It seems we’ve made it to podcast… a Detroit-based podcaster and blogger reviewed My Husband Betty recently (and her advice to people near death is very, very funny, & unfortunately, very close to the mark for many people). You can listen online or download the mp3.
Check it out here.
Hollywood
I’m a little upset that they (Lifetime, and Sony Pictures) have chosen a male actor for the role of Gwen Araujo. I just don’t get the point of it – why not have a girl play her? Gwen did not experience 20 years of testosterone, and she never lived as a man at all. Maybe as a boy, but even that – very briefly. Shoot, she didn’t get to live long at all, much less as either gender.
Not only does it make me sad but it frustrates me, too. I just think, after all she went through, we might have given her that. But of course, not everyone agrees with me.
The guy they cast may do a good job, but still.
Years ago I wrote a paper about how I was tired of books about women where the heroine of the story died at the end. I think I’d just read Chopin’s The Awakening, but it could have been lots of others. When do strong women get to live? was the final line of the paper, and now, (ahem) years later, I find myself asking the same thing about transpeople in movies.
Oscar
Jon Stewart, in the opening lines of his Oscar hosting:
Welcome, Ladies, Gentlemen (pause) … Felicity.
Jon, you didn’t have to do it. And you really shouldn’t have.
TG Life Interview
I was interviewed for this month’s TG Life – in the Celebrity Spotlight.
Do check it out.
… I think a lot of transpeople want to be attractive for being women or men, which is fine, but I think those of us who love you all tend to love the transness itself. Not the issues, not the narcissism – but the very fact of someone who transcends or combines or expresses more than one gender.
Trans for $200, Alex
Tonight “Trans” was a category on Jeopardy, and there wasn’t anything about transvestites or transgender or transsexuals. Trans-Canada things, and Trans-Continentals, but no trans as in gender.
Sometimes I wonder how out of touch I am these days.
AIS on House
Not to give the whole “surprise” of tonight’s House episode away… but since the show has already aired: the teenage heroin addict who is being sexually abused by her own father is – drumroll, please! – AIS. He doesn’t use that term to describe her – and in fact refers to her as him, but more on that in a minute – but instead says she has a kind of hermaphroditism. Once I get the transcript I’ll be sure of exactly what he said.
House did refer to her as him for a reason – and that’s because her sexually abusive father is in the same room when he figures it out. Figuring the guy is going to be a homophobic asshole as well as a sexually abusive father, it’s a sure way to get the sexual abuse to stop.
Bitch Does Feminism
This month’s issue of Bitch magazine, which is celebrating the magazine’s 10th anniversary, has a tidy little article on the history and definitions of feminism. It goes from Suffrage to the “I’m not a feminist, but…” waves of feminism, describing key points, debates, activists/writers and texts. It’s very much worth reading if you’re new to feminism, so you can parse the difference between a radical feminist and a sex radical and a pro-sex feminist.
Do check it out. It looks like this:
Bait & Switch
The use of the word ‘transgender’ to mean ‘transsexual’ seems to have become common parlance, such as in this brief blurb about Larry King’s upcoming interview with Felicity Huffman:
Wednesday, February 15 — Larry King Live — CNN 9:00 p.m.
“Felicity Huffman and Dolly Parton of ‘Transamerica.’ Plus, people
who’ve had transgender operations take us inside their world.”
And I have to say, this is probably the worst case I’ve seen. I can understand why transsexual individuals might want to use transgender when they’re transitioning at work, but c’mon! – if the whole point is to talk to people who’ve had “the surgery” then just use transsexual, please.
Because now, more often than not, when I talk to someone less-informed (ie, of the media) I often tell them briefly about our situation. This is how the conversation will go:
Person: Your husband isn’t transgender, though, right?
Me: Yes, Betty is transgender.
Person: So she’s had the surgery?
Me: Uh, no. Transgender isn’t the same as transsexual. Transgender is an umbrella term, blah blah blah…
Anyway, nothing to get hell-bent about, but it does bother me transsexualism and transition-track is effectively eclipsing all the other ways of being trans – and there are other ways of being trans, dammit.
TransNation Columns
An FTM journalist named Jacob Anderson-Minshall who did an interview with me for this past month’s Curve magazine is writing a column called TransNation, and I like it. He’s done columns on the NCTE’s Andy Marra, on Calpernia Addams, Gunner Scott of GenderCrash, and columns on the increasing visibility of trans people in the media.
Keep an eye out for the column; it’s good stuff.
Last Minute Cut
As it turns out, we were cut from Inside Edition at the last minute due to some “late breaking news.” The plan is to show our clip at some other time, but I have no idea when.
And in the meantime, Betty auditioned for and got a role in a play called Wolfpit today. More news as we get it.