It’s (outrageous) enough that some folks would compare Norman Spack to Josef Mengele, but I truly hope that talk of “execution” like this does not incite an Eric Rudolph or a James Kopp to ever try to effect “the desired result” on Dr. Spack …

Happily, in these cases of “deception,” wasps don’t “panic” and orchidphobic violence is not a result …

Orchids that mimic female wasps may not only waste the time of the male wasps they lure into spreading their pollen — they also seduce them into wasting valuable sperm, Australian researchers reported on Wednesday.

And the flowers benefit twice — getting help in their own reproduction, and perhaps indirectly producing more male pollinators in the process.

Some of the most exotic orchids are known to have evolved their convoluted shapes to attract insects, who unwittingly collect and transfer pollen as they try to mate with the flowers.

“The effect of deception on pollinators has been considered negligible, but we show that pollinators may suffer considerable costs,” Anne Gaskett of Macquarie University in Sydney and colleagues reported.

“Insects pollinating Australian tongue orchids (Cryptostylis species) frequently ejaculate and waste copious sperm,” they wrote in a report in The American Naturalist.

It is not harmless to the wasps, who may suffer more than an inconvenience. “Male pollinators can prefer orchids to real females, prematurely end a copulation with a real female to visit an orchid, or be unable to find real female mates among false orchid signals,” the researchers wrote.

“Unquestionably, producing sperm, ejaculate, or seminal fluids is costly for many animals. The energetic demands of sperm production can result in reduced body mass, a shortened life span, or limited lifetime sperm production,” they added.

But this arms race of sexual trickery works in more than one way for the flower. “We also show that orchid species provoking such extreme pollinator behavior have the highest pollination success,” they added.

“How can deception persist, given the costs to pollinators?”

They found that the wasps who frequent these flowers are haplodiploid species. Like bees, ants and similar species, offspring produced by sexual unions are female, while females can also produce males asexually.

“Therefore, female insects deprived of matings by orchid deception could still produce male offspring, which may even enhance orchid pollination,” the researchers wrote.

Gaskett’s team examined flowers after wasps visited them and found the hoodwinked males did eventually learn their lesson.

“With experience, male Lissopimpla excelsa wasps become less likely to copulate with and pollinate sexually deceptive Cryptostylis orchids,” they wrote.

Sexy orchids do more than embarrass wasps?

The orchid, by the way, gets its name from the Greek όρχις orchis, meaning “testicle.”

Joelle Farrell and John Sullivan are the bylined writers of a Philadelphia Inquirer (Philly.com) piece entitled School challenge: Transgender student is age 9. Incredibly, the article gave out information that could help identify the specific daytime whereabouts and nighttime neighborhood of a nine year old transgender youth.

In addition to functionally outing a nine year old, the Philadelphia Inquirer also ignored reputable journalistic standards for how to refer to transgender people. They showed disrespect for the article’s transgender youth by to referring to her with male pronouns in a manner inconsistent with the Associated Press Stylebook’s guidelines on how to refer to transgender people:

Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

So, while writing about how the Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to the outing of a nine year old, remember that they called her a “him” in the process of outing her.

The decision to disrespect the child by referring to her by male pronouns was made by Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com Education Editor Rose Ciotta. Along with the publisher, Editor Ciotta is also responsible for deciding to publish the name of the elementary school the nine year old attended. The paper indicated to me that they obtained the name of the school from a much less well read Haverford Township blog — it strikes me as incredulous that the editor and newspaper believe that finding the name of the child’s school in a blog gave them license to publish this information that could endanger the youth.

Although neither the elementary school (which sent out a flier to parents indicating there was a transgender nine year old attending the elementary school), the Haverford Township blog, or Philadelphia Inquirer directly released the name of this transgender child to the general public, we do see a chain of events which led to a print media outlet publishing the name of the elementary school that the transgender youth attends. Think of it this way — when a print media outlet writes about a sexual assault victim, as a rule they don’t tell you where the sexual assault victim was employed, or in what neighborhood sexual assault victim lived. Yet within the pages of their hard copy and electronic newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer identified the elementary school the transgender youth attended to the general public. The publication told the public where this nine year old spends each school day, and the neighborhood where this nine year old lives.

One can only guess the Philadelphia Inquirer has never though about how that violence related to a youth’s gender variance is a real possiblility, or that conservative Christian adults may encourage mockery of (or even violence towards) a transgender child specifically because a child is transgender.

Refering to the child as “him,” publishing her daytime location and identifying where she and her family can face possible verbal and physical harassment — If I were the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer, I’d be very embarassed and ashamed that my publications published this article.

[What to do after the fold.]

Stories on transgender youth seem to be reaching the media more frequently these days; I’m not the only one who thinks the lack of concern for the privacy and safety of transgender youth is a problem. I spoke to Cindi Creager of GLAAD earlier this evening, I learned that GLAAD is very seriously considering adding a section on reporting on transgender youth for their 2008 update to the GLAAD Media Reference Guide. I suggested that they might want to discuss the issue of underage transgender youth story guidelines with the Associated Press at their next meeting too — Ms. Creager told me that was being thought about as an agenda item for their next meeting with the AP as well. I really believe guidelines for reporting on transgender youth have of late become incredibly necessary. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s piece a reason why guidelines are incredibly necessary.

Please also consider letting the Haverford Township blog and the Philadelphia Inquirer know that they should treat information that could be used to out an LGBT youth with much more sensitivity and seriousness than they did in this case. And, should you contact these organizations, please don’t harass them with profanity or threaten them with violence — using profanity or the threat of violence to complain about possible harassment of, or violence towards transgender youth would make us as much the bullies as we don’t want any others to be.

- Philadelphia Inquirer Write to Us: Letters and Op-Eds
- Harvard Blog Contact Information

~~
Kim Pearson of TYFA provided background information for this diary.

~~~~~
Related:
* Outing #2: When You Endanger A Child For The Sensationalism Of It
* Literally Demonizing Transyouth
* Defense attorney of Lawrence King’s murderer: it’s the victim’s fault
* Parents confront officials about Lawrence King shooting
* Tired
* We Wouldn’t Want To Actually Tolerate Transgender People, Would We?

Events …

• The National Day of Silence was observed April 25th.

Law and legislation …

• In Montgomery County, Maryland, lawyers “involved in a challenge to the referendum on overturning the county’s new protections for transgender people were in court last week to talk about the scope and timing of the case.”
• Also in Montgomery County, Dan Furmansky of Equality Maryland “said a review of signatures collected to overturn the Montgomery County law has been hastened so it can be completed by month’s end.”
• In Massachusetts, a state legislator filed legislation to block payment for a prisoner’s sex-change operation.
• On the Isle of Mann the government has introduced draft legislation entitled The Gender Recognition Bill 2008. “The main points of the Bill include allowing a transsexual person who has been issued with a full gender recognition certificate to be legally regarded as being of their acquired gender, and that a transsexual will be able to marry a person of the opposite gender to their acquired gender.”
• In Detroit, Michigan, the City Council passed a “gender identity discrimination ordinance.”
• In Florida, “the Pinellas County Commission expanded its human rights ordinance to protect gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Included in the vote was a promise to explore expanding the ordinance to bar discrimination against the transgendered.”
• In Ventura County, California, the attorney representing the teenager accused of murdering Larry King sought to have his client tried as a juvenile. The attorney also broached the possibility of employing a “gay-panic-esque defense“, saying “he believes school administrators supported one student expressing himself and his sexuality — King — and ignored how it affected other kids, despite complaints. Cross-dressing isn’t a normal thing in adult environments, he said, yet 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds were expected to just accept it and go on.”
• In California, a transsexual former inmate settled an abuse case against the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “The inmate suffered severe bleeding and lost more than 25 pounds after deputies didn’t give him prescribed testosterone shots in October 2004. Instead, jailers harassed the inmate, such as snapping his mug shot, taping it to a glass on which deputies had written “FEMALE” on it, according to court records.”

Employment and education …

• In Texas, a “Houston business has settled a lawsuit filed by a transgender woman who said a job offer was rescinded because the company learned she was born a man.”
• Also in Texas, Gerald Jeanmard “is suing a company he says fired him. The Port Arthur man claims he was removed from his position with KT Maintenance at the Motiva Refinery after KT found out he was becoming a woman.”
• In New York, there was a meeting in Manhattan to discuss the proposed Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). Regardless of Empire State Pride Agenda “polling data showing that 78 percent of New Yorkers support the legislation,” the prospects of advancing the legislation in the state legislature this year do not seem promising.
• The Human Rights Campaign released its Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace, 2nd Edition. Prof. Jillian Weiss commented on this report in her blog.
• In the UK, The Independent published “Lonely road: Why school is hell for transgender pupils.”

Religion …

• In Texas, United Methodists met to discuss trans people.

Science …

• A research report released last week showed some evidence that how “much a mother eats at the time of conception may influence whether she gives birth to a boy or a girl … ” “The reason food intake may influence the development of one sex of infant rather than another isn’t fully understood. However, in vitro fertilization studies show that high levels of glucose encourage the growth of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos.”

People …

• In California, Victoria Kolakowski is “running for Alameda County Superior Court Judge.”
• The Gateway published a feature on University of Nebraska professor Meridith Bacon, who is the chair of the board of directors for the National Center for Transgender Equality.
• The National Center for Transgender Equality’s Mara Keisling spoke in Ohio. According to the Gay People’s Chronicle, Keisling spoke at length about (non-transgender-inclusive) ENDA and “said members of Congress should be told to reject any attempts to take transgender protection out of ENDA.”
• Between The Lines wrote about Aaron Watkins and Crystal Proxmire (”FTM? Fine by me“).
• Zagria wrote about Virginia Prince at her Gender Variant Biography blog.
• In Arizona, a “ceremony honoring the memory of Amancio Corrales will be observed with a demonstration of unity and support on May 6, the third anniversary of his murder.”
• In television news, Ugly Betty’s Rebecca Romijn and her transsexual character, Alexis Meade, will be fading out.
• In Canada, the Ottawa Sun published “A coming out party” — “In the coming months, you’re going to hear more from Ottawa’s transgendered community as it makes an effort to gain understanding and acceptance” — and accompanying articles, “Coming out the hardest part for cross-dresser,” “Escaping from the ‘fear’,” “The times, they are a changing” and “Ottawa’s one-man health care sector.”
• The New York Times published a feature on Fran and Denise Brunner from New Jersey (”Through Sickness, Health and Sex Change“).

~~~~~

All these news items are archived at Transgender News, which you may find here or here.

Hills in the hometown, a Guy on dresses and … whatever …

We have hills in Asheville.

I was out running today. Most days I run. I’m no spring chicken anymore though. Weather’s getting warmer, I got out later in the day today, pushed the mileage. The motor’s still working. I’m not complaining. But …

We have Hills in Asheville …

I have enough years on the odometer that, as I commented here not long ago, I’m not particularly keen on any of the Presidential candidates remaining in this contest. But, Hills was here the other day, wooing and maybe wowing some folks in what has been a generally conservative CD (and first-term Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler is a Republican in Dem drag, for what it’s worth) …

Sen. Hillary Clinton told a raucous and inspired Asheville crowd Thursday that as commander in chief she would end the war in Iraq while enacting universal health care and reviving a faltering economy.

This is not a comment about isolationism, global disengagement or any of that serious stuff, but, apropos of the setting (Thomas Wolfe Auditorium), America needs an Angel (whatever gender) to Look Homeward now.

Not leaving Hillary entirely behind as you’ll see, but off to the subject of fashion (There used to be, some years back, by the way, a group of local women from Asheville performing musically as “Crimes of Fashion.”) … where I’ll leave it to you, dear readers, to make your own political and fashion sense out of this …

Borrowing from the male wardrobe is hardly new …

the prevalence of mannish jackets represents a real shift from the girly dresses dominating runways in recent seasons - and may be a sartorial signal of something more. Judging from fashion history, masculine styles often signal a moment when women are looking for clothes that assert authority.

Designer Peter Som says he was thinking of Hillary Clinton …

The ‘boyfriend jacket’ comes on strong

… and …

Just look, Hil. All those pants.

It’s not exactly a state secret — the U.S. senator and presidential hopeful is pro-trouser. And why not? She looks good in them. (Better than those drab dresses …

Who’s wearing the pants here?

… and from a Guy’s perspective …

“The eye is looking for something new, and so is the psyche,” Anne Slowey, the fashion news director of Elle magazine, said last week from the set of “Fashionista,” a new fashion reality show in which she will play herself, a fashion editor, only meaner. “The dress has been done to death,” Ms. Slowey added, “not to sound really cliché.”

…

This prediction will come as a surprise, perhaps, to retail analysts like the folks at NPD Group, who not long ago termed 2007 the year of the dress, pointing to sales of more than $5 billion in the 12 months that ended last April, and a rate of growth in dress sales fully 30 percent higher than the year before.

“The first hint of chill in the air, and the full-legged, pleated high- and low-waisted legions will be out in the urban jungle,” said Ms. Slowey, already so adapted to her new television role that she speaks in thought bubbles. The expiration date for the dress, she claimed, “is end of August.”

This prediction will come as a surprise, perhaps, to retail analysts like the folks at NPD Group, who not long ago termed 2007 the year of the dress, pointing to sales of more than $5 billion in the 12 months that ended last April, and a rate of growth in dress sales fully 30 percent higher than the year before.

It may also come as unwelcome news to the female members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose wildly anachronistic Laura Ingalls Wilder frocks, Skechers and wave-pool hairdos have become as much an obsession in certain Manhattan circles as their polygamist habits and 416 children.

It is also, for what it’s worth, unwelcome news to me.

That is because, unlike Ms. Slowey, I am not eager for women to become “a little more hard-core, a little more androgynous, a little more butch.” Yes, gender play is fun, and trousers are a useful wardrobe default for the woman in business. But unless you are Thomas McGuane and find nothing sexier than a woman with crow’s feet, tight Wranglers and suede chaps, you will have to concede that, for flattering a woman’s body, nothing is quite like a dress.

Irwin Shaw covered all this is in his classic story “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” the tale that secured him a permanent place in anthologies if not exactly a perch on literary Olympus. And for all the creakiness of this warhorse about the fragile dynamics of love and desire, there remains in Shaw’s descriptions of the women on the streets of Manhattan, in their ripe young multitudes, something unexpectedly fresh and also recognizable.

Shaw wrote the story decades ago, in the era that directly preceded the feminist one that first killed off the dress, a time when women wore them all the time and not with irony …

Long Live the Dress (for Now)

… and then this comment on Guy’s piece …

Might as well throw some heterosexism in there too. And women wearing pants is “gender play”? I didn’t realize trousers were still a “man’s” piece of clothing.

…

The sad thing about this piece is that it won’t do anything but discourage women from wearing dresses this summer, despite some women’s love to wear them. (Ahem.) I guess they didn’t get the message that women wear their clothes for comfort and fashion, not someone else’s fancy.

NYT makes me never want to wear a dress again

(Before Vanessa’s time this. And though we probably should Goethe off this subject, there’s more … )

… and …

In today’s “Styles” section, Guy Trebay devotes a whole article to proving why Elle’s fashion-news director, Anne Slowey, could be wrong about the dress going out of style come September. Wishful thinking, he says, gathering quotes from trend forecasters, the fashion director of Barneys, and random dress-clad women on the street to make his case for the dress. And we must say he did so as compellingly as one can when covering such a topic, though it was kind of unfair he didn’t quote anyone who agreed with Slowey. Anyway, it felt like the perfect opportunity for the Cut’s first-ever point-counterpoint debate!

…

Is Anne Slowey Right About the Fate of Dresses?

And, not to neglect the guys, there’s this …

A few weeks ago, we told you about “Booty Pop Panties,” the padded underwear that makes your ass look bigger. Well, Kelly Ripa went nuts over them on Live With Regis and Kelly the other day so, not to be out-assed, Regis found a version of the undergarment for men called “Bottoms Up” and bandied them about on air today. Unlike the Booty Pop Panties, these appear to come with a padded back and a padded front. Here’s a product description:

• A defining centre back seam separates our butt pads creating an anatomically correct bottom for a more natural look.
• Our contoured front pouch, allows for comfort, style and support from the double layer of fabric…
• For first time optimum effect we suggest you put your jeans or pants on BEFORE you look in the mirror.
• The weight and fit of your pants compresses the pads — the most natural look is achieved with you pants on.

You can even purchase extra pads in “Quarterback,” “Halfback,” and “Fullback” sizes. Is this supposed to appeal to women? Because we think a nice cologne is a better route than sub-pant bulges.

Men Can Pad Their Nether Regions, Too

Moving on … from the Washington Blade today …

Equality Maryland is intensifying its efforts to protect a transgender rights law that may be in jeopardy.

Dan Furmansky, the organization’s executive director, said a review of signatures collected to overturn the Montgomery County law has been hastened so it can be completed by month’s end.

…

Legal battle over trans law intensifies in Montgomery Co.

… and, finally, from the Southern Voice …

On Friday, students at 6,000 schools around the country, including 130 here in Georgia, took part in the National Day of Silence — keeping quiet for all or part of the school day to protest the silence forced on gay people every day. One of those schools was my alma mater, Columbus High School.

Not too long ago, whenever someone asked me where my hometown of Columbus, Ga., is located, I would answer that it is “about 100 miles and 100 years south of Atlanta.”

It’s exciting to know that through the efforts of brave young people like those who joined in the Day of Silence, even towns like Columbus are changing for the better. And it’s amazing to think that some of the Columbus High students participating in the protest today were not even born in 1991, the year I graduated.

…

Would you have joined the Day of Silence?

On a more serious note today … I try to post here every week some humorous, odd or quirky news item or comic strip. On the face of it, this “quirky” from Ananova would seem to fit the bill …

Lonely farmer’s wedding night letdown

A German farmer who married a woman he met on the internet has asked for the marriage to be annulled after finding out ’she’ was a he.

Wolfgang Zober, 55, from Naumburg, said: “I don’t meet many women as I am often out in the fields working all day, and so a friend suggested I try internet dating.

“I was delighted when I contacted Randy Victoria, 38, and was delighted when I met her and realised she was as lovely as her photographs.

“She even knew loads about farming - I didn’t realise that was because she used to be a farmer herself.

“We only had a kiss and cuddle before we married. But on my wedding night she told me she had a penis - and that her real name was Ralf. I was devastated.

“The only true thing she did say was that she had two children, but she was the father - not the mother.”

… but, it’s always worth remembering, who’s to know whether a “pig in a poke” story will turn out relatively harmlessly like this one has or become tragically another Gwen Araujo or Sanesha Stewart story.

I really enjoy reading information heavy articles and documentation, ful facts and figures on issues I care about, especially when the information is presented with easily understood bar graphsand simply designed, but “dense” tables. So I was very pleased to have my friend Babs send me a link to a webpage by eQualityGiving.org, entitled States Of Equality Scorecard. Here’s the paragraphs from the webpage that describe what’s provided:

Are you a second class citizen in your own state? Review state by state comparisons of the score on equality and gay rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Americans.

The score indicates the number of Equality Goals that have been reached in that state. Each “YES” gives 1 point. Half a point is given for partial achievement of an Equality Goal. One of the seven Equality Goals (repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”) can only be achieved at the federal level. Therefore, at the state level, the maximum score is 6.

Here’seQualityGiving.org’s analysis of the graph and table:

ANALYSIS (50 states + District of Columbia):

? Half of the states satisfy none or just one of the 6 Equality Goals that are required to ensure that LGBTQ people have the same legal protections as everyone else.

? No state offers full legal equality. California would have been the first state offering full equality if it were not for the veto of marriage equality legislation by Governor Schwarzenegger.

? Only two states (California and New Jersey) achieve 5 of the 6 Equality Goals.

? Massachusetts scores only 4.0 despite that if offers marriage equality. This is because it falls short in transgender protections in hate crimes, non discrimination, anti-bullying, and providing new birth certificates.

? Passing federal legislation on an Equality Goal would increase every state score by 1.

Of course an organization with a name like eQualityGiving.org is going to provide a list of organizations, state-by-state, that it believes are working towards full equality for LGBT people.

The eQualityGiving.org scorecard does have me thinking in terms of full equality issues for my state of California. Where do I need to spend my personal resources (time, money, etc.) towards full equality that to obtain basic equality for all LGBT people?

Even before seeing the scorecard’s score for California, the conclusion that marriage equality is probably one of the most significant full equality issues in my state is why I’ve volunteered approximately 40 hours to this point for the decline to sign campaign.

This week seems to be a week of finding out how I am, or have been involved with entities that don’t support transgender people/gender identity and expression protections. Earlier this week, it was on how I have a cell phone with Verizon, a company whose Board of Directors doesn’t support explicit gender identity and expression language in it’s employee non-discrimination policy.

Today, it’s a new law against gender-variant expression in Kuwait, and how the law is enforced.

I’ve said it here a few times already, but let me say again I’m a transgender Persian Gulf War veteran. I personally didn’t see any combat action (as the ground war ended two months before I was sent to serve on the USS Gary), but I was assigned to the gulf during the window to be awarded the Southwest Asian Service Medal (with Bronze Star), National Defense Service Medal, and most importantly for this discussion, the Kuwait Liberation Medal.

Well, Pierre Tristam of About.com wrote the article this week entitled Curtsey to Theocrats: Kuwait Bans Transvestites. A couple of article excerpts:

There goes Kuwait again, repressing in the dubious name of religion. Earlier this month I noted Kuwait’s fetish for bans–on women performers, on women holding jobs after 8 p.m., on movies it doesn’t like, even on valentine’s Day commemorations. Now comes its latest ban: on transvestites. This one is a bit more brutal than a ban. It entails imprisonment and humiliation, too.

[Kuwaiti police verbally abusing and striking transgender people, as well as shaving their heads, after the fold.]
Read the rest of this entry »

Some of the trans people and happenings in the news the past week or so …

People …

• Former British paratrooper Jan Hamilton
• Transgender teen Rika Navarro
• Trans activist Jenn Burleton
• California administrative law judge Victoria Kolakowski
• Race-car driver Terri O’Connell
• British surgeon James Barry

Law, legislation …

• Philippine woman will have to remain a ‘he’ in birth certificate
• Legislation to bar discrimination in employment, housing or public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity was introduced in the Ohio legislature.
• Legislation to add sexual orientation to the state’s Human Rights and Fair Housing acts advanced in West Virginia.
• In Georgia, an anti-bullying bill, one which does not specifically address bullying based on sexual orientation or gender identity, advanced, while a hate crimes bill (which includes gender identity and sexual orientation) remains stalled.
• Council Bluffs, Iowa is considering adding the protection of sexual orientation and sexual identity to the city’s civil rights code.
• In Massachusetts, advocates turned out for a hearing on a transgender civil rights bill.
• In Montgomery County, Maryland, election officials have cleared the way for voters to decide whether to uphold broad protections for transgender individuals passed by the County Council in the fall. Proponents of the trans rights legislation said they expected to file a lawsuit to overturn the petition and stop the referendum.
• New York has a new governor, a man who has been supportive of trans rights.

Arts & media …

• The Lambda Literary Foundation announced its nominees for the 20th annual Lambda Literary Awards.
• “She’s a Boy I Knew” documents the transformation of Steven Haworth into Gwen Haworth.
• Out magazine focuses on trans lives and culture in the April issue.
• Mercedes Allen continues her series on trans history at the Bilerico Project.

Features …

• “Is society ready for this pregnant husband?” in The Advocate.
• “Transgender people step out” in the Dayton Daily News.
• “When Girls Will Be Boys” in the New York Times.

Remembering our dead …

• Luna

The Los Angeles Times has two articles up of note on bullying this past week. The first is entitled Meaner bullying is leading schools to find new tactics. I’m not going to quote from it, but it’s well worth the read.

The second is entitled A deadly clash of emotions before Oxnard shooting. That article is a particularly hard read — it turned my stomach. So if get-wrenching stories upset you, this is your warning to stop reading here. From the article:

For teens living in a shelter for abused and neglected children, school can provide a daily dose of normalcy, a place to fit in, a chance to be just another kid.

It didn’t turn out that way for Lawrence King.

According to the few students who befriended him, Larry, 15 years old and openly gay, found no refuge from his tormentors at E.O. Green Junior High School.

Not in the classroom, the quad, the cafeteria. Not from the day he enrolled at the Oxnard school until the moment he was shot to death in a computer lab, just after Larry’s usual morning van ride from the shelter a town away.

…The anti-gay taunts and slurs that Larry endured from his male peers apparently had been constant, as routine for him as math lessons and recess bells. The stinging words were isolating. As grieving friend Melissa Reza, 15, put it, Larry lived much of his life “toward the side. . . . He was always toward the side.”

She and others recall that the name-calling began long before he told his small circle of confidants that he was gay, before problems at home made him a ward of the court, and before he summoned the courage to further assert his sexual orientation by wearing makeup and girl’s boots with his school uniform.

His friends say the verbal cruelty persisted for months, and grew worse after the slightly built Larry pushed back by “flirting” with some of his mockers. One of them was Brandon, who seethed over it, the friends say.

Brandon has been charged as an adult with premeditated murder and a hate crime, and he is being held in juvenile hall.

[More on Lawrence’s life after the fold]

Read the rest of this entry »

Some photographs from the Los Angeles Times‘ coverage of yesterday’s memorial service for gender-nonconforming teenager Larry King …

I guess I’m just being one of those “homosexual activists [who] have seized on [the] Lawrence King case,” but the California Catholic Daily’s really picking on a scab as far as I’m concerned.

The CCD published a story today (about which they were “scooped on” by the WorldNetDaily, which reported about it on Feb. 12, before the murder of Lawrence King) called “No escape from sexual indoctrination”, which refers to remarks that Randy Thomasson of the Campaign for Children and Families made in Los Angeles on Feb. 11 …

One of the laws, SB 777, prohibits public school instruction and activities from “promoting a discriminatory bias” against transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality for all grade levels, including kindergarten. There is no “opt out” clause for parents who do not want this for their children.

The other law, AB 394, requires that schools provide publications, wall posters, web curricula, and handouts on anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training. Thomasson believes these are, in effect, indoctrination to promote various sexual lifestyles — especially since AB 394 fails to define the term, “harassment.”

(It seems to me that Thomasson might be comfortable with a definition that says, in essence, “no lives lost, no harassment.”)

Now, I was just taking a look at the home page (Daily News) of the CCD, with the news they’ve reported on since Feb. 12.

I see one item, “To promote respect and acceptance”. I see another, Five lives spared on Wednesday (from Family Planning Associates in San Diego).

I don’t see anything about Larry, a youngster who had “no escape” and no “opt out clause.”

From the story in the Ventura County Star this morning …

Blue was Larry King’s favorite color eye shadow.

Along with his signature black, high-heeled boots and varying shades of lipstick, friends say he wore dramatic makeup and dressed more flamboyantly in the last two weeks before he was shot to death by a classmate at an Oxnard middle school.

The cosmetics added a quirkiness to his personality, friends said. But they didn’t define the 15-year-old boy Melissa Castillo knew.

“He didn’t know he had a lot of friends,” Castillo said. “We all thought he was funny but not in a mocking way. We all really liked him. I wish he knew that.”

Castillo was standing with four of her friends at a candlelight vigil to honor Larry King, held in Ventura Friday night.

The 15-year-old E.O. Green Junior High School eighth-grader was perceived by classmates as a gay or cross-dressing student who had been bullied.

“He didn’t have to tell me; I saw it. We all saw it,” Castillo said.

…

The story concludes …

“I hope Larry has not died in vain,” [Gay-Straight Alliance Network’s Executive Director Carolyn] Laub said. “We need to grieve, and then we need to look at this so that this doesn’t happen again.”

This story from the UK’s Pink News today reflects pretty well the feelings of myself and others regarding the New York Daily News‘ reporting of the murder of Nesha Stewart …

American tabloid newspaper the New York Daily News has been condemned by gay activists for its reporting of the murder of a trans woman.

On Sunday the paper published the headline Fooled John Stabbed Bronx Tranny.

The story referred to the murder a 25 year old transgender woman named Sanesha Stewart.

A “john” is American slang for a person who uses prostitutes.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a group that monitors representations of LGBT people in the US media, complained to the paper.

They said that use of the term “tranny” was dehumanising and the insinuation that the victim had “fooled” her murderer was defamatory and irresponsible.

The group also complained about the description of Ms Stewart as: “a man who dressed as a woman.”

The story is now inaccessible from the Daily News website and GLAAD welcomed the publication of an additional story yesterday.

“After listening to GLAAD’s concerns, the Daily News coverage improve