transphobia

It's almost the weekend! Here's some news on our radar.

• If you’re in Arizona and want to go pee, be ready to show your papers indicating what gender you were assigned at birth. [TransGriot] 
• Why are “Men’s Rights” groups popping up all over Canada? [Linchpin]
• Trans artist of color Kay Ulanday Barrett dares us to re-imagine the beautiful in this interview on administrative violence, ableism, and the need for interdependence. [Poor Magazine]
• So Siddhartha wants liberation, Dante wants Beatrice, and Frodo wants to get to Mount Doom, but what adventures are in store for women? On the serious lack of female road narratives (and why it matters).  [The American Reader]
• Rising star Willow Smith uses her celebrity status to fight cyberbullying. [Clutch Magazine]
• Nope. We’re not done talking about rape culture, and neither is Lauren Nelson. [Rant Against The Random]
• Not one but two articles on trickle down feminism for you today! [Socialist Worker] & [Dissent Magazine]

Stay tuned!

I’ll be the first to admit that Saturday Night Live is a totally hit or miss show these days. There are definitely some skits that cause me to cramp up from laughing so hard, while others leave me bored. I get it - it takes a lot to put on a live, hour-and-a-half variety show every week, and not every joke will be a zinger. And while I don’t expect every second to make me laugh, I also don’t expect there to be parts of the show that will make me cringe and rage.

This past Saturday night started off promising. Then it turned transphobic. 

Here's your weekly does of bad-vertising: Libra, a company who markets feminine hygiene products in Australia and New Zealand, recently released an ad that trades in transphobia and sexism:

Billy Corgan continued his downward trajectory towards irrelevancy (wrestling, anyone?) last week by not only insulting, slandering and threatening violence against Portland-based guitar pedal maker Devi Ever, but by making some incredibly transphobic statements for all of the Internet to see.

Happy Labor Day, folks! If you have Monday off, take some extra time to read these great links from all over the web.

• Racialicious, close to winding down their series on interracial dating, kicked off a South Asian panel this week. 
• Colorlines responds to Katt Williams’ hateful remarks by showing us five comedians of color we ought to watch instead. 
• We peeked over Racialicous’ shoulder and saw them reading Indiewire’s proposal of a not-so-radical solution to the lack of funding for black indie filmmakers. 
• Former guest blogger Everett Maroon navigates the treacherous relationship between Dancing With the Stars and transfolk. 
• Transgriot reports on a shameful case of transphobia hiding behind a badge. (Trigger warning for transphobic violence.) 
• Slate reports on PETA’s quest to break the record for jaws-dropped-per-minute by launching a porn site. 
• Love is Not Enough declares no, my hair is not a petting zoo.
• FBomb goes back to school and has a high school sophomore call out her classmates for slut shaming.

Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!

Castle is a guilty pleasure for me. I once watched four episodes of the show in a night because it's well-written, witty, and fun—and has some "strong" female characters front and center—so I want to be able to say, just go and watch it right now, don't even bother reading the rest of the post.

But my inner feminist critic has some issues with the show.

You know the fury that comes over you when you're affected by other people's prejudice? The coldness, shock, or devastation when they put you or your loved ones down over race, sexual orientation, age, gender, size, class or ability? Maybe you felt it when your folks wouldn't let you bring your partner to a family celebration, when a white woman crashed your MLK event to announce that she deals with racism too, or when a classmate blocked your path to stare at your walking aid. Despite what a lot of defensive apologists might try to tell you, these incidents do matter: They're called microaggressions.

Read more about this amazing website after the jump!

On Friday, I saw the Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, and Tak Sakagucki-helmed Japanese flick Mutant Girls Squad as part of the Northwest Film Center's Portland International Film Festival (PIFF.) From the synopsis, I expected a girl power-y saga of young women bonding over their new superpowers and fighting off comic book-esque villains at each other's behest... something like X-Men meets D.E.B.S. (the latter of which I will defend until my death, and not just because of name loyalty). Basically, I went into Mutant Girls Squad thinking it would be ridiculous and entertaining. I was half right.

Comments, spoilers and a gruesome trailer after the jump!

Happy Friday, readers! Here's some of what we've been reading this week at Bitch HQ:

• At both Native Appropriations and Racialicious, Adrienne K. asks for opinions on white uses of Pendleton.
• Also at Racialicious, Arturo R. García discusses troubling aspects of the hit "Born This Way" and their pop forbearers in "Lady Gaga Brings Cholas Back to Pop Culture -- Like It or Not."
• Twisty speaks about the inclusion of trans women in women-only space on I Blame the Patriarchy. (via Feministe)
• GLAAD demands an apology from SNL for their transphobic "Estro-Maxx" skit. Join them here.
• Miriam at Feministing discusses the new Orgasm Inc. documentary and Big Pharma's interest in alleged female sexual dysfunction.
• Tiger Beatdown founder (and Bitch contributor) Sady Doyle continues to rock Twitter with the anti-HR3 #DearJohn campaign. See her discuss it on GRITtv. Meanwhile, fellow Bitch contributor Sarah Jaffe is profiling Democrats co-sponsoring the bill.
• After Ellen reports on upcoming films by queer black women, including the feature based on Angela Robinson's popular Girltrash! web series.

Feel free to share your comments or other links of interest below!

What do Mary Daly, Margaret Sanger, Nellie McClung, Martha Griffiths, Gloria Steinem, Geraldine Ferraro, Julie Bendel, Robin Morgan, Germaine Greer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, and Beth Elliott have in common?

You were going to tell me they're feminist icons, weren't you? Awww, how cute.

That's actually the wrong answer.