Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

Came across this story (from this blog ) about a 27-year-old trans student named Colle Carpenter who was attacked while on a break from class at Cal State earlier this month. From the victim, "I’ve been terrified to come back to campus… The person who attacked me knew my name… pushed me back into a stall and carved “it” into my chest. For those of you that don’t know why “it” is such a derogatory term, it takes away a person’s humanity. It takes away their personhood and makes them less than human. Know that what happened to me didn’t just happen to me – it happened to the entire community… Those of us that are visibly queer, those of us that are out about being queer, are scared." Ugh. The attacker hasn't been found yet.

Something downright transtastic occurred this past weekend in Brooklyn - a transman showdown: MR. TRANSMAN 2010  ! , from host Murray Hill and Original Plumbing publisher Amos Mac . The show sold out in advance. SF hip-hop artist Katastrophe and queer Brooklyn band Inner Princess performed; and there were a slew of contestants who competed in platform, swimsuit, "realness," talent, and evening-wear categories in front of the judges Our Lady J , Kate Bornstein , Amos Mac, *Bob*, Glenn Marla and Susan Hair. And thus, on April 25th, the first-ever "Mr.Transman" was crowned - slam poet Kit Yan won the title . He got some cash and will be appearing in an upcoming spread in Original Plumbing . There was also an FTM beauty pageant at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, hosted by Murray Hill; a nightlife personality who has hosted the city’s Miss Lez Pageant for the past nine years. Murray Hill said in an interview about the event, "...

I just got home from a venture to a local LGBQT novelty/card shop to acquire this little reusable coffee cup that I noticed there a couple of weeks ago: Gah! So cute! And look, it's disguised as a non-reusable cup! I figured that when I take my weekly trip to a trendy coffee shop to get a delicious and caffeine-laden beverage, the paper or polystyrene cups with plastic lids are not the ideal vessels for my wannabe-eco-friendly self to be drinking out of. So, I figured, for $10 I could buy this "I Am Not a Paper Cup" cup and reuse it over and over again. When I went up to pay for this little cup, the employee closely inspected my debit card and asked to see my ID - okay, that's normal and a good thing she's actually checking. As I was scooping out my wallet to find my ID she then confronted me by asking, "Whose card is this?", to which I jokingly replied, "Oh yes, do you want her ID or mine?", and then seriously added, "Actually, ...

It's about time for a binder review now that I've blown through a few or two with my sweaty binder obliterating bicycling from here to there and back around again lifestyle. So, to start with, I'm not large chested; but I'm not super small chested, either. I'm also a larger guy at 5'11'' and 200lbs - which meant that I learned fast that T-Kingdom (a Taiwanese company) binders were definitely made for MUCH smaller dudes. For shipping and sizing, Underworks has always been spot on when it comes to shipping stuff fast and also with item returns. Twice now I've ordered a binder and, once received, tried it on to learn that it was either too small or too large. Then I'd put the product back in its packaging, throw the receipt in with my corrections scribbled on it, mail it back and they swiftly send another in the correct size. No question. Here's my 2 cents on binders I've tried, most excellent to most lame: T-Kingdom M801 : This...

Female To Male from Rhea Kewalramani on Vimeo . From thetranscender.com : A documentary film by my friend and filmmaker Rhea Kewalramani, starring Azad (Homegrownboi), Kai (This Gendered Life), Sebastian (XX Boy), and yours truly (The Transcender). This will be shown at Cannes Film Festival 2010 so…watch out for us, world! Oh I will! Although, I do wish that there was a documentary out there that had feminine trans guys like Adrian the hotty in it. Even though it's likely that this documentary doesn't have glitter-glam-barbie-loving transmen running amok; it does look like it definitely branches away from the gender binary with different ideas in regards to sex, gender as a spectrum, how it's expressed, how various individuals identify and why they transition, etc. A more broad portrayal. I'm excited to see it when it comes out. It looks promising! Perhaps Adrian would be too much of a gender bedazzling mind splurt for most audiences. But, seeing as ...

Anima/Animus by J. Aiden Simon .

This video has been making the rounds these past few weeks. It's a piece by Ivan E. Coyote, a queer writer from Canada: I wasn't sure about it initially with the mention of tie ironing, cowboy hat tipping and big black boot polishing - but then 1 minute into it Ivan said this in regards to queer femmes, "I know that sometimes you feel like nobody truly sees you. I want you to know that I see you. I see you on the street, on the bus, in the gym, in the park." Which peaked my interest. Then, "I don’t know why I can tell that you are not straight, but I can. Maybe it is the way you look at me. All of my life I have been told that I am ugly, I am less than, I am not a man, I am unwanted. Until you came along, I believed them. Please do not ever stop looking at me the way you do." And shortly thereafter on to my favorite chunk: "I want to thank you for coming out of the closet. Again and again, over and over, for the rest of your life. At school,...

Look what I stumbled across! Mr. Transman Grid and Rocco (Katastrophe) in Allison Michael Orenstein’s Mr. Transman gallery .

... which I thought was really great. But, GLAAD took the wind from my sails when I learned that they removed that portion from the speech she gave on April 17th while accepting their Vanguard Award. Why? Because she used the word "tranny", as confirmed by eyewitnesses. Pay attention to how blatantly pro-trans (and LGBQ) every uncensored word was. I like GLAAD and all, but seriously - why are they SO into policing language? I get really riled up about this sort of thing because it strikes me as part of an overall flawed belief system that justifies language censorship in order to "protect" minorities from oppression. But, as has been proved time and time again, this sort of thing only serves to further limit and harm the communities it claims to protect. As an example, this sort of word fear rationalization reminds me A LOT of the 1992 Butler decision by which the Supreme Court of Canada wrote a radical feminist definition of obscenity into Canadian ...

Last month I was elected delegate and chair or my precinct  in the Utah Democratic Party. In other words,  I showed up at a meeting with nearby neighborhoods and sat among four of my neighbors to decide upon representatives. In many lower income neighborhoods, no one showed up. If anyone did, they'd automatically be the chair, vice-chair, delegate, and so on for that "precinct". Just a few years ago when everyone was beat down from eight years of the Bush administration there were MANY empty tables. This time around, the meeting was packed and full of enthusiasm. Since then I've had local candidates hounding me daily. Two have sent me little trees to plant and letters about why they will be the most superb of all superb. I've received robo-calls and personal calls. The icing on the cake occurred when one night around 8pm while laying on my couch in the dark sick, alone, with puffy eyes covered in phlegm rags, I heard a knock at the door. I have a door with a...

Speaking of whisker excitement, I received issue #2 of Original Plumbing a few days ago. I'm just as excited about it as I was about receiving the first issue ! Gadz I love this trans guy objectification shindig. This one is the "hair issue" featuring some trans fellers who have long passed the cusp of every.little.whisker obsession and onwards to the world of tediously insurmountable manscape. Look at Ayden! Holy hairy! Is there no limit to such madness!? Margaret Cho has a little interview in it, to boot! I really ought not put a photo of Ayden so close to my most recent-and-now-VERY-bare-looking photo documentation but, well, one thing led to another.

So, at long last I'm doing a quick photo update. It's not elaborate, but I got some of my tummy hair and whisker action in here; which are the most important! And I forced myself to grow out my flesh beard as much as I could muster and will shave immediately after posting this. I'll do profile shots soon enough; perhaps in some of my old clothes to demonstrate how I so.don't.fit in such things anymore. The lighting available to me is all kinds of wonky - I either get to go for the orange paint upstairs which makes me glow red, or the yellow hue lights downstairs. Bear with me here. 1 Year 4 Months on Testosterone Cypionate (0.7 mL every 2 weeks) (Click on images for larger so-detailed-it-hurts versions)

Go the New York Times! They're running a little section called "Answers about Transgender Issues" where people can write in with trans-related questions which are answered by Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth, who is working on “ Trans Bodies, Trans Selves ,” a resource guide for transgender and other gender-variant people. Talk about a great way to demystify. I love it. Check it out: Answers About Transgender Issues, Part 1 Answers About Transgender Issues, Part 2

Thanks to Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives (TOTWK), my urge to bask in everything exploitation film has been rekindled! Low and behold, I recently discovered this documentary called Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! . Apparently the director, Mark Hartley, approached longtime "Ozploitation" and exploitation fan Quentin Tarantino to help get the project off the ground years ago: (be pre-warned: lots o' nudity in the trailer!) Thing is, I'd never even heard of Ozploitation before! From Wikipedia: Ozploitation is a type of low budget horror, comedy and action films made in Australia after the introduction of the R rating in 1971. The year also marked the beginnings of the Australian New Wave movement, and the Ozploitation style peaked within the same time frame (early 1970s to late 1980s). Ozploitation is often considered a smaller wave within the New Wave, "a time when break-neck-action, schlock-horror, ocker comedy and fris...

Salt Lake City is a really happening place when it comes to the world of queer - more-so with each new day! Last night I attended a Sister Spit show at a venue called Mestizo Cafe . First, the venue is super neat. As one reviewer said about it, When I was in Spain I got to know a number of Gitanos (Gypsy’s) who were an energetic people, full of life and culture. Despite this, the Spaniards often called the Gitanos “Mestizo”, meaning that they were a mix of cultures and nationalities rather than “true” Spaniards. For the most part it didn’t ruin their spirits. In this same open attitude and one of acceptance, Utah artist Ruby Chacon along with her husband, Terry Hurst have opened Mestizo Coffee House, embracing the diversity and yes, the mixing of cultures that exists in the Salt Lake Valley and in particular, the West side. Not only is it a hub of activism; it's also a community space - one that oozes diversity and acceptance. The last time I went to an event at Mestizo was...

... of the eerie bin of dehydrated pig ears in the dog aisle!

I just added a donation button for surgery to my blog. For years I rejected the idea of hormone therapy or surgery for my own body. I've known since puberty that watching my body develop further and further in an entirely mismatched direction would only get more difficult with time. Even then, I completely underestimated the toll it would eventually take on me. On my ability to function, even. Throughout my adolescence I never once sipped alcohol or tried a recreational drug. I still haven't. But from seeing so many of my peers do both, I was curious about the impact of alchol in the brain. I buried my adolescent head into whatever articles I could find about alcohol. I read something about alcohol contracting brain tissue and depressing the central nervous system. Something about destroying brain cells that do not regenerate. Basically, everything that I read completely and entirely stripped alcohol of any potential fun factor it could've had for me before I even had...

A pretty significant development is occurring in the world of trans that I should definitely mention. In February the American Psychiatric Association released a draft of proposed diagnostic criteria for its Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). For some time now trans people have been lumped under the " Gender Identity Disorder " (GID) banner. To start hormone therapy, I had to first go to a therapist for the first and only time in my life who diagnosed me with GID, scribbled it upon a letter which I then took to a doctor in order to begin. Strange... I don't know of many mental disorders that can be cured physically. Some hormones and surgery and my mental disorder disappears! Poof! What magic! It is proposed that the name gender identity disorder (GID) be replaced by "Gender Incongruence" (GI) because the latter is a descriptive term that better reflects the core of the problem: an incongruence between, on the one hand, wha...

It seems as though irony has managed a furtive comeback. Even worse, it's permeated the world of transgender AND, even better, it's emerged in one extreme form of the ironic arts -- its flashiest and silliest incarnation: CAMP! John Waters and Lloyd Kaufman, what have you done?! A little backstory here. There's an ongoing controversy surrounding the showing of a film called Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's been a prominent blog topic for a couple of weeks now and I've decided to just suck it up and toss my two cents in to those murky waters. From the Anti Camp: News of the showing spurred the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to send out a Call To Action stating, "GLAAD has since seen the film in its entirety and can report that the title is far from the only problem with this film. The film, its title and its marketing misrepresent the lives of transgender women and use grotesque, exploit...

My dear friend Andrew pointed me towards the world's most transtastic shirt ever (which fiercely pushed Original Plumbing's " Nobody Knows I'm A Transsexual " tee into 2nd place to hold the #1 international position). The Paul Frank TrannySaurus Rex Tee!!!!!! Look at those bedazzling red stilettos! Ohmygawd! It's as though Promestheus himself had me in mind when he fashioned this out of clay and brought it to life by the four winds, with all the goddesses of Olympus assembled to adorn it and let it loose to float down to Earth just for me to one day wear. Or it could've just been a 2009 discontinued phase from Paul Frank that's, as I briefly mentioned, seemingly discontinued . What! Where was I in 2009? Where was Andrew? Why didn't I know about this? Why hasn't this cloth adorned my body every single day for an entire year now? To ease my pain, I e-mailed the Paul Frank reps about it to ask if they have this shirt hidden somewhere ...

I feel like I'm living in a warped Back to the Future bubble reminiscent of Marty McFly and Doc Brown. Here I am living in a social reality where I'm generally read/treated as a young cisgender male in his early 20s. I'm taking Drivers Ed and getting my drivers license for the first.time.ever . I'm resuming college alongside people who are actually in their late teens, after originally dropping out of high school and then experiencing a four-year frozen academic record hiatus. I'm experiencing a slew of puberty-ridden foreign shenanigans that have me surprising myself and learning new things on a daily basis. And the hormone acne onslaught is a constant aesthetically pleasant reminder. I even have the less-plushy blue version of Marty McFly's ridiculous life vest. And aviators. And a semi-fluffy 80s-esque hair-do. And incredibly plush, cozy sneakers. BUT! I bicycle! I do not skate board! So, at least I have that going for me. It's an inte...

Binders are really not fun. Especially if one bicycles and perspires a lot. Which results in becoming an itchy, uncomfortable mess prone to rashes. And I can't wait to rip it off as soon as possible to let my skin breathe and to cool down. But I did find a potential solution to make binding-while-active more bearable. To combine binders. Once upon a time, I accidentally ordered the Extreme Chest Concealer FTM Chest Binder in the wrong size - one size up from what I should be wearing. But I decided to use it anyway. Instead of binding as tightly as it should, it binded enough while also not restricting my breathing or comfort all that much. Which makes it perfect for bicycling, wearing in a movie theater, etc. And to add some extra binding I combined it with my T-Kingdom 801 zip-up binder . For instance, if I'm at a movie theater I can unzip the 801 to breathe a little better and to sit more comfortably. But as soon as it's over and the lights are on, I can zi...