Random Musings

Still loving Obama’s “I won both of them” from the other night, and loving the fact that, as much as the GOP tries to portray him as a Muslim illegal immigrant, he keeps going and going and, well, gosh darn, people are liking him, again.

His poll numbers are at 50% approval rating.

Another snap at the GOP!

Speaking of Obama’s SOTU the other night:

Bobby Jindal's Nit-Twit response? 'Your welcome.? He could’a used some free community college, no?

On to American Horror Story …

After this season Jessica Lange is said to be leaving and creator Ryan Murphy has announced that the show will reinvent itself—something I thought it did every season.

I am liking Freak Show, but it is kind of ‘kitchen sink’-ish in that they just keep throwing more into it, when sometimes less is more, and better.

Twisty the Clown? Gone too soon.

Frances Conroy? Gone too soon.

And they kind of wasted Angela Basset and Gabourey Sidibe this season, though I did like the links between Freak Show and Asylum; that was cool.

That said, i liked the finale; I liked the way they tied up some of the characters' storylines; i liked the way Elsa went out; and, of course, Dandy in his Tighty Whities is always a treat!.

Speaking of TV, we like Grimm …

The stories are interesting, and different, and, well, David Giuntoli is easy on the eyes. But last week there was a new cop, a kinda bad cop, on the show, played by Will Rothhaar.

Totes adorbs. But, seeing as he’s a bad guy, I imagine he will be dying soon.

Also back on TV, the entirely swoon-worthy Timothy Olyphant is back for the last season of Justified.

Man.Candy.

I am infuriated by all the backlash against people who have come out against Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, calling it, as Michael Moore did, a propaganda film for war; or Seth Rogen, who also bashed the film.

That sent the likes of Dean Cain into a frenzy, and he called Rogen out for never have gone to war, which lead me to wonder: Dean? Which war did you fight in?

Also fuming at Moore and Rogen were the Mama Grizzly Bore™ and Rob Lowe, who seem to have forgotten that men like U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle — the American Sniper portrayed in the film — fought for the rights of Americans, including the right not to like a movie.

Siddown you three.

Also on TV last week was an episode of Glee, now limping along in its last season, The show started off good and fun and cute, then veered off into the ridiculous, though every so often they come along with an episode that makes you think.

Like last week when Coach Bieste announced that she was transgender and was undergoing gender reassignment. A lot of folks don’t ‘get’ what it means to be transgender, and equate it with being gay or lesbian or bisexual only. The question was posed to Coach Bieste, assigned the female gender at birth, if she would be a gay man after the surgery, and Coach Bieste replied:

"It's not about who I go to bed with, it's about who I go to bed as."

I think that is one of the best responses to the question of what transgender means as I have ever heard.

The White House State Of The Union luncheon is an annual tradition and every year dignitaries and news personalities are invited to join the President in a pre-speech feast. But this year’s lunch featured a delightful jab at the folks at Fox news, and a bit of a reality check.

According to Fox News’ Shepherd Smith,  he noticed something a little strange about the place cards on the tables:

“I sat next to Brian Williams, we all have these place cards, and his said ‘Brian Williams NBC News.’  Across from me was the new guy, David Muir, it said ‘David Muir ABC News.’  Over next to the President was Scott Pelley and it said ‘Scott Pelley ABC News.’  I looked at mine, and it doesn’t say anything about news, it just says ‘Fox.’  And I looked at Bret Baier’s and it just said ‘Bret Baier Fox.’  But all the rest of them got ‘News.’ I mean I don’t care, lunch was great.  But, uh, I guess there’s a message received. “

The message, Shep, is that Fox is not News and everyone knows it.

An Open Letter to Carla Alcorn

Dear Carla Alcorn,

First off, let me say how sorry I am that your child, Leelah, your daughter, died last week. It broke my heart to hear her story, as I know it broke the hearts of many.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have broken your heart because, even after her death, you refuse to see that your child was struggling; you refuse to see that all she wanted was to be loved, to be understood, to be validated. You cannot even be bothered to call her by her name.

And that’s because you and your husband put your “religion” ahead of your child. You said you don’t support that … being transgender … religiously; that is transgender; that was your child; the fact that you didn’t support that caused your child to step onto a highway into oncoming traffic.

I’m sorry for that.

I’m sorry Leelah didn’t have parents who loved her unconditionally; I’m sorry Leelah had parents who, when they were told their own child felt “differently,” and had found a word to explain that difference, that her parents told her she was sick, she was wrong, she needed therapy.

She needed to be loved. She needed to be loved.

Sadly, you seem to forget that he wasn’t a ‘boy,’ but she was a young woman struggling with gender identity and your refusal to see that, understand that, accept that, set your religion aside and just simply  love your child, lead to Leelah’s death.

All of us in that LGBTQ spectrum have had feelings of being different, of not fitting in, and we have all voiced those feelings at some time or another to our parents; luckily, a great many of us had parents who, while not fully understanding what it means to be gay or transgender, still told their children that they loved them.

You told your daughter she was wrong; sure, maybe you can say you didn’t use that word; maybe you can say that she wasn’t transgender because ‘God’ doesn’t make mistakes, but when you took her to therapy, she knew what you thought of her; and it wasn’t love.

And you talked to CNN about the medications your daughter was given by counselors and therapists, and you talked about how Leelah never spoke of being transgender again like she had maybe changed her mind. The fact is she stopped talking to you about being transgender because she knew you didn’t accept her; she kept quiet because, in silence, she knew she would never have to hear you tell her she was wrong any more.

You told CNN that there are all kinds of hateful messages on the internet calling you and your husband “horrible people.” Did you once, just once, think that telling your daughter she was “wrong” was a hateful message, or did you just forget about her and think only about your religion, your faith, what people might say about you knowing you had a transgender child?

Again, I am sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for your lack of acceptance. I’m sorry you don’t understand. I’m sorry you turned your back on your child and she walked away from your house that day and never came back.

She could have been amazing, and now we’ll never know because you told her she was wrong, but it was you, Carla, you and your husband who were wrong. It was the wrong choice of words, and the wrong choice, choosing religion over your own child; wrong choice not listening.

Leelah was right, and she would have been all right had she had parents who truly loved her unconditionally. She could have been amazing … she was on her way. Even in her suicide note, she showed more compassion than her parents, when she asked that you give all of her things and money to the transgender civil rights movement and to transgender support groups:

"The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was, they're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year...Fix society. Please."

And, Carla, you can start fixing things now by calling your daughter by her name:

Leelah Alcorn. Stop refusing to accept that she was Leelah, even in death. She was your daughter, she was your child.

Say her name, Leelah Alcorn. Give her that much.

via CNN

Leelah's story on ISBL

Different Parents, Same Issue, Different Outcome

Josh Alcorn was assigned the male gender at birth but that never felt right, and when he was fourteen he learned what ‘transgender’ meant; he learned that maybe he wasn’t Josh, that maybe she was Leelah. And suddenly everything seemed right; right up until Leelah told her parents.

In a post to her Tumblr blog, Leelah wrote:

“After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong.”

Can you imagine telling your parent your deepest, darkest secret, one that will finally allow you to live in the light, and having them tell you that you’re wrong?

Leelah’s parents took her to a therapist, a Christian therapist; she says all they did was tell her she was selfish and, again, wrong; they told her to look to God for help. But Leelah knew God couldn’t help, so she waited; she was sixteen, and would wait until she was 18 and then leave home and live her life; at 18 she could begin transitioning.

Still, she rebelled in the only way she knew how: she came out at school as gay, hoping this would shock her parents into understanding who she was; it didn’t. While Leelah’s friends understood, and accepted her as a gay man, her parents grew angrier:

“They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted. So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed … I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.”

Finally, her parents relented — not in accepting their child was transgender, or even gay mind you — and let her have her phone back, let her have her social media back, let her have her friends back. But nothing else changed.

“After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. “

Leelah Alcorn stepped in front of a moving tractor trailer truck on southbound Interstate 71 in Union Township last Sunday morning.  Now her parents have no child, whether boy or girl; all they have are the memories of an unhappy child, desperate to be heard, to be understood, to be loved; to be herself.

The story could end there, with my heart breaking at the idea of what was done to Leelah Alcorn in the name of God, but there’s another story, this time of a girl assigned the female gender at birth and how her, his, parents dealt with it.

Shiloh has never felt female, has always more identified with male gender, and when she told her mother how she felt, well, her mother said:

“She wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys’ everything. She thinks she’s one of the brothers.”

Shiloh even asked to be called John, and her parents, and her family, call him that. His parents don’t know if this is a phase, if they have a daughter who is a tomboy, or a son who desperately wants to be himself, but what they do know is that they love their child, and will do whatever is necessary to make their child happy. They have not looked at Shiloh’s desire to dress and act like a boy as “just a phase.” Instead, the couple has embraced their child, and given her the opportunity to explore who she really is.

And that meant going out with Dad and the brothers one night when Mom was sick; John asked to wear a suit just like his brothers, and so he was given a suit. And all the pictures of John in that suit show a happy child, a contented child, a loved child. And John’s, or Shiloh’s, parents must be happy knowing that their child feels loved and accepted as Shiloh or John, with short hair or long hair, in a suit, or a dress, because, really, that’s what parents should be doing for their children.

At least that’s what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are doing for John. They are letting their child explore gender, find himself, or herself, where he or she fits in, without fear of being unloved, unwanted.

I’d ask who the better parents are, but it’s very clear the better parents are the ones whose child is still here, walking a red carpet in a suit, and not walking in from of a semi-truck on the highway because her parents told her she was wrong.

Brad and Angelina via Inquisitr

Leelah Alcorn via Patheos

A Different Kind Of Birth Announcement

Quite possibly the best birth announcement ever, and definitely the most beautiful.

Kai was born in 1995 as Elizabeth, but at age 19 his parents printed a retraction of that nearly two decades old announcement and replaced it with a new one.

"A retraction - Bogert

In 1995 we announced the arrival of our sprogget, Elizabeth Anne, as a daughter.

He informs us that we were mistaken. Oops!

Our bad. We would now like to present our wonderful son Kai Bogert.

Loving you is the easiest thing in the world.

Tidy your room.”

:::sniff sniff::

via HuffPo

Transgender Lives Matter

One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou:

The ache for home lives in all of us, that safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

As gay people, sometimes we cannot go home, because we are questioned, we are disowned, we are denied. And because of that, we often create a new family — because our birth families have shunned us — out of a group of friends, gay or straight.

I was lucky, though. While I believe that my parents may have a hard time realizing they had a gay son, it didn’t take them long to realize that a gay son was still their son, still to be loved, still to be family.

That didn’t happen for Jennifer Gable. Not in life, and most certainly not in death.

Jennifer Gable was a 32-year-old transgender woman who lived in Idaho and worked at a Wells Fargo bank. Although born a man, she had been living as a female, her true self, for the past few years and, last month, while at work, she suffered an aneurysm and died on the job.

That’s heartbreaking; what happened next was disgusting.

When her friends and co-workers attended Jennifer’s funeral, they were stunned to find an open casket, with Jennifer presented as a man – dressed in a suit, with her long cut off.

In fact, the funeral wasn’t for their friend; it was for Geoffrey Charles Gable. That’s the name in the obituary that Jennifer’s family sent to the local paper:

Geoffrey Charles Gable, 32, Boise, passed away suddenly on October 9, 2014 while at his job at Wells Fargo Bank.

He was born in Twin Falls on January 27, 1982 to Anthony Clark Gable and Lori Ann Walton.

Geoff and his brother, Steven, were raised from toddlers by their maternal grandparents, George and Joan Walton.

He attended Morningside Elementary School, O’Leary Junior High and graduated from Twin Falls High School in the year 2000.

He was married to Ann Arthurs in 2005 in Hawaii. They were later divorced.

Geoff grew up as a member of the Twin Falls First Christian Church, where he was baptized in 1996.

She was erased. There was no Jennifer; there was Geoffrey and there was ‘he’ in the obituary and ‘him’ in the obituary and ‘his’ in the obituary.

Meghan Stabler, a board member of Human Rights Campaign who had assisted Gable when she transitioned called it an “erosion’:

“Just erosion of her identity and an old photograph of how the father perceived her to be. I only knew her online. She reached out to me a couple of years ago when she was in transition. The usual: What do I need to worry about at work? Am I going to be OK? Is life going to be better? Can you assure me everything is going to be OK?”

And everything was okay until Jennifer passed away, and then her family made her out to be what they wanted her to be, a man, and not who Jennifer was: Jennifer.

“She had done what she needed to do legally to be seen as her authentic self. Her father erased her identity either though ignorance or arrogance.” — Meghan Stabler

Even the death certificate listed Jennifer Gable as male. But she wasn’t male, she was female, and no matter what her ‘family’ — the one into which she was born — wants to think, she will be Jennifer Gable in the hearts and minds of the family that truly loved her, and knew her, and wanted her.

RIP Jennifer Gable.

source

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Nearly every two weeks, a person is killed somewhere in the world for expressing gender nonconformity. This sobering statistic does not include the numerous other deaths that never receive media attention or are not reported to police, making the full scope of lives lost to senseless antitrans prejudice truly innumerable.

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, the 15th anniversary of the first TDOR, held in Allston, Mass., to memorialize Rita Hester, a trans woman of color who was murdered in 1999. Over the years, TDOR has catalogued the loss of hundreds of trans and gender-nonconforming people — individuals who, within their often short lifetimes, were beloved family members, friends, and members of their communities — who faced attackers wielding slurs, weapons, and fists. Some were killed by intimate partners, some by strangers, while still others were children slain by parents who were intolerant of their gender variance.

And while transgender people, along with friends, loved ones, family, and allies, somberly remember those killed because of antitrans violence today, we also remember that there are still countless instances of transphobic acts occurring each year that do not end in death — many of which are never reported to media or authorities. Likewise, murders not covered by the media tend to become more difficult to communally memorialize on this day.

While The Advocate's memorial coverage to mark this year's TDOR focuses on women whose deaths were covered in the English-speaking press, we also honor countless other precious lives marred by violence and the multitude of others whose passing goes unspoken.

So, once again, we ask that you draw your attention to those whose deaths we mourn, not simply to cause sadness, but to raise awareness of the need for a world in which such constant mourning is never requisite again.

Alejandra Leos was fatally shot in the back while trying to leave her Memphis, Tennessee home after a fight with her boyfriend, Miguel Pegues. He has been charged with first-degree murder.

Aniya Parker was shot October 3 in Los Angeles by a group of men during what police consider a "robbery gone wrong." Nearby surveillance video recorded the attackers attempting to take Parker's purse; however, the fact that the bag was left at the scene has left some trans advocates believing she was targeted because of her gender identity.

Ashley (Michelle) Sherman was found October 27 with a gunshot wound to the head, lying underneath a light pole at Indianapolis's Tudor Park condominiums. Officials are still unsure whether she died where she was found or was moved there, but are not investigating her death as a hate crime at this time.

Betty Skinner was found December 4, 2013, at her Cleveland senior apartment complex, dead from severe head injuries. A physically disabled woman who required assisted living, she was unable to leave her bed during the attack. There are no leads or suspects.

Gizzy Fowler was found earlier this month, shot dead outside her car in the driveway of a Nashville residence. Police are still investigating who killed Fowler and why she was at the house, which was unoccupied. 

Jennifer Laude was found strangled in a bathroom in Olongapo, Philippines October 11. U.S. Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton was charged with the murder, which he is accused of committing during military training exercises.

Kandy Hall died from massive bodily trauma from an unknown object. The Annapolis hairdresser's body was found in an empty field near a Baltimore school in June. Police have not yet been able to arrest a suspect.

Brittany-Nicole Kidd-Stergis died December 5, 2013, after receiving a gunshot wound to the head while sitting in her parked car in Cleveland. Six months later Delshawn Carroll was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison after confessing to the murder.

Mayang Prasetyo was murdered, police believe, by her newlywed husband, Marcus Peter Volke, who was allegedly upset that Prasetyo wanted to move out of the couple's home in Brisbane, Australia. Volke fled the scene and committed suicide before he could be arrested. 

Mia Henderson was discovered dead in a Baltimore alley while police were investigating a separate, unrelated local crime. While her murder reportedly bore similarities to that of local trans woman Kandy Hall, who was found dead in an empty Baltimore field in June, police declined to directly connect the two murders — both of which remain unsolved.

Tiffany Edwards was shot to death in Walnut Hills, Ohio in June. Quamar Edwards — who is not related to Tiffany — turned himself in six days later, after police issued a warrant for his arrest. Edwards reportedly voiced a "trans panic" defense through an uncle, who alleged that the assailant "lost his cool" after Tiffany "came on to him."

Yaz'min Shancez was found deceased behind a garbage bin on a private road in Fort Myers, Florida in June. Her remains had been burned post-mortem. Police were reluctant to rule Shancez's murder a hate crime and have not publicly named a suspect.

Zoraida Reyes immigrated from Michoacan, Mexico, to live with her family in Orange County, California. In June, when Reyes's body was discovered behind an Anaheim Dairy Queen, officials were initially at a loss about what caused her death. Four months later, police arrested Randy Lee Parkerson on suspicion that he choked Reyes to death. 

An Unknown Victim was allegedly killed by an intimate partner in Detroit's Palmer Park in August; LGBT advocates say she was a transgender woman. After the murder, the perpetrator reportedly drove away and crashed into another car nearby, then took off on foot, leaving his gun behind. Detroit police quickly arrested Eduardo Moss, who is suspected of attacking two other trans women near Palmer Park the previous week.

An Unknown Victim whose body was found locked inside her burning apartment in Tbilisi, in the Republic of Georgia, has been identified by Georgian LGBT activists as a 25-year-old trans woman. The fire appears to have been an attempt to destroy evidence related to the murder.

Çağla Joker was fatally shot in the chest on April 21 in her home in Istanbul while spending time with another trans woman, Nalan. Nalan was wounded in the assault but survived. Two suspects, ages 17 and 19, were quickly arrested for the murder after being caught fleeing the scene on a security camera. The suspects claimed they intended to have sexual relations with their victims and shot Joker and Nalan after realizing the women were trans.

Gypsie Gül was killed in her east Istanbul home October 10. Her body was found two days later when a friend visited. Officials have not determined whether Gül was targeted for being trans or was killed in a robbery attempt.

Jacqui Cowdrey died in her Worthing, England, home in November 2013. The exact cause of her death was never released, but officials believe she was arguing with 63-year-old Charles Schofield outside a local pub in the hours before her death. Police arrested him as well as a 34-year-old man on suspicion of murder; the pair quickly posted bail and left custody. Schofield was eventually convicted of assaulting Cowdrey, and the younger suspect is no longer being investigated.

Keeta Bakhsh of Bahawalpur, Pakistan, died after being released from the hospital following a brutal beating by police October 23. Bakhsh, a dnacer, was arrested among several coworkers when police raided their house. Police initially claimed that Bakhsh had perished from injuries sustained while jumping from a moving police van, but have since suspended the raid's leader, officer Aashiq Cheema, while they investigate excessive force allegations. 

Mahadevi was a disabled trans woman pushed off a moving train in Bangalore, India last September. Witnesses say that Mahadevi was pushed by two youths and perished immediately.

Marcela Duque was stoned to death on a street in Medellin, Colombia, by a group of attackers on September 9. The murder was witnessed by Duque's 19-year-old friend, who ran to get police officers, but could not return in time to intervene in the attack.

Mary Jo Añonuevo was strangled and stabbed 33 times at the Lucena City, Philippines, bar she owned on October 21. Based on evidence, police believe there were four attackers who murdered Añonuevo during a robbery, however many of Añonuevo's friends suspect that a man she fought with hours before her death committed the murder.

Rosa Ribut was found beaten to death November 24, 2013 at an Edmonton, Canada, hotel. Also known to friends as "Rose," "Dido," or "Jon," Ribut was a gender-nonconforming Indonesian citizen who had traveled the world and ended up in Canada on a temporary work visa. She worked in a 7-Eleven but sometimes engaged in sex work, which may have played a part in her murder. Several weeks after Ribut's death, police arrested 20-year-old Marcel Cristian Niculae, who was the last person to speak to Ribut alive.

Sevda Basar was shot in the chest with a hunting rifle by her boyfriend, Ethem Orhan, in February. After the murder, Orhan stole Basar's gold jewelry, buried her body in the Antep, Turkey, vineyard where he worked, and fled to Serbia. 

The official website for the Transgender Day of Remembrance listed 81 names for worldwide vigil-goers to memorialize this year; Transgender Europe has an additional 226 names. 

While this report from The Advocate has focused on most of the deaths reported in the English-speaking media, all of the lives lost — as well as those never reported — are worthy of honoring.

Today we also remember:

Elizalber Oliveria de Mesquita, Paloma, Rayka Tomaz, Prince Joe, Toni Gretchen, Luana, Cristal, Thifani, Joice, Sarita, Juju, Raísa, Tatty, Rafaela, Alex Medeiros, Paulete, Camila Veronezi, Lu, Kitana, Sarita do Sopão, Andressa Pinheiro, Rose Maria, Vitória, Marciana, Nicole, Giovana Souza Silva, Mileide, Valquíria, Marcia Moraes, Paola, André Luiz Borges Rocha, Kellen Santorine, Mackelly Castro, Lele, Dennysi Brandão, Alisson Henrique da Silva, Karen Alanis, Cris, Bruna Lakiss, Gaivota dos Santos, Gélia Borghi, Sara, Aguinaldo Clãudio Colombelli, Flávia, Maicon, Letícia, Raquel, Adriana …

… and many more.

Boys and Girls Wear Skirts In Support Of Transgender Student

I was just reading that the pro-same-sex-marriage pendulum might start swinging back the other way, which is something I always suspected. As a new idea becomes more popular, more accepted, more right, those people who’ve been against it, but said nothing, suddenly start speaking up.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the march is over, that the march has halted, it just means we need to continue to work, and work harder and stronger and smarter. And when I think about that, and then find stories like this one, my passion is renewed, my urge to fight grows stronger ….

At birth Mario Muniz was assigned the male gender, but has since come to identify as a female, even changing her name to Maria Muniz. And because it never felt right, she never felt like her true self, in that assigned gender, she began dressing in the gender that best fits her identity. Her decision, however, was not welcomed by the teachers at the Pedro II School, in Rio de Janeiro, who fined her and ordered her to wear trousers in future.

Fined; for the crime of wearing a skirt to school.

But they would have neither the last word, nor the last laugh about the situation, because a group of students, both female and male, decided to protest the fine … by wearing skirts to school. And soon after the protest, a picture of the students wearing skirts began to make its way through social media, with the hashtag, #VouDeSaia, or The Skirt, with thousands of people around the world voicing their support for Maria Muniz.

"For me, wearing a skirt was about expressing my freedom over who I am inside and not how society sees me. I am really happy about the way my classmates supported me and hope it serves as an example to others to feel encouraged to do the right thing. I was always taught at school to accept who you are. I am only trying to live that." — Maria Muniz

It’s a shame her teachers and the officials at school didn’t see that, didn’t learn that, though, after the protest, and probably after news of the protest went viral, the principal at Pedro II has announced that the school will rethink its dress code.

Maybe everyone should wear skirts? 

Orange News

The Advocate