A Dahl’s House

Nice article by the Steven Petrow, past president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association about pregnant trans man Thomas Beatie and the “skeptic quotes” and intentionally wrong pronouns that often accompanied coverage of him. Petrow, who gets it, and makes this point:

As for news coverage, Ina explained to me that most media outlets at that time still had no consistency in how they applied pronouns to transgender people, often identifying individuals by their gender of birth—not gender appearance or expression. Now, most newspapers have adopted a policy to use a transgender person’s chosen name and pronoun. For instance, the San Jose Mercury News, after repeatedly failing in how it identified transgender individuals in the much-publicized murder of Gwen Araujo, adopted this much more fair and accurate policy:

We encourage you to ask transgender people which pronoun they would like you to use. If it is not possible to ask the person which pronoun he or she prefers, use the pronoun that is consistent with the person’s appearance and gender expression. Also, please do not put quotation marks around gender pronouns, suggesting that the pronoun does not reflect the person’s true sex.

If you think this is a case of “special” treatment, think again. We in the media often use the chosen names of celebrities as both a measure of respect and clarity rather than insisting on using their birth name. (For instance, Muhammad Ali is no longer referred to by his birth name, Cassius Clay; similarly, we all know the former Cherilyn Sarkisian as the one-syllable diva: Cher.)

Petrow also offers a nice bit of context:

Many in the LGBT community have wondered whether the transgender community will see “some backlash” from the Beatie story and whether it will hinder the movement toward greater social acceptance of transgender individuals. When you have Letterman saying someone is a “freak show,” you’ve got a bit of a problem. This reminds me, though, of another so-called problem. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as gays and lesbians sought greater visibility and acceptance, more conservative members of our “community” (which I put in quotation marks here because there was a decided lack of community in their views) argued vociferously that leather men, drag queens, porn stars and transvestites should go to the back of the lavender bus because they were not good PR vehicles for the gay rights movement. In short, we were urged to put our “best” faces forward: The Brooks Brother Homosexual.

Hunter Madsen (along with the late Marshall Kirk, both tidy young men, then) wrote the seminal treatise on this: After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ‘90s. They argued against shock tactics—like PDAs in the street—and in favor of a Madison Avenue-like public relations campaign that aimed to make gays more mediagenic (think Will & Grace). Looking back over the nearly two decades since their book was published, we can easily see that acceptance of gays and lesbians has been helped by our mainstream brothers and sisters: Ellen DeGeneres (TV superstar), Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City) and Greg Louganis (Olympian) as examples. Yet, don’t mistake the power of our more outré companions in shaping the culture, in pushing the culture: the “divine” filmmaker John Waters; NPR’s most famous “lisper,” David Sedaris; and the androgynous chanteuse k.d. lang. Madsen and Kirk would likely have chosen to obfuscate this latter trio of LGBT heroes in their PR campaign for gay acceptance—and what a sadder, more narrow world that would have been for everyone. Similarly, Beatie might not be the poster child for transgender acceptance that some would like. Too bad, I say. He’s one among many, and if we know anything from recent history, it’s the importance of each of us standing up to be visible, recognized and accepted for who we are.

BTW, I’d also like to give kudos to Portland Mercury columnist Ann Romano, who reconsidered and apologized in print after an incredibly offensive and transphobic column about Beatie.

I went back to what I wrote, and was very disturbed by what I saw. In attempting to honestly express my confusion about how Beatie could be pregnant and still identify as a man, I only succeeded in further marginalizing some very worthy individuals who should be admired for bucking mainstream norms.

No shit.

I just ran across a new one—check it out!

Crossposted from Trans Group Blog and Shakesville:

The defense attorney for the alleged killer in the hate-crime murder of Lawrence King argues it’s the victim’s fault for not conforming to gender norms.

King, who was openly gay and had begun wearing make-up, earrings, and high-heeled boots to his junior high school, had been harassed by other students, including Brandon McInerney, 14, who is charged with shooting King twice in the back the head during an English class shortly after school started. Fellow students said they witnessed confrontations between the two in the days before the shooting, including King’s teasing McInerney and telling him that he liked him.

But to hear McInerney’s defense attorney tell it, the problem was that King should have been closeted and straight-acting:

[Senior Deputy Public Defender William] Quest said he believes school administrators supported one student expressing himself and his sexuality — King — and ignored how it affected other kids, despite complaints. Cross-dressing isn’t a normal thing in adult environments, he said, yet 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds were expected to just accept it and go on.

Now if you’ve ever been around a courthouse, you’ll know that blaming victims, sullying their reputations, and/or claiming they provoked the accused are part of the standard repertoire of the defense, whose job it is to raise doubts. Disappointingly, I’ve heard comments on various LGBTQ blogs that McInerney’s attorney is “just doing his job” and obligated to make the best argument he can for his client. But while the latter is true, there are a variety of arguments that aren’t allowed in court because society considers them illegitimate and unacceptable.

If a student killed another student for dressing “differently” because they wore a yarmulke or a head scarf, or a t-shirt with a biblical quote on it, we’d call it for what was: religious bigotry.

If a white student killed a black student for creating a “disruption” simply by attending school, we’d call what it was: racist.

If a teenage boy shot a girl he didn’t like because she kept flirting with him, we wouldn’t consider that a justifiable provocation.

Society and the law don’t consider any of these valid excuses for the accused’s actions, or reasons for lesser punishment; in fact, California specifically outlawed the infamous “gay panic” defense in the wake of the public revulsion about its use by the murderers of trans woman Gwen Araujo—a law that Quinn seems to be trying to do an end-run around by claiming it was King who was doing the harassing, when in fact King was just standing up to a bigger, stronger bully. A bully who allegedly decided to put the “uppity faggot” in his place: six feet underground. This wasn’t a panic. This wasn’t a provoked killing. It was a planned, cold-blooded execution.

Being different shouldn’t be a death sentence, and a “back to the closet” defense shouldn’t be tolerated.

The latest in the Lawrence King hate crime murder—the accused killer’s defense attorney argues it’s all really the victim’s fault…

[Senior Deputy Public Defender William] Quest said he believes school administrators supported one student expressing himself and his sexuality — King — and ignored how it affected other kids, despite complaints. Cross-dressing isn’t a normal thing in adult environments, he said, yet 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds were expected to just accept it and go on.

I’m scheduled to fly to Miami Friday—on America Airlines….

O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers.

Sarah Whitman points out that the Lawrence King killing raises the question: where are our leaders?

Recent months have brought several disturbing events in our community. Lawrence King was shot in his classroom after being teased and harassed for being gay. Simmie Williams was killed while wearing a dress in Fort Lauderdale. Just yesterday, Duchy Trachtenberg, a Montgomery County Council member who authored a bill outlawing discrimination against transgendered people, announced that she is receiving death threats.

And Joe Solmonese is running around telling our legislators to vote for a non-inclusive ENDA bill?

When King was shot, The LA Times covered the event as a local story. While the LGBT blogsphere immediately spread the news, the mainstream media took much longer to cover the story.

Last year, six African-American teenagers were charged with attempted second-degree murder charges in Jena, Louisiana. There were rallies, online petitions, a legal defense fund was created, The New York Times, New York Post and LA Times all covered the events. John Mellencamp even wrote a song in support of the Jena 6, as they came to be known as.

Why? Because the leaders showed up. They went to the rallies. Among those in attendance? Civil rights activists Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III. Rappers Mos Def and Salt-n-Pepa showed their support, as did New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Rapper-actor Ice Cube took it a step further, funding buses to bring protesters from California.

Who was at Lawrence King’s funeral? Where were our leaders?

In this star struck culture, the way to draw attention to an issue is to put a recognizable face out front to draw the press out. Where were Joe Solmonese of HRC, Matt Foreman of NGLTF, Kevin Cathcart of Lambda, Kate Kendall of NCLR, Neil Giuliano of GLAAD? Ellen DeGeneres did her part, but what about the newly out Cheyenne Jackson? Cynthia Nixon? Melissa Etheridge? Where’s the song from Elton John? It takes leadership to bring make the kind of public statement that surrounded the Jena 6.

But we don’t have that….

The nice folks over a Bilerico were kind enough to publish this today:

Dear Christian,

I hope you’re enjoying your new-found, and well-earned celebrity. It was refreshing to see a “Project Runway” contestant who’s actually as talented as they thought themselves to be. And if you’re brash… well, that’s part of being 21-years-old.

I saw that you recently retired “fierce,” and—as someone who’s trans (I’m a crossdresser who also performs as a drag queen)—I’d like to ask you to retire your other catch phrase: “hot tranny mess.”

I realize you probably started saying it to be hip and edgy. Maybe you even meant it affectionately in a snarky sort of way—although you clearly intend it to refer to something tacky and ugly. But think about it. If straight folks started using “hot faggot mess” as a put-down, I suspect you’d be a bit peeved. (BTW, did I mention how adorable you look when you’re miffed…?). And yes, it is a put-down, just in the same way that “that’s so gay” is an offhand put-down straight kids use to describe something lame. As if being gay or being trans is sucky and something one ought to be ashamed of.

Or to put it another way- somehow I doubt you’d even think about using “hot n-word mess,” yes?

I also just wanted to let you know that your use of the word “tranny” is treading on insensitive ground. Yes, some of us trans people do use the word “tranny.” But there’s a difference when a term that’s often been an epithet gets reclaimed by members of the stigmatized group as a way of saying “yeah I am a [insert derogatory term here], wanna make something of it”—and quite another when someone outside that group decides to fling it around carelessly.

I realize you probably don’t mean it as a slur—which is why I haven’t given you my “hot tranniest look” (yet…). But the thing is, usually when most of us trans people hear the term “tranny” it’s said by someone taunting us, threatening to beat us up, or even kill us. (So far in the first three months of this year, three other gender variant or trans people besides Lawrence King have been killed in apparent hate crimes. But you rarely hear about them, ‘cause after all, we’re just “trannies”—nobody worth giving a damn about.)

Since you weren’t exactly the most straight-acting kid in the class, I’m willing to bet you had people call you “faggot” in similar circumstances, so you understand how hearing an epithet can hurt, even if the speaker didn’t mean anything by it.

As a celebrity—like it or not—what you do and say does influence people. And from what I’m seeing, “hot tranny mess” is becoming the latest “ain’t it cool” thing to say in certain circles. I’m sure you’d much rather be remembered for your stunning designs than for creating a catch phrase that thoughtlessly hurts others.

You helped start and it. You can help stop it. The next time you do a talk show, let people know that you’re retiring “hot tranny mess,” and why. If Leno can do that, so can you.

But if you really want to keep using the word “tranny,” why not use it describe something worth admiring—I’ve even got a new catch-phrase for you: “hot tranny fabuliciousness.”

Yours in fabuliciousness,
Lena Dahlstrom aka Joie de Vivre

One of the hassles on being a “public crossdresser” is shaving—yeah, I shave my arms, chest and legs once or twice a week. I’ve found that hair conditioner works really well as a lubricant—the moisturizer is actually the “secret ingredient” in “adult” shaving lotions.

One challenge is finding a conditioner that doesn’t have a lot fragrance in it. Besides being a bit… aromatic… afterwards—given the amount that I’m putting on myself—fragrances are also often irritating to your skin. I had been using a conditioner from http://www.cosmeticscop.com/ (the company owned by the woman who wrote “Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me”—an must-have “Consumer Reports”-style guide to make-up and skin care products).

But yesterday I was at Trader Joe’s and noticed they had a store-brand hair conditioner. So I gave it the sniff test. Minimal scent—and about half the price of the Paula’s Choice conditioner. I’ve got no idea how well it works on hair, but as a shaving lotion it works pretty well. It’s a little thicker, so if it dries out it can clog the razor, but at the price I’ll put up with it.

Getting a chance to catch up with the blog during my flight to Tucson for the IFGE conference….

Had a show last Friday at The Cinch. The night’s theme was “Riot Grrls”—and since it was an unexpected booking, I hadn’t had anything songs lined up. Fortuitously  though, there was a Grace Potter and the Nocturals song, “If I Was From Paris,” that I’d been interested in doing, but felt was a little too hard-edged for my other shows. It’s not actually vintage riot grrl, but it’s definitely got the same ‘tude. (It’s also unlike most of GP&N’s other stuff, which is more along the lines of Janis Joplin-fronting-The Black Crowes-with-Booker T. on the Hammond B3 organ.)

It was also the birthday of another performer “Damn Dyke,” who was celebrating her “seven-year bitch.” So Anna started the show with a cake, which she proceeded to fling into the crowd and onto the stage. The next performer also had cake, which she did a face-plant into, and then shook herself like a dog. So when I took the stage, it was a gooey, lethally slippery mess. Plus I’d found some cool new shoes that look very glam, but with heels that about an inch higher than I’m used to. So it was a very nervous Joie de Vivre who took the stage….

Then Anna made a point of telling the crowd how much she enjoys seeing me bust a move while I’m performing. Thanks, Anna—I’ll get you back, my pretty…. But I managed to make it through without turning an ankle or falling on my ass. It wasn’t my best performance, because I was having to keep one eye on the stage to avoid slipping, but I guess it must have come across alright, since I got a complement from Trauma Flintstone (who was there en drab) after the show.