Category: media

tv shows, magazine articles, movies

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Not Dancing

So I found this interesting article – way more measured and frankly, sympathetic, than most articles about transness that throw around the word “mutilation,” so instead of ignoring it as I’d normally do, I responded.

I certainly understand where you’re coming from, Josie, but tell me this: what do we do with the people who could be either? Who are both?

My husband is. She never knows what bathroom to use. We worry about someone disagreeing with the M on her license.

A lot of people who are innately gender variant, or androgynous, may transition only because more cards fall on the F than on the M when they fall from the sky.

And at the moment, the only way to get your ID changed is to get genital surgery.

I think a lot more of them would keep their healthy, operative genitals if that weren’t the case, but you try telling the DMV you want neither gender marked on your license.

Go ahead.

Or, just read some of Dr. Harry Benjamin’s work. People have tried to relieve transsexualism via therapy, spirituality, and all sorts of other non-operative means. But what Benajamin notices is that it doesn’t work. So he fixed their body (since their minds wouldn’t be changed).

There are plenty of us working within the trans community who would like to see people be able to peacably live as either gender, or both, or fluid. But living that way is, for now, brutally hard work. I’d agree with you, philosophically, if I didn’t see what my husband and other friends go through every day, all day long, day after day after day. The world just beats the crap out of them, puts them at greater risk for hate crimes, and insists on them being “ma’am” or “sir” when it comes to buying a cup of coffee to using a public toilet.

So, join us. Make the world safe for the gender variant, with us.

helen boyd
www.myhusbandbetty.com

There are a lot of other ways to respond, but this was the one that struck me. I’m sure some of you can add other important facts. Just please, be polite and be reasoned.

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Playing Bully

The folks who brought us Grand Theft Auto are at it again, bringing kids (& one has to assume, some adults) a game called Bully – where the point is to bully or be bullied.

There are those who think that a game that makes “play” out of bullying is despicable. But in fairness it should be pointed out that this is not a shoot ‘em up game, and there are no guns or blood. Some experts believe it can be a healthy outlet for kids to get these sorts of fantasies out of their systems on the screen and not in the real world. On the other hand, the game shows that to survive the bully culture you need to become one.

I’m going to guess there is no way to bring about a peaceful solution to being bullied.

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This Bitch Has a Name

An interesting essay in The Washington Post by Lonnae O’Neal Parker, about her experience as an African-American woman who once loved HipHop but doesn’t anymore – for the sake of her daughters.

My daughter can’t know that hip-hop and I have loved harder and fallen out further than I have with any man I’ve ever known.
That my decision to end our love affair had come only after years of disappointment and punishing abuse. After I could no longer nod my head to the misogyny or keep time to the vapid materialism of another rap song. After I could no longer sacrifice my self-esteem or that of my two daughters on an altar of dope beats and tight rhymes.

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Regarding Transgender Tapestry #110

I received my copy of Transgender Tapestry #110 the other day, and so turned immediately to the Book Review section, as I’d been asked to write a review of Richard/Alice Novic’s Alice in Genderland quite a while back.

I had also been told, by Richard Novic and by then-editor Dallas Denny, that Richard Novic didn’t like my review, and had requested TT run a more favorable review instead. Ms. Denny opted to run both reviews, side by side, and told me as much. I was okay with her decision, even though I found Novic’s request somewhat odd, as I wrote what was at worst a mixed review, but by no means a bad one. (I even used the phrase, “highly recommended” which is generally not found in a bad review.)

That was as much as I knew until I received my copy in the mail the other day. It was quite a surprise to see, in addition to my review and the requested 2nd review, a note by Richard Novic effectively rebutting my own review and plainly stating “I was hoping that as a reviewer, she might rise above the way my book affected her personally. . .” In addition, she mentioned how “surprised” she was that TT had chosen me to review her “life story.”

For the record, then, a few corrections.

(1) Richard Novic specifically requested, by email, that I review Alice in Genderland for TT. Suffice it to say the new editor of TT, Denise LeClair, and the old editor of TT, Dallas Denny, both have a copy of said email.

(2) The review I did submit had been re-written several times after I let Richard Novic read it and before I sent it to TT. She was not happy with my original draft(s), so I softened a good deal of my criticism of it.

(3) I sent Richard Novic my review of her book beforehand only as a personal favor, and in fact re-wrote the piece some only because we had become somewhat friendly over time. He had written to me on previous occasions, having read my book, to ask advice about publishing houses & the like, and I gave her what information I could about the advantage of publishing with a house as opposed to independently. I do not and did not harbor any personal animosity toward Richard Novic, but I have learned my lesson: I will not let someone read a review I’ve written before submitting it for publication again.

(4) Dallas Denny was not responsible for the inclusion of Alice Novic’s “note” about my review, having resigned her post as editor between the time she submitted the two reviews and the actual publication of TT #110. She has said she found the publication of such a rebuttal in TT an embarrassment both to Richard Novic and to TT.

(5) Generally speaking, authors do not rebut their reviews. It’s considered bad form. They may occasionally factually correct a reviewer, if anything.

(6) The announcement in the same issue of TT that Richard Novic is to be one of TT’s regular columnists makes the publication of that note even more unprofessional and smacks of favoritism.

Finally, I want to state that I stand by my review. The idea that my “personal feelings” overwhelmed my professional considerations is laughable; after all, half of what I do professionally is advocate for partners! More than anything, however, I wanted people – crossdressers especially – to understand how rare and highly individual Dr. Novic’s situation is, so that they would not make the tragic mistake of expecting their own wives to accept their having boyfriends on the side. As it is, so many wives are already stretched to the limit in terms of accepting and honoring their husbands’ crossdressing. I will also reiterate that I found Richard Novic’s honesty about his own bisexualism and his journey toward self-acceptance laudable and useful.

If people would like to read more reviews of the book – including some of my more personal feelings about it – do check the thread on our message boards where some of our regular posters chimed in as to their own feelings about the book, too.

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Not Jon Benet

Last night on America’s Next Top Model, Tyra Banks did her usual suspenseful schpiel: “I have before me 12 young girls who have a chance at becoming America’s Next Top Model blah blah blah.” Except I’m not sure it was her usual schpiel, because “young girls” just rang out at me, and I’ve seen the show before and it never did on any other occasion. Does she always say that? I mean it’s one thing to not call them women – since half of them aren’t over the age of 18, I don’t think – but “young” girls, too? To me “young girls” means 8 or 9 year olds, not 17 or 18 year olds. Young women would be far more appropriate, no? I mean if they really need to use “girl” instead, then how about just “girls” – 12 hopeful girls, 12 beautiful girls, 12 painfully-overdramatic girls, even.