NaNoWriMo RE: Sex between a teenager and a 49-year-old – any way of making it non-creepy?

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Sex between a teenager and a 49-year-old – any way of making it non-creepy?

the_alchemist

Sex between a teenager and a 49-year-old – any way of making it non-creepy?

0 / 50,000 Official Participant Joined: Oct 4, 2003 Location: Brixton, London Posts: 21 Posted on: Oct 13, 2010 – 06 57

I’m not writing erotica as such, but I’m writing a fantasy novel in which a sixteen-year-old (though I could make her a year or so older if anyone things that would significantly help matters) has sex with her tutor who is in his late forties or so. They need to have sex because they need to have a baby together to Save The World. She has a crush on him, and is really quite keen on the idea. He doesn’t fancy people that young (and probably doesn’t fancy people that female either – it’s ambiguous), but is up for it for world-saving reasons, though embarrassed and worried about her. (Which makes him sound like a nicer person than he is – he’s generally grumpy, sarcastic and has high standards which she doesn’t even nearly live up to.) Any tips on how to write this relationship without it being too creepy and icky? Anyone read anything similar that I could look at for inspiration? ———-

Would you all consider me to be creepy if I told you that at age 16 I had sex with my 43 year old Sunday School teacher/High Priest and today 23 years later I’m still with him, even though we have to keep the whole thing secret from his church otherwise they’d excommunicate him? (Wow – would my life make a great story plot or what?)

Because of my own personal relationship with him, huge age differances tend to crop up in the books and short stories I write (I’m a write what I know kind of writer) and this year’s NaNovel is no exception. This year I’ve got a 14 year old girl vs a 70 year old man.

I will tell you one thing – if she is under 18, you will have a really hard time getting published. You’d be self pubbing it, and NOT through LuLu as they won’t allow underage sex to be self pubbed with them. You’d have to go through a local print shop, or buy a printing press to set up in your kitchen. Age difference alone is a tough sell and publishers what salable works. A girl under 18, with a man over 20 is ILLEGAL to publish in the United States. You are dealing with “banned book” territory, if by chance your book does get published, it’ll be pulled of shelves in a matter of days and shreaded. (Been there, done that.) Most publishers only accept teen/old sex if the man is a pedophile and the story is a court crime case to put him in prison. Otherwise you yourself risk being sued and going to prison as a “writer of child pornography”. This is a VERY risky area to try to get published…because if someone reads your book, than has sex with a teen, you could be blamed for having put the idea into their head…it happens…thus why there are laws against writing child porn, and any sex between a -18 and a 21+ is classified as “child porn” in the USA. This is what I write. I write this stuff all the time, I have to know the laws and loopholes, otherwise nothing I write could ever get published. He has to be potrayed as an evil villain and she has to be portraied as a innocent victim, otherwise you are getting into a huge mess of legal issues. So if you plan to publish it, you MUST change her age to 18+ wither you want to or not.

If publication is not your goal, than leave it as is, and write it out exactly the way you feel fits best for your story wither it feels icky and creepy or not. (Hey, icky and creepy may turn out the be exactly the best way to portray it, if he’s not very willing to go for her – he may very well be feeling icky and creeped out over having sex with a girl her age.).

From having been there and done that myself, I can tell you that when people, strangers, family, and friends find out what is going on, your couple will come up against some pretty radical hate. On October 21, 2006 members of his church burned my house down. (see http://www.squidoo.com/OnBeingHomeless2 ) and on May 5, 2010 a woman from his congregation stole my car and cut it in half (see http://www.squidoo.com/StolenCar ) . We’ve had to change congregations 5 times over the past 23 years, even though today I am 35 years old! He is now an elderly man and I still love him, I still stand by him, and we still have to deal with a lot of bad mouthing, nose snubbing, and hate crimes. Church members long ago branded me a whore and him a pedophile and those are words we still have thrown at us all these years later. There have been people who try to convince me to take him to court on rape charges, than freak out when I refuse to agree with them.

I have known 3 other couples with similar age differences, and all 3 of them went through similar shunning and vandalisms we went through, and all 3 of those relationships crumbled under the stress, because the relationships were built totally on lust and sex, not love and respect. In order for a big age difference relationship to last, you have to have a tough skin and be willing to stand by your lover no matter what. You will lose friends and be disowned by family, and people will try dragging the man to court and say the girl is too incompitant to know what he was doing to her. I know, because it’s what we’ve had to deal with for the last 23 years. (We are both Mormons btw.)

Need help with NaNoWriMo?
Check out these:
The 13 Step Method
The Top 5 NaNoWriMo Tools
Creating Character Profiles
Voodoo Dolls for Writers
Those super soft extra fluffy scarfs I wear to Write-Ins

Want to network with me?
http://www.keen.com/EelKat
http://twitter.com/EelKat
http://www.facebook.com/EelKat
http://eknano.blogspot.com
http://eelkat.wordpress.com
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659

This blog is part of:

The NaNoWriMo Blogchain!

>NaNoWriMo RE: Sex between a teenager and a 49-year-old – any way of making it non-creepy?

>

Home » Forums » Genre Lounges » Erotic Fiction

Sex between a teenager and a 49-year-old – any way of making it non-creepy?

the_alchemist

Sex between a teenager and a 49-year-old – any way of making it non-creepy?

0 / 50,000 Official Participant Joined: Oct 4, 2003 Location: Brixton, London Posts: 21 Posted on: Oct 13, 2010 – 06 57

I’m not writing erotica as such, but I’m writing a fantasy novel in which a sixteen-year-old (though I could make her a year or so older if anyone things that would significantly help matters) has sex with her tutor who is in his late forties or so. They need to have sex because they need to have a baby together to Save The World. She has a crush on him, and is really quite keen on the idea. He doesn’t fancy people that young (and probably doesn’t fancy people that female either – it’s ambiguous), but is up for it for world-saving reasons, though embarrassed and worried about her. (Which makes him sound like a nicer person than he is – he’s generally grumpy, sarcastic and has high standards which she doesn’t even nearly live up to.) Any tips on how to write this relationship without it being too creepy and icky? Anyone read anything similar that I could look at for inspiration? ———-

Would you all consider me to be creepy if I told you that at age 16 I had sex with my 43 year old Sunday School teacher/High Priest and today 23 years later I’m still with him, even though we have to keep the whole thing secret from his church otherwise they’d excommunicate him? (Wow – would my life make a great story plot or what?)

Because of my own personal relationship with him, huge age differances tend to crop up in the books and short stories I write (I’m a write what I know kind of writer) and this year’s NaNovel is no exception. This year I’ve got a 14 year old girl vs a 70 year old man.

I will tell you one thing – if she is under 18, you will have a really hard time getting published. You’d be self pubbing it, and NOT through LuLu as they won’t allow underage sex to be self pubbed with them. You’d have to go through a local print shop, or buy a printing press to set up in your kitchen. Age difference alone is a tough sell and publishers what salable works. A girl under 18, with a man over 20 is ILLEGAL to publish in the United States. You are dealing with “banned book” territory, if by chance your book does get published, it’ll be pulled of shelves in a matter of days and shreaded. (Been there, done that.) Most publishers only accept teen/old sex if the man is a pedophile and the story is a court crime case to put him in prison. Otherwise you yourself risk being sued and going to prison as a “writer of child pornography”. This is a VERY risky area to try to get published…because if someone reads your book, than has sex with a teen, you could be blamed for having put the idea into their head…it happens…thus why there are laws against writing child porn, and any sex between a -18 and a 21+ is classified as “child porn” in the USA. This is what I write. I write this stuff all the time, I have to know the laws and loopholes, otherwise nothing I write could ever get published. He has to be potrayed as an evil villain and she has to be portraied as a innocent victim, otherwise you are getting into a huge mess of legal issues. So if you plan to publish it, you MUST change her age to 18+ wither you want to or not.

If publication is not your goal, than leave it as is, and write it out exactly the way you feel fits best for your story wither it feels icky and creepy or not. (Hey, icky and creepy may turn out the be exactly the best way to portray it, if he’s not very willing to go for her – he may very well be feeling icky and creeped out over having sex with a girl her age.).

From having been there and done that myself, I can tell you that when people, strangers, family, and friends find out what is going on, your couple will come up against some pretty radical hate. On October 21, 2006 members of his church burned my house down. (see http://www.squidoo.com/OnBeingHomeless2 ) and on May 5, 2010 a woman from his congregation stole my car and cut it in half (see http://www.squidoo.com/StolenCar ) . We’ve had to change congregations 5 times over the past 23 years, even though today I am 35 years old! He is now an elderly man and I still love him, I still stand by him, and we still have to deal with a lot of bad mouthing, nose snubbing, and hate crimes. Church members long ago branded me a whore and him a pedophile and those are words we still have thrown at us all these years later. There have been people who try to convince me to take him to court on rape charges, than freak out when I refuse to agree with them.

I have known 3 other couples with similar age differences, and all 3 of them went through similar shunning and vandalisms we went through, and all 3 of those relationships crumbled under the stress, because the relationships were built totally on lust and sex, not love and respect. In order for a big age difference relationship to last, you have to have a tough skin and be willing to stand by your lover no matter what. You will lose friends and be disowned by family, and people will try dragging the man to court and say the girl is too incompitant to know what he was doing to her. I know, because it’s what we’ve had to deal with for the last 23 years. (We are both Mormons btw.)

Need help with NaNoWriMo?
Check out these:
The 13 Step Method
The Top 5 NaNoWriMo Tools
Creating Character Profiles
Voodoo Dolls for Writers
Those super soft extra fluffy scarfs I wear to Write-Ins

Want to network with me?
http://www.keen.com/EelKat
http://twitter.com/EelKat
http://www.facebook.com/EelKat
http://eknano.blogspot.com
http://eelkat.wordpress.com
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659

This blog is part of:

The NaNoWriMo Blogchain!

PLEASE . . . . somebody, anybody. . . . PLEASE HELP ME!

They just now, just called again. Again demanding that I come into the the bishop’s office at the church tonight, again demanding that I meet with the Stake President. And again it has triggered a mass panic attack. It’s happening again. JUST LIKE BEFORE. I can’t stop shaking. My chest hurts and my lungs hurt. My hands are shaking so bad I can barely type this. It’s like before. Only, I’m shaking a lot worse, it’s so bad my glasses keep falling off. I can’t stop shaking. I can’t breath.

It’s like before, like a panic attack, only really, really, really bad. Why won’t they leave me alone. I need them to leave me alone. Please make them leave me alone. I don’t know if I can live through many more of these stroke like attacks. I have one every time they call. Please make them stop calling me. Tell them to leave me a lone. Please help me. I can’t stop shaking. My whole body is skaking all over I don’t know what to do.

Please call the church at 607-9517 or 207-666-3481 and tell them to leave me alone (I find the 666 in their # ironic) Ask for Robert Taylor. He is the counselor in charge of handling phone calls to the Stake Presadent of the Augusta Maine Stake.

You can read more about this 31 year on going harassment at the following links:

Excommunication for publishing my 2008 NaNoWriMo Book – Update

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HELP! Any doctors out there? Medical advice?

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Health UPDATE – Stroke caused by panic attack triggered by LDS Church excommunication threats :(

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Still Planning on Doing NaNoWriMo this year in spite of recent health issues

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Eleven Days Til NaNoWriMo and Stroke Update

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For Those interested- here is the Final (edited and spell checked) Draft of For Fear of Little Men, my 2008 NaNoWriMo book

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My Aliens vs Your Demons – Yep – If I’m Crazy, What Are You???????

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The Poison Pen Letters Return – AGAIN

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Excommunication – 2008 NaNoWriMo book banned – Update – My Inbox if overloading – a mass reply going here

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REPOST: For Fear of Little Men: First Draft of my autobiography book to be published in 2010+/-

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Note – I have not been to the LDS/Mormon church in 13 years, and yet, they continue to harass me on an almost daily basis.

In 2004 I started writing “Faith Not Religion”, my infamous 900 page rant on why I left the Mormon church. It was during the two years where I just sat there doing nothing but writing that book that I finally realized for the first time in my life that I WASN’T evil, like so many bishop kept telling me! I wasn’t demon possessed, like so many bishop kept telling me . What I was, was a victim of 27 years of mental and emotional abuse at the hands of a bunch of crazy tyrants. While writing “Faith Not Religion” I learned quite a bit about myself. Among them I learned:

I’m tired of being told I’m a witch.
I’m tired of being told I’m evil.
I’m tired of being told I do the things I do because I’m possessed by a demon.
I’m tired of being told I’m going to hell.
I’m tired of being told I’m inferior because I’m a lowly female.
I’m tired of being told not to talk because that’s reserved for men.
I’m just plain tired of BEING TOLD.
Every one talks to me, no one ever talks with me.
I want freedom from BEING TOLD.
I wish, that there was someone who would actually treat me like I was a person. Like I was important. Like I mattered.
I’m tired of being harassed by these people.
I’m tired of it.
Putting up with the abuse all those years was killing me.
Them killing my pets was an evil act.
Them paintballing my car was an evil act.
Them throwing rocks at and blinding my horse, was an evil act.
Them burning my drawings in the woodstove was and evil act.
Them burning my manuscripts in the wood stove was an evil act.
Them saying I was evil was an evil act.
They were the ones who were evil, not me.
Not being allowed to get a job because I was a female, was an evil thing for them to do to me.
Them smashing my Liberace` records was an evil act.
Them stealing parts off of my car and leaving it in ruins was an evil act.
Them setting fire to my home and leaving me homeless was an evil act.

Please put an end to this before they cause my death. I don’t think I can live through another stroke. PLEASE HELP ME!. Please call the church at 607-9517 or 207-666-3481 and tell them to leave me alone (I find the 666 in their # ironic) Ask for Robert Taylor. He is the counselor in charge of handling phone calls to the Stake Presadent of the Augusta Maine Stake. Please. call him. PLEASE! Why won’t they leave me alone. I need them to leave me alone. Please make them leave me alone. I don’t know if I can live through many more of these stroke like attacks. I have one every time they call. Please make them stop calling me. Tell them to leave me a lone. Please help me. I can’t stop shaking. My whole body is shaking all over I don’t know what to do. Please some one help me.

Waiting for Emmett to come.

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Tagged: authors, Biddeford, book cencorship, church corruption, church leaders, evil, Family, For Fear of Little Men, harassment, Life, life blogging, Maine, my thoughts on…, Old Orchard Beach, religion, religious leaders, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Wendy C. Allen, Writing Life, York county

NaNoWriMo RE: Why does CreateSpace ask for your social security number?

Equuestriaan	Why does CreateSpace ask for your social security number?
51,083 / 50,000 Official Participant Joined: Nov 6, 2008 Location: Haverford, PA Posts: 30 Posted on: Dec 9, 2009 – 18 33	My mom won’t let me do the createspace thing because it makes you give your social security number! Any idea why they ask for that?

Because you are creating an account to sell books, and every time you sell a book they have to report the sale to the IRS so that the IRS knows who is not paying their taxes. All online sites that are not scams ALWAYS ask for your SSN. That’s how you can pick out a scam operation fast. (Though, a lot of scammer will ask for your SSN as well; but no legitimate place will ever NOT ask you for it either.)

As long as you are over 12 years of age and are bringing in an income, you have to report all your income to the IRS. Even if you do not earn enough to have to pay taxes, you still have to fill out the tax forms and send them in.

The IRS requires your SSN. Than they cross reference it with all registered businesses, that have you listed on their payroll, to make certain that you are not skipping out on reporting any of your earned income.

That’s why places like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Suidoo, LuLu, CreareSpace, Associated Content, etc, ask for your SSN. Because you are selling a product on line, which means you are the owner of a home business, and these sites act as the middle man to collect pay from the buyer and give it to you the seller. They also keep a record of every sale and every penny they send you. Than in April they send all that information to the IRS.

That same April, you have to send your personal records to the IRS as well. The IRS checks to make sure that the info you sent matches the info the company sent.

In other words, if you sell books via CreateSpace and CreateSpace tells the IRS you sold those books, the IRS than knows that you will be sending in your tax forms. If you do not send those records in, the IRS uses the SSN to track you down, come to your house and put you (or your parents if you are under 18 years old) in jail for tax evasion.

(And even before CreateSpace tells them, the IRS already know you sold the book, because that is what an ISBN does – that’s why you can not legally sell a book in the USA without an ISBN on it – the IRS uses the ISBN to track book sales.)

CreateSpace is required by law to keep a record of the SSN of each of their authors, otherwise the IRS will shut them down.

In other words – it’s required by USA law, that every business has a record of each of their employees SSN for tax purposes, and by signing up with CreateSpace, you become a self employed freelancer who has hired CreatSpace to act as your middle man to collect money from your customers.

Incubus: Fear the Night!

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Plagiarism Update: Sent Report To WordPress

Plagiarism Update: Sent Report To WordPress

I have just sent a report on this evil thief’s activities to WordPress. I urge anyone with the sewing related WordPress blog to look at the thief’s blog and see if your posts are being stolen. If they are, please send a report to WordPress as well. If there is a way to identify this plager and send them to jail, let me know, because I will pursue that course of action. As an author I take plagiarism very seriously, and so should you. Well, at least they chose the right name for their blog: Scum Bag Clothing. I can’t think of anything that makes a person more of a scumbag than being a thief.

Here is a copy of the letter I sent to WordPress:

Posts off of more than 30 different WordPress blogs (all sewing topics) are being copied and posted word for word, picture for picture, on someone else’s blog!

I use CopyScape on my posts, and CopyScape notified me that my posts were being copied and distributed on someone else’s blog without my permission, so I went to their blog to check and CopyScape was right. They copied everything, word for word, picture for picture… even the CopyScape plagiarizing warning gif!

Because they are copying posts off of my sewing blog, so I started checking all the other posts on their blog, and they’ve plagiarized every single post on their blog, by stealing posts and pictures off of other people’s blogs! I’ve only checked the posts for Jun so far, but so far I’ve counted over 30 different WordPress blogs from which they are stealing posts and hotlinking images from!

Here is their blog link:

http://www.scumbagclothing.com/category/dressmaking/

I don’t know how to stop them. I’ve been trying to find a way to notify their blog host, but so far have not had any luck. If you know of a way to stop them from stealing the posts off of our blogs, please let me know, cause I don’t like them claiming that they wrote the articles I wrote. They are even displaying my drawings on their blog and claiming they drew them!

Sorry for the rant, but I thought you’d want to know that they’ve been stealing posts and passing them off as theirs.

This is so frustrating. I put so much work into writing my articles and drawing my artwork, and I know other folks do as well. It’d be one thing if they were linking back to our blogs with a review or something, but they are claiming that they wrote all of these posts and drew all of the art and took all of the photos themselves!

Is there a law enforcement agency I can contact about this? I was told that the FBI had an identity theft division that handles online predators that steal other peoples identities. Should I contact the FBI about this? I mean who ever is running this blog is claiming to be me, by saying they wrote those articles, so that’s identity theft as far as I can tell.

What should I do?

Is there anything that you can do about it, since they are stealing posts off of WordPress blogs?

Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs Fitting rooms

This post comes from my other blog, but it’s a work related issue, that I would have to consider, when I finialy get to the point where I have my own fashion store, so I am copying it here to this blog as well.

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go to EK’s Star Log and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

I also wonder, what policies should I put into my store’s guidelines for dealing with situations like this? What about transgendered employees? I’ll have to consider all the laws and such. How does one go about dealing with laws when starting a business? So many things to consider.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs Fitting rooms

This post comes from my other blog, but it’s a work related issue, that I would have to consider, when I finialy get to the point where I have my own fashion store, so I am copying it here to this blog as well.

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go to EK’s Star Log and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

I also wonder, what policies should I put into my store’s guidelines for dealing with situations like this? What about transgendered employees? I’ll have to consider all the laws and such. How does one go about dealing with laws when starting a business? So many things to consider.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs Fitting rooms

This post comes from my other blog, but it’s a work related issue, that I would have to consider, when I finialy get to the point where I have my own fashion store, so I am copying it here to this blog as well.

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go to EK’s Star Log and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

I also wonder, what policies should I put into my store’s guidelines for dealing with situations like this? What about transgendered employees? I’ll have to consider all the laws and such. How does one go about dealing with laws when starting a business? So many things to consider.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

>Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs fitting rooms

>

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go back and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs fitting rooms

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go back and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs fitting rooms

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go back and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Drag Queens & Transvestites vs Maine Law vs fitting rooms

If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go back and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.

Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.

Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.

This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?

It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.

I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).

So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…

I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.

Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.

Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.

So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.

Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.

What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.

What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.

And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.

If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*