"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere."
--G.K. Chesterton
"The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred.../Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you."
--Walt Whitman
Comments on this blog are moderated. Anonymous comments will not be accepted. Please include your full name and a valid email address. Comments that fail to engage respectfully with the arguments on this blog, or create a hostile environment for other participants, will be deleted, and their authors may be blocked from the site.
According to the Buddha, right speech is a statement that is timely, true, kind, helpful (connected to liberation), and spoken with a mind of good-will. Let us all try to observe this precept.
November 15-20 has been designated by the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition as Transgender Awareness Week. Visit their website to find lectures, film screenings, and religious services in your area.
November 20 is the international Transgender Day of Remembrance, commemorating people who have been killed in hate crimes directed at their gender identity or expression. An interfaith service will be held at 7 PM on November 19 at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst meetinghouse, 121 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA. Visit this site to find other events around the world.
This year, transpeople and allies also have something to celebrate: the passage of the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Act, the first federal civil rights law protecting the GLBT community. The law gives the Justice Department the authority to investigate and prosecute crimes motivated by prejudice against a person's sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
