A Question for the ‘Culture of Life’ Crowd: What is 22 Years of Life Worth?

I’m sure the answer will be: ‘However much won’t make my taxes go up.’

From CNN:

Tim Masters squarely blames Fort Collins, Colorado, police and prosecutors for his inability to land gainful employment and for his not having a wife and kids at this stage in his life.

In 1987, Masters became the prime suspect in the slaying of Peggy Hettrick, a 37-year-old found in a field near his house. Among the reasons police said they focused on Masters was that he failed to report the body after he found it and his childhood drawings and stories suggested he was fixated on death.

Masters was convicted of murder in 1999, but a judge last year threw out the conviction and released him from prison, citing new evidence that did not implicate Masters. Masters now has a lawsuit pending against several police officers, ex-prosecutors and the city.

I’ve seen so many wrongfully-convicted people come out of hell prison having been beaten down by the experience succumbed to religion while inside.  Maybe they sue, maybe they don’t – but rarely do I see someone come out of that with the anger that such an experience would justify. 

Give ’em hell, Tim.

The city of Fort Collins has asked a federal judge to dismiss the case.

How can anyone who prepares the filings for such an argument – much less the mouthpieces who actually argue it – sleep at night?

Below is what should be the mandatory response from the judicial system to any jurisdiction who wrongfully imprisons a person: 

You broke his life. 

You bought it. 

Now, start paying up.

There should be no argument.  Just pay up – and continue to pay up.

There should not even be a need to file a suit in the first place – but arrogant snots who have the power to destroy people’s lives believe that they also have the power to never have to answer for their own actions.

Hair That Not Even Donald Trump Could Love

And yet, (so-called) Family (so-called) Research Council’s Peter Sprigg wants to tell the Maryland Legislature to kill a bill that would rectify the political hate crime that was committed against trans people in 2001 – oddly enough not by christianists such as Sprigg, but by the self-appointed gay rights power structure of Maryland.

Of course, Sprigg displays all of the goodies from the christianist bag of tricks – many of which come to christianists from the second-hand store of bigotry.  From Sprigg’s actual testimony:

The most extreme application of the principle of “non-discrimination” based on “gender identity” would be to the use of gender-separated restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.  As currently written, this bill would legally protect the right of a person who is still biologically male (but who has adopted a female “gender identity”) to strip nude in front of women in a women’s locker room.

Thank you Barney Frank.

Let me conclude by referring you to the attached article by Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital.  It relates how a careful study of transgenderism led them to abandon the practice of performing sex change operations.  McHugh notes:

“We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.”

Thank you Janice Raymond.

As a side note – I find it ironic that someone who is a slave to a collection of fairy tales is claiming the authority to speak as to who is afflicted with any form of madness. 

As a second side note – I find it a bit interesting that Sprigg would utter the following:

Peter added that “residents who believe it is better for men to remain men and women to remain women ought to have freedom to act on those beliefs, without facing stigma or punishment.”

Sounds to me as if The (Other) Peter is implicitly acknowledging that, indeed, men can become women and women can become men; he’s just shilling for christianists who don’t like that fact.

Sex is an objective biological reality, identified based on the pesence of external genitalia, internal sex organs, and chromosomes, which in the overwhelming majority of cases are consistent and unambiguous at birth.  It is simply foolish to treat this as a characteristic that can be changed at will.

Game over, Spriggy. 

If there’s an “overwhelming majority,” then there’s a tangible minority.

You’ve acknowledged the existence of intersexuality – meaning that you’ve just thrown out the infalibility of your book of fairy tales.  So, you’ve blown any case for christianists to complain about people moving from one category to the other; after all, you really expect anyone to believe that the christianists you claim to speak for would get any less christianisty about someone transitioning (or having transitioned) because of some condition that you, The High-n-Mighty (Other) Peter, says actually exists?

Spriggy – get thee to a Donald Trump-ery.

Some Advice for Virginia’s Attorney General

There’s a longer thread about this over at Pam’s (and this post is based on my comment there), but here’s the gist: the governor of Virginia issued a sexual orientation non-discrimiation policy via executive order. 

By virtue of the authority vested in me as Governor, I hereby declare that it is the firm unwavering policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia to assure equal opportunity in all facets of state government. This policy specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities.

Yes, the policy is of the Barney Frank – HRC variety: completely trans-free. 

A man – presumably non-trans – who worked for the state Museum of Natural History until being fired (“forced to involuntarily resign”) attempted to utilize the policy.  However, the state AG is backing the Museum, saying that the governor didn’t have the power to issue such an order – at least in terms of it providing a private right of action for an aggrieved party.

OK – I smell christianist opportunism oozing from every pore of this AG.  However, like it or not, he’s probably right as to gubernatorial authority.  Its not as if Tim Kaine would be the first governor to have such a policy shot down.  It happened to Tom Vilsack in Iowa back in 2000. 

Of course, the scope of Vilsack’s order was legitimate: it covered gender identity as well as sexual orientation.

With that…

If the Virginia AG is actually not a christianist opportunist and just wants to end the litigation over Gov. Kaine’s policy, might I suggest a change in legal strategy.  As I suggested at Pam’s:

 Just change the museum’s position to the following:

We think Moore is transgender and, therefore, not covered by the policy even if the policy is valid so, therefore, we can fire him at will.

Summary judgment for the Museum.

Case closed – courtesy of the Barney Frank-HRC vision of what an acceptable non-discrimination policy is.

Get ready for the 2009 ENDA fight.

I’m doing so.

I’m buying stock in Astroglide. 

When what I know is going to happen happens, I want to make a buck off of it.

So – I Can Presume That the Illinois Family Institute Will Support Doing Away With the Tax-Free Status of Churches?

From the Illinois ‘Family’ ‘Institute’:

[T]here is no reason for the government to provide institutional recognition to same-sex civil unions in that they contribute nothing beneficial to the common good.

Really?

So then, I can anticipate churches paying taxes?

Now – beyond that bit of policy that IFI would have no intention whatsoever of seeing implemented across the board.  The item that the above quote comes from is about gay marriage.

And gay marriage alone (ok – civil unions, etc., too, but you get the idea.)

Nothing trans.  But, lookee here at the graphic that IFI used:

 

The JPEG file of that is even named: SZ200_futureofmarriage.jpg

Not transgendersymbol.jpg.

Do I detect a campign of subterfuge to connect trans stuff to something that should not be connected to trans stuff?

How Much Experience Does The Drug-Addled Gasbag Have With the Concept?

From Media Matters:

Limbaugh: “Matt Lauer sounds like Robert Gibbs’ butt boy”

Is the drug-addeld gasbag jealous that, perhaps, neither one would need oxycontin to get off?

I’m just askin’.

Beware of Gays Bearing Trans-Scapegoatery

OK – I’ll be up front about this: I’ve never previously heard of Aejaie Sellers (pictured) or San Jose CA’s LGBT community center – and I’ve never  previously heard of the controversy that is being covered in today’s Bay Area Reporter:

A fight over who controls the board of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose has led to the ouster of Executive Director Aejaie Sellers and board president PJ Matarese. The moves have plunged the center into a period of uncertainty just as the facility is struggling to raise money amid a weakening economy.

The decisions came after a contentious January board meeting at which Matarese claimed the make-up of the current board was invalid and in violation of the center’s bylaws. It was the latest controversy to hit the center’s board, which has been embroiled in a months-long battle over the direction of the facility.

The BAR piece appears to be evenhanded (at least to someone like me who knows nothing else of the controversy), so I recommend looking at it to get more specifics.  However, here is what it seems to be leading to:

Sellers’s sudden termination could result in legal action. In an interview last week Sellers did not rule out filing a lawsuit against the center. She said her firing came as a complete shock.

“I haven’t processed it at all,” said Sellers, believed to be the first transgender person hired to run an LGBT community center. “I have no idea. No one has spoken to me about why I am no longer there.”

Hence – my reason for commenting about this.

As I said above, I’ve never encountered Sellers (that I know of) and I don’t believe I’ve ever even heard of her prior to this BAR item.  So – I have no idea if she is 100% right or 100% wrong or somewhere in between with respect to the problems at the SJ community center.

However…

Do note that highlighted portion. 

It indirectly addresses the Discrimination That Must Not be Named Among Acceptable LGB(T) Persons Who Will Ever Have Any Chance for Being Considered for Employment with LGB(T) Organizations.  I have no doubt that she is the first trans person hired for such a position; if not, then I’d wager a big chunk of change that she’s the first trans woman – the category of person who, as all of us who can be honest about the situation, for all practical purposes need not apply when job openings are posted at LGB(T) organizations.

Even if Sellers is a  graduate of the Susan Stanton school of asshattery, someting still would seem to be rotten in the city of San Jose.

And I smell the stench of fermenting scapegoatery.

McChristianist Asshole

From USA Today, the perennial spotlight on a handful of people who de-transition.  I’m not going to say anything about Mike Penner f/k/a Christine Daniels; everyone has to decide what is best for themselves.

However, I am going to say something about an asshole who is still touting the fraudulent 1979 Meyer-Reter ‘study.’

Yes, who else could it be but…

Paul McHugh!

Paul McHugh, director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, is a leading proponent of the notion that the cause is not biological, that transgender people have chosen this path.

He halted the university hospital’s practice of performing gender reassignment surgeries in the late 1970s because, he says, a study indicated that postoperative transsexuals were no happier than they were before the operation. “You can live any way you want, but don’t come to us and ask us to give medical resources to this proposal of yours, because we think it’s a social construct and not a condition of nature,” McHugh says.

“No one has demonstrated any physical mechanism or physical problem that causes this. The burden of proof is on them to prove that.”

Sorry, but the burden of proof is on you to show that that the Meyer-Reter ‘study’ was not rigged.  No one from Johns Hopkins has ever managed to refute the numerous eviscerastions of that ‘study.’

Moreover, the burden of proof is on christianists to show emperically why anyone should give deference to mythology. Neither McHugh, nor any of his ilk, has ever produced a shred of evidence as to why any living, breathing human being with one, finite life should sacrifice even one nanosecond of that one, finite life to fear of the misogynist-created boogeyman.

McHugh is to Bailey as amino acid is to protein.

More Sanitizing of the Cesspool’s Image

Over at Pam’s House Blend, Pam posted a link to an item in North Carolina’s LGBT paper, Q-Notes, about the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool.  And, Pam describes the reasonable purpose behind “What You Didin’t Know About the Human Rights Campaign”

The Human Rights Campaign is the LGBT organization with the most name recognition, the most political contacts, and is usually called upon first when the MSM wants to get the “gay reaction.” This is a sore spot for many average LGBTs out there; some have a love-hate (or even hate-hate) relationship with the org who feel that HRC is out of touch with their world view. But the fact of the matter is few average people really know much about how the organization works, its relationship to the community versus its public role, or its often-conflicting roles as both a lobbying group on the Hill and as a professional advocacy/activism org to the larger community.

I decided to play nice at The Blend, posting a rather straightforward critique without saying some other things that could have been said:

I fully understand the context of Matt’s piece and I do think that some of the general historical background is useful (irrespective of one’s opinion of HRC, I think its critical to know who Steve Endean was – and where he was before the start of HRC.)  I also understand space limitations.

However…

I think its highly improper to not have any mention of what HRC is probably most infamous for: its (mis)treatment of trans people and issues.  This is not a demand for a pages-long tangent for (or against) trans-inclusion.  Rather, its simply my noticing that an organization that elsewhere in the piece is (rightly) called out for a lack of racial diversity escapes with not even a mention of its historical lack of trans-inclusion – particularly when (a) ‘LGBT‘ is used throughout the article; and (b) the article includes this interesting quote from Mitchell Gold (from the second web page of the article):

“HRC does need to work effectively with North Carolina, as an example, to educate people and create a climate where the Kay Hagans of the world can get elected and reelected,” he says. “One of the things about understanding national legislation is that if you look back in history, at various civil rights legislation, it wasn’t passed nationally in one fell swoop.“

Is it just me, or does that second sentence seem almost out of place – with its actual context being a chunk of standard operating apologia for ENDA trans-exclusion?

Well, I encourage everyone to read the thread at The Blend, because several people have decided not to play nice. 

However, I’m going to stick to my original gameplan and not clutter up The Blend with any more F-bombs than need be – so I’ll let loose here.

I’ll reiterate my statement about understanding the ostensible legitimacy of the Q-Notes piece.  Plus, if you peruse all of it, it will be clear that it is a Carolina-centric pice (again – entirely legitimate for a Carolina paper.)  But, why the fuck does the Scampaign’s treatment of trans people continue to be the bigotry that (apparently) must not be named?  You can’t expect to be taken seriously when writing a piece like that about the Scampaign if you say absolutely nothing about the T schism.  I’m even willing to give the author a pass on the Schumer-D’Amato insanity of 1998 (not that its actually become irrelevant, but I’m guessing that most of the college kids of 2009 that the Scampaign targets would respond ‘Tomato?’ if asked about HRC’s endorsement of the racist Republican asshole Al D’Amato over Democrat Charles Schumer in 1998), but he says nothing about a war that is all-but-guaranteed to re-erupt as soon as HRC tries in 2009 to get away with what it pulled in 2007, only this time aided by a token MTF neo-activist employee and a built-in FTM apologist in Barney Frank’s office?

A puff piece by any other name is still deodorizer – and a cesspool is still a cesspool.

Gotta Love Queer Channel Media – NOT!

According to Queer Channel Media:

So – a Michigan court recognized a marriage by an Illinois couple?

The couple never married.

Memo to Queer Channel Media: Something tells me that there are plenty of un- or under-employed trans women who can do a better job of copy-editing than that.

How many trans women currently are gainfully employed by Queer Channel Media?

I suspect I know the answer.

Too Bad – I Was Hoping That The Dubya-Created Depression Would Have a Silver Lining

According to Queer Channel Media, the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool will “weather the storm.”

As the recession continues to take a toll on non-profits, the Human Rights Campaign is taking steps to cut costs. 

Brad Luna, an HRC spokesperson, said the organization has proposed to its unionized workers a way to tackle “these economic times.” He declined to discuss details of the proposal.

“We’re a union shop, so therefore we have to have conversations with them about these economic times,” he said. “And they’re looking at it and seeing if there’s ways we can work together. Other than that, the details of it, I really can’t go into.”

Luna would not say whether any decisions have been made to freeze or cut employee salaries at the organization.

Gee….

Here’s a suggestion as to how it can cut costs.  Ask Joe Solmonese to work for the equivalent of the average salary of a transsexual woman – with the average tabulated by factoring in all of us who are un- or under-employed – in the states that have HRC-esque, gay-only rights laws.

How many appletinis do you think that will get ya, eh Pee Wee?