First off, let me note that I hate Carrie Prejean as much as the next sentient human.

That out of the way, it’s time for me to defend Carrie Prejean.

As you may have heard, former Miss California USA-slash-anti-gay activist Carrie Prejean has a sex tape that’s gotten loose, and perhaps “several more” in the hopper. (No, I’m not linking to stories; keep reading, you’ll see why.) This is, of course, totes hilarious, as Prejean was trying to build a career around moralizing while still being a normal human with feet of clay. This tape, as I read from various liberal blogs and see discussed on liberal talk shows, is a tape of Prejean masturbating that she sent to an ex-boyfriend at some point. The ex-boyfriend is now distributing the tape, and telling stories of how Prejean allegedly wanted him to say she was underage when she made it — leading Michael Musto to opine waggishly that she’s just a typical girl, wanting to look younger than she is.

Hee hee, ho ho, sigh.

You know why Carrie Prejean wants us to think that tape may be illegal? Because she doesn’t want everyone and their twin sister to have video of her masturbating. Why? Because she didn’t release a video of her masturbating for worldwide distribution. She sent it to her then-boyfriend.

Now, yes, Prejean has been involved in moralizing. And here’s where I’m supposed to say that she has this coming, having the temerity to be a sexual being while criticizing others for their sexuality. But you know what? I’m having trouble believing that. Because while Prejean’s opinions on same-sex marriage may be wrong, it doesn’t therefore follow that it’s okay for someone she trusted to break that trust by sharing private videos with the public. Indeed, on the moral spectrum, I’m having trouble seeing why Prejean should be embarrassed by the sex tape, and a whole lot of reason to think that her ex-boyfriend is a major league asshole who women should avoid like the plague. Men too, for that matter.

Guys? It’s me, Jeff. Let’s say your wife, girlfriend, lover, friend with benefits, or friend without benefits is nice enough to send you a tape of herself in flagrante delicto. Guess what? She didn’t sent that to you and anyone you feel like forwarding that to. Unless your best friend, your preacher, your mom, Harvey Levin, Joe Lieberman, or J.K. Rowling was copied in on the email,¹ you shouldn’t send it to any of them without first seeking permission from the young² lady in question.

The reason, of course, is that this woman is choosing to risk a bit of her privacy to give you a momentary sexual thrill — perhaps many, depending on how lonely you are and whether or not your girlfriend goes to college out of state. You owe it to her not to run to your roommate and say, “Hey, look what this girl sent me!” Why this is so should be blindingly obvious — what said woman sent for your consumption may not be something she’d want her mom, her high school math teacher, Kevin Sorbo, or the crowd at an L.A. Lakers game to see. She sent it to you, personally, because she likes you and trusts you enough that you won’t go sending it to someone else. If you go sending it to someone else, that proves that you’re a scumbag who can’t be trusted, and while the woman may be guilty of not seeing that quickly enough, the only real jerk in this picture is you.

You see, it’s like sex. If you and your girlfriend are having consensual sex, that’s fine. If you invite your buddy in unannounced to start having sex with your girlfriend too, without clearing it with her? That’s rape. No, selling smutty pictures of your ex-girlfriend to TMZ isn’t rape. But it’s rape’s evil, less-reviled cousin, and it’s in the same moral ballpark. And just because we like to put the fault back on the Carrie Prejeans of the world for sending these tapes in the first place, the fact is that their privacy is being violated, while the ex-boyfriend in question is lauded for said violation. A moment’s foolishness in the name of lust or love is understandable; a willful betrayal of trust in the name of lulz or cash is reprehensible.

It’s sick and wrong. And it’s nothing to laugh about, even if the victim in this case has been moralizing about other things. For all her wrongness, I don’t recall Prejean arguing that LGBTQQ individuals should have their nude, intimate photos and videos released to the world. She’s wrong on marriage. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to laugh when she’s violated.

1. They may have been. Hey, I don’t judge. (back)
2. At heart. As long as you’re legal, I say feel free to send sexy videos to your heart’s content, no matter how old you are. (back)

This is a post-election thread; feel free to discuss any of the recent election news, future election trends, etc., here.

Virginia and New Jersey: No surprises here. I don’t think these races indicate national trends, but I can’t blame Conservatives for grabbing on to any hope they can.

In the end, I think the single best thing the Democrats can do for 2010 is to get aggressive and desperate about improving the economic situation; for instance, with a big temporary cut in payroll taxes. But I doubt they’ll do it, since “gutsy” has never in my lifetime been something Democrats do well.

New York: Frankly, the Republican who was pushed out of the race — who was pro-choice and pro-marriage equality — really does seem out of step with the Republican base. For that reason, I think the Republican base in NY did the principled thing by rebelling, just as the Democratic base in Connecticut was right to rebel against being represented by Joe Lieberman.

Will this be really good for the Democrats in the end, as many Democrats are currently crowing? I don’t know.

Washington state: Huzzah for a victory on civil unions. Dammit that it was so close.

Maine

Maine should be the death of the claim that people don’t hate gays, they just hate being told what to do by the Courts. The folks who oppose equality have never cared about that, except as a pretext, so they could oppose equality while pretending not to be bigots.

The folks in Maine did everything the way they’re “supposed” to. They were polite, they were organized. They spent years building up support with face-to-face contacts. They went through the legislature, not the courts.

None of that makes any difference to the people who oppose equality. None of it ever did.

Quoting Andrew Sullivan:

The hard truth is: people are still afraid of this, and our opponents knew how to target their fears very precisely. They have honed it to an art - their prime argument now is that although adults can handle gay equality, children cannot. And so they play straight to heterosexuals whose personal comfort with gay people is fine but who sure don’t want their kids to turn out that way. One way to prevent kids turning out that way, the equality opponents argue, is to ensure that they never hear of gay people, except in a marginalized, scary, alien fashion. And this referendum was clearly a vote in which the desire to keep gay people invisible trumped the urge to treat them equally.[...]

But civil rights victories, the final and enduring ones, are always built on the foundations of defeats. Sometimes, the defeat of a minority’s sincere aspiration to equality helps reveal the injustice of the discrimination and the cruelty of the marginalization. Sometimes, it helps show just how poorly treated we are, and galvanizes a community to fight back more fiercely as we saw in that amazing march on DC last month. That has certainly been true of previous civil rights movements. It is just as true of ours.

So congrats, Maine Equality. You did a fine job. Congrats, HRC. You helped. No congrats to Obama who is treating this civil rights movement the way Kennedy first treated his. But we don’t need Obama.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And we will win in due course, with a good spirit and keen arguments, and with passion and conviction in our hearts. We will win.

One of the more bizarre sub-plots from the bizarre story that is the faked balloon voyage of Falcon Heene is the YouTube video in which Falcon and his brothers claimed to be “not pussified.”

It’s a lovely video about how three young boys aren’t being “pussified,” and also, how they hate gay people. Hard to see how a family where dad has his children opine about how much they don’t want to be girls could go wrong, and so surprising that there have been, at the very least, allegations of domestic abuse against Richard Heene, the boys’ father.

Now obviously, this video is all about hating on the soi disant “feminizing” of American men, but it was the title of it — “Not Pussified” — that caught my eye. Because that links Heene back to one of the great moments in blog history.

Those of you who are newer denizens of the blogosphere may not be familiar with what is perhaps the ur-Men’s Rights screed, Kim duToit’s “The Pussification of the Western Male.” It is glorious in its awfulness, and I still hold to my initial response that it is the worst thing I have ever read, an opinion shared by many.

I don’t know that Heene read du Toit’s screed, but it seems pretty likely. At the very least, he picked up the word pussified from one du Toit’s readers, and then cheerfully passed it along to his sons. And that says something — for du Toit’s ideals are, to be blunt, awful.

The essay really should be read by anyone seeking to understand the mind of someone like Richard Heene, although I caution that it should not be read without a vomit bag by one’s side. It can’t be summarized, but here are a few choice passages:

We have become a nation of women.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time when men put their signatures to a document, knowing full well that this single act would result in their execution if captured, and in the forfeiture of their property to the State. Their wives and children would be turned out by the soldiers, and their farms and businesses most probably given to someone who didn’t sign the document.

[Several other examples of manly manliness deleted]

There was even a time when a President of the United States threatened to punch a man in the face and kick him in the balls, because the man had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s daughter’s singing.

We’re not like that anymore.

Quick interjection — du Toit is from South Africa. Yes, he now lives in America; still, I can’t help reading this and thinking, “who are you calling ‘we?’”

Now, little boys in grade school are suspended for playing cowboys and Indians, cops and crooks, and all the other familiar variations of “good guy vs. bad guy” that helped them learn, at an early age, what it was like to have decent men hunt you down, because you were a lawbreaker.

Now, men are taught that violence is bad—that when a thief breaks into your house, or threatens you in the street, that the proper way to deal with this is to “give him what he wants”, instead of taking a horsewhip to the rascal or shooting him dead where he stands.

[Several paragraphs of "proof" that modern men are weaklings deleted]

And finally, our President, who happens to have been a qualified fighter pilot, lands on an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like “swaggering”, “macho” and the favorite epithet of Euro girly-men, “cowboy”. Of course he was bound to get that reaction—and most especially from the Press in Europe, because the process of male pussification Over There is almost complete.

How did we get to this?

Remember, this was back in 2003, when our President was at his apex of manliness. Still, it says something that du Toit was swooning at the Mission Accomplished landing, doesn’t it?

In the first instance, what we have to understand is that America is first and foremost, a culture dominated by one figure: Mother. It wasn’t always so: there was a time when it was Father who ruled the home, worked at his job, and voted.

But in the twentieth century, women became more and more involved in the body politic, and in industry, and in the media—and mostly, this has not been a good thing. When women got the vote, it was inevitable that government was going to become more powerful, more intrusive, and more “protective” (ie. more coddling), because women are hard-wired to treasure security more than uncertainty and danger. It was therefore inevitable that their feminine influence on politics was going to emphasize (lowercase “s”) social security.

Yes, ladies — it’s your fault! Your fault that men no longer fight duels! Your fault that we no longer engage in fisticuffs, or drink until our livers explode! Blast you, and your belief that maybe it’s okay if drunken bar fights are not a daily occurrence in one’s life!

Kim du Toit whines for several more paragraphs about how television commercials show men as big doofuses, and therefore women are castrating bitches who deserve to be lonely (no, seriously: “What this guy is going to do is smile ruefully, finish his cereal, and then go and fuck his secretary, who doesn’t try to cut his balls off on a daily basis. Then, when the affair is discovered, people are going to rally around the castrating bitch called his wife, and call him all sorts of names. He’ll lose custody of his kids, and they will be brought up by our ultimate modern-day figure of sympathy: The Single Mom. You know what? Some women deserve to be single moms.”) and ranting about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (”A bunch of homosexuals trying to “improve” ordinary men into something “better” [ie. more acceptable to women]: changing the guy’s clothes, his home decor, his music—for fuck’s sake, what kind of girly-man would allow these simpering butt-bandits to change his life around?”) and embracing misandry (”Yes, the men are, by and large, slobs. Big fucking deal. Last time I looked, that’s normal. Men are slobs, and that only changes when women try to civilize them by marriage. That’s the natural order of things.”) Oh, and also supporting sports like dog- and cock-fighting. And claiming that George W. Bush is a real man who doesn’t have to prove it. And making racist statements. And then comes perhaps the most asinine four paragraphs ever written in the English language.

Speaking of rap music, do you want to know why more White boys buy that crap than Black boys do? You know why rape is such a problem on college campuses? Why binge drinking is a problem among college freshmen?

It’s a reaction: a reaction against being pussified. And I understand it, completely. Young males are aggressive, they do fight amongst themselves, they are destructive, and all this does happen for a purpose.

Because only the strong men propagate.

And women know it. You want to know why I know this to be true? Because powerful men still attract women. Women, even liberal women, swooned over George Bush in a naval aviator’s uniform. Donald Trump still gets access to some of the most beautiful pussy available, despite looking like a medieval gargoyle. Donald Rumsfeld, if he wanted to, could fuck 90% of all women over 50 if he wanted to, and a goodly portion of younger ones too.

This is what Kim du Toit called for: the manliness of Donald Rumsfeld, and the condoning of rape — for rape is understandable, given how mean women are. And only the strong propagate — those strong enough to take by force what is not given.

That is what manhood is to men like this. Compare with the “pussification” seen by sneering troglodytes like Heene and du Toit: men taking responsibility for themselves. Choosing to think before acting, talk before fighting. Picking up the floor, maybe washing the dishes. Cleaning ourselves. Not putting our children heedlessly into harm’s way. Behaving, in short, like civilized human beings are supposed to.

It does not surprise me that a man who would raise his sons to declare that they weren’t going to be pussified would be the same kind of man who would beat his wife. Would be the same kind of man who would use his children to get ahead. Would be the same kind of man who would commit several felonies, and lie to the police, in a vain effort to get on television. It doesn’t surprise me at all, because the kind of man du Toit praised, and the kind of man Heene claimed to be, is at heart a narcissist, far more interested in himself than anyone else in the world, far more willing to risk himself and his family than to change course and admit fault. If the pussification of the Western male means fewer men like Heene and du Toit, then all I can say is that we can’t get pussified fast enough.

One of the interesting things on the teevee tonight has been the shock and surprise from some on the left that Minnesota’s own Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty doesn’t really seem to be a moderate after all.

For those of you normal people who don’t track the comings and goings of Minnesota’s 39th governor, Tim Pawlenty visited the Value Voters Summit this past weekend, where he got to speak to the hardest of the hard-line wingers, the people who actually nodded when the chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., explained that heterosexual pornography causes teens to become homosexual because it “turns your sexual drive inwards,” a ludicrous statement which, if true, would mean that Tucker Max is the most homosexual human being in the history of history.

Gov. Pawlenty went to the summit, and those who’ve only gotten to know him through sound bites and a few interviews on MSNBC probably expected he’d give a bland, lukewarm speech, heavy on economics, light on red meat.

Those of us from Minnesota knew better. We remembered his acceptance speech from the 2006 GOP state convention, where he declared, “I can tell you what your worst nightmare is. It’s one of the big-spendin’, tax-raisin’, abortion-promotin’, gay marriage-embracin’, more welfare-without-accountability lovin’, school reform-resistin’, illegal immigration-supportin’ Democrats for governor who think Hillary Clinton should be president of the United States.” We are well aware that Pawlenty fits nicely into the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-education Republican Party of 2010. And we knew that Pawlenty would be only to happy to tell his fellow true believers exactly what they wanted to hear.

He did not disappoint. After his usual cringe-worthy joke (something about Brett Favre not being a “clunker”), Pawlenty told everyone exactly what he believed.

On Separation of Church and State:

Now, as you know, you’re gathered here because you share a belief in those values. Those values are under attack. These are not just conservative values. Our values our American values. (Applause.) They are not rooted in pop psychology, they’re not rooted in feelings, they’re not rooted in emotion. They are rooted in the wisdom and experience of our founding fathers and the faith and the wisdom that they brought forward in the defining moments of this nation. And so we need to remind each other – (audio break).

(Applause.)

Our Judeo-Christian values are important, they are traditional, and they are the basis for so much of our country. Now, we have some folks who are skeptics about that. I’m reminded of the story – the true story of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, who came to our prayer breakfast here in Washington, D.C., about a year or so ago. He recalled a story that as a young schoolboy his father had suffered a terrible stroke. It was life-threatening and quite severe. And he remembers being in school and having a teacher pull alongside him and bend down on his knee and whisper to him, “Tony, I’m going to pray for your dad.” And Tony reminded the teacher and remembered the teacher and said, “But teacher, my dad doesn’t believe in God.” And the teacher said, “That’s okay, Tony. God believes in your dad. God believes in your Dad.”

On Abortion rights:

In Minnesota we’ve done a number of things – I won’t go through them all – but one that I’m most particularly proud of and it’s been very impactful is I’ve proposed and signed into law the so-called women’s right to know bill, which provides women important information who are considering abortion, and it also provides a waiting period for them to consider their decision. That combined with many other measures and efforts of good-hearted people all across Minnesota has significantly decreased the number of abortions performed in my state, and it’s a very effective piece of legislation.

(The Women’s Right to Know Act, of course, forced women to read anti-choice propaganda before having an abortion. Part of the information given out by the Minnesota Department of Health initially included the debunked breast cancer-abortion link.)

On GLBT Rights and Marriage Equality:

A really important example of this is defending and protecting traditional marriage. All domestic relationships are not the same, and traditional marriage needs to remain elevated in our society and in our culture. Marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman, and I sponsored that legislation when I was in the Minnesota Legislature, and we should make sure that the people are heard on this, that the Constitution is heard on this, not courts who are making up the law in the backroom.

Now, this is not some radical notion or some extreme notion. My goodness, when it’s been put to the vote of the people even in left-of center places like Oregon and – California voted twice for traditional marriage. If they can support traditional marriage in California we should do it all over this country.

(According to the Washington Independent, at this point Pawlenty ad-libbed, “This is not politically incorrect! This is not politically offensive! This is what our founding fathers believed.”)

On Health Care:

President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress not long ago regarding this topic, and he said he’s going to start calling people out on this debate by name. I guess I was the first one up this morning. The DNC put up a video or some sort of thing attacking me on this debate for various things I’ve said in recent weeks and months, and I accept the challenge. And I’ll just respond by calling out the president back tonight. And I would say – (applause) – and what I’d like to say to him is, DNC and he calls me out, I’ll call you out, call you back, and here’s my message: Stop spending the country into bankruptcy. Stop taxing us into oblivion. And the next time you address a group of young people maybe you should apologize for the crushing debt you’re putting on their shoulders.

(Applause.)

And one additional challenge. If, as he and the Democratic Congress, or some of the Democratic Congress say, “Oh, no, we’re not for public funding for abortions,” then don’t duck, don’t bob, don’t weave, put the language of the Hyde amendment in the health care bill.

Tim Pawlenty is not a moderate. He has never been a moderate. He is a stalwart conservative, quite at ease among the furthest part of the party’s right wing. Democrats and independents need to realize this going into 2012. After all, Minnesota has paid a high price for the reckless budgetary games of Pawlenty. It would be a pity if the rest of America failed to learn from our lesson.

You know, California Assemb. Mike Duvall, R-Yorba Linda, shouldn’t be mocked and ridiculed for carrying on an affair with two different lobbyists. He should be ridiculed for talking about it with all the savoir-faire of a 14-year-old relating something he’d once heard about girls from his brother’s friend’s cousin. Warning, the language could be NSFW, and all of is is not safe for your lunch:

For those of you not able to watch the video — or those of you who don’t want to hear a crusty assemblyman telling his buddy how he totally nailed these two hot chix — and he’s telling the total truth, swear — here’s the key part:

“She wears little eye-patch underwear,” said Duvall, who is married with two 
children. “So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And
 so, we had made love Wednesday–a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going 
up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy!”

Duvall has, of course, gone into seclusion, where he’ll presumably pray away his horrible indescretions. Of course, aside from the propriety of cheating on both your wife and your mistress, there’s also the fact that at least one of the women is a lobbyist for a major utility, and Duvall just happens to serve as Vice Chair of the Utilities and Commerce Committee. I’m sure he’s able to keep those things totally separate, of course.

Incidentally — and this will shock you — Duvall was a strong proponent of Proposition 8. He signed an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court defending the vote. And in his most recent constituent newsletter, Duvall says, “Roughly 11,000 gay couples have been ‘married’ in California since the State Supreme Court overturned Prop 22. [...] As a supporter of Prop 8, I will be among the state legislators committed to defending California voters’ definition of marriage.” According to the Orange County Weekly, the conservative Capitol Resource Institute said of Duvall, “For the last two years, he has voted time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California.”

Of course, protecting family values in his own family is more difficult.

Now, I know, it’s easy to note the rank hypocrisy of an official trying to keep loving, committed people from marrying while he’s carrying on multiple affairs. But I think we should feel sorry for Mike Duvall. I mean, it’s clear his marriage was wrecked by gay marriage. I’m sure he never would have cheated on his wife and then cheated on his mistress if gay people couldn’t get married.

Whisper whisper

What’s that? Really? Okay. Sorry, folks, but I’ve just been told that Duvall was carrying these affairs on after Proposition 8 passed. Hmm. Maybe outlawing gay marriage won’t make straight marriage better.

Who’d'a thunk it?

UPDATE: As Micah noted in comments, you can now call him former Assemb. Michael D. Duvall.

Quoting once again from Aqueertheory’s nutshelling of Julie Serano, I thought this was very interesting:

Serano contributes significantly to feminist theory and practice by providing us with a concise way of categorizing the different forms of sexism in Western societies. She argues that sexism is a two-fold phenomenon, consisting of “oppositional” and “traditional” elements. Oppositional sexism is “the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories” (13). A man should not have any of the “attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires” commonly associated with women, and vice-versa (13). Anyone who does not follow this schema, any manly women or womanly men, should be dismissed and punished for disobeying the divine, natural and social order that deemed the two genders to be mutually exclusive opposites. On the other hand, traditional sexism is “the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior to femaleness and femininity” (14). This type of sexism specifically demeans all feminine persons (many of whom are females) by characterizing their activities as frivolous and justifying their exclusion from certain jobs and positions of social authority. Thus, according to Serano, sexism is a commonly held belief system that conceptualizes males and females as strict oppositional categories and sets up a hierarchy in which men and masculinity are considered superior to women and femininity.

Feminists and queer theorists have failed to recognize this dual aspect of sexism, which is one of the reasons why they often seem to talk past each other. Queer theorists have focused on oppositional sexism: they have analyzed and railed against binary gender norms, which push people to fit their identities and behaviors into carefully prescribed masculine and feminine boxes. On the other hand, feminists have concentrated their efforts on studying and fighting against the more traditional forms of sexism: the oppression of women and their social subordination to men.

(Via.)

Aqueertheory at Below The Belt, nutshelling Julie Serano,¹ writes:

…one of the main problems that trans women face is the common belief that their femaleness and femininity are somehow fake or inauthentic. This view is constantly (re)emphasized in the mainstream media. Transsexual women are routinely portrayed “in the act of putting on lipstick, dresses, and high heels, thereby giving the audience the impression that the trans woman’s femaleness is an artificial mask or costume” (41). Their desire to be female is reduced to the pursuit of “stereotypically feminine appearance(s) and gender role(s),” which emphasizes that they are not real women, but men who are simply parading as women (41).

This notion is reinforced in movies that feature trans women characters. Serano identifies two major cinematic archetypes: the “deceptive” and the “pathetic” transsexual. The former successfully pass as women, but their trans status (usually signalled by the presence of a penis) is eventually revealed in a dramatic fashion as an “unexpected plot twist” (36). This pattern is evident in the Jim Carrey movie, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. At the end of the film, Ace Ventura strips Lois Einhorn, a female police lieutenant, down to her underwear so that the audience can see her penis and testicles tucked between her legs. All of the characters present in the room with Einhorn proceed to retch in disgust – the “deceptive” transsexual has been revealed and everybody is expected to exhibit shock, horror and disgust at the “fact” that she is “really a man.” [...]

In contrast, the “pathetic” transsexual is portrayed as completely unable to pass as a woman, even though she strongly insists that she is female. She is given obviously masculine mannerisms and characteristics, such as the five o’clock shadow, and openly makes references to the absence of a penis or to her intention to eventually “ha[ve] the chop” (41). According to Serano, this “extreme combination of masculinity and femininity does not seem to be designed to challenge the audience’s assumptions about maleness and femaleness… [the ‘pathetic’ transsexuals’] masculine voice and mannerisms are meant to demonstrate that, despite her desire to be female, she cannot change the fact that she is really and truly a man.”

I agree with all that. Unfortunately, even some of my favorite performers, like the brilliant British comedy group The League of Gentlemen, engage in exactly this sort of bigotry.

I have to admit, I can’t think of a single mainstream media presentation of transsexuality that doesn’t fall into one of these two categories (unless you could the psycho serial killer trans stereotype). Even relatively progressive films still tend to contain the “transformation” scene, usually shot in an almost fetishistic style (close-up of lipstick being applied, etc.).

Comics don’t do much better. I think there was a good trans character in Dykes to Watch Out For, who wasn’t presented in these ways. There was a major trans character in Sandman, but although she was also presented respectfully, she wasn’t able to be genuinely female, rather than “fake,” until after she died and was in Heaven.

Aqueertheory does misstep a little, I think, writing:

The situation is unfortunately not that much better in the allegedly more progressive feminist, academic and transgender/queer circles. Serano notes that, “there are numerous parallels between the way trans women are depicted in the media and the way that they have been portrayed by some feminist theorists.”

Serano seemingly took care to make it clear she was talking about some, not all, feminist theorists (at least in what Aqueertheory quoted). Unfortunately, Aqueertheory seems to ascribe transphobia to all feminist, academic, and transgender/queer circles. There are bigotries and problems in all these communities, true, but it’s a wild overstatement to claim that the transgender community is only marginally better at avoiding transphobia than Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. And it’s a wild overstatement that denies the hard work some people in those communities have put in to address exactly these issues.

I am definitely not saying that transphobia in the feminist community shouldn’t be acknowledged and criticized (past “Alas” posts have criticized feminist transphobia), and Aqueertheory makes many points I agree with. But I don’t think that we should pretend that the transphobes own all of feminism, either. Certain transphobic feminists may think that their views represent the One True Feminist Viewpoint, but I don’t think those of us who aren’t transphobic should concede feminism to them.

1. I posted a similar quote from Serano last year. (back)

From Signs of the Times:

Women who hold supervisory positions are more likely to be sexually harassed at work, according to the first-ever, large-scale longitudinal study to examine workplace power, gender and sexual harassment.

The study, “A Longitudinal Analysis of Gender, Power and Sexual Harassment in Young Adulthood,” reveals that nearly fifty percent of women supervisors, but only one-third of women who do not supervise others, reported sexual harassment in the workplace. In more conservative models with stringent statistical controls, women supervisors were 137 percent more likely to be sexually harassed than women who did not hold managerial roles.

While supervisory status increased the likelihood of harassment among women, it did not significantly impact the likelihood for men.

“This study provides the strongest evidence to date supporting the theory that sexual harassment is less about sexual desire than about control and domination,”said Heather McLaughlin, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota and the study’s primary investigator. “Male co-workers, clients and supervisors seem to be using harassment as an equalizer against women in power.”

McLaughlin and her co-authors examined data from the 2003 and 2004 waves of the Youth Development Study (YDS), a prospective study of adolescents that began in 1988 with a sample of 1,010 ninth graders in the St. Paul, Minnesota, public school district and has continued near annually since. Respondents were approximately 29 and 30 years old during the 2003 and 2004 waves. The analysis was supplemented with in-depth interviews with a subset of the YDS survey respondents.

The sociologists found that, in addition to workplace power, gender expression was a strong predictor of workplace harassment. Men who reported higher levels of femininity were more likely to have experienced harassment than less feminine men. More feminine men were at a greater risk of experiencing more severe or multiple forms of sexual harassment (as were female supervisors).

In a separate analysis examining perceived and self-reported sexual orientation, study respondents who reported being labeled as non-heterosexual by others or who self-identified as non-heterosexual (gay, lesbian, bisexual, unsure, other) were nearly twice as likely to experience harassment.

Researchers also found that those who reported harassment in the first year (2003) were 6.5 times more likely to experience harassment in the following year. The most common scenario reported by survey respondents involved male harassers and female targets, while males harassing other males was the second most frequent situation.

Via Hunter of Justice.

A couple of days ago, I left a comment in response to this post by John Wright. I also posted my comment on “Alas.”

I’m very glad I saved a copy on “Alas,” since Wright later deleted all the comments on his post, and later still simply deleted his entire post. (He’s also closed his livejournal to comments from anyone but those he has friended.) That’s all fine with me (although I hate to see someone delete comments he has not himself written) — everyone has a right to set the terms of discussion on their own livejournal or blog, up to and including deleting posts you’d rather not have Wikipedia link to.¹

I admit, I’m miffed that John wrote this in a follow-up post:

Those of you who tried to draw the distinction between incest and homosexuality, you either limited your comments to a certain type of incest (as with children) or described it as illicit due to genetic defects produced, but in no case that I saw did anyone actually answer the question asked

John appears to have forgotten my comment — even though he answered it with a three-point response (which was deleted before I could respond, alas). I answered the question asked, did it in detail, and did so in an extremely respectful manner (even though I don’t think John had behaved in a respectful manner towards others). And I didn’t limit my answer to children, or even mention genetic defects.

Anyhow, writer Hal Duncan has posted an “open letter” responding to John Wright’s anti-gay post. Hal is working in a similar over-the-top prose style to John’s post, although I think Hal’s prose is better. I particularly liked this passage:

Well, let’s start with the assumptions that will likely lead many to not respond with anything remotely resembling the rational answers you claim you want. If you want your questions to be taken seriously then you would do well to start by asking them without the arrant nonsense of paranoid fantasies in which the SyFy Channel has “recoiled in craven fear and trembling” before the intimidatory might of GLAAD’s “homosex activists” (aka the Elders of Sodom, Media Division.) You would do well to start with the premise that the head of the SyFy Channel’s public commitment to not simply presenting more homosexuality but to presenting it as a non-issue might actually be born of a genuine belief that this is an ethical thing to do.

We’re sure you’re aware that other people can and do have different opinions. You may reject the validity of those opinions, but it would hardly seem rational to reject their existence. Actually, come to think of it, you don’t actually seem that rational, so maybe our conviction is unwarranted. Let us assure you then: we, the Elders of Sodom do have those opinions, trust me, and many within our ranks hold such opinions not because they are themselves homosexual, (we are open to all and sundry, welcoming even to the Brethren of Breeders,) but simply because they have a trait we refer to as “empathy.” The ethics we hold to among the Elders of Sodom is, generally speaking, based primarily on this “empathy,” and therefore rejects homophobia for the same reasons it rejects racism, misogyny, and all other forms of prejudice.

This is how it actually is, Mr Wright. People do actually disagree with you. Not just the actual sodomites like myself, but the Sapphic Sisterhood, the Hamite Alliance, the League of Heathens and Infidels, Atheists Anonymous, a whole panoply of progressive thinkers, aligned and unaligned, to whom your rant reads as the ethically repugnant ravings of a sociopath, given that it has so little concern for aforesaid “empathy”. Let me repeat that, Mr Wright. People do actually disagree with you. Not because they’re faggots who like the homosex. Not because they’ve been cowed into submission by the faggots who like the homosex. But because they see the faggots who like the homosex as human beings deserving of empathy, see the abjection of them as profoundly unethical — stupid and cruel to the point of socially dysfunctional.

1. On the other hand, since the post was posted in public, I think others have a fair use right to quote it in order to facilitate discussion of the issues John brought up. For that reason, I’ve quoted John’s post here. (back)

Photo by SF Bart

Science fiction writer John Wright¹ writes:

All the same arguments that apply to making homosexuality a norm apply to incest… What argument can be given to outlaw incest that cannot be given with even more logic to outlaw homosexuality?

And he later added:

Give me an argument justifying homosexual relations on grounds which do not answer as well or better for justifying incest?

I’ve seen this claim — that there are no moral arguments for accepting homosexuality that don’t also apply to incest — fairly frequently. The claim seems flatly wrong.

What follows is what I wrote in John’s comments. This isn’t meant to be a complete catalog of the differences between incest and homosexuality; there are many essential arguments I didn’t touch on. I just outlined a few arguments that I thought might appeal to at least some of John’s readers. (Hence, these arguments are all rather social conservative in their approach.)

* * *

I think there are a number of compelling differences.

1) Accepting the legitimacy of homosexual relationships doesn’t fundamentally alter relationships between child and sibling, or child and parent.

In contrast, if incest is legitimate, that socially recognized potential for sexuality will alter (and in some cases poison) the relationships between children and their siblings, and between children and parents. And this will be true for all families, not just those families that practice incest.

(Some might object that if homosexuality is accepted, then same-sex parent-child incest will be accepted with it. Not true. Parents don’t need social condemnation of homosexuality to avoid sex with their same-sex kids, any more than they need social condemnation of heterosexuality to avoid sex with their opposite-sex kids.)

2) Gays (including women and men) are a significant portion of society. probably between 1% and 4% of Americans are gay, and most will be gay for virtually their entire lives. There are tens of thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples.

It’s to society’s benefit that gays be integrated into society’s stabilizing institutions to as great an extent as possible. It’s beneficial to society that couples form commitments of caring and responsibility; it’s beneficial to society that children have the stability and security of married parents.

Furthermore, there are high costs to society if 1%-4% of the society is made into outcasts. Higher suicide rates, economic costs (non-outcasts form businesses and employ people), public health (non-outcasts take better care of themselves), and riots are just some of the costs society pays.

Sometimes treating people as outcasts has clear benefits which outweigh the costs (for instance, treating violent criminals as outcasts), but homosexuality is not such a case.

This provides us with some clear distinctions between homosexuality and incest. There is no incest equivalent to the Stonewall riot; there are not tens of thousands of children being raised by openly incestuous parents. There is no large population of “incestists” who it would benefit society to integrate into norms of mutual care and responsibility, and maintaining the ban on incest incurs virtually no costs on society (and has some benefits).

3) Sexual orientation is significantly different from an attraction to a particular inappropriate individual (such as a sibling). Forbidding someone the chance to pursue an inappropriate attraction is an ordinary part of life; but forbidding someone their entire sexual orientation is cruel and lifelong.

If Albert feels an attraction to an inappropriate person — for example, an already married woman — it’s not particularly cruel to tell Albert that he must forget that particular attraction. The same thing would be true if Albert feels an attraction to his sister. In both cases, Albert isn’t really being told to give up on love; he’s just being told to put it off until he meets someone who’s available.

I think that most of us, if we were honest, would admit to having at some point in our lives had an attraction to someone who it would be wrong to pursue. And (I hope) most of us did the right thing — we didn’t pursue the attraction and hoped to meet someone else.

But what if Albert is gay? The large majority of gay people, are gay for life, and won’t ever be genuinely attracted to people of the opposite sex. So if we forbid homosexuality, we’re not just telling Albert to put off love until he’s attracted to someone who is willing and available. We’re telling Albert that he must accept an entire life without even the hope of romantic, sexual love.

In that way, forbidding homosexuality is cruel in a way that forbidding incest is not.

Now, sometimes we should be cruel in the service of more important social goals — for instance, protecting children from adult sexual predators is laudable, and we rightly don’t care if this is in some sense cruel to the predators. However, the same reasoning cannot support needless cruelty towards consenting adults.

1. Coincidentally, Wright is married to Ms. Lamplighter, who Karnythia has recently been blogging responses to. I didn’t realize that until after I had put this post online. Small internet. (back)

Mikhaela posts a list of Senators who haven’t yet confirmed support for the inclusive ENDA that Jeff Merkley (one of my Senators — Oregon for the win!) recently introduced in the Senate. The senators are listed by state; go check it out, and if your senator is listed, please give her or him a call.

For those of you unfamiliar with ENDA, here’s Wikipedia’s nutshelling:

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. Such protections are already available to employees of the federal government through executive orders for sexual orientation and gender identity in 1998 and 2009 respectively; this would extend them to employees in the private sector (religious organizations exempted).

ENDA has been introduced in every Congress, except the 109th, since 1994, albeit without gender identity protections, but gained its best chance at passing after the Democratic Party broke twelve years of Republican Congressional rule in the 2006 midterm elections. Sponsors found that even with a Democratic majority, ENDA did not have enough votes to pass the House of Representatives with transgender inclusion, and dropped it from the bill, where it passed and subsequently died in the Senate. LGBT advocacy organizations were divided over support of the changed bill.

In 2009, on the heels of the 2008 elections that strengthened the Democratic majority, and after the debacle of the 2007 ENDA divisions, only a transgender-inclusive ENDA has been introduced by House representative Barney Frank. President Barack Obama supports the bill’s passage unlike his Republican predecessor, who threatened to veto the measure.

So if one of your Senators is on the list, please make the call.

Robert Anthony Maranto, who supports equal marriage for same-sex couples but is worried about religious rights, wrote “Do Gay Rights Trump Religion?”. From Professor Maranto’s essay:

…a number of recent court and bureaucratic decisions [have forced] faith-based institutions to embrace gay rights, no matter their sacred beliefs.

Yeshiva University was ordered to allow same-sex couples in its married dormitory. In Boston, Catholic Charities ended adoptions after the state supreme court forced it to place children with gay and lesbian couples. In short, many intellectuals not only want to permit same-sex marriage; they want to stigmatize religious dissenters as either bigots or fools.

First of all, it’s obvious Maranto’s examples don’t warrant his unkind conclusion. If I want anti-discrimination laws to apply to all businesses and student groups equally, that isn’t because I want to stigmatize religious people; it’s because I sincerely think that it’s important for queers to be treated as equal members of society at all levels. It would have been kinder, and also more accurate, for Professor Maranto to assume that those who want equal rights act out of a desire for equality, not a desire to stigmatize.¹

(If I said supermarkets shouldn’t be allowed to refuse gay customers, would Professor Maranto conclude my goal is to stigmatize grocery owners?)

Now let’s consider Professor Maranto’s examples, Yeshiva University and Catholic Charities of Boston.

I support narrow exemptions to anti-discrimination laws; for instance, no religious congregation should be forced to perform same-sex weddings, nor should individual ministers (or rabbis, or priests, or imams, etc) be forced to conduct such ceremonies.² A wedding in a church (shul, etc) is a religious ceremony, and the government shouldn’t intrude on that cermony. Similarly, no independent minister should be forced to participate in a wedding she doesn’t want to participate in.³

But Professor Maranto’s examples aren’t narrow, and he doesn’t suggest any limits on his proposed exemption.

For example, when people read that “Yeshiva University was ordered to allow same-sex couples in its married dormitory,” I think many of them imagine a place for formal religious instruction, a college where religious Jews go to combine religious practice with education, or to learn to become Orthodox rabbis.

In fact, the Yeshiva University lawsuit concerned student housing at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which is owned by Y.U.. Albert Einstein College isn’t a religious school — it’s a secular medical school which accepts students regardless of ethnicity or religion, and which prides itself on diversity.

Furthermore, Albert Einstein College is located in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. The difference between having access to cheap student housing, or not, could be the difference between being able to complete a medical school education or not. Why should going to medical school be cheaper for straight married couples? When weighing these conflicts, we have to consider not only freedom of worship, but also if lesbian and gay students are being treated fairly.

I don’t want to intrude on anyone’s religious freedom. But state anti-discrimination laws applying to a secular medical school don’t limit any Jew’s ability to worship as she pleases. The claim of a religious exemption shouldn’t mean that essentially secular businesses are exempt from the same laws all other businesses follow.

Regarding Catholic Charities of Boston, Professor Maranto’s summary is simply wrong; there was no order from the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Quoting Morris Thurston:

Catholic Charities in Boston was not forced to close its doors–indeed it is still very active. (See its website at www.ccab.org.) Rather, Catholic Charities voluntarily ceased providing adoption service in Massachusetts. According to the Boston Globe, Catholic Charities elected to close its doors in protest over the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts and because it was reluctant to undertake a lawsuit that might be lost.

LDS Family Services still operates in Massachusetts, as it does in California. There are several differences between LDSFS and Catholic Charities. LDSFS does not take federal and state funds; Catholic Charities does. LDSFS facilities only voluntary adoptions and permits the birth mother to approve the adoptive parents. Catholic Charities handled non-voluntary adoptions (where the state seizes the children) and normally did not accommodate birth mother approval. Catholic Charities had contracts with the state and was, in effect, acting as an agent of the state. LDSFS does not. To date, LDS Family Services has never been forced to place any children with a gay couple, and has never been sued for not doing so.

These details aside, it’s unclear why adoption is a case where religious freedoms should trump the legitimate desire of states to ensure equal treatment. Requiring adoption businesses — especially those that act as agents of the state — to treat gays equally, does not prevent Catholics and others from worshiping as they choose. And as Scot at Utah Cog points out in an excellent post, the adoption rates in Massachusetts didn’t go down as a result of Catholic Charities of Boston’s choice.

* * *

In his editorial, Professor Maranto doesn’t describe the standards he used to decide that Yeshiva University and Catholic Charities should be exempt from anti-discrimination laws. Nor does he say if he wants this exemption applied across the board, or if he thinks that lesbians and gays are the only people whose legal protections should be weakened in the name of religious freedom.

But as far as I can infer from his examples, he simply thinks that all groups or businesses owned or run by religious institutions should get a “get out of discrimination laws free” card, at least when it comes to discrimination against gays. But this supposed “right” of religions, if it is applied without limits, could easily have far-reaching and unfair consequences.

For instance, what happens when a nurse or doctor at a Church-owned hospital decides not to acknowlege a patient’s same-sex partner or spouse? (And if Professor Maranto says that no, hospitals shouldn’t discriminate that way, then why is it less of an affront to religion to forbid discrimination in a hospital, than it is to forbid discrimination in a secular medical school, or in an adoption agency?)

What prevents a small business owner who wants to discriminate from simply forming a “church” to be the legal owner of her business?

Religious institutions are sometimes huge and wealthy, and the biggest ones can own dozens of businesses. I would never want the government to intrude on anyone’s right to worship as they please, but it goes too far to say that any business owned by a church — no matter how secular that business is in practice — should be exempt from anti-discrimination law. To say that would be to say that the right of religions to discriminate — not to worship as they please, but to discriminate as they please — trumps the right of lesbian and gay people to be treated as equal members of society, with equal dignity.

1. Even where people do criticize or even stigmatize others for bigotry, I’d argue that their purpose is still equality; the stigmatization is a means towards the end of equality. (back)
2. Of course, many congregations and officiants freely choose to conduct same-sex ceremonies. (back)
3. Of course, there’s no legal need to pass a law stating these exemptions, since they’re already implicit in the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion. But if passing a law restating this right would make religious people feel more secure and comfortable, then I’m all for it. (back)

Damn. A while ago, after reading on Questioning Transphobia about something that happened on Pam’s House Blend, I wrote a whole, lengthy post trying to say what TransGriot says so succinctly here:

Cisgender is a neutral term that doesn’t have the negative accumulated baggage of being used to ‘other’ or used as a rallying cry by the Forces of Intolerance to oppress someone’s human rights rights like trans has.

There are no people being made the butt of societal jokes because they are cisgender. There’s no ‘cisgender panic defense’. There’s no one being denied a job because they are cisgender. There’s no one being killed because of folks hating on you for being cisgender. There’s no Cisgender Day Of Remembrance.

I repeat, cisgender means your body and the gender identity housed between your ears is comfortably aligned, nothing more, nothing less.

Thanks, TransGriot.

Via Womanist Musings.

So the Obama Department of Justice decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Stonewall — and the 42nd anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia — by filing a brief in a same-sex marriage case that repeats a slew of anti-gay canards, and invents a couple of new ones.

Although some have argued otherwise, I believe (as one of Andrew Sullivan’s readers argues) the DOJ has a duty to defend current federal law in all but a few rare cases. I don’t object to them defending the Defense Of Marriage Act.¹ But there are a hundred ways they could have done this that wouldn’t have been an insult to everyone who, unlike Barack Obama and his administration, gives a fuck about equal rights.

As Law Geek writes:

Even if one argues, as I often have, that a government lawyer — from the Department of Justice to state attorneys general — must defend even those laws with which one disagrees, such a lawyer needn’t overstate his or her case.  The government lawyer defending a statute with which she disagrees needn’t add gratuitous demeaning statements into the legal brief she files.

Unlike the Obama Administration’s brief filed in the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell case turned away by the Supreme Court this week, last night’s filing in Smelt v. United States goes too far (pdf).  It’s offensive, it’s dismissive, it’s demeaning and — most importantly — it’s unnecessary.  Even if one accepts that DOJ should have filed a brief opposing this case (and the facts do suggest some legitimate questions about standing), the gratuitous language used throughout the filing goes much further than was necessary to make its case.

See also this post from Americablog.

This is really bad. For the next decade, expect to see homophobic talking heads on TV support their most wretched arguments by saying “even the liberal Obama administration says….”  Some of the worse, most dehumanizing arguments — like the argument that if gays want equal rights, they should just marry someone of the opposite sex — are now an official position of the Obama DOJ. Worse, they’ve created brand-new, stupid arguments, like the argument that for the Federal government to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages in states where they are legal represents Federal “neutrality.” (Hint: If there is literally no difference between the policy you espouse, and the policy Maggie Galligher prefers, then you are not being “neutral.”)

Andrew Sullivan writes:

I think we can summarize: the brief is (just about) defensible; its full contents are way over the line; someone in the DOJ must have understood that and decided to file it anyway - without even consulting anyone in the gay community. The deployment of arguments that refer to our relationships as equivalent to incest, that demand that we simply marry someone of the opposite sex if we want our civil rights, that implies federal recognition of our civil marriages would mean taxing some Americans to pay for something they abhor: this is simply salt in the wound, and it will be deployed and used by every far right gay-hater in the future, and cited as endorsed by the Obama administration. In the context of Obama’s failure to fulfill any of his pledges to the gay community since he took office, this is terribly deflating.

We are asked to be patient, and that is fair enough. But we should not be asked to be attacked in this gratuitous manner, shut out of dialogue beforehand, and applaud. We did that for eight years under Clinton. Never again.

David Link has some plausible speculations on how the hell this happened:

But how could this derision not have been noticed by the President’s men?  First, and most obviously, I can only imagine that no lesbian or gay men ever set eyes on this brief.  Perhaps I am wrong, but I honestly can’t see how any self-respecting homosexual in 2009 could possibly think this brief was acceptable.  While California’s Attorney General Jerry Brown has had to both defend and challenge anti-gay laws, his office has the grace and simple common sense to make sure the briefs are reviewed, if not drafted in the first place, by openly gay attorneys.

There is something deeper here, though.  Obama is comfortable with the cliché political rhetoric of gay equality, but this brief shows his understanding doesn’t go a centimeter deeper.  Or (most generously) that his Attorney General knows only the words and not the tune.  To someone who understands gay equality as little more than a set of slogans and bromides, this brief might not have looked particularly offensive.

That, at least, is the most generous understanding I am willing to indulge – that the brief was written and/or edited by civil servants with an anti-gay inclination, and reviewed by political staff who know no more about gay equality than what they read on the President’s website.

The ball is now in the President’s court.  He owes us an apology – and not one of words, but one of action.

Box Turtle Bulletin has a roundup of blogospheric reactions, and a telling comparison to a brief written by an attorney general who really is an advocate for queer rights; Dale Carpenter’s post on the quality of the arguments made in Obama’s brief is worth your while; and I’ll close with another quote from Law Dork.

President Obama, if he intends to regain any credibility with the LGBT community this Pride Month, needs to get an answer from A.G. Holder about how such a brief was allowed to be filed under his rule.  And he needs to start speaking up about LGBT issues and taking action to make his campaign promises a reality.  Obama needs to show that he truly is “a president who supports our cause.”

When he was running for president and needed votes and money, Obama made a lot of promises to LBGTQ voters, but he hasn’t fufilled a single one of those promises. And now his DOJ is actively working against equality with the same enthusiasm and bad faith arguments we would have expected from the Bush administration.

Unless there is a very rapid about-face from the Obama administration, I hope that when Joe Biden shows up to a gay DNC fundraiser in a couple of weeks, he’s greeted by hundreds of angry queer and queer-allied protestors. I hope he’s booed off the stage; I hope he’s pelted with rotton eggs. I hope that lesbians, gays and allies make it clear to Obama that he won’t get a fucking cent for his re-election until he starts keeping his promises. As of yesterday, however, the time when anyone could give Obama the benefit of the doubt on LGBTQ issues has ended.

1. Plus, as a matter of tactics, it’s evident that the big LGBT groups want this case dismissed, on technical grounds, to clear the ground for a different, stronger lawsuit that’s also in the pipeline. And that’s very likely what will happen. (back)

On another thread, Ron asks a 101-style question about the term “cis”:

So “cis-gender” would be that your physical and your … what, mental? … gender are the same…

Not mental and physical. Rather, it’s that the gender you were assigned at birth, and the gender you identify as, are the same. (See Julia Serano’s excellent FAQ on this subject.)

Except that “cis-gender” is pretty much the default, so there’s little need in normal discourse to use the term.

Maybe it doesn’t come up in your “normal” discourse, Ron, but I find that the term is useful in my day to day discourse.

Plus, as a political matter, it’s important that the unmarked “defaults” have names. Imagine if, instead of the words “Jewish” and “Christian,” we had only “Jewish” and “normal.” Or if, instead of “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” we had only “normal” and “homosexual.” We can’t discuss things on an equal basis without an equal vocabulary.

* * *

Which reminds me: We really need a vocabulary for weight. The current, official vocabulary is “underweight,” “normal weight,” “overweight,” and “obese.”

I’m happy to replace “underweight” with “thin” or “skinny” (although of course, the real question is if those people medicine labels “underweight” are okay with that), and “overweight” and “obese” with “fat.” But I really hate calling the medically/socially approved default body “normal” (or just as awful, “healthy”). Suggestions?

On another thread, Amy wrote:

If you don’t like freedom of speach then TURN THE STATION! Oh my god! I do not agree with most of Rob or Arnie’s mentality but I do agree that they have the freedom to say what they feel. And if you are a true listener of the show, you know that they would never advocate child abuse. It’s absurd and I’m extremely frustrated that everyone having an issue with this is so stupid to just change the channel if what they say upsets you so much. It’s YOUR choice to listen to what you want to on the radio. No one is forcing you to listen to them. All these posts have so much disdain for them. If you hate them so much, why are you listening. Its people like you who make our men fighting this devastating war we’ve been in for years, feel like they are doing it for nothing. Our freedom of speach is one of the many things they are fighting for. I have many gay and lesbian friends and I feel that transgenders are born the way they are and support them 100% in their choices - but this vigilanty actions towards two radio dj’s who most of the time make jokes on air - it’s ridiculous. And they have made fun of things that I stand for or represent - but I don’t take it personally - I just change that channel.

Amy, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism, and it doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.

* * *

There are times I have doubts about boycotts because of something someone said. It seems wrong to boycott (for example) a brand of pencil because you’ve heard that the pencil manufacturer is anti-gun-control. Because even if only governments can censor, there’s still a threat to free speech created if people are frightened of losing their jobs if they say something unpopular.

But I don’t feel that way about radio DJs. It is their job to be popular. There are some jobs you can’t do if your opinions make you so repulsive that listeners and sponsors revolt, and DJ happens to be one of those jobs. If Rob and Arnie can’t take being judged for their words, and being judged by how valuable they are to their sponsors — then they really, really chose the wrong industry to work in.

* * *

Free speech has consequences. I think you believe Rob and Arnie’s speech only has consequences because people are kicking up a fuss, instead of turning the dial. But I think you’re mistaken about that.

Amy, imagine for a moment that you’re a 13 year old kid who doesn’t fit into the gender roles assigned to you (either because you’re trans, or because you don’t fit in in some other way). Imagine the self-hatred you’ve learned from society around you, and think of how hard that is to overcome — as if being 13 isn’t hard enough on most of us already. Then imagine hearing this on the radio:

They are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. [...] You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down.

Can you imagine how devastating that could be? Sure, it would be only one more straw on an already heavily burdened back — but it would be a big, vicious straw. It’s the kind of straw that, combined with hundreds of other straws, sometimes leads kids to take their own lives.

What would have happened if no one had kicked up a fuss — if everyone had shrugged and said “that’s just good old Rob and Arnie, their regular listeners know they didn’t mean any harm?”

Well, they still would have done harm. They would have done harm to every kid, trans or cis,¹ whose own self-contempt would have been made more implacable by hearing Rob and Arnie’s contempt; and they would have done harm through every person who heard their jokes and got the message that trans people are “freaks” who deserve disdain.

There are always, always consequences.

There was never, ever an option for Rob and Arnie to tell these vicious “jokes” without consequences.

Someone would have suffered the consequences.

The only question was, who.

If no one had objected, if no one had spoken up and said “that’s stupid, horrible, vicious bullshit, and Rob and Arnie should be ashamed, and KRXQ should be ashamed, and anyone who sponsors this show should be ashamed,” then the consequences would have been borne mainly by trans people, and also by some non-trans kids who nonetheless suffer gender-related bullying and self-hatred. It would have been another brick in the wall; just another thing pushing our society to be marginally more brutal, and marginally more contemptuous, towards people who don’t fit into the standard gender/sex roles.

Instead, some people did speak up. And as a result of that…

Well, now a portion — not all, but part — of the consequences have been diverted, so they are now suffered by Rob and Arnie, rather than solely by the kids they’ve displayed so much “joking” contempt for. Is that such a bad thing? Seems very fair to me.

And maybe Rob and Arnie will make the apology good, and maybe some trans kid will hear them say that expressing contempt for trans kids is wrong in every way. And maybe that’ll do some good. And I suspect they’ll be doing some fundraising or donations to organizations that help trans kids, and if so, maybe that’ll do some good.

Or maybe some trans kids will hear about this, and know that people got angry on their behalf, and hear that even major corporations like AT&T and Carl’s Jr found the open expression of trans-hating “jokes” so repulsive that they yanked their advertising. Maybe some kids will, as a result of this, feel like a few of those straws have been lifted from their backs. And that’ll do some good.

And maybe future radio DJs will remember, before they make similar “jokes,” that jokes which express contempt towards the oppressed and the marginalized always, always carry consequences, even if those consequences are usually suffered by people who aren’t famous and who don’t have their own radio shows. Maybe they’ll remember that their “jokes” can do harm, and they’ll decide to tell a joke about how much the airlines suck instead of picking on trans kids.

Would that be so awful?

And yes, maybe deep inside, they’ll still be thinking that it would be hilarious to “joke” about society beating trans kids down, and how swell that would be. And maybe the only thing keeping them from making that “joke” on the air will be that they’re frightened that maybe, this time, they will suffer some of the consequences themselves. Maybe they’ll bite their tongues and just tell those “jokes” in a bar among friends, instead of on the air to tens of thousands of listeners.

Would that be so awful?

I don’t think it would be.

What would be awful would be a society in which freedom of speech never had consequences; in which people who disagreed with Rob and Arnie’s “jokes” didn’t speak up; in which the message would be communicated that it’s acceptable to talk about trans kids as if they’re less valuable than dirt and no one objected. That would be awful. And I’m very glad that didn’t happen. You should be, too.

UPDATE: For more on consequences, please read this post at Bunny’s Hutch. (Thanks, Elusis.)

1. ”Cis” means “not trans.” (back)

Last week several blogs, including Alas, posted about the vicious, bigoted on-air attack on trans kids by some DJs at KRXQ. The blogging was part of a wave of revulsion, which included nine advertisers — really huge advertisers, like AT&T — either pulling their ads from KRXQ, or deciding not to renew their advertising when the current ad contract runs out.

Now it appears that the DJs are preparing to apologize and make amends. The KRXQ homepage currently contains a statement from Rob Williams, of the “Rob, Arnie and Dawn” show, which says:

As a show, as people, as broadcasters, we have simply failed on almost every level.

We presented our opinions on a very sensitive subject in a hateful, childish and crude fashion; and then, given the opportunity to retract those remarks, we defended them.

According to the statement, the show is on hiatus until Thursday’s episode:

We have reached out to various groups and asked for a chance to make this right; to respond, with their participation, to the education that our audience has provided us. That opportunity has been graciously granted this Thursday morning, June 11th. At 7:30 a.m.

The word apology appears no where in this letter for a reason. We already hid from doing the right thing once and we’re not going to make that mistake again. Apologizing in a written, posted statement is a form of cowardice. We will say what needs to be said this Thursday.

This is certainly promising (I’ve posted the full statement below the fold). I hope they really have been reaching out to trans advocacy groups to discuss making amends — hopefully they’re planning more than just a one-off public apology (although the public apology is important too). I know in the past the RAD show has done fundraising for children’s causes; maybe they can start doing fundraising for groups that help trans kids.

We’ll see on Thursday, I guess. Curtsy to The Queer Youth Mental Health Blog.
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TransGriot (via Womanist Musings, who calls this “cisgender privilege on crack”) quotes from a vicious attack on trans children, broadcast on May 28th on the “Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning” show, on KRXQ in Sacramento, California and also KDOT in Reno.

ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. And when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.

ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.

ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.

ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behaviour. You cure the cause!

ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’

ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favourite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.

As many people have pointed out, there are countless real-life cases of transphobic violence, including murder. In schools, kids targeted for allegedly wrong gender expression have sometimes committed suicide. This sort of attack on kids would be wrong in any context, but in the context of real-life violence and bullying, it’s particularly disgusting and irresponsible and sick, sick, sick.

The radio station and hosts have refused to apologize, unless you consider “I’m sorry that you might not find it funny” an apology. (The third co-host, Dawn Rossi, has reportedly been quite decent, and apologized for her co-hosts behavior.)

Lisa at Questioning Transphobia writes:

I’m also disturbed at the commenters at HuffPo who feel it is immediately important to rush forward and defend Arnie and Rob from criticism of their words by characterizing such criticism as an attempt to rob them of their free speech. Seriously, criticism is also an exercise of free speech. Also, inciting violence is not an exercise of free speech. It’s an attempt to foster an environment in which the target group (in this case, trans people, specifically trans children) are made to feel unsafe just for existing. Apparently, it’s just fine to use public intimidation against some people, but it’s not okay to object to that intimidation.

Lisa thinks that further letter-writing to the radio station and the show hosts is probably futile. Instead, as Lisa suggests, I’ll be writing a polite email to some of the radio station’s advertisers, asking them to ask the radio station to make restitution. Snapple and Chipotle have already pulled their ads; a list of advertisers is available here.

See also: Blog of the Moderate Left (hi Jeff!), Pam’s House Blend, Andrew Sullivan, and The Huffington Post.

Another state recognizes same-sex marriage. From Nan Hunter:

In what must have been a long day in Manchester, both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature passed a bill containing the compromise language worked out in committee to protect the religious liberty rights of gay marriage opponents. Governor Lynch also supported the bill, and earlier had announced that he would sign it as soon as the legislative action concluded. The new law will take effect in January 2010.

My main response is: YAY!!!!

Congrats to everyone in New Hampshire. And, really, everyone in the whole country, which has become incrementally more just today than it was yesterday.

* * *

The fact that so few lawsuits have come up in states that already have civil union or equal marriage laws, convinces me that the “religious exemption” aspects of such bills will have very little practical effect. Few if any same-sex couples even want to get married in churches that don’t accept them. If this is the compromise that gets gay marriage bills passed, then I favor it.

According to the AP story (via):

The revised bill added a sentence specifying that all religious organizations, associations or societies have exclusive control over their religious doctrines, policies, teachings and beliefs on marriage.

It also clarified that church-related organizations that serve charitable or educational purposes are exempt from having to provide insurance and other benefits to same sex spouses of employees.

Benefits are another form of pay, and giving churches the right to pay some queer employees less is an expression of second-class citizenship for queers. (If a church wanted the right to refuse spousal benefits to Jewish or atheist employees, would people be so quick to find that reasonable?)

But I’d rather have equal marriage for same-sex couples, and then work on fine-tuning this aspect later, than not have gay marriage at all.¹

1. Of course, I’d rather have single-pay health care, and get employers out of the business of making health care decisions like this altogether. (back)