Does The Scampaign Realize How Funny It Is When It Takes Itself Seriously?

From an e-mail I received from the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool of Transphobia:

 Every day, HRC is fighting for GLBT equality – in Congress, in the media, and on the ground in states across the country.

• Our intrepid HRC field team is on the ground in California working to keep a same-sex marriage ban off the ballot. We’re organizing volunteers to encourage Californians to “Decline to Sign” the petitions that would put the initiative on the ballot.
  Learn more »
• Can you imagine the impact of 300 GLBT advocates talking to their state legislators about GLBT equality? It just happened in Indiana! Equality Indiana and HRC are teaming up to stop a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages and all forms of relationship recognition.
  Learn more »
• Harry Knox, director of HRC’s Religion and Faith program, went to North Carolina to debate the leader of an anti-gay church – and transformed the beliefs of many in attendance. It’s just one of the ways HRC is reaching out to the Evangelical community.
  Learn more »
• HRC spent months on the ground in New Mexico fighting for a domestic partnerships bill. Although the radical right used fear tactics to stop the bill in the state senate, our efforts built momentum and laid the groundwork for future successes.
  Learn more »

As if the ‘T’ in “fighting for GLBT” wasn’t funny enough, here’s the real punch line.

The subject heading of the e-mail (as well as first topic heading – before “Our intrepid…”; BTW – what exactly is an “intrepid HRC field team”?  One that fucks things up in only one state?):

Subject:   What has HRC done for me lately?

Again…Pee Wee, stop it! You’re killing me!

No.

This time I’m serious.  You are killing me…

and all of us.

STOP!

Resist the Nutbags

The ‘Mass Resistance’ looney bin is in full fervor as a hearing nears on the bill to rectify the political hate crime committed against trans people in Massachusetts in 1989.

The Coming Nightmare of a “Transsexual Rights
and Hate Crimes” Law in Massachusetts:
Why Bill H1722 Must Be Defeated

by Amy Contrada, MassResistance

Text of bill H1722 with links to current statutes

1. A radical agenda comes to Massachusetts
2. How will H1722 affect you?
3. Public Accommodations
4. Public Schools and Charter Schools
5. Employment and Business
6. Family Law, Public Health, Government IDS
7. Hate Crimes and MCAD – the big stick against citizens

Here’s an example of their christofascist theocracy in action:

Massachusetts State House, 1-16-08: Legislative briefing by transsexual leaders pushing for H1722. From left: Holly Ryan, male-to-female co-chair of MTPC (Mass. Transgender Political Coalition); female-to-male Ethan St. Pierre, who told her story of  job discrimination; Jennifer Levi, transgender attorney at GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders); and Gunner Scott, female-to-male Director and co-founder of the MTPC. (Photo: InNews Weekly)

Ethan.

Her.

Uh huh.

Give ’em hell, Ethan!

Steve Dain

Max Wolf Valerio has a post about the passing of FTM Steve Dain.

‘Journalism’, Queer Channel Media Style

From the Washington Blade (which, atop its internet window, bills itself as “The Online Gay & Lesbian News Source of Record”):

The Human Rights Campaign’s gala New York fundraiser unfolded last weekend in typical fashion: Inside, a swank crowd of almost 1,000 mingled during a formal dinner ceremony while outside about 40 “radical” activists chanted, “You can’t spell LGBT with HRC.”

Interesting that the word “radical” was called out, eh?

Now, lets see who all is quoted in this ‘news’ item by Trenton Straube:

• HRC President Joe Solmonese
• HRC deputy communications director Trevor Thomas
• Sister Halleluyeva of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
• Allen Roskoff, president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club
• Idina Menzel

When are the QCM papers going to dispense with the pretense and just put the Fox News logo on their masthead?

A Pink Brick for a Purple-n-Yellow Prick

From the opinion page of the Bay Area Reporter:

The board that governs the city’s Pride weekend has nominated the Human Rights Campaign and its president, Joe Solmonese, for the dubious Pink Brick honor that in years past has gone to homophobic radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger and twice to President George W. Bush.

It is the first time a gay person or LGBT organization has been nominated for the award. It is an achievement that HRC and Solmonese rightfully deserve for shamefully bending to political expediency when they refused to stand up last fall to Congressional leaders’ decision to drop gender identity protections from the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.

Instead of standing in unison with the entire LGBT community, HRC and Solmonese opted to march ahead without transgender people in pursuit of a gay and lesbian only ENDA that has no chance of becoming law while Bush remains in the White House.

Hmmm…I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.

What is also needed is for Congressional leaders to hear from diverse voices within the LGBT community. And with the departure this year of Matt Foreman as head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, we hope the board of the Washington D.C.-based group does everything it can to ensure its pool of candidates for a new leader reflects the LGBT community’s diversity.

With Foreman and Solmonese in their respective roles for the last couple years, the dominant voices and faces of the LGBT community have been white gay men. In this year when the country has a chance of seeing its first female or African-American president, it would be fitting for the task force’s board to break another glass ceiling when it hires its next executive director.

Women and people of color have led the task force in the past. We urge the board to once again think outside the box as it gets it executive search under way. Perhaps the LGBT community is now mature enough to see a transgender person be hired to lead one of its national LGBT organizations.

The bigger question actually should be whether either the Scampaign or NGLTF or Lambda is ‘mature’ (I prefer ‘nondiscriminatory’) enough to even hire a male-to-female transsexual for a legitimate, policy-related paid employment position.

From a news item about the Pink PBrick in the BAR:

HRC had gone on record as supporting only a bill that included gender identity protection. But after openly gay Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and other lawmakers decided to drop transgender people from the bill, HRC supported the move.

The policy switch was reportedly made because Frank and other House leaders could only ensure passage in the House of Representatives of a gay and lesbian-only ENDA. The bill has since been introduced in the Senate, but has yet to come up for a vote. President George W. Bush has said he will veto it.

In an e-mail to the Bay Area Reporter , HRC communications director Brad Luna wrote, “We continue to work everyday to educate members of Congress and pave the way for a fully inclusive ENDA.”

Luna also wrote that HRC has dedicated $100,000 and three full-time staff members to Equality for All, a coalition that’s fighting a potential California ballot measure that would amend the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriages.

How many trans people are going to get even one paycheck from the Scampaign out of that?

How low is zero?

Speaking of that Industrial Accident: Pee Wee Solmonese Spins Again!

From the Windy City Times (via the Edge):

WCT: HRC received a lot of criticism and continues to do so because of the disappointment in how ENDA turned out. How do you respond to continuing accusations that HRC does not work on behalf of the entire LGBT community?

JS: I think the most important thing to note there is when you talk about how ENDA turned out-ENDA has not turned out at all, by any means.

Huh?

Uh, Pee Wee – Aren’t you, with this, acknowledging as legitimate (not to mention 100% accurate) the truly-practical criticism of the Scampaign’s 2007 turncoating?  You know – the point, more-than-often made, that there was no true practical rationale for dumping trans people from ENDA because it had no chance whatsoever of even reaching the desk of the person who claims to be president, much less of actually becoming law?

In some ways, I think we are the victims of our own success

Oh.  Oh.  Stop it, Pee Wee. You’re killin’ me!

 because we were so lucky with hate-crimes [legislation] and … passed an inclusive bill through the House and the Senate that when circumstances unfolded differently in the House-and when we saw that there was a real disparity there around support for gender identity in the House-we took all the information that we had, and we took all the conversations that we had with members of Congress that we had about what would be the best way to begin this process, understanding that there was a desire to move forward on the sexual orientation-only bill-something that none of us were happy with, even those who were advocating moving it forward.

Translation: We’re lying sacks of shit, but Barney said we could be – so its okay.

Don’t forget this is a piece of legislation that had never been voted on in the House before

Trust us, Pee Wee, we won’t.  (Please refer back to the paragraph about the real practicalities of 2007).

It would be the first step in what we anticipated would be a long road toward an inclusive bill.

Why didn’t you use those exact words at Southern Comfort last fall?

It is the course that every other civil-rights measure has taken.

Well, first of all: NO, not every civil rights measure has done so.  Do the following states mean anything to you?

• Minnesota
• New Mexico
• Illinois
• Iowa
• Colorado
• Maine
• Oregon
• Washington

Oh…That’s right.  They’re nowhere near the Rhode Island Avenue Monument to Gay Self-Importance and Money-Sucking Mediocrity, so they don’t really matter.

It is the course that the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, every other measure that has come before Congress, [took].

Ah yes…the ADA – with its explicit trans-exclusion (that, I’m sure you don’t remember or care about, was praised by the Scampaign when it was put into the ADA bill in 1989) – which (for all practical purposes) replaced a more general disability statute that had occasionally been interpreted in favor of transsexuals.

In case you care, this is the definition of “progress“: “a movement toward a goal or to a further or higher stage.”

This is the definition of “regress“: “to move backward; go back.”

You tell me which one more accurately describes the change from the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to the Americans With Disabilities Act?

Often times, as we have stepped up to the starting point, the conclusion has been made that it is something we need to do in pieces.

I’ll ask again: Why didn’t you say that at Southern Comfort last fall?

As much as that is the conclusion we came to here at HRC, I certainly understand that that would be grounds for a lot of fear and anxiety in the community that a group of people were being left behind.

Wow.

No attempt even to lie to us and say that we weren’t actually being left behind.

I guess Pee Wee would call that progress.

I’ll call it something else.

I Guess You Can’t Say She Doesn’t Have Relevant Experience

From 365Gay.com:

Former Human Rights Campaign president Cheryl A. Jacques was appointed Wednesday to a six-year term as an administrative judge at the state Department of Industrial Accidents.

Well – I don’t think I’ve ever specifically called the Scampaign an ‘Industrial Accident,’ but, considering that it operates as though gay rights is an industry – a for-profit industry – and is, in fact, a stumbling, bumbling, lumbering, quasi-animate accident…

I’d say Cheryl probably brings more practical experience with her to her new position than any ALJ in Massachusetts history.

Bond on the Scampaign

H/T to Kathy for pointing me to New York Magazine for this:

[Justin] Bond spoke to Vulture about transgender politics, Tilda Swinton, and his fight with D’Angelo at Madonna’s birthday party.

…

In the show, you gave some alarming statistics about a national rise in violence against transgender people — like the 15-year-old Lawrence King, who was shot and killed in a high-school classroom two weeks ago. What accounts for that in this day and age?

The people that run organizations like the Human Rights Campaign are privileged white people. In all honesty, they’re out for themselves and getting what they can get. When they have power, they’ll look out for those who they consider to be less powerful or less important than they are. They don’t represent me. They represent their own selfish interests as bourgeois white people who really are angry that they’re looked down upon. I think they’re disgusting sell-out pigs. But, hey, that’s always been the split in the gay community: “Why don’t you just put on some pants and be a man and go and get your rights, faggot!”

The Human Right Scampaign?

Selfish?

Where is this guy living?

Reality?

Oh……

OK, Nick – Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Saieth Nick, in the comments section of a post at Towleroad:

I think it’s time we stop lumping all of us together. I am 100% supportive for transgendered rights, but it has nothing to do with lesbian and gay rights, unless transgendered people are in a same-sex relationship with someone and then it is still an issue of sexual orientation.

Fine, Nick.  Put your money where your mouth is.  Oppose ENDA 3685 and support an ENDA with the following coverage scope:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer–

1. to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment of the individual, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation; or
2. to limit, segregate, or classify the employees or applicants for employment of the employer in any way that would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment or otherwise adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.

 …

In General- In this Act:

The term `sexual orientation’ means homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality or the fact of the employee’s being transsexual or otherwise transgendered, so long as the employee (1) is in a life relationship which, by societal perception of operation of law, is a homosexal relationship;  (2) has a history of being in such a relationship or relationships irrespective of whether the employee may also have a history of being in a relationship or relationships which, by societal perception or operation of law, are opposite-sex relationships; or (3) , if not in a relationship, has a history of expressed desire to be in such a same-sex relationship.

Otherwise, STFU!

This Is Surprising…Why?

From the Buffalo News:

The man who is in line to become the city’s top crusader against discrimination was the target of a 2006 complaint that he repeatedly taunted a gay co-worker, The Buffalo News has learned.

The discrimination complaint was filed with the state Division of Human Rights. It contends that Andres Garcia created a “hostile work environment” by subjecting a gay worker to “constant” negative comments that included disparaging names and jokes.

Now – the title of this posting isn’t about Garcia.  I’ve never heard of the guy and have no idea about whether the guy is any kind of phobe.  Rather, the title speaks to a general notion.

Considering that the self-declared (and seemingly-accepted-by-the-MSM-as-such) largest GLB(T) rights ‘organization’ is one of the most transphobic organizations in the nation (if not the most trasnsphobic; certainly, though, the most MTF-phobic) and has a worse track record on hiring trans people (particularly MTF TSs) than many corporations and government entities that make no claim whatsoever to be friendly to anyone, why should the possibility of a phobe being hired to administer a legal framework that was designed to combat phobia be a surprise? 

It shouldn’t be.