Condoms and diaphragms can't always protect us.  Sometimes we need an umbrella:

From Prezi

 

A Little Close To Home

When I visit my parents, I usually fly into Daytona Airport.  It's about a half-hour drive from their house and next to the world-famous Speedway and beach.  I've been to the latter many times and have shopped in  stores and eaten in restaurants along International Speedway Boulevard, by myself and with my parents and on a bicycle as well as in a car or on foot.  Thankfully, I have never had any problems and, in fact, I have found most people helpful and friendly. 

So it was disturbing to hear about the gender-variant person who was beaten in the Citgo station along the Boulevard.  William Jackson, who was wearing a black and white dress, was jumped by a group of men half an hour after he broke up a fight between his girlfriends and another group of girls.  He says he was attacked because he likes to dress as a woman.

The attack is being investigated as a possible hate crimes because the attackers used slurs while beating Jackson.

Finding Out About Lola

Today I heard the Kinks' Lola on the radio.  That, in itself, is not so unusual:  "oldies" and "classic rock" stations play it all the time.  


I heard it over the PA system in a cafe where I stopped for a cup of tea on my way to my part-time gig.  Two young guys were working behind the counter.  One of them nudged the other:  "Yo, ya hear this song?"


"Yeah, so?"


"It's about a cross-dresser!"


His nomenclature may or may not be accurate.  Some think that "Lola" is a pre-op trans woman.  How would we know, just listening to the song?


But I couldn't help but to wonder how many times that young man heard the song before it occured to him that it's about a guy's encounter with a girl who turns out to be a guy.  I've heard other people say they heard the song for years before they actually listened to the lyrics.  They can be forgiven:  The song has a catchy tune and opens with some pretty good guitar work.


What's interesting about the song is that, near the end, the narrator says "But when I looked in her eyes, I almost fell for my Lola."  But, in the end, he avers, "Well I'm not the world's most masculine man/But I know what I am and I'm a glad I'm a man/And so is Lola."


Given that the song was released in 1970, it's amazing that there's anything at all about a cross-dresser or a trans woman.  Still, it's hard not to notice that the narrator goes, in the space of a stanza, from an almost-tolerant attitude to   one who doth protest too much, perhaps.