From NCTE: Final Hate Crimes Push

From NCTE:

Contact Your Senators About Hate Crimes Bill

Dear Friends,

We have good news: The Senate is likely to vote on the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, S.909, as early as next Wednesday, July 15. As you may remember, the companion bill, H.R.1913, already passed the House of Representatives this past April after NCTE’s successful lobby day. With a final push, you can help to make this important bill become a law.

This bill expands the coverage of existing hate crime laws to include crimes not only based on race, color, religion, and national origin, but also bias-motivated crimes based on the victim’s actual pr perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability.

TAKE ACTION
On Wednesday, July 15, call your senators toll free at 866-659-9641 between 9am and 5pm ET. Continue reading “From NCTE: Final Hate Crimes Push”

CDM Leaves Tri-Ess

As of today, Chi Delta Mu, the Tri-Ess chapter of the tri-state area, voted to leave Tri-Ess and become an inclusive & independent trans group.

At issue were the chapter’s non-compliance on three major required items: (1) that the local members be due-paying members of national; (2) that the group keep its focus on providing “support and education on behalf of heterosexual crossdressers, their spouses, partners and families”; and (3) that the local chapter file a financial statement with national.

From what I know, CDM hadn’t done (3) in a long while, hadn’t been (2) in a long while, and (1) that most of its members were not members of national.

From what I understand, there was nothing contentious going on – just National asking the local to respect its rules of the charter, and the local realizing that their group had evolved in such a way that becoming compliant again wasn’t going to work for them as a group.

Sean Kennedy: Insult to Injury

In the light of all the LGBT violence this past month, the news that Sean Kennedy’s killer was releaed from prison early – for good behavior? – is like insult to injury, salt in the wound.

Why take the death of a young gay man seriously? They’ve treated this crime all along as if the kid broke a fucking window — not that he caused the death of this poor handsome, well-loved and much-missed young man.

Heartbreak. Heartbreak all around.

TLDEF: Queens (Trans) Woman Beaten in Bias Crime

From TLDEF:

We’re sad to bring you the news of another brutal attack on a transgender woman, this one coming during the height of LGBT Pride month. On June 19, 2009, at approximately 2:30 am, Leslie Mora was walking home from a nightclub on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens when she was accosted by two men who brutally beat her with a belt. They stopped only when a passing motorist threatened to call the police.

Throughout the attack, Leslie’s assailants called her a “faggot” in Spanish. The attack left Leslie with multiple injuries, including bruises all over her body, and stitches in her scalp. Police called to the scene found Leslie nearly naked and bleeding on the sidewalk. They also recovered a belt buckle from the assailants that was covered in blood.

We want you to know that we’re working with Leslie to ensure that the perpetrators of this attack are brought to justice.

The full story, along with other resources, photos of Leslie Mora, at TLDEF’s site.

Advocate Screws It Up

JD Freeman of the Alabama Gender Alliance sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to The Advocate:

Dear Editor –

Regarding this article:
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid90450.asp

Here you have a self-identified transgender person, and you have refused to honor that person’s affirmed gender, making the bigoted editorial choice to call Kimah a man and to apply the masculine pronouns “he” and “him”.

You should know better. How are we to achieve liberation when our own publications mistreat us?

It’s time for me to renew my subscription. Guess you don’t need my money after all.

I’m copying GLAAD. Clearly, you need to re-read their media guide. I’m also copying NCTE and every major trans blog.

You owe Kimah an apology.

J D ‘Ox’ Freeman
President
Alabama Gender Alliance

From a Dad

If you haven’t yet read this letter from the father of a gender variant 10 year old to the KRXQ talk show hosts who encouraged violence against kids like his son, do. Here’s an excerpt:

No, my kid is making me tell you to tolerate all gender expression.

Women in crew cuts who are straight. Men in dresses and makeup who are straight and married to straight women. The same people, in terms of gender expression, who are gay. Everyone.

You don’t have to love them. You don’t have to wear a dress yourself. You don’t have to have a gay marriage, or marry a butch woman. None of this will be mandated in the world which I’m trying to make by talking with you.  You, a person I desperately want to ignore.

As Betty said after reading it: “I have such hope for the 21st Century.”

You will too. Go read it and the other letters on this new blog.

GLAAD Action Alert: KRXQ

TAKE ACTION: Demand that KRXQ Radio Hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States Apologize for Encouraging Violence Against Transgender Children

June 2, 2009— In a lengthy May 28 tirade on the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning radio show heard in Sacramento, California on KRXQ 98.5 FM and Reno, Nevada on KDOT 104.5 FM, hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States verbally attacked transgender children. While discussing a recent story about a transgender child in Omaha, Nebraska and her parents’ decision to support her transition, the two hosts spent more than 30 minutes explicitly promoting child abuse of and making cruel, dehumanizing and defamatory comments toward transgender children.

You can listen to the entire segment beginning at 4:48 by clicking this link:
http://robarnieanddawn.com/newsite/a…%20America.mp3.

Among the comments made by the hosts:
ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. And when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.
ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.
ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.
ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behavior. You cure the cause!
ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’
ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.

To her credit, co-host Dawn Rossi stood up to Williams and States during the segment. Despite her apparent lack of familiarity with transgender issues, Rossi repeatedly defended transgender people and made an on-air apology for her colleagues’ defamatory remarks.

TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.

John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com

Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com

Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com

Please use the share page functionality at the top of this page to alert any of your friends and others who may also wish to take action. When contacting KRXQ, please ensure that your emails and phone calls are civil and respectful and do not engage in the kind of name-calling or abusive behavior.

About GLAAD
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. For more information, please visit www.glaad.org.