announcement

Greetings, Red Umbrella Diaries fans!

I wanted to let you know that the new call for participants for the Red Umbrella Diaries Blog Carnival is open!

For the next event, which takes place on September 2, the theme is Demand Side.

Here’s a little something to get you started thinking:

Sex workers get all the attention for their exciting, messed up, complicated lives, and everyone wants to know: what made you do this? But what about the patrons, without whom there would be no business?

I’m looking for pieces of writing by sex industry clients, stories from sex workers about their clients, and analytical pieces that turn the lens on the demand side of the business.

Send me a piece that is up to 700 words long, and I’ll pick my favorite to read at the event – and of course then I’ll put the recording in the new Red Umbrella Diaries audio podcast.  Your piece can be previously published on your own blog or elsewhere, or you can conceal your identity and email me a piece that you can’t put your name on.  The themes can be interpreted all kinds of different ways, I love to see creativity.

Send your links or text to stories@redumbrellaproject.com by August 15th.

I would love it if you would consider forwarding this out to others that might be interested, post it on your blogs, tweet or facebook the information, or otherwise send it out into the world!  The participation grows each month, and I'm very excited about the submissions that we're receiving.  And as a reminder - the writing can be from blog entries that are years old, or short essays or stories written months ago; it doesn't need to be written specifically for the blog carnival, as long as it fits the theme.

The direct link to the website is:
http://www.redumbrellaproject.com/blog-carnvial-call-for-posts-demand-side/

--
Audacia Ray
Website: audaciaray.com
Blogs: wakingvixen.com * blog.iwhc.org
Advocacy: iwhc.org * sexworkawareness.org * nswp.org
The Red Umbrella Diaries: redumbrellaproject.com
Videos: intlwomenshealth.blip.tv * youtube.com/audaciaray

(h/t Kate Harding)

This looks good.  Contact Michaela directly, for details.  -arvan

Hi, my name is Michaela A. Null, and I am a doctoral student in Sociology at Purdue University. I am doing a study about the embodiment of size-accepting fat women, with attention to the ways in which gender, race, sexual orientation, and body size intersect.

I am currently looking for individuals who are interested in volunteering to participate in my study. If you are interested in volunteering to participate in an interview, I ask that take an electronic informational survey, which will take approximately 5 minutes. Please go here and complete the informational survey. After all survey data has been collected, participants will be selected for interviews, which will be conducted in-person, by phone, or via internet chat, and will last between an hour and an hour and a half.

Participation is voluntary and participants must be at least 18 years old.

This project has been approved by my university’s Institutional Review Board, which protects human subjects of research. I will provide confidentiality to all volunteers and participants will be referred to by a pseudonym in all research documents.

If you have any questions regarding this study, you can contact me at mnull@purdue.edu. For more information on me, you can access my university
profile here . You can also contact Professor Eugene Jackson, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University, at jacksone@purdue.edu.

Sincerely,

Michaela A. Null, Doctoral Candidate in Sociology, Purdue University

The original Hackgender call for submissions lasted one week and was intended as the start of an urgent conversation on gender.

This archive is an extension of that project, intended as an ongoing space for archiving both new and old thoughts on gender. We are now accepting submissions in all digital forms: text, photos, art, comics, blogs, video and more.

July: Personal Reflections Call for Work

In July, we are seeking work to extend one of the popular themes that emerged from the original call: personal reflections on gender identity. What are your thoughts on gender in regards to yourself? Your identity? Your sexual orientation? Your desires? Your community?

All submissions will be archived on http://www.hackgender.org, linked to your own blog or page if applicable, and announced through the Hackgender twitter account with the #hackgender hashtag.

Work can be submitted through the contribution form: if you have a project that cannot be submitted through that form or require assistance, email at info -at- hackgender.org.

July's call starts July 1st at 12:01am EST and ends July 31st at 11:59pm EST.

After this time, works on this topic will still be accepted but the call for submissions will move on to a new area and new personal reflections will no longer be featured or announced on twitter.

I found a new blogger the other day via Twitter, Amie Wee.  She does many fun things around sex, body, self image and many things queer.  Her tag line is "Queer. Porny. Unicorny."  How can I not love that??  At the very least, check out her blog.

So, she's looking for people interested in making some fuck films in the New Zealand area.  If you're interested, reach out and touch someone...even if it's only yourself. ;-)

After much porn watching, lurking, admiring and jerking off, I’ve decided that it’s time I started work on my own porn project. I want to make a DVD and if you’re a filthy queer exhibitionist, I WANT YOU (in a ‘captured on celluloid’ kind of way).

I’m looking for: queer guys, girls, transboys & girls, girlfags, boydykes, homos, faggots, bbw’s, alt folk, ftm, mtf, gays, lesbos, bisexual, genderqueer, genderfuckers, anti-gender, etc. (Anyone who lives outside the hetero-societal normative square).

I want you to be a part of my project, in which we make some raw, beautiful, ugly, creative, real and goddamn horny art porn.

I’m also looking for anyone else who wants to be involved or who can help (ie. Finding talent, locations, costumes, etc).

You definitely need not have done this before and you will not be asked to do anything you aren’t comfortable with. You’ll work in a safe space with bare minimum crew (and myself as director) and be given the opportunity to explore your fantasies. It’s going to be insanely fun.

Need more info or want to be a part of the project? Contact me (amieweexxx AT gmail DOT com).

In mid July MAGNET is hosting a panel in L.A. called

"The Dehumanizing Misrepresentation of Transsexual Women Through the Gay Male Media Mafia Lens" 

More details to come on the collaborators, panelists, date and venue.

Please let us know your thoughts on this epidemic so we can include them in the planning and discussion.

Thank you,

Ashley Love -
Organizer of MAGNET- Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Transsexual & Transgender People

MAGNET is an anti-defamation organization dedicated to educating the media about transsexual and transgender issues, as well as pushing for more authentic and positive portrayals of trans people in the media.

facebook notice, Ashley's blog or email Ashley directly.

Paris is excited by the Sexy International Paris Film Festival!

The 2nd edition of the Sexy International Paris Film Festival (SIPFF) will roll out the pink carpet from 24 -27 June 2010 in Paris, France showcasing an international programme of films dedicated to desire, eroticism, sexuality and sex.

Four days of cultural festivities will commence with the opening night of «Pink Eiga» erotic films, premiering in Paris for the first time on the big screen. Complimenting this is a diverse and rich four day programme of films from all over the world as well as creative performances and expositions.

«Sexy» will brighten the darkened the cinema room of one of the most dynamic, independent cinemas - the Cinéma Le Grand Action, as well as a special «Best – of» and Gay | Lesbian Panorama celebration at the Yono Bar in the Marais, in the heart of the Parisian Gay District.

Art lovers and cinephiles will meet and take advantage of the diverse programme. There will be  more than 90 short and medium length films screened, including our international and francophone short film compeition where our jury of cinema professionals, headed by Marc Duret (Nikita, Le Grand Bleu, La Haine) will present awards to our best films on closing night. Prizes include Best International Short, Best Francophone Short, Jury Prize and Audience Prize.

Dear supporters,

In celebration of our one year anniversary we would like to invite you to participate in our "Habibi Mithli" contest.

In June 21st 2009, the Lebanese LGBT Media Monitor was launched by Raynbow to keep you updated on the latest news of the Lebanese gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community.

1. Submit your art work that reflects the theme of the contest: HOMOSEXUAL LOVE.
Your art work can be:

• Original or edited photo




• Drawing, comic, cartoon




• Graphic Design

2. Post your submission on our page by the deadline of June 21, 2010.

3. Your submission will be judged in two methods:

   # Number of "likes" your submission receives on our page

   # Voting by the 3 active admins of this page

4. Your prize will be any item of your choice from

Raynbow Fund-raising Online Store

delivered to your door anywhere in the world.

First prize: up to $50 USD

Second prize: up to $25 USD

If you have any questions, post them on our wall and we will respond in a timely manner.

The Monitor team

Drunken Boat, Online Art & Literature Magazine is placing a call for written work from all aspects of transgpersons' lives.  It sounds great.  -arvan

Decades after Women’s Lib and Stonewall, in the time of queer theory, gurlesque and “girls gone wild,” there are still aspects of women and transgender people’s sexuality that are taboo or discounted (the sexuality of older women and women with disabilities, for example, or a joyful transgender sexual self).  We are looking for poems, prose, and multimedia/interactive art that address these topics.

This is a call for bold, honest investigations of the sexual female/trans self that polite society has yet to fully embrace.

We particularly encourage submissions from women of color, older women, queer women, women with disabilities, and transgender/two-spirit/intersex/gender nonconforming folks.

Please submit through our online submissions manager.

Submission accepted May 15 – September 15, 2010

*By “women” we include both cisgender and transgender women, and by “transgender people” we include both transmen and transwomen as well as genderqueer and gendernonconforming people.  We reject the gender binary, acknowledge that people have multiple ways of identifying their gender, and seek to be fully inclusive of all women-identified and trans-identified people in this call.

The March 2011 issue of the international journal Gender & Development, (published for Oxfam GB by Routledge/Taylor and Francis) will focus on Migration.

The decision to leave home is not taken lightly. It is both frequent and normal for millions of women and men, worldwide, to travel away from their homes and families to seek peace, security, or the means to make a living.

Increasingly, development researchers and workers are asking for guidance on how to plan and implement work to support migrants, their families and dependents - at home, and in their new locations. This necessitates a shift in the traditional development focus on the needs of a community in a particular place, to supporting the human networks which shift between rural to urban locations, between countries, and back again.

I received this announcement for the upcoming TGEU 2010 Council meeting in Malmoe, Sweden

Embracing Diversity. Stretching Boundaries. Demanding Rights  

Thursday 6pm, 30th September 2010 – Sunday 2pm, 3rd October 2010

Dear Trans*activists, friends and allies!

Since our last Council 2008 in Berlin, significant developments have evolved all over Europe: The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe published his visionary Issue Paper “Human Rights and Gender Identity”; France announced that it would be the first European country to take steps to de-pathologize Gender Identity Disorder - GID; in the mean time Turkish trans people keep on being exposed to a brutal series of hate crimes, with at least 8 murdered in the last few months.

The European transgender movement has seen incredible growth and is strongly connected with its international counterparts. It is time, to take stock of recent developments and think together about how to maximize human rights for ALL trans people in Europe. We must make our cause inclusive, to ensure that rights and respect are not given to the few. We must not accidentally or greedily exclude the more invisible members of our community.

So, we are delighted to invite you to the Third European Transgender Council 2010.

This year’s council will be held in Malmo in Sweden from Thursday evening, September 30th till Sunday afternoon, October 3rd. So save the date and join us in Sweden for the biggest European forum for transgender rights and activism!

This year’s Transgender Council ‘s motto will be  

Embracing Diversity. Stretching Boundaries. Demanding Rights