Fairness For All Marylanders Act - today & this Weekend Of Action

I spent the workday at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, where my partner Julia McCrossin and I delivered supportive materials about MD's trans rights bill, the Fairness for All Marylanders Act (#FAMA14), to all 147 House delegates. As part of the Maryland Coalition for Trans Equality campaign, we worked with Equality Maryland staff and volunteers to deliver a cover letter highlighting the 71% support for the bill, a myth and fact sheet, a letter about the online petition signatures, and the constituent postcards.

And this weekend is a Weekend Of Action for the bill, especially in Baltimore and Takoma Park, so check that out too. The opposition has been making a lot of legislator contact, and the session ends at the end of the month, so they really need to hear from supporters!

Adipositivity's first print sale!

Adipositivity is finally having its first print sale (Facebook, website; NSFW)! But only through the end of the month! Adiposers and their social media fans (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr) get a 20% discount through this Sunday the 23rd! 

And my partner Julia McCrossin's and my Adipose is included (#327/346) -- click here to see it in the sale (NSFW).  We Posed in New York in May of 2010 and were published on Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 -- usually Posers are individual fat women, but every February 1st though 14th there's a Valentines celebration of couples of many kinds where at least one partner is fat.  

So fatten up your wall(s), and/or whatever else you want!

Fairness For All Marylanders Ash Wednesday

My faith flair and stickers from today's hearing – all of which I wore to church as well.  The rainbow magen David pin was a gift from my cousin Andy in California many years ago, the silver charm I bought in Mexico City in 2003; the brass Jerusalem Cross / “Pilgrim” medallion was a gift to  participants at the Washington National Cathedral’s Epiphany retreat I went to in 2011 (while Julia was working there; the other side says "Thou art the journey and the journey's end / Washington National Cathedral"), the Episcopal Church shield pin I bought at the Cathedral’s gift shop with J.

“For all false judgments, 
For uncharitable thoughts towards our neighbors, 
And for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.”

-- Episcopal Church’s Litany of Penance (Book of Common Prayer)

What an extraordinary day.  “Intense and wondrous”, as a colleague commented on my Facebook post about it.

My partner Julia McCrossin and I testified at the Fairness for All Marylanders Act’s House hearing and attended our first Ash Wednesday service.

The Fairness for All Marylanders Act (FAMA, Senate Bill 212 / House Bill 1265; #FAMA14) would update the state’s anti-discrimination laws to  include gender identity and therefore transgender and gender non-conforming people.  This has been the bill's best legislative session yet, and this really seems like the year it could pass!  

I’ve always lived in Massachusetts, and have been one of the leaders of the faith campaign for MA’s trans rights bills.  I moved to Maryland in January to begin living with Julia, a lifelong MD (and DC) resident.

FAMA was passed by the Senate yesterday!  The next step towards passage into law was its House hearing today, before the Health and Government Operations Committee.  We had submitted written testimony in the form of letters through Equality Maryland -- lead member of the MD Coalition for Trans Equality -- and they asked us to testify orally as part of the several themed panels of supporters they were planning.  Click here for more about MD’s bill and our experience thereof – including our written testimonies.

We actually tried to receive our ashes before the hearing, but alas, the scheduling didn’t seem to quite work – the Episcopal Church was doing “ashes-to-go” at a few of our local Metro stations, they and other local churches were offering a few services each, and there was the EC right near the Statehouse (St. Anne's), but they all seemed too early or late for us.  At least if we were going to attend the whole service – that is, if it wasn’t ashes-to-go, we didn’t want to…ash and dash?  Is that the equivalent of “chew and screw”?  Too, what about the ashes washing off when we showered etc.?  If we ashed before we physically readied for the hearing.

We drove to Annapolis only to find all three parking lots full and little hope of street parking – but there was plenty of space left at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium lot, and the parking attendant was quite friendly because she appreciated that we had actually read and followed the directions on her sign.  We’d just missed the tourist trolley, but another one came in a few minutes.  And maybe this was at least a little bashert, because there was a Blue Angels plane on display, and I had time to photograph it for my father Bill Wasserman, who flew with them as a photographer when he was in the Navy from 1960 – 2.  (We also found a gold tie clip with the image of a gramophone, which I haven't found through Google.)

We arrived at the Statehouse with time to spare because the full House session had run over.  We checked in with some of the MCTE leadership and our fellow panelists, pulled ourselves together, and found seats together in the hearing room.  We the bill’s supporters had two panels of legislators and other politicians, then one of trans people, myself included; the testimony table had four chairs and three microphones, so four trans women went first, then Equality Maryland’s Director of Advocacy and Programs Keith Thirion and I took our turn.  Then there was a panel of trans people’s family members, which Julia was a part of, in addition to identifying herself as someone with a gender non-conforming expression.  The supportive panels continued for several more, and were all quite impressive, including their responses to the Committee’s questions.  

A particular highlight – and reason the parts of the day felt such a whole – was that the one person I knew from before my move was my trans faith colleague Donna Cartwright, co-chair of TransEpiscopal, of which I’m a member; she testified on the Labor-themed panel, representing Pride At Work.  And Julia had met her at a TransFaith event in Maryland in January.  

Then the opposition presented a few panels…oy gevalt.  Let’s just say, for now, that I’m glad the person sitting on my other side gave Julia and I a trigger warning before they began.  It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before (especially at the MA bills’ hearings) or expected to hear, or couldn’t handle, but even so.  It wasn’t anything anyone should have to hear – or feel they have to say.  But that’s the thing – if nothing else, the opposition panelists made it clear to even some of the opposition legislators that they were saying things that shouldn’t be said.  

We were the first bill of eight, and our bill’s part was all of a piece with no breaks and took a little over three hours.  And for the most part it was all quite well done.  And thus I must say, that although I know that Maryland’s process has its problems -- including some of which I’m not yet aware -- compared to Massachusetts’ meshugaas it’s a beautiful thing!  If this was MA, we’d almost certainly have missed the rest of Ash Wednesday, and been lucky to get home in time for bed – no matter where we lived in relation to the Statehouse.    

We checked out with a similar group of people – including getting a sense of the bill’s next steps and the opportunities to volunteer therein, pulled ourselves together again, and went out to wait for the trolley.  While at the Statehouse complex stop with several strangers, we were approached by someone presenting as an older, conservative, petite white woman dressed for business – she identified herself as a Statehouse employee who had been in the hearing room or listening to / watching the broadcast, thanked us a few times for our work and bravery, apologized for the opposition testimony, assured us they didn’t represent everyone, and wished us good luck with the bill.

Click here for audio and/or video of the hearing (House Video --> House and Government Operations --> Wednesday, March 5, 2014 Session #1 --> play button).

Even with some rush hour traffic, we were home in time for dinner and a little more work and rest.  And then it was off to the Episcopal Church of the Ascension’s Holy Eucharist and Imposition of Ashes (7:30 p.m. edition);  Julia has been attending since July, and I’ve attended with her a few times during my visits.  Somehow neither of us had been to an Ash Wednesday service or other observance before – we very much liked this one, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how much it was like Yom Kippur and the rest of the Jewish high holiydays.  Indeed, the priest used “mensch” in his sermon (and tends to make other good Jewish references).    

And in another bashert moment, I realized that I was sitting at the window that looked out onto the church’s columbarium* wall and its attending angel – my mother and her parents, from the Episcopalian side of the family, were all cremated (*Julia actually taught me that word when I mentioned this).

And as I mentioned, we wore the day's outfits and stickers to church.  Click here for the PDF of the Service Bulletin.  

The cantor, choir, Rev. Randy Lord-Wilkinson, and a few of our fellow congregants (out of the few dozen that were there) just after processing in and taking their places at the start of the service.

    

Fairness for All Marylanders Act – MD trans rights bill

My sticker from FAMA’s Lobby Day on Monday February 17th.  

The Fairness for All Marylanders Act (FAMA, Senate Bill 212 / House Bill 1265; #FAMA14) would update the state’s anti-discrimination laws to  include gender identity and therefore transgender and gender non-conforming people; click here for FAMA’s legislative fact sheet.  The campaign is being organized by the Maryland Coalition for Trans Equality (MCTE).  This has been the bill's best legislative session yet, and this really seems like the year it could pass!    

I’ve always lived in Massachusetts, and have been one of the leaders of the faith campaign for MA’s Trans Equal Rights Law, passed in November 2011, and its Trans Equal Access Bill (An Act Relative to Equal Access in Hospitals, Public Transportation, Nursing Homes, Supermarkets, Retail Establishments, and all other places open to the public, HB 1589 / SB 643), currently in progress.  I moved to Maryland in January to begin living with my partner, Julia McCrossin, a lifelong MD resident.  It’s been very interesting to contrast and compare the MA and MD legislative processes!    

Julia and I have been following and supporting MD’s bill for a while.  Our first in-person event was its Lobby Day on February 17th (Facebook event, photos) – we joined a pretty diverse group of at least a couple of hundred other supporters in Annapolis for an hour-long sunset rally on the Lawyer’s Mall, with speeches from MD Coalition for Trans Equality leadership including Equality Maryland, legislators and other politicians – including the governor!, and others -- including the mother of a trans woman of color who recovered from an almost fatal transphobic assault.  And there was a faith community presence, especially from the Unitarian Universalists.  Then a member of the trans community guided us and the other residents of Montgomery County’s District 17 (including several University of Maryland (College Park) students) to and through meetings with all four of our legislators, all of whom support FAMA.  It was almost too cold, especially after dark, because it was unseasonable (just above freezing) – but it was beautiful in all senses.  J and I gave a round-trip ride to another couple who needed one, and had dinner out with them after the event – we didn’t know them, but they turned out to be the perfect double date for us.

FAMA had a Senate hearing on February 4th,  was voted out and on with a favorable report by the Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee on February 20th, was read and debated by Senate last Thursday and Friday, February 27th and 28th – and has a final Senate vote TOMORROW Tuesday March 4th (Shrove Tuesday) -- click here to contact your senators (even if they're supportive)!  

FAMA’s next House step is its hearing before the House’s Health and Government Operations Committee THIS WEDNESDAY March 5th (Ash Wednesday)!

Please spread the word (#FAMA14), contact your legislators even if they're supportive, submit your testimony, attend, etc.!  Here are my and my partner's testimonies:

March 5, 2014

Dear Maryland House Health and Government Operations Committee,

My name is Mycroft Masada Holmes, and in January I moved to Gaithersburg from Boston, Massachusetts, where I was born and have always lived.

I write to you today primarily as a faith leader – Chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition’s Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality, a Community Engagement Adviser at TransFaith, and a member of Congregation Am Tikva and TransEpiscopal.  I’ve been one of the leaders of the faith campaign for Massachusetts’ Trans Equal Rights Law, passed in November 2011, and its Trans Equal Access Bill (HB 1589 / SB 643), currently in progress.

Today I am testifying in support of Maryland’s Fairness for All Marylanders Act (FAMA), Senate Bill 212 / House Bill 1265, which would update the state’s anti-discrimination laws to  include gender identity and therefore transgender and gender non-conforming people.

Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to work in criminal justice. After public school in the Boston suburbs of Brookline and Newton, I attended the city’s Northeastern University as a Criminal Justice major.  The university was supportive, but classes, campus life and housing were very challenging as the university’s first out transgender student.  After my sophomore year, I tried to participate in the cooperative education program -- students are placed in jobs in their majors during their next three years of school, helping them pay tuition and living expenses and find employment in their field after graduation.  The co-op department was supportive, but the employers wouldn’t even communicate with me, never mind interview or hire me.  Because I was trans, I was the only one of the 200 criminal justice students who wasn’t placed in a job.  Without the financial support and experience of co-op, I had to leave Northeastern.

It was devastating to learn that I couldn’t pursue my dream because I was trans, and that I had no legal recourse. The day my co-op advisor called to tell me I couldn’t be placed, and the details of the discrimination, I finally understood what it meant to be a member of a group of citizens that don’t have civil rights. And I realized that my calling was to be a trans justice leader.  I’ve had a wonderful career, love my work, and have a bright future.  But very little of my career work has been or is paid, and I don’t know when that will change – I continue to need other paid work, and it remains very hard to find due to employment discrimination based on my gender identity and expression, leading to frequent underemployment and unemployment.  And I am otherwise unusually privileged – life is far more challenging for trans and GNC people with more intersecting oppressions, including racism, classism and ableism.

I left my lifelong home of Massachusetts and moved to Maryland to begin living with my beloved life partner of 4 ½ years, Julia McCrossin, largely so we could be close enough to help care for her disabled mother and our dog.  Julia is a native and lifelong resident of Maryland and Washington DC – the latter has had trans rights successfully for years – and is also gender non-conforming and challenged by discrimination.  We are privileged to live in Montgomery County, where we have trans-inclusive civil rights – but we worry about going to and through places where we are unprotected, which we often need and want to do, and which is more than half the state.  We and so many others need FAMA to pass into law, and as soon as possible.

I want my family, and all families, to have full civil rights whenever we’re here, and wherever we are.  I want us to be able to continue to live, work and play better than we have done, contributing even more to our state than we have.  I want this for all residents of and visitors to Maryland.  I don’t want anyone to experience discrimination – and yet I know that some will, and I want them to be able to take appropriate action.

I urge you to do everything you can to further this vital and long overdue legislation so that it can be passed into law this legislative session.

Thank you,

Mycroft Holmes
{home and e-mail addresses}

Cc: Maryland Coalition for Trans Equality (MCTE)
Senator Jennie M. Forehand (jennie.forehand@senate.state.md.us)
Delegate Kumar P. Barve (Majority Leader; kumar.barve@house.state.md.us)
Delegate Jim Gilchrist (jim.gilchrist@house.state.md.us)
Delegate Luiz R. S. Simmons (luiz.simmons@house.state.md.us)

~~~~~~~

March 3, 2014

Dear Maryland House Health and Government Operations Committee:

I write to you as an almost lifetime resident of the great state of Maryland, having spent about 39 of my 43 years living in Montgomery or Baltimore Counties.  My few years apart from Maryland landed me in an apartment in Washington, DC, less than 1 mile from the state border at downtown Silver Spring.  To say that I am deeply a part of the fabric of Maryland life is an understatement, as I am able to trace my ancestry on my father’s side back to the 18th century in Montgomery County.  There is even a street in Montgomery County named for one of my ancestors, who migrated to the farmland of Maryland from Ireland at a time where the Irish ‘need not apply,’ and yet he found a refuge in Maryland.  In addition, I’ve been blessed to have received most of my education from Maryland public schools, having attended Montgomery County Public Schools from Head Start through High School graduation, and attending Montgomery College and The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where I graduated cum laude in 2004.  This exemplary education allowed me to earn 2 graduate degrees from The George Washington University, as well.

I mention this at length to show that in spite of my educational background provided to me by a public educational system consistently ranked as the best in the United States, I still struggle to find employment that provides a living wage, let alone a wage that is commensurate with my educational attainments.  This happens not because of my credentials or my skills, but because of how I look.  I have no problem finding employment in the low paying service sector, where my intelligence, empathy, and dedication have served pet owners and book lovers well in my many years of retail/pet care employment, and my appearance means little in these industries that struggle to locate and retain good employees.  However, I have had little luck in cracking the white collar world, despite one undergraduate and two graduate degrees.

As a gender nonconforming individual, my appearance is the only thing that sets me apart from my better employed and compensated peers from high school and college.  My partner, who is transgender and comes from a similar background of educational excellence in Massachusetts, is in the same predicament, and has been so for years.  I was sure that returning to school to earn college degrees, as has been suggested as the best way to adapt to the current lengthy economic downturn, would be able to lift me out of my working class existence and allow me to earn a living wage.  This has not been the case.  In fact, now I am almost $50,000 in debt, unemployed, and living off the generosity of my retired, disabled mother.  I fear that because of the discrimination that transgender and gender nonconforming people experience in Maryland and most other places, that I’ll never be able to afford the kind of middle class life that my parents were able to build in Montgomery County as public sector workers without college degrees.

I am proud to have been raised in Maryland, and as a scholar of American literature and culture, I am proud of the tradition of outsider, nonconformist, and social justice figures in Maryland history.  Writers and abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, creative geniuses like John Waters and John Barth, women unafraid to break down barriers like Billie Holiday and Mama Cass Elliott, and many other figures in Maryland history have helped shape its image as a place of refuge and support for the outsider and the minority.  Our legacy as a colony supporting religious liberty in the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649, and our recent passage of the Civil Marriage Protection Act allowing for marriage equality for all loving and committed couples, demonstrates our enduring legacy as a place that genuinely strives to give all Marylanders the equality that allows them to perform at their best, and contribute to a better society.

I hope today you will vote for the passage of the Fairness for all Marylanders Act of 2014.  Let’s continue to place Maryland at the top of the list of places that promotes a just and egalitarian society for all, and a place that emphatically shuts the door on ignorance and discrimination against anyone different from ourselves.  Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, and for making me exuberantly proud to call myself a Marylander, because Maryland is a place that embodies the best principles of United States democracy.

Yours Truly,

Julia McCrossin
{home and e-mail addresses}

Cc: Maryland Coalition for Trans Equality (MCTE)
Senator Jennie M. Forehand (jennie.forehand@senate.state.md.us)
Delegate Kumar P. Barve (Majority Leader; kumar.barve@house.state.md.us)
Delegate Jim Gilchrist (jim.gilchrist@house.state.md.us)
Delegate Luiz R. S. Simmons (luiz.simmons@house.state.md.us)

Westminster Flabby

OMG. It’s even eerier than we thought.                                    
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Downton Abbey) is on the left, Ursula, the Pugston Terrier (Westminster Flabby) is on the right…or is it the other way ‘round?

We finally came up with the perfect fat community name for our home -- largely (ha) thanks to Julia -- Westminster Flabby! Many thanks to our friends in the New England fat community and beyond for all the inspiration.

Happy Valentines Day 2014!

Happy Valentines Day 2014!

We are celebrating our 5th Valentines together and 1st one living together! 

Here are our Valentines from Julia’s mum (from a Little Debbie box). 

PolitiSIZE - NEW radio show - conversations about fat bodies

WBAI webpage | Website | Facebook | Twitter

HRC's George Washington University Alumni Reception

My partner Julia McCrossin is an alum of George Washington University – she graduated from GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and 2011 – and thus was invited to the Human Rights Campaign's 6th annual GW Alumni Reception tonight, and I was her guest.  This was actually the first GW alum event for both of us.  And our first queer event since we started living together – I’m a lifelong resident of metro Boston and Julia of metro DC, and after 4 ½ years of long-distance partnership, I moved to DC at the end of last month.  Due to my move I actually didn’t have an appropriate outfit unpacked yet – but this was a perfect excuse to visit the local Goodwill, where I was lucky enough to find the perfect things.  

This year’s topic was trans rights, which is largely what sold us.  

The event took place at HRC’s headquarters here in DC – the Equality Center.  Our efforts to make sure we were on time made us early, so we got to give ourselves a good tour of the space, which we hadn’t been to before.  Do you know they have their own custom bike racks on the sidewalk?  Versions of the HRC logo, and in the blue and yellow no less.

At 6:30 the cocktail reception began; we had some good conversation with Kimberly Acquaviva, Associate Professor and Director of Faculty Affairs at GW’s School of Nursing (1 of the 3 panelists), another queer woman professor, a trans woman alum, and a gay lawyer alum.  Mara Keisling, (founding) Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (another panelist) visited our table, and remembered me, which was nice -- we’ve been in the same spaces a few times, but I don’t know that we’ve actually met, at least not for quite a while.  

At 7:00 there was a panel discussion, including questions and answers, with Mara (this was a change from Lisa Mottet, NCTE’s Deputy Executive Director, but in this case it was a win-win), Kimberly, and Sterling Washington (CCAS '95), Director of the Mayor's Office of GLBT Affairs.  There were also remarks from alum Michael R. Komo (CCAS BA '11, GSPM MS '12) and current student Emily A. Smith (ESIA BA '15).     

A bit after 8:00 it was time for more networking, and we did a bit, but left fairly early because we were tired and it was something of a schlep to get home.  

There was a photographer, and I had our picture taken in front of the logo-ed wall provided for the occasion, but I can’t figure out if or where the pictures are posted.  I will ask when I post this.  

There were at least a few dozen attendees.  The event was free; we were encouraged to support GW’s LGBT Resource Center.  

CFP - Special Issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight & Society on Religion & Fat

CFP (Call For Proposals)

Special Issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society on Religion and Fat, guest edited by Lynne Gerber, Susan Hill and LeRhonda Manigault-Bryant.

This special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society explores the relationship between religion and fat. The editors invite papers on a variety of topics that address, for example, how particular religious traditions engage the fat body, or how religions define, circumscribe and/or understand fatness. We seek to answer questions such as: How is the fat body read in religious ways? What kinds of socio-cultural spaces do religions offer fat people?

Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Fat bodies as religious bodies
• The use of fat or fatness in religious texts
• Use of fat in theological discourse
• Fat in world religions
• Religious and/or moral dimensions of fat or fatness in popular culture
• Fat bodies and lived religion
• Religion and weight loss/weight gain
• The fat body as moral or immoral body in religious texts or objects

To be considered for inclusion in this special issue, please send a 200-250 word abstract and a current c.v. to Susan Hill (susan.hill@uni.edu) by March 31, 2014. Any questions about the topic can be directed to this e-mail, as well.

Final submissions should be between 3000-6000 words, including all notes and references. If you wish to include reproductions of visual images with your essay, you will need to receive permission to do so from the artists/copyright holders of the image(s). All authors will need to sign a form that transfers copyright of their article to the publisher, Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

Fat Studies is the first academic journal in the field of scholarship that critically examines theory, research, practices, and programs related to body weight and appearance. Content includes original research and overviews exploring the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, ability, and socioeconomic status. Articles critically examine representations of fat in health and medical sciences, the Health at Every Size model, the pharmaceutical industry, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, legal issues, literature, pedagogy, art, theater, popular culture, media studies, and activism.

Fat Studies is an interdisciplinary, international field of scholarship that critically examines societal attitudes and practices about body weight and appearance. Fat Studies advocates equality for all people regardless of body size. It explores the way fat people are oppressed, the reasons why, who benefits from that oppression and how to liberate fat people from oppression. Fat Studies seeks to challenge and remove the negative associations that society has about fat and the fat body. It regards weight, like height, as a human characteristic that varies widely across any population. Fat Studies is similar to academic disciplines that focus on race, ethnicity, gender, or age.

First Event 2014

This year’s First Event theme was “Who do you want to be when you grow up?"  When I grow up, I want to be someone who wears stoles and dragon jewelry and presents at conferences – so that’s going well.  
Alas, I forgot to ask about taking a picture of our panel. And we looked especially fabulous, too.
(And yes, that's an extra "s" in my nametag -- for...savings?)

First Event 2014 : Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? started this Wednesday, and ends tomorrow, at the Marriott in Peabody MA (on Boston’s North Shore).

I co-facilitated a workshop today with Bobbi Taylor and Raven Kaldera – “Gender, Self & Spiritual Community: Intertwined Narratives” – “How have our life stories of gender and spirituality been woven together…or come undone?  What does it mean to have a spiritual community that affirms diverse gender identities and presentations?  This will be an opportunity to share questions, experiences, inspiration and support, as well as learn how to connect with local and national trans faith work.”

Bobbi is a transgender activist living and working in the Boston area with formal training in Zen Buddhism, evangelical Christianity, and Paganism. In addition to being a housewife, spouse, and father, Bobbi is also a member of various committees of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, including the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality.

Raven is a Northern-Tradition Pagan shaman, herbalist, astrologer, FTM transgendered intersexual activist, homesteader, and founding member of the First Kingdom Church of Asphodel.

We had an hour and twenty minutes, and about a dozen people in attendance, plus a few more who left early.  Bobbi introduced the workshop and presenters, she and Raven and I spoke about our stories for a few minutes each, and then we engaged the attendees in questions and answers and discussion.  As always, it clarified the need for more inter/faith discussion spaces for trans people.  I was particularly impressed by how we were all able to hear some very queer things from each other (in many senses) and yet respond from places of genuine appreciation and reciprocation.

It was also very good to work in this way with Raven – although we go way back together, first meeting at a trans support group at Arlington Street Church (UU, Boston) in the 90s(!), we haven’t really worked together directly before; I’ve been to his annual FTM Camp-Out, we’ve had a bit of email about the faith campaign for MA trans rights legislation, and I’ve been in his audiences several times.

For some reason I didn't tell a very interesting version of my story, especially in context.  Although, in fairness -- this is Raven we’re talking about, right?  He looks and sounds like he just stepped out of Game Of Thrones or something, only far more awesome.  Bobbi’s saga was and is pretty epic as well, and her outfit was quite nice.  And on the third hand -- I should be glad that one really can't tell an uninteresting version of my story, nu?

This year’s First Event also held spiritual offerings that included Rev. David Weekley, Rev. Moonhawk River Stone, Rev. Sarah Carpenter, Vickey Allen, Cyn and Ruby Simonoff (siblings), and more from Raven Kaldera; workshops, services, and vending.  FE’s most faith programming ever, and by far!

And the Mass Trans Political Coalition staff did a secular workshop on Friday – “The State Of Trans Advocacy”.

I would have liked to attend more of the conference -- indeed, all of it -- and maybe I should have, especially as it was my last one for the foreseeable future (as I am moving to Washington DC at the end of the month).

Also?  Don’t forget to fill out FE’s survey about your experience of this year’s con!

The History Project – my oral history interview

When I came home from my interview with The History Project, I was inspired to take one of those “selfies” all the kids are talking about. 

Founded in 1980, The History Project documents and preserves the history of Boston's LGBT community, and shares that information with the public – by conducting research on lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender people in Massachusetts, preserving the documentary record of that community's social and historical contributions, and providing a forum for educating the general public.

THP is perhaps best known for its 1998/9 book “Improper Bostonians : Lesbian and Gay History from the Puritans to Playland”; they published a second book in 2001 and offer other resources.  They’re also on Facebook and Twitter.

THP conducted an oral history interview with me because I’m moving to Washington DC at the end of the month (to live with my long-distance partner of 4 ½ years, Julia McCrossin, a lifelong metro DC resident and Fat Studies scholar), and have been in leadership in Boston’s queer community since I came out as a high school freshperson in 1990 (too, I was born in Boston and have always lived here, and was never really "in").  I was the first out trans student at Newton North High School, a co-founder of their Gay/Straight Alliance and organizer of their first GLBT awareness day, part of their work for MA’s Gay & Lesbian Student Rights Law, part of the first trans / queer couple at their prom (I think there had been at least one gay couple some years before, and Newton South was first with some firsts as well)…and the rest is history – ha!

The interview was conducted by Marvin Kabakoff (also the primary service leader at our shul Congregation Am Tikva) and Andrew Elder, THP archivists and board members, at THP’s offices; Marvin questioned and Andrew filmed (speaking of history, it’s interesting how hard it is to describe the creation of “film” when the whole process is digital, as this was – i.e. there is no film, tape, etc.).  The interview was about an hour and a half long, but could have gone on indefinitely – it’s amazing how much has happened in the last twenty-odd years, even/especially locally, and I don't even know all of it.

It wasn’t my best work -- I was getting over a cold, and had been distracted from preparing for the interview by preparing to move.  But hopefully it was close enough, and will intersect well with past and future interviews.  I did forget some things I shouldn’t have.  But I remembered some things that I hadn’t in too long.  And even some that THP didn’t know about, or hadn’t heard much about, yet.  For instance, did you know that there was a trans organization here in MA before MTPC (MA Trans Political Coaltion)?  It’s Time Massachusetts (ITMA), founded and directed by the late Penni Ashe Matz, may her memory be a blessing.      

I tried not to be too “back in my day, we had to walk uphill to the Statehouse – both ways!  Both ways, I tell you.  Even in the snow.  And we didn’t have none of your fancy testosterone to keep us warm, neither.  No, we did not.  And another thing…”.  I think I at least managed not to tell anyone to get off my lawn.  I think.

Well, I will be receiving a copy of the video.  Eeek.  

In any case, thanks THP!  And thanks to all who helped me make history, not to mention made it themselves.  And really -- everyone has, every day, from their first to last days.  Privilege and good fortune – and their intersection with oppression and bad fortune -- have enabled me to be part of history in a particular and public way, but we are all and each a vital part of history’s creation, preservation, interpretation and dissemination.  And those of us who are part of communities whose history is least known or appreciated have a special role.  Those of us in the know, and the appreciate, must raise up fat history, and its intersection with the history of other communities, including queer ones.  We must learn and share our history, and we must hold open the door for those whose histories are even less visible due to racism, classism, ableism and other oppressions.    

For instance, did you know about Phil Baoine, part of Massachusetts fat and queer history (yes, the caption leaves a lot to be desired)?  I just learned about him last month, when THP used a photo of him in the publicity for their year-end fundraising event.  He even reminds me of my Julia!

Temple Sinai & Congregation Am Tikva's Healing Service - my farewell

Our table at our 13th anniversary last May -- last night's flowers were yellow gerbera daisies; flowers are always artificial and candles unscented.  

Last night was my last time at Temple Sinai and Congregation Am Tikva’s Healing Service (CAT is my shul, and we live at TS).

It’s been held about every other month and on Yom Kippur for close to 14 years -- yes, we’ve been celebrating our b’nai mitzvah -- and I’ve been attending for the last several.  They dedicated the service to me –- as well as to two Temple Sinai members who passed away this week, one of whom was also a Healing Service member, may their memories be a blessing –- and were otherwise really lovely.  I actually have a cold this week, but am so glad I could and did go.  Special thanks to service leaders Marvin Kabakoff (also the primary service leader at CAT), Deena Blau and Dayse Waissman, as well as Dayse’s husband Roberto and others who have led us in the past.

Here are Deena, Dayse and Marvin at the 13th anniversary service.

And here is the door sign I made as a parting gift.

Services are 7:30 p.m. in TS' Weintraub Auditorium at 50 Sewall Avenue in Brookline's Coolidge Corner. They end at 8:30, followed by an optional oneg.  Gather in a circle with a minyan or more for music, meditation, prayer, and sharing. No particular healing needs or sharing thereof are needed -- we know that healing is a personal, lifelong and constant need for all.  There is also a time to share blessings.

My moving-to-DC open house

My gift from Jennifer Rose, a fellow member and leader at Congregation Am Tikva – a handpainted ceramic kiddush cup depicting Jerusalem.  Particularly bashert as I actually don’t have a kiddush cup anymore – I had silver ones from my family and friends, but an abusive ex has them.  

I don’t have photos of the event yet, but I should soon.    

My moving-to-DC open house yesterday went quite well!  Thank you all!!!

I’m moving to DC at the end of the month, and this was my official public farewell event.

It’s so bittersweet for me to leave Boston, where I was born and have always lived (37 years) and which I’ve always loved, but this is the best way to finally start living with my long-distance partner of 4 ½ years, Julia McCrossin (a lifelong metro DC resident), and our dog of 1 ½ years Ursula, and help my mother-in-sin. And DC does have its advantages for us. And we will visit, and have our wedding here, and hopefully live here someday.

We had a couple of dozen guests all told, and it was busy the entire time, from two to five.  Family, friends of family, friends from junior high school, fellow members of Congregation Am Tikva, trans and queer colleagues, housemates; and many people were in more than one category (and yes, in many senses!).  I invited a couple of hundred people, but even with the unseasonably nice weather it was rather an ask, what with the challenging location, busy schedules, and so on.

Alas, my Julia couldn’t be with us in person, and many of my local people have not met her yet.  But she sent a cheese pizza as a surprise present, awww!  And we made it into hors d’oeuvres.  It was even a white pizza (white sauce instead of red, i.e. more dairy instead of tomato), because she knows I prefer those.  It’s part of a running joke with us – she loves pizza, and teases me that I should send her one long-distance.

I wish our Ursula could have been there too – even though she would have stolen the show, not to mention cuted people into feeding her ALL the things.  

Our house manager Forreste Brooks managed the event for me, which is one of the several things he does professionally.  He’s also been renovating and redecorating the house and yards; it’s one of the ye olde Arnold Arboretum buildings (indeed, the one where Wilson lived with his wife and daughter).  There were also some seasonal decorations and candles.  The menu included homemade pasta salad (tricolor tortellini, broccoli, grape tomatoes, red onion, creamy herb sauce) with optional chicken, two kinds of cheese and crackers; three kinds of cookies, Walkers shortbread*; iced or hot homemade punch (Fresca, apple and orange juices), L. A. Burdick’s cocoa*, Harney & Son’s Holiday Tea*, coffee, water.  *Gifts from my mentor, as I was her last Christmas Tea guest of the season.  

I’d said that refreshments would be provided (and posted a draft menu), but that people were welcome to bring anything except alcohol.  Guests brought homemade slow-roast beef, home-assembled crudité (red and green bell peppers, baby carrots, celery, sugar snap peas, broccoli) with homemade yogurt dip, cherries (in hopes that my life in DC will be like a bowl of, awww); homemade pear pie, homemade mint chocolate cupcakes, homemade popcorn (with grated cheese, butter, salt, pepper), Cheryl-Ann’s Bakery's chocolate babka; sparkling apple-cranberry juice.  And one guest got but forgot to bring Valentine’s cookies, to symbolize my love with Julia, my community’s love for me, etc., awww.  (Though I know, how scary is it that even perishable Valentine’s stuff is being sold already?!)

I also asked that people donate to Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (where I chair the Interfaith Coalition for Trans Equality) in lieu of gifts – but I was open to receiving gifts, and was pleased to be given some, as well as some cards (and really the cards were gifts also).

Trans / loved one? Need friendly phone call this month?

Are you a trans person or loved one who could use a friendly phone call this month? Do you know someone who is? Please let the the 3rd annual December Project know! 

http://www.jenniferboylan.net/2013/11/23/trans-holidays-got-you-down-we-will-call-you-on-the-phone/

Trans? Holidays got you down? WE WILL CALL YOU ON THE PHONE

By JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN | Published: NOVEMBER 23, 2013

Update, Dec. 9: Please scroll to bottom for the latest.

Hello there.  For the third year in a row, we are doing THE DECEMBER PROJECT.  The plan is simple.  If you are trans– or if you love some one who is trans– and you need a friendly voice, email us and we will call you on the phone.

We began this project in 2011.  I was thinking that year how hard the holidays can be for people– but they can be especially hard for trans people and their families.  Charles Dickens had it right when, in the CHRISTMAS CAROL, he suggested that it’s Christmas, not Halloween, that’s the most haunted of holidays.  Our memories are heightened at this time of year– we think back to our childhood, to our many struggles.  For some of us it’s a time when we’re acutely aware of how cut off we are from those we love.  The world is full of transgender people who are unable to see their children, their parents,  their loved ones, all because of the simple fact of who they are.

We cannot undo all the hurt in the world.  But what we can do is CALL YOU ON THE PHONE and remind you that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  You don’t have to be in crisis to take advantage of this project.  All you have to do is want a friendly voice.

The project is run by four people– Jennifer Finney Boylan, national co-chair of GLAAD; Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality;  Dylan Scholinski, director of Sent(a)mental Studios, and Helen Boyd, Professor at Lawrence University.  We are two trans women, a trans man, and a spouse of a trans woman.  Between the four of us, we have heard many different kinds of trans narratives.  If we can help you, we would be glad to do so.

How do you get us to call you? By emailing jb@jenniferboylan.net.   I’ll use that email as the central mailbox;  if you have a particular preference to talk to one or the other of us, let me know– although I can’t guarantee that you’ll always here from the person you request.  Also please tell us the time of day and the date you’d be free for a call; you might want to give us a couple of options.  And of course, tell us your phone number.  WE WILL KEEP YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENTIAL.

We will start with calls on December 1, and keep this going until New Years.

Sound good?  I hope so.  We hope we can help, even if just a little.

Three other caveats I should mention at the end here:

1) First, no one in the December Project gets a dime out of it.  This is a shoestring operation, largely consisting of four people trading phone numbers.  If you want to support our causes, you can let us know, and we’ll tell you how to give.  But this is not about that.

2) If you are in serious crisis, please bypass us and go directly to the national suicide prevention lifeline: 1-800-273-8255  WE ARE NOT TRAINED AS THERAPISTS or as counsellors for individuals in crisis.  If you need something more serious than a “friendly voice,’ please call the lifeline.

3) For the moment we are content with this project consisting of the four of us;  in past years, we have been a little overwhelmed (and yes, deeply touched) by the many, many of you who have wanted to join us.  While we thank you for your grace and your love,  it’s also overwhelming for us to sort through the requests; we hope you’ll understand if we ask that folks writing us be primarily those who want a call. There are many ways you can get involved in your own community, and we heartily encourage everyone who wants to spread some love around to do so in their own way, starting right at home.

Thanks so much!  Wishing you all the best for a positive, hopeful, loving holiday season!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Finney Boylan, on behalf of the December Project

Update, Dec. 9:  We have been deluged with requests!  We are making the calls as swiftly as we can, but if you haven’t heard back from us, please be patient.  Also, please request calls via the email address listed above, and NOT through the comments section below!  Thanks so much.

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Erev Thanksgivukkah / National Day Of Mourning

This is the eve of Thanksgivukkah and the National Day Of Mourning.  

TransFaith writes:

"Remembering Two Spirit People This Thanksgiving

Stonewall is often touted as the beginning of the modern LGBTQ movement, yet we know that Two Spirit people were honored in the Americas for centuries before European colonization.

To quote Irene Monroe's "Remembering Two-Spirits This Thanksgiving,"

As we get into the holiday spirit, let us remember the whole story of the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers to the New World.

Remembering the profound impact of colonization is about respecting our Native siblings, but also about learning from their efforts to reclaim traditional worldviews that make space for all of us.

November is "Native American Indian Heritage Month" in the United States and in this season of Thanksgiving, I am delighted to bring your attention to Transfaith's new website section highlighting Indigenous Traditions.

I also want to take this moment to express my gratitude for the emerging Transfaith Two Spirit Advisory Council. Chief Bob, Lynn, Harlan, Janis, Rik, Anna-Sara, thank you for all that you have already taught me and given to us all!

With thanksgiving,

Chris Paige
Executive Director"

Locally, the focal point is the National Day of Mourning observance in Plymouth MA -- Facebook event | website.  

The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression in Education - call for papers

CALL FOR PAPERS
The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression in Education

Edited by Erin Cameron & Constance Russell, Lakehead University 
(to be published in “Counterpoints” series (ed. Shirley Steinberg) for Peter Lang Publishers) 

Over the last decade, concerns about ‘globesity’, referring to a global obesity epidemic, have flourished. The media is rife with hyperbolic claims about the dire consequences of obesity, and public health messages about physical activity, fitness, and nutrition permeate society. This obesity discourse serves to reproduce a framework of thinking, talking, and action where thinness is privileged and where a ‘size matters’ message fuels narratives about personal irresponsibility and lack of willpower that validates fat-phobic behaviours and practices. In response, a growing number of scholars are interrogating obesity discourse, illuminating its consequences, and discussing how it can be challenged. In this book, we wish to bring attention to the ways in which weight-based oppression occurs within spaces and places of learning. We want to develop and advocate a fat pedagogy that promotes safe learning spaces for all learners, regardless of size.

This book will make a significant contribution to the literature because there has not yet been a comprehensive examination of the pedagogical approaches used for disrupting weight-based oppression in elementary, secondary and higher education or in education in non-formal and informal settings. A growing number of scholars in education as well as in women’s studies, geography, psychology, and health, are starting to write about how weight-based oppression could be challenged. We thus want to bring together an international contingent of scholars from a diverse range of disciplines to critically examine approaches to teaching about weight-based oppression from a range of historical, social, political, and cultural contexts.

We expect this book to be of interest to scholars, educators, students, and practitioners in the fields of fat studies, critical weight studies, critical geographies of body size, critical health studies, and social justice education. It will be of particular interest and use to instructors who are teaching in the areas of education, women’s studies, public health, community health, kinesiology, nursing, nutrition, geography, and psychology, as well as interested teachers in elementary and secondary schools.

We envision the book as being made up of an extensive array of relatively short (i.e., 3000-5000 words) and accessibly written chapters that describe and analyze the pedagogical approaches used by educators from around the world who address ideas of bodies, weight, fatness, obesity, thinness, and health at any size in their teaching. The book will end with a Fat Pedagogy Manifesto and a call to action. It is time to throw our weight around, so to speak, on this important social justice issue!

We are requesting a “statement of interest” (maximum 500 words) that includes the title of the proposed submission and an abstract that provides an overview of key arguments to be made in the chapter by January 7, 2014. A decision on whether a full submission will be sought will be communicated by February 1, 2014. Full manuscripts will be due August 1, 2014.

Inquiries and statements of interest should be directed to Erin Cameron (emcarte1@lakeheadu.ca) and Connie Russell (crussell@lakeheadu.ca).

*******
And for a visual aid -- my partner, Fat Studies scholar Julia McCrossin, giving flabulous demonstrations of fat pedagogy at George Washington University a few years ago (Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, English Department):

Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology - my guest lecture

Today I guest lectured for the third November in a row at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology (MSPP), in Jessica Stahl’s class Psychology of Diversity & Difference in the Counseling Psychology master’s program.  As before, I was primarily representing Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC); MSPP has been having a few trans people from a few orgs in to speak every year for years, including SpeakOut.  Also as before, it was pretty informal, and we had a Q&A session after.  This class was quieter than the previous ones, but they had had an even better trans education before I arrived.  It’s a good gig for many reasons – my fascination with psychology and the school’s recent move to Newton (my second hometown) among them.  Alas, this will be my last visit to MSPP, as I am moving to DC at the end of January.  My predecessor was Rachel K. Zall – yes, a tough act to follow! – who moved to Philly; it will be interesting to see who my/our successor is.  And if you're in the market for trans-led, personalized trans educational services, check out MTPC's page about what we offer.