If you are a member of an LGBT family with young children, or the friend or the ally of an LGBT family with young children, or your an friend, family member,
or ally who wants to expose your children to what the broad, LGBT community looks like, you need to expose yourself and these children to the picture book 10,000 Dresses. This is the first picture book aimed at 5 to 7-year-olds I'm aware of with a transyouth as the main character. And, 10,000 Dresses is an absolutely beautifully written and illustrated book (written by Marcus Ewert; illustrations by Rex Ray). Frankly, I was expecting a mediocre children's book when I received a copy to review, and was extremely surprised at the quality of the book -- my eyes welled with tears the first three times I read it. From this artsy, trans woman's perspective: yes, the book is that good. This children's book is no doubt as important a work as Heather Has Two Mommies, and it certainly is as well done.
In fact, Lesléa Newman, the author of Heather Has Two Mommies, gives a back cover comment for 10,000 Dresses:
Three cheers for Bailey, whose creativity and artistic vision will inspire readers of all ages to celebrate exactly who they are.
The transyouth at the heart of the 10,000 Dresses is a child named Bailey. She's a child that is being told she's a boy when she really knows she's a girl. 
Each night she dreams of one of 10,000 magical dresses, and each day she tries to figure out a way to have significant people in her life help her obtain a magical dress. Many days she discovers she's not ever going to have that special dress she imagined in her dreams that night before. The story has a very happy ending -- I won't spoil it by describing it.
Perhaps the most important endorsement of 10,000 Dresses comes from Shannon Garcia, the president of TransYouth Family Allies (TYFA). 
She wrote a short review of the book for their Recommended Reading section:
10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert is a charming tale of a "boy" named Bailey who dreams of wearing dresses. His parents and brother tell him that boys don't wear dresses and Bailey is sad because she doesn't feel like a boy. Bailey finally meets a friend that understands the desire to wear dresses and helps her achieve that goal. It is a story with beautiful illustrations by Rex Ray that uses just enough words to say what is needed. I highly recommend it for children of all ages (adults too), although it is definitely a book that would be enjoyed by the under 10 crowd. 10,000 Dresses helps us understand the workings of the gender variant child's mind from their point of view and it is very nicely done.
10,000 Dresses is a very important book. If you're involved with LGBT families at all, don't skip this book. If you have a local bookstore nearby you -- especially a local LGBT bookstore -- ask them for a copy of the book. If they don't have a copy, ask them to order you a copy. Hey, you won't be sorry, and neither will the bookstore.
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10,000 Dresses
By: Marcus Ewert
Illustrated by: Rex Ray
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Hardcover: $14.95
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FaceBook: Ten-Thousand Dresses
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Further Reading:
* San Francisco Chronicle: '10,000 Dresses': A book about gender identity
Now that Mehserle is in custody, I wonder if we will see Oscar Grant's family receive justice, given the history of BART cops getting away with murder. The BART police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man on an Oakland train platform and then refused to explain his actions to investigators was arrested Tuesday in Nevada on suspicion of murder, authorities said.Appeared to be? Let's go to the videotape...Johannes Mehserle, 27, of Lafayette was taken into custody in Douglas County, Nev., said Deputy Steve Velez of the Douglas County sheriff's office. The arrest was also confirmed by David Chai, chief of staff to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.
Mehserle was arrested in the New Year's Day shooting of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old supermarket worker from Hayward who was lying facedown after being pulled off a BART train by police investigating a fight. An Alameda County judge signed an arrest warrant alleging murder, and Mehserle surrendered without incident, authorities said.
The shooting, which was recorded by passengers in videos widely circulated on the Internet and television, prompted public outrage, and some viewers said that the shooting appeared to be an execution.
Today there will be rallies, meetings, and actions nationwide to protest the kind of police state that results in the execution of an unarmed, handcuffed, subdued man on a public transit platform.
Prior to the announcement of Mehserle's arrest, Color of Change had issued a call for Attorney General Jerry Brown to take over the case and for the US Department of Justice to launch an independent investigation into the conduct of local authorities. The call included the disturbing history of violence by BART officers.
Oscar Grant is the third man murdered by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police in the past 17 years. All three victims were Black and none posed a serious threat. In each case, BART and county authorities have failed to hold the officers accountable....In the previous cases, BART's internal investigations concluded that the officers felt threatened by the victims and were justified in pulling the trigger. It's unbelievable given the circumstances of the killings:
- In 1992, 19-year-old Jerrold Hall was shot in the back by a BART officer as he tried to leave the parking lot of a station. The officer was responding to reports of an armed robbery and said he suspected that Hall and a friend were involved. The officer tried to detain the two, Hall ran and then the officer shot him in the back and killed him. Hall was unarmed, but the officer said he thought Hall was on his way to get a gun and return for a showdown.4
- In 2001, a mentally ill man named Bruce Seward was the next victim of the rogue force. Seward, 42, was naked and had been sleeping on a bench outside the BART station when an officer approached him. Seward did grab the officer's nightstick at one point, but there were several options for subduing him. Instead, the officer shot and killed him.5
In addition to BART's internal investigation, Alameda County's District Attorney is also investigating Oscar Grant's murder--but the office's record on investigating police killings is horrible too. In both cases just described, the District Attorney bought BART's argument that the officers felt threatened. As a result, the cops were cleared of any wrongdoing.
...The problem with Alameda County's DA goes beyond BART police murders. In the past two years alone, there have been 11 fatal police shootings in Oakland (not including that of Oscar Grant).6 When asked, the officials at the District Attorney's office could not remember a single case in the last 20 years where an on-duty cop had been charged in a fatal shooting in Alameda County.7 It gives the clear appearance that the District Attorney's office just doesn't have the will to prosecute police crimes.
The Windy City Times' publisher and executive editor Tracy Baim reports that in 1996, while running in the Illinois State Senate race (13th District), he fully supported marriage equality in his response to a survey by Outlines newspaper (the pub merged with WCT). This survey had been previously cited by the media without access to any supporting documentation. However, while going through archives for another project, Baim discovered the original survey response signed by Obama himself. It's unequivocal support:
[A]s Obama has run for higher office, from senator to president, he has further shaped his views on marriage, and now he does not back same-sex marriage. In a January 2004 interview I conducted with Obama at the Windy City Times' office, Obama clearly stated that lack of support for full marriage equality was a matter of strategy rather than principle, but in even more recent comments, it appears he is backing off even further, saying it is more of a religious issue, and also a "state" issue, so he favors civil unions. Both are compromises most gays do not support. First, the U.S. has a separation of church and state, and laws are in place locally and nationally that give benefits based on the very word, "marriage." Therefore, marriage as it is now defined is a government ( both state and federal ) institution that comes with specific financial and social benefits ( taxes, benefits, inheritance, immigration, custody, etc. ) . So, until government eliminates the word "marriage" from state and federal laws, it is a government issue, and that includes the federal government. Obama's answer to the 1996 Outlines question was very clear: "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." There was no use of "civil unions," no compromise whatsoever.As we know all too well, the whole "God is in the mix" blather when it comes to civil law makes no sense, and Barack Obama admitted as much in the 2004 interview with the WCT when he was running for the U.S. Senate. It was all about strategy and making the issue a political football, thus the reshaped position once civil unions came to the fore as a politically viable option/escape hatch for him.
Tracy Baim: Do you have a position on marriage vs. civil unions?So, there's the proof, folks; when it comes down to it, supporting marriage equality is all about the polls. As long as full marriage equality isn't overwhelmingly approved by Americans, when it comes to running for federal office pols -- including Obama -- believe there's more to lose than gain if they take an honest position supporting full equality.Barack Obama: I am a fierce supporter of domestic- partnership and civil-union laws. I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about, primarily just as a strategic issue.
I think that marriage, in the minds of a lot of voters, has a religious connotation. I know that's true in the African-American community, for example. And if you asked people, 'should gay and lesbian people have the same rights to transfer property, and visit hospitals, and et cetera,' they would say, 'absolutely.' And then if you talk about, 'should they get married?', then suddenly ...
...Obama: What I'm saying is that strategically, I think we can get civil unions passed. I think we can get SB 101 passed. I think that to the extent that we can get the rights, I'm less concerned about the name. And I think that is my No. 1 priority, is an environment in which the Republicans are going to use a particular language that has all sorts of connotations in the broader culture as a wedge issue, to prevent us moving forward, in securing those rights, then I don't want to play their game.
More below the fold.
And that's probably true, of course, if you're an ambitious politician -- do you think he would have been elected had he openly supported marriage equality? Would purity and honesty have given us President John McCain (and Sarah Palin a heartbeat away)? That's not giving a pass, by the way, it's more a sigh of discontent that the whole ridiculous dance around the issue is about coddling the beliefs of, rather than educating the ignorant and fence-sitting voters.
The John Edwards public cop-out on marriage equality in 2006 really set the nauseating "politically viable" standard -- the whole "tortured pol" meme citing religious limitation that clouds their thinking regarding civil law:
"I was raised in the Southern Baptist church and so I have a belief system that arises from that. It's part of who I am. I can't make it disappear. ... I personally feel great conflict about that. I don't know the answer. I wish I did. I think from my perspective it's very easy for me to say, gay civil unions, yes, partnership benefits, yes, but it is something that I struggle with. Do I believe they should have the right to marry? I'm just not there yet."It's an improvement over the 2004 Dem "run away from gay issues" field of candidates, but it's pretty tough out here to see our right to marry discussed in 2008 with a shady and disingenuous position that conflates civil rights with religion-based discrimination. That has, in many ways, set progress back on marriage equality because of the role religion plays in U.S. society (and, quite frankly, to the lack of critical thinking skills by too large a slice of the public).
The bottom line is that we're living the inequality, whereas the issue is an abstraction or distraction to most Americans. Our patience is tested time and again by the sizeable number of people who "aren't ready." And those folks, at this point and time, still influence Barack Obama -- and his fellow Dems -- in their decision to go undercover when it comes to supporting marriage equality. And that hurts, there's no way around it. It's why we have to continue to speak out and to call out the inconsistencies and political game playing that are counterproductive.
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