abc news reports that calpernia addams will be appearing an a new reality tv series on logo.

the good news, unlike there’s something about miriam, the male contestants will know that calpernia is trans. the bad news, well, read on.

someone went to hell, and all i got was this lousy t-shirt.

about a month and a half ago, our local npr radio station had their pledge drive. instead of doing my usual united way thing at work, i decided to put that money toward supporting public radio, especially since i listen to npr almost every day. today, i received a thank-you note in the mail. i was beginning to think that they had forgotten about me.

apparently, police are considering the “suspicious” death of kellie telesford a murder. i wonder who came up with that clearly obvious conclusion stroke of genius. they should be promoted.

the detectives have also released pictures of the murder victim. i suppose now all the transphobes can gawk over them, and point out how much like a man she looks. i’m sure they’ll have a blast.

i wonder how quickly the news would have picked up on this story had the pictures been released first, being that the murder victim is a woman of color.

needless to say, the press is still pointing out that she was “born a man”, and listing the name she was given at birth. just in case anyone missed this “important information” in the first few articles that were written.

who’d have thunk?
h/t

via pink news, a trans woman is found dead in her home in south-east london. the cause of death was determined to be strangulation. the london police are treating the death as “suspicious”. :\

the press association reports the news as “the death of a transsexual”, but further in their article states that “scotland yard said the transvestite…”, contributing to further confusion.

all the articles in this google search report the victim’s previous male name.

queen emily posted about what it means to be trans earlier this week, and i’ve been thinking about it non-stop since then. and while i’ve written about it before, i don’t know that i’m any closer to a definition now, than i was then. wikipedia has a page on “transgender”, and even includes a picture of an actual, honest to goodness transperson, perhaps as one example.

i don’t know, but she kinda looks like a regular type of woman to me.the wikipedia definition is fairly good however, especially in that it states “The precise definition for transgender remains in flux…”. emily says that “there’s no one meaning to being transgendered”, and i’d agree. i do feel that we share in a set of common experience and attributes. though i’ll stress that most trans people do not share in all those experiences and attributes, but only some of them from a larger set that may be included in “transgender”.in a less than appropriate analogy, it reminds me of jeff foxworthy’s comedy bit and book “you might be a redneck if”, in which he makes light of all the various behaviors and attributes that *some* rednecks *might* engage in, based on all the common stereotypes. and in a very real way, i think the definition of trans works the same way. one problem, i believe, is the state of flux surrounding all the terms we use in our attempts to define trans, including, but not limited to:

• gender
• gender identity
• gender role
• sex
• male
• female
• man
• woman
• identity

and several others.so i thought i’d put together a few of these in the “jeff foxworthy” format:

you might be a tranny if your gender identity doesn’t match your assigned gender.

you might be a tranny if the sex assigned to you at birth doesn’t align with how you see yourself.

you might be a tranny if you exhibit attributes and/or behavior that falls outside culturally assigned gender roles and/or stereotypes.

you might be a tranny if you consider yourself trans.

you might be a tranny if you take sex hormones.

you might be a tranny if you’ve had surgical or cosmetic procedures done that target secondary sex characteristics.

you might be a tranny if you regularly visit, or have visited a therapist who specializes in “gender issues”.

you might be a tranny if a significant number of people believe your self-identified gender and/or sex is invalid.

you might be a tranny if people accuse you of being “confused” about your sex and/or gender.

you might be a tranny if your genitals don’t match the cultural norms of what a man or woman ought to look like.

you might be a tranny if your social security data doesn’t match the cultural norms of what a man or woman ought to look like.

you might be a tranny if people beat you up while accusing you of being a fag, because they feel deceived after they take off your clothes.

you might be a tranny if you’re afraid to, or feel uncomfortable with the use of, any public restroom that is gender-segregated and identified.

you might be a tranny if you have curves and/or bulges in certain places where they’re not commonly found on other humans.

you might be a tranny if you were assigned male at birth, and buy your clothes in the woman’s department.

you might be a tranny if you were assigned female at birth, and buy your clothes in the men’s department.

i’ll add to this as i develop this thought further.

let the shopping begin.

on this thanksgiving day, i think of all the things i am thankful for. not being on this years tdor is high on my list, being blessed with a wonderful husband definitely tops my list, having a job, enough to eat, a place to live, and clothes on my back are also things for which i am thankful.on the other hand, i also think of things for which i am not thankful. the clusterfuck that is enda tops that list, along with the pervasive discrimination through out our culture which fosters that kind of attitude, and all who take part of that. the lack of company that so many lgbt people face during the holiday season is also high on the list.in any event, happy thanksgiving, if you are so inclined and privileged to do so. if not, my thoughts are with you.

oh, and one thing i forgot to mention.

when i learned that my brand of cigarettes, misty light 120, was coming out with an exciting new look, yet maintaining the same light taste, i couldn’t think of anything better for the company to spend my money on, than the services of their graphics department. and here it is:

now *that’s* something to be thankful for. or something.

in an amazing twist of algorithms, “what’s my blog rated?” gave me a pg rating, despite all the talk of shemales, transsexuals, homosexuals, and guns. apparently, sites are rated according to words like sex (3x) and murder (1x). go figure.

h/t questioning transphobia