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

Adversity and Strength: Young Cancer Patients Sing “Stronger”

The hemoncology floor of Seattle Children’s Hospital performs Kelly Clarkson’s song “Stronger”

Marriage and Equality

How Gender Identity May Determine the Right to Vote in 2012 [thenation.com]

by Brentin Mock / thenation.com

American companies are born as private commercial entities, but thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, suddenly they can transition to human status for the purpose of influencing an election with millions of dollars. Meanwhile, thousands of actual human citizens, who’ve only transitioned gender identity, may have less influence over elections—or no influence at all—because they’ll now face heavy burdens under strict photo voter ID laws. It’s an obscene paradox.

Over 25,000 transgender American citizens may face stiff barriers to voting in the November 2012 election, according to the report “The Potential Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Transgender Voters,” released last week by the Williams Institute at UCLA’s law school. This is, by any measure, the portion of the electorate that is among the most marginalized and stigmatized, and hence probably most in need of the right to have a say in who governs their lives. But discussions on both sides of voter ID laws tend to leave out transgender citizens in discussions about who would be most adversely impacted.

I’m including myself in that critique. I briefly mentioned that transgender citizens would be impacted in myfirst Voting Rights Watch blog, but have failed to consistently talk about their burdens in subsequent blogs. We often talk about black and Latino voters, elderly and student voters, women and those with low incomes as having trouble satisfying new photo voter ID mandates, but many transgender voters will have an incredibly tough set of challenges before them if they are to have their vote counted in November. The cost of getting the appropriate ID to vote in some jurisdictions will be as high as getting surgery.

The photo voter ID laws are already unnecessary intrusions into the lives of many people of color. Those intrusions become an epic accumulation of burdens, though, for transgender people of color. According to the report, two particular races—American Indian/Alaskan Native and African-Americans—are most likely to lack identification documents (46 percent and 37 percent, respectively) that reflect their accurate gender identity.

Jody L. Herman, author of the report, used data from the Brennan Center for Justice report on voter ID laws and the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (she also co-authored) to paint a picture of what voting access will look like for transgender citizens in the nine states with strict voting laws. She found that about 88,000 transgender Americans are eligible to vote in those states in November, but roughly a third of those face possibly getting ostracized due to lacking proper ID and the crazy complicated process of obtaining ID if the government questions your gender status.

This goes beyond just trying to get ID for voting purposes. Transgender citizens have problems obtaining and updating their identification cards for any reason, especially when dealing with the government. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey—the largest survey on transgender issues in the nation—shows that 22 percent of respondents said they had been denied equal treatment by a government agency or official, with another 22 percent saying they had been harassed or disrespected in the same setting. Respondents without ID reflecting their correct gender: 41 percent. That’s also about the same percentage who said that when they presented their non-gender-matching ID when asked to show it (at a bar, airport, etc.) were harassed afterward—3 percent said they were attacked or assaulted.

When government agencies that are supposed to serve the public aren’t safe spaces for transgender people, then routine citizen activities—like getting a license—become an albatross rather than an accomplishment. Registering to drive and vote are supposed to be proud moments, but for too many transgender people, it’s something to suffer through. And then consider that some government agencies require “proof” that you actually are the gender that you say you are—in some places that means getting gender reassignment surgery, whether it’s desired or not.

“There are a myriad of state and federal laws that govern whether or how transgender citizens can update their IDs, and some of these requirements are very difficult to meet and incredibly costly,” Herman told me in a phone interview. “Not only is there the emotional and psychological aspects, but also onerous requirements, such as the requirement to have had a certain kind of surgery, and some transgender citizens can’t afford it because it’s not covered by health insurance, while some simply don’t want it.”

But if they want to vote in certain places, they may have to do it. Such surgery typically costs between$40,000 and $50,000—that’s probably the largest poll tax ever. And when the percentage of transgender citizens most likely to lack proper identity documents are those who make below $10,000 a year, for many it’s plain impossible.

These are, no doubt, discussions that went missing among policymakers as they dreamed up and passed these laws. It probably never occurred to the almost-all-white-male voter ID chorus (plus black former Alabama Representative Artur Davis) that people who lack their race, gender and sexual privilege might have troubles with these rule changes. Or maybe it did occur to them, since there is a belief among conservatives that those who aren’t heterosexual aren’t citizens worthy of basic institutions like marriage and voting. Transgender people are the “irresponsible,” who won’t get in line and fly straight, and hence don’t deserve the franchise. I mean, such people might vote for a president that bans LGBTQ housing discrimination or something.

One of the first persons I thought of when I read this report was Janet Mock. We’re not aware of any relation despite sharing last names, but I hope we are related. She’s been great at spreading awareness as a transgender advocate and writer, and I was curious of her thoughts on the report both as a transgender advocate and an African-American. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she tells me she had no problems in terms of changing her gender marker on ID documents and birth certificates (ironically, our nation’s first black president also grew up in Hawaii and is constantly challenged on his birth certificate). However, she says she’s had plenty of other friends in other states who’ve had problems having their gender changed on ID documents.

Says Mock:

It’s this patchwork of state laws concerning documentation that hurts trans people everywhere and limits our opportunities to not only vote but to avoid discrimination when looking for a home or a job. What I find interesting about this type of voter suppression is that it’s obviously against everything we stand for as Americans and a society because it oppresses groups of marginalized Americans, telling us through these added barriers to vote, that our voices do not matter and that we do not have a say. It’s sad that the fundamental democratic right to vote and be heard is something trans people have to add to our laundry list of civic duties taken away from us simply because we choose to live our lives most authentically.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/167402/how-gender-identity-may-determine-right-vote-2012

Abortion Laws in the State of Texas and Their Implications

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com. 

by Alvina Lopez

For some time now, abortion has been a topic of much controversy throughout the United States. The subject has breached its way into our discussions of politics, religion, health, education, and almost any other sector you can imagine. In truth, abortion has been discussed so much and so fiercely throughout the country in the last several decades that it has become something of a cliché topic. But, nonetheless, abortion is discussed throughout the news, internet, blogosphere, and television, and, it should be. Since the iconic 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, abortion has been legal in one way or another throughout every state in the United States. However, even with major steps in a positive direction for woman’s health and a woman’s right to choose, abortion laws remain difficult to bear in many states. Now, it’s clear by now that I’m not coming at this issue from an unbiased standpoint. I agree with a woman’s right to choose and I would like to discuss the Texas state laws concerning abortion and how they affect a woman wishing to obtain an abortion for whatever reason.

As it stands currently, Texas state law allows women to obtain an abortion only under specific circumstances, after a 24 hour waiting period, and only after state mandated counseling. While these state mandated stipulations are not as severe as some found in other states, they still pose a challenge to many foundations of women’s rights and women’s health. As of January 2011, a woman must receive state-directed counseling that includes information that is designed to discourage her from having an abortion. This information must be provided in person at the clinic 24 hours before a woman is allowed to obtain the procedure. The pamphlets and packets that is provided include diagrams of what the fetus looks like at its various stages and describes in detail the various organ functions developing at different states. Before the woman is provided with these detailed handouts, she is required to watch the ultra sound of the fetus as the doctor describes it in detail. The doctor is then required to look for a heartbeat in the fetus and play it for the woman, if it is found. After all of these proceedings take place, the woman must wait at least 24 hours before she can actually have the abortion preformed.

What is it that these state mandated counseling sessions and ultrasound viewings aim to do? Sure, there is likely some educational value behind understanding the various states of the fetus and organ development as a woman who is capable of bearing a child. But, is it necessary to perform these lessons after a woman has expressed a want or need to terminate her pregnancy? Many think yes and I can at least see their line of reasoning. However, it seems that these counseling sessions and forced observations of their own body are more of a shaming than an educational practice. Women are made to feel guilty for their already painful and terrifying decision. Not only does this pose a threat to the very foundations of woman empowerment, but it also deliberately threatens the mental stability of a woman. Furthermore, the 24 waiting period requires that women make two trips to the doctor before they can have the procedure done. This puts a financial and time stress on women of a lower economic status who wish to obtain an abortion. Two doctor’s appointments means taking two days off of work and having to pay for two trips to the doctor. There are many individuals who simply cannot afford this. In this way, Texas abortion laws not only challenge the right women have to their own bodies, but they also put lower income women at a disadvantage.

Abortion is a challenging topic and one that most anyone has an opinion on. Of course, there are plenty of individuals out there that strongly disagree with my take on the facts that I have presented here. I accept that there are other opinions and only wish to open up a discussion of these state laws and their impact on women throughout the states where they are enforced.

Gender Identity Issues Can Harm Kids’ Mental Health: Study [health.com]

By Lisa Esposito / HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Feb. 20 (HealthDay News) — New studies show that children struggling with their gender identity also face higher risks for abuse and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Children with gender identity disorder show a strong, persistent discomfort with their biological sex. They identify with and display behaviors usually seen in the opposite sex.

One study, from Children’s Hospital Boston, looked at the emotional and behavioral problems of children and teens referred to its specialty clinic for evaluation and possible medical treatment.

“The study only focuses on kids who experience profound distress or [sadness] with their changing bodies, so the psychiatric manifestations of that distress include much higher risks for self-injurious behavior, depression, suicide attempts and anxiety,” said Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a pediatric psychiatrist affiliated with the hospital’s Gender Management Service.

Ninety-seven patients younger than 21 were included, 43 born as males and 54 as females. Forty-three patients already had psychiatric symptoms, 20 reported self-mutilation and nine had attempted suicide.

The studies appear online and in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Dr. Walter Meyer III, author of an accompanying journal editorial, said many problems arise from the reactions these children face at home and in school.

“These kids are really normal — they just want to be the other gender,” said Meyer, a psychiatrist who works with transgender patients at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston. “The ones who are well-adjusted and well-accepted by their families and at school don’t have the psychiatric issues.”

The other study, from the Harvard School of Public Health, looked at long-term data on nearly 10,000 young adults, average age 23. Those who rated high for childhood gender nonconformity were more likely to report physical, psychological and sexual abuse as children. They were almost twice as likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder as young adults.

“Gender conformity” relates to how children express themselves — through their clothes, their interests, their mannerisms — and how these behaviors mesh with what’s typical for their biological sex.

One expert said the study is “important,” and that it helps tease out why these kids have trouble coping.

It “tests one of the key proposed factors — childhood abuse,” said Stephen Russell, a professor of family studies at the University of Arizona. “There has been concern that parents may react to gender nonconformity in harsh ways. This is perhaps the first study to show evidence of that and of the lasting implications for health.”

Fear of the unknown is part of the problem.

“We’ve seen in studies of gender nonconforming LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] youth that what most people think of as abuse comes from a place of concern and fear on the part of parents — that is, they think they can help their kid by ‘toughening them up’ or teaching them to ‘fit in,’ ” Russell said. “Many parents literally have no framework for understanding gender nonconformity in children.”

Meyer, meanwhile, said he sees signs of growing awareness and acceptance, spurred by the media. Once parents are onboard, treatment can begin, sometimes quite early, he said.

“At age 5 or 6, treatment is mainly psychotherapy and working with family to help them [kids] adjust,” Meyer said. “Sometimes that means reassuring them and letting them dress up at home. Some might start school taking on a new gender.”

Pent-up need for treatment appears to exist.

Since Children’s Hospital Boston established a Gender Management Service in 2007, the population of gender nonconformists seeking treatment quadrupled.

“By having clinical services that are specialized and interdisciplinary, you’re providing an avenue for parents to come and present for treatment,” Leibowitz said. “That brings a lot of people out of their closets, so to speak, and shows this is a less stigmatized issue, so that people can get the appropriate assessments and treatments that they deserve.”

Some children receive treatment to delay puberty and buy them time while deciding whether to proceed with a gender change.

Puberty blockers, which are not covered by insurance, are expensive. “Injections can cost upwards of $1,000 a month.” Leibowitz said. Newer implants cost about $3,400 for two years.

Blocking irreversible changes of puberty has advantages for those who eventually opt for full gender transition, through cross-sex hormones or sexual reassignment surgery, Leibowitz said. “In their bodies and appearance, they will be perceived by society as the gender they affirm and thus have healthier outcomes,” he explained.

“We as individuals who do not experience an incongruence between our minds and bodies take for granted how easy life is,” Leibowitz added. “You just need to meet one child and one family to see how this impacts their lives.”

http://news.health.com/2012/02/20/gender-identity-issues-can-harm-kids-mental-health-study/

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

Giving Visibility to Gay and Transgender Health Care [americanprogress.org]

By Kellan Baker, Jeff Krehely / Center for American Progress

As gay and transgender people know all too well, you can’t be healthy if you have to hide who you are. Unfortunately, the health care system often renders gay and transgender people invisible by erasing their experiences and obscuring the impact that societal discrimination and prejudice have on their health.

Colorado’s statewide gay and transgender equality group, One Colorado, examines this injustice in its new report, “Invisible: The State of LGBT Health in Colorado.” One Colorado’s executive director, Brad Clark, discusses the report’s findings and recommendations for health systems, providers, and members of the LGBT community.

Click to read the rest of the article…

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

Girl Scout Troop in Louisiana Disbands to Protest Tardy Ban on Transgender Children [jezebel.com]

by Doug Barry / jezebel.com

In what could go down as the next great instance of parental immaturity since calls for a cookie embargo, mothers in Covington, Louisiana have dismantled their daughters’ Girl Scout troop to protest a Colorado troop’s decision to accept a 7-year-old transgender girl named Taylor into their ranks. Actually, the Girl Scouts East Louisiana officially (because they posted on their website) repudiated the Colorado Girl Scouts by barring transgender children from joining their mafia of door-to-door cookie peddlers, but troop leader Susan Cramond was so unnerved at the Louisiana chapter’s delayed response that she pushed to disband her troop.

Cramond says that when she first contacted the acolytes of the Louisiana Scouts high council, she didn’t get the swift “non” in response to her pearl-clutching query about whether Louisiana too would go the way of barbarous Colorado and teach children valuable life lessons such as respecting the differences in others because that’s what being a human is all about. Another troop mother, Susan Bryant-Snure (Louisiana, after all, being the land of unpronounceable surnames), said that the Louisiana Scouts made “the right decision; they just made it in a way that made us nervous.”

The mothers wanted to be part of an organization that only admits children who have been “persistently and consistently” identified as girls, one that reinforced their professed Christianity and their shared opinion to “let family decide” on the issue of gender, instead of, say, psychology, because families are always super accepting and judgment-free units. Enter the American Heritage Girls, a group whose origin story is deeply rooted in all those anachronistic, quasi religious virtues that made America a more wholesome and bigoted place in the 50′s. As the organization’s website explains,

American Heritage Girls was founded in 1995 in West Chester, Ohio by a group of parents wanting a wholesome program for their daughters. These parents were disillusioned with the increasing secular focus of existing organizations for girls. They wanted a Judeo-Christian focused organization for their daughters and believed that other parents were looking for the same for their daughters. This became the catalyst for the birth of the organization we have come to know as the American Heritage Girls.

Girls lucky enough to have value-centric, nuclear families can earn merit badges in such categories as “Family Living Frontier” and “Heritage Frontier” because the American Heritage Girls exist as the last outpost of good, Christian living on the frontier between Louisiana and Colorado. Here follow some of the badges themselves, reminders that we’ll probably never get our shit together enough to send a mission to Mars:

• All God’s Children
• Bible Basics
• Daughter of the King
• Puppetry
• Stick Shifts & Safety Belts (somebody listens to Cake)
• 7 C’s of History
• Archery

In any other context, “archery” would seem normal, but here it just seems unsettling, especially when you think of the American Heritage Girls not as innocent children but armed members of the next Children’s Crusade.

Transgendered Girl Scout in Colorado causes stir [Times-Picayune]

American Heritage Girls

http://jezebel.com/5878240/girl-scout-troop-in-louisiana-disbands-to-protest-tardy-ban-on-transgender-children