Kate Bornstein's Blog for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws

My '09-10 Holidaze Card For You

Happy holidaze. Right this minute, I'm on the home stretch for writing the first draft of my memoir, Kate Bornstein Is A Queer And Pleasant Danger. This is an image I made to remind myself to write from my heart. I figure that if you're reading this, you're a writer too. You write books or a blog, articles, journals, FaceBook updates, email, tweets—whatever—you write. 

So, here's my holidaze card for the writer you are. If you click on the image, it'll open into a full-sized mini-poster, 8 inches by 10 inches, at a high enough resolution to print. I figure the more that all of us write from our hearts, the better off the intertubes will be for our writing. 

Happy holidaze, dearest hearts, with love and respect from

Your Aunt Kate

Open Letter to LGBT Leaders Who Are Pushing Marriage Equality

To the leaders, membership, and supporters of The Human Rights Campaign, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and state-wide groups supporting marriage equality as your primary goal,

Hello. I'm Kate Bornstein, and I've got a great deal to say to you, so you deserve to know more about me: I write books about postmodern gender theory and alternatives to suicide for teens, freaks and other outlaws. I'm a feminist, a Taoist, a sadomasochist, a femme, a nerd, a transperson, a Jew, and a tattooed lady. I'm a certified Post Traumatic Stress Disorder survivor. I'm a chronic over-eater who's been diagnosed with anorexia. I'm sober, but I'm not always clean. I've got piercings in body parts I wasn't born with. I'm also an elder in the community you claim to represent, and it is with great sorrow that I must write: you have not been representing us.  

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Let's talk about a love that unites more people than have ever before been united by love. Let's defend some real equality.

The other day, New York State's lesbian and gay bid for marriage equality went down in flames, enough flames to make people cry. Thousands of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people and their allies spent a lot of money and heart-filled hours of work to legalize marriage equality, with little to show for it. That sucks, and I think the reason it didn't work is it's because marriage equality is an incorrect priority for the LGBTQetc communities. 

Marriage equality—as it's being pushed for now—is wasting resources that would be better deployed to save some lives. There are several major flaws with marriage equality as a priority for our people:

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1. Marriage as it's practiced in the USA is unconstitutional… if you listen to Thomas Jerfferson's interpretation of separation of church and state. The way it stands now, if you're an ordained leader in a recognized religion, the US government gives you a package of 1500-1700 civil rights that only you can hand out to people. And you get to bestow or withhold these civil rights from any American citizen you choose, regardless of that citizen's constitutionally-granted rights. The government has no constitutional right to hand that judgment call over to a religious body.
2. Marriage equality—as it's being fought for now by lesbian and gay leaders who claim they're speaking for some majority of LGBTQetc people—will wind up being more marriage inequality. Single parents, many of whom are women of color, will not get the 1500-1700 rights they need to better and more easily raise their children. Nor will many other households made up of any combination of people who love each other and their children.
3. When lesbian and gay community leaders whip up the community to fight for the right to marry, it's a further expression of America's institutionalized greed in that it benefits only its demographic constituency. There's no reaching out beyond sexuality and gender expression to benefit people who aren't just like us, and honestly… that is so 20th Century identity politics.
4. Marriage is a privileging institution. It has privileged, and continues to privilege people along lines of not only religion, sexuality and gender, but also along the oppressive vectors of race, class, age, looks, ability, citizenship, family status, and language. Seeking to grab oneself a piece of the marriage-rights pie does little if anything at all for the oppression caused by the institution of marriage itself to many more people than sex and gender outlaws.
5. The fight for "marriage equality" is simply not the highest priority for a movement based in sexuality and gender. By simple triage, the most widespread criminality against people whose identities are based in sex and gender is violence against women. Women still make up the single-most oppressed identity in the world, followed closely by kids who are determined to be freaky for any reason whatsoever.

Lesbian and gay leaders must cease being self-obssessed and take into account the very real damage that's perpetrated on people who are more than simply lesbian women and/or gay men, more than bisexual or transgender even. Assuming a good-hearted but misplaced motivation for all the work done on behalf of fighting for marriage equality, it's time to stop fighting on that front as a first priority of the LGBTQetc movement. It's time to do some triage and base our priorities on a) who needs the most help and b) what battlefront will bring us the most allies. 

I'm asking that you to fight on behalf of change for someone besides yourself. Please. I promise the rewards of doing that will revisit you threefold. Who needs the most help is easy: women. To lesbian and gay leaders, I ask you to ally yourselves with the centuries-old feminist movements and their current incarnations. You want to get a bill passed through Congress? Take another run at the Equal Rights Amendment. Unlike gay marriage, the ERA stands a better chance of making it into law, given the Obama Administration and our loosely Democratic majority in congress. 

Stopping the violence against women and freaky children, and backing another run at the ERA have got the good chance of creating national front, lots of allies. On the home front of sex and gender, there's plenty of room for change that doesn't require millions of dollars and thousands of hours.

Looking into the community of people who base their lives on sexuality and gender, there's a lot of door-opening to do. Beyond L, G, B and T, there's also Q for queer and Q for questioning. There's an S for sadomasochists, an I for intersex, an F for feminists, and another F for furries. Our community is additionally composed of sex educators, sex workers, adult entertainers, pornographers, men who have sex with men, women who have sex with women, and asexuals who have sex with no one but themselves. You want to create some real change? Make room for genderqueers, polyamorists, radical faeries, butches, femmes, drag queens, drag king, and other dragfuck royalty too fabulous to describe in this short letter. 

There are more and more people to add to this ever-growing list of communities whom you must own as family and represent in your activism. You cannot afford—politically, economically, or morally—to leave out a single person who bases a large part of their identity on being sex positive or in any way a proponent of gender anarchy.

That's what I have to say to you. That and thank you for the good hearts you've clearly demonstrated in your activism. I'm asking you to open your hearts further is all. 

You're welcome to leave comments on this blog, but the best way to engage me in a conversation or recruit me to help is to contact me through Twitter. I look forward to talking with you, and I hope we can work together on the terms I've outlined above.

Warmly, and with respect,

Your Auntie Kate 

What's Important To Know About People In Your Life?

 I sent this tweet out this morning:

Twibe: What r some of the most important things u want 2 know abt a new person in yr life? (whether a love/sex interest or not). 

By day's end I got a whole slew of answers and I think they're important enough to share with you.

kiss kiss

Kate

@danseparc:  I want to know zir dreams, zir view of the world, zir passions, zir joys, and zir sorrows. What inspires zir to DO-FEEL-LOVE.

@queerfatfemme:  Their reputation for being an ethical member of our community. Have been burned in life & love by people w/ a scorched path.

@whateversusan:  I'd want to know what a person loves, I think... and what they remember. But I'm so bad with people, I don't know

@eugenetapdance:  I need to know that they're kind and that they don't believe in being willfully ignorant.

@gnesbitt:  i would want to know how open-minded they are, and whether they have a positive attitude about the world in general

@Wylddelirium:  That they have a hungry sense of curiosity, a drive for adventure, a developed sense of ethics, and is kind to most.

@AmalgamGlass:  are they honest with me & themselves.

@glitterbomber:  I want to know if they act more out of compassion than anger cause that's the soof person for me.

@Mollena:  I need to know that 1) they are compassionate 2 ...they can listen, and *hear* me. 3) ...they love red velvet cake.

@AliceSinAerie:  I want to know if they have a sense of humor, integrity & what they enjoy in life

@scoutout:  Whadda I wanna know bout nu person? Do people I respect respect them? (aka are they changing the world?) If so, cool.

@steph_infection:  Can I trust them? (And that's not always easy to figure out, sadly.)

@lilithvf1998:  I'd want to know how they perceive the world and what makes them feel alive. People are boring outside of these nuances. :)

@adamfishpoet:  it's old-fashioned, I know, but I always like to make sure they're not armed. srsly, I always check that ppl are smart & have a sense of humour. 

@kwalsham:  I'm with @firefaunx - how they react to/treat those society deems inferior

@jaymgates:  I want to know if they are willing to take their life into their own hands and make their own dreams come true.

@sandykidd:  Do they read for pleasure? I can connect with almost everyone who loves to read. Bonus question: Love science? Lol

@LuciaBlowPop:  the more i know the better in almost every circumstance

@ammre:  what is important to them. That shows where their motivation in life is

@polerin:  If they laugh, and if I'll have too keep my mouth shut (about social/political issues)

@NJrugger45:  want to know are they compassionate, do they care abt social justice, what do they read, who do they call family?

@firefaunx:  how they treat animals and old people, mostly.

@SheIsAnarchy003:  i want to know their level of tolerance, meaning i can be tough to love sometimes and i need to know if they are patient. i also need to know what their police record looks like..haha

@nikolasco: Favorite board games. Seriously.

My Moving Fingers Write and Having Writ, Move On

I'm out on the road, and I haven't been doing much blogging. I've been writing, but I've been writing for other folks. Here are some links to some new pieces:

• My SciFi/Fantasy self goes freewheeling in an interview for Crossed Genres magazine, where I answer questions about alternate universes, and which of 'em I'd like to live in. 

• A couple of weeks ago, President Obama signed into law the first-ever piece of legislation written that includes protection for transfolk. My take on hate crimes legislation is up on Pam's House Blend. 

• I've got a couple of pieces of my graphic art (pen and ink) up on the wall in an art exhibit at New York's La Mama Galleria, curated by the fabulous Mx. Justin Bond. 

I hope you have fun going through these new pieces. I'm on the road for another two weeks. Best way to stay in touch is through Twitter.

kiss kiss

Kate

My Keynote Address to Women's Consortium, PA

I've recently completed a non-stop four day visit to Philadelphia as "visiting scholar," guest of the Pennsylvania State Higher Education Women's Coalition. Six colleges and universities in three days. On the fourth day, I was to deliver a keynote address to the Women's Consortium's annual shindig being held at West Chester University. I wrote the address the night before I delivered it at the Consortium's luncheon (pictured here), so the talk was about as close to extemporaneous as I allow myself to get while I'm out speaking. I promised my Twitter twibe that I'd post it here if it worked. It worked, so here are my notes for that talk.

kiss kiss,

Kate

A Theory of Othering Sex and Gender Outlaws

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, to keep myself from wandering off into Mobius strips of postmodern theory. I've been paying attention to some trans activists who are using the word cisgender. According to its very own Wikipedia page:

"The word has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis, meaning "on the same side" as in the cis-trans distinction in chemistry. In this case, "cis" refers to the alignment of gender identity with assigned gender."

Who knew? Not me. I'd only begun to hear the word about a year ago but according to its own Wikipedia page, cisgender has been in use on the internet since 1994. So this is me trying to play catch up.

Here's what I've got worked out so far.

1) Cisgender/Transgender is a valid gender binary. I don't like the prefix cis, but that's my problem. A global binary exists that is worthy of examination for its impact on the quality of our lives.

2) Identifying people with fixed gender identities as sex partners is key to both the identities and desires of cisgender lesbians and gay men, as well as to heterosexual men and women. Bisex, Polyamory, Asexuality, et al break cisgender rules of fixed desire. Trans, Genderqueer, Drag et al break cisgender rules of fixed identity.

3) To hold on to any power gained thru classimilation, middle class cisgender lesbians, gay men, and heterosexual men and women must defend their desires/identities as both correct & natural.

4) Cisgender people who are sex positive & gender embracing are more than allies, they're family. That's where the idea of any othering of trans by some monolithic cisgender identity ultimately falls apart.

5) Sex positivists and gender anarchists are simply too sexy for inclusion in any middle class arena, including the current "LGBT" movement whose agendas are set by mostly middle class cisgender lesbian women and gay men.

OK. That's as far as I've gotten. It has not been my intention to offend anyone. This is a theory in progress. I believe that no valid theory of identity, desire, or power can other a single sentient being. If you feel offended I was wrong. I'll do my best to right the wrong. I'm talking about this on Twitter so if you've got a comment please tweet me. I've got faster and more frequent access to Twitter than I have to this blog.  

Thanks & Kisses

K

The Yes Men: Not Your Grandpa's Activism

I'm an old fart—a curmudgeon and a crone—so I get to say things like "Back in my day..." 

Like: back in my day (which was the '60s), we knew how to protest. Back in my day, we did street theater to fight the war in Viet Nam. And back in my day, we marched the streets in the very first Gay Pride parades, and we said things like "We're just like you..." which went over well with people who wanted to think they were worth us wishing we were just like them. 

All these actions sort of worked back then... before the right wing conservative think tanks figured out how to counter us. Bad news: the right wing has succeeded in countering old-fashioned activisms. Good news: there are new forms of activism they don't know how to fight yet.

This evening, I saw the film The Yes Men Fix The World. Please go see this movie if you can. It's the face of a new activism. It's an activism that the right wing think tanks haven't got a hold on yet, and I find that exciting. 

What do The Yes Men do that works? They lie. They lie BIG. They lie in a way that makes us wish they were telling the truth, and the right wing think tanks don't know what to do with that. Like this phony issue of The New York Times. Click on it to see it big, or download the full PDF.

Am I saying that activism in the form of big protest marches and street theater and shouting "We're just like you" are bad actions? No. I'm saying that these are your grandpa's activisms and they're not as effective as you might like them to be. 

The right wing has learned how to carve up the radical left wing into virtually separatist groups working hard to achieve equity in ten seemingly disparate arenas: race, age, class, gender, sexuality, looks, ability, religion, citizenship, family status, and age. Any truly radical 21st century activism must effect a coalition of all ten vectors of activism.

The Yes Men are pointing the way to a new activism. Like Michael Moore, The Yes Men are pranksters. Like Stephen Colbert, The Yes Men tell great big lies. Like Jon Stewart, they're smart. The Yes Men throw wrenches into corporate America's well-oiled machine. They're not alone. My friend Andrew Boyd, founder of Billionaires for Bush makes us laugh, makes us cry and makes us get off our butts and actually do something. If you're looking for a new activism—one that has a chance of succeeding beyond your wildest dreams and the planet's deepest needs—check out the links on this page.

As an old fart activist, I'm asking you: please, create or contribute to a new activism that fights for equity across the boards—including whatever might be your own oppression, as well as the systems oppressing others. That would make your activist grandma and grandpa proud. I promise. 

And I promise to do whatever I can to help you make that happen. Really. Tweet me, and let's see how we can build a shiny new coalition of activists.

With curmudgeonly and cronely love, respect, gratitude, and best wishes for success, I remain...

Your Auntie Kate

Vote for Young Lions

Last week, New York City's Gay City News published their endorsement for the New York City Council, representing New York's 3rd Council District—traditionally an edgy, outsider, outlaw kind of place to live. Their endorsement of the incumbent council member—a moderate Democrat—just didn't sit right with me. We don't have that many plain-speaking left wing lions left, and I think we need to elect them whenever and wherever we can. So, I wrote this letter to Paul Schindler, Editor of the Gay City News. I'm endorsing Yetta Kurland for New York City Council in the upcoming election.

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Dear Editor,

The nothing-less-than-amazing Democratic victories in the last two national elections is nothing less than a mandate for more progressive legislation and more progressive legislators. Wherever possible, we the people need to cast our vote for truly progressive leaders. We need elected officials who will turn the tide of the crushing oppression of the last eight years. For that reason, I’m endorsing Yetta Kurland in her bid for the City Council seat representing New York’s 3rd District. She’s got heart, she’s got attitude, and she’s got a mouth. New York City hasn’t seen a feisty politician like that for a long time.

I am sick and tired of Democrats’ subdued murmurs in the face of Republican bully tactics of fear, intimidation, and lies. We need us a lion on the City Council. To me, that’s the self-described, “plucky little dyke,” Yetta Kurland.

Come on… isn’t it obvious that the Bloomberg Administration has slowly and surely been shifting the face of New York City politics to a moderate right-wing point of view? Yes, yes, that’s much better than the conservative politics of say, Rudy Giuliani—the man who Disneyfied Times Square. In the absence of a more progressive voice, however, moderate is not good enough. As LGBTQIAetc people, we need us a lion on the City Council who will help forge a coalition of people fighting on behalf of equity in race, age, class, sexuality, gender, looks, ability, religion, family status, and citizenship. I’m convinced that lion is Yetta Kurland.

Kurland’s opponent in the upcoming election is sitting Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Recently, Quinn was referred to by The Gay City News as“The biggest political prize in the LGBT community.”

Ouch… on a great many levels. 

No doubt, Quinn has been a good and honorable civil servant, but over the last eight years it’s become increasingly clear that Ms. Quinn’s progressive edge has been worn down by the soul-numbing back-room politics of this city. In fact, the only reason Ms. Quinn is running against Kurland at all is because Quinn joined forces with hizzoner, Mayor Bloomberg to extend term limits for the two of themselves. That’s called classism—keeping the power to yourself.

No, Yetta doesn’t wear pearls. She’d probably look out of place at a State Dinner. So would most of the constituents of the historically marginalized 3rd District of New York. The 3rd doesn’t need a smooth-talker with powerful connections. The city needs a fighter with stamina, someone who’s lived as far out on the margins as most of the people in this city. That’s Kurland. Besides, what’s the value of powerful connections if you don’t use those connections on behalf of the people who are most in need of them?

As for who’s going to get more done for the “LGBT Community,”the clear answer is Kurland. She understands that there’s a lot more letters to be added to our community’s name before it becomes truly representative of all of us. 

Honestly, now: are you a gold star lesbian—never once thought about a guy? 

Are you a 100% gay man? Really, 100%? 

Are you bisexual all the time? You never spend some time leaning to one side or another? 

Do you see yourself as a real transgender person in a world where other people who claim to be transgender aren’t as real as you? 

Do you pretty much have everything you need for a decent life, but you’d like a little bit more?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then by all means: vote for Christine Quinn. But if you’re more complicated than that, if you’re oppressed by more than simply your sexuality and/or your gender, then cast your vote for Yetta Kurland.

The time for single-issue politics is over. There’s no way the LGBT community is going to get civil rights for itself to the exclusion of any other marginalized group. Single-focus politics may have worked in the ‘80s, but over the last two decades the right wing has learned how to manipulate single-focus politics, and play us off one against the other. The right wing has not yet learned how to manipulate an unpredictable, outspoken force like Yetta Kurland. 

Over the last two decades, the right wing has carved up the left like a Thanksgiving turkey. We’ve been bullied into submission, reduced to asking for scraps at Master Bloomberg’s table. The way I see it, Yetta Kurland is our best shot at reunification.

Reader, when you cast your vote, please keep in mind: we just lost Teddy Kennedy. The grand old leftie, Paul Wellstone is no longer around to champion the disempowered of this country. There are only a handful of left wing lions running for office. New York City is lucky to have one of them, in the person of Yetta Kurland. She's been working tirelessly behind the scenes. It's now her time to step forward and make this city worthy of that lovely lady who stands so tall in our harbor, holding up a torch for all of us who don't quite fit it.

Respectfully,

Kate Bornstein, 

New York City author, performer and advocate for teens, freaks, and other outlaws.

When Heroes and Heroines Die

My mother, Mildred Vandam Bornstein, died just over twelve years ago. I wrote a sadly funny piece about her funeral service. By the time she died, she and I had reconciled nearly all our big issues, and we had a deeply loving mother/tranny daughter relationship with each other. When she died, it took me a week of maddening grief to conclude there was only one way to go on living without her in my life: I had to embody the parts of her I'd relied on, and the parts of her I wanted to be. 

Never mind that my mother was an active alcoholic. Never mind that she was as depressed a mess as I am. She was a gracious lady, and a fiercely protective, loving mother. That's what I needed to embody so that her death wouldn't go on making me want to die. To heal the loss of my mother, I've endeavored to be a gracious, delightful lady whenever I possibly can. And to honor her memory, I do my best to be a fiercely protective, loving mother with my queer and freaky children all over the world. 

Now Ted Kennedy is gone, goddamn it. When I woke up this morning and heard him being eulogized on the radio, I wept like a child. I howled. I haven't cried this hard about a public figure's passing since Princess Diana died in 1997. She was another gracious, delightful lady. Through my eyes, Princes Diana was also the fierce, protective mother. I have no idea what Ted Kennedy has been to me, but I've begun looking. Never mind that he had shadows in his past. I'm looking for what it was about him that I've relied upon, what was it about him I wanted to be.

I'm not a savvy politico. I only know the most superficial accomplishments and foibles of Ted Kennedy's life. But, somehow Ted Kennedy has crept into my heart as the good guy fighting alongside the people who don't have the power to fight for on their own. That's a start. I can start working on that one.

I told all this to my girlfriend, Barbara Carrellas, over tea today. I was saying that the older you get, the more people around you die, and so the more responsible you become for whatever good they were doing in the world. She nodded. We drank some more tea. Then Barbara said she hopes that Kennedy's colleagues in Congress get the same idea about taking responsibility for taking over his good work.

Many senators, she went on to say, have surely kept their mouths shut on sensitive issues, thinking, "Oh, Ted Kennedy will handle that one." And now that he's gone? Which senators are going to take on the mantle of political good guy, powerhouse, and warhorse? 

Okay, I'm gonna go cry some more, until I figure out how I can best fight alongside some folks who don't have the power to fight on their own.

G'bye, Senator Kennedy. I'll do my best. I promise.

Kate

Has Germaine Greer Become A Ghastly Parody?

 I’m feeling pretty damned good about ground gained in western culture by transgender people. I was there at the beginning of this loosely-knit yet somehow united movement, and things are a whole lot better for trans people today in Western culture than they ever have been.

There are many people who are claiming and living lives far beyond man or woman. There are many people who live fluidly gendered lives.  There are many people who know the dangers of gender when it plays itself out as an unconscious social binary. 

It’s not Mission Accomplished, not by a long shot. But talented trans people are scaling the walls of political power and artistic genius. There are deeply compassionate trans people who are religious scholars and clergy. Transdora's box is wide open and we're never going back. I am tranny, hear me frakking ROAR! 

And then along comes Germaine Greer—genuine warhorse and goddess of feminism—on 20 August, 2009 with an Op-Ed piece in The Guardian she calls Caster Semenya sex row: What makes a woman? In this new piece, Ms. Greer refers to transwomen—me and my brave sisters and mothers and daughters—as “ghastly parodies” of women. 

I’m not going to talk about Caster Semenya’s dilemma beyond saying that she’s being treated with intolerable rudeness and disrespect by the media. It’s the same savagely uncaring journalistic strategy used against Dr. Renée Richards when she was so rudely outed to the world in the 1970s and 1980s.

Yes, yes. Ouch. It hurts to be called a ghastly parody. And that kind of talk feeds transphobia across the world. So, shame on The Guardian for printing these hateful words. But who is Ms. Greer to be hurling these invectives, and why? Greer is no one to dismiss as an idiot or complete jerk. Through her relentless work, Ms. Greer has raised the volume of women’s voices in the world. She got people around the world to start taking women more seriously. 

And here's the problem: all the time she was doing that great social activism, Greer believes to the core of her being that woman is an essential identity. The gender battleground on which Germaine Greer fought and learned her political strategies was gender-as-man-and-woman-only. On that battlefield, it's easy to attack transgender people as freaks.

The good news is that Germaine Greer's transphobia is more the exception among todays scholars, artists and activists. They work as tirelessly as Greer herself on issues of gender rights, freedoms, parameters, and dignity. Postmodern gender theory has been taught in colleges and universities around the world for over fifteen years. It's over-spilling the walls of academia. The battlefield/playground has shifted. Nothing is essential any more. 

Germaine Greer's tragedy is that she has not considered as even possible the theory of gender fluidity. For her kind of activism to work, MAN and WOMAN can and must be essential as well as easy to tell apart from each other. Greer is a fierce warrior, but to nail down the gender binary, she concludes her op-ed piece by saying,

“People who don't ovulate or menstruate will probably always physically outperform people who do.” 

Ms. Greer is claiming that biology is, in fact destiny.

The price of being a writer of vitriol is that it reveals your most private fears, which you've penned in the form of an attack on someone else. And sadly, that makes Ms. Greer a ghastly parody of herself. What she wrote was painful and destructive. But the loss of her fierce presence on the front lines of feminism is more to be mourned than scorned.

And the point of all this is to assure you: it really has gotten a lot better for transgender people. There's a long, long way to go. But it's much, much better. I promise.

Kiss kiss,

Your Ever-Loving Kate