Crying Wolf

"In a multiple-bias incident [of reported hate crime], two conditions must be met: (a) more than one offense type must occur in the incident and (b) at least two offense types must be motivated by different biases."

Sounds like the definitive intro to an episode of "Law & Order", doesn't it?

Logic Bomb

There are a few things that have stood out to me in my campaign for equality for the pink community. Of these, one that stands out the most is the liturgy used by people who fight against gay rights - who call equal civil rights for GLBTI people "special rights". This is of course a horrific lie - made all the more so by the underlying hatred and malice concealed by the simplistic and exclusionary reasoning they employ.

Headlines & Deadlines

I often marvel at news headlines like the examples I have listed below:

"Controversial Daily Mail journalist addresses gay event

Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips spoke last night about the danger of “criminalising religious beliefs” at an event debating the conflict between LGBT equality and freedom of speech."

Naturally, GLBTI people having equality is dangerous, especially if it is your religious beliefs to oppress them. Of course, we all know religious beliefs that destroy the lives of innocent people we just happen to dislike are far more important than the human rights of those people. That is, we all know religion needs to pin something on somebody and it might as well be those darn GLBTI folks, who are always objecting to being stepped on and made scapegoats of, don't they know their place? I mean, they should just accept that OUR God hates them and get on with life and quit wriggling when we put them on the hook.

How To 'Mng' Hate Mail

Some of the bigots who make the effort to send me hate mail are really irate before they do so, and the more pissed off they get, usually the less sense they make. 

 

I have previously mentioned that I tend to file my hate mail. Far from being a masochistic tendency, I do this with good reason. I use the amount and veracity of the hate mail I receive as a measurement of how I'm doing in my activism. You see, the more I know those folks hate me, the more I know I am doing the right thing. Apart from that, it is quite entertaining and motivational to occasionally take it all out and read it over a glass or two of good wine. 

Sometimes it is amusing to note the colorfulness of the content, or the rhyme, or even the imagery. The sense of outrage, injustice and paranoia on the part of the writer is often striking and ironic, and if anything the saddest and most surreal part of the whole business. Honestly, though my girlfriend isn't that amused by the things said in there about me, I find it rather amusing. I say it is motivating, because it helps inspire me to work towards a world free of hatred. I also have to admit I keep the compliments I receive too - and it's comforting that there is more than twice as much of that than there is hate mail.

Suffering In The Darkness Of Ignorance

Over the past weekend I received another taste of the hatred and intolerance which people hold against their fellow human beings. That this person sent their hate mail to me via an email address of the organization I represent in my home town, indicates to me that this person must live in the same place - and the timing of this, for various reasons which I will not go into here, even more so. It saddened me that much more, especially at a time while I have already been saddened by the loss of a particularly inspiring mentor and minister, who gave selflessly and worked for the inclusion of all people into the family of God. 

I am also sad to say that I was unsurprised that this hatred came from a person professing Christianity - a faith which holds a loving father-figure God as its tradition and core belief, as well as loving each other selflessly after the pattern set by Christ. This message seems all too rare in modern Christianity, doesn't it? Especially when you face hatred and intimidation such as this on a regular basis.

Beating Ploughshares Into Swords

Is religious fundamentalism fascist in nature? 

 

Are religious fundamentalists prone to fascist behavior? I have heard them being called fascists and agreed with it simply because of the general perception - and my own personal experience - that fascists aren’t very nice people either. 

 

I have often drawn comparisons between them myself, in articles, thoughts and conversations - and I find it surprising that I never realized how much they seem to genuinely have in common with our totalitarian friends who like to march under flags sporting propeller-like symbols – and marginalizing and attacking sections of society they don't like very much - whom they delight in pointing out how much "better than" they think they are.

“It” Is For Objects, Not People!

Recently I engaged in a private debate with representatives of international GLBTIQ advocacy groups online. Actually it started out as a call to action, to launch protests to affirm opposition to transphobia and the pathologicization of transsexuality - then one of them launched into a scathing criticism of trans people who wanted to have transgender classification removed from the coming DSM-V manual.

Presumably she would prefer transsexuals to continue to be classified as mentally ill - as they are deemed currently by world health professional groupings. Presumably she likes the stigma attached to being transgender and the rigmarole involved in getting the goodwill of the "gate-keepers" who hold the keys to their future happiness, assuming of course that they jump through all the hoops and barrels like good little freaks should.

The Human Race

The issue of Caster Semenya, the 18 year old female athlete who has won two gold and one silver medal for her country - South Africa - makes me wonder how far we have come in the past 15 years post-Apartheid, and how far we have come since the inclusion in the Constitution of certain phrases which are supposed to guarantee equality for people on the grounds of gender, gender identity and sexual orientation with everyone else.

 

Of course, you'll notice I said 'supposed to'.

Stupidity And Self-Inflicted Ignorance

Isn't it strange that having a dick automatically makes you a man, but having a vagina isn't enough to make you a woman?

 

Equally strangely, the reaction of some to those who don't live up to these somewhat rigid, if not obsessive, perceptions, is to resort to brutality, violence - and homicide.

Equality - A Goalpost On Wheels For Every Occasion

In December last year, a man was thrown off a moving commuter train in Johannesburg.  

 

His crime? Carrying a woman's handbag and behaving in a feminine manner.

 

The Metro security didn't come to his aid - because the two men who threw him of the train were Metro security guards.

 

Now, supposedly these security guards are there to protect the passengers from just this sort of thing, which is a most bizarre and disturbing turn of events to say the least. To compound this insult to the victim's person and dignity, when he tried to report the incident at a police station, the policemen refused to take his statement or to lay a charge against his assailants - and chased him away.

Shuffling A Pack Of Lies

On Friday I received notification that a hate crime had taken place in a small town in New York State. Rachel Roo, an 18 year old teen mentor on a popular transgender forum had been brutally murdered.

It was reported that Rachel who had transitioned quite young, had been involved in a car accident in which her mother had lost an arm. Upon testifying in court, the lawyer for the opposing party outed her - apparently her townsfolk did not take kindly to this revelation and she and her family now faced numerous death threats on a daily basis. It was reported that while riding to a nearby store on Friday evening, she disappeared. Her bicycle was found in a dumpster and some hours later she had been found lying at the side of the road. She was reported to have been gang-raped, and so badly assaulted that even her knee caps had been shattered by what was assumed to have been a sledgehammer. Apparently she was supposed to have been left for dead in a shallow grave, but supposedly managed to crawl out and towards the roadway, and collapsed where she was later found. She was taken to ICU where she died in the early hours of the next morning.

 

Like many others around the world, I was incensed on reading this, not to mention upset. Quite honestly I was shattered. I felt that I had lost somebody I had known and it actually brought tears to my eyes. After all, hate crimes like this are the reason I became an activist for gay and trans rights.

Imagine my shock and disappointment upon finding out that it was all a lie.

Copping Out

Recently it has come to my attention that some of our SA girls are still having difficulties with transphobia. Yes, I know - it isnt exactly a new thing. Like homophobic hate crimes, transphobia (fear or loathing of transgender people) still exists and inspires hate crimes of its own. However, it seems people exposed to transphobia are either keeping quiet about it or the authorities are refusing to do something about it.

Poor Taste In "Men"

Last year a transwoman in the US, 23 year old named Angie Zapata who had not yet completed her transition, was brutally and mercilessly beaten to death by a man she met and entertained at home. 

According to the police interviewed in a media article at the time, he suspected something was amiss because she hadn't allowed him to touch her genital area and because of some of the pictures in her apartment. When she admitted to him she was transgender and pre-op, this man picked up a fire extinguisher and bludgeoned her over her head with it. 

She awoke some time later while he was going through her things and he finished her off with the same weapon. Afterwards he left the scene in her vehicle. When arrested by the police he had the arrogance to say to the police that "I killed IT".

It.

Like he was talking about putting out a cigarette.

Let us put it into perspective. Angie Zapata - much loved by her friends and family as a warm and caring human being - a woman - is dead, brutally slain for no good or justifiable reason at all. Another individual - I shall not call him a "man" because a "man" does not behave like that - is on trial for his crime. And if there is justice in the USA - and I believe there still is - he will pay for his hate crime.