“C” Words: START READING!
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Labeling is a Drag
A guest opinion column in the Bay Area Reporter that protests the misnaming of the inaugural event that became SF Pride’s annual Trans March and recounts the glory of that first march to City Hall.
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Toxic Elitism
the conservative, patriarchal, gender-rigid society delights in seeing us tear each other down. Because, in doing so, we are sacrificing the power of community, creating our own little islands, diminishing our own collective power.
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What Sex Are You?
Sex and gender. What is meant by those words? Interchangeable, right? Okay, so what do you think they mean? Could they have more than one definition? And what would it mean to our concept of man, woman, male and female if they were rooted in a definition whose meaning may be open to interpretation?
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Before Transgender
I knew I could make a living as a transsexual prostitute. I used my intellect to become very successful at it. I could more than hold up my end of a conversation with any john: not many TS hookers were college educated in 1986. Prostitution was a job that I came to love: my johns were the only “Normal” people who made me feel good about myself. They called me beautiful and sexy, and I provided a valuable service to them, which made me feel valuable.
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Death to the Ewoks
It is nearly a given that sequels seldom live up to the promise of the original film, though there have been a few happy surprises since Hollywood sat up shop over 100 years ago. Sixty-five years later that industry produced Star Wars and nothing was ever the same afterward. For better and for worse. I’m […]
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“Guilty” Pleasures
A “guilty pleasure” is delight taken in something “bad.” In movies a guilty pleasure is either a film so bad that it’s entertaining (like an Ed Wood movie), or an exploitation film. The latter includes women-in-prison, “Blacksploitation,” naughty nurses (or nuns) and “splatter” movies. They are usually bereft of lofty aspirations. Social convention dictates you’re […]
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Better Than Sex
Music is my ultimate drug. It picks me up when I’m low and soothes me when I’m keyed up. It’s instant bliss on tap. Music lessened the Hell of my teenage years and breezed me through four years of military service. It kept me from killing myself during the loneliest and most desperate parts of […]
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Lusty Ladies Get Feisty
In the decade I was on the masthead of San Francisco area adult weekly Spectator, I often covered sexworker activism. I took great pride in my 1997 article about how the women of the Lusty Lady Theater fought back and unionized against an abusive workplace. For posterity I offer an edited, condensed version of that […]
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Life Sentence
From my book Misery Loves Company… I think I love you, but you’ve got that HIVbut maybe this is not such love as it isa strong infatuation or even a healthy lustbut… then… maybe not so healthysince making love to you just mightgive me a disease that makes the worldtreat you like a leper, save […]
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Trade Secrets
I’m so busy with preproduction of my first narrative feature film, I haven’t had time to write. I just read something that recalled my experience going on female hormones in summer of 1985. In this nostalgic moment, I offer you an excerpt of my memoir from that time of my life. Feminization was my crusade, […]
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My Hero Larry Flynt
Like director Milos Forman, I choose to focus on those aspects of Flynt’s career that had far-reaching impact on culture, politics and our very freedoms. While Hustler magazine has hit some very sour notes over the years, overall Flynt consistently jabs an erect middle finger in the face of Puritanism