World AIDS Day 2012

I’m reading a piece as trans AIDS activist Connie Norman tonight 8pm @ The Skylight Theatre on Vermont in further support of World AIDS Day, alongside actors including Ann Walker, Tony Abatemarco, Larry Bates, Michael Kearns, Sandy Martin, Brian Normoyle, Ryland Shelton, Lianna Taylor, Gordon Thomson and David Trudell.

http://losangeles.broadwayworld.com/article/Katselas-Theatre-Company-Presents-THEATRE-SEX-BEFORE-AFTER-1130-122-20121121

Text of monologue below:

CONNIE NORMAN

I’m so damned angry that I have to die for the lessons I’ve learned. I am a former drag queen, former hooker, former IV drug user, HIV positive transsexual woman. I’m an activist and the self-appointed AIDS diva. After my surgery in 1976—yes, I’m post-op, darlins—I went to San Francisco and went full tilt disco. Somebody threw some LSD in my face and I was gone for four years. I was a drag queen and a titty flopper for awhile. Then my psychiatrist said, “Get a real job.” So I became a stripper. Hey, it paid a real salary. Ten years later I began to hear the message about how you can get infected:
Yep, did that one. Yep, that one too. Check, check, check. It began dawning on me that in all likelihood I was HIV-positive.

I’ve had lesbian relationships. I’ve had relationships with heterosexual men. I’m married to a fag. I like dick, but I’ve never had a man kiss me the way a woman does. My sexual orientation is whatever the human condition will allow. I’m so glad I was born queer. Being infinitely gendered is so much more interesting. (WHAT IS QUEER?) Queer is really a worldview. I use it and love it because it’s inclusive, and so much easier than having to say, “I’m fighting for gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender liberation.” I want a world where everybody is queer.
And when I die, I’m gonna hit light speed so fast that I become a real star, with my own planets and people and this time we’re gonna do it right, honey. Snap-on interchangeable sex parts, for starters, and I want to be Goddess. No more gray beards running everything.
I didn’t wake up one day and just decide to go become a woman. I am a woman. I was never a man in a suit. I never knew male power. And it hurts me, especially when the strong lesbian women I so admire can’t return that admiration. That comes from the very deepest part of our self-hate. I have spent my whole life traveling down this path of gender dysphoria and I’ve learned a few things along the way.

There is so little of us that is our gender, and so much of us that is humanity. I hope before I die that I’ll become less and less my gender, and more and more my humanity. I worked so hard to become a woman only to discover being a woman wasn’t hard at all for me. Being a whole human being free of oppression and self hate has been the real challenge of my life. I cope with this disease by living in the present. In death, I hope I’ll be present there too. God knows I’ve had plenty of notice. I used to try to blend. I hated myself.

No more, darling. If you fear it, then run to it, honey, because you can’t avoid it.

Angels of Change event October 27, 2012 for trans youth

Frontiers LA has a nice interview about my involvement with the upcoming Angels of Change benefit show, helping trans youth though the LA Children’s Hospital. Check it out!

Get tickets or your calendar of the lovely girls at http://angelsofchange.net

Our unofficial lo-res mascot!

Hey kids! I just wanted to make a quick post because I realized that our forum for women in and beyond transition at http://www.genderlife.com/forum is celebrating TEN YEARS online in 2012!!!

If you know any women in transition, or someone who has completed transition and may like to share some of her wisdom, check it out. The forum is free, it has a DECADE of information and discussion on any transition related topic imaginable, and it’s maintained with love by me, Andrea James and a small group of wonderful mods.

http://www.genderlife.com/forum

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The whole Chris Brown/Rihanna thing really flabbergasted me from Day One, and I continue to be gobstruck by the sheer number of people who are willing to surrender their human empathy and good judgement in favor of bobbing their head to a catchy dance tune. Chris Brown always vibed as an asshole to me, and his post-attack behavior did nothing to change my opinions. But I did like Rihanna’s music… Her decision to work with her abuser on two sexually charged tracks a scant few years after the horrific abuse has now utterly turned me off to her. Call it “victim blaming” if you will, but I feel no obligation to support or listen to an artist who makes a public example of such terrible decisions. I certainly wish her no ill will, but I can’t listen to her beg Chris Brown to “bite it” and “blast it on her back” after he literally bit her face, ear and fingers according to reports I read.

I know it’s just pop stars, doing stuff pop stars do, but I live in Hollywood, work in entertainment and have fought violence against women through several venues myself so it feels relevant to me.

In less than 48 hours, Andrea and I made this “parody” song and video of the “Birthday Cake” remix, singing the text of the police report from the terrible beating Chris inflicted on her instead of the existing lyrics about how he wants to “fuck” her and how she wants him to “bite it”. YUCK.

(I’m at 3:39 in the video)

From InTheMoment.tv:

IN THE MOMENT is an authentic, sexy and sometimes humorous web soap opera that explores the full range of factors that come into play in sexual decision making among young gay men. Issues like self-esteem, dating, relationships, age, body image, addiction and others are addressed as key factors in the lives of the characters.

I appear briefly in Episode 13 as a therapist. It was a really fun set and I had a great time with everyone. I don’t get to do as much HIV/AIDS awareness building as I do with women’s, youth and trans issues, so I was excited to be asked to participate even in this small way. Check out the site, it has great info and discussion for young gay men in the dating and club scene who are making decisions about safer sex. And the web series is sexy fun, too!

Tweeted!

UPDATE: Wow, Sen. Sanders’ team Tweeted my remix!

My less politically minded Cal-pals might not have heard about the Bernie Sanders filibuster the other day. Actually, my less politically minded Cal-pals might think a filibuster is something akin to a “rusty trombone”, but it’s actually when someone takes the floor of the Senate and ties everything up by talking non-stop for super long periods of time, usually to monkey-wrench something their enemies want to get done that day. Basically, Senator Sanders was upset over President Obama’s capitulation in continuing Bush’s tax cuts for the super rich.

Cal-pal Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing.net tweeted this:

So, on a whim, I wrote a simple little song and “Autotuned” (Melodyned, actually) a popular portion of Bernie Sanders’ filibuster speech. Nowadays, songs don’t get much interest without videos, so I whipped together the simplest little video, inspired by the kinda soaring feel of the song.

Xeni posted it on BoingBoing

And it soon had over 9,000 views in two days ha ha! It got lots of Twitter love and linkage.

This evening, I saw it had ended up on a blog at Forbes.com. And that, kids, is the only way I will ever end up being written about by Forbes magazine. Dada da pa da dah! (bows). I’m mostly amused at the fact that I have two popular videos from the last two days, and the other one is decidedly not political.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmEsiKKfeuc