The Crazy Watering Can

Steve, "35 Years of Prayer Couldn't get rid of my homosexuality"

Meet Steve, a happy coupled gay man who had to leave the Mormon church to find peace and happiness in his life.  Going against everything that he was told, he was surprised to find that he didn't lose anything, but gained ever so much more.  Steve goes thru a wide range of emotions telling his story, his tale will lead you to tears and leave you smiling.  Watch, tear up, and smile at his triumph in life.

The important thing to remember is that WE can make our lives better by living true to our hearts. While your mind is dark and locked into a prison of I can't be LBGT, and you just want to wake up one morning and have it all be a horrid dream, unfortunately it doesn't work that way. And that is ok, I know it doesn't feel that way now, but it will be, if you let it. Yes, you might lose some family members, and some friends, but if they can't respect the real you, then how good of friends were they to begin with? I've told all of my friends, and so far have only lost one. No, I haven't told my kids, if I get to the point where transition is the only way to continue living, then I will sit them down and talk to them about it. I've done the hard work, and I've decided if I tell them and they can't accept me, then it's my fault for raising narrow minded humans.

Take a breath and remember, you are not alone, no dear friend you are really not alone.


If you enjoy this, there are many more "My name is ____ and I'm an Ex Mormon videos.

Gay Baby, A Short Film

Funny, sweet, filled with stereotypes, but perfect.  If only every dad of a gay son had such an angel to guide him through the maze of what a raising a gay son is about.  Enjoy!

Merry Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It seems as if we mostly only hear gloom and doom in our daily life. The cable news networks seem to enjoy breaking our hearts with daily stories of rapes, murders and worse. I'm not sure why bad news is such a draw over happier, uplifting stories. Could it be that we are that jaded? Or is our daily life so devoid of joy, that we really can only bear to see people worse off than us?

Hmmm…….what I think is really going on, is that big horrid occurrences DO draw in the viewers, but the day to day updates on a missing person or murder trials seems more like a reality show. We turn in to see what's up with the hunt for the missing human, or to see how the prosecution is doing against the lawyers for the defense, and somehow thru the medium of the tv, it looses its 'realness' and becomes little different than "Big Brother" or "Survivor". Both are similar really, they both have their 'villains' their 'heroes' and of course a winner that we hash over days after that current cycle of the show ends. But, today I'm doing a happy story, a true story, a story that needs a wider audience, because this man is a shining star indeed.

Jimmy Creech was a United Methodist minister, yes past tense, he is an unsung hero of the trenches of fighting hand to hand for marriage rights for all Americans, and for his unrepentant fight he was defrocked. Jimmy felt the pull to be a pastor, he loved nothing more than holding his parishioners hands and hearts in their time of need, spreading the God he knew, which was a God of love and of peace. This is a man who lives the word of God, no shilly shalling about, he believes what he preaches.

Like most people who don't realize they know LGBTQ humans, Jimmy was typical in his blindness to their daily struggles to live a 'normal' life. While in his office one fine morning one of his flock came into his office saying how he was finished with the Methodist church. How Adam refused to support or attend a church that hated him. Jimmy calmed him down and pulled the reason out of him. This is what drove 'Adam' from his church of birth;

"The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching. We affirm that God’s grace is available to all. We will seek to live together in Christian community, welcoming, forgiving, and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us. We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. We commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons." (1)

Adam's grief and anger ripped the blinders from Jimmy's eyes, and he began a spiritual quest to seek the answers. This is a quest that began in 1984 and still continues to this day. At one of his church trials, this is what Jimmy had to say about how he felt that God, the bible and his faith intersect;

"It is my belief that the position taken by The United Methodist Church regarding same-gender unions, as well as that regarding "the practice" of homosexuality, is wrong, unjust, discriminatory and inconsistent with the spirit of Christ and our Wesleyan and Methodist traditions…"

"Sexual orientation is not a moral issue; it is morally neutral. Sexual ethics are simple: sexual relationships should be mutual, non-exploitative, nurturing and loving. What is immoral are unequal, exploitative, abusive and unloving sexual acts toward another person. This is true regardless of the orientation of the persons involved. I believe that sexual activity which is considered moral when practiced by two people of different genders, is no less moral when practiced by two people of the same gender. The crucial test is whether the activity is mutual, non exploitative, nurturing and loving.

I believe that the sin of heterosexism is no less a sin than that of racism. While some of the dynamics may be different, they are fundamentally identical in nature as an expression of a dominate culture over another.

Just as it was the church in the South that perpetuated racism so that slavery and white supremacy could have legitimacy, the Christian church has been responsible, more than any other institution, for perpetuating the sin of heterosexism as a form of control over what is feared within all of us: the mystery of human sexuality and intimacy (sexual or non-sexual) with persons of the same gender.

Because of the heterosexism taught and practiced by the institution of the Christian church, countless young people have committed suicide, adults have lived lifetimes of lies, families have been destroyed, gay men and lesbians have been cruelly treated and murdered, the spirit and lives of millions of gay people have been crippled, and they have been told that the love of God is denied to them because of who they are, and will continue to be unless they become other than who they are.."(2)

This is a man who loved being a pastor, who loved ministering to his flock, and worked hard at his job, who took a pay decrease when times were tough at his church. Even though he lost one church due to his stance on believing, no strike that, he knew that God and Jesus loved all of his children, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, that Jesus would have welcomed all into his church, and allowing all to marry. After getting a chance at a new church, Jimmy didn't blanch or hedge his bets, he carried on, trying to make the new church more inclusive, more open to lgbt humans, causing the church to split in two factions, the group that grew to understanding that God loved all humans no matter of their sexuality, and the group that lives in the past with hate and bigotry.

Jimmy's work caused him to lose this new church, and later be defrocked, which for a man who believes in God and his church was wrenching, but once he stepped off the curb and marched in his first gay pride parade, carrying a banner saying that God loved all his children, he never looked back, never wavered, never changed his stance, his tone, his belief.

If you 'know' me, you'll pick up quite quickly that I'm not a religious person. I was raised going to church on Sundays, summer bible school and the whole 9 yards. Even as a small person however, I saw the hypocrisy in singing, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so" and then listening to the 'pastor's' hate filled preaching, at that point in time, the hate was spewed towards the blacks. This was the time period of the race riots, freedom marches and the beginning of desegregation of schools.

I lived in an apartment complex that primarily served military families, I was the only kid in our square whose daddy wasn't in the military. I had friends who were black, who were half asian, latino, heck it didnt matter to me what color they were, still doesn't. We were a rainbow, and got along great with each other. From making mud pies, to playing pick up games of football, racing around on our bikes, and sharing lunches, and following the mail man every single day all of us talking to him at once, I knew these kids were no different from me. The flyleaf of my children's bible was Jesus surrounded by children, and they were from all over the world. I remember laying on the floor one sweltering hot summer day, (this is when only the rich had air conditioning!) and looking at my bible, and remembering the 'message' from the previous Sunday, and I couldn't get what I knew to be true, and what a man of "God" said about blacks.

So began my quest for answers. No one was safe from my questioning, and I never did receive an answer that satisfied me. And as the young and innocent will often do, I came to my own conclusions, I was right, the adults were wrong, God did love us all, even the stupid.

Give Jimmy's book a try, and see if he doesn't make you feel just a wee bit better that not every christian in the whole world hates the lgbt humans, and gives you hope that times are a changing.

"Adam's Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor's Calling to Defy the Church's Persecution of Lesbians and Gays"

376 pages

Publisher: Duke University Press books (March 14, 2011)

Hardcover from Amazon.com is 19.77

Kindle version from Amazon is 16.47

(1) United Methodist Church doctrine

(2) Adam's Gift by Jimmy Creech (i'm sorry i cant give you the page number, my copy is a kindle book)

It's all about love, yeah?

Hope your thanksgiving was a happy day filled with laughter and hugs.

Sex and the gay/bi man

Out of the Pocket

Out of the Pocket is a fantastic book written by sports writer Bill Konigsberg, who came out in 2002 and shortly thereafter left ESPN. 

Bobby Framingham is the star quarterback in his senior year of high school, and he has a secret, he's gay.  Its beginning to eat away at him, the jokes, the expectations of his sorta kinda girlfriend.  In a weak/brave moment he comes out to one of his good friends on the football team, who tells two other people, and at that point Bobby's life begins a slow spiral downhill.

If you don't like football, this book will not be a good fit for you, as you follow Bobby thru his senior football season, and a great deal of the book deals with football.  Bill has written a very likable character in Bobby, he seems like a fella you'd want to be friends with.  And that's one thing that made this book so enjoyable, besides the wonderfully written sports scenes, is just how likable the main characters are.  There are a few guys on the team that are total douches, but they aren't the norm.  My only complaint with the book is how easily the majority of the school accepts Bobby as being gay.  Could it be that's all it takes is for someone that is at the top of the social heap to come out?  I don't know, no clue on this. 

Dutton Books 2008
264 pages
available both in print and kindle

If you do enjoy sports, take a click and visit Outsports.  On the main page today is several profiles of college athletes who have come out as gay.  The day of needing to be closeted to play in major league sports is coming to an end.

LGBT History Month

I thought I'd celebrate history month a bit differently, and showcase books written by lbgt authors.   Todays offering is the first transgender book I read, written by Jamison Green.  When Jamison first began his quest to fulfill his need to match his inner self with his outer self he found that there was no community of transpeople.  Why?  At that time the therapists all told trans folk,  to fade away into society and blend in after transition.  F2M's have a much easier time of blending in than do the M2F's, and f2m's dont have the onus of being "a guy in a dress" meme.  The more feminine of us pass quite convincingly as male, but not always as straight males.

James talks about his girl-hood, his life as a lesbian, and how on his quest to become a whole person, lost both his wife and community, as most of his lesbian friends were not very supportive of his transition.  He touches fairly lightly on his hurt feelings from this time period, but you can tell it cut deep from how he writes about this time period.  

I was luckily enough to share a breakfast with him last January when I traveled to Boston for the trans conference.  His speech the night before was amazing.  He is warm, caring and seemingly nonjudgmental.  If you get a chance to hear him talk, go he is a great public speaker.

Why should you, a non-transgendered human read this book?  It will help you to better understand what being transgender is, and how some of us are so insistent about matching our inner selves with our outer selves that we are prepared to lose all to be a whole person.  If only I were that brave.....

This book made me feel that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't weird or odd, and gave me a community if only thru print and web.  It was this book that helped me to come to terms with who I am, and pushed me into attending the trans conference.  Jamison helped usher me into my identity as a trans human, and that it was ok, it really was.  Going to the trans conference was very stressful, however like anything that is hard allowed me the chance to grow as a trans man.  The most important thing I learned at that conference wasn't learned in any of the seminars; there is more than one way to express one's trans-ness, and all of them are correct.

As of now, 'Becoming a Visible Man' is only available in print, not on kindle.  Hopefully that will soon change. 

 264 pages
Vanderbilt University Press, 2004

I.P.V.

Intimate Partner Violence


Partner abuse comes slipping into the relationship quietly.  The abuse slowly ebbs and flows over a period of time, until one day you realize you are neck deep in an abusive situation.  A sharp word here, a put down there, a slow eroding of you, that begins without notice but carries on until you doubt your own worth, or that you do deserve to be treated with kindness and consideration.

Partner abuse is something as common in gay, bi, and lesbian relationships as it is in the straight world, but it's largely ignored in the glbt communities.  We need to start talking about it, need to fill the gaps our knowledge that, yes, this occurs, and, hopefully, as marriage equality spreads through our country, the police and court systems will finally catch up.  It's taken them quite a bit to catch up to men being abused by their wives, but better late than never, yeah?

An abuser is an abuser, no matter what the relationship looks like: m/f, f/f, m/m, or trans/partner.  It seems that partner abuse has very few differences from the straight world to the glbt world.  The only big difference is the potential threat of being outed, should the partner being abused seek help.  Often that is one of the threats the abuser will use against you.  "I'll tell your (parents, work, etc)".  And so you stay, for more eroding of your self confidence, more bruises, and a continuing downward spiral of isolation from family and friends.

Emotional abuse means that your needs are never an important consideration, ever.  He always comes first: his wants, his desires, him, him, him.  He's always too busy, too tired, too broke, needs money for something he needs right this minute, etc.; you will just have to wait for him to be not be busy, tired, broke etc, etc, in other words, you will be in waiting in line, for it to be your turn for the rest of your life.

He tells you how lucky you are that he stays with you.  You're unworthy of love and affection; he is doing you a favor by staying.  After a while, you begin to believe him; you are so lucky he stays with worthless you.

"You're not really going to wear that, are you? You need to lose weight, get something done with what passes for hair, get some sun, shave/grow appropriate body hair, etc, etc."

It's a constant run down on your looks and what you wear.  Of course, some of your "flaws" are things that aren't fixable, like the fact your hair is defecting from the kingdom of your head.  So, you go on a diet, pour lotions and potions on your head, tan, gain weight, etc.; anything to please him and hope for some kind words.

He cuts you down in front of his friends, his family, your family, anyone, and everyone.  He tells you, and anyone that will listen, how stupid you are. He blows normal mistakes into huge stories that make you appear a complete buffoon. Until you get to the point where you are afraid to open your mouth, voice an opinion, or want to visit with your family and any friends you still have left.  At that moment in time, he has won, he now has a slave that will never tell him no.  Emotional abuse is hardest to get past.  The self doubt that was planted into you, will never fully be weeded from you.  It takes constant weed whacking to believe that you do deserve better, you are worthy of a loving relationship, your needs do matter, they don't need to come last, you may take a turn at being first in line!

Sexual abuse is never about sex, but about power, the taking of it.  Forcing you to engage in sexual acts you aren't comfortable doing, forcing you to have sex period, is abusive. With holding sex can also be a part of the abuse cycle, but that is usually hand cuffed to physical put downs as to why he wont have sex with you.  It doesn't matter one nano gram at all if you begin the sexual encounter being a willing partner, only to later changing your mind.  You are allowed to change your mind, you are allowed to say NO! at any point during sex.  If he tells you "I was to worked up to quit!"  Well then, he is no better than an animal, yeah?  Sex is about giving and sharing, not taking and forcing.  For the vast majority of us, sex isn't about causing pain in our partners, isn't forcing them to do something they don't want to do.  However, having said that, we need to contrast abusive sex with BDSM, which are two completely different animals. Because at the bottom of a BDSM relationship is trust, safe words and most importantly, this is something that both partners want, they know each others limits, and just how far they want and can be pushed; which is not what sexual abuse is like at all.

Physical abuse starts with a slap, and apology and then a "honeymoon" period.  As time flows by however the physical abuse ramps up, the honeymoon periods shorten, and it takes less and less for him to strike you, and the physical abuse gets more and more intense, doing ever greater damage.  You can't muck about with this, you need to get out and now.

Leaving is often when it becomes very dangerous to your life.  No matter how badly you have been beaten before, after you leave is when his rage becomes unhinged.  Before you leave, you need to do some ground work first, you need an exit plan, and it has to be fool proof.  If you can't get any relief from the police/courts, then its going to be all up to you as to how to get out safely and stay alive.  It might take you a few weeks, a month or so to get your ducks lined up, but take the time to do so.  The only way to flee without a safety net, is if you fear for your life Now!  Then by all means RUN RUN RUN!  Don't wait to pack anything, just flee for your life.  Everything is replaceable except you.  There are shelters out there for men, and many will take in GLBT.  If you live in a very small community where there are no shelters for anyone except women, then you are going to need to get creative at a point in your life when your creative jug is empty.  If nothing else, drive as far as you are able to, and stay in a hotel, do not stay local, get as much distance between you and him. 

Your family members.  Speaking as a mother, no matter how long its been since you've been able to be with them, they will most likely take you in.  Don't call ahead, just show up.  If they are the closed minded sort who when you came out to them they threw you away, give them a second chance.  They might hate the fact that they lost you, but didn't want to lose "face" by trying to contact you again.  And lets be honest, if you're not out to them and you are over the age of 30, and have had male "room mates" since you left home/college, believe me they know.  Take a chance and go to them, give them a chance to be a wonderful parent.  If that door is firmly closed?  Then try your friends, yes the ones who no longer call you, because he pushed them out of your life.  We are talking life or death here, only the most callus of people would turn you away in your time of need.

Resources:  If you know of others in your area, please add them to the comment section.

For USA  http://gmdvp.org/

       and        http://www.batteredmen.com/bathelpnatl.htm

New York City   http://www.nyc.gov/html/ocdv/html/issues/lesbian.shtml

Massachusetts  http://www.fenwayhealth.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FCHC_srv_services_vrp_Resources

Los Angles   http://www.lagaycenter.org/site/PageServer?pagename=YH_DV_Family_Violence_Partner_Abuse
              
North Carolina   http://www.projectrainbownet.org/resources.html

For Canadians   http://www.gaypartnerabuseproject.org/

For Australians http://www.anothercloset.com.au

International resource list   http://www.safe4all.org/resource-list/index?category=3

If you are a woman, and are facing domestic violence, please understand I don't think lightly of your plight, only that there are very few resources for battered men and even less available for gay men.  People "get" that women are all to often victims of ipv, but less likely to think men can be and are victims of people they love.

I'm back, and a fun video

Hi,

Yeah, tis been a while since I last posted.  Sorry about that, had a lot on my mental and physical plate lately, and some things just got pushed onto the back burner.  And as you can tell, this blog was one of them.

The news on the glbt front has been rather mixed lately, some very hopeful, some ever so not.  Ding dong the wicked DADT is soon to be an entry on the misguided law page.  And while I couldnt be happier to have gays and lesbians the right to serve our country, once again transgender folks were left without a place at the table of civil rights.  It seems that every time glbt issues come up, the only way for gays and lesbians to get a slice of the civil rights pie is to throw the trans folk under the bus.  And I get that, I really do, when the piece of the pie is so incredibly small, it does cause the mentality of "every person for themselves" sinking ship kinda thing.

Tonight while chatting with Newleaf, he asked me had I seen this video, and when I told him no, he sent me this link. Hopefully it will make you smile and brighen your day.

If a Married Lesbian Couple Saves 40 Teens from the Norway Massacre and No One Writes About it, Did it Really Happen?

By this point, most of you have heard about the tragedy in Norway a few weeks ago when a Christian Fundamentalist* murdered 77** people and injured another 96. The story has been well-covered by International media and the mainstream press here in the US.
What you probably have not heard about is the married lesbian couple who rescued 40 teenagers during and after the bloody event. Several blogs and gay and lesbian publications are now picking up the story, but the heavy hitters who usually kill for hero stories like this, have remained silent.
The Finnish capital city’s largest daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, published this account (translated from Finnish):

Hege Dalen and her spouse, Toril Hansen were near Utöyan having dinner on the opposite shore across from the ill-fated campsite, when they began to hear gunfire and screaming on the island.
“We were eating. Then shooting and then the awful screaming. We saw how the young people ran in panic into the lake,” says Dale to HS in an interview.
The couple immediately took action and pushed the boat into Lake Tyrifjorden.
Dalen and Hansen drove the boat to the island, picked up from the water victims in shock in, the young and wounded, and transported them to the opposite shore to the mainland. Between runs they saw that the bullets had hit the right side of the boat.
Since there were so many and not all fit at once aboard, they returned to the island four times.
They were able to rescue 40 young people from the clutches of the killer.
“We did not sleep last night at all. Today, we have been together and talked about the events,” Dalen said.

Please share this story and make sure people know the heroism of Hege and Toril.
Check out our follow-up to this post here: Hege & Toril: Why We Write, which addresses many of your comments and questions about this article.
*The term “Christian Fundamentalist” has been disputed greatly in both the press and the comments section below this post. According to Norwegian police investigating the massacre, Anders Behrin Breivik was a “Christian Fundamentalist” as described by the New York Times and several Norwegian sources. There is a great post from CNN, which discusses at length, the use of the term being used for Breivik.
**Thank you to readers who have provided credible sources as to the actual number of deaths from this tragedy. We originally reported that 92 had been killed, but according to Norwegian sources, the total number is at 77, with many still in the hospital.
Please Follow us on Twitter @TalkEquality

reposted from Talk Equality

And so it begins....

Well good news gays, lesbians and bisexuals of America, you are no longer public enemy #1!  Yup!  Thats true, so get your party on.  Oh, you are wondering who has taken your role as bringers of the end times, with Mr. Satan at the helm, tis the transgender population.    Turns out, unbeknownst to me, that the transgeder population is now "indoctrinating" children.  Well, since we can't breed to increase our population we are forced to increase our ranks by confusing wee children into believing they are trans. 


A word of caution before you read the article below, this is full on hate speech and is hard to stomach.

Apologetics Update

Your Source for Christian Apologetics on the Web

The Transgender Indoctrination of our Children

Posted on July 15, 2011 by mightytimbo

0

This week, Focus on the Family reported something that is becoming decreasingly shocking:

In Sweden, apparently “the staff of a preschool is no longer using pronouns like “he” or “she” when referring to students”. The report states: “The preschool’s approach to gender is a reflection of Sweden’s national school curriculum that includes the mission of breaking down gender roles. For example, when playing “house,” teachers suggest students role play with two or three taking the role of “mom.”
These attempts at social engineering—impacting kids directly—aren’t just happening overseas. An Oakland elementary school recently spent two days on “Gender Spectrum Diversity Training.” Their reading list for second and third graders includes My Princess Boy and 10,000 Dresses, in which boy characters wear tiaras and magical dresses.”

As a parent I am horrified. As a person I am disgusted. As a Christian I am broken hearted. And as someone with any sense of logic and reason I am thoroughly irritated.

Let’s work backwards. Why as a person of logic and reason? Because this whole notion that gender is subjective and can be decided is insanity. I’m not being extreme. To believe with conviction that you are something that you are not, and to act upon that fantasy is a clinical definition of insanity – only in the case of gender confusion it has become acceptable.

For example, if a person believed they were mistakenly born a human and should have been born a cow or any other barnyard animal, then proceeded to live their life as such they would be given massive amounts of Thorazine and locked in a rubber room. When (and I mean when, because this happens) a person falls into the delusion (not the word delusion) that they are not in fact who they are but rather a famous historical figure (i.e. Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, etc…) they are treated for psychiatric problems.

However, when a person is born as a man (which by the way, you can tell simply by looking) and they claim they were wrongly born that way and that they are actually a woman “on the inside”, how does that make them any less insane than the “cow man” or “modern Abraham Lincoln”. Why isn’t he given counseling and just told to look in his pants? Rather, these people are given permission to carry their delusion to the farthest extreme and actually adopt it via surgical procedure. What’s next? Do we so udders on cow man? Or perhaps start milking cow woman as she stands on all fours simply because she believes it’s what she was made to do? Does it sound like these questions are crossing the line? Why these questions and not the idea of the perversion of gender? It’s clinical insanity.

As a Christian, I’m broken hearted, and I disagree. Why? Because the bible says in Romans 9 “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Psalm 139 says “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”& “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  Jeremiah 1 says ““Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;”  The Bible goes on and on and on about how God makes each one of us exactly how he wants us. He didn’t screw up. He didn’t mess up. If you’re struggling with where you are, then it’s just that, a struggle, and guess what, we all have struggles. But that doesn’t change what you are, it just means you’ve got some things to work through just like everybody else in this world, it doesn’t mean you spit in the face of your creator.  To reject your gender is to reject your God.  (Don’t forget Deut 22:5, 1Cor 11:3-15, and 1 Cor 14:40 that deal with dressing like a transvestite)

As a person I am disgusted that anyone would subject children to the kind of brainwashing that teaches them that aberrant and insane behavior is not only acceptable but should be encouraged in their own lives. If “Cow-man” exists, then fine. We don’t hate him for it. We love him and offer him the psychological treatment he needs to re-enter society. We certainly don’t teach our children that “if they set their minds to it they can be anything they want, including a cow, producing milk and fertilizer and living naked in a barn with all the other cows and even take a cow as a wife!”  That would be a horrific thing to teach a child. So is indoctrinating them with the idea that they aren’t, or don’t necessarily have to be, the human being they were created as.  To do that is literally to sexually assault a child and it should be treated as such a crime.

As a parent I am horrified because, I have a young son, and for all of the reasons listed above it petrifies me to realize that I have to raise him in a world where every day is “opposite day” – where insanity is not even normal, but now even taught as proper education. I will raise my son to know that God created him with a clear purpose in mind and that and that he was designed exactly as God would have him to be. My son will know what it means to be a real man, how to have strength of character & integrity, how to respect women, lead his family, love his wife unconditionally, and most of all serve God.

posted at  http://apologeticsblogger.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/the-transgender-indoctrination-of-our-children/

Lube Safety for Rectal Use by Jake Weinraub

The International Rectal Microbicide Advocates (IRMA) recently released a study examining the effect of lubricants on rectal tissue. They ran an internet-based survey in six languages, receiving 8,945 responses highlighting behaviors and attitudes around anal intercourse, condom use, lube use, as well as acceptability of rectal microbicides if they were on the market.
IRMA shares that lubricants, as well as anal sex, enemas, and douching cause some level of inflammation in the rectum, most of which occurs naturally and repairs itself within minutes or hours.
Knowing this, IRMA builds off existing science to better examine levels of inflammation and damage that are a result of AI alone, without lubes, and with lubes.

Key Findings:

• Many water-based lubes (such as Astroglide, ID, KY Jelly, and Elbow Grease) are hyperosmolar, meaning they have a higher concentration of soluble components than normal cells in the body, "sucking" away water from inside vaginal/rectal cells, making them shrink in size. A question for IRMA is whether or not this damage is a factor relating to HIV infection risk.

Out of the 41 lubricants examined,

• Most of the lubricants were found to be hyperosmolar.
• KY Jelly, ID Glide, Elbow Grease, and Astroglide are similarly toxic for cells, cell lines, and tissues, with Astroglide being the most toxic.
• PRE and Wet Platinum appear to cause the least damage.
• None of the lubricants have show any significant activity against HIV-1.
• Four Astriglide lubricants actually significantly enhanced HIV-1 replication in vitro.

While water-based lubes don't look great, there are questions of how this translates into real-world use and real-world risk, where factors such as timing, frequency, saliva, accessibility, and condom/lubricant regulation all come into play. There is also the question of IRMA advocating for anal sex without lubricant, which would be painful and unrealistic, so they hope to find out which are the safest.
Bottom line: more research is urgently needed to explore if there is a link between lube use and acquiring HIV and/or rectal STI's.
In the meantime, IRMA reiterates that "using male or female condoms is still considered the best way to prevent acquiring HIV and STIs during AI. In addition, the use of condom-compatible lubes has been associated with a decreased risk of condoms breaking or slipping."
These studies will inevitably inform the development of rectal microbicides, a cream or gel (or potentially a douche or an enema) that could be inserted vaginally or rectally and used to reduce a person's risk of HIV infection. IRMA chair Jim Pickett shared with Bilerico in 2008 that rectal microbicides represent a viable option when condoms fail or when their use cannot be easily negotiated.
For more information on the study, check out IRMA's May 18 presentation. Here is a link to their slides.

Found at Bilerico   May 22, 2011

Gay Marriage With Chinese Characteristics by Nicola Davison

A visit to a Shanghai fake-marriage market, where lesbians and gay men meet to find a husband or wife.

SHANGHAI, China—"I'm here to find a lesbian, to be with me and to build a home," No. 11 says to the crowd clustered on floor cushions at a sunlit yoga studio in Shanghai. No. 11 is a muscular man in a flannel shirt and cargo pants, and he easily commands the attention of the crowd of 40 or so young men and women who are gingerly sipping glasses of wine and whispering to their neighbors.
"In my view, a 30-year-old man should start thinking about having a family, but two men can't hold each other's hands in the street. We're not allowed to be a family," he says. The crowd nods.

I'm at a fake-marriage market, where Chinese lesbians and gay men meet to find a potential husband or wife. In China, the pressure to form a heterosexual marriage is so acute that 80 percent of China's gay population marries straight people, according to sexologist Li Yinhe, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. To avoid such unions, six months ago, Shanghai's biggest gay Web site, inlemon.cn, started to hold marriage markets once a month.

Thirty minutes earlier, I triple-checked the address scrawled in my notebook. The studio—located in a high-rise apartment complex—seems an unlikely spot for a fake-marriage market. "The boss of the yoga studio is very kind to us," says Fen Ye, my guide. Slipping off my shoes at the doorway, I pad up stairs lined with Buddhas in the red plastic flip-flops provided. When Fen slides open a door to reveal men and women chatting quietly, conversation falters. "They weren't expecting a foreigner," he whispers, adding, "and don't tell anyone you're a reporter. I'll just say you're my lesbian friend." He bustles me to a cushion on the floor and hands me a glass of Chinese red wine.

Precautions are necessary for an event like this. Though there are an estimated 30 million to 40 million gay people in China—there has been no official count—even simple actions such as trying to access Wikipedia's "LGBT" page often result in a "This webpage is not available" message. Chinese society has adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. A 2007 survey by Li Yinhe found that 70 percent of Chinese people think homosexuality is either "a little" or "completely" wrong, and only 7.5 percent of respondents said they knew a gay person.

While past generations buried their sexuality in straight marriages, the people gathered at the yoga studio are trying a new approach. No. 8 (the men sport numbered buttons in a pleasing shade of blue, the women's are pink), a pretty 22-year-old woman with curly dyed chestnut hair, skinny jeans, and Snoopy slippers wants a fake marriage to ease parental pressure, but she doesn't want a baby. No. 15, a strikingly tall man with side-swept bangs, says: "I want to get married for my parents, but I think lying to them will make me feel terrible. So I want to have a fake marriage with a lesbian girl, but just for one or two years, and then I want a divorce to show my parents that I am not a marriage type." There's one constant: All the participants talk about pleasing their parents.

Influential Zhou Dynasty Confucian scholar Mencius said that the "most serious" way to be unfilial is to not produce an heir. It's an idea that still reverberates through China's family-centric culture. In contemporary slang, single women over the age of 27 are known as sheng nu or "leftovers."
"I could absolutely not come out to my parents. If I could tell them I was gay, I wouldn't have needed to get married," says my guide, 30-year-old Fen, as we sit in a converted Shanghainese shikumen lane house near the popular tourist spot People's Park. We're talking about his lesbian wife, whom he met on inlemon.cn.

"I had a big, traditional Chinese wedding. It lasted for three days, and there were maybe 500 people there. My parents were so happy," says Fen, who knew his wife for seven months before they married. "In your job, in your social life, and for family gatherings, you need to bring a partner. It's hard to do these things alone in China. My grandfather and grandmother … everyone was waiting for me to get married. The wedding felt like a task I needed to accomplish, something I needed to get through step-by-step, a bit like doing homework."

For many gay men, the chance to experience parenthood—and to provide a grandchild for longing parents—is a distinct advantage of these unions. At the yoga studio marriage market, almost every man says he wants a baby, Fen included. "[On the Web site] I said that I didn't want to have a sex life with my wife—absolutely none." Although he says he and his wife are not "very good friends," they have discussed having a child. "For a baby we will maybe use artificial insemination," he says.
Past generations did things differently. The Lai Lai dancehall, in a rundown corner of Shanghai's Hongkou district, is a refuge for gay but married men. Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, about 200 men crowd the dance floor in their mismatched suits, twirling together in the green light and cigarette smoke. When they're not dancing, they sit in groups around the edge, nursing flasks of tea, though beer is available for 75 cents a glass.

Zhang, who is 55 and married with children, goes every week. "You can find gay bars in every city, but a dancehall like this only in Shanghai," he says. While tinny speakers rattle out familiar patriotic songs, the dancing stays elegant and refined. Flirting is discreet, barely noticeable. "Older gay men feel comfortable in this place," Zhang tells me. "Because the dancehall starts early, they can go home to their families and keep it secret. Though sometimes the wives come to look for their husbands, and then other people have to persuade them that their husband is just dancing."

But 30-year-old Mu Mu knew that her husband was not "just dancing." Just after she became pregnant, Mu Mu's husband started openly dating men. "I knew he was gay before we got married," says the Shanghai resident over the phone to protect her anonymity. "But the word gay was really strange to me. I read that being gay is something you're born as, but other people said it's like a disease that can be healed. Because I loved him a lot, I hoped that maybe he would change." It wasn't until a year after the birth of their daughter, and after her husband brought home another man to live with them, that Mu Mu left him.

Mu Mu is one of China's estimated 16 million to 25 million "homowives"—or tongqi in pinyin (the word is an amalgamation of the Mandarin for gay and wife)—women who are married to gay men.
"The happiest time of our marriage was when I gave birth to our daughter," says Mu Mu. "That one week when I was in the hospital, he took care of me and the baby. Much of the rest of the time I felt abandoned."

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011, at 10:09 AM ET
reposted from Slate
For many women, speaking out about their gay husbands is more difficult than staying in loveless marriages, but in the last few years Web-based support groups have started to form. Li, 33, is a volunteer on a homowife support forum on QQ, a Chinese social networking site. Her job involves giving advice and answering questions, and she is often the only person the homowives confide in. "The women are desperate," she explains over iced tea on a busy shopping street in central Shanghai. "At first they feel shock, and they don't know what to do, because people don't know much about gay people. They think their husband is a disturbed person."

While it's relatively easy to get divorced in China, Li says, many women stick with the marriages for complicated reasons. "Some stay because they still love their husband. He's a good person, and a good father, and they want their children to have a father," she says. Another reason is social stigma. "Most of the women can't go to their friends, they don't think they will be able to accept it or understand. Which is true. I think in China people make a moral judgment about it. [The women] think people will think, 'Wow, your husband would prefer to be with a man than with you—what a loser.' "

But there are tentative signs of change. Pink Space, a Beijing-based sexuality research center, started a support group for homowives earlier this year—the first of its kind in China. Zhang Beichan, a director at the China Sexology Association, thinks the homowife "problem" is shrinking. "In 2005, a TV station put out a program about gay issues, and I introduced a homowife who talked about her problems. This was one of the first times this issue was introduced to the public. It had a very big impact—some gay men still share that program with their families when they are pressured into getting married. Also, there are more and more gay men coming out of the closet, and more awareness of gay issues."

Back at the fake-marriage market, Fen Yu and his friends see themselves as the "transitional" generation. While they can't come out to their parents, they can, at least, be open about their sexuality among friends, go to gay bars, and date. "For the generation after ours, it might be easier," he says, "Our parents have no idea what homosexuality is. It's very difficult, because it's just opening up."

If Fen becomes a father, his will be a different approach: "I might not be able to tell my parents," he says, "but when my child grows up, I will tell them the real story about why it happened and who I am."

Black Death and the Seeds of Bigotry

Bigotry, at least to me, can be divided into two distinct groups, those whose hatred of the GLBT is bone deep and unwavering, and those who can only be called "learned ignorant". While I hold out no hope for the hatred group, I do feel that the learned ignorant group holds the key to GLBT civil rights. Much of their "knowledge" about the GLBT comes from the tainted well source for the bdh's(bone deep haters) . How can we expect the L.L.(learned ignorance) to vote for our rights, to accept us as we are, unless we teach them the truth?

Let's go to the root of the hatred tree, that gay men are out there, waiting for their chance to molest their children. Where did this idea spring from? No, believe it or not it didn't spring from the overheated minds of the B.D.H.'s, it came from our distant past, but through the intervening centuries, things became a bit garbled to say the least. In ancient Greece, and later in the Roman Empire, it was common practice for adult men to have sex with teens, both male and female. The highest, purest love, in those ancient times, was between men, not between men and women. For the most part in those days, women were really only there for procreation purposes. They had no civil rights, and were property of their husbands. Men bonded with each other, emotionally and physically, and while I'm sure some men did the same with their wives, this bond was seen as being on a separate plain.

While sex between men was socially acceptable, there was unacceptable and in some instances unforgivable actions between men. The active partner was called the "lover" the passive one was termed the "beloved". It was unacceptable for adult men to be the "beloved". Any adult man who was known to be a "beloved" lost social standing, could be fined, or in extreme cases, put to death. It was the male teens who became the adults "beloved", because of their youth this was acceptable. These teen boys were taken under the wing of their "lover" learning about business, the world at large, and often completing their education under their "lover's" fond eye. Fathers would take their sons to places where they could catch the eye of a well placed man, hoping to place their sons with someone that could allow them to reach a higher status, or wealth.

Sex with children was considered as abhorrent then as it is now. Once a child of either sex started puberty, they were seen as possible sex partners. Around 12-13 a child of either sex was seen as a sexual being, and if you think back to yourself about this time, isn't this when you really started to think about sex? I think in some ways the society was much more honest about sex than it is now. There was a firm line where sexual interest was acceptable or very unacceptable. And through the long years from then to now, this socially understood line was lost, only leaving the memory of men having sex with children.

The Roman Catholic church believed that all sexual contact was immoral, yes all. There was only one thing that made sex acceptable at all in the eyes of the church was for procreation purposes. Any sex act that couldn't result in a child being conceived was considered a sin. Spilling seed without a womb to absorb it was sinful, no matter what sex the partner was. In trying to demonstrate to their congregation the chaos of unrestrained sex could cause a person to do, sex with children was drug out into the light of day. And if a man would rather spill his seed in such a sinful manner, what's to stop him from doing this with children, or animals, or even to himself? During this time period, men were having sex with each other and for the most part society left them alone. Then came the Black Plague, and life in Europe changed forever.

The plague came in waves over a hundred year period, with a fresh wave about every 20 years or so. Because no one understood what was going on, it was laid at the church's doorstep to explain matters. The church's answer was this was a plague from God cleaning out the sinners, obviously God didn't care about innocent victims in his rush to "cleanse" the earth of sin. This is where the first seeds of antisemitism came from, as the Jews were harried from country to country. City run brothels were closed down, as were tanners, butchers and men having sex with men. By the time they had gotten to the bottom of the sinner pile, the plague had passed and life slowly resumed in as normal a manner as possible. Until the next wave hit, and the carousel of hate would wind up again. This is where today's belief came from that God hates gays, and that gay men desire sex with children.

Oh? The other unforgivable item in ancient times? Yeah, you're going to just love this. In the gay world what is one of the biggest sins a guy can commit? You guessed it, being a feminine man. Being feminine in Rome could get one fined, flogged and banished from the city, or in extreme cases the ultimate punishment, death. So that hatred of feminine gay guys is unfortunately historical, isn't it about time we let that one go?

Mormons; The Other White Meat by religiousantagonist

Hey everyone this is Mike the Religious Antagonist … Biki and I have been messaging the last few days and I was asked to write a short intro to one of my videos for his Blog “You Could Have it So Much Better.”

I do a religious satire channel on youtube called the “Religious Antagonist,” and I think my latest videos sparked some interest from our beloved blog-master.

Certainly being no friend to the LGBT movement, the crimes against the LDS church run the gamut from bad taste and murder to justifying theological racism. The swipes that I take at the Mormons in my latest video (in my opinion) are perfectly defensible.

I hope that everyone enjoys the video below for what it is…a light-hearted teasing of a serious issue. We as a society have a long way to go for social justice; so let’s never forget the wrongs that have been committed against the progressive movement. However, we must also be willing to forgive those same wrongs or we will end up just as guilty as them.

Religiousantagonist channel
at Youtube.

Happy Pi Day!

                                                    Happy Pi Day!!

To celebrate this happy happy day,  w00t!! , Pi!, here's a listing of some nifty neat geek sites in the GLBT World.

gay geeks-

Gay Geeks is a forum for (duh) gay geeks of all types to hang out, chat, debate, rant, occasionally flirt shamelessly, and just generally chill. You don't have to be a computer geek, and you don't have to "prove" how geeky you are. It's all about self-identification, peeps. Just be whatever.
We're in a crazy alpha period right now, where I randomly add new features and break old ones all the time, while getting feedback from you guys. 

gay gamer - For boys who like boys who like joysticks!

teh gay geek -Tech news and info for ALL geeks. 011101000110010101101000001000000110011101100001011110010010000001100111011001010110010101101011



the gay gamer- I'm sure you can tell from the name of this blog what it's all about, but if not here's the scoop: I'm a gay guy and I like video games. I'm also a writer, and since I don't often get to write about games professionally I decided to find another outlet for my obsession. Hence, the creation of this blog.

gaymer-

When I began this site, alot of right wing gamers slammed me by saying, "Why do you need a 'Gay Gamers" site?  Just be a gamer no matter who or what you are.'

In a perfect world, this would be the case however we don't live in that world. 

The truth is, in the gaming community, there are some pretty staunchly homophobic players and Gaymer.org is about having fun without hearing the bashing.  So I give this site to you as a safe haven where gaming is the focus, not hate.

slashdot- this is a cool place to go for the extreme geeks.  This isnt an glbt site, so watch your step out there, some of these geeks are firmly homophobic. 


thinkgeek- best darned geek stuff all in one neat and tidy package!  toys, shirts, cube farm fun....  yes i know this is a online store, but really, the descriptions alone is worth the visit. 

ok, time for cake!

A Moral Case For LDS Same-Sex Marriage by Brad Carmack

I loved how he broke down the different stereotypes, one by one. Brad is obviously a deeply religious man, who after opening his heart and mind found that there isnt any difference between same sex marriage and opposite sex marriage. This man is a true christian. He needs to give lessons on how to walk in the light of God, with humility and reverence.

I for one am purchasing his book, if nothing else but to thank him for his open views.

Transgender Despair, by Charles Asher

New Hampsire Speakers Claim Gay Marriage Leads To Disease, Polgamy by Carlos Santoscoy

Opponents of gay marriage at a Thursday hearing in New Hampshire said they fear the institution because it leads to disease and polygamy.

Supporters of the state's year-old gay marriage law greatly outnumbered opponents during a hearing to consider two bills that aim to end the institution in the state.

According to the Nashua Telegraph, 45 people signed up in support of the bills and 545 opposed them.

One gay marriage foe told lawmakers that he was intimidated by the hundreds who showed up wearing red in support of the law.

“Many people were intimidated to come here,” the speaker said. “And by the way, for all of you dressed in red, you are very intimidating. Even to a man like me. And honestly I only have a fear of God more than I have a fear of man.”

Republican Senator Fenton Groen alleged that gay unions “significantly increase” the risk of “serious diseases” and “can be expected to significantly shorten” the lives of gay people.

Representative Alfred Baldasaro, who has previously likened gay marriage to polygamy and incest, repeated his claims.

During a 2010 hearing, the Republican said: “What about [laws] being disrespectful to sister-sister that love each other, sister-brother, sister-mom, incest, it's in there. Aren't we discriminating against all of them? What about the Muslims, now? Everyone's praising the Muslims that are killing us. What about them? They want three, four wives ...”

WTF is going on with Montana?

I'm worried that what's happening in Montana is just the tip of the iceberg, but at this point, I dont think so.  What's got me all fired up and worried?  Read on gentle bloggers...

House committee approves bill to nullify Missoula's equality ordinance

HELENA - The Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Monday that would effectively overturn Missoula's 2010 ordinance banning discrimination against city residents based on their sexual orientation and gender.
House Bill 516 by Rep. Kristin Hansen, R-Havre, now moves to the House floor for debate this week.
It would prohibit local governments from enacting ordinances or policies that seek to protect residents from real or perceived discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender as the cities of Missoula did through an ordinance and Bozeman did through a policy.
The panel voted earlier Monday to table HB514 by Rep. Edie McClafferty, D-Butte, which would have broadened the Montana Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination statewide based on gender identity or expression and sexual orientation. The move to table her bill came after the bill was rejected 14-6.
The state Human Rights Act now prevents discrimination based on age, marital status, national origin, physical or mental disability, political beliefs or ideas (in case of governmental services and employment rights only), race and color, religion and sex (including pregnancy, maternity and sexual harassments).
The committee's votes on both measures followed party lines, except that Rep. Liz Bangerter, R-Helena, joined Democrats in opposing HB516.
Afterward, Jamee Greer of the Montana Human Rights Network criticized the committee's decisions on the two bills.
"They have essentially made it clear that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Montanans are not equals and that they believe the LGBT people do not deserve the same protections as anyone else," he said.
During committee discussions, there was little debate on either bill, with Democrats doing most of the talking.
Before the vote on the McClafferty bill, Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, spoke out for the bill.
"As an out member of the lesbian community, you may never have experienced discrimination based on sexual orientation, but I have," she said, adding. "In many ways, I am not your peer. I am probably the only person - well, not in this room - who can be asked to leave a restaurant, denied housing, refused to be allowed into a hotel simply because of sexual orientation.
"It is a fact that I am not protected under the law. You can go ahead and vote against this bill, which I know you will, but that's a fact, and I want to you to know the face of a person who's affected by it and it's me."
During the discussion on Hansen's bill, Sands told the committee that passing HB516 would encourage discrimination.
Hansen didn't speak Monday, but at the hearing Friday she said, "The crux of my testimony today is that I believe the Montana Human Rights Act pre-empts the city of Missoula from doing this."
Rep. Michael More, R-Gallatin Gateway, said Monday, "Are you going to do things in one city different than another city? We try to put things in contexts of the whole."
Missoulian State Bureau reporter Charles S. Johnson can be reached at (406) 447-4066 or at chuck.johnson@lee.net.
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_365177d2-3df0-11e0-9574-001cc4c002e0.html

If this law passes, then LGBT are exposed and defenseless.  I'm worried that Montana is a "test" state, to see how easy it is to pass anti-LGBT legislation. Because what ever legal ground we have manage to attain could all be washed away, state by state, with Montana showing how it's done.  I'm usually a very optimistic person, but when I read this, all I saw was a empty broken glass.  Between the tea baggers and the religious right, I'm afraid that life could become very different and quite quickly for our "family".  If this passes, there will be no stopping them from enacting many other anti-LGBT laws, possibly culminating in outlawing homosexuality.  Unless the federal government steps up and leads from the white house, with a full on war against hate, hate laws, and lack of civil rights aimed at all LGBT, then I shudder to think what our future could look like.  But then, I read this....and realize that things could be even bleaker than I thought....

Gov. Schweitzer: 'Nullification' bills in Montana Legislature are 'anti-American'

 

HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer told fellow Democrats Monday that bills advancing in the Republican-controlled Legislature to "nullify" federal laws in Montana are "anti-American" and do nothing to solve problems faced by the state.
Schweitzer, speaking to a meeting of House Democrats, said if Montanans and others disagree with federal polices, they can advocate for Congress to change them.
"But a state like Montana saying, ‘We will pick and choose which laws we will enforce?' " the governor said. "That's not the American way. ...
"Some of these (bills) are actually passing. ... The nullifying bills are anti-American."
Nearly a dozen bills to declare federal authority "null and void" or unenforceable in Montana have been introduced by Republicans at the 2011 Legislature. Some of the bills have been killed; some are still alive. (See related story.)
On Saturday, the House voted 61-39 for a bill to nullify the federal Endangered Species Act in Montana. All House Democrats and seven Republicans voted against it.
Other nullification bills and resolutions have taken aim at federal health-reform laws, food-safety legislation and the Environmental Protection Agency's authority on greenhouse gases.
One bill would set up a permanent legislative commission to review all federal law for potential nullification; a resolution endorsed Monday by a House panel says Montana can protect itself against "federal incursion" that violates personal freedoms.
Schweitzer walked unannounced into a House Democrats' meeting Monday morning and started talking about the nullification bills, saying they don't represent Montana values and "make us look like we're harkening back to the days of South Carolina" and the Civil War.
"Could you ask (Republicans) just once - Does (this) create a job?" he said. "Does it educate a child? Does it help even one disabled person?"
House Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, brushed off Schweitzer's comments as political theater, and said voters should judge the Republican-controlled Legislature on the work it will complete to help revitalize the economy and bring jobs to the state.
"When all is said and done, that will define what we've done here," he said.
McGillvray also said every lawmaker has the right to introduce bills important to them and their constituents, and that leadership doesn't control them or wish to restrain their enthusiasm.
"We have a lot of passionate representatives (in our caucus)," he said.
House Minority Leader Jon Sesso, D-Butte, said the federal government is "inextricably linked" to the state's economy, with Montana receiving much more in federal funds than its citizens pay in taxes.
"We've earned that money," he said. "If there's something we don't like, we need to work to change it ... not just walk away from it."
Missoulian State Bureau reporter Mike Dennison can be reached at 1-800-525-4920 or at mike.dennison@lee.net.
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_1fc9e9ac-3e47-11e0-92b6-001cc4c03286.html

What say you?  Am I jumping at mere shadows?  Or do you agree with me, and things are looking very scary?

Gay Youth 'Safe Houses' remain 'hidden' in California

Wow.........I had no idea that there were even such things out there. That these kids are on the run like this, afraid, without a home, without much hope really at all.

While I think fighting for civil rights, ie marriage and ENDA is very important, the needs of these kids need to be addressed. There has to be some way for these "hospitals" to be shut down, and for good. If it's a legal loophole that allows for these places to stay in business, that loophole must be changed.

These places need to be raided, all employees arrested, and the children removed to foster care, or half way houses, but NOT returned to the care of their parents. If the legal penalties were the maximum allowed by the statues, AND if the churches behind them were also taken to court, we might just see an end to this nonsense.

San Francisco to Advertise Female Condom to Gay Men by Alex Blaze

The ads themselves haven't been released yet, but the Bay Area Reporter is reporting that the city of San Francisco will start a campaign for the female condom female-condom.gif(also known as the Reality condom) for men who have sex with men.

In 2009 the FDA approved a new version of the condom that was cheaper, thinner, and better-designed, and promoted it for use in vaginal sex. Such ads aren't likely to get men who have sex with men to use it since they might not know that it works for anal sex or how to use it (video after the jump - it's different from the other condoms you've met). Plus, if they keep on referring to it as the "female condom," it might make it hard to get men to use it.

That's only a year and a half after the new one was approved and over a decade after the old version was approved - you can feel the pressure to prevent an epidemic. My guess is that promoting the female condom will provide more protection than promoting, say, circumcision, but the latter gets debated back and forth and back and forth... while the former is forgotten.

It's not for everyone, some people will prefer it and some people will like the old-school condoms better, but the more effective choices for STD prevention there are out there, the better.

Dr. Phil Doesn't Want 'Confused' Boys to Play with 'Girls' Toys by Alex Blaze

I don't particularly like Dr. Phil's brand of pop psychology, which is more focused on being normal than it is on being happy. No matter how many times he asks "How's that working for you?" it's fairly clear that he hardly cares if the people who ask him for help are actually happy and is more concerned with telling people to be normal based on a very American bourgeois narrative of How Life Works.

dr_phil.jpgSo no matter how many shows he does about gay teen suicide, he's going to be one of the forces promoting internalized homophobia among young people. Consider this segment from a recent show where a mom asked what to do about her son playing with girls' toys:

Robby's 5-year-old son loves to play with Barbies and prefers wearing girl's clothes. She asks Dr. Phil how to deal with this behavior, which she doesn't think is normal.[...]

Dr. Phil tells Robby that she has a job to do: "Direct your son in an unconfusing way. Don't buy him Barbie dolls or girl's clothes. You don't want to do things that seem to support the confusion at this stage of the game ... Take the girl things away, and buy him boy toys."

Most importantly, he tells Robby, "Support him in what he's doing, but not in the girl things."

It's not hard to imagine Pat Robertson saying the same thing.

Dr. Phil's style works for what he does. No one wants to actually watch a real psychologist talk to a patient for hours, discussing how to best reach the patients' goals and with no concrete advice, no finger-wagging, and no scolding. He has to have a formula to fall back on, an understanding of what people should be doing that doesn't require him to actually know much about other people's lives, and it makes for better TV.

And, surprise surprise, in the lowest common denominator world of television entertainment, the easiest narrative of normality is straight, white, Christian, and middle-class.

So while he assures the mother that her child is just going through a phase, he makes sure to tell her that it's her "job" to shame her son into acting more macho. Send him a "direct message" that he's a boy, just in case he forgot (since people have a way of just forgetting their gender like that), and a direct message that being himself is unacceptable.

The goal is not to make this boy happy. What the boy wants does not concern Dr. Phil; he neither asks about it nor does he respect what he's told the boy wants, advising the mother to steam-roll over her son's personality and force him to replace his desires with other desires.

The goal is to make the boy normal, because everyone's goal in life is to make the Dr. Phils of the world more comfortable.

Russian HIV Ad

Weapon Detected from Georgy Molodtsov on Vimeo.

This ad is the best of both worlds, sexy and it gets the message across.

Injustice at Every Turn by Rea Carey

When I was a young person living in Washington, D.C., in 1995, a well-known local hairstylist was driving home one night and her car hit a tree. Paramedics rushed to the scene and cut off her clothes in an attempt to provide lifesaving medical care.

When they saw that Tyra Hunter was transgender, the medic swore at Ms. Hunter and stopped all medical treatment.

Stopped all medical treatment.

Tyra Hunter died later that night, and today, the discrimination and abuse that caused Tyra Hunter’s entirely preventable death are still firmly in place. I could not help but think of Tyra when I read the following comments that are part of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality’s just-released report, "Injustice at Every Turn."

“The fear of being the victim of a hate crime has also meant that I haven't lived completely freely; I know that if people on the street knew that I was born female, I'd be at risk of violence or harassment.”

“People are suffering in my school. There are so many trans kids that just can't come out because they are afraid.”

“I have been harassed and physically assaulted on the street. One time, I didn't go to the hospital until I went home, changed [out of feminine] clothes, and then went to the emergency room in male mode. I had a broken collarbone as a result of that attack.”

These are the words of transgender and gender-nonconforming Americans, and sadly, their experiences are not uncommon. The hunger to be visible, to share experiences of harm and resiliency is notable, as this became the largest ever study of its kind. A total of 6,500 transgender and gender-nonconforming people from all 50 states and several territories shared with us their experiences of discrimination.

The data we collected was shocking. I know firsthand, from my friends and my work at the Task Force, that discrimination remains a tragic fact of life for far too many in our community. I know that if we do not act in stereotypical “male” or “female” ways, many take this nonconformity as an open invitation to harass or act violently toward us.

Even with all I have seen over the years, the picture coming out of our study is deeply disturbing. Transgender individuals live in poverty at nearly four times the national rate. They are twice as likely to be unemployed. Over 25% reported that they had lost a job due to their transgender identity. They are twice as likely to be homeless, four times more likely to be HIV-positive, and perhaps most appallingly, 41% have attempted suicide, more than 26 times the rate (1.6%) of the general population.

These are not problems that any of us who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or civil rights-minded, progressive, or feminist can afford to ignore.

People of color consistently experienced the greatest degree of discrimination, especially African-Americans. They had four times the unemployment rate of the nation, and had over 40 times the general population rate of HIV infection.

This must stop. Let us all make this the moment that the civil rights, progressive, feminist, and LGBT rights movements wake up and change the way we do our work. No longer can the needs of transgender and gender-variant people in our society, in our organizations, and in our communities be pushed to the side. It is literally killing people and we must work together to stop it.

While great strides have been made for equality in the last several decades, most recently with the powerful repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the last letter in “LGBT” has simply not seen the same progress. Indeed, the successful repeal of DADT will still not allow out transgender people to serve in the military.

Sadly, even some members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community turn our backs on transgender people. And yet our struggle is one that is shared. Each of us has a gender identity and gender expression. and those of us who diverge from the norm are subject to the same discrimination. Feminine gay men and masculine or androgynous lesbians are far more likely to be discriminated against than gay men and lesbians whose behavior and appearance conforms more to societal norms about how men and women “should” act. Simply by being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, we are breaking society’s rules about what it means to be a man or woman.

Transgender people face this same prejudice, yet taken to the life-threatening extreme. This is about all of us. For those who do not think so, I hope this information will be a wake-up call and an opportunity to examine their feelings and yes, biases, that prevent our community from uniting in the ways we must to achieve equal treatment for all of us.

This report is a clarion call to all of us, and its findings cannot be ignored. We must stand against all forms of discrimination and end injustice for all LGBT people, wherever it exists. Together, we can eliminate this prejudice and work toward a society where we are all truly free to be who we are. There is a role for each of us in reckoning with the pervasive inhumanity we’ve documented in this report.

Transgender people are discriminated against because they don’t act or look in a way that fits with conventional ideas about gender. All men, women and children – regardless of how they identify – are hurt by these rigid gender codes. They suppress authentic expression throughout our society and negatively impact relationships across gender, as family, friends, coworkers and spouses “police” acceptable gender expression.

If there was a ray of light in our study findings, it is in the resilience of transgender people and their families. Contrary to popular mythology, transgender people often maintain ties with their families of origin and their spouses, partners and children. We found that family acceptance had a protective affect against suicide, HIV, homelessness and other negative consequences of discrimination for study participants. This finding affirms what we know as advocates working on the front lines: families are enormously burdened by the hostile environments their transgender children, spouses and parents are living in, but they press on.

They often strain to find a way out of no way.

Over 1,000 people came to Tyra Hunter’s funeral in DC. Her high school shop teacher, her parents, her clients, and her big, extended family. But no medic was ever disciplined or fired because of what happened that night. This report is written to draw a line in the sand against this pervasive inhumanity in our midst.

We all need to use this opportunity to change the way we work and live to create a world that affirms the humanity of and empowers transgender people to fully participate in our society. We must all work strenuously and continuously for justice.

http://www.advocate.com/News/News_Features/Injustice_at_Every_Turn/

You can read the report yourself by googling Injustice at Every Turn.  It is a PDF file.

Bigotry and inciting violence, just a normal day

Transgender Man Denied A Marriage License in Oakland County: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Ok, maybe he should have gotten a new birth certificate before trying to get married. I mean he has to know the amount of bigotry loose in the world. But still he had the important piece of paper showing that he is legally a male. I found the story here.  Now, I should have known that anything posted on this website would be not tolerant of GLBT people, but some of what they did say blew me away.  Here are the couple that really bothered me:

Regardless of surgery the DNA chromosomal makeup remains the same either XY or XX.

She was born with a Uterus for a reason.... the same reason she was born without a peenis

“You don’t need a penls to become a man,” ???? what planet did this /diot come from ,,, even if he does not believe in g0d,,, nature says he's a fool,,, either way, he lose's 

I am continually surprised by peoples stupidly, bigotry, and the ease with which we hate others that are different. Why is that? What is hard wired within humans that causes us to easily hate members of our own species?

It seemingly takes a certain amount of time before the hated group begins to be absorbed into our society. When the hatred that had been focused looses it't target, a new victim must be found to be the scapegoat. Throughout the history of our country many groups have shared the hate spotlight, and each of them have lost their status as "most hated" and really the only ones left to center the bright hot hate light on is the GLBT.

Today over at I should be laughing, Bob was talking about the hate that Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish have had heaped upon them. Ok, so I get it, many religious people don't agree with gays and lesbians being parents. And thats fine, it's an opinion, it shouldn't be the law of the land, but one can hold whatever opinion they wish.

However, this is where I begin to get mad, play along with me ok? You are watching the news, and they are airing a segment talking about issues within the black community, let's say education. The program will have on talking heads to discuss the "problem" Experts in education, possibly a concerned parent or two. This would not even get an eye blink from you, yeah? Its news as usual. Now, along with the education experts and a parent, add in a member of the Klu Klux Klan. Can you imagine the fire storm that would occur? Yeah, and rightly so.

None of the news agencies anywhere within our country, no matter how bigoted the area is, would ever even consider adding in a hate group to talk about black issues. Why oh why do the news agencies feel that its ok to invite GLBT hate groups to talk about issues that concern us? Where is our firestorm to burn this sort of mass stupidity out of society? The only thing that comes to mind is for GLBT and our allies to band together to protest loudly every time they do something this hurtful, this stupid, and this dangerous.

Dangerous?

Yes, dangerous. Because society sanctioned open hate causes violence. It allows parents to throw their children out for being GLBT. Children absorb the views of their parents, and this is the leading cause of bullying in schools.

Could it be the news people are clueless? Could it be that in trying to be fair to both sides, they don't realize what they are perpetuating? Yes, I've told you before my glass is nearly full, rabid optimist here. Having said that, the only reason things changed for blacks is because they stopped sitting in the back of the bus, stopped paying attention to the signs, and started making noise. I know, they are visible for all to see, and for the most part we are not. Could it be that it's time for us to make some noise, to become visible, to speak up when ever we hear the rude comments?

This summer one of my son's girl friends, was talking about a worker in a local store. She kept referring to her as "it" Why? Well because this is a transwoman, and she doesn't "pass" well. I told her,"That isn't nice! Stop it! She's a person, a human." I'm not sure if it made any impact on her, but I wasn't going to sit an let her say cruel things. I have stopped these females of my son's several times before about saying horrid things about GLBT before. And what strikes me so odd? Is I have never heard any of our sons say one nasty word against GLBT, ever! Why they didn't attract a more tolerant brand of females is beyond me.

Acceptance and love can be bigger than hate, and their is plenty for all.