I've made it to the initial round for favorite progressive blogger in the Air America Cruise Contest. I have to stay in the Top 5 before the second voting round begins, so your vote is appreciated! First voting round:
The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
In her guest diary below, she describes her path to becoming a transgender youth advocate, and why she sees herself as belonging to the broader lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
She also, from a diversity perspective, explains why she believes we those of us who are connected to the LGBT community should see ourselves as belonging to one broad, LGBT community. I believe this piece conveys a most wonderful message of hope.
~~Autumn~~
Why Do I Do What I Do?
By Kim Pearson
I have never really written a 'note' to share personal thoughts with 'the public' before, but then I have never experienced 'the public' sharing their personal thoughts with me in such a personal way before either.
I am referring to the responses I am getting from my recently published article in 'Diversity Rules.' I don't know what it is that I said or how I may have said things differently than so many other times, but the response is clearly different.
This is a portion of what the mother of a transgender child said to her husband while reading the article which she then shared with me:
"How could she have done such a marvelous job in this interview, shedding such insight into the lives of a transgender child when she isn't one?! I'm so, so, so impressed with her work." And "How is she going to know how profoundly moved I am..."
Another note I received simply stated:
"You are inspiring"
The one that caused me to cry the most was the one from a gay man who saw glimpses of himself and his life in the article:
"I saw myself in many of your answers...I didn't realize it then, but I knew as a child I was different, felt different, but couldn't give that difference a name...because I had an attraction to men. An attraction that I had to forever keep locked up deep inside of me. It was a very confusing time riddled with guilt and shame, because if I had an attraction to men, and that was sinful I had been told. But such an attraction meant then I must be female, because only women are attracted to men, but here I was in a little boy's body."
So back to the title of this note, "Why I do, What I do?" When I was asked this question earlier this week I responded: "Because I have a transgender child."
I now realize that there has been a fundamental shift within me and that my child and those like him are no longer the sole focus of the work I'm doing. The work and I have evolved.
I have always known GLBT folks and had friends in the community. I must admit that not until my child brought me in as a member of this community did I fully understand its diversity. What I have also came to understand is that much of the community seems to be at odds with others in the community. Many times I experience a sense of the LGB feeling separate and very different from the T which honestly puzzles me. When I hear the stories from the LGB of their childhood experiences, many of them are interchangeable with the childhood experiences of the T. The stories revolve around words like different, ashamed, sad, guilty, lonely, isolated, ridiculed, and bullied...the list is endless really. The point is, if you feel that any or all of those words apply to your childhood experience then you have firsthand knowledge of what it is to be transgender. That is the bond that the LGB has with the T, shared experience.
So my answer today to "Why I do What I do?" is simply this:
To create understanding, to build bridges, to shine light on the fact that we, the inhabitants of this planet and this community, are much more alike than we are different.
E.E. Cummings:
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
Kim Pearson:
Summon your courage and surround yourself with courageous allies and walk with your head held high. We are all amazing...let the light of who you are shine brightly for all to see and from that, compassion and understanding will grow.
For those of you who didn't see it in this weekend's news cycles, my nemesis Alexis Luther recently exposed that I, as mild mannered new media reporter Autumn Sandeen, have really been presenting to y'all the secret identity of CoffeeGirl, the Kryptonian superhero who uses her coffee related powers to keep Earth safe for truth, justice, and the Ameridroid way.
I guess the secret's out -- I'm not quite human at all. I'm actually a "the other" type of alien who cares about humanity instead being part of humanity and caring about "us." (Slogan: We are US, and US is America!) Anywho, now that my superhero identity has been publicly connected to my "secret" identity of mild mannered reporter Autumn Sandeen, I can tell you about stuff that happened last week that I couldn't tell y'all before.
For starters, I checked with my "friends" Mila and Jayna, and they admitted to me that they do indeed keep a stash of green kryptonite in their home under the bed I slept in. They apologized to me after my secret identity was revealed -- they would have kept the kryptonite in their lead lined cedar chest if they had known I was CoffeeGirl, but they'd taken their kryptonite out of the box to show their friend Jenny that they had it, and just hadn't gotten around to putting it back in the box yet. As Jayna said, "It's not like we knew you were CoffeeGirl before you slept in the spare room!"
And as for my computer crapping out? My friend April did admit that to me that she does keep a stash of red kryptonite in the house. For those unaware of Kryptonian mythology, each piece of red kryptonite effects Kryptonians differently -- It's the "mystery effect" kryptonite. So this time, the red kryptonite turned my working, Kryptonian laptop into a non-working model. It's looks like I'll have to replace the effected component, as my laptop was exposed to the red kryptonite for far too long to recover. And unfortunately, the red kryptonite apparently effected me by giving me insomnia -- which lasted for 48 hours during the trip. (That's the other thing -- effects of red kryptonite usually only last 2-days! )
And by the way, when I was young, I suspect it was really pink kryptonite that turned me trans. But, I assume pink kryptonite also infuenced the development of all my coffee related super powers, so of course I wouldn't begrudge my exposure to this powerful substance.
Last Wednesday afternoon, the Atlantic Monthly posted a story online by reporter Hanna Rosin entitledA Boy's Life. The article horribly presents transyouth and their families -- everything from the headline getting the child they focused on wrong (which is in conflict with the Associated Press Stylebook -- the "Bible" of journalism standards) to how Kim Pearson the Executive Director of TransYouth Family Allies (TYFA) believes that the Atlantic betrayed the trust of the families that talked to their reporter. When I asked for a comment from Kim about the article, she told me:
[Hanna Rosin] focused on the most vulnerable family she could have focused on, creating the illusion that this family was representative of all of the families -- and that's just not true. We trusted her, and we felt betrayed.
Kim also told me that Rosin has made it at least twice as hard as before for TYFA to connect families of transyouth to members of the mainstream media (MSM). TYFA's goal in connecting families of transyouth to MSM reporters is so that readers will be educated about transyouth, and in this case with the Atlantic reporter misrepresented what kind of article she was going to write. Instead of educating people about transyouth, Kim and most of her TYFA parents felt betrayed; they felt the Rosin not only didn't paint an accurate picture of TYFA families, but that Rosin exploited a vulnerable family and a transyouth.
And now, a few months after the family talked to this reporter, the child profiled in the story is living full time as a girl and is doing very well at both home and at school. So, it was especially frustrating to Kim that the article gives a wrong impression how the child is actually doing; the child in question's full time public expression of her affirmed, female gender actually resolved the conflict the child was feeling about being a girl. The impression Rosin left was that the child was presenting as gender confused, and that's just not the case -- The child has known who she is, and is comfortable about being a girl; it was the rest of her world not allowing her to affirm her gender which was previously this youth's challenge.
I see the reasons for making these transyouth and their families available to the MSM, but I really appreciate TYFA's dilemma of making transyouth and their families for articles that later turn out to seem exploitive. How many times does TYFA make transyouth and their families available to reporters when so many reporters apparently want to exploit the transyouth? I don't know. Not every reporter does as well as Barbara Walters did with the story of transyouth, that's for sure.
I guess the secret's out -- I'm not quite human at all. I'm actually a "the other" type of alien who cares about humanity instead being part of humanity and caring about "us." (Slogan: We are US, and US is America!) Anywho, now that my superhero identity has been publicly connected to my "secret" identity of mild mannered reporter Autumn Sandeen, I can tell you about stuff that happened last week that I couldn't tell y'all before.
And as for my computer crapping out? My friend April did admit that to me that she does keep a stash of red kryptonite in the house. For those unaware of Kryptonian mythology, each piece of red kryptonite effects Kryptonians differently -- It's the "mystery effect" kryptonite. So this time, the red kryptonite turned my working, Kryptonian laptop into a non-working model. It's looks like I'll have to replace the effected component, as my laptop was exposed to the red kryptonite for far too long to recover. And unfortunately, the red kryptonite apparently effected me by giving me insomnia -- which lasted for 48 hours during the trip. (That's the other thing -- effects of red kryptonite usually only last 2-days! 
)
But, I assume pink kryptonite also infuenced the development of all my coffee related super powers, so of course I wouldn't begrudge my exposure to this powerful substance. 
