As if timed exactly to make me nuts, there will be a film festival that intersects gender and South Asia. Really, I’m not kidding. I’m flabbergasted at how unfair this is.
The press release is below the break.
TransOhio in 2 Days
I’m leaving today for Columbus, OH, where I’m speaking at the TransOhio Conference, & yes, I am traveling by train. Tons of people from our MHB boards are joining me, including my lovely wife. (“She said ‘wife’!”)
They closed the online registration yesterday, but they WILL be registering walk-ins at the conference, so even if you haven’t registered yet, you can still come. They’ve made it very reasonable – $30, $20 for students, and that comes with lunch. Students can go for $11 but with no lunch & no me. Basically, it’s a tiered system, allowing people as much conference access as possible. There’s a meet & greet on Friday, 8/14, AND a brunch on Sunday. (The day-of registrations are more expensive, and may not come with a guarantee that there will be room for you at lunch.)
So yes, make your plans to come while I’m on a train to Pittsburgh!
Sean Kennedy: Insult to Injury
In the light of all the LGBT violence this past month, the news that Sean Kennedy’s killer was releaed from prison early – for good behavior? – is like insult to injury, salt in the wound.
Why take the death of a young gay man seriously? They’ve treated this crime all along as if the kid broke a fucking window — not that he caused the death of this poor handsome, well-loved and much-missed young man.
Heartbreak. Heartbreak all around.
GLAAD Action Alert: KRXQ
TAKE ACTION: Demand that KRXQ Radio Hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States Apologize for Encouraging Violence Against Transgender Children
June 2, 2009— In a lengthy May 28 tirade on the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning radio show heard in Sacramento, California on KRXQ 98.5 FM and Reno, Nevada on KDOT 104.5 FM, hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States verbally attacked transgender children. While discussing a recent story about a transgender child in Omaha, Nebraska and her parents’ decision to support her transition, the two hosts spent more than 30 minutes explicitly promoting child abuse of and making cruel, dehumanizing and defamatory comments toward transgender children.
You can listen to the entire segment beginning at 4:48 by clicking this link:
http://robarnieanddawn.com/newsite/a…%20America.mp3.
Among the comments made by the hosts:
ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. And when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.
ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.
ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.
ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behavior. You cure the cause!
ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’
ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.
To her credit, co-host Dawn Rossi stood up to Williams and States during the segment. Despite her apparent lack of familiarity with transgender issues, Rossi repeatedly defended transgender people and made an on-air apology for her colleagues’ defamatory remarks.
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.
John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com
Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com
Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com
Please use the share page functionality at the top of this page to alert any of your friends and others who may also wish to take action. When contacting KRXQ, please ensure that your emails and phone calls are civil and respectful and do not engage in the kind of name-calling or abusive behavior.
About GLAAD
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. For more information, please visit www.glaad.org.
Trans Couples Talk
This is the text of the talk I gave at the Liberty Conference on May 2nd, 2009:
How We Love You: Let Us Count the Ways
There are partners who are male, female, and trans; there are partners who met their trans person before the trans person knew what was going on; there are partners who married crossdressers who had sworn off crossdressing who purged and then dressed and then purged and then dressed again; there are partners who met their husbands crossdressed; there are partners who met their trans person during transition; there are partners who met their trans person long after transition; there are partners who didn’t know their trans person was trans when they met.
You, the individuals who are in love, were in love, who are seeking companionship and partnership and occasionally a good spanking, are said to be like snowflakes. Flawless Mother Sabrina told me that one night at the now defunct Ina’s Silver Swan, and she was right. Each of your stories is unique, even when there are similarities; each of you realizes your transness, as I like to call it, in a different way: some crossdress, others do drag, others transition. Some do all three, and others do none of these, but you express your genders in some other way. But you have your stories, your characters in movies, even if and when they are comically or tragically or unfairly drawn, but those you love have — well, we’ve got a machete and a spot on the edge of the wood we mean to get through.
Intermodal Travel Day
I’ve made it back to Milwaukee again, but this time I’m just passing through the Intermodal Terminal – how great a name is that for a train/bus terminal? – right now utilizing the free wifi and waiting for my train to Chicago to board. I take a train from Chicago to DC which takes about 17 hours, and luckily I’ll be in one of those nifty “roomettes” for that trip. Then from DC to Philly.
& Whilst plenty of you think I’m insane, I really prefer nothing more than sitting and looking out a window listening to music and thinking. Writing. Reading. It’s all the stuff I do anyway, but somehow doing it while moving feels more productive.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m on my way to the Liberty Conference in Philly, and yes, I did think I would be living in NYC when I said yes. I speak at Saturday’s luncheon about How We Love You (Trans People) and then later the same day about sex being a four letter word. Do come if you can.
Sunday, I get back on the train and do the whole thing in reverse, but not in heels.
IFGE 2009: “Disordered No More”
This year I didn’t get to IFGE & this year, Julia Serano & Joelle Ruby Ryan both went. What’s up with that? (Actually, I was expecting to be able to attend in Philly in April but they moved the whole conference to DC in February, when i was teaching too much to be able to attend.)
Either way, they & Kelley Winters presented a panel called “Disordered No More” about GID diagnosis. Lynn Conway, who was also there, has posted a ton of the information they presented, including excepts from all three of their presentations (or in some cases, the whole paper).
So for those of us who couldn’t attend, we can at least read up on their presentations, which is a very cool thing indeed.
Philly in Spring
I won’t be at the Femme Fever Ball I blogged about yesterday because I’ll be speaking in Milwaukee, but I will be back on the East Coast this spring, in early May, in Philly, for the Liberty Conference. Some of my fellow presenters include:
Dr. Richard Doctor, Arlene Lev, Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel, Dr. Sherman Leis, Dr. Jennifer Burnett, Dr. Sandra Simmons, Dr. James Thomas, Dr. Richard Hauer, Dr. Mark Zukowski, Dr. Maureen Osborne, Rev. Karla Fleshman, Allison Lang, Jan Brown, Stephanie Battaglino, Mona Rae Mason, Lady Ellen Melissa Clark, and Georgie Jessup
I’ll be speaking at the Saturday Luncheon about relationships in a talk called “How We Love You: Let Us Count the Ways” which will address issues of identity, intimacy, compromise, sex, family, and marriage.
You can read more & register at www.transeventsusa.org.
Femme Fever Gala Ball
The Femme Fever Gala Ball will be held on April 18, 2009 from 8pm to 12am & has been compared to a prom-like event. Betty & I have been to a few Femme Fever events & Karen hosts a great party.
All the info you need is below the break. Continue reading “Femme Fever Gala Ball”
Trans Year in Review
Here’s Jacob Anderson-Minshall’s now annual “Trans Year in Review” article, which covers a lot of interesting people and events and media in the trans commmunity for 2008.