SA Govt Discusses Removal Of Sexual Orientation From Constitution

An article in the Beeld newspaper yesterday explains that there is a move in government encouraging the removal of sexual orientation protection clauses from the SA Constitution. 

Not to say "I told you so", but I've been warning about this eventuality for the past 5 years.

...So, "I fucking told you so!" 

The takeaway from this fact is this: A) There is a government body actually spending official time, money and resources to entertain a band of religious fundamentalist fanatics who have for years been pressuring government to remove constitutional human rights protections from the SA Constitution. B) a body which falls under the mandate of the SA Constitution and has a duty to DEFEND it, is ostensibly giving government support and serious consideration to what amounts to un-Constitutional efforts which would not only violate the human rights of a significant portion of SA citizens - but would also stand in contradiction to several important UN mandates on human right as well

 

This is cause for significant concern indeed. 

 

Should this farcical business deliver any rotten fruit, it would set in motion a cascade-effect that would collapse the culture of human rights protections for numerous communities.

Cry, Emo Kid - They Really ARE Out To Kill You

I was shocked and saddened today, when I saw news articles of STATE SANCTIONED AND ENCOURAGED MASSACRES in Iraq. 

The target of these unholy act of unspeakable barbarism? LGBT people, feminists - and Emo kids. That's right - Iraqi religious police assisted by fanatic religious militia - and relatives of the victims, have been abducting and murdering people - including children - because they don't approve of their hairstyles, dress, or if they happen to appear a little too masculine or feminine to their liking, for their idea of "appropriate" gender! 

Nobody is safe from their brutality and terrorism - not even children! 

Monsters!

Traditional Hatred

What an interesting holiday season this has been! 

Three weeks went by so fast that I once again find myself writing the first article for the new year! 

I hope you all had a wonderful time, and whether or not the silly season held any special or even religious significance for you, I hope it was peaceful and filled with love and the company of not just family and friends - but people you really wanted to spend time with, and hopefully, enjoyed their company.

There Is In Prejudice, No Fairness, Nor Equality

We are all losing a little bit of our equality and freedom, a little bit at a time. 

All of us, in every social grouping, whatever the basis for discrimination or differentiation, are affected. We all belong to a race group, a gender, a sexual orientation, a personal expression, and have our own religious beliefs. How long before all of us are equal only in our disenfranchisement, powerlessness and despair?

Passing On The Torch

It is very close to the end of another year, and the time has come again for me to reflect on the past, to take stock - and to chart a new course for my future in human rights activism. 

You may recall I started out as an activist for the human rights of the Pink Community, specifically with the SA Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (SA GLAAD) - an organization I am still serving on - and have since also become more involved with other causes attached to the cause of human rights. 

Among these was a group called ECGLA.

Mirror, Mirror

As a non-Christian, I have never understood the need some people have to indoctrinate others, or to try and force their own views on them. 

When this sort of thing takes place during a time of grieving and mourning, such as at a funeral, it just makes it even worse.

Challenges of Life

I believe where it is SAFE to do so, transgender people should be out and proud. And where it isn't safe, they should be proud if not out - and they should still work for equality, dignity and human rights so that they - and the generations that are to come - one day can be out. Nobody cares about people they don't know about, folks. 

When people don't remind folks that they really do exist, the haters, purists and bigots like to believe and pretend that they don't.

Dismantling Fear

Many transsexual people I have encountered over time have chosen to introduce themselves to friends or acquaintances as being more than "just" transsexuals. 

Instead of just being honest about having been biologically male or female, and having changed that, they invent stories about having been born intersex - presumably because in their minds, the audience will somehow view them more sympathetically that way than if they were just honest to begin with.

 

Why can't they just be honest?

 

Well, as it turns out, there may be some very good reasons why they do this.

Kicking The Crutch

The world around us is filled with people who are selfish, cocky and arrogant about their own religious beliefs. I say not these things because I resent the pride others take in their religion, but because the pride some of them take in their choice of beliefs boils over into a hatred of the religious choices of others who choose differently to them, and into persecution of those who dare to do so.

Will Somebody Please Think Of The Children?

I regularly meet a friend of mine, who is a Christian reverend, for drinks at a local coffee shop. We enjoy casual chats about religion, persecution and human needs and frailties. He mentioned to me that there is no ONE Christianity, but many, and that today there are more than 200 different formally identified "mainstream" denominations - or "churches" around the world. Ironically, each one considers itself to be the ONE TRUE Christianity, or at least, the face of it.

NMB Pride Was Our Heritage Day!

This past Saturday saw a first for my home town: Almost 20 years into our new democracy, Port Elizabeth still had not had a Pride parade or Pride event, in fact it was sometimes a pit-stop for travelers on their way from somewhere else, to Pride events being held - well, somewhere else. 

 

All that changed last Saturday, when the very first Nelson Mandela Bay Pride was held - and I was so very proud!

We Make Hate Great

Tolerance. Equality. Individual freedom. The right to self-expression. These are the things that make democracy great. These are the things that make life worth living.

And yet many people who claim to support these ideals, really do not. While they claim to, they see equality as something they are deserving of, while simultaneously they view anyone they do not personally approve of trying to gain equality with them as an attack on their own superior and privileged social positions. 

 

They distort facts and ideologies to serve their elitist and supremacist ideals, and hijack democracy in order to preserve a social order where words like "love" and concepts like "good" and "evil", and even terms like "family" and "marriage" become tools to exclude fellow human beings from equal, decent and humane treatment - and as weapons to destroy them.

Yes, Wiccan

I drive a Mazda, but I still know what a Mercedes Benz looks like. 

 

I have had Beetles, a Kombi, a Renault, a Toyota and a Golf as well. I realize they are all cars, and I at least have an idea of what makes each of them different from the other, and about the thing that makes them go. I also know that cars make traveling from one place easier and better. It doesn't mean I have to hate the other makes, or refuse to drive in whatever car my neighbor drives.

What I'm trying to put across in my own rather quizzical way, is religion. Yes, that. You may wonder what cars have to do with religion - but let me clear it up for you: I have been finding out the hard way how ignorant some people are about religions other than their own. 

Let's take Christianity as a prime example. 

Cardboard Armor & Quicksand

These days, after some years of dealing with religious fundamentalist bigots, I have little patience for people who jump up and wave their fingers down at me and people like me - not for anything bad that we have done, but simply for existing. They typically use flimsy and baseless religious rhetoric as a foundation for their hatred and prejudice, quoting scripture against established scientific reality as if it were some sort of magic bullet. 

 

You're running into battle wearing cardboard armor and waving plastic swords! Go back to school and ask for a refund!

EC Mirror Casts Poor Reflection

Some of you know that my city, Port Elizabeth, will be hosting its first ever Pride event this year - an event which I am proud to say I am involved in, be it in my own small way. ECGLA, an organization I am part of, stands behind the Nelson Mandela Bay Pride - which will take place on the 24th of September - with one or two smaller events on the side during the month leading up to the main event.

I have to say that so far I have been pleasantly surprised to note that there have been no negative encounters, nasty letters in the press, and no hate mail specific to the Pride event. In fact, we were even surprised and excited to learn how positive the public appears to be about Pride. Of course, there always has to be one bad apple in the basket, doesn't there?

Today I was forwarded an email reply to a request sent out to newspapers in our area to publicize an event which forms part of the run-up to Pride.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 11:18 AM, EC Mirror Admin wrote:

System Failure

I think any system of government where human or civil rights depends wholly on the public opinion of the moment, is fundamentally flawed.

Where did that come from? Well, it goes back to before we had the present Constitution in South Africa, when as a teenager I was threatened with being labeled a criminal because being gay was illegal in this country then. That's right, I was threatened with jail because I dared to consider that I might not be your average heterosexual cisgender boy. And in those days, even being transgender was a very grey area in legal terms. 

 

Being caught in a raid dressed in women's clothing as a biological male was a risky business. It was "fine" to be a cross-dresser or drag queen busted at a gay club during a raid - but you better still have been wearing male underwear underneath your frock - or you would be thrown in jail for "impersonating a female". LOL. 

 

Go figure.

Bread And Circuses

Last week I had the pleasure of having to get up really early for work, at around 4 am, when all the respectable birds were still asleep. It was while having breakfast a little later that I heard something faint in the night, a kind of singing chant in the distance that reminded me of a Muslim call to prayer. I really had to strain my hearing to pick it up, as the very light wind at that time of morning affected it, and it faded in and out. It seemed to me that it might very well be that, from one of the mosques in the old part of town somewhere. I began to wonder if I was imagining it, but no, there it was, for a whole 2 or 3 minutes. It brought a smile to my face as I wondered why I had never heard it before.

I heard it the next morning too, while having breakfast, confirming to me that I had not imagined it. At the end of the week, I received an email notice that some people in my area (Richmond Hill) were angry about the "disturbance" coming from North End so early in the morning and were drawing up a petition about it. I was stunned. Could people really be so small and anal about such things? 

Apparently so.

Relativity

Depression is a problem, and there are people who suffer from it for perfectly good medical reasons. 

Out And About

Outing.

How do you feel about it?

I'm referring to the willful public exposure of individuals against their will, and without regard for their health or well-being. 

 

Quite often this is an intentional act of spite - sabotage - intended to ruin the life of the victim. An act of malice, to injure them, sometimes an act of revenge.

A Place In The Sun

No matter what I am or what I have done, I am also just as human and just as flawed and vulnerable as anyone who thinks they are perfect, or stronger, or better than me. 

 

Nevertheless, it seems there are always people who think that because I am not straight like them, and not living the gender I was born in, that I am "anti-social", have a persecution complex, a huge chip on my shoulder, and am either less intelligent than they are, or that I am just plain stupid.