Knock, knock…

*Who’s there?

– Orange.

*Orange, who?

Tomorrow (5/4) I walk 8 miles down West River Drive with my friends at Walk MS 2008 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

My good friend Drew, our team captain, was diagnosed with MS in 2001. Before knowing him, I didn’t really have any connection with the disease and wasn’t knowledgeable about it. However, I’ve come to know a bit more through him and my own research.

MS is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system, leading to demyelination (or the stripping away of the protective casing around your nerves). It may cause numerous physical and mental symptoms, and often progresses to physical and cognitive disability. Disease onset usually occurs in young adults, is more common in women, and has a prevalence that ranges between 2 and 150 per 100,000. Any one of us could come face to face with MS!

Walk MS is a key fundraiser of the National MS Society, the leading provider services and programs for people living with MS and their families. The Society also invests more money in MS research than any other volunteer-driven organization in the world. I encourage you to find out more about this mystifying disease as well as contribute to the efforts to raise awareness & funds for research.

I’m pretty sure you can still contribute to our team if you so choose.

Film takes on sexual identity & race

Recently, there were a bunch of stories, commentary and television appearances concerning the transgendered man (Thomas Beatie) who became pregnant. 

Many times we hear of transexuals who are born men but choose to live as women. Until recently, I feel like the other side of transgendered life, biological females living as males, hasn’t been explored. The Beatie story has brought some of the discussion to light. People are still confused, uncomfortable and freaked out by the whole thing. Not just Beatie being with child, but the idea that a person of one biological gender would choose to live differently, as a man or woman. If you’re confused, uncomfortable or freaked out, imagine how those transgendered folks must feel when making these life-altering decisions and then living with them.

Now, imagine that same burden with the additional weight of being Black. Not only must you contend with what I believe to be a harsher form of homophobia (I think that even the most anti-LGBTQ person can make room in their consciousness for a lesbian or for a gay man, but it’s beyond the grasp of many to comprehend a transgendered person), you must also deal with racism. With that, the harsh backlash that comes from within the Black community towards LGBTQ folks. 

A film is in the works to discuss some of these issues. It’s called “Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen.” The trailer makes it look pretty interesting. There’s even a black male (born female) who gave birth to twins. Funny that story didn’t make national headlines or Oprah. But neither do Black folks who go missing, so I guess it’s to be expected. 

Anyway, check out the trailer and the site. Let me know what you think. 

Boy, men sure are delicate.

click on the pic for the BIG picture and the rest of the article.

This article from Good Housekeeping has been circulating around the interweb for like, EVER. Still, I can’t help but get a kick out of it. Post it on a messageboard and you’ll see how many people find absolutely nothing wrong with the message put forth in the article/ad. I guess at a certain level, there’s nothing wrong with it if that’s what you’re into. It’s the entitlement of it all that really gets to me. 

If anything, I think men should be offended. They sure seem delicate and sensitive. If I, as a wife, need to tiptoe around my husband because he can’t handle being around all those “work-weary people” everyday, and survive under the burden of strain and pressure placed upon him at his white-collar job, well he’s a loser. If he needs to be coddled and the realities of our family life must be hidden away from him, well he’s a wimp. If he can’t handle the real world, well he’s lame.