The life of one of DC’s most valuable queer assets was cut short on Wednesday. Wanda Alston, the director of the mayor’s office on GLBT affairs, was found dead by her partner Wednesday afternoon. Police have not released details, but they have stated there was blood found beside the body and that the death was a homicide. Articles are in the Washington Post (mainstream) and the Washington Blade (gay press).

I just wrote a rambling entry over at CyDy Blog about a high school incident in Florida. Here’s the scariest part:

When uniformity is compromised, then authority no longer holds.

Check out the rest of my incoherent rant here.

I had this conversation on the telephone shortly after arriving home from work today:

Her: Mrs. Smith?
Me: She’s not home right now, can I help you?
Her: Is there a Mister?
Me: That would be me. We’re lesbians.
Her: [laughs] That’s fine! Are you on the mortgage?
Me: No I’m not, but we’re happy with our current mortgage.
Her: Okay then.
Me: You have a good day now.
Her: You too.

I imagine she had fun sharing that with her fellow telemarketers!

Through some bizarre fluke, I managed to win the Best Lesbian Weblog award in the Queeries! It was announced a few days ago but I was waiting to see if they’d even contact me about it. Nobody did, so I’ll just say it here! I don’t know how I managed to come out on top. There seem to be no prizes associated with the awards - not even a graphic for the winning sites - but it’s still nice to know that the readers of one of my favorite queer blogs picked mine as the best lesbian blog.

Oh my god! I’ve been chosen as a finalist for Queer Day’s 2004 Queeries! My jaw dropped open and I just about fell off my chair when I saw it. I’m a big fan of Queer Day myself, and this is the best possible awards “show” I could have made it into. All year I’ve been watching the proliferation of blogger awards pass, nominating where appropriate and voting where I saw fit. But I, little me, made it into the Queeries! It is going to be a very tough competition, as I share the “Best Lesbian Weblog” category with such greats as my friend Erika of Swirlspice, the group behind The Lesbian Lifestyle, and JadedJu. (I’m not familiar with Life in Mono.) Please consider voting for me if you wouldn’t mind? Hooray for me, hooray for Queer Day, and hooray for Erika too! (If she wins, it’ll be almost as good as if I won.)

I was checking my referrers and I noticed a few people had gotten to me from Crystal’s site. It turns out my automated TrackBack caught Crystal’s eye, and she felt the need to respond and let me (and everybody else) know that she doesn’t agree with my beliefs. That’s perfectly okay with me, because diversity is what makes the world go around. And yet I couldn’t help noticing one of the Blogsnob ads on her site:

Yup. Crystal’s site displayed a link to one of my new favorite blogs, SistersTalk. Click the picture to enlarge. Too awesome!

I’ve been browsing AlterMD.com [via savage love] this afternoon, looking at photographs of both male and female genital surgeries and reconstructions. The ones that are worth remarking on are a 15-year-old girl who had a labiaplasty (at fifteen!), corrections of some interesting penile deformities, and graphic photos of both MTF and FTM genital surgeries. (Warning: none of the pictures on this site are safe for work, and they’re probably not safe for the squeamish, either.)

After I finished looking at all the genital surgery photos, I clicked over to the cosmetic surgery pictures. This took me to a different site altogether - GaryAlterMD.com…I guess he doesn’t want his Botox injection patients getting scared off by wee-wees and hoo-hoos. Anyway, I was looking at the rhinoplasty page, which has front and side views of a woman pre- and post-operation. I thought “gee, she looks familiar” and went back to the transsexual facial surgery page. Sure enough, the first woman on the MTF page is the same woman pictured on the rhinoplasty page! Why is this amazing? Because the rhinoplasty page - the one sanitized for the public - makes no mention of the fact that this was part of transitioning from male to female. You’re supposed to notice the nose (it’s a nice nose, go ahead and notice it), not the person behind it, and that’s what the rhinoplasty page calls your attention to. When looking at the transsexual page many people would have “that’s a male” in their minds for the before picture…but it doesn’t matter for the rhinoplasty page. (Personally, I think she was attractive before the surgery, too, though I do agree the androgynous look has turned more feminine in the after pictures.)

I’m just really impressed at how well this doctor seems to treat trans issues.

Oh for fuck’s sake…excuse me while I sputter in disbelief for a few minutes. The custody battle over Isabella Miller-Jenkins was profiled in the Blade a couple of weeks ago. To summarize, Lisa and Janet Miller-Jenkins were partners living in Vermont when they decided to have a child. After Isabella was born, birth mother Lisa Miller-Jenkins broke up with her partner, became an “ex-lesbian,” and moved to Virginia to be near her family. A court in Vermont said that Janet had visitation rights, but Lisa wouldn’t allow Janet near Isabella. After repeated weekend visits with no results, the Vermont courts found Lisa in contempt of court for not permitting Janet to see the little girl. But now a Virginia court has granted Lisa sole custody, giving her the right to decide whether or not Janet has visitation rights.

What the fuck?! We’re talking about a mother here. Janet is missing out on important events in Isabella’s life, and missing the opportunity to see her daughter grow older. It seems awfully convenient that Lisa moved to homophobic Virginia (and became an “ex-lesbian”); it certainly looks like she was running away and trying to make it as inconvenient as possible for Janet to see Isabella. But what’s really outrageous is that Vermont, where the women were in a civil union and were both mothers to Isabella, has basically had sand kicked in its face by Virginia. The child was born in Vermont of a legal partnership in Vermont. Where the hell does Virginia get off yanking rights away from Janet Miller-Jenkins?! This is terrible - I just hope I’m missing out on some vital tidbit that would let Janet see Isabella.

I finally heard back from Radio One, which manages the station on which I heard homophobic comments Friday morning. The station itself doesn’t have a webpage as yet, so I got the e-mail address of the manager and wrote to her.

Hello,

I am writing in reference to commentary I heard on Majic 102.3 on Friday morning, September 24th. Around 8:20am, your hosts made reference to Governor McGreevey’s visit to an elementary school promoting New Jersey’s new school lunch program. For the next several minutes, the two male hosts made extremely homophobic remarks, laughing at themselves the whole time. Adopting the voices of young children, they tossed out lines like “guv’ner, where’s yer dress?!” and “my mama told me not to stand next to people like you!” These are just two of the comments I was able to remember, but there were many others made over a three or four minute period. The female host jumped in with a few comments of her own, but the two male hosts were the primary speakers, and they seemed to think this kind of behavior was acceptable.

Commentary like this is simply appalling. It perpetuates the homophobia that is common in portions of our society, and it is not acceptable coming from authority figures like radio disc jockeys and hosts. These comments displayed your hosts’ ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry in a disgusting manner. I hope that you will counsel them that this is highly inappropriate behavior, and I hope they will never make such inflammatory comments again.

Sincerely,

I decided to leave out the part about not being a regular listener of this station. The fact that I happened to catch this while on the shuttle bus to work (contractors have to park in a satellite lot, and then they shuttle us back to the building) has nothing to do with it; the driver is entitled to listen to the radio if he likes, and he has no control over the hosts.

Kynn Bartlett has written a wonderful article about gay and transgender issues in California’s public schools, and he is getting a lot of grief for it. I am sure there will be letters to the editor published in the Californian in response to his article…let’s flood them with so many positive letters that they can’t even find the negative ones! I encourage you to e-mail the publisher and let him know you support Kynn’s article.