It's Not About Privilege. It's About How She Uses It.

OK, I'll admit it: I haven't watched "I Am Cait."  Then again, I haven't watched anything on television in a while because I almost never watch TV.

That said, I want to address remarks I've heard about it, and about Caitlyn Jenner's very public journey.  Those remarks have a common denominator:  privilege, or at least the word "privilege."  As in, "She's exploiting her upper-class privilege."  A few others have said she is using her "male privilege":  in essence, denying her transition and current life.  

The "male privilege" accusation comes mainly from TERFs and their allies:  After all, any man or any conservative who refused to see Caitlyn as female wouldn't see males as having privilege.  And, perhaps not surprisingly, the "white privilege" or "class privilege" whine doesn't emenate from the lips those who are darker or poorer than Caitlyn:  Those echoes of resentment come mainly from rich white cisgender heterosexuals who took a gender studies course or two.  Ironically, they are no different from white male conservatives in that they cannot see themselves as having privilege, but they can find it in a millisecond in someone else, whether or not that person actually has it.

There is no question that Caitlyn Jenner's celebrity--garnered mainly during her life as a man named Bruce--gives her more privilege than most people will ever enjoy.  And, if she's not part of the "one percent", she's close to it--which, of course, is another source of privilege.  Of course, being white doesn't hurt her standing, either.

Every male-to-female transgender I have ever known--I include myself--has lost some sort of privilege she didn't know she had when she was living as male.  This is especially true if said trans person is white:  As one black trans woman told me, "I don't feel I lost privilege because I had so little to begin with."  Whether the same thing will happen to Caitlyn remains to be seen.  Many of us are rightly celebrating her courage and integrity and, not surprisingly, some are mocking and hating on her.  Some of the haters probably own, or run, the companies that sponsor the programs on which Caitlyn has appeared, so it's hard not to wonder whether, after the attention she's now receiving has shifted elsewhere, she will lose some of her television work or be asked to make fewer public appearances in other venues.

I hope that nothing like that happens to Caitlyn.  As much as I'd like to have some of her privilege, I don't begrudge her for it.  If anything, I think she is using it well to call attention to such things as the suicide of a transgender teenager no one would have heard about if Caitlyn hadn't mentioned him.  Perhaps someone could knock her for taking a cross-country trip with her own entourage but, hey, if it helps to make us and our stories and struggles more real to the public, I have no problem with it.  If nothing else, such actions--and almost everything else she's done from the time Diane Sawyer interviewed her--has helped to break some of the old stereotypes about trans people.

If you're going to denigrate someone for having privilege, go after someone who's using it to bully or exploit people--especially if he's running for the Presidential nomination of his party.  But don't knock someone like Caitlyn, who's been using it for our betterment. 

He Tried To Kill In The Name Of God

When it comes to LGBT equality, Israel has one of the best--if not the best--record in the Middle East.  

That makes what happened in Jerusalem yesterday all the more distressing.

Yishai Schlissel, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, stabbed six marchers in the city's Pride parade.  Two of the victims are in serious condition.  Not long after he attacked, Schlissel was pinned to the ground and arrested on a central Jerusalem street.

He had just been released from prison after ten years of incarceration.  He was locked up for a very similar attack not far from where he struck yesterday.  In his rampage a decade ago, three marchers were stabbed.

The Jerusalem Pride march is smaller than the one in Tel Aviv.  But, the one in Jerusalem attracts more ire from ultra-religious Christians and Muslims as well as Jews, who see homosexuality as an "abomination", as Schlissel put it and the march as a "defilement" of their sacred city.

They probably think what Schlissel said out loud:  He'd come to the march to "kill in the name of God."

Haven't we heard that one before?

Some Respect For India Clarke

Some people suffer violent deaths.  Worse yet, they suffer other kinds of violence after their deaths.  Such is the case for too many trans people, like India Clarke.  

Yesterday morning, a park employee found her battered body just outside of the University Area community center in Tampa Bay, Florida.  While her death has been ruled a murder, officials are not calling it a hate crime.  

Given the way, and by whom, most transgender murder victims are killed, it's hard not to think Ms. Clarke's death was motivated by bigotry. Still, I can understand why officials won't come to such a conclusion just yet:  More than likely, they can't, until they at least have a suspect.

But I can't understand why, in this day and age, some journalists and public officials don't identify victims like India Clarke by the names they used and the genders by which they idenitified.  In fact, some make it a point of misgendering victims or identifying them by the names assigned at birth. 

The Tampa Bay Times--which proudly announces that it has won ten Pulitzer Prizes on its front page--identified India as Samuel Elijah Clarke and said "the victim was dressed in female clothing".  And Hillsborough County spokesman says officials will not be identifying her as "transgender." 

What most people don't realize is that referring to trans people by the names or gender assigned to them at birth doesn't only hurt the feelings of other transgender people.  It can also impede an investigation.

I hope never to meet a fate like India Clarke's.  But let's say someone was to find me lying on the ground somewhere, beaten up or otherwise hurt.  If an investigation were to begin by identifying me as male and by my old name, some of my records wouldn't turn up, as all of my records now identify me as a female with my current name.  Mis-identifying me could keep someone from accessing my medical and insurance records, which could result in my not getting care--or, if I were identified as male, in getting inappropriate treatments.

Misidentification could have even more dire consequences for those who are in the early stages of transition:  Such people might be living in their true gender and chosen name, but their records might still be in the gender and name assigned to them at birth.  I know:  I was in that situation for about two years.  But even then, some people knew me only by as a female named Justine; they did not know my former name or, in a few cases, even that I had lived as a man.  Asking such people about me under my old name and gender would have drawn blanks--as they would from most people who know me now.

So, identifying us by the names and genders in which we live isn't just a matter of respect or dignity:  It can also be a matter of our lives. 

India Clarke, I hope that, wherever you are, you're getting the respect and dignity--and have the peace and security--you didn't experience in your death.

Another Reason To Love The Amish

One says, "It's up to me to accept people as they are."  Another declares, "Transgender is not part of God's plan." Still others say they want her to be happy.  And then there were some who, verbally, shrugged their shoulders.

As you might have guessed, they were reacting to Caitlyn Jenner.  But they didn't hear about her the way most of us did.  They don't watch television, let alone look at the Internet.  They don't even have most of the basic technology most of us (in the industrialized world, anyway) take for granted.

So how did the good folks in the Pennsylvania Amish country learn about Caitlyn?  Well, the fact that they (most of them, anyway) don't have TV didn't shield them from the news media--or, at least, one member of it.  Too bad he had to be one of the worst.

Although it wasn't their intent, the gentleness of the Amish people--whether they approved or disapproved of what Caitlyn has done--made Jesse Watters seem like even more of an ass than he normally does.

 

Even Bill O'Reilly seemed civilized by comparison!

A Black Woman--Like Me? Like You?

You may have noticed that, until today, I hadn’t commented on the woman of Czech, Irish, Swedish and Native American ancestry who claimed she’s African-American and became the president of an NAACP chapter.  Frankly, I haven’t been thinking much about it, partly because I think the whole idea of classifying people by race is silly.  We’re All African; Get Over It!

But this morning I heard someone echo the canard conservative talk-radio personalities have been parroting:  If she wanted to portray herself as Black, it must mean that there’s no such thing as “white privilege”.  (If anything, those talk-radio guys show us that there’s no such thing as “white superiority”.)  People like them believe that laws to protect people of color, women, LGBT people and others are “special privileges”; never mind that white men have enjoyed such privileges since the day this country was founded.

It reminded me some things a few people told me when I was starting my transition.  “Oh, you’ll have it made,” said one.  “Men are going to hold doors open for you.”  Oh, sure, I transitioned for that.  And it more than makes up for the times I’ve been slandered (in particular by Dominick, but also by others) , accused of things I didn’t do, rejected and passed over for jobs. 

And then there was Elizabeth—who, I have since realized, resents anyone who is happier than she is—who accused me of transitioning so that I could “go to the top of the Affirmative Action food chain” and get a job that should go to her or some other “real” (Yes, she used that term!) woman. 

Uh-huh.  I took hormones and abuse, and underwent surgery, just so I could teach gender studies or gender theory or some such thing.  I can just imagine what someone like Elizabeth—who, I also realize, wants to be a Second Wave Feminist with a man who will support her—would, if she were black, say about Ms.

What I’m saying is that I made my transition so I can live my life—which, I suspect, is the reason why Caitlyn Jenner made hers.  In fact, I’d say that’s the reason, or at least an important reason, why most trans people go through their process of becoming who and what they are.  Really, there aren’t many—perhaps any—other reasons.

I suppose Rachel Dolezal  is claiming blackness for the same reason.  However, contrary to what some believe, that is about the only comparison that can be made between her and transgenders.  I’m not saying that a person couldn’t have been born in the “wrong” race; it’s simply something I don’t understand because I’ve never experienced it (though I’ve often felt I should have been French, which is a cultural—for me, anyway—rather than a racial identity).  On the other hand, I understand how it feels to have been born in the “wrong” body—which is still how most people define transgenderism.  More important, I understand what it’s like to be brought up, educated and acculturated in the “wrong gender”.  Most important of all, I have experienced growing up with the mind and spirit of a gender different from the one in which I was living and presenting to the world every day for the first 44 years of my life.

Hmm…Maybe I do understand a little more of Ms. Dolezal's dilemma than I thought.  But just a little.  Whatever the case, I find no reason to worry about whether she claims she’s black, white, Martian, Tralfamadorian or whatever.  All I can say is that it’s very, very unlikely she’s claiming blackness just so she can teach Black Studies or be the President of an NAACP chapter.  After all, as a white woman, there are all sorts of other things she could do—even though she wouldn’t have the same access and other privileges white cisgender men enjoy. 

"Tolerance" Of Transgender People Caused The Charleston Church Massacre: Erick Erickson

It seems that any time there's a manmade tragedy or natural disaster, we are somehow blamed for it.

By "we" I mean LGBT people.  Usually, the blamers use "gay" as a catch-all term to include anyone who doesn't conform to accepted norms of gender and sexuality.  It's actually relatively rare that one group in the spectrum--e.g., gay men, lesbians or transgenders--are specifically indicted for one of the world's evils. 

Well, this time is one of those relative rarities.  Transgender people are being blamed for something terrible.  Actually, we're not being blamed for the tragedy itself; rather, someone is attributing it to acceptance of transgender people.

Yes, you read that right.  The mere fact that because of society's acceptance of trans people--or, more specifically, Caitlyn Jenner--people don't know what's right anymore.

Erick Erickson, the founder and editor of the blog Red Neck, I mean, RedState, had this to say on his radio show:

“We can’t have the conversations we need to have in this country about mental health and evil. We cannot have those conversations. It is impossible to have conversations like that in a society that can look at a 65-year-old male Olympian and say ‘Hey, he’s a girl now. We have to start calling him Caitlyn.’”

Now, if you read yesterday's post, you might have guessed that he was blaming the fact that "we cannot have those conversations" for the massacre of nine members of a Bible study group in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston, South Carolina. 

OK...Calling Caitlyn Jenner who she is caused Dylann Roof to sit with those churchgoers--all of them African-Americans--and blow them away.  To be fair, Mr. Erickson is not a scientist or clinician, so perhaps he can be forgiven for some gaps in my knowledge.  And I'll admit that at times, my logic has been even faultier than his.

But I try not to repeat my mistakes.  Apparently, Mr. Erickson makes no such effort--or, again to be fair, he may have been unaware of his error.  Or he must have a very, very wide mouth that's impervious to pain:  He put his foot in it again when he repeated his sentiments in a post he wrote on his RedState:


"As a nation, when these things happen, we never have the conversation about real evil. We also never have the conversation about mental health.

...
Instead, we descend into partisan conversations where everything is political and neither side can concede or acknowledge the other's points. Everyone and everything gets blamed while ignoring the actual person who killed.
...
A society that looks at a 65 year old male Olympian and, with a straight face, declares him a her and "a new normal" cannot have a conversation about mental health or evil because that society no longer distinguishes normal from crazy and evil from good. Our American society has a mental illness -- overwhelming narcissism and delusion -- and so cannot recognize what crazy or evil looks like." 

So let me get this straight (pun intended):  It's tolerance that caused a young white man to kill nine African Americans because he believed that the races should be separate and black men "rape our women".  Hmm...I guess the word tolerance doesn't mean what I've always thought it meant.  If anything, I thought tolerance was more descriptive of those nine people who let him join them in their Bible study group before he killed them.

But, hey, what do I know?

Karis Ann Ross: Bullying, A Sucide And A Cover-Up

Ever since Bruce Jenner "came out" as transgender in an interview with Diane Sawyer and introduced herself to the world as Caitlyn in Vanity Fair, many people have lauded her for "having the courage to be who she is".  Some commentators have been touting this time as a "new day" for trans people.  Indeed, they may be right.

However, I know from experience that once you've been praised for living as the person you are, there are people--sometimes the very same ones who praised you--who are looking to use your transition against you, or simply hold you to standards to which they would hold no one else.  And then there are those who are pure-and-simple bigots, or merely ignorant, and don't change.

Worst of all, the bullying doesn't end. Or, if you hadn't experienced it before, it will start.  A lot of people still associate bullying with kids in a schoolyard, but supposedly-educated adults can be just as vicious, perhaps even more so, to colleagues and neighbors.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an expiration date on hate:  I recall the time an African-American firefighter found a noose near his equipment in the Brooklyn firehouse where he was based.  And that was nearly a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation.  

Karis Ann Ross would have been 38 years old last Sunday.  She didn't reach that mark because she killed herself over the most recent Thanksgiving weekend.  Her mother has just gone public with the contents of a note Ms. Ross left, in which she named people--in particular, three aides who worked with her--who bullied the lead special education teacher in the Milwaukee German Immersion School.

All told, the bullying went on for more than a decade.  Ms. Ross and her mother, Jill Greinke, as well as other family members and friends, complained to Milwaukee Public Schools officials about the treatment she endured.  According to Ms. Greinke, those complaints were ignored, even when Ms. Ross and members of the medical community sent numerous e-mails to school officials, warning of a crisis.  The school prinicpal downplayed the situation rather than intervening in, or mediating, the conflict.

Worse, Milwaukee Public Schools made no attempt to contact her family for two weeks. The principal sent flowers and a card, but made no announcement to the school's faculty or staff. Instead, they learned of Ms. Ross's suicide from her uncle when he came to collect her belongings.

Ross's mother co-wrote an open letter to the schools superintendent with her friend, Madeleine Dietrich.  They expressed hope  the superintendent "will move forward with a renewed awareness of the grave responsibilities held by public schools in our society, not only in teaching our students, but in setting an example for our population through modeling tolerance for individual diversity and empathy for the plight of our neighbors".  

And Ms. Ross ended her suicide note with, "Love to everyone, even the rotten apples." 

 

Rachel Bryk: A Trans Woman Driven To Suicide

As I have mentioned in other posts, friends and acquaintances of mine have committed suicide.  Although I have felt--and sometimes still feel--sadness over losing them and anger over their absence, I never could condemn any of them.  For one thing, I went through years--decades--in which not a day passed without my contemplating my own self-inflicted end.  So I understand, at least somewhat, despair.  For another, I have learned that just about everybody has a limit--almost never self-imposed--on how much physical or emotional pain or anguish he or she can endure.  Of course, some people have more tolerance for such things than others, but some people are also given burdens to bear that most other people can't understand.

For some, no amount of love and support from family, friends and others can ease the suffering.  That is the reason why, so often, when someone takes his or her own life, there seems to be a chorus of people lamenting how esteemed or even loved that person was.  Those very same mourners wonder what they did or didn't do for the one who just ended his or her existence.

But then there are the ones who, knowing someone else's vulnerability, will do whatever they can to push that person over the edge.  It can be simple harassment.  Or it might be something more serious, like spreading false rumors about the person to cause him or her to lose a job, housing or to experience some other kind of life disruption.

Then there is the lowlife who wrote, "DO IT, if you're such a weak willed thin skinned (sic) dipshit, then fucking do it" in response to someone who wrote about killing herself in an online forum.  "Good riddance," responded another alleged human.

The woman who wrote about killing herself was in constant, intense pain from fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.  And she was transgendered.

Although Rachell Bryk's mother believes that the constant pain and the rejection she received as a result of her disabilities are what drove her to jump off the George Washington Bridge, messages found on her computer described some of the online bullying she experienced.

Now, I've experienced online bullying from Dominick, who--among other things--sent me an e-mail that said he would make my life so miserable that it would "make living in a cardboard box seem good".  And he sent out e-mails claiming that I committed all of the crimes transphobes and the simply ignorant believe trans people do as a matter of course.  He did other things, too, because he was angry over ending a relationship he always claimed--while we were together--meant nothing to him. 

All of that was bad enough.  But how much more difficult would it have been for me to deal with those things had I been in constant physical pain?

Whatever the truth is about Rachel's situation, I can only hope that if there is indeed anything after this life, that it does not include the pain and torture she experienced while she was here.

 

What Hate Does To Us

Marissa Guthrie at Do Something created this:

Anti-Gay Day: Keeping It All In The Family

As I've said in a previous post, there's a corollary to Newton's Third Law in the struggle for LGBT equality.

That law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  When it comes to LGBT equality--or any other social or political issue--we usually call that reaction "backlash".

That is why, after same-sex marriage has become legal in 36 of the 50 US States (and the District of Columbia), some of the holdouts are passing laws that make it legal to discriminate against us and calling it "religious freedom".

Now we've seen another kind of backlash in a McGuffey (Pennsylvania) High School:  an "anti-gay day", which some students held on Thursday.

It would be one thing if the haters wore flannel shirts--as LGBT people and allies do on "gay days"--and left it at that.  But no...They're hanging signs on gay students' lockers, which the teachers have been taking down.  Worse, the bigoted bullies are harassing gay students, sometimes physically, and have drawn up and circulated a "lynch list", which includes the names of gay students.

This awful spectacle also illustrates something else I've said:  Kids, especially teenagers, may not listen to the adults (actual or alleged) in their lives.  But they never, ever fail to imitate them.

And who are the role models for the young thugs in McGuffey?  Why, none other than such bastions of rectitude as Focus on the Family and the Illinois Family Institute, which organized antigay events like Day of Dialogue and walkouts to protest the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's "homosexuality-affirming dogma".

Such organizations also prove something else I've said:  If an organization has "Family" in its name, there's a good chance it's promoting prejudice and worse against LGBT people.  It seems that you can get away with anything as long as you use that word--or mention your religious beliefs.  Wanna bet those kids in Pennsylvania figured that out?

Kill 'Em All! Let Matt Sort 'Em Out!

Some have said that the Bible should be the "law of the land".  That's a bit like saying an encyclopedia should guide your interests.

Somehow, though, it seems that "the Bible" always means one or two books within it.  In the case of California lawyer Matt McLaughlin, it seems to be Leviticus and Paul's letters to the Romans and Corinthians.

What exactly does McLaughlin, who lists his address as Huntington Beach, want to do?  He wants to execute anyone who commits sodomy.   

But, to be fair, the man is not as paleo as he seems at first glance. You see, he does not want to limit the method of snuffing out sodomite' lives to the old-fashioned way.  He wants anyone who touches a member of his or her own gender for sexual gratification to be "put to death by bullets to the head or any other convenient method".

Convenient?  Well, I guess the man deserves some comfort and ease.  After all, he brought $200 of his hard-earned money and a copy of his "Sodomite Suppression Act" to the Office of the Attorney General last month.  Here it is, in all of its glory:

 


Never mind that, last June, a Federal judge declared California's death penalty unconstitutional.

A Paralell Universe?

From Diana, I learned that Roman Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne of the Burlington (VT) diocese has affirming words for transgender people.  However, he sees same-sex relationships as "not matching up" to what the Catholic Church calls its members to "strive for".

A part of me is cheering:  Too often, trans people are “thrown under the bus”.  Too often, the throwers are gay men and, somewhat less often, lesbians and bisexuals.  Worse yet, groups that call themselves LGBT organizations and take our money (which, for trans people, is harder to come by than it is for anyone else) have sold us out by devoting all of their resources toward the singular goal of legalizing same-sex marriage. 

And, of course, many people who aren’t part of our alphabet soup are perfectly willing to welcome the first three letters into their fold but toss out T’s.  Some have positions of power and influence; others are examples for their children, students and others in their lives. 

Whether transphobia comes from gay, straight, bisexual or any other kind of people or organizations, the result is the same:  It divides trans people from lesbians, gays, bisexuals and others who don’t fit societal norms of gender and sexuality.  And, of course, it divides others in the spectrum.  The result is that when one has any sort of victory, the others believe (sometimes correctly) that it has come at their expense.  Such a perception, of course, makes all members of oppressed groups easy prey for further exploitation.

Really, all of this isn’t so different from the way plutocrats have created and exploited tensions between races and ethnic groups.  So, for example, many Italian immigrants of my grandparents’ generation detested Irish-Americans, most of whom preceded them by a decade or a generation in America.  And many African-Americans believe that Jews have done more than anyone else to oppress them.  Of course, the truly rich and powerful, who have exploited everyone I’ve mentioned, and just about everyone else, are, as the saying goes, “laughing all the way to the bank”.

My point is that if we, as trans people, should be glad that someone who could have “thrown us under the bus” chose not to do so, and should not rejoice or even breathe a sigh of relief that he chose to toss other groups of people—especially those who have been the objects of hate and violence similar to what we’ve experienced—instead.

Don't Talk To Me About "Bulding Bridges" With The Police

Now that thug, I mean NYPD Officer,Daniel Pantaleo got away with murder, I mean was acquitted by a grand jury, I don't want to hear anything more about improving the transgender (or lesbian or gay or any other) community's relations with police.  It's simply not possible. 

So you think I'm being extremist and incendiary.  Well a report from Al-Jezeera---Yes, Al-Jazeera--provides confirmation of something I've been saying for years:  The cops profile trans people.  I'm sure the NYPD has a file on me as I write this.  And I'm sure they put something in it that said I was complicit in the abuse I reported to them two years ago, or at the time I was stopped-and-frisked.


Andrea Ritchie, an attorney specializing in police misconduct says, "I think most people are familiar with racial profiling.  But I think people are less familiar with how gender is really central to policing in the United States."   It's based, she elaborates, on expectations of "how women are supposed to look, how men are supposed to look, how women are supposed to act and how men are supposed to look".  

When people don't conform to those expectations, the police "often read that as disorder and perceive that person as already disorderly, already suspicious and already prone to violence," she says.

In other words, cops expect us to be criminals.  And, as I discovered, they simply can't deal with it when they realize one of us isn't.  

What exacerbates the gender profiling is that poverty and homelessness are considered criminal acts, rather than states into which too many of trans people fall because of bigotry or because they ran away from home rather than endure more beatings and other abuse from classmates and family members and thus didn't get the education or skills necessary for the workplace.

Sometimes simply being in the path of the cops means that you will get harassed, arrested, beaten or worse.  As Dean Spade, an attorney and one of the founders of the Sylvia Rivera Law Projects put it, being trans means "you're more likely to be poor and on the street, which puts you in the path of police."

A black man I know was explaining to me that he learned, at an early age, that if he's pulled over, he should turn on the light inside the car and put his hands on the steering wheel--and make sure his license is on the dashboard.  "The light is so they can see that no one is in the back seat," he explained "and that my hands are on the dashboard.  And the license is where they can see it, so they don't get anxious about me reaching into the glove compartment."

He insists that such actions are necessary to ensure that worse things don't happen.  But law-abiding young black men have been doing such things for a long time, and it seems that the police only continue and amplify their harassment.  And he, whether he realizes it or not, has internalized the notion that he is a criminal until he proves himself otherwise.

I don't want to see things come to that for trans people.  If I am not doing anything criminal or even merely offensive,I should be left alone.  And if I am being victimized, I should be helped. My expereinces with the police have shown me that they seem to think otherwise and that, if anything, they are turning the fact that I do, mostly, what most people do every day and the fact that I went to them for help as reasons why I am a potential criminal.  I cannot count such people as allies, as people with whom I--or any LGBT person--should cooperate.

So Funny I Forgot To Laugh

Buried In The Wrong Gender

Ask any transgender person what his or her greatest fears are in this life, and you will probably hear about being slandered, harrassed, beaten, fired or evicted--and of losing longtime relationships with family members, friends and colleagues-- simply for being who he or she is.  

I have experienced all of those things.  So have many other trans people.  I am fortunate in that I am alive to tell about them.

Which leads me to another great fear many trans people have:  What will be done with, or to, us in death.  Even if we have been stripped of all of your dignity when we are alive, we can be deprived of whatever is accorded to other people in death.  At least, that is what can happen in most states if we change our names, take hormones and live and work in the gender of our mind and spirits but, for whatever reasons, don't undergo the surgery that makes us members of that gender in the eyes of most people and the law of most places.

That is what happened to Idaho trans woman Jennifer Gable.  Last month, she suddenly died from an aneurysm.  That was shocking enough to those who loved her, but what happened next was even more stunning:  In her open casket, she was presented with short hair and in a suit, as a man. 

Her paid obituary gave her name as Geoffrey Charles Gable and mentioned the details of her birth, baptism, membership in a church, marriage (which ended in divorce) and work for Wells Fargo Bank.  There was not a word about the way, or the name under which, she lived the last few years of her life.  

As appalled as I am, I am not surprised:  Idaho is still one of four US states (Kansas, Ohio and Tennessee are the others) that will not change the gender on a person's birth certificate even if he or she has gender reassignment surgery.  Knowing that, I suppose it's a victory of sorts that her death certificate lists her as "Geoffrey AKA Jennifer Gable". 

Trans Woman's Body Found This Morning

Just before 6 this morning, someone found a body in an alley.

The murder victim had suffered severe trauma.

Does it surprise you that she was transgender?

Does it surprise you that someone wants to give her killer a key to the city?  Or that someone used the occasion as an excuse to say that Obama is coming out and admiting that Michelle is a "tranny"?

The victim identified herself as Mia Henderson. Her government-issued ID bore the name Kevin Long.

Police in Baltimore, where Ms. Henderson's body was found, said they couldn't yet tell whether her murder is related to a similar one committed a month ago.



 

Doctor Of Hate

It's amazing how much hate you can get away with spreading if you have a "Dr." in front of your name or "Ph.D." after it.

Nobel Laureate William Shockley--who is often called "the father of Silicon Valley"--went on the lecture circuit to call for eugenics, saying that blacks were innately less intelligent than whites.  Of course, wherever he went, anyone tasked with promoting his lectures played up the fact that he won one of the world's most pretigious prizes.  However, the fact that it was for Physics was never mentioned; Shockley had no expertise in genetics, which was supposed to be the intellectual foundation of his prejudice.

More recently, Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein used the confidence bestowed upon them on account of their academic attainments to promote nonsense much like Shockley's.  But together they had even less knowledge of genetics than Shockley had:  Murray was a political scientist and Herrnstein a psychologist.

Now we have another doctor in the House of Hate.  At least he is employed where he belongs:  Faux, I mean Fox, News.  I am referring to Dr. Keith Ablow, who excoriated the parents of Ryan Whittington, the six-year-old transgender boy whose parents are aiding his transition.  The estimable Dr. Ablow says that young Whittington--whose inspiring video went viral--would be better served by "antipsychotic" medications.


Whoa, there. First of all, too many lives have been ruined and people destroyed by the notion that transgenderism (or, for that matter, homosexuality or bisexuality) is a psychosis or mental illness.  Plenty of LGBT people were given such medications as children and even adults; some who survived the experience were left in a haze, unable to function in school, jobs or relationships.  Note that I said "who survived the experience":  Who knows how many committed suicide or died accidental deaths in their drug-addled states?

Whatever you think of helping such a young child transition, you probably wouldn't want your kid on most of those medications even to treat the conditions for which they're intended.  While I spent large parts of my life in one degree or another of depression, I am glad I was not prescribed such medications.  In fact, a therapist wanted to put me on Prozac, but I refused because I knew people who took it and didn't like what I saw.

Then there is the issue of Dr. Ablow's expertise.   Whatever it is, it ain't in gender issues.  And, whatever it is, it is not the core foundation of his work:  He seems to operate from the same phobias one finds in those who use their "faith" or religion as a rationale for their prejudices.  On top of the veneer of faith is the sheen of his scientific--or, in any event, academic--credentials.  "If he has those degrees, he must know what he's talking about."  I can hear people thinking that, just as they believed the Nobel Laureate Dr. Shockley must have had some insight into racial heirarchy the rest of us don't have.

In the end, he's really no different from Marcus, a.k.a. Mr. Michelle, Bachmann.

 

"It's Only Words." Sure.

From Amy Dentata

Transphobes Tossed Off The Airwaves--For Now, Anyway

Rochester, NY was one of the very first jurisdictions in the US to protect gender identity and expression in its human rights laws.  In fact, Rochester accorded equal rights in housing, employment, education and other areas to transgenders a quarter-century before New York City did so. 


Of course, that law didn't stamp out ignorance and hate, any more than such a law could have such an effect anyplace else.  Even so, it's more than a little surprising that a pair of popular local radio hosts--Kimberly and Beck--should go on this transphobic rant:





Being ignorant of what it means to be trans is one thing, and is even somewhat understandable. But calling us "nutjobs" is something else. So is the comment about the trans male softball player having two bats.   And there's simply no excuse for anyone over the age of seven to play "Dude Looks Like A Lady" while making fun of trans people.


(After I ended my relationship with him, Dominick left that song on my voice mail a number. I ignored it and he escalated his harassment.)


At least it's good to know that retribution against Kimberly and Beck was swift. Of course, that did nothing to stop them, but it's still good to know that caller called them out.  Others complained, and someone with the power to stop K and B took action: Their employers, station 98.9, suspended them "indefinitely".


I've been to Rochester once, before I knew about their history of transgender equality. My brief stay left me with the impression that there are some really good people there.  The reaction to Kimberly and Beck confirms that notion.