September 2011

Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo Calls for Compassion

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.  Dalai Lama

The other evening I received an email inviting me to meet the man commonly refered to as the ‘Desmond Tutu’ of Uganda – Bishop Christopher Senyonjo. Bishop Senyonjo’s unfailing support for the LGBTI people cost him his job in the Anglican Church of Uganda and everything else but his integrity. To his fellow Anglican Bishops and church leaders, he is a useless, good for nothing person, BUT to the LGBTI community, he is a savior and that is what keeps him standing. When the Kampala tabloids called for the hanging of LGBTI Ugandans, they included his picture.

He has been aggressive in his fight against the Ugandan Parliament’s “Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” which calls for imprisonment and death. Against all odds, he has gone on to create a safe space where the LGBTI/straight allies find refuge while the rest of the population turns against them: St. Paul’s Reconciliation And Equality Centre-Kampala.

St. Paul Reconciliation Centre pursues a holistic approach to the challenges in Uganda, providing essential services while also seeking systemic change and fostering genuine reconciliation for LGBTI persons and other marginalized groups. Its programs include business development, HIV education and services, counseling, and support for expanded schools, LGBTI advocacy and dialogue, an LGBTI legal resource team, and a sanctuary safe house for activists who frequently need to go into hiding.

Whenever he is around town, I get to see him, and over the weekend had another opportunity to listen to him speak at All Souls Episcopal Church in Washington, DC. Throngs listened to him talk about Compassion and call for all people to be tolerant of everybody like Jesus was.

He thanked Americans for their good heart and for sacrificing their huge taxes towards helping the disadvantaged populations around the world, including but not limited to the LGBTI community in Uganda.

Anyone who wants to contribute to this cause…please visit the center’s website.

“The only weapon we can use to fight our battles isn’t guns, atomic bombs, or missiles, but compassion.” Bishop Christopher Senyonjo

 

The Sexual Freedom Project: “I AM” Justice

Thanks to theMassachusetts Transgender Political Coalition we are able to see powerful videos from its I AM: Trans People Speak project. Check the other ones out.

Justice, a trans man learned a lot about life at college, and still ponders the racism, classism, sexism,  homophobia, transphobia, and oppression all around him. His mother’s unconditional love helped form his own activism and desire for healthy communities.

What experiences in your life has radicalized you, inspired your own activism?

Let us know, okay. We’ll give you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt for taking the time to tell your own story, make your own video, write an essay or create a piece of art to express your stor

Why Trans Life is a Necessary Cosmic Reality

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

También en español At the end of the last post I admitted that  I certainly cannot prove that this higher level of Transcendent Life (Trans Life) exists beyond Real Live (RL) as RL exists beyond Second Life (SL). If it exists, then there is surely a path of transition from RL to Trans Life that is similar to the SL to RL transition, and our destiny is to transcend RL and occupy this new level by following the path of living truth.

Follow me now into a domain of rational speculation and let me explain why I believe Trans Life is a universe reality.

In the post Where Did All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From? we explained how the presence of evil in the universe is in contrast to the presence of good. There is no reality in evil; however, good has not yet fully permeated the entire finite universe. If the final state of the finite universe is destined to be completely permeated by good, then a process must exist in time and space for the generation of good to fill the gaps of apparent evil. This process is the action of individual beings satisfying the desire of love to do good to others as an act of free will guided by truth.

Where are the beings to come from who perform the great task of filling the universe with the true goodness born of perfected love? We might speculate that an initially empty finite universe comes into existence with some minimum capability or imperative to satisfy the universal desire of love to do good. We can further speculate that this capability has been sufficient to bring into existence a partially developed and populated universe in which a large number of planets are populated with communities of physical creatures, who are endowed with similar abilities and characteristics as ourselves.

Now we may ask what would be the purpose in populating a RL universe with limited, finite beings destined to decay and disappear after a few decades of productive life? Is it reasonable to speculate that such beings could progressively transfer the seat of their personal consciousness from RL to Trans Life? Looked at from the viewpoint of destiny, would it not be necessary for these finite beings to finally participate in Trans Life, where they could continue to develop as individuals and as doers of good?

The exhaustion of all potentials of finite development will equate to the full expression of love throughout the universe and the full personal development of every person to Trans Life. If RL persons did not survive in Trans Life, there would be no path to the inevitable finality of destiny, the complete emergence of the unified consciousness of all mind, standing at the end of time and drawing all events towards its generation and fulfillment.

To summarize this speculation, if free will personalities aren’t going to live forever as citizens of Trans Life, there will be no way to fully populate the finite universe at the finality of destiny, nor would a corps of beings associated with the finality exist to eventuate identities and provide the tools of transcendence to the citizens of the infinite (post-finite) universe that they will construct, beings we imagine might develop a bit like we have imagined avatars in SL.

True Transhumans, everyone who embraces physical, intellectual, and motivational technologies that provide transcendence, are personally destined to serve truth, as the focal exercise of the true will, for eternity. Transhumans experience the joy of participation in creation and continued existence to satisfy love by doing good to others, guided by the spirit of truth.

Survival of the human consciousness in Trans Life is necessary to provide for full realization of all the potentials of the universe, the true multiverse.

 

The Sexual Freedom Project: Telling my dad that I am gay-LIVE

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell takes effect this week, so we are sharing this viral video that’s reached TV and over 3 million people on YouTube. An active service member calls his Dad in Alabama from where he’s stationed in Germany to tell him he’s gay, and his father responded in a way that’s been very moving.

What’s your coming out story? And what were the reactions of your families and friends? Every coming out is its own revolutionary act, and some people say they come out to a further degree on a daily basis.

Are you in the military now and seeing the effects of DADT repeal?

What are the factors that make coming out easy or hard?

Make your voice heard. Make a comment, or for a free VenusPlusX t-shirt celebrating sexual freedom, send us your own video, or send us a poem or essay or work of art. free

 

Whitehouse.gov petitions: What the people really want


Earlier this month Whitehouse.gov (the official site of the White House) launched “We the People”:

“Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.”

Any petition created within the first 30 days, that reaches at least 5,000 signatures, will receive an “official response”. This has incredible potential. It gives the Internet hivemind a way to bring what they actually care about to discussion. Guess what the people want?

  1. 34,223+ “Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol.
  2. 20,375+ “Abolish the TSA, and use its monstrous budget to fund more sophisticated, less intrusive counter-terrorism intelligence.
  3. 16,930+ “Call an Investigation into Allegations of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin
  4. 12,763+ “Edit the Pledge of Allegiance to remove the phrase “Under God”.
  5. 10,594+ “Allow Industrial Hemp to be Grown in the U.S. Once Again
  6. 10,381+ “Direct the Patent Office to Cease Issuing Software Patents
  7. 10,178+ “Legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana.
  8. 9,586+ “Stop Interfering With State Marijuana Legalization Efforts
  9. 8,689+ “End the destructive, wasteful and counterproductive “War on Drugs
  10. 8,537 + “Remove “In God We Trust” from currency.
  11. 8,400+ “Restore democracy by ending corporate personhood.
  12. 7,998+ “Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

I don’t see any hate petitions, or faith petitions, nothing commercially motivated. These are generally issues that I care about and ones that don’t always receive the most coverage. Even if the corporate media shies away from an issue, tools like this bring them back up. If these petitions get the attention they genuinely deserve, then it could be a huge step forward for our country. In reality, our government isn’t ignorant to these things; someone has an agenda that involves marijuana being illegal and the TSA making travel inconvenient and degrading.

We don’t know what the “official response” will look like, but right now these petitions are educating people and creating a valuable sense of urgency.

Sign up, contribute, and spread the word.

The Sexual Freedom Project: Criticizing Moves Like That

(También en Español)

BREAKING NEWS? Abstinence-only education is a failure and causes huge problems. Every society suffers without health and sex education, including the safety of contraceptives.

We also have to cope with our “politicians” often counter-productive actions.

When do you think sex education should begin for children? what age? at home or from friends or at school? (Only after marriage??)

How can sex education and age of consent vary so widely state to state? where the trail of abstinence only sex ed leaves a trail of higher unwanted pregnancies at earlier and earlier ages?

What’s your experience holding elected and appointed accountable? Should we have a national bill of rights that provides for the mandatory health and sex education of all minors?

Send us your thoughts, comment, make your own video or write a short essay, or send us your visual ideas that express the ideals of sexual freedom, and we’ll thank you with a free VenusPlusX t-shirt .

Video by Tiye Massey.

TRANSCRIPT by David Kreps

So you take abstinence-only education in the United States. That is a huge problem for sexual freedom in this country. I feel that we can’t really be free sexually if we’re not informed, and abstinence-only education has been demonstrated not to be effective. All the research indicates that it’s not going to prevent people from having sex and… So they’re going to be just as likely to have sex and when they are, they’re not going to be as apt or as knowledgeable about contraception and all the relevant information. So, for example, Hillary Clinton came out a couple years ago, I want to say  2008? She said, “Abstinence-only education doesn’t work, we know that it doesn’t,” and then she pours a few more million dollars into these programs and you’re just like “What??” (laughs) So yeah, we should be criticizing moves like that, and then we’ll get to where we want to be with sexual freedom.


This week’s hot stuff (9-22-11)

The Take Back the American Dream conference, organized by the Campaign for America’s Future with support from Rebuild the Dream, will be happening on October 3 – 5 in Washington, DC. Find out more and register online. The American Dream Movement is growing stronger by the day, and it’s not going away until everyone can find jobs, afford to go to college, retire with dignity, and secure a future for our children and our communities.

Rainbow Response Coalition in DC is a grassroots organization addressing the needs of LGBTQ people with regard to domestic violence. This deeply sensitive work joins LGBTQ leaders domestic with violence service providers and government agencies to increase the awareness about Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) amid the relationships of LGBTQ individuals, and educating within the LGBTQ communities and beyond. We encourage you to get involved and support Rainbow Response Coalition.

We hoping to make it to the The Singularity Summit 2011, a TED-style two-day event at the historic 92nd Street Y in New York City, October 15-16. This is all about the development of new technologies ramping up more and more rapidly, an exponential expansion of technology wherein technology feeds on itself making unpredictable progress, otherwise known as “the singularity,” a term coined and popularized by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Joining Kurzweil as a speaker are visionary scientist Stephen Wolfram, IBM manager Dan Cerutti, longevity expert Sonia Arrison, author David Brin, neuroscientist Christof Koch, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, MIT polymath Alexander Wissner-Gross, DARPA challenge winner Riley Crane, Skype founder Jaan Tallinn, economist Tyler Cowen, television personalities Jason Silva and Casey Pieretti, and robotics professors James McLurnkin and Robin Murphy. The Singularity Summit was founded as an academic forum for discussing the “big picture” questions in industry, economics, and ethics raised by the prospect of such a profound event.

Fantasia Fair is a week-long celebration of gender diversity and according to its website it is also the longest-running annual event in the transgender world. Every October it is held in Provincetown, Massachusetts, this year October 16-23. We have only heard rave reviews of this gathering which attracts hundreds of gender-queer and transfolk from across the country. There is a whole circuit of similarly themed conferences, one called Be All every year in Chicago. Many people we have spoken to here with us attending Atlanta’s Southern Comfort Conference are heading north for Fantasia Fair because there is nothing like person-to-person contact to help forward our common cause.

Out & Equal‘s 2011 Workplace Summit in Dallas is coming, October 25-28. “Individuals, human resources professionals, diversity managers, employee resource group (ERG) leaders, and allies have the perfect platform from which to make powerful connections, share best practices, and formulate a strategy that allows for a powerful demonstration of their commitment to equality in the workplace.” Find out more about this and the many other thing this organization is accomplishing.

We marvel over The American Equality Bill which calls for equal non-discrimination protections for sexuality and gender, and would apply nationally to every state by adding “sexual orientation and gender identity” to all existing federal civil rights legislation.  As endorsements add up for this idea, Representative Jared Polis (CO-2) is also working on an LGBT Omnibus Equality Bill to be introduced sometime in October. If you want to get involved in working towards such a bill and help free our society from sexuality and gender oppression, go to Equality Giving or Facebook.

It’s Vicky’s birthday again, Victoria Woodhull that is (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927), the radical suffragette that founded the sexual freedom movement. Each year, Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance produces a report, the State of the Sexual Freedom in the US, and presides over Sexual Freedom Day filled with informative presentations, the “Vicky” Awards to outstanding sexual freedom pioneers, and a sumptuous gala in the evening. Alison and Dan are members of the Alliance’s Advisory Board, and VenusPlusX returns as a Sexual Freedom Day sponsor. Some tickets are still available, but make a note for next September 23 to attend this must-go event.

And. we can’t pass any opportunity to draw your attention to People For The American Way and its crucial work fighting right-wing extremism in this country. Please check out “Right Wing Watch” on their website, one of many features that will spur you into action.

Last but not least, a shout out and message of love and deep admiration for all the dedicated and impassioned individuals who comprise Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and played such a vital role in seeing through the September 20 repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It’s a brand new day. Thank you.

If you your site or blog isn’t yet on our general Stuff We Like, or would like to be featured here on our weekly top ten, please let us hear from you.

Becoming and Being an Avatar—Uploading Salvation

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

También en español And so we come, at last, to the true meaning of salvation. It is common to think of this word as meaning escape from mortality, resurrection into an afterlife. Yet this also contains the idea of a personal change to observe a higher set of ideals, so that one overcomes bad attitudes and behavior towards others. I think the most basic concept of salvation is, however, salvation from uncertainty—the avatar’s choice. If the avatar makes the single choice to engage the resident’s will, or the output of a higher level cognitive process embodied in AI, then ey knows whatever mess ey gets into subsequently will be something the higher level resident’s mind understands, no matter how it looks to the avatar. If the avatar can’t accept this, then ey will expend his energies in a futile attempt to continue to exist without taking advantage of the higher mind functions of eir resident.

Salvation is freedom from fear, and from the uncertainty of acting correctly (doing good). Salvation is provided by commitment of the will to act in the spirit of truth. And so we strive to live the truth, not just to tell the truth. And by so doing our actions will produce goodness for the benefit of our fellows and make beautiful the harmony of kindred spirits. If our human lives are indeed similar to the consciousnesses we can imagine for an advanced SL avatar, we may face a common experience of existence and mortality.

In discussing the experience of an avatar finding identity escape from SL to RL, we ignored the problem of providing the higher cognitive processes that will support integration of avatar behavior between SL and RL. Were the avatar already controlled from RL, eir identification with eir resident (from whom eir lower cognitive functions were uploaded) would be complete as long as the linkage of will overcontrol is maintained. Avatars without this capability will have to be adopted by some RL service, but we have not identified who or what would do this.

Imagine then a highly advanced self-acting avatar, through learning, recombination of memes, and experimentation with its higher mind functions, at last being able to reach beyond the confines of its original design requirements, learning to perform alone at a new and higher level of cognition. This idea is certainly no more challenging than believing that computers will become so powerful someday they will be able to take over policy functions, rather than simply automating a process. Such an avatar would have proven its value to the community. By progressively qualifying to operate effectively at higher cognitive levels, the avatar would demonstrate its ability, given sufficient computational resources, to function in RL if an RL representation or interface could be provided.

We can imagine providing some sort of physical body in RL for the physical control by the SL mind of the evolved avatar. In effect, the self-evolved SL avatar takes control of a physical “avatar” in RL and, through integrated action of will, becomes a fully functioning physical presence in RL. In effect, an RL personality could be partially embodied in an SL avatar, and a sufficiently evolved SL being could be partially embodied in an RL artificial body. The fact that this transfer can occur in either direction gives hope to the idea that someday a way will be found to achieve full personality within the avatar. On the other hand, it is at least equally possible that the mind of the avatar cannot achieve full personhood without direct engagement in RL.

Why is salvation freedom from error? Because in that way a subordinate consciousness is able to function effectively in its own environment, while self-evolving to be able to embrace higher cognitive functions, yielding still more effective functioning. Such a simulated mind, as in a thinking SL avatar, has the implicit ability to shift its seat of conscious identity from SL to RL or to synchronize with a free RL identity. In either case, the conscious being is no longer dependent on the SL computational substrate to support its continued existence, having moved into RL and begun utilization of RL energy processes. Would the avatar mind think it had been immortalized by the transition, even as we assume humans making a mind transition to an artificial substrate would think themselves immortalized? Perhaps the grass is always greener on the other side.

In either case, imagine what it would be like if the reach for higher consciousness the SL avatars make were similarly performed by human minds operating in RL. The human mind seeks the same kind of salvation as the SL avatar—namely, the certainty of right action. And the human finds this salvation by exploring higher levels of cognition of which ey are initially unaware. As these levels are explored, they become familiar to the person and are incorporated into rational patterns of behavior. And this process leads the individual to progressively improve eir actions in increased harmony with universal ideals until eir seat of consciousness comes to occupy a level of reality that transcends the limitations of a physical brain.

I certainly cannot prove that this higher level of Transcendent Life (Trans Live) exists beyond RL as RL exists beyond SL. If it exists, then there is surely a path of transition from RL to Trans ifeL that is similar to the SL to RL transition, and our destiny is to transcend RL and occupy this new level by following the path of living truth. On the other hand, we also know that, should there be no Trans Life to receive our developed personalities, our lives will not have been in vain, for we will have chosen as well as we could, lived as well as the world provided, and passed on our ideals for the help and uplift of those who come after us. If our destiny is only to be pastfathers, then we shall have been being the best pastfathers we could be. And if a way exists to extend our life experience, whether in Trans Life, RL, or SL, we will grasp it with our customary enthusiasm.

 

Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

Gamers solve molecular puzzle that baffled scientists

There is this website, Fold.it. People go there to play a video game about Protein Folding. Players can contribute to science by solving these puzzles.

Wikipedia sums up the news nicely:
“. . . online gamers used Foldit to decipher the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease, which is linked to an AIDS-like virus. Players produced an accurate 3D model of the enzyme in just three weeks. The problem had thwarted scientists for a decade.”  

This is significant: We haven’t hit the singularity yet, but the emergence of tools like Foldit that enable the masses to cooperate, will greatly accelerate technological progress.

  • Captchas are often part of a transcription project, and you’re actually helping transcribe words from old texts.

The beautiful cooperation that we have enabled with the Internet is throwing us forward. As more people participate, and new forms of participation are created, the benefits to and advancement of humankind will be exponential.

This week’s hot stuff (9-15-11)

Voto Latino along with the National Council of La Raza are playing an increasing central role in advocating for progressive causes across a spectrum of stakeholders, not just for immigration, but all struggles for economic and social justice including labor rights and equality rights. These are the leaders of America’s new majority and so much the target of the old white men who would have it otherwise. We will soon be hearing from Gloria Nieto who will be writing on the intersection of race, gender, and sexual politics.

In doing research for a story Zain Rivzi is preparing this week, about what it is like to be gay in Iran today, we came across the now resurfaced Iran Human Rights Blog. Zain is asking if you know that the only way two men can be coupled in Iran is if one of them undergoes sexual reassignment surgery? The penalties for homosexuality is imprisonment, torture, and death, which are worse, but the result is an entire class of transexuals who easily fall into poverty and prostitution. Prostitution in Iran is technically legal under government issued “temporary marriage” documents, but in any calculation it’s a mess, and a mess that we need to care about.

The Organization for Refuge Asylum & Migration (Oram) is a fierce and heroic advocate for refugees fleeing sexual and gender violence and provides free legal advice and representation. They are looking for interns and volunteers and you can “adopt a refugee” to see someone through the passage of safety and resettlement.

Doing work on America’s streets to prevent the spread of HIV and protect the lives of prostitutes living at society’s edge, Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS) works tirelessly to break the chain of poverty, prostitution, and HIV. We salute them, support them, and urge you to get involved in this life-saving work.

Returning again this year, we’re off to Southern Comfort Conference next week. This most excellent and exuberant gathering draws nearly a thousand gender non-conforming and trans folks and their allies spending a 4-day weekend sharing wisdom and seeking common ground. Check out the days of programming that are punctuated with all sorts of social events; this year, the conference joins the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) International Symposium on September 26. You’ll want to come, or at least put it on your calendar for next year. Scholarships are available. We will be hosting several events there including several scheduled Live Twitter Chats on the subject of Transunity and Transleadership. If there ever was a time to join hands to end transphobia, it certainly has to be now.

The last week in September we are headed to Arse Elektronika (AE) for a something, as they say, completely different. Nonetheless it is related to sexual freedom. AE is an international conference founded in Austria and held each year in Europe and in San Francisco. It is an exposition of the future of sexuality, gender, and technology. As transhumanists we are interested in the individuals and companies on the forefront of this industry’s great potential. because they have a built in interest in the struggle for sexual freedom and may want to become involved in in VenusPlusX’s grant-making programs. Consider that future sex is safe sex and future sex technology will find more of a market as sexual repression ebbs away and disappears.

We are again highlighting DC Trans Coalition, and its recently released preliminary findings in a Needs Assessment that was undertaken last year. Must reading for all those who advocate for the rights of trans people, and other sexual minorities. Around here, we say, “If you advocate for the T (as in Transgender, Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual people, TLGB) you are advocating for everyone. We hope you will take an interest and support the DCTC’s exemplary work.

Planning for January’s Creating Change Conference (January 25-29, 2012, in Baltimore) is underway and looking for volunteers and presenters. The next planning meeting is September 15 at 7:oo PM at the MCC Church conference room (401 W. Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201).

Few dig as deep as Michelle Meow at Swirl Radio out of San Francisco, “a fast-paced show . . . from the epicenter of the gay universe.” Check it out.

And, last but not least, a shout out to our favorite news aggregator  for giving the Huffington Post a run for their money, The Raw Story.

If you your site or blog isn’t yet on our general Stuff We Like, or would like to be featured here on our weekly top ten, please let us hear from you.