Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
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.
He’s 53 years old this year (this photo is from when he was, oh, 33 or so):
This is the text of the talk I gave in Denver on Tuesday. It probably won’t surprise anyone that I’ve been busting at the seams wanting to have a say in all of the dialogue going on about ENDA. At least I don’t think it should surprise anyone, not by now.
**
First, let me thank Ed and Jordan and all the students who asked them to bring me here. It’s a pleasure to be here in celebration of National Coming Out Day, a pleasure to see all of you gathered, celebrating who you are. Thanks to all the crossdressers, the gays, the lesbians, the genderqueers, the trans men & women, MTF and FTM, & to their partners. Thanks to all of you who are family, or friends, or allies, for being here.
Betty and I have been on tour a lot this year because I had a book published in March, and we’ve gotten a chance, once again, to meet a lot of people and to talk to a lot of trans people and partners, and this year, we’ve met more gay and lesbian people who aren’t trans than we did before. And it’s been a pleasure all around in hearing people’s stories of their own gender variance, or the stories of how they came out to loved ones, or of their first big crush or the moment when they realized they were trans or gay or lesbian or how they came to understand the first identity they understood themselves to be was not quite accurate in the long run. What I love to hear the most is about how queer people find one identity fits for a while and then not at all; like Oliver Wendell Holmes’ chambered nautilus, queer people build themselves bigger chambers, bigger categories, labels that are not so confining, over time.
That’s how it’s been for us, certainly. By the time people get used to what we’re calling ourselves our identities have shifted a little, changed usually by experiences we never expected and wouldn’t trade for anything. Continue reading “On ENDA, on National Coming Out Day”
(1) If you’d like to be added to a letter being sent to HRC from the leaders of the transgender community asking them “for an unequivocal statement that HRC will oppose this new strategy and any bill that is not inclusive,” then send an email to Shannon Minter at sminter(at)nclrights(dot)org.
Do add any affiliations you have with trans groups, LGBT organizations and the like.
(2) NCTE & The Transgender Law Center have a petition directed to Nancy Pelosi up at iPetitions.com. You can have your name listed anonymously, so there’s no reason not to sign this one.
from NCTE’s website:
Senate Passes Historic Hate Crimes Bill
The Hate Crimes Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act (S. 1105) was passed on a voice vote of the Senate today, September 27th. Immediately prior to the voice vote, a cloture vote to end debate of the Amendment was passed 60-39 with bipartisan support.This amendment was already passed on May 3rd in the House by a vote of 237-180.  NCTE is calling on President Bush to sign the bill with this historic provision included.
Mara Keisling, NCTE Executive Director, says, “While transgender people still have many obstacles to overcome, we are overjoyed that the hard work of so many people is coming to fruition.”
The Hate Crimes Amendment extends the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.
SOUTHERN COMFORT CONFERENCE 2007
KEYNOTE ADDRESS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2007
One Community, One Family
by Jenn Burleton, TransActive Education & Advocacy, Portland, OR
Thank you to the organizers of this amazing conference and in particular, Cat Turner, Lola Fleck and Elaine Martin. And I must thank my longtime friend, Mariette Pathy Allen. My life has been truly blessed as a result of knowing her and sharing many adventures with her…some of which are suitable for sharing with the whole family.
When Cat Turner called back in January and invited me to come to Atlanta I was of course, very honored. I was also surprised. After all, we’d never met. I’d never attended a previous Southern Comfort Conference and I am not, in my opinion anyway, one of the gender community heavy hitters.
Continue reading “SoCo Keynote: Jenn Burleton”
* quote by Mara Keisling, when providing an alternative description of what Bailey’s book could be described as instead of as “science.”
This NPR show out of the Bay Area about the whole Bailey controversy is good listening. Joan Roughgarden (author of Evolution’s Rainbow), Mara Keisling (executive director of NCTE), Alice Dreger (author of Hermaphrodites & The Medical Invention of Sex) & Bailey himself.
& A challenging phone call from Ben Barres, who I love & who does not let Bailey not answer a direct question (with textual backup from Roughgarden), specifically, whether or not Bailey feels trans people are suited to prostitution.
The only thing that no-one said that someone should have said is that Bailey now has a history & a record of turning (at best) weak science into “controversy,” such as with the bisexuality studies that came out a couple of years ago.
I’m upset by the idea of how or if Dreger’s status as a woman – not just as an academic or intersex educator – is coming into play here. That is, is a man not sexist because a woman says he isn’t? (I don’t think so, but I think that’s coloring her defense of Bailey.)
Tonight on Logo, a few of the presidential candidates will be asked questions specifically concerning LGBT Issues. It’s the first ever LGBT-specific debate that will be televised, and I’m quite curious as to what the media response will be – if there is a media response.
As of late July, the candidates participating are:
While I was poking around project playlist last week in order to bring you a few of my favorite inspiring tracks, I found a reference to some gender-bending of the 80s. A b-side of a Dead or Alive single I don’t care about (although of course Pete Burns is still around & doing hir thing), but the other b-side mentioned was “Greta X” by Adam Ant. The song was written in the late 70s but only produced/released in the mid 80s, and it’s about crossdressing:
I’m a joyous glad TV
Why don’t you come TV with me?
I know a girl who loves to dress me
Up like this and then caress me
To remind me of the way
I used to go both night and day
In femininity there’s pride
We’ll marry soon, I’ll be the bride
& People wonder how I wound up this way, listening to such things at the tender age of 15!
& Yes, I have wondered if Adam’s a CD. I doubt it – he wrote songs about people into rubber and BDSM, too. (Though of course he could be into those things, as well, as far as I know; Amanda Donohue knows for sure but I bet she’s not talking.)
We are down to the wire on the federal hate crimes bill (H.R.1592).
This Thursday, May 3, the federal hate crime bill is scheduled to be voted on in the U.S. House. We really have a chance to pass this life-saving law this year.
But what we are hearing today is that the radical right has turned their lie machine on force blast and turned out their followers. Members of Congress and their staff are telling us that the people who hate us, who are lying about us, are contacting Congress in greater numbers than we are. That’s not unusual, but it is very dangerous. It is not unusual because that’s what they do: they scare their followers into calling their representatives in Congress. It is very dangerous because it could work this time.
What YOU Can Do
1. Find your member of Congress and call him or her.
2. Sign our petition supporting the hate crimes bill by clicking here.
3. Support the passage of this bill by joining us for NCTE’s annual Lobby Day on May 14-15!