Get out and march!

Today’s the day to march, rally, speak out and take actions for Harvey Milk Day! Watch this 10-minute TV interview with Milk in 1978, the year he was assassinated

Action today for Trans-Inclusive ENDA!

DEMAND a Trans-inclusive ENDA Now!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Federal Plaza, downtown Chicago

230 S. Dearborn —12 Noon

Harvey Milk Week Action Committee

Contact: Lindsey Dietzler-773-554-0085

Join activists in a FLASHMOB to present the letter below to Senator Richard Durbin demanding a transgender-inclusive ENDA in 2010

While we are pleased to note that Senator Richard Durbin has co-sponsored the latest Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the levels of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) workers in this country, creates an urgent need for Senator Durbin to take a more public stance. We ask that he sign our pledge below calling for his forceful advocacy for passage of a transgender-inclusive ENDA this year.

While polls show that 89 percent of the overall population—and 77 percent of Republicans—support workplace equality for LGBTQ people, fear-mongering and transphobic rhetoric are being spread and echoed by the far right. Now that it is becoming less palatable to openly discriminate against lesbians and gays, transgender people have become the primary targets of the culture war.

According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 97 percent have experienced mistreatment, harassment or discrimination on the job. Of those surveyed, 47 percent were denied a job, a promotion or were fired because of their gender identity. Despite higher levels of education than the population at large, 15 percent of transgender people earn less than $10,000 per year, twice the national average for that income level. Twenty-seven percent reported incomes of $20,000 or less. Meanwhile, only 21 states and the District of Columbia mandate workplace protections for sexual orientation, and a mere 12 states provide legal protection for gender identity. As you know, the nation’s largest employer, the U.S. military, is exempted from ENDA and will remain a closet for LGBTQ military service-people until Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed.

Hundreds of organizations have signed on to demand passage of ENDA Now (http://endanow.com/). We ask you, Senator Durbin, to gather your colleagues in the Senate and stand before the media to address this crisis in the American workplace head-on. Passage of ENDA this year would be a crucial step in our struggle for full federal equality.

Pledge:

I, Senator Richard Durbin, agree to stand before my colleagues in the U.S. Senate and the media to forcefully declare the urgent need for a transgender-inclusive ENDA in 2010. While all LGBTQ people in this country remain second-class citizens, it is a crisis that 97 percent of transgender people, according to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, have experienced mistreatment, harassment or discrimination on the job.

Federally-sanctioned discrimination of the millions of U.S. workers who are sexual minorities must finally pass into history. The time is now to stop the lies, the scapegoating and the bigotry against those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. I appeal to my colleagues in the Senate to end our sad history of anti-LGBTQ bigotry and pass a transgender-inclusive ENDA in 2010.

What is it going to take?

Even before I stepped out into the activist world, a year ago last week, I was aware of what needed to be done to get our Movement going. I had read books, I had read news stories, I had read the blogs, and I wrote my own. Yet, just weeks into my tenure, I discovered that the complacency in our community was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. So many gay men and lesbians (and even some transgender people) had accepted the status quo and lived their everyday lives without so much as a gasp for freedom.

So what is it going to take?

When the Mormon Church rode into towns all over California with their fat wallets and their insistent and hateful religious philosophies, and more than five million people bought into it and voted away marriage equality in November of 2008, something blew up. Stonewall 2.0 emerged and hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets with an incomparable disgust and passion for change on November 15, 2008. In the weeks and months that followed, though, those same people who nearly rioted in streets all over the nation went back to their regular everyday working worlds. By the time Pride weekend emerged in 2009, four more states had legalized same-sex marriage, but it was the same few people who cared and blogged about it.

So what is it going to take?

The anti-marriage equality campaign that reared its ugly head in the State of Maine in the months after Pride made barely a whisper sound to the majority of the LGBT population. And when Prop 8 cloned itself in the form of Question 1 in Maine on Election Day last year, the rallies that followed were Girl Scout cookies and skim milk compared to the raucous full-fat anger of a year before. It became clear that the National Equality March was little more than an exciting field trip to our Nation’s Capital for many in October of 2009, as the fire and passion from the 2.5-mile march through its streets and the rally that followed failed to burn for long. Suddenly, the marriage equality legislation that seemed sure in New York and New Jersey died quickly, and 2010 started up as the year of indifference for the LGBT population – both outside and inside.

So what is it going to take?

I am watching the meticulous planning and extraordinary actions of Queer Rising and GetEQUAL, and I am training with them, working with them. I am seeing the conferences that Equality Across America has encouraged, as they bring hundreds of people into the same small buildings where they might learn how to create and build this Movement further. I am stepping up in my hometown of Boston to help guide our local group, one of the last of its kind after the passage of Proposition 8, so that we can assist in securing rights and protections for the transgender community here, then work on issues in the national Movement. And I see very few alongside us.

What will it take before we wake up and realize that, without more people to care, without more people to work, without more people to step up to the plate and take risks and take action, we are going to lose? Some of us toss a modest three-figure sum to the HRC every year, thinking that is our contribution. Do we pay attention, though? Do we see that passage of an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act may not happen this year? Do we see that a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act may not happen at all? Do we see that people in our own community may be bartering away our rights in between dinner party planning sessions to create a comfortable schedule for our legislators?

We might lose, and it’s going to take a lot more than eating chicken piccata in our evening wear and some spare cash from a coffee jar to win. 

So what is it going to take to get people to wake up? What if we lose a more liberal majority in our Congress in the midterm elections? What if our president, who would sign an inclusive ENDA, who would support a repeal of DOMA or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, loses a second term to a disturbingly evangelical autocrat who would just as soon see us perish in the fiery pits of his hell than reach full equality?

We might hate the words of older activists like Larry Kramer, as the fires he lights singe every single one of our asses, but sometimes that’s what we need to hear. We might prefer our cocktail parties with friends in Chelsea or West Hollywood or the South End or Boys Town, because they’re safer, more enjoyable, less work. We might prefer that Pride is as simple as getting drunk and laid with our rainbow flags about us. But if we ever want full protections under the law, if we ever want to be truly safe, we need to listen to people like Kramer, put down our cocktail glasses, take our legs out of the air, and put them down on the street, and start marching.

We need to clue ourselves into the networks that are being built around us by Equality Across America, GetEQUAL and Queer Rising, we need to find a role that works to save us even when it disturbs our personal comfort zones, and we need to work until we arrive. As it is, the thousands of same-sex couples who have married in their own states are still filing separate tax returns with the federal government, and missing out on 1,100 other benefits that should be guaranteed them. More than 13,000 military personnel who identify as gay or lesbian have found themselves out of a job. And nearly every transgender person alive is unable to find suitable employment so they can live like normal people, somewhere above the poverty line.

We need to wake up and listen to the voices of our community, to the leadership who have put their lives on the line for our freedoms. Because if every one of us put just a couple of hours each week into that which matters for everyone’s rights and protections, our voices combined will be overwhelming. They will stop traffic and silence our naysayers and create an undeniable strength from one coast to the other. The rallies that followed the passage of Proposition 8 will be a whisper in comparison.

When we do this, we will be heard. And we will win.

Regards,

David Mailloux
Organizer, Join the Impact Massachusetts

New Dating Rule: Not Worthy of Marriage Unless You’d Risk Imprisonment or Hard Labor

Today is International Day Against Homophobia, and is also the kick-off day to EAA’s Harvey Milk Day week of action.

Activists in 20 states and 26 cities have events planned for Harvey Milk’s birthday on May 22nd.  Didn’t know about these events? Come out from under your rock (those without internet access excused) and see if there’s one in your town.  I’ve organized a couple protests with 6 days notice, so if you need emotional support to plan one last minute, I am here.  Haha.

But seriously, today is a day ACROSS THE WORLD people recognize the fact that homophobia is a global illness that causes people to look solely on outside characteristics instead of the one single characteristic that brings members of our society together.

WE ARE HUMAN.

I logged into Equality Across America’s Facebook account today and saw a link for a petition to UNICEF and the UN to stop Malawi from sentencing a queer couple to 14 years prison and hard labor for having a marriage ceremony.

I walk around Boystown and feel like I’m in a sea of dating opportunities, because that’s what Boystown is in Chicago on any given moment.  But these two people in love had a ceremony because it’s their human right to love in a societal climate exactly the opposite to what I’m used to.

Then I got to thinking about getting married, which usually causes a slight bit of nausea for a few minutes…but then that nausea went away.  Now I know how I’ll know when I’ve met the “one.”

My new dating rule:  Not worthy of marriage unless you would risk imprisonment or hard labor.

Even with my twenties-driven mind completely not focused on getting hitched, I know I will because deep down I know I’m a sap.  I know I’ll fall head over heels in love and it will make all my previous dating adventures a bad dream.  I’ll want to marry him, even if Ann Coulter becomes the president of the United States with Sarah Palin as her vice president.

If it was love I knew needed to be announced, nothing would stop me.

Would it stop you?

Please sign the petition to help this LGBTQ couple live their life in peace.

Bring visibility to International LGBTQ Issues, because in most cases, people have got it way worse.

-Nik Maciejewski

Todos Somos Puerto Rico!

I’ve just returned from San Juan where I had been invited to speak on the LGBT movement in the United States prior to the nearly 4-week-old strike at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). Instead, I spoke inside the gates of the student-occupied campus about the global crisis from UPR to Arizona and the crushing need to build international solidarity.

The t-shirts many student strikers are wearing read: “Todos los Derechos para Todos los Amores”—All the Rights for all the Loves. Solidarity with our brothers and sisters fighting privatization, cuts and homophobia at UPR on this International Day Against Homophobia!

-Sherry Wolf

Purposeful Prose and Poetry: The International Day Against Homophobia

Author’s Note: I know this is a long one but some times the best way to say things it to just say it {straight with no chaser}!

May 17, 2010 is the International Day Against Homophobia. Appropriately so, Equality Across America has chosen this date to kick of their “Week of Local Actions” to conclude on May 22, 2010 {Harvey Milk’s Birthday}. Harvey Milk was as monumental to our movement as Abraham Lincoln was to the emancipation of slavery. He turned an Irish Catholic neighborhood into a thriving Gayborhood {the Castro District}.  In a time where we have daily dances with Ellen and drag races with RuPaul that may not seem like a feat. But consider this: We have gay clubs that can’t last a year and he created a gay district that still exists today. Milk would have been 80 years old. But instead he was silenced by a slave to ignorance. I state it that way because you must be taught to hate. You aren’t born with an affinity or disdain toward a specific color, class, creed or sexual orientation. You have to be conditioned that way. When I spoke at the National Equality March, I said; “show the bullies in school and in society that the insecurities of others are not a reflection of who you are but of who they as persecutors are not”. Dan White {the man that assassinated Milk} was petrified by Milk’s purpose. Often times that is a catalyst {along with pure ignorance and hatred} for trans/homophobic hate crimes.

We have so many “days”… Coming Out Day, Trans Day of Remembrance, May Day. It is possible that we have just become conditioned or use to it. But these “days” have a purpose! Do you remember how long Matthew Shephard was tied to that fence where he was left to die? Do you remember seeing Sakia Gunn’s story on your nightly news? Did you know that 15 year old Jason “Jaysen” Mattison, Jr. was raped{among other things} before he was stabbed and thrown in the closet by a male family friend? Further, did you know that it happened the SAME week as the Jorge Mercado murder? Probably not! Mainly because straight laced media has their own agenda and it doesn’t include pushing our plight. But that is another blog for another day!

Today, I implore you to use May 17, 2010 to remember and to thank the powers that be for seeing fit to keep you here to fight in honor of the fallen. When I travel, the argument is always made that members of the LGBTQI Liberation Movement fail to acknowledge their privilege. Living and breathing as an openly LGBTQI individual is just that: A PRIVILEGE! Ask the girl in Kentucky who was almost thrown off the cliff by her homophobic classmates or the children that commit suicide under a bully’s influence. We like to think it only happens in rural America. Before the Tastee Diner incident, I thought that too!  In preparation for the Here Lies Homophobia {the Washington, DC IDAHO event} I found myself lost in the hustle and bustle. I was fed up with Facebook events, planning emails, questions and confirmations. I had to take a moment and put the purpose in perspective. My first form of activism was progressive poetry {that is where “SimplyNay” was born}. I sat at my laptop intending to respond to something and before I knew it I had written this:

I’ve taken pen to pad

My purpose

Propelled by passion

Something must happen

Too many have lost their lives

And not enough have taken action

We allow days of remembrance

To just be days

And I’m amazed

That we’ve forgotten what’s occurred to make it this way

Ellen, The L Word and Noah’s Ark

Have lightened our hearts

But they’ve done their part

In contributing to our complacency

EVERYTHING

Is not as it should be

Homo/Transphobia

Too many have lost their lives

To this ignorant beast

I honor their memory

May they rest in eternal peace

Mathew Shephard

Sakia Gunn

Jorge Mercado

Jaysen Mattison

Ty’nia Mack

Tony Hunter

Shorty Hall

Michael Causer

Lawrence King

Steven Domer

Satender Singh

Michael Sandy

Ahmed Khalil

Mahmoud Asgari

Ayaz Marhoni

Philip Walstead

Octavia Ocuna

Wanda Alston

Richard Phillips

They are all deceased

Not killed as the exception but the reality

That honestly

It could have been you or me
So on the International Day Against Homophobia

I ask

Where will you be?

Please visit www.equalityacrossamerica.org for a comprehensive list of International Day Against Homophobia events in your area. If you do not see one do SOMETHING because SOMETHING must be done!

Sometimes, things just make more sense when they rhyme.

UNITY AND SOLIDARITY

It’s not enough to be out and proud
Even if we are outspoken and loud.
We are so very vastly outnumbered
The Christian Right has never slumbered.
We are outnumbered a hundred to one
Our vigilant enemies would see us undone.
They consider us road kill and toxic pollution
So do you want to know the only solution?
There are far too many gay organizations
None are effective in so many nations.
Why are we not winning the war?
Why are we gaining so little so far?
With emphatic crystal clear clarity
We must have our Unity and Solidarity!
Pool our talent, people and all resources
And see history take some positive courses.
Create a solid army of absolute resolve
And see our movement totally evolve.
Solidify, Unify, one for all and all for one
That is how equality for all will be done.

-Mike McDonald

So Close But Yet So Far Away: The State of the LGBTQI Liberation Movement

So close but yet so far away! These are the thoughts that come to mind when I think of the current state of the fight for LGBTQI Liberation. A time has come that people such as Bayard Rustin and Dell Martin could never envision. We are in a season where full federal equality is less than inconceivable and more than possible. Unfortunately, we {activists as a whole} can’t see beyond ourselves and our Google hits to see the flipping finish line. I say “we” because we all do it.  We seek to fight against our own oppression but we have become the oppressors! Each of us see Twitter, Facebook, blogospheres and list-servs chock full of finger pointing! Then we jump up like bargain shoppers to began comparing brands. We shouldn’t sell our equality to the highest bidder! Nor should we join a group out of popularity or an action out of peer pressure. Your affiliations should be based on your convictions NOT convenience. Our community has become too easily swayed by the catchiest slogan and prettiest logo.  I refuse to believe that countless individuals have dedicated their lives to what has become a popularity contest. Simply put, a house divided amongst itself CAN NOT stand! So if you are not for uplifting our community as a whole you are best suited sitting DOWN!

I am a firm believer of offering solutions rather than dwelling on the problems. Isn’t that what progress is made of? So this is my suggestion to progressives:  I, Aiyi’nah “SimplyNay” Ford, am taking a moment to step out of my title. Independent from any organization or affiliation I urge our leaders in the movement to participate in an Equality Summit. I challenge Equality Across America to make the call as they were successful in gathering 250,000 for the National Equality March {if that isn’t solidarity I don’t know what is}. I propose this forum be open to all, free of charge and technologically capable to support interactive participation for those who can not physically attend. We MUST allow those we claim to represent to represent THEMSELVES! Each organization should be prepared to offer an explanation of what equality looks like to them and how they have worked toward reaching that vision to date. From that debate we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the movement in its entirety and be better prepared to fight. If you think the opposition has not converged to strategize and refine their tactics then you are far removed from reality {or FOX News}. How do you think Scott Brown or Bob McDonnell were elected? This is a war for HUMANITY! If you disagree I urge you to pay a visit to Arizona! Grassroots and Incorporated alike need look at the ideologies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Did you ever hear Malcolm X tell Martin that he should be more like the Honorable Elijah Muhammad or quit the Civil Rights Movement? NO! They were vastly different however they remained in solidarity through and through.  The LGBTQI Liberation Movement must do the same or we will never win! “We” must cross the finish line together or “we” truly haven’t won the race!

Gaga-inspired protest

You’ve got to love the One Struggle One Fight gang out in SF who did this Gaga-like protest in solidarity with the hotel workers last week. Guerrilla theater at its best!

You say you don’t discriminate, but you won’t vote for ENDA?

Yes, more of the flawed logic that we hear day in, day out from politicians more concerned with what their pastor or investor says than what their actual constituency thinks.

The below was sent to Equality Across America’s e-mail account, and we asked if we could share it along.  Our friend Mark contacted Congressman Mica in Florida about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and he shared Mica’s response.

The particularly side-splitting parts are already in bold – not that you would miss them.

Dear Mark:

Thank you for contacting me to express your views on the Employer Non Discrimination Act. I appreciate your taking the time to convey your thoughts and I am pleased to respond.

I have never supported discrimination of any kind. For years our country has strived to eliminate discrimination in all areas of our society and I believe that all Americans are entitled to equal treatment. However, I chose to vote against this measure because, I do not support special treatment of any class of individuals and, since coming to Congress, I have worked to ensure that the federal government and the private sector administer their agencies and businesses in a manner that does not discriminate or provide special treatment for one person over another. Please know that I am committed to ensuring that all Americans receive equal treatment in the workplace whether it is in the Congress or the private sector and I will keep your views in mind as this legislation comes to the House Floor in the coming months.

Here’s his profile on Project Vote Smart.

Have at it, rabble rousers!