The B Side: Exploring Bisexuality is a 10 week group for people who are exploring their attraction to more than one gender or struggling with what their bisexuality means to them and their lives.

Mondays, 6:30-9:00pm
September 29 – December 8, 2008
Sherbourne Health Centre
333 Sherbourne Street

Topics: **exploring attraction ** bisexual myths & stereotypes ** relationships ** labels & identity issues ** coming out to friends, family & others ** bisexuality & our other identities ** finding support ** sex & safer sex ** biphobia ** health & well-being ** bisexual communities & resources **

The group will provide:
* Opportunities for self-reflection, personal sharing, connecting with others and learning new skills and information.
* Respect for the diverse possibilities of identity and a wide range of life experiences.
* A safe and supportive environment for exploring each person’s unique relationship to bisexuality, with a focus on group members’ needs and experiences.

Facilitated by:
* Cheryl Dobinson, a bisexual activist involved in bi-related education, health research and community development, and
* David Yeh, an LGBTQ community educator and expressive arts therapist.

Registration: Space is limited and pre-registration is required. To register, please contact Fatema Mullan at (416) 324-5256 or thebside@sherbourne.on.ca

My first post ever for Picks from Planet Venus was about Sarah Mangle, the singer-songwriter who plays the mini-ukulele and writes curious, queerious campfire songs for city kids.

So it pleases me to no end to announce that, one year later, she’s acquired a terrific backing band of string-players and they will be launching their album, congratulations ha ha ha, tomorrow night. Here’s an idea of what said band, Wet NOSE Hero, is like:

Imagine you’re watching a string quartet. I don’t know enough about classical music to tell you the shape and colour of their skill, but I can tell you they are drawing sweet and urgent strains from their instruments. Standing in front of the string quartet is The Little Prince. She is wearing a sailor hat and holding a ukulele that is barely bigger than a toy. (Maybe you remember that, like Peter Pan, The Little Prince is always played by a young woman.) She bounces up and down on the balls of her feet and yells into the microphone like she’s enormously frustrated. Then she’s singing in a voice that’s startling clear and melodic. She’s singing about construction sites and bad ideas and how her mom taught her to write love letters. You start thinking that the last time you saw your dear and far-away friend she was doing karaoke - she jogged on the spot and looked like an adorable pony, and you forgot to tell her. Okay, I lied. That’s not what Wet NOSE Hero is like. That is Wet NOSE Hero, plain and simple.

Here they are playing Congratulations at Burritoville in Montreal.

The launch takes places tomorrow, Friday the 29th at 9 PM, at the Eastern Bloc, 7240 Clark Ave. In Montreal. $6 gets you in the door, or pay $15 for the door and the album together, which is obviously the more sane option.

Drupal Chart in a Sock Heel (emmajane.net)

I’ve been building this site for the upcoming Pan-Canadian Young Feminist Gathering, Waves of Resistance/Toujours Rebelles, using “brand new to me” Drupal. In less techie terms, Drupal is an open source content management system (CMS), with the benefit being that non-professionals can learn to use this tool to build dynamic websites that they have full control over and can allow others to access the process with them.

It has definitely been a steep learning curve for all those involved (even me who has been working on-and-off in the internet world for a number of years), but working with an open-source project has been most rewarding. And now my love of Drupal has turned into a need to show my Drupal pride, especially since only 7% of Drupal users are women (we have our own support group over at Drupal Groups). So as soon as I can breathe a sigh of relief that the Rebelles2008 website is fully functioning I will cast these on: Drupal Socks and a Drupal .ico hat. Maybe soon I can too call myself a Drupal Ninja!

Challenge of the week: assert a boundary.

It was a rough weekend and the new week isn’t any more smooth.

I decide to just take care of myself and let the crises in my life sort themselves out. I order the medium instead of the default small. I let the dishes sit over night. I get a massage.

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From the National Center for lesbian Rights: Community Mourns The Loss of Beloved Civil Rights Leader Del Martin, 87.

Del Martin was instrumental in many civil rights struggles, from the founding of the first social group for lesbians, “Daughters of Bilitis”, in 1955 to her wedding two months ago to long-time partner Phyllis Lyon.

Photo Courtesy of the SFChronicle

For more photos visit: Lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin dies at 87
(SF Chronicle)

I think it is crucial to remember as we honor Del’s rich and wonderful life, that whether you identify as queer or not, the work these women did as Lesbian activists is of massive importance.

For more images visit the Sf Chronicle article photo page (Photo by Noah Berger)

Del and Phyllis struggled to live as they chose, and to be the people they wanted to be. They fought for the right to love one another as a matter of public record and without shame at a time when having rights related to intimacy and love was hardly even considered a feasible point of discussion for anyone, let alone members of North America’s nascent gay community.

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The iTunes franchise has quietly launched a totally free new section in their store, nestled between Podcasts and iPod Games.

It’s called iTunes U, and it contains (free) video and (free) audio courtesy of major universities, PBS and cultural institutions (like MoMA), effectively allowing you to sit in on classes and conferences all over the US. University of California Berkeley in particular has a huge selection of lectures posted.

Meet iTunes U.

It might be the robber baron business model, but for now I’m giving them three gold stars.

Have you tried it? Is iTunes U the new Wikipedia for time suckage?

Choice listserves are abuzz with the news that Stephen Harper and company recently decided to drop the notoriously anti-choice Bill C484 - also known as the “Unborn Victims of Crime” act, which threatened to give fetuses personhood status, as a backdoor way towards repealing abortion rights.

Instead they will draft a new bill that they say focuses more on punishing the person actually committing the crime against a pregnant woman (whoa so wait, did they just admit Mr. Epp tried to punish women more with his bogus bill? Nah, I’m too hopeful.)

It’s only too obvious that this is conveniently coming at a time when an election is looming this Fall, and we know only too well that the Conservative government can’t hide from its long anti-choice roots. They still won’t say anything about their support for abortion rights or do much anything to protect them.

I have to say that it was quite a good reminder this year that we all need to pay more attention to the scary anti-choicers out there and the sneaky ways they try to take away choice for what’s best for our own bodies, but we musn’t rest for too long.

There are a multitude of attempts going on every day that threaten us.

(Someday soon, Apple will teach us how to construct whole books out of one long amalgamated word.)

Sure, the word “etiquette” does bring to mind a world of doilies and curtsies. But that frilly frouffy word and what it represents can be the soft oreo centre between us crusty cookies.

We’re all squished up against each other on this tiny little interweb. And everybody’s got peeves (maybe the word “interweb” is one of them). What follows are some of mine. Or rather, not just a list of my peeves, but my peeves metamorphosed into a few of my personal rules for navigating this big bad abstracted world.

1. Remember the human
This phrasing is taken from elsewhere (though I forget where). And if I were going to rely on only one rule, this would be it.

The internet gives people anonymity, and people behave differently when they’re anonymous. You can’t even get anyone to come out to this lecture anymore, because we all think we know it off by heart.

And yet.

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I have the pleasure and privilege of being part of this amazing project, and I encourage you all to come out and have your senses disrupted at the launch party, tomorrow night!

Tomee Sojourner’s Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project explores living expressions of intersecting identities through the visual ‘essence’ of marginalized workers, activists, students, and community members. The EID Project aims to open spaces for critical intervention/disruption and dialogue around what we ‘see’ and understand about intersectional identities, and the underlying assumptions that surface in our multicultural framework where difference is acknowledged, and mainstream representations of diversity still compartmentalize people into immutable ethno-cultural identities.

Join Tomee Sojourner and the Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project Crew as they launch Phase I- 2009 Calendar and Posters.

Date: Thursday, 28 August 2008
Time: 7:30 p.m. until the last dancer out!
Venue: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St, Toronto

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