Unraveling Michelle

My friend Michelle Farrell is a film maker here in Baltimore. She has spent the last two years, in between gigs and projects, working to film, co-produce, edit and promote her project, " Unraveling Michelle" .

Having just recently been honored with the Best Local Film Award at Artsfest Film Festival in Harrisburg Pa, she was estactic to receive word that the film was accepted by the NY International Independent Film and Video Festival this September. The screening is in prime time on a Saturday night!

I plan on attending to be there for her. She's truly been there for me! I've screened several pre-final cut versions of this film and its great. Michelle's sense of humor and desire to NOT take herself too seriously is one of the main reasons we're friends!

Love Ya M

Hang in there baby, Friday's coming...

I've been preoccupied with looking for work, staying sober and trying to be of service to my friends and fellows.

Moderating The Gender Identity Group is one of the most rewarding experience I've been blessed to have had in my life. To get the opportunity to meet new friends, sharing the same dream, the dream of freedom to be ourselves, is incredible. Twice a month all of my problems disappear when I hear people sharing their triumphs of name changes, comings out to family and coworkers, and of taking the physical steps on their journey.

It would be criminal for me to get paid to this!

However, being paid an honest wage for an honest day's work is still elusive. I've apllied, submitted, replied and resubmitted. I've been keeping faith in my Faith and allowing life to take its course. These last 6 weeks, while financial tight, have paid me dividends. In my free time I've met people with life opportunities more challanging than mine. I walk away grateful for my situation. My basic needs are being met. I have a roof over my head, friends that love me and food in my belly. I've met 2 sets of husbands and wives, all struggling to stay clean and sober. One couple had their 4 month old son taken into protective custody until they complete a sustance abuse treatment and evalutation. Another couple just moved from Georgia and are homeless until they receive their first paychecks here. Yet all four want to stay sober.

The ironic and humorous part of this is that one of the gentlemen, while not knowing I'm non cisgender, in the early part of my transition(Whatever the hell that really means anymore!) always hands me or leaves at my seat a pamplet called "A.A. and the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic ". Poor chap, little does he know........ Of course, I usually hand him the large print, " AA for the Older Alcoholic".... teasing him on being 39 years old and looking like he's 50!

While Friday will come, one day, I'm happy to be living in today, whatever day of the week it actually is, and know that I'll keep hanging in there, baby.......

TDOR

Are there any groups plannning a Transgender Day of Remembrance this November 20th?

I know of one in Baltimore. I attended on in DC last year. What about the rest of the country?

Live and Let Live

For as much progress our society makes in understanding gender identity disorder( not my term, its the medical profession's) we, as a culture, really take some stupid back pedaling moves.

Take for instance this article from The Vital Voice in St Louis. It's yet another government body discriminating based on "moral" grounds.

I don't want to hear any knee jerk "Moral Majority" "Religious Right" cracks. No , "Bush went down to Georgia and made them do that" lines either. A person insults their own intelligence in making such statements.

Live and Let Live.

Hold yourself to account and forgive others as they find their way.

Immoral?

By who's standards? Over 50% of the work force could be fired for premarital sex based on "moral" codes.

Inappropriate?

Possibly. It depends on the way a person HANDLES their transition.

Yet that's not the issue. Vandy Beth Glenn wasn't fired for just showing up to work one day as Vandy, wear something out of Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Doesn't she have the right to treat her disorder? (REMEMBER its the medical profession's term). If a person had a cleft palette and required a procedure to correct an inconsistency, should they be fired?

Any medical or psychological condition should receive treatment if that treatment will abate or suppress the condition.

Here's what McDoc has to say (WebMD)

How Is Gender Identity Disorder Treated?

Individual and family counseling usually is recommended to treat children with gender identity disorder. Counseling focuses on treating the associated problems of depression and anxiety and on improving self-esteem. Therapy also aims at helping the individual function as well as possible within his or her biological gender.
Counseling is recommended for adults, as is involvement in a support group. Some transsexual adults request hormone and surgical treatments to suppress their biological sex characteristics and to achieve those of the opposite sex. The surgical alteration of a person's sex is called gender reassignment surgery (sometimes referred to as a "sex change" operation). Because this surgery is major and irreversible, candidates for surgery must undergo an extensive evaluation and transition period.

What Are the Complications of Gender Identity Disorder

If not addressed, the disorder can cause a poor self-image, social isolation, and emotional distress. Untreated, the disorder can also cause severe depression and anxiety, and can interfere with an individual's ability to function, leading to problems in school or work, or with developing relationships.

So an individual, receiving treatment for a condition, is terminated from their job for seeking and following their health care provider's prescription?

Morality supposes we have a choice in our actions. And while I have a choice to drink myself to death over depression, its actual immoral to do so.

Is it immoral to take Viagra so that sex with your wife is as fulfilling as with your mistress? Or better yet, your femme boy you've got stashed on the side.......

Oh wait, you have a "medical" condition. You're addicted to sex.

Set your TiVos

There are some up coming programs on cable this month.
On LOGO


7/22 8:00am
Southern Comfort
Robert Eads, a transgender man, is dying of ovarian cancer. This documentary follows his struggle with the disease as he reveals traumatic events as well as stories of personal triumph. Highlighted are the often poor medical attention transgender people receive and the love expressed between family members faced with terminal illness. Part of Logo's Real Momentum documentary series.


7/25 6:00am
Beautiful Daughters

This original Logo documentary looks at the lives of four transgender women intertwined with the casting, rehearsal and opening of a V-Day benefit production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." The women confront and discuss the issues they face as transgender women and how "The Vagina Monologues" is used as a vehicle to address these issues to a mass audience. Part of Logo's Real Momentum documentary series.



7/27 1:00pm
The Believers
What happens when a group of trans-people want to reclaim their spirituality and start an all-trans gospel choir? Transcendence Gospel Choir, the first ever entirely transgender choir, consists of individuals who are attempting to overcome feeling "Bible burnt" by the Christian Right while at the same time trying to form a musically cohesive choir. The documentary follows the Transcendence Gospel Choir from the start and shows how the members had to overcome instability and commotion and build trust with one another. The diverse backgrounds of the choir members, white and black, young and old, parents of children, fully transitioned and not, are profiled-all of whom are working their high notes to find acceptance in Christian churches as well as the LGBT community. Part of Logo's Real Momentum documentary series.



On The Sundance Channel
7/24 10:00am
Ten More Good Years

In the latter part of the 1960’s the Civil Rights Movement made its way into the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Community. Across the country LGBT persons defiantly stood up and fought for the right to be out, proud, and equal. Today, the LGBT Community is out and definitely proud; however, they are far from equal. Those who “could not take it anymore” some 40 years ago at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, The Stonewall Inn in New York City, and elsewhere across the United States, are older now and are facing an onslaught of discrimination from their government, social service networks, and even from their own Community.

Transgender Day of Rememberance 2007

Well it's late and I just got home from a long afternoon in downtown DC. My reason for being there was to attend a Day of Rememberance service held in front of the Whitman Walker Clinic.

For me, memorializing our loved ones and friends was about not letting their spirit and influence on our lives go unforgotten. Additionally its about living and moving forward.  We learn and grow from those before us and never forget the tragic loss of having them leave us too soon. With our trans brothers and sisters though, it's because of ignorance and hate that they have left us in body, yet never in spirit.

I feel even more compelled to help in organizing Baltimore's Day of Rememberance next year.

I'm emotional tapped out at this point!

There was some uplifting from my travels today. Even though I was tooling around in drab mode, I ran into several friends including my friend Kay. Kay moved away from DC in 2005 and just recently moved back. Needless to say I'm excited. Locally, on a scale of androgyne and transition, she was someone I looked up to. I aspired to be like Kay.  Many noted trans-activist and leaders were on hand and I personally met Rev Drew Phoenix  who was just trying to quietly attend the service. My friend Donna introduced me to Mara Keisling, the Executive Director of NCTE. There is a genuine humility in both of their voices. 

Not much more than the desire to reflect.

Ah, yes.. What's a little "T" amongst friends?

For those who read John Aravosis' Swiss Cheese piece in Salon you can spare yourselves the repeat. For those less "fortunate", I've linked it above.

Mr Aravosis proffers an opinion that the LGB(T) community as a whole wants ENDA with or without the gender identity provisions.

However, the piece is titled " How did the T get in LGBT?" His entire assertion is that the T does not belong in with LGB. Mr Aravosis chooses to use the Wikipedia version of the LGBT history. We all know the hours of painstaking fact checking and vetting that done there..... Hell, Dan Rather did more vetting on his "Bush's National Guard " piece.... Let's actually review some facts.

1.) The T came first

The "T" in the LGBT Movement...
It's a hot August night in San Francisco in 1966 -- three years before the famed Stonewall. Compton's Cafeteria, in the seedy Tenderloin district, is hopping with its usual assortment of transgender people, young street hustlers, and down-and-out regulars. The management, annoyed by the noisy crowd at one table, calls the police. When a surly cop, accustomed to manhandling Compton's clientele, attempts to arrest one of the queens, she throws her coffee in his face. Mayhem erupts -- windows break, furniture flies through the air. Police reinforcements arrive, and the fighting spills into the street. For the first time, the drag queens band together to fight back, getting the better of the cops, whom they kick and stomp with their high-heeled shoes and beat with their heavy purses. For everyone at Compton's that night, one thing was certain -- things would never be the same again. This act of resistance was a dramatic turning point for the transgender community, and the beginning of a new human rights struggle that continues to this very day. For almost 40 years, it was an almost-forgotten footnote until the recent film documentary Screaming Queens recovered the story for today's audiences.

Somewhere in the early 70's the movement to "mainstream" homosexuality started rolling. The idea that all gay men wore panties and all lesbians had hairy armpits and drove semis were stereotypes that had to be buried.And rightfully so. However,this resulted the sweeping the Queens and Fairies under the Yellow Brick Road.

A good yet brief history of the Trans/HRC schism can be read here


2.) Not all gay men are Will Truman.....

Gender identity protects effeminate gay men and butch lesbians as much, if not more that transgendered persons. While within certain demographics of the gay community, the white collared Tom Ford wannabes ( "Not that there's anything wrong with that....."), and the Angelina Jolie'd Lipstick Lesbians anything non conforming in presentation draws negative attention to themselves. We trans folks do the same with the "French Maid" and " Sissy Sluts". Yet what of the Jack McFarlands? the Nancy Boys, Tomboys, Chapstick Lesbians, Dykes, Bulls or not, and your garden variety Queers? Yes Queer. Isn't THAT the common thread we share?

We are a Union of Queer Folk.

Let's really discuss his premise here. How DID the T get in LGBT?


His argument of incremental rights has been floated by many supporting a non gender identity version of ENDA. The talking points go like this "Civil rights legislation -- hell, all legislation -- is a series of compromises. You rarely get everything you want, nor do you get it all at once. Blacks, for example, won the right to vote in 1870. Women didn't get that same right until 1920".

Mr Aravosis' explanation of incremental rights would have meant that blacks and women were in the same fight for voting rights in the 1870 and that someone in Congress decided to eliminate women from The Fifteenth Amendment.

Based on his "logic", incremental rights would have actually worked like this:


"Light skinned Blacks, for example, won the right to vote in 1870. Dark skinned blacks didn't get that same right until 1920."


For Mr Aravosis, any ENDA is better than no ENDA is a cover for his transphobia.
That "I started asking friends and colleagues, ranging from senior members of the gay political/journalistic establishment to apolitical friends around the country to the tens of thousands of daily readers of my blog" and "if they thought we should pass ENDA this year even without gender identity. Everyone felt bad about taking gender identity out of ENDA, everyone supported transgender rights, and everyone told me "pass it anyway." The final quotation marks are his. As if everyone one of them replied with exactly that answer.
Hmmm? I can see this conversation now, over Martinis at Halo.

"Trans folk are nice enough people though, even if they are riding on our shirt tails. "
" Of course I like transgender people, some of my best friends are transgendered."


Mr Aravosis, I don't care if you're trans phobic. I'm use to transphobia from 80% of the population, just please drop the "Holier than Thou" and "Song and Dance"

Example of Character

Some of us may be aware that Donna Rose, a well known member of the trans community and a Board member at HRC has resigned. Having read HRC's stance on ENDA and its decision to oppose immediate markup of the bill, and Joe Solomonese's speech at SCC in September, I found her convictions refreshing.

While HRC is now scrambling to recover, PassENDAnow, and this latest statement from Joe Solomonese both are pushing for full support of an inclusive ENDA, not the Barney Frank proposed and Nancy Pelosi supported "Cert's" bill, " Two, two, two bill's in one". Is this too late to regain support from the trans community? Were they always onboard and just looking for a way to delay the markup in order to truly garner the votes needed?

I say it doesn't matter. Anything short of an immediate rebuke to Rep. Frank's proposal and a call to action from the entire GLBT community in support of that position is unacceptable. It says they would be willing to "sell" us out. It draws into question their only recent conversion to include transgender rights.

People , this is nothing new for HRC, the HALF Rights Campaign.

The ironic thing is it is all a moot point. The current administration will veto it. Our solidarity would encourge those wavering on passage to have the courage the next time it is introduced. Yet movement on this bill was to show force and unity from the GLBT community.

And HRC flinched.

Where is the L-O-V-E?

As I geared up for my 4th SCC, I had the opportunity to reflect on my personal journey of the last 4 years.

By 2003, I had come to terms with the fact I was transgendered. Even though I could not quantify the cause, I accepted it as part of my nature. It had been since the tender age of 6. Years of guilt and shame had taken its toll and I was ready for a change. Many things had transpired in the preceding year. My last relationship(HST i.e. hostage taking situation....) had ended in miserable failure. I was finally on my own, and, as I found to be later, on my way. New job, new income status, and new freedom allowed me to express this identity in a safer environment.

As these planets all came into alignment I found less than a harmonic convergance. The more exposed I was to the multivalent construal known as transgenderism, the less shielded I was to its stark divisions. I knew I was transgendered, however which subset did I belong to?

Communication and language are tools mankind has developed to express a point of view as to allow another person to understand it. For the purpose of my assessment I choose to define three subsets as following; transsexual (both op and non-op), androgynous ( including gender queers and crossdressers who dress for gender identity expression), and transvestites ( to include any fetish based or emotionally driven cross gendered expression through attire/clothing). At the core to each of these BROAD subsets is HOW gender and its expression relates to THEM.

[Please note: A crossdresser is ANYONE who wears clothing of their opposite physical sex. Transgender is an umbrella term used to describe ANYONE with a gender identity or expression that is at odds with society's binary gender construct]

To the transsexual, its is an innate sense knowing they who they are gender wise, its the body which is incongruent to this defined sense of self.

To the androgynous, its a sense of two genders.Sometimes singularly expressed, and sometimes jointly expressed. Yet typically never just one gender identity as defined by society's binary constructs.

To the transvestite, its a sense of fulfillment to an aspect of their gender definitions through the wearing of garments typically associated to the opposite physical sex. The fullfillment can be sexual in nature and it can be emotional too.

And therein, as the Bard would tell us, lays the rub.

Some transsexuals feel detached or wish to detach themselves from other transgendered individuals because their sense of self is, at least at the point they affirmed their status as transsexual, innate, permanant and quite clear. They were born with the right mind, its just the body which lagged behind. Anyone with less than the same feeling or sense of self could possible cause society at large to demean their situation. (Like its stereotypical TG characters in such movies as Dressed to Kill or Silence of the Lambs) Not dressing within a binarily defined gender contruct ( gender queer/fuck, or androgynous) or dressing in a fetish way can be seen as destructive to them and they need to blend in and be accepted. For many the ultimate goal is to fit into mainstream society and allow themselves to finally just live.

Some androgynous people consider and classify themselves as transgendered because in society's collective vocabulary, they have no accurate word to define themselves. They feel more bi-gendered variant that transvestites and less inconguent in their gender -physicality relationship than transsexuals. They see fetish based crossdressing involving intimate appearal or the lack there of(exposed body parts) in online photo albums as a threat to their legitimacy.

And, some transvestites, content on living with their gender which is in sync with their physical sex, will think in terms of their sense of self and do not possess the capacity to reasonably empathize beyond that contrust. To no fault of their own. How can white Americans truly understand personal biasses afflected upon black Americans. They lack a certain perspective. They are no less ridiculed by society than any other transgendered person however.

I have found, at times, a deep and dark distain for each other by some of us within all of these three subsets. However it seems to be strongest between the two extremes, transsexuals and transvestites. Transgender has been called an umbrella term . Yet I see it more like a covered bus stop. We're all in it together, however none of us want to look at or communicate with each other.

So this beg's to ask the question.

Where is the Love?

At a national level, most of the activism is directed to provide acceptance for those actively living and expressing, on a full time basis, a gender expression inconguent to their natal physicality. This means transsexuals both op and non-op or those 24/7.

At the local level most of the support mechanisms are gears towards the transvestites and provide a social outlet in addition to any emotional support provided.

While both of those two extremes benefit in small part to the actions taken on behalf of the other, there seems to be no middle ground and I certainly fail to see all of us holding hands and singing KumBayah anytime soon.

Which leaves us with the androgynous. You know us, chameleons as we are, we partied with the jocks and the stoners......

Katharine Hepburn was the Antichrist

Katharine Hepburn will long be remembered as Hollywood’s greatest actress. Although many people will not remember she led a rich and interesting life. She was an immensely complicated, intelligent, and driven individual. Additionally, she was the Antichrist.



The daughter of her urologist doctor father Thomas Norval Hepburn and suffragette namesake mother Katharine Houghton, Katharine was an athletic tomboy as a child, and was very shy around girls her age. She was largely schooled at home. She did attend Bryn Mawr College, however, and it was here that she decided to become an actress, appearing in many of their productions. After graduating, she went on to perform in several plays on and off Broadway. She finally broke into stardom with the lead role of the Amazon princess Antiope in "A Warrior's Husband" (1932). Film offers followed. RKO signed her to a contract. She made five films between 1932 and 1934. For her third, Morning Glory (1933) she won her first Academy Award. Her fourth, Little Women (1933) was the most successful picture of its day.

However, stories of her refusal to play the Hollywood Game, always wearing slacks and no makeup, never posing for pictures or giving interviews, soon leaked out. There was even a largely held rumor that she walked around the studio in her underwear in the early 1930s when the costume department stole her slacks from her dressing room. She refused to put anything else on until they were returned.

Many audiences turned their backs on such behavior and accordingly, so did Hollywood. A brief stint back on Broadway, followed by several lackluster films and she was soon labeled “box-office poison”. It was then that she made a pivotal change in her life. Instead of compromising her principles, she took the lead in “The Philadelphia Story” (1938) on Broadway. It was a smash hit. She quickly purchased the film rights and negotiated her way back into the Old Boy’s Network which was Hollywood in the 30s and 40s. It was on her terms. She was her own woman.



The suffragette upbringing in a liberal family environment forged a set of values and standards she lived her life by. When one is asked what memorable qualities of hers they are familiar with, her accent and mannerisms will be high on the list. Yet secondarily, almost no one will forget her crossdressing. Sure, her wearing of slacks in an age when it was not fashionable is hardly crossdressing. However, if her reasons for wearing pants are explored, you will find it stems from a desire of gender equality. Her love of all sports from tennis to archery to golf and skiing, proved to the world, she was comfortable in a man’s woman. For her, equality was genderless.



As the twentieth century’s leading gender bender, Katharine Hepburn is the Antichrist. Hyperbole as it may be, she set the tone for a movement in American culture, aided by Rosie the Riveter in WWII, and the auspicious Gloria Steinem in the 60’s and 70’s. Today’s feminism movement can trace its roots in celluloid back to The Great Kate. Modern lesbians owe a large portion of their acceptance in society to Katharine of Arrogance. Ironically, she accomplished this without destroying the paradigm society’s perception of women. Women were still allowed to be the fairer sex. Soft, warm, loving and nurturing, the female role model was not destroyed, yet remarkably enhanced. It is because life imitates art in our society that Ms Hepburn will always be a hero to me. Her decision to live her life, according to her rules was the true catalyst to today’s current gender expression.



You may feel my labeling of Katharine Hepburn as the Antichrist is a poke at the religious right. This is not quite the case, although no one is safe from lampooning. Her values and positions on gender equality are, by today’s standards, moderate to somewhat conservative. She will live on forever through the little screens of American Movie Classics (AMC) and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Yet for some of us, her pioneering spirit, grit and perseverance needs no electronic reminders. The “mark of this beast” is on the labels hanging in my closet.