Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
ENDA has been introduced to Congress, which is a fantastic thing – to protect LGBT people from employment discrimination.
For more info/overview, check HRC’s site.
For a specific explanation of the gender issues & language, check Transgender Workplace Diversity.
Come out in support of ENDA by contacting your senators and representatives, or by donating to an org that’s working for ENDA’s passage: The Task Force, NCTE.
A trans woman is leaving her job as a librarian despite discrimination protections. Jillian Todd-Weiss comments on her blog:
“Philadelphia has an ordinance prohibiting gender identity discrimination, as do a number of cities in Pennsylvania, some major corporations have gender identity EEO policies, and the state is considering legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There is obviously a lot of good-will in Pennsylvania for employment non-discrimination. But it doesn’t necessarily penetrate to the ordinary transgender person. “
Which leads me to conclude that the legislation or even inclusion in EEO policies will not fix it all: education is still absolutely necessary and required. The laws are no good if no one bothers to enforce them, after all, & authorities will not enforce them if they are prejudiced against trans people themselves.
I’ve been reading the stories in Rachel Kramer Bussel‘s She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission
I suppose I don’t have to point out to my readers that the subtitle makes it clear that we’re dealing with binary gender only. This isn’t Fictionmania. It’s not intended for trans readers per se but what erotica is? There is some genderfuck in it, specifically a story called “Why Can’t I Be You?”. The women on top are all dominating men, most of whom seemed to have heartily throbbing parts.
I don’t say that like it’s a bad thing, because I can’t bring myself to disagree with the notion that A Hard Man is Good to Find. Still, I did get a little tired of all the hard cocks and longed for a story about a guy who was turned on but who couldn’t get it up, or a woman who was so demanding her man lost an erection from performance anxiety – something a little more problematic, or romantic, or embarrassingly funny, even, the way good sex so often is.
But of course erotica can still be sexy even when there are only binary genders involved and even when the strap-ons don’t strap-off. (Imagine!) It was just funny to notice that I’ve become used to more queer, more genderfuck’d, and more extreme kinds of hotness these days. Occasionally even Wile E. Coyote looks back at the cliff he’s just run off, no?
Each of these stories is about a different woman and by a different author, and often it was their brevity that was refreshing, because they did what porn should do: painted the scene & planted the suggestion while letting your own dirty little mind fill in the details. But for those of you who like strong women in heels and hose who know how to give orders – and I know you’re out there! – this book is a long-awaited companion, and highly recommended.
There is one story especially some of you might like – dominance in period clothes, you might call it, but the author called it “Victoria’s Hand,” & it’s intense, playful, sexy, and while historically inaccurate in its terminology, it’s close enough to do the trick. It was hard not to think of Betty having played Algernon in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest while I read it.
Continue reading “Rachel Kramer Bussel’s She’s on Top”
Largo, Florida just fired City Manager Steve Stanton for being transsexual.
Look, how hard is it to understand that the prevailing ethic of this country is that we don’t fire people for who they are? Granted, we don’t have specific transgender/gender ID protection yet, dammit, but really, isn’t that a bit “letter” & not “spirit” of the law?
This isn’t a difficult concept, folks.
Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore is an insomniac with dreams. She is the editor, most recently of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity and an expanded second edition of That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. She’s also the author of a novel, Pulling Taffy. Mattilda lives for feedback, so contact her or check up on her various projects via her website or her blog.
1) I love the way you use the word “assimilation” – it always reminds me of the Borg episodes of Star Trek – but I wonder how that term plays in different audiences – say a gay male audience as compared to a trans one. How do people respond to your use of that term, and its sinister connotations?
Generally I’m talking about the way an assimilated gay elite has hijacked queer struggle, and positioned their desires as everyone’s needs. In this way, we see the dominant signs of straight conformity reimagined as the ultimate goals of gay (or that fake acronym “LGBT”) success, i.e. marriage, monogamy, adoption, gentrification, military service, etc. We can see this fundamental absurdity where housing and healthcare and fighting police brutality and challenging US imperialism are no longer seen as “LGBT” issues, but access to Tiffany wedding bands and participatory patriarchy is seen as the bedrock.
So when I articulate these politics, it’s generally the people I’m holding accountable — gay men and lesbians with power and privilege — who are the most scared. Most gay men wouldn’t know Feminism 101 if it hit them over the head, so it’s not surprising that they see getting rid of homeless people and people of color and sex workers from the neighborhoods they’ve gentrified as a wonderful service to the “community.”
Generally it’s more marginalized queers, and especially trans, genderqueer and gender defiant freaks and outlaws and misfits — as well as feminists of various formations — who are ready to challenge the cultural erasure that assimilation represents.
Tonight I’ll be reading from She’s Not the Man I Married as part of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series at the Happy Ending Lounge.
Check our calendar for more info, or check RKB’s website.
The big news in publishing is that AMS (American Marketing Services), the company that owned one of the biggest book distributors in the country, PGW (Publishers Group West), filed for bankruptcy a couple of weeks ago.
It’s huge news because PGW’s distribution services effectively enable tons of small independent publishers to get their books out there, publishers like Soft Skull (who published Charlie Anders’ Choir Boy) and Cleis Press (who publish some of Tristan Taormino’s books) and McSweeney’s (who publish things like The Believer magazine and authors like Dave Eggers and Nick Hornby).
I’ve been very lucky in all of this, because my publisher, Avalon (APG) has been purchased by Perseus Books, who have their own distributor and a reputation for giving independent imprints room to be – well, independent. Avalon was the umbrella group for both Thunder’s Mouth Press (who published My Husband Betty) and for Seal Press (who will be publishing She’s Not the Man I Married). That is, I dodged a bullet because APG was first in line to be purchased, which is not true for other smaller independent presses like Cleis.
The final impact of AMS filing bankruptcy is yet to be seen. What’s being predicted is that many small publishers will just disappear without a distributor that serves their needs, and also because many of the moneys they were owed will not be paid to them, or because any buyout of AMS will mean investors will be able to buy for pennies on the dollar. It may turn out that Perseus will help PGW, which is good news indeed: PGW was created decades ago in a publishing environment that was much friendlier to growth than the current one is.
All in all it’s a huge mess with too-numerous legal battles to follow.
I’ll be reading from She’s Not the Man I Married on Wednesday, January 17th as part of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series at the Happy Ending Lounge.
Details are here (or below). Get there by 7:30 to assure a seat, and definitely get there by 8PM if you’re coming to here me – I’m up right after the introductory words!
Continue reading “NYC: Erotic Memoirs on 1/17”
Apparently I’ve been tagged for a blog meme, by Debra over at Tragic/Beautiful.
I’m supposed to come up with Five Things You Don’t Know About Me. I’m going to hope that none of my very old friends are reading, since what they know about me may be very different from what a more generic “you” might know.
(1) I have always worried that all of my eccentricity is really driven by a niggling fear that I am painfully mediocre.
(2) I started my undergraduate career as a Theology major at Fordham University. I wanted to be a priest when I was a child and often wonder if I won’t end up some kind of monk/nun by the end of my days.
(3) My first boyfriend’s name was also Jason. (My friend Ming took to calling him “the wrong Jason” when I met the person who you all know as Betty.)
(4) I spent a good chunk of my 20s traveling:
As a result of the books and my lectures, after I turned 30, I have since seen, all stateside: Eureka Springs, AR; Phoenix, AZ; Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Hammond, IN; Provincetown, MA; Las Vegas, NM; Albany, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Sherman, TX, and Burlington, VT. As a result of being keynote speaker at First Event this year, I’ll finally get to see Boston!
(5) I am allergic to almost everything a person can be allergic to (dogs, cats, mold, dust, etc.) with the bizarre exception of cockroach poop.
& Now I will tag three other bloggers to list five things we don’t know about them: Betty Crow, Caprice Bellefleur, and John.
