More on the final straw pushing me toward resignation in a minute. First, though, I want to say that I am SO EFFING TIRED of the same old arguments on the pages of this site. I've watched "our community" fall out over the same issues for decades, often voiced in essentially the same terms on these pages as I used to hear in the early 1980's. Thing is, now while we make our repetitive arguments, homelessness, unemployment, hunger, violence, misery, extremism, and anti-scientific stupidity sweep America. Four of my friends, none of them LGB or T, have lost or are threatened with a layoff in a matter of days, while we argue ENDA. Polar ice caps are melting at a faster rate than any climate model ever predicted, while last year's Republican vice-presidential candidate argues on the pages of one of our nation's papers of record that humans have nothing to do with it. Congress plays bitch to wealthy-beyond-imagining bankers and corporate interests, while hardworking Americans who played by the rules all their lives find themselves sleeping under freeway overpasses.

Healthcare For All is more on my mind these days than marriage. Copenhagen's UN summit on Climate Change concerns me a hell of a lot more than trying to convince a woman who lived 40 years as a man that she actually IS different than women born female, or a white, gay male that the woman isn't a man who wanted to cut her dick off. Ending the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan strike me as much more vital that gaining the "right" to don a uniform and go kill people there.

In addition, however, I've avoided posting and commenting here due to the increasingly conservative and transphobic atmosphere, both among some posters and many of the regular commentors. Perhaps this reactionary bent reflects the interests of the American gay and lesbian community at large. After all, the American electorate has trended rightward for the past 40 years, to a point where fascist rhetoric now raises no eyebrows on mainstream news and in the chambers of Congress. So maybe it's no surprise that "our community's" leadership has become fixated on marriage, DODT, and, to a lesser degree, ENDA. Whatever the reasons, with few exceptions--posts by Yasmin, Paige, Serena, Alex, and Tobi come to mind--debates here have increasingly become reworkings of right-center arguments in favor of issues I consider distractions.

But the final straw pushing me toward resignation--and I'm sure this won't surprise many--was Bil's decision to publish Ronald Gold's December 10th post, and Bil's standing by its publication since. [A decision was made after I wrote this to remove Gold's piece: a decision that obviously bears on whether or not I continue to write here.]

Now, I'm against censorship, but this is in matter of journalistic standards. Gold's post is undeserving of publication anywhere, much less on an LGBT site, not because it's offensive but rather because it flies in the face of every scientific fact known about sex, gender, sexuality, and biology, and is a trite, uninspiring rehash of what has been said ad nauseam by (mostly) white, privileged, gay men for the past 30 years--and probably eons before that. John Aravosis argued the same points in Salon's pages two years ago in a much better written and articulate--albeit equally offensive and fact-detached--piece, kicking off the ENDA debate in which Congressman Barney Frank threw transgender folks under the rainbow-colored lesbian-and-gay bus.

That Bil published and stands by the piece, allegedly as an attempt to further dialog, I can only read as misguided, disingenuous, or a calculated move to throw trannies under the bus yet again in the interests of controversy and site hits. I argued against Aravosis in the pages of Salon: which is, after all, a straight site where many readers were unfamiliar with the issues. But here on the pages of Bilerico?! First, Gold's piece in its lack of substance doesn't even qualify as pre-requisite material to Trans-101 and doesn't warrant serious argument. I wonder, is this how African-American women feel up against white mainstream feminists? Why the hell should I spoon feed you knowledge when you don't even bother to hit a few keys over to Wikipedia to bone up on bare basics before you go espousing your opinionated claptrap?!

Moreover, to claim that Gold is unintentionally offensive merely because he's old?! Don't insult me further! My 89-year-old, straight, Catholic father has a more complex understanding of the issues because he's made the effort to educate himself about them.

There are legitimate ways to respectfully further debate, in the process actually introducing new ideas, adhering to scientific facts--remember those?--and without deliberately pushing yet again the same old ugly buttons that fuel memes and the internalized transphobia that every transgender person struggles against from the first moment we realized we were trans. But Gold couldn't be bothered to do that.

In short, his hackneyed piece contains not a single redeeming feature or new idea that could possibly excuse offending and hurting so many trans readers and contributors by publishing it here.

And to conclude: it is exhausting enough in these trying times to be queer, to be trans, and to fight for progressive causes against a straight world that seems hell-bent on destroying progressivism once and for all. To then have to turn around and fight members of your own so-called "community," those who should have your back, over issues vital to your very survival but over which they can't be bothered to lift a finger for themselves to find out about to the point of even writing sensitively and sensibly? And to do it over, and over, and over, again?!

Why?

Bush remains free despite crimes of negligence and incompetence in relation to 9/11 and Katrina that left thousands of Americans dead; despite demonstrable election fraud in Florida and Ohio; despite instituting illegal detention, and ordering torture, murder, and disappearances in Afghanistan and Iraq; despite authorizing illegal spying on Americans without warrants; and so on.

Dick Cheney remains free and charged with no crimes despite perhaps even more culpability than Bush in Iraq's illegal invasion, as well as neglect and incompetence in relation to 9/11. He also betrayed the identity of an American CIA agent; presided over conflicts-of-interest and profited enormously from war profiteering in Iraq and Afghanistan; and masterminded and instituted the illegal and utterly depraved program of detention, torture, and disappearances after 9/11--a policy he still strongly defends.

Wall Street profiteers not only remain free and charged with no crimes, but continue to reap insanely huge salaries, obscene bonuses, and lavish perks, despite defrauding taxpayers of nearly $13 trillion (at last count) and bringing the world's economy to the brink of a disaster we may still not avoid, in the process causing the losses of hundreds of thousands of American jobs and millions of homes.

Polanski, well known to Americans for "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown," and "The Pianist," was charged with luring Samantha Gailey (now Geimer) to a photo shoot at the Mulholland area home of actor, Jack Nicholson, in Los Angeles. Once there, according to Wikipedia:

"We did photos with me drinking champagne," Geimer says. "Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite know how to get myself out of there." Geimer testified that Polanski performed various sexual acts on her, after giving her a combination of champagne and quaaludes. In the 2003 interview, Geimer says she resisted. "I said no several times, and then, well, gave up on that."

Rape and the sexual exploitation of a child by an adult are serious crimes and Polanski should have been prosecuted and punished. At the time, the Jewish director--who barely survived World War-II Poland (his mother was killed in Auschwitz) and whose pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by Charles Manson and his "family,"--agreed to a plea bargain in which he plead guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. According to the terms of the agreement, he reported to Chino State Prison for psychiatric evaluation, and was released after 42 days. Before further proceedings, he fled to Europe, where he remained, avoiding travel until now to any country with an extradition treaty with the U.S.

During the intervening years, serious questions have been raised regarding the behavior of the trial judge, now deceased, and attempts have been made to have the charges dismissed. These failed, in part due to demands that Polanski return to California to finalize the terms, and his refusal to do so.

Geimer has publicly forgiven Polanski. Wikipedia quotes her as saying,

"Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us." Furthermore, "I'm sure if he could go back, he wouldn't do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he's paid for it".

Also,

Geimer stated in an interview that she wishes Polanski would be forgiven, "I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he's a danger to society. I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever - besides me - and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it."

This story illustrates conservative Americans' obsession with sex, and their double standards toward crimes committed by liberals versus by their own.

Have Ted Haggard and David Vitter been legally prosecuted for their crimes involving drugs and prostitution? Has Mark Sanford been forced to resign his office for vanishing-without-leaving-contact-information to fly down to South America on taxpayer expense to sleep with his mistress while serving as governor of South Carolina? What about married Nevada Republican Family-Values Senator John Ensign, who paid nearly $100,000 in hush money to his mistress' family?

Why is Congress seeking to remove funding to ACORN after unproven and uncharged allegations of fraud, while continuing to lavishly fund and ignore actual criminal indictments of fraud, murder, sexual misconduct, prostitution, and criminal negligence against Blackwater, Haliburton, and other military contractors? (Thank you, Rachel Maddow, for doggedly covering this story!)

To sum up my feelings, serving and possibly extraditing a 76-year-old, gifted artist on a 32-year-old warrant for a sex-crime in which no one lost their life and the injured party has publicly called for clemency, while at the same time obfuscating and doing everything you can to avoid criminally prosecuting high-placed, wealthy, conservative criminals whose offenses resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the theft of trillions of taxpayers' dollars (sorely needed to rebuild our own country), and that rival in callousness the most heinous in history, is not only a colossal waste of money, but a gross miscarriage of justice.

I am outraged.

As you can see from the photo, though, showing Barry Delaney, 25, collapsed and weeping, it is a story with a heartbreaking ending. Delaney promised his best friend, Kevin Elliott, 22 at the time, to wear a dress -- "the brighter, the better" -- to Elliott's funeral in the terrible event Elliott was killed in action in one of the two wars of occupation in which Britain has joined America in the Middle East.

And, yes, in the photo Delaney is at Elliot's funeral, wearing a tight green mini-dress and pink leg-warmers. Had he donned this outfit under different circumstances in his blue-collar community, it likely would have resulted in a tragedy of a different kind, with himself the victim. In this case, however, his cross-dressing was accepted as a sign of respect, even by Elliott's comrades from Britain's Black Watch infantry who attended the ceremony in their regimental uniforms.

But his luck ran out last month when, at age 24, he was cut down in an ambush in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

The photo is powerful, with its juxtaposition of anguish with a bright, frivolous dress; maleness, unexpectedly in feminine attire; that feminine attire in contrast to the traditional masculine attire -- and a red rose -- of the unidentified men; and youth, aged suddenly by abject desolation.

Not to mention, the gravestones, freshly turned sod, and flowers.

Why do we do this to our young (mostly) men? It wasn't a natural disaster that killed Elliott before he really had a chance to live, and left his loved ones out of their minds with grief. Every generation, we fill young men's minds with lies, brainwashing them into believing that the highest calling is to kill and be killed "for your country." Surf the Net for comments on this story and you find ample samples of this noxious, patriotic BS. To make sure the message sticks, we often impoverish communities, thus eliminating economic alternatives to military service -- the Guardian talks of no jobs in the boys' hometown.

Somehow, even though the realization gradually seeps into the minds of at least a portion of each generation that patriotism is a cynical con, it doesn't make it to the vast majority, and never to the subsequent generation in time to prevent the next war. Instead, we fabricate a new pretense and send the current crop of young men off to die, over and over and over. Endlessly, it seems.

In this story, I'm also struck by the fact that the men picked wearing a dress as the terms of their pact. A man in a dress seems the polar opposite of a man dressed for combat. Did that figure into their decision? Or was it as I imagined when I first read the story, two men jocularly entering into a pact mocking, "men in dresses?" I don't know.

I wonder if Delaney would have gone through with the promise if it had been made in the latter frame of mind. Even a transphobic person would feel it in his gut that to follow through on a promise made in such an unkind spirit would be disrespectful to his slain friend, wouldn't he?

As well, there's the fact that their community readily accepted what, as a rule, would have been met with severe disapproval, possibly even violence. Why can't the same acceptance be extended under less extreme circumstances?

Then again, maybe this is just one of those situations I don't understand.

As a trans person, I'm sensitive to gender nuances that go right over the heads of most cis folks, but the flip-side is that there's a world of experience I simply never went through with the "uncomplicated" (if there is such a thing!) perspective of one or the other gender. Maybe this situation falls into the latter category. Maybe the whole thing makes perfect sense to cis folks.

In the end, what I'm mostly left feeling by this story is puzzled, sad for Delaney, and angry at the tragic waste of Elliott's life.

Lisa Campbell and Ally Jacobs of the UC Berkeley Police Department (pictured below) were suspicious of Phillip Garrido and the two girls he introduced as his daughters and did something that numerous authorities over a 15-year period who had encountered the ego-maniacal, sex-obsessed, clearly delusional man in charge of two young children had failed to do: they acted on their suspicions, investigated further, and intervened. In the process, they ended the 18-year nightmare for Jaycee, her children, and her family of origin. (Although, you can definitely argue, a new sort of nightmare is just beginning for them all as they struggle to come to terms with what happened and adjust to the new circumstances of their lives.)

What is more, their success may have occurred precisely because they were women.

Here's how the Times described the interview that took place after Officer Campbell, acting on her intuition and training, persuaded Garrido to come into headquarters for an interview in the company of the two girls he'd fathered with his kidnap victim:

Jacobs and Campbell took turns talking to Garrido while the other tried to draw out the girls. They asked the girls their names but couldn't hear their replies. The names were "hippie-like," akin to Jasmine and Buttercup.

The younger girl said she was in fourth grade, and her elder sister said she was in ninth grade.

Asked where they went to school, they answered in unison "like robots," Jacobs said. "We're home-schooled."

Whenever the younger girl spoke, her sister would "shoot her a glance" of warning, Jacobs said.

In the meeting, Garrido said matter-of-factly that he had once been convicted of kidnapping and rape. The girls did not react.

Jacobs asked the younger girl about a bump above one of her eyebrows. " 'It's a birth defect. It's inoperable. I will have it for the rest of my life, ' " Jacobs said the girl replied as though coached. "She just wouldn't stop smiling."

Jacobs, the mother of two young boys, said she tuned into her "mother mode" as she watched the girls.

She described the girls as " 'Little House on the Prairie' meets robots, clones.' " The elder girl seemed "bothered" when her younger sister said they had an older sister, 28, at home. "Twenty-nine," the older girl corrected her.

" 'I am so proud of my girls,' " Jacobs remembered Garrido saying as he put his arm around the elder girl's shoulder. "They don't know any curse words."

At one point, Campbell made eye contact with the older girl, who "quickly caught herself and went back to looking at the ceiling." Campbell called the younger girl's smile a "smirk." [Emphasis mine.]

I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds it downright sinister that Garrido is described as putting his arm around his elder daughter. I fervently hope he was not sexually abusing her. Garrido should never again roam society a free man.

In the meantime, as most people familiar with the story probably know, authorities missed many opportunities to apprehend Garrido and rescue Dugard. In 2006, a neighbor reported in a 911-call that she suspected children were living in tents in an adjoing backyard, in the custody of a "psychotic sex addict". The deputy sheriff who responded to the call failed, however, to inspect the backyard. Had the officer recognized Garrido was a convicted sex-offender--which he didn't, notwithstanding the state monitoring system--he would not have needed a warrant to search the entire premises.

Then in 2008, Garrido's home was inspected by a multi-disciplinary team composed of members of East Contra County police agencies--who also failed to inspect the yard and find the ramshackle tents and captives.

Both federal and state probation officers were said to have kept Garrido under ongoing supervision, with a state parole officer allegedly making two or three monthly visits to the home since December. Still, none of them detected the presence of the victims. (The feds have been less forthcoming in describing the frequency of visits to the home in articles I've read.)

Here's what I wonder: how many, if any, of the previous law enforcement authorities--from probation officers to sheriff deputies--who encountered Garrido during the last 18 years and failed to intervene, were women?

To varying degrees mitigated by other factors, including race, class, age, and sexual-orientation, females raised in a sexist society generally develop superior--for lack of a better word--"radar." We have to. As second-class citizens, our success or failure, sometimes our very survival, depend upon accurately interpreting the reality of the males in charge of our existence. Another high-profile female in this case, Garrido's co-defendant and wife, Nancy, illustrate this principle in a sort of dark flipside. Nancy so understood and identified-with her husband's reality, she seems to have embraced them and become a willing participant in his horrific crimes. I don't think anyone is arguing that Phillip was not the mastermind, always in charge, however. Moreover, I wager it will come out that sexual abuse was in Nancy's background.

When I was a kid, you didn't see women cops. Law enforcement was a male-controlled field in which women were seen as unfit. Over decades, women fought tooth-and-nail to earn the right to serve--as did, in succession, open gay men and lesbians, and transsexuals. These battles, I daresay, remain ongoing in many locales across our nation. During this civil-rights struggle, "women's intuition" and "motherhood" have not been held up by critics as advantages, but usually are cited as reasons women are unfit to serve in a field that demands, at times, the application of state-sponsored violence and (far-too-often) deadly force.

In male-dominated fields, intuition and motherhood are generally viewed as, at best, inconveniences and, at worst, fatal weaknesses. And yet here is a case in which a woman--Lisa Campbell's--intuition and a mother--Ally Jacobs'--instinct, far from being weaknesses, may have been the very elements responsible for rescuing three lives and halting the ongoing commission of a heinous crime that, over a mind-numbingly long period of time, had defied the powers of countless men to solve and put a stop to.

Semenya, whose athletic performance recently improved greatly and who, it seems, was a tomboy as she grew up in an impoverished rural village, enduring taunts and other discrimination as she transgressed what the Guardian newspaper describes as "the rigid gender roles of South Africa's traditional rural communities."

So, our culture's gender roles - as aptly illustrated by this situation - are less rigid than those primitive black people's, are they? Unfortunately, I don't have time to go into that right now.

The Guardian article reads, in part:

The father of a women's world champion athlete today angrily denied accusations that the teenager was secretly born a man, insisting: "She is my little girl." Caster Semenya, 18, is undergoing a gender test to prove she is female after beating her rivals by a huge margin to win the gold medal in the world championship 800 metres in Berlin.

Family, friends and teachers at her home in South Africa recalled how Semenya played football with boys, wore trousers instead of skirts and endured teasing by her peers. But all asserted that she is definitely a woman.

While I can understand that steroids - and testosterone is, technically, a steroid - can enhance certain athletic abilities and performance, and thus it does make sense in some cases to categorize athletes. But I think we could do it with much more sensitivity, respect, finesse, and adherence to the real science behind sex and gender than illustrated by this case.

That said, it will come as no surprise that I find the language and tenor of the article - and the situation it describes - clueless and offensive. Of course, as a transsexual I'm not at all surprised by any of it. But how can cis-folks blather on so about "men" and "women" in a context like this and not realize how utterly meaningless and indefensible such rigid categories are?!

In the ominous and spreading silence, I fear for one voice in particular whose vivid reports I'd come to rely on. A twitter feed by the name of "persiankiwi."

Where is persiankiwi?

The person or persons reporting by that name fell silent on Wednesday, June 24th, 8:09 p.m. local time. Nothing has been heard from them since then, and their final tweets leave me fearing the worst:

Allah - you are the creator of all and all must return to you - Allah Akbar - #Iranelection Sea of Green8:09 PM Jun 24th from web

thank you ppls 4 supporting Sea of Green - pls remember always our martyrs - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar #Iranelection8:06 PM Jun 24th from web

we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast - #Iranelection8:04 PM Jun 24th from web

Everybody is under arrest & cant move - Mousavi - Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guard - #Iranelection -7:58 PM Jun 24th from web

they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us - #Iranelection7:53 PM Jun 24th from web

Lalezar Sq is same as Baharestan - unbelevable - ppls murdered everywhere - #Iranelection7:49 PM Jun 24th from web

they catch ppl with mobile - so many killed today - so many injured - Allah Akbar - they take one of us - #Iranelection7:48 PM Jun 24th from web

in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher - Allah Akbar - #Iranelection RT RT RT7:46 PM Jun 24th from web

I am deeply worried for the life and safety of the person or persons who twittered under the name of persiankiwi, and feel like the only thing I can do to help him, her, or them--and others like them--is to make noise. Remember them. Spread the word about them. Ask the powers-that-be, "Where are they?!" Make sure that the authorities do not succeed in disappearing them without a trace.

That is why I am posting this. That is why I am changing my twitter avatar. That is why I plan to join Amnesty International and get involved with campaigns that seek the release of Iranian protestors. And I urge other projectors to do the same.

I understand there is no way to verify if persiankiwi's reports were true. I believe, however, that they were. Several were later authenticated by independent sources. As well, there is a breathless, hard-to-fake excitement--and later, distress and apprehension--running through the commentary.

Here is a sampling from the final days before persiankiwi fell silent (much more here):

reports of street fighting in Vanak Sq, Tajrish sq, Azadi Sq - now - #Iranelection - Sea of Green - Allah Akbar7:44 PM Jun 24th from web

rumour they are tracking high use of phone lines to find internet users - must move from here now - #Iranelection7:39 PM Jun 24th from web

phone line was cut and we lost internet - #Iranelection - getting more difficult to log into net - #Iranelection7:35 PM Jun 24th from web

all shops was closed - nowhere to go - they follow ppls with helicopters - smoke and fire is everywhere #Iranelection6:33 PM Jun 24th from web

ppl run into alleys and militia standing there waiting - from 2 sides they attack ppl in middle of alleys #Iranelection6:31 PM Jun 24th from web

so many ppl arrested - young & old - they take ppl away - #Iranelection - we lose our group6:29 PM Jun 24th from web

saw 7/8 militia beating one woman with baton on ground - she had no defense nothing - #Iranelection sure that she is dead6:25 PM Jun 24th from web

they were waiting for us - they all have guns and riot uniforms - it was like a mouse trap - ppl being shot like animals #Iranelection6:23 PM Jun 24th from web

I see many ppl with broken arms/legs/heads - blood everywhere - pepper gas like war - #Iranelection6:05 PM Jun 24th from web

just in from Baharestan Sq - situation today is terrible - they beat the ppls like animals - #Iranelection RT RT RT6:04 PM Jun 24th from web

Larijani pressing for Mousavi to be given airtime on IRIB to discuss elections #Iranelection RT RT RT - tahlilerooz.ir1:45 AM Jun 24th from web

Mousavi has stated 'If I am arrested or killed - strike until the Gov falls' - #Iranelection1:38 AM Jun 24th from web

Kayhan - Iranian Gov newspaper - has tonight called forthe arrest of Mousavi - #Iranelection RT RT RT1:30 AM Jun 24th from web

all hospitals is surrounded by militia to check why ppl going in - if gun or baton injury - they arrest and beat u #Iranelection10:52 PM Jun 23rd from web

all foreign embassys surrounded by militia to stop ppl going in - #Iranelection10:49 PM Jun 23rd from web

The parks in north of city are closed at night and militia attacking any ppl in park or walking in streets - #Iranelection10:48 PM Jun 23rd from web

we have report of large street battles in east & west of Tehran now - #Iranelection10:45 PM Jun 23rd from web

tomorrow Mousavi annouce start of a new type of protests - peaceful and silent - soon there will be strikes #Iranelection10:42 PM Jun 23rd from web

the only question now is how will the end happen - peacefully or with civil war - #Iranelection10:40 PM Jun 23rd from web

the ppl have lost all faith in this Gov - Iran can never be same as b4 again - #Iranelection10:39 PM Jun 23rd from web

all normal life in Iran has stopped - now everybody only talk about Sea of Green and rumours of how Khamenei will go - #Iranelection10:38 PM Jun 23rd from web

We can hear ppl shouting from balcony right now 'Allah Akbar - death to Khamenei' - #Iranelection10:36 PM Jun 23rd from web

everywhere is road blocks and fires and sometime u hear guns shooting - #Iranelection10:32 PM Jun 23rd from web

We have just returned and outside the city sky is full of teh sounds of 'Allah Akbar' from ppls on balconys - #Iranelection10:29 PM Jun 23rd from web

we must log off for a few hours - going to streets to see what is happening - #Iranelection thank u7:41 PM Jun 23rd from web

yesterday we saw a 10 years old child die from teargas in his face - #Iranelection - could not film becos militia everywhere6:57 PM Jun 23rd from web

travelling thru Tehran now is worse than Bagdad - any moment u can be beaten or arrested - #Iranelection6:56 PM Jun 23rd from web

some embassys provided protection b4 but now they are all surrounded by militia - also if u are injured then they arrest u - #Iranelection6:54 PM Jun 23rd from web

also one of us is badly injured and we cannot take to hospital - treating with trusted doctor contacts but needs hosp - #Iranelection6:33 PM Jun 23rd from web

We are having difficulty getting updates to u as so many of our contacts been arrested - life here is v/v/dangerous now #Iranelection RT RT6:31 PM Jun 23rd from web

In case you missed this, the BBC interviewed Dr. Arash Hejazi, who tried to save Neda Soltan's* life on the streets of Iran. By speaking publicly, and very eloquently, he has effectively exiled himself from his homeland.

In other news, various media sources report that Neda's family has vanished from their apartment in Tehran. The Guardian reports that government authorities forced them out.

The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

(*I have seen Neda's name spelled variously as "Soltani," and "Soltan," and "Agha-Soltan.")

I'm surprised there hasn't been more (any?) discussion here about the dramatic events unfolding in Iran...do folks feel that what's happening there doesn't concern them? I know we're an LGBT-focused blog, but we're also global residents, living in a time of incredible change.

As well, folks are dying in Iran in an effort to make their votes count and voices heard. It seems the least we can do is pay attention, especially being Americans whose government set in motion more than half a century ago the events that led directly to what's happening today in Iran.

Moreover, many of us consider ourselves political activists. Although the official policies of the two front-running Iranian presidential candidates didn't differ that much during the campaign, the brutal, authoritarian tactics of the government since the election was stolen has enormously widened the gulf between the two sides.

Likewise, the groundbreaking amalgam of technology and grassroots resistance has changed the face of political activism for some time to come.

The twitter feed "persiankiwi" is a great example, among others, of what's possible, communicating as it does incredibly immediate, electrifying, and riveting snapshots of a revolution in the making.

The technology seems democratic in the extreme, proving as it does vexing if not impossible for authorities to counter or shutdown. As quickly as the police block one technological avenue, protesters open another, moving from house to house, computer to computer, roof top to roof top. They strip phones of sim cards to avoid betraying friends and supporters if arrested, but then use the phones to take photos, record video, and transmit the images via Bluetooth or USB cable. Once the pictures hit the internet, they're essentially irrepressible. Remove one video from online, someone else re-posts it. Meanwhile, supporters across the globe chime in with encouraging messages, disseminate ("retweet") information and updates, such as the names of embassies who are taking in wounded, and change their Twitter time zones and locations to Iran's to confuse security forces. Proxies and servers are set up, to replace those shut down by the authorities.

And now, as a direct result of this technology, the revolution has a martyr. Neda Soltani, 26, was tragically murdered on Saturday. Within minutes, a video showing her death--filmed on a cell phone and transmitted to an Iranian asylum-seeker in the Netherlands--raced virally across the internet and throughout the world.

Without the new technology, it's likely that Neda's death would have had little impact beyond her immediate friends and family. With it, she has become a galvanizing and powerful symbol.

I heard about her death first on Saturday morning my time via Twitter, and initially regarded the story with skepticism. The next day, I saw what I thought was the complete video. Therefore yesterday, when I was surfing for news and saw a link, I clicked and hit play, thinking to watch it again. Only to realize, too late, that I hadn't seen the entire video.

It's very short--11 seconds?--and absolutely gut wrenching. I wish I hadn't watched it. It has haunted me ever since.

As much death as I've seen, and for an American my age it is a lot, I'd never before seen the instant when a person goes from living to...not. Neda's eyes, as she lays on her back on the street, blood pooling under her, are panicked, then suddenly, there's nothing. They're blank. An instant later, blood pours from her mouth. It's horrifying. Especially to see someone so young and full of promise die so violently, tragically, and--in many regards--needlessly. What? So a cabal of scared, old, superstitious men can try desperately to retain their grasp on power and wealth?!

It is no wonder that her death has galvanized the world, as well as the resistance movement in Iran. The death of this gifted, beautiful, idealistic, and beloved daughter, cut down in her prime and broadcast across the globe, has ensured that the days of the current Iranian regime are numbered. Some 70% of Iran's population is under the age of 30. The government of such a democratcally-minded people simply cannot commit an atrocity of such magnitude on camera and survive. Their demise may take weeks or months, maybe even years, to play out--although I doubt it. And who knows how many more innocent lives will be prematurely ended.

But the cabal has lost.

The Roman Catholic Church says marital fidelity and sexual abstinence are the best way to prevent the spread of HIV.

But France, echoing the reaction of some aid agencies, said it "voices extremely sharp concern over the consequences of [the Pope's comments]".

"While it is not up to us to pass judgment on Church doctrine, we consider that such comments are a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life," foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.

Thank goodness someone responded!!! How many people have died worldwide, do you think, as a direct result of the Catholic Church's opposition to condom use?

Following his second unsuccessful attempt to join the Spanish Armed forces on Tuesday this week, 28 year old transsexual Aitor G.R from Jaén, is now celebrating the news from the Ministry for Defense that they are currently completing the revision of the legislation of medical exclusions, under which Aitor was rejected because of his lack of a penis or testicles.

A ministry spokesman said that as soon as the new guidelines are announced, from the very same day candidates who lack a penis would be accepted.

Now, as a pacifist, I'd prefer to see progress in areas other than a society's ability to wage war. Nevertheless, even I will admit that this represents progress I never expected to see in my lifetime--much less, in Catholic Spain!

A quote from another story makes a humorous, but very appropriate point:

'I want to be a soldier, not a porn star', he said determined to make it clear he does not need a member to serve Spain.

The United States stands alone among modern western nations in that roughly half its adult population still disbelieves in the theory of evolution.

In case you are one of the many who don't realize that the word "theory" in this context does not convey uncertainty, let me clarify. In a scientific context, "theory" refers to an explanation or prediction based on a body of evidence that is under scientific examination. It can be a new theory with weak supporting evidence that is eventually discredited; or, as in the case of evolution, a theory that is firmly established by two centuries of investigation, experimentation, and supporting evidence.

But not half of American adults. Unsurprisingly, the percentage is even higher among religious fundamentalists, a portion of whom believe the Earth and humanity are between six and ten thousand years old. Scientists, on the other hand, date the Earth at approximately 4.5 billion years old, with life having its origins about 2.5 billion years ago, and modern humans approximately 200,000 years ago. Among believers in a "young Earth," are Americans who also believe that humans walked the planet with dinosaurs. Among them are fellow voting American citizens who actually believe dinosaurs still live: and I don't mean in the evolved form of birds.

Meet "Dr." Richard Paley of [Mt.] Fellowship [Baptist] University Theobiology Department. (Hat-tip to Crooks & Liars.) Dr. Paley is so certain that Apatosaurs, Plesiosaurs, Pterosaurs, and Velociraptors (yes, as in "Jurassic Park") still walk the planet that he's putting together an expedition to Africa to bring back "living specimens of pterosaurs or their fertile eggs," to display "in a Pterosaur Rookery that will be the center piece of the planned Fellowship Creation Science Museum and Research Institute (FCSMRI)."

Deep breath... OK. Paley and his co-religionists represent a wingnut fringe in America. Among them are those who brought us Proposition 8 in California and anti-LGBT legislation across the states. That a single, functioning adult can believe in the pablum some of these folks do is astonishing; Mt. Fellowship Baptist Church has a congregation full of believers. And while their website is either accidentally or intentionally guarded as to where they are geographically located, they could be anywhere in America. San Diego County, for that matter, has a "Creation Museum."

How can the US hope to contend with an ever more technologically complicated and competitive world when more Americans believe in the existence of angels than do in evolution?

How can we hope to pull ourselves out of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression when our elected representatives and mainstream media have allowed the conservative purveyors of the failed economic policies that got us here in the first place have a large role in writing the legislation to ostensibly reverse the catastrophe?

Far too many Americans are scientifically illiterate, unable to identify fallacious and/or illogical arguments, and woefully ignorant of history, geography, simple mathematics, current events, the fundamentals of our Constitution, and the basic structure of our government. Our corporate-controlled media, attentive to right-wing demagogues and dominated by Republicans and their talking points, panders to and perpetuates this ignorance.

Is it any wonder, then, that the repudiated Republican minority has determined the public discourse over the two-week debate on economics and Obama's stimulus package?! That they are now obstructing and rewriting that legislation in a form that Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman fears will render it too little, too late?

If people believe in living pterosaurs--and angels!--then why not believe that further tax cuts will reverse our economic collapse?

Charles Darwin must be rolling in his grave.

POPE Benedict XVI has denounced gender theory, warning that it blurs the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.

When the Roman Catholic Church defends God's Creation, "it does not only defend the earth, water and the air ... but (it) also protects man from his own destruction'', the Pope said in his end-of-year speech to the Vatican hierarchy today.

Gender theory, which originated in the United States, explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to individuals according to their gender and how people perceive their biological identity.

The Catholic Church has repeatedly spoken out against gender theory, which gay and transgender advocacy groups promote as a key to understanding and tolerance.

"If tropical forests deserve our protection, humankind ... deserves it no less,'' the 81-year-old pontiff said, calling for "an ecology of the human being''.

Wow. After reading that, I felt very powerful--for all of about 10 seconds. Then I remembered: it's LGBTQ folks who are being viciously murdered with shocking regularity in streets and alleyways throughout the world. It's LGBTQ folks who face the death penalty in Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, U.A.E., Sudan, Afghanistan, and parts of Nigeria, and life in prison in Uganda, India, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Singapore (and several other countries).

These deplorable measures against LGBTQ people are the direct result of the ignorant, bigoted, and hostile statements made by this pope and other very powerful religious leaders throughout the world who understand that Feminism and Gender Studies undermine their patriarchal authority and the stranglehold that their backward-looking religions hold on humanity.

So, yes, we definitely threaten the ongoing survival of their insular, reactionary, and patriarchal worlds.

On the other hand, LGBTQ folks and the Gender Theory that underlies our movement open the door to a better, more egalitarian, socially just ,and environmentally sustainable world for the rest of humanity.

And one more thing. Am I the only person who sees the irony that the leader of the largest Christian church in the world that stands militantly against birth-control and a woman's right to choose--even as the human population nears 7 billion, straining the limits of the Earth's carrying capacity--accuses the LGBT community of threatening humanity's survival?!

Puhleese. The pope really needs a reality check.

Regarding the first point, as much as I support equal rights, I have been disturbed by the prominence that marriage has assumed in our movement, to the exclusion of all other issues, including the idea of equal rights for queers and straights who decline to marry.

"Gay marriage" turns the real issues of equal rights for sexual minorities upside down and paints us into a reactionary little corner of our own making. Yes, married people get special privileges denied to others. Denied not to just gays and lesbians, but to all others. Millions of straight people remain unmarried, and for a huge variety of reasons, from mothers whose support networks do not include their children's fathers, to hipsters who can't relate to religious institutions. We could be making common cause with them. We could be fighting for equal rights for everyone, not just gays and lesbians, but for all unmarried people. In the process we would leave religious institutions to define marriage however their members see fit.

That's how you win at politics, isn't it? You build principled coalitions that add up to a majority, and try not to hand potent mobilizing issues to your opposition in the process.

We have done the opposite. Instead of tearing down the walls of privilege enjoyed by the nuclear family, we are demanding our own place at the married couples' table (leaving all those other unmarried people out in the cold).

I know the idea of gay liberation is ancient by today's standards, but it wasn't so long ago that a lot of gay and lesbian activism began from the premise that the queer perspective was one that could offer a particular contribution to a more just society as a whole. My how times change.

Indeed. Why should people have to marry to attain immigration rights, health insurance, lower tax rates, the right to visit a loved one in the hospital, or basic recognition of their relationships? Ostertag adds that in the end, most of us won't marry even if we have the right to; and of those who do, divorce rates are already high.

It IS interesting , isn't it, that we're putting so many eggs into the basket of an institution in historical crisis?

Arguing thusly, Ostertag is far from alone in the LGBT community. Where he really deviates is when it comes to Rick Warren. Ostertag disagrees with Warren on many points, including the existence of hell and the idea that a divine being sent his only son down to Earth 2000 years ago to save humanity.

When it comes to Warren's position on lesbians and gays, however, Ostertag seems to be saying that focusing on MARRIAGE to the exclusion of everything else distorts the improvement Warren actually represents in the evangelical movement. Ostertag quotes more extensively from the interview in which Warren infamously compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia. From that interview:

Q: Which do you think is a greater threat to the American family - divorce or gay marriage?

A: [laughs] That's a no brainer. Divorce. There's no doubt about it.

Q: So why do we hear so much more - especially from religious conservatives - about gay marriage than about divorce?

A: Oh we always love to talk about other sins more than ours. Why do we hear more about drug use than about being overweight? [Note: Warren is quite overweight.]

Q: Just to clarify, do you support civil unions or domestic partnerships?

A: I don't know if I'd use the term there but I support full equal rights for everybody in America. I don't believe we should have unequal rights depending on particular lifestyles so I fully support equal rights.

Q: What about partnership benefits in terms of insurance or hospital visitation?

A: You know, not a problem with me.

Ok. Warren uses the noxious buzzword, "lifestyles," and equates our existence with sin. Blagh. Still, considering Warren's earlier bluntness, it seems we can take him at his word when he states that if we call our legal relationships "civil unions," he will support them. "Separate but equal," in my book, IS unequal. On the other hand, Warren's position is an improvement on earlier evangelicals in that he is publicly stating he supports equal rights of a sort for gays and lesbians.

And this is the heart of Ostertag's argument. He says that Warren is the emerging face of America's evangelical movement (80 million strong and growing) and as such, is an improvement over the old face. Warren recognizes the human agency and urgent nature of global climate change--a critical issue today that, IMO, surpasses in importance same-sex marriage. Further, and this is something I didn't know, Warren "reverse tithes," giving away 90% of his income to causes like poverty and AIDS, while keeping 10%.

How many gay men or lesbians do you know who give 90% of their income to fighting AIDS? Or poverty?

Ostertag ends by saying:

I am delighted that there is a new generation of evangelicals that thinks the biggest issue isn't homosexuality but global climate change, AIDS, and poverty. And who "don't believe we should have unequal rights depending on particular lifestyles." I am so ready to make common cause with them. I couldn't care less about what they think of gay marriage.

Prior to this move, Brown had publicly stated he would uphold Prop 8. Attorneys general are expected to enforce and defend state laws unless they have a strong reason not to. The fact that Brown has taken this high-profile and very political step indicates that he and his team of attorneys are confident they stand on strong legal ground and can defend their position.

In another surprise, Brown did not argue against Prop 8 by saying that the ballot measure was a constitutional revision--which would have thus required the support of two-thirds (instead of a simple majority) of the electorate to pass. Rather, Brown took a totally different legal tact by arguing that Prop. 8 conflicts with the State Constitution's Declaration of Rights, the basic guarantees of liberty declared in the document's first sentences.

But in a lengthy filing late Friday, [Brown] argued that the measure was "inconsistent with the guarantees of individual liberty" in California's governing charter.

"Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification," Brown said.

The authors of the state Constitution, he said, did not intend "to put a group's right to enjoy liberty to a popular vote."

...

We have a conflict between the amendment power (through voter initiatives) and the duty of the Supreme Court to protect minorities and safeguard liberty," Brown said.

Fundamental rights in the state Constitution, including the right to marry that the state's high court has recognized, "become a dead letter if they can just be amended" by popular vote, Brown said.

Brown's action came only hours after Kenneth Starr, notorious former Whitewater special prosecutor and current dean of (Christian) Pepperdine University law school, filed a brief for Prop 8 proponents seeking to invalidate the roughly 18,000 same-sex weddings that have been performed in the state.

Now, we knew they would probably do this. Nonetheless, the cold-hearted meanness of it takes my breath away. One of my straight friends who happens to be an attorney, upon hearing that Prop 8 proponents were seeking to invalidate marriages already made, exclaimed, "Now, that was a huge mistake," recognizing that, 1) legally, the proposition's wording said absolutely nothing about invalidating legal marriages, and 2) that such cold-heartedness would lose them a lot of former supporters.

Oh boy. This is going to get ugly.

The Equality Authority's CEO, Niall Crowley, resigned in protest his week. Quite a courageous act in this frightening economy.

Equality groups today described the resignation of the Equality Authority chief executive as a principled and courageous step.

Niall Crowley resigned after saying the organisation has been made unviable by the extent of cuts to its budget, and the Government's insistence on the decentralisation of most of its remaining staff.

In a statement today, the Equality & Rights Alliance (ERA), a coalition of 71 civil society organisations, said it admired and supported the stance taken by Mr Crowley in stepping down.

The alliance added it "deeply regretted" Mr Crowley "had been forced into this position because of the budget actions which had effectively rendered the Equality Authority unviable".

Niall is a great guy. I worked with him and others in Dublin on a 10,000 Euro project to educate Irish general practitioners about transsexuality.

One of my best friends in Ireland works at the EA. I just emailed him to see if his job is secure, given such a drastic budget cut.

This is so sad. And infuriating! It makes me despise Bush, conservatives in general, and Wall Street investment banks in particular. The former's lack of oversight and latter's greed brought about this calamity of a worldwide recession. And I fear that the Equality Authority's 43% budget cut is just the beginning. Watch: conservative governments will use the excuse of the financial collapse to de-fund progressive agencies throughout the world.

Here's a Facebook group to suport Crowley.

At the same time that Barack Obama's amazing victory was being proclaimed, it become clear that Proposition 8 was headed to victory. Bigotry went down to defeat on one front even as it triumphed on another. I drifted off to sleep listening to election coverage around 1:00 a.m., and I deliberately did not try to find out the latest Prop 8 figures, holding on to hope that it might still lose when San Francisco and Los Angeles precincts were finally tallied.

I woke up this morning to the devastating news: with 95% of votes counted, a historically high turnout of California voters, by a margin of approximately 4-6 percent, chose to stick it to the LGBT community.

If this is "fine," what is "not fine?" Is what they're saying code for, "We'll agree most of the time not to throw you in jail or lynch you for being gay, and you should damned well be grateful, because that's all you're going to get. Oh, and don't forget, you're going to burn in hell"?

I am so angry! And also sick at heart. I can try to console myself by saying that these selfish, ignorant bigots are fighting the tide of history--after all, we now live in a world where Catholic Spain, fer crissakes, has same-sex marriage. And I can hope that the proposition will be challenged in the Federal Supreme Court--where, with a President Obama in office, we have a chance to win we wouldn't have if McCain had won and been set to chose replacements for Ruth Bader Ginsberg, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter.

But for some reason, these thoughts are not comforting me this morning. I look out my living-room window and see the "Yes on 8" sign on my neighbor's balcony across the street, and it feels so damned personal. "What's the matter with you?!" I want to shout. "Why are you so incredibly selfish, hateful and ignorant?"

It's ironic that this "f**k you," from 52% of California voters comes when I'm taking the next three days off from work to hang out with my daughter, visiting from where she lives in France. LGBTQ folks will NOT quit loving, having and adopting children, and forming long-lasting, strong, and healthy families. It's just that we will do so while paying taxes for benefits we never receive, subject to laws which treat us more harshly than our straight neighbors, and reviled and targeted by some of those very same neighbors who, illogically, regard us and our families as the threats.

One in six Irish workers will take tomorrow off work to follow the overnight voting in the US election, a survey claimed today.

The study by employment law firm Peninsula Ireland also found that half of all bosses are worried that more staff will call in sick.

It's no wonder that the average Dublin taxi driver knows more about U.S. politics than many American college graduates.