The Nuclear Option

Or an alternate title “When parents don’t understand.” What are the child’s options when they come out to unreceptive parents?

There are more than you might imagine, an LGBT child doesn’t have to wait until they are 18 but all the options are not easy. The tragic story of the girl that committed suicide didn’t have to end that way, parents can be overridden in certain cases.

The first option is to grin and bear it, stick it out until they are eighteen. The other options involve interventions by family memembers or a social worker from a state agency and maybe the court system. Some states are now looking at parents who do not let their child transition as a form of child abuse and the courts can mandate the parents to let their child transition. This includes “Reparative Therapy” if the parents are forcing a child to have reparative therapy to make them “straight” the state mat step in to stop it even though it might not be banned by state law, it still might be considered child abuse or neglect.

If the parents throw the son or daughter out of the house before they are eighteen they are still responsible for the care of their child until eighteen and they maybe forced by the courts to pay childcare.

The child could also go to a mediator such as a social worker, a guidance counselor  or a state agency to talk to the parents. Another option if for the child to move into with a supportive relative, the courts have been known to give custody of LGBT children to an aunt or an uncle.

Then there is the “Nuclear Option,” emancipation. A child can petition to courts to be free of their parents. This means that the parents are not responsible for their child anymore, all legal ties are cut. The parents are no longer responsible for providing financial support; the child is on their own. That is why emancipation is a “Nuclear Option,” there is no going back and it is a very drastic step.

Here is what I found out about emancipation on the internet…
From the Nolo website,

What Emancipated Minors Can and Cannot DoEssentially, an emancipated minor functions as an adult in society. Although specific rights vary somewhat from state to state, usually an emancipated minor can:

• enter into legally binding contracts, including real estate purchases or apartment rentals

• enroll in the school of his or her choice

• sue or be sued in court

• apply for a work permit and keep any income earned from a job, and

• make healthcare decisions, including choices related to abortion and birth control.

• Most states place some limits on what an emancipated minor can do. For example, many states don't allow emancipated minors to:

• get married without parental consent

• quit school

• buy or drink alcohol, or

• vote or get a driver's license (before the legal age at which they would ordinarily be able to do so).

The website list alternatives to emancipation,

Emancipation is just one option in these situations. Other avenues to explore include:

• getting help from government or private agencies

• getting counseling for yourself or your family

• using a mediator to discuss and resolve differences with your parents

• living with another responsible adult, or

• living on your own with the informal consent of your parents.

In Connecticut you must be at least 16 to petition for emancipation, according to CTLawHelp…

What rights does an emancipated teenager have?
When you become emancipated, you have legal rights that other teenagers do not have. You also have new responsibilities that most teenagers do not have to worry about. You should weigh these rights and responsibilities carefully as you think about emancipation.

If you are emancipated:

• You may get your own place to live--but you will be responsible for paying the rent and any other costs.

• You may get medical care without your parents' permission--but you will have to pay the bills or arrange for financial help in paying them.

• You can sign contracts in your own name and are responsible for living up to the contract.

• You can sue other people, and you can also be sued by others.

• You are no longer under the control of your parents -- but they will also have no obligation to support you financially, or give you any food, clothing, or shelter. The State of Connecticut Department of Children and Families will no longer be responsible for helping you if you are abused or neglected. You are, however, entitled to the same protection by the police as any other person, including the right to be protected from violence by a family or household member.

• You may buy and sell property.

• You may get a driver's license or marriage license or join the armed services without your parents' permission.

• You may enroll in a school or college of your choice without asking your parents.

Notice that “You may get medical care without your parents' permission--but you will have to pay the bills or arrange for financial help in paying them.” and also that you wavier DCF help because you are now legally an adult.

One of the problems is that the LGBT child might not know of these options and might give up in despair, so if you know of a LGBT child whose parents are not supportive let the child know that there are things that can be done to help them transition.

Last Day Of 2014…

On this last day of the year tradition says we write about the year in review but instead I want to give you a chance to tell me what you think will be the important issues for our trans-community this coming year? What will be important on a national level and what will be important locally in your state?

Here in Connecticut I think our main focus should be on defining insurance coverage, we now have insurance coverage but no one knows what is covered? Some say only Gender Confirming Surgery and hormones, but others say all medical procedures that necessary including Full Facial Surgery, Chondrolaryngoplasty (trachea shave), electrolysis, breast reductions/augmentation, and other procedures a doctor feels that we need to increase the quality of life.

We need to continue working to improve care for LGBT seniors, and stop bullying in schools, and also get schools to obey the Connecticut Non-discrimination law.

Nationally I think we are dead in the water with a Republican controlled Congress, forget ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) but we need to keep up the pressure and not let it be forgotten. We also have to make sure that we don’t lose any ground, there is a good chance that the Republicans will try to pass some type of anti-LGBT bill like allow state to discrimination and ignore marriage equality or expand religious exemptions.

So what do you think should be on the legislature agenda? What will Congress do in the coming year?

Never Give Up

Does it seem like Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi is like the little Dutch boy with his finder in the dike [no pun intended] trying to stop the flow? Now she is saying that the court ruling only covers one clerk and not the whole state.

Gay marriage confusion clouds the Sunshine State
MSNBC
By Emma Margolin
12/30/14

With a week to go before a federal ruling that struck down Florida’s same-sex marriage ban officially kicks in, uncertainty over what exactly that ruling requires continues to cloud the Sunshine State.

Late Monday, Florida’s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a short legal brief stating that if a federal judge who overturned the state’s same-sex marriage ban earlier this year intended his ruling to apply throughout Florida’s 67 counties, he would have to issue a clarification explicitly saying so.

The state’s legal filing, submitted to U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle at his request, argued that his August ruling – as written – required only one clerk named in the lawsuit to grant two plaintiffs in Washington County a marriage license on Jan. 6, the day Hinkle’s order takes effect. Bondi’s brief, however, also left open the likely possibility that Judge Hinkle would indeed clarify he meant to compel all county clerks in the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Then there is the so called “Family” organization that filed a last minute lawsuit,

Citing that analysis, a majority of Florida’s clerks who participated in an Associated Press inquiry said they would not be granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Jan. 6. Florida Family Action (FFA) then announced on Tuesday that it had filed two lawsuits against three elected officials, including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, because they had expressed plans to participate in same-sex couples’ weddings next week.

“All three of these officials have shown great contempt and disrespect for the rule of law and are behaving irresponsibly and unprofessionally,” said John Stemberger, FFA president, in a statement. “The federal court decision is clear that it only applies narrowly to the two plaintiffs and only in Washington County. Elected officials must be held accountable to the law and to the constitution they have sworn to uphold.”

Doesn’t  Florida Family Action remember California’s family group that the courts had said they didn’t have “standing” to file a lawsuit?

So the three ring circus continues.

Cis-Gender Privilege

Who has it and who doesn’t have it?

Sometimes I have it and sometimes I don’t.

On Slate there is an interesting article about butch lesbians and cis-gender privilege,

I'm a Butch Woman. Do I Have Cis Privilege?
By Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart
December 26, 2014

Last week, I was mistakenly misgendered in front of an auditorium of people. I’d gone to see a speaker at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and during the Q&A period I was called upon by the nice lady doing the facilitating as “that young man, there, who has been waiting.” An excruciating 30 seconds followed, in which it became obvious to everyone that I was a young woman, and the facilitator was visibly unsettled by that revelation. My voice tends to eliminate all doubt as to my gender—it’s a woman’s voice, and it gets higher when I’m nervous.

This is the sort of story that is often used as an example of the daily hardships associated with being transgender. As a gender-nonconforming woman, I share the frequent, uncomfortable reminders of my difference with the trans community. So, when I’m called cis by a trans advocate in a way that feels dismissive, or if anyone dares to suggest that I benefit from cis privilege, I can get a little hot under the collar. I start thinking things like, “Hey, this person has no idea what I’ve been through! How dare they say that I have any sort of privilege?” Occasionally, to my shame, I’ve even argued on the Internet about whether it makes any sense to say a butch like me has cis privilege.

This is something to think about. Many of us trans-people think we are the only ones who do not have cis-gender privilege but many lesbians and straight women do not have it and the same thing is true for men.

When I was little one of my neighbors was a very tall and large boned woman who was being misgendered all the time. I have a number of lesbian friends who also are misgendered and there was a butch lesbian in Alaska that the security guards cleared out the women’s bathroom says there was a man in there.

Most of the time when I go out in public I am not identified as trans but as a woman. One time I was on a panel with lesbians and gays and after the panel discussion about the movie Gen Silent” one lady told me that she never knew that I was a “man” until I identified myself as trans (I wanted to smack her over the head and ask her “What were you doing for the last hour? Didn’t anything we were saying sink in?”).

So the answer to the question who has cis-gender privilege is most of us and many more than you would guess do not.

Special Rights!

We hear it a lot that LGBT people are demanding “special rights” when we want equality, when we want to be treated just like everyone else, but what do you call it when a group of people want to be exempt from the law? Exempt from domestic violence laws, exempt from child abuse laws, exempt from autopsies in cases of suspected homicide, being able to refuse full prescriptions or provide healthcare, and just about any other law, would you call that “special rights?”

Well that is what is happening around the country with states passing broad religious exemption laws,

Some conservatives urging right not to serve gays on religious grounds
Washington Post
By Sandhya Somashekhar
December 17, 2014

Conservative lawmakers in states nationwide are pushing to expand the right of individuals and businesses to not provide certain services to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

In North Carolina, a state legislator has proposed allowing government workers to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples even though such unions are now legal. A bill in Texas would permit voters to amend the state constitution in a way that supporters say would enhance religious liberty but that critics warn would harm the civil rights of gays and others.

A legislative fight is underway in Michigan, where the state House recently passed a set of contentious religious liberty bills, including some that would allow adoption agencies to refuse placements that violate their faith.

To me that seems like granting special privileges to religious organizations, to place them above the law.

James D. Esseks, director of the LGBT and AIDS project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said forces that oppose gay rights and were unable to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage in the courts and state houses have turned to a new strategy. They are “using religious freedom arguments in an effort to justify anti-gay discrimination because they want to ensure LGBT equality doesn’t affect them,” he said.

These laws could open up a huge gap in the way laws are enforced, one set of laws for atheists, and another set of laws “believers.” You can just about find in the Bible or other scriptures something to justify any discrimination or any behavior.

At one time we were a nation of one law, but now that is no long true.

GSAs

Gay Straight Alliances are in just about every school here in Connecticut but in conservative states they are few and far between.

A conservative website, Straight Voices in West Virginia had this to say about GSAs,

BUCKHANNON, WV – Buckhannon-Upshur High School has started a new club called the Gay Straight Alliance. The slogan of this alliance is “empowering youth activists to fight homophobia and transphobia.” Their mission is to “create safe environments [for homosexual pupils] in schools for students to support each other and learn about homophobia, transphobia, and other oppressions, educate the school community about homophobia, transphobia, gender identity, and sexual orientation issues, and fight discrimination, harassment, and violence in schools.”

This organization states that they fight discrimination, harassment, violence and bullying of LGBT youth; however it creates discrimination, harassment, violence and bullying against Christian students who oppose the homosexual lifestyle.

So in other words by saying let’s all get along together, the Christians students feel that they are being discriminated against because they are being bullied because they are not allowed to harass LGBT students… hmm, isn’t that a kind of circular logic?

And just look at their source,

According to an article from Mass-Resistance, “A purpose of GSAs is to indoctrinate the kids (including those calling themselves ‘straight’) in the radical ideas of the LGBT movement, which they term ‘queer theory.’ Most people are not aware just how extreme this is. Then the GSA leaders have the kids spread those ideas to the rest of the school through events like the ‘Day of Silence’, ‘Gay History Month’, and ‘Transgender Awareness Day.'”

You know it’s that old “Gay Agenda” again! Where we just want to live our lives without being harassed. Shame on us in demanding our right to live in peace.

However, if someone is being harassed because of their religious beliefs that is also wrong. They have a right to their religious beliefs. Two wrongs do not make a right, they shouldn’t harass us for being LGBT, and we shouldn’t harass them for their beliefs.

Expanding The Employment Protection For Us

The Department of Labor just announced their final revision of the President’s Executive Order for employment protection for gender identity and sexual orientation to go into effect in 120 days.

Labor Department announces final rule for LGBT workplace executive order
LGBTQNation
Staff Reports
Wednesday, December 3, 2014

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor on Wednesday announced the final rule for prohibiting discrimination against transgender federal employees and LGBT employees of federal contractors.

The rule implements an Executive Order signed by President Barack Obama on July 21.

The order bans workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees by amending a previous order issued by President Bill Clinton banning sexual orientation discrimination within the federal workforce.

In the same order, Obama established new standards for federal contractors prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, which employ 20 percent of the American workforce. In so doing, the order protects 14 million more American workers from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

This is in addition to the EEOC ruling from two years ago, the EO also includes sexual orientation, but it is just for government contractors.

Of course the Republicans are in a tizzy, they want to expand the religious exemption to include companies like Hobby Lobby.

There is an interesting blog on the EEOC efforts to expand to protect lesbians, trans-people, and gays in the workplace. The blog Lexicon explains how the EEOC has sued a number of companies for discriminating against trans-people and is working to include sexual orientation to that protection,

Led by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), federal agencies are beginning to focus on sexual orientation, gender identity and transgender discrimination.  While the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been introduced in every Congress since 1994, is unlikely to gain traction in the new Republican-controlled Congress, the EEOC and Department of Labor (DOL) have made lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues an enforcement priority.

On September 25, 2014, the EEOC filed a pair of lawsuits against companies alleging discrimination against transgender employees.  Both lawsuits cite violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides protection against sex discrimination.  This signifies the first time that the federal government has used Title VII to target private companies for LGBT discrimination.  Additionally, in October, the EEOC filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to reconsider its decision in Muhammad v. Caterpillar, Inc., 767 F.3d 694 (7th Cir. 2014), that Title VII does not bar sexual-orientation discrimination.
[…]
The EEOC has advanced a gender-stereotyping theory of sex discrimination first articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989).  Rather than focus on sexual orientation discrimination per se, the EEOC has focused on gender-stereotyping arguments where, for example, an employee is penalized for behavior or mannerisms not conforming to traditional gender norms.

This is an interesting strategy, by claiming that gays and lesbians are being discriminated against because they do not fit the gender-stereotype, not because of their sexual orientation. This was the strategy that trans-people used to get the courts to extend Title VII protection to gender identity.

What Relationships? Or Getting Hit By Lighting

Every time I get asked either in an outreach or by a healthcare provider about sexual relationships I get a chuckle and answer what relationships. Relationships in the trans-community is like getting hit by lighten, it happens but it is not that common and this article Bilerico hits the nail on the head,

What It's Really Like Dating as a Transgender Woman
Filed By Brynn Tannehill
December 03, 2014

Almost everyone interviewed about the topic was younger and lives in large metropolitan areas with significant queer communities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago). The reality of trying to date while transgender is far more difficult and complicated, however.

She goes on to list eleven common themes that she found…

1.) Marriages that do survive are irrevocably changed.
The episode quotes a statistic that only 7% of marriages survive transition. While I cannot find the origin of this statistic, I do believe it is accurate. However, even if a marriage doesn't end, the statistic doesn't tell the whole story.

I know of a couple of marriages that did survive and they have greatly changed. One couple that I know I believe that their marriage is more platonic from the fragments of conversation that I hear and another couple that I know the wife comments that it is hard now that they are identified as a lesbian couple and conversely a former lesbian couple that I know the partner says it is hard to be identified as a straight couple. A third couple that I know divorced but still are friends.

The author goes on to next theme, “2.) Queer culture is an urban phenomenon” and she has three comments from people she interviewed…

"On OKC [OkCupid] some days I get upward of 30 messages. And some men just do not take no for an answer." - E, a 40-year-old queer transgender woman in NYC.

"I've had a fully filled out OKC profile for 18 months, and updated it regularly. I've listed myself as both bi and lesbian, but don't hide the fact that I'm trans. I haven't had a single unsolicited message in that time regardless." - J, a 38-year-old queer trans woman in rural Ohio.

"I turned to online dating (OKC), but in over a year now I've never actually gone on a date with anyone from the site. Overall, I don't get messages. Occasionally, I get a few responses when I contact someone, and then they disappear. It's a huge source of frustration." - N, a 31-year-old queer transgender woman in rural Wisconsin.

I found that I am accepted most by women in their 20s and 30s but I’m not attracted to them, I’m looking for someone closer to my age.

She goes on to her next themes, “3.) Dating in conservative areas is almost not worth it ” and “4.) Dating men has unique (icky) challenges.” I know a couple of trans-women who date men and they had different results but what the author said I think has a ring of truth.

Transgender women are often fetishized by straight men, resulting in a very skeezy-feeling experience.

"I find a lot of men fetishize trans women in a way that they don't other women. I often hear statements that no man would ever say to a ciswoman. For example: "I've always been curious about sex with a transsexual. Can you tell me what your penis is like?"" - E, a 40-year-old queer transgender woman in NYC.

"After reassignment surgery, it seems that the chaser pool dried up and I haven't had much luck with dating. The one time where I almost had a date post-surgery, after disclosing to him he of course had an existential crisis and cancelled." - J, a 30-year-old straight transgender woman in East Lansing, Michigan.

I have been it hit-up by a couple of men and I think they had some type fetishisms and it did make me want to run away as fast as I could… ick!

She goes on to write,

5.) Dating women has its own challenges as well.Transgender women often have trouble finding safe spaces or acceptance in both gay and lesbian circles.

I found this to be very true. Sometimes I felt “tolerated” and other times I felt fully accepted especially once they got to know me. I was more accepted in “gay” space than “lesbian” but I not interested in “gay” space. When we went to go into a lesbian bar up in Ogunquit the woman at the door at first she said we couldn’t enter but after a stare down she relented, however, there was a space that formed around our table until our lesbian friends arrived and it was like a signal… “oh, they’re cool” and the tables around us filled back in.

When you go out with a woman she also has a hard time fitting into trans-space. It is also a struggle for her when she is with you and a number of your trans-friends.

And in themes 7 and 8, “Transgender people often end up dating other transgender people” and “Dating other transgender people also poses significant challenges” is so true. In #7 she quotes one trans-woman,

"Thankfully, the love of my life is a transman with who I would trust with my life." - Anonymous

I know a number of couples of trans-men and trans-women and also trans-women couples. But as she says in #8,

"It takes a strength that on many days can be too great for us. Days when we've been mispronouned, misgendered, harassed, ridiculed for our appearance, it can be hard to come home and see those same things in your partner. Some days though, coming home to someone who knows what it is like to go through those things can be a source of strength.

I can imagine that this is so true.

In number ten she talks about the BSDM community and finding acceptance there, I know of a couple that this true for them and in the last theme, #11 she sums it all up comments from two people that she interviewed,

"So, really if you are older than 30 let's say, and your current relationship fails when you come out as trans your prospects are dim at best. You also seem to have diminishing returns the older you get. A life of dysphoria, then rejection, then loneliness ... great." - A, a 39-year-old lesbian transgender woman in Southwick, MA.

"At this rate, I do not hold out much hope for finding my love. I've tried all the dating sites with not much success. I do actually feel at this point that it is highly likely I will live out my remaining days alone despite being 'amazing' as my friends describe me. What I feel is amazingly lonely." - M, a 43-year-old lesbian transgender woman in Florida.

But people do get hit by lighting every day, so don’t give up hope and the more people that you meet the getter the chance of getting hit by lighting.

World Watch

We are very, very lucky to be here in the U.S. when we talk about the discrimination that LGBT people face here we do not even come close to what the LGBT community faces around the world. It could cost us our life if we come out.

Love in exile
In 2010, Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a transgender woman, was imprisoned in Malawi for getting engaged to a man. Pardoned and freed, she now lives in exile in South Africa. Mark Gevisser reports on an uneasy triumph for the global LGBT rights movement
The Guardian
By Mark Gevisser
Thursday 27 November 2014

“Gays Engage!”
This was the headline on the front page of Malawi’s Nation newspaper, on 28 December 2009, beneath a photograph of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Stephen Monjeza, bleary and uncomfortable in matching his-and-hers outfits cut from the same waxprint: “Gay lovebirds Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza on Saturday made history when they spiced their festive season with an engagement ceremony (chinkhoswe), the first recorded public activity for homosexuals in the country.”

But the worst was yet to come,

Four months later, when Chimbalanga said she and Monjeza wished to hold a chinkhoswe, Kamphale offered her lodge as a venue, and a loan to pay for the festivities. The pastor of a local Pentecostal church, in which Chimbalanga was a chorister, agreed to preside. Two days later, the couple were arrested and charged with “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” — a hangover from the British colonial penal code — which had never been used against two consenting adults in Malawi. They were given 14 years’ hard labour. It was, the judge said, “a scaring sentence”: there was to be no more of such nonsense.

During the trial, both Kamphale and the pastor would testify that Chimbalanga had deceived them: she had explained away her male features by saying she had been born a girl but had been bewitched as a child. Expedient though this explanation might have been, it is close to how she actually felt, given that she has always understood herself to be female.

They were exiled after serving five months in jail,

“I am a woman,” she told me, firmly, five years later, as we sat in her neat, well-equipped two-roomed shack in Tambo Village, outside Cape Town. She has been in exile in South Africa since 2010. Amnesty International had declared her and Monjeza “prisoners of conscience”, and brought Chimbalanga to South Africa after they were eventually pardoned by Bingu wa Mutharika, who was then Malawi’s president, after five months in jail.

All around the world gays, lesbians, and trans-people face execution and persecutions for being themselves.

Will Florida Become Number Nineteen?

A sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination bill has been introduced in the Florida legislature.

Florida lawmakers peg anti-LGBT discrimination bill to economic viability
Tampa Bay Business Journal
By Margie Manning
Nov 24, 2014

Measures that would prohibit discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people on the job and in public housing and accommodations will get another chance in the Florida Legislature.

Rep. Holly Raschein, R-Key Largo, and Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Boynton Beach, filed bills in the Florida House and Senate respectively that would add protections for more than 536,000 LGBT adults in Florida, according to a statement from Equality Florida, a civil rights organization focused on the LGBT community. Florida is one of 29 states that lacks statewide non-discrimination protections for LGBT individuals.
[…]
Raschein co-sponsored the measure last year, but it failed to advance out of committee.

Will the bi-partisan bill make it out of committee this year or will it meet the same fate as all the other bills? Will we be dropped in order to pass the bill?

When Will They Ever Learn – The Continuing Saga

You would think by now that schools will have learned by now that they cannot block GSAs (Gay Straight Alliances) in their schools.

Putnam County principal: Adding LGBT club would ‘create bullying’
The Charleston Gazette
By Mackenzie Mays, Staff writer
November 14, 2014

A Putnam County high school will not allow a Gay-Straight Alliance club on campus, despite students’ requests.

Winfield High School Principal Bruce McGrew said that, while there was student interest in such a group, no teachers wanted to sponsor it.

“It’s not a subject to even discuss, because [we] don’t have one,” McGrew said. “That’s all I’ll say about it.”

When asked if he would allow a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender student support club at the school if a teacher did offer to chaperone, McGrew said he would “rather not answer that.”

McGrew said he believes the creation of such a group would allow more opportunities for students to bully other students.

“It’s an issue. If you’re asking my personal beliefs, that’s one thing, but what you’ve got to understand is we don’t want to have anything where there’s bullying involved, and if you bring attention to that sort of thing, it’s going to create bullying,” McGrew said. “It would bring more problems to the issue of bullying and so forth if it were to occur. Our job is to protect all kids from that.”

Yes, your job is to protect the students and it is not done by discriminating against them. The Equal Access Act (1980’s) applies to LGBT organizations and the courts and the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice has made it very clear that schools must allow GSAs and also provide a safe learning environment for all students.

An article in QUEERTY said that under pressure the school has agreed to have a GSA there,

The petition [a Change.org petition] garnered over 150 signatures and got the media’s attention. This ultimately prompted McGrew to reverse course. Within a day, he located a faculty member to oversee the group and gave the GSA the green light.

Jeff Haught, the school’s show choir director, will be the club’s sponsor.

Some Interesting Facts

There is an article in the Huffington Post about a genetic link to homosexuality that it tends to run in families, I don’t think that surprises anyone.

New Study Suggests Genetic Link For Male Homosexuality
AP
By Lindsey Tanner
Posted: 11/17/2014

CHICAGO (AP) — A large study of gay brothers adds to evidence that genes influence men's chances of being homosexual, but the results aren't strong enough to prove it.

Some scientists believe several genes might affect sexual orientation. Researchers who led the new study of nearly 800 gay brothers say their results bolster previous evidence pointing to genes on the X chromosome.

They also found evidence of influence from a gene or genes on a different chromosome. But the study doesn't identify which of hundreds of genes located in either place might be involved.

There are also studies that show birth order and age of parents at the time of conception also contributes to factors homosexuality. WebMD has an article about birth order,

Men may be more likely to be homosexual if they share their birth mother with older brothers, even if they didn't grow up with those brothers.

"These results strongly suggest a prenatal origin to the fraternal birth-order effect," writes Canada's Anthony Bogaert, PhD, in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[…]
"Only biological older brothers, and not any other sibling characteristic, including nonbiological older brothers, predicted men's sexual orientation, regardless of the amount of time reared with these siblings," writes Bogaert.

Bogaert's findings don't prove that birth order determines sexual orientation. However, Bogaert writes that the study supports the idea that sexual orientation starts before birth.

Another interesting finding is that gays and lesbians are more likely to be left handed, a BBC Science article about a study by Richard A Lippa and our friend (sic) Ray Blanchard said,

Recent studies have documented that gay men and lesbians are more likely to be left-handed (or ambidextrous) than heterosexuals are. Also, gay men are more likely to have an excess of older brothers, compared to heterosexual men—a phenomenon termed 'the fraternal birth order effect'. The most recent studies that look at both factors at the same time suggest that the fraternal birth order effect is true for right-handed gay men but not for left-handed gay men – that is, older brothers increase a man's odds of being gay only for right-handers.
[…]
More gay men than heterosexual men reported being left-handed (13% versus 11%). Similarly, more lesbian women than heterosexual women reported being left-handed (11% versus 10%).

There have been also some studies that gender identity is also affected by birth order and also runs in families.

The thing to remember that there is probably no one reason a person is LGBT, it is probably a very complex process. That is they ever do find a “gay gene” it will not mean that everyone has to have the gene or conversely if you have the gene you have to be LGBT. It probably a mixture of genetic, prenatal, and environmental factors that contribute to gender identity and sexual orientation.

The Global View

As more and more companies become global they face cultural pressures that run counter to ours. When an American company expands into Muslin countries they face backlash for their support of LGBT human rights.

MetLife’s Gay Rights Support Draws Criticism of Malaysia Partner
Insurance Journal
By Zachary Tracer and Claire Obusan
November 17, 2014

MetLife Inc.’s support for gay rights in the U.S. is drawing criticism to the insurer’s partner in Malaysia. A group in the nation called for a boycott of AMMB Holdings Bhd.’s AmBank, citing MetLife’s recognition as among the best places to work for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
[…]
Jaringan Melayu Malaysia, the group pushing for a boycott, also called on Malaysia’s government to reconsider allowing the MetLife venture to offer the takaful products.

‘Subtly Deceiving’
“It is clear that the entire time MetLife has been promoting LGBT, subtly deceiving the Muslim people in this country,” Jaringan Melayu Malaysia said on its website. “This looks like a bigger agenda that has malicious intent that obscures the vision of banking, especially Islamic banking in this country.”

Other corporations are also feeling the pressured in Muslim countries and I wonder how Apple is going to fair because of Tim Cook coming out. Will Apple be boycotted and how will this affect U.S. Companies that want to trade globally? Will companies still want a 100 in HRC’s Company Equality Index if it means losing business worldwide?

Municipal Equality Index

Okay, once in awhile HRC does something right. The two things I can’t fault the HRC on if the Corporate Equality Index (CPI) and Municipal Equality Index (MEI). The CPI marginalized us a number of years ago but they have now included us on an equal bases with gays and lesbians.

They began the MEI a few years ago and Connecticut has a rating of above average.

Municipal Equality Index Finds CT Above Average for LGBT Residents
CT By The Numbers
11/12/2014

Connecticut cities continue to rank above-average when compared with municipalities across the country in the level of equality provided to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) residents.  Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford and Storrs (Mansfield) were the five Connecticut municipalities included by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, in an assessment of LGBT equality in 353 cities across the nation.
[…]
The average score for the five municipalities in Connecticut was 74 out of 100 points, comfortably above the national average of 59.  The individual scores in Connecticut, largely unchanged from a year ago, were New Haven: 100, Hartford: 92, Stamford: 62, Storrs (Mansfield): 59, and Bridgeport: 57.  The scores earned by Hartford and Bridgeport dropped slightly from a year ago, and New Haven scored at 100 for the second consecutive year.  Because of changes in the legal landscape from year to year, the MEI report has revised the scoring assessment criteria, which has impacted scores in some municipalities.

But I think that we should be not only above average but all have a 100 points because after all under Connecticut law LGBT workers should be treated as the same as any other worker. Bridgeport should not be only a 57 points if they are following the law. Because the MEI has standards like,

• Non-discrimination laws
• Relationship recognition
• Municipality’s employment policies, including transgender-inclusive insurance coverage, contracting non-discrimination requirements, and other policies relating to equal treatment of LGBT city employees
• Inclusiveness of city services
• Law enforcement
• Municipal leadership on matters of equality

All them categories are mandated by Connecticut law so the cities breaking the law by not covering those categories.  There are cities in Louisiana, Kansas, Utah, and Texas that have higher scores that Bridgeport.

I Don’t Know About That

This article I hope is right, but I really doubt it.

Op-ed: Yes, We Can Still Make LGBT Allies With a Republican MajorityThe election results may sting for some, but HRC president Chad Griffin says it's more important than ever to keep fighting on.Advocate
By Chad Griffin
November 06 2014

Yes, we’re certainly nursing some wounds this week. Seeing Senators Mark Udall, Kay Hagan, and others go down to defeat really hurts, especially after they cast such critical votes for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act last year. We lost pro-equality House members and pro-equality governors — and we gained a few true radicals on Capitol Hill (Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin and Jody Hice of Georgia will make Rep. Michele Bachmann look even-handed by comparison when they join Sen. Ted Cruz on Capitol Hill come January). What’s more, we lost key seats in state houses around the country — at a moment when our adversaries want to push forward new anti-LGBT legislation in these chambers.
[…]
Time and time again, committed and loving gay and lesbian couples were used as a wedge issue to drive voters to the polls. Not this year. This time, Americans focused on what mattered most to them — the economy and jobs. It’s a funny thing to say, but in this election, silence on LGBT issues counts as a measure of progress.

Umm… I don’t think so. I think the silence is an indication that the Republicans have learned to shut-up about LGBT issues because it doesn’t get them many votes. But they know that their core constituents know they will still oppose LGBT human rights.

I expect here in Connecticut the right has been energized because they won a couple of seats. Somewhere around the 2009/2010 politics here in Connecticut became polarized, I don’t know if it was because the lost the governorship or what but whatever the case the Republicans are against anything that the Democrats propose and the votes were right down party lines. In 2007 the Senate voted 30 – 4 for the non-discrimination bill, but in 2011 the vote was 20 – 16 right down party lines, most of the senators voting 2011 were the same as those voting in 2007. I heard from many Republicans that they were in favor of the bill but voted against because they didn’t want to go against their party.

I see little or no hope in being able to pass any LGBT human rights legislation on a federal level and slim to fair here in Connecticut.

A Deeper Understanding

Have any of you read what Tim Cook the CEO of Apple said when he came out? Boy did that resonate with me…

Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.

This so parallels how I feel, being trans have also given me a deeper understanding of life and coming out has made me a stronger person. It has enriched my life in ways that I never thought possible and lead me to places that I had never dreamed of going.

When I transitioned I learned what male white privilege is and what it is like to lose it. I went from being 50% of the population to 0.5%. I learned what it is like to walk in to a restaurant and have conversation stop and people stare at you. I learned what it is like to sit in a bar and not get waited on. I learned what it feels like to be not welcomed.

Friday I stood up in front of a class and taught them what we face as a community and how coming out has changed my life for the positive. It has changed me from someone whose life took me only five miles from my home, all the people that I knew in my world were either family or I had known since elementary school. Now it encompasses people who make their living off the street all the way up to the governor. I know artists, actors, authors, photographers, and television producers.

Tim Cook wrote,

At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” I often challenge myself with that question, and I’ve come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That’s what has led me to today.

For me the help that I do to make this a better world for those trans-people to come is the most rewarding. I was with some friends waiting for our reservations when a woman came up to me and said, “You probably don’t remember me, but you spoke in our class and now I have a client who came out to me as transgender. Because of what you said in class that day I knew how to treat her.”

Home Sweet Home… Not

As the LGBT population grows older many of us wonder about how we will be treated in senior housing, nursing homes, and senior centers. Many were pioneers in the LGBT movement and are now finding that their activist days are not over.

LGBT senior housing: Pride amid much prejudice
Yakima Herald
By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, The Washington Post
POSTED ON NOVEMBER 6, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — The suspicious questions and puzzled looks started as soon as Sidney Meyers, 74, put in his applications to live in a sun-dappled Florida retirement community. Was he ever married? Why not? No children? No grandchildren!?

It was challenging to find a place to live, because the residents and landlords all knew he was gay, he said. Would he be having “guests?” several asked, often with raised eyebrows.
[…]
But today, after deciding that several other communities in Florida weren’t for him, Meyers has found a home where he can be proud of his life. He lives in the John C. Anderson apartments, a six-story building that opened recently in Center City here and caters to low-income LGBT seniors, many of them pioneers of the gay rights movement.

The project, affectionately called “the gay-dy shady acres” by residents, is being hailed as a model for similar federally backed housing projects in the District of Columbia and more than a dozen other cities across the country.

There have been much talk about LGBT housing, does it create a “Gay Getto?” both sides of the argument have merit. I can see it as form of segregation where it will isolate us from the non-LGBT population and the landlords don’t have to worry about discrimination law suits. The “problem” of a trans-person moving in next door is eliminated if we stick them all in the same apartment building.

But on the other hand by being with people who are the same as us we don’t have to worry about the neighbors think, we don’t have to put up with “suspicious questions and puzzled looks.” It also increases the chances of finding a partner; you don’t need “gaydar” because everyone there is gay, lesbian, bi, or trans.

The article goes on to say that HUD has received over 150 discrimination complaints just since last year. Here is Connecticut there is a law suit against a landlord who refused to rent to a trans-women. The article says,

In the coming months, federal officials said they plan to dispatch the first LGBT “fair housing testers” across the country, modeled after testers who have traditionally posed as prospective tenants to see whether there is racial discrimination.

While the government has long brought cases against housing discrimination on the basis of race and religion, federal officials say sexual orientation and gender identity are the new front lines.

So what do you think, is it a form of discrimination?

survey services

Sometimes They Get It

Many pastors, ministers, and priests say negative things about gays, lesbians, bi, and trans-people but they are not all like that, there are some who get it. One pastor who does is Pastor John Pavlovitz on his website he listed five things you will not hear him saying.

1) If I have gay children, you’ll all know it.
My children won’t be our family’s best kept secret.
[…]
If my children come out, we’ll be out as a family.

2) If I have gay children, I’ll pray for them.
I won’t pray for them to be made “normal”. I’ve lived long enough to know that if my children are gay, that is their normal.
[…]
Above all, I’ll pray to God that my children won’t allow the unGodly treatment they might receive from some of His misguided children, to keep them from pursuing Him.

3) If I have gay children, I’ll love them.
[…]
If my kids are gay, they may doubt a million things about themselves and about this world, but they’ll never doubt for a second whether or not their Daddy is over-the-moon crazy about them

4) If I have gay children, most likely; I have gay children.
If my kids are going to be gay, well they pretty much already are.
God has already created them and wired them, and placed the seed of who they are within them. Psalm 139 says that He, “stitched them together in their mother’s womb”. The incredibly intricate stuff that makes them uniquely them; once-in-History souls, has already been uploaded into their very cells.

There are 3,834 comments on his post they run from “Bless you!” to “How can you call yourself a pastor?”

In Heidi Stevens column she says this about why the pastor feels the way he does,

Pavlovitz, raised Catholic in upstate New York, attended college at Philadelphia's University of the Arts, where he made friends with people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community. "That's when I first started to realize, 'These are human beings, not just some reasons to quote scripture,'" he told me. "That opened my eyes to seeing homosexuality not as an issue but as a human story."

When you know someone it is a lot harder to hate them, I realize that not everyone can be out, but one of the greatest experiences in life is to know that you have brought change for the better in a person’s. to hear someone say that by knowing you they have changed for the better the way they think about trans-people.

From On High

Those who have power never see what it looks likes from below…

Master: I don’t understand why they want to be free, they are out there singing in the fields and they get three meals a day.

Boss after he gets a ten million dollar bonus: I don’t understand why they aren’t happy; I gave them a 25 cents raise.

Gay man:

But there are too many progressives and liberals who take it to the next level. I can't speak for everyone, but when one takes something that is not offensive to begin with (e.g. the Silverman video), sprinkles it with accusations of bigotry or ignorance, and then condemns it publicly, it comes across as self-serving and self-righteous. It's almost a way to say, "Look at how enlightened and socially conscious I am!" It serves no constructive purpose and only works to split hairs and as self-promotion.
[…]
But within activist and social justice circles, there's a tendency to find problems and bigotry where none exists. Whether it's accusing LGBT ally and liberal comedienne Sarah Silverman of being insensitive to trans issues in a comedic PSA or calling someone who critiques a religious doctrine "racist," the result is the same: ego stroking disguised as awareness.

Those of privilege do not see the injustice that their privileges create, when you look at any marginalized community their oppressors just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Sarah Silverman is right, wage discrimination is wrong but you don’t go about correcting that discrimination by poking fun at another minority.

# # # # #

It is not just the trans-community that is under attack it is other oppressed communities that are also under attack for speaking up,

Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign
New York Times
By Nick Wingfield
OCT. 15, 2014

Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist cultural critic, has for months received death and rape threats from opponents of her recent work challenging the stereotypes of women in video games. Bomb threats for her public talks are now routine. One detractor created a game in which players can click their mouse to punch an image of her face.
[…]
The malice directed recently at women, though, is more intense, invigorated by the anonymity of social media and bulletin boards where groups go to cheer each other on and hatch plans for action. The atmosphere has become so toxic, say female game critics and developers, that they are calling on big companies in the $70-billion-a-year video game business to break their silence.

The oppressors see nothing wrong in the way games treat women. They are clueless about what the games are doing to women by marginalizing them.

When They Stop Opposing Us Then I’ll Believe

The Pope is preaching tolerance but it hasn't seemed to filter on down yet.

Vatican Document: Gays Have 'Gifts and Qualities to Offer' Church
NBC News
October 13, 2014

In a dramatic shift in tone, a Vatican document said Monday that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples. Roman Catholic gay rights groups around the world hailed the paper as a breakthrough, but Church conservatives called it a betrayal of traditional family values.
[…]
"Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home," said the document, known by its Latin name "relatio".

In September the National Catholic Reporter wrote,

As equal marriage rights continue to expand, more Catholic institutions will confront the issue of employees in civil same-sex marriages and this will likely result in more firings, unless some accommodation is reached.

Five dioceses have revised teacher contracts explicitly banning employees from supporting same-sex relationships in both their professional and their personal lives. Officials in Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Honolulu; and Oakland, Calif., have added these "morality clauses," causing many educators to either resign in protest or refuse to renew their contracts for the coming school year. It is often heterosexual employees unwilling to end their open support for LGBT family and friends who are most affected by these contracts.

When this stops then  I will believe then I will believe that the church is turning over a new leaf.

Update 10/18/14 3:30PM
It seems like the Vatican is backpedaling already,

A final statement agreed to on Saturday by a summit of Catholic Church leaders to discuss teachings on family retreated from groundbreaking language on “welcoming homosexual persons” included in an interim draft released on Monday.
[...]
The final statement — formally known as the Relatio of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family — drops the title “Welcoming homosexual persons” from the section on the place of gays and lesbians in the church. Weaker language that spoke of “The pastoral care of people with homosexual orientation” was proposed instead, and a phrase referring to “Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community” was also dropped. But even this new language failed to receive a vote needed to be adopted, the Associated Press reported, failing on a vote of 118 to 62.