Betty and I are leaving today to spend a long weekend in Burlington, VT – land of snow, University of Vermont, snow, and snow.
On Thursday, we’ll be talking to an Anthropology class on Kinship and Identity taught by David Houston. The class has just finished reading My Husband Betty. We’re expecting some interesting questions about crossdressing, gender, sexuality, and our relationship.
On Friday, I’ll be hosting a roundtable on Trans-Women and Feminism as part of UVM’s Women’s Center’s Women’s Herstory Month events. Their theme this year is women and activism. The organizer of these events, Tim Shiner, tells me they’ve discussed some of these issues before at the Women’s Center, so I’m looking forward to a good conversation.
On Saturday, the Translating Identity conference is also taking place at UVM. My first workshop will be the one on Trans-Sex and Identity that has been such a hit at Dark Odyssey, and I’m hoping it will be again. Later that day, I will co-host a Partners’ Caucus with Jill Barkley, who’s the partner of a transman. We have a lot of good ideas to flesh out with other partners – and though transfolks are welcome, they’re not going to be allowed to speak until the end of the session.
Luckily for me, the keynote speech at Translating Identity will be given by Les Feinberg, who I admire very much. Hir books, Stone Butch Blues and Transgender Warriors were both influential for me long before Betty and I met.
We are both looking forward to this trip, despite the fact that we’re both somewhat exhausted (booking five weekends in a row seemed like a good idea at the time). As long as we get there despite all the snow, I’m sure it will be an invigorating weekend.