sexgenderbody

ok, so here’s my 2 cents / worth next to nothing opinion of the Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra”

or as I like to think of it,

“To Wong Fu,

We learned nothing about shameless appropriation the last fail.

Love,

CisHet America”

Look, I love Soderbergh, Douglas & Damon.  I don’t think that only queer actors should play queer roles or cis-het actors should play cis-het roles.  However, with such a fucking history of erasure - and all the present day erasure, representation matters.

Actors personal lives are part of their performance.   I will not believe for one minute that either of those two men is gay while watching the film.  Chemistry and sparks fly when I watch two people in love scenes that it’s clear from knowing the actors’ personal info enough to believe that these two people would / could be attracted to each other.  I’m sure they’ll do a great job, but they won’t do a gay job.

Also, the message this sends is that if there’s a buck to be made on playing gay on film, that buck won’t go to anybody gay.  What’s next…Britney Spears as an intersex activist?

Maybe they just didn’t want any trouble getting this past the “don’t say gay” legislation in Tennessee.

the (snow)faces change but the (appropriated) song remains the same, and the crowd goes wild.

sexgenderbody:

I was tripping over the many tumblr conversations about Hugo Schwyzer lately.  A good number of people articulated some solid points about him, as well as the many who stated their outrage and distrust of him.  Some folks take his writing as separate from his life and others will not grant this as valid.  From what I see, he’s done some pretty shitty things.  Each one of those points is worth discussing, yet something else was gnawing at me in all of this and that’s what I want to discuss now.

How did a cis-het white man get to be a voice for feminism?

I was asking myself why is Hugo Schwyzer, a cis-het-white-male, even a topic in conversations about feminism?  Why are we discussing his languaging of feminist concepts?  Put otherwise, how did we get a privileged face in front of conversations about the abuse of privilege, mouthing the words of the oppressed with people accepting, repeating, defending and challenging him on his merits to speak for those denied equality by the privileged class of which he is a member?  

The short answer is that it depends on the audience as to whether he is or is not.  So, who then is willing to accept the face of Hugo Schwyzer as a mouthpiece for feminist ideals?  Who indeed?  Privileged, white people - that’s who. 

 The world population has slightly more women than men and of the world’s women population, whites are a minority.  As far as the actual world is concerned, Hugo Schwyzer does not speak for them, about them or their issues an (I think luckily for them) they don’t even know who he is.  

Most of the world’s women are not addressed by western Feminism(TM) nor have been since the brand was created.  Whether we’re talking about suffragettes, 2nd wavers, radfems, women’s studies depts. or any of the top Feminsm(TM) blogs - the divide between issues created by privilege have not been bridged.  Most of these voices are white, cis, het, English speaking and privileged.  

Feminism(TM) worldwide has a white face.  Don’t take my word for it - ask the planet.  

They are not bad people, they are just privileged.  The issues important to them are valid and deserve attention.  They are not the issues faced by the majority of women worldwide.  Privileged voices are capable of discussing non-privileged persons but not to the exclusion of those voices and concerns of women across the globe, cultures, languages and identities.  No one face may in fact be able to speak for everyone, but the face of the most privileged are the least representative of those oppressed by the privileged class.

Just as cis-het-white, english speaking, educated women from NYC & London and womens’ studies depts. are not a representative voice for women’s issues around the world, Hugo Schwyzer is an even less appropriate choice.

It takes two to tango - one person and one huge crowd, eager for the message.

Hugo is just one person - he can’t get all this attention all on his own.  The reason he gets all this attention is because there is a market for him.  That market is made of privileged or privileged sympathetic minds: white people, cis people, het people, English speaking people and anyone counting the values and definitions of privileged classes as being their own.  

US and British pop culture has demonstrated over the last 50 years in concrete dollars that if you want to sell an idea (especially one from a non privileged voice) to white audiences - put a white face to it. 

- Elvis Presley to represent black music.  

- Vanilla Ice to do the exact same thing

- Lady GaGa to represent LGBT issues

- Tim Wise to represent race issues

- Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Andrea Dworkin, etc. to represent feminism

Where is the living brown, queer or female voice to represent the voices of brown, queer, female or any non-white privilege that is accepted worldwide to international acclaim and making as much money or more than the examples above?

Perhaps it is a fact of human nature that we all seek what we are familiar with.  This is not about those individuals anyway - this is about the crowd that seeks those white faces.  The crowd that we are all part of.  I am writing this in English, from the USA and how many people who are not privileged will read it?  

You may not like what I say and you may disagree with it.  That’s your prerogative.  But I can tell you this - the rest of the world, the people we have systematically silenced - they don’t give a shit whether Hugo Schwyzer lives or dies.  They probably don’t much care for you nor I either.

They’re on the shit end of our appropriation and exclusion every day of their lives.  He’s not controversial.  He’s just more of the same.

If we want to hear the actual voices of the world - they are already speaking.  They have been all along.  We just need to look someplace else than behind a white face.   

Open Letter to Cardinal George regarding his comparison of LGBTQI to the KKK

I just could not let this one go without saying something…

Cardinal George set the low bar for reason, respect and atrocity this week in comparing LGBTQI persons and organizations to the KKK.

He is upset that a bunch of queers want to have their pride parade on a street where one of his churches are.  He claims that queer people walking past his church violate his religious freedom.  Here is my open letter to him.

Dear Cardinal shitbird George,

Religious freedom means that you can believe whatever you want and you can talk about it with others.  It does not mean that you can use the law to keep people out of sight, who disagree with you or whose existence contradicts your views.  

You can say whatever you want about god in a building you own (without paying taxes while collecting money to pay off victims of your pedophile rapist priests and to deny the rapes ever happened).

But you cannot choose who walks down the city street in front of your church.  

Not everyone shares your faith.  I myself think of god as non-existent and yourself as a deluded, power-drunk man pretending to be god.  

In looking at the KKK, they’re christians.  They burn crucifixes on people’s lawns and have operated with overt and covert support from christian organizations - and still do.

In looking at history, it was the Catholic Church —- your employer, who supported Hitler in the genocides of jews, homeless, poor, roma and millions of others.  It was the Catholic Church and Pope who organized the Inquisition, targeting jews and women because people were listening to them instead of the Pope.  It was the Catholic Church who blessed, financed and helped the Atlantic Slave Trade and the genocide of millions of indigenous persons in North & South America as well as the European colonies in the Pacific in exchange for gold, wealth, land and the right to force millions into praying to your god.

There are exactly zero LGBTQI organizations which have done any of these things.  

So, “Mr. blood on his hands from playing god”, if I were you, I’d shut the fuck up and collect my money from the people I’ve already conned into believing in my shitty god story and not draw attention to murders and atrocities, because that shit all points back to your holy doing.

As for my right to parade down the street past your fucking church, I’m going to wear a leather speedo in front of your church, stick my hand in my pants and kiss men and women in front of your church - as is my goddamn right.  In fact, I may stop by tomorrow, during Christmas mass because that is my right as well.

Fuck you.

the (snow)faces change but the (appropriated) song remains the same, and the crowd goes wild.

I was tripping over the many tumblr conversations about Hugo Schwyzer lately.  A good number of people articulated some solid points about him, as well as the many who stated their outrage and distrust of him.  Some folks take his writing as separate from his life and others will not grant this as valid.  From what I see, he’s done some pretty shitty things.  Each one of those points is worth discussing, yet something else was gnawing at me in all of this and that’s what I want to discuss now.

How did a cis-het white man get to be a voice for feminism?

I was asking myself why is Hugo Schwyzer, a cis-het-white-male, even a topic in conversations about feminism?  Why are we discussing his languaging of feminist concepts?  Put otherwise, how did we get a privileged face in front of conversations about the abuse of privilege, mouthing the words of the oppressed with people accepting, repeating, defending and challenging him on his merits to speak for those denied equality by the privileged class of which he is a member?  

The short answer is that it depends on the audience as to whether he is or is not.  So, who then is willing to accept the face of Hugo Schwyzer as a mouthpiece for feminist ideals?  Who indeed?  Privileged, white people - that’s who. 

 The world population has slightly more women than men and of the world’s women population, whites are a minority.  As far as the actual world is concerned, Hugo Schwyzer does not speak for them, about them or their issues an (I think luckily for them) they don’t even know who he is.  

Most of the world’s women are not addressed by western Feminism(TM) nor have been since the brand was created.  Whether we’re talking about suffragettes, 2nd wavers, radfems, women’s studies depts. or any of the top Feminsm(TM) blogs - the divide between issues created by privilege have not been bridged.  Most of these voices are white, cis, het, English speaking and privileged.  

Feminism(TM) worldwide has a white face.  Don’t take my word for it - ask the planet.  

They are not bad people, they are just privileged.  The issues important to them are valid and deserve attention.  They are not the issues faced by the majority of women worldwide.  Privileged voices are capable of discussing non-privileged persons but not to the exclusion of those voices and concerns of women across the globe, cultures, languages and identities.  No one face may in fact be able to speak for everyone, but the face of the most privileged are the least representative of those oppressed by the privileged class.

Just as cis-het-white, english speaking, educated women from NYC & London and womens’ studies depts. are not a representative voice for women’s issues around the world, Hugo Schwyzer is an even less appropriate choice.

It takes two to tango - one person and one huge crowd, eager for the message.

Hugo is just one person - he can’t get all this attention all on his own.  The reason he gets all this attention is because there is a market for him.  That market is made of privileged or privileged sympathetic minds: white people, cis people, het people, English speaking people and anyone counting the values and definitions of privileged classes as being their own.  

US and British pop culture has demonstrated over the last 50 years in concrete dollars that if you want to sell an idea (especially one from a non privileged voice) to white audiences - put a white face to it. 

- Elvis Presley to represent black music.  

- Vanilla Ice to do the exact same thing

- Lady GaGa to represent LGBT issues

- Tim Wise to represent race issues

- Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Andrea Dworkin, etc. to represent feminism

Where is the living brown, queer or female voice to represent the voices of brown, queer, female or any non-white privilege that is accepted worldwide to international acclaim and making as much money or more than the examples above?

Perhaps it is a fact of human nature that we all seek what we are familiar with.  This is not about those individuals anyway - this is about the crowd that seeks those white faces.  The crowd that we are all part of.  I am writing this in English, from the USA and how many people who are not privileged will read it?  

You may not like what I say and you may disagree with it.  That’s your prerogative.  But I can tell you this - the rest of the world, the people we have systematically silenced - they don’t give a shit whether Hugo Schwyzer lives or dies.  They probably don’t much care for you nor I either.

They’re on the shit end of our appropriation and exclusion every day of their lives.  He’s not controversial.  He’s just more of the same.

If we want to hear the actual voices of the world - they are already speaking.  They have been all along.  We just need to look someplace else than behind a white face.   

Anonymous asked: In your opinion, what is the best (and most respectful) way to approach curiosity/attraction to the same sex?

I’ll tell you what I think, but with the caveat that this is just how I would consider the question, in my life.  You should definitely do what you feel is right and healthy in your own life.

If you are just asking about curiosity, then watch queer porn and see if it excites you.  Or maybe read queer love stories.  Whatever expression you are curious about, read or browse that.

If you feel attraction and want to explore a relationship, then go to online chat areas (free) and talk / flirt / relate in that space.  You can control how much of your real information is revealed and maintain some control over your participation and commitment.

If you want to explore physical contact and some sort or meatspace relationship, then you can use the online venues to meet / interview people and set up something in real life.  I would not engage with anyone who is not “out”.  Managing your own ‘closet vs. out” identity and / or transition will be potentially difficult enough on a relationship.  No need to double that.  Plus, the stability of someone already living queer being in your life may answer a lot of questions you have about what your life could be like. 

I hope this helps and please trust yourself to choose what is best for you.

~ arvan

Transition Road: Am I still their mom if I have a beard?

(via bluesheep @ DailyKos)

“But can I still be their Mom if I have a beard?”

That really is a thought that went through my mind. Goes through my mind - daily, sometimes hourly. And though it makes me laugh to read it, it’s also one of the most serious and heartwrenching thoughts I’ve ever had.

I have three children who are my raison d’être (I literally would have taken my own life years back if it were not for their need to have a Mommy) and I recently came out through my own gender binary from tomboy/butch to genderqueer to transman.

I never felt like I was a woman, not even when I was pregnant or nursing. But I’ll be damned if I’m not a Mommy with all my heart and soul. I’m a mixed up Mommy, to be sure, and maybe my angels won’t call me that when I’m further along Transition Road. But being a mother has been more than my gender that was always unclear to me. It’s more than the plumbing that concieved, carried and birthed them, it’s more than the breasts that fed them. I think…

But when my name and gender marker are changed, and ovaries, uterus and breasts are gone… will I still be their Mom? If I have a beard!?

I got so stuck in my thinking about that, that I gained ten pounds on Gin & Tonic and ice cream.  I’d never let anybody else take away my status as a Mommy, could I (and would I) do it to myself?

Jump with me to the other side of the diary binary to see what answers I’ve come up with.

Recently CA Treehugger helped open my mind by recommending this book about gender diversity: Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. Aside from being a truly entertaining read, it highlighted the remains of my internalized gender binary more efficiently than I would have though possible. I came to see myself in the excellent (non-static, non-binary) company of a good portion of the living things on this planet. Some creatures (fish I believe) even change their sex-role more than once within a single act of mating. I shouldn’t even get started on the other cool examples - seriously, read the book!

Given my new-found solidarity with all sorts of fascinating flora and fauna, I decided to revisit the intersection of Motherhood and Transgender Man. Just like with sex and gender, motherhood seems at first glance like the simplest thing in the world. A female, her child, her motherhood. But anybody who’s ever given serious thought to adoption or abortion can tell you it’s not that simple. Yes there is the biological relationship between myself and my children. It was my eggs that were fertilized by their father’s sperm. And I do see much of myself in them. But any adoptive parent will tell you that motherhood or fatherhood doesn’t need the genes. And though I’ve never had an abortion myself, I held the hand of a rape victim in the waiting room of a clinic. She had a pregnancy terminated because she was unwilling to be forced into the role of mother by that act of violence that enable her egg to be fertilized by a rapist’s sperm.

So even without the gender aspect, Motherhood is not cut and dry. Motherhood has as many valid expressions as there are creatures on the earth. It can be something biological, cultural or emotional, and as with the fish who change roles during the act of fertilization, so can a parent change their role and understanding of the relationship as it evolves.

I was often very dysphoric during those years. I sometimes felt like they were parasites sucking the energy out of me. I loved them with all that I have, but I hated feeling sick, dizzy, off balance. I resented the discomfort and inconvenience, the things I gave up (coffee!) and the things I couldn’t bear to look at any more (milk). I resented the pain. There was a lot of pain.

But there was purpose as well. I’ve always hated my breasts, but I knew they’d provide the best nourishment for my children. They had become “useful” for a time. And for that I was grateful that they were a part of me. I had similar feelings about the rest of the “plumbing”. It felt (for lack of a better word) “yucky”, but at the same time it was clear to me that it is a wondrous thing to have a child, my child, grow inside my body. All the pain and blood and bad moods over the years had been leading up to my children, and to me it was the ultimate expression of nurturing, to have my own body be the vehicle that brought them into the world.

None of that ever made me really identify as a woman, though on some level I had hoped that it would. It made me feel fat and cranky, but it also made me glad to be a female in the context of human reproduction. It was MY body, and not that of my a$$hole ex-husband, and they were (and are) MY children. I felt that I had more claim to them. I was, from the beginning of their lives, the center of their worlds: MOM.

I was 25 when I had my eldest, and I had hoped that Motherhood would fill the emptiness and right the wrongness I had carried with me all my life. It did not. Motherhood certainly filled my heart with happiness and love at times. But it didn’t change the deep-seated feeling that something was very wrong with me. It didn’t take away the incongruence, the feeling of inadequacy, the sense that I was missing something I could never put my finger on.

Now that they are getting older and more independent, I’ve had the space and time to accept my gender identity. I played my part as a female in the biological process of reproduction, but now the nurturing is different. I don’t need the female body parts to continue to care for them and provide them with all they need to keep growing into physically and emotionally healthy young adults. What I need to provide them with now is an emotionally healthy, happy parent. That means transitioning. That means removing the plumbing that brought them into the world and the breast that fed them in the first, most important months of life. And it means taking the testosterone that will eventually give me a beard. Even if I shave it twice a day, it will be there - it has to be.

For me, being a mom has meant giving my children the most nurturing environment possible. From the womb to the breast, from preschool to the dinner table, from the library to the farmers market and in every other aspect of life, I’ve tried to offer them warmth, authenticity and a depth and breadth of opportunity, to find their own paths in life. Now the only way to keep offering them authenticity is to transition to a male body and presentation that matches my gender.

If I want to keep being the best mom I can, I don’t have any choice but to transition. Will they still call me Mom when I have a beard? I don’t know, but it won’t really matter.

Originally posted to TransAction on Thu May 05, 2011 at 08:57 AM CDT.

Also republished by Street Prophets and Community Spotlight.

on gaga: how being in the news is not news

(via sexgenderbody)

[Warning: I will actually be criticising white people, lady gaga and several sacred cows of white culture]

Lady Gaga is all the rage.  She loves her some gay people and she even sings a song that takes up the banner of gay rights - “Born This Way”. 

Before anyone derails this into a conversation about music (it’s not), my taste (I have none), why I don’t like gaga (I think she’s talented enough), any theory of me being anti-LGBTQI (wrong again, camel-breath) or my dislike for white people (I am white and harbor no such thoughts) - be clear: this is about the institutionalized cultural appropriation has been served up to and consumed by cis-gendered, heteronormative white audiences.

These are the lies we are told in order to maintain division and inequality by those who profit from our ignorance and cruelty toward each other.

I have had my reservations with a reliance on some short saying such as “born this way” to justify the identity of LGBTQI persons and I am not the only one.  I am not saying that people are not “born this way”.  Some are and it is for each of us to decide for our own selves, whether this is true or not. 

-  I do not recognize the authority of others to demand from me or anyone - some accounting of how I got to be the way I am.  I don’t owe anyone such an explanation and I don’t need to convince them that I am a valid person.  I think that there are no shortcuts.  For me to accept that LGBTQI persons owe some sort of explanation for whom we are is victim blaming.  No different to me than slut shaming.  It is placing the power in the hands of the bullies while releasing them from accountability.  I may have been born this way or I may have chosen to be this way - either way, I cede no power to anyone challenging my rights to be.

- I also believe that by taking this path, ultimately we will face those who would seek to eliminate us from the gene pool with eugenics either pre or post-natal.  The bloodlust of the deeply religious, anti-LGBTQI and anti-women butchers is ever eager to kill others either because of our differences or because of their identities being dependent upon vilifying us.  They are responsible for whether or not they mock us, starve us, dehumanize us, bully us, torture us and kill us - not our genetic history or our choices.  The murderer is responsible for the death it brings and the life it takes.

So, that is what this post is not about.  This is about cultural appropriation.  Lady GaGa is the latest “white queen”.  The international pop culture sensation / phenom of white worship. The domination of white, cis-gendered, heteronormative culture across the media of print, radio, television and film has been virtually unchallenged for as long as those mediums have existed.  She is not the first, last nor is it always women.

Focusing on those examples that co-opt the culture of non-whites for their own fame and fortune.  Since the birth of Jazz, white musicians have been taking the music of non-whites and getting rich while the non-whites take a back seat.  Elvis Presley, The Beatles, UB40, Eminem to name some of the most successful.  It wasn’t until Vanilla Ice embarrassed the planet with “Ice, Ice Baby” that hip-hop became popular with white audiences.  The only glaring obvious difference between these musicians and the black musicians they were emulating was that a white guy was front & center. 

It is not always about race.  In GaGa’s example, queer culture is being co-opted.  Madonna and Cher have gone there before and they were not the first, either.

It’s not just music, it’s not just LGBTQI or black people.  Liz Taylor just died and in the flash of images being tossed about, more than one site displayed her picture from a visit to Iran.

(Source: Vogue)

“Black Face”, the horrid appropriation of black culture by white performers is “mostly dead” but still resurfaces from time to time.  However, there seems to be no problem or cessation in white artists pretending to be asian, indigenous or latino.  Here is a good list of “yellow face” in film. Seriously?  Jake Gyllenhaal as a Persian?  Apparently Mickey Rourke is going to portray Genghis Khan.  We just saw two films named Avatar that had white people in non-white cultures.

It really comes down to this: For way too many non-white cultural expressions, there is a white face doing the same thing and it probably is better paid & more famous.  Often, the original expression of these cultures are ignored or placed in the footnotes of history after the great white icon is retiring or passed away.

This fame comes with a severe cost to the source culture.  The actual voices of non-cis-het-white culture are not being heard.  The images, sounds, icons and specifics of these appropriated cultures become associated with someone who is not a member of that group.  That’s what happens when GaGa’s face is all over magazines and video feeds as a representative of LGBTQI culture.  She is somehow a face of queer culture.

-

Cultural icons reflect the dominant culture.  There is no getting around that.  Responsibility for the actions taken by the dominant culture toward the marginalized cultures lies with the dominant culture.  Each of us has our share of responsibilities, which for the most people, consist of how we treat the people in our lives. 

For the people behind the mass messaging of film, tv, radio and music - the responsibility is even greater.  Although, to hear them speak of it - they play no part whatsoever.

A popular rationalization by those who profit from the cultural appropriation is that they are only giving the audiences what the audience is asking for.  But, audiences are malleable - they do what they are told to do.  Religion, advertising, propaganda and psychological operations all work precisely because people can be manipulated into doing / believing / repeating whatever they are told.  And that audience?  Apparently it is white, suburban, cis-het teens. 

I don’t think there is mere coincidence that the fortunes of money spent to reinforce racial / gender / cultural privilege are all at the whim of some faceless horde of skateboarding kids on a cul-de-sac.  I think that it is deliberate, targeted messaging pointed directly at the next generation of white kids, intended to reassert privilege.  Like they say when catching organized crime - follow the money.  Companies owned by the privileged elements of society would not be sinking billions into advertising, film, TV and music to put a white face front & center if it was not exactly what they want.

I’m not saying that cis-het-white people cannot or should not advocate for or celebrate people outside that privileged group.  I am saying that when marginalized persons are denied equality and expression of their own culture because of their non-cis-het-white identity and the role of actual representatives of their own experience, we cannot replace acceptance by embracing a cis-het-white face pretending to be that culture instead. 

In simpler terms, “colored face” is not civil rights or equality or acceptance.  It is vanity, delusion and imperialism.  Nothing good will come of it.

—

extra bonus if you made it this far:

Alec82: The Globalization of Homohate: Time to Ask Some Hard Questions

(via Alec82 @ DailyKos)

   Last Wednesday, Ugandan gay activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death.  On Saturday, the pastor who presided over his funeral called for  gays to repent “or be punished by God.”  

    Kato’s death did not take place in a vacuum.  The Uganda anti-gay bill introduced in parliament in October of 2009 was partially the product of an alliance between Ugandan politicians and U.S. evangelicals.

  The Uganda campaign was rooted in fertile soil.  Homosexuality is a serious offense in Uganda, and HIV educational campaigns largely avoid discussing it or engaging in any outreach to gay men.  With the exception of South Africa, this is true for much of the continent north and south of the Sahara.  

    Writing for the Guardian in May of last year, columnist Madeleine Bunning identified several “complex roots” underlying African homophobia. That context is, inter alia, indigenous cultural elements, urbanization, anti-Western resentment, and a “crisis of masculinity” resulting from the intersection of the other factors.  She leaves out a desire to compete with Islam for converts.  Regardless, the point is clear enough: White evangelicals did not have to invent homophobia in Africa, but when they arrived to plant seeds they discovered fertile soil:  

But within Uganda deeply-rooted homophobia, aided by a US-linked evangelical campaign alleging that gay men are trying to “recruit” schoolchildren, and that homosexuality is a habit that can be “cured”, has ensured widespread public support for the bill.

President Yoweri Museveni appeared to add his backing earlier this month, warning youths in Kampala that he had heard that “European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa”, and saying gay relationships were against God’s will.

“We used to say Mr and Mrs, but now it is Mr and Mr. What is that now?” he said. In a interview with the Guardian, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of state for ethics and integrity, said the government was determined to pass the legislation, ideally before the end of 2009, even if meant withdrawing from international treaties and conventions such as the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and foregoing donor funding.

“We are talking about anal sex. Not even animals do that,” Butoro said, adding that he was personally caring for six “former homosexuals” who had been traumatised by the experience. “We believe there are limits to human rights.”

This is nothing new, of course; Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has long held out gay men and lesbians as scapegoats, describing homosexuality as “an alien practise” that destroys nations.  This view is popular and bipartisan in Zimbabwe; as leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai “totally agree[s] with the president” on few issues, but gay men and lesbians (particularly the former) is one of them.  

Homophobia has always been in a problem in virtually every society, but there are strong signs that as developed nations have reached a consensus on combating it, religious and secular opposition has concentrated on traditional and underdeveloped nations.  Russia is appealing a decision by the European Court of Human Rights that struck down Moscow’s ban on annual gay pride marches.  In rejecting the ban, the court noted that Mayor Luzhkov “had vowed to never allow a gay pride parade in Moscow no matter what. He called gay parades “satanic” and “weapons of mass destruction,” and called gay people “faggots” (“gomiki”).”

    In Moscow, law enforcement authorities have been unwilling to shield gay men and lesbians at these events from violent attacks by ultranationalists and fundamentalists, a  trait they share with police in Indonesia, where conferences on gay rights have been disrupted by conservative Islamist opponents.  

    Reacting to Kato’s death, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton argued that his “tragic death underscores how critical it is that both the government and the people of Uganda, along with the international community, speak out against the discrimination, harassment, and intimidation of Uganda’s LGBT community, and work together to ensure that all individuals are accorded the same rights and dignity to which each and every person is entitled.”  Her boss, President Barack Obama, released an even stronger statement that same day, condemning murders in Honduras and Uganda, and asserting, without qualification, that “LGBT rights are not special rights; they are human rights.”  

    Still, his ambassador to Zambia just today insisted that the United States will not push for   decriminalization of homosexuality, but will instead “respect Zambian traditions, cultures and history,” going so far as to urge Zambians to “uphold their values,” which includes the criminalization of homosexuality and a longstanding tradition of state-sponsored homophobia. Ambassador Storella was appointed by President Obama last year; maybe the ambassador was speaking out of turn.  But it is interesting to note that despite the president’s strong words, there has been no change in on-the-ground advocacy, and the idea that promotion of human rights, or even basic respect, for gay Africans would be part of the US foreign policy agenda in Zambia or anywhere else appears to be little more than an illusion designed for HRC cocktail dinners.      

  The news is not all bad; there are straight Ugandans with a platform who get it, and they’re taking the opportunity to speak out:

Alan Kasujja, host of a breakfast radio show in Kampala, used his broadcast on Friday to urge Uganda to turn its back on homophobia and focus on other issues.

“I have tons of friends who are gay,” Kasujja told Reuters. “These are people who I have gone to school with, who I have worked with. They are our brothers and sisters, our children.

“So am I supposed to join ill-informed, undereducated people who advocate for them to be ostracised? Sorry, I cannot be part of that,” he said.

Gay activist murder prompts Ugandan reflection

    Whatever one thinks about the president’s commitment to gay rights here in the US, we can say this much: He never approved of the law in Uganda, and he spoke out against it at the time, and the statements released last week were forceful.  But today’s statements made by Storella underline an important point driven home with each wikileaks revelation: There’s a division between what our leaders say at home to garner praise and what they are willing to do through their spokespeople abroad, or in negotiations with foreign leaders.  

   President Obama is going to have a difficult re-election campaign, but he will almost certainly be able to count on LGBT support.  They will support him financially, in the voting booth, and as volunteers.  To earn and sustain this support, he will be able to point to the videos he made for the “It Gets Better” campaign as well as the videos made by Clinton and others within his administration.  He will be able to point to the passage of a federal hate crimes act in 2009, and, presumably, the eventual repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2010-2011.  These are significant accomplishments, but there are just as many reservations: On the DOMA litigation and the Obama administration’s insistence that anti-gay discrimination is almost always constitutional, on the failure to require nondiscrimination in the military context, on the failure to implement all of HRC’s recommendations, including a prohibition against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity for federal contractors…these and other issues are important.  

Perhaps most alarmingly, these are not questions that mainstream LGBT groups appear to be asking.  Last Friday, the Human Rights Campaign ran a column condemning Scott Lively and other US-based activists for promoting the murderous campaign against gay men and lesbians in Uganda and elsewhere, but there’s nothing on Storella or any inquiry into what steps the US, as a donor nation, is taking to ensure that anti-gay discrimination is addressed or ameliorated in the countries that need it the most.  We know that the United States agrees that gay men and lesbians should not be subjected to extrajudicial murder, but I would assume Ms. Rice acknowledges that as a floor and not a ceiling.  What is the US doing to decriminalize homosexuality across the board?  What steps are being made to tie receipt of HIV/AIDS funding to decriminalization, if any? Why are these steps not being taken, if they are not?

Today in the most repressive countries on the planet, thousands of people are risking their lives to demand accountability, human rights and the right to dissent.  Here in the relative comfort of the United States, in exchange for access to the corridors of power and the briefest of nods at charitable dinners, the mainstream LGBT groups and individuals prefer to maintain their diminutive status within a larger coalition instead of asking difficult questions that might risk that status.  We rightfully mock GoProud for inviting incendiary figures like Andrew Brietbart into their organization, but we are at a loss to address the seemingly contradictory messages being sent by the White House on a host of issues, to say nothing of the willingness of national organizations to lend their name to dubious coalition efforts without much promise of reciprocity, if any.

It is all well and good to call for a politics that is lived “at the intersection” of competing identities if that’s one’s interest, but it is another thing altogether to become an apologist for the establishment when it insists on kicking people like you in the face, provided that they are poor and/or foreign.  The anti-gay movement is itself intersectional and interfaith; people of color and whites, religious fundamentalists and secular fascists, united in opposition to the basic human rights of gay men and lesbians. We need to take a look at the globalization of homophobia and ask some very difficult questions: Of ourselves, of the Obama administration, and of our supposed political allies.

[rserven] Breaking: stereotypes

(via rserven @ DailyKos)

According to an article by Sabrina Tavernise in the New York Times, from a couple of days ago, Census Bureau numbers have been crunched and some surprising facts have been generated.  If you don’t have a Times account, here’s a mirror at the Seattle Times.

The American South hosts more gay families than any other region.  The largest population of same-sex couples with children is in San Antonio, with Jacksonville, FL, not far behind.

The data was mined by Gary Gates at UCLA.  The article itself focuses mostly on Jacksonville.

Gay couples in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

And an important item:  these families defy stereotypes.  The adults in those families tend most often to be African American women and Latinas, who often had married and had children before coming out.

People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame.  What did we do?  We wandered around lost.  We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.

—Darlene Maffett, 43, Jacksonville

Darlene had two children in 8 years of marriage.

Here’s an interesting tidbit on the men’s side:  gay men who have children tend to do so 3 years earlier than heterosexual men.

The Census Bureau estimated in 2009 that there were 581,000 same-sex couples in the US.  The Bureau does not count single gays and lesbians.

About a third of all lesbians (one might presume that this refers to lesbians in relationships…the article is unclear) are parents.  One-fifth of gay men are parents.  This is despite the fact that their children are some of the most at risk, with fewer legal protections and less health insurance than the children of heterosexual couples.

About 32% of same-sex couples in Jacksonville have children, compared to 34% in San Antonio.

Often the children are forced into the closet at school, for fear of their parents being identified and losing their employment.

Even when employers agree to cover domestic partners, those couples pay higher taxes, because without federal recognition of their status, health coverage is considered income and is taxable. Until recently, Florida was one of a handful of states that expressly prohibited adoption by gay couples.

Money is often an immediate problem.

I’m one check away from being on welfare.

—Ty Francis, a bank customer-service worker with a sharp sense of humor, who supports six children together with her partner, Rosalyn Cooley, a health-care worker.

For those of us ion the northeast, I found this article to be of some interest, from 2008:  Gay Families Find the Bronx Is a Place to Call Home.  On the other hand, data I discovered shows that in 2008, Manhattan led all NYC boroughs in the sheer number of same-sex families, with about three times the number in the Bronx (I found that link at work, but am struggling to locate it now that I am at home).

You need to read this now, whether cis or trans.

cartographies:

You need to read this now, whether cis or trans.

Nearly half of living trans people–surviving trans people–have attempted suicide.

Nearly half of those of us who did not succeed in killing ourselves have tried.

Nearly a tenth of us will be murdered.  Nearly half of us will be raped.  Most of us will experience violence from loved ones and almost all of us will be denied homes and jobs.  This is not hyperbole.  These are the numbers as the world currently stands.  But the most devastating one, as far as I am concerned, is that first one.  Nearly half of the living have tried not to be.  That is:  let’s leave behind all the nearly.  More than half of us have tried to end our own lives and many of us have succeeded.  We are a heartbroken people.

This is not arbitrary.  This is not a mistake.  This is not for no reason.  This is because we live in a world that has systematically forced into us the falsehood that we are unworthy of the basic consideration of humanity.  This is because we–and we are a beautiful people, a powerful people, a beloved and phenomenal people–have been fed falsehood after falsehood until we were convinced that we were the problem, and not the campaign, from the institution on down to the individual, to erase, denigrate, break, and murder us.  This is the failure state of the communities we live in:  our families, our religious communities, our political leaders, our movements, our governments, our cultures.  This is us–trans people–as a people–being forced to carry the weight of an entire world’s failure.

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