Ariadne Kane has been doing transgender outreach longer than many of us have been walking – since 1972. She was on The Phil Donahue Show in 1980 and probably gave some of the people reading this a glimpse that they weren’t alone in being trans. Somewhere in there she came up with the idea of Fantasia Fair, as well.
< Ariadne Kane
1. Since you were the person who ‘invented’ Fantasia Fair, how did it come about? What did it take to put on the first couple of them? How has it changed in the ensuing years?
Fan/Fair (the abbreviated version) was conceived of in 1974. It struck me that we could create a dynamic program of activities that were educational, social and practical for all CDs & TSs who were willing to come out from the ‘closets’ of shame, guilt and shyness. I believed that, in a tolerant and open community, they could learn some things about being femme or masculine; get much needed help about comportment and presentation and, have truly educational experience out of the ‘closet’. It was with this guiding premise that Fan/Fair was created. It was with the help and financial backing of 3 members of the Boston Cherrystone ‘T’ Club and myself that Fan/Fair 1 became a reality in 1975.
Needless to say, we learned a lot about the needs and aspirations of the ‘T’ community, including what program elements worked in favor of our Goals for the program. Over the next 3 decades, the Fan/ Fair Steering Committee adopted a template for programming and administration, These included a balanced mix of educational, social and practical modules for the ‘T’ person who wanted to emerge from the ‘closet’ and learn the dynamics leading to personal growth and adaptability in either the feminine or the masculine gender role of choice. This template is still the guiding instrument in the design of every Fair, even today.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Ariadne Kane”
A Letter from Paisley Currah
I received this today & as an author of books on trans subject, I thought I should make it available for more of you to see. There is very little out there that recognizes good scholarship/writing on the part of transfolks.
Friends,
Some of you know that, in addition to being a transgender rights advocate, I’m also the Executive Director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS). Much of my work at CLAGS focuses on supporting writing, research, and advocacy about and for trans people.
I’m emailing you because, as activists, a scholars, or as scholar-activists, I know you’re interested in research on trans issues, and that you might be interested in supporting this work by making a donation to the Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies, a prize CLAGS gives out each year for the best piece of published writing in transgender studies. The 2004 winner was Jamison Green, for his book, Becoming a Visible Man. It probably won’t come as a surprise to many of you that there is still little recognition of transgender studies in the academy, and in publishing generally, so the very existence of this award does much to promote the work of those writing about transgender people.
I’m very proud of the work that we do at CLAGS to further transgender studies and advocacy, among other things. But here’s the thing–less than 7% of CLAGS’s operating costs come from the university that houses us. Almost all our work depends on the support of individuals and foundations. And all of the support for our fellowships, including the Sylvia Rivera Award, comes from individuals like you.
So please do consider supporting transgender studies by making a donation of any size (even a $10 or $20 donation would help a lot , $100 or $200 even more !) towards the Sylvia Rivera Award. Donations to the Sylvia Rivera Award count will also entail you to a CLAGS membership, including a subscription to CLAGSnews, other member benefits, and my undying love and gratitude.
You can make your donation online, right now. Just go to our donations page and choose “Sylvia Rivera Award” under “your support.” Or, you can send a check to CLAGS, Room 7115, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
For those of you who don’t know about CLAGS, here’s some background–CLAGS was established in 1991 at the Graduate Center campus of the City University of New York as the first and only university-base research center for Lesbian /Gay /Transgender /Bisexual /Queer (LGTBQ) issues, histories and ideas. For more than a dozen years, CLAGS has worked to foster and disseminate LGTBQ thought to the country through its public programming (panels, colloquium series, conferences), outreach efforts (free reading and discussion groups), and resources (a far-reaching newsletter, well-trafficked website, a book series with NYU Press). And in May 2005, we hosted a national conference, “Trans Politics, Social Change, and Justice.” More in-depth information about the trans conference and CLAGS in general can be found at our website, www.clags.org.
Thanks so much for considering my request.
All my best,
Paisley
Paisley Currah / Executive Director / Center for Lesbian and Gays Studies (CLAGS) / http://www.clags.org &
Director / Transgender Law & Policy Institute / http://www.transgenderlaw.org
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) / Graduate Center, Room 7115 / City University of New York / 365 Fifth Avenue / New York, NY 10016
For more information about CLAGS’s events, programs, conferences, colloquia, and fellowships, to add to or search our directory of LGBTQ Studies, to join our mailing list, or to find out how to become a member, please visit our web site at www.clags.org.To make an online donation to CLAGS, go to our page at Groundspring..
Hirschfeld Revival
I’ve seen the revivals of a couple of people whose work I love: first, Edna St. Vincent Millay, who had stopped being recognized in academia for a few decades before interest in her returned; before that, Buster Keaton, who now gets mentioned in documentaries on Bob Newhart and in various conversatons with film people.
But the revival of Magnus Hirschfeld really thrills me. I’ve often wondered how different the world might be if his work at the Institute of Sexuality had continued all those years ago. He circulated a petition to make homosexuality legal in Berlin; he personally testified on the part of transsexuals in order to get their gender identity changed on ID cards, and he is, of course, the person who coined both the terms ‘transvestite’ and ‘transsexual’ (though the latter was popularized by Dr. Harry Benjamin).
There’s a reason I dedicated My Husband Betty to him, and much thanks to Vern Bullough for “introducing” me to Hirschfeld’s work (in his Crossdressing, Sex, and Gender) and to Donna for posting the Gay City News article, and to Benjamin Weinthal for writing it.
Saturday Night
Saturday night, Betty and I went to a birthday party for the President of NCTE that was also an NCTE fundraiser, and while we didn’t stay long, we did manage to find Michelle and Mara Keisling – and took them with us to Silver Swan once Betty and I paid for one beer + one glass of wine that cost us $17.
We met a CD from Chicago named Rebecca while we were there, & she took a nice photo of the bunch of us, and since she got everyone’s permission to post it on her blog, I thought I’d cross-post it here:
Back Row: Betty, Michelle
Front Row: Helen, Mara, Michelle, Jamie, Rebecca.
We didn’t stay till 6am with all of them, but we did go home awfully late & awfully drunk. (Okay, well I was drunk, but that’s because I haven’t adjusted to how fast I get drunk now that I’m dieting & can’t eat a bowl of pasta before I go out = cheap date.)
& No, we’re never going back to Crobar again. Way too bridge and tunnel for me, and I hate clubs where everyone’s wearing jeans and t-shirts. BOring. Though while we were in a cab, an SUV full of party girls started emptying its contents, groups of two & threes of these trashy looking girls, & they just kept coming until it was like a skank version of a clown car. Very amusing.
IFGE
I’m not sure I can even express what a good time I had at IFGE this year. It was one of my favorite conferences the first time around, & I’m very glad I got to go back – even if it had to be without Betty.
My first night in, hanging at Players’ bar, I had a tentative older man ask me if I was Ms. Boyd, and then whether or not I would hang around long enough for him to go get books for me to sign. I said yes, of course, and when he came back down he was so full of compliments and thanks I was nearly embarrassed – and he said it all while Meredith Bacon was sitting next to me, catching up. She looks great, very French academic, imho, with her banged bob. Ironically, five minutes later someone else came up to me & told me that the section I wrote about her was “dead wrong” which prompted someone within earshot to say, “so I get the feeling people either love you or hate you,” and I have to admit, that seems awfully true.
I have to thank both Kristine and Alison for organizing such a great conference, and for being so welcoming. Kristine especially has a certain wryness about her when she’s observing a room and its goings-on that I love.
At IFGE, this is the way it goes: you see Richard Docter across the room and want to go say hello, and then you notice Dallas Denny sitting on a couch nearby, and then realize that the two people Dr. Docter is talking to are Nancy Nangeroni and Gordene Mackenzie (the latter of whom won a Virginia Prince award, & who is one of the loveliest people you could hope to meet). For me, it’s just remarkable, and any conversation I have is one I’d otherwise mull over, except they come at you so fast you almost can’t keep up. Two academics (one was Richard Docter) told me students love MHB and really engage with it, which makes me endlessly happy, because I don’t think people should need to read theory to think intensely and creatively about gender.
I met a bunch of people for the first time: the flirtatious (and fearless leader of Trans Veterans), Monica Helms. Dottie Berry, albeit briefly. Gordene Mackenzie, with whom I had one of the best conversations I’ve had in forever, and who was so wonderfully sweet and supportive about my writing and my work. She in turn introduced me to the legendary Phyllis Frye, who has one hell of a sense of humor and this downhome way of talking that charmed my socks off.
I got to meet and chat with Alice Novic, after some misunderstandings between us; I’d only ever met her in guy mode and she is a looker, hands down. (She’s definitely one of those crossdressers who make the whole ‘transsexuals pass and crossdressers don’t’ bullshit, bullshit.) Rachel Goldberg – who is on the board of GenderPac and who came in for a last-minute assist at this year’s Trans Issues Week at Yale for me – smiled & said hi a few times and yes, she’s beautiful, too. (As I mentioned earlier, I was noticing every beautiful dark-haired tranny who walked by, since I was sans Betty and had no idea what to do with my urge to flirt. I always have to be careful, since I think I’d have a taker or two if I weren’t.)
I had a great catch-up with Holly Boswell, who is just – I’m not sure I can explain the aura of sweetness and light that Holly radiates, and her hair, her hair! I’m always envious.
Mara Keisling is Mara Keisling, and she is one of the funniest most charming people ever, and it’s a really good feeling to know she’s on our side! I was envying a suit she wore, too, though she’s sworn she’s going to be femme this year…
Mariette Pathy Allen is ever-present, with camera, flitting, introducing. She’s the one who introduced me to Monica Helms.
I was a panelist for Mona Rae Mason‘s workshop on Defining Our Community, which we did not, in fact, define. I annoyed some people & pleased others with suggesting we maybe get on with things instead of spending another 10 years defining our terms.
I intended to see Sandra Cole and didn’t, pah.
I got to bug numerous people about returning my Five Questions With… interviews, and you all can consider this another reminder!
I got to hang out with Lore, a transman I recently met here in NYC, and met Alan, a 21 year old transman from Berkeley who is on the IFGE board. As Michelle pointed out to me during lunch, I had gathered the butchest table at the luncheon. I’m still processing a lot of my feelings about my own gender, but it’s always a relief for me to be around the FTM set.
My own workshop went well – thanks Lore for the loan of the watch – and I was absolutely tickled that the remarkable Hawk Stone showed up for it – especially because he’s seen me speak before and came back for more! He’s a good nodder, exactly what you want as a speaker to know if you’re making any sense.
Thanks to all the fantastic partners who came, and said hello, and who are trying to make this work – especially the woman who said hello to me after my workshop and who is with her partner post-transition – and that after 30 years of marriage. She said some lovely, reassuring things to me about Betty’s possible transition, along the lines of “I didn’t expect to be able to do this either.”
Mostly I’m just overwhelmed with the humor and grace of the trans community. The flirts, the heavy hearts, the activists, the educators – it’s such a beautiful diversity of people, and that we all get along at all is remarkable. I spoke with an emerging transwoman about her possible transition and her own “Hobson’s Choice” as she dearly loves her wife of 24 years, and was there under the strain of an ultimatum.
It was sad to leave when I had to; I felt like I’d invited a bunch of people to a great party & then once they all got there, I left. More & more people were showing up as the weekend approached, & I’m sure tons more showed up Friday night & into Saturday.
& I haven’t even touched on all the new thoughts I had about my own gender, Betty’s gender, and gender in general. But then I have to get back to writing, so I’ve got a nice jumping off point to do so.
Five Questions With… Mara Keisling
Mara Keisling is the founding Executive Director of NCTE (National Center for Transgender Equality). A Pennsylvania native, Mara came to Washington after co-chairing the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition. Mara is a transgender-identified woman who also identifies as a parent and a Pennsylvanian. She is a graduate of Penn State University and did her graduate work at Harvard University in American Government. She has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara has almost twenty-five years of professional experience in social marketing and opinion research.
1) How much do you think your personality and sense of humor have to do with your success as a lobbyist? What personality? What humor?
I’m not yet ready to claim personal lobbying success, though I know we definitely are having an impact and NCTE was integral to getting the first ever piece of positive trans legislation introduced in Congress this year. I do know though that my sense of humor is a vital part of my personality and helps keep me strong. “They†say that keeping one’s sense of humor is important to weathering bad situations and I certainly believe that. And I have always been lucky enough to be able to amuse myself. Hopefully sometimes others are amused as well.
The work we do educating policymakers, though, is deadly serious and I do treat it that way. That doesn’t mean I do not inject humor as appropriate though. I think it humanizes us and me and makes our stories somewhat more accessible to those who may be trepidatious at first.
By the way, kind of as a hobby, I have begun to do a little bit of standup comedy again and may be coming to a town near you, or at least a trans conference near you.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Mara Keisling”
Way, WAY Too Much TV
Okay, I’m going to hope this is the last installation in my recent series about my TV viewing. (Previous installations includes posts about Coke and Adam Ant, Jenny Craig and street harassment, Beauty & the Geek, and one about a reality show that never aired, despite its feel-good homo-friendly vibe). Okay, I might still write about the Abigail Adams biography that’s been running on PBS, but not right now.
Right now I want to talk about the most lovely and bizarre – and uniquely American – merging of capitalism and philanthropy I’ve ever seen: Extreme Home Makeover.
Here’s the premise: family beset by hardship or doing really cool stuff is recommended to the show and its host, Ty Pennington, by a friend or neighbor and occasionally a member of the family.
The Extreme Home Makeover team show up at the family’s door, send them on vacation for a week, and during that very same week, completely re-build their entire house.
They use products that get prominent display during the show and on the show’s website: tools from Sears, and appliances from Kenmore. Basically, it’s free advertising in exchange for donated goods to use for the home makeover.
Local construction companies help out, and/or volunteer types, and often a celebrity gets involved. The family returns home, their community gathers, everyone shouts “move that bus!” and then everyone cries and smiles and hugs everyone else (especially the Design Team).
It’s the corniest shit ever and I love every minute of it. It’s so bizarrely American. In a way, it’s all win-win: cool families that do things like rescue injured animals get a great house and free dog food and kennels, Sears gets to show off their power tools, and millions of viewers are entertained.
Really, Betty and I have been watching weekly for a long while now, and we fight over tissues. Dunno, maybe during such shitty times, it’s a relief to see nice people who do good stuff get rewarded – and the only strings attached is a little bit of ‘good karma’ advertising for the companies that donate.
I think shows like this are what we should be exporting to the rest of the world instead of Baywatch or whatever other crap we export (there are some cultures, I’m sure, that find those damn Survivor shows insulting, since so much of the world’s population isn’t living in much better conditions than the contestants). We all know that Ford isn’t going to give any trucks to the employees they just laid off when their families apply in a year or so after not being able to find replacement work. No, of course not.
But at least it’s not crap news, of which we’ve got plenty.
Put On A Little Makeup (and Have a Coke)
I assume most people saw the Coke commercial where the woman goes into the barbershop and gets a man’s haircut, and I’m kind of surprised no-one told me about it – because the background music is Adam Ant’s “Goody Two Shoes” (and I’m a lifelong Adam Ant fan, for those who don’t know).
While I won’t bother to go into the myriad reasons Adam decided to sell a song for what I
assume are the big bucks now, I am pleased that the commercial is about some version of genderfuck, since Adam was one of the prettiest versions ever, in his day, and the lyrics are pretty a propos:
we don’t follow fashion
that’d be a joke
Walking Gender
So Andrea got me thinking about what I feel like when I feel attractive.
And the answer is Sting. Or Adam Ant. Some days, Buster Keaton. On groovier days, Terence Trent D’Arby (anyone remember him?).
I’m not copying a look. God knows I can’t walk around looking like Adam Ant; I haven’t got the cash or the innate sense of style he’s got. It’s more this sense of walking and having this sense that I feel like what he feels like when he’s out walking. Or what I imagine him to feel like feeling like.
Except the funny thing about it is that until hanging out with trannies, I never thought of any of it as gendered. I always admired a kind of cocksure attitude, and I’ve always liked suits, and white cuffs, and cufflinks. When Betty and I watch Raiders of the Lost Ark – which we do sometimes – and that scene comes on toward the end when Indy and Marion on are the steps of the Federal Building, and he’s natty in that 40s suit (and fedora) and she’s wearing that great women’s suit, we both know what the other is thinking. I wanna look like Indy, and Betty wants to look like Marion.
But I don’t want to be a man, don’t feel like a man, know that I won’t look like Indy. It’s more a sense of admiration I have for the person, in a role model kind of way, a sense of self that I’ve internalized, and that yes – is symbolically indicated by a suit. And a suit worn with attitude. Ditto for leather pants.
When I was a kid, my brother had these really cool red Levi’s. And I wanted a pair just like them. Eventually I got a pair, but by then I had hit puberty, and I had hips. And when I put them on, I felt really disappointed that I didn’t look like him in them.
I know, I know: everyone’s thinking she’s trans again. It’s hard to explain why I’m not, when I have all this evidence of both gender non-conformity (in general) and what you could call “cross dressing” piling up. But not looking like my brother didn’t make me think I should wrap my hips in ace bandages. It was more that I wanted the jeans to look the same way they did on him – not for me to look like him. If it makes any sense, it was more that my hips were ruining the lines of the jeans; my hips weren’t ruining my sense of self.
I don’t know or care what people actually SEE. It’s this internal rhythm, or internal rightness. I don’t feel disappointed when I look in a mirror & notice I’m *not* wearing spats or that I’m way hippier in suits than any man would ever be. In a sense, it has nothing to do with the way I look, but entirely to do with how I feel.
It doesn’t bother me that people don’t necessarily see what I’m feeling. Some days I think they must see something – a gleam in my eye, perhaps.
Basically, I know I’m not trans because it never occurred to me to want to be a man, and I certainly never thought I was one. I just thought I liked a certain kind of clothes that most girls didn’t like. But you know, most guys don’t like the kind of clothes I like, either. And I never felt like a man walking around in them, and still don’t. When I feel like Adam Ant, or Sting, or Buster Keaton, it’s because I feel a certain way, a certain kind of confidence, or cockiness, or jauntiness, or something like that. Something bookish, and antique, and wearing a good suit.
I just don’t think of myself as a gendered thing. There is nothing odd to me about liking men’s suits. Granted, I’ve got kind of foppy taste in men anyway. (If I were to add anyone else to my list, it’d be Oscar Wilde, but that comes with so much of a sense that I need be clever as well as well-dressed that it’s not a mood I strike very often.)
I was thinking that I don’t experience myself as a gender. Certainly not as male or female. If I were pressed, I might say “Masculine Woman.” (Recently I’ve been using “Phallic Female” because I think the “phallic” bit connotes far more of what I’m after.) But “masculine woman” conjures up: big, blue collar, maybe mean, undereducated, Bertha-type Diesel dyke. German athletes and jokes about women with mustaches, too. No matter what Katherine Hepburn did, or even Marlene Dietrich, we don’t hear “masculine woman” and think “natty dresser.”
Some days I think “feminine man” has better connotations, since it does point at some remarkable femme-y gay men, like the aforementioned Mr. Wilde, or Quentin Crisp.
And then, in an interview in Curve magazine (the same one I’m in) with the new actress of “The L Word, ” Daniela Sea, I find this exchange:
DS: I definitely identify as a tomboy … that’s the first thing that anybody teased me for when I was like 6.
DAM: Some people will interpret that as a lesbian experience and some interpret that as a typical trans experience.
And I think: I must not be alone. I can’t be the only woman who isn’t a lesbian and who isn’t trans who just happens to like men’s suits and feel like Sting when I’m walking down the street on a brisk Fall day.
Eddie Izzard
We were lucky enough to go see Eddie Izzard tonight, who’s working out new material in a nice, small theatre. What a blast! I laughed so hard at one bit – about flies – that I thought I might hurt myself. At one point he was offered marriage by a woman in the audience (he declined) but that made me think: hey, maybe what CDs need to do to find women who’ll love them & marry them is – be funny. & Talented. & Famous.
Thanks, Mr. Izzard, for a great show.