely Latino. Of course, there were a few exceptions on either end but the white kitchen staff never stayed over two months and the counter staff of color were all inevitably fired. The extraordinary differences in how staff at the different ends of the establishment were paid and treated were a source of extreme discomfort for all of us. The servers and cooks all knew what was happening was wrong, but being dependent on a job that had no security, severance pay or any form of compensation made the counter staff anxious to complain. On the other hand much of the Latino staff were working on expired Visas or had entered the U.S. without “proper” documents, and complaints could lead to all forms of legal repercussions. Even attempts to improve work that didn’t involve the management, such as joint language sessions where English-speaking employees learned Spanish and Spanish-speaking employees learned English, all failed.

Yes, those of us with the privilege of our skin, our education level, and our language should have spoken up. But unless we did so in a unionized effort the results would have resulted either in our firing, or in repercussions against the Latino kitchen staff – under the assumption that they would have asked the white counter staff to speak up. Also, though, I dislike the paradigm that the white staff should speak up "on behalf of" the Latino staff. Despite language barriers, the Latino chefs were perfectly able to speak for themselves. The fact that they didn't want the white staff to say anything, should have been enough of a deterrent. The few times we spoke together or against a new practice, we saw serious repercussions, I had received repercussions for speaking up on multiple occasions. This doesn’t make it right, but I want to put the context there. In this issue of ColorLines, however, a better option is offered through the organization Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York.

True, like all unions joining runs a lot of risks, but unlike (historically) many other unions, ROCNY has a focus in race differences, especially on Latino staff. Last year ROCNY sent 43 “matched pairs” (I assume this means an equally employable white man and Latino man) into NYC restaurants and found some unsurprising results. For instance, white men were not hired for the “less desirable” positions of runner, buser, or dishwasher as they were not as “’willing’ as Latinos to stay at the same low-wage job” according to the ColorLines report. Yes, it appears that it was all men, which reveals another prejudice in service work (for straight outfits, it's women in the front men in the back) but I have hopes that ROCNY will address that as well. Now that the ROCNY has this information they will be approaching restaurant employees to unionize and fight for better wages and more equitable hiring practices. Even better though, the organizing won’t be just in New York, but they will be approaching employees across the country.

I know a lot of my white friends work in restaurants…and I know we all are aware of the racial politics without ever saying a word about it. So come on…reach out to this organization and let them know you want to be counted too! And if any of my former Latino comrades read my blog (I know, I should learn Spanish and translate it!) I hope this organization can inspire and empower you!

Edit: I just noticed that I had written "I know a lot of my white friends work in restaurants still". So I erased the "still" because I didn't want to judge the decision or the necessity of food service. However, I want to acknowledge here that I did make that judgement, and that I made it specifically for my white friends. So, here it is in an edit: my judgement and my prejudice.

Historic Happenings for Transfolk!

2008-06-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow will be two very significant events in transgender history! The first (and more positive event) is the historic House Hearings on Transgender Workplace Discrimination. The hearing is titled: "An Examination of Discrimination Against Transgender Americans in the Workplace". It will be heard in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor. It marks the first congressional hearing to focus solely on transgender issues.

The hearing is not specific to any particular legislation, but is focused on educating congressional representatives and house representatives. Several prominent advocates for transgender equality are being called as witnesses (Diego Sanchez, Diane Schorer etc), and of course the amazing Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality will be present.

In other news tomorrow will be the day that Montgomery County decides whether the ballot initiative to strike gender identity non-discrimination from the county law will be on the ballot come November.

And, of course, tomorrow is the day before the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots!

Queer Identities

2008-06-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

I usually don’t comment about media on this blog because I get enough of analyzing and responding to media during the workweek. However, there’s a very interesting Associated Press story that is slowly circulating. A couple in Richmond Virginia has confused all forms of stalwart guardians on the borders of gender and sexuality.

In brief, a couple that were both assigned a male sex at birth got married in Virginia. The individual who registered under “bride” was also having a name change from a traditionally male name to a traditionally female name. However, it’s completely unclear if that name change is corresponding with a sex or gender identity change or if the name change is simply a name change. Given the particulars of the story - that the individual whose gender identity is creating a conundrum has yet to publicly ID (and they shouldn’t be forced to either) – I thought the story was handled with a lot of tact.

The story has begun a small but steady circulation (holding my breath until it appears only to be bashed on FOX) and has of course landed on some prominent queer websites. Some of these sites have chosen to attack the story claiming that the individual in question should be identified as “she”. They go on to say that this individual is clearly a transgender woman and the story is insulting to suggest that the individual is male. Now, it’s true that there are a lot of clues leading towards a female identity (the name change, registering as a bride, dressing in historically female clothes etc.) but none of these necessitate a female identity. Men can dress in historically female clothes and have historically female names. Men can even call themselves brides if that makes them happy. Also, of course this individual could identify as anything else from gender non-conforming to genderqueer, gender variant…or any other number of various identities. Moreover, it is this individual's right to not identify. No one should be forced to continuously out themselves, although this is the paradigm most of the U.S. accepts as normal.

One of the least supportive things we can do as transgender and gender non-conforming allies is to demand an identity, or a compliance with a prescribed identity, based on our personal ideas of how he, or she, or ze should identify. What the AP story did well, and what the entire ambiguity of the situation brings to light, is how precariously balanced the U.S. idea of marriage is. That this marriage is a blight upon the world if it is two men, but that the marriage is legal should the second individual be female is absurd. It also highlighted the intriguing reliance our society has on visual identification clues and the extreme pressure we place on legal and medical recognition of identity.

Part of me almost hopes that this marriage was a demonstration. Two brave Virginians out to make a point about the way we categorize what is and is not legal and moral.

Love and...everything else

2008-06-22T18:34:00.001-07:00

I have been trying recently to write about partnerships love. As in, for the last four days I have sat down and typed out long winding convoluted sentences that politely try to ask the question: “how do you sustain a relationship”? Eventually I realized that my attempts to cover this main question with flowery phrases and clever quotes had me as confused as any reader would be.

But the more I think about my love for my partner, and the more I realize how visible we are as interracial and queer, the more afraid I become, Not afraid of discrimination or violence, but of the fact that no matter where I go to look for answers about my life I can not find myself. I find queer couples or straight interracial couples, I find long-lasting friendships between white men and Black women, I find steamy hot but ultimately broken relationships between white women and Black women. I find narratives about the universality of love and memoirs by white mothers of Black children. But I never see us.

And then I wonder why I need to see us. If I ever did come across a documentary or memoir about a white Midwest transman and a mixed Black genderqueer lady…would I even like it? I’d critique it to death! I don’t need any affirmation that our love is real or right or legitimate. I feel that every day. I don’t need any affirmation that our couples have always existed. Our lives are clouded and secret, they are oral histories and art projects. Our lives exist in old photographs and sideways glances on subways. We are the stuff of weekend retreats and college thesises. We make our lives from scratch, we build them slowly, and like Edna St. Vincent Millay’s castle - they are built precariously upon the sand.

No, I don’t crave affirmation or historical records. I think what I crave for is an elder who can give me guidance on behavior. I want to see examples of how white men earn their keep in interracial relationships.

One of the most surprising things that I should have known but didn’t see coming when I threw my entire being into this couple, is that my white privilege will always be present. Things that I might not think of as racially motivated will appear so because of my history, my background, my constant privilege. Phrases that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in an all white circle (“what are you people doing?”) suddenly seem racially charged. My extreme shyness, which often causes me to back into corners and keep my eyes plastered to the ground seems to be motivate by being surrounded by educated and opinionated Black women, as opposed to a ridiculous inability to meet strangers. And at the same time…there is a deeply rooted racist reason for my actions, a reason that I can take control of and try to own, and a reason that ultimately I know I will never completely overcome. That knowledge is incredibly painful and at times the pain of it doesn’t allow me to carry forward in any positive way.

Like bell hooks suggests in “all about love” there is an inexcusable lack of representation of long-lasting (queer, interracial) love in the majority of our lives. I can’t find examples of queer couples where one partner is white who make their race, class, ability, and queerness a constant part of their lives. I know some couples, and perhaps I should schedule a time to sit down and hash out exactly how they negotiate their identities…but I’ve yet to hear or see or read an honest account. Audre Lorde discusses her relationship with her white (Irish? Italian? I can’t recall) love Muriel in “ZAMI”, and Cherrie Moraga notes her relationship with her white Irish partner in many of her works especially “Waiting in the Wings”. I have read a few accounts of white mothers raising children of color – most amazingly Jane Lazarre’s “Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness”. But there are few complete accounts that I can draw upon.

There are a million small things that have amazed me since falling in love. That someone scratching their nose during sex doesn’t mean they are bored, it means their nose itches (sometimes it means they’re bored too). Not crying doesn’t mean you’re not hurt, crying doesn’t man you are hurt. Making love after fighting doesn’t mean you’re codependent, it means there aren’t any more words left. If you can laugh while you eat leftovers, it tastes like a whole new meal. And as much as I try, my white privilege will always be here.

But it is how I negotiate the last one, how we respond and react to each other that will ensure just how much impact that last fact has in our lives. And now that I’ve finally written down all the things that kept me from addressing it…I think my next blog post will be specifically on ways I try and address my whiteness in the relationship, and ways I feel I fail at addressing it. Which, eventually, will be posted here.

On Drag and Consciousness

2008-06-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

[pictured: the four Transformers on a minimal stage with red lighting. On the far left there is me, Mik Danger, as a bad-ass priest all in black, and on the far right an androgynous and sexy sinner in red booty shorts, a red tie and a black tank top is either masturbating or repenting. Between us two apostles in white robes are beginning a sensual dance. This photo is from the Miltown Kings spring of 2007. We are performing to the Eurythmics "Missionary Man".]

For the last two years I have been performing drag. One could also argue that I have been performing drag my whole life, but that’s a bit of a simplification of Judith Butler’s gender definitions and gives me too much credit. Drag has to be conscious, and until I knowingly stepped on a stage I didn’t understand the full complications of gender play. Dolly Parton, as an example, is a type of drag queen as she is extremely conscious of how she is presenting an over-the-top, ridiculous and amazing form of femininity. She is acutley aware of how her presentation reflects on women as a whole, and rural working-class white women in particular.

My drag was formed in the company of three amazing and talented close friends in the late spring of 2006. Over time we would become the drag troupe The TransFormers, performing bi-monthly with Dykes Do Drag and occasionally at the Twin Cities bar The Townhouse. But our development as a drag troupe wasn’t immediate. I had performed onstage before (and specifically as a man) but until 2006 my drag didn’t have a conscious. As our troupe became well known in the Midwest it was because we attempted to tackle issues of whiteness, capitalism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy. We celebrated fey men and transwomen, femmes and genderqueer transitions. We achieved this through the support of fantastic shows such as Dykes Do Drag and conferences such as the International Drag King (community) Extravaganza. we read Butler and Judith Halberstram, and by searching ourselves for the messages we wanted to convey.

In doing this, we discovered that not all drag is a positive reclamation of identity. Not all drag is done in the spirit of queer liberation with the reckless abandon of mocking institutions while in glittery booty shorts. Many drag performers perform with no knowledge of how their representations of femininity, masculinity, and androgyny affect their message. Indeed, most white drag performers appropriate the lyrics and dance moves of famous Black and Latin@ performers without questioning their use of a modern version of Black/Brown Face. Drag Kings have a history of using femme performers as silent props, and too often a drag king will perform as a masculine straight man.

The TransFormers were by no means the end-all be-all of conscious drag (or as we called it “post-drag drag”). Our piece on U.S. Imperialism (set to “Macho Man”) failed in the first few dress rehearsals, and to this day I have a great fear of appearing as anything but a queer man on stage. But the TransFormers were attempting to talk about queer values – interlinked oppressions, a love for all bodies, a consciousness about identity, and the joy of performing and we did so in a way that was both funny and engaging. Even as a soloist it became incredibly difficult to find songs by white men that can be “queered” to discuss sexuality, class, ability, and other identity issues. Which is why I’m excited that tonight I will be performing a solo at the Brooklyn Pride After-Party!!

I performed once in late March with the amazing group Switch n’ Play, but tonight I will be performing at the Transy House as a benefit for Sylvia Rivera Law Project. My piece, my favorite of the handful of solos I have cultivated, is about being proud of identity, and moreover of an expanding definition of feminism and feminists. You can catch be sometime between 9pm and 1am at 214 16th Street in Park Slope (between 5th & 6th Ave). There will be many other amazing performers there and it's only a suggested donation of $10!!

More of this tonight at 9PM!

[pictured: This is a still of my ass from my March performance. In stonewash jeans and back leather chaps with a dollar bill sticking out of the waistline. Picture taken by Switch n’ Play.]