How Low Will Cathy Brennan Go--And For What?

In spite of the evil I've witnessed, I still have had hope for this world.  That hope was based on, among other things, that folks like Cathy Brennan and Janice Raymond didn't have children.  


Actually, I haven't thought that much about them, until recently.  Years ago, long before I started my transition, I read The Transsexual Empire and thought it was one of the most ludicrous things I'd ever read.  I still do.  Next to it, any of Professor Leonard Jeffries' rants about "Ice People" and "Sun People" seem like Nobel Prize-worthy science.


As I read further, one of my suspicions was confirmed:  Raymond, Brennan, et al, have no influence outside of a very small circle of so-called Second Wave Feminists.  Ironically enough, even though their hatred has more in common with that of folks like the Reverend Fred Phelps and certain members of the College of Cardinals and the Supreme Court, even they would never pay any mind to the nonsense Raymond and Brennan were spewing.


However, as demented as their so-called theories and arguments may be, I simply can't laugh them off anymore.  At least, I can't do that to the estimable Ms. Brennan.  You see, now she's doing what, in my old neighborhood, would be called some "real bad, real serious shit."


From Kelli Busey of Planetransgender, I have learned that Ms. Brennan has viciously "outed" a transgender teenager.  We saw what happened when Dharun Ravi, in essence, outed Tyler Clementi.  Making a trans teenager's identity public puts him or her at even greater risk  for being subjected to violence, and committing suicide (whether in the way Clementi did or slowly and more painfully through substance abuse or other means) than "outing" a gay or lesbian teenager would .




As vile as his actions were, at least Darun Ravi could claim, and many people would agree, that his actions were childish pranks gone horribly wrong.  However, Brennan can make no such claim.  In fact, she has no defense at all.  The only rationale she has is her own hatred, whatever its sources and purposes.  


In other words, it was a purely malicious act.  What I find really reprehensible is that she is trying to use the fears and stereotypes some people have about trans people to destroy a young man's life.  That stereotype is the transsexual-as-sexual-predator whose modus operandi--in sex and everything else in life--is deception.


Call me selfish, but one of the reasons I think what Brennan did is especially vile is that I have been victimized in the same way.  Someone I've mentioned on this blog tried to destroy my life--and succeeded in causing me health problems which are just now coming under control--by falsely accusing me of sexual crimes against other people.  


So, when I read about that seventeen-year-old trans boy whom Cathy Brennan  "outed," I felt as if she had assaulted me personally.  And, I would expect, a lot of other non-cisgender people felt the same way.


After pressure from Busey and others, the courageous Ms. Brennan removed the post in which she "outed" the young man from her website.  However, one of Kelli Busey's friends, Stephanie Stevens, saved it, and Busey published it on Scribe.  I am grateful to, and for, Ms. Busey and Stevens.

Re:Acting Fairly And Accurately

The political right has its so-called Accuracy In Media.


Now, I am happy to say, I've found a site that takes on, not only the transphobia in the media, but also the inaccuracies (if unintentional) in the way we're portrayed.  It also analyzes some of the hysteria found in coverage related to LGBT issues, particularly crimes and other prejudice against us.


The other day, Re:Act To Your News critiqued the coverage of the Dharun Ravi trial.  Whether or not Tyler Clementi's suicide is a direct consequence of Ravi's actions, it is still a tragedy, and Ravi doesn't seem very moved by his former roommate's death.  However, as the Re:Act piece shows, the very same mentality and processes that led to Ravi's conviction in the media are also, now, portraying him as a victim.  As the Re:Act post shows, neither portrayal of Ravi--as a villain or victim--is completely accurate.  


Why is that important?  Well, if he's seen as the victim he isn't, he won't be punished as he should.  On the other hand, portraying him as more of a monster than he actually is will lead to an over-zealous prosecution of him, which could result in his being punished for a crime very different from the one he committed.   That, ultimately, will not lead to the justice we are too often denied in cases bias-motivated crimes against us.


I am adding Re:Act to my "to read" list of blogs, and encourage you to do the same.

Darun Rhavi's Crime

The debate continues, and will most likely continue, about Dharun Ravi's conviction yesterday.  Whether or not you think that he is responsible for Tyler Clementi's suicide, it's hard not to characterize what Ravi did to Clementi as bullying. 


What is bullying?  To me, it's when someone uses an advantage he or she has to intimidate or harass someone else.  Most people thinking of the big, brutish (or simply pyschopathic) kid in the schoolyard preying on someone who's smaller, weaker, gentler, more soft-spoken or simply pusillanimous.  Of course, that scenario did not transpire between Ravi and Clementi.  However, Ravi used three advantages (at least in terms of life in this society) to intimidate and harass Clementi.


The first was his webcam.  Now, Clementi may well have owned one and could have set it up as Ravi did.  However, I doubt that Clementi would have thought to set up a webcam on Ravi, or anyone else, as he was about to have an intimate encounter with his boyfriend. So, the fact that Ravi had a webcam and was in a state of mind to use it as he did put him in a position of power, vis-a-vis Clementi.


The second advantage Ravi had--at least in terms of the situation between him and Clementi--was a personality that others described as loud, brash and bombastic.  Clementi, on the other hand, was said to be quiet and reserved, and not the type to fight back.  People--especially young ones--with personalities like Ravi's prey upon personalities like Clementi's all of the time.


Third, and perhaps most important, is that Ravi was (presumably) straight. So were his friends.  A gay person can't make a spectacle out of someone having heterosexual relations because it is highly unlikely that someone would lose
"face" (save, perhaps, among the most radical of queers), not to mention a job or an apartment, if he were "outed" as straight.  In contrast, even in this more "tolerant" world, LGBT people still face discrimination and the threat of violence if their identities are known.


So, whatever you think of the trial, it's hard to deny that Ravi bullied Clementi.  Unfortuantely, some in law enforcement seem ignorant of antbullying laws, or simply not interested in enforcing them.  And so there will be more bullying.

Is This Justice For Tyler Clementi--Or Dharun Ravi?

As you may have heard by now, Dharun Ravi has been found guilty of hate crimes.  He will be sentenced on 21 May; he faces ten years in prison and possible deportation to his native India.

As an aside, I think the latter may turn out, in some ways, to be the more severe punishment. Although he was born in India, he has spent most of his life in New Jersey.  His parents brought him to the US when he was a small child, so if he is deported, he will be cut off from his friends and family (unless, of course, they go to India) and, really, life as he knows it.

In any event, although I am satisfied with the fact that he will be punished for his actions, I have mixed feelings about the verdict and the specific punishment he could receive.

On one hand, I know firsthand how serious it is when someone invades your privacy and uses whatever he finds to intimidate, harass or simply embarrass you.  Even if he is "revealing" something people already know about you, he can still use it for the purposes I have mentioned. Also, it makes you feel vulnerable and helpless when someone uses very personal information about you for the purpose of demeaning you in some way. That, essentially, is what Ravi did when he showed his friends the images of Tyler Clementi and his boyfriend.

Also, I know--I've learned the hard way!--that someone who's upset with you, or simply dislikes you, can take the most benign information he finds about you and spin it into something negative or even an outright falsehood.  Such things can put you in physical danger as well as the risk of losing friends, jobs and places to live. (I've seen all of those things happen to people.)  

It seems to me that Ravi was upset because Clementi, his roommate, asked to have the room to himself.  Like most freshman-year college roommates, they had never before met each other before going to Rutgers.  That, I believe, would intensify whatever resentment Ravi may have had--whether or not verbalized it--over being kicked out of his room.  Perhaps videotaping it and amusing his friends with the images was some sort of retaliation for what he perceived to be an unfair demand from Clementi.  

Even if we accept such an explanation, we are still left with this question: Would Ravi have videotaped Clementi had he brought a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend to the room?  I can't help but to answer, "no."  I base that answer, not on any speculation about whether or not Ravi is homophobic:  Perhaps he was, but I doubt that he is any more so than most young men of his age. (I include myself at that stage of my life.)  The reason I think that he wouldn't have run the webcam had Clementi been canoodling with a co-ed is that it simply wouldn't have shocked or titillated his friends--or him.  Clementi would have been doing what the majority of college students--including, I assume, Ravi and his friends--have, or would have done, at one time or another.  On the other hand, even if they were raised in "tolerant" environments and their best friends "came out" to them when they were twelve years old, it's unlikely that they would have seen two men (or two women) in acts of physical intimacy.  

Think of it this way: Has Jerry Springer ever had a heterosexual married couple from Greenwich, Connecticut and their 2.5 kids on his show?

In any event, if Ravi showing his friends what that webcam revealed really drove Clementi to his suicide, Ravi was, indeed, responsible for Clementi's death. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I have to wonder what crime--among those defined by law--describes what Ravi did.  I would guess that it's probably not murder. So, then, is it manslaughter?  Involuntary manslaughter? If it is, my admittedly sketchy knowledge of criminal law tells me that ten years in prison and/or deportation is probably an appropriate sentence.

The real tragedy is, of course, that Clementi is dead and Ravi's life is effectively over at the age of 20.  Also, the lives of Clementi's family members, and others who were in his life, will never be what they were.   There is no way to redress those things--not under the law, anyway.  For that reason, there is simply no way that justice can be done--not for his family, and not for Ravi. But most important, not for Tyler Clementi.  I can only hope that he has gone to a place where there is love and acceptance, not to mention more maturity about sexual matters and other people's lives.