RocketSquirrel
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Posts posted by RocketSquirrel
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Stopped in briefly 2 nights ago and was given a warm welcome by proprietors Poesface and Nam. Lovely girls and great vibe!
I've been a bit out of the loop for a while. Great to return to Bkk and discover Why Not. This is a good one!
Rocket
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Great photo CocoJazelle! Hope to be visiting NY in a few weeks!
So nice for me to be returning to LBR after a bit of a break and to see this :)
Rocket
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Cuban Gays Stage Mass Wedding - Castro's Daughter Leads The Way
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/150510062929910.html
http://www.bangkokpost.com/vdo/world/556695/cuban-gays-stage-mass-wedding
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Interesting, this wasn't in any of our papers
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Again, excellent reporting Gutsy. The bar looks great. I'm not sure why I didn't visit there on my last trip
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Study confirms that penis-length is not correlated to foot size...
http://bangkokpost.com/news/world/487721/thai-men-come-up-short-in-1st-scientific-penis-length-study
PARIS - What is an "average" size for a penis?
The enduring question now has a scientific answer: 13.12 centimetres (5.16 inches) in length when erect, and 11.66 cm around, according to an analysis of more than 15,000 appendages around the world.
The country coming in first on the tape-measure was the Democratic Republic of the Congo with an average length of 7.1 inches. Thai men ended up the shortest group, at just 4 inches. North Korea placed last at 3.8 inches.
In a flaccid state, it found, the penis of the average Joe is all of 9.16cm in length and has a girth of 9.31cm.
The numbers should help "reassure the large majority of men that the size of their penis is in the normal range," said British researchers who had assembled data from studies where participants had their member measured by a professional.
The team then used the collated numbers to devise a graph that doctors can use in counselling men with "small penis anxiety".
In the worst cases, men may be diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic Disorder — a debilitating psychological condition that can lead to obsessive and anti-social behaviour, depression and even suicide.
In reality, only 2.28% of the male population have an abnormally small penis, said the study — and the same percentage an unusually large one.
The study participants were men aged 17-91 who had their penises measured in 20 previously published studies conducted in Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States.
The team found no evidence for penis size differences linked to race, though most of the study participants were of European and Middle Eastern descent and a full comparison could thus not be made.
Nor did the researchers find any convincing correlation between a man's foot size and the length of his manhood.
They acknowledged their results may have been somewhat skewed by the possibility that men who volunteer to be examined may be more confident in their penis size than the general population.
The team said their work, published in the BJU International journal of urology, was the first to combine all existing data on penis length and girth into a definitive graph.
The information may be useful for reassuring men worried about their size. But it may also have the unintended effect of shrivelling the egos of those who thought they were abnormally well-endowed.
Doctors may also use the graph to help men find well-fitting condoms, said the team.
from the Daily Hit Blog:
http://hiit-blog.dailyhiit.com/hiit-life/new-study-shows-country-biggest-penises-world/
New Study Shows Which Country Has The Biggest Penises In The World.
Well here is what we have all secretly been waiting for – a global ranking of Wang sizes. BodyRock is based in Canada, so I guess we will just have to continue to take pride in our Hockey prowess.
Out of the 80 countries they researched, the average penis size is 5.5 inches. South America is the most well hung continent at 6.36 inches. While North Korea, at 3.8 inches, takes home the booby prize.
Americans didn’t even reach the global average and find themselves in 61st place out of 80. No wonder our women are so attracted to foreign men. Just pray your lady never hooks up with a guy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo or it’s ballgame over.
Before we get to the map and list of the average erect penis sizes for 80 countries worldwide, here are some notable findings:
-The proper way to measure is from tip of the penis to the very bottom of the pubic bone.
-The global average is 5.5 inches.
-The most well hung country in our study is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (aka Congo), with an average of 7.1 inches.
-On average, South America is the most well hung continent (6.36 inches).
-North Korea has the smallest dick size on average (3.8 inches).
-Only 3 percent of men worldwide are over 8 inches. Only 6 percent of men actually need extra large condoms.
-Of the 80 countries included, the U.S. ranks #61 in average erect penis size.
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Tourists Fall Off Express Boat Into Khlong [Video]
Published by Stickboy BKK on February 25th, 2015
Foreigner Falls Off Express Boat Into Khlong
Video footage captured the moment two foreign tourists were pulled from a Bangkok canal after they lost their footing and fell into the water disembarking a river express boat yesterday.
Commuters using the Saen Saep express boat service threw the woman a lifebuoy and can be seen pulling her out the water as a male struggles to climb on to the pier before a woman and man come to his rescue and help him to safety.
Both tourists appear uninjured and in need of nothing more than a tetanus shot and a long hot soapy shower.
http://www.stickboybangkok.com/news/tourist-falls-off-express-boat-khlong-video/
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http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2015/02/brooke-guinan-trans-fdny-firefighter.php
"The world doesn't have language to actively allow me to identify myself."
Leaning over the kitchen countertop in her two-bedroom apartment in Queens, Brooke Guinan tries to explain, via four horizontal lines she has plotted on a piece of paper, how the notion of gender is far more complex than the two extremes of "male" and "female." The lines represent four continuums: biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.
"I don't have a sexuality!" Guinan exclaims. "How does the world define a woman who was born male who likes men? What is the sexuality for that? You could say I was gay, but I don't identify as male. Trans is my gender identity. 'Transgender' is about my gender; it has nothing to do with my sexuality.
"Our society doesn't have language to define that!"
Guinan (pronounced GUY-ninn) tends to get worked up on the topic of gender. "I hope I don't sound angry," she says. "It's just something I'm passionate about."
Not surprising, given that she is New York City's first and only transgender firefighter. The FDNY employs more than 10,400, only 44 of whom are women, and Guinan is the only member who has served the department as both a man and a woman. Since September, when a poster of her wearing a tight T-shirt reading "So Trans So What" went viral as part of an awareness campaign for the LGBTQ-advocacy group V.O.I.C.E. (the Vocal Organization for International Courage and Equality), Guinan has seen her profile rise as a role model for others who battle gender stereotypes in male-dominated professions.
Guinan does have something in common with many in the FDNY: The department runs in her family. In fact, she's third-generation. Her father, George William Guinan V, is an FDNY lieutenant; her grandfather George IV retired as a captain. Growing up, she heard stories about the escapades of her forebears — both of whom are heterosexual and, as she puts it, masculine and athletic. "There's such an attitude in society that firefighting is for straight, masculine men," Guinan says.
She, of course, is none of those things. That said, unlike many women who aspire to join the FDNY, she had no trouble meeting the job's physical requirements. Standing six feet tall, Guinan weighs 240 pounds and doesn't lack for strength. "I'm broad. My body has a lot of natural strength to it," she says. "I've never had a problem with strength. When my mother needs furniture moved, she calls me."
When it comes to stamina, though, Guinan says a lot of women in the department would best her. "You don't have to be six feet tall and built like a linebacker to do this job," she says, arms folded across her chest. "You have to compensate. You have to know what you have and know what you have to work for."
On this particular evening, she's wearing a black sweater, black top, and tight blue jeans. A silver necklace with a dolphin pendant hangs around her neck, a gift from her boyfriend. Guinan doesn't remember a time when she didn't feel mostly different from everyone around her. Now she talks about not wanting to "let down" other transgender men and women who see her as an inspiration for bucking convention and stereotype to enter a profession where she is looked upon as an outsider.
Although she has grown accustomed to feeling separate from the norm, she admits it took years of burning under society's intolerant glare for her to emerge stronger, certain of who she is and her place in the world.
"I couldn't get the voices out of my head of people telling me I'll never be a woman, I don't look like a woman, I don't sound like a woman, and it's never going to happen," Guinan says.
"I had to get to a point where it didn't matter if the world didn't accept me as a woman, because I identify as one. I don't care who believes it. This is me. This is my truth. This is my identity."
Brooke Guinan was born George William Guinan VI in 1987. Her parents, Susan and George V, moved the family to the Long Island suburbs when Brooke was a year old. She's six years older than her only sibling, Janine, who is autistic.
Her father, now 57, remembers Brooke as a perfect child. "Honestly, not just because she's my child," George V says. "You always wonder when you enter into parenthood: What do we do? How is this going to go? There never seemed to be any problem with Brooke." Sensing Janine's handicap, he says, Brooke became the helpful older sibling who never asked for much and never wanted to be a burden.
As early as second grade, Brooke discovered how some peers react to an effeminate boy who prefers to play with girls: A bully slammed her head against a window in the school bus. Over the next several years, she would be shoved into lockers and called names, forced to live in constant fear of being beaten up.
"We tried to encourage Brooke to stand up for herself — don't be afraid to stand up and speak for yourself and say, 'I'm not taking that and I'm not going to put up with that,' " her father recounts.
Brooke always had size on her side; Susan remembers telling her son jokingly, "Just sit on them! You're bigger than all these other kids!" But Brooke wasn't the confrontational type. "She just kind of always turned the other cheek," her mother says.
As Brooke remembers it, fifth grade marked the first time she heard the word "gay." It came from a classmate who chided her for "laughing in a girly way" at something funny a teacher had said. It was also the first time she remembers finding "language to define myself." Although the term didn't sufficiently identify who she was as a person, "it seemed to fit at the time," she says in retrospect.
Susan and George V signed their son up for Little League. "I kinda sensed not too long after we started to get Brooke involved that there was not that kind of interest," her father says now.
What Susan noticed, though, was stronger than apathy. "She hated it," Susan Guinan says of her child's attitude toward sports. "She got hit in the head with the ball. She danced on the field. She did soccer one year, and that didn't work either."
Instead Brooke gravitated toward theater, singing, dancing, and acting from fourth grade until graduating high school in 2004. George won leading roles in musicals like Amadeus and Dracula and acted in plays as part of a theater group called the Kids for Kids Production. Onstage, there were no bullies, no name-calling. "Theater became her niche," Susan Guinan says. "She fit in."
Not quite, Brooke says: She always felt different from her conventionally male peers. "I wanted to play with Barbies. I wanted to have fashion shows," she says.
At age eleven, after three years of wrestling with self-loathing and consulting with a school guidance counselor, George Guinan VI came out as gay, announcing in a typed two-page letter, titled "Decisions," that "I'm not the manliest man of all."
The letter continued: "I have been questioning my sexuality for about three years now. I have, and still do sit up crying until the morning comes. I can't feel bad any longer.
"I think I am gay and love you so much. I have dealt with this and I need to know where you stand on this because I love you and I don't want to do this journey without you."
Susan says that while she wasn't initially sure what to make of the pronouncement, she was determined to be supportive.
"Listen," she remembers telling Brooke. "You've had years to digest this. I've had two minutes. I love you. I will always love you. I don't care if you're gay. But I can't talk to you about this right now because I need to process it." Then Susan gave her son a hug and a kiss.
For George V, the letter spurred questions: "What went wrong? What happened? How could you know? You're so young!"
Both parents say that while there had been signs, they'd never considered the possibility that their son was homosexual. George V describes it as "an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of a thing." Earlier in their marriage, they had decided Susan would be a stay-at-home mom. The Guinans did not want other people raising their kids. Because Susan didn't work, George Jr. moonlighted to supplement his firefighting income. Because he was out of the house so much, he never noticed Brooke playing with dolls. "I saw the withdrawal and the problems socially, the not wanting to do sports," George V says. But it wasn't something the family dwelled on.
The Guinans consulted a therapist. "I have friends with doctorates that cannot speak as well as your child does," Susan recalls the psychologist informing her. "He has researched things. I sit here and he tells me what states allow gay marriage. He has thought about this. This is not a whim."
Brooke continued to identify as a gay male through high school and into college. But it was at Staten Island's Wagner College that the label began to seem an inexact fit. Brooke didn't feel a sense of belonging with the campus's gay community — or, for that matter, with anyone else.
Then she met Shayne Zaslow, a fellow freshman who was struggling with gender identity. A Connecticut native, Zaslow had been born female and came out as bisexual at fourteen, as a lesbian at eighteen, and as trans at nineteen.
"We both had similar interests," says Zaslow, who since has transitioned to male. "We were both queer. We were both involved in activism and queer theory and we sort of read all the same things." Both were active members of the university's LGBTQ student organization. Both ran for the group's presidency (they eventually became co-presidents). And they navigated their coming-out journeys together.
"I'm pretty quiet. I'm a stereotypical introvert in every sense of the word," Zaslow says. "Brooke is a little bit introverted too, even though she's sort of loud and outgoing."
The pair's mutual interests didn't stop at gender and sexuality issues. They bonded over "nerdy interests," as Zaslow, now 28, calls them. ("We share a Disney obsession," he admits.) Zaslow had intended to become a math teacher and Guinan was a theater major, but both switched to sociology with a minor in gender studies.
"We'd use each other as sounding boards and bounce ideas. We'd talk about our identities with each other. I'm really grateful for that," Brooke says, crediting Zaslow for helping her to come out as trans. "I don't know how long it would've taken me otherwise. That's when I started being able to place language with my identity."
As sophomores, Zaslow and Guinan reached the consensus that they were genderqueer, meaning they saw their gender identity as falling outside the traditional binary of male and female. Guinan was eighteen at the time, and says she chose the name Brooke after the character Brooke Davis from the CW series One Tree Hill. "It was a name that sounded cute and womanly to me," she explains. "She had a sort of husky voice but was very sexy and womanly."
Gender identity aside, Brooke tells the Voice, much of her college experience was spent struggling with another profound, if more universal, question, one that frightens all college students: What would she do after graduation?
In a move that surprised everyone in her family, she decided to follow the patriarchal career path and take the FDNY entrance exam. Those close to her were dismayed. They'd hoped she'd go into education instead. "Brooke is a genius," Susan Guinan says. "She could do anything. Her college professor wanted Brooke to continue and get a master's in gender studies and then get a doctorate in teaching. She wanted her to become a professor. She felt that the way she could talk to children and college kids, that she'd be so helpful and good. She was so disappointed."
As a child, however, in addition to playing with dolls, Brooke had been attracted to the idea of superheroes. She was an avid reader of comic books, her favorite being Marvel's X-Men. Susan surmises that that desire — to be larger than life — never went away.
"I think in her eyes, being a fireman is a superhero," Susan says. "But that wasn't what I had hoped for her, because of the danger."
Brooke has never forgotten tagging along to work with her father at seventeen and watching the firefighters respond to a call. Her father remembers that day too.
"We ran in and did what we had to do and we came back all beat up and she asked, 'This is what you do?' " George V recalls. It was the first time he can recall hearing her say, "I think I want to be a firefighter."
Brooke says watching her father in action crystallized her desire to make her life about helping people. "That was sort of the epitome of what I wanted to do with my life," she says now.
Even seven years into her career as a firefighter, there's still something about putting on the gear that makes her feel "badass," like her favorite X-Men character, Rogue. "She sort of breaks gender boundaries as well," Brooke says. "She was sassy. She walked around calling people 'sugar,' but she was tough. She had superstrength. She could fly. She could beat people up more than most of the guys. She'd always save the day."
After graduating from Wagner in 2008, Guinan passed the FDNY exam and entered the fire academy as a cadet that July.
The process threatened to bring with it a new round of discrimination, a prospect Susan Guinan found impossible to bear. With that in mind, the Guinans attempted to dissuade Brooke from wearing her sexuality on her sleeve. "Can't you just go into the firehouse and do your job and not talk about your sexual orientation?" Susan remembers asking. "But she wasn't going to hide just because the job wanted her to."
At the time, Brooke had gone back to identifying as a gay male. Everyone was required to wear work-duty uniforms: navy-blue trousers and long-sleeved shirts of the same color. So Brooke wore navy-blue trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt. All the male cadets had to shave their heads. So Brooke shaved her head. But there was still the effeminate voice. The nail polish. The tote bag. People began asking questions about Cadet Guinan's sexuality.
Sarinya Srisakul was a probationary firefighter at the time, who assisted in teaching classes for FireFLAG, a fraternal body that represents the FDNY's LGBTQ community. Guinan was so effeminate, Srisakul says, that even members of FireFLAG were unsure how to react.
"They were worried about how she would be treated," Srisakul says, adding that they eventually told Brooke bluntly: "Listen! You gotta butch it up!"
At a FireFLAG mixer shortly after graduation, some group members were mortified at Guinan's beverage of choice, a Midori sour. "They said, 'You can't do that. Try beer!' " Srisakul recounts. After tasting several "macho" drinks, Guinan finally settled on an acceptable option: a screwdriver. "But they were like, 'You can't call it a screwdriver! You have to call it an "orange juice and vodka!" ' " she says.
Guinan is now close friends with Srisakul, who would go on to become president of the United Women Firefighters (UWF), a sororal group within the FDNY.
"We didn't tell him to stop being him," FireFLAG president Steven SanFilippo says of group members' advice to Brooke at the time. "It was more, 'This is what you're going to expect, this is what is going to happen, so be prepared for it.' That's why we kept special awareness of how he was doing. Even when he was in the academy, I was specifically out there as an instructor just to make sure he didn't have a problem."
According to departmental statistics, 85 percent of the FDNY identifies as white and male. Most of FireFLAG's 26 members — as well as other gay firefighters who aren't part of the group — tend to convey more traditionally masculine characteristics and therefore find it easier to acclimate with their colleagues. Of FireFLAG's membership, SanFilippo says only about eight are out as gay. Guinan was the department's only outwardly effeminate gay male, according to SanFilippo. "It was all new," he says. "Everyone was on a learning curve."SanFilippo, 50, has been a firefighter for 21 years and joined FireFLAG in March 1999 as a closeted homosexual because of what he characterizes as a "homophobic atmosphere" that existed in the firehouse at that time. FireFLAG meetings are often held in secret in order to protect the identities of closeted gay firefighters. Some members opt not to march in the Gay Pride parade.
"People worry about being excluded in their firehouses, so they don't take the risk of coming out," says SanFilippo, a battalion chief. "It's up to the individual, because they are the ones who have to live their lives."
After graduating from the academy in 2009, Guinan was assigned to Engine 330 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
"It was really difficult in my first firehouse, because I wasn't being honest about who I was, so it's hard to fit in to a group of people when you're not being honest with who you are," Brooke says today. "It's a whole other level of not fitting in."
To identify as gay was difficult enough — Guinan was the only openly gay person assigned to Engine 330. But to identify as genderqueer would have isolated her even further.
"That would be a whole other level of separation," Brooke says. "That was a lot to deal with. Not to mention you're fresh out of the fire academy. You're brand-new in the workforce. You're learning in this new job, which you're doing for the first time. You have no seniority in the job, so all of the grunt work falls to you. I was never able to just relax in that firehouse, because I was so actively guarded."
That anxiety is ultimately what convinced her to transition. "I needed to find a way to function," Brooke says. "To not be on guard all the time."
SanFilippo, who at the time was FireFLAG's vice president, says that while assigned to the Bensonhurst firehouse, Guinan was faced with "one or two people that just couldn't deal" with someone so different. He says Guinan contacted FireFLAG to reported the harassment.
Brooke declines to go into detail about what transpired at Bensonhurst, and the FDNY repeatedly refused to answer questions about her experiences there. But SanFilippo says that in 2010, Guinan was on the verge of quitting before FireFLAG stepped in and managed to arrange for a temporary transfer to a desk job at FDNY headquarters.
Brooke says she welcomed the transfer because she had decided to begin hormone treatment and wasn't sure of the implications of the process. During the two years she spent at headquarters, she was "offline," working in the recruitment unit. Still, it was a rough time. In 2011 she was diagnosed with depression. The sense of self-loathing reached a point where she began cutting herself, she says now.
She attributes much of her travails to the difficulty of fully embracing who she is as a human being. Trans people may face threats of violence, but denying one's own identity presents an even deeper peril. "The sort of violence to your own soul by not being true to who you are — I think for a lot of trans people, that's a fate worse than actual physical violence," she says.
"Once a rig is ten years old, you're supposed to get a new one," George Guinan V says as he shows off the five trucks at his firehouse on Rockaway Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He's a big man, bald and blue-eyed, his russet eyebrows now streaked with gray. He speaks measuredly, and you'd be hard-pressed to guess he's the "old-school, gung-ho fireman" Susan Guinan describes — until the alarm goes off for an emergency call.
A 36-year veteran of the FDNY, Guinan now serves as a lieutenant at Engine 233/Ladder 176, a snug firehouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He describes firefighting as more of a calling than a job, and the firehouse as a home away from home.
"The fire department has been everything in my life," Guinan says. "It's a brotherhood like no other."
As far back as kindergarten, Guinan wanted to put out fires. It didn't hurt that his father was a firefighter, but his fascination grew on its own.
"At [age] thirteen or fourteen, I was going to work with my dad," he says. "I did a couple of overnights. The whole hero-helping-people [aspect] drew me to it."
One piece of advice from his father has stuck with him to this day: to always remain quiet. "Even when you talk, just have a quiet attitude, a quiet tone about you." (George IV, who retired in 1989, declined the Voice's interview request for this story.)
The job brings with it an adrenaline rush that's almost ineffable, Guinan says. "You get a ring at two o'clock in the morning, you're sort of groggy and you flip out of bed. They give an address, a report of a private-dwelling fire, and you're like, 'Hmmm.' " He rolls back his eyes and shakes his head as if savoring a delicious meal. "You're all pumped up." He mimics more radio communication: "We've got people trapped on the top floor." Then, ecstatically: "Here we go!"
"We always joked that the firehouse was my dad's first home and our house was his second home," Brooke says. "He loved those guys. My mother knew when she married my father that she was settling for being his second family, because his first family would always be the fire department."
The attacks of September 11 represented a pivotal moment for the Guinan family. George V wasn't supposed to work that day, but when the call came, he responded. He remembers the smoke, the wreckage. He remembers the lives lost and the friends he could not save. He remembers 9-11 as the time when the brotherhood became more important than his family.
Assigned to the Millenium Hilton Hotel across the street from the World Trade Center, George V was spared the carnage. The firefighters before and after him were assigned to the towers. He'd always been a reserved man — so much so that Susan would jokingly call her husband "The Quiet Man," a nod to the title character portrayed by John Wayne in John Ford's 1952 film. After 9-11, though, he returned home even quieter. "I lost my dad that day too," Brooke told her mother at the time.
The Guinans divorced in 2011. He sought professional help for post-traumatic stress disorder. There was nothing he could do for his brothers on the day of the attacks, so he poured his soul into the brotherhood. In the firehouse, at least, he's surrounded by people who understand his pain.
"When he goes to the firehouse, he fits in, he's one of the guys," Brooke says. "There's no differentiation there. There's this camaraderie that you can have when you can completely identify."
It's an esprit de corps he fears his daughter will never truly experience. "Why shouldn't there be doubts in her mind?" he admits. "This grand old thing that Dad talks about," he says, imitating Brooke — "well, what about me?"
Brooke agrees that she'll never be able to look at the FDNY the same way her father does.
"When I go to the firehouse, I don't have that camaraderie that comes from mutual identification, like a shared lived experience," she says. "No one is going to come up to me and be like, 'I don't like you being here because you threaten the cohesiveness,' but I've definitely felt it."
George V says before being able to embrace Brooke as his daughter, he had to put the idea of having a son "to bed." During that transition, he concedes, he blamed himself for Brooke's struggle with her identity: Would it have been different if he'd spent more time at home? Things were different in his day. When he started out with the department in 1978 at age 21, there were no female firefighters, no FireFLAG, no organized LGBTQ groups. No one thought there might be a gay firefighter in the ranks. No one knew what LGBTQ meant.
Guinan says Brooke's grandfather, George William Guinan IV, is still coming to terms with having a granddaughter who used to be his grandson. "Dad is very old-fashioned," he says, explaining that George IV couldn't grasp that this was not a conscious decision on Brooke's part. He's still working on his father, Guinan says. He reports that it has reached the point where, at the very least, George IV realizes that if you don't support your family, you risk losing it.
"Brooke is being truly the person she is," her father says. "This is how she's created. She has no control over who she is. This is her genetic makeup."
Brooke has been on active duty at Engine 312 in Astoria, Queens, since 2013. Her mother says Brooke's co-workers now only tease her good-naturedly — they call her the "She-Hulk" when she loses her temper, Susan says with a laugh. For her part, Brooke prefers not to discuss her work environment, and requested that the Voice not speak with her current ladder mates. But the FDNY brass have nothing but high praise for the work she does. "She's brave, she's strong, and she demonstrates on every tour that transgender people can do one of the hardest jobs anywhere," says deputy commissioner Pamela Lassiter, who serves as the department's chief diversity and inclusion officer.
With six years on the job, she's already looking forward to retiring in another thirteen.
While she loves the chance to help others and the opportunity to use the FDNY as a platform to educate people about LGBTQ culture, in the end it is just a job, she explains. "It's a great job. It's a wonderful job. The pay is great. The benefits are wonderful. It allows me to live my life in a comfortable way. It allows me to have health insurance. I'm not saying there aren't guys in the firehouse who I think are great guys and who I consider to be great friends and co-workers. But my family, my brothers and sisters, are other trans people."
Brooke might not identify with the brotherhood, but she has become active with the UWF. She has taken part in hearings designed to re-evaluate the department's physical-fitness requirements, and helps prepare women for the FDNY's entrance exam at the New York Sports Club. She's eyeing a secretarial seat in the UWF leadership.
During the Fire Academy graduation ceremony in November 2014, she joined other UWF members in applauding and cheering all four female probationary firefighters who graduated out of a class of 280 that day.
"They are my sisters," she says. "We always have to have each other's backs."
She and her boyfriend, Jim Baker, have been together for two years and have just closed on a house together upstate. He's a witty, introverted military vet and is also Brooke's first serious boyfriend — a fact that made meeting her dad all the thornier.
"It's always weird. It's like, 'Hi, I'm the guy who's nailing your daughter,' " he jokes. The two are seated at a diner near Baker's Netcong, New Jersey, home. "I don't know what he was thinking. Was he looking at me as his daughter's boyfriend? His son's boyfriend? His son's sugar daddy? I don't know what he was looking at me as."
Brooke laughs. Both agree her father can be inscrutable.
Brooke is Jim's first trans girlfriend. "Jim is attracted to the feminine gender — it doesn't matter what body it comes in," Brooke explains.
Unlike his girlfriend, Jim isn't an LGBTQ-rights activist. "I'm not an advocate for much of anything," he says. His belief, albeit simplistic, he says, is live and let live. He considers himself a realist.
"I tend to have more faith in humanity," Brooke says as they discuss the negative comments people left on the FDNY Facebook post of Brooke's "So Trans So What" poster for V.O.I.C.E. As expected, reactions have been mixed. While some users applauded the department for being more diverse, others wondered why it should care about the sexual orientation of its firefighters. One user wrote, "If this is a 'so what' campaign then why are we celebrating this? If no one cares then why should we? Nice going FDNY!!! Way to make everyone else uncomfortable." Another user wrote, "Leaving this page. What an abomination."
Brooke was in Baker's house when the post went up. What hurt her most were comments like "she is just a man wearing makeup" or those that sought to dehumanize her. "There are even a large number of people who go even further than that and they take away my identity altogether and say things like 'It's gross,' " she said in an earlier interview. "It's still really sad, because you have people who not only want to take away your gender identity, but there are people who want to take away my humanity and turn me into an 'it.' "
"I warned her about it," Jim says. "I know how people are, and I was glad she didn't take any of it personally."
At another time in her life, she might have cut herself. Now some of the scars have been covered with tattoos. One, on her left hand, features the slogan "Keep Moving" inked over a tongue of flame.
"I've learned to love myself," she says. She knows she wouldn't have found love if she hadn't.
Brooke is motivated by other transgender people who are making their voices be heard, particularly the likes of Laverne Cox who portrays the character of Sophia Burset, an FDNY firefighter-turned-inmate at the fictional Litchfield Penitentiary on Netflix's Orange is the New Black. Burset turned to stealing to pay for her sex-reassignment operations as a trans woman. "Laverne Cox continually shows strength, integrity, and heart in all her works both on screen and in activism," Brooke says.
"It's always inspiring to see trans women and characters portrayed as actual people with real and honest stories and backgrounds," she says. Speaking of Cox's character, she says, "[she's] a multifaceted character. She's a mother, a partner, a trans woman. She's a well-rounded person and that's rare for mainstream trans characters."The "So Trans So What" campaign was Guinan's way of celebrating her self-discovery. But she emphasizes that she has yet to uncover much more about herself. A trans person is never really finished transitioning — and it has nothing to do with hormonal therapy or gender-reassignment surgery.
Brooke declines to go into detail about the medical and physical aspects of her transition.
"When it comes to trans women, society wants to know what you're doing in the bedroom, what your body is, and all of that stuff is very personal," she says. "I don't want my body to be analyzed. My body is my thing. There are things about my body that I don't want everyone to know."
Her journey has inspired her to assist other trans people with theirs. "I can't enjoy my life if there's all kinds of problems that other people like me are facing," she says. "I can't live with the guilt of ignoring that."
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Gotta add my vote for the girl in the first photo
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Nice shots of the girls Gutsy
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thanks for sharing, thats good to hear, also wondered if I gave my address as a hotel as in named the actual hotel (not just gave the street address) if that is a problem
I would probably bring a business card from the hotel and maybe have something like a hotel receipt in my back pocket just in case. It's amazing what a little bit of paperwork can do sometimes :)
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I have a k bank account that i started at the bank near Nana Station. I just realized last year that I had been signed up for some kind of insurance that was costing me 500 thb/year. I have no idea how that was started. I did not knowingly ask for it! Hahaha. Anyway, it's all sorted now.
It's a weird thing signing paperwork that you can't understand :)
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I have always had the best luck going to the source (AIS-12Call or True) at one of their offices (every shopping mall). It is easier to come up with the correct sim and correct package for your calling and data needs. Some packages have time and data limitations that require more than just a top-up.
Also, both companies have good English speaking customer service lines.
All of the companies have desks on the arrival level at Suvarnabhumi. My experience there was that they were rushed and more likely to push "Travel Plans". Travel plans have some limitations.
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Great idea for a thread Pentire. Guess 1 was one of the first places that I explored when joining this club. And, yes, there was an amazing lineup. Beer, Jenny, and even Jane were among my first "teachers"
I always had an interest in Ohm and Viviannne but sadly never had the chance (actually didn't move on it when I should have)
I've got to give credit to TLF as that's where I saw all of the amazing photos of the Guess girls. I learned a lot there.
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Is this it?
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Again, nice groundwork TC. Will have a look tonight.
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One thing that hasn't been mentioned concerning this is the deteriorating state of the russian economy.
To me, this year, Pattaya feels quite different to me on this trip, especially along Walking Street and Beach Road. A much nicer energy. Coincidence? I think not.
I used to visit Phuket regularly but stopped doing so a few years back because I found it unpleasant to be around both the tourists there and the locals.
With regard to the OP, I agree that the subject is a bit complicated. Factors to be considered include quality of the tourist to Thailand, the business practices of the locals, and also the ethnocentricity of many of the Thai people. Thailand's adult tourist areas do not seem to attract the West's finest. It would be so easy for those in the tourist areas to conclude that Westerners are not smart and have absolutely no manners. I believe that there is a very marked difference between the tourists who visit Pattaya and Patong and those who are truly here for temples and beaches.
I find it uncomfortable when I see visitors ignore the most basic of Thai values, whether it's going without a shirt, screaming loudly at a waiter in a restaurant or being intimate or suggestive in public. This is not occasional, it's the norm in the tourist areas here. The simplest of manners fall into the "Thai Culture 101" chapter of any travel book or on any website. The argument that "it's my money, I will spend it as I like" holds up when referring to unacceptable behavior by the Thais (such as pressure for lady drinks), but IMO, it does not justify culturally insensitive behavior toward our hosts.
I think that the bad behavior of tourists in other countries does indeed put the issue in perspective, but I also feel that bad behavior elsewhere does not make the negative stuff that goes on in Thailand any more acceptable.
I don't think that I will lose my love for Thailand any time soon and it will probably remain my first choice as a travel destination.
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Good to know about the party!
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Paradise has been somewhat quiet during each of my 3 visits there. But I did hear that it was really hopping the other night. IMHO it's got a really nice vibe with low-key but nice girls (mix gg-lb). The DJ has a great music selection - all types and he's a friendly guy. Music is not unreasonably loud. I really hope that things go well for them there.
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Today, for the first time, I tried the Japanese style "smart" toilets at Terminal 21. Very nice angle adjustment. Good temperature control. The bum dryer also worked quite nicely. So while in Thailand, when nature calls, I suggest heading for the nearest Terminal 21
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Yea the two 'cases' get mixed up easily .
I expect lots of trials in the near future against Yingluck and other PT politicians, their is tons of dirt out there and the Democrats have been collecting details to feed to the courts for the last few years. And i'm sure you'll see a lot of people change sides and give evidence to keep themselves free (like they do everywhere).
Western press, including the NYT, seems to be consistently getting (or maybe "giving") it wrong. They are clinging to the idea that a democratically elected government has been unjustly overthrown and leaving it at that. Very disappointing as there is so much more to this.
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Bad news , my favorite Wat has been ruined.
I always wanted to go to this temple and I kept putting it off. Sad news indeed. It looked so fantastic in photographs.
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This thing is awesome
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Looking back, I have to say that the photos from Guess 1 were absolutely instrumental in getting me to venture over to the darkside and they were instrumental in getting me to visit the bar. But what a shy puppy I was back then
Obituaries
in Boiler Room
Posted
He was an important writer of much of my early research. I'd love to re-read his posts from back in the day...Stogie's site, I believe. Top shelf!
The years have really flown by.
A huge loss to our community.