Life, Law, Gender

Comments, comments! It's my birthday for cryin' out loud!

This post is a blatant call for comments.  Please!  I need comments to validate my existence here.  Are you listening? ::grin::

Today, I am 52.  Yesterday, I was 50.  The day before that I started law school and the day before that my 24 plus year old first child was born.  That's it.  4 days.  With the seriously notable exception of watching my mom get progressively worse, I'm am in love with my life.  I don't want it to go racing by, but it sure seems to be.

Last week, during the bar exam, I was standing in the hallway with some UMich Law grads and former classmates and we were talking about who sits for the February bar exam.  One of the guys in the group made a comment about all the older folks who where there and probably did law school part-time or something.  I just looked at him and made some comment about generalizing about "older folks".  He looked at me, surprised, then laughed and said "Well, not you!  You're one of us.  Ever since softball, you don't count as older."  Several minutes later, he asked what time it was (concerned if we needed to get back in to start on the final 3 hours of our torture session).  I chuckled as I put on my reading glasses to be able to see my watch and he laughed out loud and just said "Softball". 

You're as old as you feel.  Me?  I'm 35.

[UPDATE]  My girl got us tickets to go watch the Tigers play spring training baseball in Lakeland.  It was so much fun.  I can't believe how much I love this game.  How did I miss out on the fun this is for all these years?  In addition, she got me a very cool, authentic Tigers jersey with my name on the back.  She rocks.  This was, easily, the best day of the trip.

Passing...

... will have to be an unknown for another 3 f'ing months.  3 months!

Of course, you know that it’s impossible to know until you get official results – and they won’t be released for another 3 f'ing months. But, I think I did passing (not well, you understand, merely passing) on the essays. There were 15 questions, and I think I knocked it out of the park on 2 of them (9s or 10s out of a possible 10). I think I did 6-8 on another 9 or 10 questions and I think I really blew it (2 or 3) on another couple. That leaves a couple for which I’ve no idea. On balance, passing – if barely (you need an average of 6.7 to pass each question). The morning session of the multi-state was almost easy. I knew the law in a vast majority of the questions and only just flat-out guessed in maybe 10 or so (and, of course, my “knowing” of the law will be wrong in another 10 or more). Nevertheless, I think I did very well on the morning session (keep in mind that I also thought I did well on my practice exams). The afternoon session -- not so much. It was a bitch. I had to reduce the choices to two possible and then pick in many questions (I’ve no idea how many, maybe 20 or 25). There were more than a handful that I was simply clueless about and the rest I “knew”. So, again, I think passing – on balance. (My Girl says that I'm an expert on passing, so she's confident; what does she know?)

Now, my big challenge is to NOT worry about it or dwell on it for the next 3 f’ing MONTHS and just enjoy my time off.  Today, a spa day.  I will indulge myself in a facial and a pedicure and having my hair highlighted.  Tomorrow, we're off to visit my brilliant youngest in Kentucky and then from there to see my ailing mom (don't get me started on that; my heart can't take anymore) and finally on the return trip a visit to the Girl's dad (she came out to him last week and told him she'd be bringing her partner to meet him -- woohoo!) and back again to my youngest to help her celebrate her 21st birthday.  It will be a very packed 2 week road trip.  Expect posting to be very light.

Not feminine? Have a penis? Hit her with an axe!

Please read this and watch the video.  Is this really funny:?

During the interview, Kimmel showed photographs, both real and fabricated, of male-to-female transgender people, and then insulted the transgender community by asking how the producers of Ugly Betty could make such a leap by casting someone as feminine as Romijn in the role.

Further, when Kimmel read from a personalized romance novel Romijn gave to fiancé Jerry O'Connell for Valentine's, Kimmel added an impromptu twist to the story by saying "and then he (Jerry) finds out you have a penis and hits you with an ax."

Thanks, Autumn, for the link!

Better than Chocolate

My Girl bought me a DVD for Valentine's Day (she knows that I just love movies; she got me a dozen or so for X-mas).  The title of the movie was "Better Than Chocolate" (a coming of age movie about a couple of young lesbians).  From the review:

Canadian director Anne Wheeler's Better Than Chocolate is a movie for women, about women. Mostly it's about gay young women, but it is also moderately about larger issues, such as liberation and acceptance.

If you haven't seen this film, buy it and watch it; I highly recommend it.  It was a totally hot, totally perfect movie to watch on Valentine's Day.

One of the supporting characters in this film is a transgender woman. I always tense up when I see a transgender woman in a film.  I am pretty certain it's my own transphobia coming out and I hate that.  I worry that she will be portrayed as "not-woman", or "used to be a man", or that the role will reinforce stereotypes. But, even worse for me to admit, is that I fear some side of being transgender that I try to hide will be shown.  I know this is not ME on that screen, but I always feel as if I'm being put out there for all to see, critique, and question.  I was *so* grateful that Peter Outerbridge did such a great job in his role as Judy.  And the song "Don't Fuck with my tender, cross-gender heart" is freakin' awesome.  I so want a copy of that song!

Am I the only one that feels this apprehension when watching a portrayal of your own identity on the screen?  I imagine not.  I imagine it's like watching a gay or lesbian flick with your hetero friends or family.

Hardaway was right?

This article, and by extension this man, offends me on so many levels that I hesitate to give him any more audience than he already has by writing about him on my blog (not that I have delusions that tons of people read my blog, I just have the idea that those who read my blog won't often be reading his drivel).

Medved is discussing the fact that Tim Hardaway was right at a visceral level when he said "I hate gay people".  He stops short of endorsing Hardaway's assertion that gays don't belong in the world, but he does argue that gays don't belong in professional sports or in the US Military.  His so-called 'analysis' relies -- as is the wont of people who don't think for themselves -- on the "discomfort" of straight players and soldiers.  Huh?  I have never understood this.  Why should we give a hoot about someone's discomfort in the face of blatant, invidious discrimination? 

It's all about sexual attraction.  Gay males, he says (he doesn't address lesbians), won't be able to control themselves in close quarters, especially showers such as are found in sports-team locker rooms and the military.

they hope to avoid the tension, distraction and complication that prove inevitable when issues of sexual attraction (and even arousal) intrude into the arena of competitive sports.

What he fails to get in all of this is that there are gay players in those arenas today.  Or, does he think Amaeche only became gay after he left the NBA?  And, what about the 65,000 gay troops currently serving in our military (or the 1,000,000 who are veterans)?  Many of them are even serving openly.  There hasn't been much of a problem with them serving/playing, other than the sanctioned homophobia they face as perpetuated by bigots like Medved.

Another thing I don't get is this whole group shower phobia.  I can't speak to professional sports locker rooms, but I was in the military over 30 years ago and we had individual showers back then!  I think the number of group showers is pretty freakin' small. And, even if there are group showers, so what? They are showers! People like Medved are just trying to perpetuate an irrational and unfounded hysteria.  Maybe he's simply projecting.  He can't control his own sexual attractions and is afraid, therefore, that other men won't be able to either.

And, finally, in perhaps the worst anti-woman piece of hate speech I've seen is a long time he suggests that the way to analogize gays in professional sports or the military is to compare them to:

profoundly unattractive, morbidly obese women. ... The ill-favored, grossly overweight female is the right counterpart to a gay male because, like the homosexual, she causes discomfort due to the fact that attraction can only operate in one direction. She might well feel drawn to the straight guys with whom she’s grouped, while they feel downright repulsed at the very idea of sex with her.

The only unattractive-ness around here is Medved.  This man is a hate-monger of the first order. 

The Bar Exam -- 1 week

So, I've been studying for the bar exam the past 2 months.  I am not a good studier, never have been.  I need outside pressure to help focus me (see previous post about not being focused).  So, I enrolled in two bar review courses -- Bar/Bri, which is now over and PMBR, which is just 3 days and began yesterday. 

In Michigan, if you score a 150 on the Multistate portion of the exam, they will only give your essays (state-specific) a cursory look-over.  Otherwise, you need a combined 135 to pass, with each weighted equally. 

Yesterday, we had a practice MBE test.  Oh. My. God.  I suck.  I scored a 99 -- that's only 50 points of the combined 135 needed to pass.  They are trying to tell me that this test is intentionally much harder than the real test and that I should add 36 points to my score to arrive at an expected actual MBE score.  I hope that's true.  But, what really bothers me is that I thought I did MUCH better on the exam than I did.  Obviously, I know the law a whole lot worse than I think I do.  If this is all the better I can do after two months of concentrated studying (well, as concentrated as I ever get), I'm in deep shit. 

Even if they are right about the MBE, this means that I will NOT score high enough to warrant the glance-over on my essays; they will be critically scored.  If I suck on multiple choice (as the MBE is), I could be a vacuum cleaner on essays.  I have not yet even looked at them.  That's my study plan -- wait until the last minute and then panic (don't ask me how I managed to get through law school with a B+ GPA and still neither know the law nor how to study). 

Damn.  I am so very depressed about this right now.  I know you don't want to hear me ranting about this triviality right now, but it is what is occupying my thoughts!  SS said I'll do fine.  That was before I took this particular practice test.

The good news -- it will all be over beginning one week from today (it's a two-day test, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week).

What's important

A few days ago, a good friend of mine from law school (known to attentive, long-time readers as BoSox) wrote to me asking if she could nominate me for an award that the University gives to students "who have made the greatest contributions to activities designed to advance the cause of social justice".  Of course, I am flattered.  But, as I looked back on my career at the University of Michigan Law School I realized that I was very involved in activism for the first year and a half and then, quite suddenly, became uninvolved.

The reason, of course, is obvious.  I met my Girl and she became my world.  I moved 40 minutes away from Ann Arbor and it was no longer easy to attend meetings or rallies.  This certainly helped my GPA (I got all of my A grades in the second half of law school) but it did nothing to advance the cause of social justice.  Don't get me wrong; I didn't completely drop out -- I still did things that people asked me to do, like speak at the TDOR rallies, or give talks to classes and student leaders about my experience of being transgender, but I no longer participated in the planning of events.

I am not at all disappointed in my choice of priorities.  I know that people that really make a difference in the world are the ones who are single-minded and laser focused on the task at hand.  I am just not that type of person.  Sometimes, I long to be.  Sometimes, I imagine what it would be like to be a moving force in the destruction of gender stereotypes and the liberation of people to be who they really are. Sometimes, I imagine what it would be like to achieve fame (a little fortune would be nice, too) in this regard.  For example, I loved the little bit of noteriety I got from this blog; I relished it when people I didn't know would approach me in law school.

When I first began to transition, I lost my focus on what was important.  That cost me a daughter.  I realize now that it was inevitable that my marriage would end; I became a person different from who she had married (and I had very little say in that). But, losing my eldest daughter is a blow I will never recover from and I will forever blame my own self-centeredness, my focus on myself and my needs at the time.

Before that time, and since then, I know what's important to me -- my family.  My mom and Augie, my sisters, my children and my Girl.  They all mean so very much to me. They come first, middle, and last in my life.

It is from that space that I read this article.  Renee Richards is sad now.  Sad that she is alone in life.  She was a beacon for so many. She was a true pioneer who helped map out a road for us to follow. She accomplished much.  But she's lost so much more in her inability to find a fulfilling personal relationship.  Fifty years from now her name will live on and no one will remember mine.  I'm OK with that.  I wish you peace, Renee.

"You have to be a pretty strong character to have a relationship with someone who has been a man originally, and famous. I haven't had any romance in a number of years."

"It is annoying to me," said Richards. "I'm so ordinary now; they're not interested. There's lots about transsexuals now."

UPDATE: Also, check out the preface (courtesy NPR) from her new book: "No Way, Renee: The Second Half of My Notorious Life".

But I have not written No Way Renée as a justification of my life; rather, it is a look at the second half of a life that I hope no longer needs justifying. It is the story of how I thought through and reconciled my bizarre family life; how my son and I coped with my changed persona; how I gave my new incarnation an adolescence; how I restored my medical career; how I searched for understanding, stability, romance, health, and a sense of my place in a changing world. It answers the question in the minds of so many, "Was your sex change a mistake?"

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day, dear reader(s)!  I hope you have someone special to snuggle up with and enjoy the day.  I am so thankful that I do.  It's hard to believe that we are already on our 2nd V-Day and that it's even better than last year!  Love to you all! 

BTW, if you're a woman loving woman, check out this site.

Extraordinary Gifts

When I graduated from law school, my family (spouse, parents, siblings and children) all pitched in and bought me a magnificent leather briefcase, complete with my initials.  One of the features about this case that I like the best is that it stands up and remains open while you place or extract your computer or papers.  It is a true thing of beauty and I am so grateful for it.  My old briefcase is black and the type that you have to lie on its side to open (not to mention that it's too small for my laptop).  This will be so useful in my new career.  Thank you, my family.

From my former employer came another -- and most unexpected -- remarkable gift.  He sent me a sterling silver business-card case.  Inset into the center of the lid (in a 14k gold setting) is an ancient coin featuring the Goddess Aequitas holding the scales of justice in one hand and a horn of plenty in the other.  From her, we get the word "equity". My former boss said that because she was the goddess of equality he thought of me.  Isn't that the sweetest thing to say?  The case came with a certificate of authenticity saying that the coin was minted about the year 225.  Makes it pretty old.  It is stunningly beautiful.  Thank you, my dear friend.

Friday Cat Blogging or Creature Feature 3

After back-to-back outdoor Creature Features, today I present you with one of our three indoor creatures (not counting mice and smaller creatures). 

This is Casey.  She is our alpha-cat.  At 15 pounds, she's a fair sized cat and even our little boy cat can't get the best of her (try though he might).  But, she's not much into rumbling.  Her favorite activities are sleeping and eating -- interspersed with generous helpings of loving.  She's still a kitten at heart (she's 4) and will climb on me and knead and nurse.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editors:

One of the real problems with grounding arguments against anything in religious doctrine is that there is some other doctrine that can be trotted out to dispute it.  Not only are there many religions in our incredible melting-pot country, but there are even many variations on Christianity. In the February 5^th edition of the Free Press several readers relied upon their religious beliefs to suggest that “hating the sin, but loving the sinner” was sufficient grounds for denying gay men and lesbians the rights to protect each other – and their children – with health insurance. Many Christian ministers believe that Jesus Christ is not against homosexuality, but would be against denying our neighbors the means to care for their loved ones. Whose religion gets to win?

Instead of grounding our positions in religious dogma, we should be looking into our hearts and objectively at the effects of our actions. Did we really intend to deprive children of health insurance because their parents are gay when we voted in 2004 to amend Michigan’s constitution? Be against marriage for gays and lesbians – if that’s what your heart tells you is the right and just position to take – but against providing health insurance? How does this make us a great state? Denying benefits to a class of people will not make those people go away and it will not end their “lifestyle". It merely demeans all of us.

Michigan prof fired for being trans

I've been following this story for the past couple of days.  The story intersects my interests in multiple ways: 1) it's about a transgender woman, 2) who gets fired for being trans, 3) here in Michigan, 4) raising questions regarding the reach of Title VII (and its Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQ) exemption)  and 5) the protections provided under the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion.

Christian-based Spring Arbor University is firing the transgender professor, effective June 1, choosing not to tolerate Nemecek's transformation from John to Julie Marie.

After a half-century of internal conflict, Nemecek, an associate dean of adult studies, began to appear as a woman on campus in late 2005.

In a perfect world, I'd analyze all of this for you and tell you what the competing positions are or are likely to be -- wait, who am I kidding?  In a perfect world I'd be either taking her case or working with Randi Barnabee in representing her (Randi is the lawyer who represented Smith in Smith v. City of Salem that ultimately won for the transgender firefighter in the 6th Circuit).  But, it's not a perfect world and I'm still studying like mad for the bar exam.

So, instead I refer you to this post written by Dr. Jillian Weiss at Transgender Workplace Diversity.  I note that she makes a couple of statements that I disagree with, but on the whole, I think it's pretty good (I think she overstates (or even misstates) the significance of Smith, for example). 

Another thing that I'd like to see analyzed or discussed is the fact that Ms. Nemecek is an ordained Baptist minister, clearly a Christian.  Yet, the reason she's being fired is because

"We expect our faculty to model Christian character as an example for our students," read a university statement issued by a public-relations firm. Faculty who "persist with activities that are inconsistent with the Christian faith" are subject to firing.

What is "Christian character"?  Clearly, it's not "judge not, lest ye be judged", nor is it "love thy neighbor as thyself".  And, whose Christian faith?  I bet Rev. Debra Haffner would not suggest that Ms. Nemecek's character is un-Christian.

Can't type? -- Sue!

My Girl says this guy is an embarrassment to himself, to the Law School and to the profession.  I cannot help but agree.  All I can say is I hope he's representing himself.  Jeez o'pete.

A Pennsylvania man is suing the University of Michigan Law School because it didn't make special accommodations for his admittedly poor typing skills.

Adrian Zachariasewycz graduated from the law school in 2004 with a "B'' average but says in his lawsuit that on certain exams he received "borderline failing grades'' because he couldn't type as much in the allotted time as other students.

Justice loses, again.

This past Thursday, the Michigan Court of Appeals refused to allow gays and lesbians to cover their families under employer sponsored health plans, and blamed voters. (Full opinion, here) They cited the plain meaning of the Amendment which reads:

“To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” Const 1963, art 1, § 25.

Back in the day before the “Marriage Amendment” was put on the ballot (A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO SPECIFY WHAT CAN BE RECOGNIZED AS A “MARRIAGE OR SIMILAR UNION” FOR ANY PURPOSE) the proponents sold it to the public by saying that it would not be used to take away domestic partner rights. See Six Words of Separation from the Metro Times Detroit:

Conservative Oakland County Commissioner Tom McMillin, who sponsored a successful resolution supporting the proposed amendment, is satisfied with the language, and claims Prop 2 opponents overstate the amendment’s potential effect on employers’ ability to provide benefits. “A business can say, ‘Anybody who has benefits as of 2004 can still have them,’” McMillin says. “The basis just cannot be that it’s marriage or something similar to marriage.”

This position is echoed by Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, who says, “Under that policy, every single person currently receiving any kind of benefit would continue to do so. But it would not be on the basis of a government employer singling out homosexual relationships for the special treatment of being recognized as equal or similar to marriage.”

Of course, as soon as the amendment was on the books, the conservative right began to suggest that they would sue to stop public employers from providing domestic partner benefits.  Attorney General Cox issued an opinion that such benefits were now unconstitutional and should be stopped. Pride at Work sued for declaratory judgment and won at the trial level. (Lower court opinion, here)

One of my chief complaints with the Amendment is the inclusion of the words "for future generations of children".  Whose children?  Not yours.  Not if you're queer.  We don't protect children of those people in this state.  My Girl believes the Appellate Court had no choice, that it was constrained by the language of the Amendment. Maybe so. But, I believe there were many ways this Amendment could have been interpreted so as to keep the children of lesbian and gay families protected by health insurance.  The lower court certainly had no problem finding them. 

Pride at Work and the ACLU say they're going to appeal.  Good luck.  I won't be holding my breath.  Michigan's Supreme Court is noted for its conservatism (and, lately, its infighting).  No.  The only way to get justice is to somehow make this known to the voters.  Did you really intend this result, Michigan?    

Creature Feature - 2

A small hawk, the Sharp-shinned Hawk is a regular visitor to bird feeders, where it eats birds, not seed. The male and female show a greater disparity in size than any other American hawk; the female is nearly twice the weight of the male.

Location: Our bird-feeders

Photo credit: The Girl