The Bilerico Project

"Two Hot Transsexuals Finally Give You Some ANSWERS!"

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:00:00 -0500

Red and Charles, two trans artists/activists/media makers/hotties (hey, they said it -- I'm just agreeing!) answer a series of the obnoxious but unfortunately usual questions that trans folks often get from clueless non-trans people. I love how smart, funny, sarcastic, and downright fierce this is. My favorite line:

"I figured that physically transitioning was the next best thing to being a beautiful majestic octopus swimming the Seventh Seas... Inking the things that attacked me!"

Two shows in two weeks! Come out!

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:00:00 -0500

1. 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!

2. 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!

3. So, 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.

4. 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.

Gina also blogs at queershoulder.

Gina: Then & Now

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:00:00 -0500

THEN:

This photo was published at NoFauxxx sometime in 2003.

I was 19 years old.
I'd been involved in the sex industry for a matter of months.
I'd done a few naked photo shoots where friends took snapshots in hopes of selling the sets to porn sites. But since my friends weren't actual photographers, none of those sets were actually high-quality enough to get published. Somewhere on my computer, I have an amusingly bad photo set of me and one of my best friends at the time posing in thrift-store lingerie in her mom's attic. Ah, my misspent youth.
I think this photo is from the first set of nude photos I had published online -- but honestly, I can't remember. I've done a lot of photoshoots over the years.
I hadn't made any porn with a partner yet, and I definitely wasn't ready to.
I wasn't taking very good care of myself. I was in a pretty messed up place when I was 19. I did things like not eat for days at a time and not sleep for many nights in a row for the greater good of school work and taking care of my girlfriend. Somehow I managed to stay on top of my classes in school and get lots of praise from professors? I still don't quite know how I did it.

Continue reading "Gina: Then & Now"...

A happy girl travelogue & general life update...

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:00:00 -0500

Hi, Projectors. Wow, I'm remiss in my blogging here, aren't I? I was doing this thing called Enacting Some Major & Positive Life Changes. It was kinda time-consuming. Sorry. I'm back now!

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

Continue reading "A happy girl travelogue & general life update..."...

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

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:30:00 -0500

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 cheap compared to other SF neighborhoods, but I was still surprised by the $150 price tag for the room.

Then, I saw why:

This is almost too easy to make fun of!

The original link is here on Craigslist.

Clearly, you need more Gina de Vries in your life!

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:00:00 -0500

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!

Continue reading "Clearly, you need more Gina de Vries in your life!"...

Pretty girl, foxy lady, or both?

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:00:00 -0500

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.

Continue reading "Pretty girl, foxy lady, or both?"...

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

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:00:00 -0500

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.

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

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

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:30:00 -0500

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.

Continue reading "You Think You Don't Know Us, But You Do"...

F--k The Advocate

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:00:00 -0500

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

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

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:30:00 -0500

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.

After the jump, the letter I got from The Mangos. 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.

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

Possibly the weirdest Christian Fundamentalist press I've ever gotten

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:30:00 -0500

...and that says something.

On her blog Gina de Vries wrote a eulogy for [DC Madame Deborah Jeane] Palfrey, stating, "I always do what Nana (Franscesa, my great-grandmother) taught me to do when grieving -- light candles, say prayers, cook a meal for friends, buy some flowers if I can find them fresh, set up an altar. Wish the person well on their way home.

"Deborah, I hope you get there with ease and peace. I'm sorry your way out of this world was so rocky, that you were not treated with the grace and graciousness that every human being deserves," de Vries wrote. "I'm praying that Franscesa -- or someone very like her -- is there to greet you with a meal, some flowers, and some sweetness on the other side."

I am not judging Judy Garland or Deborah Jeane Palfrey and hope somehow they were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, but Garland's Christian funeral and Palfrey's eulogy seem to be lacking reality.

In actual fact, a funeral service is not for the deceased. It is primarily for the family and friends; and while a Christian minister may be called upon to conduct the service, he must not be guilty of suggesting that the unredeemed will inherit eternal life. To do so is to be disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.

The election & other thoughts from The Road

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:00:00 -0500

Tuesday 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.

Continue reading "The election & other thoughts from The Road"...

Sluts Still Get to Say No

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:00:00 -0500

I got another one of those gross MySpace messages this morning. You know, the "hey baby, nice tits, I want u 2 suck my dick" kind?

I get sexually harassed on the internet -- and on the street -- a fair amount. I've developed a thick skin about it, because if I got seriously traumatized every time someone made an uncomfortable comment about my sexuality, gender, or body, I'd never go online or leave the goddamn house. Sexual harassment is pretty par for the course for women (both cis and trans) in general, but I've participated in a lot of discussion recently about sexual weirdness towards women in online communities - everything from gross MySpace messages like the one I just received, to outright stalking. A disturbingly high percentage of men on Teh Interwebs see "woman" and "internet" in the same sentence and just assume "sexually available." The same way that a disturbingly high percentage of men see a girl walking down the street and think "Hey, she's A WOMAN, therefore she is sexually available to me and I am fully entitled to say whatever I want to her."

I know that, in my case, a lot of the web harassment has to do with the fact that I talk about sex, I openly cruise on the web, and I've got sexually suggestive photos of myself online. I'm aware that that makes me an easy target. But I'm wary of people who tell me that if I didn't post such sexy photos or talk about cocksucking, I wouldn't get harassed. That's disturbingly close to "Well, you wouldn't have been raped if you hadn't worn that dress!"

Continue reading "Sluts Still Get to Say No"...

FEMME SHARKS, FEMME SHARKS!!!

gina@bilerico.com (Gina de Vries) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:00:00 -0500

There is no bigger pleasure than hearing Leah, Zuleikha, and myself screaming chants on FemmeCast. Check out Episode 5 to hear some of my best & brilliant friends shark-sharking it up.

(I also make a tiny little cameo as an early-adapter shark -- but most of what you hear from me is just chanting.)

Also -- MANGOS WITH CHILI Queer Borderlands Tour! Opening TONIGHT in San Francisco, and touring the Southwest for the next two weeks!