Man enough to be a woman and still rock’n'rolling [theindependent.co.uk]

by Matilda Battersby / theindependent.co.uk

It has been all over the newspapers that Against Me! singer Tom Gabel has decided to live as a woman. The Mail Online’s headline shrieked: “Punk rocker says he is having a sex change operation to become a woman… but he’s STAYING with his wife.” Another read: “Drugs, Sex(uality) and Rock’n'Roll”.

It was quite a surprise that the frontman of a rather macho band (all black jeans, tattoos and growling guitars) should have felt this way. During an interview with Rolling Stone magazine she described plans to take hormones and undergo gender reassignment surgery, after which he will be named Laura Jane Grace. “I’m going to have embarrassing moments,” she said. “But [I'm] hoping people will understand, and hoping they’ll be fairly kind.”

The news reports have not all been “fairly kind” and a couple were not very understanding at all, revealing thinly disguised ignorance about transgenderism. Several made inferences about Gabel’s sexuality and the implications for his marriage, confusing Gabel’s gender dysphoria (where you feel trapped in a body of the wrong sex) with questions about whether being a woman and having a wife makes her gay. Most strikingly, several of the reports lauded Gabel as “the first major rock star” to come out as transgender. While it is undoubtedly the case that in 2012 transgenderism is still a taboo, the statement that it has taken this long for a major musician to “come out” as trans simply isn’t true.

Fans of Jayne County will already know this. Born Wayne Rogers in 1947, County began performing as Jayne in 1979. With a signature track titled “Man Enough to Be a Woman”, County is acknowledged as one of the earliest, probably the first, transgender rock star. Despite never quite achieving the commercial success of some of her peers, the American was a big part of the English punk scene, forming Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1977. David Bowie, Patti Smith and Lou Read have credited her with influencing them.

There are more recent examples of high-profile musicians who have changed gender: Mina Caputo, formerly Keith Caputo, singer of heavy metal band Life Of Agony, confirmed last year that she was transitioning. German pop singer Kim Petras is probably the world’s youngest transgender musician (and one of the youngest post-operative trans people, full stop), after having sex reassignment surgery in 2009 aged 16. Jethro Tull keyboardist Dee Palmer (formerly David) transitioned at the aged of 67, long after he’d left the band.

The word “transgender” doesn’t refer to people who have had sex changes. It is an umbrella term used to describe those who identify with a gender which isn’t the one they were born with, or with no particular gender at all, regardless of whether they have sex reassignment surgery or take hormones.

Another famous muso, Antony Hegarty of the Mercury Prize-winning band Antony and the Johnsons, was born male, but is transitioned. “Do I feel female? You know, I feel like a mixture. I feel pretty mixed. I probably would identify as transgender,” he told NME. Similarly, Genesis P-Orridge of 1970s band Throbbing Gristle, sees himself as “pandrogynous”.

It’s not only rock and punk that have a healthy number of trans representatives. Jazz bassist John Leitham became Jennifer Leitham in 2001. Dana International, who won the 1998 Eurovision song contest for Israel, released her debut album soon after having sex reassignment surgery in 1993.

Regardless of whether Gabel is the first rock star to admit to being transgender, he is still brave to go public. The paradox of the music industry is that, despite nurturing talent and putting musicians with unusual or distinct sounds in the spotlight, there is still a perception that artists need to be squeaky clean and conventional if they’re to sell. Record labels have been known to advise against lifestyle choices that are celebrated and accepted in wider society, such as being gay, for fear that fans will no longer fancy their pop stars or believe that one day they can marry them – and that this will dent sales. Their attitude may be repugnant, but you can understand it from a business point of view.

Of all the companies I called, only one would speak to me on the record. That was Brighton-based Fat Cat Records, whose founder, Dave Cawley, spoke very supportively of trans artists but agreed he wouldn’t be surprised if pressure was applied at the corporate end of the industry not to come out.

Several people I spoke to off the record made it clear that the mainstream music scene is not a happy place to be transgender. One industry executive, who did not want to be named, said: “Trans musicians are treated in much the same way as gay artists. The straight men who run the music business aren’t ever particularly comfortable knowing how to work them and there is pressure not to come out.”

I contacted seven transgender musicians for comment, receiving polite refusals from Gabel, Dee Palmer and Justin Vivian Bond, and silence from three others.

Our Lady J, a gospel singer who has a growing following and counts Daniel Radcliffe among her fans, launched her musical career after transitioning from male to female. She told me: “There is a responsibility to educate that comes with being trans if you have any hope of surviving. I think this often keeps people from transitioning. There are huge risks, both professionally and personally.”

Joan King, chair of The Gender Trust, has worked as an artist manager in the music industry for two decades. “There is pressure not to come out as transgender in the music industry,” she said. “But I don’t think this is any different from boy bands being told not disclose that they have girlfriends and wives.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/man-enough-to-be-a-woman-and-still-rocknrolling-7766426.html

Marriage and Equality

San Francisco Police Department Issues “It Gets Better” Videos

Mayor Lee & Chief Suhr Unveil First of its Kind LGBT Youth Video. 

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) along with Mayor Ed Lee is proud to announce the debut of the “SFPD It Gets Better” video project as part of the nationwide campaign to end bullying of LGBT youth. The video provides a message of transformation, hope and encouragement to LGBT yo…uth that it does get better. The SFPD is the first and only Police Department in the country to produce a video for the campaign.

“It Gets Better” is a nationwide project, that offers support and encouragement to youth who are struggling with their sexual identity or bullied for being “different.” These messages of hope let young people know that they are not alone and that help is available.

The making of this video was a concerted effort by numerous members of the SFPD with the assistance of San Francisco film maker Shawn Northcutt who produced and edited the video along with San Francisco local musician Lynden Bair who developed the musical score.

“Today our Police Department joins the nationwide campaign to end bullying of LGBT youth by producing a heartfelt video that provides a message of hope and encouragement that it will get better,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “San Francisco is a city that prides itself on embracing equality for all and this video is another great example of our commitment to reinforcing our City’s values.”

Chief Greg Suhr wants youth to know that it really does get better. “This is a first of its kind video for the SFPD and for any law enforcement agency in the United States. I hope this message of encouragement will give hope to anyone who might be bullied because of who they are. The members of the SFPD will continue to work with all young people and reach out to the communities, as mentors and role models.”

“Suicide is not the answer.”
If you’re considering suicide or need help, call the Trevor Project now.
1-886-4-U-TREVOR
(866-488-7386)

www.thetrevorproject.org

Just How Bad Is Child Abuse in America? Very. [jezebel.com]

by Cassie Murdoch / jezebel.com

 Child abuse is a dark and depressing reality in American life, but until now, it’s never been clear just how widespread a problem it was. A new study, led by Dr. John Leventhal of Yale University, offers the first comprehensive estimate of serious injuries caused by child abuse in the U.S., and the results are pretty horrifying.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that nearly 4,600 children in the U.S. were hospitalized for injuries caused by physical abuse in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available. Overall, six out of every 100,000 kids under 18 were hospitalized with injuries that ranged from broken bones and burns to traumatic brain injury. The average hospital stay for these children was one week, and 300 of them ended up dying. That puts the death rate for abuse at 6 percent, which is a far higher death rate than exists for other kinds of injury or medical problem that required hospitalization.

Very young children tended to be the most common victims of abuse. For babies under one, there were 58 cases of hospitalization per 100,000 infants. Sadly, children under one who were covered by Medicaid fared worst of all, with one out of every 753 of those babies ending up in the hospital because of abuse. According to Dr. Leventhal, “Medicaid is just a marker of poverty, and poverty leads to stress.”

Stress appears to be a key factor in abuse. There was another smaller study that showed an obvious increase in abusive brain injuries after the financial crisis in 2007, which researchers attributed to added stress on parents. Leventhal said stress disproportionately affects younger kids because they are by nature, more difficult to care for:

They are challenging for some parents to take care of because they cry, it’s hard to understand what they want and parents can get frustrated, exhausted and angry.

Of course, they also can’t defend themselves or runaway as easily as older children can. A heartbreaking reality, and one Dr. Leventhal thinks we need to address urgently. According to his team, at the rate this study found abuse to be occurring, it’s a bigger threat to babies than Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. And, of course, this study only deals with kids who are hospitalized. There are many more children who endure abuse but aren’t injured severely enough to require medical attention.

So Dr. Leventhal proposes we act to stop abuse in the same way we’ve worked to stop SIDS: “We need a national campaign related to child abuse where every parent is reminded that kids can get injured.” Another probably even more effective option would be to send public health workers to do home visits with new parents to offer support and advice, a practice that is already common in a lot of European countries.

While that level of intervention sounds costly, the expense to society of caring for the abused is far more substantial. Beyond the obvious personal cost to the children and individual families, the study found that abuse-related hospitalizations ran us about $73.8 million in 2006. And in terms of the overall expense of abuse, the CDC reported that one year’s worth of child maltreatment cases costs $124 billion over a lifetime.

But no matter what the cost is, preventing abuse is worth it. Leventhal says, “This is a serious problem that affects young children. We need to figure out a way to help parents do better.” We spend so much money educating people on everything from cancer prevention to the dangers of cholesterol, but now that we’ve got a more accurate picture of the damage abuse is doing across the entire country, there’s no excuse for not going after the problem immediately on a national level—especially because the children who are falling victim to this abuse can’t advocate for themselves.

Child abuse experts calls for U.S. campaign [Reuters]
Study: Child Abuse Affects More U.S. Kids than SIDS [Time]

http://jezebel.com/5882911/just-how-bad-is-child-abuse-in-america-very

Being Narcissistic Stresses Dudes Out [jezebel.com]

by Anna North / jezebel.com

It turns out it’s hard out there for a narcissist — at least if he’s a guy. A new study has found that men who are full of themselves may actually be stressed out by their own narcissism.

In a study published in PLoS One, researchers David Reinhard, Sara Konrath, William Lopez, and Heather Cameron gave 106 undergrads (79 women, 27 men) a 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory, in which they had to pick either narcissistic responses (“If I ruled the world it would be a better place”) or non-narcissistic ones (“The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me”). They subdivided the results into unhealthy narcissism — characterized by “entitlement” and “exploitativeness” — and healthy narcissism — associated with qualities like leadership and self-sufficiency (also vanity, though it’s unclear why that’s healthy). They also tested the subjects’ saliva (using a technique amusingly called “passive drool”) for cortisol, a hormone related to stress response. The researchers found that men with high levels of unhealthy narcissism also had higher cortisol levels. Unhealthily narcissistic ladies had higher levels too, but the effect was much smaller.

Higher levels of cortisol mean narcissistic dudes have a more active stress response, which could lead to cardiovascular problems — the study authors note that “future work might examine [whether] high narcissism in earlier life predicts poor health outcomes in later life.” Though hanging out with a narcissistic person is certainly stressful, it’s not obvious why narcissists themselves would be freaked out. Reinhard et al, however, note that previous research has shown that “narcissists are susceptible to a host of unrealistic self-views that are difficult and stressful to continuously maintain.” Translation: convincing yourself that you’re the most important person in the world is actually a lot of work. So why is this more stressful for men? The study authors write,

Perhaps females can escape more severe physiological consequences of narcissism because there are different expectations for their roles in society. Female gender roles promote behaviors that encourage women to value relationships and to seek and gain social support, which may lower their risks for chronic [stress]. In fact, female narcissism might be associated with different kinds of exploitative strategies than male narcissism. Perhaps female narcissists use “feminine” roles to their advantage and obtain both social and financial resources more indirectly.

Study coauthor Sara Konrath adds, “Given societal definitions of masculinity that overlap with narcissism — for example, the belief that men should be arrogant and dominant — men who endorse stereotypically male sex roles and who are also high in narcissism may feel especially stressed.” This isn’t carte blanche for ladies to act like assholes — they still might stress out the people around them. But the study’s findings may point to a sort of poetic justice for male narcissists — acting like they’re hot shit all the time may cause them pain, and even usher them into an early grave. Which seems like a pretty good argument for recognizing that the world doesn’t revolve around you.

Narcissism’s Gender Gap: Toxic Trait Stresses Men More [LiveScience]
Expensive Egos: Narcissistic Males Have Higher Cortisol [PLoS One]

http://jezebel.com/5878923/being-narcissistic-stresses-dudes-out

 

Are Civil Unions For All The Wave Of The Future? [jezebel.com]

By Anna North / jezebel.com

That’s the argument one journalist makes after interviewing several couples in Illinois who chose to get opposite-sex civil unions. But don’t bet on these legal arrangements edging out marriage yet.

Writing in Slate, John Culhane says his interviews with some of the 148 straight couples who have gotten civil unions in Illinois since it became legal last June “reflect a cohort prepared to take the wrecking ball to marriage itself.” According to research by the Illinois clerk’s office, most straight couples who got civil unions had “personal or religious convictions against marriage” — some specified “solidarity with the gay community and/or support of equality, fairness, and inclusiveness,” while others cited discomfort with the labels “husband,” “wife,” or “marriage.” In his interviews, Culhane found several couples who chose civil unions as a statement in favor of LGBT rights — says one man, “until marriage is an option for everyone, it shouldn’t be an option for us.” He also found people who disliked traditional marriage and its implications — one newly married partner says having a civil union “keeps me from falling into any preconditioned behavior that I might have picked up. Calling [Leah] my partner, not my wife, helps me not to have any assumptions.”

Culhane sets up these couples as a harbinger of the death of marriage and the rise of the civil union, but I’m not so sure. For one thing, many reported discrimination — several had officials question their decision not to marry, and one clerk insisted that the male partner be listed as “Partner A” even though the law has no such requirement. For another, civil unions still don’t confer the same rights as marriage, and aren’t federally recognized — discrimination against gay couples ends up affecting straight couples who choose this option. Third, despite the much-vaunted decline in marriage, our culture remains obsessed with the institution as a marker of personal success — not to mention an opportunity for a big wedding. It’s tough to go against the grain, and if you’re a straight couple who’s ready to make a lifelong commitment, it’s going to be hard to give up all the legal and social benefits of marriage in order to make a point. The idea of progressive straights giving up traditional marriage en masse in order of more egalitarian arrangements is a nice one, but extending marriage rights to gay couples still seems like the better path.

No To Nuptials [Slate]

http://jezebel.com/5873011/are-civil-unions-for-all-the-wave-of-the-future

Hillary Clinton Speech “Human Rights Must Include LGBT” [bbc.co.uk]

The full text of the speech is available here at this link: New Civil Rights Movement

The MP3 audio of the speech is available at this link: Hillary Clinton Speech on Human Rights Audio Only

The US has publicly declared it will fight discrimination against gays and lesbians abroad by using foreign aid and diplomacy to encourage reform.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience of diplomats in Geneva that “gay rights are human rights”.

A memo from the Obama administration directs US government agencies to consider gay rights when making aid and asylum decisions.

Similar policies already exist for gender equality and ethnic violence.

“It should never be a crime to be gay” Mrs Clinton said at the United Nations in Geneva, adding that a country’s cultural or religious traditions was no excuse for discrimination.

Her audience included representatives from countries where homosexuality is a criminal offence.

Many ambassadors rushed out of the room as soon as Mrs Clinton finished speaking, the Associated Press news agency reported.

‘Human reality’

The announcement, cited by the White House as the “first US government strategy to combat human rights abuses against gays and lesbians abroad”, is also being seen as part of the Obama administration’s outreach to gays and lesbians ahead of the 2012 election.

The official memorandum does not outline consequences for countries with poor records on gay rights. But it allows US agencies working abroad to consult with international organisations on discrimination.

“Gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world,” Mrs Clinton said in Geneva. “Being gay is not a Western invention. It is a human reality.”

The new policy could pose awkward questions for US officials formulating policy towards some regular allies and regional powers.

In 2011, the state department’s annual human rights report cited ally Saudi Arabia’s abuses against gays. The country bans homosexuality outright.

Afghanistan also prohibits homosexual activity, and the same report found that authorities “sporadically” enforced the prohibition.

In the US, Republican presidential candidates criticised the administration’s decision, with Texas Governor Rick Perry saying in a statement that “promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money”.

Mrs Clinton acknowledged the US had its own mixed record on gay rights. As late as 2003, some states had laws that made gay sex a crime.

Earlier this year President Barack Obama signed into law a bill repealing the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law and allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the US military.

More here at the BBC link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16062937

Alone During the Holidays? Make No Major Decisions

by Helen Hill MFT

The holidays can be a very lonely time of year for anyone who, because of their uniqueness, finds himself or herself without family, and sometimes, friends.  Sharing the time with others can be a salve for those who are tolerated or accepted.  But for those of us who are unique, whether transsexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or suffering from some physical malady, and we find ourselves alone, it can be a challenge to just get through the holidays.

Families are defined by blood.  Often, that is a mistake.  Sometimes there are those relatives (by blood) whose views and outlooks would be offensive and cruel to any outsider — to any kind and compassionate soul.  The challenge is to surround ourselves with a family we choose, who love us and accept us for who we are, rather than for what we are not.

If family during the holidays is defined by accepting only those people like themselves, then we have learned nothing about tolerance, acceptance, and compassion.  Let us not make the same mistakes as those poor souls who live in fear of what they do not understand, and the resulting cruelty that manifests itself in the name of “family.”

What I would emphasize to all gender-variant individuals is that the holidays are NO TIME to be making major decisions about one’s life, one’s circumstances, one’s issues, or one’s family. Suicide is never good any time. But the holidays have a way of making us, what I like to call, “temporarily isolated” or “temporarily inconsolable.” The emphasis, though, should be on the word TEMPORARY.

During this tough economic time, many are suffering. And even in good economic times, during the holidays, there are so many people who find themselves spending the holiday alone, whether transgendered or not. And then there are those who do spend the holidays with their relatives and come back even more depressed and/or vulnerable than before they left.

Family and holidays can be very difficult even in the best of times. No matter what, whether spending holidays with friends and family, or spending them alone, I would recommend that no one make major life changing, irreversible decisions.

For those who find themselves depressed or alone during the holidays, the secret to success is to just get through them!

Survival is success!

The sun will come out tomorrow. There will be a chance for a new day and new beginnings. And hope does not take a raincheck during holidays. It is still there, even if it seems harder to grasp.

As you have doubtless heard many times before, even if you don’t feel like doing something, DO SOMETHING! A walk, a movie, reading a good book, or an activity. Invite another friend over for tea, or meet for a lunch or dinner. Some online support forums can be quite helpful during these times as well.

Solution Focused Therapy provides three very simple, yet effective, suggestions:

1. If it is not broken, don’t fix it
2. It it is working, do more of it
3. If it is NOT working, change it

Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It is not a character flaw or a weakness to ask for help. On the contrary, it is one of the healthiest things a person can learn to do – knowing when to ask for help. This link http://gendersanctuary.com/resourceshelp.htm lists a number of resources that can be helpful during difficult times.

Make the time less about the holiday, and more about self-care.

But most of all, never use a temporary situation to make a permanent, unalterable decision. Never.

Hope and peace are always in season.

.

Being Transparent [huffingtonpost.com]

by Gretchen Peters / Singer, Songwriter

My least favorite word when people ask me about my son is “become,” as in, “When did he decide he wanted to become a man?” When do we decide to become the gender we are? Does it happen at toddlerhood, at school age, at puberty? My son has always been male. The only difference between him and me and probably you is that his body betrayed him, once at birth and again, traumatically, at puberty. Being the parent of a transgender child has led me to some interesting analogies. Being trans is a state which most of us cisgender folks can’t quite wrap our heads around, at least initially. But this question ofbecoming vs. being reminded me a lot of something that’s bothered me about the music business (I’m a singer-songwriter) for years: people used to ask me the same question after I’d had success as a songwriter and was making my first album as a recording artist. “When did you decide to become an artist?” I felt a similar sense of indignation. I’ve always been an artist. You just didn’t know it.

Learning that my child was transgender was like turning a key and feeling all the tumblers fall into place. Everything made sense: his firm conviction at 3 that he was a boy, his refusal to wear dresses, his persistent dis-ease throughout childhood, his reaction to puberty (horror), and, most alarmingly, his bouts during his teens with suicidal feelings. He knew who and what he was — he always had. When he finally told me, I knew in my bones that it was true. I’d even had inklings before he summoned the remarkable courage to come out. None of that makes the emotions any less raw upon learning that the child you raised as a girl for 26 years is, in fact, a boy. This is the child to whom I gave a girl’s name, imbued with my own girlish hopes, nurtured the mother-daughter bond that I had with my own mother — a bond based, it seemed to me, on our common gender. What was my relationship with this person if he is my son? How do I learn how to have a son? I’d thought of myself as the mother of a daughter for a quarter of a century.

As a songwriter, singer and musician, I explore the emotional terrain of everyday life on a regular basis. I am interested in shining a light into some dark corners, even compelled to do it, to take the secrets that we all keep and bring them into the light, give them a name, treat them with compassion and humility, but, above all, to tell the truth. Art has the power to transport us into other people’s lives, and thus, ultimately, into our own hearts. The act of empathizing with another, no matter how different, breaks down the walls built by secret-keeping and fear, and forever binds us together in our humanity. So naturally, I turned to music to help me process this sea-change in my life and my son’s.

I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I thought about my struggle to own my identity as an artist in the world. I thought about my son’s struggle to stand up and be seen for who he is. So many people prefer you to assume a role that makes them comfortable. But life is not about making other people comfortable. This idea seeped into the songs that were coming out of me — the old adage, “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I wanted to say what seemed unsayable. That life is tough, heartbreaking, unfair — and short. And that there is unspeakable beauty to be found. My son unknowingly gave me a tremendous gift last year when he bravely shared his truth with me. He gave me the courage to share mine.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gretchen-peters/being-transparent_b_1100823.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#undefined

Stunning LGBT campaign ads from Argentina [blabbeando.blogspot.com]

A year ago, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to grant same-sex couples full marriage rights. Before this year is over, the Argentinean congress might very well pass a groundbreaking transgender-rights law extending health care protections to transgender individuals and making it easier for trans folk to change their ID’s to better reflect their gender identity without requiring proof of gender reassignment surgery.

Getting to this point has certainly taken years of work by Argentinean LGBT organizations, activists, advocates and allies.  It has also inspired some pretty amazing television and online video ads.

The following two ads come from the Observatory for the Promotion of Sexual Diversity Rights in Salta or Obs.Salta for short and were made possible through grants from the United Nations (turn “annotations” on for my on-screen translation).

The second ad takes a similar take in a different setting…

The ads have actually been out for more than a year but somehow I missed them. You might also have missed a couple of really amazing ads I featured earlier.

The first one came as the ultimately successful marriage equality campaign was about to begin its final phase…

The most recent ad I featured is also a stunner and comes as advocates push for the transgender rights bill…

These are truly amazing ads.  When I try to think of any LGBT advocacy ads from the United States that are similar to these I am at a loss.  True, attitudes towards these issues might be different in Argentina than in the United States but does anyone know of any related ads produced in the U.S. that seem as immediate and vibrant as these ads?

http://blabbeando.blogspot.com/2011/11/year-ago-argentina-became-first-country.html#.TsrK2Zsr2so