How to Defeat Bigoted Bullshit
What an amazing story: a Brazilian volleyball player was heckled with the chant “faggot” during an uber-important match and was shaken by the incident. He came out – acknowledging that he was gay, & that everyone knew it – and the rest of him team showed support by wearing pink shirts, rainbow shirts, and unfurling a huge banner that said “Volleyball against prejudice” and fans brought thundersticks that had the player’s name on them.
Here, we pretend this is all about Kobe Bryant – as if no one else in sports uses these kinds of slurs! Please.: the whole “I didn’t mean gay people when I used ‘fag’ as an insult” is so 1994. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to use words that have been used to oppress, intimidate and threaten people of whatever minority group anymore.
(h/to to SS!)
Speechless = Priceless
Yesterday, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) had one minute on the floor:
He makes me proud to be a Dem & a NYer. Really.
Happy Tax Day, everyone.
13 Years
It’s 13 years to the day since our first date. Amazing to think about how much has gone down since then, to each of us individually, and to us as a couple, and considering all that in the context of all that has gone on in the world makes my brain hurt.
Still: happy anniversary, doll!
(We celebrate two anniversaries because (1) we do, and (2) because we have the same birthday, and didn’t want one less celebratory day in our lives. So there.)
Missing Girls
News from that radical feminist magazine The Economist states that Indian females seem to be missing:
NEW data from the 2011 Indian census show that there are now 914 girls aged 0-6 years old for every 1,000 boys of the same age, or 75.8m girls and 82.9m boys. A cultural preference for sons and the increasing availability of prenatal screening to determine a baby’s sex have helped contribute to a worsening in the ratio (from 927 in the previous census in 2001), which has been deteriorating rapidly even as the ratio for the population as a whole has improved. A decline was recorded in 28 of the country’s 35 states and territories, among which there is wide variation; from 830 in the northern state of Haryana to 973 Meghalaya in the east.
The articles goes on to point out that the Chinese are facing a similar problem.
& Here, my dear trans readers, is the problem with being born with a vagina: too often, it means you don’t get to be born at all. Granted, if transness were viewable in the womb, most trans people wouldn’t get to be born, either.
More Gendered Toy Ads
A word cloud created from the language used in commercials for toys aimed at boys:
On the other hand, the ones for girls:
Is anyone surprised?
Read the full article for the details as to how the words were chosen.
Leave Animals Out of It
I don’t know if many people saw this, but recently, The Washington Times published an attack on identity document changes of the type sought by transgender people:
I won’t bother to reproduce their text here, but did want to say: what a bunch of prejudiced hogwash.
There should be some version of Godwin’s Law that clarifies: once you’re using animals in your metaphor to justify your own prejudices, you’re not allowed to talk anymore.
Suspicious Death in Sydney
A woman named Veronica Baxter died in police custody a year ago. Inquiries into how she died and what the circumstances were surrounding her death have gone unanswered: local activists call it a charade and have reasons to be suspicious, including emergency calls made by Baxter the night of her death, and reports that she was happy and smiling.
The inquiry revealed Baxter made four emergency calls during the night of her death. No witness addressed if those emergency calls had been answered, or by who.
The inquiry also revealed all the psychological assessments made of Baxter before her death said she was not suicidal. One counsellor said she was “smiling, happy and talking”.
I hope they can get some kind of definitive answer, and justice if there was any wrong doing.
Help for Nina Hartley
Our lovely friend Nina Hartley is having an upcoming surgery and needs some recovery time she can’t afford alone. Friends have set up a website helping her gather the funds to manage it all.
If you’re a fan, do help her out by donating.
Discrimination Suit: Man Enough
A man whose job it was to make sure men in recovery don’t switch their urine for someone else’s got fired because he wasn’t born with a penis.
TLDEF brought the case, which has now been reported in The New York Times.
So here’s how you tell this is discrimination: if a man who had lost his penis in an accident had this job, no one would have fired him for being penis-less. If a man who had hypospadias & had to pee sitting down had this job, likewise. If a man who had a penis that required a catheter for him to pee had this job, he wouldn’t have been fired.
THUS: El’Jai Devoureau was fired for being trans. As a culture, we still haven’t worked out how wholly incorrect this “genitals at birth determine gender for a lifetime” idea is.