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.
An Online Magazine in the Reality-Based Community.
SLDN's 18th Annual National Dinner (Washington, DC) Follow live coverage on Twitter and the Blend tonight starting at 7:30 PM ET: @PamsHouseBlend #sldn18.
Hey Blenders. I was checking out the comments in the "Haiti: CNN's Sanjay Gupta left to care for patients as doctors leave because of security fear" thread, and a few of you asked about putting up a widget for breaking news (general and Haiti) on Twitter, since the Prop 8 trial is not back in session until Tuesday. The widgets that were in the columns are just disabled for now and will return on Tuesday.
New widgets
Rather than just make a widget with an RSS feed to stories of news sites, it's been much more useful -- since the the breaking news cycles are now in minutes, even seconds -- to make a Tweetroll of what's going on. Included in the right column we now have a Tweetroll of several news outlets and people who have been doing in-depth reporting. If you have Twitter sources that you can recommend as additions to the PHB Breaking News Tweetroll, you can suggest them in the comments. To get on the Tweetroll the sources need to updated regularly throughout the day, and more references to news rather than personal goings-on.
In the left column I've replaced the old Google Gay News Widget with a Gay News and Blog Tweetroll. These have the top sources I go to, and I'll add more as I find the accounts of others in my RSS feed that have Twitter accounts.
Differences in comment flavor between PHB the blog and my Facebook page.
It has been interesting to see the growth of the net ecosystem for news delivery and sharing in social networks. For instance, I've noticed quite often that when I post one of my stories to my Facebook wall, the number of comments it generates varies wildly from what the Blend does.
One of the things I usually do in my FB post (whether it is about something I wrote or a news story) is add some commentary of my own, and choose to excerpt and substitute a couple of sentences of my choice from the article in the default FB post, something many people may not know that you can do.
Another big difference between commentary on PHB and my FB account is that there are usually more comments on FB, except on major posts here by myself or baristas that heads upwards of 30 comments. Otherwise the thread that develops on FB is much more interactive, more snarky and rapid fire. I can see responses popup on FB to one of my posts in seconds. Out of my 3,784 "friends" I have a fair number of regulars on FB that I've not ever seen delurk here to comment.
Anyway, it's just an interesting phenomenon I've notices in the last several months, and even in terms of hits to the blog, many more now come from FB or Twitter than actual blog pages where someone links to me. The exceptions are controversial or in-depth posts that are picked up by larger blogs or the MSM; those can push unique hits to 2,000/hour at times or more. But that's unusual.
I find myself re-posting many more stories on my FB wall that I could ever write about here on the Blend, since it doesn't require more than writing my own first acerbic reactions in a couple of sentences. When I find a story that does pique enough interest for me to sit down and do a longer post for the Blend it usually comes from one of the Twitter or FB feeds, as opposed to RSS, it's definitely a trend. On the social media sites the limited amount of information that can be passed along makes it easy to "poke" those in your network instantly about a story that will lead to followup and fleshing out later, even into the MSM, since they may be folllowing someone in your network even if you're not connected to them. It happens all the time now, though I don't know how much Twitter sources are cited on a regular basis at this point unless you have crises like Haiti, where many of the reporters have "verified source" added to their account to prove they are who they say they are.
In any case, the passing of news and blog links along to others through social networking to spur instant conversation has changed news dissemination so radically and so quickly that a lot of people in traditional media are both playing catchup (and falling behind) in this new world. It means that a lot of journalists who have been fighting adoption of new technologies are going to be in even more professional dire straits.
For those who think the postings about the personal lives of the Pam's House Blend baristas are self-indulgent, this is probably a diary to skip. This is one of those save-for-the-weekend discussion kind of posts, and it's in the spirit of Pam's House Blend being a virtual lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender coffee house -- and in our PHB virtual coffee house, the baristas (I'm a barista!) will occasionally discuss what's going on in our lives.
So that said, on Saturday I posted my diary about finding out I have a normal male karyotype. Today is another a diary about another medical appointment at the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center, San Diego, from the past week.
Specifically, Friday was my last appointment at the Weight Control clinic -- they "released" me. For those who haven't been following my weight issues for the past two years, I had Gastric Bypass surgery on February 12th, 2008. From my peak weight of 296 pounds, I've lost about 125 pounds -- I've been maintaining my weight between about 165 and 170 pounds, and have been maintaining that weight range for slightly under a year.
The next "stop" in my treatment regimen is a consult to plastic surgeon for a possible tummy tuck. I have some excess skin around my waist, and I rash a bit underneath the fold of that excess skin. So, although the tummy tuck would be ostensively to treat the propensity I have to rash under the skin fold that came into being from relatively rapid weight loss, the obvious secondary result would be having the kind of stomach I could show off in a two piece bathing suit next summer.
Now that is an odd thought. From having a body seven summers ago where only wearing swim shorts was appropriate at the beach or pool, to having a body next summer where breasts and genitalia are appropriately covered in two pieces -- and skin shows between those two pieces -- at the beach or pool...well, that's an interesting change in life experience.
So, a tummy tuck would definitely help my body to become more hourglass shaped than it is now. And, even though that wouldn't be my reason to have a tummy tuck, it is the reason a number of trans women I personally know have had that particular surgery. This is something to think about, my cissexual lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) blender friends -- what's the last surgery you had to better become your L, G, or B self? There is money pit of surgeries that trans women (like me) and trans men may have -- beyond genital reconstruction surgery -- to reshape our non-stereotypically male or female bodies to the more stereotypical norms of male and female body shapes. Consider yourself lucky if you don't need 'em.
It's odd and difficult to blog about my medical woes here, since the Blend has become more of a political coffeehouse discussion space than a personal blog, so I'll save the details for below the fold so folks can opt out to avoid the TMI zone and scroll down to the next post.
Finally, the video of one of the interesting panels I was on at Netroots Nation has turned up (sorry no transcript). I did discuss the whole dustup over having to rewrite the Blend's TOS. Lots of fun listening to the trials and tribulations of how women who blog often pay much more attention to maintaining civility on their blogs (and seem to be expected to) whereas blogs by men often are a free for all.
A few years ago, male bloggers 'round the liberal bloglandia were wondering out loud, "Where are the women bloggers?" Many of the women in the feminist and progressive blogospheres responded with frustration—we were there, and had been, the whole time. Today, the blogosphere looks awfully different, as feminist bloggers are increasingly mainstreamed and able to exert stronger influence on online discourse. But "blogging while feminist" isn't always easy, and feminist bloggers have faced harassment and threats that are uniquely gendered and sexualized. Feminists who have been most successful at running bigger blogs have also been mostly young, white, heterosexual and middle-class—so their issues have been presented to the mainstream progressive movement as the whole of feminism. This panel will look at what has changed, what hasn't and who remains on the edges of progressive blogging. It will also examine how female bloggers—and feminist bloggers in particular—are treated in mainstream spaces, and what we can do about it.
Autumn Sandeen and your blogmistress will represent the Blend at Netroots Nation, held this year on August 13-16 at the David L. Lawrence convention center in Pittsburgh, PA. This is the fourth annual gathering of the progressive Netroots (the first two cons were known as YearlyKos). This year, Kate will join the fun as well.
It's a few days of blogger madness, attended by powerhouse full-time bloggers, part-time keyboard jockeys, readers, fans, politicians, authors, journalists and MSM types. This is a really large conference, with so many sessions, caucuses, screenings and parties it's hard to make decisions on which to attend.
I am on three panels this year and co-hosting the LGBT caucus.
Wednesday, August 12th LGBT Blogger Summit New Organizing Institute
Autumn will arrive a day early to participate in a pre-Netroots Nation LGBT blogger summit hosted by the New Organizing Institute and in partnership with Chris Bowers of Open Left and Mike Rogers of PageOne Q. This summit focuses on important upcoming legislative fights around the country. (I would have loved to attend this, alas, I didn't have enough paid time off available to add another day onto the trip. I try to look on the bright side -- given the economy, at least I can say I have a job.)
From the passage of Prop 8 to the election of Barack Obama to the White House, the 2008 election had a profound impact on the fight for full LGBT equality in all 50 states. This panel will tackle how we win and defend marriage equality state-by-state and how we build momentum for full LGBT equality across America. What are the lessons learned from the Prop 8 loss in California that Maine and other states can learn in their battle for marriage equality? How will we restore marriage equality to California? And how can the netroots help win these battles?
Thursday, August 13th 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM LGBT Caucus, 310 Michael Rogers, Pam Spaulding
Connect with like-minded folks and talk with others from your community in our identity, issue and regional caucuses.
A few years ago, male bloggers 'round the liberal bloglandia were wondering out loud, "Where are the women bloggers?" Many of the women in the feminist and progressive blogospheres responded with frustration—we were there, and had been, the whole time. Today, the blogosphere looks awfully different, as feminist bloggers are increasingly mainstreamed and able to exert stronger influence on online discourse. But "blogging while feminist" isn't always easy, and feminist bloggers have faced harassment and threats that are uniquely gendered and sexualized. Feminists who have been most successful at running bigger blogs have also been mostly young, white, heterosexual and middle-class—so their issues have been presented to the mainstream progressive movement as the whole of feminism. This panel will look at what has changed, what hasn't and who remains on the edges of progressive blogging. It will also examine how female bloggers—and feminist bloggers in particular—are treated in mainstream spaces, and what we can do about it.
This panel will discuss police abuse, racial profiling in stop-and-frisks, the Rockefeller drug laws and mandatory sentencing, immigration sweeps and detention, and opportunities for organizing online and offline. What, if any, steps has the Obama administration taken to address these problems, and what legislative and economic actions should our government take? How do the issues intersect in their effect on people of color? What political, legislative and organizing opportunities are there to challenge these policies?
On Friday I'm definitely attending this:
Friday, August 14th 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Screening Series, 406 Screening: Outrage Michael Rogers, Michelangelo Signorile
From Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) comes OUTRAGE, featuring journalist/blogger Michael Rogers and Sirus/XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile. The film is an indictment of closeted politicians who campaign against the LGBT community and reveals the hidden lives of some of the nation's most powerful policymakers. OUTRAGE looks at the harm they inflict and profiles those who seek to expose their hypocrisy. The film probes the psychology of these double lives, the ethics of outing, and the double standards that the media upholds in its coverage of the sex lives of gay public figures. A Q&A with Rogers and Signorile will follow the screening.
I made the comment below in the reposting of the Trans-ghettoized diary. Pam commented to me privately this past Tuesday on how this comment should likely be unburied from that comment thread, and put on the front page. Dyssonance made the same comment a week ago Friday. So, I'm unburying this -- but I waited for the weekend when we take a little more liberty to do personal diaries.
Basically, this was a response to a comment by Eshto, where that blender commented that the Trans-ghettoized seemed to be a post that called for civility towards trans blenders, and that Eshto thought some of the comments behind why I originally wrote the Trans-ghettoized diary were really over the line. Here's how I responded a week ago Friday to Eshto's comment in that thread:
It's like mothering. We think of mothering as a virtue, but the reality is that you can over-mother a child.
Definitely, the pendulum has swung very widely in the past two weeks. As a group, we at PHB went from piecemeal, sometimes "over-mothering" of threads to, as a group, not "mothering" the threads at all.
I know for me, saying "I'm sorry for my many mistakes" at this point is part of being civil. But, being sorry for "over-mothering" our threads really isn't enough.
It's the repenting that's the more important part. Sure, changing the system we use to moderate will minimize the chance that a "cis- scenario" repeats here. But too, maintaining awareness of my personal potential to over-reach and "over-mother" -- especially when I feel personally stressed -- is going to be another part.
So, it's sort of a two-part fix. One part is The Blend's systematic fix for moderating. The other part is more personal -- changing my perspective and my actions. It's the repenting of my past mistakes that is going to be key for my part in maintaining my own personal civility here at PHB.
As if there were safety in stupidity alone. --Henry David Thoreau
The systematic fix to how we moderate was implemented on Monday, July 13th with the update to the Pam's House Blend Terms And Conditions Of Service (TOS), as well as the blenderReport TOS Violations section (and its Submit Report button) up in the top of the right column.
But, I guess I need to clarify something. And that is, if I actually express that I've made a mistake, or express I was wrong, implicitly I'm saying I'm sorry, and I'm already thinking about repenting -- about how to change my thoughts and behavior so I don't repeat my mistakes.
Sometimes, I don't say the words "I'm sorry" because I think that's understood in admitting I've made a mistake; that it's understood that I have a habit of alwaysrepenting of my admitted mistakes.
But, you blenders shouldn't be expected to attempt to figure out what I implicitly meant. During these past weeks I should have explicitly stated that "I'm sorry." I should have also stated that I have been working out with Pam and my fellow barists systematic fixes to the moderation problem, and that my act of repentance -- that change of my thoughts and my behavior -- was intended as a follow-on to that should-have-been-expressed "I'm sorry."
Basically, I didn't clearly state what I should have clearly stated.
So, I've listened (and listen) to Pam, and I've listened to Dyssonance. So here that comment from the Trans-ghettoized has made it to the front page as its own diary.
So, if it's not clear what I'm saying:
• I made many mistakes at The Blend in "over-mothering" our comment threads for civility.
• I'm sorry I made those mistakes.
• Pam and my peer baristas have implemented a systematic change to way we moderate so the moderation will be more clear, fair, and even-handed with our new Terms And Conditions Of Service (TOS).
• I'm now very aware of my tendency to want to "over-mother" our threads to tamp down anger. Between those systematic changes to the TOS, and that new awareness of that "over-mothering" tendency of mine, my approach to moderating has changed dramaticly.
It really is the repenting of my past mistakes that is going to be key for my part in maintaining my own personal civility here at PHB.
For my civility day post, I wanted to connect a few dots...third-rail dots that are quite similar, but often seen as unrelated. In my own blogging I have tried to made it safe to discuss race by saying no question is dumb, and that mutual understanding can be gained only be holding discussions, not shouting sessions. What this requires from me, though, is a lot of listening, and self-censorship to a degree -- with those who disagree or are coming from a place of anger, resentment or fear, I really have no latitude to become angry or defensive. If I do, it only affirms the belief that the topic cannot be discussed and worse, they can't trust engaging any black person on the topic. While that seems ridiculous, it has played itself over and over, as an entire race is colored by a single negative interaction with a person -- as if class, education, local, family history has no bearing on the individual in question. How ludicrous would it be to say that if I were mugged by a white man that I would then fear all white men? But don't have to look far -- look what happened at the Valley Swim Club, to see that even black children are seen as a threat because of ignorance and fear imprinted on those white club members.
I'm sure none of the members of The Valley Swim Club believe that they are racist, despite the outrageous act of denying minority children access to its pool, because, as John Duesler, president of the club said "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion ...and the atmosphere of the club." I'm sure it was just a poor choice of words, right? Or the sentiments of one mother, who, upon spotting the group of children said 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here? I'm scared they might do something to my child.'" That label "racist" is clearly radioactive to most people. In their minds they rationalize away such incidents because a real racist burns a cross on someone's lawn, or ties a black man to the back of a truck and drags him until his limbs fall off.
They just want to be with "their own kind," right? The justification for self-segregation has lent itself to uncivil behavior and comments in the name of preserving a feeling of comfort for the members of the club, to ensure privilege doesn't get examined or dealt with. As you saw in the comments of one article written about this story, all sorts of strawman arguments came out -- too many kids, too rowdy, not enough lifeguards, etc. For those who enjoy lobbing uncivil bombs into the public discourse, calling these children animals gave them a sad, sick level of satisfaction. We can do better than this.
***
A lot of uncivil discourse is tied directly to the anonymity of the Internet. It provides people the opportunity to cloak themselves and go buck wild online in the most bizarre and embarrassing ways they would never engage in offline. It's gotten so outrageous that a whole new lexicon has been developed to deal with the phenomenon -- flaming, trolling, sockpuppeting, meatpuppeting, astroturfing, comment-spamming, threadjacking -- as people engage in all kinds of unethical idiocy that they can't get away with in the real world (I highly recommend reading "Dealing with hate speech, flaming, and trolls," by Jon Pincus).
This is the one year date-and-time anniversary of the original posting of this diary; oddly enough, given the past two weeks here at The Blend, the anniversary of this particular diary is the actual reason why we originally picked today to be The Blend's Civility Day.
This diary below was, and still is, an important diary here in the history of Pam's House Blend. The reason this diary was and is so important is because it set the institutional tone here regarding the civil discussion of trans, transgender, and transsexual people and issues. It was the declaration that Pam's House Blend, as an online lesbian, gay, bisxual, and transgender institution, was positoning itself to be a welcoming and safe place for all of our transgender blenders -- no matter which part of the trans umbrella our trans blenders fit under.
We lost a good deal of that welcome-and-safe-spacing in the past couple of weeks, and today, in reposting this, we're reengaging this idea of welcome-and-safe-spacing. But because baristas and blenders alike are human beings, the welcoming-and-safe-spacing concept at Pam's House Blend is always going to fall short of 100%.
This welcoming-and-safe-spacing concept is not just for trans community, by the way, but also for the entire lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community -- as well as for our other identity communities (and even our other individual blenders here).
To keep that welcome-and-safe-spacing concept alive though, the onus is no longer just going to be on the management here to keep our virtual coffee shop lounge patroled for TOS violators. If you (in the collective sense of you) want Pam's House Blend to be a virtual LGBT coffee house lounge instead of an anything-goes-free-speech-zone, then your blender peers and you are going to have to step up and take a significant share of the ownership for maintaining our LGBT community coffee house lounge feel. (The management at PHB will cover this in greater detail in a "New TOS" diary due on July 13th, but I'm mentioning for emphasis that the onus for maintaining the LGBT coffee house lounge feel here is going to broadening from just the baristas at The Blend very, very soon.)
Since the intial posting of this diary below, our daily traffic on this website has more than doubled. I'm posting this diary again, then, for all those who didn't see this diary the first time around -- to know how and why The Blend became an institution that aimed to give the broad spectrum of trans blenders a welcoming-and-safe-space. All of us baristas hope again this will be a welcoming-and-safe-space for as much of our transgender subcommunity members in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community as we can reasonably accomodate -- as well as for our other identity community and subcommunity blenders who visit here.
So here begins the repost of Transgender? Transsexual? Trans-Ghettoized?...
Warmest thoughts,
~~Autumn~~
I believe one of the reasons Pam asked me to be a permanent guest barista at The Blend is because I post often on transgender issues, with a goal of educating the broader LGBT community about transgender issues. She and I share a belief in embracing diversity and tolerance, so I'm grateful for the opportunity Pam's provided to me to initiate discussions regarding gender identity and expression in terms of diversity and tolerance here at The Blend.
And yet, being an out transwoman has left me feeling stung a few times here at The Blend -- specifically by people of trans history. For example, in response to a recent diary I wrote, a blender referred "the full time transvestites" (read: transgender people) in stating that she was "not now nor was I ever transgender." Another blender stated that "Hiding in the [trans] ghetto may work for some, but in the long run, it stunts your growth."
Yee-ouch.
So, I think it's time we in The Blend discussed how the baristas use the terms transgender and transsexual here, as well as what some ground rules are for discussing transgender, transsexual, and gender identity and expression related issues here at The Blend.
Unfortunately, it appears we need to discuss the ground rules in terms of the muckier details of discussing transgender issues here at The Blend -- specifically keeping this blog a safe place for trans identified people to discuss trans issues and politics with non-trans-identified folk.
So, we start this discussion regarding harmful, threatening, abusive, hateful or widely offensive terminology used at The Blend about transgender people below the fold.
Today at Pam's House Blend, we're begining by reposting Pam Spaulding's June 3, 2007 diary Civility on the Blend. It's the kick-off post for a day we've declared here to be Civility Day.
Pam's Civility diary goes hand-in-hand with the Trans-Ghettoized diary (that posts later this morning), as both of these diaries from PHB's past go to drawing lines regarding civil comment behavior within The Blend's threads.
So grab yourself a virutal cup of coffee or tea, and remember we're a virtual LGBT coffee house where friends meet to discuss what's on our minds. So, be a friend today (and every day) at The Blend; be civil to others sitting at the virtual coffee house table with you.
And, in conjunction with Civility Day, there will be a number of diaries posted on the front page today regarding civility. Please feel free to include your thoughts on civility towards others -- even behaving civilly to those who disagree with your opinions -- in the comments of all of today's posts.
Hey! It's Civility Day! Woo-hoo!
Warmest thoughts,
~~Autumn~~
Pam's House Blend is for civil discussion of issues. We may not all agree on political matters, but we can stay above calling each other names in threads. From the Community Rules:
This Blog is not a haven for trolls, threats, or people wishing to spam or harass...We have the right to edit, remove or deny access to content that is determined to be, in our sole discretion, unacceptable. Please respect the rights of others to be heard and to be respected. We welcome all viewpoints, but we do not welcome personal attacks on our users, in any form. The moderators of The Blog retain the right to ban any user from posting at The Blog for behavior deemed inappropriate.
Most folks can handle debate and discussion without losing their cool and resulting to lashing out at fellow commenters; others can't even manage to handle themselves after being warned. I have no patience for this and I'm ready to drop the hammer on any user who persists in being uncivil or hijacking threads simply to be contrary and antagonistic. You're not likely to change any minds, and quite frankly, the responses become quite predictable and boring.
Repeated, flagrant use of cursing against fellow commenters, violent threats (even in jest) can result in you getting trapdoored. And no, we don't have to give anyone a warning, but we do out of courtesy. Everyone receives the terms of service when you sign up, so no one can claim ignorance of the house rules.
Comment threads that are mostly full of bickering simply drive readers away, no one commenter is worth keeping in the coffeehouse if they cannot behave. Your booty will be bounced onto the street.
And for the rest of you: the rule of the game is don't feed the trolls.
Hi folks, this is a reminder that the "free speech zone experiment" on Pam's House Blend ends on July 9th; Pam and I (as well as the other baristas) aren't moderating threads until then. To cap off the week, we invite you to join us in a celebration of Civility Day on July 10th.
During Civility Day, we encourage folks to post diaries with their thoughts on civility in various realms: general civility within the Blend's virtual LGBT coffee house; civility between identity communities here at the Blend, elsewhere on The Internets or in society at large; and civility in general society.
On July 13th we'll also roll out the new Pam's House Blend Terms And Conditions Of Service (sometimes referred to in short as the Terms Of Service, or just TOS). All diaries and comments posted July 11-13 will fall under the old TOS; anything posted on the 13th and thereafter will be subject to the new TOS -- that will be announced on a front page post Monday AM.
Update from Autumn: For those of you who think this post is a comment from me that says "F*** it, it doesn't matter if I identified the right first person" of "First actual perceived-by-me weaponizing of the term cis, cisgender, or cissexual" ... that is literally not what I meant. I likely did get it wrong -- it was the first weaponizing of the term that I remembered specifically as the weaponizing of the term, as opposed the probable first actual perceived-by-me weaponizing of the term cis, cisgender, or cissexual. I should have wrote it that way initially, but the way it was presented editorially left it open to wide interpretation. This was not a news story or reporting, but my personal commentary.
In addition, I'm saying that if you think I got the "first" aspect of this wrong, that's probably correct as well. If the point of the continued commentary is to achieve resolution of this editorial or semantic lack of clarity, I'm presenting it here. To those who want me to specifically admit I got the timeline wrong -- I didn't scan the comments looking for the first instance of what I remembered the initial perceived-weaponized-as-weapon comment, it in all likelihood wasn't the first one; that's obviously a mistake. If the purpose of continuing this discussion is to ensure there are clear public winners and losers regarding this entire time-draining endeavor, then this is the "win" you're looking for. The bottom line is that this is the correction, the statement of fact to answer the questions you've expressed. It's not clear that many of you will accept it no matter how it's phrased or presented, but I wanted it to be clear that this needed to editorially be put to bed.
There is a new meme of commentary out there now that I wrongly misstated the timeline of who threw the first snowball(s) in the current cisgender and cissexual discussion.
In the big picture, does it matter who threw the first snowball? Is the argument that no one threw any snowballs? Or, is argument that there were snowballs thrown and I misstated who threw the first snowball? Or, is the argument that I threw the first snowball, and no one else has thrown any snowballs?
Would we all agree that snowballs have been thrown? Does it really matter that much who threw the first snowball or snowballs? Do we need to know who threw the first snowball(s) in this ongoing snowball fight? Or, is the real question WHY is the snowball fight continuing unabated?
And while this fight has been going on and seems to have escalated to pitchforks and torches being passed out at the snowball forts, in the grand scheme of things...
• is the upcoming Latisha Green Hate Crime Murder Trial receiving our attention?
• is the hate expressed at the young, trans woman Angie Zapata Hate Crime Murder being forgotten?
• is our community focused on passing the Matthew Sheppard Act -- the federal hate crime legislation?
• is our community making calls to ensure the passage of a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)?
• have we highlighted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) isn't going to appeal the Diane Schroer trans federal government discrimination case decision?
• is our community taking notice that an apparent hate crime murder of an apparently gay sailor is being called "not a hate crime" by the United States Navy?
I don't care to rehash how and why the snowball fight began at The Blend and the blogosphere in the first place, or who and when the first snowballs were thrown. But now, of course, the snowball fight has taken on a life of its own -- I don't think anything I do at this point will affect an end to the snowball fight. Nothing. What this snowball fight has done is leave me asking bigger picture questions. In the grand scheme of things: What is important to our community? -- What is the bottom line for our community? -- What are the priorities for our community?
Note from Pam: Just so people know,Kynn decided to engage in sock puppetry(as "Caoimhe") and got herself banned again. If you're banned, you're certainly not welcome to come back and pretend to be someone else advocating for the banned person.Take a look.
(NOTE FROM PAM: Autumn wanted to respond to the many emails and comments from the transgender community in response a couple of diaries that generated contentious, often angry and uncivil exchanges between commenters and how moderation was handled. This comment thread is completely for your open feedback; she and I will let you speak.)
Suddenly I'm Miss Farrah Fawcett on TV...
Until I wake up, and I turn back into myself.
Somewhere between communicating effectively -- so that people will listen to my peers and me about trans civil rights issues -- and communicating only anger and hate, I feel lost. I don't want to give into "the tone argument" -- the argument that oppressors get to define what words the oppressed get to use, and get to say "I'd pay attention to you if your tone was better" -- but somewhere between civility and "the tone argument" there must be a balance...there must be a middle ground.
As we've called for civility between blenders here at Pam's House Blend -- well, today I asked my kat Bon-Bon about where that balance and middle ground is. As usual, she silently turned from looking out her perch at the front window -- the window that that looks out on the street -- and silently stared back at me.
[Below the fold -- trans-feminist terminology that's currently spoiled at The Blend, feeling like I'm fruitlessly railing against incivility atThe Blend, and discussion of how I have "an angry inch."]
Excerpt (from below the fold): Frankly, my transgender peers, this is where I began seeing the terms cisgender and cissexual as weapons in the Pam's House Blend threads. When, in my opinion, these terms should be used to teach -- as Julia Serrano and others use the term -- it was used to express anger and hate.
...In my opinion, this blender began this recent Pam's House Blend a discussion of cis- terminology with a can of gasoline and a match, and then has responded with anger as I tried to put out the fires.
UPDATE: My transcription of Pam's remarks now available below... many congrats again, Pam! Louise.
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What a day of news -- thank you baristas and diarists for picking up the slack for me while I was offline. I haven't seen anything about the Obama fed signing ceremony, so I can't comment on it. When I got back to the hotel, I had 150+ emails that filled my inbox since 5 PM when I signed off and I have yet to go through all the blog posts to catch up. I have to hop on the plane in the AM to head to back to Durham, so I guess that this will only further delay blogging on the matter. Believe it or not, I'll only be home about 12 hours and I turn around and head to Chicago to be a panelist at Blogging While Brown. Oy.
Also, thank you, Blenders and bkmn for the diary this evening that is filled with all of your gracious comments. It was a wonderful night at the first Women's Media Center Awards, where I was honored for my contributions to online journalism/new media, along with Rebecca Traister of Salon.com. The event was held at the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation and the room was packed with people excited to see so many accomplished women receive their due.
The awards were presented by WMC co-founder Gloria Steinem along with Carol Jenkins, the president of the org. Below are some photos from the event; Kate and my brother Tim were my guests. Here's a slideshow (argh, I cringe at the pix of me).
Honestly, I'm still bowled over to be recognized for my work here on PHB; it's a labor of love and certainly not a lucrative endeavor. I mentioned in my thank you speech how I am the only honoree who does this reporting/commentary and activism in my spare time, since I have to put a roof over my head with a full time job in the "real world."
I actually managed to make it through my off-the-cuff speech (I only had a scrap of paper with the people to thank on it and winged the rest). I thanked my fellow baristas by name -- and for all of you out there, lurkers and commenters for making this community more than just my ramblings. It was also important to thank the WMC for recognizing the importance of new media/citizen journalism -- and women making a difference in this realm. Naturally I thanked Kate for her eternal patience as a "blog widow", Tim for providing support and advocacy for our civil rights and just being there; and my mom, who passed away in 1997; she didn't live to see how Tim and I have thrived professionally, but she laid the foundation -- stressing the value of education and hard work that kept us out of trouble back in the day, when too many young people in the "hood" in NYC were falling prey to crack, bad schools and broken homes after we moved north as children of an onerous divorce.
Oh, and I eviscerated the Obama administration re: the heinous DOMA brief as well -- when you see the video, people responded to that. Everyone I spoke to in the room was PISSED about the arguments and hateful language in the brief -- White House, DNC, are you listening?
Anyway, enough of that drama, my speech really wasn't very long. I'll have it up once it's processed. Here you go...
Carole Jenkins: ...Democratic National Convention. Pam received the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Manatt Horowitz Trust for making signifigant contributions in the eradication of homophobia, and she provides essential journalism and conversation. Pam, where are you, you're fabulous...
Pam Spaulding: I'm over here.
(Cheers)
Gloria Steinem: Pam, this is to you for creating a website that gives the LGBT community a strong and sightful voice and a center of action.
Pam: Oh my... gosh. Okay, I didn't make a speech, but I do have people I want to thank.
First I want to thank the Women's Media Center, Gloria and Carol; I can't believe that when I got this email, saying that I was going to be honored... I was like, "why?"
(laughter)
"Who am I; I'm just running this little, you know, blog..."
And I think what is most heartening is about being recognized for this award is because it's about new media. This is a catagory, a much maligned catagory, of 'journalism slash commentary, original reporting and muckraking' and we do alot of it at the Blend.
Obviously, same-sex marriage is in the news, and I'm giving the Obama administration hell right now on my blog. The last week has been exciting, to say the least.
I think that a couple of bloggers and I have made it, alot of pressure on our core advocacy organizations like HRC, to do the right thing and come out strong in making it clear that thate brief on DOMA was outrageous.
But I also want to recognize my readers; without my readers, I am just another voice out in the wilderness on the digital space.
I want to thank my co-bloggers; I had to write them down to remember them because I have so many of them now: Julien Sharp, Russ Bellville, Daimeon Pilcher, Terrence Heath, Louise and Lurleen, and I want to give a big shout-out to Autumn Sandeen, who is breaking new ground as a transgender blogger and advocate.
She covered so many issues that it was necessary for me to include her on my roster and it brought so much gratitude from a community that is fighting desperately for rights, and I'm glad we're getting noticed for that, too.
I also want to thank my ever patient wife, Kate; she is a 'blog widow', because I am probably the only honoree tonight who is being honored for something I do in my spare time.
I'm IT manager at Duke University Press, and my director is very kind to let me spend all of my paid time off covering the Democratic Convention last year and the rest of the race, so I am grateful for Duke University Press as well.
Kate, I love you; I love that we are married right now, as we're standing here in New York...
(applause)
We celebrate our fifth anniversary on July first, and we are about to return to our home in North Carolina, where we have no rights whatsoever.
(laughter)
So we're gonna work really hard, at our state level, to do what we can.
And to wrap, I want to thank my brother Tim, who has been with me through times thick and thin, from being nearly homeless for a time, and to my mom, who has passed away.
She died in 1997, so she never got to see her son earn his doctorate and become a professor at the University of Delaware; she never got to see me win this award, but one thing she did stress, all the time, is education.
Reading, from the time we were just out of the womb, she never- she always believed in us, and we always had the intestinal fortitude to go on, even in times of adversity, and Tim, you know we have that bond and we'll never lose it and I am just so grateful for everything. Thank you.
Gloria: I think we better stay on Pam's good side...
Unlike Pam, most of the "hate mail" I receive comes from people who either are, or could be considered, my community peers. I don't get much unfriendly mail from conservative "Christians."
With that in mind, this letter below was actually was sent to Kim Pearson of TransYouth Family Allies (TYFA), but it was directed at our joint appearance on KRXQ's Rob, Arnie, And Dawn In The Morning appearance last week...
my name is [name redacted] and i am a bisexual person, how dare you people do what you did. its people like U and glaad and all these stupid organizations that make people hate us, it makes it so much worse for people like me or gays or transexuals to come out with u people blocking up the media and pissing the community off, your no better than the NAACP, or any other stupid organization like that. one day people will accept us for who we are, and it will be our own doing, and i bet u people will take credit too. All of the people that know im bi are cool with it, nobody cares. its people like you that make it worse for people like me. O and FYI if a guy is born a guy then hes a guy. HE may want to live his live as a woman, and thats 100% ok, but dont get up there and sugar coat the issue, trying to tell people that hes actually a girl, but was born a guy. shut it, its simple science. FEMALE or MALE and on RARE occasions a mix up. and and a transgender is has a 50/50 chance of being gay, depending on the way they look at it. STOP RUINING AMERICA AND PEOPLE LIKE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice. I'm still trying to figure out how Kim and I are ruining this writer.
I guess the point is that it seems to me that for personal critisms, my trans community family, friends, peers, allies -- as well as lesbian, gay, and bisexual community, peers, allies -- are the trans activists' most vocal critics. In other words, it's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, "classic transsexuals," and women-born-transsexual people who are the ones personally attacking individual trans activists the most, and not people in the religious right.
So, to those here who say "I know almost nothing about transgender people and issues," well, that's in large part why I'm a contributor here at The Blend -- to talk about where sex and gender intersects the lives and politics of the myriad of community identities. I'm here, in large part, to educate.
This is also why Monica Roberts writes about the intersestion of race and trans civil rights issues over at Transgriot, and why blogs like Questioning Transphobia, PlanetTransgender, and AE Brain cover other aspects of being trans or intersex.
If you take your laptop and grab a cup a joe at one of the many The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations, don't bother trying to log onto the Blend. I received an email from Phillip with Unite The Fight.
I contribute periodically at Pam's House Blend. My internet went down the last couple days and had to go to the Coffee Bean to work, using their free wi-fi. Both days your site and Towleroad among others were blocked for "sexuality." See attached.:
So this news and commentary site has been deemed by the proprietors to be porno or some other inappropriate sexua content to let their patrons surf to on its free wifi service. Phillip posted about it and wrote OpenDNS and Coffee Bean about its "technical discrimination."
Sure, this shouldn't be anything new to us - we experience "technical" discrimination all the time when we try to visit newsworthy sites issuing stories on LGBT issues, while at work or at the library, simply because the word "gay", "lesbian", the dreaded "homosexual" and other similar key words are detected. As a result, we're immediately blocked for the reason, as described above by OpenDNS, the wi-fi source for Coffee Bean, of "sexuality."
Naturally, I wrote a rather angry email telling them they need to do a better job determining what is porn or "adult" and from what is a news or editorial blog. If I typed in "heterosexual", would the sites pulled up be blocked?
I doubt it.
...Received a response from OpenDNS regarding the Coffee Bean wi-fi:
We only provide network admins with the tools to block content on their networks, we as a company do not block anyone for any reason. If this user (i.e.business) chooses to block a particular type of content on their network, we cannot interfere.
You however, as a consumer, have every right to boycott their business for the way they choose to block content on their networks.
If you have any other questions or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask - we are more than happy to help!
Interesting. And I want to be clear. I never mentioned a boycott. That was them. Waiting to hear from Coffee Bean themselves.
On behalf of Coffee Bean & Team Leaf's Tim Casey, I'm providing a response directly to you regarding the blocked website issue that occurred on the company's server. It has now been resolved, but we feel you need an explanation of how this happened.
"At approximately 3:00pm on Thursday we were notified by a customer using our complementary wi-fi service that two specific sites catering to the LGBT community were blocked from access. Those sites included Pam's House Blend and Towleroad. After learning of the issue, our technical team researched the situation and took immediate steps to unblock the sites that were brought to our attention. It is not, and has never been, the policy of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to block Internet content or websites from our customers or members of the LGBT community. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf subscribes to an OpenDNS platform that incorporates a peer review component which allows users to flag particular sites they deem inappropriate. In this case, a small amount of flags triggered the system and the sites in question were blocked automatically. No web-content filter is perfect, but we are grateful to the customers who quickly brought this to our attention for resolution. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf supports diversity on all levels and values the community members of the areas we operate in. Our goal in offering free wi-fi service is to open communication and exchange of information, not to block information," stated Tim Casey, Vice President of Marketing & Operations, International Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, LLC.
Please call me on either of the numbers listed below to discuss this further and so that I can answer any additional questions you might have.
Best,
Bill
BILL HARRISON Fifteen Minutes Public Relations
8436 W. Third St. | Suite 650 | Los Angeles Ca 90048
The Blend made the list, peeps. The blogs aren't ranked in any particular order. I'm sure some are in your RSS reader (and perhaps some purposely not on them) and others you may not have clicked over to before...
GoodAsYou.org- No surprise Jeremy's here; I love this description:
Good as You's Jeremy Hooper has a higher threshold for ignorance than most. He is in constant contact with some of the most vitriolic people in the antigay movement, but he keeps his cool, and does it with a sense of humor each day on his blog.
I may cover the same loons from time to time, but Jeremy, bless him, corresponds with the fringe. Here's what The Advocate said about the Blend:
Pam Spaulding's blog isn't flashy, but it doesn't need to be: It's smart. In the rush to update their content, most sites don't find time to analyze. Not Pam -- her news-centered content delves into issues of race, religion, and politics and their affect on gay and transgender people. Spaulding launched Pam's House Blend during the 2004 presidential campaign as a place for people to discuss issues intelligently; hence the coffeehouse-related name.
Yeah, it isn't flashy; that's an understatement. It's looking rough around the edges these days, dusty corners and all, showing its age, isn't it? Sadly I don't have the time (what's that?!), money or design skilz to undertake the much-needed digital coffeehouse renovation that the Blend deserves (any talented volunteers, lol?). But the coffee still tastes ok, since Blenders keep returning for refills and new people find their way over.
Obviously if you can read this, you know the coffehouse is accessible again. What was the issue? Back end problems with domain forwarding issues @ Soapblox. Sigh. Had to redirect the IP and it took hours to propagate.
Anyway, I was already feeling like crap with a massive headache and increasing fasciculations (today's $10 word; I go to the neurologist next week) totally out of flipping control, so I probably couldn't write anything worth a damn anyway. So I sat up and watched the Dog Whisperer at 2AM and gave up trying to fall asleep again and checked to see if the Blend was back online. So no new content from me is in the queue other than this post.
Anyway, there's a lot going on Wednesday, including the Uniting American Families Act hearings at 10 AM ET. You can watch the live webcast of the hearings here; so if you are tuning in, you can also gab about the proceedings in the Chat Room.
I love it when we receive truly deranged emails like this. At once insulting and hilarious, you have to imagine why this person is even reading this blog if they are so completely unnerved by what is said here. How embarrassing is this missive?
------- Original Message --------
Subject: Prop 8!
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 23:41:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: redacted email
To: tips at phblend.com
Lady...oh excuse me "DYKE!"
I've just spent the last humorous hour reading some of the rubbish on that site of yours. I find it overwhelmingly pleasing to know that the Gay rights agenda, or movement as you'd probably prefer to call it, has such a distasteful hatred for the religious right.
You despicable parasites are just as bigoted as the ones you choose to accuse!
The Prop 8 situation in California is a prime example. You all cry about the rule of law and how you feel that all you freaks are being treated like 2nd class citizens...yet, when Prop 8 comes along and is done in a legal manner by way of the voters of your state...you just cannot agree with it.
The absolute funniest damn part of this whole thing is that the Supreme Court of our most LIBERAL STATE...upheld Prop 8 by a 6-1 vote....now THAT IS FUNNY!!
If someones beliefs don't jive with the way you think they should...the extremists within the queer movement resort to all sorts of vial tactics to make a point. Case in point...you sick repulsive sodomites vandalized and disturbed a Mormon Church service protesting the fact that the church openly backed Prop 8!
It didn't matter that there might have been a possibility that NONE OF those particular church goers had any direct connection to anything Prop 8, let alone even voted for it. You sick bastards decided to act out your frustration on innocent people with your vial crap!
You sick repulsive bastards even try to push your sick agenda even within public schools any chance you get.
The Constitution does NOT grant you special treatment...and that INCLUDES the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, you stupid ignorant morons!
When I was younger and in school...I never really took sides on this issue, let alone, strongly voiced my OPINION! Back then I could really care less.
As I've matured with age though, and especially having seen the vial crap your movement has dished out for the past couple of decades, I have stepped forward and changed my ways.
Now, if that makes me a BIGOT, then FINE!! I wear that with a badge of honor!
When the closet door swung open and all you HIV infested sodomites walked through the door...you all left the door ajar and open...I think it is time you all went back into the closet and closed the door behind you. America was a far better place back then...we can have peace and tranquility yet again!!
Ah, I'm reminiscing on Greeley, Colorado this weekend.
Well, So here's a fun kind of diary post I saved for our more lax weekends -- the hilarity of exchanging fan photos with Beth Karas. She's someone whose work I highly respect, and she's now someone I count as a friend.
When we were in Greeley, a fan of her's came up to her at one point while we were discussing the Angie Zapata Hate Crime Murder Trial. The fan wanted an autographed photo, so Beth went into the TruTV In Session trailer and retrieved a photo for the fan, and autographed it. Well, as long as Beth had the photos out, of course I asked for one!
The autograph (made with a silver Sharpie):
To Autumn -
You're a highlight of the trial - stay in touch always
Love,
Beth
So kewl.
Well, I promised that I would send her a reciprocally signed, 8" x 10" "fan photo" of me in my women's Dress Blue Navy Uniform when I got back home to San Diego. Well, I followed through on that promise last week...
[Below the fold is my autographed, "fan photo" that I sent to Beth.]
Well, my first article for an alternative LGBT publication was published this week as well. The Gayzette published How Valuable Is Your Life?
This second article is similar in scope to the piece in Frontiers IN L.A. Magazine, but it's a more coarse piece for a different, edgier audience. Basically, I use "four letter language" in that piece that I usually don't use in writing at all, and don't use in my day-to-day conversations as much as I did when I was a sailor.
I'm not going to post the text in this piece, instead, if your'e interested in reading that piece, please go to the Gayzette link and read the text of my piece -- found on Page 10 of the May 2009 issue.
I'm planning on writing another piece for next month's issue, and probably writing as a regular columnist there after that. As publisher Rich DeMarah I were discussing recently, there just isn't exactly a plethora of established trans writers to choose from if one is looking for a columnist to write from the trans perspective. Frankly, having a political, trans columnist on his team will set his publication apart -- even from other alternative LGBT publications. And, of course, I see that as a good thing.
Pam reminded me Thursday that I need to update my Pam's House BlendAbout Autumn page to add my media appearance on TruTV In Session, and my two LGBT media articles. Updating that webpage sounds like a project for me to tackle this weekend, for sure.
New widgets
This is one of those save-for-the-weekend discussion kind of posts, and it's in the spirit of Pam's House Blend being a virtual lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender coffee house -- and in our PHB virtual coffee house, the baristas (I'm a barista!) will occasionally discuss what's going on in our lives.
So, although the tummy tuck would be ostensively to treat the propensity I have to rash under the skin fold that came into being from relatively rapid weight loss, the obvious secondary result would be having the kind of stomach I could show off in a two piece bathing suit next summer.
As if there were safety in stupidity alone.
For my civility day post, I wanted to connect a few dots...third-rail dots that are quite similar, but often seen as unrelated. In my own blogging I have tried to made it safe to discuss race by saying no question is dumb, and that mutual understanding can be gained only be holding discussions, not shouting sessions. What this requires from me, though, is a lot of listening, and self-censorship to a degree -- with those who disagree or are coming from a place of anger, resentment or fear, I really have no latitude to become angry or defensive. If I do, it only affirms the belief that the topic cannot be discussed and worse, they can't trust engaging any black person on the topic. While that seems ridiculous, it has played itself over and over, as an entire race is colored by a single negative interaction with a person -- as if class, education, local, family history has no bearing on the individual in question. How ludicrous would it be to say that if I were mugged by a white man that I would then fear all white men? But don't have to look far -- look what happened at the Valley Swim Club, to see that even black children are seen as a threat because of ignorance and fear imprinted on those white club members.
What a day of news -- thank you baristas and diarists for picking up the slack for me while I was offline. I haven't seen anything about the Obama fed signing ceremony, so I can't comment on it. When I got back to the hotel, I had 150+ emails that filled my inbox since 5 PM when I signed off and I have yet to go through all the blog posts to catch up. I have to hop on the plane in the AM to head to back to Durham, so I guess that this will only further delay blogging on the matter. Believe it or not, I'll only be home about 12 hours and I turn around and head to Chicago to be a panelist at 
I love it when we receive truly deranged emails like this. At once insulting and hilarious, you have to imagine why this person is even reading this blog if they are so completely unnerved by what is said here. How embarrassing is this missive?
