Why Do Trans People Need To Be Protected From "The Vagina Monologues"?

It's a cliche, but I'll say it anyway:  Sometimes the smartest people do the stupidest things.

Now, I realize that stupid people get into elite colleges and universities.  But, on the whole, I would suspect that most students in faculty members in prestigious liberal arts colleges like Mount Holyoke are pretty smart people.

I would even include whoever makes the programming decisions for their theatre.  And I would say as much even after, as student spokesperson Erin Murphy announced, it was cancelling plans to host a production of The Vagina Monologues, which had been performed there every year since Eve Ensler wrote it in 1996.

Mount Holyoke, one of the last all-female colleges in the US, began to admit transgender students last year.  Hence the rationale for the misguided decision to cancel the play:  Someone decided that it could offend trans students.

Why?  According to Murphy, "At its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman."

All right.  I respect Murphy for trying, as best as she knows how, to show respect for her new classmates.  However, that attempt is seriously misguided.  More specifically, it stems from a very flawed reading of the play.

I've seen several performances of Monologues, though I admit that I haven't seen one in a few years.  Never did I think that the play said, or even implied that being a woman means having a vagina, or vice-versa.  To be sure that neither my memory nor reading is flawed, I did a quick search and found out that Ms. Ensler herself has never advanced such a definition of a woman, and did not write the play with such a definition in mind. 

To me, in the play, the vagina represents a woman's power and vulnerability, her oppression and the ways in which she must be aware of herself and men do not. I saw the play while I was still living as Nick, during my transition and after my surgery. I admit that I identified with it more closely the more I lived as a woman, but even before I started my counseling and therapy, I felt the play resonated with the vagina within me, so to speak.  

And every trans person must be or become aware of the ways we are, have been and can be subject to violence and exploitation, as well as the paths of awareness that open to us, because of our physical (as I now have) or metaphorical vaginas.  That, I believe, is as much a part of a definition of womanhood as anything else I can think of.  

To deny the new trans students at Mount Holyoke--or trans people anywhere--the opportunity to learn those things, or simply experience the power of the play itself, is a disservice.  I don't know Ms. Murphy, but I'll assume that wasn't her intention, or that of the theatre board that voted to cancel this year's showing of The Vagina Monologues.  

In short:  We need it. We don't need to be protected from it. 

Gotta love it!

From:  Color Lines

Driving Us Out

Perhaps Vladimir Putin is trying to prove that he's the world's most hateful head of state.  Or, perhaps, simply one of the most retrograde.

It seems that every week he finds new ways to curtail the rights of gay people--or, at least, comes up with an excuse for doing so.  For example, he signed a law allowing police to arrest gay tourists--or tourists who are believed to be gay--and detain them for fourteen days.  He rationalized that, and other antigay moves, in the name of "defending children."

Now, we know that a gay, lesbian or bisexual is no more likely to molest children than anyone else.  In fact, most of the cases of child molestation or sexual abuse that I've heard of--including my own--were perpetrated by heterosexual men.

All right.  Maybe we can forgive someone who's not a specialist for not being up-to-date on the latest research.  Hey, I can even understand not knowing the difference between a "disorder" or "disease" and an "impairment".  It seems to me that the latter might be a good reason to keep someone from driving.  The other two, not so much.

Such distinctions seem to be lost on Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.  On 29 December, he signed a bill that prohibits anyone with any condition cited in the World Health Organization's list of personality and behavior disorders from driving.

So, while the law doesn't specifically mention transgender people, it's clear that part of the law's purpose is to keep us from driving in Russia.  Even though I never planned to do any such thing if I should ever visit that country,  the law gives me another reason not to go.

Interestingly, the WHO doesn't list male homosexuality or lesbianism as a disorder.  So, perhaps, Medvedev is playing "good cop" to Putin's "bad cop", or vice versa.  One can claim not to have acted with prejudice against gays or lesbians, while the other can claim not to have done any harm to trans folk.  That's a pretty neat, if perverse, trick.

Although the bill was signed on the 29th of last month, it wasn't released publicly on the Russian government's website until last week.  And, predictably, it didn't get much attention in the US media.

Je Suis Charlie, Nous Sommes Charlie

For today, I am going to forget what I normally write about on this and my other blog--sort of.

In terms of content, this post will not resemble others I've written.  However, It will express concern for everything that makes this blog, and others, possible.  In fact, some of those things even make it possible for me to do the very thing I write about on this blog:  ride a bike.

You see, in some cultures, women aren't allowed to ride bicycles--or go to school, read, write, teach or do much of anything besides bear a man's children and submit to his demands.  In such places, someone like me doesn't have the right to be a woman--let alone a cyclist--at all.

That is the reason why I am writing today to express my solidarity with all of those people who rallied in my home town as well as London, Tokyo, Istanbul, Montreal, Berlin and many other cities around the world--and, of course, in France, most prominently in Paris.

I have lived in the City of LIght.  So have some people I've loved and with whom I've worked.  They've been native-born French people--some of ancient Gallic and Frankish heritage, others born to families who emigrated to France from other places in this world.  They've been Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and people who didn't adhere to any formal religion or philosophy, or who believed in nothing at all beyond this life.  They've been wealthy, poor and, mainly, in-between.  

The thing is, they all knew that their right to be any, all  or none of the things I've mentioned was protected under the laws of their country.  And, while some expressed resentment or condescension toward America--or, more precisely, toward our misconceptions or simple unawareness of our position in the world, they all have expressed respect, admiration and sometimes even wistfulness for the openness of our society and the generous spirit of Americans they've met. 

Demonstrators hold up pencils to express ther support for freedom of expression.

The rallies, like funerals and memorial services, are about grieving those who died in the attacks on the Chrlie Hebdo offices and the kosher supermarket in Paris.  But, just as important, they are a reminded of what we--I, the people I've mentioned, and everyone else--need to do:  to live, as the people we are, free to pursue our dreams, honor or values, to love those we love--and, always, to speak the truth, whether through simple facts, irony, images, humor or in some other way.  We can't let those who murdered seventeen Parisians during the past week take that liberty, that right, away from us.

Je suis Charlie.  Nous sommes Charlie. 

Myerson Agonistes

I’ve just learned of the death of Bess Myerson.  In fact,  members of the media didn’t know about it until a couple of days ago, even though she passed on the 14^th of December.

This is the first time I—or, for that matter, most other people—have heard anything at all about her in at least two decades.  I would venture that most young people—including my students—have never heard of her.

I met her once, briefly, at a ceremony in which Poets In Public Service, in which I worked, received an award for arts in service to the community.  Ms. Myerson was the Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the founder and president of PIPS, Myra Klahr, apparently knew her—well enough, anyway, to introduce me.

Myerson was in her 60s and looked even better in person than she did in the photos I saw, which is saying a lot.  Tall and elegant, she was often described as “regal” in her bearing.  I could see why, though I think “imperious”—one word I would use to describe to use Klahr—would have fit equally well.  Ms. Myerson was pleasant enough to me, but I had no illusion that, even if I’d had more contact with her, I would ever know her any better than I did at that moment.

Of course, getting to know Ms. Myerson wasn’t the reason why I was at that ceremony.  Actually, there was no particular reason for me to be there except for the fact that I was one of the poets who worked for PIPS.  Oh, and I think it was the second or third time I wore the one suit I owned at the time.

I don’t actually recall the ceremony or much else about my brief encounter with Bess Myerson.  But I recall what I recall because of what would follow just a few weeks later.  Those events would, in essence, end Myerson’s public life.

Those events can be said to be a result of her involvement with Edward Koch, the mayor at the time of the ceremony.  Yes, she was his DCA Commissioner.  But it seemed, at times, that they had their pinkies hooked around each other.  He half-jokingly referred to her as his “designated date” when she worked on his campaign.  You had to be comatose not to see that she was his “beard”:  Whether or not he was actually gay, he had to suppress the rumors that he was in order to get elected, and re-elected. 

She was perfect for the role:  From the day in 1945 she became the first Jewish woman—and the first New Yorker—to be crowned Miss America, she was loved by about as many people as anybody was in the Big Apple.  Plus, the careers as a concert pianist and as a radio and television personality that followed her pageant win lent glamour to the campaign and mayoralty of Koch who, before his election in 1977, was little-known outside Greenwich Village.

What did she get in return?  Well, she got to continue the career in public service that began in 1969, when newly-reelected Mayor John Lindsay made her the first Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, an agency he’d just founded.  To her credit, she initiated some of the laws on unit pricing, product safety and deceptive retail practices that people all over the US—and in much of the world—now take for granted.  However, four years later, Abe Beame won Lindsay’s office and she never became a part of his administration.  Koch re-ignited her career in public service, which she tried to use a springboard into electoral politics.   The result was her one and only campaign—a Democratic primary loss to Elizabeth Holtzman, who in turn would narrowly lose a bitterly-fought election for a Senatorial seat won by Alfonse D'Amato.

Even with that loss, Myerson remained in the spotlight, thanks to being the chair of the DCA and her residual popularity, particularly among the pre-Baby Boom generation.  But, as she often complained, no matter what she did, she was always identified first and foremost as Miss America.  Of course, few others who’ve won the crown have managed to trade it for as many other—and as gaudy—hats as she wore.  But, as she said, given the gender politics of her time, she probably would not have accomplished the other things she did had she not won the title, her intelligence and other qualities notwithstanding.

And, it could be said that her title—or, at least, the beauty that won it—led to her undoing:  It led her to make compromises, to make deals, that simply wouldn’t have even been available to other women.  Moreover, for all that she cultivated the image of the sophisticated, urbane, independent New York woman, her rise was buoyed by powerful men, just they led to her fall.

About the latter:  She got involved in an affair with Carl A. “Andy” Capasso, a married man more than two decades her junior.  Even by the murky standards of the Koch administration, Capasso’s ethics were as putrid as what his company built as a contractor for the city:  sewers.  He divorced his wife and, some say, influenced Myerson to do what led to her downfall:  She hired Sukhreet Gabel, the daughter of the judge who reduced Capasso’s alimony payments from $1500 to $500 a week.  

Capasso went to prison and the judge stepped down.  Bess Myerson didn’t suffer such fates, but she was disgraced and seemed to become unhinged.  Not long afterward, she was arrested for shoplifting in Pennsylvania.  She claimed that she “forgot” to pay for the items found in her bag when she “absentmindedly” walked out of the store.

To be fair, she may well have had a mental lapse, as she wasn’t known as the most stable person in the world.  And she died from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease, more than a quarter-century after the shoplifting incident—and the last most people, including me, had heard of her.

It Takes Gendom To Become A Third-Gender Mayor

The election of Madhu Kinnar as the mayor of Raigarh, in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh, is interesting.


As you may know by now, she is the transgender--though not, as some have reported, the first such person elected to public office in India.  Two other trans mayors were elected before Madhu but court rulings removed them on the grounds that their positions were "reserved for women".


That brings me to a greater part of the significance of Madhu's election:  Just nine months ago, India's Supreme Court ruled that transgenders could be legally recognized as a "third gender" or "gender neutral".  Before that, "hijras" were outside the margins of South Asian societies, sometimes regarded as even lowlier than cisgender members of the lowest castes.


As a result, they were subject to extortion and all sorts of violence, even (and, some would say, especially) from the police and public officials.  Also, hijras had few employment opportunities.  So, they often were sex workers or did other kinds of illegal work which, of course, put them in even lower public esteem.  On the other hand, they were often asked to perform at public and sacred ceremonies such as weddings because tradition holds that they are devotees, or even descendants, of the goddess Bahuchara Mata, worshipped by Pavaiyaa or the South Indian goddess Renuka.


While the hijras were never a highly esteemed class, they had somewhat more status than they now have.  Experts often attribute the hijras' loss of what little prestige they had to the influence of Western notions about sex, gender and morality. 


Ironically, the first ripples in what could become a sea-change in the lives of people like Madhu may also be coming from Western influence.  Some argue that "transgender" is a Western concept.  Whatever it is, its current iteration is certainly different from ideas about hijra.  Traditionally, hijra were said to have deformed, or simply different, genitalia.  While that is no longer the (or a) working definition in all hijra communities, some still undergo a ceremonial deformation or removal of the testicles and scrotum. 


The old way of defining hijra is probably the reason why the term has often been translated into Western languages as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite".  That makes sense when you realize that, until recently, nearly all definitions of gender identity had to do with whatever was or wasn't between a person's legs. (Why do you think they called it "sex"?)  Now, with about eight decades' worth of gender-reassignment ("sex change") surgeries having been performed, and changes in traditional gender role, definitions of "female" and "male" have more to do with psychology (or, sometimes, spiritual terms).  That, of course, is one reason why many trans people choose not to have the surgeries in spite of the fact that the state of male-to-female work has improved markedly, and why people like me see our surgeries as "the icing on the cake" rather than the very thing that defines us as being in the gender in which we live.


But most of us--I include myself--still check the "F" or "M" box.  I did what I did in order to live as a woman, the way I see myself, although I also understand that I came to live by my identity as a woman in a way very different from the way most other women do.  It is for that reason that I fully support anyone who decides to live outside of the "gender binary", as Pauline Park calls it. 


And, it seems that India has made that a legal option.  So, perhaps, the subcontinent has not merely been influenced by current Western notions about gender and sexuality--it has gone beyond them.  It will be very interesting to see how that  affects the lives of trans people, and everyone else, in India--and whether other countries decide to follow its example.  Perhaps mayors of genders we can't even define--or outside of the notion of gender altogether--will be elected.  How would that change politics, and life?

Trans Man Opens Up In Response To Leelah

As you can imagine, Leelah Alcorn's suicide note--which, along with her blog, was deleted by her mother--touched many of us.

It inspired Alex Shearer, a trans man in Iowa to talk about his life with the Des Moines Register:

Transgender Woman Who Fled Georgia Attacked In San Francisco

"I'm very sorry for the nice man who was enjoying his McDouble when I ran in bleeding and screaming for the police."

It's only the fifth of January, but that statement might be the quote of the year for 2015, and a few more years to come.

It wasn't said by some comic-book character in a cheesy movie.  It was said, apparently, without irony or sarcasm. 

In other words, the one who said it is a much, much better person than I am, or probably will be.  At least, she did a much better job of embodying the principles of Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Mother Teresa or Malala Yousafzai than I ever could.

The person who made that immortal declaration is Samantha Hulsey, a trans woman who grew up in Savannah, Georgia.  You might say she was being a gracious young Southern lady in expressing her sorrow for the man munching on a McDouble.  But I think there's even more than that behind her espousal of compassion in the midst of her own suffering.

She was with her partner, Rae Raucci, when a man harassed them as they were boarding a bus.  "He was saying a lot of hateful things," Hulsey recalled.  When she and Raucci got off the bus, the man ran after them and plunged a steak knife with a 3 1/2" blade into Hulsey's chest.

The bus she and Raucci were boarding was the 49 Muni in the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco.

Yes, you read that right:  San Francisco.  Hulsey moved there from Savannah where, she hoped, she could live openly as a woman.  In Savannah, , "I was bullied and had things thrown at me," she recalled, "but no one tried to kill me."  She, like many others, lived in the City At The End Of The Rainbow with the believing "that sort of thing shouldn't happen here".

Unfortunately, it can happen anywhere.  Yes, even in San Francisco.  As Otis Redding noted, there are some things about Georgia you can't escape on the dock of the bay.

The Truth She Owes Leelah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Give Leelah What She Deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R.I.P. Mario Cuomo

"Vote for Cuomo, not the homo!"

Posters bearing that message lined Queens Boulevard in the days leading up to the 1977 primary to determine the Democratic Party's candidate in that year's election for the mayor of New York City.  

Just about anyone who witnessed that campaign will tell you it was one of the ugliest in his or her memory.  I would concur with them:  That message, believe it or not, wasn't even the meanest or nastiest thing one candidate said about another in that race.

But it was almost certainly one of the sleaziest.  Cuomo--Mario, the father of current New York State governor Andrew--always denied that neither he nor any of his staffers had anything to do with creating or posting that message.  I believe him.  So do most other people, even those who were against everything he stood for, or who simply disliked him.  There was no shortage of either of those kinds of people.

Among them was Ed Koch, who won that primary and the election.  Until the day he died nearly two years ago, he insisted that Mario was responsible but later would say that he "forgave" but "didn't forget."

Rumors about Koch's non-heterosexuality followed him throughout his life.  Even in 1977, in the pre-AIDS flowering of the Gay Liberation movement, such an allegation could have derailed his road to Gracie Mansion; any evidence that it was true would have blocked it altogether.  Even in New York City, there were--and still are--homophobes.  

Now, I just happen to be one of those people who believe that Koch was gay but have never cared about it.  I had other reasons for disliking him and his style of governance, none of which had to do with his actual or perceived proclivities or lifestyle.

The irony is, of course, that Mario Cuomo would have been one of the last people to use a charge of homosexuality against Koch, or anyone else.  If anything, Mario was more unabashedly an ally of LGBT people than his son is.  The reason why same-sex marriage and other LGBT-friendly legislation passed under the younger Cuomo's residence in the Governor's Mansion is that the political and social climate has allowed for it.  

Andrew was elected Governor of New York State in 2010, in the middle of Barack Obama's first term as President.  His father, in contrast, earned his first of three gubernatorial election victories in 1982, just when the effects of Ronald Reagan's alliance with Christian fundamentalists--and his profoundly anti-labor (remember: he fired all of the nation's air traffic controllers when they went on strike the previous year) policies--were re-shaping this country's discourse and governance.  Mario's three terms in Albany coincided with the Presidencies of Reagan and George H.W. Bush, as well as the first two years of Bill Clinton's.  While the latter was nominally a Democrat, he won the 1992 Presidential election by co-opting the policies of Reagan and Bush the Elder.  Mario, on the other hand, stuck to his New Deal Democrat ideals--which, he always said, were an outgrowth of his Christian faith.  

In other words, Andrew has been surfing the tide of history that his father had to swim against.  But, to be fair, it must be said that it wasn't his championing of LGBT rights that cost Mario a fourth term as governor in 1994.  Rather, it was another of his core principles--one that, by the way, caused me to vote for him:  his staunch opposition to capital punishment.  Every year that he was Governor, the State legislature introduced a bill to restore the death penalty in the Empire State.  Every year that he was governor, he vetoed it.  One of the first things his successor, Republican George Pataki, did upon assuming office in 1995 was to sign it.

I think that his steadfast commitment to his principles may have been a major reason why he chose not to run for President, even though his party practically begged him to do so in 1988 and 1992.  If that's the case, his instincts were canny:  Clinton, who stood against much of what Mario believed in, won. 

(Actually, many would argue that Clinton won by not standing for anything at all--and with perhaps-inadvertent help from third-party candidate Ross Perot.  I would not dispute such an argument.)

So, in brief, with Mario Cuomo's death yesterday, this state--and nation--lost who may have been the last true liberal and the last true intellectual, as well as one of the few politicians with any real principles, this country has ever had.  And, oh yes, a champion of LGBT rights before it was fashionable. 

Petition For Leelah's Law

So...What are your wishes for the New Year?

One of mine is that a "Leelah's Law" is passed to ban "conversion therapy" everywhere in the US.

I'll confess that my idea is not original:  Dan Savage has called for it.  And I'm sure someone else thought of such a law before Leelah Alcorn's suicide murder.  Now there's a petition for it on Change.org.  Please sign it! 

Mainstream psychiatric and medical organizations say that "conversion therapy"--which is usually used to try to turn gay people straight ("pray the gay away") but is also sometimes used as an attempt to purge trans people of the notion that they are gender by which they identify themselves--has no basis in scientific or medical research or practice.  In fact, those organizations warn of the potential hazards of "conversion therapy", including the innacurate views about sexual orientation and gender identity that it helps to support, and about the potential damage from the practices involved in the "therapy."  

In fact, the common practices used by "Christian therapists" and others who practice "conversion therapy" are all but never used in any other kind of therapeutic or medical practice.  And, of course, there are concerns about the qualifications of those who practice "conversion therapy".  Some have not engaged in any other kind of practice; in fact, some are not even trained to conduct pyschotherapy or to provide any sort of health care.  This is especially true in some states with lax requirements for licensing--or where people can certify themselves as "counselors" and practice things like "conversion therapy" by giving them other names.

Anyone who practices "conversion therapy" on a minor should be indicted for child abuse; anyone who practices it on an adult should be charged with fraud, at least, and perhaps terrorism.  Finally, I think any parent who forces his or her kid into "conversion therapy" should lose his or her right to be a parent.

An Interesting End To An Interesting Year

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

These are interesting times, indeed!

 

The Murder Of Leelah Alcorn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She Just Wants To Walk Home Night Without Watching Her Back

Even though I am happy to hear that an anti-sodomy law has been overturned, or some government or another has added language to its civil-rights laws to protect transgender or gender-variant people (or "gender identity and expression"), I long ago realized that laws and policies are not, by themselves, sufficient to protect us from physical harm, let alone bias.  And a country's laws and policies are no guarantee of a person's rights or safety in any particular part of that country.

Indonesia is a case in point.  Even though the nation, which is an archipelago straddling the Indian and Pacific Oceans, has no laws against homosexual acts--and its people are generally tolerant--there are parts of the country that are simply dangerous for LGBT people.  In a way, that's not surprising when you consider that Indonesia's population, the fourth largest in the world, includes more Muslims than anywhere else in the world, and among the Islamic community are conservative enclaves that live, in essence, under Sharia law.

One of those areas is the Aceh province, which was so devastated by the tsunami that struck exactly a decade ago this past weekend.  Less than a year later, the province gained autonomy in a special treaty that ended a three-decade old insurgency.  As a result, Aceh can create its own laws, including the one banning homosexual acts, which passed in September.

Authorities have said they'll wait until the end of 2015 to start enforcing it, ostensibly to allow people time to "prepare for it".  But haters don't need that time: Already there have been beatings and gay and trans people have stopped going out in public as couples.  Three years ago, a transgender makeup artist in Banda Aceh was stabbed to death after she held up a stick in response to a man's taunts.  And, Violet Gray, the area's main LGBT organization, began burning documents in October out of fear that they could be raided and put the area's close-knit LGBT community--estimated at about 1000--at risk.

Aceh is often said to be the most conservatively Muslim area of Indonesia:  That is no surprise when one considers that is where the Islamic faith first came to the area.  However, many fear that such restrictive laws and a dangerous climate will not be limited to that province, and that other conservative areas like South Sumatra and East Java could follow Aceh's lead.  Teguh Setyabudi, the Aceh Home Ministry's head of regional autonomy--and a Violet Gray member--expresses hope that the new Aceh law will be overturned (under newly-elected President Joko Widodo) and stop other provinces from enacting similar laws.  

All she wants, she says, is to be able to walk home without watching her back in fear.  "Being like this is a fate, not a choice," she says. "What makes people wearing a jihab and peci"--the woman's traditional veil and the traditional cap worn by Muslim men--" feel so righteous that they can condemn other people as sinful?"

What, indeed?

Israel To Help Transgender Recruits

Israeli has what may well be the tightest conscription laws in the world.  Essentially, every Israeli aged 18 and up is subject to be drafted into the Armed Forces unless he or she can prove a physical or mental disability or is a non-Druze Arab citizen.  Young Israelis typically receive their first draft notice at age 16.

(About twenty years ago, a co-worker of mine who was born in Israel but came to the US at age two went back to visit relatives.  He was just shy of 35 years old.  While waiting to board his flight back to New York, Israeli military police pulled him aside and said that he had to fulfill his requirement of military service.   Fortunately, he was able to prove that he was a US, not an Israeli, citizen.  Still, he nearly missed his flight.)

I won't get into a discussion of Israeli military policies:  That would take up this blog, and a few others!  However, I find it interesting that Israel was one of the first countries to allow gays and lesbians and, later, transgenders, to serve openly in the military.  And now the Israeli Defense Force is taking a step that may well be unprecedented anywhere in the world:  It has adopted a policy aimed, not only at helping transgenders already in the IDF, but also to assist draftees in their gender transitions from the time they receive their first draft notice.

Yes, you read that right:  The IDF will help draftees transition, fully or partially, upon entering the military service.  Teenagers who have not yet begun the process will be recruited according to the sex on their birth certificates but, upon enlisting, will receive assistance with everything they need for their transition--up to an including surgery--and will be addressed according to their preferred gender.

Now, some might say that the Israelis are making such a move out of necessity:  They live in a country about the size of New Jersey, there are about half as many of them as there are Jerseyites and the are surrounded by hostile countries whose populations far outnumber them.

Even if such is the case, the IDF is to be commended.  Probably more than in any other country in the world, military service means integration into society in Israel.  And allowing trans people to serve as the people they are is, in such an environment, a form of validation.

Stranded For Coming Out

People sometimes tell me I'm lucky to be a writer and in the academic world.  They believe--with more than some justification--that "educated" and "creative" people are more receptive, if not welcoming, to transgender people.

Now, if you think I've used a lot of qualifiers in the preceding sentences, you're right and I have good reason for doing so.  On the whole, I probably fared better after "coming out" and starting my transition than I might have in other work environments.  Still, there were people who said and did things that were inappropriate and reflected ignorance if not outright hostility.  Interestingly, I never experienced such treatment from students or fellow writers.  A few faculty members chilled toward me, but most of the difficulties I experienced came from administrators. That may have had more to do with the particular administrators in question than with any general principle.  

Fortunately, I have good relations with my current colleagues.  Some have known me "from the beginning", if you will, while others I met during and since my transition.  

So, perhaps, I can say--as Dan Savage likes to tell LGBT teenagers who are being bullied--"It gets better!"  At least, I'd like to be able to say that to Meredith Talusan.

I've never met her.  In fact, I learned of her only from a news item posted on ABS-CBN News yesterday. She's a graduate student in literature at Cornell University, where she recently applied for a professional position.  As a scholarship student, she's entitled to free on-campus housing and meals.

But now she may lose those--and, perhaps, her scholarship and standing as a student.  No, she didn't fail a class or miss a deadline.  Rather, she had the temerity to protest the harassment she experienced from her housemate and, apparently, others in the university community.  She says people heckle her with comments like "You're a man dressed as a woman!" and "You lost your penis!"

What makes her situation all the more disconcerting, at least for her, is that she's thousands of miles from her home in the Philippines. During an impromptu protest she and some friends staged against her mistreatment, they chanted, "This is what democracy looks like!"  

Like so many who come from faraway countries to work and study in the US, she works hard toward her goal of "a better life".  But her path to that life has been detoured, at least for now, as she was suspended from the house in which she'd been living and has been denied access to meals.  But she has refused to leave and has filed an appeal.