Does Any One Have a Paddle?

The reason I am so wound up over this is because I have seen it all before. Once a sexual orientation anti-discrimination law is passed all pressure to pass a trans-inclusive bill is dropped. The following state have passed anti-discrimination laws without including gender identity or expression since 2000: Maryland in 2001, New York in 2002, New Mexico in 2003 and Illinois in 2005. NONE of them have gone back and passed a bill to include gender even though we were promised that the Gay and Lesbian organization would push for a gender identity and expression bill.

I will tell you what will happen if this bill in Congress gets passed without being gender inclusive; the Gay and Lesbian organization will start the push for marriage equality and any bill for gender identity will be put aside for the next 15 or 20 years.

By the Way Sunday

~Fashion by You~

By the way.....

Jeans or Slacks?
It depends on the occasion. For school and casual occasions, jeans but if I am going out to eat with friends or to a meeting than I will wear slacks

Sweater or Jacket?
Sweaters, but sometimes I wear both. It really depends on where I am going, if it is warm inside than I will wear a jacket. There is nothing worst than going to an overheated mall will a sweater and roasting.

Skirt & Top or Dress?
Skirt and a top, you can make more combinations by mixing and matching.

Buttons or Zippers?
Hmm? I don’t really have a preference, but definitely not buttons up the back.

Does your purse always match your outfit?
Naw, I have a big old brown bag that I throw everything in. If it is formal then I have a small black purse.

Heels or Pumps or Flats?
Pumps, except if it dinner or fundraiser type of event then I will wear high heels.

Crewneck or Turtleneck?
Turtleneck.

Do you own a little black dress?
Yes, see my fashion show.

Accessorize or Not?
Some, I don’t go over board.

Describe your absolute favorite outfit.
Denim skirt, turtleneck, a denim jacket and low heel boots.

More on ENDA

Sorry for keep harping on the ENDA, but you see we saw this before. In 2002, in New York state we were sold down the river with the removal of gender identity form their Anti-Discrimination law with the promise that it would be passed the next year. Well here it is five years later and still no law in New York state.
Added 2:20pm

A Statement released on Friday by Representative Barry Frank…

“The question facing us – the LGBT community and the tens of millions of others who are active supporters of our fight against prejudice – is whether we should pass up the chance to adopt a very good bill because it has one major gap. I believe that it would be a grave error to let this opportunity to pass a sexual orientation nondiscrimination bill go forward, not simply because it is one of the most important advances we’ll have made in securing civil rights for Americans in decades, but because moving forward on this bill now will also better serve the ultimate goal of including people who are transgender than simply accepting total defeat today.”

So basically what he is saying is: we can get our cake and we don’t care if you get your piece of the cake. But the only other "Out" legislator does not feel that way

“Significantly, Democrat Tammy Baldwin, a lesbian who represents Madison, Wisconsin, and is the only other out LGBT member of Congress, did not put her name on the new bill.” (Gay City News)

And the HRC finally spoke up…

“Since 2004, the Human Rights Campaign’s policy has been to only support civil rights legislation that is inclusive of gender identity. That's why we fought tirelessly for and won Congressional approval for a fully inclusive hate crimes bill. We’ve been fighting to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act for more than a decade. The breaking news that the House has decided to move forward on a non-discrimination bill that is not inclusive of gender identity is devastating. The Human Rights Campaign remains dedicated to the fight for full equality for our entire community and, in light of this new reality, continues to consult with members of Congress and our lobbyists to determine how we can achieve that goal.” (HRC Backstory)

ENDA

Where is the HRC?

Last May when I was down in Washington DC for the Transgender Lobbying Days and I sat in the HRC conference room and heard them say that the HRC stands behind the gender identity inclusive ENDA.

Why have you not spoken up?

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr

Create A Connection

Roadway Beauties

This photo I took on the way up to my brother’s in Maine. Anyone who has traveled up I-95 to Maine will recognize this photo. It was taken in New Hampshire, during the summer you usually drive about 15 mph across the whole state of New Hampshire. The traffic backs up at the New Hampshire tollbooth at the Maine boarder all the way to Massachusetts on weekends.



On a normal drive it will only take about a half a hour to drive to drive across New Hampshire, but from Thursday to Sunday in the summer it can take up to a hour and a half to drive. I got bored sitting traffic so I snapped a couple of pictures of the traffic. The normal driving time is three hour drive from my house to my brothers condo but this time it took close to five hours, UGH! The were a number of accidents on I-495 plus the tie up for the tollbooth.

Create A Connection

Inspiring Words

I am not big on quotes but I do have some favorites:

"Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds."
Albert Einstein

"The only person you are destine to become, is the person you decide to be."
Pam Finger

"You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices come from a deep sense of who you are."
Fred Rogers

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge - Marion Zimmer Bradley

And the quote I have on the top of my blog…

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key"
Already Gone - Eagles

These are some of the quotes that have resonated with me and made me think about over coming prejudice and bigotry. How we have to live our own life and not worry what others may think. That my sound selfish but sometimes there is no other choice.
For many transgendered individuals they live their life in fear of what others may think of them as life passes them by.

Let me amend my list by adding this quote that I got via email one day from a person who was reading my old web-site and commented about my photographs


The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don't have to gain, develop, or attain them. We're like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight. We don't need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we really are--as soon as we quit pretending we're small or unholy.

Unknown source

Will We Be Sold Out?

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) bill is coming up for a vote in Congress. After all these months of tell us that yes three will be Gender Identity included in the bill, now we hear; “Well maybe.”
This article was in the Washington Blade

ENDA hits snag over transgender inclusion
House Democrats likely to drop gender identity provision
By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Sep 26, 4:57 PM

House Democratic leaders are strongly considering dropping anti-discrimination protections for transgender persons from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, after an internal Democratic head count on Wednesday found that the bill would likely be defeated if it included the trans provision, multiple sources familiar with the bill said.
The current version of the bill calls for banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, terms that are defined in the measure to include gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons.
As of late Wednesday, it appeared likely that the trans provision would be removed, setting up a potentially divisive fight within gay activist circles over whether or not to support an ENDA bill that excludes trans people.

But sources familiar with House Democratic leaders, including Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said problems arose suddenly during the past week when a number of Democratic House members expressed objections to the transgender provision.
The transgender objections surfaced shortly after Pelosi and House Democratic leaders agreed to a request by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to broaden the bill’s exemption for certain religious institutions that act as employers, the sources said.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, said Pelosi called for an official “whip” count of all Democratic House members at the request of Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), a lesbian. Frank and Baldwin are the only openly gay members of Congress….
… Frank said that if the whip count found that ENDA could not pass with a transgender provision, he would strongly urge Pelosi and his Democratic colleagues to move the bill to the House floor without a trans provision, with the intent of introducing a separate transgender bill at a later date.

Will we be sold out?

I urge everyone to email their congresspersons and ask them to support this bill with gender inclusion. He is the email that I intend to send my legislators.

Dear Representative

I urge you to continue your support of support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that includes gender identity.
There has been growing talk of dropping gender identity from the bill. Thirteen states now have legislation that covers gender identity and there have been no problems with businesses with following the law in those states; including the New England states of Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Businesses have been including gender identity in their non-discrimination policies at an increasing rate; 104 of the Fortune 500 now cover gender identity and the HRC has a growing list of company the include gender identity.
Please continue your support of a gender identity inclusive bill and resist the pressures to remove that provision of the bill.

Thank you,
Diana


To find out how to contact your Congressperson, go here and on the upper right is a box for your zip code. That will take you to their contact page. Select create you own message and follow the instructions, but make sure you op-out of the boxes after your phone number if you want to do so. Do NOT use the Advocacy Xpress, it will cost you $9.00.

By the Way Sunday

By the Way Sunday

~Your Fave Five~

What are your top 5...

Things to Do
Get in to the Graduate program to get my Masters

Places to Be
At our cottage in New Hampshire as the leaves change colors

Words to Hear
“I love you”

Things to Keep
The photograph of my mother and father, my photos, diary and poems

Moments to Treasure
The love on my mother and father faces as I took their picture that is on my mantel.

Manic Monday

Manic Monday for September 24, 2007

You’ve won $100,000 – but have to give it all away. To which charity or institution would you donate it?
Oh, this is an easy question…
CWEALF - $40,000
True Colors - $40,000
CTAC - $20,000

What do you think is the most soothing sound?
Waves on a beach. I use to think it was sound of a waterfall until I camped out next to one and by 3:00am the sound of falling water was no longer soothing, it was down right annoying.

Does time heal all wounds?
Yes, time does heal all wounds, it is just that some take longer to heal.

Patrick’s Weekender

Saturday Six - Episode 179

1. What is your favorite carnival ride?
Something easy and slow. I do not to be whipped around or dropped from heights

2. What is the biggest prize you ever won at a carnival or fair?
I do not think I ever won anything at a carnival because I do not think I ever played any game. My folks always thought bad of carnival games and that they were rigged.

3. What is the most you ever spent at a single carnival game?
Probability a buck, see the above answer

4. Take the quiz: What carnival ride are you?

You Are a Haunted House

You are a deeply complicated and sometimes deeply disturbed person. You can't help but be attracted to the dark side of life - even when it's pretty gruesome. In relationships, you are honest and real. So real that it's definitely a little scary. You don't fake it or play along just to get along. And people either respect this... or deeply resent it Your life is thoughtful, deep, and even philosophical at times. You see the world as it is. You don't sugar coat anything. Facing and fighting your fears is important to you. You believe that too much of life is whitewashed. You're not too morbid... you just believe that you can't enjoy life without exorcising a few demons first! At your best, you are brave, intense, and fearless. Not only do you face the abyss head on - you challenge your friends to do the same. At your worst, you are depressed and morose. If you're not careful, your thoughts take over your mind... and they aren't pretty!

What Carnival Ride Are You?

Boy, it this so far off, the only thing that is even close is…

Your life is thoughtful, deep, and even philosophical at times.
You see the world as it is. You don't sugar coat anything.
Facing and fighting your fears is important to you. You believe that too much of life is whitewashed.

The rest of it is Bull.

5. If you went to a typical carnival and realized you weren’t in the mood to ride the rides, what would you be more likely to want to do to amuse yourself?
The local town agricultural fair is coming up in a couple of weeks and I always like to visit the crafts exhibits and the only time I entered a photograph I won First Prize.

6. What job would you least like to have at a carnival or fair?
A ride operator.

Insurance Discrimination

The big talk on the campaign circuit is about some form of a national insurance plan but I want to talk about insurance polices that affects me.

Most insurance companies do not cover anything that has to with transgenderism; they do not cover any mental health visits (even though it is required by the Standard of Care.), any office visits neither for hormone treatments nor for the hormones and they do not cover any surgery.

The treatment for Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is recognized a mental disease (Whether we in the community like to admit it or not.) that is listed in the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) with the code 302.85 and has a recognized treatment (The Standard of Care). The AMA policy on transsexualsim states: ‘The AMA opposes the denial of health insurance on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” Also in the state of Connecticut it is against the law to discriminate against anyone with a mental illness as defined by the DSM and also against anyone with a disability, GID has been ruled so by the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities(CHRO).

All of this I talked about before, so what is new? Well there is a report that was released from San Francisco Human Rights Commission that defines what the cost/patient were since 2001 when San Francisco initialed coverage for transsexuals.

Bay Area Reporter
Community pushes for TG health coverage
Published 06/21/2007
by Zak Szymanski

According to San Francisco Human Rights Commission investigator Marcus Arana, in the first four years after the city's transgender benefits passed, the city's own health plan (managed by United Healthcare) collected an extra $1.70 per month per insurance member for a total of $5.6 million, and paid out just $183,000 for 11 transition-related surgeries. Data from the private insurers' HMO plans is more sparse; HealthNet reported paying $3,300 for hormones and psychological care during a one-year period between 2004 and 2005, for 14 of its transgender members….
… I told them, that's not what this [health coverage for transsexuals] is about: if you were a non-trans employee of San Francisco and needed hormonal treatment, a mastectomy, or a hysterectomy, you would get that coverage, and yet a transgender employee in need of that identical medical care was being denied."…

Now is the time for change! Employers have been using the excuse that it is way too expensive to include health care coverage for transsexuals. This discrimination has got to stop because it is an out in out violation of the anti-discrimination statues.

But you say the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) list 195 companies with a perfect score of 100% but less that a handful offer full coverage for transsexuals. How can that be if so many companies have a perfect score? Well lets look at how the scores are figured, this is the HRC policy on scoring gender identity…

# Non-discrimination policy, diversity training & benefits – gender identity

3. Insurance includes access for transitioning individuals for at least one category* (5 points)
At least one: Counseling by a mental health professional; pharmacy benefits covering hormone therapy; medical visits to monitor the effects of hormone therapy and other associated lab procedures; medically necessary surgical procedures such as hysterectomy; or short-term disability leave for surgical procedures

That is right; they only have to offer only one category to get the 5 points and a perfect score. Most companies offer mental health coverage for any reason; Bingo you get 5 points.
Why does the HRC score this way? I can think of three reasons: first because the HRC likes to boast about the number of companies that have a perfect score; two, a lot of the big companies donate to the HRC and three the HRC itself would not get a perfect score. Hun? Yup, the HRC does not offer full coverage to its employees; they would only score a 95. A little embarrassing don’t you think. So as not just to single out the HRC the other national Gay and Lesbian organizations do not offer it either.

I do not think the HRC is a bad organization, they have done much good. But I think that they have to be watched closely to make sure the honor their promises and mission statement.

Create a Connection

I finally found some time to sit down and catching up on my blogging. I have been busy with homework and volunteer work (I think I have attended more meeting now that I am retired than I did while working.).

What Color Are You?

What color best expresses who you let other people see you to be?
I would have to say that my outward colors this time of year is brown, yellow, orange and red; the colors of fall. They are the warm colors of the change of seasons.

What color best suits the real you, you know is deep inside of you?
Green and I don’t mean the green with envy type of green, but I mean the earth green.

Do the colors match, or do you need to learn to be more comfortable being yourself too?
I think so, I then they tend to complement each other.

Why do you think that color expresses you well? Would your better half agree?
They are the earth colors and the fall colors are warm like my personality.

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

Is this anywhere near Grover’s Mills?

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

Mon Sep 17, 11:23 PM ET

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Do you think this might be psychosomatic? Or is it an invasion from Mars.

The Phone Call I Didn’t Want to Hear on Sunday Morning

I was lying on the couch reading my homework assignment when the phone rang. I answered and a man said; “I am from the New Hampshire Marine Patrol, your boat sank and you have to get it out immediately. Otherwise it may cause environmental damage. You can be fined and charged for the clean up.” Yikes! By that time I was sitting up and he had my undivided attention, he went on to say that we should contact a marine salvage operation to get float it again. I told we will get right on it.”
After running around in circles for a couple of seconds, I called my brother, packed and was headed up to New Hampshire.
This is what I found…

We did raises it up off the bottom and re-float it. We did it by my brother pulling the bow down and with me pulling the stern up so that we managed to get the gunnels above water and we could bail it out.
But I did get to take these sunrise pictures this morning with the fog rising up of the lake.

Just for Fun

what if this is as good as it gets? Just for fun

RANDOM SURVEY:
1. To whom did you last give the finger?
I do not think that I ever gave anyone “The Finger”

2. If you had 1,000 dollars, what would you buy?
A DLP projector

3. What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself?
Orange juice

4. Are you different now than you were 6 months ago?
Oh, yes.

5. Have you kissed a girl in the last three days?
No

6. What was the last photograph you took?
Wednesday at Mystic Aquarium

7. Where were you last night around 9:30?
Home reading my homework assignment.

8. What do you think of guys that wear eyeliner?
It depend on whether it matches his dress

9. How many hours did you last sleep?
5 hours

10. Who was the last person to whom you spoke on the phone for over an hour and a half?
No-one, the longest I think I talked on the phone was an hour

11. 50 Cent shows up at your door, what do you do?
Give him a dollar.

12. How was the last egg you ate prepared?
French Toast

13. Where did you last wear sunglasses?
Driving to Mystic Aquarium

14. Ever worn your underwear backwards?
No

15. Who was the last person to smoke a cigarette in your presence?
Friday night

16. Does it bother you when people put && before every sentence and ;; after?:
No, I believe in “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”

17. What animal did you last pet or hold?
A dog

18. What was the last law you broke?
Speeding

19. What are you wearing?
Nightgown and rob (Well it is Sunday morning.)

20. What did you last drink?
Decaf coffee

21. What was the last newspaper you read or skimmed?
The Hartford Courant

22. What was the last word written on your hand?
Probably a part number when I was working

23. What was the last hair product you used?
Shampoo

24. What was the last text message you received?
I do not do text messaging

25. What was the last medication (Rx or OTC) you took?
A whole fist full, I rattle when I walk.

26. Who was the last person to make you really laugh?
I can’t remember

27. To what song did you last sing along?
You really don’t want to hear me sign.

28. What was the last musical instrument played in your presence?
Guitar

29. What was the last superstitious thing you did?
None, I am not superstitious.

30. How is your love life going?
What love life?

More Fashion Show Photos

On the Hartford Independent Media Center's Undercurrents blog has an article about the fashion show.
The only problem is that you can only read the blog with IE. Firefox will not work properly (Boo!)

Fashion Show Photos

Here are a couple of photos from last night that some friends (See the link on the comment from the "Fashion Show".) sent me.





This is my basic little black dress...



and the crowd went wild as I took off the Bolero jacket...

The Fashion Show

We all had a blast! You know me, I was worrying that none of the models would show up or nobody would come to it. Well, as usual I was wrong. We packed the place, I would guest that there were over 150 people there, including two professional photographers. Once someone sends me some photos of me, I will post them.
I had a great time; I wore a back sleeveless cocktail dress with a bolero jacket. We were all lined up in a hallway and when my turn came the crowd was already wound up. When I step out of the hallway all I saw was camera flashes, I walked down the isle between the tables and when I got down the end I took off my jacket. The crowd went wild. It was so cool.
I heard someone say that the owner of the bar said it was the most people he had come to any GLBT event there.

Another Busy Week

In between classes, reading and writing reports, I have been running around. Wednesday I went down to Mystic Aquarium with a couple of friends. One of my friends suggested going and that we could get library passes for 30% off, I never knew until recently that they had passes like. So I went to the town library and changed my name on my library card and got the pass.
The Beluga whales were real hams, when I was at the glass side of the tank one came up and winked at me and stopped so that I could take its picture (Or at least it looked that way.)



Next we headed over to see the seals. Boy, talk about having a lazy life, the bull seal just sunned himself on the rocks while his harem swam around.


The next exhibit was the Penguins and trying to photograph them through the glass was hard because I could not use the flash without getting a reflection from the flash and because they were zipping around underwater.





From there we went into the Sun Lit Seas exhibit which was all types and sizes of aquariums. I had the same problem there as I did take photos through the glass but even more so because of the dim lighting inside the building.





Finally we went to the Underwater Exploration building.

Yesterday I help one of the CTAC members buy an outfit for tonight’s Fashion Show and then in the afternoon I helped out at True Colors. I will be one of the models at the show besides organizing the models and making that they will have everything that they will need. Tomorrow I go to a speakers training session for the Stonewall Speakers in the morning.

Today's Class

It was funny in class today; the professor was trying to remember everyone’s name today from the class last week. She would look around the room for Sara and then ask the person she thought was Sara if she was. She had correct person about a fifty percent of the time, but she had look at everyone first before she guessed the name and there still was a question in her voice. Then when she got to my name she just looked right at me and said Diana with no hesitation.
Oh well, when you are the only six foot tranny in the class you do tend to stand out and get remembered.

I guess I better go back to reading, I procrastinated too much already.

Family

I was reading a blog that I follow, she is a cardiologist and a trans-woman, in her blog she wrote about a funeral that she attended for a friend’s father. The family never acknowledged her nor mentioned that fact that she was there, the only conversation that they had with her was to ask her to move so they could set up the tables up for covered dish after the service.

All too often when a person comes out to their family that they are either gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender they are disinherited they are forced out onto the streets to fend for themselves. Many of them are still teenagers with no skills and end up working the streets, but the woman’s whose father died is one of the luckily ones and is working herself through medical school.

Connecticut’s New Voting System

I do not like the new electronic voting machines. Having an engineering background I know how easy it is to write bad software that will not work properly and I am not talk about purposely hacking the program just errors in writing the software.
I do not know how many times I have seen a program bomb out when a certain conditions are met. Maybe they made a round off error or did not allow a wide enough field and the number gets truncated or variables get swapped, and these problems only shows up randomly. I am awful apprehensive of any software based voting systems and I feel that there should be third party independent auditing of the software and the code should be public domain for all to view. That they should also increase the percentage of manually recounted the ballots to verify the machine and software.

Manic Monday

Manic Monday for September 10, 2007

If you could "un-invent" one thing in the world so that it would no longer exist, what would you choose?
Weapons of Mass Destruction – It would be a different world. Would it be more peaceful, I doubt it. But it would be safer without out worrying about one madman wiping out the world.
For a laugh visit here.

Monday morning you usually waking up thinking:
What homework assignments are due this week?

Do you find it easy to ask for help? Why or why not?
I find it easy asking for help maybe because I am always willing to give help.

Minister Transitions and Becomes a Man

A United Methodist council's decision on whether to accept him could have political implications too.
By Stephanie Simon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 9, 2007
BALTIMORE — The Rev. Ann Gordon stood in front of her United Methodist congregation last fall and announced that she was now he…..

…. But when Phoenix, 48, was reappointed to another year of ministry this spring by his bishop, it sparked a protest in the United Methodist Church.

The denomination's highest authority, the Judicial Council, will take up the case next month, deciding whether the church should accept transgender pastors. The decision will determine Phoenix's future; it could also have political implications.

Presiding over the Judicial Council is Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., President Bush's nominee for surgeon general and a longtime lay leader of the United Methodist church. Democrats have objected to Holsinger in large part because of work he has done for his church over the years……

Read the whole story here

But you will need a email address and password:
Email: joe@bugmenot.com
Password: 123456
If that does not work you can get other passwords here Bug Me Not and use; www.latimes.com


Read about Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., President Bush's nominee for Surgeon General.

'Homosexuality Isn't Natural or Healthy'
Bush's Choice for Top Doc Compared Human Genitalia to Pipe Fittings and Said Homosexual Practices Can Cause Injury or Death
By JAKE TAPPER
June 7, 2007

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., wrote a paper in 1991 that purported to make the medical argument that homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy. Doctors who reviewed the paper derided it as prioritizing political ideology over science, and Democratic aides on Capitol Hill say the paper will make his confirmation hearings problematic, if not downright bruising….

Among the highly scientific arguments against homosexuals the good doctor wrote was…

Holsinger's paper argued that male and female genitalia are complementary -- so much so "that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other." Body parts used for gay sex are not complementary….

You can read the whole story here

Growing Up

Today I had a planning meeting for Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition in Hartford. As I was walking back to my car from the courtyard of a large national insurance company where we had the meeting; I was thinking how far I have come in the last seven years, and I am not talking about trans-issues.
All my life I was probably in only four or five places in Hartford and my circle of friends was maybe only numbered a dozen or so. Now I know my way around the Capital, the Legislative Office Building, the theaters and maybe a half a dozen restaurants in Hartford. I know the heads of non-profits organizations, legislators, a member of the GLBT Commission in Hartford and lobbyist. I lead a support group for three very successful years and I am a part of the coalition that is working to pass anti-discrimination legislation whose members include ACLU, NOW, GLAD and a dozen of other organizations. I went to Washington to lobby my Congressional delegation. I have helped out in a senatorial campaign. And lastly I am working toward a Master degree in Social Work.
As I was standing on the steps of the office building waiting for the walk light, I looked out over the Capital and Hartford and it just kind of seemed surreal this “Long Strange Trip”. If in 2000 you said I would be doing all this I would never have believed you.
I guess I have matured after long last.

Let Me Clarify What I Meant

They had the book at to university's co-op for the $80, but if I wanted to get it at Amazon or Border's for $60 they would have to order the book and there was a two week wait.
Everything at the university is done on-line, so last Wednesday I got the email telling me what book to get and what chapters to read for the first class. Because I was busy Thursday and Friday I bought the book at the co-op after class yesterday. Hence being two weeks behind in the reading assignment.
My other class also sent out an email last week with the reading assignment for today’s class, but there is no book for the class. All the reading assignments are on-line at the university’s library web-site, the reading assignment might say read chapter 3 for this book, chapter 2 from another book and this article in a journal. They would all be on-line listed under my class and they would be in pdf file (The university has a licensing agreements for the copyright royalties.).

Back to School Madness

Blogging is going to have to take second stage to my studying. I do not think I will be able to post every day; hopefully I will be able to do a couple of memes a week.
Well back to the books, I have about 120 pages to read and a two page paper on the classroom discussion by next week.

Unbelievable !!!

I had to buy a textbook for a class and it was $80.70! That is nuts for a paperback book.