An interview with yours truly is in this month’s Curve magazine – the best-selling lesbian magazine – two pages of interview and photos. It’s issue 16#1.
From the interview:
“Sometimes transpeople seem to see any gender variance as latent transsexualism. Kind of like when you learn a new word and it shows up three times in a week. When you have transsexuals saying, ‘I should have known the first time I put on a dress (or a tie) that I’d end up having surgery,’ it prevents people from exploring. ”
Welcome to the New Boards
Welcome to the redesign of the Boards!
As we all know, a tone of crankiness had overtaken the boards and eventually caused us to close them down.
While they were shut down, we did some research, thought about the community we wanted, the community we had, and tried to figure out a way to introduce some elements that would tip the balance back toward where we wanted it.
Some of you will find yourselves on moderation – on the premise that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. In order to keep the spirit of the change, we thought we’d help it along by keeping some of you from taking your first steps publicly. Moderation is not meant to be permanent as people get used to the new rules and the jist of the redesign.
I. Trans Discussion & Community
So what have we done? We created a forum specifically for theoretical discussion called 1) THE IVORY TOWER. The experience of The Thread That Shall Not Be Named made me aware that I needed a place to work this stuff out – and others did as well. The intellectual enquiry that happened in that thread was valuable despite it being personally and emotionally painful, too. So we’ve created The Ivory Tower – a place where intellectual enquiry and hard questions can happen without restraint. This does not mean it’s open to flame wars; I still expect people to be polite and respectful of each other’s opinions, and to argue a point with evidence and thoughtfulness, and to agree to disagree when there’s no concensus.
But I want to emphasize that complaints about people’s feelings being hurt will not be recognized as ‘legit’ in that forum. If you are sensitive about trans or gender questions, YOU SHOULD’T READ THAT FORUM. If you do anyway, that is only your own issue, and your own problem.
That said, we’ve also introduced the 2) COMMUNITY & SUPPORT forum, which is intended to be a place for people to share their experiences and thoughts as trans, to seek advice, help, or encouragement from others on the boards, and where emotions will be honored above all else. It is not even intended as a ‘kinder, gentler’ version of The Ivory Tower forum, but something altogether different in tone and intent.
I’ve also introduced a special forum for people to discuss 3) RELATIONSHIPS. Trans people or partners, people wanting to be in relationships or in them can talk here about real world issues concerning partnership in the context of transness. This forum is intended to be a gentle forum, but not without critique; relationships require brutal honesty and so will a forum to discuss them. Still, respect for others’ experiences, feelings, opinions and thoughts will be required.
I’ve also added a sub-forum specifically for those with 4) KIDS, as resources on being a parent & trans are few & far between; I thought we might start compiling useful information about this subject so that others won’t have to look as hard.
There is also a 5) GENERAL TRANS TOPICS forum for subjects that aren’t well suited to either theoretical or personal treatments. This is the remainder of the forumer TG Discussion forum – what wasn’t weeded into new/other forums in the re-design. It will work, I think, as a good default forum – if you don’t know where to put something.
I have sorted a bunch of the threads that were formerly in the TG DISCUSSION forum into the new threads to give people a sense of what should go in them, but feel free to ask questions.
6) SEX & SENSIBILITY required no changes. It is what it is.
II. Partners
Likewise with the 7) PARTNERS’ CORNER, which is still what it’s always been: a place for partners to discuss whatever issues they’d like to without interference or argument from trans folks.
III. Resources
The 8) NEWS forum is still for articles of interest to the larger GLBT community.
9) HELEN & BETTY NEWS is now a sub-forum of NEWS, and is the only forum I lost while moving things around! So its history is gone, though I’m sure I’ll have other things to post there. It may turn out I’ll only be using my blog for our news, and I’ve really enjoyed having some MHB boarders actually post comments on my blog, instead. (So keep that up, she says hopefully.)
10) MEDIA, CULTURE & REVIEWS is a place for us to talk about movies (trans or not), tv shows, magazines, plays, & any other cultural stuff we come across and want to talk about.
The 11) READER’S CHAIR is a sub-forum in it, and just as it was before. All things literary – book reviews, interviews with authors, the writing life, poetry – are welcome here.
The 12) BULLETIN BOARD is still the place to post announcements, events, or other things of interest to people who read the boards.
IV. The Lighter Side
The next big change is another category: THE LIGHTER SIDE. One of the things I felt we were missing – or that was only suggested by the existence of the former “ETC” forum – was somewhere to kick back. Consider it MHB’s bar or an afternoon party.
13) APPEARANCES is all about that: beauty, hair, hair removal, nails, fashion, clothes, body image, weight loss, and grooming. Oh, and shoes. Previously it felt like people were apologetic for posting anything about fashion, and I wanted to acknowledge that smart folks worry about how they look, too. That doesn’t exclude intelligent, critical conversations about gender presentation and body image, of course, but consider this forum my gift to the fashionistas of the boards.
14) MEETINGS & GREETINGS is where we all get to wait for the train together, talk about the wife, the weather, who’s going to the doctor on Tuesday & for what. It can be goofy or serious, and it will be important here to try to indicate what the poster wants out of a thread – if advice, or solace, or humor to make you feel better. In a sense, MEETINGS & GREETINGS is our chat in 24/7 format.
15) THE WATER COOLER / ETC covers all the rest: the goofy threads, the news articles that don’t belong elsewhere, light conversation about culture & politics. Or for stuff that really just doesn’t ‘fit’ anywhere else.
V. Help with These Boards
Finally, there’s 16) TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES which is mostly what it was before: a place to ask questions about how the boards work, to look at when you can’t figure out how to do some neat trick like posting a photo or getting an avatar. That said, here’s the only change: META DISCUSSIONS about how the boards work, or don’t work, are not to happen in this forum. They are not supposed to happen anywhere *publicly* unless & until Betty and I request advice from you all. Why? 1) Because this is a thankless enough job as it is without someone introducing the idea that it’s time to voice all grievances, and 2) Because too many old wounds get brought up in threads like that. However, – and this is important!! – anyone is free to email me or Betty or Caprice with 1) problems with another poster, 2) inappropriate posts (either by subject or tone), and 3) general suggestions about the running of the boards. I don’t want to have these conversations publicly because they become pile-ons in one way or another, eventually, and cause way too much bad blood all around.
***
A final note: no commentaries about religion or politics. No posting of news articles that are not GLBT relevant. That’s what blogs are for, so get one if you need one. But neither of these topics will be tolerated in future. To be more clear, it’s okay to say “What Rev. Bob Roberts said about gay men is dead wrong,” but saying “Christianity is the problem” is NOT okay.
Obviously we haven’t been sitting around twiddling our thumbs, but put a lot of thought – and effort – into this redesign. One of the things I realized during this break was that either these boards had to be moderated or they couldn’t exist (and still be any semblance of the cool things you all have emailed me that they were). But I will restrict my moderating somewhat: more intense scrutiny on the first two categories, not as much on the 2nd two. I can also think about finding other moderators now, as well, for the lighter forums.
But mostly I wanted to say that it will take all of you you respecting the intent of these boards, and that includes emailing a moderator if someone is going off the rails or a flamewar is starting. It includes walking away and counting to 100 and taking deep breaths when someone says something that makes you angry. It means respecting the intent and content of each of the forums. I intend to be a little bit more of a disciplinarian than I had been: snarkiness, nastiness, personal attacks or “three strikes” (ie, three complaints against one person by three other people + a moderator) will result in moderation and/or temporary bans. Betty and I will also be using negative feedback in order to inform people as to where and how they’ve stepped over the lines.
In a nutshell, we think we’ve redesigned these boards in such a way that everyone can find what they need here: those who are looking for a kind but smart community can have it; those who want to find big answers have a place to try to do so, and those who need support for their own questions of identity and struggles with life can find that, too.
Welcome back.
Helen & Betty
2006 Events
I’ve said yes to a couple of upcoming gigs, so I thought I’d share them (in order of their appearance):
First, Dark Odyssey for New Year’s, in a hotel in DC. We are very much looking forward to this one, & I’ll be teaching three workshops: monogamy, uneven libidos, & trans-sex (of course).
Second, the Translating Identity Conference (aka TIC) up in Burlington, VT, and on the UVM campus. It’ll be two days this year, not just one, and it’s still free. It’s in late February, so you could plan a skiing trip around it, I assume.
I will also be the banquet speaker for this year’s COS banquet. Betty & I had a great time there last time around, and are really looking forward to going again. March 25th. (This is a good opportunity for anyone in the tri-state area to do the ‘dinner/dance’ thing without going to a full-fledged conference.)
Finally (but certainly not least), I’ll be presenting my Trans Sex workshop, for partners, at the IFGE Conference in Philly in early April.
& just added: Trans Issues Week @ Yale!! Details TBA.
Five Questions With… Caprice Bellefleur
Caprice Bellefleur, 57, got her BA in Economics at the U. Wisconsin @ Madison, and earned her JD. She’s been married 17 years, has no children, and is a member of the bar of the State of NY. She retired after 25 years as a computer programmer, and though she felt the urge to CD since she was a child, she didn’t – to any great extent – until she was in her mid 40s. She considers herself a person of mixed gender, and has presented as a woman in public for 7 years. Caprice is not only the treasurer of CDI-NY, but carries the special burden of being King’s Envoy on the (en)gender message boards – meaning, she’s a moderator. She handles both roles with class, culture, and enviable cleavage.
1. You do a lot with organizations for the larger GLBT, and I was wondering what kinds of things you do, and how/why you realized that service to GLBT orgs should be part of your life as a crossdresser.
I like to attend the meetings and functions of GLBT groups when I can–political, legal, social, all kinds of groups. I think it is important for trans people to be visible in the LGBT community, so that we’re not just a meaningless initial tacked on at the end. There is a lot ignorance about trans people among gays and lesbians–not all that much less than in the straight community, actually. I’ve given the “Trans 101” class to more gays than straights–especially if you count the “outreach” I’ve done in various gay and lesbian bars. And an important part of my “Trans 101” lesson is to explain how there is significant overlap between the GLB and the T segments of GLBT–many GLBs are gender-variant (“umbrella” definition T), and many self-identified trans people have G, L or B sexual orientation. When people understand that, they understand why the T belongs with GLB.
I am a member of several GLBT organizations, but I have really only been active in one: the LGBT Issues Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association (NYCLA) . Even that was something of an accident–though I now believe it to have been a very fortunate one.
I think I started with the Committee in 2002. I wanted to do something to advance the legal protections of trans people, and the Committee seemed like a good fit. (I would have gotten more involved in the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), but its Saturday afternoon meetings were very inconvenient for me.) I had been a member of NYCLA for many years, and I saw a notice in its newsletter for the Committee. The notice outlined the Committee’s mission, which included legal matters relating to all LGBT people (even though its name at the time was still the Committee on Lesbians and Gays in the Law). I e-mailed the chair, and found out that a) a trans person would be welcome, and b) the meetings were quite convenient to my schedule. So I went, and I joined. I was the first trans person on the Committee–and the only one until this year.
From the start I was surprised at how much of the Committee’s work was trans-related–close to 50% that first year. The main thing was the founding of the West Village TransLegal Clinic Name Change Project. This is an operation where volunteer lawyers help people obtain legal name changes, something very important to anyone who is transitioning, or has already done so. I attended a number of meetings where we worked out the logistics among the various organizations involved–besides our Committee, the Gender Identity Project (GIP) of the LGBT Center and the LGBT Lawyers Association (LeGaL) were instrumental. It was there I first met Carrie Davis of GIP, Dean Spade of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and Melissa Sklarz of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID). Melissa, in her role as co-chair of the LGBT Committee of Community Board 2, was very helpful in getting funding for the Clinic. What developed was a monthly non-representational drop-in clinic at the LGBT Center. We (the volunteer lawyers) interview the clients and complete the Petition for Adult Name Change, which the clients then submit to the court. I usually serve once or twice a quarter.
I also served on the Law Firm Survey Subcommittee. We developed a questionnaire about the policies and practices concerning LGBT employees and the LGBT community, which we submitted to the 25 largest law firms in New York City. Our primary goal was to create a resource for LGBT law students to help them decide where to look for a job. There was a section of questions about trans issues, which I largely wrote. We envisioned giving report cards to the various firms, grading them on how we thought it would be for an LGBT person to work there. We were pleasantly surprised to find that all of the 24 firms that replied were at least somewhat LGBT-friendly. For instance, every one of them offers benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. We decided to forget about the grading. The section on trans issues was not quite as encouraging as the rest, though. Only one firm explicitly included gender identity and expression in its non-discrimination policy. None had any procedures or specific policies covering employees who wished to transition–and none of them reported having had an employee who had done so. A substantial percentage of the firms had dress codes that were not gender-neutral. Next year I want to do a follow-up survey, to see if there have been any improvements by the firms. (The report can be found at www.nycla.org/siteFiles/Publications/Publications38_0.pdf. It won the award for the best committee report at NYCLA this year.)
Right now, I am working on getting NYCLA to endorse the New York State Gender Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). I drafted a report outlining the reasons why, which has been adopted by the Committee, and sent to the NYCLA board for its consideration.
I think my work on the Committee shows there are many gays and lesbians who want to help trans people achieve the legal protections that they have, or are still working to achieve. Most, if not all, of the other volunteer lawyers at the TransLegal Clinic are gay or lesbian. I am the only trans one. I have never seen any reluctance, let alone opposition, from any of the other Committee members to the Committee’s work in trans areas. The trans community is decades behind the gay and lesbian community in organizing to achieve its civil rights. We would be fools not to work with them.
Personally, I will continue with my work with the NYCLA Committee, perhaps in a leadership role next year. I also am being proposed for a position on one of the LeGaL boards for next year. One of my problems is not biting off more than I can chew, because I am also active in trans-specific organizations, such as the NYS GENDA Coalition (currently under construction), and Crossdressers International.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Caprice Bellefleur”
Five Questions With… Gina Lance
Gina Lance is the former publisher of Girl Talk
Magazine, current producer of TGLife.com, and too fabulous for words.
< Helen with much shorter hair, and Gina in all her nearly 5’11” glory.
1) As a public person, does “being Gina Lance” ever get in the way of your life?
First of all Helen, thank you for asking me to participate in your ‘infamous’ Five Questions! As far as being recognized as Gina Lance, it’s very flattering to be noticed for the work you have done. When I had a local crossdressing television talk show in Los Angeles back in 1997, I realized how many people were watching because they approached me wherever I was. After I launched GIRL TALK Magazine, it just exploded. I’ve had people too numerous to mention tell me everything from I saved their lives, to I was the one responsible for getting them out of the closet. It’s very heartwarming and I do appreciate it.
As far as the downside of being Gina Lance it’s mostly comical. I’ve been cornered by people who wanted to talk to me (very flattering!) for almost an hour on my way into a nightclub in Los Angeles. I love meeting people but one girl had to even pull her blouse up and show me her new breasts. She said I had inspired her and given her the confidence to get them. Somehow, I don’t remember writing/suggesting that. I’ve had people tell me everything from they’re on hormones to they’re getting their sex change because of me. So I’m usually very careful what I write about now; I see myself as a transgendered ambassador of good will, not a physician!
One of the former GIRL TALK covergirls, Jillian Diamond, looks like my younger, shorter daughter, but she is occasionally mistaken for me by people who don’t know us. I think the funniest thing was when some girl called her a ‘bitch’ for not using her as a covergirl, thinking she was me.
All in all though, I love being Gina Lance. But I also love being my male self and I think that’s very important in keeping me balanced. My wife, KC, loves both of me which is fantastic. Although we steal each other’s makeup occasionally. In male mode I just don’t tell everyone who I am and love being anonymous sometimes – it gives me a break to clear my mind. I recently chatted with Cassandra Peterson who people know as Elvira and we both agreed it is great to go unrecognized when you want to. It gives you some time to relax.
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Five Questions With… Vern Bullough
Vern L. Bullough is a SUNY Distinguished
Professor Emeritus, was a past President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, was honored with the Kinsey Award for his research, and is the author of Crossdressing, Sex, and Gender, along with 50+ other books on various subjects, most of them involving sexuality.
< Helen with Vern Bullough at IFGE 2004.
1) In terms of trans and gender subjects, what do you think is the most important piece of your scholarship?
The field of trans research is rapidly changing as it moves more into the mainstream of variant sexual behaviors. I think the best back ground is the book that my late wife Bonnie and I did, entitled Cross Dressing, Sex and Gender. The best survey of the field up to l997 was also one that Bonnie and I edited entitled Gender Blending. The best for female to male transsexuals is that by Holly Devor, entitled FTM. There are more specialized books coming out now but I think these three are the basis for a good understanding.
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Five Questions With… Calpernia Addams
Calpernia Addams is in some ways the
woman that so many transwomen aspire to be because she’s beautiful, talented, outspoken and smart. But her story is also the story of a Soldier’s Girl and came with more than its share of pain. She and Andrea James now run Deep Stealth Productions together, which produces and consults on a variety of video projects related to gender. At her website, Calpernia.com, you can find community forums, her diary about her Hollywood doings, and of course more info about who she is, what she’s up to, and how she became the woman she is today.
1) When you spoke last year at SCC, you mentioned that you’d be keeping an eye on representations of trans people by Hollywood. What did you mean by that, and what are you doing?
As a relatively out transwoman, I have been fortunate to make several friends and acquaintances in Hollywood who hold key positions in the business of television and film. I also regularly attend premieres and showcases for new media, where I’m often specifically sought out for opinions and input. I never want to be seen as an overbearing nag, but I always let the industry leaders in these situations know that I am watching their portrayals of trans people closely, and that I am available for anything from conversation to consultation to referrals if they are interested in learning more about the realities of our world. While there are many factors that go into shaping a piece of entertainment media, I do try to be present, available and vocal when I see something that uses an aspect of our community in it’s storytelling. Some of the results of the work Andrea James and I have done can be seen in the upcoming Felicity Huffman film “Transamerica,†for which we provided in-person and script consultation. I also appear as a Texas fiddle player in the film, and Andrea can be seen in a clip from our popular “Finding Your Female Voice†instructional video. The upcoming LOGO network documentary “Beautiful Daughters†will showcase our 2004 sold-out all-trans-cast production of “The Vagina Monologues†with playwright Eve Ensler and mentor Jane Fonda, which was the first event of it’s kind. We have also consulted on television shows such as CSI and many documentaries in the last two years.
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Five Questions With… Susan Stryker
Susan Stryker is a researcher, writer, queer historian, artist, and a filmmaker. She is the former executive director of the GLBT Historical Society of Northern California, and a former history columnist for Planet Out. She has written and co-authored books like Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area and edited “The Transgender Issue” of The Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Vol 4, No 2, 1998. She recently discovered and made a film about the Compton’s Riot – riots by transpeople in San Francisco that pre-date Stonewall – and turned that discovery into a documentary film, Screaming Queens.
1) I was really excited to learn that someone else is a fan of Cronenberg’s films. Why do you love them?
I love Cronenberg because he disturbs me, and because he’s such a fierce auteur who’s not afraid to show even the most unsettling aspects of his sensibility. I like that he is such a philosphically smart filmmaker, and a whiz at making things look stylish on a low budget. But I think my favorite thing is that he really, really pays attention to the fact that we are bodies, that bodies are different from one another, and that bodily difference is a source of fascination, pleasure, dread, and horror for everybody.
That said, I don’t always like Cronenberg. I think his take on women is sometimes mysogynistic, that he finds horrific things I find familiar and desirable. I think he sometimes despairs that his mind is inextricably embedded in flesh, rather than reveling in that. But I totally admire the unflinching way he looks at and represents those feelings. I guess that’s the biggest turn-on for me–that he is alive and engaged with the phenomenogical, existential, emobodied situation of human experience. He feels what it means to be made of meat, and helps us see that.
Favorite moments? Hard to top Videodrome, start to finish–the snuff films, growing new orifices, the flesh gun, infections by viral images, the disemebodied Great White Man in a post-death virtual existence on videotape. What a brilliantly twisted film. And Deborah Harry was just plain ol’ hot. I also love the doomed romance between Jeff Goldblum and Gina Davis in The Fly, and those dwarves who burst out of the rage-sacks growing on Samantha Eggar’s body in The Brood, who then beat that kindergarten teacher to death while all the kiddies look on. When I saw that, I though “this is what filmmaking is all about–see it, don’t say it; show it, don’t tell it.” Cronenberg is such an amazing visual storyteller. He lets you see feeling in an unprecedented way. I could go on and on, but I guess I should stop here.
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Ate All Her Cookies!
Okay, nearly. Caprice came to Rasputina as Little Red Riding Hood, and even brought a basket of very tasty cookies. I ate a few.
^ We were doing a kind of New Orleans vampire theme, but I got asked if I was the lead singer of Rasputina not once, but twice.
Five Questions With… Dallas Denny
Dallas Denny, M.A., is founder and was for ten years Executive Director of the American Educational Gender Information Service, Inc. (AEGIS), a national clearinghouse on transsexual and transgender issues. She is currently on the board of Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc., AEGIS’ successor organization, which lives at www.gender.org. She is Director of Fantasia Fair and editor of Transgender Tapestry magazine and was editor and publisher of the late Chrysalis: The Journal of Transgressive Gender Identities. Dallas is a prolific writer with hundreds of articles and three books to her credit. She recently decided to retire her license to practice psychology in Tennessee, since she seems to have found a permanent home in Pine Lake, Georgia, pop. 650, the world’s smallest municipality with a transgender nondiscrimination ordinance.
1) You’ve been a trans educator/activist for a long time now: what do you see as the biggest development in terms of trans politics since you’ve been doing this?
When I began my activism in 1989, the community was almost entirely about education– outreach to the general public and information to other transpeople. There wasn’t much information available, and much of that wasn’t very good or was outdated– and even the bad information could be almost impossible to find. The rapid growth of the community in the 1990s and especially the explosion of the internet made information much easier to find.
Somewhere around 1993, the community had reached a point at which political activism had become possible. Of course, some of us had always been doing that, but it hadn’t been a prime focus of the community, and what had been done had been sporadic and short-lived, often was done by a single individual or a small group, and tended to happen in places like San Francisco and New York City. This activism did give us some political gains– most notably in Minnesota, which adopted state-wide protections as early as, I believe, the early 1970s, but around 1993 there was a growing political consciousness in the community, and things just began to take off.
I can identify some important events of the 1990s– when Nancy Burkholder, a post-op transsexual woman, was kicked out of the Michigan Womyn’s conference, when people began to come together in Texas at Phyllis Randolph Frye’s ICTLEP law conference, when the March on Washington turned out to be non-transinclusive, when a bunch of us got together to form GenderPac (an organization which was promptly hijacked by the Executive Director)– but there were two biggies, in my opinion. The first was the first transgender lobbying, which was done by Phyllis Frye and Jane Fee. They couldn’t believe they had actually done it, then wondered why they hadn’t done it before. When HRCF (as it was then called) promptly went behind their backs and removed the transgender inclusions Phyllis and Jane had convinced lawmakers to put into the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, there was a sense of outrage. The news broke when Sarah DePalma got an e-mail.at the law conference. It happened to be the only ICTLEP I attended. We had a coule of strategy sessions and went back home and the next week did actions at at least six Pride events, including Atlanta, which I coordinated. You should have seen the jaws drop when I handed leaflets to the folks at the HRCF booth. The organization has, of course, done a complete turnaround since then, or so we hope.
The other big event was the muder of Brandon Teena; in the aftermath, we began to get media coverage that concentrated on our political issues and not just our individual psychologies or transition histories.
After that, things just exploded. Today many of us– as many as one in three– have some sort of legal protections– anti-discrimination, hate crimes, or both. My little town of Pine Lake, Georgia, population 650, even has trans protections– and I didn’t even have to ask for them. They were already in place when I moved here in the late 1990s.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Dallas Denny”