Signal Boost 4 - Joseph Hayne Rainey 1832-1887; Represntative of South Carolina 1870-1879

As I have mentioned in prior posts, this project is more about personal accountability, I want to do something for myself that counteracts the disproportionate amount of attention of the voices of white supremacist. I have committed to do 365 posts (not every day, so this project could take years), to do the work to learn more about people of color, Jewish people, and movements for social justice and to do so in a manner that seeks to amplify/signal boost those people and those voices. To that end, I've created a static webpage - Signal Boost Supplement - Better Sources than Me. I will try to update this page with resources I come across.

Now onto Signal Boost 4 (again, my primary source is Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007, please check it out as it has much more vibrant information):

Joseph Hayne Rainey is one of those interesting complex people. He was born enslaved. His father was a barber and the person who enslaved him "allowed" him to work for wages, so long as he paid some of the wages back. He was able to buy his family's freedom in the early 1840s, and approximately a decade later, enslaved two males for his family.
Rainey served for the Confederate Army in 1861, escaping to Bermuda, a British colony that abolished the practice of enslaving human beings in 1834. He stayed there through the Civil War, returning to Charleston in 1866, with enough wealth acquired in Bermuda to "elevate his status in the community."

Quick Facts About his Political Life:

• 1868 - participated in the South Carolina constitutional convention as a representative of Georgetown.
• 1869 Attended a state labor commission.
• 1869 - Official census taker.
• 1870 - Won a seat to the state senate, immediately becoming a chairman of the finance committee.
• 1870 - Appointed to fill the seat left vacant due to Rep. Benjamin F. Whitemore's resignation amidst a scandal about getting paid for appointments to U.S. military academies.
• 1870 Won the full term by 63% and later by 86%.
• Was unopposed for the 43rd Congress.
• 1872 -Ran a race against another Black candidate (Samuel Lee), winning by 52%, his opponent challenged the result because some people spelled Rainey's last name incorrectly. 
• Won the seat in the 45th Congress against Democrat John S. Richardson by 52%. Richardson accused the Rainey and the Republicans of voter intimidation because of the presence of federal troops during the election. 
• March 3, 1879 - Rainey retired from the House, after being defeated by John S. Richardson, a Democrat by more than 8,000 votes. 

Highlighted Parts of his political career: 

• 1871, in his first major speech, argued for the use of federal troops to protect Southern Blacks from the recently organized Ku Klux Klan. After the act passed, he had to argue for it to actually get funded. 
• He favored desegregating schools, but also favored a poll tax for schools, which many at the time thought would exclude people recently emancipated from enslavement. 
• He was the first Black American to preside of the House of Representatives (as a Speaker pro term in April or May of 1874). 
• Generally opposed restricting the influx of Asian immigrants to the U.S. 
• After a July 4. 1876 tragedy where black militia celebrated by parading through the streets in Hamburg, South Carolina and white men fired upon them, killing several militiamen, Rainey condemned the murders and exchanged coarse remarks with Democratic Representative Samuel Cox of New York who had propounded the believe that the "Hamburg massacre" was the fault of Black South Carolina leaders. 

Quotes from this speech from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Hayne_Rainey

• ... if it had not been for the blasting effects of slavery, whose deadly pall has so long spread its folds over this nation, to the destruction of peace, union, and concord. Most particularly has its baneful influence been felt in the south, causing the people to be at once restless and discontented. Even now, sir, after the great conflict between slavery and freedom, after the triumph achieved at such a cost, we can yet see the traces of the disastrous strife and the remains of disease in the body-politic of the south. In proof of this witness the frequent outrages perpetrated upon our loyal men. The prevailing spirit of the southron is either to rule or to ruin. Voters must perforce succumb to their wishes or else risk life itself in the attempt to maintain a simple right of common manhood." 
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•  I could dwell upon the sorrows of poor women, with their helpless infants, cast upon the world, homeless and destitute, deprived of their natural protectors by the red hand of the midnight assassin. I could appeal to you, members upon this floor, as husbands and fathers, to picture to yourselves the desolation of your own happy firesides should you be suddenly snatched away from your loved ones. Think of gray-haired men, whose fourscore years are almost numbered, the venerated heads of peaceful households, without warning murdered for political opinion's sake
• Speech in Favor of Civil Rights of 1875

... I am somewhat surprised to perceive that on this occasion, when the demand is made upon Congress by the people to guarantee those rights to a race heretofore oppressed, we should find gentlemen on the other side taking another view of the case from which they professed in the past. The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] has taken a legal view of this question, and he is undoubtedly capable of taking that view. I am not a lawyer, and consequently I cannot take a legal view of this matter, or perhaps I cannot view it through the same optics that he does. I view it in light of the Constitution - in light of the amendments that have been made to  that Constitution; I view it in the light of humanity; I view in the light of the progress and civilization which are now rapidly marching over this country. We, sirs, would not ask of this Congress as a people that they should legislate for us specifically as a class if we could only have those rights which this bill is designed to give us accorded us without this enactment. I can very well understand the opposition to this measure by gentlemen on the other side of the House, and especially of those who come from the South. They have a feeling against the negro in this country that I suppose will never die out. They have an antipathy against that race of people, because of their loyalty to this Government, and because at the very time when they were needed to show their manhood and valor they came forward in defense of the flag of the country and assisted in crushing out the rebellion. They, sir, would not give the colored man the right to vote or the right to enjoy any of those immunities which are enjoyed by other citizens, if it had a tendency to make him feel his manhood and elevate him above the ordinary way of life. So long as he makes himself content with ordinary gifts, why it is all well; but when e aspires to be a man, when he seeks to have the rights accorded him that other citizens in the country enjoy then he is asking too much and such gentlemen as the gentlemen from the Kentucky are not willing to grant it.  

... just as soon as we begin to assert our manhood and demand our rights we are looked upon as men not worthy to be recognized, we become objectionable, we become obnoxious, and we hear this howl about social equality.  

...We do not ask the passage of any law forcing us upon anybody who does not want to receive us. But we do want a law enacted that we may be recognized like other men in the country. Why is it that colored members of Congress cannot enjoy the same immunities that are accorded to white members? Why cannot we stop at hotels here without meeting objection? Why cannot we go into restaurants without being insulted? We are here enacting laws for the country and casting votes upon important questions; we have been sent here by the suffrages of the people, and why cannot we enjoy the same benefits that are accorded to our white colleagues on this floor? 

I say to you, gentlemen, that you are making a mistake. Public opinion is aroused on this question. I tell you that the negro will never rest until he gets his rights. We ask them because we know it is proper, not because we want to deprive any other class of the rights and immunities they enjoy, because they are granted to us by the law of the land. Why this discrimination against us when we enter public conveyances or places of public amusement? Why is a discrimination made against us in the churches; and why in the cemeteries when we go to pay that last debt of nature that brings us all upon a level? 

Gentlemen, I say to you this discrimination must cease. We are determined to fight this question; we believe the Constitution gives us this right. All of the fifteen amendments made to the Constitution run down in one single line of protecting the rights of the citizens of this country. One after another of those amendments give these rights to citizens; step by step these rights are secured to them. And now we say to you that if you will not obey the Constitution, then the power is given by that Constitution for the enactment of such a law as will have a tendency to enforce the provisions thereof.

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Signal Boost 3 - Dick Gregory 1932-2017

Just a reminder to anyone coming across this blog without knowing anything about my project. Signal Boost is my effort to commit to 365 posts of learning about People, including women, of Color, Jewish people, and movements for social justice. The idea of the project came from being tired of media was amplifying the voices of white supremacists and craving to hear the sides all to often left out.

It's only day three and I'm doing something I didn't want to do, take a short cut and write about someone getting significant national attention. I am making the exception already because this project is about educating myself and I did not really know of Dick Gregory before. I was listening to DemocracyNow!, the best source I've ever found for  news that centers voices of activists and people of color and they dedicated their show to this man and I was simply blown away (not unexpectedly, when you see the images of the Civil Rights Movement, we know there are a lot of unsung heroes who put their lives on the lines over and over again who will never get proper credit for their roll in making this country live up to its ideals).

Dick Gregory was comedian and activist. I'm not a huge fan of comedy because it so often takes shortcuts with homophobia, sexism, racism, ablebodism, etc., etc. Listening to him speak, here is a man that mentioned problems of intimate violence multiple times in his interview. Not as a joke, but as a serious commentary on the problems in our world.

Here's one example from the DemocracyNow! transcript

Alcohol consumption, right now, as we talk right now is about 34 percent higher than it was before Ground Zero. Now, what do this mean? It mean get ready for battered wives. If, before Ground Zero, every four seconds in America a woman got beat up by her boyfriend or husband — not strangers, people she know — then think about what happens now with the amount of alcohol and drug consumption that’s out here. 

What he did to open doors for Black comedians is incredibly important. But what turns my head was his remarkable lifelong quest for justice.  He marched and integrated lunch counters, and schools. He protested the Vietnam War:

No, nonviolence to me means not that I’m not supposed to hit American white man, nonviolence mean to me that death might put me on its payroll, but I’ll never put death on my payroll.

 And this thought on police brutality:

Let me say this, never before in the history of this planet have anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30 year period, in spite of black folks and white folks — the now — the number one problem we confronted with now is police brutality. Now am I saying police brutality is worse today than it was 50 years ago? No. Then what has has changed? My mindset. There’s things I would have tolerated 50 years ago, that I won’t tolerate. 

 In addition to DemocracyNow! Tributes to Dick Gregory are available at NPR  and the New York Times. 

I learned from the NYT he is an author and Goodreads author page lists the following books that he authored - so in the spirit of Signal Boosting, check out his own books.

• nigger by Dick Gregory and Robert Lipsyte (1965) 
• From the Back of the Bus - (1962)
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  The Shadow That Scares Me

  Jan 1968  by Dick Gregory and James R. McGraw
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  Dick Gregory's Political Primer (Perennial Library, P264)

  1972 by Dick Gregory
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  Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' with Mother Nature  by Dick Gregory, Alvenia M. Fulton (Editor), James R. McGraw (Editor) (1973)
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  Up from Nigger

  Nov 1976 by Dick Gregory
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  Bible Tales (Perennial Library)

  May 1978 by Dick Gregory
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  No More Lies

  Nov 1, 1997 by Dick Gregory
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  Callus On My Soul: A Memoir

  Feb 1, 2003 by Dick Gregory and Shelia P. Moses (American history in a conversational memoir.)

As someone not into comedy, it didn't even occur to me there would be audio collections, but there are some- check out this link fro Amazon. 

Signal Boost 2 - Hiram Rhodes Revels, 1827-1901; U.S. Senator from 1870-1871

As I have mentioned in prior posts, this project is more about personal accountability to do the work to learn more about people of color, Jewish people, and movements for social justice and to do so in a manner that seeks to amplify/signal boost those people and those voices. To that end, I've created a static webpage - Signal Boost Supplement - Better Sources than Me. I will try to update this page with resources I come across.

Now onto Signal Boost 2 (again, my primary source is Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007, please check it out as it has much more vibrant information):

Hiram Rhodes Revels, 1927 -1901, served as a United States Senator from 1870 to 1871. He was a Republican from Mississippi (most of the first Black people to serve in office were Republicans, because the Republican party was the party that lead the charge to end the enslavement of human beings).

Personal Quick Facts: 

• Born Fayetteville, North Carolina, September 27, 1827; 
• Parents were not enslaved and he claimed his ancestors, "as far back as my knowledge extends, were free). 
• Father - Baptist preacher; Mother of Scottish Decent.
• Scottish background, African and Croatan Indian lineage
• Went to a school taught by a free black woman and worked for a few years as a barber. 
• Complete his education at Beech Grove Quaker Seminary in Liberty Indiana, 
• The Darke County Seminary for black students in Ohio; 
• Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois (he was one of the few college-educated black men of the time). 
• Ordained in African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church; 
• Married to Phoebe A. Bass, a free black woman, and had six daughters.
• While preaching at an AME church in St. Louis, he was imprisoned for preaching to the black community (It was illegal for free blacks to live in Missouri). 
• In 1862, when the Civil War broke out, he helped recruit two black regiments and served as a chaplain. 
• In 1863 he established a freedom school in St. Louis, Missouri. 
• He settled in Natchez Mississippi in 1866.
• He died of a stroke on January 16, 1901,

Political Quick Facts

• Elected as Natchez alderman in 1868; 
• 1869 won a seat in the Mississippi state senate (Revels was one of more than 30 Black legislators out of 140 state legislators. As of 2017, there are 51 Black Legislators, 38 in the House and 13 in the Senate.) 
• Revels was chosen by the legislature in a vote that was 85 to 15 to fill the one year term for Senator (that was the remaining amount on a vacated seat before election);
• Senate Democrats sought to prevent Revels from being sworn in citing, inter alia, that Revels was not a U.S. Citizen until the 14th Amendment in 1868 and therefore ineligible to become a U.S. Senator. 
• Quote from Nevada Senator James Nye:

What a magnificent spectacle of retributive justice is witnessed here today! In place of that proud defiant man who marched out to trample under foot the Constitution and the laws of the country  he had sworn to support, comes back one of that humble race whom he would have enslaved forever to take and occupy his seat upon this floor.

• Served on the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on the District of Columbia 
• Argued before the House that the North and the Republican Party owed Georgian Black Legislators their support (Georgians elected 29 black legislators to its house and 3 to its senate and Democrats and moderate Republicans attempted to block their ability to be seated, claiming that the state constitution did no permit black officeholders. The Georgia legislature eventually agreed to a congressional mandate reinstating the legislators as a requirement for rejoining the Union. 
• Advocated against legal separation of the races, believing it led to animosity.
• In early 1871, successfully appealed to the War Department on behalf of Black mechanics from Baltimore who were barred from working at the U.S. Navy Yard. 

Additional Important Information learned while writing this blog: 

From Smart Politics, African-American US Representatives by the Numbers - By Dr. Eric Ostermeier August 28, 2013

• As of August 2013, 25 states have yet to elect an African-American to the U.S. House and 49 percent of the total number of U.S. House elections won by blacks in history have come from five states: New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, and Georgia.
• The percentage of House seats won by African-Americans has increased during each subsequent 10-year redistricting period culminating with the 43 black U.S. Representatives (9.8 percent) who have been elected to serve in the U.S. House for the 113th Congress (although two did not serve: Jesse Jackson, who resigned, and Tim Scott, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate). 
• States that have never elected an African American to the U.S. House are spread out across all four regions of the country (regions as designated by the U.S. Census Bureau):

  · Five states in the Midwest: Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota

  
  

  · Five states in the Northeast: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont

  
  

  · Four states in the South: Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

  
  

  · Eleven states in the West: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

• States that have elected the largest number of Black Representatives:

                  Maryland

                  South Carolina (most of these were Republican, which makes me wonder if it was post-Reconstruction) 

                  Florida

                  Georgia

• The only Republicans to serve in the 20th or 21st Centuries were Oscar De Priest of Illinois, Gary Franks of Connecticut, Tim Scott of South Carolina, J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, and Allen West of Florida.

Signal Boost 1 - The Original Black Caucus of Congress

In the last year there's been a troupe going around that black people did not get the vote until the 1960s. I understand where the thought comes from,because white people fought like hell to take away the rights of Black Men (until 1920 and then also Black Women) to vote. But it is a pet peeve of mine because (1) it is legally and factually inaccurate; (2) it white-washes history; (3) it makes invisible the backlash and intentional efforts of white people to take away the voting rights of black people; (4) it helps maintain a culture where we need a Voting Rights Act to try and protect constitutional rights. 

The Fifteenth Amendment is unequivocal: 

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Efforts to deny the right to vote should have been unconstitutional (and still should be, including any and all laws which do not allow people to immediately have their voting rights back after they have finished any criminal sentence). 

My first series of Signal Boosts is going to be about the members of Congress elected after enslaving other human beings was finally abolished. My source of information is "Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007." This was prepared under the direction of The Committee on House Administration for the U.S. House of Representatives and lists Robert A. Brady, Chairman and Vernon J. Ehlers, Ranking Minority Member. Despite being a paper back book, it is heavier than most of my law school books and packed with information. 

The book identifies what it calls "The Symbolic Generation" - a group of 17 Black Congressional Represented (yes all "Congressmen" but I believe in using gender neutral terms), including eight formally enslaved people were in Congress. They specifically worked to improve the lives of their black constituents and all black people in the U.S. 

According to the book, they had three primary goals: providing education, enforcing political rights, and extending opportunities to enable economic independence. 

The First Black Members of Congress were: 

• Hiram Roach, Senate
• Jefferson Long, House
• Joseph Rainey, House
• Benjamin Turner, House
• Robert DeLarge, House
• Robert Elliott, House
• Josiah Walls, House
• Richard Cain, House
• John Lynch, House
• Alonso Ransier, House
• John Hyman, House 
• Charles Nash, House
• Robert Smalls, House
• James O'Hara, House

My future posts will be about these men. About providing a signal boost for their legacy. 

Signal Boost - Series

Signal Boost Project - I am sick of the white supremacists getting too much airtime. I want to signal boost the lives of people of color and Jews to combat white supremacy. I want to do this to push myself to learn more, and to do it through more than just listening to amazing podcasts. This project is mainly for me, but if you get something out of it great. But if you're pressed for time, don't read my blog. Instead please explore some of my favorite podcasts: Another Round with Heben and Tracy - created by BuzzFeeed (two Black Women interview amazing people and their podsquad puts together a fabulous Newsletter - read that instead); Code Switch on NPR with Gene Dempsy (Black Male) and Shereen Marisol Meraji (" a native Californian with family roots in Puerto Rico and Iran"). These Podcasts, along with their guests will say smarter things than I ever will.

Who am I?
If you somehow stumble across this blog and you are not one of my friends who found it because I mentioned it on Facebook, allow me to tell you enough about myself so you can understand where this project is coming from.

In the wake of election and particularly the rise of white supremacists being granted far too much airtime I have wondered what I can do. I have been passionate about social justice issues for as long as I can remember. Despite being white, I have also been aware of the festering problem of white supremacists groups. I read some of the Turner Diaries in high school - I cannot remember why, just that the overall project was about how this was horrifying and they were based in the PNW, where
I'm from, so any notion that racism was a Southern Problem was completely shattered).

In high school, we had a section of "hicks" that believed they should be allowed to fly the confederate flag in their trucks pretending it was some sort of "state's rights" statement. They refused to listen to people telling them how uncomfortable and how unsafe it made them.

In college, I took Women As Revolutionaries in college and fell in love with Angela Davis. I took minority Women Playwrights and fell in love with the way that art can connect us for a moment in the lives of those who are different from us and connect us to our overall humanity. I remember learning about intersectional feminism and altered the motto that thread it's way through my women's college from remembering to always ask, "Where are the women?" to always asking "Where are the women of color?"

I have had children in my life who are kids of color. I have realized that if I am going to buy books for my nephew, nieces, or step kids that I cannot just show up at a book store, I have to go to library book sales (okay, I love library book sales, so this is only a hardship because I've never been a prior planner), I have to go online. I have to do research.

Having been married to a Jewish woman and her having the most amazing little Black boy, I also learned that world is organized for straight haired people like myself. People would literally stop my ex-wife to ask her about what products she used. Even in all my attempts at being woke, I never had an understanding of the daily issues of not having the products for your body/hair readily available. One of those moments where the ivory tower part of my mind got better context. I had read cases about Black Women not being able to proceed with an employment discrimination case because of how they wore their hair (braids) and understood that it was a biased decision to say that black men couldn't do it and white women couldn't do it, so it couldn't violate non-discrimination laws to say that black women couldn't do it, but I never understood just how complicated hair can be on a personal level.

I heard a judge speak at an event once, she was a woman of color. She said that it isn't that people of color on the bench make better legal decisions, it's simply that they have a better understanding of a different set of facts and you can only properly apply the law when you fully understand the facts. I cannot understand the facts by living any different experience. I can however, work hard to educate myself about the lives and struggles of others.

That is the reason for this project. Signal Boost is going to be a project where I do 365 blogs (I'm not saying a year's worth of blogs, because I may not do it every day, life happens, but I want to do what would be a years worth of blogs).  The focus of the blogs is going to be to learn more about people and organizations that do work for racial and social justice. The focus is going to be on people of color and Jewish people. To do one thing that continues to push me to never stop working on myself and to add at least one more idea in the market place of ideas to make it so racism and antisemitism are drowned out. So that ideas of social justice and equality rise to the top and stay there.

I have also added a page to keep track of Podcasts, Books, Movies, etc. that I would like to signal boost. You can find that page here.

Arlene's Flowers - It's about notoriety, not religious beliefs

It's time for my apparently annual post. This time the issue that prompts me away from my busy day is the Richland flower case, which has received all sorts of press:
Huffington Post Article
KVEW Announcement about ACLU involvement
MSNBC Piece
The Blaze article all about the AG Suit
KEPR News (local Richland News Station)
Advocate Article when it all began
NPR Story quoting a UW Law Professsor (To correct the NPR post, after this incident, the gay and bisexual employees have all quit because their employer is forcing them to engage in illegal activities, violating the law against discrimination.)

A little summary of the case. Gay male couple, using the same florist for years and years, spending thousands of dollars during their romance: anniversaries, Valentine's Day, housewarming, whenever they just felt like being mushy towards each other. Florist knows they're gay. Serves them. Helps them in their constant courtship of one another. Law changes and now the couple can get married. They go to this florist who has helped nurture their relationship and suddenly she says, nope not going to do a floral arrangement for you because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.

I call malarkey on that and so should you. All of us gays are familiar with what the fanatical religions have to say about us. It's things like "man shall not lie with another man the way he lies with a woman." And that we're "unnatural." Religion does not say that marriage between to people of the same-sex is wrong, it says any relationship between two people of the same sex is wrong. If Arlene's Flowers' refusal to serve were actually based in faith, she never would have sold flowers to the men in their relationship. Let us be very clear: this is about notoriety. It is about being able to be used as a pawn in a national debate against marriage. NOM is already using this incident as fodder against marriage equality in other states. Other states that may actually not have this issue, because even though it took more than 30 years to pass and the never ending work of Cal Anderson, Ed Murray, and Jamie Pederson (to name a few of the most well-known fighters), Washington is one of a few states that actually includes sexuality and gender identity in their nondiscrimination provisions (and it's only been included since 2006).

Arlene's Flowers' refusal to serve has absolutely nothing to do with religious practice or beliefs. Religious beliefs are anti-gay, not simply anti-gays getting married. Common sense makes it clear that because she participated for so long in nurturing this relationship through flowers, that this is not about any views on homosexuality. It is simply about getting her name out there with the big dogs in this national marriage debate (and based on the selection or articles I posted above, it's been successful).

I actually feel a bit sorry for Arlene's Flowers and the owners, because I suspect this is an incident where a national campaign came in and got them in over their heads. They have lost employees, they have severely damaged their reputation in a state that overall supports marriage equality. It's like they say, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only a moment to destroy the reputation. Their actions may for this moment have some religious bigots supporting them, but a year from now, five years from now, the legacy of this moment will haunt them. Because even though opponents of marriage equality want to claim that this is a divisive issue like abortion that we'll be fighting about 40 years later (which BTW is a misleading argument as abortion really is not that divisive issue as the majority of Americans support access to abortion, and that the number continues to rise. It's simply those with money and power have hijacked state legislatures to make it an issue.). But marriage equality isn't going to be like the abortion debate. Opponents of marriage equality are never going to have the ability to call marriages between two people of the same sex "murder." The ability to label abortion as "murder" and the personal beliefs people have about when life begins are the only reason any non-misogynist actually opposes abortion. That's just never going to happen in the case of gay marriage. The more homosexuality aligns itself with heteronormative values, the more archaic homophobia is going to seem. I predict that fewer people will be opposed to homophobia than continue to be opposed to interracial marriages for one simple fact: We're everywhere. We're you. We're you brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, children, favorite afternoon talk show host, favorite comedian, co-worker, etc. etc. you see unlike so many of our differences (race, national origin, religion) which we have an ability to segregate ourselves from, we cannot separate ourselves from the gays. In fact, arguably, no matter how straight a person is, they can't even separate themselves from the occasional homoerotic feelings. It happens. We're human. Some people are just insanely hot, regardless of your sexual orientation. Even I sometimes find sex with men a little erotic (seriously if you have never watched Queer as Folk yet, you should watch it, you'll understand). It doesn't make me actually want to have sex with a man, nor does it make me want to be a man so that I can have sex with other man. But it does help me understand why someone else would. We all have our own version of Queer As Folk.

Okay that tangent aside, what I'm saying is that as more time passes, homosexuality is going to be no big deal. As we get closer get closer to that place, what we will remember is Arlene's Flowers chose to take a hurtful action against their loyal customers for no reason other than to advance the opposition's efforts to scare people away from marriage equality. Because let's be very clear,  even if it has been a registered domestic partnership ceremony in Washington and Arlene's Flowers refused to serve the couple, she would be facing the same legal challenges under Washington law. In fact, had she refused to serve them for a Valentine's Day floral arrangement, she'd be facing the same legal challenge. In the same way religious bigotry is about hating gays and not about marriage; the Washington Law Against Discrimination is about not being allowed to use your hate for any protected class as a reason to not serve individuals when you hold yourself out as serving the public.

My point is this, don't be fooled: the situation around Arlene's Flowers has nothing to do with religion and the ability to exercise your own religion. Arlene's Flowers did not previously express any opposition to their same-sex relationship and it is incredibly disingenuous to claim that their religion prohibits providing flowers at wedding but not in the nurturing of the romantic relationship. Their opposition is simply about notoriety. It is about using religion as a tool for politics and for hate. There is nothing novel in this approach. There is a long long history of using religion to oppress others. But let's not forget that there is also a long and important history of religion being leaders in changing the world for greater justice. That is true for marriage equality as many churches (and other houses of worship of different religions) are strongly in support of marriage equality. Many people of faith are strong believers in the idea of nurturing more love in our world. Many gays are religious. In this moment, on this issue, make no mistake, love is winning. Arlene's Flowers and all of the people using faith for hate will be eating crow. They will probably find themselves needing to close their doors as the initial supporters distance themselves and a floral shop with a reputation for hate for the simple sake of notoriety, just isn't a place anyone is going to want to buy their flowers.

Problematic Politics

I am beyond tired of politics. Not just the politics on the national screen. The never ending battle over controlling women's bodies and preserving the patriarchy. The way that we have been pushed far enough to the right that the radical right is demonstrating what should have been obvious to anyone with an understanding of history, that abortion was just the tip of the ice berg. They want to take away birth control. They want to reduce the programs that address violence against women, specifically VAWA. But in the same breath of trying to limit federal reach into people's home lives, they will support DOMA. I find it insanely problematic that legislators, that are supposed to be upholding the ideals of our country, which include a separation of church and state, use religion as their objection to using state resources to benefit citizens of our country. I am reminded of Martin Niemöller's famous quote about the Nazis, first they came for the socialists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a socialist, then the trade unionists, and so on, ending with "Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak up for me." Here we have a vocal minority (religious extremists willing to use the state to enforce their beliefs), and not enough people are willing to speak up. Too many people who maybe agree with the ideas, but disagree with the methodology do not speak up and say that it is an abuse of the power of the state to further our religious ideals. That belongs in our churches and communities. I am also beyond irritated at the politics on a more local level. I'm involved in a workgroup to address bullying in schools. The organization that is meant to oversee has taken charge and just sent one of those emails that insists something occurred that never occurred. They are pushing for an agenda a certain way and are trying to discourage dissent to their approach. An approach that will amount to making "work" a misnomer. An approach that will do very little, if anything to give the legislature anything to work with with regard to addressing the reason why the problem of bullying lingers. It is a missed opportunity and the leadership is so concerned with their own self-importance that they are missing an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students. Instead they will create these useless reports that I doubt most of the workgroup will read, and surely no legislatures, school boards, principals, teachers or students will ever bother to look at. Then there are the organizations I'm involved in where there are people who create crappy proposals and it seems like they want to be showered with praise. But when I read them, they are excessively poorly put together. When I try to send some feedback in the most helpful, positive way possible, they treat it like I am asking for some greater work. They fail to acknowledge that yup, they missed something pretty obvious, or that it was a good point, thanks for the feedback. Sometimes I get so tired of diplomacy and trying to be polite about it all and I just want to say, would you step up and do what you're supposed to do in a timely fashion. Cut out your freaking ego. Acknowledge when you can and should do better and don't make it seem like you are doing more than you should have done in the first place. Do not mistake my rant for me saying that I am perfect. I fail on a regular basis. I am committed to too much and don't feel like I am doing anything particularly well, good enough to get by, but not not nearly as good as I would like. I also take other people's failures personally. Like somehow I could have done something better to make them respond to a poll, submit a committee report, do what they said they would have done. I wonder if maybe there is something I do that thwarts their efforts. Whether they can see that below the surface of my encouraging suggestions is the thought, wow that was a piece of crap, and so they do not want to do something because they are afraid that I will point out all its flaws. Which leads me to my final point. I HATE the expression, "You get more bees with honey than vinegar." First and foremost, I don't want any freaking bees or flies or whatever. Second, what it really seems to say, is don't be honest, and I think any motto based in an idea that people are too fragile for the truth encourages us to treat people with disrespect, which is sometimes how I feel like I treat someone when I try to sugar coat my thoughts in an effort not to alienate people who are putting in the time for a cause. But the thing is, just because you're heart is in the right place, I don't believe that you should get a pass on putting your best foot forward.

Wikileaks & Sexual Assault & DemocracyNow!

One of the things I truly enjoy about DemocracyNow! is the way that it shows the nuances there can be between people who are theoretically on the same side of an issue. The discussion between Jaclyn Friedman, executive director of Women, Action & the Media a charter member of CounterQuo and the editor of the hit anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape and Naomi Wolf, feminist, social critic and author of seven books, including The Beauty Myth and The End of America.
They both identify as feminists and neither one of them is one of those fake feminists (i.e., where they argue that it is a feminist position that women should be heterosexual, married, and shouldn't work). They engaged in a heated and very interesting debate about rape and it raises some interesting questions about the issue of consent.
Wolf basically argues that Assange did not commit rape. She conceded it would be rape if he had sex with someone who was asleep, but she says that the woman was not asleep, she was half asleep, she woke up and they talked about sex and he promised her he didn't have HIV/AIDS (apparently she didn't ask about any other STDs) and after his reassurances she consented to sex.
Friedman basically argues, no he actively engaged in sex with her while she was sleeping. When she woke up, he pressured her to have sex with him. She also called b.s. on Wolf's argument that victims of rape basically run and hide from any connection to the perpetrator. This argument that Wolf attempted to make was profoundly disappointing and makes it appear that she has never done much research or been involved in services supporting survivors of rape. As Friedman pointed out, it is actually quite common for survivors of sexual assault, especially by known assailants to continue to interact. It is also not that uncommon for some women to later engage in consensual sex with the perpetrator, many theorists believe this is done in an attempt to reclaim control over the situation, that by having consensual sex it somehow mitigates the feeling of violation from the previous encounter.
It was also a little disturbing how Wolf blew of the torn clothing. She laughed it off in a way that seemed to be saying that sex often gets rough and exciting, and ripping cloths is part of the fun, so it's ridiculous to use torn cloths as support of rape.

Wolf also alluded to the idea that these women's were groupies so of course they would consent to sex with Assange. I couldn't help but get a flashback to the days of Clinton. There is something about men in power, whether it be because they are presidents, rebellious media moguls, or football players, society seems to believe that it is impossible that women would not consent to sex with them. Apparently all women, all the time, even when they're asleep.

Anyway, there discussion is more interesting than my rant, so check it out.

Part 1: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/20/naomi_wolf_vs_jaclyn_friedman_a
Part 2: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/21/part_iifeminists_debate_sexual_allegations_against

Wikileaks & Sexual Assault

A hot topic on the international media these days is Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Wikileaks has been publishing a large number of confidential cables that provide more insight into the way the U.S. engages in foreign affairs and internal thoughts about other governments and policies. There has been a large backlash to this publications by many in mainstream media and by the U.S.
At basically the same time as all this is going on, Assange has been arrested for sexual crimes. This is pretty much all the news says about it, I suspect because this is true, at least in the U.S. because few people in the U.S. would think Assange's behavior is criminal - from the little snippets I have been able to gather through articles, the main issue seems to be refusing to wear a condom. There are two women involved and they both apparently had a bit of a crush on Assange, were possibly groupies. It sounds like Assange may have gotten forceful with one woman and she acquiesced and tried to insist on his wearing a condom, which he apparently did, but then refused to pull out and reapply when it somehow broke. The other woman woke up to Assange having sex with her without a condom.
In Sweden, their criminal code is far more progressive than anywhere in the U.S. (at least that I'm aware of) and has a category of "less severe" rape, which, according to the New York Times is commonly invoked when men in relationships use threats or mild degrees of force to have sex with partners against their will. Maximum penalty - 4 years.
In the U.S. (in a vast majority of states), the marital exemption, means that being in a marital relationship prohibits the ability to be charged with anything other than a violent rape (i.e., use of deadly force).
Right now so many of the conservative pundits are anti-Assange to such a degree that they seem to be not even care why he is in jail. These same pundits would likely argue that the state is interfering to much with people's private lives. And it does bring up some interesting questions about autonomy and respect. So often in the U.S. we equate rape with having to be a completely violent act. There is even a judge who through out a violent stranger rape case because the victim asked the perpetrator to wear a condom (he didn't) but the judge concluded that asking to wear a condom was equivalent to consent. Given our reluctance in the U.S. to acknowledge, prosecute and convict rapist when no means no for any reason, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what would happen if we prosecuted people for a "no, but not because I don't want to sleep with, just that I don't want to sleep with you without a condom." In our society, where women aren't allowed to say because they don't want to have sex with a date, a popular guy, a football player - would we ever be willing to accept it as a violation of human integrity worthy of criminal sanctions to violate a request to wear a condom? And how forceful of a request does it have to be? Is a simple, "do you have a condom?" enough? What if she says "it's okay if you don't."? Do you have to try to fight him off after he refuses to wear a condom?
And it's interesting when considered in conjunction with the U.S. laws that do allow for criminal charges against someone who willfully engages in sexual activity that s/he knows could infect his/her sexual partners with HIV/AIDS (I'm not sure if this applies to any other STDs). This is regardless of whether the sexual partner asked the person to use a condom.

On a complete side-note, Assange and some supporters say that the sexual assault charges are bogus and merely backlash against the latest wikileaks. While I recognize this is possible, there does seem to be a similar pattern of doing what you want regardless of the impact on others. He also would be far from the last person who has used his fame as an excuse for behavior, believing that his fame allows him to do whatever he wants to women who are interested (regardless of the level of interest).

Sexual Harassment

Nineteen years ago, the Thomas Clarence Supreme Court confirmation hearings put the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace on the national scene in a way nothing before or since has done.  When Anita Hill testified about Thomas’ alleged actions, which included forcing her to look at porn, describing his sexual escapades, and of course the pubic hair on the coke can. 

Thomas’ alleged actions repulsed many Americans.  While there may have been doubt in some people’s mind in the classic he said/she said battle, it seemed (or at least to my young mind) rather universal that no one should have to put up with these behaviors in the workplace.  This was actually a sea change.  Not under the microscope, and not put together in a collective pattern of behavior, these behaviors were previously just seen as part of the workplace and if women want to join the workplace, they just need to put up with it, or get back in the domestic kitchen. 

The case of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas was particularly interesting because of the race component (this is said of course recognizing that race always exists, so specifically that this was a case between two black individuals).  Thomas claimed that Hill’s actions were an attempt to put an uppity black man in his place.  Ignoring the fact that Hill is also black.    He literally referred to it as a lynching.  This is perhaps one of the most public displays of the conflict of multiple identities.  Many theorists discuss the problem of multiple identities.  That women of color are somehow not real women, and not real [insert racial identity here].  This means Thomas can make claims of lynching against a black woman, because in this moment he is making allegations against a woman.  The imagery this brings to mind, the number of black men who were unfairly, through legal or extra-legal means, punished for perceived slights, advances, etc., against white women, are adequately evoked. 

Black men were lynched and black women were often the subject of sexual subjugation, and in the case of the Thomas confirmation hearings, these issues were hitting the stage in a whole new way.

Recently this issue has resurfaced as a topic of interest as Thomas’ wife called and Left Hill a voicemail asking her to apologize. This was probably a brilliant strategy on her part, as she is getting incredible recognition and she has recently joined the Tea Party movement as a leader. The Tea Party moving, being an radical organization, like a vast majority of radical organizations, seems to view women as inferior to men, so bringing up this issue, asking her to apologize, sends a broad message that the Tea Party movement thinks that women should just accept this behavior if they choose to enter the workplace. What is sad, is that groups with these kind of extremist views get traction, more traction than they otherwise would get, when the economy is down.  We romanticize the past, looking at it from the viewpoint of the most advantaged and seem to think that that experience was universal, and when we do this, too many conservatives and radicals come to the conclusion that what is wrong with the world/U.S. isn’t the incredible inequality, the shrinking of the middle class, poverty, sexism, violence, etc., no the problem with society is feminism and women need to stay home (unless of course your poor or a woman of color, and then you can keep on being engaged in the workforce, because that history doesn’t count).

Here’s to hoping that maybe we can also have a discussion on the persistence of sexual harassment.  To have more discussions on the national stage about what kind of behavior is appropriate at the workplace, and again send a message that when people don’t feel safe at work, it’s not just all in good fun.  It’s only a fun workplace everyone is safe.

Women in the State Judiciaries

There is an article in the July 2010 in the ABA journal discussing women on the judiciary, well specifically state supreme courts.  Some highlights of interest:

• 20 States across the nation have a woman as the Chief Justice:
• Washington
• Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee,Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin
• Women make-up over 40% of the state high courts in 19 states:
• Washington
• California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin
• Women compose 26 percent of state judiciaries, compared with 22 percent of federal judiciaries.
• Women now make up 48% of law school graduates and 45 percent of law firm associates.

The increase of women in important positions does not guarantee greater justice – the Phyllis Schafleys of the world should make us all aware that sometimes women are actually the worst enemies of gendered justice.  That being said, not having women on the courts does guarantee inequity.  Even if men and women voted exactly the same way on every single issue, it would still create inequity because of the appearance of bias that exists when the court does not refelct the population it serves (this includes gender, racial, ethnic, etc., but my focus at the moment is on gender). There is a concept about trial and judges and their communications with attorneys or their pasts, and judges are not supposed to engage in behavior that is or could be perceived as prejudicial. 

But the reality is that women don’t vote the way they might be expected to vote, if they were men.  Sandra Day O’Connor is a prime example.  She sort of straddled the line on the abortion issue, but she believed/s in the health of the woman exception and essentially in some access to abortion.  I suspect this had a lot to do with being a woman.  Please don’t mistake this as meaning every women supports safe and legal access to abortion, this would absolutely not be true.  But I do think that women have a much better ability to experience empathy for the impact children have on the lives of women.  Given our rape culture and the reality that women often feel lucky they haven’t been raped or experienced some sexual assault when they haven’t and the unacceptable number of women who have been, the protection of a rape exception seems like it would be a deeply held value for many women.  And while men might also have similar convictions, it’s still a different.

It’s true for all sorts of things too.  Looking at Sandra Day O’Connor again, she was one of the few justices from a Western state (she grew up in Arizona).  Legal scholars argue that this gave her a different perspective and voice when it came to issues of water rights because our relationship to water in the west is different than those on the east coast.  For example, I remember when I went to college, a fellow Pacific North westerner posted a sign “When it’s yellow, let it mellow. When it’s brown flush it down.” This grossed out my classmates.  They’d never heard this expression and thought she was off her rocker.  But being from this area, where are lawns turn brown in the summer because water is scarce and regulated, this was not unusual to me. 

My point is just that experience impacts our understanding of the world.  There are gendered experiences and knowledge.  Thus, when our courts look nothing like us, there is a sense that we will not be seen and understood when we are before the court. 

Although, I will concede that it may make little difference to most people, after all this is the highest appellate court in the state (and for many of the claims it’s the highest court available), so a vast majority of people will never see this court, and I have a sneaking suspicion most people have very little idea of who composes the state supreme court. Since I’m a Washingtonian I will just add that our court has the following members (although elections are on us, so Jim Johnson and Barbara Madsen could change): Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, Associate Chief Justice Charles W. Johnson, Justice Gerry L. Alexander,, Justice Richard B. Sanders, Justice Tom Chambers, Justice Susan Owens, Justice Mary E. Fairhurst, Justice James M. Johnson, and Justice Debra L. Stephens

Things on my mind

1) Obviously the Amelia Kagan hearings. She's not liberal enough (I'm actually not even sure if by any definition other then Glen Beck's definitions if she could really be called a "liberal" - too much into war) to be my first choice, but wow, she's really smart. We could use a little more really smart, and a little less political on the court.
1a) How little Race is discussed in this election. I mean seriously, won't being a white woman influence her on the court just as much as being a Latina would influence Sotomayor?
1b) How much sexuality has to play a role. Regardless of Kagan's sexual orientation, it showcases the fact that if you are female and not married, your sexuality will be questioned. If you are a woman who is in power, your sexuality will be questioned regardless of your own claims.
1c) I wonder how many single people have ever been on the Court. And single in all its variations, single never married, single divorced, single widowed, single because not legally allowed to marry.

2) The woman in Iran who got lashed for being accused of having an affair is apparently getting the death penalty. As a queer woman, I am often confused about how it seems like issues impacting sexuality get more air time than those impacting women. I'm not entirely sure if this is real or my imagination, but I have noticed Vanguard doing a piece on women and they did do one on the Ugandan homosexuality bill. This intrigues me on so many levels, but also because of how much anti-homosexuality often seems to be deeply entwined with controlling women's bodies.

3) The lawsuit in Washington over whether pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill. So many issues with this - but above all else, if you aren't willing to fill a prescription, don't pursue that career. Get your morals out of people's access to health care. Stupid people.
It's a lot harder for women to have access to safer family planning options than men (on so many levels, tying your tubes versus vasectomy, costs of female condom vs male condoms, burden of the pill and other methods failing on females fiscally, despite limited access and the fact we make less than men).
But beyond all that it gets to the heart of what the anti-choice movement is about. It's not a movement about life, it's a movement about controlling women's reproductive options. We need to keep mindful that the women's movement started in large part to just trying to get accurate information out about the possibility of family planning (seriously look up the life of Margaret Sanger who went to jail just for distributing handbills about family planning). There was a span of about three years between the Supreme Court declaring birth control access had to be allowed to married people, then single people, and then abortion.
If pharmacists are allowed not to dispense the morning after pill, then why can't pharmacists who don't believe in sex outside of marriage refuse to provide the birth control pill? To think they are different it's splitting hairs on a very small level.

Don't Ask Don't Tell isn't about GLB"T" people

Don't Ask Don't Tell is the big hubbub right now. I hate that it is, because I am anti-war. I have yet to hear of any mass violence of war that was necessary (WWII wasn't necessary, it is a sign of the complete failure of humanity to step up far sooner, even the Civil War would have likely been unnecessary if the North would have stopped passively benefiting from the existence of slavery).
It is true I don't believe in discrimination in the armed services - but DADT is only one of many places where discrimination exists. If we're serious about ending discrimination, all young women from 18-25 (or whatever the age range is) to register for the draft like their male counter-parts.
But those are tangents. Because my big irritation right now is when people universally claim that DADT ends discrimination against LGBT people in the military. Even more irritated when they spell out the acronym and don't actually think about "Trans." DADT is a an on homosexual behavior. It's not a ban on Transgender identity. It's actually unclear if someone who is trans but is attracted to someone of the opposite sex would be able to be kicked out of the armed services. No granted there are a minefield of questions. What if someone is post-op, but lives in a state that won't allow them to change their gender identity. What sex would their sex be for purposes of the DADT policy? Could two bodied men be getting it on and not violate DADT if legally they're of different genders? What if they're both in the military? Could the one who is a bio boy get kicked out under DADT if he didn't know his partner was legally female?

I honestly don't know whether transfolks are allowed to serve. My first thought was of course, but then, it occurred to me that you have to be diagnosed with a mental illness to be allowed to do surgery/transition legally in some places. Could the DSMIV diagnosis interrupt a person's ability to serve? And what about intersex people? How many intersex people are in the armed service and does being intersex interfer with someone's ability to serve (i.e., can medical professionals or anyone else know about their identity without getting kicked out).

Let's also not forget the wide spectrum of what it means to be trans. Above I used the term post-op as if that has a singular definition. But it doesn't there are many different surgeries someone can have in the process of altering their biological body to match their identified bodied. For a wide range of reasons, people transition may or may not employ a broad spectrum of methods to "transition." The issues the military would have to deal with to create an environment conducive to the existence of Trans folks is far beyond a simple policy change.

My point is that when we too readily lump ourselves into the LGBTQI community without recognizing that what makes us each individual letter widely impacts our personal experiences and the way the laws and discriminatory policies impact us.

Thinking about Trans

The transgender issue is a hard issue to talk about.  It is hard because as I often argue, it is incapable to exist in our society without internalizing racism, sexism, classism, etc.  It seems even more challenging to understand and wrap one’s mind around the idea of multiple genders or the idea that someone’s gender might not match their sex. 

The first time the trans issue really came onto my radar was my junior year in college.  I was at the University of Washington in a Queer Literature class in 1998.  One of my class members was a lesbian and her partner was in the process of transitioning.  She was a lesbian, she loved her partner, but what does it mean to be a lesbian dating a man?  If she keeps dating her partner, but still identifies as a lesbian, isn’t she essentially telling her partner, regardless of what you do to your body, you will always be a woman to me?  If she stays with her partner then, does she have to then redefine her sexuality?  And what does she have to redefine it to? 

This is probably when I began calling myself queer.  I like the idea that my identity is based on me and not always tied to who I’m dating.  I think about the idea that if I fall in love with a man (bio or trans) that I would not lose a community that is a huge part of my life. 

Hearing about my classmate’s experience, I also tried, for the first time, to wrap my mind around the idea of whether I could date a man, because I’m fairly certain that the only way it would become an issue is if a woman I were dating realized that she was really a he (and given that I tend to like women who are a little more on the feminine side, this really isn’t a strong possibility, but I still think it’s an important question to think about).  In all honesty, I don’t know that I know what the answer is, I fear that it is no.  I hate the idea that I could love someone but not be able to be with them because of their gender identity.  But there is so much embodied in gender identity that is important to me.  Gender is more than body parts (although the body parts are incredibly important for the enjoyment of sex).  Gender is about the way we interact with the world.  We have gendered knowledge, gendered experiences, etc. and I have a hard time imagining that anyone raised in a male body that transitions to a female body would be someone that would truly understand those experiences that share those experiences. With as much as I love being female, I also think it would be hard for me to be with someone who hated being female so much that they felt the need to transition. 

But here’s the thing, as much as I am a lesbian, I am also feminist.  I want us to eliminate the gendered difference in the way we treat people.  I don’t want to think of boys as liking trucks and girls liking dolls.  I want us to take out the value that privileges male over female. I want men to be able to wear dresses and easily and comfortably as I wear men’s button downs without it ever having to be a question of whether they were born in the wrong body.

What if we achieve all this, will it end transgender identities?  If sex doesn’t influence your gender expression will there be a need for transitioning genders when your gender doesn’t match your sex? 

I don’t have the answers to this.  A friend of mine has a daughter how was trapped in her male body.  There is a story on NPR about their experience. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=5-8-2008  If there were no social expectation/stigmas on how boys behave and dress could she have existed in her male body and have been okay?  I don’t know.  I also don’t think the answer is universal.  Maybe there are some people who would not feel the need to transition if we didn’t have such rigid gender stereotypes.  But I also think some people would still want to transition.  The girl in the story seemed to have an incredible need and hated the way her body was beginning to betray her as it started to become more male. 

I was in a queer poetry class when an adult classmate wrote a piece about his transition and he described the way that when the hormones filled out his face and bulked him up he finally looked into the mirror and recognized himself.  He finally began to recognize himself.  That comment, the realization that people who don’t identify with their sex assigned at birth essentially see a stranger in the mirror was particularly powerful.

I cannot imagine what it is like to not feel at home in my body.  Even when I’m a bit unhappy with my weight or my back due to my back problems, my body always feels like my own body.  It is for this reason, that despite my concerns over the polarization of gender that I worry are embodied in trans issues, I am fully supportive of people being able to have personal dignity and feel at home in one’s body.  I hope that the drugs won’t have negative effects down the road, for that is one of my biggest fears about the transitioning genders, especially at young ages. 

Listening to the NPR story above, makes me more intrigued by the idea of transitioning at earlier ages.  If someone knows at a young age that they do not fit with their birth sex, why shouldn’t they be able to transition earlier.  If they transition earlier and live in the world with which they identify, I know that I would see them as somehow more genuinely of that gender.  And let’s just be honest, there, I think that trans men wouldn’t be as welcome as I feel like they are in lesbian spaces if we didn’t somehow see them as not quite male.  I think we may see them as a better version of a male, one ideally less likely to express unconscious sexism. 

I think early transitioning could change our community.  Right now F2Ms fit fairly comfortable in the lesbian community.  If this is because we see them as former women as much as (if not more than) we see them as male.  They also have a better understanding of what it is like to be raised as a female and potentially treat us with a different kind of respect and equality then biological males.  If these same men transitioned at 3 or 10 or 15, they would not be socialized in the same way, and I wonder whether they would be as welcome in our communities.  I’m not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, just something that could happen.  I also think that in the same way people still come out of the closet in their 50s and 60s, you will always have people who transition later in life, because not nearly all families will be as supportive as my friend’s family and not all children will be as strong as their daughter to be able to understand what is wrong and be able to insist it be changed.

Okay those are some thoughts for now.  I believe my thoughts will change as I and we as a society learn more about transitioning genders and have more opportunity to see the long term effects and experiences for people who transition at all the various stages in their lives.