Our Dead

Years ago, a bunch of girls decided to go to a gay bar after the conclusion of our support group meeting. I had never been, so I agreed to go to see what it was like. 

As it turned out, I didn't like it. Smoky dimly-lit bars are not my cup of tea, so I had one drink and hung around just long enough so that my clothes and wig stunk from the cigarette smoke.

The bar was not in the best neighborhood. The streets were not well lit and my car was parked a long block away. As I left the bar, another patron exited after me, followed me and began accosting me. He thought I was one of the girls performing in the bar’s drag show and he wanted a “date.”

I was very scared.

I ignored him and walked to my car as fast as possible. (In retrospect, I should have returned to the bar and asked for an escort to my car.) He finally gave up pursuit, I assume, because I would pay him no mind. I escaped unharmed, although a little unnerved, but others have not been so lucky. 

There are a lot of girls, who have turned up dead after being in similar situations (this year in record numbers) and we are about to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is next Friday and there will be events throughout the world next week to commemorate the event. Due to the pandemic, live in-person gatherings have given way to virtual meetings, so you will be able to participate from the safety of your computer. (Here, in Connecticut, the Metropolitan Community Church Hartford will be holding a virtual TDOR on November 20 at 7 PM via Zoom.)

In the past, there have been websites that listed all the TDOR events occurring throughout the world. This year, I cannot find such a website, so I cannot tell you where to look to find out what is going on in your area. If anyone knows where to look, please let me know and I will amend this post with that information.

(Thank you, Diana, for the information about Connecticut’s TDOR for 2020.)

Wearing Rotate

Paolo Sassanelli femulating in the “La Vendetta” episode of Italian television's Classe di Ferro.

This is another of my Foreign Film Femulating Finds. I don’t understand Italian and there were no English sub-titles or dubbings, so I had to piece together the plot from what I saw, not heard. According to IMDb, Classe di Fierro was a 1989-1990 Italian television series about “The funny misadventures of a group of guys serving at a military barrack in the north-east of Italy.” According to me, the plot of the “La Vendetta” episode was as follows. A group of wives want to catch their husbands in the act of philandering, so they enlist the Italian military for help. Four soldiers demonstrate their crossdressing talents to the affected wives and the wives choose one soldier who they believe is the best femulator. The wives select “Gabriela” (Paolo Sassanelli, pictured above) and he/she proceeds to work his/her magic on the unsuspecting husbands and all hell breaks loose.

You can view the film on YouTube. (If anyone understands Italian and can come up with a better description of the plot, please let me know.)

Wow, was I wrong!

Sara summarizes the plot in the first Comment below and Helene sent me a link to a more comprehensive description of the plot on the Italian Wikipedia website. Use Google Translate to translate the Italian description to the language of your choice.