Hijra by Takeshi Ishikawa
Laxmi Tripathi’s TEDx talk is made of awesome.
“¿Eres hombre? – a veces, ¿Eres Mujer? – a veces. ¿Y cuando no eres hombre ni mujer qué eres? – Soy Michel”. Este es un documental que quiere contar otra historia del cuerpo más allá del género. Su protagonista vive en Santiago de Chile, se ha fabricado con su propia piel un cuerpo para si mismx, hecho a base de profundos cuestionamientos al sexismo, cirugías, “testosterona barata” y rechazo al binarismo de género. Michel ama su vulva y también su pecho sin tetas. Su cuerpo es un cuerpo autónomo, un cuerpo hermoso, un cuerpo libre. — AL BORDE Producciones
Not Your Ex/Rotic: Creatrix Tiara gets busy in May - come check me out :)
I’ve got a string of gigs happening in the Bay Area in early May, all exploring different types of art, so come say hi:
Women’s Rock Camp Showcase + Queen Crescent
The New Parish
579 18th Street (at San Pablo), Oakland, CA 94612
Sunday 5 May 2013 : 2pm to 5pm
$5 - $15, under 18 FREE; no one turned away for lack of fundsWomen’s Rock Camp is a program of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp (BAGRC). BAGRC is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls through music, promoting an environment that fosters self-confidence, creativity and collaboration. Participants learn instruments, form bands, write an original song, attend workshops, and perform in a live concert…all in three days. Women’s Rock Camp tuition and all showcase proceeds benefit the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp Youth Programs.
I am one of the participants in this year’s WRC and am pretty excited to relive my rockstar dreams ;)
LGBT Center
1800 Market St, San Francisco CA 94102
Thursday 9 May 2013 : 6pm Visual Arts, 7:30pm Videos and Performances
FREE!Giving a definition to gender variance is tricky. As is defining chronic illness. People tell themselves “I am not sick enough or queer enough or whatever enough” to identify these ways and this hesitance stops us from forming communities and connections. We isolate because our experiences are not talked about or validated and our unique and varied lives don’t lend themselves easily to group formation. Definitions are inherently constraining which is why many gender variant and chronically ill folks resist identity categories that often hew to normative binaries. With this in mind, SICK will bring folks together to make beautiful complicated art about our intersecting experiences as gender variant and sick people.
I don’t usually class myself as a visual artist, so my piece in SICK is going to be an interesting visual/performance/interactivity hybrid experiment. I’m the pre-show before the performances and videos, so come early enough to check me out and say hi (in a manner of speaking).
Mother Funder! A Mother’s Day Cabaret Benefiting White Lies
Club 21
2111 Franklin St (at 21st), Oakland CA 94612
Sunday 12 May 2013 : 7:30pm
$10; no one turned away for lack of funds - 21+White Lies is a new production to debut at the 2013 National Queer Arts Festival on June 23rd. A multiracial cast of queer musicians, filmmakers, poets, writers, and actors will explore whiteness to dismantle racism in our queer communities. Our production aims to bring humor and hope to conversations about race and racism by blending together many mediums in a night of performance and conversation. Our cast is composed of many movers and shakers in the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ arts scene including nomy lamm, StormMiguel Florez, Jezebel Delilah X, Eli Conley, Susie Smith, Jolie Harris, Mel Chen, Meredith Fenton, Kentucky Fried Woman and Open Mike. This benefit cabaret is to help us fund our world premiere performance and cover the costs of ASL interpretation, venue rentals, and paying our cast and crew.
The Polyester Girl Army is likely to make a comeback amongst some awesome Bay Area QTPOC names!
23, ftm, Just over 1 year on T.
Anonymous asked: my friend has a super cool shirt with a uterus right over where her actual uterus would be. but i was thinking is that kind of offensive to the trans community?
- “the trans community” is not a monolith with one voice or identity. no community is. a community in this sense organized solely by including people under a possible shared definition. I say possible, because for any community to genuinely have some set of identity, people within that community would need to be including themselves of their own voltion. otherwise, we’re just lumping them into a group for the purposes of our speaking.
- since trans* persons are not the sole defining characteristic of any group that I belong to, I couldn’t begin to tell you how any one of them might feel about that shirt nor how any group of trans* identified persons might feel about it.
- I am not sure why you asked, but if you want wear the shirt or inform your friend that you think that it is offensive for you - then why not just do that?
- if you want to know what any trans* person thinks of it, pause for a minute and think if this is about wanting to know their thoughts because they are your friends who happen to be trans* or if this is some internal ‘looking good’ / ‘avoid looking bad’ conversation in your head. if it’s the latter, then you may want to just keep that to yourself rather than drag someone into that because you think they are trans*.
- however, if you wear that shirt at michfest, singing praises about being womyn-born-womyn, then it would be likely that most trans* persons and groups would be offended by that essentialist garbage…but it wouldn’t really be about the shirt.
![emotionalexhib:
tonytoggles:
fuck the gender binary
[an illustration of a person with the speech bubble from out of view asking “Are you a boy or a girl?” The person answers “No.”]
Can I just tell you how gratifying it was to be able to circle “other” in the gender choices at Planned Parenthood yesterday?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/4e3ab7d95d0ec1e25100605f23eb63c8/tumblr_mleoqlPxvw1rgerj6o1_500.jpg)
fuck the gender binary[an illustration of a person with the speech bubble from out of view asking “Are you a boy or a girl?” The person answers “No.”] Can I just tell you how gratifying it was to be able to circle “other” in the gender choices at Planned Parenthood yesterday?
BIRTH RIGHTS AND WRONGS: Response to Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival Official Policy
After years of debate, as of April 11th Lisa Vogel has finally drawn definitive lines around inclusion of trans women at MWMF. It is a hard truth to swallow that a person can call themselves a trans ally and support this festival..
If a Trans* Person Asks You to Use Certain Pronouns
tchy:
Do it. Just fucking do it. It doesn’t matter what we look like, what our mannerisms are like, whether we’re out or not in separare spheres of our life, how long you’ve known us, whether you still think of us as our assigned sex, anything. If you respect us as people, you will use the pronouns we ask you for. If you don’t, we will be forced to conclude that you don’t respect us.
A lot of cis people seem fond of saying that pronouns are “just words” and that if they mess them up repeatedly it shouldn’t be a big deal because they still respect us and it’s just “hard for them to remember.” No. That won’t fly. It may be just a little word to you, but here’s what it means to a trans* person when someone who claims to care for them repeatedly messes up their pronouns with no sign of improvement:
- You don’t care about me enough to ensure my happiness and mental well-being by doing this relatively minor thing I’ve asked for; how can I count on you to do major things, like defend me from an attacker or fight for my medical rights, when I need them?
- You still think of me as my assigned sex and don’t believe what I have to say about my own identity; you don’t respect my ability to self-determine.
- Your freedom to avoid things that inconvenience you is more important to you than my right to be respected and feel safe.
Basically, someone repeatedly messing up our pronouns for months at a time and consistently brushing it off as a “mistake” that we shouldn’t be angry about because it wasn’t an aggressive act of deliberate misgendering—that’s the biggest, clearest sign we’ve got that someone who claims to be in our camp is actually not trustworthy.
Let me repeat that: if you keep making this “little mistake” and brushing it off when we get upset, we will be forced to conclude that deep down, you don’t actually care about our happiness, mental well-being, safety, or self-determination.
It might just be a word to you. But for us, this is a word with some serious weight. And if you truly care about us, you have to take that weight into account and respect it. Because if you don’t, what you’re telling us is that you don’t respect us. It may not sound like that to you, but that’s the subtext we read from it. This is why pronouns matter: it’s not just the literal word, it’s everything that word carries with it.
Pronouns are important. Respect trans* people’s safety. Respect our pronouns.
Got binders?
we would like to know your recommendation for binders!
- binders best for summer (due to the hotness)
- binders that are most comfortable
- binder brands or deals
- where to buy
- what sizes you recommend
- any other binder related things!
please respond to this!
The Neon Test - A Transgender Bechdel Test
This is a repost from my old blog
Inspired by yesterday’s Guardian article, I propose this reinterpretation of the Bechdel Test for trans people:
- It must feature a character that the audience knows is trans
- In a non-principal role
- Where their trans status is neither the source of comedy nor tragedy
Our Transgender Daughter Is Just Another Girl: Tell Her School to Stop Discriminating
I haven’t seen this on tumblr at all yet, so I figured I might as well share it, at least for my followers’ sake, because I know a lot of you also fall under the GLBT umbrella or are allies who support GLBT rights.
It’s a petition I was alerted about regarding the discrimination of a six year-old transgender girl. Her school has suddenly decided to no longer recognize her as a girl, and has decided they will no longer let her use the girls bathroom.They now only allow her to use the boys room, the staff room, or the room in the nurse’s office which is used for sick kids.
As the petition says: she is not sick, she is not an adult, and she is not a boy. She is a girl, and she deserves to be treated with respect.
They need approximately 9.5K more signatures, so it would be totally rad if you could sign this or pass it on. c:
(Source: thatemperor)
This Is What A Trans Ally Looks Like
Part of TransACTION Week at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
I’m third from last (and also wearing my suffragist sash from our annual Day Without Feminism, part of an overlapping week of events held by our Women’s Center and Women’s Advocacy Council leading up to International Women’s Day)
This year’s Trans Action initiative is support for trans-inclusive healthcare policies, in particular the insurance available to staff and faculty, as well as the optional supplementary plan available to students. The student health center already provides trans-inclusive intake forms, however, there are still financial barriers to access for transgender care available to students.
Why this fight right now? Our campus already has gender neutral restrooms available in nearly every (if not every) building, the result of the campus’s first Trans Action Week efforts. The UW System has a gender identity inclusive nondiscrimination policy, and we have an LGBTQ Resource Center open weekdays that is always offering trans-inclusive programming. We also have strong advocacy within the Dean’s Office through the Bias Incident Reporting form, supportive and inclusive locker and restroom access and intramural participation policies through our Rec and Wellness Center, and while the dorms are rarely truly safe places for queer students (particularly gender non-conforming queer students) ResLife has a history of taking decisive action when incidents of bullying and harassment are reported. Our campus Counseling Center offers a Queer Peer Mentoring program where students who have been out members of the queer community are available for support and mentoring for students questioning their identity or in the beginning stages of coming out.
Healthcare access was the next big issue we want to see institutional action taken to resolve.
What else could we do better? We don’t yet have a preferred name policy. Mea culpa, I thought we did because I remembered being asked early on when I returned to school, but apparently that preferred name doesn’t propagate to class lists, logins, IDs, diplomas and so forth). Likewise, the environment on campus for students is mixed in terms of supportiveness from the student body that reflects our culture at large. Slurs and essentialist attitudes are still a fact of life (I myself was referred to as a “t****y or something” by a student in a class I was supplemental instructing for).
There is also the issue where faculty do not necessarily feel as safe disclosing that they are part of the GSD community as students and non-academic staff do due to fear of non-actionable, subtle acts of discrimination and exclusion by fellow faculty. Changing that aspect of the academic environment is crucial, because strong faculty mentorship of queer students can be vital to marginalized students’ academic success. An affirming, inclusive healthcare policy is another step toward demonstrating the acceptance of transgender people as part of the campus community at all levels: guests, students, staff, faculty, and administrators.
I don’t think many people who follow this tumblr are even within driving distance, BUT: if you want to get involved, come to the table in the Reeve Union between 11:30 and 1 any day this week to show your support for changing UW system policy on transgender healthcare.
Trans individuals should be expelled from homes, encourages Muslim leader
In the interview, Syed quoted the sayings of the prophet Muhammad, also called the Hadith, to support his position against the hijra community. ‘Secondly, they are not bad, but the Hadith says that those who are “dirty”, you must get rid of from your home, house and village.
