What The Planned Parenthood Controversy Means For LGBT People

Dr. Marci Bowers is an extremely skilled surgeon with a good “bedside manner.”  Like any other first-rate professional, she has fine people working with and for her.

Among them are the screening nurses, counselors and others who prepare people like me for surgery.  The ones who worked with Marci when she was in Trinidad also worked with the local Planned Parenthood, right next to the hospital in which Dr. Bowers practiced.  In fact, on the morning of my surgery, I went to the PP office—where I passed a lone protestor—and, from there, was escorted to the hospital.

I am thinking of that now in light of the furor over Planned Parenthood.  To religious fundamentalists (who, almost invariably, are trying to follow a literal interpretation of a translation of a book written, at least in part, in languages that haven’t been spoken in more than a millennium), Planned Parenthood can be defined in one word:  abortion.  And if something has anything to do with abortion, they are not only against it, they are willing to believe the absolute worst things anyone can say, true or not, about it.

So it’s really no surprise that they’re in a lather over the story that PP is selling tissue from aborted fetuses for use in medical research and treatment.  Of course, when stories are passed along, parts of it are exaggerated, distorted or otherwise changed.  So, somewhere along the way, some hysterical or simply mendacious person announced that Planned Parenthood is “harvesting’ fetuses for tissue.  That story gave the conservatives just the sort of weapon they’ve wanted.

What’s commonly forgotten is that abortion is actually a very small part of what Planned Parenthood does.  For many women—especially the poor and those who live in isolated rural areas—the Planned Parenthood office is one of the few places, if not the only place, where they can find compassionate and competent gynecological health care.  Sometimes even men in such situations rely on Planned Parenthood for their needs.

Knowing such things, I can’t help but to think that Planned Parenthood is a lifeline for many LGBT people.  There are still many health care professionals who won’t treat us or, worse, can’t or won’t treat us with the same compassion or diligence they would provide other patients.  I had one such experience early in my transition, and I have heard stories from other queer people who were treated with contempt or simply given inappropriate advice or care. For example, the doctor of  a lesbian I know told her that if she doesn’t want to get breast cancer, she should have a baby. I doubt that anyone in Planned Parenthood would have told her that.

Does A Good Papacy Get Better With Age?

Just when we all thought Pope Francis I was going to pull the church, if a millimeter at a time, away from its homophobia, he tells a crowd this:

"Parenthood is based on the diversity of being, as indicated by the Bible, male and female. This is the 'first' and more fundamental difference, constitutive of the human being."

He added:

"Children mature seeing mom and dad's...receporicity and complementarity."

OK...We've heard this sort of thing before. But, being the good Jesuit that he is, he has to come up with a good, logical explanation:  A good marriage, he said, is "like fine wine, in which the husband and wife make the most of their gender differences."

Hmm...I know I'm no oenologist.  So perhaps I can be forgiven for not realizing that wine-making had anything to do with gender differences.  Could those tastes be a result of the interplay between female and male grapes?

He made these remarks in an address the day after Rome's Gay Pride Festival, and a few days after Italy's lower house of parliament passed a motion in support of same-sex civil unions, promising to take up the issue.





 

It Isn't Really Rape If Your Son Does It

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address warned us about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex".

John F. Kennedy offered this challenge:  "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

And what memorable oratory did Bill Clinton leave for us?   "I did not have sex with that woman!"  Or, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

It seems that Jim Bob Duggar is taking lessons on semantics from our forty-second President.  That is ironic, in a way, because about the only thing he seems to have in common with Clinton is Arkansas roots. 

But it seems that for a self-professed Christian, he's doing everything he can to emulate Bill from Hope's respect for the truth.  Now, I can't fault him for defending his son:  Most parents would do the same for their kids, even after those kids have done the most unspeakable things.  Still, I have a hard time hearing a defense, whoever may make it, of someone who takes advantage of someone else sexually.

He says that when his son Josh molested his sisters, who were adopted, "it was nothing like rape."  Rather, he insists it was "just inappropriate touching over the clothes" while the girls "were sleeping".  According to Duggar the Elder, the girls weren't even aware of what he had done.  In contrast, the police reports state that at least one of the girls woke up during the incident.

Now, almost anyone would agree that touching a child's private areas--whether or not there is clothing or anything else between the toucher's hand and the child's privates--constitutes sexual molestation.  In fact, most people--including most clinicians--would agree that it's molestation if the person, of whatever age, being touched can't or doesn't consent.

And, whatever we might say about the State of Arkansas, it defines sexual molestation  as rape. 

As  a transgender woman and someone who survived childhood sexual molestation and sexual assault as a young adult, I find Jim Bob Duggar's dissembling particularly offensive.  You see, he and his wife have been propagating the lie that all transgenders are pedophiles as part of their campaign against transgender equality.

I wonder how they define "transgender" and "pedophilia".

Transgender Girl Scouts!

They're letting boys become Girl Scouts!  No....

No, it's not happening.  But that's what all those hate "socially conservative" and superstitious "religious" groups with "Family" in their name would have you believe.

Boys in makeup and dresses!

How many times have we heard that canard?  They are not boys or even "boys who identify as girls".  They are girls who happen to have been assigned the male gender at birth.

Boys in the tents with girls!

See above.  They're not boys.  And, contrary to the fears being mongered by all of those "family" groups, there's not a single report, anywhere, of a trans girl or woman sexually harassing, assaulting or molesting anyone.  We may not be angels, but we frankly have better things to do.

Whoever's in charge of the Girl Scouts of America seems to understand as much.  At least, that's the sense one gets from this statement on their website:

Girl Scouts is proud to be the premiere leadership organization for girls in the country. Placement of transgender youth is handled on a case-by-case basis, with the welfare and best interests of the child and the members of the troop/group in question a top priority. That said, if the child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe.

Of course the bigoted Christian right won't let that one lie. They believe it's a
"slap in the face to Christian parents."

Ah, yes--that canard again.  Whenever we get some of the rights other people have, "Christians" cry "We're being persecuted!" 

Let them howl. The Girl Scouts are, at least, being the leadership organization they say they are.

Maybe I'll buy some more of their cookies.  Let me tell you, the Somosa's are amazing.  So are the good old-fashioned Thin Mints.  And the Rah-Rah Raisins.  (What was that about my diet?)

Marching For What?

Isn't it funny that when people want to "defend" "marriage", they almost always are talking about one kind of marriage to the exclusion of the others.

Such was the case at the "March for Marriage" held the other day in Washington, DC.

When New York State legalized same-sex marriage in June of 2011, four of the Senate's Republicans voted for it.  In doing so, they joined all except one of the Senate's Democrats. 

Guess who was at the March?  Right...the Senate Democrat, none other than Ruben Diaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister.  (Now, what was that about separation of church and state?)  He was joined by a contagion of conservative clergy people from his native Bronx, which City Council member Ritchie Torres (who represents part of it) calls "the Bible Belt of New York City".

Some people may genuinely believe that God (or Allah or whomever) deemed that marriage is a relationship of one man and one woman for the purpose of procreation.  However, I get the feeling that too many other people--including, I suspect, many in the March--simply don't want gays or other people to have the same rights they have, just as certain white people didn't want racial equality because it would strip them of whatever social and economic superiority they enjoyed vis-à-vis blacks.

Then there are those who seem confused about what it is they're marching for:

Her sign reads:  "People are designed to be seeing and hearing and with all body parts intact and 'Tab A fits Slot B' perpetuates the species.

OK. So is she saying that blind or deaf people--or amputees-- shouldn't be allowed to marry?  And what's that about 'Tab A' and 'Slot B'?  Is she telling us that sex, reproductive or otherwise, is just a matter of getting one piece to fit into another, like a puzzle?
 

Making LaHaye When He Hates

Was this a Freudian slip?:

"The Christian community needs a penetrating book on homosexuality."

"Penetrating"?  Hmm...What does that word choice tell us about the writer of that sentence?

Said author is Tim LaHaye. Yes, that Tim LaHaye. Actually, he was quoting someone with similar views, but that LaHaye used it as a rationale for--and in the beginning of--his book The Unhappy Gays still, I think, confirms something I've long suspected about him and lots of other "Christian" homophobes.

More to the point, the esteemed Mr. LaHaye took it upon himself to explain homosexuals for likeminded people, i.e., those who use their religious beliefs as a smokescreen for their bigotry.  He's the sort of person who's articulate enough to explain to people what they can't explain about people they hate, but--not surprisingly--not honest enough to call that hate what it is.

I remember reading The Unhappy Gays not long after it came out.  I was in college and had joined a campus Christian fellowship for all sorts of reasons, all of which had to do with my inability--at that time--to understand, let alone articulate or deal with things I'd felt for as long as I could remember.  I actually "came out" as gay because, frankly, I didn't know what else I was.  Some members of the fellowship said they would pray for me, and I don't doubt they did.  At least they didn't try to "cure" me by fixing me up with sisters or other females they knew.  And being around them spared me from a lot of those campus activities that begin with alcohol and end with rape.

Still, I knew I wasn't one of them.  I didn't see anything the way they did.  No matter how much some tried to include me, I knew I ultimately couldn't be a part of their world, any more than I would be part of the world of white picket fences.

And from other people I faced outright exclusion and rejection.  Ironically, La Haye cited such rejection as one of the reasons for the "intense anger that churns through even the most phlegmatic homosexual". Although he was wrong to categorize all gays as angry, he did understand that rejection makes people angry.  And although I didn't fit most of the stereotypes he claimed to be elucidating for his audience, I knew I was angry--or, at least, unhappy.

Not to make excuses for myself, but what else could I have been, really?  However, rejection was only part of the reason why.  Most important, I think, was that I was someone I couldn't understand and didn't ask to be.  Like anyone else one who's born different from other people, I didn't start off thinking I wasn't worthy of the things most people wanted and enjoyed.  But, like too many who are "minorities" or outcasts, I absorbed the subtle and not-so-subtle messages that I wasn't worthy.  Those same people and institutions that sent us those messages were also the very ones who stigmatized us for not achieving what they achieved in the areas of relationships and even careers.  

Anyway, it's because LaHaye understood that much that he was able to say he was being "compassionate" toward homosexuals.  You know, in a "love the sin, hate the sinner" sort of way. Not surprisingly, he thought that because God loves us, all we had to do was to accept that love and we'd be "saved".  From what?  Our "sin".  And for what?  "Eternal life", or some such thing.   

I got to thinking about all of this after a seeing a post on the Patheos Atheist Newsletter today.  The author of that post outlined some of the lies found in LaHaye's book.  That post is definitely worth reading.  If nothing else, it offer you some insights into some of the things Christian "fundamentalists" say about gay (and trans) people--and how much worse they were in 1978.

This Barber's Thinking Is Clipped

A month ago, I mentioned something a police commander once told me:  "Lucky for us that most criminals are stupid".

There is a corollary to that among transphobes, homophobes and haters of all other stripes:  We're lucky that, most of the time, their prejudices are based on a complete lack of reason or empirical evidence.  

And in the case of one member of the species, I don't know how in the world he got a law degree.  He fancies himself a constitutional lawyer and uses that platform to spew his bilge.

I'm talking about Matt Barber, founder and editor-in-chief of BarbWire.com.  He's called self-styled Christians to join him in hatefests disguised with fasting, prayers and other trappings of fealty to the God he claims to believe in.

Now he's claiming that same-sex marriage is "rooted in fraud and child rape".  

First, the "child rape" part.  I thought almost nobody who hasn't been living under a rock for the past thirty years still believes that all gays are paedophiles, or that having been molested or raped as a child will make someone gay.  Now, I know that my own experience, all by itself, doesn't prove anything, but I must mention that as a child, I was molested by a man who probably never even thought about having sex with an adult, or even post-pubescent, male.  I know of plenty of men who were sexually molested or abused by men but didn't "turn out" gay or even bisexual.  In my case, I had my gender identity long before the man I've mentioned ever laid a hand on me.

So how does Barber make the connection between between same-sex marriage and child rape?  Well, that's where the "fraud" part comes in.  You see, Barber claims that Alfred Kinsey instigated the "sexual revolution"--which, he says is responsible for the "artificial construct" of gay marriage.  Barber claims that Kinsey was "promiscuous homosexual and sadomasochist" whose research has been "discredited".  By whom?  Well, by no less than Dr. Judith Reisman, who claims, among other things, that Planned Parenthood funds itself through sex trafficking and that the "homosexual movement" in Germany gave rise to Nazism and the Holocaust.

But, oh, it gets better.  I'm not an expert on Kinsey or, for that matter, gay marriage.   Still, I don't think it's a stretch to say that I've read most of the arguments for and against gay marriage.  Perhaps, at my age, my memory isn't what it used to be, but I feel confident that I haven't seen or heard a single argument in favor of same-sex marriage, anywhere, that makes reference to Kinsey's work.  

And Barber claims that the arguments for gay marriage are constructed on a house of cards!

To top everything off, he ends his diatribe with this little gem: "At this point, prayer alone may save marriage and keep, at bay, the wrath of a just and Holy God."

I'm not going to argue with or against his or anyone else's right to believe in such a God, or any other kind.  I simply don't understand how he, as a self-proclaimed Constitutional lawyer, can forget that the First Amendment guarantees the principle of the separation of church and state.  How can he advocate for or against a law on the grounds that it's God's will, or some such thing?

Fortunately for us, only those who have suspended their facilities for logic and reason--or never had such facilities in the first place--will place any credence in his arguments.  Still, that's not going to stop them from fighting viciously.  So, while they won't win, ultimately--they can't--they'll do whatever they can to forestall the inevitable.

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?

All Are Welcome--As Long As....

One of the reasons why we become jaded, blase or even cynical is that we didn't start out wanting to be those things.   

I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know.  Still, I think it bears telling in light of a story that came my way.

Greg Bullard is a senior pastor in his local church.  He and his husband, Brian Copeland, have won awards for their service to families in their home state of Tennessee.  That service includes running the only LGBT food pantry in their state.  Said pantry serves more than 200 families every month and addresses a problem--poverty in the LGBT community--that is often overlooked.

Whatever their sexual orientation or family configuration, one would expect that their son would be welcome in any school.  OK, maybe not "one".  I would expect that. I imagine you, dear reader, would, too.  So would many other people.

And, being that Greg is a senior pastor, I would expect--or, at least, hope--that his son would be welcome in a Christian school, even if that school is not affiliated with the same denomination as the one that includes Greg's church.  

Turns out, the school--the Davidson Academy--is not affiliated with any particular denomination, though it was "founded by Christians and operates in the Christian tradition based upon clear tenets of faith and practice."

Where did I find that verbal morsel I quoted in my previous sentence?  Where else:  in the letter the school sent to Greg and Brian.

Now, that clause can be interpreted in all sorts of ways.  But, it seems that interpretation of what "Christian" means, what the "Christian tradition" is and what constitutes "clear tenets of faith and practice" is dependent, at least to some degree, on geography--at least here in the good ol' USA.  And, since we're talking about Tennessee, it's not surprising that it was interpreted in a way to exclude the son of two pillars of the community--one of whom happens to be a senior pastor.

Really, I don't want to be snide and cynical.  But it's hard not to be because it's not surprising to learn that Christianity is interpreted to practice hate and exclusion in a particular part of this country where such things seem to happen more often than in other places.

Then again, I would expect--or, at least, hope--that even in Tennessee, there is a school with a supportive environment and high academic standards that would be glad to have the son of Greg Bullard and Brian Copeland walk into its doors.   

One can hope.

 

The Truth She Owes Leelah

On doit des egards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la verite.

Voltaire wrote that to the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe nothing but the truth.

His message, however crudely I've translated it, is one that hasn't reached the family of Leelah Alcorn.

You see, they contacted Tumblr and requested that Leelah's blog--which ended with the suicide note I reproduced in one of my posts last week--be removed.  And those fucking cowards at Tumlr went along with it.

I didn't read the entire blog, but I read parts of it--including some that ranted and railed against her family, particularly her mother, who wouldn't recognize her as the girl she was.  

It's one thing to say that your trans kid is "going through a phase."  It's still another to deny your kid's identity and create a fiction about her suicide.  That is what Mrs. Alcorn did in this note:

"My sweet 16 year old son, Joshua Ryan Alcorn went home to Heaven this morning.  He went out for an early morning walk and was hit by a truck."

You fucking clueless bitch, your daughter Leelah walked in front of truck barreling down the interstate.  She wasn't the victim of some random unfortunate incident; you killed her with your unwillingness to listen to her.  

I mean, if you don't want to acknowledge her as the person she was, why can't you at least admit the truth about her death?  Maybe you can't give her all of the truth you--and we--owe her, but at least it would be a start.

Instead, you've chosen, in essence, to eliminate all traces of the existence of your daughter.

It looks like you were born a few decades too late to pursue your true calling:  You should have been an information or propoganda or some such minister for Hitler or Mao.  After all, they wanted to erase the existence of certain people from history.  

Since you can't follow that line of work--and look at where it left them in history!--why don't you just honor the love you claim to have had for your child with the only thing it, and she, deserve--the truth.

Give Leelah What She Deserves

The funeral for Leelah Alcorn was moved because of threats to disrupt it.

When I heard about that, I thought that perhaps the Westboro Baptist Church folks and others of their ilk were going to show up with signs reading "God Hates Fags!" or other profundities for which they're known.

Nobody is saying who made the threats or what the "disruptions" would be.  In fact, the first article I read about the change in venue said only that the family received threats, but did not specify that they were threats to "disrupt" the funeral.

This all sounds really fishy to me.  It seems that someone in the news media is upset or scared that we're starting to make some gains in our campaign for equality and that there's been an uproar over the way Leelah's mother reacted to her death.  So that someone--perhaps there's more than one--wants to portray us as a menace that we're not.

If threats were indeed made by our allies, I don't support or condone them.  If anything, they only make us look as if we're stooping to the level of the Westboro people and other haters.  Not only is it bad public relations, it is corrosive to the spirit.  We need all the spirit, all the courage, all of the intelligence, all the creativity, all the compassion we can muster; we can't afford to let the haters take any of it from us. 

I'm not saying we shouldn't be angry with Leelah's mother or do everything we can to convince her to bury her with "Leelah" on the tombstone.  I just think that in order to accomplish that--or to achieve any other victories--we simply must not become like the haters from whom people like Leelah's mother take their cues, however blindly.

I say these things, not only because I am a transsexual woman, but because I have begun, within the past year and a half, to follow the dictates of my faith and become active in a church.  One reason I had denied those things to myself for a long time--even after I realized that my gender transition has been a profoundly spiritual experience--was that people used their religion as a basis for hating and even killing us.  But I have learned that there are many people who don't use their religion in that way, and that I have no choice but to become one of them. Perhaps some of the haters will, too.  Perhaps Mrs. Alcorn will understand this.  I want that even more than I want her to recognizer her daughter as her daughter and bury her with the name she chose to reflect her female spirit.
 

An Interesting End To An Interesting Year

Whoever said, "May you live in interesting times" would have loved 2014.

Of course, all sorts of wonderful and awful (sometimes depending on your point of view) happened this year.  This year has been so interesting that it's ending with Pope Francis demoting the highest-ranking American in the Vatican.  

The Pope has removed Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke from his seat as the head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's supreme court.  Now Father Burke is the chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a position that carries much less responsibility than the one from which he was just removed.

Now, it's not the first time a Pope has removed a cardinal from such a high perch, although the move doesn't happen very often.  However, when a Pontiff removes a prelate from a high position in the Vatican, he usually assigns that priest to another post with a similar level of responsibility.  It's very infrequent for the head of the church to demote someone of Burke's power in the way Pope Francis has done.

What makes this move really unusual, though, is the Pope's reason for it.  Are you ready for this?:  The Pope thought Cardinal Burke's stance on homosexuality was too hard-line.  Even for a man who said "Who am I to judge?" when asked about gays, demoting a Cardinal for his views on the issue is at least a little surprising, if not a shock.

How conservative is Father Burke?  Seven years ago, he denounced a Catholic charity for allowing pro-choice advocate Sheryl Crow from performing at a benefit concert.  Needless to say, he also wasn't too happy with her advocacy of stem-cell research.


How ironic is it that the Pope is now showing more tolerance and even acceptance of LGBT people than so many anti-LGBT lawmakers and activists in--let alone the man who had been the highest-ranking Cardinal from--the United States?

These are interesting times, indeed!

 

The Murder Of Leelah Alcorn

I find it interesting that my most-read post has become "A Lifespan of 30 to 32 Years, And A Lost Generation"--and that, in fact, there's been a spike in the number of people who've read it.  

While the figures came from Argentina, they are probably applicable to many other countries.  What those numbers tell us is, among other things, that too many of us die too soon, and for the same reason: hate.

Even in countries with trans-friendly laws and policies--like Argentina--or those where there is a high level of education and awareness among many sectors of the population, or those with advanced medical care, the life expectancy of trans people is shorter, often by decades, than it is for the rest of the population.

Much of the reason for this is the discrimination and other forms of rejection that leave too many of us unemployed and homeless--or, in the cases of many younger trans people, selling drugs or their bodies on mean streets and desolate back alleys.  Resorting to such things to survive means, of course, that death--whether by a needle, bullet or knife, or from within--can come at any moment.

But for every one who dies that way, there are others who die by their own hand.  I can't even begin to count how many times I contemplated suicide when I was living as male.  And I know that two friends of mine killed themselves because they could not deal with the conflict between what their minds and spirits told them, what their bodies indicated and what expectations they tried to fulfill--and the rejection, shame, ridicule and pure-and-simple meanness they faced in spite (or, perhaps, because) of their efforts.

Add to those numbers Leelah Alcorn of Kings Mills, Ohio.  The 17-year-old left this on her blog, Lazer Princess:

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a shit about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

"Please don't be sad, it's for the better."   If a line like that isn't a gut-punch, I don't know what is.  "The life I would've lived isn't worth living in"--wait for it--"because I'm transgender."  As I relate that line, I am not fighting tears, but I am fighting the anger I feel roiling up from within me.  

She felt that her life wouldn't be worth living because she was transgender.  I felt the same goddamned fucking way when I was her age, and before that, and long after that.  (I will curse through the rest of this post. I make no apologies.)  It's been a long time since I was her age, but from reading her note, I have to conclude not one fucking thing has changed.  Not one.  

The only difference is that she experienced, overtly, the sort of hostility I might've faced had I "come out" as a teenager.  As it was, I experienced taunts and innuendoes.  But she at least had "friends" on social media who were supportive.  However, she lost them for five months because her parents pulled her out of public school and forbade her from using social media.  

Now, if I had a trans child, I might take him or her out of public school for one reason:  bullying, whether it came from other kids, teachers or administrators.  I would educate that child myself, or hire people who could. And I would not allow anyone to wreck whatever self-esteem my child might have.

Unfortunately, Leelah's parents didn't think that way.  They fancied themselves as devout Christians and, from what I've read, it seems that her mother in particular was particularly judgmental and un-accepting.  She enrolled Leelah in "Christian" school and sent her to "Christian" therapists, who told her she was a selfish sinner who should simply let God help her become the man He intended her to be.

Notice that I used the word "Christian" in quotation marks and said Leelah's parents fancied themselves as Christians.  Well, I have a good reason for that.  If you've been following this blog, you might recall that I started going to church about a year and a half ago.  Sometimes I struggle with it precisely because of people like Leelah's parents--of whom, fortunately, there are none (that I know of, anyway) in my parish--and folks like the Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.  I don't claim to have the "right" interpretation of the Bible or of Christianity.  Then again, I'm not sure anybody does.  Still, I cannot understand how anyone can call him- or her-self a Christian when he or she is using faith and the Bible to rationalize hate and intolerance. 

If you think I am being harsh, take a look at what Leelah's mother wrote:

"My sweet 16 year old son, Joshua Ryan Alcorn went home to Heaven this morning.  He went out for an early morning walk and was hit by a truck."

Bitch, are you fucking clueless, or what?  Your daughter walked in front of a truck on I-71 after writing the post telling us that her life would never be worth living.  She didn't "go out for an early morning walk" any more than my friend Corey was measuring the height of his ceiling when he hung himself from the rafter.

Whatever else happens, I hope that Leelah's last request--that all of her belongings be sold and the proceeds donated to transgender civil rights and support groups--is honored.  And I hope, Mrs. Alcorn, that you understand what agape and philia are and that, if you can give to your daughter, now, what you couldn't give her in life--and that, if you have other kids, you can give it to them.

If you can't, I hope others will.  I will, as best as I can.  That is one reason why I won't abandon the faith I re-discovered so recently in my life. 

Gay Rights = Loss Of Religious Freedom. Haven't We Heard That One Before?

New Orleans is often called "The Big Easy."  While that nickname might depict life--at least some aspects of it--in the Crescent City, it doesn't apply to the state--Louisiana--of which it is a part.

Interestingly, New Orleans extended its anti-discrimination laws to protect gender identity and expression in 1998, four years before New York City managed to do the same.  And, of course, New Orleans was known to have a lively gay culture and "scene"--even if much of it was underground--long before it held its first "official" Pride event in 1978.  

Even with such an environment, there were reminders--some of them truly awful--that the "N'awlins" is indeed located in Dixie.  On 24 June 1973, the UpStairs Lounge, club that provided meeting space for the city's first LGBT-affirming congregation, was set ablaze in an arson attack. Thirty-two people died as a result.  Rodger Dale Nunez, the only suspect arrested for the attack, escaped from psychiatric custody and was never again picked up by the police, even though he spent a lot of time hanging around in the French Quarter neighborhood surrounding the UpStairs Lounge.  He committed suicide in November 1974.  Six years later, the state fire marshal's office. lacking other leads, closed the case.

I mention this to give you an idea of what a formidable task some folks in Baton Rouge, the state's capital, are trying to do:  pass a "Fairness Ordinance" banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in their city. Not surprisingly, it's meeting with fierce opposition from people who claim that passing such an ordinance will inhibit their religious freedom?

How many times have we heard that argument?  How many more times must we hear it before everyone realizes how bogus it is?

Barbera-ic

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm performing some sort of service by calling out someone by Peter LaBarbera.  Or, by mentioning him, am I merely lending him dignity he doesn't deserve?

Perhaps I should feel sorry for him.  After all, he must feel some terrible emptiness if he really can't find anything better to do with himself than to spread hate and bile about anyone who isn't cisgender and heterosexual.

I must give him credit, though:  He can pump out more bilge in one talk-show appearance than most people can in a year.  I guess that takes some sort of talent, not to mention dedication.

Listen to him slam doctors who perform gender-reassignment surgery and President Obama's "obsession" with homosexuality--and use legal reasoning skills that would leave Learned Hand,  Benjamin Cardozo, Sandra Day O'Connor, Thurgood Marshall and even John Jay speechless in talking about the Hobby Lobby case.

The Hobby Lobby Case You Didn't Hear About

We've been hearing a lot about the Supreme Court decision that allows Hobby Lobby, and other "closely held" businesses, to use their executives' religious beliefs to deny women coverage for birth control, the Affordable Care Act notwithstanding.


In an earlier post, I mentioned some of the other possible effects this could have on employees' health coverage.  For example, what if a company's president cites his religious beliefs in denying coverage for a blood transfusion?  Or what if the company's owner is a Rastafarian, Christian Scientist or a member of any religion that doesn't allow some or all medical treatments?


There is another Hobby Lobby case that only recently has come to light.  This one doesn't involve medical insurance.  But it does involve a transgender employee.

When Meggan Somerville began working as a framer for Hobby Lobby in 1998, she was still living as a man.  Five years ago, she began her transition.  A year later she changed her name, and after that, her birth certificate.  She didn't have any problem keeping her job, and her insurance paid for hormones but her office visits.  But they made her life--at work, anyway--more hazardous in another way:  She wasn't allowed the women's restroom.  In fact, she was written up for doing so.  She then filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights.  Her suit against the company is still pending.


The fact that she was taking hormones and living as female was enough reason for the state of Illinois to change Meggan Somerville's name and the gender on her birth certificate.  But, I guess the Hobby Lobby brass defer to a "higher" authority. Let's hope that the IDHR doesn't.

What The Hobby Lobby Decision Means For Us

This week, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow family-owned or other closely-held businesses to opt out of a Federal requirement to pay for contraceptives as part of an employee's health coverage.


In the media and public consciousness, it has come to be known as the Hobby Lobby case, after the chain of arts-and-crafts stores whose founder and CEO claimed that his religious rights were being violated when his company was required to pay for birth control.


Perhaps not surprisingly, the five judges who voted for this ruling were all appointed by Republican presidents, while the other four--including the three women on the bench--were appointed by Democrats.


I am not a Constitutional (or any other kind) of lawyer.  But, from what I understand, this ruling will affect far more than whether employers will include contraception in their employees' health insurance plans.


It almost goes without saying that the decision could open the door for employers to deny benefits to same-sex partners of employees if same-sex unions violate the religious beliefs of the employer.  And, of course, the ruling also means that such employers won't even have to think about whether or not to cover therapy, hormones, surgery or other treatments for transgenders.


Even if you don't care about LGBT equality, you should be concerned.  For example, if you should need a blood transfusion, your employer could refuse to cover it on the basis of his or her religion.  Or, I'm guessing, he or she could refuse to pay the cost of your office visits or treatments if, say, your gynecologist is male.


What do you do if your employer is a Christian Scientist or Scientologist?  The latter actually has the same tax-exempt religious status in the US that every mainstream church enjoys.

A Religious Edict To Exterminate Us

Once I almost got killed by a guy who turned purple with rage for daring to even suggest that Islam had anything in common with his religion.

The comparison?  That both recognize that there is a tension between the way of God (Allah) and the ways of the world or mankind.  I pointed out that jihad means, basically, "striving in the way of God".

Of course, someone like that man hears the word "jihad" and thinks a suicide bomber is right around the corner.  He would also denounce--rightly, I believe--a fatwa calling for the murder of somoene deemed an infidel. The difference, though, is that I would abhor the killing but he would hate the one who ordered it.

More accurately, he would be upset at the use of the word "fatwa", just he went ballistic over "jihad".  I wonder, though, how he feels about an American president's order to kill someone he deems an enemy of this country or a governor's order to execute someone deemed guilty of a particular crime.

I pondered this question after reading the resolution Denny Burk proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention.  Burk teaches Biblical Studies at Boyce College, the undergraduate division of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  In many ways, it's just a long-winded version of the "love the sinner, hate the sin" argument you hear from those who use cherry-picked Bible verses (or merely their own religious ideas) to rationalize their homophobia and transphobia.  

But the last part of the resolution is what makes it as dangerous as any order to kill issued by an Ayatollah:

RESOLVED, That we oppose efforts to alter one’s bodily identity (e.g., cross-sex hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery) to refashion it to conform with one’s perceived gender identity; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we continue to oppose steadfastly all efforts by any governing official or body to validate transgender identity as morally praiseworthy (Isaiah 5:20); and be it further

RESOLVED, That we oppose all cultural efforts to validate claims to transgender identity.

What, exactly, does it mean to oppose a claim of individual or group identity.  As best as I can tell, it means saying that they, in essence, don't exist or that they are lesser beings.  If someone thinks that someone else doesn't have the same right to exist, it makes it that much easier to deny him or her sustenance, education, employment, housing--or life itself.  That is what makes every kind of oppression possible, and that is how people are convinced to go out and murder people they've never before met and who have done them no harm--who have done nothing more, in fact, than to have been born in another country, in another skin color, in a different gender identity or with a different sexual orientation.  Or, for that matter, who merely worship in a different way or call attention to the missteps or corruption of the people who run institutions of worship.

Some might argue that it's no different from a fatwa.  I'd agree--at least, if you think, as most Americans do, that a fatwa is on order to kill semeone. (The first time most Americans heard the term was when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued one calling for the execution of Salman Rushdie, who wrote The Satanic Verses.)  But the real meaning of "fatwa" is simply a legal opinion or learned interpretation a mufti or qualified jurist can give on an issue pertaining to Islamic law.  They have been issued on some of the issues one might expect, such as smoking, drinking and nudity.  However, the right to issue a fatwa has been abused or resulted in some simply ridiculous pronouncements, such as this one.

But even with the most absurd pronouncements made by actual or self-proclaimed Islamic scholars, I think comparing the Professor Burk's  resolution to a fatwa gives Professor Burk's resolution more dignity than it deserves.  This self-professed man of God is more disingenuous and insidious in his hatred--and wish to exterminate trans people--than almost anyone who has issued a fatwa.