More about the Week and the faith campaign for the Transgender Equal Rights Bill:
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Transgender Faith Action Week - now with Facebook event!
Transgender Faith Action Week -- now with Facebook event!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Party to celebrate Executive Order protecting MA transgender state workers
| On Thursday, February 17th, Massachusetts' Governor Deval Patrick signed an Executive Orders that prohibited discrimination based on gender identity and expression in state employment -- protecting all current and future state workers. Read more about it: http://www.masstpc.org/?p=1270 This Sunday, March 6th, MTPC and the Transgender Equal Rights Coalition are hosting a party to celebrate! And everyone is invited! See this invitation as a website that you can share in many ways: http://community.icontact.com/p/masstpc/newsletters/mtpc/posts/mtpc-join-us-in-celebration-of-the-new-executive-order
|
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
GLBTQ equality work panel at Wheelock College
Wheelock College's Winter Policy Talk is "Working Toward Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Equality". And my mentor (Grace) and my Executive Director (Gunner) are two of the four panelists. It's next Monday, February 28th.
WHEELOCK COLLEGE WINTER POLICY TALK
Working Toward Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender, and Queer Equality
Monday, February 28th 4-6:30PM
Norman Spack: internationally known specialist in treatment for intersexed and transgender youth, Senior Associate in the Endocrine Division and co-founder of the Gender Management Service clinic at Children’s Hospital, Boston
Grace Sterling Stowell: Executive Director of the Boston Alliance of Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth (BAGLY)
Gunner Scott: A founding member and Executive Director of Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Emmy Howe: one of the original authors of the Welcoming Schools Guide, an LGBT-inclusive approach to addressing family diversity, gender stereotyping and bullying and name-calling in K-5 learning environments and director of the CampOUT, a farm camp for children from LGBTQ families and the Open View Farm Educational Center in Conway, MA.
At Wheelock College, 43 Hawes St, Brookline, MA 02446
(near C line Hawes St and D line Longwood T-stops)
Monday, February 14, 2011
SAVE THE DATE - Transgender Faith Action Week
Happy Valentines Day!!!
SAVE THE DATE - Transgender Faith Action Week
Good day, ICTE supporters.
We want to thank you for your support, and invite you to be part of our exciting faith campaign this year. And if you’re local, we want to offer you our sympathies and best wishes for this Winter’s weather. It was good to see some of you at Transgender Equal Rights Action Day and its reception (hosted by The Crossing, ICTE, Keshet and Cambridge Welcoming Ministries) last month; we’re sorry that the snow made travel challenging for many.
We have all been saddened and frustrated by the Transgender Equal Rights Bill (formerly An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes) not passing by the end of the last legislative session in July. But your support made a tremendous difference, and did much to help further understanding and social justice for transgender people.
The bill was refiled last month, and has been gathering legislative co-sponsors. We have every hope of passing it into law this legislative session. And your support and action remains a vital part of that work. We are continuing the An Act Of Faith journey we began a few years ago, and we hope that you will continue with us.
ICTE and Keshet, in partnership with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) and MassEquality, are organizing a very exciting faith campaign for the bill. The centerpiece is a Transgender Faith Action Week -- Sunday, April 3rd through Sunday, April 10th. Later in the Spring, we’ll be organizing a faith-themed press conference, as well as clergy speakers at the bill’s hearings and Lobby Days at the Statehouse. There will be many opportunities for action – especially calls, emails and letters to legislators, as well as written testimony for hearings.
Please save the date now for Transgender Faith Action Week, and think about how your faith community can participate! There are many ways to participate, and we welcome your ideas. Our primary focus is helping congregations and other faith communities organize “postcard parties”. Green postcards (orange last year) that support the bill are signed by voters and delivered to both of their legislators. We intend to distribute, collect and deliver large amounts of postcards from congregations, clergy, lay leaders and other people of faith – to show the Statehouse just how much the Massachusetts faith community supports transgender equality.
Participating communities will receive a packet of materials and instructions, as well as “tech” support from the faith campaign team. They will also have the option of being listed (for free) in all of the week’s publicity – including newspaper ads in Bay Windows and Rainbow Times.
The ICTE leadership and MassEquality staff will be contacting congregations over the next few weeks. We will also be offering some live and video educational presentations about transgender people and the bill.
Thank you again for your support! We look forward to partnering with you to further transgender equality this year and beyond.
Best wishes,
Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality
http://www.interfaithcoalition.blogspot.com
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Adipositivity Project (fat-positive art photos)
The Adipositivity Project is photographer Substantia Jones’ wonderful fat-positive art photography.
WARNING – most photos are NSFW (not safe for work).
Usually each photo is of an individual fat woman.
But every February 1st through 14th, there’s a new photo every day, and each is of a couple (where at least one person is fat). “Pucker up, Peeps. It's time for the Adipositivity Project's Valentine series. Every day through Valentine's Day you'll see another Adiposer couple gettin' at least semi for ya. But remember, most of 'em are in pre-, mid-, or post-canoodle, so some photographs may be even more NSFW than usual. (Racier this year than in previous years.) Hope they make you smile as much as they do me. Happy Valentine's Day!”
Today (Tuesday, February 8th, 2011) the couple is my partner Julia and I! We were photographed in New York City last May (2010). We’re so happy and proud to be Adiposers. Thank you, Substantia!
Here we are – NSFW (not safe for work):
Happy early Valentines Day 2011 / 5711!
: - )) Mycroft
*******
More about Adipositivity, from the website:
“Adipose: Of or relating to fat.
Positivity: Characterized by or displaying acceptance or affirmation.
MISSION:
The Adipositivity Project aims to promote size acceptance, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen.
The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally.
The photographs here are close details of the fat female form, without the inclusion of faces. One reason for this is to coax observers into imagining they're looking at the fat women in their own lives, ideally then accepting them as having aesthetic appeal which, for better or worse, often translates into more complete forms of acceptance.
The women you see in these images are educators, executives, mothers, musicians, professionals, performers, artists, activists, clerks, and writers. They are perhaps even the women you've clucked at on the subway, rolled your eyes at in the market, or joked about with your friends.
This is what they look like with their clothes off.
Some are showing you their bodies proudly. Others timidly. And some quite reluctantly. But they all share a determination in altering commonly accepted notions of a narrow and specific beauty ideal.
Bookmark adipositivity.com and check back often, as new photographs are added regularly (ish). And please help spread the message. The Adipositivity Project: Changing attitudes about the aesthetic validity of big women, one fat fanny at a time.
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER:
Substantia Jones’ photography has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the
US East Coast, and has appeared in The New York Times, Time Out New York, and some other
publications she can’t recall at this time, but you probably haven’t heard of them anyway. She is biographied in the 2006 Who’s Who in America (though under the name her momma gave her), and back in the day, she won some photography awards which would sound somewhat Mayberry if listed here, but at the time, they damn near made her cry. Still kinda do.
She lives in Manhattan, where she also sometimes steps out (more like lays around) in front of the camera, and on some of those occasions, the snapping is done by her trusty sidekick, Dr. H, who also fetches her banana popsicles and maintains her muse, a certain pancake colored dog who’s asked that his name not be mentioned on the Internet.
Ms. Jones likes crispy calamari, Squidbillies, and the ika okonomiyaki from Otafuku in the East Village, if only the lines weren’t so long.
Thou shalt not reproduce without permission.
Except for babies. Make all o' them you want.
© The Adipositivity Project 2007-2011”
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
UPDATE - TOMORROW's Action Day re: trans rights bill!
ICTE sent this message to our Facebook Group today:
UPDATE - TOMORROW's Action Day re: trans rights bill!
ICTE's previous Facebook Group message:
There's a three-part update:
1) Action Day will be snow-delayed for 1 hour -- it will start at 12:00 noon, not 11:00 a.m. It will still end at 2:00 p.m.
2) Our opponents have already started calling and emailing the Statehouse. So we need you to call and email your legislators TODAY. And let MTPC know how it went.
3) There will be a reception for Action Day attendees tomorrow afternoon. Hosted by The Crossing at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul (where Boston Transgender Day of
Remembrance was). More information asap.
More details about today and tomorrow in today's MTPC enewsletter:
See -- and/or hear and/or read -- you tomorrow!
Best wishes for the snow,
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, ICTE
Saturday, January 22, 2011
First Event (transgender conference)
First Event is an annual regional transgender conference, organized by the Tiffany Club of New England -- http://tcne.org/?page_id=20.
For the second year in a row, my fellow ICTEr Rev. Cameron Partridge and I co-facilitated a workshop about transgender and faith. Cameron also facilitated a workshop about Michael Dillon / Lobzang Jivaka (an early trans and faith pioneer whose memoir Cameron has been working with), which I attended most of.
Our workshops:
Transgender Faith, Spirituality & Religion
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Saturday, January 22, 11:00 am
Constitution Room
Many transgender people and allies are people of faith, and members of faith communities.
Many faith communities welcome us, and support our equality; more all the time. Yet our
relationship with religion has been very painful, and much change is still needed. How do we explore and practice spirituality? Make faith communities welcoming? Partner with people of faith to work for transgender social justice? Share your experiences, thoughts and questions!
Michael Dillon / Lobzang Jivaka and Trans Narrative Practices
Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge
Saturday, January 22, 2:00 pm
Constitution Room
Michael Dillon / Lobzang Jivaka (1915 - 1962) is chiefly known for three inter-related contributions to contemporary trans communities and studies. First, he is known as the first person to have “fully” medically transitioned from female to male, a process he engaged between 1939-1949. Second, his 1946 book Self is identified as one of the earliest sources for the “trapped in the wrong body” trans narrative pattern. Finally, he is seen as a pioneer, particularly to transmen. Equally important, but unacknowledged, is the importance of theological reflection and spiritual practice to his transition and vocation.
Having grown up in the Church of England, Dillon was a serious student of theology and
philosophy and considered ordination as an Anglican deaconess before becoming a physician in the merchant navy. Ultimately he traveled away from both his faith and country of origin, framing his everyday struggles and the life narrative he finally composed as an ongoing process of spiritual wrestling and transformation.
This lifelong process led him to India in 1958, where he became a Buddhist, took on the name Jivaka, gave up all his possessions, wrote about Buddhism for Western audiences, and died suddenly in 1962 as a monastic novice in the Mahayana branch of Buddhism.
This workshop includes an overview of Dillon/Jivaka’s life, readings from his memoir Out of the Ordinary, which the workshop leader is currently co-editing for publication, and an opportunity for the gathered group to reflect upon questions and intersections of trans narrativity and spirituality in their own lives.
What role, if any, do/have writings of trans forbears play(ed) in your own reflection and discernment about gender and embodiment? What role, if any, have narratives — or particular images or categories -- generated by religious, spiritual, or philosophical traditions played in your life thus far? With what sorts of narratives — how coherent or incoherent, in what sorts of conversation with religious, philosophical and/or spiritual traditions, and/or in what sorts of conversation with our trans forbears — do we choose to make sense of our bodies and lives?
Our bios:
Mycroft Masada Holmes is a transgender leader specializing in faith, religion and spirituality. Mycroft is Chair of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality, Chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition's Training Committee, Emeritus Founding Chair of Keshet's Transgender Working Group (TWiG), and a board member of Congregation Am Tikva. Mycroft is also especially interested in fat / size acceptance.
Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge is a scholar of religion and gender/sexuality studies and an Episcopal priest. He is currently serving as interim Episcopal Chaplain and Lecturer at Harvard. Among his current projects is the co-editing and publication of Michael Dillon / Lobzang Jivaka’s c. 1962 memoir Out of the Ordinary.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Action Day for MA trans rights bill - next Thursday the 27th!
ICTE sent this message to our Facebook Group today:
Hello and happy 2011!
The Massachusetts Transgender Equal Rights Bill is being refiled this month. To pass it into law this year, we need your support.
MTPC is organizing a Transgender Equal Rights Action Day -- NEXT THURSDAY, January 27th, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Massachusetts State House, Room 167. A week from today!
We need you, transgender people and allies, to ask your legislators to co-sponsor the Transgender Equal Rights Bill.
You can arrive any time between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Come to Room 167 and pick up materials about the bill to bring to your State Representative's and Senator's offices. Go to your Rep's and Senator's offices and ask to speak with someone. After your meeting, return to Room 167 to give your completed legislator meeting form to MTPC.
If you can't arrive before 2:00 p.m., but can before 5:00 p.m., emailgscott@masstpc.org and MTPC will make arrangements with you.
If you can't attend at at all, please call your legislators that day:
Facebook event:
Blog entry / press release on the MTPC site:
Page on the MPTC site:
http://www.masstpc.org/legislation/actionday2011.shtml
There isn't a specific faith piece because there isn't a program. But as always, we particularly encourage people of faith to participate, and we ask that clergy and lay leaders come vested and/or wearing other faith flair. I will be there and flaired, and look forward to seeing many of you.
ICTE is planning an awesome 2011 faith campaign for the bill with MTPC and MassEquality, so stay tuned...
Thank you for your support!
Best wishes for your 2011,
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, ICTE
Monday, November 15, 2010
2nd annual Transgender Awareness Week (Massachusetts)
It's the 2nd annual Transgender Awareness Week in Massachusetts, organized by the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition!
Here's TAW on MTPC's website:
And here's the fabulous flyer:
And here's the Facebook event:
Also, here's my blog entry about one of the most awesome parts of TAW, the launch of MTPC's "I AM : Trans People Speak" -- our new public education campaign:
: - ) Mycroft
*******
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality
Chair, Training Committee, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
Sunday, November 14, 2010
MTPC's "I AM : Trans People Speak" -- a public education campaign
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition has been working on a new public education campaign --
"I AM: Trans People Speak" -- www.TransPeopleSpeak.org. "I AM" is a multi-media campaign aimed at educating the public about the diversity of the transgender communy and our families, friends, and allies.
Each person's story begins with a few "I am..." statements. I chose to tell my story as a video, and was filmed by MTPC. My statements are "I am an interfaith leader, I am a writer and an artist, I am a life partner, and I am also a transgender person."
I'm also one of the people in the video ad for the campaign:
Tonight is the launch party -- the "I AM" website goes live tonight!
A Launch Party: I AM: Trans People Speak
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
5:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Bella Luna/Milky Way at the Brewery Complex
284 Amory Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
RSVP to rachel@masstpc.org or visit
The launch party is free and open to all ages, with light refreshments, a cash bar and dancing. MTPC will be premiering videos and other materials from the campaign.
MTPC is still accepting applications for stories -- the project will be ongoing.
We are looking for trans people, as well as family members, partners, friends and providers to share their stories. This collection of stories aims to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions of trans individuals by highlighting the realities of their lived experience. These voices span across a diversity of communities and intersecting identities.
By providing a forum where these unique stories can be shared and given significance, I AM fosters support and raises awareness for trans communities. There is no one trans narrative. Each individual has their own unique story to tell, and these voices can no longer be silenced.
Personal stories change lives, laws, and policies.
We are looking for people who feel comfortable sharing their experience through a video interview. We realize that due to safety and/or confidentiality this may not be possible for everyone -- so audio stories, photo essays, and written stories may also be submitted. Names may be changed if needed.
All participants will be given the opportunity to tell their story in their preferred language. We are also looking for spokesmodels – those who can appear in promotional materials.
People of faith are particularly needed, and there is a special need for clergy and lay leaders. Please consider sharing your story, and inviting others to do so.
: - )) Mycroft
*******
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality
Chair, Training Committee, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
Monday, October 25, 2010
My partner's in the newspaper "Street Sense"!
My partner Julia McCrossin volunteers as an adult literacy tutor at the Washington Literacy Council (Washington DC). Last week a photo of her and her student was included in the Street Sense newspaper's article "Adult Literacy: A Silent Crisis".
Street Sense is a Washington, D.C.-based 16-page biweekly street newspaper that was founded in 2003. Its mission is to offer economic opportunities for people experiencing homelessness in our community through a newspaper that elevates voices and encourages debate on poverty and injustice. (Similar to Boston, MA's "Spare Change".)
Here is the article on their website:
And it's copied and pasted below my signature.
Julia is in the first of the two photos.
: - ) Mycroft
*******
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality
Chair, Training Committee, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
By Shadaye Hunnicutt, intern
In a small classroom a teacher prepares for class surrounded by covered walls with posters labeled with the parts of speech, vowel teams and vowel options. In the corner of the room sits a globe, next to it a spelling game. In the front of the classroom, the teacher writes “A, E, I, O, U.”
Suddenly, the room is filled with laughter and joking as the students pile in and take their seats. The youngest student is 25.
“It’s something we don’t like to talk about,” said Terry Algire, executive director of the Washington Literacy Council, whose mission is to increase adult literacy in the District. “If you talk about children who are struggling with reading, you have these wonderful pictures of adults reading with them. It makes you feel good. If you look at a class of adults who are having trouble with reading, it doesn’t have the same impact.”
One in seven adults in the United States have below basic reading and writing skills, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
“Illiteracy among adults is a quiet crisis…our nation needs to do better,” said Senator Thomas Harkin of Iowa in his award acceptance letter at the annual Pro-Literacy award ceremony.
In September, pro-literacy organizations gathered at the Rayburn house in D.C. for their annual literacy leadership award ceremony and formation of the first-ever house adult literacy caucus. Together several organizations are working to help provide adults with these basic skills and more.
“Literacy is essential,” said Algire. “If you cant read you have nowhere to go, the bar for literacy keeps going up and more and more people keep falling behind.”
Many adults are afraid to enter into adult literacy programs because they are ashamed and afraid to let their friends and families know they have a problem, said Benson.
“Shame is the major impediment…it makes it hard to identify adults who have below basic literacy skills,” said Barry Benson, vice president of ProLiteracy, the world’s largest non-profit advocacy organization offering literacy programs.
“Literacy is a lever, it raises all boats,” said Heidi Silver-Pacuilla, who will be taking over as president of National Coalition for Literacy at the end of the year.
Adult learners who enter into a literacy program learn to read and are equipped with the skills necessary to get by in a technology driven world, according to Benson.
“Students learn work related skills to be brought up to date on how to read and use a computer, as well as learning financial literacy” said Benson.
At WLC, students go through three stages of small group classes, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, each three semesters long.
In the Intermediate class, students learn lessons such as six syllable types, five rules for dividing syllables, vowel spelling variations, grammar, the basics of composition and vocabulary expansion.
Just like in a typical grade school class the students take turns spelling a word on the board.
“Let me do another one,” yells out one student. “I used to run from this.”
The students take a spelling test, and then end class with the game ‘Password,’ where one student picks a random word from a bag and has to say a word related to that word so their team mate can guess the original word.
“Classes are set up so that students can be successful, we take students from where they are and help them to move forward”, said Algire.
Currently, ProLiteracy is working with members of congress to pass policies that will raise awareness of the need for adult literacy programs.
“We want to help our members suffering budget cuts be as efficient as possible when accommodating learners coming in with fewer dollars,” said Benson.
These policies will ultimately lead to more government funding for adult literacy programs. The Adult Education budget for D.C. programs is 5 million dollars.
Children should arrive at school with basics of pre-literacy skills. If they’re in a home where no one is reading, their skills may be so far behind entering Kindergarten, that it can be almost impossible for them to catch up, according to Algire.
“There’s a continuum,” said Algire. “If we put all our subjects on one end of the continuum, we don’t make anything any better. We have to reach across the continuum, not just reach out to the child, but make sure in their family unit, and in their communities there are adults reading and literate as well.”
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Popular & American Culture Associations conference - Fat Studies area - call for papers
My partner Julia McCrossin co-chairs the Fat Studies area of the Popular & American Culture Associations with Lesleigh Owen. Here's their CFP (call for papers) for next year's conference (April 2011, Texas).
CFP: 2011 Fat Studies Area Popular Culture/American Culture Associations National Conference (San Antonio,TX)
PCA/ACA Fat Studies 2011 Call for Papers
Fat Studies is becoming an interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary field of study that confronts and critiques cultural constraints against notions of “fatness” and “the fat body”; explores fat bodies as they live in, are shaped by, and remake the world; and creates paradigms for the development of fat acceptance or celebration within mass culture.
Fat Studies uses body size as the starting part for a wide-ranging theorization and explication of how societies and cultures, past and present, have conceptualized all bodies and the political/cultural meanings ascribed to every body. Fat Studies reminds us that all bodies are inscribed with the fears and hopes of the particular culture they reside in, and these emotions often are mislabeled as objective “facts” of health and biology. More importantly, perhaps, Fat Studies insists on the recognition that fat identity can be as fundamental and world-shaping as other identity constructs analyzed within the academy and represented in media.
Proposals in the area of Fat Studies are being accepted for the 2011 PCA /ACA (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association) National Conference in San Antonio, TX (April 20-23, 2011, meeting with the Southwest/Texas regional at both the Marriott Rivercenter and Riverwalk Hotels). We welcome papers and performances from academics, researchers, intellectuals, activists, and artists, in any field of study, and at any stage in their career.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- representations of fat people in literature, film, music, nonfiction, and the visual arts
- cross-cultural or global constructions of fatness and fat bodies
- cultural, historical, inter/intrapersonal, or philosophical meanings of fat and fat bodies
- the geography and lived experience of fatness and fat bodies
- portrayals of fat individuals and groups in news, media, magazines
- fatness as a social or political identity
- fat acceptance, activism, and/or pride movements and tactics
- approaches to fat and body image in philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology
- fat children in literature, media, and/or pedagogy
- fat as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, religion, ability, gender, and/or sexuality
- history and/or critique of diet books and scams
- functions of fatphobia or fat oppression in economic and political systems
By December 15, 2010, please send an abstract of 100 - 250 words or a completed paper to Fat Studies Area Co-Chairs Julia McCrossin (jmccross@gwmail.gwu.edu) and Lesleigh Owen
(goddess_les@yahoo.com).
Please include your complete contact information and a CV and/or 50 word bio, along with anticipated A/V needs. All submissions are welcome, but please use the information above to ensure your paper fits within the academic and political scopes of Fat Studies. Please also be mindful that Fat Studies is a political project and not merely an umbrella term for all discussions of larger bodies. Also, we encourage submitters to rethink using words like “obesity” and “overweight” in their presentations unless they are used ironically, within quotes, or accompanied by a political analysis.
Presenters must become members of the Popular Culture Association. Find more information on the conference and organization at http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Call for anthology submissions -- working title "The Unbearable Fatness of Being: Enlarging Theories of Embodiment"
My partner, Julia McCrossin, is co-editing an anthology with her colleague Lesleigh Owen! The working title is "The Unbearable Fatness of Being: Enlarging Theories of Embodiment". They're calling for submissions, which are due Monday, November 1st. I am going to submit something faith-based, probably a sermon. The call is below my signature.
: - ) Mycroft
*******
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality
Member, Steering Committee, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
-------
Call for Anthology Submissions
Tentative title: "The Unbearable Fatness of Being: Enlarging Theories of Embodiment"
Type: Edited anthology
Submission deadline: Monday, November 1st, 2010
Contacts and editors: Julia McCrossin, jmccross@gwmail.gwu.edu;
Lesleigh Owen, Ph.D., lesleigh.owen@gmail.com
This edited collection seeks to publish recent scholarship that pushes at the boundaries of the existent scholarship on embodiment, from a Fat Studies perspective.
As Fat Studies is an emerging field, there are copious amounts of terrain left to map out, and this collection will display the provocatively expansive ways that emergent Fat Studies scholars conceptualize the fat body and the cultural work the fat body does in various times, places, and societies. The purpose of this work includes pushing back at the “obesity epidemic” rhetorics in ways that are at once connected to affiliated work in fields like disability studies, queer studies, gender studies (to name a few), and yet uniquely their own.
In conclusion, this edited collection will offer crucial new pathways for the generative field of Fat Studies, as well as offer an exciting look at the developing scholars in this field. Perhaps one might say that Fat Studies seeks to integrate within cultural studies and the academy in general a critical body of work on fatness, layering our current understandings of the material body along with metaphoric and/or immaterial ways that fatness saturates our (post) modern world.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
· representations of fat people in literature, film, music, nonfiction, and the visual arts
· cross-cultural or global constructions of fat bodies
· cultural, historical, or philosophical meanings of fat and fat bodies
· portrayals of fat individuals and groups in news, media, magazines
· fatness as a social, political, personal, and/or performed identity
· phenomenology of fat movement and be-ing in a variety of physical (and physiological)
contexts
· fat as queering sex, beauty, gender, and other embodied performances
· negotiating fat within locations, space, and time
· representing weighted embodiments in such creative or abstract forms as, for example,
visual art, poetry, personal narratives, and literature
· fat acceptance, activism, and/or pride movements and tactics
· approaches to fat and body image in philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology
· fat children in literature, media, and/or pedagogy
· fat as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, religion, ability, gender, nationality,
and/or sexuality
· functions of fatphobia or fat oppression in economic and political systems
Submissions are due Monday, November 1st, 2010. We welcome traditional and non-traditional
formats, including research articles, photographs, poetry, reports of performance art, and others. Articles and papers should range between 15 and 20 double-spaced pages. Please send submissions, along with a brief biographical sketch, directly to jmccross@gwmail.gwu.edu
and/or lesleigh.owen@gmail.com.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I’m searching for paid work (temp and perm)
I’m searching for paid work, both temporary and permanent. For temporary work, there are many things I can and will do. For permanent work, there are too, though I tend to think a full-time office job would be best. No gig is too small to be considered.
Below my signature is a version of my resume. I type 85+ words per minute. Please enquire about my publications, awards, and references. If you don’t see a skill, experience, etc., just ask – I may well have it.
Thank you,
Mycroft
-------
Dr. Indra Mohindra, OD (optometrist)
Computer tutor / autobiography editor / personal assistant
January 2007 – Present
Ocular Research of Boston (ORB) / Kolis Scientific / Korb & Associates
Ophthalmology research companies and optometry practice
Research Assistant, Front Desk Assistant
January 2005 – March 2008
SpeakOut
Working to create a world free of homo-bi-trans-phobia and other forms of prejudice by telling the truths of people’s lives. (The nation’s first GLBT speakers bureau.)
Administrative Director
October 2004 – May 2006
Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth (BAGLY)
A youth-led, adult-supported organization that creates, sustains and advocates for programs, policies and services for the GLBT youth community.
Office Manager / Development Assistant / Executive Assistant
May 2000 – November 2003
Arlington Street Church (Unitarian Universalist)
Gathered in love and service for justice and peace.
Assistant Church Administrator / Executive Assistant
September 1998 – May 2000
------------------
Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE)
Clergy, lay leaders, and faith communities working primarily for the passage of the Massachusetts bill An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes.
Co-Founder, Chair
June 2007 – Present
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC)
Dedicated to ending discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression.
Member, Steering Committee; Chair, Training Committee
June 2010 - Present
Congregation Am Tikva (People of Hope)
Boston’s community of GLBT Jews and friends.
Board member
September 2001 - Present
Keshet (Rainbow)
Working for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews in Jewish life.
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG)
June 2002 - 2009
Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth (BAGLY)
A youth-led, adult-supported organization that creates, sustains and advocates for programs, policies and services for the GLBT youth community.
Youth Steering Committee (including President), Youth Speakers Bureau, Board
December 1993 – July 1999
------------------
~ Temporary Work ~
- Harvard University (through the Spherion agency) -- Temp, then Senior Temp, then Manager during Harvard’s project of producing, testing and distributing upgraded replacements of their 70,000+ ID cards; other assignments have included Dining Services, Mail Services, Continuing Education, Real Estate, and ushering at Memorial Hall / Sanders Theatre.
- US Census (Non-Response Follow Up operation; enumerator)
- MassPort (mystery/secret shopper)
- Boston College (bookstore during “rush”; sales associate)
- Abt Associates (Clinical Trials; data entry)
- Tufts University (Office of the Boards of Overseers, Development Office - Stewardship Programs; administrative assistant)
- New England Research Institutes (NERI; administrative assistant; this and the previous three through the Randstad agency)
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health (consultant)
- Justice Resource Institute -- Health (JRI Health; consultant)
- Tobacco Education For GLBT Youth (TEGLY; then Boston Children’s Services, now merged with The Home For Little Wanderers; )
- Mensch Cleaning (cleaner, personal assistant)
- Fresh Pond Clay Works (general assistant, sales associate)
------------------
~ Education ~
Brookline and Newton Public Schools
1981 - 1994
Northeastern University (Criminal Justice)
1994 - 1996
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I'm showing my art at the Jamaica Plain library again!
I'm showing my art at the Jamaica Plain library again!
Here's the text of the Facebook event site I created today:
Mycroft Masada Holmes art show at Jamaica Plain library!
August 5 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm*
Jamaica Plain public library
12 Sedgwick Street
Jamaica Plain, MA
Hello!
In July of 2008, I showed my artwork at the Jamaica Plain public library (a branch of the Boston Public Library). I did it through the Jamaica Plain Centre/South Main Streets organization’s First Thursdays program.
“Each first Thursday of the month, businesses along Centre and South Streets are transformed into galleries featuring works from local artists. Opening receptions at each location, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., offer a chance to meet the artists, enjoy refreshments, and experience JP's fabulous businesses in an entirely new light. Artworks usually remain on display for the remainder of the month.”
It was a great experience, and I’m sorry that I was too busy last summer to do it again. I’ll have the display case. Another artist might have the wall space. I will be there the whole time, there will be refreshments, and the library will be open for business.
*Thursday August 5th is the opening reception -- my show will be there all of August.
My 2008 show (my blog post):
First Thursdays website:
First Thursdays blog:
JP public library website:
: - ) Mycroft
*******
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Co-Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE)
Member, Steering Committee, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC)
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
http://masadarts.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
MTPC Press Conference & Community Action Day -- my letter
MTPC Press Conference & Community Action Day -- my letter
The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) held a Press Conference & Community Action Day today at the Massachusetts Statehouse, calling for action towards the passage of An Act Relative To Gender Based Discrimination & Hate Crimes (House Bill 1728 / Senate Bill 1687) before the end of the legislative session on July 31st.
Here is the letter I wrote. If you've written yours, thank you! If you haven't, please do so as soon as you can -- click here for help.
July 14, 2010
House Speaker Robert DeLeo Senate President Therese Murray
State House State House
Room 336 Room 330
Boston, MA 02133 Boston, MA 02133
Dear Speaker DeLeo and President Murray,
My name is Mycroft Holmes, and I am a transgender person who lives and works in greater Boston, where I was born and have always lived. I love Boston and the rest of Massachusetts; they’ve always been my home and I hope they always will be.
I’m an interfaith transgender leader, and have been for almost twenty years. I’m a Co-Chair of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE), a member of the Steering Committee of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), and the Emeritus Founding Chair of the Transgender Working Group (TWiG) of Keshet. I’m also a board member of Congregation Am Tikva, the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) synagogue of Boston.
Keshet is the local and national non-profit organization that works for the inclusion of GLBT Jews in Jewish life; ICTE is the coalition that works for the inclusion of transgender people in faith communities and public life. Keshet and ICTE work together to increase faith-based support for the bill An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes (House Bill 1728 / Senate Bill 1687). ICTE created and has submitted to you several updates of our Declaration Of Religious And Faith-Based Support For Massachusetts Legislation An Act Relative To Gender-Based Discrimination And Hate Crimes, signed by hundreds of Massachusetts communities and individuals.
I write to you today to urge you to take action on An Act Relative To Gender-Based Discrimination And Hate Crimes (House Bill 1728 / Senate Bill 1687) so that it can pass before the legislative session ends at the end of this month. This bill would finally give transgender people our civil rights. This is so vital, so long overdue, and we are so close. Please, take action as soon as possible.
Thirty-four years ago, I was born biologically female, transgender, and a person of faith, and I am so grateful for and proud of those things. I wouldn’t change them if I could. Like Adam the first Earthling, and all beings, I am made and remade btzelem Elohim, in the image of God. My identities are gifts and blessings, meant to be shared with the world and used to practice tikkun olam, world healing.
Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to work in criminal justice. After public school in Brookline and Newton, I attended Northeastern University as a Criminal Justice major and the first openly transgender student. The university was supportive, but classes, campus life and housing were very challenging. 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 classes, and hopefully find employment in their field for after graduation. The co-op department was supportive, but the employers wouldn’t even communicate with me, never mind interview me. Because I was transgender, I was the only one of the 200 criminal justice students who wasn’t placed in a job. Without the experience and financial support of co-op, I had to leave Northeastern.
It was devastating to learn that I couldn’t pursue my dream because I was transgender, and that I had no legal recourse. Yet the experience also made me realize that my calling was to be a transgender leader. The day my co-op advisor called to tell me I couldn’t be placed, and the details of the discrimination, I finally truly understood what it meant to be a member of a group of citizens that don’t have civil rights. And I knew that helping to make my cities, state, country and world a better place for everyone to experience and express their gender was my calling, my life’s work.
I have been discriminated against because of my gender identity and expression many times, especially in employment. So have my loved ones, and all of the many other transgender people I know and know of. Every time we leave our homes—sometimes even within them—we must fear for ourselves and for each other. None of this should be, and it can be changed -- this bill will help to change it.
Thank you for your time. I hope that I and the rest of MTPC’s Community Action Day and press conference at the Statehouse today have furthered your understanding of transgender people and the urgency of taking action on An Act Relative To Gender-Based Discrimination And Hate Crimes (House Bill 1728 / Senate Bill 1687).
Thank you,
Mycroft Holmes
{my home address}
CC: Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz Representative Elizabeth A. Malia
State House State House
Room 413-C Room 33
Boston, MA 02133 Boston, MA 02133
*******
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Co-Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE)
Member, Steering Committee, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC)
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
