Governor Andrew Cuomo to Use Executive Action to Protect Transgender New Yorkers from Discrimination
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he’ll use executive action to protect New Yorkers from harassment and discrimination on the basis of gender identity, transgender status, and gender dysphoria in housing, employment, credit, education, and public accommodations. Cuomo made the announcement at a dinner for the Empire State Pride Agenda in New York City.
It comes after several failed attempts to pass protections based on gender identity (GENDA) in the New York Senate. The State Assembly passed GENDA for the eighth time on June 2nd in a bipartisan 88-45 vote.
The Cuomo administration said the plan would be comprehensive, covering all New Yorkers, not just state workers, and would include so-called public accommodation, a broad legal catchall that includes such places as ice cream parlors, hospitals and golf courses.
The executive action signifies an apparent tilt to the left for Mr. Cuomo, a centrist Democrat sometimes faulted within his own party for working too closely with Republicans. And it serves as another example of the governor’s wielding executive power to tackle politically contentious issues, such as ordering the creation of a state wage board to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers and empowering the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, as a special prosecutor in police-related killings.
Said Nathan Schaefer, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda:
“After years of tireless advocacy, we’ve won a tremendous victory for transgender civil rights with Governor Cuomo’s announcement tonight. Thanks to the hard work of the Pride Agenda, our coalition partners, and countless transgender leaders, we have achieved this milestone for transgender civil rights. We look forward to working with the Administration to quickly implement these regulations so transgender New Yorkers are protected from discrimination–a basic civil right that is long overdue. We also recognize and express deep appreciation and gratitude to Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried for their longstanding leadership championing of GENDA in the state legislature.”
Lincoln Chafee announced this morning he is ending his campaign for the Democratic party nomination for president.
Chafee made his withdrawal announcement in Washington, D.C., at a Democratic National Committee forum on women’s leadership, where three other candidates were scheduled to speak.
In a recent online poll for The Advocate, Chafee won just 1 percent of readers’s support, with 47 votes out of more than 8,000 cast.
In his speech, Chafee called for “the beginning of a new era for the United States and humanity” and “an end to the endless wars,” reported the Washington Post.
“Do we want to be remembered as a bomber of weddings and hospitals?” said Chafee. “Or do we want to be remembered as peacemakers, as pioneers of a more harmonious world?
Chafee is the third Democrat this week to announce he would not seek the presidency, leaving former U.S. senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley competing for votes in next year’s primaries.
Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday he had decided against entering the race for the White House, and former U.S. senator Jim Webb of Virginia also dropped out of the Democratic race but left open the chance he might launch an independent bid.
Opponents Of LGBT Protections Are Clueless About Transgender Men
In less than two weeks, Houston voters will consider Proposition 1, deciding whether the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) will become law. Its opponents have made many incendiary arguments targeting transgender women, but their claims have a glaring hole: transgender men.
HERO would create sweeping nondiscrimination protections for the city, which, unlike most cities across the country, has no such law protecting any class. And though it protects multiple identity factors, including religion, race, military status, disability, and pregnancy, opponents of the bill have focused on a very narrow aspect of its sexual orientation and gender identity protections — specifically, demonizing transgender women as sexual predators.
Opponents of HERO, identifying themselves as the “Campaign for Houston,” have blanketed the city with billboards, radio ads, television ads, and other forms of messaging, all of which focus on the singular message: “No men in women’s bathrooms!” The “men” refers to a distorted understanding of transgender women, individuals who were assigned male at birth but who have the inherent gender identity of a woman and would find protection from discrimination for that identity under HERO.
One ad misleadingly claims, “Any man at any time could enter a women’s bathroom simply by claiming to be a woman that day.” The campaign has also referenced “gender-confused men,” whose use of women’s facilities is, as one ad described it, “filthy, disgusting, and unsafe.”
As trans editor and writer Mitch Kellaway explained to ThinkProgress, these tactics “are actively intended to attack trans women, who they see as the primary ‘threat’ to womanhood.” They erase and stigmatize transgender women’s identities, disregarding the fact that they even are, in fact, women — all the time. They also ignore the fact that, as HERO’s supporters have pointed out in their commercials, “indecent exposure, harassment, and assault in bathrooms is already illegal.” Most importantly, transgender women are not predators; they are individuals who, like everybody else, simply want to pee in peace.
But Kellaway is also concerned that these ads highlight “the passive transphobia that follows trans men in our society: our erasure from existence. We aren’t even fathomable to most people.” Masen Davis, co-director of Global Action for Trans Equality, echoed that sentiment to ThinkProgress. “So many of the arguments against HERO are based on fear and misunderstanding of transgender people,” he explained, but “they also depend on a lack of visibility of transgender men.”
Indeed, none of HERO’s opponents could provide ThinkProgress with the answer to a simple question: when it comes to bathrooms, what about transgender men?
Mitch Kellaway and retired Navy Seal Kristin Beck, standing in front of an image of Beck before she transitioned.
CREDIT: Facebook/Mitch Kellaway
It’s true that transgender women seek the use of women’s restrooms; not only does using the restroom that matches their gender identity spare them from stigma, it also keeps them safer. Even when equipped with robust gender identity protections like HERO would create, transgender people face high rates of harassment and discrimination when attempting to use the restroom. Though some transgender men face these same safety issues, they can often have the opposite problem as well.
Transgender men, people assigned as female at birth but who identify as men, are less often profiled as being trans. Thanks to the effects of testosterone, such as the growth of facial and body hair, lowering of the voice, and redistribution of body fat, they are often more readily perceived to be the men that they are. New research suggests testosterone therapy can even change their brain structure in masculinizing ways. As they are transitioning, these changes can put them in the position of being in a female-space but perceived as a man — particularly in the absence of non-discrimination protections guaranteeing them access to the proper facilities.
Kellaway dealt with just such experiences, describing how he avoided problems in public facilities during his transition by being “strategic”:
When I first started medically transitioning and was still often perceived as “female” in public, I’d use the women’s restroom, despite the emotional costs from experiencing gender dysphoria; when I was perceived as androgynous (sometimes male, sometimes female), I would hold my bladder rather than use a men’s restroom out of fear of violence or make sure a female friend was with me at all times to somewhat “legitimize” my presence in a women’s restroom; and now that I am perceived universally as male, I still remain vigilant in public men’s rooms — that worry just doesn’t go away 100 percent, because there are few feelings more vulnerable than having your pants down in public.
Senior Airman Logan Ireland, who now serves openly in the Air Force, faced a unique yet similar set of circumstances during his transition. Though the Pentagon is in the process of lifting the ban on transgender military service, Ireland still faces the risk that he could be discharged in the meantime. When he first enlisted in the military, he identified as a female, so when he began to transition a few years later, he had to hide himself.
“When I went on hormones, I still had to use the female restrooms,” he told ThinkProgress. “It bothered me, but it didn’t bother me, because those were the rules, living that double life.” He didn’t specifically have any fears of his own, but he recognized the impact he had on the other women using the facility.
“Every single time that I had to use the female restroom, of course I felt uncomfortable. I was out of place. This was wrong,” he explained. “I felt bad for the other females around because they know something was out of place and I knew something was out of place. I tried to make that situation on them as easy as possible, and those incidents were few and far between.”
Now that he’s living openly as a man, he can use the male restrooms, and “that’s effortless and not a problem.” His current workplace even has unisex restrooms, but everywhere else, when he uses the men’s restroom, “no one bats an eye.”
Who decides who uses which restroom?
Masen Davis
CREDIT: Facebook/Masen Davis
Kellaway told ThinkProgress that gender policing and stereotypes are a very real threat to transgender men. “When we use the women’s bathrooms we’re ‘supposed’ to use” — according to opponents of trans equality measures like HERO — “we’re seen as predators,” and that perception can lead to violence toward trans men.
“The only escape in this rigid gender system is for trans men to fit into society’s concept of what a man ‘should’ look like and be perceived as such while using a men’s room — which is a possibility for some men, but leaves many other vulnerable.”
For Davis, gender policing isn’t just a problem for transgender people. He shared with ThinkProgress that he was often profiled by women in the women’s room before he even began transitioning, and his experience was not unique. “It’s not actually transgender people who make people the most uncomfortable in restrooms,” he explained. “It’s anyone who doesn’t fit definitions of gender, anyone who doesn’t look like a manly man or a feminine woman. Often women who are not as feminine are the ones who are most likely to raise eyebrows in the restroom. These are women who are not transgender and who just need to use the restroom like everyone else.”
Davis doesn’t have problems using restrooms now, but he knows he would if he were forced to use the women’s room. “As a 40-something year old man who is bald with a big beard, the last thing anybody wants is me in the women’s room. It would be just inappropriate across the board.”
Outside of the Houston fight, conservatives have tried to push back on transgender rights by proposing legislation that would force transgender individuals to use facilities that match the gender they were assigned at birth. Just such a policy was proposed this week in Texas, attempting to limit transgender student athletes from playing on the team that matches their identity.
In all such cases — just like with HERO — the argument goes that by enforcing these “gender by birth” policies, it will protect women and girls from having to share facilities with people who were assigned male at birth. It was this idea that led Mike Huckabee to joke earlier this year that if there were trans protections when he was a kid, he would have pretended to be a girl so he could “shower with the girls.” Never, however, are transgender men considered, nor the impact of forcing people who identify as (and look like) men to use women’s facilities. As Davis reasons, “If you are telling transgender women they can’t use the women’s room, you’re telling transgender men they need to use the women’s restroom, and that’s going to cause more discomfort.”
But in fact, none of HERO’s political opponents has an answer to the question of which facility transgender men should use.
On Tuesday, ThinkProgress reached out via email to the leaders and outspoken advocates trying to defeat HERO with that simple question: “Which locker room do you believe transgender men should use?” Each inquiry referenced a specific comment that organization or leader had made opposing “men in women’s restrooms.” This included:
The Campaign for Houston itself, which is responsible for the ads like the latest about men who could simply claim to be a woman on any given day.
Lance Berkman, the former Houston Astros baseball star who recorded an ad for the Campaign for Houston claiming that Proposition 1 would “allow troubled men to enter women’s public bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.”
Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans football team, who donated $10,000 to the Campaign for Houston.
Lt. Gov Dan Patrick (R), who posted a video this week claiming that HERO is about “allowing men in women’s locker rooms and bathrooms.”
Steve Hotze, head of the Conservative Republicans of Texas political Action committee, who promoted a radio ad for the Campaign for Houston, claiming that HERO would “allow perverted men to use female public restrooms, shower facilities and locker rooms, placing our wives, sisters, daughters and granddaughters in harm’s way.”
Texas Values/Texas Values Action, a conservative organization that issued an ad this week — stolen from a similar campaign in Anchorage, Alaska — claiming that the fictional gym owner Steve “will be forced to open the women’s locker room to anyone who claims a female identity.”
Rev. Kendall Baker, a candidate for Houston City Council who recorded an ad for the Campaign for Houston in which he claimed, “The bathroom ordinance is shameful. It will allow men to freely walk into places where women are most vulnerable and violate their privacy.”
The only response ThinkProgress received was from the Texans’ senior director of communications, who indicated that McNair was traveling and would not be able to respond.
On Thursday, ThinkProgress attempted to connect with these same HERO opponents again by phone. This prompted only Texas Values Action to respond. Despite being directly asked, “Which locker room does Texas Values believe transgender men should use?”, Executive Director Jonathan Saenz offered this response:
We agree with legal experts, faith leaders, business leaders and Houstonians of numerous racial and ethnic backgrounds that this ordinance is a [sic] bad for business, a threat to public safety, and is intolerant of a diversity of religious views. We don’t need more subpoenas for pastor sermons and government hostility towards the free market. Houston local prop 1 should be voted down.
In other words, not a single opponent of Houston’s LGBT nondiscrimination protections could provide any answer about the implications of not allowing transgender men to use the men’s room.
What does “men in the women’s room” actually look like?
Allowing transgender people to use the restrooms that match their identities does not lead to sexual assault. Plenty of other cities — even in Texas — have approved the protections and the supposed consequences have not occurred. Moreover, how opponents of HERO portray sexual assault isn’t even accurate. Cassandra Thomas, a national leader on sexual violence research and advocacy who works with the Houston Area’s Women Center, explains that sexual assault is overwhelmingly carried out by people the victim knows, not by strangers pretending to be transgender in bathrooms.
Still, women might be uncomfortable seeing a man in a women’s restroom, and that’s why Michael Hughes started his #WeJustNeedToPee campaign. A trans man, Hughes staged photos of himself taking selfies in women’s restrooms with women in the background. He had previously lived “stealth” — no one knew he was trans — but he felt compelled to challenge conservatives who opposed a transgender-inclusive policy for Minnesota school athletics.
Hughes doesn’t worry about his safety in a women’s bathroom, but he definitely worries about transgender women being forced to use men’s facilities. That’s why he carefully staged his photos. As he explained to The Advocate earlier this year, “I didn’t want to encounter women who didn’t know me and make anyone feel vulnerable.”
Davis thinks that if people tried to match up people’s picture with what bathroom they should use, “it would be very clear that people should use the restroom that matches their identity and how they move through the world.” The anti-HERO ads, he noted, “don’t actually include the faces of transgender people or the real lives of those impacted by the law.”
The #WeJustNeedToPee hashtag continues to serve as a forum for transgender people to share their own stories of bathroom harassment and rebut conservative efforts to enforce discrimination against them.
The Home Stretch
With the vote on Proposition 1 coming up on November 3, both sides are working to make the cases for and against HERO. The Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group, posted the latest ad opposing the measure through its Faith Family Freedom Fund, again claiming that people will be fined up to $5,000 for “simply objecting to a man using a woman’s bathroom.” In a break from the Campaign for Houston’s messaging, the ad also admits that wedding vendors would no longer be able to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Houston Unites, the campaign working to pass Prop 1, is likewise working to show that HERO is not just about bathrooms, but about protecting all of Houston’s citizens from discrimination.
Opponents remain insistent about defining the debate with bathrooms, but it is they who support forcing men to use the women’s restroom by allowing discrimination against transgender men.
As a gayteen, learning about sex was a hit and miss experience for me, as it is for many. I knew I liked the feelings of sex and yet as a fumbling adolescent, I didn’t always get the technique and connections right. And as most gayteens still encounter to this day, there was no discussion of LGBT sex in the curriculum of the high school Sex Ed class.
Sure, I got to see all of the banal videos of changing voices and changing bodies but all of the material was oriented toward straight people having sex with other straight people of the opposite sex. Sex was portrayed as unromantic, missionary position and something that was more a chore than a pleasure. And there was definitely no room for the urges I was feeling to get it on with another guy.
And strangely enough, that conceit has not changed very much over the years. Yes, there are some progressive schools that are offering modules that are much more inclusive, but these types of programs are more the exception than the norm. In fact, for most LGBT teens the only mention of gaysex is connected to the conversation about HIV/AIDS and STI’s. How’s that as a way to boost your sexual confidence as a gayteen?
And more than just the mechanics of having sex, it also would have been helpful to understand the deeper psychological connection of having sex and the relationship of intimacy to the physical act. All of the education seemed to skip the fact that sex felt really good and could be a lot of fun.
So here are 4 things that nobody taught me in Sex Ed class. I have learned them through both life experience and education and they may just bring a new zing into your gaysex life.
1. Sex is Not Just a Mechanical Activity. If you remember back to Sex Ed, the examination of the mechanics of sex were just that, a step by step guide to inserting one part of the body into anther part of someone else’s body. And they were done in the most scientific animation models, which created a clinical distance of what sex was supposed to be. Over time, we get to discover that the mechanics are similar but intriguingly different for gaysex and that there are myriad means of creating sexual connection and pleasure with male partners. Instead of just inserting tab A into slot B, we as gaymen have man slots and tabs that can be connected to create all kinds of pleasurable sensations. And there is so much more to erotic play and sexual pleasure than just connecting slots and tabs with entire bodies available for our sensual pleasure. It is important not to be afraid of discovering which of those activities brings you the most pleasure and sexual fulfillment.
2. The Body is Not Just a Sex Machine. As we first explore sex, it often is just about getting off and finding pleasure. And that is a great thing all to itself. Over time, we may find that sex is also a doorway into deeper connection and intimacy and that the pleasure centers of our bodies react differently in response to trust, connection and integrity. There may be times when it is just about pleasure and release but as we learn more about our needs for connection and intimacy, an entirely different level of sexual pleasure can open up to us. And finding that connection with the right person can be really exciting as well as meaningful.
3. There Are Many Facets to Great Sex. If you go back to those Sex Ed videos, there was really only one vanilla way to have sex. But as gaymen, we can bring creativity into the bedroom and what you will find over time is there are as many unique ways of having sex as there are people. And sex is often influenced by our mental and emotional states. Sometimes we may crave a long passionate session of pleasure and indulgence, while other times we just want a quickie as we head out the door to work. We may want toys, multiple boys and erotic play to be part of the scenario and all of these experiences can be healthy and exciting. These choices and all the others in between on that scale are not only okay, but can also deepen our connection to our erotic self.
4. Communication During Sex is Hot. I bet if you imagine yourself back in that classroom learning about sex, nobody was actually talking about their needs and desires during the process. The art of communicating what turns you on and learning the same from your sex partner can be an amazing tool to even more erotic connection during sex. If something feels good, let your partner know and conversely, if something isn’t quite working the way you like, share that as well. The art of talking to each other about the experience makes it possible for sex to get even better each time you do it.
As a gayman, educating yourself about sex and your own personal experience of pleasure is a lifetime learning experience and know that your needs and desires will change over time. By being an explorer of the world of sexual fulfillment you can move beyond the lame lessons in your high school Sex Ed class and become a true connoisseur of the many pleasures that sex can bring into your life.
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Who Knew? Underneath the Makeup, Varla Jean Merman is One Hot Daddy.
Varla Jean Merman has been keeping a very sexy secret.
The sassy drag performer — who starred in 2003’s Girls Will Be Girls, the off-Broadway musical Lucky Guy, and, very briefly, as “Rosemary Chicken” on the soap opera All My Children — turns out to be one super-hot daddy underneath all those bangles, beads, pancake, and taffeta.
Legendary for riotous one-person shows like Varla Jean Merman Loves A Foreign Tongue, I’m Not Paying For This! and Holiday Ham!, the veteran actor, writer, and performer goes by the name Jeffrey Roberson when he’s not clomping around in high heels.
And when the lights go up, the music dies, and the wig gets tossed in the corner, he has the great fortune of looking like this:
Watch Roberson as Varla Jean Merman work her magic below:
Rachel Maddow Looks at Hillary Clinton’s Face-Off Against the Benghazi Attack Dogs: WATCH
Anyone who sat for any length of time and watched that Benghazi panel yesterday saw what a nauseating waste of time and money it proved itself to be. If Americans weren’t already convinced it was a farce, they sure learned. And what they also learned is that Hillary Clinton has the tenacity and will, and cool-headedness to endure the most brutal of diplomatic engagements.
Eleven hours. What a sad display for our country.
Rachel Maddow last night took a look at Clinton’s long day, and spoke with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell about what went down in the committee.
Is Kristin Wiig’s “Nasty Baby” The Queer Film We’ve Been Waiting For?
After the box office and critical disappointments of Stonewall and Freeheld, you might have given up hope for an exciting LGBT-themed movie. So clear your calendars for this weekend and check out Sebastián Silva’s wildly-anticipated NastyBaby, which opens in select theaters today. The film stars Silva and Tunde Adebimpe as a gaycouple living in Fort Greene; two left-field artists living who are trying to help their single friend (Kristen Wiiig) conceive a child.
While the plot synopsis might make Nasty Baby sound like a hyper-generic rom-com, a series of serpentine twists not-so subtly jerks the story-line into unusually dark terrain, upturning conventions until the film careens into totally unchartered territory.
Tackling gentrification and race relations head on — both of which emerge as hidden themes as the story warps and devolves — the savage third act led the Toronto Film Festival to ultimately reject the film, but it was one of the most talked-about entries at Sundance. It’s not difficult to see why.
