National Drag History Month 2010

January 2010 marks the second year with the celebration of National Drag History Month! This month-long event salutes the richness of drag culture and pays tribute to the courageous queens & kings who have fought for equality while inspiring, educating & entertaining us all.

See films, articles and more at:
http://www.draghistorymonth.com

Word of the Gay: "Gender Bender"

A "gender bender" is someone who actively transgresses against the traditional gender norms. Gender benders can include anything from a biological male acting effeminate, or a female with masculine traits, to someone who alternates between the two.

Diversity Lesson 101: Queer

Queer is a complicated and "radical" term that has been used disparagingly, an outside of the binary way of self-identifying, and an umbrella term to describe sexual/gender minorities.

Queer Historically Seen as an Insult:
The word Queer has typically and historically been used as an insult to gay men and lesbians, it is considered a synonym to "strange", "unusual", and "different" and has been on par with hateful rhetoric such as "faggot", "dyke", "shemale", and "he/she".

Reclamation of the Term by Sexual Liberation Movement:

The term has been reclaimed by sexual/gender minorities to be an umbrella term for people who are different from the heterosexual "norm", this term now encompasses those who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Asexual, and Intersexual.

Queer as a Sexual/Gender Identity:

Queer is also a way for people to self-identify with regards to their sexual orientation or gender identity. People who are Queer may feel that sexuality is not just black or white but falls into shades of gray. They do not box themselves into categories such as gay, lesbian, or straight but see sexuality as lying on a continuum with varying degrees. Queer people often describe their sexual orientation as being "pansexual" and are open to males, females, transgender, and intersexual people. Hence, Queer as a sexual orientation is different than "bisexuality" which conveys an attraction to males and females and works within the gender binary system. Sexuality for many Queer identified people is seen as fluid and changes throughout their lifespan. Their interests, passions, and behaviors change with them as they grow as individuals.

Many Queer people also do not box themselves into the gender binary system of male or female. They feel that they are genderqueer and have masculine and feminine aspects to their personality and choose to embrace their gender identity/expression in various ways.

Keep Up Pressure on APA Over the Gender Identity Task Force

The American Psychiatric Association is currently in the process of putting out their new Diagnostic Statistical Manual which deals with all aspects of psychiatric disorders and issues. Currently transgender people are unfairly labeled as having "Gender Identity Disorder" even though the research goes to show that this is not a disorder but yet a variation of the human condition. People on the task force such as Dr. Kenneth Zucker are advocates of "reparative therapy" and are promoting the notion that gender variance is a mental illness.

Please contact the APA about this and demand trans-friendly and LGBT friendly individuals be put on the panel discussing Gender Identity.

Call Toll-Free: 1-888-35-PSYCH

Click here to email officials at the APA

Transgender - What Does it Mean?

The following is a great video explaining what it means to be transgender and covering many terms related to the gender-variant community. Great resource, for trans people and allies.

Please copy the html code at the bottom and post to myspace or your site/blog and beyond so we can educate people about trans-folk.
<object width="400" height="330"><param name="movie" value="http://www.videojug.com/player?type=interview&id=ec835c2c-64e3-5a2e-1e9e-ff0008ca4cbe"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><embed src="http://www.videojug.com/player?type=interview&id=ec835c2c-64e3-5a2e-1e9e-ff0008ca4cbe" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="400" height="330"/></embed></object><br/><a href="http://www.videojug.com">VideoJug</a>: <a href="http://www.videojug.com/interview/transgender-what-does-it-mean">Transgender: What Does It Mean?</a>

Word of the Gay: "Winkte"

A "winkte" is a two-souled person in Lakota (Sioux) Native American culture. "Winktes" are gay medicine men and were regarded highly by the community.

Mapping Gender Neutral/Unisex Restrooms

Transgender, Genderqueer, and Intersexual folks often face difficult decisions when it comes to something as simple as going to the restroom. They face the reality of being attacked, discriminated against, arrested, or feeling very uncomfortable when choosing a bathroom that is specified for a specific gender.

Now, thanks to the Safe2Pee Resource, gender variant people can find gender neutral/unisex bathrooms around the world. You can also add any bathrooms to the database that would be suitable.

"The goal of the project is to create a resource where people who do not feel comfortable with traditional public restrooms can find safe alternatives, and to support advocacy and research to further the cause of gender free, inclusive bathrooms."

Word of the Gay: "Genderphobia"

"Genderphobia" is the fear and/or hatred of gender variant individuals. These can consist of a dislike for cross-dressers, transsexuals, or any degree of gender bending. The term is synonymous with transphobia.

Word of the Gay: "Eunuch"

"Eunuchs" are males that have been castrated and as a result have had hormonal changes in their bodies. There is a lot of rich history regarding eunuchs and a lot of misunderstanding. Historically people who were homosexual, transgender, or asexual were castrated because they were considered impotent. Today it is a procedure done on gender variant people who wish to express their femininity and in India they are referred to as Hijra.

Word of the Gay: "Bi-gender"

"Bi-gender" people express their masculine and feminine sides of their personality. Someone who is "bi-gendered" will express facets of both genders and/or changes their role depending on a situation and context.

Intersex Information & Resources

"Wikipedia defines intersexuality as “a state of a living thing (where) sex chromosomes, genitalia, and/or secondary sex characteristics are determined to be neither exclusively male nor female. An organism with intersex may have biological characteristics of both the male and female sexes. Intersexuality is the term… applied to human beings who cannot be classified as either male or female. Intersexuality is also the word adopted by the identitiary-political movement, to criticize medical protocols in sex assignment and to claim the right to be heard in the construction of a new one.”

Online resources for intersexed persons include:

The Accord Alliance works to promote comprehensive and integrated approaches to care that enhance the health and well-being of people and families affected by disorders in sexual development (DSD) by fostering collaboration among all stakeholders. The Accord Alliance’s work is based on a consensus for a new paradigm of healthcare for people diagnosed with intersex conditions developed by 50 international experts and patient advocates in 2006.

OII–USA is the United States affiliate of the Organisation Intersex International, a non-profit organization incorporated in the Province of Quebec, Canada. OII is one the largest intersex organizations in the world with members representing almost all known intersex variations. It has members in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. OII–USA works for intersex visibility, opposes genital mutilation, medicalization and normalization without consent, and provides a forum on intersex lives and experience that highlights the richness and diversity of intersex identities and culture.

The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) works to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.

The MRKH Organization, Inc., supports women with Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser Syndrome. MRKH is also known as Mullerian Agenesis, Vaginal Agensis, and Congenital Absense of Vagina.

Intersextions Cafe offers user forums on intersex topics.

XXwhy.com is a blog with collection of articles, on Klinefelter Syndrome, a term used to describe males who have an extra X chromosome in most of their cells. Instead of having the usual XY chromosome pattern that most males have, these men have an XXY pattern.

XYTurners is a website with a forum and articles on XY/XO mosaicism.

Do you know of another resource on intersex issues? Post a comment and tell us about it."

Crossposted via LifeonQ

U.K. Demonstration Against Kenneth Zucker

Demonstration against Ken Zucker (the man who proposes reparative therapy for gender variant kids)

October 1st, 8.30am, The Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1G 0AE

The demo is organized in cooperation with the Police and will take place outside the Royal Society of Medicine.

(Just behind Debenhams/House of Fraser, Nearest tubes are Bond Street and Oxford Circus)

Gender Variant Youth Subject to School Makeover

"13 year old Ohio boy, Matt Alsup was forced to wash the make-up off of his face when school administrators said it was a distraction and against the dress code.

"When I spoke to the principal," his mother said, "She told me it was distracting because of the black makeup and I said, 'Well, I'll get him pink,' and she said no, because he's a male, he's not allowed to wear it, the public don't accept males wearing make-up."

Ball and her son point out that every student is required to wear a character badge – and one of the qualities it pledges is acceptance. "It says, 'do you value the uniqueness of all students?' and they're not letting me be unique," says the young man, Matt Allsup. "I don't see why we have to wear them if we're not able to express who we are."

Matt's mother, Mindy Ball: "They're gender stereo-typing. He's being sexually discriminated against. Nowhere in the rules does it say that males can't wear make-up".

Matt and his mother plan to hire and attorney and take the issue to court."

---

Contact the Hamilton City Schools District which is responsible for Garfield Middle School and others.

Email the superintendent, human resources, and the director of pupil personnel, as well as the principle of the middle school all in one email click here to express your outrage.

Garfield Middle School
250 Fair Ave, Hamilton, OH 45011
Office: 513-887-5035

Hamilton City Schools District
533 Dayton Street
P.O. Box 627
Hamilton, OH 45012
(513) 887-5000

Crossposted via our friends at Lesbiatopia

Word of the Gay: "Neutrois"

"Neutrois" refers to an individual who has no gender and does not identify as male or female.

Intersex People - The Missing Vagina Monologue

The Vagina Monologues is a hugely successful account of women's lives and advocates for gender equality. Eve Ensler the creator of the play went on to found V-Day an organization committed to ending violence against women.

The organization has made a tremendous impact on women's lives including lesbian and trans-women but has failed to accurately include Intersex people in their accounts.

Please politely contact V-Day and ask them to include Intersex people in their awareness campaigns. In addition please tell them that childhood genital mutilation of intersex babies is wrong and must be considered an unethical and violent choice by the medical establishment.

Contact V-Day!

In the meantime check out this clip from Gendervision.

National Survey on Transgender Experiences of Discrimination in the U.S.

You are invited to participate in a research project regarding transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States. Your responses will be part of an important report on transgender people’s experiences of discrimination in housing, employment, health care and education.

"This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all transgender people. We need everyone's voice in this, everyone's participation." Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality

https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim/

Word of the Gay: "Genderqueer"

"Genderqueer" refers to individuals who self identify and may consider themselves to be both male and female, androgynous, being neither male or female, or falling completely outside of the gender binary spectrum.

Word of the Gay: "Androgyny"

An "androgynous" person is one whose gender identity is a combination of both male and female, or whose gender expression blurs the lines between masculine and feminine attributes.

Word of the Gay: "Uranian"

"Uranian" is a term that was historically used to discuss gender variant males and females. It described someone who was considered trapped in the wrong body. The term was adopted by early gay liberationists who had visions of a classless society and one free of gender barriers.

The Cisgender Privilege Checklist

"There appears to be little in the way of a comprehensive cisgender (non transgender) privilege list. These lists are generally written in the first person relative to having the privilege. Number #1 speaks to both heterosexual and cisgender privilege. The remainder of the list focuses on cisgender privilege."

Please read and re-post this list to make people aware of the hardships often faced by transgender individuals that cisgender people take for granted on a daily basis.

1. It is unlikely that I will be ostracized by my family and friends, fired from my job, evicted from my home, given substandard medical care, suffer violent or sexual abuse, ridiculed by the media, or preached against by religious organizations simply because of my professed identity or perceived incongruent gendered behaviors or characteristics.
2. I can be confident that people will not call me by a different name or use improper pronouns.
3. I never suffered the indignation of "holding it", when both functional and unoccupied public restrooms are available. In fact, I don't need to be concerned about public facilities segregated by sex.
4. If I am institutionalized, I don't have to worry about being housed in the wrong section of a facility segregated by sex.
5. I am not denied entrance to appropriate services or events that are segregated by sex.
6. My childhood innocence was not interrupted with desperate prayers to a divinity begging to wake up the opposite sex.
7. I never grieve about my lost childhood and adolescence because I was born the opposite sex.
8. I will only experience puberty once.
9. I never worry about potential lovers shifting instantly from amorous to disdain and even violence because of my genitals.
10. I am unlikely to be questioned about my genitals, even less likely to be touched inappropriately or asked to see them.
11. It is unlikely that I would risk my health by avoiding the medical profession for fear of discovery.
12. I never considered hiding my body parts by binding or tucking.
13. It is unlikely that I would consider changing my voice.
14. If I have a professionally recognized and diagnosed condition, I am unlikely to be excluded from medical insurance coverage.
15. As a man, I am more likely to look my age, and have a body similar in size and shape to other men.
16. As a man, I am more likely to be satisfied with the functionality of my genitals.
17. As a man, I am more likely able to father children .
18. As a woman, I am more likely to have a body similar in size and shape to other women.
19. As a woman, I am unlikely to lose my hair before middle age.
20. As a woman, I am more likely able to conceive and bear children.
21. As a woman, I don't have to dilate the rest of my life.
22. I am more likely able to achieving orgasm.
23. I will likely have $50,000 or more to spend or save for retirement.
24. I can't imagine spending months and $1000s of dollars on a therapist so they can tell me something I already knew.
25. If I am physically healthy, I don't think about having a hysterectomy, a mastectomy, massive hair removal, contra hormone therapy, vocal surgery, facial reassignment surgery, or genital reassignment surgery.
26. I have a better chance of reaching old age without taking my own life.
27. At my funeral, it is unlikely that my family would present me crossdressed against my living wishes.
28. I never worry about passing gender wise. I am oblivious to the consequences of someone failing to do so, and consequently loosing my cisgender (non transgender) privilege. In fact, I have the privilege of being completely unaware of my own cisgender privilege.

Crossposted from The Transgender Boards