Guy’s Homophobic Childhood Bully Hits Him Up On Scruff: “Wanna Fool Around?”

For those of us who endured homophobic bullying as kids, it’s common to ponder what we’d say if we were ever confronted with an opportunity to speak with those who harmed us. But what if your former bully wanted to sleep with you?

Related: YouTuber Confronts Childhood Bully To Surprisingly Positive Results

That’s the bizarre proposition John Brammer received one night on Scruff when he was visiting his childhood home in rural Oklahoma.

And rather than spark some sort of repressed fantasy scenario, it mostly just dredged up all the hometown growing pains Brammer lived through.

In a first person Buzzfeed essay, he writes:

“The last time I went home, something strange happened. A blank profile messaged me from about a mile away.

Given that this was during the dead of night, my first instinct was to open the blinds of my windows and check to see if I could spot a glowing light out in the field. A mile in rural Oklahoma is too close for comfort. It might as well be coming from inside the house.

‘Hi,’ the message read.

Curious, I responded. ‘What’s up?’

A few minutes passed.

‘I think you know me lol.’”

And that’s when things got weird.

‘We went to school together,’ the blank profile continued.

‘We did?’ I replied, on edge. ‘Who are you?’

‘You probably don’t like me… haha. I was a little mean to you.’

A familiar feeling bubbled up in my gut: Panic.

Finally, Mr. Blank Profile sent over a photo. There he was — once of the boys who’d mercilessly bullied John — staring up from within Scruff.

Related: Gay Man Shuts Down Younger Sister’s Homophobic Bully With One Fantastic Facebook Post

“‘Are you mad?’ the profile asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Unable to control myself, I decided to ask him if he remembered anything he’d done.

‘No lol,’ he said. ‘But I was a real asshole back then.’

And that was it. All those years of remembering, carrying, and suffering over this person, and he probably never thought about me at all after I moved away.”

Beside himself, John left the house for a long walk, trying to process this new information in light of years of nightmares surrounding his middle school experience.

“This person wasn’t the one-dimensional villain I’d made him out to be. All this time, he’d been closeted. Just like me. Yes, he had hurt me. Yes, he was wrong to hurt me. But I realized he was a victim too. In the town he and I had grown up in, being gay was seen as one of the worst things you could be. You might as well not even be human.

…

I didn’t know it at the time, but he and I were caught in the same system, a cycle of violence that perpetuates itself — one that leaves in its wake people who are in turns the victim and the villain. Someone made him hate himself. He saw himself in me. And so, he hated me.”

And yet, for all the rationalizing, there was no “forgive and forget” option for John.

Related: Sam Smith Was A Victim Of Homophobic Bullying

Especially not when his phone buzzed again with a new message:

“I was busy thinking all these thoughts when I received another message on my phone.

‘Want to fool around?’ he asked.

I didn’t know how to tell him that this was a nightmare I hadn’t even considered. It would probably take weeks to scrub that image from my mind, the thought of ‘fooling around’ with someone who had traumatized me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Have a good life, man.’

I meant it.’”

Read the full story on Buzzfeed.

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/oVDFpwDfkBc/guys-homophobic-childhood-bully-hits-him-up-on-scruff-wanna-fool-around-20151103

Feds Order High School To Let Transgender Students Use Girls' Locker Room

CHICAGO, Nov 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Monday found that a Chicago suburban high school district discriminated against a transgender student and gave the school a month to provide full access to girls’ locker rooms or lose federal funding.

The student, who has not been named, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought a complaint on her behalf, applauded the findings, while the school district called them “serious overreach.”

After an investigation stemming from a 2013 complaint by the ACLU, and months of negotiations, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found Township High School District 211 was violating federal non-discrimination rules.

The district says transgender students may use their gender-identified locker room if they change and shower privately. The government said a separate changing place was discriminatory because it subjected the student to stigma and different treatment.

The case is seen as clarifying federal rules on locker-room access at a time of expanding awareness of transgender issues.

In mid-October the school district, with five high schools and two alternative high schools west of Chicago, defied the government, continuing to deny full locker-room access for the transgendered student.

Assistant U.S. Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said the high school was disobeying the law. “All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities – this is a basic civil right,” she said in a statement.

“This decision makes me extremely happy – because of what it means for me, personally, and for countless others,” the student said in a statement released by the ACLU. “The district’s policy stigmatized me, often making me feel like I was not a ‘normal person.'”

The school district said the issue was critical for schools nationwide. Superintendent Daniel Cates said in a statement that “what we offer is reasonable and honors every student’s dignity.”

Last year, the district received $6 million in federal money contingent on compliance with non-discrimination rules.

The student in the case has identified as female for years; the school lists her as a female student and she plays on the girls’ sports teams and uses girls’ restrooms.

The school district has provided the student with a separate changing facility outside the locker room and installed privacy curtains on stalls in one locker room out of the three that she uses for physical education, swimming and athletics programs, according to the federal government’s findings. (Reporting by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by David Gregorio)

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677065/s/4b31270f/sc/7/l/0L0Shuffingtonpost0N0C20A150C110C0A30Ctransgender0Ehigh0Eschool0Elocker0Eroom0In0I84590A440Bhtml0Dutm0Ihp0Iref0Fgay0Evoices0Gir0FGay0KVoices/story01.htm

Open Question: Why are LGBT more eager to come out of the closet than the extra-terrestrials and their hybrids among us?
The hybrid and “full-blooded” extra-terrestrials (ETs) among us blend in so well because they don’t go around telling everybody “LOOK AT ME!!! I’M DIFFERENT AND I’M PROUD OF IT!” Why do LGBT need to draw attention to themselves when nobody wins from it? Why can’t they be as wise as the ETs and just “hide” in plain sight, and do whatever they want without broadcasting it on the world stage??

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151102223305AAxEQk6

Bill O'Reilly: PC Campus Culture 'Beginning Of Totalitarian Society'

Despite his professed love for the Constitution, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly seems to have very little appreciation for what “freedom of speech” means.

“The left does not want to hear dissenting opinions, and if you put them out, they will try destroy you,” O’Reilly said on his program Monday evening.  

How, pray tell, will the left destroy you? By signing a mean petition about you on Change.org, a liberal organizing site.

O’Reilly noted that CNN’s Don Lemon and “The View” host Raven-Simoné recently were subjects of Change.org petitions calling for them to be fired after they expressed unorthodox views about a recent video showing a cop manhandling a female high school student in class. When the story broke, Lemon advised viewers to reserve judgment of the officer until all the facts were known. Simoné said that while the cop’s actions couldn’t be justified by whatever the student had done, the student should have stopped talking on her phone when asked.

You could say the people who drafted the petition and those who signed it are being absolutist in their views. But O’Reilly seems to believe that a bunch of Internet users signing an online petition disapproving of something you said is an infringement of free speech.

“Freedom of speech in this country is under attack, [and] it’s under attack primarily from the left,” O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly’s guest, radio host Laura Ingraham, then chimed in, claiming that people disagreeing with you on college campuses also violates free speech.

“This is a left-wing shaming industry that seeks to shut down dissenting opinions,” Ingraham said. “We see it happening with the speech codes on college campuses, with the changing of the pronouns. If you say something that is even slightly objectionable to one person, you are a hater, you are branded as disloyal to the sense of community on campus.”

O’Reilly interjected, devolving into self-parody.

“That is the beginning of a totalitarian society,” O’Reilly said. “Every totalitarian society started there.”

Freedom of speech does not mean people can’t react badly to what you say, even if they go as far as signing a petition against you. Nor does it stop you from being thought of as a jerk for refusing to call transgender people by the pronouns they prefer. And having either of those things happen is certainly not the “beginning of a totalitarian society.”

Bill-O, the First Amendment of the Constitution forbids the government from interfering with your freedom of expression. Nowhere does it say other citizens aren’t allowed to disagree.

Gabriel Arana is senior media editor at The Huffington Post.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677065/s/4b2fa4b5/sc/28/l/0L0Shuffingtonpost0N0C20A150C110C0A20Cbill0Eoreilly0Epc0Ecampus0Eculture0Ebeginning0Eof0Etotalitarian0Esociety0In0I845810A40Bhtml0Dutm0Ihp0Iref0Fgay0Evoices0Gir0FGay0KVoices/story01.htm

Facebook Responds to Criticism of 'Real Name' Policy — With Real Change

Without once using the word “change,” Facebook has announced it’s “improving the way it’s enforcing its ‘real name’ policy.” But even without calling it a change, this represents the biggest evolution by the social network to allow users to self-identify since it introduced a wide variety of gender profiles in recognition of the nonconforming users who don’t fit the traditional binary. 

The announcement Friday came in the form of a letter from Facebook’s vice president of growth, Alex Schultz, to users and groups that have petitioned Facebook for changes. 

They include drag queens, drag kings, transgender people, and others, including Native Americans, who used aliases or pseudonyms and were reported for having “fake names.”

Most famously, a trans woman who goes by “Zip” — who helped Facebook expand its gender profiles — was blocked because the social media site deemed her name not “real” enough.

Facebook spokesman William Nevius tells The Advocate, contrary to reports, the name policy stands; what’s new is the way in which it is “implemented,” which Nevius frankly admitted could be better.

Nevius described what’s happening as “a process” and said that while the policy itself is not changing, Facebook recognizes that users need to be able to confirm their name more easily when asked, and the company needs to reduce the number of people being asked to verify their name.

Pseudonyms and aliases are still not permitted, he says, but by following steps outlined online, users can register the names they’re known by to friends, family, and fans. In his letter, Schulz described what happens next as a “test”:

“We now plan to test a new process that will let people provide more information about their circumstances. This should help our Community Operations team better understand the situation. It will also help us better understand the reasons why people can’t currently confirm their name, informing potential changes we make in the future.”

Schultz wrote that Facebook officials “understand the challenges for many transgender people when it comes to formally changing one’s name. That’s why we’re making changes now and in the future, and will continue to engage with you and all who are committed to looking after the most vulnerable people using our product.”

Here’s what Facebook is doing:

Users who are challenged will be invited to provide details on why they’ve chosen a certain name for their account if it’s not their legal name. 

Facebook is reassuring users who are flagged for using a possibly inauthentic name that real people are on hand to help them, to give them “more personalized help throughout the confirmation process” and “advising them on the various types of non-legal documents they can provide.”

And a new requirement will be part of the confirmation process, directed at the people who flag a name as fake, according to Schultz. Those reporting an allegedly fake name will be required to provide detailed information, in an effort to prevent trolling, a frequent complaint among trans users. 

“We are deeply invested in making this better,” Schultz wrote. “I’ve seen first hand how people — including LGBT people — can be bullied online by people using fake or impersonating accounts.”

To analyze how big that problem is, Facebook revealed for the first time publicly that it conducted a one-week experiment this past spring, comparing a group of users reported for allegedly using fake names against a control group. The conclusion? “Bullying, harassment or other abuse on Facebook is eight times more likely to commited by people using names other than their own than by the rest of the Facebook community,” Schultz wrote.

Nevius tells The Advocate he has no details on how large the group was, and provided no other information other than it being conducted over one week in the spring. 

This is not the first attempt by Facebook to close the book on this controversy since it erupted last year. The conflict and attempts to get the social media giant to modify its policy spurred the #MyNameIs hashtag, a Kickstarter petition, and public protests. 

The furor reached a new level over the summer when protesters carried signs, spelling out “Shame on FB,” in San Francisco’s Pride Parade, which is sponsored in part by Facebook.

But to those arguing for the website to drop its name policy altogether, Schultz made it clea: that’s not happening. Facebook’s “authentic identity” policy will be maintained, Schultz wrote, saying he believes it reduces trolling by making people accountable for their actions online.

“When people use the name others know them by, they are more accountable for what they say, making it more difficult to hide behind an anonymous name to harass, bully, spam or scam someone else,” said Schultz.

Earlier this month, organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote an open letter to Facebook, asking for the policy to be changed to “provide equal treatment and protection for all who use and depend on Facebook as central platform for online expression and communication.”

“It’s a balance to get this right,” Schultz wrote in reply. “We want to find a line that minimizes bullying but maximizes the potential for people to be their authentic selves on Facebook.”

As to when these “improvements” will take effect, there’s no firm date. Schultz wrote:

“These improvements will take some time to test and implement, but a team is working on this and people should start seeing the tests in December. Between now and then, we will be gathering additional feedback from the community to make sure we are on the right track. Once the changes are rolled out, we will learn how people use them and continue to make further improvements.”

Read Schultz’s letter here, read Facebook’s policy on names that it considers acceptable here, and find the list of forms of identification accepted by Facebook here. You can read a Facebook blog post from June that details the evolution of the name policy here.

Dawn Ennis

www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/11/01/facebook-responds-criticism-real-name-policy-real-change

Open Question: Was Laurence Olivier Bisexual (LGBT)?
I have heard rumors about him being bisexual, which is strange as he was married to Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright.

I like 1950s films and actors but did any actors at that time like women?

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151102182438AAzSseG

SCOTUS Rejects Appeal from Former MI Attorney and Anti-Gay Cyberbully Andrew Shirvell

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Andrew Shirvell, a former Michigan assistant attorney general who was ordered to pay $4.5 million in a defamation lawsuit to gay former University of Michigan student body president Chris Armstrong. Shirvell has been fighting the ruling for years.

In 2010 the Michigan attorney general’s office fired Shirvell for waging a homophobic personal campaign against Armstrong. In addition to harassing Armstrong at public demonstrations on campus, Shirvell ran a blog called the Chris Armstrong Watch which accused Armstrong of being a Nazi as well as a recruiter for ‘the cult that is homosexuality.’

Shirvell claimed that because his harassment of Armstrong took place outside the attorney general’s office, his actions were protected by the First Amendment. Courts thought otherwise, though a federal appeals court reduced the amount Shirvell was ordered to pay by $1 million, at the same time rejecting his request for a new trial.

SCOTUS today let stand the lower court decisions.

The post SCOTUS Rejects Appeal from Former MI Attorney and Anti-Gay Cyberbully Andrew Shirvell appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

SCOTUS Rejects Appeal from Former MI Attorney and Anti-Gay Cyberbully Andrew Shirvell

A Conversation with John Waters, the Pope of Trash

Enjoying that outrageously funny movie, politically incorrect comic, or zingy retort from a friend? Then you should send a thank-you to John Waters, the man who started shaking up the culture in the 1970s with his subversive, hilariously campy, deeply influential “midnight movies” like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble. Waters’s impact hardly ended there. He went on to write and direct two films (Hairspray and Cry-Baby) that were turned into Broadway musicals, and he’s also an author, speaker, and éminence grise who continues to cast a wacky spell on a society that needs him. From November 29 through December 23, the bard of Baltimore travels to 18 cities with A John Waters Christmas—Holier and Dirtier. I called him in Baltimore to ask about that, and about whether our community may have lost something as it hurtles toward acceptance.

Hello, John. Obviously, Christmas means a lot to you.
Nowadays, it’s when I work. It started when I wrote “Why I Love Christmas” in my book Crackpot, and then I did a show of that, and it mushroomed.

I’ve always wanted to ask if the Female Trouble scene of the Christmas tree landing on Dawn Davenport’s ma was inspired by the tree falling in the original Poseidon Adventure.
No, because what really happened was that a Christmas tree fell on my grandmother. I forgot that happened in The Poseidon Adventure. That movie did inspire me, though. When the lights come on [in his Christmas show] and I see the audience, I say, “Oh, The Poseidon Adventure!” because it feels like the whole thing is going to tip over. People have told me stories in their cities. Usually, cats or liquor are involved. I recommend everybody rig their own tree so it tips over at the height of opening the presents. I’m rigging everything to go wrong at Christmas so no one can be disappointed.

When people say “John Waters must love this movie,” do you?
They’re usually wrong. I think of all the terrible, 150 million–dollar, bad Hollywood gross-out comedies. I have had no way of causing them. Or maybe I have been a bad influence, with these terrible comedies that aren’t funny. The Jackass movies are the only ones…I love those movies.

Where do you stand in the movie-making business these days?
I don’t think I even do that right now. My last two books did great, and I’m involved in a TV project that might happen. I’m going to London for a big tribute at the British Film Institute.

And you’re a public speaker.
About 50 times a year. And I had an art show in New York this year. I have lots of careers and no hobbies. That’s the only thing I get furious about in an interview — if someone dares to ask if I have a hobby. The other worst question is, “Is there anything else you’d like to say?” Hold on, if I have to ask the questions too, give me part of your paycheck. And I hate when people say, “Let’s have fun with it.”

They mean well.
I know. In Baltimore, we use the term “hate” much more freely. Here, it just connotes mild discomfort or vague disliking.

Speaking of mild discomfort, did your fabulous drag star Divine have any angst problems, as some authors suggest?
I think Divine, when he died, was very, very happy. We got along great. Hairspray was a big hit, he got great reviews, and he was about to play a gay male part on Married With Children. Did he have moments of angstiness? Sure — when he was young, he was bullied and beaten up, and that’s where all that anger came from that he used for his characters.

And he wasn’t trans.
He didn’t want to be a woman. He wanted to pass as a monster.

Trans is so trendy now, it’s like the new navy blue of India. Is that worrisome?
It doesn’t worry me. I think maybe the refugee situation in Europe worries me more than transgender acceptance. By the way, I love drag kings — I think they look great. They show me their mastectomy scars and ask me to sign them and I love that. And I love radical feminists, even though I sometimes don’t agree with them. I don’t like women-hating gay men, but I don’t mind women that hate men. They have more reason.

Could you ever go back to basics and shoot a midnight movie with an iPhone?
No. I have no desire to be a 70-year-old faux underground filmmaker. And I’m not 70 yet.

You’ve been quite articulate about what we’ve lost as a community as we veer toward acceptance.
I always make fun of any kind of rules. But we’ve gained a huge amount. I was touched when I saw that Obama lit up the White House in gay colors [in June, to celebrate gay marriage]. Do I have my house in gay colors? Hell, no. It would seem corny in my house, but at the White House, it’s a radical political statement and something I wildly approve of.

But is there a price for assimilation?
I don’t want to hang around with just gay people. From the very beginning, I’ve thought of separatism as defeat.

Would you eliminate some gay people?
[Laughing] Some should be suspended. I want to give out gay deficiency slips. People that make gay people look like such clichés — Well, I guess they have the right to do that.

What are your thoughts on Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marital licenses in view of her religious beliefs?
I’ve applauded that kind of civil disobedience when it happens on the other side, but when you work for the government, it’s different. If she wanted to quit because of that, I’d applaud that because she’s standing up for what she believes in. But if you work at a job for an employer, you can’t just make up the rules. I think she’s a moron and an idiot and people should picket her home, but she has the right to quit.  I’d send her to beauty school, though.

Can any good come from all this?
Anita Bryant [a homophobic singer who stirred trouble in the 1970s] was one of the best things to happen to the gay movement. [She helped mobilize activism.] Well, we got a new villain!

Do you long for the days before we became so mainstream?
I don’t long for anything. But I hope the main thing we don’t lose is self-parody and a sense of humor, because then we become just mall walkers. There’s nothing the matter with wanting to be a gay, middle-class mall walker — though it’s different values than I have — but so what? That’s the whole point — you should have the right to be whatever kind of gay you want. Gay people can be bad mothers just like straight ones. You have a right to be a bad mother!

Is there anything else you’d like to say? Kidding!

MICHAEL MUSTO is the author of Manhattan on the Rocks, Downtown, and Fork on the Left, Knife in the Back, and a weekly columnist for OUT.com.
Michael Musto

www.advocate.com/current-issue/2015/11/02/conversation-john-waters-pope-trash