Sexuality Happens

Today, November 20th, is National (and International) Transgender Day of Remembrance. In the last few years (and this video is from last year, so there are more names and faces to be sadly added), over 100 people have been murdered for their gender identity/presentation. This doesn’t even take into account the hundreds and possibly THOUSANDS of people who are assaulted based on their gender, and tens of thousands more who are harassed each and every day.

Please watch this video. Again, it’s a year old, so many people are missing, but if you cannot take nine minutes out of your life to remember those who we have lost due to violence against the transgender community, what does that say? After you watch it, please think for a moment, or two, or ten, what YOU can do to create change in your community, in our community. How can we make it stop? This is completely unacceptable and heartbreaking. No one should have to be scare to leave their home due to their gender, and they should certainly not be scared of being killed. This is flat out wrong, and regardless of your politics, or religion, or moral views, is is NEVER ok to hurt and/or murder someone because of who they are. Ever.

If we don’t stand up and create this change, no one will. Stand up for people who are being harmed and whose voices are being heard. Create change, NOW. And always, always remember those we have lost.

-Essin’ Em

I did this last year, and think it’s worth re-doing…

-Essin’ Em

I got this idea from the brilliant site Feministing.com. Of course, now that I’m going back to try and find some of their examples of things they could do without, I can’t for the life of me find their posts. Bah, humbug.

Regardless, here is my snarky list o’ the week of things I can do without. They actually aren’t really in any particular order, just as I’ve thought of them.

10. The assumption that the average woman should be a 36-24-26, size 2, 36DD, blonde, etc, what have you. People are beautiful in so many different ways, different sizes, different colors. The average size in America is a 12-14. AVERAGE. Not a 2. 2 is a fine size. So it is 22. Let’s stop being so fucking ridiculous in our expectations and searches for perfection. People of ALL sizes, from 0 on up to 32+ are all beautiful people. The end.

9. The Tea Party movement, and I don’t mean Alice in Wonderland. Some of those people are really scary…like, they make George Bush look like a bedtime story.

8. Straight men who think that they can turn queer women straight. Straight women who thing they can turn queer men straight. Queer women who think they can turn straight women queer. Queer men who think they can turn straight men queer. Monogamous people who think that everyone should be the same. Non-monogamous people who think everyone should be the same. It’s just rude. Kinky people who want to kinkify non-kinky people. In every direction. Why are we so eager to change other people’s identities?

7. Hypocrites. Nuf’ said. They piss me off. A lot.

6. Those who do not recognize their privilege. I understand that you cannot change certain things (race, gender, age, ability, etc), and that you may not *want* to change certain things (class, appearance, etc). However, that does not excuse not recognizing that you HAVE that privilege. Do with it what you will, but at least own it.

5. Laundry. I really hate having to do it. And it takes forever, and I never have enough quarters, and our washer is broken, so I have to carry them to the laundry room, up stairs, and it’s just horrible. If I never had to do it again, I’d be estatic.

4. People who feel like they own the road/bad drivers. You *have* a turn signal. Please use it. Let people in occasionally, especially in heavy traffic, or when their lane is ending. Wave a little instead of flipping people off. Don’t go freaking 20 over, drive the wrong way down one ways, back up the street, drive over medians, etc. Really, it’s easy. Just don’t be a douchehat. Simple as that.

3. Violence as a solution. Violence NEVER has a reason to be the solution. Talk. Go punch a wall. Go have sex. Go eat a pint of ice cream. When I say violence, I mean everything from domestic violence to wars, road rage to genocide. It solves nothing. Period.

2. Spiders. Really. Ugh. I KNOW they eat mosquitos, so I can possibly amend this to “spiders that are inside” or “spiders that are where I are, and/or exist in my personal sphere of life.” But they are terrifying AND dangerous. Especially in Arizona, where we have TARANTULAS.

1. How society drives us to feel better by putting people down. We judge others on their bodies, what they where, what car they drive, where they shop, where they go to school, etc. This tears us apart. We call each other sluts, whores, fat, etc (in non-positive ways). How does taking other people down build us up? And why do we let society control us this way? I do not approve.

What are ten things YOU could do without?

Let me put out there that Q wanted me to write this post. Otherwise, it was just an idea bouncing around in my head that I tended to share everytime certain songs came on the radio.

Do you know who Justin Bieber is? I had no clue until I spend Christmas with Q’s family in Long Island, and her teenage twin cousins gushed about him, how amazing he was, etc. When I first heard his music, it sounded very similar to a lot of dyke performers I’d heard, and so I assumed it was either a women named Justin, or someone trans/genderqueer, etc.  I was told that this wasn’t the case, just someone who had a higher voice. Gotcha.

I heard his songs on the radio occasionally, and never really thought about it again.

Until this website, Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bierber, innundated my inbox, twitter and facebook. There are a lot of dykes out there that look like Justin, and he even tweeted that he’d been ask if he was “that chick from the L-Word” before.

So my thought was this…what if Justin wasn’t a cisgender teenage guy? What if he was someone who transitioned and passed easily as male? Or what if he is someone genderqueer identified? Would it just be wonderfully amazing if this teenage heart throb that teens and tweens (mostly girls, but I’m guess some guys too) are just pining over happened to be genderqueer or trans in some way? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could show the world that lust/love/passion etc is based on looks and “personality” (I mean, do you ever really know the personality of a celeb?), rather than “gay” or “straight” or “man” or “woman?”

I am in no way saying that Justin is trans or gender queer or queer at all. It doesn’t really matter what his gender is in relation to his fame. I was just thinking about how amazing it would be if we could get more awesome genderbending and/or trans people into the lime light, groupies and all, and show the world that people fall in love with the emo look (or the metal look, or the pop look, etc) and the music, and the persona people present, NOT in love with someone’s birth sex/genitalia. I mean, look at the drama about Lady Gaga — people still love her (and I love her for never actually confirming OR denying the story, just saying that it didn’t matter), but they had to tell themselves so many times out loud that there was just no way that she was trans or intersex.

Why the hell should it matter? We love celebs, especially musicians for the art they make, the way they make us feel. I love that Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber and other artists are starting to blur the line of feminitity and masculinity, and slowly but surely change the way our culture looks at people.  Ten years ago, both these artists would have been laughed at, as people tuned to NSync, the Backstreet Boys and other bastions of “proper” male sexuality.

So you go Justin (and all the lesbians who look like you); way to queer pop music just a little, even if you didn’t mean to.

-Essin’ Em

Note: This post was written while on pain meds. Please excuse any ridiculousness.

A friend of mine forwarded this to me, and now, I pass it on to all of you.  Trans and gender discrimination is a huge and prevalent issue in our society, although it is not always visible (“check male or female” on pretty much every form ever).  This survey hopes to bring some of this discrimination to the light, and help us to be able to deal with it and confront it more.  It’s hard to do something about things that are hidden.  So please, repost. Please, forward to your friends. And please, if it applies to you, take a few minutes to fill out this survey.

-Essin’ Em

In the wake of one of the most violent years on record of assaults on transgender people, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have teamed up on a comprehensive national survey to collect data on discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodations, healthcare, education, family life and criminal justice.

To date, in 2008, several young gender non-conforming people of color have been murdered, including California junior high school student Lawrence King, who was shot in public during the school day. King’s murder, and the murders of Simmie Williams in South Carolina and Angie Zapata in Greeley, Colorado come in a year in which we are still working to include transgender provisions in a federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination in employment.

Hate crimes against transgender people suggest multiple points of vulnerability, which can compound each other: discrimination in employment may lead to unstable housing situations that in turn can leave transgender people at the mercy of public programs and public officials who may not respond respectfully or appropriately to them. These stressors add burdens in a healthcare system that is often unprepared for transgender people’s needs. The list goes on. “We know that transgender people face discrimination on multiple fronts,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of NCTE. “This data will help us sort out the combination of forces that leave transgender people vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness and violence.”

Jaime Grant, director of the Task Force Policy Institute, noted, “There is so little concrete data on the needs and risks associated with the widespread discrimination we see in the lives of the transgender people we know. This data will help point the way to an appropriate policy agenda to ensure that transgender people have a fair chance to contribute their talents in the workplace, in our educational systems and in our communities.”

NCTE and the Task Force have partnered with Pennsylvania State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education to collect and analyze the data. Applying rigorous academic standards to the investigation will strengthen any case made to legislators, policy makers, healthcare providers and others whose decisions impact the lives of transgender people. A national team of experts in survey research and transgender issues developed the questionnaire, which can be completed online at https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim.

I am a cisgender woman.

I use that term occasionally, and I realize that some people might not know what I mean. There are lots of academic-y ways of looking at it, but the simple explanation is that the sex I was assigned at birth matches (to some degree…because there are only 2 assigned sexes, and an infinite number of genders) the gender that I identify as. I was assigned the sex of female, and I identify as a woman.

Why do *I* bother using this term? Everyone has different reasons. Mine is because I hate the way we look at sex/gender as “default” and “other.” “Normal” and “transgender.” That’s dumb. That’s like we look at male as default, and female as other, at white as default and “of color” as other. And it really gets my goat. Because I hate the idea of “normal” in every area pretty much ever.

So I am cisgender. I write a lot about trans issues because they’re important to me. I have trans friends, I’ve had trans partners, and it’s honestly one of the three big issues to me in sexuality. Gender identity, transgender rights, etc. I write on it a lot, I read on it a lot, I discuss it a lot.

Ergo, I hope I am viewed as a trans ally, although I myself am not transgender.

So what I’m about to say is going to make me look bad. I feel bad about thinking and writing it. But it needs to be said for me to feel better.

This is specifically about transmen (FTM), because that is what my experience is with.

I validate their identities. To my last breath. I ask their preferred pronouns, I like to talk with them about their identities, I spend plenty of time explaining to other that yes, they *are* men. No, it’s not a phase. Yes, gender fluidity exists. No, not every transguy has had top surgery and is on T. I view them as men (or boys, if that is their preference), no questions asked.

But I feel that when I talk about the tranguys I’ve crushed on or had sex with, I have to add trans as a qualifier, instead of just going into a post about having a crush on some guy. Because while I *am* attracted to many transguys, I am by and large NOT attracted to bio guys/XY guys. At all. So I want to add something to place a distinction between the two, both for myself, and for others.

That’s not fair to them. It’s adding trans as a qualifier for my own means. But now I know what people felt like when they talked to me about losing their queer identity, as a lesbian who was dating a man (transman) and being read as straight. Mine is more of an online queer identity, but it’s a similar thing. I have enough people who read this and assume I’m straight because they read about J (or because straight is the default, and unless it’s a post about wanting to fuck women, they just make that assumption). Add to that posts on “I met this really cute guy” or “he stuck needles in my back and fucked me” and I feel like my queer identity is slowly slipping away. Well, let me be more specific. That people stop viewing my identity as queer.

So while I view them as men, real men, true men, however you want to put it, I also am scared of how that will affect me as a queer woman in how I’m viewed. So I am not the best ally, and I add the word trans. As far as this blog, I try to only do it once, the first time I talk about the person on here. And from then on, it’s masculine pronouns, it’s “that guy I like” etc.

But I feel bad. Like I’m somehow part of the problem because of that little piece of me that wants *my* identity recognized. I mean, I use the term queer rather than lesbian, so that I’m not leaving out their identities (among other reasons)e, and then there I go, just invalidating them in a different way.

I don’t know if there is a solution. I don’t know if it makes me a bad person. But I’m sick enough of comments like “how did you fist him if he’s a guy” or “I don’t like penises that much either, but just like you, that doesn’t stop me from liking guys” or other things that assume I’m straight and that everyone I fuck is cisgender.

End guilt trip on myself. If you have any genius ideas, I’d love to hear them!

-Essin’ Em

I just had a really good dream.

Well, the first dream of the night sucked. My partner was shoot by an ex-friend in the grocery store. I don’t know if that had to do with writing this post about being afraid when I held hands with J in Philly, but it was weird, and sad.

But the second dream? Mmmmm. There is the hot, intelligent, awesome trans guy from grad school…who blogs (I’m not sure I’m allowed to link, so I won’t), and is enjoying his first summer post up, and is just really awesome. And hot.

And I was apparently in NYC. And apparently tied him to a bed frame (with saran wrap), and we made out, and had really hot sex.

It was much more detailed, and hotter than that, but mmmm.

Also, then his apartment had a fire, so his insurance company put us both up at a hotel for a while..and we *had* to share a bed. How tragic. More sex ensued.

Yet, last night, I couldn’t even get off. I think my body is still evening out from having stopped using teh drugs.

That’s all,

-Essin’ Em

I was wondering the other day…is the term “Tranny Chaser” only for cisgender (people whose gender matches their assigned sex) people, or can it be used for trans people too?

J called me a tranny chaser once. I don’t know if he meant it, or if it was to hurt me. Apparently, being with 3 trans people (one of whom didn’t identify as such when I was with him) makes me a chaser. But I’ve also been attracted to quite a smattering of trans people, so maybe there is some truth in it. However, I’m also attracted to many Butch lesbians, punk/alternative girls, and people who resemble Johnny Depp, so I don’t how much that counts (plus, there are many trans guys I’m not attracted to).

Anyways, I was talking to my massage therapist while in Philly, and she said something about getting so frustrated about all these transguys that only ever dated/fucked other transguys. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s a good point. I know lots of transguys that, whether by active choice or not, only go with other transguys. Which is fine. Lots of women are only with women, men are only with men.

But then doesn’t that kind of make them “tranny chasers” too? I mean, if they’ll only get with people that are trans, then essentially, they’re being tranny chasers. Or maybe, we just need an orientation that’s identity involves only being attracted to trans people, because women that only sleep with women has an identity (lesbian), men that sleep only with women has an identity (straight), and men that only get with men has an identity (gay). Note, I know that lots of these people might not identify as such, I’m just using the assumption that behavior = identity for the purpose of this post, although I’m aware this is not always the case.

There is the explanation that they feel more comfortable with people who have gone through a similar experience as themselves, that they know more about language, permission, transitioning, etc. However, don’t we call people who only are attracted to larger people “chubby chasers,” even if they themselves are (or have been) larger?

I’d prefer to do away with the term tranny chaser overall, because of the extreme negative conotations it has (at least within my community — I do know people in other communities that actually identify as such). Why is it an issue to be attracted to certain groups of people? And why is the term thrown around so loosely? I can see it being a problem for many people to be liked ONLY because they are trans, but most people I see getting called this term (whether jokingly or in all seriousness) are not chasers by this definition. They’re people that are queer and like the more masculine end of the spectrum, they’re people who don’t have traditional thoughts about the gender binary/sexuality, they’re people that like gender-fucking themselves.

Who am I to talk? No one. I am not trans, and I do not have the right to tell anyone who they should date/fuck/etc. But I also don’t feel anyone has the right to judge/tell people who they’re allowed to be attracted to, and I think the term tranny chaser seems like policing our attractions. Granted, I know I have hang ups when I find out that someone I’m with has ONLY been with curvy women in the past, or ONLY likes me because I’m curvy, because then I wonder if they like me, or my size. However, I’ve come to realize that most people who like me don’t fall into this category, just like most people being labled as “tranny chasers” (that I know of, have talked to, and have heard about) are not solely interested in trans people, and don’t like them ONLY because of their trans identity.

So I’ve decided to strike this term from my vocab (not that I think I’ve ever used it except in this type of discussion).

And that’s what I’ve got to say. I’m sure I’ll get some angry comments on this one (a cisgender person talking about a trans term), but I’d like to start a discussion, so let ‘em come!

-Essin’ Em

I am so behind on posting this, but it needs to be posted. My apologies for missing the boat (but you can still do stuff about it, so don’t ignore it).

I’ve been discussing this with friends (hence, why I forgot to post it – thanks to my friend for forwarding the info below to me!), and it’s really angered me. I think about how far we’ve had to drag the APA in the last 50 years, getting them to take homosexuality out of the DSM, etc, and for them to then put someone who believes that homosexuality IS SOMETHING THAT CAN BE CURED on the committee to discuss Gender Identity Disorder and the DSM? Um, hi, WTF mate?

Now, I’m not 100% sure on where I stand about keeping GID in the DSM vs. removing it completely. Shocking, I know. But I have reasoning behind this (some of which was discussed in my Clinical Issues in the Transgender Community class). While I don’t think that GID should be seen as a mental illness (and I do understand that having it as such can lead to all sorts of problems getting insurance coverage later on in life), having it as something that can be diagnosed opens up many doors for some transpeople as regards to insurance. Some insurances will pay for hormones if a client is diagnosed; others won’t continue to even pay for therapy sessions unless a client is diagnosed with a mental illness (such as, oh say, GID). So I don’t think it should be a mental illness, but I also don’t want people to lose insurance benefits because it is removed. I think maybe they should make a special subsection? For things that don’t need to be cured, but still need medical attention (therapy) and support from insurance companies. Yeah, I know that will never happen, but that’s my solution.

Anyways, regardless, having read a bit of his work (K has my book with him in it right now, but I’ll post the name of it when I figure it out…), I think he’s an asshat. In a major way. He believes in reparative therapy for homosexuality (and GID), and is really just a pompous idiot (in my own humble opinion, of course). And the APA has appointed him to head the committee on inclusion or exclusion of GID in the newest version of the DSM. Um, hi, WHAT THE FUCK? Worst idea EVAH. He’ll probably try to het homosexuality put back in!

Below is info a) on his appointment, and b) what you can do to take a stand. Please, be an ally, a SOFFA (not the comfy kind…unless, as a person, you are comfy), a member of the community (any community for that matter), and speak your mind. Once a decision is made by this committee, it may take decades to change it; let’s do what we can to make sure it is done ethically, and with the best interest of the trans community. Do what you can, and please please please repost!

That’s all. *steps off soapbox* Have a rocking weekend!

-Essin’ Em

Significant and potentially damaging change has recently taken place within the American Psychiatric Association (APA.)

A few days ago the American Psychiatric Association announced the name of a new member of the DSM-V Task Force. The DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) lists diagnostic criteria for mental disorders, including Gender Identity Disorder (homosexuality was removed in 1974). The APA appointed Dr. Kenneth Zucker to chair the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group, despite his history of advocating that queer and trans people (especially youth) can be “cured” through reparative therapy. In short, Dr. Zucker believes he can “turn” LGB people straight, and “help” transmen & women remain in the gender they were assigned at birth.

The disturbing significance of this appointment cannot be overstated.

So what can we do about it?

1) Sign a petition objecting the APA’s appointment of Kenneth Zucker. You can find that petition here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/objection-to-dsm-v-committee-members-on-gender-identity-disorders

2) Email the APA at dsm@psych.org to let them know that Dr. Zucker’s appointment is not just a mistake, but could lead to long-term, negative consequences for the LGBT mental health community.

3) Talk to mental health providers, as well as your family and friends; spread the word!

I’m not too familiar with Athens Boys Choir (although I’m not gonna lie, I’ve spent some time googling it to get the 4-1-1), but Team Gina was in this video, which is how I discovered it.

I think it’s freaking awesome. And hilarious. And I like the costumes.

Ergo, watch it!

-Essin’ Em

I got my hands on all of our packing devices at EdenFantasys, and did a nice little v-blog (poor Lili Desi) while wearing some.

I’ve decided that I need a packer of my very own. Too much fun.

To see me wearing Mr. Right (and using Mr. Limpy as an elephant nose), check the video below!

-Essin’ Em

Click To Play