gdp's Comments

The Wild Hunt : Catskill Appeals in Maetreum Ruling and other Pagan News of Note

Sat, 9 Apr 2011 14:15:15 +0000

Like us, the Town of Catskill hires attorneys.......in this case a particular law firm. That law firm gets to charge all billable hours to the Town. My guestimate at this point, given the figures the town has released on their budget for these cases, is that they have now spent somewhere in excess of 100 thousand at this point just to discriminate against us. Rev. Cathryn Platine

The Wild Hunt : Update: Gender, Transgender, Religious Rites, and Inclusion

Sat, 5 Mar 2011 19:46:58 +0000

Ok, I'll wade in at this point.........I was born intersexed, surgically made transsexual at birth by a doctor's decision so I should have some standing here, not to mention four intense years of trans advocacy lobbying federal and state legislators and testifying before legislative body. I organized the only LGBT Katrina relief fund and when I first became physically disabled I took everything I had in the world to pool with a couple of others to start a place for newly transitioned women to get back on their feet. Now that said, the vast majority, like more than 90% of disrespect of my own womanhood came from the trans communities themselves because although I am quite in favour of freedom of identity, I am decidedly binary by nature and will not allow others to define me as something different. We have seen the term cis tossed around, it's a term transgender people invented to separate themselves from men and women. It would seem self evident that if you separate yourself from something, you aren't that something. If you go to woman only space as anything other than a standard garden variety woman, you don't belong there. As for attacks on womanhood, my own is in no way diminished because some random second waver had a problem with it.......and the weird thing is, most of them do not as a result. I would never dream of demanding entry to a group that had a problem with who I am, it simply isn't worth the time and effort and again, does not have a real effect on who I actually am.

The Wild Hunt : Update: Gender, Transgender, Religious Rites, and Inclusion

Sat, 5 Mar 2011 15:00:26 +0000

I have not seen Raven Kaldera's book "Hermaphrodeities" mentioned in any of these discussions. It is in it's second edition as of 2008, ISBN 978-0-578-00791-5 I am interviewed in that edition and that interview is available at http://wp.me/pykW4-L for any who care to read it. I've been staying out of these conversations despite that I wrote the source material recovering the transsexual priestesses in the ancient world because it is not cut and dry, it is not about simple discrimination by the Dianics and many of the most vocal trans-spokes persons are not victims but bullies......there is no balance and there are no easy answers here. For what it's worth, to the best of my knowledge Raven and I are the only workers with trans dead.

The Wild Hunt : Pagan Community Notes: PaganDASH Campaign, Post-PantheaCon Stories, Cherry Hill Seminary, and more!

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:32:54 +0000

Ok, I am going to address this about Cybele. Yes, many of the priestesses of Cybele were transsexual women, women who corrected their bodies to the maximum amount possible (and it was a lot more than most realize) that much is true, but what Nestis is ignoring or unwaware of, EVERY Mother Goddess tradition of the ancient world also had transsexual priestesses, every single one. Cybele was associated with transsexual priestesses because of the rants of second century Christian apologists and it was the primary Mother Goddess tradition in Rome. Ignored is that most of the prominent matrons of Rome were also Cybeline priestesses and proud enough of that to display it on their memorial markers. I am the founder of the Cybeline revivial, the Maetreum of Cybele. We have been called a trans religion which has harmed us in the beginning because we are not. We are open to all sexual orientations and gender identities. Our only restriction is regarding joining our priestesshood, that requires a female body. Personally, I was born a hermaphrodite, a true one (tetragametic chimera). That said, I have no problem with Dianic groups setting the parameters of who takes part in their rituals because, believe me, this "trans" issue is anything but clear cut in either direction. For the record, our priestesshood has more non-trans women than women born transsexed and is not the goal of our thealogical practice to be a priestess, a position of lifelong commitment to charitable works, spiritual healing and awakening the Goddess part in others. If the Dianic groups view their membership the same was we do our priestesshood, it is a sisterhood that requires the other sisters to fully embrace new priestesses. Demanding they change that is unreasonable and bigoted by itself. It is not "transphobic". Even being trans affirming we have had our share of trans drama directed at us, some quite destructive in nature. Personally, I have never understood how someone randomly questioning my womanhood actually had any affect on it at all. Lot's of my butch lesbian friends have had the same happen to them without internal damage to their own womanhood.

The Wild Hunt : Merlin Stone 1931 - 2011

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:37:00 +0000

Merlin Stone's book handed me the keys to re-examine all the research I had done before. She changed my life. Yes, she deserves a memorial or even a thousand such. Rest well in the arms of the Goddess Merlin you changed lives for the better and nothing is more significant than that.

The Wild Hunt : Quick Note: Maetreum of Cybele Makes the New York Times

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 09:37:25 +0000

an email exchange with the Capital Area director, whom I'm met in the past. No reason, just not interested....

The Wild Hunt : Quick Note: Maetreum of Cybele Makes the New York Times

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:39:21 +0000

and I just recontacted NYCLU and was blown off again

The Wild Hunt : Quick Note: Maetreum of Cybele Makes the New York Times

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:44:30 +0000

Twice in the past and they refused.

TransGriot : Transsexuality Is A Medical Condition, Not A Community Identifier

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:39:49 +0000

I ended our friendship because you are a racist.........pure and simple. That WWBT shit you pulled one time too many and I told you as much when I defriended you. You just went racist in your reply.........proving my point for all to see. I cared deeply for you and I moved east. I never again attended any dressup conventions and was flat out driven out of activism by your buds. In spite of all that, when I became disabled I took everything I had left and invested it in trying to provide a place for newly transitioned women to bootstrap themselves. When Katrina hit it was only Ethan and myself that organized the only LGBt relief effort. You were nowhere to be seen for either of these efforts even though both were totally colourblind. Now is when you once again tell me never to comment on your blog...simple, I'd rather forget you and I are on the same planet so get the hell out of my life, stay out of it and never mention my name again.

TransGriot : Transsexuality Is A Medical Condition, Not A Community Identifier

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:58:15 +0000

My personal webpage is still up because that was the first thing the slimeball attorney used to throw mud at us in an attempt to obscure the issues of actual religious bigotry and that ship sailed years ago. He even used an essay I wrote in 03 on setting up housing cooperatives for transsexuals to "prove" we aren't a real religion against all logic. All my blogging is done under nicks as a direct result. Ashley tagged me by name in a number of those discussion threads on facebook, I asked her to stop doing so and unlike you, she complied. You will note I removed almost all comments and tags by name on facebook on those threads and elsewhere when I realized my privacy settings on FB didn't apply to her postings there. I am not represented as trans anything on my Facebook profile, my FB settings retain a degree of privacy, my FB activity is 99.9% unrelated to anything trans reflecting my actual life. I estimate it costs us around a grand in legal fees each time slimeball attorney uses these things to just counter it. I expect this sort of behaviour and disrespect from lowlife sociopathic transgenders such as Dyssonance and Sandeen, not you. You actually attended our first public celebration of our religious faith at the Serpent Mound in southern Ohio back in 99 when we were still friends. Your reaction now is an example of why we are no longer friends. Being trans is the central aspect of your life, not mine, my religious activities are the primary focus of my life. Transgenders are my enemy, here is yet another example of why and why almost every other woman of history does not use her real name online to counter you transgenders. In my case, my name was long out there but I can and do reduce it's connection to my exercise of free speech in current time.

TransGriot : Transsexuality Is A Medical Condition, Not A Community Identifier

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:00:37 +0000

That picture of me is copyright protected.....please remove it. Also, I take a lot of care NOT to have my full name in the open on the internut in real time due to a long ongoing legal battle our religious home is engaged in against a very nasty and vicious cyberstalking attorney. Please remove my last name from this posting.

RENWL : Autumn Sandeen: Transgender Leader Or Get Equal's Auntie Tomasina?

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:15:53 +0000

The DSM V revision does eliminate the mental disorder diagnosis of classic transsexuals. Once we are physically corrected and proceed with our lives we are to be considered "cured". As I was saying more than three years ago, TG people should not prove they are mentally ill to those making up the rules about who is mentally ill, but they did, in spades. Someone ran a piece on Sandeen on TS-Si earlier this year, pretty much nailed the selfless thing for what it was.

TransGriot : The Trans Community Ain't Monolithic, Either.

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:33:06 +0000

I may be a separatist but it was your "community" that separated from me first rather than the other way around and did so with violence on my life, my life work, my ability to simply live.

TransGriot : The Lost Sisterhood....Dealing With Transwomen

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 20:22:35 +0000

I have a lot of sisters, almost none of trans history. Women of trans history have, for the most part, made damn sure I know I am not a sister to them and that includes TG and Women of history both. At this point in my life that is fine with me, I'm one of the women among the women

The Wild Hunt : Pagans and Park51

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:47:37 +0000

Ok, as someone who is in the middle of a four year battle for legal equality of our own tradition I have to speak out. I believe in principles and the Constitution and that means you defend the rights of others if you wish any reasonable equality yourself. It's that simple. Free speech means you defend that right even for those you disagree with. Freedom of religion means all religions. I was recently deposed for four long hours on the Maetreum of Cybele case where over and over the legitimacy and sincerity of our beliefs were challenged over and over along with my own credentials in open violation of the law. We have been fighting the same battle now being fought nationally as Pagans that the Muslims are facing. It is no different. And I spent part of my childhood in India and that included a lot of Muslim friends. The average Muslim is no more a terrorist than the average Methodist. That's reality. The problem in Islam is the same we see in Christianity, the literalist extremists. There is no shortage of Christian terrorists who bomb abortion clinics and other acts of terrorism. There is no difference in these fundamentalists either. If you tar all Muslims for the acts of the extremists, logic dictates you do the same with all Christians. Is anyone seriously considering that a good idea?

The Wild Hunt : Update on the Maetreum of Cybele Saga

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:19:53 +0000

NYCLU absolutely refused to help us.....they never "stepped in" other than a letter that simply went over points of law we had been in full compliance with all along. We have filed all the required paperwork for our exemption each and every year, followed the appeals process and routinely denied over and over and over without an actual cause. This year our attorney represented us in the Board of Appeals proceeding and filed a 13 page legal opinion stating all the various points of law the Town was in open violation of with around 30 additional pages of supporting documentation.......we were denied again without an actual reason given. In 2009 when the narrow window of time for court action came around, I requested NYCLU help in that and was totally blown off forcing me to file pro se, without a lawyer. The judge allowed us the time to find an attorney which took months and months to keep the case open. NYCLU could have represented us and saved us all this grief but refused to. In New York a corporation must be represented by an attorney.......not a corporate officer.

The Wild Hunt : Update on the Maetreum of Cybele Saga

Fri, 7 May 2010 17:02:55 +0000

We are in the hamlet of Palenville on route 23a between Catskill and Hunter Mountain. We have open "cafe" hours every Saturday, lots of events that are listed on our webpage and love to have Pagans come and visit. We also welcome other Pagan groups to use our property and plan on setting up a generic circle in our back meadow for this in the near future. Rev. Cathryn Platine