The Republic of T.

As I read, and wrote, all of the above, I kept going back to an essay by Michael Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia.” So I wasn’t surprised to see Kimmel quoted in an old Washington Blade article, “‘Boy Code’ a factor in fatal school shootings?”. Kimmel’s focus is perhaps too specific, as masculinity is just one of many factors in these stories, but his remarks resonate with every story above.

The perpetrators of random school shootings since 1982, all boys, were “overconformists” to the popular notion that being a “real man” means aggressively defending your manhood when it is challenged, such as through prolonged bullying, said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

And no weapon is more emasculating, or brandished more frequently on schoolyards across the country, than the homophobic rhetoric used to describe anything that makes a young man different from his male peers, Kimmel wrote in a June 2003 article for the journal American Behavioral Scientist.

“We found a striking pattern [while analyzing news] stories about the boys who committed the violence: nearly all had stories of being constantly bullied, beat up, and ‘gay-baited,’” Kimmel wrote.

“And most strikingly, it was not because they were gay — at least there is no evidence to suggest that any of them were gay — but because they were different from the other boys: shy, bookish, honor students, artistic, musical, theatrical, non-athletic, ‘geekish,’ or weird,” he continued.

Instead of the standard review of “what went wrong” with individual school shooters, the media, government researchers and society at-large must understand the roles standards of masculinity play in facilitating violent outbreaks by young men, Kimmel said in an interview for this article.

Of course, the stories of boys like Harris, Klebold, and Woodham, get a lot more attention than a story like what happened to Josh Belluardo.

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(With a nod to Nezua, from whom I’m borrowing the title of this post.)



It had been in the back of my mind, as it always is after another school shooting hits the news. I thought of it for a second when I heard about the Virginia Tech shootings, but I pushed it into the back of my mind. Until yesterday, when a discussion on the LGBT listserv referenced a story about Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter. By then, I’d read his plays, his mental health assessment, and seen his video manifesto, all of which brought up that uncomfortable feeling I’d been trying to repress since Tuesday.

Then I looked at the calendar and remembered what today was.

I was at work that morning, about 10:10 am EST, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began their shooting rampage at Columbine. I wandered down to the conference room with several coworkers and watched the news reports on television. As I watched the video of students running from the school, and heard more and more about Harris and Klebold, I thought to myself, “I know why they’re doing it.”

I identified with them. I didn’t want to, but I did. I didn’t want to identify with Cho Seung-Hui either. But I did. Because though I didn’t know him, I knew something about him.

Technorati Tags: bullying, crime, culture, current events, education, politics, va tech

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I understand, or at least I think I do, where Ed and Chris that the potential overuse of the word “theocracy” to describe religious conservatives’ efforts to move church and state closer together. Goodness knows I’ve been a frequent user of the term on this blog. But I can’t think of a single instance in which I’d take back any application or implication of the term on my part. I’ve listed story after story here that I think qualifies at least for consideration as part of a creep toward some degree or form of theocracy, or some amalgamation of the U.S. government and a particular flavor of Christianity.

But, for the sake of argument, when is it appropriate to describe the efforts and aims of religious conservatives as “theocracy”?

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What do people have against girls? No, really. It kind of mystifies me when here about some of the things that get people riled up where girls are concerned. I mean, there was the whole HPV vaccination — the one that could save many young women from cervical cancer (and save a few young men from anal cancer too) — and the people who thought it was a bad thing, because these young women might have sex and not get HPV or end up with cervical cancer. And we all know that those are far better outcomes than allowing young women to “sin without consequences.”

Wouldn’t it be awful if young women were sexually active and didn’t end up with HPV and cervical cancer? Sure, but it would be even more awful if young women learned how to figure out with they could have sex without a huge risk of pregnancy. And there’s only one way to make sure they don’t figure it out. Make sure they know as little about their bodies as possible, and whatever you do, don’t let them read any books on how their bodies work.

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One of the things I noted during the 2004 presidential debates was how often Bush began his responses to John Kerry’s statements with the phrase “you can’t say that.” I bugged me because by that time there was a whole list of things that fell under the “you can’t say that” heading in post 9/11 America.

Or, at least, you couldn’t say those things without consequences, which would be visited upon you by your fellow citizens, not the government. Things like speaking out against the war in Iraq, having an anti-Bush poster, giving the commander in chief the thumbs-down, carrying the “wrong” reading material, teaching your kid “un-American values” could get you a visit from the feds.

Well, in the last couple of days there’s been a story roiling the progressive blogosphere that highlights some other stuff you can’t say without consequences; one that makes me glad I’m not among the top tier political bloggers, and that it’s highly unlikely anyone will ever want to hire me to blog for their presidential campaign. At least, not if they’ve seen anything I’ve had to say about religion recently, or in three years of blogging.

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I know everyone else is talking about the Snickers commercial during the Superbowl and, being a good gay blogger, I should probably say something about it too. So, there. I just did. You don't need me to say more, do you? Good, because I've had something else on my mind for the last couple of days.

I stuck a toe into the water earlier, and now I hesitate to jump back into the debate about the HPV vaccine, after learning just how controversial vaccines are in general. (And, no, I didn't know about this video before writing this post.) But after posting that Maryland's proposed HIV vaccine bill was pulled, I kept reading about the issue and came across some interesting developments and issues. And a couple of surprises, like Texas becoming first state to require the HPV vaccine for girls entering the sixth grade.

Texas on Friday became the first state to require all 11- and 12-year-old girls entering the sixth grade to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

Averting a potentially divisive debate in the Legislature, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, signed an executive order mandating shots of the Merck vaccine Gardasil as protection against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, starting in September 2008.

Mr. Perry’s action, praised by health advocates, caught many by surprise in a largely conservative state where sexual politics is often a battleground.

“I had no idea; I was absolutely caught off guard,” said Representative Jessica Farrar, Democrat of Houston, who sponsored a bill to require the vaccinations starting this September. “Normally, the governor does not take things like this upon himself, although I’m glad he did.”

Under the order, girls and women from 9 to 21 eligible for public assistance could get free shots immediately. The governor’s office said parents could opt out of the school program “for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs.”

Not just that, but Virginia passed similar bill, after including an opt-out for parents.

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Or not, as the case may be. I haven't blogged about the controversy over Montgomery County's sex-education curriculum lately, but it looks like the board of education stood up to PFOX's bullying and approved the curriculum. (In fact, one board member was heard to say "I believe we will be sued. That's okay. . . . Bring it on.") The folks over at Vigilance have done such a good job of covering it that I'm wasn't sure I could add much. Most recently, they've posted links to the curriculum documents.

What brought the story back to mind for me was this Washington Post piece that reminded me of just what it was like to be growing up gay and going to school during a time when the subject couldn't even be talked about. This year will mark 20 years since I graduated from high school, and 26 years since I came out. (Yup. I was a prodigy in that sense.) And it reminded me just how difficult it was to get any information when I was coming out. It also made it clear how far some people would like to turn back the clock.

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This got a “Hey! Wait just a minute!” response from me when it drifted past my radar yesterday. It concerns a Florida student attempting to start a Gay-Straight Alliance in her school, and the resistance she got from school administrators. But what blows my mind is the reason school officials gave for blocking a Gay-Straight Alliance.

[Yasmin] Gonzalez is suing under the 1984 federal Equal Access Act, which ironically was initially pushed by evangelical Christians after some public schools banned after-school prayer meetings. It says that if a public school allows any extracurricular activities to meet on campus it must allow all groups to do the same.

Gonzalez says that when she tried to register her club administrators first told her the school didn’t allow any despite listing more than a dozen on its Web site. Gonzalez says she was later told there were too many clubs, and finally that the school had an abstinence-only policy.

Um. No pun intended, but … Come again? I can’t have read that right, because it sound like the school is suggesting that gays can’t practice abstinence or — as Jessica says — only heterosexuals can.

Not that it probably matters much to matters much to them, but the evidence hardly supports that assumption.

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Leave it to a Townhall columnist to extol the virtues of having a less educated populace. Basically, anyone who isn't going to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc., doesn't need much of an education. I suppose that makes sense. Given the correlation between education and religious belief in the general population, there's an advantage there for the religious right and Republicans if more people are less educated. Plus, it'd make Dubya look a little smarter by comparison.