Being better brothers and sisters

Really, I mean to post about the most recent liturgy from my Dignity service, but before I do that, I wanted to give quick props to last week's liturgy as well.

The Readings for Mass on July 23 were as follows:
First Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-16
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6
Second Reading: Ephesians 2:13-18
Gospel: Mark 6:30-34

From these readings, the priest tried to impart to us the importance of truly treating each other like brothers and sisters (in the ideal sense of loving relations that ultimately work together for the good of all). The message was clear--we need to treat each other gently and with love. During the liturgy the Father was explicit in his concern about the war between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and the growing number of deaths, both military and civilian, on both sides. He prayed that in being better brothers and sisters to one another, we could end this war, and others such like it, as well as prevent any others in the future. Realistic or not, it's a nice thought and one I will continue to pray for.

On a more personal level, I took the message to be a better brother/sister with me to work. One of my co-workers has been especially frustrating lately, and rather than continue to hold onto that frustration, anger, and hurt, I went into work on Tuesday determined to be a better sibling.

I'm glad I did...approaching my co-worker, n., with gentleness proved so much more effective than the disgruntled brooding I had been practicing. Next week will mark the one year anniversary of her mother's death (after years of battling cancer), and so she's been quite understandably off kilter lately. At the one year anniversary they'll be spreading her mother's ashes...

I've been working with n. for nearly four years now, and saw over those years just how must she had to shoulder as the oldest child--caring not only for her ailing mother, but also for her two younger brothers (one who just graduated high school, and the youngest who just started kindergarten). Hers is definitely not a position I envy, nor, to be completely truthful, one I'm sure I could have handled. At 20 years old, she's seen a lot in life, and yet still has so much growing and learning to do, too.

In any case, letting go of my anger allowed us to talk about all these things (and more), and to reach a better place where I could be a friend. I, too, have seen a lot in my (now almost 31) years, but still have much to learn. I'm thankful I had this opportunity to grow that much more. I just hope in the future I will remember from the start to be a better person to my fellow people.

Miss Universe 2006

Turned on the TV tonight and stumbled across the opening of the 2006 Miss Universe Pageant--and I'm glad I did.

The opening number showcased the delegates in their National Costumes. So many of these costumes were just fabulous, and in so many different ways...

I loved the attitude and spunk behind Japan (Kurara Chibana)




the energy and brightness of Bolivia (Desirée Durán)




and the richness and fluidity of Trinidad & Tobago (Kenisha Thom)







What I really enjoyed about the opening number and these National Costumes in particular are the way they demonstrate the national pride of so many different countries. Being in the U.S., sometimes it seems as if (we) Americans think that we've cornered the market on patriotism. Seeing each of these delegates was a great illustration to the contrary. It was also amazing to see 86 women--each from a different country--all on the same stage. (When does that ever happen, outside of pageants like these, and olympic events?) It certainly helps the dream that maybe someday we can all get along...

Wrong Hands

Not that I've recently been in the "wrong hands" lately--heck, I haven't been in any hands for what feels like quite some time!--but I wanted to share the lyrics to this song by Brianna Lane.

I picked up Lane's most recent album, Radiator while I was in Atlanta, GA at Charis Books and More: Your Independent Feminist Bookstore and have been enjoying it ever since...

spooning in this big bed i can't get to sleep cause i'm in the wrong hands i'm undeniably alone can't get to sleep next to this man - i lie awake composing letters to my love wondering if these words will ever see the page i lie awake feeling his palm against my hip his body pressed around me like a cage - i edge closer to the wall try not to dream try not to think of him at all i'm under the wrong hands - staring at the new paint he is fast asleep so unknowing that my thoughts are in my past he is fast asleep his hands are moving - i lie awake recalling conversations with my love i'm staring at the water on the night stand i lie awake remembering the feeling that i had within the warm embrace from the right hands - i edge closer to the wall try not to dream try not to think of him at all i edge closer to the wall try not to dream try not to think of him at all i'm under the wrong hands - i want a dreamless sleep i want a quiet home no more hands that creep i want to wake alone - i edge closer to the wall try not to dream try not to think of you at all under the wrong hands

Here's to wishing for the right hands for us all

ROKETT on myspace

Finally getting around to posting this...

In a past post I shared a little about ROKETT, one of the DC drag king groups I really admire.

Now you can check out the bois on myspace:

Them DC King BoIs yual have grown to love,

R - ocky
O - mega
k
E - Cleff
T- hatWay &
T- az Majik Royalle

www.myspace.com/rokett_bois

be sure to check out our individual pages on myspace:

Rocky - [coming soon]
Omega - www.myspace.com/strangefoot
ECleff - www.myspace.com/ecleff
ThatWay - www.myspace.com/thiswaythatway
Taz Majik - www.myspace.com/tazmajik

Past in the Present, or Virtues of "Googling"

Given that my own mom, even in her (so far) limited internet surfing experiences, found ample traces of me on-line by doing a name search for me (not this blog, not yet, anyways), I shouldn't be surprised at the connections that this medium engenders.

On the whole, I've seen these as really pleasant connections. Folks from elementary school, junior high, high school, and college have found me (and, I them) on friendster, facebook, and myspace. (Hopefully the trend will continue and the connections will increase because as I said in my original blog posting when I started this blog almost a year ago, I've lost contact with too many good people already.)

One recent update I wanted to share is about Felicia Luna Lemus. Felicia and I finished our undergraduate degree at the University of California, Irvine. I haven't seen her since graduation, but we've ran across each other in cyberspace before (she was doing a search for Good Vibrations and came across a link to them that I had on a webpage), I've seen an erotica short story of hers in On Our Backs, and I was ecstatic to run across her first novel, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties years ago while randomly browsing at a nearby bookstore. Then I googled her and found her webpage.

(I wasn't surprised to see her published--Felicia is wicked smart, poetic, and artistic, and I'm sure she's only gotten better with age! She's the kind of smart that other people (me included) are often intimidated by because our own insecurities rise to the surface, though she's nothing but kind, welcoming, and sincere.)

In any case, an essay of hers has just been recently published as part of the collection, A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing edited by T Cooper and Adam Mansbach (ISBN: 1-933354-02-X) and she's currently scheduled for a number of readings and other similar events in conjunction with publicity for the book. These will be readings with other authors including T Cooper, Adam Mansbach, Kate Bornstein, Amy Bloom, Paul LaFarge, David Rees, Darin Strauss, Alexander Chee, Benjamin Weissman, Neal Pollack, Ron Kovic, and Sarah Schulman, with dates ranging from August to October in New York, California, Washington, Massachusetts, and Oregon. Definitely events to check out!

Best of all, she's scheduled to be in Baltimore, MD in the Fall (Friday & Saturday, October 6 & 7, 2006, Charm City Kitty Club, 3134 Eastern Avenue, Doors/bar open @ 7 pm, Show starts @ 8 pm (both nights), with: T Cooper, Dynasty Handbag, Pamela Means, and others), so I may just yet get to meet up with her face-to-face.

Queer Migrations

Just wanted to give quick props to the book Queer Migrations

Luibheid, Eithne and Lionel Cantu, Jr., eds. Queer Migrations: Sexuality, U.S. Citizenship, and Border Crossings. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

see especially:
Cantu, Lionel J. with Eithne Luibheid and Alexandra Minna Stern. "Well-Founded Fear: Political Asylum and the Boundaries of Sexual Identity in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands"

Manalansan, Martin F, IV. "Migrancy, Modernity, Mobility: Quotidian Struggles and Queer Diasporic Intimacy"

Randazzo, Timothy J. "Social and Legal Barriers: Sexual Orientation and Asylum in the United States"

Somerville, Siobhan B. "Sexual Aliens and the Racialized State: A Queer Reading of the 1952 U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act"

It's one of the few books that I've read that I feel really speaks to me and what I want my own work to do. It's been so refreshing and pricelessly reassuring to see such queer scholarship that looks at migration and citizenship, and that looks at queers of color from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, and the Philippines.

Thank goodness that I was able to get it through interlibrary loan (ILL) since my own university library doesn't own it! (Then again, they don't seem to own much of what I want and think will be useful for my disseration, and of late haven't even been able to provide me copies of texts even through ILL) :(

Inked (& Infinite)

A couple of weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night and had the urge to journal. I wasn't necessarily having a restless night, but certainly one filled with lucid dreaming. I had gone to bed thinking of something/someone, and continued in my sleeping state to do the same. When I woke, though, I felt such clarity and peace. I wrote about it all in my journal, and then went back to sleep.

The feelings of clarity and peace stayed with me all the next morning--it was euphoric in many ways. I decided to memorialize the moment by inscribing (literally) it into my flesh.

I headed to Great Southern Tattoo in Alexandria, VA and got inked for the sixth time. My artist, Jason, was a good sport--I wanted an infinity symbol with contoured lines and no shading (gray or otherwise) and he drew a couple of versions until I was satisfied.



Why the infinity symbol? Well, I could say that it started with Stephen Chbosky's novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower and his mention of being and feeling infinite (39, 213). It does have to do with this, but with a degree (or two) of separation.

Before Chbosky, though, it goes back to n.--a woman who's peaked my interest for some time now who I just can't get out of my mind. My friends think I'm ridiculous for carrying on about her (and they're not wrong). I've made my interests clear, and she's made her lack of interest equally clear. Still, I haven't let go (and in all honesty I'm not actively trying to. I figure things will sort themselves out eventually, and in the mean time, everything I like about her is still there, so doesn't it make sense that my desires are still there, too?)

Okay, so maybe I'm naive. I like to think of it as optimistically-romantically-inclined.

In the mean time, I am feeling infinite...

as if there's no end to what I could learn
as if there's no end to how much I can grow
as if there's no limit to what I can achieve
as if there's no limit to what I can give

The potential of life,
the possibilities of love
unbound

and my hope and faith neverending


Rather than naivety, it's a reflection of being a dreamer, and one I'm damn proud to carry with me, and show to others, forever.

API LGBT Survey

In the attempt to support the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Policy Institute's efforts to conduct the largest-ever national study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, thought I'd share their press release here.

And of course, take the survey by visiting http://www.thetaskforce.org/apisurvey

WASHINGTON, June 16 — The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force today announced the launch of the largest-ever study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Asian and Pacific Islander (API) Americans. The study, conducted by the Task Force Policy Institute in collaboration with API organizations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C., seeks at least 500 participants to complete an online survey. The confidential and anonymous survey is available in four languages: English, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. The survey is available at www.thetaskforce.org/apisurvey.

"The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Asian-American community is under-served, under-researched and under-studied. Its members are caught in the margins," said Alain Dang, Task Force Policy analyst and the study's lead researcher. "We need to better understand the experience of this diverse part of our community. The findings of this study will help us to include the voices of the LGBT Asian-American community at all levels of discussion."

The survey includes questions about the basic demographics of participants, as well as questions that assess their public policy priorities and their experiences in mostly straight Asian communities and mostly white LGBT communities. It also assesses participants' experiences of harassment and violence related to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or racial/ethnic heritage, as well as their interactions with law enforcement authorities if they chose to report those experiences.

Findings from the study will be used to promote the particular concerns and priorities of API lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to mainstream API and LGBT organizations, as well as to foster the Task Force's longstanding commitment to understanding the particular experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of color and low-income LGBT people.

Partners in the study include the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance in San Francisco, Asian Equality, Invisible to Invincible in Chicago, and Asian Pacific Islander Queer Sisters (APIQS) in Washington, D.C.

"Our collective experiences as immigrants, often bicultural and multilingual, provide a depth and richness to building inclusive LGBT and API movements for social justice," said Trang Duong, co-chair of APIQS.

This study is the second phase of work that started in 2004 with the Task Force Policy Institute's Asian Pacific American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: A Community Portrait. Written by Dang and Mandy Hu, that report concentrated on the New York City metropolitan area and discovered that 82 percent of those surveyed had experienced discrimination based on their sexual orientation, and the same percentage reported racial and ethnic discrimination. A PDF of the report can be downloaded at www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/APAstudy.pdf

Are you mixed? Yeah, half woman, half bitch!

This was just one of the memorable highlights, courtesy of Yellow Rage, from this year’s Creative Explosion.

As part of the fourth annual Creative Explosion: The Spirit of API Feminism Through Performance, the Washington DC chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF-DC) featured Look Again, The Pinstriped Rebel, and Yellow Rage.

Creative Explosion is NAPAWF-DC’s signature fundraising event; “an opportunity to empower APA women, to inspire them to get more involved in their community through NAPAWF-DC, and to enable them to attend the NAPAWF 10th Year Anniversary Gather in Los Angeles in September 2006.”

Although many of us arrived too late to enjoy any of the food donated by eight various businesses, it was definitely good to see the venue packed. I was also really impressed by the strong showing that APIQS—Asian Pacific Islander Queer Sisters—made at the event, evidenced by two rows of us wearing red tops!

The first of the two main acts, Look Again: An Original Short Play Inspired by the Vagina Monologues showcased local writers and performers. While I applaud all the writers and performers who put themselves out there, I particularly enjoyed the first vignette, “One Asian American Vagina’s Story” written by Darshan Khalsa and performed by Carmela Clendening, Victoria Tung, Nayyer Haq, and Debiyani Ker.

Then, of course, there was Yellow Rage:

A dynamic duo of Philly-based Asian American female spoken word poets. Through their voices, Catzie and Michelle hope to provide an awareness that is not often heard. Exploring topics from fetishes to cultural appropriation to ethnic pride, Yellow Rage challenges mainstream misconceptions of Asianness.

They certainly brought a lot of energy to the night’s performance, and best of all, illustrated the possibility of entertaining political performances. Yeah Yellow Rage! Definitely check out their website (where in addition to learning more about them, being able to purchase their CDs, you can read their blog, and check out their links to other fabulous APA performers) and their myspace.com page.

PS. Just have to give a quick shout-out to Catzie’s performance of “Laos in the House”—it was great!

Both Sides Now

**I guess "journeying" into and through gender is the predominant metaphor these days**

Khosla, Dhillon. Both Sides Now: One Man’s Journey Through Womanhood. New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2006.

Dhillon Khosla, in his book, Both Sides Now, offers readers an intimate chronicling through which he presents his bodily transformations from female to male. His chapters are broken down by the month and range from July 1997 (when Khosla is twenty-eight years old) to November 1999, moving readers through various steps in his transitions as a transsexual man.

Although not exclusively focused on the various medical and surgical procedures Khosla undergoes (including, but not limited to a full mastectomy, testosterone shots, hysterectomy, and metoidioplasty) Both Sides Now does center heavily on such bodily transformations. Khosla’s memoir makes evident the extent to which he lives in and through his body, and the utmost significance it is to his well-being (mental, emotional, physical, etc.) that his body not only match his gender identity as a man, but also that others in the world receive him as a man and his body as male.

Many may not understand the depth of the despair Khosla feels whenever he is addressed as “ma’am” instead of “sir.” I certainly don’t purport to fully understand the utter dejection Khosla conveys at such instances. But, to his credit, Khosla tells his story in such a manner that demonstrates to readers the necessity of such bodily transformations for him, if not for readers themselves.

With this said, I would expect Both Sides Now to appeal to other transsexual men looking for affirmation for their own choices to undergo various sex-alignment surgeries, while possibly being met with some skepticism from those transgender and genderqueer people who find themselves in various relationships to the question of hormones and surgery, whether in favor of some surgeries but not others, against any hormones and surgery whatsoever, and all other possible options.

An element concerning his various surgeries that I especially appreciated was Khosla’s descriptions of his pre-surgery routines and his post-surgery recuperations. Khosla gives us several glimpses of the processes circumscribing surgery—from researching surgeons, scheduling appointments, finding the money to pay for surgeries that health insurance won’t cover, getting home after surgery, dealing with drainage bulbs and catheters, as well as adjusting to the external physical changes (or lack thereof) accompanying surgery.

The struggles to find money to pay for transsexual-related surgeries are certainly not a new topic within transsexual narratives, nor are the concerns about post-operative satisfaction. However, I did find Khosla’s discussion of various pain medications and post-op recoveries (with and without complications) to be rather unique. It is in large part due to his struggles around surgery that he is able to so convincingly sway readers as to the vitality of surgery for him. (And, I doubt that we were even privy to the most gruesome details his post-op experiences.)

Another element that could have proved unique would have been if Khosla had said a little more about how his race came into play in his transition (he was born to an East Indian father and a German mother). We get glimpses of his racial identity in relationship to food, language, and growing up outside of the U.S., but never really in terms of his sexual or gender identities (with the exception of the name he chooses for himself).

[Hopefully race will figure more centrally in the book I picked up alongside Khosla’s, Max Wolf Valerio’s The Testosterone File: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male.]

Self-Made Man

Vincent, Norah. Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again. New York: Viking, 2006.

After seeing Norah Vincent on a TV news program some months ago discussing her latest book, Self-Made Man, I have to admit that I was intrigued. Not enough, mind you, to purchase it at its full-price hardcover price. However, when I saw it on sale (for $10) I jumped at the chance to check it out.

As far as its writing goes, the book is readable enough. Vincent tells her stories in an entertaining enough fashion that despite finding objections to several different things in the initial pages of the book, the writing style led to it being a quick read.

I will also say that I have a certain respect for the energy and time Vincent spent as Ned. She clearly committed herself to this project, and saw that dedication through in many ways.

Still, as a whole I found Self-Made Man disappointing in so far as it advertised itself as a book about manhood. The heights of Vincent's discoveries about men and manhood seem to be in direct proportion to the depths of her assumptions (and we all know that old adage about what happens when you ASSUME things, right?). It's not that I disagree with Vincent's findings, but rather that I was caught off guard by how surprised she was to experience these men's humanity.

Throughout the book (in too many places to cite here) Vincent reveals the sympathy she feels towards the men she meets while performing as Ned. Sympathy in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic. What I did find problematic, however, was that Vincent's sympathy for the men she encounters comes only as a result of her self-claimed "journey into manhood."

Where was this sympathy for men when she was Norah?

I had anticipated this book to be about more than just a lesson that "men are different, but not bad," but did not feel that it delivered more than that in the end.

We're not talking about just men or women here--or at least we shouldn't be solely focused on gender.

To a (small) degree Vincent does attempt to take socio-economic status into account when considering elements that help shape men's masculinities. Race, however, doesn't ever seem to register as a significant aspect for Vincent (expect when she assumes the men whose bowling team she joins will be racist).

Perhaps this is precisely why I am so disappointed in her sympathy for men--because as so many feminists of color have long noted, to be successful in our feminist struggles, there cannot be divides within communities based on gender. Seemingly, however, this lesson isn't one Vincent learned prior to her more so as Ned.

Moreso than being a journey into manhood, Self-Made Man seems to me better described as one woman's journey into womanhood and its assumptions about men and manhood, for the lessons that Vincent ultimately offers are not ones about men and manhood, but about how women could/should re-imagine and re-situate themselves in relationship to the men in their lives. There is a certain merit in these analyses, but one I'm afraid will be too easily digested by popular readers because of the ways in which Vincent's tale can be seen to conform to the trajectory of "lesbian-feminist-realizes-men-aren't-all-that-bad."

Unfortunately, in the end, this book reinforces stereotypical gendered thinking more than it disrupts it.

Some things that I do take away gladly:

"I thought that passing was going to be the hardest part. But it wasn't at all. I did that far more easily than I thought I would. The difficulty lay in the consequences of passing, and that I had not even considered. As I lived snippets of a male life, one part of my brain was duly taking notes and making observations, intellectualizing the raw material of Ned's experiences, but another part of my brain, the subconscious part, was taking blows to the head, and eventually those injuries caught up with me." (19)

"They were glad enough to see me, but not glad enough to miss me if I didn't show.
Besides, they were coming from long, wearying workdays, usually filled with hard physical labor and the slow, soul-deadening depreciation that comes of being told what to do all day by someone you'd like to strangle. They didn't have the energy for pretense." (30)

"They made me look ridiculous to myself and they made me laugh about it. And for that I will always be grateful to them, because anybody who does that for you is a true and great friend." (61)