Politigay: LGBT Politics

 

The shock jocks over at KXRW in Sacramento CA let loose with a screed of transphobia specifically aimed at trans youths a few days ago. You can read about the initial airing of the show at the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/krxq-sacramento-radio-hos_b_210637.html

GLAAD issued a call to action to write the radio station urging that the radio personalities issue an on-the-air apology. No apology has been proffered and as of today 10 sponsors have pulled advertising from the station. See http://www.glaad.org/Page.aspx?pid=730 for the call to action and http://glaadblog.org/2009/06/05/update-wells-fargo-stands-by-transgender-community/ for a list of sponsors who have abandoned the radio station. You can also add McDonalds and AT&T to the list.

The radio shock jocks have a number of audio clips over at the website, where they make an effort to justify their irresponsible and hurtful comments. They make it abundantly clear that they stand solidly against any kind of child abuse.

OOOPS, this is where it get's rich. Seems the very same radio personalities were fined $50,000 by the FCC for broadcasting, "patently offensive material involving graphic references to sexual activity with children, which were found to be indecent. " In fact the segment obliquely referred to a father sexually abusing his son.

That little detail was reported over at the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/on-air-abuse-of-transgede_b_212121.html

In all fairness the radio personalities insist that they have a right to express their opinion, which apparently included referring to trans youth as freaks.

Hmm, I have a right to form and express my opinion too.

Here it is:

My opinion is that I cannot express my appreciation more plainly or proudly applaud the ten and counting major corporations who have withdrawn their advertising dollar from KXRW.

The 10 and counting are:

* Chipotle
* Snapple
* Sonic
* Bank of America
* Verizon
* Carl’s Jr (CKE Restaurants)
* Wells Fargo
* Mc Donald's
*AT&T

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remarks prepared for rally on Saturday November 15th in regards to the passage of Prop 8:

Thank you all for being here today in a show of support and solidarity for our community in not only California, where the future of thousands has been put in serious question, but also in Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas.  We also need to be here today in support of other less known places around the country who suffered losses too.  Places like Hamtramck  Michigan where the city council passed a non-discrimination ordinance, which voters overturned in this election.

Our country has just engaged in probably one of the most historic elections of our time. Our country has elected a Democratic President who happens to be African-American.  Our Congress and Senate have a Democratic working majority.  The cornerstones of this election have been the rally cry of millions of Americans for hope and change.

Nevertheless, we gather here today in unity of purpose as our march towards equality has suffered an agonizingly painful defeat affecting thousands of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Americans. The passage of Proposition 8 in California may be the most egregious,  as thousands of couples whose relationships were legally recognized now stand to be stripped of the equal and legal recognition of those relationships.

We in Oregon can especially feel that pain as we have seen that happen. We felt the pain when our own citizens had the equal and legal recognition of their families denied.  That was only four years ago.

The march for equality went on.  We fought smarter and tougher. We learned to better organize and how to help elect pro-equality candidates for office. We did not give up.  We moved forward with more determination and fire. We moved forward smarter and tougher having been forged in the heat of the political process. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people came together even more engaged in our communities and our government.  We saw hope and change on the horizon and purposely marched toward that goal. We saw the historic passage of the Oregon Family Fairness Act and the Oregon Equality Act signed into law. Those historic Oregon laws withstood the test of referendum and legal challenges. These far-reaching and significant laws went into full effect just this year.

We gather today in unity as community.  Each of us must take forward a calling and individual responsibility which is vital.  We need to take the time look around at the people gathered here today to gain further resolve and support from one another and our equally united allies.

Our focus today and every day must be to seek every conceivable way to make our neighborhoods, our cities, our state, our nation and the world a better place for us to live and for our children to enjoy.

It is of the highest order that we continue to march to full equality, despite the fits and sputters of disappointment. We must focus on the great amount of work that that is before us in this march to equality. We must gather our allies wherever we have the opportunity. We must search out new allies to join with us. We must indeed work to create allies amongst those who oppose our equality out of fear, disinformation, and agendas of divisiveness.

On the evening of November 4th, we the people, elected a new President of the United States in a historic election.  We celebrated the election of the first African American and that in itself is something we can all take great pride in seeing.

President elect Barack Obama has said repeatedly that this election was about hope and change.  We now have the words, “Yes we can” firmly anchored in our collective consciousness.

At the same time Barack Obama has repeatedly said that this election was not about himself but about the people and that hope and change must come from all of us coming together to achieve our goals.

As we gather here today, I hope that everyone who can hear my voice takes that particular message to heart and incorporates that message in whatever means they can into their daily life.

At times such as this one, we tend look to our community and political leaders to guide us toward our future.  This gathering, here today and others happening around the country, I believe has the potential of being a significant step in our history.  We, by our very presence here and across the country, are not only looking to our community and political leaders for guidance but more importantly we are engaging in more fully participating in our own individual destiny. 

We must not walk away from here today with the misguided thought we can leave our destiny to others. We must not solely rely on the wisdom of our leaders to see this march forward. We must become even more engaged in actively participating in the process of securing equal rights not just by zip code-by-zip code, nor state-by-state, but also as a nation.

We need to seek to unify and not to further divide our nation. We must concentrate on extending our hand to everyone we meet and know. We must individually take every opportunity in our daily lives to work diligently and consciously to heal the divides, which still separate us. We must take the time to support one another along the way, coming together not as Gay, and Lesbian, and Bisexual, and Transgender but as an entire community. We must take the opportunity to support one another along the way, breaking down the barriers of race, gender, disability, economic status and every other barrier, which works to divide and oppress all people. 

I personally call upon everyone within earshot of my single voice to join in unity and solidarity as we march forward in making our society an equal and just society where everyone has the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, earn a living, and contribute to everyone’s benefit equally.

We must take today and build upon our resolve to continue to move forward with a national policy to ensure that every gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender person enjoys the full protection of the constitution of United State of America.

Thank you

Thank you all for being here this evening.

Thank you to all the trans people here this evening.

It is important for us who are embraced by our personal transgender histories to come together to remember and mourn those who were violently killed because they dared to live honestly and on their own terms.

I especially want to extend my personal thank you to all the people who are here tonight that do not identify under the embrace of being transgender, but who are here as  allies.

However you do not serve just as sympathetic allies, but perhaps more significantly you stand here tonight, as individual sources of hope that our society may one day become a society without hate and the needless loss of life.

We come together this evening with profound emotions and the personal realization that trans people are 16 times more at risk of being murdered. 2008 has seen more trans people killed than any other year in the past.

Let us also not forget the issues of less overt harm done by under employment, lack of health care, housing and education discrimination issues. All things, we do not generally come here to the Trans Day of Remembrance to remember.

We must also remember all the lives not taken by the obvious dark hand of hate. We must mourn those lives taken by virtue of being chronically unemployed, denied adequate health care, or endured unbearable societal pressures.

In preparing for this somber event, I must admit to having a variety of emotions. Many of you may share the same mix of emotions I struggle to process.   My feelings run the full range of emotions from anger and fear to hope and validation.

I had to take the time to reaffirm my personal decisions on how I should process these emotions and how I can personally affect the political, social, and economic landscape we live in today. 

I would like to take a moment to share some of my thoughts with all of you with the hope that we can continue to build towards a time where we can all look back on history and feel like we each had our impact on making the world a better place to live for all people. 

I suppose I may stand here this evening accused of being an eternal optimist. As such, I stand here proudly guilty. What those who may see that as a negative or as naive do not understand that the water of my optimism has been drawn bucket by bucket from a well which is filled deeply with fear, intolerance, disinformation, ignorance, apathy, confusion, and yes hate.

I spent a great deal of my life just trying to come to terms with who I am and who you see here today.  I see a great deal of hope in the fact that more and more people are beginning their personally honest journeys at a much younger age and that there are a number of increasing resources to support them in living true to themselves as it should rightfully be.

I’m given to hope that more scientific research is happening to help understand that we are who we are, and that we have the abundant capacity to contribute to society.

I’m given to hope each time I meet someone, who, by virtue of their inherent privilege recognizes their personal ignorance about my life experience, but takes the time and effort to get to know me personally. To learn about my life, my individual struggles, and to come to the realization or affirmation that I’m not just some sort of stereotype, but a fellow human being with more in common with them than differences. 

I was given to hope when our state legislature stood up to fierce opposition to pass the most far reaching and comprehensive piece of anti-discrimination legislation in the Oregon Equality Act. A statewide law, which bans discrimination on many levels and at the same time, added gender identity to our state’s Hate Crime statutes. 

I’m given to hope when I recall the issues and arguments regarding  the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in congress which came up in October of 2007 and saw an overwhelming coalition of people come together to demand that the trans community not be left behind or forgotten. I was personally overwhelmed at the outpouring of support and resources. Those resources and support continue to be there today and in the future despite the seemingly overshadowing national discussion regarding the equal legal recognition of all committed relationships and families.

On the subject of equal relationship recognition, I am given to hope as I see trans people realizing and actively supporting that issue as an issue that affects us all and not just Gay and Lesbian people.  Of note are the numbers of trans people who were actively involved in the campaigns to defeat the measures at the ballot box.

Truly, we must consciously work every day to strengthen the individual threads that weave us as community and a greater society.  We should not concentrate on our differences. We must devote our efforts to how all our lives interconnect to define who we are as humans.

From a very personal observation as an engaged political creature, I am given to more hope for a brighter better future. From my window of insight and experience, it is undeniable to me that trans people have a well founded hope in the eventual future.

Prior to 4 years ago, gender identity and even the word transgender did not appear in the context of a mainstream political candidate speech. Let alone a candidate for the President of the United States.  Today, we see and hear gender identity and transgender are a part of the mainstream political lexicon.

Four years ago, presidential candidate Howard Dean was most likely the first candidate to include mention of transgender people in a public campaign speech.

Just two years ago, gender identity and the issues of legal protections were included in the platform and legislative agenda of a major political party.

Just this last June, in the heat of a historical Presidential election campaign, congress held its first public hearing on the specific issue of employment discrimination experienced by transgender people. Not only did congress hold this historical hearing, but also we heard members of congress clearly repudiate and effectively expose those who oppose granting us the most basic of legal protections.

Today, we have the first President of the United States who has included gender identity as a part of their hiring policy.

Sorrowfully this happens on the heels of the murder of another woman less than a week ago.

We all gather here this evening as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight people. We also gather as people of color, people of differing faiths, and people of differing life experiences. We come together with realization and continued resolve that we must move forward in making the world a better place for all us to live and for our children to enjoy.

We must however not rely on the passage of laws to change our society. We must also take the individual opportunities to become more a part of the everyday fabric of society to overcome that, which causes us to be here tonight.

In closing, I am given to the hope that each of us here this evening will not take this opportunity to walk away only to come back here next year to mourn. That would only serve to deepen the tragedy of those we came here to remember and those added to list of people we will grieve for next year.

My hope and sincere call to each of you is to seek the commitment in your own hearts and conscience to take advantage of every opportunity you can, in your own way, in your time, and in your everyday lives, to make a difference.  Remember, that no act, or deed is too small or insignificant. Find your passion; actively seek your own opportunities, do not wait for an email or phone call urging you to take action.  Empower yourself to take the time to look around you, within your own wingspan to make a difference.   

Let us all come back here next year to remember those who have passed at the hands of hate but also to celebrate and honor the memories of their lives by having made a difference individually and collectively.

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