Underground Transit

Audience Response

2010-11-30T20:15:00.002-05:00

WORD OF MOUTH
Yours is the Best Press

I attended Scott Turner Schofield: Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps on Saturday, 9/19.
What an exceptional show! I was so impressed with Scott's unflinching honesty about what it means to be transgender. He is an
extraordinarily brave person with a truly innovative artistic voice. I was touched, enlightened and filled with laughter, all in the span of a single performance.
Congratulations to Scott! I hope the awards keep coming his way.

I saw your show tonight at Real Art Ways in Hartford and wanted you to know how much I loved it. The "127 Steps" and "choose your own adventure" format was pure genius, I think.

i just wanted to thank you for your art. i'm not sure yet what it means to me-- a 20something, woman-born woman, married to a man (i guess i might fall into the "Questioning" category, whatever that means...)-- but i'm certain, on a grander level than just my own context, yours is great and necessary work.
Thomas King, a Canadian Storyteller and educator, wrote in his book (first a lecture series) The Truth About Stories: "the truth about stories is that's all we are". that was the first thing that came to mind when i saw bits of your performance on YouTube. You give me hope in people-- in the ability to change people through stories and in the ability to trust people with stories. Thank you.

Just wanted to say that it was a pleasure working with you at DiverseWorks! At our staff meeting yesterday, we talked about how awesome your performance was and how the TG community rules in Houston. You have made such an impact on all of us! Anyways…

Just wanted to make sure you that got this fantastic review from The Rice Thresher!

http://media.www.ricethresher.org/media/storage/paper1290/news/2009/02/27/Entertainment/Thoughts.On.Schofields.GenderBending.Becoming.A.Man.In.127.Easy.Steps-3651627.shtml

Thanks again for performing at TransGiving. You stole everyone's heart and refused to give any of them back, especially Jason's. Now he sees why I think you and Ryka are both such special people, and he wants to understand more about transgendered and genderqueer folk.

- After Trans/Giving, Los Angeles, 11/08

Thanks again for presenting to our Counseling Center staff and guests last Wednesday morning, as part of your time at UCF. The feedback that I heard was very positive, and it seemed that everyone found your talk valuable. I enjoyed meeting you and appreciate your working with us on this.

- After University of Central Florida workshop for mental health professionals, Orlando, 10/08

Thank you so much for coming to Rollins this week and for speaking to us as faculty, staff and students. I found your presentation to be informative and inspiring, offering me a sense of clarity and compassion for a community I will admit I do not often think twice about. Thank you, thank you, thank You.

- After Rollins College workshop for mental health professionals, Orlando, 10/08

I wanted to tell you how fantastic you were! To put yourself out there like that takes a lot of courage and I applaud you for having the confidence in yourself to do that and share how wonderfully diverse yet ultimately, in a deeper sense, how similar we are. With such honesty yet keeping it light with your humor.

- After "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" at 7 Stages, Atlanta, 8/08

I just wanted to reiterate how much Jay and I enjoyed your show last night. Your story is a fascinating one, and beautifully told.

- After "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" at 7 Stages, Atlanta, 8/08

i was so touched by your performance.

there was a strong connection for me in watching it...... seeing that is was sooo very real.

not that i thought it wouldn't be , or that of it was made up. you are so very brave. i wanted to hug you, but when i shook you hand, i couldn't even talk because i wanted to cry. not from being sad, but just feeling like i wasn't alone.

it hit me very hard, because i've kinda been struggling for the past year with my identity, and all the labels there are to choose from. i don't want to have to choose, or have to explain myself and who i am to anybody.i am trans.but i always felt like i had to look a certain way.....to actually be able to use that, for people to understand me in this community.

but its me.its who i am. and i accept it.

it made so much sense....made me so comfortable to watch you and hear you......i cried during your show. and i felt like the audience...maybe took some of things that you talked about differently than i did. i just understood it. i understood you.

and i understood myself better than i have in recent months.

i can't wait to read your book, to read all of your stories.....because some of them are mine too, you know?

- After "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" at 7 Stages, Atlanta, 8/08

I was at the Evergreen workshop performances and I was wondering how well the Seattle show went.
127 Steps was one of the most moving and dialectical things I've ever seen. I talk about it to all of my friends and what an intense experience the show was.
The flier hangs in my studio because it was something so thought provoking.

- After "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, 10/07

My Last Word on the Censorship of TOTWK

2010-04-09T14:41:00.000-04:00

I will not accept that the verb "remove" is a "protest" or a "boycott." It is censorship, and the most insidious kind, because it comes from us on us. I asked this question before: When does "my" trans representation cross the line and become "your" target for "removal"? None of us should even be considering this slippery slope. That is my entire point.

Protest and boycott all you want. I believe in protest, I participate in boycotts, I do and support grassroots activism. Protest is important -- the reasons to protest TOTWK are sound, even -- and I am not in any way criticizing the opinions or actions of those who wish to protest this film. That's why I posted BOTH the call to protest (which unfortunately demanded censorial "removal") AND an opinion in favor of the film (and against the proposed censorship of it). I hope this clears up any misunderstandings about my position on this, and I hope that any further comments will actually take seriously my opinion on this as a censorship act rather than a call against a protest.

To the comment I now paraphrase which said something like "removal by a private organization is not the same as censorship by the state," I ask you: When every arts venue is now the "Staples Center for the Arts," the "Olive Garden Performing Arts Center," the "Microsoft Theater" -- that is to say, when there is practically zero money for the arts coming from the government and our venues are all corporate/privately sponsored...I ask you then, does censorship not exist anymore if it's not being done by the government? I'm sorry, but no. Censorship is censorship. It happens way more by commercial interests because they are in many cases above justice according to the law. We have to be even more careful about censorship when it's based in commerce/capitalism.

The worrisome aspect of *this* brand of censorship is that it comes from within my own community and is being enacted upon someone in our community who is just trying to make art. Poorly, perhaps. Not totally thought out, absolutely so. I've seen the film now, that's what I think about it. To fail is every artist's right and responsibility. We get the bonus of doing it publicly!

Protest may help Israel Luna grow, or it may shut him up forever. If we believe that we are a community that is dedicated to growing full human beings--even the artists--we must question how we are going to support our culture makers. How many people reading this have wanted to publish a blog or make a film but were too scared about what other people (who read this blog) will think and then say about them? That's called *self* censorship, and it comes from moments like these, and it stops us from being able to lead full lives, express ourselves freely, and continue to make culture. Censorship kills culture and hurts people.

Why are GLAAD and MAGNET using conservative tactics of removal to serve the liberation goal of making a better world for transwomen? Haven't we all be removed enough already, and transwomen in particular? Further, why are they reacting to every wrong step? Where is the plan from GLAAD and MAGNET for the world they want to see and the steps they will pro-actively take to achieve it, rather than the constant attention to how we are victimized? I don't want to be a victim anymore. I want change.

My therapist tells me that I must "Teach people how you want to be treated." I know I don't want to be censored, and I feel sure GLAAD, MAGNET, and you, dear reader, don't want that either. So let's get on with supporting culture rather than squashing it, because culture is the only way any group advances in society.

To see my live-tweeting while watching the film Ticked Off Trannies With Knives, please visit www.twitter.com/turnerschofield or www.facebook.com/scott.turner.schofield

Still Against Censorship, even of TOTWK

2010-04-07T12:16:00.003-04:00

A good interaction last night. Clearly this fight is not for lack of love.

A response I received from my commentary:
so i've only been following the progression of responses on this issue from a distance, so it's possible that there are new developments that i'm not aware of, in which case feel free to tell me that i'm missing some key information.

but censorship doesn't seem like the primary issue to me here. absolutely, the filmmakers have a right to freespeech and free expression, no matter how hateful or trans-misogynistic i ultimately find that expression to be. that said, deciding not support that work is not the same as censorship, though i know it can turn into a fine line. a film festival doesn't screen every movie submitted, it picks and chooses those it deems the best of the bunch. so in choosing to screen
TOTWK, it is, to an extent, endorsing the film. holding tribeca accountable for the content is chooses to promote is not the same thing as censoring the freedom of speech of the film makers who produced TOTWK. i get that boycotts can turn into censorship and it's a fine line to walk-- but when the immediate response immediately goes to freedom of speech and accusations of censorship (which is a pretty common response when something gets called out as hateful, offensive, etc.) we lose ground on which to have conversations about accountability and responsibility. the tribeca film festival has the right to screen any film it wants, just as the film makers have the right to produce whatever content they choose-- but as someone who believes this film does real, tangible harm to people i love and my community, there is no way i will support it or any organization that promotes it. that doesn't strike me as any different than our choices not to frequent certain businesses whose practices we disagree with, etc.

I responded:
The reason I characterize this as a dangerous censorship issue (which does real, tangible harm to people I love and my community too), is for one word in the press release. Remove. Remove from the festival.

In my heart and I'm sure once I see it in my mind and likely every fibre of my being...I'm very sure we agree on the politics of why TOTWK is not a good film for anyone on any level. I'm firmly in the boycott position on that one, and I havent seen the movie yet. Okay.

Protest. Make a movie about this movie and why it really hurts real people and screen it at the same time, illegally, on the wall above the Tribeca logo. That would be an amazing protest, no? DO IT!!!! I'm there!!!! I'm holding the projector!!!!

But do not "remove" anything from any festival, lest we forget how our identities have been and are "removed" constantly from textbooks and history books and even library shelves. How that removal makes us feel isolated. How that isolation does real, tangible harm to people we love and ourselves too.

Love, Scott Turner Schofield

When does my trans work become your anti-trans work?

2010-04-06T14:51:00.000-04:00

Hi there Ashley,

Thanks for sending me your letter. I want you to know that I am posting it, as well as the opposing view pasted below, so that people may make their own decisions based on two well-thought-out, good-hearted, but very-much-opposing points of view.

I have to tell you that, as a full-time working artist who has been censored, I get verrrry touchy when people start telling artists what they can or cannot say, portray, or do. Especially artists who are marginalized by societal attitudes/ignorance about their identities.

You know my work, you know its heart, you know what it does. What line do I have to cross to get protested? When does my trans work become your anti-trans work? Who gets to make that decision? You? GLAAD? 1700 people on Facebook? Most of whom have never even seen my work? Really?

This is a really tough call for me, because I respect the heart of the anti-TOTWK argument, I respect, support, and publicize the work of most of the organizations who support the boycott/censorship attempt, and I appreciate the allyship being modeled. I would want you to have my back with your organization and passion any day of the week and I am proud of the way you have made your opinion known.

But I will never stand with any side that advocates censorship for any reason.

As an artist who has been censored for doing trans work, I simply will not do that to another artist or, for that matter, human being. Unfortunately, a racist sexist classist homophobic transphobic anti-choice walking slopbucket of power and privilege has just as much a right to say their piece as I do in this country. I would never want anybody else to experience the true powerlessness, the absolute injustice of a successful censorship attempt like the one I experienced. You can find out about that here: http://www.undergroundtransit.com/UTObserver.html

I have been silenced enough as a transperson, and that is the reason I make art. When that power, that Civil Right, was taken away from me, even white-passing-privileged-class-man-who-loves-women me felt a profound sense of oppression. Simply put, everybody in the situation agreed that I did not deserve to exist. No hyperbole there: representation is visibility and voice, therefore representation is existence. Censorship hurts. Censorship is the side of the power game that the people in *our* movement, the one you and me are a part of even in this argument, work consciously to avoid in order to create a safe and empowering world for all people.

Supporting the anti-TOTWK side in this moment would be just like supporting the conservative transphobes in North Carolina who pulled my show at the last minute because I take off my shirt to show what a transperson who loves his body looks like. They didn't like my brand of transgender expression, either.

I truly hope that after taking my stand, you and your group won't turn around and try to censor me, or withdraw your support of my work because I disagree with you. I hate that I have any cause to imagine that you would, but here we are: you are trying to censor trans work because you don't agree with the perspective it represents - you want it removed. I hope my own work and opinions will not be removed from you or your co-sponsoring organizations network in return. I hope your group can see clearly that I have a different experience of the issue of censorship, one that deserves as much respect as anyone else's, and that this is the only locus on this argument where we part ways. Being anti-censorship does not mean being pro-TOTWK. I haven't seen it yet, I have no idea what I think about the film itself, but I do know that it has the right to be on the bill at Tribeca like every other film that passes their selection criteria for the art of filmmaking.

All the very best to you my friend and ally, with great respect and support for your part in this struggle.

Sincerely,

Scott Turner Schofield

The Anti-TOTWK Appeal:

Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Trans People (MAGNET)

CONTACT: Organizer of MAGNET: Ashley Love- 310 415 9515 Email:magnet_right_now@yahoo.com

Press Release: For immediate release April 4, 2010

“Protest/rally Against Tribeca’s Decision to Premiere Transphobic Film “Ticked Off Trannies With Knives”

What: A protest/rally demanding that Tribeca Film Festival remove the transphobic film “Ticked Off Trannies With Knives (TOTWK)”. Melissa Sklarz (Director of New York Trans Rights Organization), Ashley Love (Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Trans People), Denise Le Claire (Exec. Director of International Foundation of Gender Education), celebrities, & LGBT activists will be speaking. A candle light vigil for trans victims of hate crimes will also be held.

When/Where: Tuesday, April 6^th, 2010 6:30-8:00pm @ Tribeca Cinemas @ 54 Varick Street, NYC

Why: The movie makes light of violence and rape against trans women, exploits the high-profile murder of teenager Angie Zapata, includes the pejorative term “trannies” in its title, inaccurately depicts trans women’s identities as drag queen “performers” and “caricatures” and misrepresents the lives of an extremely disenfranchised group who suffer violence at alarming rates.

Kim Pearson, Executive Director of Trans Youth Family Allies, says "Negative and stereotyped media portrayals of transgender people hurt the community because Americans still need more education on transgender issues. The images in this film (TOTWK) make a mockery of their lives. I want more for my child and all transgender people.”

“The transsexual and transgender communities are all too often the victims of violence, marginalization and discrimination as a result of inaccurate media depictions like this film, which is offensive, dehumanizing and misogynistic and causes further misunderstanding and harm to an already dangerously oppressed minority group”, states Ashley Love, Organizer of Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Trans People (MAGNET).

MAGNET had a meeting with staff at Tribeca Center on Friday, March 26, educating them about why this film is extremely problematic and dehumanizing. They refused to remove the film or make a statement that they don’t endorse the oppression of transsexual and transgender women, so MAGNETis now organizing a protest/rally, in association with Families United Against Hate, International Foundation For Gender Education, New York Trans Rights Organization, and Remembering Our Dead, to demand that they remove the film, and to draw attention to injustices trans people face in everyday life and in the media. Many trans advocates, trans organizations, women’s groups and allies voiced their concerns to GLAAD, expressing they needed aggressive action. GLAAD issued an uncompromising and strong petition & call to action demanding that Tribeca remove the film: http://www.glaad.org/calltoaction/032510

To support or endorse protest on Tuesday, receive information about issues raised or press questions, or become involved in anti-defamation/media work for the transsexual and transgender communities:

CONTACT: Organizer of MAGNET: Ashley Love- Email: magnet_right_now@yahoo.com

Join the “Boycott TOTWK” Facebook page & find more info/articles on the story: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=103500239687288&ref=mf#!/group.php?gid=106926329329724

For info/articles on issues raised: Ashley Love’s blog: www.transformingmedia.blogspot.com

Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Trans People (MAGNET) is an anti-defamation organization dedicated to educating the media about transsexual and transgender issues, as well as pushing for more authentic and positive portrayals of trans people in the media.

The Anti-Censorship-of-TOTWK Appeal

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

AN OPEN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF "TICKED-OFF TRANNIES WITH KNIVES" IN THE TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

Two weeks ago, a campaign to boycott Israel Luna's film "Ticked Off Trannies With Knives" began, and within days GLAAD had joined the cause with a call to action on the GLAAD blog. The facebook group currently boasts over 1,700 members. I have seen this film and I am writing this letter today to support it, and to encourage people to stop protesting it. As a transsexual, and as a filmmaker, this boycott saddens me deeply and I hope that this letter encourages folks to disengage from what I believe to be an attempt at self-promotion by a group of professional transgender activisits, not artists, not concerned members of the community.

First, and really the letter should end with this statement as well, censorship is never the answer. Ever. And if you believe that pulling a small, low-budget independent film, that features trans people as main characters, does not constitute censorship, you have never tried to make art about trans people in America in the 21st century. Activists succeeded in removing a film called "The Gendercator" from the line-up at the Frameline Film Festival in 2007 after it was deemed by "community leaders" to be transphobic. Who elected these trans community leaders? Not me, not you--but whoever they were, they had no qualms about speaking on our behalf. This pattern is sincerely troubling to me, as it brews a climate of fear among trans film and video artists and people looking to make work about trans people. Censoring these films is a step in the wrong direction.

Ok, assuming that you agree with me about censorship, but that you think maybe sometimes people SHOULD be afraid to make work about trans people, let me tell you, I agree with you. There are actually many trans characters in mainstream film and television--they often appear in gay and lesbian films to help the gay or lesbian protagonist out of a sticky situation, for instance. On television, transsexual characters are overwhelmingly the victims of violence (usually sexual) and/or they are perverted perpetrators, such as on Law & Order SVU, which received a GLAAD media award in 2009. The other trans character you're likely to find on TV or in a movie is what I like to call the "liarsexual"--that is to say, their "lie" about their gender usually propels the plot in some way. "Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives" is not in that genre.

All of those types of trans characters appear all the time and (a) they suck and (b) no one is protesting them. In fact, when L&O SVU puts out a casting call for trans people for an upcoming episode, my friends stampede to the studio, eager to claim their $100 check and a chance to see what Chris Meloni is like in real life.

"Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives" has none of these characters. Not the secondary characters who exists to help a non-trans protagonist (Better Than Chocolate), not a victim of violence (Boys Don't Cry), not a perverted perpetrator (Silence of the Lambs) and not a liar-sexual, who propels the plot of the film by concealing his/her "true" identity/gender until a dramatic reveal causes another, more important character, to change and/or grow (The Crying Game). Even the (GLAAD-award-winning) Transamerica, which has a trans character as a protagonist, situates the trans character completely alone and in a thoroughly heterosexual context (reconnecting with her son). "Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives" has three main characters--all transwomen--who have their own character arcs and their own motivations.

The boycott organizers, and GLAAD, cite a main issue with the content of film--that it fails to represent the lives of "real" transgender women. This argument disturbs me because that means that either #1 GLAAD and the boycott organizers believe that there are a limited number of ways to express being a "real" trans person or #2 trans character can only appear in dramatic works that are in the "realism" realm. Without getting into a history of filmmaking, it is safe to say that this particular stylistic complaint is severely misguided and limiting to trans artists. Non-trans filmmakers are allowed a wide-range of cinematic styles with which to portray their lives, and filmmakers working with "authentic" trans characters should be allowed the same. "Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives" is satire and camp and action/adventure all rolled into one feature film. Within these genres, the protagonists are a commanding prescence and an inspiration to the audience. No viewer of this film would mistake this for being a "real" movie--the film is highly stylized to invoke the experience of watching a B-movie from the 70s--from 16mm film artifacts added in post production to a placard reading "We're sorry but some of the reels of this film may have been lost."

Which brings us to the other reading of that argument--that there is one way of being a "real" transwoman. The feministing article about the film complained about the transwomen's use of the word "balls"--which apparently rings as insulting and inauthentic. Maybe some transwomen bristle at this, but I can assure you that this feels "real" to some people. If you're wondering how this can be true, think of how many times you've heard a trans guy talk about pussy (his own or someone else's). It's true, that this is a particularly difficult joke to make in front of non-trans people. I don't walk into a room of straight people and start talking about my vagina, for instance. But I might, if the room were filled with my trans friends. And that's the remarkable thing about this film: it features transwomen (five of them at one point!) talking to each other about their lives in an informal (and let's just say it) "real" way. And viewers have very few examples of this peek into (what I consider to be) my world. Trans people with trans friends, who talk about their real lives openly and stick up for each other when the shit hits the fan.

What seems to be at the heart of this argument is that the organizers feel comfortable only with the narrative films that include trans characters as victims (GLAAD cites "Boys Don't Cry" as a "good" film as opposed to this "bad" film) or documentaries about trans people that feature their "changes." I don't hate most of those movies, but any trans artist will tell you, this is a very limiting rubric if you're looking to make work about trans people. Eventually, being a transsexual gets very boring. The sex change operation is over, your body stops changing and you have to just get on with the rest of your life. Limiting trans work to the sex change operation is the equivalent of telling gay filmmakers that they should only make movies about "coming out" stories. "Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives" is the ACT/UP Fight Back response to the transgender victim of all those other films--what if every gay movie was (that terrible Oscar-winning trash) "Philadelphia"? What if every gay character was an asexual "AIDS victim"? That would be depressing, right?

"Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives" is a film that I would have been proud to make, and that I connected to because it is what it says it is--a revenge fantasy. Every time a trans woman (and let's be honest, most of the violence towards trans people is directed at trans women) is murdered, I want to pick up a knife and kill the guy who did it, and then set his body on fire, and then hang it in City Hall park to warn the rest of them that if they fuck with trans people, they will pay. But that doesn't happen. Because that would be wrong, and counterproductive and violence (like censorship) is never the answer. But am I glad that in this movie, for a couple hours, I finally do have the opportunity to get revenge? To stand up against the people who brutalize trans people? Absolutely.

So how do you evaluate a film for its transgender content? First, seeing the film can be especially helpful (the great majority of the people trashing TOTWK have only seen the trailer). After that, it's really a personal decision. Here's the rubric I use:

#1 Is there just ONE(1) trans character? If there is only one, the trans person is probably just there to serve some purpose for the protagonist/screenwriter. If there are two or more, there is a better chance that they are "real" characters. (Are you a trans person? Do you have at least one trans friend? Yeah, me too.)

#2 Do you see before and after pictures of the trans character? If there are before/after pictures, or a mention of their old or "real"/"legal" name you are be watching a BAD movie or TV show. Start the facebook group and trash the producers, pronto.

#3 Is the dramatic question "Will s/he get the sex change operation that they desperately want?" and/or does the trans person die at the end of the film? If the plot is about getting "the operation" you're probably watching the product of a filmmaker/screenwriter/producers's fantasy about fascinating transsexual people. There ARE brutal murders of trans people in "Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives," but this event propels the revenge action, and the other characters fulfill their arcs as mighty warriors rather than as pitiful victims.

Essentially, the boycott was proposed by people who have very little experience with reading and comprehension of media and representations of trans people in film, perpetuated by GLAAD, an organization that is no friend to trans people who is seeking to jump on what it sees as an opportunity to curry favor with what it sees as a grassroots movement because it is too lazy to do any real work on trans issues. The "movement" is actually mostly a facebook group that has grown in size because of the lack of effort required to "join" a movement online (what I call single-click activism) and I predict very low turn out for tonight's "protest."

I encourage you all to take your friends, see the film, and write and share your own thoughts.

New York City Residency LIVE, part 1: Princess Grace Special Projects Grant

2010-02-02T18:40:00.000-05:00

My Princess Grace Foundation Special Projects Grant starts today! I write from the East Village of New York City, thanks to the generosity of author T Cooper, in whose apartment I will read and write and create my first full-length, multi-character play.

Well, okay, it's not my first, but it's the first one I will have written without a collaborator, the first that has a shot at actually being produced. Bonnie Metzgar, artist extraordinaire and Artistic Director of Chicago's ABOUT FACE Theatre challenged me to the project, and I am so very grateful to her for that supportive kick in the pants.

The play's about ghosts, illness, money, and the vital force that is live theater.

I'm writing to keep a running history of what I'm doing. Folks have mentioned that they'd like to know about it, and I am happy to oblige. Please feel free to comment with your own thoughts, but I ask that you not refer to the creative work at hand - that's my job! But your support and thoughts in general are always important to me, and I thank you in advance for them.

Off we go!

Scott Turner Schofield Calendar Dates

2009-11-09T21:49:00.000-05:00

10/4-9 - CDDB | Lorient, France

"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps"
INTERNATIONAL DEBUT!!!
Residency activities TBA, 9/22 thru 10/3

10/14-16 - Trinity College | Dublin, Ireland
"Underground Transit" (revisited)
INTERNATIONAL DEBUT!!!
Residency Activities TBA 10/14 thru 15, performance 10/16

11/17-18 - Brown University | Providence, RI
"Debutante Balls"
Residency activities 11/17, performance 11/18

12/4-5 - Painted Bride Art Center | Philadelphia, PA
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps"
Buy Tickets Now
National Performance Network Residency
presented by Painted Bride Art Center.
This Residency was made possible in part
by an Anonymous Donation
administered by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.

SPRING 2008
Scott will be making limited appearances due to a
2007 Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship in Acting

1/20-27- The Carnival Center | Miami, FL
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps"
The Studio Theater
National Performance Network Residency
supported by an NPN Community Fund Grant
presented by Tigertail Productions

1/28-2/3 - 7 Stages | Atlanta, GA
WORLD PREMIER!!!
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps"
8pm Thurs - Sat.
National Performance Network Residency

2/22-24 - The Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally
College Conference 2008 | Urbana-Champaign, IL
"Debutante Balls"
and Workshops
Show: 8:30pm, Greg Hall, UIUC Campus
FREE

3 /24-30 - Out North | Anchorage, AK
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps"
and residency activities
7pm Thurs - Sat.
4pm Sun.
Tickets $17.75 online, $20 at the door

6/19-22 - FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL, San Francisco, CA
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" (excerpt)
Project Artaud Theater
Thurs. 6/19: 8pm
Fri. 6/20: 8pm
Sat. 6/21: 8pm
Sun. 6/22: 7pm
Tickets $15

8/8-10 - TRANSOHIO Conference, Columbus, OH
details TBA

FALL 2007
Scott will be making limited appearances due to a
2007 Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship in Acting

10/19 - The Evergreen State University | Olympia, WA
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" workshop & residency
The Experimental Theater
National Performance Network Residency

10/27 & 28- Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC) | Seattle, WA
WORLD PREMIER!!!
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps"
8pm
National Performance Network Residency
presented by The Pat Graney Company

11/6-9 - Appalachian State University | Boone, NC

11/12-19 - Legion Arts Center | Cedar Rapids, IA
Debutante Balls
National Performance Network Residency

SPRING 2007

1/20 - The University of Wyoming at Laramie
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
with Athens Boys Choir

1/22-23 - Butler University | Indianapolis, IN
Debutante Balls, 7pm

1/27 - Femme Mafia Masquerade | Atlanta, GA
Special Drag Performance
with Wild Ivy

3/5-10 - The Pat Graney Company | Seattle, WA
"Words Can't Describe" Workshop
A National Performance Network Residency
supported by an NPN Community Fund Grant

3/23 - SUNY Purchase
Debutante Balls, 7pm

3/25 - Colgate University | Hamilton, NY
Transgender 101 Workshop
part of Big Gay Weekend

4/2-6 - Indiana University of Pennsylvania | Indiana, PA
Debutante Balls, 7pm

4/12 -Macalester University | St. Paul, MN
Underground Transit, 7pm

4/15-16 - Yale University | New Haven, CT
Debutante Balls, 7pm, 4/15
Master's Tea, Branham College, 4/16

4/17-18 - The Playwrights' Center | Minneapolis, MN
"Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" script workshop

4/17 - District 202 / Outward Spiral Theater | Minneapolis, MN
"Words Can't Describe" Youth Theater Workshop

4/19 - University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, MN
Underground Transit, 7pm

4/25 - Emory University | Atlanta, GA
Trans 101 Workshop

4/27 - Marietta College | Marietta, OH
Debutante Balls, 7pm

10/2 - Franklin & Marshall University | Lancaster, PA
Debutante Balls, 7pm

5/18 - Moxie Cabaret | Atlanta, GA
Moxie Cabaret WORLD PREMIER
Master of Ceremonies
Spring 4th, 9pm SHARP

FALL 2006

10/10 - Appalachian State University | Boone, NC
Debutante Balls, 7pm

10/11 - The University of Georgia | Athens, GA
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
with Athens Boys Choir

10/12 - The University of North Carolina at Asheville
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
with Athens Boys Choir

10/22 - International Drag KingCommunity Extravaganza | Austin, TX
Drag Brunch!
check out IDKE 8!

10/24 - Rice University | Houston, TX
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
with Athens Boys Choir

10/27 - The Forum at College of Santa Fe| Santa Fe, NM
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
free to students, $5-10 General Public
with Athens Boys Choir and Cooper Lee Bombardier

11/1 - The University of Wyoming at Laramie
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
Student Union
with Athens Boys Choir

11/5 - Reed College | Portland, OR
The Southern Gents Tour, 9pm
Reed College Chapel
with Athens Boys Choir

11/6 - The University of Southern California | Los Angeles, CA
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
Ground Zero Coffeehouse
with Athens Boys Choir

11/12 - National Performance Network Annual Meeting | Cedar Rapids, IA
Debutante Balls excerpt, 2:10pm

11/14 - Portland State University | Portland, OR
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm
PSU Student Union rm. 228
with Athens Boys Choir

SPRING 2006

1/1 - 7 Stages | Atlanta, GA
"Hard Up in 2006", 12:15am
part of Art Amok!
produced by Word Diversity Collective

1/13 - The University of Wyoming at Laramie
The Southern Gents Tour, 7pm

3/15 - The University of Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh, PA
"Debutante Balls"
8:45pm, William Pitt Union
Sponsored by the Rainbow Alliance

3/22 - Emory University | Atlanta, GA
"Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps - A Memoir in Performance"
7pm, Harris Parlour
Sponsored by the Center for Women at Emory, The Office of LGBT Life
and the Department of Theater Studies
map

3/23 - Charis Books & More | Atlanta, GA
Transinclusive Healthcare
(panel speaker)
Charis and Feminist Women's Health Center bring you a panel discussion
on healthcare for transmen and transwomen, FTM and MTF transexuals,
and women questioning their gender.
We will hear from healthcare practicioners, transpeople and more.

4/5 - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Debutante Balls"
Time/Venue TBA

4/8-15 Touring with the Tranny Roadshow
find out more

5/17 and 19 - Hugo House | Seattle, WA
presented by Pat Graney Dance Company
"Debutante Balls"
and "Words Can't Describe" with area queer/trans performers and allies.
Week-long community performance residency precedes performances.

5/26-28 - Jump Start Performance Co.| San Antonio, TX
"Debutante Balls"
and "Words Can't Describe" with area queer/trans performers
Week-long community performance residency precedes performances.
Jump Start Performance Co

FALL 2005

9/13 - The Poynter Institute | St. Petersburg, FL
"Underground Transit" at American Stage, 4pm

9/23 - Southern Comfort Conference | Atlanta GA
Selection from "Debutante Balls", 1pm

10/7 - Agnes Scott College | Decatur GA
The Southern Gents Tour

10/17 - Bates College | Lewsiton, ME
The Southern Gents Tour

10/18-20 - Cornell University | Ithaca, NY
10/20: "Debutante Balls"

11/7-9 - West Chester University | West Chester, PA
"Underground Transit"

11/15 - Reed College| Portland, OR
The Southern Gents Tour

11/16 - Portland State University | Portland, OR
The Southern Gents Tour

11/17 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Underground Transit"

11/19 - TransGiving | Los Angeles, CA
"Debutante Balls" teaser

11/20 - The University of California at Los Angeles
"Debutante Balls" teaser

SUMMER 2005

7/29-30 - 7 Stages | Atlanta, GA
"Words Can't Describe"
with S. Bear Bergman

6/16-18 - National Queer Arts Festival | San Francisco, CA
FRESH MEAT 2005
4th Annual Festival of Transgender and Queer Performance
ODC Theater

SPRING 2005

2/10-13 - The University of California at Santa Barbara
"Debutante Balls"
part of the GenderQueer/Queer Genders Conference

3/3 - Hampshire College | Amherst, MA
"Debutante Balls"

3/4-8 - Emory University Brave New Works Festival | Atlanta, GA
"School's Out"
a new play by
Scott Turner Schofield and Mark Blankenship

3/15 - Columbia College | Chicago, IL
"Underground Transit"
and "Performing the Personal as Political" Workshop

3/29 - Vassar College | Poughkeepsie, NY
"Debutante Balls"

3/31 - Butler University | Indianapolis, IN
"Underground Transit"

4/3-4 - Wesleyan University | Middletown, CT
"Underground Transit"
and "Performing the Personal as Political" Workshop

4/13 - Emory University | Atlanta, GA
"Debutante Balls"

5/16 - Northwestern University | Evanston, IL
"Debutante Balls"

5/5-29 - 7 Stages | Atlanta, GA
"Wizzer Pizzer"
a WORLD PREMIER play by
Amy Wheeler

FALL 2004

9/23-24 - The Chicago Single File Festial | Chicago, IL
"Debutante Balls"
WORLD PREMIER
www.singlefilechicago.com

10/4-7 - Emory University Brave New Works Festival | Atlanta, GA
"Turn Me On"
A New Play by
Sheri Mann Stewart and Scott Turner Schofield
Directed by Snehal Desai

10/8 - The Radial Cafe | Atlanta, GA
"Body Heat"
A Queer Spoken Word Extravaganza
Featuring:
Femrotica
The Athens Boy's Choir
Scott Turner Schofield
with MC Adriana
All proceeds benefit Georgians Against Discrimination

10/12 - The University of Houston | Houston, TX
"Debutante Balls"
Houston Room, 8pm

10/15 - The University of North Carolina at Asheville
"Debutante Balls"
Highsmith University Union Rm. 143, 7:00pm

10/21 - The University of Virginia | Charlottesville, VA
"Gay Marriage Here Today"
A Community Response to
House Bill No. 751

11/7 - LadyFest South | Atlanta, GA
"What to Wear / The First Week of a Nightmare"

11/18-20 - The University of Wyoming at Laramie
"Debutante Balls"
and Transgender 101 workshops

12/3 - Peterborough, NH
"Debutante Balls"
(Private Event)

12/9 - Boston, MA
GenderCrash Feature

SPRING 2004

April - The B Complex| Atlanta,GA
Early excerpt from "Debutante Balls"
part of SEEN+HEARD: Atlanta's Women's Arts Festival
produced by EstroFest Productions

2003

11/7 - The University of Virginia | Charlottesville, VA
"Underground Transit"
and "Performing the Personal as Political" Workshop

10/11-12 - The University of Wyoming at Laramie
"Underground Transit"
and "Performing the Personal as Political" Workshop

(fabulous hosts and audience members, 10/12)

9/4-6 - sTaGes 2003: The First National Transgender Theatre Festival
New York, NY
"Underground Transit"
9/4-5 at Under St. Mark's Theater
9/6 at the WOW Cafe

7/29-8/3 - The 27th Annual Meeting of ALTERNATE ROOTS | Winder, GA
"Underground Transit"

6/25-26 - HERE Arts Center and Dixon Place present
The FUSE Festival - the celebration of queer culture in New York City
"Underground Transit"

Kt with Kate Bornstein after the show!

4/6-9 - AIDS OASIS Conference | Pensacola, FL
"Underground Transit"

4/3 - The University of North Carolina at Asheville
"Underground Transit"

3/3 - First Existentialist Congregation | Atlanta,GA
"The Lysistrata Project"

1/9-18 - Actor's Express | Atlanta,GA
"This Train"

2002

10/21- Ondine & Co. | Atlanta,GA
"Falling as Sport"
part of "Damaged but Not Dead and Other Hilarious Survival Stories"
produced by EstroFest Productions

10/12 - LadyFest South | Atlanta, GA
"Underground Transit"

9/29 - Southern Comfort Conference | Atlanta, GA
"Underground Transit"

9/27-10/6 - Theatre in the Square Alley Stage | Marietta, GA
"Underground Transit"
produced by Theater OUTlanta

8/30-31 - Mumm PuppetTheater | Philadelphia, PA
"Underground Transit"
part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival

6/22-28 - PushPush Theater | Atlanta,GA
"Underground Transit"
part of "Vamp/Revamp" produced by EstroFest Productions

March/April - Emory University | Atlanta, GA
"Underground Transit"
Honors Thesis showings

3/11 - Bennington College | Bennington, VT
"Underground Transit"

3/9 - Bard College | Poughkeepsie, NY
"Underground Transit"
part of WORD! Spoken Word Fest
with Jessica Care Moore and Willie Perdomo

2001

12/1 - Charis Books & More | Atlanta,GA
"Underground Transit"
WORLD PREMIER

2/18 - PushPush Theater | Atlanta,GA
Early excerpt from "Underground Transit"
part of SEEN+HEARD: Atlanta's Women's Arts Festival
produced by EstroFest Productions

GLBT arts at Sleepless Nights - South Florida Blade

2009-10-29T13:39:00.001-04:00

A very nice mention about "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" in a South Florida Blade article about an exciting new GLBT arts festival in Miami. The festival is curated by Robert Rosenberg, Founder of the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and Director of the seminal documentary Before Stonewall. Check it out!

GLBT arts at Sleepless Nights - South Florida Blade
http://rooh.it/90583

You should totally check out the Out In The Tropics Festival! Robert Rosenberg has incredible taste when it comes to art and queerness. This festival will be a force to be reckoned with - watch out, NYC and SF!

Here's the Festival info: http://fundarte.us/fundarte_event.html

The Fall Tour Begins!

2009-09-18T01:13:00.000-04:00

The only good thing about the last official day of summer is...
office supplies, all crisp and new-paper smelling?
hours and hours of driving, for the whimsical purpose of leaf viewing?
the pervasive sense that Things Can Be Accomplished, in spite of the coming of winter?

Well, okay. All of those things are good.

But if you're me (or if you're you - you're on my mailing list!), fall rocks because it means the Fall Tour begins!

If you go to www.undergroundtransit.com you will not only find Scott Turner Schofield's fall tour schedule, you may also enjoy a whole new web design! (I only point it out because I made it myself, and, well, I'm proud.) Be sure to check out the workshops page, because we've got a few new ones to share.

We have a couple of dates left for the fall (in November, specifically), and the spring is all fresh and just waiting to burst forth with performance and community residencies. Spring forth, I mean. Heh heh.

This is a good point to introduce my new fabulous Tour Manger, Ms. Carey Martin. She is happy to be sweet and helpful to you when you email booktransperformance@gmail.com to book a residency. Welcome aboard, Carey!

And finally, this fall, we kick off the Trans-Community Tour! That means we'll be dropping in on communities where legislation to provide equal rights on the basis of gender identity and expression is being considered. I'll bring my stories, and create workshops for folks of ALL gender identities and expressions to tell theirs.

We're working hard with the media to make this a very high-profile event, too. The point being to help raise awareness in ways that bring the heart of the matter to the fore. I can't wait to share the results with y'all, so be sure to check out www.undergroundtransit.com often to see videos, hear interviews, and check out the press we get as we spread the word for this important cause.

We really need your help to keep this tour going. Our goal is to raise $2,500 per city to bring high quality performance that will attract mainstream attention to the vital movement for equal rights for ever gender expression and identity (eg, yours). Please consider a donation of any size to help us reach this goal, one story at a time.

See you soon, and thank you as always for your wonderful support!

KIT, BFF, ENDA NOW!
Scott Turner Schofield
and
Carey Martin

www.undergroundtransit.com
facebook.com/scott.turner.schofield
twitter.com/turnerschofield
booktransperformance@gmail.com

Listen: Transgressing Gender

2009-09-11T14:38:00.000-04:00

I got to speak with the very wonderful Peterson Toscano on WNPR today. Click here to listen!

Hartford Advocate: Stage - Transgendering the Stage

2009-09-09T15:47:00.000-04:00

Hartford Advocate: Stage - Transgendering the Stage

Check out this excellent article about me and the fabulous Peterson Toscano, re our upcoming shows in Hartford CT!

Stop TRANS Pathologization-2012 - Transgender News | Google Groups

2009-09-02T20:41:00.000-04:00

Wherever you fall on this argument, here's some info. I post for the sake of "all for one, one for all" movement building.

Stop TRANS Pathologization-2012

Submitted by arvan on 30 August, 2009 - 00:23

The main action of the stp2012 campaign is the simultaneous
demonstration, in various cities around the world, every October since
2007.

We demand:
1. The retirement of GID from the international diagnosis
manuals (their next versions DSM-V and ICD-11)
2. The retirement of sex mention in the official documents
3. The abolition of the binary normalization treatments to
intersex people
4. Free access to hormonal treatments and surgery (without the
psychiatric monitoring)
5. The fight against transphobia: working for education, social
and labour insertion for trans people

Next demonstration will take place the 17th of october 2009, in more
than 20 cities.

If you want to join the campaign and start mobilizing things in
your city, or for any doubt, question, support, joining, encouraging…
write to stp2...@gmail.com

We are speaking to all the trans activists of every city in the
world, proposing to start spreading this action.

Our objective stands clear: to mobilize in a united way at an
international demonstration against the Gender Identity Dysphoria, and
to demand its removal from the next DSM-V and CIE-11 (manuals that
are going appear in 2012 and 2014, respectively).

Source: Stop TRANS Pathologization-2012 <http://stp2012.wordpress.com/>

Last October 11 2008, 11 european cities held demonstrations under the
same slogan and equal objectives: Madrid, Barcelona, Vitoria, Bilbo,
Donostia, Gasteiz, Lisboa, Zaragoza, Paris, Lille, Bruxelles. (more
info on : http://manitransbcn.blogspot.com/)

The objective of the next 17th of October 2009 is still the
de-pathologization of transgenderism and transsexuality, and the
purpose of this calling is to really achieve a coordination that
allows us to have an international fighting day as big as possible, so
we can make enough pressure to force the American Psychiatric
Association Assembly so that they raise the possibility of removing
the GID form its next manual.

MANIFESTO

International Network for Trans De-Pathologization

Activists and groups that sign this document and formed the
International Network for Trans Identities De-Pathologization of
Public Complaints again psychiatrization of our identities and the
serious consequences of the "gender identity disorder or gender" (
TIG). Similarly, we make visible the violence inflicted on the
intersexed by existing medical procedures.

With "psychiatricization" Name the practice of defining and
transsexuality under the statute of mental disorder. We refer also to
mistaken identities and non-regulatory bodies (outside the dominant
cultural order) with pathological identities and bodies.
Psychiatrization relegates the medical-psychiatric institutions
control over gender identities. The official practice of these
institutions, motivated by national interests, religious, economic and
political works on the bodies of people by protecting and reproducing
the pairing of man and woman, by passing this position exclusive by a
natural reality and "real". The binomial, presupposes the existence of
only two bodies (male or female) and associates a specific behavior to
each of them (male or female), along which has traditionally regarded
heterosexuality as the only possible relationship between them. Today,
denouncing this paradigm, which has used the argument of biology and
nature to justify the existing social order, we show its social
effects to end its political pretensions.

The bodies anatomically unresponsive to current western medical
classification are listed under the heading of intersexuality, a
condition which, per se, is considered pathological. The medical
classification, however, continues even today without being
questioned. Transsexualism is also conceptualized as a reality in
itself problematic. Gender ideology serving psychiatry, however, still
remains unchallenged.

Legitimize the social norms that constrain our experiences and
feelings means invisible and pathologizing the other options
available, and mark a path that questions the political dogma that is
based on our society: the existence, unique and exclusive, only two
forms of being and feeling. If invisibilize means intervening to
intersex newborns (that * s functional with ambiguous genitalia) with
standard treatment and violent will, if what it is to erase the
possibility of these bodies and veto the existence of differences.

The paradigm that current procedures are based care transsexuality and
intersexuality makes these standards in medical processes binary.
"Normalization" as they reduce diversity only two ways to live, and
inhabiting the world: statistical considerations and politically
"normal." And with our criticism of these processes also are reluctant
to have to adapt to the psychiatric definitions of man and woman to
live our identities, so that the value of our lives is recognized
without the renunciation of diversity in which we are constituted. Not
abide by any documentation, or label, or definition imposed by the
medical institution. We claim our right to call themselves.

Currently transsexualism is considered a "gender identity disorder,
mental illness classified in the ICD-10 (International Classification
of Diseases of the World Health Organization) and DSM-IV-R (Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Psychiatric
Association-North American). These classifications are that guide and
psychiatrists around the world in establishing their diagnosis. They
make a mistake just by chance: the confusion of the effects of
transphobia with transsexualism. Invisible social violence is exerted
on those who do not conform to gender norms. Thus, actively ignoring
the problem is not that gender identity is transphobia.

The revision of the DSM-IV-R is a process that began two years ago,
and aims to determine changes in the list of diseases. In recent
months have made public the names of psychiatrists who will decide the
future of gender identity disorder (GID).

Leading the group working on the TIG are the Dr.Zucker (group leader),
Dr. Blanchard and Dr. Bailey, among others. These psychiatrists, who
are known for using reparative therapy for homosexuals and
transsexuals renewal and which are associated with intersex clinics
involved to propose not only remove the disorder but not to extend
treatment to children will * s * s showing no gender behavior
-regulatory and adaptive reparative therapy apply to the role of
origin. In this sense, the American trans movement has called asking
for his expulsion from the group responsible for the revision of DSM.
The International Network for De-Pathologization of Trans Identities
joins unreservedly to that complaint.

The pathologizing of transsexuality under "gender identity disorder is
a serious exercise of control and standardization. The treatment of
this disorder is carried out in different centers around the world. In
cases such as the Spanish State, is required for passage of a
psychiatric evaluation in the Units of Gender Identity, in some cases,
is associated with a weekly check of our gender identity through group
therapy and family and all degrading processes such infringing our
rights. For the Spanish State should be stressed that any person
wishing to change its name in the documentation or modify their body
with hormones or operations must pass a mandatory psychiatric
assessment.

Finally, we went directly to the political class. Our demand is clear:

We demand the withdrawal of transsexuality in the manuals of
mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10). Cessation of treatments of
intersex babies.
* We demand the right to change our name and sex on official
documents without having to undergo any medical or psychological
evaluation. And add that we firmly. that the state should not have any
jurisdiction over our names, our bodies and our identities.

* We make our own the words of the feminist movement in the
struggle for abortion rights and the right to own body: assert our
right to decide freely whether or not to modify our bodies and to
carry out our choice without bureaucratic impediments, political or
economic as well as outside of any medical coercion. We want health
systems are positioned in front of the gender identity disorder,
recognizing the current transphobia maintains classification and
revise their health care program for the transsexual doing a step
unnecessary psychiatric evaluation and psychotherapeutic accompanying
a voluntary option. We also demand the cessation of operations at
newly-nacid * s intersex.
We denounce the extreme vulnerability and difficulties in
accessing the labor market of the collective trans. Must be provided
access to the workplace and the implementation of specific policies to
reverse the marginalization and discrimination of our group. Also
require health and safety conditions in the development of sex work
and purpose of the police siege to these persons and sex trafficking.
* This vulnerability is heightened in the case of trans people
immigrants, who come to our country fleeing from situations of extreme
violence. We demand the immediate granting of political asylum in such
cases while we assert the absolute equality of rights of migrants. We
denounce the effects of policy on foreigners present on the socially
most vulnerable.
* While we cry that we are not victims but active beings with the
capacity to decide on our own identity, we also remember all assaults,
murders and suicides of trans people because of transphobia. We note
the system as guilty of this violence. Silence is complicity.

We conclude with showing the utmost rigidity imposing the pair man /
woman as sole and exclusive option, binomial that is built and can be
questioned. Our very existence proves the falsity of these polar
opposites and points to a pluralistic and diverse reality. Diversity
that today we dignify.

When medicine and define us as a deranged state * s make it clear that
our identities, our lives, disrupt their system. Therefore we say that
the disease is not in us * s but in the gender binary.

Announcing the International Network for Trans De-Pathologization
identities emerged to strengthen global coordination around a first
goal: De-Pathologization of transsexuality DSM-TR 2012. A first step
for diversity, a first blow to transphobia.

Embrace the diversity of our bodies and our identities!

Transphobia is the sickness.

All the News that's Fit to Mis-Print

2009-09-02T20:27:00.000-04:00

This is snipped from an article (hit the title for a link to the full passage) about Ariel Attack, who allegedly vandalized the Democratic HQ in Colorado. The news has been less than kind with respect to Ariel's pronouns. Alleged criminal or not, everyone deserves the right kinda pronouns.

So here's a good little quip for those in the press. I like, particularly, that the NY Times say a reporter should only cite trans status when it is *pertinent* to the story.

"In 2006, the widely used AP Stylebook was updated to include usage
standards for terms related to transgender people. The book encourages
writers to “use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have
acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present
themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.”

“If that preference is not expressed,” the book continues, “Use the
pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

According to The New York Times, transgender “is an overall term for
people whose current identity differs from their sex at birth, whether
or not they have changed their biological characteristics. Cite a
person’s transgender status only when it is pertinent and its
pertinence is clear to the reader. Unless a former name is newsworthy
or pertinent, use the name and pronouns (he, his, she, her, hers)
preferred by the transgender person. If no preference is known, use
the pronouns consistent with the way the subject lives publicly.”"

2009-08-28T15:27:00.001-04:00

Test

Trans Visibility: MTF vs FTM

2009-08-28T14:12:00.000-04:00

Click on the title to view another excellent article by Matt Kiley. He's just tearin' up examiner.com.

What I like about this article is that it takes on class as part of gender identity in a very simple way: "women" are still paid less than "men" and this may be one of the reasons why FTMs don't have as much surgery, which would then mark them by health and psych professionals as FTMs, which makes them a statistic and therefore "visible." So, "transitively," money makes the man. Or woman.

Sorry, that was a lot of "air quotes." Maybe that should be the universal sign for trans...I find myself using that gesture all the time once you break down the categories even a little. Yeesh.

Transgender Theater Trend

2009-08-27T21:19:00.003-04:00

Check out Peterson Toscano's blog: http://petersontoscano.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/transgender-theater-trend/

Peterson is a fantastic art-activist after my own heart...a survivor of the Ex-Gay Movement, he is now using his considerable religious scholarship powers for good with a fantastic solo show Transfigurations. I saw the show at the 2009 UNITY Conference at UNC-Chapel Hill. It is an absolute must-see for all, and especially anyone identifying as / interested in / struggling with Judeo-Christian religious teachings and gender. I haven't had my brain opened up and refilled so gracefully in a long, long time. My heart loved it too.

I'm super-grateful to Peterson on a personal level, because he is totally hooking me up with his audience in Hartford for my gig at Real Art Ways this coming September 18-19. Thanks, P2Son!

Can I just say, also, that Real Art Ways kicks it, bigtime? Will K. Wilkins, Artistic Director of this art-historically significant space, emailed me THE DAY "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps" premiered, asking for a video. Which made me feel awesome in itself. But I am so very grateful, further, that he kept to his word and is bringing me now that the show is really solid. The staff is taking gooooood care of me, and the residency activities are gonna rock!

So, Connecticut, get ready to get yer trans on.

Silver Lining to TSA Regulations?

2009-08-26T13:26:00.002-04:00

Check out another great Matt Kiley editorial on new TSA gender marker regulations (in effect August 15, 2009).
http://www.examiner.com/x-12237-Transgender-Issues-Examiner~y2009m8d24-TSA-rules-now-require-gender-declaration-in-order-to-fly

IMHO, I think the TSA has now painted itself into a corner with its own rules. Now the TSA absolutely MUST have sensitivity workshops and policies regarding trans and gender non-conforming folks (anyone whose legal ID does not match how they look or identify). If they don't, it is a clear-cut case of a government agency discriminating against a group of Americans. Tsk, tsk tsk!

So...y'all, let's make sure the TSA gets all of the information they need to do the right thing here. Clearly their rules, which unduly vilify (and also inconvenience) transgender Americans, were an educational underservice. They need education in order to know how to properly address the situation. The article contains all the contact information we need to reach out to the TSA in a friendly, educational manner.

Fantastic Intersex & Sports article

2009-08-26T13:20:00.002-04:00

This is the most in-depth article on intersex issues I've ever read: it goes into cultural ideals of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, race, sexism... the whole gamut of gender and sex. A total must-read!!! http://www.bilerico.com/2009/08/im_tracking_the_investigation_of.php

For another really interesting and somewhat related article, go here:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/tonyjones/2009/08/with-whom-should-the-intersexe.html

It contains some sensitive, thoughtful fundamentalist Christians debating intersexuality and the Bible's perspective on same sex relationships.

Thoughts on Schofield's gender-bending Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps - Entertainment

2009-02-27T12:52:00.000-05:00

A glowing review - I am honored by the author's willingness to come on the journey of the piece with me! And super excited that the review echoes the emails I receive after every show. Hooray.

Thoughts on Schofield's gender-bending Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps - Entertainment

Performance deconstructs definitions - Arts

2009-01-26T00:12:00.000-05:00

The first review of Two Truths and a Lie in performance!

Performance deconstructs definitions - Arts

Hi-larious

2008-12-03T16:06:00.001-05:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Ruling Inspires New Hope For Transgender People

2008-09-16T14:25:00.001-04:00

By Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 15, 2008; Page B01

Dana Beyer, a transgender woman, makes a toast Friday at a Silver Spring restaurant during a celebration of the anti-discrimination ruling.
Dana Beyer, a transgender woman, makes a toast Friday at a Silver Spring restaurant during a celebration of the anti-discrimination ruling.

To Allyson Robinson, it means accompanying her young children to public restrooms in Montgomery County without worrying that someone will call the police.

For Colleen Fay, it brings the hope that the next time she applies for a driver's license she won't be badgered about her previous life as a man.

And for Chloe Schwenke, it means other people like her will be able to enjoy the job security she has found in her international development work in the District.

With the decision by Maryland's highest court last week to block a referendum petition, Montgomery County's law banning discrimination against transgender people takes effect immediately.

The measure, passed by the County Council last year, prohibits discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. It was to take effect in February but was put on hold when some religious and conservative groups launched a petition drive.

The court's ruling was an important political and symbolic victory for gay and transgender rights advocates. Council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large), the bill's main sponsor, and Equality Maryland, the group that led the legal challenge, hosted a celebration Friday night at Jackie's Restaurant in Silver Spring.

But in interviews after the court's decision, transgender people throughout the Washington region said Montgomery's new law would be most meaningful in making the mundane details of day-to-day life a little bit easier. And they hope that it spurs action in neighboring jurisdictions.

"So I can walk into the office, wear a skirt and not be quite so afraid," said Fay, a transgender woman who lives in Prince George's County. "The little tiny things in life that most of the rest of humanity take for granted, we look at and say, 'That could be a hurdle as tall as the Empire State Building.' "

Opponents of the law, including some parents and religious groups, gathered more than 25,000 signatures to put the measure to a vote. They worried that the law was written so broadly that it could allow a cross-dressing man, for instance, to gain access to locker rooms at health clubs. They also unsuccessfully tried to add exceptions to the law for hiring by religious institutions and schools. To opponents, the court's decision disenfranchised the thousands of people who signed petitions.

But for transgender women such as Robinson, the County Council's passage of the law was a key reason she chose to live in Montgomery when she moved to the area this year from Texas to take a job at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and transgender civil rights organization.

Before settling on a townhouse in Gaithersburg, Robinson and her family sought to rent an apartment. She worried, unnecessarily as it turned out, that the landlord would want to pull out of the lease upon meeting her. Until the law took effect this week, Robinson said, the landlord could have rejected her application because she is a transgender person.

In the past, Robinson has also worried about taking her four young children to public restrooms at restaurants, because she fears that someone will identify her as a transgender woman and call security.

"You find yourself on guard, and mentally and emotionally prepared for that," Robinson said. "You just never know. For many of us, this kind of thing we fear happens rarely; for others it happens constantly, and the fear of it is very real."

Montgomery followed 13 states, the District and more than 100 other local jurisdictions in passing protections for transgender individuals. Based on clinical and surgical reports, advocacy groups say that as many as 2,000 transgender people live in Montgomery.

In court, the two sides argued technicalities over deadlines and the number of signatures needed to put the law to a vote. The Court of Appeals reversed the lower court ruling that had sided with the law's opponents.

Fay said she hoped the media attention to Montgomery's action -- and the court's decision -- would embolden her county to follow and raise awareness to help demystify transgender people.

"It's invisibility that leads to fears and the icky factor that makes some people react by saying, 'I don't want to deal with that,' " said Fay, arts editor for WAMU radio's Metro Connection, a show she helped launch as Peter Fay in 1995.

In December, when Fay moved back to Maryland from the District after many years, her old driver's license information identified her as male. Fay said she was hassled by a motor vehicle clerk, who refused to change the designation to female.

Schwenke, an ethicist who works in international development, said she was nervous about approaching her employer about her planned transition but relieved to find her fears unfounded. Her office is in Northwest Washington, so she was protected by the District's anti-discrimination law.

"It makes an enormous difference," Schwenke said of the protections. "I was concerned that people would feel that I'd somehow be less competent or less able."

But the protections did not extend to Diane Schroer, a transgender woman who is pursuing a sex discrimination case against the Library of Congress under the Civil Rights Act in U.S. District Court. Schroer's job offer was rescinded the day after she told her prospective employer that she was undergoing the medical transition to become a woman.

Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, said Schroer's case illustrates why legal protections are necessary. A federal judge is expected to rule in the case soon. "There are people who react in an unthinking way to transgender people," he said.

New Production Photos!

2008-08-27T22:26:00.001-04:00

My First Theater Review

2008-08-19T16:44:00.001-04:00

‘Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps’ at 7 Stages

By Wendell Brock | Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 02:41 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

THEATER REVIEW. Grade: A-

As a camp counselor in Costa Rica a few years ago, Scott Turner Schofield suffered a serious blow to the head that required a detailed medical examination and extended hospital stay. When his doctor realized the athletic young man had the body of a woman, he thought the kid was just confused.

“Son, you have a terrible brain injury,” the doctor said sternly.

After having a heart-to-heart conversation with another doctor about his quest for a sex change, Schofield was informed that Costa Rica is the cosmetic-surgery capital of Latin America. And the surgeon offered to remove his breasts on the spot.

In his autobiographical solo performance piece, “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps,” the Atlanta-based artist describes the comic absurdity, social stigma, emotional imperilment and sheer-naked vulnerability of the transgendered life.

Suggesting an image of physical rebirth, the show begins with Schofield emerging from a cocoon of billowing fabric suspended from the ceiling. After a precarious aerial ballet, he bounds to the floor like some newly minted Peter Pan and describes the messy medical details of getting a sex change. In a metaphorical gesture that signifies the total soul-baring to come, he disrobes completely and tapes a sign to the set that says: “No secrets allowed.”

By turns fiercely comic, brutally honest and deeply moving, the 7 Stages show is beautifully written, choreographed and performed. Like some sexually ambiguous Scheherazade, Schofield unspools the action as a series of stories chosen willy-nilly by the audience from a list of numbers assigned to various words (“queer,” “straight,” “butch,” “femme” and so forth). Directed by Steve Bailey, the intermissionless 75-minute pieces feels so artfully balanced and delicately nuanced that it makes you wonder if Schofield really has 127 stories in his repertoire or is just pretending.

From the little girl forced to wear a Minnie Mouse costume when she really wanted to be Mickey to the young man standing in front of a Texas judge begging to have his sexual designation legally changed, from the complicated family relationships to the three suicide attempts, “Becoming a Man” is raw, urgent and honest. Much to his credit, Schofield comes across more as a loveable neighborhood kid bursting with energy and insight than an agenda-waving political zealot.

With great humor and pathos, he describes his alienation from his biological father, relates his adventures as a baby-sitter and describes his close calls with Atlanta cops and skinny-dipping European males. During the performance, he sings “Like a Bird on a Wire” while tethered to a swinging rope, and has a live telephone conversation with his stepfather.

In a democracy that boasts great freedom of expression, transgenderism may be the final frontier of sexual politics. Going from male to female can’t be an easy process, and this 27-year-old artist never pretends that is. Schofield — winner of an off-Broadway Fruitie Award and a prestigious Princess Grace Foundation acting fellowship —says the titular number 127 is part of his Social Security number, and jokes that he wants someone to steal his identity.

As it turns out, the man born as Katie Lauren Kilborn has sculpted a personality so unique that it would be virtually impossible to replicate.

THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. 5 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday. 7 Stages. 1105 Euclid Ave., Little Five Points. 404-523-7647, 7stages.org. (Note: Features adult material and full-frontal nudity.)

Bottom line: One of the year’s most essential theater experiences.

My Atlata Pride 2008 Pictures!

2008-07-30T18:18:00.000-04:00

The Pregnant Man

2008-04-04T14:33:00.001-04:00

So many of my closest allies have said enough semi-offensive things on this topic, I had to weigh in.

I'm not even going to comment on the "So he's really a woman" nonsense that this has brought to the forefront, though I am glad that the conversation is being had in mainstream circles. Sex and gender are different, how many ways does it need to be said?

"Why would you go through transition to become a man, just to do the most womanly thing a human can do" is the question I keep hearing. Sometimes it's just a curious muse, sometimes it is said with a sneer, as if this person is either an idiot or totally insincere or inauthentic as a (trans)man.

My response is that, once you have gone through transition, you understand on a fundamental level a few things:

1) That sex and gender are totally different things. Your body exists as proof.

2) That gender is fluid and grows as you grow. The same way you're different now from who you were when you were 13. (Most people are, anyway...though not, it seems, David Letterman...)

3) That most of the categories we hold "men" and "women" to are meaningless, since you, obviously can move in and around all of them (even when you're not trans). You have done this, you know well.

4) YOU SHOULD DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE. Most of us even go to the point of almost taking our lives; transition saves us and makes us smarter and more in touch with the courage you need to truly make yourself happy.

That's "why."

Love and kisses, and lots of happiness to you in all the unusual places you might find it.

Turner

ps - And I'm not saying "do anything to be happy." No morally ambiguous arguments about pedophilia or bestiality should arise from that statement. Do what makes you happy, so long as it's safe, sane, and consensual as most reasonable people understand it. You know exactly what I mean if you yourself are a reasonable person. xxoo.

New Book!

2008-01-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

Two Truths and a Lie
a memoir written & performed by
Scott Turner Schofield
Price: U.S.$15.00
ISBN-10: 0-9785973-2-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9785973-2-0

"I am completely mad for Scott Turner Schofield. He is a thrilling, compelling, and downright charming writer and performance artist. And handsome. Did I mention handsome? And smart. Buy this book. Read it.
— Kate Bornstein, author of Hello Cruel World

Homofactus Press proudly announces Two Truths and a Lie,a memoir in the form of three solo plays written and performed by critically-acclaimed solo performer Scott Turner Schofield. From inside the often hilarious—but all too real—moments of his young life on the Homecoming Court and Debutante Ball circuit (in a dress), armed with only a decoder ring and a gifted tongue, Schofield comes out with truly unbelievable stories of a body in search of an identity. By turns slapstick and slap-to-the-face, this drama invites audiences and readers to explore gender, sex, sexuality, and self in their own first person.

"Scott Turner Schofield's storytelling is so honest, his approach so unique, his style so unselfconscious and disarming, that his shows will have you wrapped around his pinkie in no time. I've seen this Southern gent win over the most jaded of New York theater audiences with one wry smile and a perfectly placed raised eyebrow. He's the real thing—and nothing less than a national treasure." — T Cooper, bestselling author of Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes and Some of the Parts

Two Truths and a Lie is the latest work from Homofactus Press, a publishing house dedicated to work by and for trans and genderqueer men. Publisher Jay Sennett is thrilled with Schofield's book: “Scott is both a torchbearer for a rich tradition of queer theater and a catalyst for new work that uniquely describes transmasculine experiences.”

Schofield: "I write my shows with my family in mind: my family who doesn't share and doesn't really understand my transgender and queer identities, but who love me and would rather hear a story than a lecture. I hope that my readers—audiences I may never look in the eye—find something in my book to add to their understanding of the transgender experience, and even better, to their own experiences of their genders, too."

For more information, contact Alan at pr@homofactuspress.com. If you would like to schedule an interview with Scott Turner Schofield or receive a digital review copy of Two Truths and a Lie, please contact Alan at pr@homofactuspress.com.

Homofactus Press | 1271 Shirley | Ypsilanti, MI 48198 | 734-635-1404 | homofactuspress.com

Appalachian State University residency report

2007-11-12T22:23:00.000-05:00

Residency Location: Appalachian State University, Boone NC
Dates: 11/7-9/07
Performance: "Underground Transit"

Sponsors: TransAction, Office of Multicultural Student Development, [MANY OTHERS...]

Residency Schedule and Activities:

11/7: Arrive. 1pm: Class talk to English Composition class. Elizabeth Wilson, instructor.
3pm: Class talk to English Composition class. Elizabeth Wilson, instructor.
5pm: Class talk to English Composition class. Elizabeth Wilson, instructor.

11/8: 11am: Class talk to English Literature class. Elizabeth West, instructor.
1pm: Class talk to English Composition class. Elizabeth West, instructor.
3pm: Class talk to English Composition class. Elizabeth West, instructor.

Class talks stats:
Average attendance: 20 students

Impressions: As usual, some classes were more quiet than others. I regret that I did not perform in one class, I only lectured, and this was a mistake - performance is what hooks them!

One Composition class comprised of Criminal Justice majors who were initially very resistant (snickering, closed body language, text messaging), but who became very engaged when the focus turned to how understanding transgender identity and issues would benefit them as police officers and prison administrators. We discussed the current state of affairs in many jails and prisons (prisoners are not administered hormones, are often victims of abuse and assault) and looked for ways that they could approach this issue when they become a part of the prison system. I encouraged them to focus their research on trans issues in the prison-industrial complex for their upcoming mid-terms.

In the Literature class, I focused on the difference between theory and story: how labels do not create empathy or understanding, but stories do.

In all of my class talks at Appalachian State, I was surprised to find men leading most of the conversation. In most other places, men stay quiet while women ask questions and lead conversation. I noticed that both men and women ask the same questions; however, at App, I will note that the physics of what transpeople do in bed came up every time (this is a rare topic other places)!

Feedback:
"I asked my students the next day what they thought of your presentation. They were pretty uncomfortable -- and that's a good thing! Usually they don't remember anything we covered in the last class. After you, they were still present with the ideas you brought up, because they're still digesting them. I was really pleased to see them working so hard on the concepts you brought up."

11/9/07, 7pm: Community Workshop at Unitarian Universalist Congregation on gender oppression in Boone, NC and Appalachian State.

Attendance: 25. Comprised of TransAction and SAGA members; University administrators, faculty, and staff; UUC members, and Boone residents.

Impressions: A very liberal/radical/progressive crowd. Business owners were invited to discuss ways of making the community safe for people of all genders, but none attended.

I became uncomfortable during the conversation when we started using "they" and "them" to refer to the white, conservative Christians that make up a large part of Boone's community. I asked the participants to consider that "they" often talk about "us" with the same distaste, which usually makes for bad situations. "We are Them, They are Us," I said, and we shifted to discussing positive ways "we" can approach "them" to create a safe community for everybody. My partner, Carey Martin, brought up the Femme Mafia example: this group approached business owners and created visibility by holding regular monthly meetings in different restaurants, cafes, and clubs. They educated the establishments about femme identity by just showing up and patronizing the business. TransAction thought this would be a good idea for their meetings.

Feedback:

"I was glad you brought up the Us/Them thing. We do need to talk about things differently."

"Great facilitation."

11/9: 3:30-5pm: Workshop: Strange Bedfellows - Greeks, Jocks, and Queers.
Location: Grandfather Mountain Ballroom, Student Union Building
Attendance: 100. Comprised mostly of members of the Kappa Alpha fraternity as well as 2 sorority members (didn't record which sororities). TransAction and SAGA members attended in-full. Due to peak football and basketball season, only 3 athletes attended.

Impressions: Tough crowd at first! I feared I might lose all of the many Greeks who showed up as I introduced words and topics about sex, gender, and sexuality. I illustrated examples of how Greeks, Jocks, and Queers 1) each deal with similar (mis)impressions of their groups, 2) are actually all valuable leaders on campus, and 3) have many characteristics in common, and the crowd warmed. Splitting into small groups allowed each sector to interact with groups they might otherwise never connect with and cemented our path to getting to know one another. By the end of the session, plans were in the making for inter-group service projects and fund raising dinners.

Feedback:
"I never had the chance to talk to a gay person before."

"I never thought that I might be part of the problem as a queer person, that I might be causing the tension between Greeks, Jocks, and Queers. I always felt like a victim, but it's true, I have a lot of prejudices myself, and that's just as unfair."

"We can't change the campus climate overnight here. But this was a really good first step. We can bring this back to our chapters and try to make change in small ways. That would be a big thing, actually."

Performance: "Underground Transit"

Date: 11/09/07 (Friday night, 7pm)

Location: Grandfather Mountain Ballroom, Student Union Building

Attendance: 120

Impressions: Excellent crowd! Comprised mostly of people I hadn't seen before, as well as many class and workshop members. I couldn't believe so many people came out on a Friday night to a queer theater show, but that just goes to show that class talks and workshops really bring folks out! The performance went well. The Q&A after was in-depth. My mom and partner attended, which allowed questions about family and relationships to take on a deeper meaning -- their presence "authenticated" my answers.

Feedback:
"Thank you for doing this show. I feel I understand myself better because you said many things I have thought myself."

"I'm gay, and I have a lot of problems with transgender people. I just can't understand how you can be a man, but not a man, or a woman, but not a woman. I struggle with it because I want to be supportive, but I just don't get it. Tonight I understood it. You're a man, there's nothing else to it. And you have breasts and you look good in a skirt, but you're definitely a man. I get it now."

From Belgrade pt II

2007-07-01T12:09:00.000-04:00

I'm beginning to think in images, the way they do at DAH. Seeing random stills of everyday motion, beauty and terror life and connections in any moment. English being a second or third language to the women of this theater, they have many similar phrases; they often say "In one moment..." and I considered it a verbal tic. Now I think of it as an aesthetic: there is only one moment, one at a time.

Images so far:

Sky preparing for storm, clouds darkening one half, the other half still bright day.

Widow women wearing black.

Widow woman wearing black bent over in a seat, holding tiny bouquets of wildflowers wrapped in white paper out in front of her, not looking up.

Very elderly people everywhere. They don't hide here, they live as history and present on their own streets.

Young girl selling roses on a restaurant patio. The Maitre'd takes them away from her, shoos her out. The look on her face as she stands there, unable to leave without her roses, unable to take them with her. The anger that does not form tears as she looks at the Maitre'd.

The well-fed man who flounces in after she is gone, selling roses, undisturbed.

Heat lightning in the sky, different from lightening when there is the actual chance of rain.

New buildings, old buildings; shiny capitalist buildings, crumbling socialist blocs; buildings with roman numerals almost as old as the numerals themselves.

The man killed on his futuristic, shiny motorbike by a lumbering old two-tone truck. The men in black jackets picking up his white shoes: where's the other one? Oh, here, under here. The pool of blood that didn't run even though it pooled on a hill. The people watching, then walking away. The way the old woman's hand flew to her mouth magnetically as she approached the scene.

The old man with huge glasses on the tram, shooing back with his hands cars that had pulled too far into the intersection as we glide past.

The way ladies smile when a boy tourist gives up his seat. They hold eyes with him.

Fields of sunflowers under morning blue and afternoon red skies, just like in those posters.

The majestic width and smooth solid depth of the Danube cutting through the countryside.

Street theater flanked by huge, delighted crowds.

Theater that builds images so slowly and subtly that the gutpunch ending creeps up impossibly.

And now a story of a moment:
On the bus heading back from town, after shops close and people head home, the tram is filling with gloom and the bright of steetlights just turning on. My iPod starts shuffling through songs I don't care for and I take it out as I stand on the top step in front of the middle door. An elderly man with white hair and huge, thick, brown-rimmed glasses stares into the glowing screen from the step below, then looks up at me.
Mobil? He asks, then points at the iPod, says sure: Mobil.
No, I tell him, but how do I tell him? iPod, I say, I'm foreign, it's foreign, why try to explain?
Mobil? He asks again. I take the earpiece hanging at my neck and hold it to his ear. In this moment our faces are less than 6 inches apart, we are connected by sound and wire, and I am shocked by the electricity of a stranger, having not come so intimately near to another person outside of school in 3 weeks.
"Ah! Muzik!" He says, and we beam with understanding. He gives me the thumbs-up sign. "Very good. Have a nice day," he says, as the doors part and he steps away.

From Serbia with Love and Thanks

2007-06-20T12:35:00.001-04:00

This trip began in community. I asked my 600 "closest friends" to help send me to Belgrade with small donations to help fill the gap my early-year health crisis created in my funding. A huge group responded, sending anywhere from $5 to $200, raising me to over my goal of $900 within two weeks.

Thank you all so much, those of you who donated. My thanks are a constant refrain in my head as I learn so much here.

I departed from JFK in New York City on June 9th, arriving early in the morning on June 10th in Amsterdam, where I passed a 6-hour layover. I point this out because it felt like a full 6 hours; in Amerstam the speakers never go silent and they also chastise you: "So-and-so and So-and-so departing for Wherever: you are delaying your flight. Please go immediately to your gate. We will begin offloading your luggage." It's not a threat--they're doing it! And this is constant! At least every 3 minutes, somebody gets publicly booted from their connection to far-off lands. First the browbeating melody raised my eyebrows, then it became funny, then annoying, then (as I tried my best to nap), taunting. Finally my plane to Paris arrived and whisked me off over Western Europe with all of its cities' symmetry slicing the land in gorgeous patterns, hypnotizing me to sleep.

Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport is a maze. I was so grateful for my long layover. Finally in my terminal, I was shocked at the European advertising: very naked women selling very pretty things by using English swearwords. I couldn't take a picture because of the glare, but the best ad, for what I'm not sure, maybe jewelry or jeans? Those were the only coverings the model wore...except for her tattoos, which hung between her clavicles reading LOVE ROCK FUCK. I love Europe.

My plane to Belgrade felt like a party bus. Packed full, everybody chatted, yelled down the aisles to friends. They served us tasty sandwiches as we sweated without air conditioning on the old plane. Below the Swiss Alps still sparkled with snow, then gave way to flat lands until finally I saw the either the Danube or the Sava, Belgrade's two rivers, cutting through the fields.

Sanja, my colleague from last year's Youth Creates summer camp at 7 Stages, met me at the airport at 8pm on June 10th, 1pm at home in the States. I had been traveling for over 19 hours, so clearly the best thing to do was go have dinner with the rest of my classmates.
We went to a restaurant called Dačo (pronounced DA-cho) on Ave. Patrice Lumumbe. The roads in Belgrade constantly change names depending on the ruling political party; this road is one of the last left still honoring a communist (socialist?) hero. In a style I would call "Nostalgic Yugoslavian" the restaurant had an amazing rough-hewn log porch, roofed in, with Yugoslavian (now, I guess they would be Slovenian, Croation, Serbian, and Montenegran, and Macedonian) fabrics hanging from the rafters. They served amazing food, all tapas-style, with schnapps and wine; a much easier and better combination than you might imagine, the way they do it here, sweet and intoxicating but not overpowering or hangover-inspiring. Whether through my hunger or just the merits of the food alone, g*d it was good.

Finally to my apartment. I had expected a home-stay situation, but a friend of the school keeps a rental apartment, and I was lucky enough to score a place in it with two other students. A 5-minute walk from the school and in the center of everything, I am grateful not to have to negotiate the (quick and well-run but) always cram-packed trams and busses every day.

My apartment. I sleep in the living room.

The next day, the 6th International School of DAH Teatar opened for class. The schedule is similar every day: we arrive, stretch, find our "central line", practice Chi-Gong, and train with the "3 Steps"- about an hour of moving to a 1-2-3 beat. It's amazingly difficult and athletic, but teaches you so many ways of moving. Dijana Milosevic, one of DAH's directors, says "Anything can be your ally or your obstacle, but still you must perform with it." So far I have dealt with 85 degree heat (no A/C here), blisters, and blisters on my blisters over just the general muscle soreness and fatigue; one week out, I'm happy to report I'm over it--I have pushed through to the other side, and my feet are mostly healed!

After 3 Steps we do vocal training for about an hour and a half. As an American, my voice lives mostly in my throat and nose, sometimes my chest. Sanja is teaching me to find a voice low in my stomach, a frustrating process, but powerful and vital to me not only as an actor but as a person who is always striving to "find my voice" in every aspect of the term. To round out the day, we work on creating precise physical scores (almost like dance, but expressive in a way that works for theater) and blindfolded movement training, used by Jrszy Grotowski, to help build spatial awareness.

Okay, so that's all very detailed and academic, but what does it have to do with the deeply moving political theater these artists make? On the first day, Dijana Milosevic gave her lecture "The Role of the Artist in the Dark Times" in which she described DAH's 16-year history, beginning with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and through the U.S.-led NATO bombings in 1991. Through the political loss of her homeland, through the following social unrest, to even working in a building targeted by the bombers (the school in which the theater is located had government antennae on the roof), Dijana, Maya, Sanja and colleagues came together every day to do this specific training in the service of their work.

"Many days, the training was stronger than we were. Leaving our kids and our partners while air raid sirens sounded to spend 6 hours making art does not seem logical, and even we did not think we could do it. But we came together and made space for the discipline, and the art itself that we began making became a focus and a shelter."

Dijana quoted Bertold Brecht who asked "Will there be singing in the dark times? Yes there will be singing, about the dark times." Brecht's singing became the group's first public show, which they performed environmentally around the central square of Belgrade, black angels with wire wings speaking for the first time out loud the questions and resentments of a country at war. The video footage is incredible: stunned crowds following, children enthralled by the spectacle and grown men crossing themselves at the sight. Usually, when I see environmental political theater, it's agit-prop--effigies of Presidents or activists singing clever slogans instead of shouting them--and usually when I see this street theater I am one of "the choir" of people paying attention while everybody else studiously ignores it.

(I feel a huge split in U.S. activist culture where performance must be agit-prop activist or else it is considered "unuseful" to--or just generally not considered at all in--the aims of whatever agenda we have. In this way I feel outside of my own activism, having to steal people away, unde the guise of "entertainment" to my performance space to try and make a real political connection outside of the arena of "real politics.")

Dijana credits the artistic discipline of her actors for their popular audience's response: Eg, they paid attention. It affected them. They gave voice to the thoughts that were being studiously silenced by government and society alike. Because the work was not agit-prop in content, and because the actors created such deeply personal stories with their movement and text, the work worked. They didn't tell the audience what or how to think: they let the audience think and feel with them, bringing them into the art. DAH took their theater back into the theater and created more shows, as an ensemble and as individuals, that touches audiences world-wide in the same way.

This is what I am learning: the nuts and bolts of making work that engages society through deeply personal understandings. I find myself finally in a community who understands by experience just how significantly this kind of art can change people. It feels amazing to have this as our starting point; in the next two weeks this will only take deeper, smarter hold, and I can bring it back to my community -- Y'all--because you helped me.

Views of the Sava River and Kalemegdan, an ancient Roman outpost at the confluence of the Save and Danube, now a realxed and fun nightclub.

A boutique with a sense of humor
in this formerly Communist country....

Mecklenburg County Censorship Debacle

2006-06-14T12:17:00.000-04:00

Check out this link

http://www.homofactuspress.com/2006/06/scott_turner_schofield_censore.htm

for news on my first round with state-sponsored censorship!

Thanks muchly to Jay for a really nice blog on it.

I'm also now allowed to inform folks that I will be appearing in Jay's anthology! Due out in August...check out Homofactus Press for more!

San Antonio Pre-Show

2006-06-04T20:19:00.000-04:00

Scott Turner Schofield
Jump-Start Performance Company
National Performance Network Community Fund Grant Report

[Editor's note: All of this transpired during the last week of April. I'm just the world's worst blogger, hence the, uh, June post.]

Narrative
My pre-residency with Jump-Start Performance Company in San Antonio, made possible by the Community Fund Grant, makes me believe that the community-based, multi-cultural, multi-issue work that I aim to make as a transgender solo artist is, in fact, completely possible—and totally exciting.

Before I arrived in San Antonio, JSPC members researched appropriate venues for me to network with community artists in and out of the many transgender communities in the city. When I arrived, we set up a schedule and laid out our goals:
1)Identify transgender individuals and communities in San Antonio who are active in performance, social, and/or activist circles.
2)Identify individuals and communities in San Antonio who would be allies to transpeople through art, personal solidarity, and/or social activism.
3)Identify transgender individuals and communities in Austin and Houston who are active in performance, social, and/or activist circles.
4)Identify individuals and communities in Austin and Houston who would be allies to transpeople through art, personal solidarity, and/or social activism.
5)Entice those people to speak and perform during National Performance Network residency for “Debutante Balls” at Jump-Start, May 26th and 27th.

The community element of the residency we envision for May looks like this:
What: Performance-Workshop-Networking opportunity for San Antonio-Austin-Houston artists who do with gender, in performance, what words just can't describe; Discussion forum for San Antonio transgender communities and our allies.
Why: To identify, celebrate and support trans communities and their allies in the region, talk about what matters to us, show off our work, smash some gender norms, and have a rockin' good time.
When: Friday, May 26, 8-11pm: “Debutante Balls” a 1-trannie show by Scott Turner Schofield followed by Cross-Cultural Trans-Community Forum for people of all genders.
Saturday, May 27, 2005 12pm-2am
12-2pm: Gender Performance Workshop with Scott Turner Schofield & Area Performers; 8pm: Words Can't Describe Regional Performance Showcase & Debutante Balls;
10:30pm: Drag BBQ!
What Else: EVERYBODY welcome & encouraged to participate—yes, You. Travel stipend for out-of-town artists ($100 Houston artists, $50 Austin Artists), $100 minimum honorarium for Words Can't Describe participants [paid for by the Community Fund Grant].

I translated this information into a flier, which looks like this:

These fliers were disseminated at all of the events I attended.

A key factor in all of my work, and of course in this residency, is allyship. Artists are nothing without allies in their audience: trans artists need to be seen and supported by allies as well for our work (and our issues) to be valued. Drag shows are only so much fun because of audiences that include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and straight allies; I want to take all the fun of a drag show and infuse it with useful, community-building information through storytelling. Much of this pre-residency was spent drumming up interest among would-be performers and speakers, however the overarching goal is to outreach to communities of allies, whether they be other artists, family members, friends, or people who just happened to read the paper and want to know more about this “transgender thing”.

I began this work on Tuesday by attending Puro Slam, San Antonio's most noted (and notorious) poetry slam. I participated in the slam using moments from “Underground Transit”, my first solo show that is written in slam poetry style. The only openly queer, non-(biologically) male performer, I made it to the final round—only to be knocked out by a judge who insisted on scoring my work “6.9” every time, decreasing my final average. I plugged the show and made friends with two local performers: [name], who is on the National Slam Team for San Antonio, and [name] who does improv comedy. Both agreed to help promote the show in May, and may participate in the performance workshop for people of all genders. As a promotional activity, I am looking into headlining the May slam, which is populated mostly by Latino and Black men who love poetry no matter who's performing it, when I return to town.

Thursday is Drag Night in San Antonio; Company Artistic Director S.T. Shimi and I hit local gay and lesbian bars in full promotional form. We handed out fliers for the show and workshop, then met up with company members Monessa and Annelle for what became a singular experience, for me, as a connoisseur of drag.

I learned that San Antonio's drag scene is largely composed of transsexual artists, not artists who do not identify as transgender outside of the performance space (as is the case in many locales around the country). This means that the artists use hormones and/or have had gender-affirming surgery. This difference translates to performance which becomes, more seriously, about the body and the moves than about a campy performance of “someone else's” gender (which is differently valuable). It also makes for a lot more nudity! The performances I saw at The Saint were phenomenal—technically masterful dance pieces that exuded a sense of pleasure in the body of the performer (for him or herself). To be able to watch a transperson rock out and be sexy, and truly, un-self-consciously enjoy themselves felt like liberation to me, and was fun as hell.

I met a number of the artists that night, including the host, Erica Andrews. Andrews is San Antonio's most well-known drag queen. She expressed interest in participating in the Jump-Start program: the trick will be whether her busy schedule will allow it, and whether we can pay her enough to make missing a Saturday night of drag performance financially worthwhile to her. I also met a group of allies who call themselves The FeministDykeBitches; this group is organizing a pro-choice benefit outreaching to trans communities along common lines of sexual health and our mutual desire for freedom of choice when it comes to our bodies. They are spreading the word to other performers, and will hopefully participate in some aspect of the residency.

Another element to San Antonio's drag culture is its majority of artists of color. Too often, drag troupes and events such as “Words Can't Describe” are white-dominated, which leaves out entire communities of performers and the stories that come with them. Visibility is key for transpeople, so drag shows that exclude (for whatever reasons) artists of color do serious damage to the perception of who is and is not trans, who can or will not do drag. Such exclusion is usually a symptom of racially-divided communities at-large, but I feel it most acutely in drag events that would be so much better with a plurality of experience and participants. San Antonio's multi-cultural reality makes my goal of integrated performance truly possible—in fact, producing an all-white event here would be thankfully impossible!

On Friday, I traveled to Austin for the serendipitous 4th Anniversary of Kings'N'Things, Austin's premier drag king troupe (KNT). The group is predominantly white, however actively anti-racist (I observed through interactions and conversations among the Kings'N'Things). There were no transwomen performers in Austin, but biologically-female, “femme” performers did have an important presence. Another difference between the cities was academic: I observed a lot of gender theory and philosophy involved in the Austin performances—not so much about the body and the moves, but about word-play, sex humor, and camp. While the San Antonio Queens and Kings choreographed to pop ballads, the Kings'N'Things made elaborate skits out of such songs as “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” and “Whatever Lola Wants”. Hey, different strokes—both shows were fantastic, and if these communities come together for “Words Can't Describe”, the audience will benefit from a huge variety of well-executed work.

I brunched with members of KNT, who were very excited about the Jump-Start performance. Austin is slated to hold the 8th Annual International Drag KingCommunity Extravaganza (IDKE). Working with regional artists will strengthen their existing networking goals; given that this is the first IDKE to be held in the South, a strong Texas presence, hopefully encouraged at Words Can't Describe, will do much to promote the visibility of artists from outside the major urban drag centers. KNT agreed to promote the Jump-Start show around Austin and in their various web communities, and at least two of them will participate in the discussion and performance.

The next morning I brunched again—in keeping with our hope for a Drag Brunch during the Jump-Start residency! This time I met with Skot, an ex-member of the San Antonio Kings and founder of King'N'Play, an offshoot group of the San Antonio Kings. Skot will present a skit about bathroom problems and politics during the residency. Skot also connected me to Matthew Devreaux and Erik LaRue, with whom I have since been in touch; all three artists will promote and present for the Jump-Start showcase and discussion.

Further Goals

1.Connect with Houston performers and activists. Sixto Wagan of DiverseWorks is helping to spread the word via his contacts in the community, including HATCH (Houston Area Teen Coalition of Homosexuals).
2.Get commitments from performers and activists already solicited and organize the events according to the participants.
3.Promote! Promote! Promote!

Trans Marriage

2006-05-31T12:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.visalaw.com/06jan1/2jan106.html

Will a marriage involving a transsexual individual be recognized for immigration
purposes?

In recent case decided by Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), In Re Lovo, the BIA
held that a marriage between a postoperative male-to-female transsexual and a male
can be the basis for benefits under section 201(b)(2)(A)(i) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act. Since the state where the marriage occurred recognized the change
in sex and considered the marriage valid, the BIA also found the marriage to be
valid. The BIA overturned the decision of the Nebraska Service Center Director who
denied the petitioner's instant visa petition under the INA on the basis that
Congress has not enacted legislation that officially recognizes a marriage where
one of the parties has undergone a sex change. This decision marked a victory for
the recognition of marriage of transsexual post operatives by federal laws.

On the Road from Austin

2006-04-21T19:26:00.000-04:00

A convergence of events leads me to write, finally: today I saw a comic strip where the character said "I'd hate to have you waste perfectly good blog material by actually talking"; I am also in Austin, a city totally un-wired, that is, wireless. Free. For everyone. So I have no excuse.

I'm here to "network", in the least icky way possible, with the fabulous Drag Kings and other performer types. Today marks the 4th anniversary of Kings N Things, Austin's premier drag troup. Check em out at www.kingsnthings.org. I'm stoked to see what these boys have to offer, having just had my mind blown last night by the small but excellent Alamo Kings troupe in San Antonio. They performed with a larger group of "female impressionists", as their godmother, Erica Andrews, called them. (See her at www.simplyerica.com). I'll compare and contrast later tonight, after I see what these Austin Kings get up to. Ah, sweet antici

pation.

I'm here in the state of my birth to do my very first pro-theater show (in Texas), presented by Jump-Start Performance Company. I met the fabulous Steve Bailey, superb S.T. Shimi, and most holy Lisa Suarez in 2003 at the Alternate Roots Annual Conference. I performed "Underground Transit" for them, and we've been trying to figure out a way to collaborate ever since. Finally, the National Performance Network supported us in that endeavor. Hooray!

This week I've been meeting with local area folks, spreading the word about my performance ("Debutante Balls," May 26th & 27th), and trying to build up interest in the "Words Can't Describe" event we'll be hosting as part of my residency. I want to work with San Antonio gender performers of any stripe (but especially FTM/drag-king types, since the community here has little visbility), and we're hoping to make it a community-building effort for Houston-Austin-San Anontio regional performers (and activists...but those lines are so often so cross-hatched...). Yay space! Yay support! Yay gender! Yay politics as aesthetics and aesthetics as politics!!!

Ahem. I just hope that folks will come out and play...and then keep on keepin' on together.

I'm doing basically the same work in the very different community-locale of Seattle, WA, presented by the Pat Graney Company. That'll be May 17th and 19th at Richard Hugo House.

Here's the second part, at both venues, that I'm very excited about:

"Scott Turner Schofield | National Performance Network Residency | Trans-Ally Community Forum

Who: Transgender people of any identity or orientation (eg, people who in any form of language or philosophy identify with the word/concept/identity “Transgender”); People who share community with Transgender people; Allies to Transgender people; People who want to learn more.

What: The Trans-Ally Community Forum is a forum that privileges storytelling over rhetoric, and everyday issues over philosophical questions of identity. A diverse panel will be invited to tell short stories about their lives as transgender people, friends, family, lovers, allies, onlookers and bystanders to transgender communities in [$town$]. This will serve as a model for how the rest of the dialog will take place: participants (not the panelists) will then share their own short stories so that everyone in attendance will take home an idea of the realities of our intersecting communities, here and now.

This forum does not allow critique—no rhetoric, theory, or “calling out” of any “isms” that may be inherent in a person's story. Will will listen radically to one another, and listen to our own internal responses. In so doing, we will see where we stand, understand our issues and, hopefully, each others' intents. We can take this knowledge into further community work outside of this conversation, but here, we tell our stories, and listen to one another.

Why: Too often, communities get caught up in and divided by our own identities and our expression of them. Further, language and access to rhetoric defining what is or is not acceptable to progressive and/or “subversive” communities silences us, for fear we will offend or show ourselves up as imperfectly defined and/or executed. Sometimes, we need to just be who we are, think what we think, find community, and learn without fear of alienating others/isolating ourselves. Sometimes, we just need to take our own pulse, and listen to those of the people around us. The Trans-Ally Community Forum seeks to model a way of doing this, aims to create a space where, for just two hours, we can be individuals in community who are, or care about, or want to learn more about Transgender people. "

I feel like this event is a coalescing of so much thought and desire for action on my part. It's about storytelling; it's about being who you really are, imperfectly, in the community where you live; it's about listening and really hearing, without letting whatever axe you have to grind dull your empathy or your progressive learning. I hope that the people who end up participating will be able to work with that intention.

I have been so frustrated, lately, by people who would rather find the oppression in every sentence than the liberation in the expression of an ideal. Easy for this straight white guy to say, right? Except that I notice it more now that I'm a straight white guy who looks like all of those things. I'm still a radical feminist. I'm still the same person who was moved and educated and inspired to action by class-conscious, anti-racist, pro-choice queer nationalists (well...not all in the same person, but you get what I mean...). I'm fully aware that I need to be vigilant around the privileges suddenly being handed to me...but that's the thing. I know. And too many folks I meet these days don't trust that I know, because of the way my gender and race fit together now. It's a peculiar form of prejudice--one that I know I too have committed against white straight men in my life (before I became one). The downside to transition, eh? Hm.

Off now to see D'Lo perform "Ramble-Ations": A One D'Lo Show, at ALLGO -- the country's only statewide queer people of color organization (www.allgo.org). Again with the excited anticipation!

T-15 Minutes and Counting

2006-03-19T20:38:00.000-05:00

So I made the cover of Atlanta's Creative Loafing magazine--the free weekly paper that bills itself as "Shelter from the Mainstream". Curt Holman, Atlanta's finest theater critic (in my opinion, and that of most of my actor friends), wrote a very sensitive, positive, and informational story about my transition, both from female to male and as a performer.

I used to joke that all of Atlanta has seen my tits. Now, without hyperbole, I can say that all of Atlanta knows what's in my pants (and under my shirt).

It has been fun and a little horrifying, carrying out my daily routine since the story dropped on Wednesday. Today I dined at my regular spot, the Radial Cafe, only to see my face on every table right next to plates of pancakes and scrambled eggs. I got a lot of looks--curious, supportive. My friend Shane and I next hit JavaMonkey in Decatur where a high school student from 7 Stages' summer program gave me the heartthrob mob treatment, causing everybody in the place to look over and wonder what was going on. The only part I found funny was that I turned a completely new and different shade of red. Everybody else thought the incident was HILARIOUS. Go ahead. Laugh it up ;-)

But the best part--aside from my story being treated very respectfully by Creative Loafing (factual, unopinionated, and semantically correct press for trannies is still woefully rare)--was a conversation I just had out at a community dinner. A friend who I don't know too well, but like very much (he generously loans me fun tools for projects and is just generally a very nice guy) told me he read the story, twice, Letter To The Editor Pen at the ready to defend me lest I fall victim to disrespectful press. This from a family guy who has patiently seen me through several less-than-manly predicaments with all manner of (his) power tools...it's enough to make a trannyboy tear up! (If I could. The hormones currently make crying impossible.)

I guess this is a blog to mark a very lucky moment in my life. I feel honored that my story and my work caught CL's attention, and very happy that they were so ethical and respectful with their portrayal. I am stoked that more people will be educated--I hope that they look into the lives of other transfolks for even more insight. And I just feel loved.

I'm going to sit with this feeling for a second more, and then I'm going to send it out to my trans friends everywhere, alive and dead. One more drop in what I hope is a fast-filling bucket of compassion and educated understanding.

Trans Joblessness

2006-03-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

Transjobless

Imagine trying to find a job without a shred of work history. Welcome to the transgender job hunt.

By Tali Woodward
tali@sfbg.com
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Mar. 15, 2006 - Mar. 21, 2006 . Vol. 40, No. 24

In the transgender community, to have full-time work is to be in the minority. In fact, a new survey of 194 trans people conducted by the Transgender Law Center (TLC), with support from the Guardian, found that only one out of every four
respondents has a full-time job. Another 16 percent work part-time.

What's more, 59 percent of respondents reported an annual salary of less than $15,333. Only 4 percent reported making more than $61,200, which is about the median income in the Bay Area.

In other words, more than half of local transgender people live in poverty, and 96 percent earn less than the median income. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that 40 percent of those surveyed don't even have a bank account.

TLC doesn't claim the study is strictly scientific - all respondents were identified through trans organizations or outreach workers. But the data give a fairly good picture of how hard it is for transgender people to find and keep decent jobs, even
in the city that is supposed to be most accepting of them.

It's been more than a decade since San Francisco expanded local nondiscrimination laws to cover trans people, but transphobic discrimination remains rampant. Fifty-seven percent of survey respondents said they've experienced some form of employment discrimination.

And interviews show that job woes are hardly straightforward.

Navigating the job-application process after a gender transition can be extraordinarily difficult. Trans people run up against fairly entrenched biases about what kind of work they're suited for. Sometimes those who are lucky enough to find work can't tolerate insensitive, or even abusive, coworkers.

Marilyn Robinson turned tricks for almost 20 years before she decided to look for legal employment. She got her GED and, eventually, a job at an insurance company. The first six months went OK, but then a supervisor "thought he had the right to
call me RuPaul," she told us. "And I look nothing like RuPaul." Suddenly the women in the office refused to use the bathroom if Robinson was around. She left within a month.

Once again, Robinson was on the job hunt. She interviewed for a receptionist position, and thought it went well. But on her way out, she saw the interviewer toss her application into the trash with a giggle.

"The reality is, even a hoagie shop in the Castro - they might not hire you," she said.

Still, many activists say the increased attention being paid to trans employment issues is promising.

Cecelia Chung from the Transgender Law Center told us there's a "silver lining" in the effort the "community is putting into really changing the playing field. We're in a really different place than we were five years ago."

Activists say true progress will require broad education efforts and the cooperation of business owners throughout the Bay Area. But the project is well under way, with San Francisco Transgender Empowerment, Advocacy and Mentorship, a trans
collaborative, hosting its second annual Transgender Job Fair March 22. More than a dozen employers have signed up for the fair, including UCSF, Goodwill Industries, and Bank of America.

HURDLES
Imagine trying to find a job with no references from previous employers. Now envision how it might feel to have interviewer after interviewer look at you askance - or even ask if you've had surgery on a fairly private part of your body.

These are just a couple of the predicaments trans job-seekers face.

Kenneth Stram runs the Economic Development Office at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. "In San Francisco there are the best intentions," he told us. "But when you scratch the surface, there are all these procedural hurdles that need to be
addressed." As examples, he pointed to job-training classes where fellow students may act hostile, or arduous application processes.

Giving a prospective employer a reference may seem like a fairly straightforward task, but what if your old employer knew an employee of a different gender? Do you call the old boss and announce your new identity? Even if he or she is supportive,
experience can be hard to erase. Will the manager who worked with Jim be able to speak convincingly about Jeanine? And what about your work history - should you eliminate the jobs where you were known as a different gender?

Most trans people can't make it through the application process without either outing themselves or lying.

Marcus Arana decided to face this issue head-on and wrote about his transition from living as a woman to living as a man in his cover letter.

"It became a matter of curiosity," Arana told us. "I would have employers ask about my surgical status."

It took him a year and a half to find a job. Fortunately, it's one he loves. Arana investigates most complaints of gender
identity-related discrimination that are made to San Francisco's city government. (Another investigator handles housing-oriented complaints.)

When he started his job, in 2000, about three quarters of the complaints Arana saw were related to public accommodations - a transwoman had been refused service at a restaurant, say, or a bank employee had given a cross-dressing man grief about the gender listed on his driver's license.

Today, Arana told us, at least half of the cases he looks into are work-related - something he attributes to both progress in accommodations issues and stagnation on the job front.

TG workers, he said, confront two common problems: resistance to a changed name or pronoun preference and controversy over which bathroom they use.

The name and pronoun problems can often be addressed through sensitivity training, though Arana said that even in the Bay Area, it's not unheard of for some coworkers to simply refuse to alter how they refer to a trans colleague.

Nine out of ten bathroom issues concern male-to-female trans folk -despite the fact that the police department has never gotten a single report of a transwoman harassing another person in a bathroom. One complaint Arana investigated involved a
woman sticking a compact mirror under a bathroom stall in an effort to see her trans coworker's genitalia.

But a hostile workplace is more often made up of dozens of subtle discomforts rather than a single drama-filled incident.

Robinson told us the constant whispering of "is that a man?" can make an otherwise decent job intolerable: "It's why most of the girls - and I will speak for myself - are prostitutes. Because it's easier."

The second and third most common forms of work-related discrimination cited by respondents in the TLC survey were sexual harassment and verbal harassment.

But only 12 percent of those who reported discrimination also filed some kind of formal complaint. That may be because of the widespread feeling that doing so can make it that much harder to keep a job -or find another one. Mara Keisling, director
of the National Center for Transgender Equality, in Washington, DC, said that "it's a common understanding within the transgender community that when you lose your job, you generally lose your career."

ANOTHER KIND OF GLASS CEILING
Most of the trans people we spoke to expressed resentment at being tracked into certain jobs - usually related to health care or government.

Part of that is because public entities have been quicker to adopt nondiscriminatory policies. San Francisco city government created a splash in 2001 when it granted trans employees access to full health benefits, including sex-reassignment surgery.
The University of California followed suit last year.

But it's also because of deeply ingrained prejudices about what kind of work transgender people are suited to.

Claudia Cabrera was born in Guatemala but fled to the Bay Area in 2000 to get away from the constant insults and occasional violence that befell her. Despite her education in electrical engineering and business and 13 years of tech work, it was difficult for her to find a job - even after she was granted political asylum. In 2002 a local nonprofit she had originally turned to for help offered her a position doing outreach within the queer community.

Cabrera doesn't make much money, and she sends some of it back to her two kids in Guatemala. But that's not the only reason she would like another job. She wants to have broader responsibilities and to employ her tech savvy.

"There is a stereotype here in San Francisco [that] transgender folk are only good for doing HIV work - or just outreach in general," she said.

Whenever she's gotten an interview for another kind of job, she's been told she is overqualified. Does she believe that's why she hasn't been hired? "No," she laughed. But she also acknowledged, "Even though there is discrimination going on here, this is the safest city for me to be in."

Cabrera is now on the board of TLC and is working to create more job opportunities for herself and others in the trans community. She often repeats this mantra: "As a transsexual woman, I am not asking for anything that doesn't belong to me. I am demanding my rights to live as a human being."

TRANSGENDER JOB FAIR
March 22
1-4 p.m.
SF LGBT Community Center, Ceremonial Room
1800 Market, SF
(415) 865-5555
www.sfcenter.org
www.transgenderlawcenter.org
www.sfteam.org

my space, our space

2006-03-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

Hey there folks...

I write y'all from Pittsburgh, PA. This is my first time to Mr. Rodgers' Steel City, and I am already enjoying myself mightily. My awesome airport shuttle driver, Tim, brought me into the city over the mountain, which meant a surprise view of the skyline from about 1,000 feet. Totally breathtaking. It is also an unusual 70 degrees, so y'all know I'm happy.

For those of you in Pittsburgh, I'll be performing "Debutante Balls" on the 15th (weds) at 8:45 pm. Yes, that late. It's free, open to the public, and will be hosted somewhere inside the William Pitt Union (there will be signs). Please come if you can!

So, I had this idea the other day, thinking about how I can be A Representative of the Trans Community (don't startle--I know there's more than one!) without ever thinking of myself, or allowing myself to be thought of by others, as The Representative. I came up with the following idea. See below.

Concurrently, I joined MySpace. I know! Finally arrived in the 21st Century...I got over the phobia of yet more tech in my life and jumped in. Anyone who can help me make it look awesome wins a prize.

Those thoughts join each other in that I don't want my MySpace to be just My Space. The same way that I seek, with the Wallet Project, to be seen as part of a larger, vastly more diverse and complicated community of transpeople and other otherly-gendered folks. So the Wallet Project will actually be hosted on MySpace. Hooray.

See you there. And here. And wherever you are, on tour.

Turner

Hey there--

I'm an FTM queer trans performer. I tour the country with two solo theater shows, and usually speak to classes at universities as well when I'm on the road.

I'm a white, straight, passing transman. When I speak to classes, I make it clear that the experience I'm telling them is solely my own, and like any good Women's Studies alum, I break down the whole race-class-sexuality-gender-access privilege thing as best I can. But still, I want to take it further than saying "Trans people are every kind of person you can imagine. We are everywhere." I just don't know how much that sticks, coming out of my mouth.

One simple idea I had is to carry around a wallet of photos, which I will take out and proudly pass around to students like the big dork I am. You could take it further, and do some kind of wallet-sized art (2x2.5") representing something important or real to your trans experience (I use "trans" as expansively as possible. I'm describing anybody whose gender identity or expression breaches--to yourself or others--the brad-pitt-angelina-jolie binary, okay? Yeah--you. Or not you, if you don't
wanna.)

Among the other identities that intersect with trans, I also do my best to make it understood that we are ALSO genderqueers, and men and women (who don't use the trans identifier but are a part of the community), and many other things too. I would like for this to be represented in the wallet. So, if you want to, please also include how you identify yourself--eg, man, woman, CD, genderqueer...ummm...whatever's important to you...whether or not you include your name--that would be very helpful to this end. My goal is to represent the diversity that I do not, be that in how I look or who I am; and to make it clear that the individual counts when you're talking about community.

If you want to be a part of this, send along a photo or small artwork. It'll need to be 300dpi resolution (around
600 x 750 pixels) so it'll print out nicely--no bigger than 2x2.5". I'll for sure leave one blank for people who didn't feel comfortable being pictured.

Send to turner@undergroundtransit.com. Please note if you would feel comfortable having the photo shown on my MySpace, too (www.myspace.com/s_turner_s); and whether you want your name associated with the image in the wallet and/or on the space.

Sincerely,
Scott Turner Schofield

PS--Feel free to post, forward, or steal this idea.

Hard at Work...

2006-03-01T15:58:00.000-05:00

Words added to my computer dictionary today:

Asian-trannie-goth-dyke
bling
cyberskin
debutante
Eurotrash
glam
packie
trangender
transpeople

Ahem. Just yer average day, making the world safe for your story...

Sex Workers Art Show

2006-02-22T17:09:00.000-05:00

Go check out my gurl Simone of the Harlem Shake! That's my handkerchief she's waving!

The Sex Workers' Art Show Tour is coming to your town!

The show is an eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses! The wildly successful cabaret-style show is hitting the road again, bringing audiences a blend of spoken word, music, burlesque, and multimedia performance art; as well as a visual art display that travels with the show. The artwork and performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitution and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry. This year’s incredible lineup of performers includes acclaimed Whitney Biennial artist and burlesque performer Julie Atlas Muz; iconic queer writer and author of The Chelsea Whistle Michelle Tea; hip-hop poet Juba Kalamka; foremother of the prostitutes’ rights movement Scarlot Harlot; artistic director of the only existing Black burlesque troupe Harlem Shake, Simone de la Getto; ! filmmaker and performance artist Bridget Irish; writer and feminist smut purveyor Tralala Farsi Sentiamo; and tour founder and ringmaster Annie Oakley. Visual artists include infamous camgirl and artist Ana Voog and activist and filmmaker Teresa Dulce. The show includes people from all areas of the sex industry: strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, internet models, etc. It smashes traditional stereotypes and moves beyond "positive" and "negative" into a fuller articulation of the complicated ways sex workers experience their jobs and their lives. The Sex Workers' Art Show entertains, arouses, and amazes while simultaneously offering scathing and insightful commentary on notions of class, gender, labor, and sexuality!For more information or to schedule interviews, please visit www.se! xworkersartshow.com, or email Annie Oakley at annie@sexworkersartshow.com.

2/22 New Orleans, LA Zeitgeist Gallery
2/24 Atlanta, GA Eyedrum Gallery
2/25 Huntsville, AL Flying Monkey Arts
2/26 Asheville, NC University of North Carolina - Asheville
2/27 Williamsburg, VA The College of William and Mary
2/28 Baltimore, MD The Patterson Theatre
3/01 Swarthmore, PA Swarthmore College
3/02 New Brunswick, NJ Rutgers University
3/03 Newark, Delaware University of Delaware
3/04 Boston, MA The Coolidge Theatre
3/05 Middletown, CT Wesleyan University
3/06 Annandale, NY Bard College
3/07 New York, NY The Knitting Factory
3/! 08 Lewisburg, PA Bucknell University
3/10 Athens, OH Ohio University
3/11 Chicago, IL Las Manos Gallery

www.sexworkersartshow.com

Happy V Day

2006-02-14T15:23:00.000-05:00

With love,
Scott Turner Schofield

milagro means miracle

2005-09-27T00:15:00.000-04:00

milagro2
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Vegas

2005-09-27T00:14:00.000-04:00

IMG_0666
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Ahem. Bear?

My only image of Vegas, emerging through the desert.

The Very Best Picture Of Me Ever

2005-09-27T00:13:00.000-04:00

IMG_0653
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Courtesy of none other than Bear, and the Grand Canyon.

This one comes with a story.

We're taking in the lip of the Great GC, astounded by the scale of it all so much that neither of us can actually speak for a minute. That's saying a lot, between me and Bear.

We pull back as a child appears, long blonde hair flowing in a half-up ponytail, wearing -- seriously -- a fuzzy bumble bee jacket that has a HOOD with ANTENNAE.

The Cutest Thing Ever.

Bear and I, manly men that we are, immediately are rendered jelly at the sight of this beautiful child. We actually coo.

The child's mother sees us, two dudes in cowboy hats (because that's what we were, all the way across the country), and I see her flinch a little. To calm her fears that we are not, actually, two gay child molesters (as I fear the flinch reveals...I always think that...and THAT, folks, is INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA at its best), I say:

"Your daughter's the cutest thing ever. Love the bumble bee suit."

The woman flinches again. She says:

"That's my son."

Bear and I cough, splutter, don't know what to say. It is doubly horrifying to commit gender transgression when you are a gender transgressor. She continues: "I have one son that looks like a boy, and one that looks like a girl. I don't know why he wants his hair that way."

Without even thinking, I pull off my cowboy hat. I hold it to my chest, and as sincerely as I've ever said this...actually, MORE sincerely than I've ever said this, I tell her:

"Ma'am - you know, I'm actually a woman."

She cocks her head, squints at me and replies:

"I could see that."

In this form, you don't hear her tone. The way she said it, I couldn't tell if she meant "I could see that before you told me," or rather "I could see that, if it were actually true."

The Son Who Looks Like A Boy had heard his mother give her gender-dysphoric monolog. When Bumble Bee Child reappears, Boy Child sneers: "Mom says you look like a GIIIIIIRRRRL!"

The Worst Gender Interaction Ever just got Worse.

But Bear saves the day. Pulling out all of hir best camp-counsellor chiding kindness, ze exclaims, "And what's wrong with that?! Hey, you know what, there ain't nothin' wrong with girls that you shouldn't want to look like one." And at that, he Hi-Fives Bumble Bee Child.

BBC there lights up at the Big Dude coming to the rescue, then flinches at the high five and tries not to say "Ow" too loudly.

When people say "there are things bigger than gender," really...I think we literally proved them wrong.

Cadillac Ranch

2005-09-26T23:59:00.000-04:00

IMG_0636
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Just outside of Amarillo, TX.

After shopping at Cavner's Western Warehouse, where Bear bought the best hat ever, and I got mine reshaped (and where we both were taught many lessons of manhood directly related to the wearing and taking off of the cowboy hat...), we stopped here for some picture time.

Some New Mexicans who had come to Amarillo to skate in the Texas-shaped pool of the Amarillo Best Western bummed us a can of spraypaint and we made our mark like hundreds of tourists before us. Then we headed West again, and stopped in Albuquerque at their reccommended restaurant, where we ate fried steak for fun.

gorgeousroad

2005-09-26T23:55:00.000-04:00

gorgeousroad
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Driving West made every end to the day contemplative.

Really.

Takin a leak

2005-09-26T23:54:00.000-04:00

ARPiss
Originally uploaded by Turner.

'Nuff said, I think...

(If I look like I was talking, it was because Bear was taking an extraordinary amount of time in taking the picture, and I was afraid of the Alabama Republicans descending on me! Can public urination be tagged to terrorist charges??? heh.)

Elvis Lives.

2005-09-26T23:52:00.000-04:00

car2
Originally uploaded by Turner.

I thought I'd do a post-mortem on my cross-country-criss-cross, using the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words (and happily so...there's a lot to say about it all and I don't know how I can or will!).

This photo, courtesy of Bear, was taken somewhere between Arkansas (where we enjoyed excelled BBQ and the last of the sweet tea for weeks in West Memphis) and Oklahoma (where I discovered the wonder that is cherry limeaid with bubbles).

I _LOVE_ my Elvis glasses. Love them. Don't care what anybody thinks. Elvis lives in me.

Graceland was a religious experience. I mean, really - it has all of the trappings of a true pilgrimmage.
I left somehow changed.

I saw a woman in a poodle skirt printed with jukeboxes, she had Elvis's face tattooed on her arm. I stared in wonder at this 50+ teenybopper - the OTB (Original TeenyBopper) - and when she narrowed her eyes at mine in case I was making fun, I smiled to show her I, too, believe The King Lives. That I might even mark my body to proclaim so. That I was so glad to know his spirit is kept alive by love like hers. And mine.

Wish there were a picture for that. But it doesn't do to look directly at the sun.

Bear will tell you, the car ride out became an Elvis medly....especially when we got to Vegas. But that's for later.

from L.A.

2005-08-30T12:06:00.000-04:00

Los Angeles, CA

What I Did on My Summer Vacation
by Scott Turner Schofield

Well, actually, I don't have too much time to write. I've gotta get back on the road, which has been almost literally my home, since August 1. And of course, my story begins far sooner than that, even.

The unbeatable S. Bear Bergman and I collaborated on a show we called "Words Can't Describe," which 7 Stages in Atlanta very graciously co-presented with us, July 29th and 30th. Really, it was Bear's show "Clearly Marked" and me doing "Debutante Balls," but still. It's huge fun to say, "I collaborated" when you're a solo performer.

The shows went spectacularly well, I felt. Bear and I worked our butts off to promote, hitting bar after bar after queer feminist poetry reading.... The lesson being, PROMOTE, even if it's taxing, even if you feel like the worst kind of self-serving salesperson, even if it means lots of eyerolls from couples you just interrupted crusing at said bars and readings. All of this brought us previously unseen throngs of audience members...not just my friends and their friends. Total gratification for hard work well done. Further, we had a mighty good time with the 7 Stages crew, and all the promotion was just more trans-visible engagement with Atlanta. Excellent.

Okay...I said I didn't have any time, and here I am on Ryka Aoki de la Cruz's computer, and she's urging me to breakfast. Things could be worse.

More soon...including: Is it possible to shed identity to further your art?

Anti-War Rhetoric

2005-08-28T18:41:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it's been too long. There's lots to say. But for now...

From the very amazing Jim Grimsley to the readers if the Alternate Roots listserv. What a wise man. I agree entirely.

Here are some concrete ideas toward a strategy to weaken support for
the war on the part of people who think it is a just war:

1. Remember this crucial difference between Iraq and Vietnam: Vietnam
was a war promulgated by a liberal Democratic congress in a country
presided over by a Democrat. It was easy to use the dominant rhetoric
of liberalism against the war because the government was dominated by
liberals and they had to listen. Iraq is a war put forward by a
conservative Republican government. They are not listening to us or
our ideas.

If we continue to argue against the war using liberal ideas, we are
only talking to ourselves. We are not the people we need to convince.

2. People at large have to become more frightened of the war than
they are of "terrorism" or of an attack on our shores. There are
signs that this is happening to a degree, but it's hard to tell how
real this change is. The majority of people (53% in one poll I heard
yesterday) think the Iraq war was a mistake but still think we should
prosecute it to a good conclusion if we can.

3. We have to realize that we cannot reach a self-centered people,
which Americans are, by and large, with anything but an appeal to
their self-centeredness. We're seeing in Sheehan's Peace Camp the
kind of protest that will reach self-centered people at least to a
degree. The nation feels empathy for Sheehan because she lost her
American son to the war.

While this is encouraging, please note that the nation does not feel
much empathy for the tens of thousands of faceless Iraqi mothers who
have lost their sons to the war. In fact, we rarely if ever talk
about the total number of Iraqi casualties because the figure is
uncomfortably large compared to our own dead. The growing support of
Sheehan is not about the justice of having gone to war or the
morality of having invaded another country. What's galvanizing people
is the idea of an American mother who has lost her son.

I fear that our efforts to weaken support for the war depend on how
much American blood is shed and very little on how many Iraqis die.

4. Cheap gas. Where is it? We went to war to make sure we had cheap
gas forever, but where is the cheap gas? We sent our children off to
die so we could have cheap gas so what happened? To my mind, this
factor probably underlies the current discomfort with the war as much
as any other. We can rely on corporations to exploit the war to the
point that the public pays too high a price and finally gets sick of
it. Any arguments we can bring to bear along those lines will
eventually be effective.

In order to erode support for the war we have to look at the people
who support it, respect them for what they are, and try to talk to
them on their own terms. We are not going to turn them into liberals;
the best we will be able to do is shake their support for this war.
(For me, this is the same way I approach talking to white people
about our racism; I have to realize who I'm talking to, find some
kind of respect for the person, and take very careful steps forward.
I also have to realize the best I'm likely to do is to get them to
think about things a little differently, if I'm lucky.)

In the long term we need some kind of think-tank of our own, like the
Heritage group, that will study these conservative arguments for
flaws the same way the conservatives have studied ours. We're still
suffering from the fact that we continue to underestimate
conservatives and their ideas. That's in us, and that's something we
can fix.

I'll try to shut up on this subject now.

Jim Grimsley

FRESH MEAT 2005

2005-06-02T20:51:00.000-04:00

FRESH MEAT 2005
4th Annual Festival of Transgender and Queer Performance

Dates/times: June 16-18, 2005
** NOTE: TWO SHOWS SATURDAY NIGHT! **
Thurs June 18: 8pm show
Friday June 19: 8pm show
Sat June 18: 7:30pm AND 9:30pm shows

Location: ODC Theater (3153 17th Street @ Shotwell, SF)

Tickets: $15 (advance tickets recommended – this show sells out!)
415-863-9834 or www.ticketweb.com
Info: www.freshmeatproductions.org

“fierce and fine tuned … history in the making” (Bay Area Reporter)
”outstanding, joyful, irreverent” (Critical Dance)

It’s coming…our biggest event of the year! Fresh Meat is an annual festival of outstanding transgender and queer performance – a sell-out, high energy, deeply moving, outrageously sexy, history-making gathering of exceptionally talented transgender and queer artists from across the nation.

Hear tales about coming out tranny at a Deep South Debutante Ball; experience the infectious harmony of the world’s first transgender barbershop quartet; witness some of the world’s first trans-themed modern dance; pulse with the throbbing beats of homo hip hop and tranny glam rock; hear intersex and transsexual perspectives on the body and intimacy; and be exhilarated by gender-bending, gravity-defying trapeze.

Fresh Meat 2005 artists include: Miguel Chernus-Goldstein, Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, Sean Dorsey and Mair Culbreth, Harlem Shake Burlesque, Thea Hillman and Johnnie Pratt, Lipstick Conspiracy, Jaycub Perez and Katastrophe, Scott Turner Schofield, Emcee Sile “Luster” Singleton, Sisterz of the Underground, The TransAMS Barbershop Quartet, The Viragos and more!

These shows will SELL OUT so get your tickets in advance!

Fresh Meat 2005 is a featured presentation of the National Queer Arts Festival
and is an official Pride 2005 event.

my mother giggles

2005-05-24T03:23:00.000-04:00

my mother giggles
Originally uploaded by Turner.

yep. she may even cackle.

side note: the padres are moving again; my mom calls me to tell me she overheard dad telling the realtor: "That's our son. He's a performance artist AND he's financially responsible."

::currently busting with only-child/queer-overachieving pride:: (and basking in the warmth of the pronouns!)

I'm a nude "celebrity"!

2005-05-24T01:56:00.000-04:00

hehehehehe

Got a google alert for myself, and found this post, on Celebrity Nudity Database.com... ::tickled pink for being mentioned among the likes of Kathleen Turner and Marisa Tomei::

"Currently playing in Atlanta, Amy Wheeler's play "Wizzer Pizzer" has a scene towards the end where a lesbian "drag king" is unmasked (so to speak) when another character pulls open her shirt and removes the binding she'd been using to flatten out her breasts.

In the Atlanta production, this part was played by female-to-male transgendered performer Scott Turner Schofield...from what I understand, Schofield hasn't actually had the gender reassignment surgery yet, but has started hormone therapy and has already taken a male name. In any case, the breasts that we saw exposed in the scene are still undeniably feminine."

I gotta say, much has been made of my rack of late, and it's all been positive. I never knew I could have a good relationship with my...breasts.... Ahem. [is it possible to have an out-of-body experience online? why yes, there you have it, it is.]

Oh, and PS, any takers on whether Shane from the L Word is actually an MTF trannie? I would kill for hips like hirs. ;-)

Creative Loafing Review

2005-05-12T16:41:00.000-04:00

arts_theater-1
Originally uploaded by Turner.

ARTS | THEATER 05.12.05
Â
Under The Rainbow
Wizzer Pizzer a tone-switcher

BY CURT HOLMAN

Playwright Amy Wheeler comes out in the program notes of her comedy Wizzer Pizzer. The Seattle-based playwright fesses up to being "a queer Christian ... who believes in the teachings of the socio-political-activist formerly known as Jesus."

Comfortable with her spiritual beliefs, Wheeler admits to being leery of born-again evangelicals and others "in the flock." Such ambivalence gives the playwright the ideal vantage to scrutinize the "ex-gay movement" of Christian groups to cure homosexuality.

In its world-premiere production at 7 Stages, Wizzer Pizzer revels in the comic possibilities of its timely subject, turns gender politics topsy-turvy and offers something sexy for every orientation.

Yet Wheeler packs so many jokes, themes and characters into Wizzer Pizzer, the play resembles an overstuffed closet that opens and emits a noisy, colorful avalanche.

Disaffected drag queen Kevin (Topher Payne) suffers an identity crisis after his disastrous attempt to perform "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at a gay club. Adding insult to injury, his best friend, Kandi (Scott Turner Schofield), brings down the house with her drag-king rendition of Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places" that same night.

Wallowing in booze and self-pity, Kevin complains that he's a walking gay stereotype, with a predictably fabulous sense of style but no feeling of passion or belonging. He happens to catch a late-night broadcast of "Dr. Nora" (Susan V. Booth), a Dr. Laura-esque tough-love therapist and founder of the "Getting Over the Rainbow" Reparative Therapy Clinic. Soon, Kevin finds himself inexplicably outside the clinic's gate, where Dr. Nora's minions attempt to straighten him out.

Wizzer Pizzer's sharpest segments depict the prayer sessions and therapeutic exercises meant to help misguided gays get in touch with their inner breeder. All-American couple Steve (Charlie Burnett) and Helen (Alison Hastings) run the clinic as former homosexuals-turned-wholesome spouses. Helen instructs the butch gals to put on makeup while Steve teaches the effete guys to suppress their desires during wrestling holds.

Steve and Helen's nuclear family is on the verge of a meltdown. They both teeter at the brink of gay "relapse," while their children, tomboy Blaine (Mary Claire Dunn) and "sissy" Gable (Brian Crawford), serve as living proof that homosexuality comes from nature, not nurture. Meanwhile, Kevin grows even more confused when Kandi shows up at the clinic - only she claims to be a man named Jack. The implications for Kevin and Kandi's relationship, let alone for cross-dressing role-play, become impossible to sort out.

Melissa Foulger directs Wizzer Pizzer's young actors to their strengths. An Atlanta playwright, Payne captures Kevin's esteem issues to find humor and occasional pathos, whether badly lip-synching to Judy Garland or attempting to impersonate a typically macho straight guy.

Schofield, duded up in cowboy gear and Western suits, gives Kandi a sly swagger reminiscent of Madonna's quote following a k.d. lang concert: "Elvis is alive." Schofield also grounds the role in a sensitivity that goes beyond preening caricature. (It's tricky picking the right pronoun for Schofield: The transgendered actor was until recently Atlanta-based actress and performance artist Kt Kilborn.)

A delicious inside joke lies in the casting of Dr. Nora. Alliance Theatre artistic director Susan Booth plays a scolding Voice of Authority in video projection and voice-over but never appears in the flesh. Like a Bible-thumping Martha Stewart, Booth gives Dr. Nora an amusing tone of testy self-righteousness. In one video interlude, Dr. Nora reveals a kinky side by pouring misplaced sexuality into a cooking demonstration: "The secret to a good meringue is in the whipping!"

Despite such comedic inspiration, Wizzer Pizzer's world premiere production feels like the kind of draft in which the playwright tosses all possible ideas onto the stage to see which one sticks. The action and tone keep switching, from ambisexual bedroom farce to surreal journey of self-discovery to after-school special about childhood gay identity. Blurring the line between dream and reality, the play gives its characters perplexing alter egos: Burnett also struts as a glammed-up club emcee, while Hastings sizzles as a bisexual femme fatale.

The play's second half proves increasingly vague and repetitious. The persistent Wizard of Oz references muddy the play's meanings. Near the end, characters contemplate murder while Jesus appears doing bad stand-up: "Take my life - please!" Like the disconnected images from somebody else's weird dream, Wizzer Pizzer all but spins to pieces.

Wizzer Pizzer forcefully punctures religious hypocrisy and the misuse of Jesus' teachings. The play speaks directly to the national brouhaha over gay marriage, but yet may not contain a spiritual message deeper than the hardly controversial "believe in yourself." Wizzer Pizzer could be circling an idea that "choice" neither applies to religious faith nor romantic feelings: You can't force physical attraction any more than you can spiritual devotion. Somewhere along the way, though, Wizzer Pizzer gets lost on the Yellow Brick Road.

aaarrrrrgggghhhhhh

2005-05-11T02:55:00.000-04:00

I can't do anything with this blog without Internet Explorer 5.5 for Max OS X.

The first person to get that program on my hard drive for free wins a prize.

An EXCELLENT prize.

GO!

{{thank you :-)}}

17 Reasons Why I'm Crazy

2005-05-10T23:17:00.000-04:00

17 Reasons Why I'm Crazy

Wizzer Pizzer Now Running!

2005-05-09T08:09:00.000-04:00

Wizzer Pizzer
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Opening Weekend just passed, with much fanfare and good feeling. We're really settling into the work...and a rather raucous cast party helped us gel even more. I'm stoked for the run.

Now we await the reviews...

Come check it out if you can, y'all. Here's Creative Loafing's description (pre-review):

A failed Judy Garland drag queen checks into a clinic to be "born again" as straight in Wizzer Pizzer. Opening MAY 7, 7 Stages' world premiere comedy riffs on the Wizard of Oz with transgendered politics and "curing homosexuality." With characters spanning the sexual spectrum, Wizzer Pizzer features Atlanta playwright Topher Payne as Kevin, the Judy Garland drag queen (shown); Scott Turner Schofield as a drag king who impersonates Garth Brooks; Alison Hastings as a leather-clad vixen; and Susan Booth as Dr. Nora, who offers therapy via video to all. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. Through May 29. 1105 Euclid Ave. 404-523-7647. www.7stages.org.

on the road again...

2005-04-29T14:26:00.000-04:00

Debutante Balls
at
Northwestern University
Monday, May 16th 2005
8pm

Location TBA

Heck yeah - heading back to Chi-town! Well, Evanston, but close enough. I love Chicago. After the show I'm gonna go see Patricia Barber at the Green Mill. My first live jazz experience left me begging for more, and I can't think of a better post-show celebration. Rockin'.

Those of you in Chicago - drop me a line, come to the show, or meet us later, okay?

This trip also marks the first time I travel as Scott Schofield - cool huh???

I was surfing around and found a really interesting document on the National Center for Transgender Equality's website - click the link above to download a pdf on tips for trans travellers.

I never mentioned this, but a recent trip (and the ensuing, invasive search a la Taste This's border-crossing examination described in their book _Boys Like Her_) through Washington Dulles airport kicked off a new performance idea...anyway, more on that as it unfolds; the pdf is good dramaturgy.

so did i

2005-04-26T17:11:00.000-04:00

I'm beginning to feel like Dear Abby - but not in that creepy social-control judgemental way (I hope!). Dear Readers, do email, and thank you for your willingness to appear on my blog with your written brilliance.

A little background on this...The person writing this email walked in very late to "Underground Transit" at Wesleyan. I decided to f*ck with hir, because ze was late, so I directed the line "Until I was 11 years old, I thought I was a boy" at hir. Ze responded BRILLIANTLY, responding "Yeah, so did I."

I had to stop the show. We applauded this person. And I used a gendered pronoun to refer to hir, which was f*cked up, and exactly the sort of bananna peel response I would have to such show-stopping smartness. I apologize again for that - it reminds me that none of us has our sh*t together all the time, even when we're performing having our sh*t together! :-)

To our emails, then:

i've been trying to figure out why i felt compelled to email you; from the best of my reckoning, it is because i have trouble finding people 1) thinking about
a lot of the things that i am thinking about and 2) unlike most of the other people i know who are thinking about these things, you, for whatever reason, have come to a more comfortable position in how you situate yourself amidst the various movements (my new word for hard-to-describe-theories-or-bodies-of-theory) we talked about while you were here (or at least give off that impression).

(the other thing being that talking about gender schtuff is such a scene here and it's really hard for me to think about it in terms of what i want to say and not in how people's gender performances function within the queer social hierarchy at wesleyan as sort of a claim to coolness.)

to start, a little more background/explanation on some of the things i asked whilst you were here--i feel like i did a kinda crappy job talking about trans-ness and why the trans story bothers me sometimes. it's not so much that it's within a binary framework ('cause i don't think this is true all of the time).
it's more the "journey" story--that there's a place that a trans person starts from and a place that they end up and that after the transition, the work is somehow done (though i don't mean to imply that once you "can" pass, you don't have to work at it). the idea that gender can be a trip with a fixed start and end is what bothers me. i think that perception is maybe a holdover from harry benjamin bullshits--that a good therapist can hold your hand while you're crossing the gender highway (ha! frogger!)--but i haven't really found that many other people talking about it outside of this sort of framework.

but yeah. coming out. i don't really know how to do it. i'm certainly "out" or whatever when i meet new people in my life (dishing the non-binary dish), but i'm really bad at talking to people who have known me as a boy. the problem is (and this reflects on passing and pronouns and everything else) is that i don't really know what i'm doing. when people ask me what pronoun to use and i say, "wombat or other marsupials," i either 1) get funny looks from the people who don't
really know what they're asking but know that they should ask or 2) end up talking about derrida and how the re-constitution of signifiers confuses the use of language to a degree that hinders any sort of gendered movement (has happened more than once).

but yeah. how do i come out if i don't know what i'm coming out as? how do i pass if i'm trying to pass as something that doesn't exist? how do i explain myself to the supermarket cashier? why do i need to? do i look better with stuble and a pony tail, or smooth-cheeked with my hair down? what does it mean if i miss a spot when i shave?

yeah, having a bit of a gender panic lately.

some other things i've been thinking about:

i was kinda captivated by how you, 'cause i'm studying for a stats test right now, took gender performance to the nth degree. it's like the rest of us were sort of milling about, doing what we do to perform our genders on a daily basis, but you were a bit of a hurricane, making your gender performance art. how do you feel about that? that you're kinda putting yourself up to the gaze? i feel like i spend a lot of time hiding, and it seems like it would be really empowering to call out an audience on how they are engaged in the consumption of other people's identities even when not in the theater. (can't really articulate my point, but i think i'm asking you how you interpret your work and sort of saying that i interpret it as calling out the people who objectify/naturalize/essentialize gender outside of performance spaces by performing gender in an explicit audience/performer space.)

also, i'm constantly amazed by how straight, non-trans men think they can be an ally. like by grabbing my ass while i'm wearing a skirt they think they're helping me enact whatever project they think i'm going for. or, they think that i'm trying to be a man and fucking up and want to help me out by doing fucked up masculine things.

ok, i've rambled for a while. time to study stats. hope you enjoy.

To my response:

I found myself nodding and doing that activist conference clicking thing to your email :-) Thanks! For sharing all of this.

Whew. So I'm just gonna have at this as I'm thinking about it - warning, no structure ahead!

I don't know what to do about activists and queers and academics and their effect on my gender and other identities. I am so freaking tired of the hierarchies I heard you bemoaning...and I've talked to others who feel the same way, and I wonder how the hell we're going to negotiate this at the next conference in a peaceful, constructive manner. Will it be possible, or will those of us who choose to speak up just be painted as anti-intellectuals who aren't willing to own our racistsexistclassist crap? When really, we do a good job of doing so without making others feel bad or intimidated (in doing so, actively resisting creating other kinds of hierarchies to oppress with).

Ahem. :-)

And Oh how I hear you on the gender-presentation crisis, my friend! All I can tell you about it is this... that some days I am confident in however it is I choose to present myself to the world that morning. The inside and the outside match, somehow, and usually it has more to do with the shoes I'm wearing and how they make me walk than how good a job I did binding my chest. And that a lot of times, that confidence gets struck down by some stranger saying "that latte is for *her*" while I've just been cruising a gorgeous most-likely-straight woman who then blushes and looks away. But there are those triumphant moments when somebody builds you up instead, just by the way they take you in or don't stumble over a pronoun when referring to you. I take it where I can get it, and have decided to be peaceful when it's rough - I mean, what else can I do that's healthy? Not a thing. Literally, when someone's making too big a deal out of it, one way or another, I set my jaw and sometimes I hum, and I think about the light and how lucky I am to be alive. Then I come back and usually the moment has passed.

And you know, I haven't experienced it myself, but I'm sure that people who aren't dealing with gender identity in the ways that we are have to go through similar things. I'd like to find out what it's like for them - what markers are important from within their wardrobes, and what things they hear said about themselves that fill them with light or take their breath and soul away. Maybe you and I could make a project of going out and talking to people who have no experience or access to Derrida or Butler or the Queer Clusterf*ck At Large (ahem - I've substituted Clusterf*ck for Community - I think it's much more properly descriptive, don't you?). When I do it, I always find out the most amazing things.

To my work! The original intention behind "Underground Transit" was just what you're saying - to put myself up in front of people and literally perform gender in all sorts of ways that I have experienced it, and to tell a story that makes My Body Matter (yes, that's a Butler reference, but I ain't going any further with it). I know that theater changes lives because it has my own, and I wanted to see in an almiost scientific way whether performing gender the way I do would make people go HMMMMM in a way that is important to them. And hey, it did! Yay.

What's it like for me? Well, it's wonderful, and terrifying. Wonderful in that I get to have conversations like that which I had with y'all at Wesleyan - and even better when I get to talk like that to people who *don't* have a clue as to all of the academic/activist stuff around my work, but who *do* now care, at least about being good to people like us. It is the most satisfying work I can imagine, and if I am lucky enough to be able to continue doing it, I will turn into light and go directly to heaven when I die - you know? Terrifying in that the line between performance and reality blurs in scary, sick-making ways that sometimes make me wonder if *I* actually exist, or if I'm just a clothes horse with a knack for smart but sexual inuendo, and if I am doomed to go the way of all fashion trends and just disappear into nothing, with nothing.

With regards to the story-line of coming out: I feel you there too, and yet it is so interesting that so many of us find out we've led parallel lives for so long - and comforting, too. I just don't think we should all have to conform to a particular narrative in order to be recognized as trans. I mean, the Marine Specia-Ops Liutenant who's now a gorgeous woman at 45 clearly has a different path than me...and who am I to judge it in any way other than to appreciate it? I think that telling our stories as they are is the act of resisting that Harry Benjamin you-must-have-played-with-dolls-and-want-a-husband Standard...if only it
worked so well when we're in the doc's office trying to get hormones "just to see" if it's what we want. Still, I play to doctors every so often...one story at a time they're changing their minds about what *has* to be vs. what's happening.

Warmly,
Scott Turner Schofield

On Courage and the Necessary

2005-04-25T16:14:00.000-04:00

So here's an email conversation I'm having with one of you lovely readers. I'm glad to know that people do read this...sometimes I wonder.

Anyway, this excellent person responded to the blog I wrote on Courage and Entitlement. Then I responded. Then ze responded. Ze also requested that I clear up hir grammatical mistakes...but I wouldn't be much good at that, so, bear in mind that we each wrote these during our morning, pre-coffee email sessions, okay? And here it is:

heya turner,

since i found your blog, thanks to the lovely bear bergman, i've enjoyed
reading of your happenings and performances.

i read your post about "entitlement" and "courage" his a.m., and i was reminded of my own reactions to the ever-persistent "you're so courageous" comment. i think you hit it on the nose about entitlement. the other piece that i always stumble over after those comments is the reminder, underneath their well-intended comment, that
what you're doing is somehow, usually, less than acceptable. now don't get me wrong, much of what most "courageous" people are saying is often less-than-acceptable in many circles, but somehow the courage bit necessitates the notion that other people, people who have not found it necessary to defend their identities on a daily, if minute-by-minute basis, have the right to exist without your courage - that is, passively.

somehow, when they call you "courageous," it justifies their own silence about these and so many other issues. this is not to say that what you're doing, what so many folks are doing, isn't courageous -- hell, sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning takes courage. but isn't it our obligation, if we truly believe in our convictions, to live as visibly as possible in as true a manner to those convictions as well possible can?

and what excuses do other, alternately privileged folk have for not living and doing their work with the very same courage they elicit to your performances? isn't the point to be doing it without excuses? to always be doing the good work, which includes owning up to when we're less-than-courageous?

anyway, i haven't had my coffee yet, so i do hope that was coherent!

thanks for the blog, and keep up the good, necessary work!

all the best,
::excellent person::

Hi there, Excellent -

Thanks for writing! Didn't we meet at the NGLTF conference? Your name is so familiar.

You said some exceedingly intelligent things just now, for not having had offee. I read it, then got some coffee myself, and read it again :-)

You're absolutely right about the underlying message of those comments.I'm not sure if I would say that my "courage" "justifies" their silence (maybe you mean in their heads - and then yes, I agree), but it certainly...perpetuates it, if all these people do is pat me on the back and go on their silent ways. What I hope my work does is break open a space for people to be out about who they are - whatever they are.

In "Debutante Balls" I take these very extreme identities (for most folks) - eg, Debutante and transgender/transsexual - but then set the stage for whatever kind of identities my audience is bringing to the space. I tackle my whiteness and my upper class-passing, middle class status, just as I interrogate having been in the deb world and now being a transsexual. I'm trying to show how they're so much the same - how each identity, however bland or embarrassing or hard to talk about (and for me that's more the white middle class part than the others!) need that critical eye, require that vocal ownership so that the true story can be told in all its
complexity.

Which feeds right into what you're saying:
>> but isn't it our obligation, if we truly believe in our convictions, to live as visibly as possible in as true a manner to those convictions as well possible can?
>
> Then...
>> and what excuses do other, alternately privileged folk have for not
>> living and doing their work with the very same courage they elicit to your
>> performances? isn't the point to be doing it without excuses? to
>> always be doing the good work, which includes owning up to when we're
>> less-than-courageous?
>

Heck yeah, that's the point! But our US American culture doesn't supportthat kind of lifestyle. "Activist" is a dirty word, didn't you know? As is "responsibility" and "weakness" (read "less-than-courageous"). What (it seems) we both want is for people to live up to the high bar...or at least try their hardest. To me, this means interrogating, articulating, understanding, and coming out with all of our dentities, and accepting one another as we/they do so...and just...revelling in the orgy of complication which ensues.

(I don't think we do enough of this, and THEN, I think, when we DO, we get all catty, and more-righteous-than-thou. I have activist conference for that reason - we're all trying to do our best, but we're all edgy and defensive because that's hard, and THEN we all lie in wait for somebody to trample some identity-politic trip-wire so we can lambaste them and look smart and right-on. Do you know what I'm talking about?)

I mean, talk about a melting pot. I always hated that metaphor. It just subsumes everything into this mucky, untasty slop - again, "forget responsibility, just let it boil over on the stove." At least in this construction - this "courageous", own-your-sh*t-and-love-yourself paradise - we'd be aware of all the historical and present contexts that go into the mix.

Whew. My coffee's running out!

Thanks for responding to the blog. It's great to hear from you, and be the beneficiary of your sharp mind.

Hey...could I post this email?

My best, Turner

A portion from *hir* response, now:

Which leads me to your wholly right-on thoughts about the "activist scene" back in the states, if not nearly everywhere. You said it! Those conferences drive me nuts!! I feel like all that one-up'ing and (I call it) macho activism ("my access to the activist lexicon is bigger than your access...etc") is exactly undermining the point! I don't want to care about being the perfect activist, the perfect writer, the perfect queer, the perfect ally, the perfect friend, the perfect partner, the perfect anything! I just want to be someone who is really good about being confronted when I fuck up. I want people to hold me to my convictions and
to theirs, too, and to not be afraid to ask me to own up to my privileges, and all the ways that I perpetuate oppression. And I want the discussion that follows to be one based on mutual respect and trust for that fact that we are all working hard, that we are all trying (as I once read Dean Spade write) "to be good about it." What would happen if we used all of that energy that we otherwise use on, as you say, lambasting each other, on supporting and encouraging each other, on offering CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and on trying to be better allies, better communicators, better workers, better lovers and friends and observers, instead of better
critiquers! (did i spell that right?!) Because we are all oppressed and we are all oppressors, and we will never end that by trying to be, or expecting others to be perfect! And personally, I rather my writing and my speech be accessible to more people without the fancy coatings; leave the my-words-are-bigger/look-how-many-degrees-I-have language at the door, thank you very much!

And you had it exactly when you wrote about highlighting our individual identities for all their worth, because our identities are intensely personal, intensely unique and intricate, and isn’t the point to stand there, amazed (if occasionally dumbfounded) that we are beings so able (if we will only allow ourselves) to share and change and learn?! Because you’re right, a “melting pot” is unappetizing, and an “orgy” always makes for a far more enticing metaphor! And I for one think that transgression and gender and hard work (in any form) are sexy!

So there. Smart people rule.

Babysitter's Club part 1

2005-04-20T15:40:00.000-04:00

Babysat the other day for some neighborhood kids - a whole posse of them, it turned out. Kids rock.

Children are fascinated by the phenomenon of gender, especially when a person doesn't conform to the stick-figure drawings they're learning to embellish with every passing day.

So I'm walking to the park with a little boy I'll call Gable, and a little girl I'll call Blaine in tow (they're both 4 - far too young to get informed consent to use their real names here - but they really do exist...). Gable has known me for a few years now, and upon my return to the community, his parents explained my name change, and why I want to be called "he" now. It is always hilarious to hear parents speaking through their children...though it can be scary, right? Still, Gable's parents did a great job, because Gable explained excitedly to Blaine - in a voice so cutely garbled by his age it cannot be replicated in type - that "Turner was a woman, but now he's a MAAAAAANNNNN!" He growled, just like that, and then yelled at the top of his tiny lungs, "A MAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!"

He fixed his gaze at my hips (he's just that tall), looked up at me, and asked, then: "How did you do that?"

I wasn't really sure that a detailed explanation of testosterone and legal proceedings would be appropriate for a nice Saturday afternoon walk to the park, so I told him and Blaine, "Well, it starts out that you have to *really* want it. Then, boom, you're a man." Which in many ways is actually true...but I think that's another blog entry.

Gable took this in stride, laughed, and said "Then I want to be a WOMAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!! A WOMAN! A WOMAN!!!"

I support this in my spritely young friend, so I look at Blaine and say, "Well Blaine, what would Gable have to do in order to become a woman?" I'm happy to report that Blaine has not yet been burdened by traditional gendered archetypes; she shrugged her shoulders and smiled sweetly. Clearly it was my job to outline the tasks and characteristics of Woman.

I took a deep breath. The two four-year-olds were intent on finding out What It Takes To Be A Woman, and this is not a lesson I want to screw up. We pass a magnolia tree in full bloom, and I say, "Well, Gable, if you want to be a woman, then you're gonna have to learn to fix a car. And you may want to consider becoming a doctor, right Blaine? Also, flip-flops with flowers glued to them, like Blaine here is wearing, might come in useful. I sorta wish I had a pair."

Blaine beams at me, and my spirit soars into the sunsetting heavens above. Gable looks from her to me with eyes made red by all the pollen in the air, and says "Yeah. I want to be that kind of woman."

Moments like these just *happen* with children, you know? It is pure grace that allows adults to witness them.

Entitlement

2005-04-20T15:34:00.000-04:00

Performed at Emory - my alma mater - the other day. Silly me for thinking that folks would come out to a show so soon before taxes are due...but still, the crowd was warm and full of people I care about, so it was a lovely homecoming.

A couple of people approached me after the show and thanked me for my *courage* in coming out the way I do. I had mentioned in the post-show Q&A that the show's message is to come out, come out, whatever you are - that in coming out, we resist the oppression of silence, and actively stomp on the barriers we build around our own identities. Apparently, doing this takes *courage*.

I have always had a hard time with that logic. We paint the most necessary deeds in colors of bravery, courage, chutzpah and courage, when really, we'd die if we didn't do whatever it is we did - it's that simple, and actually that serious. Resisting death in any form it may take...well, we do it every time we take a breath, and I won't hold a banner for my breathing.

What I realized later is that it's not about courage. It's about entitlement. I want to take back that word.

I know that as a white person with educational and class privilege who passes for male a lot of the time, getting on my high-horse about entitlement could be problematic - but hear me out.

When I tell these stories about finding myself in the wackiest situations, describing sex reassignment on the dance floor of a Debutante Ball, for instance, it isn't courage that led me to open my big mouth and respond like a reasonable human being, like what I had to say had a place in that place. Maybe it had something to do with a couple of gin and tonics, but that aside, I have always felt entitled to my own experience, entitled to queer the most queer-phobic spaces with what is true for me. It's not that the details themselves are important - really, not at all, at least no more than any other details - but the act itself, of telling, is something we all shy away from too too often. I do it too sometimes, and then I feel like I've lost an opportunity, that I chose silence and fear over action and change.

I am entitled to live in my gender the way I see fit. I am entitled to be treated with dignity and respect as I do so. I am entitled to a fundamental level of kindness and goodwill in every interaction, to being allowed to speak and to being heard by others.

We are all entitled to those things, and more, whatever our circumstances or identity. We short-change ourselves and each other by imagining otherwise.

Please don't think that by giving those sentences their very own line I think I'm saying something important, or revolutionary. It's what I've thought, but not articulated, with every kudo for "courage" I've ever received from a kind and/or inspired audience member. Other people *should* be affected by my existence, should bend their vision over my experience - as I should (and do) theirs.

It ain't rocket science. It's also not about "tolerance" or "acceptance." It's about engaging with people, listening to stories, keeping an ear to the ground and having a clue as to how things shake out for others - not just yourself or the characters we watch on television or ignore in the streets every day.

Maybe it's all this testosterone I'm taking. If I'm out of line, asserting that we all need to get a sense of entitlement around our own identities - especially those of us for whom that sense has been ground out for...ever... - hey, email me. I'm open to suggestion - and you're entitled to your opinion.

Spring Tour Dates

2005-04-14T00:48:00.000-04:00

Scott Turner Schofield Spring 2005 Tour
*all events are free of charge unless otherwise noted*

March 3
"Debutante Balls"
Hampshire College, MA
Franklin-Patterson Hall, Main Lecture Hall
8pm

March 8
"School's Out" - a new collaboration with Mark Blankenship, part of the Brave New Works Festival 2005
Emory University, GA
Schwartz Center Lab 7:30pm
**All seating at Theater Emory events is free but you must have a reservation. Make your reservation by calling the box office at 404-727-5050 Seating is on a space available basis, there will be NO overflow seating.**

March 15
"Underground TRANSit" and workshop
Columbia College Chicago, IL

March 29, 8pm
"Debutante Balls"
Vassar College, NY
Villard Room
8pm

March 31, 7:30pm
"Underground TRANSit"
Butler University, IN
Robertson Chapel
7:30pm

April 3, 1:45pm
Workshop: "Politcal Performance Art" with a special concentration on
environmental activism
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT
email Karen Oelschlaeger (koelschlaege@wesleyan.edu) for details & signup

April 4, 7pm
"Underground Transit" performance
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT
WestCo Cafe
7pm

April 13, 6pm
"Debutante Balls"
Atlanta Full-length Premier!
Emory University
Atlanta, GA
Mary Gray Monroe Theater (2)
in the Dobbs University Center
***seating is limited***

May 5 - 29 (Thurs - Sun and a coupla Weds)
"Wizzer Pizzer" a world-premier by Amy Wheeler
7 Stages, Atlanta GA
go to www.7stages.org for full details

Blog from the ATL

2005-04-12T11:18:00.000-04:00

Location: Atlanta, GA

Back "home" in the ATL, rehearsing the world premier of Amy Wheeler's play, "Wizzer Pizzer". This will be my professional stage debut (of work that's not my own...), but more on that later.

The remainder of the Spring Tour was truly excellent. Vassar College was a particular highlight in terms of audience response, and feeling good about the show. I think I have finally written the full show, to the point where I address the class and race issues that are so important to the stories in a way that makes me feel...like I've said what I need to say. The Vassar crowd dug it - and that crowd felt a little like the group at the UC Santa Barbara Gender Queers/Queer Genders conference: folks who know their stuff, and won't let you get away with a single slip. Such audiences intimidate me, and yet they're so very helpful in writing work that fulfills my highest expectations. So thanks, y'all!

Finally got to meet the very amazing Emilee at Butler University. She and I got friendly when I worked for Daemon Records; she was our finest street teamer. Long after my term with Daemon ends, she checks up on me, and decides it's time to bring my show to Indianapolis. Two years later, I play to a very interesting group of people...a packed show by Butler standards (I was told), full of students who were *markedly* enthusiastically interested in learning about transgender stuff. Can't beat that!

Plus, Indianapolis bars all have Blue Moon Beer on *tap* AND they don't look at you like you're nuts when you ask for an orange slice with it. The good-feeling of this cannot be underestimated.

The final show, at Wesleyan University, was organized by my best high-school friend's baby sister. The last time I saw Karen, she was in the 8th grade. Now she's a kick-ass environmental activist with a particular interest in ecofeminism and gender. Cool, right? Charlotte NC produces some fine folks.

Even cooler: the workshop she initiated for the Sierra Club Student Coalition. When I facilitate the "Performing the Personal as Political" workshop, I often find lots of activists who are emphatically *not* performers, or performers who don't want to "go there" with political statements in their art. This group fell more in the former group, BUT, they were SO willing to imagine and create work, which made for a KICK ASS workshop all around. I am especially excited to see the pictures of the Foreign Oil Dependency Slip-n-Slide they're going to set up on their quad once it gets a little warmer in Middletown. Oh yes: smart performance activism in bikinis. Can't get much better than that.

I should also give a shout out to the performers in my Vassar workshop. These artists *were* willing to go there, and they were so smart about the art of performance...Vassar's gonna have a cool crew of Guillermo Gomez-Penas walking around in the shape of white women with radical agendas in plexiglass boxes pretty soon - watch out.

So, Atlanta. Oh it is so nice to be back on my own terms. Those of you interested in searching the archives might find clues as to the strife that preceded my leaving this lovely town...but now I am back on my own terms with an excellent show to do, and a cast that rocks my world and makes it warmer than this pollen-count Spring ever could.

This play, "Wizzer Pizzer" by Amy Wheeler has all of us caught up in its complex hilarity. It's as funny and campy as that movie "But I'm a Cheerleader," and yet it's got a handle on the gender identity part of "homosexuality" and an even sharper hold on hypocritical christian "values" in a way that doesn't write off all people of that faith-group - just the non-Christian ones. We're all hoping that Dr. Laura zealots far and wide will show up and see themselves exposed... that's probably too much to hope for, but one can dream, right?

On a personal note, as I said, this is my professional stage debut. My theater mentors always told me never to wait for a show to be written for me, to create my own work and push the envelope - and yet, here it is! In this play that I have not written, I change costumes many times, "sway with [my] charms and slay with [my] smile," and yes, take off my shirt - all the way. Have I been type-cast? :-)

I didn't write it. I didn't. But I am so charmed to be a part of it!

I think that Amy Wheeler is writing ahead of her time with this work, and her newest play, "Kiss It." She's got this genderf*ck stuff _down_ - her ear's to the ground in the queer community, and she's writing about gender and sexuality in all their fantastical fluidity in a way I only see solo-show trannies doing for our tiny clusters of community scattered around. You've gotta come see this play. I'll only say it once.

I've got some 'splainin' to do in answer to some very smart questions posed to me by a student at UCLA. Keep watch for those soon. Happy Springtime!

directions to the MGM2

2005-04-12T11:02:00.000-04:00

Here are directions for those of you lookin' for "Debutante Balls" at Emory:

Yes, 6pm - I would arrive at 5:45-50 or so - we only have 60 seats and a strict fire code.

It's in the MGM 2, which is in the Dobbs University Center (DUC - pronounced duck). The easiest way to get there is to turn toward the hospital on Clifton from North Decatur (not sure which direction you're coming from...turn toward the flyover bridge and all of the university buildings). You will then turn left at the...3rd light (you'll pass the intersection with the buisness school, then go under the flyover bridge and a light there, then you'll turn left at the next light. If you get to the CDC you've gone too far.) Take the next left (at the 1st stop sign) onto Means Drive - you'll be driving parallel to a walkover bridge. You'll go up a slight hill, and soon it will open up into a parking lot on your right. This may be crowded. Do not park in reserved spaces...I believe that after 5, the parking passes aren't necessary, so you can park in the spaces marked 3 and 1.

If you can't find a space up there, you're going to have to go to one of the lots that are farther away, and hoof it across campus to the DUC. You can ask for directions from anybody you see.

If you get a spot in that parking lot, the MGM has a loading dock that you'll be able to see. Go in either of the 2 big doors there, and look for people.

If you don't get a spot there, once you get to the DUC you'll see that the main floor houses a cafeteria and the facade of a big building. Go in the direction of the facade, and take the archway on its left (your right as you're facing the facade). Take that hallway past a store and an arcade, and you'll come to a V-shaped stairway. Go up the first set of stairs, and the MGM2 will be at the top, along with the box office.

Sorry that's so complicated...It's easier than it sounds, I promise.
Hope to see you!
Turner

AQT!

2005-04-11T17:31:00.000-04:00

Wanted to share our good news with you! We'll find out in the summertime
if "Turn Me On" will receive a production out of the 10
finalists...finger's crossed!

AQT2005 WRITING CONTEST FINALISTS

[A Queer Theater - Vancouver, Canada]

112 submissions from 4 continents; An overwhelming 55%
hailed from our neighbour to the south, the United
States of America reflecting 50% of the finalists being
from USA. It was a pleasure reading great material
along with some obscure and “oh my gosh” type of work –
that’s the nature of the job! Still, no matter if you
made it to this list or not, thank you for
participating in the AQT2005 Writing Contest. We look
forward to announcing the winner before summer time.
Congratulations to our finalists. The AQT2006 Writing
Contest is now open. Visit the website for more info
http://www.queertheatre.com Sincerely, Terry Costa

AND THE FINALISTS ARE…

***Turn Me On by Sheri Mann Stewart & Scott Turner
Schofield (formerly Kt Kilborn) (Georgia & Texas USA)
A kinda-comic, sorta-serious look at love, friendship,
gender and sexuality through the eyes of a
forty-something married mother of four and a
twenty-something transitioning transsexual rock star
wannabe.***

Beggar’s Prophecy by Mehmet Murat Ildan (Ankara, TURKEY)
Madame Louise, whose zoologist husband, Monsieur
Lamartine is studying chimpanzees in Africa, meets a
beggar after leaving her “Don Juan” lover’s apartment
in Liberation Street, Paris. Beggar asks her for a few
francs to lighten her sins. After a witty conversation,
they arrange to go to the theatre the following evening…

Between the Lines by Vicki Righettini (Massachusetts,
USA)
Chris, an androgynous individual, challenges the
audience’s preconceived notions in this comic monologue
about gender perception. Though stories about Chris’s
upbringing and his one and only trip to summer camp, we
get to know a truly unique person, and perhaps come to
recognize and celebrate the “category of one” that each
of us inhabits.

Every Once in a While… author unknown (CANADA)
“Whether through osmosis or immaculate misconception is
still mostly a mystery, but they appear. Suddenly, and
without warning, a new pretender to the throne stands
in front of you. But where do they come from?
Genderfuck meteors flaming to earth? Crossdressers
crawling from every crevasse in the country? Often,
they mutate out of men from the most macho of
environments. But what triggers it?”
NOTE: This work will be disqualified if we cannot find
the author by May 1st, 2005.

Gay! By Paolo Banderas (Toledo, SPAIN)
In the middle of the psalm, the 15 year old singer
decided to tell the whole congregation he was gay.
Church goers begin to learn more then they hoped for
during Sunday mass.

Intimacy – A Duet by Greg L Flegel (Wisconsin, USA)
The voices are simply named “You” and “I”. “You” is the
abstract, the spiritual. “I” is the reality. Intimacy
chronicles gay men finding love, the struggle for a
balance between individual, spousal and societal
priorities that affect everyone.

Look In My Eyes by Jonathan P. Armstrong (British
Columbia, CANADA)
Deceit, Revenge, and… Zombies! Jack and Peter decide to
go spend a weekend in a cabin. Little did they know
that so many wished to visit them…

Quebec, Canada by Vincent Boujard (Quebec, CANADA)
Laurent wants Dominique. So does Alain. Dominique
doesn’t know what he wants. Men, women, commitment and
freedom are luring him in every direction but he is
incapable of choosing. Or unwilling? And then enters
Quebec!

Vamp by Ry Herman (Arizona, USA)
Chloe is becoming increasingly irritated by the
imaginary people living in her apartment, including a
bathrobe-clad Jesus and the annoyingly perky Spunky Old
Gal. Chloe meets Angela, a Goth astrophysicist at a
nightclub. The two hit it off and begin dating. All
goes well until they discover that they have been
keeping disturbing secrets form each other.

The Wormwood Chronicle by Mary Fengar Gail (California,
USA)
Prue, a Catholic priest, cantor and self-professed
antiquarian, is the spiritual advisor to Duncan
Albright, a talented young tenor who has fallen in love
with a woman and is leaving the seminary to marry. Prue
is outraged at losing his leading soloist and conspires
in every conceivable way to destroy Duncan’s engagement.

For updates, join:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TCproductions/

Terry Costa
Artistic Producer
http://www.queertheatre.com

For Grover

2005-04-08T14:32:00.000-04:00

Support an Independent QueerFeminist Performance Artist:

I met Grover at the National Transgender Theater Festival in 2003, and was blown away by hir work. Can't wait to get my hands on this CD - order if you can! - Turner

"Dear friends, fans and fellow artists and activists,

I'm in the process of recording my first album, titled Postmarked, right now. It is
an eclectic mix of my work over the past six years, a mixture of spoken word,
performance poetry, introspective monologues, banjo, flute and singing.

I'm having a hard time coming up with all the funds to get the CD's printed up and I
need your help. Pre-order a CD from now until May 1st for $10 + shipping and
handling and I will send it to you hot off the press two weeks later when they're
all produced. After May 1st CD's can be ordered from my website or bought out on the
road for $12-$15 sliding scale. Getting your copy of Postmarked pre-ordered gets it
in your hands faster and makes it possible for me to have them available at all.

To order e-mail groverwehman@yahoo.com or contact me through my website at
www.grover.byregion.net after you hear samples of my work.

Thank you all so much for your support.

Love love love love
-grover

www.grover.byregion.net

"people like direct poetry in times of injustice, times of common silence. Times
when they are unable to speak or act. Poetry that whispers and suggests can only be
felt by free men. By the citizen who can speak up and does not have to give that
task to another"

-Murid Barghouti in "I saw Ramallah" "

Some nice things

2005-04-01T04:13:00.000-05:00

Some nice things...

So I just had an excellent performance experience at Butler University...a really lovely venue, plus an _excellent_ tech person, plus lotsnlots of students who seem to be "diverse" makes for a great time. THEN my hosts took me out for half-price martinis, and how can you hate that?

And yet, THEN, or rather NOW, I am sitting up in my lovely hotel room (also provided by the very generous Butler U.) watching the West Wing AND I really needed chapstick, so I called the front desk, and they _sent some up_. This is just one excellent Friday night.

But THEN I checked my email (on the in-room high-speed internet...you really can't underestimate how these little things please me these days) and I get THIS, from my Chicago show:

Hello,

I wanted to spread the word about a really excellent performer, Scott Turner Schofield (formerly Kt Kilborn).

Scott is a female-to-male transgender writer/performer who brought his
one person show, "Underground Transit" here to Columbia College this week.
(He also has another solo show, "Debutante Balls". ) My class is still
talking about the power of the performance, both as a work of art, and as a
piece of activism. The class is an intro to composition, so these are
students from a huge variety of backgrounds; very few of them had met a
transperson before, and every one of them has noted, positively, that they gained information and empathy by watching the show.

He also gave a workshop on using performance for political activism.
Scott handled the room and his position that performance is direct action
for social change and social justice like the pro he is. I didn't need convincing, but his presentation, and the work he had us do as participants, was inspiring.

My only regret surrounding Scott's visit was that more students did
not see his show or experience his workshop. Count this as a _very_ high recommendation for those of you looking to do transgender programming
or raise queer visibility on your campus. Scott is a pleasure to work
with, and the impact on your community will be positive, and far-reaching.

You can find out more on his website: www.undergroundtransit.com, and
his email is turner@undergroundtransit.com.

Sincerely -
Kathleen M. McLaughlin
Coordinator, Office of GLBT Student Concerns
Columbia College Chicago
kmclaughlin@colum.edu

And that's not an April Fools.

Oh, speaking of, apparently tomorrow we wear brown to protest all the of bullsh*t going on from the Fool in Office. Just FYI.

::big smile::

Trans Art

2005-03-30T18:14:00.000-05:00

I'll be performing as part of this very excellent show, produced by the very very excellent Sean Dorsey

Please forward widely until 4/22/2005

* CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: TRANS ARTWORK *

The Second Annual Fresh Meat in the Gallery is an historic exhibition of visual art
by transgender, intersex and genderqueer artists. To celebrate our second year,
we’ve expanded to two exhibitions in two galleries: Gallery One at the LGBT
Community Center, and Gallery Two at ODC Theater Gallery.

As a part of the National Queer Arts Festival, Fresh Meat in the Gallery accompanies
Fresh Meat 2005 (www.freshmeatproductions.org), the acclaimed annual festival of
transgender and queer performance that runs June 16-18 at ODC Theater. A driving
force in building the trans art movement, this exhibition creates a visual dialogue
about gender, the body and society. It initiates an open discourse with
and about subjects often left unseen or undiscussed, both within the queer community
and in society at large.

We invite transgender, intersex and genderqueer artists to submit original works of
art, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture and mixed
media. Help us foster and build our emerging trans art movement!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Please submit ALL of the following:
1) Up to three images, in one of the following formats:
a. Slides, with your name on each slide and a dot in the lower left hand
corner; OR
b. A CD with high-resolution JPEGs (images scanned at 200 dpi or higher); OR
c. Very clear photographs.
2) An information sheet which includes ALL the following information:
a. Title (if any),
b. Year made,
c. Medium, and
d. Dimensions of the artwork submitted.
3) A short (200 words or less) bio about yourself and your work, INCLUDING your full
name, address, phone and email address.
4) A self-addressed, stamped envelope if you wish to have your submission returned.

Please do NOT send original artwork.

Deadline for submissions is April 22, 2005. Early submissions are much
appreciated!! Artists will hear back from us in early May.

To submit work by mail, send to:

Fresh Meat in the Gallery
c/o QUEER CULTURAL CENTER
P.O. Box 9
LGBT Community Center
1800 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

To assure that your work arrives safely, please be sure to:
- write the address exactly as above
- write "ARTWORK - DO NOT FOLD" on the envelope

To drop work off in person:

The LGBT Community Center is located at 1800 Market Street, at Octavia.
Hours: Monday-Friday 12noon-10pm, Saturday 9am-10pm. Closed Sunday.
Limited street parking available, although there is a 2-minute loading zone.
The MUNI METRO LINES J, K, L, M, N, the F STREETCAR, or MUNI BUS LINES 6, 7, 9, 10,
14, 21, 26, 47, 49, 66 and 71 all run within 5 blocks of the Center, and many run
within 1 block. You can also, take BART to SF Civic Center, then transfer to Muni
Metro or F lines.

EXHIBITION DATES:

Gallery One: LGBT Community Center, Gallery 301 (3rd Floor)
June 04 – July 31, 2005
1800 Market Street (at Octavia), San Francisco
Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 12noon-10pm, Sat 9am-10pm
Opening Reception: June 4, 6pm-10pm (at the Q Ball, the opening reception of the
National Queer Arts Festival)

Gallery Two: ODC Theater Gallery
June 12 – July 5, 2005
3153 17th Street (at Shotwell), San Francisco
Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 2pm-5pm
Opening Reception: June 16, post-performance (Fresh Meat 2005)

Once we have juried the work, the curators will determine which selected works will
display in which gallery space.

QUESTIONS/INFO: Contact Emma or Billie at freshmeatart@hotmail.com

Thanks so much – we’re looking forward to seeing your work!

- Emma Ramstad & Billie Mandel, your Fresh Meat in the Gallery curators
-Sean Dorsey, Artistic Director, Fresh Meat Productions

EstroFest call

2005-03-01T22:01:00.000-05:00

I did this festival twice. It's good. Apply.

Makes me wonder if my ex, the AD of EF, is getting preggers...

ESTROFEST PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Call for Submissions for the SEEN + HEARD Festival
2005

ESTROFEST PRODUCTIONS, INC., an Atlanta-based arts
production company, is seeking woman positive theater,
film/video, dance, spoken word, performance art,
guerilla art, music and visual art for the third
annual SEEN + HEARD FESTIVAL "CONCEIVE!" from June
15-19, 2005. The five-day Festival will take place in
THE B COMPLEX's historic 8,000 square foot Gallery.
Submissions open to all genders (trans-inclusive).
Submissions should demonstrate the artist's
interpretation of the THEME.
Theater: Send script. Only plays with minimal sets can
be considered.
Film/video: send VHS or DVD.
Dance: send VHS or DVD of work sample + description of
intended performance
Spoken word: send writing sample (8 pages maximum)
Performance art: send VHS or DVD work sample +
description of intended performance
Guerilla art: send still images, VHS, or DVD of past
work + description of intended work
Music: send CD or cassette
Visual art: send slides (one sleeve maximum).
Submissions can be composed of any visual art medium
such as painting, drawing, photography, sculpture,
ceramics, glass, installation, audio and video.
(EstroFest Productions’ commissions on all sales will
be 10%.)

Submissions should also include a $10 entry fee (U.S.
check or money order made payable to EstroFest
Productions, Inc.) per artist. All submissions should
be a maximum of 20 minutes. The entry fee covers a
maximum of three submissions per artist for
consideration. Visual artists are asked to send slides
(by mail) or jpegs (by email). Please provide artist
statements, bios, contact information and specific
technical needs for your work. In addition, also
provide a SASE if you desire the return of materials.
DEADLINE for submissions is FRIDAY, MARCH 19th, 2005.
Accepted artists will be notified via email or phone.
Accepted artwork must reach EstroFest Productions,
Inc. by Sunday, June 5, 2005.
The Seen + Heard Festival 2005 has received some
funding, but still runs on volunteer fuel. We
apologize that we cannot offer financial remuneration
at this time.
SEND SUBMISSIONS TO:
EstroFest Productions, Inc.
ATTN: Kathryn Colegrove
664 Linwood Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30306
or
estrofestinc@yahoo.com
Questions? call 404-643-7002

2005-02-28T00:37:00.000-05:00

if there's anyone out there who can get me a copy of internet explorer 5.5 for mac.......

you'll forever be remembered as The Person who Got Turner's Blog Looking Good and Connected.

Lovingly in advance,
Turner

Cali Trip Part 2

2005-02-24T01:29:00.000-05:00

On the Road from CA part 2

The Saturday plenary panel at the UC Santa Barbara Queer Genders/Gender Queer Conference was excellent and fraught. Professor Jack – Judith – Halberstam, poet Thea Hillman, and activist/artist Imani Henry presided.

Henry said much about his work with Silvia Rivera and Rainbow Flags for Mumia to keep me thinking about the important work of building coalitions. Again, this is big, right, so “more later.”

Hillman excerpted her book, “Depending on the Light” for us, noting that since she came out as intersex, she’s being lauded as some kind of expert activist for the cause: a major paradigm shift from queer feminist woman poet.

Aside: I kissed Thea Hillman once when she was the poet-activist responsible for For Word Girls, a national poetry slam for women, and I didn’t know at the time that she was intersex, though I did think she was an excellent poet and quite a good kisser. (I ran a kissing booth at an event she headlined in Atlanta. We figured this out over dinner, knowing that we “knew” one another from somewhere, finally ecstatic to close our loop of queer degrees of separation completely.) I’m currently taking suggestions on a good title to describe her – somehow, after the booty shakin’ at the drag cabaret that night, it fell to me to make her business cards. Thea Hillman: Poet Activist is top of my list, after “The Nicest In-Your-Face Activist To Ever Slam You.”

Now Dr. Halberstam’s lecture, again, rocked my socks. What can I say…as an artist, I’m really just an academic who doesn't like proofreading, and who has an urge to undress in front of people.

Halberstam lamented the fate of the academic, who is always the cranky critic of the radical and raucous activist/artist types. He offered what was, to me, an excellent framework of thinking about the different rhetorical structures we each use as activists, artists, and academics. It came in useful for a conversation I had later on with the fabulous Kristina Wong…but I’ll get to that later.

So Halberstam took a look at the means and ends for the artist, activist, and academic.
The Artist: The artist’s language includes words like “liberation”; offers us images of BOTH uniqueness AND mulitiplicity; defies ALL categories while being situated within one; and sees the body as a place of both power AND oppression – simultaneously. Artists use performance to express these rhetorics.

The Activist: Activists are all about FIRM categories; strive for recognition and visibility; demand equality and restitution for the grievances they look for and find.

The Academic: is suspicious of the “liberal politics” of slefhood (“I am, therefore my issues matter”); they seek structures, systems, and histories to work within or describe. They are suspicious of performance – of the manipulation actually involved in affecting an identity.

So, for me, I found this useful. Kristina Wong and I would have a conversation later in the week about the way that we, as performance artists, still move within academic structures: that we study as a way of mining experience for performable gems, and feel as though we have to be “up” on the theory that’s out there…really just so that academics will write about us, and college kids adore us…. Hey, I cannot tell a lie. And yet, this means we are using the liberal politics of selfhood to describe the systems, structures and histories in which we live, as a way of achieving visibility and recognition for the unique AND muliple identities we represent…

Halberstam’s lecture got sticky right at the end. There was an incident with Halberstam using language – well, actually, there were issues with everyone using language in a way that, surprise surprise, didn’t meet the standards of every activist-artist-academic-individual crowded in the room. I don’t wanna go into it in detail, but it brings up a tricky place for us progressives.

Crowded in that auditorium was a collection of identities and experiences to make yer average dude’s head spin. And from these intersected identities we all listened and spoke, offended and took offense. I approach presenting before a group like the one gathered at this conference (and really just all progressive, activist-minded groups generally) as I would a game of Frogger:

You’re the little Frogger, with your own little Frogger identity, trying to make it to your point. You’ve got to take your message across the highway of experience, which takes the form of your audience, who at any moment while you are frogging your little froggy way over lanes of rhetoric, ideology, action and experience, might come from any direction and steamroll you into the pavement in a little frogy mess. When it comes to talking identity politics at queer/progressive conferences, you start at level 7, where the trucks and cars and logs and alligators speed across the screen and the best you can do is say what you mean, mean what you say, and enjoy the hop across (which will take you on many horizontal detours as you go). You partly expect, and yet hope not to be clobbered at some point along the way. As Gopinath mentioned, there is always a subjective agenda within criticism.

What would Frogger look like in the context of a coalition, I wonder? I do have to say, however, that most folks at the conference approached each other with constructive criticism offered in a kind way – a way of raising us all up to the bar of conscientious intelligence we expect of our fellow human beings. Again, yay for the greatest conference ever!

Cali Trip

2005-02-24T01:02:00.000-05:00

On the Road Again…

I’ve found a new coast to call home.

Left for California on Thursday to attend and entertain at the UC Santa Barbara Queer Genders/Gender Queer conference, which incidentally, ranks #1 in best-organized, well-attended, and interesting conferences I’ve enjoyed in awhile.

Chief among the highlights was my wrangler Theo’s decision to go for burritos after landing at LAX. Under the silver light of the Shakira DVD playing on repeat at the diner we chowed, and I realized that with the untimely closing of Tortilla’s in Atlanta, I had not enjoyed a gooood burrito in _years_. Hence my decision to call this coast home. Sorry, Back East, Down South – you got nothin’ on Cali when it comes to burritos.

Ahem.

Theo Burns is one of the few remaining slam poets whose work I enjoy. There’s no affected cadence other than the intelligent righteousness he provokes while talking good activist smack about what ails us these days, personal and political. He gets to the point with the requisite amount of anger and not a rant more, making his words galvanizing and not self-righteous, exciting and not antagonistic. So it was very cool to spend a few hours in his presence, workin’ through the issues as we try to do every day.

The plenary on Friday rocked my socks, specifically though the presentation given by Gayatri Gopinath on the state of academe, art and activism. She contends that the new queer scholarship (and in this she included artistic work as well) is more deeply engaged with social politics than ever: that academics no longer work with a disinterested gaze. Her call for “supple, expansive forms of scholarship that engage and challenge the problems of today”…well, the use of words like “supple” in academic speechwriting just make me feel good, you know? Also, it’s nice to have someone set you within an historical context from time to time: it’s grounding. I gotta read more of her work.

Also on the panel were my fave Ryka Aoki de la Cruz (poet/performer and the kind of teacher who looks into your soul when she checks in on how you’re artistic development’s coming) and Yosenio Lewis. The framework of the conference was artists, activists, and academics working within and around gender and queerness. Each plenary panel was an striking mix of key people from each genre; in the case of the activists and artists, it was often difficult to separate the two.

Ryka said something in her performance/lecture that I’ve been wanting to hear at trans/queer conferences for a long time: that *we* matter: each individual and their story _matter_ to the movement. Sometimes I get overwhelmed at conferences with people looking so far into “the movement” and its ills or possibilities – it feels as though *we* personally get lost. Again, it’s good to feel situated.

That afternoon we were privileged with a screening of historian Susan Stryker’s film, “Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria”. It’ll be on PBS sometime soon – I can’t wait for the phonecall from my mom saying “Have you heard of this new transgender documentary on PBS? I videotaped it for you.”

It’s a funny, factual, feeling work on the Tenderloin riot in San Francisco in 1966 – 3 years before Stonewall and pretty much ignored until now. She makes reference to the emotional significance of documenting our history – that it makes us proud, right? Once again it grounds us and makes us feel something about where we come from. I found myself tearing up, actually, I think because I got nostalgic about Friday Afternoon Video Time in high school history class, and wished we all could have seen _this_ documentary, too. Or at least that _I_ could have. The education of my growing-up trannie soul continues, what can I say?

As if all of the above were not enough excitement for one day, I got to see Imani Henry’s show, “B4T” (Before Testosterone). Henry is a real charmer, and the show gives us some excellent insight into those intersections we talk about so often around race, gender, and sexuality. It’s multi-media in a way I haven’t seen before, too, and really enjoyed. Henry himself is a kick-ass activist, making many points throughout the weekend about building coalitions in this “Movement” I consider myself a part of, but cannot exactly define.

You see, what I want as an activist, artist, and justice-seeking person in the world is to find a space where we understand one another and support each other across the lines that define and divide us. It feels possible as an aspiration, but in reality, no matter how hard I seek it out and work to make it happen in my own space, it eludes me. Us. It pains me to know that white supremacy, for example, shines off my skin and lights up my actions – the worst part of it being that it makes an immediate and often tangible discomfort in mixed-ethnicity/racial meetings. There is so much more to the interaction between myself and a person of color: we are so much more than the color of our skin, right, but there is also so much more history, bigger than any of us, hanging around, getting in the way of us seeing and thinking and feeling clearly.

So to talk about coalition building to me means imagining the possibility of working together as we are defined and divided by our experiences (both personal and historical): _acknowledging_ that gulf that may never be bridged as things are and have been and continue to be f*cked up in the world as we know it, but still _going ahead_ as the whole beings we are, working together toward common goals. Being nice about calling one another out on our sh*t and not giving way to hierarchies of oppression are two other big parts of it.

It makes me think of that Shel Silverstein book, “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.” It’s too simplistic and naïve to imagine that we US Americans of varying other identities can be all pieces in one big whole, moving together; still, we can be our own wholes, rolling along together, if we think “coalitionally.” More on this later.

Then my dear Montegue came to town to spend the weekend, and an already excellent time got _even better_.

I’m getting on a plane now to San Francisco, and sadly I don’t have a flower for my hair.
I’m performing just a little at “Sizzle” at Feminina Potens, organized by the very special Tina Butcher.

UP NEXT: 1) Turner attempts to steal his own identity even further, and finds that he actually passes on these queer California streets in a way that he didn’t even in Texas. It’s all about Hollywood, folks….
2) Turner enjoys a lecture by Jack (Judith) Halberstam and booty shakes with Thea Hillman, all in the same 6 hours.

Who's Next?

2005-02-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

Subject: Who's next?

Hello colleagues and friends,

Recently, I was asked to help present a workshop on suicide prevention
among GLBT individuals, at the third in a series of five regional
conferences on suicide prevention in the U.S. This particular conference
covers Public Health Regions 9 and 10 (basically, the entire west
coast). Following is a statement my co-presenters and I have prepared
outlining recent chilling events surrounding our workshop. One
interesting thing to note - the two previous conferences, one in New
Orleans and the other in Denver, contained workshops very similar to
ours and were not a problem. The difference? Both were held PRIOR to the
last election. We give permission to forward this to whoever you believe
needs to read it:

Statement of Concern and Protest

Government funders within the Bush Administration at SAMHSA (Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) notified the Suicide
Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) that SAMHSA Administrator, Charles
Curie, would not be allowed to attend a SPRC regional conference on
suicide prevention if conference organizers went forward with a workshop
title that included the words "gay", "lesbian", "bisexual", and
"transgender". The conference is scheduled to take place in Portland,
Oregon, February 28-March 2. The original title of the workshop was
"Suicide Prevention Among Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgender
Individuals."

On January 31, Lloyd Potter, SPRC Center Director, contacted workshop
presenters Ron Bloodworth, Joyce Liljeholm and Reid Vanderburgh and
requested that we come up with alternative wording for the workshop so
that the words "gay", "lesbian", "bisexual", or "transgender" did not
appear in the workshop title or descriptor.

We worked with SPRC to create alternative wording so that the workshop
could continue to be offered but we expressed deep concern about
government intrusion to remove any reference to gay, lesbian, bisexual,
and transgender people in the workshop title and descriptor. After
agreeing to the title "Suicide Prevention in Vulnerable Populations", we
were told that the new title would be acceptable to SAMHSA and that we
could use the term "sexual orientation" in the workshop descriptor but
that the term "gender identity" would "not fly with SAMHSA".

We are still planning to offer the workshop as originally planned even
though the workshop title and descriptor had to be changed but we will
not be quiet about the heavy handed efforts of SAMSHA to render gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender people invisible. The action of
our government in this regard is the very reason a workshop on suicide
prevention with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender individuals
is needed. How ironic! The discriminatory and intimidating actions of
SAMHSA and the Bush Administration should not go unchallenged and should
be of concern to all Americans.

It's important to note that Oregon Senator Gordon Smith is scheduled to
attend the conference as part of his support for suicide prevention
efforts in the U.S. We urge you to use the attached contact information
to express your concern to SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie, Secretary
of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt, Oregon Senator Gordon Smith,
and other members of Congress from your state that represents you.

Thank you for your concern and support.

Ron Bloodworth, MA, LPC, Portland, OR
Joyce Liljeholm, MEd, Portland, OR
Reid Vanderburgh, MA, Portland, OR

Contact Information for Government Officials:

Charles Curie
Office of the Administrator
SAMHSA
Rockville, MD 20850

Tel: 240-276-2000
charles.curie@samhsa.hhs.gov

Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, D.D. 20201

Tel: 202-690-7000
Fax: 202-690-7203

Senator Gordon Smith
404 Russell Bldg
Washington, D.C. 20510-3704

Tel: 202-224-3753
Fax: 202-228-3997
http://gsmith.senate.gov/webform.htm

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
president@whitehouse.gov

Stealing My Own Identity, Part I

2005-02-05T01:08:00.000-05:00

Stealing My Own Identity, Part I

So today I stood before a judge and got my name changed legally. ::bells and whistles::

I had feared this experience for quite awhile. I mean, standing up in front of a *judge*? When you didn't *do* anything? No thanks. But it had to be done. And just to make things interesting, I decided to do it in Texas.

Yes. Texas.

And, as is always the case, invariably, without doubt or exception, what I had imagined would be a painful, frustrating, perhaps humiliating process was, in fact, pretty darn good.

I presented the judge with two different orders. The first was one to change both name and gender designation; the second just a name change. The judge took a good long look at the first one, and then looked at me with both curiosity and confusion.

"Unusual case. I don't think I've ever actually seen this before," he says to me.

He's the kind of man you'd expect a judge to be. I mean, of course he's white and male, but he's also silver-haired and broad-shouldered: perhaps he was once athletic, though he seems too tall for a football player, too thick for baseball, and those are the only two choices for a whiteboy like he would have been, here in Texas. His face is lined with discretion. When he reads the first petition I can see years of decisions deepening around his cheeks, mouth and eyes; and when he speaks to me his voice, too, is strong with reason.

He picks up one of the law references on his desk and thumbs through.

"To be honest with you, I don't even know where I might find a precedent. Nope. It's not under gender. Darn it."

He looks me over, but not in the way most people do when they consider what it means to have a transgendered person standing in front of them. I don't feel his eyes on my chest or my crotch; he frames my shoulders, looks into my face and eyes. I hope my tie is straight: suddenly the appearance of the knot is all that stands between me and that M on my drivers' license. If only I had gone for the Four in Hand instead of the Half Windsor....

"I just don't think I have the authority to do this kind of thing," he tells me. "I can't decree that somebody can be something else - then you'd have people changing their identities all the time..." He looks at me, it seems, for help.

I reply that I know a few people who have done it in the state of Texas, and that there are certainly more than that. That perhaps a change in gender designation is up to the judge's discretion. I describe the way one judge wrote on a friend's petition: "Petitioner may not marry a person of the female sex" before he signed it - just to be covered. My judge frowns.

"I want you to know," he says, "that I know this isn't just some decision you made lightly. I know that you have to...undergo...many things to do this, and I don't have any problem with that. In fact, if I knew that there was some case law somewhere, I'd do it. I really would. But as it stands now, I just don't believe I can."

I tell him I understand, and say I'll find out for him, that I'll be back.

"Well, do you want to change your name? I can do that for you, at least." It feels almost like I'm a neighbor whom he, finding a would-be borrowed lawnmower out of gas, offers at least a weed-whacker with which to attempt the job.

He swears me in, So help me God. It goes on record in the State of Texas that I am changing my name as part of my gender transition, and that each of those names reflects my family history.

He adjudges, orders, and decrees it so, and when I turn to go he calls out, "Good luck, son."

***
That's how it happened. If anybody can send me some case law to send him... :-)

blogger help

2005-02-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

Hello chaps -

Undying gratitude and the title of Web Helper of the Week go to whoever can tell me how to get my picture to come up in that ugly little broken-link box to the left over there. I'm doing what the blogger help thingie says, but it's not working....

Thanks in advance!

What I Wrote to PBS

2005-01-31T15:01:00.000-05:00

What I Wrote to PBS:

Dear PBS -

I can't wait to see the "Sugartime!" episode of Postcards from Buster. I will urge everyone I know to tune in and see how PBS is unafraid of government bigotry and prejudice-based blackmail.

Please air this show, don't give in to people who who work to censor other human beings' lives.

Thank you,
Turner

What is this, 1992?

2005-01-30T14:54:00.000-05:00

Part 2 of the Attack on Queers in Arts and Society:

From the HRC (but don't hate...this is important) -

One of the very first acts of the new Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings,
has been to denounce PBS for a cartoon show that featured two lesbian couples. Take
action today to denounce her intolerance.

"Postcards From Buster" is a PBS show, and a planned episode called Sugartime! took
Buster to Vermont to see farms and maple sugar. Along the way he met two lesbian
couples.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings denounced the episode, requested that PBS
refund a federal grant that was used to pay for part of the show, and demanded that
PBS remove any links from DOE to the show.

She began as Secretary of Education on Monday, January 24 and one of her very first
acts is to attack the GLBT community. Take action today!

Here's what you can do:

1. Click here to send a message to Secretary Spellings to voice your disapproval.

2. Then, call the Department of Education to make a comment. Call 1-800-872-5327,
and press 5 for an operator to make a general comment.

3. Show your support for PBS. Contact PBS and urge them to air the episode.

For more background information, please see HRC's press release at www.hrc.org

Sincerely,

Seth Kilbourn
National Field Director

P.S. If you cannot see the clickable links in this message, copy and paste these
URLs into your browser:

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Party Time

2005-01-25T13:36:00.000-05:00

It's been far too long since it happened, but I wanted to describe a really great performance experience that I had this fall.

A friend I made while working in Costa Rica decided that her group of friends "really needed to know more" about queers and transpeople. Since I was going to be nearby on tour, she threw a party for about 25 people, and enlisted me as the entertainment. I was of course, TOTALLY STOKED to comply. They partied for a little while, then sat down to watch a private presentation of "Debutante Balls," had a grand old time, and ate some nice desserts and coffee before going home.

These are folks who don't often go to the theater. They're regular people with families and jobs who "do" cultural events, but who probably wouldn't go see "A Spoken-Word Lip-Synch Queer Theory Rock Opera" (like "Underground TRANSit") or a "Grand Gala Ball of Coming Out" (as in "Debutante Balls") if the opportunity arose.

It's not like this friend entrapped a bunch of her buddies into watching something they wouldn't like to satisfy her own "agenda". (See - see how I can think like a right-winger? Or do they call that "internalized oppression"? I forget.) She knew that her friends would be interested by my work - they just needed a reason to go. Her word and her effort were enough.

I decided right there that if I can enhance people’s understanding of queer and trans experience by telling them my own, by golly I’ll do it – living room by living room. It does not hurt my ego to perform under track lighting, no sir.

Consider it, eh? It’ll be the funniest, most thought-provoking party you may ever throw. Beats a kegger by a mile :-).

My post this Inauguration Day

2005-01-21T03:37:00.000-05:00

_Finlandia_

This is my song
Oh God above the nations
A song of peace
for lands afar and mine

This is my home
the country where my heart is
Here are my hopes
my dreams, my holy shrine
But other hearts
in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams
as true and high as mine

My country’s skies
are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams
on clover, leaf and pine
But other lands
have sunlight too, and clover
And skies are everywhere
as blue as mine

Oh hear my song
now, God above the nations
A song of peace
for their land and for mine.

Happy 2005

2005-01-17T01:52:00.000-05:00

monkeyear
Originally uploaded by Turner.

so it's belated.

and just to make the day a little better...

2004-12-11T01:32:00.000-05:00

I've got whooping cough! Had it since October!

Check it out:

www.whoopingcough.net/wc-adult.wav

yours, with a covered mouth, Turner

Dear State School Students:

2004-12-11T01:08:00.000-05:00

Dear Students of State Schools:

Please book my shows, and the shows of any gay artist I've ever mentioned, while you still have State University Money with which to do so. Or get ready to do some major bake sale-in'. Oatmeal raisin anyone?

Also, perhaps you should stock up on such books as "Boys Like Her" by Taste This, or "I am a Red Dress" by Anna Camilleri. They're harder to find. As long as they don't haul out all the Tennessee Williams to the pre-homecoming bonfire, you should be good. I'd watch your John Dunne collection, though. Just in case.

In fact, make sure your LGBT Resource Center has its ass covered by some university loophole before booking our shows, as their "promotion of homosexuality" will most likely be targetted before ours. Well, no, we're artists. It's more fun to fuck with artists.

Sigh... as if I needed another excuse to self-publish (oh yeah, and keep doing the work I do...). I guess I should thank W and fine, upstanding citizens like Mr. Allen (from "the gayest city in America - Alabama!") for giving me focus and motivation.

Thanks, dudes. I'll do my best with it. That, and my 1st Ammendment rights.

Love, Turner (I'll always be gay, even if I'm "only trans") Schofield

PS: I meant it about booking those shows and buying up those books. Here's why:

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk

'We have to protect people'
President Bush wants 'pro-homosexual' drama banned.
Gary Taylor meets the politician in charge of making it happen
Gary Taylor
Thursday December 09 2004
The Guardian

What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple?

"Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke.

Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if
this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifthmeeting with Mr Bush."

Bush is interested in Allen's opinions because Allen is an elected Republican representative in the Alabama state legislature. He is Bush's base. Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go.

I ask Allen what prompted this bill. Was one of his children exposed to something in school that he considered inappropriate? Did he see some flamingly gay book displayed prominently at the public library?

No, nothing like that. "It was election day," he explains. Last month, "14 states passed referendums defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman". Exit polls asked people what they considered the most important issue, and "moral values in this country" were "the top of the list"."Traditional family values are under attack," Allen informs me.
They've been under attack "for the last 40 years".

The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal libarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children". We have to "protect Alabamians". I ask him, again, for specific examples. Althoug heterosexuals are apparently an endangered species in Alabama, and although Allen is a local politician who lives a couple miles from my house, he can't produce any local examples. "Go on the internet," he recommends. "Some time when you've got a week to spare," he jokes, "just go on the internet. You'll see."

Actually, I go on the internet every day. But I'm obviously searching for different things. For Allen, the web is just the largest repository in history of urban myths. The internet is even better than the Bible when it comes to spreading unverifiable, unrefutable stories. And urban myths are political realities. Remember, it was an urban myth (an invented court case about a sex education teacher gang-raped by her own students who, when she protested, laughed and said: "But we're just doing what you taught us!") that all but killed sex education in America.

Since Allen couldn't give me a single example of the homosexual equivalent of 9/11, I gave him some. This autumn the University of Alabama theatre department put on an energetic revival of A Chorus Line, which includes, besides "tits and ass", a prominent gay solo number! Would Allen's bill prevent university students from performing A Chorus Line? It isn't that he's against the theatre, Allen explains. "But why can't you do something else?" (They have done other things, of course. But I didn't think it would be a good idea to mention their sold-out productions of Angels in America and The Rocky Horror Show.)

Cutting off funds to theatre departments that put on A Chorus Line or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may look like censorship, and smell like censorship, but "it's not censorship", Allen hastens to explain. "For instance, there's a reason for stop lights. You're driving a vehicle, you see that stop light, and I hope you stop." Who can argue with something as reasonable as stop lights? Of course, if you're gay, this particular traffic light never changes to green.'

It would not be the first time Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ran into censorship. As Nicholas de Jongh documents in his amusingly appalling history of government regulation of the British theatre, the British establishment was no more enthusiastic, half a century ago, than Alabama's Allen. "Once again Mr Williams vomits up the recurring theme of his not too subconscious," the Lord Chamberlain's Chief Examiner wrote in 1955. In the end, it was first performed in London at the New Watergate Club, for "members only", thereby slipping through a loophole in the censorship laws.But more than one gay playwright is at a stake here. Allen claims he is acting to "encourage and protect our culture". Does "our culture" include Shakespeare? I ask Allen if he would insist that copies of Shakespeare's sonnets be removed from all public libraries. I point out to him that Romeo and Juliet was originally performed by an all-male cast, and that in Shakespeare's lifetime actors and audiences at the
public theatres were all accused of being "sodomites". When Romeo wished he "was a glove upon that hand", the cheek that he fantasised about kissing was a male cheek. Next March the Alabama Shakespeare festival will be performing a new production of As You Like It, and its famous scene of a man wooing another man. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is also the State Theatre of Alabama. Would Allen's bill cut off state funding for Shakespeare?

"Well," he begins, after a pause, "the current draft of the bill does not address how that is going to be handled. I expect details like that to be worked out at the committee stage. Literature like Shakespeare and Hammet [sic] could be left alone." Could be. Not "would be". In any case, he says, "you could tone it down". That way, if you're not paying real close attention, even a college graduate like Allen himself "could easily miss" what was going on, the "subtle" innuendoes and all.

So he regards his gay book ban as a work in progress.

His legislation is "a single spoke in the wheel, it doesn't resolve all the issues". This is just the beginning. "To turn a big ship around it takes a lot of time."But make no mistake, the ship is turning. You can see that on the face of Cornelius Carter, a professor of dance at Alabama and a prize-winning choreographer who, not long ago, was named university teacher of the year for the entire US. Carter is black. He is also gay, and tired of fighting these battles. "I don't know," he says, "if I belong here any more."Forty years ago, the American defenders of "our culture" and "traditional values" were opposing racial integration. Now, no politician would dare attack Cornelius Carter for being black. But it's perfectly acceptable to
discriminate against people for what they do in bed.

"Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it."Of course, Allen was talking about books. He was
just talking about books. He never said anything about pink triangles.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

Notes from the Road Part II

2004-11-17T13:33:00.000-05:00

It's been such a busy few weeks, I forgot the last installment. So this is from ages ago, and now I have to write about the NGLTF Creating Change Conference in St. Louis, as well as what I'm doing here in Laramie, WY... but I'll get to it!

So, back to the Chicago Single File Festival:

After my show, I got to see a piece by an artist by the name of Robert GreyGrass. It was a meditation on being both European and Native American, and man, again, this was a great show: intense as hell, but funny in parts, and graceful through the grittiness. It was all just truthful as bone with a spirit that moved me and which I couldn’t distinguish from the art of it. Dman, it was good.

This whole festival happened under the direction of Rachel Romanski, and again, I have to give mad kudos (or “ups” as the kids these days call it…) for her skill of choice, generosity of spirit and energy, and masterful organization. Good work!!! I am a fan, and if anybody reading this wants to take a trip to Chicago next year, this festival deserves some serious attention as, I believe, the only one of its kind in these United States.

After a night of debauchery at no less than a STRAIGHT club, from which I drunk dialed at least 4 friends (and to the rest of you who may not have called me back to call me on it, I offer my sincere apologies…), I missed my flight from Chicago to the ATL. Didn’t matter anyway – one of those hurricaines stopped me in Charlotte, my old stomping grounds. Had a nice meal with the parents of a high school friend, and remembered life as a down-and-out college prep transsexual…. I think that if I had known, or been able to articulate all of this gender crap back then, I might have had a better time. Then again, high school sucks! So maybe not :-) What could I have been, anyway? A *normal* college prep transsexual? Rrrright.

At any rate, I hit Atlanta a day late and got stuck right in to the first workshop of my first full length play, “Turn Me On.” My co-writer, Sheri Mann Stewart and I have been working on this play for a _year_, y’all, and it was so amazing to finally hear it read. So amazing, in fact, that the play grew at least 40 pages during the one-week workshop. Thanks always to Vinnie Murphy and the folks at the Playwrighting Center at Emory for making this festival happen.

The show was really warmly received, and graciously given feedback; it needs some more work, but WATCH OUT! It’s coming, perhaps to a theatre near you soon.

So from Atlanta I went to Houston, glad to be getting to a place I call home for my birthday! And guess what happens? Bear Bergman shows up. Takes my bags away from me at the airport and acts as though it’s fully normal for hir to be there, in Texas, enjoying Fetzer white wine with me and my parents in the hot tub. Shaaaaa!

Hir wife and my mom both knew we were each conspiring to surprise one another for our birthdays. Ladies, you are both keepers of secrets, love, and warmth, and we love you dearly.
So anyway, this was awesome, because Bear was successful in blowing the minds of my visiting family members regarding gender and sexuality, but in hir wonderful Bear way, in which is felt like not so much of a mind-blowing, but rather a welcoming embrace of that which they already knew, somewhere, deep down inside. I think Bear should be a queer coming out consultant, and should travel to the homes of the needy to introduce the light side of queerness, through all the radical stuff, to unsuspecting lovers of queers world-wide. Mmmmhmmm.

Did a one-night-stand of “Debutante Balls” at the University of Houston which my always-admired friend Emily put on in less than 3 weeks! Not only did the greater Houston support network (PFLAG and other queers) show up, but my family was also there. Always nice…and much fodder for Thanksgiving conversation, no doubt. Then it was off to…

Atlanta again, where I got to meet the kick-ass Athens Boys Choir when we performed together at the Body Heat event in aid of Georgians Against Discrimination. Dude, the Athens Boys make me so happy to call the South home. What a couple of rock stars. Look out for us in the future - we're plotting a road-trip!

Man...there's still so much more to write about. Check out my website for the press on Gay Marriage Here Today at the University of Virginia. I am as inspired as ever, perhaps more, by the "citizen actors" who so courageously stood up to play themselves and members of their community in what turned out to be a packed and powerful event. And I did a 30-second keg-stand at the afterparty. Hey, When in Rome....

Until the next time, friends...be well.

Change of Subject

2004-11-04T18:04:00.000-05:00

You know that trick your writing teachers always told you - write about hard subjects as though you're talking to your parent/best friend/grandma?

Here's this, for those of you who were confused. I wrote it to my amiga Megan in Mexico:

10.28.04

Dear Megan,

I just put down The Diary of Frida Kahlo, who for some reason always makes me think of you; then I remembered that I owe you some words. It’s nighttime in Houston, TX, and the moon shines so bright over my parent’s back yard oasis that it could almost be day.

I’m glad you’ve figured out most of what I’m about to tell you! Well, it seemed from your email that you were probably referencing the name change in previous emails from me, and that maybe you know, then, that I’m transitioning.

Hm. That’s so vague. Like, who isn’t transitioning? But to say “transitioning my sex characteristics” is too clinical, and to write “transitioning from female to male” just isn’t all that precise or correct. And this is a sexual transition rather than a gender transition – ie, my gender identity is transitioning less so than the sexual expression of it… so… you already know much of who I am, even as I become that person even further.

Well, there you have it. And I hope that one day soon I won’t have to talk about this much anymore, that something other than my self can take up the focus of my attention. I don’t like being so self-centered, you know. The best thing about doing this is that finally I will match, inside and out, and it’ll be one less thing to worry about!

Alright, but you wanted me to spill it, so I’ll do my best just for now, and then there can be a rebuttal period (like in the debates), and perhaps I’ll answer some questions (of course I will, for you, if you have any), and then we’ll take another question. Such as, What are you doing, and will you ever come back, and what is it like to be an ex-pat at 23?

I figured out I’m transgendered, and for awhile it was fine to live on the line. But fluidity is only so cool for so long: the aggregate of so many checkout clerk interactions (“Um, sir? Would you like cream with your coffee? Ma’am?”) and the social and mental gymnastics that they entail can push you to the edge. I started to feel really dislocated in my body (as if I didn’t before), or rather, dislocated from reality: What, actually, am I? And why can’t anybody see what I feel? How can I feel this way if nobody else can back it up for me? Etc, etc, ad nausea.

A year of therapy passes, and finally I realize that the only way I’m going to jump this hurdle is to try something new. A name change. And pronouns to boot. So I tell my closest people: call me He, and call me Turner. And they did, and it was unbelievable! I actually have tangibly more energy for my days, just because I changed my name. To not think of myself as the unchosen, unchangeable Katie, or the incomprehensible fib of Kt, and then to even drop Kilborn, which is a name that carries with it so much shame and sadness and looped, placeless anger…I took that energy and started working out, that’s how much I had to spare when I stopped thinking of myself as someone I’m not!

So the name became Scott Turner Schofield. Scott is my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Turner is my maternal grandfather’s given name. Schofield is the family name, the side of the family I feel most a part of, now connected in name as well as blood.

The family has taken it mostly well. Mom has freaked out a few times, but she’s much much better, and getting even more comfortable every day. Things are shaky as I start the medical transition – she’s not ready for it, I can hardly wait, we’re compromising as best we can, but I’ll be glad when this time is over and I can start BEING already!

Nah, but really. I had another “sitting at the large family gathering in Texas” coming out moment, and everyone just sort of shrugged and said it made perfect sense, and did I want them to call me Scott or Turner? Then one of the 7 year olds piped up and said, “Turner? Like Timmy Turner?” (who is apparently a very famous cartoon character of late); the kids then proceed to dance around the house calling me Timmy, while my mother and aunt decide together that this name suits me far better than the too-studly Scott and too-serious Turner. So I’m Timmy at home (though Mom is really trying with Turner these days). You, my dear, can call me whatever you’d like.

Soon I’ll start on testosterone. Usually what they do is give you a lot all at one time, so you get big and go through puberty again and your voice gets deep within a few weeks. Then you scale back, and either take small amounts daily, or one big dose every month to keep the body mass…well…”manly.”

Don’t know yet if I’ll have chest surgery or not. There’s not much to take away, and it’s possible that hormones and weight lifting will structure my chest naturally. I’d definitely prefer not to have to go under the knife. And I don’t think I’ll get phalloplasty either (ie, I’ll be a “man” without a “penis”). I know who I am! I don’t need no stinkin’ penis to be a man! :-) At least, that’s how I feel today, anyway. And that’s some mad-expensive plastic surgery. There are cheaper kinds of plastic out there for my use, you know?

So, that’s it. Blah blah. The most important part is that I’m truly happy with this decision. I think I’ve finally figured out what the problem is/has been, and as I take steps to change it, I get happier every day. Like I said, one day the inside and the outside will match up, and we can move on to the next chapter, the next topic of discussion. And maybe it won’t be about me!

Con un abrazote, yo soy siempre tu amigo–
Turner

I have the most inspiring friends...

2004-11-04T15:38:00.000-05:00

Preach it, AJ!

here's my last bit of hope...

yesterday i went to the store to get a bottle of wine for official sorrow-drowning
with some friends. it was quiet and nearly abandoned and everyone seemed lost. i
was wearing my pansy division t shirt with the big pink triangle because i was
feeling...well... antagonistic to say the least. as i walked into the store, i
noticed a young man chicken-necking as he walked his cart past me. i felt for sure
he was going to yell some homophobic bullshit at me and i was steeling myself up for
confrontation when indeed he did yell something at me. i wheeled around and yelled
"what did you say?!", fists clenched, and he said, again, "do you want my cart?" i
just stared at him, not sure of what to say, stunned at this random kindness til i
mumbled, no thanks i don't need one. and then he said. "I'm sorry. really sorry
about that amendment." and i said thanks. we exchanged small, humbled smiles and
went on our way. and i thought, man! no matter how hard they try, the republicans can't
stop us from just being decent to each other. it means a lot. it really does.

so here's what i plan on doing for the next four years:

-laugh hysterically at cops who tell me to remain in the "free speech zone". yeah i
know it's probably going to get me arrested. which is something i don't really fear
so much anymore. kinda like getting sent to hell but you know it's ok cuz all your
friends are going to be there too.

-be as disruptive to the republicans as possible. put all their phone numbers on
speed dial on my phone and call them everyday, several times a day, if possible and
tell them truly what they ought to be doing. sit in their office till security has
to pry my fingers off the receptionist's desk. protest and protest and protest and
don't stop protesting. make them rue the day they ever even considered stepping
into politics. be pesonally responsible for massive republican migraines.

-queers, it's time to get freakier than ever and put people on the spot. i plan to
go around asking people point blank why they think i am thier enemy. i want to
spend every second making homophobic straight people as completely uncomfortable and
ashamed as they think they're gonna make me. except i'm queer and know how to have
a good time and no born again hate-mongerer is gonna change that fact. for real.

-be really really good to all the people in my life, and to myself. last month, two
different people in two different circles of my friends committed suicide, in the
same week. we absolutely cannot allow this sort of complete massive hopelessness.
i know it's going to be hard and the republicans have only begun to fuck shit up.
but we cannot let it turn us against each other or ourselves. we are too smart, too
beautiful, too creative, too full of love, and absolutely too damn tough to allow
those fascists to stomp us totally.

john kerry and the dems are no messiah, and they never were. forget those jokers.
it's time for the people to lead. we don't need them if we've got each other.

i got your back.

lovelovelove
amanda

A thought to go on with

2004-11-04T13:18:00.000-05:00

Erik always knows the right thing to say. It's good that he's a minister.

"I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take?' I come to say to
you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating
the
hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise
again.
How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.
How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.
How long? Not long. Because the arm of the moral universe is long, but
it bends toward justice."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol in
Montgomery, March 25, 1965, at the conclusion of the Selma-to-Montgomery
march.

O Canada

2004-11-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

Jesusland
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Let's go, Y'all!

From: "Laurie McGauley"
Organization: Myths & Mirrors
Reply-To: canuniversity@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 22:33:55 -0500
To:
Subject: Re: [canuniversity] teaching and the elections

This is Laurie from Canada. I run a community arts organization called Myths
and Mirrors that I started here in Sudbury Ontario about 8 years ago, and am
presently writing my master's thesis on community art, activism and hope
(and using some of you as sources). I've been following your comments, but
this is my first time writing to the list.

Of course, I followed your election very closely. And I do want you to know
that there is heavy mourning going on here as well at the results; there has
been much hugging and crying at the confirmation that the world is going to
continue along this dark road for a while longer. I know the hard work that
so many american progressives have been doing in trying to push back this
poisonous, hateful regime; my heart is heavy for you, but also for the rest
of the world. We're all now going to have to deal with a monster that has
been legitimized by the support of the majority of voting Americans (even if
a small majority); this is going to strengthen the right wing movements
worldwide, including in Canada. I'm a longtime anti-poverty and community
activist who is very critical of Canada's policies, and so I often find it
amusing how Americans tend to idealize our country; but at the same time
we're very aware of what progressives in the U.S. are up against; you are
literally in the belly of the beast, and that beast is getting more
dangerous and powerful all the time. What is particularly disturbing is how
this power is based on lies: one study that I can't get out of my mind
indicated that over 70% of Bush supporters believed that Sadam Hussein had
something to do with 9/11, and that Iraq had WMDs. When language and truth
become meaningless, we are truly in a dangerous world.

Progressives everywhere are agonizing about how to do politics in this brave
new world; we who practice community arts know that we have processes that
offer people rare opportunities for connection, for the exploration and
creation of meaning together; we know the power of the collective unveiling
of reality, and the potential demonstrated by the collective creation of
art: if we can come together to create this mural, this play, this garden,
then we are capable of coming together to create an alternative reality. I
have come to believe in this utopian function of community art; after twenty
odd years of doing this work, I continue to be humbled and awed by people's
real need to affirm common values, including respect for difference, values
that transcend each individual's self interest and respond to a longing for
the common good. At times like this, doing this work in a small town in
Northern Canada can seem pretty insignificant; but after I've allowed myself
to mourn for the lost potential of this election, I know I will again feel
so priviledged to find my antidote to despair with the group of
telemarketers that I'm working with to create a play on the stresses of
working in call centres; or the group of youth that are creating a
photography exhibit on the theme of 'belonging'; or the group of HIV
positive teens who are creating a mural for the reception area of a local
clinic.... and I am now further blessed knowing that there are others like
you who are also creating spaces for the expressions of our many truths. I
have no answers, only questions; listening is always a good first step, but
it seems that we still can't find an answer to the main question, what do
you do with the bully who doesn't want to play fair?

in solidarity
Laurie

Bois and the Draft

2004-11-03T01:07:00.000-05:00

Since it seems we're all probably gonna get a card in the mail (whatever sex or gender we are) no matter who gets elected... this bit of info from the fabulous Monica Helms:

I was asked a very interesting question, which was, "Do FTMs have to register with the Selective Service?"I never thought of it, but it is a great question.

I called the Selective Service at (847) 688-6888 and found out that Female to Male transsexuals are exempt from registering with the Selective Service, but they need the Selective Service to give them a letter stating so.

This question has come up before, and the Selective Service will type up this letter saying plainly that you are exempt from registering, but will not say why.This letter is important if an FTM applies for educational loans and a few other things where that question is asked, "Did you register for the draft?" They have to have that letter, or face the possibility of getting into serious trouble.

Since there are a lot of FTM's who are between the ages of 18 and 26, then this is important information for them to have, whether there is a draft or not. This has to get out to all the young men in our community. Spread the word.The Selective Service is prepared for this, so call them if you have any questions. Each young FTM must have this letter in their files.

Monica

Notes from the Road part 1

2004-10-27T20:27:00.000-04:00

Ugh. I am tired. Bones sinking into the blue naugahide of this AirTran gate chair tired. Whew. I’m so tired, the batteries in my cellphone, iBook, and discman are all dead or dying. That’s how tired I am.

It’s been a fantastic few weeks.

When last I wrote, I was enjoying myself immensely at the National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival in Columbus, OH. I gotta say again what a great week that was. The last weekend I saw even better shows and enjoyed the organizers and venues further. I got to see Michael Burke’s “Cucumber Dreams” in full (he did a piece of it at the Seen+Heard Festival earlier this year). He’s such an edgy motherfucker, for how cute he is. Damn. I love his comical synesthesia of culture both queer and not, and his self-objectification which is so wry you almost don’t notice it. You just wonder, “Why am I turned on? And why do I want to laugh at myself for it?”

Paul Riccardi’s “Stillwater State” is the first 1-man show I’ve seen delivered in the 3rd person. He says it still needs work, but I think it’s pretty cool, actually. And the sweet and comical story that he tells make you feel like you’re by a fireside at Gay Camp!

Finally saw the renowned Jade Esteban Estrada do his “Icons Vol. 2” – a gay history of the world. I mean, I liked my history teacher, but Jade would’ve brought my little baby-queer world together in such a different way had he taken good ol’ Mr. Weiss’s place at Charlotte Latin School. I think CLS would have had to have entered another universe before that could have happened, but it’s a nice fantasy :-). Jade’s way cool, however, and I think Paul, Michael and I all enjoyed the little performance artiste tete a tete our 4 days together became. Well, that and getting invited to the leatherdaddy sex party that took over the whole 2nd floor of the Holiday Inn. Ha! I think I missed out on a great writer’s opportunity by skipping that date, but…eek! I’m just a little guy!

Ahem, so the Atlanta Airport now has trash compactors in every trash can. Don’t know if it’s some kind of weird anti-terrorism move or what, but when you’re not used to it, it’s kinda scary. I almost dropped my laptop just now.

oh, the bar photos
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Okay, so from Columbus I went to Chicago, and had an AWESOME time at the Chicago Single File Festival. First of all, I shared a bill with Jamie Black and Elizabeth Whitney. But FIRST I got to see Christina Wong do her show, “Free,” which just reeked of excellence, as I would expect from the mastermind behind bigbadchinesemama.com. Christina is as smart as she is scathing, and as critical as she is comical, which makes for a bloody great balance, in my book. “Free” is a reflection on all the ways in which we are not free (political and personal, in that fabulous feminist fashion), and all the silly things we do to free ourselves.

me & Kristina Wong
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Okay, so like, I realize that I’m very positive about people’s work on this little page here, but you gotta know that a) it’s frikkin hard to be a solo performance artist, so you gotta give people props any way you can; and b) everything I’ve been seeing really is THAT GOOD – either on the whole, or in one fashion or another. So…take that as seriously as you like.

The Dreaded Ammendment

2004-10-27T20:19:00.000-04:00

The Dreaded Ammendment
Originally uploaded by Turner.

Well, I did it. I voted (absentee). I sincerely hope my fellow Georgians vote AGAINST writing hateful discrimination into our constitution. Sometimes I think about future generations, and these days, I turn red at how stupid they're going to think we all were. Well, perhaps not. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a NO on 595.

2004-10-27T18:58:00.000-04:00

We are all SO FUCKED

Okay, well, there are still, what... 6 voting days left to make this not true, but my worst fears are coming true. Stay tuned for further documentation of voter discrimination and fraud, brought to you by George W and the Good Old U.S of A...

1) From Chickness:
Everyone-
We hear the stories of voter suppression but I did not expect it to happen
to us. When Deanna went to register at our local Canton library we were
faced with a librarian who was very rude to us. Because of this fact, I had
been joking over the past month about howDeanna would be lucky if she got
to vot because the woman who took our registration was obviously offended
by her sheer existence (if you dot know Deanna she is butch with lots of
tattoos and a loud mouth). It is no longer a laughing matter. I called the
registration office to make sure she was registered and low and behold there
isno activit on her social security number. I called the director of
the library and they arechecking the log for her registration paperwork
but ultimately it is our word against theirs if they cannot locate the dated
paper (which is most likely in a landfill by now). That being said, Please
call your local voter registration office and verify that you are registered
to vote (if you havet already)! If the elections office gives you
difficulties you can file a complaint here:

http://www.moveonpac.org/

Thank you for your time.
-Adriana Chiknas

2004-09-21T18:57:00.000-04:00

what ever it takes, right? go thank a hippie _right now_.
http://votergasm.com/

'Votergasm' brings sex to 2004 election;
group promotes post-vote copulation
BY JENNIE MORGAN

Columbia Daily Spectator
(Columbia U.)

(U-WIRE) NEW YORK —
Looking for a reason to vote?
Peter Koechley (CC '03) is
more than happy to give you one.
"I gathered a bunch of
Columbia, Barnard and Harvard
grads together," he said. "And we
all thought about what we could
do to help the political process.
We decided that the best way to
do it was to encourage people to
vote and have sex afterwards."
It was then that Votergasm was
born. The organization, in the
ancient tradition of Lysistrata,
brings sex and politics together.
Votergasm's core is made up
of nine Columbia, Barnard and
Harvard graduates whose aim is
to send 100,000 first-time voters
to the polls in the November elections.
After the polls close, participants
will attend a Votergasm
party where, if all goes well, they
will meet someone with whom to
head home.
"I think a lot of people out there
have a real desire to vote and a
real desire to have sex," Koechley
said. "But leading up to both of
those things can be a lot of work.
We're just facilitating the process
so that it's easy to vote and easy to
have sex right afterwards."
Prospective participants can
register to vote on Votergasm's
Web site. They then pledge to have
sex with a voter on election night
and to withhold sex from nonvoters.
They can sign up to host
a Votergasm party on the Web
site or can find out about parties
already taking place in their area.
"We're trying to make voting
sexy," Votergasm spokeswoman
Michelle Collins, (BC '02), said.
"We want to get people out of the
house. We care as much about
voter turn-on as voter turn-out."
The Votergasm Web site, which
features scantily clad young ladies
and gentlemen holding up ballots
and political protest signs, attracted
20,000 hits and 1,000 pledges
in its first week. Such statements
as "Dawn is tempted to write [to
her senator] with edible body
paint, but switches to her special
design crayon instead" caption the
pictures.
"We were going for sexy and
alluring," the group's Web designer,
Lyndon Kennedy (SEAS '03)
said. "And clean — well, I mean
clean as in easy to navigate."
Julie Binder (BC '04) is working
as a publicist for Votergasm.
"I have never had a better project
than this," she said. "There's
definitely not enough youth voting.
And in general, sex is something
that, however much there is,
there could probably be more."
Binder and Koechley met in
2003 when they co-produced
The Varsity Show at Columbia
University. The next year,
Koechley and Collins co-wrote
the show.
Despite the controversial nature
of Votergasm, there have not been
any serious objections or complaints,
according to Koechley.
"The reaction has been extremely
positive," he said. "Of course,
there will always be people who
are opposed to sex for some reason,
but that's why we're here."
Although they are unsure of
how many Votergasm party signups
to expect, the graduates have
set their sights high.
"We're hoping this will become
a nationwide phenomenon," said
Koechley.

2004-09-20T23:28:00.000-04:00

Yo - don't leave it to The Rest of America - Vote Absentee!

It's easy. And they actually count it!

Here's the URL: https://electionimpact.votenet.com/dnc/absentee.cfm

2004-09-15T14:52:00.000-04:00

So I’m hanging out at the National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival in Columbus OH, and I’m marveling at the excellent planning, flawless execution, and great work that have all coalesced here. This is an awesome festival.
I tagged along with my good friend and fellow Outlaw Performer, S. Bear Bergman, to celebrate the world premier of his new show, “Clearly Marked.” He worked so hard in Costa Rica to make this the fine piece of work that it is – it is such an honor to be listed as the “Scribe / Midwife” on the project! Shucks…
“Clearly Marked” says everything I’ve ever wished someone could articulate about LABELS. They’re simultaneously utterly necessary and annoyingly superfluous and incorrect, labels, and in “Clearly Marked,” Bear shows us why. Finally! Thank the Lord. No, thank Bear – in hir usual loving and instructive, comedic style, ze gently leads us through the complications and roadblocks like the compassionate and mischievous Ex-Post-Papa ze is. “Clearly Marked” has a long life ahead of it, I hope, ‘cuz it’s a show no college student should be allowed to graduate without seeing.
I enjoyed the show’s premier with another fantastic and funny performer, Elizabeth Whitney. Turns out, she’s friends with my favorite feminist, Courtney, and she had once visited my website on Court’s orders. “Aren’t you…”Underground TRANSit”? She asks me outside the Columbus Performing Arts Center. “Um…sure.” At least that name hasn’t changed. Turns out, again, that we are performing on the same nights at the Chicago Single File Festival – I’ll do “Debutante Balls” and she’ll perform “Pop Culture Princess.”
Well, I got the feeling Elizabeth was way cool from our first interaction. Spending a day watching theater and working out how to change the world through progressive performance solidified that impression, but Whoa. Her show, “Pop Culture Princess,” ROCKED MY SOCKS. A Performance Studies PhD, Elizabeth has enough academic know-how to be perfectly incisive with her social criticism, mixed with a Queer Eye those guys would kill for, and comedic timing that had all of 2 Cos Cabaret squalling with laughter. Yeah. It’s a great show. Check her out. Bring her to your school – she also teaches Women’s Studies.
My buddy Michael Burke comes into town tonight! How exciting! He’ll premier the full-length “Cucumber Dreams.” He performed one scene at the Seen+Heard Festival in Atlanta (they’re still talking about that “hilarious, cute gay boy with the cucumbers”), and I’ve been restlessly awaiting the rest.
That’s the best of what I’ve seen. I met another Chicago Single File co-performer, Jamie Black. His show “Living Inside Myself” has some very funny songs about his F-to-M experience. The show is very straightforward – not really any metaphor, which I missed. Still, Jamie’s a great guy, and I’m interested to see what he does next.
I also saw the Puppet Queers do their show, “Innuendo.” Freakin’ funny – what is it about puppets and changing the words to old pop songs? My favorite: a rendition of that Barry Manilowe classic, this time entitled, “I Ride the Schlongs.” Ha!
That’s it for now. Who knew Ohio could be so cool?