Dear TSA, My Body Is Not an Anomaly

“Sir or ma’am or whatever, please step over here,” were not the words I wanted to hear from a blue-clad TSA agent twice my size as I was moving through the security line at Denver International Airport.

I was running late for my flight to Washington, D.C., where I was to start my summer legal internship with the National LGBTQ Task Force. My excitement for the trip was promptly squelched as the giant, red-faced man shouted, loudly enough for the whole terminal to hear, “We have anomalies in the chest and groin area. Private screening, female agent requested.”

Perfect, I thought. I could feel my neck getting hot, and I looked down and away from the other people in line behind me who had suddenly been alerted to my “otherness.”  

Despite having changed my name and gender marker on my Colorado driver’s license a few months earlier, I still wasn’t always read as male at this point in time. My voice had only just deepened, and my facial hair was a far cry from the beard I now regularly wear.

Hustling to grab my carry-on and shoes, two TSA agents escorted me to a private room with fogged glass walls and a small table. Once inside the room, the agents started speaking quietly to themselves. I stood awkwardly, adjusted my shirt, opened and closed my fists.

“Sir, we need to know what’s in your pants,” said the male agent, not at all hiding his lingering gaze at my crotch.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I said, trying (and failing) to hold back my rage.

“Actually, it is our business, because we know it’s not a penis,” said the female agent, smugly, like she’d just discovered an important secret.

Before I could think about what to say or how to say it, I reached into my jeans and pulled out my packer (a small prosthesis) and threw it on the table. “There! Is that what you’re worried about?”

Both agents turned red and started giggling. I was livid. Frantically, I started unbuttoning my dress shirt and lifted up my white undershirt to show them my chest binder. “And this, this is the other thing you’re worried about?” I shouted at them, hoping my newly deepened voice was audible to other travelers beyond the fogged glass walls.

“Now, sir, er, ma’am, uh … there’s no need to get upset,” said the female agent. “We are following protocol.”

“Protocol my ass.” I retorted. “You can’t treat me like this just because I’m transgender. And stop calling me ma’am. I’m a dude.”

“OK, Mister Charles,” the female agent said, mockingly. “No need to get hysterical.”

At hearing that word, I felt the blood rush to my face, and I blinked hard to keep from screaming at both of them, who just eyed me, still suspicious. “Are we fucking done here?” I demanded.

“Yes, sir,” The male agent replied quietly, vaguely aware of the embarrassment and rage I was feeling. “We’ll step out to give you a minute to collect your things.” The female agent glared at me as she left.

I buttoned my shirt back up, stuffed the packer into my bag instead of my pants, and stepped quickly out of the room and towards the throng of people heading to their gates, eager to blend in. It wasn’t until I had reached the relative safety of a stall in the men’s bathroom that I set down my bags and wept into my hands.

I’ve not told many people about this incident, and perhaps it’s clear why: it was demeaning, embarrassing, and most of all, incredibly disrespectful.

Like many trans people who deal with harassment from TSA in the alleged interest of “national security,” I felt powerless. I was left feeling like I had done something wrong just by living my life. I didn’t want to call more attention to myself by reporting what I presumed was just business as usual. I already felt hyper-visible in a world not meant for people living somewhere between the gender binary of male and female. I worried that reporting what happened would lead to TSA agents further dismissing my dignity and humanity. I couldn’t go through that again, and to this day, I avoid air travel whenever possible. But so many trans people can’t avoid air travel, and can’t avoid situations where they risk being outed and shamed publicly.

As long as TSA continues to assert that treating trans people’s bodies as inherently suspicious is “following strict TSA guidelines,” as it did in response to Shadi Petosky’s awful experience at the Orlando airport late last month, we will continue to be subject to discrimination.

Because let’s be real: subjecting me, Petosky, and thousands of trans people around the country to this kind of treatment is not upholding “strict guidelines in the treatment of transgender passengers.” Forcing people to be screened according to their assigned sex at birth, calling their bodies “anomalies,” and laughing at the things we do to be safe and live with dignity in this transphobic world is not “upholding strict guidelines.” It’s perpetuating shameful discrimination and we deserve better. Period.

CARL CHARLES is a Skadden Fellow and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV Project. His work at the ACLU focuses on advocating for transgender and gender-nonconforming youth who are homeless, in foster care, or in the juvenile justice system. He is passionate about working for LGBT youth and their families who are impacted by the criminal justice system. Find him on Twitter @rarlrarles.

Carl Charles

www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/10/01/dear-tsa-my-body-not-anomaly

Leading US gay Catholic Father John McNeill has died aged 90

Father John McNeill, a leading and pioneering advocate for the acceptance of LGBTI people within the Catholic Church in America, has passed away aged 90.

Born in Buffalo, New York in 1925, McNeill served in World War II before being captured by the Germans and placed in a prisoner of war camp – an experience that transformed his spirituality.

Returning to the United States, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1948 and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1959.

McNeill fell in love with a man while completing a Ph.D from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1964 and would later recall of the experience, ‘the joy and peace that comes with that — it was a clear indication to me that homosexual love was in itself a good love and could be a holy love.’

In 1969 he played a part in the establishment of DignityUSA, a support and social group for LGBTI and LGBTI-accepting Catholics to worship together, and founded the group’s New York chapter in 1972 while teaching Christian Sexual Ethics at the Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in the city.

In 1976 McNeill published the book The Church and the Homosexual with the permission of his Jesuit order – the first non-judgemental work on gay Catholics and their place in the church – and it was translated into several languages.

However McNeill was ordered by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, to stop speaking on the subject or risk expulsion from the church after he came out as gay on national television in the United States that same year in an interview with Tom Brokaw on the Today show.

McNeil continued to minister quietly to LGBTI Catholics for many years while keeping a public silence until Ratzinger issued the Vatican pastoral letter ‘On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons’ in 1986 which described gay people as having a ‘tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.’

McNeill spoke out against the document in statements given to the National Catholic Reporter and the New York Times but Ratzinger retaliated by ordering him to give up all ministry to LGBTI people and advocacy on their behalf.

McNeill was expelled from the Jesuits and forbidden from saying Mass – though he technically remained a Catholic priest.

However his expulsion freed him to speak publicly again against homophobia in the Catholic Church and he continued to be an advocate for LGBTI Catholics for many years.

In 1987 McNeill was honored by being made Grand Marshal of the New York City Pride Parade and in 1998 he published a memoir, Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair: My Spiritual Journey.

In the late 80’s he also founded The Upper Room AIDS Ministry as an outreach group for homeless people with HIV in Harlem.

For much of his early career McNeill had publicly said he was celibate but in truth he had been in a same-sex relationship with his long term partner Charlie Chiarelli since 1969 and the pair married in Toronto in 2008.

In 2012 McNeill was the subject of the documentary Taking A Chance On God in which he spoke of having tried ‘with the help of the Holy Spirit to free gay Christians from the lies of a pathologically homophobic religion.’

McNeill passed away with Chiarelli at his bedside at a hospice in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on 22 September.

In a statement announcing his death, DignityUSA executive director Marianne Duddy-Burke praised McNeill as ‘the first major prophet of the Catholic LGBT movement.’

‘His groundbreaking bravery in daring to question official Church doctrine was truly liberating to so many people. The Church and the Homosexual was really the ‘coming-out’ Bible for LGBT Catholics,’ Duddy-Burke said.

‘We offer our deepest condolences to Charlie and commend him for his faithful companionship and care-giving to John over so many years.’

McNeill’s family has established a Father John J. McNeill Legacy Fund in his memory to preserve his written and spoken legacy and to continue his world empowering LGBTI Catholics around the world.

The post Leading US gay Catholic Father John McNeill has died aged 90 appeared first on Gay Star News.

Andrew Potts

www.gaystarnews.com/article/leading-us-gay-catholic-father-john-mcneill-has-died-aged-90/

Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black are engaged

Tom first told the world about his relationship with Dustin when he came out in December 2013, saying he had begun a relationship with another guy.

‘In spring this year my life changed massively when I met someone, and they make me feel so happy, so safe and everything just feels great,’ he said. ‘That someone is a guy.’

And last year in December, Daley described it as ‘love at first sight’.

‘I’d never felt like anything like it before. We were at a party and I hadn’t even spoken to him all night. I didn’t know what to do or if he was gay at first,’ he told Jonathan Ross.

‘I’d never felt the feeling of love, it happened so quickly, I was completely overwhelmed by it to the point I can’t get him out of my head all the time. I’ve never had it before where I love someone and they love me just as much.’

The post Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black are engaged appeared first on Gay Star News.

Joe Morgan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/tom-daley-and-dustin-lance-black-are-engaged/

Transgender Teen Left 'Speechless' After Mom's Big Surprise

After months of waiting, a transgender teen’s request to legally change her name was finally approved. To celebrate the big moment, her mom organized a special surprise on Saturday.

The announcement left 16-year-old Gabrielle Diana Gladu utterly “speechless.”

In the video above, watch as Gabrielle’s mom, Rose Gladu, unveils a cake emblazoned with a special message.

“It took me a moment to process what it said on the cake,” Gabrielle, who lives in Ontario, told BuzzFeed News. “It said, ‘Congratulations, you are now Gabrielle!‘”

Rose says she wasn’t expecting the teen’s emotional reaction.

“I came up the with idea of the cake as a vehicle to celebrate her name change while having an informal family dinner with those that support, love and care for her,” Rose told Buzzfeed. “I was not expecting her to get so emotional that she became speechless. My daughter is never speechless. I knew at that moment my child came back to me. She was on her way to who she had been from birth.”

For the past year, Gabrielle has been documenting her transition on her YouTube channel.  

In an August video, Gabrielle shared a letter to her younger self that urged her to “take chances” and be courageous. She also encouraged herself to come out to her parents sooner rather than later.

“At first, mom’s not going to take it very well. She’s going to be confused and she’s going to be scared. But I promise, in time, she will come around and she’ll be one of your best supporters ever,” the teen says to the camera.

Also on HuffPost: 

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Ben Carson blames same-sex marriage for ‘dramatic fall of the Roman Empire’

US presidential candidate Ben Carson has blamed gay marriage for the ‘dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.’

The Republican made the comments in his 2012 book America the Beautiful, BuzzFeed News first reported.

‘As a Bible-believing Christian, you might imagine that I would not be a proponent of gay marriage,’ he wrote.

‘I believe God loves homosexuals as much as he loves everyone, but if we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.’

The former neurosurgeon added: ‘I don’t believe this to be a political view, but rather a logical and reasoned view with long-term benefits to family structure and the propagation of humankind.’

Carson, who is currently second in most polls, has also blamed political correctness, sports and entertainment for the empire’s decline.

Historians, other the hand, say Christianity contributed its demise.

‘As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire,’ the preeminent classical historian Edward Gibbons wrote in his seminal work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The post Ben Carson blames same-sex marriage for ‘dramatic fall of the Roman Empire’ appeared first on Gay Star News.

Darren Wee

www.gaystarnews.com/article/ben-carson-blames-same-sex-marriage-for-dramatic-fall-of-the-roman-empire/

Emails: Hillary Clinton fumed about gender-neutral passport forms

Hillary Clinton fumed when the State Department replaced ‘mother and father’ with the gender-neutral ‘parent one and two’ on passport applications without her knowledge, an email released on Wednesday (30 September) reveals.

The former secretary of state sent an strongly worded to her top aides in 2011 demanding to know who had made the decision, which she said she would not defend in Congress.

‘I could live w letting people in nontraditional families choose another descriptor so long as we retained the presumption of mother and father,’ she wrote.

‘We need to address this today or we will be facing a huge Fox-generated media storm led by Palin et al.’

The State Department announced the change in late 2010 ‘in recognition of different types of families,’ which was hailed as a victory by LGBTI rights groups.

But the day after the email, Clinton issued an order that the department retain ‘mother’ and ‘father.’

Read the full email below:

Who made the decision that State will not use the terms “mother and father” and instead substitute “parent one and two”? I’m not defending that decision, which I disagree w and knew nothing about, in front of this Congress. I could live w letting people in nontraditional families choose another descriptor so long as we retained the presumption of mother and father. We need to address this today or we will be facing a huge Fox-generated media storm led by Palin et al.

The post Emails: Hillary Clinton fumed about gender-neutral passport forms appeared first on Gay Star News.

Darren Wee

www.gaystarnews.com/article/emails-hillary-clinton-fumed-about-gender-neutral-passport-forms/

What's the Story Behind the ‘Transgender Tragedy’ on Tonight's 'Law & Order: SVU'?

“Transgender Bridge,” tonight’s episode of NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, is summarized by the network as a tale of “transgender tragedy”: “When a transgender teen is taunted by high school kids, bullying escalates to tragedy.”

All too often in its 17 seasons on television, L&O: SVU has portrayed trans characters as sex workers, crime victims, undesirables and caricatures. 

Tonight, a 15-year-old transgender girl named Avery Parker is shown walking home from school through New York City’s Fort Tryon Park, where she’s surrounded by a group of rowdy boys.  

“Taunts and jokes intensify to pushing and shoving,” reads the show’s official description, “leaving Avery in the hospital and three assailants under arrest.”  

When the worst happens and the district attorney’s office decides to try one of the culprits as an adult, “the SVU squad agonizes over whether the punishment fits the crime, and must deal with the pain of both families involved,” according to a spokeswoman for NBC.

She told The Advocate the trans teenage girl is played by an actor named Christopher Dylan, who she says has had varied roles, including one in a short film for the band Counting Crows. 

The Advocate asked his manager, through the spokeswoman, to disclose whether Dylan is cisgender (nontrans) and what pronouns would be preferable but did not receive a reply. 

Avery’s character has what NBC says is “a very supportive and loving family (her parents are played by real-life Tony-nominated couple Danny Burstein and Rebecca Luker).” Actress Bianca Leigh plays Dr. Sandow, Avery’s therapist who gives the eulogy at the funeral. 

When asked if this episode is meant to show a change in direction by L&O: SVU, to showcase trans characters in a more sympathetic light than it has since 1999, the spokeswoman had this to say to The Advocate:

“SVU strives to start a conversation and educate viewers on topics that may not otherwise come to light on television.  The show has been telling stories about and with trans characters since its inception — some storylines that stood out for me were episodes like ‘Fallacy’ in 2003, where a transgender woman is faced with jail time in a men’s prison, ‘Identity’ in 2005, where questions of ‘nature vs. nurture’ in a child’s gender identity are put to an extreme test, and ‘Transitions’ in 2009 where two parents have vastly different views on the upbringing of their transgender child.”

Full disclosure: The writer of this story appeared in “P.C.,” a 2010 episode of Law & Order: SVU as one of the angry lesbians who supported and then protested against a bisexual character played by Kathy Griffin.

You can read more about tonight’s episode here from our sibling publication Out and watch a previe, below.

Dawn Ennis

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2015/9/30/whats-story-behind-transgender-tragedy-tonights-law-order-svu

Hillary Clinton Fumed About Changing Passports For Same-Sex Parents In 2011

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton was furious about a 2011 State Department decision to replace the words “mother” and “father” with gender-neutral terms on U.S. passport applications, warning of the wrath of Sarah Palin, according to newly released emails.

“Who made the decision that State will not use the terms ‘mother and father’ and instead substitute ‘parent one and two’?” Clinton wrote in an email to staff on Jan. 8, 2011. The email was released Wednesday by the State Department as part of an ongoing dump of emails that Clinton sent from a personal account during her time as secretary of state.

“I’m not defending that decision, which I disagree w and knew nothing about, in front of this Congress. I could live w letting people in nontraditional families choose another descriptor so long as we retained the presumption of mother and father,” she wrote. “We need to address this today or we will be facing a huge Fox-generated media storm led by [Sarah] Palin et al.”

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the time, responded, “Reaching out to folks to find out.”

The State Department’s proposed change was intended as a nod to people with same-sex parents. Clinton learned about it from a Washington Post story published the day before. The article featured a gay rights group praising government officials for acknowledging “that hundreds of thousands of kids in this country are being raised by same-sex parents.” Conservatives grumbled that the change reflected “the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness.”

But the department ended up not making the change. The day after Clinton’s email, Mills sent Clinton an Associated Press story with the headline “State Department steps back on gender-neutral parentage, won’t replace terms ‘mother,’ ‘father.'” 

A spokesman for Clinton’s presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Clinton has had strong support from the gay and lesbian community in her presidential bid, but she’s also hit some bumps along the way.

In June 2014, she tangled with NPR’s Terry Gross (who tangles with Terry Gross?) over her evolution on same-sex marriage, and argued that marriage laws should be left up to individual states. Even at the time, Democrats had already abandoned that stance in favor of calling for constitutional protections.

And going back further, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site, this week released audio recordings of Taylor Branch, a confidante of former President Bill Clinton, sharing conversations they’d had about Hillary’s supposed discomfort with gay people during her 2000 Senate race.

According to Branch, Bill said at the time that Hillary’s “conservative religious temperament” might make her uncomfortable with gay people “acting out or pushing her to the limit.”

But Clinton did a lot for the LGBT community during her time as secretary of state. She announced that gay diplomats would receive benefits similar to those received by their heterosexual counterparts, something they’d previously been denied. She also, in December 2011, gave a historic speech in Switzerland in which she addressed human rights abuses against LGBT people. Gay rights advocates said this was a first.

“Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human,” Clinton said in her 2011 speech. “And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.”

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www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/09/30/hillary-clinton-same-sex-passports_n_8224408.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Rick Santorum confronted on gay marriage by Raven-Symoné on The View

Shortly after Rick Santorum sat down on the set of ABC’s The View on Wednesday (30 September), co-host Raven-Symoné had a question for the Republican presidential hopeful.

‘Speaking, not for, but as a part of the gay and transgender community, why can we not have equal marriage rights?’ she asked the former US senator.

Santorum, an outspoken opponent of marriage equality, launched into lecture mode saying that the ‘greater purpose of marriage … is to bring men and women together so when they have children, there’s a permanent bond by which those children can be raised by their natural mother and natural father.’

He then alluded to the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.

‘ … When you have a law that says, as the Court said, that marriage has nothing to do with children anymore, then what you’re going to have is you’re not going to have a society encouraging the behavior that is in the best interest of children and the future of society.’

Raven-Symoné, who is currently in a relationship with a woman, asked Santorum why he felt gays could not raise a ‘very beautiful, smart, intelligent child’ just as well as a heterosexual.

Santorum replied: “I’m not saying that a same-sex couple can’t have a very positive and nurturing environment. Historically, and I think sociologically, if you look at today, is in the best interest of that child to be raised by their natural mother and their natural father, and that’s really what we want to encourage.’

Santorum finished second to Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. His campaign this time around has so far failed to gather much traction and is polling at 1% in most national polls.

The post Rick Santorum confronted on gay marriage by Raven-Symoné on The View appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/rick-santorum-confronted-on-gay-marriage-by-raven-symone-on-the-view/

The Identity Of The Hottest West Hollywood Lounge Will Surprise You

Read on GayCities

Chris Bull

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