Hi Bill,
I have to agree with you on this one. As a trans person I can understand being very upset with HRC, specially over the ENDA crap. BUT, I can't, will NEVER endorse the killing of anyone within that origination or any other origination for that matter. Talk like that will NEVER get us anywhere, if anything, it could actually make things worse for everyone in our community. We as a community have made some progress, although SLOW progress, but making statements like that will surely make any progress that we have made be reversed. So please tone down comments like that and lets get to work on making progress that counts. Thanks for your time.
Michelle

I'll go further, Bil. Not just Bilerico, this isn't acceptable ANYWHERE.

As one of HRC's most frequent and vocal critics, I attack where and when it's appropriate. I go after their behavior, their lack of fairness, truthfulness, and morality when it comes to what they've done to the fight for trans rights. I call them out as liars, as hypocrites, and as an organization with a leadership that doesn't see past it's own doorstep.

In my opinion, all of these things are valid targets, worthy of public exposure, ridicule, and disparagement. To advocate actual violence, however, crosses a line I have never and will never cross. Not only would such an action be immoral in the extreme, not only would it not only not help get us what we want but rather help to ensure the opposite, but it sends exactly the opposite of the message we need to be sending and have been sending for decades now: This is about people's lives, about our right to have the same access to the American Dream as anyone else.

Threats of physical violence against anyone at HRC or anyone period, regardless of whether or not we happen to be on the same side politically, are not only unacceptable just in general but such behavior would likely hurt us more as a community then anything HRC has done or might do in the future.

There's a way to fight for what's right, to disempower and discredit those who work against our political interests, but this is most certainly not it. If I were in a place to stop such an attack I would do so without a moment's hesitation, no matter who the target or how much I disagreed with them politically.

For me, when people's lives are threatened, politics takes a back seat no matter who it is. As much as I call out HRC for what they've done to us, no one should ever have to fear for their lives because of it. Such threats are a base betrayal of everything I and so many us fight for and believe in.

No matter how wrong HRC is on the issues, no matter how righteous our cause, there has to be a line which cannot be crossed no matter what. For me, this is it.

There's just no excuse for this, no matter how angry we might be. No excuse at all.

Yea, I get that the comment might not be furthering discourse on Bilerico. But come on! This is nothing but an expression of complete, exhausted frustration and rage -- it’s not a real threat of physical violence. Contacting the police in this instance, however, would be violent! That the response to lyssak’s comment would possibly involve the criminal “justice” system is more frightening than anything ze wrote.

I’m not going to come here and condemn lyssak for expressing feelings that my friends and I have shouted together a hundred times when we’re just so overwhelmed by the real violence that surrounds us and we feel like we can’t take it anymore. And in fact I’ll echo hir comments at least that I’d love to see effigies of HRC burned in every town as part of a massive local grassroots backlash against the gay non-profit industrial complex. I’ve always said Stonewall 2.0 is going to be the razing of HRC headquarters.

Right now I’m reading David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives, and it’s fitting that I just read this passage:

[A]nd I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america and I'm carrying this rage like a blood filled egg and there's a thin line between the inside and the outside a thin line between thought and action and that line is simply made up of blood and muscle and bone and I'm waking up more and more from daydreams of tipping amazonian blowdarts in "infected blood" and spitting them at the exposed necklines of certain politicians or government healthcare officials […] I say there's certain politicians that had better increase their security forces and there's religious leaders and heathcare officials that had better get bigger dogs and higher fences and more complex security alarms for their homes and queer-bashers better start doing their work from inside howitzer tanks because the thin line between the inside and the outside is beginning to erode and at the moment I'm a thirty seven foot tall one thousand one hundred and seventy-two pound man inside this six foot frame and all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release.

I quote that not because I want to make a comparison between HRC and the AIDS crisis [please, please, please note that!], but because I want to talk about rage and frustration and the feeling that you’re on the brink and you just can’t fucking take it anymore. And I want to talk about how that rage can even be inspiring and energizing and comforting, like David’s writing and artwork. This may be hard for some GLBT folks to understand, but there are a lot of us who don’t just dislike HRC -- we view it as a player and a symbol in an entire system that’s corrupt and it’s crushing us and the people we love. And people need to realize that, even if they don’t agree.

So I go back now to the idea that this isn’t furthering our discourse, because I disagree. People need to see this pain and anger and fury exploded onto a keyboard so that maybe they’ll finally get that this shit is for real. We are fucking pissed off, and that’s what we should be talking about, not crucifying lyssak for a momentary lapse in composure.

I'm just going to throw out that the vast majority of time the comments are great here. I really like the community we built here.

Samir Luther is an incredible young activist who does not deserve the violent rhetoric left as a "comment" on his guest post.

This kind of hatred, and yes that's what it is, shows that some are more committed to stewing in their anger than they are to achieving equality.

My hope is that Samir continues to do the amazing work that he is doing because he is having the kind of impact that is improving the lives of LGBT people.

Get a grip, Lyssa and the rest. Lyssa, you made an unnecessary mistake. You apologized. Rest of you, you have read the apology, if you have gotten this far down in the comments. Enough. Everyone - quit making the ad hominem comments, and focus on POLICY and ACTION.

Lyssa made a mistake in using a specific act of violence in rhetoric. What may pass as harmless in a FTF encounter, where body language, tone of voice, context of conversation, etc mediate the meaning of the words used, is unnecessarily alarming when presented without non-written cues. Writing and conversing are two different means of communication, and the informality of the internet tends to lull people into forgetting the difference.

Lyssa isn't the only person who has made this mistake - every person using the email, listserv, chatroom, and blogging/ commenting capacity of the internet has managed to write a statement which can be misconstrued as a serious threat, a falsehood with consequences, etc.

If in doubt, use the PREVIEW button and imagine that you are a stranger reading the post.

Bil is one of the (if not the most) most fair-minded and easy going sysops I've ever run into in over 20 years of experience with social networking (back in the 1200bps dial up days). I think quite a few have been taking advantage of his good nature.

Look, however extremely Lyssa's comments were, they were clearly rhetorical. Effigies? Every town in the USA? Does that sound like a credible threat to you?

To me, it doesn't. It sounds like an angry trans woman venting. There's no specificity there, just boundless rage. Of the sort that HRC, frankly, kinda deserves from trans people.

Now, "I'd have no hesitation in handing her details over to the authorities" sounds like a very real and specific threat to me, from Bil to Lyssa. What do police do to trans people, regardless of guilt? What do they do to people of color? What happens to trans people in jail?

Come on now. Delete the comment, break its inappropriateness down in a separate post, but tacking on a REAL threat (couched in the passive voice or not) is so out of line it's not funny.

Sweet Jesus!

I can't stand the actions of several of the individuals who run HRC. But threats of violence? C'mon now! Anyone who'd even threaten that is suffering from chronic cranial rectosis.

I want Joe Solmonese to be relieved of his job. I don't trust him the distance I could throw Refrigerator Perry. But I don't think any reasonably sane and stable person should want him to be the victim of an assault. Worse yet is how this will make T people look in the eyes of those who know of this matter. I bet those folks at Focus on the Family and the Traditional Values Coalition who monitor this list (and we all know they do) are laughing their fool heads off.

Oh FCS.

The fact of the matter is that none of us ever knows who is on the other side of the keyboard. And there are some people out there who we REALLY don't fucking know. And may be prepared to do something we can't imagine, simply to shut us up. It is NOT unreasonable to treat something of this nature as serious.

It's because of crap like this that some of us have to wonder why we even give a shit about this so-called fucking "community."

This thread has turned into the lulz.

can has cluluss cis goggles pls?

One point that I haven't seen yet is about the political effect it has on our community to have someone identified as trans using the same kind of mob-mentality language that has traditionally been used to keep minorities in line.

When you say that you want heads cut off and placed on a pike, that's not merely wishing someone dead. That's designed to incite a mob to violence. That's an historical warning of an uprising.

For someone whose supposed to be a member of an oppressed minority to invoke the tactics of the oppressors is seriously disturbing. And it will make it harder for us to combat it when it's directed at us.

I understand there is anger in the trans community with the HRC's decision so long ago, but come on, they are still on the front lines for the entire LGBT community. I completely trust the HRC in their fight for equality.

Wow, you all have just given the Right their talking points for the mid-term elections. All they have to do is print up this thread and stuff it in an envelope with a credit card slip.

You're giving your opposition all the ammunition they need, and you're turning off potential allies. Oh well, it's a free country and the choice is yours.

God, this is soooooo predictable. Having a history of being part of the editorial staff here, I know that Bil could have simply deleted the comment and warned the commenter. Instead he pulls that comment into another post and gets over 100 comments, causes division within the community, and humiliates a transgender person for an obvious mistake. But what the heck, it does drive people to the site and causes buzz. Enough that it brought me back here to comment. If you've responded to this post, consider yourself duped. Great for those google analytics statistics though! Touché Bil, touché!

Regarding the advocacy of violence:

It is common knowledge that MLK promoted non-violence (especially after a bit of tutoring from Bayard Rustin about the way Gandhi approached non-violence), but we are also familiar with the famous quote from Malcolm X that called for black social equality "by any means necessary." Malcolm X has never been roundly castigated for his remark, even though the 1960's movement, and after, has clearly, and thankfully, taken King's lead.

Jesus said (if anyone cares), "He who takes the sword shall perish with the sword." That sounds pretty clear: If you are the initiator of violence, you can expect to become its target, also.

But this is just a historical footnote for philosophers and theologians. When we are talking about Internet postings, it is appropriate to generalize that "Advocating violence is never acceptable. Period.

Talking practically, there are a host of legal reasons why a blog such as this one must establish this policy. For one thing, Bil and the other editors would like to stay out of court and jail if it were to happen that someone was targeted for violence on this blog, and then a similar violent attack took place in real life somehow.

Bil, I think most have had their say, and that nothing further is to be accomplished. I would suggest that you close this thread to further comments so that we will all just move on.

Various comments, unattributed:

"Ok Lyssa probably crossed a line. But I don't think you can actually get beheaded on the internet."

"Get a grip."

"Lyssa WAS in fact just blowing off steam Bill, and no, threatening violence on the internet is NOT YET legally a criminal offense"

"Look, however extremely Lyssa's comments were, they were clearly rhetorical. Effigies? Every town in the USA? Does that sound like a credible threat to you?"

"But come on! This is nothing but an expression of complete, exhausted frustration and rage"

etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

What part of "you never really completely know what people are capable of" do you people not understand? Maybe the literal threat seems unlikely, but you never know if a person is going to do something. Listen, I am right now afraid for myself, my partner, a boarder, our home and more, all because some moron decided that outing me to a violent group of white supremacists is an acceptable way of expressing her "complete, exhausted frustration and rage" over the fact that I identify myself as transsexual (thus insulting the way she identifies) and the fact that she feels I'm going to "wreck it" for transsexuals in this Province by being outspoken. There is a slight difference in that this person is known to me locally, but with the way information can spread around the Internet, this is not necessarily a differentiating factor. DON'T TELL ME IT DOESN'T FUCKING HAPPEN.

This did not start or take place on this blog, but Bil is aware of it, and it certainly may affect how he's looking at threats right now.

And I can tell you this: I have been stabbed in the back far more by the people I have advocated for and tried to help, whether transsexual, transgender, HBS, "trans"-only, CD, of transsexual history, genderqueer or whatever, than I have ever been by the likes of Bil. It was betrayals of this sort (though not magnitude) that sparked my first post, "Transbigotry," and clearly nothing has changed. If that means that I am persona non grata among the T for saying this then so be it. The emperor has no clothes. If I come back at all, it will be a far more bitter Mercedes that you will find. Deal with it.

Drakyn: "Calling the police on a trans women for a comment, not a threat just a comment, made out of justified rage is loathsome."

I don't know about in the U.S. but here, the authorities are only ever interested in investigating if something actually has happened as a consequence. (There are rare exceptions, usually involving money and the beleaguered human rights commissions that everyone here wants to abolish.) And Bil has already said that his comment about turning over information would only happen if an investigation actually took place. I do hope that none of you are suggesting that protecting a person in the event of a real threat having been carried out is tantamount over standing up for the injured party.

Re: HRC, I will never support top-down, condescending "leave it to us" advocacy. I also have rage for that sort of machine. But at the same time, I will not rage against individuals who are working within that system, some of whom want to change it -- either they will be betrayed as before, or they might affect real, gradual change. I am content to leave that to them, and focus on what is important elsewhere.

dyssonance: "And others of us know why we can't stop giving one."

Then you haven't been betrayed enough yet. Watch your back.

All this negativity, name calling, and all out rudeness makes me LESS likely to want to understand and support the transgender community.

You attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

>>Insert rude reply from lyssa here

What is amazing about the long thread of comments to this post is how invested some people seem more invested in hating HRC and getting everyone else to hate HRC than they are in advocating FOR trans inclusive legislation.

Now, I know that I am going to be accused of using my privilege as a Black gay man to oppress transgender people while fighting for the rich white gay agenda, but the level to which this thread has descended is a great example of what keeps a lot of people away from getting involved in LGBT issues.

Who needs the seemingly endless drama?

I have heard from too many people including Bilerico contributors who refuse to write or talk about issues where gender identity may come up because they fear having their words twisted and labeled as anti-trans.

Its really sad that it has come to this.

"Now, I know that I am going to be accused of using my privilege as a Black gay man to oppress transgender people while fighting for the rich white gay agenda, but the level to which this thread has descended is a great example of what keeps a lot of people away from getting involved in LGBT issues.

Who needs the seemingly endless drama?"

Wrong. You were not accused of such. Where you got that idea was your own head, when to deal with things properly you should have asked.

I'm a straight queer woman -- transwoman -- of multiple ethnic backgrounds. Including black. Which I haven't made a secret, but its amazing how other people decide my race for me based on how they feel about what I write.

They do that on my gender, my sex, my politics...

Your privilege that you are using is your cisprivilege -- and that's what's getting in the way here.

Its like me using my straight privs -- you won't see it until its pointed out anymore than I will see it (although since I get all the crap usually tossed at you for being gay, I get the idea).

Point blank, *we* need the drama. And will continue to need it until people realize that the HRC, when it comes to transfolk, has to do something for a change, other than lie to us and merely make false claims.

And the only that will happen is for them to do something all by themselves that is incredibly forward advancing.

Now.

Until they do that, they are, very much, an organization that claims to be working on our behalf but is enabling the killing, the unemployment, the assault, and the death of transfolk,

If a a gay rights organization were to go out and say they are fighting for marriage and then work to stop any bills going through, you'd call them freaking evil, and get pretty pissed off when people tried to tell you how they are really helping you.

So, all by yourself, you answered your question: *You* need the drama. Until you learn what inclusive means.

Some thoughts on all this.

HRC is, indeed, the enemy of transpeople of all types. Back in 98 the head of HRC lobby department threatened me via email for exposing what we had learned that led to the formation of NTAC. Having experienced that, I have little sympathy for some HRC staffer crying foul. That said, transpeople have a history of out of hand character assassination and carrying out threats to harm others, that I have also experienced first hand.

Maura's law is a good one, I am sick to death of cis this and cis that claiming victimhood, so much so I've already been calling it "playing the tranny card".

But the trans commenters have made good points too, Bilerico is very unfriendly towards the simple womanhood of transitioned women and has allowed articles with titles that bordered on hate speech.

That said, I consider myself cis at this point and will close with the observation that cis-sterhood is powerful :)