Transgender & Intersex: November 2009
On Transition & Suicide
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | November 29, 2009 2:30 PM |A recent death and the comments I've read has me in an unusual mood today. And I'm reminded of something that I've seen, and that many in the LGBT community as a whole have seen. There was, for a couple...Read More
The Cleveland Show goes transphobic: GLAAD goes silent
Filed by Bil Browning | November 29, 2009 1:00 PM |I realize the Thanksgiving holiday was last week, but surely the folks at GLAAD didn't take the entire week off work. After all, they had plenty of time to critique Good Morning America's decision to dump Adam Lambert after his...Read More
Book Review: Transmigration
Filed by Dr. Jillian T. Weiss | November 28, 2009 12:00 PM |Poet Joy Ladin's new collection, Transmigration, will soon be out from Sheep Meadow Press. This is from her poem Secrets: You discover them every day, Leaning toward you, trying not to laugh. As guilty Of the truth you never told...Read More
Vegas trans activists move to merge with Reno group
Filed by Cassandra Keenan | November 23, 2009 3:00 PM |Sometimes, history happens right before your very eyes. Saturday seemed like one of those instances. That's when a group of Las Vegas trans activists took some of their first steps toward formally organizing, as well as joining forces with upstate...Read More
In Honor of our Fallen Brothers and Sisters on this Day of Remembrance
Filed by Kelley Winters | November 22, 2009 2:30 PM |My sisters, brothers, friends and allies, Tonight, on this eleventh International Transgender Day of Remembrance, we come together once again to honor those who lost their lives to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. Our annual Day of Remembrance was founded by...Read More
Whose Day of Remembrance?
Filed by Tobi Hill-Meyer | November 21, 2009 4:00 PM |This year the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) lists 162 trans people killed. That's over 3 a week. The number is significantly higher than previous years (which had generally been between 20 and 30), and most people are attributing that...Read More
CA Bay Area: Vigil Sunday for Jorge Steven Lopez-Mercado and Jason Mattison Jr.
Filed by Jessica Hoffmann | November 21, 2009 2:00 PM |This Sunday in Oakland, Bay Area queers and allies will gather near Lake Merritt for a candlelight vigil and open mic to mourn Jorge Steven López-Mercado and Jason Mattison Jr., queer and gender non-conforming teenagers who were brutally murdered last...Read More
Making A Better Life
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | November 16, 2009 6:00 PM |As I pointed out, I don't really have a lot of cause or reason to fight. Indeed, I don't find activism to be particularly fulfilling, or advocacy to be especially rewarding, and don't really want to do it as I can think of many things I'd rather be doing. Like making a better life for myself.Read More
Rocky Horror and the Holy Grail, or: The Problem with Defining to Exclusion
Filed by Mercedes Allen | November 16, 2009 4:00 PM |As communities rise from the margins, they undergo a process of introspection, microscopic self-examination and self-definition. It's a process of healing, throwing off the ill-fitting definitions that had been imposed previously by a majority that didn't experience and most often...Read More
The sexual politics of a hug
Filed by Cassandra Keenan | November 15, 2009 1:00 PM |Far from just warm and fuzzy, hugging is commonly rich with personal revelations regarding our sexual and gender identity, as well as sexual equality. What got me to thinking about this? I was hanging out recently with this girl I...Read More
First Event 2010: One Big Happy Transgender Family
Filed by Dr. Jillian T. Weiss | November 15, 2009 10:00 AM |I will be presenting a keynote address at "First Event 2010" in Peabody, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. First Event, an annual event presented for the past 29 years by The Tiffany Club of New England, will be held January...Read More
Putting on the brakes: An apology
Filed by Austen Crowder | November 14, 2009 4:00 PM |As Antonia said in my last post's comments, "My dear, you certainly stepped into it." It has come to my attention that my counterpoint article on trans exclusion/inclusion has made the rounds on e-mail lists, forums, and the desks of...Read More
When Its Not Your Fight
Filed by Antonia D'orsay | November 13, 2009 3:00 PM |So for my first actual contribution, I'm going to talk about something that's been on my mind of late. Some of it is informed by Austen's recent posts, but for the most part its informed by the direction I've come to feel that things must go in order to make headway in our quest for equality and equity. And I think about this stuff for a really simple reason: its not really my fight.Read More
Third gender in India
Filed by Alex Blaze | November 13, 2009 11:30 AM |I know that people often point to understandings of gender and sex that include more than two options, but have you ever seen a system of understanding sex that rejected the binary in a modern state's government? (Let me know...Read More
Counterpoint: trans-inclusion is distracting to LGB legislation
Filed by Austen Crowder | November 11, 2009 6:00 PM |Author's note: this piece is a point-counterpoint, academic discussion of issues currently circulating in the LGBT community. These points in no way represent my personal beliefs on the issue: as a transwoman and LGBT activist I want to see solidarity...Read More
Indianapolis Transgender Day of Rememberance
Filed by Austen Crowder | November 10, 2009 11:57 AM |It's that time again. This year's Transgender Day of Rememberance activities include a presentation of "TransActions," a play exploring the emotions and realities of being transgender in this day and age. It's a wonderful play, and a wonderful way to...Read More
Vegas still casts desert mirage of equality
Filed by Cassandra Keenan | November 09, 2009 5:00 PM |It's the sex and gambling capital of the world - a place where anything goes, right? Wrong. As far as I'm concerned, Las Vegas generally has a bogus reputation for being socially liberal, including when it comes to LGBTQ liberties,...Read More
Take a tip from the Lions: or why I don't like the marriage fight
Filed by Austen Crowder | November 06, 2009 4:00 PM |Thinking of gay marriage reminds me of Detroit. Here was a team that did everything wrong; up until the third game of this season they hadn't won a game since 2007. The stadium rarely filled up. The sportscasters used them...Read More
Ok... So, now what?
Filed by Amy Hunter | November 06, 2009 1:00 PM |It's funny, Tuesday afternoon, after watching the noon news, inside my head, I was willing to entertain the idea that we could lose. I mean actually lose! The local newscast had ended with a piece about ballot question 1856--the non-discrimination...Read More
Chaz Bono & Media Representation of Trans People
Filed by Guest Blogger | November 06, 2009 12:00 PM |Editors' note: Antonia "Toni" D'orsay is an advocate and sociologist based out of Phoenix Arizona working for several organizations in an advisory capacity, where she works on issues of empowerment, education, and language within and without the LGBT community under...Read More
Are We Listening?
Filed by Rebecca Juro | November 05, 2009 1:30 PM |It's times like these when, even though you're proven right, you take no joy in it. Back in February, I wrote that same-sex marriage is overall a loser issue in this country right now and that our community would be...Read More
Update: Statement on Gender Identity Disorder and Transvestic Fetishism in the DSM-V
Filed by Kelley Winters | November 04, 2009 2:00 PM |The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association is regarded as the medical and social definition of mental disorder throughout North America and strongly influences the The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and...Read More
Lessons for the marginalized
Filed by Amy Hunter | November 02, 2009 1:00 PM |Kalamazoo will vote tomorrow. Should the city reinstate and keep on the books a transgender inclusive non-discrimination ordinance? Nearly all of these local initiatives ultimately stand or fall on two issues, "reverse discrimination", leveled at L,G,B and T and the...Read More
