& for those who like to group all Catholics into one huge monolith, I will put money on Senator Savino being Catholic.
(h/t to Megan for this one)
New York Fail
New York is supposed to be hip & progressive, people! I mean, honestly: this is pathetic.
Really Equal
A straight couple has applied for civil partner benefits, not marriage, in the UK.
They are the first to do so & in so doing are hoping to point out the inequality of the situation.
Well done, Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle.
(thanks to Julie on our boards)
Trans Partner Support Column
I was interviewed not long ago by Amanda Waldroupe as she was writing a column for just|out of Portland (OR) about the way in which partners of trans people need support and get or don’t get it.
While numerous resources exist for transgendered people during their transition, there is a dearth, both in Portland and nationally, for their partners—who go through their own emotional and sexual travails during the experience.
Reid Vanderburgh, a local transgender therapist, says partners can have a tough time throughout the transition process, even if they support their partner.
As far as I know, it’s the first column I’ve ever read about support groups for us partners – but maybe I missed one. Thanks to Ms. Waldroupe not just for writing the column, but for quoting me accurately.
Waiting Game
This is a chart that shows the support for same-sex marriage by age group — which, in a nutshell, means we’ve got a waiting game on our hands if nothing else. There’s a nice analysis of the chart where I found it, too.
Other charts about same sex marriage issues can be found here.
Coming Out to Kids as Trans
I was asked recently for resources for trans people with children. Honestly, there’s never very much, but here’s the list I sent her:
- COLAGE does a lot of work with LGBT parents, & coming out: http://colage.org/resources/parents.htm
- They have specific information on how to come out to your kids: http://colage.org/resources/coming_out.htm
- there’s a new organization called TransFamily that might have some stuff: http://www.transfamily.org/
- You may also find useful information at Abigail Garner’s Families Like Mine site: http://familieslikemine.com/
- We have a forum on our message boards for people dealing with kids & family: http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=34
- There’s a Kids of Trans tag for this blog, too: http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/tag/kids-of-trans/
If anyone has any newer resources I haven’t yet seen, please do add them!
Asexuality Matches
It’s not something a pervert like me would ever understand, but it’s damned cool that there is now a dating site for asexual peeps.
Of course the image at the site is heteronormative, which is problematic, but I’m sure they needed to communicate that the site is still about dating and romance and intimate relationships that aren’t sexual per se.
At Least the Judge Quit
The judge who denied the interracial couple their marriage just resigned. That’s something, at least. Now we just need 52% of Maine to resign.
Election Daze
We’re still waiting on Maine and Washington as I get ready for bed. Washington state will expand the rights of domestic partners, but it looks like Maine will reject their same sex marriage law.
I am sick to death of people being able to vote on my marriage, my citizenship, my humanity.
I want the right to bring every heterosexual couple to the steps of the courthouse in Maine and have the rest of us vote on whether they should or can be married.
This is bullshit. It’s embarassing as an American that we are so far behind most of Europe on civil rights. We used to take the lead – with suffrage, with child labor, with all sorts of shit. And now… it’s just embarassing.
I want freedom from their religion, their stupidity, & their prejudice.
I have been on both sides of this issues – having been a legally married heterosexual, and in some ways, still being that – and it makes me fucking sick that people who don’t know me get to decide if I get to be married, and whether my legal marriage will be recognized or not.
I’m just fucking fed up.
I’m tired of spending Election Days worrying about my friends, their spouses, their families, their kids.
When do we get to vote on whether heterosexual marriage is acceptable? When do we get to apply some arbitrary and hypocrital set of moral standards to everyone else’s relationships?
Jeez Louise This Whole Cisgender Thing
Since Alex Blaze took it on, & since we’ve been discussing this whole “is it okay to call someone who isn’t trans cisgender?” question on the boards, I may as well put it down here.
First, I’m going to claim a difference between cisgender & cissexual. Cisgender, the problem seems to me, is not the easy opposite of transgender. Cisgender implies, or means, or could mean (depending on who you talk to), that someone’s sex and gender are concordant. So your average butch woman, who is not trans, or is, depending on how she feels about it (see Bear Bergman), is now somehow cisgender. So is someone like me. So is a femme-y gay man who maybe performs a more gender normative masculinity for his job. That is, those of us who have variable genders, who maybe are gender fluid or gender neutral but who don’t identify as trans, are now somehow cisgender.
& Honestly, that’s bullshit. There’s a reason I use GVETGI to describe myself = Gender Variant Enough To Get It, is what it stands for.
So there’s the first issue, that “cis” may stand for “cisgender” and it may stand for “cissexual” but no one knows for sure which it is when it’s abbreviated. Crossdressers, for instance, are cissexual but they’re not cisgender. For instance.
Then there’s that little usage/connotation/denotation problem.
Telling me, & other partners whose lives are profoundly impacted by the legal rights / cultural perceptions of trans people, that we are “not trans” implies that we are also not part of the trans community. I’ve been saying for years now that we are. When trans people are killed, harassed, not hired, fired due to discrimination, denied health care, etc. etc. etc., their loved ones suffer along with them. Their families, their lovers, their kids especially. We are not just “allies.” We are vested, dammit, & a part of the trans community, so when “cisgender” comes to mean, or is used to mean, “not part of the trans community,” we are once again left out in the dark.
(Somehow, I can’t help thinking of the muggles & mudbloods of Harry Potter, here. Partners are the equivalent of the kids born to magical families who are not themselves magical. In the books & movies, they are part of the magical community, & without question. Ahem.) Continue reading “Jeez Louise This Whole Cisgender Thing”