Leave it to the New York tabloids to turn the already lurid Jon Benet Ramsey murder case into a story about a freaky transsexual wannabe pedophile killer.

I had a queasy feeling when I first heard reports about John Mark Karr and his reported interest in seeking sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in Thailand. Somehow, I knew it would not help the cause. On August 20, the Associated Press reported that Karr, now the object of international attention, had visited the Pratunam Polyclinic in Bangkok to consult with Dr. Thep Vechavisit about surgery, but the Denver Post quoted Vechavisit on August 21 as denying that. There have also been reports that Karr had had electrolysis in Bangkok to remove facial hair, a procedure that many transsexuals have prior to SRS.

What's the difference between anti-Semitism and homophobia? One can end your career, while the other generally gets you a pass from Hollywood and the mainstream media. Ask Mel Gibson; he should know. Gibson's alcohol-soaked anti-Semitic tirade last week provoked a firestorm of protest -- and rightly so. But his previous homophobic tirades have been lost in the shuffle. First to the anti-Jewish rant. After being arrested and stuffed inside the police car, according to a source,

Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, "You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you." The report also says "Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he 'owns Malibu' and will spend all of his

One of the biggest impediments to achieving full marriage equality, I think, is the widespread perception within communities of color that the movement for same-sex marriage is composed solely or at least primarily of white queers. Even within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, there is a perception that it is the most privileged elements in our community -- including professional gay white men and lesbians -- who will benefit disproportionately from marriage rights. And some argue (falsely, I think) that the marriage equality movement is composed solely or primarily of those who have embraced an assimilationist discourse of heteronormative values -- those guys (and sometimes gals) who advertise for "straight-acting, straight appearing only" in the personal ads.

Virginia is for lovers, or at least so goes that famous marketing slogan that the state used to attract tourists. But as the voters are now being asked to consider an amendment to the constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia that would ban same-sex marriage, truth in advertising would require the state to tell us that Virginia is only for lovers of the opposite sex.

The Marshall/Newman amendment being submitted to the voters of Virginia in November would amend the state's constitution not only to bar same-sex marriage, it would also prohibit any other form of recognition of relationships for unmarried partners. The text of the amendment reads as follows:

I recently got dragged into a flame war on a listserve for LGBT academics by calling Judith Butler a bad writer. For those of you unfamilar with Butler, she is the doyenne of gender studies and certainly the dominant figure in the study of transgender. A professor of comparative literature and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, Butler is best known for her 1990 book, Gender Trouble, which is arguably one of the most influential books in LGBT studies and queer theory. Gender Trouble is required reading for the queer theory crowd, but it is also, like most of Butler's work, virtually undecipherable to the non-academic. Even to those schooled in French post-structuralist theory (including the work of French theorist Michel Foucault), Butler's writing can be extraordinarily difficult; and to the non-academic transgendered person, her writing is all but incomprehensible.

The trouble with Gender Trouble is that Butler's writing need not be so impenetrable. Call me a Philistine, but clarity of expression is a value in my aesthetic. The very notion that 'impossible to understand' means 'profound' is one that is simply not borne out by even a cursory glance at the literature. Foucault's "Discipline and Punish," for example, is eminently readable. The argument that Butler's writing is so difficult because she is using 'technical' language simply does not withstand scrutiny. Consider, for example, Charles Rosen's "The Classical Style," which uses a good deal of technical language; but it is also accessible to a general audience and not merely to musicologists with extensive background in the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The notion purveyed by Butler's defenders that the turgidity of her writing is an indication of the profoundity of her thought is based on a false dichotomy, as anyone who has read Thoreau (just to cite one thinker) can attest. In my view, there is simply no excuse for bad writing, and Butler is a bad writer by any reasonable standard.

Henry David Thoreau might well have been thinking of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist when he wrote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." While the transcendentalist philosopher wrote long before Annie Proulx wrote the short story upon which Ang Lee based his film of "Brokeback Mountain," Thoreau is as relevant today as when "Walden" was published in 1854.

Much of the focus of comment about the film – which in January 2006 won Golden Globe Awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for best picture (drama) and best director – has been on the transgressive love story. But I think that if "Brokeback" speaks powerfully to gay and non-gay audiences alike, it is because the film articulates not only the tragedy of true love constrained and ultimately defeated by homophobia, but because it speaks to the tragedy of life not truly lived.

In the conclusion to "Walden," Thoreau could well have been describing
the “Brokeback” Wyoming of the 1960s when he wrote, "The surface of the
earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths
which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways
of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"

One of the biggest myths around is the myth of 'the liberal media.' Eric Alterman has persuasively debunked this hoary myth in his book, What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (Basic) ( excerpted in The Nation)

The mainstream media are (note 'media' is the plural for 'medium') not really liberal; rather, mainstream media in the United States are corporate, which means that they often reflect the worst of market-based imperatives, above all, the need to generate a profit for owners and investors.

Nowhere is this un-liberal profit motive more in evidence than in media coverage of transgender issues. Consider an article in the New York Daily News from January 25. In "Welcome to the drag race! Gender benders are crossing over, into your living room," Joe Neumaier writes,

"Sure, 'Brokeback Mountain' is riding atop solid box office (even in red states) and is lassoing every award in sight. But the real sex story du jour in American pop culture? Try transgender people: Women identifying as men, and men as women. In movies, at the bookstore and on TV, people are passing for the opposite sex. In many performance spaces, drag queens and drag kings reign supreme. And the very human stories they're telling are dragging people in."

"TransAmerica" is a road movie with a twist, a kind of psycho-sexual picaresque about sexuality and gender identity in the early twenty-first century United States.

I must admit I was a bit skeptical of the idea of a female playing a transsexual woman, particularly Felicity Huffman, who I think is a very good actor, but when I heard she was playing the lead role, I wondered if they picked her because of the "Desperate Housewives" fame -- and oddly enough, her character in the film is named 'Bree' (though not surnamed 'Vandekamp'), even though of course she plays Lynette in "Housewives".

But I was really impressed by this film, written and directed by Duncan Tucker. Huffman is really convincing (if that's the right word here) as a male-to-female transsexual (MTF TS). My only reservation is that the film is a little too 'medical model of transsexuality' for me -- with an implicit GID (Gender Identity Disorder) pathologizing of the "I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body" kind. Having said that, "TransAmerica" is, in my view, one of the best feature films I've seen with a transgender theme; perhaps not quite as powerful as "Boys Don't Cry", but unlike that film, the central character is not a victim, but rather an ordinary transgendered woman feeling her way toward self-empowerment.

Introducing Pauline Park, Big Queer Blog-ger

As a transgendered woman of color, my politics are unapologetically progressive, and for me, what defines the practice of progressive politics is the ability to make connections. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues are all too often defined narrowly, to include the pursuit of juridical rights, such as through legislation and litigation guaranteeing same-sex marriage and protection from discrimination.

I've spent the last nine years pursuing transgender rights and working for the empowerment of the communities of which I am a member, including the LGBT/queer API community and the LGBT community in the borough of Queens. But I locate my LGBT activism in the context of a broader vision of social justice and social change. That context includes politics writ large, so I hope to offer some thoughts on this site about current affairs beyond what is narrowly conceived of as 'LGBT,' including the big debates on public policy and foreign policy now taking place on the blogosphere and elsewhere in the 'public square.'

And my interests go beyond politics, to include history, music and the arts, philosophy and spirituality. So I'll be offering thoughts on all of these and more, offer a queer perspective on everything of interest to queer people. I look forward to blogging on this site and to getting your feedback on my posts as well.

Cherchez la femme~!