Fred Phelps Is Dead

This is a sort of update to an earlier post.

Fred Phelps is dead.

We all knew this was coming. After all, he had been in ill health and recently moved into a hospice.

Now, I am one of the last people in this world who would ever defend him.  Still, I hope that nobody pickets his funeral as he and his congregants did at the funerals of Matthew Shepard and soldiers who died in Iraq. After all, do we want our community (or any level) to descend to the level of non-civility exhibited by the Westboro Baptist Church?

But, as awful a legacy as he left with his "God Hates Fags" protests and campaigns, he actually did quite a bit of good. Believe it or not, he was once a civil-rights lawyer who fiercely advocated on behalf of African-Americans who experienced discrimination in schools, work and the American Legion, and abuse at the hands of their local police. He also sued President Ronald Reagan after Reagan appointed--for the first time in US History--an American ambassador to the Vatican. Phelps argued that the appointment violated the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state.

Then, of course, there are his family members, some of whom were excommunicated and others, like his son Nathan, who left the Westboro church. They mourn the loss of a father, grandfather and uncle, even if they came to disagree with his teachings.

The life and death of Fred Phelps Sr. should, if nothing else, help us to remember that tragedy begets tragedy. Somewhere along the way, a sense of righteous anger turned into resentful hatred that caused him to be estranged from the very community he built around it.

Where Lesbians Get Off But Gay Men Are Cut Off

Could lesbians actually benefit from misogyny?

That question, on its face, might be the most preposterous you've ever heard.  But one has to wonder whether why, in 25 nations, male homosexuality is illegal (sometimes punishable by death) but lesbianism isn't.

I should qualify my previous statement:  To my knowledge, none of those countries has a law that specifically legalizes sex between women.  Rather, there simply is no law against such relations.

The simple question is, of course:  Why?

Given that most of those countries are either in the Caribbean or Africa, and some are ruled (or at least dominated) by religious fundamentalists, my guess it that women are so invisible that the men in charge simply don't think about women doing it with women.  Or, as others might suggest, it's their secret vice:  They might find men having sex with men repugnant but have their stashes of lesbian porn.

(When I was living in Park Slope, a newsdealer I frequented also sold porn.  He told me all of his lesbian porn was purchased by men and women rarely, if ever, bought porn. I always figured that the reason is that most lesbian porn depicts men's notions of what women do.)

In more religious societies were men are seen as vehicles of God's or Allah's or whatever-supreme-being's will, and women are seen as incubators of men (ideally), it's probably considered more important to protect the moral purity of males.  In such places, women are seen as evil and thus beyond protection, let alone redemption.

And there are a good many men--including some in this country--who simply believe that it isn't possible for a woman to have sex with another woman.  That, of course, means that their notions about sexual relations are completely phallocentric.

I would love to know whether any woman has ever been punished in any of those countries for having sex with another woman.  Or, upon discovering that his wife or girlfriend is doing it with her best friend, does a man charged with upholding the law simply watch and enjoy?
  

A Day Begins With A Setting Cloud

Yesterday's post on Midlife Cycling ended with a pot of gold over the rainbow.  Well, sort of.

Today's post begins--as my day did--with a cloud moving across the cityscape. 

From its path between these buldings, it "sets":

Then it recedes, eventually disappearing behind one of the buildings:

Why We Have The Golden Rule

At times like this, I understand why the Golden Rule exists.

The Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, is said to be on death's doorstep.

When he started it nearly six decades ago, Westboro was seemingly another small Kansas church. However, he turned it into a worldwide symbol of people who hate those who are different themselves--and the world generally--more than the God they purport to serve.  

Some people--including the writer of a New York Daily News article--are gloating over the way his life and mission are ending.  The man who started the custom of showing up for the funerals of victims of homophobic and transphobic violence with signs reading "God Hates Fags" was , according to at least one source, excommunicated from his own church several months ago for advocating a "kinder, gentler" approach than the one he espoused for so many years.

If that's true, it's a reason to be sad.  Perhaps he learned, too late, what the results of hate are.  You might say it's a case of someone dying by the sword by which he lived.  

In any event, I'm not going to celebrate his ill health or impending death because doing so would only perpetuate the very worst things to which he devoted too much of his life.  And I can only feel sorry for someone like his son Nathan, who left the church in 1977.  "I'm not sure how I feel about this," he wrote on his Facebook page.  "Terribly ironic that his devotion to God ends this way.  Destroyed by the monster he made.  I feel sad for the all hurt he's caused so many." 

Perhaps he can help to destroy the "monster".

Why Do We Need A Parade For Our Journeys?

Is Brazil one of the world's most progressive countries when it comes to attitudes about gender and gay rights?  Or is it a conservative Catholic country that's just another fuel shortage away from returning to the military dictatorship it endured for two decades?

According to an article in yesterday's New York Times, it's both.

As Taylor Barnes points out, drag shows were popular in Rio de Janiero during the 1950's and 1960's.  However, as we have seen, people's willingness to go to shows in which drug-addled men don garish clothes and layer crude makeup on their faces has little, if anything, to do with how much those same people would accept their children if they "came out" as gay, lesbian or transgender.  In fact, sometimes the same people who go to drag shows commit violence--whether or not it's physical--against people who don't fit their culture's gender norms.

Then, of course, there is Carnival, which may well  be the greatest concentration of men in drag as well as flamboyant gay men in the world.  (Interestingly, in celebrations like Carnival or the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, one rarely, if ever, sees women dressed as men or butch lesbians.)  And, as Barnes points out, the careers of transgender models are prospering in Brazil, perhaps more than in anywhere else in the world.

Same-sex marriage is legal in about half of Brazil's states, and laws about gender identity, while not quite as advanced as those in nearby Argentina or Uruguay, are still more in line with current knowledge about gender identity and expression than the laws in most US states.  However, those states that allow same-sex marriage are--not surprisingly--the ones that include the country's largest metropoli.  On the other hand, more rural areas still hold to their conservative beliefs (often based on the local priest's or politician's interpretation of faith) about sexuality and gender.

Now, I've never been to Brazil, so I can't tell you whether it's "better" for trans people than other places.  However, at every Transgender Day of Remembrance commemoration in which I've participated, a fair number of the victims' names we read were Brazilian.  To be fair, plenty are Americans, too.  But I can't help but to think that transgenders face as precarious a situation in Brazil as we do anywhere.

And I don't know how much things will improve if people continue to associate us with the gross misinterpretations--or perhaps unintentional parodies--of womanhood exhibited by the drag "queens" of Carnival or Mardi Gras--or, for that matter, the Pride March.  As long as we're seen that way, we are in the same situation of African Americans in the days of Sambo.

Add "Insincere" To "Ignorant", "Obnoxious" And "Bigoted"

I've become my mother.

All right, I'll admit, I was well on my way to becoming like her long before I started my gender transition.  After all, we have similar tastes in things ranging from food to TV shows and personalities.

A few years ago, during a holiday I spent with my parents, my mother and I were talking about something--I forget what, exactly.  I mentioned that I'd recently seen someone who hosted her own show.  "I can't stand her," I said.  "She's ignorant and obnoxious."

"Wendy Williams!" my mother interjected.

So it came as no surprise when I learned about her opposition to Chloie Jonnson's lawsuit against Cross Fit, which denied Jonnson the right to enter as a female in its fitness competition.

The video of her offending remarks, and the panel discussion during which she made them, has been removed from her website and YouTube.  She was covering her tracks (or someone was doing it for her), just as she was with her "apology".

I mean, doesn't every bigot try to deny who or what he or she is by claiming to be an "ally of the community" or some such thing?

Monica Jones Goes On Trial for WWT

Some of my male students--and other young men I know--have been pulled over for a "charge" they refer to as "DWB", or Driving While Black.

Even adult black men are not exempt from such treatment, particularly if they drive late-model Mercedes,  BMW or Lexus cars.

I wonder whether any of them has ever been stopped for WWB:  Walking While Black.

It seems that somewhere there's a law on the books for WWT:  Walking While Trans. At least, that's what some police officers seem to think.

Last May, officers in Phoenix (AZ) arrested Monica Jones, an activist and social work student at Arizona State University.  She was speaking out at a protest against Project ROSE (Reaching Out to the Sexually Exploited), a controversial collaboration between the University's school of social work and the Phoenix Police Department. 

In Project ROSE, officers pick up people they suspect of "prostitution" and bring them--often in handcuffs--to a church.  There, ASU staff members check them in and match them with volunteers, some of whom are former sex workers.  These volunteers offer the arrestees a chance to enroll in a 36-week program in which they're given medical, mental health and other service if they quit sex work.  After completing the program, charges are dropped.

However, if the arrestee refuses to enter the program, doesn't qualify or is ineligible, he or she can expect to be summoned to court, where he or she could face prison time under Arizona's harsh sentencing laws.

You may not think that the program is such a bad deal.  After all, it offers services to people who might not get them otherwise and gives them a chance to get out of "the world's oldest profession."  However, if someone who has never been involved in sex work has been swept up, he or she can end up in prison for refusing to participate in a program for which he or she has no need.

That seems to be the case with Monica Jones.  She had no prior record of arrest, and from all evidence, has never been involved in sex work.  But the worst thing about this case is that if she is convicted, she will be sent to a men's prison notorious for human rights violation.  Plus, it goes without saying that her life would be in danger as would the life of any trans woman who ends up in a men's prison.

She is set to go on trial today.  More about her story as I get word on it.

Kitty Genovese, Fifty Years Later

Fifty years ago today, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death just steps away from her apartment in Kew Gardens, NY.

That building is just a few minutes away from my apartment.  I've passed it any number of times.  So have countless other people.

That, of course, is one of the reasons why her murder is still discussed and is studied by students and scholars in sociology, anthropology, psychology and criminal justice.  It gave rise to what people in all of those fields call "The Bystander Effect" or "Kitty Genovese Syndrome", which says that as the number of witnesses increases, the less responsibility each one feels to act.

It's accepted as the standard explanation of why, according to accounts published ever since the day of the crime, thirty-eight people said they heard screams or other commotion, or otherwise sensed that a disturbance was taking place outside their windows, and "did nothing".  One witness said, in a phrase that's become almost a cliche, "I didn't want to get involved".

Recently, the number of people who "didn't want to get involved", or who were even awake at the time of the stabbings (between 3 and 3:30 am) has come into dispute.  What's not in dispute, though, is that when police got word of her stabbing, it was too late to save her life.

But I don't want to get into an argument about that now.  Instead, I want to talk about how Ms. Genovese's victimhood has been portrayed and another aspect of her life that was not revealed until a decade ago.

I was five years old on that cold, windy early morning when she died almost literally on her own doorstep.  I often heard about the murder as I was growing up.  For a few years, she was portrayed, probably correctly, as an innocent victim who had the misfortune of crossing paths with a homicidal maniac.  After all, Winston Moseley would say "I went out that night intending to kill a woman.  When I got such a thought, it remained with me regardless of what else I might be thinking".  And he has remained unrepentant ever since.

However, as time passed, I noticed that some people questioned "what sort of woman" Kitty actually was.  They wondered "what she was doing" when she parked her car and made that fateful walk toward her apartment at 3 in the morning.  That seemed to be a central question in a TV movie that was aired when I was a high school senior, if I recall correctly--probably around the time of the ten-year anniversary of her death.  The movie was fiction, but was not-too-loosely based on Ms. Genovese's case.  In one scene, a police detective (I think) working on the case stops a woman he sees walking home and chastises her for walking alone at night in a skirt that was "too short".

It seemed that whatever people could get book deals, tenure or fame from milking such a claim had gotten what they wanted--and that other people realized that bar managers (Ms. Genovese's line of work) and others who work in such establishments and restaurants often come home at odd hours. More important, the notion that women who are so brutalized are not "asking for it" and don't "have it coming to them" (I can remember when other women used to say such things about girls who'd been raped.) was discredited. So the notion that it was her fault that she'd been attacked by a man who stabbed her, fled when he thought someone else had seen him, and came back to "finish the job" went where it belonged--to the dustbin of history..

Now it is widely accepted, rightly, that Ms. Genovese was an extremely unfortunate soul. However, there is one other aspect of her killing to which a few people alluded a decade ago, but has rarely, if ever, been mentioned again.

As far as their neighbors knew, Mary Ann Zielonko was a friend of Kitty's who shared their apartment--you know, the "2 Broke Girls" scenario. Everyone, apparently, liked both of them, but saw more of Kitty, the more outgoing and friendly of the two. What no one realized--or simply did not say--is that Ms. Zielonko was her girlfriend. No, not in the sense of two young female friends sharing an apartment. They were partners, lovers, or whatever you choose to call them.

Ms. Zielonko did not reveal this aspect of their relationship until she was interviewed on the 40th anniversary of her girlfriend's murder. Of course, there was no reason why she should have. After all, attitudes about same-sex relationships were, to put it mildly, very different from the ones we (some of us, anyway) have now. But what if their union had been public knowledge? How might it have affected the way the case was portrayed?

More important, might Winston Moseley have been aware of it? He has never given any indication, at least verbally, that it played any role in his choosing Kitty as his victim. However, it's hard not to wonder if he approached her sexually and she said--or gave some other indication--that she was gay and therefore had no interest in him. Could that have been a factor in the viciousness of his attack?

Whatever the answer is, or isn't, to those questions, I hope that more people remember that, in the end, Catherine Susan Genovese was murdered because  she was a woman.  Too many of us have met that same awful fate.

How People Like Him Get Away With It

More years ago than I'll admit, I taught in an Orthodox Jewish school.  In those days, I was still living as male and it was an all-boys' school so, of course, I would not be allowed to teach there today.  In fact, the only female there (unless you count me) was the secretary.  She was the head rabbi's mother.

Anyway, I mention it because not long after I was hired, the head rabbi told me something I hadn't expected to hear--from him, anyway.  "Orthodox famiies have all the same problems as other families," he said.  "We have substance abuse, domestic violence, you name it."

A long silence.  Then, as if he'd read the question in my mind, he continued:  "The problem is, for too long, we've swept it under the rug."

"I guess when you're a minority, you have to, " I responded.

His eyes widened.  "Yes!  We try so hard to present a united front, a clean image, that at times we hide all of the things for which we need help, whether from within our own community or outside."

I mention that experience because in the early part of my transition, I heard nothing about domestic violence--or any other kind of abuse--in LGBT relationships.  In fact, even though I was involved with the LGBT Community Center in New York as well as other organizations and projects involving the community, I never heard about abusive relationships in the LGBT community.

That is, until the issue hit home.  Literally.

You see, I didn't know it at the time, but someone knew that as happy as I was about starting my new life, I was also very, very vulnerable.  No matter how good an experience you have of "coming out", no matter how well your transition goes, you are going to be extra- (sometimes too) sensitive in some areas.  And people like the one I've mentioned can always figure out where your sensitivities are.

Early in my transition, I had also just come to terms with having beat up--with the help of two classmates--a gay man (or, at least, a man we thought was gay) when I was a teenager.  And I was also dealing with some of my own experiences of having been bullied.

The person I mentioned knew how to play on those things--and the fact that my parents were clearly making an effort to understand what I was experiencing.  He figured, correctly, he could use my relative good fortune to make me feel sympathy for him because he'd grown up in an extremely dysfunctional family.

About his family, he wasn't lying:  I saw the home in which he'd grown up, and in which he was still living, firsthand.  And he also figured out pretty quickly that although I'm not the most sensitive or caring person in the world, I am capable of a pretty fair amount of sympathy, if I do say so myself.

Little did I know I was walking into a trap. I've since learned that countless others--in and out of the LGBT community, some much more intelligent and sensitive than I am--have walked into the very same trap, in much the way I did.  

He also knew that he could exploit an old stereotype--the trans person as sexual predator--to his advantage.  Whenever I said "no" to him, stories would circulate about my having sex with students or others.  I have never done, and never would do, such a thing; in fact, I never did or would even before my transition.  

Just last spring, a year after I last heard from Dominick, I learned that his behaviors are typical of abusers in relationships with trans people, especially with trans people having their first relationships since starting their transitions.  Vicki, a counselor at the Anti-Violence Project, clued me into those patterns of behavior as we did other work on the aftermath of my realtionship with Dominick.  He never struck me with his hands or used any other physical violence.  However, he used various threats, including ones to make my life "so miserable that" I'd  "think living in a cardboard box is good" and to tell people "who'd believe me and not you," in his words, that I am a racist, sexual predator (Yes, he used that term!) and criminal.  

Probably the one "silver lining" in all of this is that he was stupid enough to write such threats in e-mails and text messages.  So, when I had to move out of an apartment and lost a job over "anonymous" complaints, guess who was the most likely suspect?  Even so, I had to go three times to the 114th Precinct, and to two courts, before anyone would take action against him.

Still, that's better luck than I had with LGBT organizations--including ones in which I volunteered--or individual people in the community I knew at the time.  One of those organizations is set up to provide legal assistance to trans people, but its founder/director thought my case was "too controversial."  And, of course, none of this city's gay publications wanted to run my story, or even to investigate it.

They were doing, it seems, exactly what the head rabbi of my old school described so many years ago.  I get the feeling that the directors of LGBT organizations didn't want to give homophobes ammunition.  And my old landlord and employer didn't want to risk the "controversy" of having someone who was even suspected--even though there was plenty of evidence to the contrary--of living up to the worst stereotypes (which they, deep down, still believed) in their midst.

Dominick knew people would act and react that way.  That's why he got away with what he did for so long.  And nobody who meets him would ever suspect he could behave that way--just as I didn't when I first met him. Finally, he knew--still knows, I'm sure--that just as he can bully someone else as he bullied me, he can count on at least a few people in the community to sweep his behavior under the rug--and would throw his victim under the bus, as they did with me.

As a post-script, I want to say that I've since met other gay men, lesbians and trans people who've been far more sympathetic and helpful.  Some are part of the Anti-Violence Project; others are part of the church (say what you will about it!) I now attend.

Post-post script:  The last time I wrote about my experiences with Dominick, he sent me a threatening text message that began with "It has come to my attention that..."   In other words, he couldn't even admit that he was trolling this blog!

Three Years After Fukushima: Women's Issues

Three years ago today, a tsunami resulted in a catastrophic failure at the Fukushima-Daichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.

I am not surprised to learn that the consequences of that catastrophe are still unfolding.  I am also not surprised to see that the Japanese government is still downplaying the effects of the failure.  After all, the Soviet government did the same thing after Chernobyl, just as American authorities kept a lid on the negative publicity about Three Mile Island.  If nothing else, we should have learned that in such emergencies, it doesn't matter whether the country is democratic or authoritarian, capitalistic or communist (or something in between).  Any country that develops a nuclear power and/or weapons program also develops a class of people whose careers and lifestyles depend on it, not to mention a military complex surrounding it.

What also does not shock me is that Fukushima disproportionately affects women.   We (Yes, I include myself.) are more vulnerable to breast and thyroid cancers caused by radiation.  And, for most non-trans women, there is also the risk of ovarian cancer.  However, the perils we face from radiation are not limited to our physical health.

Every woman who has given birth since the disaster has to wonder what she passed in utero to her child. Even though 28 years have passed since Chernobyl--and the area was evacuated--there are still many cases of birth defects and congenital diseases as well as pre- and ante-natal deaths. Even though the authorities were able to move people away (and many left on their own accord), nobody could stop the flow of radiation through groundwater, wind and other means. At Fukushima, of course, contaminants are also riding Pacific tides and inside fish in the ocean. Last month, higher-than-normal levels of radioactive isotopes were found in Pacific Ocean water on the coast of British Colombia, Canada. Scientists expect those isotopes to spill onto the beaches of California, Oregon and Washington State next month. One has to wonder what that could mean for the health of women and their babies from Alaska to Baja.

Also, in the area around Fukushima, many women--some of them single mothers--were farmers. They have lost their livelihoods and means of supporting their children; three years later, they are still living in concrete prefab dorms. And those who were married and not farming were not immune to suffering and loss: As often happens in the wake of catastrophes (Think of Hurricane Katrina, as an example.), hospitals and crisis centers are overwhelmed by the numbers of women who are beaten, raped or otherwise abused by husbands and boyfriends (and, in some cases, male blood relatives) who lapse into depression as well as alcohol and drug abuse. And, of course, some of the women also become depressed or start drinking too much, or fall into other kinds of addictive and compulsive behavior.

Perhaps, then, it is no suprise that we, women, have long been far more opposed than men are to nuclear power and weapons. After all, as with many manmade disasters, women have to bear a disproportionate share of the fallout. (No pun intended.) As with other disasters, women "become responsible for all of the work, while dealing with physical illness and raise their young alone", according to Maria Vitigliano of the Green Cross's social and medical outreach program. "When the economy is oppressed, the children grow up and leave them alone", she concludes.

LGBT People Leave The GOP. Why Should We Be Worried?

In January, GOProud co-founder Jimmy La Salvia defected from the Republican Party.  A lot of people wondered what took him so long to figure out the party is "brain dead" on LGBT and other issues.  They even wondered how he could remain "every bit as conservative as" he "ever was", in his own words.

Although I am registered as a Democrat--mostly for the same reasons he left the Republican Party--I can understand his position, and even agree with it to some degree.

What a lot of people missed is that he wasn't upset only about the Mike Huckabees and the Tim Santorums and all of the other homophobes who cloak their bigotry with a sham of religious belief and fealty to the "framers of the Constitution".  La Salvia, in his public exit statement, also slammed "big government 'conservatives' who have taken over the party".

Now, I am not one of those people who wants no government at all or, worse, anarcho-capitalism.  However, I also think that freedom is not achieved by passing more laws or starting new agencies. I like to think of myself as at least somewhat aligned with what I call the "conservative" side of Malcolm X, who said that African-Americans will be free from the effects of racism only through creating their own culture and economic enterprises, not by petitioning for it from a white ruling class.

While I am glad that there are laws against discrimination in employment, housing and such, and that more states are legalizing marriage equality, I think that we have to do more to determine our own destinies.  After all, there are always ways around laws:  A would-be employer could claim he or she didn't hire you for a variety of non-provable reasons.  (Some have flat-out lied, to me and others.)  And marriage "equality" still leaves the authority to determine who can marry and who can't with the same people and institutions that have discriminated against us.

I am mentioning all of this after seeing an article from the Los Angeles Times describing the "rift" that is developing within the Republican Party over LGBT equality.  Truth is, that "rift" is more like a purge:  Even though people might be leaving the party (or simply not voting for its candidates) on their own accord, they are, I believe, reacting to their perception that the hard-core social conservatives don't want them in the GOP.  

Such a development might not be so disturbing if those "conservatives" weren't so disingenuous and ruthless:  They rail against "Obamacare" as an example of "intrusive" government yet support massive military and "security" spending as well as any project or agency that will give cushy jobs to their campaign supporters.   And they will use any sort of smear tactic against the Edward Snowdens, Chelsea Mannings and others who are fighting against the Surveillance State, as well as to anyone else deemed a threat in any way.

(By the way, I have--and continue to be--against "Obamacare", though for reasons entirely different from those of the "conservatives" I've described.)

So, while some might think that the "rift" will blow up the party, I wonder whether the defections will turn the GOP into a fringe party, which would be far more dangerous than having them as a center-right party that gets between 45 and 55 percent of the vote.  Fringe parties and movements, while small, can be very dangerous because they often consist mainly of the angry, the scared and the otherwise unhinged.  It doesn't take very many of such people to create hysteria over some invented bogeyman:  That, to me, is the real lesson of the McCarthy era.  (Remember that Joe Mc Carthy waved his infamous "list" in front of a Republican Women's Club at a time when his party--the Republicans--lost the previous five Presidential elections and numerous Congressional seats, governorships and local elections.)   So, while I think that, ultimately, legal same-sex marriage will eventually be the norm, if not ubiquitous, the fight will become nastier and more vicious as the right loses its LGBT allies.

Gender Inequality and Food Security

In the spirit of yesterday's post, I think this is interesting and disturbing:

From Prafulla.Net

 

It's Not "Just A Girl Thing"

In today's post, I will simply convey an open letter to men and boys from Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Executive Director of UN Women.

Dear Men and Boys of the World,

When we fought against apartheid in South Africa, which the United Nations declared a crime against humanity, the whole world took a stand. All self-respecting people—leaders of nations, religious institutions, commerce and sports—crossed the line to be on the right side of history.

The unity and purpose of the people of the world played a major role in ushering in freedom for South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandela, in whose cabinet I had the honor to serve. In Mandela, a force for good was unleashed, not just for South Africa but for all of humanity. He inspired those of us who worked with him, and countless millions around the world, to stand up for a just cause.

Now it is time to marshal the same conviction, energy and cooperation on behalf of the 3.6 billion women and girls in the world. You, the men of the 21st century, can make your mark by crossing the line united and joining women as a powerful force for gender equality. It is the right thing to do. In the words of Mandela, “for every moment we remain silent, we conspire against our women.”

This isn’t just a female cause. We have rising evidence that everyone, not just women, benefits from gender equality. Did you know that if women farmers had the same tools and fertilizer as men in agriculture, we would reduce hunger by up to 150 million people? Fortune 500 companies with the most women managers were found to deliver a 34 per cent higher return to shareholders. Discriminating against women comes at a cost to humanity and nations and denies women and girls their inalienable rights.

Yes, women are strong, bold, and brave, but men and boys also have a big role to play in ending gender inequality. It is both the right thing and the smart thing to do. It’s time to influence change in society. I know many of you desire a better world for women and girls and more than a few of you are actively working on bringing about positive changes. But there is much more to do. We need your action and your voices to be louder and to help us change some of the hardships women face.

More than 60 million girls worldwide are denied access to education. One in three women in the world is a victim of physical or sexual violence, the most humiliating and dehumanizing form of discrimination. Most of this violence happens at the hand of a partner or relative within her own home. Today two-thirds of the global illiterate population is women. If trends continue in this way, poor girls in Sub-Saharan Africa will not reach universal access to primary education until 2086.

These are your sisters, mothers, wives, partners, daughters, nieces, aunts, cousins and friends. They have hopes and beautiful dreams for themselves, their families, communities and the world. If many of their dreams were to come true, the world would be a much better place for all of humanity.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th, I issue a call to men and boys and invite you to take action wherever you are and support the SHE Imperative, a new global initiative to bring women’s issues to the forefront and effectuate change through civil engagement, corporate commitment, and policy changes worldwide.

SHE has three key components: First, make sure SHE isSecure and Safe from gender-based violence. Second: Make sure SHE has her Human rights respected, including her reproductive rights. And third: Ensure that SHE has Economic Empowerment through Education, participation and leadership.

This sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet if we applied this imperative, the world would be a very different and far better place. SHE would enjoy equal opportunity, access to education and no longer be the face of poverty, and her gender will not decide her status and place in society.

I invite you to join me and the women and men of the world who have led many long struggles for the gender equality. In Africa, we have a saying that I want to leave with you: ‘If you go alone you go fast, but if we go together, we go far’. Let us go far together.

You can find more about the SHE initiative and ways to help at www.heforshe.org.

Fit To Compete As A Woman

In 1976, male-to-female transsexual Renee Richards was denied entry into the US Open.  The United States Tennis Association based its ban on a "women-born-women" policy of which, it seemed, no one was aware until the USTA cited it.  She won a suit against the USTA and competed for several years, rising to as high as #20 in women's tennis rankings.

The controversy over whether MTFs should be allowed to compete as women has continued through the ensuing decades and over different sports ranging from golf to mountain bike racing.  Now the battle has reached fitness competitions.

Yesterday, personal trainer Chloie Jonnson-- who has lived as a woman since she was a teenager, had gender reassignment surgery in 2006 and has been taking female hormones--filed a discrimination suit against the Cross Fit company in Santa Cruz, California. She sought--and was denied--the right to compete in last year's Cross Fit Games, which determine the fittest man and woman. 

The suit alleges that one of Jonnson's teammates asked about the eligibility of transgender competitors in an anonymous e-mail to the game's organizers. (Anonymous e-mail.  Hmm...Sounds familiar.)  In response, the Game's organizers determined that athletes have to compete in the gender to which they were assigned at birth.

None of the news accounts I've seen mention any previously-written policy on the matter.  Some things don't change in four decades, I guess--namely, the level of knowledge about transgenders possessed by organizers of some athletic events. According to every scientist and doctor familiar with transgender patients and issues, someone who was born a male and takes hormones for several years has no advantage in strength or endurance over female athletes.  Even the International Olympic Committee, not exactly known for its progressivism, allows transgender athletes to compete in the gender by which they identify as long as they've had sex-reassignment surgery.

One thing that makes Jonnson's case particularly interesting and disturbing is that Cross Fit is based in California, which has some of the strictest laws barring discrimination based on gender identity.  I'm not a lawyer, but I would guess that fact alone should compel Cross Fit to allow Jonnson to compete. Or so I hope.

The Real Reasons Why There Will Be Marriage Equality Throughout The US

In the latest Rolling Stone, Nico Lang gives us "Five Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Sweeping The Nation": 

1. The US Supreme Court's United States v. Windsor decision was a watershed moment for marriage equality. 

2. Marriage equality isn't an issue for the coasts anymore. It's sweeping the heartland. 

3. States are realizing that being gay-friendly is good for business. 

4. Anti-gay policies in Russia and Uganda are reminding Americans of the costs of discrimination. 

5. LGBT couples are making a difference by standing up and being counted. 

While all of Mr. Lang's reasons are valid, and he explains them well, I think he misses two phenomena that make them all possible. The first has been taking place for about the past three decades or so. As more people "come out", still more people realize that they have family members, friends and co-workers who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Now, of course, some people reject or even commit physical violence upon important people in their lives who "come out". But we are seeing increasing numbers of people who realize that all of those LGBT people, after "coming out", will remain be the same people they loved or raised, or worked or hung out with. Very often, those people become supporters of marriage equality. I know: I have seen such transformations in my own life. 

I don't know when the second phenomenon started, but I can say, with near-certainty, that it's more recent in origin than the first. More and more same-sex couples are raising children in places cities like Salt Lake City, Detroit and Memphis, and in states like Missisippi (which has the highest percentage of same-sex couples raising children). In such socially conservative places, people tend to delay "coming out"; many spend decades married to members of the opposite sex with whom they have children. In such places, people often couch their conservative religious and political beliefs in concern about "families" or the "welfare of children". To be fair, more than a few actually mean what they say. They may not appprove of same-sex parenting, or of same-sex love relationships in general, but they realize that a home with two moms or two dads who actually want (and, often, have the means) to raise a kid is better--and much less expensive for taxpayers--than foster care or any number of other alternatives.

 As I have said in earlier posts, I would rather see the government's role in marriage end altogether, save for setting an age of consent. And, even though I am not against religion per se, I do not think that governments should vest churches or other religious institutions with the power to decide who's married and who isn't. But I don't expect what I've just described to come to pass, so I hope--and believe--that marriage equality will come to most, if not all, of the United States even sooner than I or many other people anticipated. Given the system we have, there is no saner alternative.

Worse Than Transphobes

Dealing with ignorant, hateful, violent transphobes is bad enough.  But there are people among us who are even worse, I think.

When I say "among us," I mean our own community:  trans people and, by extension, LGBT people.  I don't mean to sound paranoid or sanctimonious, but we really can afford thoughtless behavior less than heterosexual and cisgender people can.

That point became all the more apparent when I read about the Hercules (CA) High School student who recanted his story about being attacked in a school bathroom.  

The student, whose name has not been released, is chromosomally female but identifies as male.  He claims that three other teenagers cornered him in the bathroom, where they beat and taunted him.

One reason why stories like his are so damaging to us is that people believe them, and feel sympathy for the victim (and, by extension, the rest of the community) upon hearing them.  Such stories seem convincing because they--like the Duke lacrosse case of 2006-- fit into the patterns of similar narratives. There have been similar attacks at Hercules and other schools and Hercules has had a reputation for violence that sparked a no-confidence vote against the principal.

Upon finding out that stories like the ones from Duke and Hercules High are fabrications, people feel even more rage than they do in other cases because their sympathies have been played upon.  Nothing can be more damaging to any group of people who are disproportionately victimized than for potential allies to feel that they have been duped.

If the young man who just recanted his story did indeed make it up, I hope that he will mature enough to understand how much damage he has done to the rest of us.

Bathroom Flow Chart

Here's something to help us in the Great Bathroom Debate:

From Transgender Student Equality Resources

Where They Can't Fire You For Being Who You Are

From Indiana Equality Action

The Mayor Boycotts, But Do We Need To Be Included?

Today New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

How can that be?, you ask.  St. Paddy’s Day is two weeks away and, didn’t he say he wasn’t going to march?  

He did indeed say he wouldn’t participate in the one that will proceed down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on the 17^th.  Also, the City Council won’t send its traditional contagion, although the Council speaker said individual members are free to participate as individual citizens, not as representatives of the Council.

But today there was an “inclusive” St. Patrick’s Day Parade that proceeds through such Queens neighborhoods as  Sunnyside and Woodside (traditional Irish enclaves) and neighboring Jackson Heights, which is said to contain the largest LGBT community outside of Chelsea.

There was also another parade in Staten Island today.  But the Mayor skipped that one because, unlike the one in Queens, it excludes openly LGBT marchers and groups.

While I applaud the Mayor’s and Council’s actions, I still have to wonder why, exactly, LGBT groups are so concerned with being part of a parade that, frankly, doesn’t show Irish culture and heritage, or this city, at its best.  I have gone to the parade several times, the last time eleven years ago.  I had just begun to take hormones then, so their effects weren’t visible to anyone who hadn’t seen me before I started to take them. In other words, I viewed the parade as someone who was, to all appearances (as if anyone noticed) a guy in his 40’s or thereabouts.  

To tell you the truth, the only person with whom I interacted in that sea of shelaleighs was a friend who knew about my transition.  I didn’t make any effort to start or maintain a conversation with anyone else; I don’t particularly enjoy parades or vast seas of humanity, so I wasn’t in a particularly festive mood.  

Someone might say I don’t appreciate the parade because I’m not Irish.  Perhaps that’s true.  But to me, the mass gathering seemed to be little more than an occasion for a lot of drinking and more than a little loutishness.  About the only time I responded to the parade itself was when the Fire Department’s contagion passed by:  It was only a year and half after 11 September 2001, so I shared reverence almost everyone else in the crowd expressed for the firefighters, who lost so many of their colleagues that day.

I think that LGBT groups—and we, as individuals—can direct our energies to much more important issues than whether a few groups with greatly exaggerated ideas (that, at times, border on unintentional parody) about their heritage will allow us to march in their parade.   

On My Way To Coming Out

The following is a journal entry I wrote during a flight I took to see my parents.  That weekend, I would "come out" to them.

                                                                   Prodigal

Just boarded Flight 2640, from Newark to Daytona Beach.  I’ve never been in one of these new planes before.  I’m in a solo seat: window to the left, aisle to the right.  Across the aisle, two seats next to a window.  (Funny, they call these windows.  They’re more like holes.)  A woman in one seat, probably a bit older than me, with the sturdy, earthy look of a peasant.  But also very intelligent eyes, and in our brief exchange—“I think we got the last seats.”  “Yes, it does appear that way”—revealed the clarity and precision of her speech.  I compliment her on her nails; “It’s something stupid, like olive gloss,” she says.  Another comment or two about the plane: anything to distract myself.

Nothing outside the window could do that.  Although this is my first flight in a long time, it’s all familiar: those open flat beds on wheels with a steering wheel and a dashboard but no windshield pulling trains of baggage cars with saggy curtains on the sides that make them look like toys left out in the rain; the beige and black aluminum panels that surround and shade windows kids love because on this side, planes come from and go to places they’d never heard of: planes full of people, some of whom look like no one they’ve ever seen.

Maybe I’m one of them; after all, hadn’t Melanie (Mark’s four-year-old daughter) pointed to me and declared, “He’s a woman!”?  I know I confused a lot of people today—including myself.  Tried to “butch up” so my parents will recognize me—or at least not start to ask a lot of questions—the moment they meet me at the airport.  But I also had to be femme enough to resemble at least somewhat, the person whose photo adorns the state ID card issued to Justine.

Taxiing the runway.  Even though I’ve flown a number of times before, I’ve never been so nervous.  The last time I flew, in August 2001, I was coming back from a bicycling trip in the French and Italian Alps.  It was only two years ago, but it was five or six weeks before 9/11.  But that’s not the only reason why that trip, and all the others I took before it, seem so long ago.  Now they seem like events that happened to someone else, in another lifetime.

That last trip, and all the others, I took as Nick.  And my parents think they’re going to meet him in Terminal #3 of DAB.  The plane paused.  Now it’s accelerating, darting past a control tower, and finally beginning its liftoff.  Less than a minute, and already we’re hundreds of feet off the ground, teetering in the high wind.  No way back now.  No previous liftoff ever gave me such butterflies in my stomach.  Yes, this one is rougher than others I remember.  But I still see all the same tract houses, parking lots and tank plantations one sees on any takeoff from Newark.  Yet they seem so alien—new without novelty or the freshness of a discovery—and vertiginous, at least to my eyes.

Now we’re bumping through he clouds, and the buildings and the New Jersey swamp are fading away.  I’ve never felt so cold in my life.  Cold, yet the beads of sweat cling to my forehead.  The bumps stretch into blips, and the clouds grow thick yet wispy in the intense sunlight.  I’m still cold and nauseous; my breaths shorten.  I close my eyes.  The sweat dries but I feel tears welling.  I take another swallow to unclog my ears.

One of my first discoveries in my transition was that I could cry in public.  When you’re a woman, some people seem to expect it from you.  But nobody looks at you askance.  Today, on the other hand, it seems that everyone has been doing just that, ever since I, butched up, walked out of my door.  What’ll I do now?

I cry.  I close my eyes.  Tears stop momentarily.  The drone of the plane mutters through my head.  Wake again: tears.  The woman in the opposite seat catches my eye for a moment and returns to her book.  The attendant—a pretty, round-faced ash-blonde with a slight drawl—rolls a cart up aisle to my seat.  “Cranberry juice, please.”  She starts to pour; the plane thumps again.  She apologizes.  “I don’t know how you do that,” I say, more as a distraction for me than a kudos for her.

Distractions are all I want now.  Like anything outside the window.  Like the bridge threading through eyelets of land wound by a series of streams or inlets—maybe it’s swampland, like the ground near Newark.  There are people who drive or walk or pedal across that bridge every day; this is probably the only time I will ever see it.  Nothing exceptional; it’s like a lot of other highway bridges: an asphalt platform propped on steel girders.  It’s probably no more unusual to the people who cross it than it is to me, and if there’s ever a last time for them to cross it, they probably won’t know it and they probably won’t realize that the bridge has become a part of their past.

As that land is.  And this plane, and the people on it, will soon be.  We’re over the ocean now, or some very large bay.  It’s odd, how much, from here, it looks the way the sky looks from the ground: white wisps and streaks in a field of blue.  Slender dartlike objects-- one red and white, the other silver—leave a thin white trail that dissipates in the currents.  I feel the plane beginning its descent; any moment I expect the captain to announce it and our approach to Daytona Beach International Airport.  Knowing my parents, they’re already there; if not, they’re on their way.

The final approach.  That phrase always seemed strange to me.  As if you’ll never go that way again.  As if neither he nor the attendant would go there again.  They’ll probably do this again tomorrow, or some time before the week is over.  They may’ve gone this way yesterday and the day before.  But it’s always the final approach.  Maybe this will really be the last one.

What a way to think when I’m about to see my parents!  Then again, it may very well be the last time I see them.  The rows of houses, the streets and the industrial-looking buildings are coming into view.  A sand-colored ribbon slices through a patch of swampland.  Clouds thin and swirl into mist around the wings just beyond my window.  Clumps of trees have the petrified green hues of the ones in dioramas.  We descend closer to the ground; now it’s possible to tell old from young, mature from dying, and sick trees.  A road rounds the field where we’re about to touch down; a red SUV and a white coupe make the turn.  The sun, low in the horizon, glares through my window.  The Daytona Speedway looms just ahead: rows of bleachers perched on seats I can’t see from here, not unlike the football stadium of a large college.  An African-American man in an airline-issue shirt and tie waves an orange cone in each hand, and the seatbelt signal is turned off.  All click, except mine.

                                                       --13 November 2003