Myth of Father

I watched Myth of Father tonight, a 28 minute documentary by Paul Hill about his transsexual father. He interviews his dad, Jodie, and other family members, painting a touching snapshot of simultaneously complicated and simple family dynamics. In part of the film, he orchestrates a family reunion to try to bring everyone closer. I can relate to Paul Hill, not just because I have a transsexual father, but because of his position in the family - the one trying to maintain relationships with everyone. At one point, Paul says "the thought of my dad living as a woman is still a little strange, but I need my dad in my life. And I'm thankful that she's found her true self." His parents split up when he was young and his dad was always distant.

It's amazing that through a parent's transition, one can sometimes discover a relationship that you've always been missing.

Support Gender Protections in Massachusetts!

On March 4th, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing for HB 1722 "An Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes". If you live in MA, please call your state rep in support of this bill - here's how.

I lobbied for this bill back in May as part of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) Lobby Day - it was actually a "lobby date" with my soon-to-be boyfriend. We wandered around the state house, entering legislators' offices and explaining our individual connections to the bill. I talked about my dad, he talked about himself. Then we walked through the Boston Common and had lunch in Copley Square. It was a memorable super SOFFA experience and one of my favorite dates of all time. Although we're no longer together, I hope the bill passes for his sake, and for all of the other transgender and gender non-conforming people still living in Massachusetts.

Since I am still in California and too far away to testify at the hearing, I submitted the following written testimony:

My name is Monica and I lived in Jamaica Plain, MA, until late 2007, when I moved to San Francisco to work for COLAGE, a national organization of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer parents. I am completing a fellowship at COLAGE to expand their Kids of Trans program and develop resources for people with transgender parents.

My father is a transgender woman who transitioned from male to female in western Massachusetts about ten years ago. She found it difficult to maintain a career while facing discrimination as a transgender woman. Eventually, she took a job with a corporation in Vermont with human resources policies prohibiting gender based discrimination. She was forced to make a long commute, keeping her from spending time with my 14-year old sister. Last year, she and her partner finally decided to leave Massachusetts permanently to move to Vermont, one of a growing number of states with protections against gender-based discrimination.

HB 1722 would provide much needed protections for families like mine, families with one or more transgender parent(s). As the daughter of a transgender person, I have witnessed the impacts of transgender discrimination on my family. My father has struggled to support our family and found that her best option was to leave the state. Passage of this legislation would provide transgender parents, like my dad, with the opportunity to work and live in Massachusetts without fear of discrimination.

Thank you for your consideration of my family in the passage of HB 1722, An Act Related to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes.

Bishop V. Gene Robinson

wants to smash the patriarchy:


Coming from the mouth of the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal church. Now that's what I call liberation theology. We need to send his daughters some "I HEART my gay dad" pins.

Creating Change

I leave for Detroit tomorrow morning along with three other COLAGE staffers, to attend the 20th Creating Change conference. This will be my first. It feels so different to be going to a conference as part of a team, after so many solitary plane and train rides to transgender conferences over the last few years. I am excited to see familiar activist faces, meet new folks, catch up with some really good people, and learn a lot. It seems to me sometimes that conferences have the fuel of street protests - both events of coming together to feel less alone in our politics and our actions.

building a bigger toolkit...

Queespawn Radical Cheer

I was flipping through a copy of COLAGE's newsletter Just for Us and came across the cheer that the high school radical cheerleaders workshop performed at Familyweek last summer. It reminded me just how much I love this community. Here is the text:

The nation now is so uptight
All queerspawn have got to unite
The G-O-V's got hate and spite
So us queerspawn gotta shed some light

Chorus:
Resist! Resist! The system that we're in
Picture-perfect families don't let every one in
(repeat)

Families on TV have a mom and a dad
My family's different and we sure are rad
I see you you shooting that documentary
but that's not everybody's family
Families of color and KOTs
Single parents and divorc'es
Second-gen's not what they want to see
Resist the expectation that they have for me!

CHORUS

If all our families come together as one
That's the way it's gonna get done!

New Art Hero

What happens when you dump half a million plastic balls down the Spanish Steps in Rome?



Graziano Cecchini, the mastermind behind this stunt was also responsible for turning the 18th century Trevi Fountain red in October.

I'm (rarely) tired of using technology

The purpose of my journey out west, in under four words was “building a bigger toolkit”. I can feel it already, half way through my stay in San Francisco. I’m an activist; it’s official. Although I’m not sure that I’m a writer. But my ability to have the greatest impact depends on my communication skills. I am writing this resource guide - the pamphlet for KOTs. It will exist within the next six months, out in the world. What a gratifying thought.

I got a new tool this week, thanks to my colleague Lauren, who is writing a training manual for local and national volunteers to understand and integrate COLAGE’s social justice framework. She is a writer and impresses me on a regular basis. She showed me this program called Scrivener, which is a magical intuitive writing software that allows you to work on multiple documents within a larger document, among other common-sense tools. I downloaded a 30-day trial and started using it this afternoon. It’s sadly only available for Mac OS X Tiger or higher. My nerdy love for this application is almost too much to admit. The most useful feature, in relation to productivity, is the full screen view, which blacks out the rest of your screen and leaves you with a blank page to write on. As yet another easily distracted member of the information age, this feature may change the way I work. Isn’t that what innovative technology is supposed to do? The software is created for writers, so the tutorial kept reminding me that I must be a writer if I’m using the program. Let’s consider it positive reinforcement.

Yay toolkit!