Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
This week Freedom to Marry is featuring a ton of guest bloggers talking about marriage equality, and my post goes up today at 1PM.
It’s both a pleasure and an honor to be given the chance to say something in support of full marriage equality for everyone.Do go read tons of the posts this week, & direct your friends and family and community members to do so, too.
If you don’t feel convinced, or even if you do, watch this:
“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
My friend James Hipps of www.gayagenda.com called a radio morning show after the DJs used “fag” on the air today, and he ended up on the air.
Forget the gay-baiting. The gender-baiting is astounding. Is this how it is now? That a guy can be “pro gay marriage” and still a hateful schmuck?
A study done by two NYU researchers shows that in fact, party, ideology, frequency of religious service, and age were far more important factors than race in the defeat of Prop 8.
So at long last, we can put this one down.
The other good news is that they also found support for same sex marriage has increased in nearly all demographics.
Press release at Freedom to Marry, & the actual study is here (pdf).
It certainly looks like Huckabee is doing some early work to get out in front for the 2012 presidential run, doesn’t it?
As Pam over at PHB points out:
“This man ran for president and intends to do so again. Journalists, particularly openly progressive ones, have an obligation to bore in on pols like Huckabee because their views are often wrapped up with a wink and a smile and sold as protecting family, children, the word “marriage”, etc. as if this is all a benign act that hurts no citizens in this country.”
Jon Stewart took him down in a good way – you can see the clip at Pam’s – and I agree with her that we need go shut this down before it gets too big.
5:20 PM – edited to add that HRC has set up a page so you can thank Senator Smith to standing up for LGBT rights.
Joe.My.God’s reporting that there’s even further acrimony & weirdness coming out of the wrangling that’s been going on in the NY Senate between the “gang of three” anti-gay senators and the rest of the Dems.
For those of you who haven’t read about this before, the brouhaha stems from the Marriage Equality Bill that Gov. Paterson and the Senate Dems back. The three people name – Diaz, Kruger, & Espada – aren’t for the bill.
I always wonder about the embarrassment people are going to feel 20 years from now where the idea of opposing gay marriage seems as lame as being against giving women the vote.
A friend of a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska got to see the documentary She’s a Boy I Knew which I’d heard good things about, so I asked her to write a review.
by Dr. Pat. Tetreault
She’s A Boy I Knew is a remarkably well-made film. It is honest, funny, poignant and real. Canadian Gwen Haworth narrates and directs the documentary about her life, her coming out process regarding her gender and sexuality, and how her transition to become the woman she is meant to be impacts her life as well as the lives of those she loves and who love her. Through the use of home videos and interviews with family members and friends, including her ex-wife, Gwen reveals the depth and range of emotion and the process involved in coming out and in transitioning. Brief animated segments are also included to lighten the film while providing background information. Continue reading “Review: She’s a Boy I Knew”
My friend Shirene, who I met while I was researching My Husband Betty, and at a SPICE conference to boot, has contined to work with wives who have just found out their husbands are crossdressers. She wrote this letter recently to one such wife, and I thought it was worth sharing here, for any husband who might want to use it to help come out to his wife, or for any wife who has just found out.
I don’t necessarily agree with how she simplifies certain issues – like the “crossdressers are heterosexual” meme – but a lot of the rest of it is a good “talking down” for a new wife who might be completely panicking.
Dear Jill,
Hi. I hope you don’t mind receiving a letter like this from a stranger, but my husband is transgender also and I know that if I could have received a letter such as this when I found out, it would have made it easier on both me and my husband. My name is Shirene, I’m 43, we live in S******, IL and I’ve known about Shayla since ‘98. We’re at 555 555 5555.
I will admit it’s somewhat of an adapted form letter so please ignore the things that don’t apply to your situation and please excuse the things I’m telling you that you already know. Continue reading “Letter To a Wife”
My next Our Chart post is up, this one about same sex marriage, and trans loopholes, and why.
Dan Savage in the NYT on the Arkansas ruling prohibiting unmarried couples – not just gay and lesbian ones – from adopting or fostering children:
That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage†from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.†Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.
Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.
I really do wonder how even people who hate gay folks think this is justified.
(thanks to Tina for the link!)
Wow.