Category: LGBTQ

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Queer + Catholic NYC Readings

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.

  • Thursday, September 4 at 6:30PM, CUNY Grad Center, 365 5th Avenue, Skylight Room, (Rm 9100, T. 212-817-7000)
  • Friday, September 5th at 7PM, Bluestockings, 172 Allen St (btwn Rivington and Stanton Street).

edited to add: the San Francisco reading is tonight at SF’s Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, 6PM.

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Calling All Femmes

Femmes are having a conference in Chicago in August – hey, did anyone think about how much that’s going to suck for people who wear makeup? – and speaking: Dorothy Allison & Julia Serano, amongst others. From their Mission Statement:

“We are using this term (femme) to specifically and intentionally include lesbians and same-gender-loving women as well as genderqueers, transwomen, and folks of every sex and gender who identify as Femme and see themselves as part of LGBTQIA/SGL and genderphile communities.”

First time I’ve heard the term genderphile, which is meant to mean anyone who loves gender. Hanne Blank used it in her keynote speech at the 2006 Femme Conference (pdf).

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Dallas: Another LGBt Rift

A gay bar, and its gay bar owner, have decided to ban drag queens and trans women from their “Trashy Tuesday” night – exactly because the bar night is so crowded that they don’t have time to babysit the bad apples of their crowd.

“How do I separate one draq queen that is being bad from others?” Moore said. “We don’t have the time on Tuesday nights with all the people in here to sit there and tell them apart from one another. If a drag queen misbehaves one week and then the next comes back in a different outfit I wouldn’t be able to recognize them. That’s why I don’t want any of them in here on Tuesdays.”

Wow, now that IS tricky! How about you just ban the person who does the bad stuff?

(from The Dallas Voice. More at their blog. Thanks to Ben for the tip.)

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Pride Rant

A great rant about Pride by Joe.My.God, which he wrote back in 2005 after watching a NYC Pride Parade:

Because even if Pride doesn’t change many minds in the outside world, it’s our PARTY, darlings. It’s our Christmas, our New Year’s, our Carnival. It’s the one day of the year that all the crazy contingents of the gay world actually come face to face on the street and blow each other air kisses. And wish each other “Happy Pride!” Saying “Happy Pride!” is really just a shorter, easier way of saying “Congratulations on not being driven completely batshit insane! Way to go for not taking a rifle into a tower and taking out half the town! Well done, being YOURSELF!”

I’m not worried what the outside world thinks about the drag queens, the topless bulldaggers, or the nearly naked leatherfolk. It’s OUR party, bitches. If you think that straight America would finally pull its homokinder to its star-spangled bosom once we put down that glitter gun, then you are seriously deluding yourself. Next year, if one of the Christian camera crews that show up to film our “debauched” celebrations happen to train their cameras on you, stop dancing. And start PRANCING.

It seemed a great way to end Pride Month.

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Healthcare Proxy Forms

A couple who’ve been together for 18 years went on vacation, on a cruise, with three of their four children. One of them had a massive stroke as their ship was about to leave port, which meant she received medical care at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, where her partner was told the couple made the mistake of being in “an anti-gay city and state” and refused to let her partner in to see her, but for five minutes, as she was dying.

She died about 18 hours later. Both women were only 39 years old.

This is what DOMA & all this other anti-gay bullshit leads to, but please queer folks, fill out your healthcare proxies. You can find NYS’s here, and here in .pdf format. If people have or find links for these forms in their state, please post them below, or send them to me via email & I can post them.

More instructions and state-specific forms below the break. Continue reading “Healthcare Proxy Forms”

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You May Now Kiss the Groom (in CA)

A very happy wedding day to all the Californians who are finally able to get married to the ones they love.

It’s unfortunate how much a basic civil right has to be fought for, & unfortunate in so many ways (and not even the ones Mattilda goes into).

And I know many people are bothered by it because it’s not an economic issue, and that more than anything, LGBT people need employment non-discrimination protection. And we do, we do. But I’ll make this argument, as a legally married queer: marriage is also an economic pact. It’s not romantic, but it is something. It’s about being able to be a dependent on your spouse’s health insurance (which saves you money). It’s about being able to live together (which saves you money). It’s about getting Social Security benefits. Amongst other things.

So congratulations, bride & bride, and groom & groom: you may now fight with your spouse about money, & forever have your credit record linked to theirs.

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Allies, Family & Partners

I wanted to point out a new section of my links/blogroll, which is for allies, family & partners. Right now it’s got Abigail Garner’s Damn Straight, Monica CL’s A Seat on the SOFFA, Annie Rushden’s Gardens in Bloom, COLAGE’S Kids of Trans pages, Jonni P’s Trans Married, and PFLAG’s TNET.

If people know of other partners, allies, or family members who regularly blog on glbT issues, do let me know so I can add them. Please, not just LGB allies; they have to regularly address trans issues and need to be currently blogging with some consistency and some history.