NCTE’s 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality:
#13 Support the Day of Silence.
The Boys
Aren’t they beautiful?! And today, they’re Irish, but they’re definitely not marching in NYC’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. When is the AOH going to get over it already?!
Oops, They Did It Again…
More than a year ago now, SAMHSA asked a few therapists – including Reid Vanderbergh – to change the terminology of a workshop title – to a title that left off the LGBT altogether.
This year – as if to celebrate the anniversary of that fiasco – they’ve magically removed information geared toward LGBT people.
You can write Rep. Tammy Baldwin(D-Wis.), who has called for an investigation into the matter, to give her more reasons the LGBT information should be returned to the website. (Please don’t do so by coming off like a crazed loon, however.)
Received via Reid, via Smart Brief:
The federal government has removed information geared toward the LGBT population from its Substance Abuse & Mental Services Administration Web site. The move follows a letter to the government protesting the presence of that information, but the government says the information was scheduled to be removed anyway; Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is calling for an investigation into the matter.
3/6/06 = #10
NCTE’s 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality:
#10 Donate money to an organization providing direct services for transgender people.
If You Haven't Heard
South Dakota has just made abortion illegal, state-wide. No exceptions – not for the health of the mother, for rape, or for incest.
So I think South Dakota needs a new state slogan, yes? Here’s my entry:
South Dakota: The Inbred State
I’m sure some of you clever folks can come up with better ones.
This law is an attempt to take Roe down, absolutely. And in the meantime, women in South Dakota will now have to travel across state lines, at much greater expense, to have a safe, legal abortion. Greater expense often means delay, which means abortion later in the pregnancy, which means great health risks to the mother.
NYS Being Sued By Feds
This is really unbelievable (but predictable) to me. New York State is being sued by the Feds for our old voting machines.
Considering the crap that’s gone on in Ohio, I’m really wondering if what the Feds have a problem with is who we vote for, not how. Just keep Diebold out of the modernizing, please.
At least we come up with 4 when we put 2+2 into our cranky old machines.
2/27/06 = #9
NCTE’s 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality:
#9 Change the Policy of an Organization You Belong To.
Monday in New Jersey
For anyone who can get to West Creek, NJ, this Monday night at 7PM, please do. A substitute teacher who happens to be trans is being challenged on her right to a job.
For more information.
Belonging
Donna mentioned recently that she won’t join some organization (I think it was an alumnae association) until they add the T for Transgender as right now the group’s title is the Gay and Lesbian ________.
And it got me thinking that one of the ironies of being someone who writes about trans issues but isn’t trans myself is that I can’t join the LGBT Writers’ Group, or Authors Group, or Alumni Association, or really anything. I’m not, per se, LGBT. And yet obviously I am by association – actually by marriage, which is even more ironic – and maybe even embarassing – in LGBT groups. It occurred to me that there is something odd, & mayhaps political, about this issue, because in some ways it’s not just about social groups, but about interest, and that because membership in groups that discuss LGBT issues are generally only joined by people who are LGBT themselves, there is an assumption that no one who isn’t LGBT would be interested in LGBT issues.
I’m not quite sure what to think of that.
I’ve been asked if men can join feminist organizations, and for the most part, they can (unless the org in question is a radical lesbian or separatist or both type of feminist organization). Because there’s no requirement that you have to be a woman to be a feminist: you simply have to believe that women are equal to men and should be treated so economically, educationally, legally, etc.
Having been to a very multi-culti college, it never occurred to me, at the time, that many people I knew belonged to student associations that had to do with their identity, as the ones I belonged to were based on interest – things like NYPIRG, or the fiction magazine editorial team, and later, PBK. I can’t say I sought hard for a Suburban-but-Working-Class Women Writers of Polish extraction group, or a Youngest Daughters of Large Catholic Families group, or some other group of which I could have been a member because of my identity, and I certainly didn’t start any.
But it is odd, isn’t it? Maybe I should just start a group for Allies of Causes Not Directly Influenced by Said Ally’s Identity, or The Underdog Society, or even a group for Partners of People with Important Minority Identities.
But maybe not. Maybe I should just get one of those I’m not a lesbian but my girlfriend is t-shirts and call it a day.
I'm #8
The NCTE has started a list of “52 Things You Can Do For Transgender Equality” campaign, and they’ve made creating a blog/online community Thing #8 – and used me as an example. There’s a quote from me about the boards & the blog, so thanks all for making this site something to keep doing.
It’s a cool campaign, and you can see 8 of the 52 Things on their site. They’re adding one a week.