Are there bad questions to ask a trans and/or queer person? …Yes. Of course there are. There are in fact bad questions to ask any human being. The conjecture that rude, personal questions are just being asked out of ‘innocent curiosity’ is up there with the presumption that the customer is ‘always right.’ We at genderpanic have done our time behind the counters of coffee shops and retail stores and we know. The customer is not only sometimes wrong, but is also on occasion being absolutely and deliberately stupid. This same logic applies to inquirers of private information.
Calpernia Addams is here with razor sharp wit to share some of these bad questions. And may we just say – Calpernia, you kick ass.
There’s nothing more awesome for us at genderpanic than finding out about delightful queer people in the world fighting for equality and working to better their communities through arts and social reform – except perhaps than finding a couple of them! Listed below are two of the couples we’re found out about most recently.
Sean Dorsey and Shawna Virago – Both artists and activists, Sean and Shawna promote transgender awareness and participation in the arts scene in San Francisco.
Ma Vie En Rose (My Life In Pink): Young Ludovic is confident that ze was meant to be born a girl and that god just made a small mistake, but convincing hir family and community proves to be harder than anticipated.
Country: France, 1997
Original Language: French
Rating: 5/5
Zavi thinks: Though this film is overall lighthearted, it touches on many quite serious issues, such as hate crimes and class differences. As an innocent child, Ludovic simply cannot understand why others feel so threatened by hir non-binary gender, and hir struggle to be hirself brings up the issue of gender panic. Though dealing with some very adult issues, the young star of this film remains utterly endearing.
Panda thinks: Ma Vie En Rose effectively blends fantasy and reality, much in the way that I imagine a child’s mind would. The film offers a unique first person perspective on the early struggles of child questioning hir gender. I really love the color and the lighting in this movie. It is really something to …
Transamerica: Weeks before her gender reassignment surgery, a tranwoman is shocked to discover that she unknowingly fathered a child. She is forced to confront a wide variety of issues from her past while on a cross-country road trip with her new found teenage son.
Country: USA, 2005
Original Language: English
Rating: 4.5/5
Zavi thinks: This movie impressed me by exploring a much broader spectrum of queer issues than I initially expected. It delves into the gender, sexuality, and secret desires of both of the lead characters and examines how these factors have made them into the people they are today. Forget cliches – this film is direct and refreshingly honest.
Panda thinks: This movie was another really pleasant surprise for me. It feels in many ways like an older film (in fact I had no idea it was released in 2005 prior to reading the IMDB information). At the beginning I was wary, certain that this film would be a stereotypical blurring of the lines between transwomen, crossdressers, and drag queens. But in …
All too often, mass media neglects the voices of minorities and misses out on an entire range of human experience. Featured this week are the seldom heard stories of trans people and how they define their own gender and sexuality.
Make Me A Boy – This “collection of unwritten life stories” features interviews with transmen about their life experiences.
Somewhere Out There – Check out “Act Two: Tom Girls” of this NPR episode, which tells the story of two young trans girls meeting at a transgender conference in Seattle.
Defining Queer Virginity – Brightest New Things asks a quite diverse selection of queers to explain gay sex, in all …
