IN MEMORIAM: TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE - NOVEMBER 20

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TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE November 20
"This day was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the "Remembering Our Dead" web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.   Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgender people.   The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds non-transgender people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives our allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorializing those of us who’ve died by anti-transgender violence."   Note: The original post can be found at http://www.rememberingourdead.org/day/what.html   The Remembering our Dead Web Project and The Transgender Day of Remembrance are owned by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, All Rights Reserved

California's Prop H8: The State Supreme Court Punts.

Upon hearing the decision of the Supreme Court of California on Prop H8, the first comment I made to my friend Juanita was made 'off-the-cuff', she asked me what I thought and I said "The Supreme Court is buying time", the reason I felt that was the case is very simple, in the previous rulings they have pleased the Pro Prop H8 proponents and angered the LGBT Community when they ruled that licenses for same-sex marriage were invalid under State Law because it barred such unions (California Proposition 22 (2000)), next, in another decision, they pleased the LGBT Community and angered the Prop H8 Proponents when they ruled that Prop 8 was an unconstitutional abridgment of civil rights, oookey... So, in their latest ruling, which they announced on Tuesday May 26, 2009, they declared the Prop H8 constitutional amendment is valid, albeit it takes away rights protected under the 'equal treatment under the law constitutional clause' (Part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution), furthermore, they ruled that the 18,000 or so same-sex marriages performed in between their second and third ruling, were valid, because of their second ruling which was apparently reversed on their third.

He, he, he... I don't mean to laugh at this very serious issue, but, in addition to being a little confusing to follow their steps and logic, it brings to my mind overtones of the 'Keystone Cops' on a State Supreme Court Scenario, bumbling and fumbling.

But just taking a sample of the opinion pieces out there, here is Dan Walter's on the San Jose Mercury News on May 27th:

Opinion: California Supreme Court followed the law on Prop. 8

"marriage licenses that San Francisco was issuing to same-sex couples at the behest of Mayor Gavin Newsom were invalid because state law prohibited such marriages.

A year ago, the same court pleased gay rights groups and angered conservative "pro-family" groups when it declared that the statute barring same-sex marriages, although enacted by voters, was an unconstitutional abridgment of civil rights.

The court seemingly reversed itself again Tuesday, declaring that Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment again outlawing same-sex marriages, is valid. But all three decisions were correct, even courageous, because they upheld the limited role that courts play in public policy.

As the court itself said, "In a sense, this trilogy of cases illustrates the variety of limitations that our constitutional system imposes upon each branch of government — the executive, the legislative and the judicial."

In petitioning the court to set aside Proposition 8, gay marriage advocates wanted the court to rule that it was a constitutional revision, rather than an amendment, and thus could not be enacted via initiative. But had it done so, it would have made a mockery of the initiative system — which, for all its flaws, remains a valuable tool for effecting public policy — and created a legal quagmire with unimaginable unintended consequences."

It is not a simple issue no matter which way you look at it, but two points are blatantly clear, 1. Protection of Civil Rights on equal treatment under the Law and, 2. Public Policy or, putting it another way, pure, unbridled democracy, the worst kind of government but the best thing we got going for us, on the one hand, the governed have, supposedly, participatory prerogatives on a democracy, on the other, notwithstanding that nobody is either better or worse than the other, we humans have differences on how we look, what we think or our nature, but... And this is a big but, regardless of our differences, all of us are supposed to have the same inalienable rights, hence, "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.". but, there seems to always be a but, isn't?, what about democracy? Well, this beautiful monster called democracy, in it's extreme, purest form, is what is known as 'anarquism', another extreme manifestation of unbridled democracy is that "Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."

Is it just? According to Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, "The voice of the majority is no proof of justice", Maximilien Robespierre said that "Any law which violates the indefeasible rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all." and the great humanitarian, Mahatma Karumanchi Gandhi, left us one of his tenets "In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.", the answer to me appears to be a resounding no!

Going back to my comment that the California Supreme Court was 'buying time' or, as stated in this post's title, they 'punted', I must say that the point is valid because a) in their first ruling they validated the voice of the majority and, b) on their second ruling they upheld the inalienable rights of the individual and, c) in their latest ruling they upheld unbridled democracy as the supreme policy-maker of the land, making a little aside to say that because in their second ruling, they temporarily made legal the marriage between persons of the same sex, the legal marriage contracts made during that period, remained legal (Something to do with legal retroactivity versus current legal status, I think)

Yes, the State Supreme Court punted, they decided to go the political route, they left it to the electorate to decide public policy instead of settling once and for all the issue of whether or not a majority has the prerogative to take away constitutional rights from a minority, or until the US Supreme Court rules on the issue, which will happen, since already legal suits challenging the Cal Supremes' ruling have been filed.

I do totally agree with Dan Walter's point that the California Supreme Court have "created a legal quagmire with unimaginable unintended consequences", fortunes and majorities change, public opinion attitudes change as well, today's majority may in the near, or far future, whichever may be the case, change too; so, let the 'political pin ball game' commence, the 'pro-this' or 'pro-that' will win a scrimmage or a battle here and there, only to be reversed later by the 'con-this' or 'con-that' majority, only to be set back later by the 'pro or con on this or that', yes indeed, by all means, let the 'political pin ball game' commence instead of answering two simple, yet vital, questions: "Does the individual has inalienable rights?" and "Does a majority has the right to abridge them?"

I do also agree with Dan on another point he makes because there is no question on my mind that same-sex marriage contracts will be legal in California and other states sooner than later, but I disagree that it is the appropriate course of action, as he and others are saying:

The appropriate course for same-sex marriage advocates to take is to pursue their cause in the same political arena in which their opponents prevailed in November. Polls indicate that Californians are split roughly 50-50 on the issue of gay marriage, but support is growing over time, and a pro-gay marriage measure has a fair chance of succeeding next year.

In closing, I do most fervently disagree with the opinion of many and that Dan also exposes in his piece, while leaving for another post the role of "Organized Religion", more aptly called "The Religious Right" And the innumerable and outrageous ironies and the accompanying plethora of hypocrisies in this matter:

A victory at the polls would have much more moral validity than the Supreme Court's ignoring legal precedent and blithely overturning Proposition 8.

I'll state why I disagree, moral validity is acquired when what is just is followed, what Dan and others are saying is that they expect that their views will be validated by political Trends/Will - What legal precedent? It seems to me this claim was done in a vacuum due to his not specifying to which precedent he is referring to.

I heard somewhere that the California State Supreme Court's ruling on Prop H8 was courageous, excuse me?

They punted, the stage is set thus bringing up a final question: Which minority will be next?

What Christie Said (A Must Read)

I have been wondering how I feel about Obama's pick of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his Inauguration, some of you have been witnesses to what seems like anger in me and have pointed it out, I have also been trying very hard to deny it, to say that I'm upset, that I'm disappointed of people whom I have believed to be for equality, but are not, or rather, they make exceptions for people like me or others.

Christie is right when she says that there are so many issues and struggles, yes, she is right there is so much that I'm involved in where there are many allies and much more to do, I don't want to jeopardize that

And yet....

I hope you read the Diary and join me in spirit this Christmas, another one in which I'll be pondering and wondering about so many christians having a jolly good time and doing 'good works' during these days, such as wishing everyone to have a merry Christmas, or feeding some hungry people, or giving some present to poor children, so as to quiet what has been in their hearts and for their deeds of the past year and to justify what they will do, or not, in the next.

While the above are worthy causes and I celebrate their doing them, It is the hypocrisy that gets me, their selectiveness (sic) on what the Bible says and how they apply it.

You may read the Diary, or not, it really doesn't matter - these few words are not really for all of you and should be taken as they apply, or as the saying goes 'if the shoe fits', and they are also for me, as a reminder that I need to do one of the things Jesus of Nazareth did the most, which was to criticize the hypocrites, because he didn't have more contempt for others as he did for those, he also had a very apt description for them "Like Sepulchers, white on the inside and empty inside"

Yes, I am hurt and angry but in any event, may your heart be filled with kindness throughout the year and I also wish for you and your loved ones, health, love, happiness and prosperity.

Lastly, while I can forgive, forget I can't.

Aurora

SOURCE: Lavender Newswire

Posted by: Sapphocrat

December 23, 2008

What Christie Said (Must Read)

This is one of the best Kos diaries I have ever read. Excerpting won’t do it justice, so I’ll give you just enough to compel you to read the whole thing:

It’s not Obama I’m mad at;
it’s way too many of you

. . .

I have not been one of the “OMG Obama is betraying us” crowd. …

But when I heard Warren had been invited to pray at Obama’s inauguration, I felt sick to my stomach. I cried. It wasn’t a judgment; it wasn’t an intellectual assessment; it wasn’t a political strategy. It was just genuine pain.

But it was nothing — NOTHING — compared to what I felt when I started reading diaries here on Daily Kos, full of smug, ignorant pontification on how we need to not be SO ANGRY or SO HURT, and lumping us in with the “What Obama is doing wrong” crowd, and ignoring that our response to the Warren invitation is a completely separate phenomenon.

Let me explain something very carefully, for those who don’t know: none of what’s going on in the fight for LGBT rights is part of a strategy, as should be apparent by our lack of a cohesive movement and any viable leaders. It’s a true grassroots uprising among people who got a taste of freedom and decided we wanted more. We were no longer willing to settle for a long, slow, state by state battle, for death by a thousand cuts, for an extended period of second class citizenship.

I’ve lived through a lot of watershed moments in this movement, including the assassination of Harvey Milk and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and the rise of ACT-UP. I know like I know my name that this is another one.

Whether it’s “strategic” or not, whether it’s what our “leaders” think we should do or not, it’s pretty clear that real actual LGBT people are done with the closet. We’re seeing things in a new way. We’re no longer willing to settle for simply not getting beaten to death, for being able to live in our constricted safe zones without fear of baseball bats to the head and getting fired.

It’s not okay anymore to have to decode when and where we can be out, who can and can’t be trusted to really know us. We’re done with glancing around the restaurant or the street before taking our partner’s hand if we’re not in a gay bar or walking down Castro St. Done with paying for living fearlessly with broken bones or even death.

But to people outside of this struggle, I think that sea-change is invisible. Many of you really have no idea what just happened or what it’s done to us, both good and bad. It’s outside your circle of perception.

So I can understand that our anger must be kind of scary to some of you. It looks like it’s way out of proportion to what you think happened. And it’s not like us, really, even if our movement was born at a riot.

So in the interest of building bridges, which apparently many of you are really big on, I’ll share a secret: my anger is scaring me, too. I haven’t summoned it, cultivated it, or even welcomed it. It’s just there, like the bricks and bottles thrown at Stonewall. It’s real like that.

At first I thought the fact that many of you had no idea what’s going on for us was our fault. We must not have been telling you our stories. …

So we wrote diary after diary explaining what it’s really like to grow up queer in America — to often find no safe harbor even in our own families, who throw us out, or in our churches, which call us sinners, or in our schools, which fail to keep us safe or even alive, or in the army, which uses Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as a license to rape female soldiers and cleanse the ranks.

We told you about how many of us are haunted by things that happened to us — like when I had my head smashed into a car windshield for being so utterly uppity as to use the ATM while lesbian — or to others — like Jennifer Gale, who last week died of the cold on the streets of Austin because the only shelter in town, run by the Salvation Army, wouldn’t let a transgendered woman stay under its roof.

We thought you knew, but in case you didn’t, we told you how our youth are being tortured, isolated, and abused in religious centers that claim to be able to change them into straight people — places people like Warren advocate and even run.

But I saw that to far too many of you, knowing our stories made no difference at all. There's just something about the fight of LGBT people for our civil rights that makes a whole lot of you here feel uncomfortable.

You keep saying things like, "Just because someone is against gay marriage doesn't mean they're a homophobe or a bigot," even though there are no non-bigoted, non-homophobic reasons to oppose marriage equality.

You say that equality for LGBT citizens is an "issue" that needs to take its place on the list of progressive causes, and not a fundamental civil right that is the very foundation and bedrock of our entire constitutional system: equality under the law.

You say we're too angry and it's not an effective strategy, completely missing that we're not strategizing; we're really this angry -- even me, a 49 year old lesbian who lives in San Francisco and has a good job. I'm so furious I often can't sleep, can't eat, and sometimes I shake with rage.

You keep telling us we need to reach out and build bridges to the religious right. Do you really think there is any point at all in telling us we need to reach out to homophobes and bigots, to the people who run the churches that abuse our youth and shove us out the doors, that have brainwashed our parents into rejecting us, that tell us they "love" us while they knife us in the hearts with their laws?

Why don't you tell them to reach out to us? We're the ones who have been wronged and harmed, disenfranchised, electro-shocked, had our kids taken away in ugly custody battles, lost our homes when our partner died, been thrown out of the hospital rooms of our lovers, had wills overturned and benefits denied. We're the ones who had our equality thrown up for a popular vote, and whose rights are denied us in the constitutions of 29 states. Telling us to reach out to them is like saying battered women need to reach out to their abusers, or children to the priest who molested them.

You lecture us not to hold this against Obama, but newsflash: at least for me, MORE....

Permalink | 1745 comments |

If you read no other essay this week, read the rest of this one. Trust me — it is more than worth it

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities."

"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
-- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Any law which violates the indefeasible rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.
Maximilien Robespierre

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
Mahatma Gandhi

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
Lord Acton

Are you gay?

[This piece which is an extremely abbreviated version of why and how I lost my 65K per annum job was presented for the Mission SRO Collaborative’s writing project for it’s first issue of “Hotel Voices", published in the spring/summer of 2006, it was also published in Poor Magazine online the summer of that year.

The themes were about the experiences of SRO Hotel’s residents and/or how we came to be living in SRO Hotels, which is a step short of homelessness.

It was subsequently posted on 03/05/07 at the Coalicion Primero de Mayo Blog and I'm posting yet again as a reminder that phobias and prejudices have consequences for people who are different than oneselves and in relation to the California Supreme Court's Ruling on "Same-sex marriage", the regressive movement to change the Constitution so same sex couples can't marry.

Also at the Daily Kos From this Author ["Tranny"]
"My 2001 Valentine's day story."
“Gay Panic” Defense? My Ass!
"Beyond He and She: A Transgender News Update"

Are you gay?
- By Aurora Grajeda:

Silvia asked lifting her gaze away from my shining pearly-white nails, professionally manicured in the style known as French, the baby pink flesh showing through the neutral-colored nail polish, we were confirming our upcoming first lunch date in 2 plus years of working together.

I tried to think how many times she had asked during the 2 1/2 years of us working together. Today, I didn’t answer with the usual question: Why do you say that?

Today I firmly said, “no“

“Mmmm… Are you sure? Silvia asked, lifting her eyes to mine, pondered, “mmm… I don’t know…” Looking again at my nails… “Are you really sure you’re not gay?”

Tired of her regular queries about my sexuality, this time I said “No, I’m something else”, “What are you then?” She inquired, “I think I’m a girl” I answered.

After a couple of under-the-breath “uhms” And “aahs”, she asked if we could reschedule our lunch date.

“Sure”, I answered walking away.

Why did I tell her? As my boss’ Executive Assistant, she was the Office Politician par excellence who loved the taste of power, was very good at how to keep it and increase it; whereas I, all I wanted was to keep doing the work that I enjoyed, was good at it, was getting paid very well for doing it and having just started hormonal reassignment treatment, was looking at a future with hefty gender transition related expenses.

A superfluous question knowing that a) I resented being thought of as a gay man; it is a question of gender and not sexual orientation, b) the charade was over, I had removed the facade and now I was living my life in a rigorously brutal honesty, and c) I wanted to give her the opportunity to show me her acceptance, tolerance or rejection.

She outed me.

I witnessed and experienced my co-workers reactions, from the utter fixation with the restroom’s ceiling that some men had recently developed - as soon as they noticed my presence in the room - coupled with the not quite whistling but rather an in-between-the-lips and barely audible soft hissing of the latest “Music Brain Worm” In their heads, to the ones that acknowledged me with a curtly nod, or the ones that actually said hi and conducted business with me with a hardly noticeable discomfort, and last but not least, there was a group that never changed a iota, either because of acceptance, tolerance or conscious non-interference in other people’s business. And then, there were the others.

These were the most vicious and cowardly ones, the invisible closeted transphobes that had their own sub-division, passive-aggressive and active-aggressive.

The former chose to live with their misery and only passively projected it on me, among the latter, there was a small delegation of women who approached David, my Director, and shared with him their potential future feelings of violation were I to come into the ladies’ room, the most aggressive ones were David’s superiors who pressured him to cancel my contract, he didn’t yield because my pay came out of his Dept.’s budget, he refused until he was presented with an ultimatum whose dictates were never disclosed to me in neither one of the two official meetings I had with him RE: My “Outing”.

On the first, we talked, he was happy with my work, he pledged his support and wished me well on my journey, told me about his superior’s pressure.

I was reassured and calmer for the next few weeks until he called me again for our second meeting, he looked tired as he told me how fortunate he was because of my hiring, the satisfaction of getting more than what he expected and was paying for, deploring the bad news, he informed me of a directive to cancel my contract because of a job consolidation move, implemented over his objections, or so he told me .

A bucket full of icy water couldn’t have frozen me as much and his voice became a muffled distant murmur as realizations of the travails coming my way started materializing in countless foreboding thoughts which brought fear and anger.

David’s voice brought me back, “Do you want to say anything?”, the breath I drew felt like the first one in some time, with tense body and through clenched teeth I replied, “I’m trying very hard to put aside the thought that this is one of these ‘let’s get rid of that thing type of thing’ “.

His blanching face made his hair look whiter, he said that wasn’t the case.

“Whatever!” I thought, “Effective when?”, I asked, “One month” he answered. We had some shop talk on how best to maintain the continuity of my projects, tie loose ends etc.

And so it came to pass, August 11, 1999 was the last day worked at PG&E by this Transgender Woman beginning to face a hostile world that had no place for her.

“ Aaand no, I’m not gay, I'm a Transsexual Woman.”


"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi

"We are the ones we have been been waiting for"

A Poem for South African Women by June Jordan
In Commemoration of the 40,000 women and children who, August 9, 1956, presented themselves in bodily protest against the "dompass" in the capital of apartheid. Presented at The United Nations, August 9, 1978

"Viva Obama / Aurora Song / Aurora Video"

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