Silence Like a Cancer Grows – and the Same for Bullshit

At Bilerico, Joe Mirabella joins Dan Savage’s Greek Chorus of Rehabilitative Obfuscation, pimping the item about the trans kid from Mississippi – the item that Savage concluded with his extortion scheme – himself concluding:

As an added bonus, for those of you who are upset with Dan for this:

In ’08 Sloggers helped raised more than $5,000 to pay for the funeral of Duanna Johnson, a transwoman and a victim of police brutality who was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee. According to Johnson’s family, half of the money raised for Johnson’s funeral came from donors in Seattle after a call for donations appeared on Slog. Let’s see what we can raise for a trans kid who’s still alive, shall we? (Oh, and folks who want me to apologize for this: Okay, I will–after we raise at least 2K for Juin and his family. Otherwise, meh, I’ll just keep hating on trans people like the raging anti-trans beegoat that I am.)

So there you have it. If you want to see Dan Savage grovel, click the button below and raise some money for a very worthy cause.

I don’t want to see him grovel.

I want to see him fired.

I don’t want to see people aid and abet Savage’s bullshit scheme to extort money from the poorest-by-virtue-of-discrimination-and-hatred-by-gays-and-lesbians segment of the LGB(T) community in return for an ‘apology’ which, even if the text of it amounts to an ‘apology’ for what Savage actually did that was actually diseased, would be as believable as Joe Solmonese’s 2007 speech to Southern Comfort or that HRC’s hiring of an insta-trans, insta-alleged-activist means that it isn’t the seat of hatred of trans people in America.

The Effect of Ignorance Magnified is Indistinguishable from the Effect of Pure Phobia

A comment to a new piece at SLOG:

Dan may not be trans-phobic, but he’s likely trans-ignorant.

Here are his own words:

“I’ve never known a single adult gay man who decided to run off and become a woman. The only men I’ve known who changed their gender as adults were heterosexually identified men who now identify as lesbians.” (Sept 21, 2006 Savage Love).

I’ve read similar statements by him on the Slog over the years. If he really doesn’t know grown men that were gay (or believed they were) and in their adulthood went thru a process to transition to female, then he ought to spend more time with the Trans community. I am gay, not trans, but have met plenty of individuals out there to directly refute his assertion.

That quote could be evidence of trans-ignorance.

Or it could be evidence of pro-Michael Bailey, pro-Ray Blanchard, pro-Alice Dreger transphobia.

The effect – when magnified by readers of such things acting on them – is indistinguishable: trans women are either jokes or diseased or both.

Key here is that the new post is not from Joe Fudgepacker Dan Savage.  Its from Christopher Frizzelle.

And its entitled: “State Attorney General Rob McKenna Is Not Transgender.”

Frizzelle writes:

I gotta say, I don’t get the joke, Savage. The joke—that Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna is transgender—is a culture-jamming brainfuck foisted on the world by Savage years ago. It’s probably the longest-running inside joke about a local elected official around here, even though, in the history of jokes, it has a pretty glaring flaw: It ain’t that funny. Yes, it can be funny to call a person the thing they hate, assuming McKenna hates transgender people. But that’s it?

…

[F]or all the heat he’s getting on this one joke, he sure has written a lot over the years in support of trans people (three recent examples: here, here, here). A lot of commenters are focused on whether Savage is transphobic. I know the guy. He’s not transphobic.

Really?

I bet that those who have made employment decisions at HRC, NGLTF, Lambda, GLAAD, GLAD, et. al., would self-declare to be not-transphobic – but when you ad up their combined organization-years of existence and compare that to the number of transsexual women who have ever been allowed to collect a paycheck from any of them, a different picture emerges.  I stand by my assertion that Dan Savage is an archetype of the most important reason that trans people – transsexuals and trans-everything and trans-everybody – cannot accept any ENDA other than a legitimately inclusive ENDA.

I fear employment decisions made by gay men and lesbians infinitely more than I do – or ever will -  employment decisions made by straight people.

Christopher, I’m not making a blanket declaration of ‘You can’t offer any opinion on trans-whatever or transphobia unless you are trans-something.’ 

I don’t even know who you are or if you’re trans – and it doesn’t actually matter: I am cautioning you to be very careful about who you become an apologist for.  Savage’s use of one trans person’s plight to attempt to justify either an apology or no apology is indeed extortion.

What you have to say here is nice:

“In a society where understanding of LGBT people is uneven, people have to pay a huge amount of attention to how things may be perceived by people who are not yet supportive of LGBT civil rights,” [Josh] Friedes [of Equal Rights Washington] said. “I think Dan’s comments give license to people making fun of transgender people.“

Given what transgender people are up against out there, I’m with Friedes on this one.

But you’re also one payment away from owning Savage and his transphobia.

Step back and think about whay you’re buying before you are unable to return it.

Savage Extortion

Joe Fudgepacker Dan Savage says he’ll issue an apology for the Rob McKenna thing…

IF he manages to get $2K from his readers regarding an actual trans story that he’s glommed onto.

In ’08 Sloggers helped raised more than $5,000 to pay for the funeral of Duanna Johnson, a transwoman and a victim of police brutality who was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee. According to Johnson’s family, half of the money raised for Johnson’s funeral came from donors in Seattle after a call for donations appeared on Slog. Let’s see what we can raise for a trans kid who’s still alive, shall we? (Oh, and folks who want me to apologize for this: Okay, I will—after we raise at least 2K for Juin and his family. Otherwise, meh, I’ll just keep hating on trans people like the raging anti-trans beegoat that I am.)

Well, considering the non-apology that he has already tacked onto the thing:

I’m getting some very angry emails about this post. What can I say? I’m so sorry. I wrote the post in a hurry but that’s really no excuse. But I promise that in all future posts about Rob McKenna I will not fail to include a link to the Facebook page “Washington Tax Payers OPT OUT of Rob McKenna’s Lawsuit.”

And the fact that plenty of people still appear to not know what his alleged ‘joke’ may actually have been (how much so? I talked about the McKenna posting in my trans history class at the U of Iowa – introducing it with the incredulous question, ‘How many people know that the Attorney General of the State of Washington is an FTM transsexual?’  Well, one of my students actually is from Seattle and answered ‘yes’ – and, after some discussion, that ‘yes’ appears to have stemmed from the 2004 FTM-ing of McKenna by Savage.  Who needs Fox News when we have Dan Savage, eh?), I’d say to tell Savage to go crawl inside Mt. St. Helens and play with himself but send money directly to the person whose story he’s glomming onto.  Any ‘apology’ will be worth about as much, well, Savage himself.

Its Thursday and I’m Asking Again: Why Does Dan Savage Still Have a Job?

Perhaps because he has protectors?  Or enough fake e-mail ‘commenters’ to make people believe that he has protectors with this attitude:

I don’t care how you state it, I’m with you on this Dan…love you for always being spot on.

And/or this attidude:

Most of the MTFs I have known have acted traditionally male. I roomed with one who sat around cussing, watching Mariners games while drinking beer out of a bottle, sitting with his legs wide open while cutting farts, and just generally acting “male”. Do natural-born women do these things sometimes? Sure, but they’re also not paying thousands of dollars and taking untold amounts of time off work to transition to female.

I’ll also reiterate this: I am far less concerned about discrimination against me and my people by straights than I am by gay people of this mindset.

A real ENDA or NO ENDA.

NO COMPROMISE!

Why Does Joe Ratzinger Still Have a Job? And His Freedom?

From the NY Times:

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

WWJD?

Well, assuming he existed – and even indulging the fantasy that he was the son of a supreme being – I suspect that protecting child molesters is not WJWD.

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.

I hereby inform the world that my household has a statute of limitations on armed robbery.  That statute of limitations is one day.

Oh…

And, BTW, I robbed a dozen banks last month.

I know it was wrong.  I’ve repented.  And I’ll really, really think about how wrong it was while I’m living out the rest of my days in my brand new cabin up on the north shore of Lake Superior.

But don’t you nasty state and national authorities think about sending me to prison.

My own statute of limitations has run.

Okay, that’s all BS obviously.

But is it any more ridiculous than the reality of Joe Ratzinger and the rest of the international child molestation ring still walking around free…

and tax free?!?!?!?!?!

Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.

And yet, I wonder how many people those same police and prosecutors sent to jail for possession of small amounts of drugs?  Or consensual sex acts between adults that those police and prosecutors felt were icky?

The Fakeness of Fake Savagery

You know…

Obviously fake comments that have no purpose other than to paint a fake picture of legitimacy for Joe Fudgepacker Dan Savage.

Like this:

I guess some serious stealth-editing must have gone on here. Just what the heck did Dan say to get y’all so riled up?

To give the impression that the words that were – and are – still up at SLOG couldn’t possibly have pissed off anyone.

And:

Haha, I think it is hilarious. Some people need to find their sense of humor. I shared this on Facebook. Thanks Dan!

To create the fake image of an internet full of trans people with sticks up our asses.

And:

I love you, Dan. Thanks for staying in Seattle and keeping these peeps on their toes.

For acting like there’s nothing wrong – and doing so with all the convincingness of John Boehner’s tan.

And:

This outrage has made me really curious since I honestly do no see any trans bias with Dan’s post above. I’ve followed the Slog for a few years. But that has nothing to do with what Dan wrote here.

Here’s where I think there’s been a great misunderstanding by the readers:

according to critics on the right, will one day pay for “gruesome ‘sex change’ operations”—indeed some transsexuals are already getting government-funded sex-change operations.

“gruesome sex change” are highlighted to show a link to the a right wing homo and transphobe website.

If Dan is not quoting directly from the source, if they don’t actually say gruesome… it’s sort of implied that he’s paraphrasing what they say about people who have a sex change.

For attempting to paint a fake image of ‘confusion’ over the pasage that the ‘commenter’ quoted.

Fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake….

as fake as Dan Savage’s legitimacy to do anything except spew.

There is no ‘confusion’ over that passage.  No one – at least not specifically and solely because of the post in question – attributes that to him (but, of course, having said that, the real issue with Savage and this – and the 2004 – post should cause everyone to ask whether or not that actually is his view.)

But thats what fakery is about.

Republicans transformed fake umbrage from political shenanigan into high art.

Savage looks to be deploying fake commentary to muddy what should be his employment death sentence into confusion and potential points of false equivalency for whenever in the future he might find himself called on the carpet for his transphobia yet unable to hide behind The Stranger‘s firewall…

…and ‘comments’ like:

This was very funny. I think you already know that it is pointless to try to assuage the humorless and unbalanced PC crowd. If you started doing that, you would lose your cachet as a sex columnist.

Many of the comments above and on other blogs come from about 10-15 obsessed so-called “trans” activists, posting under various names, who feel it is their right and privilege to tell everyone else how to think and speak. These are hideous people in every sense of the word and it is a travesty that the gay movement ever thought it was a bright idea to attach itself to them. They have more in common with teabaggers, militia nuts, and freepers than they do with gay people.

Don’t give them a moment’s thought. Keep on jokin’.

And why am I being bold enough to call out these ‘comments’ as fake?

How many even attempt to address the substance of the controversy?  Yes, the “gruesome ‘sex change’ operations” one did, but in doing so was farther off the mark than that ball from Chuck Knoblauch that hit Keith Olbermann’s mother in the head.

But, there is this one:

so, is he a transguy? if so, then Dan is just outing him as a hypocritical pig.

And, as I’ve stated before, I agree.

So, if Seattle’s Savage Weiner-monger is privy information that would confirm this assertion (and his 2004 version of it), where’s the disclosure?

Put up, or shut up with the fake-Savage-worshipping, fake comments…

like this:

[T]he more one gets to know MTF trans activists, the more apparent it becomes that you are not really meek “girls” after all. You talk and act like – men. I give respect to whatever anyone identifies as, but that respect does not override reality. You talk and act like a male street thug. You threaten and bully and bluster like the best of them. You can put on makeup and dresses to alter your appearance, but in your heart and in your actions, you are still a macho bruiser.

Sadly, of course, that one probably isn’t fake per se – but it was probably the result of calling in pinch-transphobe-hitters from back east…

…like, perhaps, from inside Mary Daly’s grave.

Ultimately, though, the question remains for the management of The Stranger: Why does Dan Savage still have a job?

Here’s a Thought: Try the Same Experiment on LGB(T) Rights Organizations

From my buddy Monica of the Air, over at TransGriot:

A group called Make the Road New York filed a complaint with the NY State Attorney General’s office after testing 24 New York City retailers for discrimination.

The group sent a trans and cis person to each one of the targeted retailers to apply for jobs with matching resumes. The resumes matched in respects of age, race, and work experience.

42 percent net rate of discrimination for transgender job applicants… [and] 49 percent of transgender workers surveyed reported that they have never been offered a job in the time that they have lived openly as transgender.”

J. Crew was singled out for blatantly violating the New York City Human Rights Law. According to Make The Road NY spokesperson Irene Tung, one of the transgender employment testers, Julian Brolaski, applied at the 5th Avenue J. Crew store and “was treated brusquely, told to fill out an application and was never called.

His testing partner, Leigh Cambre, who entered the store a few minutes later, described a very different experience, ‘I filled out an application, was interviewed on the spot and offered a job soon after.’

A separate pair of testers also documented a similar situation.

Here is the data:

 

Wanna have some real fun?

Run the same experiment on HRC, NGLTF and every other organization that claims to speak for trans people along with non-trans gays and lesbians.

Why Does HRC Still Exist?

From Zackford Blogs:

[W]e have a problem if President Obama or anyone in Congress listens to the Human Rights Campaign and thinks they understand where the LGBTQ community stands. If HRC is saying, “It’s okay, we can wait as long as it means your support,” (i.e. applauding Obama just for showing up at their expensive exclusive gala) then they are not effectively speaking on our behalf. Slow posh lobbying might seem to indicate power and influence, but the rest of us are experiencing the tribulations of inequality in the meantime without the financial luxuries that allow us to continue taking the paths of least resistance.

…

[W]e get an email from Joe Solmonese reminding us exactly what HRC’s modus operandi is: apologizing for inaction and asking for money….

…

That almost sounds threatening. If they don’t get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS within the next week, HRC will not be able to successfully get Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repealed.

What a load of horse shit. How many times have we heard claims like this? Psst… you haven’t made any progress with the money we’ve already given you.

…

It doesn’t matter if HRC is our most powerful lobbying effort, because it doesn’t seem like they’re overly concerned with lobbying on our behalf. We need to speak out against HRC and make it clear that they do not speak for us.

Along with most reality-based trans people, I’m about fifteen years ahead of you.

As far as I’m concerned, HRC is just as liable for our persistent inequality as the government themselves. Just like the government, they use our own money to delay our inequality, except that HRC actually duped us into trusting them with that money. I don’t think there’s any room for those kinds of scoundrels in our movement. As long as they continue to claim to lobby for us, they’re the ones keeping us chained to the fence of inequality.

That’s a nice start – but I would suggest one correction.  Try this:

HRC is MORE liable for our persistent inequality than the government themselves.

Why Does Dan Savage Still Have a Job?

Well, in your heart, you know why. 

He used trans-existence as just another tool to quasi-journalistically play with himself in public.

Had he done so with any racial – or even religious – category, he’d have been fired before his finger left the ‘enter’ key after submitting the thing for publication.

But trans-existence is fair game to play with.

Again, I”m in no way defending his actual target, Rob McKenna – though, I am amazed that almost no one seems to be able to step back and fully analyze what (as I understand it) is the key component of what he and the other teabag AGs are suing about, namely, the mandate for individuals to buy a corporation’s ‘product’ as a condition of American existence, the one aspect of the teabagger ire that would seem to have merit (sorry, but that is not analogous to car insurance; no one has to have a car) but which, if things worked as they should, would force the hand of Congress into creating a legit (read: single-payer) system and would, hopefully, cause the enirety of the Faux ‘News’ staff to drop dead simultaneously.

In fact, I’m not sure I’d ever even heard the name Rob McKenna prior to Savage’s latest transphobic ejaculation.

But other people apparently had, such as these commenters at Queerty.

Lia:

I’d bet $100 this weedy Republican fella was born with a Y chromosome.

Not that I’d have any objections if he were a weedy Republican transgendered man. In fact, that would make me like him a little better.

So the question is: WTF, Dan Savage? Why use gender identity of all things as a smear, when someone isn’t trans? If he were actually trans and Dan was trying to smear him for it, it would be even worse.

Unfortunately, I’m not surprised. I’m bisexual and I can recall many incidents where Dan has blithely stated that my sexual orientation doesn’t exist. Dan’s as out of step with queer reality as HRC is.

Alleyne:

Savage definitely made this up. McKenna was a decorated Eagle Scout. He would’ve had to have transitioned as a 6 year old to move up the ranks to become an Eagle Scout.

What this means is that Savage considers making up lies about trans indentity to be an appropriate way to draw attention to his disapproval of McKenna’s politics. There’s no “arguably” here, it’s the definition of transphobia in action. McKenna may well be anti-LGBT, but that in itself is enough to call him out on. Why make up lies unless you consider trans identities to be something worth using as a *thing* rather than something real, meaningful and worthy of respect.

This is not Savage’s first foray into transphobia, btw. He does it regularly, along with regular outbursts of misogyny and biphobia/bi-erasure. Savage doesn’t respect any queer or gender identity except his own.

Even a Savage-esque transphobe, ‘Mike’, who, even in pointing out factual accuracy about McKenna is nevertheless defending Savage and other gay male transphobes:

What a lame post. “Transphobic”? Does that now include any comment that hasn’t been pre-approved by wacky trans activists? More power to Dan Savage.

Oh, and one other thing. You said:

“. . . it’s always stunning to see somebody move against an oppressed and denigrated community that he himself belongs to.”

He does NOT belong to the “trans” community. He is not trans. He has never said he was trans. He is gay. That is an entirely separate thing from transgenderism. Gay men are men and do not wish to be women. Gay men do not seek to surgically alter themselves. And homosexuality cannot be found in the DSM IV, in contrast to Gender Identity Disorder.

Stop insulting gay people by insinuating that they are gender conflicted. Stop injuring the self-image of gay youth in order to assuage the politically correct demands of trans activists.

I’ll ask again: Would anyone believe that ‘Mike’ could honestly, fairly and non-discriminatorily evaluate any trans person – paryicularly any trans woman – for anything? (And, in a more practical corporate sense, why would anyone believe that a business that would employ someone such as Savage would honestly, fairly and non-discriminatorily evaluate any trans person – paryicularly any trans woman – for anything?  I hope that civil rights attorneys in Washington State are paying attention.)

In your heart, you know what the answer is.

Legit, full trans-inclusion in ENDA, or no ENDA.

Period.

Lynn writes:

Dan Savage’s use of a transphobic smear attack is the same sort of thing that used to be used against straight candidates, with opponents accusing them of being secretly gay or lesbian.

Honestly, if the article had been written by Michael Savage, I would understand. But Dan Savage should know better.

Actually, it is his employer that should know better.

It should know better than to keep giving voice to – I’ll say it more succinctly than Lynn – a transphobic gay Michael Savage d/b/a/ Dan.

Why Does Dan Savage Still Have a Job?

Because its still okay for gay men to abuse trans people for fun, profit – and to sufficiently poison the cultural well so as to ensure that people like Dan Savage never have to compete with trans people on a level playing field.

Tell The Stranger to join the real world and to flush its savage turd.

Here’s an e-mail: editor@thestranger.com

Here’s a phone number: (206) 323-7101

The rest is up to you.

Gohmert’s Pile

of internally (within the neo-Teabag Republican Party anyway) inconsistent political poop.

From Media Matters:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggested another response to the passage of health reform: eliminating the right of American citizens to elect U.S. Senators.  According to a press release from Gohmert’s office:

Rep. Gohmert stated, “The usurpation of the rights of the states and of the people perpetrated by the U.S. House last night is blatant, arrogant, and cries out for action. A potentially bankrupting ‘mother of all unfunded mandates’ needs to be stopped. The courts may or may not do it, but the states are not helpless. Article V of our U.S. Constitution anticipates a time when states perceive a looming crisis and provides an avenue for amending the Constitution. It makes clear that if two-thirds of the states are fed up with the federal government’s abusive action, then they simply apply for a convention, and the Congress SHALL call such a convention for proposing an amendment.”

Ever since the safeguard of State legislatures electing U.S. Senators was removed by the 17th Amendment in 1913, there has been no check or balance on the Federal power grab for the last 97 years. Article V requires a minimum of 34 states to request a Convention which in this case, would be an Amendment Convention for only ONE amendment.

Aside from the obvious problem of taking away the American people’s ability to choose their own leaders, Gohmert’s proposal conflicts with GOP’s closing argument against health care reform.  Remember that conservatives, including Gohmert, argued that the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) signaled the public’s rejection of the president’s plan.  Yet, while Tea Party activists flooded Massachusetts and pushed Brown to victory, Gohmert’s proposal would have made that effort impossible. The state’s overwhelmingly Democratic legislature could have simply appointed a Democrat.

Forget the realities of what a pre-17th Amendment post-Teddy seat-filling would have looked like in Massachusetts.  Just dig the abstract point/anti-point insanity.

Memo to Gohmert: Perhaps you should watch the 1966 Batman movie to get a referesher on matter and anti-matter.

I’m just sayin’….