New feature:TA Tidbits

I’m stealing a way of posting from Autumn and Stephanie over at Abnormal Heights. With TA tidbits, I’m going to post multiple trans stories I find with just a bit of commentary in one post. So without further ado….

***A new television series debuts this fall called “The Dirty Life” that stars Billy Baldwin and Candis Cayne. He quipped to E! Online:

Who’s in Patrick’s closet? A secret transsexual lover named Carmelita, played by real-life transsexual Candis Cayne “Ironically, with all the dysfunction going on in our show, people who have watched episodes two through six are saying that the most sweet, normal and most functional relationship on the show is the one between her and I,” Baldwin says.

And he says he had no trepidation about their love scenes. “She’s the hottest woman on set,” Baldwin says. “Every time she walks across the set or across the lot, she has Teamsters that are veering off course and crashing their golf carts.”

One of my friends succinctly commented:

“It makes it okay. A role model like that (Billy Baldwin) as hot as he is saying that it is okay to think she is hot is actually giving men across America “permission” to be attracted to a transsexual woman without the guilt. People tend to take their TV personalities seriously. Many of our social cues come from television”

***A recent BBC online headline blared “Argentine boy sex change approved“. I find that headline a bit National Enquirer-ish for such a well respected media outlet. The person in question, referred to as “Nati”, is not a “boy.” Pronoun issues aside,  Nati is a year away from what most consider adulthood (she’s 17). Using “boy” seems like bait for the religious right to use.

Marti Abernathey is the founder of the Transadvocate and the previous managing editor. Abernathey has worn many different hats, including that of podcaster, activist, and radiologic technologist. She's been a part of various internet radio ventures such as TSR Live!, The T-Party, and The Radical Trannies, TransFM, and Sodium Pentathol Sunday. As an advocate she's previously been involved with the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance, Rock Indiana Campaign for Equality, and the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition. She's taken vital roles as a grass roots community organizer in The Indianapolis Tax Day Protest (2003), The Indy Pride HRC Protest (2004), Transgender Day of Remembrance (2004), Indiana's Witch Hunt (2005), and the Rally At The Statehouse (the largest ever GLBT protest in Indiana - 3/2005). In 2008 she was a delegate from Indiana to the Democratic National Convention and a member of Barack Obama's LGBT Steering and Policy Committee. Abernathey currently hosts the Youtube Channel "The T-Party with Marti Abernathey."