Whipping Girl

Know anyone at Times Books, Henry Holt, and/or Macmillan?

2013-05-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

Know anyone at Times Books, Henry Holt, and/or Macmillan? Then I would super-duper-appreciate it if you could help me out. Here's how:

I am trying to speak to someone (anyone!) there who handles permissions requests. Many months ago I emailed them requesting permission to excerpt a passage from a Times Books book in my forthcoming book. I did this through the channels they suggested on their website (basically, emailing Permissions@hholt.com) and got an auto-reply saying they'd get back to me in 8 weeks. But they haven't. And it's been way over 8 weeks.

I've tried calling their main phone line (646-307-5095) to speak to someone at permissions, but after over 20 attempts, I have never gotten hold of an actual person. It appears to be a perpetual-hold phone system.

Time is running out on my end. So I am asking the internets for help!

If you just so happen to know anyone who works at Times Books, Henry Holt, and/or Macmillan, could you *please* do me the favor of putting me in touch with them? Or asking them if they can find out a phone number or specific email address for anyone who works in the permission department there? Or anyone who can help me get that info?

If you are able to help, please contact me via email - my address can be found on this page of my website:
http://www.juliaserano.com/contact.html

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Best wishes, -julia

P.S., I plan to delete this post once I am able to contact someone there. So if you see this post, that means I am still looking for help.

julia update april 2013

2013-04-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

hello, here is a quick update regarding some upcoming presentations and performances that I will be doing:

This Thursday, April 25th I will be at Smith College giving a talk called "I'll See It When I Believe It: On Perception and Gender Entitlement." I was invited by a student group in the wake of the recent events there (and which I will address in my talk). The event will take place on April 25th in Weinstein Auditorium in Wright Hall, at 7:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public. More info can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/431607016930107

Friday, April 26 I will be at Stony Brook University giving a talk on "The
Intersection of Feminism, Queer, and Trans Politics. It will be held at the Poetry Center at 7pm. More info can be found here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StonyBrookTransSolidarityProject/message/604

Sunday, May 5, I will be reading at 'LIVE THROUGH THIS- ON CREATIVITY & SELF-DESTRUCTION' which is a celebration of the 2cd edition release of Live Through This, SABRINA CHAP, DAPHNE GOTTLIEB, CAROL QUEEN and MORE! Proceeds of the evening will go to fellow 'Live Through This' contributor, and gender warrior Kate Bornstein. 5-10 suggested donation, show at 7:30pm at the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco. More info can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/103293396540519/?group_id=0

Tuesday, May 14, I will be at Western Washington University giving a presentation called "A Holistic View of Feminism." It will be from 6-9 PM at Artzen 100, free admission. More info can be found here: http://as.wwu.edu/events/holistic-view-feminism/

I will also be a part of two wonderful events in June during pride festivities:

Thursday, June 27th will be Girl Talk's big 5 year anniversary show! In addition to being one of the co-curators of the show, I will be performing in it as well. More details about all the performers can be found here: http://queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF/performance13/girl-talk/
also, Girl Talk has a Facebook page that you should check out and "Like"

(btw, speaking of Girl Talk, an interview with me and my co-curators Gina de Vries and Elena Rose can be found in the latest issue (issue #13) of make/shift magazine! )

Finally, Friday, June 28, it appears that I will be participating in Seattle Trans* Pride! More details can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/270202573124834/

That's it for now, hope some of you can make it out! -julia

P.S., as always, here is my main website:
http://www.juliaserano.com

and I tweet fairly frequently:
http://twitter.com/#!/Juliaserano

for those interested in what I have to say when I have more than 140 characters to work with, I have a blog:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com

I also post all my upcoming events and news on my aforementioned blog, and it also all automatically gets forwarded to my Facebook "writer" page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Serano/277728205577201?ref=ts

so I encourage you to follow me ( and perhaps "like me") there!

upcoming Julia college/university appearances!

2013-03-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hello! Here is a quickie message about some upcoming out of town presentations I will be doing over the next month:

Tomorrow, March 19, 2013
Pacific University (Portland, OR)
http://www.pacificu.edu/academics/gender-equity/JuliaSerano.cfm

Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
https://www.facebook.com/events/510355485673150/

Thursday, March 28, 2013
Concordia University (Montreal, QC)
https://www.facebook.com/events/116000955254221/?fref=ts

Saturday, March 30, 2013
University of Texas, San Antonio
“Technologies and Locales of Knowledge: An Interdisciplinary Symposium Exploring Discourse, Meaning, and Power”
http://colfa.utsa.edu/english/events.html

more info here:
http://utsa.edu/academics/diversity/pdf/WHM_Schedule_of_Events_2013.pdf

Thursday, April 4, 2013
Clark University
http://allevents.in/events/Recognizing-All-Forms-of-Sexism-by-Julia-Serano/462969170450261

I will likely have a few more events in April, but they aren't formalized yet. more to come...

Hope you can make it!
-julia

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here is my main website:
http://www.juliaserano.com

and I tweet fairly frequently:
http://twitter.com/#!/Juliaserano

for those interested in what I have to say when I have more than 140 characters to work with, I have a blog:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com

I also post all my upcoming events and news on my aforementioned blog, and it also all automatically gets forwarded to my Facebook "writer" page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Serano/277728205577201?ref=ts

so I encourage you to follow me ( and perhaps "like me") there!

FAAB-mentality

2013-03-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, as an explanation and reference for what I’ve been calling FAAB-mentality (described below). I originally wrote and performed this piece for the fourth annual installment of Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue in March 2012.

Post-note 3-8-13: I added a few clarifying notes at the end of the piece.

Baby Talk

I read blogs. And an unfortunate consequence of reading blogs is that sometimes you stumble upon statements that make you upset. Lately, I’ve been dwelling over one single sentence from a blog post that I read a few months ago. The author was a femme-identified cis woman who described her identity this way:

“I only say I’m queer to steer clear of sex acts with cisgender men whilst simultaneously accommodating my devout lesbianism and propensity towards dating trans men when the butch pool feels too shallow.”

I have become preoccupied with this quote, not because it is unusual or extraordinary - on the contrary, these are very commonplace sentiments among queer women these days. Rather, my interest in this quote stems from how perfectly it illustrates the subtle ways in which exclusion transpires in today’s queer women’s communities.

First, she defines “queer” in terms of her “devout lesbianism” and “steering clear of cisgender men.” Given her definition, a bisexual woman (such as me), who sometimes does have sex with cis men, must automatically be *not* queer—aka, straight. Ah, the decades old lesbian tradition of erasing the B out of LGBT.

Second, she describes trans men as though they are not *really* men, but just another variety of butch woman. Indeed, trans male acceptance and desirability in queer women’s spaces often hinges on this assumption, which is partly why so many FTM-spectrum folks who are on “T,” prefer the pronoun “he,” and move through the world as men, nevertheless disavow any male-identification.

But from my perspective, the most poignant aspect of this quote is that there is absolutely no mention of trans women. We are absent, irrelevant, just as we are in most queer women’s spaces. I suppose that this isn’t surprising. If, like the author, most cis queer women believe that trans men are really butch women, then trans women must really be men. And, given this, if they believe that dating men disqualifies them from being queer, then trans women aren’t even going to be on their radar.

Lately, I’ve begun calling this mindset the FAAB-mentality. FAAB is an acronym for female-assigned-at-birth. Both FAAB and its counterpart MAAB (male-assigned-at-birth) were originally coined by trans activists in order to challenge invalidating concepts such as “birth sex,” “bio boys” and “genetic girls,” and to stress that our gender identities are far more relevant than how the straight world nonconsensually categorized us when we were babies. Yet somehow, over the last few years, FAAB has been appropriated by many cis queer women who wish to convey their affiliation with trans men, and to distance themselves trans women as well as cis men.

For instance, the musician Bitch recently wrote an “open letter” explaining why her support of trans woman-excluding women’s spaces is not “transphobic.” She begins her letter by dismissing cis/trans terminology, then she reframes the issue in terms of FAABs versus MAABs. Again, this is not an isolated incident—one can see FAAB-mentality rear its ugly head in radical-feminist blogs, butch/femme settings, and trans events. I’ve even seen queer folks wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the word FAABulous.

So let me state for the record: I am not a fucking MAAB! I am a trans woman. And unlike all the so-called “FAAB FTMs” who move freely in queer women’s spaces, I identify and move through the world as a woman. The whole fucking point of trans activism is to get people to respect us for who we are, not for what the straight world expected us to grow up to be when we were mere babies. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who categorizes any trans person based upon how we were coercively assigned at birth is not merely being anti-trans, but they are quite literally engaging in baby talk.

But FAAB-mentality isn’t only transphobic—it’s also biphobic, specifically toward bi women who are sexual with cis men. It plays into baseless accusations that bisexual-identified women “reinforce the binary,” yet celebrates those who embrace the supposedly more righteous label “pansexual.” Now I have nothing against the term “pansexual” per se. But in queer women’s circles, it is often used as a code word to communicate: “I am sexual with everyone except cis men and trans women.”

Finally, despite all the cis femmes who have embraced FAAB terminology (as it allows them to partner with trans men yet still be considered lesbian), FAAB-mentality is highly femmephobic. After all, we live in a queer culture that valorizes sexual- and gender-non-conformity. So when FAAB-mentality defines womanhood in terms of being labeled “girl” as a baby, then the most queerest, coolest thing you can grow up to be is androgynous, or butch, or trans masculine. In other words, FAAB-mentality is inexorably linked to masculine-centrism in queer women’s communities. As a result, femmes are viewed as suspect, unless of course they prove their queerness by pairing with someone more outwardly gender-non-conforming than them.

So I say: let’s stop talking in baby talk! Let’s purge the terms FAAB and MAAB from our queer vocabularies [*see clarifications below*]. And most importantly, let’s stop viewing the world through the distorted lens of FAAB-mentality, as it inevitably causes femme, bisexual and trans women to be treated as second-class queer citizens. Instead of fetishizing birth assignments and masculine gender expression, let’s create new heterogeneous queer women’s communities that celebrate difference—where a woman doesn’t have to be born a particular way, or have sex a particular way, or dress or express their genders a particular way, or fulfill some kind of queer stereotype, in order to be appreciated.

endnote: I understand the need to talk about transgender spectrums, and to develop language that accommodates trans people who don't fully identify as trans women or trans men. Rather than using MAAB and FAAB, I believe that we should refer to people who have a MTF trajectory as being on the trans female/feminine spectrum, and those with a FTM trajectory as being on the trans male/masculine spectrum. And since people seem to love acronyms when referring to trans people (a tendency I personally find rather dehumanizing), we could refer to these categories as the TF and TM spectrums, respectively (where the “F” in TF can refer to either female and/or feminine, and the “M” in TM refers can refer to either male and/or masculine). I believe that this terminology is fully inclusive, and centers our experiences on our self-identities and self-understandings, rather than non-consensual birth assignments.

another note (added 3-7-13): in response to one reader's comment (see below), I want to offer this clarification: For the record, I am not 100% against talking about sex assigned at birth - it is relevant in many instances. Indeed, that's why gender variant folks invented FAAB/MAAB terminology, so that we could talk about that aspect of our person without invalidating our current identity (whatever that might be). My main beef is with how those terms have been co-opted by cis queer women who now use them as labels to categorize people, and to impart legitimacy upon FAAB folks, and suspicion onto MAAB folks. My intention with this piece is not to censor MAAB/FAAB terminology completely, but rather to raise awareness about how these terms are regularly used to invalidate trans gender identities and expressions, as well as other queer identities (e.g., bisexual and femme).

yet another note, added 3-8-13: as I said in the previous note, I recognize that MAAB & FAAB have some usefulness, which is why gender variant communities invented that terminology in the first place. When I said we should "purge these terms from our queer vocabularies," I was specifically referring to using those acronyms as catch-all terms to describe MTF & FTM spectrum folks, respectively [and have added this note to make that clear].

I have no problems with people self-identifying as MAAB or FAAB if they feel that that's the best fit for them. But when people nonconsensually conceptualize and categorize a trans woman like myself as a "MAAB," it is no different than when pathologizing psychologists refer to me as a “transsexual man,” or when cis rad fems refer to me as a "man-born-womyn." I do not identify with my birth sex! That is the problem with using MAAB and FAAB as catch-all categories for trans folks: it centers our identities on nonconsensual acts committed against us, rather than recognizing our gender identities and expressions. And that is what cissexist forces have been trying to do to us all along.

I feel like trans female/feminine and trans male/masculine are decent attempts to rectify this problem. After all, most trans people on the MTF spectrum gravitate toward the direction of either female gender identities and/or feminine gender expression, even if we never fully identify as female or feminine. [and to clarify again, the "/" is meant to be read as "and/or."] But some commenters have nevertheless said that they don't like that terminology. I am open to entertaining other possibilities.

Once again, the main point of this piece was to critique FAAB-mentality (and how it undermines femme, bisexual and trans women in queer women's communities), rather than to critique FAAB & MAAB terminology (which I had no problems with until they were co-opted by others to dismiss trans women's and trans men's identities).

Finally, as I have said elsewhere (see Bisexuality and Binaries Revisited), I have nothing against the term pansexual, and I am fine with people who choose to self-identify that way. But I have observed a tendency in queer women's communities for queer women who partner with trans men but not cis men to use the self-descriptor pansexual, rather than bisexual (presumably because the latter is associated with women who do partner with cis men). I am not insinuating that this is true of all people who choose the label pansexual. But it is a trend I've observed.

I'll be giving a presentation tomorrow (1-15-13) at Stanford Universiy

2013-01-14T12:42:00.002-08:00

Hey folks, for those who are (relatively) local, I will be giving a presentation at Stanford University tomorrow (Jan. 15th)! It is a variant of my "Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism" talk, with some bonus spoken word. All the details can be found at this website, and are also pasted below...

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JULIA SERANO: What we think of blue and pink! TUESDAY Jan 15, 7:30PM, BCSC Family Room
JULIA SERANO

WHAT WE THINK OF BLUE AND PINK

JANUARY 15, 2013, 7:30PM

Black Community Services Center, Family Room

Julia Serano is a writer, biologist, spoken-word poet, activist. She has a lot to say about social conceptions of gender, and how "blue is for boys and pink is for girls" works out to affect everyone in different ways.

Her book "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity" is a combination of history, personal experiences, biology and psychology.

This talk is meant to be accessible to everyone, whatever your background in feminism or social justice.

Please come scent-free if you can: bit.ly/bGazuI and bit.ly/KBqdhm

For access needs please contact esqg@stanford.edu

Facebook event: http://on.fb.me/11dhHOK

Sponsored by:

Stanford Students for Queer Liberation, Stanford STATIC, Stanford Feminist Studies, Queer Straight Alliance, ASSU Speakers' Bureau, GradQ: queer grad students at Stanford, with aid from the GSC

Follow up on DSM-still-considers-trans-folks-"disordered" post

2012-12-04T12:40:00.000-08:00

First, thanks to everyone re-tweeted, re-posted, shared links, and commented on my Trans people still “disordered” according to latest DSM blogpost yesterday. The response has been overwhelming, and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to respond to people's comments and questions...

As I alluded to in that post, I was disappointed that the DSM's Transvestic Disorder diagnosis received so little attention at the time. But this latest interest/outrage encourages me that we may be able to work toward completely removing this diagnosis from the next revision of the DSM (DSM-VI?).

There are a few things that I want to add here as a postscript:

1) several people asked me what the official language of Transvestic Disorder is. So I went to the dsm5.org (the official DSM-V site), where all the proposed language once resided, but it is no longer there. Here's the explanation they give:

Because the draft diagnostic criteria posted most recently on www.dsm5.org are undergoing revisions and are no longer current, the specific criteria text has been removed from the website to avoid confusion or use of outdated categories and definitions.

How convenient...

So I went through my past notes and found the following update from May-17-2010. Note: it could have been subsequently updated, so I am not 100% sure this is the final language. In any case, here it is:

Transvestic Disorder

A. Over a period of at least six months, recurrent and intense sexual fantasies,
sexual urges, or sexual behaviors involving cross‑dressing.

B. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant
distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas
of functioning.

Specify if:

With Fetishism (Sexually Aroused by Fabrics, Materials, or Garments)

With Autogynephilia (Sexually Aroused by Thought or Image of Self as Female)

With Autoandrophilia (Sexually Aroused by Thought or Image of Self as Male)

2) Fascinating shenanigans: This was not the initial language. As I mentioned in my last post, the initial language was specific to "heterosexual males" (cissexist psychiatry jargon for assigned-male-at-birth individuals who are sexually oriented toward women).

Those of us who fought against the initial Transvestic Disorder diagnosis did so on the grounds that it did not serve the trans community (e.g., unlike GID/Gender Dysphoria, it does not provide access to the means to legally and/or medically transition), that it pathologizes gender variance, that it sexualizes trans female/feminine spectrum people's gender identities and expressions, and that it was sexist (in that it singled out trans folks of a specific identity, trajectory and orientation).

In what seemed to be an unprecedented move (although I am not a DSM scholar), the DSM quietly expanded the language in May 2010 (after the period for comments had passed) to include trans people of all identities, orientations & trajectories. Presumably, this was done to avoid accusations that the diagnosis was sexist. So in other words, they used trans activist & advocate criticisms as an excuse to *expand* the diagnosis rather than remove or reform it.

3) Upon reading the above diagnoses, some might cite the requirement that such behaviors must "cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" in order to argue that a trans person is not considered Transvestically Disordered if they do not experience such issues. However, this is not necessarily the case. The "distress or impairment" language is quite vague and open to the psychiatrist/therapists's interpretation. If I am fired from my job because of my manner of dress, and if this causes me distress, I could potentially be diagnosed with Transvestic Disorder. This has historically been a problem with diagnoses targeting gender and sexual minorities (as well as other populations that have been DSM'd), namely, that they do not distinguish between personal distress, and distress that arises secondarily due to social stigma and marginalization.

4) I am curious as to why all these news articles about transgender people supposedly no longer being considered "disordered" in the DSM suddenly appeared in the last few days. As I scoured the internet for such articles, I noticed that most of them were quite short, offered no critical analysis, nor did they seek comments from any trans activist and advocates who have been immersed in challenging the DSM.

This has led me to believe that the DSM must have sent out some kind of press release touting their supposed "trans-friendliness," and that several gay, queer and LGbt outlets that are largely oblivious to the nuances of trans politics simply engaged in copywriting based on the DSM press release. Granted, this is speculation on my part, but I'd love to hear what went down behind the scenes to cause this bizarre flurry of inaccurate news stories...

-julia

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further postscript added 1:15pm 12-4-12:

via a friend of a friend, I was able to access what I think may be the final Transvestic Disorder language, described as being "Updated April-28-2012":

Transvestic Disorder

A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent and intense sexual arousal from cross‑dressing, as manifested by fantasies, urges, or behaviors.

B. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause marked distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Specify if:

With Fetishism (Sexually Aroused by Fabrics, Materials, or Garments)

With Autogynephilia (Sexually Aroused by Thought or Image of Self as Female)

With Autoandrophilia (Sexually Aroused by Thought or Image of Self as Male)

Specify if:

In a Controlled Environment

In Remission (No Distress, Impairment, or Recurring Behavior for Five Years and in an Uncontrolled Environment)

So this is mostly the same except for some word rearrangement in part A, and in the addition "Controlled Environment" and "In Remission" as specifications. This latter language is new to me, so I haven't had a chance to digest it yet. But the thing that immediately jumps out at me is the "In Remission" clause. This seems to expand the diagnosis even further. After all, regardless of one's current sexuality and/or manner of dress, one could still be considered as being Transvestically Disordered, albeit in remission...

Trans people still “disordered” according to latest DSM

2012-12-03T13:22:00.001-08:00

This morning, I woke up and found my Twitter feed full of article links celebrating that transgender people are no longer “disordered” according to the DSM (that is, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - often referred to as the "psychiatric Bible" because it contains all of the official psychiatric diagnoses). The DSM gets revised every 10-20 years or so, and diagnoses sometimes get modified, expanded, or completely removed. The change that people are now celebrating is the fact that the previous diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) has now been changed to Gender Dysphoria.

Admittedly, the new Gender Dysphoria diagnosis is an improvement over GID for a number of reasons - Kelly Winter of GIDreform.org describes some of these improvements, as well as many of the lingering problems with the new diagnosis. Despite the remaining drawbacks (for instance, that gender variance is still formally pathologized in the DSM), many people seem excited that transgender people are no longer described as being "disordered" in the DSM. But the problem is that this is patently untrue.

When the new DSM committee was chosen back in 2008, all the focus was on what the new committee (chaired by the notorious Ken Zucker) would do with GID. This is understandable, given that this is the diagnosis that trans people are required to submit to if they with to access the means to legally and/or physically transition. It has also been used to justify horrible reparative therapies against gender-non-conforming children. But the greater trans community gave short shrift to the other existing DSM diagnosis that affected transgender people: Transvestic Fetishism.

I was especially horrified when Ray Blanchard was named to head the DSM "Paraphilia" section, which historically contains several sexual crimes (e.g., pedophilia, frotteurism and exhibitionism) and a handful of other generally consensual but unnecessarily stigmatized sexual acts (such as fetishism and BDSM) that are considered “atypical” by sex researchers - including Transvestic Fetishism.

I sometimes joke that Ray Blanchard is my arch nemesis (after all, every trans narrative needs a good arch nemesis!). Much of his career has been spent psychiatrically sexualizing trans female/feminine-spectrum people, most notably via his theory of "autogynephilia." I won't go into all the details here, as I have written about Ray Blanchard's theories extensively elsewhere.

Being familiar with his work, I was worried that Blanchard might try to expand the Transvestic Fetishism diagnosis. He did not disappoint. As I outlined in my 2009 article "Why feminists should be concerned with the impending revision of the DSM," Blanchard sought to both expand the DSM definition of "Paraphilia," as well as expand the previous Transvestic Fetishism diagnosis, which he renamed "Transvestic Disorder." As I pointed out in my keynote for the Philly Trans Health Conference that year:

Ray Blanchard has been named to chair the Paraphilia subworkgroup for the DSM-V, and he has proposed changing the Transvestic Fetishism diagnosis to Transvestic Disorder with one of two modifiers: with Fetishism, or with Autogynephilia. While the diagnosis supposedly targets “heterosexual males” who crossdress, the psychological literature regarding autogynephilia (the bulk of it written by Blanchard) repeatedly claims that lesbian, bisexual and asexual trans women are really just heterosexual men with a fantasy problem. Therefore, according to Blanchard’s proposal, a queer-identified trans woman (such as myself) could theoretically be diagnosed as having "Transvestic Disorder" any time that I have any kind of sexual urge while wearing women's clothing. Since I wear women's clothing pretty much every day of my life these days, my sexuality would presumably be considered perpetually transvestically disordered according to this diagnosis.

I tried at great length to raise awareness of the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis when it was first proposed. So did a few other trans activists and advocates, most notably Kelly Winters. But for the most part, the trans community ignored the proposed diagnosis, probably because (in its original form) it was not applicable to trans male/masculine folks nor heterosexual-identified trans women. Personally, I stopped writing about it because I felt like the community was simply not concerned.

And then, when no one was looking, in mid-2010, Blanchard and the DSM committee expanded it even further, so that it now includes trans people of all identities, trajectories and sexual orientations. As it is written now, Transvestic Disorder can be applied to any person who is sexually active while wearing clothing incongruent with their birth-assigned sex. It also canonizes the term "autoandrophilia" as a sexualizing diagnosis that can be applied to trans male/masculine folks. And while GID/Gender Dysphoria are pathologizing, Transvestic Disorder is both pathologizing and sexualizing. And when you sexualize someone, you invalidate them!

So please don't say that transgender people are no longer considered "disordered" according to the latest DSM. It is simply not true.

post-note: here is a speech I wrote for the trans protest of the 2009 American Psychiatric Association (who write the DSM) called "Stop Sexualizing Us"

Bisexuality and Binaries Revisited

2012-11-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

In October, 2010, my essay, “Bisexuality does not reinforce the gender binary,” first appeared on the internet. The main reason why I wrote the piece was to illustrate how the reinforcing trope (i.e., the notion that certain genders, sexualities or identities “reinforce” the gender binary, or heteronormativity, or the patriarchy, or the hegemonic-gender-system-of-your-choice) is selectively doled out in queer and feminist communities in order to police their borders. Since queer communities are dominated by non-feminine, cisgender, and exclusively gay and lesbian folks, these individuals are almost never accused of “reinforcing the gender binary.” In contrast, more marginalized identities (e.g., bisexual, transgender, femme) are routinely subjected to the reinforcing trope. While my “reinforcing” essay received many positive responses, it also garnered some harsh criticism, particularly from within certain segments of transgender and gender variant communities. All of the critiques that I heard or read pretty much ignored my primary point—namely, the underlying forms of sexism that determine who gets accused of “reinforcing” shit and who does not—and instead focused solely on the rote assertion that the word “bisexual” (and, by association, anyone who identifies as bisexual) really does “reinforce the gender binary.”

Since then, I have been considering writing a follow up piece to discuss the numerous problems with such claims (aside from the obvious fact that they single out bisexuals for being attracted to “two” sexes, but not the overwhelming majority of gays and lesbians who view themselves as attracted to the “same” sex, but not to the “opposite” sex—a notion that appears to be just as binary). In addition, since my piece was published, I became aware of an excellent blog-post by Shiri Eisner called, ‘Words, binary and biphobia, or: why “bi” is binary but “FTM” is not.’ Eisner’s post made a number of points similar to my own, but also forwarded new arguments that had not occurred to me before, and which led me to think about this debate in new ways. For all of these reasons, I felt that it would be worthwhile to pen a new essay (this very one here!) to revisit this subject.

Before delving into this topic, let me state for the record that I am writing this piece from the perspective of a bisexual-identified transsexual woman. Since some people paint bisexual-identified folks out to be “binarist” in our partner preferences, I will mention for the record that I date and am sexual with folks who are female and male, trans and cis, and non-binary- and binary-identified. I most certainly do not speak for all bisexual, or all transgender people. My views on this subject are my own, and if you disagree with what I have to say, please consider the possibility that our disagreements may stem from our differing vantage points. Finally, over the course of this essay, I will sometimes use the word “we” to refer to transgender folks, and other times to refer to bisexual folks. Perhaps some may find this a bit confusing, but it is an unavoidable consequence when one straddles multiple identities.

Some preliminaries: monosexism, bi-invisibility and bisexual communities (or the lack thereof)

In my previous essay, I used the word “bisexual” because (both historically and currently) it is the term most commonly used and understood to denote people who do not limit their sexual experiences to members of a single sex. Of course, bisexual is not a perfect word, but then again, neither is gay, lesbian, dyke, homosexual, heterosexual, straight, queer, asexual, or any other sexuality-related label. However, perhaps more so than with any of the other aforementioned labels, people who are bisexual in experience often fiercely disavow the “bisexual” label. For instance, many prefer the labels queer, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual, multisexual, or even no label at all, over the term bisexual. Sometimes I use the phrase experientially bisexual to refer to people who, regardless of label choice, do not limit their sexual experiences to members of a single sex. But alas, some folks may also reject experientially bisexual because it contains the word bisexual. So an alternative solution, taking a page from the LGBTQIA+ acronym, is to describe experientially bisexual folks as BMNOPPQ folks, where B = bisexual, M = multisexual, N = no label, O = omnisexual, P = pansexual, P = polysexual, and Q = experientially bisexual folks who primarily identify as queer (arranged alphabetically).

Am I advocating BMNOPPQ terminology? Not necessarily. I think that it is rather clunky and confusing. Personally, I would prefer it if we all simply accepted bisexual as an imperfect, albeit easily understood, umbrella term for people who share our experience. But since I don’t expect that to happen any time soon, I will instead use BMNOPPQ here in the hopes that we can put aside the issue of label preference for a moment, and instead focus on what the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary accusation means for BMNOPPQ people.

Important disclaimer: Above, when I used the phrase “share our experience,” I am not in any way insinuating that BMNOPPQ folks all share the same sexual histories, or experience our sexualities in the exact same way. We do not. We are all different. We are all attracted to different types of people, different types of bodies, different types of gender expressions. We all fall at somewhat different positions along the dreaded “Kinsey scale.” Some of us are more immersed in queer communities, while some of us primarily exist in straight communities, and many (if not most) of us find ourselves constantly navigating our way within (and between) both queer and straight communities.

So if we are all so different, then why even bother to try to label or lump together BMNOPPQ people? Well, because the one thing we *do* share is that we all face societal monosexism—i.e., the assumption that being exclusively attracted to members of a single sex is somehow more natural, real, or legitimate than being attracted to members of more than one sex. Monosexism is also sometimes referred to as biphobia. While biphobia is clearly the more common term, I will use monosexism here, both because I am not a big fan of the use of the suffix “phobia” when discussing forms of sexism (as it seems to stress “fear” over marginalization), and also because monosexism avoids the pesky prefix “bi” that some BMNOPPQ folks seem to find objectionable (more on that in a minute).

Monosexism exists because most people, whether in the straight mainstream or in gay and lesbian communities, view sexual orientation as a rigid binary, where people can only ever be heterosexual or homosexual in orientation. This hetero/homo binary directly leads to monosexual assumption—that is, the assumption that all individuals are exclusively attracted to members of a single sex. (Note: the hetero/homo binary also assumes that all people are sexually attracted to *somebody*—an assumption that marginalizes asexual folks.) Because of monosexual assumption, most people automatically assume that BMNOPPQ folks must be heterosexual if they perceive us to be in an “opposite”-sex pairing, or that we must be homosexual (i.e., lesbian or gay) if they perceive us to be in a same-sex pairing. This is a foundational predicament experienced by BMNOPPQ individuals.

If we BMNOPPQ folks outwardly claim to be bisexual (or pansexual, or polysexual, etc.), monosexual assumption leads many people to doubt the validity of our identities, and to project ulterior motives onto us. This is why people will often say, “You’re not really bisexual (or pansexual, or polysexual, etc.), you’re just confused about your sexuality,” or “...it’s just a phase,” or “...you still have one foot in the closet,” or “...you’re *really* gay/lesbian, but seeking out heterosexual privilege,” or “...you’re *really* straight, but just sexually experimenting, or perhaps overly promiscuous” and/or “...you’re just a fence sitter. Choose a side already!”

In other words, monosexual assumption leads to what has historically been called bi-invisibility: we are presumed not to exist, and any attempt to assert our existence is immediately thwarted by accusations that we are hiding, faking or simply confused about our sexualities. Bi-invisibility is what leads many of us to simply blend into existing monosexual communities (whether straight, gay, or lesbian) rather than seek out or create BMNOPPQ communities. This lack of community has had a devastating effect on BMNOPPQ folks. For instance, even though we outnumber exclusively homosexual people, we have poorer health outcomes and higher poverty rates than gays and lesbians, and we are generally not acknowledged or served by LGBTQIA+ organizations, even the ones that have “B” in the name. Our invisibility is what allows straight, gay, and lesbian folks to regularly get away with forwarding stereotypes about us—e.g., that we are mentally deranged, predatory, hypersexual, promiscuous, deceptive and/or fickle—without being called out or challenged. But most poignantly, bi-invisibility leads many of us to identify more with the straight, lesbian or gay communities we exist in (and rely upon) than with other BMNOPPQ folks. This lack of identification with other BMNOPPQ folks, in combination with the external pressure placed on us to blend in with the monosexual communities we exist in, is a major reason why BMNOPPQ folks have historically tended to avoid calling ourselves “bisexual,” often by refusing to label our sexualities at all. In stark contrast, exclusively homosexual people do not tend to outright disavow the labels “lesbian” and “gay,” nor do they tend to get bogged down in philosophical battles over whether or not they should label their sexualities at all, to nearly the same degree that BMNOPPQ folks do.

I have heard countless BMNOPPQ people ask, “Why do we have to label our sexualities?” I do agree that we should not be forced to reduce our complex sexual attractions and orientations down to a simple moniker. But as an activist, I would argue that the most persuasive argument for why BMNOPPQ folks should unite around some kind of umbrella label (whether “bisexual” or otherwise) is to challenge monosexism and bi-invisibility. In this scenario, said label would not blithely detail who we are sexual with, nor claim that we are somehow inherently different from hetero- or homo- or asexual folks (because I do not think we are), but rather point out that we (and we alone) are targeted by a particular sexist double standard, namely, monosexism. Doing this would enable us to raise awareness about, and to challenge, monosexism in our culture.

Given that I am more well known for my trans activism than my bisexual/BMNOPPQ activism, I should point out that the case that I am making here is identical in form and structure to the case I made in Whipping Girl regarding cissexism. That argument goes as follows: we live in a world where trans people are unfairly targeted by a sexist double standard (i.e., cissexism, analogous with monosexism) where one group (i.e., trans people, analogous with BMNOPPQ people) is assumed to be less natural, real or legitimate than a majority group that does not share that experience (i.e., cis people, analogous with monosexual people). As I once wrote in a blog post called “Whipping Girl FAQ on cissexual, cisgender, and cis privilege”:

When I use the terms cis/trans, it is not to talk about *actual* differences between cis and trans bodies/identities/genders/people, but rather *perceived* differences. In other words, while I don’t think that my gender is inherently different from that of a cis woman, I am aware that most people tend to *view* my gender differently (i.e., as less natural/valid/authentic) than cis women’s genders.

I would argue that the above paragraph also holds true if you were to substitute “mono” for “cis,” “bisexual/BMNOPPQ” for “trans,” and “sexual orientation” for “gender.”

So to sum up, from this activist perspective, the primary reason why I call myself trans or bisexual is *not* to communicate things that I have done (e.g., aspects of my gender transition, people I sexually partner with). After all, it should not be incumbent upon me to have to reduce the complexities of my gender and sexuality down to a sound-bite and provide it for other people at the drop of a hat. Nor am I insisting that I am “just like” other trans or BMNOPPQ people when I call myself “trans” or “bisexual,” respectively. After all, it goes without saying that all trans people and all BMNOPPQ people are different from one another. Rather, I embrace these labels in order to be visible in a world where trans and BMNOPPQ people are constantly erased by the male/female and hetero/homo binaries, respectively, and to build alliances with people who are similarly marginalized in order to challenge societal cissexism and monosexism, respectively.

How might relinquishing the term “bisexual” impact bisexual/BMNOPPQ people?

OK, so with this background in mind, let’s go back to the recurring claims that calling oneself bisexual “reinforces the gender binary.” Mind you, this claim is not typically made against people who gravitate toward sexual identity labels such as gay, lesbian, dyke, homosexual, heterosexual, straight, queer, asexual, and so on. Just bisexual folks. And it puts us in the unenviable position of constantly having to defend our label choice.

For example, even though my “reinforcing” essay was focused on how the reinforcing trope has been used to delegitimize both trans and bisexual communities, I still felt compelled to begin the piece with an explanation as to why I call myself bisexual. To this end, I offered both a personal and political justification. The personal explanation related to the fact that, while I am sexual with both female- and male-bodied/identified people, I tend to be more attracted to the former than the latter, and perhaps for this reason, being sexual with a woman feels very different to me on a visceral level than being with a man. For this reason, labels like pansexual and omnisexual (which imply attraction to everyone) do not personally resonate with me, because they seem to erase a difference that I experience. While this continues to be an accurate description of how I experience sexual attraction, I now realize that this comment is somewhat superfluous. After all, all BMNOPPQ folks experience our sexualities somewhat differently, and if we each had a unique word to precisely describe our internal experiences of attraction, that wouldn’t necessarily help us challenge monosexism and bi-invisibility. So if I were writing the “reinforcing” essay today, I probably would have left that personal tidbit out.

It is worth noting that (perhaps unsurprisingly) a few people took this personal comment as evidence that I must hold essentialist and rigidly binarist views of gender, even though earlier in the essay I stressed that there is lots of variation among, and overlap between, female and male bodies (this includes the existence of intersex people, and trans folks who physically transition). In Whipping Girl (specifically pp.102-106), I made the case that one can acknowledge differences between female and male bodies without necessarily engaging in essentialism or binarism, so I won’t bother to relitigate that here. Suffice it to say, if simply recognizing differences between female and male bodies is tantamount to essentialism and binarism, then that means that *all* heterosexual and homosexual people are essentialist and binarist, because they are sexually attracted to one sex but not the other. It also means that *all* transsexuals who physically transition are essentialist and binarist, on the basis that we choose to be one sex rather than the other. Once again, calling out a bisexual person’s experience of sex differences as “essentialist” and “binarist,” while paying no heed to gay, lesbian and trans people’s experiences of sex differences, can only be viewed as monosexist.

The political explanation that I gave for why I choose the bisexual label stems from the fact that societal monosexism invisibilizes bisexuality, and ensures that we can only ever be read in one of two ways, namely, as homosexual or heterosexual:

...the “bi” in bisexual does not merely refer to the types of people that I am sexual with, but to the fact that both the straight and queer worlds view me in two very different ways depending upon who I happen to be partnered with at any given moment.

I admit that this is a relatively novel way of viewing the word bisexual, but it is one that I personally fancy, and it is consistent with the theme of challenging monosexism, bi-invisibility and the hetero/homo binary.

Here is another potential interpretation of the word bisexual: The prefix “bi” can mean “two,” but it can also mean “twice” (e.g., as in bimonthly). So while monosexual people limit their potential partners to members of only one sex, bisexual/BMNOPPQ folks challenge the hetero/homo binary by not limiting our attraction in this way, and are thereby open to roughly twice as many potential partners. My main point here is that the prefix “bi” has more than one meaning, and can have more than one referent. So claiming that people who use the term bisexual must be touting a rigid binary view of gender, or denying the existence of gender variant people, is as presumptuous as assuming that people who use the term “bicoastal” must be claiming that a continent can only ever have two coasts, or that they are somehow denying the existence of all interior, landlocked regions of that continent.

The truth is that there are many different ways one can interpret the word bisexual (or other sexuality labels, for that matter). The bisexual-reinforces-the-binary accusation is an attempt to fix bisexual to single meaning, one that is an affront to how many bisexual-identified people understand and use that label. As an analogy, what if cis people suddenly started claiming that they do not like the label transgender because (in their minds) it seems to imply that all people should change their gender. (I actually have heard someone make this bizarre claim once before.) How would we, as transgender people, react to that accusation? Personally, I would respond by saying that transgender is *our* word: it’s about transgender-identified people’s experiences with gender and gender-based oppression, and it makes absolutely no claims at all about what other people are, or how other they should be gendered. Similarly, my response to the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary accusation is that bisexual is *our* word (in this case, bisexual-identified people): it is about our experiences with sexuality and sexuality-based oppression, and it makes no claims whatsoever about what other people are, or how other they should be sexual or gendered.

But upon looking back on my “reinforcing” essay, my main regret is that I failed to explicitly mention what is perhaps the most important political reason behind why I call myself bisexual. Namely, the word bisexual has a long history, and it was the word that the original BMNOPPQ activists embraced several decades ago when they fought for visibility and inclusion within (and beyond) lesbian, gay and queer communities. This activism spurred the creation of now common terms such as “biphobia” and “bi-invisibility” that have played a crucial role in challenging societal monosexism since their inception. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the word bisexual is familiar to most people, both in the straight mainstream and within LGBTQIA+ communities. Having a familiar umbrella term is critically important given that one of the biggest challenges that BMNOPPQ folks face is invisibility and societal erasure.

I appreciate the sentiments behind alternative labels such as pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and multisexual, and I respect the right of BMNOPPQ folks to choose any of these (or other) labels over bisexual. But from an activist standpoint, the notion that we should completely abandon the word bisexual in favor of some alternative label that is unfamiliar to most people does not seem to be a wise political move. Indeed, such a move would make it significantly harder for us to come out and gain visibility in our communities, and we would need to start from scratch with new activist terminology (panphobia? poly-invisibility?) to describe how we are marginalized.

Along similar lines, I respect the right of BMNOPPQ folks to choose to identify as queer rather than bisexual. (For the record, I identify as both bisexual and queer.) However, queer is a much broader umbrella term meant to include all LGBTQIA+ people, and as such, it does not seem to be the best position from which to challenge monosexism and bi-invisibility.

Now of course, language is constantly evolving. And if this mass fleeing from the word bisexual toward alternate identity labels was simply part of a natural progression—such as the historically recent shifts from the label “homosexual” to “gay”, or from “lesbian” to “dyke”—then I would not have any problem with it. However, it seems to me that the primary force driving these alternate label choices is not coming from within the BMNOPPQ community itself, but rather from external pressure exerted on us by other queer subgroups. As I’ve already discussed, there has always been pressure on BMNOPPQ folks to hide or subsume our identities in order to fit into existing gay, lesbian and queer communities. But these days, there is additional pressure placed on us by certain transgender voices that insist that we must stop using the term bisexual because it supposedly “reinforces the gender binary.”

Lots of folks these days (both transgender and BMNOPPQ) seem to be buying into this “reinforcing” allegation, which essentially accuses bisexual-identified people (such as myself) of propagating cissexism/transphobia. And yet, virtually no one is asking what should be a rather obvious question: isn’t this argument quite one-sided? Shouldn’t we also be considering what affect relinquishing the label “bisexual” would have for BMNOPPQ folks and our efforts to challenge monosexism and bi-invisibility? Genderqueer-identified bisexual activist Shiri Eisner (in the aforementioned blogpost) was the first person I heard make this crucial point:

“...a discussion focusing around bisexuality solely in relation to transgender politics performs structural bisexual erasure, as it prioritizes transgender politics over bisexual politics in a discussion about bisexual identity.” [emphasis Eisner’s]

When put this way, it becomes clear just how brazen it is for transgender folks to claim that bisexuals should abandon an identity label that BMNOPPQ folks have been using for decades simply because it is supposedly incompatible with transgender politics. Why stop there? While we are at it, why don’t we tell lesbians that they have to stop using that word? After all, few ideologies have spouted as much cissexism over the years as lesbian-feminism has. Come to think of it, what about people who describe themselves as a “woman” or a “man”—those labels most certainly reinforce the binary! Shouldn’t we be calling out anyone who uses those labels? Or what about trans people who self-identify as “MTF” and “FTM”—acronyms that imply that there are two sexes. Don’t they reinforce the binary?

Or, what if we put the shoe on the other foot? Cisgender feminists have long argued that gender is a patriarchal invention designed to oppress women. So what if cisgender feminists took a similar tactic and began accusing transgender people of “reinforcing the patriarchy” because the word “transgender” has the word “gender” in it? Isn’t this argument is structurally identical to the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary claim? If cisgender feminists made this claim, how might we react? Would we stop calling ourselves transgender (or genderqueer, or gender variant) as a result? What would that mean for us as a marginalized group that has only recently garnered visibility and a modicum of acceptance in our society? What would happen to all the policies that now include “transgender” people, or that prevent discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” (yes, that term also has that pesky word “gender” in it)? Would we, as a transgender community, really be willing to give up all that in order to accommodate cisgender feminist politics?

I didn’t think so. So how can we, as a transgender community, expect bisexual/BMNOPPQ folks to give up the same in order to accommodate our politics?

There is more than just one binary!

Nothing demonstrates the fact that the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary claim prioritizes transgender politics over bisexual politics more than the assumption that the “bi” in bisexual must automatically be referring “the gender binary.” This is a bold assertion given that BMNOPPQ folks have our own sexual orientation binary to contend with, and that bisexual activists have long argued that being “bi” subverts the hetero/homo binary. So how is it that a debate about “bisexual” (a sexual orientation label) can wind up being solely centered on the gender binary, yet completely ignore the sexual orientation binary?

This seems to me to be a fairly new development. Back when bisexual and transgender activism were first gaining momentum in the 1990’s, it was quite common for activists from both camps to point out the parallels between the way transgender folks challenge the male/female binary and how bisexuals challenge the hetero/homo binary. There was even an entire anthology (entitled Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others) largely centered on this theme. Around the time that I transitioned (back in 2001), trans people referred to “the male/female binary” (which seems to acknowledge the possibility that there are other binaries out there) about as frequently as they mentioned “the gender binary.”

But over time, this perspective has shifted. These days, many transgender folks seem to be referring to an all “caps lock” version of THE GENDER BINARY, as if it were the one and only binary from which all gender and sexual oppression stems. This interpretation reminds me of the way many cisgender lesbian-feminists talk about THE PATRIARCHY, using it as the single lens through which they view all aspects of gender and sexuality. Viewing all forms sexism in terms of THE PATRIARCHY (i.e., men are the oppressors, women are the oppressed, end of story) is precisely what led many cisgender lesbian-feminists to misinterpret trans men as “female” traitors who transition in order to obtain male privilege, and trans women as privileged “men” who attempt to appropriate women’s oppressed status and/or to infiltrate women-only spaces.

When we view the world through any one single lens, we are bound to overlook many things. Viewing all aspects of gender and sexuality through the lens of THE PATRIARCHY has led many cisgender lesbian-feminists to condemn not only transgender people, but feminine and masculine gender expression, butch/femme relationships, BDSM, pornography, sex workers, sex toys that resemble phalluses, and so on. Similarly, viewing all gender and sexual oppression in terms of THE GENDER BINARY might seem to make sense to some transgender people, but it overlooks (and thus erases) numerous other gender and sexual hierarchies, such as masculinism (i.e., the assumption that masculine gender expression is more legitimate than feminine gender expression), trans-misogyny, subversivism, asexophobia, and of course, monosexism.

So, in other words, if we are going to have a cross-community conversation between transgender and bisexual/BMNOPPQ folks, then we have to talk about the male/female binary and cissexism, as well as the hetero/homo binary and monosexism. If we are not taking both communities issues and interests into account, then we are not having a conversation, we are merely engaging in one-sided slander.

One final note on this point: during the course of writing this piece, it struck me how strange it is that the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary debate, which prioritizes transgender politics over bisexual politics, has successfully proliferated for several years now, and has persuaded many BMNOPPQ folks to disavow the word bisexual without that much of a pushback. And I find it alarming that, even though the word monosexism was coined and used by bisexual activists at least a decade before the word cissexism was by trans activists, these days I find myself having to explain what the former means far more so than the latter. In other words, while the bisexual movement gained initial momentum prior to the transgender movement (which is why the B typically precedes the T in most queer acronyms), the transgender movement seems to have leap-frogged over the bisexual movement, at least within the context of queer communities. To be clear, I am not in any way insinuating that BMNOPPQ folks are “more oppressed” than transgender people (lord knows, there is nothing I loathe more than playing “oppression Olympics”). But I do think that transgender people have gelled more as a community than BMNOPPQ folks have. And this lack of cohesion among BMNOPPQ folks (in combination with the single-minded THE GENDER BINARY perspective) has certainly contributed to the one-sided nature of the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary debate.

One final observation

Finally, it must be stressed that this bisexual-reinforces-the-binary debate is not raging uniformly throughout all LGBTQIA+ communities. It seems to be largely absent from gay men’s communities, and among transgender and bisexual folks who spend most of their time in straight communities rather than queer ones. As far as I can tell, this debate is primarily occurring within queer women’s communities and among trans folks who also inhabit those spaces. And I think this specificity offers some insight into why this debate has surfaced and gained traction at this particular place and time.

This connection occurred to me after, on a couple separate occasions, I heard trans men claim that, in their opinion, bisexuals (as a group) tend to be more transphobic than lesbians. Frankly, this claim astonished me. Historically, transgender and bisexual activists often saw themselves on the same side of challenging exclusion within greater gay and lesbian communities and organizations. And in my own personal experience, I have found that the self-identified bisexuals in my queer community tend to be far more supportive of me (as a trans woman) than exclusively lesbian and gay folks. And while cisgender lesbians typically do not view trans women such as myself to be legitimate romantic or sexual partners, cisgender bisexual women often do. As a testament to this, *all* of my queer female sexual and romantic partners have been either bisexual and/or gender variant in some way. While I am definitely open to the idea of having a cisgender lesbian lover or partner, I have never once had a cisgender lesbian express interest in me in that way. And this experience is not specific to me—it is pervasive enough that trans women often refer to it as “the cotton ceiling.”

Of course, things are different for trans men and trans masculine spectrum folks. They often feel relatively accepted (as both individuals and prospective lovers/partners) by cisgender lesbians these days. So it makes sense that, from their point of view, bisexuals might appear more transphobic than lesbians (indeed, Eisner makes a similar point). In stark contrast, from my perspective as a trans woman, I find that cisgender lesbians tend to be way more likely to be trans-misogynistic than cisgender bisexual women. These are generalizations, of course, but they seem to account for our greatly differing perspectives on this matter.

Ironically, while lesbian-feminism is typically considered to be passé these days, its foundational premise—that cisgender men are inherently oppressive, and that women who partner with them are traitors to the cause—still lives on in today’s queer women’s communities. Elsewhere, I have referred to this mindset as FAAB-mentality. Because of FAAB-mentality, trans women are seen as suspect because we are viewed as being “really cisgender men,” and femmes are dismissed for too closely resembling heterosexual women. And of course, bisexual women are viewed as suspect because some of us choose to partner with cisgender men.

I believe that this FAAB-mentality is at work behind the scenes when trans male/masculine folks stress how different they are from cisgender men in order to be accepted in queer women’s spaces, and when queer women who partner with trans men (and who therefore fall under the BMNOPPQ umbrella) go to great lengths to avoid identifying as bisexual. While I respect any person’s right to choose pansexual, polysexual, queer, etc., over bisexual, I sometimes feel that these alternative labels function like code words in queer women’s communities, as if to say, “I am sexual with everyone *except* cisgender men.” While people are certainly free to choose not to partner with cisgender men, I am disturbed by the binary that seems to be developing here, one in which pansexual/polysexual/etc.-identified women are supposedly subversive and queer because they refuse to sleep with cisgender men, whereas bisexual-identified women are supposedly conservative and straight-minded because they do sometimes partner with cisgender men. And it seems to me that the bisexual-reinforces-the-binary trope exacerbates this binary, which is probably why this accusation has become so prevalent in queer women’s communities.

While it is true that some bisexuals are cissexist, it is also true that many lesbians and trans folks are monosexist. As a bisexual trans woman who is very active in queer women’s communities, I would like to see us all stop pitting ourselves against one another, and instead work together to challenge all binaries and all forms of sexism.

julia update November 2012

2012-11-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

hey folks! just a quick update about a flurry of upcoming events I have!

1) San Francisco reading Wednesday (tomorrow/today) November 7th.
2) “Our Art is Our Advocacy” panel at the Transgender Leadership Summit on Friday, November 9th.
3) presentation at Boston College on Tuesday November 13th.
4) SF Dyke March forum on AGE DIVERSITY AND GENDER FLUIDITY on November 15th.

Below are details about all these things:

1) San Francisco reading Wednesday (tomorrow/today) November 7th.

Many of you know about this event already, as I have been Tweeting and Facebooking about it. But for those who don't know, here are the details:

Making Feminist, Queer and Trans Movements More Genuinely Inclusive

Wednesday, November 7, 2012
7:00pm until 8:30pm
Making Feminist, Queer and Trans Movements More Genuinely Inclusive
https://www.facebook.com/events/433105406750508/permalink/437852916275757/

What: Mettaversity Live Speaking Series -formerly Metta Dance
When: Wednesday, November 7th – 7:00-8:30pm
Where: The Women’s Building (18th btwn Valencia/Guerrero)

Cost: $10 at the door (No one turned away for lack of funds)

Making Feminist, Queer and Trans Movements More Genuinely Inclusive

Women, and gender and sexual minorities, are all targeted by sexism—that is, double standards based on one’s sex, gender or sexuality. For many of us, our experiences dealing with sexism drive us to become involved in feminism and queer (i.e., LGBTQIA+) activism. We seek out like-minded people who share our goals to eliminate sex-, gender- and sexuality-based hierarchies, and together, we work hard to build new movements and communities with the intent that they will be safe and empowering for those of us who have been shut out of the straight, male-centric mainstream. And yet, somewhere along the way, despite our best intentions, the movements and communities that we create almost always end up marginalizing and excluding others who wish to participate.

In this event, Julia Serano (author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity) presents from excerpts of some of her newer essays and spoken word pieces focused on both critiquing this tendency toward exclusivity in feminist, queer and trans movements, and providing new ideas regarding how we might go about making more genuinely inclusive movements.

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2) “Our Art is Our Advocacy” panel at the Transgender Leadership Summit on Friday, November 9th.

For those going to this year's Transgender Leadership Summit in Berkeley, CA this upcoming weekend, come see this excellent panel:

7:20 pm – Plenary: Our Art is Our Advocacy
Artists are important social activists because of their ability to reach all types of people across local and global communities. This plenary explores the work of popular transgender artists and how they utilize art to advocate for transgender visibility. Presenters: Julia Serano (writer); Annie Danger (performance artist); Dana Morrigan (poet and comic); Kai M. Green (filmmaker); Tobi Hill-Meyer (filmmaker)

The entire conference schedule can be found here:
http://www.transgenderlawcenter.org/events/leadershipsummit/summitschedule

3) presentation at Boston College on Tuesday November 13th.

Next week, Boston College is having a "Love Your Body Week," and I am giving a presentation on that theme on Tuesday, November 13, 2012, in Gasson 305. Those are the details I have, please come out!!!

4) SF Dyke March forum on AGE DIVERSITY AND GENDER FLUIDITY on November 15th.

This should be an interesting and relevant panel, and I'm happy to be a part of it. Here's the entire description:

AGE DIVERSITY AND GENDER FLUIDITY
A FORUM SPONSORED BY THE SAN FRANCISCO DYKE MARCH
November 15, 2012 7-9 p.m.
GLBT History Museum
4127 18th St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
(between Castro & Collingwood Streets)

In its 20th year the San Francisco Dyke March is hosting a number of forums and events to celebrate the anniversary. The theme for the year is “Dyke Space Continuum” reflecting the genesis of the Dyke March, its evolution, its revolution and the desire to embrace each and every "dyke" who makes up our community today.

Elana Dykewomon, Elena Escalera, Krys Freeman and Julia Serano will facilitate an open forum to trace the history of the “dyke space continuum,” defining the present state of gender politics and how it is related to/identified within different generations of LGBTQ individuals.

The Dyke March was founded by second-wave feminists with roots in the Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, Anti-War, Anti-Racist and Anti-Imperialist Movements. The initial premise of the Dyke March was to create a separate space for queer women. Younger folks are often not aware of the history and events which have influenced the evolving continuum of any given community. This is certainly mirrored in the microcosm of the Dyke March. On the other hand, older dykes may not have personal interactions exposing them to new gender theories and the life experiences of younger dykes.

Beyond those general conditions associated with age and change, the widening of queer representations to include a greater spectrum of trans-identified or gender-nonconforming individuals creates some unique political and social divides. In 1995 the Dyke March began redefining parameters, moving away from “woman-only space” and inviting all to participate with the exception of those who identify as men. (It should be noted that the S.F. Dyke March was/is consistently inclusive of Trans Women/MTF.) Although many welcomed the change, for others the reaction was mixed. Some regret the loss of women-only space. Others feel excluded and question whether there is unfair gender “policing.”

This panel seeks not to reconcile these groups outright, but to facilitate a conversation and head towards a place of understanding and progress in the 20th year of the SF Dyke March.

OK, that's it, hope you can come out to some of these! and remember:

here is my main website:
http://www.juliaserano.com

and I tweet fairly frequently:
http://twitter.com/#!/Juliaserano

for those interested in what I have to say when I have more than 140 characters to work with, I have a blog:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com

I also post all my upcoming events and news on my aforementioned blog, and it also all automatically gets forwarded to my Facebook "writer" page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Serano/277728205577201?ref=ts
so I encourage you to follow me ( and perhaps "like me") there!

that's it, best wishes! -julia

Making Feminist, Queer and Trans Movements More Genuinely Inclusive

2012-11-01T17:03:00.001-07:00

Hello! So news about this upcoming event (a reading I am giving) has been getting around on Facebook. But for those who haven't seen it, here's all the details - hope you can make it! -j.

https://www.facebook.com/events/433105406750508/permalink/437852916275757/

Wednesday, November 7, 2012
7:00pm until 8:30pm
Making Feminist, Queer and Trans Movements More Genuinely Inclusive

What: Mettaversity Live Speaking Series -formerly Metta Dance
When: Wednesday, November 7th – 7:00-8:30pm
Where: The Women’s Building (18th btwn Valencia/Guerrero)

Cost: $10 at the door (No one turned away for lack of funds)

Making Feminist, Queer and Trans Movements More Genuinely Inclusive

Women, and gender and sexual minorities, are all targeted by sexism—that is, double standards based on one’s sex, gender or sexuality. For many of us, our experiences dealing with sexism drive us to become involved in feminism and queer (i.e., LGBTQIA+) activism. We seek out like-minded people who share our goals to eliminate sex-, gender- and sexuality-based hierarchies, and together, we work hard to build new movements and communities with the intent that they will be safe and empowering for those of us who have been shut out of the straight, male-centric mainstream. And yet, somewhere along the way, despite our best intentions, the movements and communities that we create almost always end up marginalizing and excluding others who wish to participate.

In this event, Julia Serano (author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity) presents from excerpts of some of her newer essays and spoken word pieces focused on both critiquing this tendency toward exclusivity in feminist, queer and trans movements, and providing new ideas regarding how we might go about making more genuinely inclusive movements.

Thoughts on the election and “Romnesia”

2012-10-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

So it probably won’t surprise too many people that I will be voting for Obama in this year’s election. Like a lot of progressives, there are certainly a number of things the Obama administration has done (or not done) in the last four years that have disappointed me. He is certainly more politically moderate than I would like, but then again, I am registered as Green, so basically any president who gets elected will inevitably be to the political right of me.

Having said that, I am not naive enough to buy into the whole “there’s no difference between the two major parties” line. Actually, there is a huge whopping difference - all you have to do is compare the previous 8 years of Bush to those of Clinton (another moderate Democrat like Obama). The difference between the two parties has become even more pronounced since the Bush years, now that the Tea Party is pushing Republicans to become even more socially conservative, regressive with regards to taxation, and ignorant with regards to education, science (e.g., evolution, climate change, reproduction), and “facts.” The next president will get to choose one, maybe several, Supreme Court justices. If Romney wins, you can kiss Roe vs Wade (as well as other liberal precedents and policies) goodbye...

Speaking of Romney, let me say this: I have paid close attention to every election since 1988 (first Bush vs Dukakis). And I can say that, hands down, I have *never* seen a candidate so blatantly lie and massively change positions as Romney has. Granted, obscuring the truth, spinning the facts, and flip-flopping on positions occurs with all politicians. But typically, politicians at least have a few core beliefs, and will admit to, and usually stand by, their previous positions. Romney has been utterly shameless in his blatant lying, and in pretending that he never said anything that he has previously said.

Even more frustrating is how the media (or much of the media) is letting him get away with it. This whole charade is being described by pundits as simply an “abrupt shift toward the center” or a “bold change in strategy.” They’ll call Romney a flip-flopper, or an obfuscator, but they won’t call him a liar, even when he pretends that he didn’t say the things he’s previously said, and pretends that he does not have the policies he’s been touting all along. It’s like “liar” is somehow deemed beyond the pale—a word too profane to use in polite company.

The profanitization (yes, I have coined another word!) of “liar” has made it difficult for Obama and his supporters to actually call out Romney’s lies (aka, his suddenly pretending that he hasn’t been running as a “severe conservative” the last two years). So they have had to invent their own word to describe the situation: “Romnesia.” It is catchy sounding. It is politically expedient, in that it portrays Romney as a severe conservative who has forgotten his previous ultra-conservative positions (rather than as a pragmatic moderate flip-flopper). And it allows Obama to get in a funny “zinger” about pre-existing conditions being covered under “Obamacare” (yes, Obama himself is calling it that now).

But the whole “Romnesia” thing seems to me to be built on an underlying premise of ableism. Sure, it’s a joke - Obama is not actually trying to diagnose Romney with “Romnesia,” nor is it slated to be in the next DSM (unless Zucker and Blanchard sneak that one in there when no one’s looking). But when we laugh at “Romnesia,” we’re laughing in part because we’ve been socialized to laugh at people that we see as mentally ill or mentally incompetent. That’s built into the joke. And the sad thing is that somehow, the media has decided that calling a liar a “liar” is out of bounds, but it’s OK (funny even!) if the liar is portrayed as having a make-believe mental condition.

Like I said, Romney scares the hell out of me. And I will definitely be voting for Obama. But I reserve the right to cringe every time I hear that “Romnesia” joke. And I look forward to a day when we can call liars “liars,” and not have to resort to the trope of mental illness to make our case...

p.s., can we also please stop using the word “zingers”? it makes it sound as if we’re all in one giant Vaudeville act or something...

julia update September 2012

2012-09-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

in this update:

1) consider bringing julia out to your campus!
2) julia will be speaking/performing in Peterborough, Ontario next weekend
3) website revamp
.....................

hello, and happy equinox weekend! here is what's new:

1) consider bringing julia out to your campus!

So a new academic year has begun, and as always, I am looking forward to having the opportunity to speak/perform at various colleges & universities this year!

If you are affiliated with a college - especially if you belong to a trans, LGBTQIA+, and/or feminist-related organization - please consider bringing me out to your campus! And even if you aren't associated with a college yourself, please feel free to forward this onto people that you know who are students, staff, or faculty somewhere.

For those interested, I have a recently updated "booking" webpage (http://www.juliaserano.com/booking.html) containing most of the pertinent info, including short descriptions of some of my most frequently requested talks. I have also added two new presentations for this year: "Recognizing the B and T in LGBTQ" (discussing bisexual/pansexual and transgender/gender-variant activism, within both queer settings and the straight mainstream), and "A Holistic View of Feminism" (where I discuss some of the central ideas of my next book, which I hope to be published sometime in 2013).

a PDF version of this booking info can be downloaded at this link: http://www.juliaserano.com/av/bookingJulia.pdf
.......................

2) julia will be speaking/performing in Peterborough, Ontario

speaking of events, I have one coming up next weekend!

September 28, 2012 -- I will be giving a keynote talk on Trans Feminism: a performance and discussion at TransForming Feminisms: Trans Access (the redux), at Sadleir House, 751 George St., Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. All the details can be found on their Facebook page.

The event is being organized by the Centre for Gender and Social Justice:
http://centreforgenderandsocialjustice.ca/?page_id=49

More details can be found on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/TransFormingFeminismsTransAccesstheRedux/info?ref=stream
...............................

3) website revamp

After a long period of disregard, I recently revamped several pages of my website. There is much new stuff to be found! Here are some of the pages that have been updated:

http://www.juliaserano.com/about.html
http://www.juliaserano.com/writings.html
http://www.juliaserano.com/av.html
http://www.juliaserano.com/press.html
http://www.juliaserano.com/booking.html
http://www.juliaserano.com/events.html

enjoy!

That's it for now. And remember, between updates, you can always check out:

my main website:
http://www.juliaserano.com

and I tweet regularly (@juliaserano):
http://twitter.com/#!/Juliaserano

for those interested in what I have to say when I have more than 140 characters to work with, there's my blog:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com

I also post all my upcoming events and news on my aforementioned blog, and it also all automatically gets forwarded to my Facebook "writer" page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Serano/277728205577201?ref=ts
so I encourage you to follow me (and perhaps "like me") there!

Best wishes, -julia

consider bringing Julia Serano out to your campus!

2012-09-11T12:46:00.001-07:00

So a new academic year has begun, and as always, I am looking forward to having the opportunity to speak/perform at various colleges & universities this year!

If you are affiliated with a college - especially if you belong to a trans, LGBTQIA+, and/or feminist-related organization - please consider bringing me out to your campus! And even if you aren't associated with a college yourself, please feel free to forward this onto people that you know who are students, staff, or faculty somewhere.

For those interested, I have a recently updated "booking" webpage containing most of the pertinent info, including short descriptions of some of my most frequently requested talks. I have also added two new presentations for this year: "Recognizing the B and T in LGBTQ" (discussing bisexual/pansexual and transgender/gender-variant activism, within both queer settings and the straight mainstream), and "A Holistic View of Feminism" (where I discuss some of the central ideas of my next book, which I hope to be published sometime in 2013).

a PDF version of this booking info can be downloaded at this link: http://www.juliaserano.com/av/bookingJulia.pdf

Best wishes, -julia

going to Dore Alley Street Fair? consider volunteering on behalf of Girl Talk!

2012-07-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

So as many of you know, I am one of the co-curators of the recurring show Girl Talk: A Trans and Cis Woman Dialogue. I just received the following post from Gina de Vries (also a Girl Talk co-curator) that may interest some of you:

BAY AREA GIRL TALK FANS! Are you free this Sunday? Do you wanna help Girl Talk make lots of money for our 2013 show? Volunteer on Girl Talk's behalf at Up Your Alley (aka The Dore Alley Street Fair). Every Girl Talk-related volunteer equals $100 for Girl Talk -- which equals AWESOME, duh! Please contact Kevin Seaman at the Queer Cultural Center at kevin.l.seaman@gmail.com for more info. Say you are with GIRL TALK & that you wanna volunteer on our behalf. Please DO NOT contact me, Julia, or Rose about it, as 2/3 of us are out of town, and anyway, Kevin is in charge of everything Up Your Alley fundraising related & can answer yr questions way better than any of us. Bless you & thank you & PLEASE spread the word! (Also, sorry for the late announcement -- I have been on writing retreat & only found out about this today.)

so if any of you are planning on being at Dore Alley & are interested in volunteering on behalf of Girl Talk, please contact Kevin at the above email address - we'd really appreciate it!

-julia

videos of Biggest Quake: New thinking on the San Francisco AIDS epidemic

2012-07-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

So as I mentioned in a previous blog post, last month I had the honor of reading in Kirk Read's show Biggest Quake: New thinking on the San Francisco AIDS epidemic. The event ran 3 nights, with writers doing different material each night. It was one of the most amazing performance experiences of my life - my fellow performers' pieces were so beautiful, funny, intense, and moving.

For those who missed those shows, you still have the chance to see them, as they were all video-recorded and are now available on the web! Here are the appropriate links for each show:

For those who missed those shows, you still have the chance to see them, as they were all video-recorded and are now available on the web! Here are the appropriate links for each show:

June 14, 2012 - Kirk Read The Biggest Quake: www.vimeo.com/album/1975177
June 15, 2012 - Kirk Read The Biggest Quake: www.vimeo.com/album/1976963
June 16, 2012 - Kirk Read The Biggest Quake: www.vimeo.com/album/1977205

After clicking on each link, just scroll down the page to find video of each reader's performance that evening. If you like what you see, be sure to spread the word with others. Enjoy!

the Fully Functional Cabaret!

2012-07-01T14:16:00.002-07:00

Happy Sunday! I just wanted to let folks know about what looks to be a *spectacular* show taking place in San Francisco next weekend. It's called "The Fully Functional Cabaret," and it features some of my very favorite trans women performers! All the details can be found below - I encourage interested folks to buy tickets in advance, as me thinks that it is very likely to sell out. And even if you cannot attend yourself, please help spread the word about the show (all relevant links can be found at the bottom of this post)...thanks! -julia

The Fully Functional Cabaret

Trans Women's Secrets...REVEALED!

Friday and Saturday, July 6th and 7th

7pm

$12-$20 sliding, N.O.T.A.

African American Arts and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton Street

Starring: Annie Danger, Bryn Kelly, Red Durkin, Ryka Aoki, Shawna Virago, and introducing Star Amerasu

SAVE THE DATE! The world premiere of The Fully Functional Cabaret, a thunderous, campy, beautiful love letter to trans womanhood, is just around the corner. Packed with a nationwide cast of trans luminaries, this giddily-awaited, deeply smart, and thoroughly entertaining show will change how you see trans women forever.

Advance tickets are recommended for this 2-nights-only engagement.

This all-trans-woman show is the culmination of a year-long collaborative engagement between Annie Danger (It's That Easy! With Terry VanWeen!, Sister Spit 2010, Great Church of the Holy Fuck), Shawna Virago (Fresh Meat Productions and the SF Transgender Film Festival), Ryka Aoki (LA's Transgivingand The Tranny Road Show), Red Durkin (New York's premiere trans woman comedian and Managing Editor at prettyqueer.com), Bryn Kelly (New York's Gay Ole Opry and Theater Transgresssion), and introducing the inimmitable Star Amerasu!

The Fully Functional Cabaret is a shining, campy, thunderous, and beautiful love letter to trans womanhood. Take a step back, and you will see a familiar story of people seeking healing by shining a light all up in society’s deepest crevides . Be it song, dance, or glowing genitalia, there's something for everyone at The Fully Functional Cabaret. Come for the comedic stylings of Red Durkin, the powerhouse voice of Star Amerasu, the poetic incandescence of Ryka Aoki, the dulcet tones of Bryn Kelly, Shawna Virago's razor wit, and the cunningly fun art of Annie Danger.

Written by collaborative process of its all-trans woman cast, Fully Functional was divined by taking our unheard, inappropriate, and deeply true stories and slathering them in a glittery coat of raw-hearted wit. We are women, whole and complete, and our lives are long obscured by the hideous apparitions of the medical industry, the mass media, and even some feminists! Fully Functional takes these unfortunate mantles on its shoulders and runs with them, shouting “NO SOB STORIES!

Advance tickets are available at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/246311

Contact Annie Danger at andrea.m.danger@gmail.com for questions, interview queries, hi-res cast photos, or further information.

FFC is part of the 2012 National Queer Arts Festival: http://queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF/performance/fullyfunctional/

FFC on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/274147082680310/

The Biggest Quake: New thinking on the San Francisco AIDS epidemic

2012-06-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

So here we are again, at the start of another Pride month! I wanted to let folks know about an awesome spoken word event that I will be taking part in next week:

The Biggest Quake: New thinking on the San Francisco AIDS epidemic

This is an amazing show curated by one of my favorite writers/performers, Kirk Read. It is a multigenerational perspective on HIV and the AIDS epidemic.

performers (besides me) are: Mark ABRAMSON, Justin CHIN, Brontez PURNELL, Carol QUEEN, Kirk READ, K.M. SOEHNLEIN, Ed WOLF

ALL SHOWS FREE! JUNE 14-15-16, 7pm New material in every show

Metropolitan Community Church, 150 Eureka near 18th

a quick blurb about the show:

The Biggest Quake brings together eight San Francisco artists with varied backgrounds in writing, performance art, music, public health, science and AIDS activism. In preparation for these three evenings, the eight artists created brand new essays and performance works in collaboration with one another. The location, Metropolitan Community Church, was ground zero for hundreds of memorial services during the peak of the AIDS years. The work promises to be funny, touching, harrowing, historical and controversial. The variety of voices here creates a dialogue that goes across generational, gender, and cultural lines.

Here is a video trailer for the show:

http://vimeo.com/42527187

Here is the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/events/440235436000941

Here is the National Queer Arts Festival site for the show:

http://queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF/performance/the-biggest-quake/

All of the sorted details for the show can be found at the bottom of this message.

I will be doing different pieces at each show. So come early and often if you can! and once again, all shows are FREE!!!

....................................

more details:

The Biggest Quake brings together eight San Francisco artists with varied backgrounds in writing, performance art, music, public health, science and AIDS activism. Topics will include barebacking, pre-exposure (PrEP) HIV medications for HIV-negative people, crystal meth, the missing generations of trans women, being newly infected, helping people commit suicide in the 1980s and getting arrested with ACT UP. A rich brew. WE PROMISE there will be no cliches about being HIV positive and thriving and no one will tell you that men who bareback have low self esteem. In preparation for these three evenings, the eight artists created brand new essays and performance works in collaboration with one another. The location, Metropolitan Community Church, was ground zero for many hundreds of memorial services during the peak of the AIDS years. The work promises to be funny, touching, harrowing, historical and controversial. The artists spent hours having conversations as a group and individually, deepening their shared understanding of the AIDS epidemic. The variety of voices here creates a dialogue that goes across generational, gender, and experiential lines. The purpose of this project is to generate new stories and thinking about AIDS that is not mediated by public health messaging or non-profit politics. We aim to spark a resurgence of artists making work about the epidemic, in terms of history, where we are now, and the future imaginary.

The Biggest Quake was made possible in part by a grant from The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund supported by generous grants from the William Flora Hewlett Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support was provided by The Queer Cultural Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the California Arts Council and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

Artist bios:

Mark Abramson was a Midwestern farm boy who joined the great gay migration to San Francisco in the 1970s. His writing has appeared in the gay press as far back as Christopher Street, Fag Rag, Gay Sunshine and Mouth of the Dragon. Like the central character in his best-selling "Beach Reading" series, Mark Abramson grew up in Minnesota and worked as a waiter in the Castro, but Mark is better known as a bartender and co-producer of “Men Behind Bars,” an annual AIDS benefit and the huge dance parties on San Francisco piers called "Pier Pressure" and "High Tea.”

Justin Chin’s third book of poetry, Gutted, received the Publishing Triangle's 2007 Thom Gunn Award for Poetry, and was a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards, and the Assoc. for Asian American Studies Book Awards. His other books of poetry are Bite Hard, and Harmless Medicine, a 2002 Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Awards finalist. He is also the author of three collections of essays: Burden of Ashes, Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes & Pranks, and Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms; and most recently, the short story collection, 98 Wounds.

Brontez Purnell is a zinester, writer, dancer and musician, who now lives in California. Brontez was originally from Triana, Alabama, then moving to Huntsville, Alabama, and then to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he released Schlepp Fanzine while still living at home. He then relocated on his own to Oakland, California, where he released his next zine, Fag School. He is also the mastermind behind the band The Younger Lovers and is an ex-member of queer electro band Gravy Train!!!! Brontez has written for various publications, including the on-line edition of Jigsaw, and has also written a column called “She’s Over It” for Maximum Rock ‘N’ Roll. He has read his work at Lit Quake in San Francisco. He is currently working on his first novella "Johnny, Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger? (Diary of an American Waiter Bored at Work).

Carol Queen has a PhD in sexology; she calls herself a "cultural sexologist" because her earlier academic degree is in sociology: while she addresses individual issues, her overarching interest is in cultural impacts (gender, shame, access to education, etc.) on sexuality. Queen has worked at Good Vibrations (www.goodvibes.com), the woman-founded sexuality company based in San Francisco that turned 35 years old this year, since 1990. She serves as Staff Sexologist and Chief Cultural Officer. She is also the founding director (with her partner Robert Morgan Lawrence) of the Center for Sex & Culture, a non-profit sex ed and arts center San Francisco (www.sexandculture.org), and is a frequent lecturer at colleges and community-based organizations. Her dozen books include a Lambda Literary Award winner, PoMoSexuals, and Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture, which are used as texts in some college classes. She blogs at the Good Vibes Magazine, the Boston Dig, and at SFGate's City Brights bloggers page. For more: carolqueen.com.

Kirk Read (curator) is the author of the coming out memoir “How I Learned to Snap” and created the solo shows “This is the Thing” and “Computer Face.” He has toured with the Queen’s English, Sister Spit and twice with the Sex Workers Art Show. He is passionate about the intersection of art and public health. Over the years he has produced over 250 nights of performance and literature, including events addressing crystal meth, barebacking, computer addiction, sex work and HIV/AIDS from the perspective of artists and writers who create work from lived experience. He helped organize the Gay Men’s Sex Summit and the first two national Gay Men’s Health Summits in Boulder. He worked as a phlebotomist and HIV counselor at St. James Infirmary, San Francisco’s free clinic for sex workers. At St. James, he also started a support group for male sex workers. He cohosted the long running queer open mic K’vetsh with Tara Jepsen and cohosts Smack Dab with Larry-bob Roberts, a queer open mic on third Wednesdays at Magnet. He started Army of Lovers, an organization that curates queer art events. He started Formerly Known As, a festival of male sex worker performance, now in its fourth year. He believes in the power of art to shape and guide social movements.

Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, performer, and activist. Julia is the author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Seal Press, 2007), a collection of personal essays that reveal how misogyny frames popular assumptions about femininity and shapes many of the myths and misconceptions people have about transsexual women. Her other writings have appeared in anthologies (including Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation and Word Warriors: 30 Leaders in the Women’s Spoken Word Movement) and in feminist, queer, pop culture and literary magazines and websites such as Bitch Magazine, AlterNet.org, Out, Feministing.com, make/shift and Clamor. In recent years, Julia has gained notoriety in transgender, queer, and feminist circles for her unique insights into gender, and her writings have been used as teaching materials in queer and gender studies courses across North America.

K.M. Soehnlein is the author of three novels: The World of Normal Boys, winner of the Lambda Award for Gay Men’s Fiction; its sequel, Robin and Ruby; and You Can Say You Knew Me When. His fiction has been translated into Czech, Italian and Chinese. He's currently working on a novel set in New York City in the late 1980s and early ’90s, against the backdrop of the AIDS activist protest movement. His writing is included in the anthologies Who’s Yer Daddy? Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners; Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys; and Love, Castro Street. He has written for The Village Voice, Out, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7 and other publications. He was born in New York, grew up in New Jersey and has lived in San Francisco since the early ’90s. He teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco. He lives with his husband, Kevin Clarke, in SoMa. http://kmsoehnlein.com

Ed Wolf has been working continuously in the HIV/AIDS epidemic since 1983, as chronicled in the award-winning documentary “We Were Here." He has developed HIV-related curriculum and trainings for a large number of national and international organizations and institutions, including the California State Office of AIDS, the Shanti Project of San Francisco, UCSF AIDS Health Project and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles. He's facilitated trainings for counselors working in clinical trials in Lima, Peru as well as South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. His stories and articles have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Christopher Street, the James White Review and Prentice Hall’s Discovering Literature. Ed has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was awarded the HIV National Educator of Year Award from the body.com.

Laura Jane Grace and coming out as trans in the public eye

2012-05-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

So about once every year or two, somebody comes out as trans in a rather high profile way. Two years ago it was Chaz Bono. Before that there was Christine Daniels, Susan Stanton, and others before them. When this happens, I usually experience a mix of emotions.

Lots of trans folks celebrate the visibility that comes with these high profile coming outs, and how it can humanize us in the eyes of the world. In my case, when I came out to my family as a trans woman in 2002, they took it really hard. But a year later, when Jenny Boylan appeared on Oprah, my Mom rushed out to buy her book. While my Mom had come to accept who I was before then, the fact that another trans woman was on Oprah (a show she watched every day) really normalized the whole experience for her. Rather than me being the only trans person she knew, my Mom got to see that there were others like me out there in the world.

While visibility is important, these high profile coming outs sometimes do have their downsides. Sometimes the coverage can be overly sensationalistic. But even worse, the media's fascination with coming outs and physical transitions tend to create a situation where folks who have not been involved with the trans community very long suddenly become our spokespeople, whereas activists who are very knowledgeable about trans issues, and who have been fighting for trans rights for years, couldn't get five minutes with the media no matter how hard they might try. Sometimes, these high profile trans folks do a pretty good job of representing the community, but other times it can lead to disastrous politics.

The third emotion I feel is empathy/sympathy. It's hard to come out as trans, no matter who you are. It's hard to do all that explaining, and reacting to the various reactions (which for me, ranged from friends congratulating me, to friends never speaking to me again, as well as every imaginable response between those two extremes). But to do all that in the public eye, with even more people watching you, judging you, that must be especially hard.

So a couple weeks ago, when I heard that the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter for the band Against Me! recently came out as a trans woman, and is now going by the name Laura Jane Grace, I felt this usual mix of emotions. I hadn't heard of her or her band before (no offense meant by that, it's just that the last six years I've been listening to jazz more so that rock/pop music). So I had a rather generic reaction - in my mind, I wished her the best, and hoped that her high profile coming out would be one more small step toward public understanding and acceptance of trans people.

But then @eastsidekate on Twitter informed me that the Rolling Stone article in which Laura Jane Grace comes out mentions that Grace read my book Whipping Girl. (Funny, I always used to dream of being mentioned in Rolling Stone magazine. But as a musician, not as a trans author. Life is strange...)

So of course, like any person who hears such news, I went out to my local newsstand to buy Rolling Stone. And I read the article. It was typical mainstream fare: Lots of talk about medical/transitioning procedures, and language choices that bothered me. I wish they referred to Grace with female pronouns rather than male ones (although that could have been Grace's choice, as she was not yet presenting female at the time of the interview). And seriously Rolling Stone, in 2012, do you still need to trot out a "transgender expert" from the Kinsey Institute to tell us that "one in 30,000 men is clinically diagnosed as being transgender." Really. Are we still using those ancient statistics? According to that statistic, there are only 5,000 trans women living in the US right now. I personally have probably met well over 1,000 trans women in my life simply by being an activist and attending trans conferences over the years. Seriously, there is no chance that I've met over 20% of all trans women in the US!!!

Having said all that, the article could have been far worse. At least Rolling Stone handled this better than their article about Lana Wachowski (which I refuse to link to because it was *so* bad). Interestingly, the Wachowski article was called "The Mystery of Larry Wachowski" and Grace's article is called "The Secret Life of Tom Gabel." Apparently, we transsexuals are an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, and surrounded by Rolling Stone editors who are fond of mystifying us.

Aside from annoyances about how it was written, the article brought up a lot for me personally. I have heard a countless trans people's stories before, and I find myself identifying with some elements of their lives, but not other parts. But Grace's story really brought a lot of memories racing back to me, mostly because, like Grace, I was a lead singer/guitarist/songwriter for an indie rock band at the time that I transitioned.

My band was called Bitesize. We were not nearly as big as Against Me! mind you. But we were a fixture in the local SF Bay Area music scene from 1998-2005, and we toured up and down the West coast quite a few times. KEXP in Seattle used to play songs from our second album "Sophomore Slump" quite a bit, so we had a number of fans up there too. And we received some college radio airplay elsewhere. But that's about it, we never made it to the next level of touring nationally or getting much recognition beyond the West coast.

The Rolling Stone article discusses a number of Against Me! lyrics that strongly hinted that Grace might be transgender, even though most people did not pick up on it. That very much resonated with me. Music was my main creative outlet back then, and one of the ways that I expressed my trans-ness was through songwriting. One of the first Bitesize songs was called "I Forgot My Mantra," and it was basically about being a crossdresser (how I saw myself at the time). The chorus was a single line: "I'm a hermaphrodite, but that's beside the point." (For the record, I was not trying to claim an intersex identity with that line - I didn't even know what intersex was back then. I was just trying to express that I saw myself as both female and male at the time.)

Another Bitesize song, called "Switch Hitter," was an embellished sort-of-true-ish story about how I first decided to change my sex at my little league's All-Star game. The chorus of the song was: "A year from now I'll be the center of attention/After I have had my sex change operation." It was so empowering for me to get up on stage and belt out those lines. And as Grace mentions about some of her lyrics in the article, I thought I was completely outing myself as trans with that line, but nobody else seemed to connect the dots.

The first two songs on our second album were also trans-themed: "Surprise Ending" was about a trans women who accidentally runs into the bully who picked on her as a child. And "Understudy" (which is my favorite Bitesize song) is about a transgender teenage thespian who gets to play the role of Ophelia in a Catholic boy's school rendition of Hamlet.

Anyway, when I did eventually come out as trans (btw, in writing this, I found that my original coming out letter is still up on the Bitesize website), it was a fairly public coming out, as our band was very well known in the local music scene. There wasn't really a precedent for it at the time. Back then, there were a few trans-fronted bands scattered across the country, but they were all (as far as I could gather) bands where the front person was out as trans from the get-go, rather than one where the person transitioned mid-stream. So I really didn't know how people would react.

It turns out that things went mostly well. Part of it was probably because we were a part of an indie-pop scene that was the farthest thing from macho imaginable - most of the bands we played with were mixed genders, and many bands had openly queer (albeit not trans) members. We were punk-pop-ish enough that sometimes we would play on more punk rock bills. I know that some folks from that scene were somewhat less accepting of my transition. Our drummer Steve used to be more involved in that scene, and he said that people would occasionally come up to him and say something like "Dude, what the fuck is up with your guitarist?" in a really negative way. And then they'd seem taken aback when Steve would reply "Well Julie's really happy now and we all love and support her." That apparently neutralized them. In any case, I'm sure that people who were bothered by me being trans usually talked shit behind my back, not to my face.

Another thing that Grace's article reminded me about was coming out to my bandmates. From the start pretty much, my bandmates knew that I was trans. Well, initially they knew that I considered myself to be a crossdresser. Then as I began learning more, I started calling myself transgender. I personally made the decision to transition about 2 weeks before we began recording our second album "Sophomore Slump." Recording a record is super stressful, and I didn't want to add any unforeseen tension to the mix, so I decided not to tell them until recording was complete. The first band practice that we had after finishing the record, Leslie and Steve came in talking about recording and the potential song order of the album. And I said, "Hey guys, I have something serious that I want to talk about." They paused, and Steve kind of jokingly said, “What is it? Are you going to have a sex change?” And I just said, “Um...yeah.” Leslie and Steve were both super supportive, and that made the public aspects of my transition far easier knowing that they both had my back.

Anyway, I hope things go similarly well for Grace. It is ten years later, and there is certainly way more trans awareness in the mainstream now than when I transitioned, so that bodes well for her. But I also know that her transition is *way* more high profile than mine ever was - mine was largely confined to Bay Area music and artist circles, and hers is taking place in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. In any case, I personally found that coming out as trans was very much an exercise in learning how not to give a fuck about what anybody else thinks about me. Obviously, none of us is capable of completely letting go of other people's opinions about us. But learning how to be generally unconcerned with other people's thoughts, assumptions and negative comments regarding me being trans was a huge life lesson for me, one that has allowed me to be more self-confident and remain true to myself in countless areas outside of my gender. I would like to think that this same life lesson (which many trans folks eventually learn) might be helpful no matter how public one's transition is.

Justice for Brandy

2012-05-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

So a few days ago, a trans woman of color was murdered in my neighborhood, just a few blocks from my apartment. There has been scant media coverage about this, so some of us are trying to get the word out. Please help pass this news around. And if you know any media folks, please encourage them to cover the story. Here are all the links to this story that I am currently aware of. If you have additional ones, please post them in the comments section. Thanks! -j.

p.s., if you "tweet" about this, please use the hashtag: #JusticeforBrandy

http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/05/brandy-martell-killed-in-oakland.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/30/1087705/-Transgender-woman-murdered-in-Oakland-Nobody-Cares-

https://www.facebook.com/notes/holly-fogleboch/murder-in-oakland/10150775138911132

http://www.care2.com/causes/another-transgender-murder-is-anyone-paying-attention.html

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/04/transgender_woman_murdered_oakland.php

my Ms. Magazine blog article on Trans Feminism

2012-04-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

So some of you may already be aware of this, but yesterday my article "Trans Feminism: There’s No Conundrum About It" appeared on Ms. Magazine's blog. It is my rebuttal to a previous article on trans feminism that they published last month.

If you're interested, you can check out the aforementioned link...enjoy! -j.

julia update April 2012!

2012-04-18T14:25:00.004-07:00

in this julia update:

1) Girl Talk 2012 videos!
2) upcoming San Francisco shows!
.....................

Hi all, here's what's new in my world:

1) Girl Talk 2012 videos!

as promised, we (co-curators of Girl Talk) have made videos of this year's Girl Talk: A Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue show available for all to view! Here is the link to all the videos:

http://vimeo.com/markmcbethprojects/videos/search:girl%20talk/

The videos are not yet tagged, but you can tell which performer it will be based on the picture associated with the link. Here is the link to the video of my two pieces:

http://vimeo.com/39522510

enjoy!

P.S. full video of Girl Talk 2011 is also available on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PL6C0BC77CA710AB76

++++

2) upcoming San Francisco shows

--So tomorrow (Thursday, April 19), I will be reading at a benefit for my favorite Bay Area book store, Modern Times. And it will take place at one of my favorite Bay Area venues, El Rio. Here are the details from the Modern Times website:

40 Years of Radical Writing, Rabble Rousing, and Romancing Your Brain
A party with and for Modern Times at El Rio
- Thursday, April 19
- 6-9 PM
- El Rio: 3158 Mission Street
- $5-15, NOTA

We've been moving and shaking since our relocation from Valencia to 24th St. Now that the dust has settled, we want a party, and we want you to join us! Featuring stories of San Francisco by some of our favorite San Franciscans: Daphne Gottlieb, Erick Lyle, Chris Carlsson, Marge Nelson, and more TBA, with drink specials, prizes, food, and surprises. Proceeds go to the development of a new event/teaching space, expanded programming, and community engagement.

--and an advance heads up: on June 14, 15 and 16th I will be participating in a an amazing show called "The Biggest Quake". The show is curated by one of my favorite writers/performers, Kirk Read, and it examines the AIDS epidemic from an intergenerational perspective, both from people who lived through it as adults and people who did not. The cast is amazing - I'll send out all the details as the show draws closer, but I wanted to let people know so they can mark it on their "Pride month" calendars.

That's it for now. And remember, between updates, you can always check out:

my main website:
http://www.juliaserano.com

and I tweet regularly (@juliaserano):
http://twitter.com/#!/Juliaserano

for those interested in what I have to say when I have more than 140 characters to work with, there's my blog:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com

I also post all my upcoming events and news on my aforementioned blog, and it also all automatically gets forwarded to my Facebook "writer" page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Serano/277728205577201?ref=ts
so I encourage you to follow me (and perhaps "like me") there!

Best wishes, -julia

Trans-misogyny primer

2012-04-03T08:02:00.004-07:00

I am often asked to explain trans-misogyny to people. While I've written extensively about trans-misogyny in Whipping Girl and other places, I sometimes find it difficult to sum up the concept in a few short words. This is especially true when explaining the concept to people who are relatively unaware about trans issues and experiences. Such people are often stuck in the mindset of viewing trans women as "men", and as a result, they have a hard time wrapping their brains around how misogyny might impact trans women's lives.

So these days, when people ask me about trans-misogyny, I often forward them a primer on the subject that I wrote for the 2009 Women, Action, & the Media (WAM) conference (specifically for a panel called "In/Out of Focus, Broadening a Feminist Lens: Gender, Non-Conformity and the Media"). It is a one-page handout that provides a brief introduction to trans-misogyny. It is far from complete, mind you - while it highlights the ways misogyny exacerbates transphobia, it does not delve into how transphobia can exacerbate misogyny, nor does it discuss how transphobia and misogyny also intersect with other forms of oppression. But, it is decent intro to the topic.

Since I have found this primer to be useful for novice audiences and individuals, I have decided to make it publicly available for others who may be interested:

Trans-misogyny primer. by Julia Serano (PDF format)

If others wish to use this primer for their workshops/classes/activism/etc., I am fine with that, provided that they do not alter it in any way, and that I am properly credited.

For those who are interested in this trans-misogyny primer, but do not wish to download the PDF, the text of the primer can be found below.

Hope people find this helpful! -julia

+++++++++++++++++

Trans-misogyny primer
by Julia Serano

The words transgender and gender-variant are typically used as catch-all terms to denote all people who defy cultural ideals, expectations, assumptions, and norms regarding gender. While all people who fall under the transgender umbrella potentially face social stigma for transgressing gender norms, those on the male-to-female (MTF) or trans female/feminine (TF) spectrum generally receive the overwhelming majority of societal fascination, consternation and demonization. In contrast, those on the female-to-male (FTM) or trans male/masculine (TM) spectrum have until very recently remained largely invisible and under-theorized. This disparity in attention suggests that individuals on the trans female/feminine spectrum are culturally marked, not for failing to conform to gender norms per se, but because of the specific direction of their gender transgression - that is, because of their feminine gender expression and/or their female gender identities. Thus, the marginalization of trans female/feminine spectrum people is not merely a result of transphobia, but is better described as trans-misogyny.

Trans-misogyny is steeped in the assumption that femaleness and femininity are inferior to, and exist primarily for the benefit of, maleness and masculinity. This phenomenon manifests itself in numerous ways:

-- Studies have shown that feminine boys are viewed far more negatively, and brought in for psychotherapy far more often, than masculine girls.

-- Psychiatric diagnoses directed against the transgender population often either focus solely on trans female/feminine individuals, or are written in such a way that trans female/feminine people are more easily and frequently pathologized than their trans male/masculine counterparts.

-- The majority of violence committed against gender-variant individuals targets individuals on the trans female/feminine spectrum.

-- In the media, jokes and demeaning depictions of gender-variant people primarily focus on trans female/feminine spectrum people. Often in these cases, it is their desire to be female and/or feminine that is especially ridiculed. While trans male/masculine individuals are often subjects of derision, their desire to be male and/or masculine is generally not ridiculed - to do so would bring the supposed supremacy of maleness/masculinity into question.

Perhaps the most visible example of trans-misogyny is the way in which trans women and others on the trans female/feminine spectrum are routinely sexualized in the media, within psychological, social science and feminist discourses, and in society at large. For example, the media not only regularly depict trans women's bodies and experiences in a titillating and lurid fashion, but they also sexualize trans women's motives for transitioning - e.g., by portraying them as either sex workers, sexual deceivers who prey on unsuspecting heterosexual men, or as male "perverts" who transition to female in order to fulfill some kind of bizarre sexual fantasy. While trans men may face a certain degree of media objectification, their motives for transitioning are not typically sexualized in the same manner. If anything, those who project ulterior motives onto trans men generally presume that they transition in order to obtain male privilege rather than for sexual reasons. Thus, the presumption that trans women (but not trans men) are sexually motivated in their transitions appears to reflect the cultural assumption that a woman's power and worth stems primarily from her ability to be sexualized by others.

for more about trans-misogyny, see Serano, J. (2007) Whipping girl: A transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.

Julia @ Southern Oregon University!

2012-03-31T15:02:00.002-07:00

So on April 5th I will be speaking at Southern Oregon University on the topic of Intersections of Feminism, Queer and Trans Politics. A Facebook invite for the event can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/348937678481830/

For those who eschew Facebook, here is the pertinent info:

Thursday, April 5 at 7:00pm
at Meese Auditorium @ SOU

Refreshments will be provided!
For more information, call 541-552-8329.
If you require accommodations, please call Casey at 541-552-6222.

Presented by the Queer Resource Center and the Gender and Sexuality Union.

Sponsored by the Women's Resource Center, the College of Arts and Sciences, SOPride, EPIC, The Gender Sexuality and Women's Studies Program, the Multicultural Resource Center and Res Life.

hope some of you can make it!!

Best wishes, -julia

Come to the "Girl Talk" pre-show mixer Thursday @ 6pm!

2012-03-25T17:57:00.002-07:00

Hey "Girl Talk: A Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue" ticket holders:

We (the co-curators of Girl Talk) are throwing a mixer just before the show! There will be food and drink, plus music provided by the amazing DJ CPI! There will be a merch table where you can check out (and perhaps even procure) books, CDs, zines, etc., by Girl Talk cast members. But most importantly, this will be a chance for those of us who are committed to fostering community between queer trans women and queer cis women to meet one another, chat, and have a bit of fun before the event begins!

The mixer takes place at 6pm (one hour before the show begins) in the lobby just outside of the Rainbow Room. In other words, just show up to the event an hour early, and we'll be there having a blast!

btw, please *spread the news about this mixer*! It wasn't mentioned in the initial promotion for the show, so if you know you know anyone else who is also attending Girl Talk, be sure to encourage them to come out early for the mixer!

Hope you can make it!
-Gina de Vries, Julia Serano & Elena Rose

show details:
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
7:00pm - 10:00pm
mixer @ 6pm!!!
San Francisco LGBT Community Center - Rainbow Room
1800 Market Street between Octavia & Laguna

Advance tickets have sold out. A limited number of tickets will be available the day of the show - $12-$20 sliding scale; no one turned away for lack of funds.

Girl Talk tickets selling like hotcakes!!!

2012-03-10T13:33:00.003-08:00

Hey folks, a quick reminder to purchase your tickets for Girl Talk 2012: a Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue *as soon as possible*, as over half the advance tickets are already sold! Every year the show has sold out, so we highly advise you to get your tickets right away - all of the show info (including a link to purchase advance tickets) can be found below...

Hope you can make it! -julia

.......................

Girl Talk: A Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue

Thursday, March 29th, 2012
7:00pm - 10:00pm
San Francisco LGBT Community Center - Rainbow Room
1800 Market Street between Octavia & Laguna
Tickets: $12-$20 (no one turned away)

curated by Gina de Vries, Elena Rose and Julia Serano

cast includes: Charlie Anders, Dominika Bednarska, Gina de Vries, DavEnd, Thea Hillman, Nomy Lamm, Emily Manuel, Elena Rose (aka Little Light), Julia Serano and Jos Truitt.

here are some links:

Facebook invite:
https://www.facebook.com/events/217563091671401/

QCC website:
http://queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/HealthyC/girlTalk12.html

my blog:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2012/01/announcing-girl-talk-2012-trans-cis.html

purchase advance tickets from Brown Paper Tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/223538

show description:
Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day - from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having "othered" bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear.

Girl Talk is an annual spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds - sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

full video of Girl Talk 2011 is available on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PL6C0BC77CA710AB76

a link to an mp3 of Girl Talk 2009 can be found here:
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2011/08/girl-talk-cis-and-trans-woman-dialogue.html