Honestly, if you like me, or anyone who is LGBTQIA-identified, don’t vote for this guy. He hates us.
No DOMA
A second court has ruled DOMA unconstitutional, as per the Equal Protection clause.
This rocks.
WI Court Refuses Domestic Partner Case
The Wisconsin State Supreme Court today refused the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ request to certify the domestic partnership case. I’m working on getting more info, but in the meantime, the short motion is available online .
Last Night
Last night, the DNC made history by adopting a pro-marriage equality platform.
I was flabbergasted and very, very pleased.
It wasn’t necessarily the best decision politically, but it was the right – and historic – choice.
So let’s make sure they weren’t wrong and get Obama re-elected, okay?
Savage Me
My books received a lovely mention in Dan Savage’s Savage Love column this week, when a 23 year old woman wrote in confused by her boyfriend’s desire to be pegged, made-up and corseted. Tristan Taormino was the guest author, standing in for Dan on vacation. & I’m pleased as punch.
Online Support Groups
My online group for trans partners via Yahoo Groups still exists, and is always taking on new members. You can find it here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/engender_partners/
It is open to *all* partners of trans people – male, female, genderqueer, queer, het, etc.
A Modest Proposal
A trans guy puts the video of him proposing to his fiancee up on YouTube and the right wing mocks them.
But he wasn’t having it, and has responded with grace and humor and steeliness:
“To Laura Ingraham, a Fox News anchor who expressed dismay at seeing the news, we just want to say, do not worry. We will absolutely invite you to the wedding,” Scout says. As for Fischer, who Scout accidentally referred to as Miss Brianna Fischer, “We will offer you free LGBT cultural competency training.”
What his fiancee said is what drew me to this story.
There are some “people who think we’re mutants and horrible people,” said Margolies, who is executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network in New York City. “But we’re just regular people struggling to do good in the world.”
This shouldn’t be a very difficult thing to explain, yet I find it is, time after time. The assumption that LGBTQ people – and especially trans people and their partners – are somehow living lives that are intentionally perverse is one that I find even welcoming liberals sometimes express.
We are not trying to be “out there”. We are trying to be happy, like everyone else.
A lot of the time, embracing the idea of being a pervert, or “out there”, is the only thing that keeps you sane, because otherwise, the constant judgment wears you down.
Argentina Raises the Bar
Argentina set the new standard for changes in gender markers on identity documents for trans people:
“The fact that there are no medical requirements at all — no surgery, no hormone treatment and no diagnosis — is a real game changer and completely unique in the world. It is light years ahead of the vast majority of countries, including the U.S., and significantly ahead of even the most advanced countries,” said Eisfeld, who researched the laws of the 47 countries for the Council of Europe’s human rights commission.
In the US, you can get your passport changed with a letter from a doctor but no genital surgery is required, at least. The problems arise in the different ruling of the different states, so in Texas, for insance, a trans woman is always legally male, but she can legally marry her (cis) girlfriend there. Not quite how they expected the law against transness and against same sex marriage to play out, but there you go.
NC
North Carolina looks to pass a law that will make it impossible for same sex couples to have anything that even resembles marriage – a law that’s referred to as a super DOMA. Wisconsin has one in place, too, and I understand, for some, they are meant to uphold a traditional Christian marriage of one man + one woman.
What they do, sadly, is make LGBTQ feel less welcome, cause an increase in bigotry and violence against queer people, and put many children of LGBTQ people further into legal limbo when their parents separate, amongst other things.
I do not understand why civil recognition of my partnership offends people so deeply that they would pass this kind of law.
I don’t understand why people hate gay people so much.
Out of Love
This was written by a partner who calls herself Elf, who wrote it for a trans person who calls herself Elle, “when she got so disoriented & disgusted by the face she sees in the mirror every day that she was going to kill herself. She told me, bitterly, that not having the courage to do so was a sign that she really was a girl.”
We both thought it might be useful and healing to many others of you out there.
My beloved types, How can you look in my face and see L?
She types, I looked in the mirror. I was filled with disgust. I almost threw up.
My beloved was assigned at birth, and lives her life now, as a male.
He has a wife and grown children. His hair’s receding. He looks like, and is, a slim nervous man who’s done physical work much of his life.
L came into my life as a woman in a story. My beloved emailed her to me. After a week he typed, I could be L. Then, later, Could anyone love me if I was L? Could I be your wife if I turned into L?I am trying to understand what it means to be a woman.
If you look at me, you will probably see a skinny woman of 40 with a fuzzy gray topknot. If you look at my beloved, you will most likely see a wiry man of 55 with a round small belly and neatly-trimmed dusky black hair.
Then again, I don’t know you. You may see something completely different.
Perspective is everything.I look at a sheaf of XML printout. I see 300 pages of wasted paper.
I look again. I see a data stream.
I focus. I dig in deep.
I see an audit trail that could rock your world.
I spin around in my swivel chair.
My beloved takes the audit log and turns pale.L could get my beloved fired.
L could get him divorced. He might never see his granddaughter again.
If he was a poor guy, in a rough hood – and he has lived as a poor guy, in a rough hood – L could get him killed.
Being a woman is something that can get you slapped, punched, spit on, killed.
Not me, though, I think. I’m not like L. I’m an ordinary-looking middle-aged lady. I’m safe.
I finish the last sentence and typing it in, late at night, I remember that I’ve been thrown, slapped, and raped. Why do I forget these things?
And who would choose to be a woman?
L takes the risk. Continue reading “Out of Love”