the Sacred Side Show

wow does LJ have some bugs in it still :)

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:11:57 GMT

wow that's interesting and amusing strange, I posted that last post to a group called "GLBTQ_Dsiabled which I joined like days ago and LJ sent it to my main blog in case anyone found that strange, like me :D I also notice that my code got mangled so when I repost there I'll have to redo the code and formatting, anyone ever have a post get crossed this far from where it was meant to go?

Hello from Cynthya BrianKate

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:46:00 GMT

&mbsp; ’ Hello everyone! I’m Cynthya BrianKate. I am so glad to find a list like this one!
&mbsp; ’ I’m omnisexual, femme tras/genderqueer-identified and hormonally intersex. As I’m sure not everybody will know what this means, here goes. Omnisexual as in I’m attracgted to all sorts of people regardless of gender; as for why I don’t say “bi,” because I’m not solely attracted to people who are 100% man or woman/male or female, especially as I’m hardly 100% either. Femme as in I’m pretty girly. Genderqueer as in even though I’m girly and trans, I’m not so much a MTF (Male-to-Female) as a WTF?)as in What The F**k?); wwhile I cosnider myself femme and have lived a large part of my lifer as a woman I'm not even sure what gender I'd exactly consider myself. Hormonally intersex as in I’ve had at least two puberties so far and among other things I grew breasts at age 21 without taking any outside hormones to get them.
&mbspI’m also visually disabled. I’ve had vision problems my whole life which have gotten somewhat worse over the years. I’ve been declared legally blind, am partially blind and partially sighted, which means there are things I can see, things I can’t see and a whole lot I don’t fricking notice because I don’t rely on my eyes like non-visually disabled people do. I’m able to type this out because I have a magnifier program for my computer (wish it was better but gets me by) and as for books I do a lot of audio and have finally managed to get hold of a CCTV unit as of this weekend.; ’
&mbsp; ’ As a queer disabled person I feel like I get it from both sides, though I do a *lot* better as a queer person with a disability than as a disabled person who’s queer. Generally queer spaces/people/groups I deal with/have dealt with at least try to get it. I always have to do at least 101 education on what disability stuff is and mine in particular, but the worst thing I can say about the queer community on thisn is that a lot of visibility and education needs to be done.
  ’ As for the disability community, I have yet to find it outside of a few people. I’ve two best friends who are trans and have disability issues, though theirs are different from mine (one’s got hearing issues while the other’s is somewhat complicated). As a student of Raven Kaldera’s I at least have a shaman who understands this (as he’s trans, intersex and has disability issues_ and there are some folks in our pagan group who fall under this, though they’re in Massachusetts and I live in New York). Other than that and a couple people I’ve met I don’t really feel I’ve had much community as a disabled person, let alone as a queer disabled person.
  ’ I’d say my experience with most disability groups and agencies has been … a crash course in ignorance and bigotry, less 101 than 666. At best I’ve encountered a general attitude of they don’t even understand what the heck gay is, let alone trans or intersex, and at best are surprised at the thought of a disabled person who’s anything in addition to being disabled (like we’re one dimensional stick people with no lives outside of what they see us as?) act like they never imagined a disabled person can be queer. I’ve had at least three agencies refuse to serve me at all, or severaly reduce services/interactions with me as a disabled person because of my gender. I’ve had at least one case worker (or was it two?) at one agency tell me not to “push your religion on me” before I even had a religion to push, apparently they saw my gender as a religion? When I lived in Michigan their Commission for the Blind’s caseworker said transphobic comments to my face in my own house. In New York I’m receiving services but haven’t found out whether it’s sate even bring up gender issues, let alone come out, which is ironic because I’m a nationally published gender educator who does classes on this every couple weeks. I have an open-minded caseworker from Helen Keller who’s teaching me cooking and she’s fine with me being a witch, though gender hasn’t come up yet.
  ’ I’ve attempted networking with groups here in NY and nobody I’ve asked seems to know of any. I joined BFLAG (the LGBT branch of American Council of the Blind_ but the current president isn’t allowing the group to meet. I’ve tried working with ACB itself and they never heard of gender or sexuality. I’ve tried the NY branch of ACB and learned that the NY president wasn’t interested in helping me with problems with myelection board, even though he’s a polli inspector, and I think he wouldn’t help me cause I’m trans, as I asked him about educating his group about gender and he said some pretty queerphobic things to me, in addition to claiming that disability has nothing to do with LGBT. And everyone I ask out here keeps telling me to worjk with this jerk?!?
  ’ I’m looking for better resources than I’ve been working with so far. I’d love to kln ow what I can do where I live. I’d love to know of any groups I should start networking with, on community, advocacy and activism. I’d love to know how to start being as active on disability as I’ve been on gender. I’m hoping to find community here and maybe even some ideas on resources. I’m looking to meet other queer disabled people and would especially love to meet anybody in NY. –thanks for listening, Cynthya BrianKate

am feeling like blloogiing again, know it's been several months

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 06:47:43 GMT

I know I haven't blogged in several months.
I soent all of November working on several events or Transgender Day Of Remembrance (that anti-hate/anti-murder thing I keep talking about), and oddly enough I w3as trying to court a fellow trans activist during *dudbn;t work out, don't hear from him these days). I then stayed with my family til about February, then went to Convocation (big pagan conference), had lots of intyersting excperiences (and have decided that screw it,. IO'm gonna start putting some of the spiritual stuff in here if it comes up), ,ay even puit something in about that con. Since then I've been working on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical for Penguicon (www.penguicon.org). iw that I've an amazing Anya in Rennie (tat!!!( evcerything will be fine with Buffy.
:ast night I celebrated (unsure of exact day/weel) that I've been out as trans or genderqueer or whatever words I've used, for 11 years now. Thanks Amy and Rain for the ooportunity to prove I'm struill a lihtweight at drinbking, and that I still talk like Scotty on Star Trek after even one drink :D And I'm glad I've been able to be myself all these teaesm tgar's something I wouyldn't trrade for anbttgubg. I just wish Jull Dehefsky (dybbi uf soelled gher name right), the first person I ever told about the gender stuff, was still in my life to see how far U've come since that day we went into the park and I started talking about it all for the first time.

8

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 08:33:46 GMT

I’ve been busy this past month.
I spent a week with my family, which was actually fun, especially as I got to see my friends John/Testika and Michelle (“da Wacker.”)
At the beginning of the month I had a huge birthday party thing which went really well (especially since my frien Pam got my friend Jaelyn out there—yay both of em). Thanks Rain for setting that up, and thanks to everyone who ran out there on like two days’ notice :=)
I got to see Serenity. I could say what I liked and didn’t but that would be enough spoilers to deserve a whuppung by Jayne :=)
I went to Conclave (science fiction con). I had my usual amazing time helping run the kids’ area (it’s fun leading a bunch of kids running around a hotel hitting people up for scavenger hunt junk! We also had a live action Quidditch match, with the kids pretending they had flying brooms—so glad kids still have imagination considering how many action figures okay for the kids tthese days).
At Conclave I found out they’d wanted me to run Rocky Horror there but screwed up my email, so I’m gonna be running it there next October. Their big guest is Volatire (www.voltaire.met) and I really want him as FranknFurter!
I discovered “Star Wars the musical” which is just amazing as hell, it’s at www.infauxmedia.com/swmusical/STAR_WARS-The_Musical.htm.
On the less bright side I likely need someone new to play Anya in Buffy at Penguicon this April coming up. I basically need someone who lives near me, wants to be in Buffy, can do or learn the Anya dance by practicing with me quite a bit and who isn’t afraid to go on stage in a red bra and panties. (and the only reason I haven’t said scfrew it and swircged roiles is that dance is faster than I can do).
I got to hang out with Jaelyn this past weekend. We went to this poorly attended game conference at East Michigan University. I annihilated everybody at Risk, first time I’ve beaten Rain in a board game I can remember. I showed her the crappy vampire film I nearly died (in real life) playing ainion in (Night of the Vampires is found at www.ramsteerfilms.com and the blooper reel shows some of my near death brush with a crossbow bolt fired by the idiot star actor while he was messing around, you can see his internal dimonologue was like “I’m Miami vice, I’m Miami vice I’m oh shit!” as the crossbow went off) and she didn’t gag on how cheesy it was :D We had this amazing conversation which went on all night and made me and Rain slightly late for church…where recently I learned that my freak pride sermon (haven’y been on the computer long enough to do anything with it) convinced a couple of newcomers to stick around. We then went back to Jaelyn’s place and I got to watch half of the new Doctor Who with her.
I’m gonna be spending Samhain/Halloween up at my friend Raven’s farm (www.cauldronfarm.com) with my friend Vanessa amd will start blogging again after I get back next week.

My Camp Trans post (even I was thinking "it's bout time!")

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 06:32:34 GMT

Though it’s been a couple weeks since I went to Camp Trans (www.camptrans.org) (it was from 8/8-8/14), Alison Bechdel’s still got the cast of her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (www.dykestowatchoutfor.com) at Camp Trans…and besides, it’s my blog so if I wanna talk about camp, why not? :=) And it’s taken me a while to figure even where to begin, and yes a lot happened at camp so there’s a lot to read if you want.

Rain and I got there early Monday, met a few of the people (by Tuesday we had about 30-40 people and by Saturday counting visitors and such we had about 150ish), and walked the line. That means walking up and down the line of cars waiting to get in to Michigan Womyns’ Music Festival (Camp Trans was founded because of an anti-trans woman policy regarding attending the festival which runs kinda like “don’t ask don’t tell”). I’d say in general most of the people I talked to either didn’t have a position on the issue of including trans women (many never even knew of the situation) ot support trans inclusion.

Monday night was pretty much making sure our tents were set up. I never did check the tents Rain got at a yard sale….the less said about those the better. Luckily Pam and Rain ended up sharing a tent (Pam named theirs Camp Yoda) so I took Rain’s tent, which became Camp Paradox.

Monday night around the canpfire I finally got to talk to Lauren (who Rain met last year) who is just so cool, a great person and a kickass activist (see her essay "Justice for Gwen: Are trans allies MIA?" at www.butchdykeboy.com/bdb/oneshota.htm)

Tuesday I helped make some of the vegan food we had at camp. I got to meet Emily/Trainwreck (www.trainwreckspokenword.com), a realy cool and amazing person who helped keep large parts of the camp running all week. She’s the coolest Slytherin I know!

I also got to skinny-dip with some of the other campers in a weird little creek (weird because there was a truck door at the bottom but there were some hot people at camp so who cared?)

I met Geyl Forcewind, who does puppet shows with her hands, though I didn’t really get to talk to her much til Saturday.

Geyl set up “Team Friendly” (as the greeters were known) to help make sure campers got to know each other and didn’t feel so alone; I helped with that thru the week.

Our friend Gail cane over from the festival (she does so much to raise awareness on trans issues over there!) and we gave her tons of literature and stuff to bring over there (and lent her my old camp trans tanktop).

Tuesday night we had, of all things, a pajama party in the woods. I so did not expect to get my nails done in the woods! Ruth is a really cool, fun and sweet person…she painted my nails this my favourite colour (metallic magenta) …and the polish job almost survived a week in the woods!

Was it Wednesday I met Sean. He is so cute…and a perfect gentleman…but that’s getting a bit ahead of things…

Wednesday Rain gave her spirituality workshop, which went really well and had about the sane attendance as my sermon in July (am still proofreading it). As Rain used some of the stories from our friend Raven’s book Hermaphrodeities (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1401027199/qid=1125473162/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8426497-4288928?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) some people ended up wanting to get a copy (once I told them where Rain got the pagan stories for the workshop).

I picked up a bunch of shirts. I got the official Camp Trans hirt with the broken heart logo from Stacey Montgomery’s comic strip Welcome to Sunny Camp Trans” (www.butchdykeboy.com/zines/wtsct/ppframe.htm). I bought a shirt saying “mommy is that a girl or a boy” and another with the restroom symbols merged from this one Riley. I went to a workshop given by an activist group called Transmission (need their address) and they gave me a shirt with the transgender and anarchy symbols merged, and a shirt with a scene from the comic strip Shallow Grave (michiganimc.org/newswire/display/3438/index.php) based on the Gewn Aruajo case (figures I’d get one with that on it).

Thursday was the trans womens’ caucus. As I’m not quite a woman any more than I’m a man, I didn’t go….except for accidentally tripping over a power cable while trying to find the open mike area and falling into their tent. Rain confirmed that it went much of the night and did very well.

Thursday also was the only rainy day, but that didn’t stop the open mike night. I ended up moving a bench made of logs from the campfire to the stage area to make a smaller front stage…only to find that we couldn’t use the electrical system cause of the rain…so back to the campfire it went. I met a performer known as Lot6 (hir site seems to be missing, was at www.lot6.info), whose headlights became our light system. Beth (our MC) did a really warped comedy piece about crazy neighbours, and sang an acoustic version of the Flaiming Lips’ “Yoshimi and the Battle of the Pink Robots.” That was the one night th8ings ended early (like 1am) but we made it thru open mike night (was worth getting soaked for).
Friday morning our big name guest came, Sandy Stone (sandystone.com/sandystone.orig.html), Sandy is amazing, and remembered me from when I met her while studying at Stony Brook. Sandy was the first transowman working for a lesbian record label back in the ‘70s (article at www.sissyshow.com/Timeline.htm). After being slammed in the book the Transsexual Empire (icky book) Sandy wrote the hilarious comeback “The Empire Strikes Back: a Post-Transsexual Manifesto” (found at http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~sandy/empire-strikes-back), which was among the first things I read when I was coming out. Sandy’s also a communications tech scientist, which is why at some point I wanna bring her to Penguicon.

Lot6 asked a bunch of us if we wanted pics in hir slideshow, so Rain and I ended up in it—yay!

Friday night was the first performance/dance night. First Lot6 did songs with slideshows accompanying. Our pics are part of the slideshow for “B.U.F.U.” which syands for Be yoU F--k yoU” which ze introduced as “ever meet someone so hot you don’t know whether you want to be them or f--k them?” The bad news was the spotlights were arranged in a way which made it a bit hard for me to see the slides (note for next year which Rain’s heard 1000 times!) good news is Lot6 will send me a file of it once I remember to write hir. Trainwreck did some amazingly funny and dead-on spoken-word stuff (my favourite was “Estrogen Nade Ne a Boy”). Sandy did a really cool monologue about her communication tech experince, sang “the kady is a trans” and did a piece about being able to “remap my clitoris to my left hand;” when people asked her “was that real” she said “as with any orgasm how can you tell?”

Saturday Sandy ran some acting exercises. Then we went to the Transgender Michigan picnic (yay chicken for first time in a week!).

There was the rally, where people spoke, including Sandy and Rain. I’m not sure what I think of the “declaration of victory” that was made, while yes the majority of festival attendees support trans inclusion, the policy has not been changed and the issue is still dividing/hurting people…as Rain pointed out when she spoke. Rain told two stories. The first was the story of a Unitarian minister we met at Together In Faith who was harrased for bringing her tomboy/butch daughter to the Festival (she was suspected of bringing a boy in). The second was the story of Riviera Rene (info at =”http://www.crisalide-azionetrans.it/Dor_victims_2004eng.html), a transwoman who was murdered in Grand Rapids in 2004. While painful, these stories need to be heard, especially so people know why we were there and why Camp Trans started even if it’s going to broaden its mission to being its own festival and activist training ground.

Then there was the second night of performers. I don’t remember who played first, the “Athens boys’ choir” was kinda lame and juvnile but did one good poem on hate crime issues. Then Dana Bates (www.danamusic.ca) played. I had to get her disc as it has a speech by my late friend Sylvia Rivera (one of the transfolks who fought back at Stonewall) on the song’s titled “Freak of Nature” in addition to the best song I’ve ever heard addressing the issue of anti-trans voiolence. Geyl Forcewind did her puppet show of “we are the gay giraffes and this is how we met” which was adorable.

Then we had a big spin the bottle game. I got to kiss some really cute people (and get over a momentary issue about facial hair). What I really liked about the game was it gave people who usually aren’t seem as “typically attractive” a chance to make out. As that was all that happened I stayed up til dawn around the campfire hanging out.

At each dance party Sean did the whole “may I ask you to dance?” and he actually bowed to me each time, including after I got to kiss him. And on Sunday night (as I kept having flashlight problems at night) he insisted on being the one to escort me back to Camp Paradox, even though a girl from Festival was climbing all over him….Sean is just so sweet.

Sunday was mainly tearing don the camp, at least the daytime was. We stayed one more night. I got to talk with Geyl for most of the night, which was so cool. We’ve got quite a bit in common and she’s just such a kind person and fun to talk to…and I got to have the conversation about spirituality with her Rain was hoping to have since a year ago :=)

I can’t wait til next Camp Trans…and I just may make a separate post about the interesting spiritual stuff that happened there (as there was too much for this post as it is)

I'm baaaaack!

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 05:27:52 GMT

Hey all! I just had an amazing week orso at Camp Trans, and need to blog about everyhing that happened, and will try to get it more together…
So much has gone on in my life lately, in general and spiritually…

I got much of my hair chopped off, I look cute, more ambiguous and a bit more like Professor Snape (yay!)

I went to Together In Faith (that’s the queer interfaith conferemce I attend each year). I gophered the conference and got an insanely pimp-yellow shirt, I met szome really cool people, and had lots if fun drumming. I went to some interesting workshops, learned some things (and taught in a couple). I got to see my friend Raven Kaldera (the intersex shaman I’m always talking about)). I got some new ideas out of the second run of his workshop, got his new book The Ethical Psychic Vampire and I hope to visit his farm again in 3 weeks.

Camp Trans deserves its 0own entry, or entires :=)

my first sermon--yay--I didn't stink!

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:51:32 GMT

I gave my first sermon on Sunday (at Northwest Unitarian Universalist in Southfield, MI), and yay—I didn’t stink! I will post the finished version after profofreading and fixing, though as I’ve been off LJ fir three weeks while writing it I should at least say how it went :=)
Many friends weren’t the only ones asking why I was giving a sermon, I was too (as in asking myself “what the bloody hell am I doing giving sa sermon?” thru most of the writing—thanks for putting up with me, Rain).
I’ve decided I’ve a lot to say about stuff like gender, identity inclusion/exclusion and what people consider “acceptable” or “too weird/out there” and that people need to hear this stuff, even and especially the less happy or easy to understand or deal with.
And lately I’ve come to the realization that I just may actually be a shaman. As my friend Vanessa said, “you speak with the dead, you go into altered states and you’re trying to heal society.”
I haven’t blogged in about three weeks because I’ve spent most of July trying to write the sermon, on the subject of “freak Pride.” Part of the problem was I’ve never written a sermon before (have only ever written one speech even). Part of it was that I had trouble even articulating any of the ideas. I wasn’t even sure how to explain the experience of feeling like a freak and what it means to reclaim that. As I say in the intro, most people see “Freak” as just meaning someone who’s weird, when it’s not just that. I ended up calling my favourite other hermaphrodite shaman (still getting more used to the thought that I just may be one too) and Raven (Kaldera) gave me a good definition, “a freak is someone who has a socially unacceptable difference that cannot be hidden, either because it simply cannot be hidden or because to hide that difference would be a betrayal of their mose basic self.” Ibce U got that down, Thursday afternoon that was, I was able to write a beginning, as had a middle and an end.
I finished writing the sermon itself on Friday morning, after an all0night writing session (as in up til 7am), and planned on printing it the next morning, complicated because my mouse exploded (and for some reason half my friends thought I’d said “my mouth exploded”), and I may have gotten a slight case of something yicky sunburn related despite using sunblock, though I’m fine now :=).
`Sunday morning I grabbed everything I’d need (like the CDs I’d picked to play songs from and such)m abd looked at the printed version, and realized that I felt too nervous and sick to read it, so I scribbled notes on a pad in the car on the way there. Considering the slight thunder/hail storm that morning, attendence was pretty decent, esoecuakkt since summer services are usually less attended. I had about as many people there as Rain did for her sermon two weeks ago, except this time my friends Amy and Jaelyn were there :=)
Rain kept pointing out “I’ve never seen a visiting {whatevcr word she used for guest minister types} in a t-shirt” (or dealie-bopper antennae with spiders on top) and I must say that for the new person visiting having me up there must have been…”interesting.” As I know diddly about the whole order of service (as in what stuff is done when and such) I kept having Rain help me (hey she’s the future Unitarian minister around my house), and she ended up reading the childrens’ story…the poem version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” by Robert L. May. I’m glad she cut out the bit where Santa “chose the appropriate toys for little girls and boys”---ick, I too would think “say what!?”
It was fun to have the UU hymns about diversity and welcoming playing side by side with Le Chic’s “Freak Out,” Whodini’s “The Freaks Come Out At Night” and our acquaintance Namoli (meant to sound like “anomaly”) Brennet’s song “We Belong.”
I managed to do an at least better-than-I’d-feared delivery of the sermon, though I left out some points, amd while I was able to speak on most of my points, I had trouble connecting ahnd making transitions. Let’s say that me on paper/e;ectronic is often more articulate than me speaking. And of course I hadn’t thought to include any of the transitional points in my notes.
Still, everyone seems to have liked it a lot. Everyone who came up to me said the usual things I hear about my courage in sharing my stories. I showed one couple my feet and pointed out where the sixth toe’s supposed to be on each. And I’ve been asked if and when I’d want to do something more on the issues I rbought up. So I must’ve done something right :=)
Next time I do a sermon I’m going to write it first then volunteer, but I think I might be up for doing another one…though not for a while :=) Meanwhile I’ve got some more essays to write.

Back from Blog Limbo :=)

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 07:45:51 GMT

     I have not vanished, I just haven’t blogged in awhile, cause I’ve been busy.
     I’ve gone swimming almost every day past 2 weeks, I might be getting a bit more in shape.
     Last weekend Rain and I went to Lansing Pride. We got in for free cause Rain got the one guy protesting pride to shut up for a while )he was speechless cause Rain gave him a bottled water and said “you keep this up and you’ll get thirsty quick”). I got to see Ember Swift play. I bought 2 of her discs, one for a punk violin version of the Goldilocks story (“what if she had jerry curls/would the bears be as nice to her as to a blonde white girl”) and the other for the song “Freak”) and Ember said she’d visit us at camp trans in august, Someone in an ACDC shirt and pantyhose (in 98 degree heat) hit on me (I’d say a handshake that lasts three minutes counts) though I was less interested once they started talking (for some reason self-hatred doesn’t turn me on much), the whole thing left me wondering what I need to do to get someone wuth what I’m looking for to be interested.
     Immediately after ppride we went to an AEGIS (swordfghting group) party where I got my ass kicked in a knife fight (foam rubber knives), this tiny woman in a little black dress managed to give me what would be an aortal stab, from behind. in under three minutes. Still I had a lot of fun all night (how Rain managed to go to church the next morning on no sleep to grab me a set of dealie-boppers (antennae) is beyond me), If I hadn’t gotten overheated at pride I would’ve told a story in the artistic competition.
     I finally found somebody willing to host my site for free without any hi-junks! The Radical Faeries have told me they’ll be glad to do it once I send em the pages. Goodbye to angelfire, I won’t miss giant bumper sticker ads, threats of censorship or proprietary “keepaway” games with my own files. I’ll have to leave a link to the new site oin the angelfire account, though, as so many people have linked to it that it’s sort of prime swampland real estate. Yay me having a queer abd freak friendly place to host my site! Yaaaaay! Now I just have to revise half my site for the new version, as I think I can write it better, which I’ve been working on for five days now.
     I also just got back from going to see the Miyazaki movie “Howl’s Moving Castle” and it was amazing! I will be telling everyone I know to go see it, and I’ve a new quote for my quotes page; when Sophie asks Howl “how many aliases do you have?” he says “as many as I need to keep my freedom.”
     I’m likely going to bed soon so I can get up in time to go see Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3-D.

"the fundamentalists" rocked out at pride

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:29:54 GMT

     As of yesterday I went to the first queer pride picnic I’ve seen have entertainment provided by the fundamentalists.
     Yes, that’s the name the band who played the stage called themselves, nice ironic little joke. They were pretty good, somewhere between rock and emo, and managed to get a progressive, anti-theocracy/anti-religious hate, anti-current adminstration agenda into songs that people could actually listen to and dance as much as possible to in the heat and rain.
     In addition to their own songs (like “Stop Feeding the Hand that Bites You”) they did some covers, including Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” (which meant I got to clue a friend in on the fact that singer Marc Almond finally came out, like we all didn’t know even in the ‘80s :=).
     Washtenaw county Pride was fun, and as I said, now I can say the fundamentalists gave us a great concert :=) I should see if they have any albums out.

Managed to take back some power today

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 28 May 2005 06:34:46 GMT

Last night (Thursday) I was harassed and made to feel afraid for my safety by a bunch of gender-phobic creeps. Today (Friday afternoon) I dealt witth the incident, but I’m still slightly shaken and unsure what to think about what happened.

As most who know me or read me know, I escaped several attempts to kill or hurt me in my hometown by people who hated me over my gender, and have had even more incidents of harassment.

When I moved from Long Island to Ann Arbor I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with this like I did. In fact thanks to my friend Jennifer I’ve regained the ability to walk at night without fear. In genral I’ve been feeling pretty safe in A2 (as people round here abbreviate it).

Recently I’ve been feeling like the bus station downtown has become a gathering place for really loud and scary/dangerous people. I’ve tried not to have to take the bus back from downtown after dark. I didn’t realize how bad the situation was until yesterday.

It seems they have also started gathering in front of the downtown library (across the street) and terrorizing people there.

I’d just eaten at the restairant next door and was on my way to U of M when I passed by the library and didn’t even notice them. They started shouting all kinds of gender-phobic stuff, first yelling to each other “Shit! Is that tghing a man or a woman?” Thing?! I happen to be a person! I kept walking, as I had to walk past the whole building to get back to the street I was heading for, and went as fast as possible, though one of them kept it up, screaming at me “you a transsexual or some kind of f—king morphodite? You get a f—king sex change opr couldn’t make up your mind?” I kept walking, as fast as I could without seeming olike I wanted to run. I honestly felt the potential for real violence there. I alsi ffekt pretty damn outraged that I’d been chased away from my library and made to feel afraid to be on a public street.

I dreaded the thought of having to take a bus back, which also made me angry. Luckily nt friend Diane got me home. After telling Rain the whoile thing, she told me I might as well call the cops in the morninf, which I did.

I actually got a much better reaction from the cops here than I did in Long Island. In Bayshore (my hometown), even with a friend whose family’s on the force I couldn’t get one to even listen let alone help after the most blatant incident there (that night made me an activist), while in Ann Arbor I got some really polite people who took the whole incident down and told me that they’d get this taken care of immediately, which I hope happens. I sure am not going to let myself be chased out of my town if I can help it.

I also realized something about myself tonight. I’ve on at least some level been stereotyping police for nearly five years based on what happened in Bayshore, thinking that all of em must be like the jerk I got that night. I’ve been guilty of blanjet prejudice, nowhere near as badly a, say, the people who’ve harrased me but still I’ve been prejudging an entire group based on one person. And that’s something I don’t want to do or have as part of me if I can help it.

The weirdest cibsequence of last night is it may have slightly changed my feelings about cell phones. I’ve told friends that the only way one could have helped me when I needed it would have been if it could dial the USS Enterprise and call for full phaser banks on the people who were after me 5 years ago; I might actually get one, but it’s just gonna be one of those ones that call scops, as at least now I live somewhere if something happens I can expect a response. I’m also glad I got this dealt with, as I don’t feel like a victim like in Long Island, and I’m also glad I live in a place where this is considered excessive behaviour and not to be tolerated.

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 14 May 2005 06:45:19 GMT

Sometime this week (not sure of exact day) is the 10th anniversary of the first time I ever came out as genderqueer, or as not being exactly a man or a woman. Wow, I’ve really been out that long :=)

I have someone from my first collehe to thank for being the first to encourage me. When I was growing up (the ‘80s) the only other person I really knew of was Boy George on MTV, and I didn’t think I could ever talk to anyone about my gender.
Then one day Jill and I started talking about this MTV show “Alternative Nation” (the corporate media’s idea of “alternative” and “grunge” music/culture), she commented on the host Kennedy, “perfect hair and nails and makeup, if this really *were* a “grunge” show she’d look like me, or it’d be a guy dressed like that.” Then the conversation turned to…Boy George in the ‘80s, and I ended up telling Jill that I’d always looked up to Boy George as a kid, that I’d had at least some idea of not being exactly the guy everyone saw me as since about age four, that I’m somewhere in between or maybe even outside the “all boy/all gurl” lines I’d bveen presented with my entire lifem and told all the times I’d been made to feel like less than a person for being what at the time I caked androgynous. Jill’s reaction was “wow, it’s like you’ve spent your whole life in a huge iron ball, it’s so great that you can talk about this with me” and asked if she was the first ever…..well yeah! Jill was amazing, I wish I knew where she moved to after she graduated.

That was only the first time I ever came out, but it made all the others possible.—Cynthya/BrianKate

we performed in Buffy in Chicago--yay!

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Wed, 11 May 2005 04:34:18 GMT

I’m finally home for the next few hours so I figured I’d post about tobeCONtinued: the Musical this past weekend. (That’s where Amy and I reprised our roles in Buffy).

 Illinois is now the furthest west I’ve ever been (my recird used to be Ann Arbor). Weird gaining an hour getting there.
 I finally got to meet some people from the Michigan LEGO group. I had a lot of fun populatuing a LEGO city while I checked out the exhibits…which included a life-size Marvin the Martian, the Tick’s head, a 4-foot long model of the Nebuchadnezzar hovership from the Matrix and lots of vehicles from Star Wars.
 We then found out where we’d be performing Buffy with Luke (Luke Ski) and Carrie’s group. We’d expected a stage like at Penguicon and were not expcting where we were given.
 We ended up performing in someplace called something like Marquis Gardens. This was a huge tent (yay—as a freak I love the idea of performing in a tent :=)) which looked set up for a wedding. We did have room for Amy’s table, and instead of banquet tables for the bed we moved some kind of bench. We had more stage space than at Penguicon…because there *was no* stage, we ended up acting on the floor.
 I didn’t realize I’d met their Giles as Ken had met me at Penguicon. Yay Ken as Giles! Interesting to see a guy play the part.
 I found consuite and grabbed food, so I missed opening ceremonies, thanks Luke for repeating your “Fandom Dazzle” song for those of us who missed it there. I did get to check out some of the comedy acts before our preshow.
 As at Penguicon, Luke did an amazing hob of stalling the audience for nearly an hour. This time it was because nobody seemed able to work the sound equipment (as the room was not quite set up for sound, we had Bill Putt’s equipment there but no Bill to run it) so in addition to running out to buy a cable to fix the problem, Luke did a lot of songs besides his “Joss Whedon trilogy” (Buffy, Angel, Firefly),
 We all did really, really well. This time I had plain, nonsticky onuts for the dxonut scene in the beginning. While their Sweet didn’t do makeup like Davroz, he did have a breakaway pimp-suit which he ised to switch from red to blue and he sure could dance. Ken was a fun Reagan minion (we used the president masks). Amy did as excellently as ever amd I must’ve done well, as many people only knew me at that con as Xander. And Luke and Cariie were so great and totally believeable as Buffy and Spike.
 Amy and I went to some of the parties aferward. The karaoike was pretty good, especially the couple who sanf “Under Pressure.” The Worldon party was okay. The filk room was okay. Steve MacDonald filked that old “Dear Abby” song as Buffy characters writing to Abby, including Joss Whedon.
 Saturday morning I hit the dealrs’ room, and after an hour of agonizing I bought the DVD of Freaks (one of my favourite movies, and one I have yet to find a website which does it justice). Thanks to Amy I learned there *is* good pizza outside of New York (why does it seem to me like only places with Mafia histories have good pizza?)
 As we packed, Any noticed Virginia Hey’s memorial to hder cat. As I didn’t notice the sign with her name and I had only ever seen her as Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan (Farscaoe) so I didn’t recognise her. Yesterday I learned from Amy that “I was talking to Zhaan and didn’t know it?!”
 As unfortunately the people who were going to perform “Once More With Hobbits” (the Lord of the Rings spoof of the Buffy musical) couldn’t make it, Luke gave 2 concerts that aftrernoon. I loved the costumes Luke and Carrie did for “Vader Boy” (Luke as a Sith lord and Carrie as Anidala), and I finally got to see Luke’s 13-minute musical “Grease Wars,” his combination spoof of Star Wars and Grease, with himself dressed as Han Solo/Travolta and Carrie as Olivia Newton-John/Leia. I am so getting the CD when it comes out. I wish I’d gotten to see Mystery Science Theatre 3000 the musical, and am hoping Luke might have video of that. I am so glad we were able to help Luke and Carrie out, it was fun!

Chocolate Ritual pics from Penguicon

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 08:04:05 GMT

Here are the pics Davroz took fo me at the Chocolate Ritual at Pneguicon--Cynthya

(Pemguicon) Buffy versus Darth Maul (and Regan, Bush jr. and Al Gore)_

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 04:16:17 GMT

Though Amy has already posted about Buffy, I still feel like posting about it myself. Maybe we can do Buffy as Rashomon :=)
 Guest of Honour Joan Vinge agreedb to play the Parking Lady, so my friend Cathy (as the traffic cop) got the hot of writing Joan Vinge a parking ticket. My friend Matt got out of his Pope costume long enough to play the victim boy Buffy saves in the opening number. We ended up needing a Horned Denon so I drafted a girl dressed as a Nazgul Bunny to play him (who was that masked Wraith? I want to thank her); she twisted the ears into horns and it worked great.
 We got Luke (who played Spike) to stall for Davroz to arrive, as Davroz was racing back to con from shooting graduations hours away. Luke does some funny if painfully twisted comedy rap….like the Spice Girls spoof “If you wannabe a slayer you have got to stake”. Luke was great, he stalled for an hour of preshow. He told the audience “they want me to stall for *another 10 minutes*?” and did that with his Firefly rant song (which I actually want) and “Fan Girls shake your booty” (I was amused to see Malka shaking her booty onstage.
 Davroz arrived, swooping through backstage in the red pimp-suit and his own interpretation of the demon Sweet (I love the Darth Maul horns); I’ll post pics of him as soon as I get ‘em.
 Anne was amazing as Buffy, especially since I didn’t get her the episode until a week before the musical—pays to have someone who teaches “Dancing for Geeks” and digs Buffy playing her. My friend Gail made such a perfect Giles it was spooky. Maggi and Rain made one lovely couple as Willow and Tara (I kept looking out the conrer of my eye when I was sposed to be “researching”—you would’ve too, and at least one friend can’t get “I;m Under Your Spell” out of her head. As anyone who’s seen Amy’s journal shows she did excellently as Anya. We both did amazingly, at least from what everyone who came up to us later said :=) Davroz was something cool as Sweet, even if it took him all night to get the latex off his head. Cherie did a great Dawn dance, especially with minions gathefred mere dats before (and who so graciously wore the politician masks). Con-chair Bill Putt was the guy who fell out of the curtains as the burned townsperson in Sweet’s number, as opposed to Laurie the tapdancer (yay volunteers!) Cathy got to die in front of the stage as she played the Reagan minion (as opposed to Gore and Dubya minions),
 And Luke kicked total ass as Spike. Even with no microphones (as shadow cast is sposed to be lipsynch) he not only sang and said all his lines but could be heard over the DVD. I loved how convincing he made the scene where Spike grabs the priest in “Rest In Peace”; his friend Carrie (who was Brad) in the audience was the priest and wyhen he grabbed her I think some folks scattered. And I nearly cried when he and Buffy had that kiss scene at the end.
 And seems Amy and I will be reprising our roles at tobeCONtinued next week.

(Penguicon) Enter the Pirate Ninjas

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 03:22:18 GMT

Saturday morning I learned I can do the Buffy routine practically in my sleep. My clock didn’t wake me up so I got up 10 min. into the final run-through for Buffy, but nobody seemed to mind. I did the dance routine perfectly on 3 hours sleep and before having eaten—woohoo!

After food and a shower I went to Tom Smith’s concert. I need the lyrics to “The 12 Days of Star Wars.” He’s written a comic book opera, “Last Hero on Earth.” I love the song about the “Pirate Ninjas of Dino Island” who “fly the Jolly Raptor.”

(see next post for more)

(Penguicon): Riff Raff sacrifices his underwear

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 03:19:55 GMT

We almost went on without costumes. 20 min. before the show with no sign of stuff we prepared to go on with what we had, in which case mt death ray would have been my Magenta’s
hairdryer. Here’s where I sacrifriced a pair of my “tighty-whities,” willingly this time (see an ealier post for notes on the other time) as I gave Carrie a pair so she could do the seducton scene as Brad. Luckily all our cast people got there about 5 min. before showtime, with all our costumes and props. I don’t think anyone noticed as Luke Ski was an amazing MC and the con mascot (Tux the penguin was a good sport) even got in on the fun of humiliating virgins.
 Rocky Horror went excellently. Cory Doctorow (a Guest of Honour and head of Electronic Frontier Foundation made an interesting Eddie. Some people seemed surprised by “a female Frank’n’furter :gasp:” (obviously they need to see more performances of Rocky) and we had some “hot girl-on-girl action” as we had most of the male roles played by women. Moonbeam was one sexy Frank’n’furter and my friend Maggi was the definitive Janet Weiss for the second time. My friend Malka made a really cool Criminologist, and had a great combeback to the audience line “Describe your balls!” wth “you wouldn’t believe them”. I got to use my plushie chestburster (that thing from the movie Alien) to torment Rocky. ^Though the lighting essentially not, Cherie (my Magenta) helped me through my entrances and exits as Riff-Raff through that black tunnel of curtaining between the stage and backstage. And I had a pretty cool death ray, made from curtain rods, duct tape and a bottle cap, it looked exactly like the one iun the movie.
 I then went up to Moonbeam’s room and we celebrated, snd her sister showed us a Predator-vision-y but very watchable tape she’d made of us. As I headed down to bed I found the earrings I thought I’d lost,<./p>

Penguicon--the Saga begins :)

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 03:15:47 GMT

I’ve caught up in enough sleep and stuff I neglected while at con to write about Penguicon. I’ve abandoned my plans to have this as a serialized pulp-fiction project as it not only got sillier than I even planned but people started getting lost, so now there’s just the consolidated “con as a whole” and a post on each musical.--Cyndy
I got to the hotel early so those of us performing Rocky Horror could do our final run-through on the actual stage; this went well and I was happily surprised, as I hadn’t gone through playing Riff-Raff much.
Next actual event I wrnt to, the Choclate Ritual, a ritual, set up like many “typical” pagan rituals, to celebrate choclate, with a really neat version of communion. Davroz (who played Sweet in Buffy) got a few pics of me there, I’ll post those separately, and I was glad to see my friends Jane and Rachel there, I haven’t seen them at cons in a while.
I’ve given the Penguicon performances of Rocky Horror and Buffy their own separate posts.
I walked out of Buffy…right into a bunch of pirates, and I ended up wlking the plank…twice!
Somebody got the idea of a roving pirate room party, so they dressed up as pirates and carried around a galleon-shaped bar and had people walk a bunch of 2-by-4s on the floor for badge ribbons with a Jolly Roger. They didn’t find my first walk amusing. Jane telled at them, “He played Xander!” I walked the plank again, this time with a bad Jack Sparrow accent (“you lazy wankers, when I get back on this ship I’m whupping yer arses!”) They gave a ribbon in exchange for not having to hear the accent ever again.
I sent Rain into the charity auction (for EFF and Critercare (our friend Tracy’s recovery stuff)) as I didn’t want to miss any hanging out, and Rain actually has patience, with the object of snagging me a boa made of dead Muppets. Jane found me in Consuite and told me Rain had succeeded, which meant I could parade around for the rest of the con in it :=) Everybody did Skeksis impressions from Dark Crystal and someone asked me “do you know how many Muppets had to die so you could wear that?” to which I replied “seven, dahling…can’t you count?” It’s adorable, somebody put a lot of work into it, it’s seven little brightly coloured puppet stoles which hook together to make one seven-foot boa, I should look for a picture of it.

Then Rain and I did karaoke. I only did one song, as I knew there was no way I couldn’t do Ziggy Stardust justice (yay me). Rain, on the other hand, did an impressice set, starting with “Man I Feel Like a Woman” and ending on “Macho Macho Man” :=) Then someone had to do “I Want You to Want Me”—ick…but Rain just kept “Mystery Science Theater 3000”-ing the guy with lines like “No, I want you to go away.” At that time of the night and with a song like that it was funny.

Karaoke closed out soon after, around 6am. I started heading for bed, didn’t quite make it. I passed out on a couch in Consuite and woke up next to a guy playing some strange repetitive guitar song about the horrible crushing death of a sentient lamp (I still can hear the lines “his broken metal cage…/he tries to run he tries to scream”)

and several friends told me I looked “so cute” sleeping there (I’d’ve looked cuter hustled off to bed but that’s just me). Raihn woke me up and we decided I needed food….badly. We walked to a nearby restaurant…in 2 inches of snow from a surprise storm that morning (what the bloody hell is snow doing in late April?!?), pirt I’d worn sandals :=(

I finally made it to the dealers’ room, and bought the two things I felt I needed…a book called “Baby’s First Mythos” (Cthulhu for kids, ABC style) and the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s “A Very Scary Solstice” CD, the Cthulhu Christmas CD I mentioned in previous posts’ “music” fields. It is funny as hell…and my favourites are “Mi-Go We Have Heard On High” (if you’ve read “The Whisperer In Darkness”) and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-men” (if you’ve read “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” one of my favourite Lovecraft pieces). Now I need to find the Cd to the Lovecraft musical “Shoggoth on the Roof.”

I finally got Cory Doctorow to sign my book (“Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”). I then high-tailed it to last food grab and end-of-con ceremonies (I don’t like calling it a “bitch session” cause to me that implies the expectation of people complaining). I thanked everyone I remembered to thank (sorry I didn’t thank you more Amy, considering you built the fricking table and spent I don’t wanna know how many hours painting Xander’s shirt). I then skipped the “dead dog” end-of-con party so Gail and I could help Malka move stuff in her basement (I was paid for my work with much, much Mexican food). I then came back gome and passed out for about a day or two, amd after a few days of resting I’m back in action, ready to play Xander at least once more this year.

update on musical updates

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 07:35:43 GMT

  I haven’t posted diddly in weeks because my life lately has been almost entirely the musicals. I’ve been mostly running from rehearsal to rehearsal, and I still think I need to watch Rocky Horror at least once more so I can get Riff-Raff’s moves right.
  Penguicon is this Friday-Sunday, and Rocky Horror is Friday night and Buffy is Saturday night. I just got home from rehearsing Buffy a little while ago (actually about 2 hours ago but have been trying to modify my LJ layout) and we seem to have all our stuff together. Though I still need one person to be a minion/vampire.
  I will say though that Amy and I have our dance darn near perfect (we got applause from the rest of the cast, hoping to get likewise from the con audience, esp after three-four weeks of practicing our scenes)….and I finally got to see the amazingly beautiful maple-leaf shirt my friend Amy made for my Xander costume.
  As for Rocky, I have a Dr. Scott, though the friend I really would’ve loved to have in the part couldn’t do it, instead a guy known as Dr. Scott who has a pinball parlour in Ohio is supposed to be coming in to play him. I had to replace Brad and that should take care of that. My Trixie is a bit ouissed that she won’y be able to bring sets (like Rocky’s tanl and the Denton town sign), but I’m happier to have costumes and props without sets than the other way around. Og, and as we won’t have a candelabra for me to terrorize Rocky with as Riff-Raff I will likely use the life-size chestburster plushie toy from AlienI picked up kast week….wgt bit? I’m already using a plushie of one of H.P. Lovecraft’s Deep Ones as the Mutant Enemy “grr argh” guy for Buffy…..

  I’ll post something about how the con went next week, I promise!

update on musicals

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 07:47:34 GMT

Hoping to finally have a full cast in time for the con, I've all the main characters now that a friend has said she can play Dr. Scott, though still need to get 2 minions for the Sweet/Dawn scenes....rehearsals are going okay considering some cast members haven't been able to get to them, hoping they know their characters. Amy and I seem to have our scenes pretty much down by now, though I still have to gget half my wardrobe. Otherwise am just stressed out and waiting for replies on requests for minions.

Buffy update

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 04:58:53 GMT

As I mentioned I'm running Buffy and Rocky Horror for Penguicon. As for RHPS everythihng is more or less in place and we start rehearsals sunday after Easter. As for Buffy....I had tto replace Spike last week, then I heard that the guy I have playing Sweet the dancing demon couldn't make that day of con, now as of tonight he called and said he can do it as he'll get back to the con just as we're starting and luckily for that his character doesn't show up for the 1st fiftenn minutes. And I and my friend Amy spent all day rehearsing our scenes as Xander and Anya, and we can pretty much do it...at 1/2 speed.....good thing we have almost a month to get it together, and at lreast I can dip her without dropping her :)
only bad news is I now have to get another Brad for RHPS, hoping that works out ovcer next couple days…
Good news is that re Buffy, Amy and I are now up to rehearsing our scenes at somewhere between 62 and 88% speed--Cynthya

back and busy, or musicals at con (meant to be screamed like "Khan!"

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 07:50:06 GMT

I'm finally back home in Ann Arbor after 3 months with my family in Long Island. Not all of it was dull, among other things I got to go to a conference on intersex issues which Iwill post on soon--a month afterward but my thoughts have been a bit unclear as to what I thought about the con as a whole....)
and I'm also currently busy as can be getting musicals together. Next month I'll be putting on shadowcast performances of Rocky Horror and the Buffy musical at Penguicon (if you haven't heard of it yet it's half science fiction con and half Linux fair). I finally have a cast together, though still have to get 3 minions for Buffy, and we’re starting to rehearse—it’s just that with a month left to go and having just gotten everything together I’m more than a bit stressed, and will be until both musicals have been accomplished, though I think it’ll work…and I’ll likely forget what it took to get em done and jump at the chance to do em again next year :)

considering that this is how I met some truly important people in my life...

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 07:53:23 GMT

I found this in my friend Raenna's journal. As I found the friend who introduced me to my friend John/Testika thru a link to hir homepage, and my roommate Lorrraine and I met because she emailed me thru an article I wrote ("Ollie-Ollie-Ox-On-Three! Where Are the Others?)"...and that's also how author Kate Bornstein (a major hero and kickass writer on gender stuff (see my Kate Bornstein fansite) and a few other really cool people in my life...
I should put this sentence in my journal as well:

"If there is at least one person in your life whom you consider a close friend, and whom you would not have met without the internet, post this sentence in your journal."

When the "Evil Overlord List" happens to you

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 07:09:12 GMT

For those not as geeky as me, the "Evil Overlord List" is a spoof list of "what I will do when I am an evil overlord" and lists how to avoid the most common and stupid mistakes comic book/movie villains usually make; the list can be found by Googling it and one form is at http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=397468.
One of my favourites is "#140: I will instruct my guards when checking a cell that appears empty to look for the chamber pot. If the chamber pot is still there, then the prisoner has escaped and they may enter and search for clues. If the chamber pot is not there, then either the prisoner is perched above the lintel waiting to strike them with it or else he decided to take it as a souvenir (in which case he is obviously deeply disturbed and poses no threat)." And this actually happened to me a few days ago.
I was at party for a friend's album release and I found on leaviung that someone I didn't know at the party had gone thru my bag and stole my wallet. Luckily there was very little money in it and it was later recovered with my ID still in it, but the crazy thing is whoecver stole my wallet also stole a spare pair of my underwear! I had them in case I had to crash for the night at John/Testika’s house, and they weren’t there, they weren’t in my bag and as J/T said, the friend who drove us “would’ve *certainly* said something if they turned up in his car.”
Who the hell steals a stranger’s fruit-of-the-loom “tighty-whiteys”? That’s even sicker than robbing the chamberpot, at least I got an amusing story out of it.

followup on Gammadian entry

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 06:47:16 GMT

I'm not sure if I'm that crazy about how the last entry came out. It seems a liottle stilted to me, then again I think that'sbecause I've been running from my feelings about the brreakup I mentioned in there. It was friendly, and we're still friends and roommates, but it's like I still have trouble talking about it. Then I wrote thwe last entry and have been both busy and feeling less than pleasewd with how the entry came out.
On the plus side, I actually had a Gammadian valntine day this week. My friend John/Testika and I spoke at my llast college on intersex issues in the morning, and the friend whose class we spoke at gave us free movie passes and candy. Then we wacthed the "40 lamest love songs of all time" and laughed our asses off at how ridiculous the whole holiday hype gets :)

Gammadian valentines idea

barbieboy001@yahoo.com — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 08:36:45 GMT

Edited from earlier posting:
  It’s almost Valentines day, reminding me that people outside the gender system like me often get left out of romance because people can be so hung up on gender, I’ve decided on an alternative holiday for people who aren’t exactly boys or girls and who’ve been left out of romance and dating. Being an ubergeek I call it Gammadian Valentines day.
  In Carolyn Ives Gilman’s novel Halfway Human people on the planet Gammadis grow up to be either male, female or neuter, and the neuter people are treated as not even human. They’re called “blands” ssince people who don’t have a clear-cut one-or-the-other/boy-or-girl gender aren’t “supposed” to be seen as interesting or sexy.
  Reminds me of Earth. Reminds me of all the times I’ve been shown or told in so many words that I should expect to be alone because so many people can’t handle someone like me. I’m not a man or a woman, I’m not even exactly male or female. Like the “blands” on Gammadis I know what it’s like to not be wanted because I’m neither. It seems like a lot of people are scared off by the whole gender thing and we’re left alone and wondering why.
  I’ve heard so many times the idea that “you need gender to have love or sex” and that if you don’t have gender the world will become some kind of colourless place where everybody has to walk around with buzzcuts and ugly grey pantsuits. Then how come the sexiest people lists are topped by ambiguous people like David Bowie, Annie Lennox and Jaye Davidson? I know I want to start winning at the Crying Game.
  I can either sit and whine, or I can try to do something. So I’ve proposed Gammadian Valetnines day. If you know someone who’s not exactly a man or a woman, and they haven’t had the luck to find a sweetie to appreciate them for who they are rather than what gender they aren’t, then go out of your way to do something nice for them. Maybe if this catches on it could help improve the odds for me and people