Politics of Change and Focus

Politics is a very dirty word and not just figuratively any more. We have all seen the polls out there that show that Republicans and conservatives are the favorite darlings in Americana and in the state of Ohio where I live. Just a little over a year ago the landscape looked vastly different and liberals, progressives and Democrats (myself included in this "mix") were celebrating the gains in the U.s. Senate and House and President’s historic election as this country’s first non white President. In Ohio seats were gained that shifted control of the house to a more progressive view. There was talk of HB 176 in Ohio which provides protections to those in the LGBT community against discrimination at work, in loans, in housing and public accommodations. At the national level excitement grew that we could realistically see serious reform to a health care system which is designed not to take care of people but to see that insurance companies makes billions of dollars. The largest turnout ever for NCTE’s lobby days occurred last spring on the belief that ENDA legislation was a real possibility. DADT could become history and we even thought we might see a few wins on the issue of same gender unions in some states although it was not going to be Ohio due to George W. Bush’s campaign team putting a constitutional issue on the ballot in 2004 so he could win re-election. All in all, it looked like some real progress for social justice and reform might actually be accomplished- something that has not happened since the 1960’s.

However, when President Obama entered office last January the winds of force began to change and change quickly. There are several factors for this phenomenon-not the least of which is the fact he is black and the boys with the white privilege began to feel threatened by the fact the President was not among “their crowd”. Secondly, the economy- thanks largely to the ineptitude and design of his predecessor, President Obama entered office with the fragile economy at its lowest point in a very long time and a bank crises and faltering stock market to boot. The Republicans, who under “W’ took the surplus that Clinton had left and spent it and then some to the tune of 6 million dollars then tried to blame it all on the “liberal Democrats” as they always sing that tune. When Obama added one million more through the stimulus bill all of a sudden he is the coming of the Antichrist! Tea baggers and religious right wing extremists bolstered by their win on Prop 8 and other states began chomping at the bit to take him apart. Since then the polls for Obama and Democrats at the national level as well as state level began spiraling into the abyss and with their downfall came any hope of passing progressive legislation or correcting a healthcare mess that leaves forty million people uninsured. Healthcare, my friends, is not a luxury – it is a necessity of life to sustain one’s self. The economy is sluggishly improving but no one expected it to turn around over night- not with the biggest downfall since nearly the great depression. Bottom line is that many people have no jobs, no healthcare and no rights. This is particularly important to those of us in the LGBT community who are swimming at the bottom of the cesspool. It is downright depressing and I am not very hopeful.

Can Obama and the Dems salvage the situation? Possibly but it would take a near miracle. I mean let’s face it, a beefcake boy from the Republicans wins the seat that six months ago was held in Massachusetts by one of the most progressive and liberal U.S. Senators in history for the past forty years! A year ago that would have been laughed at if anyone even suggested it. Obama must change his direction if he has any chance of minimizing the damage this fall across the country. Here is what I would do to try and salvage the mess.

First of all, embrace the progressives and liberals who helped get you elected in the first place Mr. President. Unless you energize this base the Dems stand no real chance of averting disaster.
Second, pack up all the troops in the Middle East and come home. We have wasted billions of dollars of taxpayer money engaged in two wars we cannot win in countries with culture we cannot understand. Divert the troops to two main purposes such as helping the nation and countries such as Haiti rebuild from disasters. The balance of the forces should be used to protect our borders from threats to our country by people who misuse Islam as a front to afflict hatred and terror on the people of this country. The money we have spent fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past nine years could have financed the finest healthcare imaginable for every citizen of this nation.

Third – fire your advisers and some of your staff Mr. President. These people have aided in the financial mess this country is in and they are also giving you so much bad advice
Fourth- stand up fiercely to the opposition and show leadership.
Fifth- the economy is on everyone’s mind and is the only way you can get back in the public’s good graces so come after it and put in an aggressive policy that includes not just stimulus money but tax breaks and incentives. Reward business which expand, those that start and those that hire Americans and punish the cheaters and those that shift jobs overseas. Create opportunities and incentives for starting businesses in deeply economic depressed areas. Think outside the box and hammer the opposition if they fail to step up to the plate and contribute.

Next- get the healthcare reform bill through Congress by simplifying it. Reform things like pre-existing exclusions and insist on public option for the forty million Americans without any healthcare. Healthcare is not a luxury but a necessity. The public option would bring the carriers more in line and provide option for those unable to procure insurance through private means. Keep the plan simple and focused on prevention as well.

Finally, pass ENDA. Civil rights are just that- ensuring that all people are judged by their work and character and not who they once were anatomically or who they sleep with or wish to be with as a partner. The same was true for gender and color and race and age and disability and everything which has come before. Basic rights cost the government little out of the treasury. Every citizen is entitled to them – period – end of issue! If people want to discriminate in who they let come into their church or synagogue or masque so be it but every citizen is to be free of discrimination in necessities like a place to sleep and eat and a job to pay for the basic necessities of life. Get out there and explain it in terms of civil rights.

There you have it Mr. President- keep it focused and simple -push and explain and don’t wait to do something until it is too late. Show the fight and spirit you showed in running for office and promising change. Demonstrate leadership and vision and reassure Americans. It’s what politics is really all about and not the system of stalemate and posturing that only gets us further in the whole in this country!

Harvey Milk, Closets, Fear and Transgendered Power

Paula and I just got back from viewing an evening out in which we dined at an Irish pub near the OSU campus and took in a movie. The diner was delightful as always love good food and Irish ale and Paula and I chatted about many things in our lives currently. However, despite the fact I love her company and good food and drink, all of that paled in comparison to the movie which we saw- MILK! If you have not seen this film you need to do so my friends! It is an extraordinary and powerful film about the life of Harvey Milk, the first gay man elected to a prominent position when he took office in 1978 in San Francisco. Sean Penn is fabulous in the role of Harvey Milk and clearly captures his essence as a human being. The film is sad at the end because of his tragic, premature death as the result of a man tormented by his own demons (It was suspected Milk’s killer who held the same elected position as that of Milk was a deeply closeted homosexual who tried to live a life of a traditional Irish catholic and “moral” life as a married man with children). The end is a perfect example of the dangers of putting handguns in the hands of mentally disturbed individuals filled with anger and repression and way too much testosterone!

Harvey Milk could have done so much more for the rights and dignity of people if he had not been tragically killed that morning in his own office along with the mayor of San Francisco at that time. The event came shortly after two major victories won by Milk and his allies- the defeat of proposition six which would have made it permissible to fire any school employee in California for being gay or simply supporting the rights of gays as well as the enactment of city wide ordinance protecting individuals from housing and employment discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation. This ordinance has since been amended to include and protect those of the transgendered community. Harvey Milk left a great legacy in the world and many have followed in his footsteps but most importantly he set the example for leadership and changes in our struggle for dignity and human rights.

What I admired most about him was his courage and there is part of the movie where in order to win the tide to defeat proposition six against the likes of a right wing religious zealot and “Nazi” Senator at that time supported, of course, by the likes of Anita Bryant and her “Godly inspired” crusade against rights for gay people. In order to win the vote against the tide of money and power displayed by the so called “Christians” Harvey Milk encouraged his friends and supporters to break down the doors of their own closets and come out to their families and friends as well as their employers so that people could know and connect with a gay person and find out that their sons and daughters and employees were simply people who were gay. According to Harvey Milk the greatest thing holding back the community was the fact that many lived in the closet and only by coming out and coming clean could the movement grow. Power ONLY comes from being free and without power nothing important can ever be accomplished. It takes great courage to let people who you work for and love and care about know who you really are as a person. That courage is what gives you power and with that power much can be accomplished. But courage is what brought about Harvey’s accomplishments personally as well in his movements and causes. It gave him and those that followed and supported him power. I will state this as bluntly as I can put it …… if the transgendered community does not show the same courage we will be left behind in the struggle for dignity and human rights that all people deserve!

So those of us who are transgendered in any way (crossdresser, transvestite, undefined transgendered, pre-op transsexual as well as post- op TS better heed the warning and get out of their damn closets and show some courage and take a voice in our community if we ever want to be able to accomplish anything in this society, achieve power and find ourselves victorious as Harvey and his followers did thirty years ago. The main problem is so many people in the transgendered community live in the closet, fearful of letting other human beings who supposedly love and care about them know about their true selves. So what if your friends desert you and so what if your family casts you aside like some weird freak. As Harvey Milk talks about in the movie….if your friends reject you- they were NOT really your friends and if your family rejects you THEY don’t deserve you! Some of them may later come around and that is great if they do- but do not let the fear of them rejecting you paralyze you and don’t let your family blackmail you into silence because they will cut you off if you come out and come clean. I know I was guilty of the same for so long. The day my ex-wife confronted me she awoke something in me and I decided I needed to come clean. She does not realize the long dormant activist she awoke inside me. Every person I told thereafter gave me more courage and more freedom. I lost friends and family like they were going out of style, BUT I hide from no one and I am truly free. With this freedom, power can come. Fear captures us as humans and the courage found deep inside all of us can overcome that fear and free our soul and our determination to bring about change.

As I have pointed out before transgendered people live in closets both prior to and after transition if they are TS. Cloak and stealth are just more ways to define closets and they keep us from moving forward in achieving rights and dignity for our community. Running and hiding from your past will only leave you without strength and courage and to be quite honest, true stealth and cloak are not really possible in today’s technology driven society. It is a myth! Just for shits and giggles, I used the internet to track down the past history and such for three of my transgendered friends who have transitioned and live fulltime as the men or women they are in their souls. It was done with little effort and almost zero cost. People you are only fooling yourself and no one else if you truly believe you can live in cloak or stealth. The problem in our community and why we will not likely prevail in achieving many of the goals that those in the lesbian and gay communities have and will achieve, is that society only sees a tip of the iceberg of our community and thinks we are a very small, minute group of freaks. Most of the community lies under the water- afraid to emerge from the comfort of the closet, stealth or cloak they have attempted to create in the murky waters below.

We are already a much smaller group than those of the gay and lesbian communities as it is and if most of our community remains hidden, then plain and simply we will find ourselves left out of society and existing with few if any rights and we will have no one to blame but ourselves! Someday someone will tear down your closet and you will be outed but when that day happens and you find yourself with little protections or rights don’t come crying to those who have come clean and let the world know who they really are- whether that be a man who likes to dress and express his feminine side on occasion or a post operative TS who lives life as a man or woman in a gender opposite that of their birth. I am not advocating running around and always announcing yourself to everyone but don’t play the game of denial to those who confront you. We have nothing to be ashamed of as transgendered people. So get out your closets and get living life without fear and with courage. You will feel empowered! Give up your stealth and cloak and be proud of who you are-even your past.

I know many post operative TS who try to pretend they have always been living life in their true gender despite transition. Everyone one of us in the TS community was born either male or female in our outer, genetic gender and we lived life for sometime this way as difficult as it may have been. We transitioned and now life in our true gender but we should not be ashamed of who we are or our past life. I will never be a genetic female no matter how much surgery I incur or hormone compounds I ingest. The very fact I was born genetically male and transitioned to live life as female because it is who I am as a human being means exactly this- I am a transgendered person! I am and always will be transgendered! If I deny who I am as a human being or the existence of part of my life in another gender, even as improper as that past life was to my soul, then I live in shame of who I am as human being. If we act like that in our community then how are we ever to achieve anything in our community or even individually. How are we ever going obtain power? Just as Harvey Milk did in encouraging his community to come out and be open we must do the same to let others know WE EXIST and that we are just people like everyone else: fathers, mothers, spouses, sons and daughters, lawyers, architects, doctors, teachers, bartenders, carpenters, truck drivers and every other profession under the sun- but people who just happen to be transgendered. When we do this we will not only find our personal freedom and power but we will find ourselves accomplishing so much more as a community. “Milk” is about a man’s accomplishments in life when he found his courage and passion for what he believed in and left the confines of his closet at age 40 to live a life without fear and even in his death his work and legacy carried on long afterward. Let’s hope we all find our courage as Harvey Milk did and get involved in moving our push for human rights and dignity forward as transgendered people. Tear down the closet doors and turn off the stealth and our power awaits us!

Cruising before Barack

As I mentioned I also recently got back from a Caribbean cruise sponsored by Pink Essence in which forty people form our community went on and we all had a great time indeed. Who wouldn’t on a cruise?? We met in Miami on Wednesday and it was also my first time flying as Melissa but since my Id and picture now match my name on my ticket and how I live it was no brainer and I sailed through TSA security. We all dined together Wednesday night at the hotel and this of course began the five days of food frenzy that takes place on a cruise ship which has food available twenty-four seven including buffets, diners, sit down lunches, pizzerias and burger joints and every possible food group including a Chocoholics feast. It seems like I Cruising the Caribbean and Barack Obama………what do these two things have in common? Well not much I would say except that my recent days have been spent cruising for the first time as Melissa with many wonderful friends or voting for our new President for the first time being who I really am as a person. I had fun with both as the cruise was fabulous and so was the outcome of the election with the selection of this country’s first non white President on an historic night that hopefully will bring about change for our country. This country has been lingering in malaise for some time now without leadership. I don’t care whether you liked his policies or not but what bugged me the most about George Bush was his lack of leadership over the last few years and his failure to respond to pressing economic needs and his continuation of fighting a war in a place we don’t understand, and are not wanted, all while spending tons of money which could have been easily directed elsewhere in our own country. George needed to do something as the leader of our nation and he did not do so. He simply coasted the last couple years and enjoyed being President without doing anything as a leader. He was slow to respond to crises which arose over last few years and really has not shown leadership since 2002 after the 911 situation. I may not like what he proposed to do but doing nothing is not an option for a leader of our country in the 21st century.

I feel the main reason McCain lost was most people were fed up with George and his lack of doing anything and that the country needed new energy and change which Barrack would bring. It’s that simple.
Curiously, I noticed the south still has trouble with voting for black person. Let me say this as a southerner who has only been recently transplanted
to being a Yankee- the war between the states is over! While I still enjoy southern hospitality, sweet tea and grits, southerners need to embrace change in this country and get over the racism, hatred and prejudice and move forward in their lives. I also noted that the fact that my old state West Virginia voted for McCain despite being a state with Dems outnumbering the Elephants two to one. Two reasons why this happened folks……racism among rural Appalachian people and religious right wing fundamentalists who make up the composition of state of my family heritage. I am also very hopeful that with the gain in seats in Congress and our new President that next year will bring about the enactment of the Hate Crimes bill and ENDA and end discrimination (with enforcement) against the LGBT communities of which I am very much proudly a part of indeed!
was eating about every few hours. Additionally, my lovely sign and sail card took a good beating from all the delightful frozen concoctions I consumed during the cruise as the drinking seemed to start each day around 11 am and ended in the wee hours of the morning!

I knew several girls on the cruise such as Debbie, Carol, Jackie, Tara Brandy, Martina and Joan and of course my roomie for the cruise – my good friend Joann. Joann brought three bikinis by the way and modeled a different suit each day at the pool. I also met some wonderful new friends like Rachel and Jan as well as Leslie Ann. I additionally met a lovely girl named Amy who is transitioning, looking at the same surgeons I am and who started on hormones one day before me last January. We chatted for sometime and she and her spouse are really wonderful girls! I enjoyed the ports of call at Key West and Cozumel and did some shopping for jewelry, ornaments and other items. I will admit cruising is not a hard life and I love do it- but this time it was special. We got some looks from others and few were rude but most were neutral and a few took the time to meet us and ask questions and some admired our courage to live and enjoy life as who we are as people. I especially enjoyed chatting with a woman by the name of Jane who lives in Maryland and we spent hours talking and she was curious but very supportive and she hugged me and even gave me gift of one of her pieces of jewelry and told me to be myself, be happy and live life to its fullest! What a wonderful human being and I wish her so much peace and happiness. If more people in the world were like my new friend Jane the world would indeed be a better place! Like all good things the cruise came to end too soon but I loved being with tables of my sisters from all over the US and relaxing a bit…….now if I can just work off all that cheesecake, tiramisu and a delightful decadent dish called Chocolate Melting Cake I might be able to actually fit my clothes again!!!

Politics is the Master Science (NEW)

Well over the past several months I have commented on topics in my blog such as my transition, religion or better yet religious intolerance and even sex or the lack thereof. This week I would love to talk about politics! I want to do so primarily because of the uniqueness of the political scene in 2008 with a Democratic Party caught up in a battle for its standard bearer it has not seen in decades and the Republicans soon to nominate someone no one thought it would nominate when all this process began last year and one who does not fit the mold of the party’s standard cookie cutter mold of the past twenty years. This is the most interesting election I can remember since the one I cannot remember between Kennedy and Nixon but studied in school many times. See- first of all I was a political science major in college and studied government, politics, political systems and law because of its fascination to me. Secondly, I remember even as a child in 1968 sitting in front of TV with my map coloring in who won what state between Nixon and Humphrey and watching the disgust on my father’s face as he saw that old Tricky Dick was going to win the Presidency.

I remember back in college watching some of my friends and even my wife studying these gigantic texts filled with all the science any biology or chemistry major could handle including such fun courses as PE Chem, microbiology and organic Chemistry while I whizzed through my courses filling my blue books with all sort of rhetoric and just to get more of I even took up a minor in Philosophy. They would always talk about how much prestige and work was involved in their scientific majors but I always responded with a quote from one of my favorite political philosophers- Aristotle who said “Politics is the Master Science” And by God, he was right. For politics, government and law controls so much of our lives and in reality determines what we can study at all if you think about it. Hell sometimes they even decide what can be taught in a science course or what must be taught in a science course.

This election in 2008 is stunning. Hilary Clinton and Barak Oboma are battling to the floors of the convention back room. Truly this may be the first Convention in many decades where the nominee will not be know until all the back door, smoke- filled room politics and schemes go on at the Convention and whoever wins this costly and bloody battle will have some cleaning up to do before the General Election comes around. I like Obama in that I think he is a very intelligent man who speaks well and is trying to bring about change to a system he sees as needing desperately to be fixed. He reminds me in some ways of a young Jack Kennedy who spoke with passion and youthfulness and who by doing so, and by having his Daddy buy off the Chicago political machine won an election over our boy Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon. I think it is clear from my posts to other’s blogs on the subject I despise Hilary Clinton and I think she would make a horrible President and it’s a shame because I think highly of woman and feel I am one myself but she is the wrong person to break the gender barrier for the U.S. Presidency. Unfortunately, I think she has enough political connections from days past to make sure she squeezes the nomination from Obama.

Assuming she does, it will make my choice very easy and the old party of the elephant will garner my vote once again. Why? Because here’s a little know secret about me. I am a registered Republican. Now before you go and tar and feather me for such disclosure hear me out. I joined the Grand Old Party at a time when I had seen the Democrats lead us through a decade of an ugly war not unlike the one we have now in Iraq thanks to a President who should be thrown out of the GOP for reasons of utter stupidity. I saw the Republicans come in and get us out of Vietnam and then open relations with China, started the peace process in the Middle East and Détente with the Russians. In the 40’s and 50’s and 60 and even the early 70’s the party of the GOP was not the ideologues they became since 1980. It was the party of Eisenhower, Ford, Rockefeller, John Anderson and Howard Baker. I am more of a libertarian in that I am more conservative on government spending and taxes and the development of economic growth and business while being what most would call a liberal on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and of course without saying, the rights of transgendered people. I watched my party turn into an ugly monster since 1980 of hate filled extremists who are nothing more than cowardly obeying the demands of the religious right. I screamed for years for these idiots to get the hell out before they ruined the GOP. Now for the first time in 40 years the GOP is going to nominate someone the right wing does not like and those extreme right wing fanatics are upset and threatening to bolt the Party and take their votes elsewhere. See it was OK when they came to moderates in the party like me for years and told me to hold my breath and vote for the Party’s candidate despite the fact he would cast me into hell if he actually knew who I really was. I did so several times but there were times I voted Democratic or Independent as well. Now when the party finally nominates a maverick free thinking moderate and the moderates come to the Conservatives for the first time since 1980 and ask that they support the Party’s candidate despite their objections they go scurrying off like a bunch of pouting children! I hope McCain not ignores them but adds to insult to injury and nominates someone like Giuliani as his running mate just to piss off the right wing extremists even more. There are some, including me who actually suspect he is transgendered. How cool would that be if we can get him to come out!

I only can hope that Barak can pull it off and win the Democratic nomination so that I am faced with a very tough and difficult choice in the fall and one in which I am truly not sure how I will vote at all. However, at least it would be one election in which, for the first time, I will not feel so bad either way as I have done so in these so many past elections. To be honest, after I have voted these many long years, I always felt I needed to go home and bathe to wash off the ugliness and stench of many of the choices I was given. Obama and McCain would avoid that stench removing bath for me for sure. I hope 2008 is vastly different for me but either way this has been a fascinating election year for me and one I am grateful for as well. For politics is the master science my good friends!