awareness

The Lies of Liberty (2010) is a new documentary, produced by the LGBT Centre of Mongolia.  It is a powerful series of interview with LGBTQ folks in Mongolia, telling in their own words, how they are treated. 

Part One:

This new short film / PSA is from RedLightDistrictChicago, directed by Serpent Libertine.  Flying in the face of stereotypes and slander, the film is a collection of sex workers stating in their own words about why they like their jobs.

This project looks interesting.  The website listed in their graphics is not working, but the video is powerful and uncomfortable to watch. -arvan

Rape is not love

Rare are the cases when the rapist is some stranger. Most often it’s someone close to the victim – a boyfriend/girlfriend, a husband/wife, a long-time friend. This makes it hard for the victims to identify whether they were raped, and they try to forget the whole event. But by not coming forward, they make themselves victims forever.

The goal of this campaign was to raise awareness of the most common three types of rapes: acquaintance, date and marital rape.

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

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Morgane Richardson and I'm collecting the stories of women of color currently attending elite liberal-arts colleges in the United States.

Refuse the Silence is a project that encourages women of color currently enrolled in elite liberal arts colleges in the United States to share their stories.  Being a woman of color myself and having attended Middlebury College from 2004 to 2008, my hope is to present these stories, in the form of a book, to college administrators with a suggested plan of action to improve the college climate for women of color.

I am looking for vivid and honest personal stories and essays about the experiences of women of color in elite liberal arts colleges throughout the United States.

I am looking to attract submissions that reflect experiences, friendships and realizations made during the college years. Themes to consider include but are not limited to,

•    identity
•    socioeconomic, cultural, racial issues
•    classroom dynamics
•    turning points
•    depression
•    challenging moments
•    friendships
•    dating
•    student/professor dynamics
•    sex, sexuality

Contributions will be accepted in the form of a poem, letter, journal entry, personal reflection and/or essay. Entries should not exceed ten pages. Your submisions will be cautiously edited for grammar and comprehensibility. Unfortunately, I will not be able to include everyone's submissions. Priority will be given to those who submit their work before the September 1st, 2010 deadline.

I hope that you will use your voice and share your story with me. Let us refuse the silence and show the world who we are, who we are becoming, and how we can help others.

I invite you to share this information with your friends, family members, and classmates so that we can have as many voices possible involved in this important discussion in our communities.

Sincerely,

Morgane Veronique Richardson

(h/t quietriot girl)

Mission Statement

“To create a space that’s friendly and safe for feminists and kinky people to share their views.   To promote respectful dialogue across the range of feminisms and kinky lifestyles and activities.   To maintain a spirit of tolerance and acceptance on the basis that “Your Kink Is Not My Kink, And That’s OK”, and “Your Feminism Is not My Feminism, And That’s OK”.

Format:

All Posts/Carnival links to other blogs to be labelled for content so people know what they’re clicking onto and can choose to avoid content that may squick or trigger them.

For posts posted on this site this will be done before a cut. Links to carnival submissions off site followed with list of labels, for example:

• Mr Jobby writes about his diet (scat, nutrition)
• or Grabmeoffthestreet writes about takedown play (consensual non-consent, public covert play, rough handling, contracts)

these are made up examples…

Content (posts, links or comments) that are:

• Sexist: discriminatory on the basis of gender and/ or that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.
• Homophobic/ Biphobic: expressing, fear, contempt or antipathy for or advocating discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals.
• Transphobic/ Transmisogynist: discrimination against transgender and transsexual persons based on their expression of their internal gender identity
• Racist: hatred, intolerance, expressions of contempt towards other races
• Ableist: discrimination or predjudice against people with disabilities
• Classist: bias based on social or economic class
• And any other kind of bullshit essentialist stereotyping, such as ‘Twue Typing” or “one true Waying”
  

Attention all Trans Artist/Performers and FILMMAKERS!

Transgiving is looking for trans Film makers to submit their film work to be shown at the next Transgiving Film festival on August 28th 2010!

Their film festival last year was a huge success and had a packed theater, so they have decided to continue the Transgiving Film Festival. But they need your help!

They are currently looking for new films to be shown at the next film festival.  They are looking for all kinds of different films!

Are you interested?

CLICK HERE to go to the submission page!

While you are here, check out the video from last years film festival's Q & A panel:

Working Title: Stalled
Editors: K. Bridgeman and A. Lee Crayton
Contact: stalled.the.book [at] gmail [dot] com
Submission Deadline: December 31, 2010

The range of gender non-conforming folks is broad.  We are men, women, genderqueers, two-spirits, trans women/transwomen, trans men/transmen, intersex, bois, grrrls, butchs, faeries, FtMs, MtFs, tomboys, drag queens, transvestites, transexuals, queers, none or maybe all of the above.*  In a society that preaches gender as rigid, fighting for gender self-determination can be challenging.  For some the process is finite, traveling from point A to point B, while others wade continuously through the mire or transcend altogether. But despite the trajectory of our own personal journey, we all experience the polarizing demands of the binary.

One way these demands are evident is in sex-segregated spaces: changing stalls, detention centers, restrooms, group homes, homeless shelters, locker rooms, and security checkpoints.* These places can be hard to avoid, and interaction with them demands we make a choice about how we will present ourselves. With this anthology, we want to explore the sometimes difficult, layered, isolating, heart breaking, frightening, awkward, frustrating, challenging, funny, and/or queer experiences people are faced with in these settings. Stalled is a space for us to share our stories.

Gender-nonconforming individuals of all ages, published and unpublished, are encouraged to contribute to Stalled. We welcome submissions of all types: stories, poems, photos, art pieces; however you feel most comfortable expressing your personal experiences around sex-segregated spaces. Submissions should be non-fiction and based on actual experience. However, we respect the author’s prerogative to maintain characters’ anonymity.

*We recognize these descriptions are not exhaustive and to acknowledge that they are not intended to be restrictive.  We encourage and hope to engage a broad range of experiences and identities.

Two posters on the rights of trans people

Transgender people and the Gender Recast Directive - Implementation Guidelines

The aim of these Guidelines is to provide an introduction to the content of the Gender Recast Directive and an overview of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, and their relevance for trans people living in the European Union. These Guidelines are also designed to give guidance on how to improve the implementation of the Gender Recast Directive vis-a-vis gender identity, and to ensure equality for all trans people in the countries where the Directive is applicable.