-
Transgender festival Sparkle kicks off in Manchester, UK
The seventh annual transgender festival known as Sparkle kicked off today in Manchester, UK. From the site:
Sparkle is a celebration of all things transgender, from workshops and talks to parties, meals and fun, it is a weekend festival promoting the positive and at the same time providing support, help and friendship for those who need it. This year we plan to build on the success of 2010, with even more stalls and stands in the park for the Saturday afternoon festivities. The main stage is back too, with a great line-up of TG talent and of course the fun Tranny of the Year as well. Saturday night sees our second Sparkle Ball with live entertainment and food.
From Pink News:
The national transgender festival, Sparkle, has begun in Manchester.
The festival, now in its seventh year, is the biggest event on the trans calendar and is billed as a “celebration of gender diversity”.
Tonight’s schedule includes a launch party at AXM, a banquet meal and a comedy evening.
The main event, to be held in Sackville Gardens tomorrow, will be ‘Sparkle in the Park’, with stalls and performances.
Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone will open the event with a speech at 1pm.
On Sunday, visitors can enjoy a lunch, church service, closing meal and a workshop on the government’s Transgender Action Plan.
For more info]]> -
Mark's Cafe Moi: Stand up . . . and take a comedy class with me
We’re all about living our dreams here at lgbtSr. Not that doing stand-up comedy was ever my dream, but a co-worker took a class at Caroline’s and loved it. Then Frank and I went to a comedy show last week at Gotham Comedy Club. I saw an ad for classes and thought . . . why the hell not. Maybe I can get out of my shell a bit, turn some of those private jokes in my head into public ones, and have something really fun to write about for this site.
The class starts in September and I’ll be blogging about each one. All six of them, until we have the grand finale at Caroline’s in front of a (friendly) audience. Come along! And wish me luck.]]> -
NYC Mayor Bloomberg to officiate at gay wedding
Well crap, sort of. I was all set to go to City Hall (“reporting for lgbtSr!”) on Monday July 25 to cover history as we can finally marry in New York state. But it turns out the bill takes effect on Sunday the 24th, when Frank and I will be at Rainbow Mountain in the Poconos.
Mayor Mike won’t have the same scheduling conflict, as he has agreed to officiate at an aide’s ceremony.
From Reuters:
(Reuters) – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will officiate at the wedding of two city officials on July 24, the first day same sex couples can legally marry in the state.
It will only be the third time that Bloomberg, who has been a staunch supporter of changing the law to allow same-sex couples to wed, has officiated at a wedding since taking office in 2002.
Jonathan Mintz, the city’s consumer affairs commissioner, and John Feinblatt, a chief adviser to the mayor, will marry at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan.
“John and Jonathan have each done so much to make the City a better place, and together, they helped me see the issue of marriage equality in very clear terms,” Bloomberg said in a statement provided through a spokesman. “This will be one of the biggest days of their lives, a day they’ve waited a long time to see, and I’m just honored to be a part of it.”
]]> -
Los Angeles’s Outfest opens with transgender film
Harmony Santana LA’s Outfest, the city’s oldest film festival, opens with a film about a man who comes home from prison to find his son is now a transgender woman, played by Harmony Santana, a transgender woman herself. From Fishbowl LA: The 2011 edition of Outfest really could not have picked a better film for tonight’s opening gala slot. Fresh from Sundance and San Francisco’s Frameline event, the drama Gun Hill Road marks the directorial debut of actor Rashaad Ernesto Green. Esai Morales stars as a dad who, after three years in prison, returns home to find that his teenage son has become a transgender woman, played by real-life transgender female Harmony Santana (pictured). The New York based Green tells LA Times reporter Susan King that he is thrilled to be presenting at Outfest, ahead of the film’s scheduled August 5 theatrical release: “I think it is one of the first times at least in American cinema we are actually getting to see a transgender main character played by a transgender person,” said Green. “She was just at the beginning of her transition. She just started to take hormones. Since the character has to play both male and female in the film, I needed someone who was not physically developed just yet.”]]> -
Archbishop Dolan frets that poly-marriage equality may be next
This is the guy who’s obsessed with incest, judging from his many comparisons of it to same-sex marriage. Now he’s afraid the Mormon fad will spread. (By the way, notice he’s worried that there will also be some sort of infidelity-equality push. I’m starting to be concerned for Timothy.)
From the Wall Street Journal: NEW YORK — New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan says he’s worried that the next step in the marriage debate will be another redefinition to allow multiple partners and infidelity. Writing on his blog Thursday, Dolan also lamented the anti-Catholic venom that surfaced in the gay marriage battle, saying he’s worried that “believers will soon be harassed, threatened, and hauled into court” for their convictions.]]> -
Make no Miss-take: book details gay and lesbian manners
Better half or half-wit? Who pays the check and how do you get out of it? These are NOT some of the questions you’ll find answered in Steve Petrow’s ‘Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners’ (updated for 2011), but if you’re wondering what to call a same-sex significant other, or how to deal with booking hotels rooms in Mississippi, this may be for you.
From ‘about the book’: Confused about coming out, dating, sex, and love? Find all the answers here – makes a great reference guide for you, and a great gift for the straight people in your life who need a little guidance.]]> -
Make no Miss-take: book details gay and lesbian manners
Better half or half-wit? Who pays the check and how do you get out of it? These are NOT some of the questions you’ll find answered in Steve Petrow’s ‘Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners’ (updated for 2011), but if you’re wondering what to call a same-sex significant other, or how to deal with booking hotels rooms in Mississippi, this may be for you.
From ‘about the book’: Confused about coming out, dating, sex, and love? Find all the answers here – makes a great reference guide for you, and a great gift for the straight people in your life who need a little guidance.]]> -
Rickie Lee Jones at City Winery – as brilliant as ever
By Mark McNease
I’ve been a fan of Rickie Lee Jones since her first album in 1979. That album included what was a blessing and a curse for Jones, the song ‘Chuck E’s in Love (listen).’ If you ask most people who she is, if they know her at all, they’ll say, ‘Didn’t she have that song about Chucky?’ Rickie Lee Jones is much deeper and bigger than that. Not to fault that song, but her debut album also included ‘Last Chance Texaco,’ ‘Coolsville,’ and one of the best songs of loss and longing I’ve ever heard, ‘Company (listen)’: I’ll remember you too clearly
but I’ll survive another day
conversations to share
when there’s no one there
I’ll imagine what you’d say Her follow up album, Pirates, took three years and showed her orchestral side. It was brilliant, and nearly everything she’s done since then has been. I’m biased. This is not a review of her latest music. This is an unabashed love letter to a singer/songwriter who belongs among the greats. Her contemporary and one-time love interest Tom Waits wasn’t inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until last year. Jones may never be, but that’s like bemoaning a great actor who never got an Oscar, and there are more than a few of those. Jones writes music, not tunes. Her melodies and arrangements are intricate, often haunting. She’s been unafraid to make the music she wants to make, and if it means she’s playing venues like City Winery, so be it. She belongs in this kind of intimate setting, not Madison Square Garden. Last night she played all old songs, almost entirely from her first two albums. She came on 40 minutes late, which a couple of my group found annoying but I said hey, she’s 56 and she’s been doing this for a very long time, let her be a little late. Once she and the band took the stage all else was forgotten.
I didn’t know what to expect. She’s been known to play her new CD’s and no old songs, but last night was a love fest on memory lane. The audience knew every song, and of course I recognized them all, quite a few from 1981’s Pirates. Jones got emotional when she sang a song about her daughter, now 21, and she said she’s spent most of her life alone – not because she’s hard to get along with but because everyone else is. She’s widened over the years, as have most of us, but she still commands a stage, sounds amazing, and is clearly in a league of her own. I won’t review City Winery itself, which is a great place to see a show, except to say go for the first floor seats. I’d never been there, and when I booked the tickets online a couple months ago I went by the seating chart. I got “VIP” seats in the elevated back area but 1) our seats had no backs, 2) it was warmer up there on an already hot night, 3) it feels cut off from what is actually a large crowd, and 4) you get a better view on the floor! I’d go back for sure, but now I know where to actually sit, and for a lower price.]]> -
Interview: Kathi Hill, attorney for the defense
I met Kathi Hill through Frank, and over the last nearly five years I’ve had the pleasure of long conversations with Kathi at the kitchen table. We manage to visit her a couple times a year, and she makes it to the house in New Jersey annually. Kathi was a prosecutor once upon a time, but has been a defense attorney now for some time. Kathi’s among the most engaging, interesting, intelligent and passionate people I know. The sort of person I can talk to for an hour and not notice how long it’s been. She was kind enough to offer an informal chat at her mother’s house in Bethany Beach, DE, this past 4th of July weekend. Most of the interviews here are written, but once in a while I have the opportunity and the pleasure of sitting down in front of a Flip Cam and just chatting. This was one of them.]]>
-
Title X crucial to women’s health
A study has found that Title X, the legislation that provides support to family planning centers (and thus to many poor and low-income women) is crucial to these women’s health.
From Ms. Magazine:
According the Guttmacher Spring 2011 Policy Review, family planning services are indispensable for many women, particularly marginalized populations like poor and low-income women.
In “The Numbers Tell the Story: The Reach and Impact of Title X,” Susan Cohen states as a result of the federal Title X family planning program, which subsidizes contraceptive services and provides support to create and sustain the large network of health centers, there are fewer teenage pregnancies and abortions, which saves both the federal government and the states billions of dollars in medical costs that would have been paid for by Medicaid. Cohan contends that “it’s completely irresponsible and illogical that the House of Representatives voted to defund Title X…Title X is precisely the kind of government program that should be strengthened, not gutted.”
According to “The Role of Family Planning Centers as Gateways to Health Coverage and Care,” written by Rachel Benson Gold, family planning centers provide services to more than 7 million women per year, boosting maternal and newborn health, lowering the rate of unplanned births and abortions, and providing sexual health care, as well as contraceptive services. Moreover, one in four women who obtain contraceptive services do so at one of the 8,000 publically funded centers.
]]> -
University of Florida to offer rooming option to transgender students
This may not be something most people are aware of or consider: the need for transgender students to choose their roommate based on gender and what will be most comfortable and safe for them.
From The Ledger:
TAMPA | A transgender student made University of South Florida officials stop and think. Frustrated by a hostile housing experience, Taylor McCue wanted USF to join the growing number of colleges across the country — like Rutgers and Harvard — now offering students the option to live with anyone of any gender. Couldn’t USF do the same? Yes, it turns out, and it is. Today the university goes beyond what other universities in Florida typically do with transgender students, by actively offering them the chance to live alone or with a friend of any gender. They can also live with a random roommate without being outed. At other schools, the burden to ask for special treatment is often on the student. This is just USF’s first step. In the spring, the school will launch a pilot program offering several gender-neutral dorm rooms, where anybody of any gender can live with anybody else.]]> -
Mark's Cafe Moi: About those all-you-can-eat vacations
Back in the office, strapped in a cubicle. Not really strapped, but it often feels that way. And now, after a 5-day vacation of non-stop eating, that strap feels a little tighter.
Given that Frank and I intend to actually get married in the near future, I want to look my best. I’ve been saying this for the last two years: I wanted to look my best for the cruise, I wanted to look my best for the trip to Delaware a year ago, I wanted to look my best every other day. Not that we ever don’t look our bests, but damnit, I wanted to fit into something I could wear three years ago.
I’m not going to blame being in a relationship, that’s too easy. But I do think it’s harder every year to get weight off that I’d put on without much thought since we met. Weight that creeps up has a way of creeping away even more slowly, and I want to be as healthy as I can. Given the slowing of our metabolism with age, we should take in 10 percent fewer daily calories every decade after 40. Why am I now in the obese category, according to government statistics? Maybe eating as if I were 20 has something to do with it.
The excuses have to end, including the very handy one, “I’m on vacation.” I hear this as often as I’ve told it to myself. Some of it is stress: travelling can be stressful despite the pleasure of it. I can control what I eat much more easily at home, and when I’m on vacation eating just seems like the thing to do. Especially when we’re visiting people. Going out to eat is part of the picture, and watching what I eat in restaurants is never something I’ve been very controlled at. So here went another all-you-can-eat vacation, because, well, we were on vacation. Another 5 days on holiday, another 5 pounds. Okay, maybe 2, but the effort to get that off will be considerable, especially spending my days strapped in an ever-tightening cubicle.]]> -
Column: Transmogrification
By Stephanie Mott
Editor’s note: I first came across Stephanie when I read about her recent educational tour through Kansas. I thought her unique voice would be a great addition to lgbtSr, emailed her, and now she’s with us! Enjoy this first of her monthly columns, and look for an upcoming interview. Stephanie’s columns also appear at Liberty Press.
Calvin and Hobbes has always been one of my favorite comic strips. Calvin has a view on life that states without doubt that life is to be lived, and rules are for people who are satisfied by experiencing only those things which are possible if you follow the rules.
I am not in the habit of identifying with the male of the species, but Calvin’s ability to see everything through a different lens speaks volumes to me. One of my favorite strips has Calvin hammering nails into the living room coffee table. When his mom screams, “What are you doing?”, he pauses, looks at her and asks, “Is this a trick question?”
This said, my most favorite of the C&H comics have to do with the “Transmogrifier.” Wikipedia defines a transmogrifier as “a device that transforms its user into any desired shape.” Calvin transforms himself into a tiger and a whole new world of adventure magically opens up before him. This new world is full of sarcasm and naiveté, discovery and contemplation, and the kind of basic simple truth that we somehow seem to forget to experience when we are no longer a child.
In as much as that I have not yet had gender reassignment surgery, you probably don’t have to guess what I would do with a transmogrifier if I had one. After I had achieved my desired “shape,” I would likely proceed directly to the nearest pond in search of an appropriate frog. This also said, I wonder if the transmogrification that takes place during transition isn’t more on the inside, than on the outside. I remember the quiet little “boy” who sat at the back of the class and didn’t raise a hand even though there was no doubt about the answer. The child who did not wish to draw attention. I remember the weight of putting on my “Steven suit” day after day, year after year. I remember searching for anyone or anything that would change my reality. I remember believing that the possibilities of life were few, and even those that were possible were still just too hard. I walked out of the Shawnee County courthouse today and couldn’t help but notice the way my skirt flowed in the wind. I am still amazed many times each day as I realize once again that I am allowed to live in the world as who I am. I didn’t need to get anyone’s permission. I only needed to allow myself to be free. The possibilities of life are now boundless, and I don’t believe for a minute that this is an experience limited to transgender people. I believe that this is something that is waiting for anyone who can shed whatever expectations cause them to buy into the lie. What happens in a world where we preconceive our experiences of the day based wholly on the experiences of yesterday? What happens in a world where we don’t? What happens when we spread out our souls like the wings of butterflies and do nothing more than let the wind take us where it will? Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” As I ponder the meaning of these statements, I remember what Joni Mitchell wrote, and what Judy Collins sang, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now. From win and lose. And still somehow. It’s life’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know life. At all.” Something happened along the journey. It is no longer important for me to know life in the sense that I understand it. The illusions are not so much what I saw, as what I didn’t see. And I am suddenly thrust into a brand new world. It is full of sarcasm and naiveté, discovery and contemplation, and the kind of basic simple truth that I had forgotten quite some time before. A speaker in a motivational seminar once asked the audience if we saw the glass as half full, or as half empty. Everyone, including myself, dutifully chose A or B. Asked the same question today, I will tell you the answer is C: My cup runneth over. I pause for a moment as I write these words and tears begin to fill my eyes. Not because I am sad. Not because I am happy. Because I have been transmogrified. Stephanie Mott is a member of the Board of Directors at Metropolitan Community Church of Topeka and executive director of the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project. She can be reached at stephaniem@mcctopeka.org or stephanie.mott@k-step.org.]]>
