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The American Family Association (AFA), through their “news” outlet OneNewsNow, 
has a story up on their website entitled Anti-Discrimination Law Would Still Discriminate. The article begins this way:
An expert is suggesting that passing a proposed anti-discrimination law in Bowling Green, Ohio, that caters to cross-dressers would discriminate against women and risk their safety.Dr. Mary Ann Stark, associate professor at Western Michigan University, is warning that the law could have an impact similar to that in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she had a recent experience. Stark spoke before a special meeting of opponents of the proposed law in Toledo, where WUPW covered her concerns about a male cross-dresser who entered a public restroom in Kalamazoo, which the local ordinance permits.
Quoted from Associate Professor Stark in the AFA piece:
I realized very soon that my experience was very disruptive to me. I felt like I couldn’t use the locker room very well, and I realized that there are other women who would be even more disadvantaged than I am, should men who dress as women be allowed to come into public facilities.
Also:
Basically, these ordinances sacrifice our right to privacy for a very few minority of people — and that’s discriminatory against women.
This is Prof. Stark stating that trans women aren’t really women, and that she approves of discriminating against trans women because she is afraid of people she calls “men who dress as women.” This too is Prof. Stark publicly stating that trans women are all potential restroom predators, and that she wants to limit the civil rights of trans people because of her unfounded fears.
And when I say “unfounded fears,” I’ve mentioned in other pieces on the bathroom use of trans people that I’ve looked through the transgendernews database archive of over 50,000 articles, and can’t find an article of confirmed case of bathroom predation by trans women — or even by men who dress as women — in Michigan, let alone the entire United States. And, religious right organizations, such as the American Family Association, don’t — can’t –cite any cases of trans (or even crossdressed people) who have engaged in bathroom predation of other women and of children. In other words, the danger of trans women or crossdressed men engaging in predatory behavior (peeping, sexual assault, etcetera) in public restrooms can’t be substantiated by those who repeat this fear-based, transgender bathroom meme.
In other words, an award winning educator has expressed an unfavorable opinion of trans women based on preconceived notions of trans people. She apparently has based her feelings an a thought formed without knowledge, thought, or reason — the very definition of prejudice.
What makes Prof. Stark’s expressed prejudice particularly offensive is that Western Michigan University — the university cited by the AFA in an apparent attempt to identify her as a sex and gender expert — has strong policy statements regarding discrimination at their institution. From the university’s Non-Discrimination Policy (emphasis added):
Western Michigan University prohibits discrimination or harassment which violates the law or which constitutes inappropriate or unprofessional limitation of employment opportunity, University facility access, or participation in University activities, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, protected disability, veteran status, height, weight, or marital status.
From the university’s Equal Opportunity Statement (emphasis added):
Western Michigan University, an Equal Opportunity employer, complies with applicable Federal and state laws and University policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment.Western Michigan University prohibits discrimination or harassment which violates the law or which constitutes inappropriate or unprofessional limitation of employment opportunity, University facility access, or participation in University activities, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, protected disability, veteran status, height, weight, or marital status.
I called Western Michigan University to ask for a statement regarding Prof. Stark’s statement. Their representative, Cheryl P Roland, sent this response:
Western Michigan University has a strong anti-discrimination policy. It is one to which we strictly adhere, and our campus takes enormous pride in that stance and in our community’s inclusive nature. Dr. Stark may well have spoken at the event referenced, but she was not speaking on behalf of the University, nor in a professional capacity. Her comments should be understood to be those of a private citizen offering a personal viewpoint.
As one might expect, as a transgender identified woman I feel affronted — offended — by Dr. Stark’s statement to OneNewsNow.
I hope that Western Michigan University deals with this prejudiced, transphobic statement from one of their professors on the bathroom use of trans women in exactly the same way I would hope the institution would deal with a prejudiced, racist statement from one of their professors on the bathroom use of African-Americans; I hope that Western Michigan University deals with this statement from one of their professors suggesting that the civil rights of trans people should be sacrificed due to that professor’s unsubstantiated fears in exactly the same way I would hope the institution would deal with a statement from one of their professors suggesting that the civil rights of African-Americans should be sacrificed due to that professor’s unsubstantiated fears.
If Western Michigan University doesn’t treat transphobia and racism with the same level of significance, then the strong, public, diversity rhetoric found in the institution’s non-discrimination and equal opportunity statement are just that…just strong, public, diversity rhetoric. Diversity policies and statements require aggressive enforcement to be of any worth.
Just knowing what we all now know about Prof. Stark’s transphobic prejudice, I know I wouldn’t want to be a transgender student in her classroom — I know that Prof. Stark doesn’t consider me, as peer citizen of the United States, of being worthy of the same basic civil rights that she enjoys.
For me, it comes down to this: It appears to me that Prof. Stark is transphobic bigot. If a university with a strong diversity policy regarding gender identity has a professor who has publicly expressed prejudice towards transgender people, and that professor is in the position of possibly teaching transgender people in her classroom, then the university needs to seriously consider her further employment at that university. Prof. Stark is such a professor; she needs her further employment at Western Michigan University examined very closely.
26 Comments
She’s definitely transphobicand, more precisely, cross-dresser-phobic. Nota bene: Reading the actual text of her remarks that you quoted, she only mentioned opposing “cross-dressers” and “men who dress as women.” She didn’t say a word about transsexual women who are actually women. By opposing gender-identity protection, though, she harms all these different types of LGBT people.
I read news stories like this when I’m not feeling depressed enough and need a boosterIn better times, I would sometimes read this evil-ass shit in controlled doses once in a while, to inoculate my immune system to put up resistance against it. In the manner of Mithridates of Pontus, who took minute, nonlethal doses of poisons and gradually increased the dosage, until he was immune from being poisoned.
But in the present day, my body already poisoned with chemo, the usual reserve of positive energy that buffers the pain of dealing with destructive people is gone. The chemo has robbed me of it. It has made my nerves so raw I can’t take hot chili pepper any more on my tongue, when pre-chemo I used to devour hot chilis like candy.
Likewise, I used to be able to counter destructive shit from people with my own positive energy. The other day, feeling frazzled by harassment of (figurative) demons, I called on the Goddess who filled my heart with positive energy and warded off evil. Om krim Kaliye namah
One statement from Stark says it all
She’s attacking the very basis of any anti-discrimination laws. These laws are written to ensure EQUAL rights for the “very few minority of people.” She, in her ignorance and fear, has expressed a position that all minority rights should be revoked because they are discriminatory against the majority. Is she also whining about religious, gender, and ethnic origin rights that have been protected by such laws?
She denigrates her school with this sort of knee-jerk stupidity.
I don’t think she could tell these two types of trans people apart.The woman who she commented about in the public restroom was in all likelihood a visible transsexual woman. My guess would be that the trans woman she saw in the public restroom was a student using the bathroom at her university.
But even if the person was a crossdressing man, my guess is that like many on the religious right, she probably doesn’t differentiate between crossdressing men and transsexual woman. Almost all of these folk on the religious right perceive the two types of trans people to be in the same thing
And, that’s true even after transsexual women have had genital reconstruction surgery — these folk on the religious right often describe genital reconstruction surgery as “genital mutilation.”
“Expert”? Puh-leezeDr. Stark’s area of expertise, according to her university’s web site, is “Childbearing in mature women (aged 35 and older), psychosocial dynamics and the medical and obstetrical effects of pregnancy, the effects of the natural environment in health and healing, hydrotherapy in labor, health promotion.”
In other words, she is not an expert in the area of gender.
In identifying her as an “expert”, the original article is being disingenuous, at least.
I posted this comment on the article’s web site as well, though I haven’t yet seen it display over there.
I must noteThe religious right did not start the “genital mutilation” comments about women of history until long after I was hearing that exact same language from “non op” transgenders. In the mid-late nineties even the far right nutcase Pat Robertson publicly stated that transsexuality was a normal human variation, not a sin and post corrected women were women. In fact, prior to the “transgender umbrella” I never encountered religious right spokespeople railing about post corrected women at all……ever.
And I have major issues with crossdressers in ladies rooms myself and was raped by a transgender identified individual so I do have a real and valid reason for my feelings. Male identified people who dress as women are not women, that would seem to be self evident. And if the men’s room is available to them, they are not being discriminated against either. You are calling this woman a bigot and calling for her to be fired not based on what she actually said but on what you chose to read into that from your own agenda. It is precisely this over reaction and my way or the highway attitude that perpetuates the current hatred and closes all the doors to any future mutual communication and understanding.
Recycled RaymondA great piece Autumn,
This “Professor” Stark is really just rehashing the stuff that Janice Raymond came up with and we hear from a small group of feminists on a regular basis. It is completely without basis, and even the idea that a transperson in a woman’s bathroom is derimental to her privacy is completely pathetic if you examine its logic.
I must admit that I have never been in a women’s bathroom where there are no cubicles, they all have cubicles, as such the privacy issue is a non-issue. Take this one stage further then; if the privacy issue is a non-issue then the reason why Stark is trying to use it must therefore be because she is a transphobic bigot, and that she is trying to find some excuse to express this hatred.
As such she is no different from a racist or anti Semite, she is attempting to rationalise her bnigotry, in the same way as racists try and analyse and find excuses for their hatred of black people. If she expressed racist views openly, Western Michigan University would doubtless sack her straight away, so they need to consider this case very carefully. The statement they made that these were her own views and do not represent the University simply does not go far enough, they would not be saying that if, for example, she had said that Barack Obama was not fit to be president because he is black.
Also, I would encourage people to read a piece on my blog “The toilet debate – A Historical Deconstruction”;
http://uncommon-scents.blogspo…
This shows how restricting women’s access to public conveniences during the 19th century in the UK was used as an element of social control, preventing them from going out for long periods and as such not being able to engage in business, commerce or most types of work. This is obviously the aim of the AFA and Stark; to deny trans people their civil rights to participate inb the economic and civil life of America.
In the University where I used to study; University College London all the bathrooms are mixed, and I have just been to a conference at Malmö University in Sweden where all the bathrooms were mixed, and no-one in any of these places has ever complained.
She is simply a bigoted transphobe, using an excuse to rationalise her hatred. Her employer should take disciplinary action.
[citation needed]Can you give a citation of Pat Robertson publicly stating that he was all tickedy-boo with regards to transsexuality in the mid to late ’90s? I’m more than a little skeptical of that claim…
It’s public knowledgehe devoted about half of one of his 700 clubs to it.
screw your skeptism….http://web.archive.org/web/200…
Additionally Iotola Komani issued a fatwa (holy Islamic law that cannot be questioned) approving of surgery for transsexuals and recongition of post surgical sex. In other words, the two possibly most fundie of the fundies, one Christian, the other Islamic both “got” transsexuality before the transgender revolution tried wholesale erasure of it.
Them’s the facts whether you like it or not.
All right, good enough for meI must admit I was surprised by the link you posted below, but congratulations, you successfully backed up your claim.
I don’t lie…………and dislike the inference I do.
I Thought SoAfter reading this before there were any comments, I thought that Prof Stark might be a closeted HBS’er from her comments about crossdressers. After reading certain comments by a certain person, I see I might have been right.
my guess is that like many on the religious right, she probably doesn’t differentiate between crossdressing men and transsexual woman.
Those who believe that are bleepin’ ignorant braindead fools. And with a distinct fascistic tinge.
I totally condemn HBS ideologyand will have nothing to do with it. I also pointed out in my first post that opposition to gender identity protections (i.e., for any reason) harms us all alike. All LGBT, not just T.
Muslims dispute fatwasall the time. No one holds absolute authority in Islam. Fatwas are recognized as not holy law, but merely a human individual’s learned opinion. They may carry weight, depending on the scholar who issued them, but they’re never considered absolute. They are simply responsa to specific questions about specific situations.
Did you mean Ayatollah Khomeini?
SorryI thought you may have meant me… but on closer look apparently you didn’t.
Carry on…
However…That Fatwa is only applicable n a limited sense, as, strictly speaking, he’s pretty much considered an outsider in Islam as a whole, separate from mainlines.
And your description of a Fatwa is inaccurate.
Also, it was the late 90′s(99), he did not (and does not) say that they are women, all he said was it was not a sin, and he has also come out against trans people, including you, using anything other than a restroom that is designated as not male and not female.
Just so you stay honest, as no one would want to say that you are lying.
(Addendum, he spke about Reimer in that episode.)
PS — genital mutilation was how Christine Jorgenson was referred to in the 1950′s in Catholic publications printed. You can find them in your local library.
But you have.About me, specifically, and Autumn, even more recently.
So while you may dislike the inference, it is, nevertheless, true.
Mary AnnThere’s something fishy about her “experience”. If it actually happened, and she didn’t feel safe, she would have gotten out of there immediately. Regardless, she’s clearly phobic, i.e disturbed, maybe even paranoid. And maybe she’s making it up because it seems that LGBT hate is contagious in her state. I mean. . . come on! Is there something in the water?
It is transwomen and transmen who are at risk using public restrooms. I can attest to that. I was grabbed while entering a public bathroom, thrown on the floor, had a knife held to my neck, and raped repeatedly by a drooling-with-lust maniac heterosexual. I am happy to be alive. Sexual predators don’t need any ruse; if they want to attack you; they don’t care where you are. They don’t care if there are any bystanders.
Are there any surveys on trans people being attacked in public restrooms?
It actually is more broadbased in IslamThere is a well-established tradition of transgender people who were friends with Prophet Muhammad’s wives and hung out over at their house and gossiped. There are accounts of many famous trans people in Mecca and Medina during the early centuries of Islam.
Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi, a famous scholar of the 13th century, accurately described the difference between transsexual gender identity and cissexual drag (approving of the former and condemning the latter).
In modern Sunni Islam, Shaykh Tantawi of al-Azhar issued a fatwa in favor of transsexuals getting SRS and transitioning.
Not YouNP. You’re cool.
I can’t find the reference right now, but wasn’t Ms. Stark among the “innocent bystanders” interviewed when CRG had one of their own stage a crossdresser invasion of a womens’ locker room in Montgomary County (later admitted, but still flogged as an example of the trans threat)?
Sigh – it’s the usual BSDr Stark engaged in the usual BS promoted by bigots. She doesn’t point to any inappropriate behavior on the part of the trans person, just her presence. For her and all who think like her, it’s all about identity and appearance, not behavior.
She blames the trans person just for being there. Just like any other bigot, driven by irrational prejudice, would blame a person of color, or a person whose religious affiliation is visibly different from the Standard Christian Model™ for being in the same room with her.
The wrong is perpetrated by Dr Stark, not the trans person and it’s patently unfair, and dishonest, to blame the trans person for this woman’s prejudice.
Manufacturing realityfor their hate propaganda. A distinctly Nazi tactic.
From someone in the trenchesI’ve been involved in the campaign from the first group (Equality BG) which got together to begin writing the law, and I’ve been the office manager for a few weeks, overseeing two locations, and assisting on canvassing.
The opponents of the ordinances have been blasting ONE Bowling Green, claiming that since we’ve been receiving help from the NGLTF, they’re the ones driving the agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth! Everyone in the core group is either from BG, lives in the area, or in the case of our campaign manager, has long ties to northwest Ohio!! HRC, by the way, is nowhere to be found…
Planettransgender is countering the lies and fearmongering by a slanderous flyer by posting pictures on their Facebook page and challenging transfolk to donate to the cause.
Dr. Stark is the first in a long line of hired guns brought in to use fearmongering as a tactic to scare people into voting against the two ordinances.
They brought in some hack lawyer from Kentucky to speak to the local Kiwanis club, who failed brilliantly compared to our spokesperson. Friday night, they’re bringing in Matt “Bam Bam” Barber in to fuel the fears of prejudice, and Saturday morning, Phil Burress from Cincinnati’s smear group Citizens for Community Values will further fuel the flames of hate.
ONE Bowling Green will counter the visits with canvassing, so we can hear from BG residents, rather than listen to the rantings of two fanatics bent on claiming that religious belief trumps the Fourteenth Amendment.
For updates and to donate, please click the link on my tag. If you’d like a pdf of the mailer the opponents of the ordinances sent demonizing transwomen, you’re more than welcome to email me.