It looks like I’ll be one of a few readers reading our pieces that will appear in the Queer + Catholic
Tragedy After Tragedy
If the killing of Lawrence King wasn’t sad enough, there are too many other stories — all murders of trans POC that took place this year.
This article from The Root has a list.
And this murder, committed a little while back, has recently come to more widespread attention, as has the murder of Simmie Williams.
My students have asked, because they’re reading Stone Butch Blues, if the violence against gender diverse people is still as bad as it was then. And what can I say? Ask Lawrence King? Ask Adolphus Simmons? Ask Sanesha Stewart? We can’t. They’ve all been killed as a result of trans/homophobic violence. The daily threat might not feel so great for many of us. But that doesn’t mean people who don’t conform to gender norms aren’t at greater risk.
I so long for a new president who will get gender identity included in Federal Hate Crimes protection, whether it does any good or not. What I want is to see articles written about people like Sanesha Stewart that at least respect their choice of pronouns, as well as articles that don’t ask what the person was doing at the time – as if what a person is doing at the time she’s murdered makes it more acceptable for her to have been murdered! When are the powers-that-be going to understand is that sometimes all you have to “do” is be queer to be killed?!
The news also came through this week that Gabrielle Pickett, twin sister of Chanelle Pickett, was killed during the summer of 2003. Chanelle was killed in 1996.
I’m just tired this week. Tired of counting the dead. Tired of feeling so sullen and leaden with grief.
Butch Borders
My class has expressed a lot of confusion as to where the thin line is between butch & FTM, so I had them watch S. Bear Bergman read “I Know What Butch Is,” the first chapter of hir Butch Is a Noun.
Should clarify everything, no?
Rhymes with Sangria?
Over the weekend I discovered a fantastic resource – Zagria’s Gender Variant Biographies Blog. What remarkable work! I’ve been scanning the entries for the past year or so, and so far, this one about a photo subject of WeeGee’s is my favorite.
Do go check it out, & from here on in you’ll also find a link to it in my Trans Resources blogroll.
Press Release: NCTE Mourns the Loss of Congressman Tom Lantos
Lantos was thought to have introduced the first pro-transgender effort in the U.S. Congress – the resolution he introduced would have condemned, “all violations of internationally recognized human rights norms based on the real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of an individual.”
The only survivor of the Nazi Holocaust ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Rep. Lantos was a strong supporter of human rights for all people. He was a co-sponsor in 2007 of both the federal hate crimes bill that passed the House of Representatives and of the unified and inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 2015) that was eventually abandoned this fall.
Our thoughts are with the family and friends of this brave leader.
For more about Lantos, do check the Mercury News article about him.
Defend Drag in Dupont Circle?
Surely it can’t be true that a neighborhood association in one of the gayest neighborhoods of the US is taking issue with a local club’s drag show? Surely not. There must be more to it.
(Or there might not. Via feministing.)
Not Mine
I just found out that my publishers missed the deadline to nominate my book She’s Not the Man I Married for a Lambda Literary Award. Considering that it’s probably the only award that has a Transgender category at all, I’m – well, beyond words about how shitty this is.
It’s like the last kick in the ass from 2007 arriving a little late.
But congrats to all my friends & fellow writers on the list: Reid Vanderburgh, Eli Clare, Julia Serano, Mattilda, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. May the best person win.
Good Riddance, 2007 – #16
2007’s Most Unasked Question
“Why do we still pay cops to troll public bathrooms for homosexual pickups?”
It’s World AIDS Day
According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, including 2.5 million children. During 2007 some 2.5 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.
Around 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations. But HIV today is a threat to men, women and children on all continents around the world.
Started on 1st December 1988, World AIDS Day is not just about raising money, but also about increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education. World AIDS Day is important in reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.
Mara Keisling on C-SPAN
If you haven’t seen it yet, Mara Keisling’s appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal last week is worth viewing, and apparently isn’t going to be online forever, so do go watch it within the next week or so.
(You want the 11/10/2007 show.)
My favorite bit is when the woman calls to talk about how the founding fathers were Christian, & how Mara shouldn’t be allowed to talk at all, & Mara drinks her coffee stone-faced like Buster Keaton, the smile only showing at the very corners of her mouth, after which she explains, again, that the Bill in fact exempts religious institutions. (It’s at about 1:17 or so.)
& As one caller put it, I agree with him: Mara is a brilliant woman, and I’m happy to see her doing advocacy. That anyone said, “you can’t be a full person if you have to hide all the love in your life,” on Washington Journalis amazing, but I’m pleased as punch it was someone talking about LGBT rights.