Jamie Faye Fenton's Blog |
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This page covers Jamie's life as a transgender journalist and personality. |
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Farewell to Transgender Forum About 10 years ago, my friend Cindy Martin and I started operating a weekly e-magazine for transgender people called TG Forum. About a year later we converted this into a business, taking on Joann Roberts as a third partner. We decided to operate as a subscription-based service and were an instant success. Along the way, things changed for me. I came down with RSI, I transitioned, my marriage came to an end, and I was depressed and out of work for a time. Some of these personal trials put a strain on our partnership. I also came to realize that my insatiable need to learn and do new things was a gift and not a character flaw, and that attempts to change that are likely to fail. I am "a hunter in a farmer's world" - fantastic at inventing cows and terrible at milking them every day. For me, Transgender Forum changed from something new to something old. Early this year, I decided that I was going to move on and worked with Cindy, Joann, and Alaina to execute a transition plan. We moved our server farm from a data center near where I live to one near where Alaina lives in Toronto, Canada. While doing this, we upgraded to higher performance server machines and a real firewall. It was fun, hard work, and frustrating at times. We appreciated your patience and understanding while we worked out the kinks. I will still contribute photos and articles to TGForum, and will continue to improve the MEOW chat system. Day to day systems administration chores will be handled by Alaina as of 12:01AM PDT July 1, 2004. From that time on, all TGForum system administration requests sent to me will be forwarded to her or Stef Mathews. It is with sadness that I say goodbye. I am grateful for the support of Cindy and Joann during the rough times and wish them and the entire TGForum family well. -- Jamie Faye Fenton Sunday, June 27, 2004
Three new photo pictorials I have been shooting up a storm with my digital camera. We have:
I made all of these with the Digi Photo Album, which is similar (but greatly improved) to the PictureAlbum program I created in the early 1990s. Clicking on any image in the spread will bring up a higher resolution version. I have quite a few photo pictorials and articles from TGForum which I need to organize and put up on my home page. Saturday, June 19, 2004
Evolution's Rainbow Review I spent a good deal of time recently reading through the book "Evolution's Rainbow" by Joan Roughgarden. I wrote a rather lengthy review of it which you can see by following the link below. I know Joan Roughgarden and was fortunate to spend time talking with her about the biology of transgenderism. This was back when she was starting her research project. At the time of her transition, she went on sabbatical so we drifted apart. Reading and writing about this book has brought me to the current research problem I am investigating. My humorous name for the problem is "Who are the Binary Police?" (a paraphrase from a Frank Zappa song). Why is it that after the transition from tribal society to feudal society that transgender people go from being shamans to outcasts? Joan has one conjecture about homophobia: Perhaps a political economy of pleasure which includes same-sex sexuality threatens the political economy of power necessary to maintain stable control in larger societies. Maybe transgenders got caught up in the sweep. Joan also notes that eunuchs were an ancient transgender category in Western civilization, and that this role evolved into the Roman Catholic priesthood. Perhaps transphobia, homophobia, and other forms of stigmatization are the manifestations of some basic process of evolutionary psychology. Whatever the underlying cause, this opposing force is both powerful and prevalent. Understanding it is key to overcoming it, or perhaps turning it upon itself. Link: http://www.jamiefaye.com/EvoRainbow.html Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Don't Tell a Soul My friends in The Lipstick Conspiracy have just come out with their CD album, "Don't Tell a Soul". Andrea (S.O. of Sarafina Marachino) gave me a copy at the "Quadrasexual" party this last Saturday PM. It is awesome. While I have heard every song multiple times in live performance, there are a plenty of subtle details that you can really only hear with headphones on. I also like the liner notes because they tell me to "Don't stop dancing". About my only complaint is that there are only 5 songs on it. "Quadrasexual" was a TG-theme party/concert held at Studio Z in San Francisco. Also on the bill was Frootie Flavors, The Deadly Nightshades, The Woodyz, and the return of Pepperspray. I was impressed by the turnout and the music. I also did what I was told and didn't stop dancing. Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Spur of the Moment Sex I live in a small apartment with a Murphy bed - just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong in it! The worst disasters seem to occur during unexpected quickies. Digging around for lube or a condom at the last minute is awkward. Its double awkward doing a quickie with a new lover - part of you wants to have a time out so you can think through what you are doing and that other part of you is so raring to go. Toss in being nervous about making a good impression and you have a recipe for comedy. My biggest faux paux was really sliming somebody - I managed to get about 8 ounces of lube all over her, her outfit, the bed, and me. I didn't realize the cap was loose when I squeezed the bottle! You can try to keep the basics at the ready. You can try to plan ahead. Truth is, every so often Murphy steps in and all you can do is laugh at yourself! |
