‘Banging Our Own Drum, Singing Our Own Tune’

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‘Banging Our Own Drum, Singing Our Own Tune’

(20 Sep 2019)

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Dear Reader:

Allow me to tie together an accumulation of various loose end thoughts.

I’d like to elaborate on the questions that we of the Trans Community come to during the course of our Transition, as we complete Transition.   I propose these questions more specifically for the M-F Trans woman who has had all the hormones and surgeries that she planned.  Or maybe she decided to cease any further surgical events.

 – When do you choose to cease referring to yourself as ‘Trans’?

 – When do you consider yourself complete as a woman?

 – How do other women – Cis women – among your circle of friends accept you?  Trans woman?  Woman?

This is ‘Passing’ – one element of Transition.  This concept of Passing dates to the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s – the era of my adult Transition that occurred during the 1970s.  Passing provides that society perceives of us as a woman rather than as a Trans woman.  Passing is different nowadays.  Some of today’s Trans women accept it, some reject it. 

Some of us Pass quite amazingly well, even those who Transitioned after decades of T Poisoning.  Some of us think that others Pass quite well.  Some of us are closer to Passing than we realise.  Some of us will always appear Trans.  Some of us are our harshest critics who think that we shall never Pass.

Either way, it is in our innate sense that we had no choice but to Transition and endure whatever the consequences.

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I consider that I Pass.  I don’t see Nick in my reflection in the mirror or in my current pictures.  Other people who don’t know me apparently perceive me as a woman; Society does not mis-gender me as a man.  I learned that I began to ‘Pass the ‘Passing’ Test’ by the way Society mis-gendered me as female despite every effort that I made trying to present as male during my late-Transition.  That is called ‘Male Fail’.

The sense of the terminology of Transsexual (and perhaps now Transgender) was applied to the person during their Transition.

Once you achieved whatever is your goal, once you accomplished your Transition, you dropt the reference of Transsexual.  For the M-F, you were now a woman without need to carry that extra reference as Transsexual.

My surgeries made me feel that I accomplished something.  I wasn’t certain if either were the last, but at least I achieved something momentous.

They both affirmed my Femalehood, definitely putting ‘male’ in my past.

Transition, as far as ‘bottom’ surgery went, was to the extent possible.  I obtained what my health insurance provided – relatively minimal considering the circumstances that that was Utah in 1983.

I considered FFS.  I want it.  Do I need it?  Can I afford it?

I made recent enquiries about FFS.  Ouch!  I’m looking at $35.000 for the immediate medical surgery aspects.  Then there is travel, out of town recovery residence, follow-up medical exams at home.  What happens if there are complications?  Adjustments?  This remains a far more complex decision than ‘bottom’ surgeries.

Self-satisfaction, self-respect, self-love come into play.  I must accept who I am, no matter what my outer appearance.

I must accept at some point that I am complete as Sharon, as a woman.

As one woman explained, if you broke your arm, then you refer to your self as having a broken arm only until you are healed.  You no longer explain your self to others that you have a broken arm, except as part of your past, once your bone is healthy.

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Being both Transsexual and Inter-sex has its own complexity.  As Transsexual, I considered my 1983 surgery my completion event; it was not everything that I wanted.  That surgery permanently changed my medical record to Female; that result was more than I could have expected mere months earlier.  Yet my 1982 Inter-sex diagnosis caught me in the middle.  My Transsexual self told me that I wanted to be ‘normal’.  My newer Inter-sex self was gradually trying to convince me that I was already ‘normal’ – Inter-sex ‘normal’, my ‘normal’.

Post-op 1983, I was what I called myself ‘Half-and-Half’ and ‘50 / 50’.  I fought my internal struggle still wanting to be ‘normal’ as compelled by my original Transsexual identity, yet accept my new ‘normal’ according to my Inter-sex diagnosis.

I am ‘normal’ since my 2016 surgery; no regrets, yet sometimes curious what my life would be if I chose to forego that surgery.

Of course, there is that certain Badge of Honour wearing both the Transsexual and Inter-sex terms.  Our label keeps ourselves and others aware that we came through our own journey to maturity a bit different than society’s concept of ‘normal’.

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Some of us will choose to reveal that we are Trans as part of our womanhood.

Cis women and Trans women have much in common, yet much divergent.

 – Cis women have their periods, concern for birth control and pregnancy, growing up with their own expectations as women in this society.  These may be wishful ideas of the Trans woman’s imagination.

 – Cis women likely have little concept about the M-F Trans experience – Dysphoria, socialisation as ‘boy’ / ‘man’, expectations of men in society.

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Perhaps a weird explanation about us is that we see ‘him’ in the mirror though we’d rather see ourselves as her.  This transformation takes time – months, years.  It is gradual, sometimes slowly imperceptible, usually causing frustration that it can’t move faster to satisfy our impatience.  Then, one day, we do see our self, the woman whom we are.  She knowingly stares at us with a smirk and a wink.  At last we begin to enjoy our self; highly critical at first, eventually unconditionally.  It is who we are.  We are proud of our accomplishments.  Finally!

Lemme tell you about my first mirror experience.  I was travelling from Oregon to home at Arizona (July 1993).  I spent the night at a seaside motel at Port Orford.  I had to visit Mother Nature during the night.  The light inside the bathroom was not totally dark, probably a bit of Moon glow.  In my fog of sleep, I noticed what appeared to be a woman in my motel room bathroom before I could turn on the light.  Who is she?  How did she enter?  I felt an unease.  I managed to nervously turn on the bathroom light and prepare to confront this intruder.  OMG!  That stranger in the bathroom was my reflection in the mirror.  She is me!  This was probably the first time when I examined my self in the mirror.  This discovery remains vivid with me.

The second time that I remember having a mirror experience occurred four years ago – Summer 2015.  My focus was preparing myself for travel to Thailand for surgery with Dr. Chettawut.  I depended upon free Wi-Fi – at the Public Library, at the Fry’s grocery store, at Kinko’s copy stores – to accomplish innumerable travel and surgery preparation tasks on-line.  This mirror was at Fry’s; I was familiar with several local Fry’s restrooms, but this was at a Fry’s store new to me.  I opened the restroom door and saw a woman confronting me. 

 – ‘Pardon me’ I said to her.

OMG!

Upon a second look, I realised that that woman is me – my reflection in the mirror placed opposite the entrance door.

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There is no single way to do Transition, to live.  Each of us is in charge of our life, our revelation.  We must find what makes us happy, what makes our Trans support family happy for us.

Our focus is on our selves, on our Transition, sometimes excluding other people, other priorities when we begin our Transition.

We focus on ‘me’ more than any others around us.  We need to bring our attention to our Transition challenges.  

Our family and friends who have been our support might feel that we are rejecting them, rejecting their support – being selfish.

Perhaps.

We can’t allow others to control us, not now.  This is too important to lose our focus.  If Transition is selfish, if others consider that our life endeavour is selfish, well, so be it.  This must be accomplished for us to find our maturity on the other end of the process.

Please bear with us.  Eventually, we adjust our perspectives and re-organise our lives with a better balance; Trans is no longer everything, though reaching our goal is on our mind.

We control when and how we define our selves.  We embrace our Trans-ness when the time comes, even if our revelation is difficult.  We drop it when we prefer our privacy.

We learn to adjust our decisions as we progress.  While Trans is who we are, we no longer feel the need to talk about it all the time.  Our attention shifts from the personal to the political – our Civil Rights, our Constitutional Rights.  We began to confront society’s Transphobics who seek to abolish our existence, our Rights.

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Sometimes, all these years on, I still feel awkward introducing myself in female identification.  Not that I perceive my self as male.  Maybe this is the trade of my Non-Binary self in me that I discovered some time around 1977 during my Transition.  I frequently had night-time dreams of me moving freely among society from Sharon to Nick – this could change from day-to-day or even hour-to-hour.  I remember having a humourous dream attending college classes.  I arrived one day and one of my class-mates asked me who I was that day – Sharon or Nick.  I shrugged, ‘I don’t know’.

But just let something mistake me, mis-gender me, and that gets my proverbial goat.  I remember with clarity receiving my Social Security card as Sharon (1978), I remember receiving my driver’s licence as Sharon with that ‘F’ for the first time (1980).  My medical records documented me as Sharon and female since 1979, I’ve had three surgeries (1982, 1983, 2016) confirming me as female.  Those achievements brought a lifetime of euphoria.  Yet, in 2017, there it was – my medical record showing me as ‘male’.  AGH!  I showed this error to my physician and, politely as possible, demanded that this be corrected.

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I don’t introduce myself to people as being Transsexual and Inter-sex.  There must be a reason to tell someone that I am.  I don’t have a habit of saying anything about it.  I don’t announce it as a grand acclamation.  I don’t find that disclosure necessary.  

I’m not soliciting for an intimate encounter when perhaps that specific disclosure seems fair.  But then again, I rarely meet new people outside the Trans Community where I am known as Trans and my history is public.

This introduction quandary is something quite individualised among the Trans Community.  Each of us determines what is comfortable to the situation and audience.

There’s no hiding this, and I don’t.  I shall always be Transsexual and Inter-sex.  Likewise, I always was, always have been, always will be Female / Girl / Woman.  I knew of this since age 3.  Family knew of this at least that time.  Various friends came to know this as I revealed it to them during the course of my life.

Related to this, there is Stealth.  This becomes a personal decision for a variety of reasons.  Frequently, Stealth is critical for safety in public settings where disclosing being Trans attracts violence, assault, murder.  Disclosing being Trans at work invites harassment and getting fired.  Don’t I know that!  Disclosing being Trans can get you evicted from your home where city, county, or state laws allow Trans people be refused housing.  Now, here at Arizona, our state Supreme Court ruled that a business open to the public can refuse to serve an LGBT customer.  Add more to that sign in the window:

 – ‘No shirt, no shoes, no F*gs, no Tr*nnies:  NO SERVICE!’

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I admittedly don’t know your life, Dear Reader.

Nevertheless, allow me to tell you what may come.  Your thoughts will exclude your Trans history – possibly for days, weeks, months, maybe years.

For myself, that was my experience.  Dunno if it was because of living stealth or merely because I eventually put my Transition in my past, its significance diminished through the passage of time.  As the premise of this topic, I progressed from being in Transition, to being post-op, to being me. 

Days, weeks, months passed and I had no thought about my having been what I was – Trans.  I am only what I am – a woman.

Taking my daily hormones was not anything more momentous than taking my daily vitamin supplement.

Sure, I attended to medical appointments.  Attending to medical appointments specific to my condition were the only occasion that brought about the thought of my past experiences; other health care was for me as a woman.

So, too, went swaths of time when I had little thought about my anatomical anomaly – that I thought about it only when I had to attend to medical appointments.

In 2015, for my first time, I outed myself when I began participating in social media.  That was a rough start.  It was the time when TV was introducing new characters as Trans, one of them named Nick (I wrote about a personal backstory to that character in a prior essay, and other TV characters were named Sharon and Nick by the same producer in another TV show).  Gradually, the others at that chat room forgot about my being Trans, they eventually perceived me simply as Sharon, a woman, not Sharon the Trans member.  To them, I was as any other woman.

As I explained, I was living life unconsumed by this.  I had no Trans Community at that time – not in real life, not among social media.  I remember coming out of my Stealth during 2015 – I thought, ‘WOW!  I just met someone who is Trans!’ totally oblivious to the fact that I am Trans, grew up as a Trans child, began my Transition more than four decades earlier.  All those years, I gradually had begun to think less and less that I myself am Trans.

Being here at social media allows me to control information about my life.  I am comfortable discussing my Trans and Inter-sex situation with civilians.  I reveal only what I choose.

You can talk with me any time, any place.  Let’s keep it respectable. 

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Sometimes saying that I am Transsexual and Inter-sex now makes it a political declaration, a statement of revolution and defiance in the face of opposition from Crooked Drumpf and his Right-wing Republi-con Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist Taliban.

Some members of the Trans Community consider that it is important to be public.  

 – That being open educates the Cis Community, we are Trans ‘ambassadors’ presenting our positive image representative of the Trans Community.

 – That being public encourages others who are themselves trying to find themselves, who may be just starting, who may be early in their journey.

Allow my presence to become a role model, a mentor to others coming this direction.  I had my start same as everyone.  Then again, I was more than fortunate to have several Trans people help me throughout my life from the earliest of my memory.

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Thank You, Dear Reader, for visiting today.

Thank you for checking in:

– T-Central.blogspot.com

– KiraMooresCloset

– Geraldine1000.

Please return for the next essay.

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Additional Resources:

A Trans Woman speaks about hate crime:

(https://planettransgender.com/transgender-hate-crime-victim-speaks-out/)

(https://www.advocate.com/crime/2019/9/19/another-transgender-woman-attacked-portland)

(https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2019/09/13/27140922/atlas-marshall-a-trans-woman-who-performs-drag-as-nae-nae-dominatrix-was-assaulted-in-downtown-portland)

For parents raising a Trans Child:

(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-things-parents-know-raising-child-who-identifies-grosshandler)

London ‘Pride’ event:

(https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-49700743)

The importance of an out teacher as a positive role model:

(https://gen.medium.com/the-importance-of-an-out-teacher-for-lgbtq-young-people-f53254ef38ba)

Assistance for you seeking surgery and surgeons:

(http://drzphd.com/transformed-blog/consumer-guide-to-gender-affirming-surgery)

(http://www.transhealthcare.org/usa/)

Physicians must be held to their Hippocratic Oath:

(https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjwgez/12-reasons-it-should-be-illegal-for-doctors-not-to-treat-trans-people)

This should please Mary, my one-time Pinewood Class-mate friend turned Christian Con-servative school teacher from Lethbridge:

(https://north99.org/2019/07/06/alberta-conservative-mlas-celebrate-immediately-after-repealing-protections-for-lgbtq-students/)

Turn-about against Christian Con-servatives:

(https://www.out.com/commentary/2019/9/16/heres-why-i-refused-service-anti-gay-bigot)

Learn about TERFs:

(https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a28935330/terf-meaning/#)

Three articles about DeVos banning Trans Children from school:

(https://www.huffpost.com/entry/betsy-devos-transgender-students_n_5d826487e4b0849d472247ff)

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/09/betsy-devos-promoting-school-bans-transgender-students-staff/)

(https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/betsy-devos-transgender-students-182259399.html)

Carson denies public housing for ‘hairy’ Trans Women:

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2019/09/20/hud-secretary-ben-carson-draws-flack-for-calling-trans-women-big-hairy-men/#20025d201e68)

(https://www.out.com/politics/2019/9/19/ben-carson-thinks-trans-women-are-big-hairy-men)

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‘The Arizona State Supreme Court Effectively Establishes Arizona As A Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist Theocracy‘

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‘The Arizona State Supreme Court Effectively Establishes Arizona As A Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist Theocracy‘

(16 Sep 2019)

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Ah, Yes!

Winning!

Making Amerika Great Again!

Christian Con-servatives assert that they alone are superior to all other segment of Amerikan law and society.  They are Amerikan Taliban.

They have their Supreme Court decision to prove it.

As I wrote in my essay the other day, this is you who boast that you are Right-wing Republi-con, Drumpfian,  Deplorable.  You can’t be my family or my ‘friend’ when you espouse your bigotry and prejudice against me, when you deny my Constitutional Rights to me, when you deny my Human Rights to me.  You can choose to remain Right-wing Republi-con, Drumpfian, Deplorable, Christian Con-servative, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Amerikan Taliban Theocrats.  Not likely you will exercise your own belief of your God-given Free Will to chose otherwise – to step back from the brink from your one-way journey into darkness.

Hey, you!  Kathy, Bev, Jack.  How can you call me ‘Wack’, ‘Fucked-up mind’, ‘Monster’!

This Arizona State Supreme Court ruling could be a test decision for the US Republi-con Supreme Leader’s Court come October 2019.

This Arizona Supreme Court effectively establishes Arizona as a Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist Theocracy.

Only the US Supreme Court can overturn this Arizona Supreme Court ruling.  That can’t happen with Crooked Drumpf’s Supreme Court.

This is a deceitful Arizona State Supreme Court decision.  Claiming that they decided only on this case, this instance, and this reason is outrageous.  It will require each future LGBT plaintiff to file their own claim against such a Right-wing Republi-con Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist ‘artist’ to test this Court’s statement.  The Arizona State Supreme Court will continue using this case as their precedent case, they will continue ruling in favour of subsequent Right-wing Republi-con Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist ‘artists’.

Let’s see what happens.  Arizona business claims that they are for the Free Enterprise system.  Yeh?  How well can business be conducted with blatant discrimination and bigotry?

Log Cabin Republi-cons and TERFs LOVE Crooked Drumpf!

Log Cabin Republi-cons and TERFs HATE Trans persons, especially Trans POC!

Of course, none of this is a big deal if you have no interest keeping your Civil Rights, Human Rights, Constitutional Rights.  You just go right ahead, disconnect from reality, ignore reality, stick your head in the sand, and live in your imagination.  

 – ‘Pretend is the luxury of Privilege.’

As you can see, this ‘business’ (Brush & Nib Studio) began about one year before they filed their lawsuit against the City of Phoenix:

(https://ecorp.azcc.gov/CommonHelper/GetFilingDocuments?barcode=05049158)

According to learned analysis: this ‘corporation’ was founded with the sole intent of acting as a front for Alliance Defending Freedom to sue the City. They are not otherwise conducting any actual business.

Niemohller, where are you today?

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From Brianna Westbrook’s Facebook page:

‘An Arizona Supreme Court decision that now opens the door for other bigoted owners to outright discriminate against LGBTQ people for who we are and who we love. A business owner can now post on their website or place a sign on their front door stating “heterosexuals only.”’

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Arizona’s Republi-con Governor ‘AC’ Ducey has been packing his State Supreme Court with ringers who now prove that his investment will reap rewards for the Republi-con Party and Christian Con-servatives, eh Jeffrey.

From the Arizona Republic article:

(https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2019/09/16/arizona-supreme-court-rules-phoenix-lgbtq-wedding-invitation-case-brush-nib/2332776001/)

Phoenix artists don’t have to make LGBTQ wedding invitations, Arizona Supreme Court rules

Jessica Boehm   | Arizona Republic

Phoenix mayor responds after court rules on LGBT wedding invitation case

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego speaks at City Hall on Sept. 16, 2019, after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in the LGBTQ wedding invitation case

A Phoenix ordinance that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination cannot be used to force artists to create custom wedding invitations for same-sex couples, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday. 

The high court’s decision overturns multiple lower-court decisions that protected the portion of Phoenix’s nondiscrimination ordinance that applies to the LGBTQ community. 

An attorney for Phoenix insisted that the ruling was narrow and did not strike down the city law. Rather, the court ruled that “one company” could refuse to make “one type of product” for LGBTQ couples, he said. 

“Today’s decision is not a win, but it is not a loss. It means we will continue to have a debate over equality in this community,” Mayor Kate Gallego said. 

However, LGBTQ community advocates fear that the decision, however narrow, creates a pathway for other lawsuits.

“This decision opens the door for other bigoted owners to outright discriminate against LGBTQ people for who we are and who we love,” Brianna Westbrook, vice-chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, tweeted after the ruling. 

The legal battle began in 2016 when Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio, sued Phoenix — arguing that the ordinance violates their First Amendment and Arizona constitutional rights to free speech and religion.

Duka and Koski create invitations and other handmade artwork for weddings and events. The women — who hold the religious belief that marriage should only be between one man and one woman — do not want to design invitations or other custom artwork for LGBTQ couples because they believe it would be the equivalent of endorsing the marriage.

The women are represented by Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group challenging similar laws across the country. 

Recently, the group represented a Colorado baker facing penalty under that state’s anti-discrimination law. The case landed before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, but the justices punted on the key issues of the case.

Legal experts say it’s a matter of time until a similar challenge comes back before the U.S. Supreme Court. And given the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision, it could be this case. 

What’s the case about?

The case boils down to a balance between protecting free speech and preventing discrimination.

During oral arguments in January, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jonathan Scruggs argued that the studio is not refusing to design invitations for same-sex couples because of their sexual orientation, but rather because of the message an invitation conveys.

In other words, designing their wedding invitations would be the equivalent of celebrating the marriage, which is a message the women do not want to express, he argued.

Scruggs said the women happily would sell their premade invitations to a same-sex couple, or help a same-sex couple design a custom art piece for their home. They just don’t want to create materials that will be used in the celebration of a practice they don’t condone. 

He equated his argument to a Muslim designer declining to make Easter decorations, but still serving Christian customers with other services. He said business owners can serve all members of the community without celebrating things they disagree with.

Phoenix’s attorney, Eric M. Fraser, argued that it’s not the message, but the customer that the women really take issue with. 

Phoenix’s nondiscrimination ordinance has been on the books since 1964, but the City Council expanded it to protect against sexual orientation and gender identity bias in 2013. 

He said Phoenix’s law only requires businesses to provide the same services to all classes of people. Therefore, if the women would provide an invitation to an opposite-sex couple, it must produce an identical invitation for a same-sex couple.

Changing the names to two male names or two female names does not constitute a change in message, Fraser argued. 

He said that if someone calls the studio and asks the women to design an invitation for his or her wedding, and the women have to ask the sexes of the individuals getting married before consenting to provide the invitations, “that’s not about the message, that’s about who the person is.” 

Reach the reporter at jessica.boehm@gannett.com or 480-694-1823. Follow her on Twitter @jboehm_NEWS. 

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This article should provide insight into the motivation of Crooked Drumpfian Right-wing Republ-con Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalists:

(http://churchandstate.org.uk/2018/11/trump-theocrats-claim-abuses-against-women-and-lgbt-people-are-christian-values/)

challenging religious privilege in public life

American Theocracy

Trump theocrats claim abuses against women and LGBT people are Christian values

By Rmuse | 3 August 2018

Daily Kos

(Credit: The Associated Press)

If Americans are the least bit doubtful that the Trump theocrats are on a White House-sanctioned global crusade to spread their savage version of Christianity, a recent announcement at the State Department should disabuse their reservations.

It is not a revelation that evangelical extremists yearn for an executive order from Trump asserting that punishing women for making their own reproductive choice is exercising religious freedom, and legal. It is also common knowledge among cognizant Americans that part and parcel of the religious right’s definition of religious freedom is brutalizing the LGBTQ community according to their Christian values. Now it is an official policy of the Trump administration intent on imposing the evangelical extremists’ style of religious freedom around the world; and any opposition to that imposition of religious freedom is officially religious persecution.

In yet another move legitimizing the evangelical rights’ bigotry and hatred, the Trump administration sent a clear signal that Christian America will no longer denounce countries that punish LGBT citizens or women for making their own reproductive health choices. In fact, going forward, nations that embrace religious-driven hatred leading to imprisonment and/or death of LGBTQ people, and abuse targeting women, will be rewarded by Christian America; because Christian-inspired hatred and bigotry exemplify Christian values according to Trump’s theocrats.

During an atrocity in a secular nation in Washington D.C., the Christian Values proclamation came during the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. The Trump theocrat honored to tell the world that Christian bigotry and hatred epitomize America’s Christian values was the director of Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney.

Mulvaney’s announcement entailed attacking the Obama Administration for threatening to withhold foreign aid to countries that punish women and members of the LGBTQ community. The evangelical right’s war on women and gays is now a global crusade sponsored by the Trump theocrats’ pushing a brutal version of religious freedom according to evangelical extremists.

Mulvaney said the theocrats in Trump’s administration will no longer encourage countries to abandon their draconian and deadly anti-LGBT and anti-women’s choice laws. Instead, Mulvaney defended criminalizing and punishing homosexuality as an American religious freedom issue, and that abusing and discriminating against women and gays embodies Christian values. According to Mulvaney and evangelical zealots, it is a disgrace that President Obama dared represent America as promoting women’s and LGBTQ rights.

As part of his remarks to the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, Mulvaney said:

Our US taxpayer dollars are used to discourage Christian values in other countries. It was stunning to me that my government under a previous administration would say, ‘We know that you have a law against abortion, but if you enforce that law, you’re not going to get any of our money. We know you have a law against homosexuality, but if you enforce that law, we’re not going to give you any money.’

That is a type of religious persecution that I never expected to see.

I never expected to see that as an American Christian, that we would be doing that to other folks.

I am here to let you know there a lot of people in this government who want to see things done differently. They want to do something.

What that means is that in the Trump theocracy denying women access to reproductive health care and criminalizing homosexuality indicates Christian values; while opposing discrimination against women and homophobia is religious persecution.

As Zack Ford at ThinkProgress noted, “Mulvaney’s implication that the Trump administration would turn a blind eye to anti-gay persecution around the world is consistent with actions it has already taken.”

As part of the religious freedom crusade promoting Christian Values globally, Trump already rejected a United Nations resolution condemning the use of the death penalty to target LGBTQ people. The Trump theocrats gave some lame excuse about not opposing the proper use of the death penalty, but it is noteworthy that Trump has mentioned that according to the head of domestic policy, Mike “preacher” Pence, proper use of the death penalty would be hanging all gays based on the Christian bible’s Old Testament rules.

It is also noteworthy that another Trump theocrat, Attorney General J. Beauregard Sessions proclaimed earlier this summer that America has ceased granting asylum to people who are victims of violence and abuse, and that America would be adding many new barriers to the asylum process. That includes new policies targeting LGBTQ people fleeing persecution to make it impossible for them to escape the brutal Christian values cult Trump’s theocrats are defending as part of their global religious freedom crusade.

It should be painfully obvious now that in America under Trump’s theocracy, Christian Values include criminalizing anything the evangelical extremist cult deems ungodly. And it is significant that the religious right supporting Trump’s theocrats are self-appointed authorities on what is ungodly, such as women’s reproductive rights and homosexuality. Further, anything resembling opposition to or non-compliance with those Christian Values is religious persecution. It is something that has been happening in America for a decade, at least, but it was never an official policy position until now.

Most Americans keeping abreast of the GOP’s crusade towards theocracy were already aware of what evangelical zealots considered religious persecution, but it has never been proclaimed publicly at the State Department by a high-ranking government official. However, it is now official and Americans should shudder at the revelation. It is a damn frightening prospect that anyone opposing the evangelicals’ brutal Christian values faces being accused of religious persecution; especially in an evangelical theocracy in the midst of an honest-to-dog religious crusade.

It is true that all Americans claiming Christianity do not embrace Christian values focusing on punishing homosexuality and criminalizing a woman’s right to self determination regarding her reproductive choices, but those Christians are not running the government. They are also not screaming in the streets that Trump and his theocrats do not represent Christian values. And why should they?

After all, they embrace the same Christian bible that the vicious evangelical extremist sect asserts gives them religious freedom to abuse women and gays – what they claim expresses their Christian values. And anyone opposing the imposition of Christian values is committing religious persecution. It is not a new policy by any means, but it is now the official position of America under Trump’s theocracy and it began in earnest the day of Trump’s poorly attended inauguration.

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Comments (21)

Deryl · 43 weeks ago

He really thinks people in their right mind believe this horse dung? He needs a new place of residence with padded walls and door.

Tracy0p · 42 weeks ago

If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, bigotry, hatred, and stupidity are handed down, all the same. 

If it were me, I’d be more concerned with the model I show my children and the kindness I can show before I’d be contemplating the lives of others when it is none of my business. Hello? Golden rule? MYOB? More need to practice keeping their thoughts focused on their own family’s & lives.

Angie · 42 weeks ago

All the more reason to tax religion out of existence and mock its believers into silence. 

There is no room for Christianity in the modern world. It’s a fake, it’s a fraud, it’s a violent and destructive cult. 

I despise it.

Mitchell Marsen · 39 weeks ago

Totally Agree Angie.

Report

Hal Wheeler · 39 weeks ago

Your problem with Christianity (and not only yours $ is that TRUE Christians are so far outnumbered in our country. I believe that Jesus totally disapproves of “fake Christians” who live, act and think totally opposite from his teachings and his example.Too many people regard the title of “Christian” a membership in a “club”! Not so. You are right to disrespect these CINOs. (Christians in Name only))

Brien Doyle · 5 weeks ago

What rot! 

There are no gods…

Heather · 5 days ago

Did Jesus ever preach the laws of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, or just Mosaic law (the ten commandments)? I recall he argued with the Pharisees about the law

Anita · 2 weeks ago

No Christianity is not a fake or a fraud, however, when people do not or choose not to rightly divide the word of Truth then we have a problem. As a Christian, I can honestly say he is totally way off base in what he’s saying. He couldn’t find a biblical scripture to back up his foolishness if he spent 10 years searching for it. The problem is that people (1) never take the time to examine stuff for themselves. Every person running from God has an issue with Him because of what someone else did, not recognizing and understanding that God gave them freedom of choice just as He gave it to you. (2) People like this moron forget what Jesus said, what He taught and how He conducted himself. Jesus is a loving God, who does not force himself upon anyone and if you don’t want to believe in Him you don’t have to. There are serious consequences if you don’t but it’s still your choice. And if you say you don’t believe then hey what do you have to worry about. My point is God is not going to condone this clown or anyone else who terrorizes another human being just because they decide to practice same sex relationships, take birth control or have an abortion. He will deal with these people in his own way and don’t ask me how cause I ain’t God and I’m sure I don’t know. But I am sure of this, they will be treated no worse than the liar, the whoremonger, the adulterers, the murderers, the bigots, the gossipers and anyone else spewing hatred among the people. The Bible specifically says this, ” Six things doth the Lord hate, yea seven is an abomination, A proud look, A lying tongue, (that kills Trump and his crew right there), hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among the brethren. Proverbs 6:16-19 Y’all be blessed now.

Dick Cooper · 2 weeks ago

Fortunately religion is on it’s last legs and Trump’s madness will ensure it’s departure.

Ann · 1 week ago

Wow, very tolerant of you. You were accusing someone else of intolerance? Lol. You’re so concerned with the rights of others but apparently not of unborn children. People like you say a woman has a right to do what she wants with her body, none of you seem to notice or care the baby has a body also. What about it’s right not to have it’s body sucked out and destroyed? You are just as bad and intolerant as Trump. As the article said all Christians don’t agree with him and I do believe abortion should be allowed in certain circumstances such as rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in danger. But people who have one just because a child would be inconvenient? Take some responsibility and if you don’t want a child don’t have sex until your ready to handle the consequences or get your tubes tied. I also certainly don’t think people should be tortured or beaten or killed for being gay.

Jayne · 2 days ago

At the time of an abortion a fetus has no body! It’s about 2 cm and looks like a tadpole. Everyone woman should have the right to choose. You cannot walk in anyone shoes or know how hard the decision might be. If you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t have one,but you do not have the right to tell others what they can and cannot do. Even God gives us freedom of choice and it is to him we must answer,not to you!

Karen · 41 weeks ago

This is NEVER about faith, or Christ. This is always about money made from fear mongering. Jim Bakker telling people their kids and grandkids will die if they don’t buy his “end of the world” pancake mix for sixty bucks. Taking advantage of ignorant, frightened people.

Chuck · 39 weeks ago

Separation of church and state, extolled by the founding fathers, upheld by the Supreme Court, and still a battle ground after 250 years. Opposed only by totalitarian evangelical con men and women. It is time to enforce 901 (c) (3) rules against political activity or pay tax. Did you ever see a list of the net worth of those Evangelical minister? It would make your hear spin. That list also includes that convicted crook Jim Bakker. They are this periods snake oil pitchmen.

william toth · 39 weeks ago

When I was 12 years old, I was”saved” while attending a summer camp run but a Baptist minister. I have lived almost all of my life in the mddle west and the southland, most of it in North Carolina, in the very heart of the Bible Belt. Thus I am quite familiar with the myopic view of “reality” by evangelicals. As a Catholic, living in these regions and being a definite minority, I was assured, many a time, that I would surely burn in the lake of fire because I belonged to the “apostate” church. A little girl who grew up in the house next to mine asked me if Catholics were Christians because her evangelical father told her we were not. Now that girl is an evangelical missionary in Romania with six children or her own and a 7th on the way. They’ve invited me to visit them next summer but given the political and extreme religiosity loose in this country and the attitude I hear about in Europe, I am reluctant to visit them. I am not a member of the LBGT community and I’ve long thought abortion was not a good thing. But those are MY views. Neither I nor the evangelical community have a right to impose our views or our values on anyone. Even Jesus didn’t do that, ie his discussion with the rich young man on achieving eternal life. He didn’t judge or condemn the young man, threaten him with damnation; He left the choice up to him. Gandhi once said “I like your christ but I do not like your christians because they are so unlike your christ.”

Gerri Cannon · 39 weeks ago

I’m a Transgender Christian and a highly thought of person in the United Church of Christ. I live by the rule to love my neighbors as I would myself. That rule says nothing about rejecting someone because of their sexuality, gender, beliefs or anything else. 

Our forefathers left their homelands to come to the New Land of America to escape religious persecution. The same persecution we are seeing and experiencing today! It’s time that we stood up and separated religion from our Government!

Kim Cooper · 39 weeks ago

Someone needs to lead these Christians back to Christ. They have been corrupted. 

They think Jesus’ two big issues were abortions and gays — when he didn’t say anything about either one. It’s clearly political.

Brien Doyle35p · 21 weeks ago

You forgot to prove a god exists – so any debate about a jesus is silly…

Barbara · 11 weeks ago

Christian = follower of Christ who loved and respected everyone. This guy is no christian.

Rick · 9 weeks ago

“Religious Freedom” does not mean that you get to shove your version of religion down my throat. However, Trump and his bigoted “religious” followers are trying to force me to support and participate in their religion. The Founding Fathers clearly stated that there was supposed to be a separation between church and state in America. Can someone explain this to Dictator Trump and his followers?

Paul B · 2 weeks ago

All the laws these religious bigots use to justify the rules they make about women’s rights and anti LGBT rules come from Leviticus and my understanding is that these rules pertain to the Jewish faith not the Christian faith but anything that gives the Preachers from the Slaver religion the South Baptist Church and its Prosperity Gospel off shoots they will use to increase their power of the people stupid enough to follow them.

John JP Patterson0p · 1 week ago

Divide & Conquer Dominionism! 

“It is not a revelation that evangelical extremists yearn for an executive order from Trump asserting that punishing women for making their own reproductive choice is exercising religious freedom, and legal. It is also common knowledge among cognizant Americans that part and parcel of the religious right’s definition of religious freedom is brutalizing the LGBTQ community according to their Christian values. 

Now it is an official policy of the Trump administration intent on imposing the evangelical extremists’ style of religious freedom around the world; and any opposition to that imposition of religious freedom is officially religious persecution.”

© 2019 Network for Church Monitoring

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Here’s another news article:

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/09/arizona-supreme-court-rules-business-can-discriminate-gays-lesbians/)

Arizona Supreme Court rules business can discriminate against gays & lesbians

The owners of Brush & Nib Studio haven’t been accused of discrimination, they sued to get the state to give them special rights. A hate group represented them in court.

By Bil Browning Monday, September 16, 2019     18 Comments

The Brush & Nib Studio’s owners have won a major LGBTQ discrimination case despite never being accused of discriminating against anyone. Instead, the business preemptively sued for the right to refuse to print wedding invitations for gay and lesbian couples in an attempt to nullify the city of Phoenix’s nondiscrimination law.

The company was represented by the anti-LGBT hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom. The devious group serves as the legal arm of the religious right activist movement and, conveniently enough, they wrote the company’s operating agreement shortly before filing the lawsuit on their behalf.

Related: This mom will be a stand-in at your wedding if your mother won’t attend

In 2016, Brush & Nib sued Phoenix, arguing that the city’s ban on discrimination violated the company’s freedom of speech. Among other services, the newly-formed store wanted to print wedding invitations, but only for straight couples.

Co-owners Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski said that they were “devout Christians” who wanted to overturn the civil rights law before any complaints could be filed against them. The owners also wanted to post a sign saying that they refuse to serve same-sex couples.

Last year, a state court of appeals ruled that Phoenix’s anti-discrimination ordinance does not violate anyone’s free speech, since it advances a legitimate government interest by prohibiting conduct, not speech. The court also rejected the store’s religious freedom argument.

“What appellants cannot do is use their religion as a shield to discriminate against potential customers,” justice Winthrop wrote at the time.

The state Supreme Court, dominated by social conservatives appointed by a far-right Republican governor, disagreed in today’s ruling. The court rejected that logic, ruling that the owner’s beliefs entitle them to an exemption from civil rights law.

“The rights of free speech and free exercise, so precious to this nation since its founding, are not limited to soft murmurings behind the doors of a person’s home or church, or private conversations with like-minded friends and family,” the ruling says. “These guarantees protect the right of every American to express their beliefs in public. This includes the right to create and sell words, paintings, and art that express a person’s sincere religious beliefs.”

“The City of Phoenix cannot apply its Human Relations Ordinance to force Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studios, to create custom wedding invitations celebrating same-sex wedding ceremonies in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The court cautions that their ruling does not extend beyond wedding invitations and not “all of Plaintiff’s business operations.”

The company’s operating principles drawn up by the religious right legal group, says it “is owned solely by Christian artists who operate this entity as an extension of and in accordance with their artistic and religious beliefs.” It does not specify what their beliefs are.

Comments

Banner McMahon – 21 minutes ago

LGBTQ People need to start arming themselves. Christian Conservatives both in and out of government want to harm and punish LGBTQ People. AR-15’s and AK-47 are still legal. LGBTQ People, minorities, and others need to arm themselves for what is coming.

Niles Silvers – 2 hours ago

This is not even a real company. You cannot sue for something that has never occurred. In a real court, it would be tossed out like yesterday’s garbage.

a (Bi) Child of God – 2 hours ago

This isn’t an issue of freedom of religion, or is it? It is an issue of equal marriage rights. Many LGBTQ couples marry in a religious ceremony (because of religious freedom) yet companies are trying to interfere with the religious expression of same-sex couples who also have invitations, flowers, cakes, and more…

a (Bi) Child of God – 2 hours ago

This isn’t an issue of free speech. The speech is coming from a couple who want their speech published. This company is interfering with their free speech.

Jaimie Hileman – 7 hours ago

This is just a stalking horse to solidify the federal acceptance of choice of religious belief trumping all other civil rights, intended for the extremist right dominated SCOTUS (as HazumuOsaragi said). We’ve had legalized discrimination enshrined in law before by activist rightwing judges, and defeated it (Dred Scott, Plessy vs. Ferguson, women’s suffrage). We LGBTQ will probably lose all our rights here shortly, but we’ll be able to focus on electing politicians who support the Equality Act. The House has the votes, and we can win 4 or 5 Senate seats in ’20, and we’ve got it.

Banner McMahon  Jaimie Hileman – 19 minutes ago

Time to abandon Christianity and this Jesus of fear and hate.

Caitlyn Haiku  Jaimie Hileman – 4 hours ago

Not just religious beliefs trumping all other civil rights, but specifically evangelical and “christian” religious beliefs.

destiny  Caitlyn Haiku – 3 hours ago

To bad evangelicals and christians have no clue their religion is fake. There is a lot of scientific proof that the bible is a lie.

HazumuOsaragi – 8 hours ago

The SCOTUS test case is teed up…

Marcus  HazumuOsaragi – 5 hours ago

Different cases have already been accepted by the US Supreme Court for *this* term.

SentimentalFury – 8 hours ago

How long until their business goes down the drain. Arizona is a strange place, and I can’t wait to leave it. This ruling is really the least of the reasons.

Caitlyn Haiku  SentimentalFury – 4 hours ago edited

Arizona is a rather strange state, as you have enclaves of hate-mongering “christians”, but also cities and towns, such as Tucson, Bisbee and Phoenix, that are decidedly pro-LGBT.

SentimentalFury  Caitlyn Haiku – an hour ago

That’s one thing I’ve never understood about the state. The government tends to be overwhelmingly Republican, but the population in the major cities tends to be highly Democrat, or Republicans who no longer agree with their own party, but vote for them anyway.

Marcus  SentimentalFury – 5 hours ago edited

The opposite occurs. A lot of the Christian businesses benefit from the spotlight. They bring in so much money that they close, go into new careers, or retire altogether. Bigotry is very, very popular.

Consider the pizza shop that said they wouldn’t sell wedding pizzas (!) to gay people, even though no one asked them to. They got like a million dollars from strangers.

Honey Moon – 8 hours ago

A pretty useless ruling, really. It only applies to wedding invitations.

Scott Kochman  Honey Moon – 7 hours ago

But does it only apply to gays and lesbians? If they’re using their religion as an excuse, can’t it also apply to Muslims, atheists and Episcopalians?

Jaimie Hileman  Scott Kochman – 7 hours ago

Curiously, they want to put a sign on the door advertising that they’re bigots. Most christians who hate us don’t want to drive away our straight allies….who are a majority in most places and = $$$.

MakeAJoyfulNoise85  Honey Moon – 8 hours ago

Putting your name on a birth certificate was a pretty useless ruling.

© 2010 – 2019 LGBTQ Nation

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Additional Resources:

This first article shows how Fox Snooze reports the case:

(https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/az-supreme-court-rules-phoenix-business-does-not-have-to-make-lgbtq-wedding-invitations)

(https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83)

(http://aasreadingoutline.blogspot.com/2008/11/japanese-americans-life-before.html?m=1)

(https://me.me/i/we-jerve-imperial-laundry-co-we-wash-for-white-people-22974391)

(https://slideplayer.com/slide/4049617/)

(https://www.google.com/search?q=meme+-+sign+-+no+Blacks,+no+Mexicans,+no+no+dogs)

(https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100210517378)

(https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/24/no-asians-no-blacks-gay-people-racism)

(https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sign-20180210-story.html)

(https://leftfootforward.org/2013/10/the-man-who-hated-britain/)

(https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-proof)

(https://www.facebook.com/martie.todd.sirois/posts/10156725615165987

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1409554599085394&id=354522044588660)

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Thank You, Dear Reader.

*

’To The Contrary’

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’To The Contrary’

(14 Sep 2019)

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This week’s episode of PBS ‘To the Contrary’ is an interview with Dr. Michele Angello.

As ‘they’ say – Check local listings.  ‘To the Contrary’ is broadcast on PBS World usually:

 – at least twice on Saturdays (7am and 5pm Arizona time), 

 – Sundays (6.30am and 2pm Arizona time), and 

 – once or twice weekdays (Wednesday at 1pm Arizona time).

Here’s the episode on YouTube:

(https://youtu.be/Rbw2bseZA68)

Dr. Angello has researched and written about the Trans and Inter-sex child.

Good presentation here.  This is quite informative in a positive way.  I especially appreciate how Dr. Angello explained the Trans child’s predicament:

 – ‘Some children come out and it’s definitively their identity and it stays static for the rest of their lives.’

 – ‘Kids can be certain of their identity.’

 – ‘I say to parents, ‘When did you know that you weren’t Trans?’.’

 – ‘Parents need to be supportive.  Love your child no matter the outcome.  Let them explore.’

– ‘Love your child unconditionally.’

 – ‘Allow your child to gender themselves, they’ll tell you how they identify.’

 – ‘Suicide attempt rates for Trans children is 41% – it’s bullying and harassment, it’s that they can’t use the bathroom, or ‘my family doesn’t accept me’, or ‘my religion doesn’t accept me, God doesn’t accept me’.’

 – ‘Folks with an opposite belief system ramp up their hate against Trans.  We’re still getting a lot of backlash.’

If only my family was this open and accepting and my medical care was that available six decades ago when I came out to them as Transsexual at age 3.  Eh, Kathy?

You who are familiar with me know that I am both Transsexual and Inter-sex (Female XXY).

If you are new, here’s a summary of my Trans / Inter-sex life:

 – I was an out Transsexual child by age 3 (1959),

 – I began my M-F Transition at age 18 (1974),

 – Denise, my mentor, helpt me enroll at Stanford University Medical Center’s ‘Gender Dysphoria Program’ at age 21 (1977),

 – My physicians first diagnosed me as Inter-sex (Female XXY) at age 26 (1982),

 – I am okay to say that I had a uterectomy (1982) and two Trans-related surgeries (1983, 2016),

 – I’ve been full-time since age 28 (1985),

 – Two employers (Forest Service, State of Arizona) two decades apart (1983, 2008) fired me on their accusation that I am F-M Transsexual.

 – I produced two TV shows during the 1990s: 

–  – ‘Dick’s Automative’ (about electric cars) and

–  – ‘Rock Club Rising’ (live on tape music) (https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/eat-the-document-6421801).

*

Dr. Angello commented about trouble that Society is imposing upon the Trans person who has need of public facilities.

Why must Society be cruel and fickle?

The Public School I attended for Kindergarten and 1st Grade made no objection to me using the girl’s restroom though I attended school as a ‘boy’ (1961 – 1963). The only time I got in trouble was when our teacher scolded my girl friend and me for making wet toilet paper wads and throwing them at the ceiling inside the girl’s restroom when I was in 1st Grade.  No school officer or teacher reprimanded me when I otherwise used the girls’ restroom (the boys’ restroom stunk).

I did experience one complication inside one of the men’s restrooms at work (1985) when I was in full-blown Male Fail.  My employer (USDA Forest Service) was in the midst of firing me on their accusation that I am a woman who was working there as a man, yet they required me to continue to present as male at work.  One day, a man entered the men’s restroom as I was washing my hands. We looked at each other.  He made a sudden startled jump backward while asking to perhaps no one specifically,

– ‘Is this the men’s room?’.

I dug down deep for the best possible male falsetto that I could muster, but the most that I could mumble was a feeble ‘Yes’.  I finished and was gone.

Okay, on the serious side.

So far, so good.

The concept and acceptance of Passing may have changed through the decades.  After all, we who better appear Female to Society’s expected standards of Femininity are considered Passing and less likely to be subjected to Society’s anti-Trans wrath.

Passing was one requirement for surgery for we who were enrolled in the Stanford University Medical Center’s ‘Gender Dysphoria Program’.

Nowadays, we Trans persons are public in far greater numbers than the 1970s when Stanford issued their  Guidelines.  More Trans people means far wider expression of one’s Trans-ness.

Me ‘Passing’?  Dunno.  I am me, take me as the woman whom I am.

The very first time when people mis-gendered me was during my teen years residing at Greece and travelling through Europe and Asia:

(1)

– Men in Turkey grabbed my behind – that act of criminal assault committed by men of misogyny.  I was frozen. I did not know what to do, what to say, whether to scream.  My father was with me, I tried to express my anguish and fears to him, but he did nothing; maybe there was nothing that he could do.  This was my father again teaching me about misogyny and patriarchy.  This was my father trying to use these assaults as a way to convince me to not Transition, that somehow I would no longer be a girl because criminals assaulted my intimacy.

(2)

– My own family mis-gendered me – whether for real or to demean me.  My father and I shared photography of our travels and experiences of Greece and Europe.  He was showing pictures of us to family gatherings.  I could observe that these relatives were puzzled by the images.  Eventually, my Aunt Olga queried:

– – ‘All these pictures.  There are pictures of a stranger girl in many of them.  But where’s Nickie?’

– The most memorable mis-gendered photograph was my picture with the boys of the Vienna Boys Choir while obtaining their autographs.  I clearly remember how much my appearance was more a teenage girl than a teenage boy.  Indeed, ‘Where’s Nickie?’!  I have not seen any of those photographs since perhaps 1974.  I suspect that my father did not want to share those pictures because of this mis-gendered identification.  Further, my father’s older sister and her husband threw away my father’s entire collection of photography when he died.  My father kept all his photography (and most of mine) stored with them since the time when my father and I moved to Greece (1971).  That destruction was my family expressing their complete and absolute hate toward me.

One lesson of its own is that of people perceiving a Trans woman as a woman regardless of how we ‘Pass’.  People were mis-gendering me as a woman during  my years of part-time.  There I was, especially once I hit full-blown Male Fail – presenting as my male ‘before’, perceived as a woman by the public, ‘Passing’ as a woman.

No one has ever bothered me or confronted me about my presence using the women’s restroom going back four decades in time and travelling throughout the USA and three other nations.

I never thought about being denied using a public restroom and that using the women’s restroom could create trouble until I first noticed this becoming a sudden political issue in Houston in 2015.

Now I attend to my business wary of any potential complication, I enter and use the facilities with caution.

Society has become determined to put us under attack for our existence.

It’s not enough to have legal ID nowadays.  It’s not safe if some authority imposes their Panty Patrol.  No person should be subjected to strip search to use public accommodations.

*

Here’s an article about TERFs that came to my Facebook feed:

(https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical)

Hmm?

I searched the Internet in curiosity.  Looks like the book is here:

‘GYN / ECOLOGY: The MetaEthics of Radical Feminism’ by Mary Daly

(https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/mary-daly-gyn-ecology-the-metaethics-of-radical-feminism.pdf)

Debbie E. referred this book to me during the early-1980s.  I need to read this again with a perspective of these four decades passed.

*

Transition comes in stages.  We adjust our attitude about life, our selves, others.

I submit that it is our maturity that brings us through our stages of Transition.

We begin our Transition abhorring every bit about our ‘before’.  We act stridently with our insistence.

Eventually, depending upon the individual, we come around – we lighten up about ourselves and about others, we come to understand the important things in life, we realise the truths in that saying:

– ‘Allow me the capacity to change what I can change, accept what I can’t change, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

These are examples of what I learned to accept because I can’t change other people regarding the sensitive issue of one’s name and pronouns:

– My father never – NEVER – addressed me as Sharon to the day when he died 30 years ago, though I declared my name at age 8, went through Transition, advanced to full-time.

– One aunt, who had not seen me in several years, called me Nick the only time we met personally 30 years ago at my father’s death.  I did not take offence because of the circumstances.  Besides, correcting her would have been pointless for me, and I kinda felt nostalgic about it.

– On the other hand, my mother, my sister, other family did use Sharon, but they speak it with disgust toward me.

I deal with those situations.  It matters little what others do when I do not allow their deliberate insults to affect me and I accept their mistakes made in honesty

I learned to embrace my ‘before’ – Nick is NOT ‘dead’, he will always be part of Sharon.  So when people do refer to me in my ‘before’, I think of my efforts that brought me to today.

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(https://www.outinperth.com/push-to-remove-transgender-experts-from-debate-on-treatments/#.XXX5T6y5W9k.facebook)

You can thank Alan Hart as the mark of the beginning of the current era of Trans in 1918.

I agree with the thought that coming out nowadays is easier because of the availability of information, resources, social media compared to past years and decades.

Unlike many of my contemporaries who describe the absence of information and resources about Transsexualism, I had the benefit of innumerable advantages throughout my childhood, teens, and early adulthood during the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s.  Those opportunities enabled me to be out as a child by age 3 and to Transition at age 18.  I consider these key:

– Christine Jorgensen and her family was from New York City, my family was from suburban New Jersey; my family continued to reside at metropolitan New York City during my first years of childhood (1950s).  I have described previously that my father’s DD-214 records that he served in the military at the same time and same duty station as then-George.  Her  name was frequently among family comment and among public notoriety.  My father regularly invoked her name (both George and Christine) whenever he scolded me for anything that I did that was Transsexual.  Was it personal?  Was it through the public common?  Or was it both?

– My mother’s younger brother – my Uncle Frank – was Transsexual, was in M-F Transition during the 1960s.  Likewise, my father invoked Uncle Frank anytime my female tendencies surfaced.  I clearly remember when family gossip was filled with self-congratulations when they had Uncle Frank murdered (1970).   Now his murder became a more severe, very real threat hung over my every effort – especially during times when my father and I experienced heated arguments when I went into my Feminine Protesting tantrums or when he beat me because I was wearing Kathy’s clothes.

– One vital element would be my serendipitous encounter with Denise, my next mentor (1974).  She gave that critical spark of initiative to me precisely when I needed it.  She would get me enrolled in Stanford’s ‘Gender Dysphoria Program’ (1977).

– I claim no personal association with Renee Richards.  We are contemporaries in our own Transition at about the same time, that’s about it.  I can say that I followed her early tennis career, her legal battles.  Her successes inspired me to continue.

– Another opportunity was Linda, my co-worker and mentor.  She taught to me innumerable practical tasks that I needed to accomplish throughout my Transition.  She connected me with the Janus Information Facility (Reed Erickson Education Foundation) of Galveston.  Through these resources I changed my legal ID, driver’s licence, Social Security Account identification.  I located the counselling required to continue my Transition.

How many Trans people of our generation can count maybe one or two items similar to my list?  How many Trans people of our generation can count more experiences?

I took good advantage of the abundance that came my way.  I am forever grateful for their contribution to my success.

As I frequently ponder to myself and with my trusted friends:

– Where would I be without these great people and resources who came into my life at the critical times when they did?

It’s easy to comprehend that I would have been nowhere in Transition if this assistance was absent from my life.

I ‘knew exactly who I was’ by age 3, never wavered, and received help that brought me to where I am with no serious regrets other than wishing that Transition could have been better done during my childhood.

Take away those opportunities and my life would be totally different.

It would have been likely that I would have been a late-Transitioner as many are during the recent decade.

*

Thank you.

Ευχαριστώ.

ขอบคุณ ค่ะ.

Gracias.

Danke.

*

Please take advantage of these Additional Resources:

(https://planettransgender.com/nc-transgender-woman-bubba-walker/?cn-reloaded=1)

(https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/09/10/dorothy-perkins-trans-woman-darcie-silver-changing-rooms-twitter-backlash/amp/?__twitter_impression=true)

(https://www.acluohio.org/archives/press-releases/victory-transgender-ohioans-to-get-their-day-in-court-in-lawsuit-against-the-state?c=182695

(https://www.eventbrite.com/e/out-in-arizona-documentary-premiere-tempe-tickets-72180994297)

(https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/09/09/sunderland-1980-views-gay-homosexuality-lgbt-viral-twitter/)

(https://shareblue.com/doj-brief-transgender-workers-christian-employers-women-skirts/)

(https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/religious-schools-should-be-allowed-to-deny-the-new-gender-identity-of-students-expert-says-20190910-p52px8.html)

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/09/christian-school-getting-anti-lgbtq-teachers-quitting/#.XXa2mSFgUJw.facebook)

(http://transspeak.com/)

WPATH Standards of Care Version 7 free download at:  (https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc)

UCSF guidelines:  (https://transcare.ucsf.edu/guidelines)

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‘The Democratic Party Presidential Debate’

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‘The Democratic Party Presidential Debate’

(12 Sep 2019)

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Reading a sampling of Comment sections here among social media and  Facebook pages proves the point that our own Trans and LGBT community is our greatest enemy within.

Look at the innumerable essays, posts, Comment sections from Trans and LGBT who are  demeaning the event and the process.  They exhibit no regard for either themselves or any other Trans and LGBT person.

These derisive statements are the attitude from Our LGBT Community members.

They have no shame.

Social Media and Facebook essays, posts, comments may not result in scientific conclusions.  Yet it validates my long-term point.  There is the mathematical statistic that as many as 40% of the LGBT / Trans Community is:

 – hard-core Republi-con,

 – vote straight-ticket Republi-con, 

 – voted for Crooked Drumpf,

 – will vote for Crooked Drumpf in 2020, 

 – will continue to support the Republi-con / Crooked  Drumpf anti-Trans anti-LGBT agenda. 

These Trans and LGBT will slice their own throat as easily as they will everyone else’s.

I’m a Green.  That does not mean that I am not concerned, I simply must wait for the Democratic Party to elect their candidate.

I had not planned to watch the Democratic Party ‘debate’ tonight.  I had expected to watch the evening broadcast network TV news that is on the same time as the ‘debate’ here where I live. 

Then I started watching.  It’s mostly good.  I’m enthused and eager about each candidate, though my favourite remains Warren.  A few of the candidates are saying that they will unify with the others to defeat Crooked Drumpf and Republi-cons.  That’s important.  As a Green, that is where I am.  Health care, gun violence, Climate Disaster, economy, immigration, education – I don’t care what name you apply to your effort in the issue, just join together and get it done.

The focus of the Democratic Party and every candidate up and down the ticket must be unity of purpose – the removal of Republi-con-ism, the defeat of Crooked Drumpf.

The threat to American Constitutional government is again the Republi-con Party.  Republi-con-ism is led by Crooked Drumpf.  These are what we must oppose in the 2020 Election.  Not other Democratic Party or Green Party nominees.

Here’s the URL if you don’t receive it on ABC News on TV:

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2399237046838932&id=1161108697272926)

Or you want to watch it if you missed it.

Or you want to watch it again.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2143521515948702&id=100008726227817)

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Thank you, Dear Reader, for bearing with me.

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Additional Resources:

(https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/trump-claims-there-was-nobody-here-in-america-25-years-so-they-probably-had-cleaner-water/)

(https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/12/elizabeth-warren-social-security-200-per-month-taxing-rich/2294876001/)

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‘Eighteen Years And Counting’

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‘Eighteen Years And Counting’

(11 Sep 2019)

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As you wake up this morning on the anniversary of the ‘9 / 11’ event, you can read my perspective about what happened.

I was still at home the morning of that day – 11 Sep 2001 – awake since 4am local time (7am NYC time).

I was routinely recording the morning TV news broadcast on my bedroom VCR.  I watched as the station switched to the emergency network news reporting caused by the event.   I watched events as they would unfold ‘live’ on the TV that morning.  

My two VCRs (adding the VCR in the living room) recorded the TV coverage the entire time before I went to work, then while I was at work that day, that evening when I returned home from work, and continued that night.  My VCRs were working overtime for the next few days.

I flipt through the channels for a variety of news coverage from one broadcaster to another and local stations versus national networks.

I saw it ‘live’ as the news station went from the mundane of routine early morning reporting to the news alert cut-in about the first plane crash.  Then I saw ‘live’ what appeared to be the second plane crash into the World Trade Center tower.  But was either crash an actual event that we saw?  Or was there an exaggeration presented to the TV audience?

I do not accept the common fable presented by Baby Bush.

We know that Baby Bush was itching for a reason to invade Iraq, overthrow Hussein, and steal their oil.  Bush boasted earlier in 2001:

 – ‘It’s all about the oil.  Saddam tried to kill my daddy.’

Don’t tell me that the Afghanistan Taliban concocted the entire ‘attack’.  That’s a bogus assertion.  Republi-cons have been tied to the Afghanistan Taliban since Reagan in 1980.  Reagan supported, financed, trained, armed Afghanistan Taliban.  Reagan declared 21 Mar 1983 as ‘Afghanistan Day’ to annually honour and support the Taliban and al Qaeda, his buddies.  Today there are complaints about Crooked Drumpf inviting the Taliban to Camp David.  Not one Republi-con complained when Reagan hosted their Taliban and al Qaeda cohorts to spend many days at Camp David during Reagan’s terms.

See my essay about Reagan and his Taliban connections:

(https://slimandme.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/today-is-support-the-taliban-day/)

 – ‘The Taliban are terrible people.  You do not sit down with them and expect anything good.  Taliban are thugs.  You can’t believe anything they say.’

 – – Pat Robertson, R (his CBN TV ‘700 Club’ show, 11 Sep 2019)

Looks like Robertson disagrees with Reagan.  And Papa Bush.  And Baby Bush.  And Crooked Drumpf.  And Robertson’s own Republi-con Party.

Baby Bush had been using Powell as Bag Man delivering briefcases filled with millions of Dollars in cash to the Taliban Theocracy government of Afghanistan.  The latest was August 2001.

Powell would later be infamous for his presentation to the United Nations – showing a Baby Bush map of Iraq oil fields in preparation for their invasion.

Baby Bush’s name for the invasion was ‘Operation Iraq Liberation’ – OIL for those who need help.

Comparing the size of the World Trade Center towers to the size of the jet planes does not appear accurate to me.  Those passenger jets would be much larger than the planes shown to have hit the Towers.

The hole in the ground at Pennsylvania left no evidence of a plane crash – no debris, no luggage, no human remains.  How can that be?  That Jet Blue crash into the Florida marsh left remnants of the plane, the luggage, the human deceased.

If these Afghan Taliban ‘terrorists’ really wanted to create ‘terror’, then they would have waited a couple more hours for maximum ‘terror’ value – to do this at 10am or 11am NYC time when those World Trade Center towers would have been packed with 30.000 people each, not during the 8am hour when there were barely 5.000 people present at both towers.  The New York City metropolitan business day begins about 10am.  That 8am time when this happened was when only a relatively small number of early bird people were at work, the majority of New Yorkers were still at home in bed or beginning their commute to work.

 – ‘The towers, rather than falling over, collapsed.’

 – – Pat Robertson, R (his CBN TV ‘700 Club’ show, 11 Sep 2019)

I produced a film about the demolition of Salt Lake City’s Hotel Newhouse in 1983.  I was the last civilian on the scene within the perimeter before the demolition.  I watched the demolition.  I filmed the demolition.  High rise and skyscraper demolition occur in an orderly, not random, collapse.  The World Trade Center towers collapsed orderly.  This tells me that something was set in those Towers – charges to effect the orderly collapse.  I’m not alone, professionals have established far more than I have any expertise to describe here.

Then we know that no commercial passenger airliner crashed into the Pentagon.  There was damage to the building, for certain.  But there were no damages at the sides of the entry – damage that should be evident by the wings of that aircraft.  There would have been wings ripped off the fuselage, jet fuel, an explosive ball of jet fuel same as what the fable tells us that happened at the World Trade Center towers.  But there was no ball of jet fuel, no explosion.  There are no wings lying on the ground.  See that WSB TV montage – six rows down, left picture – the Pentagon shows the absence of lateral damage, absence of jet fuel explosion that should have been caused by the wings ripped off of a jetliner.

As for the hijackers.  At least 11 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, there were no Afghani hijackers.  Why did Baby Bush not invade Saudi Arabia?  The Bush family and the Saudi family are old family friends and oil business pardners from the 1920s.  Of course, the Bush family is also tied to the bin Laden family as well.

 – ‘It’s terror.  Somebody destroyed a couple buildings.’

 – – Pat Robertson, R (his CBN TV ‘700 Club’ show, 11 Sep 2019)

The defining Element of Fascism is ‘Terror upon the population’.  This entire United States ‘War on Terror’ has been a boon to the Military-Industrial-Government Complex.  War profiteering is at its greatest.  Cheney’s Halliburton has grown to a multi-billion Dollar pot o’ gold money-making machine.  Politically, this created a definitive shift to Fascism in Amerika.  Baby Bush and his War Hawk administration declared martial laws.  Our local police are armed and operated as a military unit, not as a civilian government agency; suspects are treated as ‘terrorists’.  Baby Bush’s Patriot Acts is a testament to the honour of Hitler’s Enabling Acts.

 – ‘The dust was said to be safe.  Instead, it contains thousands of toxins.’

 –  – Pat Robertson, R (his CBN TV ‘700 Club’ show, 11 Sep 2019)

Remember when Republi-con Mayor Smoochie Giuliani assured all those First Responders working at Ground Zero?  Of course, Mayor Smoochie wore his face mask.  Meanwhile, he guaranteed that the air was safe, the debris was not hazardous.  We all knew better.  Instead, the air and debris contained those ‘thousands of toxins’.  First Responders, local employees, nearby residents, school children are riddled with disease and illness caused by those ‘thousands of toxins’.  Meanwhile, Congressional Republi-cons and Crooked Drumpf staunchly oppose medical care and compensation for the hundreds of thousands (dare I say millions) of citizens and residents and visitors and tourists, all whose health was destroyed by this event.

As with any event, those of us with skepticism are not required to present every minutiae of facts to dispute that common narrative, but only to cast legitimate reasonable doubt to that common narrative.  In the method as I studied and wrote about the Kennedy / Oswald assassinations, here I presented that reasoned doubt about that ‘9 / 11’ fable.

The events of ‘9 / 11’ and the respect for the loss of life are tainted by the lies of this common narrative.

I am a skeptic about what actually happened and why.

It’s interesting how Pat Robertson, staunch Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist, loyal Republi-con, admirer of Crooked Drumpf, makes my case.

There are people who find solace in the religion of their choice.  Then there are elements of religion that is obviously fraught with hate, bigotry, prejudice.

Here at Arizona, a Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalist went on a shooting spree days after the ‘9 / 11’ event.  He targeted anyone who did not appear ‘Amerikan’, he sought to kill Moslems.  Instead, he murdered Sikhs because the men wore their turban.  Those Sikh men were minding their own lives, conducting business among the community.

I’m not blind.  I read about Moslem Theocrats and Sikh separatists attacking and killing people of other religions

Here at my nation, I fear White Right-wing Republi-con Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalists and White supremacists and kluxers and Amerikan NAZIs far more than I fear Moslems, or Sikhs, or Atheists.  The former are actively committing murder here, are working to destroy Constitutional Rights for everyone but themselves while Crooked Drumpf calls them ‘fine people’.

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Additional Resources:

(Pending.  As if you need me to refer you to other source material after all these years!)

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Thank you, Dear Reader, for bearing with my theory.

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‘Never Again!’

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‘Never Again!’
(1 Sep 2019)

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Dear Reader:

Never Again!

Or never again?

Sunday marks a somber anniversary.

Not a beginning.

Not an ending.

But a date along a continuum.

This brief statement is but one more insignificant comment to you who observe, grieve, commemorate.

This statement is pointless to you who are deniers.

Either way, people of greater importance have their position to make their declarations.

I am humbled at their presence.

I became a Student of the Shoah when I lived at Greece during high school (1971 – 1973).

My father and I came to witness Maribor, Dachau, innumerable other sites, and countless cemeteries.

My Jewish Friends at Dasahori taught me their personal side of Shoah.

I continued my education in college coursework:

– especially a course taught by Elie Wiesel at the University of Utah and

– an advanced studies course at Grand Canyon University.

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Additional Resources:

This is barely a start. You can find plenty on your own.

(https://yvng.yadvashem.org/)

(https://www.yadvashem.org/)

(https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous.html)

(https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Righteous_Gentiles)

(http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/)

(http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/en/english-version.html)

(https://www.ushmm.org/)

(https://www.ushmm.org/collections/ask-a-research-question/tools-for-research/shoah-foundation)

(https://www.centerforreparations.org/)

(https://www.centerforreparations.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrebepNiw5AIVD9tkCh0K_wKaEAAYASAAEgL3tvD_BwE)

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Thank you for visiting today.
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