Category: news

News

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Independence Daze

Yesterday I got an email from a CD up north who had this to say:

I wondered today if you are aware that yesterday (June 28/05) the Canadian federal parliament passed an amendment to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms allowing for same sex marriage rights across the country? The vote was 158 yes to 133 no with several members from each side of the house voting against their party position.
Marriage is a provincial jurisdiction in Canada and 6 out of the 10 provinces had already legalized same sex marriage in the past 2 years anyway as a result of losing supreme court challenges based on constitutional rights arguments. This newly passed bill amends the Canadian Charter to reflect that and redefines the definition of marriage to include more than just the union of one man and one woman. This makes Canada the 3rd country in the world to have legalized same sex marriage laws. The issue is still out on protecting religious rights as certain churches are against same sex marriage and of course will refuse to preform them regardless. I never saw that as an issue myself since churches could always refuse to marry anyone they wanted based on their religious views. The new law doesn’t attempt to change that from what I can see. You never did have to be married in a church for it to be considered legal so this law is not forcing any church to marry anyone it chooses not to because of its religious beliefs. I just gives people the right to legally marry and enjoy the rights that entails. This argument was still a major one many anti-gay people used to try and oppose the passing of this new law.
Johanna,
A (married) CD in Vancouver, BC, Canada

and before I had time to put this up, and thank Canada for having the wisdom those of us below them don’t have, Spain went and legalized same-sex marriage as well.
It saddens me, that this weekend when we break out the flags and the hot dogs and the cold beer, that America hasn’t worked this one out yet – and not only hasn’t worked it out, but is steadily building a backlash against same-sex marriage, like in Ohio, where they’re now working on preventing GLBT folks from adopting children.
But it strikes me that this weekend, Canadians do really have an independence day to celebrate (today, July 1st) while GLBT Americans look longingly to the north.

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The Amancio Project Vigil

I received this message in the comments section, but I thought it deserved greater notice. This is a follow-up to my original blog entry from June 12th, 2005.

June 27,2005
The Amancio Project Vigil surpassed expectations. The tone and mood was one of joy, sadness and resolve.
Because of the dreadful murders Yuma yesterday of six people (four children), the news media came early and left before many vigil attendees arrived and left before the speakers delivered their messages. A head count went over 100.
Amancio’s family was there in force, all wearing t-shirts with Amancio’s picture on them. That was a beautiful sight by itself. Many people drew and wrote their thoughts onto “The Memory Wall.” A video was shown depicting Amancio’s life from early child hood to a few days before his death. It was obvious he was a happy child, spunky adolescent, spirited teenager and talented and giving adult. A poem by Don Gilbert, “One of Liberty’s Children” dealing with hate crime was read by Don and a framed copy handed to Amancio’s mom.
Speakers included myself as the Organizer of The Yuma County Gay Meetup and The Amancio Project, Representative Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona House of Representatives (first speaking for herself then delivering a message from Arizona Representative Amanda Aguirre), Luis Heredia representing Congressman Grijalva, Brenda Galvan Aguirre from the Arizona Leadership Institute, Donna Rose with the Human Rights Campaign, Lori Girshick the Anti-Violence Project Coordinator for Wingspan in Tucson, a hate crime victim’s mother whose son was murdered three years ago and the culprits have not been caught, a member of the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, Vigil coordinator Hanna, with the Yuma County Gay Rights Meetup.
No Yuma city or county representative was in the audience, an observation which did not go unnoticed by Rep. Sinema and Mr. Heredia.
A wreath was presented to the family. The mother and the grandmother then handed out “Angel” pins and small crosses to everyone while the candles were being prepared (unfortunately, it became too breezy to light them).
It is now incumbent upon all of us to keep this spirit alive and the momentum going.
Michael H. Baughman
The Amancio Project
www.gayrights.meetup.com/177
www.TheAmancioProject.org (still under construction)

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Roving Idiot

Rove, in a speech Wednesday evening to the New York state Conservative Party just a few miles north of Ground Zero, said, “Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.” Conservatives, he said, “saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.”

source: MSNBC news
Rove should resign. He is divisive, hateful, and offensive.

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Congratulations…

…to Mariette Pathy Allen for winning the Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender/genderqueer category, and to all the other winners tonight.
Thanks to all of you who hoped I would win (but I’m not going to say ‘I told you so’!)
Next up for me: Book Expo! As in, tomorrow. Must. Sleep.

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Rape Crisis Center fights judge's order to talk about woman it counseled

Rape Crisis Center fights judge’s order to talk about woman it counseled
Last Update: 05/08/2005 2:46:35 PM
By: Associated Press
SANTA FE (AP) – A New Mexico judge has ordered two rape crisis center workers to reveal information about a woman they counseled. But rape crisis center operators say the order is alarming.
Operators say if they can’t guarantee confidentiality, victims won’t turn to them for help.
The Albuquerque Rape Crisis Center is asking the state’s Supreme Court to overturn the order issued by state District Judge James Blackmer.
The woman says she was raped in January 2003 by a former boyfriend.
The man’s public defender, Sophie Cooper, says she wants conversations between the center workers and the woman disclosed.
She says the center workers played an important role in convincing the woman she had been raped.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Tuesday.
Reported by KOB-TV, and thanks to Lynne for bringing it to my attention.

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Ladies' Room?

There are many meaningful things said about the gender divide vis a vis bathrooms, but I didn’t expect to be blogging about it. Still, a couple of recent articles – one in The New York Times, and the other in The NY Post – have brought up all the usual issues and complaints.
If we allow crossdressed men to go into a ladies room, the end of civilization is upon us. Pedophilia will occur at mind-boggling rates. Women will no longer feel safe.

    A few things have occurred to me.
    1) The reason women already go to the bathroom in pairs (other than a chance to gossip) is safety. So it’s apparent they already don’t feel safe going alone to the ladies’ room, trannies or not.
    2) One of our loyal bloggers actually did some research on the incidence of men crossdressing in order to assault children in bathrooms, and after an evening of making himself heartsick with horrible stories, found only one incidence – which turned out, after all, to be a mistake.
    3) It strikes me that the easy answer to this problem is to legislate that new buildings need to include one single-occupancy bathroom. Period. So that the transperson, or woman-raised-female, or child-and-parent (fathers take their kids to the bathroom, too) can use a room that is lockable and private. Other buildings could be required over a period of time to retrofit their own bathrooms for similar use.
    4) I wonder often at the people who spew such fear and hatred of strangers, or the unknown. I wonder how they ever feel safe in their worlds.
    5) The first time I shared a ladies’ room with a drag queen the only thing that upset me was that she’d remembered to stop at a mirror to freshen her lipstick and I hadn’t.

Not to make light of the situation: women are vulnerable to unprotected spaces, and getting stuck behind a locked door. But I don’t think crossdressers are the men who are going to be assaulting them, and I don’t think the average sex assailant would be willing to emasculate himself to that degree in order to assault women. Transpeople are usually just as scared as women are of assault from men.
Since stalls create the privacy, why aren’t ladies’ room doors transparent? I don’t have a problem with someone watching me put on lipstick or make sure there’s no toilet paper stuck on my shoe (and maybe the clear doors would shame more people into washing their hands – like they’re supposed to). Extra eyes help cut down on violence.
So the real issue is: why don’t women feel safe in restrooms?
My guess is that it’s because we don’t take crimes against women seriously enough – no matter who perpetrates them. They say you can judge a society by how well it treats its women and children, and by those standards, we’re not getting a passing grade. ABC reports an increase in child abuse that’s ‘epidemic’ and the stats on violence against women stay the same year after year. If women don’t feel safe in their own homes, why on earth would they feel safe in a public bathroom? And while you might say these are two different issues, the late Andrea Dworkin said:

By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air; it is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Instead of “I am afraid,” we say, “I don’t want to,” or “I don’t know how,” or “I can’t.”

So why are women afraid of transfolks in restrooms? Because women are afraid. While they may not understand that transpeople are not the ones who will assault them, they don’t expect their boyfriends and husbands to assault them, either. And they do. They do. And as usual, what can be feared (because it is unknown, sometimes unknowable, and new) will be feared instead. Their fear is legitimate. Transpeople’s need for accomodation is legitimate. But once again, we’ve got this tiny sliver of pie, and no one’s getting enough to eat. The issue again is male violence – male violence against gay men, transpeople, and women. When we all realize that we’re in this together, maybe, maybe, we’ll take back the night.
Resources: The NY Post and NY Times articles can be found on the MHB Boards, and there’s some sensible legal consideration given to the issue by Michael C. Dore of FindLaw.com.

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New Pope

Having grown up Catholic, I was really hopeful that the next pope chosen would be of a more liberal bent on women’s issues than JP II. Unfortunately, Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict the XVI – was Pope JP II’s ‘hardliner’ on women’s issues.
He’s written things like this:

A second tendency emerges in the wake of the first. In order to avoid the domination of one sex or the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex, is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary. The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels. This theory of the human person, intended to promote prospects for equality of women through liberation from biological determinism, has in reality inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality.
3. While the immediate roots of this second tendency are found in the context of reflection on women’s roles, its deeper motivation must be sought in the human attempt to be freed from one’s biological conditioning.2 According to this perspective, human nature in itself does not possess characteristics in an absolute manner: all persons can and ought to constitute themselves as they like, since they are free from every predetermination linked to their essential constitution.
This perspective has many consequences. Above all it strengthens the idea that the liberation of women entails criticism of Sacred Scripture, which would be seen as handing on a patriarchal conception of God nourished by an essentially male-dominated culture. Second, this tendency would consider as lacking in importance and relevance the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form.

It’s not good news for women or GLBT people – in fact, it’s really bad news. You can read the whole of the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church On the Collaboration of Men and Women, if you’d like.
Matt Foreman of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force wrote:

“Today, the princes of the Roman Catholic Church elected as Pope a man whose record has been one of unrelenting, venomous hatred for gay people, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. In fact, during the reign of John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger was the driving force behind a long string of pronouncements using the term ‘evil’ to describe gay people, homosexuality, and marriage equality. As a long-time Catholic from a staunchly Catholic family, I know that the history of the church is full of shameful, centuries-long chapters involving vilification, persecution, and violence against others. Someday, the church will apologize to gay people as it has to others it has oppressed in the past. I very much doubt that this day will come during this Pope’s reign. In fact, it seems inevitable that this Pope will cause even more pain and give his successors even more for which to seek atonement.”

All told, this is not a Pope that will deal with pressing issues of the Church in any kind of enlightened way: no ordainment for women, no marriage for priests, no rational understanding of the natural existence of homosexuality, or the new family, or even changing roles for women. He may only be a “caretaker” pope, but depending on how long he lives – there may be a lot for the next pope to undo. Another religion moves toward fundamentalism, which is about the last thing we needed.
I’m calling him Pope Maledict, myself.

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Microsoft Abandons Gays

Especially in a political era of attacks on gays, we need the corporate leadership to stand up.
Microsoft has done so in the past, with its own policies as well as politically, but it has just pulled its support for a gay rights bill in Washington state in response to the pressure exerted by exactly ONE anti-gay pastor.
Please, read more at www.americablog.blogspot.com, and contact anyone you know personally at Microsoft, as well as any/all of the contacts listed at that site.