A radio interview with arch right-wing anti-trans Republican financial backer Steven Hotze’s  brother, Dr. Heir Stephan Hotze:

Steven Hotze is a hatemonger.

For nearly twenty five years he has stoked the flames of bigotry in this community like no other local politico. In the mid-1980′s he masterminded the repeal of the City of Houston non-discrimination ordinance which had been enacted by Mayor Kathy Whitmire and the Houston City Council. The following year, he fielded a group of right wing zealots to run for City Council on the “Straight Slate.” Their platform consisted of unadulterated gay-baiting epitomized by the reply of their mayoral candidate to a question of what could be done about the AIDS epidemic: “Shoot the queers.” Hotze would not repudiate that response, nor the mayoral candidate who uttered it. Fortunately, they all lost.

Hotze continues vehemently to espouse his brand of extreme intolerance. For example, he regularly insists that the death penalty is fitting for homosexual conduct. And in 2008, he insisted, without one iota of evidence, that gays and lesbians were devoted to “recruiting sexually confused adolescents into their lifestyle.”

Hotze’s bigotry and extremism are not confined to homophobia. His anti-women beliefs are evidenced by his strident insistence that “a wife may work outside the home only with her husband’s consent.” And in 2008, he was reportedly behind the financing of a blatantly racist piece of campaign literature which depicted Barack Obama, Harold Dutton, Congressmember Sheila Jackson-Lee, and the Anglo Democratic candidate state legislature in House District 144, and an ominous line of black crows on a dead tree, with the caption “birds of a feather flock together.

Gerry Birnberg
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
November 17, 2009

Every so often I have encounters with the TS-not-TG group. I cherish these encounters because they often inspire me to do research. Sometimes transsexuals who argue for the destruction of the transgender community make statements that cause me to question my assumptions – which is a good thing!

I will take your community apart bit by bit until the day that it ceases to represent transsexuals. Let my people go and leave my people the fuck alone!

I enjoy having my perspective influenced by evidence and when people in the TS-not-TG camp make certain claims about the word “transgender” (eg, crossdressers forced it on transsexuals and therefore transsexuals are victims of a “Borg collective assimilation process”) I am inspired to look at what the evidence has to say.

Those who embrace the “Transgender as Umbrella” are more like the Borg of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Dealing with the Transgender Borg is like that.  Push the right buttons and their program spits out the exact same response. Like the Borg, “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.”

Recently, I uncovered never-before documented (in the discussions about the term “transgender”) reports that cast some serious doubts about certain claims made by some TS-not-TG people. Prior to posting about the evolution of the word “transgender” in the 1970s and 1980s, many in the TS-not-TG group repeated variations of the following:

Now, Virginia Prince is to the Transgender Borg Collective what L. Ron Hubbard is to Scientology.   That is to say the basis for much of the ideology although people have added to the dogma since.

and…

Christine Jorgensen was not transgender. Just as I am NOT transgender. She was like I am transsexual. Transgender is a social construct. A political identity that grew out of the heterosexual transvestite movement founded by people like Virginia Prince.

In other words, Prince coined the term, so the current term still implies Prince’s attitudes.

After discovering that people like Christine Jorgensen did indeed self-identify as transgender, one TS-not-TG person said:

The real issue is the transgender movement that came about in the early 90′s, purporting to represent everybody while steadily representing far less than that over time. This movement is what is poisonous, not the terminology.

While some of you might feel as if this seems like moving the goal post, that’s not the point; rather, the above statement by a TS-not-TG person is intriguing. The fact that the community now has access to new historical documentation is a direct result of this TS-non-TG person sharing their point of view with me… and I appreciate it. Had they not spoken up, I probably wouldn’t have had my interest directed toward this research.

The “transgender movement” as this commenter calls it is what I mean when I talk about a “transgender community”. In other words, we are both talking about individuals who support and work towards the same goals and can therefore be grouped together . I define this “movement” as a community, using the dictionary definition of community:

The above quote makes a number of assertions:

• There is a transgender community that “came about” in the early 1990s
• By stating that it “came about”, the author connotes that the post-1990s transgender community is different than the pre-1990s transgender community – so much so as to be singled out due to their difference.
• One difference between the post-1990s TG community and the pre-1990s TG community is that they purported “to represent everybody”.
• Another difference between the post-1990s TG community and the pre-1990s TG community is that they “steadily represent[ed] far less than that over time”.
• And yet another difference between the post-1990s TG community and the pre-1990s TG community is that the post-1990s TG community is “poisonous”.

Unfortunately, the author of this statement generally does not cite evidence to support their sentiments. This, of course, inspired me to look into what the TG community looked like prior to 1990 in order to see what, if anything, was substantially different. The result was that I’ve uncovered yet more never-before published evidence to add to the marketplace of ideas.

One charge I consistently hear from the TS-not-TG group is that grouping all individuals of non-cisgender background, experience or expression is something that is new. As another TS-not-TG put it:

Trying to retroactively apply the label to people who lived their lives prior to the creation of the social construct “transgender” violates their lives.

So, prior to the 1990s, did the TS and non-TS groups work together to form a larger group in order to pursue “common social, economic, and political interests” (see definition of “community”)? I can unequivocally say YES. In fact, that drive to pull different types of trans people together in order to, as a community of diverse people,  improve our quality of life for everyone seems to be an idea that predates 1990 by a number of decades.

Consider this plea from a national transsexual organization to the transvestite and drag community in 1975:

… The courts and legislative people refuse to rule in favor of transsexual persons even when they are legally right. These so-called professional people act solely on the basis of their own emotions and repulsions rather than medical or legal reasons. We consider their actions to be arbitrary, capricious and prejudicial be denying people their God-given right to live in happiness and peace as a human being.

Chrysalis, an organization of transsexual persons, has decided to fight. In order to do this we need your help and support. You many not consider this your fight. However, whenever any person of any sexual minority is denied their right, we all begin to lose those things we have. It wasn’t long that none of us could be proud and stand up for what we are.

Its about time the gays, TVs and TSs break down the barriers between us and work together. United we stand; derived we stand still wishing something would happen.

- Drag Magazine, 1975

That 36 year old statement by a transsexual sounds an awful lot like the tune the current transgender community sings.

In the mid 1970s, another inclusive organization formed. This one was called the United Transvestite and Transsexual Society (UTTS).

Years before that in 1970, the Transvestite/Transsexual Action Organization formed.

In 1971, the “Androgynous Organization” set up a “transsexual help center” that was sponsored by the Gay Liberation Front.

In the mid-1970s, a Los Angeles political group called the Transsexual/Trans-Gender Rap Group” was formed.

Another 1970s group called themselves simply “Transsexuals and Transvestites”.

Lets not forget about the long, yet explicitly inclusively named “Transvestite, Transsexual, Female Impersonator and Gender Identity Program of Gay Community Services” in California.

In fact in 1974, UTTS said, “None of us want to split the transvestite and transsexuals from within…” They went on to state that they believe in “change through the channels and informing the public…”

Again, all of these sentiments sound rather familiar in the modern post-1990s transgender community.

Did you catch that inclusivity? If you didn’t let me quote the words written by a transsexual woman: “By the time you read this letter, cross-dressing should be legal in the City of Detroit. I, along with another transsexual and a transvestite, decided to do something about the law in Detroit.”

I’ve heard some TS-not-TG people rail against Leslie Feinberg for trying to invent non-gender specific pronouns. Consider this Chicago Tribune article from the 1970s:

As one researcher notes, the attempts to create English language gender-neutral pronouns aren’t anything new:

Besides the centuries-old instinctive use of “their”, people have been formally concerned about the gendered pronoun problem since at least 1795, and have been coining new pronouns for about the last century and a half. The first, sometime around 1850, were “ne, nis, nim”, and “hiser”. In 1868, “en” appeared, followed by a rush in 1884: “thon, thons”, “hi, hes, hem”, “le, lis, lim”, “unus”, “talis”, “hiser, himer”, “hyser, hymer”, and “ip, ips”. These things come in bursts, with a flurry of interest in certain circles while many try their hand at neologism, then an eventual dying out, only to be revived by another person in the future. (See the charts below.) Many more coinings followed between 1888 and 1891, then interest died for two decades. Interest picked up again during the thirties and forties, then died once more. Interest exploded in the seventies with the rise of a new international feminist consciousness, but it seems to have mostly died out again around in the 80′s backlash. (Note that the data in the graphs is incomplete, and comes from a book that was published in 1986.) Nevertheless, interest persisted at a lower level, and has flowered into international usage in some pockets of the net. The pronouns “sie, hir, hirs, hirself” seem to have been the most widely adopted, found mainly in Usenet groups involving romantic relationships, and the alternative forms “zie, zir, zirs, zirself” also have a following. The set “ey or e, em, eir, eirs, eirself or emself” has found more limited use.

Others have railed against the current transgender community for inventing the idea of gender-identity. But was it really the current transgender community that tried to popularize this idea?

Is this out of some 1994 transgender manifesto? Nope. It comes from a 1977 booklet titled “Information for the family of the transsexual and of children with gender identity disturbances”.

As is the case in the post-1990s transgender community, was there a recognition that there were distinctively different types of people of a non-cis history, experience or expression who still, nonetheless shared commonality in the pre-1990s transgender community? Lets see what they thought in 1971:

The above is an piece from a professional female impersonator writing for a magazine called Female Mimics. She goes on to explain that while there are many different types of trans people, we do share some common problems and for that reason, she is making herself available to help where and how she could.

So, lets move forward in time to see if this idea of grouping all non-cis people continued:

Well, it looks like the so-called “Borg Collective” was alive and well in 1979. So, did this approach kill the ability for transsexuals to gain their civil rights? Nope. Within just a few years of writing this letter, Houston’s crossdressing ordinance was revoked and all trans people could walk outside without being arrested.

So, this brings me to…

I will concede a point to the individual I initially quoted. From the evidence I see, it does indeed seem that the post-1990 transgender community is different than the pre-1990 community. The evidence seems to indicate a fairly enormous step forward in terms of rights, employment protections and acceptance by the general population since 1990. And perhaps most germane to the point of this post, this post-1990 step forward seems to have been built upon attitudes towards trans community-building that were 20 years old by the time 1990 rolled around.

At this point, I think I’m going to see what sort of actual evidence the TS-not-TG folks are able to bring to the marketplace of ideas.

So, before you begin slamming my comment section with how wrong I am, let me repost a recent response I made in another post:

This is a good example of the type of behavior I encounter with the TS-not-TG group. For many of them, if they’re not pressing their point peppered with emotionally appealing buzz-words like “assimilation” and “Borg Consciousness” to bowl you over with BS, they tend to resort to logical fallacies (usually strawman, moving the goal post and/or a non sequitur) and if that doesn’t work, they attack using ad homs.

Seriously folks, if all you have are baseless conjectures (If ABC was the way I want it to be, then XYZ would be the result. Why? Cuz I say so!) then you have no argument. Conjecture, fallacies, various appeals to emotion, buzz-words and personal attacks ARE NOT arguments; they are what people use when they have no argument.

I’d love to see some evidence-based claims from the TS-not-TG side of the road. Start with reporting on an apples-to-apples example of how transsexuals alone achieved what the Houston transgender community (TS people working with non-TS people as equals) has achieved – in one of the most inhospitable parts of the country, I might add.

Offer some historical documentation proving that TS and non-TS people never wanted to form a more inclusive community that worked together for a common cause. When you make an assertion about something, back it up with evidence. If the TS-not-TG group can not do that, I can not take their arguments seriously.

As I continue to publish historical documents relevant to the debates going on around the term transgender, I will include this disclaimer in hopes that it will cut down on having my position strawmaned to death.

The ideas found within the transgender community came from somewhere; they didn’t magically pop into existence on January 1, 1990. My intent in posting these historical documents is to dispel some historical inaccuracies some within the TS-not-TG group continue to popularize. I continuously find ideas that are purported to have originated within the so-called “transgender Borg”/“slave master” community sometime in the early 1990s and which was then supposedly thrust upon an unsuspecting transsexual community were in fact, championed by transsexuals leaders prior to 1990.

I find that I agree with practically everything those in the moderate TS-not-TG group claim with one exception. Many assert that the “transgender umbrella” idea doesn’t refer to a group of unique allies who find unity in a common cause; rather, many in the TS-not-TG group simply assert that the term “transgender” robs all transsexuals of their unique experience. In fact, most transsexuals do not feel that the we should be segregated away from all of our allies in our continued fight for equality and, as these historical documents continue to reveal, transsexual people of history do not see a need to rip the transsexual community away from other communities to go it alone.

For a view that very closely resembles my own views on this issue, check out The Death of the “Transgender Umbrella” by Mercedes Allen. My reservations about this article are summed up nicely within the comment section by Dr. Jillian Weiss:

Great article, but you can’t create a movement to “not be transgender.” Critique is valuable, but by itself, it can only alter an existing movement, not build one of its own. Movements have to be for something. If we could create a viable “transsexual movement,” I’m for it. But it is unlikely that such a movement can occur at this point in time. Very unlikely. Although I agree with the idea on a theoretical basis, I don’t think it will ever go beyond talk.

So, if you take Allen’s article and combine it with what Weiss had to add, you’d have an almost perfect representation of my views concerning the TS-not-TG debate.

June 5

1983 – Harvey Fierstein’s play Torch Song Trilogy won the Tony Award for Best Play of the 1982-83 season.

June 6

1886 – Annie Ryan married Annie Hindle, who gave her name as Charles Hindle, in Grand Rapids Michigan. Gilbert Sarony, a female impersonator, was one of the witnesses.

June 9

1989 – The ashes of pioneer transsexual Christine Jorgensen were scattered off Dana Point by her two nieces and two of her closest friends.

June 11

1998 – Nineteen-year-old Brendan McGarity was arrested for vandalizing rainbow flags which had been displayed in Orlando Florida for GLBT Pride Month. He said he did it because of Rev Pat Robertson’s warnings that God would punish the city with natural disasters for allowing the display of the flags.

June 12

1995 – The Employment Non-Discrimination Act was re-introduced in Congress. HRC demanded that transsexuals not be included in the legislation.

June 14

1961 – Boy George, musician was born

June 20

1923 – Fred G Thompson of Chicago was arrested on suspicion of murder. Until the arrest Thompson had passed as Mrs. Francis Carrick, wife of Frank Carrick. He was found not guilty.

June 23

1882 – Dr. William Hammond delivered a paper to the American Neurological Association on a “disease” which makes males believe themselves to be females. As an example he spoke of Native Americans who lived as the opposite sex.

June 24

1989 – The US Postal Service issued a Pride postmark to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

June 27

1969 – Police raided the Stonewall, a bar in Greenwich Village, shortly after midnight for selling liquor without a license. When police began loading GLBT patrons into paddywagons and – according to many sources – Sylvia Rivera, transgender activist and later co-founder of S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, ca. 1970) began to fight back which began the riot. Police were forced to take shelter inside the bar. The next evening people gathered outside the bar and police, who showed up to prevent a second night of rioting, started a riot.

June 28

1970 – Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, was arrested for blocking the sidewalk following a demonstration in Los Angeles. While in jail a MTF pre-operative transsexual was brutally beaten after being placed in the same cell with male heterosexual prisoners. Perry arranged for her release and went on a hunger strike to convince authorities not to put transsexuals in cells with male heterosexuals.

This is a copy of the note Nikki’s mother sent to the judge today. It sums up a lot of the questionable behavior on the part of Heather Delgado’s side fairly nicely.

To: Honorable Judge Randy M. Clapp

329th Judicial District Court

100 S. Fulton, Suite 200

Wharton, TX 77488

Via email: Cassie Ritter, Court Administrator

cassie@329th.com

Re: Nikki Araguz

Dear Sir:

I am Nikki Araguz’s mother. It is with great distress that we learned FROM A TRUSTED REPORTER IN THE MEDIA about your judgment in the lawsuits against our daughter, Nikki Araguz – on Monday night, BEFORE you officially announced your decision. The Plaintiff’s attorney, FRANK MANN, continued his historical mal-practice of malicious, devious, and vindictive actions by releasing press releases in advance of court proceedings – his obvious motivation was to emotionally hurt Nikki and our family. Again.

Was he permitted to release this information prior to court proceedings on Tuesday? If not, will you, as Judge, find him in Contempt of Court, and sanction him for this abhorrent behavior? Are you aware that Mr. Mann had – while our beloved son-in-law was alive – maliciously released personal and HIPPA information about Nikki and Thomas to the general public that was politically and personally motivated? That Mr. Mann, while hired by Heather Delgado, had conflict of interest, as he had been an attorney for Nikki and Emilio Mata in a bankruptcy proceeding case, therefore had client/attorney knowledge which he used in distributing this harassing and hurtful email last year – intending to cause emotional, financial, psychological, professional and relationship harm to THOMAS and NIKKI. Heather Delgado obtained private, personal documents while seeking more MONEY – Thomas had NO income, as he had just finished 2 years of college, while Nikki paid child support for his two children, and her income supported Thomas and herself.

You never met my husband and I, although we wished we could have been with our daughter every time there was a court hearing. I am a stroke survivor, paralyzed in a wheelchair, diabetic, have seizures, and a colostomy. My husband has had 3 heart attacks, quintuple-bypass surgery last year, mini-strokes since Thomas died, and has COPD on oxygen. We are unable to travel, and I receive home nursing care. THOMAS WAS AN IMPORTANT MEMBER OF OUR FAMILY, WHO LOVED US AS PARENTS, was always here to help us, and we have suffered immeasurable grief and loss. THOMAS took my husband – his father-in-law – to the hospital on Feb. 1, 2010, the morning of bypass surgery. THOMAS and Nikki were with me in the ER of Methodist Hospital on June 3, 2010, when I had a seizure, and was taken unconscious to the Stroke Center with another traumatic brain injury. THOMAS stayed with me on June 21, 2010 – the day AFTER Father’s Day – with his two boys, our grandsons – while Nikki took her Dad to the doctor. (Yes, I have pictures of that day, of Thomas and the boys on my sofa.)

I do not understand WHY you could render a judgment that would dishonor our son-in-law’s love and commitment for Nikki when he proposed to her, and married her, lived as husband and wife with her until his tragic death. I cannot comprehend how you could conclude that their marriage was “invalid” when CLEARLY Thomas Araguz III knowingly, willingly, and without any reservations or conditions, married Nikki and held out with pride to EVERYONE that she was his wife. His parents had NO questions or issues with Nikki until 1. Frank Mann unethically violated their privacy with his venomous emails, 2. Heather in her attempt to squeeze more child support from Thomas (who had NO earned income) viciously shared Nikki’s HIPPA-protected and private information with Thomas’ family and 3. after Thomas’ death, when I SUSPECT attorneys (Frank Mann?) suggested to Heather Delgado and Simona Longoria that they could BENEFIT from HURTING NIKKI and DISHONORING THOMAS with these “frivolous” lawsuits. Apparently, their “idea” worked – they didn’t care about the children, or Thomas! They only wanted MONEY. And you ruled in their favor. I do not understand that.

Our daughter was born with a birth defect. I am her mother. I cannot control what a doctor erroneously “checked” on a birth certificate form in 1975. Her biological father was in the military, and he received orders to go overseas on the day she was born. We moved from California to Texas so I could be near my parents – Nikki was only a few weeks old. Her brother was 2. Her father was a decorated Army Veteran, when he was killed in a car accident at age 21. That very day, I had called Fort Hood to discuss a birth defect that my baby had – Nikki. She was an infant.

It is beyond my comprehension why you, Sir, would find her marriage to Thomas “invalid” when Nikki had been married to Emilio Mata for ten years, and divorced him in Wharton, Texas – whose court granted that divorce? I ask, Your Honor, because obviously that means Nikki and Emilio’s marriage was legally recognized as “Valid” – in order for there to be a divorce to be granted.

Again, I find it interesting that the plaintiff attorney, FRANK MANN, had represented Nikki and Emilio Mata in their bankruptcy while THEY WERE MARRIED! Mr. Mann took their money for legal fees, never questioned whether Mr. and Mrs. Mata’s MARRIAGE was “valid” – so yet, he represents plaintiff in this lawsuit against our daughter, when she married Thomas, and he died? Besides Mr. Mann’s conflict of interest, and questionable motives, it seems a double-standard on his part to recognize Nikki’s marriage to Emilio Mata, but try to invalidate her marriage to Thomas Araguz. Money… Nikki did not file ANY actions – the plaintiffs brought this devastation on her, and ALL OF US with hurtful allegations and these lawsuits.

So please don’t tell me, Sir, who my child is – or that her marriage to Thomas Araguz III should be found “invalid”. She is and always has been affectionate, beautiful, ambitious, thoughtful, compassionate, proactive, and loving.

Besides the actual marriage ceremony, which should be recognized considering Nikki had already been married and divorced in Texas without legal entities questioning validity, Nikki and Thomas lived together, had joint bank accounts and jointly was known as husband and wife for almost two years, which in any other situation would be “common law” marriage – requiring a divorce if there were a conflict between two individuals in such a relationship.

I wish I could have been in your courtroom, Sir, to express my thoughts. I trust Nikki’s legal counsel will appeal your decision, as our entire family feel Nikki has been treated with disrespect, dehumanized, discriminated against, and used as a punching bag for others’ self-serving motivations.

Kindest Regards,

Sheri Taylor Bockelman

Many of you know that Ms. Moore, a transgender woman, was arrested and thrown in jail for using the bathroom at a Downtown Houston library branch. Many of you don’t know the back-story. Since I’ve now listened to a number or reporters share their misconceptions with me, I thought it was time to set the record straight.

THE LAW & LAWSUITS

The spin on the news is that the law is somehow unclear and or undecided. That’s simply false. Ms. Moore was arrested and imprisoned for “knowingly entering a restroom of the opposite sex.”

Texas law states that “It is unlawful for any person to use a restroom of the opposite sex unless given permission…” City of Houston Executive Order 1 – 8 and 1 – 20 provides explicit permission:

The explicit definitions of what the City means when they refer to Gender Identity and Gender Expression.

- and-

This part explicitly gives transgender members of the public the right to use City restrooms.

If you recall, back in May I stated that the Executive Order was simply a move on the part of the City to limit liability. Even the Mayor said that the City was simply clarifying the City’s then-current ordinance that one commits a class C misdemeanor if they enter the restroom of the opposite sex with the intent of creating a disturbance.

In case you don’t remember, here’s what I said in a press release back in May:

“Fringe groups will probably try to scare their donor base into believing that the gay mayor has made it legal for pedophiles to turn the restroom into their hunting grounds instead of being truthful and saying that the City acted to limit City liability. Liability issues are bland and don’t bring in the bucks for these groups. These groups know it’s more profitable to lie to their donor base and claim that without them, nobody will ‘save the children.’ I find it remarkable that people fall for it. I mean really… Who would believe that the Mayor of Houston has made it legal for nefarious men to hang out in the girl’s bathroom?” In fact, Dave Welch, Executive Director of Houston Area Pastor Council said, “Her reprehensible actions to open women’s restrooms to men.” He went on to say, “Forcing women in particular using city facilities to be subjected to cross-dressing men invading their privacy is beyond the pale and offensive to every standard of decency.”

After hearing what Mr. Welch had to say, Lou Weaver, President of TFA said, “His framing of the issue borders on an out and out lie. I’m really shocked. He’s basically claiming that the Executive Order was actually a rogue plot to make the women’s restroom accessible to voyeurs. Who buys this stuff? We’re talking about an Order that has stopped the previous practice of forcing females, like Cristan, into rooms where men are in a state of undress. Pretending that it’s anything other than that is simply disingenuous.”

The reason the Mayor of Houston acted to clarify the existing ordinance was because transgender people had been falsely arrested and had been previously barred from using the restroom – discriminatory actions which were all unlawful. The existing ordinance allowed transgender people to use the restroom since they weren’t using it for the purposes of creating a disturbance. The fact that transgender people were being arrested and jailed for NOT breaking the law left the City of Houston at risk of having to pay out millions for false arrest and imprisonment. The Executive Order made it clear to all City staff (HPD included) what the policy was and should have – had it been followed – protected the taxpayers from costly lawsuits.

However, a security guard and HPD officer chose to disregard years worth of City policy as well as the Executive Order and put the City and the taxpayer at risk of a civil rights lawsuit.  Back in May when I had stated that the Mayor acted to limit City liability, I remember that a number of right-wing blogs said that I was being absurd, ridiculous and trying to muddy the waters with talk of law suit prevention.

Well, when a civil rights attorney is about to take up the cause of Ms. Moore, I hate to tell you that I told you so… BUT, I TOLD YOU SO!

<sarcasm>So, I hope it was worth wasting what may become millions of bucks in taxpayer money on the personal schadenfreude the guard and cop got from harassing a transgender person.</sarcasm>

It’s worth noting that even if the Executive Order was not in place, it would have been unlawful for the officer to arrest Ms. Moore. As a class C misdemeanor, it is a citable offence – not an arrestable offence. Even without the Executive Order in place, it would have been only lawful for the officer to write her a ticket – not arrest her and throw her in jail!

PROBLEMS AT JAIL

As I just said, if you ignored the Executive Order, it STILL would have been unlawful for the officer to arrest Ms. Moore. The fact that the booking sergeant at the jail ignored this is also problematic.

Now imagine that you’re a transgender woman in a men’s prison and a guard comes up to you and offers you some ‘free’ legal advice. He says to you, “If you’ll just plead guilty to the charge, you can get out of here with time served. You can go home. But if you try to fight this, you’ll be staying here for some time.”

It is unlawful for jailors to offer this type of legal “advice.” That’s problematic as well.

So, being unaware of her rights and being confronted with the possibility of rape and beatings, Ms. Moore plead guilty on the legal advisement of the jailor.

FALLOUT AT HPD

After the blowback HPD faced with their treatment of the sill unsolved Myra Ical murder case, HPD has been fairly tight-lipped about reporting on anything to do with the transgender community. In fact, they completely failed to report the murder of a transgender woman on the 6^th of September. This is, without a doubt, a huge embarrassment for HPD.

Without going into explicit details, the Police Chief had a come to Jesus sit-down last Tuesday. Tacked on the wall was a copy of the Executive Order. The Chief had a lot to say and long and short of it is that there’s currently an investigation underway.

The community is working with HPD to ensure that they have the breathing-room they need to conduct their investigation.

The findings will be given to City Legal (CL) and official statements will be coming from CL since David Welch, Executive Director of the Houston City Pastor Council sent a sadly comical pleading to the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott seeking to have the Houston Executive Order overturned.

Of course, overturning the Executive Order will only lead to more law suits. This incident is proof-positive that if the Executive Order is followed, the City and taxpayer is protected. Thanks for your 2 cents Welch.

DAVID WELCH

As I noted, Welch submitted a laughably pitiful excuse of a pleading to Attorney General Greg Abbott wherein he cites no legal cases and merely states that the Attorney General should overturn the Houston Executive Order because Welch thinks it would make God happy.

David Welch, the Executive Director of a Houston-based hate group that calls itself the “Houston Area Pastoral Council” is an extreme right-wing fundamentalist. He’s also Founding Executive Director of Christian Coalition of Washington, the National Field Director of Christian Coalition, the Executive Director of Vision America and more importantly, Welch is afraid to debate me again.

Welch was scheduled to debate me for the second time live on FOX News, but backed out at the last moment. We were supposed to debate the merits of the Mayor’s Executive Order. Welch has a long history of making declarations about the civil rights of transgender people but is now seemingly afraid of debating those very ideas.

So, Welch debated Darrell Steadily (lead attorney for Nikki Araguz) and, of course, lost. Again. This is the second time he debated transgender civil rights and this is the second time Welch lost.

After ducking the debate with me, I turned up the heat by calling him out on live radio and then calling his office until I was able to reach him. When I was actually able to speak to him, I challenged him to a debate which he initially accepted before immediately beginning to backpedal. Knowing that Welch is likely to try to worm out of having to publically defend his arguments against GLBT people, I recorded the conversation and posted it on YouTube.

<rant>His type of obtuse bigotry is sickening. I want to debate him again. I want to decimate each logical fallacy he throws my direction. I want to ensure that David Welch is either exposed as being a ridiculously pathetic man trapped by fear and ignorance or as a coward who is unwilling and/or unable to have his hate challenged by a lowly tranny.</rant>

So, I’m happy to note that when Welch injected his venom into this story and refused to debate me, a site popped up to track his downfall: http://dave-welch.com .

PUBLIC OPINION

Fox News put out a public poll asking if people would freak out if a transgender person of the same gender was using the restroom and almost everyone said that it’s a non-issue for them:

Results of the FOX News poll. 84% don't care if transgender people use the restroom.

As you can see, it’s a non-issue for most folk and if you think that’s a fluke, check out the ‘man on the street’ interview done by FOX news: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiCuLP1xXTk

TRANSGENDER CENTER REACTION

The TG Center put out a press release on Monday, November 22 and set to work gathering information and contacting the victim. Additionally, a pro bono civil rights attorney was secured to represent Ms. Moore. The TG Center coordinated communication between the victim and the community.

RECAP

• • The Executive Order PROTECTS the City against lawsuits.
• • A Right-Wing nut named David Welch (dave-welch.com) wants to strip that protection away and make it ‘legal’ to violate the civil rights of transgender people.
• • The arresting officer was out of line every step of the way and Ms. Moore’s civil rights were violated.
• • The TG Community is taking care of its own and the general public doesn’t have a problem with transgender people using the bathroom.

LAST THOUGHTS

Ms. Moore should have the conviction of this imaginary crime expunged from her record. Additionally, I will encourage Ms. Moore to focus on going after the security guard and the company the guard works for since HPD is addressing their wrongs. This entire fiasco began with a bigoted security guard and as of yet, neither the security guard nor the company the security guard works for has come forward and apologized to Ms. Moore.

Here are a few graphics that have been used lately in connection to this story:

The use of the word stealth has lost its meaning in the last decade. I hear people who go to trans support group meetings, activities and who run trans websites claim to be “stealth” now. When I came out, going to trans support group meetings, activities and running trans forums was the definition of being out in a big way! Some now say that “stealth” means one thing and “woodworking” another. I call BS. You can’t woodwork without being stealth. It’s like saying that the word “hide” and “conceal” are fundamentally different. If you’re going to conceal something, you have to hide it; if you’re going to woodwork, you’ve got to be stealth. Some say “stealth” just means privacy. Privacy is not telling my spouse that I had a wart removed; stealth is not telling my spouse that I had a penis removed.

Pretending that being “out” means telling everyone you meet you’re trans is BS. Associating with others in the trans community while claiming to be stealth is a mischaracterization of what stealth is.

Stealth is pretending to everyone that you’re a cisgender female. It means living in fear that the spouse you lied to will find out that you didn’t actually have a hysterectomy. It means always wondering if your friends would really like you if they knew the truth. Stealth is running away from or verbally running down your trans brothers and sisters so that others won’t make the connection. Stealth means that you hide being trans.

Stealth is about shame and nothing more. Not telling the grocery sacker that you’re trans is not stealth. Trying to get your parents to lie to your new boyfriend is being stealth. Not telling every co-worker in the building that you’re trans is not being stealth. Not telling your best friend is being stealth.

If you associate with other trans people, you’re not in stealth because you’re putting yourself in a position of allowing more and more people to know the truth about your history. Isolating and hiding your history is what it means to live in stealth.

Stealth people say things like “I just want to get on with my life as the woman I am” – a sentiment that sounds rational enough on the surface. The problem with that sentiment is that it’s also a delusion. Stealth people rationalize their lies by believing that being trans was only a medical problem that was fixed – kind of like a cleft palette; purposefully pretending that there wasn’t a social transition that entailed violating numerous cultural norms. Stealth is purposefully taking away the choice of letting the people you claim to love the most decide if they are willing to take on the potential social costs (as unfair and stupid as those social costs might be) of breaking those backwards cultural norms by being with you. If you believe that it is only a medical condition, remember that I said that you’re delusional when your best friend, your husband or wife, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your adopted child, etc finds out that you lied about your social and medical history. Yes, it is a medical condition that should be treated medically, but to pretend that this medical condition is exactly like having laser eye surgery is nothing more than living in denial. Living an authentic life means having the courage to stand firmly on the ground on truth regardless of what stupid, moronic and asinine stereotypes and/or fears others may choose to cling to.

Anyway… pretending to be a cisgender female practically never works in the end. In the digital age, you can never destroy every piece of history documenting your true past and you certainly can’t kill everyone how knows the truth. Choosing stealth is a shame-based way to live because it supports the belief that being trans is bad and should be hidden. Being a transwoman and being a ciswoman are just two somewhat different ways of arriving at being a woman; living stealth supports the bogus idea that you’re not really a woman and you must therefore hide the truth from discovery. If you want to save yourself a lot of misery, be truthful about the history that made you into the wonderful person you are today to the people who matter to you. You don’t need to tell the gas station attendant, but the point of transitioning is that you get to live authentically. Don’t put yourself into a position that you have to go back to living a lie; don’t go from one closet to another.

There is a small town stuck between Houston and Galveston. It is one of the many settlements south of Houston that seems to cling to the freeway for life. This particular berg is famous for three things:

1.)    A large topless joint that beckons men to exit the freeway so they can have their heart broken by at least 162 women;

2.)    An old Spanish-style church whose 15 foot adobe Christ is designed to inspire the unsuspecting sinner to make a mad dash for the confessional least they be judged on the spot by its two rather large maniacal eyes that seem to track you much like the Mona Lisa’s do; and,

3.)    The local water tower which is prized for its pealing façade immortalizing the high school team of 1977.

I had the honor of calling this town my home for a few years. In fact, it’s where I did a lot of my transitioning and first experienced some of the hidden perks that seemed to come along with my new gender role.

I’d been experiencing trouble with my car’s transmission, so I pulled into a local garage to have them take a look at it. As I navigated my car around used tires and oil slicks, I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a rather large yeti attempting to till the grime under his fingernails with the edge of a screwdriver. While I had not yet transitioned, I was very close to moving forward with it. This meant that I was living in a strange twilight state whereby I was hyper-conscious of every nuance manhood demanded of me. I had to consciously carry out each action as if I had the lead part in some weird and sweaty play. Each gradation of expression that drew me away from my innate personhood exacted a psychic toll that was becoming too high.

Since I had obviously parked my car in the middle of alpha-male central, I felt it best to present this greased Neanderthal with my very best impersonation of a male. I parked my car and tried to calm my heart palpitations by reciting my man-mantra: “manly-man, manly-man, manly-man…” As I closed my car door, the mechanic squinted his eyes and stepped over to my car.

He told me that he was on his break and explained to me that every goddamned time he went on break, some asshole would pull up whining about his car. With that greeting, it was established that he, not I, was the alpha-male.

I apologized for interrupting him and asked if he would like me to come back later. He told me that he’d take his break later and went on to explain that the “asshole” in his introduction wasn’t me and that he was just talking about assholes in general. I gave him a nervous tic and he asked me, “Just what the hell’s your problem anyway?” I explained that my car’s automatic transmission wasn’t shifting properly. After checking the transmission fluid, he shook his head and laughed at me. It was clear then that I was trapped in some type of ritualistic rite males are apparently expected to engage in to determine dominance and that I had been demoted to the level of prepubescent simpleton.

The mechanic told me to walk to the front of my car. An icy panic settled into the pit of my stomach as I got out of my car. I told myself to make sure that I walked with the same swagger the mechanic displayed when he approached my car. “That’s it. Take big steps. Big steps… No! OMG! What are you doing?!? Are you trying to show off your swishy hips?!? Big steps… That’s right. Walk like you’ve just crapped your pants. Yep, that looks real good. Step. Squish. Step. Squish. Step. Squish.” While I was feeling fairly confident about my approach at the time, I’m sure I did a fine impression of an epileptic ballet dancer as he almost dropped the dipstick he was holding as he watched my machismo in action.

He told me that the transmission fluid was low and that I needed to put some in. I desperately scanned the engine looking for a cap or sticker that read, “PUT TRANSMISSION FLUID HERE” but there was nothing like that to be found. Since he obviously knew, I asked him where I needed to put the fluid. He looked at me as if I had politely asked him to wear my underwear on his head.

“How much are you gonna pay me to show you?” he asked. As he looked me up and down, he added, “I’ve got a wife and kids to feed.” Why was he telling me about his family? Did he expect me to express some sympathy for his plight? Was he attempting to show me how virile he was? I told him that I had about a dollar-fifty in cash when he slapped my back – hard – and began to laugh. Did I miss something? Apparently, we had somehow become friends since he was laughing instead of scowling and showing me where and how to put the transmission fluid into my car.

About six months later, I returned to the same garage to put some air into my tires. By then, I had transitioned. The same mechanic was on duty as I pulled up and instead of grimacing at me, he stopped what he was doing and bounded across the parking lot in the direction of my car. As I got out to walk towards the air-hose, he instructed me to get back into the car while he volunteered to check each tire and top them off. He also asked me if I wanted him to check the fluids under the hood. After he was done, I asked him how much I owed him. “Nuttin…” he said, “But a smile.” He flashed a head full of mangled teeth at me. I couldn’t help but notice that a bottom tooth looked like the dirty end of the spark plug he was fidgeting with. I smiled and thanked him, which seemed to make both of us happy.