Dyke Trite

Why I love Rachel Maddow, part 10,000. Especially the part about playing Iran:

TG Day?

I just got an email wishing me a happy TG Day. Took me a while to figure out they meant *T*hanks *G*iving day. Oy.

Happy day to you and yours.

Things to be Thankful For

Deb Price at the Detroit Free Press has some positive things for the queers among us to take stock of this Thanksgiving. Her list is below. What would you add?

Thanksgiving is a time to focus on the year’s blessings. And those of us who are gay or gay-friendly have plenty to savor:

• Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who fondly recalls the gay couple who helped raise him, unexpectedly stepped into New York’s governorship and soon declared that his state would honor same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

• Following the example first set by neighboring Vermont eight years ago, New Hampshire joined the ranks of civil union states. Almost no one rose to object.

• Connecticut quietly opened the doors of marriage to gay couples. Seeing that Massachusetts lives comfortably with gay marriage, Connecticut voters passed on the chance to hold a constitutional convention and fight over the breakthrough.

• An estimated 18,000 gay couples married in California after a landmark ruling. Six million Californians voted in favor of gay people keeping the right to marry. When they failed, the state’s top court agreed to hear arguments in favor of nullifying the anti-gay-marriage measure that narrowly passed.

• With an increasingly progressive nation watching his every move, the president-elect posted a long gay-friendly “To Do” list on his website. And nobody blinked.

Never in history have gay Americans been so blessed. So in this season of bounty and conflict, let us pause to give heartfelt thanks.

The Annual Trek

Tonight begins my annual pilgrimage to the parents’ house for Thanksgiving. It’s my only big family holiday, and really the only time I visit my parents. My mom makes the most incredible sausage stuffing which I ate even when I was still a vegetarian – it’s that good.

It’s also a time for stress and agitation. My sister lives near by now, so we drive together. Whose car? Where shall we meet? Are we on the same time frame? How will the drive, the weather, the traffic be? Then there’s playing nice with mom – what fabulous things will she have to say about my clothes, my presentation, my basic way of being? Can we have a fight about something totally stupid just because neither of us can be the bigger person?

Sometimes I forget to take a step back and be grateful for how lucky I am. I have a family of origin that loves me no matter what I pierce or tattoo, no matter what I do for a living, no matter who I love. I have a chosen family that feeds my soul and spirit in amazing and unexpected ways. I have a job that I enjoy, enough money to live comfortably, a roof over my head, and more love than I could ever have imagined.

So this year I’m giving thanks for my friends and loved ones, for having a place to live and food to eat, and for having enough awareness to know how lucky I really am. So take some time out to think about what you have, and to hold those with less in your heart.

Consequences of Gay Marriage

Shamelessly boosted from GraphJam:

Listening Pleasure

I am a freak.

I fully embrace this fact.  I have almost no attention span without some sort of sonic input.  NPR is generally my favorite option, because I can mostly tune it out until some particularly fascinating tidbit catches my ear, at which point I strive to work this tidbit into later conversation and sound extra special smart.

But now that I’m a cog in the machine, the live stream of NPR is blocked – can’t use RealAudio.  Instead, I’ve discovered Pandora, a streaming radio service based on algorithms from the Music Genome Project. What this means is that you can design your own radio station that will look for attributes similar to those of songs and bands you like. I’m lovin’ it – it’s totally floated me through a stressful week and LOTS of dense reading materials.

And Pandora is heavily sponsored by NuvaRing and Plan B, which I appreciate as a supporter of reproductive choice, while NPR lately has picked up major underwriting from the Department of Homeland Security and the racist and anti-trans eVerify program. Oy.

If you’re already using Pandora and interested in my current radio station click here to listen. If you aren’t already signed up you’ll have to….and you’ll have to pick a binary gender so they cand target ads your way….but it might be worth it.

Heads on a Platter

This is what I saw in the conference room on my way out of work yesterday evening: a row of disembodied heads on the conference table.

Apparently a group of cosmetology students had borrowed the space for a presentation on their work, but it caught me by surprise. I think I caught them by surprise too in catching this photo.

HRC Releases TDOR Video

And it’s actually really good. As long as you aren’t worried about stuff like trans-inclusive nondiscrimination legislation, HRC can look kinda trans-friendly. Weird.

The Onion Explains it All

Why did Prop 8 pass in California? The Onion clarifies why people voted how they voted.

TDoR

This week is the 10th annual Trans Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.

I always try to attend some event marking those in our LGBTQ umbrella who are most likely to experience silencing, violence, exclusion, and death, and to mark the passing of those who often pass silently and unmarked. This year, I am particularly moved by the death of Duanna Johnson, who stood up to anti-trans police brutality in Memphis back in February. Her activism, her voice, and her spirit were extinguished on November 9th, but her story was largely lost in the outrage over the Prop 8 loss in California. Her daily activism deserved more recognition from our alphabet soup community, and I was glad to hear her story was told in vigils across the country. I went to one at Brown University on Monday evening.

Then, Ellison and I followed up by checking out a performance by Athens Boys Choir at Rites and Reason Theatre, which generously donated the space. In the face of such a sad day, it was good to cheer on a performer who tackles serious subject matter with an irreverance, sharp wit, and lyrical hilarity. I’ve been a fan of Katz’ stuff for a while, but here’s my new favorite – because as a queer Jew how could I not love it?