queershoulder

Moved to tumblr!

2009-10-15T01:16:00.001-07:00

Hey! I've moved over to tumblr (http://queershoulder.tumblr.com/) -- come visit me there, pretty please! This blog is staying up for posterity. xoxo, readers!

Gina's Writing Workshops for October, & Massachusetts, ho! ;)

2009-10-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

Hi darlings,

Fall has fallen here in San Francisco, and I kinda love it. 24th Street smells like woodsmoke, I've traded in my fishnets & glittery flats for technicolor tights & boots, and I'm watching a torrential downpour from a cafe window as I type. Ah, October. I'm also half-way thru my first semester as a graduate student and doing several new & lovely freelance gigs, and loving all of that too. All in all, life's pretty sweet these days.

Anyway, a coupla notes/reminders:

+ Sex Workers' Writing Workshop for the third week of October (next week) has changed slightly -- I'll be teaching on *Tuesday, October 20th, from 4pm-6pm*, stlll at the Center for Sex & Culture. (Sorry for the time change -- I'll be travelling on Wednesday.) The SWWW schedule for November & December is as usual (first & third Weds of the month, 6-8pm), though.

+ *Very* exciting -- Massachusetts, ho! 1. I'll be at the New Leadership Networking Initiative (rad reproductive justice activist network) meeting in Amherst, MA from 10/21-10/23. Will you be at NLNI too? I'm psyched to see you if so! Also, Pioneer Valley friends, let's hang out! 2. I'll be teaching with the wonderful Write Here Write Now queer and trans writer's group in Somerville, MA on Saturday October 24th, hosted by the illustrious Toni Amato. If you are in or near Somerville/Boston, you should come write with us. And if you have friends in the area, you should tell them to come write with us. Really. It's gonna be awesome, folks.

More info about each of these classes is below...

xox, & happy fall, Gina

------

Sex Workers' Writing Workshop

Sex Workers' Writing Workshop Tuesday, October 20th, 4pm-6pm Center for Sex & Culture, 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning) Sliding scale $10-$20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries

Blurb: This is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

And, in case you neeed it, here is Sex Workers' Writing Workshop Fall & Winter 2009 Schedule: Tuesday, October 20th, 4pm-6pm, CSC Wednesday, November 4th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, November 18th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, November 18th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, December 2nd, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, December 16th, 6pm-8pm, CSC

***

Gina in Boston in October! Yay!:

Our First Teachers: Writing About Gender, Family, & Identity

(For the purposes of this workshop, the words “family” and “gender” have broad definitions.)

The people who bring us up through our childhood, and the people who bring us out into various communities (queer, trans, people of color, kink, disability, activist, artist, spiritual, etc.) pass beliefs and standards on to us, whether through explicit or implicit instruction. Family members – both of origin and chosen – are often the people who teach us the most about our gender. In this workshop, we will write about lessons we've learned from influential individuals – be they our great-grandmother, fourth grade teacher, first boss, or first submissive. These pivotal people inevitably taught us about what gender means in the world. Whether they encouraged us to follow gendered stereotypes or to defy them, and whether we ended up cherishing or despising them as individuals, we are left with choices: Which of the qualities they encouraged in us do we want to embody? What is fine for them, but not for us? What is not fine at all? What is precious?

Some Notes: The focus of the prompts will be about gender, but “gender” can cover a lot of ground when it comes to identity. No topic is off-limits.

No prior writing experience is necessary. Bring something to write with and an open mind.

Instructor Bio: Gina de Vries is a widely-published queer femme writer, activist, and writing instructor. Her work has appeared dozens of places, including Revolutionary Voices, Dirty Girls, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!, Bound to Struggle, Visible: A Femmethology, The Revolution Starts at Home, Curve magazine, make/shift magazine, Go magazine, and $pread magazine. Gina has performed, taught, and lectured everywhere from chapels to leatherbar backrooms to the halls of the Ivy League (recent appearances include Perverts Put Out! and Yale University). She's currently pursuing her MFA in Fiction Writing at San Francisco State University, and is the founder and instructor of Sex Workers' Writing Workshop. She believes in the transformative spiritual power of writing, and enjoys political discussion as foreplay. Find out more at ginadevries.com.

Details: Saturday, October 24th, from 10am-3pm, with vegan lunch included. Location, Davis Square, Somerville, MA. Suggested donation, $30, no one turned away for lack of funds. Contact Toni Amato at toniamato@gmail.com for more information and to register.

Spirited Smut on Holy Hill + Sex Workers' Writing Workshop this Weds 9/16 + SWWW Fall/Winter Sked!

2009-09-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Friends! I am teaching a smut-writing workshop in the east bay on Wednesday through the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies in Religion & Ministry at Pacific School of Religion. CLGS is the groovy non-profit I worked at before starting grad school, and I am tickled to be going back there to teach for an afternoon. I know that many of you work during the day &/or are students who have classes then, but if you know any folks (esp. in the east bay!) who might enjoy my workshop, please feel free to pass this note on to them. Then, right after the workshop at PSR, I hop over to SF and teach Sex Workers' Writing Workshop at the Center for Sex & Culture. I think Wednesday can officially be called a Writestravaganza. :) In other news: Grad school is eating my brain, but in a good way. I am pretty much busier than I have ever been in my entire life (and for someone like me, that is really saying a lot). But it's a good & joyous kind of busy. Also! I've got some gigs upcoming in Boston in October! Stayed tuned for more about that, and tell yr east coast friends! Love to all of you, Gina -- FIRST! Come write spirited smut with me on Holy Hill this Wednesday! :) "Erotica for Fun & Justice" (their title) Presented by the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies in Religion & Ministry Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic, Berkeley, CA Wednesday, September 16th 3:30 to 5:00pm Room Mudd 103 at PSR Workshop Description: Writing about sexuality can be joyous, transformative, political, spiritual, or just plain fun -- but erotica can very easily turn more laughable or flat than sexy. How do we write sexually-explicit work without overdoing it or boring the reader? How do we write about politics and sex, or spirituality and sex, without getting too dry or heavy-handed? In this erotic writing workshop, we'll learn some of the basics of writing erotic fiction. We'll do a series of exercises that will jump start us in writing erotic work: how to avoid cliches, how to write about what's hot and interesting for us (not what we think will be hot or interesting for the theoretical reader), and how to create believable settings and characters. Some notes: 1. No writing experience is needed for this class. Bring something to write with and an open mind. 2. This is an erotica writing workshop. We will be talking about sex and using sexually-explicit language. Please be comfortable with that. Remember that you are not obligated to share unless you want to. 3. If you want to engage in a debate about whether politics, spirituality, and/or sexuality are related, or whether erotica can be artistic, etc, etc, etc, this is NOT the workshop for you. BIO: Gina de Vries is a widely-published queer femme Paisan pervert, author, activist, and writing instructor. Her work has appeared dozens of places, including Revolutionary Voices, Dirty Girls, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!, Bound to Struggle, Visible: A Femmethology, The Revolution Starts at Home, Curve magazine, make/shift magazine, Go magazine, and $pread magazine. Gina has performed, taught, and lectured in chapels, living rooms, leatherbar backrooms, and the halls of the Ivy League. She's currently pursuing her MFA in Fiction Writing at San Francisco State University. She believes in the transformative spiritual power of writing, and enjoys political discussion as foreplay. Find her online at (the embarrassingly outdated but soon to be updated) ginadevries.com --- SECOND!: Sex Workers' Writing Workshop Sex Workers' Writing Workshop Wednesday, September 16th, 6:30pm-8pm **Note that we are starting at 6:30, NOT 6pm!** Center for Sex & Culture, 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning) Sliding scale $10-$20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries **In general,** Sex Workers' Writing Workshop is now the 1st & 3rd Wednesdays of the month, from **6pm-8pm.** However, because I'll be coming from another gig, I'm having us start at 6:30 this Wednesday ONLY. Blurb: This is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths. In case you need it, here is Sex Workers' Writing Workshop Fall & Winter 2009 Schedule:

Wednesday, October 7th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, October 21st, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, November 4th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, November 18th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, November 18th, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, December 2nd, 6pm-8pm, CSC Wednesday, December 16th, 6pm-8pm, CSC

PSA

2009-09-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

I haz a tumblr! I've been posting fiction excerpts and random bits about my personal life over there -- for some reason, it feels like a good place to do the more gutsy/personal blogging that for whatever reason feels harder with this platform. I am keeping this blog, and will still post here, mostly about upcoming shows and the like. That's all. I hope you're all well!

Oh, also!

2009-08-29T17:39:00.001-07:00

Oh, also! Remember when I was moving? I found a place that I love! A way, way, way below-market studio in my favorite neighborhood, with fig and nectarine trees in the big back yard, sweet neighbors, and sweet local landlords. Also, they allow cats. Life's pretty charmed. Lauren says I have the Magic Trifecta of Good Apartment, Good Job, and Good Sex going on. Any way it goes, I'm pretty happy.

"Oh, baby, let's do it in the Oscar Wilde."

2009-08-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm resurfacing here to say that graduate school is having its desired effect. I wrote 2000 words in 4 hours last night, and have a full weekend of writing (with breaks for bike rides, meals with friends, & downtime) ahead of me. I'm the happiest I've been in a long, long time. Grad school appears to suit me, if the first week is any indication. The classes are fun and I like my professors and the work is, uh, kinda helping me stay on track to write my little hands off.

I also blame grad school for the weird esoteric sex dream I had last night:

I was in the secluded upstairs of a fancy vintage bookstore -- and I called a lover for a blowjob. Uhh? "Oh baby, let's do it in the Oscar Wilde?"

Apparently Frazzled Is The New Sexy?

2009-07-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

I've got 13 boxes packed, & I'm not moving till Saturday. I'm still a bundle of nerves about it. It's clearly time for a walk.

But before that walk:

Today, lugging five bulky cardboard boxes home from a liquor store, dressed in ratty jeans, primas, & a baby-tee so old it's turned from black to grey in places, with my hair all messy & unbrushed, I got very obviously cruised by a cute girl with heart earrings. As in, she stopped in the middle of the street and gave me the Unmistakable Once-Over, including the Big Smile, the Wink, and the Nod. I grinned and blushed and nodded back -- you know, the usual way shy girls like me respond to cruising.

It was only upon reaching my apartment that I was like, "Wait, wha? Really? Today of all days, I get cruised walking down Valencia Street? Huh. Okay!" Apparently Frazzled Is The New Sexy? Or apparently I'm Too Sexy For This Moving Stress, Too Sexy for This Moving Stress? Or maybe she could tell that I was stressed out and wanted to give a stranger a little thrill? Who knows. Whatever the case, it was nice. Thanks, Hot Heart Earrings Girl, wherever you are.

Call for submissions: "How to Fuck a Trans Woman"

2009-07-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hi friends, This looks like a great project, and Mira is an absolute dear. Please forward this widely, and contribute if you can! xox, Gina --- Subject: Call for submissions: "How to Fuck a Trans Woman" Reply To: fisty.cupcake@gmail.com This is an open call for submissions; please forward to anyone who even *might* be interested. Sex with trans women can be a challenging experience for new partners, and even for the trans woman in question. We learn things about our bodies as we go because there's no instruction manual, no guidebook for how we're supposed to be fucking. All sorts of assumptions about our bodies and how we have sex or fuck can keep potential lovers wary or from expressing the interest they feel for us. And we don't all fuck the same way, so even if someone has been with a few of us their experiences might be totally different and not helpful to the next, and the next. It can be hard to name our bodies in ways that we feel are authentic but that also feel sexy. It can be difficult to claim our bodies and our pleasure for ourselves when we might not feel as much ownership for them as we would like. Sometimes, at least for me, I can feel very frustrated trying to explain myself through metaphor, analogy, and comparison because there simply is no vocabulary to explain my body the way I want to explain it. I want to start a serious conversation between trans women to share information about how we're fucking, no matter *who* we're fucking or what fucking means to us. I'm not naive enough to believe that this hasn't been attempted before, but I am humble enough to admit that I haven't been successful at finding those previous efforts. I'm also smart enough to know that I can't be the only one out there who feels like she is routinely reinventing what should have, and probably was, already discovered, documented, and discussed. Old information is *definitely* welcome; this is about sharing information, not (necessarily) sharing new information. This is a preliminary call for submissions for a pamphlet or zine, to be distributed as widely as possible in every and any format available, with very humble goals: to start a conversation about how trans women are having sex. This is meant to be a conversation that includes trans women and our lovers. It can be as specific as you like, and it is NOT a problem if you want to contribute anonymously. All sorts of contributions would be and will be valued, including drawings and schematics (!!!), sex stories about good sex, essays, "what to do" and "what not to do" lists, safer sex guides, ... anything really, but with the acknowledgment that while a lot of us will learn something about ourselves or find some really helpful advice, there's no *one way* to fuck a trans lady, any more than there's any *one way* to fuck anyone else. Our goal should be to learn as *many ways* to have good sex as possible. The first issue of this zine will be distributed electronically and in print by request; submissions are due *really really soon*: July 21st for the first issue, which will be released August 1st, no matter how much or how little content has been collected. Please send your contributions to M. Darling at: fisty.cupcake@gmail.com

I'm still a little verklempt...

2009-06-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

Girl Talk was just flat-out incredible. Bless you & thank you, Ryka, Tina, Lauren, Nomy, Rose, Dorian, & Julia. You were all engaging and brilliant. Right now, I want us all to take over the world. Or at least go on tour together. ;) My favorite moment from my individual reading was the audience response to this excerpt:

[...] Using the word genderqueer to describe myself is hard. For a long time, it felt like a word that was fundamentally not mine. Like a word that other, more masculine, more entitled-to-it people had the power to take away. Before I met [my ex], genderqueer was the property of female-assigned people who ape a kind of masculinity that I find privileged and pompous. None of the genderqueers I met in college – and I've been out since I was 11, but college was the first time I heard people using the term in any kind of wide-spread way – none of those people had genders like mine. They were skinny, wealthy, WASP-y, self-described “tranny b-o-i-z,” sporting trucker caps and workshirts when they'd never actually driven a fucking truck in their entire trust-funded lives. They talked a lot about the evils of other peoples' privilege without examining their own. They were devotees of hipsterism, and drinksterism, and the “We'll have sex with hot femme girls, but we won't let them actually talk” School of Butch Chauvinism. They were the Dude-Bro's of the genderqueer world. You know who I'm talking about?

I was not expecting to get quite such a resounding "YES!!!" from the audience. It was hella comforting, and -- as cheezy as it sounds -- really renewed my faith in my dyke community. Anyway, Julia and I will have footage from the show up soon. I'll link to pictures and audio/video footage then.

"Enter Jesus's email address"

2009-06-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Moving, moving, moving!

2009-06-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

So, I'm looking to move within San Francisco on August 1st. Me and my beloved housemate of four years are parting ways because I'm adopting a cat and looking for a room with a little more space than what I currently have. After a fairly abysmal hunt for affordable studios that aren't Hobbit Holes, I've decided to look at room shares. (If, by the grace of God, you know of some Magic Crazy Awesome Rent Control Studio Deal, hit me up, please). More about me: I'm a queer femme writer, activist, and cultural worker (most of my artistic and activist work is about queer, trans, and sex worker communities). I'll be starting the MFA in Fiction program at SF State in the fall. I'm a San Francisco native (I grew up in the Ingleside/Lakeview), and I've lived in Mission for the past four years. I'm a good tenant and a good housemate -- responsible, communicative, no drama, tidy but not neat-freaky, with good credit and my finances in order, a stable non-profit job (come August, that'll be stable Financial Aid), and great personal references. I tend to stay in apartments long-term. I don't have to be best friends with the people I live with, but I like at least being friendly with my housemates -- watching the occasional movie or grabbing the occasional cup of coffee together. I eat meat occasionally, but I mostly cook vegetarian. Some weeks I'm out a lot, at events or teaching or doing performances; other weeks I'm home a lot, writing. I like having friends over to cook and hang out, but I don't like to bring the party/bar/club home. I don't smoke and rarely drink, but I'm not picky about what my housemates do as long as the house isn't Party Central. What I would love in a share situation: Queer/trans friendly, sex worker friendly, kitty-friendly, good sunlight, a shower with a tub, a maximum of 3 other housemates, room to store my bike indoors, and reasonable rent (for a share, $700 is about my max -- less would be great, too). Neighborhoods I'm potentially jazzed about living in include the Mission (including the Outer Mission and the border of Glen Park), Bernal Heights, Noe Valley, the Castro-ish/Dolores/Church Street areas, Potrero Hill, Hayes Valley, the Inner Sunset, Cole Valley, the Lower & Upper Haight, and South of Market. Pretty please ping me if you know of anything! I'm queershoulder[@]gmail[.]com.

REBEL GIRL round-up

2009-06-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

1. Oh my god. You guys! REBEL GIRL was so good last night! Melissa's sweet, awkward, funny internet/teen goth/riot grrrl crossroads memoir! Zuleikha's Muslim Shark Manifesto! Chan's Riot Brrrlesque! Liz's amazing & hilarious Riot Grrrl Mail Bag (she read from people's zines & letters!), and the snippets from The Slut Manifesto (now available for download on Kindle, OMG!). And the amazing Nomy & Melodie doing grrrl covers on the accordian. (I got shivers when they sang "Calculated," people. Shivers.) And, amazingly, my month-long anxiety/panic streak and writer's block finally broke. I wrote something new, and sweet -- a letter to one of my favorite grrrl penpals, a dozen years later. I'm really happy with the piece, and with the audience response. I'll be posting it here and at Bilerico soon. The goodness of the show last night makes me feel even more optimistic and excited about Girl Talk. Which you should also come to. Duh. 2. I really like my new 1940's-style curly girl haircut -- my hair curls like whoa when it's short, and I've been wearing a fake rose in my hair. I also got a magenta fake feather tuft. I have decided that life is more fun with flowers and feathers in my curls. 3. I was so glad to have Melissa back in town, however briefly. I've missed her a lot. San Francisco just isn't the same for me without her around.

A life/show/writing update

2009-06-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

1. I wrote this little piece about my early porn years for Bilerico.com awhile back. Take a look. 2. I've been a little stressed out this month, what with National Queer Arts Fest. See also, I'm leaving my non-profit job in late July to start school in August. See also, I'm moving in August (still within SF, just to a bigger and kitty-friendly place -- my current room is tiny and my current housemate, while absolutely beloved to me, has a rabbit that the kitty I'm getting would probably terrorize). All of these changes -- especially the going to school one -- are really positive for me, but I'm a bit in that "YIKES, THIS IS A LOT AT ONCE" place right now. 3. Have I mentioned those two shows I have in two weeks? If you're in San Francisco, please come to "REBEL GIRL: a riot grrrl nostalgia show" on Thursday night. Performers are bringing old & new zines, buttons, flyers, and other riot grrrl ephemera for folks to ogle and buy. In addition to all our awesome readers -- me, Melissa Gira Grant, Zuleikha Mahmood, & Liz Henry -- Chan Dynasty is performing some Riot Brrrlesque, and rumor also has it that Nomy Lamm & Melodie Younce are gonna belt out some riot grrrl covers on the accordian. I'm also baking the audience cupcakes, wearing a vintage slip, and reading about SF grrrl culture circa 1996-1998. My piece is a lot of stories about things that felt very integral to my growing up, but are gone now -- the Bearded Lady, BUILD Arts Collective, the Harvey Milk Institute... Come out, pretty please! It will be a lot of fun! 4. Also, if you are in SF -- please don't forget to come to "Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue" on June 17th. Featuring me, Nomy Lamm, Julia Serano, Rose Simms aka Little Light, Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, Lauren Steeley, Dorian Katz, and Tina D'Elia! 5. I love that I live in a city where, during my 4 block walk to BART, I spot one of my favorite writers walking and one of my favorite porn stars biking down Valencia Street.

Sex Workers' Writing Workshop TONIGHT! / Rebel Girl & Girl Talk @ Nat'l Queer Arts Fest!

2009-05-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, Sex Workers' Writing Workshop is TONIGHT, and my writing workshops and shows for the National Queer Arts Festival in June are listed below. (Btw, I strongly encourage you to get tickets for Rebel Girl and Girl Talk in advance from BrownPaperTickets -- the seats are gonna fill up fast!) Come write! Come see me & a lot of other fabulous read! And have a fabulous end of a lovely spring & beginning of a gorgeous summer! XOX, Gina ---- *May Sex Workers' Writing Workshop*: Wednesday, May 20th, 7-9pm *June Sex Workers' Writing Workshop*: Wednesday, June 3rd, 7-9pm (Please note that there is only doing *one* Writing Workshop in June.) Center for Sex & Culture 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning) Sliding scale $10-$20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries This is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths. --- The National Queer Arts Festival & San Francisco in Exile Present: REBEL GIRL: a riot grrl nostalgia show Thursday, June 11th The Garage 975 Howard, San Francisco Show at 7:30; Doors at 7pm Tickets: $10-20 Buy Tickets on-line!!: www.brownpapertickets.com http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/Rebel.html All Star, All Grrrl Cast!: Gina de Vries Chan Dynasty Melissa Gira Grant Liz Henry Nomy Lamm Zuleikha Mahmood Melodie Younce Join the National Queer Arts Festival and San Francisco in Exile for a Riot Grrrl Revival -- where you can once again dress in your leopard print thrift store finery, scrawl SLUT across your midriff, toss that Huggy Bear 7" on the turntable, and make a fanzine extolling the virtues of veganism + vibrators. It's Revolution Grrrl-Style, Now! -- with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Past and present zinestars and grrrl revolutionaries will tell wax nostalgic about the old days, and let you know what they've been up to recently. Zines and cupcakes will be available for purchase. ---- The National Queer Arts Festival Presents: Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue Curated by Gina de Vries & Julia Serano Wednesday, June 17th LGBT Center - Ceremonial Room 1800 Market Street, San Francisco 7:30pm Tickets: $12-$20 Buy Tickets on-line!!: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/66001 http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/GirlTalk.html Featuring the lovely & fabulous!: Ryka Aoki de la Cruz Tina D’Elia Gina de Vries Dorian Katz Nomy Lamm Julia Serano Rose Sims (aka Little Light) Lauren Steely Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day -- from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. Girl Talk is a spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

Mark yr calendars: REBEL GIRL: a riot nostalgia show June 11 + GIRL TALK: a cis & trans woman dialogue June 17!

2009-05-13T21:33:00.001-07:00

Hi folks, Please come to my two shows in NQAF this year -- REBEL GIRL: a riot grrrl nostalgia show, and GIRL TALK: a cis & trans woman dialogue. Also, I strongly encourage you to get tix in advance from BrownPaperTickets -- something tells me these seats are gonna fill up fast. :) xox, & have a lovely May! Gina --- The National Queer Arts Festival & San Francisco In Exile Present: REBEL GIRL: a riot grrl nostalgia show Thursday, June 11th The Garage 975 Howard, San Francisco Show at 7:30; Doors at 7pm Tickets: $10-20 Buy Tickets on-line!!: www.brownpapertickets.com http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/Rebel.html Riot grrrl was a youth and punk-oriented radical sociopolitical movement that captivated the hearts, minds, raging hormones, and feminist rage of many queer and trans teen girls in the early and mid-nineties. Join the National Queer Arts Festival and San Francisco in Exile for a Riot Grrrl Revival -- where you can once again dress in your leopard print thrift store finery, scrawl SLUT across your midriff, toss that Huggy Bear 7" on the turntable, and make a fanzine extolling the virtues of veganism + vibrators. It's Revolution Grrrl-Style, Now! -- with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Past and present zinestars and grrrl revolutionaries will tell wax nostalgic about the old days, and let you know what they've been up to recently. Zines and cupcakes will be available for purchase. CAST BIOS: Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, sex worker, pervert, and Paisan. She grew up in San Francisco, where she cut her activist and artist teeth on the riot grrrl and queer arts movements in the 1990s. Her fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places, including: Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing, Dirty Girls, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical Politics Meet, Femmethology, $pread magazine, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for long-running queer performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). She can be cruised online at ginadevries.com. Chan Dynasty is the performance art/drag/burlesque persona of Celeste Chan. She also performs under the name Lady Fantastique, promoting interdisciplinary art and the sexiness of feminism (www.myspace.com/lfantastique). Ms. Chan brings subversive glamour and political commentary to the stage as a solo act and in the duo, Hapa Hardcore. She has performed most recently on the stages of: Deep Lez (National Queer Arts Festival), Rebel Grrl (SF in Exile), APATURE festival, Cabaret de Nude, and the Kraftabilly Fair. Her video art has screened at the Olympia Film Festival, Mangos with Chili WHIPPED show, Risky/Risque presented by Shifting Narratives, and her newest short will screen at the 2009 QWOCMAP film festival. Melissa Gira Grant is a writer, educator, and artist working in sex & technology. She is the co-founder of Boffery, an online tool for organizing and discussing one’s sex life with trusted personal contacts. She writes about sex & the internet at her award-winning blog, Sexerati. Her work has appeared in print in $pread, Make:, and in the anthologies Best Sex Writing 2008 (Cleis Press) and Dirty Girls (Seal Press). An early sex blogger and one of the last remaining webcam girls, she has been writing about sex on the web since 1998. From 2002 to 2005, she operated Sacredwhore.org, one of a handful of blogs written by sex workers to gain wider attention, including her podcast, Whorecast, which in 2005 occupied the highest-ranking spots for a Political, Religious, Sexuality, and Business podcast in the iTunes Music Store. In 2005, she launched the award-winning Sexerati. At the height of the “DC Madam” prostitution scandal in 2007, she and the Desiree Alliance founded the sex worker group blog Bound, Not Gagged, recognized as one of the best sources of coverage on former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s relations with high-priced escorts hired over the internet. In 2008, she reported daily on sex and the internet for Valleywag. Melissa has been a consultant with the Soros Foundation’s Sexual Health and Rights’ Project and the St. James Infirmary on using blogging, podcasting, videoblogging, and online social networks for advocacy and movement building among sex workers. She has also written a sex education curriculum for teenagers on MySpace, as part of a National Institute for Health funded study, for the Internet Sex Information Service. She has presented her work on sexual health, human rights, and new media at the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, the Third Wave Feminist Foundation, the University of San Francisco, the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, the Center for Sex and Culture, the New School for Social Research, and the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Liz Henry lives in many intersecting communities, as a feminist, poet, blogger, science fiction fan, queer & genderqueer writer, and computer geek. In the 90s, she published the SCUM Manifesto, the Bitch Manifesto, and the Slut Manifesto as zines. She is a proud member of the Secret Feminist Cabal. Nomy Lamm is a writer, musician and activist whose work has been featured in magazines (including Ms., Punk Planet, and Make/Shift), anthologies (including Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution and Working Sex: Sex Workers Write about A Changing Industry, all on Seal Press), and onstage in theaters, universities and nightclubs all over the US. She has toured with Sister Spit (1999), the Sex Workers Art Show (2005), and Dr. Frockrocket's Menagerie and Medicine Show (2001). She has released two solo albums (Anthem, 1999 on Talent Show, and Effigy, 2002 on Yoyo Recordings) and co-wrote, co-produced and performed in "The Transfused", a post-apocalyptic rock opera about multi-gendered animal-human hybrids, in 2000. Her most recent publication is a piece of erotic fiction in the new anthology Fist of the Spiderwoman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire, edited by Amber Dawn on Arsenal Press. She teaches voice lessons, and is currently working on her first novel, The Best Part Comes After the End. Zuleikha Mahmood is a queer mixed Afghan American writer who lives in Oakland. In 2008, she toured with Mangos with Chili, a queer and trans people of color performing arts cabaret. Zuleikha is committed to documenting the lives of Muslim drop-outs, fuck-ups, queers, and whores. She's a proud co-founder of The Femme Sharks. Melodie Younce! ---- The National Queer Arts Festival Presents: Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue Curated by Julia Serano & Gina de Vries Wednesday, June 17th LGBT Center - Ceremonial Room 1800 Market Street 7:30pm Tickets: $12-$20 Buy Tickets on-line!!: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/66001 http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/GirlTalk.html Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day -- from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. Girl Talk is a spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family. CAST BIOS: Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, sex worker, pervert, and Paisan. She grew up in San Francisco, where she cut her activist and artist teeth on the riot grrrl and queer arts movements in the 1990s. Her fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places, including: Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing, Dirty Girls, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical Politics Meet, Femmethology, $pread magazine, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for long-running queer performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). She can be cruised online at ginadevries.com. Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, spoken word performer, trans activist, and biologist. Julia is the author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Seal Press, 2007), a collection of personal essays that reveal how misogyny frames popular assumptions about femininity and shapes many of the myths and misconceptions people have about transsexual women. Her other writings have appeared in anthologies (including BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine and Word Warriors: 30 Leaders in the Women's Spoken Word Movement) and in feminist, queer, pop culture and literary magazines and websites such as Bitch, AlterNet.org, Out, Feministing.com, Clamor, Kitchen Sink, make/shift, other, LiP and Transgender Tapestry. In recent years, Julia has gained notoriety in transgender, queer, and feminist circles for her unique insights into gender. She has been invited to speak about transgender and trans women's issues at numerous universities, at queer, women's studies, psychology and philosophy-themed conferences, and her writings have been used as teaching materials in queer and gender studies courses across the United States. Ryka Aoki de la Cruz has recently appeared at the 2007 San Francisco Pride Main Stage, 2006 National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival, the National Queer Arts Festival, Ladyfest South, Atlanta Pride, UCLA’s OutCRY, Santa Cruz Pride, and Emory University’s Pride Week. Ryka was keynote speaker at UC Santa Barbara’s 2005 Pride Week and was the inaugural performer for San Francisco’s first ever Transgender Stage at San Francisco Pride 2005. Ryka is the author of five chapbooks and has been published in numerous literary journals. Her work appears in American Eyes: New Asian American Short Stores for Young Adults, which won an American Library Association Award as one of its “Best Books for Young Adults.” She has also closely worked with the American Association of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, and two of her compositions have been adopted by the group as its official “Songs of Peace.” Ryka has an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University, is a founder of Cornell University's Asian American Playhouse and is the recipient of a University Award from the Academy of American Poets. Ryka was a charter member of the Transgender Advisory Committee for Asian Pacific Islanders for Human Rights (APHIR), and was head judo coach at UCLA and Cornell University. She is also the founder of Trans/Giving, LA’s only art/performance series dedicated to trans, genderqueer, and intersex artists, and was recently honored by the California State Senate for her “extraordinary commitment to free speech and artistic expression, as well as the visibility and well-being of Transgender people.” Ryka is currently a professor of English at Santa Monica College. Rose Sims, a Filipina-Ashkenazic mixed-class trans dyke mestiza, is a writer, religion scholar, medic, and survivor from rural Oregon. Dedicated to the projects of media justice, radical love, and community building, she writes online at http://takingsteps.blogspot.com as "little light," serves on the advisory board of the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, and is a charter member of the Speak! Radical Women of Color Media Collective. Rose is currently busy being in good stories and getting preachy in Portland, OR; she carries a pen, her ancestors, and the mismatched ID of a citizen of the borderlands with her at all times. Lauren Steely is an environmental geologist who cleans up contaminated groundwater with fancy technology, a job she can best describe as both glamorous and filthy. Her job often sends her on the road exploring new towns, where she can be found picking on her mandolin while gazing out over windswept rangeland. When she’s in the city, she likes to play jazz piano, drink tea, and bike the not-so-mean-streets of LA. She has been involved in several trans/feminist projects: TransGiving, Camp Trans, and the League of Trans-Unified Sisters. Also she likes to write novels about lesbian superheroes, but that’s neither here nor there. Nomy Lamm is a writer, musician and activist whose work has been featured in magazines (including Ms., Punk Planet, and Make/Shift), anthologies (including Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution and Working Sex: Sex Workers Write about A Changing Industry, all on Seal Press), and onstage in theaters, universities and nightclubs all over the US. She has toured with Sister Spit (1999), the Sex Workers Art Show (2005), and Dr. Frockrocket's Menagerie and Medicine Show (2001). She has released two solo albums (Anthem, 1999 on Talent Show, and Effigy, 2002 on Yoyo Recordings) and co-wrote, co-produced and performed in "The Transfused", a post-apocalyptic rock opera about multi-gendered animal-human hybrids, in 2000. Her most recent publication is a piece of erotic fiction in the new anthology Fist of the Spiderwoman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire, edited by Amber Dawn on Arsenal Press. She teaches voice lessons, and is currently working on her first novel, The Best Part Comes After the End. Dorian Katz is a visual artist who draws no line between the innocent and truly perverse in her work. Recent projects handle adult themes through childlike tropes. This is her world of play and imagination where everyone gets to be and do what she wants, especially her. Her work is deeply personal and, at the same time, speaks about the lives she sees others leading or trying to lead. Dorian is a cis woman whose gender presentation is fairly consistent, although she has been known to switch from species to species. Dorian has had solo art shows at MicroClimate Project Space, GlamaRama, and the Jon Sims Center. She has participated in group shows at Stormy Leather, the San Francisco LGBT Center, Balazo 18, Spaces, Kearny Street Workshop and Live Worms. She was a founding member of the dyke erotica collective, Dirty Ink. Her illustrations and writing have been included in The Human Pony, Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues, Other, Instant City, Clamor magazine and Morbid Curiosity magazine (1997-2007). She begins the MFA program in Art Practice this fall at Stanford University. Tina D’Elia is queer mixed-race Latina Actor/Playwright/Screenwriter/ and local Performance-Poet is best known for her one-woman show: Groucho: a Day in the D’Elia Soup. Tina’s performed her show in Boston and San Francisco’s Women on the Way (01) and the National Queer Arts Festival (02). Currently Ms. D’Elia developed her solo show into a full length play, Groucho: a Queer Loca, a development of the Playwrights Foundation, directed by Mary Guzmán. D’Elia will star December at the Garage in; Danny in the Deep Blue Sea. D’Elia’s films include: The Pursuit of Happyness, Groucho, Mechanic’s Daydream, Getting Off, and Groucho. D’Elia co-wrote her second screenplay Lucha with director Maria Breaux, premiering at that QWOCFF this year. She has worked at Community United Against Violence (CUAV) for ten years and received the Ollin Civil Right Award from Familiar de La Raza in 2006 for her work in the Bay Area.

Sex Workers' Writing Workshop TOMORROW + May 20!

2009-05-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

Just a reminder note about Sex Workers' Writing Workshop tomorrow night and May 20!

xox,

Gina

------

*Sex Workers' Writing Workshop*

Wednesday, May 6th

7pm-9pm

Center for Sex & Culture

1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning)

Sliding scale $10-$20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away*

Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries

This is a writing workshop for people who work or have worked in all areas of the sex industry to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

May Sex Workers' Writing Workshops:

Wednesday, May 6th, 7-9pm, @CSC

Wednesday, May 20th, 7-9pm, @CSC

MANIFESTO! May 1st, Modern Times Books!

2009-04-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

Poetry may be for lovers, and stories for children, but what form of writing wants to speak to us all? Reaches out to grab us by the collar and shake us until we listen? The Manifesto! The Bay Area has never been short of political/artistic fervor, and we'll be bringing you classic examples from around the world and brand new statements about How Things Should Be, along with audience participation at the Manifesto! show at for SF in Exile, May 1st at Modern Times Bookstore, 7pm. Naamen Tilahun Annalee Newitz Danny O'Brien Nick Mamatas Zuleikha Mahmoud Liz Henry Steven Schwartz Daphne Gottlieb Declaim the juiciest and most rabble rousing bits from: The SCUM Manifesto, The Futurist Manifesto, The Bitch Manifesto, The Femme Shark Manifesto, the Dadaist and Provo manifestos, and more! So, come, listen, and get hit by the shrapnel of the War of Ideas! SF in Exile - Manifesto! May 1, 2009 7pm- 9pm (door at 6:30) Modern Times Bookstore 888 Valencia Street, San Francisco

happy girl travelogue & general life update

2009-04-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

I'm on my annual east coast tour, updating from Toni Amato's writing room in Boston. Some items of note:

+ I moderated a truly fabulous TransFeminism panel at the Civil Liberties & Public Policy Reproductive Justice Conference on Saturday. (The CLPP Conference is held at my alma mater, Hampshire College, so I also got to catch up with a lot of activists and old friends I adore.) All the TransFeminism panelists -- Miss Major, Gunner Scott, and Josh Truitt -- were fierce and brilliant. I was so happy the discussion we had went beyond a Trans 101, and that we talked a lot about the harder and more complicated stuff. Including but not limited to: privileging of masculine-identified folks in dyke spaces and the exclusion and/or ostracizing of trans women from those spaces; domestic violence; trans authenticity battles; autonomy; intersections between trans and intersex struggles; "tranny chasing" and fetishizing of trans folks, taking care of our youth and our elders... God, there was more, but I'm forgetting. It was great! Thank you, all of you! You made my conference!

+ It was really nice to be back in the Pioneer Valley (where Hampshire is), and to be able to appreciate it, finally, as a sweet place. I was so miserable for most of college. By the time I was 22, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. I still don't think I'd ever want to live in Amherst or Noho, but it felt different and grown to be able to appreciate it as a sweet place, and not as a Place of Misery.

+ I spent yesterday catching up on the last year with Toni, and then taking a wander around Boston with him. Highlights include taking pictures of me climbing a giant red surrealist sofa-like thing at the Museum of Bad Art, writing and dishing at Diesel, and talking about... uh, everything? We do this thing where we tangent, a lot. Major Cheeze & Woo-Woo Alert: I wish I could find words to express just how at home I feel here. Not in Boston itself, but hanging out with Toni. Our friendship -- the connection with someone who I have a lot in common with culture and spirituality-wise -- is just so, so precious to me. I've said this before, I'll say it again -- bridging the gap between my radicalpants queer world and my Italian-Catholic working-class extended family feels tough sometimes. It's just nice to not have to explain things on either side. For someone to get it when I say the word "genderqueer," and to also get it when I talk about the family strega, you know? My heart feels really open, happy, and rejuvenated. + I teach at T's tonight.

+ I teach a sex writing workshop for queer & queer-friendly students at Yale on Friday. Good god.

+ I start graduate school (at San Francisco State, in the Fiction MFA Program) this fall.

That Talking Heads song about how "this is not my beautiful wife!" keeps playing in my head.

This is my life?! God. I am so blessed. As Toni would say, "Abundanza!"

Gina's April East Coast Tour: NLNI + WriteHereWriteNow + Yale!

2009-03-31T13:36:00.001-07:00

Hey folks! I've got three exciting events happening this April in Parts East: I'm moderating the TransFeminism panel at the Civil Liberties & Public Policy Reproductive Justice Conference in Amherst, MA; teaching at Write Here Write Now Queer & Trans Writer's Workshop in Boston; and heading over to New Haven to teach an erotic writing workshop and then perform at Yale. As for San Francisco events: Sex Workers' Writing Workshop happens again on Wednesday, April 15th. (The April 1st workshop is CANCELLED. Sorry, folks -- I'm getting on a ridiculously early plane on April 2nd. But I'll see you the 15th!) If you're local to any of these workshops or readings, please come hang out, or at least say hi! xox, Gina ----- ***CIVIL LIBERTIES AND PUBLIC POLICY REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS CONFERENCE*** Hampshire College Amherst, MA TransFeminism Panel (Gina moderates) Saturday, April 4th, 3:15-4:45 PM More info here: http://clpp.hampshire.edu/home I'll be moderating the TransFeminism Panel. Speakers include Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Gunner Scott, & Joshua Truitt. Come see us! ***WRITE HERE WRITE NOW QUEER & TRANS WRITERS' WORKSHOP*** Boston, MA Wednesday, April 8th, 7pm More info here: http://www.writeherewritenow.org/writeherewritenowongoingwritingworkshops.html Email Toni Amato at toniamato@gmail.com for location & directions. I'll be reading an excerpt from recent work and guest-teaching one prompt at Toni Amato's fantastic queer & trans writers' workshop. Please come, Boston friends! ***YALE!*** New Haven, CT Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies Library (3rd floor) William L. Harkness Hall 100 Wall Street Friday, April 10th Queer Erotic Writing Workshop ("Hot, Not Throbbing: Writing About Sex Without Reaching Into Your Bag of Cliches"): 4pm-6pm Featuring at Yale's Queer Pride Reading: 8pm I'll be teaching my erotic writing workshop ("Hot, Not Throbbing") in the afternoon, and doing a reading in the evening. My workshop description & bio are below. Workshop Description: Hot, Not Throbbing: Writing About Sex Without Reaching Into Your Bag of Cliches Writing about sex can be a joyous and hot thing -- but erotica can very easily turn more laughable or flat than sexy. How do we write sexually-explicit work without overdoing it or boring the reader? In this writing workshop, we'll discuss how to avoid cliches, create believable and sexy characters, and get dirty in that good way. A note: If you want to sound off about how pornography, sex work, sadomasochism, or transsexuality is totally sending us to hell or totally oppressive, this is NOT the workshop for you. No haters, please. BIO: Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, sex worker, pervert, and Paisan. She cut her activist and artist teeth on the riot grrrl and queer arts movements in mid-nineties San Francisco. Her fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places, including: The Revolution Starts at Home; Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing; Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women; TransForming Community; That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation; Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical Politics Meet; make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for long-running queer performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). She can be cruised online at ginadevries.com. ***SEX WORKERS' WRITING WORKSHOP*** Wednesday, April 15th, 7pm-9pm 7pm-9pm Center for Sex & Culture 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning) Sliding scale $10-$20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries This is a writing workshop for people who work or have worked in all areas of the sex industry to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

We don't like Conserved Lesbians here on Ocean Avenue. Or Cereal Rapists!

2009-03-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

Perusing CraigsList for fun (and to voyeuristically ogle apartments I could never afford in a million years), I clicked on this posting. My curiosity was piqued because it was listed in the Ingleside, the San Francisco neighborhood where I grew up. The Ingleside is comparatively cheap to other SF neighborhoods, but I was still surprised by the $150 price tag for the room. Then, I saw why:

Here's the text (my blog keeps fucking up the screenshot, for some reason):

$150 shared room on busy ocean ave (ingleside / SFSU / CCSF) Reply to: hous-f2nkh-1079964534@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] Date: 2009-03-17, 8:14PM PDT We are looking for a roomate to share a room in our nice apartment right across from ocean taqueria. Can move in ASAP, only have to pay 200 for march, but 550 after that.We are all working college students that like to party, and arent too clean. 420 friendly as long as its outside and no hard drugs. We share interests like skateboarding, mopeds, motorcycles, bikes, snowboarding music. If this fits you then email me back. We are 4 guys, but dont mind a girl roomate, just know that we had a very conserved lesbian roomate prior and things didnt work out. Open minded group of individuals, we wont judge, just dont be too clean/moody/arrogant/messy/angry/crazy/cereal rapist and youll fit in fine. If you're chill you will get along really well with us punk_pirate666@yahoo.com

This is almost too easy to make fun of! The original link is here.

Help out Fran & others with Lyme!

2009-03-02T20:44:00.001-08:00

Oprah is deciding whether or not to do a show on Lyme Disease this week. We need to fill her comment board and make it happen.

CUPCAKE CABARET March 7th + March Sex Workers' Writing Workshops!

2009-02-25T18:02:00.000-08:00

Hey folks! Details about the delicious CUPCAKE CABARET (co-curated & hosted by the fabulous Bevin Branlandingham, and my first performance of 2009 -- so you better come out for it!) and March Sex Workers' Writing Workshops are below. xox, Gina --------- Saturday, March 7, 2009 San Francisco in Exile Presents: CUPCAKE CABARET http://queerfatfemme.com/cupcakecabaret http://sfinx.org Doors at 7:00, Show at 7:30 Center for Sex and Culture: http://www.sexandculture.org/ 1519 Mission St. San Francisco (between 11th Street & South Van Ness) $10-$20 sliding scale Featuring an All-Femme Cast! Bevin Branlandingham [www.queerfatfemme.com] Gina de Vries [www.ginadevries.com] Zuleikha Mahmood Julia Serano [www.juliaserano.com] Mollena Williams [mollena.com] Cupcake Cabaret is a performance celebrating the strength we get from what marks us as different in this world. Size, gender, sexuality, class, race, dis/ability, age, religion and all numbers of identities bring the artists in the series a sense of power and esteem. Cupcake Cabaret features comedy, burlesque, spoken word, performance art and all manner of genres celebrating the radical act of self-love. This event is co-curated by Bevin Branlandingham & Gina de Vries. ---- Also!: *Sex Workers' Writing Workshop* Wednesday, March 4th & Wednesday, March 18th 7pm-9pm Center for Sex & Culture 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning) Sliding scale $10-$20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries This is a writing workshop for people who work or have worked in all areas of the sex industry to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths. -- ginadevries.com /// queershoulder.blogspot.com

Visible: A Femmethology released

2009-02-23T13:42:00.001-08:00

My piece "Rebel Girl" (on fashion, fat, & riot grrrl) is in this awesome anthology. I am so proud to share page space with so many other amazing femmes. Get these books & read them! Visible: A Femmethology, Volumes One and Two Edited by Jennifer Clare Burke Price: U.S. $19.95 Volume One ISBN-10: 0-9785973-4-6 Volume One ISBN-13: 978-0-9785973-4-4 Volume Two ISBN-10: 0-9785973-5-4 Volume Two ISBN-13: 978-0-9785973-5-1 "Femmethology is essential—a roadmap of Femme Nation, an index, an anthropology, a manifesto, and a googleology." - Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina "I feel like I just ate stars, my body and its gender readjusting to the supernova questions, queries, answers, and truths in these pages. I am so grateful for this book - as a transman, as a femme, but mostly as a human being who values femininity, good writing, and the powerful brilliance that shines at the intersection of both." - Scott Turner Schofield, Two Truths and a Lie "[Visible: A Femmethology] is an absolute tribute to the depth and power of Femme. In these essays, you will see Femmes explode the idea of Femme on many levels, both in personal and public spaces. These pieces insist that Femme is a position of self-empowerment, that being Femme is about finding one's voice and being unafraid to use that voice in radical ways." - Christina De La Rosa, Conference Chair of Femme 2008, and Jessica Eve Humphrey, Conference Coordinator of Femme 2008 Homofactus Press proudly announces that Visible: A Femmethology, the only two-volume anthology devoted to femme identity, is coming in March. Visible: A Femmethology calls the LGBTQI community on its prejudices and celebrates the diversity of individual femmes. Award-winning authors, spoken-word artists, and new voices come together to challenge conventional ideas of how disability, class, nationality, race, aesthetics, sexual orientation, gender identity and body type intersect with each contributor's concrete notion of femmedom. Visible: A Femmethology is the latest work from Homofactus Press, a publishing house dedicated to creating complex works for complicated people. Publisher Jay Sennett is thrilled with Burke's book: "This collection is already the talk of the femme community, and it's worth every bit of the attention it's receiving and then some!" Burke: "As a queer femme, I was reassured and relieved by the strong, unique, fearless, complex viewpoints in these essays. I saw peers who couldn't - and frankly wouldn't - play by any perceived status quo rules for How to be Femme, How to Look Femme, How to Act Femme, and so forth. I found individuals who were just as concerned about disability rights, body politics, transphobia, class differences and biphobia. I found writing that dissects the impact of race and national identity on queer politics as well as the politics of marriage, sex work, sexism and misogyny in our communities. Through editing Femmethology, I realized I wasn't alone." Jennifer Clare Burke has been editing for academic and business purposes and instructing writing for sixteen years. Jennifer will edit the new edition of Queer Shorts to be released by Homofactus Press in 2001. Her book, A Life Less Convenient: Letters to My Ex, will be re-released by Homofactus Press in 2010. Contributors: Alex Holding . Alisa Lemberg . Allison Stelly . Allison Wonderland . Amy André . Ann Tweedy . Anna Watson . Ariel McGowan . Asha Leong . August Nightingale . Brook Bolen . Caitlin Petrakis Childs . C.T. Whitley . Carol Mirakove . Cherry Bomb . Clairanne Brown . Daphne Gottlieb . Darrah de jour . Emjāen Fetherston-Power . Gina de Vries . Hadassah Hill . J.E. Franet . JD Dykes . Jennifer Cross . Josephine Wilson . Joshua Bastian Cole . J.C. Yu . Julie Jordan Avritt . Katie Livingston . Katrina Fox . Kimberly Dark . Kpoene' Kofi-Bruce . Leah Lakshimi Piepzna-Samarasinha . Leslie Freeman-Dykesen . Lisa Papez . Lucy Marrero . Margaret Price . Maria See . Maura Ryan . Mette Bach . Miel Rose . Moonyean Grosch . Peggy Munson . Rachel Hurst . Ryn Hodes . Sand Chang . Sascha Elise Cohen . Sassafras Lowrey . Serena Mawulisa . Sharon Wachsler . Sheila Hart Nelson . Sherilyn Connelly . Sinclair Sexsmith . Stacia Seaman . Tara Hardy . Traci Craig . Yael Mishali Please contact Maria Carbone at maria@homofactuspress.com for promotional needs, such as a digital review copy of Visible: A Femmethology, contributor/editor interviews, and other information. ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT! Get 28% off February pre-orders of both Femmethology volumes when purchasing at HomoFactusPress.com. Use the coupon code FemmesKickAss28 at checkout for Volume One. Use the coupon code FemmesRock28 at checkout for Volume Two. Homofactus Press ● 1271 Shirley ● Ypsilanti, MI 48198 ● 734-635-1404 ● homofactuspress.com

Shameless Self-Promotion -- attention Boston, NYC, Pioneer Valley, & other New England people!

2009-02-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

Attention Pioneer Valley, Boston, NYC, & New England people! I'm hoping to make it out to the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Reproductive Justice conference at Hampshire College this April, and to turn it into an opportunity to do some touring & teaching. I'm especially interested in hitting up places around the Pioneer Valley, Boston, and New York City. But if you're a) elsewhere on the east coast and wanna bring me out to your school, or b) can't do it in April, but still want to book a gig, definitely let me know! Readings & Performances: - I write & read smut, memoir, and fiction, usually with a queer and sex-positive bent. I've performed lots of places over the years, most regularly at the National Queer Arts Festival and Perverts Put Out, and most recently at the Reed College Chapel. ;) You can see samples of my work here. - I've also hosted/emcee'd dozens of spoken word shows. I'm comfortable flying solo or performing with other folks. Writing Workshops: I've led creative writing workshops for a number of writers' groups, non-profits, schools, and conferences. I have experience teaching students from a wide variety of communities, cultures, and backgrounds; I'm especially skilled at working with the queer/LGBTQ, poly, and kink communities, and with people who do work or have worked in the sex industry. I currently teach an ongoing bi-monthly writing workshop for current and former sex workers. Previous day-long writing workshops I've taught include "Hot, Not Throbbing: How to Write About Sex Without Reaching Into Your Bag of Cliches" and "You Can't Say That: Writing About Secrets." I'm also open to creating writing workshops specifically for your community. You can read more about how to book me for a writing workshop here. Lectures/Presentations/Political Workshops: I have fifteen years of experience as a grassroots activist (I've literally been doing this work since middle school). I've presented a variety of lectures, presentations, and political workshops about sex, gender, and queer community over the years. Possible workshop topics could include: Making queer women's communities trans woman inclusive; overlap between sex worker community and queer community, and how to be an ally to the sex workers in your life; the differences and intersections between queer, trans, and intersex communities; how to be a trans ally; how to be an intersex ally... But all of that is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm very open to tailoring workshops to what your community might need. Ping me at queershoulder@gmail.com to talk. Chances are, I'd love to come out your way. xox, Gina

Reposted from Bilerico: Pretty girl, foxy lady, or both?

2009-02-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

It's my birthday today! I am 26, officially closer to thirty than twenty. That brings up a very important question: Do I have to relinquish my femme chicken status? I'm being mostly tongue in cheek in asking this question -- but sexuality and age and how they relate is certainly something I think about a lot, especially because I spent so many years as a queer youth activist. As an adult, I also have a history of dating folks who are significantly older than me, and of us eroticizing that difference in our relationships. I'm talking about particular kinds of bdsm that I've done here, including but not limited to Daddy/girl play, but I'm talking about more vanilla dynamics, too. Our culture clearly sexualizes youth and de-sexualizes aging to a wacky and disturbing extent. I want to be very clear here: I'm not trying to call that a good thing. I'm not saying that exploitation of minors, older people preying on younger people and using generational differences and cultural capital as "power over," and general cultural worship at the Altar of Youth and denigration of older peoples' sexuality is at all a good thing. I've seen all that play out in our culture and queer community too many times, and it's ugly. But there's a kind of power and beauty to being the Hot Young Thing. To really being able to own your age, and work it, and -- this has always been my favorite part, the sexiest part for me -- play innocent when you're not. Turn that whole idea of what "youngness" means on its head. "Innocence" -- and lack thereof -- is very powerful and potent for me sexually, and the idea of innocence is very linked to age in our culture. So I'm wondering at what point one goes from being a Hot Young Thing to The Older Woman/Man/Other? I'm officially in my late twenties -- do I go from being a Pretty Girl to Foxy Lady today? Can I be both? Tell me your thoughts on this -- I find the whole thing fascinating.

it's MY BIRTHDAY!

2009-02-03T11:15:00.001-08:00

I am 26! I am officially now closer to thirty than twenty! I am unclear on whether or not I have to relinquish my chicken status and go from pretty girl to foxy lady. Can I be both? Tell me your thoughts on this, it is very important. For my birthday, I want to hear your birthday wishes for me for the next year, and any things you think are awesome about me. Here or in a note or in person. (I also want, in no particular order: chocolate-raspberry cupcakes from Miette bakery in Hayes Valley, glitter eyeliner, the last best book you read/album you heard/movie you saw, and mani-pedi/coffee/dinner/brunch dates with friends.)

Sex Workers' Writing Workshop TOMORROW night + Gina's CreatingChange Workshops & Caucuses + A Message from The Femme Sharks!

2009-01-20T21:26:00.001-08:00

Hi folks! A reminder about Sex Workers' Writing Workshop tomorrow night, the Sex Workers' Writing Workshop's February schedule, my workshops and caucuses at the upcoming Creating Change conference in Denver January 28th-February 1st, and a special message from The Femme Sharks are all below. Read on! xox, Gina *** *Sex Workers Writing Workshop* TOMORROW, Wednesday January 21st 7pm-9pm Center for Sex & Culture 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco (cross street 11th -- it's the building with the pink awning) Sliding scale $10-20 *more if you can, less if you can't, nobody turned away* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries This is a writing workshop for people who work or have worked in all areas of the sex industry to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths. February Sex Workers' Writing Workshop SAVE-THE-DATES: Wednesday, February 4th, 7-9pm, @CSC Wednesday, February 18th, 7-9pm, @CSC *** The Creating Change Conference in snowy Denver, CO! Gina will be co-facilitating one caucus & co-presenting one workshop! If you'll be there, come by & say hi! More Creating Change info here: http://creatingchange.org/ Friday, January 30th -- Session Time TBA, but we know it will be in the morning Workshop: Whores, Sex Workers, Prostitutes: Dollars, dinners, shelter and marriage. What's it all about? Faculty: Carol Queen, Gina de Vries, others TBA If it's the oldest profession in the world, why isn't sex work a profession? We all know that transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals (as well as those in our communities who don't identify with those terms) are involved in exchanging sexual services for money, or other necessities, also known as sex work. Whether as street-based workers, exotic dancers, pro-dommes, pornography actresses and actors, or in any other aspect, you'll find gender and sexual minorities. But, you may say, what does any of this have to do with me? Besides the impact that criminalization, violence and discrimination have on so many members of our communities who engage in sex work, the stigma connected to sex outside of heterosexual, monogamous, inside-marriage-only norms affects the lives of both queers and sex workers. Sex workers describe their work as just another profession, that is made much more difficult by government and social attitudes towards sex work. And sex workers across the US, often time with LGBT sex worker activists at the forefront, are demanding respect for their rights. This workshop will explore the diversity and contradictions of the sex industry involving issues of sexuality, gender, race, class and more, with an emphasis on encouraging participants to support sex workers' fight for their rights. Panelists will discuss alternatives to criminalization, the maximization of health and safety for sex workers, and how feminist, queer theory, and sexuality discussions engage the issue of sex work. Faculty: Dr. Carol Queen is a writer and cultural sexologist with a doctorate of education in human sexuality. She is a noted essayist whose work has appeared in such publications as Male Lust, Whores and Other Feminists, The Erotic Impulse, Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions, Madonnarama, and Women of the Light: The New Sacred Healer. Her essay collection, Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture, was published in 1997; it is used in Women's Studies, Queer Studies, and Cultural Studies classes in universities across America. Queen is active on behalf of progressive sex education and sexual minority issues. Currently most closely affiliated with the bisexual and sex work communities, she has been speaking publicly about non-mainstream sexualities, from lesbian to leather, for over 25 years. Her perspective in addressing sexual diversity incorporates personal experience, accurate sex information, and informed cultural commentary. For more information (including CV and bibliography) see her website: www.carolqueen.com. Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, sex worker, pervert, and Paisan. Her fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places, including: Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical Politics Meet, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for long-running queer performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). She can be cruised online at ginadevries.com and queershoulder.blogspot.com. ... AAAAAND! Saturday, January 31, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM: Sex Workers' Caucus, co-facilitated by Gina de Vries & Tobi Hill-Meyer Session Title: Sex Worker Caucus Tracks: Sexual Freedom Description: A space for people who work or have worked in the sex industry to discuss our role and needs within the larger LGBTQ community. Presenters: Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, sex worker, pervert, and Paisan. Her fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places, including: Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical Politics Meet, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for long-running queer performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). She can be cruised online at ginadevries.com and queershoulder.blogspot.com. Tobi Hill-Meyer is just about your average multiracial, pansexual, transracially inseminated queerspawn, genderqueer, transdyke, colonized mestiza, pornographer, activist, writer. She also engages in queer family work as a board member of COLAGE, a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer parents. And while writing a zine series of erotic fiction available at Handbasket Productions, ze still finds time to do the grunt work of phone banks, canvassing, and lobby visits that keeps the political branch of the LGBTQ movement, well, moving. *** And finally... A message from THE FEMME SHARKS... !!!!!COME PROTEST THE WALK FOR LIFE WITH THE FEMME SHARKS- THIS SATURDAY 1/24/09, meetup at 10:30 by farmer's market in front of the FERRY BUILDING. BE ON TIME BECAUSE THERE'S GONNA BE MAD AMOUNTS OF PRO-LIFE JERKS!!!!! PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO FOLKS!!! p.s. if you're like, who the crap are these femme sharks, there's info about that at the tail end of this email. as you may know, femme sharks are pro-abortion when women want to have them. we are HELLA PISSED about the upcoming walk for life because WE ALL KNOW THEY ARE FUCKING LIARS. WE KNOW THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT OUR LIVES. WE KNOW THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE CONDITIONS OUR CHILDREN LIVE IN. WE KNOW THAT THEY CHEERED ON ISRAEL'S INVASION OF GAZA, even though more than four hundred palestinian children died. why are they so goddamned concerned about the decisions women need to make about their pregnancies? IT'S LIKE, BITCH, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO PAY FOR MY FUCKING CHILDCARE, ARE YOU??? sharks know that the world can be really fucking shitty and sometimes money is what it comes down to, but that there's lots of reasons we make the decisions we make and all of those reasons are fucking valid, and we don't have to justify shit, and we have nothing to atone for. Also, for the record, ABORTION IS NOT JUST A STRAIGHT WOMEN'S ISSUE. LET'S NOT LIE, HELLA GAY GIRLS GET PREGS. but even if it was a straight issue, we hella have straight women's backs on this shit because SHARKS KNOW THAT JUST BECAUSE WE FUCK PEEPS WHO CAN'T GET US PREGNANT DOESN'T MEAN THAT WE ARE ANY BETTER THAN STRAIGHT WOMEN. sharks are in solidarity with our straight sisters. femme sharks don't want to say we are pro-choice because the shit is so much more complex than that. FEMME SHARKS ARE FUCKING PRO REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE, and we believe that we're going to see it this lifetime. THERE'S LOTS OF SHIT THAT SHARKS AND SEA CREATURE ALLIES CAN DO TO PROMOTE REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE, SO LET'S FUCKING DO IT OKAY?!?!?!?! COME PROTEST THE WALK FOR LIFE. LET'S GIVE THEM A PIECE OF OUR MINDS, AND THE FINGER. walk for life is THIS SATURDAY 1/24/09. in case you're not familiar, it's when the pro-"life"rs get together and prance around sf. it's people from all over the west coast, and there's tons of them. they have a program with some speakers too in Justin Herman Plaza MEET UP AT 10:30 AM by the farmer's market in front of the FERRY BUILDING. LET'S BE ON TIME SHARKS because we will be outnumbered. BRING PROPS, BRING A MEGAPHONE, BRING SIGNS, especially ones that say shit like, your kids are going to grow up to be sluts like us, and U.S. out of my uterus, Iraq, or whatever sharks are feeling in their hearts. For those of us who've had abortions, maybe finding short ways to tell our stories. AND COME WEARING YR MOST FABULOUS OUTFIT AND FINS IF YOU'VE GOT EM. let me be clear, that sharks are not trying to go to jail over the walk for "life,", but we do want to be in their faces and shit. sharks want to put it out there that ways to show our resistance can (but by no means need to) include getting as naked as is legal (tape over nipples?), and making out and shit. even though most of us can't get our partners pregnant (certainly not due to lack of trying), somehow the christian right still hates it when we have sex. i really want this to be big. if you know me, you know this is close to my heart. femme sharks need to stand united, screaming our hearts out and fucking shit up!!! femme sharks are going to fin up and let the pro-lifers know that WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AS MANY ABORTIONS AS WE GODDAMN WANT TO/ NEED TO. other ways to promote reproductive justice: work on the shit that impacts the "choices" we make, like racism, classism, sexism, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, child abuse, relationship violence. start in your home and in your community. if you're bay area, volunteer at EXHALE, which is a hotline women can call to talk about their feelings about a current pregnancy or about previous abortions. (people otherwise involved in the abortion decision, partners, families, and friends can also call). WORK AT AN ABORTION CLINIC AND TREAT PREGNANT WOMEN WITH RESPECT. lots of sharks work at clinics, or have worked at clinics, and abortion is undeniably a part of what makes us sharks. or volunteer as a clinic escort-- even in san francisco, we have protesters at the clinic support the folks in your life who are parenting, in literal and concrete ways. give money to an abortion fund. so many funds are out of money these days, like a lot of us are these days. but whatever you can give goes towards helping someone afford an abortion. take care of your health. get a pap smear, get tested. if you're using birth control know how it works and what the side effects are. in the hands of the shark pussy goddess, zuleikha THE FEMME SHARKS are a movement founded by LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA and ZULEIKHA MAHMOOD to reclaim the power of femmes as fierce, tough, hungry girls who are the leaders and defenders of our communities. In March 2008, we got so pissed off at the stereotypes about femme being stupid, weak, and all about the drama, that we decided to claim being sharks, to reinscribe femme as tough, voracious, and complicated. We also want to make it clear that being femme is not about being Barbie, it's about how we live in our bodies, how we make community, and how we access power, as queer and trans women, as people with disabilities, as survivors, as people of color. If you want to know more, read the manifesto, and our zine- all our holes are hungry, hungry for justice and fucking. Contact us at thefemmesharks@gmail.com

FEMME SHARKS BITE BACK!

2008-12-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

You know about The Femme Sharks, right? If you don't, you should. There will be at least one Shark (me) at Day to End Violence tomorrow (but hopefully more than that). I'll be making Shark-y signs at the Vigil sign-making party tonight, and will bring extra fins and safety pins to the Vigil tomorrow for those of you who need some Shark Love & Rage to temper your mourning. The whole point of this is turning the anger and sadness into action, right? I plan to make use of at least some of the following slogans for my signs: FEMME SHARKS BITE BACK! 1, 2, 3, 4, I'M A SHARK AND I'M A WHORE! 5, 6, 7, 8, I GET PAID TO MASTURBATE! FEMME SHARKS LOVE WHORES! FEMME SHARKS *ARE* WHORES! DON'T GET GULPED! If you have better slogans or sign ideas, clearly, you should be joining me. Oh, also, in case this is the first you are reading about this: Here's what International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers is all about. There is a sign-making party at St. James Infirmary, 1310 Mission Street in San Francisco, tonight from 6:30-8pm. The vigil & procession to honor sex workers lost to violence will happen tomorrow night, starting at 5pm in front of the Hall of "Justice," 850 Bryant in San Francisco.

71 names, thus far, and an addendum to my last post about Day to End Violence

2008-12-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

Oh, God. I'm letting out a long and sad breath. I spent my morning researching names of murdered sex workers for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Melissa Gira Grant from Sex Workers Outreach Project sent me a list of 50 names to add to. I gathered 21 new names, with deaths dating from 1996-2008. I'm not even done with all my research yet. A disproportionately high number of the people on the list were trans women and MTF-spectrum gender-non-conforming people. As a queer, femme, genderqueer cissexual woman who builds my life, chosen family, and community -- and especially my sex worker and sex worker ally community -- with trans women, that fact just breaks my heart so bad. In my last post about Day to End Violence, I talked about sex workers generally being portrayed in the mainstream media as cisgender women -- which I realize is an inaccurate description of the stereotypes I'm trying to talk about. The stereotype of sex workers is that we are predominately cis women, who are either The Downtrodden Streetwalkers or the Happy Hookers. But the stereotype of trans women is that all trans women are sex workers, and that all of those trans women sex workers are Downtrodden Streetwalkers. There is (clearly) absolute wrong-headedness, stupidity, and bigotry in all of those stereotypes. That said, it is true that, because of the ways transphobia, sexism, and transmisogyny operate in our world, a disproportionate number of trans women (as compared to cis women) are homeless, impoverished, and/or involved in street economies -- including but not limited to street sex work. And that makes trans women who work the streets much more likely to be the targets of violence at the hands of people who hate women, trans and gender-non-conforming people, poor and homeless people, and sex workers. I believe that working to end all of these intersecting oppressions is a place where cis and trans women -- those who work in the sex industry, and those who don't -- can fight the injustices and violence that we all face. This is a place where I very, very strongly believe that cis women and trans women can be allies, support, sisters, lovers, and fighters for each other. As for now -- I'm still just letting out that breath. And saying one long prayer for the people who've been lost.

You Think You Don't Know Us, But You Do

2008-12-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

A lot of my writing is for an audience of insiders -- communities and people I know my way around, who are mostly queer or queer-positive, sex-positive, and sex worker-friendly. Today, I am writing for an audience I don't normally write for, about an event that is very important and dear to me. Please read on, and consider forwarding this post to someone you know who might need to see it. Thanks. I want you to participate in International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers -- wherever you are -- because violence against sex workers is something that affects all of us. Day to End Violence is this Wednesday, December 17th. These are the events happening in the Bay Area, where I live. Members of the writing class I teach (Sex Workers' Writing Workshop) will be reading at the San Francisco event. There are also events happening all over the world. Please check and see if something if happening in your hometown, and join us. Chances are, you have a sex worker friend or family member, even if you think you've never met a sex worker before.

Popular stereotypes of sex workers tend to paint sex workers as cisgender women who are either impoverished and downtrodden streetwalkers or privileged, vapid, and politically clueless happy hookers. The stereotypes come complete with hugely racist and classist assumptions -- generally, the Downtrodden Streetwalker is portrayed as a woman of color, and the Clueless Happy Hooker is portrayed as white. But the truth is that sex workers are members of every ethnic group, every socio-economic class, every gender, every sexual orientation. We are all sizes, we are disabled and able-bodied, and we are old and young. We do all kinds of sex work, from nude modelling to porn movies to phone sex to pro-bdsm to prostitution. We also all have different and complicated relationships to our work. Some of us want to get out of the industry; some us love our work and would never want to stop; and some of us exist in places between those two extremes. It is important to remember that peoples' relationships to their jobs, to money, and to what they are called to do in the world change. Sex workers are no different from people who don't work in the sex industry in that respect. Sex workers show up places that might surprise you. Sex workers are your friends, your siblings, your parents, your children, and your distant relatives. We are the nice boy who offered you his seat on the bus today, and the cute girl in your choir at church. I've written before about my family's history with sex work. I've been thinking about this history a lot these days, and especially thinking about how family -- both blood and chosen -- can surprise and touch us. I will say this much here: My great-grandmother was an old-school Catholic, Southern-Italian immigrant. She was poor and uneducated -- which I don't want anyone to confuse with stupid, but she did not have even a thimbleful of the resources people of my generation have. This was a woman who sent one of her children to the Convent when she was 14; a woman who said the Rosary every day. If my great-grandmother could talk about being friends with women she called "whores" with no trace of malice -- if my great-grandmother could talk about sex workers being a part of her community and her chosen family -- then I would like to challenge those of you who think you've never met a sex worker to open your hearts and minds to do the same. At last count, 24 sex workers were murdered for being sex workers this year. That's simply disgusting, senseless, and heart-breaking. To paraphrase my brilliant friend Sadie: I want you to stop persecuting me because you don't understand me. Furthermore, I want you to get brave, and join the fight against persecution. -- PLEASE CIRCULATE!!! --

On Wednesday December 17, 2008, sex workers will gather to demand inclusion in San Francisco's policies to protect & serve our community. This vigil marks the 6th Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This year mourners will convene at the Hall of Justice for a vigil to honor sex workers who've been murdered or assaulted. Sex workers are demanding that San Francisco's public officials enact policy changes that would prevent violence and improve public health. We would be deeply honored to have you join us this Wednesday, in solidarity with sex workers organizing for our civil rights and safety. We have lost too many to violence, and we should never again. Thank you, Melissa Gira Grant Chair, Organizing Committee, San Francisco's Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers ## 6th Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers Candlelit Vigil 850 Bryant St. (Hall of Justice) San Francisco 5 to 5:30pm, December 17th, 2008 Following the vigil, will process together to a Memorial (hosted by Annie Sprinkle) For our sister and brother sex workers lost to violence 6:30pm, Center for Sex and Culture 1519 Mission Street (at 11th) www.sexandculture.org Vigil Co-sponsored by St. James Infirmary (stjamesinfirmary.org) and Sex Workers' Outreach Project (swopusa.org) Bring a Red Umbrella in Solidarity with Sex Workers & Our Human Rights Addendums to this post: 71 Names Thus Far... FEMME SHARKS BITE BACK!

Fuck The Advocate

2008-12-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the always-excellent Fluffy for the tip-off. I am not surprised by this in the least -- the Advocate has a long and well-documented history of catering to the privileged and few (and did I mention white?) GayLite. But for god's sake. Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm offended, in brief: Gay Being the New Black makes it sound like there were no queer people of color involved in the Civil Rights movement, and no queer people of color involved in the current-day queer movement. It assumes that queer people are outsiders in people of color communities, and that people of color are outsiders in queer communities. To state the obvious, the communities are not mutually exclusive. See also, Oh Hai White Gays, plz stop comparing the Civil Rights movement and the current struggles to secure gay mawwiage & matwimony. NOT THE SAME. face--->palm

Sex Workers' Writing Workshop tomorrow, & a note about Day to End Violence!

2008-12-02T21:27:00.000-08:00

The note I just wrote to my students is below. If you do work or have worked in the sex industry, come to Sex Workers' Writing Workshop tomorrow. 1519 Mission in San Francisco, 7-9pm, $10-$20 but nobody turned away. -------- Hey all, I just wanted to remind you that Sex Workers' Writing Workshop is tomorrow at CSC at 7pm. We won't be having class on Wednesday, December 17th, because that is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. The organizers of Day to End Violence have asked me to ask all of you to participate in the memorial events (happening at 6pm at CSC) on December 17th, so this is me officially extending that invite. I'll have flyers with full info about Day to End Violence happenings tomorrow night in class, and I'll also email on more information as I get it. Since Day to End Violence is coming up soon, we'll be writing work in response to a prompt about Day to End Violence tomorrow night. That way, if any of you want to participate in the memorial events, you'll have something ready to share. You're also clearly free to a) not attend the event on 12/17, or b) share something at the memorial you haven't written in the class. But I figured a writing jump-start and a place to give & get feedback on pieces couldn't hurt. :) See you all tomorrow, hopefully! xox, Gina

From Mangos with Chili: "Mangos Shout Out for Help: La Migra Wants $3,000 from us"

2008-11-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

Mangos with Chili is a brilliant and beautiful touring cabaret of queer and trans people of color artists, writers, performers, dancers, radicals, rabble-rousers, perverts, sluts, and sweethearts. A few of my most beloved friends and favorite performers have done the tour. The show, and the people involved with the show, mean a whole helluva lot to me. I just got this letter from The Mangos, and I strongly urge you to read it and make a donation through Qwo-Li's website. Simply put: We gotta take care of each other and our friends, loved ones, and communities. The Letter: Beloved Community, From October 10-24 , Mangos with Chili Floating Cabaret of QTPOC bliss, dreams, sweat, sweets, and nightmares helped to continue QTPOC traditions of radical art, healing, sex, and resistance during our 2008 Borderlands Tour. We traveled down the West Coast in a huge gold van, from the Bay to LA, and across the southwest to Denver, building community and weaving legacies for future generations of queer and trans people of color. On October 20, 2008 the Mangos with Chili tour van was stopped by border patrol agents at a checkpoint 20 miles outside of Yuma, Arizona. We were subsequently questioned and searched, and the encounter resulted in one of our artists receiving a $3000 citation. It is our intention to raise funds to cover the cost of the citation. And so we are appealing to you, the community that warmly embraced our Borderlands Tour, to make a donation to help pay this citation. A paypal account has been set up, and we ask you to donate whatever you can. Here’s a link to the fund: http://dragonflyrising.com/borderlands.php Please pass word along to anyone who you think can help us out. In the Spirit of Gloria Anzaldúa, Barbara Cameron, June Jordan, Pat Parker, and All of our Ancestors, The Mangos -- Mangos with Chili, the floating cabaret of queer and trans people of color bliss, dreams, sweat, sweets & nightmares, is a Bay-Area based arts organization committed to showcasing high quality work of life-saving importance by queer and trans artists of color to audiences in the Bay Area and beyond. Mangos With Chili is a fiscally sponsored project of CounterPULSE: www.counterpulse.org.

"Old-school dyke Consciousness Raising meets grassroots radical self-publishing meets screamy queer punk bands meets girl-positive sluttyness"

2008-11-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

These are bits from my proposal for "REBEL GIRL: a riot grrrl nostalgia show" at National Queer Arts Festival 2009. Here's hoping they want it!: I was heavily involved in the riot grrrl scene in the Bay Area in the mid-90's. Riot grrrl, for the uninitiated, is a youth and punk-oriented radical sociopolitical movement that captivated the hearts, minds, raging hormones, and feminist rage of many queer teen girls in the early and mid-nineties. Riot grrrl was sort of old-school dyke Consciousness Raising meets grassroots radical self-publishing meets screamy queer punk bands meets girl-positive sluttyness and sex-positivity. It inspired a lot of great music, art, and community building, most notably through grrrl bands and grrrl zines (self-published, self-distributed chapbooks). The year that I turned 14, I exchanged letters, zines, records, and mix tapes with dozens of girls (and a few feminist queer and trans boys) from across the country. I'm still friends with many of those people. Riot grrrl was an incredible resource for many young queer women, especially those in isolated areas. One of the most fascinating things about riot grrrl is that it served as an opportunity for rural, urban, and suburban queer youth to connect with and support each other, before widespread and popular use of the internet. People found each other through punk rock chain letters, the Riot Grrrl chapter in Hilary Carlip’s Girl Power book in the YA section at the library, zines and mix tapes they picked up in a friends’ bedroom, queer youth conferences and grrrl conventions, and just plain word of mouth. While riot grrrl created support, opportunities for creativity, and an introduction to radical politics for many queer and trans girls (and some queer and trans boys, too), the movement was not without its problems. There were, to put it mildly, some issues in riot grrrl circles -- not the least of which were racism, classism, biphobia, transphobia, fatphobia, hipsterism, and a replay of the sex wars and sex policing that riot grrrl was supposedly an antidote to. Many riot grrrls and grrrl allies were also newly queer, newly out, and newly politicized, and hence, wanting to prove their queerness and radicalism in some painfully earnest ways. Add to that the fact that people were often coming out of pretty broken biological families and building new, different, and intense relationships with each other – ranging from one-night stands to long-standing chosen family bonds – and you’ve got a pressure cooker of potential community drama. I don’t mean for it to all sound drama-laden, because there were some truly beautiful moments in riot grrrl -- but the community was not the happy-go-lucky punk feminist utopia we all wanted it to be. As an older and marginally wiser queer adult, I have a lot of love for old-school riot grrrl, and a lot of questions and criticisms about the difficulties and disasters that went on in our excellent but often tension-filled communities.

Sock dreams answered, but not by Sock Dreams!

2008-11-26T12:12:00.000-08:00

Me & Tobi went to Sock Dreams when I was in Portland. I got some cute and warm new tights, and some cute and warm new knee socks. The Sock Dreams staff were sweet and helpful, and the knee sock selection was great, but I was a little disappointed by their color selection in tights. I left with two hot pink pairs and two black pairs. Functional, and the pink is super cute, but I was hoping for more colors. I have since been informed of the existence of WeLoveColors. Fuschia fence nets? Turquoise and magenta opaques? Lavender knee-high fishnets? In sizes I can actually wear? YES PLZ.

what my year is looking like

2008-11-25T11:17:00.000-08:00

My years always really kick off in November. Between Halloween & Samhain, All Souls', All Saints', seeing blood family for my grandmother's birthday November 16th, and seeing chosen family for Thanksgiving, November gets pretty packed. The December 31st new year means something to me, too -- but somehow, Samhain always brings about bigger shifts for me. I did a quick and dirty tarot reading for myself on the plane back from Seattle to San Francisco in early November. The last card I pulled was the High Priestess. I talked about this with some friends, after the fact -- Me: So I pulled the High Priestess as my "final say" card... Fluffy: WHOA DAMN. Me: Yeah. WHOA DAMN. Jordan: What's the High Priestess? Fluffy: She symbolizes really intense feminine magical energy. Me: But she's not like flakey goddess, she's bad-ass and fiery. She's all about power and hard work and getting what she wants. Fluffy: Word. Me: Word. It makes sense, really. It makes sense that I started my new year with Fischer-Price my first big college gig, that I'm starting up with pro-bdsm stuff again and feeling excellent and excited about it, that I'm pushing through on a lot of other writing projects. I feel focused, and driven, and above all, happy. It also makes sense that I've been contending with the fears that come along with all of these new projects. Because there are a lot of unknowns, sure -- but I think moreso because sometimes getting what you want is scary. Working hard with art and sex and spirit the way that I want to, feeling satisfied and fed by my work -- it's such a huge blessing, such a gift. The ways that I'm blessed, right now, today, every day, balance out the bits of panic, the moments where I've frozen up, the places where I'm still unsure and unsteady. And those frozen & unsure moments are getting smaller. They're fewer & far between, and I'm so thankful for that.

a mostly joyous & very big update from the road...

2008-11-05T12:50:00.000-08:00

* Last night, while friends of mine were watching the election returns, I was on a train from Portland to Seattle. It was, to say the least, bizarre to be on a train -- without cell service for half of the ride -- during the hours of 5pm-8pm on election night. I was calling and texting friends and family like crazy -- "What's up w/prez? Prop 8? Prop K?" Then, inevitably, my phone would cut off. Ten minutes, later I'd get ten texts all at once. Ma was the one to call me about the presidential election: "Gina, Obama won!" We squealed and laughed with each other for a few minutes. Then my phone cut off. My service came back, I called Ma again, and we laughed some more. Then I realized everyone around me was dead silent and I felt conspicuous about being that loud bitch on her cell phone, so I said good-bye. But Ma called again five minutes later. "Hey Ma, is everything okay?" "Yes, yes, I just... Jesse Jackson is on TV and he's crying. This is amazing, Gina." It is amazing. I'd been scared that the election would either get stolen like it did in 2000 and 2004, or that Obama would get elected but then be assassinated. Okay, maybe that's a titch hyperbolic, but shit -- just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you! I still can't really believe it. * I was on that train from Portland to Seattle because I've been travelling through the Pacific Northwest since Halloween night: teaching two all-day writing workshops & then doing a reading at Reed College in Portland; getting in some much-needed time with my brilliant, hot, & awesome long-distance sweetie; and, yesterday, heading up to Seattle to visit my old & dear friend from high school, Elisabeth (who you might remember from such excellent nerdgirl anthologies as She's Such a Geek). It's been a fantastic, if slightly packed, trip. I'm very happy to be sitting at a cafe in Capitol Hill right now, with no plans other than lazily wandering around till Elisabeth gets home, at which point we will spend our evening... uh, probably in our pajamas, watching movies and playing with her cats. I know a lot of my writing is all about the backrooms of bars and sex parties and late-night adventures, but goddamit, people, teaching and writing all day and then reading/performing all night is exhausting. I loved being in Portland and teaching at Reed, loved the ways that people were excited and sweet and seemed really touched by my work and words -- but I'm absurdly excited about having a quiet night. It's taxing to be "on" 24/7, and as extroverted as I am, sometimes I need a re-charge. * Some more about the election: I'm way bummed about Prop 8 winning in California, and about Prop K losing in San Francisco. I'm really impressed that K got 43% of the vote, though. I think that sets us up really well for getting a bill to decriminalize prostitution passed during the next San Francisco election. Also, I want to say here that I'm extremely proud of all of the amazing and hard work my friends and colleagues -- especially my friends Violet, Patrasha, and Sadie -- put into the campaign. You're stars and angels, darlings. This is by no means a defeat; this is the start of something great. Thank you for doing such an incredible job. * Portland is a funny place. It was charming in some ways, but it felt very much like a town to me. I'm realizing that while towns are nice for me to visit, they're not places I could ever see myself living. Seattle, on the other hand, really feels like a city, and I like that a lot. * My "You Can't Say That" workshop (about writing about secrets) could have been better -- it was the first time I ever taught it, and it was a learning experience for me as an instructor. I learned some really valuable things, esp. about what pushes my buttons as a teacher, and ways to challenge myself the listen to and critique writing that's hard for me to stomach (horror writing, for example), but that is still important for the student to share. Lots of food for thought. * "Hot, Not Throbbing" (the sex writing workshop) was fun fun fun! One of the exercises I used was to have people write personal sexual Yes/No/Maybe lists, and then write erotic language Yes/No/Maybe lists -- which we then proceeded to write up on the dry erase boards at Reed. It was a real testament to how everyone's taste is different -- some people hate the phrase "making love," for example, and some people like using it in some contexts, so that went up on the "No" and the "Maybe" lists. It was kind of amazing to see a big board in this very collegiate atmosphere full of things like: Yes: - fuck - clit - words with hard sounds - power dynamics - eroticizing things that usually aren't eroticized -- queerness, fatness, trans-ness - "pleasure" Maybe: - vanilla sex - fruit metaphors - "making love" No: - "give pleasure" - fruit metaphors - "making love" - "love muscle" - "boobs" - masturbation euphemisms w/the word "bishop" I really wish I had forgotten my digital camera. I so wanted to take pictures. * Savvy Plus is a pretty amazing fat girl clothing store in Pdx. I found a gorgeous green lace shirt (which I'm wearing over a slip right now), and the perfect red Marilyn Monroe dress. Pictures forthcoming. * My reading on Saturday night was in a chapel, and went like a dream. Toni, you woulda been proud of me. * It's time to go explore Seattle. That's all she wrote, folks!