Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
& I am going today, because I have to, because I did for The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe, and because I’m really really hoping that the water god looks as cool in the movie as he does in the trailer.
But Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep (well, his voice) should be entertaining, even if the Trufflehunter the Badger isn’t (though if he’s anything close to the Beavers, he’ll be fantastic).
They’re shooting Dawn Treader next, which is my favorite.
Two bits of good news: Khadijah Farmer won the suit against Caliente Cab Company, & not just that:
Among the workplace practices that Caliente Cab agreed to adopt in the settlement was to add gender identity and expression to its corporate nondiscrimination policy; to adopt a gender-neutral dress code for its employees; and to amend its employee handbook to state “persons patronizing or employed at Caliente have the right to use the bathroom facilities consistent with their gender identity and expression.â€
The second piece of good news – well we’re hoping it will end up being good news – is that California’s Supreme Court just lifted the Same Sex Marriage Ban. There are a few potential downsides – like gay marriage becoming a presidential election issue again – but for now I’ll leave you with Shannon Minter:
Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights said same-sex marriage advocates could not have hoped for a more favorable ruling by the Republican-dominated court. “It’s a total victory,” Minter said.
I just love that a trans person was the one who argued the case, and won.
A couple of recent memes:
and
Is Hilary Clinton going to go away now, please? Please?!
(As of 10:17PM, Obama won North Carolina with a double-digit percentage lead, and Clinton is right now leading Obama with only a 4% lead.)
James Carville recently joked that if Clinton gave Obama one of her testicles, they’d both have two.
har de har har.
That, plus the joke about her “testicular fortitude” – ugh, does a woman running for president have to have balls?
Worse, making a joke about the black candidate having less than two is really ugly – and historically, a pretty loaded thing to say, considering the sexualization of black males, specifically as predators, & the way so many black men who were lynched were also subject to castration or other genital mutilation.
Carville turned into an asshole this campaign season, imho (which started with the whole Bill “Judas” Richardson fracas.) To me, this is unforgivably ignorant of American history and some of the racialized hate we’ve experienced as a nation. There is no excuse for someone as high up as Carville to make this kind of wisecrack. As if gender baiting weren’t bad enough.
Shakesville summarizes why the gendered part of the joke isn’t funny, either:
“From “pansy” to “testicular fortitude”2 to this little outburst, Clinton surrogates have been trying to paint Clinton as a tough, manly man, and Obama as, for lack of a better word, a sissy. This is a line of attack that demeans Obama, demeans Clinton, demeans women, demeans men, demeans anyone who believes that toughness and sensitivity need not be tied directly to gender. I expect more from the Clinton campaign; given the amount of misogyny that Clinton has faced, I’d like to think her campaign would be free of it. But evidently it’s easier to paint Hillary as a man than to argue that women can be tough too; it’s easier to paint Obama as less than a man than to argue that women can be tougher than men. And it’s a shame, because clearly, there are some women tougher than some men. Hillary Clinton may be tougher than Barack Obama. But it isn’t because she’s a guy, and it isn’t because he’s a girl.”
(via Shakesville)
(crossposted in several places, and people are welcome to forward this on freely to others in the transgender and GLBT communities, as I see this as being very serious — Mercedes)
A short time ago, I’d discussed the movement to have “Gender Identity Disorder†(GID, a.k.a. “Gender Dysphoriaâ€) removed from the DSM-IV or reclassified, and how we needed to work to ensure that any such change was an improvement on the existing model, rather than a scrapping or savaging of it.
Lynn Conway reports that on May 1st, 2008, the American Psychiatric Association named its work group members appointed to revise the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders in preparation for the DSM-V. Such a revision would include the entry for GID.
On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto’s infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative (i.e. “ex-gayâ€) therapy to “cure†gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zucker’s mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.â€
I came back from visiting Betty upstate to find out that there is a huge mess involving Seal Press (my publishers) which came right on the heels of BFP’s departure last week.
So without pointing out every phrase and person involved, I’ll just say a few things as a white feminist who really only consciously became a feminist after reading Michele Wallace, and who, for nearly 10 years, worked for author Walter Mosley, who has written and talked about the absence of POC in the publishing industry, specifically.
The under representation of WOC in publishing has been a problem for a long time. The under representation of POC has been as well, in general. It’s not just chronic; it’s really fucking awful. Continue reading “Fuck Seal Press?”
Back in October, I posted about Firewater’s new music – which only now is about to be released. But more importantly, they’re touring – just about everywhere.
I’ve got my tickets, on this, the 25th anniversary of my very first concert ever (Adam Ant, with INXS opening, at St. John’s University).
Two reasons I want Obama to win the nomination:
Still, I think he’s paying attention in ways other politicians don’t. & I’ll be honest, the degree of entitlement being expressed by the Clinton campaign – as if she is the only possible nominee – just pisses me off.