My Job: "Coming Out"

On Thursday, I'm going to participate in a panel discussion on "coming out" in the workplace.  It will be held at the Borough of Manhattan Community College from 12:00 until 1:00 in S-410 of the main building.

When I agreed to be a panelist, I realized that a decade has passed since I "came out" at work--and, for that matter, to my friends and family.  Reflecting on those days led me to write my latest piece for The Huffington Post, which was published the other day.

Check it out:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justine-valinotti/my-job-coming-out_b_4119867.html

Pat Robertson Compares Trans People to His Horse

A conductor--I forget who--once said that Wagner's music had "great moments and awful half-hours".

I don't agree with that assessment at all, though I will grant you that you don't play the "Ring" cycle or "The March of the Valkyries" in a dentist's office.

I mention that comment about Wagner, though, because it applies, in a way, to this segment from Pat Robertson:



In two minutes of sheer loopiness and cluelessness, the Good Reverend had a moment of lucidity:  He said he had no problem with someone getting gender reassignment surgery.  But then he compares trans people to his horse.

What's truly scary is that the host of the show on which he appears is even more clueless about trans people than he is, if such a thing is possible.

Someone's comment on the You Tube video sums up what I've always thought about Pat Robertson:  He is a gay man trapped in a gay man's body.  I wish I'd said that!

New Trans Teen Clinic In Toronto

I remember what a revelation it was for me--in my 40's--to learn of the existence of the Callen Lorde Community Health Center.

I've been going there ever since I began counseling for my gender identity issues.  To this day, my primary care doctor and gynecologist are based there.

When I started going to Callen Lorde, I was happy to learn of their program for LGBT youth. In fact, I referred a couple of young people who were in my support groups to it, as the program was available to those up to the age of 22.  "I wish there'd been something like that when I was their age," I mused.

Now, in Toronto, there's such a program for transgender teenagers, based in the Sick Kids Hospital.  There had been two other clinics for trans teens in Canada's largest city, but they provided only mental health care.  The clinic in Sick Kids is the first to provide medical care, including hormones for some.  

Most important, those who have created the Sick Kids clinic seem to understand that trans kids and teenagers have specific medical issues that, if left untreated, can lead to risky behavior such as unprotected sex, substance abuse and even suicide attempts.  I know all about such things, believe me.

Some may think that such programs "confuse" kids or "push" them into transitioning.  If they're anything like the programs I used at Callen Lorde and the LGBT Community Center, I doubt very highly if such a thing would happen.  If anything, I found the screening to be rigorous though supportive.  I hope--and somehow suspect--that the folks at Sick Kids will be like that--and that they will provide an atmosphere in which young people who may believe they are trans (or simply know they don't fit into the gender and sexuality boxes their schools, communities and, in some cases, families have given them) can look for information and guidance.  

 

Name Changes Made Easier In California

Sometimes it's hard to believe that four years have already passed since my gender reassignment surgery.  It's even more difficult to wrap my head around the fact that I began to live and work full-time as a woman ten years ago last month.

Two months before embarking on my current life, I changed my name.  Actually, I applied in June, and the process took almost a month.  It actually wasn't as difficult as I expected, in part because of the help I received from Lambda Legal. Still, there was at least one anxious moment for me.

Here in New York, as in most places, the law requires that the name change be published in the legal notices section of a newspaper.  In New York, that newspaper must have a circulation of 100,000 or more.  I'd heard that some judges allowed publication in the Irish Echo or other ethnic newspapers.  I hoped that I could do the same:  Somehow I didn't think readers of such newspapers looked at the legal notices.  Besides, few if any readers of those papers would know me.  

Also:  It's less expensive to publish in those papers than in, say, the New York Times.

I didn't get to publish in the Echo or the Il Gazzetto or any of those papers.  But I got what was probably the next-best thing:  I was ordered to publish my announcement in the Village Voice.  Not as many people read the its legal notices as those of the Times  or even the Daily News, and it's less expensive to publish in the Voice than in either of those. 

Even though I experienced no negative repercussions of publishing my name change, I know that other trans people have.  Essentially, they're "outed" to all sorts of people who are, shall we say, not very understanding.  Also, being so "outed" can make it more difficult to gain--and easier to lose-- employment and housing.

So, I applaud California Governor Jerry Brown for signing a bill that would allow a trans person to change the name on his or her birth certificate without getting a hearing in open court or publishing the request in a newspaper.  Only a doctor's note indicating that the person has undergone a gender transition is necessary.  

This law helps trans people in California in another way:  Court-ordered name changes are necessary in order to change a person's name on a drivers' license and other legal documents.  Also, a trans person needs only a doctor's note indicating that a gender transition has occurred in order to change the gender marker on his or her birth certificate.

Now, I hope the Governors of New York and other states will sign similar bills into law so that law-abiding trans people (the vast majority of us) do not need to fear for our safety and well-being when we undertake the changes we need in order to live with integrity and dignity.

 

The Ride of the Material Girl

In the latest issue of Harper's Bazaar, Madonna recounts, among other things, some terrifying experiences as a 20-year-old native of Rochester, Michigan living in New York.

OK, I'll admit it:  She's one of my heroines.  If I could have been born female, I would want to be like her.  Whatever you think of her singing, her "material girl" persona, love life or study of the Kabalah, you have to say this for her:  She follows the beat of her own drummer.  She's daring and, at times, courageous in ways I never could have been.

Anyway, I also know she's done some cycling over the years.  Here she is preparing for a ride in Malibu in 1989:

From About.com

And, more recently--this past August, in fact--she was seen pedaling with her adopted daughter on la Cote d'Azur:

From the Daily Mail

Somehow it doesn't surprise me.  After all, she and I are the same age, and we both come from similar milieux.  I continued to ride my bike as my peers abandoned theirs the day they got their drivers' licenses.  And she was, well, Madonna.  Neither of us could help but to be who we are; both of us ride bicycles.

I Am Luckier Than Nathan Verhelst

I have lost relationships with relatives, people who I thought were friends and former colleagues because of my gender transition.  I have also lost a job and had to move out of an apartment because Dominick used the prejudices and other notions some people have about transgender people to spread false rumors and otherwise slander me.  (He was also abusive in other ways.)  

Still, I consider myself very, very lucky.  Certainly I am more fortunate than Nathan Verhelst.

He began hormone replacement therapy in 2009 and subsequently underwent a mastectomy and phalloplasty.  However, he said "My new breasts did not match my expectations and my new penis had symptoms of rejection."  When he looked in the mirror after his operations, he was "filled with self-loathing."  

"I do not want to be...a monster", he said.

Perhaps no amount of hormones, surgery or anything else could have alleviated his self-loathing.  "I was the girl nobody wanted," he related.  "While my brothers were celebrated, I got a room above the garage as a bedroom. " 

Perhaps even more damaging to his self-esteem were his mother's words:  "If only you had been a boy." He was "tolerated and nothing more", he said.

Earlier this week, with the permission of his native Belgium's government, he ended his life via lethal injection.  The doctors attending him said he "passed peacefully".   

How did his mother respond?  "Her death does not bother me," she declared.  She summed up her relationship with her child thusly:  "When I saw 'Nancy' for the first time, my dream was shattered.  She was so ugly.  I had a phantom birth."

There have been times when my mother was, understandably, exasperated with me. But she never would have said anything so awful to or about me or my brothers.  In fact, for much of my life, she has been among the few people with whom I could talk honestly about how I felt about anything.  And she has been about as supportive as anyone could have been in my transition and my new life.

Nathan Verhelst was a much better-looking man than I am a woman, or I was as a man.  I don't know much else about him, but I am certain than I am far more fortunate than he ever was.

The Lady Doth Protest...

Dennis Jurnigan's "ministry" has included opposition to the Hate Crimes Bill.  His preaching and singing, he says, are inspired by his experience of being "delivered".


From what, exactly, was he "delivered"?  Homosexuality.

Really...



If he's an "ex-gay", then I'm the King of Prussia.

Qu'ils Mangent Buitoni

I really should be upset with Guido Barilla.  Some people are, and I don't blame them.  

If his last name looks familiar, you shouldn't be surprised:  You can find it on your supermarket's shelves--in the pasta section, to be exact.

Yes, he's that Barilla. Specifically, he's the CEO of the company.  Recently, he said something that would have upset me at one time.  But now his declaration merely makes him look ridiculous.  And he managed to follow it up with another utterance that was even more foolish.

On a radio program, he said he "would not do a commercial with a homosexual family".  Now, such a claim doesn't make me happy, but it's no more offensive than others I've heard.  More than anything, it was a very stupid thing for him to say.  After all, plenty of LGBT people have been buying his pasta.

But someone like Signor Barilla doesn't know to quit before the foot he's put  in his mouth starts down his esophagus.  After telling us what we won't see in his company's next ad campaign, he said that if gay people don't like it, they can "eat another brand of pasta".

Qu'ils mangent de Buitoni!  Let them eat Buitoni!  Or Ronzoni.  Or Luigi Vitelli.  Or whatever brand you care to name.

Does this guy really want to be the Marie Antoinette of the pasta industry?

 

From The Neighborhood

Yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks, I felt decent and had a few free hours at the same time.  So I went, naturally, for a ride.

The sky was as blue as the air was crisp:  Fall had arrived, if not officially, and yet another summer, another season had passed.  On such a day, I can understand how someone can be agoraphobic:  An open space--whether of land or sea or sky--can seem like a huge, yawning emptiness when there are no markers, physical or emotional.

So all anyone can do--or, at least, all I could do-- was to move through it.  That I did by pedaling, by pedaling Tosca, my fixed-gear bike.  I had a feeling I wouldn't ride a lot of miles, and that I'd ride them slowly, so I wanted to get some kind of workout from them.

As it turned out, I rode about 50 or 60 km, or a bit more than 30 or 35 miles, along the steel and glass shorelines and brick byways that have lined so much of the path of my life. 

A meander from the East River and the bay took me into the heart of Brooklyn, specifically to this place:

On the sidewalks in front, and across the street, from this building careworn and harried, yet content, men and women prodded groups of pale but energetic children as their feet stuttered about the grid of concrete blocks.  Although those children looked different from the way my brothers, my peers and I looked, something was very, very familiar about the rhythm of their steps and their calls to each other.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised.  Although I had not been there in quite some time, I know that building, and that block, as well as any in this world.  In fact, I know it so well that I can tell you that nearly half a century ago, it didn't have the canopy you see in the photo.

Nor did it have the gate that now encloses the courtyard:

By now, you may have guessed that I lived in that building very early in my life.  Some of my oldest memories, for better and worse, are of those days.  

I think it's a co-operative now rather than the building of rental apartments it was in my childhood.  Also, as you probably have guessed, it's populated by families of Hasidic Jews.  In my day, nearly all of the families--of whom my family knew most--consisted of Italian- or Jewish (non-Hasidic)-Americans.  The men worked blue-collar jobs or had stores or other small businesses and the women stayed home and raised us.  In that sense, I guess we weren't so different from the people who live there now.

Then, as now, it was very unlikely that a woman--much less one like me--would have been riding a bicycle down that street--or, for that matter, any of the other streets I pedaled yesterday.  I turned, not quite at random, down a series of avenues and roads and other byways until I reached the southwestern part of Bensonhurst, not far from Coney Island.

I wasn't feeling hungry, but I stopped at a pizzeria--Il Grotto Azzuro--on 21st Avenue, near 85th Street.  From the street, it looks like one of many others of its kind.  But I went in anyway.

"Can I help you?"  The man's accent seemed even more familiar than anything else I'd experienced throughout my ride.

After ordering a classic Neapolitan slice and a white slice, he chimed, "You're gonna have the best pizza there is.   How did you know you were gonna find it here?"

"I followed my nose," I intoned, playing along.  "I always follow my nose when I'm riding my bike."

Somehow I sensed his claim wasn't hype.  Even if it wasn't the best pizza, the guy really believed that it was.  After finishing both slices, I ordered another Neapolitan, even though I was quite full.  "You're right!," I exclaimed.

Those Neapolitan slices were certainly the best I've had in a while.  Even though they were slices and it was five in the afternoon--near the end of the lull between lunch and dinner--it and the white slice tasted fresher than many I've had from just-cut whole pies.  

Sometimes, in the course of a bike ride, a slice of pizza or a bottle of beer can seem like the best you've ever had because you're tired or hungry. (I think now of the sugar and lemon crepe I gulped down after pedaling up Le Col du Galibier.  I've had dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other crepes in France.  But that one was the best.) However, I felt surprisingly good in spite of my recent illness and, as I mentioned, I wasn't hungry when I found Il Grotto Azzuro.

It's been there a while.  As I ate, another customer--a lifelong resident of the neighborhood--told me he'd been going there for more than 30 years.  I hope it's there for at least that much longer: The neighborhood is changing. 

So fueled, I continued down to Coney Island where, after thumping and clattering along the boardwalk (All of it is now open), a guard waved me into Sea Gate, which counts Isaac Bashevis Singer and Beverly Sills among its onetime residents.   I'd heard the area, not surprisingly, took an even greater hit than the surrounding neighborhood from Superstorm Sandy.  But, while the beaches were as eroded as those in Coney Island (though less so than those of the Rockaways or parts of New Jersey), most of the houses seemed to weather the wind and tides well.  Most seemed little different from what they were at this time last year; a few were still being repaired. 

At one of those houses, someone who didn't know my name called me:

  
Of course I stopped.

He capped his head with the palm of my hand and tiptoed along the rails, rubbing the side of his body through my fingers.  I think he knew I'm "from the neighborhood."

When Kids "Come Out"

I've just come across this interesting article.  According to Kris Wells, a researcher at the University of Alberta, more kids are "coming out", not only as gay or lesbian, but also as transgender.  And they're coming out at earlier and earlier ages.

One thing I find interesting is, according to the article, that kids are increasingly supportive of their LGBT peers.  To be sure, there is ridicule and bullying, but more kids are making efforts to befriend their gay classmates.  Others simply see their peers' identities as a non-issue.

In some cases, it seems that parents who support a kid's gender transition get more flack than anyone else.  They are often accused of "confusing" their kids, or of intentional or unintentional intolerance.  Perversely, the same sorts of people who want to rigidly enforce "traditional" gender roles for children are the ones who accuse trans kids' parents of not accepting the "tomboyishness" of their daughters or the "sensitive, feminine" traits of their sons.  Or, they try to counsel such parents that their kids' assertion of his or her gender identity is just a "phase" and will be "outgrown".

The funny thing is that the people who judge such parents are the ones who are themselves most confused about what constitutes gender identity, let alone transgenderism.  They have a point when they say that a tomboy isn't necessarily a trans boy.  Millions of girls who hate the color pink or wearing dresses, or who like to play in dirt, do not see themselves as anything but girls.  Likewise, there are plenty of boys who don't care about sports or cars but would never think of themselves as anything besides boys.

Those who are transgendered do not merely flout norms about appearance, behavior and interests.  Whether and however they express it, they actually know themselves as being of the gender to which they were not assigned at birth.  I can remember seeing myself as a girl at a very young age; as I have mentioned in other posts, I--like nearly everyone else half a century ago--did not have the vocabulary or other means to express it, and few, if any, people in my environs would have understood because they were not aware of how someone could come to such a knowledge of his or her self.

Plus, if a kid knows at three or four or five that something is not "right", and expresses the wish to live in the gender of his or her mind and spirit for a decade after that, it's not a "phase".  I myself wished that my knowledge of myself--let buying shoes, clothes and accessories "for my cousin Linda" or "for my mother, and dressing myself in front of a mirror, were all just part of a "phase."  I still had that wish by the time I turned forty:  I still hoped that extreme sports and other "macho" pursuits and sexual relations with women would end it for me.

Granted, some kids will decide they aren't really trans or that, for whatever reasons, they don't want to live as the "opposite" gender and undergo hormone treatments and surgery.  Still, I can't help but to think that whatever conclusions they come to, they will be more secure in themselves if they probed whatever questions they may have had about their gender identities or sexuality, and had adults (ideally, parents, but others can fill this role) who loved them unconditionally in their journeys to self-knowledge.

 

 

Keeping The Faith

Like most other transgender people, I have experienced discrimination, shame, rejection and even hostility for living in accordance with my true self.

Now, as to whether I've experienced more or worse ostracism than others, I don't know.  I have lost longtime friendships, relationships with relatives and professional colleagues as well as access to people, places and things that were once part of my life.   

By the same token, I have been more fortunate than many other trans people--and many other people, period.  I have been welcomed by people and into places when I expected no such hospitality, and at times I have had glimpses into worlds I would not have considered in my old life.  

I'm thinking now of the first time I entered a mosque.  After I took off my shoes, a caretaker directed me into the area in which women prayed.  We sat on wooden chairs behind a partition about three feet high.  The other women prayed, some audibly.  A few retreated to a more private but still-visible area (from which they could have seen the rest of us), removed their headscarves and washed themselves.  

Granted, we were in the Sultanahmet or "Blue" Mosque in Istanbul.  But I had similar experiences in other Turkish mosques, in the countryside as well as the city, some of which were not visited by tourists or other foreigners.  While those visits, and the hospitality of both the women and men, left me with no desire to become a Muslim (or, for that matter, an adherent to any other religion), I felt privileged to be allowed to partake of what, for some people, is the most sacrosanct part of their lives.  

I hope that Lucy Vallender will have such experiences one day soon.

Three years ago, she had gender-reassignment surgery.  Before that, she'd been a soldier in Her Majesty's forces.  After her surgery, she met a Muslim man on an online dating site and became his second wife.  She is believed to be the first transgender Muslim woman in the United Kingdom.

Although she says she's happy with her marriage and new-found faith, she was upset witht the way her local mosque, in the southwestern city of Swindon, has treated her: She's not allowed to pray with the other women and, she says, worshippers have asked her rude questions about everything from her bra cup size to whether or not she has a period.  They've even asked to see her birth certificate.

When I took my trip to Turkey, I had been on hormones for nearly three years and had been living full-time as a woman for just over two; about three and a half more years would pass before my surgery.  I don't know how long Ms. Vallender had been living as female before her surgery or marriage but, from what I've read about her, I probably had more experience, if you will, than she's had so far.  Also, I was nearly two decades older than she is now, which may have given me some social and other skills she has not yet acquired.

I hope that nothing I've said seems condescending toward Ms. Vallender.  I suspect (or, at any rate, hope) that her faith, her love for her husband and his for her will give her the strength she will need to develop the patience she will need until people in her community understand (to the degree they can or will) and accept her. I believe that she will find such acceptance, and even the hospitality I've experienced, because in my travels and in my work I have met very, very good Muslim people--and, most important of all, because she has accepted and embraced herself. 

LGBT And Labor

I have to admit that I've long had mixed feelings about unions.  Yes, I understand their importance in protecting workers from abuses.  However, I have also seen firsthand how they can be used, like political clubhouses--and, very often, the very corporations whose exploitative practices unions are supposed to fight--to further the narrow interests of a select group of people.  

As an example, faculty members--whether full-timers or adjuncts--in the City University of New York are required to be members of the union.  When you are hired, you sign a card in which you "consent" to join and to have the dues deducted from your paycheck.

Granted, it's not a large amount of money and it helps to pay for some of the benefits members receive.  It's also used, supposedly, to help pay for the materials and work that go into protecting faculty members' rights.  

The union purports to represent adjuncts and other non-tenure-track faculty members as well as those who have tenure, or are on their way to it.  But, I know from experience that the union will throw adjuncts--and others who are not politically expedient--under the bus.  They also don't like to take up discrimination cases because they're "too difficult to prove".  However, they'll bray and bleat all day about some issue or another of "academic freedom".

Still, I'll admit, we need the union, particularly in the current climate: one in which the balance sheet rather than the syllabus is the most important document in education.   

If the marketers, bean-counters and others whose values come from the boardroom rather than the academy see graduates as "products" and faculty members merely as means to production, I don't think they're going to be terribly interested in much else besides getting as much money as possible for or from each student and paying as little as possible to turn those students into graduates.  And if the means of production, I mean faculty member, complains about being sexually harassed, having a false complaint made against him or her or simply not having goals and expectations clearly communicated (let alone receiving support in attaining those goals)--or simply gets sick or has a family emergency-- such administrators would like nothing better than to get rid of that faculty member and hire someone else who won't stand up for him or her self and doesn't have so much "baggage".  

Any member of a group who regularly experiences discrimination is vulnerable in such an atmosphere.  I would argue that trans people are the most vulnerable of all.  Never mind that our health insurance plans (when we have them) don't cover us in the same ways that other people are covered.  No matter how well we do our jobs, we have a harder time keeping them (and, of course, the health plans that go with them) than other people do because there's always somebody who's resentful over "special" treatment he or she imagines that we receive.  Or such a person is simply convinced that we are going to commit, or have committed, any and all sorts of crimes and perversions that never even crossed our minds--or that we are looking for reasons to get them fired over spurious claims of discrimination.  

(As an example of what I've described in my previous sentence, I'm thinking of a faculty member who, upon meeting me for the first time, exclaimed "I always feel I'm walking on eggshells and am going to say the wrong thing around you.")

So, I realize--in spite of my experiences--that trans people, as well as lesbians, gays and others on the "spectrum", need organized labor movements.  And they need us.  That's something to think about on Labor Day, which will be observed tomorrow.
 

Rights Are Not Mandates; Geography Is Not Destiny

Here in New York, many people--particularly among those with whom I have worked and otherwise spent a lot of time--attribute progressiveness or backwardness to geography.  When they hear about hate crimes and oppressive laws, they are quick to dismiss them as vices of people who live south of the Potomac and between the Appalachians and Rockies.  Some think that the line between civilization and barbarism is the Hudson River.

I'll admit that I've fallen into that sort of (non)thinking from time to time.  However, today I came across an article that makes an extremely intelligent and informed observation of gender rights and equality.

The piece in question comes from the Battle Creek Enquirer.  Now, the first thing I think of when someone mentions Battle Creek is the Corn Flakes I ate yesterday morning or the Rice Krispies the morning before that:  The Michigan town, of course, has long been the headquarters of Kellogg's cereals.

(In case you're interested:  I ate both cereals with fresh blueberries.)

The article appeared in commemoration of Women's Equality Day, which came last Monday.  Ninety-three years earlier, on that date, the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, passed.  The writer of the article, Bill Schroer, noted an interesting irony:  The day before WED was Go Topless Day.

Well, it's an irony to folks like me who would never, ever set foot in Hooter's (or, at least, would never admit to doing such a thing).  But, Mr. Schroer doesn't see it that way.  After all, he says, if men can take off their shirts on hot days, why shouldn't women have the same right?  As he points out, it's done all the time on beaches and in parks in Europe.  And in New York, the State Supreme Court affirmed that it's unconstitutional to require women to wear tops where they're not required of men.  Judges in Ohio and in some places in Canada have come to similar conclusions.

The arguments against women going topless (In most states, it's still illegal for women to publicly breast-feed; in other places, it generates bewildered or hostile stares.) have been, as Schroer points out, couched in morality, or someone's idea of it.  The same was true for men taking off their shirts:  Until the 1930's, it was illegal for them to do so almost everywhere in the US.  The sight of a man's nipples was believed to be ungodly; the same pseudo-religious prohibition still binds women in most parts of this country.

As Schroer so astutely explains, a right is not the same as a mandate.  No one is requiring women to go topless; he and others are simply calling for the right to do so.  Most of us have rights we never exercise; for many women, going topless could be one.  

That is the very essence of an equality movement:  People gaining the rights that other people have.  For example, whenever a suffix is called for, I use Ms.  That is not required of me; I could just as easily use "Miss" and, if I were married, "Mrs."  Many women I know--some younger than I am--continue to use those titles; I use "Ms." out of personal preference and because, I'll admit, it's a bit more socially acceptable among educators, artists and other people around whom I spend much of my time.

Likewise, I often wear skirts and dresses out of choice.  Had I been a biological cisgender female born twenty, or even ten, years earlier than I was, I would have been required to wear such garments to school and, most likely, on whatever job I worked.  In fact, depending on where I lived, I might have been required to wear them any time I ventured outside the confines of my living space.  But now I have the choice to expose my legs (which, many people have told me, are nice) on warm days, or to cover them in trousers when the weather is colder or on other occasions when I can't go bare-legged but don't want to deal with pantyhose or tights.

Sartorial selections may seem like relatively small matters. But, as Bill Schroer points out, they are emblematic of the state of gender equality, or lack thereof.  Leave it to a man from Michigan to understand that.  

Then again, I shouldn't be surprised that someone from the Great Lakes State should have such an understanding of human rights.  After all, New York is third among all states (trailing only Texas and Virginia) in the number of recorded executions.  On the other hand, in 1846, less than a decade after Michigan became a US State, its Legislature became the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish capital punishment.  That law has never been repealed; to this day, Michigan is one of the few states never to have executed anyone from the day it was admitted to the Union.

Taking Over

One of my favorite cartoon series of all time is Pinky and the Brain.

Every episode involves an attempt, by the remarkable rodents, to take over the world.  In nearly every episode, their efforts fail.

One of the exceptions comes in "It's Only A Paper World".  The resolute ratons use prodigious amounts of papier mache to construct an alternative world.  After they finish, they lure Earth's inhabitants to it with free T-shirts. That, of course, leaves our entire planet for our long-tailed heroes.

Paul Craig Cobb reminds me of them, except that he's not quite as endearing.  In fact, judging from his intentions, he's anything but--and, perhaps, dangerous.  But he had a similar plan:  Take over a place where there were no people (well, almost no people).  

However, while Pinky and the Brain try to take over the world because, well, that's what they do, the Cobb fellow had a less noble purpose:  He wanted to create a White Supremacist haven in Leith, North Dakota. 

He moved into the town--which had 16 residents in the 2010 Census--last year and bought more than a dozen plots of land in the area.  Now town officials are using the town's codes and ordinances to crack down on his holdings, most of which are rundown.  According to mayor Ryan Schock, there is even talk of the town dissolving itself and ceding its power to the county.  "He would still own his property," Schock explained.  "But he can't control the city if there's no city government."

If that happens, Cobb could find himself pretty lonely.  That's how Pinky and the Brain felt after they had the whole world to themselves, but nobody to rule.

Always The Same: Revelations And Changes

Parisians and psychotherapists disappear for the month of August.  Sometimes I think of myself as a Parisian in spirit,even though I haven't been in eight years, but I have no illusions of being a psychotherapist.  So what's my excuse for being somewhat conspicuously absent this month?

Well, I've managed to be busy with other things, including writing projects.  Hopefully they'll remunerate me; for now I find them rewarding.  And, frankly, when I haven't been doing those things--or riding or playing with my cats--I've felt drained, spiritually and emotionally exhausted.  The pastor of the church I started attending a few months ago says I'm healing. She's right.

Still, I've managed, in the past week, to ride to Point Lookout (Nothing like a few hours riding Arielle to make me feel lithe!) and to take a few shorter rides--and to record a few things along the way.

I'll start with something I saw on my way home from some volunteer work:

Sometimes I think archaeology is the step between destruction and forgetfulness.  At least, that's how things seem to work in New York. Sometimes, when a building is torn down, a long-concealed sign,  like the one in the photo, is revealed.  

What particularly intrigued me was the bottom inscription:  "Separate Waiting room for women."  Talk about a relic!  My undergraduate college went co-ed only four years before I enrolled in it.  And, boys and girls entered my Catholic elementary school through separate entrances:  a practice that was abandoned a couple of years after my family moved away.

Given that I lived as a male until ten years ago, it's hard for me not to wonder and imagine what my life would have been like had I entered through the girls' and women's doors.  Of course, had I lived in such a world, I would not have attended the college from which I graduated.  In fact, I might not have attended any college at all.

In those times, I probably would not have witnessed this:

The stretch of Brooklyn waterfront between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges has been turned into a lovely park.  Not long ago, it was off-limits, as the neighborhood around it--DUMBO--still consisted of functioning and recently-ceased manufacturing and warehousing.  This stretch of waterfront, like so much of the rest of New York's shorelines, was used in various ways by those industries.  In fact, most New Yorkers had little or no inclination to spend any time by the water, as it was associated with rough trades and characters.  Fifth Avenue became Manhattan's most-desired address in part because, of all of the island's avenues, it is furthest from the East and Hudson Rivers.

Ah, but some things don't change:

That's one reason why I--and Arielle and, on occasion, Tosca--like to take a spin to Point Lookout.

Trans Woman Killed Across From Police Precinct

When's this shit gonna end?

A couple of days ago,  I wrote about one hate crime against an LGBT person and a person of color. Now there's another.  The only difference is, the LGBT person and the person of color are the same woman.  And she's dead.

On Saturday night, 21-year-old trans woman Islan Nettles was out with a friend in Harlem when they were confronted by a group of young men. 

I haven't been able to find details, but from what I've learned, an argument ensued after the young men learned that Ms. Nettles was born male.

One of the young men yelled anti-gay remarks, and punches were thrown.  The friend ran to find help, and the young man was on top of Nettles. 

When she arrived at the hospital, she was still conscious but soon fell into a coma and was declared brain dead.  She was placed on a ventilator so family members could pay their respects and, tonight, police told NY1 that she'd died.

Police have arrested a 20-year-old male in connection with the case, but have not released his name because of a pending upgrade in the charges against him.

Now, I'll tell you what might be the most outrageous part of this killing:  It happened right across the street from a police precinct house.  



What does that tell us when haters and other thugs can assault and kill trans people with such abandon?

Hung In The Middle

One of my comments on my Huffington Post article about Don Ennis came from Alana Sholar.

It just happens that she's written a book, "Hung In The Middle", about her own story as a transgender woman in rural Kentucky.

She is a great example of something I've long said:  Nothing will do more to help people understand us than hearing our stories, whether in person, in print or elsewhere. Even the least articulate among us can, I think, have a greater effect (if a person is open-minded) than taking, as someone else so eloquently put it, "Remedial Trans 101 for the eighth time".

I intend to read Ms. Sholar's book.

The Interracial Couple And The Phantom Gay Male Friend

A few years ago, blocks of abandoned industrial buildings that rimmed the East River were razed to build rows of "luxury condos" and glass-and-steel bars and restaurants (or, at least restaurants that look like they're made of glass and steel). 

This is all reminiscent of what happened in the Meat Packing District and the area just west of Lincoln Center.  The difference is that the place I mentioned in my first paragraph isn't crawling with cavorting celebrities, as the Meat Packing District so often is.  

Still, I think it's fair to say that most of the people who've moved into those condos and who frequent those bars and restaurants have a pretty fair amount of disposable income.  And most of them probably have no idea of what the neighborhood was before they came along.

But I know about it because I've witnessed its transformation. I frequent the area around it, which includes a pier with one of the best views one can find of the Empire State, Chrysler and UN Buildings.  Photographers, painters and other artists frequently do their work there for that very reason.  That pier is only a ten-minute bike ride from my apartment.

I'm talking about the far edge of Long Island City, near Hunters Point.  While it is certainly a well-kept area (as was the surrounding residential neighborhood, which was populated mainly by blue-collar Italian-Americans).  The newly-polished surface of the area, and its increasingly vibrant night life, give some the feeling--or, shall we say, illusion--of tranquility.

But an incident over the weekend revealed that the surface may be, as it is in so many other places, a veneer.   

Interracial couple Jacob and Billie James-Vogel discovered when left the Shi restaurant and club--one of those new glass-and-steel places--with a gay male friend whose name was not disclosed.  The assialant yelled the "N" and "f" words while attacking Jacob and throwing Billie to the ground when she tried to shield him.

I don't know what, if anything, happened to the gay male friend.  In fact, I learned about him only because of an acquaintance who lives nearby and was there when the police showed up.  This acquaintance is not the sort who embellishes or sensationalizes stories, so I am confident in mentioning the gay male friend.  Of course, that would account for why the assailant used the "F" word.  That begs the question of why that detail was reported but not the gay male friend.

If so many outlets can be so sloppy in their reporting, I guess it's too much to ask them to probe why such attacks occur when and where they happen.  Then again, knowing such things might prevent some of the attacks, which would put some of the so-called journalists out of work because they would have fewer sensational stories to report.

Smaller And Meaner

When we have the most reason for optimism, we are in the most danger.

I came to that conclusion after writing my Huffington Post article about AB 1266 in California--and hearing the remarks of San Antonio (TX) Councilwoman Elisa Chan.



 


The more people realize that giving us--I mean, all people who don't confirm to societal, cultural or religious notions of gender and sexuality--the same rights as everyone else won't bring down this country or bring on the Apocalypse, the more bigots will resort to mendacity, belligerence and even violence to continue a battle they can only lose.



Ms. Chan, though, is even worse than all of those people who trot out their far-fetched "what if" scenarios (for which they can never provide even a single concrete example) to keep trans people from using public bathrooms designated for the gender in which they live.  Those people, at least, can be seen as merely clinging to an irrational fear.  Chan, on the other hand, is trying to be a local version of Ann Coulter:  Because she cannot think, let alone form a rational, cogent position, she is trying to build her career on hate and fear-mongering.  (At least, that has always been my theory about Ms. Coulter.)  As one of her advisers tells her, "It's not an economic argument; it's not a small-governnment argument; it's a social-cultural argument and you'll get the most points by taking a stand".  

While Chan herself admits that publicly saying that she finds LGBT people's lives "personally disgusting" would destroy her career, she says that she's willing to lie about her "confusion" about trans people in order to take a position against adding language that would protect them in local ordinances.

Chan is an example of something against which we need to gird ourselves:  As the number of our opponents dwindles, they will grow meaner, more dishonest, more vicious and, in some cases, more violent. They will ultimately lose, but I (and, I assume, you) want to be alive and well to savor our victory.  So, be aware!



 

Are You Surprised?

I promise not to say "I told you so!"

But, really, are you surprised that Faux News would plumb new depths of insensitivity and just plain ignorance when it came to AB 1266?