lobolance

Some of my personal Feri work led me to another round of self-work on LGBT stuff in my own life a month or so ago (yea Amethyst Pentacle!). With a focus on 'visibility.' Despite being an organizer and all that, I still had some itchy spots. Probably always will, yadda yadda.

And now I've got the Trans Day of Visibility event coming up, and people are contacting me out of the woodwork! New therapists looking to learn, or to find help for young FTMs. New film makers. A guy who is a legislative assistant asked if he could speak. Not to mention having a couple of drag performances. And more. 

Maybe this will be an opportunity for me to learn more myself, perhaps find a segue into some new career paths. Who knows. I feel pretty proud of it all, really, and it hasn't even happened yet.

OTOH, I still have to connect with friends to get the sound system, and relearn how to use it, and order and pick up coffee for that evening, and make a script, and make sure the projector will work, and find all of the film dvds... :-)

Transgender Day of Visibility
Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center, 938 The Alameda, San Jose
March 31st, 7-9pm

This event tends to be inspiring as well as solemn. Hope local peeps will check it out.




Saturday, November 20 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center
938 The Alameda
San Jose, CA

Paul Monette helped me survive the *huge* grief and rage I felt during the worst years of the AIDS crisis.

World Aids Day reminds me of the gratitude I have for time with the people I loved and lost, for the leather men who were never my teachers but would have been, for the poets, and for those who are living with AIDS today.

Guys, being trans is not reason enough to be a bug chaser.

Interesting ramifications indeed. WA state is embroiled in a battle around a trans man's legal status; when he can legally be called a man. The attorney wants the definition to be about reproduction capacity. Isn't that nice? This after all of the work the medical/theraputic community has put into understanding and making definitions that acknowledge gender is about identity, not 'bits'. Not that that community has't got a helluva long way to go yet. ;-)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/03/2675154.htm

I thought it was interesting the attorney was resisting going with the ruling that being a man was not legally connected to the ability to bear children (described as having or not having a hysterectomy, though of course it's more complicated than that); becuase of the challenges he foresaw in the legal system.

He has a point. The occasional trans man who bears a child will likely make for an occasionally complex legal sitations. Yet there are a lot of complex legal issues, and one or two have revolved around offspring (we're not terribly good at the whole best-for-the-child thing). I don't think one additional thorn is gonna bring down legal civilization.

I don't believe an entire class of people should have their legal gender dependent upon a possible legal inconvenience. 'Let's make sure x can't happen by taking away all those people's identity.' I appreciated the phrasing though... clearly the attorney general wasn't thinking about the lives of actual people, but of just the legal system (doing his job, I'm sure). Which is supposed to be for the lives of actual people. As originally conceived. These things take on a life of their own.

Of course, speculating gently, without some finesse, legal women without a uterus could be defined as legally male... I'm sure that would be a winner. And then there are those inconvenient intersex people...

As wit all medical and legal stuff, it's also interesting to consider how few trans people there are. At that level, it also seems crazy to put effort into making laws which restrict so few people. Isn't that a basic definition of discrimination; to hold against the minority?

Here's hoping the State Administrative Tribunal's ruling stands.

Peter Toscano. Amazing Christian view on transgender. If you're interested in the topic, watch the video.

I'm not Christian, but wow, I know a lot of folks have suffered around the intersection of that religion and their gender identity.

...he said nonjudgmentally, with full acceptance of diversity, and the ability to be compassionate, etc. ;-)

I got the standard HRC weekly update today, and it's all about health care.

The word 'transgender' doesn't appear in it once. Though he says repeatedly 'LGBT is all about health care'.

I sent him a personal thanks.

... ah the response says the responses aren't read or responded to, and they're phasing out the return address.

I can imagine.

Transcript of a talk as it was given at the 2009 WPATH conference in Oslo, Norway, June 19, 2009, by Randall Ehrbar, Kelley Winters, Nicholas Gorton

http://www.gidreform.org/wpath2009/

some highlights (my words):
'gender dysphoria' as the diagnostic term; emphasis on 'dysphoria', not transness in itself as diagnosis/illness
'remission' concept: after people have successfully transitioned, the dysphoria is in remission, but ongoing treatment is (usually) required to keep 'em happy.
removes 'transvestism' and some poor/outdated language from the the DSM as pertains to gender.

Am keeping my fingers crossed, and grateful to the medical professionals (and friends) doing this work.

I didn't get that into the Oz books, but maybe I should've; a trans-ish experience happens in one. The book seems like a fine resource for a trans girl, and the article is a powerful reminder of how important it is to see ourselves reflected in the culture.

http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=3261