What's On in the Queer Blogosphere, Mini 4/26/11 Edition

At Womanist Musings: It's Hard Out There for a Poly, Pansexual POC...

At Clarisse Thorn: My top questions about dealing with multiple lovers

At Tranifesto: Ask Matt Monday: Comments on the Maryland McDonald's Assault

At American Trans Man: Easter Nightmares Put to Rest-Revisited

Minutes from 4/25 Meeting!

GLOW Meeting Minutes 4/25

I Constitution Changes were approved

A) Deborah will reread and edit any errors before sending to exec board

B) Exec board will read through again before sending to LUCC

II Sex Toy Workshop

A) Browsing early2bed.com to for possible items to buy for the workshop

B) Email Meghan Hickey suggestions

III Drag Show moved to May 27

Back From Bjork

Hey all,

Hoppy Easter! So a bunch of us just got back from a magical weekend at Bjorklunden. We began the construction of a unicorn out of paper mache. It's not done yet, but this baby is freestanding and will hopefully live in GLOW house next year! Also, we partook in festive activities such as egg dying, an easter egg hunt and various other things that involved cracking hard-boiled eggs. All in all, it was a fun and relaxing weekend. We hope to have more people attend next year!

Also, some fabulous advice for all you GLOWnicorns:

"A wise man never plays leap frog with a unicorn."

Transphobia in Baltimore

A transgender woman was brutally beaten while trying to use the bathroom at a McDonald's in Baltimore, MD. An employee recorded the beating on a camera (though he did not intervene). This comes on the tails of the Maryland trans* community's defeat of HB 235 (a bill meant to protect individuals from discrimination based on gender identity but which would, in fact, legalize gender identity discrimination in public accommodations; that is, bathrooms).

FOX News, predictably, reports the story with the charming headline "Smoking Gun: 'Woman' Beat Up At McDonald's Was a Male Cross-Dresser."

If this is not a hate crime, I'm not sure what is.

Monica at TransGriot notes that it's kind of funny how it seems the only people assaulting anyone in bathrooms are cisgender and not "men in dresses", no?

It's important to note that HB 235 was a bill pushed by the cisgender LGB folks of MD in an attempt to compromise (previous bills attempting to outlaw gender identity discrimination have failed in MD). I suppose the thinking was, "If we can get SOME law out there that will protect trans* folks at least sometimes, that will be good enough." Thankfully the bill was killed, because it's clear as day from incidents like this that gender identity discrimination in restrooms is NOTHING to compromise on.

The LGBTQIA community has no room for compromises when it comes to basic human rights.

What's On in the Queer Blogosphere, Wednesday 4/20/11 Edition

Some links of interest from like-minded sources, for your reading pleasure:

At Love's Labor's Lost: Why I call myself queer

At Fannie's Room: "Marriage Defender" Accidentally Insults People Who Matter

At Towleroad: Virginia Social Services Panel Votes 7-2 to Reject Changes That Would Allow Adoptions by Gay Couples

At Shakesville: Number of the Day

Day of Silence

Yesterday (April 15, the Day of Silence), some GLOW members went down to Madison to participate in a march from the UW-Madison Memorial Union to the Capitol building. What an experience! Though it was seriously cold and rainy and we arrived a bit late, it was a great time. Gathering with several hundred other people with similar passions for LGBTQIA causes was amazing! In the freezing rain we all sang along to the gloriously cheesy anthem "True Colors" and listened to speakers (though Meghan, Shannon and I ducked out early to Michelangelos', a coffee shop that offered us the super-gay-friendly atmosphere as well as relative warmth).

Having participated in the Day of Silence in high school--before and after coming out--I tended to think of it as a confusing day. The Night of Noise that accompanies it always made more sense to me. "Shouldn't people break the silence?" was usually my train of thought. But after some reflection, I've come to realize that the Day of Silence is perhaps most appropriately labeled as a day for allies who choose to partake in the silence that encapsulates so much of the LGBTQIA experience. It's a day for allies to show their support as well as a day for us queer folk to make our struggle more visible.

GLOW mtg 4/11 and announcements

Hey GLOWsters,

Here are some cool things you should know about this week:

GLOW house applications are due to Jared or Meghan K. by Wed 4/13

Feinstein Challenge (Thurs 4/14)-GLOW will be participating in the Dorm Storm. Meet in Warch @ 9pm. Let Meghan Hickey know if you're interested in helping. We are going to go RAINBOW themed, therefore it is going to be AWESOME.

Also on Thurs (4/14) night, a bunch of us are planning to put up posters advertising Day of Silence. Details on this to come.

Friday (4/15) is the National Day of Silence and Night of Noise
-We are working with Greg Griffin to have make the downstairs bathroom in Warch gender neutral for the day. We will have a table in the campus center from 11a-1p to spread awareness about the Day of Silence and encourage people to use the gender neutral bathroom.
-A bunch of us will be going to the Break the Silence March in Madison. We'll be leaving around 1pm. Meghan H will give us more details on the meeting time and place later this week. Contact her if you'd like to participate
-For those of you not going to Madison, you can check out Night of Noise @ Harmony. GLOW will be running a table from about 4:30-8pm --we will need some people to help with this.

We are working to make GLOW more visible on campus and find new ways to communicate with members. Please check out our blog and facebook page, as they will be updated regularly with events and announcements. Here are the links:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2202272018
http://www.glowlu.blogspot.com/

Also, there will be a GLOW house sleepover, open to all members and anyone interested in GLOW. Here is the link to the Facebook event.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2202272018

Last thing-- there will not be a GLOW meeting next Mon. Instead, we will be attending Amnesty International for Take Back the Night, an event supporting women's right to be safe from domestic abuse and sexual violence.

--------------

Here are the minutes...

GLOW Meeting Minutes 4/11

I Question of the day- favorite thing that happened today :D

II Announcements

A) Happy Birthday Joanna :D

B) Feinstein challenge thurs night 4/14

1) meet@ warch 9pm

2) Rainbow theme J wear bright colors

C) We’re going over constitution @ next exec mtg

D) Sex Toy WS is still up in the air. Val is having a mtg w/ someone this week

E) Glowp over Fri 4/29-Sat4/30 (reading pd)

1) Damon has set up a FB event. Please attend

F) Drag show

G) Bjorklunden

1) Spots still available

2) People need to tell Stacy meal preferences

H) Those not going to Bjork should help out w/ Earth week GLOW table on Sat 4/23

I) Go to emma’s recital 4/23

III Day of silence stuff 4/15

A) Bathroom stuff

1) Bathroom by cafeteria

2) Close one of the two bathroomsàDamon check up on this

3) Table w/ safe space signs during lunch 11a-1p

4) Need an 11*17” sign (Deborah is getting paper, Damon will design it)

B) Night of noise 4:30-8pm

1) About 4 people (who are not going to Madison) are needed to table

C) March in Madison

D) We made about 60 posters for day of Silence. We will be postering sometime this week- probably Thursday night.

IV We will not be having a meeting this next Monday. Instead, we are going to show our support at Take Back the Night.

Happy 4th week!
-Reiko

Tumblrs of LGBTQIA interest!

Just a handful of Tumblrs for your queer-friendly procrastinating pleasure:

The Sociology of Gay Politics: general news from around the US

Vintage Lesbian: frequently updated collection of gorgeous photos and illustrations of lesbians from years past

Fuck Yeah FTMs!: online safe space for and by trans* guys

Next Step: Cake: all things asexual

Bi All the Way: bisexual pride

LGBTQ Laughs: alphabet-soup friendly humor

Fuck Yeah Bisexuals: self-explanatory!

genderqueer: gender variance/queerty

Gayfitti: pictures of both homophobic and homocentric graffiti

4/5 Announcements and GLOW mtg minutes

Announcements

Thanks to those who came to the meeting. It was awesome to see some new faces and others we haven't seen in a while. Keep encouraging people to join us! Including our guests from Ripon, Fox Valley Tech, and various UW schools, we had just over 30 people in GLOW living room! 

After the meeting a bunch of us joined the people from Spectrum at Harmony Cafe for food at Applebee's. We met a bunch of really awesome folks. Anyone who is interested can meet up with the Spectrum gang at Harmony on Monday evenings at 7pm. Stacy and I and several others are planning to check it out, so you could come with us and go to GLOW meetings right after!

Some other things you might want to know about...

• Break the Silence March on  4/15 contact Meghan dot A dot Hickey at Lawrence dot edu if you're interested
• Bjorklunden trip 4/22-4/24 contact Stacy dot L dot Mallette at Lawrence dot edu if you'd like to go/are thinking about it
• We need people on the Fundraising Committee. If you'd like to help, email Damon dot E dot Heikkinen at Lawrence dot edu
• Contact if Meghan dot A dot Hickey at Lawrence dot edu you'd like to help with the Feinstein Challenge Dormstorm

GLOW Meeting Minutes 4/4

I          RIPON PEOPLE ARE HERE :D

II        Announcements

A)     GO AND VOTE ON TUESDAY 4/5!

B)      Financial Committee headed by Damon. Anyone interested in helping should email him.

C)      Drag Show  5/7 @ 10 PM in Esch

1)      Joanna and Jared are planning it

2)      We need to advertise for attendance and acts

3)      Anyone interested in performing should contact Joanna or Jared

III      Sex Toy Workshop? [we’ll discuss more at a later meeting]

IV      Shackathon

A)     We want to build a RAINBOW SHACK!

B)      Fundraising may be necessary to participate

V        V-Day Sat 4/23 (7pm)

A)     Benefit for Fox Valley Sexual Assault Crisis Center

B)      Looking for acts-poetry, music, theater, etc.

VI      Feinstein Challenge

A)     Dormstorm April 14 (9pm)

B)      Sign up sheet was circulated. Otherwise, people interested in helping out should let Meghan H. know

VII    Break the Silence March in Madison- April 15

A)     March in Madison

B)      Meet @ GLOW house porch around 1pm

C)      Let Meghan know if you are interested

VIII  House Applications are due 4/13 to Jared or Meghan K. for anyone interested in living in GLOW House next year

IX      Things from our awesome discussion

A)     The impact of projects like “It Gets Better”

B)      A few people shared their experiences coming out in or just after high school and trying to establish LGBTQ groups at their schools

C)      We also talked about what type of message should be sent to queer youth

X        WE TOTALLY NEED TO MEET UP WITH THESE PEOPLE AND OTHER GROUPS AGAIN!

XI      Come to next week’s meeting on Monday in GLOW House @ 815pm

"Gay" Caveman

I'm sure a lot of us of the LGBTQIA persuasion have seen the somewhat sensationalist article about the "gay caveman" that was found in the Czech Republic. If you haven't seen it, find it here.


Here are my thoughts. Unfortunately, there are numerous fails in this article. If anything, this skeleton reflects the existence of non-gender conforming people, not necessarily gay people. Gay does not equal "more like the gender not assigned at birth." Sometimes the two go hand in hand, of course, but it's an important distinction. Katerina Semradova says in the article that she believes it might be a "transvestite" (note: the preferred term is "crossdresser" if you're talking about someone who wears clothes not traditionally worn by hir own gender, unless Semradova was trying to say that the skeleton was transgender, in which case she could simply have said that) or a third-gender person. Neither being third gender or crossdressing is mentioned in the headline of the article; instead, the Daily Mail decided to arbitrarily assign a sexual orientation to a caveman whose sexual preferences we will never know anything about.


This could have been an extremely important news article for third-gender/non-gender conforming/genderqueer/trans* people. I hope to see this story and others like it covered in a proper light in the future.

What's On in the Queer Blogosphere, Monday 4/4/11 Edition

Again, my attempt at supporting those of all sorts whose blogging objectives align with ours!


At The Gaytheist Agenda:  World’s First Legally Married Lesbian Couple Celebrates 10th Wedding Anniversary. 
At Sex Gender Body: LGBT Discrimination: Legal Rights and Mental Health
At Asexual Curiosities: Fatal "attraction"
At TransGriot: Maine Anti-Trans Madness

Minutes from 3/31/11 Executive Board Meeting

1.  Drag Show: date, 5/7 @ 10pm

A)     Meghan should email those interested about planning

B)     Have the committee report to the exec board sometime during 5^th week

C)     Committee can have time to talk at GLOW meetings to get people interested in attending

D)     Figure out our budget for Drag Show

2.     Sex Toy Workshop

A)     Find a date (possibly during week 7 or 8?)

B)     Meghan will email “The Lady”

1)     Val should email people planning the Sex Toy Workshop and other groups that would be on board for this event/help pay

3.     Bjorklunden 4/22-4/24

A)     People interested should contact Stacy

B)     Craft time

C)     Movie

D)     Egg dying/egg rolls

4.     Other Random Things

A)     Rainbow Shack (Shackathon for Habitat for Humanity)

B)     Gender Neutral Bathroom (on Day of Silence)

C)     Edit constitution

D)     Party Ideas

1)     GLOWp over

2)     Unicorn party

3)     Gaga party

4)     Baking party

5.     Next Meeting

A)     “Something Touchy Feely”

B)     Door decs?

C)     Take “attendance”

D)     Ripon is coming!

E)     Bjorklunden

F)     Give Damon time to mention Fundraising Committee

G)     House Apps due 4/13

H)     Find out whether people would rather meet in GLOW House or Plantz

I)     Encourage feedback from members

J)     Encourage people to vote on Tues 4/5

K)     Mention March of Silence, Drag Show and Sex Toy WS

L)     Discussion

6.   Tasks

A)     Everyone

1)     Come up with something to discuss on Monday’s meeting (4/4)

2)     We need to put up posters advertising meetings and events so that Val will keep making us glorious posters  :D

B)     Meghan

1)     Email Alex, Jared and Joanna re: Drag Show

2)     Email the Early to Bed Lady about Sex Toy Workshop

3)     Invite Helen to exec meetings

C)     Val

1)     Contact people for Sex Toy Workshop

D)     Reiko

1)     Add Volunteer Center to our mailing list

2)     Figure out how to update website

3)     Find out how to create a mailing list

E)     Stacy

1)     Find out about our budget

2)     Next year’s budget