My Newest Discovery: I Want To Write A Book

I have recently come to the conclusion that I want to write a book. I was flipping through a library book on the 7th of August, M. J. Ryan’s This Year I Will, and it suggested that I quickly write down every goal I have for the next twenty years. Wow. I do not generally think that far ahead — five years is pretty much the maximum for right now (I’m currently working with more of a one year/18-months plan). The one surprise was that I want to write a book.

The New Jim Crow: The #1 Book I Recommend

Go buy Michelle Alexander‘s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Or check it out from the library, or borrow it from a friend — I don’t really care how you obtain it, but you absolutely should read it. I know I recommend a lot of books, but of all the books I own — of all the books I’ve ever read — if I could only suggest one book, it would be The New Jim Crow. 

Meeting the Authors of Queer (In)Justice

Joey Mogul, speaking about Queer (In)Justice at DePaul Law School

A few months ago, I went to a reception and reading of Queer (In)Justice at DePaul Law School (after another successful name change mobilization by TJLP). It was amazing. Two of the authors, Joey Mogul and Andrea Ritchie, spoke, and they were awesome. 

Exploring Astrology

While I was in Chicago, I started getting interested in astrology: for the first time, I had friends who really believed in astrological signs. I couldn’t help but get caught up in the feeling that the signs really mean something about people. The only problem was that I didn’t know anything about what the signs meant. I picked up little things here and there — mostly that Pisces are generally very caretaker-y — and my friend gave me a chart of the planetary alignments from when I was born. I’ve always known that I’m a Pisces, although I didn’t know what it meant, but now I know that I have a Pisces moon and a Taurus rising.

When I was at the library this week, I picked up a book on astrology (Joanna Martine Woolfolk’s The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need), although I was a little wary because I don’t know how well it’ll mesh with what my friends think about astrology, and I’m more inclined to go with what they say than any random book. I ended up exploring the book today with my mom and a friend, and it was kind of ridiculous to see how accurate it was. 

GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

(Edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell, and Riki Wilchins)

I refer to this book, and the collection of essays in the front by Riki Wilchins, constantly. It’s a wonderful anthology, and it shows — in real people’s voices, not just academic theory — that there’s so much more to gender than merely “man” and “woman.” It’s one of the first trans-related books I ever read; I bought it, Wilchins’ Queer Theory, Gender Theory, and Leslie Feinberg’s Trans Liberation at the 2009 MN Trans Health and Wellness Conference.

Perhaps one of my favorite quotes about gender is in Wilchins’ essay “A Continuous Nonverbal Communication:” “In fact, throughout our entire waking lives we are carrying out a continuous nonverbal dialogue with the world, saying, ‘This is who I am, this is how I feel about myself, this is how I want you to see me‘” (12). To me, that statement sums up why it is so important to allow people to identify and express their gender as they will — to do otherwise would be to render them invisible and deny who they are.

Gratefully Yours

Until recently, I’ve had a big problem with the word “gratitude.” I didn’t like it; I didn’t want to use it; and I certainly wasn’t going to say that I’m grateful to my parents for feeding me, housing me, clothing me, and basically doing what parents should.

Leslie Feinberg: While a hostile relative re-writes my life

Leslie Feinberg: While a hostile relative re-writes my life: ‘Who is, and is not, my family’

by Leslie Feinberg on Friday, January 14, 2011 at 12:46pm, and reposted by Ryan.

[please repost]

In autumn 2010, Knopf published a “transgender” themed young adult novel. The author, Catherine Ryan Hyde, is an estranged relative of mine.

The analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Hyde’s young adult fiction novel will come from those who are living the identities, and oppressions to which she has applied her imagination.

However, as part of the media coverage and publicity tour for the release of the young adult novel, Hyde claims much of her expertise and authority for writing her “transgender”-themed young adult novel as based on my life and identity.

Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls

Just after posting about that massive children’s book fail, I now have found a complete children’s book win! Okay, so, Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls is actually a coloring book. And I really want it. The Amazon product review calls it “a comic deconstruction of traditional gender roles.” How awesome is that? 

Children’s Books Teaching Homophobia and Transphobia

Are you serious? I just came back from a vigil in memory of the 9 teens who killed themselves last month because of anti-gay bullying. And then I discovered this link about the book Chased by an Elephant, the Gospel Truth about Today’s Stampeding Sexuality, by Janice Barrett Graham, which is apparently intended to “help shed the clear light of truth on today’s dark and tangled ideas about male and female, proper gender roles, the law of chastity, and the God-given sexual appetite.” The book “champions ex-gay therapy and curing people of their homosexuality.”

“Let’s All Be Anarchists and Run Around With Our Pants On Our Heads!”

The title is, in fact, a quote from a friend in high school. Anarchy — what is it? What does it mean? It carries so many connotations in today’s society. There seems to be this cultural idea of anarchism as meaning people running around doing whatever they want, regardless of the effects of their actions on others, or burning buildings down, and generally causing  havoc. But is that really what anarchism means?