Kudos!: MIKE HANNIGAN

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I hope to see you uncle dane

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What a great idea, I love all the hearts that surround San Francisco and the fact that they are going to be auctioned is for a great cause

I think it is wonderful that the patemm is a product proudly made in our town!

I have the patemm and it is an amazing baby product!

Struggles may be won piecemeal, but they won't be won if you leave one part of your fellow strugglers behind - which is why HRC is getting all the blame now, because they chose to drop the trans-community. unity is especially important in a community that is so diverse, that each sub-community on its own would be too weak to accomplish anything significant. again, see stonewall, where lgbts and their straight friends resisted authorities and the mainstream and changed the world of lgbts and everyone else all over the planet (well, at least the west) by being united. And while some trans people aggressively display their gender in an In-Your-Face-Way (btw, so do many gay/lesbian/bi people, and hell, so many guys manage to show everyone how incredibly straight they are! Just look at your average college football players or frat guys...) so yeah, they're throwing a tantrum, because every other child gets acceptance and they don't. sounds ok to me. to be continued...

Struggles are not won overnight, and sometimes they're won piecemeal. I believe that the compromise re: transgendered rights made by Frank etc. was correct. Turning on the HRC, which has made very considerable contributions to the struggle for gay/lesbian rights, plays right into the hands of our enemies. And let's face it, insofar as "messing" with gender is concerned, a lot of it is simply a form of navel-gazing. Trannies positively scream "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I'M A GENDER OUTLAW!" I can't count the scenes I've witnessed them create on public transportation, in bars and clubs and stores, in classrooms and virtually every other imagineable setting, like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum in order to gain the attention of a non-indulgent parent. It's unbearably tedious that they choose to focus upon this one aspect of their lives to the exclusion of all others. BORING!

TPP, i did not claim you support discrimination of trans people - but HRC did, when they chose to give up their support of the trans community as part of a political bargain when it came to ENDA (that's what all the protests on saturday are gonna be about). And i tend to disagree with u: By openly challenging the concept of a male-female-dichotomy by introducing the "in-between/none-of-the-above"-part to the range of possible genders, they do change the world and make it more easy for other people to explore their own gender. it's not about convincing anybody else, it's about being somebody in your own right. if you want to be convinced, go see trannyshack (or rather - don't :) ) i still don't see how trans people are enforcing the status quo (which is: be male or be female - or do you have a diffentent conception of the status quo?) if you are not interested in their stories - well, don't listen to them. but their struggle is historically linked to LGBT struggle - e.g. Stonewall riots

SF Grassroots, I never asserted that trans people should be subjected to discrimination. My point is that their struggle, as such, is separate from that of gays men and lesbians, and that they've opportunistically chosen to attach themselves to our community. What strikes me the most emphatically about all the trannies I've met is that they're entirely self-absorbed and believe their individual gender crisis is the pivotal issue upon which human survival depends. Read trans literature - you'd think they're changing the world, which they're not; they simply reinforce the status quo. It's not that interesting, yet they blather on about it endlessly. And most of them are extremely unconvincing as their chosen gender, esp MTFs. Moreover, in attempting to project themselves as women, they frequently adopt the most stereotypical, misogynist behaviors, as if this authenticates them as female. If you don't believe me, just check out some of the those who hang around the GLBT center.

Hey, seriously, this is not just Tom Ammiano protesting against the betrayal of HRC on the Transgender community, it's the larger part of the SF LGBT community standing up against the motion of HRC that some people are indeed not worth to be protected against discrimination. this is not about "trans" being progressive (there are some very conservative trans people running for office in this country...), this is about the freedom of every person to be whatever they want to be, the essential right of self-definition of ones own sex and gender (which is not the same...) how is this NOT challenging hegemonic constructions of gender? The Trans community is not just about surgery and hormones and physically altering of the body, but also about the people like me who are born male, but do not quite fit in the social construction of "man". the lgbt community gave me acceptance and love, no matter if l, g, b or t... an injustice against one is an injustice against all.

In the late 70s-early 80s in Chicago, heterosexual owners of a very famous gay men's bar, on the sale of it, commented to the community that gay men had more straight allies than we acknowledged. Their point was that we had more support than we thought we had and that we needed to validate and embrace those who were there for us. I think the same phenomenon is occurring for transpeople, in that there is more support for you in the gay and lesbian community than you are acknowledging. The words and actions of a few people should not lessen the movement for civil society to embrace all of us who are different and who bring many gifts to the human family.

Yes, kudos are indeed in order for the HRC - the organization with the most consistent record of fighting for gay and lesbian rights. Unfortunately, some San Francisco politicos, including Tom Ammiano, plan to boycott the event, claiming that the HRC "betrayed" the transgendered "community" by excluding it from ENDA. We'd expect as much from Ammiano; like the rest of the supes, he does little more than posture. This community has attached itself, leech-like, to the gay/lesbian community for reasons that have never been very clear to me. There's nothing remotely progressive about transgenderism; instead of challenging hegomonic constructions of gender, trannies physically alter themselves, inscribing them on their bodies and reinforcing them. I tired of this debate long ago. Let the trangendered organize and fight for their rights amongst themselves; it's not a burden that gay men and lesbians should shoulder. I'm sure Tom won't be missed at the dinner.