A Lawrence student has been taking photographs of faculty, staff & students who wanted to participate in the NOH8 campaign, and yesterday, 
on our 12th anniversary, we decided to (finally) get ours taken. Here are some of the shots.
Morehouse Crossdressing Policy
Morehouse College has chosen to have a clothing policy that prohibits crossdressing:
The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college’s 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services.
“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” he said.
Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus’ gay organization.
“We talked about it and then they took a vote,” he said. “Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it.”
There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.
Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.
I’m wondering if someone needs to tell them about straight crossdressers, and about pre-transition MTF trans people. Hopefully Morehouse’s Safe Space already does – but I doubt it.
Dickens Suddenly Relevant Again
There’s a great piece today in the NYT by Barbara Ehrenreich about the criminalization of the poor.
But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.
As more Americans become this kind of poor, maybe we’ll finally pay attention.
(h/t to Kate Bornstein for tweeting it)