Unfortunately humanity is not done with witch hunts!
Category Archives: Marginal Media/Videos
I hope this section to be a place were new media portraying, addressing, or giving voice to people in the margins can be shared.
EQUALITY is HERE a reflection during the first day after DOMA and Pro8 being struck down
I have been walking around today feeling elated and overwhelmed. I have been searching people’s faces for recognition of the change that has just occurred. The change that effects all citizens, in the state and in the world. Granted the people I walking through and around have generally been part of two groups, the citizens of the Tenderloin neighborhood, and the tourists of the shopping district. I have not found a lot of recognition. Some acknowledging my perceived sexuality because of my rainbow bow tie, Tenderloinians and tourists alike. There have been a few with an extra looks that hold that excitement in their eyes and mirror it from mine. We’ve had a shared acknowledgement of a historical moment furthering human rights.
I have also been feeling antsy all day. I am currently in a summer conference which is amazing but confining. So for lunch I sought sunshine, I sought fresh air, I wanted to bask in CALIFORNIA, in the NEW CALIFORNIA. To see how it feels to walk around and know that I am equal, to you, and you, and you, and you! I have to say it feels fantastic!! I simultaneously feel like sticking my tongue out and high fiving anyone and everyone!
While I was eating lunch, a twenty something male approached me to ask if I knew what was happening with the band in Union Square, close to where I was eating lunch. I told him, I am not sure why they are there and whether or not it is related to the Supreme Court Rulings today. He asked, “oh, the Texas thing?” No, new acquaintance, they are not playing music about the women’s rights in Texas which is an immeasurable failure. “Ohhhhh, the GAY THING!” Yes, dude, “the GAY thing!”
THE GAY THING.
The GAY thing.
THE gay thing.
The gay THING?
What does that even mean? First of all, we are not A GAY, we are not a THING! This is not just tax law…this is about HUMANS and whether or not they are treated equally in terms of legal, human rights. He didn’t mean in an inherently negative way, but the thought process that placed me and my rights as a “thing” separately from him, as a self identified straight cisgendered human, who already has his rights, is a negative thing. It was a major red flag and marker of the work that still needs to be done to place The Gays (actually meaning LGBTQQII humans) at an equal level in the minds of those that perceive themselves to be part of the mainstream. At the risk of stating the obvious, I would venture to guess that most straight people, in the US and overall have had interactions with people who are part of the LGBTQQII community. It is not always visible. Just like many possibly marginalizing traits of humans, like mental illness, some physical challenges, health challenges, being A Gay is not always readable without explicitly asking questions.
I asked the young man is he identified as a male identified heterosexual, just to be clear, and he asked my identification. He then asked my who in my relationship holds the masculine. This is automatically problematic because he is functioning from a completely outdated model of gender roles and energy. I answered the question in term that he would understand, but this points very clearly to the need continue expanding the boundaries of the gender definitions and gender continuum.
There are many reasons why this automatic separation is worrisome. One of my favorites is, as stated by one of my favorite characters, “Well, people are usually straight until they’re not.” Period. This could affect you new acquaintance, or your brother or sister, or mom, or dad, or anyone in your life, and it would no longer be A Gay Thing, it would be a YOU thing. Second, any law that equalizes laws for one group, is a step equalizing law for all groups. Understandably the separation that is maintained by a straight male from the Gay Thing is maintaining ones self perceived higher status in power, rights, and humanness.
To recognize that one is equal to a minority group is to recognize vulnerability to discrimination, which is vulnerability to a lessening of power and self perceived status.
So I appreciate this reality check, while I was previously aware of the need for continued work, this was unavoidable example. I will remain on my pink cloud for the moment, by choice, but I will hold within that there is much work still to be done in the perception of equality and gender, about and within the LGBTQQII community, and all marginalized groups.
-CEG
Anxious about EQUALITY
I woke up this morning with a feeling of anxiety in my stomach, it was a combination of cautious hopefulness and dread. I feel in a surreal state of being, this feeling spread to my chest and coated the underside of my ribs where it has stayed the entire day.
The political decision that the court will make tomorrow at 10am has put me in this state. I have sensation because of my having finally entered in to a political consciousness. As a young person I was so concerned with my own survival and then my own reprocessing and growth from that survival that it took me much effort to expand my true consciousness to politics.
It truly is surreal to realize that there are other humans, whom I and most others this ruling will affect will never meet, in a room I have never and likely never will see, that will decide the possibility of my fate. They will make a LEGAL RULING that will declare whether or not I am treated equally in my state. It is one of the most intense sensations I have felt in my life. It is more intense to me than the first passing of California marriage equality simply because I was too narcissistic and shameful about myself to feel it. Now I am out and proud and have participated in advocacy for marginalized people. I have seen how legislation changes culture and culture changes legislation. I have seen and touched the differences that laws make in the every day lives of people. Here is one that is affecting the path my life can take. Actually it is offering the possibility of a new path my life could take, a path that had been blocked to me. I had decided since a young age that I would live my life the way I wanted despite the laws that make strong suggestions in a certain direction. I reaffirmed this in myself when I finally came out as gay, that I would live my life to fit my inner being, not the outer expectations. But this is something that can affect the number of choices I have in that life. This will legally declare equality.
This will declare legal equality.
This will make legal equality LAW in my state.
This surreal sensation is multilayered. I am excited to be declared equal, so that no one in this state can tell me other wise, law is law. But there is challenge in being place side by side those that discriminated you. Being placed next to the ones that considered you, “less than,” and called you “different but equal.”
A great weight has been lifted and a great responsibility has been granted.
There is certain strength and power to being in the margins. In a significant way, that will be relinquished tomorrow at 10am. I know this ruling is not a magic fairy wand that will fix all wrongs, but it is a grand jete over the rainbow!
Peace, Love, And Equality to All!
CG
Research just for [some of] US!
CARAS- Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities is dedicated to researching people who are considered participating in “alternative sex;” at this current time alternative sex refers to those in the BDSM communities, the LGBTQQI communities, polyamory, open relationships, and anyone who uses kink, fetish, and power dynamics, in their personal life and sexual life.
Because the genre of sex research is a young one and it was primarily focused on procreation trends, it therefore did not include the communities who were not having sex to bear children. This does not only include the communities I mentioned above, but also other minorities, the physically or mentally disabled, the elderly, and youth. These communities are just recently being researched. Why is researching these groups sex life so important? It is important because research that is published has a heavy effect on public opinions; historically research and medical opinions have shaped the mental health, medicine, and business fields, and shaped cultural opinions. These opinions, many time false or misquoted, continue pervasively to shape cultural perspectives that shape lives.
Here is a resource that is aiding in accurate information being published about some of us who have been neglected in research!
Go to C.A.R.A.S. here
Parents Who Are Doing it RIGHT! Human Rights that is!
Their transgender daughter is being discriminated but the whole school, but her parents are fighting back. Read about parents who believe a child has more insight and knowledge in to their own being then they do. These are parents who are truly demonstrating unconditional love, whether or not their children ‘follow in their footsteps.’ They are recognizing the individuality and right to self expression of their young child and are choosing to stand up for her rather then mold her to societies constraints and desires. That is love in action; read here
Social Security Removes Surgical Requirement for Gender Marker Change
Finally gender equality and privacy in social security! Read the long overdue story HERE & another insightful article HERE Thanks Obama:)
This step toward equality for transgender individuals is long overdue. Previously, transgender people required proof of surgical reassignment surgery in order to change their official gender withing the social security system. This was a gross violation of their human rights to privacy. Gender has more to do with their internal sense of knowledge and self then the body parts that are hanging, or not hanging off of them. This caused undue discrimination against people who for many varying reasons chose to not have any special surgery, either through cost constraints, or other personal reasons. Citizens who desire to change their gender and choose to go as far to change their documents, do not take the decision lightly. It is an extremely difficult endeavor to state to the world that the body you were born in to is does not match the internal state of gender identity in their mind. It is a struggle daily to wake up in a body that does not connect to the physical image one’s mind eye would like to feel. This process is not like changing someones name, which people can do and have done often with little reason. It is an intrinsic part of a person that requires sensitivity and some life altering, irreversible (for the most part) decisions, some that risk damaging their body to achieve their goals. So lifting the surgical requirement for gender change in the Social Security system will give those people who have not or do not wish to surgically alter their body at this point in time, but are 100% certain of their gender identity the right to have their documents match up with their self. So often societies feel that because people are on the margins of society, they have the rights to analyze and enter in to their private space more often in order to determine the level of acceptability they will assign to a specific action or way of being. This milestone says no to one violation, affording transgender people the privacy and discretion they deserve and all other citizens take for granted. To have the right to change ones gender in the Social Security system is a right that will save lives by aiding the reduction of discrimination caused by involuntarily exposing someones gender history.
This is another important step toward gender equality; to allow more people the possibility to become self actualized, which is the great goal of life.
Tears of Gaza
The film Tears of Gaza is a beautiful, true life film about one specific period, in 2008-9, in the never ending devastation of Gaza and Palestine. Through the use of multiple perspectives you are able to view the daily life and reality of the prisoners of the refugee camp known as Gaza. This film really helped me begin to understand the steadfastness that the people of Palestine feel against Israel. They are steadfast because they are subjected to daily, illogical, unprovoked, attacks and abuses. Children are arrested or shot in the head by Israeli soldiers for throwing rocks. Chemical weapons are used to debilitate entire houses full of people, not just for the day, but for their entire lives. This is done to them by a group of people who moved on to someone else’s land and are not attempting to find a middle ground. I know it was not only the Israeli’s who carried out the settlement, it was a great complicated web of decisions by larger powers, but the Israeli government is continuing its was crimes against Palestine even with those powers now encouraging them to stop. This film helps bring the reality that media and the cultural powers ignore.
Being gay in Egypt
There is a tremendous amount of risk being openly gay in most countries, but exponentially more in some. One of the most romatacized countries from the eyes of US Americans, Jamaica, is one of the most deadly places for queer people. This so called paradise is a place of execution if alternate sexualities are revealed. The middle east, is another region that is extremely dangerous to be openly queer. People are stripped of their dignity, social standing, excommunicated from their family and religion, and often killed. There is blame upon the queer person that they chose their orientation and a mentality, that it is a life event that created this, so it may be able to be undone. In an article I found on OUTIMPACT.COM, a young Muslim man from Egypt writes about being gay. He states that the gay culture moves just beneath the surface of mainstream culture, just as many marginalized groups feel they do. The suffering of the oppressed and shamed is always present in a culture, the racism, homeless, jobless, and sexual minorities.
He used to belong to the group Muslim Brotherhood, who has a tumultuous and mixed infamous reputation, being a grouped that began with righteous ideals and has strayed too far in to the dark of politics, What is Muslim Brotherhood, CNN; Muslim Brotherhood English website
The young man speaks about how he has been coached by his THERAPIST to not tell his family. Something that is unusual in this country, at least usually in the US we have a goal to eventually come out to our families. He has been told to keep it under wraps, “because there is a chance it may change,” and he doesn’t want to be ostracized from his family. He believes that he is gay because of the lack of a paternal figure in his life. On the same hand, he does not want to move to a place with greater freedom for homosexuals. He stands on the grounds that he should not be forced to leave the country he loves because he is gay.
I find this interview sad and haunting. His life is similar, yet so far away from the more privileged US gay rights movement. I know that being queer is still a danger in our society, resulting in beatings, and death, but we have more freedom. We have a GAy RIghts Movement. We are seen as humans and in general we believe we are born this way, and not thanks to Lady Gaga. We have parades and pride events. We build families and have lasting relationships, not just a shadow culture filled with insecurity and internal hate and prejudice. This young man believes it is his life experienced that shaped his sexuality, and that he may one day change. His culture has put the burden of his identity upon him. He is committing an ultimate sin against his culture and religion and it is his fault. He does not have a cultural movement around him to say, “no, you deserve rights, too! You are perfect just as you are!”
Read the interview and see the world from his eyes for just a moment…
Coach loves to hate
I will let this man speak for himself. He is well spoken, calm and eloquent. His elloquence brings more fear to my heart, that a well educated, and well spoken man can spew such golden covered hatred, its not surprising, i’m just used to hearing the rhetoric from politicians, not the everyday Joe. I wonder if he has forgotten that the bible he quotes for citing homosexuality as a sin has also been used to discriminate and enslave entire races of people, including his. It is always astonishing when human’s take the voice of God. He conveniently forgets the well known passage to love thy neighbor, and do unto other’s, as well as not using your own freedom to to harm; selective quotes and memory can be a sharp persuader.
In psychology, specifically Jungian psychology, we might ask him to examine what it is in his shadow Self that is causing such intense hatred. Humans see the things in others we dislike the most vehemently in ourselves. A lot of self reflection is necessary for a many who states peace but preaches hate.
http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/cornhuskers-coach-stands-by-his-discriminatory-views
Invisible Children
“INVISIBLE CHILDREN USES FILM, CREATIVITY AND SOCIAL ACTION TO END THE USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS IN JOSEPH KONY’S REBEL WAR AND RESTORE LRA-AFFECTED COMMUNITIES IN EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA TO PEACE AND PROSPERITY.”
Invisible Children, Film & Political Movement
This film is an attempt to bring attention and action against Joseph Kony and his Lords Resistance Army committing horrendous human rights violations in the countries of Uganda, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The LRA is in the practice of recruiting children to be child soldiers, believed to be between 60,000-100,000 recruited. The armed conflict has been occurring for twenty years. There is a history of the conflict on the website explaining how a group of rebels standing up for their own became the oppressors. The history of the conflict
Thanks to this movie, international efforts have been made to raise money and awareness and call upon the United Nations to take action. Technology and people have been banded together to create a system of tracking the movement of the Lords Resistance Army that is broadcast over radio to local towns in central Africa. This is meant to help inform the residents as soon as possible of the movements of the LRA to attempt to dimish the damage they cause, possibly giving people time to prepare and hide. LRA Tracker
Margins Of The Margins 