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It’s an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread… 
So, this is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob have been looking at since this past Monday’s “exciting” This & That post!
• The Georgia Voice‘s Judge orders trans woman reinstated to job at Ga. General Assembly :
Vandy Beth Glenn took a step closer to vindication today when a federal judge ordered the Georgia General Assembly to reinstate her to her previous job as a legislative editor. Glenn was fired in 2007 after disclosing her plan to transition from male to female.“I’ve always know we were in the right,” a tearful Glenn said in an interview in the courtroom after the hearing. “This is our time. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are no longer disposable. We can’t be thrown out with the trash and this decision affirms that.”
Today’s hearing came after the court ruled ruled July 2 that the Georgia General Assembly illegally discriminated against Glenn when Legislative Counsel Sewell Brumby fired her for being transgender.
All along, Glenn has said that her ultimate goal would be to get her job back. Today, the judge granted that request – although when, or if, it will actually happen remains unclear at this time. The judge will issue his ruling later today that include a date Glenn is to return to work. Glenn will not receive back pay as part of the today’s ruling.
Brumby attended today’s remedy hearing, during which his attorney asked for a stay on the reinstatement until they could appeal the decision…
Yea Vandy Beth! 
Boo Georgia (for the planned appeal and request for stay of order)! 
This is just one more example of why we need a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
• Colorado’s Daily Camera article ACLU: Boy Scouts Shouldn’t Get Discount In Boulder Valley Schools:
Boy Scouts shouldn’t be able to meet in Boulder’s public schools at discounted rates because they openly discriminate against gays, according to the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.Johanna Blumenthal, of the Boulder County ACLU, sent a letter Monday to officials with the Boulder Valley School District arguing that the Boy Scouts are a discriminatory group because they have openly defended the right to exclude homosexuals from membership.
The ACLU raised the same concern in 2001 but is now backing its argument with a recent Supreme Court ruling. The ACLU is asking the district to change its policies so that groups using school buildings at discounted rates must comply with district policies.
…The district’s current policy does not require the Boy Scouts, or other groups using school buildings, to comply with the district’s policies to receive reduced rental rates. The school district, though, “reserves the right” to deny use of a building for any activity that violates its rules…
Couldn’t agree more with the ACLU here.
• A two-fer. KIAH-TV Houston‘s Lawyers Battle Over Validity of Transgender Marriage:
Carolyn Bosma came forward on behalf of the firefighter’s widow, Nikki Araguz, Tuesday. Bosma said she she will testify that Thomas Araguz knew his wife was a man by birth.Bosma, who works at a transgender clinic, said Nikki and Thomas visited the clinic together in 2007.
Representatives with the Transgender Foundation of America said Bosma’s testimony is further proof of the validity of the Araguz marriage.
I don’t know any child that was born a man. Maybe you could say “born with male genitalia” or “born a boy,” but unless a child is born at 18-years of age, a child isn’t born a man or a woman.
More at Fox News‘s Transgender Widow in Texas Says E-mail Proves Husband Knew About Sex Change:
The fight over a deceased Wharton firefighter’s $600,000 estate is heating up.Thomas Araguz’s transgendered widow, Nikki Araguz, is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by the firefighter’s family that would keep her from receiving widow benefits.
Thomas Araguz died July 4th fighting an egg farm fire in Boling. Araguz and her legal team believe they’re winning the legal fight and want to dismiss allegations she’s a fraud.
…It’s a supposed email exchange between the couple on the day Nikki had her sex change operation in Colorado.
Thomas Araguz purportedly writes, “What can i say to make you feel better? The only thing I known (sic) is ‘I LOVE YOU.’ Trevor and Tyler miss you dearly, they love you with all their little heats. (sic) Today has been a hell of day, would you agree? After taking (sic) to you, I called my mother and law (sic) to let her known (sic) the good news, about your opt. An (sic) you know she spead (sick) the good news all the world. HEY I TO GO I A HOUSE FIRE. ILU”
Nikki Araguz puportedly writes, “My sweet husband, I LOVE YOU. It has been a day heck and also God answered prayers. I love you so much. We can now move on with the rest of our livrs (sic)…I just got this thing to work somehow and the pain lady came in and gave me morphine…si I am fading fast. You are my best friend, and Praise God fro (sic) you…this is wild that little thing is gone…I think I am supposed to see it for the first timr (sic) tomorrow….Imiss my boys too…Have a great day at school tomorrow…Love you sweet wife, Mrs. Nikki Araguz”
Earlier this year, family attorneys presented Thomas Araguz with a copy of his wife’s birth certificate.
If the coverage of this case got any more salacious in nature… 
I will once again quote what Mara Keisling has said about trans people and marriage:
Every trans person who’s in a relationship, regardless of what their gender is or ever was they’re either in a same-sex relationship or in an opposite sex relationships that somebody could claim was a same-sex relationship.
What Mara said is still true. And I’ll repeat what I said in the PHB diary The “Alleged” Transgender Wife Of A Texas Firefighter And Inheritance:
Marriage equality is still a very trans issue.
And that’s because — as Mara said in so many words — no matter who a trans person marries, someone is going to consider that person’s marriage to be a same-sex marriage. If a post-operative transsexual is one of the two members of marriage, the legal reality is that an opposite sex marriage in California would be considered a same-sex marrage in Texas, Florda, and Kansas, and vice versa. That’s why trans people’s marriages are part of the concept of marriage equality, whether some transsexuals like that idea or not.
• Mormon Times‘ BYU Most Sober School For 13 Years In A Row:
PROVO, Utah – In Provo, hops refer to how high you can jump on a basketball court, and brewing is what you do with root-beer extract and dry ice. Ask for a cold one and you’ll get you a Sprite, and if anything starts fermenting, it’s either your roommate’s mystery meat in the fridge or a chemistry experiment in the Clyde.That’s why it shouldn’t come as a surprise that BYU has, for the 13th year in a row now, been dubbed the nation’s most stone-cold sober school by the Princeton Review.
The LDS-owned school’s Honor Code prohibits anything with more bite than a Barq’s Root Beer and more foam than a mug of hot chocolate…
Amen. 
• Our Wiener Story Of The Day apparently involves me being a wiener. TransForming Media‘s Trans Activist ‘Sky’ Exposes Autumn Sandeen’s “LGB Appropriation” of Transsexual & Intersex Issues such as the Nikki Araguz Story in Texas indicates the writer of the blog considers me a member of “Transgender Inc.”
I wish! It would be nice to be one of the moneyed movers and shakers of the political world, don’t you think? Anywho, I digress.
Apparently what I would think “Transgender Inc.” would mean and the webmistress of Transforming Media believes “Transgender Inc.” would mean are two different things. The Transforming Media webmistress quotes Suzan Cooke (an activist with whom I disagree with fairly often, but deeply respect because of her pioneering community work) as to what “Transgender Inc.” means in the piece Suzan Cooke Responds to Gay, Inc. & TG, Inc. Hijacking & Appropriating the Transsexual Medical Condtion:
Transgender Inc. represents a political identity that places the interests of transgender people who do not get SRS ahead of transsexual people who do get SRS. It has consistently erased the reality of the lives of post-SRS people with transsexualism and demanded that they not pursue legal/political solutions to their particular problems purely as post SRS people with transsexualism.Instead Transgender Inc uses the willful confusing of post SRS people with non-op transgender people to further their particular goals.
Okaaaaaaay. The term “Inc.” to me implies some sort of corporate — or at least organized — power structure. So, I’m not sure how our differing opinions on how to approach freedom, equality, and justice results in me having some sort of political power besides the one of expressing opinions. But hey, let’s roll with the Transforming Media webmistress’a and Suzan Cooke’s definition of “Transgender Inc.” for a bit longer in within the last two paragraphs of Cooke’s four paragraph quote:
This is not meant to target any particular person putting forth the party line of Transgender Inc. Nor is it meant to denigrate the goals of non-discrimination nor the rights to live as one chooses with all ones human rights protected.This becomes more a matter of our demanding a say in how we are represented and a say on how matters that are of vital concern to us are represented.”
I blog, state my opinions, and report as a new media reporter — which means when I report, I do so with a visible agenda. I’m also very much an activist. I thank goodness that the TransForming Media webmistress, Suzan Cooke, and I live in the United States where we’re all allowed, by first amendment free speech, forums to state our opinions. I’m thankful that other activists can blog and state as I do, in how freedom, equality, and justice are addressed within our respective communities. In other words, I represent what I believe by what I say and do, and others are free to represent what thay believe by what they say and do — and folks reading the viewpoints have the oppportunity to decide for themselves which viewpoints they agree with more.
I can’t embrace “Transgender Inc.” membership for myself because my take on what the term would mean isn’t one that describes my position in community. Again, I’m not a moneyed power broker for trans community, or a leading member of an transgender — or even LGBT — organization with potential legislative sway. But, if sticking to my values fits me into a “wiener” role, then I embrace that role proudly. I’ll continue to state my opinions and actively work for not only transgender identified people’s civil rights, but for the human rights of minority populations of all sorts.
So anywho…It’s an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because…it’s an open thread! Woo-hoo!
28 Comments
If you’re “Transgender, Inc.” …Lordy help us all! That was just plain odd. Sometimes I get “Gay, Inc.” accusations thrown at me, and it used to be irritating, but now I just laugh it off. (Funny enough, I don’t remember being flush with cash from taking my marching orders from HRC.) Whatever. Keep rockin’ on, Autumn.
Seth MacFarlane surprised by gays’ negative reaction to “Family Guy” transgender episode http://www.metroweekly.com/new…
I guess that’s what I get for giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
Sigh…
I have the link to a Seth MacFarlane Interview in… …Details Magazine piece that’s posting early tomorrow, entitled Per Seth McFarland, You Can Call Me A “Stupid Homosexual”.
The link goes active at Aug 05, 2010 at 02:00:00 AM PDT.
What in the… What an asshole. He wrote the transsexual character as sleeping with a dog the night after surgery.
I meanHe wrote it.
No one asked him to portray us as gay men whow go right from a Nany catillion to picking up dogs in bars, howevver erudite those dogs may be. Never mind sleep with him. Really.
We don’t exist for him to pose as whatever he feels like, either to have sex with or barf about.
He. Wrote. It.
Ever hear that L7 song?Someone just made my shitlist. :)
Dude.Transsexual != Homosexual. Unfortunately I HAVE met a lot of stupid heterosexuals and you just made that list Seth.
What you get indeed. “I guess that’s what I get for giving someone the benefit of the doubt.”
I guess it just goes to show: to quote a De Niro character: If there is doubt, there is no doubt.
I hope he finds his testicles at least a few hours’ walk away and in the custody of neighboring Staties.
Allies and their trainingThank goodness for open threads…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we train our allies. I’ve mostly been thinking in context of the disability rights movement, and how to train parents to be allies rather than advos for the self-advo community. But it goes for the queer community as well. And about how in communities where I’m an ally, I really am not as good an ally as I would hope the allies in my communities would be.
Raw support is one thing, but that alone doesn’t seem to make someone a great ally.
Anyone have any thoughts on how to train, build, etc allies? Reference materials (like books, curriculum, etc.)?
And here…and here I was thinking about how humanizing the down syndrome character was recently. sigh
Transgender widowHow the heck would a spouse NOT know you had some sort of major surgery?
Also, Autumn:I say this in all sincerity, sister.
You may be a nationally-prominent activist, but I suspect I have twenty years since transition on you at least: and you come up in different times, so I say, ’little sister’ Never never never never never give ‘benefit of the doubt.’
If there is doubt, there is no doubt.
Walk.
You do not wait on any man to ‘come around’ to anything. Particularly not any kind of celebrity geek. Look at this steaming pile here. See?
Sorry. We’re here. Assholes like that will take their own sweet time figuring out how it plays. Doesn’t change anything, but if you want to be bold, you really don’t want to hang anything on anyone that can get a moment’s advantage from doing like Seth McFarlane just did.
Because they will do it.
Understand, sis?
If you couldn’t make one of tonight’s Prop 8 ralliesthen I encourage you to check out my photos, which you can see here on PHB at http://www.pamshouseblend.com/… or on Photobucket at http://smg.photobucket.com/alb…
There were probably around 200 people at the NYC rally. It was very positive and asserted the need to oust Ruben Diaz and other bigots from the NY legislature so that gay marriage can happen in that state.
They know.Even the stealthiest ‘woman of history’ trolling here couldn’t keep her mouth shut that long, if not especially.
Who tries to pretend they ‘don’t know’ is relatives of the dead, who tell no tales.
Forget about if there was money involved: if I don’t outlive certain relatives, I will be erased myself. Everything I’ve ever been or done.. Poof. Gone.
It’s not about the ‘truth.’ Stop thinking that.
Ain’t like that for straight people, anyway.
ReallyI don’t care if it’s the second coming of Freddie Mercury: transpeople cannot leave ourselves open like this.
Sarah Palin claims to ‘love’ Downs Syndrome babies, and thinks we need burnination at the stake.
Trust no one. But humans. Funny how many of those are out there, though the media may tell you otherwise.
two interesting documents1. The ACLU page on “The New Normal,” how the Obama administration has made the Bush radical method on national security a permanent fixture.
See
http://www.aclu.org/national-s…
2. For those who are tired of voting for the evil of two evils, there is a Progressive Party platform available. It reads eerily like our time, but it dates from the 1912 election. Let the centennial celebrations begin!
http://teachingamericanhistory…
COUNTER NOM RALLY – RALEIGH NCThey are coming to Raleigh on Tuesday August 10th from around 12 to 1pm. More info on counter-rally efforts here:
http://www.facebook.com/event….
http://www.facebook.com/event….
http://www.facebook.com/event….
anti-gay agitation at the local levelPulling children’s books at the behest of one Glen Beck agitator. Story at
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…
Transgender INC?Awww but I was halfway through making a “Gay Agenda (TM)” fake book jacket to slip over Glen Beck’s book and leave on Church pews! Now I have to make Transgender Inc business cards to leave on Vancouver Rape Relief’s poster board!
How am I supposed to terrify the Right if you people keep changing the evil bogeyman phrases?
Nikki Araguz identifies herself as intersex, not trans?Fox 26 Morning News interview
yeah…As a dis advo, I loved the Family Guy Downs Syndrome Character- it was great to see a PERSON instead of “a little angel!” on the show. I was just saying how fucking disappointing it is that Seth then goes and fucks this up so badly.
Nikki is using language……consistant with those who identify as classic transsexuals, “true transsexuals,” and/or women who claim they have the medical-sounding condition Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS). HBS, by the way, is a “syndrome” that no psychological, psychiatric, or medical association recognizes as a valid condition.
Specifically, a paragraph in the article you cite states:
“[B]orn with a birth defect” is a commonn phrase in the online HBS and “true transsexuals” community. Some examples are included here:
…here:
And here:
So, Nikki may or may not be intersex, but it is clear she once had a penis. Gender variant people like Nikki and me get to identify ourselves; Nikki may identify herself as transsexual and not transgender — that’s her choice.
However, Nikki’s attorney — Phyllis Frye — is a well known transgender activist, and the transgender community in Austin is standing behind Nikki in her legal fight.
~facepalm~It’s women like Nikki that makes the rest of us look crazy. Like totally “coo coo for Cocoa Puffs” crazy.
I happen to fit the gender binary model well.Yes, I “simply want to correct the birth defect and move on”. Except my birth defect cured itself, to a great degree. Not completely, I’ll never be biologically usual, but close enough so that pretending to be male was not an option.
Thank goodness.
However… in the course of researching my peculiar and unusual situation, I’ve gotten involved in Intersex support groups. And yes, there are womyn-born-womyn, legally female, “female-at-birth” etc etc cisgendered women who – shock horror – have penises (though they’re often called hypertrophied clitorisses). And while I know of no cases where the child has come to term, there are men-born-men, legally male, “male-at-birth” etc etc men who have become pregnant. Though they call the conceptus a “foetiform teratoma”, and it’s really rare.
Things are not so simple.
I don’t identify as “transgendered”, the whole concept gives me the willies. But my own situation gives many, many people not just the willies, but the screaming meemies.
I cannot in all conscience ask for human rights for myself – someone who many people find upsetting – and not those of others whose existence I find upsetting. They are people. They are my equals. Even the Ru Pauls and gay female impersonators who disrespectfully caricature women. I say again, they are my equals.
And if I get upset by their existence – maybe that’s my problem, my prejudice, my bigotry, and not their problem. I may not be able to control my feelings, but I certainly can control my actions. And I don’t try to pretend my feelings have any rational basis, or are in any way justified.
Right.You said that very, very well, Zoe.
Whatever I feel about an individual or his, her, or hir identity and/or behavior, they still deserve equal rights…human rights.
I strongly believe marriage equality is a human right, marriage inequality cries out for the kind of activism, legislation, and court rulings that create greater equality under the law.
Thanks Autumn & ZoeOn hearing and reading deeper about HBS, this is really helpful context to me. It’s not hard to see loose parallels between how trans and intersex people interpret who they are and choose to self-identify and how some people with life-long same-sex attractions eschew the word gay, either in celibate/ex-gay fashion, or in partnered-but-protesting-the-gay-cultural-identity fashion.
Exactly. And ex-gays……have a made-up condition that psychiatric/psychological/medical associations don’t recognize either. That condition is called Same Sex Attraction Disorder.
Hijacking Agenda’s and DistinctionsThe transgender umbrella term (See GLAAD Media Reference Guide) without solicitation covers transsexuals. Did they ask for our permission to appropriate our condition under this umbrella term? No. Certainly not.
The vast majority of the medical practitioners in this condition understand the very clear distinction between TS and TG. However the TG agenda has managed to maneuver itself into power and claim TS is theirs while wrenching your hands and defenestrating the original meaning of transsexualism. ”Waa-ha ha ha!!” You might say, and it appears that TG emphasis places cosmetic procedures over the very basics; therapy, HRT and SRS to an “anything goes” kind of modality. Those who have transitioned young don’t need the cosmetic procedures. The youth are the proof of concept.
Now with the internet there is no more excuse for not transitioning young so what do you do? By derivation your going to have to come up with a way to validate yourself so you illicit the help of the Gay Medical Power Elite to give you legitimacy by de-legalizing the original meaning of transsexual.
Autumn you are not the proof of concept you are definitely not the poster-child for the TS community.
Questions for Autumn Sandeen:
Where you declared 100% mentally disabled by the US Military (Navy perhaps)?
Can a person who is declared 100% mentally disabled make a rational decision about their gender?
Should we believe a person claiming to be female who is also declared 100% mentally disabled?
When you stand in front of the White House who are you representing?
What is the message in that representation from a person who is declared 100% mentally disabled?
Does a person, whom gets media attention, whom is 100% mentally disabled, send a message to the rest of the population if your transgender you must be mentally disabled?