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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Via conservative David Link, who liked it despite himself.

• Demand Respectful and Accurate Reporting on Lateisha Green. Lateisha Green, a murdered trans woman, is being persistently referred to by mainstream news sources by her prior name and gender. This is offensive, and it also goes against standard journalistic practices, as described in both the AP and NYTimes style guides. Cara has email addresses so you can request that the news agencies refer to Ms. Green by her correct name and pronoun.
• Oh, and do check out Queerty’s “10 best responses to The Gathering Storm.” Not all my favorites were there, but there were also a couple of good ones I hadn’t seen before.
• While at Queerty, I noticed that M*A*S*H star David Olgen Stiers, an actor I’m fond of, has come out of the closet. Stiers, 66, says that he hasn’t done this before because he was afraid it could hurt his career if (Stiers does a lot of voiceover work for Disney cartoons). He’s coming out now, however, because “Now is the time I wish to find someone and I do not desire to force any potential partner to live a life of extreme discretion for me.”
• Over at Polymorphous Perversity, “a discussion of the concept of sexual “deception,” inspired by the pernicious suggestions of some commentators that transgender hate crime victims such as Angie Zapata themselves committed criminal sexual assault by failing to disclose their anatomy/gender history to sexual partners.” Part one, and part two. Highly recommended.
• Interesting history from David Link: “There are many reasons for the increasing acceptance today of same-sex marriage among the American public, but one has received virtually none of the acclaim it deserves: the invention, in the late 1940s, of Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer. The gay rights movement owes a lot to that little shaker.”
• Why Publius changed his mind and learned to like the Courts finding a right to same sex marriage.
• Here’s something I’ll probably never say again: “Nom is right.” Of course, they’re also hypocrites.

I like BitchPhD’s blog, and I’m sure I’ve linked to it many times over the years.

I think being an ally is sometimes hard. There’s a lot to keep track of. A lot to think about. Sometimes things seem gray or muddy. It can be hard. I really understand that. And there have been times when the people I’d like to be an ally of have made demands that seemed to me to be unfair, or to not consider my position or well-being at all, etc..

But this? This isn’t hard. It’s not hard at all. You just don’t blog the stupid, unfunny, bigoted, sexist, racist, anti-trans joke.

H/T: QT.

[Edited to add the word "racist." I managed to miss that bit the first time I read it.]

From Little Light:

This is how we internalize the lies. This is how we accept the yoke of oppression. By living in a world where the truth that we are beautiful and worthy and lovable is even more painful to accept than the lie that we are none of these things, because all sense of fairness or order vanishes when you look the truth in the eye. If we are beautiful, we are in a world that does not care about our beauty, and even grinds it in the mud. If we are strong, we are living in a world so heavy that it saps our strength until we are tired all the time. If we are ourselves, we are living in a world that systematically strips away our selfhood like roast chicken scraped from the bone.

Until we are strong enough to look this in the eye and fight it, to stand up and fight and make the part of the world we stand on more okay no matter how hard it is or what it takes–until we are so very strong that we remember we are strong, and beautiful, and true, worthy of no end of love, no matter what–it’s just too much to bear. So we accept false stories instead, about how we’re dirty and ugly and weak and unlovable. We have to. I had to.

That’s just a small part of a much larger post; go over to read the whole thing.

I feel a bit weird tagging this in Alas’ trans issues category. It is that, as Little Light’s analysis is bound with and comes out of Little Light’s life. But I think that many, perhaps most, people in any marginalized group, taught to hate themselves, will find elements of Little Light’s narrative that resonate with their own.

Author’s Preface: GallingGalla’s comment on the third post in this series has made me think I should add this preface: I see each post in this series as one section of a single piece of writing, not as a discrete essay unto itself. As a result, while each section may contain its own argument, it is not really possible to know whether an issue that a reader feels is important, such as GallingGalla’s concerns about how accusations of self-hatred are also accusations of treason, will or will not be left out of the argument made by the entire piece if you’ve only read a part of the series. As I said in my response to GallingGalla, I certainly do not mean this caveat to be, in any way, an inoculation against critique, but given the modular nature of posting to blogs and of how blogs are read, it is a caveat I’d like you to keep in mind if you find yourselves wondering, and commenting on, why I have not addressed something you feel needs to be addressed. Thanks.

To me, the point was obvious. Basing the Jewish claim to the land of Israel on the Jews’ own reading of the Hebrew Bible was asking the overwhelmingly non-Jewish world to accept as objective and incontrovertible the truth that Judaism claimed as its own, never mind the implication that the disenfranchisement of the Palestinians was somehow the will of the monotheistic god. To assert that line of reasoning as an argument for Israel’s right to exist, I suggested, was self-defeating at the very least–even if, as a believing Jew, it was a cornerstone of your faith.

“I never took you for an SHJ,” said one the colleagues with whom I was talking.

“An SHJ?”

“A self-hating Jew.”

The other agreed. “My husband,” she said, “would say you were an antisemitic Jew.”

I stared at my colleagues across a sudden gap of estrangement I did not know how to bridge. I had never been called self-hating before, but I understood it meant that, in their eyes, I’d revealed myself as a Jew who accepted an antisemitic definition of Jewishness. It was a logic I had heard often when I was in yeshiva, though my teachers always used it to explain the antisemitism of non-Jews who were critical of Israel: To suggest that there might be a perspective from which Israel’s existence as a Jewish state was not self-evidently valid, my rebbes would say, in many different ways, over and over again, was to suggest that the Jews had no right to claim such a state in the first place, which was also to imply that the Jews as a people ought not even to be.

Read the rest of this entry »

Via Womanist Musings, where Renee has posted a transcript as well.

You may also want to check out Julia Serano’s website. (Serano is best known as the author of “Whipping Girl”.)

Let’s face it, things are not going very well for right-wing radio these days. Rush Limbaugh has been reduced to a national laughingstock, while Sean Hannity is best known for simply repeating talking points handed to him by the RNC. Where is the innovation? The fight? The good ol’-fashioned hatred that will sustain the righties into a new era?

Well, my fellow Minnesotans can puff our chests up with pride, because we’ve got a budding right-wing radio superstar right here in our own backyard, broadcasting daily at KTLK-FM.

Minnesotans know KTLK as the radio station that made the head-scratching decision to abandon reasonable talk and go to an all-right-wing-nonsense-all-the-time format right before the collapse of the Republican party. With the aforementioned Limbaugh and Hannity, along with Jason “North Carolina is Infinitely Superior to Minnesota, What With its Low Taxes and Family Values, Which is Why I’m Getting the Hell Out of There and Coming Back to the Cities” Lewis, KTLK is the sort of radio dinosaur that would have been really popular in 1994, but now languishes down with KOOL-108 (the oldies station) in the ratings.

But Chris Baker aims to change all that. The new morning drive host and Texas import is making a name for himself nationally, and doing it the old-fashioned way: by saying crazy crap.

You may remember Baker from his previous assertion that basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson had faked testing positive for HIV, because as everyone remembers, in the early 1990s nothing was cooler than pretending to have AIDS. Now, most radio hosts would kill to have just one crazy statement like that, driving the ratings and whipping up conservative resentment of multimillionaire basketball players who have spent their retirement building up the poorer areas of Los Angeles through investment. But not Chris! No, he’s just getting started.

According to the George Soros-controlled Media Matters, in his brief time in Minneapolis Baker has:

• Said that the murder of transwoman Latiesha Green was the media’s fault, saying, “I believe the media and the rest of the enablers out there, they have this guy’s [sic] blood on their hands because they create this false sense of reality and they enable people who need serious psychological counseling.” Because nothing says Liberal Media Conspiracy like the argument that people should be able to live their lives without being shot.
• Said, “I don’t think homeless people should vote. Frankly. In fact, I have to be very honest. I’m not that excited about women voting, to be honest.” Honestly!
• Suggested his gal Sarah Palin “shoulda had a little cleavage going” during her debate with Joe Biden. (Thank goodness she didn’t, it could have killed Rich Lowry.) Baker continued to show the kind of not-sexism that the GOP showered upon their veep, saying “[S]how your stuff, you know what I’m saying? Use all your assets….By the way, I noticed a panty line on her. … When they turned to walk to the podium, I saw a panty line.”
• Said of Code Pink protesters, “I’ll tell you, though, in the speech — the best part of the speech was when those Code Pink nuts — another bunch that ought to have all their tubes tied. All right? I can’t stand these Code Pink broads.”
• Called Thomas Beatie, the transman who has become pregnant twice, a “mutilated lesbian.”
• And while he didn’t say it himself, he promoted a video of a pastor who called Barack Obama’s mother “trash” for having a child with a black man.

Heckuva guy, huh? He also, just for the record, argued for the use of ax handles and machine guns against RNC protesters who, as far as I can tell, broke a window at Macy’s and…well, that’s it. Misogynistic, transphobic, racist — I assume homophobic, since it really is part and parcel of that worldview.

Of course, Baker is hardly alone in using sexism and hate to sell his agenda — it’s pretty much expected on the right. But for a guy to do so much in such a short time…well, it’s inspiring to all the hatchet men and haters on the right. Baker has set a high bar for his fellow wingnuts to clear. And I shudder to think what he’ll do next. Because while I suspect Baker doesn’t believe half the stuff that comes out of his mouth, we all know that a lot of his listeners do — and Baker has given the thumbs-up to violence against women and transpeople, given the green light to attacking liberal protesters. He’s opened the door to a lot of hate and evil. But that’s what the best right-wing talkers do, now, isn’t it?

Some good news, via Bean:

SILVERTON, Ore. (AP) - Four protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas were in Silverton yesterday to protest the election of the nation’s first openly transgender mayor.

They were overmatched by a large group of counter-protesters who rallied in support of the Mayor Stu Rasmussen.

Rasmussen has twice before been mayor of the small city. But he served those terms before his breast implants and before he started wearing dresses and 3-inch heels openly in public.

The protesters arrived with an assortment of signs, such as “God Hates You,” and “Barack Obama = Antichrist.”

But the town greeted the protesters with a festive counter-protest. More than 100 people paraded in the street and some men wore women’s clothing in a show of support for Rasmussen.

From gender.org:

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgendered — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgendered people.

We live in times more sensitive than ever to hatred based violence, especially since the events of September 11th. Yet even now, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored. Over the last decade, more than one person per month has died due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives. This trend shows no sign of abating.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgendered people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds non-transgendered people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives our allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorializing those of us who’ve died by anti-transgender violence.

That was via Jack at Angry Brown Butch, who has some excellent suggestions for how you can take action.

Bird of Paradox and Feministe both have link round-ups.

Cross-posted from The Mustard Seed.

“Any male who wears as woman’s attire in public for immoral purposes shall be guilty of an offense and on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding one thousand or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both.”
-Section 28, Syariah Criminal Offenses (Federal Territories)

Unlike other majority Islamic countries that have law based on Syariah or have secular laws influenced by Syariah, Malaysia doesn’t allow for sex change operations. Countries such as Egypt, under the dictatorial secular ND party allow for sex changes for those whom are considered to benefit from such operations; the same with the Islamic Republic of Iran under mullahs of the Guardian Council.

However, in Malaysia this is not the case (even though it used to be until the early 1980s) which has caused much despair and trauma for the Mak Nyah (transsexual) population in Malaysia estimated to be numbered at around 25 to 30 thousand.

Journalist and videographer Poh Si Teng, whom I have the pleasure of calling my friend and have been able to work with, decided to spend some time with Mak Nyahs in Kuala Lumpur to chronicle their hardships, feelings, and thoughts about being Mak Nyah in a society that rejects them with its laws and its homespun take on Sunni Islam.

Her documentary (click here to buy), titled Pecah Lobang (”Busted”), chronicles the lives of Mak Nyah prostitutes in Kuala Lumpur who have taken to prostitution in order to support their families (as they can’t normally find jobs within mainstream society). Along with putting their lives within the lens of a video camera she also gets them to open up and talk about police brutality, relationships with their families, and their relationship with God.

Read more »

In August, I blogged about Diane Schroer, a highly qualified special forces veteran who was offered a position at the Library of Congress as a terrorism research analyst. The Library withdrew the job offer when Schroer informed them that she was in the process of changing sex.

Today, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Schroer’s favor. (Curtsy to Questioning Transphobia and The Debate Link.)

Congratulations to Diane Schroer and to the ACLU for winning this case. I’m especially excited because the judge endorses a legal theory that mirrors my own belief that transphobia is just another form of sexism. Judge Robertson ruled that the existing Title VII law covers cases of anti-trans discrimination. Because discrimination against trans people is a form of sex discrimination.

From Judge Robertson’s ruling (pdf link):

Imagine that an employee is fired because she converts from Christianity to Judaism. Imagine too that her employer testifies that he harbors no bias toward either Christians or Jews but only “converts.” That would be a clear case of discrimination “because of religion.” No court would take seriously the notion that “converts” are not covered by the statute. Discrimination “because of religion” easily encompasses discrimination because of a change of religion. But in cases where the plaintiff has changed her sex, and faces discrimination because of the decision to stop presenting as a man and to start appearing as a woman, courts have traditionally carved such persons out of the statute by concluding that “transsexuality” is unprotected by Title VII. In other words, courts have allowed their focus on the label “transsexual” to blind them to the statutory language itself.

The decisions holding that Title VII only prohibits discrimination against men because they are men, and discrimination against women because they are women, represent an elevation of “judge-supposed legislative intent over clear statutory text.” [...] As Justice Scalia wrote for a unanimous court:

Male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was assuredly not the principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII. But statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed.

For Diane Schroer to prevail on the facts of her case, however, it is not necessary to draw sweeping conclusions about the reach of Title VII. Even if the decisions that define the word “sex” in Title VII as referring only to anatomical or chromosomal sex are still good law [...] the Library’s refusal to hire Schroer after being advised that she planned to change her anatomical sex by undergoing sex reassignment surgery was literally discrimination “because of . . . sex.” [...]

In refusing to hire Diane Schroer because her appearance and background did not comport with the decisionmaker’s sex stereotypes about how men and women should act and appear . . . the Library of Congress violated Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination.

This is the sort of thing that makes me pump my arm in the air and yell “YES!” I’m hoping very hard this ruling stands up on appeal.

In unrelated, but also good, legal news, the Judge in the Angie Zampata murder case declined to lessen the charges from first to second degree murder based on a “trans panic” defense. Curtsy: Gaytheist Agenda.

This is a documentary by my wonderful friend (whom I had the honor of meeting in a mass media and law class which has developed into what will obviously be a life long friendship) Poh Si Teng.

From the Washington Post:

The offer, for a job as a terrorism research analyst, was pulled the day after Schroer told her future boss that she was making the medical transition from being a man, David, to being a woman, Diane.[...]

Schroer, of Alexandria, had a prestigious military career that ended in retirement in 2004 after seven years in the Army’s Special Forces command. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Schroer became director of a 120-member classified organization that tracked and targeted international terrorists. She routinely briefed the country’s top officials, including Vice President Cheney.[...]

The Library of Congress, represented by Justice Department attorneys, has argued that Schroer cannot sue because the Civil Rights Act does not protect transsexuals or prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Anyone else reminded of the desperately needed Farsi and Arabic linguists the Pentagon fired for being queer?

So is it the case that conservatives really don’t believe that the “war on terror” is really very serious, and that’s why they won’t bother employing the best anti-terrorism experts if they happen to be trans or queer? Or is it that their bigotry is so extreme and irrational that they’d honestly prefer for more Americans to die in terrorist attacks, rather than allow gay, lesbian and/or trans people to be employed? I’m honestly not sure which it is.

(Curtsy: The Debate Link.)

Mandolin pointed this out to me: Rachel Moss, who attended Wiscon this weekend, posted a mean-spirited con report on the Something Awful forums. Moss’ con report consisted of photos of fat, female attendees, their faces covered by crude frowny-faces that Moss had drawn in, and text mocking the attendees.¹

Moss has since posted an apology on her livejournal, and convinced the Something Awful administrators to remove her post. Rumor has it that Wiscon is considering banning Moss from attending future Wiscons. (Wiscon is an exceptionally fat-friendly convention.)

Although Moss’ post is no longer on Something Awful, the first half of her post was posted without her permission on “The Something Awful Sycophant Squad” forums - don’t click that link if you’re easily triggered by fat mocking. It’s not just Moss’ original post that’s bad; the people at the SASS forum searched flckr for more photos of female Wiscon attendees to make fun of. It goes on for four pages (and growing?).

Three things I take away from this:

1) It’s all about keeping deviant bodies in line.

Although the primary focus of Moss’ post is anti-fat bigotry, she seamlessly transitions into anti-trans bigotry, writing about a trans speaker on a panel:

“He” is a non-op transgendered person…a person who looks like a woman, talks like a woman, likes men, but says that I AM A MALE AND YOU WILL REFER TO ME AS SUCH. It’d be easier if he/she just drew on a beard or something. Geez. Try harder. [...] The transgendered she-he says that she-he brightens her day by walking through the park, sticking her-his fingers into flowers to use to pollinate other flowers that she-he likes.

Then, later in the SASS thread, the SASS posters mock photos of a disabled Wiscon attendee.

Why do these things go so smoothly together, like peanut butter and chocolate in a Reese’s commercial? I think that anti-fat bigotry, anti-trans bigotry, and ablism overlap in that all three bigotries are a sort of body fascism. Those who have what society considers the “default body” — by being thin, by being ablebodied, or by being born with genitals that match one’s gender identity — are considered superior to those without the default body, and have the right to mock inferior people with non-default bodies.

And, of course, men also have the “default body,” and women do not. So it’s not surprising that the anti-fat, anti-trans, anti-disabled bigotry in the SASS thread is also shot through and through with misogyny.

2) The anti-fat, anti-trans fairy strikes!

Rachel Moss’ apology, while apparently heartfelt, reminds me a little bit of Michael Richards and the racism fairy. Moss writes:

I was upset about completely different things which were completely unrelated, and my expression of that was DISGUSTING.

I find Moss’ formulation odd, because she views her post as an expression of “completely different things which were completely unrelated.” I don’t doubt that she was upset about unrelated events, but what she posted was, in fact, an expression of sneering, ugly bigotry. No matter how heartfelt Moss’ apology, it isn’t worth much to me as a fat person, or as someone with trans friends, unless Moss acknowledges that what she did was anti-fat, anti-trans bigotry.

3) This kind of shit does real harm.

Speaking from my own experience,² Moss’ kind of anti-fat bigotry does real harm.

A while back, Sadly, No! posted a photo of a right-wing science fiction writer tabling at a con, making fun of how fat he is. Like that right-winger, I table at conventions, and that Sadly, No! thread - and thousands of similar lame clichéd jokes³ - have invaded my consciousness. Although I’d prefer not to, I know some people will sneer at me just for appearing in public. I feel I can’t wear casual t-shirts to cons (even though that’s what most of my friends wear), because fat people are so easily seen as “slobs.”⁴

This is an additional barrier that fat people have to overcome. Some fat people sail blithely through it, and damn I envy those fatties. For some fat people, it’s a problem that keeps them from appearing in public, leading them to give up social contacts and important career networking. Most, like me, are somewhere between. Every time someone mocks fat people - and mocking the fat people at science fiction and comic book conventions is commonplace - it’s another data point telling fat people yeah, maybe they should stay home; yeah, they don’t dare dress like their friends because horrid, unruly fat bodies must be covered; yeah, it’s true, they are deviants. And it’s wrong.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, Kate Moss has removed her apology and issued a statement of non-apology. She also released a “I’m not sorry” statement, but she’s now removed that, as well.

UPDATE 2: Tempest writes:

I was scrolling through the thread and looking at the pictures and, instead of being ashamed that I associate myself with such people (horrors!), I couldn’t help but think of how beautiful all those images are. They are pictures of beautiful women of all sizes smiling, having fun, loving where they are and what they’re doing. These are the poeple I go to WisCon to be around. And nothing those half-brained monkeys on that forum say can make me feel any different. You wanna call me out as a fat loser? You go right ahead. But it’s plainly evident that I not only have more class than you, I also have a better life and better friends. All the evidence I need to support that statement is my lack of time spent on the internet trolling for pictures of people I don’t know in order to make fun of them for arbitrary reasons.

MORE UPDATES!

Lesley at Fatshionista responds beautifully. Here’s a sample:

Take my picture, and post it online, in as many high-traffic spaces as you can muster. Identify me if you want. By name, by location, by employer. Surround that picture with vitriolic commentary about my body, my femininity or lack thereof, my perceived sexual habits, my self esteem. Laugh, and laugh, and laugh, that gut-rattling laughter of unmitigated cruelty, that laughter that comes from laughing at people who don’t know you’re laughing at them, who were going about their lives and made a target simply for not falling, unseen, unremarkably, into culturally acceptable slots - people who are targets simply for failing to be invisible. [...]

I am still fat, and I am still not sorry. And nothing you can say, nothing you can post, nothing you can do will change that. No matter how many times you try to humiliate me. No matter how much you want me to hate myself. Because it’s my fucking body. And I don’t owe you a damn thing.

And a wonderful response from “Purplefrog26,” who is one of the people whose picture Moss posted. It’s got a great photo of her, too.

And BadgerBag, whose photos appeared in the SASS thread, tries to find a way towards solidarity with Moss. Which I think is damned impressive of her to try — although Moss certainly isn’t making it easy.

1. Although Moss obscured faces, she didn’t white out the people’s name badges. (back)
2. Although I’m fairly certain that many disabled and trans folks have similar stories to tell. (back)
3. See: “The Simpsons,” Comic Book Guy. (back)
4. Actually, I am a slob. But that’s not because I’m fat. Woody Allen once said something like “It’s true I’m a Jew. And it’s true I hate myself. But the two aren’t related.” (back)

I was hoping something like this existed! Thanks to reader Nicole for sending the link.

Some real anti-science, anti-equality jerks have been nominated to the committees for revising the DSM defitnitions for paraphilia (for those who don’t know the word, here’s a *very* loose definition: sexual fetishes which have become pathological… obviously, a highly controversial topic) and gender identity disorder.

The jerk on the committee for redesigning gender identity disorder was recently featured on an NPR special which discusses how two families grapple with sons’ gender preferences (h/t Holly’s extremely moving post The Sissy-Whupping Method). Zucker’s attempted “treatment” for the boy he was working with was to try to “cure” him by separating him from all varieties of femininity:

to treat Bradley, Zucker explained to Carol that she and her husband would have to radically change their parenting. Bradley would no longer be allowed to spend time with girls. He would no longer be allowed to play with girlish toys or pretend that he was a female character. Zucker said that all of these activities were dangerous to a kid with gender identity disorder. He explained that unless Carol and her husband helped the child to change his behavior, as Bradley grew older, he likely would be rejected by both peer groups. Boys would find his feminine interests unappealing. Girls would want more boyish boys. Bradley would be an outcast.

Carol resolved to do her best. Still, these were huge changes. By the time Bradley started therapy he was almost 6 years old, and Carol had a house full of Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets. She now had to remove them. To cushion the blow, she didn’t take the toys away all at once; she told Bradley that he could choose one or two toys a day.

“In the beginning, he didn’t really care, because he’d picked stuff he didn’t play with,” Carol says. “But then it really got down to the last few.”

As his pile of toys dwindled, Carol realized Bradley was hoarding. She would find female action figures stashed between couch pillows. Rainbow unicorns were hidden in the back of Bradley’s closet. Bradley seemed at a loss, she said. They gave him male toys, but he chose not to play at all.

“He turned to coloring and drawing, and he just simply wouldn’t play with anything. And he would color and draw for hours and hours and hours. And that would be all he did in a day,” Carol says. “I think he was really lost. … The whole way that he knew and understood how to play was just sort of, you know, removed from his house.”

His drawings, however, also proved problematic. Bradley would populate his pictures with the toys and interests he no longer had access to — princesses with long flowing hair, fairies in elaborate dresses, rainbows of pink and purple and pale yellow. So, under Zucker’s direction, Carol and her husband sought to change this as well.

“We would ask him, ‘Can you draw a boy for us? Can you draw a boy in that picture?’ … And then he didn’t really want us to see his drawings or watch him drawing because we would always say ‘Can you draw a boy?’” Carol says. “And then finally after, I don’t know, a month or two, he just said, ‘Momma, I don’t know how. … I don’t know how to draw a boy.’”

Carol says she finally sat down and showed him. From then on, Bradley drew boys as directed. Male figures with anemic caps of hair on their heads filled the pages of his sketchbook.

Clearly, this man should NOT be involved with the DSM definition of gender identity disorder. So, go sign the petition. Here’s an excerpt:

>On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative therapy to Ccure gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zuckers mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as  man paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman

The letter I attached to my petition signature:

It is imperative to psychiatry that it remain a valid field by sponsoring the work of men and women who do good science and who are progressive in terms of civil rights. There is no place for bigotry and bad science in the ranks of psychiatry. The DSM has done well to remove homosexuality from its listing. It would do well to continue in that vein instead of idly permitting more shameful and regressive acts to be committed in its name.

Via Ldragoon, an essay by Julia Serano, “Skirt Chasers: Why the Media Depicts the Trans Revolution in Lipstick and Heels.” The essay is long and all of it is excellent, which makes picking a few sample paragraphs while doing justice to the piece impossible. But I’m a blogger, and that’s what I do, so:

Media depictions of trans women, whether they take the form of fictional characters or actual people, usually fall under one of two main archetypes: the “deceptive” transsexual or the “pathetic” transsexual. While characters of both models have an interest in achieving an ultrafeminine appearance, they differ in their abilities to pull it off. Because the “deceivers” successfully pass as women, they generally act as unexpected plot twists, or play the role of sexual predators who fool innocent straight guys into falling for “men.” [..]

Even though “deceivers” successfully pass as women, and are often played by female actors (with the notable exception of Jaye Davidson as Dil), these characters are never intended to challenge our assumptions about gender itself. On the contrary, they are positioned as “fake” women, and their secret trans status is revealed in a dramatic “moment of truth”. At the moment of exposure, the “deceiver’s” appearance (her femaleness) is reduced to mere illusion, and her secret (her maleness) becomes the real identity. [...]

In virtually all depictions of trans women, whether real or fictional, “deceptive” or “pathetic”, the underlying assumption is that the trans woman wants to achieve a stereotypically feminine appearance and gender role. The possibility that trans women are even capable of making a distinction between identifying as female and wanting to cultivate a hyperfeminine image is never raised. In fact, the media often dwells on the specifics of the feminization process, showing trans women in the act of “putting on” their feminine exteriors. It’s telling that TV, film, and news producers tend not to be satisfied with merely showing trans women wearing feminine clothes and makeup. Rather, it is their intent to capture trans women in the act of putting on lipstick, dresses, and high heels, thereby making it clear to the audience that the trans woman’s femaleness is an artificial mask or costume. [...]

What always goes unseen are the great lengths to which producers will go to depict lurid and superficial scenes in which trans women get all dolled up in pretty clothes and cosmetics. Shawna Virago, a San Francisco trans activist, musician, and codirector of the TrannyFest film festival, has experienced several such incidents with local news producers. For instance, when Virago was organizing a forum to facilitate communication between police and the trans community, a newspaper reporter approached her and other transgender activists for an article. However, the paper was interested not in their politics but in their transitions: “They wanted each of us to include ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures. This pissed me off, and I tried to explain to the writer that the before-and-after stuff had nothing to do with police abuse and other issues, like trans women and HIV, but he didn’t get it. So I was cut from the piece.” [...]

When audiences watch scenes of trans women putting on skirts and makeup, they are not necessarily seeing a reflection of the values of those trans women; they are witnessing the TV, film, and news producers’ obsession with all objects commonly associated with female sexuality. In other words, the media’s and audience’s fascination with the feminization of trans women is a by-product of their sexualization of all women.

The entire essay includes a discussion of the invisibility of trans men in media depictions of transsexuals, and a critique of the essentialism and sexism of Janice Raymond style anti-trans views within feminism. It’s worth reading the whole thing.

The essay was later incorporated into Serano’s book Whipping Girl, which I haven’t read but now really want to.