...And miles to go before I sleep

I am excitedly awaiting tomorrow morning, when I will be driving down to Philly with some friends and attending this year’s conference. I’m especially looking forward to this particular session: Non-Binary Transition: Exploring the Options .

Both on and around.

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6/22/2012, Friday from 3pm-7pm
8th Annual Trans Day of Action
Washington Square Park

Call For Contingents and Endorsements for Trans Day of Action – Please Forward Widely
Trans Day of Action is our yearly march and rally, we would like you to come with your folks and march along with us.  This year we are calling on all Trans and Gender Non Conforming groups and our allies to organize contingents for Trans Day of Action.  A contingent is 5 or more people and will be listed as a contingent on Trans Day of Action materials.  If you would like to organize a contingent to march with us please e-mail Egyptt at jegpytt@alp.org or call 212.463.0342.  

The 8th Annual NYC Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice
Points of Unity
Initiated by TransJustice of the Audre Lorde Project, a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color Center for Community Organizing.  

June 22, 2012
On June 22, 2012, TGNC People of Color and allies will take on the streets of New York City once again and demand justice to let the world know that the Stonewall rebellion is not over and we will continue fighting for justice, raising our voices until we are heard.  We call on activists and organizers from all movements, both local and organizations around the country to endorse this call to action and to build contingents to march in solidarity together on June 22, 2012.  To endorse the Trans Day of Action 2012, send an email to endorsetdoa@alp.org, for more information about the March send an email to info4tdoa@alp.org or contact TransJustice at 212-463-0342 x 15.

We call on our Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) community and our allies from many movements to join us for the 8th Annual Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice. We as TGNC People of Color (POC) recognize the importance of working together alongside other movements to create the world we want to see. We live in a time when oppressed peoples including people of color, immigrants, youth and elders, people with disabilities, women and TGNC people, and poor people are underserved, face higher levels of discrimination, heightened surveillance and experience increased violence at the hands of the state. We must unite and work together towards dismantling the transphobia, racism, classism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia and xenophobia that permeates our movements for social justice, while also celebrating the victories and strides for the rights of TGNC POC. Let’s come together to let the world know that TGNC rights will not be undermined and together we will not be silenced! These are the points of unity, which hold together the purpose of this important march:

• We demand an end to profiling, harassment and brutality at the hands of the police.  Like many other oppressed communities TGNC people are targeted, profiled and brutalized by the police.  This violence does not occur in isolation, and is aggravated by racism, classism, ableism, xenophobia, misogyny, ageism and homophobia.  We call for an end to the current NYPD Quality of Life Initiative and efforts to “clean up” Christopher St. with increased policing. We support FIERCE’s campaign to counter the displacement and criminalization of LGBTQ youth of color at the Christopher Street Pier. We support legislation that would stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence of ‘criminal activity.’ As members of Communities United for Police Reform we demand an end to the discriminatory “Stop and Frisk” and other “Broken Windows” practices of the NYPD.

• We demand access to respectful and safe housing.  Many TGNC POC face severe discrimination from landlords and housing administrators displacing us from our homes due to gender identity or expression.  A disproportionate number of TGNC POC have been or are currently homeless. However, many homeless TGNC POC also face discrimination and violence when trying to access shelters and other assisted living programs.  NYC law and the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) state that people will be placed in shelters according to their gender identity and that discrimination based on gender identity will not be tolerated.  We support Queers for Economic Justice in their demand that all DHS shelters provide adequate Trans sensitivity trainings for all personnel and enforce clear non-discrimination policies that respect the dignity and safety of all homeless people.  We celebrate that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has developed policy and procedures to prevent discrimination related to sexual orientation and gender orientation in their housing programs.

• We demand access to the NYC LGBT Center without fear of harassment, or censorship. We oppose the NYC LGBT Center’s moratorium, on groups using the Center as a meeting space to organize on ‘the issue of the Israeli/Palestinian divide’ and we support demands for restoration of the right of pro-Palestinian groups to meet at the Center. We oppose the reduction in programming and services for the TGNC POC community at the LGBT Center. We call for community members to hold community spaces accountable by voicing discrimination.

• We demand the full legalization of all immigrants. We stand in solidarity with Indigenous-identified Two-Spirit people and the sovereignty of the First Nations, on whose land we now see the US attempt to enforce arbitrary borders.  TGNC POC people deserve the right to access competent and respectful immigration services.  We demand that the consulates of all countries respect and honor our identities and issue passports and other documentation that accurately reflects who we are.  We oppose the Secure Communities program, the guest worker program, the Real ID Act, enforcement provisions to build more walls and give greater powers to the Department of Homeland Security, increased barriers for asylum seekers, and other anti-immigrant policies.

• We are in solidarity with all prisoners, especially the many TGNC POC people behind the walls.  We call attention to the under-reported accounts of violence and rape that our community faces at the hands of correction officers and other prisoners, in psychiatric facilities, and group homes. We demand an end to the torture and discrimination TGNC POC prisoners face.  We demand that all TGNC POC prisoners receive competent and respectful healthcare.  We oppose the continued growth of the prison industrial complex that continues to target our communities, yet we recognize that TGNC POC people need access to services and facilities that lessen our vulnerability to violence within the present jails and prisons.  We call attention to the criminal injustice system that increasingly puts POC, immigrants, people with disabilities, TGNC POC and poor people behind bars - criminalizing our communities and our lives.

• We oppose the US “War on Terrorism” as an excuse to legitimize the expansion of the U.S. as an imperial super power and to justify a national security strategy that is really meant to militarize our borders and heighten surveillance and control over people living in the U.S., separating our communities by fostering feelings of hate, xenophobia, and violence.  We demand the immediate removal of all U.S. troops from all countries under occupation and demand an end of use of U.S. dollars to cultivate and sponsor wars against people in the U.S. and abroad.

• We demand health care. TGNC POC people deserve the right to access health care, receive hormones and necessary surgery.  We demand that health care providers and insurance providers acknowledge this right and provide this service without bias and discrimination.

• We demand safety while utilizing public transportation.  We celebrate that due to a court ruling, TGNC POC are now protected while utilizing public transportation in NYC and can take action against the MTA (NYC’s public transportation system) if it’s employees use discriminatory language.  TGNC POC utilize the MTA daily and should be addressed by their preferred pronoun, should not be targeted by employees or harassed by other customers.  We call on the MTA to insure the safety not only of TGNC POC but of women, children and all riders.

• We demand that all people receiving public assistance be treated with respect and dignity.  We are in solidarity with all people living on public assistance. We celebrate that the Human Resources Administration (HRA), the NYC welfare agency, passed the procedure for serving TGNC clients and approved a community developed training curriculum but we call for full implementation of the procedure including culturally competent trainings for all employees that does not put the burden of education on the TGNC POC community.

• We demand that TGNC POC people have equal access to employment and education opportunities.  We are outraged by the high numbers of TGNC POC who are unemployed.  Many TGNC POC continue to face blatant discrimination and harassment from employers due to systemic transphobia.  Few TGNC POC have access to opportunities for learning in a safe school environment. TGNC POC demand that all employers and educational institutions implement non-discrimination policies that respect the rights of all workers and students and that they comply with the NYC Human Rights Law that prohibits discrimination against gender identity and expression.

• We demand justice for the many TGNC POC who have been beaten, assaulted, raped, and murdered yet these incidents continue to be silenced or misclassified. Instead of disrespecting the identities of TGNC POC, like the New York Times recently did with Lorena Escalera, we call for media to address individuals by their preferred names and pronouns. The police and the media continue to criminalize us even when we try to defend ourselves.  Hate crime laws will not solve the problem but will give increased power to the state to put more people in jail.  Instead we call for a unified effort for all of us to look deeper into the root causes of why these incidents happen.  In striving for social justice we seek to find ways of holding people accountable and coming to a joint understanding of how we can make our communities safer.

We commemorate the memory of Tracy Bumpus, Yvonne McNeil, Deoni Jones, LaShai McLean, Brandy Martell, Paige Clay, Shelly Hillard, Coko Williams and the many brave souls we have lost, who struggled and lived their lives fearlessly, being true to who they were. They keep the fire of struggle burning within all of us.

It seems rather easy to find a compilation of the “gayest” cities in America, but I would much rather read about the queerest cities in America.

Based on my knowledge, I would say that Brooklyn, NY, San Francisco, CA, and Portland, OR would make the cut. What do you think?

Will do :)

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My experience with STPs is pretty limited. I own one STP, the P-Style, and I usually just use it when I’m on the road for a while and need to take a leak on the side of the highway. I’ve tried converting my soft packer into a STP via medicine spoon and aquarium tubing, but was disappointed with the results and de-converted it. I haven’t heard of the stand-to-urimate. Followers, you can chime in on this if you have any reviews. I find that Youtube tends to have some good reviews of STP products if you search something like “stp review”. Good luck!

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Today there was an article on Yahoo with the headline reading “Man Admitted to Hospital for Kidney Stone, Discovers He’s a Woman” . Of course I had to read the article to see what the content actually consisted of, rather than some sensationalized, attention-grabbing title. It turns out that the person had to undergo an an ultrasound for the kidney stones, and the ultrasound revealed that both male and female sex organs were present. Following this news, the patient decided to live as woman. Nice job in choosing an accurate headline, Yahoo.

I mentioned a few months ago that I started applying a tiny bit of my T cream to my cock in hopes of increasing growth. When I found out that I’m having blood work done at the end of June, I stopped doing it because I didn’t want it to skew my levels at all. Since stopping, I’ve noticed some slight shrinkage. I guess that T cream has short-term localized effects on my cock. Interesting.

My prescription was sent out to the pharmacy in Wisconsin without the “quantity” or “maximum daily dose” sections filled out, thereby causing a delay in my prescription renewal. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, but the idea of being off of my daily dose of T, even for a week, makes me feel frustrated. My buddy is going to give me a T shot to last me two weeks, as he has done in the past when Callen-Lorde makes an error.

Hi! Most of the cocks I have reviewed on my blog are realistic or semi-realistic: Fleshlight’s Jason’s Dick, First Mate, John Doe, and the Mustang. You can also check out the “realistic” sections of Babeland, Early2Bed, Good Vibes, and Smitten Kitten (clicking the names will send you directly to that section). If you find that the one you want is still too expensive, try going to shopping.google.com and entering the name of the dildo (e.g., “mustang dildo”) and check out the prices that come up - some places sell the dildos for considerably cheaper. I always think it’s best to support sex-positive, feminist, queer-friendly, trans-friendly stores like the ones I mentioned above, but I also understand that sometimes you just don’t have the money to do so.

The most realistic-looking and realistic-feeling (in terms of skin-like texture) dildos are the VixSkin line - they also happen to be the most expensive. Personally, I find that the shafts of their narrow cocks (Mustang, Goodfella) are a little to flexible for me, but the girth-y ones are more rigid. Good luck on your search!

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T-Wood Pictures Branches out Online San Francisco Based gay/male transgender (ftm) production company T-Wood Pictures welcomes the social networking site butchboi.com into its cluster of websites. In addition, T-Wood is planning on launching it’s own membership site in the next few weeks. T-Wood Pictures, began as Trannywood Pictures in 2005, as an off shoot of EROS-the Center for Safe Sex in San Francisco, to reach an underserved population with safe sex education and community based porn. In 2011 T-Wood’s sibling production company, Dolores Park Studios, was started to appeal to the growing queer, all gender audience. Butch Boi was started in Lansing, Michigan as an event promoter, retail website and a producer of porn for ftms, butches, bois and all who love them. As Butch Boi moved to San Francisco, their focus moved from retail and planning community events to social networking and support of existing community events, such as International Ms. Leather and Butch Voices. The transfer of butchboi.com started March 1 and will continue for the next few months. Ash, creator of the site, said “it’s a great fit, since many of T-Wood’s talent and fans are already members of butchboi.com. I’m glad that the queer SF porn community can pick this up and continue to grow the butchboi community.” Currently, butchboi has nearly 1100 members. EROS started off as a sex positive community center in 1992 focusing on sex education for much of the LGBT community. While the club and T-Wood Pictures are clearly for male identified folks, Dolores Park Studios and now butchboi.com are for a broader range of queer folks

Attempting to search for images of male-assigned-at-birth people with large areolas to feel better about myself.

thunderboltjackson replied to your post: 

Callen lorde no longer requires a certain number of sessions for its HOTT patients. Folks under 24 also now use the informed consent model, if I’m not mistaken.

tristanscott replied to your post: 

Actually, the HOTT program has moved to informed consent as well. I have a friend who just went through it if you need more info.

tristanscott replied to your post: 

Dr. Biel at Montefiore Medical Center also does informed consent and has a sliding scale

Thanks so much for the info, everyone!

When I signed up at the gym near my apartment in 2009, I used my birth name because I didn’t think I “passed” well enough to use my preferred name. So, although I avoid the locker rooms and bathrooms at all cost and think I’m generally perceived as “male” (albeit a young one) at the gym, the owners know my “secret”. One of the owners in particular likes to point out that I’m some sort of extraordinary “female” for lifting weighs often and says things like “Watch out! That’s some muchacha!” and “You have better form than some of the guys here!”

As you can imagine, it’s really, really awkward for me. To think that I’m receiving all of this unwanted attention just because my gym membership has a female name on it is absurd. I try to respond in a neutral fashion to his comments, as not to encourage more of them, but I also don’t want him to think I’m a big unfriendly asshole. I’m a generally non-confrontational, introverted person who just doesn’t know how to say, “Hey, so, remember that time I said that was my name and it was associated with that gender? Well, it’s not. Can you change it?”

I talked to my doctor at Callen-Lorde today and she said I could save some money (and hassle) by renewing my testosterone cream prescription for three months instead of one. Done.

She asked how I was doing on the testosterone cream and I explained some of my concerns about the lack of changes during the past two months. On June 23rd, I’ll have a lab done and on July 6th, I’ll have an appointment with her to discuss the results.

May 3rd marked my fourth month on testosterone cream. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have experienced any changes during the last month, which indicates that it’s probably time for me to get some labs done to see what my T levels are. Today, I changed the location of my cream application to my back, in hopes that changing the site of application would produce more changes, as it did last time.

I have been on 50mg of T daily, which according to Nick Gordon’s guide and another FTM guide, is within the standard dosing (both stating between 50 - 100mg daily are typical transdermal testosterone doses).

That wasn’t me (I’ve yet to upload any sort of erotic videos), but maybe you’re thinking of the Tumblr user “rileyxxx”…? Otherwise, if you search “ftm” and/or “genderqueer” on XTube, you might come across something like that. I hope you find what you’re looking for ;)

(If anyone knows of this video, please message me)

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When I was a kid, my mom had me wear undershirts beneath my shirts. Somewhere between late childhood and puberty, I stopped wearing undershirts for reasons that I can’t recall (though I assume it’s because my mom stopped buying them). The sans undershirt era slowly morphed into the awkward bra-wearing era, which lasted until I was about 17 or 18.

Now, as an adult, I find myself wearing undershirts again. In the winter I wear them for added warmth, and for work and formal occasions, I wear them under collared shirts because I’ve seen other guys do it and have found that it makes me feel less “naked”, if that makes any sense.

Aside from children and masculine folks donning less casual attire, I think I’ve only really seen undershirts worn by elderly men*.

*not including people who wear undershirts as their sole shirt in public, which sometimes I do in the summertime