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Very happy about the ruling today, one thing has been crossed off the “Queer Agenda”

Celebrate this victory, reflect on how far we have come, and recommit to the fight for full equality! 

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a very tiny poem (inspired by kutekweer):

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if the trans panic defense was “I’m trans and I panicked.”

http://www.advocate.com/crime/2014/09/29/california-becomes-first-state-ban-gay-trans-panic-defenses

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In response to EVERYONE on facebook overlaying a rainbow on their facebook profile photos, I did this.  

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Pushing for liberation by way of marriage equality is the “The Wrong Fight”

“The Wrong Fight” article by Daniel D’Addario is one of the more interesting articles with a queer politics perspective. D’Addario discusses how marriage shouldn’t be the path to liberation. I agree with this for so many reasons. The overall theme of this blog is how marriage has so little to do with the liberation, rights, and problems of the community, so why should marriage be the main force behind freedom and equality? Well, it shouldn’t and it really isn’t.

           The way I see it, right now in our society, marriage is a ticket to success. This is something D’Addario doesn’t like because it for so long has shaped the way unmarried women and even some men are perceived by our society. And up until recently it has greatly affected the way we value gay couples and families. If you have access to this ticket but choose not to get married then there must be something wrong with you. Why don’t you want to settle down and become a parent? Even the word settle down implies that women who haven’t “settled down” are still wild and unorthodox because they haven’t gotten married and started a family.

           Where this idea intersects with the LGBT community is that up until now they haven’t had access to this ticket, so now there is this expectation that gays should want to be married, want to settle down, and want to be like every other “normal” straight couple in our society. That’s there ticket to being accepted and thriving in our society, to normalizing themselves. This heteronormativity has created homonormativity, which is the “right type of gay.” Our society doesn’t mind a homonormative couple, one butch “man’s” man married to a more effeminate “womanly” man as much as married couple of drag queens. Our society also accepts two lesbians raising children, one filling the father’s role and one the mother’s, over a couple consisting of transgendered individuals whose gender expression varies. Our society will tolerate gays getting married if they fit the mold heternormativity has created for homosexuals, homonormativity. What if you don’t want to get married? What if you’re asexual and nonromantic? If you don’t fit the mold then you’re out of luck.

           Not only does gender and gender expression fall into the homonormative mold, but so does class and race.  Advertisements for marriage equality are usually two men or women, and usually white, but they’re always middle class.  Class is a really overlook part of marriage as whole, and not just same-sex marriage. People in low socio-economic areas don’t have as likely an opportunity to be apart of what we consider marriage and that’s because what our society has deemed marriageable people do not exist with as much frequency as they do in middle and upper class areas. This goes back to the ticket to success. Part of success, according to the mythical norm, is graduating high school, graduating college, acquiring a career, getting married, buying a house, and having a family. Well if you don’t graduate high school then you’ve hit a roadblock in moving on to the next station of success. If you can’t afford a house, then that happy dream of a marriage is crushed. High rates of imprisonment and drug use in low socio-economic areas take marriageable people off the market. These aspects are also not conducive to raising children. With no access to proper education or access to healthy relationships to take after, a cycle is created as that generation of kids become of marriageable age but does not get married. But this is only one brief outlook on how marriage and class intersect, which extends to the LGBT community greatly.

Essentially, we are fighting the wrong fight. We think that fighting for marriage will bring us to equality when it won't. The fight we should be fighting is one against stereotypes and social norms and constructs that have allowed racism, heterocentrism, sexism, classism, and heteronormativity to prosper.

Source:

D’Addario, D. (2013). The Wrong Fight. In S. Jaeger (Eds.), Women’s Voices     Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings (pp. 461- 463).  New York, NY: McGraw- Hill Education.

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One gay perspective

The following interview took place November 24th in Medina, Ohio. Alex and I went to the same high school, Cloverleaf Senior High School in Lodi, Ohio. We’ve known each other previously to this interview. He identifies as a gay male. The purpose of this interview is to obtain a perspective on what one member of the LGBTQ community feels towards the association between marriage equality and social equality and a perspective on the personal experiences that lead to that conclusion. Due to the personal and sensitive nature of the content and its appearance to a real audience as well as a greater online audience, I have changed or omitted the names of the individuals mentioned during this interview.

 Interviewer: The working thesis for my project is that marriage equality is not interchangeable for social equality because marriage equality does not address a all or even many of the problems faced by the LGBTQ community like social attitudes towards LGBTQ people including crime, the mental and emotional health of LGBTQ people, discriminatory laws still in place, and the oppressive heteronormativity and homonormativity by which the idea of marriage equality is founded. What are your thoughts on marriage equality?

 Alex: I mean I’m glad that if I ever want to get married I’m able to.  But like, I don’t think that marriage equality makes LGBT people socially equal. There’s a lot of other issues, ya know?

Interviewer: What other issues do you see?

 Alex: Like you said, there is crime, and so much bullying, and LGBT people are more likely to kill themselves. There is a lot of disproportion.

 Interviewer: Ok, so what issues, being gay, have you faced besides not being able to be legally married prior to this past summer?

 Alex: Coming out was hard and dealing with how people reacted and treated me for many years was hard. This is obviously not the most progressive area [Lodi, OH] with the most progressive people. Other people don’t have to come out and disappoint parents and grandparents, and then sometimes teachers and coaches talk to you differently because they know. Even if they’re being nice, they treat you like you aren’t a regular student. Overall, people, mostly guys, were assholes to me or I felt like no one took me seriously there [at school]. I was just the sassy gay kid.

 Interviewer: In what ways were people assholes to you?

 Alex: I was bullied a lot throughout middle and high school. It started from the age of 12. People would ask me if I was gay. I was ashamed so I wouldn’t answer. In middle school it was relentless but we were so young that it seemed like it was their curiosity that made them all so obsessed with asking about it. It did get pretty inappropriate though. I remember they’d ask me what type of porn I watched, or how I masturbated, or if I wanted to have sex with my dad. We were so young and it’s crazy to think anyone at 12 years old spoke like that or had to hear that.

 Interviewer: What about when you were older?

 Alex: High school was a little less embarrassing and was less people infatuated with the idea of someone being gay and more people just bullying me. It was a daily thing. I would walk down the hall and someone would shout stuff at me or someone would get in my face or shoulder-check me. I used to get a lot of pencils thrown at me.  Guys would constantly call me “Homo, Fag, Dyke” and a lot of the times would refer to me as a girl and use she pronouns or “it.” It wasn’t just at school either. From 12 to 16, I couldn’t go anywhere in public where kids from our school would hang out or be because I couldn’t risk running into them, especially not with my parents, and risk them saying or doing something to me. Whenever I did go out, I was a nervous wreck. It’s embarrassing but I still get nervous, not as much of course, but still that feeling creeps up.

 Interviewer: Were the issues at school with peers just verbal? Did things ever get more physical than shoving in the hallway or throwing things?

 Alex: For the most part, no. I’ve always been grateful that I wasn’t beaten up daily. People would threaten to or threaten to kill me, but really it was exactly that—verbal. There was one incident that was physical when I was a freshman though.

 Interviewer: Do you mind talking about it? Where did it happen?

 Alex: It happened in Seville [Ohio] during the summer. My friend Austin and I were walking through the woods and along railroad tracks when a guy from school must’ve seen us. I don’t know how or where or when, but he did. And then he went and got a bunch of other guys from school and told them he saw us together. Through the clearing in the woods we were able to see a group of guys coming and to be safe we hid, just out of habit, not because we had any idea people knew we were there. I remember hiding behind an old shed for a while. We heard the guys shouting and being obnoxious. One of them threw a rock and I thought it hit the shed, but then again I also thought I was being paranoid and just ignored it. We stopped hiding and walked out of the woods and onto a main road. We turned the bend and sat at that little mini-mart by the library because that’s where my mom was going to pick me up.  Literally, right after sitting, that group of boys also rounded the corner. They had known the whole time and had been following us. Some of these guys were as young as 13 and some were as old as 17. I was 15. One of the guys, Marc, walked towards us and started talking to me. I remember he said how he was sorry they had been bothering us and he was sorry for calling us names. I told him that it was ok and that I just wanted him to leave us alone. He put out his hand to shake, and I did. Only, when our palms met he yanked my hand toward his pants and shouted, “This fag tried to grab my dick.” His friends started laughing from where they were grouped, standing, and filming the whole interaction on their cell phones. I was so embarrassed that I turned away from them. When I turned back around, Austin and this kid were fighting and punching each other. I couldn’t watch and so I went in the mini-mart. A minute later Austin came in and said we had to hide. I crouched in the aisle with the milk and watched the window. The group of guys, including the handshake-guy Marc, came running into the parking lot. This time, they brought more guys, bigger guys, and older brothers. They looked for us with all of the worst intentions. Luckily, they didn’t come in and we waited there until my mom came to get us. I think it’s important to add that Austin wasn’t gay and we weren’t dating, but he might as well have been. Because in school the next day, everyone said that the only reason Marc and his friends did anything was because they saw Austin and I holding hands, hugging, and kissing. As if that’s a good excuse.

 Interviewer: Did your parents know any of this? Were you out?

 Alex: My parents are a different story, but no, I wasn’t out and no, they didn’t know any of the bullying that was going on. I mean, I never told them and still haven’t. It’s still this huge part of my life they don’t know about. I just wanted to be normal and still strive for it.

 Interviewer: I mentioned I would be discussing mental health in the LGBTQ community. Did any of this take a toll on your psyche—dealing with what you said, being bullied and, I’d say attacked, and not telling anyone about it?

 Alex: Yeah. I mean I saw a therapist and occasionally talked with friends about it, but it was more something I wanted to push away and try to pretend didn’t exist. There was nothing I could do about it, so why dwell? I was depressed and anxious all the time, but medication helped in time. I had a lot of very dark times because of all of this and it has affected me in my life today post high school in too many ways to count.

 Interviewer: Ok. So, from all of these experiences and others not mentioned, do you believe that gay marriage equality helps to solve these problems and inequalities you faced?

 Alex: Not really, like I said gay marriage has to be legal. Like it has to be. It’s a right. But not being allowed to get married is not why I was bullied. There are still plenty of things LGBT people can’t do. It’s hard to adopt kids. If you’re a gay man you can’t give blood. So, I don’t see how being afforded one more right just solves all of these problems. It’s ridiculous. If you’re queer, then right off the bat that is ridiculous.

 Interviewer: Ok, well do you think that if gay marriage was legalized when you were still in high school or middle school that those things would have still happened to you?

 Alex: Yeah, I do. I wish that wasn’t the case. But none of the shit that was said or done to me was about marriage. It was about sex. They didn’t laugh and say “Bet you want a husband instead of a wife.” They gestured and said “Bet you want a dick instead of a pussy.” I wasn’t called a fag because I wanted to settle down with someone I loved. It was because I talked too feminine for a boy and I didn’t like to play sports. They didn’t punch my “boyfriend” because he wanted to make a life-long commitment to me. They punched Austin because they hated the idea that two guys could be like that or act like that. Love was not on anyone’s mind so neither was marriage.

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Mental Health and Statistics of LGB people

**As a disclaimer I’d like to point out that this article does not include any information on the transgender community. For the lack of information on this topic and the HRC crime rates post that I posted earlier, I refer to information presented in a John Oliver video. The clip provides a focused concentration on statistics on transgender crime and mental health. I posted it on this page**

The Statistics:

·      LGB individuals are more likely than heterosexual counterparts to be at risk for mental distress and disorders due to social stress

·      LGB individuals are more likely than heterosexual counterparts to suffer from mental and affective disorders (depression, anxiety, PTSD)

·      LGB individuals are more likely than heterosexual counterparts to commit suicide, especially in the youth population.

·      LGB individuals are more likely than heterosexual counterparts to develop substance-abuse problems.

 The important takeaway from this article in serving my argument is similar to the crime rates post. First, Psychiatrists involved in the research say basically that there is nothing inherent about LGB people that lead to these issues. There is no “gayness.” The researches of this study conclude that “stigma, prejudice, and discrimination create the stressful social environment” that lead to prevalence of these issues within the LGB community. Social ostracism and their position as a minority put LGB people in a position to be more stressed than majority and straight groups. This is an undeniable inequality and the disproportion is evident. Marriage equality will not remove LGB people’s position as minority group and will not change the stress they are put in because of it or the hard social circumstances they often endure.

 Source:

Meyer, I. H. (2003 Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and       bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological         Bulletin, 129 (5), 674-697. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.5.674

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Some Statistics and Important Takeaways on LGBT Crime

·      More than half (54%) of LGBT people report being fearful of being a victim of a hate crime.

·      LGB Youth report dramatically more sexual abuse than their heterosexual peers

·      A study of 320 adults found that lesbian and gay victims were blamed for being attacked at a higher rate than heterosexuals counterparts

             - Also, when LGB couples’ attacks are prompted by public displays of affection, they are also victim-blamed more than heterosexuals

                           -  “They should know the area better”

                           -  “Do what you want behind closed doors”

·      If you are a racial minority and LGBT then your chances of being a victim of a hate crime increase drastically and your likelihood of reporting your hate-crime decreases

              - A lot of people do not know where to go, which is an education issue

              - A lot of people do not feel safe or heard when going to superiors

·      In 2014, there were over 1,000 reported cases of hate-crimes motivated by sexual identity

           Overall, I think the existence of hate crimes, especially so many indicate that there is an issue with inequality. From HRC’s (cite FBI) 2007 statistic showing 1,265 sexual identity-motivated hate crimes on the federal level to the FBI’s 2014 statistic of 1,248 documented cases, the number has stayed relatively the same for 8 years. Whenever there is disproportion consistently over time that means there is a problem. Based on the above statistics, LGBTQ are facing crimes and issues at a disproportionate rate to heterosexuals. Why? Why is it if you are black and gay you face these problems even more then white LGBTQ people and straight people? The answers are the same for both. Systems of power within society hierarchize differences and benefit certain groups over others; whites over blacks and straights over LGBTQ people. Decades or centuries long history of inequality and mistreatment cannot be attributed to a lack of marriage equality. The problem has nothing to do with marriage equality and neither does the solution. We can’t let marriage equality, though it is great news, deter us from the real causes of suffering that do the most damage among minority groups.

  Sources: The Federal Beauru of Investigation. (2015). 2014 Hate Crime Statistics     [Data File]. Retrieved From https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-      crime/2014/topic-pages/victims_final.

Human Rights Campaign. (2009). Research Overview Hate Crimes and Violence       Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People. Washington, DC:        Marzullo, M. A., & Libman, A. J.

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“How Marriage Equality and Beyond” Supports the Thesis:

In Gowri Vijayakumar’s “Marriage Equality and Beyond” she recounts a few of her personal experiences around the surge of LGBTQ rights in 2013. Her central argument is that marriage equality is not the end-all to the problems, inequalities, and social injustices faced by members of the LGBTQ community, which is essentially the same argument I am making. This text was actually part of the inspiration for me to further develop the argument past the ideas Gowri is presenting.

 1) Vijayakumar served as a translator in Sweden for a group of Indian transgender women who spoke about their personal stories to Swedish students. The group of women asked about how life was like for LGBTQ people in Sweden, to which the students responded with “We accept any kind of marriage.” This is comparable to my mock question “what else is there? What more do they want?” Both are minimizing LGBTQ inequality and struggle to a fight to marry whomever you’d like. Though it is important, that is not the priority of many LGBTQ people. Those women were most likely interested in whether they would face violence, poverty, or social discrimination and exclusion based on their identities. I would be interested in whether I would be accepted.

 2) LGBTQ people in India ask Gowri “What’s it like for people like us in America? Are they accepted?” The issue is when those same people answer their own question with “They can worry about marriage because they have addressed all the other issues. They’re a rich country. We haven’t gotten there yet.” While the U.S. may be further along than many eastern countries like India, that way of thinking is problematic. It is not so much problematic that Indians think that way towards the U.S. because one would assume that in the succession in the fight for equality that marriage equality would be toward the top. Issues like legal discrimination in the workplace and hate crimes would be higher priorities. We can’t fault the Indian people for not knowing that U.S. has high numbers of LGBTQ hate crimes and suicide rates or countless documented and undocumented cases of workplace/business discrimination and harassment. We can and should try to hold the American people accountable though, and make them aware of these problems. We can’t let these problems and inequalities slip through the cracks while the country is under the guise of an equal-marriage era of change, otherwise they may never be properly addressed.

 Source:

Vijayakumar, G. (2013). Marriage Equality and Beyond. In S. Jaeger (Eds.),     Women’s Voices Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings (pp.     463-464). New York, NY: McGraw- Hill Education.

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BREAKING: Bernie Sanders just came out for trans housing rights. This is the first time he’s EVER spoke specifically on transgender liberation on his own. But it’s not enough, we deserve more than just 140 characters. Transgender activist Lourdes Hunter said, “what you call progress … to celebrate and revel in what some call a baby step and it was nothing but a tweet… not a piece of policy, not that he hired 15 trans women of color to run parts of his campaign, not that he stood up against the violence that happens everyday to black trans women…NOPE, a tweet got y'all all excited.” #NoMoreWaiting: tweet your stories at Bernie & @SymoneDSanders

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This is the problem with the mainstream LGBTQQIA+ movement focus the experiences of gay, white cis able-bodied males excludes the voices of trans women women and trans women of color. There is so much to queer justice than marriage. There’s street harassment of trans women especially trans woman of color. There’s the pandemic levels of suicide and murder within the trans community and youth especially amongst people of color. Also the high level of homeless within the queer community which affects the latter. I think the queer needs more faces that reflect the diversity of its needs instead of faces that still hold privilege in some way. Did I forgot anything? Tell me.   

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Read executive director Kris Hayashi’s full statement: http://bit.ly/1Gxdc2a

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Another bit of evidence that Mainstream LGBT movements and orgs with a wealth of funding lack a crucial intersectional lens. It is time to take a critical look at the movements we support and the orgs we fund. Where are our priorities? “Able-bodied queers rally for clerks in other states or counties to do their jobs. Disabled queers struggle under the massive crap pile that is getting health insurance caught up with the marriage they had access to. Or they avoid marriage and live “like roommates” with their partner(s) because it’s just too much draining work to get married and keep access to health care, government assistance programs and even the very monetary benefits that allow them to pay the bills.”

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the problem with “omg gay marriage but we still got more work to do”

here’s what annoys me about the ‘OMG GAY MARRIAGE but we still got more work to do’ annoying ‘right mix of celebratory but solemn’ ‘middle ground’ bullshit happening on white & non-Black cis social media right now. 

1. that second part doesn’t seem genuine. you really wanted to celebrate. that was hella important to you. trans women in detention centers? Charleston terrorist attack victims funeral this weekend? Whatevs yall, we’ll get to that tomorrow.

2. It assumes people who aren’t celebrating are just downers, just negative nancies, instead of having really grave and materialist concerns about this white-led heavily funded campaign. Gosh just let us celebrate, right? Gosh just let us ignore how the gay marriage agenda completely hijacked the queer liberation movement for the last decade essentially. Why can’t you just let us celebrate, as trans women are silenced in the white house and Black women have to climb poles just to get racist flags celebrating their enslavement to come down…as the victims of Charleston terrorist attack are put into the ground. Interesting that PRIDE still goes on huh?

3. This is not the ‘step forward’ you are claiming! Stop being like omg we have this victory but there is STILL work to be done. As if this was some huge victory for all queer folks and all people in general. This was a step sideways in a neoliberal capitalist society that makes you get married in order to have healthcare or be able to get immigration. NOT A WIN.

4. WE ARE NOT ON THE SAME PAGE. WE, you, me, us. The left. You have clearly defined yourself as a reformist liberal. That’s cute. Good for you. We don’t all agree, and that means we don’t all have to have the same reaction or emotions. Some of us are more interested in liberation instead of reform under a fucked up system (equality). SO STOP POLICING OUR EMOTIONS.