Becky’s Blog

Never let it be said I didn’t give it my best effort.

During a surprise call-in during my March 6th show featuring Donna Rose, Joe Racalto, an aide in Congressman Barney Frank’s office, suggested I contact him to set up an interview with Congressman Frank to discuss ENDA and the issue of transgender rights in general. Of course, I was interested. I contacted Joe soon afterward and began the process of requesting and setting up the interview. Unfortunately, it seems Joe overestimated the willingness of his boss to speak directly to the transgender community and and enter into the kind of dialog with us that he’s advocated publicly for so long.

Earlier today, I got my answer. Apparently, Congressman Frank, who always seems to find the time to talk Queer politics on the air on the Michelangelo Signorile Show, apparently can’t seem to find even a few minutes to come on a show like mine which focuses on topics and issues of concern to transgender and gender-variant Americans. Personally, I was hoping to have the opportunity to ask Congressman Frank some long-unanswered questions about these issues instead of maybe a gender-relevant question or two in the midst of a round of the same tired open-ended softballs Signorile always seems lob Frank’s way whenever he appears on his show.

I guess it’s really not all that surprising when you think about it. I’m not Michelangelo Signorile. Unlike I’ve heard Signorile do so often in the past, if Barney Frank tried to avoid answering my direct questions about these issues which are so important to so many in our community, I’d call him on it and push for answers, not let him just go on saying whatever he wanted to say for as long as he wanted without challenge. After all, if Congressman Frank’s not going to respond to our questions fully and directly, what’s the point in having him on in the first place?

And hey, let’s not forget we’re not really his target audience. Apparently, he only really wants to speak to the monied gay elite, and that’s what he gets when he goes on the Signorile show. Like so many politicians, Frank talks a great line when he’s the one leading the discussion, but it seems he isn’t so willing to respond to the questions and concerns of those American citizens who are most directly impacted by what he and his colleagues in Congress are doing in regards to ENDA and LGBT civil rights in general.

Honestly, it’s kind of funny when you think about it. Democrats go on the shows of the right-wingers and go toe-to-toe with these people all the time, but apparently Barney Frank is shying away from speaking with those who’s interests he claims to be representing in Congress. Or, could it be me…lil’ ol’ me? Am I really scarier for Barney Frank than Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity…or even Michelangelo Signorile?

Maybe I really am that scary, at least for someone like Barney Frank. Maybe it’s that I’m just not willing to drink down a Big Gulp-size helping of Congressional Kool-Aid. Maybe it’s that I’m not afraid to call ‘em as I see ‘em, even when doing so inconveniences activists and politicians who probably prefer I’d just shut the hell up. Maybe it’s that he knows I’d ask questions he’s not going to want to answer and I’m not going to be satisfied with a politically-neutered dodge as a response. Or, maybe he just doesn’t think we’re important enough to bother with.

Fear not, however. Just because Barney Frank isn’t willing to be questioned by me and my listeners about these critical issues, it doesn’t mean everyone involved in mainstream and LGBT politics feels the need to run the other way. It took a while to finally get it together, but I’m pleased to announce that Hilary Rosen, Board member of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and former interim director of the organization (in-between Cheryl Jacques and Joe Solmonese), will be my guest on the May 22nd edition of “The Rebecca Juro Show”.

I’ve been hoping to get some opposing, or at least not completely agreeing, guests to come on my show and take on some of these issues, but until now, it’s only been Chris Crain, former Editor in Chief of the Washington Blade, and Dana Beyer, a transwoman, former and future political candidate in the State of Maryland, and a member of HRC’s Board of Governors, who had been willing to take me up on the offer. Speaking to and with the choir can only take us just so far, so I’ve been trying to make it point to get people like Dana Beyer and Hilary Rosen on the show to offer listeners a different perspective. While I’m quite sure many of us will disagree with some or even all of what Ms. Rosen has to say, she has both my respect and my appreciation for being willing to step up and enter into a discussion of these issues, a discussion Barney Frank apparently really has no interest in having despite his many public statements to the contrary.

I’m looking forward to my discussion with Hilary Rosen. I think it’ll be an interesting and informative show, and I think she’ll be a terrific guest. I just think it’s a pity that Barney Frank isn’t willing follow her example and take even a few minutes to speak directly to the community most significantly impacted by his advocacy of ENDA in Congress.

I guess it’s a good thing, in a twisted sort of way. For all those gender-variant Americans who may have had their doubts as to whether or not Barney Frank was really committed to seeing them protected from discrimination under federal law, you’ve now got your answer from Congressman Frank in as unmistakable a manner as possible, spoken in a voice as loud and as clear as silence.

Recently, there’s been much discussion about how we go forward in dealing with the Human Rights Campaign as a community, where the popular opinion of the greater LGBT community, and probably of nearly all of those who identify as transgender or gender-variant in some way, is that this organization simply cannot be trusted to reflect and advocate in concert with the will of the majority. One of the most common assertions, one I believe has been repeatedly proven conclusively accurate over the last several months, is that HRC’s leadership not only simply doesn’t get it, but they really show little or no interest in getting it in the future.

It’s not quite as complex a problem as some would have you believe. Indeed, what they don’t get is really quite simple. When you consider that in order to be a part of the organization’s leadership, to have decision-making and agenda-setting power at HRC, one must raise or donate fifty thousand dollars a year, the answer is as simple as it is obvious: The problem is money.

Think about how much personal wealth one must have in order to generate this level of donation to HRC. Can someone with that kind of cash in the bank possibly understand what it is to have to live on a budget, to have to make economically-dictated decisions between what one wants, what one needs, and what one can afford? Can someone who can simply write a donation check for more than twice as much as many of us make in a year really understand what is to have to pay the bills working a low-paying job at a local retailer or the impact that losing such a job because of bigotry has on those who depend on such relatively meager incomes to survive?

The answer, of course, is yes. Not everyone with money is born into it, and many wealthy people proactively educate themselves and use their financial clout to help make things better for others not so fortunate. The real question, however, is not if it’s possible that someone so wealthy can possibly understand the reality of the lives of the vast majority of Americans who don’t enjoy that level of wealth, but rather if it’s likely, and the answer to that question is clearly a resounding “No!”.

To put it in perspective, consider how many of us, probably most, view the issue of Darfur. It’s commonly understood that the people there are suffering greatly, but how many of us actually do anything about it in a concrete way? How many of us actually donate money, speak out on the topic, or take some kind of action to help alleviate the suffering of that country’s people? I’m willing to bet not very many. Most of us are just too involved with our own lives and issues to devote much time and attention to a problem and a people who seem so far away and far removed from our own lives.

The problem we gender-variant folks face in dealing with HRC bears striking similarities to how the tragedy of Darfur is popularly perceived by the American public at large. No doubt there are many on the HRC Executive Board who would agree that the persecution and discrimination of gender-variant Americans is awful in principle, but how many of those folks really care enough about us to devote their time, effort, and resources to helping to solve it? If history is to be our guide, then clearly the answer must be not very many at all.

I mean, how is it that after all these years of claiming to represent gender-variant Americans and our interests in Washington, this organization still needs to hold trainings to educate its own membership on transgender and gender-variant issues? How is it possible, or even rational, that such an organization, which is clearly incapable of even getting its own membership up to speed on these issues, could be relied upon to advocate these issues to the United States Congress? The obvious answer is that they can’t, not by any reasonable stretch, and anyone who tries to claim otherwise is either lying or or clueless.

Even more convincing evidence of HRC’s lack of both credibility and competency in advocating on behalf of gender-variant Americans is the reality that since Donna Rose left the organization late last year, no effort has apparently been made to replace her on the Executive Board. Instead, HRC tries to convince transpeople that appointing two new trans members to their non-political Business Council somehow makes up for the complete void of transgender and even simply lower, middle, and working class voices in their actual leadership.

HRC is, simply put, an organization run by rich gays for the benefit of rich gays. Period. End of story. It’s an organization so arrogant and so completely out of touch with the pulse of what’s really going on in the 99% of LGBT America that can’t write fifty thousand dollar yearly checks to the organization just to have a voice in its administration, that they can’t even get their own people to take the time to fully understand what they claim to be fighting for.

Even worse, HRC’s leadership thinks we’re all morons. How else can you explain them trying to claim that they’re fighting for and representing our interests in Congress while at the very same time continuing to support and actively promote legislation that will give people like those on their Executive Board protections in the workplace, but exclude gender-variant Americans from those selfsame protections, and even proactively penalizing legislators who support those protections and vote in concert with those beliefs in their ratings on the organization’s Congressional Scorecard? Could there possibly be any clearer proof of HRC’s incompetence to represent our community effectively? Actually, yes…there’s even more.

The Human Rights Campaign has been around since 1980, and after nearly three decades of their existence, what does our community have to show for their leadership of our movement?

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which precipitated the largest anti-gay witch hunt in the history of the US military.

The Defense of Marriage Act, cited by governments and corporations alike to justify denying equal rights, benefits, and treatment to LGBT Americans all over this country.

45 states with laws or constitutional bans prohibiting same-sex marriage and/or domestic partnerships and civil unions.

Failure after failure after failure. If any employee had this kind of performance record in private industry, they’d have long since been fired. Any company with this track record would have been forced out of business decades ago. And yet, somehow, most of the membership of the US Congress, presumably highly intelligent men and women all, somehow still perceive this organization as not only credible, but as representing the majority will of the American LGBT community.

Forrest Gump’s mother had it right: Stupid is as stupid does.

Put all the lies, betrayals, and other disgraceful indignities HRC has visited upon gender-variant Americans over the years on the shelf for a moment, and even then you still have this simple, undeniable reality:

The Human Rights Campaign is completely and utterly incompetent as a political advocate, not only in representing the interests of the gender-variant, but also those of gay and lesbians as well. No matter what yardstick you choose to use, HRC not only doesn’t measure up in terms of helping to achieve positive political progress for LGBT Americans, but its leadership of our movement has made our situation incalculably worse than it was before.

Of course, it all comes back to money…cold, hard, cash. They have it, we don’t, and it’s the one and only thing they have going for them. It’s what makes the politicians listen, and it’s the one and only language the people making the decisions at HRC speak.

To those still supporting this organization with their donation dollars, I say this: If you really want to see equality for people like us anytime soon, you need to put your money where it will actually do some good. Organizations like NGLTF can’t win every battle, but at least they don’t have a unbroken thirty-year record of not only complete failure to make any positive progress at all, but also an almost equally consistent record of losing ground in the form of laws that now formally enshrine second and even third-class status for LGBT Americans in ninety percent of American states.

Have we had enough yet?

Money, while certainly useful, does not equal competency or credibility. It’s time to give HRC their richly-deserved pink slip and hire some people who know what the hell they’re doing.

Tonight, we’ll talk with former candidate for Maryland State Delegate and HRC Board of Governors member Dr. Dana Beyer. One of of the very few transpeople still associated with HRC, and certainly the highest-ranking transperson in the organization, we’ll talk with Dr. Beyer about HRC, ENDA, the future of the movement, and much more!

Plus news, commentary, and your phone calls!

The Rebecca Juro Show
The LGBT Internet Radio Talk Show That Puts The “T” First!
Streaming Live Thursdays, 7-10pm Eastern, 4-7pm Pacific And Rebroadcast Throughout The Week
On QMO
http://www.queermusiconline.com
And Live Every Week
On WKCJE TLGB Radio
http://www.wkjce.org
Studio Call-In Line: (928)257-3171
Show Email: rjuroshow@gmail.com

NEW! Show Website: http://rebeccajuro.com

If you haven’t read the previous post, read it now. If you have, then let’s go:

The election is over. Casting myself in the Obama role turned out to be some pretty wishful thinking. It seems I was closer to Kucinich, splitting six votes with two other candidates, while the other two tied each other with nine votes each. We then had a runoff between these two, the one who wanted it bad and someone who is a good friend and the candidate I voted had for the first time since I was not allowed to vote for myself.

Once eliminated in the first round of voting, I became my friend’s campaign manager, coaching her on what to talk about and to whom. She was a true champ, never lowering herself into the worst of it even when she was directly attacked by a supporter of her opponent. Her opponent never attacked her directly, but really kept the heat on through surrogates, and doing her best to swing as many votes as she could her way.

It was really quite an interesting scene. Remember, this is all going on among dominant women…talk about clashing egos! The attacks were overt and subtle, angry and calm, reasoned and enraged. The slaves, not having a vote of course, for the most part smartly stayed pretty much completely out of the whole thing. This was a battle among an elite group for political dominance, and it was a battle my team won, even though I didn’t snare the top prize for myself. I proudly watched our new Queen be crowned, and I happily danced at the party in her honor later in the day. Not surprisingly, her opponent, the woman who wanted it so badly, who had lost in the runoff by just one vote, didn’t show up at the coronation or the celebration, and neither did most of her entourage of slaves. Call it a hunch, but I have a feeling that this battle is far from over. When you have an election every three months until someone is elected three times in a row, there’s not a lot of time not to have at least some kind of political drama going on. Considering how much of it we had before, I can only imagine it’s going to get even more intense now.

So what now?

Well, I’m happy with the result. I think she’ll be a fine Queen, better than the next most likely alternative by a long shot. I’m also still one of the most powerful people on the sim. Within the roleplay, I answer only to the Queen, and outside of the roleplay only the Queen and the slave male who runs the business end of the sim. It’s not too bad a consolation prize when you think about it. Not only that but the Queen is a friend and shares my opinion on the way most things at the sim should be run…at least, I think so anyway.

Will I run again in three months? To be honest, I can’t say with certainty either way right now. I’d like to, but I’ll only do it if I think it’s in the best interests of the sim. It’ll probably take at least a few weeks to determine if we’ve got a keeper here. In any case, I have a feeling this drama is far from over.