Exciting things soon to come!

On March 3 Gender Fatigue had the honor of interviewing local awesome artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer on our show! We had a great chat about all kinds of things including art in DC, roots and traveling influence on creativity, pushing ourselves to be creative, and more. The transcript should be up tomorrow of our great interview!

Additionally, over the weekend, Gender Fatigue made an expedition to the shooting range. Pics and commentary coming soon - and if we get lucky, maybe we can even figure out how to upload some audio from the day!

Stay Tuned!

MZBEL - 16 Years

Gender Fatigue wishes that they had a song like '16 years' on our playlist when we were 16.

Denver Colorado is Actually Quite Nice!

This is bent, on my way back from Denver where I was attending the Creating Change conference, "The National Conference on LGBT Equality" - hosted each year by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. It's an opportunity for lots of LGBT activists from around the country to gather and discuss what's going on nationally and in their communities. It tends to focus a bit on the more mainstream "gay" issues like marriage and such, but there are still radical and interesting spaces at the conference, including spaces created by folks coming from communities of color and poor communities. There's plenty to write about, but let's talk about one of the best moments for me of the conference: the plenary with Dolores Huerta speaking. 

Dolores Huerta herself is obviously off the hook, and was really excellent to hear speak, and more on that in a second. But what really amazed me and will make me remember this for time to come was how the session included a video presentation about the history of LGBT struggles in Colorado, an emphasis on the local that we don't always get in these kinds of spaces. Boulder, a city not too far from Denver, was the first in the country to include sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination law in 1974 and had an openly gay man on city council. Shortly afterwards however, a popular vote on the ordinance was held and the sexual orientation protections were stripped - the gay council member was also recalled. Then, in 1975 the county clerk issued marriage licenses to several gay couples, which we accepted as valid until revoked by the Colorado district attorney. Consistent efforts by local activists got sexual orientation added to the city non-discrimination laws again in 1987, by popular vote! According to some sources this was the first time that happened in the US.

It seems so important to learn about this local struggles and efforts - and obviously this was only a brief overview. Sometimes it feels like we are so focused on what is going on right now - Prop 8 or ENDA or whatever - and we don't keep a historical perspective for what we are working on. A historical perspective would serve us well particularly in strategy and not repeating mistakes or making new ones. At Creating Change there was much talk about the importance of an "inclusive" ENDA, but that neglects the fact that ENDA itself focuses solely on employment non-discrimination - allowing discrimination in various other settings to continue. That's a different approach than what was used by folks to get non-discrimination laws pass in the past such as ADA or the Civil Rights Act. That was a historical decision made way back when the bill was originally introduced, but does that still make sense at this point? And with so many discussions at the conference focused on federal policy change and legislation, the logical thing to consider is: can we really legislate social change? For sure it's part of social change work, but do people, especially folks with the power and the resources, tend to see it as the whole or the bulk of social change, rather than a tool for social change?

In terms of history and social change, hearing Dolores Huerta speak certainly connected both of those. And although she didn't really knock my socks off or make me think about things in some way, it was truly beautiful to see this amazing activist, who has been doing so much for so many years. She is sweet and old, angry and fierce, really funny and clearly thoughtful. It seemed important to have her speak in that space as to remind people that issues of immigration, fair wages and working conditions, worker organizing, racism, and other crucial things are "gay" issues, need to be part of this gay agenda. Creating Change is a space where people are more likely to see those connections than other places, but it could get a lot better. At least it gave me the opportunity to see some friends, make some new ones, and enjoy the beautiful Denver. 

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about Denver was the Charlie's on a Thursday night. It's a cowboy bar, and there are many amazing looking cowboys and cowbutches. Most drinks are only $2.50! There is an incredible mix of different body types and genders, as well as some straight folks in the mix and acting normal amongst mostly queers. Not many trans folks its true, but a good number of folks of color of various backgrounds. And maybe best of all there are two rooms of dancing - one a more typical club scene with top 40 hits, hip hop, R & B, but that's important. The other room however was like no where I have ever seen: a huge wooden floor where couples waltz together in a circle to country tunes or do choreographed line dancing. Phenomenal. It totally enthralled me, and I was especially excited when on a return visit a friend actually joined in even though he didn't know any of the steps. But I was content to sit and watch, soaking up the beauty of folks being free and loving. Oh and there's no cover, a $1 coat check, and a woman selling fresh burritos out front! 

Georgraphy lesson!

This is Galicia, a province of Spain that is next to Portugal in the northwest of the country. If you look at the lower left hand side of the province, you'll see a little pink dot and that is Tui, the little town the DC Hot Commondities visited. We liked Tui a lot - it's a very small town but beautiful, very gothic and european looking, and just across the river is Portugal! That was pretty cool. It helped that we also had a very sweet apartment to stay in with gorgeous views and we had many adventures. For perspective, here is a map of Spain:


You can see where Madrid is, in the middle of the country in blue, and then Galicia is that green area up in the northwest. It was a rather pretty drive but with some pretty crazy mountains that were hard to go through at night in the sleet. They speak a different language in Galicia - Galego, which is the closest to Spanish/Castellano of the different languages spoken in Spain - the other main ones being Basque/Euskara and Catalan. It also has a lot of similarities with Portuguese, and apparently there is some controversy about whether or not it is a separate language from Portuguese. Speaking of Portuguese, since were so close and you can cross the border without a passport, we took a day trip to Portugal, and ended up going all the way to Oporto/Porto, a large city in northern Portugal. It was really beautiful, had an excellent radio station that we enjoyed very much, and we even found black eyed peas in an immigrant market there! That was good because we were afraid of not having good luck in the new year, although we did eat our grapes.


That's Oporto. Mothersheister said she thought "the black people are more free here." It was raining most of the time in Oporto so we didn't get to enjoy it as much as we would have liked. Here's a pic from Tui, of the church/fortress:

Although you wouldn't know it by the language, which is not connected to the Celtic ones, bent had always learned that Galicia was connected to Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, Isle of Man and Scotland as a Celtic area. But aside from some old myths we didn't find a whole lot of evidence of this. Galicia is really green and coastal, kind of like Ireland, and its rainy and warmer than you expect it to be, also like Ireland. There are even palm trees! And they have bagpipes! But we also called it the "Maine of Spain" because it's pretty rural, "it's beautiful" and far away from everything, on the Atlantic coast.


In addition to our Portugal visit and our meanderings around Tui, we also went to the beach at Baiona, a small town on the ocean that is super picturesque and has a big castle fort which is neat. The waves were really amazing and we got to watch the sunset over the Atlantic - a first for most of us!


Tui was a really fun place to spend new years eve and the first few days of 2009.

Some things we miss about Spain, some things we are glad to have back in D.C.

so there were a lot of great things about spain, despite all the drama. we really liked all the graffiti everywhere:


we also miss some of the food, which is so tasty.

we miss drinking in public, damn that is so great.

we miss the lackadaisical pace at which each day passed, including eating dinner at like 10pm.

we miss walking around tui in galicia, acting like zombies, and we miss the hot commodities!


we miss the metro in madrid, the longest wait we ever had was 4 minutes! what's wrong wmata?

we miss the good, strong wine, and olives.

we miss portugal, even tho it's not spain, where they had great music on the radio, black eyed peas, and beautiful city of oporto:


not so much missing stepping over dog-doo everywhere. or the rudeness. or in mothersheister's case potatoes at every meal (wait to we go to ireland!). we certainly don't miss spanish thieves. or expensive prices, in euros no less.

we love to be able to eat tofu again!


and our lovely beds are the best ever. we're happy to see friends again, and happy to eat other tasty treats like black beans, burritos, and bacon.

but mostly we hold very fond memories of a great time in espana.

So happy!

it seems best if mothersheister gives a first hand account of her perspective of the process of going through spanish border and u.s. border, but in the meantime, here is a very cute picture of us, so happy to be on the plane after we got through the spanish side. the u.s. hurdle was still ahead (which included some uncertainty for dj "i love edward cullen") but we were not yet worried, only euphoric that all three of us were on the plane and no kenyan was left behind. if you would like a version of this photo that reveals our top-secret identities, please let us know, b/c it is wicked cute, and if you have security clearance we will email it to you.

Safe and sound back at home.

This is a mini-post just to say happy new year to all and we are back in DC! We are feeling so happy to have made it successfully through the borders with dj mothersheister and dj "i love edward cullen". More of everything that you love to come soon.