Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
when we’re up to.
I’ll be reading with other Queer + Catholic authors on September 4th & 5th in NY. Do come!
It’s the blog’s five year anniverary; amazing that I’ve been doing it this long, after Betty encouraged me to give it a try.
Thanks all, for reading.
I’m not going to share with you all what Betty’s dental surgery is going to cost us in the long run, and instead I’ll just say damn I shoulda been a dentist.
Still, she’s in good hands in CO, and goes for surgery this morning. Keep her in your thoughts, everyone.
(edited to add, 1:24 PM – got the call that she’s out of surgery & that it went well. she’s still under, & is expected to sleep most of the next 24 hours.)
I’ve been invited to participate in a new blog, Invert(e). It’s the blog of Suspect Thoughts press. Apparently those of us who like parentheticals stick together.
Do check it out.
Just to clarify, since a few people have asked: we will indeed be at Dark Odyssey’s Summer Camp this year, which happens from September 10th – 15th. It’s probably our favorite event of the year. I’ll be doing two of my regular workshops at DO: Trans Sex & Identity, and Uneven Libidos.
If I haven’t made clear what we love about this event, let me say: it’s inclusive. Beyond inclusive. The mix of sexualities – queer, straight, BDSM, kinky, leather, swinger, pagan, etc. – is mind-blowing. It’s sex positive in a way that nothing else I’ve experienced is.
It is very trans friendly, but you’ll only want to bring heels that you wear when you’re on your back, not to walk in – most of the camp is grass. There’s a pool, there’s lounge chairs, & there’s plenty of trees to be tied to, if that’s your sort of thing.
(You can check out a bunch of other posts I’ve done about DO over the years we’ve been going to get more of an idea.)
Betty’s off to CO to get some necessary dental surgery – that’s dental, not genital – and will be gone for a few weeks since it’s such extensive surgery. And once again I’m in Brooklyn without her, and I’m always amazed at how purposeless I feel for the first day or so when she’s gone. I’m so used to her coming home and being her big self on the other side of the living room, playing songs for me or changing the channel or telling me about what’s going on in the lefty blogosphere.
What’s funny to me is how much I’ve always liked and appreciated time to myself, and how unused to having time alone I’ve become.
I’ll be reading with other Queer + Catholic authors on September 4th & 5th in NY. Do come!
Queer and Catholic is an essay collection that examines the culture of how being raised Catholic informs and influences, positively or negatively, our queerness and how our queerness affects our Catholicism, our vestigial Catholic nature or even our flight from and continued struggle with the ʽthe Church of Rome.ʼ Whether we embrace or reject our Catholic upbringings, they affect and shape who we are and bump up against our queer identities. Examining the culture of Catholicism, rather than the dogma or letter of it, these essays and short stories do not seek to address whether or not queers and the Catholic Church can reconcile or how and why the church should change, but instead explore the impact that growing up Catholic and queer has on us as individuals, writers, and political agents.
Join editor Amie M. Evans and contributors Helen Boyd, Joseph de Marco, Anthony Easton, Stephen Greco, Vince Sgambati, Charlie Vazquez and Emanuel Xavier as they read from their contributions to the anthology.
edited to add: the San Francisco reading is tonight at SF’s Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, 6PM.
Nancy Nangeroni & Gordene MacKenzie, who used to bring you GenderTalk, are now bringing you GenderVision. We were up in their neck of the woods last fall and did an interview with them for GenderVision, which they’ve now got up at their website, www.gendervision.org.
A lot of our conversation is about partner advocacy within the trans community, the role of partners, and transitioning from within a committed relationship. It’s a lengthy interview, about an hour, and amazingly enough Betty talks quite a bit about her own partner advocacy, and why she speaks so little about her own experience.
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