The 3 R's in Mass.: Rights, Religion And Restroom Fixations

"After complaints that there was a man in the woman's bathroom, a bouncer approached her stall and asked Ms. [Khadijah] Farmer to leave. The masculine lesbian has now filed a lawsuit ... to stop "sex stereotyping in public accommodation." After all, the toilet should not see gender, but flush feces with fairness.

[I]f you dress like a dude and alter your appearance so you look like one, you run the risk of people taking you for something you're not." — Greg Gutfeld, host of FOX News' Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld

Yesterday the state of Massachusetts had public hearings again regarding their non discrimination bill covering "gender identity or gender expression" pending before the legislature. Numerous Trans community members and their family members testified (and a special kudos to Ellen Hurn for her courageous testimony!)

Nicknamed the "Tranny bill," the "Bathroom bill" and "an important part of the Homosexual Lobby's agenda," the bill in this "most liberal state" as Rep. Barney Frank denotes has gotten national attention from the 19th century-minded groups and their press vehicles.

The Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) has begun running radio ads warning mothers that they may no longer want to let their young daughters use public restrooms because "Beacon Hill is about to make it legal for men to use women's bathrooms."

"There's no restrictions in this bill as to what opposite gender can use the facility. We're not going to be able to police this," said Kris Mineau, president of MFI. "There's no pre-requirement of surgery or appearance or anything else."

Mineau said the bill would make it easier for the thousands of registered sex offenders in Massachusetts to gain access to children and women in public restrooms by claiming they are transgender.

Clearly there are a number of flaws in Mineau and MFI's convoluted logic. Foremost is that sexual predators tend to hang around where children congregate – places like parks and game rooms, the malls or adjacent to school grounds. Since when did America's daughters start hanging out at the public restrooms? Typically they are preyed upon when their defenses are down, and to do so, predators have to find situations that are sublime and seemingly innocent, such as being approached by the adult male in a park or near the school looking for a lost dog, or in a mall asking for directions to a store.

How sublime and disarming do they think it will be for their daughters to be approached by an adult male in a women's restroom and have him "get the drop on them?" Seriously?

Additionally, If they're felonious sexual predators, then being genteel about appropriate restrooms is the last thing weighing on their mind. If they're in the mood to commit such an act, then a "Ladies" sign or a female silhouette icon on the door won't be stopping their quest: Trans identity my ass! It'll be "damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!"

If they're so concerned about sex-segregating the bathrooms to the Nth degree as per their birth certificates regardless of what gender someone presents as in public, then where does this end? Will we now need laws declaring male and female bathrooms in every home in America? We can't use the same restroom! Oh, that's right! It's family! There's no such thing as family incest or molestation, is there? Yeah, right!

And since it's the parks, game rooms and malls that attract both young daughters and those sex-offenders following them waiting for an opportunity, will sex-segrated malls be next? How about sex-segregating parks and playgrounds too? Don't want men around those places. There have even been infrequent incidences of daughters being molested or being preyed upon where people pray! As in churches! So should we also begin sex-segregating churches in order to keep daughters as far away from all men as possible? Lord knows there's a higher occurrence of these incidences from "men of the cloth" and Sunday School teachers than there are with Trans women. If it's a potential threat, segregate them all stringently beforehand – don't wait!

With all this segregation by the sexes, maybe the orthodox Sunnis in Saudi Arabia are onto something with that concept of "only men" and "only women" in various public functions. Perhaps America's family associations need to look to them for successful models to follow?

"Who is a hero? He who conquers his urges." — the Talmud

Another little kink in their seemingly impeccable logic on concerns of "men in restrooms" identifying as Trans women: we're on hormones! No, I'm not talking about crying jags or getting emotional ... think back for a minute. Back in the day, they used to prescribe estrogen as a kind of "chemical castration" for those who used to be convicted of first- or lesser offenses of sexual violations. The reason was simple: it greatly tamped down the male libido (as well as other feminizing side effects).

So now that there are male-to-female transsexuals and pre-ops who have self-castrated, chemically speaking, what is it these MFI types think we're going to get the notion to do in the public restrooms? Sex? From our over-nourished, female-hormoned "male" libidos? Really?

Instead they insist upon these female-appearing folks going into the men's room. Where their young sons may well be. That'll be an interesting conversation! At the same time, folks like Ethan St. Pierre (below) will be forced to use the women's room. Yep, this is what the conservatives want to push into the women's room with your daughters: take a peek at what this will look like!


Of course the Big Gay Man on the Hill, Barney Frank, isn't anywhere to be found on this bathroom discourse. He's not been very helpful to us on this subject in the past, and now that the current Congress is gearing up for Don't Ask, Don't Tell (and that touchy subject about shower usage amongst G.I.'s straight and gay, it's a subject he'll avoid at all costs about now.) But it begs the question: when sexual orientation discrimination was outlawed, was there a sudden surge in bathroom predators stalking kids in public restrooms? Nope? So much for that big fear about nothing ... maybe Trans rights will bring the same results, ya know?

"And you knew who you were then!
Girls were girls and men were men.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again!" — Those Were The Days (Theme Song for "All In The Family") sung by Jean Stapleton & Carroll O'Connor

Not to be outdone by restrooms, Timothy Tracey, a lawyer with the conservative Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, told members of the Committee on the Judiciary that the bill infringes on the religious rights of those who believe that men and women are different.

"The First Amendment mandates that no individual should be required to affirm, in act, word, or deed, that a man is a woman, or a woman is a man, against their sincerely held religious beliefs," Tracey said. "Yet this is precisely what (the bill) will do."

Mr. Tracey's obviously a sharp-eyed trial lawyer, but a crock of crap is still a crock of crap no matter who serves it up. There is nothing in this bill taking away his freedom of openly worshiping how he pleases, which is what the First Amendment covers. I'm unsure what religion it is that worships men being men and women being women, but rest assured that they will still be able to openly declare that they worship men being men and women being women after this bill is passed!

Meanwhile it will also ensure that those to don't believe in people who change gender or accepting them shall not abridge the beliefs and acts of other religions who, as Jesus noted to his disciples that "the call isn't for everyone" and, indeed, even eunuchs (both those born in the womb as so, and those castrati of that era) could follow the call – could follow Jesus. Some people actually believe in all of Jesus' teachings from the Four Gospels and wish to respect that, even if the folks Mr. Tracey represents wish to ignore and deny His words.

Some people believe in the Golden Rule: treating others as you would wish to be treated. Mr. Tracey represents folks who eschew that. No matter. It only means that the folks Mr. Tracey advocates for don't deny ability for others to worship and believe as they do, where everyone should be treated as equals without full considerations for a special group, and lesser considerations for the others left out. Mr. Tracey and others can continue defying the Golden Rule as per their religious beliefs.

This stuff really gets exasperating. It's amazing the lengths to which people will go to not only validate but to keep their irrational fears enshrined as the law of the land. Miscegenation, women as lesser humans, slavery, even mistrust of other different religions, all these things used to be controlled by laws of the land because of phobia: fear that those in power just cannot get beyond.

Let's hope this time that fears once again will not triumph over the courage of doing what's right. Lord knows that in this "most liberal state" in the Union, courage by even liberals in their own bastion has been in preciously short supply.

"If I were King of the Forest – not queen, not duke, not prince –
My regal robes of the forest would be satin, not cotton, not chintz.
I'd command each thing, be it fish or fowl....
Though my tail would lash, I would show compash
For every underling!
If I, if I ... were King!" — If I Were The King Of The Forest sung by Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion of the "Wizard of Oz"

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare." — Mark Twain

It's Marriage Mania In Maniacal America

"I'm goin' coconuts but least I'm goin' my way.
I'll probably be here when that sun goes down.
Goin' crazy, ooh, from the heat!" — Goin' Crazy, David Lee Roth

Maybe it's just the unending heatwave in Texas, where any day below triple digits actually feels slightly chilly, but it seems to my overcooked brain that both sides on this same-sex marriage tug-of-war are coming down with a chronic case of the wackies. Or maybe it's just a sizzling hot summer everywhere and it's not just me – everyone's losing it.

Marriage mania is in full bloom, and Pennsylvania joined the litany of states pushing for marriage recognition for same-sex couples. Amazingly marriage didn't get forced down the throat of President Barack Obama when the 300 some-odd LGBT leaders and their partners were invited to the White House for a private reception. However, just this week both Massachusetts and Oregon filed suit claiming the Feds violate their federalist states' rights by DOMA's effect on their states' ability to make independent decisions on marriage rights.

Meanwhile the California suit against the Feds has gotten interesting. Initially when this was filed (including one attorney who offered to press the issue who was also part of the Bush legal team who filed suit successfully to place Bush in the presidency post-Florida 2000 election results!) it was thought that things were looking rather rosy. Even LGBT organization heads from groups such as Lambda Legal, the ACLU's LGBT Rights Project and the National Center for Lesbian Rights all stepped up and encouraged all other groups to take a back seat in order not to complicate or jeopardize the pending suit. "Ill-timed lawsuits could set the fight for marriage back."

Well that was then. This is now. It seems these same three groups are now filing amicus briefs to intervene to allow PFLAG, Lavender Seniors of the East Bay and Our Family Coalition to file suit with the Supreme Court as well. (And they all thought we Trans folk couldn't get on the same page or being politically "realistic"!

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), who was leading the charge in Federal Court, wrote a pointed letter back to the three above mentioned groups, noting how they had all initially worked collaboratively on the project and anguishing over actions and quotes in the media from these other players that they felt "undermine" the case and the goal which they were all working towards.

Not only were they there first on this suit, AFER worries that this case "could be mired in procedurally convoluted pre-trial maneuvering for years—while and gay and lesbian individuals in California continue to suffer the daily indignity of being denied their federal constitutional right to marry the person of their choosing." I've attached a photocopy of the full letter from AFER to the parties below. It's, um, interesting:


So what are they trying to do here – out-compete each other for top attention and ego strokes? Or maybe bog it down in order to slow the process (and maybe milk more donations while it continues?) No matter! At least everyone's on the same page and it's all in the firm capable hands of our professionals in leadership of the gay and lesbian community! Lord knows if Trans people got a hold of it, it'd be a confusing mess, hmmm? Yeah, that's what they say ....

"What is important in life is life, and not the result of life." — German playwright, Johann von Goethe

Of course, not to be outdone on trying to conspicuously blunder and lose, the opposition is also working hard to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory! It was bad enough that a FOX commentator compared the same-sex marriage issue to bestiality a la Pat Robertson and so many others. That's actually old-hat stuff now! Get the latest on the intra-species marriage issue from FOX (again)!

This was actually reporting on a story of a Swedish study that found that marriage was good for couples in that it kept them from dementia and Alzheimer's disease with absolutely not connotations on same-sex couplings at all. Yet their own Freudian mentality just keeps slipping out as on FOX & Friends morning show, we heard this from one of their triad of morning hosts, Brian Kilmeade:

BRIAN KILMEADE: I'm just amazed that they thought about doing this study in the – by interviewing people in the 1970s and the 1980s.

DAVE BRIGGS: A little dated, you think?

KILMEADE: The average is 50, and they see that they keep it together. I find this – I find this somewhat ....

BRIGGS: Go ahead.

KILMEADE: Different. Leave it to the Finns and Swedes to some up with something. They literally –

GRETCHEN CARLSON: Don't look at me, pal.

KILMEADE: Because that's a – we are – we're – we're a – we're – we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other....

CARLSON: Are you sure they're not suffering from some of the causes of dementia right now?

KILMEADE: I mean, the Swedes ....

BRIGGS: What are you getting at?

KILMEADE: See, the problem is, the Swedes have pure genes.

BRIGGS: OK.

KILMEADE: Because they marry other Swedes because that's the rule. Finland – Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody.

That's right folks! Intra-species marriage is already here in America! As Kilmeade noted: "we keep marrying other species and other ethnics ... the problem is the Swedes have pure genes (ah! gotta watch them! the Master Race people!) ... Because they marry other Swedes because that's the rule. Finland – Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody." This is rife with alarmist xenophobia!

And marrying "other species"? Really? Are they buying that Georgia freak's Obama-as-Curious-George-the-Chimp T-shirt fetish as scientific fact? What a serious media outlet FOX has turned out to be, huh? It sure sorta hearkens back to the old miscenegation days from what I can see, all this concern about America's "intra-species" marriage and breeding! Wow.

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it with faulty arguments." — Friedrich Nietzsche

But if that's not wacky enough, it gets crazier! From no less than Washington DC, home of Marion Barry who supports everything EXCEPT for his staunch disapproval of same-sex marriage (and subsequent arrest this week for stalking – way to drive home the point of morals, Mr. Ex-Mayor!), we have testimony on the DC consideration of accepting same-sex marriage as law of the district from Rev. Leroy Swailes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFFYYjWjVuE


This one has to be seen to be believed. I can't make this stuff up, folks! Some of the reverend's philosophical proferrings are:

"You have human rights and you have inhuman rights. When a man dealing with a man and a woman dealing with another man, that's inhuman." Make sense of that logic!

Discrimination's a negative and a postive. ... I came out of my mama's womb like I didn't have a choice. That was a negative discrimination." Yeah, I guess you didn't have a choice ... unless you managed to self-abort! Is this an advertisement for abortion?

"If you discriminate against a homosexual that's a positive. Why? Because of children. You've got people they call pedophiles.... When you look in the eyes of a child and tell them "sex is between Adam and Adam, and Eve and Eve," that's a pedophile." Wow, it's that simple? And all this time I thought it was about something physical, like molestation or at least child nudity. What was I thinking!

"This book here talk [sic] about 'All Families Are Different' has to do with what? You have God's family, which is a natural family, and you have Antichrist's family." Yeah, all Godly families have to "be like us." That's exactly what the racist white families used to think during the days of Jim Crow, too, and they believed that the Bible told them where everyone else's family fell. It must be said that Rev. Swailes is African-American though his logic is eerily familiar, harkening back to those bad old days.

One child grows up to be
Somebody that just loves to learn.
And another child grows up to be
Somebody you'd just love to burn.
Mom loves the both of them.
You see it's in the blood.
Both kids are good to Mom:
'Blood's thicker than mud'
It's a family affair...." — Family Affair, Sly & The Family Stone

"Everybody should have human rights, but you have to be human! Human means you deal with the opposite sex...." Meaning that, what? All Trans people have tails? All gays are sick little monkeys? And I'm sure he meant it in the best way possible, no offense and all!

"Homosexuality destroys (life), it'll be the extinction of the human race.... Eighty-six civilized cultures, it was the death of their cultures why? Because they gave into ... strange flesh: the same sex, which is a form of bestiality. Why is that a form of bestiality? Because a beast has four legs and one gender! If you put two men together, you have four legs and two penises. That's one gender. That's a form of bestiality." Ah! Well that explains it! Four legs and one gender is animal! So if there's a three-legged dog, or a couple who are same-sex, but one partner only has one leg, then they'd be semi-bestial, right? Or if both partners are one-legged, then same-sex marriage would be okay because they'd be human! I recalled a show on Oprah once that showed a dog born with no front legs, and it literally taught itself to walk on it's hind legs, upright! That would make him human, not animal! So then a woman could then marry that dog and not be engaging in bestiality per Swailesian logic! But what about "eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother's womb?" Vexing! Or for that matter, how about "eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men?" Hmm ... clear as mud!

"When you separate something, you have discrimination. When I put a glass of water here and a glass of poison, which one are you going to choose? You're going to choose a glass of water. That's a form of discrimination!" Ah! I'm getting it! We discriminate against poison every time there's a glass of it on the table and we avoid drinking it! Shame on us anti-poison bigots!

"I cannot look into the eyes of a child and tell them "you have a choice to be heterosexual or homosexual." That would make me a sadist! So what is a sadist? A sadist is the one who destroyed sex! ... and I don't practice Satanism." Not sure where the satanism thing came into play – a Freudian slip? And all this time I thought sadism, named after the Marquis De Sade, was all about inflicting physical or mental cruelty! Then again, I can see how some would get confused and think it cruel to tell kids they have choices in life. Better to eliminate all choices and just pre-destine everyone's life for them from inception! It eliminates all the guesswork! Just hand them an assignment sheet saying "here is your life – don't think, just live what we tell you." Hey look, I'm supposed to be a garbageman ...!

It's a wonderful world out there, kiddies. Yes indeed, batshit crazy.

Meanwhile, halfway across the globe, Iranians are protesting and taking to the streets, risking incarceration and even their lives for defying the Ahmadinejad Administration! And here in the U.S, that saga sure fell off of the radar screen fast! What's a country got to do to get a little media time over life-and-death issues like marriage? Iran's free people need a strong advocate here – someone like Mary Cheney: she who couldn't be bothered to bring up same-sex marriage or gay rights issues in her dad & Bush's campaign, and supported her daddy and the GOP (even with the antagonistic approach the Bush Admin took on her issues) because "there are terrorists who will stop at nothing to hurt this country ... I had to support the candidate who was going to do the best job to protect this country. And no offense to John Kerry, but it wasn't him."


So now that the people of Iran are trying to oust one of the heads of Bush's Axis of Evil, and folks in America are focusing on that less important stuff like same-sex marriage, where is Mary Cheney these days?

"...things get confused out there: power, ideals, the old morality...." — G. D. Spradlin as Gen. Corman from "Apocalypse Now."

Presto! New York State's Same-Sex Marriage Without Even Passing A Law!

"That's great, it starts with an earthquake,
Birds and snakes, and aeroplanes -
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs, satisfy your own greed." — It's The End Of The World As We Know It, R.E.M.

The world ended in New York State on May 26, 2009. Or it least it should have. The AFA and the FOF and the NOM and all of those right-wingy, cover-your-thingy, religiopolitical fundamentalist orgs had long worried about the fabric of society suddenly disintegrating if ever a same-sex marriage occurred in a state where it was outlawed.

Well it happened! After the state of New York went through court same-sex marriage occurred!

So, how is life in post-apocalyptic New York? Hmm ... funny thing is it's still there! And life is going on as normal (there's that *word*!) I talked with a friend up there ... no big changes ... just an ordinary June day. No big bang, no anarchy? I guess I should be disappointed, huh?

In fact, the news media didn't even pick up on it until today's New York Post broke it this morning! And still everything's functioning! That's gotta be breaking some stony little religiopolitical hearts.

Here's the real kick in the crotch! As much as it's been a major wet dream for the gay and lesbian community these past years to be able to marry ... it was a trans woman and her husband who tied the knot! That's okay, though. They'll be buried in the annals of history with nary a memory. (It's the way things work in GLBT ... history must be by G or L – they'll see to it.)

As the Post put it:

Hakim Nelson and Jason Stenson married on May 26 with nary a raised eyebrow among the oblivious city bureaucrats who not only OK'd the marriage license, but conducted the ceremony, despite gay marriage being illegal in the state.

The plucky couple filled out their marriage application online at the Apple Store on 14th Street in May. A few days later, they went to the City Clerk's Office on Worth Street to complete the form and get their marriage license. [...]

The gullible clerk didn't seem to notice that both Nelson, 18, and Stenson, 21, have male first names. They both had to present identification to obtain the license. Stenson used his state ID card, and Nelson gave a state Benefit Card, which he uses to collect food stamps.

By a fluke, Nelson's ID card has an "F" for female on it, because the official who issued it in April assumed from his appearance that he was a woman.

Government issued I.D. in the gender she presents, female. Yet the courts want to consider her male in some states. As a result of this paranoid thrashing attempt at social engineering by the religiopoliticos, they've actually created more problems. States like Texas and Kansas consider post-operative transsexuals their birth gender, and perhaps New York currently intends the same. But if this couple goes across the river with their fresh new marriage license, legally married in a state that doesn't recognize same-sex marriage, the state of New Jersey will honor her marriage to her spouse, especially post-surgically.

And beyond all the gnashing of teeth and protests and blitzkriegs on statehouses around the country, what exactly is being hurt by this marriage beyond some peoples' feelings? There have been, however one wishes to slice it, same-sex marriages per some states' opinions for decades and decades! It's only now that it's a hot-button to keep "the gay agenda" in check that it's been moved to the fore.

In these times with foreclosures and destitution rising like bread dough, jobs disappearing like moderates from the GOP, and Kim Jung Il threatening nuclear annihilation to all (and to all a good night), very few people have enough spare time in their over-stressed lives to pay much attention to a same-sex couple getting married. They don't like the overpoliticizing and street-protest whiners, but bottom line is that if it happens, 99% of Americans are going to shrug and go, "whatever! It's not my problem! I got crap of my own to deal with!"

Crap like how to survive this corporate-induced economic Chernobyl we're in!

“This is exactly what the right wing is afraid of. People have had a year of legal marriage in Massachusetts to see how ending marriage discrimination helps gay and lesbian families and hurts no one.” — Exec. Dir, Freedom To Marry Coalition, Evan Wolfson

Congratulations to the new Mr. & Mrs. Stenson! Now move across the river to Jersey, settle down, have a nice life and leave the battlers behind to fight amongst themselves. It's official: New York state has married (per its estimation) a same-sex couple, and the world didn't come to a calamitous end!

So, New York legislature ... how about take a clue here? Just pass the damn thing.

Ultimately there's no equal reason to not extend everyone the same rights. Marriage has happened in five states now (and a sixth in January), including all of your neighbors adjacent to your eastern border have it. Their world didn't come to an end. Moreover, continuing to hold up passage only sanctions unequal application of the marriage rights granted all your state's citizens. Do you really want to advertise that to the rest of the world?

Then once it's passed, maybe then – FINALLY – we can finally start employing trans people in large numbers in these so-called civil rights groups there in the Empire State and allowing them to make the connections, speak to the powers and enact legislation to where Trans people can work? Maybe even get some protections from hate violence too? Equanimity in sentencing for all victims' attackers, hmm? Hey, it's only been, like, fifteen years or so pushing for that stuff there, forty years after Stonewall and the Gay Rights movement.

One fact I forgot to mention: the newly married couple reside in Sylvia's Place at the MCCR Church in New York: a homeless shelter for Queer Youth. Yep, they married. They just can't work or make a livable wage to survive anywhere in the Big Apple. Get it?

But yeah, I know ... priorities. Survival subjects aren't sexy. They're just so hard to market ....

"Gay people want the freedom to marry for the same reasons non-gay people do.” — Exec. Dir. for Freedom To Marry Coalition, Evan Wolfson

"Transgenders already have legal same-sex marriage. Why then is the lesbian and gay community reluctant to use this as a wedge issue when lesbian and gay same-sex marriage is debated on the news, on talk shows, and in litigation? The reluctance is incomprehensible." — from the Albany Law Review, "Same-Sex Marriages Have Existed Legally In The United States For A Long Time Now by Phyllis Randolph Frye & Alyson Meiselman

Remembering Stonewall, Forty Years Hence

"It's time to laugh, it's time to cry
It's time to be what you need to be!
It won't be long 'til they are gone
And we can be what we want to be!
I wanna run from everything,
Everything that holds me down!
Nothing to win, nothing to lose." — Free, V.A.S.T.

This is rearranged transcript from "Remembering Stonewall" which premiered July 1, 1989. The show itself interviewed both people at the scene of Stonewall as well as others who related how they felt hearing about Stonewall and what it meant to their lives. Rather than simply reposting, I took the liberty of culling the portions of it that had specific relevance to what happened in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn. Those relevant to the riot were left in and organized a bit better, rather than the cut and paste snippets of the original in order to give more of a feel for the sentiment of the night, especially from Dep. Inspector Seymour Pine and Sylvia Rivera – the nights two main players in this documentary.

COMMENTATOR: On Friday evening, June 27, 1969, at about 11:45, eight officers from New York City's public morals squad loaded into four unmarked police cars and headed to the Stonewall Inn here at 7th Avenue and Christopher Street. The local precinct had just received a new commanding officer, who kicked off his tenure by initiating a series of raids on gay bars. The Stonewall was an inviting target – operated by the Gambino crime family without a liquor license, the dance bar drew a crowd of drag queens, hustlers, and minors. A number of the bar's patrons had spent the early part of the day outside the Frank Campbell Funeral Home, where Judy Garland's funeral was held. She had died the Sunday before. It was almost precisely at midnight that the morals squad pulled up to the Stonewall Inn, led by Deputy Inspector, Seymour Pine.

SEYMOUR PINE: My name is Seymour Pine. In 1968, I was assigned as Deputy Inspector in charge of public morals in the first division in the police department, which covered the Greenwich Village area. It was the duty of Public Morals to enforce all laws concerning vice and gambling, including prostitution, narcotics, and laws and regulations concerning homosexuality. The part of the penal code which applied to drag queens was Section 240.35, section 4: "Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration; loiters, remains, or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked . . ."

You felt, well, two guys -- and that's very often all we sent in would be two men -- could handle two hundred people. I mean, you tell them to leave and they leave, and you say show me your identification and they all take out their identification and file out and that's it. And you say, okay, you're not a man, you're a woman, or you're vice versa and you wait over there. I mean, this was a kind of power that you have and you never gave it a second thought.

There was never any reason to feel that anything of any unusual situation would occur that night.

For some reason, things were different this night. As we were bringing the prisoners out, they were resisting. One drag queen, as we put her in the car, opened the door on the other side and jumped out. At which time we had to chase that person and he was caught, put back into the car, he made another attempt to get out the same door, the other door, and at that point we had to handcuff the person. From this point on, things really began to get crazy. [T]hat's when all hell broke loose at that point. And then we had to get back into Stonewall.

We noticed a group of persons attempting to uproot one of the parking meters, at which they did succeed. And they then used that parking meter as a battering ram to break down the door. And they did in fact open the door -- they crashed it in -- and at that point was when they began throwing Molotov cocktails into the place. It was a situation that we didn't know how we were going to be able control.

Remember these were pros, but everybody was frightened. There's no question about that. I know I was frightened, and I'd been in combat situations, and there was never any time that I felt more scared than I felt that night. And, I mean, you know there was no place to run.

For those of us in Public Morals, after the Stonewall incident things were completely changed from what they had previously been. They suddenly were not submissive anymore. They now suddenly had gained a new type of courage. And it seemed as if they didn't care anymore about whether their identities were made known. We were now dealing with human beings.

RED MAHONEY: My name is Red Mahoney. I've been hanging out drinking, partying, and working in the gay bars for the last thirty years. In the era before Stonewall, all of the bars, 90% of the bars, were Mafia controlled. There wasn't that many gay bars. You'd have maybe one, two uptown on the Upper East Side. They would get closed down. Then there'd be one or two on the west side, they'd get closed down. In midtown there'd be one, two, three, maybe open. As they would get closed down they would move around. And they were dumps.

The Stonewall? Oh, that was a good bar. That was. Just to get into the Stonewall, you'd walk up and you'd knock on the front door. You'd knock and the little door would open and "What do you want?" "A Mary sent me." "Good, come on in girls." You know. The Stonewall, like all gay bars at that time, were painted black. Charcoal black. And what was the funny part, the place would be so dimly lit -- but as soon as the cops were gonna come in to collect their percentage or whatever they were coming in for, from it being a nice, dimly-lit dump, the place was lit up like Luna Park.

SYLVIA RIVERA: My name is Sylvia Rivera. My name before that was Ray Rivera, until I started dressing in drag in 1961.

The era before Stonewall was a hard era. There was always the gay bashings on the drag queens by heterosexual men, women, and the police. We learned to live with it because it was part of the lifestyle at that time, I guess, but none of us were very happy about it.

At that time we lived at the Arista Hotel. We used to sit around, just try to figure out when this harassment would come to an end. And we would always dream that one day it would come to an end. And we prayed and we looked for it. We wanted to be human beings.

The drag queens took a lot of oppression and we had to . . . we were at a point where I guess nothing would have stopped us. I guess, as they say, or as Shakespeare says, we were ladies in waiting, just waiting for the thing to happen. And when it did happen, we were there.

You could actually feel it in the air. You really could. I guess Judy Garland's death just really helped us really hit the fan. People started gathering in front of the Sheridan Square Park right across the street from Stonewall. People were upset -- "No, we're not going to go!" and people started screaming and hollering.

"Call out the instigators
Because there's something in the air.
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right." — Something In The Air, Thunderclap Newman

SYLVIA RIVERA: I remember someone throwing a Molotov cocktail. I don't know who the person was, but I mean I saw that and I just said to myself in Spanish, I said. oh my God, the revolution is finally here! And I just like started screaming "Freedom! We're free at last!" You know. It felt really good.

Once the tactical police force showed up, I think that really incited us a little bit more.

BIRDY RIVERA: My name is Robert Rivera and my nickname is Birdy, and I've been cross-dressing all of my life. I remember the night of the riots, the police were escorting queens out of the bar and into the paddy wagon and there was this one particularly outrageously beautiful queen, with stacks and stacks of Elizabeth style, Elizabeth Taylor style hair, and she was asking them not to push her. And they continued to push her, and she turned around and she mashed the cop with her high heel. She knocked him down and then she proceeded to frisk him for the keys to the handcuffs that were on her. She got them and she undid herself and passed them to another queen that was behind her.

HOWARD SMITH: My name is Howard Smith. On the night of the Stonewall riots I was a reporter for the Village Voice, locked inside with the police, covering it for my column. It really did appear that that crowd – because we could look through little peepholes in the plywood windows, we could look out and we could see that the crowd – well, my guess was within five, ten minutes it was probably several thousand people. Two thousand easy. And they were yelling "Kill the cops! Police brutality! Let's get 'em! We're not going to take this anymore! Let's get 'em!"

There were a couple of cops stationed on either side of the door with their pistols, like in combat stance, aimed in the door area. A couple of others were stationed in other places, behind like a pole, another one behind the bar. All of them with their guns ready. I don't think up to that point I had ever seen cops that scared.

"Hand out the arms and ammo
We're going to blast our way through here
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right." — Something In The Air, Thunderclap Newman

MISS MARTIN BOYCE: My name is Martin Boyce and in 1969 I was a drag queen known as Miss Martin. I remember on that night when we saw the riot police, all of us drag queens, we linked arms, like the Rockettes, and sang this song we used to sing. (singing) "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls. We wear our dungarees above our nelly knees." And the police went crazy hearing that and they just immediately rushed us. We gave one kick and fled.


RUDY: My name is Rudy and the night of the Stonewall I was 18 and to tell you the truth, that night I was doing more running than fighting. I remember looking back from 10th Street, and there on Waverly Street there was a police, I believe on his . . . a cop and he is on his stomach in his tactical uniform and his helmet and everything else, with a drag queen straddling him. She was beating the hell out of him with her shoe. Whether it was a high heel or not, I don't know. But she was beating the hell out of him. It was hysterical.

SYLVIA RIVERA: Here this queen is going completely bananas, you know jumping on, hitting the windshield. The next thing you know, the taxicab was being turned over. The cars were being turned over, windows were shattering all over the place, fires were burning around the place. It was beautiful, it really was. It was really beautiful.

I wanted to do every destructive thing that I could think of at that time to hurt anyone that had hurt us through the years.

A lot of heads were bashed. But it didn't hurt their true feelings -- they all came back for more and more. Nothing -- that's when you could tell that nothing could stop us at that time or any time in the future.

MAMA JEAN: My name is Mama Jean. I'm a lesbian. I remember on that night I was in the gay bar, a woman's bar, called Cookies. We were coming out of the gay bar going toward 8th Street, and that's when we saw everything happening. Blasting away. People getting beat up. Police coming from every direction -- hitting women as well as men with their nightsticks. Gay men running down the street with blood all over their face. We decided right then and there, whether we're scared or not we didn't think about, we just jumped in.

I remember one cop coming at me, hitting me with the nightstick on the back of my legs. I broke loose and I went after him. I grabbed his nightstick. My girlfriend went behind him – she was a strong son of a gun. I wanted him to feel the same pain that I felt. And I kept saying to him, "How do you like the pain? Do you like it? Do you like it?" And I kept on hitting him and hitting him. I was angry. I wanted to kill him. At that particular minute I wanted to kill him.

COMMENTATOR: The riots were well covered in the media. The New York Daily News featured it on the front page. There were reports on all of the local television and radio stations. By the next day, graffiti calling for gay power had started to show up all over the West Village. The next night, thousands of men and women came back to the Stonewall to see what would happen next. While a couple of trashcans were set on fire and some stones were thrown, the four-hundred riot police milling around outside the bar ensured that the previous evening's violence would not be repeated. But on this night, gay couples could be spotted walking hand in hand and kissing in the streets. Just by being at the Stonewall -- surrounded by reporters, photographers, and onlookers -- thousands of men and women were proclaiming that they were gay. The crowds grew and came back the next night and for one more night the following week. What happened at the Stonewall on those nights helped to usher in a new era for gay men and lesbians.

SEYMOUR PINE: Well, I retired from the police department in 1976. Twenty years have passed. I'm going to be 70 in a few months. I still don't know the answers. I would still like to know the answers. I would like to know whether I was wrong or whether I was right in ever thinking that there was a difference, in ever thinking that maybe you shouldn't trust a homosexual because something is missing in his personality.

MAMA JEAN: It's like just when you see a man protecting his own life. They weren't the "queens" that people call them, they were men fighting for their lives. And I'd fight along side them any day, no matter how old I was.


SYLVIA RIVERA: Today I'm a 38-year-old drag queen. I can keep my long hair, I can pluck my eyebrows, and I can work wherever the hell I want. And I'm not going to change for anybody. If I changed, then I feel that I'm losing what 1969 brought into my life, and that was to be totally free.

"We have got to get it together now" — Something In The Air, Thunderclap Newman

"You can't tell me what to do anymore
Now I'm free, now I'm free, now I'm free!" — Free, V.A.S.T.

Operating Behind Enemy Lines

"When the Hoosegow police decided to come 'round they said:
"Boy what's the matter with you, what you trying to do?"" — Blind In Texas, W.A.S.P.

"As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office." — Molly Ivins

One of my friends recently commented to me and expressed surprise that I had visited with and even gotten a photo with one of our conservative lightning rods in Texas, Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa). It’s something that surprises others, but I never thought it all that surprising personally. He was a legislator and I wasn’t someone who, even when I first began, ever shied away from going in and talking with the most conservative offices. Hey! I live in Texas! Most of our folks down here are the reddest of the red-meat folks.

Lately Texas has become the butt of everyone's jokes, nationally. For the past eight years, we've had to live with everything from George W. Bush's apparent choking on a pretzel and passing out in his White House bathroom (begging the question: who the hell eats pretzels in the bathroom?) to every one of his Bushism's and incomprehensible musings. Once he left office, I was hoping we might get at least a little reprieve.

But no! Our governor's the latest national fodder for late-night material with his support of the teabaggers and even Texas' secessionist wing. While our governor's got all the brains God gave a drunken turkey, most around the nation may have never had the clue that Texans grew up and were even taught the urban legend that we retained the right to become our own Republic again when we ceded to the U.S. It turns out that's not fact, but there has nevertheless been a radically conservative wing in the state that's advocated for seceding from the union for years. They were so far out there that even the Republicans wanted nothing to do with them.

"Out in the countryside, just about every place that's got a zip code has somebody or some group of people battling the economic and political exclusion that Wall Street and Washington are shoving down our throats." — Jim Hightower

At least that was true until Barack Obama became president.

Now it seems even our own Gov. Rick Perry will fan those flames. It's not an embarrassment for Texas' GOP folks to talk of secession openly now. Worse still, there was a recent poll published by Research 2000 that asked whether Texas was better as part of the U.S. or as its own independent nation. Per Pam's House Blend, the poll came back 60% favoring staying in the U.S. and 40% opting for independence.

However, of Texas Republicans polled the opinion was evenly split: 48% for remaining in the U.S. and 48% opting for independence. They used to roll their eyes and snicker about the "wacko" secessionists and now they're out there co-opting them and cheering in their own echo chamber! They used to belittle and snidely dismiss those of us who feared for the direction of our country after Bush's 2004 re-election so much that we considered moving to Canada and called us wonderful names like "deserters," "treasonous," and "America-haters" who sided more with the terrorists than with our own country.

Now my own damn state's hardcore conservative types are taking our own logic and boldly proclaiming it prominently! And they're taking down the whole damn state with them! We didn't do anything seriously fleeing en-masse to Canada, yet we were considered loopy loons. As I write, our own legislature's even considering a bill to reaffirm Texas' state sovereignty (never mind that they weren't too sovereign to accept U.S. Government stimulus money in these trying economic times except for additional unemployment funds). And these nutbags are (to put it in Rep. John Culberson's words) "the most patriotic Americans"?

"Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention." — Molly Ivins

"I'm blind in Texas, the cowboys have taken my eyes." — Blind In Texas, W.A.S.P.

Of course the blogosphere is alight with all those agreeing with Gov. Closet-Case Perry, bellowing for the door to hit us where the Good Lord split us and lots of other sentiments expressing that our total state's a lost cause and to cut us loose. Toss us out: baby, bathwater and tub!

Not all of us are brain dead nor oblivious to what's gone on in our state or the rest of the world's perception of it. Even before Bush was elected, I was nearly begging people not to vote for the guy! We'd had six years of his train-wreck leadership at that point. But nobody wanted to listen! "He seems like a regular guy" and other comments about Gore's maladroit communication style along with his wife's crusade against free speech in music ended up being the razor-thin margin needed.

After eight years of Bush, I wasn't surprised at anything other than the increased intensity towards his hard-right shift.

Now that we're post-Bush, all of us in Texas get to pay the penance for the good times shared by a privileged few during the Bush boom. Bush's Power Rangers. All the while, folks like me on the progressive side were busting butt and trying to keep from losing every last right we citizens have. It's been grueling and even a bit brutal. Even still, while the rest of the world seems to enjoy a move away from the darkness, Texas still deals with Bush-level, DeLay gerrymandered GOP right-wingers who make conservatives seem like veritable socialists by comparison.

"I thought I was conservative 'til I moved to Texas. I was wrong. I had to re-learn being a conservative all over again." — unidentified GOP political activist who moved from Missouri to Texas.

As a trans Texans, I'm a very easily dismissed target for GOPers. Operating down here for the past couple decades is like being behind enemy lines during wartime. I didn't get to choose where I grew up. This economy has long sucked in my world, and with no ability to get out I have to make due here. With all our collective energy over the years, the community and I have made small gains, but we're overwhelmingly outnumbered in the most hostile of territory.

So imagine what it feels like reading the commentary that we as a state should all be written off. There's no support at home here in this sociopolitical hell-hole that's our only home. And now there's no support elsewhere either. We might as well have not even bothered.

For whatever reason, certainly due to no fault of my own, our state's become a magnet for everything from the Branch Davidians in Waco, to the polygamist sects of the Mormons and a so-called "sex cult" known as House of Yahweh, to the moms who cut off her baby's arms and the other who bashed her kids to death with rocks because they were allegedly instructed so by God, to the couple who started the Heaven's Gate cult, and believed the UFO's were coming down to spirit them away until the founder and cult self-castrated themselves and committed suicide. I don't know why this happens here in Bible-land. With other such luminaries as Charles "Tex" Watson of the Manson clan to Ted Hagee (the anti-Catholic apocalyptic) and Karl Rove to Tom DeLay. No wonder it's the "Texas" Chainsaw massacre ....

Meanwhile, I've got to try to make something happen with virtually nothing. As I've found in trying to push the hate crimes law to finally cover transgenders, instead I'm getting almost no support from Democrats — even personal friends who apparently want to support Equality Texas in their two choices, not ours!


Which brings me back to Rep. Warren Chisum. Ten years ago, I took a couple friends on their first-ever lobbying experience with NGLTF's Equality Begins At Home in Austin. We went directly to Chisum's office first. My theory was that once they saw how I verbally advance, parry and remise with the toughest, they'd have confidence to go into offices on their own, even if they're tough offices.

Fate dictated it would be a great learning exercise as we determined what Chisum didn't like about the hate crime bill language, asked if he'd support alternate wording (as long as it was defined to cover us all.) We left getting a critical GOP sponsor who brought over other Texas Republicans' support! That was me and my proteges Mark Wood & Patrick McIlvain. Eventually it was enough to get the bill passed the very next session, but without covering trans folks like me.

Another lesson it taught was not to presume that simply because one was Republican that they'd automatically be an enemy any more than if one was Democrat would translate into automatic friend. Actually, Rep. Chisum's enigmatic, but honest. He’s a decent guy. And like a couple of the other GOP folks I have good relations with, he's not the neo-conservative types who tend to be the younger or newly-elected types. The old-line conservatives are tough, but they're not inhuman.

It's a different world working with them than working with most of the Democrats. But sometimes, even when you're operating behind enemy lines, you can occasionally find an ally in the most unlikely of places.

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults." — Molly Ivins

"So farewell, my darling.
Perhaps we'll meet again
On some sin-infested street corner in Houston ...
Texas." — Heaven, Hell Or Houston, ZZ Top

The Monsters Have Come To Maple Street … Or Creekside Park”

"Look at that street. It's nothing but candles. It's like going back into the Dark Ages or something." — the character Charlie from 'The Monsters Have Come To Maple Street' by Rod Serling

Well, since my original blog post yesterday got hijacked (read wiped out) by the 21-hour power outage due to yesterday's run-of-the-mill thunderstorm, I'm doing a different one instead.

Yesterday and especially last night was right out of Rod Serling for me, save for the meteor vs. space ship controversy, resulting paranoia and eventual, chaotic turning against ourselves. We had nothing but a typical thunderstorm with heavy rain and not even a notable amount of lightning strikes, but we couldn't explain nor determine why it required us a full day in the dark. The Monsters had come to Creekside Park Drive.

As night fell, it became obvious that our block was the only one left without power! Literally I could walk down to the main road, or over to the next street and see light, but then turn the corner onto our street and it was pitch dark! Literally there was one house with light and another with no power right next door!

It was kinda creepy being the only ones left in the dark for the night. Even though we were civil amongst ourselves, there was edgy frustration. No one was happy, and we were either sitting on porches or truck tailgates in driveways or restlessly wandering the streets.

It was as if the rest of the world was going on with their regular lives and we were left out and forgotten. Our street was singled out for the Dark Ages. Oddly it's how I felt: I had so much I needed to get done along with the blog and I was simply stuck in neutral with a fully wasted day!

So I began today inherently agitated. It also occurred to me the date: today is April 19th. This is the wack jobs nut-out and commit mass mayhem day. It's also a red-letter day for liberal-hating right-wing types as it's the anniversary of the siege at the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco. While his sect was deemed extremely controversial and referred to as a cult, the FBI raid and resulting violent immolation by David Koresh and his followers struck a nerve in neo-conservatives of the religiopolitical variety.

Extremist conservatives saw it as a catalytic date to strike back at the government. At the two-year anniversary, it was Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols who used the day to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Hopefully the day ends up with no incident, however the significance shouldn't be put out of mind with the current anti-government fervor by even more mainstream conservatives. To wit: the recent Teabaggers revolt. While the Teabag parties went on without incident on April 15, there was one incident in front of the White House where protesters tossed over a box of tea. In the post 9/11 world with America at war, it's no surprise that the Secret Service immediately seized upon the item and broke up the protest post-haste.

"Let me tell you: you're starting something here that ... that's what you should be frightened of! And as God is my witness, you're letting something begin here that's a nightmare!" — character Les Goodman from 'The Monsters Have Come To Maple Street' by Rod Serling


A number of articles looked at the tax day, teabag protests and seemed to note a lack of real message. It seems these are just protests of folks being angry just for the sake of being angry. And of course conservative politicians are taking every opportunity to be front and center, riding the wave of anger.

Brian Smith, a marketer from Greenville, S.C., in Washington on business who came by the rally stated his reasons for attending: "I love my country and I don't like what's going on. Government – to be honest with you, and this will probably be misquoted, but on 9/11, I think they hit the wrong building. They should have gone into the Capitol building, hit out, knocked out both sides of the aisle, we'd start from scratch, we'd be better off today." When the reporter from Salon pointed out that "they" did try to hit the Capitol, Smith replied "Yeah, I know, they missed. The wrong sequence. If someone had to go, it should have been the Capitol building. On that day I felt differently, but today that's the way I feel." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/16/tea_party/index1.html

Neo-patriotism: Love your country, but cheer on any terrorist that takes out the U.S. Government! And this is post 9/11, coming openly at a rally that nationally featured a who's who of conservative Republican America! I recall Pres. George W. Bush stating before his initial joint-session speech after the attacks that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." So now in 2009 you can be with both?

The Washington protest crowd cheered loudly when neo-con radio pundit Laura Ingraham said they were all "right-wing extremists," referring to a Homeland Security report warning of danger from disgruntled conservatives. Actually I don't think that's so far-fetched to be scoffed. These types of protests, full of older, 'rock-ribbed Republicans,' would be perfect cover for agents provocateur. Toss in a Posse Comitatus or a WTO anarchist type with an incendiary device and this could get ugly very quickly.

And the jammed messaging in heavy rotation is that "this is the tip of the iceberg!"

"I know who it is! I know who the monster is! I know who it is that doesn't belong among us!" — the character Charlie from 'The Monsters Have Come To Maple Street' by Rod Serling


Even Texas' own Gov. Perry's comments are being both picked apart and strongly defended by many of his conservative colleagues! Fox's Geraldo Rivera called him "grossly irresponsible" and ripe for impeachment, but good conservatives like the unimpeachable Tom DeLay called Perry a "righteous governor" who was "standing up for the sovereignty of his state." To that end, Texas House is pushing through HCR 50, a resolution establishing Texas' sovereignty from Federal Government mandates. The Guv is also still pushing forth that he will reject at least unemployment funding (though his rhetoric indicates he's rejecting stimulus money en toto).

To that end, with little debate, the House on a voice vote approved erasing 96 percent of the nearly $24 million that budget writers had recommended for Perry's office operation over the next two years. "That's the headline: 'Two days after governor says we ought to secede, House zeroes out the governor's budget,'" said Appropriations Committee vice chairman Richard Raymond, (D-Laredo) http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/041909dntexhousebudget.e4ed7a0a.html

Impact the state's budget and the state will impact yours!

"Here's something you can do, Charlie. You can keep your mouth shut! You can quit sitting there like a self-appointed hanging judge and climb into bed and forget it!" — character Steve Brand from 'The Monsters Have Come To Maple Street' by Rod Serling

Now some are trying to pull back a bit and explain Gov. Perry's secession commentary on Teabag day. Rep. John Culberson (R-Houston) explained that Gov. Perry just got "excited. Texans are the most patriotic of Americans. Gov. Perry's a patriot, he just got revved up."

After all of the created controversy during last year's presidential campaign about whether or not Barack Obama had refused to pledge allegiance to the flag, it's ironic that Gov. Perry, presumably a "patriotic" pledger would make such statements even in excitement, considering the pledge declares: "one nation, under God, *indivisible* ...." side note to Gov. Rick Perry: Pledging "indivisible" means not dividing states away from the union ... just in case the term wasn't understood. One wonders how "excited" one must get to allow and excuse unpatriotic commentary, Rep. Culberson?


All of this revolutionary hubbub is over, what exactly? They've called them, and people are showing up with blood in their eyes. But what exactly is their point? There's not a tax-hike as yet and taxes are as low as they've been since the 20's, so the paying "too much taxes" doesn't pan out as a sudden problem. Some note the government spending, but this has been going willy-nilly for eight years under a heavy GOP-laden government and no one uttered a peep. Bank bailouts? Those began under George W. Bush, and would've been worse if the House had just buckled under to Bush & Paulson's initial request of $700 billion with no strings attached, nor any accountability!

All we've got is the anger, and as so many of the gleeful anti-Obama pundits have continued the mantra: this is just the tip of the iceberg. With everyone scared and in the dark, and the frenzy the media pundits have inspired now, the monsters have come to America now. The only question is truly who are the monsters?

"Throw them into darkness for a few hours, then sit back and watch the pattern.... They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find; and it's themselves. All we need do is sit back and watch.... Their world is full of "Maple Streets." And we'll go from one to the other and let them destroy themselves." — the lead observer Alien from 'The Monsters Have Come To Maple Street' by Rod Serling

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." — Walt Kelly from the comic strip 'Pogo'

... Fear Itself

After posting my most recent diary on Daily Kos on Civil Rights not existing for transgenders, it elicited quite a bit of commentary (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/9/153647/7370/255/682170). Most of it was refreshingly supportive, and quite a few were surprisingly very knowledgeable on trans issues. Of course, there’s always the others who take issue.

One of those inevitable detractors started off with the hackneyed “I support and love my transgendered brothers and sisters … but ….” – followed by the backhand. As the other respondents replied to him, the ire rose and his anger continued swelling until his anger let some unguarded sentiment through. Ultimately his beef boiled down with a special focus on trans people who were unpassable – “big, hulking trannies,” who “latch themselves into [sic] the gay and lesbian fight [for rights]” and how he "never knew what violence was, however, until I saw a lesbian and a drag queen get into a fight about 3 years ago in Toronto. Even the cops were afraid to break that one up...and it took FIVE of them to do it!”

The respondent was gay and expressed an understanding of transgenders in his initial post. Yet despite the words, he didn’t know us as much as purported. He had encountered us and developed a cursory conclusion: if you looked passable, you deserved transition while the rest did not.

“I don't care if you approve.
What the f*ck is that gonna do?
‘Cause I ain't got nothing better to do
Than piss off motherf*ckers like you!” — Crossdressing G*ddamned Son Of A Bitch, the Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13

But buried within some of the comments about ‘latching onto his rights’ or even the violence factor from ‘battling drag queens,’ something else was communicated – fear. There’s a fear of violence at the hands of these tough gender transgressors, a fear losing his rights (as an extension of his community) and even a fear of public embarrassment per the story that started his string: an unattractive trans person who made a scene in a restaurant due to disrespectful pronoun usage by her waiter.

I wouldn’t doubt that if I brought this up to the particular detractor, he would persistently deny there’s any fear at all, yada, yada. But it is fear of something he doesn’t know and feels would put him in a situation he couldn’t control.

One thing I’ve discovered throughout the years is this: Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all. Some will argue it’s fear of death. But really, the fear of death is fear of the unknown as well since many who've gone through near-death experiences don't have that same fear after.

Ultimately it boils down to this: the human mind has an incessant obsession with "knowing". Whatever the new discovery is, we want to know what it is -- thus, our never-ending quest for learning, inventing, etc. Even if we don’t fully know, we take what facts are available and connect the dots in order to flesh out the entire picture. Surety breeds familiarity and ease of mind.

On the flip side, when our ability to know is obstructed, our minds still try to estimate what it is that we're trying to know based upon what limited facts are available to us, if any. When we have that big gap between available facts and what results in our confidently "knowing" or comprehending, we then estimate the rest: i.e. “filling in the blanks.”

This allows our imaginations and our mind’s unease with “not knowing” come into play. We fill in the blanks with whatever our mind conjures up, which is often unease compounded and embellished, maybe even tossed around the echo chamber to other like minds and increased. The end result of this lack of surety is that you come up with full-fledged fear (think "fear of the Evil Empire" in USSR fanned by Reagan and our lack of intelligence until the walls came down and we saw it was all a paper lion with little of what we feared it would be. Replay this with Bush/Cheney and Saddam Hussein).

This isn’t to be confused with healthy fears. There are fears that are stable, and are fully correct due to aberrant experience – but only when applied to that one item known to be harmful or detrimental. When it then bleeds over into fear of other things, it’s superimposing or misplacing fear to the point of paranoia.

Misplaced fears notwithstanding, all phobias and insecurities and most paranoias, along with the aggressive actions tied to them all, can be traced back to a lack of surety which is itself due to an absence of true comprehension.

As he doesn’t know us, he fears the potential we pose. This is the core of virtually all of the long-term prejudices held over the years. It’s the reason why religious fundamentalists fear GLBT people, and mutually why GLBT people fear them in return, the kernel at the center of class-based aversion in societies around the world and the nucleus of hate toward ethnically different people such as racism rampant in America and around the globe. It’s also the core of what creates the wars, the likes of which we seeing in the Middle East, particularly at this moment between Israel and Palestine.

This fear of the unknown dehumanizes the object. It creates a scenario allowing one to avoid seeing another as a human being. This desensitizes the objector, as well as validating what they subsequently do to this object of their fear.

“I get confused, 'cause I don't know where I stand,
And then you smile, and hold my hand.” — Spooky, the Classics IV

“If we fear the unknown then surely we fear ourselves.” — poet, Bryant H. McGill


Once you know that what was previously feared, then suddenly it’s no longer the monster we had imagined. These monstrous beings become human, and you privately kick yourself wondering why so much energy was placed into the fear in the first place. Fear is the underlying premise of nearly all aggression, save for schoolyard tit-for-tat style retribution.

One truly frightening possibility is that fear in the hands of those in power can be manipulated by keeping the truth or the real knowledge away from those in which you wish to instill fear. When the facts are kept hidden and awareness restricted, it becomes yeast to feed the rising fear. This foments the subsequent phobic or exaggerated actions. Once attacked, it also typically draws the retributive action, which only self-fulfills the original paranoia.

As we’ve seen over the past few decades, there are those who utilize this unawareness/fear/aggression model to drive their enterprise. It occurs as a result of full-blown war with its recently witnessed “no-bid” contracting boon.

But it also finds sanctuary in simple social aggression, where churches warn of the impending “gay war against families and marriage” – or conversely, the gay advocacy organizations warn of the “right wing persecution” – and draw quite a profitable windfall for their respective non-profits.

Neither side really understands the other, much less truly wants to know the other. It’s preferable to their industries that they keep the opponents as feared and dehumanized as possible. It makes the job of attacking them more palatable and easier to sell to those they wish to support it. With mainstream media being bought into this perpetuation (they’re businesses too, and selling advertising to the very people who wish to continue the knowledge-restriction in order to profit), it’s now become the province of the internet to get the truth out.

Trite as it sounds, knowledge is power – the power to end hate. So many of the fears, whether transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia or racism, fear of other cultures or religions or other differences, can be taken down by simply getting real knowledge out to people, finding the commonalities between the disparate parties, and ultimately see the other party as a human being. The key is to find ways to get knowledge around the obstacles in its way: inaccessibility, apathy or laziness, fear of what one might discover and intent restriction from it.

Knowing the truth abates fear. Avoiding or suppressing truth generates and fuels it.

“There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.” — Pres. Thomas Jefferson

“Get to know me!” — Jon Lovitz from his skit on Saturday Night Live

“My only fear is the unknown.” — magician, David Blaine

Yes On 8 Is A "No" On Common Decency

Ken Starr plays a little pocket pool while preparing for his next partisan fight ....

“I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” — comedienne, Rita Rudner

Just a day after writing a blog in favor of giving a very conservative, anti-same sex marriage preacher a chance to not be discriminated against simply because of who he is, the very people he was supporting decided to … discriminate even further against GLBT couples in California because of who they are! Well, it's time to give some equal air to the other side.

Ya sure know how to undermine any civility, don’t ya Prop 8 proponents?

"Love is never wrong." — musician, Melissa Etheridge

News reports noted that the Yes on 8 campaign officially filed a brief arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, which (per the report)( declares the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions. What the brief reveals for the first time that opponents of same-sex marriage will fight in court to undo those unions that already exist.

"Proposition 8's brevity is matched by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions," reads the brief co-written by Kenneth Starr, dean of Pepperdine University's law school and the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.

He has a point: it’s a brief law with no clauses, exceptions and exemptions. That also includes no clauses that retroactively remove those legal marriages that had previously been performed. Typical to conservatives though, they have no problems trying to create law by expansion that isn’t already in the law. When Democrats do that, conservatives scream “judicial activism” and “frivolous lawsuits.” Well, get ready to affix that judicial activist mantle squarely around Ken Starr’s neck while he pursues his frivolous lawsuit. It’s time for democrats to stand up now and demand that Republicans only follow the letter of the law.

The ironic part about all of this is how the big neo-con attempt to define marriage as not a right, but a privilege (as I wrote about in Mike Huckabee’s visit to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show). Of course, privileges are different than rights – they don’t get legislated (so you remove that body out of the equation). Following on this logic, privileges are granted. In California, for most of this past year, that privilege was extended to all couples, hetero- and same-sex couples alike by the California State Supreme Court, and the governor himself said it was the right decision. That privilege was given, period.

Now a group who just passed the above noted, statewide-voted law which their own attorney noted had “no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions,” wants to use this to remove privileges from other couples already married! Privileges that were granted to them. Privileges that are not in defiance of the law at that time, and are not superceded by any other subsequent law. What’s wrong with this picture?

How often do we see privileges removed from citizens who have broken no law? Sure, if there’s a compelling public interest (such as severe drought, requiring need for removing the privilege of watering your lawn, for instance), that occurs. But simply removing privileges from other law-abiding citizens for no other reason than it “offends” another group of citizens implies that one group of citizens is granted more consideration (dare I say, rights?) than another.

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” — author, Emily Bronte

Further, if we use this precedent, then any group can collect signatures to remove privileges from other groups for the same reason – “it offends our group.” For the religiopolitical types, they’d better watch what they’re stepping into. Let’s say, someone is offended by seeing Christmas displays even on private property. So they collect enough signatures to remove Santa Clauses, and reindeers and Christmas trees from any display public or private – those are privileges, not rights.

Taking it further still, let’s say religious groups similarly collect enough signatures to remove all holiday displays from sight, even if religious. Sure there is the right to freedom of religion – worship. But displays aren’t worshipped. People worship inside churches. Displays aren’t allowed by right, but by privilege. How about removing the privilege of any public or private displays (which aren’t guaranteed by Constitution, but are privileges) simply because enough people of another group are offended.

In schoolyard logic, one shove typically draws back an equal and opposite shove. Elementary physics.

This whole exercise defies both common sense and common decency.

Ken Starr, of course, is the most partisan signal a Republican can send. It automatically conjures up the image of abuse of the court system to clog it up purely of hyper-partisan motivation.

Is this the road we wish to travel down? "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men … Ah, screw all that! I want mine -- just because!"

'Tis the season ....


“Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots.” — You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch, from Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (TV version)

Gays And Lesbians At War Over Warren … I Don’t Get It

Over the last few years, gay love has been on prominent display in front of America. It’s been a wild rollercoaster of highs, lows, joy, outrage, passion and disgust in this trip leading us from Brokeback to Saddleback. And now that we’re here at Saddleback, where the church’s Pastor Rick Warren has been tapped by President-Elect Barack Obama to deliver the invocation.

Let the outrage, emotion, accusatory tones and harsh comments begin again ….

One question. Why?

Why in this era of an economy falling down all around our ears, here and around the world, with no end in sight and virtually no hope glimmering on the horizon is the selection of Rev. Warren the big issue? Surely the answer will be “strike while the iron is hot, make momentum while the opportunity exists to further the issue, and it’s something [they] most avidly need.”

Yet I can’t help but remember that every time transgenders have brought up the issues, attempting to get anything above the GLBT squelch to straight media that we were similarly outraged, in dire economic straits, have desperately been pushing for access to any jobs for well over a decade. We were met with derisive comments about overreacting (even with less media), had attempts to affix guilt on us over taking “our allies” to task and had the message communicated that we were merely being immature and histrionical.

Well, Barney Freakin’ Frank, Human Right sCampaign (HRC), all you other starry-eyed screeching weasels … welcome to reciprocity. Stick pacifiers in your mouths and shut the hell up before you ruin it for us all! This is all about petty childish grandstanding in front of a TV camera and immature whining! Between the two of us, weren’t you supposed to be the grown ups? What happened – mesmerized by the klieg lights?

“It's not too cool to be ridiculed
But you brought this upon yourself.
The world is tired of pacifiers
We want the truth and nothing else.” — You Haven’t Done Nothin’, Stevie Wonder

I seem to recall Pres. Bush bringing in a local DC clergyman in 2004 for the invocation … Rev. Leon, I believe. He was a bit controversial in that he wasn’t a conservative, but more of an advocate for the poor in his congregation. It sure didn’t appear to affect Bush’s policymaking these past four years, did it? Why would you presume that somehow Rick Warren would be prime counsel to guide the Obama Administration these next four?

Again, why is the pitched rhetoric starting as well. On CNN, Hilary Rosen, former board member of HRC (and spouse to their former Exec. Dir. Elizabeth Birch) “every gay person who paid attention to this today felt like we were kicked in the stomach…. [Inauguration Day] is the day to make everybody feel good about the new president and the new direction of this country ….”

Journalist Roland Martin noted that there were both a pro-marriage and anti-marriage clergy on the Inauguration program, and asked if that meant that supporters of Warren’s church wouldn’t ‘get to feel good’ … to which Rosen shot back that “they could’ve found someone both [sides] could agree” with. That infers Rosen would be fine with another anti-same sex marriage pastor? That’s dubious.

Just today I read comments after the CNN Rosen & Martin interview dressing down journalist Roland Martin over not being supportive enough of the gay community, and later comments piling on about him and his allegedly homophobic minister as well. Didn’t we just get off one of these meteoric emotional juggernauts a month ago? Remember the reckless rhetoric lobbed around? ….

Some of the comments on Facebook and the blogosphere are now focusing anger on Obama, with some making mention of how strong they came out in support of him. I can’t help remembering some of the comments I received while standing in Houston’s Montrose Bar Row campaigning for Obama (comments I know are incendiary, but don’t feel need to repeat here), instead of supporting the “community” by pushing for Hillary in the primary. Even folks like Hilary Rosen and Barney Frank were in the tank for Clinton, and HRC’s board of directors didn’t donate a dime in primary time to Obama. Do they think he wouldn’t remember that? We trans people don’t even attempt that kind of chutzpah, and our folks were heavily in the tank for Obama in primaries (knowing Hillary’s stance on “incremental – ahem – support” on things like ENDA). I guess maybe we’re not “mature” enough?

Even more ridiculous to me are some in the gay community who are now trying to work up support on the fly for an alternative choice to Sen. Caroline Kennedy because – ta dah! – she’s a friend (and presumably the hand-picked choice) of Barack Obama. Uh … she’s also niece to Ted Kennedy, one of the most gay-supportive senators ever! Why this all out mobilization against anything Obama? Are we preparing for war?

This choice of Pastor Rick Warren doesn’t mean Obama will carry the religious right’s water on marriage, Five years ago, we gave both HRC and even Barney Frank a modicum of faith to see where they’d go with it. We had to sit tight, and be patient (even though we weren’t getting good signs). True, our faith then wasn’t rewarded. But for the gay and lesbian leaders (some from those very parties who dashed faith), why are they now incapable of the same patience or the same faith? Maybe it’ll end up like our shot with HRC and Barney … maybe it won’t. But wouldn’t it be fair to at least give him a chance instead of writing him off even before the election?

There are some battles, especially when it’s over legislation that could protect, or if excised create a special class denied protections that are worthy of fighting with fervor. CNN commentator, Ruben Navarrette put it in perspective: “there is an ocean's worth of bigger fish to fry.” He also had this to add:

“It's interesting. Many of those raising a fuss are talking about respect, demanding respect, insisting they're not given respect, etc. Well, that works both ways. If they want respect, they have to give it. They can start by respecting the wishes of the president-elect to plan his inauguration as he sees fit.”

As a girl who knows a life of never seeing respect, from a community virtually devoid of getting respect … I can respect that! I’m going to respect Obama’s decision to choose his speakers and give our new president that modicum of faith. Time will tell if we get respect in return ….

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Take care of T.C.B.” — Respect, Aretha Franklin