Jul 162012
 

This Friday, July 20th, on Sex Out Loud, I’m happy to welcome educator, filmmaker, and pop culture icon Buck Angel. We’ll discuss changing representations of trans male sexuality, including the making of his docu-porn Sexing the Transman and its success on the film festival circuit. Buck will also discuss the upcoming sequel, Sexing the Transman 2, due later this month and his transition from being an adult film star to a speaker and educator. I will also get a chance to talk to Tobi Hill-Meyer, a filmmaker currently working on Doing It Again, an erotic documentary about trans women’s sexuality that weaves together explicit scenes and interviews with trans women and their partners.

Buck Angel

As a visionary filmmaker, activist, educator and lecturer, Buck Angel launched Buck Angel Entertainment as a vehicle to produce multi media projects that will motivate viewers to think outside the box. Buck Angel’s message of empowerment through self-acceptance and being sexually comfortable in your own skin has struck a passionate chord with folks all over the world. Since Buck coined “it’s not what’s between your legs that defines your gender!”, the phrase has become an anthem for people everywhere who have been inspired by this message of self acceptance. Buck has been featured in nearly every imaginable international media outlet: television, radio, web, and print. Buck Angel made history when he received the prestigious award from Adult Video News (AVN) for Transsexual Performer of the Year in 2007 for his groundbreaking work in the adult entertainment industry. Buck has received international recognition and continues to be a huge box office hit in numerous markets.

Tobi Hill-Meyer

In 2010 Tobi Hill-Meyer made her film making debut, winning an Award for Emerging Filmmaker of the year and being named #3 in Velvet Park Media’s list of the 25 Most Significant Queer Women of 2010. She is a multiracial trans woman with a long history of working with feminist and LGBTQ organizations on a local, state, and federal level, having served on several boards and offering support as a strategic consultant. Since receiving her degree in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies, Tobi has turned her focus to media analysis and productions. She is a founding member and major contributor to the media collective, Handbasket Productions. Handbasket Productions is a radical, oppression aware media collective focusing on queer culture, trans experience and sex positivity. Spanning non-fiction, fiction, and fantasy genres, we use books zines, film, music and other art to cover a variety of topics including sex work, polyamory, racism and queerspawn experience.

Jul 012012
 

Performer and activist Ignacio Rivera joins me this Friday, July 6th at 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET for a nuanced discussion about some highly charged subjects. Ignacio, who prefers the pronoun they, will talk about their gender identity and how it impacts their sexuality. We will discuss polyamory in people of color communities, race politics and racially-charged fantasies in the kink world, and how to create a truly inclusive, multi-racial community event. Then Ignacio will look at the challenges of their starring role in the feature film Mommy is Coming and reveal what it was like to work with acclaimed indie director Cheryl Dunye. This episode was recorded live during the OpenSF Conference in San Francisco and includes an audio excerpt of Ignacio’s co-keynote presentation with Yosenio Lewis.

Ignacio Rivera aka Papí Coxxx identifies as a Queer, Trans, Two-Spirit, polyamorous, kinky, Black-Boricua. Ignacio, who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” is a lecturer, activist, filmmaker, sex educator, sex worker, and performance artist, sharing spoken word, one-person shows, and storytelling internationally. Their work has appeared in ColorLines, Ebony, Yellow Medicine Review, The Ultimate Guide to Kink and in their chapbooks, Las Alas, co-authored by Maceo Cabrera Estévez; Ingridients; and Thoughts, Rants and What Some Might Call Poetry. Ignacio is the recipient of a Marsha A. Gómez Cultural Heritage Award from LLEGÓ: The National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Organization. Ignacio is one of the founding board members of Queers for Economic Justice; they are also the founder of Poly Patao Productions. Ignacio has been facilitating workshops, doing lectures and creating events for kinky, kinky-curious Queer/Trans POCs and their white queer and trans allies for over a decade.

Jun 122012
 


My next guest on Sex Out Loud is author, performer, playwright, and gender theorist Kate Bornstein. Join us on Friday, June 15 at 5:00 pm Pacific time/8:00 pm Eastern time on the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio Network when we’ll talk about her new memoir, her years as a high-ranking Scientologist working directly for L. Ron Hubbard, her transition, BDSM and kink, her time as a collared slave, the documentary being made about her, her own mental health and the struggles LGBT folks with mental health issues face. Plus, she’ll read one of the most provoactive sections from A Queer and Pleasant Danger.

Kate Bornstein is an author, playwright and performance artist whose latest book is her memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger. Other published works include the books Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, My Gender Workbook, Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives To Suicide For Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws and the cyber-romance-action novel, Nearly Roadkill with co-author Caitlin Sullivan. Kate’s plays and performance pieces include Strangers in Paradox, Hidden: A Gender, The Opposite Sex Is Neither, Virtually Yours, and y2kate: gender virus 2000.

Kate’s books are taught in over 120 colleges and universities around the world; and she has performed her work live on college campuses, and in theaters and performance spaces across the USA, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria. Kate is currently touring colleges, youth conferences and high schools, speaking, leading workshops, and performing. Follow her on Twitter @KateBornstein.

Oct 102011
 


We’ve gotten a bunch of love already for my two new books!

Check out this review of The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation:

Julie calls it “highly recommended” on her blog, How to Have Sex in Texas

And look at these reviews of Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica:

KittyStrker wrote: “…Heartwrenching, filthy, and beautiful…Considering gender diversity is pretty much invisible in the media and especially in eroticism, I was delighted to read a collection that was fluid and raw, with many authors I enjoy and respect. I really, really love this book. I love that it shows, not just diversity of gender, but of class and ethnicity, too.” Plus, she’s giving away a copy on her blog Purrversatility.

Sinclair Sexsmith reviewed it as part of Cliterotica on Lambda Literary

Read my Interview with Sinclair Sexsmith at Lambda Literary

Oct 062011
 

Aliza Shapiro—a wonderful activist, organizer, event producer, drag king, artist, and performer from Boston—recently suffered a stroke from a cerebral hemorrhage. If you’ve ever been to a East Coast event about queers, drag, burlesque, gender, art, sex, or politics, chances are Aliza had a hand in it. I met her and her then-partner L.A. Teodosio what seems like a million years ago in Boston. I have participated in events with Aliza, seen her at countless others, and most recently loved re-connecting with her last fall at IDKE in Baltimore. In fact, I may have even written a story once about a character based on Aliza. As a self-employed queer, Aliza does not have the resources to support herself during what promises to be a long, difficult recovery. Her friends and loved ones have set up the Aliza’s Brain Trust to collect donations for her and post updates about her progress. So far the amount of love and support has been phenomenal, but the bills continue to accumulate as Aliza does rehabilitation.

I’ve launched a fundraiser for Aliza, and here’s the scoop: donate to Aliza’s Brain Trust between October 6, 2011 and October 19, 2011. The person who makes the largest donation during this time period will win a lunch date with me! Our lunch can take place in any one of the following cities during my Fall Tour:

  • Boston (10/20)
  • Amherst (11/10)
  • Springfield (11/11-13)
  • New York (11/14-15)
  • Seattle (11/20-21)
  • Portland, OR (11/26-27)
  • San Francisco (11/28-12/1)

To Enter:

1. Make a donation to Aliza’s Brain Trust. Do it by October 19, 2011 by 2 pm EST to be considered for this prize.

2. Anyone who donates more than $75 will receive a free porn DVD from me! Anyone who donates $100 or more will be in the running to win the date.

3. The winner will be announced October 19, 2011 at 5 pm EST. Tristan will contact the winner directly to set up the lunch.

Aug 292011
 


I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude at the amazing people who’ve endorsed Take Me There. Wow, just wow.

Take Me There is a smokin’ hot sampling of sassy smart smut that took me where I’d never been before in print—this is the most gender-diverse erotica collection I’ve ever seen anywhere.”
—Susan Stryker, Ph.D. Director, Institute for LGBT Studies, University of Arizona

“Finally, a book that has something for everyone whose gender and sexual fantasies don’t fit into the usual boxes. I loved it. WOOF!!”
Buck Angel® Pioneering Filmmaker, Educator, and Advocate

“As someone who is androgynous-identified, it feels positively monumental to hold in my hands an erotica anthology where trans* desire is not the token, but the topic! In making our desires visible—within our own communities and beyond—our gender expressions, our fantasies, our very lives are made real. Take Me There brings us HERE.”
Jiz Lee, GenderQueer Porn Star

“There are multiple theories of desire out there; many histories of sexuality; lots of studies of sexual practices, but, until now, there were few accounts, fictional or otherwise of the multiple ways that queer people eroticize gender variant bodies. This collection is hot and steamy, boiling with new lust, bubbling with new languages of desire, new ways of naming the body, different modes of telling each other “I want you.” Ask what you need from this book, it will take you there. I promise.”
—Jack Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity

“Finally, a satisfying resource that more of us can offer, with a sly smile, when they ask us what exactly we *do* with one another.”
—Scott Turner Schofield, author of Two Truths and a Lie