It seems medieval Europe was a lot hipper than we might assume.
A Letter That Needs Re-Reading
A woman named Sharon Underwood, who is the mother of a gay son, wrote a letter to of Vermont’s Concord Monitor that was published on April 30, 2000.
I found it here, via Bilerico, & I’m reprinting it here in its entirety, below the break. Read it. Remind yourself of it every time one of our presidential candidates waffles over homosexuality during the debates. Continue reading “A Letter That Needs Re-Reading”
Monica Helms: The DNC Is Ready for Us
In this essay posted on Monica Roberts’ TransGriot blog, Monica Helms of the Transgender Americans Veterans Association (TAVA) talks about her experiences working with the DNC which she concludes by writing:
What I personally would like to see is an increase in registered Democrats in the transgender community and to see an increase in transgender people volunteering with the DNC at a local level. I would also hope to live long enough to see an openly transgender person speak from the podium at the democratic National Convention and to see an openly transgender person elected to Congress. This is truly the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION in our lifetimes. It is time for the Democratic Party to fully recognize us a part of their party, on all levels. They appear to be doing that. Now, it’s time for us to help Democrats on all levels of government to win in 2008.
Tucker Carlson: Not Condoning Gay Bashing
The Larry Craig story just keeps going. Tucker Carlson, after saying that he & a friend roughed up a man who hit on him in a DC public bathroom, now says he & his friend only held the man until security arrived. He explains:
“Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men’s room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men’s room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.”
“Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That’s absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn’t angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.”
Not condoning the use of violence against anyone, much less gay men in public bathrooms (or the ‘not gay men looking for gay sex’ types like Larry Craig, even), but I do think it’s different when you’re not being hit on but assaulted, or when you’re not a peer to the person hitting on you but a minor.
Not that any of that makes Tucker Carlson any less of a bonehead.
Here We Go Again
So it seems that numbnut J. Michael Bailey has gotten more press, this time in a New York magazine article published in June that’s just now been picked up by feministing.com. Apparently Bailey, this time around, can tell whether someone’s gay by measuring their ring and index finger.
Next up: J. Michael Bailey gets taken seriously for telling people that they have the sissy gene by asking people whether they look at their nails by holding their hands palms down or if they bend the tops of their fingers over with their hands palms-up.
LGBT Issues Presidental Debate
Tonight on Logo, a few of the presidential candidates will be asked questions specifically concerning LGBT Issues. It’s the first ever LGBT-specific debate that will be televised, and I’m quite curious as to what the media response will be – if there is a media response.
As of late July, the candidates participating are:
- Hillary Clinton,
- Christopher Dodd,
- John Edwards,
- Mike Gravel,
- Dennis Kucinich,
- Barack Obama, and
- Bill Richardson.
Walk a Mile in These Shoes
The New York State Senate leadership – including Senator Joe Bruno – continues its tradition of blocking the advancement of gay rights by preventing the marriage equality bill from making it to the Senate floor for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote.
So NOW-NYC is asking us to send him a message: send him your old shoes with a note asking him to allow the marriage bill to be heard in the Senate.
Mail them to: Senator Joseph L. Bruno Room 909, Legislative Office Building, Albany NY 12247.
Bathrooms in Arizona, Letters to The Advocate
Michele DeLaFreniere, a trans woman in Arizona, is suing a bar that kept her from entering.
The bar’s owner objects to having been quoted as saying he doesn’t want “her kind” in the place, but does admit that he’s blocked trans women from coming to the bar because of the bathroom issue: trans women were being harassed in the men’s room, and female bar patrons didn’t want the trans women in the women’s restroom.
As the story was reported in The Advocate, Anderson told the AP, “There was no place I could put these people.â€
Two letters to the editor about the issue weigh in on the side of keeping women’s restrooms free of trans women, one calling them “men” and the other calling them “‘women’.”
Yet another “women’s space” issue, but I’m not sure the best answer is simply to insist that trans women use the ladies’ rooms. Education, unisex bathrooms, – surely there are more intermediate ways of handling this instead of just telling women – who may be ignorant but also fearful, for good reason, of sharing bathroom space with people they view as male. Convincing women raised female that trans women are not male requires a hell of a lot of education, which will take time, so what do we do in the meanwhile?
(My thanks to Joanne Herman for the heads-up.)
(Xposted to Trans Group Blog.)
GIP August Events
There’s two events coming organized by the Center that I wanted to let people know about.
The first one is Trans on the Sands, on August 12th, from 11am – 5pm: a day at the beach for transgender, gender non-confirming, genderqueer people, their families and allies, at Coney Island. Meet directly across from the boardwalk entrance to the New York Aquarium under a ‘GIP’ sign.
The second is a Femme Symposium, on August 18th, from 11am – 5PM: an opportunity for self-identified femmes in the New York City metropolitan area to socialize and connect with other femmes. It provides femmes and our allies with space to discuss issues and topics of relevance and is intended to increase the visibility of femmes. All who attend are entitled to explore their own definition of femme throughout the day. While this event is for, about and by femmes, allies are welcome. There is a $10 entrance fee to cover costs, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. For further information: nycfemmesymposium@gmail.com.
The Importance of Being Earnest, or Accurate, or Both
A reviewer recently misquoted me as having written that I was called a “dyke” when I was a kid, when in fact the word I used was “butch.”
That mistake, while minor on the surface, has got me thinking.
The difference between the words is that essential difference between sexual orientation and gender presentation, which are often conflated in the first place, but which I tried to dissect in She’s Not the Man I Married. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t issues like this that cause some of the rift between the gay/lesbian community and the trans community; I’d imagine, for many masculine-leaning lesbians, “butch” and “dyke” are pretty much the same slur. But the thing is, “butch” bothered me – because it was true. I was butch. Being called a dyke never had the same effect, exactly because I knew myself to be heterosexual.
Of course reading that kind of error made me wonder about how much the critic could have actually gotten out of my book, or how much she might have been willing to get out of it. I’m fascinated by the ways gender variance is allocated to gay & lesbian people but not to heterosexuals; it’s a big theme of the book. For someone for whom the words “dyke” and “butch” are the same thing, I must seem like I’m splitting hairs. But the review, alas, did end:
(I)t’s an earnest book that might appeal to those questioning the nature of gender identity, marriage, and social attitudes about both.
& I did learn, quite a long time ago, the vital importance of being earnest.