Transfixed: Asperger’s Syndrome & Trans Rights

A smart and engaging Canadian documentary profiles a couple at the nexus point of trans rights, politics, and Asperger's Syndrome.

A smart and engaging Canadian documentary profiles a couple at the nexus point of trans rights, politics, and Asperger’s Syndrome.

The wealth of identities and stories from within the trans community—kept silent for too long—continues to challenge, enrich, and surprise us. Such is the case with Transfixed, a fascinating new documentary from Alan Kol. The story follows Martine Stonehouse and her partner John Gelmon, two Canadians living with Asperger’s Syndrome, and Martine’s efforts to become eligible for gender reassignment surgery in spite of governmental bias and a weight problem.

The journey reveals Martine’s strong and principled character. She is someone who embodies the term activist in the purest sense when she becomes one not for political reasons, but simply to live her life the way she deserves.

Out Article.

The Pearl of Africa

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Hailing from Uganda, one of the most homophobic places on Earth, Cleo shares her story of love and triumph in the new documentary, The Pearl of Africa.

Cleopatra Kambugu refuses to be a victim. She refuses to be silenced, or made afraid. She simply wants to be free to live her life and love her man. It’s a universal feeling, this wanting, needing to be free, but in a place like Uganda, and for a woman like Cleo, freedom is hard fought.

As one of the few openly trans women in Uganda, and in all of Africa, Cleo faces any number of challenges to freedom, but she’s luckier than most. She was able to travel to Thailand for her gender confirmation surgery, though her native Uganda does not recognize her as female. That comes with its own set of problems, particularly when traveling, or trying to secure healthcare.

Hoping to shed light on a nearly invisible population within a country shrouded in homophobic myths and realities, Cleo began sharing her story in the popular webseriesThe Pearl of Africa. Now a documentary, Cleo’s story has the ability to reach an even wider audience.

Out has the story.

Youtube link.

Cool Stuff Friday: Labyrinth!

Labryrinth the Board Game.

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There just aren’t enough new board games commemorating hits movies from the 1980s. In an effort to help rectify that situation, a company called River Horse has partnered up with The Jim Henson Company to create a Labyrinth board game, based on the 1986 fantasy film starring the late David Bowie and a young Jennifer Connelly.

The Labyrinth board game is scheduled to get released this summer and features some pretty impressive sculpts for the five collectible game pieces that players will use to navigate the board. Get more details on the Labyrinth board game after the jump.

Here’s some photos from the Labyrinth board game from its official Facebook page:

Full Story Here.

LABYRINTH Returning to Cinemas for 30th Anniversary.

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David Bowie will be on our screens again very soon and in a role we all love. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Jim Henson’s scary-weird fairy tale movie Labyrinth (and the fact that I feel older than most dirt), Fathom Events is bringing the beloved nightmare-fueler back to cinemas this fall. USA Today is reporting that fans will be able to attend screenings of the movie from September 11 and 14, 2016, in select theaters nationwide ahead of the September 20 release of the 30th Anniversary special edition Blu-ray.

YES! Full Story Here.

Outright Sacrilege. Diabolical. Demonic.

I don’t do television these days, but even when I did, I didn’t watch SNL anymore, because I seldom found it funny. They do get it right now and then though, and the God Is A Boob Man sketch was one of those. (PZ has the video, but it is uStates-centric). Pat Boone (Do people younger than a dinosaur even know who he is?) is thoroughly riled up about it, and he’s certainly giving the skit a whole hell of a lot more power than it actually has.

Pat Boone Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images


Pat Boone
Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Pat Boone is calling out NBC and Saturday Night Live for allegedly being anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, cowardly, “diabolical” and even demonic for a skit over the weekend that parodied God’s Not Dead 2, the actor-singer’s latest movie.

[…]

Boone called NBC and SNL cowardly because executives and creative talent know they can pick on Christians without fear of reprisal, whereas political correctness dictates that some other groups are off-limits.

“This skit was outright sacrilege. They know if they did this to Muslims they’d have to be put into the witness protection program,” he said. “There’s nothing sacred at SNL — except maybe the words ‘Mohammad’ or ‘Allah.’ They’d never take those names in vain, but when they called God a ‘boob man,’ they took his name in vain.”

There’s just the little problem of ‘God’ being a placeholder. It’s not the actual name of your god, so maybe it’s taking a placeholder in vain, but I don’t recall that being a specific no-no.

Oh my. We’ve never heard that line of reasoning before, oh no. Full rant here.