Tag: LGBT

Here it comes again.

At a time when the country of Pakistan, not what anyone generally conceives of as a bastion of progressive attitude on GLBT rights…Pakistan for %^&$%^’s sake…can have its Supreme Court rule that transfolk should be able to enjoy the same rights under the law as do the so-called normal people, there is a struggle in this country to even admit we are human beings, deserving of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Or, failing those, at least the use of a bathroom.

Since we had to go house hunting Friday afternoon, I decided to put together a summary of some trans news items for Friday evening’s column.  But while I was doing so, one of my favorite movies came on, namely Carl Sagan’s Contact.

The news, of course, is what it is.  The movie put a different spin on the whole thing,  so maybe this will come out as not only commentary on those items but also a statement about the state of the universe.

Just maybe a few readers out there will get the point of what I am trying to say.  There is always hope for that.

Pride Month has come and gone, Gentle Reader, with no comment from this desk.

It’s not that I’m in some way insensitive to the subject; instead it’s more of a desire, once again, to stay off the beaten path.

And in that spirit, I do indeed have a story of Gay History…but it’s not from the Summer of ’69…instead, this story was already well underway before the Summer of ’29.

So put on something très chic and let’s head on over to Harlem…at the time of the Renaissance…because it’s time to meet Gladys Bentley.

It’s been a long hard work, trying to get back into the swing of teaching.  The course we are teaching only lasts for 5 weeks and is at a very low, introductory level (Computer Literacy), but that is where these students are.  The program is part of the New Jersey Equal Opportunity Fund, an attempt to rescue students who had fewer opportunities for advancement during their time in high school.  Most are from the inner city areas of Jersey.

Last weekend Debbie and I decided to march in the New York Pride Parade for the first time since we moved to the area in 2000.  We are, generally speaking, not designed for marching.  I marched in both the Dyke March and the Pride Parade in Seattle and in the San Francisco Pride Parade once upon a time, but that was back in the 90s.  I was so much younger then;  I’m older than that now.  Debbie is from Los Angeles originally, but never marched there.

Anyway, we gave it a shot this year in The City.  We didn’t make it all the way.  Having to stand in the heat and wait for 3 hours before we could start marching took most of the starch out of us.

But I took plenty of pictures.  The point of these words is to provide some wrapping for those pictures.

They’re here.

After…how long is that?  Forever?  Really?…the Congress has a couple of bills before it which would actually be beneficial to the GLBT community.  And…horror of horrors…to transfolk as well.

What’s up with that?

The two bills go by the unofficial names of the Matthew Shepard Act and ENDA.  They cover two of the parts of what I have in the past considered the heart of The Gay Agenda:

• the right to not be fired for being GLBT
• the right to not be thrown out of our residences if discovered to be GLBT
• the right to be served in a restaurant
• the right not to be beaten up every other Tuesday

I am aware that other people think that marriage equality and the right to serve in the military are also at the heart of said agenda.  I’m of the feeling that maybe they are more of the lungs.  What I listed in the box affect all GLBT people, including those who are not in relationships or who have no interest in the military (including those who, like myself, who have already served, thank you).

Once more to the well.  

Without rehashing the last weeks’ debates over President Obama’s relationship with the LGBT rights movement, I wanted to outline a list of legislation that is currently in play, along with recommendations about what we can do to help speed the processes along.  There’s nothing worse than the feeling that we have no say in the political process, but here are four opportunities to get vocal in a concrete, direct way:

1. the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligation Act

2. the Employment Non-Discrimination Act

3. the Matthew Shepard Act

4. the Military Readiness Enhancement Act

And the best part is, you really can help.  All four of these bills are before Congress (or about to be introduced), and your representatives are waiting to hear from you.

Sometimes there are bad weeks, weeks in which the steps backward, away from cohesion and community formation…and the dream of inclusion…are so extremely painful.  This has been one of them.

Yes, there has been negative news (and a few positive notes, to be sure), for GLBT people.  But at least for me, nothing has torn at my heart as much as the divisiveness which has resulted from this community’s reaction to that news.

I’d hope that people could understand where each other are coming from as we try to keep the lines of communication open.  The intention of this piece is to try to generate some of that understanding.

For all I know, however, I may fail big time, and if I do, the pain will surely intensify.

Whether tomorrow’s Prop 8 decision affects you directly or not, it’s likely to be a big moment for the LGBT movement, insofar as so many married and wanting-to-right-to-be-married couples are heavily invested in the outcome.  

I won’t waste words on the background of this issue since so much has been written already.  But if you value equality and want to be part of what happens next, I’ve put together a list of events and links that should be useful.

I’m tired…in more ways than one.  The end of a long academic year contributes a great deal to that.  Recent illness certainly has added to it.  And just being old certainly has to be acknowledged.

But nothing seems to do more than having fruitless conversations with people who just don’t get it.

It’s really old and extremely tiring to have people say things to our political detriment and then say that if we complain, we are overly sensitive.  It’s frustrating to have to ask people not to use our identity as a weapon, with the assumption that accusing someone of being one of us is degrading to that person.  It’s depressing to have our identity used as the basis of unfunny jokes…and then be told, should we ask that it not be done, that we have no sense of humor.

So tired.

I even ended up too tired to write much about all that.  Too tired and not in the mood for more idiots who wants to defend their behavior.

So instead of doing so, I looked for some GLBT news.  I found some of the good variety and some of the bad.  The world changes slowly…oh, so very slowly.