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Queer Wisconsin

Okay, maybe not queer Wisconsin, but definitely LGBTQ Wisconsin, at least. There are two interesting articles out about the state of gay rights and marriage equality and non-discrimination in this state.

One is mostly about Fair Wisconsin: its history, current goals, and what kinds of policy and legislation they’ve been addressing.

The details of how Action Wisconsin, the predecessor to Fair Wisconsin, got started are sketchy, though there seems to be consensus it coincided with the election of Tammy Baldwin to the state Assembly in 1992.

The story is that the newly elected Baldwin, then the first out lesbian elected to the Assembly, was in great demand as a speaker around the state. Belanger says Baldwin would go to these speaking engagements and collect names and contact information in a spiral notebook.

“The legend is that those lists started Action Wisconsin,” says Belanger. John Kraus, spokesman for Baldwin, now a U.S. senator, confirms the story.

The second is about the change of attitude about marriage equality and gay rights in the state:

Yet Wisconsinites are now out of sync with the rest of the country.

The latest poll from Marquette University shows that 42% of Wisconsinites support full marriage equality, while 26% support civil unions and 28% oppose any legal recognition of these partnerships.

That’s a positive change from 2006, when 59.4% of voters approved a constitutional ban on marriage equality and civil unions.

Although it’s the law of the land, the constitutional ban is at odds with Wisconsin’s long tradition of tolerance, said Katie Belanger, executive director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights group Fair Wisconsin. She noted that in 1982 Wisconsin was the first state to make sexual-orientation discrimination illegal and voters clearly supported the election of Democrat Tammy Baldwin, a lesbian, to the U.S. Senate in 2012.

“We may disagree on all of the issues of importance to the full LGBT community, but a Wisconsin value is that we treat people fairly and with respect,” Belanger said.

And people wonder why we moved here! There’s so much to do! You can donate to Fair Wisconsin to help us keep moving things forward.

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At Least in Death: Help Give Cemia Acoff a Respectful Funeral

Cemia Acoff

Cemia Acoff was murdered in a barbarous way, and now, multiple activists and organizations are working with her family, the funeral home and, yes, the morgue, to bring her home.

They need your help.

They have set up The Cemia Acoff Fund which will, literally, bring Ce Ce home and ensure that she receives a proper send off, full of love and support from the community – and that includes the love and support of her family.

You can donate to The Cemia Acoff Fund here.

The groups involved include:

TransOhio
Shane Morgan, Founder & Chair

Cleveland Trans Community Outreach
Jacob Nash, Chair

Equality Ohio
Elyzabeth Holford, Executive Director

LGBT Center of Cleveland
Phyllis Harris, Executive Director

AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland / Beyond Identities Community Center (BICC)
Tracy Jones, Chief Executive Officer
Miquel Brazil, BICC

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May 3: Would Have Been

It would have been my parents’ 61th wedding anniversary today. And just in time, I discovered this word:

Ya’aburnee(Arabic): “You bury me.” It’s a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person, because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

(There are nine others that we don’t have in English, here. I’ll be blogging later just about the term saudade.)

My mother just told me that she regretted she never got to take care of my dad, that she never got to be of service to him once he was unable to take care of himself. & You know, folks, it just doesn’t get more heartbreaking than that. So despite my joy that she is still here, I feel a little guilty that she lives with a hole in her heart, without him.

She also said. “I had nearly 60 years with him, but I’m greedy, and wanted more than that.”

Happy anniversary, mom & dad. & Thanks for setting that bar high. Dad, we miss you more than you ever would have imagined.

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Guest Post: Jennifer

A friend of mine, Jennifer Levenhagen, heard the news about Jason Collins and found herself happy – with reservations. Read on, in her own words:

A note from Queerlandia: Change is happening, but it’s not perfect, and it’s still frustrating.

In response to Jason Collins, and having dinner with my parents:

1) The Good News is that with all this talk about “gay this” and “gay that” in the media, from our President, other elected officials, etc….The word “Gay” is becoming more and more a positive or neutral word in our collective lexicon. (Hoorah!) As people increasingly include “Gay” in conversation — have conversations that INCLUDE “Gay” as a reality — it does, increasingly, become part of our collectively accepted social mores and culture.

For instance, tonight, over dinner, I heard both my parents say the word “gay” in neutral terms, regarding two different people: Jason Collins, and Daniel Hernandez, Jr.

2) Now here’s the frustrating part:
First, I am excited for the slow revolution that “Gay” is becoming more of a household word…but I am incredibly bored with our insistence on binary and our tendency to look at things mainly at surface-level. There are more people in this world than “Gay” and “Straight”. It doesn’t much matter who/what/where/when/why, but it DOES matter that we exist.

Second, is that I’ve never heard my parents say “GLBTQ”. Ever. And I identify as the Q part, which they’ve known for 13 years. My mom watches Ellen and my dad came to PFLAG, but the most they say is Silence, and headlines from the news. Perhaps it has to do with that binary I just mentioned. My parents knew from the get-go, that “I’m not straight”, and they have since heard me identify as “Queer”, as I’ve made multiple attempts at starting discussion – filling them in on my life, and offering resources for them.
Maybe it still seems too confusing. Maybe my terms have rocked their boat too permanently. “Not straight” may be too vague, and “Queer” may be too volatile.

In the end, though I was happily shocked to hear both my parents utter the word “Gay”, in a country where FINALLY there is more and more talk and consideration about “non-straight” lives…

I was still invisible at their table.

The discussion has skipped me.

I am their daughter, and I KNOW they Love me, but they discuss other people, instead of me – instead of us. I am not straight, but I am also not gay.

This is the literal table, but the same is true for the figurative.

We all have a place.

We should all be invited. We could have such an interesting conversation if we would genuinely see, listen, and be interested in each other; if we would practice this every day with every person.

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Happy May Day: The Internationale

“The Paris Commune had fallen … but now he was fleeing for his life. He was in hiding, Eugene Portier . . . and that very month of May, 1871, he writes six long verses & a chorus calling on all the hard working people of the entire world to overthrow their masters, and he was quite confident that they would, soon.” – Pete Seeger, from the documentary

There are six parts, and it’s a pretty cool bit of history. Gives us in the US, in particular, a little better sense of how exactly one-sided our political conversation has been since the 1950s.

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Suffrage & Marriage Equality

In 1893, Colorado gave women the right to vote.

Nine years later, three states had done so.

President Wilson started supporting the right in 1918.

In 1920, the US recognized suffrage for women. At that time, 9 states & 1 territory (Utah!) had given women the right to vote.

 

In 2004, Massachusetts recognized the need for marriage equality.

Nine years later, 10 states have done so.

President Obama started openly supporting it in 2012.

 

So then — when?