I’ve got a bunch of posts stored up to write about things that are making me very mad right now. The Bill Henson thing, for one. — Except that people have already responded in ways that do not require repetition. To wit: archive, on the way Henson’s photographs implicate the viewer in thinking about the awkward sexuality of adolescence, and comments on the spuriousness of many critics’ desire to draw an easy distinction between art and porn; and also Stop Anne Geddes, which ought to have been done a long time ago.

On the other hand, here is something else. Mal Brough, the ex Minister for Indigenous Affairs, architect of the Northern Territory Intervention into ‘child sexual abuse’ and a prospective Queensland Liberal leader, apparently, did a press interview at his house in which he and his son put on fake Aboriginal accents and mimicked/mocked “traditional” Indigenous practices, playing didgeridoos and clap sticks. Putting on the family fun for the benefit of a journalist. As Ana points out, apparently they thought they were just having a laugh. Like blackface is a joke, or the Stolen Generations was a joke, or black deaths in custody…

Apparently, in the privacy of one’s own home, it’s more than acceptable to mock people you once talked about saving. I would like to engage in some critical discussion of this, in light of how the Intervention has passed from the headlines, and now that the panic-mongers have found a new arena in which to police sexual normativity. Under K-Rudd, the Intervention continues to spread to other indigenous communities in South Australia, as Ruth McCausland’s excellent commentary in the National Indigenous Times points out. But I’m trying to finish a chapter, so it will have to wait.

Via The Null Device, here’s a blog dedicated to anthropological writing on stuff white people like. To wit, the entry on natural medicine:

Because of a rather shady history, white people do not trust the pharmaceutical industry. Using pretty sound logic, they believe that the drug companies have no motivation to find real cures for things like AIDS since the real profit are in drugs like Viagra and Xanax.

Using their powers of deduction, white people have determined that herbal remedies are unilaterally better than anything produced by a drug company.

Since white people can’t really blame any race for their problems, they need to blame corporations. In this case, the reason that they are sick or fat or without energy is because the drug companies are in a conspiracy to keep them addicted to placebos. This helps them shed accountability, and it lets them feel like they are helping the environment by rejecting the polluting, greedy, awful drug companies and taking natural, organic medicine from the earth.

But perhaps it goes deeper. Hundreds of years ago, another group of people believed firmly in natural medicine and it’s ability to cure disease. Then white people gave them blankets with small pox and they all died. So perhaps turning to natural medicine also helps white people feel better about killing natives.

Those lovely folk at the FTM Australia website have just begun a new web forum to talk about identity in all its incredible shapes and forms. Readers may like to note the (unintended?) irony of the forum’s title: it’s called Borders.

That’s just what the world needs: more borders. More of a them and us approach.

I look forward to reading the flame wars. Which, no doubt, will be deleted even before they begin.

So Alexander Downer signed an order back in May to change the regulations governing provision of Australian passports. It used to be that transpeople could obtain a passport designating one’s reassigned rather than ‘biological’ gender for temporary use: helpful if you were already passing as something else but hadn’t changed your birth certificate, for example, and certainly used by many people who travel overseas to obtain surgeries. Under the new regulations, transpeople can no longer obtain a passport in any gender except the one assigned at birth, until one’s birth certificate has been changed. You can obtain a Document of Identity with no gender marker instead of the birth-assigned gender, but no new gender-designated passport. Here’s the relevant bits from the Passport News in July:

On the 31st. May 2007 the Foreign Minister signed Australian Passports Amendment Determination(2007 (No. 1), which spells out that a person’s identity for passport issuing purposes comprises four pieces of information; That is name, gender place and date of birth, as recorded on the applicant’s cardinal document. This amendment particularly affects the issue of travel documents to transgender people and new policy instructions are being drafted and will be released shortly via the content Management System (CMS)

Transgender people travelling overseas for gender reassignment surgery will no longer be able to obtain a limited validity passport reflecting their intended sex. Instead, they may be issued a limited validity passport showing the gender recorded on their cardinal document, which may be replaced gratis after the gender reassignment is completed (i.e. produces a cardinal document in their assigned gender). Alternatively a limited validity Document of Identity (DOI), which does no include a gender field, may be issued, letter 10 must be given to the client explaining the limitations of the document and Letter 11, acknowledgment of receipt of the advice must be completed by the client.

Transgender clients are often supported by active advocacy groups and passport applications should be handled sensitively. Any client issues should be documented carefully. Only cases that meet the new policy may be issued a passport in the assigned gender.

Apart from how this really messes up a lot of people’s ability to travel freely without harassment or suspicion, this makes me really really angry. The regulations went through sneakily without community consultation or advice. Although the advice from anyone would be that a lot of transpeople cannot access reassigned ‘cardinal documents’ for some time, because legislation on this issue is different for each state and often really conservative, so this effectively will prevent some people from travelling at all. And I can’t really imagine that DFAT would want that kind of advice, anyhow. It’s often a lot more difficult to obtain a birth certificate than it used to be to obtain a reassigned passport, too. And some people don’t ever obtain birth certificates in a reassigned sex, or want to: which doesn’t mean that they don’t pass as something other than their ‘birth gender’ and need a travel document that reflects that.

(I’m also kind of worried about my own documents. I can’t get a birth certificate that says I’m male unless I have a whole bunch of surgeries I don’t need. And I was resisting getting a male birth certificate anyhow; I would like my identity to be incoherent and I don’t often use my birth certificate. But I applied for a male passport last year on the basis of a letter from a surgeon, and got one. Now, apparently, it’s legally invalid. Thanks a million, Alexander.)

More blogging on the subject here; Sydney trans advocacy group SAGE’s take here; sign the SAGE petition demanding that the regulations be changed back here.

On Tiny Mix Tapes you can submit a theme for a mixtape and someone will make you a track listing for the mix. The archive of mixes is pretty awesome. My favourite theme so far is called, we have tricked a homophobic future investment banker into thinking my male friend desperately wants him. now we need a tape to continue the ruse, and to accompany the cupcakes we’re putting on his doorstep. I’m also kind of partial to Soundtrack to low-budget movie about a group of mid-twenties misfits joined together by their love of horror movies and cross dressing (both guy to girl and vice versa).

Speaking of homos and corporate schmucks, this morning Mattilda brilliantly skewered this article about how gay company executives are turning back the tide on homophobia and increasing productivity, just by existing:

Snyder tells us that “out-of-the-closet gay executives in companies like Deloitte, Disney and Morgan Stanley are managing employees who report significantly higher levels of job engagement, satisfaction and morale than employees of straight managers in other environments.” Isn’t that so cute? Singing show tunes and organizing potlucks have really paid off for the corporate gays — they keep their employees in line by entertaining them! That’s right, if you do the can-can right, your employees don’t even notice that they’re indentured servants.

Fucking fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

From the Port Phillip Leader:

A PORT Phillip-based welfare group has slapped a ban on transsexuals using two of its St Kilda rooming houses.

Hanover Welfare Services has taken civil action to stop male-to-female transsexuals frequenting its women-only hostels.

It has also won the right to employ only women at the crisis housing centres in Dandenong Rd and Burnett St, where more than 250 women are accommodated each year.

The group recently won an exemption from anti-discrimination laws at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, entitling it to refuse care to male-to-female transsexuals seeking shelter.

The action came after a male-to-female transsexual housed at one of the women-only centres horrified other tenants by walking through the facility naked and displaying male genitalia.

Hanover chief executive Tony Keenan said the ban applied to women-only accommodation and would not extend to other services, such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation and sexual assault counselling.

“We have transsexual clients for a number of our services and we’ve long had a proud history of that,'’ he said. “But at this stage, we have some women who have suffered violently at the hands of men, so we need an exemption on a small scale.'’

Right. Because according to this logic, transwomen are really men. Transwomen are not women — not unless, according to the VCAT decision, they provide medical certification that they don’t have any ‘manparts’. I’m sure all the homeless transwoman are going to be planning their careers in crisis accommodation with such things at the top of their to-do lists. It’s a shame that women at the rooming-house were traumatised. But if someone behaves inappropriately, you deal with their individual behaviour. You don’t go getting a VCAT exemption from equal opportunity law unless you secretly believe transpeople shouldn’t be in women’s only crisis accommodation in the first place.

What makes it ten times worse is that Tony Keenan, the CEO of Hanover and the architect of this little transphobic battle, is also the Chair of the state government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on GLBT health. This should surprise no-one: the committee has done sweet FA to directly improve the lives of transpeople, even though several very trans-friendly health workers sit on it. Yet another example of the lie that is the ‘queer community’.

From the Gender Project:

Nominations are now open for Melbourne’s first annual Trans Revolutionary Achievement and Non-Achievement Awards (TRAANAA), otherwise known as the Trannys.

We call for nominations of

• local community organisations
• bureaucratic institutions
• community leaders
• films
• events
• performers
• health professionals
• random personal moments of revelation
• people we love, or love to hate

The Trannys are about celebrating the joys and difficulties of trans/queer existence with a dash of glamour, an ounce of piss-taking, and the serious need to out the crappy transphobic institutions that make our lives hell. We challenge the conservatism of the pink champagne
circuit, where the same ‘community leaders’ parade around, year after dull year. We challenge the skewed representations of the queer media, for whom the latest Anthony Callea single is more important than trans and queer people living with poverty, discrimination and violence. We challenge the fallacy that there is a GLBTQI community in which we are all equal.

By awarding prizes for transphobia, tokenism, unprofessional psychiatry and bureaucratic nightmares, we draw attention to the everyday discrimination many people in the ‘GLBTIQ’ community experience because of their gender presentation. We’re not afraid to laugh at ourselves, either. By awarding prizes for supportive healthcare, gender-neutral bathrooms, gender-messy events and improvements in the community’s treatment of transpeople, we honour the random kindnesses of strangers and the moving tide of knowledge about trans and gender-variant people, and the growing acceptance that for most of us humans, gender is never stable.

Nominations can be made for the following categories:

1. Most Outstandingly Unhelpful and Transphobic Gay and Lesbian Organisation
2. Most Supportive and Trans-Friendly Health Professional
3. Most Trans-Friendly Organisation
4. Most Unexpectedly Non-Traumatic Coming Out Moment
5. Best Genderfucking Event of 2006
6. Worst Case of Misinformation About Transpeople in a Newspaper or Magazine Article
7. Best Example of Simultaneous Racism, Sexism and Transphobia from A ‘GLBTIQ’ Perspective
8. The Harry Benjamin Award for the Most Inappropriate Comment by a Psychiatrist
9. The Milli Vanilli Award for the Most Lazy and Uninspired Drag Performance of 2006
10. The TransAmerica Award for the Most Conservative Trans Movie
11. The Golden Shower Award for the Best Gender Neutral Bathroom in Melbourne
12. The Ratbag Award for the Most Incorrigible Gender-Variant Upstart
13. The Red Tape Award for the Most Time Consuming Gender Related Administrative Nightmare
14. The Sharp Learning Curve Award for Most Improvement in Gender Awareness
15. The Token Award for the Best Performance of Trans-Friendliness Without the Action to Back it Up
16. International Achievement Award for the Best Example of Trans Advocacy Overseas
17. Best Tranny

HOW TO NOMINATE

1. Go to http://www.genderproject.net.au/trannys/ and follow the link.
2. Email info[AT]genderproject.net.au with the person/thing you’d like to nominate, the award category, the reason they should win, and your name.

Apart from the International Achievement Award, please keep nominations limited to Australia. Be imaginative.

Nominations close 6pm, Friday 8th December.

HOW TO VOTE

Once the nominations have closed on the 8th December, vote at http://www.genderproject.net.au/trannys

THE AWARDS CEREMONY

The Tranny Awards will be held on Sunday December 17 at an as yet undisclosed location. Look out for more publicity coming soon or join the announcements list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trannys_2006_announce/.

Academic Blogs: a new wiki designed to create an invisible college of academic blogs. It started as an idea for an aggregation of ‘theory blogs’, I think, but the project has developed. Ange is already writing a post about this for Long Sunday, but I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon. Here’s a slab of text from the FAQ:

What are the necessary qualifications for a blog to be listed?

They’re pretty simple - the blog has to be written by an academic. That is to say, the author should be either a member of a third level institution’s faculty (i.e. community college, college, university, technical institute or whatever), or pursuing a doctoral degree, or employed by a third level institution to do academically relevant work (such as working as a university librarian). If you come across a blog that seems to meet these requirements, feel free to add it. When you do, you ought to note the evidence for why the blog qualifies on the changes page. Some blogs - e.g. those written by anonymous academics - may involve tricky judgment calls. Say why you think this is a genuine academic blog, but please add it - many academics have good reason to blog anonymously. If it turns out not to be a legitimate academic blog, it will likely be deleted later. Very rarely, blogs written by non-academics may qualify. If you think a blog by a non-academic qualifies on its merits, you should suggest it to one of the Senior Editors, with supporting evidence. The Senior Editor will then decide whether to nominate it. Otherwise it is liable to be deleted summarily. If you are a non-academic and you nominate your own blog for consideration, don’t be offended if it isn’t accepted - only very exceptional blogs will be included. The intent of this site isn’t to provide comprehensive lists of blogs and resources dealing with history, politics, archaeology etc - there are already very good sites in existence that do this. It’s to provide a resource for academic bloggers, and readers of academic blogs.

Grant Morrison’s thoughts on Invisible Colleges differed somewhat from this plan, but no matter. It’s ever so comforting to watch idiots carve up the de-institutionalised, random, multiple spaces of the bloggosphere into manageable, institutionalised blocks. Say ‘yeah!’ if you’re an academic. If you’re not, piss off. We don’t like your type here. The only exceptions are very special idiot savants who can do things like recite the entirety of Plato’s Republic in Latin and even then, we have to delouse them first.

(Note that Academic Blogs is a wiki, editable by almost anyone, so if one was inclined to register one’s objections, one might do so quite easily on the site itself.)

So slack, I know.

He’s got a rod beneath his coat
gonna ram right down your throat
make you grovel on the floor
spit, bump, and scream and beg for more

First, I direct you to the Cuir Underground archives, to peruse Gayle Rubin’s playlist from fisting parties at the Catacombs club in San Francisco from 1975-81.

(Edit: do they not look like the biggest leather queens you ever saw?)

Second, I direct you to this page, where, if you like, you can read the newest version of my thesis chapter plan. Which is my work, not to reproduced anywhere else. Please do comment, though, if you like.

This is an ad made by the International Gay and Lesbian Association about same-sex parenting. Take careful note of the minimalist decor, the civilised domestic performance of spaghetti eating (is that a spot of basil pesto on that fork?) and the well-tailored look of all three protagonists. Now listen to the civilised voiceover with its reassuring pedagogical message of ‘difference’:

“Children of homosexuals do not necessarily become homosexuals.”

I made a new category specially for this post. It’s called the “First Up Against the Wall Department.” Because in the event of a revolution, an uprising or even a little day-trip to Belgium, where ILGA is based, these people would be. Although I think we could come up with something a great deal more painful than shooting, don’t you?