Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
This article about a recent upsurge in attacks against queer/trans people in Venezuela isn’t easy reading, but it is important to get through. We’re reading Stone Butch Blues in my Transgender Lives class just now, and it’s never easy to read or re-read, even.
I tell myself sometimes that I teach this stuff so that some day I won’t have to, or I can teach it only as history, not the present.
If you haven’t seen Stonewall Uprising on PBS’ American Experience yet, do. It’s good stuff. Here’s the first (of nine) chapters:
Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.
A few days ago, some of the teens of the Fox Valley sat down for a talk about LGBTQ issues in high school: bullying, suicide, coming out, gender, sexuality. It’s a cool piece that also highlights some of the safe spaces for youth here.
Watch the full episode. See more Teen Connection.
I was very impressed.
Monica Roberts has been covering a proposed bill call SB 723; her most recent update is here. It’s in the Senate, & what it will do is make it illegal to use a court order about name/gender change to apply for a marriage license. The only reason it’s been proposed is to mess with the legal marriages of trans women to men, such as in the Nikki Araguz.
If you live in TX, call your senators now and tell them to kill this bill. List below the break.
Fair Wisconsin, the large LGBTQA organization in the state, has decided I deserve an award as an activist; I am honestly humbled and ridiculously pleased.
ACTIVIST: Helen Boyd
Author of My Husband Betty and She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband, Helen Boyd is a nationally recognized and trusted voice on issues concerning gender and has championed gender equality for years. She lives in Appleton with her partner Rachel Crowl and teaches gender studies at Lawrence University.
I’ve won as part of their Education Fund Leadership Awards, for which there is a reception on May 4th in Milwaukee. I hope you can join me and Rachel, FAIR and the other honorees that evening.
What an amazing story: a Brazilian volleyball player was heckled with the chant “faggot” during an uber-important match and was shaken by the incident. He came out – acknowledging that he was gay, & that everyone knew it – and the rest of him team showed support by wearing pink shirts, rainbow shirts, and unfurling a huge banner that said “Volleyball against prejudice” and fans brought thundersticks that had the player’s name on them.
Here, we pretend this is all about Kobe Bryant – as if no one else in sports uses these kinds of slurs! Please.: the whole “I didn’t mean gay people when I used ‘fag’ as an insult” is so 1994. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to use words that have been used to oppress, intimidate and threaten people of whatever minority group anymore.
(h/to to SS!)
Safe Space Radio, who did an interview with me a few weeks back (and who just celebrated their 100th show!), has just done an interview with Jen Hudson on the intersections of the lesbian & trans communities.
Jen speaks about how delicate the relationship can be between two oppressed and marginalized groups, and her intention to speak only about her particular experience. She described the forces that bring the two communities together, including gender variance, oppression and risk of violence . . . Jen also spoke about tensions within the communities about the F to M transition and whether it reflects a misogynist rejection of femaleness.
Change.org has a petition up in support of a gay club that’s gotten some homophobic response from city government over noise complaints.
The Cottage, 522 Lucerene Avenue, Lake Worth, FL has been under attack by a small group of local residents who are using the city’s noise ordinance to harass The Cottage. Noise complaints have been made by four residents on almost a daily basis for the past three years. The noise complaints began shortly after The Cottage began its Sunday Tea Dances and branded itself as the only gay-friendly, downtown restaurant in Lake Worth. Many times when the police have responded to a complaint, The Cottage has not even had any live music playing. The police in general are sympathetic and understand that The Cottage is being unfairly targeted but must continue to respond to the calls.
After a year of harassment, The Cottage reached out to the city for assistance. Unfortunately, the City chose to enable and feed the underlying homophobic current, instead of helping a viable and community oriented business as well as honoring its own civil rights ordinance which provides protection for sexual orientation and gender expression.
In May of 2009, Loretta Lutfy, proprietor of The Cottage, along with family friend and local gay rights advocate, Mike Zewe, met with City Manager Susan Stanton to seek assistance to stop the harassment. Instead of receiving support from Ms. Stanton, they were dismissed from her office with homophobic remarks.
Ms. Lutfy says, “She (Stanton) first asked if I would consider stopping the Tea Dance for awhile. I responded that I would close my entire business first. She dismissed Mike and me from the office ending the conversation by saying that “men in dresses, and men dancing with men is offensive. If you continue, you will just have to suffer the consequences.'”
For the next year, The Cottage, knowing that they had no support from the City, felt the only choice was to bear the harassment and hope it would stop. Unfortunately, it has not and Susan Stanton has joined the four complaining residents in their crusade to chip away at the business until it has no choice but to close. Stanton has added to the attack by sending code enforcement daily to The Cottage to look for violations. She went as far to change the hours of the code enforcement office to send employees at all hours of the day and threatened criminal prosecution.
What isn’t mentioned is that Stanton herself is trans; she quite famously & publicly transitioned a few years back, so I’m certainly not outing her.
First, I’d love to hear some verification of these claims from someone in that neck of the woods: I know you’re out there, so either post a comment or send me an email.
& That’s not an April Fool’s joke! Honestly, you’d expect it would be, but it’s not: the IOM released a report that in order to address LGBT health disparities, LGBT health issues need to be studied further.
Seems nutty, right, to find out what people need in order to provide it.
Tammy Baldwin will be introducing an Act (the Ending LGBT Health Disparities Act) based on the IOM’s findings.
Continue reading “Institute of Medicine Recommends Studying LGBT Health Needs”
For the last day of Women’s History Month, I give you Sylvia Rivera, proud, out, trans woman who participated in the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, and only a year later watched as gender and trans rights were disappeared from the new Gay Rights’ movement’s agenda.
On June 27, 1969, Rivera was in the crowd that gathered outside the Stonewall Inn after word spread that it had been raided by police. The sight of arrested patrons being led from the bar by authorities riled the crowd, but it was Rivera who threw one of the first Molotov cocktails that actually initiated the riots and sent Stonewall into the history books.In 1970 Rivera joined the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) and worked on its campaign to pass the New York City Gay Rights Bill. She attracted media attention when she attempted to force her way into closed-door sessions concerning the bill held at City Hall. In spite of Rivera’s (and other drag queens’) participation in the GAA, the organization decided to exclude transgender rights from the Gay Rights Bill so that it would be more acceptable to straight politicians.
Rivera was shocked and betrayed by this decision. She also became disillusioned with the gay rights movement in general and dismayed by the backlash against drag queens that had developed by the mid-1970s.
Perhaps already sensing that transgendered people could not rely on the gay rights movement to advocate for their civil rights, in 1970 Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson had formed a group called Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.). The members of this organization aimed to fight for the civil rights of transgendered people, as well as provide them with social services support.
At this time, Rivera and Johnson began operating S.T.A.R. House in the East Village, which provided housing for poor transgendered youth. S.T.A.R. House lasted for two years, but was then closed because of financial and zoning problems. Although in existence only a short time, S.T.A.R. House is historically significant because it was the first institution of its kind in New York City, and inspired the creation of future shelters for homeless street queens.
Shelters seems like an exaggeration, since the only other I know of is Transy House (which was around the corner from where we lived in Park Slope). I’m pleased to see the Day of Silence and GLSEN are honoring her as well this year.
