Yes it’s Pride Month but if all you are looking forward to is the official Parade, then you are missing some city-folk action. The parade’s really for commercials and burbies, REALLY! The people behind the Latin@ Pride Picnic have a wonderful day in Humboldt Park in store for you. From 12pm – 6pm, there will be a clown, grills, dancers, drag kings/queens, and best of all: that Latin Spice my boyfriend loves. Latino/a people and allies from all over the city come to this for a day of celebration and connecting with our brown brethren. From the press release:
Why a Latin@ Pride event you ask?? Chicago’s Latina/Latino Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer communities, recognize the need and importance of celebrating and acknowledging our diverse identities and
cultures. Most Gay Pride celebrations held in Chicago have become more commercialized and lack education about Latino LGBTQ realities, such as health, immigration or violence, and few have non-commercialized sponsors.
*ps Amazon was the only place I could find the cover to the book.
Over the weekend, my friends were passing around this article in the NYT about Maddy, the MTF parent who is authoring an essay for “The Book of Dads,” to be published in May by Ecco. Jennifer Finney Boylan is Maddy’s real name, and you have to give some credit to the NYT for putting such a touching story in their paper. Trans folk need as much positive media coverage as possible these days, especially among the liberal elite, and this piece is another drop in the bucket. I couldn’t help but get a little misty-eyed reading it, but a big take-away was, given the right information, how naturally kids can understand gender and its fluidity. I’m not assuming it always comes this easy, but this story is a triumph and we can never have too many of those.
It’s a mixed-mood news story–today Allen Andrade was convicted of first degree, bias-motivated murder in Colorado for killing 18 year-old transgendered woman Angie Zapata. CNN is reporting that this is the first time in our nation’s history that such hate crimes legislation has been enacted in a conviction. Completely appalling if you think about all the harassment transgendered people endure. Currently, only 11 states and DC recognize transgendered people in their hate crime laws. 11 is less than 1/4th!! We have a long way to go, with this fight people. Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Wyoming DO NOT HAVE ANY HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION BASED ON ANY BIAS. None. Not race, not gender, not religious. WTF. This site has a nice breakdown of which states have what.
UPDATE: angiezapata.com is a website dedicated to her memory and is regularly updated with twitters and blog posts about Angie’s short life.
I’ve was sent some interesting European televison ads with sensitive protrayals of trans gender identity. It’s a little jarring when the products are plugged but still pretty incredible to think that these were aired on TV. After poking around ye olde youtube, I found some other vids worth posting.
Italian ad for Campari
Transgender Children – Out of the Shadows
This one seemed to be a Public Service type of film for educational purposes.
The best was this youtube channel for Laidbaqq, a young black trans man’s video blog about his present experiences, challenges and questions. In this video, he responds to people who think they know who is and who is not trans based on physical traits and hormone taking.
If TPR could give out an award for Best New Non-Profit, this would be it. I never got to go to any away camp as a kid, and you can bet your pink and brown asses my parents would not have sent me to a gay camp. This volunteer-run camp for trans youth, Camp Aranu’tiq, has a heart of gender-neutral gold, and I can only imagine the amount of struggle, defensive conversation and explanation that the organizers have gone through just to get to this point. Well, queer-kudos to the coolest bunch of organized queers I have seen in a long time! From the Aranu’tiq website:
“Our mission is to provide transgender and gender-variant youth with a safe, fun, and unique camp experience during which they are able to express gender however they are comfortable and connect with others in similar situations.
Camp Aranu’tiq is a non-profit, volunteer-run organization. It was born out of the idea that transgender and gender-variant youth needed a safe place to relate to others like them, away from home, in a beautiful rural setting where they can concentrate on what every camper loves: having fun.
Due to the sensitive nature of our program, the exact location of Aranu’tiq can be obtained by interested parents, volunteers, and campers by contacting us.”
“I am incredibly optimistic and confident about the prospects we have for ensuring that our entire community is included in the legislative fight,” promised Joe Solmonese. President of the Human Rights Campaign, he was a keynote speaker at the Southern Comfort Conference–a national gathering of transgender people and their families which takes place annually in Atlanta. He spoke of the HRC’s commitment to pass only inclusive legislation, which was going to provide protections for the entire LGBTQ community, not simply gays and lesbians.
As we all know over the past several weeks, news of ENDA has dominated both gay and mainstream press. Over 300 LGBT rights organizations came forward and mobilized in an effort to fight the removal of gender identity from the bill, which was spearheaded by Barney Frank. Frank argued that they didn’t have the votes in the House to pass a fully inclusive bill. He claimed the community needed to take what they could get in a trickle down approach with promises of coming back for transgender people next year. Meanwhile the HRC played smoke and mirrors with contradictory statements and later a community poll whose ethics and validity has been called into question. In the midst of this battle, the HRC’s lone transgender board member Donna Rose resigned with a public statement exposing her disgust at what the HRC was doing, and stating she could no longer stand by them.
As LGBT rights organizations, private individuals, and activists came forward discussing the need for protections for transgender people (who are arguably the most vulnerable to employment discrimination), the HRC stood by silently saying they would not oppose nor support non-inclusive ENDA legislation. Right before a vote on the non-inclusive version of ENDA legislation, the HRC issued a statement urging members of the house to pass the bill–a complete reverse of message from where the organization had been only weeks prior. It is unlikely that even this watered down version of ENDA will make it through the house and even if it did, President Bush will veto the legislation. At the end of the day the HRC must now go back to a community who they have blatantly lied to, one only needs to look as far as the numerous transgender blogs to see that the HRC has backed themselves into a corner, and few are going to be quick to forget.
On November 7, 2007 The US House of Representatives passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) with a vote of 235-188. While the measure is an enormous step in ending discrimination for the GLBT community, there seems to have been something missing from the passed version of the legislation. The T, where’s the T? In October, after heated debates, Rep. Barney Frank and Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently pulled “gender identity” out of the equation and pushed the watered-down version to success.
The leaders of this measure, and the organizations that have advocated for it for years, were positioned in a very difficult spot as it became clear that ENDA would not stand a chance while including gender identity. As younger queer individuals often seem to display political apathy at times like this, I wonder who will be checking the politicking of our leaders in government? The Human Rights Campaign, perhaps the most influential of human rights organizations, stayed quite silent amid cries from the Transgender community to advocate for their inclusion.
The victory here is a complex one. A major step was made in the fight for equality. However, the nature in which this legislation passed poses a very big question for the GLBT community. Are we a community of inclusion that will continue to push for the rights of marginalized individuals, or will we bow to political pressure in order to advance only agendas relative to sexual orientation? Though the answer seems obvious, I hope our leaders recognize the importance of remaining united in the fight.
The appropriately angry ENDAblog is giving a personal, emotional perspective with updates as the bill moves through congress.
