Tag: Asia

Posted on

Cultural Landmarks

While driving from Wisconsin to New York, we passed a couple of things that struck us as fitting the state/area we found them in perfectly:

  • In Wisconsin: a Bible store right next to a store that sold barstools
  • In the southside of Chicago: We Starch Jeans in a dry cleaners’ window
  • Near Sturgis, Indiana: Broasted Chicken, Fireworks, & Discount Tobacco
  • & of course, on the way into Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge – Brooklyn: Where New York City Starts

But now we’re home again, in our very cluttered apartment, & I’m wondering why on earth I have all the rest of the clothes I left here, since what I had in Wisconsin was enough to get dressed every day for three months.

Posted on

Trans History Timeline

I’ve been putting together a Trans History Timeline for my Transgender Lives class. The idea was to give them an idea of the events that lead up to the modern Transgender Movement (such as it is).

  • 1910 Magnus Hirschfeld coins “transvestite” and “transsexual”
  • 1919 Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research given housing
  • 1930 Lili Elbe undergoes five surgeries, the fifth of which kills her in 1931
  • 1933 Institute for Sexual Research burned by Nazis
  • 1939 – 1945 WWII
  • 1945 Michael Dillon has first FTM surgeries
  • 1951 Roberta Cowell transitions in the UK
  • 1952 Christine Jorgensen headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Bombshell”
  • 1959 Virginia Prince starts Transvestia
  • 1961 VP starts Heels & Hose (12 crossdressers!)
  • 1964 Reed Erickson founds the Erickson Institute
  • 1966 Harry Benjamin publishes The Transsexual Phenomenon
  • 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riots, SF
  • 1969 Ist Gender Symposia (becomes HBIGDA)
  • 1969 Stonewall, NYC
  • 1973 First Introduction of ENDA (US)
  • 1975 Fantasia Fair starts in Provincetown, founded by Ariadne Kane
  • 1976 Tri-Ess formed
  • 1976 Crossdressing becomes legal in SF
  • 1977 HBIGDA becomes an org
  • 1979 Sandy Stone leaves Olivia Records due to attacks in Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire
  • 1980 Crossdressing becomes legal in Houston, TX (due to Phyllis Frye’s efforts)
  • 1986 FTM Int’l started by Lou Sullivan
  • 1987 IFGE formed
  • 1990 AEGIS started by Dallas Denny
  • 1993 Mosaic web browser
  • 1994 Death of Brandon Teena / Netscape web browser
  • 1995 “All FTM Conference of the Americas” organized by Jamison Green & Jason Cromwell (with grant from Dallas Denny)

I was teaching Jamison Green’s Becoming a Visible Man at the time, which is why it ends where it does, but I’ve been adding to it since, & will continue to do so.

Posted on

New Resources

So I’ve discovered a few interesting new resources in team teaching Gender Studies 100 this semester, and never posted some I discovered last term. Here are a few:

  • The Trouble with Testosterone by Robert Sapolsky – a very accessible read about the popular misunderstandings about testosterone (for instance, that it causes aggression)
  • Iron Jawed Angels – about the last push for the vote for women in the US
  • The Fire, Earth, Water trilogy by Deepa Mehta – stunning, beautiful film series by a woman director about various aspects of Indian culture. Mehta has a gentle but powerful hand as a story-teller.
Posted on

Greetings From Kenosha, Wisconsin!

We’re nearly there. Not quite. It’s been a lot of driving – just crossing Pennsylvania takes a day, after all. We’re in Kenosha now after driving today though the end of PA, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, & then just the first tip of Wisconsin. It’ll be a few more hours to Appleton, tomorrow.

For those of you who have asked, or guessed, where I’ll be teaching: Lawrence University is the answer. I’m only teaching for a term, which is three months.

So, the trip. We started later than we were supposed to (of course). Betty forgot her license & her phone. We drove & drove & drove through Pennsylvania, & I finally convinced Betty to stop in a little town near the Ohio border called Barkeyville, PA. Ah, what a town! We found a Comfort Suites, checked in, & then went out to find dinner & beer. We checked one place that didn’t have any. We checked another. & Then, finally, I asked someone who said, “Oh, this is a dry county.”

So much for beer.

But the boys have been fantastic, absolutely lovely, the brilliant kittoi I’ve always known them to be.

Another highlight was that someone clever, instead of writing the usual WASH ME on a dirty truck, wrote I WISH MY WIFE WAS AS DIRTY AS THIS TRUCK instead. That was somewhere in Ohio, I think.

We have eaten way too much fast food.

We have sat way too long in a minivan.

We are very excited about arriving tomorrow.

& With that, I’m off for a bath, & a toast to Barack Obama for his Iowa Caucus victory, & bed.

Posted on

Being LGBT Globally

This list was compiled by Chuck Laird from information he found at Wiki.

Algeria – A Fine to 3 Years in Prison
Angola – Labor Camps
Antigua and Barbuda – 15 Years in Prison
Bahrain – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Bangladesh – 10 Years to Life in Prison
Barbados – Life in Prison
Belize – 10 Years in Prison
Benin – 3 Years in Prison
Bhutan – 1 Month to 1 Year in Prison
Botswana – A Fine to 7 Years in Prison
Brunei – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Cameroon – A Fine to 5 Years in Prison
Cook Islands – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Djibouti – 10 to 12 Years in Prison
Dominica – 10 Years in Prison
Egypt – 5 Years in Prison
Eritrea – 3 to 10 Years in Prison
Ethiopia – 10 Days to 3 Years in Prison
Gambia – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Ghana – Not Known
Grenada – 10 Years in Prison
Guinea – 6 Months to 3 Years in Prison
Guinea Bissau – Labor Camps
India – A Fine to Life in Prison
Iran – Death
Jamaica – 10 Years Hard Labor
Kenya – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Kiribati – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Kuwait – A Fine to 7 Years in Prison
Lebanon – A Fine to 1 Year in Prison
Lesotho – Not Known
Liberia – A Fine
Libya – A Fine to 5 Years in Prison
Malawi – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Malaysia – A Fine to 20 Years in Prison
Mauritania – Death
Mauritius – A Fine to 5 Years in Prison
Morocco – 6 Months to 3 Years in Prison
Mozambique – Labor Camps
Myanmar/Burma – 10 Years to Life in Prison
Namibia – Not Known
Nauru – 14 Years Hard Labor
Nepal – A Fine to 1 Year in Prison
Nicaragua – 1 to 3 Years in Prison
Nigeria – 5 Years in Prison to Death
Niue – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Oman – A Fine to 3 Years in Prison
Pakistan – 2 Years to Life in Prison
Palau – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Palestine – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Papua New Guinea – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Qatar – A Fine to 5 Years in Prison
Saint Kitts and Nevis – 10 Years in Prison
Saint Lucia – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Saint Vincent and Grenadines – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Samoa – A Fine to 7 Years in Prison
Sao Tome and Principe – Labor Camps
Saudi Arabia – Death
Senegal – 1 Month to 5 Years in Prison
Seychelles – A Fine to 2 Years in Prison
Sierra Leone – Life in Prison
Singapore – 2 Years in Prison
Solomon Islands – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Somalia – 3 Months in Prison to Death
Sri Lanka – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Sudan – 5 Years in Prison to Death
Swaziland – A Fine
Syria – A Fine to 3 Years in Prison
Tanzania – A Fine to 25 Years in Prison
Togo – A Fine to 3 Years in Prison
Tokelau – A Fine to 10 Years in Prison
Trinidad and Tobago – 25 Years in Prison
Tunisia – A Fine to 3 Years in Prison
Turkmenistan – A Fine to 2 Years in Prison
Tuvalu – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Uganda – A Fine to Life in Prison
United Arab Emirates – Death
Uzbekistan – A Fine to 3 Years in Prison
Yemen – Flogging to Death
Zambia – A Fine to 14 Years in Prison
Zimbabwe – A Fine to 1 Year in Prison

Posted on

Kids These Days

At least here at Merrimack, they’ve got it good, even though they probably don’t know what’s right under their noses.

They get free films, for instance. I’ve been going to see them, which is kind of funny considering I don’t like most movies most of the time & don’t go see them – not American movies, anyway, or anything contemporary. They’re rarely worth the $10.

But Tuesday night I saw Deepa Mehta’s Earth, which is about the Partition of India in 1947, into India & Pakistan, and which came with Independence. It’s a stunning movie, & I’ve been thinking about the plot and themes and scenes and characters since I saw it. It’s a terrifying film, but deeply moving as well.

Last night I saw one of the earliest Theda Bara films, A Fool There Was, in which she plays her legendary vampire character, and afterwards they’re screening a documentary about her. A Fool There Was made so much money that it helped launch Fox Studios. It’s such a lovely rare treat to get to see a silent film on the big screen.

& In a couple of weeks, they’re screening a film about Dorothy Day, though it’s not the one that I missed when it played at the Brecht Forum in NYC.

Posted on

New Piercing

I’m pleased as punch that I got a chance – right after my keynote at Fantasia Fair – not only to meet the Bearded Lady of Provincetown, but to get her to stretch my previous ear piercings so that I could wear these lovely new omegas I bought in her shop.

She tells me that I can make them bigger in a few months, too. Betty’s starting to worry.

If you’re coming here after Fantasia Fair, do remind me of the resources I said I would post. I know some (a lot) of them are probably about sex, so you might want to start by browsing the posts marked s.e.x. on this blog.

Posted on

Fantasia Fair 2007

We were planning to go to the whole of Fantasia Fair this year, where I was supposed to present my keynote on Monday, but 2007, being what it has been for us (complicated, frustrating, exhausting) has proved itself more in charge of us then we are. As a result, we’re going to FanFair on Thursday, 10/18, instead.

I will, however, present my keynote on Friday, 10/19, since Stephen Whittle has had to cancel, as has Marilyn Volker.

But the Fair officially starts today for anyone going for the whole week.