For Saturday …

#1 – This is just the thing I’ve always wondered about “Concerned Woman” Matt …

Barber belongs to a women’s group, but slams people who want to be women. Just saying…

Props to Queerty for that, plus bonus credit for that deservedly irreverent pic of Mister Mare, whose latest screed may be found on CWA’s website.

#2 – Speaking of the CWA, “like-minded men” of faith are no doubt relieved that charges against Paul Schum have been dismissed …

“It’s nice to know that the truth finally does reveal itself and that we’ve gotten to the bottom of this.”

Dr. Paul Schum says his citation for loitering for prostitution has been an embarrassing, difficult and trying situation.“There’s been an enormous amount of time, effort, energy and taxpayer’s money, and not to mention my own expense and the expense of my family to rectify this, when in fact, most everyone that knew the facts of this case was certain that the charges would eventually be dropped.”
…

Former Principal Cited For Loitering For Prostitution; Case Dropped

Schum notes in the video interview accompanying that story that …

“I feel like this was handled maybe in a way that was less than professional and dignified.”

And I’d be inclined to agree with that and sympathize with him, although I could do without this bit of gratuitous smugness …

“Don’t judge an individual when they’re doing well. Watch and see what they do when they’re flat on their back. Watch what I do with my life. You’ll see great things.”

We’ll see.

#3 – Some folks in Washington, DC, might have some sympathy for Paul Schum …

There was trepidation in the air Saturday as members of D.C. Trans
Coalition met with police to review aspects of a general order adopted
in October.

…

The order, subtitled “Handling Interactions with Transgender
Residents,” has been called the most trans-friendly police document in
the country. But Saturday’s meeting made it apparent that arresting
officers have the upper hand and the time to question an arrest is
after the fact.

“Unless an officer is telling you to do something that will bring
physical harm to yourself or to someone else, you should comply with
whatever he or she tells you to do,” Parson said.

The order came about because local trans residents have said past
interactions with police have been unnecessarily demeaning. The order,
in essence, states that police can’t order a trans person being
arrested to do anything they wouldn’t tell a non-trans arrestee to do.

And while removing wigs and prosthetics solely to humiliate a trans
arrestee won’t be tolerated under the order, Parson described a number
of scenarios in which police could make such requests legitimately.

A wig held in place by bobby pins, for instance could be removed as
the pins could be used as weapons, Parson said. The same applies to a
wig or fall attached by a comb.

…

Parson, who did most of the talking for the police, also said an order
to remove a prosthesis shouldn’t automatically be interpreted as a
degrading command as non-trans arrestees commonly hide drugs in
underwear and bras.

Trans women can request female officers conduct pat downs for weapons
and vice versa for trans men and male officers, but, again, Parson
described scenarios in which that could be trumped by logistics.

“I’ve jumped on officers before for not conducting searches and
waiting for a female officer to arrive,” Parson said. “I said, ‘Here
you are waiting for a female officer and, dude, she’s got a knife.’”

There was some back-and-forth as trans attendees described
hypothetical scenarios in which legitimate behavior could be
misconstrued by police. Parson and Bell countered with examples where
giving the benefit of the doubt has been abused.

…

Local transgender group wary of police dealings

#4 – Kudos to the Bangor Daily News for this past Friday’s editorial, “Christian priorities.” Now, this fellow student’s “courageous” grandfather sure sounds like he’d fit in quite well with other “like-minded men” we’re familiar with …

At a time when the state is cutting back assistance to the elderly, children and the poor, you might reasonably assume that the Christian Civic League of Maine would have larger concerns than the bathroom practices of an elementary school student. You’d be wrong.

The league, which has long been obsessed with sex, has entered the fray over an Orono 10-year-old, guaranteeing that this battle over bathrooms, sadly, will continue for a few more rounds.

The stresses faced by a 10-year-old boy who believes himself to be transgendered must be enormous. The boy’s plight is now public, thanks to the grandfather of a fellow student. The man directed his grandson to mimic — and essentially mock — the transgendered boy’s use of a girls bathroom, and later, a faculty bathroom. For this, the league called the man “courageous.”

The Orono School Committee is to be commended for striving to protect the boy’s identity, and whatever remains of his privacy. And that privacy is at the heart of the matter. The boy’s bathroom needs could stem from a past trauma, a physical disability, a psychological malady, or from gender identification issues, none of which should be disclosed to the public.

And furthermore, the school is bound by the Maine Human Rights Law, which requires a reasonable accommodation be made to anyone seeking it over sexual orientation or gender identification.

Further, the special bathroom arrangement for the boy have not detracted from the experiences of others at the school, at least according to available accounts.

The Christian Civic League of Maine’s decision to champion the grandfather’s actions further erodes that organization’s credibility and reason for being. In a formal statement on the matter, league Executive Director Michael Heath praised the grandfather and claimed the man’s grandson was facing discrimination.

The league “seeks to present and maintain an effective, positive, and faithful Christian witness in the public life of the state of Maine,” according to its Web site. It’s likely there are more effective, and certainly more positive ways for the league to be a Christian witness. In these financially difficult times, why doesn’t the league serve as a network, facilitating church volunteers to check on seniors and help shovel out their walkways and drives, help close gaps in leaky doors and windows, offer rides to appointments and donate to heating oil accounts for the poor.

If not these ways of being a witness, surely there are more Christ-like ways of engaging in civic life than interfering in a child’s bathroom use.

#5 – Looking ahead to the (trans-inclusive-ENDA-less) New Year, in Palm Beach County, Florida recently amended ordinances banning transgender discrimination become effective on January 1st …

Palm Beach County Commissioners have unanimously approved amendments to two county ordinances which will prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on gender identity or expression.

The new law, which covers public and private employers with fifteen or more employees, and most real estate transactions, goes into effect on January 1.

“No one should be fired, harassed, or denied promotion simply because they don’t fit the stereotypes for masculinity or femininity,” said Rand Hoch, president of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council.

“In a matter of days, all Palm Beach County residents will be judged on the quality of their work and will given an equal chance to succeed,” said Hoch. “No longer will an employer be able to fire an employee solely because she is a woman with a masculine walk or he is a man with an effeminate voice.”

With almost 1.3 million people, Palm Beach County will become one of the nation’s largest jurisdictions to prohibit discrimination against transgender persons.

When the Palm Beach County ordinances take effect, close to 40% of the US population will live in jurisdictions where it is illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression.

Similar laws exist in more than 90 cities and counties across America.

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression.

…

Palm Beach Adds Gender Identity To Nondiscrimination Law

Sunday edition, where we catch up with some trans people recently in the news …

#1 – Talk show “Yours, Rose” is scheduled to debut on Indian television this month …

In a congested neighborhood full of trash heaps, cows and auto-rickshaws lives a budding star named Rose.

Her photographs are splashed across newspaper pages and magazine centerfolds. She speaks at upscale women’s clubs and poses for fashion shoots in her diva-like designer chiffon sari. She gets free makeovers at the mall from admiring cosmetics saleswomen.

In a few weeks, Rose will become India’s first transgender host of a late-night TV chat show, to be broadcast to millions of homes in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

But her neighbors know none of this. They know Rose as Ramesh Venkatesan, just another young man living with his parents and trying to eke out a living.

Rose, who is 28 and uses only her first name, said that she has kept her identity secret from her neighbors for three years. She fears they would jeer at her parents if they knew.

She has reason to be concerned. The transgender community in this country has long been discriminated against, a people to be lampooned in movies. Transgender Indians are so oppressed that many earn a living only by making themselves a nuisance; they show up at weddings or shops, clapping their hands and demanding money from people who are all too eager to shoo them away.

Rose wants to change that. Her forthcoming show, called “Yours, Rose,” will be a venue to debate all kinds of socially taboo topics. It will be aired by Star Vijay, a Tamil-language channel owned by Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp.

“I want to break social stereotypes about transgender people through my TV show,” said Rose, tall and bejeweled with blond streaks in her hair.

“People will be curious about me. I know curiosity is not acceptance, but it is a start,” she said. She talks openly about the fact that she regularly gets hormone shots, and about the fact that she has not yet decided whether to undergo sex reassignment surgery.

A decade ago, such public discussion of sexual identity or sexual orientation would have been unthinkable. India’s first major motion picture about lesbians, “Fire,” was attacked by extremist groups. Movie posters were burned and theaters barred from screening the film. Gay men and lesbians paraded through the streets by the tens of thousands to assert their rights; it was a demonstration like none this country had ever seen.

…

A Transgender TV Debut

#2 – In San Francisco, the Golden Gate Business Association appointed Katherine Dean as its new executive director …

With the country’s LGBT community embroiled in a debate over protecting transgender people in the workplace, the nation’s oldest gay chamber of commerce announced this week it has hired a post-op transsexual woman as its new executive director.

Katherine Dean, 53, took over leadership of the San Francisco-based Golden Gate Business Association Tuesday, November 27, but the chamber waited until this week to officially announce its decision. Dean replaces John D’Alessandro, who had managed the organization for the past two years and moved to Miami, Florida this week where his partner was relocated for work.

…

Gay chamber hires transgender ED

#3 – Diane Schroer’s discrimination lawsuit against the Library of Congress was not dismissed …

A federal judge late Wednesday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit charging that the Library of Congress engaged in sex discrimination by refusing to hire a transgender women as an anti-terrorism expert despite her recognized qualifications for the job.

United States District Court Judge James Robertson ruled that former U.S. Army Special Forces Officer Diane Schroer has legal grounds to file a sex discrimination claim against the library under Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Title VII is violated when an employer discriminates against any employee, transsexual or not, because he or she had failed to act or appear sufficiently masculine or feminine enough for an employer,” Robertson stated in a 14-page decision.

In August 2004, Schroer, a 25-year Army veteran, accepted an offer by the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service for a position as a senior terrorism research analyst after completing an application and interview process.

Schroer applied for the position under her former male name and appeared for her interview in male clothing. During a meeting with CRS official Charlotte Preece following the division’s decision to hire her, Schroer revealed that she was transitioning into a woman and would begin her job using her new name and as a woman dressed in traditional female attire.

Schroer’s lawsuit states that on the following day, Preece informed Schroer by phone that library officials decided Schroer would not be a “good fit” for the job, based on the information revealing her change of gender. Preece told her then that the job offer had been rescinded, the lawsuit states.

Prior to filing her lawsuit, Schroer filed an administrative complaint with the library’s Equal Employment Office alleging sex discrimination under Title VII of the civil rights law. The EEO office denied her complaint, prompting her to file the lawsuit.

…

Judge rejects motion to dismiss transgender discrimination case

#4 – The election fraud lawsuit against Riverdale, Georgia city council member, Michelle Bruce was dismissed, but, as it’s said, the damage was done …

Georgia’s first transgender elected official lost her bid Tuesday for a second term on the Riverdale City Council.

Michelle Bruce, who fell to political newcomer Wayne Hall, blamed people she referred to as “bigots” who questioned her gender in a lawsuit.

…

In Riverdale, Bruce — surrounded by supporters from Georgia Equality and the Human Rights Campaign — dabbed her eyes as the results were read. Her loss came a day after a Superior Court judge threw out a lawsuit by two losing City Council candidates that alleged she lied to voters when she ran as a woman.

“I think the lawsuit had something to do with it [the loss],” she said. “I think we have a lot of work to do in Clayton County, especially Riverdale. I think we need to come together and the bigots need to go.”

Hall, an Atlanta firefighter, said he felt residents needed a choice since Bruce ran unopposed in 2003.

“The lawsuit gave exposure to things in Riverdale,” Hall said. “The two biggest issues here are credibility and accountability. Once you establish those two, you fix everything else.”

Transgender politician blames lost election on ‘bigots’

#5 – The San Francisco Chronicle’s On the Couch feature visited with Joni and Angela Pettit …

Is it simply too simple to say that successful relationships are based on the ability to support and celebrate change? Read on …

It was on one of their first dates in 1966 that Jonni Pettit, now 61, opened a fortune cookie to read what she thought was an impossible prediction: You and Your Wife Will Be Very Happy. She and her date, Air Force officer David Pettit, now 65, both laughed. Living in Roswell, N.M., David was training to be a navigator-bombardier under the tutelage of Jonni’s father, a military man, who urged him to date his daughter. The two married after only six months, and soon David left for Vietnam, where he flew more than 260 missions.

As a military wife, Jonni moved often, and in 1970 she gave birth to their only child, Audra. Their marriage meandered onward until 1984, when David retired as a major, and the couple set sail for the Bahamas. The relationship seemed shaky, at least to Jonni, who found David increasingly distant. On board, however, things got truly shaken up. David made a surprising announcement: He wanted to live as a woman. Jonni took only a second before reacting. “What do we do?”

The two thought they might be the only ones in the world in their situation, and for years they muddled through together, wrestling with David’s choices. In the ’90s, the advent of the Internet brought them support and a community.

Together the two (with Audra’s support) began the process of David’s transitioning to Angela. Settling in Fresno, they saw a therapist and came to understand how their marriage could accommodate this huge life change. Finally, in 2002, Angela traveled to Canada for sex-reassignment surgery. In retrospect, Jonni says, the qualities David was suppressing were those she was most in love with. “David was an unhappy, depressed, controlling man,” she explains. “Angela is the opposite: She’s caring, warm and most delightful.”

On a recent trip to Pacifica, where the two stayed in their plush RV, Angela, charmingly chatty, coos over the couples’ three bichon frises while Jonni looks on affectionately. Recently retired from her advertising job at the Fresno Bee, Jonni is now free to travel, and the two women often take driving trips through the West, stopping to lecture on college campuses about Angela’s transition and their unusual and unusually happy marriage. And they are delighting in their new granddaughter, Brooke, like proud grandmothers everywhere.

…

Jonni and Angela Pettit: From husband to wife

It’s been raining in San Diego this weekend(!), so time to search the web for the “California-related” stories and perspectives! Here we go:

~~~~~

* Some in Congress learned of waterboarding in ’02; CIA gave leaders private briefings about techniques. (San Francisco Chronicle)

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included future-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make prisoners talk.

Among the techniques, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

~~~~~

* Human Rights Watch Report: Poor care is given to detainees. Subheader: The study’s author said the most egregious case was of a 23-year-old transgender inmate held at the San Pedro facility. Man, who had AIDS, was denied treatment and became gravely ill, finally dying on July 20. (Associated Press/Daily Breeze, California)

~~~~~

* Remember those nine U.S. attorneys? (Los Angeles Times) A year ago, a Justice Department scandal forced them into new careers. Despite some bitterness, they’ve landed on their feet.

~~~~~

[After the break: Republicans salivating over Clinton's association with S.F. Mayor; California diocese leaves Episcopal Church in rift over gays, theology; SDSU Student attacked on SDSU campus just hours after rally against hate; Hollywood "fade to black" begins; and more.]

Read the rest of this entry »

Catching up on some of the weekend news …

#1 – Saturday on NPR’s Weekend Edition Scott Simon commented on Georgia Fuller’s charge that Riverdale, Georgia city council member Michelle Bruce “pretended to be transgendered, just to be popular” …

“We couldn’t find out how much a member of the Riverdale City Council is paid, but it’s probably not enough to want to make you change your gender to win a council seat — it’s Riverdale, Georgia after all, not San Francisco’s Castro District. Ms. Bruce says, ‘I’m the same Michelle I was four years ago. They’re just trying to distract from the issues.’

… Being transgendered has become a political asset in some parts of the South. Like getting endorsed by Pat Robertson or the NRA, it could have urgent implications for the presidential campaign ahead as both parties try to win votes there. Everyone running for office says, ‘I’m the candidate of real change.’ A transgender candidate can add, ‘and that’s not just talk.’ Rudolph Giuliani famously appeared in drag at a roast in 1997 — maybe that’s why he’s ahead in the polls. Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Jon Edwards — gentlemen, those accents alone may no longer be enough. [Music: "I Enjoy Being A Girl"]

#2 – A journalist asks, Must we respect stupid readers? …

One of the sacrosanct maxims of newspaper journalism is: Respect the reader. But sometimes it’s hard to do. From my phone calls the last couple of weeks:

An irate caller spits bile over our story about a transgender observance. “You people are a bunch of perverts, just like the people you’re trying to make heroes – those transgerderites or whatever they call themselves.”

Hold on, I say. Our job is to reflect the goings-on in our community and that event was news about people who live here.

“I don’t want to hear about them!” she wails. “How dare you give publicity to those kind of people.”

…

Respect the reader. Respect the reader. It’s gotten so I have to mumble those words like a prayer every morning. It is a challenge, after all, to respect readers who luxuriate in blissful stupidity and angry vacuity.

#3 – I don’t know exactly why “intersex advocate” Alice Dreger does things that seem calculated to hurt and offend intersex people (such as delivering a lecture here last June). Earlier this month, Prof. Dreger delivered a lecture at Indiana University entitled, “No Matter How You Slice It? Parsing Intersex,” which prompted this response from Curtis Hinkle of Organisation Intersex International …

That title reveals an insidiously hateful side of Dreger’s character: For someone who prides herself in being ever so clever with words, she had to know how hurtful that title would be to intersex people (especially those who’ve been “sliced” physically and emotionally by the system Dreger represents, and who don’t appreciate being referred to as “it” either).

What reason could she have had to use such an awful title? Now I’m not one to attribute motives without hard evidence, but some folks might suspect Dreger of being in a rage against intersex people for having “turned the world against her”, or some other such imagined injury. Folks might also suspect Dreger of designing that title to ensure that few or no intersex people would attend her talks (given the difficulty in maintaining one’s emotions in the face of such despicable taunts).

Alice Dreger, have you no shame?

#4 – The New York Post reported yesterday about this grisly murder case …

November 24, 2007 — Police are searching for the killer of “Sugar Bear,” a professional drag queen from Brooklyn – whose head was found frozen in the ice of a Long Island pond by skaters in 2003.

The killer had dumped the head, with a single bullet wound in the temple, in the pond in Moriches, where it was found on Jan. 25, 2003, said Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, commander of the Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad.

The victim’s arms and legs were later found miles away in plastic bags.

It took Suffolk detectives almost a year and a half to identify the victim as Andre Jamal Isaac, 25, of East New York, the grandson of a Vietnam POW.

DNA tests linked the body parts to a torso found clad in a skirt, black body suit and tank top in Far Rockaway, Queens, in December 2002.

Detectives showed photos of his head to transvestites in Manhattan.

In May 2004, one drag queen told a detective, “Hey, that looks like Sugar Bear.” Another knew Isaac’s real name, and detectives found his mother, Kim Long Jordan, 50, on Long Island.

Jordan gave investigators a key piece of information: One of her son’s pals had seen Isaac just before Thanksgiving getting into a car with a “secret friend.” He was never seen again.

“He went out without a coat and said he would be right back. He left his pocketbook,” she said.

Fitzpatrick said the car was a red, BMW-type coupe with “nice rims” driven by a Hispanic man.

Fitzpatrick asked anyone with information to call the Homicide Squad at (631) 852-6392. All calls will be kept confidential.

Isaac was the grandson of the late Donald Rander, an Army soldier held by the North Vietnamese for five years.

Jordan, a teacher, said her son was a talented female impersonator and dancer who would enter contests from New York to Washington, DC.

“He was a big bear,” she said. “No matter what his lifestyle, he was still a human being.”

Hunt For Clues in Tranny Slay

#5 – Transgender student Andrew Gomez was elected Homecoming King at Pasadena City College earlier this month …

For late Friday …

#1 – Another Black Friday‘s here — and I hope that the start of this Christmas shopping season includes more than just Wii and flat panels. So, please consider this purchase …

In Ethan St.Pierre‘s Thanksgiving Day interview on TransFM with TYFA‘s Kim Pearson (sorry, no link), Kim expressed a hope and a wish, if I’m not mistaken, that the Amethyst Ribbon might become a broader symbol/icon for the entire trans community.

#2 – More on Michelle Bruce … ANONYMOUS LOBBYIST at Wonkette comments on gender, genitalia, small towns and small minds in Riverdale (what a world away from the place of the same name I grew up by in NYC), Georgia …

Michelle, you see, was born intersexed (i.e., with ambiguous genitalia) but has lived her entire life as a woman. She self-identifies as transgendered and is pretty open about it (in a city of 15,000 people, it’s hard to hide certain things) though she refuses to discuss the specifics of her medical records — and good for her. She’s been a City Council member for almost 4 years, has been mocked on a local radio program and if anyone doesn’t know her backstory, well, it ain’t because she’s been in any kind of closet.

However, Georgia “I Only Ran to Get the Queer Out of Office” Fuller and her lawyer, Michael King, may have climbed out from under a rock. Miz Georgia lost the election, garnering only 171 votes out of the 685 cast earlier this month but she damn well thinks she should have won against that “person.” In court papers, she and her scum-sucking lawyer refer to Michelle as “Michael” and are demanding another general election in which Michelle would be forced to run as Michael (a name she’s never used and an identity she’s never claimed) to be more “accurate” about herself. The lawyer told the press that women have an “unfair” advantage in elections, ignoring every single thing that most people know about female politicians.

#3 – This athlete’s now attempting to cross over a new bar …

A former European pole vault medallist has decided to quit the sport, possibly to pursue a sex change operation.

Yvonne Buschbaum said that a persistent achilles tendon injury and a feeling that she was “emotionally in the wrong body” have contributed to her decision to end her career.

The 27-year-old said on her website: “For many years, I have had the feeling I am in the wrong body.

“Those who know me have seen a clear fault. I feel like a man and yet must live my life in the body of a woman.

“I would not like to be misjudged any longer.

“I am conscious of the fact that transsexuality is a difficult topic, but I don’t want to be involved in a game of hide-and-seek with the truth.

“I appeal to the public’s understanding, to respect my decision and not draw any wrong conclusions.”

Champion athlete may have gender reassignment surgery

#4 – Five years here is 4.99 years too many …

[<< The Abuser] A DRAG queen has told how he suffered months of abuse from a `neighbour from hell’ …

Mr Prescott urged other people suffering homophobic abuse or anti-social behaviour not to feel that they have to suffer in silence.

He said: “She is THE neighbour from hell. I have lived here for five years and the abuse started the day I moved in. She asked me if I was married and I told her I was gay.

“She immediately started shouting abuse at me and it has gone on ever since.”

… Mr Prescott called police. Jones was arrested after each incident, but each time she was interviewed by police she claimed she could not remember what she had said or done because she had been drunk.

[<< The Abused] Mr Prescott had described how he had put up with similar abuse for years but the situation got worse in recent months …

Mr Craig Parkinson, defending, said Jones had difficulties looking after herself and this was exacerbated by her drinking. She had been intoxicated when she committed each offence.

Sentencing was adjourned until December 6 – and Jones was remanded on conditional bail.

Mr Prescott, who has been a professional female impersonator at clubs for 20 years, said: “I ignored her at first, but she has been relentless.”

Neigbour made life a drag

#5 – Well, forget pulchritude, but, first gender dysphoria, now I have to worry about gender dysmorphia …

[<< Victoria Beckham] The Diana inquest drags on and drags up all sorts of questions. Among them: what on earth has happened to women’s bodies since the Queen of Hearts died in that tunnel?

… When I look at these women I think of car commercials: leaner, zingier, and now with better suspension. Never curvy, God help us. These martyrs to Lose Weight Exercise-loss hate curves. Jolie complained recently that her part in the film Beowulftook the edge off her angular frame – she risked looking too sexual in front of her children. Are they women at all, I sometimes ask myself, peering more closely at my copy of Grazia. Will there come a day when it will be revealed to the world that this is a huge practical joke? Will the world’s most supposedly enviable women turn out to be escapees from a Pat Pong transsexual club?

The body of evidence

Ten years ago Diana was the female figure all women aspired to. Why are our role models now ‘boys with breasts’

After that, and having already mentioned (my) “flat panels,” I can’t help but consider this question …

The lifelong Democrat in me says, “Laura,” but this seems like a non-partisan election to me …

For Wednesday …

#1 – In law and legislative news …

[In Florida] County commissioners voted 5-1 today, with Commission Chairwoman Addie Greene dissenting, to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression. The decision will add gender identity as a “protected class” in the county’s equal employment ordinance. Commissioner Mary McCarty referred to it as the “lipstick and high heels” rule.

Palm Beach County prohibits gender identity discrimination

[In Michigan] Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm has signed an executive order banning discrimination in state employment based on gender identity or expression, according to Michigan LGBT rights group Triangle Foundation. The legislation applies to the approximately 50,000 state employees in Michigan’s executive branch, which makes up 95 percent of all state employees. The order will protect not only transgender workers but also any state employee who faces discrimination because he or she does not conform to traditional gender norms in behavior or appearance.

Michigan governor signs transgender antidiscrimination law

[In Ohio] The City Commission voted 3-1 to add sexual orientation and gender identity to a list of protected groups. Commissioner Dean Lovelace was the sole “no” vote. McLin and Commissioners Matt Joseph and Nan Whaley voted for the measure. Joey Williams requested additional dialogue and did not vote.

Dayton commission passes anti-discrimination law

[In Maryland] Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) signed off yesterday on legislation to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, over the objections of religious and community groups that say the measure would give male cross-dressers access to women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

Leggett Signs Bill For Protection of Transgender People

#2 – In politics …

[In Georgia] Michelle Bruce says she didn’t run for office to be a pioneer, but there’s no denying that she cuts a unique figure in political circles: She’s perhaps Georgia’s first transgender politician.

Four years after she won a seat on the Riverdale city council, she’s battling a lawsuit launched by an unsuccessful opponent who claims Bruce misled voters by running as a female. And to Bruce, the line of attack is somewhat confusing.

“I’ve always been Michelle,” she said. “If someone has a problem with that, I can’t help them. It’s a personal issue.”

It’s a rather perplexing legal challenge aimed at a rather perplexing political figure …

The complaint, which identifies Bruce as “Michael Bruce,” claims she misled voters by identifying herself as a female and asks a judge to rule the November election results invalid and order another general election.

Fuller did not return calls seeking comment, but her attorney said that voters in Riverdale tend to favor female candidates — particularly if they are incumbents.

“It gives her an unfair advantage,” said Michael King, the attorney who filed the lawsuit. “It’s not just sour grapes. The people need to know whether the election is fair.”

Transgender politician fights claims of fraud because she ran as a female

Some video accompanying the Bruce story may be viewed here. And …

[In Colorado] Pam Bennett, an at-large candidate for city council who missed unseating one of two incumbents this November, says she intends to start her next campaign this December for a seat on city council in 2009 …

Although a few transgender candidates have been elected to offices across the United States in recent years, an openly transgender candidate has never held office in Aurora.

“Pam is absolutely a pioneer – not the first, but part of the first handful,” said Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, an organization that does not make political endorsements.

Pam Bennett set to run for council again

#3 – Stonewall redux?

[In New York City] It was not exactly the Stonewall Rebellion II, but a group of about 40 mostly veteran LGBT activists picketed a social gathering for members of the Human Rights Campaign at the Stonewall Bar on Christopher Street, scene of the 1969 uprising by gay and transgendered people that sparked the modern LGBT movement.

Jon Winkleman, a gay activist and board member of the National Stonewall Democrats, organized the protest against what he termed HRC’s “dishonesty and duplicity” in supporting the US House passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act covering sexual orientation but dumping gender identity and expression.

“HRC and its executive director Joe Solmonese repeatedly told the community they were fighting for an inclusive ENDA when they were secretly lobbying Congress to pass the more expedient lesbian-and-gay-only version.” Winkleman said …

“I feel betrayed,” said Honey, a transgendered woman. “I used to help them and give them publicity on my TV show.”

Caprice Bellefleur, a person of mixed gender, noted Solmonese’s solemn pledge in mid-September never to divide the bill and his betrayal in the home stretch. “They came late to transgender inclusion in the first place,” Bellefleur said.

Bill Dobbs, an independent gay activist if there ever was one, said, “The ENDA vote was part charade to shore up HRC’s donor base and gay votes for the Democrats.”

Jay Kallio, a trans man and activist for 36 years, said that given that ENDA wasn’t going to become law anyway, “you should place LGBT community unity over passing a meaningless bill.”

HRC ‘Duplicity’ Protested

#4 – Pawned off?

It’s a very special day in Gayville: Transgender Day of Remembrance: a solid 24-hours of commemorating our gender bending allies who have fallen on the road the freedom. In honor of this honorable day, the National Stonewall Democrats would like to share the following thoughts:

Whenever transgender citizens are told that their inclusion hinders the advancement of the LGBT movement, our own history is ignored and strategic lessons forgotten. As we remember the lives of those we have lost, we must work to secure equal protections for our entire movement. We owe a special duty towards those whose contributions have already led to legal protections for many in our community but not for themselves. If we are to reduce violence against transgender citizens, we must reduce attempts to marginalize transgender Americans within the law and, when necessary, within our own community.

Human Rights Campaign also delivered a trans message: they’re not holding a memorable event. They are, however, encouraging their supporters and staff to attend a vigil at DC’s Whitman Walker Clinic. Pawning Transgender celebration onto another organization?

Why are we not surprised…

Don’t Forget The Trannies!

#5 – Mein kampf redux?

My ‘‘Heil Hitler” comment was clearly directed at the council president for the Nazi-like manner in which she ran the vote and would not tolerate public input. My comment about my fear of dead little girls being found in rest rooms was couched in the context of the infamous Hadden Clark, who is in prison for the deaths of Michelle Dorr and Laura Houghteling. He enjoyed dressing like a woman.

This will go down in history as the most profoundly insane idea that our County Council has ever voted for. What woman is willing to go into a restroom alone, or allow her daughter in said restroom, with a man in there wearing a dress? This legislation will only attract those looking for fertile hunting grounds for little girls.

Comments were directed at council president

For Tuesday, Transgender Day of Remembrance …

#1 – Another story on Michael Berke …

High on prescription painkillers and four days without sleep, Michael Berke raced his Harley to the megachurch where he’d found a home.

He barged into the church office, cursing loudly and wearing a mesh shirt printed with profanity. In his hands he held a picture of a woman with long, red hair and pouty lips.

“This is who I used to be,” he said.

“And this” — he gestured to his breastless chest, bald head and red goatee — “is who I’ve become.”

He was born a man. After a lifetime as a social misfit, he had transformed himself into Michelle, a saucy redhead. Then, three months ago, he had become Michael again — with the financial aid and spiritual encouragement of Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale.

Now, he wanted to be Michelle again, and he blamed Calvary for making him the man he had become.

…

Born a man, he became a woman, then a man again — what’s next?

#2 – Michelle Bruce is being accused of fraud …

Two unsuccessful Riverdale City Council candidates have asked a judge to halt an upcoming runoff election, alleging fraud by a candidate who ran as a woman …

The lawsuit alleges that Bruce, who identifies herself as transgendered and goes by Michelle Mickey Bruce, misled voters by identifying herself as a woman. The suit identifies her as “Michael Bruce.”

Bruce’s voter registration, notice of candidacy and driver’s license identify her as Michelle Bruce, a white female. Bruce’s birth certificate was not available Monday.

Bruce said she was “born transgendered” and declined to say if she had surgery to change her gender.

“That’s private,” Bruce said in a telephone interview Monday. “The people don’t care about it.”

…

Transgender candidate misled voters, suit alleges

#3 – Scottsdale, Arizona’s Personnel Board voted Monday evening to add deviant behavior gender identity to its list of protected classes in city’s equal employment and anti-discrimination policies …

The board voted 3-0 to recommend that the City Council add gender identity — a term often meant to refer to the transgendered — and sexual orientation to the list of protected classes in city’s equal employment and anti-discrimination policies. They will join existing protections for employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age and disability.

The council could make a decision on the recommendation, and is scheduled to take up two other proposed anti-discrimination laws, on Dec. 4, said Neal Shearer, assistant city manager.

Issues of accommodation, such as which restroom a transgendered person is allowed to use in city facilities, will be determined on a case-by-case basis in an attempt to “devise a practical and dignified solution to these issues,” Shearer said …

Alice Porter said it could be precedent-setting.

“I think we’re playing with fire here,” she said. “I think it will have a rippling effect throughout the city.”

Roger Van Camp said sexual orientation and gender identity are issues of behavior, different from other classes like race or age.

“Deviant behavior is chosen by the individual,” Van Camp said. “I find it abominable that the city would even consider this. Their sexual orientation has nothing to do with their job.”

… The other two proposed anti-discrimination laws up for City Council discussion Dec. 4 involve prohibiting the city from contracting with groups that violate city anti-discrimination policies, and banning businesses in Scottsdale from discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.

Scottsdale panel moves to prevent discrimination

#4 – Susan Stanton spoke at the Unity Church of Clearwater on Monday …

It’s been exactly eight months and 23 days since Steve Stanton was fired from his job as Largo’s city manager.

He was escorted out of City Hall by some of the same officers he hired during his 17 years on the job.

That hurt, Stanton told a group at a transgender remembrance day service at Unity Church of Clearwater on Monday.

Now known as Susan Stanton, she counts each day since the dismissal, when the greatest test of her will and strength began.

During that time, she has been searching to find employment.

She applied for a job in Berkeley, Calif., but the fit wasn’t right.

In despair, she drove to the Golden Gate Bridge, where many people choose to end their pain.

She stood there in a “deep, dark hole.” She said she felt she had no future.

“You can feel the environment,” she said, “and that you want to jump into the hands of God.”

But she didn’t. And on Monday night, she spoke to an audience of some 150 people about her struggle to transform herself from a man to a woman …

Slender and soft-spoken, she appeared as feminine as most women in the audience who had come to hear her speak.

“It’s not like I’m going to walk around looking like Aunt Bea,” she told the Times earlier in the day. “I’m not out mowing the lawn in a dress. Sometimes I put on a T-shirt and shorts.”

She is living in Sarasota, takes female hormones and has joined a health club.

There is one downside to taking the hormones, she said with a laugh. “Without the hormones I could bench-press 90 to 120 pounds,” she said. “With the hormones, I can bench 20 pounds.”

Stanton is scheduled to have her first mammogram today. In May, she will travel to Phoenix for sex reassignment surgery.

Although the experience Stanton has endured is painful, she said it has brought her closer to her family, especially her son, one of her biggest supporters …

Sharing a life’s pain

#5 – Take those pants off, ladies …

Dresses epitomize womanhood in the Western world. Such has been the case since the western man adopted pants to replace the tunic in the sixth century (an aspect of the West’s Germanic barbarian heritage). Dresses allow us to differentiate between the silhouettes of men and women on restroom signs. Dresses are the indelible image of womanhood because of the symbolic nature of pants and dresses. If all fashions are symbolic, dresses in particular symbolize womanhood by more fully embodying the ideal of a true lady, the objective understanding of what men find attractive in the fairer sex: passivity, domesticity, childrearing, coital love, piety and fertility. These defining aspects of womanhood are immutable. We all tacitly reaffirm these attributes in our attempts to find a partner. Flirtation and courtship are reaffirmations of what it means to be masculine and feminine because it is only by fulfilling the obligation of our form that we can attract the opposite sex.

You might say these things were once true but times have changed. Not so. The nature of sexual attractiveness in women is objective, immutable and incontrovertible because it is directly related to the constant and unchanging physiology of men and women. What men find attractive in women is fixed because the physiology of humanity has been relatively unchanged. In this way, the ideal form of femininity is also unchangeable and without regard for cultural context or time period. What men find attractive in women – the form of a true lady – is objectively identifiable, just as it was in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In short, femininity is sexy, and sexy is timeless and universal.

What’s not sexy is feminism (not to be confused with femininity), which is directly responsible for the disappearance of our beloved dresses and the adoption of pants by the “new woman.” Like all fashions, pants are symbolic of something – in this case masculinity – through their allowance of physical activity. Dresses, the antithesis of pants, symbolize femininity through grace and elegance. Men find elegance in women to be attractive, and dresses are a physical manifestation of femininity. The wearing of pants by women represents the masculinization of the fairer sex, which is not at all attractive.

In advocating the wearing of dresses, I must distinguish between the flowing elegant dresses of tradition and the more degenerate and immodest dresses of our present culture. The miniskirt, a dress of sorts that doesn’t extend below the knees, is both lacking in modesty and elegance. Elegance is essential to femininity, and the lack thereof implies a sort of masculinization. Modesty is essential to feminine virtue, and the lack thereof implies a state of whorification. Immodest, inelegant dresses constitute a degeneration and androgynization of true dresses.

The androgynous masculinization of the modern woman, through the donning of pants, suits, uncovered shoulders and unveiled hair, has in a sense led to the slow whorification of ladyhood. In discarding feminine dress, women seem to have symbolically discarded femininity and modesty (the virtues of women) in favor of sexual virility, promiscuity and immodesty (the vices of men). The ideal form of a true lady is a constant, immutable aspect of humanity, and this strange new development can only represent a bizarre aberration of a perverse and ignoble culture. Dresses are an essential part of any true lady’s attire, and they should be worn.

Who wears the pants?

Here’s this weekend’s This And That:

~~~~~

Oops! Costume flap imperils immigration post:

Just when it appeared Julie Myers had cleared every hurdle in her quest to officially become the nation’s top immigration official, a dreadlocked wig and a prisoner’s outfit could cost her the job.

Myers, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], ran into trouble earlier this month after she and two other agency managers gave the “most original” costume award to a white employee who came to the agency’s Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin.

The incident drew complaints of racial insensitivity and an apology from Myers. It also cast doubt on whether she’ll get a confirmation vote before the end of the year, when her original appointment expires.

And ICE was doing so well with managing stuff like healthcare at those darn detention facilities before that darn costume contest!

~~~~~

The HRC and transgender people/transgender people’s allies don’t look to be getting along too well this coming week, and much of it has to do with symbolism involving Tuesday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR). Everything from the the HRC and protestors due to clash at the Stonewall Inn in part because the HRC scheduled a networking meeting in New York on the TDoR, to the HRC quietly cancelling their scheduled Day of Remembrance event at the HRC Headquarters (cache from November 11th’s webpage and today’s webpage, and not related to TDoR — the ENDA debate spicing up Dallas’s Black Tie event (former trans HRC boardmember Donna Rose calls on HRC president Joe Solmonese to apologize — both will be in attendance at tonight’s Black Tie).

There’s no joy in this at all — this ongoing rift between the HRC and transgender people/transgender people’s allies can’t be good, long term, for LGBT community, nor can it be good for LGBT civil rights issues.

~~~~~

Coffee is never far from our minds, here at The Blend. That’s why it’s a shocker that Starbucks has lowered its profit and sales forecasts following a first-ever decline in U.S. customer visits.

The world’s dominant coffee retailer launched a national television advertising campaign Friday called “Pass the Cheer.”

Some Starbucks watchers said it would have been better to go with “Lower the Prices.”

The Seattle-based company began the campaign one day after revealing that customer visits to U.S. outlets fell — something that had never happened before — in the quarter ended Sept. 30. Starbucks said there was no connection.

Reasons cited for the decline in U.S. customer visits?

Coming four months after Starbucks raised its prices by an average of 9 cents a drink, the ad campaign coincides with a credit crunch that has crimped some spending styles — at a time when the company’s stock has been depressed. Shares of Starbucks, which fell 90 cents Friday to $23.20 , have dropped 41% in the last year.

Many Americans are cutting back on affordable luxuries such as fancy coffee beverages, said Howard Penney, an analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. And as customers curtail their visits, Penney and others said, Starbucks should be offering promotions.

A touchy-feely ad with a winter theme won’t lure people back, they said, because it doesn’t offer any incentive.

“People are becoming very price-conscious,” said Alan Siegel, chairman and chief executive of branding strategy firm Siegel & Gale. “Without making any kind of an offer, I’m not sure Starbucks is addressing the problem.”

Yeah, if it’s between buying food that costs 5.5% more last year, heating the house that looks like it’s going to cost 9% more than last winter if a home uses natural gas, and 147% more than last winter if a home uses heating oil, filling up the car at 87¢ more a gallon than last year, or buying a cup of Starbucks Coffee that averages 9¢ more a cup … well, it’s an easy choice.

~~~~~

As if the Catholic Church doesn’t have enough image problems, a nun who taught at St. Patrick’s Elementary School in Wisconsin plead no contest to sexually abusing schoolboys in 1960s.

Not only can you not make this stuff up, no one in their right mind would want to make this stuff up.

~~~~~

I ruminate over getting a story horribly wrong early this week over at The View From (Ab)Normal Heights.

*sigh*

Sunday morning edition … catching up with some trans and gender-related news from the past week …

#1 – The Arizona Republic profiled transwoman Michele de LaFreniere, who’s chairperson of the Scottsdale Human Relations Commission, yesterday …

It sounds odd coming from a person whose large hoop earrings dangle near her Adam’s apple, who brushes her long blond hair away from her face with man-size hands and who, despite the strain to raise her tone, still speaks as a tenor. But Michele de LaFreniere, like other transgender individuals, desperately wants to fit in.

She has become a high-profile symbol for the Phoenix area’s transgender community, becoming involved in a possible discrimination action against a Scottsdale nightclub. But she is not looking to be singled out. Just the opposite.

De LaFreniere does not want the public to see her as a man who had surgery to become a woman. She just wants to be seen as a woman.

“Unfortunately, I’m 6 feet tall, so people are like, ‘Ooooh,’ ” she said. “Whatever.”

De LaFreniere knows people stare. She knows people probably think she’s a freak. That she’s just a guy in a dress.

She’s not. What she is, however, is difficult for people to wrap their minds around. She’s a transsexual and, more broadly, a transgender individual.

Transgender people feel as if their body doesn’t match the sex their brain feels it is. Transsexuals take the step of getting surgery to correct that mismatch.

The umbrella category of gender-identity disorder has been accepted as a medical condition by mental-health professionals, but not by society at large. It’s easier to laugh than to understand.

But for those experiencing it, feeling that you were born the wrong gender is torture.

“I don’t like being transsexual,” de LaFreniere said.

Since living openly as a woman, she has had a divorce, paid for hours of therapy, and, most recently, became persona non grata at her favorite nightspot.

“I wouldn’t go through all this if this was not what I was,” she said. “I wouldn’t risk giving up my life, my family, to go through all this crap unless this is who I really am.”

…

Finding her true self

#2 – Irishman Brynn Craffey takes particular exception to Barney Frank …

If all this were not upsetting enough, Representative Barney Frank was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article making light of his gross indecency and cowardly act of removing transgender people from ENDA protections.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who has pushed for the legislation for 30 years, said he regretted that political necessity dictated dropping sexual [sic] identity as a separate cause. But, noting that “I also wish I could eat more and not gain Lose Weight Exercise,” Frank, who is also gay, said he would support the bill and “continue to fight.” [emphasis mine]

That’s right, Barney, this is all about you and your desire to gorge yourself and yet remain slim. Whatever you do, don’t make the act of tossing gender-variant Americans under the bus while protecting bigots in Congress from having to take any heat for their prejudice actually about the fact that real people will loseWeight Exercise their livelihoods as a result of your cowardice and selfishness. Definitely don’t make this about the fact that your divisive actions have the potential to rend alliances within the LGBT movement and cripple us for decades to come.

…

That’s right, Barney, make light of your cowardice

(And I have an urge to send Barney a case of Fat-free Pringle’s … )

#3 – So apparently this wasn’t a “big gay adventure” after all — advice columnist Dan Savage hears from Dr. Anne …

“When I first read about the Curtis affair, I assumed that Curtis’s principal sexual attraction was to men, that his marriage was essentially one of convenience,” writes Anne A. Lawrence, M.D., Ph.D., a Seattle physician and psychotherapist who specializes in gender identity issues. “[I interpreted] that his statement about ‘not being gay’ simply meant that he didn’t identify as gay, even though he was a man who had sex with men.”

But as more information came in about Curtis, Lawrence arrived at a conclusion opposite to the one everyone else was arriving at. The crossdressing, the rope, and, yes, even the anal sex—it all pointed to Curtis’s heterosexuality.

“The information that has come out about Curtis allegedly wearing women’s lingerie while engaging in receptive anal intercourse suggests the alternative hypothesis that Curtis’s principal sexual attraction is to women but that he is also sexually aroused by the idea of being a woman himself,” writes Lawrence. Curtis is so into heterosexual sex, according to this theory, that he wants to experience it from both sides. “Hypothetically, when being penetrated anally by a man, he might imagine himself as a woman being penetrated vaginally by a man. This hypothesis would also be consistent with his statement that he is ‘not gay.’”

Wait—what?

“A small percentage of men who are principally sexually attracted to women—perhaps as many as 2–3 percent—are also sexually attracted to the idea of being women themselves. Canadian psychologist and sex researcher Ray Blanchard coined the term ‘autogynephilia’ (literally, ‘love of oneself as a woman’) to describe this phenomenon.”

Autogynephilia most commonly manifests itself in erotic crossdressing—which is practically unheard of among gay men.

…

Straight Acting

(Sounds like this story has been “transjacked,” which reminds me that … )

#4 – Chris Crain expressed his views, with which this part at least I agree, on the Curtis affair …

Gay bloggers had a field day, giving us permission to revel in every salacious detail of this private, consensual sexual encounter because Curtis is “very anti-gay,” as one gossipmonger put it. In blogger-speak, that means Curtis voted against two gay rights bills, though no one has yet produced homophobic rhetoric or evidence he played a leadership role on the issue.

NEVERTHELESS, A COUPLE of votes on the wrong side of gay issues is all it takes these days to expose every detail of an elected official’s sex life to public dissection on the blogs, with no detail too private or too embarrassing.

If the police report is accurate, the really serious hypocrisy is a personal one, between Curtis and his wife, assuming she does not know or approve of his man-on-man adventures.

But, Crain would not be (the good gay-straight Republican) Crain without this kind of backhanded slap …

IT’S ALL JUSTIFIED, of course, because there’s no crime more serious to the sex police of the left than hypocrisy — which is why it’s interesting to see how these same bloggers have reacted to news that Curtis enjoys wearing women’s lingerie.

Cross-dressers and transvestites (who have a sexual fetish for clothing of the opposite sex) are both examples of transgenderism, the “T” in our happy GLBT community.

We certainly have no business disparaging cross-dressing since we were reminded again and again in the debate over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that we queers are all gender transgressors of one form or another.

#5 – Moving along from one lawyer and gay-straight Republican to the next, Dale Carpenter would like to assure you that — if you happen to be a bit fem or butch or maybe even transgender — your ENDA’s covered … maybe …

AS A MATTER of common experience, discrimination based on gender nonconformity and sexual orientation almost always go together. It would be rare to see an employer fire a man for being effeminate without also seeing evidence of anti-gay discrimination. Common statements like, “that fag walks like a girl,” indicate that these two forms of discrimination significantly overlap.

As a matter of logic, if there is evidence of both forms of discrimination, then even if ENDA doesn’t include gender identity the evidence of sexual-orientation discrimination alone will sustain the employee’s lawsuit.

Lambda and other opponents of ENDA have been challenged to come up with cases in which a law covering only sexual orientation was used successfully by an employer to defeat a gay employee’s legal claims because the law did not include gender identity as well. So far, the gay and trans opponents of ENDA have come up with nothing.

The legal argument against ENDA is even worse. Gender nonconformity is already protected under existing federal law because it is considered a form of sex discrimination. Thus, the macho woman and the effeminate man already have legal claims if fired for their gender nonconformity.

ENDA closes a loophole under which gay men and lesbians have been forbidden by some courts to make these gender-nonconformity claims because of their sexual orientation. And it adds protection for masculine gay men and feminine lesbians who so far have no protection under federal law.

EVEN A gay-only ENDA offers some limited protection to trans people. Because it prohibits discrimination based on actual “or perceived” sexual orientation, ENDA protects the cross-dresser or transsexual whose gender nonconformity leads her employer to “perceive” that she’s homosexual and then fires her for her perceived homosexuality. It doesn’t protect transsexuals from discrimination based on their transsexuality, as adding “gender identity” to the bill would, but it moves in that direction.

Columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner of FindLaw reports on what she calls A Guantanamo Index.

The FindLaw teaser says the following about the article:

[She] offers an index, much like the famous Harper’s Magazine “Harper’s Index,” that provides a quantitative perspective on the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the fates of the detainees there. The figures she compiles range from the shocking (the total days of the longest detentions without charge; the age of the youngest prisoner), to the deeply upsetting (number of apparent and attempted suicides; estimated number of detentions of farmers, aid workers, missionaries, and refugees totally unconnected to terrorism), to the appalling (hours for which, according to an FBI agent, two detainees were left chained in a fetal position). 

The article is worth the read.

Yeah, the Bush Administration doesn’t torture … it also believes we spread freedom, provide an example of the rule of law … *sigh*

~~~~~

From the Los Angeles Times comes the story China Bans Exports of Drug-Tainted Toy:

China’s government has suspended exports of toys covered with a toxic chemical that have been subject to recalls from Australia to the United States after sickening children, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

China’s move came as seven more U.S. children were reported ailing after ingesting Chinese-made toy beads because of the toxic chemical coating, bringing the total of U.S. children sickened to nine, according to a spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The Chinese government’s quality control administration issued the export ban, sealed the toys at the sites where they were produced and ordered an investigation, Xinhua said in a brief report.

Millions of units of the popular toys, which are sold as Aqua Dots in the United States and as Bindeez in Australia, were recalled in those countries as well as in Britain, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere this past week after children began falling sick from swallowing the toy’s bead-like parts.

Tests showed they were coated with the industrial chemical 1,4-butanediol. When ingested the chemical metabolizes into the “date-rape” drug gamma hydroxy butyrate, and may cause breathing problems, loss of consciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death. In addition to the nine in the U.S., three children in Australia have taken sick.

Wow.

Thank goodness our Consumer Product Safety Commission has been keeping us safe from dangerous, cheap Chinese toys! … Well, not really, but we can engage in playing pretend and wish it were so.

~~~~~

Montgomery County Council acts to quell protests over transgender bill;
Protests prompt committee to remove public accommodations section of the antidiscrimination bill; a vote is set for Tuesday:

After a vigorous e-mail campaign attacking the public accommodations section of a bill designed to protect transgender people from discrimination, a Montgomery County Council committee has decided to remove that portion of the bill.

Critics have inundated the council and local news media for weeks over their concerns that women and girls would have be confronted by male nakedness in locker rooms and bathrooms if the bill is passed. They argue that the bill would put girls and women at risk.

The committee’s decision came late Thursday evening and was not announced publicly. The Gazette learned of the change on Friday.

The bill as amended would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, cable television service and taxi service.

A vote on the bill, which is expected to pass, is set for Tuesday.

‘‘The committee decided it was simpler not to include the public accommodations part. At this point, the purpose is to provide equal rights for transgender individuals,” said Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg, who proposed the bill in September and wrote it with the help of an aide who is a transgender woman. ‘‘I think it’s unfortunate that a small group of individuals sought to create a campaign of fear about the legislation.”

Activism works. The religious right scare tactics involved over the nonexistent threat of cross-dressing rapists won the day.

Related:
* We Have A Weiner — I mean A “Winner”
* Latest Attacks Of Teh HomoSEXual Agenda’s Transgenderededs’s Bullet Points

~~~~~

My City Councilwoman, Toni Atkins, sent out her monthly Toni Times. As you can imagine, as a local e-blast it has a lot of boring stuff in it about renaming parks, street lighting wiring, and community thank you’s. This week’s letter had water saving tips — California is also experiencing serious drought:

WATER CONSERVATION TIPS
Water is our most valuable resource. California’s main water sources have been severely impacted by dry record dry conditions. In San Diego, we need to be prepared should these weather conditions continue. As part of a region-wide effort to step up voluntary water conservation, the City of San Diego Water Department, in conjunction with the San Diego County Water Authority, is issuing a 20-Gallon Challenge. San Diegans are each being asked to conserve 20-gallons of water a day.

There are many ways that businesses and residents can voluntarily conserve water. Here are a few of the some simple things you can do to conserve 20 gallons per day:

INDOOR
* Save 2.5 gallons per minute by shortening showers
* Save 2 gallons per minute by turning off water when brushing teeth
* Save 15-50 gallons per load by washing only full loads of clothes
* Save 100 gallons per week by hand washing dishes at least once a day, using less detergent to cut down on rinsing

LANDSCAPE IIRRIGATION
* Save 20-25 gallons per day by watering before 6 a.m. and after 8 p.m.
* Save 15-25 gallons per minute by not over watering—cut irrigation cycles by 1-3 minutes
* Save 15-25 per day gallons by adjusting sprinklers to prevent overspray

OTHER OUTDOOR
* Save 8-18 gallons per minute by using a broom instead of a hose to clean driveway & sidewalks
* Save 15-20 gallons per day per leak by repairing leaking hose bibs
* Save 30 gallons per day by installing covers on pools and spas

~~~~~

HOLY COW! A bovine falls 200 feet off a cliff and lands on a minivan in Manson, Wash.

Charles and Linda Everson were driving back to their hotel when their minivan was struck by a falling object — a 600-pound cow. The Eversons were unhurt but the cow, which had fallen off a cliff, had to be euthanized.

The year-old cow fell about 200 feet from the cliff and landed on the hood of the couple’s minivan, causing heavy damage.

A Chelan County fire chief, Arnold Baker, said the couple missed being killed by a matter of inches in the accident Sunday on a highway near Manson.

The Eversons, visiting the area from their home in Westland, Mich., to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution.

Everson, 49, said he didn’t see the cow falling and didn’t know what happened until afterward.

He said he kept repeating: “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this.”

After a three-week hiatus, 5 Things returns with this Thursday edition of trans and gender-related news …

#1 – Today, November 8th, is Intersex Solidarity Day.

#2 – Paul Schindler writing in the Gay City News yesterday had a pretty good wrap-up (“What Does Victory Mean?“) of the U.S. House’s passage of H.R. 3685 (ENDA) on Wednesday.

#3 – While GLBT solidarity may have suffered a setback yesterday here in the U.S., there’s “solidarity” aplenty in South Korea, where not just the “T” … but the “G” … and the “L” … and the “B” were all left out of proposed anti-discrimination legislation …

“A supposed landmark nondiscrimination law has been hollowed out to exclude Koreans, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, who are in need of protection,’’ Jessica Stern, a researcher from the group, said in a statement this week.

Critics blast proposed South Korean nondiscrimination bill for excluding gays, lesbians

#4 – Back in the States, the Montgomery County (Maryland) Council is scheduled to vote Nov. 13 on a bill to add “gender identity” to the county’s anti-discrimination policy. Opponents of the measure, such as Dr. Discrimination, are now focusing their arguments on the “bathroom” issues …

… this bill would not define ‘‘facilities” as bathrooms alone, but would include locker rooms and showers as well.

The bill, if passed by the council on Nov. 13, would allow biologic males to access female showers and dressing facilities. Many transgenders have not had reassignment surgery but would still be allowed into lockers and showers.

Also, what was considered indecent exposure in the past will be legalized. Unless people communicate their concerns to the County Council, indecent exposure will be legalized by Bill 23-07.

Ruth M. Jacobs, MD, Rockville

#5 – Kim Pearson of TransYouth Family Advocates (TYFA) has a feature in the Nov. 2nd issue of BottomLine San Diego on transgender kids …

In the GLBT movement, most of us are familiar with the capital “T” representing Transgender folks, but there is also a lower case “t” beginning to emerge as a bright and shining star of education and advocacy in our community. The lower case ‘t’ represents the trans and gender variant children in our community and the families who love and support them.

Due to the flurry of recent media attention, these children have been thrust into the public eye. Unless you are personally acquainted with one of these children/families, how much do you really know about their lives and experiences? How accurate is the information you may have?

…

Difference isn’t wrong…it just is

The “trans-exclusive” version of ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act), H.R. 3685, heads to the House Education and Labor Committee for a vote today. While we’re waiting for news there, here are some other trans-related stories in the news recently …

#1 – Transwoman Sue Stone of England, who got got the Sun treatment (‘A PENSIONER was horrified when a “strapping” 6ft sex-change carer turned up to bathe her.’), was not amused by the outing …

A SEX-change carer has hit out after she was branded a “Fright Nurse” and a “Granny Tranny”.

Transsexual Sue Stone, from North Shore, was upset after a Blackpool family complained to a national newspaper she was not a female carer.

Ms Stone, who had an operation to become a woman two years ago, is “fuming” and worried about the affect on other transsexuals in Blackpool after the client’s daughter refused to let the carer bathe her mother.

She said: “I thought I had put my old life behind me. I went through hell with it all and this has dredged it up again.

“My clients who didn’t know about my sex-change will know about it now and those who did know think it’s horrible what’s happened. My clients are very happy with my care, get on with me and don’t see what the fact I used to be a man has to do with anything.

“The story called me ‘he’ all the way through and they didn’t get my side of things.

“I am also worried about other transsexuals who will hear about it and be worried about people’s reactions.”

Ms Stone, 44, a former farm-worker, said she loved her job and was worried some clients may no longer want to be looked after by her.

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Sex-change carer’s fury over complaint

#2 – The Ladyboys of Bangkok are performing in Liverpool, England …

Jade Wright is the first person to go backstage with the Ladyboys of Bangkok as they perform in Liverpool

THE door is flung open and a whirlwind of sequins, feathers and bare skin sweeps through.

Click clack, click clack stiletto heels on tiled floor. One minute call. Beginners to the stage. The music builds to a crescendo, the spotlights peek through the velvet curtain and in a blur … she is gone.

Backstage with the Ladyboys of Bangkok is a fascinating place to be. Sixteen of the world’s most beautiful transvestites vie for space in the brightly lit dressing rooms.

Beneath the sound of hairdryers and the music that floods from front of house, they speak quietly and quickly in Thai as they blow-dry each others’ hair and help each other into ever-more elaborate costumes. With over 200 outfit changes every night and just one wardrobe mistress, they work as one; a seamless team, getting ready in a flash.

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Boys will be girls

#3 – Some Catholics may want to loosen their wimples a bit …

The Archbishop of San Francisco has apologized for recently giving communion to members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — a San Francisco society of of gay, lesbian and transgendered activists who dress in drag as nuns to make a statement against the Catholic Church’s stand against gays.

The communion incident was videotaped at a Sunday mass and clearly shows two people in bizarre makeup and colorful costumes – including one dressed in a parody of a nun’s habit – receving the Eucharist wafer from Archbishop George H. Niederauer at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the Castro district earlier this month.

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News called it an “unbelievable outrage” and hundreds of angry e-mails poured into the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The archbishop has apologized for his failure to recognize the demonstration by the gay activists.

“After the event, I realized that they were members of this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had been a mistake,” Archbishop Niederauer said in a statement.

The archbishop also called the actions of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence “deeply offensive.”

An archdiocese spokesman said this was the first time Archbishop Niederauer had seen the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in person since arriving in San Francisco 18 months ago.

SF Archbishop Uproar: Communion To Fake, Gay Nuns

#4 – This story is about much more than just pleated skirts and pom-poms …

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“We’ve not only got to be sensitive to the transgender athlete,” says Colbrese, “we’ve got to be sensitive, obviously, to all those athletes with whom they would be competing.”

Meyerhoff found that among the 50 other state high-school activity organizations (with one for Washington, D.C.), none had a policy on the eligibility of transgender athletes. Neither did the NCAA.

The only organization Meyerhoff could find that had written guidelines was the International Olympic Committee. In May 2004, the IOC determined that anyone who had undergone sex reassignment before puberty can compete in the gender of their reassignment. Helen Carroll, sports project director at the San Francisco–based National Center for Lesbian Rights, says transgender athletes have yet to show up in the games, but notes that Canadian cyclist Kristen Worley, a male-to-female post-op transsexual, is hoping to make her nation’s team for the Beijing games. “We’re thinking she’s going to be the first openly out trans person that’s competing in the Olympics,” Carroll says.

For athletes who changed sexes after puberty, there are stricter requirements: All surgical anatomical changes have to be completed; legal documentation, such as a driver’s license, has to be provided that reflects the new gender; and hormonal therapies have to have been administered for enough time to minimize gender-related advantages. The IOC also recommends that the athlete wait at least two years after a gonadectomy—the removal of the testicles in men and the ovaries in women—before competing.

Colbrese decided to adopt the IOC rules, making the two-year wait a requirement. That would exclude students like Johnson-Baker, who may dress and live as a female but are still physically male, from participating in competitive sports. However, in Johnson-Baker’s case, the Mount Vernon cheerleading squad is not a competitive sport, so participation would still be allowable at the discretion of the school. Monson says Johnson-Baker may try out again next year.

Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to apply a policy designed for adult athletes to minors. Marci Bowers, a Seattle-based surgeon who performs gender-reassignment surgeries at a clinic in Colorado, says the new WIAA rules are “kind of silly” because surgical options generally aren’t available to minors. According to Bowers, most surgeons performing sex reassignments make potential patients wait until they are 18.

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Shoulder Pads, Pom-Poms, and the Angry Inch

#5 – Speaking of Kristen Worley, TransNation writer, Jacob Anderson-Minshall has this profile of the Canadian cyclist …

Kristen Worley is on a mission. The Canadian cyclist is determined to make it to the 2008 Olympics, but that’s not what’s first on her mind. The transitioned athlete—the term she prefers over transsexual—is on a mission to prevent a repeat of what happened to Shanti Soundarajan.

A runner from India who won a silver medal in the women’s 800 meters at the 2006 Asian Games, Soundarajan garnered international scrutiny when she “failed” a gender test and was stripped of her medal. Three weeks ago, the 26 year old ended up in a coma after she attempted suicide.

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Athlete Fights for More than a Spot at 2008 Olympics

For Sunday, a non-ENDA inclusive edition where we catch up with some of the other recent news …

#1 – Some legislation-related news from around the country, starting in Maryland …

Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, which has led opposition to the sex education curriculum in Montgomery County’s schools, has a new target. In a recent e-mail, the group highlighted legislation before the County Council that would prohibit discrimination against residents based on gender identity.

Gender Bill Targeted

… in Oregon …

A group seeking to overturn amendments to Oregon’s anti-discrimination law that provides protections for the state’s LGBT community has failed to collect enough signatures to have the issue placed on the ballot.

Second Oregon Anti-Gay Vote Measure Fails

… in Arizona …

A Scottsdale initiative to outlaw discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people is moving forward and could reach the City Council as soon as November.

Panel may weigh gay-rights issue soon

… and in Florida …

Two Democratic state legislators from Palm Beach County have filed bills that would prohibit discrimination in Florida based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations.

The measures, which the sponsors say will face strong opposition in the Republican-led Legislature, would expand state law that provides legal recourse for people maligned based on their age, color, disability, marital status, national origin, race and religion.

State Sen. Ted Deutch and Rep. Kelly Skidmore, both of Boca Raton, are sponsoring the bills, which they hope to be heard in the spring 2008 regular legislative session. The bills are similar, though Skidmore’s also addresses discrimination based on “gender identity or expression.” …

In explaining the need for the language dealing with gender identity and expression, Skidmore cited a case in which a woman was refused service at a restaurant merely because her hair was short.

“We’d all love to believe that discrimination is not occurring among us on a regular basis, but it is,” Skidmore said. “There really is just no place for it.”

Two legislators seek to expand anti-discrimination law

#2 – Vancouver is hosting the International Drag King Extravaganza (IDKE 9) this week …

In Peterson’s view, the increasing presence of drag kings is its own form of education, creating awareness about the fluidity of gender boundaries in a variety of contexts.

“What drag king-ing does is it provokes thought. It sets the wheels turning inside the head that, ‘Oh, maybe gender isn’t black and white. This is a woman impersonating a man; or maybe it’s not, maybe it’s an FTM. Maybe there are shades of grey I never thought of,’” Peterson muses. “Maybe they’ll look within themselves too and find there’s a shade of grey in some way, shape or form.”

Krieger couldn’t agree more.

As she looks about the contemporary drag scene, she feels she’s witnessing a sea change in the trends that inform drag king personae and performance.

For one thing, it’s more than just hitting the stage in costume, or appearing as a guy. Today, she says, drag kings are expressing, even personifying, different aspects of gender.

“You see such a diversity of gender, and drag kings are at the forefront of that, showing people that there are all of these different ways of being, different ways of relating, different ways of looking,” she observes.

Pushing the gender boundaries

#3 – Deborah Grabowski is the Dallas Police Dept.’s first known transgender officer …

Nineteen years ago, Mike Smith attended police academy alongside Joe Grabowski.

Today, as a sergeant for the Dallas Police Department, Smith supervises Officer Deborah Grabowski.

But Joe and Deborah aren’t husband and wife, brother and sister, or father and daughter.

Deborah Grabowski, 42, is the department’s first known transgender officer, having undergone sexual reassignment surgery in May.

But Smith said that for him and others who work with Grabowski out of a substation at Love Field, little has changed.

“To me, she’s the same person as she was 19 years ago,” Smith said. “We get along the same way. I treat her just like any other police officer. “

Grabowski said she’s thankful for that.

Smooth transition

#4 – This is not your “usual” beauty contest …

This picture shows an attractive model applying some essential last-minute make-up backstage before competing in an international beauty pageant, right?

Well, not quite.

You see, this pretty in pink model is a contestant with a difference – one of the entrants in the Amazing Philippines Beauties contest… open exclusively to transvestites and transsexuals.

The beauty queens with rather surprising a-genders

#5 – October is LGBT History Month …

Historian Susan Stryker made the amazing discovery the way that many of her peers do: by pure accident.

She wasn’t looking for it, but she found evidence of a forgotten chapter in the history of LGBT community in America.

In 1995, Stryker a transgendered historian, and co-author Jim Van Buskirk were working on Gay by the Bay, their soon-to-be published, best seller capsule history of the San Francisco LGBT movement, when they came across an interesting item in the program for the 1972 Gay Pride march.

The article described an August 1966 riot at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin, a poor and working-class area of the city where many transgenders lived, and still do. The incident started after a rowdy queen refused to leave the popular hangout and management called the police.

Stonewall wasn’t the first LGBT riot

For Sunday, a non-ENDA inclusive edition where we catch up with some of the other recent news …

#1 – AfterElton did a feature on the “TV Landscape Changing for Transgender Characters” …

The portrayal of transgender characters on television these days seems to be sort of a glass-is-either-half-empty-or-half-full situation. For years television has presented a steady stream of “transsexual” prostitutes, murder victims, and other assorted minor characters that usually appeared for one episode and were portrayed as little more than a collection of stereotypes to advance the plot or get a cheap laugh.

A recent example of that aired this past summer on HBO’s hit show Entourage. In the episode “Sorry, Harvey” a secondary storyline centered on Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) trying to get the sad sack mayor of Beverly Hills (played by Groundhog Day’s Stephen Tobolowsky) hooked up with a beautiful woman in order to curry his favor. At a bar to which he takes the mayor, Drama thinks he has succeeded with a woman named Anika — at least until he learns that she is actually transgender.

The mayor turns out not to mind, but the show portrays this as due more to his being so pathetic rather than a message of acceptance. This impression is further underscored by the main characters’ clearly being repulsed at the idea of a transgender person, and by the episode’s big “reveal” when Anika’s male genitalia are shown during a panty-less Britney Spear’s-type incident.

On the “half-full” side of the equation there is ABC’s Ugly Betty. Last season the hit dramedy included Alexis Meade, a transgender character portrayed as self-accepting, not desperate for the approval of a man, and who wasn’t a prostitute. Audiences loved the character.

Already the most diverse network when it comes to LGBT representation, ABC deepened their diversity with two new transgender characters introduced this fall, one each on Dirty Sexy Money and Big Shots. Neither are regulars at this point, and while the Dirty Sexy Money show continues to build on the progress of Ugly Betty, thus far Big Shots is a throwback to more stereotypical portrayals of transgender women. (There are no transgender men – female to male – characters currently on network TV.)

Despite setbacks like the recent episode of Entourage, Mara Keisling, Executive Director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, believes things are improving when it comes to transgender representations on television. “I’m really, really optimistic. Things are changing so much so fast. Oprah has had so many sensitive shows. Montel has done some good shows. Larry King does show after show, and that’s just really educating the public.”

As to what is driving that change, Keisling stated, “It’s just natural that as there are more and more trans people visible in public, that’s going to be reflected in popular culture.”

The rest of that feature can be read here.

Monica Roberts at TransGriot had some thoughts about the role of Dontrelle in Entourage …

It figures that we transsistahs once again get stuck being painted by the hooker brush while white transwomen are seen running a magazine or being the love interest of a US senator.

As the late Esther Rolle said in her Good Times role as Florida Evans, “Damn, Damn, Damn!”

Memo to Hollywood: Is it so hard for you to create an African-American transgender character that fits the reality of the 90% of us who don’t partake of sex work to make our living? Is it that difficult for you to craft an African-American transgender character that isn’t the punchline of a joke or doesn’t end up dead in the first five minutes of the show?

And, by the way, Oprah Winfrey has an upcoming show this week (Friday, 10/12) entitled, “Trangender Families” …

Meet transgender individuals who had the courage to say “this is who I am.” What happens in a family when Dad becomes a woman? Oprah talks with the new American family.

Read the rest of this entry »

ENDA the week edition …

#1 – On Wednesday, October 3rd, Donna Rose resigned from the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign …

Community. Integrity. Leadership. Vision. These are the foundational pillars of Equality. These are the values that draw many of us into advocacy roles. Those tenets provide a clear roadmap when things like politics, expediency, agenda, and power cloud the picture as they so often do. They pave the way to the moral high-ground, and those who follow them with trust and patience will ultimately find their efforts rewarded.

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The current situation regarding ENDA is nothing short of a politically misguided tragedy. A tool that could and should be a unifying beacon on the heels of the historic passage of fully inclusive Hate Crime legislation has been split. Transgender brothers and sisters again find themselves separated, isolated, and disempowered. People in positions of power have decided that their personal legacy and the promise of political expediency are more important than protecting our entire beautiful community. The time is here to make a strong statement to demonstrate to them that they are wrong.

In 2004 the HRC Board voted to support only fully-inclusive Federal legislation. That decision paved the way to my participation with the organization, and was a significant step in the healing process. Since that time we have worked together tirelessly towards a goal of Equality for all. Less than a month ago HRC President Joe Solmonese stood before almost 900 transgender people at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta to pledge ongoing support and solidarity. In his keynote address he indicated that not only would HRC support only a fully inclusive ENDA, but that it would actively oppose anything less. That single pledge changed hearts and minds that day, and the ripple affect throughout the transgender community was that we finally were one single GLBT community working together. Sadly, recent events indicate that those promises were hollow.

An impressive coalition of local and national organizations has lined up to actively oppose the divisive strategy that would leave some of our brothers and sisters without workplace protections. This effort has galvanized community spirit and commitment in ways few could have imagined, and it has demonstrated to those who would divide us that anything less than full inclusion is unacceptable Organization after organization has seized the moral high ground knowing that this is a historic opportunity that cannot be squandered, and that it is our moral obligation to ourselves and to generations that will follow to make a loud, clear, unmistakable statement that we are a community and we will not be divided. There is a single significant organization glaringly missing from that list. The Human Rights Campaign has chosen not to be there.

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I hereby submit my resignation from my post on the Board of the Human Rights Campaign effective Monday Oct. 8, 2007. I call on other like-minded board members, steering committee leaders, donors, corporate sponsors, and volunteers to think long and hard about whether this organization still stands for your values and to take decisive action as well. More than simply a question of organization policy, this is a test of principle and integrity and although it pains me greatly to see what has happened it is clear to me that there can only be one path. Character is not for compromise. I cannot align myself with an organization that I can’t trust to stand-up for all of us. More than that, I cannot give half-hearted support to an organization that has now chosen to forsake the tenets that have guided my efforts from day one.

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History teaches painful lessons. Any celebration of rights gained at the expense of others is not a celebration. It is a failure of effective leadership. It is to offer the promise of a tomorrow that you know in your heart will never come. It is to choose to turn your back on those who need you most, who do not have the voice or the stature to speak for themselves.

The time is here for leaders to lead, for those who say they stand for community to act forcefully and with purpose. Anything less is to forsake the pillars of Equality for the empty promise of something less. The word that we have for that in our language is “Courage”. It’s the kind of courage it takes for GLBT people to show up for work each and every day, living authentically, wondering if that will be their last day. I call on my brothers and sisters at the Human Rights Campaign, for Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Frank, and for equality-minded leaders everywhere to lead by example and to do the right thing.

And four more recommended reads are …

#2 – Terrific piece (“No ENDA Without Trans Protections“) from Doug Ireland writing in the Gay City News yesterday, including this quote from Sean Strub, the founder of POZ magazine …

“Trans people are trotted out as ornaments to demonstrate our diversity when useful, but otherwise are often treated like third-class citizens within the movement, ‘their’ issues relegated to something that is outside of the ‘mainstream’ gay agenda. To me, their issues are our issues, and anyone who can’t understand that needs to read some history.”

Ireland ends with …

What, after all, are the transgendered asking for? As transgender leader Jennifer Finney Boylan – a novelist and professor of English at Colby – put it in a speech at the National Press Club in May, they want a country “where Americans understand that transgendered people come in all shapes and sizes and embodiments, where to be a cross-dresser or a transsexual or a drag queen or trans man or genderqueer is seen as simply another way of being human.”

Only if the gay community’s organizational spokespeople at all levels take a tough line and say we won’t support this bill if the trans are thrown overboard and declared less than human will there be any hope of getting trans protection back into the bill.

State LGBT organizations should hold their state Congressional delegations’ feet to the fire on this – and not spare the kerosene. This is not the moment for HRC-style capitulationism to preserve “access” for the future – that feeble game makes us all look like wimps, and always leaves us getting screwed. Instead we must all stand up loud and firm and protect those whose visibility makes them the most vulnerable to discrimination and hatred – i.e., the transgendered.

No Trans Protection, No ENDA – that must be our slogan.

#3 – From Gabriel Rotello at The Huffington Post yesterday, “If ENDA Doesn’t Protect The Transgendered, It Doesn’t Protect Me” …

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Researchers now think that this is all connected, that all gay and transgendered people occupy places on a continuum between the two main genders.

At one extreme are masculine gay men and feminine lesbians who could easily pass as straight, and whose only obvious sex-atypical trait is their sexual orientation. At the other extreme are people who are so gender-atypical in so many ways that some choose to have an operation to bring the body in line with the soul. But what distinguishes us is that we all, to some degree or another, have major traits that place us somewhere between the two primary genders.

In that sense, all LGBT people are transgendered.

Not only does this idea offer a more expansive definition of what we really are, but it also better explains why we are oppressed.

Homophobes don’t merely hate us because of how we make love. Rather, they hate how we make love because it violates our expected gender roles. Really, we are hated for gender transgression.

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So in light of that, the decision to remove what we currently call transgendered people from a bill to ban anti-gay discrimination in the workplace couldn’t be more misguided.

Yes, sure, all the other arguments against the removal of transgendered people from ENDA are valid, foremost among them that we are sacrificing the most vulnerable among us for the political expediency of getting a bill passed.

But if you look at LGBT people as all, in a sense, transgendered, such a bill is not merely sacrificing the rights of one sexual minority within our movement. It’s betraying and denying the strange, wonderful, mysterious and very human thing that makes us what we are.

#4 – From Jody Huckaby, the executive director of PFLAG, writing in the Washington Blade today, “Don’t break up the family” …

REALISTICALLY SPEAKING, IN an environment where the president has threatened to veto hate crimes legislation — a bill that protects people from violence — it is unlikely that ENDA, if passed by Congress, would get signed into law. Given this unfortunate reality, how can we allow the legislative process to become a time to prove that the strategies of our opposition can work?

The argument that civil rights are achieved incrementally may have in the past been true. This does not mean that this is the way things ought to be. As a movement, we’ve agreed that “settling” for incremental advances in marriage isn’t acceptable — civil unions aren’t the same as marriage. Similarly, settling for only covering one part of our community in protection from discrimination should be no different.

Knowing that the possibility of this bill becoming law is slim should be the chance for us to prove that we are family and that each one is equally deserving of the same rights and protections. If there is more educational work to be done, let it happen now, but let’s not let the education that we give to the public be that we can be divided.

#5 – Finally, from Tracy Baim yesterday in the Windy City Times, ‘Not Without Our “T”‘ …

The GLBT community is not just a series of letters thrown together out of convenience. Rather, our movement includes those four key letters because each are inter-connected in their histories, and their experiences. It has taken a long time for our community to more fully embrace the differences within, even though “transgender” individuals have always been intimately linked with our movement ( from cross-dressing Hollywood stars to drag queens at Stonewall ) .

But society does not so easily separate us. When an employer fires a butch lesbian because of what she wears, he or she does not do this because they understand the differences between sexual orientation and gender identity. An effeminate gay or straight man may be fired because of how he talks, “like a girl.”

And even if our enemies had a sophisticated understanding between homophobia and transphobia, should it matter why they fire a G, L, B or T? Because lesbians are more acceptable to general society ( or at least ignored ) , should we first get coverage for them, and then the bisexuals, then gay men, and then the transgendered?

No, we will not be divided.

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We do not want our rights at the expense of anyone else. That is too high a cost to pay.