Have a Happy Holiday Season

Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukah, Mele Kalikimaka, Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad, whatever,

hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season, and a very good new year.
take care

IFGE Trans Conference, Please Register!

Please consider coming to IFGE's Transgender conference next February. Registration is open at
http://www.ifge.org/conference
The event will be at the Hilton Mark Center hotel in Alexandria, Virginia (northern Virginia suburb of DC), and you can register for rooms at
http://alexandria.hilton.com
and use the hotel code "IFGE" when you register for our conference discount rate.

Thanks, I do hope to see everyone there, and meet you all. the conference schedule is already full of presentations, so there will be lots of cool stuff to see and do and listen to and participate in.
cheers!

PS: If you have come to IFGE conferences in the past, and have decided to not come to this next one, I'd appreciate a short note as to why. Maybe we can fix something...
judithmiquela6 at gmail dot com thanks much

First Openly Gay Member of Obama's Administration

Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, will chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Washington post article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121003681.html?hpid=topnews

Well, not a really major job, but not bad.

Transgender Traditions in another culture...

I just found this article in the New York Times.

"A Lifestyle Distinct: The Muxe of Mexico"

It's about a specific area in Mexico, near a town called Juchitan, where males decide they want to live as females, and are termed "muxes". The article mentions that there are references to cross-dressing Aztec priests and a god that was both male and female.

These muxes are apparently celebrated and considered special. There are apparently quite a few different societies or cultures thru the ages that felt there was something special and valuable about transgendered folk.

I've heard several trans-folk that I respect greatly talk about the unique viewpoint that we have on human interactions and society. I do believe it. I would bet that most people are not aware of how they have "bought into" being either a guy or a gal. Do you yourself realize how you let your conceptions of what it means to be male or female, in our society, affect what you do? If those hidden internal assumptions weren't there, how would you act?

Transfolks study the differences between male and female behavior as a matter of survival. If you want to be taken as a woman, and don't learn the mannerisms, you're asking for trouble.

I got interrupted, I had to run an errand, and now I've lost the train of thought....

Oh well. the "+" is about an interesting realization that my therapist helped me with last Friday.

I've always worried that I wanted to be trans for the wrong reason, or my reasons werent valid, or this or that. I was talking about that with her, and she made a key observation: "Most people come in here and they're terribly worried that they ARE transsexual. You're worried that you're NOT!". I remembered then I was having a conversation with another trans person (who runs a meditation center near San Diego), and she commented "you worried whether you're trans enough".

I think I'm worried because I do fear the alternative - if I'm not trans, then I'm a really screwed up guy, and that to me is horrible compared to being what I feel I am - a pretty well adjusted transsexual. I just found that interesting.

Okay, it's too late, we were up till midnite last nite at our trans group's Holiday Gala, and it's time for bed. I'll post some of the pictures tomorrow. We brought our own camera this time, so we don't have to wait for some photographer to get around to mailing us CDs.

talk to you soon

-Jude

PS: got over the "i'm screwed up" phase. Back to "joy of being trans" state. ;-)

Anti "Splenda with Fiber" Rant

Okay, if you watch tv at all, you've probably seen the ads for this new variation of Splenda (the artificial sweetner) that has 1 gram of fiber in every little envelope. Here's the company page on it

Splenda with fiber



I have a big problem with this, and it has to do with the underlying motivation here.



Okay, I completely realize that a lot of folks don't get enough fiber in their diet. Fruits and vegetables, whole grains. And that lack of fiber in our diets has been implicated in higher risk of colon cancer. So the motivation for some manufacturer of something to say "hey, let's put fiber in our product" is pretty obvious.

But I don't think it's a good idea. For several reasons:

1) The psychological: It leads to this idea that we can substitute artificial, pill, supplement based chemicals for actual food. Read their page - one apple contains like 3 grams of fiber, and their little packet contains 1. Folks need to change their eating habits, not find more supplements to allow them to "be healthy" while subsisting on a diet of twinkies and starbucks.

2) Real vs artificial: i guess it was back when I was a kid (or maybe before), Wonder Bread was advertising this awful stuff - bleached white flour, lots of sugar, over refined and stripped of natural nutrition (then re-loaded with artifical vitamins) "Wonder Bread - builds strong bodies 12 ways". Right. Not compared to whole wheat bread it doesn't. And vitamins -- One-A-Day vitamins. An excuse to continue to not eat right. i am firmly convinced that eating a balanced diet will do things for your nutritional condition that no amount of artificial supplements could do. The supplements may provide the major chemical compounds that have been analyzed so far, but I seriously doubt that we really understand all of the complex chemistry in an apple, and how the thousands of compounds in an apple actually interact with our body chemistry to provide us nutrition.

3) "Expediency" -- in other words, hey, this is easier. It's actually one of the words in the English language that I actually hate. Probably the one I hate most. Not so much the word itself, but what it's come to mean. it means "oh, yeah, I know doing this would be better for me, but doing this other thing is more expedient." yeah, I should eat whole wheat bread, more fresh vegetables and fruits, but it's more expedient to eat the crap that tastes good even though I know it's bad for me. Oh, and I'll pop this pill too, that'll make it alright.

No it wont. I'm sorry to sound like the nasty old lady who lives down the street, but we're not taking this crap seriously enough. It goes into a lot of other areas as well, like our obsession with big trucks and SUVs. Now, I completely understand that a lot of folks do need space, folks who do construction do need pickup trucks. But come up to DC and drive on the roads with me. Come to the Pentagon parking lot. Thousands of folks who have desk jobs at the Pentagon driving Ford F-350s (or only an F-150, you get the point). One of the other archery parents works for one of the mapping agencies, doesnt do any construction or farming, but boy does he love his big red truck. It's an F-350, and it's frickin' huge. He's married with one teenage son, he only got it because he likes it. Is it good for the environment? Does he really need it? No, but he likes it.

I think I'm sounding pretty strict here. Fine. We need to have a stronger sense of responsibility, both towards ourselves and caring for ourselves, and towards our community, and caring for our neighbors. Listening to myself, this almost sounds unAmerican - I'm arguing against "every man/woman for themselves". yes, I am.



We do need stronger and more permeating sense of responsibility to ourselves and our families and our communities.



I'm ticked off today. Watch out.