• John Aravosis chats with CNN’s resident tool Rick Sanchez about Larry Craig. Moral of the story: Craig’s coincidence defies reality. Meanwhile Aravosis wrote this piece about ENDA. A reader suggested we add him to our list of 20 Most Frightful Anti-Gay Activists…
• GLAAD gets into the news business.
• Queer Iraqi situation worse than imagined:
Up to 25 gay men will next month have to ‘take their chances’ in Iraq where religious militia regularly seek out gays and execute them. Two ‘safe houses’ for gays will be forced to close at the end month – due to lack of cash, it was learned last night.
Make potentially life saving donation here. Or continue being apathetic. It’s up to you.
• Lesbians make history in Maine: first same-sex couple granted joint adoption.
• Jimmy Im really wants you to read a. his travel blog and b. his Daily News article. Make him a happy man.
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• Penn Badgley wants Gossip Girl to go gay.
• Super parrot!!!
• Ellen Degeneres dog adoption case gets wackier.
• Trans woman sues IRS after they refuse surgical deduction.
• Stereohyped’s editor Lauren Williams up on NPR.
DavidDust
I’m so glad I’m not the ONLY one who thinks Rick Sanchez is a douche.
Leland Frances
“A reader suggested [you] add [Aravosis] to [your] list of 20 Most Frightful Anti-Gay Activists”? Further proof Mad Tranny Disease is spreading.
And this latest Mad GLAAD Disease symptom proves they care more, are equipped only for, more preaching to the choir. Hacks, we’re not supposed to be the ones correcting the media, that’s what we send MILLIONS of dollars to you to do. And anyone who thinks GLAAD has been doing what their paid to need only have seen Matt Lauer’s homophobic interview with Sen. & Madame Craig last night in which Lauer referred to the gay “lifestyle,” increduously denied even knowing what “cruising” means, and APOLOGIZED to Craig for asking him if he were Bi. Until the put the dog back in “watch dog,” BOYCOTT GLAAD!
Congratulations to the lesbian adoptive moms in Maine, but the history they made was only there.
Matt
Seems to me Aravosis is just being thoughtful, asking pertinent questions, and encouraging critical thinking. That makes him Frightful and Anti-Gay? I know nothing about him other than what I just read, and he seems neither, necessarily.
mtdavid
Senator Craig’s wife comments are insightful.
Her stomach dropped. That’s called “recognition” response.
Her soul searching and realization Craig has never been unfaithful, that’s called DENIAL.
Sad, sad story.
evolve17
When he first starting writing about ENDA, I thought Avarosis made a number of fair points. Wrong, mind you, but fair.
However, after Avarosis started piling on, saying that Ts were never a part of the gay community and that anti-T discrimination isn’t a matter of civil rights, well, it became clear that Avarosis just has issues with Ts.
It’s one thing to disagree about the T-inclusive bill as a matter of realpolitik. But Avarosis shows such animus against our T brothers and sisters that he sacrifices any moral high ground we might otherwise have. And for what? Bush will veto the bill anyway, so why throw Ts under the bus in the process? It’s hard not to conclude that Avarosis is just a big anti-T bigot.
J
Aravosis hasn’t presented one honest linear argument against a T-inclusive ENDA. He has made two arguments: 1) legislative (only a “clean” ENDA can pass), 2) applicability (Ts aren’t really part of the gay community).
And now, on his blog, Aravosis is talking down to commenters about how he was trained to think in law school, and how he wants answers to his questions in keeping with that line of reasoning.
Aravosis is the one who hasn’t presented one clean line of thought. You either honestly feel that you’d love everyone to be protected, but want to strip Ts from ENDA for passage, or you have something personal against Ts being considered part of our movement.
Which is it?
Aravosis is good at what he does, but he’s no grassroots-type progressive. He’s a top-down, I-know-how-DC-works bubble inhabitant. And the surest sign of Beltway Bubble syndrome is this: posturing a legislative argument before (or in place of) your own honest feelings.
The movement was kicked off by Ts at Stonewall, and the movement will continue on for years and years. It’s the DC insiders who fade from memory, and John has begun that path.
Leland Frances
You don’t know shit from Shinola about Stonewall, J. But you can comfort yourself knowing that you are in the majority who have deep-throated the myth.
Even the legendary tranny Sylvia Rivera admitted that Stonewall was not just Ts and that NO ONE is clear about who started what when. STRAIGHT folk singer Dave Van Ronk happened by in the middle of it and got grabbed by the police and pulled into the bar, handcuffed and beaten, and one of only 13 people eventually booked which Rivera was not. Shall we erect a statue to straight folk singers as Stonewall heroes?
If you’d like to know more facts, try reading “Stonewall” by David Carter.
J
For the sake of argument, let’s agree that “no one is clear about who started what when (sic).”
Whether it is Carter’s book, or Dubermans, there is no doubt that trannies were present and active in the Stonewall riots. (Your point about van Ronk, which you mis-spelled with a capital V, is cute but irrelevant; we’re obviously discussing overt actors in the matter, not accidental victims. Ts were intended victims of the raid, and were to some unresolved degree purposeful participants).
That simple fact underlines my main point (as much as you may care to drag us all into the weeds, and viciously so).
Aravosis wrote, in several essays, that Ts were somehow a late addition to discussions about gay/queer/whate-have-you civil rights.
Even you agree that is not so. Thank you for reinforcing the basic history that escaped the great Aravosis.
J
PS: I was wrong about Van Rock spelling. The accidental victim of the Stonewall riots is spelled with a cap V.
Leland Frances
Noble of you to admit your spelling error. That’s the risk when you try to drag a discussion “into the weeds” by trying to discredit another’s points with irrelevancies. So I don’t need to mention that you “mis-spelled” “misspelled,” left the possessive apostrophe out of “Duberman’s,” and inserted without justification a “sic.”
Still, one is surprised that you are even aware of Dr. Duberman’s book. But we’re all guilty of being aware of the existence of many books we haven’t actually read, or comprehended if we did. For if you had, you could not honestly write without qualification that “Ts were intended victims of the raid” because you would know that the actual intention of the raid on the illegal, Mafia-owned dive also remains “unresolved.”
Was it only another routine “keep the ‘freaks [of all kinds]’ in check” raid? If that was the reason, then why was it conceived and carried out by different players, i.e., different police than routinely raided the Stonewall and other gay bars and were not even informed that the raid was coming? Why was this one different from those before when, “There was such cooperation between the police and the gay bars that the police would time raids to minimize the disruption to the bars’ business.” – “Stonewall,” Carter, page 83? Was it simply driven by rivalry and jealousy over not being included in the bar’s payoffs which made the typical raids [which bar management was typically notified about in advance] a profitable charade? Or was this particular raid really not about homo/transphobia at all but specifically to close one of the sources of information being used to blackmail some influential closeted gays on Wall Street, regardless of who frequented it? The variables are all there in the books for anyone to read.
But this debate about ENDA has been damaged by ignorance, dishonesty, disingenuousness, hyperbole and reckless writing and speaking from the start. Let Aravois atone for his own sins and errors. You claimed, without qualification until you were challenged, “The movement was kicked off by Ts at Stonewall.” Thank you for acknowledging your original failure to present a “clean line of thought.”
J
My point was that Aravosis is presenting two lines of reasoning. Out of one side of his mouth, he pretends that civil rights protections are desirable, but we simply don’t have the votes for a T-inclusive ENDA. Out of the other side of his mouth, he argues that Ts really aren’t a part of our community in any manner whatsoever. In making that argument, he actually wrote an entire essay that pretended Ts were a recent addition to our issues.
You would prefer to dwell on the gaps in information and history regarding Stonewall. Ts were there, is that good enough for you? I’ll say anything at this point to get you off your “I’ve read a book you haven’t high horse.
And Stonewall was not, of course, the only nor earliest connection of Ts to our movement. In addition to Dumberman’s book, which yes I do have, I have many others, and Ts are in our history long before Aravosis cared to acknowledge.
If there are any other bank-shot issues you would like to discuss, separate and apart from ENDA, please carry on.
Leland Frances
While noting your continued irrelevant defensiveness, I trust “DUMBerman’s” was a typo. You confuse my corrections of your errors with agreement with Aravosis. I haven’t even read more than a couple of sentences of his piece. I got enough to disagree with his thesis while agreeing with his position on ENDA strategy.
I believe that T-rights should be the concern of gays and lesbians. But his dismissal of their inclusion is no worse than the exageration by others of their contribution to the gay rights movement. They need not “earn” rights any more than they deserve “more” rights for some claimed or imagined place in our history. Unless Magnus Hirschfeld has been determined to be transgender in its traditional sense vs. qualifying as the cross dresser that he was, no transgender person I’m aware of has been a major player in any progress that benefitted the entire LGBT community, symbolic or literal. While she remains a saint to some, Sylvia Rivera was a thorn to many more.
J
“no transgender person I’m aware of has been a major player in any progress that benefitted the entire LGBT community, symbolic or literal”
Your dismissive attitude towards Ts is clear enough, but it’s a faulty litmus test for civil liberties.
If you’ve heard of this thing called Google, you can find Ts who have been elected to public office, sat on the boards of nationwide gay rights orgs, created non-profit groups, not to mention the thousands of stories of giving and caring that didn’t make their way into a book on your cherished shelf.
Leland Frances
Perhaps, J, if you took your foot off the pedal of your speed reading, you might arrive at comprehension.
“They need not ‘earn’ rights….” – Leland Frances.