A Dahl's House

I’d run across “Bobbi with an I” by country singer Phil Vassar a few months ago and was intrigued. The song tells the story of the singer’s friend Bobby, a former “linebacker, a quarterback sacker,” who drives a tow truck and bench presses 335—and who shows up one night at the local bar “in his pink party dress.” Jaws drop, but over time nobody gives it a second thought, it’s “just Bobbi with an I.”

Given that country music isn’t known as a bastion of social progressivism it was a pleasant surprise, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor (one reason Bobbi gets respect is because “he’s been known to knock a few teeth out if you ask him for a beauty tip”) that doesn’t make Bobbi the butt of a joke. It seemed like Vassar either knew someone who crossdressed, or at least had run across crossdressers hanging out at a bar somewhere.

Vassar just released a music video for the song and it’s got some, ah, interesting differences.

The video adds a prequel where Bobby is invited out by his friends, but demurs because he’s broke. But his eyes light up when his friend mentions “it’s Ladies Night, free drinks for the girls!” Did someone say: free drinks? Cue the music. Bobbi enters the bar, a cigar-chomping burly “man in a dress” (in fact he’s wearing sunglasses to conceal the fact that he’s not wearing any make-up). And in interviews and his “behind-the-scenes” video, Vassar says: “Bobbi is actually a guy I knew—this outrageous guy who showed up at a club one night dressed as a girl. It was just a funny way to pick up chicks.” In other words—it’s all just good fun, it’s a one-time thing, and Bobbi doesn’t really want to be seen as a woman.

I’ll take Vassar at his word, he seems like a decent guy—but also a guy who comes across as savvy enough to know how far he can push things with his fans. Not that that might be a reason the video is at odds with the actual lyrics. (And don’t think too hard about how Bobbi, who’s flat broke, manages on short notice to get decked out in a cocktail dress, high heels, earings, platinum wig, fashionable women’s sunglasses and a black sequin purse, or why he’s got seemingly hairless legs.)

But even if the video undercuts the lyrics, Bobbi’s having a great time, his friends are having a great time, in fact everyone’s having a great time except an eye-rolling old man, who’s presented as a curmudgeonly killjoy. The “big-boned girl with a platinum curl” is the life of the party. As Vassar sings: “That’s how it is, nobody gives a second thought these days.”

Would I have preferred that the video stayed true to its roots and cast someone like Victoria “Porkchop” Parker* as Bobbi? Hell ya. But if the “lite” version ends up making life a little easier for some trans person in some shitkicker bar somewhere, I’m not gonna complain too much.

* Before anyone kvetches, yes I know Porkchop is a gay man who’s a professional female impersonator. But she’s burly enough as a guy to be a convincing Bobby and femme enough to be a Bobbi who would’ve left viewers stunned and amazed.

At least 150 locals in Silverton, OR showed their support for the first openly transgender/gender queer person elected major – Stu Rasmussen, who sees himself as male but who had breast implants and presents himself as a woman — drastically outnumbering the quartet of Westboro haters who had come to protest and get their media fix.

Best sign of the day: “My love is bigger than your hate.” And there was this heart-warming encounter:

A woman pushing a baby jogger past City Hall did a doubletake on her run, backing up to question 16-year-old Victoria Phelps, whose family runs the small Kansas church.

“I’m a Christian,” Lesley Brighton said, clearly perplexed by the girl’s “God Hates Fags” sign. “This is some kind of joke, right?”

No, it’s deadly serious, Phelps replied. Electing a transgender mayor, she said, was an abomination.

“I don’t expect for it to sink in but it’s our duty to come out here and preach to these people because they’re so proud of having a transvestite mayor,” Phelps said. “It’s disgusting. And where was it? Was it Isaiah? Deuteronomy? About it being an abomination?”

Brighton shook her head. “I’ve read the Bible cover to cover,” Brighton said. “Bottom line: love beats hate.”

Even the comments about the newspaper story — which are all-too-often seem to bring out the haters whenever it’s a trans-related article — were a pleasure to read.

Finally, one of the locals gives his account of the counter-protest (and thanks for showing your support Barry!). As he put it: “[T]he good guys won. And we did a good thing.” That you did, that you did.

* For those who didn’t get the headline reference, here’s an explanation (be sure to read the plot outline).

Take that, old wrinkly white-haired dude…

Never thought I’d say it, but: well done Paris!

Drag queen Candy Samples gives us a preview of the Republican convention. (NSFW as you might’ve guessed….)

A matter-of-fact, but disturbing essay by a retired gynecologist who saw and treated almost every complication from self-induced/backroom abortions that one could imagine:

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

However, not simply coat hangers were used.

Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off….

It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.

What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.

I was all set to write a happy little post about Christian Siriano retiring his catch phase, “hot tranny mess.” Apparently someone clued him in that it might be offensive after he compared drag queens and trans people to “white trash.” Maybe the light went on after hot pissed-off trans actress Candis Cayne ripped him a new one after he used the phrase on stage at the Logo NewNextNow Awards that she was hosting. Maybe he even read my open letter about why it’s so not fierce when “tranny” is used by someone who isn’t trans.

I was willing to overlook that it was one of those not-quite-an-apology “I wish that my words were not taken in that way” apologies that’s all too common with public figures these days. And yes, he even mentioned that some of his best friends are trans. (BTW Christian, if you’re reading this, just a heads-up, we trans people don’t exist solely to provide you with fashion inspiration.) As I said before, I think it just never occurred to him that as a self-described “very flamboyant gay man” that he could say something that’s considered derogatory speech, and I’m willing to overlook all that because I’m just glad that he publicly said he’d stop and maybe, just maybe, that would get other people to think twice about using it as a catch phrase.

What’s got me not-so-happy are the comments on various gay blogs about how trans people are overreacting and picking on poor little Princess Puffysleeves. How come you’re so humorless? Gawd you’re so P.C. Can’t you see it’s a just a joke? What’s the big deal anyway? We call each other faggots all the time, it’s no big deal. Get it over! Not to mention, I’m sick of being hounded for not being properly appreciative of T people.

Funny how those arguments sound oh so familiar. I’ve heard the exact same things when I’ve asked clueless straight kids not to use “that’s so gay” as a put-down. Or when women ask not to be called “bitches” and “hos.” Or when the Sambo’s restaurant chain was pressured to change its name.

To be honest, I had more respect for the out-and-out haters – did you know I’m a “breeder with a mental disorder”? – because at least with them there was no pretense. They’d probably get along swimmingly with the high-profile conservative bloggers (who I won’t dignify with links) who had these recent headlines: “Shame on Dennis Hastert for joining tranny lobbist firm” and “Boycott NBC and its tranny sympathizers.” (Companies that value LGBT diversity, the horror!)

And of course there was this: don’t you have bigger things to worry about?

Well, yeah, actually I do. Trans people face hate crimes at a rate up to 16 times higher than gays and lesbians, yet we have to fight to be included in anti-hate crime laws. There’s some segments of the trans communities where only one in four trans people have a full-time job and more than half live in poverty, yet we’re asked to step aside so straight-acting gays and lesbians can get employment non-discrimination protections. Even when “transgender” protections are offered, crossdressers like myself are often excluded from them.

The thing is, those are huge issues that are going to take time and effort to overcome. Whereas not referring to someone by a term they find offensive is a small thing. A simple thing. The human thing to do.

But evidentially even that is too much effort for some people.

Glad someone called him on it to his face. As I’ve said before, it’s time to retire “hot tranny mess.”

Siriano had another fun run-in with the evening’s host, Dirty Sexy Money’s transgendered star Candis Cayne.

Siriano was onstage and uttered his catchphrase “hot tranny mess.” Cayne came from backstage, my source says, and hissed, “I hope you aren’t talking about me.”

Siriano insisted he wasn’t, cooing, “You’re a hot tranny success!”

Contrast this with Dominique from “America’s Top Model.”

TVGuide.com: C’mon, you’re not at least a little sore about all the transvestite remarks you kept getting from the judges?

Dominique: Honestly, I took being called a transvestite as a compliment. I mean, transvestites are some of the most beautiful women in the world. They carry themselves sometimes better than most women. There’s so much grace, poise, and the makeup and hair are perfect.

Dominique, you are so hot tranny fabuliciousness.

I’ve always loved John Cusack, both as an actor and as someone not afraid to speak his mind, but this quote (in response to the question “Who are your heroes in real life?”) made my day:

Let’s go with Jesus. Not the gay-hating, war-making political tool of the right, but the outcast, subversive, supreme adept who preferred the freaks and lepers and despised and doomed to the rich and powerful. The man Garry Wills describes “with the future in his eyes … paradoxically calming and provoking,” and whom Flannery O’Connor saw as “the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of [one’s] mind.

Those darn kids… They make me want to cry (in a good way).

It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision that drove Brewster High School student Michael Loscalzo to go to school dressed as a girl.

“Years of taking judgment made me decide to stick up for myself,” said Loscalzo, 17. “All my life, people either said I was weird or that I was gay.”

The Brewster High School sophomore recently revealed his secret about his desire to become a woman by going to class wearing makeup and feminine attire. His choice has reverberated through the halls.

Loscalzo said school officials warned him Friday that he could be suspended if he continued to cross-dress, a claim that administrators denied yesterday.

In a show of support, several students have organized an “Equality Protest” this week, by showing up to school dressed in garments of the opposite sex.

Yesterday, about a dozen teens gathered at a local deli with boys wearing skirts, wigs and dresses and girls donning caps, cargo pants and T-shirts. They said about 60 students cross-dressed yesterday, though school officials said the number was far less.

“We want Mike to feel more comfortable in his surroundings,” said senior Shannon Dodd, 18, one of the organizers. “We’re letting the student body know that it’s OK to dress this way.”…

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.