Sunday edition …

#1 - BME has a fascinating and lenghty interview with British tattoo and body modification artist Ash Crawford …

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BME: “Post-gender” as a concept, versus a more delineated switch of gender role is very interesting to me… how common is that concept?

I’ve noticed that a major genderqueer/post-gender scene here in the UK seems to be very much based around the fringes of the sex-positive dyke and bisexual scenes and there seem to be a large number of people there on the FtM spectrum, probably because a lot of those people used to identify as butch dykes. However, there are some very vocal post-gender spokespersons on the MtF spectrum too. Kate Bornstein is a big name among those of us who like our gender theory good and radical. Also, genderqueer people on the MtF spectrum have been hanging around the gay male scene for years. Maybe those communities have developed a slightly different language and set of priorities around transgender issues, but interesting things are still going on there.

Post-gender is absolutely not a transitional point between genders. That phrase implies that there are two proper genders to travel between and post-gender is somewhere you stop off on the way. The gas station of genders, if you will. Not a proper sort of place in itself. I see post-gender as a useful viewpoint for looking at society in general rather than a sort of half-way place between genders at which individuals can choose to reside.

For me personally, the basis of a post-gender identity is being aware that nothing is essentially male or female other than the reproductive organs, and that even these can occasionally be other than male or female; for example, they can be intersex. Anything else that appears to be gendered just seems that way because of stereotype and social convention.

Most aspects of behavior and appearance can be a gender signal to some extent. For example, for an androgynous person, having long or short hair can make the difference between being read as male or female. Yet hair length is weakly gendered, and will only be noticed as a gender signal in the absence of stronger ones. If stronger signals are there, a man can have long hair or a woman short hair without being considered transgender. Long hair may be traditionally associated with women but it isn’t an essential part of being a woman. It’s optional.

OK, so let’s take a more challenging example: Breasts. Most people think these are fundamentally female.. but are they really? If so, how did the concepts of “man boobs” and “bitch tits” ever come to exist? Why does the body modification called “male chest reduction” exist? It’s not just FtMs having this done! Of course there is a major trend towards men having less fat on their chests than women, but what we have come to accept as normal and acceptable does not include all of the body types that exist naturally. This is why increasing numbers of women are having breast implants and increasing numbers of men are having liposuction on their chest.

The full interview (”Ashley Crawford: Post-Gender”) can be found here.

#2 - This quote from the Kansas City Evening Star …

Among the many queer people on this terrestrial ball, the variety actors and actresses may be set down as the queerest … which is introductory to the subject of female impersonators in general and some in particular, who are the queerest of all these very queer people.

… from 1880 is the intro to a story today in the Kansas City Star on “La Cage aux Folles” and the long history of female impersonators in Kansas City.

Ron Megee, an actor who has probably worn more women’s clothing on stage than anyone else in town except those who perform exclusively as female impersonators, considered the subject as he applied his rehearsal makeup.

Why, he was asked, do audiences never tire of seeing men pretend to be women or women pretend to be men?

“I think illusion at all levels has been intriguing to the masses,” Megee said from his dressing table at the Unicorn Theatre. “Milton Berle made a life of it on television in the ’50s, and Flip Wilson did in the ’70s. There’s something nonthreatening about it. It also has that minstrel-show quality in that it’s a way to experience a culture without being submerged in it.”

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Grand old drag: Gender-bending theater has a long history in KC

#3 - From Tennessee, there’s this news story …

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Greer said a man approached her at Tequila Joe’s on July 15 after he saw her dancing with a male friend. The man, thinking she was a gay man, used a slur and told her to leave the club, she said.

Greer told the man she was a woman and a lesbian, she added.

He then punched her in the face, Greer said. He used the bottom of a beer bottle to jab her in her left eye about four times and then smashed the bottle over the back of her head, Greer said.

The man charged her when she got up but missed and fell, she added. She then pinned him down until bouncers grabbed her by the throat and threw her out of the club, Greer said.

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And this comment by reader, AFR Reporter …

ALL crimes are ‘hate crimes’.

this man is being punished; should he get more jail time just because the victim was a lesbian ( sexual deviant)?

NO, the US Constitution promises EQUAL protection, not more protection for gays.

I hate the racist NAACP; does that mean I can get arrested for pointing out their racist agenda on here?

Hate crime laws are nothing but ‘thought crime’ laws; you go to jail for what you think.

Hate Crime Laws are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Kudos to Marisa Richmond, by the way, for her attitude …

The representative of at least one state gay advocacy group was among those protesting Saturday. Marisa Richmond, president of the Tennessee Transgender Political Action Coalition, drove from Nashville to participate.

“I heard about it, and I just came down to be supportive of the community here,” Richmond said.

Her group fights for hate crime legislation and for awareness for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, she added.

#4 - And I wish that (Richmond’s united we stand) atttitude were more in evidence in Broward County …

Gays and lesbians in Broward County united last month over Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle’s anti-gay comments, but they are not nearly so united in how to protect the rights of transgender people.

An array of gay and lesbian leaders want the County Commission to add transgender protection to the Broward ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, even if that runs the risk of energizing opponents.

Others say that’s not smart politics. They’re attempting to slow action on transgender rights to avoid what they fear could be a backlash against the entire antidiscrimination law.

“Discrimination is always wrong,” said County Commissioner Ken Keechl, who supports moving ahead with the measure now.

“If not now, when?,” he said. “The people of Broward County, as demonstrated by the Naugle fiasco, have demonstrated that they’re a fair group of people that believe in equality for everyone.”

The local gay community recently staged public protests and garnered political support to rebuke Naugle when the mayor characterized gays as promiscuous and innately unhappy people.

Michael Rajner, co-administrator of the Transgender Equality Rights Initiative, a local group with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight members, said it’s a matter of doing what’s right.

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Timing of transgender protection effort divides gay leaders in Broward

Columnist Michael Mayo writes about the situation in today’s Sun-Sentinel …

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Cummings calls himself “a trans man on a mission,” trying to educate the general public about a condition mocked and misunderstood.

“People hear transgender and they think, Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Cummings said. “They think we’re freaks and perverts.”

Because of the widespread fear and ignorance, he said it’s time gender identity is added to the list of protections in Broward County’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

“We’re more discriminated against because so many of us can’t hide,” he said. “I’m lucky because I blend in very well, my transition went well, and I have my own business. But others have to risk losing everything — their jobs, their families, their friends.”

But what if a teacher transitions, and students and parents protest? What about a private business that doesn’t want to risk losing customers with a worker who shows up a different gender?

“I say grow up and get educated,” Cummings said. “It’s still the same person underneath, doing the same job. They’re still human.”

Broward’s human rights board has recommended adding gender identity to the anti-discrimination ordinance. But some in the gay community are resisting the change, fearing a backlash that could lead to a countywide referendum and the loss of their protections. It led to a heated meeting last week, when transsexuals confronted Robin Bodiford, a gay rights activist who wants to delay the transgender addition.

“I understand that you’re trying to get gay marriage and gay adoption and I applaud you for that, but how dare you!” said Tiffany Arieagus, of Fort Lauderdale, a transsexual. “Gay, transgender, it doesn’t matter. We all deserve the same rights.”

Time to give transgenders rights, not ridicule

#5 - The New Zealand Herald has a feature story on Chris Coles and asexuals …

As a student at the University of Liverpool in the 80s, Chris Coles called himself asexual. It made sense to him. “I was studying biology,” he says. “And asexual organisms don’t have sex.”

But few people understood the term so, as a young man in his 20s, Coles described himself as celibate. When he hit his stroppy 30s, he would tell people he was frigid.

The confusion over just what label to use is only one of many challenges asexuals in our sex-obsessed society face. Of all the sexual minorities - homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, and those with proclivities for just about anything - asexuals have had a low public profile and a real sense of isolation. Now they are banding together in a bid for recognition, understanding and acceptance.

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No sex please, we’re asexual

Outside Online has reported a Female Shark’s Virgin Birth:

A female hammerhead shark born in a Nebraska aquarium in 2001 has been identified as the first known shark to reproduce through parthenogenesis — a form of asexual reproduction that has been found in other vertebrate species like some snakes and lizards.

The bonnethead, a small hammerhead species, was held in captivity with two other female sharks for three years at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. At first, many scientists assumed she had either mated with another species or utilized sperm she had stored years ago.

But Mahmood S. Shivji, director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute, published a paper this week in the journal Biology Letters proving that “the female shark’s genetic material combined during the cell division of reproduction without the aid of male DNA.

I think it was a very interesting discovery and it fills in a gap in the types of animals that we know who can do this,” said Robert E. Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. “[Previously,] we knew asexual reproduction was possible in all vertebrate animals except for animals and sharks. This shows that it didn’t jump over the sharks as it went to amphibians.”

Hallelujah?