Feb 3, 2010WASHINGTON — An American transsexual who was audited after deducting the cost of gender reassignment surgery when filing her taxes has won an appeal asserting the operation was a legitimate medical expense.
Rhiannon O'Donnabhain, 65, took her case before a US tax court after the Internal Revenue Service challenged her right to deduct 5,000 dollars of the 25,000 she spent on the operation in 2001.
Lawyers from advocacy group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) agreed to take on her case and argued that she was entitled to take advantage of IRS rules allowing the deduction of some medical costs, like chemotherapy, if the individual's health insurance does not fully cover the procedure.
Tax officials said O'Donnabhain's operation was not eligible for the deduction because it was a purely "cosmetic" procedure.
On Tuesday, the tax court rejected that claim.
"The evidence amply supports the conclusions that petitioner suffered from severe gender-identity disorder (GID), that GID is a well-recognized and serious mental disorder, and that hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery are considered appropriate and effective treatments for GID," the court ruling said.
GLAD hailed the ruling as a "victory" in a teleconference on Wednesday.
"It's incredibly significant," said Karen Loewy, a senior staff attorney at GLAD.
"This is the first time that a court that has jurisdiction nationally reaches such a conclusion," she added.
25 April 2010
Gender reassignment surgery tax-deductible, US court finds
Transphobic attack on student at California State University: request for further information
April 23, 2010On Facebook yesterday, Gender Justice LA made this post which shared an email received from Katherine Ojeda Stewart of UCLA School of Law, Class of 2010.
The email stated that:
[...] a trans student left class thu night to go to the bathroom and on the way there was assaulted by someone who knew him by name but whom he didnt know. he beat him and threw him against a wall then carved “It” on his chest with a knife.
I can well believe that this attack on an unnamed trans man at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) took place, but so far I’ve been unable to find any other details of this account outside of Facebook and I find that surprising. I’d have thought that a story of this nature would be in the public domain by now.
So if anyone has any further information/resources such as local and/or national news reports that provide independent verification of the post on Facebook, please would you leave the links in comments?
—————
ETA, Saturday 24 April: The Daily 49er carries this report:
A 27-year-old transgender student at Cal State Long Beach reported that he was attacked in a university restroom on the west side of the KKJZ building at about 9:30 p.m. on April 15.
According to a press release from CSULB Director of Media Relations Rick Gloady, “The suspect called the student by his first name, and the student responded. The student reported the suspect then pulled the student’s T-shirt up and over the student’s head and pushed him back into the stall. The suspect then used a sharp object to slash the student’s chest. The suspect then fled the area in an unknown direction of travel.”
Gloady said that no one has been arrested, and that he cannot say when further information will be released.
The University Police, according to the release, believe that this was an isolated incident and there is no additional threat to the campus community.
“All manners are being handled through our public affairs office,” said University Police Captain Fernando Solorzano, referring to how they are communicating to the press about the case.
Public Affairs Assistant Vice President Toni Beron was unable to be reached for comment.
Officers are continuing to investigate the case and ask that anyone having information regarding the matter contact Det. Johnny Leyva at Skype" href="callto:+1%205629854101">562-985-4101.
Let’s hope the University Police are correct in their belief that this was an isolated incident and there is no additional threat to other trans people in the area. Cases like this highlight how vulnerable trans people are to transphobic attacks and I hope that the attacker is apprehended at an early date; there are too many violent bigots ‘out there’ as it is.
—————
Other reports may be found here, all seem to be quoting the same CSULB press release, although Press-Telegram adds that:
The 27-year-old victim was taken to a local hospital by a university instructor, but his injuries were not life threatening, and he was released that evening, said CSULB Spokesman Rick Gloady.
21 April 2010
Kick-Ass 4
The Geek Beat: Hit-Girl Hysteria
It's a controversy you could have predicted the minute Chloe Moretz was cast as "a vicious, foul-mouthed 11-year-old who chops down criminals with a katana." Parental groups and critics are upset about Hit-Girl the world over. "It's a disturbing step into the perverse, reveling in the corruption of an 11-year-old girl," Focus on the Family's Deb Sorensen said to Australia's Herald Sun. "It's different to any other superhero film which focuses on good triumphing over evil."
Well, having read Kick-Ass (I haven't seen the film yet), I know that's not the case. For all its "edginess", Mark Millar's violent little opus breaks no new ground in the hero's journey, and it punishes evil in no uncertain terms. In fact, it's Hit Girl who leads the final charge. She's the true hero of the story -- and it's no wonder since Kick-Ass originally started out as a book about her and Big Daddy. Millar decided your average reader could relate better to a teenage boy protagonist than an "extreme" 11 year old and her Spartan papa, so they were relegated to the supporting cast. Since they're the characters everyone is talking about, I'd venture to say that Millar made a bit of a mistake there. Plenty of superhero books focus on teenage males; not nearly enough star young girls.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. For one, the controversy seems half-hearted from where I'm standing, though that may just be because the film hasn't hit wide release in America. It feels like one of those dust-ups the press picks up on, and churns around without a lot of actual heat behind it. Going through Google's news archive, there are only a few quotes (such as the one from the Herald Sun) that are being repeated over and over. But some these are far more offensive than anything in the movie. Take The Guardian's David Cox, who called everyone associated with the film and Moretz's mother that dreaded c-word because they seemingly endorse its use. Very classy.
But really, quotes about a controversy come largely from Matthew Vaughn, Millar, Chloe Moretz, and screenwriter Jane Goldman and they seem to be more in anticipation of controversy than in response to any real one. Again, since the film hasn't yet opened in America, this could explode tomorrow. And they're right to go on the offensive.
What I find fascinating is what other writers have already theorized -- that there wouldn't be much hand-wringing if the character was called Hit Boy. Every bit of hand-wringing emphasizes Hit Girl's gender rather than her age, stresses her corruption, and worries about her language. A girl should never, ever be thinking such ugly things, let alone doing them. She should be listening to Hannah Montana and buying Justin Bieber magazines, or whatever 11-year-old girls are supposed to do these days. Certainly, her mother should know better, and steer her in those feminine directions. (Right, Mr. Cox? After all, you didn't call Mr. Moretz out for letting his daughter play Hit Girl and use bad words. Mothers are the final defense against all that is crude, ugly, and violent in this world, yes?)
While the pre-release controversy ostensibly centers on youth violence, I think the underlying complaint centers on female violence. Hit Girl's fellow superheroes, Kick-Ass and Red Mist, are not making headlines though they aren't much older than she is. If we were truly worried about corrupting the young, surely you'd lump them all in together? No, Hit Girl is the issue. She is the corrupted one. She's the one who ought to know better, and be guided into a safer life. She's the bad example. You might as well hand her an apple, and be done with the ultimate analogy.
No matter how old or young we are, women are not supposed to be action heroes. Last month, Comics Alliance sat down with Kelly Sue Donnick on her Thor spinoff, Sif. The one-off takes Thor's girlfriend and re-imagines her into what she is supposed to have been -- a warrior of Asgard, who is more than capable of taking care of her own problems with Loki. Comics Alliance readers had a bit of a problem with this. Violent women are not strong women. If a heroine really wants to be strong, she ought to be like Gandhi, and set an example of nonviolent resistance to the menfolk. I had very similar comments last year when I sarcastically noted that women didn't care about superheroes. (I also had very enlightened and intelligent ones as well.)
If Hit Girl was the nerdy sidekick -- the one who stayed behind, made gadgets, and sharpened swords, no one would care. They might worry, they might even fret about her language, but she'd be out of harm's way. Then the discussion would be focused on Kick-Ass and his boyish ilk. I can almost guarantee it.
Look, I don't endorse violence. I was a few blocks away from Columbine High School, and would have been in its graduating class on that awful year had circumstances and a GED not intervened. I grew up around guns, and I take life (in all human and animal forms) very, very seriously. But I love violent movies, and I love violent video games because I was taught the difference between fiction and reality, and I also believe we should have discussions about how dangerous these things can be. Hell, I just debated sidekicks last week with Mr. Justin Gray, and pondered the disturbing implications of encouraging a kiddie sidekick to fight to the death.
But I also think Hit Girl is as cool as hell. I like what she represents. I prefer her, her bad language, and her bloody weaponry to trends of toddler high heels, spa visits, and preteen sexualization. I find it more alarming that I hear a 7 year old asking the Starbucks clerk about the calorie content of a Cafe Mocha because what the hell are you doing drinking coffee, little girl? And why do you know what calories are? Why aren't you playing outside, anyway? It's a silly thing to use as a symbol, of course, but I think there are dangerous, upsetting things happening in youth culture that we could address instead of worrying about one fictional upstart.
Yes, there are debates to be had about Hit Girl and Kick-Ass. There are always debates to be had about violence and vigilantes, and what they say about us. But I'd prefer the conversation also turn to why preteen girls don't have a movie like Kick-Ass that they could see. Let's ask why Kick-Ass was the only script option Ms. Moretz had if she wanted to play, in her own words, "an Angelina Jolie-type character. You know, like an action hero, woman empowerment, awesome, take-charge leading role." By now, she should have had a lot more superhero and fantasy options to pick from. There are young adult genre books that center on something other than vampires. There are comic characters who are teenage girls. It's ridiculous that they languish on the shelf while Spider-Man goes back to high school. Again. You might even ask why Millar thought no one could relate to a teenage girl, and insisted on centering the story around Dave and his girlfriend problems.
These are all more interesting topics than the use of the c-word, but it's easier to fling that out (once again, I'm looking at you Mr. Cox) than engage in anything substantial about violence, gender roles, and what pop culture is left for girls to ingest. No one wants to look in that mirror. Not when we can give them Justin Bieber, and call them and their mothers out for one line of raunchy dialogue.
But I have hope. If Ms. Moretz longed to be in Wanted, than other girls do, too. She's shown a lot more awareness on such things than actresses three times her age. She's making her own opportunities. And even if she's still not allowed to see Leon, she seems eager to be something other than a Hannah Montana. When asked by the New York Times what else she wanted to do onscreen, her answer wasn't Twilight: "I want to wear heels, if that counts. Just give me some Christian Louboutins and a gun."
My kind of Hit Girl.
Kick-Ass 3
Why on earth wasn't Kick-Ass called Hit Girl?
What Might Have Been
Kick-Ass, the new R-rated movie based on the R-rated comic book, follows a few masked-and-caped citizens whose paths cross over mob dealings and misunderstandings. The Watchmen it's not, but the introduction of a pint-sized heroine who plays with butterfly knives instead of Barbies sets it apart from other superhero flicks. Watching the movie, I found that when I wasn't wincing at the violence, I was cringing at the gaping disparity of both skill and storyline between the title character--the green-wet-suit wearing Dave, aka Kick-Ass--and the foul-mouthed, truly ass-kicking, Mindy MacCready, aka Hit Girl.
Dave is your recognizable nerdball who can’t get the girl and fantasizes about boobs—a lot. And it’s not exactly clear why someone so admittedly apathetic would want to fight crime. Even more ridiculous is the relationship he has with his dream girl, Katie. To finally get close to her, he goes along with her assumption that he’s gay. (Being a girl’s gay BFF, btw, means you get to rub self-tanner on her while she’s topless and in her undies. You knew that right? My gay male friends love doing that to me.)
When Dave eventually breaks the news to Katie that a) he’s Kick-Ass and b) he’s been lying about his sexuality because he’s in love with her, he does by climbing through her bedroom window unannounced. Apparently in the comic, she rightfully tells him to fuck off. In the Hollywood version, she’s mad for about three seconds, and then invites him to bed, and the viewer has to watch as Dave ever so ickily reaches his dish-gloved hands towards her breasts. (I was absolutely unable to stop myself from groaning “Ewwww” really quite loudly when this occurred).
Oh, did I forget to mention why she (and others) thinks he’s gay? Dave’s beaten rather severely by two criminals (A note: criminals in Kick-Ass = black, white with tattoos, oily mafia types, people wearing skull caps). He removes his wet-suit Kick-Ass costume out of embarrassment. You do the math. Mugged by dudes + found naked = GAY. Yes! That is the math of Kick-Ass! I don’t think I need to go into how problematic it is that if you are a guy and-- hypothetically or not--sexually assaulted by men, that you are a total gaywad.
All of this probably could have been avoided had the movie been about Hit Girl.
Because besides the offensive nature of Dave's plot lines, they're also offensively boring. He’s a terrible superhero, never really succeeding at fighting bad guys. And as I’ve touched on earlier, his plot scenes don’t really make that much sense. When we start learning Hit Girl and her father’s background, the movie gets a lot more interesting. Their backstory is told through interactive-comic style, and we’re given characters with motivations and drive, not just constant boners and MySpace replies (Note to future action movie makers: nothing is more riveting than watching a character check their MySpace account. Are you listening Tarantino? I expect some Facebook Connect in your next film.) Hit Girl is empowered, non-sexualized, and capable of defending herself--she's the one that comes to the rescue, and only needs assistant from others in the most dire of situations.
This goes beyond “Why can't there be more actions movies with strong female leads?” The movie actually would have been better had it been about Hit Girl, and studio demands of a “relatable” Peter Parker-meets-American-Pie protagonist was a real detriment to a more engaging plot. (Apparently Hit Girl and her father Big Daddy feature more prominently in the comic books.) Find one review that doesn’t say that Hit Girl steals the show. She gets the best scenes, and actually complicates the plot. We would have been treated early on to a story involving a corrupt police unit and the impressive, albeit prematurely violent, handiwork of Hit Girl and her dad. The boob ogling/grabbing and "I’m a nerd (but actually an underdog!)" plot would have been relegated to the margins, where it belongs.
But reviews that aren't singing the praises of Chloë Grace Moretz are outraged that a petite girl-child is firing automatic weaponry as deftly as she drops expletives. The best response I’ve read concerning the gender dynamics of the movie and the subsequent media speculations comes from Cinematical's Geek Beat, who notes that had the character been “Hit Boy” there would be far less outrage.
If Hit Girl was the nerdy sidekick -- the one who stayed behind, made gadgets, and sharpened swords, no one would care. They might worry, they might even fret about her language, but she'd be out of harm's way. Then the discussion would be focused on Kick-Ass and his boyish ilk. I can almost guarantee it.
But I also think Hit Girl is as cool as hell. I like what she represents. I prefer her, her bad language, and her bloody weaponry to trends of toddler high heels, spa visits, and preteen sexualization. I find it more alarming that I hear a 7-year-old asking the Starbucks clerk about the calorie content of a Cafe Mocha because what the hell are you doing drinking coffee, little girl? And why do you know what calories are? Why aren't you playing outside, anyway? It's a silly thing to use as a symbol, of course, but I think there are dangerous, upsetting things happening in youth culture that we could address instead of worrying about one fictional upstart.
So, I guess you don’t have to pass on Kick-Ass. But you should know it combines the creatively gruesome deaths of Guy Ritchie with the graphic violence of Tarantino, so if you don’t like say, people getting set on fire, beat with blunt objects, shot at close range, and our two young protagonists getting the shit kicked out of them, it’s not for you. For those of you who are interested in watching a nerdy white guy fight of evil villains, save your money for Scott Pilgrim.
Kick-Ass 2
How Kick-Ass' killer Hit Girl is like Alien's Ripley
The upcoming film Kick-Ass may very well be the most controversial film of the year so far—at least judging from reaction to the R-rated trailer—but screenwriter Jane Goldman and comic artist John Romita Jr. defended director Matthew Vaughn's decision to remain true to the bloody, profane source material.
Based on a comic book by Mark Millar and Romita, Kick-Ass tells the story of real-life would-be superheroes, including a murderous, foul-mouthed 11-year-old called Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz.
Speaking to reporters at WonderCon in San Francisco last weekend, Goldman and Romita said director Vaughn (Layer Cake) made the movie without studio backing after he refused to tone down the film to suit studio demands.
"The conversation I had with Matthew when he found out what the studios said to him first before he started to do his own is that they wanted Chloe to be older," Romita said. "'We can't have a little girl doing that. So we want you to turn her into a 20-year-old or a 19-year-old or take her out with no swords.' He just said, 'F--k off. I'll do it myself.' Those were his words. And now the ultimate in justice is that he sold it back to the studio, so to speak. I don't think Lionsgate turned them down, ... but those that turned him down, he sold it back to them. ... I think that is such justice."
Goldman added, "I found it astonishing when they came back to us saying that they thought it would be less offensive if Hit Girl were an older teenager. Because to me, it would have been a great deal more offensive if she was a sexualized character. I think that would have been extremely offensive. I think what's so strong about Hit Girl is that she's not there to be sexual."
Romita agreed. "I think what's so badass is, how can a little girl become such a force? And I likened it to parents that turn their kids into super athletes. Even against their own will. They become unconscious athletes, almost to a fault. They become hardened. It kind of works the same way. If you treat someone so intensely, ... why couldn't they? I don't believe the 'unbelievable' part. Actually, Matthew and Jane toned it down. There is more blood in the comic book than there is in the movie. So they actually showed a little class, where I had none at all. ... But I buy into it. I don't have any problem with a little kid becoming an avenger."
When Goldman began adapting Millar's story, bringing Hit Girl to the screen was one of the things that most excited her. "To have the opportunity to explore her relationship with her father [Big Daddy, played by Nicolas Cage, who trains his daughter to become a costumed vigilante], you have more time to do that in a movie [than a comic book]," she said. "I think it was the fact that she is so young and she's a non-sexualized character that made her so strong."
She added: "In movies, people talk about there being strong female characters, ... and—with the exception, perhaps, of Ripley [Sigourney Weaver] in Alien—I really don't buy it. Usually when they talk about there being a strong female character, they mean she's got a gun and shoots people, but she's probably also got her boobs on display and is there to look attractive. And that, to me, ... killing someone doesn't make you a strong character. It's the focus. I mean, obviously, she's crazy, Hit Girl. She's been raised by a madman. ... But it's that intensity and focus that makes her a genuinely strong character. I think it's a really rare thing in cinema, and I just leapt at that."
Kick-Ass, a movie I very much want to see
Is 'Kick-Ass' star a lil' menace to society?
A pistols-wielding 11-year-old girl massacres a suite's worth of thugs, exchanges brutal blows with the kingpin and uses language that might make David Mamet blush — if only because it's coming out of the mouth of an 11-year-old girl.
The movie may be called "Kick-Ass," a title that already has some parents shielding their young'uns from the marketing campaign, but the pre-release publicity has focused less on the high school-age male title character than the diminutive Hit Girl, played by now-13-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz. One of the film's explicit trailers plays like Hit Girl's greatest hits, complete with her dropping "f" and "c" bombs and shooting a doorman through the cheek while dressed in a schoolgirl outfit.
This is all played for kicks, of course. Director Matthew Vaughn's R-rated "Kick-Ass," which opens Friday, is a comic book movie based on the work of Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr., so everything is delivered inside giant, nothing-really-counts quotation marks.
Still, you can't forget that you are watching an 11-year-old girl causing violent mayhem and taking punches in the face from an adult, all while out-cussing Tony Soprano. Sure, you can't take your eyes off Hit Girl, but is this a good thing?
"I don't know that it means anything other than the destruction of civilization as we know it," joked film critic/historian Leonard Maltin. "There's always that question of whether movies lead social change or reflect it. I always think the answer is somewhere in the middle, but there's no question that movies and TV shows have broken down or dissolved a lot of barriers of what is considered acceptable for men and women and boys and girls."
Hit Girl certainly marks the extreme end of a progression that can be traced back a few decades. Audiences were shocked when Linda Blair spewed profanities and vomit as the 12-year-old possessed girl of " The Exorcist" (1973), though they could console themselves that it was the devil's doing.
Also in 1973, Tatum O'Neal played the sassy-mouthed ( PG-rated), cigarette-smoking, 9-year-old con artist of Peter Bogdanovich's "Paper Moon"; she became the youngest Oscar winner, for best supporting actress, the next year.
Jodie Foster became the next troubled-girl icon with her Oscar-nominated performance as the12-year-old prostitute of Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (1976). No cheap thrills were meant to be derived from her mean-streets situation; here was a girl who needed protection — and got it from Robert De Niro's unhinged title character. Yet the director's serious-minded intentions couldn't keep John Hinckley Jr. from being so smitten with Foster that he tried to impress her by shooting President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Thematically, the closest movie precedent to Hit Girl may be Natalie Portman's 12-year-old Mathilda, who learns hit man Jean Reno's tricks so she can avenge her murdered family in Luc Besson's "The Professional" (a.k.a. "Leon," 1994). But Besson is ultimately a sentimentalist who spares Portman's character from doing the lethal work, whereas Vaughn isn't exactly concerned about Hit Girl getting blood on her hands. Her murder spree is the movie's high-spirited action payoff.
Or, as the "Kick-Ass" press notes state: "Hit Girl is a sparky, spunky force of nature, likely to be an instant professional icon redolent of Jodie Foster in ‘Taxi Driver' and Natalie Portman in ‘The Professional.'" (No one from Lionsgate or the film was made available to comment.)
"The notion of innocence in this society is gone," said Neal Gabler, author of "Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality." "It's not just a function of violence. I think it's a function of a certain social cynicism that has just built and built and built over the years where people believe in nothing."
Which isn't to say that violence doesn't play a role. "There was kind of a firewall between kids and violence, and that firewall is completely gone now," Gabler said. "Kids sit around and kill people on video games." And if the finger-waggers come out against "Kick-Ass," then the movie essentially has done its job.
"If you're making this movie, you want people to disapprove, because popular culture has always been a form of rebellion," Gabler said. "One of the reasons American popular culture is so ‘trashy' is not because everybody is stupid; it's because people love the idea of challenging official culture. That's one of the reasons that the envelope keeps getting pushed."
Yet don't assume that the reactions to Hit Girl will be anything close to universal. Melissa Silverstein, who writes the feminist blog Women and Hollywood (Womenandhollywood.com), saw an advance screening of "Kick-Ass" and said she was surprised by how torn she felt.
"It was disturbing, but I was also empowered in the same moment, and that doesn't happen very often," Silverstein said. "It just kind of flew into the face of all expectations of how girls act on screen, and that's what was so exciting and breathtaking. I couldn't help but feel some semblance of excitement as a person who's watched male comic book characters save the day time and time again."
At the same time, though, she was "ambivalent about someone who just kills people for the sake of killing," and the casual use of a certain very vulgar anti-female epithet bothered her. "I saw all the boys sitting around me loving that, and they loved it a little too much."
Given that one of the movie's teen boys is so wowed by Hit Girl that he declares he'll wait for her to come of age, male reactions to this prepubescent character could represent another can o' worms. Silverstein didn't think her portrayal ever became "icky" in a "Lolita" kind of way. Still, the image here of a young heroine certainly differs from those presented in earlier times.
"For prepubescent guys you have to create a different kind of love object in this cynical and far less innocent kind of world," Gabler said. "How do you design a Shirley Temple for this era?"
Step one: Give her a gun.
20 April 2010
Baby Makes Me: A Film About Non-Traditional Motherhood
Many of you have already heard about our film, Baby Makes me. For you, this is an update. But for the folks who have not heard Tiona and I are making a documentary together.
For years, I have wanted to become a mother. But the timing has never been quite right. Either my partners weren’t ready, or I was scared, or I couldn’t find a donor or something. There was always something. By the time I rolled into 35, I was tired of being afraid, tired of waiting for the right woman with whom it would be the right time, tired of watching every Christmas roll over another Birthday, tired of watching my peers get knocked up and months later appear with the most amazing little bundle of potential—I was tired of waiting and ready to make the leap, and I was ready to make it alone.
I began the research with great heart—only to discover that there were little no resources for women who either wanted to, or had to embark on the journey of motherhood in the solo. There were one or two essays and a few books on artificial insemination, and some were even directed at lesbians—but most, if not all assumed that the mother would be operating from inside of a partnership, be that partnership heterosexual or homosexual.
The idea for the film came out of a conversation with Tiona to film the pregnancy/labor, assuming that there would be one—because no one, least of all me, knows if my body will cooperate in doing such a thing as conceiving. I envisioned Tiona asking a couple of heartfelt questions and spinning the light to create a high-end home-movie I could show my child at eighteen. She agreed and we began to flesh out some ideas. That conversation, coupled with the lack of resource material out there spurred the project now known as Baby Makes Me.
Baby Makes Me, a feature-length documentary, will explore the challenges and triumphs of Single Motherhood, particularly in the lives of women of color, lesbians and women who make a conscious choice to be mothers in the absence of intimate/romantic partnerships with men.
The film will use as its narrative skeleton, the journey of activist/writer/performer,
The Director, Tiona McClodden, is a champion of promoting positive images of women in media. Her last film, "Black./womyn.:conversatio
It is our intent to interview a series of women from all the demographic cross-sections. Issues of financial, ethical, medical, cultural, and political relevance will be fore-grounded. We hope that clinics, hospitals, families, children of Black lesbians, straight Black women who want children, mothers of gay women who lament the loss of grandchildren when they discover their daughters are gay, and anybody who seeks to have a clearer picture of the family that includes gay women will see that our lives go on, that women who are single, be they lesbian, or Black or poor, can and do have babies, and that we are simply another group of people who live and laugh and grow. We hope to paint the subjects in the film as human and likable characters who, though they are dealing with slightly different challenges than the women we traditionally see as mothers, are not very different from any other group of people considering parenthood.
We are going to need all the help we can get. We need help in reaching out to folks who would like to be interviewed; other single mothers, women who have been inseminated, women who are thinking about it, women who work in the medical field, women who work in the administrative world of policy etc. We are on the hunt for the all the voices that could represent our story in the film.
We have recently been awarded a grant from ASTREA Lesbian Foundation for Justice and are set to move forward. We write to you now, in the hope that you will want to be involved in this groundbreaking project in whatever capacity you choose: we need space to host fundraisers and screening and other events connected to the film. We need people to fundraise, to promote the film, to host community talks, to suggest topics for discussion in the film—we need to secure additional investors, we need the help of people who are experts in the business of making films, and we need the counter-perspective of people who have never made a film. We are hoping to make this a community effort; from start to finish we want the ideas to be representative of the various factions in our diverse village of the women who mother our children. If you are sure you are unable to do any of the above, we only ask that you make room for our fliers, questionnaires, invitations, and other promotional materials for the film.
We would be honored if you would join us as we attempt to break more ceilings, level more walls to make room those of us who are too frequently left out of the history and imagination of the world we live in. We look forward to a spirited journey with you, from the opening shot to the ending credits—complete with your name listed among the most stalwart of our supporters.
Thanks again to the women who have already offered assistance. We look forward to your being a part of our process.
Staceyann Chin
Executive Producer/Writer, “Baby Makes Me”
Tiona McClodden
Director/Producer, “Baby Makes Me”
Please send all inquiries and requests to: babymakesme@gmail.com
Meet Harold & Clay -- The Bilerico Project
Meet Harold and Clay
Filed by: Kate Kendell
April 20, 2010 9:30 AM
The response to the horrific story of Clay Greene and Harold Scull has been very gratifying and inspiring. Clearly, their story struck a chord in all of us. To some degree we can't help imagining ourselves in exactly this situation. Forty-eight hours ago, few people knew their names, and now a Facebook page in their honor has more than 7,000 fans. 
Quite simply, this case demonstrates how our relationships as LGBT people are so fragile, especially when we reach our later years. Just one small incident, in this case a fall down some steps, sends the world crashing down.
Harold and Clay were in a committed relationship for twenty-five years, and they lived together for twenty years. Both Harold and Clay had worked in Hollywood and were passionate collectors of film memorabilia. Harold had worked for MGM studios in the 1950s and was a favorite of Louis B. Mayer in the studio's heyday. At the same time, Clay worked in television with many popular stars of that period. In addition to his film industry career, Harold was an accomplished artist and avid collector, especially of Mexican and Central American Santos religious art and artifacts. Art, heirlooms, and memorabilia graced the walls of their leased home, in which they planned to live together until their deaths.
Several folks have commented about the legal status of Clay and Harold's relationship. These tragic events began in April 2008, one month before the California Supreme Court's historic marriage ruling. By the time the California Supreme Court ruled and marriages began for that brief six months, Harold was already hospitalized and Clay imprisoned in a nursing home.
The two men had not registered as Domestic Partners, and they may not have even known that option existed. But they had filled out all the paperwork that attorneys advise same-sex couples to create, including wills and powers of attorney for health care.
In every case our clients are human beings, and they are not perfect, which is why we all identify so fiercely with those we represent. At the time of Harold's fall he had already been experiencing some degree of mental impairment, and had been drinking. He fell down the stairs and became angry when Clay wanted to call an ambulance because he was afraid of what the result might be. (And as it turned out, he had good reason to be.) The paramedics who arrived on the scene suspected the possibility of abuse. But that suspicion was false. What happened over the next two months is when the nightmare truly began. Once Harold was released from the hospital to a nursing home, the county refused to tell Clay where Harold had been placed, forced Clay into a nursing home where he did not need to be, auctioned all of his possessions, including treasured and valuable works of art and family memorabilia, and took away his two beloved cats. The level of inhumanity is staggering.
After 25 years of a rich and shared life of devoted commitment, a couple at least deserves being able to be at each other's bedside at the last moments of life. Not only was Harold denied that comfort, and Clay denied the ability to be there to say goodbye to his life partner, but Clay was stripped of everything that mattered and gave him stability in his life.
We can't change what happened to Harold and Clay, but we can do what we try to do every day: to create a world where what happened to Harold and Clay never happens again.
Greene v. County of Sonoma et al.: Download a copy of the complaint
Non-traditional family?
Non-Traditional families, anyone? Tiona McClodden and I are making a film called Baby Makes me. Email us if you are interested in being interviewed. babymakesme@gmail.com
10 April 2010
'Transgender Woman Decapitated Chihuahua, Mexico'
Source Journal de Noticias: "The left image is that of the transgendered woman killed in a brutal way, are very strong images, but we believe it necessary to put them, and do not look the other way. To show the brutality and massacres as we are still on the planet by the mere fact of being transgender. Especially for those people who even question why we are visible in the search for the standardization, arguing that because we are men and women and that everything is gone and achieved."
"In a new attack against transgender community, was found yesterday the body of a transgender woman in Chihuahua, Mexico, who was beheaded and her body was lying in a colony than a mile from where her head was found."
"Media / Digital Journal transsexual. According to the facts, the discovery was made at six in the morning in the streets 25 and Salvador Zubirán, south of the city. In that place was found the severed head of a girl transsexual. Her face showed signs of having been beheaded in life, because her eyes were open as a sign of fear and terror."
"In the 16th and Justiniani was found the rest of her wearing a feminine blouse black, strech denim pants, blue and white tennis. The body was transferred to the Medical Examiner for autopsy law. Until yesterday at two o'clock in the afternoon the body was not identified. The investigations took over elements of the Special Unit for Crimes Against Life. Note that this is the second attack against a transsexual in a month, since a previous call girl known, Carola, was wounded in the belly with a knife by an unknown subject."
"This is a digital newspaper Journal de Noticias, which are well reproduced, and agencies, news groups or other sources, apart from their own original compositions. The information appearing here is done in the name of freedom of expression and knowledge. Whether one agrees with them or not, always prevails right to information. On the Web since 2000."
Journal de Noticias
Thanks to aka william.com for breaking this story.
Diario de Noticias
Gracias a alias william.com para romper esta historia
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How can this happen? How? How? No words. No words, none.
Going Offline To Get ENDA On Line: What We Need To Do Now
Going Offline To Get ENDA On Line: What We Need To Do Now
by Dr Jillian T Weiss
t's looking more and more like a vote on ENDA is going to be a reality. When exactly is not yet known, but on Monday, Congress will be back in session, and I hear that final scheduling will begin.
A "markup" must precede a whip count, and a whip count must precede a House vote, and each of these items requires notice, so I don't think we'll see a House vote before May 1.
That's good, because we need some time to organize.
It's not enough to write emails, and though telephone calls are good, what's better is the community organizing to show support. Frankly, I think ENDA is going to pass the House by a large majority, but the Senate backers, Merkley and Harkin, are weak on the issues, and are going to need a lot of help.
While the news sounds optimistic, and it is, there is some serious counter-pressure. We can't sit on the sidelines behind our computers while this is happening. If there's not some serious cheering from the LGBT side of the stands, egging on our leaders, they will fold at crunch time. It happens all the time.
I think we ought to be organizing rallies in the key states and districts where the votes are closest to the line. That means the Senate, and that means The Nine. I refer to the 9 possible Senate yes votes that have not yet committed, Murkowski, Pryor, Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Lugar, Hagan, Conrad. Voinovich and Byrd.
That means getting neighbors together and working on getting emails of supporters together, telephone conference calls of people willing to organize, conversations with supportive family, friends and neighbors, scheduling rallies and informational meetings. And not in Washington DC, but in Juneau, Little Rock, Miami, Indianapolis, Raleigh, Bismarck, Cleveland and Charleston.
A bunch of emails and letters doesn't cut it. A blog post about a few people who sent in letters in Butte doesn't cut it. Four people waving signs at the side of the road outside the statehouse doesn't cut it. Either we will have mass community support, or we will wait for another shot at ENDA down the road.
When This Is Happening
According to the Advocate, a source with knowledge of the process said the floor vote was likely to be scheduled first, at which point the committee vote would then be coordinated to precede it by about a week.
The source said that representatives Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Polis would undertake an informal vote count (known as a "whip count" in Hill patois) upon returning from recess on April 12 and, assuming the numbers look good, majority whip Jim Clyburn would launch an official whip count while the Democratic leadership worked on scheduling a floor vote.
So that will take time, and that will give us time.
We're going to need a strong, diverse strategy.
Who Needs To Do What And When
We're going to need the advocacy organizations, like HRC, The Task Force, NCLR, and NCTE, which have staffs and budgets to weigh in on Capitol Hill with their suave lobbyists and glossy flyers.
Equally important are the state organizations, that have connections to local people who can be mobilized to bring local pressure to bear in the district.
We also need people who can bring respectful civil disobedience to bear when that type of pressure is needed.
Lastly, the most important element is spontaneous community organizing in local areas. While some organizations have some facility with this, like HRC, which has been continuously working in the background on the weak links through community organizing, like Rep. Bill Owens from upstate New York, and the Diaz-Balart brothers in Florida, we need locals successfully organizing the local community to talk to those legislators and demand equality through meetings and rallies.
Organizations are good, but it is no substitute for individuals standing together in solidarity. At the same time, organizations can be helpful in bringing that about. We need a partnership between our federal and state organizations -- and we have one. It's called United ENDA. I hope that the people running United ENDA will use their connections to bring about community organizing from the ground up (not the top down). Parachuting someone in from DC to hold a rah rah session and post a note online about it does not cut it. They are going to have to work with local activists, many of whom are not necessarily tony white-shoe suavity machines, but who want justice for their communities. They're contradictory, weighed down by day-jobs, not always quick to return phone calls or to go along with the corporate line, but they are essential in this fight.
Did you notice how Organizing For America handled health care reform? They collected millions of emails and used them not only to ask people to call their legislators, but also organized local meetings and info sessions and rallies. They had websites you could go to that would give you five names of local supporters in the swing districts, and you could call them and ask them to call their legislators or attend a meeting. I did that several times. With all the money our community has, why don't we have those things at work?
Why We're Having Problems In The Senate And What To Do About it
One thing I'm thankful for is that freshman Senator Jeff Merkley, whose silence on ENDA suggests that he is overwhelmed by his new job and not up to leading in this fight, is not being left to twist in the wind by the Dems. As the Advocate reports, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa is also playing a central role in shepherding the measure since he chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. In 1990, Harkin sponsored and helped pass the Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities. Obviously he knows how to make legislation happen, but I'm concerned about his understanding of the issues.
Frankly, I think Senator Harkin frankly needs a kick in the pants too, after his Senate hearing omitted any transgender witnesses, the one thing that HRC is now bemoaning that the Senate doesn't have enough education on.
As reported in The Advocate story, Alison Herwitt, HRC's legislative director acknowledged that the Senate poses more hurdles because of that issue. "We still need to continue to do education in the Senate around the gender identity language," she said, adding that House members were much more proficient on the issue."
Where were these people when the trans-less Senate hearing was being organized?
And then The Advocate story quotes a source familiar with Harkin that made me cringe:
"It's doable this year, but far from assured," said the source, adding that Harkin has personally vowed to help lobby his colleagues one-on-one for the bill. "He's committed to working on it. It's going to require a lot of work with the moderates to convince them that this isn't an election loser."
With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Get Moving
HRC and NCTE and the other orgs are going to need to offer daily assistance to the state organizations that actually have people on the ground in those cities, and GetEqual, Equality Across America and JoinTheImpact are going to need to start calling meetings in those cities where we need feet on the ground.
Hey DC orgs, what are you willing to do to help local activists in those cities?
Hey grassroots orgs like Get Equal, Equality Across America and Join The Impact, what are you willing to do to help local activists in those cities.
Hey local people in those cities, what are you willing to do to get job equality?
Get offline, get organized.
09 April 2010
Change a word!
“Men’s Studies” Too Feminist For You? Meet “Male Studies”
Today in Inside Higher Ed, Jennifer Epstein profiles the newest academic discipline to emerge in the field of gender studies: “Male Studies.”
Male Studies made its official debut this Wednesday, when a symposium was held at New York’s Wagner College to announce the formation of the Foundation for Male Studies. While the new discipline received the support of academics like Rutgers University anthropology professor Lionel Tiger and McGill University religious researcher Paul Nathanson, one contingent of scholars met the news with suspicion: Those working in the very much already existing discipline of Men’s Studies.
So, what’s the difference between “Male Studies” and “Men’s Studies”?
According to Tiger, Male Studies emerged “from the notion that male and female organisms really are different” and the “enormous relation between . . . a person’s biology and their behavior.” To the Male Studies set, “Men’s Studies” has historically focused far too much on the social construction of masculinity, and not enough on the biological origins and purpose of “maleness.” The Foundation for Male Studies states that its focus is on studying “the male as male”:
A new academic discipline, male studies, explores the male as male, masculinity, and the lives of boys and men. This consortium brings together eminent scholars representing a range of academic disciplines, including anthropology, education, history, medicine, politics and psychology. Panelists together with teleconferencing scholars with take a fresh look at the male in history and a rapidly changing global culture. The male as male will be permitted to appear in all his complexity as new values are being forged and traditional values that have proven the test of time are affirmed. The consortium will set the stage for additional conferences and academic programs at institutions of higher learning and will support optimal conditions in which boys and men can thrive in all areas of their lives as male human beings.
But according to Robert Heasley, president of the American Men’s Studies Association, Men’s Studies has already been performing the work of exploring males as males. “Men’s studies came out of feminist analysis of gender, which includes biological differences,” Heasley said. “[The Male Studies] argument is that they’re inventing something that I think already exists.”
Perhaps the real distinction has a little something to do with that “feminist” thing. The American Men’s Studies Association states that “Men’s studies includes scholarly, clinical, and activist endeavors engaging men and masculinities as social-historical-cultural constructions reflexively embedded in the material and bodily realities of men’s and women’s lives.” But women’s lives don’t appear to be of much interest to the Male Studies set. According to Tiger, Male Studies was forged in contrast, not in concert with, feminism, which he describes as “a well-meaning, highly successful, very colorful denigration of maleness as a force, as a phenomenon.” Apparently, Male Studies was formed in order to study this phenomenon without the distraction of also occasionally thinking about women. So now, we need two separate disciplines devoted to studying men, because the first one just wasn’t devoted enough.