RuPaul and Calpernia at OutFest

(Also published at Calpernia’s blog at Psychology Today)

As you may have read, a hullaballoo is brewing in the LA Unified School District offices because three teachers reportedly encouraged their elementary school students to carry posters of OJ Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul alongside Dr. Martin Luther King and President Obama in the school’s Black History Month parade. Everyone, including the Mayor, is in a tizzy. For the most part, it makes sense: OJ Simpson was an awful choice, in my opinion, and Rodman was questionable, if fairly harmless.

But why on Earth is drag superstar RuPaul held up alongside a convicted murderer and a “hard partying” eccentric sports star as an example of why parents and officials should be horrified? LA’s own Mayor Villaraigosa used words like “cynical” and “a terrible disservice to the students, their families and all of the teachers” to describe the choice of the three public figures, including RuPaul.

As I wrote about on my personal blog and for Psychology Today before, I’ve personally experienced the offensive and ridiculous tendency of hetero parents to “other” LGBT people. “We” come from “you”. When you recoil from gay, lesbian or transgender people and ask, “But what about the children!?” you have to realize that some of your precious snowflakes are little proto-gay, proto-lesbian, proto-trans entities. We don’t coalesce out of glitter and unicorn tears. The majority of times, we’re born into regular straight families and raised as such until we can express ourselves freely.

Considering the sexuality and gender identity issues of children can be scary for some parents, but all the LGBT people I’ve known were aware of their feelings at very early ages. I certainly was. LGBT or pre-LGBT kids need role models, people to whom they can look when they need to understand that success and strength can come to even a little boy who feels like “a little black girl in the Brewster Projects“. And beyond the LGBT children, the heterosexual children who make up the huge majority of the world need to see that they word “gay” means a strong, gorgeous, smart, talented person like RuPaul and not a frightened weakling relegated to the shadows because they have no inspirations or supporters.

Including people like RuPaul and other minority LGBT success stories in celebrations like Black History Month could provide that crucial element. Instead, children in LA are seeing RuPaul’s image tossed into the bin alongside OJ Simpson with great wringing-of-hands by parents and authority figures. What a terrible, insulting shame. So how dare you, LA Unified School District, Mayor Villaraigosa and everyone else who can include RuPaul alongside the other two without even understanding the difference! GLBT community, I hope you speak out about this.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/villaragoisa-shocked-at-celebration-of-oj-simpson-rupaul-rodman-at-la-black-history-month-event.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/transposition/201003/la-unified-school-district-considers-gay-heroes-inappropriate-oj-simpson-b

Special note: I’m only linking this article because I think it is a valuable perspective (one of many) for crossdressers and transvestites who are considering medical transition as part of their erotic fantasy scenario. For transition based on gender identity issues, see TSroadmap.com!

There is an olllld article written by a trans woman named Miss Fiorella called “So You Want to Be a T-Girl” in which she very harshly describes the clash between her fantasy view of transition (apparently driven by erotic desires and beginning with early cross dressing) and the reality of her particular transition (apparently filled with disillusionment). She’s incredibly biased and single minded, giving loving descriptions of cross dressing prefaced with “We’ve all enjoyed (this or that cross dressing trope)” type statements, alongside vilifications of out transwomen, “crass” drag queens and other gender travelers that she doesn’t like, but there are MANY people going through a process similar to hers who could benefit from reading about her experience. While the eros-driven transition is not something I connect with, and I disagree with tons of things that she says, many of her basic assertions about how the reality of an eros-driven transition clashes with the fantasy sound right on the money. Although especially suited as a warning for people who feel large sexual and erotic components when thinking about transition, I believe everyone considering transition should include this essay among the many viewpoints they gather as they research. Just spoon up a big, sparkly grain of salt to go with it as you read.

So You Want to Be a T-Girl by Miss Fiorella

(And for a more balanced take on transition without the heavy sexual element, of course the best resource on the net is TSroadmap.com by Andrea James!)

I had a great time visiting Nashville, even though a terrible snowstorm began just after I landed. Thanks to the inclement weather, PLAY was closed on Friday and the Saturday show wasn’t well attended, though the most devoted Cal-pals did brave the ice-sheeted roads to catch my act. I added a night of performances on Sunday, which had a nice moderate audience, but overall I didn’t make a 10th of the tips I was hoping for on this trip, which was a bit of a blow. Luckily, I got to socialize with several of my oldest friends and I did get in several trips to my beloved Cafe Coco. Shel had some tiramisu set aside for me before I even arrived!

Great letter sent along to me by Cal-pal Cathy DeBuono:

The Best Thing I’ve Read All Year

Published on May 04, 2000

Sunday, April 30, 2000

By SHARON UNDERWOOD

For the Valley News (White River Junction, VT)

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

California EOY 2010 - Shangela, crowned by Bianca Nicole (National EOY 2009) and Calpernia (TN EOY 1999)

WOW! California Entertainer of the Year 2010, the first California EOY pageant, was amazing! The contestants were absolutely gorgeous and they all brought mindblowing talents, gowns and attitudes to the stage. The event benefitted The Matthew Shepard Foundation, and I was privileged  to present a check on behalf of the pageant for an estimated $15,000 to them at the end of the night.

Shangela took top honors, with superstar Chad Michaels as 1st Alternate. It was so close between them, I think I scored both almost perfect in every category.

As a former Tennessee EOY and with a Nationals Top 5 placement alongside two other EOY prelim titles, I was honored to be asked to judge by the gorgeous Executive Director Erin White (an experienced pageant girl herself in the non-drag/trans pageant arena) and Ron Davis, alongside 2008 EOY winner Nina West, National Title Holder Alyssa Edwards,  Singer, Dancer & Actress Aubrey O’Day, American model and television personality Holly Madison & Bridget Marquardt, Co-Director of Miss California USA Shanna Moakler and the producer of Logo TV’s Rupaul’s Drag Race Matthew Rose. The event was hosted by dear Cal-pal Alec Mapa.

I was seated in the middle, next to Nina West , who was an absolute delight, and we laughed and chatted all night. I hope to visit her and perhaps do a show in her area soon. Shanna Moakler was on the other side of me, and we had a great time talking and laughing, too. My dear friend Alec Mapa was sitting beside me when not onstage hosting, and I got to chat with Hugh Hefner’s “Girls Next Door” Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison as we shared gasps and smiles at the amazing onstage sights.

You can up the donation to The Matthew Shepard Foundation by grabbing yourself some of the amazing autographed celebrity high heel shoes (and sneakers) over at the Heel Hate auction. Shoes from celebs such as Ellen Degeneres, Jennifer Aniston, Salma Hayek, Tiffany (including DINNER!), Paula Deen, Michael Kors/GLEE, Louboutin, Shania Twain, Rose McGowan, JOAN COLLINS (OMG), Judith Light, Rebecca Romijn, Marcia Cross, Deborah Gibson and MORE!

This is the custom box it came in!!!

Snuggies are totally grandma, but in that hot, sexy cool grandma way. Just FYI, they are kinda “thin”, like one of those inexpensive thin synthetic blankets you might get at WalMart for kids sleepover guests. But they have sleeves and a collar, and they are so ridiculous that they’re cool. If you must go upscale, get a Slanket… they are the Cadillac of blankets with sleeves, but they don’t have the cool factor of a Snuggie.

Last year, WOW gave me a BeDazzler, which I still have in its original box. MAYBE I SHOULD BEDAZZLE MY SNUGGIE!!!

Some of you may remember that I name-check Snuggies in my “Miss Dis” rap at :29 seconds in, ha ha:

Did you hear what happened?

Hey kids! I hope you’ll come tonight, we have a great cast. If you can’t make it at 10pm, come later! And send some friends, I need a big sloshed crowd to jiggle for!

In the last few weeks we have seen a table full of straight boys take off their shirts for Calpernia, broadway singing star Erin Quill from “Avenue Q” belt out a crowd favorite live and some of the most gorgeous, sexy and energetic drag performers in LA put on a show for cool kids like you and stars including Ugly Betty’s Alec Mapa and Sordid Lives‘ Jason Dottley and Del Shores. And we’re only four shows in!!!

Facebook Event Page

Calpernia’s UNREAL page with schedule of performers

Rosemary Alexander

Cal-pal Rosemary Alexander (“Dr. Eve” in/on Sordid Lives) is producing a fun live Christmas show with her husband Newell Alexander (“Wardell”). It sounds GREAT, and who doesn’t love a homey old-fashioned Christmas show?

I’m producing 2 performances of an old-fashioned radio drama that Newell and I wrote which will benefit Aids Project Los Angeles. “Christmas In El Paso”, directed by Moosie Dryer, is a heartwarming nostalgic show that will light up your Holiday spirit!

It features an original music score written by George S. Clinton and performed by Doug Livingston & Steve Alterman and features live sound effects artist, Tony Palermo. Featured are Sordid Lives stars Jason Dottley (Ty), David Cowgill (Odell) & Mitch Carter (Bumper) along with a brilliant cast including Bridget Hoffman, Jackie Gonneau, Rif Hutton, Kerry Gutierrez, Richard Miro, Peter Renaday, Paul Pape, Elisa Gabrielli, Marcelo Tubert, Tony O’Dell and Lia Sargent.

These shows will benefit APLA, specifically to provide Holiday meals for low income HIV-positive people throughout Los Angeles. Suggested donations are $25, $50, $75 & $100.

2 shows:
Saturday December 12th at 3pm &
Sunday December 13th at 3pm at The Lost Studio,
130 S. La Brea, between 1st & 2nd.

For reservations, call 800-838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com.

For more information 310-440-0221.

If you can’t attend one of the performances, consider making a donation to APLA. Call 310-440-0221 for an address where you may mail your donation.

Thank you and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Sincerely, Rosemary Alexander

Shepard Fairey Love Unites

Join FAIR and Homotracker for the official launch party of “The Shepard Fairey Equality Project” on the roof of the Andaz West Hollywood on Thurs Nov 12^th to benefit marriage equality and see twenty of the celeb-customized prints unveiled…  Shepard will be DJ-ing, media and VIP’s abound, OPEN BAR, valet available, and one of the best lgbt networking and community parties of the year. To get your tickets CLICK HERE !

Over 80 entertainers, political leaders and other notables, including Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, RuPaul, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, have customized original screen prints by noted artist Shepard Fairey. The prints are to be displayed at an event in Los Angeles in November and auctioned online at CharityBuzz.com, with all proceeds going to grassroots organizations fighting for marriage equality across the country.

An eclectic list of equality-minded celebrities — gay and straight — have signed (and in some cases customized) the original screen prints, including Robert DeNiro, Bradley Cooper, designers Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels (who signs her name Tammy Etheridge), Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pine, Natalie Portman, Lance Bass (above), Dave Matthews, Jared Leto, Charlie Sheen, and the cast of The Sarah Silverman Program.

Get tickets to the event
Bid on the art
Read the articles:

AccessHollywood

http://www.accesshollywood.com/celebs-get-artistic-for-gay-marriage-equality_article_24198

Yahoo’s OMG

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/shepard-fairey-art-project-channels-celebs-for-gay-marriage-equality/29521

E! Online
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/marc_malkin/b148781_jared_leto_gets_fired_up_over_gay.html

The Advocate
http://advocate.com/Politics/Marriage_Equality/Top_Celebs_Gets_Artsy_for_Marriage_Equality/

Towleroad Blog
http://www.towleroad.com/2009/10/celebs-customize-shepard-fairey-for-marriage-equality.html

Instinct Magazine
http://instinctmagazine.com/blog/shepard-fairey-s-celebrity-filled-equality-project

LogoOnline
http://www.newnownext.com/2009/10/shepard-faireys-love-unites-posters-get-celeb-makeovers-for-charity-cheyenne-reichen-milo-more.html

365Gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/news/celebrities-get-creative-for-gay-marriage/

Thank you to Andrew Oldershaw of www.fifteenminutes.com and Jonathan Weber of www.faironline.org for bringing me in on this wonderful project so many months ago. I haven’t been able to talk about it until now.

How exciting! “Bad Questions: The Director’s Cut”, my sassy improvised comedy video telling rude people how I feel about their questions, has reached over 1,000,000 views! Combined with the original, longer cut’s 300,000 views the concept has 1,300,000+ views! Not bad for a transsexual topic. What really kicked it off was YouTube’s surprising decision to contact me and put it on the front page of the site as a promoted video, but actually a huge portion of views have come from just viral spread throughout the community. Thank you, Cal-pals!

Originally just a list of questions here on my site that I had gathered over years of dealing with the public, one evening I decided to slap some Coty Airspun powder on my face, paint my eyes and lips, slip into a vintage 1970’s thrift store dress in Oxblood, have two fingers of Lagavulin and improv away based on the list sitting in my lap. Since then, “Bad Questions” has been translated into French, played for groups at community centers and even shown in college classrooms, far exceeding any expectations I ever had for it. One just never knows what will become of an evening’s work!

In celebration of the 1 million mark, here’s a little essay I’ve been sending out to people who write to me about the video, usually to express anger at my tone and claim that “curiosity is normal”. In a nutshell, I respond that the tone is comedic and I agree that everyone is curious about unusual people but that curiosity is not a license to ask rude questions. Look it up, dum dum!

Bad Questions?

Thanks for watching the video and sending such well-considered letters. I want to respond because I appreciate your insight and effort, but this shouldn’t be considered a formal interview. My ideas about this are continually evolving, largely in response to the continuing behavior of outsiders and my efforts to secure a place of personal strength and self-preservation. This letter will express some strong feelings, but I want to say that I am not expressing any negative statements toward you and appreciate your thoughtfulness in writing.

The first thing I like to point out about the video is that it was intended to have a strong comedic element, indicated by the retro background music and highly mannered presentation among other things. It was improvised from a list of “bad questions” sitting in my lap, and done after two glasses of single malt Scotch.

The video was never intended to be the ultimate statement on how to deal with transsexuals, any more than the Jane Fonda Workout video was intended to be the only and ultimate statement on how to exercise.

The ultimate message of the video, I have come to determine, is this:

1. Curiosity = normal
2. Acting on it by asking deeply personal questions of a stranger = bad

I cannot repeat that enough. Yes, I am unusual to “you” (the critical respondent). Yes, you’re not educated on my issues so you have questions. No, I don’t have to smile and be gracious when you start asking rude questions. Go buy a book or Google it. If the viewer does not routinely ask casually acquainted transsexual people questions about their genitals or seek to reconstruct the identities which they’ve spent their lives shedding, then the video and its tone are not directed at them. If they do, then they need a good verbal spanking and I have given it to them.

I get it that uneducated people are curious. But at a party, restaurant or one of my shows especially, that’s a “YP”, not an “MP”. Don’t bother me about it when you don’t even know me. Get this: I’m mildly curious about how they became so overweight, why they’re limping, who taught them to do their makeup, why they speak with a stutter, do they realize everyone can tell it’s a toupee, etc etc etc. But I would never ask, because it’s rude. Those questions reflect the lower echelons of my humanity, and it’s better not to inflict them on a vulnerable person.

And yet, while they would consider me asking their mom or sister about their menopause or episiotomy over our first dinner together as horrifying, people cannot seem to understand that simply “being curious” does not entitle them to ask me any and every question that pops into their head without consequence. So now, if they carelessly cross that line with me, disregarding my feelings, I have personally decided there will be consequences. That is my perogative, and I absolutely will not be made to keep quiet and endure insulting behavior any longer. There are consequences to hurting my feelings or insulting me.

Just as they did not care that their questions may have been hurtful to me, I do not care that my responses may be challenging for them to hear. Considering the low level of empathy and social interaction indicated, I even believe that a bit of sting is necessary to make an impact with this kind of person.

What causes many viewers of “Bad Questions” to bristle, especially non-transsexual people, is a strong undercurrent of anger, disgust, condescension and mockery flowing just beneath my artificial smile. Examining my manner of presentation, and their negative reactions to it, may be the most unintentionally educational aspect of this “mock (but not)” instructional video. Because daily I am faced with varying levels of unnatural smiles masking undercurrents of anger, disgust, condescension and mockery, sometimes from even my closest non-trans friends on certain issues. The outright haters are easy enough to filter out, but facing the roiling confusion of disgust and sideshow curiosity that churns behind “friendly” smiles and mouthing of politically correct slogans presents a more difficult challenge. You really can’t begin to understand what it is like to experience an all-permeating, ’round-the-clock disregard and disrespect where all standing and consideration I have with people is considered to be “a gift from them to me”, outside of some situations like physical disability, disfigurement or perhaps racial discrimination where shades of distinction such as the occasional ability to “pass” or “blend in” as the non-hated class is taken into account. Ultimately, I believe their anger stems from something like this: “How dare that tranny talk back to me! How dare that shemale stand up for herself! How dare that freak consider itself my equal!”

As you can tell, I become angry when treated with disrespect. I am angry at being seen as a 2nd class woman, 2nd class citizen and even 2nd class member of the GLBT community. And I refuse to feel apologetic about this anger any more, because people will gladly allow me to subjugate myself to a level that is comfortable for them, if I do not speak up.

In any case, I’m really not there to educate them so much as warn them, perhaps even frighten them, into discontinuing negative behavior. This is probably a paradigm shift, if you were assuming that I was responding to a lifetime of cruelty and condescension with loving understanding, but no. I do not have time to lovingly hold the hands of every one of the endless crowd of people who disrespect and discount me. I simply want to warn them not to do it and go about my business. This is not to say that I don’t believe education on these topics is important… it is vitally important and I have done as much as I can do to promote a positive image, support work like Andrea James’ TSRoadmap and even specifically answer all the questions most people could have right here: “Good Questions: Calpernia Addams on VideoJug”.

After a lifetime of being one of the most malleable, considerate, empathetic people possible… and I truly was… the unstopping barrage of meanness has toughened  my skin. It’s not my job to splay my identity open like a High School biology frog carcass for any tipsy idiot at a party who wonders what might be in my pants. Now, if a stranger or new acquaintance is a little fearful to begin poking around my identity because they’ve seen the video, and instead they have to ask things like “What did you do today?” or “How do you feel about the new health care plan?” or “Did you like that new book by so-and-so?”, then I have won… and so have they, really.

I appreciate your writing to me on this, I’m sure that I haven’t perfectly communicated myself, but in any case my days of enduring disrespect as a matter of course are done.

Calpernia