Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    The Chronicle’s coverage of the Springdale Farm zoning change is misleading readers [“Discord Grows Over Springdale Farm,” News, Nov. 28]. Businesses seeking zoning changes with community opposition is nothing new, however, this one-sided reporting brings to light another story.
   The issue is a neighborhood resisting the negative impact of an event center, not the farm itself. Anyone supporting the zoning change because they feel that farms should have 30 outdoor amplified events a year, or because a lame-duck council should override a Latino community’s neighborhood plan on the eve of their win for representation, is doing nothing for the future of farms or community relations.
    Support for the zoning change has been drummed up through the Chronicle’s pro-gentrification message, which plays to people’s white privilege. (Number of POC staff at Chronicle?) Connected is the defamation of council candidate Susana Almanza and PODER, with no genuine reporting on their decades of community activism or significant successes, but instead a portrait of people who refuse to negotiate. I wager that Almanza and campaign manager Daniel Llanes have negotiated successfully with developers and the city more than all the candidates combined.
    The Chronicle insists on making these claims because if readers knew that there were activists that have been promoting community gardening and environmental justice for over 30 years with an exceptional record of working across race, class, and political lines, then readers may not only vote Susana and stop supporting Springdale Farm's zoning change, but might also build the relationships necessary to mitigate gentrification and the expanding development of condos, tourism, and elite services in East Austin. The Chronicle has deep economic and political stakes in gentrification and has biasedly reported on such issues for years. Readers should understand that the Eastside has a right to be defended, and the easiest way to stop colonialism is by telling the truth.

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for "The Right Man for the Job" article [News, Nov. 21] and for sharing information on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I help transgendering people realize their preferred phenotype with hormone therapy. In Texas, this can be a difficult service to find. Portland's Willamette Week (akin to our Chronicle) featured a story in August about Oregon insurance companies being forced to pay for doctors' visits and hormones. In January, it may come to pass that insurance companies will cover some surgeries. Imagine being trapped in the body of the opposite gender. How delightful to live in this era of emergence.

Dear Editor,
    What an excellent article "The Right Man for the Job" by Amy Kamp is [News, Nov. 21]. Rarely am I so pleased with the writing and subject; even the brief length of the article was appetizing. Everyone from the law enforcement community gave interview contributions that made me like the APD immensely. Having an X on my back, I seldom find community with cops, but these people seem like they wouldn't haze me for a 20-year-old cocaine possession case. As a gay man, I used to arrogantly assume I understood trans issues, being part of the LGBT acronym myself. Wrong! Trans issues are lumped with lesbian and gay sexuality out of convenience. Sexuality and gender are not one subject but two, and I had to do the intellectual work of informing myself on this subject only to realize how little I really know. Great article.

Dear Editor:
    Recently, a friend posted to her Facebook page a suggestion (a demand, really) that she only receive holidays cards with the words "Merry Christmas" on them and that people who choose to say "Happy Holidays" are cowards and too politically correct. I think being a stickler about a greeting is a strange thing for people to get worked up about. So, here is a poem I wrote, and I hope you will print it to remind people to just relax and enjoy the season:
   
   Please don’t start with your Christmas war
   “Happy Holidays” is a greeting and nothing more.
   
   Time is a precious commodity during this season, I’d say
   I can’t shop for multiple holiday cards to please every which way.
   
   So if you insist on “Merry Christmas” when my card arrives
   And will be offended if my greeting is too generic or too contrived,
   
   Please just know it’s simply a delivery of peace and goodwill
   Not an attempt to force you to swallow a pagan pill.
   
   For that matter, I don’t know if your Christmas is the “Deck the Halls” kind
   Or focused on the biblical story and the special baby the shepherds find.
   
   Does it bother you if my card pictures Santa on his sleigh?
   Or would you prefer the three wise men on their knees to pray?
   
   What if Christmas is simply a time for goodness of the heart?
   What if Christmas really means for every soul to do his part?
   
   Peace on Earth is really an impossibility it seems,
   But Christmas is the time we pay homage to that dream.

Dear Editor,
    In this week's cover story titled "The Big Picture" [Music, Nov. 28], Jim Caligiuri takes a look at women in Austin music. I was quite excited to read the article and due to the title, I was sure Kathy Valentine would have been one of the subjects regarding her having a place from her days out of Reagan High School, the Violators, and up through her other work to her present band the Bluebonnets, which also has another major force in Austin music, Eve Monsees. But lo and behold, Mr. Caligiuri seemed to adhere to what revealed to be well-established artists in a particular age range. I think the exclusion of Ms. Valentine and Ms. Monsees was a shameful oversight. There are many other women musicians of all age ranges he should have considered speaking with. Folks such as Hilary York, Lisa Pankratz (Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, Derailers, the Bluebonnets), Kim Longacre (the Reivers), Cindy Toth (the Reivers, Why Not Satellite, Ice Cold Singles), Cari Hutson, Lisa Marshall, Kat McNevins (the Fledglings), Sabrina Ellis (A Giant Dog), or Lydia Jones (the Red Tent). I hope seeing these names will lead the reader to search out some of the incredible music in this town that is being made by women of all ages. I have left out many, but this was just a sampling to get you started, Mr. Caligiuri.