The BEST of Lifelube - "The “Work-In” - First installment!" From Thursday, December 11, 2008

The “Work-In” - First installment!

It will take dedication. You get out what you put in.

Brought to you by Ed Negron, a former drug user, turned gangbanger, turned drug dealer, turned own best customer, turned addict, turned recovering addict(still there), turned activist, turned business manager, turned student, turned Substance Abuse Counselor, turned better and happier person, turned some who can love and be loved (Love you Patrick), turned blogger.

In the GBLTQI community we focus a lot on our outer appearance. How’s my hair? How do I look in this outfit? Does my make-up look good? I’m I too thin, or too fat? We can spend hours at the gym working out without any hesitation. But when it comes to working on our inner being, our soul, we tend to avoid it like the black plague. Many of us don’t even know where to begin.

My hope is that this post will help you figure out how to begin your “Work-In” program. Yes, just like a workout program at the gym, it’s going to be challenging. It won’t be easy. It will hurt like hell at times and will really suck at other times. It will take dedication. You get out what you put in. Lastly, it’s going to take some time to see/feel some results. Patience is a virtue. As a result of all your hard work you will see life in a much different way. You will feel so much better about yourself and the world around you.

Recreating, reinventing or revising who we are is what will keep us stronger than our sorrows; which can lead to unhealthy addictions. I always hear people say “I just want to go back to the way things were and the person I was before I started using drugs or alcohol.” Well I sure the hell don’t want to. What these people don’t realize is that the ways things were, and the person “I” was, is what got us using in the first place.

For most of us in recovery, we were given a second, third, fourth (and so on…) chance at life. Yet we try to do the same things over and over again expecting a different outcome. That, my friends, is the definition of insanity.

Our first lesson is: Accept Change

(Quick Disclaimer: The suggestions on this blog are just that “SUGGESTIONS.” My words cannot heal your pain and or addictions. Only you can. “Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness." -- Shakti Gawain)

"We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what in the morning was true will in evening become a lie." -- C.G. Jung

Life continually evolves. We’re always moving into new experiences, new possibilities. This constant change unsettles the personality, which finds security in stability. But with life always in flux, that security is an illusion. We experience pain by trying to hold on to things that are not solid.

Life becomes joyful when we can open to the constant flow and ride freely with it. This requires us to let go of the need to control. We need to learn to trust.

"Can it then be that what we call the ‘self’ is fluid and elastic? It evolves, strikes a different balance with every new breath." -- Wayne Muller

"We’re never the same; notice how you’re called to write something entirely different about a topic you responded to weeks or months ago." -- Patrice Vecchione

Personal growth can be a long hard journey. At Higher Awareness you are never left alone. From The Inner Journey (C) Reproductions Permitted: http://www.higherawareness.com

Read more Daily Motivations at http://thework-in.blogspot.com

Black and gays: The shared struggle for civil rights

via The Washington Post, by Jonathan Capehart

You may recall that last month Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) and I sparred over same-sex marriage on “Morning Joe.”

You may also recall that at the end of the interview, the show’s anchor, Joe Scarborough, asked me, “[W]ould you compare the civil rights struggles of African Americans over 300 years in America to marriage equity?” Without hesitation, I said, “Yes.”

“It’s an issue of civil rights, as you said. It’s an issue of equality. It’s an issue of equal treatment under the law,” I said. “No one is asking for special rights.

No one is asking for any kind of special favors. We’re just looking for the same rights and responsibilities that come with marriage and also the protections that are provided under marriage.

In that regard overall we’re talking about a civil rights issue and what African Americans continue to struggle with is exactly what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are struggling with today.”

That didn’t go over so well with more than a few African Americans. They don’t see the struggles as comparable, equivalent or even related.

Last Wednesday, @Brokenb4God tweeted to me, “@CapehartJ still can’t believe u think the choice of being gay is congruent to the struggle of blacks. Ain’t never seen no gay plantations!”

Clearly, she’s from the misguided pray-the-gay-away cabal, so no need to address that.

I’ll leave the cheap and provocative “gay plantations” stink bomb alone, too, and get to my main point.

What links the two struggles is the quest for equality, dignity and equal protection under the law. In short, gay rights are civil rights. It’s that simple.


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Conversation: Being Black and LGBT, Homophobia, and Transphobia

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Janet Mock and Clay Cane

Our Voice To Voice conversation series began in January with a collection of interviews between LGBT authors discussing their work, queer life and some of the challenges of writing.

In February, celebrating Black History Month, we've asked some prominent and inspiring individuals to join the Voice To Voice series so we can get an window into some of the issues that define and challenge people who are both African-American and gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Last week we featured Laverne Cox and her twin brother M. Lamar and on Monday we offered a conversation between two Charlotte, North Carolina lesbian activists, LaWana Mayfield and Rhonda Watlington.

On Tuesday we shared Meshell Ndegeocello and Toshi Reagon's discussion.

Today we're featuring a conversation about identity between Clay Cane and Janet Mock.

Clay Cane is a radio personality and journalist who's contributed to numerous publications such as The Root, theGrio, The Advocate and BET.com, where he's the Entertainment Editor. Aspiring to be a James Baldwin with a pop culture twist, he spends his Thursday nights as host of Clay Cane Live on New York's WWRL 1600AM.

Janet Mock is a writer who earned a GLAAD Award nomination for her story about growing up transgender. She's also a Staff Editor at PEOPLE.com, hosts the relationships podcast "The Missing Piece" and is writing her memoir about her adolescent journey beyond gender.

In 2012, she was named one of theGrio's 100 most influential leaders making history today for "challenging the stigma surrounding gender identity."

Here, Cane and Mock discuss their decision to be out as journalists, the duality of being black and LGBT and dealing with homophobia and transphobia, respectively.

Janet Mock: So happy to finally meet you! I feel I already know you from reading your work and being a fan of your radio show.

Clay Cane: I feel the same way! I’ve wanted to interview you for a long time. I loved your article in Marie Claire because it created such a buzz in the community and sparked a dialogue I hadn't heard in a long time. And congratulations on the GLAAD Award nomination!

JM: Thank you. The outpouring of support is surreal to me. But I'm sure we can spend the hour fan-girling out. [Laughs]

CC: Yeah, I'm sure we could go on and on. Okay, I have a question for you: Having "come out" as trans in such a public way, when you think of gender identity, what does it mean to be a woman?

JM: I can only talk about what it means to be me. I intimately know what it means to be Janet, this young woman who comes from this evolutionary existence having grown up trans.

To be a woman means standing fully in your truth and owning the totality of your experiences -- things that have really nothing to do with gender.

That sense of owning who you are is what attracted me to you. You've talked about the duality of your experience as a black, gay man, quoting Zora Neale Hurston, saying, you're not tragically colored or tragically gay. Can you expand on that?

CC: For many people, they look at being LGBT as having a tragic life: living an existence of shame, rejection and anger. That's not my story and I will not let that be my story.

Actually, being gay saved my life. If I would've been straight, I would’ve more than likely been in jail or dead like the other boys in my neighborhood in West Philadelphia.

Because I was gay, I was introverted. I would stay home and study, listening to Madonna and Prince! [Laughs] I wouldn't be the writer that I am if I don’t fully accept all of the dimensions of myself.

JM: I find that to be fully you is amazing but it's a whole other thing when you do it in your profession as you've consciously done as an openly gay journalist.

CC: I got into the writing industry via other gay men who were closeted. They felt like it would hurt their careers if they were out. Well, from the start of my career I made the decision to be who I am because I didn't want anybody to say, "Well, he interviewed T.I., but he's a faggot!" Being out made me a better writer.

You can't sit down with a stranger and get the truth out of them when you're paranoid about somebody finding out your truth. The truth is, being who I am has never stopped me from getting a job.

I wouldn't have gotten my radio show on WWRL if I had been closeted. What about your coming out as a journalist?

JM: While making the decision to tell my story, I definitely took on other people's thoughts about me, internalizing other people's transphobia.

So when I came out publicly, I was armed for people to say awful things about me. Instead, I was overwhelmingly embraced.

I wasn't expecting the love and light that actually came my way, and the opportunities that arose as well because I chose to be open about my journey.


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Much More Than a TV Show

via Advocate, by op-ed contributor Michelle Kristel

"Last week, I bought the gun. Yesterday, I wrote the note. Last night, I happened to catch your show on TV and, just knowing that someday I might be able to go back into a church with my head held high, I threw the gun into the river.

My mom never has to know." So read the email that a gay Iowa teenager sent to Daniel Karslake, a producer here at In The Life Media (ITLM) in 1998.

As the executive director of ITLM — which produces the award-winning newsmagazine, IN THE LIFE — I know that media depicting LGBT people has the power to change lives. It can also, as in this case, even save them.

As ITLM celebrates its 20th anniversary, we reflect upon how far we’ve come — and how far we still have to go for LGBT people to achieve full equality.

We take pride in knowing that, through our unique programming, ITLM has become so much more than a TV show.

Twenty years ago, a group of individuals had a vision: to create a television program featuring LGBT voices and culture. In the days before Ellen or Will & Grace, let alone Glee, it was all but impossible to find respectful depictions of LGBT characters on television.

Real LGBT people were relegated to the spectacle of daytime talk shows. Many of the issues important to our community were not covered by mainstream media in any substantive manner.

Today of course, LGBT visibility in media is commonplace. While this has led to greater acceptance for our community, visibility alone does not equate to social justice.

Discrimination is still prevalent. Countless instances of antigay legislation, policies and behaviors take place throughout this country every day, often with little notice by the general populace.

However, in LGBT communities, the damage of these discriminatory actions is acutely felt.

ITLM has always recognized the imperative of truly educating the public about who we are as LGBT individuals and the very real way issues, ranging from HIV/AIDS to marriage equality to homelessness, affect our community. To us, this is crucial to securing civil rights.

Our programming consistently exposes injustice, challenges perceptions and shatters stereotypes. Here, in fact, “stereotypes crumble before your very eyes,” according to TheNew York Times.
 
For instance, our media is being shown at universities to fight homophobia on campuses around the country. Recently, our work has been used to inform Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, UNAIDS, ACLU, Anti-Defamation League, and scores of LGBT and allied groups, many of whom cannot afford to create these materials on their own.

Our programming not only has political implications, however. It also improves lives in very direct and personal ways. Case in point, we recently produced a Spanish-language Web video for our “Marriage Matters” series profiling Cristina, an American citizen, and her partner Monica, who is from Argentina.

The couple married legally in their home state but, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, Monica faced deportation, since the immigration protections provided for heterosexual couples do not apply to same-sex couples.

With the help of our video, Monica and Cristina won their legal battle and had deportation proceedings against them closed by New York’s chief immigration counsel. This is a first for same-sex married couples.

That is one example of how ITLM is moving to the forefront of video journalism. By developing model approaches to Web-based content, we are leveraging the power of online communications to propelchange for the LGBT movement.

Our provocative, short-form videos created expressly for the Web address issues still ignored by the mainstream, while utilizing the unique functionality, versatility and reach of the Internet.

Another example is “Injustice at Every Turn,” our Web-exclusive video based on a report of the same name examining discrimination against transgender people.

Our exposé gave viewers a different perspective than did most media covering the survey, and illuminated a difficult topic in ways that have a real and profound impact on our community.

I am proud to note that this video was used to inform the U.S. Department of Labor about anti-transgender discrimination in the workplace.

Similarly, one of our most recent Web-exclusives, “A Day in Our Shoes,” told the stories of LGBT homeless youth forced to sleep on the streets after having been tossed out by rejecting parents, grandparents and other family members.

The media was used as part of the Campaign for Youth Shelter, which calls on New York City and State to provide increased funding for shelter beds.

The movement has made great strides in the past decade. But the need for media that educates and informs the public about LGBT Americans is as urgent as ever.

We all know that media drives public opinion and ITLM proudly provides a counterpoint to the multi-billion dollar, antigay media machine that LGBT foes have spent decades building.


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Legalized Hate in Uganda?

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Kerry Kennedy

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, hours before the Ninth Circuit ruled "Prop 8" unconstitutional in the state of California, raucous cheers rang out in the Ugandan Parliament as legislators reintroduced a controversial bill that would in effect legislate hate against the Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community.

The proposed bill, known as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB), would compel families, doctors, and counselors to report on all those suspected of being members of the LGBTI community, and would impose criminal sanctions, possibly even the death penalty, for those who fail to turn in their fellow citizens.

Combined with other proposed legislation before the Parliament, like portions of the HIV/AIDS Prevention Control Bill, the AHB would also hinder Uganda's HIV-prevention efforts, contributing to the alarming rise in HIV infection rates.

This poses a serious threat to the rights and freedoms of all Ugandans and is a clear violation of international law. It denies LGBTI citizens their rights to health care, education, and work.

It creates an atmosphere of hate, intolerance, and fear. It criminalizes the actions of civil society organizations and individual citizens who work to defend the legal rights of their fellow Ugandans.

And it puts the imprimatur of the law behind discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

This is a blatant suppression of the rights of all Ugandans and an attempt to curtail the freedoms of speech and assembly of a vibrant civil society in Uganda.

The bill's supporters claim to be acting in the name of protecting Ugandan children -- playing on the common prejudice that equates homosexuality with pedophilia.

In fact, the bill places children squarely in harm's way. The bill calls on Ugandan families to betray trust and turn in their siblings and children.

The bill would have doctors break confidentiality and deny care to Ugandans. In fact, this bill would disrupt Ugandan families, increase the HIV prevalence in the country, and set a frightening precedent for the silencing of rights advocacy of any group deemed undesirable by politicians.

Moreover, the bill's possible passage into law is not the only threat to Ugandans. The reintroduction of the bill imminently threatens the safety of the LGBTI community and the safety of anyone assumed to be LGBTI.

Vigilante violence and hate speech amplified by sensationalist media and homophobic rhetoric by religious leaders is all too real today in Uganda.

Across the country, LGBTI people already face physical attacks and rape, extortion by neighbors, and arbitrary arrest by police.

If we support the human and civil rights of our LGBTI citizens in the United States, we must also vigorously advocate against the passage of this bill and act to stop state-sanctioned homophobia from taking root in any country.

If we support human rights, we cannot ignore legalized brutality against any group of our global community.


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The Faces Missing from 'The Gay Rights Movement'

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Zach Stafford

I am a gay, multiracial male who grew up in Tennessee. When I was little I felt like an outsider, like many gay folks, but my "outsider" position was not just because I was gay; it was much more complicated.

I was one of the only people of color in my school, and I was the most effeminate little boy there, as well, which pegged me immediately as a "faggot."

I also was pudgy, not very athletic, and liked video games too much, but those are all minor aspects of why I didn't fit in. Needless to say, no one around me was like me, the puggy, effeminate, brown boy living in the South -- and that was lonely.

As I grew up and got to high school, a few gay kids did start coming out, and I did make some gay friends, but these kids, due to being in a white suburb, were all white.

So my race and my gayness then began to work together, making me feel different, making me feel hopeless, making me unable to consider that it could get better.

When I watched some of my favorite gay-friendly TV shows, like Will & Grace, I would see gay folks having fun, being gay, and enjoying life in a city, most of the time.

This gave me my first insight into what being gay was, and my first suspicion that gay was not like me -- it was wealthy, it was white, and it didn't bother to have people who looked like me for me to look up to, or even begin to understand what my experience was like as a gay person of color.

After graduating from high school, moving to Chicago, and reaching drinking age, I went to the famous Boystown neighborhood and soaked in the abundance of gay bars, restaurants, centers, and anything you can imagine.

However, I felt out of place, like I didn't belong; I remember looking around and noticing that most of the men looked like Abercrombie models, or at least tried to look like them, and were mainly white.
I got very little attention there, and the little attention I got was due to my exoticism, because when one is brown, that could mean one is Brazilian, Egyptian, Puerto Rican... the list goes on. Gay had a look, and I wasn't that look.

So as I watched the YouTube Video "The Gay Rights Movement," which has recently gone viral, I got progressively sadder as the video played through footage of what the gay community seems to consider milestones.

Lots of familiar faces rolled by, and happy emotions did rise inside me, but I still felt hints of sadness, a sadness that was familiar, that wasn't new, and I knew exactly what it was: I, and a lot of other people within the gay community, were not there.

It's not like we weren't ever there; there have been tons of queer folks of color who have done amazing things in America.

For instance, the video shows Martin Luther King Jr., but not his advisor and one of the main powers behind him, Bayard Rustin, a gay black man.

The video shows Ellen Degeneres over and over talking about suicides, but not another famous lesbian who is black, Wanda Sykes.

It shows coverage of the suicides of gay male youths, but not the countless suicides of transgender people, which happen yearly and go quite unnoticed, just like the faces of trans people in the video.

It doesn't show a lot.


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Is It a Choice to Be Gay? It Depends on the Meaning of 'It'

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Nathaniel Frank

When Cynthia Nixon, who became famous for her role on Sex and the City, recently told The New York Times that being a lesbian was, for her, "a choice," her words lit up the LGBT listservs, angering many who believe that Nixon is giving comfort to the enemy.

Those who believe sexual orientation is a choice are far more likely to oppose our equality, while folks who think we are "born that way" are more likely to support us.

If we can't help it, goes the thinking, we shouldn't be punished for it; and the corollary to that: if you can't choose to be gay, there's no need to stigmatize it as a way to discourage people from making the wrong choice.

Those angered with Nixon's comments felt they were both unhelpful and incorrect. They say that research, along with so many of our own experiences, make clear that being gay or lesbian is not a choice.

And what Nixon was really describing, although she refused to apply the term, was the fact of being bisexual, since she had previously been partnered with a man (Nixon later said, "I don't pull out the 'bisexual' word because nobody likes the bisexuals").

But many have also defended her words, particularly lesbian and bisexual women. They say she was only speaking of her own experiences and that if she feels it was a choice for her, it's not for anyone else to say otherwise.

The problem is that this is not just about what Cynthia Nixon "feels." It requires more rigorous thinking about what identity and choice really entail.

Nixon's comments further muddy a matter that sometimes seems to stem from a vast but rather simple confusion in American thinking.

To paraphrase President Clinton, the question depends on what the meaning of "it" is. When I hear "it's a choice" (or "it's not a choice"), I can only make sense of the statement if I know if we're discussing same-sex attraction or same-sex action.

I can't say it better than the blogger John Aravosis: "It's only a choice among flavors I already like." That is, I don't choose to like chocolate ice cream, but I choose whether, when, and how much to eat it.

The idea that one can choose to be attracted to one type of person over another is nonsensical, just as no one is accused of choosing to prefer chocolate over strawberry.

The question is what someone will choose to do with those feelings (eat chocolate or strawberry, partner with this person or that), and whether any particular choice is morally good, bad, or neutral.

Many in the LGBT community, as with progressives more broadly, would rather not contemplate the moral consequences of personal choice, lest we commit the same acts of judgment that have hurt so many of us in the past. Instead, they "bracket" questions of morality and opt for privacy, saying what we do in the bedroom is no one else's business.

If we choose to engage in same-sex sexual behavior, no one but us is equipped to judge our choice. If Nixon feels this was her choice, so be it.

But at a minimum, it is imperative to clear up the confusion between sexual attraction and sexual action -- not because a same-sex sexual attraction has anything wrong with it (indeed, the problem with bracketing the moral question of choice is that it wastes an opportunity to argue that, in the words of the late Frank Kameny, "gay is good"), but because the suggestion that we chose our sexual attractions does not make sense (it's not just wrong; it's literally meaningless).

Then we can move onto questions of choice about our actions.


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Hate the Gays? Imagine the World Without Us

via Huffpost Gay Voices, by Kergan Edwards-Stout

In our current political discourse, right-wing politicians continue to demonize the LGBT community in sad and desperate attempts to rally their base.

While, happily, their efforts have not been as effective as in the past, any attempt to make gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people feel anything less than equal can lead to devastating consequences, as the ongoing string of youth suicides so painfully highlights.

Any preventable loss of dignity and human life must be stopped. The question is, "How?"

While prior efforts have focused on the issue of harassment, it is time for the LGBT community to take the dialogue one step further.

When you are a teen, simply waiting for your next birthday can seem like an eternity. Telling our youth that life will indeed get better, some years into the future, is not enough.

We must instead create a world in which there is no longer any shame in being gay. We must show that each and every one of us has something of value to contribute to this world, period.

The first step is creating discussion with the haters around where their anti-gay beliefs come from, and challenging those beliefs with facts.

But we then need to take that dialogue even further and examine more closely what they hope that such convictions will ultimately achieve.

Typically, those who hold negativity toward those who are LGBT can be placed into two main camps: those who believe that being gay is unnatural, going against nature, or those who believe it goes against religious teaching.

With either group, the case can be made to counter such beliefs with facts.

For example, those who believe that being gay is unnatural may be surprised to learn that homosexual activity has been observed in close to 1,500 species, and that such scientific certitudes should be spotlighted. For those who believe that homosexuality violates religious principles, pointing to texts such as the Bible as justification, and dialogue around translation issues, intent, and historical context, might be beneficial.

However, in both situations, while factual evidence might change some minds, most will still be unwilling to let go of long-held beliefs.

My question to them then becomes, "What do you hope these beliefs will achieve?"

Most have never looked holistically at their views, nor tried to fit their beliefs into a larger framework. They were simply told by others that being gay is less than ideal, for whatever reason, and have not challenged that assumption.

If they truly believe that being gay is a sin or abnormal, what then? Does that mean they support the harassment of LGBT individuals?

Do they hope to "convert" LGBT folks to heterosexuality, which no reputable medical or psychological association supports or validates, even going so far as to consider such "conversion therapies" potentially harmful?

Do they want us to remain celibate and single, never experiencing love and affection? Do they wish LGBT people would simply disappear?

If anything, they are creating an environment where gay youth feel that suicide is preferable to life.

But imagine, for a moment, that there were no LGBT people on the planet. Just what would this world look like?

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MLK Day Reflection for LGBTQ Justice in the Black Church

via HuffPost Gay Voice, by Irene Monroe

Today is MLK Day, and I am proud to count myself among the many people working for social justice today who stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Too many people think King's statements regarding justice are only about race and the African-American community, thus excluding the LGBTQ community.

But King said, "[T]he revolution for human rights is opening up unhealthy areas in American life and permitting a new and wholesome healing to take place. Eventually the civil rights movement will have contributed infinitely more to the nation than the eradication of racial justice."

Members of King's family also embrace his words, extending them to the LGBTQ community.

For example, in 1998, Coretta Scott King addressed the LGBT group Lambda Legal in Chicago. In her speech, she said queer rights and civil rights were the same:

"I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King's dream to make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people."

Like her parents' faith, the Kings' eldest daughter Yolanda's faith in the civil rights movement drove her passion for LGBTQ justice.

"If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, you do not have the same rights as other Americans," she said at Chicago's Out & Equal Workplace Summit in 2006.

"You cannot marry. ... [Y]ou still face discrimination in the workplace, and in our armed forces. For a nation that prides itself on liberty, justice and equality for all, this is totally unacceptable."

However, I must say that as an African-American minister having pastored churches, and having worked alongside black ministers and their parishioners, I have learned that whom we shout out and pray to on Sunday as an oppressed people does not have any relation to whom we damn, discard, and demonize, thus making us an oppressor to people marginalized and disenfranchised like ourselves.

The black church is an unabashed and unapologetic oppressor of its LGBTQ community and, consequently, a hindrance in progressive movement toward LGBTQ civil rights in this country.

While King would undoubtedly shake his head in disbelief concerning his brethren, he would applaud the stance the NAACP took on marriage equality.

In quelling the tension between black civil right activists and ministers of the 1960s who still vociferously state that marriage equality for LGBTQ Americans is not a civil right, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. marked the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 struck down this country's anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional) by stating the following concerning same-sex marriage:

It is undeniable that the experience of African Americans differs in many important ways from that of gay men and lesbians; among other things, the legacy of slavery and segregation is profound. But differences in historical experiences should not preclude the application of constitutional provisions to gay men and lesbians who are denied the fight to marry the person of their choice.

But if King were with us today, he would be sad about how homophobia continues within the black church community, which has a profound impact on the mistreatment of its LGBTQ community, and its inattentiveness to the AIDS epidemic ravaging the black community.

Religion has become a peculiar institution in the theater of human life. Just as the Latin root of the word, "religio," means "to bind," it has served as a legitimate power in binding people's shared hatred. But King's teachings taught me how religion plays a profound role in the work of justice.

A religion that looks at reality from an involved, committed stance in light of a faith that does justice sees the face of the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the dispossessed -- and that also includes its LGBTQ people.


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The LGBTQ Community Needs to Be Its Own 'Person of the Year'

via Huffpost Gay Voices, by Natasha Dillon

2011 was a good year in many ways. Some of us now have the right to half-marry in the fine state of New York (has this milestone been outplayed yet?!).

Others can still marry their first cousin in 26 states. So, all seems to be right in the world -- the United States. Oh, and Time named its Person of the Year: the Protester.

2009 was not a good year. In December the New York State Senate voted against the LGBTQ community's right to marry. And I, by default of my conscience, became a protester.

I think it may have taken me a solid year to actually call myself that. Nevertheless, I was surely in the minority of the minority.

There was a small, and I mean small, group of us that decided to ditch the safe, harmless lobbying ways and begin raising some hell for our equality.

We certainly weren't being voted person of the year. If there was an Amoeba of the Year award, we would have at least been nominated by the LGBT community. Let's just say it was "frowned" upon. Self-hatred is a dangerous thing.

So now we are all the 99 percent (well, 99 percent of us are). That is a whole hell of a lot of f-ing people. We are all but 1 percent of over 307 million documented people in the United States alone.

That seems like a pretty broad umbrella to align myself with, especially when a majority of the other people who fall under that umbrella do not support, let alone fight for, my equality.

So, yes, I'll proudly own the fact that my salary doesn't exceed $1.5 million a year. Fighting for money is far less important to me than fighting for my equality. I hate money. I love my community.

My heart breaks every time I hear that a child killed themselves because they were bullied for being queer. Every time a teen is kicked out of their home because they came out or were outed.

Every freezing winter night that the same teen has two options: freeze to death on the street or sell their body for a bed. Every time a friend of mine has their heart ripped out because their partner has to leave this country due to unequal federal marriage laws.

Every time someone gets fired from their job and has absolutely no legal recourse. Every time a lesbian is raped to be "fixed." Every bit of shame that we all feel as a community is shame that 89 percent of the 99-percenters will never feel.

I have no desire to be divisive, and I fully support and unify with the rest of the 99-percenters; I do the same with all 100 percent of my fellow Americans.

However, I hate to see our causes, our struggles, our fight be drowned out. We cannot forget that we are still a minority, suffering daily as unequal citizens. We are the 9.9-percenters, people whom I feel empowered to stand up and fight for.

A community that doesn't have the voice of 99 percent of the population. A community that faces down multi-million-dollar organizations that are formed solely to strip our rights away and, with hatred in their eyes, harm our children.

A group that is not only suffering from economic injustice and income disparity but legal and social discrimination and violence, too.

I have ultimate respect for everyone who stands up for what they believe in, but I feel reluctant to jump on the bandwagon and become one of the persons of the year.

Instead, I want to fight for the people who need all the voices we can get. I understand that it is human nature to want to be a part of something, to fit in. However, we were dealt a different set of cards, and it is our duty to fight for our equal set of cards.


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'LGBT' Transforming into Alphabet Soup?

via Huffpost Gay voices, by Chris Tina

LGBTQIAAP: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, allies, and panseuxal

Really? Are we trying to communicate a message or create alphabet soup?

As a newbie to the LGBT community, I felt it was my responsibility to learn the history and understand how we came to be where we are and how I can help move us forward.

These are the majority of acronyms and definitions (based on GLAAD's glossary of terms), even with some disagreement within our community:

•Lesbian: a woman whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to other women. Some lesbians may prefer to identify as gay, or as gay women.

•Gay: the adjective used to describe people whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attractions are to people of the same sex (e.g., a gay man, gay people).

•Bisexual: an individual who is physically, romantically, and/or emotionally attracted to men and women.

•Transgender: an umbrella adjective for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The term may include, but is not limited to, transsexuals, cross-dressers, and other gender-variant people.

Transgender people may identify as female-to-male (FTM) or male-to-female (MTF). Transgender people may or may not decide to alter their bodies hormonally and/or surgically.

•Queer: traditionally a pejorative term, "queer" has been appropriated by some LGBT people to describe themselves. However, it is not universally accepted even within the LGBT community and should be avoided unless quoting or describing someone who self-identifies that way.

•Questioning: the adjective used to describe people who are unsure of their sexual orientation.

•Intersex: the adjective used to describe a person whose biological sex is ambiguous. There are many genetic, hormonal, or anatomical variations that make a person's sex ambiguous (e.g., Klinefelter syndrome). The term "intersex" is not interchangeable with or a synonym for "transgender."

•Asexual: an individual who is not physically, romantically, or emotionally attracted to others.

•Ally: a person who is not lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, or pansexual but who supports the LGBT(QQIAAP) community.

•Pansexual: a person who is attracted to others without taking gender or biological sex into account.

Even in our own community, we are not clear on all the acronyms that represent us. If I, as a person in the LGBT community, am having a hard time understanding and knowing all the acronyms sprouting up every other month, how can we honestly expect mainstream America to understand?

Our message is supposed to about unity to obtain equality, although we cannot even communicate a clear and consistent message.

I believe that we are doing ourselves a disservice by expanding our acronym for every micro group instead of projecting a simple and understandable message of equality for all.


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Queer and Immigrant for the Holidays

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Erwin de Leon

The holidays are meant to be a time of merriment and family, but so can it be disappointing, even depressing, for some.

This time of the year can be especially hard for immigrants who are separated from dear ones overseas.

Many seek the company of compatriots to recreate festivities and meals that evoke their countries of origin.

Most turn to their ethnic congregations for services consistent with their values and traditions.

Queer immigrants, like any other newcomer, can find the holidays tough. But it can also be doubly hard for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender immigrants, as they feel left out not only by the mainstream but by their own families and ethnic communities, which tend to be conservative and unwelcoming of openly LGBT individuals.

"My blood family and I had a contentious relationship due to my political involvement teemed with my sexuality and gender identity," said K, who identifies as queer, transgender, and of Philippine descent.

"Due to this, I was kicked out, homeless, and estranged as a young person from my blood family. This has incited displacement, a painful sense of mobility, and an instability that show itself during holiday time."

Tania, a community organizer at the Immigrant Youth Justice League and coordinator for the LGBTQ Immigrant Rights Project at the Association of Latino Men for Action, says her family has come around.

They are more comfortable with her being out, and she is able to bring her partner home for the holidays.
She nonetheless feels a great loss at this time of the year.

Tania is undocumented. Her parents brought their family over from Mexico 18 years ago when she was only 10 years old.

It is important for her to describe herself as without papers. "That's really an important part of my identity because it's something that has been true for me for most of my life," she said. "It's something that has affected every aspect of how I live."

"It's really difficult to listen to people's plans of traveling at this time to a country where I can't go even if I wish I could," she admitted.

She sorely misses her extended family and laments the fading ties.

"I've lost touch with my family in Mexico, my cousins, my grandparents," she said. "When I talk about Christmas and New Years and Three Kings Day as being family time, it really has only been my immediate family, my mom, my sister, my dad, and myself, plus the few friends and chosen family that have also gathered around us, both from the LGBT community and the immigrant undocumented community."

Many queer immigrants spend the holidays with "chosen families," usually others who share their gender orientation and identity and their struggles in America.


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Op-ed: The Legacy of the Bush War on Gay Iraqis

via Advocate, by Melanie Nathan, op-ed contributor

With the lowering of the American flag, finally off Iraqi soil as it returns home to the United States, and the ecstatic familial greetings of soldiers returned, the Bush Iraq War is over.

It may always be regretted by LGBT  Iraqis. They have suffered alongside all Iraqis, not only as a result of the vanquished Saddam Hussein regime, nor only collaterally from American bombing that comes with the brutal nuances of that particular war, but also because of adversity imposed by being “outed” by militias, and because of brutality by religious fanaticism that has taken hold of post-Saddam Iraq.

While none will debate the imperative demise of Hussein, many Iraqi gays may well have preferred that brutal reign to what they have since faced.

With the war, quiet non-disclosure and occasional homophobic targeting gave way to a voracious endeavor by lawless militias, and they unleashed violence against gays in unprecedented fashion.

Trillions of dollars, blood, limbs and lives are all part of the mayhem that provides the context for this added persecution.

Gay Iraqis had to run, and they are still running. One estimate cited by Gay Middle East says that more than 700 LGBT people have been killed since the U.S. led invasion, with thousands more suffering violence, discrimination and abuse on a daily basis.

Dan Littauer, executive editor of Gay Middle East, told me, "While under the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’ath party, LGBTI people lived under an unwritten rule akin to a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, but in post-Saddam Iraq, this has become nearly impossible.”

LGBT Iraqis fled in multitudes to Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries, now only to be caught up in local revolutions that have caused them further risk and at times violence.

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Iraq's unwanted people from Gay Middle East on Vimeo.

Homeless for the Holidays

via GLAAD, by Elana Stone

Did you know that there are approximately 3,800 homeless young people in NYC? Did you also know that 40 percent – or 1,500 – identify as LGBT?

These statistics are important and vital to understanding the epidemic of homelessness for LGBT young people, but statistics won’t let you know what it means to be young, LGBT, and homeless all because your family rejects you for who you are.

Statistics won’t change hearts and minds, but stories will.
                                                                                                              
“I was 15 the first time I got kicked out of my house. My lowest point of trying to make it on the streets was three weeks ago. My girlfriend and I had to sleep on the roof of a building in the Bronx.

It was raining cats and dogs. I let her sleep, and stayed awake to make sure we were safe.”

–Tiffany “Life” Cocco

Homeless for the Holidays is a campaign through the Ali Forney Center to raise awareness about the lives of LGBT youth who are homeless.

Designed to feature a different young person three times a week for the month of December, the campaign illustrates the very real struggle that each of these young people face as part of the larger push to increase funding and access to services and beds for homeless LGBT youth.

The Ali Forney Center’s ED, Carl Siciliano writes, “Every young person deserves to be loved,” which is at the heart of the campaign.

For each of the young people featured in the campaign, Siciliano says, “[C]oming out meant being driven from their homes, denied of love, denied of all economic support, made to suffer utter destitution.

And, shamefully, despite the numbers of such youth across the nation reaching epidemic proportions, their plight has not been at the forefront of the attention of the LGBT community.

Siciliano calls these youth the unsung heroes of the LGBT movement, for having the courage to tell their stories, to come out, and to face such terrible rejection for their honesty.

He asks the question, “How horrible it is that kids are made to experience such brutal abuse, just for being who they are.”

So take a moment and hear these stories. Read about what it means to be young, LGBT and without a place to live.


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2011: A Good Year to be Gay

via theguardian, by Aaron Hicklin

A funny thing happened in America in 2011. With the US political establishment in deadlock and Republicans bowing to Tea Party mandarins over a raft of issues from immigration to curbs on trade unions, one area of American civil liberties celebrated a watershed year.

After decades in which gay rights have polarised US opinion, the country barely shrugged in September when a two-decade old law prohibiting gay men and women from serving openly in the military was finally repealed, prompting thousands of gay soldiers to post coming-out videos on YouTube – just one more example of how the web has transformed gay visibility.

Less than two months earlier New York became the sixth, and biggest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

To put that in context, there are more people living in New York than in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.

The struggle for marriage equality has been one of the most bitterly divisive issues in America, but after a series of defeats for gay-rights advocates, the tide appears to be shifting irrevocably in their direction.

A series of national polls this year has shown support for same-sex unions outgunning opposition for the first time since polling on the issue began in the 1980s – a dramatic turnaround from even three years earlier, when voters in California approved a ballot measure overturning same-sex marriage.

In the 2004 election, under the keen encouragement of Karl Rove, no fewer than 11 states passed ballot initiatives banning gay marriage — a cynical get-out-the-vote ploy that helped swell Republican ranks at the polling booths.

The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned pink chalice persisted up to the 2008 election, when even Obama was careful to clarify that he wasn't in favour of gay marriage, apparently heeding warnings from Bill Clinton to give the issue a wide berth.

Yet in this year's debates between the ragtag pack of Republican presidential nominees, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been noticeably absent.

Even Obama, facing precarious odds for a second term, has said that he favours repealing the notorious Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented federal recognition of gay marriages, even those performed in states where they are legal.

What changed in those few short years? In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships.

In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts.

They hold hands, they kiss, they even share the same bed. This was a quantum leap on 1990s shows such as Will & Grace, in which the gay characters had the whiff of "confirmed bachelors", to use the archaic euphemism of obituary writers, rarely presented in functioning relationships, much less in love.

To young gay men and women today the idea that they will be able to marry and raise kids no longer sounds outlandish or controversial. It sounds axiomatic.

They see gay couples getting married in states such as New York and Massachusetts. They see Neil Patrick Harris, a popular television actor, posing on the red carpet with his partner, David Burtka, and their two children.

They listen, alongside their straight friends, to gay anthems by Lady Gaga, and watch popular gay-inclusive shows such as True Blood.

Most of all, they communicate with a diverse group of friends on Twitter and Facebook, where gay and straight teens revel in their shared cultural interests.


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Are Gays Too Sensitive to Jokes?

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Aaron Anson

I was appalled when I read excerpts from Vibe's interview with rapper T.I.: he said that the gay community is too sensitive to jokes made at their expense. T.I. starts with a disclaimer, saying that he's OK with any sexual "preference," but goes on to say, "If you're against [being gay], you should also have the right to be against it in peace."

Most obnoxious was when T.I. condoned Tracy Morgan's venomous diatribe against gays, which took place earlier this year.

His idea is that anti-gay sentiments are acceptable, and that it's ridiculous for the gay community to backlash against this expression of free speech.

It's true that the First Amendment protects all kinds of free speech, including anti-gay speech. But the fact that anti-gay speech is legal does not make it any more acceptable.

Free speech can allow free ignorance, unfortunately, and the two often go hand-in-hand.

It's clear from his language that T.I. simply does not relate to gays.

If we conclude that gays are overly sensitive to these jokes, then clearly the African-American community is overly sensitive about racism.

Imagine the backlash if a public figure made a joke about killing a person because they were black.

Would this have any comic value at all, or would it simply be tasteless?

How would this be any different from Tracy Morgan's remarks that he would stab his son if he were gay?


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Halloween: America's Gay Holiday

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Irene Monroe

Halloween is America's gay holiday.

In the words of the lesbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn, Halloween is "the great gay holiday."

And this weekend of lavish costumed theatricality will attract everyone, but especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) revelers.

Back in the day Halloween, the night before All Hallows Day (All Saints Day), was linked to the ancient Celtic festival Samhain in the British Isles, meaning "summer's end."

And because the celebration is associated with mystery, magic, superstition, witches and ghosts, the festivity, not surprisingly, was limited in colonial New England because of its Puritanical belief system.

But today it's an LGBTQ extravaganza that rivals -- if not out-showcases -- Pride festivals.

Long before June officially became Gay Pride Month and October became Coming Out Month for the LGBTQ community, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated "holiday," dating as far back as the 1970s, when it was a massive annual street party in San Francisco's Castro district.

By the 1980s, gay enclaves like Key West, West Hollywood, and Greenwich Village were holding their annual Halloween street parties.

And the parades the night of Halloween did and still do draw straights and gay spectators out to watch.

Gay cultural influence on Halloween has become such an unstoppable phenomenon here and abroad that anthropologist Jerry Kugelmass of University of Florida published a book in 1994 on the new trend, titled Masked Culture, describing Halloween as an emerging gay "high holiday."

"The 'masked culture' first developed by the gays of San Francisco has reached across the lines of orientation -- and now jumped across the boundaries between nations and languages.

It's not just a party. It's an ideal of personal emancipation, self-expression and self-fulfillment -- an ideal that loses none of its power when it takes the form of a sexy nurse's outfit," CNN contributor David Frum wrote last year in "Halloween craze started in gay culture."


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25% of Americans are gay or lesbian (or so people think)

via Psychology Today, By Dr. Brian Mustanski

How many Americans are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender? 

It's not actually the case that 25% of Americans identify as gay or lesbian, but according to a recent Gallup poll that's the belief of the average American adult.

More specifically, over half of Americans (52%) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15%.

According to the poll, Americans with lower income, less education, those who are younger (age 18-29), and women gave higher estimates of the proportion.  Democrats, liberals, and those who say they are socially liberal were also more likely to give higher estimates than those at the other end of the spectrum, although these differences were small.

This poll likely leads a lot of people to ask, how many people are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender?  Fortunately, my colleague Dr. Gary Gates recently issued a report summarizing what we know about the demographics of sexual orientation.  Dr. Gates is a Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

While it is challenging to arrive at an exact number, increasing numbers of national surveys have been including questions about sexual orientation.


Read more.

Transtastic! Feast of Fun podcasts LifeLube forum on Trans-Body Politics - LISTEN

[one of LifeLube's best forums, ever!]

via Feast of Fun

Today we present our live podcast with LifeLube from the Center on Halsted in Chicago, Illinois: Trans-Body Politics, The Original T-Party. The forum was held last week - May 19.

Join us for an extraordinary conversation with three groundbreaking people involved in the forefront of the trans rights movement-

Actor Alexandra Billings- the first trans woman to play a trans woman on television, you’ve seen her on such TV shows as ER, Greys Ananotmy and Bones.

Author and activist Jamison Green, a policy specialist on the staff of the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at the University of California.,

And Lara Brooks, who for over nine years has worked at Chicago’s Broadway Youth Center with street-based young people, many of which identify as trans.
Come feel the love and dive into our version of the state of the union of the trans rights movement and what it means for everyone.

Plus- live questions from you, the audience in person.

NOTE: Here’s a link to Jamison Green’s survey on Respectful Language mentioned during the taping of the show. Check out the huge list of terms used in medical literature to describe trans. Some of my favorite are: “gender gifted, genderforked, transbian, tranny and two-spirit.” We prefer to use “transtastic.” Read more about the study’s 10 year history here.

Click for the podcast.

Why are we different? And does it matter?

Opening remarks at the Trans Actions conference taking place today in Chicago, delivered this morning by Pete Subkoviak, AIDS Foundation of Chicago Policy Coordinator.

Gotta love Oprah. I mean really, if there is one person over the past decade who has helped out the trans community, it's Oprah. She’s done some ten or so shows dealing with transgender issues in an intelligent way.

And after 20 years of Jerry Springer completely assaulting this community, we needed it.

So Oprah’s new channel – OWN – recently had a special on transgender lives, and interviewed a seven-year old girl, who had been born a boy, named Haley. Haley and her family live in a small community, she was diagnosed when she was five, and her family was advised to let her live as female.

I can’t tell you how lucky this little girl is to live in the post-Oprah world of 2011.

I won’t go into my entire life story, I’m not going to pull out old family photos, but let me give you the Cliff Notes to make my point, and I’ll qualify this by saying that every transgender individual’s experience is different:

• I was born into an idyllic family: two loving, religiously-devout parents. I suffered no physical, emotional or sexual trauma
• I was born physically female. I began telling my parents I was a boy at the age of three. This in not uncommon among gender variant people
• Because of my vocalizations, my parents brought me to numerous mental health professionals, all of who instructed them to encourage more feminine behavior – total fail
• By the age of 11 I was suicidal
• It wasn’t until the age of 17 when a therapist suggested I was transgender and could transition i.e. change my body and live as male.
• I began the process at 18, and I am certain it saved my life.
• To this day my only regret is that it didn’t happen sooner.

Haley is lucky because she won’t have to wait until she’s 18 and has struggled with depression and suicidality.

She lives in a day and age where there is a name for her difference, and more importantly, many medical and mental health professionals are aware what it is and how best to deal with it. Thus, her parents were educated by her doctors, and instructed to embrace their child for who she is.

Haley will still have a tough road ahead, but no doubt that her chances for a happy and healthy life have been greatly improved because of the knowledge and cultural competence of her health providers.

Why are we different?

We don’t have a definitive answer to that; there have been a few small-scale studies showing brain differences in transgender people, but as you can imagine, governments and private funders aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to support research on this issue. What we do know is that while everyone’s story is different, gender variant individuals have a strong and persistent sense of self from a very early age, and to one degree or another, that identity does not match the body we were born with.

But the bigger fact is this: The origins of this difference are immaterial.

Transgender people are who they are and have always been, and the world needs to come to terms with that fact.

Transgender individuals are not confused, disturbed or troubled, but our society is certainly confused, disturbed and trouble by our existence. If supported by their friends, families and employers and allowed to live as our true selves, transgender people can have happy, fulfilling lives.

But that’s a big “if”. Unfortunately, too many transgender people continue to be disowned by their communities, fired, legally, from their jobs and subjected to verbal and physical violence. It is this rejection, and not the gender variance itself, that leads to the maladies of depression, suicide, substance abuse and HIV amongst transgender people.

Thankfully, there is an emerging awareness of and response to the needs of transgender individuals. Our community is lucky enough to have wonderful trans-specific programming at places like Howard Brown, the Broadway Youth Center, Center on Halsted, the Chicago Women’s Health Center, Transactions, Affinity Social Services, the Transformative Justice Law Project and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, just to name a few.My hope for this conference is that with greater consciousness and education this audience can help lead change here in Chicago.

***This evening, join LifeLube and friends for The [other] T-Party - Trans Body Politics, a free forum at the Center on Halsted. Doors open at 6pm.