Transunity & Transleadership

How Days of Action Work in Addressing Police Bias and Anti-Transgender Violence

Today in hundreds of cities and towns across the world transgender and gender-nonconforming people and their allies pause to honor our fallen heroes. The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith—a transgender graphic designer, columnist, and activist—to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts. It occurs annually on (or around) November 20, and its overarching goal is to bring attention to the continued violence endured by the transgender community with the hope that together we can end such violence and intolerance.

Not long ago, Washington, DC, found itself in the midst of an epidemic of violence and murders against transgender people. The rates had been steadily growing over 10 years and suddenly we suffered 4 murders in less than 3 months. (The increase in discrimination was perhaps due to a backlash against the migration of many transgender people to DC, from Virginia and elsewhere, wanting to live in a city that had, and still has, the country’s most comprehensive human rights protections for gender-nonconforming people.)

Transgender Day of Action  Washington, DC November 21, 2011

Transgender Day of Action
Washington, DC
November 21, 2011

Vigil followed vigil and soon it was time for our annual TDOR. But we decided to add on a more immediate and visible Transgender Day of Action to bring this outrageous state of affairs to the forefront of public consciousness and the media and put the police, city officials, and the U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, on notice.

In 2011, we started with just 5 people who met once or twice a week to hear directly from survivors of anti-trans violence and police harassment because any action to be effective would have to be grounded in real-world circumstances. We called ourselves the TLGB Police Watch, and eventually represented a coalition that included more than a dozen local organizations which turned these community concerns into goals, a set of demands, and a plan for a day of non-violence civil disobedience.

Within 24 hours after putting boots on the ground, at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters to City Hall and the offices of the U.S. Attorney of Washington, cold cases were reopened, the constitutionality of Prostitution Free Zones was questioned, police training efforts changed, and conference rooms once closed to transgender issues were opened wide.

At an international trans health conference the following spring, we reported out to trans activists from other cities, providing training and materials based on our success in effectively slowing the rates of violent incidents and murders.

Subsequent DC days of actions started popping up at other times during the year, fighting for healthcare access, employment opportunities, and housing nondiscrimination. The number of activists working directly on trans issues in DC right now includes more than 100 people and most of the organizations that were originally part of the TLGB Police Watch coalition.

The important take away is that days of action work and will continue work in visibly fighting this scourge of our community. It is an educational and effective way to make your demands heard and bring about change. The only requirement is your determination to organize across a spectrum of stakeholders, and then show up to do the work. Anyone who wants help in organizing a Transgender Day of Action in their community anytime of the year can tap into our resources and/or contact us for assistance and support.

DC was home city up until about 18 months ago, and tonight my heart and soul (and continuing support) are with all my friends there. Love is what it is all about because it has the power to extinguish hate in our world. Let’s work together to make world a place that is safe for everyone and human rights reign.

George Larcher image Flickr/creative commons

George Larcher image
Flickr/creative commons

 

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Transreligion for Athiests and Non-Athiests Alike

Religious myth has only degraded and inhibited human progress. Essentially all contemporary religions are myth based. Christianity fails the test of worth when it relies on Hebrew racial myth (the old testament) and Greek philosophical myth (the concept of the Christos and related ideas) as absolute truths. We know that nothing that draws on such ancient Sci-Fi can be either true, good, or beautiful, except by accident, and thus stands forever opposed to the power of love in the world.

There are, fortunately, many people (now and in the past 2000 years) who love others, serve others, do good to others, and make our world more beautiful by their efforts. Some of these people call themselves Christians or Jews or Muslims or Atheists or something else, which is their choice, but their lives have taken inspiration from the universal powers of love and truth in the human mind, not from religious myth or dogma.

Eddi van W Flickr/creative commons

Eddi van W
Flickr/creative commons

Transhumanists continue to debate the appropriateness of any kind of religious faith or behavior as a component of Transhuman life. My own post-transition perspective illuminates many ethical and moral concerns of the Transhumanists. Foremost, if we are to foster the emergence of a genuine Transhuman philosophy of life, we need to create an inspirational framework that justifies and motivates rational behavior. We should evaluate candidate inspirational frameworks according to their individual ability to satisfy essential requirements that must be met by any proposed framework.

In my view, a satisfactory transhuman rationally religious world view ought to address five basic requirements that bridge the gaps of sex and gender and merge the physical, psychic, and inspirational elements of joy into a total personal and socially transforming experience of reality. At the same time, we recognize that a genuinely operational inspirational framework, a true transreligion, can only emerge from the collective unification of individual joyful experience. This list is just a starting point for further thought and discussion.

1) Assure complete freedom from reliance on any myth or backstory. Our beliefs are based on plain observational knowledge and insights of personal wisdom.

2) Demonstrate open and informed attitudes, viewpoints, and experiential training for all of the many dimensions of sex and gender.

3) Practice group communion for collective psychic inspiration and empowerment, through the exploration and experience of sex and gender as acts of communion.

4) Fellowship every transhuman living on this planet. Empower them to know the joy of living, showing how love finds expression in true service to others by doing good and making beauty.

5) Be open to alliance with any cosmic government that may make its presence or influence felt in human affairs, with a willingness to facilitate transhuman emergence. In the meantime dedicate your life to the highest principles of love, truth, goodness, and beauty.

To summarize, we help one another by starting with baldfaced mythless truth and showing each other the joy that is really important and gives meaning to life. A universal acknowledgment of the possibility that some external force will intervene keeps us mutually focused on progression towards our ideals of truth and love, regardless of what the future brings. And our intent to combine free and open acceptance of all forms of sex and gender expression with equally free and open communion, joy, and fellowship guarantees our ability to lead the destined evolution of human affairs.

Transhumans may find something like this just fine as the basis for a way of life and be finally able to leave the god talk to the past. But a religion, the social expression of a community of individuals who share common ideals, is not designed, so much as grown through the social customs of the community. Setting aside old, incorrect beliefs, the inherent truth of principles like these will emerge and cause focused will actions. Through trial and error, the community will gradually discover convenient and innovative ways of serving these principles to more and more people. And that will be the emergence of true Transreligion.

Now is the time for a new inspirational framework to replace the outdated and overly interpreted ideas of our pastfathers. I do not know what will emerge, but I trust that it will necessarily be true to ideals and principles such as those stated here.

Editor’s note: This was published a few years ago to offer a framework for a new non-religion incorporating the ideas of sex and gender freedom. It is re-issued today to help spur the coming together of many diverse points-0f-view who are striving for a humane world unified with shared ideals. 

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Transgender Transhumans! Are you headed to Venus Plus X?

También en español Depending on how you space it, VenusPlusX or Venus Plus X, it’s no accident that you may have stumbled over a novel by Theodore Sturgeon of the same name. Since first reading Venus Plus X in 1960, it has invoked a strong resonance with my own inner truth even though it was Sturgeon’s creative imagination, a perhaps fantasy. It is our namesake because it stands as the earliest and still clearest exposition of the world’s essential ideas and ideals in the world of sex and gender, and guides the our work as advocates, educators, and activists.

In the novel, a 1950’s human male, Charlie, is transported through time to a distant future where the surviving population of earth is a people called the Ledom (that’s model spelled backwards). The Ledom are fully functional androgynes, being capable of mutual impregnation and of resulting individual pregnancy. Most of the novel is focused on exploring the emotional and dramatic situational differences between normative human bi-gender society (envisioned through time flashbacks) and the behaviors of the Ledom, who are free of all sex and gender inequalities and limitations.

Throughout most of the novel the reader is led to think that the Ledom are some natural product of human evolution or genetic reengineering. Near the end, after Charlie has become friends with some Ledom and given them some feedback on their society vs. primitive human society (1950s), they give him a rather detailed explanation of how they view the society from which he came and how that view has come to shape their own. This is Philo’s Manifesto, which is an authoritative debunking of human history, philosophy, religion, and pretty much everything else, while showing the way to a vastly higher and transcendent body of truth. This short statement it is a must read for every person on earth.

Although Philo’s Manifesto is surely one of the most remarkable and complete syntheses of rational human knowledge of a subject normally considered too exotic to be open to intelligent, unbigoted, unbiased discussion, the final reality of the Ledom is even more remarkable. While the directed biological redesign of the human race into the Ledom is surely enough to be called Transhuman, in the final chapters of the story it is revealed that Ledom reproduction is not entirely biological, but involves a complex symbiosis from conception to adulthood with elaborate medical machinery that continually reshapes the “natural” human biology of development into a series of stages that lead to reproductively mature Ledom. That is truly a Transhumanist idea and far ahead of its time!

Without the medical machines, Ledom infants would be ordinary human infants. The creation of the Ledom is a deliberate act of human creativity, expressed in biomedical technology. This is a transformation of a very basic human character as all members of society enter into this reproductive symbiosis with the machine as a way to perfect their society. They have diagnosed the problems of humanity and conclude they all begin with sexual dimorphism and the resulting bi-genderism that rises from ignorance and refusal to examine reality carefully. Their reproductive symbiosis with the machines allows each to mature into androgynes indistinguishable in hermaphroditic sexual function and completely without gender.

Like Sturgeon’s Ledom, we examine many of the problems of humanity. Like Sturgeon, we feel many of the problems would not exist if humans were perfectly androgynous; however, we see many technological alternatives to the “brute force” approach in the novel (remember that DNA had been discovered only a few years before the novel was written, and nothing was known of its detailed structure and function). For example, a simple reduction in the expression of secondary sexual characteristics and the adoption of extracorporeal fertilization and gestation could achieve similar objectives.

Thus, unlike the Ledom, we do not expect to abolish sexual dimorphism. Rather, we seek to encourage health and longevity by discouraging extreme dimorphism that causes the incorrect and unproductive bi-gender model, and encourage either biosex to develop as symmetrically as possible to enjoy the full range of psychosexual and gender experience available to the human nervous system.

Extracorporeal gestation remains a distant technological objective, although planned fertilization is now part of the culture.

Today, as we learn to accommodate the needs of consciously transgender pre-pubescent children, we know that even crude pharmacological intervention at puberty can greatly enhance the experience of androgyny for the matured adult.

The technology foreseen by Venus Plus X is still in the distant future and may never be developed as an option for directed human reproductive evolution. On the other hand, the social changes envisioned in the novel are ready to move ahead today, since they depend only on changing human hearts and minds, and that means education and socialization, not biology. At VenusPlusX.org, we know how quickly such changes can occur in individuals and in groups, once a successful meme has been sufficiently distributed. While we support research into the technology of androgyny, we understand that the time is here today to empower the Transgender Transhuman community to assume leadership in the revolution for full sex and gender freedom and equality.

Editor’s Note: This originally appeared in July 2011, and is one of several posts being reprinted here in connection with the relaunch of VenusPlusX after a year’s hiatus because they are especially elemental in our thinking.

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Violence against D.C. prostitutes has gone too far

 

Violence against local D.C. prostitutes has become alarming. A local transgender woman, “Jane,” who wishes to remain anonymous, shared her story with me.

As she describes it,”I was beat an inch from my life.” She said she was going to work as usual,”clocking in” as it’s called — those few moments that you take to get yourself ready for the long dreadful night to come. For some girls it’s a breather, for some it’s a drink or a drug and for others it’s simply a prayer to get them through the night, but this routine is done among co-working prostitutes to kind of put some ease into what will always be a harmful night.

On this night, Jane had just parked her car in her usual spot that on the local stroll. She took a moment to apply some lipstick and perfume before clocking in. Nothing seemed abnormal, “I looked around before getting out and everything looked fine” said Jane.

“The moment I stepped out, before the door could close I felt something hit me on the side on my head. Tthe moment I turned to see what  it was, pow! another one, and before I knew it, I was down on the ground being attacked by multiple people. They beat and kicked me until I was unconscious. The blows were so severe that it was not possible for me to have been beat with only fist and feet.

“I awoke to a homeless man trying to help me. I can only assume he thought I was dead. I suffered a broken jaw, three cracked ribs, a twisted ankle, and more than anything, no understanding. They also took my keys and car. I cannot identify these people because I saw no one and of course no one on the streets will say who it was. I know that prostituting is not legal and in that sense, I’m wrong, but I like sex so I chose this profession and I don’t think it’s fair to just be attacked and robbed because I’m an easy target or easy mark. Everyone in the area knows me and for the most part everyone respects me. I give respect to everyone so this obvious set up attack on my life has wounded me deeply and I want justice,” says Jane. “I deserve it!”

So here we have it, a trans woman prostitute attacked and robbed. There has been a lot of speculation that there is a local gang that is known for committing these kinds of crimes in this part of the city. The police department knows who they are and have been frequenting the area showing pictures trying to pull this together, but it seems as if they’re getting nowhere.

I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to be in this kind of situation, that’s just me. Some people might think that because you choose to be a prostitute that you pretty much choose all that comes with it…How so? At the end of the day we are all human and we should be treated as such. I encourage those who might have witnessed this crime to come forward and help the police find who did this. This could be any one of us at any time of the day, in any part of the city, whether we are a trans person or a sex worked. This is not an isolated incident, just the beginning of me giving voice to it. This has to stop!

To all my local ‘”PROS”: Stay alert, be smart and stay safe.

Editor’s note: VenusPlusX is working with other grassroots organizations to make sex work legal in Washington, DC. We finally got rid of the unconstitutional Prostitution Free Zones (which were nothing more that police trans profiling zones). Now we have to seriously address both the abolition of laws interfering with sex work so that a much needed sexual healing industry can emerge that will foster much needed sex education and sexual healing for all who seek it. 

A Second Chance

No one encouraged me to be productive, to make something of my life. Hell, I thought selling drugs and prostituting were careers so naturally when I grew up I followed in those footsteps. I became a prostitute which led to drug addiction and then the cycle began.

Nothing good became of my life, each day got harder and harder. The more I lived the more I hated myself. I just didn’t understand what I had done to deserve such a horrible life. On a daily basis I would wonder how was it possible for someone to have a child and leave them to feel like this? I thought of suicide many times, but I was too afraid to do it so I knew I wanted to live, I just didn’t know how to live.

One day a friend said to me,”Brandi, you ain’t nothing but a dressed up trash can!” I got angry. I knew she was telling the truth — I just didn’t know how to take it. It hurt my feelings, but it made me self-reflect. And the way I treated myself since has been drastically different.

About a month ago I signed up for a program called Project Empowerment. And I got a chance to get to know the real me without all the hurt, pain, and resentment. This program has inspired me above anything I could’ve ever imagined. I went into that class of 30 students as the only transgender person and I thought for sure it would not work. I was mistaken. The program focused on me, it challenged me to be better, to fight harder, to not give up and take my place in life as a professional woman. No more drug-addicted prostitute. No, today I am working as a hair stylist assistant and I feel good about myself. When I look in the mirror, I see hope! Those days of wanting to kill myself are over. A second chance has come and I’ve taken full advantage of it.

The director of Project Empowerment recognized the change and growth within me. I must tell you it feels good when other people start to see things in you that you never thought were possible. It does something to your soul and it gives you an immediate sense of confidence, wow! Somebody believes in me. Unexpectedly, he called me up at the  graduation as a surprise speaker. Now that’s growth, and I spoke from the heart. When I was done everyone was on their feet giving me applause. That’s never happened in my life and I didn’t know how to process it, but I knew it felt good so I took it in as my moment of celebration. Being celebrated for doing something good.

Your life doesn’t have to be what it was yesterday. If you find yourself looking in the mirror and hating your inner self, take a moment, reflect, and then let life present itself. A second chance came to me and I took it. I’ve never been more happy. Make yourself available,  be ready, asecond chance will come.

If you walk away from this story with one thing, let it be this: If you allow your past to define you, you’ve lost and it will most certainly confine you. The past is what it is. Embrace the future and step into your second chance.

International Transgender Day of Remembrance in DC

This month’s official DC Transgender Day of Remembrance honors all of those who have died in the strucggle for equality, and their families, as activists rededicate themselves to help answer today’s community concerns.

Celebrated internationally, the Transgender Day of Remembrance in DC will take place at 6 PM, Tuesday, November 20, 2012, at the DC Metropolitan Community Church, 474 Ridge Street NW (just north of M Street, near the Green and Yellow Mount Vernon Square Metro Station), and organizers hope the public will attend.

Earline Budd, Executive Director of Transgender Health Empowerment (THE), and Day of Remembrance planning group member, notes, “Each year this event proves to be better and better, and more empowering for the community.”

Ms. Budd is happy to report, “Also this year, just a few days before the DC Transgender Day of Remembrance, Whitman-Walker Health, Casa Ruby DC, DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) , and THE are co-hosting a community conversation on improving transgender health,” at 7 PM on Thursday, November 15, also at the DC Metropolitan Community Church. Presentations by health providers, advocates, and public policy experts will focus on the significant challenges Transgender individuals have in accessing culturally competent health care, including primary medical care, HIV/AIDS care, mental health care, and addiction services.

 

 

Voting while trans and the problems you might face

New voter ID laws have created costly barriers to voting for many trans people. And much worse, the debate about voter ID laws have made even the idea of voting harder. so many of us may feel discouraged from even trying to vote on election day, according to National Center for Trans Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling. “Our message is don’t let them scare you into giving up your vote.”

I know that this is  tough to face. Honestly, who wants to walk into a voting site as a trans person and present an ID that doesn’t completely match up with your physical identity? This seems like reliving many of the past identity issues we’ve faced at some point and have had to really fight hard to overcome. The thing is, we survived it. It did not break us, so don’t let the fear of reliving these emotions stop us from doing the most important thing this country needs us to do at this time: VOTE!

Voter ID laws are dangerous. State legislatures have enacted them attempting to solve a fake problem. And as a result, transgender people–students, veterans, low-income people of color, and older Americans–risk being denied ballots this year. Can you believe this? If we dont stand up and do all that we can, I see this problem getting bigger and bigger.  So the first step is voting. Do all that you can and vote. This is our country, too, and we do have a voice.

Mass Incarceration: Follow The Money (Part 2)

America’s unconstitutional militarization of local and state law enforcement,
based on racial hatred and racial politics, a
nd the training, munitions,
and  financial incentives that support it, has created a new Police State.

Slavery ended, and reactionary Jim Crow laws replaced it, and now Mass Incarceration, called The New Jim Crow by scholars, is imprisoning people of color for minor offenses at a savage rate in reaction to the strides made through civil rights and voting rights legislation passed 50 years ago.

The U.S. Constitution bars the government from any militarization of local and state law enforcement (with few exceptions) for good reasons, but that all ended with the so-called War on Drugs (1971). This methodical (and nefarious) tactic of stripping disproportionately brown and black felons’ constitutional rights has succeeded and is succeeding today because it is imbedded in the Republican party, started by President Nixon with his racist  “Southern Strategy,” and codified by President Reagan’s War on Drugs.

This war  has utterly failed: prices have decreased while drug usage has increased, the exact opposite of its public mission. But the War on Drugs goes on and on in spite of its failure because it is filling the greater political imperative of disenfranchising as many people of color as the government possibly can. President Nixon designed the racist Southern Strategy specifically to exploit racial hatred and fear for political gain. It has worked masterfully to cement power for a select group of white people who are draining any hope of a free society that can live up to its own lofty constitution.

This is racial politics at its worst. The current spate of unnecessary and punitive voter rights restrictions and increased incarceration of immigrants come from this very same playbook.

Our enslavers have re-imagined America’s criminal justice and prison systems
to separate the races as surely as slavery and the era of Jim Crow ever did.

Like the Southern Strategy, the War on Drugs successfully capitalizes on undereducated and/or willfully uniformed white social hatred in order to anchor the right wing base, its core in the American south. Just as surely as the “Redemption” movement following the abolition of slavery brought forth this hatred through late 19th and early 20th century Jim Crow laws (voting restrictions, exclusion from sitting on juries, and segregation), the War on Drug’s Mass Incarceration is a colorblind Jim Crow that grew reactively to the racial equality gains obtained during the 1960s.

The more informed you become about the breadth and depth of this wicked conspiracy, how your money is being spent every day to uphold American’s new caste system, the more you may want to work at the grassroots to stop these racist lawmakers and judges who roam free in our seemingly colorblind society. A huge target of our activism is the corrupt, multi-billion dollar, corporate, for-profit prison industry that conspires with the government and banking industry to facilitate this systematic and permanent disenfranchisement of people of color in this country. The U.S. incarcerates more of its citizens than any country, 730 in the prison population per per 100,000 of its national population population compared to countries like Norway (75 per 100,000) or even Uganda (92 per 100,000).

Organizations such as The Prison Divestment Campaign and The Sentencing Project have been leading the way in disrupting this mean-spirited profiteering that is powered by the War on Drugs. The corporate gains derived from Mass Incarceration represent a conflict of interest that is so large it cannot be seen with an uneducated eye.

Consider that up to $200.oo of your hard-earned money paid as taxes is being spent  today and everyday on each of the 99,000 individuals housed in a for-profit prison. And, while we pay and pay to put people in prisons for the most minor offenses, we allow these corporations free access to lobby lawmakers, judges, and police unions for longer and harsher sentences, as well as tax deductions to build more and larger for-profit prisons.

As long as our government continues to federalize local and state law enforcement, and offer financial rewards to local drug task forces for maximizing arrests and convictions, this multi-billion dollar industry prospers and grows.

Sadly some of these bankers (e.g. Wells Fargo) and lawmakers (e.g. Gov. Jan Brewer) become investors in these same corporations, that last year reaped $74 billion in profits. They have blood and suffering on their dirty hands.

We have DEA agents and the Pentagon involved in bringing this federal program to your neighborhood by encouraging local drug task forces with huge amounts of federal money, equipment, training, arms and munitions, totaling billions of dollars each year. This breaks legal limits on the federal government’s involvement in local law enforcement, and tremendous power is granted to these task forces. They even profit from the spoils of their arrests, including cash, cars, houses, etc., seized during these arrests, even when the victim is found ultimately to be not guilty. As long as they make arrests and show results, the lucrative gravy train continues to flow into local and state budgets.

Take one example: SWAT. The number of SWAT vehicles and teams, formerly only used in to assail violent criminals, has increased. Where there were once 2 or 3 SWATs there are now 20. SWAT is now routinely, and primarily, used by these drug task forces to break down people’s doors in the middle of the night based on suspicions of drug possession. We can only hope these militarized teams are never turned on the entire population with some other justification because they are in place to terrorize whole communities.

This wholesale militarization of local and state law enforcement is an unlawful usurpation of our rights under the U.S. Constitution, and should make us all get off our couches and do something about it.

Look for more on this subject, soon.  Also, see Mass Incarceration: Follow the Money (Part 1).

Anastasia Person contributed to this post.

Image Source (SWAT enters CII RPI): Simon Sarris

Image Source (Nash SpecOps Equipment): SD Lewis

Mass Incarceration: Follow the Money (Part 1)

Take a walk through America’s unconstitutional militarization of
local and state
law enforcement, based on racial hatred and racial politics,
a
nd the training, munitions, and financial incentives that support it.

Since we finished reading legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s startling book, The New Jim Crow, we decided to speak up more on the toll and tragedy of Mass Incarceration in the United States. More than that, we want to urge everyone to join the grassroots uprising meant to cure America of its addiction to racial politics and end this national scourge.

Your banks’ investments and your tax dollars contribute to the billions being spent year after year to finance a criminal justice system and a system of Mass Incarceration that are creating a new, unredeemable American caste system and destroying the lives of millions of people of color and their families. It’s a national tragedy right under our noses.

All three branches of our government, including the Pentagon, colluding with U.S. banks and the corporate for-profit prison industry,  have conspired to systematically disenfranchise almost 6 million people of color for minor infractions and petty crimes programmatically ignored among the white populace.

Because of the War on Drugs (1971), young adults of color are arrested and imprisoned, and become lifelong second-class citizens, at 5.6 times the rate of their white counterparts even though they comprise under 20% of the population. Unfairly, as felons they permanently lose all access to community benefits including public housing and job training. They lose their families and children because they can’t get housing and cannot obtain legitimate employment. In spite of having “paid their debt” to society, they often cannot vote or sit on juries. They are forever second-class citizens sentenced to a marginal life.

Consider that for every youth of color who is stopped and frisked for a small amount of marijuana today, there are 9 of his or her white counterparts who will possess and use that same amount today without any repercussions. The lucky white kids are free, unencumbered, never questioned, and go on to college or a job without a hitch.

The War on Drugs simply does not target white youth or adults. Rather, it focuses on random sidewalk searches (“stop and frisk”), sweeps of bus terminals, and profiling on our nation’s highways. Simply, people of color are the obvious “low hanging fruit” for local drug task forces to keep federal dollars, training, and munitions flowing into their local coffers, in amounts so great that no state or local governments can ever (or ever could) ignore. Alexander notes Phillip Smith’s “Federal Budget: Economic Stimulus Bill Stimulates Drug War, Too,” (Drug War Chronicle, no. 573, February 20, 2009) to point that funding has increased through the Economic Recovery Act of 2009, doubling down on money spent at the local level in prosecuting the War on Drugs.

We have now, without even realizing it or checking it, allowed for creation of a Police State.

We have been seeing this information slowly trickle in through the media. Recently, Lawrence O’Donnell, on his MSNBC show, The Last Word, very well summed up The New Jim Crow. These 5 on-air minutes should be the rallying cry for a new activism that says no, unequivocally, to the War on Drugs.

For more, go to Mass Incarceration: Follow The Money (Part 2).

 Anastasia Person contributed to this post.

 Image Source (Inmates Orleans Parish Prison) : Bart Everson

Image Source (Street Arrest – NARA): Yoichi R. (Yoichi Robert) Okamoto

What Causes Terminal Transphobia?

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

También en español The degree of antipathy that a large segment of society bears towards transgender and gender non-conforming folk is arguably among the most extreme of any systematic persecution of a minority population.

Transphobia arises and is very difficult to cure because the person affected senses a threat to his or her own self-concept of sexual identity. For them it is not possible to consciously acknowledge that a new kind of human is emerging, with superior insight, courage, and adaptability.

Transfolk are the incoming and long-awaited wave of social change for this new age.

Only the fear of one species for extinction and replacement by a superior species can summon such extravagant hatred as we have seen, from Main Street hooligans to the political power brokers who institutionalize transphobia in our laws and policies.

There are many factors that cause whole parts of society to fear knowledge of the transgender and gender non-conforming person. These factors also cause them to fear any new knowledge and push them inward in many other areas of life.

Some people have been so abused by their families and society that they fear to imagine the most pleasurable elements of human existence entirely, and become tragically fixated on cisgender heterosexuality, rejecting a vast range of healthy erotic activities. A relatively small number of people in the world are exclusively feminine or masculine, yet most people in the modern world remain ignorant of this fact, worship the binary, and hold extreme notions, inhuman at best, about how other people, including intersex people, must perform in society to avoid destroying civilization. In fact society is most certainly crumbling today wherever we fail to learn that breaking boundaries of gender in exploration of androgyny is necessary for any future harmony or human progress.

Many among us (and you know who you are) are so insecure in their own sexual identity that they cannot bear to contemplate changing genders or having sex reassignment surgery (SRS), even though only a small percentage of transgender people ever seek surgery.

No doubt there is something very different about androgyny. It can be at once confusing and terrifying to the superficial thinker.

Transgender folk are either in the process of addressing their personal androgyny or have personally traversed that territory to become the people they are today. It is the same look at androgyny that inspires someone to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual (GLB), although they find this a frightening and threatening topic often productive of hidden or overt transphobia.

The life experience of transgender and gender non-conforming people enables them to understand the terrain of sexual orientation and gender identity to a degree largely unknown, even in the so-called GLB community.

Although no two transgender or gender non-conforming folk may agree on detailed personal perspectives, they understand the issues, the alternatives, and the depth of their own nature better than anyone else.

This constellation of attributes, whittled down through the most extreme forms of social oppression, defines a community of individuals of truly awesome personal capabilities.

Only the most extreme and vile forms of social oppression keep these personalities from developing their powers of understanding and leadership, which would be of enormous benefit to society.

Transgender and gender non-conforming folk who have successfully navigated the wasteland of social ignorance face continuing opposition from fearful, ignorant bigots, who force asinine non-issues to the forefront of public discourse, dividing and diverting attention to ridiculous concerns, such as bathroom rape.

The transidentity’s unique responsiveness to the vitological influence of the androgyne cosmos further aligns these individuals with the force of destiny, inspiring them to persevere in spite of overwhelming opposition.

The unenlightened homo-sapiens see and fear people equipped with a seemingly superhuman understanding of most of life’s perplexing personal problems. Rather than perceiving an opportunity to be led from darkness to embrace their own androgyne destiny, they retreat in fear.

They hate that which would advance them immensely, if only they could abandon fear.

Transfolk are truly the incoming wave of social change for this new age.

No longer will we hide our transpowers (and recognition of our androgyny) in shame and fear.

We are your natural-born leaders in the world of the erotic and the vitological.

We are here to show humanity a better way.

Trust and rejoice!

Creative commons image by TransGriot, WipeOutTransphobia