UCSD pays for trans-species project.

Here is the press release that Ernie Grimm received: http://secondloop.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/press-… which begins with this summary of the project: Becoming Dragon questions the one year requirement of Real Life Experience that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive Gender Confirmation Surgery (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and asks if this could be replaced by one year of Second Life Experience to lead to Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas will live for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display, so that all she will see is Second Life and a motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life. The performance space will be open to the public for the duration, during the hours that the building is open, 9am to 7pm. During the entire duration of the performance Micha will stay in the performance space at CRCA and in Second Life. and then goes on to explain details...
— March 31, 2009 9:41 a.m.

UCSD pays for trans-species project.

As for homophobia vs. transphobia, I think that homophobia is largely based in a hatred of the feminine, and a fear of the loss of masculinity and a fear of anything that might destabilize patriarchy in our male supremacist city/country/society. So, I see transphobia and homophobia as closely linked. Also, in many cases, people don't understand what transgender even means, so they're actually just expressing homophobia when they are acting against trans people. Yet transphobic is more accurate. I can't imagine them saying to an effeminate man "I'm sorry, you can't be on today because of your feminine hand gestures." As for the technical vs social/conceptual merits, it is a new media performance art piece and as such the focus is on *interdisciplinary practice* and finding the critical *intersections* of technology and culture. And if you want to downoad all the source code for the motion capture and stereoscopic patches, some of which I wrote, you can do so at http://secondloop.wordpress.com , which is the project blog. That's another huge hole in the story, not pointing people to the huge wealth of documentation online. I see it the same way I see the cover image, in an effort to discredit and undermine the seriousness of the project. Seeing the images of the installation would probably make viewers more interested and sympathetic, and they'd realize the technical achievements involved, so the reader chose to not publish a single of my images, even though I provided them with hundreds. I wonder if KUSI is going to refuse a trans person from being on their station today. "I'm sorry, we can't have you on to talk about your son being shot / your store being broken into / your lost dog , because of what you're wearing. We're not talking about transgender issues today." Now that's a real "news" station for ya.
— March 30, 2009 12:18 p.m.

UCSD pays for trans-species project.

KUSI TV refuses to have me on because I’m transgender This is micha, the subject of Ernie's story and the artist behind Becoming Dragon. I am so upset. The reporter from the San Diego Reader, Ernie Grimm, contacted me a few weeks ago to ask if I would do a television interview with him when the story came out on the cover of the reader. I accepted and the reader’s publicist contacted me about TV interview dates. They scheduled an interview with me for this morning with an 8:50am arrival time for a 9:20am live air interview. I arrive on time, conservatively dressed with a long skirt and a scarf up to my neck. We chat cordially in the break room first and then move to the green room. The publicist goes to talk to the anchor, and returns at 9:18AM to say “Micha I have some uncomfortable news. I’m so sorry, but because of how you’re dressed, they can’t have you on the show.” She goes on to tell me how they want to cover the Second Life aspect of the story and not talk about transgender issues at all. This is absolutely an act of gender based discrimination. Imagine if they had said “I’m sorry, but because you’re a woman, we can’t have you on. We just wanted to talk about Second Life.” It is also very similar to them saying something like “I’m sorry, but because of the ay your face looks, we can’t have you on. We don’t want to talk about the fact that you’re black, just about Second Life,” if I was a person of color. Then the anchorwoman comes into the green room to personally apologize to me. I do not say anything in response. I refuse to say that this is acceptable. Admittedly, I laughed at the news at first, nervous and not sure of what to say. As I walk out the door, angry and upset, I realize that I should have told them right then and there that this is an act of discrimination. I am disgusted. You can contact KUSI to tell them what you think of their homophobic ways here, the show I was to be on is Good Morning San Diego: Email information News Story Ideas [email protected] Community Events [email protected] Good Morning San Diego [email protected] MAILING ADDRESS 4575 Viewridge Avenue San Diego, CA 92123 MAIN STATION NUMBER 858-571-5151 SALES 858-505-5120 NEWSROOM 858-571-NEWS (571-6397) NEWS TIPLINE 858-292-TIPS (292-8477) They proceeded to do the interview with Ernie, trying to avoid the issue, but even he couldn’t avoid saying that the project was about my, in his words “transgendering process”, and they both referred to me as “he” and with male pronouns for the entire interview, completely invisiblizing me. I should have never agreed to do the interview. I was actually up until almost 4am because I was so nervous and excited about doing the interview. I re-read Gloria Anzaldua for inspiration and read up on other cultures with traditions of cross-species transitions such as hinduism and buddhism.
— March 29, 2009 10:03 a.m.