Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

Since turning my last paper for finals in last Tuesday at 5:59pm (due at 6:00pm) I have been celebrating with a Mass Effect (video game!), staying up late, pajamas, and 21 cans of Coconut Juice in bulk which my adorable parents purchased for me as a finals completion gift. Then last night, some friend took me to Scream 4 . Then the celebratory cherry on top - this morning Erin, Andrew, and I caught wind that Seabirds, an all vegan food truck, is in Salt Lake City today and tomorrow! They are parked from noon-8pm in front of a local coffee shop called the Coffee Garden. This is part of The Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race” and in addition to their normal menu they’ll have lots of other great things as well like breakfast burritos and cheesy potatoes. This was their breakfast menu this morning: I ordered the breakfast quesadilla, which was super delicious to the max. My friends ordered breakfast burritos and the “jerk jack fruit tacos”, which had an incredibly interesti...

Check out the amazing poster Nick James created for my upcoming top surgery fundraiser!!

Last week I wrote a blog post about an incident that occurred at a Utah Drivers License Division (DLD) office where a witness stood up for a transgender woman who was mocked, laughed at, and forced to scrub off her makeup before she was allowed to get her photo taken to renew her drivers license. Transgender Education Advocates of Utah (TEA of Utah) hastily became involved. Representatives of TEA met with DLD officials and watched what has been described as a silent and grainy video of the incident. Without consulting either the witness or the victim, TEA began issuing public statements including on-camera interviews with numerous media outlets. To the shock and amazement of many, TEA defended the DLD and discredited both the witness and the victim. “Transgender Education Advocates of Utah” placed themselves front-and-center as representatives of the transgender community. This created a lot of public/community feedback focused around TEA. Not surprisingly, much of this feedbac...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - February 4, 2011 – The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) today released a comprehensive new report, “Injustice at Every Turn,” revealing the depth of discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming people in a wide range of areas, including education, health care, employment, and housing. The study, based on the results from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), was based on responses from over 6,450 participants. The NTDS is the first large-scale national study of discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming Americans, and paints a more complete picture than any prior research to date. Study Finds Pervasive Discrimination Against Transgender People  >

5,000 Year Old Transgender Skeleton Discovered  >

Packer says homosexuality second only to murder, denial of holy ghost  > This Boyd K. Packer guy is basically next in line to be the LDS prophet. I most recently mentioned him after he gave a homophobic speech to an audience of millions just two days before 18 year old Alec Henrikson committed suicide on September 30, 2010 here in Utah.

Group photo from a friend’s schnazzy birthday par-tay I attended last night. Dapper!

DMV Sits Down With Victim Of Trans-Discrimination, Pledges Improvement … finally today the Drivers License Division sat down with Regina Audette, the witness to the discrimination Amber Anderton, as well as openly gay attorney Chris Wharton and reviewed the footage with them. The victim herself, Regina Audette, tells PRIDEinUtah:  “I want to see the DLD continue their education and understand the respect they need to have for people, so something like this doesn’t ever happen again. It’s more than just education, it’s learning true respect.” She also went on to add, “No matter what, I wake up every day with a smile on my face and I couldn’t care less what any one thinks of me.”