Archive for June 13th, 2006

13
Jun

parents can be amazing

By vegankid 5 Comments
Categories: gender & sex and youth

This morning i had a pretty big discussion with my mom. I first shared with my mom my transgendered identity a few years ago. It sorta just came out in a slightly heated discussion about another trans friend whom my mom just couldn’t seem to accept as a he. I kinda just exploded, “WELL, I’M TRANS!” She already knew that i identified as Queer, i told her that five years ago… she cried.

But after she cried, she came to me and said that she had no problem with me being Queer, she was just afraid of all the horrible things that happen to Queer people. Basically, she was afraid that i was going to be killed. She also said that she already knew (and i knew she knew because i knew that she read my diary in high school) and that she had suspected it since i was very young. Yet we never talked about it. And even though she knew i was Queer, the threat of me being in physical danger didn’t come into play until i actually said i Queer. Why is that? Are those that are willing to kill someone who is Queer really going to verify their accusations or are they simply going to see someone who doesn’t quite fit into those male/female heterosexual boxes and feel the need to injure them? Anyway, i digress… greatly.

When i told my mom that i was trans, she just got real quiet. And all of a sudden she started getting my friend’s pronouns right. We talked a little bit about my identity, but for the most part it was just a topic that we didn’t discuss. My mom didn’t really understand it, but she was willing and able to accept it. And that’s all i really asked. While it was in the theatre, she watched the movie Trans America. After watching it, she called me up and said, “Now i understand.” This time it was me who cried. I hadn’t seen the movie yet, but you better believe i did the day it came out on video. I’m not real sure what it was about that movie that made my mom finally get it, but she did. And that’s amazing.

So back to our big discussion. I broke it to my mom this morning that i want to have bottom surgery (i’ve known this for awhile). My mom can’t understand why i would put something so permanent as tattoos on my body (and frequently offers to have them removed). So i wasn’t sure how she would handle me wanting such a surgery. My mom seems to be able to handle the idea of top surgery (i only assume that its because she had a breast reduction and so many of our family and her friends have had masectomies to remove cancer), but she said she didn’t understand why i wanted bottom surgery.

“But you said you understood the womyn in Trans America,” i retorted. “How is this different?”

My mom replied, “yes, but that’s because she identified as a womyn.” What my mom was referring to was the fact that she didn’t know why i would want to have surgery as a genderqueer. This is common. And when i first came out at genderqueer i was the militant sort who said i would never inject hormones to have surgery. I was just trying to deny my feelings (i’m good at that). While my good friends (trans or not) understand why i would be a genderqueer on hormones, many others just don’t get it. I don’t really know if i can explain it, but i also don’t really feel the need to explain myself. Perhaps one day in another post.

“It sounds more like you are transsexual than transgendered,” said my mom. She’s learned a lot over the years, since befriending a transwomyn and some butch lesbians.

“I am transsexual.” I said. Oops, must have left that one out before:)

Her attitude shifted dramatically and all of a sudden she seemed to get it. I felt like i was missing something. Why is it understandable that a genderqueer transsexual would want surgery, but not if a transgendered genderqueer does. I attributed to my mom attaching certain definitions to the words that i was not implying. Regardless, it was nice to get it off my chest. Geez, no fucking pun intended, i swear.

In sorta related news, while reading the Big Queer Blog yesterday, i learned of this story in the Village Voice about a five-year-old transgirl in Broward County, Florida. The story is just amazing. Talk about some unconditionally loving parents! Nicole, the transgirl, is the youngest of four children. Her parents don’t seem to completely understand transgender identity (as her mom commonly refers to her as “he”), but Nicole so completely identifies as a girl that the parents have decided to support her (why is supporting your kids such a radical notion?). She has apparently been insisting that she is a girl since she was old enough to talk. “As a young toddler, he wouldn’t let me snap her onesies together because she wanted to wear a ‘dwess’ like his sister,” Lauren (the mom) says. Notice the way she goes from he to her to she to his? Fascinating!

Not only do they allow her to dress, play, and act “like a girl”, but the family is enrolling her into kindergarten this year as a female. Not an easy task. “When Zachary Lipscomb’s parents attempted to enroll him as a girl named Aurora in an Ohio school at age six, a state child protection agency took the child away,” states the Village Voice. But the Andersens (not their real name) are prepared to fight and to win.

That decision has rallied much support for the family’s side. There’s attorney Karen Doering of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, for example, who represented Michael Kantaras, a female-to-male transsexual, in a widely publicized 2004 victorious custody battle in the Florida Supreme Court. Kantaras, who won joint custody of his two children when the court ruled that his parental rights were not nullified by his sex change, was the first transsexual parent to win such a high-profile victory. Doering is advising the Andersons as they wait to hear from school officials, who so far have given no indication of how they plan to prepare for Nicole’s enrollment.

And that’s where Nicole’s story veers even further from the ordinary. Because trying to pressure school officials to address the Andersons’ concerns is a person who could be either a big help or a big distraction.

Mark Angelo Cummings, a man who once was a woman, has become something of a Spanish-language television talk-show phenomenon. Cummings’s outspoken appearances, which have wowed Latino TV hosts with stories of his transformation, are leading to a new openness about transsexuality in the Latino community. And Cummings plans to use his celebrity, such as it is, to promote Nicole’s cause.

I’m not sure what the Village Voice means when they say that Mark Angelo Cummings could be a big distraction, but its nice to see such heavy hitters on the kid’s side. But also on her side is a coalition of therapists, scientists, and activists who are insisting that children as young as three are capable of identifying as transgendered and that such identity and behavior should not be discouraged (just.fucking.wow).

I knew such a kid at the preschool where i worked until my recent move. The child was assigned male, but COMPLETELY identifies as a female. Despite the fact that her parents literally try to beat and yell it our of her, she continues to insist that she is a girl. She does not second guess when the girls are called to line up and she joins them. It makes no sense to her why she would line up with the boys (boys are icky). If you try to insist that she line up with the boys (as some teachers will still try occassionally… though most have been very supportive of her - they simply believe that she’s an effiminate gay boy), she looks at you like your crazy, puts one hand on the hip, uses the other to snap in your face, gives a little ‘hm’ and a head wiggle and then turns away (its really cute). I think she’s assumed to be gay (amongst the teachers) because she gets crushes on boys. Oh, she just turned four.

It saddens me to think about the abuse that this child receives because of her gender identity and about Aurora being taken from her parents at the age of six, but to hear about Nicole’s family and their complete love and support, i can’t help but feel a great amount of hope. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re getting there in leaps and bounds.

13
Jun

the assault on dissent pt.1

By vegankid 2 Comments
Categories: assault on dissent, environment, politics and prisoners

Inspired by brownfemipower’s series, The Nation/State and Violence Against Women, i’ve decided to start up a series call The Assault on Dissent, where i will republish articles, pictures, posts and whatever else i feel highlights the assault on dissent in the US (perhaps other places, but i will focus on where i live). For this first post, i figured i’d give some more background info on the case of Daniel McGowan (since i reference him so much:).

Government Charges Local Man As Eco-Terrorist
by Eleanor Bader
The Brooklyn Rail

Ask his friends, and they’ll tell you that Daniel McGowan is funny, generous, loyal, and kind, the type of guy people are immediately drawn to. But ask Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the FBI, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and they’ll tell you that McGowan is an eco-saboteur, a domestic terrorist who deserves no less than life in prison.

This disparity came to a head in December 2005, when police charged into McGowan’s Brooklyn workplace, WomensLaw.org, which runs a website providing easy-to-read resources to women on the run or contemplating leaving an abusive partner, and arrested him.

McGowan was one of 14 people apprehended between December and March 2006 as part of Operation Backfire. All were indicted on federal charges of arson, property destruction, and conspiracy. The charges against McGowan—which he denies—stem from two 2001 arsons, one at the Superior Lumber Company in Glendale, Oregon and the other at Jefferson Poplar Farms outside of Portland. No one was injured in either blaze. The Earth Liberation Front, a decentralized underground movement that boasts of using “direct action to sabotage corporations and government agencies that profit from the destruction of the natural environment,” took credit for them.

In announcing the indictments, Alberto Gonzalez told the press that the 14 activists “constructed incendiary devices…to destroy buildings, vehicles, and other targets chosen to harm the government, disrupt the public, and strike at the economic well-being of states, governments, and private property.”

If convicted, McGowan will face a mandatory life sentence, without the possibility of parole, the longest incarceration for a victimless act of sabotage in U.S. history.

One of his attorneys, Amanda Lee, calls this “very troubling. Ahmed Ressam, the Millenium Bomber, had a truckload of explosives and was planning an action at Los Angeles International Airport. He got 22 years when he was sentenced in 2005. There is a vast difference in how the government has approached the international terrorism cases it calls its highest priority, and these cases in which no one was injured.”

McGowan, whose website describes him as an environmental and social justice activist, got involved in politics as a student at SUNY-Buffalo. Following graduation, he traveled to Thailand, then spent four years working in the Pacific Northwest. McGowan returned to New York in 2002; at the time of his arrest he was enrolled in the Tri-State College of Acupuncture. The 32-year-old Queens native is presently under house arrest—he was released on $1.6 million bond in January and is allowed outside only to see his pre-trial officer. He is still employed by WomensLaw.org and lives with his girlfriend, sister, brother-in-law, and niece. Although he has been advised not to speak to the press pending trial, his Kafkaesque case has garnered supporters the world over.

Ryan, who asked that his surname not be disclosed, met McGowan in the summer of 2003, shortly after Republican leaders announced plans to hold their 2004 national convention in New York City. “A few friends started the NO RNC Poster Project, which later evolved into Visual Resistance, to organize an artistic response to the convention,” he says. “Daniel was our first and most consistent supporter. He was involved in a group working against the RNC and gave us financial and logistical help.”

When Ryan learned of McGowan’s arrest, his initial reaction was paranoia. “The arrest came out of nowhere. You can’t help but think, ‘why not me?’ I’ve never done anything I consider wrong, but who knows what the government will think. We know that the NSA is spying on everyone, monitoring phone calls and e-mails. They can say you were in the same place as someone, or on a list serve with someone. These actions make people scared to do anything, to even sign a petition, let alone take to the streets.”

While Ryan’s initial fears have abated—he is currently working with other members of Visual Resistance to organize an art auction to benefit McGowan—he remains conscious of the political climate. “The government is prosecuting people for their politics, trying to drive a wedge between radicals and moderates and trying to scare us.” Worse, he adds, the indictments tie people up in court battles so that they have less time for activism.

Like Ryan, Angela Coppola met McGowan shortly before the RNC Convention at a meeting to plan protest activities. They became fast friends. After the convention, she says, Daniel turned his attention to Jeff Luers, an environmental activist sentenced tomore than 22 years in the Oregon State Penitentiary. Luers was convicted after admitting that he torched three SUV’s in 2000. “No matter what you think of what Jeff did, his sentence is absurd,” says Coppola. “He was sentenced on political grounds. Before his arrest, Daniel hounded Amnesty International to work on Jeff’s case. He wrote to Jeff every single week. Daniel opened my eyes to the issue of political prisoners.”

Amanda Lee sees her client’s arrest as “a public relations tactic. The government can appear to be tough on terrorism, to give the public a sense of comfort…A lot of people think that the government is trying to shut down animal rights and environmental activists. It could be true.”
While the government is not required to make its witnesses available for depositions before trial, they do have to turn over certain evidence, and Lee and co-counsel Jeff Robinson are conducting an independent investigation of these documents to piece together what happened in Oregon. “The government is required to turn over statements of witnesses, recordings, videos if they have them, phone records and wiretap reports before we go into the courtroom,” Lee says. “They’ve given us a massive amount of stuff already.”

After everything has been reviewed, but before the trial begins—it is set for October 31 but is likely to be adjourned—substantive legal motions will be submitted to the court. “We’ve been assigned a very accomplished federal judge, Ann Aiken, and she appears to be fair, balanced, and knowledgeable. She takes the case seriously,” Lee says. If the charges are not dismissed as a result of the attorneys’ motions, a jury will be selected and Lee expects the trial to run a minimum of six weeks.

Lee cannot discuss the evidence against McGowan but his supporters believe that the only “proof” the government has is testimony from a known heroin addict who wore a wire to record conversations with him. He reportedly discussed the fact that McGowan traveled to Canada in the months following the arsons, something supporters say is irrelevant. McGowan, they say, simply went north to visit friends. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for information.

Meanwhile, a committee of McGowan’s supporters is working tirelessly to publicize the indictment, raise funds for his attorneys, and support the other environmentalists who have been charged.

“These very dramatic incidents end up being reduced to clichés,” says McGowan’s friend, Angela Coppola. “When Daniel was arrested my blood really ran cold. I was raised to value people who build community, who have a sense of humor and are kind, caring, and great communicators. Daniel is that kind of person. He’s got an incredible mind and is passionate about what he believes in. He’s very special and the outpouring of support he’s received bears that out.”

Visual Resistance member Ryan agrees. “We were scared for a few months,” he admits. “But we know how to organize and we know how to fight. The government found a high-profile activist and decided to get him. Who knows how they pick who they pick? All I know is we have no choice but to defend our friend.”

Visual Resistance will hold a benefit for McGowan on July 27+ 28 at ABC No Rio, 156 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side. For more information contact visualresistance@gmail.com.
To get involved in McGowan’s defense committee, contact www.supportdaniel.org.

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