Month: June 2011

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Great News: UN Resolution

The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted an historic resolution that seeks to give gays and lesbians rights equal to those enjoyed by heterosexuals. The resolution passed by a narrow margin and over the vigorous objections of African and Arab countries.

After a long debate, the critical vote was taken.

The overflow audience burst out into applause before the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Sihasak Phuangketkeow, had a chance to announce the results of the vote. A giant video screen showed the final tally was 23 votes in favor of ending discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexual and transsexual people, 19 against and three abstentions.

The Obama administration has been a staunch supporter of the resolution, and U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said the United States is thrilled by the outcome of what she called this simple but historic resolution.

Bold is mine, for emphasis. Oh yeah, that guy. Not only is he working for us on the domestic front, but he’s exporting some of our best ideas to the world. What a gift for Pride!

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What a Lineup!

Tristan Taormino edited an anthology of trans erotica called Take Me There & wow is it some list of authors:

Kate Bornstein (@KateBornstein), author and editor of many books including Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, which just won a Lambda Literary Award! 

Patrick Califia (@PatrickCalifia), world-renowned writer, activist, and sex radical, author of dozens of books including Speaking Sex to Power: The Politics of Queer Sex

S. Bear Bergman (@SBearBergman), co-editor of Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation and author of Butch is a Noun and The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, which just went into its second printing

Ivan Coyote (@IvanCoyote), author of Missed Her and one of my personal faves, Closer to Spiderman, who is currently touring all over Canada

Julia Serano, author of Whipping Girl, currently at work on a new book

Laura Antoniou (@lantoniou), author of the groundbreaking series The Marketplace, which was the first SM erotica series featuring a transman as the romantic hero. She wrote a story especially for this book all about Chris Parker!

Helen Boyd (@helen_of_boyd), author of She’s Not the Man I Married and My Husband Betty

Sandra McDonald, author of the Lambda Literary Award winner, Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories

Rachel Kramer Bussel (@Raquelita), queen of erotica whose latest anthology is Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex

Toni Amato, co-editor of Pinned Down by Pronouns and frequent Best Lesbian Erotica contributor

Gina de Vries, genderqueer femme, Paisan pervert, writer, performer, cultural worker, activist, editor of Becoming: Young Ideas on Gender, Identity, and Sexuality

Rahne Alexander (@foucauldian_ho), musician, multimedia artist, guitarist and vocalist in the bands The Oops and The Degenerettes

Giselle Renarde (@GiselleRenarde), erotica writer and editor of Future Histories: Transgendered Sci-Fi Erotica

Alicia E. Goranson, playwright, screenwriter, and author of Supervillianz

Rachel K. Zall, poet, performing artist, activist and author of The Oxygen Catastrophe

Tobi Hill-Meyer (@Tobitastic), activist, filmmaker, writer, and Feminist Porn Award winner

Shawna Virago, singer/songwriter and activist

Andrea Zanin (@sexgeekAZ), organizer, educator, and writer

Sinclair Sexsmith (@mrsexsmith), creator of The Sugarbutch Chronicles and frequent Best Lesbian Erotica contributor

Skian McGuire, one of my favorite erotica writers ever

Arden Hill, writer and poet

Anna Watson, writer and creator of The Femme Bibliography Project

 

It comes out in October but you can pre-order it now. There’s more info in TT’s blogpost about it if you’re not yet convinced (but honestly, with a list like that, you really should be!)

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Bisexuality Survey

A group at Penn State are doing research into bisexuality and infidelity:

My name is Krysta Kolbe, I work with Dr. Cory R. Scherer, we are a research team from Penn State University who are interested in learning about how bisexuals react to infidelity. This survey is being conducted for research purposes. There is a lot of research that has been done on how heterosexual and homosexuals react to potential infidelity but practically none concerning bisexuals and we are asking your help by please sharing the survey at the link below with your bisexual associates, friends, co-workers, students, and loved ones. Participants will be asked to think about their reactions to infidelity and give some demographic information. Also understand that they will be asked to answer some questions about their attitudes and themselves. It should take no more than five minutes to complete the questionnaire. You must be 18 years of age or older to participate. Your participation in this research is confidential. Feel free to share the link below with any and all bisexual individuals who want to participate in the survey. Thank you for your help in the quest to better understand ourselves through science!

You can contact me at klk5177@psu.edu or Dr. Scherer at crs15@psu.edu with questions, complaints or concerns about this research. You can stop at any time. You do not have to answer any questions you do not want to answer.

Take the survey!

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Call for NY, Call for Equality

From The New Civil Rights Movement:

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo today unveiled his marriage equality bill, with a possible 31 of 32 votes needed for passage. We already know the NOM, the National Organization for Marriage promised to spend $1.5 million to defeat the bill, and another $1 million to defeat any GOP Senator who votes for it. Your Senators need to hear from you?—?and you’ve got about 12 hours, because they are reportedly meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the bill. A vote could come any day, starting Wednesday, though we’ve heard reports of Friday.

Don’t let what happened in 2009 happen again. Not when we’re this close. It won’t happen again until 2013 if this fails?—?if then.

If you live in New York, we need you to make what could be the most important call of your life to these Senators, and tell them you want them to vote for the marriage equality bill.

It’s that simple.

Stephen Saland (845) 463?0840
Roy McDonald (518) 274?4616
Andrew Lanza (718) 984?4073
Greg Ball (845) 279?3773
Kemp Hannon (516) 739?1700
Charles Fuschillo (516) 882?0630
Betty Little (518) 743?0968

Also, please call Senator Dean Skelos to make clear that the people of New York?—?58% at last count?—?want marriage equality in our state. As Senate Majority Leader he should make sure that equality for all New Yorkers is our motto.

Dean Skelos (518) 455?3171

You can also go online and contact your Senators:

http://?www?.nysenate?.gov/?s?e?n?a?t?ors

http://?www?.friendfactor?.org/?f?s?/?5?1?186

This could be the most-?important call of your life.

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Go Milwaukee!

Chris Abele, Milwaukee’s County exec, announced his intention today to provide domestic partner health care coverage to Milwaukee county employees.

From Fair Wisconsin:

“County Executive Chris Abele’s announcement is a signal that Milwaukee County is once again moving forward under his bold and visionary leadership,” stated Katie Belanger, Executive Director of Fair Wisconsin. “Providing domestic partner health care coverage to county employees is an important step toward building a fair and inclusive work environment and a strong county government. We look forward to working closely with the County Executive and the Milwaukee County Board to make this proposal a reality.”

Should Milwaukee County begin providing domestic partner health care coverage, they will join a growing number of employers who already grant their employees these critical protections, including the State of Wisconsin, the City of Milwaukee and Marquette University, and top private sector employers like MillerCoors.

At least someone’s got cool leadership in the state of Wisconsin!

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Tweet O Gender

Here’s some new bullshit. There’s a new website called tweetolife that, according to its tagline, is “the science of human life in Twitter messages”. Oh boy. The idea is that you can put in phrases & find out how men & women use them. So you might come up with results that when men use the word “suck” it’s often accompanied by, say, “Favre” and when women, or teenaged girls, use “suck” it’s more often with “Bieber”.

So what’s my problem? In the About section, they explain:

We analyzed millions of tweets collected by researchers from the University of Edinburgh between November 2009 and February 2010. For gender differences, we separated the tweets into two subsets as male and female tweets by using the first names of the Twitter users.

So now we can come up with amazing data on the differences between male & female tweeters, right?

Um, no. For starters, (1) I’d like to know where they put Chris, Pat, and Alex. I assume they (2) weeded out any Twitter feeds from groups or organizations, since who is actually doing the tweeting is variable. Then, too, there’s probably (3) a shared computer or 2 (hundred thousand) out there, which means at least a few people are tweeting as people they are not. Plus there are all the (4) intentional gender switches, (5) the genderless/multiply-gendered people who don’t have an option that describes their genders, the (6) emerging trans people who are “trying on” their new gender online first, the (7) guys trying to hit on women by pretending to be women online, (8) the women using male IDs to avoid the detection of said men, etc. etc.

Someone may know you’re a dog, but no one knows if you’re male or female on the internets.

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Curves

I really liked this rant from a plus-sized woman about advice from Lucky magazine on how to hide/diminish her curves:

What I really want and enjoy is shopping for clothes that look good on the body I have. Although it might sound astonishing for some, looking GOOD doesn’t necessarily equate to looking THIN/SMALLER to a lot of us plus sized women. Curves aren’t an embarrassment that we need to wear pieces to diguise’em or use accessories to divert peoples attention from noticing my wide hips. They are there and I find no reason to disguise them…

I’m pleased to see a new generation telling fashion advisers where to stick it.

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Global Gender Diversity Map

PBS has put together an interactive map of third gender traditions from all over the world for the new documentary “Two Spirits”. Their blurb:

On nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as transgender and gay are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).

Yet hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders. Fred Martinez, for example, was not a boy who wanted to be a girl, but both a boy and a girl — an identity his Navajo culture recognized and revered as nádleehí. Most Western societies have no direct correlation for this Native “two-spirit” tradition, nor for the many other communities without strict either/or conceptions of sex, sexuality, and gender. Worldwide, the sheer variety of gender expression is almost limitless. Take a tour and learn how other cultures see gender diversity.

Very cool stuff indeed.