Day 2 At Fantasia Fair

The big thing about yesterday was the heat, it was well into the seventies. One thing you can say about the fair the weather can be anywhere from snowing to sweltering.

Lobster Buoys

In the morning I went to the orientation brunch, since this is something like my tenth or eleventh time up here I didn’t need much in the way of the orientation. There is a number of first timers at here, they almost equaled to number of returnees. After the brunch I walked down to the pier and took a number of photos from around P’town. Afterward I went grocery shopping for snacks and then tried to cool off before the day’s keynote speech by Diego Sanchez who talked about intersections, intersections between being trans and race, gender, socioeconomic, age and privilege. It was a very good discussion.

Commercial St.

That was followed by a panel on “Peeing in Peace” with Diego Sanchez, Mara Keisling, Andrew
Amanda Leigh-Bullard and Dr. Miqqi Alicia Gilbert with Miqqi as the moderator. The panel carried on the discussion from the keynote speech. When you stop and consider those who face harassment and bullying when going to the bathroom are usually minorities, and those who can’t afford thing like having their documents changed, or seeing a doctor who can generate letters to change their birth certificates or their driver license. Those who get harassed in the bathrooms are also those who do not integrate in to society and blend in that are singled out.

The fishing fleet at MacMillan Wharf

Those who are not binary also have problems in bathrooms. Andrew Amanda said that they have a problem with bathrooms because they might have mixed gender documentation and are androgynous. Jennifer Boylan who was in the audience said when she was on a Sunday morning talk show with Tony Perkins the head of the Family Research Council, the host asked Mr. Perkins which bathroom should Ms. Boylan use because she still had a “M” on her birth certificate, Mr. Perkins didn’t have an answer.

The Pioneer Award Banquet was held Monday night instead of the usually Tuesday night, on the way there I meet Miqqi and he invited me to sit at her table. At the table were also Diego Sanchez, Mara Keisling, and Jennifer Boylan who was receiving the Virginia Prince Award.

I called it an early night since I was up at 4 yesterday morning (3 AM this morning when I wrote this blog post to the sounds of rain on the roof).

On store for today, Ms. Boylan keynote speech and discussion and in the evening at the Provincetown Theater for a the Butterfly Music Transgender Chorus followed by comedian Jaye McBride