Feb
29
Posted under
Being RSG,
GLBTQ issues Leap Day, also known as Bissextile Day is observed every four years. Or more accurately in any year that is divisible by 4 except for century years that are not divisible by 400. What a complicated world that we live in.
I’m just happy that the Bissextile’s get some recognition every once in a while. Really, let’s embrace diversity.
Speaking of diversity.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to discuss with a local school administrator the importance of teaching acceptance in all of our schools, and how relative that these issues are to all communities (even those in the suburbs.) In the United States, there are more than 10 million people who have a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered parent (COLAGE). It is estimated that presently there are seven million LGBT parents with school aged children in the US today (GLSEN). Often these parents are not accepted into the school’s community. (See PDF of these findings at the GLSEN link.) Often these children are harassed and ridiculed.
It’s time for all of that to end, and the only way it ends is to educate, hold a safe space, and for each person to be accountable for their words and actions.
All kids, whether they are brown or white or turquoise, whether they are Christians, Muslims, Mormons, or worship bats, whether they are gay, straight, transgendered, or questioning; all kids deserve to be in a school where they are safe and ACCEPTED.
For that matter, all PEOPLE need to be safe and accepted. This education and base of values needs to begin when people are most open and accepting to ideas, beliefs, and realities. This education, like all education provides a base for which people will grow and build who they are, and who they will become.
I certainly wasn’t volunteering for the “token lesbian mom of the suburbs” position to spearhead any kind of campaign against discrimination; but this is apparently where some of my efforts will be now directed.
This among the other thousand things that I want/need to do in the next short term of my life. Bring it on I guess. What do I have to lose (besides my sanity?)
My wife, lovingly read aloud to me my horoscope for the day:
“TGIF. Due to growing ambitions you are probably putting too many irons in your fire Use your time wisely and head off potential problems” (The Oregonian).
Sigh. Does anyone really believe that stuff? It’s a good thing that she loves me more than anything and that there are good prescriptions (and Pinot Noir) available if necessary.
Happy Weekend my friends. I’ll be getting some rest; I’m going to need it.
Posted by Recovering Straight Girl
Feb
26
Posted under
Friends You may receive the answer to a heartfelt prayer within the next two weeks. Because Lady Luck and good fortune both smile on you, it is a great time to make important decisions and changes. Anything and anyone that comes to you now is probably beneficial. Through the first week of April, your popularity hits a peak–making this a good time to enter into commitments.
–Jeraldine Saunders, printed in today’s Oregonian.
Do you know anyone who’s birthday is today?
Do you know anyone who’s birthday is today, who is a blogger and a good, good friend of mine?
A blogger who is a “domestic goddess” of sorts who cooks amazing foods, cans stuff, bakes cupcakes, and makes mad fabulous aprons?
Who is on vacation right now in Cancun?
Who has a dog named Wink who eats muffins off of my dining room table, and hogs the bed when she comes to our house to stay? (The DOG, not the lady.)
Who’s alter ego is the Sassy Gardener?
Who is the wonderful, fabulous, beautiful and fantastic . . .
LeLo in NoPo!
Happy Birthday LeLo! Many happy more!
STOP THE PRESSES!
I’m not finished . . .
Do you know who else’s birthday it is today?
She’s another blogger, and another friend of mine, (although I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting her IRL.)
She’s the most fantastically amazing incredible photographer and I covet her talent (and her hair.)
She’s an RSG like me.
She loves Argyle Pinot Noir.
She needs to move to the Pacific NW sometime soon.
She may have a touch of OCD.
My wife wants her to be her next girlfriend because she washes the sheets every week.
She’s super stylish, loves the color red, wears a lot of black, is a converted Mac user and has amazing taste in everything.
She is the beautiful . . .
Fleur de Lisa!
Happy Birthday to you Lisa! Wishing you the best.
(No wonder I love both of these women so much, they’re twinsies!)
Posted by Recovering Straight Girl
Feb
25
Posted under
Blogging I wonder when the first blogger hit “Publish” on the first post if that blogger realized what blogging would open up to the world?
I think not.
Blogging is amazing and wonderful and delicious in so many ways. Do you know how many incredible people that I have met through blogging? Yes, I’m sure you do.
Blogging allows friends and families to keep in touch, it gives people a chance to be heard, and it is an exchange of information that is powerful and with a clear voice. Blogging connects the world.
How else would I have friends in Mississippi, Canada, Texas and Australia? I wouldn’t. If I weren’t a blogger I would be erasing some of my best friends IRL, (one of whom is presently in Mexico and I am watching her dog at this very moment.) I wouldn’t have a handsome man to show me around when I’m in Las Vegas, and the labor day weekend in 2005 would have been quite uneventful.
And now blogging magic brought something new for me, the return of an old friend. Yesterday I received an e-mail from a girl I went to high school with. She found this site and wrote me through my RSG address. I suppose for people who use their real names on their blog, that wouldn’t be weird, but that’s not the case with me, as I try to keep some anonymity.
I must say I was a wee bit surprised, albeit pleasantly.
Blog Magic does sometimes take me aback and realize that blogging has brought the world quite a bit closer in a lot of ways. I think perhaps instead of six degrees of separation, we may be down to four or five.
Connecting the past to the present and the future. How cool is that?
Posted by Recovering Straight Girl
Feb
19
Posted under
Domestic Partnership,
Family,
HG 
Busy weekend, beginning with a busy day on Friday where we declared our legal responsibility towards each other and became Domestically Partnered under Oregon’s new Domestic Partner Law.
It was without fanfare, but it meant a lot to us.
Our day began when we drove to our friend Stacy’s office where she printed out the legal papers for us and her assistant did the notarizing. Then we headed out to Banks, Oregon (a rural, rural area in Western Washington County,) where we met a fantastically wonderful man named John who owns a great farm where we purchased our Worm Factory.
John was a wealth of worm information and I highly recommend anyone who is interested in vermicomposting or purchasing worm castings, contact him.
From the farm, we were off to the county building.
We paid our money, the lady stamped the paper and we were partnered. That’s it. We walked out of that building a couple protected under hundreds of rights not afforded to us in any other way. That little piece of paper, that little legal document supersedes any of the legal documents that we had or could have ever had drawn up privately, and it was a very good feeling holding it in our hands.
From the county building we drove to SE Portland to a lovely woman’s house to purchase some worms for our worm factory. She was such a nice woman, and when we told her we had just come from registering as DP’s, she was so excited she jumped up and down. Then she handed us a perennial that she had separated from her garden and gave it to us as a gift.
From there, we went to have a celebratory cocktail and lunch.
Martini’s were in order.
HG had a Dirty Martini, I had a Cilantro Martini.
Yum.
It was truly one of the happiest days of my life, filled with good fortune, nice people and celebration. I am a very lucky woman to have HG as my partner, and even luckier that I found true love in my life. I am eternally grateful for her and our family and I truly give thanks every day of my life.
It is a wonderful feeling to know that we have some legal protections as a couple now, and I am thankful to all of the people who blazed this trail for all of us. It’s a step in the right direction, and one that we certainly are able to pause and enjoy for a moment.
Oh, Happy Day!
Posted by Recovering Straight Girl
Feb
14
Posted under
Women's Issues 
I don’t mean Valentine’s Day (although if you celebrate it, great, happy valentine’s day,) I mean Happy V-Day!
You know, Vagina Day.
Vagina.
“Powderbox, derriere, poochi, poopi, peepe, pooelu, poonani, pal, piche, toadie, dee dee, nishi, dignity, monkey box, coochi snorcher, cooter, labbe, Gladys Siegelman, VA, wee wee, horsespot, nappy dugout, mongo, pajama, fannyboo, mushmellow, ghoulie, possible, tamale, tottita, Connie, Mimi, split knish, schmede.”
From The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, 2001
Celebrate your vaginas! Be one with your vagina! Piss off the radical right and smell your vagina! Do your part to end violence against women everywhere!
So, what do you call yours?
Your vagina that is. . .
And to add, in all seriousness some statistics that I copied from www.feminist.com.
Fact #1: 17.6 % of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape. Of these, 21.6% were younger than age 12 when they were first raped, and 32.4% were between the ages of 12 and 17. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)
Fact #2: 64% of women who reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked since age 18 were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, boyfriend, or date. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)
Fact #3: Only about half of domestic violence incidents are reported to police. African-American women are more likely than others to report their victimization to police Lawrence A. Greenfeld et al. (1998). (Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends. Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice. NCJ #167237. Available from National Criminal Justice Reference Service.)
Fact #4: The FBI estimates that only 37% of all rapes are reported to the police. U.S. Justice Department statistics are even lower, with only 26% of all rapes or attempted rapes being reported to law enforcement officials.
Fact #5: In the National Violence Against Women Survey, approximately 25% of women and 8% of men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date in their lifetimes. The survey estimates that more than 300,000 intimate partner rapes occur each year against women 18 and older. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)
Fact #6: The National College Women Sexual Victimization Study estimated that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 college women experience completed or attempted rape during their college years (Fisher 2000).
Fact #7: Men perpetrate the majority of violent acts against women (DeLahunta 1997).
Fact #8: Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) calculation based on 2000 National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice)
Fact #9: One out of every six American women have been the victims of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. (Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey, National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998)
Fact #10: Factoring in unreported rapes, about 5% - one out of twenty - of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. 19 out of 20 will walk free. (Probability statistics based on US Department of Justice Statistics)
Fact #11: Fewer than half (48%) of all rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (DOJ 2001).
Fact #12: Sexual violence is associated with a host of short- and long-term problems, including physical injury and illness, psychological symptoms, economic costs, and death (National Research Council 1996).
Fact #13: Rape victims often experience anxiety, guilt, nervousness, phobias, substance abuse, sleep disturbances, depression, alienation, sexual dysfunction, and aggression. They often distrust others and replay the assault in their minds, and they are at increased risk of future victimization (DeLahunta 1997).
Fact #14: According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, more than 260,000 rapes or sexual assaults occurred in 2000; 246,180 of them occurred among females and 14,770, among males (Department of Justice 2001).
Fact #15: Sexual violence victims exhibit a variety of psychological symptoms that are similar to those of victims of other types of trauma, such as war and natural disaster (National Research Council 1996). A number of long-lasting symptoms and illnesses have been associated with sexual victimization including chronic pelvic pain; premenstrual syndrome; gastrointestinal disorders; and a variety of chronic pain disorders, including headache, back pain, and facial pain (Koss 1992).Between 4% and 30% of rape victims contract sexually transmitted diseases as a result of the victimization (Resnick 1997).
Fact #16: More than half of all rapes of women occur before age 18; 22% occur before age 12. (Full Report of the Prevalance, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)
Fact #17: In 2000, nearly 88,000 children in the United States experienced sexual abuse (ACF 2002).
Fact #18: About 81% of rape victims are white; 18% are black; 1% are of other races. (Violence Against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994.)
Fact #19: About half of all rape victims are in the lowest third of income distribution; half are in the upper two-thirds. (Violence against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994.)
Fact #20: According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS), a national survey of high school students, 7.7% of students had been forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to. Female students (10%) were significantly more likely than male students (5%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse. Overall, black students (10%) were significantly more likely than white students (7%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse (CDC 2002).
Fact #21: Females ages 12 to 24 are at the greatest risk for experiencing a rape or sexual assault (DOJ 2001).
Fact #22: Almost two-thirds of all rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger (— 38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative.) (National Crime Victimization Survey, 2005)
Fact #23: The costs of intimate partner violence against women exceed an estimated $5.8 billion. These costs include nearly $4.1 billion in the direct costs of medical care and mental health care and nearly $1.8 billion in the indirect costs of lost productivity and present value of lifetime earnings. (Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2003).
Fact #24: Domestic violence occurs in approximately 25-33% of same-sex relationships. (NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, October 1996.)
Fact #25: Boys who witness their fathers’ violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes. (Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, 1993)
Fact #26: An estimated 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States annually for sexual exploitation or forced labor. (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 2000)
Fact #27: Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds. (UN Study On The Status of Women, Year 2000)
Fact #28: A University of Pennsylvania research study found that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to low-income, inner-city Philadelphia women between the ages of 15 to 44 - more common than automobile accidents, mugging and rapes combined. In this study domestic violence included injuries caused by street crime.
Fact #29: Following the Supreme Court’s decision in 2000 to strike down the civil-rights provision of the Federal Violence Against Women Act (ruling that only states could enact such legislation), only two states in the country (Illinois and California) have defined gender-based violence, such as rape and domestic violence, as sex discrimination, and created specific laws that survivors can use to sue their perpetrators in civil court. (Kaethe Morris Hoffer, 2004).
Fact #30: A study reported in the New York Times suggests that one in five adolescent girls become the victims of physical or sexual violence, or both, in a dating relationship. (New York Times, 8/01/01)
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Fact #31: At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are “missing” from various populations, mostly in Asia, as a result of sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect. (UN Study On The Status of Women, Year 2000) Fact #32: Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. (UN Commission on the Status of Women, 2/28/00)
Fact #33: A recent survey by the Kenyan Women Rights Awareness Program revealed that 70% of those interviewed said they knew neighbors who beat their wives. Nearly 60% said women were to blame for the beatings. Just 51% said the men should be punished. (The New York Times, 10/31/97)
Fact #34: 4 million women and girls are trafficked annually. (United Nations)
Fact #35: An estimated one million children, mostly girls, enter the sex trade each year (UNICEF)
Fact #36: A 2005 World Health Organization study reported that nearly one third of Ethiopian women had been physically forced by a partner to have sex against their will within the 12 months prior to the study. (WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women, 2005)
Fact #37: In a study of 475 people in prostitution from five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia):
62% reported having been raped in prostitution.
73% reported having experienced physical assault in prostitution.
92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately.
(Melissa Farley, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin, “Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” (1998) Feminism & Psychology 8 (4): 405-426)
Fact #38: The most common act of violence against women is being slapped—an experience reported by 9% of women in Japan and 52% in provincial Peru. Rates of sexual abuse also varies greatly around the world—with partner rape being reported by 6% of women from Serbia and Montenegro, 46% of women from provincial Bangladesh, and 59% of women in Ethiopia. (WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women, 2005)
Fact #39: So-called “honour killings” take the lives of thousands of young women every year, mainly in North Africa, Western Asia and parts of South Asia. (UNFPA)
Fact #40: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that 2002 saw a 25% increase in “honor killings” of women, with 461 women murdered by family members in 2002, in 2 provinces (Sindh and Punjab) alone. (Pakistan Human Rights Commission, 2002)
Fact #41: More than 90 million African women and girls are victims of female circumcision or other forms of genital mutilation. (Heise: 1994)
Fact #42: In eastern and souther Africa, 17 to 22% of girls aged 15 to 19 are HIV-positive, compared to 3 to 7% of boys of similar age. This pattern—seen in many other regions of the world—is evidence that girls are being infected with HIV by a much older cohort of men. (UNICEF/UNAIDS 2007)
Fact #43: : A 2005 study reported that 7% of partnered Canadian women experienced violence at the hands of a spouse between 1999 and 2004. Of these battered women, nearly one-quarter (23%) reported being beaten, choked, or threatened with a knife or gun. (Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile, 2005)
Fact #44: In Zimbabwe, domestic violence accounts for more than 60% of murder cases that go through the high court in Harare. (ZWRCN)
Fact #45: a study in Zaria, Nigeria found that 16 percent of hospital patients treated for sexually transmitted infections were younger than 5. (UNFPA)
Posted by Recovering Straight Girl
