You know, those of you in Gainesville, Florida or Montgomery County, Maryland or elsewhere, you lost.  Here’s a new crusade (remember $4 gasoline?) you can embark on (leave, go, and just let transgender people pee in peace) …

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Before her wedding last year, Huda Batterjee went abroad to buy her bridal lingerie — she just couldn’t bear the humiliation of discussing her most intimate apparel with a man.

She had little choice: there are almost no saleswomen in Saudi Arabia.

Now a group of Saudi women — sick of having to deal with male sales staff when buying bras or panties, not to mention frilly negligees or thongs — have launched a campaign this week to boycott lingerie stores until they employ women.

It’s an irony of the kingdom’s strict segregation of the sexes. Only men are employed as sales staff to keep women from having to deal with male customers or work around men.

But in lingerie stores, that means men are talking to women about bras or thongs, looking them up and down to determine their cup sizes, even rubbing the underwear to show how stains can be washed out.

The result is mortifying for everyone involved — shoppers, salesmen, even the male relatives who accompany the women.

“When I buy underwear in Saudi, some salesmen say, ‘This is not the right size for you,’” said Batterjee. “You feel almost taken advantage of. Why is he looking at me in this way?”

So for her wedding trousseau, the 26-year-old went to neighboring Dubai to shop. She now lives in Virginia with her husband.

Heba al-Akki, a businesswoman who supports the boycott, said when she shops for underwear, “I go to a store, pick this, this and that and leave quickly. It’s as if I’m buying illegal stuff.”

It’s not easy on the salesmen either.

At one lingerie boutique in a Riyadh mall Wednesday, salesmen blushed when asked about their jobs. All said they back the campaign to hire female sales staff.

“Even in such open regions as the U.S. and Europe, men do not sell underwear to women,” said store manager Husam al-Mutayim, a 27-year-old Egyptian. “I don’t let any of my female relatives buy underwear from men. It’s just too embarrassing.”

Mannequins — headless in keeping with a ban on realistic depictions of women — were displayed in the shop window dressed in modest pajamas. Inside, racks held an array of colorful bras, lacy panties and sexy nighties — along with more day-to-day undergarments.

Under Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, women are required to cover themselves head-to-toe in black robes in public. But in the privacy of their own homes — and bedrooms — they can wear whatever they want, and sexy undergarments are popular.

But buying them is another story. Fitting rooms are banned in the kingdom — the idea of a woman undressing in a public place with men just outside is unthinkable. So a woman is never sure she has chosen the right size until she gets it home.

“I have bras with sizes ranging from 32 to 38 because I can’t get to try them on,” said Modie Batterjee, Huda’s sister and one of the boycott organizers.

Even male relatives get dragged into the embarrassment. Women are allowed to shop without a male relative, but husbands or brothers sometimes insist on coming along — or the women want them there — to ensure salesmen stay respectful.

Modie Batterjee recalls how her husband fled a lingerie store because he could not bear to hear her explain to a salesman that she wanted high-waisted underwear to hold in her tummy after their daughter’s birth.

The boycott was launched on Tuesday by about 50 women who gathered in the Red Sea port of Jiddah at the Al-Bidaya Breast-feeding Resource and Women’s Awareness Center, which is run by Modie Batterjee.

The aim is to push for implementation of a law that has been on the books since 2006 which says only female staff can be employed in women’s apparel stores.

The law has never been put into effect, partly due to hard-liners in the religious establishment who oppose employing women in mixed environments like malls, where religious police are always on the lookout to keep men and women from interacting.

Hiring women would also deprive men of jobs in a country where more than 10 percent of men are unemployed.

“We are raising awareness and calling for the implementation of the law,” said Reem Asaad, a finance lecturer at Dar al-Hikma Women’s College in Jiddah, who supports the boycott.

The campaign calls on women to shop at the country’s few women-only lingerie stores. Usually stand-alone boutiques or located in malls that have women-only sections, these shops have no windows to ensure passing men cannot look in — and giving women the freedom to actually try things on.

How much impact the boycott call will have is unclear. Almost 1,700 people signed an online petition posted by Asaad on the social networking Web site Facebook. A few Saudi papers have written about it, but the campaign depends mostly on word of mouth.

Not all women support the idea. At the Riyadh lingerie shop on Wednesday, one woman — only her eyes visible through the black veil covering her face — said she is suspicious of women-only lingerie shops.

“Bad things happen there,” she said.

What might that be?

Women can sneak a picture of you changing with their mobile phones, she replied and refused to give her name.

Saudi woman launch lingerie shop boycott

An interesting story in the news today from Uganda via All.Africa.com.  It sounds like transgender Georgina has been re-educated, and it reads like a parody propaganda piece.

Sadly, whenever some progress regarding GLBT rights is glimpsed on the civil level (not just in Uganda), you can generally count on a response like this from fundamentalist religionists.  Kampala today, Gainesville (ought to be some wicked sermons next Sunday) tomorrow?

A man shocked parents on Sunday when he confessed to recruiting school children into homosexuality as part of a programme to promote the practice in Ugandan schools.

George Oundo said funders gave them “much money” and training abroad and that he would target mostly the needy children who had problems of tuition and pocket money and “others who like outings.”

Oundo warned parents to know their children’s friends. Homosexuals, he added, were targeting mostly children “because they are easy to initiate and they like easy things”.

Oundo said he got seriously involved in promoting homosexuality in 2003. “I was taken to Nairobi for training,” he said. “I used to supply pornographic materials in form of books and compact discs showing homosexuality to young boys in many schools,” he explained.

The training, he said, was facilitated by Gay and Lesbian Coalition. “I also got the pupils’ telephone contacts. We used to meet with both girls and boys in schools during ceremonial parties,” he asserted.

He said he only stopped his activities after becoming a Born-again Christian. He told all this to about 50 parents attending a seminar at Hotel Triangle, Kampala on Sunday. It was organised by Family Life Network, a local charity which promotes family values.

Oundo said he got saved at Pastor Martin Sempa’s church, the Inter-Faith Rainbow Coalition against Homosexuality, based at Makerere University Kampala.

Oundo asserted that he had been a renown gay and lesbian activist for five years and had operated under the umbrella group, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). He said he had taken on the female role and his name was Georgina.

“Praise God. Recently I realised that I have been victimising young people into devilish ways,” Oundo said. “I confess before the parents of the victimised children and they should forgive me.”

He hoped to go back to his former school, Muyenga High (Jinja), where he recruited many students and repent.

He said he was initiated into the vice at 12 by friends like Victor Mukasa, a gay activist, after his parents separated and he was being raised by a single mother.

“I was brought up in a poor family. Lack of parental care, love and the loneliness may have led me to join gay activities,” he added.

Oundo said he experienced a transgender transition because he “wanted to be a woman”. “Just go to the Internet and Google the name Georgina and you will see how I have been defending gay activism,” he explained.

Oundo said homosexuality was spread by international human rights organisations. He said after he denounced the gay activities, he received threats from a gay activist who accused him of betrayal.

George ‘Georgina’ Oundo and another gay activist, “Brenda” Kiiza, were arrested on September 10, 2008, for “recruiting homosexuals”. But they were released on September 18, 2008 after their lawyer and the international human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, protested.

In July 2005, local government officers raided the home of Juliet Victor Mukasa, the former chairperson of SMUG. They seized documents and arrested another lesbian activist. Mukasa sued for torture and court awarded her damages.

Gay rights activists have become more vocal in their campaign for recognition and have featured prominently at international conferences, particularly relating to HIV/AIDS.

Last year, education minister Namirembe Bitamazire announced an investigation into homosexuality in schools following complaints by MPs that the illegal activity was rampant in schools.

The Uganda AIDS Commission chief, Kihumuro Apuuli, also noted at the time that schools had become a breeding ground for the vice, which targets youth aged between 15 and 24. He said parents and guardians had a big responsibility to inculcate African values into their children.

Sodomy is a crime under the penal code and the Constitution prohibits “marriage between persons of the same sex”.

Pastors of Pentecostal churches last week called for a commission of inquiry into allegations of sodomy and homosexuality in churches.

Other pastors yesterday told journalists in Kampala the war against sodomy would be long and challenging but must be fought.

Uganda: Homosexual Admits Recruiting Students

It seems I’m always posting “bathroom news” at Transgender News, most recently various news and commentary on the flap involving the women-only gym in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Well, we should be seeing quite a bit more “bathroom news” shortly.

Coming up on March 24th, voters in Gainesville, Florida will decide whether “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” remain protected in the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

A while back, as a means to convince (flimflam) the citizens of Gainesville that they should strip gay and transgender citizens of their civil rights, Citizens for Good Public Policy chose to turn this into a “Keep Men out of Women’s Restrooms” fight and aired their now infamous television commercial, “The Pervert.”

“The Pervert” is longer available on YouTube (you can see that if you try to play it here).  The other day though a reader of Transgender News pointed out to me a “commercial” (by Ed) that is available on YouTube, one which seems timely and topical …

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.

~~~~~
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

As I think about race and racism during the week of President-elect Obama’s Inauguration and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I’m stuck that Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has released a report entitled Shared Differences: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students of Color in Our Nation’s Schools. The report looks at student experiences at intersections of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

As many of us already suspected was true, ethnic minorities who also indentify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender experienced increased discrimination and safety issues. Key findings from the report, as reported in the media release for the report:

• Across all groups, sexual orientation and gender expression were the most common reasons LGBT students of color reported feeling unsafe in school. More than four out of five students, within each racial/ethnic group, reported verbal harassment in school because of sexual orientation and about two-thirds because of gender expression. At least a third of each group reported physical violence in school because of sexual orientation.

• More than half of African American/Black, Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander, and multiracial students also reported verbal harassment in school based on their race or ethnicity. Native American students (43%) were less likely than other students to report experiencing racially motivated verbal harassment.

• About a quarter of African American/Black and Asian/Pacific Islander students had missed class or days of school in the past month because they felt unsafe. Latino/a, Native American, and multiracial students were even more likely to be absent for safety reasons - about a third or more skipped class at least once or missed at least one day of school in the past month for safety reasons.

• Native American students experienced particularly high levels of victimization because of their religion, with more than half reporting the highest levels of verbal harassment (54%), and a quarter experiencing physical violence (26%).

• Less than half of students of color who had been harassed or assaulted in school in the past year said that they ever reported the incident to school staff. Furthermore, for those students who did report incidents to school staff, less than half believed that staff’s resulting response was effective.

• Native American (57%) and multiracial (50%) students were more likely than other students of color in our survey to report incidents to a family member.

• Performance at school also suffered when students experienced high levels of victimization. Students’ overall GPA dropped when they reported high severities of harassment based on sexual orientation and/or race/ethnicity. Students experiencing high severities of harassment also reported missing school more often.

• The report also looks at differing experiences based on the racial/ethnic make-up of students’ schools. For all groups, LGBT students of color who were minorities in their school were much more likely to feel unsafe and experience harassment because of their race or ethnicity than those who were in the racial/ethnic majority.

The media release spoke to why they released the report now:

GLSEN is releasing the report in conjunction with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Organizing Weekend, which takes place January 16-19. Dr. MLK Jr. Organizing Weekend provides an opportunity for students and Gay-Straight Alliances to honor the coalition-building work of Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, such as Bayard Rustin, by reaching out to others committed to working toward safe schools for all students.

For those youth who want to be activists for civil rights in their schools, Bayard Rustin has a poignant quote on the protesting, dignity, and humanity:

When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.

[Below the fold: Looking at the demographics of this report - especially the trans-related demographics.]

Read the rest of this entry »

I personally believe some of the quiet mistakes of LGBT civil rights movement make are in not knowing our enemy what our enemy believes out of our collective earshot, and not thinking clearly about how to counter what they say/what they do.

Well, below is some text and a link to some readily available reading from the Concerned Women for America…They talk about the perceived evils of the upcoming Obama Administration.

So, from the Concerned Women For America’s Spellbound by Obama: What it Means for America, discussing The Good and the Bad about Obama (bolded emphasis added to text below):

The Bad

The bad news about an Obama Administration far outweighs the good news. We can count on it: Obama may wait awhile, but he will do the things that will assure his second term, and he is definitely a Marxist “true believer” who will not deviate from his socialist goals, even when the current financial or political climate means their implementation has to be delayed. He chose Rahm Emanuel, a member in good standing of the down-and-dirty Chicago political scene, for the White House Chief of Staff position—which means the president can count on strong-arm tactics for any opponents who have to be “persuaded” to come into alignment with the president’s goals.

Even before his inauguration, Mr. Obama has revealed plans for an enormous domestic spending package–the largest public construction program since the 1950s, including roads, bridges, schools and technological development. It is also essential for his reelection that he establish national health care, a Democratic priority, by 2012; he will do so by implementing its various aspects incrementally–an “under the radar” scheme that will achieve his goal without raising public objections. He will likely try the same strategy with abortion, the feminists’ top priority. He has promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a measure that would turn back all prolife gains and remove all regulations and restrictions on abortion. He probably won’t use all his political chits to fulfill that promise immediately, as he said he would, but ultimately he will give the feminists that victory and he will give the homosexual activists their two priorities, federalizing same-sex “marriage” and revoking the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans open homosexuality in the U.S. military services. Though he campaigned as a candidate opposed to same-sex “marriage,” he fully intends to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)–legislation that has been enacted in 44 states to protect husband-wife, traditional marriage at the state level.

Obama will support the so-called Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and indicates his support for expanding the bill to cover “gender identity.” Further, he favors adoption rights for same-sex couples as well as condom distribution throughout the world as an AIDS prevention measure. He has also said that he will strengthen and expand dangerous federal “hate crimes” legislation…

The CWA goes on to state that “the greatest threat” of the upcoming Obama Administration (their words: “of the Obama agenda”) will be his left-leaning judicial appointments.

(Frankly, I’m more worried that all Obama will lean too far to the center with his appointments. I want civil rights protected; I want to see judges who consider how the fundamental rights of minority individuals and groups need to be protected from governmental or corporate abuse.)

As we all can see, the Concerned Women For America (CWA) is thinking about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in relationship to America’s current Democratic Congress and America’s soon Democratic President.

And hey, the CWA — their founder and chairman in particular — has a lot to say about a woman’s right to choose too. Mainly, they don’t want women to have a right to choose, and they’re motivated to push back against that fundamental right.

Know your enemy. We don’t always know enough about what they believe considering how well they have been mobilized in the past. When you think about it, it usually takes identifying clear enemies to get people motivated enough to create a movement — think about what the removal of fundamental civil rights of LGBT Californians has done recently for the LGBT civil rights movement. We have identifiable enemies that did wonders to mobilize the broader, LGBT community when they took away LGBT Californian’s fundamental right to marry.

The CWA trying to manufacture an enemy in President-elect Obama to mobilize their concerned women troops. They haven’t succeeded as yet, but you can bet the Concerned Women For America going to keep trying. We need to be ready if they and their peer “Christian” organizations again succeed in mobilizing their troops against the fundamental civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.

Besides having our own, positive, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender messages about civil rights and equality, we need to be ready to counter their arguments…their movement to crush equality, liberty, and justice for all.

I get angry reading about the same tactics over and over again against LGBT civil rights legislation - You just can’t sell me that this isn’t about hate when were seeing these same, hateful “Christian” mistruths and fear tactics used over and over again. When do we develop some good answers to his and his “Christian” peers’ lies and fear tactics?

From Pride Source:

KALAMAZOO-Less than one month after the City of Kalamazoo Commission voted 7-0 to adopt an expanded human rights ordinance that makes it illegal to use sexual orientation to discriminate in housing, public accommodations and employment, petitions were filed Dec. 31 to repeal it.

City Clerk Scott Borling said that the circulators of the petition had filed over 1,600 signatures. If at least 1,273 of them are valid city registered voters, it will cause the new ordinance to be suspended immediately.

The city charter states that valid referendum petitions require the commissioners to take up the challenge at the next regular meeting which will be held on Jan. 26. They will either repeal the ordinance or place it on a ballot for city voters to decide. The certification process began Friday and the outcome should be known sometime this week.

The American Family Association of Michigan, led by Gary Glenn and Kalamazoo County Treasurer Mary Balkema, a former City Commissioner, submitted the petitions. Glenn has been quoted in local press claiming that the new ordinance would force some people to base decisions that run counter to their religious convictions, as well as possibly violate the privacy of women and children.

Glenn has led every challenge across the state in the past decade to defeat city ordinances that include sexual orientation and gender identity. A circulated flyer of talking points stated, “This ordinance violates the First Amendment rights of religion and free speech of those who oppose cross-dressing and homosexual behavior.”

Glenn has used scare tactics in other ballot initiatives. For example, the title of one of the petition circulator scripts reads, “IS THERE A MAN IN YOUR DAUGHTER’S BATHROOM?” …

First I rant about a lack of an effective counter argument to the same, tired arguments of the conservative “Christians,” and then I sigh. *Sigh.*

~~~~~
Related:
* A Further Update: Why A Commission Is Investigating The Suspension Of A Trans Student
* MA Haters Using Prop 8 Celebration to Fundraise Against Trans Rights
* The Ambiguous Feelings About Peeing In Public Restrooms
* White Male Privilege & Women’s Fear Of Crime Intersecting With Gender Expression & Public Restrooms
* When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom
* The Predator Argument Doesn’t Work With Transgender Fifth Graders
* Kevin Moore’s Take On Colorado’s “Bathroom Police”
* If Dr. Dobson Were King, We’d All Be Wearing Depends
* The Non-Trans Woman Thrown Out Of A NY Women’s Restroom Sues
* Outing #2: When You Endanger A Child For The Sensationalism Of It
* Latest Attacks Of Teh HomoSEXual Agenda’s Transgenderededs’s Bullet Points

Here in my hometown of San Diego, there’s been a long time effort to remove the Boy Scout Camp from Balboa Park. This is being spearheaded by the ACLU — the long running court case to eject the Boys Scouts from Balboa Park is regarding the Boy Scouts official policy of discriminating against atheist, non-theist, and LGBT leaders, parents, and children, and how these policies regarding religious creed violate state and federal law, as well as how these policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity violate state law. Essentially, the City of San Diego is, and has been subsidizing discrimination by the Boy Scouts on public parkland with below market lease rates. San Diego is no longer defending the below market leases in the ongoing court cases, so it’s only the Boy Scouts at this point that are arguing that they should be allowed to discriminate against leaders, parents, and children because of their religious creed, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity.

As ACLU volunteer attorney Matt Stephens described the situation back in 2004:

The Boy Scouts cannot have it both ways. Having gone to great lengths to establish that discrimination against gays and non-believers is essential to their mission, and therefore protected by the First Amendment, they cannot now turn around and ask the people of San Diego to foot the bill for that discrimination.

The 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals has mad a ruling regarding in the past week regarding Barnes-Wallace v. Boy Scouts of America. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The state Supreme Court, after a nearly two-year delay, will be asked to determine whether city of San Diego leases of Balboa Park land violate the state constitution’s ban on government preference for religious groups.
The move Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing a lawsuit challenging the leases, is the latest turn in the long-running case.

…The case focuses on a 2003 ruling by U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones in San Diego. Jones struck down two leases that the city had with the Scouts for 16 acres in Balboa Park and on Fiesta Island. Jones concluded the Boy Scouts, which bars openly gay leaders and requires members to take an oath to God, is a religious organization and the leases amounted to government assistance to religion.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple. The Scouts appealed, and in December 2006, the federal appeals court said it wanted the state Supreme Court first to weigh in on three questions of state law: Do the leases amount to aid to religion; if so, does that aid support a sectarian purpose; and do the leases violate the state constitution’s “no preference” ban on government favoring a religious group.

Federal courts on occasion will ask state high courts to issue opinions on unique questions of state law that arise in cases before federal judges.

Back in December of 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Barnes-Wallace v. Boy Scouts of America, according to a December, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article, that:

[Below the fold, some history of Barnes-Wallace v. Boy Scouts of America.]

Read the rest of this entry »

San Francisco State University ’s Family Acceptance Project released a report which is highlighted in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The article, entitled Family Rejection as a Predictor of Negative Health Outcomes in White and Latino Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young Adults was posted today (December 29, 2008).

From the Prevention Researcher blog article Supporting the Families of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth on the study:

For this article, the researchers used a retrospective study design with 224 white and Latino LGB young adults ages 21 to 25 years. Participants were evenly distributed across gender and ethnicity, and all lived in California. The study measured how specific family behaviors that parents, caregivers, and guardians use to reject their adolescent’s LGB identity (between ages 13-19), relates to negative mental health, substance use and misuse, and risky sexual behavior in young adulthood.

Results of the study indicated that when compared to their peers from families with no or low levels of family rejection, the lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported high levels of family rejection during adolescence were:

• 8.4 times more likely to report attempting suicide
• 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression
• 3.4 times more likely to report illegal drug use
• 3.4 times more likely to report having engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse

Additionally, when the sample was broken down by gender and ethnicity, young Latino gay and bisexual men reported higher levels of family rejection and higher rates of negative mental health and HIV risk outcomes than the other subgroups in the study.

The conclusion of this report is as follows (as taken from the Pediatrics article):

This study establishes a clear link between specific parental and caregiver rejecting behaviors and negative health problems in young lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. Providers who serve this population should assess and help educate families about the impact of rejecting behaviors. Counseling families, providing anticipatory guidance, and referring families for counseling and support can help make a critical difference in helping decrease risk and increasing well-being for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth.

As bad as the outcomes are for family rejection of LGBT youth are, there is hope. I spoke to the Family Acceptance Project (FAP) director Caitlin Ryan today, she said the organization has 8,000 pages of data on the families of LGBT youth, data that’s been collected in English, Chinese, and Spanish. Future papers based on the FAP data won’t just focus on “negative outcomes,” but will show specifically how families can achieve better outcomes for their LGBT children. FAP’s sees the following potentials in their work:

• Significantly improve the health, mental health and quality of life for ethnically diverse LGBT children and their families.

• Strengthen diverse families, decrease social stigma and help maintain many LGBT children and adolescents in their homes who would otherwise end up out-of-home and homeless.

• Substantially reduce the cost of care, personal suffering and loss to society by preventing major negative outcomes in at risk children and adolescents.

For example, the fast majority of parents love their children, and even measures like sending children to ex-gay camps to “cure” the youth of their gender variance or sexual orientation are most often done because the parents want the best outcome for their children. When parents see what the outcomes are for rejecting their children, many, many parents change their behavior — Parents don’t want their children to use drugs or engage in unsafe sexual intercourse, and when shown that there are diffent behaviors they can engage in that create better outcomes with their children, they very often embrace the new behaviors.

I’m excited to that specific papers addressing issues regarding transgender and gender variant youth are in process. Already, some of the findings from their data have been included in the book The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals (by Stephanie A. Brill and Rachel Pepper).

Keep your eye out for more from SFSU’s Family Acceptance Project — I know I’m excited about what the papers’ findings are going to be, and what their recommendations are going to be. I’ll be posting on their upcoming papers as these are released.

In the piece Commission to investigate suspension of transgender student, I made a reasonable assumption that a transgender student was harassed for using a female restroom based on operative status. Apparently, she was discriminated against relating to whether or not she had genital reconstruction surgery (GRS), but it apparently was for being post-operative, and not pre-operative. From the New York Daily Record:

Jamie Nicole Anderson says she just wants to be treated like everyone else. The York woman is a 42-year-old ex-Marine who takes her 11-year-old son to school and never misses his football, baseball or hockey games.

…In May, she got a sex change operation, from male to female, and, she says, that’s when the trouble started.

…Anderson said she was banned from using a women’s rest room and was repeatedly referred to as “he” and “his” by her [Harrisburg Area Community College (HAAC)] clinical instructors.

Further:

Anderson said she was suspended for three days Oct. 2 by HACC for “insubordination,” using the women’s rest room after being told not to because some operating room employees said they were “uncomfortable” with her being there.

Anderson said she was dismissed from her program Oct. 30 for her violation of a dress code that forbids more than two earrings in an ear.

“I forgot to take (one) out that day,” she said.

Anderson said she filed the complaint because she wants the situation corrected for her and other transgendered people like her.

If one is born with a penis, I tend to believe the arguments against fully inclusive anti-discrimination language will always revolve around the bathroom, whether or not a trans person/a person of trans history currently has a penis or not. Some transsexuals (and people of trans history) see a difference between pre-operative and post-operative folk where anti-discrimination rules should only be applied to the post-operative folk. In the real world where discrimination is often based on fear and/or hate, discrimination is often based on what the genitals looked like at birth, not what one’s genitals look like now, or not what gender one is between the ears. It’s based on societal gender norms associated with natal genitalia shape — just as it is for effeminate gay and straight men, and masculine lesbian and straight women.

Anti-discrimination laws that give legal recourse for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression based discrimination are what keeps businesses and government from behaving badly against those perceived to be gender variant people.

Jamie is never going to be perceived as a woman by those who discriminated against her. I’m with Jamie — to correct the situation for her and other transgender people like her, sometimes one has to fight against unacceptable behavior.

~~~~~
Related:
* MA Haters Using Prop 8 Celebration to Fundraise Against Trans Rights
* The Ambiguous Feelings About Peeing In Public Restrooms
* White Male Privilege & Women’s Fear Of Crime Intersecting With Gender Expression & Public Restrooms
* When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom
* The Predator Argument Doesn’t Work With Transgender Fifth Graders
* Kevin Moore’s Take On Colorado’s “Bathroom Police”
* I’m Going To Colorado In August With PHB; I’m Going To Make Use Of Public Accommodations
* If Dr. Dobson Were King, We’d All Be Wearing Depends
* The Non-Trans Woman Thrown Out Of A NY Women’s Restroom Sues
* Outing #2: When You Endanger A Child For The Sensationalism Of It
* Latest Attacks Of Teh HomoSEXual Agenda’s Transgenderededs’s Bullet Points

As a society, we need to invest in children. Better schools means higher standards of living for future generations. Better prenatal care, and better preventative healthcare for children means less money spent on healthcare for these same children when they become adults.

…Most U.S. children live in secure environments and sail into young adulthood healthy, becoming productive members of society. But as the numbers in this report show, this happy ending eludes millions of children.

The data which follow focus on a few key issues: health, child abuse, imprisonment, school readiness, child care, afterschool, and poverty. These are big issues affecting millions of children and families. There are others, equally important, which we have not addressed. The disturbing trends in the data presented are understated. Although they are the most recent available, they lag by at least a year the sharp downturn in the economy and its impact on families.

We can all agree: families are the best place for children, but often families need a little help. The private sector is an essential ally—but it lacks the resources to match the needs of millions of children. State and local governments are critical players, but vast disparities in child well-being among states confirm the need for a national government which promotes a level playing field for all children…
–Michael R. Petit; President, Every Child Matters Education Fund

And, this of course is an argument for recognizing same-gender family relationships on the federal level. Blocking adoptions by same-gender couples; not recognizing the parental and guardianship relationships same-gender couples have with their children — not treating children of same-gender households in a manner similar to the children of opposite-gender couples — is a also a means of taking money that could be spent on caring for children and applying giving it to local, state, and federal governments in the form of increased taxes.

Children matter. Equality of hope and opportunity matters. These instersect within in the issue of providing for all families; caring for America’s children.

~~~~~
Related reading:
* Homeland Insecurity; Why new investments in children and youth must be a priority for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress

From MSNBC’s Hardball guest host Mike Barnacle regarding the debate over Pastor Rick Warren giving the invocation at the upcoming Presidential inauguration:

Quoting Mike Barnacle from the segment:

[I]f you take Cambridge, the upper west side of Manhattan, Georgetown, Santa Monica, and San Francisco our of this debate, there is no debate. Do you agree with that?

Well, No. Not only no, but Hell No. I care about Pastor Warren speaking at President-elect Obama’s inauguration; I live in San Diego — and Pam who’s been writing about this a lot at PHB is from North Carolina. So Hey! We don’t live in the gay-five-cities, and we’re talking about this issue! Nice sterotyping of where LGBT people and our progressive allies live, MSNBC, Hardball, and Barnacle!

And getting back to Pastor Warren, it bothers me a lot that we all know that Obama wouldn’t invite an anti-Semite to give the invocation; he wouldn’t invite a Aryan church racist to give the invocation; he wouldn’t invite someone who compared veterans, disabled people, pregnant women or any other minority group or protected class members to pedophiles — or adults who engage in incestuous relationships — to give the invocation. So why did President-elect Obama invite a pastor who believes gays and lesbians to pedophiles and adults who engage in incestuous relationships?

What this tells me is that even the incoming President’s administration team sees lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as acceptably safe to berate as deviants within American society. President-elect Obama doesn’t berate LGBT people himself, but he finds it acceptable to give places of honor to those who do.

[Below the fold, what I asked in an email of MSNBC.]

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I have to admit, I almost burst into song (which would have felled a few trees) when I was reading this …

Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

“(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed,” the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration.

“The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less.”

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.”

The pope said humanity needed to “listen to the language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as “a destruction of God’s work.”

He also defended the Church’s right to “speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected.”

Pope likens “saving” gays to saving the rainforest

I was very surprised to hear the news that my friend Diego Sanchez is going to by Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) new Legislative Assistant — a senior policy advisor to the congressman. Mr. Sanchez is going to be taking over for Joe Racalto at Rep. Frank’s Washington DC Congressional office — Sanchez’s new workplace is going to be a congressional office in Washington DC’s Labor Building.

As Rep. Frank’s Legislative Assistant, Sanchez will be responsible for tracking LGBT, healthcare, veterans, and labor issues, as well as issues regarding the 2010 census. The confluence of LGBT issues and the 2010 census will be if or how LGBT couples are counted — is the federal government going to count how many same sex couples’ have formed domestic partnerships, civil unions, or marriages within states that recognize these unions? Are they going to count the children of these relationships in a way that reflects these children’s legal parentage? Sanchez will be the one tracking this particular concern for Rep. Frank and our LGBT community, and working to see that our LGBT families are counted in a manner that accurately counts our families.

Just looking at his LinkedIn profile, there is just no doubt that Sanchez’s 30-years of experience in Healthcare, HIV/AIDS, press relations, communications, and LGBT issues, as well as his experience as being on the DNC Platform Committee and an At-Large Delegate at last year’s Democratic National Convention, shows that he’s extremely well qualified for his new position.

So why report on this new hire in Rep. Frank’s Office? Well, not only is Diego Sanchez a well-qualified candidate applying for a congressional job, but Sanchez is also Latino; Sanchez is also a transman. As a transman, he’ll be the first out trans person to ever work as a senior staffer in a DC congressional office.

And, Diego Sanchez’s hire by Rep. Frank not only breaks the DC congressional office barrier for trans people, but he breaks that barrier for trans people of color:

As a Latino, formerly as a Latina woman, and now as a transman, I’ve been a lot of ‘firsts’ but it doesn’t make me token. It makes me first to get a chance and it usually feels tardy, for me and many others who are capable but don’t get a shot.
–Diego Sanchez

Perhaps surprisingly, Sanchez isn’t the first trans person to ever work as senior staff for a congressperson. Rep. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has employed Susan Kimberly as his Chief of Staff in his home district office.

[More below the fold.]

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How to run an effective divide-and-conquer strategy is something that the leadership in the LGBT civil rights organizations showed the opposition how to do in the 2007/2008 ENDA battle. As many recall, LGBT community leadership splayed out for “Christian” right organizations the divide over gender identity and expression language and the civil rights trans people.

Well, I look at the recent piece from Bay Windows / EdgeBoston entitled Mass Family Institute is down, but is it out?, and realize we’re looking ahead again at yet another divide-and-conquer the LGBT community over trans people campaign; at another fear-based campaign that’s going to focus on the idea of predator men-in-dresses using public bathrooms. From the article (emphasis added):

By most visible measures the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), which just two years ago was well positioned to place a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on this year’s ballot, is at a low point in its influence on Bay State politics. Its amendment campaign failed in 2007, and last summer it stood powerless as the House and Senate pushed through a repeal of the 1913 law, clearing the way for out-of-state same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts. And despite MFI’s efforts to elect social conservatives to the legislature this fall, groups like MassEquality were able to increase the number of same-sex marriage supporters in the 200-member legislature from 151 to 158. National allies on the religious right, such as MFI’s parent organization Focus on the Family and its spin-off, Family Research Council, spent thousands of dollars in prior years to fund MFI’s marriage amendment campaign, but they appear to have largely withdrawn from their involvement in Massachusetts in 2008.

Yet MFI President Kris Mineau said the future looks bright for his organization and the social conservative movement in Massachusetts.

“I believe the outlook for MFI is very positive, because as we say in the fighter pilot business, this is a target-rich environment,” said Mineau, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

He said MFI is open to pushing for another marriage amendment in the future if it becomes viable. In the meantime the organization will press forward lobbying on a range of issues including opposition to abortion, casino gambling, pornography and comprehensive sex education. MFI’s top priority in the upcoming session is defeating a bill to amend the state’s hate crimes and non-discrimination laws to add gender identity and expression protections. The bill was first filed in the current session and died in committee.

So now we see a predictable LGBT target, and from previous bathroom predator campaigns from the opposition in the past couple of years we know what their ads are going to sound like:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/upload/Autumn/FOTF_05-21-08_sb200_PredatorBathroomAd.mp3

And look like:

In this time where resources are much scarcer, and LGBT people have been dissatisfied to how the No On Prop 8 Campaign was run by LGBT civil rights organizations, how much in the way of resources are LGBT civil rights organizations going to devote to basic civil rights issues over other LGBT issues, such as marriage equality? And assuming a civil rights organization is willing to devote precious resources to a transgender civil rights effort, how much money will LGBT people donate to any LGBT causes when many of these folk 1) have limited resources themselves, and 2) no longer trust the LGBT leadership to run effective political campaigns?

And perhaps most importantly, is the LGBT community again going to be divided-and-conquered over civil rights related to the phrase gender identity and expression? — over bathrooms? Not just in Massachusetts regarding state law, but nationally regarding ENDA?

I believe that now is the time to prepare for the predictable future. It would be a shame to see the LGBT community caught flatfooted yet again over predictable arguments that we can expect to see from our opposition.

[Below the fold: A comment, apparently made by a gay man, regarding transphobia that goes to the point on how gender identity and expression is a dividing point for LGBT community. Warning: lots of profanity and insults to trans people.]

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