Janet Mock vs Piers Morgan -- a Different View

So, by now we've all heard the story. Janet Mock goes on Piers Morgan to plug her new book. Morgan conducts the interview, they shake hands, and then Mock begins to complain about the interview, saying to the Huff Post "He really just called me a man to my face." Mock and Morgan traded some nasty tweets, then she went back for a second interview, this time live, that left both host and guest unhappy.

Mock's primary complaint seems to be that Morgan, instead of focusing on her life as a successful transgendered woman--she is an editor at people.com and a respected activist and advocate for the transgendered community--he honed in almost entirely on the fact that until 18 she was physically a boy.  Indeed, if you watch the first interview, you see the sub-title "Was a boy until age 18" underlying parts of the video.

My problem is two-fold.  First, she accuses Morgan of concentrating on the fact that she used to be physically a boy while pushing a book entitled "Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More" which, though I haven't read it, would seem to be about that very thing, that she used to be a boy.  In fact, if she hadn't once been physically male, she wouldn't have had much to write about.  After all, reading about the path to womanhood of a born-woman is hardly groundbreaking, must-read literature.  The fact that she used to be a boy is probably the reason she got the publishing deal in the first place.

Second, I am getting a bit tired of people in our "community" biting the hand that feeds them.  Morgan complains--and rightly so--that he is on our side, and yet she jumps all over him.  What?   There aren't enough real bigots around that she has to manufacture one?  Was that Duck Dynasty asshole unavailable for an interview?  We have to stop slamming our allies and concentrate on our real enemies.

But hey: what do I know? You can make up your own minds.  Here are the two interviews, courtesy of the fabulous YouTube.com.

Another Good Thing

Yesterday, I said that the good thing about the Neil Patrick Harris flap is a funny headline in LGBTQ Nation.  Actually, here's another good thing:

A little education for the gay community, which sometimes seems to tolerate us only marginally better than society at large.  The original is here.

Poor Neil

That cute little 'ol thang

We've all heard of the Neil Patrick Harris kerfluffle by now ... on last Friday's Live With Regis and Kelly, NPH said the word "tranny" not once, but twice.  Here's how the web-zine On Top described it:

During a segment with Science Bob, Harris and host Kelly Ripa inhaled sulfur hexafluoride, refereed to as “helium's evil twin” by the scientist.

Harris received big laughs from the studio audience when he delivered the line, “It puts the lotion in the basket,” a reference to the transgender villain Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

“I've never sounded more like a tranny in my life,” Harris said after his voice retilurned to normal. “We can sound like trannies all the time. That would sound hilarious.”

Yes.  Hilarious.  To sound like trans-women desperately trying to make their voices right, so they don't get beat up or worse, is a barrel of laughs.  Or to associate the psychopath from Silence with the transgendered one more time ...

Random Bits and Whistles

If you're somehow convinced that we mtf tg types have come a long way, baby, I offer up one Oscar De La Hoya.  Being caught "prancing around in women's underwear" is the reportorial gift that just keeps on giving.  Here's the latest article, from somebody named Johnny Benz at an adenoidal site called Doghouseboxing.com: "Oscar De La Hoya in new Cross Dressing and Drugs scandal."


Question: which of those two activities -- crossdressing or drugs -- is actually illegal?  And which one is first -- and thus, more prominent -- in the title of Benz's piece? Jesus H. Christ, people, it's 2011 ... who gives a flying f*** what kind of panties he wears?  I hope they're cute ...


As I write this, Silence of the Lambs is playing on MGM HD.  You know, the one about the "transsexual" serial killer named Buffalo Bill, who kills his victims, skins them, and makes "people suits" out of them.  And even though we're told he's not a "true transsexual," it is surely a distinction that is lost on most casual viewers.

Meanwhile, according to Gina Damron of the Detroit Free Press, "The mother of a transgender teen found dismembered in Detroit said she is mourning her child's death and waiting for answers as police continue their investigation."  Her daughter Shelly's body was found burnt and dismembered beside I-94 on October 23rd of this year, but lay anonymously in the morgue until last Thursday.

And do it goes.

WPATH Releases New Standards of Care

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) released an updated Stanards of Care (SOC) Sunday.  It is the seventh edition, and the first since 2001.  "Overall," reports Kellie Winters of GID Reform Advocates, "this newest SOC represents significant forward progress in respecting trans people and affirming the necessity of medical transition care for trans and transsexual individuals who need it."

Significantly, the SOC denounces gender-conversion therapies as unethical.  "“Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and lived gender expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past ... Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.” (SOC, p 16).  This is truly good news: psychologists have considered reparative therapies unethical for homosexual men and women for decades, but have maintained a double standard in the case of the transgendered.  This can only help further the de-pathologization of trans folk.  Along those lines, it also replaces the language of "disorder" with "dysphoria," and removes some of the barriers for the care of trans people.