Category Global Sexual Freedom Watch

A Second Chance

No one encouraged me to be productive, to make something of my life. Hell, I thought selling drugs and prostituting were careers so naturally when I grew up I followed in those footsteps. I became a prostitute which led to drug addiction and then the cycle began.

Nothing good became of my life, each day got harder and harder. The more I lived the more I hated myself. I just didn’t understand what I had done to deserve such a horrible life. On a daily basis I would wonder how was it possible for someone to have a child and leave them to feel like this? I thought of suicide many times, but I was too afraid to do it so I knew I wanted to live, I just didn’t know how to live.

One day a friend said to me,”Brandi, you ain’t nothing but a dressed up trash can!” I got angry. I knew she was telling the truth — I just didn’t know how to take it. It hurt my feelings, but it made me self-reflect. And the way I treated myself since has been drastically different.

About a month ago I signed up for a program called Project Empowerment. And I got a chance to get to know the real me without all the hurt, pain, and resentment. This program has inspired me above anything I could’ve ever imagined. I went into that class of 30 students as the only transgender person and I thought for sure it would not work. I was mistaken. The program focused on me, it challenged me to be better, to fight harder, to not give up and take my place in life as a professional woman. No more drug-addicted prostitute. No, today I am working as a hair stylist assistant and I feel good about myself. When I look in the mirror, I see hope! Those days of wanting to kill myself are over. A second chance has come and I’ve taken full advantage of it.

The director of Project Empowerment recognized the change and growth within me. I must tell you it feels good when other people start to see things in you that you never thought were possible. It does something to your soul and it gives you an immediate sense of confidence, wow! Somebody believes in me. Unexpectedly, he called me up at the graduation as a surprise speaker. Now that’s growth, and I spoke from the heart. When I was done everyone was on their feet giving me applause. That’s never happened in my life and I didn’t know how to process it, but I knew it felt good so I took it in as my moment of celebration. Being celebrated for doing something good.

Your life doesn’t have to be what it was yesterday. If you find yourself looking in the mirror and hating your inner self, take a moment, reflect, and then let life present itself. A second chance came to me and I took it. I’ve never been more happy. Make yourself available, be ready, asecond chance will come.

If you walk away from this story with one thing, let it be this: If you allow your past to define you, you’ve lost and it will most certainly confine you. The past is what it is. Embrace the future and step into your second chance.

International Transgender Day of Remembrance in DC

This month’s official DC Transgender Day of Remembrance honors all of those who have died in the strucggle for equality, and their families, as activists rededicate themselves to help answer today’s community concerns.

Celebrated internationally, the Transgender Day of Remembrance in DC will take place at 6 PM, Tuesday, November 20, 2012, at the DC Metropolitan Community Church, 474 Ridge Street NW (just north of M Street, near the Green and Yellow Mount Vernon Square Metro Station), and organizers hope the public will attend.

Earline Budd, Executive Director of Transgender Health Empowerment (THE), and Day of Remembrance planning group member, notes, “Each year this event proves to be better and better, and more empowering for the community.”

Ms. Budd is happy to report, “Also this year, just a few days before the DC Transgender Day of Remembrance, Whitman-Walker Health, Casa Ruby DC, DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) , and THE are co-hosting a community conversation on improving transgender health,” at 7 PM on Thursday, November 15, also at the DC Metropolitan Community Church. Presentations by health providers, advocates, and public policy experts will focus on the significant challenges Transgender individuals have in accessing culturally competent health care, including primary medical care, HIV/AIDS care, mental health care, and addiction services.

in Campaigns / Events / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Grassroots / News of Note / Public Information / Transunity & Transleadership by Alison Gardner 06 Nov 2012 0 comments

Trans Women Need Love, Too . . . Don’t They?

(También en español)

WE ARE NOT SEXUAL OBJECTS!

WE ARE NOT YOUR FANTASY COME TRUE FOR ONE NIGHT WITH NO EMOTION….

Don’t we have hearts? Aren’t we human? Don’t we deserve love?

As a transgender woman I know how this feels. I was born in the wrong body, Dammit! It’s not my fault. The best choice I made in life was to change my gender. To become one with the person who I identify with inside. I never considered that it would be a life of emptiness and loneliness. But the question remains, why? Why is it so hard to be loved and appreciated for the woman that I am?

I met a guy a month ago, he told me all the right things. He looked into my eyes and hypnotized me as he spoke so confidently and dominantly, I mean, this man had it going on. Damn he was fine! Tall, dark, handsome, and athletic. On the third date he said, “you’re beautiful, I would love to take the next step with you. “My heart started jumping. The feeling of being wanted always does something to me, sort of the equivalent of an orgasm. After dating this guy a few times I thought for sure he was into me so I saw no problem with taking the “next step.” I mean, I wanted it, too. And it was amazing! A night full of passion and romance.

I knew for sure he was the one, the way he looked into my eyes as he made love to me, the passion of his kisses as he mesmerized me. I knew for sure this had to be real….NOPE! it just wasn’t so… it was almost as if he was a robot and the human switch had been turned off. When he was done, it was over. No more eye contact or communication. I thought to myself, how can this be? Didn’t he experience the same amazing thing I did? As I lay there in bed, I watch him get dressed without saying a word, my body filled with ecstasy, but my heart with pain. I knew I’d never see him again. A feeling that comes often after taking the “next step.” Why so? Aren’t I human? Don’t I deserve love?

I find that this is where the feelings of emptiness and loneliness come from. We tend to blame ourselves at this point and feel like something’s wrong with us. That is simply not true. We are worthy and if a man doesn’t see that in you, be strong! Keep moving and know your worth because you are beautiful and once you own that you’ll be well on you way.

So yes, we deserve love and every other part of life that this world has for us. Through this journey I will be exploring some of the deepest, darkest well-kept secrets of the trans community with you. So come along as I shed light on these things and help encourage one another for the better.

in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Public Information / Sex Education / The Sexual Freedom Project by 03 Nov 2012 0 comments

Kink Forwarding Sexual Freedom Rights

(También en español) Gay and straight Leather culture and BDSM culture combine under the mantle of Kink. Together these sexual freedom warriors are taking a machete to the underbrush of the sexual rights movement, blazing a trail that puts in play every question of civil rights and human rights in modern society, including the freedom to seek family and relationships.

When talking about trailblazers, I can hardly think of the best known ones without considering the illustrious life and work of Hardy Haberman.

Only part of Hardy’ story can be told by reviewing the awards and accolades he has received, most recently the Leather Leadership Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, or his ascension in 2011 to Chairman of the Board of Directors at Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance. Since coming out as both gay and kink in the 19070s as a twenty-something, Hardy’s films, books, lectures, and seminars have advanced the sexual freedom movement through a cogent exposition of the inexorable connection between spirituality and politics and the kink culture, and how it defines most of the issues we face as a society regardless of our sexual or gender expression.

Hardy just returned from the Great Lakes Leather Alliance’s conference in Indianapolis where he presented the keynote address, and taught a class,”Putting the Sex Back Into SM.” Hardy is there to explain the true nature of the erotic power exchange that is often sidestepped or forgotten by everyday practitioners. His award-winning art documentary short, “Leather,” continues through two decades to be well received. And, “Out of Darkness: The Reality of SM,” a documentary exploring abuse within the SM culture, is still being used by health industry professionals, and isabout to be updated and repackaged for release.

Recently asked if the word, Kink, accurately encompasses the sometimes divergent communities of Leather and BDSM, Hardy says the differences are subtle. “There is a hyper-masculization in the Leather community that is not so apparent anywhere else. And while Leather practitioners may be considered more renegade than others, they are more closely knit. You always know everyone’s real name in the Leather community while those practicing BDSM tend to remain attached to their ‘scene’ names.”

Spanning over 4 decades, Hardy has been able to monitor the growth of the Leather community in particular, and nurture the new generation. “Everytime it surfaces in the media, for example the recent published trilogy, 50 Shades of Gray, a new influx of what I would call ‘tourists’ show up, some will hang around, and some of those will ‘get it,’ will understand what it’s all about, that ‘erotic power exchange’ and spirituality that comprise the full Leather experience. Most important these days, he urges people not to believe everything they hear or read, and rather than relying on a computer, to get out there and involved with the community. “Our strength is found face-to-face rather than the diluted messages you can catch on line.”

We will be seeing Hardy this weekend, hoping to learn more at the Woodhull-produced Sexual Freedom Summit (Silver Spring, MD, September 21-23), so we asked him to give activists and advocates a call to action, the central message we wish to bring forward. It was, simply: “Grow up, and have an adult conversation about sex!”

The Sexual Freedom Summit takes place annually in honor of radical suffragette and sexual freedom pioneer Victoria Woodhull (b. September 23, 1838), and attracts hundreds of sexual freedom scholars, educators, and activists for presentations, workshops, social events, and awards (the “Vicki”) honoring those that have made a difference.

If you want to find out more about the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance and their views on sexual health education and other key issues of sexual freedom, such as sex work and reproductive justice, you can visit their website. Also, you can still register to attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit (September 21-23), where Alison Gardner and Dan Massey, VenusPlusX’s founders who work closely throughout the year with Woodhull as members of its Advisory Council, will also be presenting their workshop session, “Sacred Sexuality and Erotic Communion, the Human Experience.”

in Events / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Public Information / Sex Education by Alison Gardner 19 Sep 2012 1 comments

Sexual Outlaws or Intentional Families?

(También en español) We are really looking forward to hearing from Family Law Attorney Diana Adams this weekend at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance’s Sexual Freedom Summit (Silver Spring, MD, September 21-23). Her workshop, “21st Century Families: Cultural and Legal Shifts toward Family Freedoms,” will chart the decline of heterosexual monogamous nuclear families, once in the majority, to today’s new structures and expanding options that are meeting the needs of modern society, and growing steadily in popularity, more apparent in the media than ever before.

Families of all description, co-parenting groups of more than 2, non-marital families, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LBGT) parents and families, grandparents raising grandkids, polyamorous families, and kink families have all turned to Diana to validate their alternative or “intentional” family by helping them obtain the legal, civil, and social benefits everyone deserves.

In talking to Diana earlier this week, it quickly became apparent that her devotion to her work is deeply rooted in the spiritual journey she began as a child, a search for social justice beginning in her conservative Christian family and church that unfortunately didn’t offer her answers to her probing questions about the guilt and shame built into practically every facet of life. Once becoming a youth minister to help her church be welcoming to LGBT congregants, Diana has carried this passion forward into her work today: helping to enfranchise intentional families within the broader society and legal system. From her website, Feminist Outlaw, or representing Open Love NY, to her work as a legal activist, sex educator, and practicing attorney, Diana has become a sought-after lecturer and media spokesperson, and, for sure, a hero to many of us.

“Any family that is systematically excluded from mainstream life, and unfairly denied legal and social benefits that traditional families take for granted, deserves a legal advocate,” Diana submits. She is perhaps more well suited to this task than some, since Diana is herself a member of a polyamorous family and household.

Diana, who is a member of Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance’s Board of Directors, will be on hand all weekend to answer your questions. I am hoping to take away some of the themes and messages of this work, the key issues at stake, and how grassroots activists can organize to support this diverse community. “Anyone in an intentional family,” Diana said reflecting on the people she has worked with, “has common ground with every other economic and social justice advocate. We need to build allies to defend our right to create families of our choosing.”

When asked recently if she had a special message to all sexual freedom activists worldwide, Diana said, “Remember that a threat to the sexual freedom rights of any individual is a threat to us all,” pointing out the urgency and relevancy of our task. Diana says we are doing the right thing if we are concentrating on organizing the sexual freedom movement by engaging every type of activist that shares common ground with us, such as those fighting for women’s rights, including reproductive rights, and LGBT rights. “Wherever the sovereignty of our own bodies is under assault, we need to be there for each other, draw strength from each other, and work together for a better world. The rightwing is fiercely organized to wage war on sex, and we need to be organized to defend our rights to pleasure and relationship.”

If you want to find out more about the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance and their views on sexual health education and other key issues of sexual freedom, such as sex work and reproductive justice, you can visit their website. Also, you can still register to attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit (September 21-23), where Alison Gardner and Dan Massey, VenusPlusX’s founders who work closely throughout the year with Woodhull as members of its Advisory Council, will also be presenting their workshop session, “Sacred Sexuality and Erotic Communion, the Human Experience.”

in Events / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Public Information / Sex Education by Alison Gardner 18 Sep 2012 1 comments

Net Neutrality and Internet Freedom: A voice for the voiceless

In preserving all human rights, especially those having to do with privacy of person and sexual freedom, free access to the unfettered communications of the Internet is crucial. The Internet is the circulatory system of the body politic, and the world’s only hope for true pluralism.

Any and all attempts to restrict or dismember the Internet and its uses must be met by an army of us willing to lay down our lives to make sure these attempts fail. Think of young Bradley Manning, who thought that transparency to bring alleged government corruption to the attention of a whistleblower was something he was willing to go to prison for. Very unfortunately, he has been in solitary confinement and suffered other loathsome, cruel, and unusual punishment at the hands of the U.S. government (latest updates, plus).

The hackerverse is populated with tens of thousands of young people like Bradley who are the world’s free speech heroes. They are not letting lawmakers interfere with Internet freedom with flawed legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, or the White House’s proposed Online Privacy Bill of Rights, or let stand any restrictions on constitutional freedoms on religious grounds. (Here is more information on the Stop Online Piracy Act/SOPA, the Protect IP Act/PIPA, and more.)

Most important, the freeway of the Internet is the only mechanism whereby the voiceless have a voice, and for that reason alone, all of us must keep a watchful eye on anything that would interfere with the free flow of information.

The reasons that politicians try to interfere with Internet freedom are not very pretty, and are often stupid. For example, christianists in Congress want to invade the privacy of everyone who views pornography. Others would like to see all pornography removed from the Internet.

Ironically, that very industry, pornography, made possible the early exponential growth of the Internet that turned out to have been instrumental in fueling the rapid expansion of the technology throughout the world. These self-appointed politicians think that all adults shouldn’t be allowed to view porn, but again ironically, these very politicians represent their own personal statistical cohort group in the American South, the so-called “Bible Belt,” a population which watches the most pornography and breeds America’s backward abstinence-only sex education leading to the highest rates of STDs and teen pregnancy. The Bible Belt has the highest divorce rates in the country, too, despite its “religiosity.” That has to tell us they are doing something wrong, but it doesn’t penetrate because their minds because they are so busy condemning the rest of us. Sad, sad, and sadder.

Will this opposition ever abandon their egocentric greed for personal and institutional power? Will they ever choose to live and let live? Or will they be content to be known for all time as just another bunch of ignorant and backward yokels who arrogantly assume the name of god in vain, as they try and fail to put freedom in a corner under their control?

Help us watch these people like hawks and make sure they keep their creepy hands off our inter webs.

Editor’s note: This is one of a series of position papers Dan Massey and I are creating and will soon index on our home page. They briefly explore the evolution of our points of view about a range of issues related to sex, gender, and racial freedom. Your feedback is always welcome.

Creative Commons image: Source

in Campaigns / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note / Public Information by Alison Gardner 25 Jul 2012 0 comments

Lesbian and Gay Rights in the World—Geography of Bigotry and Oppression

Click to enlarge

This amazing map, developed by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Organization, portrays, as of May 2012, the status of critical LGBT protections and persecutions world wide. We hope all people interested in international issues will examine it and understand where progress is being made and where horrible persecution and enforced neglect endure.

It is encouraging to see signs of great progress in areas of South America and most of Western Europe, where a modicum of equality is emerging, in spite of entrenched religious opposition by atheistic religionists deeply embedded in the pastoral hierarchies of these societies.

It is painful to see how pervasive persecution and ignorance continue unopposed and unabated throughout Asia, Africa, and North and Central America, omitting only Canada. This horror persists and advances in such economically advanced nations as the United States, Russia, and China.

At the same time, the atheist leadership of the false religions of fundamentalism—regardless of the mythological origins of their beliefs—have made it their worldwide business to oppose education, and anything else which would broaden people’s perspectives on the realities of living in a modernizing society.

Nowhere is this atheistic negation of the most basic tenets of the faith they claim to espouse more apparent than in the United States, where the bigoted leadership of christianist cults, who know nothing of the “Christ” they claim to extol, expend vast sums to export their hatred to the third world in hope of colonializing the minds of uninformed citizens while quietly seizing financial control of undeveloped natural resources for personal advantage.

There are seated U.S. Congressmen that hold allegiance to their egocentric interpretation of “god’s law” as supreme. They respect neither teachings of great world religions, nor the U.S. Constitution, which they once swore to uphold. Their behavior hovers on the border of treason. They encourage bizarre religious hysteria in client country populations, while personally profiting from abuse of their government position to influence U.S. Foreign Aid, taken from your tax dollars, into back-end income from third world development projects and exploitation of those countries’ rich natural resources.

in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note / Public Information by Alison Gardner 22 Jul 2012 0 comments

Incarceration Nation

(También en Español)

News of Note: Zakaria: Incarceration nation

“Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That’s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and Britain – with a rate among the highest – has 153….

“Drug convictions went from 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148 in 1996, an almost tenfold increase. More than half of America’s federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession….

“Partly as a result, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education in the past 20 years. In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons vs. $5.7 billion on the UC system and state colleges. Since 1980, California has built one college campus and 21 prisons. A college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year.

What justifiable reason is there for America to have a higher prison population than any other country on earth? Outrage can be the only response.

How much longer will this for-profit destruction of human lives continue before the whole country realizes what’s going on?

Revealing statistics like these might just wake up the public, as more and more activists are working to give prisoners in this country and these issues a voice that will soon be harder to ignore.

Creative Commons image by: Tim Pearce, Los Gatos

in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / News of Note by Jack Diehl 21 Jul 2012 0 comments

Religion: Real and Fake

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Society suffers from a severe misunderstanding of the nature and role of religion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ongoing arguments about the “separation of church and state.” Blame the Puritans.

The basic idea in the U.S. Constitution is one of freedom FROM religion, expressed as “freedom of religion.” The tenets of any religion may not be imposed on its citizens who disagree. This concept is fundamental to the unalienable human right to absolute privacy of person, and pillar of sexual freedom and the bedrock of all other freedoms.

The pilgrims who came to Plymouth imagined that they could impose their concept of the divine will upon everyone who opposed them, that the free exercise of their religion meant forcing the world into compliance with their beliefs, a severe misdirection victimizing all sincere people. A few years later, Puritan fanaticism swept England herself into a great civil war. Such foolishness has characterized many fanatical conflicts throughout history, and can be seen today in the demands and schemes of theocratic groups worldwide, including today’s America.

A real religion is world religion. One could say there are as many religions in the world as there are people. Even atheists and agnostics objectify “god” and choose to exclude these hobbled, uninspired notions. World religion is superstition- and mythology-free and an immediately accessible and consistent guide to living in tune with the rhythms of cosmic destiny. This vitology—our urge to persist—gives each person a vision of immortality, an unending, improving, and harmonizing ecology of living.

Our faith is one of loving—desiring to do good to one another. This perpetual cycle of love shared is powered by all kinds of love, especially including the erotic, and it gives us a unified power for progress the world has yet to see. Our inherent and inherited capability for sexual pleasure and orgasm (erotic joy) is the living and loving communion that matures us individually to the service of Love and its destiny, and unites us as a team in shared fellowship—a loving siblinghood.

in Cosmic Citizenship / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / Public Information / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Alison Gardner 20 Jul 2012 0 comments

Sacred Sex and Erotic Joy

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Gustave Doré – Paradiso

The world’s secret history is strewn with tales of visionaries and pioneers who have advocated for the primacy of erotic joy in connecting each person with the universe at large and endowing each of us with supreme power to shape our own destiny (however that is defined by the individual).

For eons, these practitioners have operated in secret to protect this inherited knowledge (and more frequently, their lives) from self-appointed minorities who by their nature suppress this information and fear its neutralizing power. Tantra survives today. More recently, today’s guardians of this secret knowledge have warned us that lifting the veil on people’s direct connection to the power of erotic joy is a bad idea. We are told average modern people will not understand this power, that they are not yet ready to wield this power, that there will be disastrous results.

Today, we ask the question, “What could be more of a disaster for the vital and progressive spirit of humanity than the current state of the world?”

Revelation of the long-hidden knowledge of the primacy of erotic joy in shaping vitological (spiritual) experience is the precise antidote to practically every problem on earth. When entirely materialistic values and coercive systems are cleared away by worshipful engagement with erotic joy, verifying the primacy of love, not only does everything get better—but also we each release the power of truth, beauty, and goodness to reign our world. Voluntary associations replace these obsolete and now useless systems that are based on fear, bullying, violence, and spiritual oppression. In this way the collective of humanity fosters the best future, the intended and inherited future, the future that each new child born into this world deserves and would choose.

We campaign for Sexual Freedom to enable all to experience erotic joy free from human superstition, performing its intended function to expedite the emergence of a society based on love and service.

You will find more about how you can bring Sacred Sex and Erotic Joy out of the closet on our websites (venusplusx.org and its sister en espanol, venusmasx.org), including the serials, A Course In Immortality and in Spanish, Un Curso de Inmortalidad.

in Cosmic Citizenship / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / Op-Ed / Public Information / The Sexual Freedom Project / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Alison Gardner 18 Jul 2012 0 comments

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