Days After Houston Rejects Trans Equality, Reform Jews Adopt Sweeping Transgender Rights Policy
“After the measure passed, there was a standing ovation.”
The post Days After Houston Rejects Trans Equality, Reform Jews Adopt Sweeping Transgender Rights Policy appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Jack Jenkins
thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/11/06/3719856/reform-judaism-transgender/
8 Books That Don’t Sugarcoat Teen Sexuality
In a recent installment of HuffPost’s Love + Sex podcast, co-hosts Noah Michelson and Carina Kolodny talked about the increasing number of teens turning to literature to educate themselves about sex.
It’s not a surprising trend, especially considering that only 22 states require sexual education at all, and some districts still promote abstinence-only programs. Of course, it’s not the responsibility of novelists to educate teens about protection, STDs and other important issues. But a well-told story from a teen’s perspective can show what sex can be like when it’s good, what sex can be like when it’s not so good. It can remind young readers that being a sexual being is totally normal and worth celebrating.
Which is why it’s surprising that few realistic YA writers tackle the subject of sex head-on — John Green’s moralistic and enjoyable novels lightly brush over the topic. Sure, there are fantasy books with sexually active characters. But, frankly, “Twilight” makes sex seem like a harbinger of doom.
Thankfully, the tides are changing, both in and out of the YA genre. YA writers like David Levithan are working to remind young readers that gender is a social construct; literary fiction writers like Danielle Evans give a voice to young black girls experimenting with sex for the first time.
We collected a few of our favorite books that make teen sex a very real experience worth talking about. Though they all offer something different to the canon of young voices, they’re united by the fact that they don’t talk down to their readers — many of whom are presumably teens.
The End of Everything by Megan Abbott
Abbott specializes in writing about teenagehood as an experience too strange and surreal to be discussed straightforwardly, let alone idealized, as it so often is. But, she’s not exactly employing vampires and werewolves as metaphors for how weird sexual exploration can be. Her latest novel, The Fever, is based on the true story of a town full of young women who are inexplicably plagued with seizures. But an earlier book of hers explores the bodily experience of growing up more subtly. In The End of Everything, two inseparable girls are separated when one of them mysteriously disappears. On her search for her friend, Lizzie learns about how fulfilling — and how damaging — sexual attention can be.
Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter
Hunter’s first book is a doozy, by which I mean it perfectly mimics the sensory and emotional-overload that is contemporary teenagehood. Frenemies Perry and Baby Girl are pretty different, aside from their shared interest in driving around and stirring up mostly innocuous trouble — petty theft is their go-to time-killer. But when they both pursue increasingly heated flirtation with a mysterious Facebook friend, their warring approaches to dealing with their budding sexualities is brought to attention. The result is a very real examination of female friendship, and the ways women must fight to feel socially valuable.
Read our review of Ugly Girls.
Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
McCafferty’s first book launched a series chronicling the fraught relationship between lovesick heroine Jessica Darling (called “Notso,” as in “not so Darling” by her goofy dad) and the object of her obsession, Marcus Flutie. Marcus is a proto-manic pixie dream boy, in that he’s not much greater than the sum of his quirks. Which, if you think about it, is the perfect way to characterize a first crush. More importantly, McCafferty’s story is a fun addition to the unfortunately slim collection of books out there about girls who are governed by their sex drives — Jess might meditate on her favorite ’80s songs or her own poor choice in friends, but more than anything she thinks about getting laid, making sex less shameful for young girls everywhere.
Listen to our podcast installment with McCafferty.
Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam
Islam’s debut novel features a diverse cast — a Bangladeshi girl who’s more at home in nature than in social settings, her bubbly cousin and her cousin’s runaway friend. Each girl has repressed secrets, and each deals with sexual awakenings differently. Protagonist Ella is traumatized after the death of her parents, and her PTSD is salved — at least somewhat — by her explorations with another girl. And the book’s about more than emotional journeys: it’s set in both Brooklyn and Bangladesh, where the family explores its own distant and not-so-distant past.
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
Although most of her narrators are teens, Evans’ debut short story collection isn’t categorized as YA. There’s a critical distinction to be made, here: her stories are gritty rather than fable-like, and so they fit more comfortably into the literary fiction genre, at least marketing-wise. In the collection’s first and arguably most powerful story, “Virgins,” a couple of dissimilar and inseparable friends help each other across the battlefield of almost-womanhood. They try on new personas while seeking out guys at a club, and the narrator sagely observes, “It was easy to be somebody else when no one cared who you were in the first place.” Each story reads like a too-true diary entry about what it’s like to be young and black in America.
Another Day by David Levithan
In his follow-up to One Day, a book about a narrator who wakes up each day in a different body, Levithan tells the story of Rhiannon, the love interest of body-swapping A. This isn’t the only book in which Levithan branches out from heteronormative sex-ed tropes, but it might be the author’s edgiest work so far. “I wanted to ask the questions that are relevant to gender — about how much is a construction and how much is inherent,” Levithan said in an interview with The Huffington Post. Preach.
Read our review of Another Day.
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
In Faulkner-like fashion, Gaitskill’s latest novel is narrated by a cast of characters, including a woman coping with the trauma of lost loved ones, her critical husband, and the preteen girl they choose to sponsor, first for a brief summer trip, and later by offering emotional support over the phone and on subsequent visits. The girl, Velvet, is a Dominican student going through puberty, and learning through her older friends how elating male attention can be. This knowledge distracts her from her studies — and eventually teaches her about the value of independence.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner
You might’ve known that this year’s praised film about budding teen artist Minnie’s sexual awakening is based on a graphic novel. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably also know that actress Bel Powley’s simultaneously sweet and sinister look purely incapsulates the way we sexualize youth, and the ways powerful young women react to that sexualization. Powley, along with director Marielle Heller, bring these themes to life visually, but in Gloeckner’s original story, there are a lot more details about Minnie’s confusion and isolation. It’s a worthy read regardless of whether or not you dug the movie.
Also on HuffPost:
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Why Are Straight Men So Insecure About Their Sexuality?
We’ve asked online comedian, voice actor and chest hair model Sam Kalidi to create a new meme each week for Queerty readers. This week he considers the real reason for the uproar over Twitter’s new heart icon. Sam looks forward to all your hate mail. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and at your local glory hole.
Jeremy Kinser
‘No Black People In My Restaurants': Poster Campaign Responds To HERO Defeat In Houston
A poster campaign launched in response to the “No Men In Women’s Bathrooms” slogan that defeated the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance has gone viral.
A Houston artist named Koomah has been affixing placards to “No Men In Women’s Restroom” campaign signs saying things like, “No black people in my restaurants,” “No apartments rented to Veterans“ and “No sales to disabled people.”
From The Houston Chronicle:
“I expect the repeal will impact tourism, bids for sporting events, and big businesses decisions to expand to Houston,” Koomah said by email, noting that the fear-mongering tactics used by opponents of HERO were similar to ones used decades ago to stop other types of anti-discrimination measures.
The campaign started long before Election Day with Koomah and others placing the posters (see above) over and around anti-HERO “No Men in Women’s Restrooms” signs in the city. The poster project riffed on that motto.
HERO would have prohibited discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity or pregnancy. The ordinance was repealed by voters Tuesday in a landslide.
Even though roughly half of discrimination complaints filed while HERO was in effect were based on race, the ordinance was defeated largely due to opposition from black voters.
The post ‘No Black People In My Restaurants’: Poster Campaign Responds To HERO Defeat In Houston appeared first on Towleroad.
John Wright
‘No Black People In My Restaurants’: Poster Campaign Responds To HERO Defeat In Houston
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Let’s Admit What Really Went Wrong in Houston
It’s a dangerous myth that Houston was unexpected. National leadership of the LGBTQ movement has known or had very good reasons to suspect that our opponents — still reeling from their defeat around same-sex marriage — would seize on trans issues to energize their supporters, refill their treasuries, and create a new opportunity to gain traction with voters and the public at large.
But our funding has been so focused on marriage equality that we were left fighting for the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance without the proper resources for political strategy, organizing, and effective, wide-scale public education. We were caught unprepared and that is inexcusable.
The voters’ decision on HERO comes at a pivotal time in our movement and raises key questions for all of us — especially our leaders — about what happened, why it happened, and where to go from here. How much and how quickly we learn from this loss depends on whether we, as a movement, engage in an unsparing and rigorous analysis not just of the Houston campaign, but also the ways in which we have and have not prioritized trans issues.
The reaction to the loss itself is telling. Many whose engagement is bounded by the victory of marriage equality and the goal of passing the Equality Act are left shocked. On the other extreme, for those who spend most of their lives working on the “margins” of our community — the undocumented, the young, people of color, trans folks, and those that hold multiple marginalized identities — Houston is like a distant rainstorm amid an ongoing level 5 hurricane of profound and pervasive violence and oppression. Identifying how and working toward bridging this divide is part of the crucial work that must occur in order for us to develop a stronger, smarter, and more holistic strategy of how to move forward.
For context, my lens on all of this is informed both my identity as a trans man and by a decade-plus of political experience. Before (finally) coming out as trans, I spent the first decade of my life working (with some success) in the world of elections from city council to presidential campaigns, to independent expenditures, to running multimillion-dollar political programming for labor, and on working at a senior level the C3 side of education campaigns. It is from this vantage point of identity and experience that I offer a few observations that I hope others will consider as we figure out how to move forward together.
First, the fight for same-sex marriage and the subsequent lessons learned are neither perfectly analogous nor completely irrelevant to these fights. But to win on trans issues in the public sphere, we need to make the commitment and investment to define a new set of rules.
It is without question that our most substantive trans victories have so far been through litigation and policy changes outside of the public sphere. The fundamental landscape of trans politics has changed and that change is defined by a broader, quicker and dramatically more public fight. There is no going back. The only question is how we will meet this fight.
The good news is there are many steps we can begin taking now to move forward.
For one, we need to invest in broader, ongoing public education within which the smaller message campaign skirmishes are nested. The political messaging going forward must include a strong and clear rebuttal of the “bathroom” terror.
Further, any idea that including trans narratives in the Houston fight was some sort of naive, do-gooder inclination is what hurt the campaign itself is just plain wrong. Cisgender validators (such as parents of trans children) have a crucial role to play, but not at the exclusion of trans identified individuals. Our opposition has taken the tactical option of hiding trans individuals or drowning out the bathroom argument. Our silence only allows them to dominate and define both. Our choices are around if and how we will be bold enough to proactively and aggressively offer our own narrative.
We must also engage progressive allies in our fights. Labor unions, racial justice groups, reproductive rights groups — we simply cannot win without their help. The right wing has made an art of using social issues to advance regressive economic agendas. There was a time when LGBTQ equality issues what were a demagogue used to turn out voters needed to pass regressive economic measures. The right will not miss the opportunity to use trans issues in the same manner. Not only is engaging progressive allies the right thing to do, it is the strategic thing to do — for everyone.
Houston was heartbreaking. The only thing that would be more heartbreaking is if we didn’t heed the lessons it offers and the opportunities it lifts up. Donors, movement leaders, pundits, and the like have the opportunity to make a difference. Over the coming months, I hope that leaders will consider: Accepting that trans issues will continue to happen at a broader, more public, and quicker pace. Plan accordingly.
Ensure that these plans include investing in organizations specifically led by trans people to develop the underdeveloped areas of infrastructure these organizations need to win in the changed landscape of trans politics: political strategy, organizing, and conducting an effective, wide-scale public education campaign. In addition, we must fund and support leadership development programs that create a meaningful pipeline to ensure marginalized members of the trans community – people of color, undocumented immigrants, youth, women and others – are positioned to play leadership roles in these organizations.
Mainstream LGBTQ organizations should support these efforts by investing significantly in their own internal education — of leadership, staff and donors. Further, they should support and follow the lead of trans-led organizations around trans-specific fights. Organizations should be encouraged to be public about the specific level of financial resources they are committing to this work in the context of their other priorities. Funders and donors should hold them accountable for their choices.
Continue to refine messaging in campaign contexts, while including trans messengers. Invest significantly in public education conducted by nonprofits. Invest in developing messages for the C3 nonprofits that represent the full community, including but not limited to people of color, women, gender-expansive folks, and bisexual-identified individuals.
Reach out now to progressive allies such as labor, reproductive rights, and racial justice groups, and not in the “cover our asses,” tit-for-tat manner that passes for transformational politics. Invest in a shared analysis and shared strategic planning.
Winning marriage equality took 30 years of losing. Frankly, trans peoplle don’t have that long to wait. Literally, lives are on the line. How long it takes is in direct proportion to our willingness as a community to engage in new levels of self-reflection, community transparency, and accountability. The choice is ours.
HAYDEN MORA is the founder and principal of the Parallax Group, a trans-led consulting firm that works to combine rigorous analysis, community input, policy and electoral experience to create sustainable, progressive change. Previously, he served as the first transgender member of the senior executive team at the Human Rights Campaign, where he was the deputy chief of staff, and prior to that was the deputy national political director at Service Employees International Union.
Hayden Mora
www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/11/06/lets-admit-what-really-went-wrong-houston
Here's How One Gay Man Formed His Dream Family — One Day At A Time
It takes a special person to maintain a selfless perspective while fostering children. In this Huffington Post Gay Voices / RaiseAChild.US “Let Love Define Family®” series installment, contributing writer Beth Hallstrom introduces us to a single father who’s humble approach to fostering is inspirational.
Seasoned foster father Daniel Kerrigan has a simple mantra that helps him cope with the often peripatetic and transient lives of foster children in his care: one day at a time.
The Glenview, Illinois, single dad, 50, works in software development in Chicago and has been a foster dad to seven children since 2001. One of those children, Emmanuel, better known as Emman, so captured Daniel’s heart that Daniel adopted him when he was five-years-old. He is now 15.
“He came to me at 12 months. He wasn’t even walking yet and the agency had to hurry and finish my certification paperwork so I could take him. They needed a place for him so badly that they brought him to my work. In all the excitement, I left with him and left my wallet on my desk. I stopped at Walgreens to get formula and had no wallet so I had to take him home and go back for the supplies. That was the night I brought my son home,” Daniel recalled.
Daniel’s foray into foster care began when his sister became certified and welcomed twin girls. The twins had a younger sister, who also came to live with his sister, and then another baby was born to their biological mother.
Daniel said he decided to become a foster parent through Chicago-based Shelter Inc. in hopes of caring for the infant to help keep the family together.
“My sister wanted to adopt the twins but, as it turned out, they were adopted by another couple who lives nearby and my sister adopted the middle girl. It’s great that the kids see each other all the time but, unfortunately, they have other siblings they don’t know. The baby was taken in by a paternal relative,” he said.
“The goal of foster care is always reunification of the family. The reality is that it doesn’t happen very often. Our state average is 13% and only one of the seven children I’ve cared for has been reunited with the biological family. I believe that’s why it’s so important to recruit and retain good foster parents. There is an immense need,” he noted.
Daniel said most of the children in the foster care system in the Chicago are there because of drug issues. Many have been exposed to drugs and are born drug-dependent or with fetal alcohol syndrome. Many also experience breathing problems and other health issues.
“If the government has to step in, you know the family is already in trouble. By far, if the parents can’t hold it together, it’s because of addiction,” he said.
Daniel has a very matter-of-fact approach to the chaotic process of placing children in foster care, always remembering to take life one day at a time.
“Some people complain that the child’s caseworker never tells them anything, but that’s usually because the caseworker doesn’t know anything. There is a crisis and the child is removed and many important facts about the situation are hard to come by.
“The law says they must look for a family member to take the child before he or she can be placed in foster care and it can take some time and effort to locate relatives, especially if they don’t live in the area. If a relative is found, his or her house has to go through the same inspection process I went through. Imagine having to get your house up to agency standards when, 24 hours before, you didn’t know you were getting a child. There is no clear path from point A to point B,” he explained.
“The children often come with harrowing stories of their home lives. You have to listen and slowly piece the whole story together over time. You have to be neutral because the kids don’t know what they’re describing is wrong. Some of the stories are incredible. I’ve gotten very good at dealing with the crises and then I fall apart later,” Daniel said with a wry chuckle.
Daniel said he is fortunate to have a strong support system behind him made up of his siblings, parents and friends, something he calls a must have for foster parents.
“I remember when my son was younger and he had a seizure. I called 911 then I called my father and he was there before the ambulance. That’s been one of the best parts of this experience — everyone pulling together to help,” he said.
Daniel also credits an excellent school system for providing the support services his son and foster children required — but what the children really need is a sense of permanency and stability.
“That’s where one day at a time comes in to play. There are so many things I have no control over, but, while the children are with me, I can give them love and help them deal with their emotional issues. Their lives are so up in the air that you have to be realistic and just give them what they need,” he said.
A passionate advocate of foster care and public adoption, Daniel said he also believes the foster system and LGBT community were, “made for each other.”
“Being a foster or adoptive parent is one of the greatest things you can do for a child. You can’t help but make their lives better just by loving them. There are so many kids who need homes and so many LGBT people who want families. The two fill each other’s needs.
“Fostering is a great opportunity to help. Sometimes it’s hard work, but I love helping kids and I’m going to continue as long as I can — one day at a time,” he added.
Have you considered building a family through fostering, adopting or weekend hosting? RaiseAChild.US would like to help you. Visit us at www.RaiseAChild.US and RSVP to join us for free, fun and educational RaiseAChild.US events throughout Southern California:
Tues., Dec. 1st 6:30PM to 8:30PM Andaz West Hollywood Hotel
Wed., Dec. 2nd 6:30PM to 8:30PM The Prado at Balboa Park, San Diego
Thur., Dec. 3rd 6:30PM to 8:30PM The Art Theatre of Long Beach
Sun., Dec. 6th 2:00PM to 4:00PM Museum of Art History in Lancaster, CA
RaiseAChild.US is the nationwide leader in the recruitment and support of LGBT and all prospective parents interested in building families through fostering and adoption to meet the needs of the 415,000 children in the foster care system. RaiseAChild.US recruits, educates, and nurtures supportive relationships equally with all prospective foster and adoptive parents while partnering with agencies to improve the process of advancing foster children to safe, loving and permanent homes. Take the next step to parenthood at www.RaiseAChild.US.
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Wedding Venue In Missouri Denies Lesbian Couple, Because They Can
Same-sex weddings are legal nationwide, but finding a place to do it isn’t always easy, as a lesbian couple found out while they were planning their wedding ceremony.
According to the Sedalia Democrat, Rachel Cathey and Beverly Vaughn (photo right), a lesbian couple from the Kansas City area, are currently planning their wedding and made an appointment to check out an event venue called Heritage Ranch, approximately 90 miles east in the town of Sedalia, Mo.
But when they arrived to look around, they were told by owner Sara Howell that the couple would not be allowed to host their wedding on the property. Howell’s reason: “we’re Christian and we don’t.”
Cathey had communicated with Howell previously when scheduling the property tour, but had not mentioned the wedding was for two women, so they were rebuffed only when they showed up in all their lesbionic splendor. But in an interview with the Democrat, Sara’s husband Josh Howell explained that the couple should not take their decision personally:
“It is a violation of our religious beliefs,” Josh Howell said. “…We feel we would be dishonoring God, who we serve and He was the one who gave us this business and it is only right we serve him and honor him with it. It would be a sin for us to allow that, so we could not in good conscious do that…”
The situation was posted Monday in a post on PROMOonline.org. Josh and Sara have read the post, and he wanted to point out something Cathey wrote.
“It’s important to note, one of them said they stopped listening once my wife said she was Christian,” he said. “If they had listened, they’d see it’s not a personal matter, it’s a matter of religious conviction and personal belief.”
Although Mr. Howell failed at distinguishing between “personal matter” and “personal belief,” he later explained that it was his right to deny their wedding plans because it is his property. On that point, he is correct. Private businesses usually have the right to discriminate against whomever they wish, if there are no anti-discrimination laws against the practice. For example, there was the story of the whiny bakers in Oregon who wouldn’t make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, and they were fined $135,000 for breaking the law. But that law was specific to the state of Oregon, which enacted astate-wide LGBT anti-discrimination law in 2007. The state of Missouri does not have any such law, nor does the town of Sedalia on a local level.
The situation at Heritage Ranch arose the same week an LGBT anti-discrimination law was up for vote in Houston, Texas, and was soundly defeated at the polls. This one seemed like an easy win — Houston has a lesbian mayor — but it failed largely because the vast majority of eligible voters in the city did not vote. And, of course, the Christian Right developed a slick advertising campaign.
What will happen with Heritage Ranch? Probably not much. They will get lots of hate emails and phone messages from angry pro-LGBT people, but then they will get right-wing supporters to hold their weddings there. And of course they will welcome LGBT people who are wedding planners, florists, caterers, musicians and DJs to work there, as well as be guests of other people’s weddings. Such are the moral dilemmas of the community, as we are expected to politely absorb the impact of these instances of passive humiliation.
This is why anti-discrimination laws are important. Granted, there are lots of venues in Missouri that would love to host a gay wedding. But there will come a time when someone may not have a choice to go someplace else, but they still need to get through life, and for that they may need to have the law on their side.
Currently, in Missouri and 27 other states, it is not.
(For a list of states that do and do not have LGBT anti-discrimination laws in effect, see this map on Think Progress.)
Dan Renzi
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My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
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