Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
I can’t imagine a better way to commemorate 9/11 than by having a federal judge call out DADT for violating the First Amendment.
A federal judge in Southern California on Thursday declared the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment rights of gay and lesbians.
Abridge no speech, indeed.
Oh, right: fascists burn books, can we get that clear already? No one else.
I was sent the link to a cool little blog called Killing the Buddha, and specifically to this post about “The Feminine Boy Project” which attempted to rid young boys of their femininity, and of course, their homosexuality. The blog’s author specifically calls out the NYT for leaving out Lovaas’ involvement in the project:
Well, George “Rentboy-renter” Rekers is no gay activist . . . Just last year, Rekers described Lovaas as not only critical for the funding and oversight of the study, but also for its planning. In fact, the way Rekers tells it, Ivar Lovaas came up with the idea in the first place.
…which is just a smidge more than being tangentially involved, no?
So if anyone out there has more information on Rekers’ statement, let me know.
Two interesting articles about admissions and LGBT students have come across my desk recently: One is about colleges seeking gay applicants, and the other is about asking students, on the Common Application, what their orientation is.
As much as I’d rather see LGBTQ students at a college that really does welcome them, I hate anything that seems like it might be ghettoizing students. For some, their orientation is barely important; what med school they want to get into is most important.
But at the same time, that anyone’s even asking the questions means there is starting to be more consistent recognition that gender and sexual orienation are important aspects of identity.
Now if we oculd just get them to make the question about gender a blank to fill in instead of a choice that dichotimizes our genders.
Thoughts?
Yep, it sure is. There is no decent legal argument, imho, in preventing citizens from full & equal rights.
“The exclusion (of gays from marriage) exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.” – U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker striking down Prop 8.
Okay, so I saw My Beautiful Launderette a dozen times in movie theaters. Really. It was the closest “gay porn” i could get my hands on at the time.
Apparently the lesbian couple in The Kids Are All Right watch gay porn, and people are confused.
The fantastic Tristan Taormino explains:
“Our feminism remains with us when we grab the remote,” said Tristan Taormino, a sex educator and producer of erotica. “So when there’s no women around, it… gives queer women the ability to get swept up in the action of the film without thinking, ‘Who is this woman? Is she having a good time? Is she coerced?’ With gay porn, for a second, we can go there and not think about politics and sexism… there’s something about removing women from the equation that’s freeing.”
She added: “You don’t have to want to have sex with a man to be attracted to masculinity in a specifically sexual context.”
& For (queer) women who like men, it’s just more of a good thing, no? (I’m beginning to think that penises and breasts are just universally interesting/attractive, no matter sexual orientation.)
Eight protestors stopped traffic on the Vegas strip in order to get Harry Reid to act on the pending ENDA legislation:
Fantastic, all of you & thank you for a creative, cool way to do it.
(via The Advocate)
Congratulations to Argentina for being the first Latin American country to legalize same sex marriage.
In Spain it’s been legal for a while.
Which is my way of saying: not all primarily Catholic countries, & not all Catholics, are bigots.
Good news, in a states’ rights kind of way:
BOSTON (AP) — A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled that a federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples’ rights in two separate challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA…. Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.
“The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid,” Tauro wrote in a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley.
OutHistory.org announced the winners of its “Since Stonewall Local Histories Contest” on Monday, June 28, exactly 41 years after Stonewall and 1st place went to a trans oriented exhibit.
1st – “Man-i-fest: FTM Mentorship in San Francisco from 1976 – 2009,” created by Meghan Rohrer, documents Lou Sullivan’s transition from female to male over the course of thirty years, with evidence drawn from Sullivans’ photos and letters, as well as video footage of interviews he did with the mainstream and community press, and medical professionals. D’Emilio and Meyer praised “the exhibit’s attention to the less studied FTM transition,” and noted “the critical role of mentors in these transitions is remarkable.”
Continue reading “Trans Exhibit Takes OutHistory.org’s 1st Place”
Entrepreneur Shaz Riley has started a clothing company catering to butch women. It’s about time: menswear made for women which de-emphasizes bust line and doesn’t make room for package.
What I find amazing is that on Joe.My.God’s post about it, there are people who don’t seem to understand that butch women are women.
Sometimes the cluelessness in the LGBTQ community about gender identities and expressions blows my mind.