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Southerners On New Ground REPORT
250 Georgia Ave. Suite 201
Atlanta, GA 30317
Phone: 404.549.8628
Fax: 404.549.8642
www.southernersonnewground.org

Trans People Speak Out

Welcome to SONG’s report on our Southern Trans people’s Survey/People’s Movement Assembly. In concert with the US Social Forum, SONG set out to listen more deeply to our Trans base, membership and Trans Southerners living outside of the South. Listening campaigns have always been a core part of SONG’s strategy: prioritizing listening to marginalized and oppressed communities to honor them with hearing and dignity; analyze conditions; find patterns; and take action based on that information. (For more information on SONG and who we are, visit: www.southernersonnewground.org).

SONG was founded by Black and White Lesbians in 1993, and has worked (over its political evolution) on centering voices that have been marginalized; and that has meant taking concrete steps to not only include “Trans voices” but also create real processes that build power, leadership and self-determination for Trans people and gender non-conforming people in SONG. This work is one of our steps in that direction. It is a summary of stories and information, and it was anonymous. However, in the interest of giving the reader a direct relationship to the true voices of the people who shared with us, we include anonymous quotes throughout, wherever possible.

Who Answered the Survey

This survey was answered by 127 people who identified in the largest numbers as Transwomen, Transmen, and Gender Queer, as well as Two Spirit, Cross dresser, passable, Autogynephile, Non-op Transsexual, Women, and Men. The survey asked for information from Trans and Gender Non-conforming people who lived or have lived in the South.

I can say "Fuck you!" in public, but I cannot (with your permission) actually fuck you in public.

Have you ever wondered why is it that a statement of sex as an insult between people who don't like each other is a protected right, when the actual performance of sex as an act between two people who like each other is prohibited? 

Why is sex profane?  This is not something that comes from nature.  Sex is one of the basic needs of all mammals, along with air, water, space, warmth and food.  So, it doesn't come from our DNA, which means that we made this shit up.  Sex is free.  Sex feels good.  Societies across the globe discourage us from having sex, talking about sex, thinking good things about sex, being proud of sex.

The opposition to sex is so widespread across human cultures, that it seems universal, but is it?

How many people live inside a culture that vilifies sex, while personally holding different and more accepting views?  I'd venture to say that it's a majority.  At some point we all feel moments of sexual desire.  In sexually repressive social settings, we hide our true views on sex in order to avoid retribution.  This could be public shaming, beating, ridicule, disapproval and even killing.  Here's a hint: gay porn and MTF trans porn are the two biggest revenue generators online.  Cis-gendered heterosexual men are the people with the money and they are the people getting off in private to sexual images that society won't let them have while retaining the privilege of being cis-het men.

NAIROBI, 11 August 2010 (PlusNews) - By night, Viviane Muasi, 25, is a sex worker in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, but when not canvassing for clients, she spends much of her time convincing other sex workers to test for HIV and use condoms.

Muasi, a sex worker for nine years, is a peer educator with the Sex Workers Outreach Programme (SWOP) - a project run by the University of Nairobi and Canada's University of Manitoba.

"Initially when I came to Nairobi, I was employed as a house-maid," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I was being paid little, so another woman introduced me to sex work and told me I could make more money."

For us, by us

Through the SWOP programme, Muasi and her fellow educators have enabled more than 3,000 of their Nairobi peers to get tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

"We know each other and where they [the sex workers] live, so you just visit them at home and ask them to create time and go to the clinic," Muasi said. "They now have skills to negotiate condom use with their clients... we don't want to be infected and we also don't want to infect anybody.

"At first, the police would just round us up and force us to go for [HIV] tests; many commercial sex workers used to hide," she added. "But today, because the call to test comes from one of their own, they have embraced it."

Here is Nina giving the Keynote Address at the 2010 Annual Conference of the Desiree Alliance, Las Vegas, NV.

By Sebastián Lacunza

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 5, 2010 (IPS) - Inequality and poverty in Argentina are explained to a large extent by a job market that discriminates against women, coupled with insufficient equal opportunity regulations and failure to enforce existing labour laws, experts on the issue told IPS.

According to Andrea Balzano, head of the gender division at the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) country office in Argentina, "entering the labour market is the only demographic and social event that enables households to escape poverty."

But "women are much less likely to join the labour market, and even when they are able to find work, their opportunities are more limited because their insertion occurs through jobs in informal and low productivity sectors," she explained.

Almost 14 percent of Argentina's 40 million people, and 9.4 percent of its households, are classified as poor, according to data from the government's National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) for the first semester of 2010. But private organisations place poverty at 31 percent and abject poverty at 11 percent.

Natalia Gherardi, executive director of the non-governmental organisation Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género (ELA - Latin American Team on Justice and Gender), says that "participation in the workforce and insertion in the job market are key factors in overcoming gender inequalities through economic autonomy."

One of the most telling examples of how Argentina's lack of regulations, large informal sector and gender discrimination shape the situation of women in the job market is the plight of paid domestic workers, a sector that accounts for 18 percent of all female employment.

This call for work from Paradigm Shift deals with body image in the media and cultural terms. -arvan

Call for guest blog, video, and graphic art submissions in preparation for Paradigm Shift’s next event:

BODY TYPED short films on perfection

Screening & Discussion Featuring

JESSE EPSTEIN, Sundance award-winning Filmmaker

BODY TYPED is a series of short films about body image, media, and cultural identity that will be combined to make a feature documentary. The films use humor to raise serious concerns about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection.

WET DREAMS AND FALSE IMAGES
When Dee-Dee the barber learns about the art of photo-retouching, he may never look at his “wall of beauty” the same way again.
Short Subject Jury Award, 2004 Sundance Film Festival

THE GUARANTEE
A dancer’s hilarious story about his prominent nose and the effect if has on his career.
Best Short Film, 2007 Newport International Film Festival

34×25×36
A look at mannequins, religion, and perfection.
SXSW, Full Frame, True/False, National PBS Broadcast on POV

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18th at 6:30 pm
Just outside the Feminist District
The Tank- 354 West 45th Street (between 8th & 9th Ave.)
Subway: A,C,E to 42nd Street/Times Square

Cost: $12 students/ pre-paid, $15 at door
BUY TICKETS NOW- LIMITED SEATING:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/117245

Facebook invite: http://bit.ly/cofvXX

Submission Deadline- August 22
Use these prompts as guidelines for submissions; essays, poetry, and artwork in all forms accepted:

- the effect of stereotypes on bodies

- body image and health

- expectations that friends and family have of our bodies

- how appearances intersect with gender and sexuality

- the portrayal of bodies in the media

- body empowerment

- social acceptance versus personal acceptance

Submit responses to blog@paradigmshiftnyc.com Please include how you would like to be credited (name, anonymous etc). Video submissions- please submit YouTube private link. Email subject line: Your Name- Blog post- 3/30 Event.

ParadigmShiftNYC.com content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

(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

Another day, another list of shit women need to remember so men will like them.  The shit that gets published these days that is aimed toward women is getting increasingly preposterous and it is worrisome. Take for example this list comprised by the benevolent Amelia of The Frisky, a sometimes cool website. She wanted to know what men like best in women during sex, so she magnanimously interviewed "3 guy friends"  who spilled all their deepest desires.

Or something like that.

1. Tell Him What To Do: This was the most common request from the guys I talked to—they’re dying for a little instruction. Guy parts are different from girl parts and sometimes they need to hear what you want.

Oh women, we already know you are so worried about performing well in bed that you usually forget to focus on yourself and gettin' yours, so make sure to remember to tell him if what he's doing feels good! This will help him get better and perfect his technique, you know for the next time he has sex with someone else!

I found this today, in my Internet travels.  It looks good and I will love to read what they assemble. -arvan

“We can learn to mother ourselves.” Audre Lorde, 1983

All mothers have the potential to be revolutionary. Some mothers stand on the shoreline, are born and reborn here, inside the flux of time and space, overcoming the traumatic repetition of oppression. Our very existence is disobedience to the powers that be.
At times, in moments, we as mothers choose to stand in a zone of claimed risk and fierce transformation, the frontline. In infinite ways, both practiced and yet to be imagined,  we put our bodies between the violent repetition of the norm and the future we already deserve, exactly because our children deserve it too.  We make this choice for many reasons and in different contexts, but at the core we have this in common: we refuse to obey. We refuse to give into fear. We insist on joy no matter what and by every means necessary and possible.

In this anthology we are exploring how we are informed by and participating with those mothers, especially radical women of color, who have sought for decades, if not centuries, to create relationships to each other, transformative relationships to feminism and a transnational anti-imperialist literary, cultural and everyday practice.

ladyVixion is one of my favorite vloggers.  She has made plenty of sassy, humorous and thoughtful work already.  In the middle of that, she told this honest, poignant and human piece about family, self, identity and dignity.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I came out to my father that I am Transexual - by ladyVixion: