It's been five years since I've been a tourist in New York City, but that's about to change. Tomorrow I hop a plane to the big apple for a ten day visit to the city I love. It been nearly 3 months since Morgan and I moved to the West Coast, which we've both been incredibly happy with, but there is always a certain amount of home sickness that comes with leaving, which is one of the reasons I am so excited to go back and see, as I called it in one of my songs when I first moved there, the city of my dreams.
I'll be around on the site, and depending on if we're able to get our camera working, will also be bringing you the Tour of NYC 3 video, in which I am actually a tourist and not just another jaded New Yorker.
So brace yourself New York City... Erin's back in town.
I don't know what to say about last weeks poll besides: "it was kind of interesting to know." The way in which people choose their "new" name when transitioning in very situational, and so this poll isn't necessarily indicative of anything, but like I just said... "it was kind of interesting to know."
I completely changed my name from my birth name for several reasons, but the big reason that I didn't just go with 'Christine' or "Christy" is because at that point in my life I wanted very little to do with my "previous life." Had a had a different reaction from my family that might be very different... in fact, I'm sure that if my family would have accepted me I WOULD HAVE gone with a variation of my boy name.
Other situations can dramatically affect ones choice of name. Someone with a name like "Kalen" doesn't really need to change their name to fit in as a girl socially, someone with the name of Chet, Bruce or Lance would have a harder time not changing. Likewise, names like Aaron or Michael can be easily changed to Erin or Michele, while the above mentioned boy names don't have well-known female counterparts.
I've said it twice already, but I suppose that the third try is the charm, so while this may not be ground-breaking information... it was kind of interesting to know.
During one of the many random conversations that happen in the Chat Room here on grishno.com, we were discussing cooking, and our favorite recipes to make. Somehow Jessica, one of the chat room regulars and an all around great girl, got the idea that we should put all of these recipes together into one book and try to sell it. "Why not?" I said, and now here we are.
"The GrishBook of Cooking is a collaborative cook book to share our love for cooking/baking and the wonderful foods we create with each other. [...] With the proceeds, we will set up a application system to give people the opportunity [to recieve SRS] which might seem unattainable by any other means." says the site. And who wouldn't want to combine the ability to cook up some tasty goodness with the opportunity to help provide SRS to those who are less fortunate?
I know I plan to contribute my world-famous recipe for Onion/Dill Biscuits.... Mmmmmmmm. What will you contribute?
It's easy, just head over to the website (click here) and submit your recipe on the Recipe Talk page.
2009... what a year it has been. For me it was filled with all kinds of highs and lows (but that's a whole other article). But through all the ups and downs, it's important that we always maintain the ability to laugh, and to laugh at ourselves. So with that in mind I bring you a video from my good friend TabloidJunk, taking the entirety of 2009 out of context.
One reoccurring aspect of an oppressed people is their inability to control their own image. African Americans during slavery, Jews during the Holocaust, Native Americans during American colonization all were victims of propaganda. How transgendered people are shown in the media plays a big part is why they are not taking seriously in the real world outside the television.
In the media, transgenders are depicted as comic relief. Comedians like, Martin Lawrence, Jim Carey, Jamie Foxx, Benny Hill, have made people laugh at their cross-dressing antics for years. To Wong Foo, a movie that show three super masculine male actors cast as drag queens on a comical cross country trip in which the drag queens' car breaks down in a hick town. The drag queens turn this small town upside-down in a colorful gender-bending way. Although the movie was entertaining, it was not real life. This perpetuated the idea that transsexual are playing dress up; therefore should not be taking seriously.
The media, also, commonly depicts transgendered as crazed lunatic. There are many movies made with this image. The Norman Bates character, in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho, made his way into pop culture as a gray wig-wearing, knife-wielding slasher. The character, Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, skins his female victims so he can don a suit sewn from their skins to become a woman. In another film, Sleepway Camp, the plot is: the girl in a boy/girl set of fraternal twins died in a boat accident, so the parents raise the boy twin as a girl, Angela. Angela terrorizes a campground with a killing spree induced by sex crazed boys and taunting teenaged girls. More propaganda that solidifies the idea that transgender are mentally-ill.
Like most minorities, the transgendered community is a slave to how the majority shows who they are in the media. We have to take the reigns and control our own image by using all mediums available to tell our stories. They need to know our opinions of ourselves, not their opinions on us.
It's been five years since I've been a tourist in New York City, but that's about to change. Tomorrow I hop a plane to the big apple for a ten day visit to the city I love. It been nearly 3 months since Morgan and I moved to the West Coast, which we've both been incredibly happy with, but there is always a certain amount of home sickness that comes with leaving, which is one of the reasons I am so excited to go back and see, as I called it in one of my songs when I first moved there, the city of my dreams.
During one of the many random conversations that happen in the Chat Room here on grishno.com, we were discussing cooking, and our favorite recipes to make. Somehow Jessica, one of the chat room regulars and an all around great girl, got the idea that we should put all of these recipes together into one book and try to sell it. "Why not?" I said, and now here we are.
One reoccurring aspect of an oppressed people is their inability to control their own image. African Americans during slavery, Jews during the Holocaust, Native Americans during American colonization all were victims of propaganda. How transgendered people are shown in the media plays a big part is why they are not taking seriously in the real world outside the television.
