I've made it to the initial round for favorite progressive blogger in the Air America Cruise Contest. I have to stay in the Top 5 before the second voting round begins, so your vote is appreciated! First voting round:
The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
I just knew I was not going to like the take on trans people when I had an article entitled My Boyfriend Turned Out To Be A Girl. The piece was forwarded to me by teen lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community activist Ariel Bustamante.
In quick summary, in the Seventeen magazine issue for November, a young adult named Sheri, in an "as told to Jessica Press" article, talks about dating someone who the article describes as a liar -- a female-to-male young trans man who the article proclaimed as really being a "she." The bolded and enlarged segment of the article text, put into a text box in the center of the piece, stated "It felt like my whole first love was a lie."
The thrust of the article, from the article headline to the bolded and highlighted text, seemed to be that female-to-male transsexuals are really females who are deceiving others. This isn't supported by "Sheri"/Jessica Press's use of proper pronouns throughout the piece, but it is accomplished in the headline chosen for the piece, and the highlighted and bolded call-out boxes for the piece.
The gist of the article, from the article headline to the bolded and highlighted text, seemed to be that female-to-male transsexuals are really females who are deceiving others.
Facebook webpage group organizer Ariel Bustamante said this about the article:
Rather than use this opportunity to educate readers about transgender issues, it never once even uses any terminology (well, unless you consider the slur "he-she") but instead furthers the common transphobic assumption that someone who's gender does not match their sex assigned at birth is a deceptive liar and even compares them (at the bottom) to perverts, drug addicts, and older dad's trying to get someone young w/o disclosing their parental/age status.
Please read the article (follow the 1st link) done in poor taste with a terrible accusatory tone from the get-go and write a letter to the editor (mail@seventeen.com) expressing your opinion about the article, the implications it has, and ask them to put an apology in one of their next 2 issues.
If you do had sent such an e-letter to Seventeen, Ariel sent me the boiler plate response that the letter writers have received back from them to this point:
Hey [Insert Name Here]!
Thank you so much for writing us! We apologize if the article "My Boyfriend Turned Out to Be a Girl" upset or troubled you in any way. Please know that we understand LGBT issues are very sensitive and certainly did not intend to spread misinformation or prejudice. We will definitely take your comments into account and be more careful in the future.
Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
[Below the fold: What GLAAD and the Associated Press recommend about reporting on trans people, and the Harsh Realities that many trans youth experience that Seventeen didn't note.]
Jonathan Escobar says he chooses to wear clothes that express himself. Skinny jeans, wigs, "vintage" clothing and makeup are the staples of his wardrobe.
"I don't consider myself a cross-dresser," he said. "This is just who I am."
But the 16-year-old says an assistant principal at North Cobb High School told him last week he needed to dress more "manly" for school, or consider being home-schooled. He had only been a student at the school for three days...
The reason he was given for being kicked out dropping out of school?
Escobar said the assistant principal told him his style of dress had caused a fight between students at the school.
So we deny a student an education not because the student has is inciting violence, but because others are reacting to the students gender expression in a violent way. Apparently, declaring a student "distracting" is for gender expression is a way for school bureaucrats to say "'We' can acceptably be bigoted towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, and transgender students who express gender in ways 'we' are 'uncomfortable' with."
When I took Sociology 101 (oh so many years ago at Long Beach City College), one of the things I learned about in class was about schools' hidden curriculum. One example is school bells. What did school bells teach many students? The importance of orderly transition from activities, and how to show up places on time -- or pay the consequences for not showing up when the clock tells you to show up somewhere. Eating lunch when the bell and the clock said it was lunch time no longer was a function of when one was hungry, but of when authority figures told one was the scheduled time to eat. In other words, the secondary, hidden curriculum has been to teach students how to be good factory workers and good cubicle bound office employees.
So what is the hidden curriculum here at North Cobb High School? The message that I see hear is that the school values gender conformity over the teaching of subjects to their students. And, apparently since gender diversity isn't prized in factories and cubicles -- and certainly isn't prized by Bible Belt culture -- the teaching of students who express gender in a way that doesn't conform to societal norms doesn't appear to be something that is seen as necessary.
At least, that's my take.
For those who don't remember, last March we at Pam's House Blend posted on GLSEN's Harsh Realities For Transgender Students. It's a good refresher to go back to that post -- to GLSEN's report -- and read about the findings. These included school outcomes for trans students:
• Almost half of all transgender students reported skipping a class at least once in the past month (47%) and missing at least one day of school in the past month (46%) because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
• Transgender students experiencing high levels of harassment were more likely than other transgender students to miss school for safety reasons (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 64% vs. 25%, gender expression: 56% vs. 32%, gender: 68% vs. 38%).
• Transgender students who experienced high levels of harassment had significantly lower GPAs than those who experienced lower levels of harassment (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 2.2. vs. 3.0, gender expression: 2.3 vs. 2.8, gender: 2.2 vs. 2.7).
How much below average the graduation rates are for out trans and gender variant youth appears to be an unanswered question at this point -- As far as I know, no school district or organization is collecting and/or tracking that data.
But, should gender expression that varies from societal norms be a reason to deny a student a public education? At Georgia's North Cobb High School, the answer is apparently "Yes."
I was watching CNN this AM and saw this pathetic piece about North Carolina Principal Chris Gibbs of Claremont Elementary School. He was forced by winger parents to censor the President's school speech on Tuesday. For point of reference, the school is west of the Triangle, near Hickory. Needless to say, it's Red territory.
In this interview, Gibbs, who is black, knows exactly what the score is -- he's dealing with a bunch of ignorant bigots, and his head was going to roll if he didn't comply with the bullying extremists who thought the speech contained "communist" rhetoric that they didn't want to expose their precious children to.
Gibbs does his diplomatic best in the heat of this situation, but he calls it like it is:
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This North Carolina school principal had to decide whether or not to air President Obama's speech for students in his school. The pressure was on.
CHRIS GIBBS, PRINCIPAL, CLAREMONT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: This may sound a little strange, but after a flurry of phone calls, my first thing was to go in my office, shut my door and have a prayer because I knew I was going to have to make a decision.
TUCHMAN: What was he hearing from parents? Mostly comments like those we heard at the county fair just down the road.
(on camera): Do you think the school should play Barack Obama's speech?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's more like communism saying we're going to do this and we're going to do that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it should be up to the parents' decision if they want their children to hear that or not.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): And that is exactly what Principal Chris Gibbs decided. The speech will not be shown at Claremont Elementary School.
Teachers we met at the school told us they backed the decision.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not something that we want to divide our school with.
TUCHMAN: In our research of the schools and school districts that will not be showing the president's speech live, we found that most of them perhaps not surprisingly are in counties where Barack Obama did not do particularly well during the November elections.
(on camera): Catawba County, the home of the Claremont Elementary School is no exception. John McCain received 67 percent of the vote here.
This is what he's going to say in his speech. If you quit in school, you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country. Isn't that a message you want your kids to hear? Isn't that part of what education is all about?
GIBBS: Most definitely. And we've asked our parents, again, going back to responsibility. A responsible parent is going to sit down and talk to their kids about staying in school.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): But Barack Obama's message about it won't even be shown here in an edited form in the days to come. The principal has decided that the children are to see any of it, it should only be from their parents.
(on camera): Let's say if President Obama said I want to come to you school? He calls you up, I want to make a live appearance at your school and we'll have an assembly. You would be dealing with the same things with these parents, wouldn't you?
GIBBS: I would, probably.
TUCHMAN: How does that make you feel?
GIBBS: Well, we have a long way to go (And these synapse-firing-free parents are a prime example of this -- ed.). And the issues out there today are the issues, they're sensitive issues (As in these bigots are thisclose to calling the POTUS an uppity n*gger. -- ed..) But if the president wanted to come to Claremont Elementary School, he would certainly be welcome to come to Claremont Elementary School. And I guess I would have to go back in my office and shut the door and pray again.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Claremont, North Carolina.
And why does the school board reserve the right to do this -- no parental consent required?
Family members said this week that Atlantic high school officials forced five teenage girls to remove their clothes during an investigation into a theft.
The girls' families and their lawyers said the incident at Atlantic High School amounts to a strip-search, which is illegal in Iowa schools.
But school officials said the search was "allowable" under board rules.
The search took place during a gym class after a classmate charged that $100 was stolen from her purse. And it wasn't just stripped down to underwear -- one girl was stripped naked. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that no school official has free rein to do intimate searches of students. Making a girl pull the waistband of her underwear away from her body constituted a strip-search, the court ruled. And after the indignities heaped on these girls -- the money was not found.
What do you think occurred as a result of this egregious behavior on the part of school officials?
Atlantic Interim Superintendent Dan Crozier has confirmed that an Atlantic administrator had been placed on administrative leave, but did not name the individual. Unconfirmed reports have identified Activities Director Paul Croghan as the individual placed on paid administrative leave, pending further investigation into the incident.
Crozier said the faculty denied the searches were strip-searches, but he added that there are different interpretations of what the term means. "According to the people that we've talked to the first time, and I've talked to them maybe once or twice, they've said it would not fall into that category," he said. "I'm real careful about saying that because it could be interpreted differently."
OK, here are additional details. You decide:
Each girl stripped in varying degrees, families and the lawyers said.
Hudson's client, who is 15, "was asked to remove all of her clothing including her undergarments," he said.
One mother said the girl refused to take off her underwear in front of everyone, but went around a corner and did so.
Some of the girls didn't take off their underwear because it was more revealing than the other girls', making it more obvious that nothing was hidden underneath, said Noethe, one of the lawyers.
Hudson said, "Someone asked if they could just lift up their bra and they were told that wasn't good enough."
One of Noethe's clients was searched twice, he said.
"She was told to take her clothes off and put them back on, then told to do it again because we need you to take your bra off," Noethe said.
Is there some other meaning for "strip-search" that I'm unaware of?
The folks at the State Library are offering a new and very helpful online program called Wayfinder that can let you search for something among millions and millions of items found in many libraries throughout Washington. Wayfinder is an online catalog that provides a single search for locating materials owned by the participating Washington libraries.
The catalog contains information on the collections of more than 250 public, academic, government, law, medical, corporate, special and tribal libraries throughout the state. Combined, these libraries hold more than 17.8 million items in various formats: books; newspapers, magazines and journals; movies; CDs; DVDs; digital objects such as electronic documents, subscription research databases, or historical items that have been scanned and made available on the Web; books in audio and large-print formats, and much more...
Okay, this is creepy that they have a sockpuppet bookworm too. But the bookworm's name --bookwormlaptop -- seriously! It's just too unimaginative and dull!
Why not Library Larry? Or Bookworm Becca?
Oh yeah, good on the Washington State, like, y'know, this library program. But, that's like, y'know, so much more like boring than my rant about a cartoon sockpuppet, don't ya' think?
And hey! Thanks to the efforts of artist "M," Bookworm Bob is a much cooler lookin' bookworm than that bookwormlaptop!
• Los Angeles Times' Cash-strapped states revise laws to get inmates out; Mandatory sentencing laws are relaxed, parole is accelerated, and time off for good behavior is increased as states scramble to save money:
After decades of pursuing lock-'em-up policies, states are scrambling to reduce their prison populations in the face of tight budgets, making fundamental changes to their criminal justice systems as they try to save money.
Some states are revising mandatory-sentencing laws that locked up nonviolent offenders; others are recalculating the way prison time is counted.
California, with the nation's second-largest prison system, is considering perhaps the most dramatic proposal -- releasing 40,000 inmates to save money and comply with a court ruling that found the state's prisons overcrowded.
Colorado will accelerate parole for nearly one-sixth of its prison population. Kentucky has already granted early release to more than 3,000 inmates. Oregon has temporarily nullified a voter initiative calling for stiffer sentences for some crimes, and has increased by 10% the time inmates get off their sentences for good behavior...
State funding for prisons and prisoners is all well and good on tough sentencing until the economic climate gets tough, eh?
It's no secret that West Linn High School math teacher Nick Kintz is returning this fall as a female. But from a student's point of view, that's just what the school wants it to be - a secret.
I will be a senior this year at WLHS and had Ms. Kintz as a math teacher sophomore year. While everyone has different opinions about the ability of certain teachers, Ms. Kintz is certainly capable of teaching math.
The issue shouldn't be whether her sex change will hinder her ability to teach because I can say from experience that I don't think it will.
Rather, the issue needs to shift focus to how the school is handling the situation and how students are affected by the change...
I realize the students are aware of this teacher's transition, and I'm aware they want to have the administration talk to them about the teacher's transition. But that said, transition is a social, physical, and medical experience for the transitioner.
And, that medical part of this makes this all particularly tricky. One's medical record is supposed to be protected by HIPAA. If a transitioning teacher wants to keep the details about his' or her's transition details quiet, this puts a school in a tough legal spot.
Yes, there are Yes, there are bisexual symbols, despite what they say on the Lambda.org site about all GLBT symbols. Sure, they may not be as ubiquitous as the red ribbon, or the rainbow flag, but they are prominent in certain communities, and it's good to get to know what they mean.
The bisexual flag is the most important symbol. It's more simple than mixing the blue (for boys) and pink (for girls) and a nice purple blend of the two in the middle (purple was also adopted as a color for bisexuality in some unofficial capacity). In actuality, the pink represents same-sex attractions (gay and lesbian) and the blue is opposite sex (heterosexual) attractions while the overlapping purple is attractions to both and all (bisexual) attractions. The purple pixels blend unnoticeably into both the pink and blue just as the real world where bi folk blend in with both communities. Read Michael Page's own description of the flag and what it means to him (click here).
The Bi Pride Flag is one of the few GLBT symbols that isn't trademarked or patented, and is open domain for anyone to use. Michael Page, of Florida, designed the flag as a symbol to show that bisexuals can be part of the GLT community. He wanted to emphasize bi individuality. (Personally, I was at the event in Florida when Michael Page—a jet pilot and founder of BiCafe.com and an out bi activist—unveiled the flag and distributed it freely with his own money...
Want to have dinner with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? Plan on writing a big check.
The ex-Republican vice presidential candidate is offering the dinner as part of a charity auction on eBay for the Ride 2 Recovery program, which supports wounded veterans through cycling programs.
The 10-day auction starts Tuesday. The opening bid for dinner for five with Palin is $25,000, and organizers say the winner will have to foot the travel bill to meet up with her, likely in Alaska.
There are nine other celebrity items in the auction, including lunch with former Bush aide Karl Rove. That opening bid is $7,500.
By comparison, $2.1 million was paid in 2008 for a lunch with financial guru Warren Buffett...
If one actually one the dinner date, could one specify what one ate for dinner? Just for fun, I'd want to go somewhere that tofu dogs were sold -- I'm sure that would be a meat-like dish the former governor could sink her teeth into!
Hey, I got this wiener story of the day from Barista Louise. If y'all want to forward me any stories you think would be good nominations for a wiener story of the day, please do forward these to me. I like having a fun or snarky edge to these stories about hot dogs, "wiener" people/behavior, wiener dogs, "nasty bits," and fun foods (like Spam), so please keep that in mind should you forward a story to me for this feature.
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
School will soon start again, and countless LGBT youth will return to classrooms all over the country. Some will return to schools where they find support and protection from harassment - where administrators and teachers work together to ensure a safe learning environment to all students.
Civil rights leaders César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall - whose names appear on schools, libraries, streets and parks across the U.S. - are given too much attention in Texas social studies classes, conservatives advising the state on curriculum standards say.
"To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin" - as in the current standards - "is ludicrous," wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks. David Barton, president of Aledo-based WallBuilders, said in his review that Chávez, a Hispanic labor leader, "lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others."
Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is "not a strong enough example" of such a figure.
The recommendations are part of a long process as the State Board of Education prepares to write new social studies curriculum standards for public schools. Debate on the issue, which will also include questions of the role of religion in public life, could be as intense as that on new science standards that were adopted by the board in March, when evolution was a major flashpoint...
...Board members and their appointees have complained about an "over representation of minorities" in the current social studies standards. This is ironic in light of the changing demographics of our country. Sadly, Latino and African-American children have the highest drop-out rates in the country. It's essential to ensure schools are providing students with role models and historical figures whose experiences reflect their own.
We must be concerned when the contributions of Cesar Chávez, Thurgood Marshall and other individuals who have contributed so much to the landscape of American democracy are cast aside and ridiculed. We should welcome the inclusion of all Americans who have helped to make this nation great.
It is horrific to discover that the TX State Board of Education has allowed these panelists to use our children's social studies curriculum as a platform for their political agendas. Please take action today to stop this travesty from going forward. Send your e-mail to the Chair of the Texas Board of Education Gail Lowe (R).
I don't know about you, but César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall are civil rights heroes of mine. I've taken to quoting César Chávez, and this quote of his seems particularly relevant:
Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?
In my mind, César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall are civil rights heroes whose life accomplishments tell us about the best of humanity. Since Texas is such a large purchaser of school textbooks, the disinclusion of César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall in social studies textbooks for Texas would have ripple effects for what's in textbooks sold to school districts across the broader United States.
If you're interested in telling Texas to keep the contributions of Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall in the school social studies curriculum, then consider going to the United Farm Worker's action alert and sending off an e-mail to that Chair of the Texas Board of Education.
Non-violence is very weak in the theoretical sense; it cannot defend itself. But it is most powerful in the action situation where people are using non-violence because they want desperately to bring about some change. Non-violence in action is a very potent force and it can't be stopped. The people who are struggling have the complete say-so. No man-made law, no human ruler, no army can destroy this. There is no way it can be destroyed... And so, if we have the capacity to endure, if we have the patience, things will change.
Sometimes I grow weary of the coarseness of discussion in this country.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
GLAAD put out a TAKE ACTION alert over the violent language the hosts of the Rob, Arnie, and Dawn In The Morning™ show, heard on Sacramento broadcast radio station KRXQ. The last line of the GLAAD action alert reads:
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.
Many of us stayed within the lines of reasonable behavior. We responded with thought and force of conscience to those who would deride our community.
However, my friends, many others in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community didn't heed that GLAAD call for restraint. On air this morning on KRXQ, Rob, Arnie, and Dawn all spoke of the hate mail -- including death threats -- from some of our community members regarding the hate talk of Rob and Arnie against our transgender youth. These responses of verbal violence against those who were verbally violent to us didn't help us at all; they hurt our cause of making the case against anti-gay and anti-transgender speech.
I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you.... But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."
Stop. Our LGBT civil rights movement is often compared to the civil rights movement of the 1960's. But, in one way we have not embraced the messages of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and Cesar Chavez. Many of us still are thinking in terms of the philosophy of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth instead of living the message of Mahatma Gandhi:
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
I want a better world for LGBT youth...for transyouth. I want for them what Mahatma Gandhi wanted for himself and his country:
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
We don't need to speak violently to those who use verbal violence to describe us. We don't need to harm our movement by speaking the words of hate that we want quieted -- to be self edited -- in others.
You want something to do regarding the verbal violence of the recent Rob, Arnie, and Dawn In The Morning™ broadcasts? My next diary will be about reasonable action you can take to hold Rob and Arnie accountable for their verbal violence directed against our transgender youth.
TAKE ACTION: Demand that KRXQ Radio Hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States Apologize for Encouraging Violence Against Transgender Children
Contact:
Cindi Creager
Director of National News
(646) 871-8019
creager@glaad.org
Richard Ferraro
Director of Public Relations
(646) 871-8011
ferraro@glaad.org
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.
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!
A conservative activist says the appointment of the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network to head the U.S. Education Department's Office of Safe Schools is the equivalent of putting O.J. Simpson in charge of women's safety.
In the OneNewsNow piece, Mission America's founder Linda Harvey laments the hire of former GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings as the Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools' deputy secretary -- she unfavorably compares his hiring to an African American's alleged killing of a white woman.
Do I really need to draw the parallel between Dr. George Tiller being killed after anti-abortion activists repeatedly referring to him as a "child murderer" (and "Tiller The Baby Killer") and his death to Linda Harvey's using a racially charged murder case to make a point about the Kevin Jennings' hiring at the department of Education?
Linda Harvey's speech seems to be hate speech to me, but it's protected free speech -- and it definitely should remain federally protected free speech. Yet, if Linda Harvey is attempting to use hyperbole to make her points, then her use of the form seems a bit too over the top in application. In other words, that she can freely state her ideas, but it doesn't mean that those of us who object to her particular language can't freely condemn her speech, as well as freely condemn her penchant to make statements that seem to folk like me to encourage violence.
Attempts at "speech codes" by universities are a related idea, but have produced a mountain of litigation, mostly over slurs or insults. These laws have been struck down as unconstitutional by courts throughout the country. Hate crimes laws and in schools, "anti-harassment" and anti-bullying policies based on sexual orientation, are just a back-door attempt to get the same goal accomplished: to use the force of law to elevate certain groups and individuals over others, to squash ideas and debate some find "offensive," and to thereby legitimize questionable social behavior.
I don't want to squash Harvey's speech or idea's, but expose her ideas -- especially this recent one regarding the hire of Kevin Jennings at the Department of Education -- to the light of day. It seems poignant on the day after Dr. George Tillman's murder to point out the imagery of Lind Harvey's comments; I believe comments like Linda Harvey's equating a government hire to a murder tell us where a good number of conservative "Christians" are coming from.
And, that place that these comments are coming from isn't a place of love, but instead it's pretty obvious these are coming from a place of hate.
There is terrorism in our midst. Even as we battle it in faraway lands, let's conduct counter-terrorism operations here on American soil as well. At stake is the integrity of nothing less than the human race itself.
And to me, it reads like she's using her free speech to advocate for anti-gay and anti-transgender violence.
People in the Lone Star State are tired of the bible beating flat-earth set trying to slip "intelligent design" into the public schools. One big proponent of this kind of misinformation, Republican Don McLeroy, saw his nomination by Rick Perry to head up the Texas State Board of Ed drop-kicked by the state Senate. (Dallas Morning News):
The Senate rejected Republican Don McLeroy's nomination as chairman of the State Board of Education on Thursday after Democrats decried his lack of leadership and "endless culture wars" over evolution and other volatile topics.
...Several Democrats cited the recurring divisiveness on the board with McLeroy at the helm, along with his resistance to the views of educators and education experts on curriculum and other matters.
Gov. Rick Perry, who nominated McLeroy, will now have to select another member of the board to serve as chairman.
...In an hourlong debate on the nomination, Senate Democratic leader Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio said that under McLeroy's leadership, the State Board of Education has become a "laughingstock of the nation" with its battles over evolution, sex education and other issues.
"His actions and leadership have caused the board to be extremely dysfunctional, and that has harmed the 4.7 million schoolchildren of Texas," she said. Van de Putte added that McLeroy has "recklessly disregarded the advice" of education experts.
The Republicans countered with reasoning that only affirms why someone like McLeroy has no business in the field of public education. One defender, Sen. Steve Ogden said this:
"If we vote against Dr. McLeroy, the perception among many Texans will be that if you are a conservative and believe in the infallibility and literacy of the Bible, there is no need to apply to be on the State Board of Education."
You've got to be kidding me. Is this a serious statement? No one cares what McLeroy's personal beliefs are; he just cannot impose his religious view of the world upon the young people going through the Texas school system. One can only conclude that Sen. Ogden believes he also was elected to vote based his the infallibility of the Bible. The Texas GOP is obviously infested with a severe case of wingnuttery that needs to be healed.
GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is proud to join the National Safe Schools Partnership in supporting the Safe Schools Improvement Act, a federal anti-bullying bill introduced today in the House of Representatives by Calif. Rep. Linda Sánchez. Sánchez was joined by lead cosponsors Fla. Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and N.Y. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy among the total of 40 bipartisan cosponsors.
The bill requires schools that receive Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funding to implement a comprehensive anti-bullying policy that enumerates categories often targeted by bullies, including race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression and others. It also requires states to include bullying and harassment data in their state-wide needs assessments reporting.
Current federal law provides important federal support to promote school safety but does not comprehensively and expressly focus on issues of bullying or harassment.
"GLSEN would like to thank Congresswoman Sánchez and the Safe Schools Improvement Act's bipartisan cosponsors for their leadership in trying to make schools safer for all students," GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said. "Bullying is a serious public health crisis that affects countless young people every day in America's schools. The recent suicides by two young boys who experienced constant bullying at school are a tragic reminder that more needs to be done to address the problem.
"This bill will go a long way toward laying a foundation of support for students across the country by calling for the kind of policies that matter. We urge Congress to pass this crucially important bill for the well being of America's youth."
This is important; this bill includes anti-bullying protections for the future generations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, as well as for other minority groups. Just as we need federal hate crime legislation to deal with the terrorism that hate crimes inflict on broader communities, we need anti-bullying legislation to protect LGBT and other minority youth from terrorism in their schools.
And, trust me, somehow this legislation will be defined by conservative "Christian" organizations as another "bathroom bill," so it's important for us to remember this is about protecting our LGBT youth from harassment and violence in the school environment, and even suicide by minority youth because of intolerable conditions in the schools they attend. This really is about protecting vulnerable youth.
Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Institute, says the [San Francisco Unified School District] is excluding parents on this issue.
"What about parents? Can parents opt [their child] out?" she asks. "And the explanation that they give is that, no, they can't opt out. [They say they] are under no obligation to even let them know because this is not sex education -- and that's all the law requires [them] to do."
England says children as young as kindergarten in the Golden State are exposed to the LGBTQ agenda through the website. "And that [includes] transgender policy that allows boys, as young as kindergarten, to go into girls' restrooms [or to] play on girls' sports teams if they perceive themselves to be girls," she explains.
"And [it includes] curriculum -- that is as young as kindergarten -- that explains homophobia, explains the word 'gay,'" England adds. The vocabulary link at the website also defines terms such as "bisexual," "gender identity" ("Everyone has a gender identity," it says), and "transgender."
Ah yes. We don't exclude training on heterosexual parentage from the curriculum because it's traditional marriage embraced by conservative "Christians."
Should we apply the same rules for discussing the non-sexual aspects of conservative "Christian," heterosexual parents and children too, to include bathroom use? Should I, as an LGBT taxpayer in California, be able to demand the same standards that Karen England wishes to impose on one minority population who uses the public school system on all populations who use the public school system?
Talk about wanting "special rights" ... That sure sounds to me what Karen England wants for conservative "Christians" -- she wants conservative "Christians" to have the special right of deciding what is acceptable and not acceptable in the school system for all students.
When conservative "Christian" Jesus is your co-pilot, I guess you can feel that as a parent you should have "special rights" over other parents and other students who aren't in your group -- right Karen?
We at [TransYouth Family Allies] are very grateful for this new publication exclusively outlining the struggles faced by transgender youth in America's schools. The results are sadly sobering, yet empowering. TYFA is empowered and inspired to take these results into schools and have better documentation to support our claims for the need of acceptance for all youth regardless of their gender identity or gender expression and the need for education for staff, students and administrators at all schools.
This publication will be an extremely powerful tool in making positive changes. Please take the time to read it and share it with others. Knowledge + Education= Power.
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has released a new report today, entitled Harsh Realities: The Experiences of Transgender Youth in Our Nation's Schools. The opening paragraphs to the media release for the report are sobering (emphasis added); to me, the paragraphs offer both sadness (italicized) and hope (bolded) (italicized and bolded emphasis added).
Transgender youth face extremely high levels of victimization in school, even more so than their non-transgender lesbian, gay and bisexual peers. But they are also more likely to speak out about LGBT issues in the classroom, according to Harsh Realities: The Experiences of Transgender Youth in Our Nation's Schools, the first comprehensive study on transgender students, released today by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
Nearly nine out of 10 transgender students experienced verbal harassment at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation and gender expression, more than half experienced physical harassment because of their sexual orientation and gender expression and more than a quarter experienced physical assault because of their sexual orientation and gender expression. These levels of victimization were higher than those faced by the non-transgender lesbian, gay and bisexual students who participated in the 2007 National School Climate Survey, GLSEN's biennial survey of LGBT students.
Here are some findings from the report:
Biased language:
• 90% of transgender students heard derogatory remarks, such as "dyke" or "faggot," sometimes, often or frequently in school in the past year.
• 90% of transgender students heard negative remarks about someone's gender expression sometimes, often or frequently in school in the past year.
• Less than a fifth of transgender students said that school staff intervened most of the time or always when hearing homophobic remarks (16%) or negative remarks about someone's gender expression (11%).
• School staff also contributed to the harassment. A third of transgender students heard school staff make homophobic remarks (32%), sexist remarks (39%) and negative comments about someone's gender expression (39%) sometimes, often or frequently in the past year.
School Safety and Experiences of Harassment and Assault
• Two-thirds of transgender students felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation (69%) and how they expressed their gender (65%).
• Almost all transgender students had been verbally harassed (e.g., called names or threatened) in the past year at school because of their sexual orientation (89%) and gender expression (87%).
• More than half of all transgender students had been physically harassed (e.g., pushed or shoved) in school in the past year because of their sexual orientation (55%) and gender expression (53%).
• More than a quarter of transgender students had been physically assaulted (e.g., punched, kicked or injured with a weapon) in school in the past year because of their sexual orientation (28%) and gender expression (26%).
• Most transgender students (54%) who were victimized in school did not report the events to school authorities. Among those who did report incidents to school personnel, few students (33%) believed that staff addressed the situation effectively.
Impact of Victimization on Educational Outcomes
• Almost half of all transgender students reported skipping a class at least once in the past month (47%) and missing at least one day of school in the past month (46%) because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
• Transgender students experiencing high levels of harassment were more likely than other transgender students to miss school for safety reasons (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 64% vs. 25%, gender expression: 56% vs. 32%, gender: 68% vs. 38%).
• Transgender students who experienced high levels of harassment had significantly lower GPAs than those who experienced lower levels of harassment (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 2.2. vs. 3.0, gender expression: 2.3 vs. 2.8, gender: 2.2 vs. 2.7).
Engagement with the School Community
• Transgender students who were out to most or all other students and school staff reported a greater sense of belonging to their school community than those who were not out or only out to a few other students or staff.
• The majority (66%) of transgender students were out to most or all of their peers, yet less than half (45%) were out to most or all of the school staff.
• Most transgender students had talked with a teacher (66%) or a school-based mental health professional (51%) at least once in the past year about LGBT-related issues. Transgender students were also more likely than non-transgender lesbian, gay and bisexual students to talk with school staff about these issues.
In-School Resources and Supports
• Although transgender students were not more likely to report having a GSA in their school, they did report attending GSA meetings more frequently than non-transgender LGB students.
• Although most transgender students (83%) could identify at least one supportive educator, only a third (36%) could identify many (six or more) supportive staff.
• Only half (54%) of transgender students reported that their school had an anti-harassment policy, and only 24% said that the school policy included specific protections based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
I find a lot of hope in the reality that even though trans students are more likely to be harassed for being perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, they don't just speak out on harassment, bullying, or other issues relating only to transgender students, but work for the entire community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.
Update: In the comments below, kevinchi gave us the link to The Maroon Tiger posting of the article Is Gay the Way? The first link I provided had been to a differently titled, syndicated version of the same article on the Black College Wire: When does gay tolerance go too far?
The text by Gaynor regarding "sex change operation[s]" isn't in The Maroon Tiger version of the article, while it is included in the Daily Voice (Black College Wire) version of the article. So, in other words, the Morehouse College student publication version of the article was more edited than the version of the article syndicated by Black College Wire.
From New York's Daily Voice, by Gerren Gaynor, the Associate Opinions Editor of Morehouse College's student newspaper (emphasis added):
...I'm all for being who you are. If you like women, go on and date women. If you like men, be my guest and date men. But if you are born a man, you should be just that--a man. If I have to look twice to tell if I'm looking at a man or woman on an all-male campus, then something is tragically wrong.
At this rate, Morehouse College may find itself in a difficult situation. What happens if and when one of our gay Morehouse brothers decides to go the next step and undergo a sex-change operation, and is then physically considered to be a woman? Does Morehouse have the right to ask that student to leave?
A massive population of feminine males and possible transgender students could critically damage the reputation of Morehouse and perhaps decline the amount of admissions, significantly impacting the college. Would it be wrong for Morehouse to implement a new acceptance procedure in which they are required to interview students, in an attempt to decrease gay population?
Now of course such a process is not likely to succeed, however something must be done before Morehouse College, an all "male" Black institution, becomes something quite the opposite in the years to come...
The argument here about "sex-change operation[s]" is one of the most bizarre arguments regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people and/or issues that I've ever seen from a college journalist, and as an amateur news archiver I've seen a lot of unusual arguments. Obviously, Gerren K. Gaynor doesn't know very many real world gay or trans people to come up with this "sex-change operation" argument; Gaynor's argument speaks to his extreme ignorance about all issues and people LGBT.
And, that Gerren Gaynor is an editor(!) at the Morehouse College student publication The Maroon Tiger says a lot to me. If this piece is what passes for college journalism, then 1.) the particular editor that edited Gaynor's piece needs to be immersed in the Associated Press Stylebook to avoid the kind of offensive language that Gaynor used throughout his piece, and 2.) black homobigotry and transbigotry aren't likely being adequately confronted at Morehouse College.
There is just so much that's wrong with how this piece by Gaynor is written -- even for a loony opinion piece -- that its editor for it should have been vigorously waving red flags. That neither Gaynor or his editor for this particular piece waved those flags regarding Gaynor's offensive language and blatant ignorance regarding the LGBT people he was commenting on is by itself a sad commentary -- a sad commentary found at a juncture of homobigotry, transbigotry, and a pretty significant African-American institution of higher learning.
I sure hope this level of bigotry and ignorance is limited to the handful of people directly involved with this piece. I really, really do.
As many of us already suspected was true, ethnic minorities who also indentify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender experienced increased discrimination and safety issues. Key findings from the report, as reported in the media release for the report:
• Across all groups, sexual orientation and gender expression were the most common reasons LGBT students of color reported feeling unsafe in school. More than four out of five students, within each racial/ethnic group, reported verbal harassment in school because of sexual orientation and about two-thirds because of gender expression. At least a third of each group reported physical violence in school because of sexual orientation.
• More than half of African American/Black, Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander, and multiracial students also reported verbal harassment in school based on their race or ethnicity. Native American students (43%) were less likely than other students to report experiencing racially motivated verbal harassment.
• About a quarter of African American/Black and Asian/Pacific Islander students had missed class or days of school in the past month because they felt unsafe. Latino/a, Native American, and multiracial students were even more likely to be absent for safety reasons - about a third or more skipped class at least once or missed at least one day of school in the past month for safety reasons.
• Native American students experienced particularly high levels of victimization because of their religion, with more than half reporting the highest levels of verbal harassment (54%), and a quarter experiencing physical violence (26%).
• Less than half of students of color who had been harassed or assaulted in school in the past year said that they ever reported the incident to school staff. Furthermore, for those students who did report incidents to school staff, less than half believed that staff's resulting response was effective.
• Native American (57%) and multiracial (50%) students were more likely than other students of color in our survey to report incidents to a family member.
• Performance at school also suffered when students experienced high levels of victimization. Students' overall GPA dropped when they reported high severities of harassment based on sexual orientation and/or race/ethnicity. Students experiencing high severities of harassment also reported missing school more often.
• The report also looks at differing experiences based on the racial/ethnic make-up of students' schools. For all groups, LGBT students of color who were minorities in their school were much more likely to feel unsafe and experience harassment because of their race or ethnicity than those who were in the racial/ethnic majority.
The media release spoke to why GLSEN released the report now:
GLSEN is releasing the report in conjunction with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Organizing Weekend, which takes place January 16-19. Dr. MLK Jr. Organizing Weekend provides an opportunity for students and Gay-Straight Alliances to honor the coalition-building work of Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, such as Bayard Rustin, by reaching out to others committed to working toward safe schools for all students.
For those youth who want to be activists for civil rights in their schools, Bayard Rustin has a poignant quote on the protesting, dignity, and humanity:
When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.
[Below the fold: Looking at the demographics of this report - especially the trans-related demographics.]
As a society, we need to invest in children. Better schools means higher standards of living for future generations. Better prenatal care, and better preventative healthcare for children means less money spent on healthcare for these same children when they become adults.
...Most U.S. children live in secure environments and sail into young adulthood healthy, becoming productive members of society. But as the numbers in this report show, this happy ending eludes millions of children.
The data which follow focus on a few key issues: health, child abuse, imprisonment, school readiness, child care, afterschool, and poverty. These are big issues affecting millions of children and families. There are others, equally important, which we have not addressed. The disturbing trends in the data presented are understated. Although they are the most recent available, they lag by at least a year the sharp downturn in the economy and its impact on families.
We can all agree: families are the best place for children, but often families need a little help. The private sector is an essential ally-but it lacks the resources to match the needs of millions of children. State and local governments are critical players, but vast disparities in child well-being among states confirm the need for a national government which promotes a level playing field for all children...
--Michael R. Petit; President, Every Child Matters Education Fund
And, this of course is an argument for recognizing same-gender family relationships on the federal level. Blocking adoptions by same-gender couples; not recognizing the parental and guardianship relationships same-gender couples have with their children -- not treating children of same-gender households in a manner similar to the children of opposite-gender couples -- is a also a means of taking money that could be spent on caring for children and applying giving it to local, state, and federal governments in the form of increased taxes.
Children matter. Equality of hope and opportunity matters. These instersect within in the issue of providing for all families; providing for America's children in the variety of families that exist in the real world.
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is investigating a complaint filed by a transsexual woman against Harrisburg Area Community College, claiming she was suspended for not using a unisex bathroom.
Shannon Powers, director of communications for the commission, confirmed a complaint by Jamie Nicole Anderson against the Lancaster campus of HACC was filed Oct. 16. She said the agency began its investigation last month.
Because it is under investigation, Powers said she could not reveal details of the complaint. However, according to published reports, Anderson is a male-to-female transgendered student who was studying nursing at HACC.
The program required students to change into hospital scrubs, and Anderson was using the female locker room. She said she was suspended for three days for insubordination when she continued to use the locker room after being instructed to use the unisex bathroom, the report said...
When accomodating pre-op and non-op trans students of any age, a school has to make a plan to make unavoidable nudity avoidable, while providing the trans student equal access to services. Does the unisex bathroom have a locker and a shower? Does the other changing room have these?
Equal public accomodations for pre- and non-operative trans people in general is something public institutions are now going to have to plan for. To not plan for the reality that any school may eventually have a trans student ... well, not planning for forseeable problems invites commissions looking into discrimination, and trans people filing lawsuits.
I was watching CNN this AM and saw this pathetic piece about North Carolina Principal Chris Gibbs of Claremont Elementary School. He was forced by winger parents to censor the President's school speech on Tuesday. For point of reference, the school is west of the Triangle, near Hickory. Needless to say, it's Red territory.
Oh yeah, good on the Washington State, like, y'know, this library program. But, that's like, y'know, so much more like boring than my rant about a cartoon sockpuppet, don't ya' think? 
Sure, they may not be as ubiquitous as the red ribbon, or the rainbow flag, but they are prominent in certain communities, and it's good to get to know what they mean.
...I'm all for being who you are. If you like women, go on and date women. If you like men, be my guest and date men. But if you are born a man, you should be just that--a man. If I have to look twice to tell if I'm looking at a man or woman on an all-male campus, then something is tragically wrong.
