Peterson Toscano's A Musing

So much good stuff out there that has come to my inbox recently. Candace Chellew-Hodge, the creator of Whosoever.org , has a new book out, Bulletproof—A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay & Lesbian Christians . You can hear a public reading here . Check out what Desmond Tutu has to say about the book. Gay and lesbian Christians are constantly demoralized and told they are not children of God. In Bulletproof Faith , Chellew-Hodge reassures gays and lesbians that God loves them just as they were created and teaches them how to stand strong, with compassion and gentleness, against those who condemn them. -Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu Allyson Robinson gets quoted in a great piece that appeared in yesterday's Washington Post, Ruling Inspires New Hope for Transgender People . But for transgender women such as Robinson, the County Council's passage of the law was a key reason she chose to live in Montgomery when she moved to the area this year from Texas to take a job at the H...

Recently in Frostburg, MD on an excursion to Mainstreet Books , one of the finest independent bookstores I've been to for some time, a poet who accompanied me slipped a copy of The Collected Poems of Constantine Cavafy , a new translation by Aliki Barnstone (read review here ). Cavafy, the 20th Century Greek writer, who lived unashamedly with his gay side (well openly for the most part), always drew me since I read his poem Ithaka for a college course on Odysseus. ( Hear it read in English by Sean Connery or in the original Greek from the movie about Cavafy.) Reading this new fresh translation, I had to buy the book. This poem tells my story in a way that has eluded me for over a decade. (try reading it aloud) Meaning by C.P. Cavafy The years of my youth, my sensual life-- how clearly I see their meaning now. What needless repentances, how futile... But I didn't see the meaning then. Out of the dissolute life of my youth my poetry's aims grew. my art's realm was dr...