Name the Horror Movie

I yanked this pic off of Crooks and Liars - from an item about the McBushes McCains being too good to pay taxes.  Much more than the item itself, I think the pic says volumes - though nothing good.

Look past John ‘my Vietnam record matters but Kerry’s didn’t’ McBush McCain to Cindy McWhatever.

Is it wrong of me to be reminded of the old Doctor Who episodes about the Nestene Autons?

Bailey Brouhaha NWSA Panel Post-Mortem

Dateline: Cincinnati

Event: the 2008 National Women’s Studies Association Conference

At this moment: I’m a weeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit sleepy after a very eventful day here at the conference (and, for me, several days of researching prior to the conference.)  I crashed almost immediately afterward and now find myself awake at 3:15 AM (EDT).  To recap - here is why I find myself in WKRP-land (I’m still looking for the flying turkeys; do they only come out at Thanksgiving?) for the first time:

THE BAILEY BROUHAHA: COMMUNITY MEMBERS SPEAK OUT ON RESISTING TRANSPHOBIA AND SEXISM IN ACADEMIA AND BEYOND

The publication of J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would be Queen provoked a fire storm of controversy upon its publication in 2003. The book, claiming to be based on “science,” outraged members of the transgender community, who quickly mobilized to expose the book and its transphobic content. The controversy was reignited in 2007 when Alice Dreger published a lengthy apologia in which she exonerated Bailey and castigated transwomen activists for attempting to “ruin” Bailey’s career. These papers examine the transphobic backlash caused by Bailey/Dreger and document the academic and activist projects of trans community members to speak truth to power.

Katrina C. Rose, University of Iowa 

Andrea Jean James, GenderMedia Foundation

 

Élise R. Hendrick, Cincinnati, OH 

Moderator: Joelle Ruby Ryan, Bowling Green State University  

A PDF of the paper I presented can be found here.  It is an update of the paper I first put together in the aftermath of Alice Dreger initially unleashing her indefensible defense of J. Michael Bailey. 

I’m guessing that Andrea James will have some thoughts of her own on how the panel went over at her website, so check there; she and Lynn Conway videotaped the panel - and I recorded the audio - for purposes of wide distribution so, in some form, it should be available on the Net relatively soon.  And, when the audio and/or video pops up, I’ll let what happened speak for itself.  Here, however, are a few random 3AM thoughts:

First: It was nice to meet folks like Andrea, Lynn, Joelle and Elise in person finally (also, Gordene MacKenzie was at the conference and, despite my having appeared on Gender Talk several times over the last decade, this was the first time I’d bumped into her in 3-D since the 1996 Texas T Party.)

Second: I was impressed at the amount of trans-specific and trans-related panels.  Of course, here are two panels that took place at the same time as our Bailey-Dreger panel:

RESISTING NORMATIVE AND EXCLUSIONARY HEGEMONIES IN THE LGBTQ MOVEMENT 

This roundtable explores the failure of some aspects of the LGBTQ movement to resist dominant hegemonies, which in some cases has resulted in the installation of queer hegemonies or homonormatives. Our speakers will address topics including welfare politics and the LGBT movement, the controversies surrounding the Human Rights Campaign’s exclusionary homonormativity, “sex positive” as form of resistance, LGBT politics and controversies in Cincinnati, the effect of the hetero/homonormative media on youth, a critique of heteronormativity in Jennifer Baumgardner’s Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, and an exploration of the complexities of the marriage rights focus of the LGBT movement for anti-marriage individuals.

AND

STRATEGIES OF TRANSSEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER IDENTITY: A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY CONVERSATION 

This panel examines transgender and transsexual identity deployments in philosophical, literary, and legal contexts. Focusing on the intervention of trans-identities into hegemonic gender discourse conceals that these identities are strategically forged as a matter of life and survival. By examining presentations of identity in specific moments, this cross-disciplinary panel hopes to shift the focus from debating the subversiveness and political potential of identities to recognizing the strategic nature of identity in context.

 

Third: Dreger herself was in attendance (recall her efforts against our panel), setting forth her lame position earlier in the day Saturday as well as sitting in the audience at our panel.  She sat silent, but there was one rather curious trans-self-identified defender in the audience.  Once the audio and/or video is up, I’ll let what transpired speak for itself but, give that its getting close to 4 now, I’ll close by saying: You certainly don’t need to be a lawyer to talk intelligently about the Constitution and the law, but being able to utter the words “First Amendment” does not translate into having any clue about the actual scope of free-speech protections.

The World According to ENDA 3685

Pam is one of the best friends that trans people have right now, so I’m linking to the Pam’s House Blend posting about this. 

Our trans brothers and sisters are human beings. How difficult is this concept to grasp for the bigots out there? I’m sick and angered by story after story about grown adults — in this case a law enforcement officer sworn to serve and protect everyone — acting like violent brutes out of fear and ignorance. And all the while they are enabled by others who look on and do nothing. Memphis station WMC-TV has the video. You must watch it.

She’s not exaggerating. From WMC:

The video, recorded February 12th, shows Duanna Johnson in the booking area at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center after an arrest for prostitution.   The tape clearly shows a Memphis police officer walk over to Johnson - a transsexual - and hit her in the face several times.

Now, here is a comment I added over at PHB in response to someone putting out a call to contact the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool of Transphobia about this.

Make it clear that, if ENDA 3685 becomes law, Duanna Johnson would still be eligible to be relegated to prostitution.

Yes, under the verson of ENDA that St. Barney, Lame Crain and The John have wet dreams about, people like St. Barney, Lame Crain and The John who live in Memphis would still be free to hang signs in their windows proclaiming that transsexuals need not apply.

That means Duana Johnson - and everyone like her.

Including me.

That means that, in order to eat, Duana Johnson - ane veryone like her - could still be relegated with impunity by six-figure-salary-addled gay men to what she was alleged to have been doing on the night of February 12.

Here is another comment I made over at PHB:

From the WMC story:

 

Meanwhile, the Memphis Police Department confirmed to Action News 5 that the officer holding Johnson was on probation, and has been fired.  The officer who threw the punches is currently on non-enforcement status pending an administrative hearing.

Why should these thugs act any differently if they know that the worst that will happen to them is losing their jobs?  If Duanna Johson had fought back and killed (or, for that matter, even seriously injured) one of these wothless pieces of garbage, she’d already be convicted of capital murder and on her way to the death chamber.  Criminals with badges know that - ultimately - no civilian has any power to stop them from beating the shit out of anyone they want to any time they want to.

 

A copy of the tape was reviewed by both the FBI and the District Attorney’s office, the latter of which dropped all charges against Johnson.  An FBI investigation into possible civil rights violations is still underway.

The Bush junta’s FBI doing anything about this?  That’s as funny as the video is sad.

That is a serious aspect of this story as well.

However, when I look at that video, in addition to seeing Duanna Johnson being mercilessly beaten by criminals with badges, I see all trans people being mercilessly beaten by criminals with copies of ENDA 3685 and purple-n-yellow equal signs.

As Anchors Go, This Guy Was Who O’Lie-Ly is the Evil Opposite of

Okay, this is about as non-ENDA as I can get here.  Consider it a personal indulgence - from someone who is feeling a bit older tonite.  From the Houston Chronk:

Ron Stone, the veteran news anchor and filmmaker who was a fixture of Houston television for more than four decades, has died at age 72.

Word of Stone’s death came via KPRC (Channel 2), the NBC affiliate where he was lead anchor from 1972 through 1992.

…

Stone made his television debut on station KDDO in Tulsa in 1961 and six months later was hired at age 25 by Channel 11, where he remained until leaving in 1967 for New York and a brief stint with NBC’s radio network. 

Ten months later, he and his family returned to Houston and Channel 11. Five years later, he joined Channel 2. He may be best remembered by longtime listeners for his familiar signoff: “That’s our news. Good night, neighbors.”

Yes, I imagine that if you never lived in Houston that name will ring no bells.  But, back in the bad ol’ daze, when there was no cable and only five broadcast TV stations (three with actual newscasts) in Houston, Ron Stone was one of THE faces of news.  Dave Ward at Ch. 13 (ABC) and Steve Smith at Ch. 11 (CBS) were the others.

I never had any actual contact with him; by the time I was in law practice in Houston he was long retired (and being anchor, he wouldn’t have been one of the people who would have been on the courthouse beat anyway - though I did once cross paths with Ch. 13’s late, legendary quasi-anchor-character, Marvin Zindler, at the old Criminal Courthouse in Houston; that was an experience, but I digress), and the one familial connection I had to any of those old-line media outlets in Houston was to Ch. 13 (an uncle was a techie there for a while in the 60s, somehow leading to - according to family legend anyway - a party at my parents’ house, during my infancy, wherein that station’s anchor, oh lets say, imbibed just a weeeeeeeeeeeeee bit.)  I’ll just say that one of the things making me feel a bit old is realizing that during a good bit of the time that I’m looking back on right now - lots of years in which I picture the guy exactly as he looks above, nondescript yet not, in my eyes anyway, seeming to age - the guy was younger than I am now.

So long, Ron.

Okay. Didn’t Think That Last One Was Conveeeeeeeeeeenient? Try This One.

From an article in the National Enquirer about a 9-year-old MTF trans kid:

Some medical experts think parents should not let a child change gender roles at a young age.

Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studied sexual reassignment surgery in the 1970s, said a school’s decision to support a student’s transition could have long-term psychological consequences.

“They do not have a right to stop the child, but it’s different when they gather everyone around and say, ‘Johnnie is Jeanie,’ ” he said. Society, he added, should not support the decision of an immature person.

There is no evidence that the transition ultimately helps the person, he added.

McHugh said he reached his conclusions after studying the issue for 30 years, especially in the 1970s, when Hopkins was pioneering sexual-reassignment surgery.

“People came to us saying that if we changed them, we’d solve all their problems,” he said. “So we changed them, and their problems remained.”

Oh…

I’m sorry.

Did I say National Enquirer?

I meant Philadelphia Inquirer.

But, you can see how I could easily make such a mistake, right?

Queer Channel Media: All Marriage, All the Time

Yes, marriage is the measuring cock - the standard by which a state is to be judged as being either progressive or backward. 

As po’ pi’ful Kevin Naff laments:

Maryland, my backward Maryland

Of course, you’ll find nothing in his snifflefest about the fact that Maryland still is a state that gives people such as himself the special - backward - right to discriminate against trans people.

AFTER LAST YEAR’S high court ruling upholding straight-only marriage in Maryland, many residents of the state — including me — had high hopes for the 2008 legislative session.

Surely, many of us thought, the state’s Democratic lawmakers would right the judicial wrong inflicted by the slimmest of majorities, 4-3. But instead of courageous leadership on a pressing civil rights issue, the state’s politicians quickly reverted to type, abandoning progress and embracing the safe confines of the status quo.

No marriage. No civil unions. Not even domestic partnerships for gays living in a so-called “blue state” where Democrats enjoy monopolistic control of both houses in the legislature and the governor’s mansion.

So, you can work in Maryland without fear - even without the fear of ever having to endure the indignity of accepting the notion that a transsexual woman is equal to you.

T’aint good ’nuff, eh?

So, certainly, if Maryland had taken away your special right to discriminate against trans people, that would not change your view of Maryland as “backward”? 

Ya gotta hand it to Queer Channel Media.  Its consistent.

Of course, there is one new wrinkle in their ‘all gay marriage, all the time’ programming: a slight doff of the hat to the notion of ‘incremental progress’ on the issue of gay marriage.

Of course, it comes from a dubious source.

Given all the Democratic opposition to marriage, why didn’t Equality Maryland pursue more realistic goals, like civil unions?

That question was posed by Stephen Clark, a professor at Albany Law School who is gay and tracks civil rights issues. The answer to that question is that Equality Maryland’s board members and donors wanted to pursue an all-or-nothing strategy — and they got just about nothing. Civil unions are an imperfect solution, as evidenced by the legal mess they’ve created in New Jersey, but they’re a start.

Ah yes…Stephen Clark.

You remember him, I hope.  He’s the spinmeister who Queer Channel Media allowed to put forth the patently inaccurate ‘theory’ (some will say ‘theory’; I say ‘lie’) that most trans-inclusive state civil rights laws have only come into being because the trans aspect has benefitted from “concealment.”  His analysis was so far off the mark that, were it part of a representation of a person or entity, said person or entity would have a good case for a legal malpractice claim (and was also, in my view, actually unethical - probably to the point that it would have put his law license in jeopardy.)  Recall that I conclusively ripped his ‘theory’ to shreds back in November.

To be fair to Clark, I can say one quasi-positive thing: He does appear to be one of the few incrementalism addicts who is wiling to apply ‘incremental progress’ to the issue of gay marriage.

At the end of the day, that doesn’t make him - or Queer Channel Media - any more accurate, honest,  ethical, or even sane, of course. 

For what all of this boils down to for Kavin Naff is: If Iowa, to take an example from middle America, says no to gay marriage, even though it has recognized transsexual existence for 32 years and even though it enacted a trans-inclusive civil rights law last year, it would still be “backward.”

 Trans-Jim Crow-ery is still bigotry. 

Shilling is still shilling. 

And bullshit is still bullshit.

To them, trans people are still nothing.

And to them, our legal victories are just as non-existent as a pile of Munchkin shit.

The Real Cost

From Queer Channel Media:

Conflicting reports are claiming that same-sex marriage would cost Maryland $2.3 million per year — or result in a $3.2 million windfall.

Wrong.

And wrong.

The real cost of gay marriage in Maryland will be the civil rights of trans people.

But - we don’t count, do we?

A Non-ENDA Reason to Hate Queer Channel Media

From tomorrow’s ‘bitch session‘:

• Forget McCain vs. Hillary vs. Obama. What’s more important is Janet vs. Mariah vs. Madonna. Elect your diva now and contribute to their funds by buying their new CDs!
• Where the hell are all the hot UPS guys? And why don’t they come to my office?
• Is there a way to get all of the lesbians out of the D.C. area?

Yes, we do indeed have it - A non-ENDA reason to hate Queer Channel Media: Believing that crap like that needs to be published anywhere, much less that, somehow, publishing it helps anyone. 

And no…

Including the following shot (no pun intended):

•  I think all of the closeted, self-loathing, anti-gay Republicans in Congress should have to go quail hunting with Dick Cheney for a few hours!

doesn’t redeem QCM.  1 out of 100 is still 1 above a zero.

Kudos to Sharon McGowan

From Bay Windows:

 Trans conference debates merits of anti-discrimination laws

Okay, the mere fact that (ostensibly) trans people are having a “debate” on this adds fuel to the belief of some that the true needs of trans people are being subverted in favor of exercies in queer theory (some legitimate, some rather loopy.)

Dean Spade, a teaching fellow at Harvard Law School and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, argued that in practice it is almost impossible to bring a successful case under such laws.Spade said that for the past several decades a series of Supreme Court decisions has made it nearly impossible for someone pressing a discrimination claim to prove intent on the part of his or her employer, blunting the effectiveness of the laws.

So I guess he’d be in favor of completely abandoning efforts to secure same-sex marriage, given that there have been a mega-series of court decisions (and ensuing state laws and constitutional amendments) foreclosing that?

“And I think all of us as lawyers recognize that a lot of these laws don’t really work,” said Spade, speaking on a Feb. 29 panel that presented an overview of the trans legal landscape. “I think we know that anti-discrimination laws aren’t enforced. I think we’re pretty aware that racism and able-ism and national origin discrimination, all other things that have been illegal for a while, haven’t gone away because the law changed.

All of us?  All of who?  All trans attorneys?  No one consulted me on that pronouncement.

What a fucking moron. 

This is the type of clown who has appropriated the ability to make a living as any form of representative of trans people? 

Tell ya what.  Lets take a legit poll of African-Americans and see if they think things are better now than they were prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - not perfect, but better, perhaps even much better.

Now, I’ve been a major critic of some categories of civil rights laws - most notably the genre of local ordinances and state/local executive orders that aren’t enforceable at all.  That’s a different issue  - and, if that’s what he was talking about, then he really didn’t make himself clear.

Its never going to be perfect.

All civil rights laws have loopholes that are clear.

All civil rights laws have loopholes that christofascist judges can use to re-write said laws into virtual non-existence.

So give up?

Why not give up and let St. Barney of Frank do whatever the hell he wants to subjugate trans people politically?  Why not give up and never say anything about how major gay rights groups have a worse track record on hiring trans people than do most inhuman multinational corporate monoliths?  Why not just give up live as the sex you were designated as birth and why not give up and adopt the sexual orientation that your parents undoubtely expected you to have?

I don’t think there’s any kind of naiveté amongst lawyers about that. And yet we are still wedded to those strategies in part because I think sometimes we think maybe they have another role. Maybe when we pass these laws they have a symbolic role, they change what people think of us. … And those are questions I want to keep on the table

Symbolic…

You mean like their presence on the books inspiring employers not to discriminate in the first instance when, otherwise, they would have?

Sorry, dude.  That’s not symbolic.  That’s substantive.

What a moron.

At a forum later that day on sex segregation and gender regulation Lisa Mottet, director of the Transgender Civil Rights Project for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), provided a different perspective, arguing that the 13 state non-discrimination laws that cover transgender people have provided no major court victories because no one has yet tested them.

Well, not no one.  Of course, when you get down to it there has been only one - the Minnesota catastrophe: Goins v. West Group (though there have been a few cases following that one, all ending at lower levels.)  And with each day that passes I’m more convinced that that decision was not an honest one (my suspicion is that Republican Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz - a state legislator when the law was passed - was not too thrilled to know that she had voted for a law that was more than GLB; during floor debate in 1993 she had indicated that she thought the law would be the same as that which existed in Wisconsin - which, of course, it was (and is) not.)

She said the solution is to test those laws in court and establish case law around gender identity discrimination, but for people facing discrimination there are many factors that prevent them from filing a lawsuit.“I am troubled by the fact that there aren’t a lot of lawsuits under these laws. Part of it is they’re new. We passed four laws last year, so a year ago we only had nine state laws for example, so that’s part of it,” said Mottet. “But I think it’s also that people don’t know they have rights, that people aren’t in the financial position to hire an attorney, and [when] there’s still a lot of other discrimination happening in a person’s life, their highest priority isn’t going after an employer that fired them. Their highest priority is finding a new job, finding a place to live that they can afford.”

I can’t say I disagree with any of that (though I feel obligated to add that, despte Mottet being good at what she does, I still feel it is a sickening travesty that NGLTF continues to employ a non-trans person as its trans legal expert.)  And though I increasinlg find myself at odds with the Phyllis Frye’s reasoning on many issues, she did saliently add to why the laws don’t generate as many high-profile cases with published decisions as might be expected:

“One of the reason why there is [little litigation under the non-discrimination laws] is that as litigators our primary duty is to represent our client, not to make case law, as much as we would like to. And if we can browbeat or otherwise get an employer or city or somebody else to actually follow the law, if we can sit down with their council and explain to them, ’A, B, C - oh, light bulb! - and get them to comply or settle, then that is our goal,” said Frye.

I’ve found Phyllis to be out of touch on some things of late, but this is basic attorney-client stuff.  She’s on the mark.

The debate over non-discrimination laws was part of a larger debate during the conference between two strands of the transgender movement. Paisley Currah, associate professor of political science for the City University of New York- Brooklyn, said during the legal overview panel that one political stance within the movement is to push for state recognition of transgender identity and transgender inclusion in structures like non-discrimination laws; a more leftist stance is to advocate for an end to all state efforts to define gender and for a more equitable redistribution of resources rather than equality under the law.

Gee…

And who might be playing the leftist theory game?  Transsexuals (disproportionately MTF) who have a very real fear of ending up living under a bridge if they get fired - or never hired - for having identification documentation that has a sex marker discrepancy?

Or folks (disproportionately FTM or gender-queer) who are privileged to rest comfortably each night knowing that they collect a paycheck espousing theory-oids that may or may not be in the best interests of those they purport to speak for?

Then, up to the plate stepped Sharon McGowan.

The divide was particularly evident during an exchange between Spade and Sharon McGowan, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) LGBT Project, during the legal overview panel. An audience member asked panelists to compare the ways that governments define both gender and race, and Spade answered, “As a trans person I feel frustrated that the state uses gender categories to administer everything that I need, and I’m really aware of that, and that can allow me to build a critical analysis of how the state administers wellbeing, period, right? So that I can have an ally politics as well with all the other sets of people who are misclassified and who experience this maldistribution that is what the state is administering.”

This is less than one step removed from Janice Raymond / Norah Vincent transsexual exerminationist philosophy. 

But McGowan, who also sat on the panel, countered that some transgender people may not want to do away with gender categories. She said while some may argue that the push for legal recognition of transgender identity means being co-opted by mainstream society, for others that recognition is important.“I get so inspired when I hear Dean’s rhetoric, but the way in which I think it assumes that there is a vision that everybody would just be going towards if we just stopped being such pussies about the whole thing and just did it and gave up the man - and my question is, at some level, for trans folks who feel very strongly as though a female gender identity in a world in which female identity means something, are they just co-opted, or is there something there that is also something worth fighting for, and can the two exist at the same time? … There is for me a tension in figuring out what is co-optation versus what are sustainable parallel tracks, if such a thing can exist.”

Not to place myself in the radical HBS camp (although I share some of the HBS folks’  views, there are some aspects of their posture of late that do bother me - and other transsexuals who, by physiology and identity, would seem to qualify as HBS), but it is people like Spade who are co-opting. 

Unlike most HBS folks, I see no problem with transsexual and transgender co-existing.  My being a woman who happens to be of transsexual experience is not inherently incompatible with gender-queer/third-gender folks.  Unfortunately, I feel that my position may be solely the product of the fact that I am an incredibly cynical attorney who has never really bought into the kum-bah-ya shit of either HRC or the radical gender leftists. 

However, I believe that time will prove me right.

In the mean time, thank you Sharon, for at representing the voice of those who, increasingly, have no voice at gender conferences.

Why Doesn’t the Spitzer Mess Screw Trans People Too? Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Here’s a headline over at Bilerico:

 How Eliot Spitzer screwed the gays

According to Mike Rogers:

When Spitzer leaves (and I hope he does) his stupidity will require a second Senate victory to secure control of the body. From CityHallNews.com:

If and when Paterson becomes governor, the New York State Constitution does not provide for a new lieutenant governor to be named. The post would remain vacant until the end of the term in 2010.

This would also prevent Paterson from being the tie-breaker in the Senate. Senate Democrats, who have long been expecting to take the majority in the Senate this year, would have to capture two seats to make this happen. Since Darrel Aubertine’s Feb. 26 special election win, with Paterson as the tie-breaker, Democrats had been counting on just needing one seat–and perhaps taking control before November by flipping a GOP senator to their conference [emphasis added].

Thanks, Eliot.

I understand the numbers game there - and I can’t say I disagree with rogers in attitude about the stupidity of Spitzer.  But, lets take a look at what Rogers is most concerned with insofar as what that numbers game will jeopardize:

When I worked at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the mid-90’s I used to say that the last generation busted open the closet and that this generation’s challenge is to secure marriage rights in at least one state. If we could just accomplish that, we’d have done well.

Twelve years ago, I never would have guessed it would happen as soon as it did. With Massachusetts out of the way, liberal state legislators have been discussing and debating marriage equality, and after a former male prostitute (for men) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) — vetoed marriage equality in CA, eyes in the movement turned east, looking at possible legislative victories.

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other states have seen the issue come up — and not in that “let’s ban it” way. Each state has its hurdles, with New York’s being the GOP-controlled State Senate. With that control held by just one seat, many in NY think this November will put the Senate within reach. And now a hypocrite has put that in jeopardy.

Marcia!  Marriage!

Marcia!  Marriage!

Marcia!  Marriage!

Not rectification of the political hate crime that was committed against New York’s trans people in 2002 (sometimes referred to as SONDA.)

Why?

In your heart, you know why…

We were never on the agenda to begin with.