Peterson Toscano's A Musing

Michelle at Quasifictional has a post up about gender and some of what she has learned in the recent past since getting turned onto the Trans-ponder podcast hosted by Mila and Jayna (you girls rock, and your podcast never disappoints!) Michelle includes fascinating links about gynecomastia, a condition of enlarged male breasts, including the story of a Christian man with the condition who has struggled to know how to respond. Really great stuff, thought provoking and mind expanding. (She even refers to Inga Muscio , my shero) Yesterday I spent the day in NYC and got to talk to several people about my Transfigurations play and the shift that I have taken to move away from my role in telling my own story as a former ex-gay to focus more on gender issues. There's been great injustice against trans people among LGB folks and lots of misinformation. After two days of wet and cold weather, I have put on my PJs and crawled up on the couch with a cup of tea and a new book, Capote in K...

Thanks to Noa Resare, I began to use Google Reader for the first time. What a great way to keep track of news' stories and my favorite blogs. I can use it on my phone as well off-line on my laptop. So here is a little round-up of some of the things happening in the blog world. Myths over the "Gay Plague" Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin published some articles about MRSA, the staph infection that was in the news this past week. Lots of hype and misinformation going around about this, and some anti-gay folks locked onto the story and gleefully announced a new gay disease. Seems it is not so new and not a gay thing at all. The media now has begun to set the record straight. Check out Mainstream Media Retreats From MRSA Hysteria-- Where are LaBarbera's and Barber's apologies? and Testing The Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague? Not according to the medical literature. Quaker Response to violence in Kenya Peggy Senger Parsons, who has done work with victims...

Blogger Peter Varvel muses over at his blog Plastic Bubble World about his experience as a gay man growing up in an anti-gay Protestant church, How lucky am I that I wasn't raised Catholic? I had enough guilt as it was, having been raised Protestant, especially when it came to my sexuality. So, whenever I was sexually active, both guilt and my imagination fueled my paranoia. What if the guy I was having sex with was actually a vampire? What if while he was, um, "goin' downtown to pleasure me," he sprouted fangs and decided to slake his sudden thirst for blood, right in the middle of it all? I have never gotten through an entire Anne Rice novel. But I have always thought that the Christianity and homosexuality conflict would make a good background for a vampire story. Someone who spent time in an ex-gay support group, Varvel expresses some of what he got from the teachings he sat under, In real life, it would be too simple to say that ex-gay ministry teaches self-hat...

Yes, a new baby blogger, and turns out I am partly responsible. Sweet. Concerned Citizen writes, Hello there! I see you've found your way to my blog. In the coming weeks and months, I hope to inform the public as to my thoughts on current issues as well as give advice to that same public, telling them how they can get involved and affecting change on this wonderful planet of ours. I was inspired to make this blog by my good friend, Peterson Toscano. Peterson is an activist playwright and one-man show. He has his own blog, viewable here. He held a discussion group over the weekend on the subject of activism and how to get involved in your community. One of the mentioned methods was blogging, so here I am, making a blog. So please encourage this new blogger and read the great post about Zimbabwe and post a welcoming comment. The Musings of a Worried Mind

Phew, so nice to blog about everyday things and not one of those L O N G and serious blog entries. I arrived in Rochester, NY yesterday and tonight did a talk, Homo No Mo? A Provocative Evening with Peterson Toscan o . I did excerpts from Homo No Mo and Queer 101 , (the scene with Chad & Federico Garcia Lorca) and then a little bit from Transfigurations . The amazing thing about the presentation is that it was only confirmed late yesterday afternoon, and through the wonder of social networking via Facebook, loads of people got invited and a good number turned out. Alex at Pride Network and Nils of the Eco House (who I know from New England Quakers) organized the event. So yes, Facebook is awesome. I stayed in Eco House, a cooperative living arrangement where they do loads of things to live in such a way to decrease their environmental footprint. They hang their clothes to dry (dryers use tons of energy), they buy local produce, maintain a vegetarian household (then went vegan whi...

I sometimes feel tickled (and sometimes shocked) when I look the stats for my blogs and see the keywords people plug in that eventually gets them to me. Interestingly enough, everyday someone finds me with a search for pitt bulls. I write about ex-gay stuff everyday but I have the pitt bulls to thank for the traffic. Here is a list of the most recent keywords that got people to this blog and where they come from. pitt bull (hungary) clips video how hewes (unknown) christian autumn poems (pittsburgh, pa) gay scotland pics (vancouver, british columbia) john smid love in action (albany, ny) black pitt bulls (jersey city, nj) beastiality nova scotia (halifax, nova scotia--better warn the neighbors) Although the traffic is much much less for the Spanish blog Adriana and I maintain, nearly all of the visitors come from a web search. (I only had the seven above for A Musing, which averages 200 unique visits daily, while Dos Equis has 65 key word searches for the past two days and about th...