Here’s one from Meredith at Amanita.net.

And about performances of “The Vagina Monologues” too. Rev. John Jenkins has decided to rename the school’s queer film festival (formerly named, you’ll never guess, Queer Film Festival) Gay & Lesbian Film: Filmmakers, Narratives, Spectatorships (the event will be limited to topics related to film - not homosexuality) and move performances of “The Vagina Monologues” to a smaller hall, where they will be performed as free academic presentations, instead of performances which would have raised money for organizations like the YMCA and Sexual Offense Services, while he decides what the future holds for the two events.

In an address, Jenkins acknowledged the “sacred” value of academic freedom but also said that value should not trump all other considerations at the Catholic school.

“In some situations, given the distinctive character and aspirations of Notre Dame, it may be necessary to establish certain boundaries, while defending the appropriate exercise of academic freedom,” he told students in the second of a series of speeches this week about potential conflicts between academic freedom and Catholic values.

He argued that events should not be sponsored by the university, or one of its academic departments, when they are “contrary to or inconsistent with the fundamental values of a Catholic university.” He said that by doing so, it appears that the university endorses the content of the events, which are sponsored by academic departments so they can be held on campus.

Read “Notre Dame reins in gay, women’s events” (registration may be required)

The 3rd Annual Trans-Forming Feminism Conference will be held at the State University of New York at New Paltz on April 22, 2006.

Mission Statement from the Trans-Forming Feminism Conference site’s main page: We are looking to create a conference where we really begin to explore the issues connecting and dividing the transgender and feminist communities. We want to address the fears, myths, and misunderstandings that keep these movements from building coalitions. We want to hear lots of different voices for there is no one definitive community that speaks for everyone.

Visit transformfeminism.com for more information.

New York Times Book Reviews: Male Like Me & The Conformist

Bay Area Reporter: Leather community debates trans exclusion at upcoming contest

WIBW.com: Kansas Lawmaker Moves to Control Protests at Funerals

Chicago Tribune: Students face hate-crime charges

San Francisco Business Times: PlanetOut buys travel company for $6.5M

247Gay.com: Radio Host Janet Parshall Calls Gay Adoption “State-Sanctioned Child Abuse”

Reuters: Gay channel Logo looking for gay life in America

I find nothing odd about people riding the subway without their pants on.

[pic]

I’ll miss you.

Go check it out at Yourish.com. I think this cat is so cute.

And speaking of carnivals, is there anyone out there who would be interested in hosting the 2/10 Carnival of Bent Attractions? Please contact me.

David Lat, who will take over Wonkette in the coming weeks with co-editor Alex Pareene, has had some interesting things to say about gays in the past. Today’s New York Times article “They Fought the Law. They Both Won.” includes the following excerpt from a piece titled “Those ‘Happy Homos’” which Lat wrote for The Harvard Crimson during his time at Harvard, where he earned a degree in English: “National Coming Out Day is just another event in the recent rash of identity-based pride rallies. These alleged celebrations of diversity have devolved into mutual masturbation festivals. They reassure people who are still deeply troubled by their lifestyle choices and are desperately seeking a stamp of approval. We have a duty to deny them this approval.”

Lat blogs as a woman at Underneath Their Robes; A woman who is described as a “flamboyant, theater-watching, Oscar-watching, shoe-loving, litigatrix” towards the end of the Times article.

Oh no, the gays are going to bring their children to the Easter egg roll at the White House. And they are going to wear “Love makes a family” themed t-shirts. “Improper,” says Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Today’s 2PM performance of Home, written by Jess Martin and directed by Renee C. Farster, will be followed by a panel discussion of transgender issues moderated by Gunner Scott of Gender Crash.

Tickets for today’s show are Pay-What-You-Can. And if you can’t make today’s performance, Home will be at Plaza Black Box Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts until February 4, 2006. View ticket prices here.

From a press release found at GayLinkNews.com:

HOME delves into a family whose faith is rocked with the death-bed revelation that the minister’s grandfather was born biologically female…

What does it take to make a man? God? Is it testosterone, anatomy, or some elusive all natural male scent? Gender identity is rarely discussed at the dinner table with one’s grandparents, and in HOME, Minister Lulu Edwards lashes out at her family over what she sees as a secret that her grandfather kept from her while he was alive. However, her grandfather never identified as anything other than a man, and so this calls into question, how can his gender identity ever be something he considered hidden? Complicating this revelation, Lulu learns that her new love interest, Kai, is a professional drag king who, in Lulu’s opinion, “grinds her audiences with a silicon penis on a weekly basis.”