Columnists :: Letters
Letters to the EditorThursday Jul 10, 2008 Herald should choose its words more carefully
Editor’s Note: This letter was written in response to a July 7 Boston Herald article titled "Undercover ’john’ takes on trannies, pimps," that detailed the work of an undercover police detective who busted a Brighton prostitution ring that involved transgender women.
While I have no acceptance for those who break the law, I equally have no acceptance for a newspaper or reporter who uses derogatory slurs for other human beings. Jessica Van Sack of the Boston Herald illuminates how acceptable it is to use slurs such as "giant naked trannies," to marginalize a group of our GLBTQ community. Slurs have been used against gays and lesbians for years ("Fag" is certainly a good example), and have only recently become unacceptable to use (although in some youth communities, it still seems o.k.). While we should not be the PC police, we should acknowledge and bring to the forefront how marginalizing an already marginalized group of our community is just one indicator of how discrimination against the transgender and queer communities is accepted. I encourage all in the GLBTQ community to speak against discrimination of our transgender and queer communities.
Christina Miller
Newton
No love for BiDatingNow.com
Thank you for your article exposing the discrimination against a transgender man on bidatingnow.com ["Bi personals site boots trans member, July 2"]. I suspect they have many trans members who would be interested to know that we aren’t welcome. I joined bidatingnow.com some time ago when I realized that I was transgender. I joined as male, because that is how I identify, and that is what my I.D. says. It never occurred to me that the site would not be T friendly if it was LGB friendly. I had people contact me who were interested, and no problems with the site because they were apparently unaware of my existence. Eventually I decided to leave on my own about a year ago. There is no community without the T, but apparently BiDatingNow wasn’t aware of that.
Obviously more education is needed. It is not unusual for transmen to go through what the man in your article did. Starting out in the lesbian community is not a constant for transmen, but it’s not uncommon. And to then transition to male, and realize hey it’s OK to be bi, tri or pansexual is also a pretty common occurfance. Finding yourself and your identity as a transman in a society that hardly recognizes your existence is not easy. Even if internally you know who you are, you may not have the words for it. Perhaps bidatingnow is unaware how many bisexual people have transitioned genders or had partners who have done so and stuck by them. I would recommend they read the National Coalition for Transgender Equality’s (NCTE) booklet, Opening the Door, on the subject of how LGB organizations can be more trans friendly. It can easily be accessed online in pdf format at http://www.nctequality.org/ Resources/opening_the_door.pdf or by contacting NCTE for a hard copy.
It also interested me to see HRC’s response to the situation. Do they actually plan to do anything about it, or are they just going to say, "Hm, interesting. We have a brochure on that," once again.
I’m tired of them waving around a brochure their transgender ex-employees created for them pre-ENDA and then doing nothing about discrimination against transgender people once again, but it doesn’t surprise me. It’s par for the course since HRC began. Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, thrice, etc. shame on me. It reinforces my belief that no matter how much trans people try to participate in HRC, they are not yet an inclusive organization themselves, nor are they fighting for the whole community. Perhaps HRC needs to read its own brochures and do a little trans sensitivity training themselves.
Thank you again for bringing these important discrimination issues to light.
Sean-Michael Gettys
Phoenix, Arizona
Just saw a copy of this article of yours ["Bi personals site boots trans member, July 2"] posted to our local Radical Faerie listserv here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Without going into my analysis of what you’re reporting, which I trust would be of no interest to you, I do want to take the time to tell you that I really appreciate your reporting of this.
I consider prejudice, & of course even worse, discrimination, within the queer community not only to be morally reprehensible (as is all prejudice & discrimination based on one’s identity or status or other aspects of one’s being), but also to be hypocritical, since we, as gay people, know not only the injustice, but also the deep & lasting pain, of being on the receiving end, & thus should not have to even think to know better. It makes me ashamed to admit I’m queer without having to add a disclaimer.
Your reporting this kind of intra-queer discrimination & "outing" those who do it, is a great service to the queer community, as well as an invaluable educational tool for those who simply are clueless about such things.
My thanks & admiration for your piece.
Walk in Beauty,
Alan Bergman
Oakland, Calif.
Bi personals site CEO responds
My name is Joseph Lee, CEO of TangoWire Corporation. I have been made aware of your story, released on July 2, 2008, concerning transgendered members on our site. I think some clarity should be provided to your readers. As a follow-up response from my organization, could you please publish the following details and facts, which I feel will give the reader a more clear perspective.
1. TangoWire does NOT discriminate against ANYONE going through the transgender process. We simply ask that they provide a gender/orientation of which they have chosen. You did not give accurate details, which could have significant bearing on an individual’s opinion about this story and the facts at hand.
2. As Bryan Brown, our technology director, explained to you, we don’t have a "gender/orientation" field in our system for "transgender" and our system does not support it. That’s clearly different from saying we discriminate. The reason our system does not support that particular gender/orientation is because it’s NOT a gender nor a sexual orientation. It’s a process that an individual is going through to redefine their sexual identity. Eventually, they choose, they define, and they conclude who they are; man, women, gay, straight, bi-sexual, etc. We’re totally fine with that and we truly admire such bravery in the face of real discrimination and hatred.
3. When a member seeks another member, they are looking for other members with a conclusive orientation -- another member who they are sexually compatible with. Our system was not designed to discriminate, yet more appropriately match another member’s desires. It is as simple as that. We’ve tried many things to make our system work for ALL, but it has been impossible and, considering the threats against us each time we try, we simply had to stick with a system that pleases as many individuals as possible.
4. If a member first joins a site clearly for BBW’s (big beautiful women), changes their sexual orientation from lesbian to bi-sexual man, states in their profile they are interested in women, it greatly angers other gay and lesbian members on our site and we endure a tremendous amount of complaint mail when that happens. There was not one mention in your story that the member you referenced changed their mind as to how they were identified and whom they identified with. If the member which you describe in your story simply would have stayed with the honest explanation on our site that they first provided, all would have been well. However, that is NOT the chain of events which occured. Nor did the member join a site appropriate for them, in our vast community of sites.
5. The statement from Kiar Dupuis in our office was, "As a transgender, our site would not meet your needs." It was actually sympathetic and Kiar is a wonderful, open-minded, and socially responsible person. That response from her may have been written a little more sympathetically, but it was sympathetic, nonetheless. Kiar NEVER intended to state that we actively discriminate against transgendered individuals, nor did Bryan Brown. It’s simply too difficult to create a system which takes all the many, many multiple layers of complexities into consideration. When you think you’ve done well by the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community, an entire group of our community is up in arms and protesting. We cannot win for losing, it would appear.
6. TangoWire, as Bryan Brown and our site explains, was indeed founded by a gay individual; me. I am proud of my community, have been very involved for decades, and have had several transgendered friends -- more than most. Despite my dedication to my community over the years, I am saddened to think our community publications would not try to get to the bottom of the real story, as they once did, before condemning another gay owned and operated business. We can rise above media outlets, such as Fox News, which provide only the sensational story lines and which leave out details important to the complete story. Or, we can tell a story in the context of which it truly affects our lives and our continued struggle.
I’m hoping you will be a responsible publication and publish my reply, in its correct context. I thank you for your time and community dedication.
Joseph Lee
TangoWire Corporation
Toward a more perfect union
I came out over a decade ago and, at the time, was excited to go to my first gay Pride parade. I went, I enjoyed it, I reveled. I felt -- freshly out of the closet -- that there was a part of me that needed further exploration, research, acknowledgment, and understanding. That first year, my personal reading almost exclusively dealt with gay rights issues, spirituality, sexuality, and history. I volunteered at the local center and other organizations and fostered queer friendships over straight ones (my straight friends were understanding and supportive knowing it was a complete time of exploration.) How could I not know this intrinsic, inborn part of my self?
My twenty-second birthday came and soon thereafter the following year’s gay Pride celebrations. I had fallen in love, come out to my friends and family, but never again found myself in another gay Pride parade. It was not that I had turned anti-gay or that I had experienced discrimination, or that I had experienced any kind of shame -- the previous year’s explorations had marked the beginning of a continued, conscious engagement in achieving a totality of "being" and that intrinsically included my queer self.
I simply felt that gay Pride parades and gay Pride celebrations did not most accurately portray who I was or who my community was. In fact, over the next decade I slowly walked away from defending gay pride Parades and celebrations as a needed existence in our social world, particularly for those first coming out of the closet.
As I have grown older and tolerance and acceptance have been increasingly achieved legally (and even more so socially), I feel deeply disappointed and saddened that the queer movement has not rattled this last "cage" of ours and brought enlightenment within it.
It was pride in who we are as people that inspired Stonewall. Its ultimate aim was socio-political: one of securing basic human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation. So why not, in the truest spirit of pride, have we faltered and not followed the original intent of those who first risked their freedom for peace, justice, and equality? Why, instead of becoming a celebration remembered mostly for sexual proclivity did Pride not evolve to that original pursuit of its founders, working to forge a more perfect union?
I propose we work to make June Queer History Month (which in a few decades it may become that anyway.) I propose that instead of parades there be signature gathering, speeches, rallies, forums, memorial celebrations, job fairs, educational lectures, and invitations to legislators to engage the queer and non-queer public.
I propose that all block parties be fundraisers for local non-profits. Last, I propose that all non-profit organizations serving queer communities show true leadership and come together once a year within each city to help achieve this.
My parade would work to not just guarantee the rights that I have now but to further them. My parade would work to secure a safe place for my queer brethren and our posterity. My parade would work to fund programs to decrease suicides in youths, to encourage dialogue in schools, to educate employers on how to foster and build a diverse workplace, to penetrate all corners of our nation with a message of acceptance in an embrace that will chip away and perhaps vanquish all shame. My parade would work to make these great United States truly a more perfect union. This is no dream, no pie in the sky. This is achievable, now.
I challenge you to print this. I challenge you who read this to put it on the desk of your executive director every week until you have answers. I challenge you to begin a dialogue on what a true pride celebration can achieve. I want to be proud of Pride for once, since I was not there with Sylvia Rivera and countless of other drag queens, transgender people, and ethnic minorities marching into history for my benefit one fateful night in June, long ago.
Adrian Dole
Portland, Oregon
Editor’s Note: LGBT History Month has been celebrated in October since 1994.
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