Summary
At first we were all nervous, of course, but when I've gone back and listened to that first program, I've enjoyed the clear statement I made of the show's purpose and our intentions. GenderTalk's purpose is to provide a forum in which diverse gender perspectives can be presented in a respectful environment. We bring underrepresented voices forward and encourage healthy social and environmental alternatives. We try to be collaborative in producing the program and include other progressive issues in the hope of fostering collaborations among diverse groups. We know that the world is an enormously complex place where we cannot hope to understand all of the interactions that influence any one issue, so we try to use the program to plant seeds of health, understanding, peace, and harmony. Now, more than ten years later, I feel amazed that we're still here, and hopeful that we'll find reason to keep at it for another ten years, at least.
Over the years, we've added features like Question of the Week, the announcements, and Gender News. Each one gave us an opportunity to serve listeners better, and to have a little more fun. We're all particularly fond of Evelien's Diary, produced by a trans woman in the Netherlands. She's a real sweetheart. She writes wonderful stories about her own real life that connect with the lived experience of many of us. We'd love to have more people around the world producing segments that talk about their true life experience; the more such stories we can tell, the better we can represent our community and share our ways of dealing with the everyday challenges we face.We've gone through some changes since the early days, and we're thrilled to have the enormously talented staff that now produces the program each week. Of course, it's a great pleasure to have someone as capable as [Gordene MacKenzie], author of Transgender Nation, as co-host and producer. Director of a growing Women's Studies department at Merrimack College, she's been raising the whole program to a higher level since 1999. A meticulous researcher, she brings to GenderTalk cutting edge guests in the world of gender and progressive politics. We're also pleased to have had Ethan St. Pierre and his wife Karen with us since late 2003. Ethan a transman, is a committed transactivist who suffered a trans murder in the family in 1995 when his MTF aunt Debra Forte was brutally murered. Ethan is highly motivated in this work. He hosts his own news and humor show ( TransFM) as well as brings the latest gender news to GenderTalk each week. Karen (an MTF transsexual) is an intelligent and thoughtful person who performs many behind-the-scenes tasks and co-anchors the news with Ethan, focusing on stories that make us all laugh or wonder. Lately, her participation has been limited by her health, but we are confident that she will overcome her physical challenges and be with us for the long run.See the full content of this document
Extract
An Interview with Nancy and Gordene
So, Aow was it being the Executive Director of IFGE?
Well, it sure wasn't easy, and not a lot of fun either, but I learned a lot. I volunteered for the job when other members of the executive committee were advocating shutting the organization down. Having served as a member of the board of directors for four years, I thought I knew the organization pretty well-but nothing could have prepared me for the challenges I would face. In particular, the lack of support I received surprised me more than the organizational problems. I had been around long enough to know the consensus of those working in Waltham on which direction the organization needed to go, but the board of directors was not so easily convinced. So I made some unilateral decisions that made me unpopular with some of the board members. But I w...See the full content of this document
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