Trans/plant/portation

I want to offer a suggestion, of sorts, that is born out of decades of research. Well, not really research so much as a lifetime of experience with front-line medical staff, the stories from my friends, and the reading I’ve done as an adult about where our health care system is weak, and who falls through the cracks in its tired structure. No way is any of this scientifically stated, and hopefully I won’t rely on generalizations to make my points, but I’m sure if I do, someone will point it out to me. So let me just jump in with my suggestion.

Health care and health insurance ought to be the next priority for the queer community. Read More…

When I was in college, I went with three of my best friends to a queer student conference at the University of Delaware, three states away from our university. We were happy to meet up with other student activists, but it was arguable that we were more delighted to get a break from the snowy winter of Central New York. Once we were there, reality swept over us; some of the workshops seemed more than a mite problematic. One panel discussion on finding common ground between lesbians and bisexual women failed almost from the outset, with the facilitator asking rather loaded questions, like “So, what do you fear, Patty, about dating Marcy, because she’s bi?” After putting pressure on the facilitator for exaggerating the “danger” of bisexual people in relationships—for surely, it hurts just as much to be dumped for another woman as it would for a man—we walked out of the workshop, trying to figure out how to regroup. And within ten minutes a friend of ours came into the lounge where we were, with tears in his eyes. I asked him what was wrong. He said nothing, he’d just never been in a space before where everyone was gay and black, and he didn’t have to listen to anyone’s racism or homophobia. And realizing how often he’d been ducking between those things, well, now he was frustrated and angry.

In this 2010 midterm election season I’ve been struck by all of the assaults, left and right, that zing at us on a daily basis. In the midst of what feels like a violent, national food fight, I’ve learned to let a lot of things go, mostly for my own sanity. But one issue I don’t think I can dodge anymore is the transphobia within my own beloved LGBT community. Read More…

More than a month ago the media began covering a few—certainly not all—stories about young LGBT people killing themselves. Actually, the majority of the suicides covered were of young gay men. But aside from a critique of the reporting, something else important was mentioned in almost every news report about gay youth suicide: they were the victims of bullying. Read More…

In the early aughts I had occasion to explore the offices of the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, DC. By law, these folks must investigate every plane accident that happens in the country, even the very minor ones. It’s up to their discretion if they examine a railroad incident, car accident, metro train derailing, and so on, but of course they have all of the equipment they need to deconstruct the physical remnants of these human tragedies if they opt to take on a case. It comes down to the seriousness of the event and the staff resources at that moment. Read More…

Photo courtesy of See-ming Lee

I wrote last week about the sudden newsworthiness of LGBT youth suicide. Certainly it’s been around for decades, and there have been and are people who study these people and these moments, but collectively, their work, analysis, and recommendations haven’t made it to center stage. So it frustrates me to see personalities emerge from the woodwork to tout their initiatives, as if we’re seeing a meteoric rise in suicide, or as if the world merely needed their guidance to avert the tide of anguish. Read More…

There’s an entertaining show about cancer on Showtime, The Big C. This is out of alphabetical order with The L Word, an entirely different, and now completed, series about lesbian life in LA—and which shock of shocks, looks nothing like any actual lesbian’s life I’ve ever known. HBO has its pluralist wives show, Big Love, which hasn’t worked so well for a reality series, Sister Wives, over on TLC. Apparently The Learning Channel wants to learn us some polygamy? I’m not sure. But in this television is a window into our culture thang, there are some obvious disconnects, and not just having to do with the preponderance of overly made up, coiffed women near Rodeo Drive.

Four boys made headlines in the news in these last three weeks, four boys—one of whom was 18 but for all intents and purposes still had the thinking processes and responses of an adolescent—who took their own lives because of bullying, more specifically, anti-gay bullying. You’d think this sort of situation had never happened before. But that’s just because we’ve turned away from admitting we have a long-standing problem with youth suicide. Read More…

This story is old. Old, old, old, like nearly two decades worth of mold growth old. But as I’m otherwise occupied today, with writing something new and inventive and much better than this, I thought I’d share. The story here today is not entirely based on a new story, but it certainly has elements of early 1990s Syracuse. Enjoy!

It’s about the size of a typical urban efficiency apartment, with a faded certificate of occupancy stuck on the wall by the front door, probably with some bouncer’s chewing gum, announcing it is fit to house 35 people legally. Thirty-five dyke pygmies, maybe, but not 35 wide-assed people. Smoke hangs next to the low ceiling, hovering around the light over the small and slanted pool table, a cheap but efficient way of adding a dramatic atmosphere to both the serious and poseur sharks who swim underneath it. Most of the patrons use pool-playing as a tried and true method of picking up dates, but this usually leads to them slamming the stick into the cue ball too hard, ricocheting the shot out of the hole and ending in a staccato set of swears as they express their “disappointment.”

My friends and I have just entered the place for the third time in five days because one of them has a new crush on a townie who usually hangs out here. Usually, however, being the relative term that it is, has not included any of these three nights, and has led directly to my frustration at winding up in this dump once again, cheap beer or no cheap beer. Read More…

My premiere gay parade took place in Syracuse, New York, in the early 90s, heralding the theme of Out*Rage*Us, which hopefully is self-explanatory as a message. We were 300 brave-enough-to-march souls: the owner of My Sister’s Words, the feminist bookstore, several students and staff from Syracuse University, a few employees of Carrier air conditioners, a few more from the local Phillips Magnavox factory, and some other locals. We took all morning to ready some jury-rigged floats and signs, and marched down what was likely the shortest parade route I’ve ever seen—four blocks in Syracuse’s downtown. The actual marching was over in minutes. We didn’t even have a chance to get bunched up as paraders, and that never gets avoided. It would be a couple of years before I would march in New York City’s Pride parade and if this was a triumphant moment for a newbie gay, that was like being dropped in the middle of Mecca at pilgrimage time.

Many years later, I moved to DC and grimaced every time I saw the “Capital” Pride signs. It’s Capitol, people, like the place, not like the investment. Whatever, they stick with this egregious error like it’s a tradition. Maybe nobody wants to buy out whoever owns capitolpride.org.

I’ve gone to this DC parade at least a half dozen times since I moved here, and it’s always the same:

• It’s totally over-commercialized. I swear I have heard an MC at the musical stage, next to the actual Capitol building, proclaim, “Welcome to DC Pride, sponsored by Absolut! and Bank of America! Because every LGBT-identifying person needs to be drunk while wielding a checking account. What? This year they even had a “float” for Frito-Lay. Frito-freakin-Lay, people. This “float” was a Frito-Lay delivery truck with some rainbow flags duct-taped to the sides. This is what Susanne refers to as a “phoned in” float, cuz I know that truck just ditched the flags and turned the corner onto Massachusetts to make deliveries to the Giant Foods store like it’d never been throwing bags of Doritos into the streets for free. Damn closeted Frito-Lay truck.
• It’s too hot to cheer. I understand the Stonewall Inn riots happened on June 28, 1969. It was New York City’s finests’ problem that they pissed people off in the heat. And now it’s every queermo’s problem, as we stand around fanning ourselves with moist paper, waiting for an interesting float to pass by, or at least the DC Cowboys. They shoulda done better at the America’s Got Talent show. If they can stay synchronized on a moving truck bed, well, that would throw people like Susan Boyle, I bet. The heat melts us all so quickly, even with the parade starting at 6:30, the best we can do is attempt to remain vertical, although clapping does generate a pithy breeze.
• There are too many straight people. I can tell that DuPont isn’t the gay central it used to be, because I saw a hell of a lot of confused-looking straightniks yesterday, walking across the street, some of them in the middle of say, marching bands. People, that is rude as all get out! Pretend just for this evening that you’re afraid of us, okay? Next thing you know they’ll be pushing their baby strollers through Robert Novak’s funeral procession. I bet that actually happened.
• Too many politicians come a’calling. Every single person running for every single office in a 40-mile radius was in the parade yesterday. The current mayor. The wannabe mayors. The folks running for council. The council-at-large contenders. Sheesh, I just wanted them to go away. Ain’t nobody gonna vote for them just because they showed up for the Big Gay Parade. It’s a Democratic city, you better be gay-friendly! Walking in a parade is the least you can do, especially when your GLBT Affairs Office does nothing for the community (I’m looking at you, Fenty).
• Confusion regarding what kind of parade this was. All of the aforementioned politicians brought with them mardi gras beads, each some kind of color that was supposed to indicate which politician one supported. In this regard, it was coincidental that many of the folks running for office had colors for surnames: Orange, Gray, Brown. But clearly, the most gay-friendly pols were the ones who tossed us rainbow-colored necklaces. Susanne remarked that no way was she going to flash anyone for beads.

We watched, we waited, we saw all manner of church groups trolling for more congregants—excuse me, recruiting, excuse me communicating about their services—and we began wondering where the leather-clad men wearing chaps were all at. It’s not a gay parade without furry butts to avoid seeing.

At some point, our feet began signaling their discomfort, but there was nary a bench or spare spot of curb. The parade was in full tilt, bands of PFLAG people, united Methodists, gay foreign service workers (only in DC’s parade), and the always lively Different Drummers. Very few activist groups, and certainly none of the intentional freaks of the April Fool’s Day Parade in San Francisco graced the asphalt. If conservatives like Rush and Ann Coulter are concerned for the revolutionary potential of this assembly, rest assured they need not be.

The parade was drawing down, and I heard someone near me catch their breath. Up in the sky, a rainbow. A real rainbow.

Apparently God showed up at the event!