Oh, if you know of a job that is trans-friendly, consider posting it at MTPC’s board to spread the word on the opening!

Beck’s Cafe also covered another list of transgender friendly jobs at our article, “Simply Hired and Transgender Friendly too” Go take a peek to see what you can find. Also, Southern Comfort Conference, on September 30 - October 5th, 2008 will be featuring their Second Annual Career Expo (a national event) in collaboration with Out and Equal Workplace Advocates. Exhibiting companies include GM, Raytheon, IBM, and many others

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“

I’m tearing up as I think about my Grandmother and reflecting on her life.

It’s sunset for her I’m realizing.

As some of you know my home is empty of some family members for whom the sun is rising, my daughters, and now my home is full of family members for whom the sun is setting, my Grandmother, recovering from her two heart attacks at age 91. It’s a bittersweet time of releasing. Releasing some for new life and others for death. It’s that simple

It didn’t really dawn on me where my Grandmother was in life until I saw her today in our kitchn. She was older and told me she wanted to go home. Of course, being the dutiful grand-daughter, I dropped everything and brought her home where she has lived for 70 years. The home her husband built for her, by hand, when he only had a single arm and they were in their early 20’s.

As I drove up to her home to drop her off I was finally able to understand better how her life must feel for her now. She has a few years, maybe, to live. There will only be so many days of tending her garden. So many days to say hi to her neighbors. Only so many days left to feel the soft grass under her feet or see the deer that compete with her for the earth’s produce.

She must be thinking of her little home, her brook, and her passed away husband I thought. She was smiling as I brought her home and she walked in. I was touched deeply realizing she was happy to be back in her home by her brook. She can’t stay there permanently. She is in some sense a visitor to her own place in our world. And, she still needs my help for life tasks for sure, but, for her, life is content in her home. I was jealous at some level frankly.

My Grandmother’s life in my home has been both blessing and frustration. We are blessed to help her and we are frustrated. Frustrated she will not take her meds on time, exercise or eat right. I find my heart torn between loving her and screaming she has to take care of herself or…sunset comes earlier than we all want.

Then I remember the word “dignity”…and I take a breath, smile my best Becki smile and hear her requests and supress my need to care for her. Her need to be her own person more important now. Even for a 91 year old woman, dignity is important.

I feel the warm summer breeze on my face and I take a breath realizing I’m not paying attention to a visitor who has stopped in to say “hi” this morning. I’ve been deep in my heart and writing. I smile, apologize, and say “Hi” and welcome her in. Good thing the coffee is extra good this morning

(Sunset Photo courtesy of MuffinMan photos, used under Creative Commons license)

First, you’ll see a fun Daily Cartoon about 1/4 of the way down the sidebar. Our cartoon, courtesy of Andertoons, changes daily and, almost without exception, is always good for a little chuckle.

Second, scrolling to the bottom of our sidebar you’ll see our daily quote courtesy of The Foundation for a Better Life. Their billboards have always inspired me (and almost caused me to lose control of my car) and having them join us at Beck’s Cafe is a nice treat, I feel, for all our readers

Enjoy!

(widget photo - yes that is what a widget is! - from our friends at Wouf_is_Wouf’s Photostream, used with permission under Creative Commons license).

7-14-2008 Update
Replaced “Foundation for a Better Life” quote of the day with “Quotes Collection” plug-in/widget under the side bar feature, “Inspiration and Thoughts”. Foundation for a Better Life was not responding to some tech questions and Quotes Collection gives us a wider library (a less spiffy look though).

1. Thailand: Some Transgender Views: How do those in Thailand view being transgender? Read this article to see the views of Thailand.
2. Gender Therapists, how do you chose? An article on how to chose a gender therapist and some links to some excellent helps, including guidance for teens.
3. Wedding Bell Blues: Who would know that my friends wedding would be the occassion for my first drink bought for me from a guy or learning that NJ really isn’t 8 hours away.
4. Simply Hired and Transgender Friendly Too: This article talks about the new search engine, Simply Hired, and how they can help you find a job.
5. CSI: Sarah’s Goodbye Letter: Perhaps the most sadly romantic moment in TV History. I cry buckets every time I see it.

Thanks to all our happy coffee, tea and cocoa sippers and swillers who spent the time to read

(Photo courtesy of Rachel Sian’s Photos, used under Creative Commons license)

“Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” provides human resource and other employment professionals with best practices for transgender workplace inclusion—from discrimination and benefits policies to internal practices that reflect how gender is expressed and integrated in the workplace—as well as the state of legal issues encompassing gender identity in employment situations. The guide also covers topics such as appropriate terminology with which to discuss gender identity and expression, the creation of policies that protect transgender workers from discrimination, and the expansion of diversity programs to include gender identity and expression.”

Now remember, this is the same HRC that supported a transgender inclusive ENDA but then chose to remove that support at the last minute - you can read the history and see lins from our coverage at Beck’s Cafe at these links here: ENDA Fallout restricts Title VII Claims; Baldwin Amendment & ENDA; Representative Tammy Baldwin speaks out on ENDA; ENDA: Barney Frank backs down, HRC commits, time bought; ENDA time to make some phone calls; Continued Coverage of ENDA: Sean Hannity, ADA and James Bird; Continued Coverage on ENDA: Robyn’s Story; Petition Drive to support complete ENDA; Transgender Rights Hailstorm

And this is also the same HRC who has become a big supporter of the The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalitions (MTPC) work in helping us all to get Massachusetts HB1722, MA Transgender Civil Rights Legislation, approved. You can read about MTPC gaining HRC support at Bay Windows here.

You can download the booklet from the HRC site at our link here.

For some excellent analysis of the HRC “Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” booklet, we’d suggest strolling over to Dr. Jilliam Todd Weiss’s blog, “Transgender Workplace Diversity” for her review of the HRC booklet. You can reach her review at her blog at this link here.

do not sleep … hardly at all

It’s truly baffling to all of us. But now I might have some ideas on what’s making us become such zombies…damn good lookin’ ones but zombies none-the-less (thank GOD for under eye makeup cover).

In an article titled, “Why We Can’t Sleep?“, Gayle Greene, Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at Scripps College, teases out some interesting points in her Ms. Magazine article:

• A 2007 poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 67 percent of women frequently experience sleep problems

• 29 percent of women use some type of sleep aid at least a few nights a week

• 75 percent of sleep research has been done on men, and until recently the researchers have been primarily men. The major texts for sleep studies have had, until recently, little to say about women’s sleep

• There’s a tendency to assume that the problem is psychological. When 501 physicians were interviewed about how they treated insomnia, they revealed that they asked an average of just two and a half questions, mostly about psychological problems. And since doctors believe it’s all in the head, there’s little impetus to research insomnia. In 2005, the National Institutes of Health spent less than $20 million on the condition, although it affects as many as a third of the U.S. adult population. Most of those funds were directed toward treating and managing the problem, while less than $4 million went to investigations of neurophysiological and neuroendocrinal mechanisms — the kind of basic research that might lead to an understanding of cause. (barista note: this whole approach kinda reminds me of how those of us who have GID are treated…we have to be crazy in the head not really being driven by some internal intersex issue none of us can identify but many of us know in our hearts).

The article is very eye opening about how the medical community may be hiding it’s head under the pillow on a cause and help on a real issue in this country. It’s enough to make you stay up late to read! You can read the full article at Ms. Magazine at their link here.

(Photo courtesy of LunaDiRimmel, used under Creative Commons license)

Turns out the new options in Wordpress 2.5.1 required our barista’s to scarf down more espresso than normal to determine what went wrong and how to fix it. But fixed it ’tis so here we are now

Happy Reading everyone!

(photo courtesy of kylos and used with Creative Commons license)

Let’s face it no one cares…they just want you to write again ’cause they enjoyed your writing.

So, I won’t bore you all ‘cept to say were are swilling some java, munching on chocolate and moving things around here. First, you’ll see we have a new Wordpress theme. This might not be the final but, we like it so far though we have some work to do hacking the code a bit. It’s called Tarski and is nicely done and, as importantly, nicely maintained. Nothing like getting a theme you like and having the developer abandon it as Wordpress chugs along.

What happened to the cute past theme with the mugs? Well, we couldn’t get it to work right. The header started to come into shape nicely thanks to two of our readers Mandy and Sonia, but then we couldn’t move things around and, though the underlying structure of the theme, Sandbox, was muy macho we were a little over our heads frankly. A little code we can hack, alotta code and, frankly, we’d rather spend the time writing. A BIG THANK YOU goes out to our loyal readers Mandy and Sonia for helping us get the mug header down. Thank you both very, very much for going out of your way to help

So thank you to everyone for hanging in there with us! We’re slowly getting things back to normal so we can brew up the content piping hot….as you’d expect

(many thanks to Vrogy for letting us use the cute crayon pic for this post per his Creative Commons license)

This is a puzzler for sure. Stay tuned, I think we’ll be needing alot of coffee to solve this one.

So to reach us, at last for now, the underlying URL has to be used, http://susan.asmallorange.com/~becki/

Dr. Spack was about the coolest guy at the party. He listened, spoke with passion about the transgender community, and, was from Harvard University. From my brief meeting with him I started to understand that people alot smarter than me were seeing this whole GID thing, weighing the facts and taking it seriously. He helped me to see I wasn’t necessarily crazy. We’ve actually done an article here at Beck’s Cafe on Dr. Spack. You can read that article about a paper he presented at Lahey Clinic at Beck’s Cafe by clicking HERE.

So it was nice to see at Boston.com a Q&A interview with Dr. Spack. It’s a terrific piece and one I thought all our happy coffee swillers would enjoy reading. Some highlights:

• Dr. Norman Spack, 64, argues that transgender kids tend to be much happier - and less likely to harm themselves - when they’re able to live in their preferred gender role.
• Dr. Spack on trans-kids and suicide, “Transgendered kids have a high level of suicide attempts. Of the patients who have fled England to see me, three out of the four have made very serious suicide attempts. And I’ve never seen any patient make [an attempt] after they’ve started hormonal treatment.”
• Dr. Spack on being transgender and religion: “My own rabbi said it best: The transgendered are also created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God.”

You can trott over to Boston.com to read the full article by clicking to boston.com at this link here.

Happy Re-Reading

You know I love you. I feel I’ve loved you forever.

Lately I haven’t been feeling very well. Truth be told, I’m tired.

Out in the desert, under that car that night, I realised something and I haven’t been able to shake it.

Since my father died, I spent almost my entire life with ghosts. We’ve been like close friends and out there in the desert, it occured to me, that it was time for me to bury them. I can’t do that here.

I’m so sorry.

No matter how hard I try to fight it off, I’m left with a feeling that, I have to go. I have no idea where I’m going, but I know I have to do this. If I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll self-destruct, and worse, you’ll be there to see it happen. Be safe.

Know that I tried very hard to stay. Know that you are my one and only. I will miss you with every beat of my heart. Our life together was the only home I’ve ever really had. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I love you…I always will.

Goodbye.

In a lot of ways I feel her letter says, from the heart, what alot of us must feel like … at least sometimes.

You can see the scene for yourself at You Tube by visiting You Tube 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.

• Taking a Look at the Transgender Community in NH
• The people you’ll meet
• Woman finding acceptance with herself
• Series Sheds Light on Hidden Population

Maybe a tailor would have helped?

After week’s of medical treatment, my doctor became concerned about some redness around my waist, so he sent me to a specialist. When that doctor entered the examination room, he studied my chart, then looked at me sitting in the chair.

“Should I take my clothes off?” I asked

“No need to,” he said. “I already see the problem. your pants are too tight.”

You always guessed this was true about those meetings!

Percentage of the work week that a typical worker spends in meetings: 25.

Odds that a person at a meeting doesn’t know why she’s there? 1 in 3.

Puntastic!

Seen in the window of a camping shop: “Now is the winter of our discount tents”.

This dog’s bark is worse than her bite

My dog is half pit bull, half poodle. It’s not much of a watchdog but it’s a vicious gossip (Craig Shoemaker)

(Photo courtesy of k-girl’s photostream Humor courtesy of Reader’s Digest, Dec 2007)

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.

Thanks

How comforting.

Anyway, in a wonderful article from one of the world’s last bastions of independant news, The BBC, came this report from June of 2007. It’s good medicine for all our relationships in 2008. As published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, researchers from California State University, Northridge and Virginia Tech say expecting and accepting life’s miserable times are better than striving for perfection.

Some of the findings were surprising, if not shocking, so brace yourselves:

• There is no way to avoid suffering in our relationships. You simply cannot have a perfect marriage, relationship or friendship

• No relationships can be in a perfect state of happiness. All relationships eventually have very hard times

• The mental health industry appears to be perpetuating the myth that with enough work (or medication) we can be always happy

• It is “fantasy” that any relationship could be perfect and that striving for such an impossible state could lead to bitter disappointment.

You may read the full report at the BBC by visiting the article at their site here.    The relationships experts recommended meditation as a help to ease pressure in expectations.  One would think a good shot of bourbon might help too.

The Candidate Calculator will help you determine who may best align with your position! Let’s face it, there are so many choices this time around WHO are you going to pick? It’s a puzzler that’s for sure, but as the Candidate Calculator recommends:

Answer the questions below to find the 2008 presidential candidate that best aligns with your beliefs. More than 1.5 million people have already filled it out. Give it a try!

Mark the column for Yes if you support the issue and No if you oppose it. After that, select how important the topic is to you. If you are unsure or have no opinion on a topic, just mark the Unsure column. You will be scored based upon how well you match the current views of each of the 2008 presidential candidates.

You should go visit the Candidate Calculator and see WHO lines up with you….then vote