Photographer Richard Chase's show "The Mask"

Warning: Richard Chase's sites include nudity.

I met photographer Richard Chase when he advertised in the Queer Agenda (a local GLBT et al enewsletter) for trans and other models and I emailed him; we’ve done a few shoots of me.

One of his most recent collaborations is with maskmaker Eric Bornstein, Founder and Artistic Director of Behind The Mask – Richard photographed models wearing some of Eric’s masks, then Photoshopped the images. Some of the photographs are the Cambridge Center for Adult Education’s (Harvard Square) show “The Mask”.

Tonight was the show's opening reception, and I attended.

Coming soon, more about me and photography in my entry “Me & Photography”.

GLAD's Transgender Rights Project

GLAD is Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the New England legal organization which works to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status and gender identity and expression -- their motto is “equal justice under law”. Recently they realized they needed to have a program dedicated to trans legal issues, especially basic civil rights – which we transpeople still don’t officially have in Massachusetts! The bill adding “gender identity and expression” to the state law (against discrimination and hate crimes) should pass next year, but even after that we’ll need GLAD’s help. And so at New England Trans Pride on Saturday June 7^th (in Northampton), GLAD officially launched their Transgender Rights Project.

In July, GLAD announced that they were looking for transpeople to be in the photographs for TRP’s publicity materials. I responded and was chosen for one of the photo shoots, and then for the brochure! (They chose which photo of me to use, and it was a good one.) They hired local trans photographer Jess Dugan, who I’ve known since he was a teenager.

Tonight GLAD held a reception to officially introduce the TRP publicity materials, and I attended. There were speakers, a gallery of the framed photos, and food.

I can’t yet link to the brochure, but the links above include the content. And hopefully you have access to the hard copy or will soon.

Coming soon, more about me and photography in my entry “Me & Photography”.

Islam and I

Fellow Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE) member (and blog author) Richard Juang talked me into an unusual outing tonight, and I’m glad he did. (No, not that kind of “outing”!) I've known Islam a bit longer and better than many people, but I still don’t know enough. Yesterday, a few of Richard's acquaintances of invited him to the Boston Muslim Film Festival, and he invited me.

The BMF Festival is a program of the American Islamic Congress and its Project Nur. The AIC is a civil-rights organization promoting tolerance and the exchange of ideas among Muslims and between other peoples, working globally with offices in Washington, Boston, Egypt and Iran. One of AIC’s student-led initiatives is Project Nur (“Enlightenment”), which helps to build bridges between Muslim and non-Muslim students on university campuses by promoting co-existence, tolerance, and understanding.

This year’s BMF Festival theme is “Art Under Fire”. We attended the premiere, Nina Davenport’s documentary Operation Filmmaker at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square (Cambridge, MA). “OF” is the story of Muthana Mohmed, an Iraqi film student. Liev Schreiber, an American actor, saw Muthana featured on MTV and invited him to intern on the set of Everything Is Illuminated in the Czech Republic. What follows is a long, strange trip through ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, Hollywood, Europe, England and more.

Before the film, the audience was given Festival goodie bags of informational materials and candy, spoken to by the organizers, and treated to a show of bhangra dancing (the folk music and dance created by the farmers in Punjab region of Pakistan and India to celebrate Vaisakhi, Spring) by Boston University’s group to promote an upcoming collegiate competition.

Our after-party was at least as interesting. In keeping with the theme of the evening, we dined at Algiers (next door to the theatre! it seems they don’t have their own website, but I hope I’m wrong, because it’s a wonderful place and that link doesn’t do it justice). And one of our party turned out to be a Swedish woman here as a fellow at Harvard University, working on the philosophy of the ethics of stem cell research. Yes, we both exchanged contact info with her.

Thank you to all our hosts for a night of much figurative and literal food for thought!

(This entry is crossposted to the ICTE blog. I’ll be emailing it to the Festival as a thank-you card.)