Recently in Queer Issues Category

A petition filed by an anti-same-sex marriage coalition led by Bishop Harry Jackson was rejected today by the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. The petition called for DC to recognize "only marriage between a man and a woman [a]s valid."

[T]he Board held that such ballot measures do 'not present a proper subject of initiative because it would authorize discrimination prohibited under the Human Rights Act ("HRA").'

The Board's reasoning in today's decision also turns on the existing law established by the Jury and Marriage Amendment Act of 2009, the one that allows the District to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

Council member David Catania said of the decision, "The proposed initiative would have stripped legally married same-sex couples of their vows. Those who proposed the initiative were attempting to write discrimination into our law, and I am pleased that the Board rejected this effort as an impermissible trespass on the human rights of District residents."

Via CNN:

The government of Argentina's capital will not appeal a court decision this week that legalizes same-sex marriage, Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri said Friday.

The court ruled that two articles in the city's civil code that say only people of different sexes can get married are illegal. The court decision applies only to Buenos Aires. Same-sex unions in most of the rest of Argentina remain illegal.

Via Queerty, news today that Window Media, the entity that published six LGBT newspapers and magazines, shut its doors this weekend leading to the death of six publications: Southern Voice, Washington Blade, South Florida Blade, 411 Magazine, Houston Voice and David Magazine.

This is just another casualty in the journalism meltdown we are experiencing, but it's particularly sad to see a company take down these LGBT publications. Often times those magazines and newspapers are really important for folks in the queer community, to connect, find events and read about the world from an LGBT perspective.

According to the AP, Window Media was the largest publisher of LGBT newspapers in the country. From Queerty:

So many LGBT Americans turned to Window's publications -- often before they were absorbed into the publisher's umbrella -- for the latest digest on local gay news, events, and attacks on the community. These papers were, unarguably, invaluable and this website and its readers have benefited directly from them. When it comes to hyper-local reporting, the various Blade titles were the biggest game in town.

It's so unfortunate to see these media conglomerates, which bought up numerous titles that were successfully running on their own, lead to the death of these publications. My only hope is that other entrepreneurial folks can step in to create new websites and publications to fill the void.

UPDATE: The Washington City Paper has more on the last day at the Washington Blade, including employees plans for a new publication:

The staff began forming plans to start a new publication within "about five minutes," Naff says. More information will be announced tomorrow. It won't be called the Blade.

Catholic Church leadership seems to be stepping up its role in actively oppressing women and queer people. First came the Vatican's appeal to Anglicans who do not want women or openly gay people as priests. Then the United States Council of Catholic Bishops used their influence to build support for the Stupak amendment. Now the Catholic Archdiosese of Washington is threatening to abandon its social services work over a proposed same sex marriage law.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

The Archdiosese is making a clear statement: it considers keeping rights from same sex couples more important than the needs of this city's most vulnerable. Their willingness to use the lives and health of 68,000 people in need as pawns in their fight for the right to discriminate is unconscionable. D.C. needs more social services, not less. I hope the Archdiosese can put aside the politics of hate for a moment to recognize what I would think they would consider a moral obligation to do vital life saving work.

I'm really tired of these stories.

The fact that these young people are brave enough to come out in a climate as difficult as high school and then are faced with this kind of bigotry, is just really really sad.

Via Towleroad and the ACLU:

Cynthia Stewart, a 17-year-old junior at Tharptown High School in northern Alabama, is a member of her school's prom planning committee, had personally raised over $200 for the prom, and created the theme her classmates had chosen for the dance. She is also an out lesbian.

When Cynthia approached her principal to ask if she could bring her girlfriend with her to the prom, he said no. He also made Cynthia remove a sticker she was wearing that said, "I am a lesbian," telling her, "You don't have that much freedom of speech at school." Cynthia's aunt and guardian, Kathy Baker, then appealed the principal's decision to the school board. But the board let the decision to bar Cynthia from bringing her girlfriend to the prom stand.

I hope she can find support and love from her community to stand up to this and keep going on what is a difficult road.

Two older but happier stories from our archives on LGBTQ teens:

Friday Feel-good Story: Teen Lesbians Voted Best Couple in Yearbook
California high school elects gay male prom queen

UPDATE: The school is reconsidering her request.

"Everything from preparing one's taxes to having a child to getting health insurance for you and yours is more expensive if you're gay."

I've already ranted against the Stupak amendment, but now I'm going to take a deep breath and look at some of the positive things included in the House health reform bill. The bill:

• Expands Medicaid "to reach a wider range of poor households up to 150% of the federal poverty level. 36M additional Americans will now be eligible for Medicaid."
• Bars discrimination in health care on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.
• Acknowledges LGBTQ Americans are a population likely to "experience significant gaps in disease, health outcomes, or access to health care." This will hopefully ensure that LGBTQ people are included in future data collection, and that grant programs will focus on their specific health needs.
• Ends the "unfair practice of taxing employer-provided domestic partner health benefits, allowing thousands upon thousands of LGBT people to obtain domestic partner health benefits for their partners and families without having to pay a tax penalty through the nose."
• Allows states to cover early HIV treatment under their Medicaid programs. (Currently, states are only allowed to use Medicaid money for patients with full-blown AIDS.)
• Funds comprehensive sex-ed programs.

Regular readers will have noticed that in recent months, Feministing has brought in a number of new contributors: Ariel, Jos, Lori, Rose and myself. No doubt you're getting to know them by reading their posts and engaging with their ideas in the comments section, but I also suspect that you might want to know a little more about these wonderful women (I know I do!). Over the next few weeks, I'll be interviewing my fellow new contributors so that you and I can get to know them a little better. This week I interviewed Jos Truitt.

Jos joined Feministing as a contributor this July, and in the past few months has been blogging up a storm (those of you who love Mad Men Mondays, you can thank Jos for that!). Jos grew up in Boston and graduated from Hampshire College, where she studied philosophy of race, feminist organizing and sequential art, which, she informed me, is the academic term for comics.

Jos now lives in DC, where she is pursuing her passion for reproductive justice. She recently started working part-time at the National Abortion Federation hotline and she serves as a clinic escort with the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force. She has also worked and blogged for Choice USA. In her spare time, she likes to bake and spend time in the printmaking studio, and when I asked her which feminist she'd take with her to a desert island, she gave by far the sweetest answer I've heard yet.

And now, without further ado, The Feministing Five, with Jos Truitt.

By this point, you've probably all heard plenty about Tuesday's election. About the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia that went to Republicans, about the loss in Maine that overturned the legislative decision to allow same-sex couples to marry.

There was one piece of news that literally hit home with me on Tuesday--and that was the news that my North Carolina hometown, Chapel Hill, now has an openly gay mayor.

I often talk about what growing up in North Carolina was like for me--how in many ways my public high school experience there was pretty limiting. Being gay was just simply not an option in my teenage world in Chapel Hill. I didn't know any gay people, at least not any that I could relate with. My peers and I were very focused on dating, and dating boys specifically. I was in the closet for more than three years after leaving home--it took a while to undo some of the socialization of my childhood and meet those queer folks who I did relate to and whose friendship allowed me to explore my own sexuality.

Chapel Hill is an interesting place within North Carolina because in many ways it's much more liberal than the surrounding cities and regions. Jesse Helms, the well-known and always controversial former Senator representing North Carolina was often quoted for saying:

Why build a zoo when we can just put up a fence around Chapel Hill?

He was referring to the liberalism of my town--but what I've come to realize since leaving North Carolina almost eight years ago is that it is, in the end, all relative. Chapel Hill was liberal in comparison to the rest of North Carolina, but particularly for me as a young person there, that didn't mean too much.

So now, looking back, I wonder if having a gay mayor would have changed things for me growing up. Would it have made me see that being gay was an option, even for a political figure? Would it have opened up my world a little bit?

Maybe not. But after meeting a young person from my high school at a recent presentation and hearing him say that things there haven't changed so much since I left, I want to hold on to some hope that this could be the catalyst for a new reality for the young lgbtq people growing up in my town.

A little bit of good voting news from yesterday: Kalamazoo, MI has added sexual orientation and gender identity to its laws banning discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

While a growing number of anti-discrimination laws include gender identity this still amounts to far less than those that include sexual orientation (there are too few jurisdictions [pdf] covered by these laws, too). 12 states and DC prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while 21 others prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Unsurprisingly, the campaign against Ordinance 1856 focused on the inclusion of gender identity and those scary scary bathrooms while simultaneously erasing transgender identity. Given these transphobic tactics I see it as an especially positive sign that the ordinance passed with 62% of the vote.

Yesterday voters in Maine repealed the state's law allowing same sex couples to get married, making it the 31st state to block same-sex marriage through a public referendum. Unbelievable.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of the national gay-rights group Freedom to Marry, said the loss in Maine underscores "the fact that we need to continue those conversations and make ourselves visible as families in communities."

He added, "It shows we have just not done it long enough and deep enough, even in a place like Maine."

But Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, the conservative Christian group that is leading the charge against same-sex marriage around the country, read the outcome differently.

"It interrupts the story line that is being manufactured, that suggests the culture has shifted on gay marriage and the fight is over," she said. "Maine is one of the most secular states in the nation, it's socially liberal, they had a three-year head start to build their organization and they outspent us two to one. If they can't win there, it really does tell you the majority of Americans are not on board with this gay marriage thing."

I think Gallagher's quote - "this gay marriage thing" - really says it all. The contempt practically drips from the words.

Bloggers at Pam's House Blend have several posts up about the decision, and Adam at Tapped says there's a silver lining in all of this. What do you think?

UPDATE: AndyLC on the Community blog has more.

The funny (but not so funny) thing about this is that Rush Limbaugh has literally said something along the same vein: "If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?"

Just when thought you couldn't miss this woman more, we find that Bea Arthur has left $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center in New York, an organization that supports homeless LGBT youth.

The center supplies a number of services to youth around the city, including food, emergency housing, medical treatment and HIV testing. The announcement of Bea's donation came with the center's plans to build a house that will shelter 12 homeless youth and name the building in her honor. Executive director Carl Siciliano said they were "overwhelmed with gratitude that Bea saw that LGBT youth deserve as much love and support as any other young person and that she placed so much value in the work we do to protect them and to help them rebuild lives." Thank you, Bea.

The Ali Forney Center was named after a homeless queer teen who dedicated his life to helping other homeless queer youth, was an HIV prevention worker, and advocated for the NYPD to investigate a series of murders of homeless queer youth in New York City. In December of 1997, Ali was murdered. Check out more about the org here.

Via The Advocate.

Yesterday was Intersex Awareness Day.

Oct 26th marks the 5th annual celebrate intersexual awareness day! Today is the (inter)national day of grass-roots action to end shame, secrecy and unwanted genital cosmetic surgeries on intersex children.

Via Queers United, where you can learn more about the issue and what you can do take action.

Lambda Legal made this great documentary that tells the story of the Supreme Court victory in Lawrence v. Texas that struck down state sodomy laws.

Click here to find out more about the film and how you can host a screening at your school or organization.

h/t Audacia Ray on Twitter.

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Dear Professor Foxy,

Well, for about two years (I'm 21) I've been thinking that I'm gay. And, after a recent, and first, sexual encounter with a woman I decided that, yes, this lesbian thing is for me. Since then I've slowly been coming out of the closet: I've told a friend here, a cousin there but I still have yet to tell my parents. While they are very liberal and I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem with it (I have a cousin who is gay), I'm sure you can understand that this is still a very hard thing to do.

So, after getting my courage up I asked my (straight) sister (who I had told previously that I had some queer inklings) that I'd like her help in telling our parents. Now, my sister, as far as I know, is quite liberal herself but is often annoyed by my "radical" feminism. I'm in Women's Studies, she's in Engineering - you get the picture. Anyway, I asked her to help me tell our parents that I'm gay. Her response? "OH MY GOD." Followed by, "Are you sure it's not just because of Susan (the cousin) and Women's Studies and stuff." I immediately dropped the subject. We continued on with our evening and it wasn't until the next day that I realized the ignorance and cruelty of her response, especially since I had already told her that I might like girls.

I haven't confronted her about her response and probably won't be asking for her help with my task again. But, I still haven't told my parents! So, Professor Foxy, this brings me to my first question: how on earth will I regain my confidence and say to my parents, the seemingly simple words, "I am gay"?

However, this question is only the first in my often drama-filled life. Shortly after the conversation with my sister, I visited a psychic. This was the first time I'd seen one and it's not something I put much weight into. What she said, however, made me think. Halfway through the reading, while discussing the tall-dark-and-handsome man I was soon going to meet, she paused and asked, "Who do you like, him or her?" Maybe she was psychic or maybe she just saw the disinterest in my eyes while I was hearing about this man. Anyway, after I told her that I do, in fact, like "her," she smiled and said, "Ah, and who have you told?" I told her that Susan (the same cousin) knew. "And she likes the girls?" the psychic asked. She, like my sister told me that it was my cousin's influence that resulted in what I thought was a changing sexuality. "It won't last" were her final words about my lesbianism.

The reason I am telling you all of this is that maybe my sister and the psychic are right. Of course my Women's Studies education has something to do with my sexuality - it has completely reformed my thinking and helped me to see, I thought, that I prefer women over men. My second question, I suppose, is that do you think there is any truth in what my sister and the psychic are saying. Has my sexuality been influenced by my cousin's, to the point that I'm convinced I'm gay when I'm not actually? What seems preposterous about this possibility is that it's not a trend to be gay, nor is it seen, in general society, as the more positive sexuality. Don't get me wrong, if I am gay I'll be happy that way but of course if I had the CHOICE I would be straight, in terms of an easier lifestyle, socially, legally, etc.

I'm sorry to have dragged on like this, but I'd really like some guidance. Am I just following my cousin's sexuality or being swayed into thinking I'm gay? If I am really gay, how do I go about telling my parents?

-Query from Canada

Hello Query -

I am sorry your sister had such a negative response to your coming out. But being gay or queer or lesbian is not like the swine flu - you cannot catch it. Your cousin being gay is wonderful, because it gives you someone in your family you can talk to and an example of someone you admire and love who is gay, but that will not turn you gay. I am sure there are many people who you love and admire who are straight, but that will not turn you straight. Women's studies classes can open your mind and broaden your horizons, but they cannot turn you gay either.

The psychic is bunk. A random stranger, whatever her gifts, cannot know you better than you know yourself. In any case, you have no way of knowing how she feels about LGBT people in general. She could be a complete homophobe.

One of the hardest things about coming out is that it's a process, not an immediate snap of the fingers. First, it takes time to understand and realize you are gay. Then, when you are finally ready to tell people, it also takes those people time to understand and accept that you are gay. Though being patient with them is frustrating and annoying, most people come around. Your sister's response was ignorant and mean, but that does not mean that she will never be able to realize that you are still the same person you were before and that it is a sign of your love for her that you told her this incredibly important thing about yourself.

Your parents will likely have a good response, but you should have friends at the ready to talk to just in case. What about your cousin? Can she be there for you during it or after? Parents are often more ok with gayness in the abstract or in people other than their children. You need to make sure that you have someone or several people to help you.

Talk with these people to regain your confidence and move forward with telling your parents. If they have a good response, wonderful! You have another source of support. If they have a bad response, they will take time, but most parents come around. If yours do not, there are other ways of finding support. Many LGBT people have two kinds of family: family of origin (the one you are born into) and chosen family (the family that you grow as you age, the family that supports you no matter what). Your cousin, friends you have told: these people can all be your chosen family and your support system.

Take care of yourself during this time. Being a lesbian is a wonderful thing and there is a whole community of folks who can be there with you through this experience.

Best,
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

This really pisses me off and I'm once again disturbed that Congress is supposedly a representational body: fifty-three House Republicans have signed on to a letter asking the Obama administration to fire Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. Why? Because Jennings founded GLSEN and has been a longtime advocate for queer youth.

"As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America's schools -- an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children," the lawmakers write.

As GLSEN's own research shows queer and trans youth experience incredibly high rates of harassment in school. These young people need advocates and role models in positions of power, and Jennings is both. The campaign to fire Jennings, which has been going on for a while now and includes the typical drudging up of old and miss-reported information, demonstrates complete disregard for the physical and mental health and safety of LGBT youth.

By sending the Obama administration this letter the fifty-three House Republicans are saying the experiences of these young people don't matter, that they don't deserve respect and support. This campaign isn't just an attack on Jennings but on all the young people he represents. It's an extension of the bullying Jennings fights against.

The full text of the letter can be read here and the list of Representatives who signed on to the letter can be found here.

This weekend, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill which designates a day, May 22, to recognize and memorialize Harvey Milk. (Schwarzenegger vetoed the same bill last year.)

That's the good news. The bad news is Schwarzenegger also vetoed two bills affecting trans people in California. From TransGriot:

AB 1185 would have allowed qualified transgender people born in California to return to the county of their birth to obtain a new birth certificate reflecting the correct gender, as well as any accompanying name change.

...Schwarzenegger also vetoed AB 382 which would have established protections for LGBT prisoners, which he said was "unnecessary."

67 percent of LGBT inmates in California report being sexually assaulted; the rate for sexual assault of LGBT prisoners is 15 times higher than the overall population. So yeah...real "unnecessary."

The newest from Bryan Safi takes on "No homo." But as commenters pointed out, what's up with the Tara Reid comment?

Jay Smooth has some background on the phrase in the hip hop community, which has been around for quite some time.

Props to commenter raspberrying for pointing out Safi's new video to us in this week's WFR.

With yesterday's National Equality March and President Obama's promise (again) to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell (the speech transcript was released last night), we missed the story last week about government stats showing that women are more likely than men to be discharged from the military for Don't Ask Don't Tell.

While 619 people were discharged under DADT last year, one-third of them were women (when they only account for 15 percent of all active-duty and reserve members). The numbers were particularly prevalent in the Air Force, where women represent just 20 percent of the Air Force but were 61 percent of the members discharged for DADT.

Folks say there's not enough evidence yet to know if women really are being targeted, possibly as a result of the prevalence of sexism and misogyny that the military is often charged with, or if it's just the case that there are more lesbians in the military than gay men. (Community poster Spiffy McBang beat us to the punch on the story and had some discussion on this.)

But regardless of the breakdown of who is discriminated against through DADT, what matters most at this point is that all people should have the freedom to serve openly. We'll be waiting, Mr. President.

UPDATE: NBC's John Harwood reports that the White House believes LGBT mobilizing is merely part of the "internet left fringe":

HOLT: But in general when yo look at the left as a whole, have there been conversations about some things they thought would have been done but haven't?

HARWOOD: Sure but If you look at the polling, Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the "internet left fringe" Lester. And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.

Just, wow.

October is National Equality Month. Sunday on the National Mall, thousands will gather for the National Equality March, promoting the Gay Agenda: equality!

Logo TV is going dark for the march. Thousands of youth from across the nation are traveling in delegations to make it to the march. And the night before the march, President Obama will deliver the keynote speech on gay rights at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner.

He is expected to detail "incremental progress" on equality. Many believe President Obama hasn't yet earned his Nobel, noting his solid procrastination of fighting Don't Ask Don't Tell, and his less-than-resounding endorsement of ENDA and hate crimes legislation.

Recent outcry in the LGBT community, however, has focused instead on the dismissal of queer people of color in the marriage equality movement. Over at Queerty, Nakhone Keodara details what he perceives to be the systematic devaluing of the experiences of queer people of color in the national equality organizing space, and their underrepresentation even in lists of supporters like this one.

Keodara "quit" the movement, eliciting head-shaking disapproval by some activists. It's possible that the lack of commitment by President Obama, a celebrity of color so popular that "Dreams of my Father" almost beat "The Bible" on the list of books people lie about reading, has influenced the inclusiveness of the movement. But any change in inclusivity must start not with the government, but with marriage equality organizations.

Did anyone see the much-anticipated premiere of Kirby Dick's new film Outrage? It's a documentary about the hypocrisy that is closeted politicians and public figures that not only live double lives, but actively working against LGBT rights. Trailer is below.

One of the biggest targets of the film is current Florida governor Charlie Crist, as well as former U.S. senator Larry Craig and former U.S. rep Edward Schrock of Virginia. From what I could catch of it, it was pretty thought-provoking - between the questions raised around the media's outing of gay politicians, the power folks like Craig have used to take away rights for the purpose of staying closeted, and the feelings of extreme anger (but also sadness) that the film triggers. I haven't seen much coverage of it on the blogs yet though. What did folks think?

In its August 2009 California Opinion Index, California's Field Poll looked at how California's electorate has evolved since the 1970's. Some trends are expected; in both 1978 and 2009, women comprised 53% of registered California voters. Compared to 1978, there are fewer white non-Hispanics, more homeowners, fewer Protestants, and more non-Christians registered to vote.

Finally, the poll evaluated support and opposition to same-sex marriage between 1977 and 2009, with distressing results: California Republicans are 7% more opposed to same-sex marriage now than 32 years ago.

"As the demographic profile of the state's voters has changed, so too have voter opinions on a number of important social issues. Republicans, on the other hand, have not changed their views on this issue, and if anything, are now more opposed than they were thirty years ago. A nearly three to one majority of Republicans (68% to 23%) currently opposes allowing same-sex marriage in California. This is marginally greater than their 65% to 30% opposition found in a 1977 Field Poll."

My latest Current crush Bryan Safi on why coming out is super gay.

I wrote on this last Friday, but now the Yes on Question 1 campaign, primarily funded by anti-gay group Stand For Marriage Maine, has used the exact footage from California's bigoted Yes on 8 commercials in their newest commercial.

The only significant difference is the casting of Charla Bansley, a Maine anti-gay activist and teabagger, and Maine's head of Concerned Women for America, in the role of the teacher. Bansley is a teacher at a private Christian school, and wrote an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News in 2000 calling for the abolishment of the Department of Education:

The best thing the Department of Education could do to improve the quality of education is to close its doors and send back our money.

A private school teacher who wishes to abolish public education wields little credibility in deciding its content. Bansley has been quoted describing same-sex relationships as a "Public display of psychosis." Moya Watson has a good perspective on what impact Bansley's hateful words have on families, and Julia Rosen of the Courage Campaign breaks down the egregious lies about Maine's public curriculum that Bansley perpetuates.

And still, I wish that when opponents of equal rights say, "My child will be taught about same-sex marriage in public schools," activists won't answer, "That won't happen." but rather, "Yes. So what?"

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is being debated in a hearing before the House Committee on Education and Labor today at 10am.

The bill would protect against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

There has been controversy in past years about bills that were not inclusive of gender identity, but this year it's been all-inclusive and had much support.

You can see a liveblog of the hearing over at Bilerico, or you can follow live tweets of the hearing here.

...by suggesting that straight porn turns boys gay. Huh? Via Broadsheet, it seems that Michael Schwartz is giving advice to folks as to how to deter your child from pornography - tell them it's gay.

He dropped this divine wisdom this weekend at the Values Voter Summit during a panel on "The New Masculinity," which focused on how "feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men" and discussed the need to get "the principles and ideals for a new 'masculinism' right." Part of getting those principles right means inculcating young boys with fear of their own bodies, apparently.

This absurd sound bite surfaced when Schwartz shared an "astonishingly insightful remark" made by a friend of his who suffered for some time from "the malady" of homosexuality: "All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards." He continued, "Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he's going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I'm pretty sure he'll lose interest. That's the last thing he wants."

Check out the video:

So feminists and gay folks are responsible for the widespread popularity of pornography. Wait, how does that work again? Because you've completely fucking lost me between homosexuality being "inflicted on people" and the new "'masculinism' right." Looks like he needs to hook up with the MRAs.

A rivalry between California's two largest marriage equality organizations to publicly define the timeline of repealing Proposition 8 has become a bitter spat that threatens to cripple the effort.

On August 12, Equality California (EQCA) announced their decision to put an initiative to repeal anti-marriage Proposition 8 on the 2012, rather than the 2010 ballot. As the self-described largest queer rights advocacy group in California, EQCA deciding to wait until 2012 received statewide coverage and was perceived as representative of the LGBT activism community as a whole.

EQCA was the defendant not only in the original 2008 California Supreme Court case in which same-sex marriage was first allowed, but also in the 2009 case to challenge Proposition 8 after its passage. EQCA has traditionally set the agenda for marriage equality in California, even passing a bill in the state legislature Wednesday night to recognize same sex marriages from other states.

Still, several organizations who were fighting for 2010 before the announcement have not backed down. EQCA's primary competitor for funds and political clout in the California marriage equality fight is the Courage Campaign, which works on myriad political issues unrelated to equality.

Congrats to American Idol! They've just upped the ante on their already-hugely successful show by bringing on Ellen DeGeneres: comedian extraordinaire, media mogul, talk show host, inspirational speaker, prolific dancer, same sex marriage advocate, and all around bad ass woman.

I'm a huge fan of this decision because I think Ellen is hilarious and lovable and her presence will most likely make me enjoy the show a lot more on those (rare I swear!) occasions that I tune in. But it seems like the move has also spurred something of a different reaction in the blogosphere and beyond: namely, that of questioning:

Will Ellen DeGeneres make American Idol "gayer"?

One problem with this question that I'm going to have to point out right away is that- and I'm truly sorry to break this to you America- American Idol is already pretty, really, very gay.

Another thing is that the presence of someone queer does not always a "gayer" show make, just as the presence of a person of color doesn't always make the show more geared towards people of color, or even necessarily more tolerant of them.

This is especially true if that person is tokenized, toned down, glossed over, marginalized, or heavily censured, all of which I hope Ellen is not subjected to on American Idol.

That being said, she's already given interviews in which she alluded to being "the people's judge," and for this reason and more I am hopeful and optimistic that Ellen's presence will make the show more queer friendly and just generally more tolerant and inclusive.

So I'd like to devote a huge Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah to the intelligent and- dare I say- progressive decision of American Idol to choose such a down to earth, inspirational, and compassionate queer feminist as the newest addition to their show.

Check out this awesome news! From the AP:

"Uruguay lawmakers Wednesday adopted a trailblazing law allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children, in an unprecedented move in Latin America."

This is hugely exciting, and a true sign of progress towards equal rights! I would be remiss not to note, though, that, as the article mentions, religious leaders and right-wing politicians continue to push a conservative agenda and hold great influence in Uruguay (abortion remains illegal there, for example). So there is much work still to be done. But today, we can celebrate this exciting landmark victory for progressive values and equal rights in Latin America!

P.S. I can't quite make it out, but I'm pretty sure the banner in the pic reads "No Mas Homofobia" or "No More Homophobia"!

It has been a frightening week to be trans in Washington, D.C.

Miriam linked previously to RMJ's excellent critique of Metro Weekly's coverage of an attack on a transgender woman by a gay man. I was particularly struck by Ray Young's approach to solidarity between gay and trans folks. His statement that, "I let her know that I was one of the family, that I was homosexual" assumes that gay and trans individuals are automatically allies. Of course, this is following his violent attack on Janey Kay, a trans woman. Young seems to think he should be perceived as a friend to trans folks just because he's gay and regardless of his actual actions.

I see this largely as the product of the often tokenizing tacking on of "T" after "LGB." As RMJ points out, Metro Weekly claims to be "Washington DC's GLBT Newsmagazine," but their coverage of this story shows a woeful lack of understanding of and respect for transgender individuals. The fact is, solidarity between gay and trans folks is not an automatic reality. Cisgender gay folks can still be transphobic, as Young demonstrates. The attack on two trans men at Fab Lounge, a D.C. gay bar, in March is more proof that gay spaces can be sites of violence against trans folks. I certainly hope for solidarity and community under the queer and trans umbrella. But there is a great deal of difference among LGBT folks and support for each other's causes and needs is something that takes real work.

The anti-trans violence continued in D.C. on Wednesday when two transgender women were stabbed on a public street in the middle of the day. Both of them were taken to the hospital where Tyli'a "NaNa Boo" Mack died. The location of the attack is particularly frightening:

The stabbings occurred about two blocks from the North Capitol Street offices of Transgender Health Empowerment, a private social services group that provides drop-in services to transgender people, including transgender youth.

If gay media is screwing up on trans issues it is sadly no surprise mainstream news sources are getting it so wrong. The prevalence of violent attacks against trans folks is horrible enough. The situation is compounded when the press does not respect the transgender community enough to write about us in ways that are accurate and recognize our humanity.

The othering of trans individuals and confusion about our identities in the press makes us seem strange and unknowable and bolsters fear. Poor reporting can further the dehumanization and lack of understanding that support a culture of transphobic violence.

For those of you in the D.C. area: there will be a candlelight vigil tonight at 6:30pm at 209 Q St. NW.

I'm really excited about Vogue Evolution, a group competing in the current season of America's Best Dance Crew. The crew members are black and Latino. Four are out gay men and one is an out trans woman. From the beginning they've been very upfront about their identities (a relief after seeing so many euphemistic referrals to queer people on TV including the insulting "Choice Fab-u-lous" category at this year's Teen Choice Awards). Check out this video from the first episode of the season where they introduce themselves and talk a little bit about being gay and trans:

Voguing has been around since the Harlem Renaissance and has been dominated by queer people of color. Pony Webster, one of the crew's directors, described the style in an interview with After Elton:

Voguing came from poses in Vogue Magazine, that turned into movement that then became self-expression. Voguing is like flamboyant movement with abstract art with self-expression. There are some elements to keep you in the box. There's hands, which is moving your hands. There's catwalk, which is a stance with your knees, then there's duckwalk, so there's a skeleton, but it's really self-expression.

Voguing has received public recognition as a result of the film Paris is Burning and Madonna's appropriation of the style. However, Vogue Evolution's participation in ABDC is the first time members of the house and ballroom community are representing their own style to such a wide pop culture audience.

The latest from our new crush Bryan Safi. This couldn't be more true.

Adrian from Amplify Your Voice has a thoughtful and informative piece on taking safety into account for LGBTQQI tweens and teens when coming out of the closet. Check it.

Via OutSports, we find out that Australia's national rugby union team, The Wallabies, have joined forces with gay rugby union club the Sydney Convicts to fight against homophobia. (At left is David Pocock of The Wallabies.)

The campaign - This Is Oz - touts itself as "celebrating diversity and challenging homophobia," and uses its online photo gallery to feature athletes (and everyone else!) holding up messages supporting GLBT rights.

h/t Morgan.

If you have consumed any amount of pop culture directed at straight women over the past decade, you know of the "gay boyfriend" phenomenon: the superfabulous, showtunes and shopping-loving queer friend who shows up whenever a female lead character needs entertainment, romantic advice, or a plus-one.

Think Stanford in Sex and the City. The eavesdropping assistant in Obsessed. The gaggle of gays who advise Drew Barrymore in He's Just Not That Into You. I could go on and on... Much like the black best friend, the gay boyfriend is the perfect match for a neurotic and insecure (but still skinny, white, beautiful) leading lady because he is depicted as sexually nonthreatening and non-spotlight-hogging. I think Sady summed it up well:

Sadly, not everybody can be a White Heterosexual. However, if you are not, I have good news: you, lucky person, get to aid the White Heterosexuals in their quest for love! Gay folks and/or people of color make fabulous accessories to the single White Heterosexual girl's lifestyle.

Which brings us to Thomas Rogers, who describes his plight in Salon today: He's a gay man who has repeatedly been targeted by straight women looking for a gay boyfriend, despite the fact that he has little in common with these women:

As I moved away from home, to bigger and bigger cities, I discovered that there were lots of scruffy and poorly dressed drone-rock-loving gay men in the world -- especially of my age group -- who had nothing in common with the Sanfords and Wills I'd seen on TV. Just because I was into dudes didn't mean I had to suddenly love dance music or fine furnishings. And yet, despite my continued shortcomings as a stereotypical gay man, I remained a strangely alluring target for a large number of straight women.

Rogers grants that self-identified "fag hags" were once extremely important: "I'm here, I'm with that queer, get used to it." (He doesn't make this distinction, but in many parts of the country where gay rights are less entrenched, I think this can still hold true.) And he largely credits Will and Grace with mainstreaming the phenomenon. Granted, I have not seen too many episodes of the show, but to me it's very different than the Carrie/Stanford example. Will and Grace's friendship always seemed like a two-way street. After all, the show isn't called Grace, and Will is much more than a background character who pops up for comic relief. Rogers continues,

It was no coincidence that the first wave of gay male TV characters shared most of their screen time with straight women -- it made us palatable to mainstream America. "It was celebrating the feminine side of gay men, not about going into the bar scene," says Pimlott. "It disarmed their potential threat." And this, in turn, made us into every straight girl's best friend. "It made it seem like every straight girl should have these accessories: Manohlo Blahnik shoes, and a fag."

A new report from Human Rights Watch, "They Want Us Exterminated": Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq, says that Iraqi militias are torturing and killing men suspected of being gay.

Scott Long, director of HRW's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Programe, says the report "documents a campaign of violence against men in Iraq who are suspected of being gay or who simply don't act masculine enough in the eyes of their killers."

Download the report here.

Spencer Jones and Tyler Barrick were married at San Francisco City Hall on June 17, 2008, the first day California gay couples were legally allowed to do so.

Happily ever after? Well, sort of. But now their hometown paper, The Spectrum, in St. George, Utah, refuses to publish their wedding announcement. An excerpt from the gladd blog:

At first, the paper said they could run the announcement in the "celebrations" section of the paper - but only if there was no picture.

Jones and Barrick objected to being told their picture would be excluded, and in response president and publisher Donnie Welch decided that no announcement would run at all. He told the couple, "As our policy is to run marriage announcements recognized by Utah Law, I have made the decision to not run this announcement."

They are trying to get as many people as possible to email and call the publisher over the next few days, so do your part if you've got an extra minute:
Donnie Welch, President/Publisher, The Spectrum
435-674-6222
dwelch@thespectrum.com

Thanks to Community blogger BackOfBusEleven, I'm now obsessed with Current's Bryan Safi.

Others have written before about their (un)feminist guilty pleasure of watching television shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent, and the problematic practices these shows often have behind the scenes. Despite the obvious cheesiness, as well as the more problematic and unfeminist aspects of these shows, there's something about them that keeps me tuning in. I don't know if it's the dramatic story-line videos that make me feel like I am actually getting to know the contestants and identifying with their struggle, or just the reminder that there are other people out there who are pursuing their dreams without letting the threat of criticism or rejection prevent them from doing so. Or maybe it's watching people sweat through songs and the undeserved power I feel in being able to judge from the safety of my own home a skill I don't have or plan on getting anytime soon...ever. ;-)

Anyway, I'm invariably less than satisfied by the feminist values, but usually I suck it up and take from the experience what guilty-but-oh-so-sweet pleasure I can. Until now. This just cannot fly.

The World Outgames, an LGBT sporting event, was the target of a bombing this week.

A member of the Seattle Frontrunners was injured from shrapnel when an explosive device was thrown onto the track during competition at the World Outgames in Copenhagen.

Dean Koga's right hand was injured and he required stitches after the bomb, believed to be a small incindinary device, exploded right before the start of the men's 4x200 relay at Osterbro Stadium, according to eyewitness reports.

Copenhagen police were criticized by participants for their slow response time - they took 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. Eventually they apprehended one suspect and are looking for another.

Danish police arrested a 31-year-old man caught after tossing the third bomb and charged him with a hate crime, according to Danish media. The suspect was carrying a backpack containing another half-dozen or so bombs, Koga said he was told by the police. The devices that exploded on the track were described as being powerful, about 9 inches in length, with a blue plastic covering and a fuse that was burning after it landed.

Participants and attendees were understandably shocked and frightened by the attack, but the games went on and Koga was back on the track the next day.

This follows another incident earlier in the week when three Outgames attendees were attacked by two men shouting "homo pig."

This violence is a reminder that even a relatively mainstream event like the Outgames is not just a chance for queer folk to have some fun together. It's still a political statement in a world where our communities are faced with such an intense amount of hate.

GLAAD has released their third annual Network Responsibility Index, a review of LGBT representation on television. I found this report particularly interesting as I'm a pop culture addict who constantly finds myself consuming deeply problematic media that seldom represents my community.

Some key findings:

• HBO led all networks with 58.5 (42%) of the network's 140 total programming hours featuring LGBT representation. This is an increase of 16% over the previous season. Of HBO's 14 original series, 10 included LGBT content and of the four that did not, three were sports news programming.

• For the third year in a row, ABC led the broadcast networks in LGBT-inclusive content. Of its 1,146.5 total hours of primetime programming, 269.5 hours (24%) included LGBT impressions and 9% were transgender-inclusive, making ABC the most fair, accurate and inclusive of the five broadcast networks.

• For the first time since GLAAD began this analysis, the network rankings changed and Fox rose to third place with 82.5 (11%) LGBT-inclusive hours, out of 782.5 total primetime programming hours. This is an increase from last year's analysis, in which Fox's LGBT content was tallied at 4% and received a "failing" grade. However, Fox also aired some problematic LGBT programming.

• CBS saw the greatest decline among the broadcast networks this year, dropping to last place with 60 hours (5%) of LGBT-inclusive content, out of 1,148 total hours of primetime programming.

• Of the 10 cable networks evaluated, Showtime was the only network to receive a Good rating, airing 20.5 (26%) LGBT-inclusive hours, out of 77.5 total hours of primetime programming.

• TNT had the biggest increase among all networks. In last year's NRI, TNT received a Failing grade for airing a single hour (1%) of content. This year, TNT rose 18%, airing 13 LGBT inclusive hours (19%) out of its 69 total hours of original programming.

• TBS only offered a half hour (1%) and A&E aired two hours (1%) of LGBT-inclusive programming out of 39.5 and 166.5 total hours of original primetime programming, respectively. This resulted in the networks tying for the lowest ranking and score among the 10 cable networks evaluated.

Some of my thoughts, with a few minor spoilers from this past year of TV:

The topic of hate crimes has been in the news a lot lately with the movement of the Matthew Shepard Act through Congress and the trial and conviction of Lateisha Green's killer. Many may take it as a given that all members of the queer and trans communities support hate crime legislation and convictions. This is not the case, though. Myself and many other queer and trans organizers and activists oppose this approach to violence against our communities.

It is important to recognize violence motivated by bigotry, and difficult to see alternatives to hate crime convictions as a means to this end. A sense of justice for the family and friends of people who have been killed because of their sexuality or gender identity is also valuable. But the ultimate goal should be to end such violence. Harsher sentencing does not decrease the amount of hate crimes being committed. A focus on sentence enhancement for these crimes does nothing for prevention. Putting our energy toward promoting harsher sentencing takes it away from the more difficult and more important work of changing our culture so that no one wants to kill another person because of their perceived membership in a marginalized identity group.

Hate crimes legislation puts the power to bring and pursue such charges in the hands of a law enforcement and criminal justice system that disproportionately targets marginalized communities. As a result, hate crime charges are brought against black folks for allegedly targeting white folks and against queer folks for allegedly targeting straight folks. In fact, as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) points out in their non-endorsement of GENDA, so called anti-white hate crimes constitute the second highest amount reported by the FBI. Self defense in the face of a racist, homophobic or transphobic attack can equal a harsher sentence for the person being attacked in the first place.

Incarceration is supposed to deter crime, and harsher sentencing for hate crimes is supposed to deter crime even more. However, this is not the reality. In fact, longer time spent in prison actually increases recidivism. Our current system of imprisonment is producing more violence, not less. Hate crime verdicts will only add to this sad reality.

Gay Icons explores gay social and cultural history through the unique personal insights of ten high profile gay figures, who have selected their historical and modern icons.

The chosen icons, who may or may not be gay themselves, have all been important to each selector, having influenced their gay sensibilities or contributed to making them who they are today. They include artists Francis Bacon and David Hockney; writers Daphne du Maurier and Quentin Crisp; composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Benjamin Britten; musicians k.d. lang, the Village People and Will Young; entertainers Ellen DeGeneres, Lily Savage and Kenneth Williams; sports stars Martina Navratilova and Ian Roberts and political activists Harvey Milk and Angela Mason.

Their fascinating and inspirational stories will be illustrated by over sixty photographic portraits including works by Andy Warhol, Snowdon and Cecil Beaton together with specially commissioned portraits of the selectors by Mary McCartney. McCartney. All are set in a striking exhibition design conceived by renowned theatre designer, Robert Jones.

I'm sad this one is in London and I can't check it out, but it sounds like an amazing exhibit! More information here.

Via Pam's House Blend, we find efforts were being made to kill hate crimes legislation which would protect the LGBT community - not by objecting a proposed bill, but rather by adding a "poison pill" amendment which would revise it to the point of unsupportable. And they just passed last night.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) added amendments to the Matthew Shepard Act which will in effect kill the legislation; for example, one amendment will apply the death penalty in some hate crimes cases. His two other amendments are also seen as burdensome to the bill and a blatant Republican attempt to put the legislation to sleep.

This is especially bad considering the bill is already in danger being attached to the Defense Appropriations Bill. (Which may be vetoed by the president because of controversial funding requests for F-22 fighter planes.)

For those who don't know, Jeff Sessions was the asshole who grilled Sotomayor last week, accusing her of being a racist (while he was rejected to serve as a federal judge in '84 for making racist remarks). And he now serves as a force in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he himself has called "a great irony." At least that's one thing we can agree on.

Update: Just found out that the Senate voted to stop the production of F-22 planes, which takes away the threat of the president's veto.

Congress has been busy lately, and there are currently a number of pieces of reproductive and sexual health-related legislation moving through both the House and Senate. A roundup of what I've been following after the jump.

This video is a bit old, but I watched it recently and it really impressed me, so I wanted to share. This is from the Stonewall anniversary reception that Obama hosted at the White House in commemoration of the 40th anniversary. He invited LGBT staffers, as well as advocates and organizers to join him. I wish I could have been there.

What struck me most is how open he is about the state of things. Admitting that people are frustrated with his lack of movement, but reiterating his commitment to his campaign promises. It actually made me feel like Obama actually does have an LGBT rights agenda. He still has to prove it, but this was an impressive start.

File this one under good news.

Via Akimbo:

In a landmark Indian Supreme Court ruling today, Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah struck down Penal Code 377, overturning a colonial-era law criminalizing "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal."

The victory is a historic step forward for human rights only days after people worldwide took to the streets for gay pride, particularly in a country where LGBTQII individuals face discrimination, stigma, and violence on a daily basis.

While the original petition against 377 cited its adverse impact on HIV/ AIDS prevention efforts, the Supreme Court ruling statement was far more progressive, citing the value of an inclusive society:

"The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognising a role in society for everyone... It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality, and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster the dignity of every individual."

While reports indicate this will only impact New Delhi, it may open doors for the rest of the country as well.

More from community blogger bifemmefatale here.

NorthEast Two-Spirit Society and Audre Lorde Project's Executive Director seemed to have been forcefully kicked out of the NYC Heritage of Pride march this past weekend.

From the Ness website,

Just before 2PM, Lieutenant Connoly of the Midtown Taskforce demanded that the People of Color Contingent leave the parade. The reason given was that a delay of 6 blocks existed between the People of Color contingent and the contingent in front of them. NYPD raised the issue of the gap once and POC contingent marshals were in the process of closing the gap. Kris Hayashi, Executive Director of Audre Lorde Project (ALP), and Loyda Colon also of ALP explained to Lieutenant Connoly, that they were in the process of closing the gap and Lieutenant Connoly refused to listen. Lieutenant Connoly then insisted that the POC contingent leave the parade, and attempted to arrest both Colon and Hayashi. Lieutenant Connoly then ejected Harlan Pruden, the driver of NE2SS' support vehicle and co-founder of NE2SS, other members of NE2SS (who led the People of Color Contingent), and Hayashi from the parade. Hayashi was physically dragged off the parade route.

"It should have been a day to celebrate and have fun," Harlan Pruden, Co-founder of NE2SS.

First off, having a six block gap seems like a weird reason to be kicked out of the parade. Secondly, I think this speaks to an inability to see people of color as a fundamental part of the pride festival. The conference organizers said that NE2SS can rejoin the parade, but I do think that the police are their to protect the ability for marchers to march in safety and what they feel is appropriate membership in the parade.

Whatever the reason may be, both NE2SS and the ALP are amazing organizations that should be part of Pride and it is sad that they were not able to participate without being harassed and kicked out by cops.

In a historic move the Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations that will start the process to lift the HIV travel and immigration ban. The ban is from the 80's and has stigmatized and restricted the movement of people with HIV. The ban is based on discrimination, hate and fear. Andrew Sullivan writes,

Once the ban is lifted, the US will be able to become a venue for AIDS and HIV research conferences again (the US has been unable to host such events because of the ban for years), and leave behind the tiny number of countries - from Yemen to Saudi Arabia - that still actively stigmatize and penalize people with HIV in travel. It will remove a measure that discourages honesty about HIV, and promotes a stigma around the disease that makes effective prevention and treatment much harder. It will save lives. It will save relationships and marriages. It will place America where it belongs - at the forefront of global AIDS and HIV leadership. And because all immigrants have to prove they will not be a public charge and have private health insurance, and because a fee was added to the visa application to pay for the costs of enforcement, the fiscal effect is minimal - and offset by taxes legal immigrants like yours truly will continue to pay.

This is great news.

The NY Times writes last week about marriage, infidelity and Mark Sanford,

Despite strong social riptides working against it -- the liberalization of divorce laws, the vanishing stigma of divorce, the continual online temptations of social sites like MySpace or Facebook -- the marriage bond is far stronger in 21st-century America than many may assume. Infidelity is one of the most common reasons cited by people who divorce. But surveys find the majority of people who discover a cheating spouse remain married to that person for years afterward. Many millions more shrug off, or work through, strong suspicions or evidence of infidelity. And recent trends in marriage suggest that the institution itself has become more resilient in recent years, not less so.

The article looks at statistics and finds that since more people are staying married, despite the temptations to get divorced or cheat, marriage is working. It ignores one key fact, that perhaps less people are actually getting married, but more often just live together. The article does acknowledge that since people get married older, they are more clear about what they want and are better equipped at "making it work."

Firstly, if it is true, that people stay together after infidelity, looking at examples of public officials is not a good gauge of this since public couples have more at stake to stay together and not be destroyed by the public eye and the news media. They want to make an example of how they can overcome obstacle in their relationships, even if it is at great personal cost.

Secondly, if people are staying together despite infidelity, it could be for a variety of reasons. One, the pressure of marriage, culturally and financially doesn't allow for all the transgressions we think our "free" society allows and second, our view of monogamy has shifted and we can accept when someone falls off the path of heteronormative monogamy. I am sure there are more open marriages now than there were say 30 years ago.

But that doesn't change the main argument in the article which is really about how marriage is a resilient social institution. And I think it is safe to say the fact that marriage has become a booming industry, increasing cultural norm in almost retrograde terms and the government's re-commitment to keep it between a man and a woman are not innocent players in this supposed resiliency. So I guess the question is, has anything really changed? Has feminism helped at all in helping women not buy into the industry of marriage?

Well, interestingly, it seems that feminism is part of what is keeping marriage working.

Some of the same social changes that have unsettled traditional 1950s-era marriages have seemingly deepened them in the 1990s and 2000s. Today women are contributing more financially to relationships than earlier generations, and men are contributing more to the domestic duties. Compared with earlier generations, men and women today are more likely to marry someone like themselves, with a similar educational background, experts say. The relationship is less about dividing economic and domestic duties and more about shared interests and mutual happiness.

That is something I can buy, but I still take issue with the "who" of these articles. Only a handful of my friends are actually getting married. Many of them may want to, but many of them are having kids without husbands and they are not getting married. Some because they don't want to, or they haven't found someone to marry or they don't have access to the means to have a wedding. I am over studies that are just about how middle class people stay married and cheat or do not cheat. What are the relationship habits of people that don't marry, that try alternatives, that don't have social access to marriage (the queer community, poor people, etc), what are they doing? Their behavior will tell us much more about the institution of marriage than just looking at statistics of how many people are staying married.

Check out some pics I took from this past weekend's amazing NYC Pride Parade. And be sure to share your stories and experiences of Pride in comments!

On the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, June 28, Fort Worth police raided The Rainbow Lounge and made numerous arrests. Here's an excerpt of an eye witness account:

My name is Kayla Lane. I am a Ph.D. student at UC-Santa Cruz, staying with my sister, Kelly Lane, for the summer. We and a few of our friends went to the new Rainbow Lounge last night to dance and have some fun. I was in the VIP section when police officers started coming up there. The first arrest (that we saw) was right in front of me in that section.

They asked the guy if he had been drinking, and he said some, and they snidely replied, "Well, we'll see how much!" and plastic handcuffed him as they read him his rights The guy was doing NOTHIG wrong. It was utterly repugnant.

Once I saw this happen, I decided to try and speak with one of the police officers themselves, to go straight to the source and get their side. My sister Kelly and I simply started asking what they were doing here, stating how suspicious it seemed on this date and in this specific club, etc. This was a "State Policeman," whose name I forgot, who tried to explain their actions by referring to "anonymous tips" and "disgruntled ex-bartenders." We pointed out the place was open a week, so the disgruntled ex-bartender source seemed a bit unlikely! He wouldn't really answer my questions. although he did try to grab my hand and flirt with me (which was completely uninvited).

After this, we saw the policemen go into the men's restroom, pull out at least two guys from handcuffs from there, and pull one onto the ground before forcefully removing him. What were they doing in there? Raucously disposing of their waste?! There was no reason for ANY of those arrests, at all. These people were NOT drunk, or even overly happy or silly.

I am incensed and horrified by the way everyone at this location was treated. I hope this will get as much publicity as it deserves, and that a myriad of challenges and complaints will be made to the FWPD and other media sources.

Read more about the incident, and the follow-up protests here.

SistersTalk made a great point:

While the adults in Albany, NY still can't get it together to vote on the gay marriage bill in the NY Senate, the students of Mott Haven Village Preparatory (Public) High School in the Bronx have already cast their vote - and made history.

Victoria Cruz and Deoine Scott were voted (by a landslide!) "Best Couple" by their high school peers, the first time a gay couple was voted Best Couple in the school, and possibly in the Bronx.

Check out their story, it's really sweet.

H/t to Bialogue.

New York City is commemorating the 40th anniversary of Stonewall by asking wealthy LGBTQ folks to make a "Rainbow Pilgrimage" to the city. (See poster at right.) Meanwhile, the city has refused to fund shelters that serve homeless queer youth. As a statement from Queers for Economic Justice puts it:

The campaign's website encapsulates Stonewall in a nostalgic distant light; a movement of the past now best found in a culture of style, restaurants and hot new clubs that are profiled in the ad campaign. The past violence and homophobia is replaced by the promise of a New York experience akin to Sex In The City. Further denying the violence of that fateful night in June, the Rainbow Pilgrimage describes the West Village as having a "population [that] has matured and neighborhood scene [that] has quieted along with it."

But that "quiet" has come at a cost to poor and working class queers today.

City officials found little remarkable in using an event associated with violence and resistance as the centerpiece of a marketing campaign.

"I don't think it's ironic, I think it's significant," said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who is openly gay, at a news conference announcing the campaign. "You know, 40 years ago a group of people said enough was enough. And they struck back against police officers. They struck back against unfair treatment."

"And," she added, "it created the modern L.G.B.T. civil rights movement."

• Sylvia's Place
• FIERCE
• Audre Lorde Project

A new, trans-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was introduced in the House today by Barney Frank. The bill would protect against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to Mara Keisling, head of the National Center for Transgender Equality, this bill has TWICE as many co-sponsors as last year. Awesome. More info (and live updates about the bill) available on Mara's Twitter feed here.

Via News and Observer:

The House approved by a one-vote margin a bill that would ban bullying against school children for actual or perceived differences including sexual orientation.

The bill passed 58 to 57, and Democrats then voted for a parliamentary maneuver ensuring that none of those voting in favor can change their minds. The result: the bill will be sent to Gov. Beverly Perdue for her signature.

I grew up in North Carolina and went to public high school. While my town is considered one of the most liberal in the state, I experienced a pretty homophobic high school environment. I wasn't out at the time, but my social world made it pretty clear it wasn't an option.

I support the NC legislature's efforts to address the specific targeting of LGBT youth. Hopefully the Governor will sign the legislation!

Frameline, an LGBT film festival in San Francisco, was generous enough to offer a giveaway to Feministing readers.

About Frameline:

Frameline is the world's oldest and largest LGBT media organization. In addition to producing the annual San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival -- which opens this Thursday, June 18th -- Frameline is also the leading educational distributor solely dedicated to LGBT film and video. Among its newest programs are Youth In Motion, which provides free LGBT films and curriculum resources to California middle and high schools, and a new line of Home Videos, including previously unreleased classics like Tongues Untied and Screaming Queens.

We're giving away four prizes in honor of the festival today at Feministing.

First prize: DVD film pack:

* Fun In Girls Shorts 2
* Screaming Queens

Second, third and fourth prizes: Ticket prize packs that include two tickets for each film listed:

Gender Benders:

* Maggots and Men
* Pop Star on Ice
* Prodigal Sons
* My Buddy Claudia

The Stories We Tell - Films By, For, and About Queer Women of Color:

* Blazing Wanderlust
* Mississippi Damned
* El Niño Pez (The Fish Child)
* Ghosted

Frameline33 Sampler:

* Girl Seeks Girl
* Rivers Wash Over Me
* Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement
* Fig Trees

So here's how this is going to work. We're giving away each of these packages of DVDs or tickets to four lucky winners!

In order to win the tickets to the filmfest, you need to be local to the San Francisco area. The festival just started last night, and each of the ticket packages above has two tickets to each film. So if you are local, and want to enter to win one of those ticket packages, leave a comment listing your favorite LGBT film. I'll select three people from comments at random.

Anyone can enter to win the two DVDs, and we'll mail them to you. So, if you want to enter to win the DVDs, leave a comment with your favorite LGBT celebrity.

It's a short contest folks, winners will be posted at 3pm EST today and then will need to email me with some info to redeem their prizes. So comment away!

Thanks to Frameline and Harris for setting this up!

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Had the end the contest a few minutes early (sorry folks!) but the winners are:

For the DVD set: justadude

For the Gender Benders ticket set: AmandaSea

For the The Stories We Tell ticket set: Wren

For the Frameline33 sampler: Serafina Longarina

If you're a winner, please email me (miriam@feministing.com) with your name, address and phone number so we can hook you up with your prize! Thanks for participating everyone.

Maddow discussed it on her show last night, but this is what the Associated Press had to say:

President Barack Obama plans to extend health care and other benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of federal employees. White House officials say Obama plans to announce decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president had not yet made the announcement.

The move would give partners of federal employees access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves. Officials say Obama would detail more details of the decision on Wednesday.

This is all in response to the heavy criticism Obama has been facing after his actions in regards to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don't Ask Don't Tell.

After finally gaining control of the New York Senate, two Democrats have defected from the Democrats in the New York State Senate to join the Republican caucus, giving the Republicans a majority again. The two Senators, Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada are still technically Democrats but will be joining the Republicans and some key votes.

Republicans reclaimed control of the New York state Senate with help from two Democrats, who rebelled against a $131.8 billion budget they said was negotiated in secret.

Pedro Espada from the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate from Queens sided with 30 Republicans on key votes to change the Senate's leadership. Democrats immediately challenged the claim and described the action as illegal. Governor David Paterson called it "despicable."

The maneuver, just two weeks before the Legislature's scheduled June 22 adjournment, leaves in doubt the outcome of bills to allow gay marriage, create a new money-saving pension category for future state and city workers and approve taxes to balance New York City's budget.

So what does this mean for gay marriage? According to Queerty it is not a good look,

• If Republicans do take control over the Senate, they will certainly not allow a bill to reach the floor for a full vote. Which means even if Sen. Thomas Duane had locked up the 32 votes necessary to pass the bill, it's now dead in the water.

• If this mess is not sorted out immediately and power not officially maintained by either party, you can expect the rest of the legislative session to be tied up with turmoil, and the same-sex marriage issue pushed to the back of the bus in terms of priorities.

• If Democrats do maintain control, we're still not out of the water. Sens. Espada Jr. was marked in the "yes" column while Monserrate was "undecided" on supporting marriage equality; it's unclear how the team up with Republicans would impact that vote. Moreover, if Smith retains his leadership post, he may still not permit the same-sex marriage bill to come up for a vote, since he's requiring 32 votes to pass it.

Thanks guys!

Via NYTimes:

Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college.

The visiting professorship was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus...With the gift, Harvard said it would regularly invite "eminent scholars studying issues related to sexuality or sexual minorities" to teach on campus for one semester, according to a draft of a university press release.

The chair is being named for F.O. Matthiessen, a Harvard scholar and literary critic who "stands out as an unusual example of a gay man who lived his sexuality as an 'open secret' in the mid-twentieth century," according to the release.

While the first university program in gay and lesbian studies was started in 1986 at City University of New York (CUNY), it's an important symbolic recognition of the importance of LGBT studies to the field of academia.

The Supreme Court has decided not to hear a case challenging Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which according to TPM was in response to the Obama Administration's request. From Talking Points Memo:

The Supreme Court has turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.

The court said Monday that it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is unconstitutional.

The AP has more details here.

The optimist in me hopes this is because the Obama Administration wants to handle the dismantling of Don't Ask Don't Tell legislatively through Congress. It was one of his campaign promises, but we have yet to see any movement on overturning the policy, or stalling the dismissals of people in the military based on this policy.

From HuffPo:

During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. Meanwhile, the White House has said it won't stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.

The Servicemember's Legal Defense Network has counted 238 discharges based on DADT since Obama was sworn in.

Each year, the Lambda Literary Foundation honors authors who write on LGBT topics. This year's winners were announced at the end of May.

About the awards:

The Lambda Literary Awards seek to recognize excellence in the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature. Each year, over 80 judges -- writers, booksellers, librarians, journalists -- assess the entries in more than 20 categories.

I love this particular award because I find it a good suggested reading list for LGBT books.

Full list of winners after the jump.

I suppose it would follow that, after a byproduct of anal sex has been named after you because you do things like group together gay sex with incest, you would shut up and never open your stupid mouth about anything that has to do with copulation, dating, or really anything. You would think that, but that is not the way of Rick Santorum. Only this time it is about how black men don't like to get married and if the Obamas want to be a role model they better stick to some more normal and regular dating rituals.

via Salon quoting Santorum,

Number one, I think it's great that the president has a date night with his wife. He's a role model.He's a role model in particular, whether he likes it or not, in the African-American community.

And you have an African-American community, particularly in the poor inner city areas, we're looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock. Marriage is an institution that's a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males

Um, what? Conservative logic is baffling and will stop at nothing to demean, since it is not just gays that are destroying the institution of marriage it is those "welfare queens and deadbeat dads too." Santorum has to play off every stereotype he can find.

But he continues,

Here we have a president of the United States who says that marriage is cool. You have respect for your wife, and you treat her with the respect and dignity that she deserves. And she is part of this team. And it's not just part of professional team, but it's also part of a personal, romantic team. I think that's all great. So I think it's important that he keeps having his date night.

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it's with your wife. That's really the point... I would make the argument, the simpler the date, the more normal it is.

Santorum is so glad that Obama is being an Upstanding Black Man, but lest he get too showy, Santorum must put the Obamas on notice, since he knows how to be "normal."

I know it is hard to deconstruct something that is so devoid of logic, you start to feel like you are talking in circles. It is not just an insult to the black community that they are "looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock." That is not just offensive but it is inaccurate. Statistically more women are choosing to have children out of the institution of marriage. It is certainly not a sign of a crumbling world and a crumbling community, but instead showing us that marriage is not something that should be the backbone of our society as would have it.

Personally, I think the date thing was not something to get all in a fit over, but I also didn't fall for the "oooh ahhh they love each other so much, marriage is so great and the Obamas have shown me why!" Great, people are excited that the First Lady and her dude have a great thing going, but the bigger issue of what constitutes as normal marriage and not hasn't changed. The Obamas have to play up their marriage as stable and normal so they can fight every ignorant stereotype about black people and marriage, along with reinforce that fundamental to the American dream is getting married, being "normal," staying married and having some babies within the sanctity of that marriage. It is quite a conundrum.

Great news! Despite right-wing threats that gay people are falling from the sky and corrupting innocent children, New Hampshire has officially become the sixth state on the equal marriage bandwagon.

Said the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, the church's only openly gay bishop:

"A lot of New Hampshire families have come to know people in their families who are gay -- co-workers, former classmates -- and that's what really made this difference. We are no longer talking about an issue. We are talking about people."

Despite the good news, let's not forget that New Hampshire also recently rejected a bill that would have protected transgender folks under anti-discrimination and hate crime laws. There is a LOT more work to be done to bring equality to the state.

AfterEllen.com released the results of their annual Hot 100 campaign a few weeks ago. About the Hot 100:

We introduced the first annual Hot 100 in 2007 to give lesbian/bi women a way to express what, or who, we find attractive, since our voice is largely missing from mainstream, heterocentric pop culture.

I think it's important to recognize women not for what they look like, but what they've achieved. In that vein, campaigns like The REAL Hot 100 (co-founded by our own Jessica Valenti) try to do just that. That being said, I also think it's important to promote alternative views of beauty outside of a heteronormative context.

You can check out the winners here. Maybe not to anyone's surprise, Portia de Rossi came out on top this year, followed by Jennifer Beals. Rachel Maddow was number six. Over 150,000 women voted in the overall competition. They also included a specific breakout list for Women of Color this year (Michelle Obama made it!) as well as Out Women and Women over 40. These are meant to highlight the women in these categories who got a lot of votes, but didn't all make the overall Top 100, due to the lack of diversity in the mainstream media and the voting population.

Sinclair Sexsmith, author of Sugarbutch Chronicles, was disappointed by the lack of butch women on the list. In response he's asking for submissions for his own version: Top Butches of 2009. Details here.

Sergio Garcia, an 18 year old student at Fairfax High school in Los Angeles was elected Prom Queen last week.

From the LA Times:

Garcia, 18, spent most of his years at Fairfax openly gay and wanted to be part of the Los Angeles school's prom court -- but not as prom king. He felt that vying for prom queen would better suit his personality, so he decided to seek that crown, running against a handful of female classmates.

While the reporting about Garcia makes it seem that his bid was somewhat of a joke, I take his statement, "I see myself as a boy with a different personality. . . . I don't wish to be a girl; I just wish to be myself," to heart. It's these nuances that really begin to break apart our understandings of the categories male and female as rigid and in opposition to one another.

Also, I never thought I would see this phrase in a mainstream newspaper:

"I think that indicates where our society is right now. That the young people, they are not involved in this whole argument about gay rights. They think this whole fight is silly. They just accept people for who they are," Uribe said. "Gender-bending is just kind of in," she said.

Via Bilerico.

This is a really huge blow to the fight in California for same sex marriage. One positive note, according to Bilerico, the marriages that already took place will be upheld.

Bilerico has a great round-up of responses here, but here's one snippet response from the LA Gay and Lesbian Center.

Today, our Supreme Court sent a mixed and troubling message. While upholding the legal marriages of the 18,000 same-sex couples who married in California, the ruling establishes that all Californians are NOT entitled to equal protection of the law. This is a sad day for our state and a setback for the cause of freedom and fairness.

But it's also important to keep this in perspective. Every noble struggle known to man or woman has been filled with losses--temporary defeats that people had to endure and overcome. We must pick ourselves up and move forward, knowing that justice ultimately will prevail and the right to marry will one day be ours forever.

Fortunately, this loss comes amidst a veritable tide of progress in many other state supreme courts and legislatures--a tide that cannot be turned back, no matter today's decision. Not only are courts and legislatures recognizing that it's wrong to discriminate against any group of people by denying them the fundamental freedom to marry the one they love, but now even a majority of Americans agree. Most people in the nation now believe that same-sex couples should be treated equally under the law.

That is enormous progress and we e cannot let one election, one court case, one defeat - or even many defeats - stop us. And we must not let such challenges limit our dreams. Those who came before us and who could never imagine our successes did not give up. We owe the same dedication to those who are yet to follow.

Most importantly, we cannot afford to lose sight of the bigger picture. Ours is not a fight simply for the freedom to marry. Ours is a fight for full equality; full equality and nothing less.

While this is a huge and disappointing step backwards, I appreciate this more positive perspective on the bigger picture of this fight.

Ellen DeGeneres gave a really inspirational commencement speech at Tulane last week, in her usual humorous tone, but was shockingly self-revealing with a handful of quips about how she never went to college and look at her, she is just rich and famous. I love her.

Thanks to Cole for the link.

Update: Miriam just sent me this update and it articulates another perspective on GENDA. What do others think?

Via the Curvature, today is the state-wide call in day to get GENDA passed. GENDA is the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act and provides anti-discrimination protection under the law in the area of housing, job discrimination and other sites of potential discrimination. From the wording of the act itself, the Transgender Law and Policy Institute tell us why GENDA was written,

To ensure that transgender people are included in the New York State human rights law, Senator Thomas Duane and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried have introduced legislation that adds the category of "gender identity or expression" to the state's Human Rights law, and defined that category in the law's definition section. If passed, this statutory language will make it clear to all New Yorkers that no one should be subject to discrimination because of their gender identity or gender expression. The definition as written is very similar to the definitions used in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Boston, Baltimore, New York City and many other jurisdictions.

The passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2002 was not enough and doesn't apply to the rights of the trans community. Read more about it here and if in NY call your Senator today and demand that they vote for GENDA. Call in TODAY, this bill has passed the Assembly and needs to get to the Senate floor NOW.

Information on how to call-in reposted from Cara's spot via Empire State Pride Agenda after the jump.

First it was raining gays, now they're coming to get your kids.

It's a new ad being run in New Hampshire by the same folks who gave us the ridiculously homophobic "Gathering Storm" ad that was not surprisingly mocked to the nth degree, the National Organization for Marriage. CornerStone Policy Research, a group so extreme that even Focus on the Family has put distance between them, partnered with NOM for this gem.

Via the Bilerico Project.

Transcript after the jump.

Check out the trailer for Kirby Dick's (of This Film is Not Yet Rated) new documentary exploring the hypocrisy of closeted politicians in the U.S. who, on the one hand, vote and vocally denounce gay rights, while seeking having gay relationships behind closed doors.

It's been getting unanimously positive critical reviews.

Thanks to Bob Lamm for the heads up.

My best friend in high school was gay and I still tear up thinking about the harassment he received. We were freaks, outcasts, geeks, and we became close friends because I was teased for being a "smelly Indian" and he was straight up harassed for being gay. We were teenagers and we built power amongst each other against the ignorance of those around us, but that doesn't mean I am not still angry. Well, I guess I made a career out of my anger. That was 15 years ago and I still remember how poorly the school treated the bullying received by not just him, but all my friends that were "different."

In the last month there have been two incidents of young children that have committed suicide from homophobic harassment at school. Things haven't changed. Bullying is passed down from generation to generation.

NC has anti-bullying legislation going to the house that has added sexuality as a cause of bullying. Of course, there was opposition, but it was added anyway. Opposition to anti-hate legislation is bone-chilling since it so clearly articulates the stand-point of these crazy people. They don't believe in the rights of those with different sexualities, ethnicities, backgrounds, whatever it might mean. They are essentially saying, you are not a valuable person we don't value your life.

What frustrates me about bullying and therefore bullying legislation is that bullies grow up and become politicians, cops, lawmakers and apparently wing-nut Christians. Assholes continue to bully, just the mechanisms through which they bully changes. Trying to convince people that were bullies that bullying is a problem feels like an uphill battle. Obviously, legislation is a step in the right direction. In addition to policy that supports the rights of victims of bullying, we need education for young people around masculinity, sexuality and what the impacts of bullying are.

While promises by President Obama have been made during the presidential election to gay and lesbian members serving in the military, recent events have given us the impression that this may be a longer time coming than expected. During the election, Obama stated that he would repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that bars openly gay and lesbian officers from serving, saying:

"We're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need."

Now we find the first Arabic linguist is now being dismissed from the Army National Guard because he came out on television. He was back on the Rachel Maddow Show last night discussing his dismissal:

(transcript here)

Pam's House Blend found a strong statement Choi made on the West Point LGBT Alumni Group KnightsOut web site:

My name is Dan Choi. I am a West Point graduate. I am a Lieutenant in the United States Army.

I am gay.

I serve my country. I serve my country because I heard a leader say: "ASK NOT what your country can do for you... ASK what you can do for your country." But when I step up to serve our country, to put my life on the line to protect my community, to protect my neighbors, to protect my family, to protect America, I am ordered... DON'T ASK. I am ordered... DON'T TELL.

I serve with 65,000 selfless gay and lesbian Americans; we are ordered to deny who we are. We're ordered to HIDE. But I am not hiding anymore. I am not asking permission anymore. I am done ASKING. I am TELLING. I am gay.

According to story-breaker Aaron Belkin, a study about to be released by a bunch of miltary law experts says that Obama actually has the authority to suspend gay discharges until the repeal is made. (By simply ordering folks to stop investigating servicemembers' sexuality.)

So what gives? Why is Obama not pushing for this - or at least protecting people from being dismissed in the meantime - when it seems like it could be so simple? I hope this media attention results in some action on this issue.

Woot!

Maine's governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.

...The Maine Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, for a bill that authorizes marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law currently allows. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.

I heart D.C. today.

Yesterday, the Washington D.C. Council voted overwhelmingly (in a 12-1 vote!) to recognize same sex marriages performed elsewhere.

From the Associated Press:

The city council vote is considered the first step toward eventually allowing gay marriages to be performed in Washington. Congress, which has final say over the city's laws, has 30 days to review the bill, assuming Democratic Mayor Adrian Fenty, a supporter, signs it.

If Congress takes no action, the bill will become law automatically.

Pam's House Blend has more.

Pic via Scubaben at Flickr.

From AfterEllen.com:

Carol Ann Duffy, 53, has been appointed poet laureate of Britain, a prestigious 341-year-old position previously held by men like John Dryden, Alfred Tennyson, William Wordsworth, Cecil Day-Lewis and Ted Hughes.

Not only is Duffy the first woman to hold the position, she is the first Scot, the first mother, and the first lesbian.

The British monarchy chooses a new poet laureate every 10 years, with the advice of the government. This time, the public was also consulted in making the appointment, although the decision was ultimately Queen Elizabeth's.

In announcing the decision, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham called Duffy "a towering figure in English literature today and a superb poet" who has "achieved something that only the true greats of literature manage -- to be regarded as both popular and profound."

You can see more about Carol Ann Duffy at her website.

We're a bit late getting to this; on Wednesday, the New Hampshire Senate passed (with a narrow margin) to allow same-sex couples to marry.

It was passed with a 13-11 vote, and only after language in the bill was amended granting religious groups and organizations legal protections who do not want to perform same-sex marriages. (Could this be due to a recent kerfuffle in Iowa over judges giving up their rights to perform marriages altogether to avoid marrying gay folks?)

The House, who passed the bill just a month ago, now has to approve those changes and place the final bill in the hands of Governor John Lynch, who made this statement on its passage:

"I recognize that the issue of same-sex marriage is intensely passionate and personal, and raises strong emotions on all sides.

"I still believe the fundamental issue is about providing the same rights and protections to same-sex couples as are available to heterosexual couples. This was accomplished through the passage of the civil unions law two years ago. To achieve further real progress, the federal government would need to take action to recognize New Hampshire civil unions."

This doesn't sound super hopeful, so sign a petition or contact the governor's office directly; there's no time to waste.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, while marriage equality matters to the Senate, transgender anti-discrimination laws aren't up for discussion. (As it wasn't in the House either. What a disappointment.)

via Danah Boyd, it seems the government is not taking gender identity or sexual orientation into account when it collects health data. Bill Jesdale writes,

But there is no nationally representative dataset that yet captures sexual orientation data, making it very difficult to do the kind of research I am most intereted in - looking at the impact of normative heterosexuality on health. Because most of the studies that do include sexual orientation data happen in States that are relatively friendly (VT, RI, MA, CA, WI, etc.), it is difficult to find a comparison group exposed to higher levels of societal homophobia.

I understand reservations about differentiating between different sexual orientations and gender identities when collecting this data -- because research can be manipulated to make generalizations and downplay or ignore people's individual experiences. (We discussed this in the comments to Courtney's post on the New York Times Magazine piece on female desire.) But in order to advocate for big-picture solutions to address the ways LGBTQ folks are discriminated against in the health system, it would really help to know how widespread problems are. That's where data come in -- and why I ultimately think it's a good idea to ask that info like gender identity and sexual orientation be included in data collection.

There's already some movement in this direction:

Hats off to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) for initiating a "Dear Colleague" letter to ask the Senate to set aside $2M to ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on the National Health Interview Survey is a good start.

Now let's get other senators to sign on. Do you live in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia or Wisconsin? More info on how to contact your senator, after the jump...

Miriam touched on this briefly yesterday when the Matthew Shepard Act passed the House, but this really takes the cake. Anyone that is opposed to hate crime legislation must have a tremendous super power to ignore all the violence that has been inflicted upon marginalized populations all through out history, a violence that continues. And anyone with this power must be deeply evil.

Take for example Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Congresswoman who dared to suggest that the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard was a hoax.

Transcript:

Rep. Foxx: "The bill was named after a very unfortunate incident that happened, where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's, it's really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."[House Floor Speech, 4/29/09]

Always take fundies at their word, even when they try and backpedal.

Via Pam's House Blend.

You can follow the debates via twitter, or see them live at C-SPAN here.

The hate crimes legislation is the Matthew Shepherd Act, description here.

There are some really hateful things being said by the legislators, including the suggestion that Matthew Shepherd's death was not actually a hate crime motivated by his being gay. Absurd.

UPDATE: The bill passed the House (news via Twitter). Vote count: 249-175. News story via AP here.

Yay!

RH Reality Check has a video about the teacher in Oklahoma who was forced to resign for teaching her students about the Laramie Project.

h/t to Max!

Transcript after the jump (extra h/t to asthenia!)

Via Pam's House Blend, we find that many Iowa judges are opting out of performing marriages entirely to avoid having to marry same-sex couples. This has, not surprisingly, called on the Alliance Defense Fund to begin offering legal services to those who still wish to perform only hetero marriages based on their "religious beliefs." Says ADF:

"Government employees who believe in marriage as the union of one man and one woman should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Doug Napier. "This policy allows an employee who does not wish to violate his or her own conscience by issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple to abstain and allow the transaction to be performed by someone who is willing to do it. Forcing them to participate in offensive acts contrary to their deeply held beliefs in order to remain employed is unconstitutional."

This comes less than a month after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, so we were expecting some folks to be up in arms. However, it's the first case I've heard of where the "right to conscience" nonsense that anti-choice pharmacists (and Bush) have been pushing for years has managed to seep into another "issue" of the conservative plight.

At least the judges who opt out of performing all marriages know what the deal is - after all, they are servants of the law and know better. But any judge who shacks up with the ADF to use religion as a means of discriminating who they think should be married needs a serious head (and career) check.

As always, Jay Smooth breaks it down.

Get your giant gay repellent umbrella today!

I love this star-studded hilarity!

via Shakesville.

Also, check out the first in this series and last week's video with some great comedians parodying the same concept.

This is the second incident this month of a young man of color that killed himself because of anti-gay bullying. The first was an 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover. The second is eleven year old Jaheem Herrera hung himself last week and speculation suggests it was due to homophobic bullying.

Jaheem was bullied relentlessly, his family said. Keene said the family knew the boy was a target, but until his death they didn't understand the scope.

"We'd ask him, 'Jaheem, what's wrong with you?'" Keene recalled. "He'd never tell us."

He didn't want his sister to tell, either. She witnessed much of the bullying, and many times rose to her brother's defense, Keene said.

"They called him gay and a snitch," his stepfather said. "All the time they'd call him this."

In an interview with WSB-TV, Bermudez also said her son was being bullied at school. She said she had complained to the school.

She said she asked him about the bullying Thursday when he came home from school and he denied it. She sent him to his room to calm down. It was the last time she would see him alive.

At what point do we start paying attention to kids that are being called "gay" as an epithet? It is never OK and no matter how much it is happening, it seems that our cultural fixation with masculinity and homophobia subsides. My heart goes out to his family, this is truly devastating.

Also check out GLSEN's 4-steps you can take to stop anti-LGBT bullying in your school.

(h/t BiancaLaureana via Twitter.)

From the Chicago Tribune:

In bright yellow capital letters, the sign on the karaoke bar in downtown Peoria was clear: "WE ARE NOT A GAY BAR!!"

The local gay community got the message. And it apparently was just the rallying cry it needed.

As horrible as this kind of homophobia is, it's great to see people respond and force action (and often retraction). The response was one of the first organized efforts of the Peoria LGBT community.

"This is the first time we've mobilized for a situation like that," said Dawn Scally, 35, of Peoria Heights. "Let's finally do something and get together and stop taking everything as it comes. Let's take a stand and try to have a voice for the community."

[The bar owner] issued a statement apologizing for the sign, saying he's taken action to ensure it does not happen again. Van Auken warned that it better not; the city has already notified him the sign violated state law.

"You can't give notice to the effect that certain protected groups are not welcome," she said.

Today is the National Day of Silence, which brings attention to LGBT bullying and harassment in schools. Some folks are tweeting, some are pledging their support and just generally getting involved.

Are you participating?

For a history of the Day of Silence, click here.

The anglerfish on the Community blog has more.

It's about damn time:

Gov. David A. Paterson on Thursday announced that he would introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, drawing on the soaring oratory of the civil rights movement to call on the Legislature to add New York to the four states that have already authorized such unions.

Comparing the status of gay men and lesbians with that of blacks, Jews, women, disabled people and other groups who were historically excluded from full political and social equality, Mr. Paterson said he would lead the movement to authorize same-sex marriage in the Empire State. "We have a crisis of leadership today," he declared. "We're going to fill that vacuum today."

More on his announcement here.

On Monday April 12, writer activist and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick lost her more than fifteen year battle with breast cancer. While I did not know her work personally, I know many people who were impacted by her writing.

From the NYTimes:

It's about trying to understand different kinds of sexual desire and how the culture defines them," she told The New York Times in 1998, explaining the function of queer theory. "It's about how you can't understand relations between men and women unless you understand the relationship between people of the same gender, including the possibility of a sexual relationship between them.

In 1988, Stanley Fish, who was transforming the English department at Duke University into a center of the new trends in criticism, recruited Ms. Sedgwick to Chapel Hill, where she taught for the next 10 years. While there, she published "Tendencies" (1993), "Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction" (1997) and her best-known work, "Epistemology of the Closet" (1990), which argued that Western culture could be understood only by critically dissecting the socially constructed concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality.

From Presbyqueerian:

Sometimes you read something and it changes the course of your life forever. Whether it's a text, or a poem, or a story, there are some things that just rock you to your core, and you emerge at the end of the page, altered, seeing the world from a whole new perspective.

During my junior year of college, I read Epistemology of the Closet in a class called the Politics of Sexuality. At that point in my life I was a firmly established lesbian but after reading that text, I had only just begun to grasp the possibilities of queerness. I don't think that when I first read it--painstakingly, over the course of hours--I understood half of it. But what I did know was that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was on to something and that her words were opening up to further exploration the idea that sexuality is not a binary system and that gender is not a binary fact.

From The Nation:

I have only ever worn out one book. The first copy--which I still keep as an artifact of my 20s--became a palimpsest of sorts, its text underlined in four different colors of pencil, emblazoned with streaks of yellow and green neon highlighter. Little enigmatic notes crawl up and down the margins of dog-eared pages, and decomposing Post-it notes jut out untidily from the edges; the spine has long since given way. At a certain point, picking up this particular copy became too overwhelming an encounter with my old selves, and so I bought a fresh one, which I tried in vain to keep clean. That book is Epistemology of the Closet, and its author is the brilliant, inimitable, explosive intellectual Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who died last night from breast cancer at the age of 58.

Making issues out of non-issues...

Because sometimes the best way to understand wing-nuttery is to make fun of it.

via Shoot The Messenger NYC.

Thanks to Baratunde for the heads up (he's the dude at the end).

An AP reporter received an email from an Amazon's director of corporate communications saying that "there was a glitch in our systems and it's being fixed." A glitch that's been there since February?

This is an update from the story that developed over the weekend about Amazon identifying LGBT books and more (for example, feminist books like Jessica's Full Frontal Feminism) as "adult" and therefore deranked on the website. This is not to mention the fact that (hetero)sexually explicit books like Ron Jeremy's autobiography weren't deranked, while Ellen Degeneres' autobiography was.

tehdely has an interesting take on the situation; I agree that it seems hard to believe that the company is simply being run by Christian fundamentalists. But we do know one thing; there is anti-queer, ant-feminist motivation behind this and Amazon has got to step the fuck up. Craig Seymor even pointed out the problem to them in February and it's only now, when folks are up in arms, that they're taking action on this. Not okay.

Deanna has more.

We will have more to say on this tomorrow, but for now read Jezebel here and here; the LA Times; Meta Writer; Alterdestiny; Trish Wilson; Daily Kos; Smart Bitches, Trashy Books; Heather Corrina; and TONS of folks on Twitter.

Trigger warning

This is just so incredibly sad. Via the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN):

An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother's weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.

Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual National Day of Silence by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) bullying and harassment at school. The other three known cases of suicide among middle-school students took place in Chatham, Evanston and Chicago, Ill., in the month of February.

It shouldn't have to take this person's death for folks to realize that bullying - specifically, anti-gay and transphobic bullying - is a very real and very serious problem that absolutely must be addressed in schools. GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard says:

"As we mourn yet another tragedy involving bullying at school, we must heed Ms. Walker's urgent call for real, systemic, effective responses to the endemic problem of bullying and harassment. Especially in this time of societal crisis, adults in schools must be alert to the heightened pressure children face, and take action to create safe learning environments for the students in their care. In order to do that effectively, as this case so tragically illustrates, schools must deal head-on with anti-gay language and behavior."

In 2007, almost 9 out of 10 LGBTQ youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation and gender expression. This should be reason enough for schools to take action, and now.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Carl's family and friends. If you work in a school, check out GLSEN's four steps they suggest that schools can take to combat anti-LGBT bullying and harassment.

While the New National Organization for Marriage's new ad campaign pushing scare tactics (like lightning!) to warn Americans of the "storm" of marriage equality coming their way isn't humorous by any means, I thought this response to it was quite appropriate. When all else fails, call the Weather Girls.

UPDATED with a transcript after the jump.

I would just as soon be tied in a burlap sack and tossed off a bridge as married, but I'm gonna be pissed off if this all comes to naught. And ecstatic if it doesn't.

Alison Bechdel, graphic artist and blogger, writing about waiting for the veto override on same sex marriage in Vermont yesterday.

This has been a big week for same sex marriage. First we had Iowa join the likes of MA and CT and allow same sex marriage, then Vermont became the first state to legalize marriage via legislative means. Also yesterday, the Washington DC City Council voted to recognize out of state gay and lesbian marriages. It's only the first step for DC, as all legislative matters have to be approved by Congress (taxation without representation, but that's a whole other post).

It really does feel like the tides are turning, despite what happened with Prop 8 in CA this November. The reason I liked Bechdel's quote though, is because it kind of reflects my ambivalence about the whole gay marriage thing. I've written about this before and as things develop and evolve I keep reacting to it.

I still think that it would be best for everyone if married people (straight or gay) weren't given special rights (tax, health care, inheritance or otherwise). Do I think it will be easier to dismantle these rights if gay people can get married too? Probably not. Honestly, it might even be harder once queers can marry. The main problem is there are few people fighting to reshape the institution of marriage and the state benefits attached to it. Why? Because not very many people want to give up their privilege for the benefit of others.

So while I have a very emotional response to the good news about gay marriage, it's coupled with a tinge of ambivalence and worry that this will be the end of our fight.

Today the state legislature overrode the governor's veto of a bill allowing same-sex marriage, and so Vermont became the first state to legislatively guarantee all couples the right to marry.

Go Vermont!

UPDATE: Good news outta DC, too!

Photo originally uploaded to Flickr by user worldwidewandering

When I was growing up in Iowa, the state's marketing slogan was "Iowa, you make me smile." As disgruntled high schoolers, my friends and I would use the phrase sarcastically... But today, it's totally appropriate. Because this morning the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality!

For 10 years, Iowa has had a law on the books defining marriage as "between a man and a woman," and the court unanimously ruled that that statute violates the equal protection clause of the state constitution. The Supreme Court decision comes after a district court ruled the marriage ban unconstitutional in 2007, the same year the state legislature passed a law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Richard Socarides, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay civil rights, said today's decision could set the stage for other states. Socarides was was a senior political assistant for Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin in the early 1990s.

"I think it's significant because Iowa is considered a Midwest sate in the mainstream of American thought," Socarides said. "Unlike states on the coasts, there's nothing more American than Iowa. As they say during the presidential caucuses, 'As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.'"

This is exactly what the right wing is afraid of. I'm tentatively betting on a bigger national anti-gay uproar in response to the Iowa decision than there was after California or Massachusetts. After all, it's a bit more difficult for conservatives to spin this as crazy decision by "activist judges" in an outlier, coastal, liberal state. Unsurprisingly, the lobbying for an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution has already begun.

Today, though, it's nice to be from Iowa. Go middle America! I am gonna put on some Leslie Hall and do a little Midwest Diva dance to celebrate.

UPDATE: More from Jezebel, Shakesville, Harpyness, Feministe, Yglesias, Pandagon, and Bilerico.

Sitting in an all-star panel at WAM 09 called In/Out of Focus, Broadening a Feminist Lens: Gender, Non-Conformity and the Media including our very own Miriam, Julia Serano, Jack Aponte and Kate Bovitch. It is excellent. They are discussing the different ways that gender variance intersects with feminism, femininity and the idea of woman and its relationship to identity based movement building. Also, what is the role of gender variance in media production and best practices on how to write about trans, gender non-conforming and gender variant community. Follow the discussion on twitter here. I am not even capturing the half of it, this panel is amazing.

Yesterday, the New Hampshire House voted to allow same-sex couples to marry.

It won just by a seven-vote margin and now lies in the hands of the Senate, although folks are unsure if Governor John Lynch will veto the measure if it passes the house. (He has stated he's against marriage but signed a law allowing civil unions last year.)

Just don't start praising the House yet - it also rejected a bill that would extend protections to transgender folks under the state's anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws. There was a ton of pushback and even mockery by opponents of the measure, coining it, "the bathroom bill" (you know, the whole "horror" of the idea that trans men and women would be walking into bathrooms and saunas as they please) as well as sending emails to constituents claiming the bill would be protecting "sexual predators."

Let's place the horror here where it truly belongs - contact the Senate and let them know your thoughts.

Via Womanist Musings, we find that ABC decided to use their show, What Would You Do?, to address homophobia in a sports bar in New Jersey, where they tested folks' acceptance of a gay couple being openly affectionate. A straight couple was also used as well as another actor making homophobic remarks to see how patrons would react.

Overwhelmingly, the real patrons showed intolerance for snide remarks like his, even as the gay couple escalated their touching and affection.

"I would rather have 12 of you than four of him," said one man apologetically to the couple.

"Seriously, this is not your [expletive] bar!" yelled an emotional woman to one harasser, in defense of the gay couple.

Later, a real patron who did harass the couple seemed to retract his views after the hidden cameras were revealed. An expert interviewed by ABC News attributed his transformation to the surprising peer pressure to be tolerant.

"Tolerance has become an American value," she said. "People work hard to give others the impression that they believe similarly, even when they don't."

But things aren't nearly as peachy as ABC seemed to want to make it. As Renee said, how tolerant were these folks actually being when even the ones who defended the couple said they still didn't want to see them being "overly affectionate"? Not to mention Pam poses the question, "If they really want to test American tolerance, how about selecting a interracial or minority gay or lesbian couple to participate in that experiment?"

Pam also pointed out which location this experiment was done - New Jersey has civil unions on the books - which is critical to take into account (although I'll admit I've experienced an overabundance of homophobia and racism in that state). There's no doubt the degrees of tolerance would vary greatly state-to-state - so to call it an "American value" is (sadly) a bit of a stretch, albeit a damn good goal to have.

Thoughts?

In further evidence of Obama's departure from Bush era policy, the State Department announced last week they would sign on to a gay rights UN document. The document calls for the decriminalization of homosexuality and 66 countries have signed on so far. The UN drafted the document in December as a stand against human rights violations based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

The Bush Administration had previously argued that the document contradicted US law, but the Obama Administration disagrees.

Ampersand has a post up about some statistics indicating that despite the fear that same-sex marriage will alter the meaning of marriage, the states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy are the same ones that are on the forefront of banning same-sex marriage. Ampersand writes,

So which 9 states are projected to see 1 in 4 teenage girls become mothers? Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Tennessee. All of those states are well-known hotbeds of marriage equality.

So in contrast, how did Connecticut and Massachusetts -- where same-sex marraige is legal -- rank? In the entire country, only Vermont and New Hampshire have lower projected teen motherhood rates. Oh, and by the way, Vermont's senate just voted for legalizing gay marriage.

The apt conclusion Ampersand points out is that you can have same-sex marriage and low teen pregnancy rates.

*insert duh noise*

It is also helpful to look at race and class as a factor in the rate at which people support gay marriages and the rate of teen pregnancy. Evidence indicates that access to education decreases the rate at which women have kids early. As we know well, the interpolation of being against same-sex marriage and abstinence-only education is part of the same story. That story where men own your sexuality and we must do nothing to disrupt the sanctity of sexism, I mean marriage.

The bigger issue this has gotten me thinking about is the role of single moms in the fight against heteronormativity. In order to appeal to the elitist common denominator, the mainstream GLBT (sometimes Q, but I am talking mainstream here) has made gay marriage look like a very white and normal thing. Hey, we want the same big wedding you want, we are just gay. Politically it makes sense if you are of the reform minded set and even from a radical perspective it holds water, as most civil rights legislation started strategic and mainstream.

But I think the bigger question of whether the mainstream gay movement is going to look at the role of single mothers, often villianized by news, often women of color, often poor, as in some way disrupting straightness and heteronormativity, goes unasked.

Are single mothers proof that heteronormativity is total bullshit?

As Andrew Sullivan writes, "This is how you do it."

Which naturally made me sing and dance to this. Dance with me.

I appreciate the humor in this.

Thanks to Tate for the link

One of the highlights of SXSW music so far for me has been seeing Grizzly Bear play in a church. Not only do the songs from their new album sound phenomenal, they played a cover of "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss":

Not from SXSW, but you get the idea. MP3 is here.

You're perhaps familiar with this song. It was recorded by girl-group The Crystals in the 1960s, and produced by Phil Spector (musical genius, perhaps, but total fucking misogynist). Songwriters Carol King and Gerry Goffin penned the song after learning their nanny, singer Little Eva, was being abused. King and Goffin meant the song as a critique of domestic violence. But Spector pushed the Crystals to record the song in a pretty straightforward manner:

Who would ever have thought I would be reading something from O Magazine, let alone an article that talks about queer women, gender fluidity and coming out?

Those are just a few of the topics covered in this O magazine article.

Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it). Actress Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson flaunted their relationship from New York to Dubai. Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl" topped the charts. The L Word, Work Out, and Top Chef are featuring gay women on TV, and there's even talk of a lesbian reality show in the works. Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable--or at least, acceptable.

One bone I have to pick, which is apparent in the title, is the idea that all queer women have left a man for a woman. Some queer women never dated men at all. And sisterly love? Come on.

I was really pleasantly surprised to see the piece address gender and queerness, particularly addressing female masculinity. The author, Mary Fischer, draws on a lot on academic thought (and academic couples!) which gives it more theoretical grounding than you usually see in a magazine article.

Ironically--or not, as some might argue--it is certain "masculine" qualities that draw many straight-labeled women to female partners; that, in combination with emotional connection, intimacy, and intensity. This was definitely true for Gomez-Barris, whose partner, Judith Halberstam, 47, (above right, with Gomez-Barris, left) says she has never felt "female." Growing up in England as a tomboy who had short hair and refused to wear dresses, Halberstam says people were often unable to figure out whether she was a boy or a girl: "I was a source of embarrassment for my family." As a teenager, she was an avid soccer player--not that she was allowed on any team. And her 13th birthday request for a punching bag and boxing gloves was met with the demand to pick something more feminine. "Throughout my youth," she says, "I felt rage at the shrinking of my world." Halberstam channeled her anger into a distinguished academic career and authored several provocative books, including, in 1998, Female Masculinity. It was during the past few years that she started calling herself Jack and answering to both "he" and "she."

If you haven't checked out Halberstam's book Female Masculinity, you should.

Feminist theorists were among the first to begin to uncouple sex from gender. In 1949 French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir published her groundbreaking book The Second Sex, with the famous line, "One is not born, but becomes a woman," suggesting that classic female characteristics--passivity, shyness, nurturing--aren't just biological but are embedded by parents and culture. Today, after the women's liberation movement's crusade for equality between the sexes, thinkers like Halberstam are challenging the very definition of gender roles. And as with sexual desire, the idea of fluidity is gaining currency, as evidenced by an ever-expanding vocabulary: transgender, transsexual, transvestite, boi, heteroflexible, intersex. And many who embrace fluidity are adopting the term gender queer with pride. But as passionate as they are, those who live by their newly won gender freedom still find themselves at odds with the prevailing culture.

I never thought I would see words like boi or heteroflexible in a woman's magazine. Maybe times are really changing? I have other issues with the article, but overall it adds some much needed dialogue to the discussion about female sexuality and queer identity.

SIECUS and other organizations are calling for action against the suspension and following resignation of a high school teacher in Grandfield, OK who taught her students about the Laramie Project. Via USA Today:

The episode began in January, when Debra Taylor showed students at Grandfield High School The Laramie Project, a 2002 film based on the play of the same name, about the murder of Matthew Shepard. The students soon decided to film selected scenes themselves for an in-class project.

Taylor, 50, knew the project was controversial with strong language, but got her principal's permission. A few weeks into it, the principal told her to stop production. After students protested, she held a 20-minute ceremony in a nearby park in which students wrote their thoughts and rolled them into helium balloons, then released them.

The next day, Taylor says, Superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the class. After she complained to a school board member, Turlington put her on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation Friday.

This is outrageous. What's funny is that the district is saying that Taylor wasn't forced to resign because of the play. Attorney John Moyer (representing the district) says, "If someone is saying that adverse employment action is being taken against Ms. Taylor because of homosexuality, they're wrong." So why don't you shed light on exactly why Taylor was suspended the day after she held the mock funeral based on the play?

William Smith, SIECUS Vice President says: "What happens when the next teacher tries to talk about intolerance and hatred and murdering people for that, and they get harassed and forced to resign? This is bigger than just what's happening to Debra Taylor. It's about the perpetuation of hatred and injustice in our society. The same sort of hatred and discrimination that led to Shepard's death leads to this teacher's firing. We can't allow that to stand." (Emphasis mine)

SIECUS is asking folks to take action and call Superintendent Turlington at 580-479-5237 or send an email and tell him:

"Debra Taylor did not deserve this kind of treatment. Young people need dedicated teachers willing to confront issues of respect and acceptance for people of all sexual orientations. She should be commended for creating a safe space for all her students and should be reinstated immediately."

h/t to Max!

Today, Kai Wright has a great piece in The Root about Lorraine Hansberry -- and how "she engaged both a personal and a political search for sexual freedom and articulated a still-urgent understanding of its relationship to gender equality." Kai writes,

It's unclear whether Hansberry would have called herself a "lesbian," primarily because she and others were still in the process of developing the concept of such a clearly defined sexual identity. But she dated women and, more strikingly, joined the country's first-ever lesbian political organization, the now-defunct Daughters of Bilitis, at a time when doing so made you a target of federal law enforcement.

After joining the group, Hansberry wrote a series of provocative letters to two gay journals. Daughters of Bilitis began publishing its journal, the Ladder, in 1956. Hansberry chimed in to it in May and August of 1957, while she was writing A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry is known for her drama, but she was a prolific political writer and speaker, dating back to her early 1950s activism and editorial work for Robeson. And in her essay-length 1957 letters to the editor, she challenged members to consider the feminist case against homophobia.

"I think it is about time that equipped women began to take on some of the ethical questions which a male-dominated culture has produced," Hansberry wrote in one letter, explaining, "There may be women to emerge who will be able to formulate a new and possible concept that homosexual persecution and condemnation has at its roots not only social ignorance, but a philosophically active anti-feminist dogma."

As Adam writes over on TAPPED, A Raisin in the Sun is a play that most of us read in school. It's undeniably a classic. But that's not all Hansberry wrote. We remember her for her anti-segregation activism and anti-racist writing, but not so much her bold statements (oh, and you better believe they were bold!) on gender inequality and homophobia. As Adam puts it,

When Hansberry was taking on the evils of segregation and "we just want to be left alone" white racism, we applauded, but when she started talking about "homosexual persecution" we stopped listening.

Props to Kai for getting us to listen.

I recently came across a copy of the H&M Magazine (h/t to Tanya), and on the cover was the title Hype: Unisex. Get the Boyfriend Look! The article is here.

The basic premise is this "the metrosexual man is old news, and now it's the women's turn--the tomboy has come to stay." The feature does a good job of talking about the history of women's fashion and the moments when women (like Coco Chanel) subverted norms by introducing traditionally masculine items of clothing into her designs. But the first subhead for the article tells the whole story: Straight from your boyfriend's closet.

This is about using masculine fashion elements in a normative way--just make sure you look like you borrowed your boyfriend's jeans sweetie! They also mentioned a few queer women (like Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan's infamous girlfriend and DJ) without talking about how these trends might connect to being queer. This is about fashion, after all.

It's not surprising to see a fashion magazine dealing with the gender categories and even fashion gender bending in such a normative way. This also gets at a discussion that occurred in the comments of Professor Foxy's column this weekend about the acceptability of cross dressing in women versus men.

At least when it comes to fashion, it is definitely more acceptable for women to appropriate elements of men's fashion. Pants for example, suits, baseball caps and even ties. But there is a moment when this crosses an unspoken line from acceptable to transgressive. I think it's the moment when any hint of boyfriend leaves the picture. H&M tell us "Don't forget to add your own special feminine touch." What happens when there is no feminine touch?

As someone who wears mostly men's clothing, I can tell when I've crossed the line. It can create some not so safe or pleasant situations. It's a similar situation for men, although I think the line is closer and better policed. Pink may be the new black, but don't even think about wearing a skirt. Even these moments of gender fluidity still fundamentally reinforce heteronormativity and the gender binary.

There were thousands of demonstrators this past Thursday outside of California's Supreme Court as justices weighed in on whether voters' decision to re-ban same-sex marriage in the state last November was a denial of fundamental rights or whether it's in the people's power to amend the state constitution.

But Prop 8 isn't the only issue facing LGBT communities. Ongoing battles across the nation continue for LGBT rights -- hate crime recognition, adoption rights, immigration and asylum rights, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to name a few. Kim Ford has been an LGBT rights activist for more than 15 years, has worked extensively with community groups of color in New York City, and knows first-hand the myriad of everyday issues LGBT communities face. Here's Kim...

Photo of Prop 8 protest yesterday via the Bilerico Project.

Yesterday the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case to repeal Prop 8. It doesn't look good:

Based on their questions and comments during three hours of oral argument Thursday, a majority of the California Supreme Court appeared ready to uphold Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that ended gay marriage in the state.

But, a small silver lining:

However, it seemed equally apparent that the court was prepared to rule that the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in the state last year should remain valid.

My colleague Adam at the Prospect flags this quote from anti-marriage-equality lawyer Ken Starr,

"Rights are ultimately defined by the people," said Starr, representing Protect Marriage, the group that put the constitutional amendment on the ballot. He said proponents of Prop. 8 want to "restore the traditional definition that has been in place since this state was founded."

As Adam points out, this worldview is incredibly warped -- "there's something incredibly tyrannical about deciding, by virtue of the immutable circumstances of a person's birth, that they're not entitled to the same rights as you are." (On a related note, Adam has done some great reporting about the NAACP stepping into the marriage equality debate. Check it out.)

Way more on the Prop 8 hearing at the Bilerico Project, Pam's House Blend, Shakesville, Hullabaloo, and at the Community blog.

Oh, and a bit of good news from yesterday, too: A bill granting same-sex couples the right to civil unions -- and recognizing same-sex marriages from other states -- moved forward in Illinois.

If you identify yourself as a lesbian on your profile in Microsoft's X-Box, you are banned from the game. Why? Because your sexual orientation is offensive to others. Yeah, you heard it right.

via The Consumerist.

UPDATE: X-Box bans anyone that writes anything about orientation, they made a statement here. And one of our commenters explains how exactly someone gets banned.

OK, whoops, my fellow blogger ninja Miriam already covered this. I got a little too ambitious today. Or, not ambitious enough to, er, search my own site to see if we had written about it. Carry on if you want, just thought I would update.

This is horrible.

Police are looking for a man who shot and killed one woman and wounded another in what is being called a bisexual love triangle gone wrong.

The NYPD says 22-year-old Janet Martinez was pronounced dead at the scene on Wednesday. A 20-year-old woman is in critical condition at Brookdale Hospital.

Martinez had obtained an order of protection against a man, and police said they are looking for him. There is no word on whether he is wanted for questioning in the shooting.

Note to MSNBC, calling this a love triangle makes it sound like hate crimes against the queer community is sometimes OK. It is not.

Via MSNBC and Daily News.

Thanks to Kenyon for the link.

I am sorry, I consider the queering of our most beloved heterosexist characters to be totally blog-worthy.

But maybe that's just me.

via Good As You.

More on this issue from The Advocate:

The Gay City News reports that at least 27 men were arrested for prostitution in eight porn shops in Manhattan in 2008. Since 2004 there have been 52 such arrests in eight difference businesses.

According to a statement by the group, the arrest is usually set up so that an attractive younger officer is sent out to approach middle-aged gay men. The officer allegedly entices the man to have sex. If the man agrees, the undercover officer says he wanted to pay the man for sexual favors, and then, before the man can accept or reject the transaction, he is surrounded by police to make an arrest.

So many issues here: entrapment, homophobic targeting of gay men in video stores, criminalizing people for engaging in consensual sex. The most striking point made in the protest video is that there have been countless acts of violence against queer and trans people in NYC, but this is where the NYPD is putting it's resources.

Thanks to Jessica G. for the link

The media can't get enough about America's new butch sweetheart, Rachel Maddow.

I can't say I blame them, but this week's piece on Maddow entitled Butch Fatale maybe takes it a bit too far.

Author Daphne Merkin writes an overly poetic piece about the role of lesbians in fashion--the forgotten wallflowers, she calls us. She relies on a lot of played out tropes (battle of the sexes, lipstick lesbians, etc) and makes the claim that Maddow marks the beginning of a new era for lesbian glamour.

Lesbianism has finally come into a glamour of its own, an appeal that goes beyond butch and femme archetypes into a more universal seduction. Her name is Rachel Maddow, the polished-looking, self-declared gay newscaster who stares out from the MSNBC studio every weekday night and makes love to her audience.

While I agree that Rachel Maddow's existence and popularity definitely say something about the openness of the mainstream media, I can't help but think Merkin is making a mountain out of a molehill. Maddow hasn't changed the lesbian community as a whole, and despite whatever the mainstream population does or doesn't think about lesbians, there is a subculture which promotes and fosters all sorts of fashions and gender presentations. It's a subculture that has been thriving for a long time now, with or without media representation.

Maddow may be making love to some of her audience (like the Feministing crew) but she's also walking the fine line between androgyny and acceptability. She's got the necessary feminine touches to make her palatable (coiffed hair, pink lipstick, eyeshadow) and not too butch for TV. I wouldn't fool ourselves into thinking she has changed the fundamental meaning of sex icon.

I heart Maddow just like the rest of us but let's not pretend she's some sort of lesbian savior.

A woman was recently harassed, chased and eventually banned from playing Xbox Live for self identifying as a lesbian. Teresa says:

...My account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian. I was harassed by several players, 'chased' to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.

My account was suspended and xbox live did nothing to solve this, but instead said others found it offensive.

I'm not a gamer, so I'm not familiar with how these communities operate, but this seems like a blatant example of homophobia. Apparently this has happened before, even to people who simply have the word "gay" in their tag.

See pow3rful's take on the community blog.

Sean Penn won the Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey Milk. Check out his acceptance speech below.

Related:
Milk: I sure didn't learn about this in high school.
Harvey Milk Deserved a Better Film than Van Sant's Low-fat Biopic.

Via Washington Post, the story of Ryan Allen aka Reann Ballslee, the first drag queen to be named homecoming queen at GMU.

I think it's a pretty awesome twist on an otherwise stereotypical and somewhat sexist contest. While it seems from the press around his election that many people see this as more humorous than anything else, acceptance of different gender expressions (like drag) are small steps towards broader acceptance.

Good and bad news regarding LGBT rights and religion came out of Charlotte, North Carolina this weekend. A milestone was achieved in the Presbyterian church as leaders ratified a proposal to reverse their denomination's ban on gay pastors and elders in the area. While the ban stood for several decades, the civil debate ended this weekend with a 133-124 vote. Amen.

In the meantime, Pam's House Blend gives us a rundown of a new initiative that Charlotte and Raleigh Roman Catholic dioceses are launching called a "Courage ministry" to "'help' gay and lesbians pray away same-sex attractions." Pam's contention is right on that the News and Observer piece on the Courage ministry is completely warped and, if anything, supportive of its efforts. Read more.

And in Michigan, the folks who aren't prayin' away their gay are apparently forcing their "radical gay agenda" on Christians, according to a new video called "Silencing Christians" that was thankfully just rejected by a Michigan TV station. (After the Human Rights Campaign stepped.) They even go as far to imply that Christians are the ones who are victims of violence for merely "sharing the gospel." Check it out, but prepare to seethe.

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter AndyLC, it looks like HRC were not the ones who were truly responsible for the pulling of the program but GLAAD and other Michigan activists.

From the age of a wee toddler, my grandmother would watch Jessica and I every day while our parents worked. And how she loved "her shows," her favorite being All My Children.

Perhaps I watch it partly as a silly way to still feel connected to her (she passed away some years ago), although I'll willingly admit that I'm also just simply addicted to the absurdity of it all. Either way, following a daytime soap comes with its feminist guilt; many soaps perpetuate sexist stereotypes to the extremes - AMC has the glamorous yet highly dramatic Erica Kane as well as the aggressive and money-greedy Adam Chandler. (And let's not even get into the race and class dynamics.)

But I will say that out of all daytime soaps, AMC is actually not all bad. It's the first daytime show to have a contracted gay character, Erica Kane's daughter Bianca, who came out on the show in 2000. And last year, they introduced daytime's first transgendered character, in which the producers brought in GLAAD and other trans folk to consult them on shaping the role.

And today, they're featuring daytime TV's first lesbian wedding between Bianca and her partner. GLAAD released a statement applauding the show for the wedding - although this doesn't come without its soap drama, which is included in AMC's video on today's episode after the jump.

Critical thinking is scawy!

Republicans in Georgia have announced a campaign to try and ban "racy" college courses like queer theory, and oust the professors that teach them.

"This is not considered higher education," [State Rep. Charlice] Byrd said. "If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go."

Byrd and her supporters, including state Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton, said they will team with the Christian Coalition and other religious groups to pressure fellow lawmakers and the University System Board of Regents to eliminate the jobs.

"Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. He said professors aren't going to meet those needs "by teaching a class in queer theory."

Intellectualism is inappropriate, gosh darn it! Bryd and Hill are not just twisting themselves into a moral tizzy because state schools are teaching queer theory, but also because a couple of professors at Georgia State University are listed as experts in oral sex and male prostitution. Apparently they don't quite get the notion that one can be experts in a field - you know, like study it - without participating in said area of study.

As Georgia State spokeswoman Andrea Jones said, "Teaching courses in criminal justice, for example, does not mean that our students are being prepared to become criminals. Quite the opposite."

I am generally not a crier -- it takes a lot to make me tear up at movies. And while I am an ardent supporter of equal marriage rights, a wedding is never something I've wanted for myself.

Yet I cried like a baby at this:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

There's something this video does for me that witnessing protests and pounding out blog posts and reading op-eds just doesn't do. This isn't a political football. This isn't an abstract debate. This is about people.

What can I say? Melissa issued a "major blub warning."

UPDATE: Here's a link to sign the petition and/or donate.

The Lesbian Lifestyle blog is hosting their third best of lesbian blogs awards competition, the Lezzies. Check them out and nominate your favorite lesbian blogs. Also, feel free to leave your favorite lesbian blogs in comments so they can be shared with the Feministing community. Let's give our fellow lesbian bloggers some love!

An article in this weekend's NYTimes (in the fashion and style section, shockingly!) visits the issue of lesbian separatist communes in the US.

They called it a lesbian paradise, the pioneering women who made their way to St. Augustine, Fla., in the 1970s to live together in cottages on the beach. Finding one another in the fever of the gay rights and women's liberation movements, they built a matriarchal community, where no men were allowed, where even a male infant brought by visitors was cause for debate.

Emily Greene was one of those pioneers, and at 62 she still chooses to live in a separate lesbian world. She and 19 other women have built homes on 300 rural acres in northeast Alabama, where the founders of the Florida community, the Pagoda, relocated in 1997.

To be honest, I didn't know these places still existed. I've personally never had the desire to live apart from the larger world, with just lesbians. The closest thing I can think of are the lesbian cruises, which to be honest, don't appeal at all. While in my social world I definitely have a desire to surround myself with other queer people, I choose to live in a group house with straight people. Just as I wouldn't want to live in an entirely racially segregated neighborhood, I wouldn't want to live with just lesbians.

These days, she and other members worry about the future of Alapine, which is one of about 100 below-the-radar lesbian communities in North America, known as womyn's lands (their preferred spelling), whose guiding philosophies date from a mostly bygone era.

The communities, most in rural areas from Oregon to Florida, have as few as two members; Alapine is one of the largest. Many have steadily lost residents over the decades as members have moved on or died. As the impulse to withdraw from heterosexual society has lost its appeal to younger lesbians, womyn's lands face some of the same challenges as Catholic convents that struggle to attract women to cloistered lives.

As the article implies, I think the interest in these types of communities is generational. There was a strong separatist faction in the lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s and this seems to be a remnant of it. Women from that generation faced a whole different set of challenges growing up lesbian, and the women in this article seem to have reacted to those challenges by wanting to create their own isolated communities.

My main problem with these communes (besides my lack of desire to be part of one) is that they do nothing to push, challenge or transform the wider society. It's commonly known that when someone knows a queer person they are much more likely to be accepting of queer people overall. If we separate ourselves, what are we doing to change the world for new lesbian's growing up? That's the other challenge of these communities. They are extremely exclusive and only available to a certain sector of the population. Women with money, women without strong ties to men, women of certain races and backgrounds.

These communities also don't seem to reflect the growing diversity of the queer community. According to the article, some don't allow residents (or even long term visitors) who are not lesbian identified. It also does little to challenge the binary gender structure.

Read the rest of the article here.

I'm a few weeks late on this one, but the L Word, the famous Showtime original series about lesbians in Los Angeles, is in it's final season.

I have to admit that the L word had a pretty significant impact on my coming out. Now, I wouldn't say that I wouldn't have come out if it hadn't been for the show, but it definitely helped. It was so nice to have representations of lesbian relationships, lesbian sex, even lesbian drama. I even remember when I started watching the show when I was in college, at first secretly on my own and then with friends when we realized we were all watching it.

The L Word is definitely the show we all love to hate. There are many critiques to be made about how lesbian and queer women are represented, about what's missing from the show. There is much diversity lacking. It isn't really representative of the queer community. But, despite all this, it's still a reflection of our lives and relationships, however limited or sensationalized. In a world with so few representations of our lives, it matters.

The last three seasons of the show have been particularly overly dramatic, and many people have questioned Ilene Chaiken's vision. This final season seems to be no exception, with much sensational drama already taking place in the first few episodes. But, as with the rest of my queer friends, I'll be watching every episode down to the last one.

From the moderator: Even looking for panelists was hard, because some people I reached out to, who I thought would be masculine or butch identified, and then they weren't.

This panel was made up of reflections from 6 butch identified women. Notes from their remarks are below the jump. I really appreciated that there were two Latina butch-identified woman on this panel. I think race plays a big role in the formation of these identities and I appreciated seeing that reflected.

Lisbeth Melendez-Rivera--
Being Puerto Rican is a big part of my journey into butchness. The first time that I was called masculine, I was four years old and my mother told me I had "blue balls." In Latin America, the idea of female masculinity is an immediate isolating factor. The main word for gay men in PR is "pato" (duck). A person who is seen as male identified is called "pata" (female duck). As a child, you look at that and ask do I want to be the point of ridicule? Because of all of those questions I left PR and landed in Boston, where I lived for 16 years. Don't believe the hype, it's not a liberal place. To be lesbian and to be of color, the good jobs came very hard. You were held to a different standard. For 16 years I struggled to survive. It has impacted where I went to work. I still know that I will never be the executive director (maybe a gay org, but definitely not a straight one). You struggle with what it means to be a masculine identified dyke. I live in a level of comfort with my body as a woman that our trans brothers don't feel and I respect that. I would also ask that our trans brothers respect my relationship with my femininity as well. The fact that I have longer hair again, it does not mean that my masculinity is changing. My wife tells me that I am her big rainbow sign. We honor the invisibility of our femme sisters. "How I live is comfortable, how you live is brave."

More from Lisbeth Melendez-Rivera here.

Carmen Vasquez--
I've been talking and writing about this for a very long time. I am butch, as I am lesbian, as I am Puertorican. Dress me up or dress me down I am still the captain of the rocketship. The emergence of a more public butch identity happened at a time when the intersections between class, race, gender became more clear to me. These things are about autonomy. It's when I understood that I could no longer address racism in white communities, or homophobia is straight communities of color, or classism without embracing my butchness. I was a butch at 6 when I threw my dolls out. I had to defend that identity in a white led feminist movement that saw that identity as sexist. It is NOT sexist. I'm not a boy anymore, at 60, Sir is more appropriate. I was never a stone butch but I was definitely someone very afraid of the vulnerability that comes with surrender. This butch has been flipped by a beautiful femme top whom I've learned to trust. What I've learned is that part of pleasing your partner is allowing for the full range of her desire and expression of it. A really difficult two years have taught me to learn to cry, within this very male identity. I think butch is always redefined, by race, class, age, cultural change. Every generation's expression of female masculinity changes. But butch remains.

More writings by Carmen here.

Organized by the Two Spirit Society of Denver.

Some thoughts from the panelists of the Two Spirit Society about what it means to be Two Spirit:

Two-spirit is a universal term we have adopted. In the early 80s, there was a group of Native Americans who wanted to change the perspective of what two-spirit meant. It used to be known as "berdache" in academic communities, and Two Spirit was a new word that could be accepted. That's where the two-spirit term came from. Two spirit people did exist within our cultures and we want to go back to that. It's about going back and relearning traditions.

Some of the native communities didn't support two-spirit people within the communities. Many of the two-spirit people would leave the reservations and flee to the cities. Two Spirit is different than gay or lesbian.

Two Spirit is life. Before I had a word for it, it's me. Even as a kid I was a mediator between the sexes, between genders. I was raised--I can lay cement and shingle a roof with the best of them. I can also wear a suit and high heels with the best of them. Tradition says that we have been touched by the grandfather, the great spirit, to be who we are. This is not something we chose. It is a deep responsibility. It's not something that is taken lightly. It doesn't mean that some of us don't identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.

Two Spirit people exist everywhere. We were the people who held the community together. We were more concentrated on the community--carrying on the songs, the stories, the cultural ways.

Film: Two Spirits about Fred Martinez, a young two-spirit person who was murdered. He identified as gay at the time of his passing.

It is amazing the parts of our cultures that have been robbed from us by colonialism. There are many examples from history of this type of gender variance in other cultures--primarily indigenous communities. What is so difficult is that these oppressions, gender oppression, heteronormativity, have been forced on us by our colonial history. And now, gender non-conformity, queerness, is seen as a "white" thing. It's seen as a "white" movement, and there is resistance among some communities of color to these supposedly new movements of gender liberation and sexual openness. We've so internalized the oppression of colonialism and now we are using it on each other.

Rea Carey, head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, gives the annual "State of the Movement" address.

Kate Clinton, lesbian comedian and emcee for the conference, informs us that the Republicans can't find anyone to chair the RNC. (Lots of laughter and clapping)

Award for Uncommon Leadership--Patty Burns, activist in San Francisco, National Director of Sins Invalid

Rea Carey, NGLTF:

We now have a "community organizer in chief."

It's not biology that makes a family, but love.

A lot of progress in the middle part of the country. This weekend we will be asking you to share your achievements, large and small.

• Amendment 46--anti-affirmative action, failed.
• Protections for LGBT in housing and public accomodations
• Non-discrimination laws all over the country upheld and created.
• Connecticut--Freedom to Marry State
• 18,000 couples legally married in California
• Many new domestic partnership expansions and the creations of new registries.
• New York decided to respect out of state same sex marriages
• A record number of openly gay and lesbian elected officials all over the country--450.

What we continue to accomplish as a movement is electrifying. The anti-gay, anti-family initiatives are temporary barriers to our success. Just four years ago we lost 13 anti-marriage ballot measures. We lost by much larger margins four years ago then we did today. That is progress.

More after the jump.

Hello from the Mile High City! I'm here for Creating Change 2009, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual conference. It's essentially the largest queer activist gathering. This is my second year here (you can find last year's blogs here and here).

I'll be posting some of my thoughts and reflections about the conference over the next few days.

Unless you're a homo.

This is just unbelievable.

A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled.

Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws.

"The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework," Justice Betty Richli said in the 3-0 ruling, issued Monday.

If that wasn't horrible enough, this case is based on two girls who were harassed by their principal, and expelled simply for being perceived as lesbians.

Via Seal Press.

I completely forgot that back in November on election night, someone was taking video of our reactions to Obama winning and to Prop 8 failing. I was in CA for the historic election this year and I felt this video captured the moment so well and the tension in all our hearts that this moment was so great and so tragic at once.

Read more about it here.

Because of massive disorganization and huge, huge crowds, my tickets to the swearing-in ceremony were useless. So I didn't get to see whether people turned their backs on Rick Warren. I ended up watching from a nearby bar, where Warren was loudly booed. I heard there was some quiet booing from the Mall, but that was it. The invocation itself was pretty anodyne. What did you all hear/see?

Also, I was talking about Warren with some friends yesterday, who reminded me that choosing Warren for the invocation wasn't necessarily an olive branch to evangelicals. That his and Obama's views on gay rights are not all that far apart (i.e. neither one supports marriage equality). So I wanted to elevate this comment from meeneecat on my previous Warren post:

I don't really understand how Obama gets so much praise by the media and supporters for how "gay-friendly" he is. Personally, I don't feel that Obama is "gay-friendly". In fact I would go so far as to say that he is "anti-gay"...the reason is simply because, he opposes gay equality. When you oppose gay equality and/or endorse separate but "equal" policy for gay people (note that "separate but equal" is inherently UNequal) than the underlying message being sent, is that gay people are NOT equal, and shouldn't be treated as full citizens/human beings. So I don't really understand, how can this attitude be described as anything but anti-gay!

Yet, it always seems that I get many people really offended when I explain my opinions on Obama and gay-equality. They reply with things like "stop whining", "stop accusing people of being homophobes/bigots", and "just be happy with how 'gay-friendly' Obama is compared with past presidents". Again, I just don't see the Obama administration as supportive of gay equality. However, I would gladly eat my words if he proved me wrong, basically though, I'll believe it when I see it.

As we get used to the idea of Obama as president, it's tempting to get really excited about how much better he is than Bush (or other previous presidents, for that matter). I know that was a big part of what I was feeling yesterday as I watched TV footage of movers packing up Bush's belongings outside the White House, and later as I watched Obama deliver his speech: RELIEF. However, it's our challenge in the coming months and years to not just be satisfied with "better than before," but to push Obama to really fulfill the ideals of equality and justice that he speaks about so eloquently.

Along with millions of other people, I plan on braving the cold, the crowds, and the security checkpoints to witness Obama take his oath of office tomorrow.

And despite all the logistical obstacles, I'm really looking forward to it. Well, everything but Rick Warren. Which is why this letter to Savage Love struck a chord:

I'm going to Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington, D.C., on January 20. I've spent eight years, one month, one week, and one day waiting for this. (But who's counting?) However, I am looking for suggestions for a respectful way to protest the participation of Rick Warren. [...]

While my friends want me to throw shoes, that ain't gonna happen. Ideally, I'd like a peaceful, gracious way to protest Warren's participation that won't undercut this great day, a way that can be picked up (and publicized) by folks on the Mall. Any suggestions?

The first thing that came to my mind was how Washington University students expressed their opposition to Phyllis Schalfly's speech at their graduation. As Schlafly stood up to speak, thousands of students turned their backs on her in silent protest. It made for a great image -- they literally turned their backs on her hate-filled rhetoric and anti-feminist bullshit.

It's probably too late to organize this sort of widespread effort now, but how amazing would it be if thousands of people on the National Mall tomorrow turned their backs on Rick Warren? I know that at least I'll be turning around when he stands to give the invocation.

Alternatively, Dan Savage suggests:

[...] borrow a page from those long-suffering gay Catholics. To register their displeasure with the pope's revealing obsession with gay sex, gay marriage, and gay shoes (the douchebag wears Prada), some gay Catholics wear rainbow sashes to mass. Perhaps folks disappointed by Warren's participation could coordinate a similar sartorial protest? Everyone wear a button with that rainbow-striped version of the Obama logo? Wave little rainbow flags during Warren's remarks? Head to the Mall in nothing but rubber chaps?

What are your protest suggestions?

Al Sharpton:

"There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you," Sharpton told a full house on Sunday.

"It amazes me," he said, "when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relegated] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners."

via Harriet's Daughter (via Pam's House Blend)

Related:
Justice for Oscar Grant-Please spread widely!
Justice for Oscar Grant: Update on Fruitvale BART Protest
Quick Hit: Why Prop 8 Won
Prop 8 Aftermath

But here's the kicker: it's legal.

Check out this video from the change.gov website where Robert Gibbs says the Obama administration will get rid of the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. (It's the last question, at minute 4:17.)

Via Michelle Goldberg.

Via San Jose Mercury News:

Local governments, led by San Francisco and Santa Clara County, filed their latest opposition papers to Proposition 8, describing the voter-approved initiative as a "dark moment'' in California history. The brief is an attempt to refute the legal arguments of Proposition 8 backers as the Supreme Court weighs a challenge from government officials, civil rights groups and same-sex couples who are seeking the right to marry

"Dark moment" would be an understatement. But I must say, I am impressed with Jerry Brown on this issue.

Just in case you didn't know...today is blog for Lesbian Health Day! Folks are blogging as a lead up to the National Lesbian Health Summit.

The summit will take place March 6-8, 2009 in San Francisco and its goal is "to rebuild a multi-issue, multicultural women's health movement focused on long-term strategic goals for lesbian/bi/queer women's health and wellness that is reflective of the diversity of our community."

One of the less-discussed anti-gay ballot initiatives that passed in November was an Arkansas measure that bars unmarried couples from adopting or foster-parenting. Now the ACLU has filed a suit that says the law is not in the best interest of children -- which makes sense, because at a time when there are 3,700 children in foster care and only 1,000 foster homes, the state is further limiting the number of potential caregivers.

"Act 1 violates the state's legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else," Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit, told the Associated Press.

The group filed the suit on behalf of 29 adults and children from more than a dozen families. The families claim the act's language was confusing and voters were therefore misled.

The Arkansas Family Council, a group that campaigned heavily for the ban, admitted to targeting gay couples but said it will affect both gay and straight people.

To say that they're doing this on behalf of kids is just ridiculous. Laws like these are opposed by nearly every child welfare organization in the country. And don't you love that twisted line of argument? "We discriminate against gay people and unmarried straight people, so it's not actually discriminatory." WTF.

There's some minor comfort in the fact that the ban doesn't affect adoptions approved prior to November 4. I'm not sure about foster-care situations, though.

You can check out more of MC Flow here.

Via Queers United.

A week after I blogged about the the recent case of a lesbian being gang raped right outside of San Francisco, we find that most of the suspects have now been found and arrested.

Two of those in custody are 15 and 16 years old.

Trigger warning

This is pretty devastating. Last Saturday in San Francisco, a lesbian was beaten and repeatedly raped by four men, while the perpetrators "made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation." They then left the 28-year old naked outside of an abandoned apartment building, who was helped by someone living nearby.

This year has brought an increase in violence against LGBT individuals and a dramatic spike in murders resulting from LGBT hate crimes. And not surprisingly, some folks believe that anti-LGBT legislation such as California's Prop 8 is what is fueling the fire. Avy Skolnik of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) responded:

"Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks. . . People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice." (Emphasis mine)

The NCVAP is beginning to conduct research in the states that had gay marriage bans on the ballot this year to document the correlation with hate crimes.

Police in Richmond are offering a $10,000 reward to those who could lead them to the attackers. In the meantime, the local rape crisis center has set up a trust fund for her. Just donate in honor of "Jane Doe Richmond."

Woohoo!

Transgender activist Diego Sanchez has been appointed to the position of legislative assistant to Congressman Barney Frank in Washington, D.C. The top priority among his responsibilities will be to serve as the congressman's point person on LGBT rights, but he will also advise Frank on a range of issues relating to healthcare, veterans, labor and the U.S. Census. Sanchez will be the first openly transgender person to work in a congressional office in Washington.

It is about time. Curious to see how much of his advice they take, but this makes me feel slightly better after all the losses for queer rights in this last election.

via Bay Windows.

Go check out Queer Eye Candy, a new website from Sinclair Sexsmith of Sugarbutch Chronicles. In Sinclair's words:

This country is afraid of us, but they don't know who we are.

We're hot, we're fierce, we're vulnerable, we're beautiful, we're in love, we're horribly ugly, we're scared, we're tender-hearted, we're dog mommies and daddies, we're parents, we're children, we're neices and nephews, we're married, we're bachelors, we're rednecks, we're blue-collar, we're construction workers, we're political pundits, we're musicians, we're drag performers, we're community organizers, we're angry, we're activists, we're just us.

Let's show off who we are. Let's show those who don't know what we look like, let's show off who we love and who we spend our time with, let's show off our joyous communities and our heartaches and our hardships and our work and our play and our joy.

Let's celebrate ourselves, just as we are.

Add it to your google reader, and consider submitting a pic of you or someone you know.

Obama has chosen Rick Warren, the right-wing Christian author and pastor of Saddleback Church, to given the invocation at his inauguration in January.

Dr. Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," will deliver the invocation. He will be followed by Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, who sang "Someday We'll All Be Free" and "Respect" at a concert for Bill Clinton in 1993, but not at the inaugural ceremony.

What?! Surely Obama could have found a non-bigoted religious leader to give the invocation. Warren, despite being considered a nicer-and-friendlier "new evangelical," equates same-sex marriage with incest, says Christians who work for social justice are basically Marxists, and is staunchly anti-choice. (He recently told Steven Waldman of Beliefnet that he believes he is obligated to lobby the president to end abortion rights, but not to stop the use of torture.)

So many pro-choicers, gay activists, and progressive Christians worked their asses off to elect Obama, which makes Obama's decision to give Warren a platform at the inauguration a real fuck-you. I can't even handle the irony that Warren's appearance will be immediately followed by Aretha singing "Respect" and "Someday We'll All Be Free."

This past Sunday I finally got to see Milk at BAM in Brooklyn. It was a late showing so the theater wasn't too packed which made me feel relieved since I am a big cry baby at the movies and I knew with this one I would let it all loose. And it lived up to all the tear jerking I thought it would. I cried so much I think I actually was embarrassing my brother sitting next to me. I couldn't help it, some things are so close to my heart, that crying is the only way I can process them. Plus, I just lived in San Francisco for 7 years and I miss that special place.

Milk is about the later life of Harvey Milk a New Yorker that flees to San Francisco to live life as an openly gay man and ends up as an organizer that builds power in the Castro and beyond. After multiple tries is finally elected to be part of the San Francisco city of Supervisors. It was one of the most brilliant portrayals I have ever seen of a civil rights leader.

I was not taught about Harvey Milk in school. As a school teacher in San Francisco, I had to learn about his life in order to teach my students, but never to the extent that was portrayed in this film. I never understood the depth of his character, just that he had been unjustly murdered and about the bullshit "Twinkie Defense."

Everyone of the actors in this film was on point. Penn killed it, one of the best roles of his life, as did his long time lover in the film, super hunk, James Franco and even the crazy right winger that ends up taking his life, Dan White, played by Josh Brolin. The story was real and it was timely. One of the key things that he fights for after in office is opposition to Prop 6 which at the time was calling to have all out gay teachers and their supporters fired in an effort to get the "perverts" out of the schools. What disturbed was the realization that this struggle was fought the year I was born, 1978, and well, that is just not that long ago. There are multiple scenes protesting different anti-gay legislation throughout the country all shot in the Castro and looked no different from those that only happened a few weeks ago after the passage of Prop 8, where protesters were also asking for the basic civil rights of gay people. As I watched the movie and as I have thought since the election, what will it take for our civil rights leaders to understand that gay rights is an issue of civil rights?

The story told in this movie is timely and relevant and a brilliant portrayal of what it took to build power in a community that had previously been powerless. It also shows how the majority of the organizers for gay rights were white men which is what has led to a predominantly white led movement for gay rights that has often ran in tension with lesbian rights and queer people of color movements for building gay power. The movie is cut with pieces of him recording a tape that is to be listened to if he is to be assassinated and at the end of the movie he declares that it is not just about gays, but also about Asians, blacks, immigrants, workers and the rights of all of what he calls, "us," a brilliant message that shows that the "other" is actually the majority. But Milk's dream of "us" has not been true in queer organizing since then and building an attempts at building international solidarity in building gay power.

So while the story of Milk is amazing, it is important to look at the impact his legacy. The Castro is currently one of the richest, whitest neighborhoods in San Francisco, where its base of gay men, has turned into wealthy gay white men, marginalizing most other types of people. It is known to be a hostile environment for youth of color that are frequently picked up by the cops and has had several of its