Daily Archives: May 1, 2015
Right-Wing Group Mobilizes Against Gay Catholic Relief Worker
Right-Wing Group Mobilizes Against Gay Catholic Relief Worker
A 16-year employee of a relief organization is the target of an attack by a homophobic group.
Matt Baume
Don't Just Ask Bruce Jenner for Answers, Ask Yourself
Don't Just Ask Bruce Jenner for Answers, Ask Yourself
Last week Bruce Jenner came out as a transgender woman on the ABC news program 20/20, satisfying many inquiring minds. But more enlightening to me than the answers in that interview were the questions — questions we should be directing more at ourselves than at Jenner.
Interviewer Diane Sawyer accommodated our curiosity about Jenner with her reputed preparedness and warmth. She informed us about the differences between gender and sexuality; drew our attention to the many marginalized transgender and gender non-conforming people among us; and advised us not to assume the pronouns by which any one of us prefers to be identified. (She pointed out that, for the moment, Jenner prefers he/him/his.)
But it was Sawyer’s moments of palpable perplexity that most awakened us to some truly central questions: How do gender identity, orientation and expression effect each of our own lives?
“Help everyone struggling with what this is…” says Sawyer, her eyes squinting searchingly through discomfort. Later in the interview she struggles some more, saying, “Again, it’s the confusion inside this because if you’re assigned male…” Jenner’s eyes flicker with hard-earned wisdom and good humor as he follows her question. “…and you become female…” Sawyer continues to wrestle with the conundrum, her hands rocking from side to side as Jenner nods playfully in unison. Sawyer struggles on, “But you like women…are you a het…erosexual who…” Jenner rescues Sawyer from her confusion with a clear educational answer about the difference between sexuality (“who you are attracted to”) and gender identity (“who you are”).
But the real answer is in his eyes. It is simply, “Yes.” Not “Yes, Diane. You nailed it,” but rather, Yes, this is a truth that cannot be nailed. A truth without definitive answers. A truth that forces us to rock from side to side. Not just Jenner’s truth, but our own.
Do you ever ask yourself what masculine or feminine expressions or mannerisms make you feel most safe, comfortable, authentic, free or good? Do you check in with yourself about what turns you on sexually? Do the answers to any of these questions evoke fear in you? If so, have you asked yourself why?
Bruce Jenner has wrestled with these questions for his entire life, mostly while in the public eye, and this makes him a valuable resource for those who want to better understand how gender and sexuality impact our lives. But we can’t rely on Jenner alone to enlighten us. Sure, we benefit from his story. As Sawyer says, “We think it is a story that can only be told by someone who lived it.” But we also have stories of our own. We must struggle with our own questions — the way Sawyer’s confused hands do at moments in the interview — with our own fears and discomforts, in order to better tell our own stories.
By questioning and shattering the stories that have been imposed on each of us, we allow ourselves the opportunity to reassemble the fragments — as Jenner has done — into a mosaic of our own creation. We give ourselves room to live with freedom, with authenticity and with a sense of integration.
And, at the same time, we also develop greater empathy for those, like Jenner, whose crucial need to live outside the norm is more obvious than most.
The more we understand our own relationships to gender, the less we scapegoat our marginalized sisters and brothers who are targeted, discriminated against and attacked. By better understanding the fears we harbor about gender nonconformity in our own bodies and souls, the better we can answer the question, What is more frightening, the sight of a gender nonconforming person, or getting beaten to death?
Too many transgender people are regularly stigmatized, discriminated against, assaulted and murdered. They need our advocacy, support and protection. But fear of the unknown too often sways our thoughts toward the known instead, toward the majority of cisgender people — those who feel a match between their assigned sex and the gender they feel they are. Too many of us empathize more with the “normals” who get startled, flummoxed or bothered upon spotting transgender folks in restrooms, rather than the transgender persons themselves. (BTW, when trans people enter bathrooms, like you they most likely just want to pee).
The fear of gender nonconformity and the fear of physical attack are not the same thing. You or your child could very well be targeted in a public restroom. But should that occur–and I hope it does not–gender nonconforming clothing and/or behaviors are not likely to be the clues that tip you off to the perpetrator. In fact the opposite is far more likely to be true. (Statistics show that trans people are more likely to be victims of murder and assault than any other minority group.) Knowing the difference between your own fear of gender nonconformity and your own fear of attack will make you better able to protect yourself, your children and also your gender-variant friends and family when any of you are in danger.
An excellent new collaborative performance art project, called Gender/Power, addresses these very issues and assists in exploring them. Led by Maya Ciarrocchi and Kris Grey, the project’s goal is to not only elevate the “experience of being transgender away from medicalization and pathology,” but also to reveal “gender injustice as an insidious cultural condition in need of reformation.”
I attended a performance in March in New York City, and I found it to be revelatory, especially by the way it implicated my fellow audience members and me. As the piece opened, we were escorted into a room with several screens showing images of gender nonconforming bodies standing still. As there was no seating we all stood, squinting through discomfort like Diane Sawyer during the Bruce Jenner interview. But what was making us uncomfortable? The bodies we were watching? Not knowing which of them was female and which male? The stillness? The not knowing what would happen next? As we rocked from side to side in uncertainty, I witnessed men standing defensively with tense (strong?) arms crossed in front of their chest. I saw women fidgeting and rolling their eyes in awkwardness (girliness?). Every one of us clung for dear life to the gender expressions with which we were most familiar — a desperate grasp for control, for security, for an escape from the confusion.
The performers then entered the space and each shared narratives about their own struggles to reconcile gender with their own bodies and souls. Across the performance they seemed to swap narratives, effectively disorienting us but also disarming us, awakening us to the liberating possibilities available to each of us when the rigid walls of “normal,” of binary, of “man” and “woman,” are torn down.
As the piece came to a close, the performers stood in silence once again — this time live, as opposed to on a screen — staring at each of us, forcing us to confront our own genders, bodies and souls, emboldening us with our own questions.
We will all be more enlightened, more aware, less afraid, less on the attack and more prepared for attack, if we direct our questions about gender expression not just to the people who stand out, but also to the bodies we stand in. To ourselves.
*This post first appeared on Mark O’Connell, LCSW’s Psychology Today column, Quite Queerly.
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HRC Boots on the Ground in Texas
HRC Boots on the Ground in Texas
We are over 100 days into the 140-day Texas legislative session and things are heating up.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/hrc-boots-on-the-ground-in-texas?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Andrew “I Don’t Like Mens No More” Caldwell Speaks To Jimmy Kimmel About Having FroYo Thrown In His Face By A Lesbian
Andrew “I Don’t Like Mens No More” Caldwell Speaks To Jimmy Kimmel About Having FroYo Thrown In His Face By A Lesbian
If there’s one thing Andrew “I Don’t Like Mens No More” Caldwell seems to be especially good at, it’s finding creative ways to keep his name in the press.
His most recent stunt involved having a bowl of frozen yogurt thrown in his face by a store employee after allegedly calling her a bitch for not giving him a discount. (Caldwell claims he called her a dog, not a bitch. There’s a difference.)
“The bowl hit me all on my face, on my clothes, on my shoes! Everywhere!” Caldwell told his local news station shortly after the incident.
Now, the “delivered” former homosexual has gone on Jimmy Kimmel to discuss that terrible day.
Caldwell told Kimmel that he plans on writing a negative Yelp review about the store and is considering suing for “a couple millions” as well.
He also said it was a good thing he didn’t order hot fudge on his frozen yogurt because if he had “my skin would’ve been burnt!”
And as for the possibility of making up and maybe even befriending the cashier, Caldwell said that’s never going to happen, although if she apologized, he would offer his forgiveness, because that’s the Christian thing to do.
“Praise the Lord,” he preached.
Check out the interview below.
Graham Gremore
News: Jubilee, Zayn Malik, Watergate, Sweet Cakes, Apple Watch
News: Jubilee, Zayn Malik, Watergate, Sweet Cakes, Apple Watch
Bryan Singer gives us a close-up look at Lana Condor as Jubilee and Sophie Turner as Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocalypse.
Microsoft’s age guessing algorithm is pissing people off.
Cover art for Britney Spears upcoming collaboration track with Iggy Azalea “Pretty Girls” released.
Duck Dynasty‘s Willie Robertson says he and his family haven’t changed their anti-gay “values”: “We’re still the same people that we were.”
Zayn Malik removes One Direction from his Twitter handle.
Florida man discovers box containing map, coins and preserved human hand that may be linked to notorious pirate Jose Gaspar.
Study finds global warming is a threat to 1 in 6 species.
Via Outsports: With the drafting of Shane Ray, NFL confirms Michael Sam is target of homophobia.
First look at Stephen Amell as Casey Jones in the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel.
One-time Chris Christie ally pleads guilty to charges stemming from an intentional 2013 traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge.
Prince records ode to Baltimore after Freddie Gray protests.
Thousands are still missing in Nepal after last week’s earthquake. “We don’t know where they are, or they could be,” Ambassador Rensje Teerink told reporters. Officials said it was hard to trace the missing because many backpackers do not register with their embassies.
Chicago’s Sweet Cakes Bakery wants you to know they aren’t that Sweet Cakes.
Independence Day 2 gets a casting shakeup.
Ricky Martin seems very excited to meet his latest wax figure in Australia.
Turns out it was never a dress.
Parking garage at Watergate complex collapses, leaving one person trapped in the wreckage.
Got a wrist tattoo? Might want to hold off on buying an Apple Watch. “Apple has updated a support page on its website to say that some people who have tattoos may find that the wearable’s heart rate monitoring doesn’t work as expected, confirming user reports over the last week who reported errors in the device’s readings.”
Hilary Duff is filming her Tinder dates for a potential reality show.
Baltimore’s drop-in center for homeless LGBT youth damaged in rioting.
Kyler Geoffroy
IMG_8144
Walking Into Conflict: Trans Woman and Visual Artist Yishay Garbasz on Chronicling Trauma
Walking Into Conflict: Trans Woman and Visual Artist Yishay Garbasz on Chronicling Trauma
“My job is not to document a story, or see right or wrong — you must step out of the way and allow the picture to enter the camera,” explains British-Israeli and Berlin-based artist, Yishay Garbansz. Her latest show is the solo exhibition “Severed Connection: Do what I say or they will kill you” at the Ronald Feldman Gallery running from May 9 – June 13 in NYC, which chronicles three sites of hot conflict and resounding trauma produced by fear of the other.
Shooting Conflict Zones
Garbasz spent the last 10 years traveling and photographing the DMZ as well as on the South Korean island Baengnyeongdo bordering North Korea, the entire length of the barrier from both sides in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine, Fukoshima, Japan and lastly the Peace Lines of Northern Ireland and other local spots like the “Murder Triangle.” The images were created using a cumbersome large-format camera that must be hoisted onto a tripod before backloading a single negative. Amazingly, Garbasz dragged this kit along with her through check-points, minefields and radioactive wastelands to prevent herself from cheating and taking more images than necessary. Besides the expense, the bulky camera’s extensive set-up forces her to soak up the landscapes, wait patiently for the shot and resolve with her entire sensorium where the image lies; all this before assembling her gear for the shot. Only then will she step to the side and press once.
Capturing Trauma
The affective intensity of working at the scene of trauma is central to Garbasz’ practice. “Be afraid,” she tells me, then methodically “let the fear wash over you and the camera and hope that it stays, let it churn and be with it.” Her bearing witness and being open to ordinary people caught up in conflict is important because it allows her to be a witness “in a way that others were not there for me.” This project follows on from her acclaimed book In My Mother’s Footsteps (2009) that chronicles her movement as a young girl between Jewish Gettos, concentration camps and on a death march that her mother took through Germany from 1942-45. The desire to stand in the footsteps of others is powerful, and perilous. In the exhibition, blue footsteps, like those guiding tourists in South Korea to the ‘correct’ spot to take a picture, draw us into Garbasz’ perspective nestled amongst blood splattered buildings, bombs and radioactive waste. The resulting images are equally soaked in desperate color, evocative and haunting; they shatter our sense of life and death as separate worlds.
De-Humanization and Crowd Control
Growing up in Israel, the daughter of survivors and even as an officer in the Israeli army has its indelible impact, not least the sensitivity to how a people and individual persons can become simply enemy targets. Garbasz’ new work-in-development will focus on how soldiers and police officers eliminate the hesitation to kill another human through target practice. The show “Severed Connection” already consists of a body of work that is trying to pause this dehumanizing drilling practice by slowing us down to really look at how fear of the other is produced. By focusing on militarized spaces that use a ‘single dimension line of defense’ (wall, barrier, limit line) the artist critiques the demarcation of Us and Them. In terms of military tactics, Garbasz says these types of defense between neighboring states are historically weak and unsustainable because there is not enough distance to maintain a single line. Nevertheless, they are powerful spaces for maintaining control over your own people because of the constant tension and flare-ups that reinforce the fear of the (enemy) other. Thus, her images of, for example, tranquil scenes of rice fields that end at landmine fields remind us these are no ordinary landscapes but places that radiate fear in the social, national and global imaginary.
A Jewish Woman of Trans Experience
Though being a trans lesbian does not define these works, Garbasz has also chronicled her physical transition in Becoming (2010) a flipbook and a life-size scale model of a zoetrope with 28 images of her nude body taken over 28 weeks. Her own experiences of being ordinary, poor and, nevertheless, made into an image of the enemy other grants her “a trans sensitivity to being” for people who endure conflict and the micro and macro forms of trauma. Becoming a visually marked woman, congruent to her self-identity, also granted her a form of femme invisibility that allowed her access to wander past borders, and into restricted areas. For example, she made friends with laboring women on the island who took her through a field of landmines to where they harvest the best seaweed — Garbazs following precisely in their footsteps. Or in Fukoshima, she could have been arrested for a possible breach of security for filming the accident site, but she apologized profusely in Japanese in a ‘girly’ way. Being invisible to power, and perceived as incompetent sometimes helps. Being femme, which she loves, also enables her simply to do her job: to get up, go out and see. Being poor and without a car meant too that she would simply walk with her rolling suitcase carrying the hefty camera, to most eyes a non-threatening pedestrian, a nobody.
These works on display demonstrate that Yishay Garbasz has a commitment to look anew at others and their trauma. Each time she risks this relationship, from scratch, to fall in love with the thing that she most fears. There is no calculating your own risk in becoming fully open and exposed to the work. Simply go, step in and follow her footsteps. And watch out for the razor wire.
Yishay Garbansz is represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery.
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts 31 Mercer St New York www.feldmangallery.com
Website: www.yishay.com/
Eliza Steinbock (Assistant Professor, Department of Film & Literary Studies, Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society) writes on contemporary philosophies of the body, visual culture and transfeminist issues. Recent publications include essays in the Journal of Homosexuality, Photography and Culture and TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. For more information, please see www.elizasteinbock.com.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Everyone is Welcome in Clarksdale
Everyone is Welcome in Clarksdale
Clarksdale, Mississippi, known as the “Birthplace of the Blues,” welcomes people each day from around the nation and the world.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/everyone-is-welcome-in-clarksdale?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Heterosexual Marriage Is The “Masterpiece Of Society,” According To Jesus By Way Of Pope Francis
Heterosexual Marriage Is The “Masterpiece Of Society,” According To Jesus By Way Of Pope Francis
Jesus teaches us that the masterpiece of society is the family: the man and the woman who love each other. In many countries, the number of separations is increasing, while the number of children is in decline. Christians do not marry only for themselves. They marry in the lord in favor of all the community, of society as a whole.”
— Pope Francis, perhaps trying to sway the upcoming SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, in a public speech made April 30
Jeremy Kinser