I don’t (yet) have permission to reprint it, but Maria Nasca of OUT!wear has written a letter of apology to the larger LGBTQ communities, and it’s on Facebook.
WBW Update
One of my readers wrote to OUT!wear about the “women born women” issue. Ze wrote them a note that included this smart paragraph:
How many times must a trans people be told to “accept what God gave them” or “just be the way you’re supposed to” before we acknowledge that any connection made between birth and gender is a harmful one? It wasn’t long ago that society would have almost unanimously told LGB individuals similar sentiments. “No, you were made to be with a man/woman.” “God made man for woman, and woman for man.” “Why can’t you do what nature intended?” Why would a company, one ran by people who have no doubt been hurt by these sorts of attitudes, endorse such similar rhetoric?
Ze received this email from Maria Nasca of OUT!Wear:
thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. your message was very well written and took some time – thank you for that! YOU definitely made an impact on me. it was never my intent to hurt or alienate our community and believe it or not i had no idea as to what this REALLY meant to everyone. you are the 1 and only message i have responded to so far, because of your kind tone. trust this will get sorted and lets pray for a good outcome. i have taken these items down off both pages and will issue a statement TONIGHT!
So now we await the statement, but the items are down.
Thank you, Maria!
Just Stop, OUT!Wear
Ugh. An LGBT clothing retailer is selling WBW t-shirts, which stands for “women born women” which is a policy used by spaces that exclude trans women, such as Michigan Women’s Festival.
Ugh. How awful. How insensitive, and shitty, and irresponsible, and yes, I’m going to say it, how TRANSPHOBIC.
Just cut it out.
Bug them on their FB page, or via their website.
What complete bullshit.
Green Bay Pride
I’ll be tabling today for Fair Wisconsin at Green Bay’s Pride event, Pride Alive. You can get more info about the event on their website, and let people know you’re going/invite others via the FB page.
Pride and Memory
One of the things I find interesting about teaching (and being aunt to) people who are around 20 years old is that most of them did not grow up in a world where no one they knew was gay. For folks of my generation and older, it was assumed that no one was gay, and when someone came out, it was a surprise, and very difficult. It is hard to explain exactly how “deviant” homosexuality was considered, especially when it was criminal and considered a mental disorder. You can get some idea from a documentary like Stonewall Uprising, but still, it’s difficult to get across.
But in 1973 – the same year homosexuality was taken out of the DSM – 32 LGBTQ people burned to death in an intentional fire caused by arson. A molotov cocktail was thrown into a building that housed a gay bar and the local meeting place of the MCC church. There were 60 or so people in the room, and half of them found a way out, but the other half died in the fire.
What’s more horrifying are the stories and jokes – yes, jokes – told about the fire after the fact. I won’t repeat them here but if you have stomach enough, you can read them here.
And that’s the part of the story that sobered me up. I remember fruit jokes. The ones I heard weren’t about this fire, and maybe weren’t about anyone in particular. But I remember the kinds of jokes that were told, how dehumanizing they were. It’s almost hard to remember, but a story like this one makes it a little clearer what this has all been about.
It’s been an amazing pride month for me as a New Yorker, that’s for damn sure. 42 years after Stonewall, New York has made marriage equality happen. But still, there were some bodies in that fire that weren’t claimed, and it’s not that long ago that families of men dying of AIDS pretended they had no sons.
So yes, there’s been huge amounts of progress. HUGE. But I don’t want us to forget, either, how it used to be: that’s why the riots at Compton’s and Stonewall happened, after all.
Pride: NY & Fair WI
On the same weekend that New York made same sex marriage legal – with no residency requirement, no less! – I started working with Fair Wisconsin = a lovely way to spend the last weekend of Pride Month, no?
New York Tips the Balance
There are now more people living in states that support marriage equality than not. Someone’s on the wrong side of history, and it’s not me.
Obama in New York for Pride
He’s there, of course, because Albany’s just about to make same sex marriage legal in New York State. Here’s a selection from what he said to an audience at the Sheraton:
What makes America great is not just the scale of our skyscrapers, or our military might, or the size of our GDP. What makes us great is the character of our people. Yes, we are rugged individualists and we are self-reliant, and that’s part of what makes us Americans. We don’t like being told what to do.
But what also makes us who we are is we’ve got faith in the future and we recognize that that future is shared — the notion that I’m my brother’s keeper, I’m my sister’s keeper. My life is richer and stronger when everybody in the country has some measure of security; everybody has got a fair shot at the American Dream. That’s what makes us great. That’s our vision for America.
It’s not a vision of a small America. It’s a vision of a big America; a compassionate America; and a bold and optimistic America. And it’s a vision where we’re living within our means, but we’re still investing in our future. And everybody is making sacrifices, but nobody bears all the burden. An America where we live up to the idea that no matter who we are, no matter what we look like, we are connected to one another.
That’s what led many of us to fight so hard, to knock on so many doors and maybe harangue some of our friends — this belief that it was up to each of us to perfect this union. It was our work to make sure that we were living up to a simple American value: We’re all created equal. We’re all created equal.
Methodist Trial
I don’t really understand why LGBTQs have anything to do with religions that condemn them. This week, in a nearby town, a Methodist minster went on trial for two things: being a practicing self-avowed homosexual and marrying a same sex couple.
She was found guilty of the marriage – mostly because there’s a record of it happening, & her having officiated – but she was found not guilty of homosexuality because despite admitting publicly that she lives with her wife, she hasn’t actually admitted she has sex with her. Honestly, they asked her about genital contact – which did at least inspire groans from the witnesses, and she refused to answer.
What kind of bullshit is that? Oh, wait: then again, we live in a culture where a politician has to resign because of a sex scandal in which he didn’t actually have sex with anyone but his wife.
I understand the need for a connection/relationship with the divine, but I don’t get trying to find it through organized religion. Then again, I decided the Church couldn’t possibly be messengers of divine anything if they thought my having a vagina kept me from being holy enough to be a priest — and that, especially in the light of all the female saints: it just didn’t make any sense. I was raised by Jesuits, after all.
I just don’t get it. I am glad others want to fight this fight, but it definitely isn’t mine. That said, I have long thought that if Jesus were alive today, he’d be hanging out with trans street hustlers of color who are homeless in our nation’s cities.
Fair Wisconsin: Wisconsin Court Upholds Domestic Partnerships
via Lambda Legal: Applying v. Doyle case summation, and the document of the actual ruling.
(Madison, Wisconsin, Monday, June 20, 2011) – Today, the Circuit Court, Branch 11 in Dane County Wisconsin upheld as constitutional the state’s Domestic Partner Registry.
Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Daniel R. Moeser wrote, “Ultimately, it is clear that Chapter 770 does not violate the Marriage Amendment because it does not create a legal status for domestic partners that is identical or substantially similar to that of marriage. The state does not recognize domestic partnership in a way that even remotely resembles how the state recognizes marriage. Moreover, domestic partners’ have far fewer legal rights, duties, and liabilities in comparison to the legal rights, duties, and liabilities of spouses.”
“The law is clear—the domestic partnership law does not violate the Wisconsin constitution,” said Christopher Clark, Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office based in Chicago. “The research the court provided in its ruling today is a showcase of material proving that the proponents of the antigay marriage amendment repeatedly told voters in 2006 that the Marriage Amendment would not ban domestic partnership benefits.”
In June 2009, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed domestic partnerships into law, granting limited but important legal protections to same-sex couples, including hospital visitation and the ability to take a family medical leave to care for a sick or injured partner. Wisconsin Family Action, an antigay group, brought a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court arguing that the domestic partnership law is a violation of Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Shortly thereafter, Lambda Legal successfully moved to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of Fair Wisconsin and five same-sex couples.
“We are pleased that the Court upheld the limited protections provided by domestic partnerships because they are essential in allowing committed same-sex couples to care for each other in times of need,” said Katie Belanger, Executive Director of Fair Wisconsin. This is an exciting day for Wisconsin. Domestic partnerships marked our state’s first step toward full equality in nearly 30 years. Judge Moeser’s decision will ensure that we can continue advancing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Wisconsinites in the years ahead.”
Woohoo! Good news for Wisconsin!