(click image to view video)

Below is an interesting, original video from Daniel Gonzales of the Ex-Gay Watch. Note how Alan Chambers / Exodus International and Melissa Fryrear of Focus On The Family tailor their messages to their audiences.

(Click image to view Google Video)

Transcribed text of the video is at the Ex-Gay Watch.

From Commissioner: fire city manager who’s changing gender:

Largo city commissioner Mary Black filed a resolution Monday afternoon asking her colleagues to fire city manager Steve Stanton.

Stanton, who’s served as city manager 14 years, announced Wednesday that he will be undergoing a sex change operation. Black called a special meeting for Tuesday to discuss Stanton’s contract.

Black memo says in part:

“I acknowledge and appreciate the efforts to improve our community which have been put forth by Mr. Stanton over the years as he has served as city manager. However, for everything there is a time and a season. The time is right for our city of Largo to move forward without the administrative leadership of Mr. Stanton.”

Black’s resolution says the termination of Stanton’s contract would be in the best interest of the city.

If there were ever a clear example why the U.S. needs a transgender inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), this is it.

To contact the City Of Largo Mayor and City Commission about this, select the City Of Largo logo above.

—–

Related: Largo City Manager Plans Public Transition From Male To Female

“Jimmy Kimmel” AND transgender OR transsexual.

“Jimmy Kimmel” AND “Rebecca Romijn”.

——

I did the Google News searches above today (on February 25, 2007), and see that the LGBT press hasn’t picked up the GLAAD press release regarding the Jimmy Kimmel interview of Rebecca Romijn.  That is, besides AfterElton.com (which broke the story), and Queerty … a blog that pops up on Google News searches.

Maybe I’m hypersensitive, or perhaps a little too PC, but in response to the story I read two comments on Queerty that tell me to a certain extent why the story hasn’t even hit the LGBT press:

Oh, get over it, I watched the video and it wasn’t all that bad. This is yet another instance of hyper-PC-oversensitivity.

There are, of course, very feminine transsexual women, fantastically beautiful in fact, but you have to admit, he’s largely right… Most of the time it doesn’t turn out all that well… So he makes a joke of it, big sh-t…

His childish comments were slightly idiotic, but not enough to merit a whole accusatory article.

And…

I am gay and I HATE transexuals. They are embarrassing clowns.

The reality is that the Isaiah Washington “faggot” and Tim Hardaway “I hate gays” stories show that it’s no longer socially acceptable to express prejudice towards gays and lesbians; the Jimmy Kimmel “transgender ax” story may turn out to be a lesson of how it’s still socially acceptable to express prejudice towards transgender people.

Heck, the lack of LGBT press coverage of the Jimmy Kimmel story seems to indicate to me it’s still somewhat acceptable for gays and lesbians to express prejudice towards transgender people. American polite society isn’t going to find anti-transgender prejudice unacceptable if LGB people and the LGBT press find anti-transgender prejudice unobjectionable.

Here’s hoping Monday morning we all don’t continue to hear crickets from the LGBT and mainstream press.

I love this story. 

A ‘different kind of Baptist’
First Baptist hires minister with social justice focus

By Linda Stout
Ithica Journal staff
Saturday, February 24, 2007

ITHACA — Baptist and gay-friendly in one breath?

It happens.

First Baptist Church of Ithaca’s membership in the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists was partly why Richard Rose wanted to become its new minister.

Save for two abstentions, Rose was voted in unanimously, said church secretary Linda Caughey, who calls the church “a different kind of Baptist.” On Feb. 4, Rose took over the position left vacant after Wendy Fambro left after 10 years for a position with a Christian community in Maryland.

The congregation has had between 75 and 100 worshippers on the Sundays since Rose took over. About 10 or 12 members of First Baptist identify as transgender, along with heterosexuals, gays, lesbians and bisexuals, Rose said.

There’s more at the link.

The Harvard Crimson (yes, the Ivy League School’s student newspaper) posted a commentary by two students: Lucy M. Caldwell and Vanessa J. Dube. The commentary’s entitled A Misplaced Priority, and indicated that these two believe that transgender students shouldn’t receive priority for the gender-neutral housing Harvard set aside. They state:

We depart from the Staff [in their editorial Locked Out], however, in their belief that transgender students should receive priority for gender-neutral housing. The problem of insufficient gender-neutral housing will not be alleviated by prioritizing the interests of transgender students over the rest of the student body. Apart from the fact that doing so would be unfair—transgender students, after all, do not absolutely require special preference in the same sense that physically disabled students do—it could drive a major wedge between transgender students and the rest of the student body.

If it is tolerance we are striving for on campus, then a scenario in which transgender students live apart from their classmates would be counterproductive. Such a move would effectively segregate the transgender population from the rest of Harvard by forcing transgender students to publicly identify as gender-neutral individuals. This scenario could unfairly subject these students to even further alienation and prejudice than previously existed.

Given that mixed gender housing is a matter of desire and not a matter of dire need, prioritizing a single group’s interest over the rest of the student body’s would be a step backward on the part of college administrators. Separate is never equal—it is minority interests, in fact, who should know this best. By prioritizing the needs of the transgender community in assigning residences, the housing honchos would be doing a disservice to the entire student body.

I responsed in a letter to the editor explaining why that’s pretty poor reasoning — who the heck knows if The Crimson will publish it:

Dear Editor,

The problem with LUCY M. CALDWELL and VANESSA J. DUBE’s response to transpeople’s priority in gender neutral housing is that they fail to take into account the potential for violence against transpeople.

Should it really be necessary to point out that transgender people are subject to pejoratives like “fairy,” “faggot,” “it,” “that,” and “she/male?” — whereas straight students don’t receive the venom behind the terms even if called the names? And what of the physical violence often associated with the use of such terms? Does the average student face the same potential for verbal and physical violence as transpeople?

Gender neutral housing isn’t considered a safety issue for most students, while if you asked most of the transpeople requesting gender neutral housing, I’m sure you would find that they consider gender neutral housing a very significant safety issue for them.

Autumn Sandeen

GLAAD and the HRC recently made a big issue of Tim Hardaway’s comments about hating gays. GLAAD and the HRC also recently condemned the violence of the Snickers’ “do something manly” ad campaign. And recently as well, GLAAD and the HRC ( HRC ) showed outrage at Isaiah Washington’s use of the word faggot against a peer gay actor.

Is fighting transphobia a cause that  will receive “equal billing” in large LGBT organizatons’ fighting homophobia? Well, GLAAD and the HRC have a present opportunity to demonstrate they take violence against transgender people as seriously as they take anti-gay pejoratives and violence against gays and lesbians.

AfterElton.com’s Michael Jensen writes the Best. Gay. Week. Ever. column. In this week’s column, he reports the following:

MAYBE SOMEONE SHOULD WHACK JIMMY KIMMEL WITH AN AX

Jimmy Kimmel recently did that funny parody of the Snickers ad which nicely poked fun at homophobia. Unfortunately, Wednesday night he reverted to 5th grade boy behavior while interviewing Rebecca Romijn who plays a transgendered character on Ugly Betty. Kimmel mocked transgendered men and women by showing photos of various transsexuals like Rene Richards. At one point he holds up a photo of Rene and says, “This is a famous one, Rene Richards. Perhaps the most feminine of the group I’m about to show.”

Nice. Real nice. Then he holds up a picture of Amanda LePore and some other folks as well. Kimmel then wants to know how the producers of Ugly Betty made the leap from the people he just mocked to someone as feminine as Romijn. . .

Later Kimmel reads from a book which he finishes up by joking about someone learning a transgendered person has a penis and reacting by hitting them with an ax. Perhaps Gwen Araujo’s mom should pay Kimmel a visit. Kimmel should be embarrassed talking about transgender issues this way. It’s exactly where gay people were thirty years ago and I hope GLAAD and the HRC let him hear about it.

I hope that this does become as big a issue to GLAAD and the HRC as the recent rash of homophobic media incidents have been. Mocking transgender people as a class, and then joking about violence against transgender women, seems at least as significant an issue as the Washington faggot comment.

*****UPDATE 1*****

Video (Click image to view):

*****UPDATE 2*****

GLAAD responded: Trans-phobic ‘Humor’ on Jimmy Kimmel Live! No Laughing Matter

“He’s not going to be a man, and he’s not going to be a female. He’s going to be an ‘it.’ It’s going to be the most sorrowful decision he has ever made.”
–Lighthouse Baptist Church Pastor Ron Sanders, who leads a 30-member congregation in Largo, Florida

Largo, Florida City Manager Steve Stanton — soon to be Susan Santon — has announced she is a transsexual, and has started the process of transitioning from male to female. Per the St. Petersburg Times, she has the support of her Mayor (Pat Gerard).

Some are shocked:

After an interview, he began telling city commissioners, department managers and others, many of whom were stunned.

“Is this a hoax?” asked City Commissioner Mary Gray Black, who heard from a reporter. “It flabbergasts me.”

Tom Morrissette, president of the Largo/Mid-Pinellas Chamber of Commerce, said he almost fell out of his chair when he heard.

“Live and let live is my attitude,” Morrissette said. “It takes courage to come out and say something like that.”

And, as quoted at the start of this piece, one pastor used the transgender pejorative “it” to describe the future Susan Stanton.

As for Susan Stanton’s future employment as the City Manager:

Vice Mayor Harriet Crozier worries about community backlash.

“If it seems to be a disturbance, then we need to make whatever decision we need to make at that time,” she said.

Commissioner Gigi Arntzen said that whether Stanton is male or female, he has the skills to be a city manager, but his career with the city may depend on other factors.

“We have to wait and see what the staff reaction and community reaction is,” she said. “If it’s going to be a huge reaction, it may dictate his future.”

Commissioner Andy Guyette said he also is concerned about the community’s reaction, but he told Stanton he would support him.

It should be noted that Largo City commissioners refused in 2003 to approve a proposed human rights ordinance that would have protected transgender people — Stanton is transitioning in a city and a state without transgender civil rights protections.

I support people who transition, but for reasons highlighted in the St. Petersburg Times article I never encourage anyone to transition. A person’s employment, housing, and accommodations in the public arena often depend on how society views that person. Being perceived as a transsexual is often a path to being discriminated against, as well as a path for Pastors and other conservative Christians to call the transitioning transsexual pejoratives like “it.”

Being a transsesexual isn’t an easy path; making transitioning sound like an easy choice denies the realities of the experience.  My warmest thoughts are with Susan Stanton as she begins this very difficult, very public alignment of her body to match her mind.

I spoke with a prominent friend of mine recently — a very out transwoman. She shared a meal with another transgender woman — a transgender woman who thinks she’s living a very in the closet, stealth life. This stealth transgender woman is very “passable” in her looks — actually beautiful.

The only thing is my prominent friend keeps getting asked by mutual acquaintances if this “stealth” transgender woman has had sex reassignment surgery yet. The “stealth” transwoman hasn’t a clue that “everyone” knows.

When I worked at the VA (during the first year-and-a-half of my transition), not a single coworker personally asked me if I was transgender. A office peer told me though that she was frequently asked whether I was a man or a woman, as well as the more direct question of whether or not I was a transsexual. The thing is I was very, very out at work — I wasn’t even trying to be stealth.

And, I’m not even talking about paper and electronic trails transpeople leave…it’s amazing what one can find out with a $99 online background check.

Stealth is more of an illusion than many transgender people know.  Significantly, many people who guess or know someone is transgender will never confront the person they know or suspect is transgender.  They’ll just talk about it “behind the transperson’s back.”

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Someone with a much different opinion than me on Renee Richards.
~~A~~

Thank you, Renee Richards

By Petra Hendrickson
The Indiana Statesman
(Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Ind.)
Issue date: 2/21/07

Renee Richards wishes she hadn’t spent so much of her life in the lime light.
My guess is that most people don’t really know who Renee Richards is anyway, so her regrets now probably don’t mean much to people.

At the age of 40, Richard Raskind had a sex change operation and “became” Renee Richards. It was a year later, in 1976, that she would really grab headlines. She challenged the United States Tennis Association’s decision to ban her from play in the women’s U.S. Open because she was, as Reuters calls her, a transsexual. The court ruled in her favor, and she was hailed as pioneer.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows why this story would be particularly important to me. And while Reuters may prefer transsexual, I prefer transgender, because unless you feel psychologically like you’re something else, you’re probably not going to make yourself biologically something else.

I can sympathize with Richards’ regrets that she didn’t live as private a life as she would have liked.

I also have an idea, even if just a vague one, of what it must have been like for Renee Richards to be disowned by her father for her decision and to have completely lost the relationship she had with her sister.

It had to have been hard to go through a lot of that publicly, especially since she had been married and fathered a child.

But because she had been a well known amateur tennis player as Richard Raskind and coached Martina Navratilova a few years after formally becoming Renee, Richards was given an extraordinary opportunity.

Even had she not taken the United States Tennis Association to court and been proclaimed a pioneer for transgender rights, she would have made a big impact, I think.

While there are undoubtedly a number of adults who live in fear of revealing their secrets, I’m equally sure that Renee Richards sent the message to a lot of younger transgender people that they weren’t alone in the way they felt and the way they were.

Even for those transgender individuals who don’t get sex change operations, a lot choose to start hormone treatments, or undergo minor surgical procedures, to bring their gender (which is socially constructed) and their sex (which is strictly biological and anatomical) more in sync with one another.

Renee Richards showed this country, which is obviously still struggling with the whole issue of acceptance, that it wasn’t just low-down good-for-nothings who lead “alternative lifestyles” or “aren’t like the rest of us.”

Renee Richards showed the world that transgender people can be Yale graduates, or have served in the Navy, or hold well-paying jobs that require high levels of education.

And for that, I thank her.

–
Petra Hendrickson is a junior majoring in political science.

© 2006 Indiana Statesman

Many LGBT people took insult at former basketball player Tim Hardaway’s recent comments on a Florida Radio Station.  He was quoted as saying:

“You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I’m homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”

Lots of bloggers have already commented on the original story, and on Hardaway’s two apologies. I frankly tend to stay away from larger stories, just because my voice becomes a squeak in a sea of voices.

But do I care pretty deeply how ex-gay and ex-gay affirming organizations respond and comment on LGBT folk.

A bit ago I stumbled accross a Concerned Women for America (CWfA) press release on Hardaway’s anti-gay rant — three-quarters of the press release centered on quotes by Culture and Family Institute Director Matt Barber. The paragraphs with quotes by Mr. Barber read as follows:

“Hardaway’s comments are both unfortunate and inappropriate,” said Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues. “They provide political fodder for those who wish to paint all opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as being rooted in ‘hate.’ It’s important to note that Hardaway’s words represent the feelings of Hardaway. His words do not represent the feelings of the vast majority of people opposed to the homosexual agenda.

“It’s perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral,” said Barber. “All too often those behaviors are accompanied by serious physical, emotional, and spiritual pitfalls. However, the appropriate reaction is to respond with words and acts of love, not words of hate. Jesus Christ offers forgiveness and freedom for all sinners, and that is the heart of the Gospel message.

“Thousands of former homosexuals have been freed from the homosexual lifestyle through acts of love. Hardaway’s comments only serve to foment misperceptions of widespread homosexual ‘victimhood’ which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured.”

So let’s be clear, this statement is an ad hominem attack on LGBT inviduals as a class of people. Barber attacks the sincerity of LGBT people as a group in the framework of his ‘victimhood’ comment.

Reading Mr. Barber’s comments, I’m left with this feeling that he doesn’t believe any LGBT people are actually insulted by Hardaway’s comments, but believes instead that LGBT people are disingenuous folk only interested in using the Hardaway quote as a means to create a “craftily manufactured” response — specifically and only to further the Homosexual Agenda®.

It’s almost as if Barber and the CWfA don’t believe LGBT people aren’t human enough to actually be emotionally hurt by hurtful comments … or is it even an “almost” thing?

In comparing two unrelated news items, I found an interesting contrast:

Caption: Members of Thai ladyboy band “Venus Flytrap” pose in Bangkok February 7, 2007. (From L-R) Amy, Taya, Bobo, Nok and Gina are Thai ladyboys brought together by record company Sony BMG to create a girl group with a twist. Five beauties, questionable singing abilities, great dance moves and the skimpiest of outfits: “Venus Flytrap” fits the girl band cliche in every respect but one. These Thai girls used to be boys.

–And then–

From the DCist’s Classical Music Agenda:

The University of Maryland Dance Department will perform Trapped, a new choreography by MFA candidate Waylon Anderson. This new work uses the music from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to narrate the life and death of transgendered teen Gwen Araujo. The mind boggles. Performances scheduled for Thursday and Friday (February 22 and 23, 8 p.m.) at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $20 (students, $7)

Guess which one of the two stories got lots more attention in the press?

Taking a cue, apparently, from Massachusetts parents, CanWest reported that Vancouver Parents protest gay-friendly classes. Article excerpt:

VANCOUVER — Thousands of British Columbians have signed petitions and sent letters to the Education Ministry insisting that parents be allowed to pull their children from public school lessons to avoid gay-friendly messages that conflict with religious or family values.But Education Minister Shirley Bond said she doesn’t intend to change a policy that says parents may remove their students only from specific health lessons in three courses: Health and Career Education for K-7, Health and Career Education 8-9 and Planning 10.

Bond said the protest is premature since government has not moved on a promise to revise the K-12 curriculum to ensure individuals and groups “across the full range of gender identity and sexual orientation” are represented in a positive, non-denigrating way that emphasizes their contributions to society.

That promise was part of a contract the government signed last spring with gay activists Murray and Peter Corren to end a protracted human-rights case. As part of that deal, the government said it would enforce a policy that limits the ability of families to opt out of classes they find objectionable.

In an interview yesterday, Bond said the agreement is intended to make public schools inclusive and respectful, and parents should wait to see what curriculum changes are proposed before worrying about removing their children from classes.

*sigh* If a student doesn’t learn about LGBT folk in school, does it mean LGBT folk don’t exist? Really, sometimes it seems we need to get parents to move to a more reality based world.

Okay, it’s no seven legged deer, but it is interesting — a four legged duck.

Nicky Janaway, the duck farmer/owner of New Forest, Hampshire (95 miles southwest of London) was quoted as saying about the duck:

He’s eating and surviving so far, and he is running about with those extra legs acting like stabilizers.

So this is news, right?