"Little girls should not be exposed to naked men, period."

On the other hand: "The college cannot discriminate based on the basis of gender identity." And: "This is not 1959 Alabama. We don't call the police for drinking from the wrong water fountain."

"All you can do while you puzzle over it like a board game is try to figure out which member of the hammy all-star ensemble, unrecognizable in lurid makeup..."

"... wigs, period costumes and rubber prostheses, is playing which man—or woman—while the viewer-unfriendly screenplay squirts and splatters all over the place.... I mean, Hugh Grant as a bloodthirsty cannibal?"

Did you know Rex Reed was still writing movie reviews? 

Here are some trailers for "Cloud Atlas."

Are you still following the Wachowskis, who are no longer the Wachowski brothers?

On Saturday, Lana Wachowski (co-director of the "Matrix" franchise and "Cloud Atlas") received a "Visibility Award" from the Human Rights Campaign for her recent decision to publicly come out as transgender. In a powerful 25-minute acceptance speech, Lana spoke about the pain she went through growing up and how she developed self-acceptance. Video. Transcript. Q&A with the Hollywood Reporter.

From the transcript:

Andy and I have not done press or made a public appearance including premieres in over 12 years. People have mistakenly assumed that this has something to do with my gender. It does not. After The Matrix was released in ‘99 we both experienced this alarming contraction of our world and thus our lives. We became acutely aware of the preciousness of anonymity -- understanding it as a form of virginity, something you only lose once. Anonymity allows you access to civic space, to a form of participation in public life, to an egalitarian invisibility that neither of us wanted to give up.

Summer camp for "kids who don’t fit into society, gender-wise."

Founded by Nick Teich, identified by the Boston Globe as "a social worker who is pursuing a doctorate in social policy from Brandeis."

“Before camp, I was really shy and not confident,” said Gabriel, 15, who has attended camp all three sessions it has been open. “Now, I feel less alone and way more confident.... Here, I realized there isn’t anything wrong with me and there were people like me,” he said. In fact, transgender topics don’t come up all that often at camp, he said. “It’s like it’s not even there, but if we want to talk, we feel totally safe talking to each other.”...

Damien Gabriel, like some of the others, had been on hormone blockers to keep the estrogen at bay and last year started taking testosterone. Two months ago, he had chest surgery to remove breast tissue; he also had a hysterectomy, “which really hurt.”...

The girls tend to wear bikini tops with shorts or little skirts, while the boys wear knee-length swim trunks but leave their T-shirts on. Some, Teich said, wear a binder to flatten their chests. The few who have had chest surgery display bare chests — with horizontal scars.

"Awwww, someone is mad because they look worse than someone who wasn't born a woman. That's jealousy, and it's uuuugly."

"She might want to try some Preparation H for all that butt hurt."

= top-rated comment at Think Progress.

A second-grader's idea for the student newapaper: "How about a story about why people are transgendered?"

Described, in the WaPo, by a mother who was volunteering in her son's class.

I had no idea that the girl’s younger sister was about to officially become her little brother.

The next day, my son came home from school and said: “Mom, you know how you really didn’t know what transgender is? It’s just when you have a boy mind in a girl body. Duh.”...

At a birthday party a few weeks later, I saw the transformation. The 4-year-old’s hair was shorn, the clothes were mini-macho and the child was bouncing and wrestling with the pack....

A week later, the mother e-mailed me, asking whether The Post would be interested in doing a piece on their struggle....

ADDED: Whatever happened to just being a tomboy?

"To have just a clear, definitive EEOC ruling that Title VII protects transgender people gives us so much more certainty and security and solid, reliable legal protection."

"For decades now, advocates and scholars both have been saying Title VII should be applied to protect transgender people... And now, to have the EEOC confirm that, 'Yes ... Title VII should and does protect transgender people when they're discriminated against because they've changed their sex or intend to change their sex or because they're gender nonconforming. That is sex discrimination.' That is really an important capstone.''

Link.

The misguided attack on Sandra Fluke continues, displaying irritating ignorance about women law students.

Robert Stacy McCain, I'm looking at you. Rush Limbaugh has apologized, but McCain bullies on:

Rather belatedly, we are becoming aware that this supposedly typical Georgetown coed is not very typical at all...

McCain links to a blog post from The College Politico, which begins:

Sandra Fluke is being sold by the left as something she’s not. Namely a random co-ed from Georgetown law who found herself mixed up in the latest front of the culture war who was simply looking to make sure needy women had access to birth control. That, of course, is not the case.

As many have already uncovered Sandra Fluke she is, in reality, a 30 year old long time liberal activist who enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students’ birth control. She has been pushing for mandated coverage of contraceptives at Georgetown for at least three years...

Random co-ed?! She's a law student! I've been in law schools since 1978, and I've never heard female law students called "co-eds." What the hell is a co-ed? Even as a word for female undergraduates, it's like you're from 1931. Here's the original teenage heartthrob, Rudy Vallée, singing his great old college song, "Betty Co-ed":

Betty Co-ed has lips of red for Harvard,
Betty Co-ed has eyes of Yale's deep blue,
Betty Co-ed's a golden head for Princeton,
Her dress I guess is black for old Purdue!

I first learned the names of famous universities hearing that song on an LP of college songs that my parents had. The cover photo had rows of pretty girls each holding up a pennant with the name of a college on it.

Betty Co-ed's a smile for Pennsylvania,
Her heart is Dartmouth's treasure, so 'tis said,
Betty Co-ed is loved by every college boy,
But I'm the one who's loved by Betty Co-ed!

Here's the 1931 Max Fleischer film, featuring a Betty Boop prototype and Rudy Vallée saying "hi ho!" and starting a bouncing-ball singalong:



Now, Betty has a lot of boyfriends. Some may even call her a "slut." That was back in the day when a girl on campus caused quite a hubbub. Did Betty put out? What birth-control did Betty use? How much did it cost? Who paid? I don't know, but how many voters of today remember what college was like back when Rudy Vallée was making women swoon?

Now, Vallée's a fascinating character in the history of pop culture:

Vallée... was perhaps the first complete example of the 20th century mass media pop star. Flappers mobbed him wherever he went. His live appearances were usually sold out, and even if his singing could hardly be heard in those venues not yet equipped with the new electronic microphones, his screaming female fans went home happy if they had caught sight of his lips through the opening of the trademark megaphone he sang through.

Vallee had a gentle voice:

Vallée became the most prominent and, arguably, the first of a new style of popular singer, the crooner. Previously, popular singers needed strong projecting voices to fill theaters in the days before the electric microphone. Crooners had soft voices that were well suited to the intimacy of the new medium of the radio.

Ah, the radio! You can't sound too harsh on the radio, especially when you're pouring your sounds into the ears of women. I know one older woman who, finding Rush too harsh, has moved on Bill Bennett, who seems caring.

But back to my point: co-ed.  This is an old-fashioned label to stick on a woman, and it shouldn't be used anymore even to apply to undergraduates. But you just sound ignorant to call a female law student a "co-ed." And that ignorance continues with this talk of Sandra Fluke not being "a random co-ed." None of the students at an elite law school like Georgetown are "random." There's an elaborate, multi-factored admissions process, and it specifically looks for applicants who aren't coming straight from college but have taken time and shown engagement with social and political issues.

A "30 year old long time liberal activist" sounds exactly like the kind of person who would apply to law school and get accepted with enthusiasm, because the schools want students who will contribute to the classroom discussions about the things we talk about in law school, like sex discrimination. This is what classroom diversity means. And we want students who will take their law school education and use it different ways, especially in political activism. So what if Fluke "enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students’ birth control"? I have no idea if that's why she selected Georgetown, but it's not a bad thing, it's not something law schools don't like, and it's not an unusual orientation for a law student to have.

McCain also tells us that Fluke has argued that it's sex discrimination for insurance not to cover "gender-reassignment" surgery. Sorry, this is typical law-journal material. Of course, an advocate in the category she belongs to would make arguments like this. Argue with these arguments all you want. But it doesn't make Sandra Fluke some nefarious pseudo law student. She sounds like a typical excellent law student at an elite law school.

Which is to say: the personal put-downs sound old-fashioned and sexist.

The right wing stepped in it with Fluke. Having stepped in it, they keep smushing around in it.

As a woman, as a law professor, as a woman law professor, I don't want to be seen anywhere near these guys. Could you start acting normal about women participating in public debate?

Now let's have a serious debate about insurance. Yeah. It's not much fun at all. But you've got to quit having your fun with women and sex — in this context! — or you are going to alienate more and more women voters — and men voters — every day. Good lord! It's super Tuesday. We should be talking about Mitt Romney, not Sandra Fluke. Yeah: Mitt Romney and insurance. Boring. Too bad.

"It's personal, it's my privates, it's not necessary. It's a very expensive procedure which I can't afford..."

"... and it's got complications. I'm not sexually active. If I was 21 and I could afford it, yeah, but I'm 59."

Says Joann Prinzivalli, who has male genitalia but would like to require the state of New York to amend her/his birth certificate to identify her/him as female. New York already complies with requests to amend birth certificates to change a person's sex if there has been "convertive surgery" on the genitals. If you think Prinzivalli's demands sound extreme, you should know that the transgender rights movement has already achieved successes that you may not have factored into the scheme of your traditional/antiquated thinking:

The US government and many US states, as well as the UK and Australia, have done away with the requirement for surgery to convert the genitals. That is partly in response to transgender activists who say the requirement was based on an obsolete understanding of sexual identity.

In 2011 the Transgender Law Center successfully pushed for passage of legislation ending surgery as a requirement to obtain a new birth certificate in California....

Under the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, the UK does not require genital surgery before allowing individuals to obtain official recognition of their new gender.

And in 2010, the US State Department issued new guidelines requiring only "appropriate clinical treatment" to obtain a new passport or a birth certificate for US citizens born outside the country.

"It's extremely offensive because it's pretty much saying..."

"... the only way you can be a woman is to get your period."

Deadline Hollywood summarizes the movie and TV history of men dressed as women...

On the occasion of the new TV show "Work It" (which we talked about yesterday):

While it may have deeper implications today than it did decades ago, men dressing like women is one of the oldest forms of comedy. It is at the heart of one of the best feature comedies ever made, Some Like It Hot, as well as several other classic comedy films, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage, and it has had a presence on TV, most notably with the 1980 series Bosom Buddies starring Tom Hanks, and Saturday Night Live where male cast members regularly impersonate female celebrities. And then there is the British school of comedy with Monty Python and Benny Hill. ABC’s president Paul Lee brought up his heritage when explaining his decision to pick up Work It to critics at the summer TCA press tour. “I’m a Brit, it is in my contract that I have to do one cross-dressing show a year,” he said. “I was brought up on Monty Python. What can I do?” As a fellow European who also grew up with Monty Python and Benny Hill, I can actually relate to that...."

I can see the Brit excuse, but it's really awful, if you're going to indulge in argument by listmaking like that, to leave out the most prominent — in more ways than one — cross-dresser in the history of television, the man who was called Mr. Television, Milton Berle.

Here's a great clip of Berle in drag — in a guest spot on Lucille Ball's show.  (If you've only got 2 seconds to spare, click here.)



By the way, what a concentration of comic acting in that 5-minute clip, from everybody involved, including Desi Arnaz, who, if he showed up on TV today, would probably elicit criticism from some dignity-protecting group that doesn't care whether or not comedy has room to breathe.

When trangendered offspring of celebrities...

... attack transgendered offspring of celebrities.

Massachusetts legislature passes a transgender civil rights bill.

But "it was not a total victory for advocates."

The bill does not include language to protect transgender people in public accommodations, which advocates had sought. They will continue to fight to expand transgender protections to include public accommodations, such as hotels, restaurants, and clubs, she said. Opponents had decried those proposals as “the bathroom bill,’’ arguing that they would enable biological men to demand access to women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

"If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl..."

"... Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout."

But what if a child is presented as a boy who has a strong identification with things that are traditionally female? Here's Bobby Montoya, whose mother tried to get him into the Girl Scouts, but didn't claim he was female:



My problem with this is that the argument that he belongs in the Girl Scouts is premised on stereotyping girls. I think the better argument for kids like Bobby is: Let children choose their own toys, hairstyles, clothes and don't make a big deal about whether he or she has chosen things that are more often chosen by members of the opposite sex. Emphasize individual freedom!

Bobby's family put him in a situation where he was excluded because — as the troop leader allegedly put it — he has "boy parts." He has a real physical difference from the girls, and he was classified based on that, not his personal preferences and interests. Now, he's focused on genitalia-based limitations, as if his natural body parts are his problem!

AND: When is it appropriate to make your child a gender celebrity?

"[A]ny male at any time will be permitted in girls’ bathrooms, showers and change rooms as long as they have an ‘innate feeling’ of being female..."

That's what opponents say about Bill C-389 would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to forbid discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" or "gender expression."

The bill probably won't pass, but here's a column favoring it. Excerpt:

Society takes for granted that there are two distinct sexes, with two corresponding ways of expressing gender identity. And we have concocted a range of stereotypes to reinforce the supposed chasms of difference between men and women, boys and girls.
Despite the fact that biologists such as Brown University professor Anne Fausto-Sterling have demonstrated that “nature” itself yields not two distinct sexes but as many as five in a small but still significant number of cases, we still think male or female is something constant and unchanging. Sex is not only something viewed as uncomplicated and self-evident, but masculinity and femininity are tied to one’s birth-assigned sex.

Transsexual and transgendered individuals expose the shortcomings of our narrow categories. Because they trouble this vision of male and female, they have been “socially erased,” to borrow a term from Concordia Professor Viviane Namaste...

As faculty members teaching in the sexual studies minor program at Carleton University, we are not surprised by the comments offered by Charles McVety, president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto in The Globe. [see blog post title, above.] Mr. McVety’s use of the language of pedophilia, and other forms of sexual predation, criminal opportunism and violence within female-specific spaces serves as a perfect example of the pathologization, criminalization and fear-mongering that continues to mark the lives of those within the trans communities.

"When I was trying to live as a man, I was in conflict with God..."

"... and only by living as the woman I was created to be am I in harmony with God."

"It's like I've been terrorized by this for years."

"I wanted to take them to task. I didn't want to settle and pay them. I told them that they weren't going to get a penny from me. I didn't care if I ended up homeless because of this."

Convicted of manslaughter and attempted rape, a man who has not yet had sex reassignment surgery wins the right to be transferred to a woman's prison.

This legal right — under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights — was recognized by the High Court of London:

The prisoner is in her 20s and serving a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted rape....

Describing her as “a woman trapped inside a man’s body”, her barrister, Phillipa Kaufman, said the final step to her achieving full womanhood is gender reassignment surgery - but she had been told she cannot have it while in a men’s prison.

Doctors have refused even to consider her for the operation unless she fulfills the “living role requirement” - living as a woman for an extended period; so she has no hope of getting the surgery she so desperately wants unless moved to a women's jail.

The barrister told Judge David Elvin, QC, that, although the woman has now served her minimum jail term, she has been told by the Parole Board that she remains an unnacceptable risk to the public, still has “a great deal of work to do” and is “nowhere near release”.

That, Miss Kaufman argued, was a direct result of her intense frustration at being unable to have gender reassignment surgery...

Regardless of any extra cost involved, the judge said that to block her progress towards full gender reassignment surgery was irrational and would only increase her risk to the public.

Risk to the public? But this person is serving a life sentence!

The transsexual prisoner, referred to in court only as “A”, was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for five years after smothering her boyfriend with a pillow and strangling him with a pair of tights.

5 years have been served for this killing, and the court finds a right of this person to be put with women in order to do "a great deal of work" and win release.

Her life sentence tariff, the minimum period she must serve before being considered for parole, expired in 2007.

So 3 years was enough for murder!

The judge said that her detention in a men’s jail had both scotched her desire to live fully “in role” as a woman - and thus qualify for a full gender reassignment - and had also had a “serious adverse effect” on her ability to take part in work aimed at reducing her risk status and moving towards release.

Just a little lesson in European-style human rights for you this morning. The linked article says nothing about the human rights of the women prisoners who now must live with a very angry person who: 1. attempted rape and still has a penis, and 2. was strong enough to smother a man with a pillow and tights.

***

How long does it take to smother someone to death with a pillow? 2 to 3 minutes, if he doesn't manage to struggle the pillow away for a gulp of air. Try to picture what this person was able to do 5 years ago and think about why 3 years — 1 year for each minute of strongly applied murderous pressure to a struggling human being — is an adequate sentence.

"Larry Wachowski's purported sex change is right up there with 'Paul Is Dead' and the 'Beaver Died in Vietnam.'"

So, no, it's not true.