Local Buzz

If you are transgender, transsexual, gender queer, gender non-conforming, a cross dresser, or anyone who crosses mainstream society’s notions of gender, Fenway Community Health offers a support group series, the T-Supper Club. A new 6 week group is starting up on September 23, 2008. Topics include community building, sexual health issues, stress management, personal expression and group dialog. The group is free and dinner is served each week. See their post at the Fenway Health site at this link here.

Register today by calling Alex at Fenway Health at 617-927-6449.

P.S.
We did a little highlight here @ Beck’s Cafe on Alex back in June 2007.   Alex is not just the transgender community liason at Fenway Health, he’s also an accomplished artist; you can read our quick profile on him with links to his art at our article, “Alex Solange - Art with Heart“

Astronomer extraordinaire, and my friend, Sonia, has placed a new social and support group into the constellation of what we have in New England! She’s named it, T-Party, and you can reach her new venture by visiting her groups site HERE.

Those of us in the Boston area might wonder how this area can support yet another transgender group. Well, surprisingly, very easily. Lyn Conway actually did some statistical analysis not too long ago and even presented a paper on her work, you can read what she presented at the WPATH conference by clicking over to her article at her site HERE. In a nutshell, she found the prevalence of MtF transsexualism on the order of ~1:500 so let’s do some math

Greater Boston is home to 4.4M people. So, if we look at Lyn Conway’s findings, that means, if I have my math right, that there are 8800 trans-women in the Greater Boston area and, possibly, 1/2 that many trans-men. If we look at the entire transgender umbrella (crossdresser, drag queens, transsexuals, gender queer, etc.) there might be alot more but let’s just go with that figure of 8800 trans-women. Okay stay with me here for this next part.

I have heard, through the grapevine, that Dr. Richard Doctor has discovered in a study he led that only 70% of all crossdressers actually go outside their homes crossdressed and of that only a small percentage (5% perhaps ?) actually go to public venues (stores, restaurants, etc). I can’t find the any documentation where he said this but let’s just go with it.

If the above are true, then of the 8800 trans-women in this area, only 6160 actually venture out to trans-friendly events and of that only 300 or so go out in public, out and about. If we look at the 6160 number, the Greater Boston Area can easily support T-Party and all the other groups in this area.

Maybe we’ll have a cup of coffee with the star gazing Ms. Sonia at some point and understand what motivated her and what her dreams are for T-Party.

7/12/2008 Update
T-Party’s on-line presence for coordinating their doings has moved to TransSpace.    To reach their new site at TransSpace you can click over to them from our link here.

Early Registration Discounts for Fantasia Fair End Soon

If anyone is considering going to this year’s Fantasia Fair conference in October, you may want to register before March 1st. As of March, the early registration discount will no longer be available. If you are not sure if you can make it to this event, you can register now and get nearly a full refund if later on you have to cancel. Check out the Fantasia Fair website for details on the refund policy. The Fantasia Fair website is at http://www.fantasiafair.org.

As we wrote about in our last post here. We’ve had a few problems with Beck’s Cafe. But we’ve not let the writing go stale. Instead, we’ve been blogging at the First Event 2008 Blog under the byline of “FE2008″ We’ve been having some great conversations with some of the exhibitors and speaker’s of First Event. We’ll be posting more too. So while we are fixing the Cafe up, we’d invite you to have a read over at the First Event 2008 blog.

First Event 2008 is being held this year at the Boston Marriott Peabody, January 16-20, 2008. First Event is one of the largest transgender conferences in the United States, with attendance of 600 or more during the bone-chilling New England January.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2007

Boston to honor Transgender Day of Remembrance
Vigil and Speak-Out, preceded by Town Hall Meeting, on Sunday, Nov 18

On Sunday November 18, Boston’s transgender community, with
family, friends and allies, will gather at the Arlington Street Church
to remember and honor transgender victims of violence. The
Remembrance observance will be preceded by an afternoon Town
Hall Meeting conducted by the Massachusetts Transgender Political
Coalition (MTPC).

The Transgender Day of Remembrance observance starts in the
Arlington Street Church sanctuary at 7PM. The program includes
invited speakers followed by a community speak-out, then a
candlelight vigil to Copley Square, returning to the church for a
warm-up reception.

Included this year will be a presentation about the honoring of Debra
Forte, a Haverhill transgender women murdered in 1995. A stone
bearing her name was placed this past fall in Boston’s Garden of Peace,
a memorial commemorating victims of homicide.

Starting at 3PM, all are welcome to MTPC’s Town Hall Meeting, for an
opportunity to hear from and speak with some of our state’s leading
transgender activists LGB allies. Each year MTPC holds this meeting to
inform the community about the work of MTPC and the state of
transgender rights in Massachusetts and at the Federal level. This
year’s keynote speaker is Representative Carl Sciortino, who will be
speaking about the pending Massachusetts legislation HB 1722, “An Act
Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes”.

MTPC will also be providing training and information on how to reach out
to and educate legislators about HB 1722 and the issues transgender
people face in Massachusetts. There will be presentations about MTPC’s
activities, followed by time for feedback and commentary. MTPC
particularly encourages those who want to learn more about
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and/or HB 1722 to
attend the Town Hall Meeting.

Boston’s transgender and LGB community extends a warm welcome to all
who would like to attend this important event to memorialize our dead
and underscore the seriousness of the suffering of our communities.
No persons should be subjected to violence simply because of their
gender identity or expression. No persons should be denied the basic
rights that enable their safety and security. Please join with us on
this day to remember our dead, whatever the cause of their departure.

Co-sponsors of Boston’s Transgender Day of Remembrance include TransCend
of Cambridge Cares About AIDS, Keshet, BAGLY, GLSEN Boston, and MTPC.

For the latest list of sponsors and details about the day’s events,
please visit http://www.masstpc.org/dor

Event Background:
Eight years ago at this time, Boston’s LGBT community recoiled in
horror at the discovery of the latest victim of transphobic violence.
Rita Hester, a popular figure in the local rock `n roll scene, who
also happened to be a transsexual, had been found brutally stabbed to
death in her Brighton apartment. Like so many killings of gay and
transgender persons, the victim was subjected to enough brutality to
kill her many times over.

A local community of queer activists, rockers, family, friends and
allies – over 250 of them – came together and held a speak-out and
candlelight vigil in Rita’s honor, forming a human stream of light
winding its way through Rita’s old Brighton stomping grounds. One
year later, a memorial vigil was held in San Francisco; the following
year Boston and a few other cities joined in, and this year hundreds
of observances will be held in dozens of countries.

Boston’s transgender community remembers Chanelle Pickett, Debra
Forte, Monique Thomas, and Rita Hester, all of whom were more recent
local transgender victims of unusually violent and hateful murders.
Before these, there were many more, mostly uncounted and unnoticed by
all but their friends and family.

These events are free, open to everyone, and there will be limited
video/photo policy will be in place. For more information visit
www.masstpc.org. If your organization would like to become a sponsor
of TDOR or you would like to volunteer helping to organize the event
contact Nancy at nnangeroni@masstpc.org. If your organization would
like to sponsor the Town Hall meeting or you are member of the press
contact Gunner gscott@masstpc.org

The Neighborhood is billed as:

A space for all queer and transgender folks…We like mixed up spaces and so should you! Always femme, butch, gender varient, fairy, leather, & CD friendly

This place lives up to it’s billing and then some. The organizers, Gunner Scott of XGender productions see: http://www.Gendercrash.Com and dj d’hana of Cherub Productions, http://www.Myspace.Com/chubrubproductions have created a welcoming and high energy environment that is worth the trip to.

The vibe at The Neighborhood, which is held the second Saturday of the month at The Midway Cafe, located at 3496 Washington Street in Jamaica Plain is decidely good. I’m not sure there is a better way to describe it. Really good vibe. My co-conspirators and I met femme’s, butch’s, FtM’s, and straight folk just being themselves and having fun. Dj d’hana is an excellent DJ. She moved effortlessly from one music genre to the next mixing up hip hop, techno, 80’s and various other types of music in a style that kept the crowd on it’s feet and not bored. I remember standing with two other women, both femmes and an incredibly cute couple, and having just met and chattinng and hearing a smooth transition from a hip hop tune to The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven“. All our eyes met and simultaneoulsly the three of us yelled out, ‘WE LOVE THIS SONG” and we just started spontaneously dancing. That typifies The Neighborhood “experience” for me. Fully accepting, packed, good vibe. To top it off, Gunner is one of the coolest guys around and donates part of the procedes from The Neighborhood to a charity every month. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Go visit the neighborhood. Get their by 9PM or you’ll end waiting in line out front to get in.

For more details see: http://www.myspace.com/theneighborhoodjp

This is the fourth and final installment in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club.   To easily reach part 3, please click here.  Please enjoy!

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BECK’S CAFE: So then Randolph Country Club came into the picture?

JUNE: Well that took work. Randolph Country Club, RCC, a premiere GLBT country club and dance club, had a bad relationship with the transgender community up until that point.

YVON: I visited them a couple of times to outline what we were trying to do and what the benefits were to them. They told me that their relationship with the transgender community had soured primarily due to lack of follow through on the transgender community’s part. It was common for transgender women in our community to plan an event with them and then not to actually hold the event or communicate about it. I had to convince them that the community was honorable and could be trusted.

JUNE: And we’ve done just that. We plan events with them for about every six weeks, we communicate with the RCC team, and we have our event. This has resulted in a benefit to RCC, to FoRCC and to the transgender community overall. We had to insure that we would be good patrons and good contributors to the benefit of RCC. The reception that the management and patrons now give the trans community has been overwhelmingly supportive and nice. Even the bathroom is a non-issue.

BECK’S CAFE: So, every six weeks FoRCC has a transgender party at RCC and you’ve been doing this all told for 10 years. What keeps you doing this?

JUNE: I remember what it was like to not have a place to go and in feeling isolated and alone. To the extent that I can provide an opportunity for others to come out and be themselves and really, to lead much healthier lives, that’s what motivates me.

YVON: My personal satisfaction is to produce something and watch it grow and see the results. The fruit is in the smiling faces; they are smiling not because they are drunk but because they are getting a chance to be who they are. It’s my chance to get out and I’m having a great time and I want others to as well. I don’t want it to stop I’m having fun!

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Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

This is the third part in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 2, please click here. Please enjoy!

—————

BECK’S CAFE: With that “walk out” certainly there must have been some sense of displacement or abandonment?

JUNE: Well, with the end of the relationship between Friends Landing and the transgender community something had to fill that void. So, a sort of entrpereneurial spirit was unleashed from the split and some new groups started forming. One of those was The Girl’s Night Out group, or GNO for short, which began in Manchester, New Hampshire. GNO’s approach was to provide a safe space for gender expression and have, as the founder, Maxine, was fond of saying, “The Courage to be Free”. Many girls did end up gravitating to GNO and GNO had a big, positive impact on the New England Transgender scene allowing many transgender women to come out and be free to be themselves.

YVON: FoRCC, or FoF at the time, needed a new place and we approached the Crowne Plaza in Woburn, and they suggested Friday Night. At the time, GNO wanted to merge with FoRCC (or FoF) group. We felt our group’s unique character and identity was still alive due to the real life relationships of people that grew out of this one little place.

JUNE: That’s right, many of us with FoRCC (FoF at the time) wanted to continue our group and keep it alive. The Yahoo Group kept us communicating and loosly together, as it had always been, we just needed to find a physical place. We weren’t against GNO, we just felt we had a unique group.

BECK’S CAFE: So did FoRCC every find a new place to meet?

YVON: We were alive, still looking for a home, and in March of 2006 the group was having a lot of hang wringing about going back to Friends Landing after the year long walk out.

JUNE: Friends Landing was part of my journey and I felt I had a right to be there. Some felt the same way, but not in general. I really felt that I deserved to be there but the good part about it was that the management had changed over the year and Friends was very welcoming to us.

YVON: This was a BIG surprise to all of us.

JUNE: I agree, I was expecting an attitude and had a hard time going in. But I was bound and determined to go there and even to use the ladies room. I didn’t feel like I had my begging bowl out. We were transgender and this was a GLBT club and that was that. I had a right to be there and so I went.

YVON: In a way the Friends Landing incident did us a favor. They got us out into the world MORE.

JUNE: Yes that’s right. That was the year we started going to other GLBT and Straight clubs that welcomed us. We learned we could come way out of the closet and just be ourselves.

YVON: When we came back to Friends Landing they were so happy to have us there they put our name and a big picture of us on the front of their web page, “Welcome back T-Girls” We returned in March of 2006, we had some big parties there and things were really cranking along fine until the 2006 Halloween party. It was a packed house and then on the Monday after the Halloween, with no notice, Friends Landing closed it’s doors and was sold.

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In Part four of this four part series, we’ll wrap up about how Yvon and June worked to heal a rift between the transgender community and the GLB part of the community so that FoRCC could find it’s new location.  To easily reach part 4, please click here.  Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

This is the second part in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 1, please click here. Please enjoy!

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BECK’S CAFE: How would you say that FoRCC has evolved over it’s 10 year life?

YVON: Well, FoRCC started as FoF, Friends of Friends Landing and was out at Friends Landing, in Haverhill, MA like we mentioned. We used a Yahoo Group for all of us to build connections outside of those meetings and stay in touch. In many ways, the Yahoo Group became the The Unofficial Friends Landing Message board. And it was a way to get people to know what was happening in each of our lives and who was going to go to be together at Friends Landing. Once in a while we’d do a roll call to create a more structured kind of meeting. But the evolution was more of one of closeted strangers who all came out to become friends.

JUNE: I’d agree. Over time what was just transgender people meeting in person and communicating online grew as friendships grew. It’s really a story of people isolated in their experience who became people connected in a shared experience of being transgender. They made friends at Friends Landing, grew into using the Yahoo Group to communicate and spilled out into real life. The Events weren’t all done at Friends Landing but sometimes happened at Jacques Cabaret or MANRAY. And that’s the interesting point. The group became interelated, invited others in, accepted them for what and who they are, and ended up having fun in the process.

YVON: Really the group grew and grew and became the focal point for THE Transgender SCENE in New England then one day it was gone. And it was really the result of one unfortunate incident.

BECK’S CAFE: You know, this “incident” is the stuff of folklore. What was the incident and how did it not only effect FoRCC but what were it’s effects, in your opinion, on the transgender scene in New England in general?

YVON: Well, at one point, Friends Landing became very trans-unfriendly and they instituted what amounted to a “vagina check’ for the ladies room and people just stopped going. You know, as transgender women, we present as women and using the right bathroom is a big deal. One key part of it is safety for us. Using a men’s bathroom presenting as a woman could put us in physical harm.

JUNE: I remember times at Friends Landing when bouncers would swarm t-girls if they felt what they wore for clothing was inappropriate even. They would harass someone like that out of the club. I had to intervene in one case. And then on St. Patrick’s Day 2005 the transgender community walked away from Friends Landing; tired of a GLBT club that had rejected us.

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In Part three of this four part series, we’ll talk about how the transgender community reacted to the Friends Landing incident.  To easily reach part 3, please click here.  Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

FoRCC, or Friends of Randolph Country Club, a Massachusetts transgender social and support group, was a lengthy interview Beck’s Cafe had with two Massachusett’s transgender-women who are leaders in the community; Yvon Steel and June Casad. There are many personal and group stories and courageous trans-women and trans-men, dating back to Stonewall, who have made being transgender just a little easier for many of us today. Jennifer Boylan, in her speech at Southern Comfort Conference 2006 last year, said that, “there are so many other stories out there, and they all desperately need to be told, so that all of our stories can become familiar”. This is just one of those many stories. This is a special four part series from this interview. Please enjoy!

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“One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are” - Gail Goodwin

Gail Goodwin’s quote may well be the story in one line of the transgender social and support group, the Friends of Randolph Country Club (FoRCC). This group, in existence for ten years, has typified that quote: appreciating others for who they are, as they are; not for who society believes they should be. Yvon Steel and June Casad are two of the founders of this long standing group. We caught up with them in the midst of their most recent event at The Randolph Country Club in Randolph, Massachusetts to learn more about this group and how their unique history is a part of the history of the transgender community in New England.

BECK’S CAFE: I’m glad we could finally get a chance to talk in the midst of this busy Fall season for you both.

YVON: Busy is right, with our event and so many others taking place in the Fall, life can seem like whirlwind

JUNE: We try to float through it. It’s busy but fun no question about that.

BECK’S CAFE: Can you tell our readers how the Friends of Randolph Country Club started?

YVON: FoRCC, as we like to call it, or the Friends of Randolph Country Club. We’ve been around continuously for ten years at least, since about 1997. It was originally started by a woman named Holly then when she left ownership was handed over to Diane, June, Brenda, and I came in later. We originally started meeting at Friends Landing in Haverhill and kept our connections alive through the use of a Yahoo group. The Yahoo group was a great tool for all of us to collaborate together and keep the group as a group. Actually the groups original name was FoF or Friends of Friends Landing.

BECK’S CAFE: Ten years is a long time, it may be that only Tiffany Club of New England has had a longer existence. What do you think is the reason the FoRCC Community has been able to last this long?

JUNE: FoRCC is really organic and changes over time. With a lot of other groups that have come and gone, usually they get a big splash right away and are really driven by one person with a vision and energy to make it happen. FoRCC on the other hand, while it began with Holly’s vision, it never really had to rely on her singular person to make it happen. It was a sort of infectious need the transgender community felt and got behind. We never had a lot of rules or moderating either in our group meetings or in our online Yahoo group. It’s just been a place where people have felt safe to come out. And we’ve always supported people who have done that.

YVON: That’s true June. We found that our group culture just thrived on being more relationally in touch. It became clear to us that we were less “leaders” in the group as much as we were “facilitators” of this group. We saw that too many rules and one person in charge would stifle what was blossoming. We never wanted to have that. As long as people were respectful of each other anything was okay.

JUNE: We have never tried to moderate the content of our Yahoo Group or our in person meetings but when things have been deemed offensive and disrespectful we just simply squash what is happening and move on.

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In Part two of this four part series, we’ll talk about the historic incident that changed much of the transgender landscape in Massachusetts today. To easily reach part 2 please click here. Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.