Cindy Martin

One to One

With Cindy Martin
Transgender Forum Publisher

© 1997 Transgender Forum

Got a news tip? Seen a story with a TG angle to it?
Don't assume we know about it already.
Email Cindy and she'll spread the news!

March 31, 1997

R
eports that the UFO suicide cult in San Diego included "castrated" men gave me pause. Obviously, some of the people in that group took seriously the part of their belief system that promised they would become genderless in the "Next Level" above Human, which is what they called heaven.

This may sound odd from a transgender person, but a genderless world doesn't appeal much to me.

Sounds boring, frankly.

A world with a lot of gender variance is more what I have in mind. The idea of everyone being the same, everyone wearing black clothes, Nike sneakers and wearing crewcut hair is so...wait, a minute, that's what people look like in the bars South of Market in San Francisco...

JoAnn Roberts, Jamie Faye and I were talking about this story the other day and it was interesting the perspectives my partners have.

Jamie, the computer whiz, said it was incredibly weird walking into her office on Thursday and seeing every screen in the place with the "Heaven's Gate" home page blinking. "No wonder it was so hard to get in," she said.

I told JoAnn about a comment from a hardboiled colleague of mine who surprised me by wondering aloud if Heaven's Gate really was a nut group. He wondered whether it was crazy for people who believe in something to die for it. Hadn't other true believers done this? Don't we now call them "martyrs"? Hmmm, but I don't remember any major religions requiring people to commit suicide to reach paradise...

JoAnn thought about this a minute and came up with the best line I've heard about this:
"The only difference between a nutcase and a saint is the number of people willing to follow him."

A
Saudi religious court sentenced a man to 200 lashes and six months in prison for wearing a dress to a wedding party in the city of Hael, according to a wire service report this month. The man said he was dressed as a woman to get a surreptitious look at women he might want to marry.

Yeah, and I like to shop in drag at Macy's because it's the best way to pick out clothes for my wife.

Thanks to Jane for that item...

T
hanks to a large contribution from Transgender Forum, a very special exhibit of Magnus Hirschfeld's work will be on display at the upcoming IFGE convention in Long Beach, California.

Hirschfeld, a German psychoanalyst was a pioneer in examing the causes and manifestations of transgenderism.

The exhibit consists of 5 sections with a total of 55 panels including -- as its core -- the reconstruction of Hirschfeld's original picture wall illustrating his theory of sexual intermediates.

This special exhibit contains important parts of our community's history and after Long Beach is expected to be displayed in other cities. It is scheduled to go to the Goethe Institute in San Francisco, then to Philadelphia, the additional itinerary has not been formalized. We'll keep you posted on this.



Angora (104k)



Briefs (92K)



Girlish (106K)



J
ust for the hell of it, here are some really great audio clips from "Glen or Glenda", Ed Wood's 1954 film about a transvestite's travails. Either be adventurous and click on the girl's body or just click the color links. These file sizes are accurate. Be a little patient while they load. They're worth it.

Wood's movie was certainly heartfelt, he was a transvestite himself, but as much as I try to like it, the film really is appallingly bad. However, the scene when Wood (who is Glen/Glenda) peers longingly at lingerie while on the street en femme as "Glenda" is a great moment. Maybe not in film history, but a great moment anyway.

Wood, who produced a string of disasters, including the infamous "Plan Nine From Outer Space", was immortalized in a a 1992 movie baring his name and starring Johnny Depp.

Let me know if you like these clips and I'll put a few more up next month.

E
xpect more sounds and more surprises here at TGForum over the next year. We've already added RealAudio and now carry Nancy Nangeroni's Gender Talk program. But that is really just a start.

Much more is coming, but we don't believe in putting a lot of crappy, untested technology up just for the sake of having it. We also try not to create pages that take forever to load, which is why we don't have many "flying baloneys" here.

However, you can be certain that TGF will continue to change and improve and we think you'll find many of our planned new features to be exciting and useful. I haven't noticed that our readers are particularly shy about telling us what they do and don't like and if you don't like it, we'll just dump it!

T
he Harvey Milk Institute (HMI) is pleased to announce a four-hour seminar, May 10th at 10:00 a.m. entitled “Transgenderism and Society.” the cost of the seminar is $25 to HMI. The seminar will be held at the HMI offices at 584b Castro Street, San Francisco. Further details are available through HMI by phoning (415) 552-7200. The instructor for this course will be Saybrook student and frequent TGF contributor, Ted J. Clement, MA (aka Stacy).


avid Cronenberg's
new film Crash hit American movie screens last week, telling a sordid story of people obtaining sexual excitement from car crashes and the bodily injury of the victims. The film was adapted from a 1973 cult novel by J.G. Ballard. Add this to the long list of films depicting transgenderism in the worst way. Included in this gruesome assemblage is a fetishistic transvestite who fondles his imitation breasts while watching car crash videos. The transvestite eventually perishes in his reenactment of the 1967 automobile accident that killed American film actress Jayne Mansfield. ---contributed by Kristina Latham

David Cronenberg is no stranger to truly sick ideas and gruesome special effects. Don't waste your money on this crap. The real world is harsh enough.

0
ne of my favorite people, photographer Mariette Pathay Allen, has an interesting exhibit running on the web right now. It isn't heavily TG, but very interesting anyway. Mariette, by the way, is one of the community's top photographers and we hope to convince her to display some of her work here...


February 24, 1997

T
he cowardly bombing of the Otherside bar in Atlanta on February 20 is a reminder, as if we needed one, that there are still people who hate us so much that they to want to kill us.

But we cannot let these cowards win even the smallest victory. They want us to go back into hiding. They don't want to see us or hear about us. It isn't going to be that way.

If anything we must redouble our efforts to let the world know that in 1997 we won't be intimidated by a few low lifes who know how to stick some powder in a pipe. We must increase our visibility, not be scared into the closet.

We offer our sisters in Atlanta our support and our love.

T
he bombing may be some form of twisted backlash to the increasing visibility of transgenders, gays and other sexual minorities, but I have no doubt that the basic direction society is following is one in which full public acceptance will become a reality while most of us are around to enjoy it.

However, we aren't being helped any by internationally syndicated radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

A few days ago the conservative Dr. Laura, who has a locally broadcast show on KGO Radio (kgo810@aol.com) took a call from a cross-dresser who had been married for 15 years and dressing secretly. He was guilty about this and wanted to know whether he should tell his wife.

Dr. Laura's answer was no. Okay, her opinion, that's talk radio.

But the reason she said he shouldn't tell his wife was because his behavior was "deviant". Basically, she told this transgender that he was a pervert who shouldn't burden his family with his dirty secret.

This person's radio show reaches 15 million people. If you'd like to reach her you can do so by going to the KGO Radio mail page. Just as an aside, Schlessinger's press clippings call her: "witty, opinionated, intelligent, wise, hip, humorous and understanding".

But since they've added her to the local talk show lineup in the last month I've got another description for her: mean.

T
he best news all month was the incredible reaction by our community to the Holiday Inn SuperBowl advertisement fiasco. As word got out about what had happened, ordinary TGs bombed the Holiday Inn corporate offices with e-mail, letters and calls objecting to the company's decision to pull the ad.

In case you missed the story, the hotel chain ran a commercial featuring a person playing a transexual during the big football game. It was pulled from circulation after complaints by some local hotel managers and haters who thought it was disgusting to have an advertisement positively depicting a TS.

But what was truly weird was the reaction -- or rather the lack of one -- by the so-called "media watchdogs" and "trans-activists" who claim to represent this community.

Three days after this story broke I received an e-mail from a person at a media watchdog group. They are a national organization. This person said that the Holiday Inn folks had told him that they pulled the ad, at least in part, because gays and transgenders had complained about it. He wanted to know what the "consensus" of the community was, apparently before firing off a note to the hoteliers.

I was taken aback. I have no doubt that a few TGs and gays called or wrote complaining about the ad. But to believe that Holiday Inn killed this ad campaign because of us is a little silly. "Oh yeah, we killed that ad because we didn't want to offend transexuals. That's the ticket."

C'mon.

A day after the story broke on the national wire services, Transgender Forum reporter Angela Gardner was told by the company that the ad was pulled was because of complaints from reactionaries. Period. We also had an inside source who said that the ad was on shaky ground anyway going into the Superbowl. Objections by a few hotel managers combined with those from the bible-beaters sunk the ad. Salving the bruised feelings of unhappy transexuals played no role. But it was great excuse and for some reason, our "leadership" seemed willing to except this cockamamie idea. Why? Why were there no black t-shirts pacing around Holiday Inn's Atlanta HQ? What happened to the "in your face" faxes in this case?

Why didn't the activists act? It was plain from the first day this broke that the overwhelming majority were angered that the ad was pulled. The ad didn't offend most of us, but that wasn't the point. It was the action that was offensive.

I cannot prove it, but I suspect very strongly that the activists were paralyzed because they personally didn't like the advertisement. Sure, it wasn't a masterpiece of sensitivity, but most of us thought it was humorous and positive. The bottom line is that the leadership completely misjudged the sensibilities of ordinary transgenders. This advertisement was a very big deal to many of us. There was talk about it for days on the 'Net. At the ETVC Cotillion the night before there was tremendous anticipation. People with no interest in football were taping the game just to see this ad. Somehow, the leadership didn't know this or care about it.

This incident did prove one thing. You get our community riled up and they will be heard. I know now that Holiday Inn received more than 2,000 emails about this disaster, most of them the result of an informal campaign originating among Transgender Forum readers. Good going.

B
ody Alchemy is Loren Cameron's intensely personal photo documentary of female-to-male transexuals (FTMs). A Transexual himself, Cameron brings a sensitive, sophisticated insider's eye to his subject matter.

Loren will be talking about the book and the project at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid, St. Louis, Mo. on March 15, 7:00 pm. Call (314) 367-6731 for more information.



Back to our home page!