Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Since July of this year, 8 more states have said no to the abstinence-only Federally-funded sex education. The most recent, #14, is Virginia. Go Governor Kaine!
Let’s keep it going! Write to your state legislators & tell them you want your kids to get real sex edcucation, not this absinence bullshit that puts them at greater risk for STDs.
Yet another report has been published that proves that comprehensive sex ed keeps kids from having as much sex, as many partners, and from getting STDs. Despite that, of course, our government is still throwing money at abstinence-only sex ed:
“Congress is currently considering a funding bill which includes $141 to fund these programs, an increase of $4 million over President Bush’s request.”
So we’re paying more to educate kids less. Isn’t it counter-intuitive to spend so much money to keep kids ignorant? That’s never cost anything in the past.
Is everyone else tired of reporting this?
Source: Feminist Daily News 11/9
Interestingly, Ted Kennedy is sponsoring ENDA in the Senate, and even more interestingly, the Senate version will also exclude gender identity.
Of course Bush has already said he intends to veto whatever version comes his way. Still, this may be another opportunity for more education.
In the meantime, Mara Keisling of NCTE will be on C-SPAN tomorrow morning at 7:45 AM, & if you miss it, you can catch it on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal site.
In SF, two of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence received communion, and Catholics – and Bill O’Reilly – are raising a ruckus and talking about “San Francisco values.” The Archbishop who served them has apologized, but a Jesuit theologian commented,
“The general sacramental principle is that you don’t deny the sacrament to someone who requests it,” said the Rev. Jim Bretzke, professor of moral theology at University of San Francisco, a Jesuit Catholic university. “The second principle is that you cannot give communion to someone who has been excommunicated.”
He said such people are designated “manifest public sinners” in canon law.
“This is someone who violates in a serious way one of the Ten Commandments or one of the important laws of the Church,” he said. “While I can see Bill O’Reilly and others might be offended, the sisters do not meet the criteria the church has for denying Communion. Over-accessorizing and poor taste in makeup is not an excommunicable offense.”
Bretzke added, “Even if these people were bizarrely dressed, the archbishop was following clear pastoral and canonical principles in giving them Communion. The default is, you give Holy Communion to one who presents himself.”
They make me thankful every day I was raised by Jesuits.
But the more important issue, to me, is that the Sisters practice what others only preach.
(Thanks again to Lena for the news item)
i’ve had some time to be on the boards this weekend, despite the insanity around what’s going on in Burma & with ENDA – both of which occupied a lot of my time – and it’s nice to get a visit in.
teaching has kept me really busy, as has the commute. it’s really a full day that goes to travel: i leave here 1pm for my 2pm train, & i don’t get to Andover until about 8 PM. it’s a little shorter on the return, on Thursday, mostly because the train schedules work a little better.
& yes, as many people have predicted: i love teaching. love it. i asked on the first day if (1) any of them had ever thought about their gender, and (2) if any of them identified as feminists, and got no hands on either. that, plus the class being at 8am, were tall odds, i thought. but aside from the fact that i have to be prepared to frontload the class for the first half-hour while they’re all waking up, we’ve had interesting conversations about whether feminism is valid & what radfems mean when they say all sex is rape & about why most professional cooks are male.
september has gone by really quickly as a result, what with teaching & DO for a week & getting the details for the upcoming trip to CO & applying for a NYFA grant. i feel like i wake up & work on my to-do list & at some point i get on a train & find myself on a green, catholic college campus for a few days, kind of like it’s a dream, & then i’m home again & hanging out with betty & the kittoi until i get on a train again.
but i do enjoy the train time, even if i sometimes dread it the night before. i read a lot. i write some. i grade papers, even. or i just watch the world go by.
Last night I was taken out to dinner by a partner who is local to where I’m teaching during the week. She told me she was surprised I was willing to go to dinner with someone I’d never met before, & as she was saying it, I thought, ‘If only I had a trust fund, I wouldn’t do anything but meet with partners and give them someone to talk to.’
Because her story was like so many stories of partners: her trans person didn’t like to talk about it, only one friend knew who even kind of understood, and everyone else in their lives, she feared, would completely freak out if they knew.
So it is nice to go out and just listen to someone who needs to talk, to validate their experiences in whatever ways I can, & really, more than anything, provide a real flesh & blood person instead of a cold computer screen.
By a somewhat unusual series of events, I’m going to be teaching a Women’s & Gender Studies class this fall at Merrimack College in N. Andover… Massachusetts. I wasn’t expecting to, which is why I won’t be moving there, which means instead about a six hour commute – that’s one way! – in order to do so. But I couldn’t turn it down, since it would give me the chance to work with the very cool Gordene Mackenzie, of Nancy & Gordene from GenderTalk, as she runs the program there. Since I’m writing again, I’m always pleased to have good writing time – both on the train & during the time I’ll be on campus. I’m very much looking forward to it, and hopefully I’ll get to see some of my friends who live in the Boston area while I’m there.
Yet another report has come out that abstinence-only education fails our kids; in this case, abstinence-only education has been shown not to prevent HIV infection.
So what I want to know is when we go on the offensive, and start accusing people & agencies who back this bullshit why they want to kill children. Granted, people don’t die of HIV the way they used to, but goddamn, if we can avoid having a kid get a serious, life-long compromised immune system, surely that should be enough reason to get some real sex ed taught, no?
It’s now safe for me to announce that I’m confirmed to do events in Denver – at the Metropolitan State College of Denver on October 9th – and in Boulder – at the University of Colorado @ Boulder on October 10th.
I’m very pleased to get the chance to visit with people in that area, and hope to get to meet a bunch of you I’ve never met before.
I’ll keep you posted as we work out the details.
It’s downright embarrassing to live in New York these days: six states have said no to the “abstinence only” Federal sex education money, but New York isn’t one of them.
So our kids get basic HIV info – because that’s required – and otherwise “cross your legs & take a cold shower.” Genius.