Alison Gardner

February 2012 Newsletter

Hundreds rallied around our message, “Sexual Freedom – You Are Born With It” at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference a couple of weeks ago in Baltimore, which brought together 3000 equality rights activists and allies. Many made videos about what sexual freedom means to them and you will be seeing them here in the coming months.

Most of the VenusPlusX crew were out in force and brought an exciting presence to the Creating Change Exhibition Hall. And, we supported the Bi/Alt/Kink Hospitality Suite, and the Trans Hospitality Suite, where we convened a special afternoon reception for Trans Latino and Latina attendees.

Hot on our priority list, and something we have been especially pleased to inaugurate recently, is VenusPlusX’s roll out of Spanish language resources, including videos, news, and insights into Transhuman Erotic Freedom, such as “A Course in Immortality” (“Un Curso de Inmortalidad”) presenting a rational, myth-free, and practical guide to living a sane and happy life.

Plans for the coming months include upstepping our work with a coalition of organizations fighting police bias and the resultant violence against the trans community, and expanding our online conversation on Transleadership & Transunity to include many more voices.

In January, VenusPlusX joined the U.S. Human Rights Network’s Sexual Rights and Gender Justice Working Group, and attended our first working meeting at Creating Change. Also last month, founder Alison Gardner was installed as secretary of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance. Continuing as members of the Gender Rights Maryland Advisory Board, we are looking forward to continuing to work as long as it takes to finally realize trans-inclusive legislation in that state.

For those of you who want to go deep, you can find a long interview of Dan and Alison done in TeleXLR8 virtual space by Guilio Prisco, talking about the “new age of sexual freedom” and its direct connection to advocacy for equality rights. The Institute of Ethics & Emerging Technologies (IETT) posted the video and a summary (here).

Lady Gaga launched her youth empowerment foundation, Born This Way Foundation, on November 2, and we were happy to see it start on the same day to follow VenusPlusX, a sign we are permeating the twitterverse, and spikes in our viewership have been encouraging. So, if you haven’t already, will you start following @VenusPlusX on Twitter, and “Like” us on Facebook, or subscribe to our RSS feed, when you can? You can find us on Tumblr now, too.

Sign Our Petition to Stop Harmful Prostitution-Free Zones

Tomorrow in DC we will be delivering testimony, reprinted below, in opposition to Bill 19-567, a proposed new law that would allow police to designate permanent Prostitution-Free Zones (PFZs), which have been dubbed by local activists as Trans Profiling Zones.

If you cannot attend tomorrow, you can watch online.

In any case, in the coming two weeks, please join us by signing the change.org petition. Each time someone signs, the DC Council gets email notice. We want to deluge these officials’ in boxes and make sure that this legislation is never passed, and that even our current temporary PFZs disappear in the waste bin of stupid ideas.

Prostitution is illegal, but PFZs, temporary as they are now or permanent, constitute legalized sex discrimination and a direct challenge to civil rights. Any discussion of PFZs is, therefore, part of a larger discourse on human rights.

As others will attest tomorrow, the establishment or continuation of PFZs is clearly unconstitutional, ignoring due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution, so any law making them permanent will be subject to unending legal challenges costing our city hundreds of thousands of tax dollars defending a foolish law.

Putting the question of constitutionality aside for the moment, however, these PFZs are a menace to public safety by creating “papers please” profiling zones threatening people in the neighborhoods where they wish to live and work in peace. Police haven’t curbed prostitution or decreased crime that is imagined to be associated with prostitution, just relocated most of these activities to outlying neighborhoods away from downtown.

All residents and visitors to our nation’s capital have the right to be free from unwelcomed, coerced encounters with police, and the harassment that ensues during such forced encounters. Because most if not all of these coercive encounters have been shown to be biased, based entirely on the personal judgments and viewpoints of the police officer/s, rather than extant police procedures and special orders and human rights laws in the District of Columbia. Many of these unsolicited encounters with cross-purposes result in unwarranted arrests, further harassment, mistreatment by the police while incarcerated, and sometimes injury or even death.

DC government has the opportunity to step back and consider that the path of the PFZs is not only a losing proposition, it goes against the very principles of existing local laws and the very integrity of those who serve the Council. Rather then roiling ‘red meat’ for a small group of noisy busybodies in select neighborhoods, so as not to ‘appear’ as favoring prostitution, lawmakers should instead focus their attention on finding systemic and sustainable solutions that offer better employment options to this most vulnerable class of people, often forced through economic necessity to seek sex work for their very survival.

VenusPlusX’s testimony, prepared by Dan Massey, points to a future where sex workers are not victims of police overreach such as these PFZs. Here it is:

A Statement Opposing Establishment of Permanent Prostitution-Free Zones in the District of Columbia

You are today considering legislation that would create permanent “prostitution- free zones” (PPFZs) in certain areas of the city. I strongly urge that the Council table this matter for the time being and instead initiate a combined government and community-based effort, emphasizing transparency and harmony, to effectively address the real underlying problem which the PPFZ proposal fails to address.

There is little to gain in enacting laws that sound responsible to a vocal minority in the community, but which depend solely on the government to deploy violence against fellow citizens. Such laws deserve only ridicule when examined in the light of reason.

Sex workers provide an important function in society by filling a market need that cannot be eliminated, since it comes about through the choices and desires of the individual members of the population as a whole.

Criminalization of sex work simply forces sex workers to practice their profession at times and places where they can be free from police observation, while remaining accessible to their clientele.

Unfortunately, this means the solicitation and delivery of services will most often occur at times and in areas of the city where the participants will necessarily be more vulnerable to crimes of violence because of reduced police oversight.

At this time, I am not suggesting that the Council immediately de-criminalize and regulate sex work. Rather, I want each of you to honestly examine how much better it would be for the city to establish “Prostitution Zones” (PZs), under police protection. in which sex work is legal, licensed, and medically supervised.

Such zones would become havens for legal, socially beneficial sexual healing, and create opportunities for sex worker cooperatives to emerge, owning real estate and paying license fees and property taxes.

At the same time, with the establishment of such centers of expertise, open sex trade would be drawn away from unaccepting areas of the community, to everyone’s satisfaction.

At the moment, such a change in the underlying approach to prostitution in the city would be misunderstood and misinterpreted by many who hold strong opinions, simply because they have not yet actually been engaged in a rational discussion of alternatives and choices.

The Council can show it supports a rational approach by providing a public forum charged to find systemic and sustainable solutions for the District’s challenges in this area. Its current course in considering establishment of PPFZs will only complicate matters further, since court challenges based on considerable precedents in other locales are inevitable.

This forum should be established with a view towards providing the same respect, rights, and safety that all District residents desire from our society and our government, and should draw on community resources advocating every possible viewpoint and attitude, while providing full transparency in the decision-making process.

The outcome of such a discussion would be broad public education on the challenges of governing a modern city, the emergence of agreement on common goals and purposes, and anticipation of the benefits of agreed changes.

Such results would be visible through the reduction in crimes of violence, especially those motivated by racial and sexual hatred, as well as improvements in the health of all District residents.

At present, many people find themselves trapped into sex work by economic situations, many of which arise directly from social prejudice, hiring biases, and unfounded presumptions.

In this respect, I applaud the work of Project Empowement, which is demonstrating the fallacy of social prejudice. The ongoing effort to help our local LGBT youth gang find a constructive outlet for their commitment and energy also deserves recognition.

To summarize, I am advocating that the Council, working with MPD and the Mayor’s Office, begin to support and listen to an emerging discussion that would educate the entire DC community in wholesome ways to address the serious social problem created by public misunderstanding of legitimate, morally responsible services.

On a closely related subject:

Law enforcement management is maturing technically in many US cities. In 2009, the National Institute of Justice funded a Phase 1 trial of Predictive Policing in seven cities, including Washington, DC. I have seen no published report from this work; however, Shreveport and Chicago have received grants of $0.5M and $1.5M, respectively, to implement Phase 2 of their plans.

Building on earlier successes in Los Angeles, Memphis, and Richmond, Predictive Policing involves the collection and analysis of large bodies of data about crime times, locations, conditions, victims, methods, etc., as well as detailed environmental data about the organization of the city and its infrastructure.

Results help identify and pinpoint places, times, and conditions conducive to crime. Often, they identify environment, infrastructure, and organization that leads to the emergence of these “hot spots.” In Memphis, for example, the incidence of public rape, assault, and theft was significantly reduced simply by shifting the locations of public pay phones that were shown to be “hot spots” from street locations to the interiors of businesses open 24×7.

It is clear that legislation that criminalizes prostitution and then, having given up on fair enforcement of the original law, seeks to occasionally apply it more forcefully and arbitrarily in specific areas, is itself responsible for the formation of “hot spots” for serious criminal activity.

Making these zones permanent is merely another step backwards into a system of regulation that, like the proverbial ostrich, hides its head in the sand.

I urge Council members concerned about crime prevention in DC to examine some of the reference material on Preventive Policing cited in the attached References.

I firmly believe that, if the city will openly and honestly examine these issues, free from unreasoned prejudice, it will be possible to reform our practices in a way that can be a light to the entire nation.

The time has come for our city to take steps that will surely lead to the achievement of full civil liberty and freedom under a system of laws that fully represents to the nation and the world our highest ideals of excellence in law and government.

Let us again proclaim to the world that the District of Columbia aspires to be a shining example of full liberty and freedom for all, as was demonstrated in the establishment of Civil Marriage Equality in 2010 and many prior victories for human rights.

REFERENCES

The Deparment of Pre-Crime. James Vlahos in Scientific American, Vol. 306, No. 1, pages 62-67, January 2012.

Self-Exciting Point Processes Modeling of Crime. G. O. Mohler, M. B. Short. P. J. Brantingham, F. P. Schoenberg, and G. E. Tita in Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 106, No. 473, pages 100-108, 2011.

How New York Beat Crime. Franklin E. Zimring in Scientific American, Vol. 305, No. 2, pages 74-79, August 2011.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports: www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr.

Scientific American Online: www.ScientificAmrican.com/jan2012/precrime

in Campaigns / Grassroots / Public Information by Alison Gardner 23 Jan 2012 1 comments

Realizing The Dream

Originally published November 30, 2011

Upon visiting the new Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial in Washington, DC, I thought about how well Dr. King’s philosophy has been realized in our society almost 50 years after the delivery of his “I have a dream” speech.

Dr. King believed in non-violent advocacy for justice and equality. His work was rooted in faith, opportunity, and freedom. And while Dr. King’s honorable philosophy is a strong model to follow when doing my own advocacy work, overall we have over-romanticized his life and work. We hang onto his goals as if working toward them, but have to address the ongoing debate over whether we have in actuality been moving away from them. The notion that we have in fact brought about a safe, peaceful environment for everyone, regardless of background, is perhaps more absurd than spending $120 million on the memorial itself.

As a country, we simply do not practice non-violence. We are obsessed with war and crime, and that is reflected in our all of our media, TV shows, video games, and music. We justify violence, and desensitize ourselves, in order to obtain power or status.

Advocacy is often not rewarded and it is difficult to introduce new ideas that may actually benefit people, relieving them from poor incomes or housing or other constructed state of oppression. It can be discouraging and even dangerous to speak up about injustice in a peaceful way because it is a method of change that we greatly under-value.

An example of this is the recent video capture of non-violent protestors at UC Davis. Students gathered on their quad to protest tuition increases and social injustice, and police officers pepper sprayed many students, seemingly without second thought.

So many of us are walking the path that Dr. King paved for us, and I will remain hopeful of a day when his memorial is a complete living testament of hard work and maintained peace. I do not discredit our country for its lack of social progress. But there is hypocrisy in using so many resources to construct the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial when as a country we do not display the values of Dr. King’s teachings and practices. Since the memorial is here to stay, we need to do a better job of upholding the goals of a great American man, and make his dream a reality.

in Videos by Alison Gardner 16 Jan 2012 0 comments

It’s just hair! Right?

Editor’s note: This post was written by one of our interns, Jamor Gaffney.

It was the summer before I began 5^th grade when I got my first relaxer. I was curious, nervous, and unsure of whether I was making the right decision. Not because of what I now understand to be a deeply rooted, oppressive standard of beauty in this country, but simply because I didn’t know how my hair would turn out. The morning before I went into the hair salon, I wore an Afro; I walked around my neighborhood so everyone could see my hair, and they would surely see the “new and improved” Jamor once I returned from the salon.

I later arrived at the hair salon, sweating bullets as I sat in the chair. The stylist parted my rough, kinky Afro to base my scalp with grease to protect my skin; soon, I felt the cold, heavy relaxer on my head… there was no turning back now. A few minutes in, I noticed a tingling sensation on my scalp, then, a burn! I started tapping my foot against the floor to signal to someone that I was uncomfortable and was met with the response, “Beauty is pain, beauty is pain”.

Now, I knew I couldn’t say this out loud but I wanted to scream, “That makes no sense! Get this out of my head!”

The hair washing person eventually rescued me and the rest of this seemingly stupid process was fine. Seemingly stupid turned into genius because the finished product was in fact, a new and improved, Jamor. I had shiny, silky, straight, long hair… I never looked back.

Today, I am more conscious of the implications of the relaxer in the black community and I wonder if my mom and I made the right choice in having my hair chemically straightened. The new BET original television show “Reed Between the Lines” about a black family deemed “the new Cosby Show” has an episode that speaks to my questions about perming my hair at a young age. Kaci is a young teenage girl who wants to perm her hair because a boy she likes at school prefers her hair straight. Her mother Carla tries to talk her out of the decision, explaining the potential consequences of putting a perm in her hair. A conversation like this would have been very helpful for me when I was younger.

Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics articulates my thoughts on my hair, and the ways that black women present themselves. For black women, myself included, their hair is a performance of both their race and their gender. How I present my hair to others is in many ways, a statement or declaration of my race and gender. I’m pressured to keep my hair long and straight by men, black men!

I find it disheartening that within my own racial community, I’m not comfortable enough to present my hair, as is, how it grows from my scalp, without being considered less beautiful. This stems back to the Great Migration when blacks moved from the South to the North looking for better job opportunities and an overall better way of life. There were pressures by both whites and Northern blacks for this new influx of people to appear elegant, polished, and classy and “taming” their hair was the first step to maintaining that appearance. Today, similar pressures are put on blacks to appear more professional and approachable. All of these adjectives are just indirect ways of telling me to try to look white and be friendly, and that the efforts I make toward doing so will impact my success.

What’s unprofessional about a black woman washing her natural hair and putting a little holding gel on it for work in the morning? Some white women do just that, and no one is uncomfortable or appalled. For a country with such racial diversity as America, it should be considered highly problematic that our standard of beauty is still so sourly, solely skewed toward whiteness. How is this affecting young black girls today? Based on how perming my own hair as a 5^th grader changed my perspective on black hair, I can’t imagine other young girls not wanting to feel new and improved too.

in Op-Ed / Public Information / The Sexual Freedom Project / Videos by Alison Gardner 22 Dec 2011 0 comments

Human Rights Day 2011 – Part II

December 10, Saturday, was Human Rights Day 2011, and I reported on its origns, history, and background, noted the important role Eleanor Roosevelt played in drafting The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and delved into the direct connections between human rights and sexual freedom contained in the Declaration.

Last week, on December 6, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton surprised a lot of people all around the globe when she made an historic address to international diplomats gathered at The United Nations Office at Geneva (Switzerland) about the specific intersection between lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and human rights. The Secretary said, “Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.”

Secretary Clinton gave a powerful and moving address, in which she put the world on notice that:

It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.

In response to Secretary Clinton’s statements, as well as a coordinated proclamation from President Obama on the same day, religious bigots and certain Republicans gave the expected outcry, claiming this amounted to the United States using tax-payer dollars to forward what they call “a homosexual agenda.” But her comments are already making a difference in the international community: the country of Malawi has already announced that they will re-examine their laws as they relate to the LGBT community.

Unfortunately, the condition of human rights as they relate to LGBT rights in Secretary Clinton’s own United States is pretty deplorable. In most states, LGBT citizens are not protected from discrimination in housing, employment, or public accommodations. Same-sex couples are prohibited from marrying in most states, and even in the few states where they are allow to marry, there is no federal recognition of such marriages due to the misnamed “Defense of Marriage Act” (ironically, signed into law by a President who was cheating on his wife at the time). This law is a blatant violation of the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, and as a direct result of this single law, same-sex couples are discriminated against under at least 1,138 separate Federal laws that cover everything from taxes to immigration and beyond.

What do you think can be done to bring the United States more into compliance with the kinds of LGBT protections Secretary Clinton called for in the rest of the world? America likes to think of itself as “the land of the free,” but when it comes to sexual freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens, is this a hollow and hypocritical promise?

Studies show that the younger people are, the more likely they are to support the kinds of changes that Secretary Clinton has called for in her historic speech. What does this mean in terms of how soon the LGBT community can hope to achieve full equality under the laws of the United States, and in other countries around the world?

Let us know what you think. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts on these topics. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

Flag image by Julyo, used pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

in Events / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / The Sexual Freedom Project / Videos by Alison Gardner 14 Dec 2011 0 comments

Human Rights Day 2011 – Part I

Today is Human Rights Day 2011. To mark the occasion, this video is from Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, and was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948.

This Declaration contains a number of Articles that directly relate to sexual freedom, and that apply to issues around human trafficking, marriage equality, and being lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans (LGBT). There is a prohibition of the slave trade in Article 4 that directly relates to human trafficking, when it states “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” Regarding marriage equality (also known as “gay marriage,” a term that does not adequately describe the issue), Article 16, Section 1 says, “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.” Clearly, the United States is in violation of this article, as are most countries around the world.

Whether we point to the right-wing religious zealots (such as “The Family”), including American congressmen, who are helping to pass laws that would imprison for life or execute LGBT citizens in Uganda and other countries, or to the police who harass and unfairly prosecute trans people here in America, our world is filled with rampant violations of Article 7, which states unequivocally “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.”

What does the concept of “human rights” mean to you? Do you believe that sexual freedom is a human right? Does your country respect your human rights, and if not, how could they do better? What role can we play in improving human rights in other countries, including those relating to sexual freedom? How can we ensure that sexual freedom is considered and included as a priority in discussions about human rights around the world today? Have you ever felt that your human rights were being denied? If so, how did you feel, and what did you do to respond? What have you personally done to help promote human rights here and/or abroad?

Coming in Part II, on Wednesday: Obama and Clinton’s historic efforts confirming LGBT rights as human rights

in Events / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / The Sexual Freedom Project / Videos by Alison Gardner 10 Dec 2011 0 comments

Google Sets New Industry Standard in Transgender Health Care Benefits

It’s nice to see an industry leader such as Google step out front on this important issue. Google’s stance will make it easier for other companies to follow suit and offer similar benefits, and, as a matter of competition, make it harder for other companies to refuse to do so. When employers in the same field are desperately fighting to poach top talent from each other, as they are (see the Microsoft bacon cart for more evidence of this trend), Google’s new policy sends a strong message about how they value all of their employees. It can only be a sign of better things to come in the high-tech world, and eventually across the entire corporate spectrum.

At Google, a Transgender “Gold Standard”

The updated benefits, announced internally by company officials on Friday and effective immediately, cover transitioning procedures and treatment in accordance with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care, and include gender reassignment surgical procedures determined to be medically necessary by a doctor.

Some of the procedures covered by Google’s health care plan include genital surgery, as well as facial feminization for transgender women and pectoral implants for transgender men — surgeries that can be considered medically necessary depending on the “unique clinical situation of a given patient’s condition and life situation,” according to WPATH’s seventh version of care standards, published in September.

The article goes on to say:

Google also has more than doubled the maximum dollar amount for transgender health care benefits, from $35,000 to $75,000, the minimum amount required for a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2012 Corporate Equality Index, which is expected to be released in the coming weeks. The benefits are covered by the company’s existing insurance providers and apply to domestic employees, Newman said. Google is considering extending similar benefits to international employees, though it does not currently have a timeline for doing so.

in News of Note by Alison Gardner 22 Nov 2011 1 comments

A Mission Accomplished

We are pleased to report the DC TLGB Watch’s Transgender Day of Action in Washington, DC, was, and continues to be, a notable success by any standard.

Even a few days ago, when elected/appointed officials became a little nervous on rumors that street demonstrations and set of demands with deadlines were coming to their doorsteps, the Trans community leaders were offered some coordinated face-time with the Office of Mayor Vincent Gray together with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the US Attorney for Washington, DC (USAO), a fresh approach to replace their usual divide and conquer strategy to make these problems magically disappear. (Because we still do not have statehood in Washington, DC, our justice system is federally administered by the USAO, and this causes obstacles of its own that interfere with bringing justice and equality to the Trans community.)

So, even before the first boot hit the ground or the first demand leapt from our bullhorn, we saw a new willingness among these officials to start responding proactively on a level this crisis of anti-Trans violence and police bias warrants. But that was just the beginning.

After marching in front of the MPD with 40+ Trans victims, activists, and allies, with chants like “Hey, Hey, Ho Ho, Transphobia has got to go,” and delivering our demands in writing directly to MPD Police Chief Cathy Lanier, we read each demand out loud from the sidewalk as a media scrum pressed in to interview spokespeople in the Trans community. Minutes later, while headed over to the federal building a few blocks away that houses the USAO, to rally again and deliver our demands to the US Attorney, we were chased down in the street by a press aide from Police Chief Lanier’s office with a an official statement.

Lanier’s incredible “rebuttal” of our demands was an insult and misrepresentation of the countless hours and years community leaders have spent in meetings with her and her predecessor with little to show for it except for increasing anti-Trans violence and murder. With just a few sentences, she tried to blame the Trans community for its failure to send representatives to an unannounced, hastily organized MPD meet-and-greet last week, a sign, in her mind at least, that we were the ones not being serious about working in partnership with them to bring about change. This was at once ironic, ludicrous, and infuriating because this defensive statement was so obviously hastily prepared a few floors up simultaneous with our street demonstration, and at the same time, indisputably and so sadly demonstrates to everyone who can read how unserious and off the page she and her department have been.

We’re talking about a spike in anti-Trans murders, two in the last 4 months, rampant anti-trans violence, including attempted murders at the hands of police, and police bias and police profiling especially within DC’s highly questionable and indeed unconstitutional “Prostitution Free Zones.” What are they focused on? They want to argue with us about who came out for a coffee, a completely cynical deflection carried out in the most petty, amateurish, and self-disclosing way. The Chief cannot help but fail each time she approaches these important issues because she first must change her own very bad attitudes, and then be in a position to get serious about the gravity and urgency this shame in the nation’s capital deserves.

Today, the emails to our community are buzzing back and forth from Chief Lanier and her commanders. They are scrambling to reach out now that we have taken to direct action to bring this crisis to the attention of every American and established what their priorities must be. Maybe now they can begin to change the situation by changing themselves and understanding just how they discriminate against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and, especially, Trans people by offering public relations tricks in place of honest dialogue. At least now, they are on notice that they must turn that corner and rise to their responsibilities.

We have come together in coalition with a set of demands we all agree on and we have set dates for completion. Now it is up to the Trans community leaders to press them in high level meetings with our elected/appointed officials, telling these decision-makers that they can keep the street activists at bay only if and when real progress starts and continues. We are a strong coalition representing a dozen prominent organizations dedicated to improving life for DC Trans residents. Now, at a moment’s notice, we can put boots on the ground, again and again, until real, systemic, and sustainable change comes to Washington, DC. We will do this until the anti-Trans violence and police bias in DC comes to an end, including the harmful Prostitution Free Zones.

in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / Public Information / Transunity & Transleadership by Alison Gardner 18 Nov 2011 0 comments

Call to action this Thursday, November 17, Washington, DC

Download Poster

Media Advisory Available

Goals and Demands

This urgent Call to Action for Thursday, November 17 starts at 1 PM in front of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD, 300 Indiana Avenue NW). Local activists have mobilized on behalf of Trans people in the District who have unfairly suffered police profiling, police bias, police harassment, undertrained police, and, indeed, violence at the hands of police. The disproportionate statistics in our nation’s capital reportedly tower over any other city or state.

WHAT: Transgender Day of Action

WHEN: Thursday, November 17, 2011, starting at 1 PM

WHERE: MPD Headquarters (300 Indiana Avenue NW) to the US Attorney’s Office (555 4th Street NW) and City Hall.

WHY: Because you don’t want to miss joining the trans community and its allies coming together to demand change.

HOW: Activists deliver a set of written goals and demands with date certain expectations and consequences.

WITH: Transgender Day of Remembrance, Sunday, November 20, 5 PM, at Metropolitan Community Church (474 Ridge Street NW)

MEDIA: Miguel, glaatuasmig@gmail.com, 571-218-7505; Alison, alison@venusplusx.org, 202-290-7077

The grim media reports trumpet the District’s rise in violent crime against Trans people, including two murders this summer, LaShai McClean, 23, on July 20, and Gaurav Gopalan, 35, on September 10, while experts content that crimes against Trans people are generally under reported or misrepresented by the police. And MPD’s clearance rate for assaults and murders involving trans victims is just a quarter of the average rate, 20% versus 80% of crimes solved, respectively, according to Police Chief Lanier.

The coalition called DC TLGB Police Watch organized this summer to support our community leaders who have tried for years to bring about systemic and sustainable change and instead have seen violent crimes and the Trans murder rate skyrocket. TLGB conveys our assertion of Trans issues when advocating on behalf of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGBT) rights.

On November 17, working in concert with our community leaders and the upcoming DC Transgender Day of Remembrance (Sunday, November 20, DC’s Metropolitan Community Church, 474 Ridge Street NW), we will take to the sidewalks and street to expose publicly this national shame to every American, and in this way also participate in remembering and honoring the many trans folk who have laid down their lives in the struggle for dignity and equality. On their behalf, we will hand-deliver to our city and federal officials, including MPD, a set of specific, written demands with date certain expectations signaling unrelenting public pressure until they take the serious, emergency measures this urgent crisis warrants.

Help us end the culture of transphobia and homophobia that exists within the MPD, city government, and DC’s federally administered justice system.

Volunteer to participate at Facebook/Transgender Day of Action or TLGBpolicewatch.tumblr.com. Download the Poster for your homepage or blog, listen to TransFM’s Ethan St. Pierre’s interview with Ruby Corado and Alison Gardner, and catch up with last Wednesday’s recent Hearing on Hate Crimes before members of the DC City Council. (Media contact 202-290-7077.)

We are counting on your boots on the ground at the November 17 Transgender Day of Action, and your welcomed presence a few days later at the November 20 Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Work with us to demand systemic and sustainable change in Washington, DC.

DC TLGB Police Watch (to date): DC Trans Coalition (DCTC), Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), GetEQUAL DC,International Socialist Organization (ISO), Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, Cedar Lane UU Church LGBT Task Force, Rainbow Response, Transgender Health Empowerment, Gender Rights Maryland, and VenusPlusX.

in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / Public Information / Transunity & Transleadership by Alison Gardner 15 Nov 2011 0 comments

What’s Hot Right Now (11/7/11)

Williams Institute, DC Hate Crimes Hearing, Think Progress/lgbt, OLB Research, The Trans Women’s Anti-Violence Project, plus

We have long been grateful to the Williams Institute, a University of California Los Angeles think tank advancing sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. In DC we are particularly indebted to the Institute for its involvement and financial support of the current Needs Assessment for our trans community, since the last one was done over 10 years ago. This study is organized and administered by the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC), and more info on it can be found on the DCTC homepage. Those of you familiar with the shameful epidemic of violence against trans folks in your nation’s capital, including two murders this year, can recognize how vital this new Needs Assessment will be, the research and data it will reveal to judges, legislators, policymakers, media, and the public, in bringing about systemic and sustainable change.

On that subject, since we have been involved and are tracking grassroots actions to affect that change, we want to commend a few of DC TLGB Police Watch and November 17 Transgender Day of Action coalition partners for their riveting testimony before the DC City Council Judiciary Committee’s Hearing on Hate Crimes this past Wednesday.

In particular, DC’s GLOV (Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence) which works vigorously to reduce violence against against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals through community outreach, education, and monitoring cases to ensure that the rights and dignity of LGBT victims are respected and protected. Three representatives from GLOV testified, include a young man who was the victim of a horrible example of LGBT violence. Jason Terry well represented DCTC, and his full written testimony (which he ably summarized in 5 minutes of live testimony), now on the DCTC homepage, is worth study as a sort of manifesto of what we are all talking about. We urge everyone to review the tape to see also the testimony from the Metropolitan Police Department and the counsel to the Office of the US Attorney (since DC doesn’t have statehood that’s the best we’ve got for now) telling those assembled they have no answers for the current spike in crimes against trans or don’t know why these crimes get under-charged (simple assault for rape, for example) and unsolved at a rate less than half in comparison for other crimes, 20% and 50%, respectively.

Special thanks go to Ethan St. Pierre and TransFM for the live interview this week with Ruby Corado, well-known DC trans activist and leader, and me, on the upcoming Transgender Day of Action happening in conjunction with the DC Transgender Day of Remembrance. It will really help us get the word out. Also, the poster for this joint event is available now and we hope more people would lift it, print it, distribute it, or put it on their homepage.

Ethan is a great activist and the curator for the International Transgender Day of Remembrance Registry, a special resource, a place to put things in perspective whenever you think you are too tired or discouraged to do one more thing.are too tired to do one more thing.

New and related information sources on tumblr.com are getting a lot of attention and deserve highlighting, too, including of course DC TLGB Police Watch along with The Trans Women’s Anti-Violent Project .

It’s not too early to point your attention to the upcoming Second Annual Momentum Conference across the river from DC in Arlington, Virginia. We attended last year and found it to be unique in terms of the scope of the program matched by the breadth of interests represented by the diverse attendees. It quickly sold out last year so we encourage you to get tickets early. Its mission is to bridge the baffling dichotomies our culture creates around sexuality by providing a safe place to listen, discuss, and learn about sexualities and gender without the fear of reprisal or shaming, a space for acceptance and appreciation of diversity, including for those in the LGBTQ, sex-work, BDSM, and non-monogamous communities.

And, what about Bank Transfer Day? We’ve been tracking this and are impressed with the results. This week it was reported that 650,000 people have moved their money from the large corporate banks back to community banks and non-profit credit unions. This is a form of civil disobedience that slams corporate greed and eliminates our paying for it. Although explicitly separate from the Occupy movement, it clearly was born from the same point of view.

We appreciate Think Progress‘s thriving LGBT reporting, which recently brought to our attention the work of OLB Research Institute and its recent report done with George Mason University and Indiana University on the health advocacy implications gay and bi men’s sexual behavior. They have further dispelled the myth that all gay and bi men have (and should have) anal sex, and showed that the ratings for pleasure were higher among older men and frequency of orgasm was higher when with a relationship partner. Equally interesting to us is the fact that OLB Research Institute is an arm of On Line Buddies network including Manhunt, an online service matching male partners for fun and games. The vertical integration of this enterprise represents a nascent model proving once again that those who love sex can become credible and respected sources or research.

Recently, Dan and Alison were in New York City meeting with colleagues and friends. Alison traveled from Zucotti Park with Occupy Wall Street to Washington Square Park to the amazing culminating occupation of Times Square on October 15. Saturday night while all the theater and party goers were trying to get to their destinations, we stood immovable. The peaceful crush of people itself conveyed the quality and bearing of the 99%, their collective goodness and good intentions alive in the very air. I’ve never spooned standing up with so many people I didn’t know than that night.

While in NYC, Dan attended the Singularity Summit 2011, a mixed bag but with at least a few transhumanists who are focusing on improving the here and now as much as speculating on potential outcomes of someday technologies and policies. “The ideals of social justice were served by an outstanding presentation from Jaan Tallinn, a founder of Skype and Kazaa,” Dan reported. Background on “singularity” and “transhumanism” is readily available, if you are not put off by its ivory tower.

Wayne Besen’s Truth Wins Out continues be front burner for us. In the last couple of weeks, we applauded its campaign partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center to target destructive ex-gay “conversion therapy.” Since then, Truth Wins Out called out Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum for promoting “Christian Sharia,” and asking the only question that matters, “Is Rick Santorum flirting with tyranny and treason?” Most notably, Truth Wins Out led the fierce blowback against Catholic extremist Daniel Avila for a radical article he wrote in Roman Catholic Church’s publication, The Boston Pilot, that suggested that the devil may be responsible for making people gay. Avila’s resignation from his job as an advisor with with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly followed. So we urge you all to sign up for Truth Wins Out updates and donate if you can.

In closing . . . “Gay is good,” said octogenerian Frank Kameny who left us on October 11, which happened to be National Coming Out Day and the second anniversary of the National Equality March. Late last week, his bodily remains laid in state at DC’s Carnegie Library so elected officials, veterans, and his hundreds of close friends and admirers could pay their final respects. “Gay is good” is not only true, it is the essence of an entire movement determined to show the world that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people make wonderful, creative, and priceless contributions to the world. Thanks, Frank, for setting our sail, see you later.

in News of Note / Public Information by Alison Gardner 07 Nov 2011 0 comments

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