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Thanks, everyone.
Perseus Reorganizes Avalon
As some of you may remember, Avalon Publishing Group – my publisher – were bought by Perseus Books a few months back, and today they announced the news that my first imprint, Thunder’s Mouth Press, is being disbanded. It’s part of the re-organization, as imprint Carroll & Graf is also going, as are 24 employees of the former Avalon.
My Husband Betty will hopefully stay in print, as the book is now in its sixth printing and continues to make money, but still: it’s kind of sad to see my first home as a writer cease to exist.
Trans Lawyers
Donna, one of our mHB forum moderators, happens to be the only person we know of who has ever transitioned while working as an attorney at a law firm in New York. Recently she came upon an article about how great it is to be a GLBT lawyer these days, and her reaction was, “Maybe GLB – but T?” and wrote a letter to The American Lawyer about being trans and a lawyer. She refers to a report by the NYCLA from 2005 (which Caprice, another one of our mHB forum moderators, worked on):
A survey by the New York County Lawyers Association of the 25 largest law firms in New York City in early 2005 asked how many attorneys had ever transitioned (that is, publicly changed their gender) while working at those firms. Every one of the firms answered “none.”
She came to the conclusion that in this case, the use of LGBT is used more “reflexively” and so, for T people, “essentially meaningless.”
Thanks to Donna for being willing, not just to transition openly at a law firm, but in being willing to out herself for the sake of setting the record straight, especially because there are, at this point, quite a few people she deals with professionally who don’t know about her history.
No Kissing in Public
One of our mHB board regulars recently mentioned kissing her wife while at a conference, and I was reminded that I wanted to post something about kissing Betty at trans conferences.
The thing is, I’m not comfortable kissing her in trans spaces, often.
I noticed that I wasn’t while we were at IFGE, most likely because we were at DO the weekend before. But the thing is, DO has some queer folks, and some trans, but mostly hetero BDSM people and swingers and pagans and polyamorous people. That is, there’s no reason *except* a sex-positive atmosphere that should make DO as welcoming to a dykey + trans couple like ourselves, but we are.
& The thing is: there is *every* reason in the world a trans space should feel welcoming & safe to a dykey + trans couple, but it isn’t. & That, I think, is exactly what can be so wrong about trans spaces.
Born in the Wrong Body
I’m up in the middle of the night for no reason whatsoever, so I wanted to let people know they should keep an eye out for an MSNBC program called Born in the Wrong Body. We caught it tonight & were pleased to see the focus on a younger trans generation, since their situation is sometimes very different than ours.
I especially loved a male partner’s description of being with a transwoman, which he explained by saying: say you like hamburgers but you don’t like fries, & someone offers you a happy meal – you’re not going to turn down the whole thing just because there’s one part of it you don’t like.
Clever. I wanted to wish all the young adults and the author Cris Beam – whose book Transparent is (I think) the impetus behind both this show & Barbara Walters’ upcoming 4/27 show on trans youth – the best of luck.
(& We are, of course, discussing it over on the mHB message boards, though feel free to post a comment here if you’d prefer.)
WWJD?
Maple, one of our mHB board regulars, pointed out that some Christians have decided to put up these lovely billboards presenting an alternate vision of Jesus’ attitude toward homosexuality. There are more billboards at the site www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.com.
My Workshops at IFGE
We’re at the IFGE Transgender 2007 Conference in Philadelphia, and just so people know, I’ll be doing two workshops:
- On Friday, Trans Sex & Identity, 2 – 3:15PM
- On Saturday, a reading/discussion/Q&A of She’s Not the Man I Married, 2 – 3:15PM.
Otherwise, we’ll be around, so do say hello. A bunch of us who post on the mHB boards have been planning a get-together, too.
IFGE 2007
We’re off to the IFGE conference tomorrow, so we’ll see you when we get back. I’m hoping we’ll be able to check in while we’re in Philly, but conferences are funny things that way, and our laptop wi-fi just stopped working for no reason we can figure. If you’ll be at IFGE, there’s a gathering of mHB folks being planned on the boards.
He(Art)
Common Teri, a regular on the mHB message boards, sent us this bit of artwork she created out of one of the photos Ashley Thayer took of us:
Cute, no?
You can see more of her work on her website.
9th Preview of She’s Not the Man I Married
Well, we’re almost there, folks: the official pub date is just two weeks away, and I know many of you are already reading or have already read She’s Not the Man, but for those who aren’t, this is the last preview I’ll be putting up. It’s from my Preface:
This book is a sequel to My Husband Betty, at least in that our story and my reasons for thinking about gender take up where it left off. Mostly it is a love story, our love story, which, like any other, is not typical. It is the story of how a tomboy fell in love with a sissy, how a butch found her femme, how a boyish girl met a girlish boy. Who is who is not always clear and doesn’t always matter. In some ways, that’s the heart of this book: the idea that a relationship is a place where people can and do and maybe even ought to become as ungendered as they can. It comes from my very specific dislike of Martian men and Venusian women and the adversarial ideas about relationships that permeate our culture. While I am not interested in a genderless world, I am curious about the ways that gender can be manipulated in a romance, the ways it can be controlled instead of controlling our roles.