Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
At a time when some states are working to erode hard-fought advances
in civil rights for the LGBT community, Gov. Peter Shumlin today signed a
law to advance them in Vermont by banning the dangerous and discredited
practice of conversion therapy. The new law bans the practice
of seeking to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity in
the State of Vermont.
"It's absurd to think that being gay or transgender is something to
be cured of," Gov. Shumlin said. "Our country has come a long way in a
short period of time in recognizing the civil rights of members of the
LGBT community, and I am so proud that Vermont has taken a leadership
role at every step of the way. At a time when the rights of LGBT
individuals are under attack in other parts of the country, Vermont will
continue to stand up to hatred and bigotry and show the rest of the
country what tolerance, understanding, and common humanity look like."
Conversion therapy has been widely discredited by the scientific community. A 2015 report from the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) "found that
variations in sexual orientation and gender identity are normal, and
that conversion therapies or other efforts to change sexual orientation
or gender identity are not effective, are harmful, and are not
appropriate therapeutic practices."
Vermont joins California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, and
Washington, D.C. in enacting a law to ban conversion therapy. Earlier
this year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced regulations to ban public and private insurers from covering the practice.
The ban on conversion therapy takes effect July 1, 2016.
Five states down. Forty-five more to go. And we will make it a reality.
Black pastors rally support for HB2, saying LGBT rights are not civil rights - As a black gay man, i always find it funny and sad when some of my own people deny their own. They seem to think that HB2 affects white gays. Black lgbts will also be affected. Of course they know this but will ignore it, just as they ignore the presence of black lgbts in the civil rights movement. It wasn't just heterosexual African-Americans being lynched, forced to live under segregation and having their dignity degraded. Nor was it solely heterosexual African-Americans who fought against such treatment. Bayard Rustin, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and so many black gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people stood up and fought for equality.
Also, I find it very hypocritical for some of these black pastor to try and take the mantle of holiness. The group of pastors featured in the video (included in the link above) includes Patrick Wooden, a man who once said that gay men are forced to wear diapers because we have too much sex and won't wait for our "surgeries" to heal:
THIS is the caliber of the black "pastors" who support HB2.
No doubt the Family Research Council will be happy as a pig in mud over the news that 11 states filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration over the president's trans-inclusive directive.
Allow me to poke some holes in their sails courtesy of a clip from an episode earlier this year (March) of the Dr. Drew talk show. The host and his guests were discussing HB2 and transgender pilot Jessica Taylor did what a lot of us need to do. Seeing her chance, she called out Peter Sprigg of the anti-lgbt hate group the Family Research Council about the lies people like him tell about the transgender community, especially when it comes to public restrooms.
What you are about to see is what happens when members of anti-lgbt groups face the people they demonize. To put it lightly, "Jessica handed Sprigg his ass"
KKK Is Using Trans Bathroom Controversy To Recruit New Members - To those who claim that you cannot compare even the basics of the
transgender movement (or the lgbt movement in gender) for equality to
the African-American civil rights movement, isn't it a SHAME that the
enemies of equality don't share that same point of view . . .
How A Conservative Law Firm Convinced A School System To Gamble On An Anti-Transgender Policy - Like a Twilight Zone episode I once saw "He's Alive," the anti-lgbt hate group Alliance Defending Freedom plays on the fears and desires of gullible school districts, causing them to damage themselves in court and then repeat the cycle in other places. Or if that example is too intense, then just think of the Shakespeare play "Othello" and guess who is Othello and who is Iago.
There are times that we concentrate so much on how anti-lgbt groups exploit fear that we fail to mention how they play on their followers' sense of entitlement. As seen by a passage from a fundraising letter by American Family Association president Tim Wildmon, anti-lgbt groups, playing on religious egos is a huge part of their unfortunate appeal:
Certainly, we have had our national problems, as human institutions
always have had and always will have. But America, for most of her
history, has held to the Judeo-Christian value system to guide our path
of understanding and govern our social morals. We used to teach our
children love of country, respect for authority, and the Ten
Commandments in school, at home, and in church. Not too long ago, we had
reverence for the things of God. Today open sacrilege is the norm,
especially in popular culture. We think we can make up our own truth
instead of submitting to the truth of Scripture.
If Wildmon was an African-American, I doubt he would be pushing such a false idea of how America was. But this false notion that folks like him worship a "true faith" and that America was built for folks like them while the rest of us are who don't believe as they do are only here at Wildmon and company's will and pleasure does wonders to sway folks. And it especially hinders their common sense when others affiliated with the American Family Association begin to act not so Christ-like:
Here is something American Family Association's "Boycott Target" movement did accomplish - a hilarious video compilation of folks screaming in Target stores while being booed by customers and generally wrecking the positive ideas of Christianity. I wonder will this video become as popular as the "Farting Preacher" video (As seen below. You know I simply have to include it):
In other news:
Pedia-trick-cians - Just in case you didn't hear, Snopes.com nails the fraudulent American College of Pediatricians for astroturfing anti-lgbt lies.* (see addendum below)
DJ Takes Blame for Padres' National Anthem 'Unfortunate Mistake,' Apologizes to Gay Men's Chorus - Far be it from me to pull a deeper meaning out of this, but what the hell. I actually believe this guy and feel kinda sorry for him. I have read that many of my lgbt colleagues aren't buying his apology and that makes me wonder. I recognize their right to disbelieve because we have faced so much nonsense in our lives that we are very guarded when someone seemingly attacks us. But sometimes there are explanations to things like this and as a community, we should be able to sometimes accept someone's apology.
Addendum - While I am happy that the American College of Pediatricians is being called out in a public way, I am also going to point out that I called them out in 2009 and 2010. Sue me already. It's the "Truman Capote" in me:
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore probably feels like he's
always standing alone. But on Saturday, he was anything but, as crowds of people
poured out by the judicial building in Montgomery to rally for the
popular judge. Three weeks after being suspended from the bench without
pay, Roy Moore is fighting the politically motivated charges against
him. It all started several months ago, when far-Left extremists filed a
complaint with the state's Judicial Inquiry Commission. Why? Because
Justice Moore didn't roll over and fall in line after five members of
the U.S. Supreme Court forced their definition of marriage on the rest
of the country.
That paragraph of nonsensical jargon is the beginning of the Family Research Council''s defense of disgraced Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore. Moore was suspended for attempting to defy the SCOTUS ruling legalizing marriage equality.
Moore is no martyr just as the Family Research Council is not a Christian organization. Unlike a certain backwoods Kentucky clerk, Moore cannot plead ignorance of our laws. He was fully aware that a SCOTUS decision meant that marriage equality. It's rather pitiful how he attempts to play the victim, aided by groups like the Family Research Council and a recent rally, seen on video below:
Call us demonic all you want. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that lgbts fought and won marriage equality the right way. We went through the proper channels, defended our case, and ultimately proved to SCOTUS that we deserve the right to marry.
As a judge, Moore know of the process but choose to ignore it because of his own desires. Pretty it up all you want to. The fact of the matter is that Moore deserved to be suspended. If he receives worse, he deserves that too.
I don't care what public front they may put up, I am guessing creators of the Boycott Target movement, the anti-lgbt group the American Family Association, aren't exactly happy right now.
The ongoing right-wing backlash over Target’s pledge
to allow transgender patrons and staff members to use the restrooms
which correspond with their gender identity isn’t dying down anytime
soon. Faith2Action,
a group which calls itself a “pro-active launching pad for the
pro-family movement,” now hopes to go a step further by organizing a
“Don’t Target Our Daughters Day” protest just four days before the
retail giant’s shareholders meeting on June 8. Organizers want to designate Saturday, June 4 to be a “moment to
stand together” and warn shoppers about Target’s policy allowing
“predators and sex offenders” into women’s restrooms and fitting rooms
by protesting outside stores.
You'll notice that Faith2Action says nothing about "our sons" being "targeted." That of course is deliberate because the group is a throwback to the days when anti-lgbt groups used shocking, albeit false, videos to demonize the lgbt community. Videos like the following which announces this event:
Now I know you are asking who would make such an insane video like this.
Special look - The main thing fueling this hysteria over transgender men, women, and children is how the right is presenting the issue. I took two articles from late April to demonstrate what I mean. They both involve a five-year-old transgender child. One is from the Federalist, a publication affiliated with the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation has been working steadily to push back against all forms of lgbt equality. The other article is from the progressive Think Progress detailing the entire situation, including how The Heritage Foundation is exploiting the situation:
A taste of Trump’s anti-LGBT judicial choices - I don't care who the Democratic nominee is. If it's not my personal choice, I am still voting for him/her. LGBTs, including myself, worked too damn hard for our progress (including marriage equality) to take a step back. Equality is not a damn chess game.
Sandy Rios: Openly Gay Army Secretary Can't Lead Men Into Battle - Apparently Rios doesn't know any black gay men. We have been known to whip serious ass. JUST KIDDING, folks! Rios' silly stereotype of gay men is refuted by historical figures such as Alexander the Great and figures now such as Eric Alva.
The situation last week involving a security guard being arrested for assaulting a transgender woman who was merely attempting to use the restroom brought much needed attention to the prejudices and discrimination transgender men and women face.
And leave it to the false news source One News Now (owned and run by the anti-lgbt hate group the American Family Association) to accentuate this point.
How the incident was reported by a legitimate news source, NBC Washington, Channel 4:
D.C. Police have charged a security
guard at a Giant grocery store with simple assault after sources say she
had a confrontation with a transgender woman who was trying to use the
women's restroom.
The guard, who has not been identified, is a special police officer at a
Giant store near Third and H streets in northeast D.C.Police
confirmed they had arrested her there earlier today for a confrontation
in the store, though they did not reveal details of the arrest. News4
spoke with Ebony Belcher, the transgender woman who said she was
assaulted by the officer. Belcher,
32, said the woman came into the restroom and told her to get out. She
said the officer put her hand on her shoulder and arm, grabbed her and
tried to march her out of the store.
This is how One News Now reported the incident with a few nauseating changes including mis-gendering the woman and then falsely labeling her as a transgender man. The article in this publication was copied almost word for word from another right-wing publication, LifeSiteNews:
Law
enforcement officers in the nation’s capital arrested a female security
guard and threatened her with “hate crime” charges for removing a
[biological] man — who claims to be a woman — from a women’s restroom.
The woman security guard —
whose name was not released — reportedly asked a “transgender” man on
Monday at around noon to leave a restroom located inside a Giant store
that was designated for women only.
After refusing to comply with the security
guard, the 32-year-old male, who identifies himself as “Ebony” Belcher,
made a scene, which ended in the guard escorting the man from the
Washington, D.C. retail store.
Belcher recounted that the female security
guard insisted that his behavior of frequenting the women’s facilities
was not allowed by the law in the nation’s capital — at least, yet.
. . .Tony Pixley — an eyewitness of the incident
— claimed that the dispute between the female security guard and the
transgender man evolved into a physical altercation inside the store
Then the article adds this bit, which is in accordance to the transgender women = predators talking point the religious right have been pushing:
Many eyewitnesses did not see things the way LGBT activists and the local police department interpreted the event.
One customer who was shopping at Giant at
the time of the incident bluntly expressed that the security guard was
simply doing her job and protecting the privacy and safety of women and
girls using the store’s restroom — as any normal person in her position
would do.
“You got a penis — go to the men's
bathroom,” Giant shopper Deana Chisholm reasoned when questioned about
the incident by the WJLA television station. “If you are born a woman,
go to the women's bathroom — period."
Not only does the right substitute truth for spin, but they obviously can't count. Since when one person is "many eyewitnesses?"
Yes, the thought of male genitalia in girls’ locker rooms – and vice
versa – might be distressing to some. But the battle for equality has
always been in part about overcoming discomfort – with blacks sharing
facilities, with gays sharing marriage – then realizing that it was not
nearly so awful as some people imagined.
There is nothing in The Charlotte Observer editorial about girls seeing male genitalia. And the passage is definitely taken out of context. Read the column for yourself and decide.
Some might argue that what The Charlotte Observer actually said is equally distressing. I say if that's the case, then why did FRC feel the need to totally alter the passage ?
Senate blocks Berkeley bathroom ban - Since, as I said before, South Carolina doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar, you will probably miss the fact that our state Senators blocked SECOND anti-transgender bathroom bill. This was not as major as the first one we defeated, but still just as ornery.
Paul McHugh, the religious right's newest model of junk science.
Those who read this blog know that I have kept a history of the many times anti-lgbt groups have relied on either junk or cherry-picked science to denigrate the lgbt community and refer to us as diseased "others" out to destroy American society.
Sometimes, other conservative entities aid in this bad endeavor. Today, it's the Wall Street Journal aiding the Family Research Council with its defense of "bathroom bills." The following is part of an email sent by FRC denigrating Obama because his recent directive to allow transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance to their desired gender identity and also because of the Justice Department's lawsuit against North Carolina for passing that awful HB2 law:
Obviously, the president is trying to move the ball as far down the
field for his extreme agenda as he can before leaving office. But if he
expected resistance, he certainly didn’t plan for it. “Texas Lt.
Governor Dan Patrick has raised the possibility that his state may
forfeit its $10 billion of annual federal funding for its schools,” the Wall Street Journal pointed out
“We hope Texas follows through and is joined by other states. There
is more at stake here than sexual identity, not least the self-identity
of the United States. The Obama administration’s preoccupation with sex,
whether in sophomore year or the fourth grade, raises questions about
whether the federal bureaucracies know at all what they are doing on
anything resembling the merits… Two years ago on these pages we
published ‘Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution’ by Johns Hopkins
psychiatrist Paul McHugh. In one of the most widely-read pieces we have
published, Dr. McHugh pointed out that the idea of gender as subjective
‘personal truth’ has no basis in science. What studies have been done on
gender preference also suggest that the belief that these choices
result in positive psychological outcomes isn’t proven -- especially for
students in grade school. Suddenly, though, U.S. Attorney General
Loretta Lynch has solved the mysteries of gender confusion -- for the
whole country.”
Paul McHugh is not a name known by many. Recently though, the religious right and other conservatives have been passing his anti-transgender information as accurate. Of course McHugh has credibility because he is affiliated with John Hops University. However, his information is still flawed because he is biased.
For all of the fear mongering about what may happen if transgender men and women are allowed to use the bathroom of their desired gender identity, it's fast becoming a reality that the folks everyone should fear are those who are trying to protect us from this non-important reality.
D.C. Police have charged a security
guard at a Giant grocery store with simple assault after sources say she
had a confrontation with a transgender woman who was trying to use the
women's restroom.
The guard, who has not been identified, is a special police officer at a Giant store near Third and H streets in northeast D.C.Police
confirmed they had arrested her there earlier today for a confrontation
in the store, though they did not reveal details of the arrest. News4 spoke with Ebony Belcher, the transgender woman who said she was assaulted by the officer. Belcher,
32, said the woman came into the restroom and told her to get out. She
said the officer put her hand on her shoulder and arm, grabbed her and
tried to march her out of the store.
Belcher said she suffers from Parkinson's disease and almost fell while the officer was shoving her.
Does she look anywhere near a 6-foot, 5-inch, 250-pound man that the religious right semantically conjures up when they malign our transgender sisters?
It seems to me that America doesn't need to be protected from transgender men and women using public restrooms. We need to be protected from the folks who obsess about transgender men and women using public restrooms.
Recently, Fox News has been showing an out of the ordinary - at least for the network - degree of professional journalism in attacking the credibility of these awful anti-lgbt "bathroom bills." However, as this Media Matters video shows, don't be fooled. Fox News spent a lot of time peddling the horror stories which state legislators used to justify these bills:
Obama on trans student guidance: ‘We’re talking about kids’ - During an interview yesterday with Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner, President Obama does another thing which makes him a wonderful president. He talked about the need to support transgender children.
Speaking to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on New Day, Tyler said that her daughter, Kylie, began transitioning to a male named Kai at the age of 12 after she became paralyzed.
“It was a wonderful relief because we finally figured out what was going on,” Tyler recalled. “Ever since she was little, she was dressing in tomboy clothes… And then at the age of 9, 10, and 11 anxiety kicked in horribly. And we would go to the [emergency room] and they couldn’t figure out what was causing the anxiety.”
“Conversion disorder is when your body shuts down physically and you become paralyzed in your arms or your legs,” she noted. “And Kylie, at the time, was in a wheelchair for five months.”
Tyler said that she began researching the condition and discovered that her son’s transition to a male was not simply a matter of psychology.
“Girls have XX chromosomes, boys have XY chromosomes,” the mother pointed out. “The gene that determines your sex is called the SRY gene. And when the little piece of that Y gene falls off, that’s what causes a transgender boy. When there is no X involved in the chromosome, that’s what causes a transgender girl.”
“Another thing people need to know is that there’s a whole series of XXY, YYX,” she continued. “These are people that have breasts with male genitalia. There’s also people that have both genitalia. These children need to be recognized.”
Ever since this nonsense about "bathroom bills" began, the media has featured NC Gov. Pat McCrory defending his awful anti-lgbt law, members of anti-lgbt groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, or pundits throwing out ugly missives about "male predators invading women's locker rooms and compromising their safety."
In many cases, they've allowed transgender men and women to be misgendered or semantically described as pedophiles without bothering to correct these grievances.
But they have rarely featured any medical professionals dealing with the issues of the transgender community or someone who can properly articulate the situation of being transgender.
To be honest, the news media have been very slack in bringing solid knowledge to the issue of "bathroom bills" and the transgender community in general. Instead, in a way author Paddy Chayefsky wrote about in his screenplay, Network, they seem to be intent on "articulating" people's ignorance and fears. Who knows? Maybe they feel that dry (but accurate) statements from medical professionals are less entertaining than creepy (but false) anecdotes about little girls being trapped in lonely bathrooms with a 450 pound linebacker wearing a mini-skirt complete with a thick layer of drool coating his five o'clock shadow.
Maybe they fear that if they correct Sen. Ted Cruz when he goes on a paranoid tangent about "grown men sharing bathrooms with little girls," he may cut off their access to him on other issues.
Whatever the case may be, rather than bringing solid knowledge and understanding to this issue, some members of the media given too much time to overpaid pundits who are too eager to build a reputation with which to sell their next book. anti-lgbt think tanks whom they know will afford them a good, albeit inaccurate soundbite, or elected officials more concerned with being re-elected or gaining higher office than fairness.
None of these entities mentioned have credible background of research in this issue or a stake in ending this drama.
I guess what I am saying is that the fact that Miss. Tyler dropped so much knowledge about the transgender community was wonderful. But it's sad that it's taken this long for anyone to articulate such an intelligent point of view. And if the media was more concerned about gaining the truth rather than exploiting the situation, it wouldn't have taken this long.
