Commentary

As a transgender person, my relationship with mass media hasn’t always been the best of relationships. Every single day, when I watch television, or a film, or read news articles, or books, or even twitter, I feel like I’m walking through a minefield. Inevitably, I will step on one and be onslaught with some horribly insensitive comment or dehumanizing portrayal of a trans person. The systemic view of trans individuals as non-people is too ubiquitous, and the lack of understanding of our struggles coming to terms with our identities has created a mythologization of our lives with little concern for our perspective…

Trestin Meacham is not a special individual. For the people who share his mindset, he is actually quite typical. He finds a singular way of expressing himself, and for that, he gets notoriety. Because he typifies some of those holding key points of anti-gay frustration, he remains a point of interest for me and others. He is not alone. With an Oklahoma lawmaker calling gay people “human wrongs” and the government of Nigeria terrorizing its LGBT citizens, and dozens of idiotic ramblings from various lawmakers and clergy, Mr. Meacham’s point of view is more common than many of us are comfortable…

YES – it is the media’s responsibility to accurately report on hypocrisy. For reporters to specifically exclude facts about gay hypocrites is itself, a hostile act proclaiming homosexuality is so shameful that it is exempted from the normal rules of good journalism. Unfortunately, journalist Itay Hod jumped the gun and spoke out before he presented any indisputable evidence. As far as I’m concerned, Congressman Aaron Schock is still a gay bashing heterosexual Republican who simply has a bit of fashion sense…

These past few years may end up being known as the years of “Conservatives Behaving Badly.” At the end of last year, the Republicans in Congress conducted a massive foot stomping, pout-out and shut down the government because they did not get their way on the previous healthcare bill. In the state of Utah, conservatives were shocked when the justice system intervened on the subject of marriage equality. Now, we have a couple of adult size tantrums playing out publicly…

There’s been plenty of sucking up to the business community at the Human Rights Campaign, but little focus on money matters affecting low- and moderate-income LGBT people.Why can’t the HRC, the gay division of the Democratic Party, address such concerns? Is it’s because of the robust six-figure salaries of the top HRC executives? Do such compensation amounts cut off their awareness of gays who don’t make that kind of money? Or is it because the minimum wage increase doesn’t attract the attention of celebrities who appear at HRC dinners?

There is an ugly collusion between religious belief and bigotry which we don’t talk about, and it didn’t begin with the LGBT community. It wasn’t that long ago when religious belief and faith was used to justify slavery, segregation, and anti-Semitism. Sadly, the LGBT community seems to be the last bastion where it is okay to justify demonizing people under the guise of “adhering to one’s faith.” … Folks who do these things always seem to think that they own the word “Christianity” and everyone else is beholden to their interpretation.

Every Christmas it was the same. Carol Cage worked long hours, right up to Christmas Eve and then finally had to rush around to get everything done. She got out of bed and went to her en suite bathroom. She changed her mind and went to her bedroom door and opened it. She had made a habit of closing it to avoid overhearing her son and his friend in bed again…

Hi guys. I have been meaning to have this talk with you for some time now…

Unless I’ve missed something, Mr. Robertson faces no legal ramifications for what he said. That’s what freedom of speech means. Freedom of speech does not mean we can say anything we want without ramifications for what we say from our peers or employers. We’re free to be racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic — pretty much anything we want. We can be these things, no matter how ignorant, because that’s what the Constitution gives us the right to be…

Unless the language of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act’s religious exemption strikes a better balance to reflect the true meaning of religious liberty, core American principles and millions of American working men and women have a great deal at risk. It will take grassroots pressure and pushing by equality-minded advocates and policy-makers to make that balance happen. Who’s pushing the other way? Some religious potentates who oppose women’s right to control their fertility and their pregnancies also oppose anti-bias laws. They claim religious principle allows them to discriminate freely. But no federal law, least of all one intended to stop bias on the job, should allow them to have it both ways…