The Republic of T.

A couple of years ago, I’d never heard of Dr. George Tiller, but I posted a couple of times about late-term abortion, and some of the reasons why some women seek a medical professional who’s willing and able to do the procedure. Later, I posted about the stories of two women with difficult, even tragic late-term pregnancies, and the different choices they made.

I thought about those stories in the days after Dr. Tiller’s murder, and went back to read them again. And then I read more stories of women who found themselves in need of Dr. Tiller’s services, and the circumstances under which he provided it to them. I read stories of women who weren’t patients of Dr. Tiller, but met with desperate circumstances and even disastrous news late into pregnancies they had wanted very much.

I realized, then, that Dr. Tiller’s story was really one about a man of conscience.

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Good grief. First the New York Post and now this?

Some Hispanics and advocates for women are criticizing an editorial cartoon that depicts Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a strung-up pinata that President Barack Obama is inviting Republicans to whack.

The cartoon by Chip Bok of Creators Syndicate ran in The Oklahoman on Tuesday. It shows Obama wearing a sombrero and saying “Now, who wants to be first?” to a group of elephants in suits holding sticks. The underline says, “Fiesta Time At The Confirmation Hearing.”

Jean Warner, chair of the Oklahoma Women’s Coalition, said there was nothing funny about the image.

“Here’s a woman wearing a judge’s robes and she’s about to get the crap beaten out of her because she has the audacity to think she can sit on the Supreme Court,” Warner said. “But most young girls who look at the cartoon, don’t even understand that. They just see guys with sticks about to hit a woman.”

I mean…are you kidding me with this? It’s going to be a long eight years, folks. Very long.

Because school is in session. Or it should be, because some you have a fucked-up view of domestic violence that doesn’t bode well for your futures.

Up until now, I have resisted commenting on the Rihanna/Chris Brown matter, in part because I’ve been increasingly appalled with just how its been handled in the media. (The absolute nadir was the leaking of what was reported to be Ms. Fenty’s battered face. I purposely avoided looked, until I saw it splattered across a tabloid by the cash register where I waited to pay for my groceries. I looked away after a realized what it was. Ms. Fenty’s already been violated once — yes, that’s what domestic violence is; a physical, psychological and emotional violation of someone’s humanity. Leaking/publishing those pictures violated her again, felt. That picture shouldn’t have been seen outside of a courtroom, until or unless Ms. Fenty decided to release it.)

But I also declined to comment because the issue hits way too close to home for me. No, I’ve never been in an abusive relationship myself. But I’ve watched people I love and care very much about deal with just that, and I know it’s not always as cut-and-dried or as easily dealt with as people — including some of you — seem to think.

Which brings me back to my initial point, kids.

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Via Alternet, where you can see the other panels in this cartoon.

Two speeches from last night’s Oscars stood out to me.

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[Source.]

Dick Armey is no Winston Churchill. But this:

Reminded me of this.

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This is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He’s lost in the wilderness
He’s lost in bitterness

~ James Brown, “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World”

It’s been written many times already that 2008 was quite a year for women. Whether it was a good year or an “annus horribilis,” may depend on whom you ask, but the financial crash and ensuing downturn suggest that if it hasn’t been a horrible year, it hasn’t exactly been an “annus mirabilis.”

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Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. My intention was to post something yesterday featuring some of the stories from the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, but I was swamped with work, and then got called into meeting. So, it didn’t happen.

But since I missed posting this yesterday, I thought I’d post it today.

It’s not all of the transgender stories, though. You’ll find more here.

In the time since I started the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, I don’t ever had a follow-up or an update in which the victim of an earlier attack is eventually murdered. Until now. Via the LGBTPOC listserve, I learned last night that Duanna Johnson — whose case I wrote about in August — has been murdered.

The videotaped beating of a transgender woman in police custody in Memphis last February led to charges against two officers and national condemnation from gay rights groups. The officers were fired, and the Police Department overhauled some of its procedures and began sensitivity training for the entire force.

But a week ago, the woman, Duanna Johnson, 43, was found fatally shot near downtown. Ms. Johnson’s death has revived scrutiny of the case as the department is under pressure to find the killer.

“Duanna Johnson’s case was tragic before, and now it’s an almost unimaginable loss,” said Jared Feuer, the Southern regional director of Amnesty International. “Her treatment demonstrates a culture of violence against transgender people that must be addressed.”

Ms. Johnson sustained a gunshot wound to the head late on Nov. 9, the police said, and officers found her body after responding to a shooting call in North Memphis. Investigators said three men were seen near the crime scene before the officers arrived, but police officials say they have no suspects, have made no arrests and do not have a motive for the killing.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights group, called for a federal investigation.

It’s a terribly sad ending to what was, by all reports, a hard life.

To say that 43 year-old Duanna Johnson leads a difficult life would be an understatement.  At her small, rundown, North Memphis house you’ll find condom wrappers on the ground outside her door. 

Her power meter is missing.  Not that it matters because her electricity was turned off months ago after she stopped paying her utility bill.

She has one extension cord running from her bedroom window to the neighbor’s house.  They charge her $20 a month to plug into their electricity.   It powers the single fan Duanna uses to cool her house.

And because Johnson has no running water in her home, neighbors often let her use their bathrooms to wash up and take care of her personal hygiene.

And, as I posted before, her position is one that many transgender women face.

The D.C. media, in contrast, wants you to believe that it was the “lifestyle” that Bella and Emonie were living that led to their deaths – as if their transgender status was a simple life choice, and that this choice somehow forced their killers’ hands.

Being transgender can be a recipe for a difficult life. Many transgender people are cut off from the employment and education opportunities that are basic expectations in our culture, and discrimination leads many into sex work as their only means of survival. Such may well have been the experience of Emonie and Bella.

Some studies have put transgender unemployment as high as 70 percent, well above even the worst levels in these economically troubled times. While many places have enacted legislation to protect the rights of individuals seeking and keeping employment – regardless of their gender expression or identity – no such protections exist nationally, or in Washington, D.C.

And they still have to find a way to make a living.

During a press conference following Evengelista’s murder, Budd told how transgendered women informed her that they turned to prostitution only after they had been denied jobs because of their appearance.

“It’s a matter of simple survival,” Budd said. “Some of the girls have no other choice but to turn to the streets for survival.”

… Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said about 50 people attending a transgender “speakout” meeting in the District on Sept. 9, discussed a wide range of issues and problems faced by transgendered people, including the issue of prostitution.

“It’s about economic opportunity or the lack of opportunity,” Keisling said. “I call it survival sex work, which is not the same as commercial sex work,” she said.

“If you were thrown out of your house at 10 and you didn’t finish school, what are your chances of going to college at Georgetown?” she said.

I don’t know much about Johnson’s story before the jailhouse beating that turned a spotlight on her life, but it probably took a course similar to other transgender women’s stories.

I won’t speculate about who might be responsible for Johnson’s murder at this point. But I hope the matter is thoroughly investigated, and every potential lead followed-up.

Most of all, I hope she can finally rest in peace.

Now that the election is over, and in light of Johnson’s murder, I’ll probably dedicate a bit more time to updating the hate crimes project.

No, I’m not about to break out in a rendition of Starship’s hit from the 80s. I just wanted to make sure you saw this video of young girls’ messages to Sarah Palin.

After the last post, I thought I’d share one more celeb citing, as I was on my way out of Denver. This time, I was at the Denver airport, taking the shuttle from security to the departure gate. (Note: this couldn’t be posted from the Denver airport because — like most of my time at the convention — I was never able to get their wifi internet access to work. To add insult to injury, the 24-hour technical support number on the brochure that the woman at the information desk gave to me as dead. It never even rang when I called it. The call just disconnected. Did the same thing when she called it, after I informed her of it.)

I didn’t see her going through security, but I glimpsed a flash of red out of the corner of my eye, turned my head ever so slightly, and there she was, wheeling her carry-on to the shuttle.

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We needed a study to tell us this?

In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in math in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.

Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, said Janet Hyde, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led the study. And girls, who grew up believing it, wound up avoiding harder math classes.

“It keeps girls and women out of a lot of careers, particularly high-prestige, lucrative careers in science and technology,” Hyde said.

That’s changing, albeit slowly. Women are now earning 48 percent of undergraduate college degrees in math; they still lag far behind in physics and engineering.

But in primary and secondary school, girls have caught up, with researchers attributing that advance to increasing numbers of girls taking advanced math classes such as calculus.

I’ve known this all my life. Like I’ve said before, I suck at math. I did well enough to graduate from college.

Then there was college. At my university, the math department had a reputation when it came to algebra. People failed all the time. I did. Actually, I dropped before I failed. People transferred to other universities for a semester in order to take and pass algebra elsewhere, and then returned. I did. I went back to the local college in my hometown, where I took and failed algebra. I went back to my university and worked around it, taking and passing statistics and logic (also known as “math for poets” at my university). All the while, I was struggling with undiagnosed, untreated ADD, and as a result could only handle a partial class load after I hit the wall during my sophomore year.

At the time, there was a loophole when it came to statistics. If I took it and passed it, I would be exempt from taking algebra even though it was a prerequisite for statistics. So, I did. It wasn’t until a semester before I was scheduled to graduate (after taking six years to finish, by going part-time) that I found out different. My graduation advisor made a funny face when she looked over my records, and then informed that the loophole had closed, just before I took statistics. So, I wasn’t exempt. I would have to take algebra and pass it if I wanted to graduate.

I suppose I could have dropped off my books and walked awa. But then, she made another face. There was another loophole. The semester after I was scheduled to graduate, the algebra requirement was going to be dropped from my degree. I thought moment, and told her to move my graduation deadline back a semester. I would take one more elective and wait for the algebra requirement to be dropped. That’s what I did, and I graduated from college withouthaving to take algebra.

And I’ve always, always known girls who could run rings around me in math. (No major feat. By the time he gets to middle school, I’ve no doubt Parker will run rings around me in math. He’s a bright kid.) In fact, the people I knew in school who did best in math were mostly girls.

It’s not a matter of boys being better at math than girls, or vice versa. It’s a matter of some people being better at or more talented or gifted at math than other people. It doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t learn math. I can learn to paint, but no teacher can turn me into a Picasso or a Van Gough. Y’know?

I don’t know if these two bloggers were on the same wavelength or what, but I did a doubletake when I saw was looked like high heels for babies over at I Blame the Patriarcy.

A glance at the website reveals a link to an Entertainment Tonight article describing the crib shoes (wait, crib shoes? Why does a bedridden infant need shoes?) as “made from soft, flexible fabrics with a collapsible heel and are not intended for walking.”

The pair of women sexopreneurs who invented the infant fuckme pumps chap the Twisty hide in many ways. Forget about the obvious antifeminist implications of infant pornulation for a second; what’s with the repellent adult pastime of casting children in the role of joke-butts? Warning, says the website, these Heelarious shoes “May cause extreme smiling and hysterical laughter when in use (this is completely normal).”

Normal! Man, what is wrong with people? Why does everybody think it’s okay to openly jeer and laugh at kids? Do they think the tots just don’t notice that they are perennial objects of mockery? Last Halloween, at the neighborhood cul-de-sac trick-or-treat party (or what I like to call the Barton Creek Toddler Burlesque), my 4-year-old niece Rotel flat-out refused to wear her elaborately cute costume. It was obvious that she just didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself for the amusement of the drunk adults. Much consternation ensued. Rotel was seriously in violation of some primal code of childhood conduct when she dared to expect that she could collect candy without putting on Hilarious Kid Drag. She was robustly critiqued for having had the temerity to assert personal bodily sovereignty in the face of patriarchal tradition. I am happy to report that she prevailed in the end, but it was clear from the reaction of the neighbors that they considered her strange, and I don’t believe for a second that the kid won’t carry deep emotional scars for life. Probably she will turn to a life of crime.

Now, according to the website, the shoes are not meant for kids older than six months, and not meant for walking. (They collapse if any weight is put on them.) But come on, people!

I mean, first of all, don’t sentence your daughter to a life of corns and bunions. Take it from me, I’ve worn high heels. (Yes, I’ve done drag. Deal with it) They are not meant for the human foot. Even wearing them for a few hours did a number on my feet for a while.

Second, can we just let children be children, please? Sure, a little girl (or little boy, for that matter) might try on mommy’s (or daddy’s) pumps, and it’s cute. But putting these on a baby? There’s a point at which we need to start questioning people’s sanity. What’s next? Pimp and Ho costumes for Halloween?

As for the rest, see Habladora’s post for a larger discussion.

But one thing Ol’ Cap’n. I am released of you. …No more shoutin’ “Hallelujah” every time you sneeze, nor jumpin’ jackass every time you whistle “Dixie.” We gonna love you if you let us and laugh as we leave if you don’t. We want our cut of the Constitution and we want it now! And not with no teaspoon, white folks. Throw it at us with a shovel!

~ Purlie, Purlie Victorius: A Comedy in Three Acts

The quote above is from a play I saw ages ago when I was in high school. That line has occurred to me more than once in the last couple of weeks, as I’ve listened to earnest activists extoll the virtues of accepting teaspoons of justice, as a remedy to shovelfuls of injustice.

In the previous post I posed a question, without realizing I’d already written an answer to that question.

Its one thing to be an incrementalist and at least be honest about that last sentence. It’s quite another to declare that it is the right thing to do to ask others to continue to suffer injustice without remedy is the right thing to do, that they ought to be glad to do it, and that they are wrong for objecting to it.

…And for movements that are supposed to be about progress and equality, it’s a matter of of a certain degree of concession to the opposite of both.

…Power concedes nothing without demand, indeed. But what do we concede?

What we concede on some level known. It’s the a concession that might — in the form of a presumed majority of American voters — makes right.
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I haven't commented yet, at least not on this blog, about the House vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) yesterday, or the controversy over the fact that version of the bill passed by the House did not include gender identity and thus does not — as previous versions of the bill did — protect transgender persons from employment discrimination.

The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.

The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974. Representatives Edward I. Koch and Bella Abzug of New York then sought to protect gay men and lesbians with a measure they introduced on the fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the brawl between gay men and police officers at a bar in Greenwich Village that is widely viewed as the start of the American gay rights movement.

"On this proud day of the 110th Congress, we will chart a new direction for civil rights," said Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat and a gay rights advocate, in a speech before the vote. "On this proud day, the Congress will act to ensure that all Americans are granted equal rights in the work place."

I remember, and blogged about the last time a house of Congress voted on ENDA, a moment that was at once historic and disappointing, just as this moment is. For slightly different reasons, though.

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In the last post I made the statement that workplace discrimination is often a matter of life and death for some transgender persons. When I wrote that statement, I was thinking about some of the cases I’ve researched and written-up for The LGBT Hate Crimes Project, like the murders of Bella Evangelista, Emonie Spaulding, Erica Keel, and Nireah Johnson, just to name a few.

What all of these women have in common is that they were transgender, they were murdered, and were murdered by men who discovered they were transgender. What they also have in common is that each of them turned to sex work at least part time in order to support themselves, because of difficulty getting legal employment, a direct result of discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender presentation. In the wake of the murders of three transgender women — including Evangelista and Spaulding — transgender activist spoke out about how gender identity discrimination places transgender women in danger.

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