This interesting bit from the New York Times: New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice … no genital adjustments required.
Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.
Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.
I’m with some of the doctors on this one. I think it’s extreme, and potentially problematic from a legal identification and social standpoint (affirmative action, population and demographics spring to mind). Birth records are supposed to be factual and a matter of legal and historical record. I believe in self-identification and self-definition. I believe that gender roles are socially prescribed. But how you identify yourself and live your life doesn’t change how you popped out of your mama’s womb.
May I suggest a “Birth gender” and “Current gender” compromise? Or “Born genitalia” and “Current genitalia”?
Okay, that’s not quite how things went. A man on the way to Turkey with his mom allegedly told airport security officials that his penis pump was a bomb, rather than have his mom hear that he was really a kinky lil bastid.
Dude’s attorney says he said “pump” but whispered it so the security agent just knew she heard “bomb.” And well, all holy hell broke loose. Now this man is facing felony disorderly conduct charges in Chicago, and the embarrassment of having your name and “penis pump” mentioned in the same article.
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And new Georgia city John’s Creek and Fulton County are trying their best to keep Love Shack from opening a 10,000 square foot store in John’s Creek city limits. Love Shack, in case it’s not obvious, is one of Atlanta’s “adult novelty” chains. Most locations are pretty cool, though they’re heavy on the bad porn (with fake lesbians, bad-looking sex, and more silicone than a toy factory).
I honestly don’t understand the opposition. They’re arguing that it’s a matter of location (the property isn’t zoned for commercial use, despite being a storefront). But I’m pretty sure it’s a matter of content. Or maybe it is a matter of location: no one wants it to be somewhere where one of their friends may see them.
Here’s hoping / betting that Love Shack will not only open, but be the most profitable store in John’s Creek.
Read the story. And the congregation says a(wo)men 
.
I do fear, however, that Plan B will still be hard to find in much of the country because of the current movement to de-hussify the womenfolk.
Still it’s good news for those who have been raped and condom-breaking situations.
Serious kudos to ABCNews for their news special and online article about AIDS and HIV in black America.
Read it. Watch it. Then come back and discuss. (I won’t promise I’ll watch it though. I prefer to bury my head in the sand on such topics.)
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From the piece:
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Via Feministe: → I Blame the Patriarchy points us to an article from summer 2004 on the rates of death for women in Europe — at the hands of the men in their lives.
And as Twisty reminds us:
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From today’s Washington Post, Lonnae O’Neal Parker writes an essay about the conflicted nature of black women’s sexuality, and how she’s choosing to reclaim it.
The short version:
Sexuality was just one tool — another way to use what you had to get what you needed. Bitter history had taught them that there was no one who [...]
