Bri Golec: Murdered By Her Father, Misidentified By Him And Local News Media

People have told me that I'm a good storyteller. Whatever may narrative skills may be, I don't think they account for the tears some people shed when I told them about some of the young people who participated in a group I co-facilitated for two years.

They were young trans people, most in their teens but a few in their early 20's.  Some had begun to take hormones; others had literally just gotten off buses or vehicles on which they hitched (or performed acts no one should have to do to get) from Alabama and Nebraska and other places I can scarcely even imagine.

Some had been kicked out of their homes when they "came out" or simply were caught wearing clothes or engaging in behaviors not considered appropriate for someone of their birth gender.

And they were the lucky ones.  Others were assualted, raped or otherwise endangered by family members. One literally ran out the door steps ahead of a mother who chased him (a trans male) with a knife.

That is why stories like that of Bri Golec enrage, but do not surprise, me. The 22-year-old was stabbed to death in Ohio by her father, who told investigators that his "son" belonged to a cult and that members invaded his home and attacked.

But Kevin Golec wasn't the only one who misidentified the gender of his child.  So did every local media outlet, according to the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents blog.

Murdered Trans Women Of Color Remembered On Valentine's Day

Depending on which sources you trust, a transgender person is anywhere from 10 to 116 times as likely to be murdered as a typical person in the US.

I don't know how likely the 116 figure is.  But I would bet that 10 times is a low number, given that crimes against transgender people are disproportionately unreported.

As if those numbers aren't bad enough, a trans woman of color is (again, depending on who you believe) anywhere from twice to twelve times as likely to be murdered as any other trans person.

One reason for the risks trans women of color face is that, in addition to bearing the double stigma of falling outside accepted gender norms and being of the "wrong" race, they disproportionately live in high-crime areas such as impoverished urban neighborhoods and parts of the South where there is easy access to guns.

Parts of cities like St. Louis and New Orleans happen to fit into both categories.  So it's unsurprising (though still tragic) that Penny Proud, a black transgender woman, was found shot to death early Tuesday morning in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans.

Thus, it's heartening to see that yesterday, Valentine's Day, a group of people gathered in the Central West End of St. Louis to honor transgender women of color and denounce the violence against them.

Even with greater public acceptance of transgender people, the violence against us continues and, for trans women of color, seems to be escalating.  In 2014, thirteen transgenders were murdered in the US.  In the first six weeks of 2015, five transgender women of color have already been killed in this country.

Some might argue that the numbers are higher because more crimes are being reported, or because more of the victims are identified as transgender and not solely by their assigned-at-birth gender, as has been the tradition.  Even if that is the case, though, we are being disproportionately attacked and killed, and it's even worse for trans women of color.

All Hearts Day Cards

For some of us, today, Valentine's Day, can be as depressing as other holidays that are centered around heterosexual love and family relationships.  In some ways, this day can be even worse than Christmas and Thanksgiving are because almost all of its trappings are based on cis- and hetero-normative (I promise not to use that term again for a long time) rituals and behaviors.  And the same sorts of people who accuse us of wanting special treatment make a point of being as obnoxious as possible when fondling each other in places that charge too much for oysters and champagne.

Plus, this "holiday" is even more commercialized than the others.  I take that back:  The others were hijacked by corporations to make people feel guilty for not buying their useless, overpriced shit and giving it to people they pretend to care about.  Even so, most people have some vague notion of what those holidays are supposed to celebrate.  On the other hand, Valentine's Day as we know it, is entirely a creation of the greeting-card, candy, lingerie and other industries, almost nobody realizes that this day was originally a feast day for St. Valentine, who has almost nothing to do with the notions of "love" fetishized on this day

To counter this, artist Alexandra Dean Grossi has created a set of free e-cards celebrating "All Hearts Day":

 


 








 

Hormone Treatments Approved For Chelsea Manning

You've probably heard the old joke:  An example of an oxymoron is
"military intelligence".

Or this:  "There are three ways to do anything:  the right way, the wrong way and the Army way."

They have been told so often, and for so long, by veterans as well as currently-serving members of the Armed Forces because, well, there's at least a germ of truth in them.  So, when some high-ranking officer acts with common sense and courage, it shocks even the most jaded folks who wear, or have ever worn, the uniform.

That is what Col. Erica Nelson did in writing a memo last week. She's the commandant of the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks in Kansas.

Knowing that, you might have figured out the purpose and subject of her memo.  Leavenworth's most famous inmate at the moment is none other than Chelsea, nee Bradley, Manning.  And, yes, she did what we (or at least I) have hoped she would do:  She approved Manning for hormone treatments.

She is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks.  After her sentencing, she announced her intention to live as female under the name Chelsea.  She later sued for hormone treatments; the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been representing her, argued that she is entitled to them as part of the Army's obligation to provide medical care.  Since the Army, like all of the other branches of the Armed Forces, does not allow transgender people to serve, it does not provide hormone treatments.  And since Manning is still a soldier, the Army argued, she is not entitled to it, although the Veteran's administration provides such treatments to veterans who begin their transitions after leaving the military. 

It will be interesting to see whether Col. Nelson's action will be part of a larger change in the military, especially since Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said, in December, that the ban on transgender troops is likely to be assessed and should be lifted.

Perhaps there is military intelligence after all!
 

A Paralell Universe?

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Coming Out" Opens The Door To Better Health

I often wish that I could have "come out" as trans earlier in my life--say, in my adolescence or even early adulthood.  I think of the years I "missed", being unable to live as the person I am.  And I always suspected that I would have had an easier time of living as a woman--especially in my early years in my true gender--had I started sooner.

Of course, there are many reasons why I didn't.  For one thing, I didn't think I was anything like Christine Jorgensen or Renee Richards, the only transsexual women I heard about when I was growing up.  I didn't understand that there were all sorts of ways of being a transsexual woman, let alone a woman, period.  Also, even though I have had relations with males, I always knew that my primary attraction is to women.  According to the conventional wisdom of the time, a "true" trans woman was attracted--and, for that matter, attractive--only to men.

Plus, there was a great deal more overt hostility toward people who didn't fit the prevailing notions of gender and sexuality.  The only reason why I wasn't bullied or harassed even more than I had been was that I was involved in sports and kept up a masculine facade.

One of the results of being in the closet was that I drank heavily and dabbled in drugs in my early adult life.  I also had difficulty forming and keeping relationships--a problem I still have now.

I don't think anything I've just said would surprise Stephen Russell.  He's an expert on adolescent mental health at the University of Arizona at Tuscon.  The American Journal of Orthopsychiatry has just published a study, of which Russell is the lead author, indicating that LGBT adolescents who are open about their sexuality and gender identity have higher self-esteem and suffer from less depression as adults. 

As almost everyone knows, depression can lead to other mental as well as physical health problems, including substance abuse, not to mention suicide attempts.  So, I think it's fair to say that anyone who "comes out" as a teenager is likely to be more healthy in general as an adult.

I Will Be There In Spirit...Really

I know I haven't mentioned "two-spirited" people much on this blog.  I have avoided that because although I wouldn't necessarily identify as one, I feel that I can identify with them.

In other words, I feel that I am related, in some way, to them because I do not fit into American culture's dominant ideas about gender and sexuality.  I was born with a male body and female spirit.  That spirit needs to live fully, which is the reason why I transitioned from life as Nick to living as Justine.

And, yes, I am masculine in some ways. Some of that has to do with the body into which I was born; some of it is a matter of education and acculturation.  But, in spirit, I see myself as female.

Perhaps my conception of myself is congruent with how two-spirited people see themselves and are seen by their communities.  Even if that were the case, though, I would be reluctant to identify myself as two-spirited simply because the concept of it has a cultural context.  And I am completely outside of it, just as I am not part of the South Asian cultures in which hijras live.

Still, I have great respect and empathy for the two-spirited people and know there's much I can learn from them.  That is the reason why I am happy they are having a pow-wow that's open to the public this Saturday in San Francisico's Cow Palace.

 

Speaking Out Against Domestic Abuse

I don't watch awards shows.  Well, all right, I don't watch TV these days.  But even when I was tied to the tube, I didn't pay attention to the Grammys, Oscars or any of the others.

So I missed Obama's anti- domestic abuse message at last night's Grammys, or the speech by Brooke Axtell that followed.  But someone passed them on to me:

Taja DeJesus Murdered In SF: If We're Not Safe There, Where Are We?

A Jewish man whose parents survived the Holocaust once told me that the only time he ever felt safe was when he was in Israel.

I mention that, not to take a side in the conflicts that tear that part of the world, but to relate something I thought about as I heard some more terrible news.

Taja DeJesus was raised in San Jose but moved to San Francisco because of the greater acceptance of transgender people found in the City By The Bay.  Some in our community think of it as our Israel, if you will.

She was found with stab wounds on McKinnon Avenue in the city's Bayview district around 9 last Sunday morning.  Authorities are not calling her murder a hate crime.  According to anonymous sources, the suspect was found dead, an apparent suicide, behind a warehouse not far from where De Jesus's body was found.

Even in a city with a reputation like San Francisco's, there are areas--Bayview being one of them--where trans people aren't accepted or that are simply dangerous.  Lord knows we have such places here in NYC.  Even the "gayborhoods" aren't always safe for trans people.  Actually, they can be even more dangerous because thugs come from other parts, and outside, of the city, specifically to get their thrills from bashing actual or perceived LGBT people.

Perhaps we need a place an Israel:  You know, a place where we can go and be accepted for who we are--or at least be reasonably sure that we won't experience bigotry or bullying, or get killed, just for being who we are. 

 

Denying Access--To Whom? For What Purpose?

Let's see...The most common crimes in Florida are drug offenses, theft, assault, driving under the influence and aggravated assault.

And HB583 will address those crimes....how? 

Frank Artiles, a Republican (surprise, surprise) member of the Florida House of Representatives and self-described Christian (more suprise) has introduced the bill on Wednesday.  A committee assignment is pending.

If the bill becomes law, people would be required to use bathrooms and other public facilities designated according to the gender they were assigned at birth.  A person caught using the "wrong" facilities would face charges.

Artiles claims his bill is a "public safety measure".  He added--here's something Bartlett should include--"I truly believe your anatomy dictates where you should go to the bathroom".

Hmm...Now I'm confused. Perhaps you could clarify, Mr. Artiles.  The "M" box was checked on my birth certificate.  But now I have a vagina and clitoris.  And I've grown a pair, such as they are.  So, my anatomy says...

Oh, here's another complicating factor:  My birth certificate now says that I'm female.  It was changed, after my surgery, to reflect my gender and new name.  In what Godless liberal hellhole was that allowed to happen?  

Well, I'll give you a hint:  It's north of Florida.  No surprise there, right?  It is such a bastion of European-style libertinism and fiscal irresposibility that it named one of its major university cities Athens and another fairly large city is called Rome.  

It sounds like a terrible place, doesn't it, to an upright Christian man like you.  I'm sure you don't want to do business there or expose your family to its terrors.  I'm sure that a man with your virtue, erudition and wisdom can guess what that place is.

New York, where I live?  Nope.  Massachusetts?  Try again.  OK, I'll tell you:  the State of Georgia, where I was born.  Somehow the folks in the Peachtree State's Department of Vital Records had no problem realizing that I am, in fact, female.

So, Mr. Artiles, perhaps you could tell us how your proposed law will be enforced.  Will we have to present our birth certificates to enter public facilities?  Will there be security cameras that can see through clothing, like the ones airports have?  

Acrually, Mr. Legislator, I hope that you aren't thinking about those cameras.  After all, you aren't a good Christian man?  Then why would you want to see me in all of my nakedness?

Mr. Artiles, perhaps you should reconsider HR583.  Perhaps you can explain to us just how it will protect your wife, your mother, your daughters and all other female residents of the Sunshine State--including my mother--from attack by sexual predators?  And, when I go out to have lunch with Mom, do you think I'm going to the restaurant's facilities to peep under the dresses of retirees or molest their granddaughters?  Do you really believe I'm even capable of the latter?

Mr. Artiles, perhaps you can clarify.

Mary Lambert's Wish

You heard her on "Same Love", that powerful song about gay marriage that became a surprise number one hit for the hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis two years ago.





Having just released her new solo album, Heart On My Sleeve, the singer-songwriter says that she would like to see trans people more accurately represented.  That would "make it easier, I think, on a lot of people who may be struggling in transitioning".  

She says that often, when watches "something that's supposed to represent a trans person", she thinks, "God, you missed it.  You missed it.  You had a great opportunity".

Even if I didn't love her singing, I'd love to hear more from her just for talking about misrepresentations of trans people as a missed "opportunity"!

I Hope It Doesn't Take This To Make You A Man (Or A Woman)!

In other posts, I have described how I, and other trans people, were motivated to transition by moments or incidents in which we realized that our only other choice was death.  

Other trans people have been motivated to transition by near-death experiences:  They realized that they would have been memorialized and buried in the gender to which they were assigned at birth rather than that of their true selves.

But Thomas Page McBee's near-death experience caused him to "come out" as transgender.  As the author of Man Alive tells the story, he was mugged by someone who pereceived that he was presenting himself as a man.  But, in the course of the attack, the attacker came to believe that a then-pre-transition McBee was not presenting as a male and let him go.

"I had a gut feeling that this had to do with me not being perceived as a male," he says.  That sense was later confirmed for McBee when the attacker went on to kill another man in a very similar kind of incident.

That experience, terrible as it was, helped him to unravel his gender identity and masculinity. He soon realized that the way other people were perceiving him wasn't the same as the way he was perceiving himself.  Soon afterward, he came out as transgender.

Here, he talks about the experience with Ricky Camilleri:

What Money Couldn't Do

If I ever hear anyone say, "Gender is learned" or "Gender is performative" again, I'll scream.  Trust me, you don't want to hear that.

I can't understand how anyone who knows the story of David Reimer can utter such nonsense.  He--originally named Bruce-- and his identical twin brother Brian  were born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 22 May 1965.  At six months, concerns were raised about how both of them urinated.  They were diagnosed with phimosis and, as a result, circumcision was recommended. However, only Bruce underwent the procedure, which a urologist did by the unconventional method of cauterization.  It went horribly wrong, and Bruce's penis was burned beyond repair.  Brian's condition cleared up without surgery.

The parents, worried about Bruce's prospects for future happiness and sexual function without a penis, consulted with John Money, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.  At that time, Johns Hopkins was the chief center for research on gender identity disorders and of gender reassignment surgery.  Money was an early and prominent proponent of the idea that gender is learned and believed, as most practitioners did at the time, that a penis could not be replaced but a satisfactory vagina could be constructed.  Not surprisingly, he believed that Reimer could achieve a more satisfactory life as a female and recommended that he undergo gender reassignment surgery.  So, at the age of 22 months, Bruce's testes were surgically removed.  

He was renamed Brenda and underwent years of hormone treatments and attempts to socialize him as a girl.  According to Reimer, Dr. Money forced him and Brian to play sexual roles, with Bruce/Brenda on bottom, as he believed this would help both of them develop "healthy adult gender identity."  His parents made him wear frilly dresses in the harsh Canadian prairie winters.

Through it all, Bruce/Brenda always idenitified as a boy.  Never once, he said, did he believe himself to be a girl.  He fell into a deep depression and, at age thirteen, threatened to commit suicide if he were forced to see Dr. Money again.  His parents then told him the truth about his gender identity, and at age fourteen started to live as male and assumed the name David.  Later, he would undergo testosterone treatments, a double masectomy and a phalloplasty to reverse the effects of his estrogen treatments and earlier gender-reassignment surgery.

One of the cruel ironies of this story is that his brother Brian was, if anything, more "feminine", at least in the way people would define that term. Brian was gentle, introspective and had little interest in masculine pursuits.  In contrast, Bruce was, in the words of John Colapinto--who wrote As Nature Made Him:  The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl--"a hellraiser".  Brian died of an overdose of antidepressants in 2002, as David was dealing with unemployment and difficult relationships with his parents and wife, whose three children he adopted.    On 2 May 2004, his wife told him she wanted to separate; two days later, David committed suicide.

As Colapinto points out, as terrible as this case is, it doesn't provide an answer of "nature" to the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Some people believe that a case like David's--or, for that matter, his brother's-- proves that gender is entirely a function of the genitalia one has at birth.  However, I think--based on my own experience and that of trans people I've known--that however we come to the way we identify ourselves--whether we're born with it or come to it in infancy, early childhood or whenever--no amount of behavior modification, pharmaceutical treatments or surgery will change it.  I identified as female, even when I didn't voice it, about as far back as I can remember.  And no attempt to "make me a man" could change it.

Here is an interview Colapinto gave on Canadian television:

She Chased O.J.

She chased O.J. Simpson.

No, I'm not talking about a Buffalo Bills cheerleader during the 1970s, or some Hollywood starlet.

I'm talking about the chopper pilot who tracked the (in)famous slow-speed chase behind O.J.'s Ford Bronco in 1984.

Now she's back--except that she looks a bit different from those days.  And that's not just a result of age.

You see, back then, Zoe Tur was Bob Tur. Now she's a reporter with "Inside Edition":  the first transgender to hold such a job in the US.

Well, that's better news than the news she was chasing that day more than two decades ago!

By The Numbers, Again

This is for anyone who thinks that our pleas for equality are demands for "special treatment":

Same Shit, Different Coast: Trans Woman Michelle Vash Payne Murdered In L.A.

If I were more jaded, I'd say it's the same old story.

But since a life was ended in a horrible, brutal way, I won't be so blase.  

Still, we've heard it too many times:  A trans woman found dead in her apartment.  Boyfriend is prime suspect.

This time, instead of Ridgewood (about two neighborhoods  away from mine), New York, the scene is on the other coast:  in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles, California.

There, firefighters forced their way into an apartment.  After quickly putting out a fire in a rear bedroom, they found the body of Michelle Vash Payne on the kitchen floor.

But, from the looks of things, her death had nothing to do with the fire:  She had been stabbed and a murder weapon was recovered at the scene.

About an hour before the firefighters came, neighbors said they heard arguing in the apartment, into wich Payne and her boyfriend had recently moved.  However, nobody called the police.

Perhaps I'm ignorant of police procedures, but I find it a little odd that the suspect's name or photo hasn't been released, although a physical description was given and he's said to be her boyfriend.

We're Not "Confused"

I have often been asked whether I "always felt that way",

The answer is, of course, yes.  Actually, I have to qualify that:  I always knew I was a girl.  I managed, with varying degrees of failure, to suppress my identity and be the man I was "supposed to" become by playing sports, taking lots of math and science courses, dating girls, getting married, being in the Army and any number of things you can think of.

Some have asked me whether I was "confused".  Had I expressed, when I was very young, a desire to transition--if indeed I knew what that was!--I probably would have been told I was confused.  Some would have said it in a condescending way, others in an imperative tone and still others with belligerence.  Actually, I experienced all of those things when I started my transition in my 40s, so I can only imagine how things would have been in my twenties or teens.

The answer to whether I was, or am, confused is "no".  Even when I was doing well at "manly" things, and being praised and rewarded for it, I did not take it well.  If I was, and am, confused about anything, it's about getting positive feedback for anything because, so often, I got it for being inauthentic.

But, as far as my gender identity goes, I am clear about that.  And that's why I don't regret my transition or my surgery, though I wish I didn't have to experience some of what I've gone through since then.

According to an article in Medical News Today, I am typical. ("I am typical":  When did I ever think I would say that?)  That article reported a new study, soon to be published in Psychological Science, saying that the gender identity is "deeply held and consistent, rather than the result of confusion as many have previously maintained".  

The study used implicit measures as well as conscious self-reporting in an effort to understand the identity of transgender children.

According to that study, a child's transgender identity is not the result of "pretense" or a desire to shock or rebel.  

Now, of course, that doesn't mean that every boy who tries on his mother's clothes is a trans woman, any more than it means that a trans girl's femaleness can be beat out of her.  It means that those who are trans will identify that way, whether or not they have a means to express it and, by implication, those who are "experimenting" will quickly "grow out of it".  At least, that's how I read the results of that study.

I hope I cleared up some confusion with this post!

Faith And Hope In The Face Of Rejection

Some people believe they can overcome anything with their faith.  Perhaps that's true; I have no doubt that belief in God (or whatever they choose to call Him/Her/It) or simply supernatural forces helps them to deal with difficult situations and painful emotions.

Diego Neria Lejarraga is such a person.  "I never lost faith, ever," he said.  "But the other thing is the rejection."

A few days ago, he had a private audience with Pope Francis I.  This meeting was a first for any Pontiff because Diego was born a girl in Spain, where he is a civil servant. 

What makes this all the more interesting is that Lejarraga is not an activist and, he didn't go into his meeting with any notion that he would change the church.  But, he said, he was impressed with how Francis "loves the whole world" and does not have "any discrimination against anyone."  But, Lejarraga added, he was "speaking about him, and not the institution".

Still, he holds out hope that "if this Pope has a long life...I think things will change".

Perhaps some day I will have that kind of faith.

Maybe He's A Cop In Ohio

Dominick used to talk about becoming a cop.   He was about as suited for that work as I am to be an accountant.  I always suspected that his wish had something to do with being bullied as a kid:  As a cop, he would've had a weapon and the authority to inflict on others what was inflicted on him.  

Maybe he realized that dream after all, though not in New York.  

In Lakewood, Ohio, a transgender woman was arrested for shoplifting. During her questioning, an officer played Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady."

Hmm...When I ended my relationship with Dominick, he called every day and played that song.  When I didn't pick up his call, he left the song on my voice mail.  In doing that, of course, he confirmed one of the reasons why I broke it off:  his immaturity.  And he revealed what I always suspected to be his real attitude about me, and trans people.

Everyone told me to ignore him.  I did, but he escalated his harassment for the next two years:  The dumb jokes and slurs turned into spreading false rumors about me and threatening that he would make my life so miserable that a refrigerator box would seem like the Waldorf-Astoria.

Well, if he's in Ohio or someplace else, I should count my blessings--but pity the next trans person who crosses his path.

Workers' Rights=LGBT Rights

Some would argue--and I would be inclined to agree--that the most important speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave was "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam".  Delivered one year, to the day, before he was murdered, it expresses something that had become more apparent to him throughout his life:  All struggles for justice are related. As he said, you can't oppose racial prejudice in the United States (or anywhere else) and support killing people of a different race in another country.  Likewise, if you believe people deserve to be treated fairly and equally, whatever their race or gender or religion or sexual orientation, you also must believe  that people deserve to be paid a fair living wage for doing a day's work.

That is why something I came across would have made perfect sense to him:  Workers' rights are tied to LGBT rights, and vice-versa.  I am not simply repeating a nice ideal:  There are statistics to prove it.  Those numbers indicate that union workers are three times as likely as non-union workers to have domestic partner health care coverage and twice as likely to have survivor benefits for their domestic partners.

From National LGBT Taskforce blog