In the mode as a credentialed new media reporter for Pam’s House Blend, I’ll be heading up to Los Angeles early tomorrow morning to cover the Equality Summit. It’s billed as follows:

The Equality Summit is a gathering of community leaders committed to winning back marriage equality in California to network, share information and resources, and plan next steps.

You can read about the goals of the Equality Summit here.

Personally, I’m extremely pleased to see in the schedule that I there is a transgender interest/constituency group listed for the 11:30 AM breakout session. About to the same level that I’m pleased seeing the transgender specific breakout session, I’m concerned that I don’t see the phrase lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender used anywhere in the description, goals, or anywhere else on the webpage for the summit.

My concern stems from the lesson I took away from watching the film Milk: The LGBT community must be visible with our identifications in our political campaigns, and seeing that the phrase lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender is used in our campaigns is paramount. The lack of on the phrase lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender on the summit’s webpage seems like a huge omission.

To me, clarity matters; inclusivity matters; and language matters.

There are going to be a lot of mainstream and new media reporters at the event who are likely going to do a good job in covering the main thrusts of the Equality Summit. As someone who identifies and transsexual and transgender, I’m going to cover from a very militantly trans and you-”leaders”-better-say-the-phrase-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender perspective.

How I’m going to report goes to the core of what blogging is — new media reporting is reporting with a visible agenda.

I’ve been preparing for the summit this week. For those who follow my tweets on twitter, you know that I recently bought a new RCA Small Wonder just for covering events like the Equality Summit. I’ve been trying to figure out today who I want to get one or two minute interviews with, and what’s the one or two questions I’m going to ask all of those folk I have an opportunity to get on camera.

And hey, I like even steamed the wrinkles out of two blouses for wearing tomorrow! — I haven’t decided whether to go with a light blue or a white blouse. Hardly a world-shattering decision to make on blouses to wear, but I really do need to look somewhat professional at the summit.

It’s going to be a really long day, Saturday. The summit starts at 7:45 AM PST, and is scheduled to close at 7:30 PM. Add to it a 2-1/2 to 3 hour drive each direction from San Diego.

So hopefully I’ll have some interviews and a report or two from the summit up tomorrow. If not, Sunday for sure we’ll have something up.

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Related:
* January Prop 8-related summit will restrict media access?
* Wockner: Equality Summit drops restrictions on media
* Taking A Short Break To Think About Freedom To Marry
* Writing A Toast; Being A Maid Of Honor
* Marriage Equality Beyond Just Gays And Lesbians

News and views for Saturday, November 29th and Sunday, November 30th …

[FL, USA] “In tight-knit groups of few or many, 1,500 Broward school children marched through downtown Fort Lauderdale to tell the world that they were tired of bullies and strong enough to stop them. ”No more bullying, no more bullying, no more bullying,” thundered a unified chant from 15 school contingents, parents, teachers, community activists and school officials … Denise King, mother of Simmie Williams, 17, who was gunned down last year in Fort Lauderdale, said she was forced to remove her son from public high school because of the humiliations he suffered daily from students because he was gay. ”I hope now that something like that won’t happen again to anyone anymore and anywhere,” King said.” — Broward students march on bullies in Fort Lauderdale

[ME, USA] From Jenny Boylan, “I knew, before we left the house, that someone was going to call me by the wrong pronoun, because someone always calls me by the wrong pronoun. This little slip-up happens virtually every time I am out with friends from Colby College, where I have worked for 20 years now. I know full well that most of these slip-ups are unconscious, and not intended as hurtful. But they hurt, maybe because they are unconscious. The ol pronoun slip is an issue we’ve talked about ad nauseum, over at MHB/community, as well as on my own site. I’m not trying to plow any new ground here. I understand the reasons people mess up, sometimes, and I accept that most people who do so mean well, most of the time.
But it still hurts, god dammit.” — The ol’ pronoun glitch

[GA, USA] “As the Atlanta Police Department’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Liaison, Officer Darlene Harris has served as a symbol assuring fair treatment and greater protection since 2005, when she was appointed to this post. When she disclosed she is intersex in July 2008, Harris garnered attention for her bravery and for drawing focus on the subject of intersex identity and experience. Her story was first featured in Southern Voice magazine on July 4. The Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper also ran a story about Harris on August 31. She has increased local and national discourse about intersex and other minority gender constructs in a forthright and professional manner.” — Atlanta’s Intersex Police Officer Seeks Awareness

[NY, USA] From Professor Arthur Leonard, “Rejecting a trial judge’s objection that a gendered name-change would cause “confusion,” a unanimous panel of the New York Appellate Division, 3^rd Department, ruled on November 26 in _Matter of Earl William Golden III_, No. 504992, that the trial court should have ordered the name change, but should include in its order a statement that the name change could not be used as proof of a change of sex. Franklin Romeo of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project represented Golden on the appeal.” — NY Appellate Division Rules on Transsexual Name-Change Petition

[NY, USA] “The origin of Rena Dunsworth might be traced to fall 2006, when a small woodworking company in Denver modified its discrimination clause, for that was when Stanley Wilcox started wearing pink nail polish to work. Then 51 and a maker of custom wooden doors, Mr. Wilcox had sensed since he was 6 years old that he was meant to be female, and he had also sensed for about as long that this was not a feeling for which he would be rewarded. “I would often fantasize about becoming different women I knew,” Ms. Dunsworth — formerly Mr. Wilcox — says now. “Then I would kind of clamp down really hard, afraid people would see the girl in me.” When his workplace put in writing that the sexual orientation and dress of its employees did not matter, Mr. Wilcox was heartened. But after the nail polish, he noticed that his colleagues treated him differently. Then, one day in February 2007, he overheard a co-worker allude to his imminent dismissal. “Turns out it did matter,” Ms. Dunsworth says.” — Road to a New Identity Is Not Without Its Hazards

[USA] From Monica Roberts, “Since some peeps make tons of money off pre-op transgender images with their adult films, magazines and various websites, and transgender people of color are the ones disproportionately bearing the brunt of the anti-transgender violence, when you ask Eddy’s question in that context, somehow it doesn’t seem as insulting as it did at first knee-jerk glance. So did shemalewhatever.com and its like minded cousins black out their website for the day? Did they stop filming the latest epic adult transgender film for release? Did they cancel that trip to Thailand or Brazil looking for poor or young transpeople to take pictures of? Did any of the adult transgender stars or the young transwomen participating in the destruction of our images show up at the TDOR events in West Hollywood, New York or elsewhere? Did they even stop to care? Come to think of it, Eddy’s question is one that we all deserves an answer to.” — Does The Transgender Porn World Celebrate The TDOR?

[USA] From Helen Boyd, “Some things you just never expect. NPR recently did a show about a crossdressing husband & father that was about as off the mark as Dr. Phil usually is. Pathologizing, full of the embarassed & shamed comments by the wife and commentary of the narrator, it was rife with ignorance and misunderstanding, and seemed to equate this person’s other mental health issues with his need to crossdress. Wow. I wish I were more often pleasantly suprrised by the media, but I really never expected this kind of crappy story-telling from NPR. Just one opinion that offset all the negativity would have been nice. That the story is about someone who is deceased makes it all the more sickening. There is no one to represent Doug/Donna to explain what crossdressing is all about. You can listen to it here – all of 12 minutes & nothing redeemable! – & narrated by a family “friend.” Feh.” — Crossdressing Husband & Father on NPR

[Canada] “The B.C. Federation of Labour has passed an emergency resolution supporting a new high school course called Social Justice 12 and accusing the Abbotsford board of education of “homophobic and transphobia behaviour” for its refusal to offer the elective course this year.” — B.C. Fed backs course

[International] “We are proud to announce that the Organisation Intersex International has its website in Chinese thanks to the tremendous efforts of one of our Chinese speaking board members. The site already contains our Official Positions, our mission statement, information on Intersex Solidarity Day, a translation of 10 Misconceptions about Intersexuality, videos and a news service containing articles related to intersex issues.” — OII now available in Chinese

[Ireland] At The Irish Independent, a “conversation” with an Irish transwoman: “I am what you call a ladyboy, or a pre-op transsexual. I have breasts but I still have meat and veggies too. I’m not going to have the full operation — I want to stay this way for good because I want to be special. If I had the full operation, people would just categorise me as female, and I want to be different. You can have the best of both worlds.” — Dale Belino

[Ireland] An upcoming screening in December at the Irish Film Institute: “Fresh from its world premiere at the Cork Film Festival, where it was greeted with laughter, tears and warm applause, Identities, Vittoria Colonna’s new feature-length documentary, is this month’s Ireland on Sunday selection. Identities is a sensitive and compelling documentary which explores the multicoloured, multicultural transgender community in Ireland. Five personal stories give shape to the different but parallel worlds of transvestism, transsexualism, drag, sexual identity and gender dysphoria. Documented in a series of revealing black and white interviews, each narrative is preceded by a colour performance art piece, and more abstract self-representation. At its heart, this is a film about the human spirit and overcoming stereotype and categorisation. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Vittoria Colonna and producer Rachel Lysaght.” — Ireland On Sunday: Identities

It really bothers me that when an LGB or LGBT organization honors someone who speaks against the interest of the broader LGBT community’s T’s.

So, with a little frustration, let me express some disappointment in the UK’s Stonewall organization’s plan to honor journalist Julie Bindel.

Let me be frank at the beginning though. The UK’s Stonewallhas a lucid description of its mission scope on its page logo and subheader. The subheader states “Equality & Justice for Lesbians, Gay Men & Bisexuals.” Note that it doesn’t mention T’s. The organization; however, must have some recognition that they function within a broader LGBT community as they have a Trans Resources webpage (as well as another 135 webpages that mention trans people or trans issues if one uses their site search with trans OR transgender OR transsexual OR “gender identity”) on their website.

In fact, in Stonewall‘s booklet Transgender, they have a definition of Transphobia:

Transphobia is the unrealistic or irrational fear and hatred of transgender people. Like all prejudices, it is based on negative stereotypes and misconceptions that are then used to justify and support hatred, discrimination, harassment, and violence toward people who are transgender. Transphobic attitudes and beliefs include:

• the belief that trans women are not “real women” because they have been raised and socialised as men

• the belief that trans men are not “real men” because they do not have, or were not born with a penis

• the belief that transsexual people are actually gay people in denial

• the assumption that transgender people are “sick” or that they are psychologically unstable

• when a transgender person is excluded from services, activities, discussions or decisions because it is felt that that person doesn’t “fit in”

• the refusal to recognise or acknowledge the true gender of a trans person and the continual insistence to refer to them by their former name

The booklet also identifies issues for transgender folk, which include denial of medical treatment and healthcare providers having no information about available treatments or surgeries and no understanding of trans issues.

So in my opinion, a declared LGB-only civil rights organization that has policy positions on trans issues in their Discrimination Law Review, and defines transphobia for its organization, shouldn’t be honoring someone who’s made transphobic statements in arguing against full medical treatment access for trans people. Yet, Stonewall has decided to honor Julie Bindel as their 2008 “Journalist of the Year.”

In 2004, Julie Bindel — a journalist who identifies as a lesbian feminist — wrote a column for The Guardian entitled Gender benders, beware where she used quotation marks around the female pronouns and terms to describe a male-to-female transsexual (examples: “she”; “woman”), and referred to the post-operative transsexual as “a man in a dress.” Some of what Bindel wrote:

[Below the fold: Quotes of Bindel where she uses transphobic language, and her aguing against genital reconstruction surgery for transsexuals. Multiple audio file links of her arguing against surgery for transsexuals provided.]

Read the rest of this entry »

In the colloquial spirit of saying someone is a sandwich short of a picnic to mean someone isn’t reasoning quite clearly, WingNutDaily‘s Janet Folger appears to be a toilet stall short of a public restroom in her piece Go ahead: Arrest me.

Before we get to what she states she soon plans on doing, we need to get a take on how she reads a section of Colorado’s recently signed-by-the-Colorado-governor public accommodation law (SB 200). From the actual text of the law:

How Folger quoted this same section of the new law in her recent article:

Read the rest of this entry »

I couple of trans-related items in the news today caught my attention …

This may or may not be as egregious as calling someone an “it” (see Autumn’s post from Friday about the Tanya White incident), but I would have preferred that the writer or an editor at the Telegraph could have chosen the more appropriate pronoun in the headline at least …

After a life of travel, Jan Morris is back where he started

Some of us might have different opinions about how to handle pronoun use in the article, but which pronoun to use in the headline seems pretty clear to me (see the AP Stylebook on transgender).

Another article from the Telegraph (“Waste watch“) also caught my eye, specifically this line …

Homosexual, bisexual and “transgender” people are being offered £20 vouchers by their council to take part in a survey about their housing needs.

I wonder what the reason is for the use of quotation marks around the word, transgender?

There’s an interesting article in Saturday’s Guelph Mercury about words and language (“If the word fits . . .“) Again, it’s an instance of differing views on how to properly handle a matter of language …

The changing nature of language surfaces in my work world as well. It did days ago when we published a story about the flag-raising to open Pride Week in Guelph. Its lead sentence asserted: “The queer community can look skyward for a sign of city hall’s support and celebration of Pride Week.”

“Queer” jumped off the page for some readers. Some were appalled by it and challenged the paper’s use of the term suggesting it was offensive and an injustice to deploy it.

We responded to this feedback and encouraged those offering it to share it in a letter to the editor for publication. None has taken us up on the invitation.

But the use of queer spurred a rich newsroom discussion.

We abide by The Canadian Press Style Guide in terms of language use. It offered no opinion on whether queer was appropriate to use in any circumstance. We employed it to be inclusive, to identify a wide community — not only gays and lesbians, but others such as bisexual people, transgendered ones and transsexual individuals.

As I’ve done facing previous language flaps and grey areas, I contacted The Canadian Press Style Guide’s editor for clarification.

That editor, Patti Tasko, e-mailed advising: “the controversy over queer” is unresolved in the world of media language police.

“Gay spokesmen have told me in the past it is acceptable and used widely in the community. At the time I told them I felt queasy about recommending it as it is just a little too out there for the general community, who assume it has derogatory connotations (since it is often used as a slur in the straight world),” she stated.

Her next guide will recommend “that the word queer is likely best avoided, except in quotations, as the straight and gay communities use the term differently,” she continued.

Her guess is that advice will hold for a spell and then require revision just as “gay” overtook “homosexual” in a previous style guide.

…

We’ll abide by Tasko’s counsel. But there won’t be an apology from the paper for using queer — as has been demanded.

The majority view of our journalists is that “queer” has been rehabilitated and stands as the right term for the context where we deployed it.

It’s in press releases we receive and in the titles of popular mainstream television programs. If it hasn’t arrived, queer seems to be en route.