Using Public Restrooms

Just my experience with public restrooms. Girls running out and checking the sign on the door to make sure they're in the right one, men who don't use urinals, STP devices, that kind of stuff. Anyone who's not really gender-normative in presentation can relate to a lot of what is said here, I'm sure.

Annotations

xxthread

Sean Dorsey tells transsexual gay man's story

by Rachel Howard, Chronicle Dance Correspondent

January 28, 2009

You might expect Sean Dorsey's dances to be aesthetically transgressive or politically provocative. Dorsey - born female but now preferring the pronoun "he" - is the founder and director of Fresh Meat Productions, which he says is the nation's first year-round presenter of transgender arts.

Sometimes the most progressive thing an artist can do with a marginalized experience is to present it in a familiar, easily relatable form. Weaving movement with story, the 36-year-old Dorsey tells finely crafted, poignant tales of transgender life. In "Uncovered: The Diary Project," premiering this weekend at Dance Mission Theater, Dorsey turns his attention to the life of Lou Sullivan.

A female-to-male transsexual gay man, Sullivan lived in San Francisco from 1975 until his death in 1991, founding groundbreaking peer-support groups and publishing newsletters and informational booklets. The voluminous journals, medical records and letters he bequeathed to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society form the source material for "Lou," Dorsey's new suite of dances. . . .Read More

10,000 Dresses celebrates transgender children

by Dana Rudolph

January 29, 2009


Beginning with the vibrant sunburst and smiling child on its cover, Marcus Ewert’s 10,000 Dresses is a joyous book about self-acceptance and identity. It is also the only children’s picture book that features an openly transgender protagonist, and does so with both sensitivity and celebration.

Young Bailey dreams of 10,000 beautiful dresses made of crystals, rainbows, flowers, and magical windows. "Boys don’t wear dresses," her mother, father, and brother each tell her. Bailey replies, "But . . . I don’t feel like a boy," to which her family responds, "Well, you are one, Bailey, and that’s that."

It is only after meeting Laurel, an older girl who befriends Bailey over their shared love of dresses, that Bailey is able to see her creations come to life.

10,000 Dresses is the first children’s book from Ewert, whose writings have appeared in such works as the 2004 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage (ed. Greg Wharton and Ian Philips). Ewert also created Piki and Poko, an animated cartoon airing on Logo, but aimed at an older audience. . . .Read More