transgender

Bookmarks for November 13th

by Viviane on 11/16/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

  • I want you back, says Belle de Jour’s lover | News –
  • Generation B – Anything He Can Do, She Can Do | NYTimes.com – IN September 1998, David Buechner, then 39, a prominent classical pianist, came out as a transgender woman, explaining that from then on, she would live and perform as Sara Davis Buechner. The pianist had been accustomed to rave reviews (at 24, David, in his New York City concert debut, was called “an extraordinary young artist” by a New York Times critic). But the debut as Sara, reported in a Times magazine article, was not so well received, even by loved ones.
  • Depathologizing Porn | Psychotherapy Networker – Yet, despite the undeniable harm that porn can do, we therapists need to bear in mind a fundamental fact: the overwhelming majority of people exposed to it don't become addicts. Patrick Carnes's research shows that sexual addiction affects three to five percent of adults, suggesting that porn use isn't about to turn us into a country of addicts glued to their computer screens. Further, assuming that porn inevitably leads to addiction can blind us to understanding its nonpathological appeal to so many people—most of them men who are quite normal in every other way.
  • Belle de Jour revealed as research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti – Times Online – Magnanti is a respected specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology in a hospital research group in Bristol. Six years ago, in the final stages of her PhD thesis, she ran out of money and turned to prostitution through a London escort agency, charging £300 an hour. Already an experienced science blogger, she began writing about her experiences in a web diary that was adapted into books and a television drama starring Billie Piper.
  • New York 2009 » I Wish I Was At WordCamp – If you couldn't make it to Wordcamp, you can follow what happened on this page.
  • » yeah I might be cracking I am a poster girl with no poster. – Please help Ammre, who has been housebound since August from an injury that went untreated due to lack of insurance.
  • hyper-fetish: Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video | violet blue ® :: open source sex – The video is way more entertaining than the song itself (which is catchy, by the way), and it’s packed with sex, high-gloss fetish couture, surreal effects and some serious shoes worthy of worship. Can you count the fetishes? There are some pretty obscure ones here, mixed with more obvious ones, and it’s interlaced with current pop fetishes (such as the coffins resembling the [Anubis] travel coffins in “True Blood”).
  • the top online sex management tools | violet blue ® :: open source sex – This week’s San Francisco Chronicle column is dedicated to everyone who wants to be organized, responsible, and truly deeply nerdy about their sex lives: it’s a guide to online sex management tools.
  • Help Lift Sex Ed to a Higher Plane: Support Scarleteen! | Scarleteen – What you might not know is that Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but also the least funded and that the youth who need us most are also the least able to donate. You might not know that we have done all we have with a budget lower than the median annual household income in the U.S. You might not know we have provided the services we have to millions without any federal, state or local funding and that we are fully independent media which depends on public support to survive and grow.

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Bookmarks for October 29th

by Viviane on 10/30/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

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The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You reading (S. Bear Bergman)

by Viviane on 10/28/2009

in books, Events

11/01/2009
7:30 PMto10:30 PM

headshot The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You reading (S. Bear Bergman)

Where: Collect Pond, 45 Berry Street, corner of N 11th St, Brooklyn  (Google Maps: http://bit.ly/derivtheat)
Cost: Pay what you can, suggested donation $15 includes snacks
Presented by Derivative Theater Company
RSVP: Seating is limited! Please, RSVP to booking AT sbearbergman DOT com with your name and and the number of people.

Multiple award-winning writer, performer, gender-jammer and instigator S Bear Bergman returns to The Big Apple after a two year hiatus with hir new book, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You. Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You is a new collection of essays on gender and identity that’s irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humour and grace, Bergman spins stories from women’s spaces to the old boys’ network, from gay male bathhouses to lesbian potlucks, from being a child to preparing to have one; and throughout shows just what kind of things you learn when you’re visibly queer to the naked eye. As usual, expect digressions, jokes, off-label stories, time for questions and reckless flirting.

Full book tour schedule: http://sbearbergman.com/tour/

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S. Bear Bergman: The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (virtual book tour)

by Viviane on 10/28/2009

in books

9781551522647 S. Bear Bergman: The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (virtual book tour)

I’m reading and really enjoying the second book by S. Bear Bergman,  The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (Arsenal Pulp Press). It’s a collection of essays about gender and identity. I think we first met when ze taught at Dark Odyssey a few years ago. It’s also interesting to see how these writings have expanded since I first read them on ze’s Livejournal.

Here’s a little about the book from publisher:

Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You is a new collection of essays on gender and identity by S. Bear Bergman that is irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humor and grace, these essays deal with issues from women’s spaces to the old boys’ network, from gay male bathhouses to lesbian potlucks, from being a child to preparing to have one. Throughout, S. Bear Bergman shows us there are things you learn when you’re visibly different from those around you—whether it’s being transgressively gendered or readably queer. As a transmasculine person, Bergman keeps readers breathless and rapt in the freakshow tent long after the midway has gone dark, when the good hooch gets passed around and the best stories get told. Ze offers unique perspectives on issues that challenge, complicate, and confound the “official stories” about how gender and sexuality work.

You can read a PDF excerpt from the book, The Velveteen Tranny, but you should just order it from your local independent (feminist, queer, radical) bookstore.

Bear is also doing a book tour, and will be traveling to Ohio, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and other cities: http://sbearbergman.com/tour/. I’ll post about hir New York appearance shortly, and hope to see you there.

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Uncovered: The Diary Project: Sean Dorsey Dance w Kate Bornstein

by Viviane on 07/29/2009

in Events, transgender

07/30/2009to08/02/2009

Location: Dixon Place
316 Chrystie Street, New York NY, 10002 [map]
Tickets: $20 general / $15 students & seniors
Online Tickets: www.hotfestival.org;

https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/171

press tn UncoveredTheDiaryProject1 Uncovered: The Diary Project: Sean Dorsey Dance w Kate Bornstein

Sean Dorsey Dance

kate bornstein Uncovered: The Diary Project: Sean Dorsey Dance w Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein

After taking San Francisco by storm with an extended sold-out run, standing ovations and critical praise, Sean Dorsey’s acclaimed Uncovered: The Diary Project is coming to New York! This one-weekend-only New York performance features a collaboration with and world premiere prologue performance by legendary author, playwright and performance artist Kate Bornstein.

Sean Dorsey (trailblazing transgender choreographer and winner of two Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and the Goldie Award for Performance) and a stellar cast of dancers chase the naked truth in Uncovered: The Diary Project. Using text from actual, real-life diaries, Uncovered’s powerful dances reveal lives and stories that history has tried to erase.

This powerful, highly praised dance theater concert is the culmination of a year-and-a-half long research process in which Dorsey uncovered and researched diaries of transgender and queer people – from the famous to the unknown. Uncovered features ‘Lou,’ a suite of dances based on the lifelong journals of Lou Sullivan (1951-1991), a San Francisco transsexual gay man and pioneering activist; and ‘Lost/Found,’ the story of an imaginary boyhood based on a very real diary. Uncovered offers an evening of full-bodied, powerful dances honoring remarkable life stories.

Uncovered features an outstanding cast of performers: Sean Dorsey, Brian Fisher, Juan de la Rosa, Nol Simonse and special guest Kate Bornstein. Kate Bornstein is an author, playwright and performance artist whose latest book is “Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives To Suicide For Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws.” Other published works include the ground-breaking books “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us;” and “My Gender Workbook.” All three books are now taught in over 150 colleges and universities around the world. Kate performs, lectures, and facilitates workshops at college campuses, theaters and performance spaces across North America, Europe, and Australia. Kate is currently working on a memoir – “Kate Bornstein Is A Queer And Pleasant Danger” – due for a 2010 release by Seven Stories Press.

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Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation: Call For Submissions

by Viviane on 06/08/2009

in submissions

Call For Submissions
Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation
Kate Bornstein & S Bear Bergman, eds
Deadline: 1 September 2009

In the fifteen years since the release of Gender Outlaw, transgender narratives have made their way into cultural locations from the margins to the mainstream and back again. Today’s trannies and other sex/gender radicals are writing a radically new world into being. GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION (Seal Press) will collect and contextualize the work of this generation’s most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices—new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world’s most respected mainstream news sources. Edited by that ol’ original Gender Outlaw herself, Kate Bornstein and writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION will include essays, commentary, comic art and conversation from a diverse a group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

*What we’re looking for*

GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION wants to collect work that represents a quantum leap forward in thinking and talking about gender and the gender binary, in the same way Gender Outlaw did almost twenty years ago. So blow us away. Bring the smart, bring the sexy, blind us with science, break the gender barrier, shine a bright light (or a disco ball) on the whole gender situation. Tell us about your future, what you imagine, how you want things to go and what you (and your friends) intend to do about it. Think big.

We’ll look at whatever you have for us – essays, graphic art, interviews/conversations, haiku, rants – as long as you’re thinking smart and fresh about sex and gender (and being an outlaw, of course). We will feel especially keen about your work if it adds to or advances the conversation about gender (as distinct from simply reflecting it, or lamenting it).

People of any identity are encouraged to submit work. This means you – yes, you!

We intend to privilege non-normatively gendered/sexed voices in the book but will include all the good stuff we can, regardless of current identifiers of the author.

*The Details*

Deadline: Sept 1 (early submissions are encouraged). Submissions should be unpublished; query if you have a reprint that you think we’ll swoon for. While we hesitate to list a maximum, please query first for pieces over 4,000 words. If you have an idea and need help writing it out, contact us to discuss an interview-style piece or other accommodations.

Submit as a Word document or black/white JPEG (no files over 2MB). Please include a cover letter with a brief bio and full contact information (mailing address, phone number, pseudonym if appropriate) when you submit. Submissions without complete contact information will be deleted unread. Payment will be $50 and 2 copies of the book upon publication in Fall 2010. Contributors retain the rights to their pieces. Send your submission as an attachment to genderoutlawsnextgeneration at gmail dot com.

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Panel Approves Transgender Name Change Application

by Viviane on 12/01/2008

in lbgt, legal, transgender

By Joel Stashenko
New York Law Journal

November 28, 2008

ALBANY – A transgender individual should be allowed to legally assume a new name to reflect her identity as a woman, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.

In Matter of Earl William Golden III, 504992, the Appellate Division, Third Department, reversed the finding of Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey A. Tait of Broome County. Justice Tait had dismissed Ms. Golden’s petition in May 2008 to formally change her name to Elisabeth Whitney Golden because the change from a traditional male name to a female name “is fraught with possible confusion.”

The decision will be published Thursday.

[click to continue…]

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Schroer vs. Library of Congress

by Viviane on 09/22/2008

in legal, transgender

From the Associated Press:

A former Army Special Forces commander passed over for a job as a terrorism analyst at the Library of Congress because he was changing genders won a discrimination lawsuit. Judge James Robinson of Federal District Court ruled that the Library of Congress had engaged in sex discrimination against Diane Schroer of Alexandria, Va., formerly known as David Schroer. The library was initially enthusiastic about the hire, Judge Robinson said in his decision, adding, “The library revoked the offer when it learned that a man named David intended to become, legally, culturally and physically, a woman named Diane.” Ms. Schroer sued in 2005 alleging sex discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. Judge Robinson will decide on the penalties in the case later. The Justice Department is reviewing the judge’s ruling, a spokesman said.

The ACLU has a case profile with the the legal documents.

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A Transsexual Vs. the Government (Time)

by Viviane on 09/16/2008

in transgender

. . .Preece, who was 51 at the time, worked then — as she does now — for the Library of Congress, where she helps make hiring decisions for the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the U.S. Congress’s analysis agency. She had decided to recommend an ex–Special Forces colonel named David Schroer to be CRS’s terrorism specialist. Schroer was a dream candidate, a guy out of a Tom Clancy novel: he had jumped from airplanes, undergone grueling combat training in extreme heat and cold, commanded hundreds of soldiers, helped run Haiti during the U.S. intervention in the ’90s — and since 9/11, he had been intimately involved in secret counterterrorism planning at the highest levels of the Pentagon. He had been selected to organize and run a new, classified antiterrorism organization, and in that position he had routinely briefed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He had also briefed Vice President Dick Cheney more than once. Schroer had been an action hero, but he also had the contacts and intellectual dexterity to make him an ideal congressional analyst.

But now, about three weeks before Schroer was to begin work at CRS, he told Preece over a Chinese lunch that he had a personal matter to reveal: after years of cross-dressing in private, he was preparing to start living full time as a woman. He would also probably have sex-reassignment surgery. And so he planned to start at CRS as Diane Jacqueline Schroer, not David John Schroer.

The first thing Preece remembers blurting out at the time was something along the lines of “Why would you want to do that?” Later she stood outside her office, lit another cigarette and thought, I can’t believe this is happening to me.

Schroer did not get the job. Working with some other Library of Congress officials the next morning, Preece drafted a brief script and then telephoned Schroer. She told him that the Library worried his transition could imperil his top-secret security clearance; that his appearance in women’s clothing could make his contacts in the government less willing to cooperate with him; and that his impending surgeries (facial surgery to make him appear more feminine, possible genital surgeries in the future) could distract him from his job. She thanked Schroer for his honesty and said goodbye.

What Preece did that day became, not surprisingly, the subject of a lawsuit, one that was tried in August in federal court. Judge James Robertson, a Clinton appointee, is expected to rule any day. In deciding whether the Library unlawfully discriminated against Schroer, Robertson will have to rule on a much bigger and more elemental issue: How, if at all, is sex different from gender? And if you discriminate against a transsexual, is it “sex” discrimination under federal law?

Link

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Dressing like a harlot isn’t the half of it on Village stroll (The Villager)

by Viviane on 08/22/2008

in sex, transgender

Dressing like a harlot isn’t the half of it on Village stroll

By Laurie Mittelmann

On Staten Island, 20 wigs crowd the public housing unit of transgender model and prostitute Shawn Rachel, 28.

In the West Village on a recent late night/early morning, long, straight black hair, pushed back with Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, framed her face. It matched her “devil” bag: a black leather purse with spikes around the strap, one small remnant from her gothic period.

Thirty blocks south of Fashion Ave., Christopher St. is the runway for transgender divas strutting down sidewalks blowing kisses and hollering at each other, “Hey Sexy, I like what you wearing.” Fashion is their social lubricant and how they embrace female glamour — it’s their key to beauty, self-esteem and money.

Link

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links for 2008-05-29

by Viviane on 05/29/2008

in del.icio.us

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links for 2008-05-24

by Viviane on 05/24/2008

in del.icio.us

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Panel Rejects Order For Sex-Change Surgery (NY Law Jnl)

by Viviane on 05/14/2008

in legal, nyc, transgender

A family court does not have the authority to compel New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services to pay for a foster child’s sex-change operation, an appellate court has ruled. In an unsigned, unanimous opinion, the Appellate Division, First Department, held that while Social Services Law §398(6)(c) requires the agency to provide “necessary medical and surgical care” to all children under its aegis, regardless of whether or not they receive Medicaid, Family Court does not have the power to order that a child receive certain care.

Link 

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links for 2008-05-05

by Viviane on 05/05/2008

in del.icio.us

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links for 2008-04-30

by Viviane on 04/30/2008

in del.icio.us

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