An announcement from Priyank Jindal:

An anthology by radical gender variant people of color about our experiences, struggles, organizing, anger and everything else.

I am looking for essays, articles, interviews, rants, artwork (photography, drawings, graphics, etc.) by gender variant people of color to speak to some of these topics and begin to fill a void in resources, writings, and visibility. Let’s link our stories, experiences, analyses, resources, activism, and confrontations. Submit!!!
Topics may include but definitely aren’t limited to:
· Trans issues in POC organizing work (Anti-Prison work, Immigrants Rights, Hip Hop, Reclaiming Culture, Nationalism)
· Coming out
· The ways we experience racism, classism, abelism, sexism…
· Gender, Sex & Sexuality, Relationships
· Gender Variance in Indigenous Communities
· Boundaries of Butch/Trans/Genderqueer identities
· The Politics of Transitioning
· Transphobia in queer communities

Submission Guidelines:
5000 word limit
Deadline: June 30, 2005
Please send all submissions as an attachment here. If sending submissions via ground mail include a cd or disk (mac compatible) and a self addressed stamp envelope for response with enough postage to return work submitted.
Send to: Priyank Jindal, PO Box 34184, Philadelphia, PA 19101.

I’ve been staring at this since yesterday:

“Written Out” quotes the Secretary of the Army’s Senior Review Panel Report on Sexual Harassment:

“Female soldiers who refuse the sexual advances of male soldiers may be accused of being lesbians and subject to investigation for homosexual conduct. … Women accused of lesbianism believe that that the mere allegation harms their careers and reputations irreparably.”

I know the article is about lesbian baiting, a very important issue, and the above statement is tied into that larger topic, but I’m untying it. I’m untying it because I think the assumption that straight women would never turn down any guy is just sick and deserves some of it’s own bad publicity.

I grew up with the make sure you please men above all attitude all around me. Everything I did “wrong” was followed by your husband isn’t going to like that or you’ll be different when you’re married. Believe me… I know how women are not supposed to be rude to men or disagree with anything they say (not in front of them anyway).

Now it seems women (straight women, anyway) should, or are expected to, just give their bodies to any man who wants it. If they don’t, they must be lesbians.

What is wrong with people?

Maybe I should change the title of this post to U.S. Military Supports Consensual Rape… because it sure seems like they do.

José Ramos, now a college student, has filed a suit accusing New York City of bias and unlawful detention. He claims that he was called a “boy or whatever it is that you are” by Tiffany Delin (a safety agent) while she was denying him participation in a student council Hispanic Day event. This took place while he was a student at Unity High School in SoHo in 2003. Court papers claim he had permission from his principal to participate in the event, and yet was handcuffed and threatened to be taken to a police station by Delin because he refused to sit.

What’s the purpose of a safety agent again? I thought it was to keep everyone safe (or at least give a false sense of doing so).

read more

When: May 15, 2005 / 2pm - 8pm

Why: because bath houses aren’t just for men.

Here’s the official invitation (lots of talk about invitations today):

Hamilton is the site of another exciting women’s bathhouse event in May!!

Come for another afternoon of fun and frolic as we feverishly celebrate spring and all its delights!

Directions from Toronto, etc.:

QEW - Hamilton - take the Main Street East exit. Cross first lights, turn
right at next lights (Locke) - turn right at 1st street (Jackson) - drive to
Poulette and turn right. Pull into the parking lot on the left. Entrance at
the back there.

By bus:

Buses leave every 30 minutes from Toronto and drop you off right outside. Go around the back for the entrance.

This is a non-licensed, trans-positive event. There is a hot tub, suna,steamroom, and tons of fun and sexy activities to keep you busy.

If you are interested in volunteering - tourguides, bodypainting, etc - email at above address and we’ll chat.

I admit it… I’m on the Log Cabin Republicans mailing list. No, I’m not a republican. I’m just on the list. I don’t really know why. Maybe I don’t want to feel left out of anything politically queer or have some need to know what everyone is up to. Okay… not everyone. I don’t care what the Green Party is doing (but if you do, here ya go - green link).

The Log Cabins really aren’t as bad as everyone makes them out to be. They’ve got a four-day convention and Liberty Education Forum National Symposium in New Orleans coming up. Here’s a summary of the agenda:

It focuses on “the battle for gay and lesbian civil rights.” Panel topics include “Corporate Diversity”; “Family Fairness,” described as “the best strategy for achieving protection and recognition for gay and lesbian families”; “Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?” (with a speaker, Chandler Burr, who has written extensively about research into a biological or genetic basis for homosexuality); and “Examining the Truth about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” about the “best way to end” the nation’s policy on gays in the military.

Sounds pretty harmless to me. I really do think they should have used this ad to promote it, though. C’mon… we all know how much republicans love the flag.

Remember this…
Don’t let being queer stop you from doing anything - even from being a republican.

Legislation approved on Friday by the Maryland Senate empowers all unmarried “life partners” to make health and funeral decisions for each other. Sen. Alex X. Mooney (R-Frederick), seeing the legislation as a step toward homosexual marriage, wasn’t pleased by the 31 to 16 approval and commented that One day [Maryland is] going to wind up like Massachusetts. Oh no! Not Massachusetts! Anything but Massachusetts!

I don’t view the legislation as a step towrds homosexual marriage at all. I view it as giving un-married people the rights they need to take care of their loved ones. This is exactly the type of legislation I am all for. I’d rather see queers obtain all the rights married people have and not be allowed to marry than be handed some type of second class legal marriage that everyone would get all excited over at first just because of the stupid piece of paper and later find out their marriage isn’t exactly like a straight one in the eyes of the law. How’s that for a run-on sentence?

Terri Schiavo is bringing what queers go though everyday into the spotlight.

Here’s a great summary of where we stand now:

Partners of gay hospital patients often can’t even visit, much less make life-and-death decisions for their loved ones, particularly if blood relatives object, said Carissa Cunningham of Gay&Lesbian Advocates&Defenders, a Boston-based group.

My question is why are we not taking the energy we spend fighting for marriage and using it to fight, instead, for rights that married people have? If we had the same rights they do, we wouldn’t need marriage. Unless, of course, you are still stuck on that piece of paper.

Lady, Korea’s first transgender pop group, is set to release its debut album and the media sure is taking notice. There are four MTFs (male-to-female transsexuals), aged 22-29, making up the group and they are gorgeous! Take a look for yourself.

A gay student group at the University of Adelaide in Australia recently fell victim to a hate attack. All fags must die and kill all fags were some of the slogans found on the walls and doors of the room students use to hold weekly meetings and socialize in daily.

The room does not currently have a security camera because many students do not want to give up their option of being anonymous.

Privacy or safety? What a horrible decision to have to make.

The University of Chicago Lesbian and Gay Studies Project is pleased to announce a two-day symposium exploring the art and activism of queer Caribbean writers and artists. This symposium–the first academic gathering devoted entirely to same sex-loving writing from the region–is motivated by the unprecedented blossoming of queer Caribbean literature in the last decade, as LGBT literature from Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Suriname has debuted to international audiences and acclaim. We aim to bring these literary voices together to consider in their own words how art and activism bridge Caribbean, queer, and community identities.

The symposium will open Friday night with a literary reading and book signing followed by a symposium on Saturday to be held on the University of Chicago campus. The event opens conversation between novelists, spoken word artists, activists, and singers who consider how their art and activism bring together Caribbean, queer, and community identities. Discussing intersections between art and gay rights organizing, immigrant rights activism, language politics, publishing markets, song and dance, popular culture, and recovered histories, the panels look at the complexity of LGBTQ Caribbean literary undertakings at and as a crossroads with sexual and racial, local and global issues.

The symposium takes place April 15-16, 2005.

For more information, contact the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project at
(773)834-4509.

So your husband doesn’t approve of your lesbian relationship. What to do… What to do…

Two women in China decided drug and bury him alive would be the most logical thing. I guess that pretty much solved their problem, but I doubt they’ll get to share a cell.