Somewhere in the vicinity of Houston, Texas – in the fall of 1989.
Somewhere in the vicinity of Houston, Texas – in the fall of 1989.
Kelli Busey relays a message from C.D. Kirven re: HRC’s act of aggression against those tho don’t drink either the purple-n-yellow or red kool-aid:
The flag belong[ed] to Alex Rangel of Get Equal who brought the trans flag at the
rally. Brian was waving the flag for Alex as I waved the Bi Pride flag. When HRC
asked Brian to remove the flag an argument ensued then another woman walked up to Brian stating she was going to burn the flag while I was having words with
the first women then Brian dropped the flag on the ground and ran off
crying. I tried to console him but he kept crying. I grabbed the Trans Pride flag and
dared either one to say anything to me. The HRC didn’t want the Trans pride flag
behind the speakers bc they did not want to explain what it meant to the press.
As a matter of fact, the lady from HRC told Brian ” This is about marriage
equality not the Trans community.” At this point, we got into a cursing match
which I am not proud of & don’t want repeated.…
I was forced like the undocumented queer activist to change my speech. Everyone
knows I was mistreated the same way he was and since the stories have been
released I have told them again but I’m a black lesbian so no one cared! HRC
claiming my wording was too aggressive and dark!
From Maribel Hermosillo at Policymic:
How the Human Rights Campaign Has Failed Minorities
…
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has taken a lead role in campaigning for marriage equality. They have had many marriage equality victories such as in Maine, Washington, and Maryland. The HRC has also prevented constitutional bans that would have stopped further dialogue about marriage equality in Minnesota. While they have been successful in pushing the conversation of marriage equality, what exactly is their messaging?
To anyone who’s paying attention there’s only one answer to that question: lies packaged as truth.
HRC has a very white-only community oriented messaging that is problematic to their stance on diversity. As a progressive organization, they need to learn how to be inclusive to communities who are typically alienated from mainstream politics.
Seriously Maribel…
I wouldn’t bet on that happening.
Seen receently on Facebook via Jenna Fischetti re: the bought-and-paid-for Maryland state Sen. Jim Brochin.
Like, oh…I dunnow, any of the trans women attorneys who have wasted money going through the AALS process over the last five years and who never even received as much as a peep from Seattle U?
Remember this?
“I don’t imagine there will be negative legal consequences for [the Beaties] personally,” says Dean Spade, a lawyer who specializes in transgender rights. After all, the couple is legally married and therefore has all the parental rights a marriage provides. “The idea of someone challenging this doesn’t make sense. The biological tie is generally respected in court.” Spade adds that Beatie’s legal gender can’t be questioned….
That was five years ago.
We all – yes, all – knew what was eventually going to happen; I damn sure did. It was just a matter of when and where.
No, I don’t mean the total and complete implosion of the Beaties’ attempt to make money off of themselves and it having a buttload of legal consequences not just for the Beaties’ but for any trans people who are unlucky enough to live in the same jurisdiction where the Beaties’ nonsense implodes (okay, I mean that as well, but on down a paragraph or two.)
Rather, I mean someone making as ridiculous (not to mention worthy of a legal malpractice action had he given it as formal legal advice) of a statement as Spade made ending up with a position in academia; he’s FTM after all and, clearly, all it takes for a trans person to be eligible for employment within Gay, Inc. and the world of legal academia that it feeds is to not be a trans woman (there’s a reason, after all, that the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool couldn’t trot out a trans token to spew its sub-Nixonian glob o’ propagandgoo in response to the most recent visible evidence of its ongoing institutional transphobia – one actually witnessed and attested to by some who usually defend Gay, Inc.)
Now, here’s what we have today:
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has denied a divorce to “Pregnant Man” Thomas Beatie on grounds that the transgender tabloid celebrity did not prove that his Hawaiian marriage was not a same-sex marriage.
Beatie, 39, touted himself on TV talk shows as “The Pregnant Man” in 2008 with his first pregnancy. He subsequently had two more children with his wife Nancy, whom he married in 2003.
The couple filed for divorce in March 2012.
In December, Beatie told The Arizona Republic, “I’m clearly a man: socially, legally, psychologically, physically — the whole ball of wax.”
Perhaps he should have said ‘spade of wax,’ eh? (Or ‘ball of spade’? Nah – ‘spade of wax’ is probably better.)
In a ruling last June, [Judge Douglas Gerlach] noted that the “marriage was between a female … and a person capable of giving birth, who later did so.”
…
Now [Thomas] wants a divorce so that he can marry his new girlfriend.
Gerlach denied that request on Friday.
Memo to Dean Spade: Thomas Beatie’s legal gender has, kinda sorta, just been questioned. And I, in turn, am questioning your standing to hold a law professorship.
This was what I had to say five years ago:
“I don’t imagine there will be negative legal consequences for [the Beaties] personally,” says Dean Spade, a lawyer who specializes in transgender rights. After all, the couple is legally married and therefore has all the parental rights a marriage provides. “The idea of someone challenging this doesn’t make sense. The biological tie is generally respected in court.” Spade adds that Beatie’s legal gender can’t be questioned, and because this is a marriage between a legal man and woman, he doesn’t see how the story could have any impact on heterosexual marriage laws in Oregon.
No negative legal consequences?
Legal gender can’t be questioned?
Doesn’t see how the story could have any impact?
Now…
Should there be consequnces? Should Beatie’s gender be questioned? Should it have any legal impact?
Those are different questions.
But, if Spade really believes there are no possible legal consequences (does he really think some enterprisng political opportunist – even in Oregon or, perhaps, with the feds – won’t try?), and if Spade really believes that Beatie’s legal gender can’t be questioned (it won’t even take an opportunist to arrange some venue in which Beatie’s post-transition-to-male pregnancy will yield a de novo examination of not just Beatie himself but of all statements, documents, etc., that went into getting his gender legally changed in the first instance). and if Spade really believes the story will have no legal impact on heterosexual marriage (as in whether or not an FTM can marry a woman, and whether or not an MTF can marry a man) in Oregon (yeh – I can see all that gay money and energy to fight against legislative action ‘clarifying’ that marriages such as the Beaties’ are invalid same-sex relationships flowing into Oregon right now…NOT), then Spade has abdicated any and all right that he may have ever had to speak for anyone on trans issues – in court or anywhere else.
And it wasn’t just the mean old trans woman who has the nerve to challenge Gay, Inc’s preferential treatment of FTMs who had a bad feeling. One FTM offered this in response to that ENDABlog Classic piece:
I hate how most FTMs are acting like this is going to have no effect on anyone. This sucks a ton for me, because I haven’t had chest surgery or anything yet, so the tightening requirements (which is what I forsee) could impact me in a major way. I think this could very easily fundamentally change the way that government agencies treat us.
Funny that the Beaties’ B.S. found its way to Arizona, eh?
Land o’ papers-to-pee law?
It does give one pause to wonder if either one or both of them were in no way what they were portraying themselves to be. Radphlegms couldn’t have arranged such a confluence if they tried…
could they?
The bigger question, however, goes to Seattle University: Will there be any consequences for Dean Spade having made such a ridiculous claim five years ago?
I have my bet down as to what it will or won’t do.
Sadly, I’ll probably collect.
So why don’t those good, well-intentioned non-trans employees of HRC do something useful and quit en masse to protest HRC’s near-genocidal discriminatory hiring practices against trans people (particularly trans women)?